Upside Down
The first thing that Ken did when he woke up was to try very hard to go back to sleep but the cold, sick feeling had already been born in his stomach and was spreading clammily in his skin. At once the previous evening slithered into his minds eye. His drunken and horribly melodramatic accusation, Aya's inscrutable face and then the horrifying response.
Aya had spoken in his usual emotionless tone but Ken could see the way that his eyes shuddered, the iron self control threatening to slip.
"A rapist am I? You clearly don't choose to remember certain pertinent details."
Ken had stared at him, uncomprehending, still on fire with rage. Aya leaned forward and put his mouth close to Ken's. Ken couldn't help meeting those eyes and their chasm of hurt, revealed in a flash of expression before being hidden again. He hadn't realised that it was possible to hurt Aya.
"You see, Ken," Aya hissed, "You've got it all backwards. Yes, you were drunk but it was all your idea and besides...you fucked me. Not the other way around. So I will thank you to not throw around words that you can't take back."
With that Aya had left the room and Ken had been left in a painful silence contemplating whether he should throw up or pass out or both.
In the cold light of morning, and his hangover, Ken tried to reassure himself. It had been a mad night, everyone had been drunk, no one would remember much about what was, or was not, said. And even if they did, no one would blame him for talking crap, for making hysterical accusations.
Aya wouldn't blame him.
But it was all irrelevant anyway, he decided with some relief, because it was surely all a misunderstanding of some kind. He hadn't had sex with Aya. It was a ridiculous idea. Aside from the fact that Aya was a man, he was also about as sexual as a tree stump. Shop manikins had more erotic urges than Aya. The idea that Aya not only had a sex drive but one which wanted KEN and, even more bizarre, didn't want to be the one on top, well, it was just...laughable. It would all turn out to be a really sick joke.
That perspective gave him the strength to get out of bed.
While he was brushing his teeth he paused suddenly, horror struck and toothpaste drenched, as certain memories chose that moment to present themselves. Memories of lying in bed with Aya, of pleasure and relief and fear. Memories that hinted, unsubtly, that the only joke that Ken was victim of was one that he was playing on himself. He swayed a little and steadied himself against the sink. The floor was briefly overhead and he had to close his eyes.
"Am I cracking up?" he wondered, dully, "Is this what it feels like?" His mind was full of conflicting beliefs and realities, all held with equal conviction, all jostling for precedence. His heart was starting to pound, a landslide of anxiety threatening to spill over into outright panic.
Then there was a knock at the door.
"Ken?" Yohji's voice was its usual lazy sounding self which Ken found oddly comforting. The floor returned to its rightful place, "Persia's online."
"I'm coming." Ken yelled, splitting out the toothpaste. He had kept it in his mouth so long that it was beginning to burn his lips.
A mission, he thought gratefully, something to distract himself, something to make him feel normal. Although it occurred to him as he ran down the spiral stairs that he hadn't noticed when killing people had become normal for him.
The others were already in the mission room and Ken slunk into a dark place near the wall and tried not to catch Aya's eye. To his surprise however it was Omi who glared at him briefly before they all turned their attention to the screen.
"Weiss," the faceless man said, "a man called Caesar has come to our attention. He runs a string of nightclubs where he sells unidentified blue pills to teenagers and then exploits them when they become addicted. Addiction appears to be almost instantaneous. Your mission is to identify him, find the manufacturers of this drug and put them out of business." With that Persia vanished. Yohji swore sulkily.
"Not much to go on as usual. What are we supposed to do, hang out in clubs asking where we can get some blue pills? He could at least have told us what they are called."
"It sounds like a new drug," Omi observed, "Maybe it doesn't have a street name yet."
"Oh yeah," Yohji sounded suspicious, "And since when do you know about drugs, Omi?"
Omi rolled his eyes in a very teenage gesture of despair, "I go to a high school, Yohji. Of course I know about drugs."
Yohji's eyes bulged and he took a deep breath but Omi cut him off at the pass.
"That doesn't mean that I take them, Yohji."
Somewhat mollified Yohji folded his long legs up into a chair and listened to Omi and Aya debate strategy. (Usually consisting of 'Omi find bad man, Aya kill bad man, everyone go home.') Ken was very aware of Aya's shuttered eyes. They were always shuttered but today they seemed worse somehow. Ken felt his hangover headache tighten around his ears. The prospect of having to go back to a nightclub was like a brick in his belly. He never wanted to be within five feet of alcohol ever again.
Later that day after throwing up for a bit and then taking some painkillers Ken started to feel better and thought he would attempt some food. He arrived in the kitchen to find Omi making tea. Ken waited for the customary cheery hello and when he didn't get it he was unaccountably worried. Omi merely continued to make tea while Ken hovered stupidly, wanting to be acknowledged. At last he couldn't stand it anymore.
"Omi?" he ventured.
The teenager turned around, still holding a spoon, eyes incandescent. Ken took a step backwards almost expecting to look down and see one of Omi's darts protruding from his chest.
"I heard what you said to Aya." Omi snapped.
Ah, Ken thought, yes, Omi's room was only at the top of the stairs. He must have heard everything.
"You know, he puts up with a lot from you," Omi observed, "You pick him up when you're drunk then you deny all memory of it the next day. If you could have seen his face the first morning you did it. He stood up when you came into the kitchen and you just looked through him. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen. And now you call him a rapist! If anyone has been having sex under false pretences then it's you!"
Ken had never seen Omi so angry but he couldn't help thinking that the boy was seeing emotions in Aya that simply weren't there, feelings and sensitivities that Fujimiya just didn't possess.
"Omi," Ken chose his words carefully because they were important, "Despite how it must look, I am not homosexual."
Omi burst out laughing, his mouth incredulous. "Oh, alright, silly of me, silly of all of us to think that because you like to fuck Aya then you might be gay. Oops."
"Omi!" Ken exclaimed, shocked. He had never heard Omi swear before.
Before he could find a way to explain Omi had grabbed his half brewed tea and left, slamming the door behind him.
Ken sat at the kitchen table for a long time. Then he got up and went for the grocery notepad and pen. He tore out a page and wrote;
Fact 1- I have been going to bed with Aya when I am drunk.
Fact 2- Alcohol is disinhibiting. It can make you do things.
Fact 3- I need to stop this.
Fact 4- I am not gay.
Ken stared at the peeling Formica table top and the ashtray full of Yohji's cigarette ends. "I'm not gay," he said to himself, "I'm not gay." Gradually the chanted litany made him calmer. He knew he could do it. He could give up alcohol and consequently Aya too, in one fell swoop.
Once that was settled in his mind Ken turned his attention to how he was going to rehabilitate himself with his team mates.
Which was when he had a really bad idea.
Ken crept out of the Koneko at ten that night. He had checked that no one would notice his absence. Yohji had gone on a date. Aya was stocktaking. Omi was set for a long night online trying to track down Caesar. With any luck Ken was about to make that unnecessary. He slipped into the street and shivered against the cold. He wasn�t exactly warmly dressed having chosen his tightest, shortest shirt (and made it shorter with a pair of pruning sheers) and tight jeans that rode low on his hips. The intention was to look like a try-too-hard clubber but he suspected that he just looked like a slut.
It occurred to him that his father would have murdered him rather than let him go out dressed like this.
Ken knew where he was going to try first. He knew which clubs were best for illicit behaviour and dodgy opportunities. He hadn't been a professional footballer without learning a thing or two. Just because it had always been Kase, not him, that indulged in the powder, pills and tarts didn't mean that Ken didn't get dragged along. He hadn't wanted to go but he couldn't stand the thought of what Kase might do if he was on his own at one of these places. Ken had usually ended up fifteen metres from decadence, drinking weak beer and trying to stop occasional young women from nibbling on his ears. Through the dark he had watched Kase and thought, 'Why do you do this? Why do you do this to me?'
Ken shook his head viciously, crashing that particular train of thought before it could go any further.
In the end Ken was lucky that night, or unlucky, in that he hit the jackpot in only the third club that he tried. It was called the Pink Pussycat being low on originality and high on self conscious irony. It even had a 1970s glitter ball and a ceiling that regularly showered the dancers with silver streamers that snaked downwards and tangled in hair, clothes and feet.
Ken lurked by the bar trying to look desperately keen, achingly insecure, trying to look like someone up for new experience. Unfortunately this resulted not in offers of drugs but in several men attempting to chat him up. He nearly lost his temper when the third one winked at him. Then a girl with forest green hair jostled past him and stopped to apologise. Almost imperceptibly her eyes travelled down to Ken's naked stomach. She blushed appreciatively and Ken felt a strange thrill at this evidence that, away from his team mates, he was by no means invisible. She smiled, put a cold hand on his neck and pulled him close to her so that she could yell over the music.
"Are you having a good time?"
Ken could feel her long fingernails against his skin. He looked into her eyes. They were impossibly bright with tiny pupils.
"Not really," he yelled back, smiling in a way that he hoped was seductive but which probably just made him look constipated.
"Let's see if we can't find you some fun," the girl laughed and suddenly Ken's hand was in her bony grip and he found himself led across the dance floor past couples that seemed to be attempting vertical sex to the music, past women on their one night out per week dancing primly to a song that they had probably never heard before, and towards a gaggle of very beautiful people. They lounged in a dark corner under some stairs. Ken wondered if having gained admittance to this group implied that he too was beautiful.
It was unlikely though, he decided ruefully, the girl clutching his arm was no doubt just off her head.
Ken was soon deposited on an overstuffed sofa between a girl wearing a cat's ears alice band and a sleeping youth who settled his head on Ken's shoulder and snored into his neck.
There then commenced one of the most tedious hours of Ken's life thus far. The green haired girl, and those of her friends who were awake, proceeded to talk utter bollocks at him with relentless sincerity. Topics covered included angels (Ken suspected that a real angel would be far too terrifying for mortal comprehension and therefore unlikely to devote itself to finding parking spaces for hippies), governmental cover-ups, remote viewing, the meaning of life as evidenced by LSD (sadly they couldn't remember it now, but Ken was assured that it had been very cool) and the importance of putting Vaseline on your ears while colouring your hair.
As a result of this boredom Ken was almost relieved when his hostess kissed him. She tasted of absinthe and something else, something unfamiliar. When her tongue swept into his mouth he at first thought that she had a piercing but then he realised that it was a pill that she had tongued between his lips.
He swallowed it.
It was a reflex action, he hadn't meant to.
"What did you just give me?" he demanded, breaking the kiss and praying that whatever it was it wasn't in any way blue. 'Almost instantaneously addictive' Persia had said. The girl grinned lazily. Git bastard! She probably didn't even know what day it was let alone what drug she was taking. Ken attempted to salvage something useful from all this before he had to go to the toilets and make himself sick.
"Where did you get it?" he asked her, gritting his teeth against anger.
"Some guy," she shrugged.
"What does it do?"
She smirked. Her dry lips caught a little on her teeth as they moved, "You're going to feel amazing baby."
Ken knew then that he wasn't going to get anything out of her. He stood up and smiled crookedly. She pouted with disappointment when she realised that he was leaving.
"I've got to go, honey," he told her. (Yeah, to be sick because you just poisoned me you reckless bitch) "But I will be back tomorrow night."
"I'll be here." She sighed, sinking back into her chair like flour into eggs.
As Ken headed for the toilets he resolved to come here earlier next time. If he could get here before she got too wasted then she might be able to give him something better than 'some guy.' Of course it was just possible that no matter how early he got here she would be high already. His lip curled with disgust as he fought his way across the dance floor. How did people like her let themselves get so dependent? Had she just got up one day and decided to check out of the universe?
When Ken saw the out of order signs on the locked toilet doors he started to panic a little. He had no idea how quickly this drug metabolised. He needed to get it out of his body. NOW.
Rapidly he began to search for a fire escape. He would be sick in the street if he had to be. Stumbling up a carpeted hallway, strewn with washed up clubbers like stoned fish out of water, he saw the blessed exit sign and ran for it.
Only to come face to face with a familiar thug. It was the jealous giant from the night before, Omi's rival. Before Ken had time to do anything but wonder why the man wasn't in jail, a huge fist whistled out of the gloom and everything went black.
Ken woke on his back on a sticky carpet. He was just where he had been and his attacker was nowhere to be seen. He could feel music coming up through the floor. It filled his blood and sang around his ears. It was perfect music, written just for him.
He knew that he should be angry and in pain because he had a vague memory of being punched but instead he felt better than he had ever felt before. His whole body thrummed with nervous energy, crackling spreading joyfully through his skin. Only two other things made him feel this good.
Kase.
And Aya.
Aya...Ken smiled and stood up. He knew where he was going. He was going home. Aya would see that Ken didn't only want him when he was drunk. Ken knew that he had behaved badly towards Aya. But now everything was falling beautifully into place. Everything would be alright now. Shame had evaporated, confusion was gone. No wonder people liked these pills. It was hard to know why Weiss needed to interfere. What possible harm could these things do to anyone? Ken didn't feel drugged. He didn't feel hyper or stoned.
He just felt healed. He felt like himself again, if that self had always been a good man, had never met Kase, had never joined Weiss.
He wanted to find the green haired girl and thank her on his knees. But it would have to wait for some other time.
Right now he wanted Aya more.
He got back to the Koneko at two a.m. It seemed that he had been unconscious for longer than he had thought or maybe he was losing time; either way he was relieved to see Aya's light on. He stood looking up at it for a moment, wondering what sort of reception he was going to get. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wasn't sure whether he hadn't burnt his bridges with Aya. But that overwhelming feeling of positivity took him up the stairs and made him knock on Aya's door.
When it opened Ken had an exquisite sense of hyper-awareness. Usually when he looked at Aya like this he was befuddled by alcohol and everything was hazy and unreal but tonight it was all razor sharp.
"What do you want?" Aya crossed his arms defensively.
"Can I come in?" Ken struggled to keep laughter out of his voice. He was so happy that it was trying to seep out of his pores. He felt sorry for everyone else in the whole world that they weren't feeling as happy as him. Blue pills for all!
Aya shrugged and backed away further into his almost painfully tidy room. Ken shut the door behind him.
"I'm sorry," he told Aya.
There was a brief unimpressed silence before Aya remarked, "For what exactly? For jumping into my bed when it suits you and then denying it? Or for calling me a rapist?"
"For everything, Aya I..." Ken felt a rush of words, perfect words, the precise, right words for this moment, marshalling themselves in his mouth, "I do want you, drunk and sober. See, I can admit it! I was just confused. I handled it badly. But I understand it all now."
Aya pursed his lips thoughtfully as if considering his judgment. Ken couldn't believe that only that morning he had been thinking of Aya as a man with no feelings. He could see a thousand emotions now, moving across the violet eyes like angry water. His heart was in his throat and he was having to resist a strong urge to pull Aya roughly into his arms. But he suspected that there had been rather too much roughness in their past already.
Aya's gaze moved down Ken's body to the savaged shirt, the flash of toned stomach, the clinging jeans on narrow hips. Ken shivered. He had never been looked at like that before, with such a brutal honesty. Nothing was hidden, nothing was excused. At last the laugh he had been suppressing burst out and they both jumped.
Ken found himself thrust up against the wall, Aya's mouth hungry on his moving with candid lust. Ken fell into the kiss with a sigh of relief. He had wanted this; it had been so terrible waiting when he hadn't even known what he was waiting for. He had wanted it every time he looked at Aya since the day they met. Even forcing the desire down didn't work; it had still been there like breath, like hope, resistant to all logic.
Aya's lips pressed Ken's open and Ken accepted his tongue. His hands moved up of their own accord to touch Aya's face, stroking gently, trying to show love when he couldn't say it yet.
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When he regained his mind a little he found himself curled up with a sleeping Aya. He touched his lover's cheek where his eyelashes brushed his skin. Something sharp and scary woke behind his ribs.
The pill was wearing off leaving behind a monster that he knew would only grow over the next few hours.
Ken looked down at Aya and had to bite back tears.
'What have I done?' he thought.
Aya had spoken in his usual emotionless tone but Ken could see the way that his eyes shuddered, the iron self control threatening to slip.
"A rapist am I? You clearly don't choose to remember certain pertinent details."
Ken had stared at him, uncomprehending, still on fire with rage. Aya leaned forward and put his mouth close to Ken's. Ken couldn't help meeting those eyes and their chasm of hurt, revealed in a flash of expression before being hidden again. He hadn't realised that it was possible to hurt Aya.
"You see, Ken," Aya hissed, "You've got it all backwards. Yes, you were drunk but it was all your idea and besides...you fucked me. Not the other way around. So I will thank you to not throw around words that you can't take back."
With that Aya had left the room and Ken had been left in a painful silence contemplating whether he should throw up or pass out or both.
In the cold light of morning, and his hangover, Ken tried to reassure himself. It had been a mad night, everyone had been drunk, no one would remember much about what was, or was not, said. And even if they did, no one would blame him for talking crap, for making hysterical accusations.
Aya wouldn't blame him.
But it was all irrelevant anyway, he decided with some relief, because it was surely all a misunderstanding of some kind. He hadn't had sex with Aya. It was a ridiculous idea. Aside from the fact that Aya was a man, he was also about as sexual as a tree stump. Shop manikins had more erotic urges than Aya. The idea that Aya not only had a sex drive but one which wanted KEN and, even more bizarre, didn't want to be the one on top, well, it was just...laughable. It would all turn out to be a really sick joke.
That perspective gave him the strength to get out of bed.
While he was brushing his teeth he paused suddenly, horror struck and toothpaste drenched, as certain memories chose that moment to present themselves. Memories of lying in bed with Aya, of pleasure and relief and fear. Memories that hinted, unsubtly, that the only joke that Ken was victim of was one that he was playing on himself. He swayed a little and steadied himself against the sink. The floor was briefly overhead and he had to close his eyes.
"Am I cracking up?" he wondered, dully, "Is this what it feels like?" His mind was full of conflicting beliefs and realities, all held with equal conviction, all jostling for precedence. His heart was starting to pound, a landslide of anxiety threatening to spill over into outright panic.
Then there was a knock at the door.
"Ken?" Yohji's voice was its usual lazy sounding self which Ken found oddly comforting. The floor returned to its rightful place, "Persia's online."
"I'm coming." Ken yelled, splitting out the toothpaste. He had kept it in his mouth so long that it was beginning to burn his lips.
A mission, he thought gratefully, something to distract himself, something to make him feel normal. Although it occurred to him as he ran down the spiral stairs that he hadn't noticed when killing people had become normal for him.
The others were already in the mission room and Ken slunk into a dark place near the wall and tried not to catch Aya's eye. To his surprise however it was Omi who glared at him briefly before they all turned their attention to the screen.
"Weiss," the faceless man said, "a man called Caesar has come to our attention. He runs a string of nightclubs where he sells unidentified blue pills to teenagers and then exploits them when they become addicted. Addiction appears to be almost instantaneous. Your mission is to identify him, find the manufacturers of this drug and put them out of business." With that Persia vanished. Yohji swore sulkily.
"Not much to go on as usual. What are we supposed to do, hang out in clubs asking where we can get some blue pills? He could at least have told us what they are called."
"It sounds like a new drug," Omi observed, "Maybe it doesn't have a street name yet."
"Oh yeah," Yohji sounded suspicious, "And since when do you know about drugs, Omi?"
Omi rolled his eyes in a very teenage gesture of despair, "I go to a high school, Yohji. Of course I know about drugs."
Yohji's eyes bulged and he took a deep breath but Omi cut him off at the pass.
"That doesn't mean that I take them, Yohji."
Somewhat mollified Yohji folded his long legs up into a chair and listened to Omi and Aya debate strategy. (Usually consisting of 'Omi find bad man, Aya kill bad man, everyone go home.') Ken was very aware of Aya's shuttered eyes. They were always shuttered but today they seemed worse somehow. Ken felt his hangover headache tighten around his ears. The prospect of having to go back to a nightclub was like a brick in his belly. He never wanted to be within five feet of alcohol ever again.
Later that day after throwing up for a bit and then taking some painkillers Ken started to feel better and thought he would attempt some food. He arrived in the kitchen to find Omi making tea. Ken waited for the customary cheery hello and when he didn't get it he was unaccountably worried. Omi merely continued to make tea while Ken hovered stupidly, wanting to be acknowledged. At last he couldn't stand it anymore.
"Omi?" he ventured.
The teenager turned around, still holding a spoon, eyes incandescent. Ken took a step backwards almost expecting to look down and see one of Omi's darts protruding from his chest.
"I heard what you said to Aya." Omi snapped.
Ah, Ken thought, yes, Omi's room was only at the top of the stairs. He must have heard everything.
"You know, he puts up with a lot from you," Omi observed, "You pick him up when you're drunk then you deny all memory of it the next day. If you could have seen his face the first morning you did it. He stood up when you came into the kitchen and you just looked through him. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen. And now you call him a rapist! If anyone has been having sex under false pretences then it's you!"
Ken had never seen Omi so angry but he couldn't help thinking that the boy was seeing emotions in Aya that simply weren't there, feelings and sensitivities that Fujimiya just didn't possess.
"Omi," Ken chose his words carefully because they were important, "Despite how it must look, I am not homosexual."
Omi burst out laughing, his mouth incredulous. "Oh, alright, silly of me, silly of all of us to think that because you like to fuck Aya then you might be gay. Oops."
"Omi!" Ken exclaimed, shocked. He had never heard Omi swear before.
Before he could find a way to explain Omi had grabbed his half brewed tea and left, slamming the door behind him.
Ken sat at the kitchen table for a long time. Then he got up and went for the grocery notepad and pen. He tore out a page and wrote;
Fact 1- I have been going to bed with Aya when I am drunk.
Fact 2- Alcohol is disinhibiting. It can make you do things.
Fact 3- I need to stop this.
Fact 4- I am not gay.
Ken stared at the peeling Formica table top and the ashtray full of Yohji's cigarette ends. "I'm not gay," he said to himself, "I'm not gay." Gradually the chanted litany made him calmer. He knew he could do it. He could give up alcohol and consequently Aya too, in one fell swoop.
Once that was settled in his mind Ken turned his attention to how he was going to rehabilitate himself with his team mates.
Which was when he had a really bad idea.
Ken crept out of the Koneko at ten that night. He had checked that no one would notice his absence. Yohji had gone on a date. Aya was stocktaking. Omi was set for a long night online trying to track down Caesar. With any luck Ken was about to make that unnecessary. He slipped into the street and shivered against the cold. He wasn�t exactly warmly dressed having chosen his tightest, shortest shirt (and made it shorter with a pair of pruning sheers) and tight jeans that rode low on his hips. The intention was to look like a try-too-hard clubber but he suspected that he just looked like a slut.
It occurred to him that his father would have murdered him rather than let him go out dressed like this.
Ken knew where he was going to try first. He knew which clubs were best for illicit behaviour and dodgy opportunities. He hadn't been a professional footballer without learning a thing or two. Just because it had always been Kase, not him, that indulged in the powder, pills and tarts didn't mean that Ken didn't get dragged along. He hadn't wanted to go but he couldn't stand the thought of what Kase might do if he was on his own at one of these places. Ken had usually ended up fifteen metres from decadence, drinking weak beer and trying to stop occasional young women from nibbling on his ears. Through the dark he had watched Kase and thought, 'Why do you do this? Why do you do this to me?'
Ken shook his head viciously, crashing that particular train of thought before it could go any further.
In the end Ken was lucky that night, or unlucky, in that he hit the jackpot in only the third club that he tried. It was called the Pink Pussycat being low on originality and high on self conscious irony. It even had a 1970s glitter ball and a ceiling that regularly showered the dancers with silver streamers that snaked downwards and tangled in hair, clothes and feet.
Ken lurked by the bar trying to look desperately keen, achingly insecure, trying to look like someone up for new experience. Unfortunately this resulted not in offers of drugs but in several men attempting to chat him up. He nearly lost his temper when the third one winked at him. Then a girl with forest green hair jostled past him and stopped to apologise. Almost imperceptibly her eyes travelled down to Ken's naked stomach. She blushed appreciatively and Ken felt a strange thrill at this evidence that, away from his team mates, he was by no means invisible. She smiled, put a cold hand on his neck and pulled him close to her so that she could yell over the music.
"Are you having a good time?"
Ken could feel her long fingernails against his skin. He looked into her eyes. They were impossibly bright with tiny pupils.
"Not really," he yelled back, smiling in a way that he hoped was seductive but which probably just made him look constipated.
"Let's see if we can't find you some fun," the girl laughed and suddenly Ken's hand was in her bony grip and he found himself led across the dance floor past couples that seemed to be attempting vertical sex to the music, past women on their one night out per week dancing primly to a song that they had probably never heard before, and towards a gaggle of very beautiful people. They lounged in a dark corner under some stairs. Ken wondered if having gained admittance to this group implied that he too was beautiful.
It was unlikely though, he decided ruefully, the girl clutching his arm was no doubt just off her head.
Ken was soon deposited on an overstuffed sofa between a girl wearing a cat's ears alice band and a sleeping youth who settled his head on Ken's shoulder and snored into his neck.
There then commenced one of the most tedious hours of Ken's life thus far. The green haired girl, and those of her friends who were awake, proceeded to talk utter bollocks at him with relentless sincerity. Topics covered included angels (Ken suspected that a real angel would be far too terrifying for mortal comprehension and therefore unlikely to devote itself to finding parking spaces for hippies), governmental cover-ups, remote viewing, the meaning of life as evidenced by LSD (sadly they couldn't remember it now, but Ken was assured that it had been very cool) and the importance of putting Vaseline on your ears while colouring your hair.
As a result of this boredom Ken was almost relieved when his hostess kissed him. She tasted of absinthe and something else, something unfamiliar. When her tongue swept into his mouth he at first thought that she had a piercing but then he realised that it was a pill that she had tongued between his lips.
He swallowed it.
It was a reflex action, he hadn't meant to.
"What did you just give me?" he demanded, breaking the kiss and praying that whatever it was it wasn't in any way blue. 'Almost instantaneously addictive' Persia had said. The girl grinned lazily. Git bastard! She probably didn't even know what day it was let alone what drug she was taking. Ken attempted to salvage something useful from all this before he had to go to the toilets and make himself sick.
"Where did you get it?" he asked her, gritting his teeth against anger.
"Some guy," she shrugged.
"What does it do?"
She smirked. Her dry lips caught a little on her teeth as they moved, "You're going to feel amazing baby."
Ken knew then that he wasn't going to get anything out of her. He stood up and smiled crookedly. She pouted with disappointment when she realised that he was leaving.
"I've got to go, honey," he told her. (Yeah, to be sick because you just poisoned me you reckless bitch) "But I will be back tomorrow night."
"I'll be here." She sighed, sinking back into her chair like flour into eggs.
As Ken headed for the toilets he resolved to come here earlier next time. If he could get here before she got too wasted then she might be able to give him something better than 'some guy.' Of course it was just possible that no matter how early he got here she would be high already. His lip curled with disgust as he fought his way across the dance floor. How did people like her let themselves get so dependent? Had she just got up one day and decided to check out of the universe?
When Ken saw the out of order signs on the locked toilet doors he started to panic a little. He had no idea how quickly this drug metabolised. He needed to get it out of his body. NOW.
Rapidly he began to search for a fire escape. He would be sick in the street if he had to be. Stumbling up a carpeted hallway, strewn with washed up clubbers like stoned fish out of water, he saw the blessed exit sign and ran for it.
Only to come face to face with a familiar thug. It was the jealous giant from the night before, Omi's rival. Before Ken had time to do anything but wonder why the man wasn't in jail, a huge fist whistled out of the gloom and everything went black.
Ken woke on his back on a sticky carpet. He was just where he had been and his attacker was nowhere to be seen. He could feel music coming up through the floor. It filled his blood and sang around his ears. It was perfect music, written just for him.
He knew that he should be angry and in pain because he had a vague memory of being punched but instead he felt better than he had ever felt before. His whole body thrummed with nervous energy, crackling spreading joyfully through his skin. Only two other things made him feel this good.
Kase.
And Aya.
Aya...Ken smiled and stood up. He knew where he was going. He was going home. Aya would see that Ken didn't only want him when he was drunk. Ken knew that he had behaved badly towards Aya. But now everything was falling beautifully into place. Everything would be alright now. Shame had evaporated, confusion was gone. No wonder people liked these pills. It was hard to know why Weiss needed to interfere. What possible harm could these things do to anyone? Ken didn't feel drugged. He didn't feel hyper or stoned.
He just felt healed. He felt like himself again, if that self had always been a good man, had never met Kase, had never joined Weiss.
He wanted to find the green haired girl and thank her on his knees. But it would have to wait for some other time.
Right now he wanted Aya more.
He got back to the Koneko at two a.m. It seemed that he had been unconscious for longer than he had thought or maybe he was losing time; either way he was relieved to see Aya's light on. He stood looking up at it for a moment, wondering what sort of reception he was going to get. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wasn't sure whether he hadn't burnt his bridges with Aya. But that overwhelming feeling of positivity took him up the stairs and made him knock on Aya's door.
When it opened Ken had an exquisite sense of hyper-awareness. Usually when he looked at Aya like this he was befuddled by alcohol and everything was hazy and unreal but tonight it was all razor sharp.
"What do you want?" Aya crossed his arms defensively.
"Can I come in?" Ken struggled to keep laughter out of his voice. He was so happy that it was trying to seep out of his pores. He felt sorry for everyone else in the whole world that they weren't feeling as happy as him. Blue pills for all!
Aya shrugged and backed away further into his almost painfully tidy room. Ken shut the door behind him.
"I'm sorry," he told Aya.
There was a brief unimpressed silence before Aya remarked, "For what exactly? For jumping into my bed when it suits you and then denying it? Or for calling me a rapist?"
"For everything, Aya I..." Ken felt a rush of words, perfect words, the precise, right words for this moment, marshalling themselves in his mouth, "I do want you, drunk and sober. See, I can admit it! I was just confused. I handled it badly. But I understand it all now."
Aya pursed his lips thoughtfully as if considering his judgment. Ken couldn't believe that only that morning he had been thinking of Aya as a man with no feelings. He could see a thousand emotions now, moving across the violet eyes like angry water. His heart was in his throat and he was having to resist a strong urge to pull Aya roughly into his arms. But he suspected that there had been rather too much roughness in their past already.
Aya's gaze moved down Ken's body to the savaged shirt, the flash of toned stomach, the clinging jeans on narrow hips. Ken shivered. He had never been looked at like that before, with such a brutal honesty. Nothing was hidden, nothing was excused. At last the laugh he had been suppressing burst out and they both jumped.
Ken found himself thrust up against the wall, Aya's mouth hungry on his moving with candid lust. Ken fell into the kiss with a sigh of relief. He had wanted this; it had been so terrible waiting when he hadn't even known what he was waiting for. He had wanted it every time he looked at Aya since the day they met. Even forcing the desire down didn't work; it had still been there like breath, like hope, resistant to all logic.
Aya's lips pressed Ken's open and Ken accepted his tongue. His hands moved up of their own accord to touch Aya's face, stroking gently, trying to show love when he couldn't say it yet.
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When he regained his mind a little he found himself curled up with a sleeping Aya. He touched his lover's cheek where his eyelashes brushed his skin. Something sharp and scary woke behind his ribs.
The pill was wearing off leaving behind a monster that he knew would only grow over the next few hours.
Ken looked down at Aya and had to bite back tears.
'What have I done?' he thought.
