The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 9 - Arata (Akihito)

What difference did it make that this prison was full of cushions to comfort him or that every so often he was asked to step outside to talk to his goaler? It was a cell, after all! A dark, cramped space from which he could not flee. What an irony that he had been put into this by the very man who kept claiming that he loved him.

'He will try to brainwash you again', Aaron had said, and Arata had promised him that he would not allow that.

No, he would not! Of this, he was certain. Aaron had been the only one who had treated him gently, and he could not disappoint him. He could not ever break a promise given to him.

Closing his eyes to trick himself into believing that the darkness in the cell was just the night in their Warsaw apartment, he tried to remember those few weeks they had been together.

But again and again, other pictures tried to edge in.

He knew it were all lies! It were all those illusions he had been made to believe into once. Still, they had not been fully overwritten. Still, he had to fight them to stay true to his word and to himself.

Sometimes he even hid his eyes between his hands, as if to increase the darkness but turn it into one of his own doing. The lack of light in the walk-in-closed had been forced upon him by others, but that one behind his eyelids and his hands was of his very own volition.

In that he felt it was easier to control the images flitting through his mind. But it was hard, nonetheless.

The worst was when he was somewhere between sleeping and waking. Then those illusions got mixed up, and so did the emotions they brought with them.

Then he sometimes saw himself in the arms of the Japanese, craving his touch and warmth, cuddling up to him as if only there he would ever be safe. And those big hands would keep him protected and guard him from all the harm in the world. They would not allow anybody to hurt him, to push him into a cell, to leave him in darkness. But all of that was a lie, he knew once he was waking. If that man had wanted to protect him, then why had he been in that cell of concrete and steel for months, and why was he in this one of pillows and wood now?

Other times he felt Aaron's hands caressing his back, while they lay on the bed in that old apartment. He had wanted to be there, that he knew, and he wanted to be there now as well. Nothing more than that! But then the shadows in the apartment seemed to spread and to draw near, and that darkness felt so very much like the one in his month's long prison.

When he woke from that nightmare, he would push his hands in front of his face again and hide his eyes and clench his teeth to seek for the truth that needed to be somewhere inside him. If he only could feel purely enough, untainted, he knew he could chase those shadows away forever. Whatever lies he had been told, whatever illusions he had been fed would be undone, and he would find verity finally. All questions would be answered, all doubts dissolved, all attempts of messing with his mind would not find any ground to spout on anymore.

Sometimes deliverance seemed so close by, as if it had snug up to him and was about to kiss his neck, but when he turned to see it or reached out to touch it, it just dispersed. He wanted to run after it, lunge himself at it to catch it, but he did not know how to.

And then the darkness of the cell was back – not the one of this warm, soft, clean walk-in-closet, but of the one made of concrete and cold and hurt and fear – and it made his limbs yield and his mind forsake, and whatever hope of finding the truth within was lost.

There was a quiet rattle on the door, as if somebody was tapping their knuckles against it faintly.

"Akihito?", the Japanese's voice was heard through. It sounded rough, like it had all those past days, but a bit more restrained.