hanafurirou book 1, chapter 4, third scene
...I've been... distracted lately, and thus not working on Hanafurirou. ^_^; Oh well. (I've had this scene almost completely translated for over a month... but...) Anyway, I'm feeling like Hanafurirou translation today, so I'm gonna try and finish up the last bits of the book as well, since I only have about 4-5 pages of Japanese text left to do. ^_^ (Besides, I haven't been spending anywhere near enough time in Japanese lately...)
So yeah, hopefully more in the next few days. (Possibly today, but I'm not making any guarantees.) For now, enjoy this fairly long scene with the truth finally coming out between our boys!
It was morning by the time the police and firefighters finally left the scene.
Fuki and Ouichirou returned to Hanafurirou, explained what had happened, and then finally retired to Fuki's room to relax. And, Fuki gave Ouichirou some first aid. Ouichirou's arms were covered in bruises and burns from knocking away the burning timbers before they could fall on Fuki, as well as the cuts from the glass Yamafuji had wielded against him.
"Make sure you go to the hospital later today, okay?" Fuki urged over and over again, since Ouichirou had insisted that his injuries weren't serious enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room. Fuki couldn't leave Yoshiwara, so he couldn't drag Ouichirou to a hospital on the other side of the gate.
"You're making too much out of this."
"But... this is all my fault... What if you end up with lockjaw?" Fuki said, almost in tears.
"I won't," Ouichirou replied immediately. "Besides, it wasn't your fault. ...Sorry for getting you caught up in all this. The things that could have happened if I had slipped up... The things he could have been planning to do... I should have thought it about it more seriously."
"...Ouichirou..."
Then Fuki remembered something Yamafuji had told him, and hesitantly, he brought forth a question that had been bugging him ever since. "Umm... Is it true? ...Did you really bring him down...?"
"Yeah."
"Is it true you did it to keep him from getting my debut?"
"...Yeah."
He could hardly believe it after hearing Ouichirou's short responses. He could hardly believe that Ouichirou had gone so far just for him.
"Why'd you do that just for me...!? You... with Kichou-san... You said you took my debut after he turned you down...!"
Ouichirou stared off into the distance and sighed deeply. "How long are you going to keep believing that?"
"Huh...?"
"The stuff about Kichou turning me down was a lie... Well, not really, but the truth is I was never his customer in the first place. I approached Kichou for a completely different reason. So when I came here the second time, I didn't become his najimi. And the third time he agreed to refuse me... so of course I didn't fuck him either."
"......" Fuki was speechless. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He hadn't slept with Kichou? ...He really hadn't?
"...T-then why did you lie like that...? I..."
Tears welled up in his eyes. He had been mistaken the entire time. He had been jealous of Kichou. And it had hurt him so much each time Ouichirou slept with him.
"If you weren't his customer, then why did you come? What was this other reason...!?"
"I needed to get in contact with Shirayuri."
"Shirayuri...!?" Fuki repeated, shocked by the sudden mention of a name he hadn't expected to come up. He had no clue what Ouichirou was getting at.
Sure, Shirayuri had been in Kichou's care from his time as a kamuro until the end of his time as a shinzou. He was like a younger brother to Kichou, and they had been close until Shirayuri left. Fuki could even imagine Kichou pressing someone to help him get contact with him. Still...
"...I had heard the rumors saying that Yamafuji was using the illegal aphrodisiacs he had taken from the police stores. I wanted to get in contact with Shirayuri so I could get some proof to back up the rumor."
"Was it because Yamafuji was Shirayuri's najimi...?"
"Yeah. From what I could tell, Yamafuji had used that drug on Shirayuri. I thought he might know something about it. I tried going straight to the house that took him in, but they turned me away at the gate. So instead, I asked Kichou to help me get in touch with him. It was all because I couldn't find anyone from the outside world who could convince Shirayuri. His master probably could have, but it was fairly obvious that he would have nothing to do with me."
"Ouichirou..." Fuki was finally starting to see where it was all leading.
"...I wanted to get rid of Yamafuji," Ouichirou said. "That time at the flower banquet when you told me you were going to have your debut, it was like someone had punched me right in the face. I had thought I was going to make it in time, if just barely. It felt too early. Normally your partner shouldn't have been decided by the time, right?"
Normally the partner for an iroko's debut would be decided upon after his eighteen birthday. At any rate, the debut happened within a month after the iroko's birthday. Still, at that time, Fuki had only been seventeen.
"I was hoping to get the decision overthrown somehow and buy you back before your debut could happen. I approached the owner with piles of money."
But the owner hadn't agreed to an iroko being bought away from him before he could even debut.
"A brothel is a flower garden, and gardens need flowers. It wouldn't do to give over a boy who hadn't even had his debut yet. This isn't just a matter of cost."
That had been his reply.
Ouichirou had asked for the debut to be transferred to him, but the owner had be stubborn and refused.
Perhaps if he had come before it was decided, but now that the decision had been made, he just couldn't do anything about it.
"It's a matter of our customers' trust in Hanafurirou."
He had even tried to negotiate direction with Yamafuji, but to no avail.
"So, I figured I had no choice but to remove him from the picture by force."
Ouichirou had devised a plan with an acquaintance in the upper ranks of the police force. Then he had had Kichou write him a letter to Shirayuri promising that he would make sure Shirayuri would have nothing to fear from the law. With that letter in hand, he had gone to meet Shirayuri, and Shirayuri had given him the information about Yamafuji that he had needed.
"But it was too late."
"Huh...?"
"By that time, your debut was over and done with."
The day he went to Kichou the second time, to thank him, they had told him that Hotaru's debut had happened that very night.
"Oh..."
That meant that was the very same night Fuki ran away from his debut with Yamafuji.
Fuki had seen Ouichirou on the veranda outside of Kichou's room that night, and he had felt a devastating despair that almost made him faint. But even though Ouichirou was there for his second time with Kichou, he had only been there to thank him.
"Um, but..." In the end, he hadn't actually had his debut that night. He opened his mouth to tell Ouichirou that he hadn't been too late.
But Ouichirou was even faster. "...That bastard was trying to make a fool of me."
"Huh...?"
"The date the owner told me you were having your debut was a week after that day."
"I couldn't have you doing anything to interfere. And after seeing how you were acting earlier..." had been the owner's reply when Ouichirou asked him about it.
Having Yamafuji take Fuki from him in that way had caused Ouichirou's blood to boil. The way he saw it, if things were just going to end up like that, he should have just taken Fuki and ran.
"But even so, you can't change the past. The only choice I had left was to take you back."
Ouichirou had told the police to set up a stakeout just outside the great gate of Yoshiwara.
Yamafuji carried around the illegal drug in his lighter. And he was even more likely to have it on the days he visited the brothels. ...That was what Shirayuri had told him.
Yamafuji had, as usual, gotten out of a taxi just in front of the great gate and taken out his lighter to light up a cigarette. When he stepped toward the gate, the cigarette in his mouth, the police had surrounded him.
"Excuse me. Could you please show me that lighter?"
And they had caught him red handed with the drug.
When Ouichirou saw the unmarked cruiser leave with Yamafuji inside of it, he had presented himself at Hanafurirou in his place.
He hadn't been looking for a replacement for Kichou, but for Fuki himself.
"...Why didn't you say so?" Fuki yelled. "You should have just told me...! You should have said that I wasn't a replacement for Kichou. That you did all sorts of things for me... I was under the wrong impression... It hurt..."
"...I was being stubborn," Ouichirou replied. "Besides, I was kinda glad that you were mistaken, since that made you jealous... I'm such an idiot. Sorry."
"You're right. You are an idiot! ...But..." Fuki grabbed Ouichirou's shirt and buried his face in his chest. "...But, I'm glad."
Ouichirou had gone that far just for him. And it didn't really seem like anything simple.
Ouichirou wrapped his arms around Fuki.
"...It's not really that impressive. ...Ever since that day two years ago when you left me in that park, I've been planning on buying you back. ...I'd earn enough money to pile up over my head and then buy you back, whether you wanted it or not. Then I'd buy a house and have you live there, just for me. ...That was the plan."
"Ouichirou..."
"...If we run away like this, how are we gonna make a living?" As Ouichirou spoke, Fuki remembered the things he had told him two years earlier before leaving him in that park. "I've never been poor, and I'd rather sell my body than have to live like that. It's not that big of a deal, really... sex... Everyone does it, and maybe some rich guy will come along and take me in."
"...If it bugs you that much, finish school and get rich. You're a hundred years too early to even think about running away with me right now...!"
He had said some horrible things. Simply remembering them made him want to cover his ears. But no matter how much he tried to block it out, he couldn't erase his memories.
Just how much had those words hurt Ouichirou?
Most likely Ouichirou wouldn't have been able to run off with him a second time, even if it had been remotely possible in the first place. Not without actually buying him.
How difficult must it have been for Ouichirou, who had never had much money, to build up the fortune he had amassed in just two years' time?
He couldn't have had the leisure to pick and choose his methods. He must have made quite a name for himself, of the not-so-pleasant kind. Maybe he had even threatened and conned people.
The amount of money needed to take in a Hanafurirou keisei was unbelievably high. Besides that, just getting into Hanafurirou in the first place required some help. He might have even had to threaten one of the keisei's najimi to get that very help.
And all of that was just for Fuki. Even though Ouichirou was not cut out for such villainous work in the first place.
"Sorry..." Fuki said.
"Why are you apologizing?"
"'Cause that time... I said some pretty awful things."
"It's a little late for that now."
"Yeah, but..."
If he had been honest that time, Ouichirou probably would have stayed to face the others with him. He had realized then that Ouichirou would have never left his side. And because of that, he had had no other choice than to say those things. But, if he had been a little smarter, he would have been able to come up with a better way to say it.
"Sorry... I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't know how else to put it."
"...What do you mean by that?" Ouichirou asked, his brows drawing together ever so slightly.
Fuki gasped as he realized just what he had said and then shook his head. At this point, he didn't want to give Ouichirou any excuses. No matter what feelings had prompted the words, it didn't change the fact that he hadn't meant to say it in the first place.
"Fuki...!" Ouichirou pressed. "Please, tell me the truth. If you had some reason for that... Otherwise, I..."
Silently, Fuki shook his head, and Ouichirou grabbed him by the shoulders.
"If you didn't have any other reason, that's good too. Just tell me that. But if there was something else, please tell me. Otherwise, I'm gonna be hung up on that day forever...!"
"Ouichirou..."
The things Fuki had done to try and save Ouichirou had apparently shown him a completely different sort of hell. To Ouichirou, it was like Fuki had betrayed him. Then he had been forced to quit school and lie low to avoid the yakuza family. In the end, wasn't that even more cruel than what Fuki was trying to avoid?
Ouichirou had said he was going to buy Fuki back. That might have been just so he could get revenge on him. But still, Fuki didn't think he would have come up with the plan had there not been some spark of affection left in him.
"...That time..." Fuki stared back at the face that was seriously begging him for a response. "That time, Nii-san called my cell phone."
"He told you to come back?"
Fuki nodded.
"And so you just decided to go back? You preferred that to running away with me?"
"No...!!" Fuki shook his head violently. "It was because of what Nii-san said. He said if we kept running, you'd be throwing away your future. ...The yakuza wouldn't leave any stone unturned searching for you. Even though you finally had your chance to become a doctor, you'd never be able to get a decent job and would have to spend the rest of your life taking temporary jobs and living in fear. He asked me if I was really worth that much to you to make you do that..."
And Fuki didn't think he was.
"...It's always been me going after you. And he said you'd regret running away in the end, since even if you felt sorry for me in the beginning, it wasn't really love. ...I just wanted you to be happy."
Somewhere in the middle of his speech, the tears had threatened to overflow, and Fuki had buried his head in Ouichirou's chest. When he had heard it put that like that, there just hadn't been any way he could have kept running.
Ouichirou wrapped his arms around Fuki and hugged him tightly.
"...Sorry."
"Huh...?" Fuki looked up at Ouichirou, confused at the unexpected reply. "Why're you apologizing?"
"I should have realized it. I should have realized that something like that had happened... I'm such an idiot. ...I didn't have enough faith in myself."
"Faith...?"
"I figured the feelings weren't mutual, and that I was dragging you off against your will. ...That you had never felt anything for me in the first place... That now that we were running away together, you had decided that you didn't really want to do it. I didn't really think you had betrayed me, just decided that you hated me, so I tried to keep myself from blaming you for it. ...But I just couldn't bring myself to forgive you."
"Ouichirou..." Fuki shook his head, desperately trying to find the right words. There was no way he would have hated Ouichirou. He had thought that he was the one with the one-sided feelings.
"I was so mad that time... No, I wasn't really mad... just sad."
"Idiot..."
Fuki had had no idea that that had been going through Ouichirou's head back then. He had had no idea that... the thing he thought he was doing for Ouichirou had hurt him so much.
Ouichirou really did see him as special, and that was why he had asked him to run away with him.
"Idiot! I'm the one who always loved you...!" Fuki pounded on Ouichirou's chest. "Just as Nii-san said... I was always following you around and bugging you...!"
"That was just childish affection. It's not the same sort of love."
"But it was, dumbass!! I told you to come here, didn't I...!?" He wrapped his arms around Ouichirou's neck and hugged him.
And then...
"I'm sorry... There's one other thing I lied to you about."
"Lied...?"
"I didn't really have my debut with Yamafuji-san."
"Wha?" Ouichirou blurted out, shocked. "You didn't?"
"That time, he drugged me and played with me... But halfway through I just couldn't stand it anymore, and I ran. The marks were from..."
Fuki loosened his clothes and showed Ouichirou where the lash marks had been all over his back. Though the marks had completely disappeared at that point.
"Those weren't from what Yamafuji-san did to me, but from when they caught me and locked me up."
"...Then why did you tell me it was him...?" Ouichirou asked, shocked. "I treated you so badly because of that... I would have been nicer had I known."
"I thought you had slept with Kichou-san... That pissed me off. I just-"
Ouichirou pressed his lips to Fuki's, cutting of his words, and proceeded to kiss him. He pushed Fuki down onto the futon, Fuki's arms still wrapped around his neck. Then he kissed the now-faded marks on Fuki's wrists, almost as if they were something sacred.
So yeah, hopefully more in the next few days. (Possibly today, but I'm not making any guarantees.) For now, enjoy this fairly long scene with the truth finally coming out between our boys!
It was morning by the time the police and firefighters finally left the scene.
Fuki and Ouichirou returned to Hanafurirou, explained what had happened, and then finally retired to Fuki's room to relax. And, Fuki gave Ouichirou some first aid. Ouichirou's arms were covered in bruises and burns from knocking away the burning timbers before they could fall on Fuki, as well as the cuts from the glass Yamafuji had wielded against him.
"Make sure you go to the hospital later today, okay?" Fuki urged over and over again, since Ouichirou had insisted that his injuries weren't serious enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room. Fuki couldn't leave Yoshiwara, so he couldn't drag Ouichirou to a hospital on the other side of the gate.
"You're making too much out of this."
"But... this is all my fault... What if you end up with lockjaw?" Fuki said, almost in tears.
"I won't," Ouichirou replied immediately. "Besides, it wasn't your fault. ...Sorry for getting you caught up in all this. The things that could have happened if I had slipped up... The things he could have been planning to do... I should have thought it about it more seriously."
"...Ouichirou..."
Then Fuki remembered something Yamafuji had told him, and hesitantly, he brought forth a question that had been bugging him ever since. "Umm... Is it true? ...Did you really bring him down...?"
"Yeah."
"Is it true you did it to keep him from getting my debut?"
"...Yeah."
He could hardly believe it after hearing Ouichirou's short responses. He could hardly believe that Ouichirou had gone so far just for him.
"Why'd you do that just for me...!? You... with Kichou-san... You said you took my debut after he turned you down...!"
Ouichirou stared off into the distance and sighed deeply. "How long are you going to keep believing that?"
"Huh...?"
"The stuff about Kichou turning me down was a lie... Well, not really, but the truth is I was never his customer in the first place. I approached Kichou for a completely different reason. So when I came here the second time, I didn't become his najimi. And the third time he agreed to refuse me... so of course I didn't fuck him either."
"......" Fuki was speechless. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He hadn't slept with Kichou? ...He really hadn't?
"...T-then why did you lie like that...? I..."
Tears welled up in his eyes. He had been mistaken the entire time. He had been jealous of Kichou. And it had hurt him so much each time Ouichirou slept with him.
"If you weren't his customer, then why did you come? What was this other reason...!?"
"I needed to get in contact with Shirayuri."
"Shirayuri...!?" Fuki repeated, shocked by the sudden mention of a name he hadn't expected to come up. He had no clue what Ouichirou was getting at.
Sure, Shirayuri had been in Kichou's care from his time as a kamuro until the end of his time as a shinzou. He was like a younger brother to Kichou, and they had been close until Shirayuri left. Fuki could even imagine Kichou pressing someone to help him get contact with him. Still...
"...I had heard the rumors saying that Yamafuji was using the illegal aphrodisiacs he had taken from the police stores. I wanted to get in contact with Shirayuri so I could get some proof to back up the rumor."
"Was it because Yamafuji was Shirayuri's najimi...?"
"Yeah. From what I could tell, Yamafuji had used that drug on Shirayuri. I thought he might know something about it. I tried going straight to the house that took him in, but they turned me away at the gate. So instead, I asked Kichou to help me get in touch with him. It was all because I couldn't find anyone from the outside world who could convince Shirayuri. His master probably could have, but it was fairly obvious that he would have nothing to do with me."
"Ouichirou..." Fuki was finally starting to see where it was all leading.
"...I wanted to get rid of Yamafuji," Ouichirou said. "That time at the flower banquet when you told me you were going to have your debut, it was like someone had punched me right in the face. I had thought I was going to make it in time, if just barely. It felt too early. Normally your partner shouldn't have been decided by the time, right?"
Normally the partner for an iroko's debut would be decided upon after his eighteen birthday. At any rate, the debut happened within a month after the iroko's birthday. Still, at that time, Fuki had only been seventeen.
"I was hoping to get the decision overthrown somehow and buy you back before your debut could happen. I approached the owner with piles of money."
But the owner hadn't agreed to an iroko being bought away from him before he could even debut.
"A brothel is a flower garden, and gardens need flowers. It wouldn't do to give over a boy who hadn't even had his debut yet. This isn't just a matter of cost."
That had been his reply.
Ouichirou had asked for the debut to be transferred to him, but the owner had be stubborn and refused.
Perhaps if he had come before it was decided, but now that the decision had been made, he just couldn't do anything about it.
"It's a matter of our customers' trust in Hanafurirou."
He had even tried to negotiate direction with Yamafuji, but to no avail.
"So, I figured I had no choice but to remove him from the picture by force."
Ouichirou had devised a plan with an acquaintance in the upper ranks of the police force. Then he had had Kichou write him a letter to Shirayuri promising that he would make sure Shirayuri would have nothing to fear from the law. With that letter in hand, he had gone to meet Shirayuri, and Shirayuri had given him the information about Yamafuji that he had needed.
"But it was too late."
"Huh...?"
"By that time, your debut was over and done with."
The day he went to Kichou the second time, to thank him, they had told him that Hotaru's debut had happened that very night.
"Oh..."
That meant that was the very same night Fuki ran away from his debut with Yamafuji.
Fuki had seen Ouichirou on the veranda outside of Kichou's room that night, and he had felt a devastating despair that almost made him faint. But even though Ouichirou was there for his second time with Kichou, he had only been there to thank him.
"Um, but..." In the end, he hadn't actually had his debut that night. He opened his mouth to tell Ouichirou that he hadn't been too late.
But Ouichirou was even faster. "...That bastard was trying to make a fool of me."
"Huh...?"
"The date the owner told me you were having your debut was a week after that day."
"I couldn't have you doing anything to interfere. And after seeing how you were acting earlier..." had been the owner's reply when Ouichirou asked him about it.
Having Yamafuji take Fuki from him in that way had caused Ouichirou's blood to boil. The way he saw it, if things were just going to end up like that, he should have just taken Fuki and ran.
"But even so, you can't change the past. The only choice I had left was to take you back."
Ouichirou had told the police to set up a stakeout just outside the great gate of Yoshiwara.
Yamafuji carried around the illegal drug in his lighter. And he was even more likely to have it on the days he visited the brothels. ...That was what Shirayuri had told him.
Yamafuji had, as usual, gotten out of a taxi just in front of the great gate and taken out his lighter to light up a cigarette. When he stepped toward the gate, the cigarette in his mouth, the police had surrounded him.
"Excuse me. Could you please show me that lighter?"
And they had caught him red handed with the drug.
When Ouichirou saw the unmarked cruiser leave with Yamafuji inside of it, he had presented himself at Hanafurirou in his place.
He hadn't been looking for a replacement for Kichou, but for Fuki himself.
"...Why didn't you say so?" Fuki yelled. "You should have just told me...! You should have said that I wasn't a replacement for Kichou. That you did all sorts of things for me... I was under the wrong impression... It hurt..."
"...I was being stubborn," Ouichirou replied. "Besides, I was kinda glad that you were mistaken, since that made you jealous... I'm such an idiot. Sorry."
"You're right. You are an idiot! ...But..." Fuki grabbed Ouichirou's shirt and buried his face in his chest. "...But, I'm glad."
Ouichirou had gone that far just for him. And it didn't really seem like anything simple.
Ouichirou wrapped his arms around Fuki.
"...It's not really that impressive. ...Ever since that day two years ago when you left me in that park, I've been planning on buying you back. ...I'd earn enough money to pile up over my head and then buy you back, whether you wanted it or not. Then I'd buy a house and have you live there, just for me. ...That was the plan."
"Ouichirou..."
"...If we run away like this, how are we gonna make a living?" As Ouichirou spoke, Fuki remembered the things he had told him two years earlier before leaving him in that park. "I've never been poor, and I'd rather sell my body than have to live like that. It's not that big of a deal, really... sex... Everyone does it, and maybe some rich guy will come along and take me in."
"...If it bugs you that much, finish school and get rich. You're a hundred years too early to even think about running away with me right now...!"
He had said some horrible things. Simply remembering them made him want to cover his ears. But no matter how much he tried to block it out, he couldn't erase his memories.
Just how much had those words hurt Ouichirou?
Most likely Ouichirou wouldn't have been able to run off with him a second time, even if it had been remotely possible in the first place. Not without actually buying him.
How difficult must it have been for Ouichirou, who had never had much money, to build up the fortune he had amassed in just two years' time?
He couldn't have had the leisure to pick and choose his methods. He must have made quite a name for himself, of the not-so-pleasant kind. Maybe he had even threatened and conned people.
The amount of money needed to take in a Hanafurirou keisei was unbelievably high. Besides that, just getting into Hanafurirou in the first place required some help. He might have even had to threaten one of the keisei's najimi to get that very help.
And all of that was just for Fuki. Even though Ouichirou was not cut out for such villainous work in the first place.
"Sorry..." Fuki said.
"Why are you apologizing?"
"'Cause that time... I said some pretty awful things."
"It's a little late for that now."
"Yeah, but..."
If he had been honest that time, Ouichirou probably would have stayed to face the others with him. He had realized then that Ouichirou would have never left his side. And because of that, he had had no other choice than to say those things. But, if he had been a little smarter, he would have been able to come up with a better way to say it.
"Sorry... I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't know how else to put it."
"...What do you mean by that?" Ouichirou asked, his brows drawing together ever so slightly.
Fuki gasped as he realized just what he had said and then shook his head. At this point, he didn't want to give Ouichirou any excuses. No matter what feelings had prompted the words, it didn't change the fact that he hadn't meant to say it in the first place.
"Fuki...!" Ouichirou pressed. "Please, tell me the truth. If you had some reason for that... Otherwise, I..."
Silently, Fuki shook his head, and Ouichirou grabbed him by the shoulders.
"If you didn't have any other reason, that's good too. Just tell me that. But if there was something else, please tell me. Otherwise, I'm gonna be hung up on that day forever...!"
"Ouichirou..."
The things Fuki had done to try and save Ouichirou had apparently shown him a completely different sort of hell. To Ouichirou, it was like Fuki had betrayed him. Then he had been forced to quit school and lie low to avoid the yakuza family. In the end, wasn't that even more cruel than what Fuki was trying to avoid?
Ouichirou had said he was going to buy Fuki back. That might have been just so he could get revenge on him. But still, Fuki didn't think he would have come up with the plan had there not been some spark of affection left in him.
"...That time..." Fuki stared back at the face that was seriously begging him for a response. "That time, Nii-san called my cell phone."
"He told you to come back?"
Fuki nodded.
"And so you just decided to go back? You preferred that to running away with me?"
"No...!!" Fuki shook his head violently. "It was because of what Nii-san said. He said if we kept running, you'd be throwing away your future. ...The yakuza wouldn't leave any stone unturned searching for you. Even though you finally had your chance to become a doctor, you'd never be able to get a decent job and would have to spend the rest of your life taking temporary jobs and living in fear. He asked me if I was really worth that much to you to make you do that..."
And Fuki didn't think he was.
"...It's always been me going after you. And he said you'd regret running away in the end, since even if you felt sorry for me in the beginning, it wasn't really love. ...I just wanted you to be happy."
Somewhere in the middle of his speech, the tears had threatened to overflow, and Fuki had buried his head in Ouichirou's chest. When he had heard it put that like that, there just hadn't been any way he could have kept running.
Ouichirou wrapped his arms around Fuki and hugged him tightly.
"...Sorry."
"Huh...?" Fuki looked up at Ouichirou, confused at the unexpected reply. "Why're you apologizing?"
"I should have realized it. I should have realized that something like that had happened... I'm such an idiot. ...I didn't have enough faith in myself."
"Faith...?"
"I figured the feelings weren't mutual, and that I was dragging you off against your will. ...That you had never felt anything for me in the first place... That now that we were running away together, you had decided that you didn't really want to do it. I didn't really think you had betrayed me, just decided that you hated me, so I tried to keep myself from blaming you for it. ...But I just couldn't bring myself to forgive you."
"Ouichirou..." Fuki shook his head, desperately trying to find the right words. There was no way he would have hated Ouichirou. He had thought that he was the one with the one-sided feelings.
"I was so mad that time... No, I wasn't really mad... just sad."
"Idiot..."
Fuki had had no idea that that had been going through Ouichirou's head back then. He had had no idea that... the thing he thought he was doing for Ouichirou had hurt him so much.
Ouichirou really did see him as special, and that was why he had asked him to run away with him.
"Idiot! I'm the one who always loved you...!" Fuki pounded on Ouichirou's chest. "Just as Nii-san said... I was always following you around and bugging you...!"
"That was just childish affection. It's not the same sort of love."
"But it was, dumbass!! I told you to come here, didn't I...!?" He wrapped his arms around Ouichirou's neck and hugged him.
And then...
"I'm sorry... There's one other thing I lied to you about."
"Lied...?"
"I didn't really have my debut with Yamafuji-san."
"Wha?" Ouichirou blurted out, shocked. "You didn't?"
"That time, he drugged me and played with me... But halfway through I just couldn't stand it anymore, and I ran. The marks were from..."
Fuki loosened his clothes and showed Ouichirou where the lash marks had been all over his back. Though the marks had completely disappeared at that point.
"Those weren't from what Yamafuji-san did to me, but from when they caught me and locked me up."
"...Then why did you tell me it was him...?" Ouichirou asked, shocked. "I treated you so badly because of that... I would have been nicer had I known."
"I thought you had slept with Kichou-san... That pissed me off. I just-"
Ouichirou pressed his lips to Fuki's, cutting of his words, and proceeded to kiss him. He pushed Fuki down onto the futon, Fuki's arms still wrapped around his neck. Then he kissed the now-faded marks on Fuki's wrists, almost as if they were something sacred.