In Another World

Gay Panic

Aki stared at his computer screen blankly, not taking in any of the words on the screen. He had been staring at this email for the past ten minutes. There was nothing wrong with the contents, it was simply that he couldn't focus for shit. There was a certain crimson-haired man that was continually plaguing his thoughts, making it so he couldn't work at all. He seemed to constantly invade his mind these days.

Angel was even haunting his dreams. In the latest dream, Angel had been about to get caught up in a typhoon, getting caught up in the storm and almost killed. Aki had grabbed onto his shirt, and Angel begged him to let him go. He wanted to die so badly. Aki's grip slipped, and for an instant, he almost thought about letting the angel lookalike die. However, there was a single lifeline: his hand.

Aki had grabbed onto his hand, despite knowing that it would take time off his lifespan. After he pulled him into safety, Angel demanded to know what he was doing, and if he wanted to die. Aki said that he didn't, and he truly didn't. But he didn't want Angel to die, not in front of him. And that was half true. He didn't want Angel to die at all. And despite the dangerous circumstances, when he was holding the redhead, he had felt something quietly flutter in his stomach.

It had been a month since the Hayakawa family moved into their new, much larger apartment, and since then, Angel had been on his mind daily. At first, he thought he was just concerned about the other man's weight and status as a shut away, and possibly he was interested in how pretty Angel was and what his gender was. However, these days, it had become clear to him that there was something else going on. Something was burning inside of him, unlike anything that had burned inside of him before.

He knew exactly what this was, but he didn't know how to approach it. Would Angel be okay with Aki coming to him? Was Aki prepared to try to date another man? Did Aki want to date another man? He wasn't sure of the answer to any of these questions and it was killing him. He couldn't stand being in this uncertainty any longer.

All he knew for sure is that he wanted Angel, in every sense of the word. He wanted to hold Angel's hand, to be beside him, to kiss him, to date him, to fuck his brains out until he was a complete and utter mess–okay, he was still getting used to that last idea. The rest of it he was certain of. And every day he seemed to be getting more and more okay with the idea of fucking a guy if that guy happened to be Angel.

Angel had come over for dinner four times, and they had gone out to get food two times. Tonight, they were supposed to go out to dinner as well. Aki was thinking they could get some donburi, and he could pretend that it was a date, just to see how it felt. He and Angel got along fairly well, and while Denji and Power were still getting used to the fact that somebody other than their friends or perhaps Himeno was in their house, they seemed to think that Angel was all right. Aki couldn't help but worry, however, that Denji was beginning to catch on to Aki's feelings. Once that happened, there was no way that Aki would ever be able to live it down.

Aki jolted as he felt a firm hand on his shoulder, looking up to see who it was. "God, Himeno, you scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry, sorry!" she said with a laugh, holding her hands up in surrender. "You wanna go on a smoke break? You've been staring at that same screen for close to half an hour, you know. I think you need it more than I do."

Aki cleared his throat, his ears warming up. "Oh, um, yeah, okay."

Himeno and Aki headed out of the office together, walking past a nervous Kobeni who was attempting to point out something on Arai's screen. Kishibe was not in the office today, so it was just the four of them. There were a couple of other people who worked part-time, but the five of them were the only full-time workers. Kishibe was technically their superior, however, he was drunk so often that it was a wonder he got any supervising done.