Ryo followed Ohkura in the morning light and in the distance he could see the smog weighing down on the city, filtered orange by the awakening sun. He couldn’t remember much of last night, except that Ohkura and the night seemed to blend into one seamless entity. He remembered how he would close his eyes, body drained and tired, only to be jolted by a particularly bruising thrust. His eyes would swerve wildly across the room until they met Ohkura’s and Ohkura would fuck him. Slowly and forcefully, in a clear demonstration of his ownership as their eyes were caught in the deadlock, neither willing to look away and concede defeat. As always, sex with Ohkura was never just plain sex, it was a power trip, a game of dominance and Ryo’s defiance was his only defense. The one he clung onto when he was divested of all his clothing and spread eagled beneath him, knowing that Ohkura was taking in every heightened quiver like a latent predator.

This morning, Ohkura seemed to have a plan of his own and quite frankly, what plan, Ryo wasn’t sure he wanted to know. With Ohkura, it could be a flippant whim or it could be an ingenious plan months in the making. Ryo never knew. He was not an accomplice; he was at best, a minion and at his worst, he felt like a rag doll dragged on one too many adventures. A rag doll in which the stuffing was taken out and then carelessly sewn in, all without the oblivion offered by anesthetic.

Sometimes he wondered why Ohkura could seem to effortlessly engage in manipulation and deception without any apparent pangs of conscience, coupled with that callous disregard for others. These past few years, he had given up wondering. There were times when he simply attributed everything to Ohkura’s narcissistic arrogance, there were other times Ohkura seemed more like a child, the killings his very own way of assuring himself that he was special, and that he would never be caged by the moral boundaries of this world. But the one thing that had begun to plague his mind more often, like the wraith of a ghost, was why he had continued to accompany Ohkura on this journey, through the desolate lands Ohkura traversed with ease, through the madness and unpredictability, through the drab grays and viscous red. And now he realized that the trip to hell and eternal damnation didn’t come with a return ticket. And neither did his feelings for Ohkura.

And when he realized that he was back in the park where he had met Uchi Hiroki, something flared and then died inside him. Ohkura knew. He knew. And times like this, he wished he didn’t have his soul or the faint whispers of his conscience within him. He wished that those things he had long discarded, long bartered away for the one illusion of love wouldn’t come back to occasionally haunt them, as they did. Because he wouldn’t forgive himself, if Ohkura had somehow set his sights on Uchi Hiroki only because he had been irresistibly tugged towards him. Because Uchi Hiroki represented all that he could be, because somehow his soft eyes filled with regret awoke something in him and just for the moment, he could forget who and what he was. He stood there in the shade of the tree, with Ohkura, the laughter of children so incongruous with the thoughts going on in his head.

He watched Ohkura light a cigarette and he felt like an underdog being thrown into the ring with the full knowledge he was going to lose. And Ohkura simply waited, as though he had all the leisurely time in the world.

“I didn’t know you were into children now.” If anything, he was good at pretending. His voice didn’t waver and he didn’t have to look at Ohkura to know that his lips had quirked into an insouciant smile.

“Why, it doesn’t hurt to try something different once in a while.” There was no anger seething underneath, just a sentence delivered in a deceivingly genial tone. And it was as though Ohkura was anticipating something else, awaiting the grand unraveling of his plans and Ryo could feel the tension cutting into him like the serrated edge of a knife. When he saw Uchi making his way into the park, knapsack on his back, he knew Ohkura had made his point. And Ohkura stood behind him, both of their eyes trained on Uchi for very different reasons, as he made his way across the length of the park.

He could feel Ohkura’s breath on his neck, before his teeth dragged lazily across the wrought tendons.

“Maybe you’re getting tired of our little arrangement. And maybe I should expand my woeful social life.” He could feel Ohkura’s arm snaking around his waist, pulling him back into his embrace. “Just like you did.” The tone of his voice dipped into sweetness before his teeth clamped over the skin where shoulder joined neck. Somewhere in the vastness of the park, a child laughed and the peals of the laughter seemed to shift the tentative equilibrium in their relationship. Ryo turned to face Ohkura, shoving him back against a tree, into the dark impenetrable darkness of the shade where they would wage their war and fight their own personal demons unseen.

“Don’t you touch him. Don’t you dare touch him.” Those words escaped him in a vicious rush. He could see the tantalizing frailty of Ohkura’s neck exposed by the open collar, all he needed was to tighten his fingers and the gasps of air from his throat would fade into strangled gurgles. He knew this too well, had seen this scene played across their apartment so many times that it came frighteningly easy to him. And somehow in the back of his mind, he wondered whether Ohkura’s careless disdain for life had been somehow ingrained on him too, like a dark splotch of ink and the very weight of what he had almost done, what he was about to do steered him away from the edge. And when his fingers loosened, he watched the pained smile on Ohkura’s face but Ohkura didn’t make an effort to shift away. They stood facing each other, inches away, breath mingling and the tension wrought beneath the surface.

Ohkura cupped his chin and he leaned down, voice lowered to a malevolent whisper. “Look around you Ryo. This world with its laughing children and little family units of four and rules and dictations has no place for people like us. So don’t pretend you’re better Ryo. You’re not.” The last of his words rose in volume, and each word felt like something sharp knifed into him in a staccato rhythm to prolong the pain. And with those words, it was so easy to conclude the victor, as it had always been. For all his pretensions and hesitations, he had been one and the same, tired of this world’s mundane quests and worldly preoccupations. He had set out on this journey to find a purpose, a diversion but instead, had ended up losing himself in the labyrinthine darkness that straddled right and wrong, love and aversion.

“This was a test Ryo and you failed. You know, for a moment, I was afraid you wouldn’t.” Ohkura delivered the last of his verdict before he walked away. And he was like something inconsequential that Ohkura brushed aside as he straightened his clothing, free again to weave into the normalcy of the other, lesser, world. And Ryo realized he shouldn’t have cracked, shouldn’t have given Ohkura the satisfaction of any reaction at all, because he had given Ohkura the driving force for targeting Uchi. Because Ohkura only needed impulse or a sudden whimsical desire and that was all the justification he needed.

And no doubt, the stage was set, and he was the main draw, the one Ohkura was going to demolish bit by bit because in his world, that was the punishment for betrayals. And Ryo had to see this fight to the end, because of this shred of new-found morality he had to protect. Eventually, he couldn’t escape from the clichés of this world however much he wanted to, and he was only capable of destroying the people he loved and not much else.