The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 1 - Prologue

His mind and body burned.

Burned ...

... like his skin where it touched the other man's.

... like his lips whenever they kissed the other ones.

... like his eyes now that they could at last gaze at the body on top of him again.

All thoughts of rationalism and caution had melted away. All worry and premonition had boiled into nothingness and was swept away by the rush of his blood.

What remained was naught, but the vision of the boy above him, body naked, sweat on his skin – the sweat of both of them! Any hurt or frailty he had felt in the last few months was now past, all doubts and fears meaningless. His fingertips trailed across the young man's body like those of a blind man trying to read.

Feeling him again, touching him again: Akihito – it was like being reborn. Like those last 6 months – the five of not knowing and the one of not waking – had simply faded away. Time had stopped for them in that warehouse and only started to tick, tick, tick now once more.

Asami stared up into the other's eyes, into that smile engulfing him as if it turned into the very meaning why the universe did even exist.

It vanished in a flash. Akihito straightened up.

"Byebye, Asami-san", he said.

Lights from the city outside shimmered and reflected on the knife' blade, lifted high. It cut through everything.

Blackness and crimson drowned the world instantly. White noise became the only sound.

For an eternity.

For a split second.

He was hurt and weak, but his instincts and training had been too good.

When the room shifted back to reality, he found himself standing, one knee propped on the bed, one foot on the floor. The rug felt rough under his toes. That was the first thing he realized. Then came the chill of the room's air-conditioning hitting his naked, sweat covered body, followed by his ragged breathing and constricted throat. The hurt in his leg was back next, exactly where it had been for months now, and the pinching and aching of his still healing wounds. The bluntest pain, however, was the last: the deep cut on the back of his wrist, where the knife had hit him.

It lay on the bed now, a scarlet flower painted around it onto the sheets, but no hand holding it anymore. Asami grabbed it and flung it across the room, far from reach. That had been instinct as well.

Only then did he turn his eyes to the young man sitting on the floor between the edge of the bed and the wall below the windows, leaning against one of the nightstands.

His slim chest was heaving – maybe from sex, maybe from agitation, maybe in fury. His eyes that gleamed up at Asami exclaimed that it was the latter.

"What?!", was the only thing the man could find any strength to utter. His heart was beating against his rips and punching his lungs. It thrust the blood up into his brain so violently that it lit up the edges of his vision in crimson flashes.

"What the fuck?!"

"Fuck you!", Akihito barked in reply so loud his voice echoed back from the large windows and made the obligatory cheap copy of art in the large frame above the bed quiver. "You should die!"

"What is up with you?", Asami hissed back. He shot down and grabbed the other by his arm, pulling him up to look into his eyes, but Akihito clawed at him. Fingernails scraped across his face and drew blood. He let go and the boy fell back to the floor with an angry howl.

"I will kill you!", he spat from down there, and as if to prove his words true, he pushed himself up and threw himself at the man much taller than him.

Asami grabbed him again around both upper arms now. He gave him a hard shove so that Akihito's head flung backwards fiercely.

He howled again, half in pain, half in anger.

"I will kill you! You dirty bastard!", he screamed the moment Asami tried to speak to him.

"Akihito!", he called out, nonetheless, pushing the attacker down to the floor another time, but an instant later he was back up and had to be caught again, to hinder him in his outburst of violence.

"My name is not Akihito", the boy yelled. "My name is Arata, you fucking bastard!"

Fingers tore at the flesh of the man, wherever they could reach it, feet and knees kicked at him, but little did Asami care for all of that.

In the dimness of the hotel room, he could see only little of Akihito's eyes, but what he could observe of them ... in them made his heart suddenly stop, made his blood curdle in coldness and made all light around wither away.