Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Angel has a reputation around campus.

A spoiled rich kid, a bad influence, a brat. The type who always has designer pills at the party; call for a good time. He's known for being messy, prone to getting into screaming fights, and leaving hearts broken and bleeding out on the floor.

Aki on the other hand has no reputation at all. He keeps his head down, takes the max amount of credits allowed, and gets the same coffee order from the same cafe every day. He's not unpopular per se, he's just not really in the picture. Like the curtain and trees lining the scene of a play, a decorative detail, only there to be overlooked.

Despite this, when the infamous Angel slides into the seat next to him (amongst dozens of empty seats) during his calc lecture, Aki doesn't react. Not even a blink.

He's taken enough negotiation classes to know that reacting means defeat.

The professor drones about imaginary numbers. The students listen to him or don't.

Sometime during the lecture, Angel asks him for a pen and Aki gives him one.

Class ends and then they leave. All without saying a word to each other.

—

They end up fucking at a frat party on a mattress in the attic.

The air is thick with the scent of sour beer and skunk-weed, shitty club music rattles the floorboards with its thumping bass. The door to the room keeps swinging opening followed by a shocked "Oh shit, sorry," before slamming shut again; partygoers looking for a bathroom and taken off-guard by the sight of Aki bending Angel in half on a dirty mattress on the floor.

Disgusting.

Angel only laughs as if it's some kind of grand joke. Although the situation is cliché enough to be one, Aki supposes. Two strangers meeting at a college party, not even exchanging names before taking off their clothes

"Calc three, right?" asks the redhead.

"What."

Which only makes Angel laugh harder.

Normally, Aki's quicker on the uptake. Except it's hard to stay cognizant with the two shots of cheap vodka burning in his gut and Angel's hand, slippery and wet on his dick.

"Calc three," Angel repeats, "you sit next to me."

You sat next to me, Aki wants to clarify but doesn't.

Instead, he makes a noncommittal noise that turns into a grunt when Angel's fingers slide against him, mapping out his length and flitting up to play with his pulled-back foreskin.

"Mm," Angel licks his lips, "I love an uncut dick."

Which is an absurd thing to say out loud. Comically whorish. A bad parody of cheap porn that makes Aki's teeth grit and balls ache.

"Get on your hands and knees," he basically growls.

Angel only stays sprawled on his back. His red hair drips in tangled cascades down his lily-white shoulders, perfectly framing his pouty lips and half-lidded eyes. It's a jarring juxtaposition. How pretty he looks against the grossness of their surroundings.

"Can't we just stay like this?" he asks, gaze turning to something sullen and molten as he settles even more languidly against the mattress.

Aki rolls his eyes. The fact that the man is a pillow princess is the opposite of a surprise.

Wordlessly, he flips him over, giving his ass a quick 'smack' when he wriggles and complains.

"Ugh," he grunts, "are you always this lazy?"

Angel just giggles (definitely, a brat).

"I'm too pretty for manual labor," he answers, fluttering his lashes for effect.

They end up fucking upright, with Aki holding his arms behind his back like a straight jacket. Like this, his chest keeps bumping into Angel's bony shoulder blades. It's annoying how the redhead makes no attempt to support his own weight, sitting back heavily on Aki's pelvis so that his ass crushes his balls when they slap togethering, cock pushing into him tootoo deep.

Angel talks like a whore, but he's tight like a virgin.

Aki can't decide if it's heaven or armageddon when Angel comes in a messy splatter against the mattress, walls clamping around him so tight it feels like it's ripping his dick off. A second later his body decides for him; Aki groans like an animal, hips stuttering as he fills up the condom with so much come it balloons up in Angel's innards.

His body goes boneless, limp and hazy, and when he lets go of Angel's arms, the man basically faceplants into the mattress. When he rolls to the side, he leaves a wet mark on the pillow. A soggy spot where he panted hard into the fabric, too mindless to hold back his drooling.

He watches Aki peel off the condom and tie it off, gaze heavy with heat as his lids go hooded.

"Hm," he grins. "Not bad, calc three."

"Aki," he corrects him for some reason. Aki doesn't have a reputation and he likes it that way, prefers it even. Except for some reason he wants to own this. He wants Angel to know exactly who left him a messed wreck on a stranger's dirty mattress.

Angel accepts the information with that same infuriating grin. Smug like a cat. He doesn't offer his own name in return; no doubt, thinking that Aki already knows it.

Which obviously, he does.

But still. It's the principle of the matter.

Already, his post-nut clarity is chilling to regret. He moves to pull on his boxers when suddenly the redhead opens his legs, delicate hand slipping down to that wet place between his thighs.

It's a surreal fever dream. The way he fingers himself so carelessly, touching at the spot where Aki was just buried balls deep as if he's curious about what he might find. When Angel slips a digit inside himself he sighs, melting in relief as if it's medicine for a wound.

Then, Angel smiles up at him, all guileless and innocent as if he's not spreading his legs and fingering himself open for the world to see.

"Nice to meet you, Aki," he purrs, "think you can go again?"

What an absolute asshole; Aki's already at half-mast.

He sits back onto his forearms, annoyed at the expectant look Angel's already giving him. He tilts his chin to a condescending angle, eyes narrowing to slits. "I'm not doing all the work this time."

A petulant sigh.

"Fine, fine."

—

Once again, come Monday, Aki finds the seat next to him being taken by a particular redhead.

"Um, look," Aki huffs, "do you think you can sit somewhere else from now on?"

"Holy shit," marvels Angel, ignoring him completely, "I didn't know you wore glasses."

A piercing migraine is beginning to form in his temple. A throbbing pain in his right eye that the doctors swore would fade with time but never has.

The professor trundles into class and starts his lecture. He writes out a long Laplacean theorem on the board, chalk screeching across the blacktop like a yowling cat.

Aki is very busy copying the equation (but mostly ignoring the man beside him) when a pink post-it note suddenly appears before him.

You look hot in glasses, it reads. A bright slip of neon that aggravates his retinas.

Aki rolls his eyes. Flips the note to the back and writes his response.

Angel's mouth moves as he reads it, expression betraying nothing as his eyes scan the looping scrawl.

Just to be clear, I'm not looking for a relationship and I think it would be better for all parties involved if we don't talk or acknowledge each other's existence. Thanks.

It's as final as final gets, and yet once again Aki finds a note being slid over to him, this time a jarring lime green.

It takes him a few seconds to realize the string of numbers is a phone number, followed by a cheeky, 'Now gimme yours'.

Hyper-aware of Angel's eyes on the side of his face, Aki crumples the note and drops it on the floor.

He doesn't move his eyes from the chalkboard, paying ruthless attention to the lecture. Less so for his own benefit and more so for a reason to not engage.

The professor finishes ten minutes over time. It means Aki needs to sprint across the quad if he wants to get coffee from the cafe that he likes before class. He packs up his things in a hurry except before he can sling his bag over his shoulder, he's being grabbed by the forearm and dragged out of the lecture hall.

What the–

Angel possesses surprising strength for the short scrawny pixie that he is. The bruising grip on his forearm leaves Aki stunned, dazed and confused as he looks up to find himself pushed into an empty bathroom stall, ass sat on the closed toilet lid.

"Angel," he expends considerable effort to keep his cool, "what the fuck are you–"

"You look sexy with glasses," Angel interrupts. His pupils are dilated as if he's just come back from a rave as opposed to a one-hour lecture on abstract theorems. "Like a hot librarian," he breathes, licking his lips.

Then, he drops to his knees, completely shameless as he rubs his cheek against Aki's thigh and says, "Let me suck you off."

"What."

Briefly, Aki wonders if he ever woke up this morning. He must have slept straight through his alarm 'cause this is clearly some type of messed up stress dream.

"Fucking stop!" he hisses when Angel's greedy hands get into his belt. "You're gonna get us expelled."

"Nuh-uh," Angel smiles against the seam of his boxers. It shouldn't turn him on so much, the sight of his sharp teeth so close to his growing hardon.

"Don't you know?" he murmurs while nuzzling into his crotch like a dog, "The graduate library has my last name on it."

It's disgusting how privileged he sounds. How privileged he is. Aki wonders how the school board would feel about this. He wonders what their reaction would be if they knew the heir of their biggest donor was on his knees begging for cock on the floor of the math building bathroom.

His eyes drop, taking in the sordid sight between his legs. Angel's spine is bowed, neck bared, looking up at Aki with glazed hunger, humid breaths panting wetly from his shiny lips. It suits him, really. Probably, he's done this before. A realization that should feel cheap and sleazy and yet for some reason it only makes Aki want it more.

Aki flicks his phone from his pocket, the background wallpaper flashing to life as he glances at the digital clock and does some quick mental math.

He looks down at the redhead.

"You have eight minutes," he tells him.

Angel makes a pleased noise, fingers scrabbling at the waistband of his boxers and freeing his fat wet tip.

Angel peers up at him, raising one brow, prim and challenging.

"I only need five," he says and Aki snorts.

As if.

They compromise at six and a half, then after a quick sprint across campus, Aki slides into his seminar, lungs burning, face flushed. He adjusts himself discreetly under the desk, hyper-aware that there are hints of Angel's saliva still clinging to his cockhead.

He never got his coffee. He's so fucking wired.

The guest lecturer starts their presentation and he sits through it absorbing absolutely none of it. Instead, he relives the memory of Angel's porn star lips wrapped around him. The kittenish choking noises he made when Aki grabbed the hair at the back of his head and pushed.

His leg jitters under the table.

He can't focus, can't think. Godamnit.

He pulls out his phone in the middle of class and sends a message before he can think better of it.

this is aki btw

—

"So, how's school?"

Himeno's voice crackles over his laptop speakers. Her webcam shows only the top of her head, the delicate arch of her nose covered partially by her eyepatch, and one piercing blue iris. He hears a rustle of her moving in the background, a sharp 'click' of a metallic lighter, and soon after a thick plume of smoke spirals through the frame.

"You shouldn't smoke indoors," says Aki as if he hasn't already said this a thousand times before.

"I have a window cracked open."

"It's still a fire hazard."

"Duly noted, Mr. Fire Marshall. Now answer the goddamn question."

Aki rolls his eyes, fiddling with the video settings.

Through the window of his dorm, he can see other students laying on picnic blankets and throwing frisbees to each other on a wide green lawn. His eye wanders back to the screen —to Himeno's pixelated face— and he wonders for the millionth time why he's even spending money on this shit.

"It's fine," he answers at last. "The workload is reasonable. I might do some independent research with my professor. My advisor said it'd look good on my grad school applications."

"Oh my god," groans Himeno, a slow look of horror creeping into her features.

"What?"

"Didn't anyone tell you?" she waves her cigarette around like it's a laser pointer, "College isn't for learning things. It's for meeting people. Friendships that last a lifetime and all that, yada, yada."

"I fail to see why that's true," says Aki, mouth hitching into a frown.

"Seems pretty shallow to me. Making friends just 'cause you happen to be stuck in the same place at the same time."

Himeno pauses to take a long drag from the filter. "Yikes," she sighs, "It's worse than I thought."

Aki scowls, pushing a hand through his bangs. "You know," he huffs, "you're kind of a shitty therapist."

"Well," she shoots back, "you're kind of a shitty patient."

Somewhere in the background, a timer starts to beep.

Himeno stubs her cigarette, yawning and then stretching her shoulders.

"Make sure to fill out the ‘feelings journal’. See ya next week, kid."

—

Aki's coffee order hasn't changed since high school. Iced americano, extra shot. Ice cubes pulsed to bits so he can crush them easily between his molars as he drinks. No sugar, no syrups, no milks. He wants to taste the bugs in the dirt that the beans were farmed from, the terroir if you will (except he would never actually say that unless he was looking to get beat up).

That's all to say, Aki is a purist.

So frankly, the caramel-drizzled, whip-creamed, monstrosity that Angel orders feels like a dozen slaps across the face. A thousand alarms blare in his head when Angel raises a spoonful to his lips. After all, he thinks with muted horror, what type of coffee needs to be drunk with a spoon?

"I didn't say you could sit here," grits Aki, teeth aching with phantom cavities.

Angel pauses mid-drink to look around the crowded cafe. He swivels back to Aki, eyes wide with an innocence that somehow feels deceitful.

"But all the other tables are full."

Aki fails to see when that became his problem.

It makes a vein throb in his forehead when he notices the dab of cream that's been left on Angel's bottom lip like some horny pinup poster. A calculated move that hits Aki straight in the groin.

In classic trendy cafe fashion, the table is uber small; his knee brushes against Angel's under the table causing a glint of mischief to gleam in the other man's eyes.

"This isn't a date, by the way," he feels the need to explain.

Angel finally licks the whipped cream off, pink tongue darting between his lips.

He levels Aki with a dry look. "You must be super fun at parties."

"I'm being serious," Aki takes a sip from his americano to soothe his unexplainable nerves.

"I don't do relationships," he states. Too many headaches, too many feelings.

Angel just rolls his eyes, huffing away a stray bang from where it's fallen into his face. "So we exchanged numbers and I licked your balls a few times. It's not like I asked you to marry me."

It's jarring, how crass the words sound coming from such a delicate doll-like face.

Angel puts a sticky finger into his mouth, licking the syrup off until it shines with spit.

Aki's eye twitches. "Don't be gross."

—

"Hey, did you get a girlfriend or somethin'?"

The question pulls Aki up short, causing him to freeze in the mirror while adjusting his satchel over his shoulder. In the reflection, he sees Denji sitting cross-legged on his twin bed. He crunches three pocky sticks between his teeth, uncaring as the crumbs rain down onto his sheets because he's a heathen like that.

"Um. What."

"A girlfriend," his roommate repeats, before wiping his hand on his pants and gesturing vaguely at something on his neck. Aki's eyes zero in on the spot; his mouth twists into a grimace when he sees the edge of the mark. A dark purple hickey right at the apex of his nape.

Ugh. That little shit.

"No. I didn’t," Aki grumbles, taking off his satchel again to find another shirt.

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me?"

"It's not just that, you know," Denji points a pocky stick at him accusingly.

"You've been way less pissy these last few weeks. And don't think I don't notice you leaving in the middle of the night. C'mon Aki, it's obvious what's going on."

"Is it now?" Aki replies sardonically. He can't wait until he can move into a single.

"No fair," Denji hisses, cracking the stick between his teeth, "does she have any cute friends? You better fucking introduce me."

For some reason that makes him pause. He doesn't really know anything about Angel's friends, an entourage of rich kids that follow him around begging for attention and favors like yappy dogs. When they meet it's always just them. They meet in empty classrooms, hourly motels. Liminal spaces that exist outside of time. That's all to say, he doesn't know much about Angel at all.

Other than him being a greedy cockslut, that is.

Aki shrugs, careful to keep his expression unchanged. "Dunno' what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh. Sure you don't."

He feels Denji's gaze fall heavy on the back of his head as he chews up his bottom lip, apparently deep in thought.

"Does she have big tits?" he finally asks, not even an ounce of shame in his expression, "What cup size does she wear?"

Aki can't help the bemused snort that escapes him. Angel's skinny as a twig and flat as a plank.

Of course, that doesn't mean anything when it comes to his sensitivity.

Quite the opposite, he gets needy as all hell when Aki flicks and bullies his nipples, whining and rubbing his hole all over Aki's erection like a bitch in heat. It's almost impressive. And given enough time, Aki's pretty sure he could make him finish off of chest play alone.

Something must show on his face because Denji's expression takes on a desperate edge. "C'mon, Aki, gimme something," Denji complains, "anything."

He's reminded once again that his roommate is the horniest thing he's ever met.

He examines his new outfit in the mirror. The jacket will make him sweat but at least it has a high collar to cover his neck.

"Like I said,'' he schools his grin into something neutral, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

—

The reality is, they can't keep doing it at school. A near-disaster in the shadowy stacks of the graduate library (although apparently not shadowy enough) has Aki finally agreeing to meet Angel at his apartment for a change.

Angel's apartment is the penthouse suite of a luxury complex about a half-block away from campus. An indulgent thousand-square-foot unit with heated floorboards, imported marble countertops, and top-of-the-line kitchen equipment (not that Angel knows how to use any of it). Aki takes off his shoes by the door, takes one step into the foyer, and says,

"Being this rich should be illegal."

Angel snorts. "It probably is."

He tosses his jacket carelessly over the couch. "That's why my parents have such good lawyers."

It's a special treat to bend Angel over that same expensive couch a few minutes later. Aki fingers him over the cushions until he screams, punishing his prostate until he makes a mess all over the italian leather.

They move to the bed without even stopping to clean up. Angel's eyes go droopy as soon as his head hits the pillows, always one to nap in the middle of the day without care that it'll ruin his sleep cycle. Aki, on the other hand, is a recovering insomniac.

Instead, he lets his eyes roam around the room, a maximalist mess cluttered with discarded designer clothes, battered makeup palettes, and piles and piles of books.

"Hey," he prods at the man next to him. "What do you major in," he asks, a bit surprised he doesn't already know the answer by now.

"Hm?" Angel rubs at his eyes, sending his bangs into a mess of flyaways.

"Physics," he eventually murmurs, "mostly quantum."

It's definitely not the answer Aki was expecting and for a few seconds, he can only blink in dumb surprise. "Actually?"

Angel glares up at him from his burrow in the sheets.

"Yes, actually," Angel pouts. "Why are people always surprised that I'm not dumb?"

Because it's unfair, thinks Aki, unbidden and full of spite.

People as beautiful as Angel shouldn't get to be rich and also capable. It's karmically unjust —like feeding a fat person a cheeseburger in front of a starving child. Aki moves to brace himself over the other man, trapping him between his arms, mood turning cruel.

Angel's eyes go wide, a rabbit sensing the hungry eyes of a predator on its flank.

"W-What about you?" Angel shudders, as Aki brings a hand up to his neck. He presses down just barely, using just enough pressure to feel the hummingbird tremor of the other man's pulse.

"Business," replies Aki, trying and failing to inject some gravitas into it, "and computer science, Double major."

"Ooh, smart,"

"Don't." Aki grits. He tightens his grip. "Don't patronize me."

Angel's neck goes brilliantly red under his fingers, lashes fluttering against his cheeks as his airways constrict.

He coughs wetly when Aki loosens his hold a few seconds later, breath wheezing raggedly between his lips, eyes newly moist with a dewy sheen.

"But…but Aki," he croaks, voice noticeably rougher, "you like me snobby."

Mouthy brat. Aki pushes his head into the pillows as punishment.

Predictably, they fuck again. Except for this time when Aki looks in the bedside drawer the condom box is scathingly empty.

"Fuck," he groans.

"A-Aki," Angel whines, "just do it. I don't care."

"I care," he hisses, pushing Angel back down so that his face plants into the sheets and his ass lifts into the air. He runs a hand up his shaky thighs. "Who knows how many people have been in this hole."

Said hole twitches hungrily at his words, glistening wet with lube and framed perfectly between Aki's big hands.

Angel rocks back on his heels, sobbing and whining as he tries to find something to fuck onto but ultimately fails thanks to Aki's iron grip.

"No one… no one else," Angel whimpers, voice thin and crackling with frustration.

Aki feels something uncoil within him. A serpent primed to strike. He yanks Angel's head up by his hair.

"Liar," he sneers darkly.

"No, no I'm not," Angel gasps, neck arching to relieve the strain. "I promise," he whimpers, a desperate edge creeping into his tone, "I swear."

How gratifying it is. To see someone so privileged, who's never wanted for anything, begging for him so pathetically.

"Hm," Aki murmurs, pinching at the delicate skin of his inner thighs just to hear him whimper.

"I don't believe you," he states at last, quietly satisfied when Angel sniffles loudly, hitching his hips harder and grinding his dick uselessly against the air.

"How could I? You're so desperate for it," Aki makes sure to give him absolutely nothing. "You'd say anything to get on my cock, wouldn't you?"

Something seems to break in the other man. He devolves into mindless wailing, face buried into the sheets as he shakes like a house on a broken frame. Aki holds him down by his tiny waist, anchoring him before delivering a sharp 'smack' to his right ass cheek to bring him back into orbit.

"Well?" he demands.

"I am. I am," Angel hiccups, sobs, cries. There's a wet spot forming under his face from his combined tears and slobber. "I'm a slut for your cock. So please, Aki. Please."

Maybe Angel's right. Maybe Aki does like it when he acts like a snob. He thumbs one tear away from the corner of his red cheek and examines it in the light before putting it in his mouth. After all, he thinks while savoring the salty burst on his tongue. It makes moments like these taste so deliciously sweet.

All at once, his own needs catch up to him. He hauls Angel up his body, lifting then crushing him against the headboard.

"I swear to god," he rumbles in his ear, gravelly and mean. "If you give me chlamydia, I'll fucking kill you."

Angel squirts the second Aki fucks his tip into him, little cock shaking where it's trapped between his stomach and the headboard.

"Oh shit," Aki grits his teeth, fighting to keep his eyes from rolling into the back of his head, "fucking… shit."

It's unreal how hot he is inside. Wet and slippery and tight, spasming around him and sucking him in like waves pulling swimmers beneath the undertow. Angel screams when Aki starts to thrust, shaking as his post-climax haze tips into painful overstimulation.

"Crying again?" Aki laughs, groaning a few seconds later when Angel clenches around him unbearably tight. They're so keyed up, wound tight, and hurtling towards the finish even though they've barely just begun. It only takes a couple more thrusts for Aki to feel the first signs of his orgasm building in his gut.

Aki forces himself in, hitching his hips to grind his dick in deep, and smacks at Angel's ass for good measure so that he whines and tightens up around him. He lets out the first few pulses inside, painting his insides and then pulling out halfway so that the rest of it splatters over the other man's inner thighs, the slope of his ass where one of the cheeks is already reddening up in the shape of Aki's hand.

He turns the man over, manhandling him so that he can admire the fruits of his labor. It's pretty. The sight of his come stringy between Angel's thighs, coating the divot of his ass and the smooth patch under his balls. When his gaze strays upward, his eyes widen when he finds Angel's cock already hardening up again, quivering pink and wet at the tip.

Aki can't hold back his laugh when Angel's face goes bright red with indignation, teeth digging into his bottom lip.

He thumbs teasingly along the slit. "God, you're so fucking easy."

Chapter Text

Himeno already looks disgruntled when her webcam turns on even though their session hasn't even started.

"Your mom called me the other day," she scowls.

"Um. Oh-kay?"

She puts an unlit cigarette between her lips and holds it there, as if momentarily too annoyed to proceed.

"She's worried about you," she finally says around the intrusion.

"She worries about everything," replies Aki.

Her bottom lip pinches as she sits back into the chair, every line dripping in disapproval. "Don't be such a thirteen-year-old," she gives Aki a dirty look, "it wouldn't kill you to text her every once in a while."

She leans forward to prop her head on a hand, something going muted in her gaze. "It's almost that time of year again, you know?"

Aki plays with the cuff of his sleeve, the cord of his charger, anything to briefly escape from this moment.

"Yeah, I know," he says after a bit, raising a hand to his temple where a dull pain has started to throb.

Himeno watches it all with a cool pixel-ey gaze. "Eye still bothering you?"

Aki blinks. "Yeah, sometimes."

She finally lights the cigarette, sucking in before exhaling a billowing cloud of smoke.

"Yeesh, I remember those days." She taps idly on the edge of her eyepatch.

"I swear, best day of my life was the day I cut this fucker out."

—

The story goes like this.

One morning, three years ago, Aki woke up to find that he was completely blind in his right eye.

He turned off his alarm, brushed his teeth, and calmly finished his breakfast. Then he asked his mom to drive him to the hospital.

The day was a crash course in ophthalmology. He learned that the retina is a thin strip of tissue covering the back of the eyeball except that his was slowly coming detached, not dissimilar to the last measly strip of toilet paper falling off the roll. The side effects? Headaches, dizziness, pain.

And most annoyingly, total loss of vision.

After the doctors explained all this and his mother cried a bucket load of tears, a highly experimental procedure was recommended.

"A sclera–what?" gapes Angel, eyes wide with morbid fascination.

"A scleral buckle," Aki sighs, propping his glasses on his head and wondering why he's even bothering to explain this to the other man.

Nevertheless, he goes through how his eye was surgically sliced open, the grape-like orb wrapped around with a piece of silicon and then stitched neatly in place.

"Kind of like a rubber band," he says. The idea is that silicon squeezes it all together, holding the detached tissue in its place with the hopes that it eventually heals.

"Oh my god," breathes Angel, volume barely that of a whisper, "that sounds gnarly."

"Very much so," Aki admits. Even more ridiculous is it actually fucking works.

Eventually, he got his vision back. Only sometimes he still feels a phantom pain. A vague throbbing that grows worse when he wears contacts which is why he still keeps his glasses handy.

Angel grows quiet at that, nibbling at his thumbnail, a nervous tic he only does when he's thinking. Aki knows this because whenever exam season comes around his ragged claws leave stinging red marks down his back.

"Can I…" Angel wavers, "Can I see it?"

"Um," the question takes Aki off guard, "no you can't see it, it's invisi–"

But Angel, the imp, doesn't even let him finish before grabbing his jaw and jerking him downward to bring him to eye level.

He moves their faces closer, so close that their noses kiss at the tips. Like this, he can feel every molecule of Angel's breath washing over his skin, hints of all the candy and sweet shit he gorges on settling into his pores like perfume. Angel's lashes are so fine that they're nearly transparent, only now does Aki notice the length of them as they flutter against the tops of his cheek.

He feels Angel's finger ghost over the hollow of his right eye before moving up the inner crease and then resting lightly on his lid. The skin is so thin there he can feel his pulse like it's his own.

"Hm," says Angel after a long pause, "I can't tell the difference at all."

When Aki's voice finally comes out, it's coarse as gravel.

"Let me go," he croaks, and when Angel doesn't move, "I can see your gray hairs."

"Shut the fuck up, no you can't."

But still, Angel runs to the bathroom, nearly hyperventilating as he searches through every strand.

—

It's a mid-sized student population and a campus that's far from gigantic. So really, it was only a matter of time before they ran into each other outside of the context of fucking.

As usual, Aki blames Denji.

It's the sandy-haired fool's fault that he's been dragged out to some rowdy tequila bar on a Thursday night, crushed between dozens of sweaty bodies all trying to grind on the next available ass.

The night only goes downhill when he sees a familiar face sitting at the VIP table. Angel must be wearing a shit ton of makeup because even through the crowded din of the club he alone seems to glow.

He shimmers in strobe lights, a glossy picture in a magazine, as he raises a shot glass into the air to toast with his glitzy friends. His entourage is forgettable as usual, a bunch of wannabes trying to keep up. One of which, Aki can't help but notice, has his dumb beefy arm slung casually around Angel's shoulder.

It's stupid —the sudden murderous urge that claws up Aki's throat— and when Angel notices him in the crowd, eyes going guileless and wide, he purposefully turns away, moving instead to the bar.

Surprisingly, he finds a familiar face in the line to order. Makima, an upperclassman in the business school, stands arched over her drink. An elegant curve against the bar counter.

"Aki," she smiles, and Aki feels his face go red. "I didn't know that you came out to places like this."

"I…" Aki stutters, feeling like a teenager all over again, "Er. Same."

She laughs, flipping a ribbon of hair over her shoulder. The motion reeks of sophistication, reminding Aki just how far out of his league she is.

"Well," she demurs, golden eyes glinting, "It's good to unwind sometimes."

Aki takes in her poised figure, the severe braid of her hair, the seductive yet calculating curve of her smile. A pulse of heat moves through him when she lifts her glass to her lips.

"Yeah," he replies dumbly, thinking that if this is Makima unwound, does he even wanna know what she's like on her guard?

Before he can come up with a smarter response, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He looks at the caller ID and winces.

"Sorry, I have to take this," he tells her before shouldering through the crowds to step outside.

He joins the night lurkers and the chain smokers on the ash-strewn curb. Even outside, the bass of the music is a blaring pulse, a loud deadening beat.

"Kid, what the fuck?" Himeno's voice crackles over the speaker.

Aki sighs, moving the phone farther lest he blow out his eardrums.

"So I guess you read the email."

"Yes I read it," Himeno growls, "And so, I repeat. Aki, what the fuck."

All things considered, this is going better than Aki had expected. After all, he hadn't exactly phrased it lightly in his email, the decision to permanently end their sessions.

"I just think we've reached a natural conclusion," he says patiently, putting on his best authoritative voice.

"Uh-huh" intones Himeno mockingly. She sighs into the line, the sudden exhale bursting into ear-crackling static.

"Look," she continues, "it is my professional opinion that ending your treatment is a bad fucking idea."

"Of course, you'd say that," Aki mutters. "I'm a paycheck to you."

A sharp intake of breath. "Wow, I'm insulted. You really think I'd stoop that low?"

The line grows silent.

Himeno grumbles. "Okay, fine. Fair. But I really really think you should reconsider."

"Himeno," Aki moves the phone to the other ear, massaging the furrow from his brow. "Look, I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. Really grateful. It's just—"

He pauses to stare down at the asphalt. Halo-ed in the streetlamps, his figure casts long wavering shadows.

"I'm just tired of rehashing the past," he says, goosebumps rising with the evening breeze.

From behind, the club music has switched to something synthy and electronic. It stutters in sporadic tempo, clashing with the rhythm of his heart.

"Oh Aki," he hears Himeno exhale softly, a sad drooping noise. Except before he can hear the rest, he's being grabbed by the shoulder and pushed against the brick alley wall.

Angel is a blazing figure in the lamplight; hair a wind-swept mess and eyes, watery and bright.

"Why are you ignoring me?" he demands.

"Aki?" the phone buzzes uselessly in his hand.

He brings it up slowly, pinned by Angel's gaze and feeling strangely incriminated.

"Ugh yeah," he says into it before hanging up, "I'm gonna have to call you back."

A wild forest-fire crackles in the depths of Angel's eyes, acrid with black smoke as he bares his teeth like a jackal.

"Who was that?" he spits. "Your girlfriend or something?"

This night has felt like years. Aki pockets the phone and sighs. "This is so incredibly unnecessary."

"Why were you ignoring me," Angel repeats, stomping his foot like a child and living up to his bratty reputation.

Aki levels him with a cool indifferent look. "I'm not your boyfriend," he says, unflinching, "The world doesn't revolve around you and I don't owe you anything. Grow up."

Angel's expression turns murderous. The type of look that says Aki would be getting a drink dumped on him right now if his hands weren't empty. He lowers his head, bangs falling over his eyes and hiding his expression from view.

"Mean," murmurs Angel, all the fight leaving him at once, "Aki is so mean."

"You like me mean," he sneers back. A garbled version of the same words Angel said to him what feels like centuries ago.

"Just for today," whispers Angel, "be nice to me, just for today."

"And why would I do that?"

"I'll let you do it without a condom."

"You already let me do that."

Angel whines, finally looking up to reveal the desperate glimmer in his eyes.

"Then fuck my tits. Come on my face. Whatever, I don't care. Just fucking prioritize me," he clings to his arm, tone turning needy. "Tell me I'm important."

They're starting to cause a scene; the other smokers and pedestrians turn to peer at them, silently judging what they see.

"Ok, fine," Aki snaps, "You're important. You're a very special boy. There. Happy?"

Angel doesn't exactly look 'happy', but he swallows his complaints looking subdued. He's mollified enough to follow Aki when he goes back into the club and accept the drink that he orders at the counter. A double shot, Aki tells the bartender. That should at least calm him down.

Somehow, another drink appears for the two of them. Somehow, Angel ends up in his lap.

Aki finishes the drink, letting the redhead sling his arms around his neck and dance (but mostly grind) in his lap to the beat of the music until he's sweating and wrung out.

After that, they go to a 24-hour convenience store. They pick up cigarettes for Aki and ice cream for Angel. They stand, not-quite-together but not-quite-apart in the fluorescent-lit parking lot, silently indulging their respective vices.

Aki swears he calls for a cab to take Angel home, but somehow they end up in the back alley behind the store, surrounded by old crates and shards of broken bottles.

Angel's legs are a dangling necklace around Aki's throat as he holds him against the graffitied wall, shirt front ripped open baring his nipples to the cold air. He works a palm between their bodies to unbuckle Angel's pants and wraps it around his exposed cock where anyone can walk in and see.

"I love you," says Angel when Aki finally gets a firm hand around his dick.

Aki pumps him dry just to see him squirm. He narrows his eyes. "Liar."

Angel gasps, throat trembling hard as Aki starts to jerk him fast and dirty.

"I love the way you fuck me," he finally amends and Aki laughs.

Now that's more like it.

"And what way is that?" he asks, thumbing at the head and digging in with just a hint of nail.

Angel shudders against him, eyes squeezing shut at the painful pressure and hair slipping over his face like a silken curtain. He swallows, throat bobbing visibly.

"L-Like you're punishing me," he breathes raggedly, "like you think I'm a bad person."

Aki takes himself out of his boxers, spitting on the tip and lining himself up.

He spreads Angel's rim with his fingers, pausing to watch it twitch. "You are a bad person," he says before shoving inside.

Angel's head thunks against the wall behind, a painful collision that will definitely leave a bruise.

"Aki," Angel whines, still hard even though it must be painful taking it dry.

"Kiss me," he whispers while grinding his hips, "Aki, kiss me."

Aki folds uncharacteristically fast. If asked, he'll blame the liquor. It doesn't resemble a kiss as much as a wrestling match with teeth and tongue. He bends Angel in half, thrusting his tongue into his hot mouth and licking every crevice.

He kisses him like it's a competition, slobbers into his mouth until he drowns in it. And then when they finally separate he spits to the side, a fat glob of saliva landing on the asphalt at their feet with a wet 'splat'.

"Uck," he grunts in disdain, still tasting hints of Angel's ice cream between his lips. The artificial sweetness is cloying on his tongue.

He's never been a big fan of dessert.

—

Aki goes home for winter break. A quiet town that's a two-hour train ride away from campus where everything still looks exactly the same and the people he grew up with never moved more than a half-mile away.

He eats dinner with his mother, weathering all her probing questions and drilling stares. Inevitably, the meal lapses into silence and it's a relief when she finally turns the TV on to the local news.

He reconnects with old high school friends, smokes their weed, and gets another ear piercing on a drunken impulse.

Send me a picture, he texts Angel during one particularly blurry night. Angel sends several. Some over-exposed shots of himself in the mirror and one closeup of the curve of his ass with just a hint of something red and lacy in the corner.

Most nights, he can't sleep, insomnia returning with devastating vengeance. Perhaps the issue is how quiet it is out here, or perhaps he's just grown too used to Denji's snoring.

During the dead hours of twilight, he sits outside on the juliette balcony. He holds a cigarette between his lips but the end is unlit because his mom would kill him if she knew. He looks up at the moon, a pale face amidst a wide sweep of stars.

It's so vast out here. So empty.

It couldn't be more different from the city.

—

Aki gets busy when the new semester starts. He's finished with his general core and his class load gets noticeably heavier. He's waist-deep into the meatier substance of his specialization which also means there's no longer a certain redhead sitting in his lectures.

He gets a message on his phone.

From Makima: still on for studying in the lib later?

His cheeks heat like a schoolgirl, heart making a melodramatic 'badump' in his chest. Now that he shares more classes with his senior he can confirm that Makima is, in fact, ten times the ruthless genius that the rumors say she is.

He shoots back a quick, 'definitely.' Pausing when he sees the clutter of notifications on his screen.

A missed call from his mother and a handful of messages from Angel. Messages he hasn't responded to since winter break, all loaded with a plethora of question marks and angry emojis.

He jiggles his leg under his desk, then he swipes on the contact info, scrolling then hitting 'mute'.

The icon turns gray and he considers it for a few moments before typing out a new message.

To Mom: busy with school. hope you're doing well.

—

Of course, it's wishful thinking to believe that Angel would just quietly take a hint. Aki wakes to someone banging on his door, a pounding thud that feels like it's splitting his head like a melon.

At first, he thinks it's Denji. It's probably the millionth time the idiot's lost his keys. Except he's abruptly taken aback when he opens the door to find a murderous redhead standing in the hall.

"Where the fuck have you been?"

Aki blinks. "Ugh. Hi."

Angel only glowers, "Hi." Then marches inside without being invited.

"Um," Aki scratches his head. He hasn't tied his hair up yet, so it tickles annoyingly against his neck and shoulders. "My roommate's probably gonna come back any second so you should probably just—"

The ensuing slap echoes way too loudly for such a tiny dorm room. Aki raises a hand to his cheek, skin prickling, where a slight red handprint is already starting to form.

Angel's open palm still hovers menacingly in the air. "You're such an asshole," he states.

Aki exhales slowly. "Okay yeah," he mutters, "let's just get this over with."

"What."

"Let's stop seeing each other," Aki stands taller, straightening his posture into something dignified.

"This isn't healthy. Whatever this is. It was a bad idea from the start."

It might be the most honest thing he's ever said. From the beginning, they were too dysfunctional to last.

Angel's pretty features turn ugly, curled tight in spitting rage.

"What's the matter now?" he scoffs, "Not attracted to me anymore? Got tired of fucking me?"

"Yeah, you got me," says Aki, voice dripping with cold indifference. "It got boring and now I'm sick of you."

Angel marches up to him and Aki prepares to be slapped again, but the man only stops a hand's width away, eyes roaming from head to toe.

"So," his expression morphs into a smile, disingenuine and sweet, "if I climbed onto your bed right now and begged you to rearrange my insides, you'd say 'no thanks'?"

"Yep," Aki swallows. For some reason, he doesn't trust himself to say more.

Angel's eyes flick downward, his expression turns smug when he finds something incriminating at the seam of his pants.

God, his dick is such a traitor.

"Oh Aki," he jeers mockingly, "who's the liar, now?'

Aki shifts away, hackles raised. "Okay whatever," he snaps, "Just because I think you're hot doesn't mean I wanna keep fucking you."

"Why not?" Angel demands pissily.

"Because this isn't normal!" Aki roars back, volume spiking.

"Normal people don't get off on being awful to each other. Normal people are nice."

In a parallel universe, he says what he really means.

If I was nice to you, would you still be so obsessed with me?

If you weren't so obsessed with me, would I even give a damn?

It's a hunger that never stops. A snake eating its own tail, craving and consuming until nothing's left.

"Oh this is rich," Angel laughs, a stark and unnerving sound. He crosses his arms, evaluating him like a piece of meat.

"Well, here's a newsflash for you, Aki. Maybe, you've always been awful," he sneers. Cold, cruel, beautiful.

"Maybe being with me just made you honest about it."

It must be opposite day, the day pathological liars preach the truth. It's hard to bear these wounds and Aki quickly feels himself shutting down.

"You deserve better," he murmurs, lying through his teeth.

"God," Angel hisses, "You're so full of shit."

He raises his palm again, and this time Aki's already anticipating the pain. They were always destined for impact. Two atoms accelerating towards each other, primed to collide.

Except then Angel drops his arm, hand hanging limply at his side. Something in his eyes goes dead.

"Fine," he says, voice dull as rocks, "Go fuck some frigid bitch. See if I care."

He moves past Aki, clipping him in the shoulder as he goes, and when Aki turns to follow he's greeted by the sight of Denji standing in the open door.

He looks dumb with his towel wrapped around his waist and shower caddy clutched in hand like a shield. His roommate's mouth gapes comically wide when sees the surprise visitor standing in the entryway.

Angel's stance is confident, unapologetic as if he owns the place.

"Move," he barks.

"Y-Yes sir!" Denji scrambles to obey.

Angel all but shoves past, but as soon as he steps into the hallway, he wheels back around, something manic gleaming in his eyes.

"By the way," he calls out, "when I told you I wasn't fucking anyone else, I was lying."

Angel has a reputation around campus. He'll kick you when you're down and laugh when he gets blood on his shoe.

"Also," he taunts loudly, "your dick isn't nearly as big as you think it is."

A fragile silence ripples through the hall as his stomping footsteps grow faint. Vaguely, Aki hears murmuring. Doors opening and curious heads poking out to see what all the ruckus is about.

Aki smears a hand across his face. He's only been awake for a few minutes and yet he's already so exhausted. Denji still stands frozen by the door, a picture of dumb surprise.

"Um," says Aki, "I can explain."

"You know what," Denji shakes his head, "I actually don't need to know."

—

Aki runs into Makima at the cafe while waiting for his americano. Her coffee order is sublime. Large drip, black as coal.

"I like this place," she says, tipping the cup to her lips. "You can really taste the beans."

"Right?" says Aki. He's never felt so seen.

It's a no-brainer to ask her to dinner. And then when that goes well, to an intimate bar afterward. Makima's drink order is similarly impressive. Whiskey, neat. Powerful yet seductive.

"It's funny," she says after taking two sips, "this is the part when I'd expect you to kiss me."

Aki coughs, spitting up his drink (an old fashioned), looking up at her flushed and dazed.

"I. Oh. Did I… did you–" he sputters, takes a deep breath, and tries again.

"I didn't want to presume."

She laughs. "Even though I've given you lots of reasons to?"

"I…" Aki shifts in his seat. For some reason it feels like taking a test he hasn't studied for.

"I just have a lot of respect for you," he finally replies.

As usual, Makima's eyes are intense, a searing gold brand against his face.

"I see," she says, and then finishes her whiskey.

Aki walks her home and they say goodbye on her doorstep. He's not even halfway down the block when he gets a text.

I think we should just be friends.

—

In hindsight, maybe he should have given Denji a heads-up before asking out the girl he's been openly crushing on for years. The resulting awkward conversation escalates into a screaming argument. It eventually gets so bad that the RA has to sit them both down to give a lecture on 'respecting quiet hours'.

"Aki doesn't have respect for anything except himself," seethes Denji, talking to Aki through the RA as if they're a couple going through divorce counseling.

Aki's head is pounding, his eye is vibrating in pain. He stands up, fists clenched at his sides. Why is everything so damn grating?

"I don't need this," he states before leaving.

He ends up at a bar with some people from his negotiations class that he never liked. Although judging by the way they order round after round of shots for him, this is a fact that they have yet to catch onto. The tequila burns on the way down but dulls his headache to a manageable hum.

A few hours later, it all ends up down the toilet.

He dry heaves over the bowl, distracting himself from the discomfort by meticulously reading every line of graffiti scrawled across the dirty tiles.

END THIS NIGHTMARE, someone's written in sharpie over the wall, the latter half of it covered up by an advertisement for teeth cleaning.

Aki stares at the scrawl, head swimming, tongue sour. Distantly, he wonders why everything eventually ends up graffitied, decrepit, or covered in piss.

Another round of dry-heaving pulses through him. A hot wave of pain tying knots out of his guts.

As he shivers on the floor, he wonders if there is a lesson to be learned here. A nugget of wisdom buried under all the shit. Maybe if he keeps throwing up, he'll get sober enough to find it.

He gags again, this time spitting up clear water.

Or at least, one can hope.

—

It's far past noon when Aki wakes up the next day. Denji's already gone and when Aki looks at his phone he sees a dozen missed calls from his mom and a single unread text. For a second, his heart jolts painfully in his chest but subsides quickly when he opens it to see that it's from Himeno.

Kid. r u ok?

It doesn't make any sense until he sees the date at the top of the screen.

He closes his eyes and folds the covers up over his head. He keeps it there until the air grows suffocating and thin. He counts to ten, then to twenty. Then he sighs, pulling back the blankets to get up and brush his teeth.

It's an hour-and-a-half train ride to the cemetery. Plus another half hour to stop by a convenience store and chug a liter of water for his pounding headache. When all is said and done, the sun is nearly setting by the time he gets to the graveyard.

He wanders through the tombstones by memory, stopping finally at a low squat square near the far left.

Taiyo Hayakawa, it reads.

He brushes away the leaves that have fallen over the grave, careful not to knock over the vase of fresh flowers that have been undoubtedly left by his mother earlier in the day. He adds his own offering to the collection. A choco-pie he got from the convenience store and a dented can of beer.

"Happy birthday, little bro," he says, feeling slightly ridiculous.

He would have been seventeen. The same age as Aki when he tasted beer for the first time because nobody who's anybody actually waits 'til the legal drinking age.

Aki opens his own beer and takes a deep slug from it despite the vicious hangover that prowls at the corner of his vision. He tries to imagine what it'd be like. Drinking with Taiyo. But all that comes up are memories of hospital waiting rooms, of IV drips and beeping heart monitors.

The beer is disgustingly warm.

He dumps the rest of it out on a dying patch of grass and wordlessly heads back to the train station. By the time he gets back to the dorms, the moon is hardening in the sky. Denji's bed still looks the same as it did this morning. Empty and unmade.

When he opens his phone, the latest message is the one he received from Himeno hours ago. He stares at it for a long time before typing a reply.

I forget what it was like before he got sick.

—

No one responds when Aki knocks on the door of Angel's apartment and it's a surprise, even to him, when some manic impulse compels him to try the handle.

Even more surprising is when the door swings easily open.

Everything still looks the same when he pads into the living room. Same heated floors, same kitchen, same couch.

It's like time hasn't passed at all and he can't explain why this hurts him a little; it feels like something ought to have changed.

The laptop chimes from the dining table, and Aki steps closer feeling like a guilty creep.

Well, he reasons. In for a penny.

He swipes a finger across the trackpad and enters the password he knows Angel uses for everything (orchid123) by heart. The screen flickers to life, showing a buzzing group chat. Little icons talking about some pre-game at some rando's apartment. For whatever reason, he clicks on the next tab. It's a google search results page except all the first few links have already been clicked.

It feels like something sharp is sawing through his ribcage when he chooses one at random and the link takes him to a video.

"rhegmatogenous retinal detachment scleral buckle procedure," it's catchily titled.

The footage is gruesome. A body under a white sheet hooked up to heart rate monitors and cryptic screens. Faceless gloved hands arranging surgical tools on steel trays.

"Blood pressure, normal," says someone off-screen.

"Scalpel," says another.

It feels like he's in a lucid dream when he watches the incision get made. Layers of tissue peeled back to reveal gray veiny flesh. He feels far away from himself, hazy and immaterial. It doesn't even fully register when a shadow approaches him from behind.

"What the fuck?"

He turns to find Angel in the doorway. He must have just come back from a party or a dumb event because his outfit is absurd. A loud patterned jacket and a mesh top that leaves nothing to the imagination. It's over the top and completely mismatching. It looks ridiculous and he's never looked better.

Aki is unexplainably short of breath when he tells him, "You should really lock your front door."

Angel's gaze hardens to steel. "I'm calling the police," he says, eerily calm.

On the laptop, the video continues to play. The incision gets cauterized and somewhere in the background, a machine goes beep, beep, beep. Aki looks at the screen, then at Angel. He takes a long trailing breath and says,

"Yeah, I missed you too."

—

They fuck right there on the dining table. Aki doesn't even bother to take any of his clothes off, too far gone with Angel's thighs circling his waist, heels digging into his spine as he spurs him forward whining, "Deeper, deeper, deeper."

The wooden table is probably uncomfortably hard against Angel's back. The nice danish carpentry groans and creaks as Aki lines himself up and thrusts inwards with reckless strength.

Angel whimpers, precome already leaking freely from his erection. It collects in the hollows of his stomach, some of it spilling over and dripping onto the wooden grain.

The Danish would be so disappointed. Except at this moment, Aki really couldn't care less.

He wants Angel, a screeching crying mess, wants to scorch this moment into his memory so that every morning when he sits to eat his breakfast he'll always taste hints of Aki's cock at the back of his throat.

Somehow, they make it to bed where Aki gets Angel to come two more times. He squeaks out another when they do it again in the shower.

"Even dogs in heat don't do it this much," he gasps into Angel's wet shoulder blades, voice echoing off the gleaming tiles amidst the sounds of dripping water.

Angel's thighs are shaking from holding himself up against the wall and Aki groans when he sees their reflection in the mirrored vanity. The hazy silhouette of Angel plastered against the wet transparent pane. The clear press of Angel's little dick against the glass, jolting and smearing against the fogged surface every time Aki grinds against the slope of his ass.

"H-Here, right here," whines Angel, reaching a hand behind to grab and spread himself, showing off his shiny pink insides. "Inside Aki, please. I need you. I need you."

Water cascades off his forearms and onto the knobs of Angel's spine. Nonsensical thoughts sputter through his sex-addled brain. Thoughts of licking up every drop and spitting it back into the other man's mouth. None of it is coherent. It's impossible to use reason when everything is so slippery and wet.

When his cockhead finally breaches, Aki nearly loses vision and Angel screams.

"Oh my god. Oh my god," he wheezes.

His spine bows as he fucks himself backward, fingers slipping on the glass like crutches on ice.

"H-Harder, Aki. Fuck me stupid," he wails. "Until I forget my own name."

Aki grits his teeth and pulls out completely, ignoring Angel's whining tantrum and shoving him out of the shower. He drags the angry wet kitten to bed, throwing him onto the sheets where he leaves a dark sopping puddle.

Angel's insides are still blistering hot from the shower when Aki fucks himself back inside. Their every movement makes filthy wet sounds and everything —the sheets, the pillows, the mattress— gets completely drenched.

"Tell the truth," he grits, fingers bruisingly tight on Angel's waist, "Did you really let other guys fuck you like this?"

Angel makes a muffled noise into the pillow and Aki wrenches his head up by the strands of his wet hair to hear his answer. Shivering lashes and glazed sex-stupid eyes stare back vacantly.

"N-No." His bottom lip wavers.

"Liar."

Guess some things never change.

He drops his head and, unsupported, Angel falls back onto the ruined bed with a wet 'splat'. He grabs onto the soaked pillows, holding them for comfort as Aki takes up a brutal pace.

"C-condoms," Angel cries inconsolably into the sheets, "they wore condoms… and I–I never let them come inside."

There's so much turmoil inside him. Jealousy and desire and hate and desire. It's disgusting how easily Angel brings everything out of him.

"Oh yeah?" he snarls, a familiar heat already building in his gut, "Bet they hated you for that."

He can tell Angel is close again by the way he's hitching his hips, pushing back to meet Aki's thrusts with so much force it causes his untouched cock to bounce and slap uselessly against his stomach. He scrabbles a hand around himself, squeezing tightly to stave off his orgasm and make it last.

"I… I–" he whimpers, eyes shiny with film, "I-I think they hated it more when I kept screaming your name."

Aki groans, movements stuttering, the words digging into his heart with poison-tipped daggers. He pistons inward so that he's balls deep, moving with so much force it crushes Angel deeper into the soaked blankets.

He covers him completely, encasing him like prey.

"Cheat on me again and I'll kill you both," he rasps.

He feels Angel's cock explode between them, come coating their stomachs in desperate shaking spatters.

Angel gasps wetly into his shoulder, tears leaking freely, no doubt over-heightened and overstimulated from all the rounds that came before. A few rolling grinds later, Aki feels the pins and needles run through him, teeth gritting and toes curling into sheets as he pulls out to spray his load all over Angel's heaving stomach.

Already, he can tell that this is a bad habit in the making. The urge to mark his territory like a dog. The satisfaction of seeing his mess spattered over Angel's skin, ruinous like spilled paint.

Everything is damp. Saturated wet and turning to a clammy heap in the stale evening air. Angel has broken out into a canvas of goosebumps, teeth chattering, Aki's come cooling to a sticky patch on his stomach.

"Tsk," Aki tuts in feigned disapproval, "you're such a mess."

Angel glares up at him, lashes clumped together with lingering tears. "Asshole," he quivers, "it's your mess."

Aki splays a hand over his marred skin, rubbing at the stain until it's tacky and dry.

He smiles to himself. Yeah, guess it is.

—

Aki wakes up to Angel fucking his thighs. His thin arms circle him from behind, bony hips smacking into his ass as he pushes his dick into the wet space between Aki's legs.

Angel gasps raggedly into his back, "Aki, ngh–Aki," he whines, pace growing ragged.

"Ugh," he groans, opening his eyes to see the head of Angel's cock appear and disappear between his legs. "How are you even human?" he mutters, still blinking awake.

Aki swears his dick has rug burn. Scratch that, all of him has rug burn. Every single part of him feels chafed and raw.

Angel's arms clench around him tighter. "Y-you're so hot, Aki—fuck, I'm so close, mhm– fuck.. fuck."

Wet heat paints the underside of his balls, dripping down his thighs and joining the rest of the mess that still coats the bed. Angel gasps languidly behind him, a breathy sound of relief.

"You're an animal," Aki grumbles when Angel wiggles a hand under his side to cuddle closer. Angel only giggles, the cold tip of his nose digging into Aki's spine.

"Did you mean it? What you said earlier," he whispers, "Would you actually kill for me?"

The mattress has been stripped bare, the wet sheets and blankets dumped onto the floor in glistening puddles. A cooling breeze comes in through the cracked-open window and already Aki feels himself falling back asleep.

"Fuck, no," Aki murmurs groggily.

But probably, yeah.

—

The next time he wakes, Angel is fiddling with something on Aki's phone.

"What are you doing?" he rumbles, voice still rough with sleep. Angel's eyes flicker downwards, a hint of wrath flaring in their depths before he moves to drop the phone onto his chest.

Aki blinks, looking down at the screen, and feels a bit chagrined when he sees Angel's contact info pulled up, still grayed out and undeniably muted.

Angel glares daggers at him, moody and pointed until Aki relents, gingerly pressing 'unmute'.

"Okay?" he asks, mouth twitching up into a humorless grin.

Angel only rolls his eyes. "Ignore me again and I'll ruin your life."

Aki can't help but laugh at this. After all, he does a pretty good job of that all by himself.

"I think my roommate hates me," he says when Angel gives him a prodding look in return.

Angel tilts his head, confused. "Don't all roommates hate each other?"

"Maybe," answers Aki, a wry smile on his lips. Except he might also be my best friend, he silently concedes.

"I'm starting to see my therapist again," he says instead, not even sure why he's admitting this.

"Mm," hums Angel, seemingly unsurprised. He crowds Aki's side, head dropping onto his shoulder to peer up at him with wide eyes and ask "Do you ever talk to them about me?"

"Ugh," it takes a few seconds for Aki to process the question. "Sometimes?" he finally answers.

Apparently, it was the wrong thing to say. Angel's expression turns petulant. "Only sometimes?" he pouts irritably.

Aki opens his mouth to reply but shakes his head when nothing reasonable comes to mind. "You're actually crazy," he grumbles in lieu of responding.

Angel giggles, a dizzying carousel of moods. He rises on his forearms to look down at Aki, the tips of his hair tickling the edge of his face. "But, you like me crazy."

Aki sighs. And that's the problem.

"Would you still like me if I was normal?" he blurts out before he can stop it.

Angel pauses at this, shooting him a genuine look of confusion.

Too late to take it back. Aki looks to the ceiling, chewing on the inside of his cheek before rephrasing.

"That very first day, when you sat next to me in class. Would you have said yes if I had asked you out normally?"

Angel's eyes get bigger before turning sly, "What's 'normally'?" he asks, a grin tugging on the corner of his mouth.

"Like, to coffee or some shit," Aki murmurs, face heating. "Or maybe dinner, then drinks."

"And then?" wheedles Angel, tone frustratingly smug.

Aki exhales noisily but keeps talking despite himself. "I'd try to compliment you, probably. On your shirt or something, but really I'd be thinking about how good your ass looks. Then I'd walk you home, maybe try to hold your hand, maybe kiss you. Normal shit."

Only privately does he admit that he would have definitely tried for a kiss.

He turns to look at the other man, noting for the first time, the light dusting of freckles on his nose.

His voice comes out just a bit rougher when he asks, "Would you still have let me fuck you then?"

Aki is a pragmatist, but sometimes he still wonders.

He wonders if somewhere out there, there is a version of them that works.

Angel's gaze is heated as he raises a hand to caress his jaw. "Of course, I would," he replies, sweet as cake.

"Liar," Aki mutters.

His coy expression curdles to something sour.

"I don't know, okay?" he purses his lips. "I don't know the answer to everything and it's hard for me to say."

Aki mulls this over, then sighs. "Yeah, I get it," he finally agrees.

It's a sentiment he understands well; sometimes his entire body feels like a graveyard of things left unsaid.

Angel's hand still lingers at the base of his throat. A finger comes up to trail over his lips, the arch of his nose, and then pausing to thumb gently at the crease of his broken eye. There is a strange quality to his gaze. Wavering and almost shy, if Aki didn't know better.

"But you know," Angel murmurs, "there's an easy way to find out."