[fic] Retribution Nine
I took a really long time to update, but I made it up in length. Enjoy.
Title: Retribution Nine
Rating: NC-17 (yes, NC-17 and no, they're not back together)
Warning: Oh hell...where do I begin? Adultery, intentionally lame intercourse...and I wrote A x A for the fist time in my life (ok, now is the time you run and save your sanity).
Characters: Asami x Fei (yes, by all means, stone me to death), A x A, Mikhail, OC (Vladimir Arbatov)
Spoiler: Spoiler for NT arc
Disclaimer: All characters belong to YA sensei.
Beta: angel0399
Previous Chapters: For new readers, 'Retribution' is the third arc of a Mik x Fei trilogy that I've suffered my readers with since 2007. In order to make sense of it I'm afraid you will need to read 'Cruel Intentions' and its sequel 'Revelation' before you begin 'Retribution.' All the links are organized on the side bar of my lj kajornwan along with the trilogy's one-shot fillers. Russian, Chinese, Polish, and newly added Spanish translations by readers are also found here. To make life even easier, a dear reader gryffin-draco has gone through the trouble of putting these in PDF files for download. Cruel Intentions and Revelation. Thank you so much sweetie.
Special thanks to sunflower1343 who helped talk me through the Asami part (even though it probably sucks still, I finally worked up the courage to write it out) ^_^
It was snowing the day his mother died. His father always said it was the cold that took her life. "That's why Alexei can never stand the cold," he claimed. While Mikhail was never convinced of the reason, that fact about his brother was undeniable. Alexei never did like the cold. As a boy he would spend all day in front of the fireplace during winter, doing absolutely nothing like a bear in hibernation. When he was old enough, he would jet off to a tropical island somewhere before it began to snow, returning only when the spring officially started.
‘What a shame’, Mikhail thought as he caught the falling snow in his palm. He wished it hadn’t snowed. Alexei would have liked to come home when it wasn't so cold, and that much he couldn’t do for his brother. Time was definitely not on his side, and he knew their father would never allow him to leave Alexei’s body anywhere but home.
Mikhail brushed away the snow that landed on the bridge of his nose. He could hardly feel a thing in this weather. The cold had numbed most of his senses and spared only the ones he wished it didn't. The growing weight in his chest didn't help either and only made it increasingly difficult for him to breathe.
He looked up at the house and held his breath as a familiar figure appeared by the window- his father had been expecting him. He had ordered all direct phone lines to be cut and made sure everyone understood that no one was to have direct contact with the boss. But Vladimir Arbatov had eyes and ears everywhere with or without the cooperation of his own men, and he wondered if his father already knew and was simply waiting for a confirmation from him. The thought made each step even more difficult than it already was, and by the time he'd reached the front door, it felt like he was dragging along the dead bodies of everyone he'd ever killed in his lifetime.
It would be the second time his father lost someone dear when it snowed, and he knew the memory of his mother's death would only add to the grief. Vladimir Arbatov had always been openly proud of his firstborn, but those who knew him personally knew Alexei was his favorite - one who had always managed to get a loving smile out of Vladimir and warmed his heart. And now that son is dead by the other's doing. What will his father say? Will he be mad, sad, or disappointed? He wished they had switched places. Alexei would know better what to say if it had been him lying in the coffin. Unfortunately, death was a luxury he couldn’t afford- not now anyway.
He dragged himself into the house and up the stairs to the second floor toward the library. The family's doctor, who had been waiting in the drawing room with two assistants, stood up to greet him. He nodded in acknowledgement and proceeded to the door. As hard as it was, he had always preferred to get things out of the way rather than carrying the weight on his shoulders. It was easier dealing with consequences. Having anxiety exhausted him more than anything.
The library was dimly lit that morning, as was always the case when his father occupied the room. Vladimir Arbatov prefers reading alone in the dark with just one or two lamps lit nearby, only that day he wasn't reading. Mikhail found his father standing by the window, his face concealed by the shadows that filled the room as if it was housing a hundred ghosts. The only thing visible was a pair of silver blue eyes that pierced through the darkness like those of a Siberian wolf. Mikhail hated seeing the glow in those eyes, he always had. It made him feel as though all his secrets and thoughts were about to be plucked out of him, with or without his consent.
"I thought you had died driving one of your stupid cars," Vladimir said sharply with no humor in his tone, his expression still well hidden from the light.
"Unfortunately, no," Mikhail replied, thinking to himself how it would have been a good way to go and if he would be fortunate enough to die without a single bullet in his body. Alexei should have had that luxury. Up until then he had nothing much to do with the family's business.
"I assume you’re here to explain why my phone lines have been cut and all my visitors have been turned away?" As always, Vladimir Arbatov never asks, he demands an answer and then puts you on the stand for judgment.
Mikhail swallowed the bile in his throat as the tension in that tone crept right under his skin - the way it used to when he was little and had been caught doing something inappropriate. “Dad knows everything”, Alexei used to say. “He knows everything but will make you confess anyway.” His father must have understood there were secrets everyone was keeping from him and realized it was significant enough to allow it to go on until his son decides to break it to him. He wondered if his father already knew and had been preparing himself for the confirmation. Or could it be that his father was just as vulnerable as any other man and had been trying to delay the revelation until the very last minute?
“Feodora is pregnant, you’re going to be a grandfather," Mikhail told him. Perhaps that fact would lessen the pain and give the old man the will to live. For a split second he thought those eyes had softened a little, but that softness disappeared much too soon than he'd hoped.
“The other news, Mikhail.” There was disappointment in the tone he used, and that deep, resonating voice trembled slightly as he spoke. Mikhail bit his lower lip as he realized it was a mistake. Vladimir Arbatov was no fool. The old man saw through him as if he was still six years old. All that revelation did was increase the intensity of the bad news to follow.
He stepped closer and took his father’s right hand in his, squeezing it tightly the way his father used to do for him whenever he needed assurance. Still, it wasn't the same. His hand was trembling, and it lacked the confidence and stability of his father's grip. He wanted to appear tough and reliable, but deep down he may still be the one whose hand needed to be held. Who was he kidding? By that time he had failed to keep the only man he'd ever loved, lost the only brother he’d ever had, and was facing the possibility of losing a father who was also the only family he had left. Even then, Mikhail knew he'd probably live through all this. But to what end? He asked himself. Is there anything still desirable in this world?
“They killed Alexei,” he said it as clear as he could to avoid having to repeat the words. It was a lie, but he had always been good at telling lies. The truth was he did it. He killed Alexei - through all the red signals he ignored, the warnings he decided not to listen, and through his father's attempt at preventing the foreseen tragedy that he stubbornly went up against in pursuit of the one man he knew from the beginning he couldn't have.
His father’s body swayed back a little before he quickly gained back control. Other than that slight gesture he seemed strangely calm - too calm for Mikhail's liking. Vladimir slowly turned back to the window in the way that made it impossible to see his expression. He stood looking out through the shower of snow without a word for what seemed to Mikhail an eternity before he finally decided to speak.
“Tell me how and why,” he asked quietly, but the way he said it felt like a death sentence to his son.
In a way, it might very well be his death sentence. After all, the hardest part wasn’t telling his father his favorite son had died, but precisely how and why he had to die. The answers to those questions were the hardest to give and even more difficult to swallow.
“There was an attack at my penthouse,” Mikhail replied after taking a long, deep breath. His throat went dry as he tried to explain what had happened while his mind continuously attacked him with the dreadful manifestation of the event he did not witness. “It wasn’t meant for him.” There it goes, the cold, hard edges of truth. “Fei Long was...there.”
That name seemed to be the last straw. He could sense his father breathing heavier and faster at the revelation from the movements of his shoulders. “Dad,” Mikhail said as he reached out to touch the wool of his father’s sleeve. Vladimir didn’t respond nor did he show any obvious movement, but Mikhail could feel the small yet violent tremble that prompted him to call for the doctor.
The team rushed into the room within seconds. As they tried to help, the old man struggled and angrily brushed them aside.
“Get away from me!” his father yelled at them. It was the first time everyone had heard him raise his voice that way, the first time they’d seen Vladimir Arbatov lose it. “I’m not going to die and give that backstabbing bastard the satisfaction!” he yelled again, slamming his fist hard against the desk nearby as he struggled to regain control of his collapsing body.
In all that chaos, Mikhail stood a few steps away, watching everything that happened as though the event had already taken place and he was seeing the replay of it all. He asked himself if he should be yelling, crying or feeling anything at all, but his brain didn’t seem to function. All he could feel was the familiar yearning - an unquenchable hunger that made the veins in his arm throbbed to be fed with something he knew would give him the way out of all this madness. Quietly he slipped out of the room without a single person noticing him leave.
***
Fei Long stood quietly in front of the door and took a long, deep breath before pressing the button on the intercom. A few minutes past with no answer but he continued to wait, knowing the apartment was occupied and that he was most likely being watched. He couldn’t blame them taking their time. After all he was the last person who should’ve appeared at their door and no doubt the most unwelcomed.
The door clicked open slowly and hesitantly, revealing the familiar face he had come to know and care for.
Takaba Akihito looked up at him as if he had seen a ghost before his expression changed to resemble someone who had been caught cheating. It was then that he realized the boy had opened the door for him without his lover’s consent, perhaps even without his knowledge.
“What are you doing here?” Akihito asked in a whisper. He didn’t quite know what to do, knowing that he couldn’t just leave the triad leader standing out there. On the other hand he wasn’t sure how Asami would react to the unexpected visit. It had to be unexpected- Asami would never invite Fei Long into his personal space to meet. The last time they met, they nearly killed each other.
“Is that the Japanese way of greeting a friend, or has he already infected you with his rudeness?” Fei Long replied with a smile. It was just like Akihito to go out of his way to avoid conflict. The boy had a good heart and it was a pity for him to be involved with the likes of Asami ... or him for that matter, he admitted.
“That’s not funny,” Akihito forgot himself and scolded the Chinese man. “You know he wouldn’t like to see you here.” If Asami knew…
“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” a deep, throaty voice sounded from behind and nearly made Akihito jump.
Fei Long looked past the boy’s shoulder and found the man he had come to see standing in the living room wearing nothing but a black terry cotton robe tied loosely at the waist. The image somehow gave him a hollow feeling in his stomach. He’d gone to the place knowing that they were living together, but somehow seeing Asami at home and at ease with Akihito suddenly made his throat constrict. He asked himself if it was because he’d never had the same privilege, or was it the underlying meaning that reopened his old wound. The answer was probably both, and no matter how much he wanted to deny it, this man still had power over him.
“I don’t remember inviting you here,” Asami said as he lit a cigarette. The expression on his face showed merely annoyance, nothing more.
Am I that insignificant? Or is he just pretending he doesn't care? Fei Long thought to himself,, despite a part of his conscience that told him to ignore such a reaction or the lack thereof. “I don’t remember inviting you into my life either. Let’s call it even, shall we?”
“I didn’t do it, if that’s why you’re here,” Asami said abruptly, exhaling the smoke from his lungs as he spoke. He’d been informed of the shooting at Arbatov’s penthouse and had somehow half-expected Fei Long to show up one way or another. The man liked to blame him for everything bad that happened whether or not it made sense.
Fei Long snorted at the remark. As always, the man had immediately assumed him to be that ignorant and stupid.
“What a pity you didn’t. I would have loved to see the Russians hunt you down.” If Asami had ordered the attack, Mikhail would have tried to kill the man faster than he could shoot heroine up his arm. If that ever happens, between Asami's calculating intelligence and Mikhail's unpredictable madness, he could never tell who would walk out of it alive.
“If it was me you would have been dead as intended," Asami smirked with the cigarette still hanging between his lips. "And it would have taken just one bullet." Fei Long should know it wasn’t his style to kill so loudly.
"Of course," Fei Long replied as he stepped inside uninvited and seated himself on the sofa, staring back into those golden eyes that grew more irritated by the minute. He had to admit there was a strange fulfillment to irritating Asami Ryuichi, and he was sure Mikhail couldn’t agree more. "You've always preferred a more personal approach."
“It was always business, never personal,” Asami declared as though he was speaking to a clueless child. At least it was what he wanted it to be, until Fei Long turned everything personal. “Why don’t you cut through the crap and get to the point, Fei Long? I have a life even if you don’t.”
‘The only reason I don’t is because of you, you selfish bastard,’ Fei Long thought of saying it out loud, but he hadn’t come all the way to Japan that day to fight. He’d come to leave something behind and move on.
“We need to talk,” Fei Long replied, ignoring the insult that the other man seemed to enjoy throwing in his face every time they meet. “Indulge me.”
***
The bar they’d picked was half empty - just like that night seven years ago when underneath his coat was a shirt ripped to shreds and his lips were bruised and bloody. How pitiful I must have looked that day, Fei Long thought to himself and allowed a faint smile to surface as he took a sip of his bourbon. He could still remember so much - the taste of alcohol mixed with blood in his mouth, the song that was playing while they talked, even the faint smell of Marlboro that came from the man sitting next to him. Apparently, that smell had not changed.
“How is Arbatov?” Asami asked. It was an attempt at killing the silence, although he had to admit he was also curious about how the Russians were holding up after the incident. There will be war, that fact was obvious enough to anyone with common sense. The question was when, and how he could profit from it.
The glass in Fei Long’s hand hung in the air a few seconds before he took another sip of the Bourbon. “Which one?” he asked as his lips stretched out into a rather pitiful smile. The name Arbatov brought back painful memories of not one but two men, and he felt like paying tribute to the one he’d killed.
“The one you’ve been fucking,” Asami replied with an edge to his voice. He didn’t like explaining himself. Apparently, as always, the Chinese man liked to create the occasion. It was one of the things that prevented him from looking at Fei Long as an option for a lover. The man would demand an answer or an explanation to everything, sometimes with his action, other times with just a look on his face. The idea alone made him suffocate. He admitted that physically it was difficult for anyone to not feel some kind of attraction toward the Chinese man. Fei Long was a picture of perfection that had excited him on more than one occasion in the past. But the emotional baggage that came with him was a nightmare to Asami. The man was a lot to handle, and he possessed no patience nor will to tackle the task, even if he had more than once played with the idea of having such a beauty in his bed.
Even now, that possibility still lingered like a stubborn stain that won’t wash off. As they sat having a conversation, Asami could feel himself being drawn to that smooth, elegant neck as Fei Long tilted his head back and his long, jet-black hair parted to reveal a generous amount of skin. The man looked at him from the corner of his eyes as he realized he was being watched and allowed it to continue without changing his position. Whether or not everything was intentional, Asami had a feeling soon he would need to rush home and ride Takaba until dawn.
“Haven’t you heard? I’ve been fucking both,” Fei Long said with a melancholic smile and a hint of guilt in his eyes. It was his scarlet letter, and somehow he felt like making a confession to someone, even if that someone was as far from being a priest as possible. On the other hand, he may have said it out of curiosity as to how Asami might react to such a statement.
For some reasons beyond his comprehension, Asami found himself frowning at those words. It might have been the way Fei Long said it, or the underlying meaning that, despite everything the man had done to make his life miserable, there actually were two other significant men in his life that irritated him to no end. It wasn’t jealousy - he knew that for certain. If anything, it may have been possessiveness. After all, he’d always had complete power over Fei Long’s emotions, but something about the man that day was proving him wrong. There was a sense of certainty about him that wasn’t there before. The lost and confused boy he knew seven years ago had turned into a man - confident, decisive, and not so easy to move, not to mention having the sex appeal to end all.
“Who you fuck is none of my business,” Asami replied sharply. “As long as you stay away from Takaba.”
Unexpectedly, the expression on Fei Long’s face changed slightly at the end of the sentence. For a moment Asami thought he saw the naive young boy he’d met seven years ago through those bright, amethyst eyes again. It brought back memories he didn’t like to keep - how he’d once allowed his emotions to interfere with work and ended up ruining everything - along with something that resembled a butterfly in his stomach.
“Is he really that important to you?” Fei Long asked, looking straight at him in the way that allowed no room for deception.
"Yes,” he replied. The boy was his sanctuary - a breath of fresh air he'd never had, and needed. Fei Long should know he would never run around rescuing people he didn’t care about.
"Was I?"
It was the kind of question that suffocated him like a noose around his neck. If there was anything Asami hated the most it was having to bare his heart. It was why he'd never committed to anyone in the past. Even now that he'd just admitted Takaba's significance to his life, he still had never been asked to commit. That was why he treasured the boy above others. Takaba Akihito had never demanded his precious space, in fact he had never demanded anything from him. There was no guilt, no restrictions, and no obligations being with the boy, all of which was always apparent with Fei Long, every minute, every day. The Chinese man liked to corner him, making him do things he would usually not do, and guilt him into explaining his actions. That night was yet another example, and he dealt with it as he always had in the past - he brushed it aside and demanded the subject be dropped immediately.
"Whatever I felt back then is finished. I don't see the point of digging it up again."
"The point is that it's not over for me," Fei Long replied and decided to finish his drink and asked for another. He needed the alcohol to keep his head cool and the truth flowing out of him. "Have you ever thought that I needed to know whether or not it was all a lie?" he asked, trying to keep his tone as even as he could. It was never a good idea in the past to bring in his emotions. They always ended up fighting or throwing words of insults at each other. That night he didn’t want to fight anymore, and he wished Asami would feel the same way.
“I need to know that I haven’t lost everything over a mere illusion that you felt something for me,” Fei Long continued. “You think everything is over the moment you left Hong Kong, that everything is finished when you say it is. There are consequences to every action and two sides to every story, Asami. It’s not finished. Not for me.”
There, he said it - the questions that had haunted him for nearly a decade. It was never about revenge - he was too smart to know Asami didn’t kill his father - it was always about finding closure. He could swear to his grave that he had been fooled and manipulated by Asami, that everything was all a lie, but there would always be a part of him that doubted it all. There would always be a part of him that believed it wasn’t all for nothing, that Asami did care, that it was possible for someone to see him for who he was and accepted him for it. That part of him had carved a hole in his chest that was as ugly as the scar his real father had inflicted, and it would never be filled until he knew the whole truth.
Asami twirled the glass in his hand as he listened before finishing his drink. He admitted he may have tried to take the easy way out and leave behind all the evidence of his failure seven years ago. He had sent Yoh to clean up his mess afterwards, to keep an eye on Fei Long and made sure he survived. The purpose was to have control over Baishe after Fei Long had returned to take over the triad, but it may have very well been an excuse he used to deal with the guilt of having messed up the young man’s life to that extent. After all, while he had all the secrets from within Baishe through Yoh, he’d never once made use of them. And now Fei Long was sitting next to him, demanding that he reopened the case and fix everything by telling the truth about his feelings back then. It was a simple question - one confession would have done the trick and he would be able to move on and finally leave everything behind. The only problem was, he did not know the answer, and perhaps that night there was a way to find out.
“Then let’s finish it,” he placed down the glass and rose to his feet. “Tonight, once and for all.”
***
Akihito found himself in the kitchen trying to chop up some vegetables for dinner as he accidentally cut himself. “Shit!” he shook his hand and cursed before he ran for the sink. Washing off the blood from his finger, his mind went back to the thought he had been trying to suppress the moment Asami had left.
It wasn’t the first time Asami had gone out during the night, and it was never a problem with Akihito. The problem this time was that he’d gone out with Fei Long. He had been told nothing about their relationship, and he’d never allowed himself to ask. As with everything else about Asami, he’d convinced himself that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t need to know, or that it was better to not know. While they were basically living together, the distance between him and the older man hadn’t decreased in any way. There existed a certain area in Asami’s life that was off limits to him and moving in with the man had changed nothing. Asami would keep him tailed at all times but would never get himself involved, and Akihito would never ask a question about the older man’s whereabouts because it wasn’t his business. It didn’t bother him that much to have that kind of relationship with Asami...until Fei Long showed up at their door.
He turned off the faucet and wiped his hand dry. It was still bleeding but somehow the pain he felt came instead from his wrist - where the mark of Baishe used to be. Asami had the tattoo removed a long time ago and the wound had already healed. But every once in a while he could still feel the sting that reminded him of the dreadful event. From what he knew, Fei Long had been fixated on Asami, perhaps even in love with him. And even though Asami didn’t seem to feel the same, there was always a certain bond between the two of them that anyone with eyes could see - the kind of bond and understanding he never had with the older man. He may be the one sharing Asami’s bed, but Fei Long was the one who’d shared a part of Asami he may never see. Yes, he was threatened by Fei Long. Who wouldn’t be? The man was sex on legs any way he looked at it, and Asami’s appetite for sex was beyond human. What if…
He sighed and looked at the digital clock on the wall. 11:45 pm. It had been four hours since they’d left. He wondered if they were still talking, and what they were talking about. Will Asami come home or will he spend the night in a hotel somewhere? Will Asami sleep with Fei Long? Would he ever sleep with someone else while they were in a relationship or has he? What bothered him wasn’t quite the outcome of the event, but the fact that, after all this time, he still could not answer any of those questions with certainty.
What am I doing here?
He closed his eyes and shook his head to be freed from such nonsensical thoughts. It wasn’t like him to be so dependent. He would not worry about something that hasn’t happened.
Or has it? Akihito asked himself as he took a glance at the clock again.
***
The chime of the elevator nearly made Fei Long jump out of his skin. Somehow he’d allowed himself to be led by Asami to a hotel room where they would have sex. After seven years of not knowing what the nature of their relationship was, he was about to be treated as the man’s lover for the first time.
As always, Asami glided out of the elevator in a cool, unaffected manner, as if what he was about to do was something as trivial as having dinner. Fei Long wondered if he was aware at all of the fact that he was about to cheat on Akihito. It probably didn’t matter to him. A man like Asami does what he wants, and anyone who has a problem with his actions will be eliminated from his life - the same way he was cast aside almost a decade ago.
Fei Long waited quietly as Asami inserted the key card into the slot. The light turned green quickly as if to prevent him from changing his mind. Asami opened the door with no hesitation, nor was he in a rush. If there ever was the need to rush, the man sure didn't show it.
As he stepped inside, Fei Long realized that it was just a standard hotel room. There was nothing fancy about it - no flowers on the table, no turn down chocolate on the bed - just a simple room for a single purpose of sleeping, or in this case, sex. Mikhail would have picked the best suite in the house where a bottle of champagne and a selection of caviar would await them. And while Fei Long had never cared too much about all those excessive luxuries, he also couldn’t deny the fact that it did make him feel special. With Asami, sex was just sex. It seemed to be something he does everyday like clockwork and nothing more.
Asami took off his jacket and placed it neatly on the desk before putting out his cigarette. Fei Long did the same with his without much reluctance. It may have been the alcohol that made him care less about the surroundings or his own image, or maybe he truly thought there was nothing more for him to lose. Somehow he was more anxious than excited about the idea of having sex with Asami, and instead of his heart accelerating at the thought, he found himself on the verge of suffocation.
There wasn’t a single noise in that room and he could hear every sound Asami made as if someone had cranked up the volume to the maximum: the shuffling sound of Asami’s clothes as he moved, the heavy yet constant breathing as he drew near, and the sound of his hair being caressed between the older man’s fingers. When Asami kissed him he didn’t blink or close his eyes. He wanted to see and feel everything the same way he did seven years ago.
The moment their lips touched, Asami paused for a second. The sweet scent of Fei Long’s hair gave him the confirmation that there was indeed a butterfly in his stomach, perhaps even several. Those soft, delicate lips were just as he remembered them, yet this time the kiss felt different. He had to admit to being genuinely surprised about the way Fei Long responded to the kiss, pushing his way through with his tongue as if he had been starved and wasn’t being fed enough. It was different when the man had kissed him on the casino ship. He didn’t feel anything then except maybe desperation. But that day there was an overpowering heat from Fei Long’s kiss he didn’t know existed - the kind of heat that sent a rather strong message to Asami’s groin. Someone had taught Fei Long to release his venom and it wasn’t him.
They made their way to the bed and he pushed the slender body onto the mattress, taking off his shirt as be straddled himself on top of the Chinese man. As he looked down, he saw Fei Long buried in the blanket, his form-fitting silk shirt stretched tautly against the muscles of his chest as if to test his patience. When he began to undo the buttons, the Baishe leader arched his back in anticipation and titled his head backwards onto the pool of his insanely erotic hair. It was then that Asami realized how it felt to be seduced. He had always been the one who initiated all the actions in the act of sex. That day he found himself doing precisely what Fei Long wanted him to do, and even knowing this, he couldn’t stop himself.
Seduced, Asami thought. Who was he kidding? One look at Fei Long’s expression - or the lack there of - and he knew the man wasn’t even trying to seduce him. It was the natural reaction of his body or simply the way he moved in bed. Even so, it was enough to make his groin ache and his cock weep. He bent down to lick the soft, pink nipple that stood erect and waiting the way he did seven years ago that made the man twisting and turning to the pleasure, only this time Fei Long responded by arching his back more and pushing his chest harder against Asami’s lips. It was as if nothing he did was enough - that Fei Long had expected more intensity, more passion. Just... more.
Fei Long held his breath when he heard the clinking of the belt buckle as it was tugged down together with his trousers. His cock twitched as Asami took it into his hand and began to stroke up and down his length, the same way he did that day. Back then it was the first time he had been touched by a man, and the unfamiliarity alone could have finished him off in just a few minutes. He suspected that it was the reason why this time he could not climax so easily. Somehow he found himself having to push harder into Asami’s grip to heighten the sensation and even then, instead of pleasure, he felt more and more suffocated. He told himself it was what he wanted and everything was right. But why does it feel so wrong?
When Asami entered him he could hear himself groan to the pain that ran up his spine. That was all there was - pain and discomfort. Soon, he found himself staring blankly at the ceiling - at their reflection in the mirror above. There was a stranger on top of him - a stranger with straight, black hair.
It should have been blond, and there should be curls that wrapped softly around his fingers when he touched it. It should have been...
“Fei Long?” Asami stopped as he saw the Chinese man’s face. Fei Long was lying on his back staring at the ceiling with tears running down his cheeks.
“I don’t want this,” he said as he covered his eyes with the back of his forearm to hide the tears, but the way his voice trembled made all his efforts go to waste. “I want him.”
After all this time he thought he still had feelings for Asami. After all this time he thought this was what he wanted. But now that the man had accepted him it did nothing to fill the hole in his heart. He was never in love with Asami - he knew that now. He was in love with a ghost - an illusion of a man he’d created to have someone to cling to, and he had placed that image upon Asami and refused to see the truth for seven years. He had taken Asami’s kindness and turned it into something it wasn’t, and when everything crumbled to the ground he’d blamed it on the man because he couldn’t live with his own failure. His father died because he was never strong enough to stand up to Yan Tzui. He had been shot because of his incompetence. Everything he’d come to believe had been illusions his mind conveniently created.
The only thing that has been real was Mikhail.
Asami closed his eyes and sighed as he rose from the bed to get a cigarette. It was one thing being turned down in the middle of sex, but failing to compete with another man-intentional or not- in the act of having sex was an entirely different blow to his ego altogether. But the way Fei Long looked that day told him it wasn’t at all about skills. He had been held with emotions. It was the kind of pleasure Fei Long needed the most that he could never give - being loved. And in that aspect, to Fei Long, even he knew Mikhail Arbatov wins hands down. Now that Fei Long seemed to realize that too, he had a feeling he no longer had to worry about the Baishe leader interfering with his life anymore. That thought brought a rare smile to his face, and he immediately felt like going home.
“I’m sorry,” Fei Long said. “For everything.”
“Why don’t you sleep it off for the night,” Asami suggested as he dressed himself. “I have some place else to be.”
“Tell Akihito I’ll make it up to him.” He owed the boy a lot for this - for having led Asami to cheat on him and put their relationship at risk.
“I’m not a messenger,” Asami replied. “Tell him yourself.”
With his eyes still closed, he heard the door clicked open and Asami’s footsteps moving towards it. There was a brief pause before the door was shut.
“And Fei Long,” Asami called.
“What?” he asked.
“I did care.”
Under the shadow of his forearm that covered most of his face, Fei Long’s lips curved up into a smile.
I know.
***
When Asami opened the door he found the boy sleeping on the sofa, still in the same clothes he wore before he’d left. He stood over his lover quietly for a few seconds, thinking how Takaba must have troubled himself all night over the fact that he’d left with Fei Long, or else he would have been sleeping soundly on the bed as usual every time he came home that late. Akihito was jealous, and that pleased him.
He leaned forward and took the boy in his arms to carry him to bed. It was then that Takaba woke up and looked at him with somewhat swollen eyes.
“You’re back?” Akihito asked, surprised. He didn’t know when he’d gone to sleep. He remembered waiting on the couch. He remembered thinking about Asami and … “Where’s Fei Long?”
“I got him a room,” Asami replied as he carried the boy into the bedroom. “He won’t be bothering us now.”
He sat on the bed watching Asami took off his clothes. He didn’t understand what it meant and he couldn’t care less. He was busy searching for some kind evidence on Asami’s body - any trace of him having been with Fei Long in an intimate manner. He could have asked, but if he had, would he receive a straight answer? And if he did, would he be able to handle the truth? Subconsciously he knew exactly how it would all end if he’d asked. Asami would have brushed it aside as usual and ride him into forgetting everything. It was for this reason that he’d kept his mouth shut, even though deep down he wanted to yell it in the other man’s ear until it did some permanent damage.
To his surprise, Asami turned around and seated himself on the bed, staring at him with a strange look on his face that Akihito had never seen before.
“Ask me,” he said.
Akihito looked back at him, dumbfounded. It had never occurred to him that Asami could read his mind or even cared to. And even if he could, he’d never expected the man to welcome such a question. But there he was, sitting next to him with a strange grin on his face, just waiting for him to pop the question.
“…Did you sleep with him?” he decided to ask as he covered half his face with a pillow, as if it would help lessen the brutality of the answer in any way.
“Almost.”
“What the hell do you mean almost?” This time he found himself yelling at the older man.
Asami rolled his eyes and shrugged with indifference. “He quit on me.”
The answer made Akihito’s face turn red all the way to his ears. “You mean you would have done it if he hadn’t. You bastard!” He cursed, throwing the pillow at Asami’s face and headed to the door with tears pooling in his eyes. He’d had enough of this - of being treated like some kind of pet Asami found amusing to come home to. He had feelings, damn it, even if the sex-obsessed robot doesn’t!
Just as he reached the doorknob, Asami yanked him back by the wrist and kissed him. There was something about the kiss that made Akihito pause and allowed it to go on, not that he would have any other choice if the other man decided to not give him one. There was no lust, no hint of the older man wanting to initiate sex as usual. It was as if Asami just wanted to kiss him, nothing more.
He broke away from the kiss and looked down, trying to avoid seeing those golden eyes that had always managed to erase everything that mattered to him, including his pride.
“Were you jealous?” He asked, as if it wasn’t an obvious reaction.
“Of course I’m jealous, you insensitive prick!”
Unexpectedly, a strange smile appeared on Asami’s face - one that softened Akihito’s heart and made the ache in his chest less painful. He’d never seen that kind of warm and loving expression from Asami before. Something must have happened with Fei Long, and perhaps it had something to do with “he won’t be bothering us anymore.”
The older man reached up to cradle Akihito’s face between his palms and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Well, I am with you, right here, right now Akihito.” This was his sanctuary, his home, and he would always come back here at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter if Takaba understood. He would never let go of this boy, ever.
Akihito cursed at himself in his mind. It was amazing how a few words from Asami could undo so much, or perhaps it was him who was so easy to sway. Whatever it was, it worked.
“What happened between you and Fei Long seven years ago?”
Asami smiled at the question and proceeded to undo the buttons on the boy’s shirt.
“Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you.”
***
Fei Long woke up to sunlight that nearly blinded him; he’d neglected to close the curtains the night before. He blinked a few times to adjust to the brightness of the room and looked at his watch. 9:45 am. It had to be a joke. He couldn’t have slept that long.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he studied his reflection in the mirror in front of him. He was still wearing the clothes from last night and his hair was a complete mess. He could never sleep comfortably under such condition. But last night, he slept well. There were no nightmares, no dreams, and he’d awaken with the kind of energy he’d not felt for a long time.
Looking around the room, he realized everything was the same only it wasn’t. There was a sense of tranquility in the air that heightened his senses. Everything seemed to look better, smell better, and feel better. The standard quality bed linen he was sitting on felt surprisingly soft and the sound of traffic on the streets below didn’t bother him like it usually did. Even the smell of someone else’s breakfast being rolled past his room made him hungry.
Fei Long rose from the bed and opened the curtains all the way, bathing himself in the warm, delicate sunlight. His body felt so light, as if he’d grown a pair of wings that could lift him off the floor anytime he wished. He didn’t remember the last time he felt this way, if he’d ever felt this way - that everything was as it should be, everything was all right, and he could breathe like he’d been given a pair of brand new lungs.
He pushed away the strands of hair that clung to parts of his cheek and rubbed his fingers on the side of his neck, giving it a brief massage while he stretched out his muscles. The reflection on the windowpane revealed the upper part of his chest where the bullet scar was. It used to make him wince every time he looked at it. Strangely, that day he could stare at it without feeling anything.
Fei Long took a deep breath as his lips curved up into a smile. That hole in his heart was gone along with the pain and the weight he’d been carrying with him for decades. He was alive, and he could feel himself living with every breath he took. And the first thing he wanted to do, the one thing he wanted to do the most at that moment, was to see Mikhail.
He went to the bathroom to wash his face. He didn’t want to waste time over a shower since he planned to take one on the plane. If he could take off before noon, he would be in Moscow by night. They could take a few days break, perhaps spend a night at the lake house, before returning to Hong Kong together.
Together. The word made Fei Long pause and smile to himself before he headed out the door.
A black BMW was parked near the hotel’s entrance. Fei Long looked at the license plate and smiled as he recognized it was the car he’d taken to Asami’s apartment. He could always count on Yoh to know exactly where he would be, even when he’d decided to be somewhere on a whim and couldn’t bother giving instructions.
“Take me to the plane. We’re going to Moscow,” he said as he stepped inside.
Fei Long didn’t notice how the man behind the wheel was a little bigger than Yoh, or that he was wearing a navy blue suit - not black. It had slipped his mind that Yoh would never park the car so close to the entrance, or that it was customary that his ex-right hand man should have noticed him first and opened the door for him. By the time Fei Long noticed the familiar, pungent smell inside the car and realized he’d walked himself into a trap, his consciousness was already slipping away.
***
A/N: I deserve rotten tomatoes, I know. But even then give it to me. XD First time I write A x A and I know I suck, but I figure many of you must have skipped it anyway lol. Still it was begging to be written. I'll be in Africa for about ten days a week from now with no internet connection. If I miss any comment and I haven't been eaten by a lion, I promise to come back to reply!
Title: Retribution Nine
Rating: NC-17 (yes, NC-17 and no, they're not back together)
Warning: Oh hell...where do I begin? Adultery, intentionally lame intercourse...and I wrote A x A for the fist time in my life (ok, now is the time you run and save your sanity).
Characters: Asami x Fei (yes, by all means, stone me to death), A x A, Mikhail, OC (Vladimir Arbatov)
Spoiler: Spoiler for NT arc
Disclaimer: All characters belong to YA sensei.
Beta: angel0399
Previous Chapters: For new readers, 'Retribution' is the third arc of a Mik x Fei trilogy that I've suffered my readers with since 2007. In order to make sense of it I'm afraid you will need to read 'Cruel Intentions' and its sequel 'Revelation' before you begin 'Retribution.' All the links are organized on the side bar of my lj kajornwan along with the trilogy's one-shot fillers. Russian, Chinese, Polish, and newly added Spanish translations by readers are also found here. To make life even easier, a dear reader gryffin-draco has gone through the trouble of putting these in PDF files for download. Cruel Intentions and Revelation. Thank you so much sweetie.
Special thanks to sunflower1343 who helped talk me through the Asami part (even though it probably sucks still, I finally worked up the courage to write it out) ^_^
It was snowing the day his mother died. His father always said it was the cold that took her life. "That's why Alexei can never stand the cold," he claimed. While Mikhail was never convinced of the reason, that fact about his brother was undeniable. Alexei never did like the cold. As a boy he would spend all day in front of the fireplace during winter, doing absolutely nothing like a bear in hibernation. When he was old enough, he would jet off to a tropical island somewhere before it began to snow, returning only when the spring officially started.
‘What a shame’, Mikhail thought as he caught the falling snow in his palm. He wished it hadn’t snowed. Alexei would have liked to come home when it wasn't so cold, and that much he couldn’t do for his brother. Time was definitely not on his side, and he knew their father would never allow him to leave Alexei’s body anywhere but home.
Mikhail brushed away the snow that landed on the bridge of his nose. He could hardly feel a thing in this weather. The cold had numbed most of his senses and spared only the ones he wished it didn't. The growing weight in his chest didn't help either and only made it increasingly difficult for him to breathe.
He looked up at the house and held his breath as a familiar figure appeared by the window- his father had been expecting him. He had ordered all direct phone lines to be cut and made sure everyone understood that no one was to have direct contact with the boss. But Vladimir Arbatov had eyes and ears everywhere with or without the cooperation of his own men, and he wondered if his father already knew and was simply waiting for a confirmation from him. The thought made each step even more difficult than it already was, and by the time he'd reached the front door, it felt like he was dragging along the dead bodies of everyone he'd ever killed in his lifetime.
It would be the second time his father lost someone dear when it snowed, and he knew the memory of his mother's death would only add to the grief. Vladimir Arbatov had always been openly proud of his firstborn, but those who knew him personally knew Alexei was his favorite - one who had always managed to get a loving smile out of Vladimir and warmed his heart. And now that son is dead by the other's doing. What will his father say? Will he be mad, sad, or disappointed? He wished they had switched places. Alexei would know better what to say if it had been him lying in the coffin. Unfortunately, death was a luxury he couldn’t afford- not now anyway.
He dragged himself into the house and up the stairs to the second floor toward the library. The family's doctor, who had been waiting in the drawing room with two assistants, stood up to greet him. He nodded in acknowledgement and proceeded to the door. As hard as it was, he had always preferred to get things out of the way rather than carrying the weight on his shoulders. It was easier dealing with consequences. Having anxiety exhausted him more than anything.
The library was dimly lit that morning, as was always the case when his father occupied the room. Vladimir Arbatov prefers reading alone in the dark with just one or two lamps lit nearby, only that day he wasn't reading. Mikhail found his father standing by the window, his face concealed by the shadows that filled the room as if it was housing a hundred ghosts. The only thing visible was a pair of silver blue eyes that pierced through the darkness like those of a Siberian wolf. Mikhail hated seeing the glow in those eyes, he always had. It made him feel as though all his secrets and thoughts were about to be plucked out of him, with or without his consent.
"I thought you had died driving one of your stupid cars," Vladimir said sharply with no humor in his tone, his expression still well hidden from the light.
"Unfortunately, no," Mikhail replied, thinking to himself how it would have been a good way to go and if he would be fortunate enough to die without a single bullet in his body. Alexei should have had that luxury. Up until then he had nothing much to do with the family's business.
"I assume you’re here to explain why my phone lines have been cut and all my visitors have been turned away?" As always, Vladimir Arbatov never asks, he demands an answer and then puts you on the stand for judgment.
Mikhail swallowed the bile in his throat as the tension in that tone crept right under his skin - the way it used to when he was little and had been caught doing something inappropriate. “Dad knows everything”, Alexei used to say. “He knows everything but will make you confess anyway.” His father must have understood there were secrets everyone was keeping from him and realized it was significant enough to allow it to go on until his son decides to break it to him. He wondered if his father already knew and had been preparing himself for the confirmation. Or could it be that his father was just as vulnerable as any other man and had been trying to delay the revelation until the very last minute?
“Feodora is pregnant, you’re going to be a grandfather," Mikhail told him. Perhaps that fact would lessen the pain and give the old man the will to live. For a split second he thought those eyes had softened a little, but that softness disappeared much too soon than he'd hoped.
“The other news, Mikhail.” There was disappointment in the tone he used, and that deep, resonating voice trembled slightly as he spoke. Mikhail bit his lower lip as he realized it was a mistake. Vladimir Arbatov was no fool. The old man saw through him as if he was still six years old. All that revelation did was increase the intensity of the bad news to follow.
He stepped closer and took his father’s right hand in his, squeezing it tightly the way his father used to do for him whenever he needed assurance. Still, it wasn't the same. His hand was trembling, and it lacked the confidence and stability of his father's grip. He wanted to appear tough and reliable, but deep down he may still be the one whose hand needed to be held. Who was he kidding? By that time he had failed to keep the only man he'd ever loved, lost the only brother he’d ever had, and was facing the possibility of losing a father who was also the only family he had left. Even then, Mikhail knew he'd probably live through all this. But to what end? He asked himself. Is there anything still desirable in this world?
“They killed Alexei,” he said it as clear as he could to avoid having to repeat the words. It was a lie, but he had always been good at telling lies. The truth was he did it. He killed Alexei - through all the red signals he ignored, the warnings he decided not to listen, and through his father's attempt at preventing the foreseen tragedy that he stubbornly went up against in pursuit of the one man he knew from the beginning he couldn't have.
His father’s body swayed back a little before he quickly gained back control. Other than that slight gesture he seemed strangely calm - too calm for Mikhail's liking. Vladimir slowly turned back to the window in the way that made it impossible to see his expression. He stood looking out through the shower of snow without a word for what seemed to Mikhail an eternity before he finally decided to speak.
“Tell me how and why,” he asked quietly, but the way he said it felt like a death sentence to his son.
In a way, it might very well be his death sentence. After all, the hardest part wasn’t telling his father his favorite son had died, but precisely how and why he had to die. The answers to those questions were the hardest to give and even more difficult to swallow.
“There was an attack at my penthouse,” Mikhail replied after taking a long, deep breath. His throat went dry as he tried to explain what had happened while his mind continuously attacked him with the dreadful manifestation of the event he did not witness. “It wasn’t meant for him.” There it goes, the cold, hard edges of truth. “Fei Long was...there.”
That name seemed to be the last straw. He could sense his father breathing heavier and faster at the revelation from the movements of his shoulders. “Dad,” Mikhail said as he reached out to touch the wool of his father’s sleeve. Vladimir didn’t respond nor did he show any obvious movement, but Mikhail could feel the small yet violent tremble that prompted him to call for the doctor.
The team rushed into the room within seconds. As they tried to help, the old man struggled and angrily brushed them aside.
“Get away from me!” his father yelled at them. It was the first time everyone had heard him raise his voice that way, the first time they’d seen Vladimir Arbatov lose it. “I’m not going to die and give that backstabbing bastard the satisfaction!” he yelled again, slamming his fist hard against the desk nearby as he struggled to regain control of his collapsing body.
In all that chaos, Mikhail stood a few steps away, watching everything that happened as though the event had already taken place and he was seeing the replay of it all. He asked himself if he should be yelling, crying or feeling anything at all, but his brain didn’t seem to function. All he could feel was the familiar yearning - an unquenchable hunger that made the veins in his arm throbbed to be fed with something he knew would give him the way out of all this madness. Quietly he slipped out of the room without a single person noticing him leave.
***
Fei Long stood quietly in front of the door and took a long, deep breath before pressing the button on the intercom. A few minutes past with no answer but he continued to wait, knowing the apartment was occupied and that he was most likely being watched. He couldn’t blame them taking their time. After all he was the last person who should’ve appeared at their door and no doubt the most unwelcomed.
The door clicked open slowly and hesitantly, revealing the familiar face he had come to know and care for.
Takaba Akihito looked up at him as if he had seen a ghost before his expression changed to resemble someone who had been caught cheating. It was then that he realized the boy had opened the door for him without his lover’s consent, perhaps even without his knowledge.
“What are you doing here?” Akihito asked in a whisper. He didn’t quite know what to do, knowing that he couldn’t just leave the triad leader standing out there. On the other hand he wasn’t sure how Asami would react to the unexpected visit. It had to be unexpected- Asami would never invite Fei Long into his personal space to meet. The last time they met, they nearly killed each other.
“Is that the Japanese way of greeting a friend, or has he already infected you with his rudeness?” Fei Long replied with a smile. It was just like Akihito to go out of his way to avoid conflict. The boy had a good heart and it was a pity for him to be involved with the likes of Asami ... or him for that matter, he admitted.
“That’s not funny,” Akihito forgot himself and scolded the Chinese man. “You know he wouldn’t like to see you here.” If Asami knew…
“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” a deep, throaty voice sounded from behind and nearly made Akihito jump.
Fei Long looked past the boy’s shoulder and found the man he had come to see standing in the living room wearing nothing but a black terry cotton robe tied loosely at the waist. The image somehow gave him a hollow feeling in his stomach. He’d gone to the place knowing that they were living together, but somehow seeing Asami at home and at ease with Akihito suddenly made his throat constrict. He asked himself if it was because he’d never had the same privilege, or was it the underlying meaning that reopened his old wound. The answer was probably both, and no matter how much he wanted to deny it, this man still had power over him.
“I don’t remember inviting you here,” Asami said as he lit a cigarette. The expression on his face showed merely annoyance, nothing more.
Am I that insignificant? Or is he just pretending he doesn't care? Fei Long thought to himself,, despite a part of his conscience that told him to ignore such a reaction or the lack thereof. “I don’t remember inviting you into my life either. Let’s call it even, shall we?”
“I didn’t do it, if that’s why you’re here,” Asami said abruptly, exhaling the smoke from his lungs as he spoke. He’d been informed of the shooting at Arbatov’s penthouse and had somehow half-expected Fei Long to show up one way or another. The man liked to blame him for everything bad that happened whether or not it made sense.
Fei Long snorted at the remark. As always, the man had immediately assumed him to be that ignorant and stupid.
“What a pity you didn’t. I would have loved to see the Russians hunt you down.” If Asami had ordered the attack, Mikhail would have tried to kill the man faster than he could shoot heroine up his arm. If that ever happens, between Asami's calculating intelligence and Mikhail's unpredictable madness, he could never tell who would walk out of it alive.
“If it was me you would have been dead as intended," Asami smirked with the cigarette still hanging between his lips. "And it would have taken just one bullet." Fei Long should know it wasn’t his style to kill so loudly.
"Of course," Fei Long replied as he stepped inside uninvited and seated himself on the sofa, staring back into those golden eyes that grew more irritated by the minute. He had to admit there was a strange fulfillment to irritating Asami Ryuichi, and he was sure Mikhail couldn’t agree more. "You've always preferred a more personal approach."
“It was always business, never personal,” Asami declared as though he was speaking to a clueless child. At least it was what he wanted it to be, until Fei Long turned everything personal. “Why don’t you cut through the crap and get to the point, Fei Long? I have a life even if you don’t.”
‘The only reason I don’t is because of you, you selfish bastard,’ Fei Long thought of saying it out loud, but he hadn’t come all the way to Japan that day to fight. He’d come to leave something behind and move on.
“We need to talk,” Fei Long replied, ignoring the insult that the other man seemed to enjoy throwing in his face every time they meet. “Indulge me.”
***
The bar they’d picked was half empty - just like that night seven years ago when underneath his coat was a shirt ripped to shreds and his lips were bruised and bloody. How pitiful I must have looked that day, Fei Long thought to himself and allowed a faint smile to surface as he took a sip of his bourbon. He could still remember so much - the taste of alcohol mixed with blood in his mouth, the song that was playing while they talked, even the faint smell of Marlboro that came from the man sitting next to him. Apparently, that smell had not changed.
“How is Arbatov?” Asami asked. It was an attempt at killing the silence, although he had to admit he was also curious about how the Russians were holding up after the incident. There will be war, that fact was obvious enough to anyone with common sense. The question was when, and how he could profit from it.
The glass in Fei Long’s hand hung in the air a few seconds before he took another sip of the Bourbon. “Which one?” he asked as his lips stretched out into a rather pitiful smile. The name Arbatov brought back painful memories of not one but two men, and he felt like paying tribute to the one he’d killed.
“The one you’ve been fucking,” Asami replied with an edge to his voice. He didn’t like explaining himself. Apparently, as always, the Chinese man liked to create the occasion. It was one of the things that prevented him from looking at Fei Long as an option for a lover. The man would demand an answer or an explanation to everything, sometimes with his action, other times with just a look on his face. The idea alone made him suffocate. He admitted that physically it was difficult for anyone to not feel some kind of attraction toward the Chinese man. Fei Long was a picture of perfection that had excited him on more than one occasion in the past. But the emotional baggage that came with him was a nightmare to Asami. The man was a lot to handle, and he possessed no patience nor will to tackle the task, even if he had more than once played with the idea of having such a beauty in his bed.
Even now, that possibility still lingered like a stubborn stain that won’t wash off. As they sat having a conversation, Asami could feel himself being drawn to that smooth, elegant neck as Fei Long tilted his head back and his long, jet-black hair parted to reveal a generous amount of skin. The man looked at him from the corner of his eyes as he realized he was being watched and allowed it to continue without changing his position. Whether or not everything was intentional, Asami had a feeling soon he would need to rush home and ride Takaba until dawn.
“Haven’t you heard? I’ve been fucking both,” Fei Long said with a melancholic smile and a hint of guilt in his eyes. It was his scarlet letter, and somehow he felt like making a confession to someone, even if that someone was as far from being a priest as possible. On the other hand, he may have said it out of curiosity as to how Asami might react to such a statement.
For some reasons beyond his comprehension, Asami found himself frowning at those words. It might have been the way Fei Long said it, or the underlying meaning that, despite everything the man had done to make his life miserable, there actually were two other significant men in his life that irritated him to no end. It wasn’t jealousy - he knew that for certain. If anything, it may have been possessiveness. After all, he’d always had complete power over Fei Long’s emotions, but something about the man that day was proving him wrong. There was a sense of certainty about him that wasn’t there before. The lost and confused boy he knew seven years ago had turned into a man - confident, decisive, and not so easy to move, not to mention having the sex appeal to end all.
“Who you fuck is none of my business,” Asami replied sharply. “As long as you stay away from Takaba.”
Unexpectedly, the expression on Fei Long’s face changed slightly at the end of the sentence. For a moment Asami thought he saw the naive young boy he’d met seven years ago through those bright, amethyst eyes again. It brought back memories he didn’t like to keep - how he’d once allowed his emotions to interfere with work and ended up ruining everything - along with something that resembled a butterfly in his stomach.
“Is he really that important to you?” Fei Long asked, looking straight at him in the way that allowed no room for deception.
"Yes,” he replied. The boy was his sanctuary - a breath of fresh air he'd never had, and needed. Fei Long should know he would never run around rescuing people he didn’t care about.
"Was I?"
It was the kind of question that suffocated him like a noose around his neck. If there was anything Asami hated the most it was having to bare his heart. It was why he'd never committed to anyone in the past. Even now that he'd just admitted Takaba's significance to his life, he still had never been asked to commit. That was why he treasured the boy above others. Takaba Akihito had never demanded his precious space, in fact he had never demanded anything from him. There was no guilt, no restrictions, and no obligations being with the boy, all of which was always apparent with Fei Long, every minute, every day. The Chinese man liked to corner him, making him do things he would usually not do, and guilt him into explaining his actions. That night was yet another example, and he dealt with it as he always had in the past - he brushed it aside and demanded the subject be dropped immediately.
"Whatever I felt back then is finished. I don't see the point of digging it up again."
"The point is that it's not over for me," Fei Long replied and decided to finish his drink and asked for another. He needed the alcohol to keep his head cool and the truth flowing out of him. "Have you ever thought that I needed to know whether or not it was all a lie?" he asked, trying to keep his tone as even as he could. It was never a good idea in the past to bring in his emotions. They always ended up fighting or throwing words of insults at each other. That night he didn’t want to fight anymore, and he wished Asami would feel the same way.
“I need to know that I haven’t lost everything over a mere illusion that you felt something for me,” Fei Long continued. “You think everything is over the moment you left Hong Kong, that everything is finished when you say it is. There are consequences to every action and two sides to every story, Asami. It’s not finished. Not for me.”
There, he said it - the questions that had haunted him for nearly a decade. It was never about revenge - he was too smart to know Asami didn’t kill his father - it was always about finding closure. He could swear to his grave that he had been fooled and manipulated by Asami, that everything was all a lie, but there would always be a part of him that doubted it all. There would always be a part of him that believed it wasn’t all for nothing, that Asami did care, that it was possible for someone to see him for who he was and accepted him for it. That part of him had carved a hole in his chest that was as ugly as the scar his real father had inflicted, and it would never be filled until he knew the whole truth.
Asami twirled the glass in his hand as he listened before finishing his drink. He admitted he may have tried to take the easy way out and leave behind all the evidence of his failure seven years ago. He had sent Yoh to clean up his mess afterwards, to keep an eye on Fei Long and made sure he survived. The purpose was to have control over Baishe after Fei Long had returned to take over the triad, but it may have very well been an excuse he used to deal with the guilt of having messed up the young man’s life to that extent. After all, while he had all the secrets from within Baishe through Yoh, he’d never once made use of them. And now Fei Long was sitting next to him, demanding that he reopened the case and fix everything by telling the truth about his feelings back then. It was a simple question - one confession would have done the trick and he would be able to move on and finally leave everything behind. The only problem was, he did not know the answer, and perhaps that night there was a way to find out.
“Then let’s finish it,” he placed down the glass and rose to his feet. “Tonight, once and for all.”
***
Akihito found himself in the kitchen trying to chop up some vegetables for dinner as he accidentally cut himself. “Shit!” he shook his hand and cursed before he ran for the sink. Washing off the blood from his finger, his mind went back to the thought he had been trying to suppress the moment Asami had left.
It wasn’t the first time Asami had gone out during the night, and it was never a problem with Akihito. The problem this time was that he’d gone out with Fei Long. He had been told nothing about their relationship, and he’d never allowed himself to ask. As with everything else about Asami, he’d convinced himself that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t need to know, or that it was better to not know. While they were basically living together, the distance between him and the older man hadn’t decreased in any way. There existed a certain area in Asami’s life that was off limits to him and moving in with the man had changed nothing. Asami would keep him tailed at all times but would never get himself involved, and Akihito would never ask a question about the older man’s whereabouts because it wasn’t his business. It didn’t bother him that much to have that kind of relationship with Asami...until Fei Long showed up at their door.
He turned off the faucet and wiped his hand dry. It was still bleeding but somehow the pain he felt came instead from his wrist - where the mark of Baishe used to be. Asami had the tattoo removed a long time ago and the wound had already healed. But every once in a while he could still feel the sting that reminded him of the dreadful event. From what he knew, Fei Long had been fixated on Asami, perhaps even in love with him. And even though Asami didn’t seem to feel the same, there was always a certain bond between the two of them that anyone with eyes could see - the kind of bond and understanding he never had with the older man. He may be the one sharing Asami’s bed, but Fei Long was the one who’d shared a part of Asami he may never see. Yes, he was threatened by Fei Long. Who wouldn’t be? The man was sex on legs any way he looked at it, and Asami’s appetite for sex was beyond human. What if…
He sighed and looked at the digital clock on the wall. 11:45 pm. It had been four hours since they’d left. He wondered if they were still talking, and what they were talking about. Will Asami come home or will he spend the night in a hotel somewhere? Will Asami sleep with Fei Long? Would he ever sleep with someone else while they were in a relationship or has he? What bothered him wasn’t quite the outcome of the event, but the fact that, after all this time, he still could not answer any of those questions with certainty.
What am I doing here?
He closed his eyes and shook his head to be freed from such nonsensical thoughts. It wasn’t like him to be so dependent. He would not worry about something that hasn’t happened.
Or has it? Akihito asked himself as he took a glance at the clock again.
***
The chime of the elevator nearly made Fei Long jump out of his skin. Somehow he’d allowed himself to be led by Asami to a hotel room where they would have sex. After seven years of not knowing what the nature of their relationship was, he was about to be treated as the man’s lover for the first time.
As always, Asami glided out of the elevator in a cool, unaffected manner, as if what he was about to do was something as trivial as having dinner. Fei Long wondered if he was aware at all of the fact that he was about to cheat on Akihito. It probably didn’t matter to him. A man like Asami does what he wants, and anyone who has a problem with his actions will be eliminated from his life - the same way he was cast aside almost a decade ago.
Fei Long waited quietly as Asami inserted the key card into the slot. The light turned green quickly as if to prevent him from changing his mind. Asami opened the door with no hesitation, nor was he in a rush. If there ever was the need to rush, the man sure didn't show it.
As he stepped inside, Fei Long realized that it was just a standard hotel room. There was nothing fancy about it - no flowers on the table, no turn down chocolate on the bed - just a simple room for a single purpose of sleeping, or in this case, sex. Mikhail would have picked the best suite in the house where a bottle of champagne and a selection of caviar would await them. And while Fei Long had never cared too much about all those excessive luxuries, he also couldn’t deny the fact that it did make him feel special. With Asami, sex was just sex. It seemed to be something he does everyday like clockwork and nothing more.
Asami took off his jacket and placed it neatly on the desk before putting out his cigarette. Fei Long did the same with his without much reluctance. It may have been the alcohol that made him care less about the surroundings or his own image, or maybe he truly thought there was nothing more for him to lose. Somehow he was more anxious than excited about the idea of having sex with Asami, and instead of his heart accelerating at the thought, he found himself on the verge of suffocation.
There wasn’t a single noise in that room and he could hear every sound Asami made as if someone had cranked up the volume to the maximum: the shuffling sound of Asami’s clothes as he moved, the heavy yet constant breathing as he drew near, and the sound of his hair being caressed between the older man’s fingers. When Asami kissed him he didn’t blink or close his eyes. He wanted to see and feel everything the same way he did seven years ago.
The moment their lips touched, Asami paused for a second. The sweet scent of Fei Long’s hair gave him the confirmation that there was indeed a butterfly in his stomach, perhaps even several. Those soft, delicate lips were just as he remembered them, yet this time the kiss felt different. He had to admit to being genuinely surprised about the way Fei Long responded to the kiss, pushing his way through with his tongue as if he had been starved and wasn’t being fed enough. It was different when the man had kissed him on the casino ship. He didn’t feel anything then except maybe desperation. But that day there was an overpowering heat from Fei Long’s kiss he didn’t know existed - the kind of heat that sent a rather strong message to Asami’s groin. Someone had taught Fei Long to release his venom and it wasn’t him.
They made their way to the bed and he pushed the slender body onto the mattress, taking off his shirt as be straddled himself on top of the Chinese man. As he looked down, he saw Fei Long buried in the blanket, his form-fitting silk shirt stretched tautly against the muscles of his chest as if to test his patience. When he began to undo the buttons, the Baishe leader arched his back in anticipation and titled his head backwards onto the pool of his insanely erotic hair. It was then that Asami realized how it felt to be seduced. He had always been the one who initiated all the actions in the act of sex. That day he found himself doing precisely what Fei Long wanted him to do, and even knowing this, he couldn’t stop himself.
Seduced, Asami thought. Who was he kidding? One look at Fei Long’s expression - or the lack there of - and he knew the man wasn’t even trying to seduce him. It was the natural reaction of his body or simply the way he moved in bed. Even so, it was enough to make his groin ache and his cock weep. He bent down to lick the soft, pink nipple that stood erect and waiting the way he did seven years ago that made the man twisting and turning to the pleasure, only this time Fei Long responded by arching his back more and pushing his chest harder against Asami’s lips. It was as if nothing he did was enough - that Fei Long had expected more intensity, more passion. Just... more.
Fei Long held his breath when he heard the clinking of the belt buckle as it was tugged down together with his trousers. His cock twitched as Asami took it into his hand and began to stroke up and down his length, the same way he did that day. Back then it was the first time he had been touched by a man, and the unfamiliarity alone could have finished him off in just a few minutes. He suspected that it was the reason why this time he could not climax so easily. Somehow he found himself having to push harder into Asami’s grip to heighten the sensation and even then, instead of pleasure, he felt more and more suffocated. He told himself it was what he wanted and everything was right. But why does it feel so wrong?
When Asami entered him he could hear himself groan to the pain that ran up his spine. That was all there was - pain and discomfort. Soon, he found himself staring blankly at the ceiling - at their reflection in the mirror above. There was a stranger on top of him - a stranger with straight, black hair.
It should have been blond, and there should be curls that wrapped softly around his fingers when he touched it. It should have been...
“Fei Long?” Asami stopped as he saw the Chinese man’s face. Fei Long was lying on his back staring at the ceiling with tears running down his cheeks.
“I don’t want this,” he said as he covered his eyes with the back of his forearm to hide the tears, but the way his voice trembled made all his efforts go to waste. “I want him.”
After all this time he thought he still had feelings for Asami. After all this time he thought this was what he wanted. But now that the man had accepted him it did nothing to fill the hole in his heart. He was never in love with Asami - he knew that now. He was in love with a ghost - an illusion of a man he’d created to have someone to cling to, and he had placed that image upon Asami and refused to see the truth for seven years. He had taken Asami’s kindness and turned it into something it wasn’t, and when everything crumbled to the ground he’d blamed it on the man because he couldn’t live with his own failure. His father died because he was never strong enough to stand up to Yan Tzui. He had been shot because of his incompetence. Everything he’d come to believe had been illusions his mind conveniently created.
The only thing that has been real was Mikhail.
Asami closed his eyes and sighed as he rose from the bed to get a cigarette. It was one thing being turned down in the middle of sex, but failing to compete with another man-intentional or not- in the act of having sex was an entirely different blow to his ego altogether. But the way Fei Long looked that day told him it wasn’t at all about skills. He had been held with emotions. It was the kind of pleasure Fei Long needed the most that he could never give - being loved. And in that aspect, to Fei Long, even he knew Mikhail Arbatov wins hands down. Now that Fei Long seemed to realize that too, he had a feeling he no longer had to worry about the Baishe leader interfering with his life anymore. That thought brought a rare smile to his face, and he immediately felt like going home.
“I’m sorry,” Fei Long said. “For everything.”
“Why don’t you sleep it off for the night,” Asami suggested as he dressed himself. “I have some place else to be.”
“Tell Akihito I’ll make it up to him.” He owed the boy a lot for this - for having led Asami to cheat on him and put their relationship at risk.
“I’m not a messenger,” Asami replied. “Tell him yourself.”
With his eyes still closed, he heard the door clicked open and Asami’s footsteps moving towards it. There was a brief pause before the door was shut.
“And Fei Long,” Asami called.
“What?” he asked.
“I did care.”
Under the shadow of his forearm that covered most of his face, Fei Long’s lips curved up into a smile.
I know.
***
When Asami opened the door he found the boy sleeping on the sofa, still in the same clothes he wore before he’d left. He stood over his lover quietly for a few seconds, thinking how Takaba must have troubled himself all night over the fact that he’d left with Fei Long, or else he would have been sleeping soundly on the bed as usual every time he came home that late. Akihito was jealous, and that pleased him.
He leaned forward and took the boy in his arms to carry him to bed. It was then that Takaba woke up and looked at him with somewhat swollen eyes.
“You’re back?” Akihito asked, surprised. He didn’t know when he’d gone to sleep. He remembered waiting on the couch. He remembered thinking about Asami and … “Where’s Fei Long?”
“I got him a room,” Asami replied as he carried the boy into the bedroom. “He won’t be bothering us now.”
He sat on the bed watching Asami took off his clothes. He didn’t understand what it meant and he couldn’t care less. He was busy searching for some kind evidence on Asami’s body - any trace of him having been with Fei Long in an intimate manner. He could have asked, but if he had, would he receive a straight answer? And if he did, would he be able to handle the truth? Subconsciously he knew exactly how it would all end if he’d asked. Asami would have brushed it aside as usual and ride him into forgetting everything. It was for this reason that he’d kept his mouth shut, even though deep down he wanted to yell it in the other man’s ear until it did some permanent damage.
To his surprise, Asami turned around and seated himself on the bed, staring at him with a strange look on his face that Akihito had never seen before.
“Ask me,” he said.
Akihito looked back at him, dumbfounded. It had never occurred to him that Asami could read his mind or even cared to. And even if he could, he’d never expected the man to welcome such a question. But there he was, sitting next to him with a strange grin on his face, just waiting for him to pop the question.
“…Did you sleep with him?” he decided to ask as he covered half his face with a pillow, as if it would help lessen the brutality of the answer in any way.
“Almost.”
“What the hell do you mean almost?” This time he found himself yelling at the older man.
Asami rolled his eyes and shrugged with indifference. “He quit on me.”
The answer made Akihito’s face turn red all the way to his ears. “You mean you would have done it if he hadn’t. You bastard!” He cursed, throwing the pillow at Asami’s face and headed to the door with tears pooling in his eyes. He’d had enough of this - of being treated like some kind of pet Asami found amusing to come home to. He had feelings, damn it, even if the sex-obsessed robot doesn’t!
Just as he reached the doorknob, Asami yanked him back by the wrist and kissed him. There was something about the kiss that made Akihito pause and allowed it to go on, not that he would have any other choice if the other man decided to not give him one. There was no lust, no hint of the older man wanting to initiate sex as usual. It was as if Asami just wanted to kiss him, nothing more.
He broke away from the kiss and looked down, trying to avoid seeing those golden eyes that had always managed to erase everything that mattered to him, including his pride.
“Were you jealous?” He asked, as if it wasn’t an obvious reaction.
“Of course I’m jealous, you insensitive prick!”
Unexpectedly, a strange smile appeared on Asami’s face - one that softened Akihito’s heart and made the ache in his chest less painful. He’d never seen that kind of warm and loving expression from Asami before. Something must have happened with Fei Long, and perhaps it had something to do with “he won’t be bothering us anymore.”
The older man reached up to cradle Akihito’s face between his palms and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Well, I am with you, right here, right now Akihito.” This was his sanctuary, his home, and he would always come back here at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter if Takaba understood. He would never let go of this boy, ever.
Akihito cursed at himself in his mind. It was amazing how a few words from Asami could undo so much, or perhaps it was him who was so easy to sway. Whatever it was, it worked.
“What happened between you and Fei Long seven years ago?”
Asami smiled at the question and proceeded to undo the buttons on the boy’s shirt.
“Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you.”
***
Fei Long woke up to sunlight that nearly blinded him; he’d neglected to close the curtains the night before. He blinked a few times to adjust to the brightness of the room and looked at his watch. 9:45 am. It had to be a joke. He couldn’t have slept that long.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he studied his reflection in the mirror in front of him. He was still wearing the clothes from last night and his hair was a complete mess. He could never sleep comfortably under such condition. But last night, he slept well. There were no nightmares, no dreams, and he’d awaken with the kind of energy he’d not felt for a long time.
Looking around the room, he realized everything was the same only it wasn’t. There was a sense of tranquility in the air that heightened his senses. Everything seemed to look better, smell better, and feel better. The standard quality bed linen he was sitting on felt surprisingly soft and the sound of traffic on the streets below didn’t bother him like it usually did. Even the smell of someone else’s breakfast being rolled past his room made him hungry.
Fei Long rose from the bed and opened the curtains all the way, bathing himself in the warm, delicate sunlight. His body felt so light, as if he’d grown a pair of wings that could lift him off the floor anytime he wished. He didn’t remember the last time he felt this way, if he’d ever felt this way - that everything was as it should be, everything was all right, and he could breathe like he’d been given a pair of brand new lungs.
He pushed away the strands of hair that clung to parts of his cheek and rubbed his fingers on the side of his neck, giving it a brief massage while he stretched out his muscles. The reflection on the windowpane revealed the upper part of his chest where the bullet scar was. It used to make him wince every time he looked at it. Strangely, that day he could stare at it without feeling anything.
Fei Long took a deep breath as his lips curved up into a smile. That hole in his heart was gone along with the pain and the weight he’d been carrying with him for decades. He was alive, and he could feel himself living with every breath he took. And the first thing he wanted to do, the one thing he wanted to do the most at that moment, was to see Mikhail.
He went to the bathroom to wash his face. He didn’t want to waste time over a shower since he planned to take one on the plane. If he could take off before noon, he would be in Moscow by night. They could take a few days break, perhaps spend a night at the lake house, before returning to Hong Kong together.
Together. The word made Fei Long pause and smile to himself before he headed out the door.
A black BMW was parked near the hotel’s entrance. Fei Long looked at the license plate and smiled as he recognized it was the car he’d taken to Asami’s apartment. He could always count on Yoh to know exactly where he would be, even when he’d decided to be somewhere on a whim and couldn’t bother giving instructions.
“Take me to the plane. We’re going to Moscow,” he said as he stepped inside.
Fei Long didn’t notice how the man behind the wheel was a little bigger than Yoh, or that he was wearing a navy blue suit - not black. It had slipped his mind that Yoh would never park the car so close to the entrance, or that it was customary that his ex-right hand man should have noticed him first and opened the door for him. By the time Fei Long noticed the familiar, pungent smell inside the car and realized he’d walked himself into a trap, his consciousness was already slipping away.
***
A/N: I deserve rotten tomatoes, I know. But even then give it to me. XD First time I write A x A and I know I suck, but I figure many of you must have skipped it anyway lol. Still it was begging to be written. I'll be in Africa for about ten days a week from now with no internet connection. If I miss any comment and I haven't been eaten by a lion, I promise to come back to reply!