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- TSUMUGI AOBA HAS NOT BEEN USING THE SAFE WORD WHEN HE SHOULD. -
Seeing red, Natsume quite literally kicked the door open. He stomped down the hall, kicking Tsumugi's open as well and lingered in the doorway like a creature of the night in the dim light. He still smelled of his late-night experiment, made more powerful by the moonlight that was flowing into his window. He'd asked Tsumugi to leave him alone, to be quiet for once, and he'd had a relatively successful night until his phone buzzed off of the nightstand and into his field of vision with his partner's name on it.
The entire world already knew unsavory and downright disgusting things about the people Natsume loved most via these weird exposees, so why not go after them, too? Why not tell the entire place that one, Tsumugi and Natsume were in an actual dominant/submissive relationship and two, that Tsumugi was violating his side of their verbal contract? Why not send that to every single screen, every phone, ever television, every fucking billboard for all to see?
He shook, filled to the brim with rage to the point he could've been emanating a literal fiery glow. "Care to fucking explain yourself?"
Tsumugi would have loved to explain himself. Truly, honestly. But in both truth and honesty, he wasn't entirely sure if his explanation would matter.
He'd known from the beginning that he was going to get in trouble for it eventually. His constant going against his own word, his pushing Natsume farther than he was sure the other was comfortable with. His constant insistence that he was alright in situations that put him in pain that had veered so far off the beaten path from giving him just pleasure. It wasn't right of him to do so. He knew that it wasn't right for him to do so. So why did he keep doing it?
Because he deserved it.
It was his punishment, after all. To let Natsume hurt him as he'd hurt Natsume in the past. However that pain came didn't necessarily matter, did it? And it wasn't as though Tsumugi didn't get off on it... most of the time. There wasn't supposed to be too much harm in not using the word when he was supposed to. It'd only happened a handful of times, anyway.
He picked at his fingers idly, not looking up, as he was sure that his too-calm facial expression would only piss Natsume off more.
"I'm sorry." There wasn't anything that he could say that would prevent the oncoming verbal, possibly-physical onslaught. "... It was only a few times."
Natsume's eyes narrowed to slits, and his teeth gritted almost to the point it was pissing him off more. Only a few times. What the fuck classified as a few times to him?! Twice? Fifteen? Every single time?
Natsume's hands slammed against either side of the door frame and his nails scraped audibly against the wood. "You're sorry?! That's what you're going to say!?" He let go of it, kicking at it once. "You're going to just say sorry for making the entire damn world thing I'm in here abusing you?!"
Not like the people who knew them didn't think that already. Not like he almost had his head knocked in by Tsumugi's ex. Not like he looked in the mirror and wondered the same thing all of the time, but to Tsumugi's insistence he was enjoying himself. Though apparently that wasn't the case.
"Do you understand what you've done, you moron?! Your head is so fucking empty you can't think up an actual reason why this might be a problem?!"
Tsumugi had seen Natsume angry. Plenty of times. More times than he could count, actually. Most of it was usually directed at him, and a lot of the time the reasoning was only that he'd been in the same room at the same time. But he had never seen Natsume this angry. Which he had every right to be. There were no doubts in his mind that he'd had some serious reservations about doing some of the things that they'd done together, and had only pushed through some of them due to Tsumugi's own insistence. That knowledge alone only made Tsumugi's heart sink lower into his stomach.
"I know why it's a problem."
It's just that, in hindsight, I have no idea how I'm going to fix it.
He dug at the skin around his nails harder, not bothering to care at all when he noticed blood begin to bubble up around the raw areas.
"But I needed to apologize to you first, because it was stupid of me to betray your trust like that. ... You already don't trust me, and I made it worse. So I owe you at least an apology before an explanation, right?"
"No! I need you to fucking tell me why I'm going to be treated like a monster,what I have to say in order to get rid of this!" The easiest option was to leave Tsumugi, of course. He didn't like the idea even a little bit, as much as he hated admitting to himself. His hands struck the door frame again, as though he would burst it open if he had the strength. Like he would tear it off of the wall and open it further, as if that would make Tsumugi see through to him clearer than he could through those stupid, too-old to do anything glasses. As if it would help clear up what the hell Natsume wanted, too, because he really didn’t know anymore.
"You bastard, I… only ever did that shit because you didn't stop me!" He stomped his foot like an angry child, so hard that it sent a pang of pain up his leg. Natsume's tears started pooling in his eyes but he didn't let them fall. "I thought... I seriously thought you liked it. I thought I was giving you what you needed."
He started to crack, and his hands found his own arms. He squeezed tightly enough for his nails to break skin, starting to feel filthy enough that Natsume started believing he was a monster. It hadn't started out completely innocent anyway. He latched onto Tsumugi because he was angry all that time ago, and he knew he could be a bitch, but... they really had something special now, didn't they?
"...I t-thought..."
"Natsume."
There was his voice. Tsumugi would let him have the moment that he needed to have, that he deserved to have -- but he still lovedNatsume, and even though he was the source of this pain, he wanted to comfort it away. Not that he was sure that he even could, at this point. Much less would Natsume actually want him to. The stutter was what made him stand up at last, a sign that the anger was due to give way to tears that he was certain he would rather kill Tsumugi than let him see. Nonetheless, he touched one of the younger boy's hands, making a small, futile attempt to ease its grip.
"... I did like it. You were giving me what I needed. ... It's just that there were a handful of times that I wanted you to hurt me more than I knew either of us would be comfortable with. But it was onlya handful. I know that that doesn't make it any better, but it's something I want to say anyway. It wasn't every time. I wasn't making you hurt me every single time just because."
He let his hand fall from where it was touching Natsume's.
"... It was only on the days that I felt like I deserved it. And I know that thatdoesn't make it any better, either."
"Don't touch me!" Natsume hissed after Tsumugi already let go, a delayed reaction from a child that wanted so badly to have someone hold him. He backed away, back into the hallway, far enough to back into the wall behind him and slump down onto the ground.
"Only a handful of times... you're h-hearing yourself. It's getting through that hair and into that head of yours, right...?" His arms wrapped around himself again. "How many times are you going to do this to me? You keep stabbing me in the back and... I keep falling for it. You're the worst."
Sure, he knew their play was a sort of catharsis for both of them. It was definitely a way for Tsumugi to feel like he was being punished for all of the bad he'd done, but it was in a safe space with someone that loved him and would have never pushed him past his boundaries. Natsume could've checked in more verbally, but the times he did seemed useless and Tsumugi would only ever beg for it again, so he stopped. And the play got more intense, and he stopped checking in, and Tsumugi wouldn't say no, and...
The knowledge that he'd gone too far was a double-edged blade, both for Tsumugi (who now was all but confirmed to be a victim of abuse) and for Natsume (who had no idea he was actively hurting partner in such a way). He felt sick. He wanted to die, right there. If he could do what Wataru-niisan did all the damn time and just disappear from the entire world, he would have. But he hadn't figured out that magic yet.
His voice was tiny, meant more for his knees and the ground than for Tsumugi. "You were using me... I loved you. And you were using me. Again."
The worst...
No, even that was too kind. Natsume was right; how many times was he going to hurt him? Intentionally or not? All that Tsumugi seemed to know how to do was hurt Natsume. Hurt him , hurt the people that he loved , reduce him to a broken mess almost solely through being too stupid to know any better. But this time he was both stupid and supposed to know better. He'd forced the person that he was attached to, the person he loved most in the world, to hurt him when he shouldn't have. And for what? Because using Natsume to hurt instead of doing it himself was easier in the moment?
What the fuck was wrong with him?
"I'm sorry."
That wasn't enough. And he knew it wasn't enough.
But Tsumugi had run out of words to say. His apologies weren't going to be good enough, his explanations meant nothing. There wasn't anything that he could do, there wasn't anything that he could say, that would remedy this situation. Even as he sorted through the myriad of platitudes that clouded his brain instead of anything useful, he couldn't find a single thing to say that was good enoughto fix this. Because nothing was good enough. Nothing would ever be good enough. He couldn't fix a problem that was impossible to fix.
The best thing that he could do, and perhaps the only thing that he could do, was go as far away as possible.
He didn't want to leave Natsume in a state like this. He didn't want him to suffer, and he especially didn't want him to suffer alone -- but what was he supposed to do about it when he was the reason that Natsume was suffering in the first place?
"I'm going to leave." Tsumugi didn't look at Natsume as he spoke, not wanting to make him feel even more vulnerable than he surely already did. "You don't have to speak to me anymore if you don't want to. ... I'm sorry, Natsume-kun."
Natsume clutched his knees close to his chest, disgusted with how freely his tears were flowing and how he had to fight back his flipping stomach. He was so angry, he truly could've hit Tsumugi and meant it, but what good was that going to do when he'd been asking for that anyway? When he'd been making Natsume do it as some kind of fucked up self-harm?
He didn't want to get off of the floor. He wanted Tsumugi to fall to his knees, to crawl to him, to wrap his arms around him and swear to change. That he saw the error in his ways, that he'd promise just like he did forever ago to stand by his side despite the terrible things he'd done. He always did stupid stuff to prove he meant something, why was he just giving up now? Why wouldn't he just take a pair of scissors to that stupid long hair and change right there? Proclaim his love and how it would magically fucking fix everything? Natsume might have believed it. He wanted to believe it could still happen. But could hefigure it out himself?
"Of course you're just walking away." He whispered, not looking up at him. Natsume could've begged him to explain further. Could have asked him to stay like he wanted him to. Natsume had the ability to verbalize what would make it better.
But what was the point when Tsumugi would never actually change?
"Just get out already."
"I don't want to, but I want to give you space."
I don't know what to do , He wanted to say, as if that weren't glaringly obvious. If nothing he was going to say would be enough, was it worth continuing to try and explain himself? Or was it better to wait until Natsume had calmed down? By then, it might be too late. He still had a chance to fix this if he didn't walk away from it. If he did leave, if he did let the situation sit for too long, the wound would scab over with the infection trapped inside. But knowing him, a last ditch attempt at trying to fix things would only make them worse. Because he couldn't say anything right, he couldn't do anything right. But he could still try. Maybe.
Directly opposing what he'd been told to do, Tsumugi took a seat on the floor.
If he was within kicking distance, that was alright. If he was in punching distance, that was alright, too.
He deserved to be hurt now more than ever anyway.
"I'm sorry that I keep hurting you. And I'm even more sorry that I used you to do something so fucked up. I'm stupid, and I'm selfish. But me berating myself isn't going to get us anywhere." Despite Natsume not looking at him, Tsumugi blinked emptily at the crown of the younger boy's head. "... There's something wrong with me. I don't know what it is, and I don't know how to fix it, but I'm going to find a way to, because I don't ever want to hurt you again. ... You mean a lot to me, Natsume-kun. You didn't deserve this, and I'm sorry."
He paused for a second.
"I'm going to leave, but... I'm going to go to the hospital, and I'm going to see if they can direct me to someone to talk to so I can stop doing stuff like this." He tried to keep his sigh soft, so as not to make Natsume think that he was only doing this to sate him. "I need to grow the fuck up. Now more than ever. So... if you don't want to talk to me anymore, that's fine, and I'll understand. But at least for the rest of the night, I'll leave you alone. Is that okay?"
"What the fuck do you think the hospital's going to do for you? They're going to offer like… a way to seek therapy to cope with rape or something now that that came out. That's all." He got all of it out despite the tears with just the slightest shake to his voice. "That’s pretty much what everyone’ll think I've been doing. So… you need to go. Just… somewhere else."
He couldn't handle the closeness despite how badly he wanted it, knowing the closer Tsumugi came the more likely he was to grab him and startshaking him. It made him shiver. How did he change up his act that fast? How did he go from being so pathetic and convinced with himself to immediately flipped over to exactly what Natsume wanted!? It wasn't like him. He still had that fucking smile on his face. The sigh was calculated. Natsume knew it was calculated.
He was so far from human that he had to act like he was feeling something. Was that it? Did he not fucking care?!
"I already told you to leave me alone! I gave you permission to leave, isn't that what you want?" He shot to his feet, just as angry, almost dizzy from how quick he stood up. Not seeing straight from the rage. "Get out of my house. You're pissing me off."
It was Tsumugi’s house, for one. But he wasn't in the mood for technicalities now, and he was being the child everyone always said he was.
Please don't leave. I love you. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I thought you liked it. I thought you really felt something for me. I thought what we had was magic. I thought it was getting better. I was trying to grow up. I thought you were getting better, too.
Natsume slammed the bathroom door behind him, hard enough to shake the walls and have one of the few pictures hung on the hallway's wall to shatter onto the ground. He fell to his knees, crying harder than he thought he could over Tsumugi, and didn't listen to hear if he really was leaving or not.
...what?
No, he hadn't been- There was a difference between-
Trying to explain it didn't matter. Not that he'd gotten the chance to. Natsume had already stormed off before Tsumugi could even open his mouth, anyway. That was for the best. No matter what he would say, what he could say, it would only make things worse. Just like he suspected it would. It had been useless to try, but he thought that maybe giving it one more shot would do... something. Maybe ease Natsume's mind a little bit? It seemed that he'd only done the opposite of that. Even if he tried to chase him, tried to sit outside the bathroom door and explain further, it wouldn't do any good. He'd already been given his instructions.
He was pissing Natsume off. So it was time for him to leave.
So leave, he would.
The walk to the door alone left his head swimming and his face expressionless. Tsumugi slipped on his shoes, reached for the key he wasn't necessarily sure he'd need anymore, and made his way out.
He'd start at the hospital. If they didn't have any ideas, he'd find someone else to ask. There had to be someone in this place who was willing to untangle the mental web that Tsumugi had spent the past twenty years creating, and he would find them. No matter how long it took. He'd search top to bottom, left to right, front to back. He'd exhaust every option, and then exhaust them again. And if nobody would help him, then maybe books might. Something. Anything to prevent himself from hurting Natsume again. He would do anything.
It was time for him to grow the fuck up. Maybe it was a little bit too late, but it was better late than never.