Consciousness returned in fragments, like light through shattered glass.
The first thing Kanato registered was the weight beneath him. Warm. Pliant. Breathing in shallow, reedy gasps that didn't sound right—didn't sound like Akira at all. Akira's voice was deep, steady, a grounding presence in any room. This sound was something broken, something that had been wrung out and left to dry.
Kanato blinked. The ceiling swam into focus. The lamp had burned out, leaving only the pale gray of early morning filtering through the curtains. He was hot—too hot, his skin slick with sweat that had long since gone cold. And he was hard. Still hard, buried deep inside a body that had gone slack and still beneath him.
The drug.
Memory crashed back like a wave of ice water. The staff member. The drink. The way his thoughts had melted into fog, leaving nothing but hunger. He remembered staggering into the apartment. Remembered Akira's hands on him, guiding him, trying to hold him steady. And then—
Kanato's breath caught.
He looked down.
Akira lay beneath him, face-down in the pillows, his naked body a landscape of devastation. The incubus mark on his stomach still glowed faintly, pulsing with a weak, exhausted light. His skin was mottled with bruises—finger-shaped marks on his hips, bite marks on his shoulders, the red welts of Kanato's grip on his wrists. Cum leaked from between his thighs, pooling on the ruined sheets beneath him. His tail, that fragile new thing he'd barely learned to control, lay limp and still against his thigh, its tip dark with dried blood where Kanato had gripped it too hard.
"Akira."
The name came out as a croak. Kanato's voice was raw, scraped hollow by hours of groaning and growling and saying things he couldn't remember. He pulled out slowly—so slowly, wincing as his cock slipped free with a wet sound that made his stomach turn—and Akira's body shuddered at the loss, a thin, keening whine escaping his throat.
"Akira. Akira, look at me. Please."
No response. Just that ragged breathing, too fast, too shallow. Akira's fingers twitched against the pillow, but his eyes stayed closed, his face slack and pale as death.
Kanato's hands started shaking.
He moved without thinking, gathering Akira into his arms, pulling him close against his chest. Akira was limp in his grip, boneless, his head lolling back to reveal the bruises on his throat—finger-shaped, darkening, a fucking handprint left behind from when Kanato had held him down and—
"No. No, no, no—"
Kanato pressed his lips to Akira's forehead. His hair. His closed eyelids. Trailed kisses down his cheeks, tasting salt and sweat and something metallic. Akira's skin was too warm, his pulse fluttering under Kanato's lips like a bird with a broken wing.
"Akira, please. Please wake up. Please look at me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't—I couldn't—"
Words tumbled out of him, a desperate, broken stream of apologies and endearments. He didn't know if Akira could hear him. He didn't care. He just needed to say it, needed Akira to know that this wasn't—that he hadn't meant to—that the Kanato who had done this wasn't the Kanato who loved him—
Loved him.
The thought hit like a punch to the chest, and Kanato's arms tightened around Akira's limp body, pressing him closer, as if he could fuse them together, undo everything through sheer proximity.
"I love you," he whispered into Akira's hair, the words raw and jagged and true. "I love you, Akira. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please be okay. Please."
A sound. Small, barely audible. Akira's lips parted, and a breath came out—not a moan, not a whimper. Something almost like speech.
"...Ka...na...to...?"
The voice was wrecked. Hoarse, thin, barely there. But it was Akira's voice, that deep, steady register now cracked and frayed, and Kanato's heart lurched so violently he thought it might tear free of his ribs.
"I'm here. I'm here, Akira. I've got you."
Akira's eyes fluttered. Heavy lids fighting to rise, revealing a sliver of dark iris beneath. Unfocused. Dazed. But aware. He was aware, he was here, he was—
"...okay...?"
The word hung in the air between them, fragile as spun glass. Akira's hand moved, trembling, searching, until his fingers brushed against Kanato's cheek.
"Are... you... okay...?"
Kanato's vision blurred. Tears—when had he started crying?—spilled down his cheeks, hot and shameful, dripping onto Akira's face. He laughed, a broken, hysterical sound that was closer to a sob.
"I'm fine. I'm fine, Akira. You saved me. You—" His voice cracked. He pressed his forehead to Akira's, breathing him in, feeling the shallow puff of Akira's breath against his lips. "You gave me everything. You didn't have to. You shouldn't have. But you did. And I—"
Akira's lips twitched. Almost a smile. "Chose... this..."
"What?"
"Chose... to give you... everything." Akira's eyes drifted closed again, his body going slack in Kanato's arms. "You needed... it. I... wanted to... give it..."
His breathing evened out, deepened, and he was asleep. Truly asleep this time, not unconsciousness, not collapse. Just sleep, exhausted and deep and desperately needed.
Kanato held him for a long time.
He didn't know how long. Minutes. Hours. The light through the curtains shifted, the shadows in the room crawling across the floor as the morning aged. He held Akira against his chest, feeling each breath, counting each heartbeat, murmuring apologies and gratitude and love into his hair until his voice gave out.
Eventually, the practical part of his brain—the part that had survived the Fura clan, the part that had built Voltaction from nothing, the part that knew how to clean up a mess and move forward—started whispering. He needed to move. He needed to clean Akira. He needed to clean himself. He needed to change the sheets, air out the room, erase the evidence of what he'd done so that when Akira woke up, he wouldn't have to see it.
Kanato pressed one last kiss to Akira's forehead, then gently, so gently, laid him back on the pillows. Akira stirred, a soft sound of protest escaping his lips, and Kanato's chest clenched.
"Shh. I'm not leaving. I'm just getting supplies. I'll be right back."
He didn't know if Akira could hear him. But he needed to say it anyway.
The bathroom was a disaster. Towels on the floor, the mirror fogged with old condensation, the sink splattered with—was that blood? Kanato's stomach lurched. He checked himself in the mirror, cataloging the scratches on his shoulders, the bite marks, the bruises. Nothing serious. Nothing that didn't heal from the energy he'd taken from Akira.
Energy he'd taken from Akira without asking. Without stopping. Without noticing how much he was taking.
Kanato gripped the edge of the sink and forced himself to breathe.
Not now. He could fall apart later. Right now, Akira needed him.
He filled a basin with warm water, grabbed a clean cloth, the softest one he owned, and carried it back to the bedroom. Akira was exactly where he'd left him, still on his stomach, still breathing, still alive. Kanato let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Okay. I'm going to clean you up now. It might hurt. I'm sorry. I'll be as gentle as I can."
Akira didn't respond. But his body did—a flinch, a small jerk of his shoulders, when the warm cloth touched the skin of his lower back. Kanato froze.
"Sorry. Sorry. I know it's sensitive. I know. I'm sorry."
He worked slowly, carefully, wiping away the dried sweat and cum and blood. Every touch made Akira stir, a soft whimper escaping his lips, his fingers curling into the pillow. Kanato talked through it, a constant stream of apologies and endearments, calling him pretty, good, brave, strong, telling him he was safe, that Kanato had him, that he was sorry, so sorry, he would never forgive himself—
Akira's hand found his, and squeezed.
Weak. Barely there. But deliberate.
Kanato's breath stuttered.
He looked at Akira's face, still slack with exhaustion, eyes still closed. But his hand was wrapped around Kanato's fingers, holding on, and a small, quiet sound came from his throat. Not a whimper. Not a moan. A sound of comfort. A sound saying: *I'm here. I'm still here. I'm okay.*
Kanato pressed his lips to Akira's knuckles and kept working.
The cleanup took forever. Every few seconds, he had to stop and wait for Akira's body to relax, to stop trembling, before he could continue. He changed the water twice. He found bruises he hadn't noticed before—on Akira's thighs, on his hips, around his ankles where Kanato had pinned him down. He found a spot on Akira's lower back where his nails had broken skin, shallow crescents that had already scabbed over.
He wanted to throw up.
But he kept going. For Akira. Because Akira had given him everything, and the least he could do was make sure he was clean and comfortable when he woke up.
When Akira was finally clean, Kanato dressed him in a soft t-shirt—one of his own, old and worn and smelling like him—and carried him to the living room couch. Akira didn't wake, but his arms looped around Kanato's neck, his face pressing into the curve of Kanato's shoulder, and Kanato's heart cracked open again.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you."
He laid Akira on the couch, covered him with a blanket, and turned to face the bedroom.
The sheets were ruined. That was the first thing he noticed. Stained beyond saving, the fabric crusted with dried fluids, the mattress pad underneath probably compromised too. The floor was worse—slick patches where cum had spilled, a tipped-over bottle of lube that had emptied its contents into a sticky puddle, a discarded shirt Akira had been wearing when they first stumbled in, torn at the collar.
Kanato stood in the doorway and let himself see it. All of it. The evidence of what he'd done, spread out before him like a crime scene.
He'd done this. He'd taken Akira's body and used it for hours, chasing his own pleasure while Akira—sweet, brave, traumatized Akira—had let him, had taken it, had *chosen* to give him everything even as his body was breaking.
"Baka," he whispered, the curse slipping out as he pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes. "Stupid. Stupid. You should have locked me in the bathroom. You should have knocked me out. Why didn't you—"
Because Akira couldn't say no to intimacy. Because his training had conditioned him to accept, to endure, to give. Because Kanato had known that, had known about Akira's past, and he'd still—he'd still—
The guilt was a physical weight, pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He wanted to collapse. He wanted to scream. He wanted to crawl into the shower and scrub his skin until it came off.
But Akira was sleeping on the couch, clean and warm and safe, and Kanato was the only one who could fix this room.
So he did.
He stripped the bed with mechanical efficiency, bundling the sheets into a tight ball. He wiped down the floor on his hands and knees, scrubbing at the sticky patches until the wood gleamed. He found the empty lube bottle and threw it away, along with the torn shirt and the broken condom wrapper (he hadn't used a condom, he realized with a fresh wave of horror—he'd come inside Akira without protection, and Akira had let him, because Akira couldn't say no—).
The laundry went into a tied bag, set aside to be dealt with later. The mattress pad went into the trash. Kanato found a clean set of sheets in the closet, new ones that still smelled like fabric softener, and made the bed with trembling hands, smoothing every wrinkle, tucking every corner, as if the neatness of the sheets could undo the chaos of the night.
When the room was clean—when it looked like nothing had happened, like a normal bedroom in a normal apartment belonging to normal people—Kanato stood in the middle of it and let out a long, shaky breath.
The sweat had dried on his skin. He was still half-hard, his body's arousal stubbornly refusing to fade even as his mind recoiled. He needed a shower. He needed to scrub himself clean.
But first—
He went to the couch. Akira was still asleep, curled on his side, the blanket pulled up to his chin. His face was peaceful in sleep, the tension gone from his jaw, the lines around his eyes softened. He looked young. Vulnerable. So fucking precious it made Kanato's chest ache.
Kanato knelt beside the couch and brushed the hair back from Akira's forehead.
"I love you," he whispered. "I love you so much. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making this up to you. I promise."
Akira's lips parted, and a small, soft sound escaped them—not a word, but something like contentment. He turned his head toward the sound of Kanato's voice, pressing his cheek into Kanato's palm like a cat seeking warmth.
Kanato stayed there for a long moment, just breathing in sync with Akira, letting the rhythm of his sleep steady the chaos in his chest.
Kanaato thought about the way Akira had said his name even now, even after everything. The way his hand had reached out. The way he'd asked if Kanato was okay, when it should have been Kanato asking him. The way he'd said *chose this*, like it was simple, like Kanato's need was something worth giving everything for.
"I don't deserve you," Kanato said. "I don't deserve any of you."
Kanato's words hung in the air, fragile and bleeding, until the silence swallowed them whole. He stayed there, kneeling beside the couch, his forehead pressed against the cushion near Akira's shoulder, breathing in the faint scent of his own laundry detergent mingled with something deeper—something that was just *Akira*. The warmth of him. The trust. The terrifying, beautiful gift of a body that had been broken before and still chose to give itself to Kanato's keeping.
He didn't deserve this. He knew it, felt it in every bone, every scar, every memory of the night that still pulsed behind his eyes like a bruise. But Akira had chosen him anyway. Had said *I chose this* with his voice shattered and his body wrecked and his heart still somehow, impossibly, open.
Kanato pressed a kiss to the blanket near Akira's temple, then pushed himself to his feet.
There was work to do.
The bedroom first. He'd stripped the sheets, wiped the floor, made the bed look innocent again. But the rest of the apartment—the trail of destruction they'd left in their wake—that was still waiting.
Kanato moved through the doorway into the living room, and his breath caught.
The shelf near the entrance was tilted, its contents scattered across the floor—a framed photo of the four of them at their first live show, face-down on the carpet; a small ceramic cat that Hibari had won at a festival, its tail snapped off; a stack of mail that had slid across the table and ended up crumpled against the wall. The trail led toward the bedroom, a path of chaos that told the story of their arrival better than any memory could.
He remembered fragments. Akira's arms around him, struggling to hold him upright. His own hands, greedy and desperate, groping at Akira's body even as they stumbled through the door. Akira's voice, low and steady, telling him *it's okay, I've got you, just a little further*—and then the shelf, the crash, the way Akira had flinched but kept moving, kept carrying him, kept giving.
Kanato's throat tightened.
He knelt and began to pick up the pieces.
The photo went back on the shelf, glass crackling under his fingers where it had spiderwebbed from the impact. He'd have to replace the frame. The ceramic cat—he set the pieces aside, a small, quiet promise to fix it later. The mail he gathered into a neat stack, smoothing the crumpled envelopes with the heel of his palm.
Each motion was deliberate. Methodical. A meditation of penance.
He found a spot on the wall near the entrance—a dark smear where Akira's shoulder had braced against the plaster, trying to keep them both upright. Kanato wet a cloth and scrubbed until the mark disappeared, until the wall was clean and blank and innocent of what had happened against it.
The floor in the hallway gleamed when he was done. The shelf was straight. The scattered debris had returned to its rightful places, and the air no longer carried the sharp tang of sweat and sex. Kanato opened a window, letting the cold morning air flood in, carrying with it the sounds of the city waking—a distant siren, the rumble of a truck, the chatter of early birds on the power lines outside.
He stood in the center of the living room, breathing in the clean, cold air, and let himself feel the weight of what he'd done settle into his bones.
Then he gathered the laundry bag—the tied bundle of ruined sheets and torn clothes—and carried it to the bathroom. He'd deal with it later. Maybe burn it. Maybe bury it in the deepest landfill he could find. For now, he just needed it out of sight.
The bathroom mirror showed him a stranger. Dark circles under his amber eyes. Hair matted with sweat. A face that looked too young to have done the things he'd done, too old to still be making mistakes this catastrophic. Kanato stared at his own reflection until the eyes became just shapes, just colors, just a face that belonged to someone who had hurt the person he loved most in the world.
He stepped into the shower and turned the water to cold.
The shock of it stole his breath, but he didn't flinch. He stood under the icy stream, letting it wash away the sweat and the shame, watching the water spiral down the drain tinged pink with whatever blood still clung to his skin. He scrubbed himself raw, his nails dragging over his arms, his chest, his thighs—as if he could scrape off the memory of what he'd done, exfoliate the guilt from his pores.
But guilt didn't wash away. It lingered, a stain that had seeped into the bone.
Kanato stayed under the water until his teeth chattered and his lips turned blue, until the cold had numbed him enough to think straight. Then he turned off the shower, dried himself with a towel that smelled like fabric softener, and pulled on clean sweatpants and a soft hoodie.
He padded back to the living room, his bare feet silent on the cold floor. The window was still open, and the breeze had chilled the apartment, carrying with it the smell of wet pavement and exhaust. Kanato closed it, pulled the curtain, and turned toward the couch.
Akira was still there. Still asleep. Still breathing.
Kanato stood over him for a long moment, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest, the way his lips were slightly parted, the way his fingers curled against the blanket like he was holding onto something even in sleep. The incubus mark on his stomach was dark, quiet, the glow faded to a dormant ember.
"Let's get you to bed," Kanato whispered, more to himself than to Akira. "You'll be more comfortable there."
He slid one arm under Akira's shoulders, the other under his knees, and lifted. Akira was light—too light, his body a fragile weight against Kanato's chest. He made a small sound, a murmur of protest or recognition, and his head lolled against Kanato's shoulder, his breath warm against the exposed skin of Kanato's collarbone.
"Shh. I've got you." Kanato carried him through the hallway, past the spot where the shelf had been, past the wall he'd scrubbed clean, into the bedroom where the fresh sheets smelled like lavender and the pillows had been fluffed and the light was soft and golden through the curtains. "I've got you, Akira."
He laid Akira down as if handling something precious, something that might shatter if he moved too fast. Akira's body sank into the mattress, his head turning toward the pillow, a soft sigh escaping his lips. The t-shirt Kanato had dressed him in—old, faded, smelling like him—rode up slightly, revealing the edge of the incubus mark, dark and still against his skin.
Kanato pulled the blanket up to Akira's chin and smoothed the hair back from his forehead.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be right here."
Akira's hand found his, even in sleep, even unconscious, those fingers curling around Kanato's with a grip that was weak but deliberate. Kanato's breath stuttered. He lifted Akira's hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, then his palm, then his wrist where his pulse beat slow and steady.
He slid into bed beside him, careful not to jostle him, and wrapped his arms around Akira's waist, pulling him close until they were pressed together, chest to back, Kanato's chin resting on Akira's shoulder. Akira's body was warm, his breathing deep and even, and the rhythm of it slowly, gradually, began to pull Kanato toward sleep.
"I love you," he whispered into Akira's hair. "I love you so much."
The words felt small. Inadequate. But they were all he had.
Sleep came for him in slow waves, pulling him under with a gentleness he didn't deserve. The last thing he felt was Akira's hand, still wrapped around his, squeezing once, soft and sure, before the darkness took him.
The sound of a key turning in the lock.
Kanato's eyes snapped open. His body moved before his mind caught up, his arm tightening around Akira's waist, pulling him closer, his other hand already reaching for the weapon he kept under his pillow—
—but his fingers met nothing, because this wasn't the Fura clan compound, this was his apartment, and the people who had keys were—
The door swung open. Voices spilled in, familiar and anxious.