Ryo’s eyes fluttered against his cheek and he opened his eyes, his dilated pupils searching in the darkness that had now settled over the room. He drifted between sleep and awareness for a moment. He just had a nightmare. Ohkura whose eyes were boring into him and burning a hole through his heart. It scared him. Sleep had never been a reposeful affair for him, but he found that the omnipresence of Ohkura in his dreams was much more frightening than any of the screams from his victims that bounced off the walls and echoed in his ears during his sleep.

Then he felt something amiss. The telltale soreness between his thighs, the stickiness that was now dried and uncomfortable. He shifted a little. He just had a nightmare…..a nightmare that was, unfortunately, real. He closed his eyes again, willing slumber to claim him because he realised that whatever private bedlam his disturbed mind could conjure up paled in comparison to the mayhem and madness that inhabited his real world. A real world that trapped him in the culpability of his actions and left him with nowhere to escape.

A figure emerged from the shadows and Ryo knew it was too late to feign sleep. He observed his surroundings. Odd, he was no longer on the couch but on the bed in Ohkura’s room, the bedsheets tangled and strewn around his bare legs. He seldom entered Ohkura’s room. He had no interest to. Most of their killings were done in the basement which was soundproof. In a way, this isolated house had become their safe haven, a labyrinth and Golgotha of sorts which fostered the fantasies of an idle mind, fantasies which would eventually take shape and translate into sordid, grainy reality of their life.

Ohkura leaned down and he was so close Ryo could see the grey flecks in the chocolate taffeta brown of his eyes. Eyes that were mesmerising and beautiful, eyes that reminded him of an overcast sky when Ohkura was mad. Now they looked like a placid lake with a deceptively calm surface that hid the monstrous being underneath.

Ohkura placed his finger beneath Ryo’s chin and tipped his head up. Ryo yawned right in his face before burying his head right in the softness of the pillow. Ohkura wrapped his hand hard around the rise of Ryo’s shoulder, tugging his body up as the sheets slid temptingly down his body. There was a soft little hiss from Ryo and he raised his arm jabbing it hard into Ohkura’s rib. Ohkura smiled. He could already see the hairline cracks beginning to spread across Ryo’s previously impeccable and flawless mask. One more push, just one more push. The mask would splinter and Ryo would break.

He turned Ryo over onto his stomach and there was a snarl from Ryo. A jarring pain from his chin as Ryo slugged him unceremoniously with an undercut. Ohkura decided that he had enough of Ryo using him as a punching bag. He wrapped his fingers around Ryo’s nape, pressing his face down into the downy softness of the bed. He ignored the insistant protests from Ryo, the legs that thrashed wildly about.

He took the damp cloth and he wiped the tender undersides of Ryo’s thighs. He could feel the body jerk underneath him in shock. Feeling more than a little spiteful, he chafed the skin deliberately with a rough swipe. Ryo ought to feel honoured. For one thing, Ohkura despoiled virgins all the time and he sure as hell didn’t stay to administer such care and attention to the numerous nameless people who had shared his bed. Of course, this action could also be attributed to the sadistic streak inside him, the Machiavellian that dwelled inside him who rejoiced in reminding Ryo of his submission a few hours ago. Ohkura wasn’t one to live in self-deceit. He knew that an unlit inner realm existed inside him but he also knew that for all his remarkable ability to disassociate himself from the killings, he had one weakness.

The weakness who was now crying silently, wetting the rich hue of the bedsheets beneath him. Even in his tears, Ryo was obstinate. Ohkura looked at the unprotected puckered entry which had been sorely abused and the redness showed no signs of abating. He felt something akin to remote sympathy, so remote that it was like a slight pang that went as fast as it came. He slid his tapering fingers down the crack, feeling Ryo’s resistance at the indignity of the treatment. Then he pressed the pad of his finger down, feeling the little hole flutter from the intimate inspection.

Then he heard the little hiccup from Ryo. Ryo who always hiccupped when he tried to choke back his tears. And somehow it awakened something deep inside him. Something that had gone into deep slumber for so long, something that could only be summoned to life by Ryo. Then he withdrew his finger, leaning down to cover Ryo’s body that was shivering from the cold draft with the blanket.

Ryo wasn’t stunned by the uncharacteristic actions of Ohkura. His years of living with Ohkura’s unpredictability had him accustomed to it. Ohkura didn’t live by rules. In his world, the only rule that dictated his actions was himself and he changed them on a single whim or desire. Sometimes Ryo thought of Ohkura as a siren from the Greek mythology, one of those sea nymphs that lured unsuspecting sailors to their death. Now, cloaked in darkness, he looked like a demon from hell as he pounded a cigarette out of the cigarette box. Lifted it to his lips and he lit it with a deft flick of his lighter.

Long tapering fingers. Fingers that were capable of choking someone to death without guilt or remorse. The tip of the cigarette flared to life and Ryo watched the smoke drift languidly towards the ceiling and dissipate in the air. Fuck, his throat was dry and he wanted a stick too. Anything to stop his hands from trembling. It was a quick ticket to cancer and frankly, death was one of his least worries.

He stretched out his hand in silent request and he watched Ohkura quirk a brow upwards in mock enquiry. Asshole, Ryo cursed him inside his head and Ohkura’s lips tilted upwards in a lopsided grin that was at once alluring and terrifying in its beauty. He took a deep puff from his cigarette, making his way languorously towards Ryo. Ryo propped himself up on his elbow, preparing to take the cig from Ohkura when Ohkura’s lips pressed against his, delivering the smoke into his mouth. He could taste the acrid smell of tobacco smoke that was tinged with the intoxicating taste of Ohkura. Heady and arousing. Ohkura’s tongue swirled gently inside Ryo’s open mouth.

He hated Ohkura’s control over him. Hated him for making him want him despite his better rationale and then treating it as if it was nothing. He sank his teeth into the fullness of Ohkura’s lips and he tumbled onto the bed as Ohkura shoved him away.

“Damn you.” Ohkura whispered menacingly as he wiped the faint trace of blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand. Ryo ignored him. He licked the blood away from his lip with his tongue and he watched Ohkura’s slumberous eyes stalk that little movement of his tongue. Feeling a morbid sense of satisfaction, Ryo pulled the covers over his body.

“Get the hell away from me. If this is one of your mindfuck games, why don’t you try it with your nubile girlfriends?” Ryo said, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice. Ohkura lifted a brow in mock incredulity as he flicked the ash off the butt of his cigarette. 

“They’re nowhere as fun as you are.” Ohkura stuck out his bottom lip in a parody of a pout and Ryo felt the impulse to slam his fist into his face and break that pretty nose of his.

He told the truth. The others couldn’t come up with witty, sarcastic retorts. They couldn’t come up with caustic comebacks with the aplomb and blank poker face of Ryo that often leave Ohkura seething with rage. They didn’t dare to defy his wishes, not like a particular someone who would go out of his way to annoy him and then clock him on the head when he was pushed hard enough. He had never tried to analyse their relationship. It was dysfunctional, it was irrational and yet they were like two broken pieces of a pendant that fitted together. Only when they were together, were they truly complete.

“Or was the sex so good you’ve lost whatever is left of your mind?” As usual, it was verbal warfare Ryo resorted to, to protect himself.

“The sex was only passable.” Ohkura said with a little scoff as he walked out of the room.

This time, he lied.