Archive of Our Own

The altercation had ended well. The villains had been apprehended and no civilians had been hurt. Better yet, they had managed not to destroy anything despite Mic's gift and annoying tendency to break anything within earshot. Shouta, out of breath, landed gracefully on the windowsill leading to his room. He had stayed longer to fill out the reports, as if he wasn't already spending his life under tons of paperwork.

But after all, these were not his patrol hours and he had intervened in Hizashi's mission because it was the day of the week they ate together outside of school. The only day they might not have seen each other. Mic was not often at the AU, and Shouta has clearly lived there since it was decided to build a boarding school was a good idea to keep an eye on kids, and their teachers who were suspected of being moles on the wrong side.

He opened the window and agilely jumped in, his capture weapon still in his hands. He listened carefully. Nothing of note. Most of his students were in the dining hall or busy elsewhere. Hizashi, in a state just as crumpled as his, had decided to infiltrate his room to wait for him. Apparently, the surveillance of the building was not the finest.

"What are you doing here?" asked Shouta as he closed the window before heading to his desk and grabbing the bag lying on the seat.

He withdrew his capture weapon and left it lying on the back of the chair.

"I was just coming to see how you were doing," he replied softly.

It was so incongruous that quiet, hushed voice.

Shouta held back from grumbling. It was always like this. Whenever they fought together, Hizashi would end up joining him, wherever he was. He couldn't help it. It would have been easy to blame him if he hadn't been so ridiculously sensitive to it.

He would have liked to have sent him off to fuck himself, to go to hell. It should have been infuriating that he would allow himself to be seen with all his silences and barely concealed desires. He should have been upset or at least irritated. But his heart was already racing in response. Already his body was anticipating what was coming next and his desire was overriding his self-preservation. 

"Go back to the field, Hizashi," he tried as he began to undo his black suit to change his shirt.

He wasn't sure he liked seeing him in his room. It made him too happy not to try to keep some semblance of control. At least to keep the impression to manage the situation, to have his word to say, to have still the possibility to push him back. Feeling his distinctive green gaze along his back made his shiver. He liked this attention caressing. He hid a chuckle and chose to give him the show he was hoping for. He unhurriedly removed his shirt, letting the play of his muscles make this jerk salivate.

"How do you like the view?" he asked, laconically, as he put his foot on the chair to remove the ties from his rangers.

He quickly took care of the second one, satisfied to hear Hizashi swallow. His grin turned sharp. He undid the button holding his suit at the waist and turned to fall into the hungry eyes of his best friend.

"And here I thought you cared about me."

He arched an eyebrow before allowing his gaze to run over his body and his obvious tension. Hizashi's face pinked with embarrassment, and he immediately turned his head away to rub the back of his neck and hide his grimace. His excitement was hardly concealable under this costume. Shouta himself could not really deny his own. He unzipped his suit completely and Hizashi glanced in his direction, biting his lip to keep from making a sound.

Surely Mic wasn't the type to hold his tongue. To tell the truth, he almost never did. He was constantly chirping, addicted to his own voice. But Shouta had always had the power to shut him up, even when he would have preferred to hear him rave and say anything rather than stand there and wait for him to speak for two when he was already struggling to do so for himself. He sometimes wondered if others knew this facet of him made mute by the desire and the fear of not satisfying it.

Surely for him, Hizashi was silent, as if his silence gave him the attention he was dying to have every time he was excited. Without a word, his gaze implored, and Shouta could practically hear it, the litany that refused to pass his bite-scarred lips. He wished Zashi felt free to offer it to him. Anything rather than these unspoken words.

Hizashi took a step and their mouths collided violently. Shouta seized his neck to deepen their kiss brutally, growling in this moaning mouth, swallowing his supplications, kissing this hungry tongue which desired so ardently his. He slipped his fingers in the ridiculous hair of Zashi, pulled back it to oblige him to move back. His gaze strayed to the reddened lips of the one who was panting millimeters away from his own.

"I have class in less than an hour," he called back in a husky tone, staring into his green eyes darkened with excitement.

"I... I'll be quick," this one murmured feverishly before trying to kiss him again.

"That doesn't sound very promising," he whispered meanly without letting him.

He kept him at a distance and Hizashi became entangled in his desire, clinging to his waist without managing to continue what they had started so well.

"Shouta...," he begged, his pupils so dilated they looked feverish. "Come on..."

"Hm?" he pretended not to understand as he forced him aside.

Hizashi swallowed, his arms falling to his sides, vibrating imperceptibly. Without taking his eyes off him, Shouta took one step away, then two.

"Get rid of your gear and your pants, but keep the rest," he demanded, backing away until he was stopped by the bed.

Hizashi nodded briskly and obeyed, abruptly abandoning his directional speaker on the desk. He immediately joined him to help him take off his last piece of clothing and devoured his mouth like there was no tomorrow, leaving behind damaged and deplorable sounds. He had the gift of putting Shouta in a pitiful state, making his already wavering heart capsize.

In those moments, he wanted to forget everything, to take whatever Zashi would give him. He wanted it to go on forever, for nothing to get in the way of what they were, what they would never be. He wanted raw words, senseless phrases, stupid confessions, and the certainty of not losing the one he had always loved. He wanted decoys, stealing time from the hours, and not think about the consequences.

He rolled over onto his back and his body flared up at the touch of Zashi's teeth on his neck, his throat, his chest. He arched despite him, claiming more, avid of this brutality saturated of desire. He let himself be grabbed and marked by the one who lost all restraint every time they capsized together in the forbidden.

"Shouta..., fuck, Shouta," Zashi begged as he lifted one of his legs to spread him, bite the inside, force himself between them.

He kissed his waist, licked his groin, gripped his muscles, grabbed with force. He always ended up losing himself completely, losing all reason, devouring what he could. And Shouta let himself sink, a bite after the other, forgetting the rest of the world to be only envy under the assaults of his desire.

With a sudden movement, he lowered Zashi's boxer shorts to the bottom of his buttocks and caught his erection, barely aware of the suave sigh escaping him at the sensation. Hizashi moaned loudly before straightening up to slowly slide his thumb between his lips. Shouta sucked and licked without ceasing to caress him. He could see all the dirty, gravelly talk in Zashi's hazy irises that his mouth was keeping muted.

And it was so frustrating, this silence saturated with unsaid words. He would have liked to hear them without having to guess them, all those exalted words full of obscene promises. He would have liked more than feverish, moaning sighs, but raw, dirty, horny words, lustful like his hypnotizing gaze.

"Fuck... Shouta..." he exhaled feverishly as he pushed his fingers before pulling them out and starting over.

He fucked his mouth, knowing full well what it felt like to slip his cock into choke him with, to cum in his throat. Shouta couldn't hold back a broken moan at the thought. He tightened his grip on Zashi's sex to caress it harder.

Zashi pulled his soaked fingers from Shouta's mouth and directed them between his thighs to work his way in. He prepared it with a skill proper to the habits while starting again to kiss it, to nibble it, forsaking feverish and needy sighs. Shouta rejected the head back to moan freely, blind, so taken in his intoxication that he did not control anything anymore of the spasmodic reactions of his body. He fucked himself on his fingers in the urgent need to reach the orgasm. Only Hizashi had the power to put him in this state, to disarm him to this point and to drown him in elation.

Zashi pulled back to slide his cock inside him, penetrating him so thoroughly they pampered themselves at the sensation. His kisses turned into bites, and he lost all softness. He thrust deep inside him, then did it again and again, seeking his own pleasure in Shouta's tight, trembling body. Every time they fucked, Mic became aggressive, possessive, impatient. He would take hold of him and dismantle him, whimpering incoherent sobs.

"I... won't hold...," he whined, thrusting more and more roughly into him, erratic.

The battered bed creaked louder than their mingled moans.

Shouta was close to coming, his head was spinning and there was only him, Zashi. His smell, his hungry lips, his teeth against his skin, their cries muffled in the other's breathless mouth. When the hand of Zashi came to seize his sex, he hardly needed to caress it for the ecstasy to strike him violently. Feeling Mic pouring into his body finished him off in the best way possible.

He fell back on the bed, not very surprised to have arched his back so much to gather his pleasure. Hizashi collapsed in his turn and lost himself in his neck to kiss him and lick him carelessly.

Shouta did not feel this abandonment with anyone else. Yet he had really tried. He had sought to lose himself in foreign arms to stop waiting for those of someone who expected nothing more from him than a brief embrace. But nobody was worth this forbidden passion. Nothing was worth this senseless pleasure.

Surely the truth was much less glorious than a Shouta dominating the situation and giving himself to his friend to satisfy their impulses. The truth was that Shouta had loved him for too many years. The truth was, if he was enjoying it, so powerful that he felt he would never be able to fully recover, the pain was increasingly difficult to bear. The pain of the aftermath, once the enjoyment reached, once they started this descent towards a reality where nothing of that existed.

As each time, eyes pointed on the ceiling, the weight of Zashi and his kisses began to inconvenience him. He pushed him back, at first gently, then more curtly. Without looking for his disappointment or Hizashi's disinterest, Shouta got up, looked where his clothes were and picked them up. He took his dirty shirt to wipe his stomach and balled it up before tossing it carelessly into the laundry bin.

He got dressed up to the waist, paying attention to his friend who was doing the same. After grabbing a clean T-shirt, he zipped up his suit on his hips without putting on the top. He grabbed his socks and looked at the clock. He still had some time. He kept his suit in hand to go clean himself in the adjoining bathroom.

He retraced his steps before turning around and seeing that Zashi had hardly moved. He seemed uncomfortable, as they did every time, they crossed the line of their friendship.

Shouta's heart was pounding somewhere in his throat even though his chest was far too tight to accommodate his frenzy. He grabbed the handle to hold on to something and as always, did his best not to let anything show. Don't scare the bird away. Not to make it fly away. Watch it live from a distance. Never rush it.

"Nemuri is pestering me for Friday, will you come or is it the one from your sleepless night at the radio?" he asked without apparent mood.

He had to kill the unease, keep up the pretense if he hoped to relive those moments before Zashi opened his eyes and decided it wasn't worth it. Just to hope for one more time before the last.

He needed some semblance of normalcy to not lose those timeless moments. The ones he so desperately needed. He wasn't even sure he could function without them anymore. Shouta couldn't remember when he had become so dependent. Probably from the beginning. From the first smile, the first pat on the back, the first confidence. From the very beginnings of this friendship that, even today, stood like a cage over his feelings.

"Yeah, yeah, of course, I'm coming, you'll die of trouble without me! I can't imagine the soporific atmosphere you three will create!"

There, he babbled, his elusive bird. Even that he was doing it too hard, putting himself forward and over-existing in a world where most people were struggling to exist.

“Good to know,” Shouta nodded laconically as he turned to enter the bathroom.

He locked himself in, not doubting that when he came out, Hizashi would be gone. And if he could feel the thousands of cracks in him, then so be it. Zashi did not have to know this dilemma, this hell, this toxic love that he was alone to suffer and wanted more than silence, more than ignorance, more than nothing. More than anything. The pain was accommodated, he could live with it. A few cracks, it wasn’t much, just the wanderings of time on a heart too dry not to chip on its way.

He didn’t have the leisure to shower anymore, but he could always clean himself up in a hurry. He could also clutch the sink until his knuckles turned white. He could avoid his reflection in the mirror and stare at the pristine ceramic without seeing it. He could feel the treacherous tears trying to split his dull gaze as if to give it a semblance of eloquence. He could grit his teeth to repress this misplaced, ridiculous, damaged, distress, and keep him glued to the roof of his mouth with all the words he never knew how to say.

And if he felt like cracking, like collapsing, he only had to hold his breath for a moment, until the pain passed, faded, hid in the recesses of his exhausted breath. He could do it. It had been almost seven years. He could go on, one more day, one more time.

Eyes closed, he inhaled deeply before gently releasing the pressure on the sink. He straightened up to face his reflection that of a hero in the shadows, a dull man, a teacher who hoped his vocation would help the youth of tomorrow build a better world. Because it was the most important. Not his life, not his loves, not that ego that sometimes demanded too much attention. What really mattered was their mission, this society, and saving those who couldn’t do it by themselves.

Shouta returned to his life and his well-oiled machine. Keep his role as a teacher. To solve new problems, to avoid reproducing the old ones. To dispense his knowledge to a youth eager for action and tired of having to think. To learn to be able to teach. To take advantage of the cloak of the night to exercise his vocation in the shadow of the labyrinths of a city in the grip of the madness of men. To return. To go to bed. To struggle to fall asleep, to do so only in the early morning.

To get up.

To start again.

A blink of the eye and it was already Friday. Time passed too quickly and Shouta didn’t know if he preferred it to the languid hours he had once experienced. It wasn’t so bad to stop counting the days, to let them slip away.

“Come on, Shoutaaaaaa!” Nemuri exclaimed, bumping their mugs together as her emptied half of her on the table. 

He couldn’t hold back a chuckle and shook his head, jaded by this band of friends who were looking for their youth in yesterday’s excesses. Sure, they would suffer from it the following day with what they had drunk since the beginning of the evening. Shouta didn’t even know what they were celebrating. They probably had some lame excuse to get drunk. At worst, they would invent one later. They’d pick something from their successes or failures depending on how much they had to deal with in the morning. 

“I swear she said that!” repeated Tensei without reason, in front of Zashi who was shaking his head in denial, certainly ignoring what he was rejecting so fervently.

“You’ve been drinking too much, turbo-genius,” laughed the idiot, and Shouta let out a short laugh, dispirited at his bad faith.

’I think the reason I put up with my students so well is because you exist,” he reflected before putting his glass on the table.

The three idiots groaned like a bunch of retarded kids.

"Oooooooh, Zawa, I love it when you get sentimental," Nemuri laughed, sticking his chest in her face. "I don't know if you've ever done that... how often does he do it?"

He pushed her away.

"We're your inspiration," Hizashi said, far too drunk.

"If it weren't for you, I'd certainly have forgotten what it's like to have to put up with brainless teenagers," he toasted to them, deeply satisfied with their three bad looks.

"So, mean," Zashi groaned, pouting.

Shouta didn't hold back a quick wink and his friend bit his lip in response. They drank some more, talked about everything and anything, especially their students, boring Tensei with their anecdotes and unsteady bets on the future of their youngsters.

"I'm going," he yawned as he stood up.

He'd stayed long enough. Anyway, he was always the first to leave.

"Wait, Shou, I'm coming with you," Zashi tried, staggering.

He caught up with him in extremis and greeted the other two. Nemuri was already standing, ready to drive Tensei or to take advantage of his rolling seat. Given her position, it was hard to tell.

Shouta dragged his burden outside, away from the world and any unfortunate witnesses to their downfall. Heroes weren't supposed to look like ordinary people. They weren't supposed to drown in alcohol.

Once in a secluded corner, he checked the time and reached into his pocket for Zashi's phone. It was dark and he was already half sober. It was the effect of being out at this late hour, so much like any other time he'd spent patrolling the area.

"What are you doing?" asked the slouching spike on him.

"I'm calling for backup."

"Nooooo, don't do that, Shouta," he refused, straightening up enough to tackle him to the wall. "Let, just, just... let..." 

And he slipped his fingers under his shirt, near his pants, burying his face in his neck to kiss him, to nibble him.

"Hizashi..."

But this one already attracted him in the alley, far from the main artery, undoing his pants to plunge the hands there. Shouta did not need more to turn over their position and to melt in his mouth. Their hungry kiss tasted of alcohol and smoke. Zashi must have had a smoke with Tensei. Shouta vaguely noticed the dim light and chose to pull them deeper into the shadows.

As soon as they could no longer distinguish each other properly in the darkness, Hizashi half tore off his pants and fell to his knees to suck him off as if he had been waiting for all this evening. Shouta collapsed forward, swooning as he rested his forehead on his forearm pressed against the wall, He hangs on with difficulty in order not to flinch, using his free hand to grip the back of Zashi's neck.

He groaned with pleasure, unable to keep from fucking that offered mouth. There was something about feeling Hizashi moan on his cock that was more intoxicating than all the alcohol he'd drunk. He wanted to see it, but he couldn't make out much, moaning as he sank between those greedy lips. His excitement was at its peak. Hizashi was becoming more and more demanding, less, and less concerned. And it shouldn't have been so good, so perfect.

"Less, less quickly," he heard himself begging pitifully as he tried to free himself from his grip.

But Zashi was so desperate for his dick he understood the order in reverse. Shouta bit his wrist as he tried to delay the orgasm. He finally grabbed it hard and forced it to let go. He barely managed to calm his ardor when Zashi got up to stand behind him and tackle him to the wall. He undressed only the necessary before slipping his fingers in him, devouring his neck like a hungry man.

He prepared it just before sinking deeper and deeper into him. Shouta groaned of discomfort and mixed desire. Of a demanding palm on his back, Hizashi forced him to bend to catch his size and to kiss him against the wall. It was gruff, almost violent. Shouta loved it, this loss of control, his body set on fire, used, forced into his pleasure. He left miserable sounds, his exhausted heart, one beat away from breaking. When he reminded of where they were, he bit his lip without succeeding in retaining the deplorable evidence of his downfall.

Zashi grabbed his cock to caress him with the implacable rhythm of his penetrations, violently tearing off his cum before unloading himself in him in some deep blows. They finished breathless, slumped one of the other in a gloomy alley, their pants at mid-thigh of thighs.

Shouta let out a short, broken, pitiful laugh. He didn't know what was worse, to love him or to hope to sink so low, and why not stay down and not see a new day dawn to discover that he had only been dreaming. That none of it would ever be true. Just stolen moments, ripped from his heart too true to his agony to stop fighting for it.

"You're crushing me," he whispered, trying to push away the one who was still clinging to him.

Shouta glanced over his shoulder but couldn't make out much.

"Zashi..."

"Yeah, yeah, good," he breathed as he bent down to pull up his pants, catching the edge of Shouta's as he went.

He put his clothes back on and did nothing to stop him. He turned around piteously, boneless, and plastered himself to the wall while waiting for Hizashi to finish putting on his pants in his place. In the dark, it was different. He was only a shadow, an illusion, too cold hands lingering on his wet skin from their romp. So, when Hizashi melted in his mouth to kiss him and make their silence last, he let him take what he wanted and gave him much more. Too bad if it was too close to a confession, if the bird left with pull of wings, with all this darkness, he would not see it flying away.

He suddenly grabbed the back of his neck and deepened their kiss as he had never dared, thirsty for this forbidden love. Zashi melted in the exchange, probably too intoxicated to realize what was happening. And Shouta wanted to abuse his intoxication a little more. To pretend that they were more than that, that his friend felt the same way that they would wake up in the same bed and enjoy a new day together, far from the unspoken and deafening lull in his absence. 

Hizashi returned him attention with less greed, more languor, as if they had all the time in the world to love each other. Shouta hated this hope that blossomed in him, this grotesque dream that saturated his head, as if through this misplaced delicacy, Hizashi was entrusting him with more than just these fleeting moments, but with a part of the feelings he had buried in the confines of their silences.

"Zashi... it is late," he tried, between two lascivious kisses.

"Again...," blew this one up by storming his lips, tasting his language with too much voluptuousness for his tormented heart. "At home..."

"You know it's impossible... it is necessary that you return," it refused while deviating to kiss its jaw, the lower part of its ear, its neck, closing the eyes with this absurd pain which embraced it too hard.

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." 

"Come on, get out of the way, I'll take you back."

He heard Zashi catch his breath as if he was going to say something else and chose to gently push him off the wall. Without waiting, he began to walk away, reassured that he was following him.

They walked a moment side by side. Their shoulders brushed with each step, however, it seemed that kilometers separated them. And always this heavy, overwhelming calm. When they arrived in front of his apartment complex, Shouta lingered over the lights. He gestured to the woman who was peering behind the curtains. She returned his gesture, stepping back immediately, certainly to greet the partygoer.

"Say you vomited that she does not have the bad idea to want to kiss you," he was satisfied to slip in the ear of Hizashi by way of greeting.

He tightened his shoulder before tapping it ready to leave. But the hand of Hizashi seized him to retain it for one moment. He gave him a look so troubled Shouta's heart crushed in on itself. Why was he showed him such distress? Was he to regret it so much? To the point of revealing his misery to his as if Shouta didn't already have to bear his own? And where were his words when he needed answers so badly? Where was his theater when all he wanted was to hear him speak? Where was his show and all his eloquence, the one he offered to others to keep up appearances?

"I'm going," he tried to say, turning away, and doing his best not to look back.

He didn't sleep all night. It was his worst descent, especially because it had the trappings of a hell that would eventually destroy him. He knew. He knew he had to stop. He had to push it away and keep his distance. But he loved him. He had loved since he was fifteen. He loved him so much that he couldn't find it in himself to reject him. He could find nothing in him but the desire to embrace her smiles and do what he could not see them crumble. And if that meant being his secret, his shame, his forbidden pleasure, his worst betrayal, then so be it.

This evening like all the others ended up passing. The days passed, vivid and elusive. Nothing had changed.

Nothing would ever change.

"I'll take it from here, Eraserhead," his colleague said, sliding onto the roof beside him.

Shouta gave him a quick glance. From his perch he had forgotten the time again, too busy admiring the night.

"What time?" he sighed, sitting up slowly.

"You could have been home a while ago. If I'd known you were still on patrol, I'd have come and sent you home sooner."

"Not important," he yawned, shrugging his shoulders vaguely. "You can never have too many. I'm off."

Without hurrying, he headed for the high school, his boarding school, and enjoyed the cool night air. When he arrived in front of the building, he frowned. Hizashi was there, sitting on the stoop, without a suit or extravagant haircut. He was waiting for him. Shouta was worried in an instant and joined him.

"What's going on?"

His friend raised his head unhurriedly before standing up and looking away as if he were ashamed. Shouta ran a heavy palm over his face and sighed as he tried to chase away the adrenaline that was still coursing through his veins.

"Zashi, go home."

But the latter simply grabbed his waist, buried himself just as calmly in his scarf, in his neck, and cuddled him as if he needed reassurance.

"I'm serious, Mic, it's almost four."

He stepped back and gently captured his lips, giving him plenty of time to push him away. Shouta's heart stopped for a second before it started to race. This softness, this way of holding him which did not require anything of him, this moderation full of thoughtfulness, it was more painful than all that he had apprehended until then. His whole body fought back, so hurt that Shouta didn't know what to do. He needed to escape this lie. But it felt so good. It was all the expectations he had denied himself, all the illusions he hated but longed for.

Mic pulled him closer, moaning weakly into his mouth, sticking his arousal to hers without seeming to be in a hurry to make it go away, just savoring, melting into each other, entwined by the night. Shouta felt in him this puff of hope impossible to counter. Because Zashi never showed such tenderness. Because he seemed to love him, to tell him, to promise him.

Maybe... maybe he had come to understand they were something, they deserved their chance, they could take it, try to make something out of it other than shadow of their unmentionable desires. Maybe Hizashi wanted too.

They kissed for a long time and Shouta held back this pain, this pleasure, this madness that was trying to assault him. He loved him so much. He loved his more than he could say. He loved her beyond his own heart, beyond his pain, beyond his memories. He loved him as he had never loved anyone, above all else.

That night, Zashi didn't fuck him, he made love to him. Shouta experienced this feeling for the very first time. This sweetness, this magnificent languor, this symbiosis. This latent pleasure, excessive, suffocated him, made him almost beg for more, for less, for it to stop, for it never to do it. It hurt so much, and it felt so good.

Their kisses did not become bites, Hizashi did not aggressively grab his body. For the very first time, he even seemed to adore him, to see him, to remember his existence. If Shouta had been a few years younger, he would have cried. He would have felt desperate between his tender too much arms, he would have ordered time to stop its course for a moment. He would have whispered words of love, all those he dreamed of hearing.

But this night like all the others, it was only one moment. After their enjoyment, Hizashi kissed his closed eyelids and straightened up to get dressed discreetly. He deserted the room without a sound and Shouta opened his eyes on the same ceiling, the same emptiness, the same dream which did not finish lying to him. He waited for the pain until he realized that this night, today, she had not left him once. Not since the morning, not since the day before. She was there, faithful, more attached than before.

The next day, Hizashi was no different. Still the same laughter, the same exuberance, the same need for attention. Always the same overplayed melodramas, and this sick propensity to make the life theater of its excesses. Maybe he had dreamed it after all. Maybe he was going crazy.

The next few times, their embraces became brutal again greedy, and disordered.

He had probably been dreaming.

He was probably a little crazy.

The needs of Hizashi multiplied without reason. They had never fucked so much in such a short time, as if Mic was putting his every frustration into it, as if he was trying to break it, to get closer to better reproach him, to keep quiet to make him curse his silence, then start talking again for the rest of the audience.

"Shouta," he murmured, wandering into him, devouring his lips, depriving him of oxygen.

And it sounded like a cry for help. Then Shouta grabbed his neck, kissed him more deeply and offered him this oblivion that he himself was dying to find.

That day, when Shouta, shirtless, locked himself in the bathroom after yet another quick fuck between two free hours, Hizashi did not leave. He grabbed the handle, turned it down without opening it, and Shouta looked at the door in the mirror's reflection, wondering if his heart would survive it. When it opened, he chose to enter the adjoining toilet to escape this new reality whose unspoken rules he did not know. He plastered himself to the wall and closed his eyes, his heart racing. He didn't even know why he was hiding. He had a right to be there. He had the right to overplay a confidence he didn't feel and to dismiss him under any pretext.

"Shouta?" whispered this voice suddenly too fragile.

"Hm?" he dared without leaving his hideout.

"I..."

The door locked and Shouta gritted his teeth, his pulse completely wobbly. Deep down, he had known it wouldn't last. He'd felt it that night that goodbye in every one of his caresses. He had heard it. So, he closed his eyes, recreating his darkness to hide his fear of losing him in her indistinct shadows.

A thud followed, as if Hizashi had just slammed his forehead against the wood. Which he certainly did. 

"Listen, I've been thinking about this for a while," he began in a faint voice, almost incongruous when one knew the character.

Shouta would have preferred to hear him shout or keep quiet, but not this completely different in between. Because he knew, he knew exactly what he was going to say to him. And he couldn't think about it, not now. Had he not been gentle enough, silent enough, calm enough not to frighten him? Had he been so tactless as to provoke his flight?

Perhaps if he faced him, Zashi would not be able to continue his monologue and would choose to postpone it. Maybe then he would forget. Then none of this, none of the things that were dismantling his heart and rebuilding it in reverse, would exist.

Shouta opened his eyes wide with fear in his stomach. He flushed the toilet, exited as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't hidden there first, and went to the sink to wash his hands unnecessarily.

Zashi slowly turned back to him and Shouta tried not to meet his reflection, failed.

"I was thinking...," Mic tried, too quiet, too pale, too nervous.

"Can't it wait? I would like to get some sleep before school starts."

"Shouta, I want this to stop."

The latter froze at once, taking the dagger while silently holding his breath. He kept his impassive air and contented himself with staring at his still agitated friend.

"I, listen, I've been thinking about this for a while, and..."

Hizashi rubbed his face, the back of his neck, and ran his hands through his hair before remembering that his haircut was not the most practical.

"It's me, I know, it's me, it's, I shouldn't, and... it hurts like hell..."

Zashi's dry, sour laughter was not like him. It was jagged, damaged, and flayed something in Shouta, something too precious for this irony affected, infected.

"I think I can't, I can't take it anymore... this, us, whatever it is... it's killing me, I don't know what to do with it."

Shouta just watched him smile in his sadness, in his pain, and tried desperately to contain his own. He tried to catch his breath, but chose to hold it a little longer, just in case it came with too sharp a blade.

"I, I know it's not going to change much between us and... and we've never talked about it before, so, so I guess it's just a formality, but I can't take it anymore, I, I can't live like this, with this feeling, this..."

Mic clutched his shirt to his pulse as Shouta's heart broke into a billion pieces. He had known it would happen. He had almost anticipated this moment despite himself, the way we expect the worst behind our closed eyelids. He had known that he would leave, they would never be anything more to each other.

"Okay," he heard himself say in a white voice as he turned away from his reflection.

He grabbed some paper towels and wiped his hands before throwing them away.

"Shouta, I..."

"It's okay, it's like you said."

He grabbed his clean shirt and slipped it on before heading for the exit until Zashi decided to peel himself away from the door. He stared for a moment at his best friend, his lover, his only love.

"I'm sorry if I did something wrong."

"No, no, Shouta, I, you, you, but I..."

"Yeah, you're married," he agreed in a timeless voice.

- Yeah...," Hizashi murmured breathlessly, his eyes shining. "Yeah, I'm married..."

His short laugh sounded like a sob.

"Let's talk about it later," Shouta tried to say, turning away to escape the situation.

"No, wait, please, just a minute, I, we never talked about it, but... I'm sorry... I am, I'm sorry. I need closure, Shouta, I really need... closure... just..."

"Okay, that's fine," Shouta agreed, inwardly devastated, as he squeezed his friend's shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "I'll see you later."

And he left.

The rest of the day passed in a strange confusion, as if he had put a filter on his senses to get through it without suffering. He took care of his students and even managed to get in a few sarcastic remarks. Only Midoriya seemed to notice something, but Shouta easily managed to divert his attention by quoting Gran Torino so that he would praise it and forget about his unusual behavior. When he returned to the boarding school, he was so exhausted that he felt like he was on autopilot.

He joined his agency, as he did every night, and went about his business, a little out of the body, quite far from his heart. He finished his patrol at the stroke of two o'clock and immediately went to bed.

Once alone, with nothing to grab his attention, he remembered that he had just lost the most important person in his world. Of course, not totally, never totally, but it was worse, right? That rip between friendship and the chasm of feelings Shouta had spent years digging for him?

It was worse to look at him from so far away and realize that today, it was broken his most beautiful love story, the one that chained him to this one-way devotion. Now he was alone, without hope of finding this orphaned passion that had allowed him to hold on for so long. He will never be able to enjoy his skin again, swallow his sighs, hear him moan, feel his inside him. Never again.

If he had known...

If he had known that this was the very last time, maybe he would have held him longer in his arms, rather than pushing him away to escape his own pain. Maybe he would have savored it or dragged it out to etch it to him, so that it wasn't just a random opportunity. Then he would have taken what he could, he would have savored, he would have given him something indelible. Then he could have told him without a word how much he cared, just with caresses, kisses, weakened whispers.

Instead, he had only this last memory dented on the edges and already ready to flee. He should have said something else, admitted to him that he was hurting, so much so that he felt he had to live with his agony and make room for him in his breath for years to come. He should have hugged him, acted like a normal person, taken comfort, and given a little. He should have breathed him in for the umpteenth time, wrapped him in a last embrace, whispered to him that everything would be all right even if he didn't mean a word of it, so that this page they could turn together. So that he too could free himself from it, to get over it, rather than this impotence.

Shouta curled up on his side and closed his eyes. And if he pretended to be asleep to reject his bad dreams, his deepest fears, his scorned loves, it did not matter. He was used to not sleeping.

The following days were difficult to face. They were quicksand and Shouta was too tired to overcome the obstacle of having to get up and act normally. He felt so empty that he could hear the echo of his distress resonating within him, voracious, disproportionate.

"Professor?" dared Midoriya at dawn when Shouta had forgotten to go to bed.

"Hm?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at the one who had just returned from training.

"You, uh, you've been here all night?"

Under normal circumstances, his embarrassed murmur and evasive look would have drawn a pointed smile from him. But there was nothing normal about the weather these days.

"What if it was?" he asked instead to the undesirable.

"I know it's inappropriate for me, but..."

"If you are aware of it, then why insist, problem child?"

The youngster's grin was sad, like a frustrated kid trying to assert his right to inconvenience him so early in the morning.

"Well, you're also the one who says that you have to be fit to be a hero, because accidents of inattention or carelessness are the most common. So, I think you, I, you could get hurt..."

"Thanks for the concern, really, but I'll handle the whole "I'm an adult and not a fifteen-year-old experimenting with his teacher's lessons to see how they taste on his tongue" part."

Shouta gently placed his cup of tea in the kitchen counter and stood up.

"It's not that," Izuku muttered, now more frustrated. "I'm not testing... no matter. You look..."

"Worried?" Shouta grunted, running a heavy palm over his face. "That's because I am. My class is a magnet for trouble and they're barely in second A."

"No, not worried, collapsed!" the youngster said, facing him with the sickly determination that defined him.

Collapsed was the right word. He felt exactly like that. That made for a moment he knew that he did not hold any more with much. He had convictions, ambitions, the desire to improve this world, this society, but he was exhausted. All this, this life, these young people he wanted to see grow up and climb the ladder by overcoming all the obstacles, all this was becoming too much to bear. It would have been much easier without the cumulative weight of his failures. But that was also being a hero. It was being wrong enough to hinder yourself. Should he warn this kid of what was in store for him? Did he have to tell him that falling apart was something they all did eventually?

"You'll make a good hero," he chose to say instead, gently squeezing his shoulder.

"But..."

"Nothing. The best favor I can do for you is to do my best not to need you." 

Midoriya's overly large and green eyes lit up with the boundless conviction he seemed to possess in all circumstances. He nodded confidently and Shouta did the same.

"Go take a shower."

Shouta didn't wait for the kid to answer before turning away to his room. Tonight, like almost every Friday, he was supposed to get together with his friends. Of course, he had seen Hizashi since. They worked at the same place and had too many students in common to hope not to cross paths. But facing his smiles, his looks, was easy when twenty pairs of eyes were on them. But surrounded by people who had been around him as a teenager? Who really knew him?

He wouldn't last a second.

It was too soon, too raw in his memory, too raw in his flesh.

He was afraid they would understand how badly he felt. He couldn't close his eyes without seeing Hizashi there. He didn't want to suffer the slightest smile from him. He didn't want to risk looking at him too long and arousing suspicion. He would have preferred to be angry, to blame him for their whole past, and that shameful day when Zashi had told him about his marriage, as if it was nothing, as if he wasn't trampling on his heart.

At that time, they had already slept together, they had started months earlier. Shouta had not expected anything. Hizashi had never pretended to want anything else. This marriage proposal had destroyed him. He should have stopped there. But to give up what they had was to lose a whole part of himself, perhaps the only part worth anything. For a brief second, he had thought that Hizashi was hoping he would hold him back, that he would stop him, but the second was gone when he had offered to be his best man. Shouta had simply accepted. What else could he have done? He had never been more than a spectator it was only fair. Not for a moment had he deserved Mic.

They had continued to be occasional lovers, but never at Shouta's request, always to Hizashi's deafening silence. Seven years. It would have been seven years soon. How was he supposed to show up, laconic and cynical, like before, even though half of his chest had been ripped off and he was just learning to grasp his new center of gravity? 

Shouta locked himself in his bathroom to cool off quickly. He noticed his cell phone and let out a weak sigh. He searched his contacts, passed a palm over his exhausted face, thought for a second while staring at the light for too long and decided. He typed a message about their group and released his phone without paying any more attention to it.

Less than a minute later, the answers came from all sides. Hizashi naturally proposed a date that he hoped would be more convenient. But none of them would have suited him. He just wanted to go back to the apartment and sleep for forty-eight hours. He refused everything. He had the excuse of work, school, tiredness, copies. He had so many reasons other than the truth that it was heartbreaking. He should have known that Mic would not be satisfied with his answer.

"Yeah," he replied in a flat tone picking up his phone as soon as it started vibrating.

He wanted to hear his voice, even though he knew it would hurt.

"Saturday, is it good for you? Come on, Shoutaaaa! Tensei really wants this night! He needs to clear his head. His family is constantly on him and it's worse like they feel sorry for him! Please, Zawa, have you seen the time? It's way too early to start negotiating."

Nothing had changed. It was him, still the same, and Shouta leaned against the sink to listen. He had loved the silence, and then one day he had met him, and he had just gotten used to the noise, the exuberance, the childish joy, and too powerful voice of his only love.

"... Nemuri told you about the bar just opened? Look, it's next to that box Tensei mentioned last time protects the heroes' identities! They are bound by a contract, Shouta! And openings are always a good way to make a name and a place for yourself in this kind of place! We'll be regulars in no time!"

Yes, he had grown accustomed to it to the point where the silence became agonizing without anyone to fill it. The solitude was hell, and he was tired. He wanted to sleep. Just sleep for a while and wake up when everything would be better, when his heart would have decided to shut up a little and his breath would stop stopping all the time.

He threw his head back, looking up at the ceiling with his gray eyes, but he kept listening to Hizashi give him all the reasons why he should come.

"Are you even listening to me?" Hizashi moaned theatrically as Shouta, desperate to hear him, felt the first tears flee his disillusioned eyes.

Listening to him, that's all he did. When he had asked him with a look to go beyond their friendship, he had done it. When he had asked her without a word to keep the secret, he had done it. When he had distanced himself, he had accepted. When he had returned, he had welcomed him. When he had used him, he had nodded. Whatever he wanted, Shouta had never refused him anything. He had watched him marry another woman, tried to start a family. Finally, he had even agreed to lose him. Anything that could make him happy or better or just right, he had endured.

"Shouta...? Are you okay? You... If it really bothers you this weekend, there's always the next one! But it's a shame to break the rhythm..."

Shouta closed his eyes, put a palm over his mouth to keep his distress quiet, letting the tears finally flow. He had lost him. Shouta had never had much, never even had him, so why did it hurt so much? Shouldn't he have been able to do what he always did? Just shut up and move on?

"Have I been talking in a vacuum all this time?" the idiot wondered as he certainly moved the device back to look at the screen. "Shouta, can you hear me?"

The latter breathed in through his insipid tears and slowly pulled himself together.

"I'm tired."

"Damn, you scared the hell out of me," Hizashi breathed out and Shouta smiled sadly as he imagined him holding a hand to his heart. "Why don't you sleep in this weekend, sit down and let's do it again! It's okay, I'll go with Nemu and we'll save a place for you, just in case you change your mind! But if it's because of this bar, we could do something in small groups! Let's meet at Nemuri's and..."

"No, you don't understand," Shouta murmured, closing his eyes tighter and letting the tears roll down his man cheeks. "I'm really tired, Zac."

He heard Hizashi catch his breath sharply.

Zac was his very first nickname, the one Shouta had used when they were still young adults searching each other's bodies for all the definitions of the word pleasure. It was sweet and it had been easy to whisper in his ear instead of the love confessions swelling in his chest. Zac had been a smiling, loving friend who had slipped effortlessly under his skin, and whose green eyes had haunted his sleepless nights many years before their first time.

Then he had gotten married, despite them, despite everything. That day, Shouta had buried that nickname deep inside him, right next to his feelings. For Mic, it had been just a tender word during an act that lacked sweetness. Nothing more. Nothing important.

"I need... rest, I need rest."

And if the tears flowed without a sound, without a jolt, it was only the fatigue of having had to hold on all this time. It was only mourning, an end, the beginning of a life without him, without what they had been, what they will never be.

"See you at school."

He hung up without waiting. It was pathetic, like him. He wiped his watery eyes in the crook of his elbow and turned away. He turned on the faucet to wet his face and try to wake up a little. He checked his beard a few days old before shrugging and not giving a damn.

The hours passed, still in the same fickle rhythm of his deranged heart and hero classes. He crossed paths with Mic more than once, but Mic kept his distance, showing a hesitancy that wasn't like him. But it didn't matter, it was easier that way, easier to breathe. When Nemuri tried to convince him to resume their evenings, he simply refused without listening to her argument and left in the middle of the negotiations without even looking back.

He needed time.

The days passed, became weeks. Shouta got used to the pain, to the hollow in his chest, to the constant lack sometimes took the form of insurmountable distress. He felt like a drug addict trying to withdraw without knowing the protocol. So, he would curl up on himself, clutching himself until the ordeal passed, until his body gave into exhaustion. He no longer cried and was worse somehow. It was as if this pain refused to go out, chose to take root even if it meant suffocating it completely.

He was an adult, he should have been able to get past it, to put his duty as a hero first. He should have been able to ignore it, to compartmentalize his mind as he had always done. He should have been able to start smiling about it, or forgetting himself in the arms of strangers, or even just cracking up once and for all, drinking himself to death, and waking up different, free, screwed up, but ready to rebuild himself. But he wasn't, ready to rebuild. It wasn't worth it. What did he have to build? No matter what he did, he would never be anything but himself.

After a few weekends, Nemuri stopped trying to convince him. Maybe she understood. Maybe that was why she had started to justify his absences for him. Shouta was strangely relieved. He could finally stop pretending to be okay, even if it was only in front of her.

"Uh, teacher?" Kirishima stammered, his hand raised and his gaze shifting from him to his stunned and silent classmates.

"What is it? Are the instructions do not clear enough for your overworked brains?" he asked, staring at him, already exhausted by his day, which had just begun.

"Are you bleeding?" the youngster offered uncertainly, as all the students seemed to mirror his hesitant demeanor.

Shouta wiped his cheek. It was true, he had completely forgotten to take care of it after the altercation that night. Perhaps it was deeper than he had imagined. He glanced at the back of his bloody hand and fumbled in one of his pockets for a tissue. Once done, he wiped and dabbed at his cut without conviction before looking at his student.

"Do I look like I care?" he inquired, arching an eyebrow before exhaling his exhaustion.

"No, but..."

"Take care of your papers," he ordered, turning back to the board to write down his instructions.

"Professor," Midoriya insisted because it was impossible for him to simply ignore the situation.

Shouta sighed again and let his arms fall to his side. He closed his eyes for a second in a vain attempt to chase away the sleep.

"You really don't look well; you should go see..."

"Stop all," he cut off without facing them. "Otherwise, I'll give you a zero on this assignment and some of you will be forced to take remedial classes over the break instead of enjoying your vacation."

The protests became an almost soothing hubbub, like a reassuring hum allowing Shouta to breathe properly for a moment. It was strange, preferring this to silence. To hang on to something as trivial as the protesting reactions of his students who couldn't keep their mouths shut. He wanted it to continue, to escalate, to degenerate into loud protests, and for Iida to choose to join them rather than try to calm them down.

"Professor," Midoriya tried, too close to him now.

Silence had returned, heavy, tense, oppressive, making Shouta's already screwed up heart clench. Damn silence. Why did he have to be the symbol of his own loneliness? Why did the world have to be silent around him, as if to remind him that he was the intruder? Why did he inspire this emptiness? Why did he always find himself surrounded by a lull which instead of being quietude, became an anxiety? Was he destined to exist only in mute? Not to say what he felt so as not to burden others? To live with the broken sound of a maddening heart?

"Professor...?"

A whisper almost too involved, too considerate. Shouta hadn't even realized he had put his forehead on the board and was waiting. He only realized it when a hand grabbed his shoulder with an absurd gentleness, a kindness he didn't deserve.

"Professor Aizawa...?" tried again this hesitant voice. "I, let me accompany you to the infirmary..."

The infirmary? Why? There was nothing wrong with him. He was simply exhausted. But it didn't matter, the hubbub had returned, a little, the sounds filled this room again and it was pleasant, like a balm on his chest, a veil over his deepest fears. If he closed his eyes a little longer, if he didn't move, if he made himself forget, maybe he could fall asleep, rest. 

"What's going on, young listeners? I am told that there is a...!"

Mic fell silent so quickly that Shouta's heart sank to the bottom of his stomach. What was he doing there? He squeezed his eyelids tighter as the reassuring palm left his shoulder. Shouta wanted it to stay before the silence swallowed him whole. He wanted warmth to last, not to leave him just yet, to make the cold go away. He wanted to ask Midoriya not to walk away too quickly, to keep worrying a little, just to feel like he mattered to someone. Just a moment, just a moment more.

"Shouta?"

That voice... It was too close, out of reach, it didn't really exist, it was just the illusion of a dream he had denied himself all his life. His tremolos did not fit him, it made her too fragile. And fragile it was not. It was a weapon, Mic's weapon. It was supposed to be able to destroy everything.

"Young listeners! Get to work, I'm taking over your teacher! I'll call someone to take over! In the meantime, delegate, keep the peace and watch over this little world!"

An arm wrapped around his waist and the absurd pain he felt made him clench his teeth.

"Come on, Shouta," Zashi whispered next to his ear. "I'll take you to the infirmary."

"No, let me," he rejected weakly, relieved to feel Hizashi release him. "I'll manage, I'll... I'll go."

He stepped back from the board and turned away from it to walk slowly toward the exit, without a glance for his many worried students.

"Enough. My condition does not excuse the condition of your copies," he said in a timeless voice before walking out the door.

"Shouta, hey, wait, I'm coming with you..."

This one stopped facing him. He looked good. His big green eyes were a bit hidden behind his tinted glasses and he looked worried, but he was still gorgeous.

"I know the way, go back and do what you have to do," he intimated as he turned away.

Mic grabbed his arm to stop him from moving forward.

"No, wait, please... You look... you look terrible, I... lately..."

"I told you, I'm tired. I'll be fine. Except if holding me in a hallway is more important than letting me get to Recovery Girl, thanks for letting go."

"Shouta..."

Hizashi released him gently, too caressing, too affected. Shouta was exhausted. He turned away and headed for his destination. But when he got to the infirmary, he stopped. What was the point? She was nothing he could do about what he had. Besides, she was too perceptive, she would eventually understand and give him prefabricated advice, without substance. Rather go to him, he turned around and slowly made his way out of UA and back home, to his own place, away from this school and its damn boarding school. He would let Nedzu know when he got there.

With his face half buried in his capture weapon, he strolled through the streets without hurrying. He could have caught the subway, but he preferred to walk. To take his time or to waste it, what does it matter? Once in front of his dingy apartment, he yawned and entered his code. He never had to open the door. A hand went on top of it and did it for him. A pale, thin hand wearing mittens. Hizashi had followed him, and he hadn't even noticed. 

"Come on," exclaims his friend, exclaims his friend by putting a palm on his kidneys to enjoin him to advance.

Shouta, petrified, did not move an inch.

"Go away," he ordered, more harshly than he would have liked.

"No, I can't," the other refused, categorically.

"Hizashi," he growled, threatening, without leaving his entrance of the eyes.

"No," was satisfied to answer his friend. "I swear I won't leave. I'll camp out in front if you don't let me in."

"Do so," he growled while dedicating a bad glance to nobody.

He closed his eyelids and clenched his fists, his heart in his throat. He felt the other man lead him inside and slam the door behind them without scruple. Shouta leaned against it the next moment.

Teeth clenched; he opened his eyes without hiding his anger.

"I'll go get the first aid kit," Hizashi said and walked away to the tiny bathroom.

Shouta didn't need this, his thoughtfulness, his pretense. He wanted him to go away. Petrified in this strange fury full of dismay, he remained stuck against the door without knowing what to do.

"What's the code for the medicine cabinet?" exclaimed Zashi, certainly typing at random.

Shouta managed to leave his torpor to go to the bathroom. It was too small to accommodate them both.

"Get out of there," he demanded, pulling him back to take his place.

He opened the cupboard and seized the care kit. Without seeing it, he perfectly felt the eyes of his friend on his neck. With soft gestures, he grabbed something to disinfect himself and scanned the mirror to see the damage. Nothing very serious, one more scar would not make this mess any worse.

"You can leave, he let go, tense under the unwanted attention of the squatter.

"Shouta..."

"Go away, Hizashi, get out of here," he slammed at the same time as the kit on the edge of the washbasin, too close to the rupture not to throw his moods in his face.

Their glances hung in the reflection of the ice and Shouta lowered at once his not to overwhelm him with his fury.

"Go away, please," he said through his teeth, keeping his eyelids closed and praying for his heart to be silent.

"Wait, Shouta...," Zashi pleaded, suddenly fragile, feverish, and uncertain.

"No," he cut him off, closing his eyes tighter, gripping the ceramic with a grudge, and taking a deep breath. "I'm really tired."

The silence that followed told him that his friend was finally getting to the bottom of the problem, the one they had only lifted once, and only to stop it even if it meant tearing his chest apart.

"Me too, I believe that I need to turn the page," he blew without raising the head. "I have to find myself, or find myself, because I'm not sure I can do it alone..."

Hearing Hizashi's voice again was terrifying. Because Zashi was understanding what he wasn't telling him clearly. What he had never admitted to him. But now, what did it matter to scare the bird? It had already flown away. It would never come back to land. He no longer had to keep quiet for fear of seeing him disappear. He had finally left, and it was time for Shouta to do the same. Turn away. Let him walk away without waiting or hoping for him. 

"I'm not sure if anyone can love me. I don't know... I'm so... I... who would want that, right?"

His laughter sounded hollow, empty, pitiful, and he put a hand to his face with the sudden urge to disappear behind it, to be forgotten, to hide from his shame of himself.

"But I need to move on. I don't want to love you this way anymore. Just not loving you so much would be nice... Don't come over. Don't call me for a while, please. A few months. We'll see each other enough in high school."

Never had silence weighed so heavily. He felt one hand grab his wrist, turn it over, and another catch his neck with a strange feverishness. Hizashi looked ready to burst into tears as he slid desperately over his mouth.

"No, Zashi...," he tried to push him away, too weakened to oppose clearly. 

But Hizashi just held on tighter, trying to embrace Shouta more deeply, giving up on a bruised complaint. 

"Zashi... stop... I can't..."

"Shouta..."

"I'm telling you I don't want this anymore," he grumbled, hurt by his insistence.

He pushed him back hard to find himself immediately imprisoned.

"You're so good, you're so fucking good," Mic gasped before biting Shouta's lip.

Shouta wished he hadn't been struck by his words, by his voice, by the absurd pleasure he felt to hear his pronounce his desire aloud.

"Stop, Zashi...," he suffocated, already lost.

The latter abruptly silenced him, slipping his tongue in his mouth, seeking his own, forcing him with an uncompromising hand on the neck. Shouta tried not to answer his fervor, but his body was already burning despite him, frisky and welcoming as if he had waited only that.

"I still want you... I want to fuck you so bad, Shouta..." 

Zashi nuzzled into his neck, devouring him with ardor. Shouta, stuck against the sink, threw his head back, eyes closed, burning, and let him take what he wanted, unable to push away this madness, this folly, this impossible pleasure that was doing him as much good as harm.

And just like that, Hizashi was again everywhere, desperate for his skin as he was dying of his. His hands sought to seize him, to undress him and he moaned his dismay by kissing him, by biting him, by appropriating him as he had done it so often, melting on his lips, between.

Shouta forsook a sound as destroyed as he felt and returned his kiss with a vengeance.

It felt good, so good. Zashi... Never mind if it was just once. No matter if he was in pain if he had to die from his skin again. So much if he couldn't breathe, if he had to start all over again to try to get off. Never mind, it was worth it.

Just one last embrace, one last time, a farewell he would be aware of. He could do everything he had missed before, engrave it in him, breathe in his scent, revel in his moans, reinvent their shipwreck, even if he should not come back from it, run aground on the shore of a lonely love.

Too bad for his heart and his poor agony. So much for his flayed breath, for his damaged rales. It was worth it, if it was him, even if it was to end it.

Hizashi undressed him brusquely, before biting his lip, his neck, and licking his skin with a new frenzy, hungry, clumsy in his affliction.

"Shouta," he gasped in a demolished sob. "Come, come with me... I, I'll... I'll... make you good..." 

He took him out of the bathroom, drew him to him, dragged him into the bedroom without ceasing to grab him, to abuse his exhausted body, to extract pathetic whimpers from him. To hear his speak had a terrible effect on Shouta, so intoxicating he had the impression to be completely asphyxiated by the pleasure.

"I can't... I can't stop," Mic begged in a heartfelt prayer. "There is... only in your body... that I feel good."

He had to be quiet, or Shouta would come.

Zashi made him fall on the bed, imposed himself between his thighs, devoured his mouth with the energy of despair, and Shouta let him do it, unable to defend himself. His heart was pounding as if he finally remembered how to do it.. His head was spinning, and he accepted the debacle, surrendering without trying to fight anymore. Zashi moved away just long enough to undress, not missing the chance to bite and kiss him at the same time.

"Look at you," he growled, spreading his legs, licking his groin, his sex. "So good... I want to cum inside you..."

Shouta tried limply to push him away, to escape this absurd pleasure, but Mic strengthened his grip, devoured his belly, sucked his cock before forking again on his thighs, his navel.

"Be mine, Shouta... Be mine..."

"Shut up," implored this one, close to embracing his decay.

"I want... to mark you," he gasped, panting, wetting his fingers before sliding them inside him, licking his cock. "I want... everyone... to know... that I'm fucking you... that you're opening up... for my cock..."

"Stop, Zac, stop...," he begged miserably, struggling to hold back his orgasm, clutching at the sheets with the energy of desperation.

"Fuck... look how well you're taking them..."

Shouta pushed his shoulder with his foot, tried to pull him away, his back arched, shaking as ever. He would not last much longer. Already he was swooning in the air, completely distraught.

"Zac, wait... wait..."

"I'm going to fuck you so hard," moaned this one by positioning himself awkwardly. "I want to feel you... cum on my cock..."

"Shut up... you...," Shouta moaned, on the verge of collapse.

And then Zashi was there, on top of him, inside him, grunting his pleasure, bathing in his misery, clinging painfully to him as if he feared he would escape.

"You're so fucking good... Shouta... you were created for my cock..."

He heard himself moaning like never, too overwhelmed by the pleasure.

"I... want... to... fill you," Zashi moaned, penetrating him roughly, again, again, again.

He wiggled in him, gripping him, forcing bruises on his skin, scratching what he could, so greedy it was disarming. Shouta cashed in on his frenzy with an unknown, searing pleasure, so vivid that he was no longer sure he wasn't dreaming it. Until they ran out of oxygen, until nothing else existed but them, until their voices broke, until they enjoyed themselves.

Zashi literally collapsed on top of him, struggling to recover from his ecstasy. Out of breath, he did as usual and started to cover him with kisses, bites, tired caresses. This time, Shouta did not reject him, he surrounded him in his arms and kissed his forehead, tears of impotence leaving his disenchanted gray eyes. He held him close, one last time, just one last time. When Hizashi repositioned himself to be more comfortable as if he was going to fall asleep there, on him, Shouta let him. It didn't matter if he was struggling to breathe if his weight was crushing his heart.

He wanted to savor this moment before the inevitable, before Hizashi's regrets, before the day sets and the silence returns, unchanging. When he began to doze off, he stopped himself from sinking and caressed the back of his neck, intoxicated by his scent, trailed his fingers over his skin to memorize it curves and flats. He breathed it, again and again, until he was asphyxiated. He took advantage of his calm, relaxed body and held him close. He cried silently, kissed his forehead, his temple, what he could without risking disturbing him. He made his farewell to him without a word, breathless, delaying with difficulty his own sleep.

"I love you," he barely heard as his heart threatened to stop.

For a second, he thought it was he who had said it.

"I love you," repeated Zashi's soft, hushed voice. "Shouta... I love you..."

The latter held his breath to take in his confession with an unspeakable pleasure, too painful, too pleasant, too vivid, and too cruel after all these years.

"I didn't know you felt that way, Shouta...," he cried, hugging him as if he feared he would disappear. "You never said anything... I... I always thought... I was at the end of what I could bear... I was waiting... I, I wanted... you to fight for me, to be jealous, to ask me to stop, anything... I wanted you to love me... you have no idea how fucking stupid I feel. I didn't understand..."

Zashi broke down, tear after tear, stammering out his confession as he tightened his grip, and Shouta stood there, useless, completely petrified.

"I didn't... understand that... if you accepted all this, that... I didn't understand it was precisely because you loved me..."

He sobbed his despair like a lost child, so loud suddenly, so alive, breaking with his grief all that had been their silences.  

"Shouta, forgive me, forgive me... I beg you, forgive me... tell me it's not too late... that I didn't screw up so badly... don't let me... I beg you, don't let me... I'll never forgive myself... I'll never forgive myself for this... I was so afraid to speak, Shouta... I was so afraid... to break what we had. I always thought it was too fragile for my voice... forgive me... I, I, I didn't want... that with the slightest breath you would escape me..."

Shouta breathed in feverishly, exhausted, his tears of impotence flowing freely.

"I love you so much... I'm so ashamed of myself... Shouta, I'm telling you that I love you..."

"You... you got married," he exhaled almost silently, tiredness trying to steal the moment. "Zac, you're married..."

His eyelids tried to close, and he couldn't lift them.

"We have been separated for ages, she and I, Shouta...," he confided in a pitiful laugh devoid of joy. "We live together only to deceive loneliness..."  

"Leave her," he heard himself mumbling while clinging to her pale neck, already drifting in the throes of sleep. "Leave her..."  

Zashi seemed to melt against him, as if he were letting go, that he was in his place, that he would never change.

"Whatever you want...," he agreed immediately, his body vibrating entirely on hers. "I'll do anything you want..."

Shouta finally breathed in fully, sleepily. He hardly felt Zashi lovingly kissing his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids. He grabbed his hair to keep it in place and melted between his lips with what was left of his energy. He caressed his tongue and Zashi moaned, exhilarated, clinging to him to deepen the kiss. Shouta finally let go of his mouth, unable to stay awake any longer.

"Rest," Zashi murmured, kissing his jaw, his neck, his chest.

"I..." he tried, suddenly afraid of something, but not knowing what.

"I'll be here... If you want me, I'll, I'll stay... I'll be here when you wake up."

Shouta breathed out, relieved, too exhausted to hold on to his consciousness.

"Never again confide in me your silences," he murmured with a last ounce of lucidity. "Zac, please..."

"Never again," Hizashi promised before finding his lips and kissing them softly. "Never again..."

And Shouta fell asleep until the early morning.