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solongsun Since early childhood, Kaoru has been using doors to travel backwards and forwards through time: a motion he is sometimes able to control, and sometimes not. At the age of 22, he opens a door to the long-ago autumn of 1996 and finds something he never expected – a man who, decades before Kaoru's birth, seems to know exactly who he is...
Kaoru dreams of his parents, the way they were when he was younger. He dreams of playing in a patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor, his mother's feet in their house slippers moving around him and his race cars; he dreams of the reflection of his parents' legs in the shiny oven door. It's more memory than dream; a memory he didn't know he had. If he could, he'd crawl inside it.
Kaoru dreams of the forest, and the sunlight through the leaves, and the way the tree trunks throw such huge shadows on the ground; shadows that all crash into each other so you don't have a single hope of untangling them. He dreams of himself tripping over a tree root as a kid, on his hands and knees on the forest floor, staring down at the ground as it turns featureless and white.
And the trees vanish, and the sky vanishes, and everything is white and blank. When he stands up again he's an adult, and he walks. He knows where he's going. In the endless, featureless whiteness, the door faces him slyly.
His feet move forward without him telling them to; he stretches out a hand and feels how the doorknob is cool under his skin, smooth and metallic. Its surface is covered in years' worth of his own fingerprints, the adult ones laid over the child ones, each as distinct as the last, like objects viewed through a microscope. He turns it, and the door swings open.
Toshiya sits up on his mattress, the sheets crumpling around his belly with a rustling noise. He rubs his eyes; searches for the shadow he just saw in the darkness.
He's not scared. He knows he should be, but he isn't, and he knows instinctively that he's not afraid because there is nothing to be afraid of; there's no risk, no threat.
It's a sweltering summer night in the mountains, and the air is still and damp and heavy. Every so often, very distantly, there's a low rumble of thunder. The shadow stirs, a glimmer of a man in front of his closet, which was closed when Toshiya went to sleep but now has one door swung wide open.
'Kaoru,' he says.
'Toshiya.'
Toshiya licks his lips, reaches out to turn on the little light that he keeps on the floor next to his futon. He flicks the switch and Kaoru's face flares into reality. He's looking around himself, confused; like Toshiya, he looks like he's just woken up, wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. Toshiya's never seen him so undressed before. He gets a sort of feeling, a weird feeling inside him, like he's dissolving, and just like that, he feels his blood start to rush in his veins.
'It's August,' he says, '1994.'
Kaoru gives him an embarrassed sort of smile.
'I'm so sorry,' he says, his voice pitched low, 'Did I wake you?'
'Did you travel here in your sleep?' Toshiya asks curiously, ignoring Kaoru's question. He pushes the sheet off him – it's too hot for it anyway – and gets to his feet. Kaoru looks even shyer, now; his eyes scan Toshiya from his feet to his face and then quickly look away, as if what he sees scares him.
'I did,' he says, his voice sounding just a shade deeper than normal, 'It can happen that way sometimes. It was more common when I was young.' He smiles a little bitterly, 'It drove my parents crazy. How do you explain putting your child to bed and not being able to find him in the morning?'
Carefully, Toshiya steps closer. There's a slight shake in Kaoru's voice, and the other man is keeping his eyes very firmly fixed on the floor. In this kind of light, Toshiya can't quite tell how old he is.
'I'm sorry,' Kaoru says uncomfortably, 'I shouldn't be in your bedroom.'
'You've been in my bedroom loads of times.'
'I know, but—' Kaoru hesitates, helpless, 'This is different.'
'Why is it different?' Toshiya asks. He's moving closer, slowly, all the time, as if Kaoru is a wild animal that will get spooked at sudden movements; from far away, over some of the more distant peaks, there's a flash and lingering afterglow of heat lightning.
'Toshiya...'
Toshiya wraps his hot arms around Kaoru's shoulders cautiously. The older man has no choice but to look at him, now, and so he matches Toshiya's stare miserably. Gently, Toshiya places Kaoru's hands on his waist, and when the older man tries to pull them away he holds them there.
He kisses him, and Kaoru wonders when they started kissing like this. Ever since that first time, that mistake, Toshiya has been pushing for it; hugging him goodbye, holding onto him a little too long, looking at him too closely. Toshiya's mouth is soft. He's young; he can't tell how young. Kaoru tries to pull back and the teenager just holds onto him harder, and Kaoru feels a wet tongue pushing softly against his lower lip.
'Toshiya—'
The kid's looking at him with a steady, adult sort of gaze, so focussed it's almost frightening. Kaoru swallows, and Toshiya's eyes watch him as his fingers gently stroke the side of Kaoru's face.
'I'm seventeen,' he says, reading the question he sees in the older man's eyes, 'I'm old enough. And I want this.' He pauses, smile, bites his lip, 'Sit down with me.'
They sit on Toshiya's mattress, their backs against the wall, and Kaoru rubs his hands over his face tiredly. He wishes he was more awake; he feels confused. Toshiyas at different ages seem to flicker inside his head, layering themselves over the top of this current Toshiya so he can't tell which is correct; is he seventeen, twenty, fifteen, six, twenty-three, twelve, nineteen?
There's a light but dangerous feeling in the pit of his stomach; desire, guilt. He closes his eyes as Toshiya crawls into his lap.
'Toshiya—'
'Kaoru, look at me.'
Warily, he does so. He thinks, not for the first time, that it's impossible how beautiful it is; that it's unfair. His eyes are dark and they're almost glowing, alive with something like electricity, something growing and edging closer like the distant thunder; his hair is a soft spill around his shoulders, crackling like lightning; his skin is at blood heat. Kaoru looks at his arms and his legs, long and lean and graceful; limbs he's grown into at last, gained some control over.
'Kaoru,' Toshiya says seriously, 'I'm a man now.'
Kaoru collects himself, tries to force his mouth into a wry smile. 'Actually,' he says with difficulty, 'No, you're not.'
Toshiya puts his lips close by Kaoru's ear, traces his fingers experimentally between the older man's thighs and says, 'I want you to fuck me.'
He feels a twitch beneath his fingertips and presses a tiny kiss to the skin below Kaoru's ear. He can tell the older man is trying to stop it; his breathing shudders and his heart is thrashing and his hands are steadfastly on the floor, refusing to touch the body positioned so seductively over the top of his own; but he can't hide it: he's getting hard. Toshiya moves his hand slightly, rubbing, mesmerised by the feeling of another man's dick getting stiff against his palm.
'Toshiya,' Kaoru says in a desperate sort of voice, 'I – I can't do this. Please don't...don't tempt me.'
His hand wraps around Toshiya's wrist but stills there, neither pulling his hand closer nor pushing it away.
'Why can't you do it?' Toshiya asks, his voice slightly huskier than normal.
'Because you're so young. You're too young. I can't—'
'Kaoru,' Toshiya says simply, 'I'm ready.'
He gets to his feet, watching the way Kaoru's eyes seem to darken as he stops touching him, and steps back into the centre of the room. Nervously, watching the older man's face, he pulls his T-shirt off over his head. His heart feels like it's going too fast in his chest, and his hands feel clumsy and full of blood as he hooks them into the waist of his boxer briefs, dragging the fabric down slowly. He's already hard when he steps out of his underwear; for some reason he can't fully explain, he's been hard ever since he first realised it was Kaoru who was in his room.
He licks his lips anxiously, watching the different expressions play over Kaoru's face. The older man looks completely spellbound, almost hypnotised, and when Toshiya kneels down in front of him his eyes are almost afraid. He shakes his head wordlessly, and Toshiya pulls him up so they're kneeling together, sliding his hands carefully under Kaoru's T-shirt.
'I've wanted this since I was thirteen,' he says seriously, and Kaoru sort of flinches like Toshiya's hit him.
'It's not right,' he says, his voice gruff but weak; his hands settle themselves uncertainly on Toshiya's hips. 'We can't – I can't—'
'You can.' Toshiya bites his lip, looks at Kaoru with a strange smile, 'You've already done this with me, in the future, haven't you?'
'Yeah,' Kaoru says helplessly, feeling it's sort of pointless to lie now. Toshiya gives a shy sort of smile.
'Was I...' he pushes an awkward hand through his hair, 'Was I any good?'
'Toshiya,' Kaoru says, his voice full of impossible love. He smooths Toshiya's hair back from his face; feels the way the gesture turns into a caress. As gently as he can he says, 'Of course you were.'
Toshiya smiles. 'It's time,' he says, and Kaoru lays him down.
His first thought is that this, being with another man, feels nothing like he thought it would.
It's better.
Shouldn't he have known or at least guessed how thorough Kaoru would be; how gentle and how considered? He's older, but he's almost shy; he lets Toshiya undress him and shivers despite the thick heat. They lie side by side on the futon and Toshiya feels like he's going to lose his mind just at the feeling of their naked bodies together; clutches Kaoru closer and husks a weird little laugh into his bare shoulder.
'If I cum too soon...' he mutters embarrassedly, and a shaking hand strokes his hair.
'We can stop anytime you like.'
In response, Toshiya wraps his hand around Kaoru's dick, pulling a soft noise from the other man's throat. He gives it an experimental stroke, feeling the heat of it and the texture of the skin, getting to know it in the way he knows his own; he brushes his thumb along the underside of the head and Kaoru makes an altogether different noise, quieter but deeper, and it goes straight to Toshiya's own cock. Maybe Kaoru feels it twitch against his hip, because he gently tilts Toshiya's head back and kisses him. It's a light kiss, careful. Not enough. With a breathy groan Toshiya pulls him closer, tangling his long fingers in Kaoru's long hair; he licks at the older man's lower lip and feels Kaoru's tongue against his, hesitant.
'Toshiya—'
'Kiss me,' he whispers, his words redundant because they're being breathed directly against Kaoru's lips, 'Kiss me.'
For Kaoru, it's like drowning, more sensation than thought. The part of his mind that's shouting at him to stop gets quieter and quieter, like he's drifting out of range of its static shriek; he runs a hand up Toshiya's thigh and shifts to be more on top of him, bracing himself on his arms. His dick nudges Toshiya's belly and he angles his hips lower, letting their two cocks touch; Toshiya gives a graceless moan and arches up. His dick is already leaking precum; it smears an indecent trail over Kaoru's skin.
'I'm not going to last long,' the teenager mumbles embarrassedly, and Kaoru smiles against his forehead.
'Toshiya, it's okay.'
'No, I mean...' Toshiya pushes his hair out of his eyes, grabbing Kaoru's cock with his free hand and guiding it to where he wants it, 'I don't want to cum until you're inside me.'
It's shameful, Kaoru thinks, how much that makes him shiver. It's wrong. Evil.
'We need something,' he says, his words sounding calmer than he feels, 'Lube or something.'
'Lube?'
Kaoru closes his eyes briefly, wonders if he's going straight to hell after this. 'Lubricant,' he says.
'Oh, right.' Toshiya sounds strangely breathless. 'I've got lotion. Will that work? I...' underneath Kaoru's naked body he blushes fiercely, 'I've tried it before. With my fingers.'
He's not alone in being embarrassed: Kaoru flushes too, trying hard not to picture that and failing miserably. He clutches a handful of Toshiya's pillow, trying to calm himself down, 'That should work,' he says shortly, a slight shake in his voice that Toshiya's never heard before. There's a brief moment of fumbling, Toshiya trying to kiss Kaoru at the same time as he's reaching around the area by his bed, but eventually he has their mouths almost smashed together and a bottle pushed into Kaoru's hand. Fingers slipping excitedly, Toshiya opens the cap, and Kaoru pours some on his fingers and pauses.
It's a long pause and Toshiya hangs at the end of it, his eyes looking up into Kaoru's desperately. The older man's face is close to his and so, so serious, and Toshiya understands why sex is generally left to grown-ups: the way Kaoru's looking at him is so many things at once; it's care and it's affection and it's worry and hesitation, it's a mild panic, a fierce desire; on top of all those things, pure and unwavering, it's love.
'Are you sure?' Kaoru asks at last, his voice husky. Toshiya could come up with a smart-ass reply, but instead he just bites his lower lip as he nods. His fingers trembling slightly, he wraps his hand around Kaoru's and pulls it gently between his legs. There's a wet sort of feeling and Kaoru's finger just slips over his hole, making him shiver hard; a loud groan almost escapes his lips but he bites it back. He squeezes his eyes tightly closed as Kaoru's touch shifts, rubbing gently to try to encourage Toshiya's muscles to relax.
'Please,' Toshiya finds himself saying, feeling the sweat beading on his forehead, 'Please, Kaoru.' He wriggles, trying to push himself down, and gives a panting little sigh as he feels Kaoru's finger slip inside him.
There's a beat of quiet and stillness, the only sound their ragged breathing, fogging up the one small window in Toshiya's bedroom. Toshiya's fingernails dig hard into Kaoru's shoulder as he tries to yank himself back under control, desperate not to cum now that he's so close to getting what he wants. Slowly Kaoru pushes deeper, slipping another finger in beside the first and then pressing their foreheads together, giving Toshiya time to adjust; the teenager has his eyes closed and Kaoru kisses his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, lines of soft little kisses to bring him back to himself. He feels Toshiya shift and knows what he's trying to do; slightly embarrassed, he buries his face in the teenager's neck.
'My fingers are too small,' he whispers, 'I can't – I won't be able to reach.'
Toshiya's hand strokes at his dick, working him up, 'This isn't too small,' he says, and his voice is different; it's lower-sounding, Kaoru thinks, more masculine. When he looks into his eyes, his pupils are so dilated they look almost completely black; his cheeks are red and he's panting on each breath, his lips trembling as Kaoru's fingers move and stretch inside of him.
He's beautiful. He's always been beautiful, of course, but he's never heard Kaoru murmur it to him over and over; he's never felt it whispered in his ear as a hot dick, slippery with cool lotion, presses itself up against him.
'I love you,' Toshiya blurts, and Kaoru stills.
'I love you too,' he says, his voice strange. His eyes look a little wet, Toshiya notices, but there's no time to think about it; Kaoru's thumb is stroking his cheek gently, his cock urgent-feeling against Toshiya's body.
'It's not too late to say no,' he whispers, and Toshiya's long arms come up around his body, gripping him by the ass, pulling him inside. It's awkward, at first – Toshiya's never had anything thicker than his own two fingers inside him, and for an uncomfortable moment it seems that Kaoru won't fit – but then Kaoru lets out a long breath that he hadn't realised he'd been holding onto, feeling the tip of his dick slide into Toshiya's warm body. He stills, lets Toshiya adjust – he's almost mewling, his hands clutching at Kaoru's ass excitedly – before working himself all the way in.
For Toshiya, it's an impossible feeling. He's so tight that he can feel Kaoru's pulse beating inside him, and it could make him cry if he wasn't so turned on; how intimate it feels, how close. Is this why Kaoru needed so much convincing; was this what he's been so scared of, the power of it? Because it is powerful; Toshiya can feel how powerful it is, and that's why he's gripping onto Kaoru so tightly; he almost feels like if he doesn't, they'll fly apart. The world has narrowed down to just the two of them at a fine point, the rest of it – the earth, the sky, the room around them – fading into a background hum.
This is the way it's supposed to be.
He's not sure if he's speaking aloud or not. He pushes his hips up as Kaoru begins to slowly move inside him, their foreheads pressed tightly together and their eyes locked, this is the way it's supposed to be, forever.
The older man pulls out almost all the way before sliding back into him, and he shivers, fingernails digging into his skin; his head falls back and he feels gentle lips kissing at his throat.
'Kaoru...'
Kaoru moves a certain way, experimentally, and knows he's hit the right spot; Toshiya almost arches off the mattress, his lips opening in a soft cry; his hands are suddenly all over Kaoru's body, grasping needily and urging at him to do it again.
'Please,' he mutters incoherently, his dick twitching hard against Kaoru's stomach, 'Please Kaoru, please, please—'
It's harder this time, surer, and Toshiya makes a sobbing sort of noise. He clutches Kaoru's hair and his shoulder and rocks their bodies together, his legs trembling; he's close and he's dimly aware that it's too soon, far too soon for things to be over, but his self control is gone; he's responding so desperately to Kaoru's movements that he's all but fucking himself on the other man's cock, and then two things happen at once.
The first is Kaoru whispering, 'It's okay,' into his ear.
The second is Kaoru's hand slipping around Toshiya's dick, squeezing and stroking just slightly—
Toshiya cries out as he goes over the edge, muffling the noise as best he can against Kaoru's skin; his hips buck upwards fiercely, every muscle tensing, his thighs shaking. His cum spatters thickly against Kaoru's chest and he feels it dimly as the older man moves with him, letting him ride the orgasm out until he's gasping, his eyes closed.
His whole body feels limp, and there's a soft kiss pressed to his cheek.
'Are you okay?'
'Yeah,' Toshiya says dazedly. He drags Kaoru down for a kiss and has to break it when he runs out of breath; panting harshly, he lets his head fall backwards again. 'Fuck,' he whispers, maybe to himself. 'Kaoru, you didn't cum, I—'
A pair of soft lips shush him, brushing against his mouth just lightly. 'It doesn't matter,' Kaoru says, 'Just rest.'
Carefully, a hand braced on Toshiya's hip, he pulls out; there's an awful emptiness, then. Toshiya squirms as Kaoru picks up his own discarded T-shirt and gently lifts his leg to clean him off, removing all the traces of lotion from his skin; he swipes it over his own chest, getting off most of the cum, although a little still glistens around his collarbones.
He looks at Toshiya with such tenderness in his eyes that he feels he really could cry now, but he's scared to, because he doesn't want Kaoru to think that he's hurt him.
'Come here,' he says, his voice a little thick, and Kaoru lies himself down beside him. His small hands turn Toshiya onto his side and then he's curling up behind him, their bodies flush together, Kaoru's chest tight against Toshiya's back and his arms loose around his waist. He presses a kiss to the back of his neck, lingering over the skin there, closing his eyes as his own regret crashes into him like a wave.
'Are you sure you're okay?' he asks, a little tremble in his voice, and Toshiya tangles their hands together.
'I'm great,' he says honestly. 'I'm just – that was intense, you know?'
'I know,' Kaoru says quietly. He feels Toshiya wriggle back further into his embrace and closes his eyes, squeezing his guilt close to his chest along with Toshiya's warm, pliant body.
I can never forgive myself for this, he realises.
Never until the day I die.
'Will you stay holding onto me?' Toshiya asks in a small voice, and Kaoru places a kiss just behind his ear.
He feels as though his heart is breaking but, 'Of course I will,' he says, his tone low and calm and reliable.
'Thanks. Kaoru?'
'Yeah?'
Toshiya hesitates. 'Please don't fall asleep,' he whispers.
A tear spills out of Kaoru's eye and runs down his face, blotting itself into Toshiya's futon mattress.
'I won't.'
And he doesn't. They say their goodbyes in the pale blue morning when Toshiya wakes up, and if both their eyes are red it could just as easily be from lack of sleep. They kiss what feels like a thousand times; they can't stop. The sun rises slowly, and Toshiya has to start hunting around for his school uniform.
'I love you,' he says over and over again, haphazardly. He dresses; swings his bag over his shoulder.
'I love you too, Toshiya.'
There's that feeling again: that feeling like something inside of Kaoru is breaking into pieces. 'Don't ever doubt it,' he says. He wrings his hands painfully. 'If ever – later, if you ever feel like I shouldn't have done this. I just...I never, ever meant to hurt you, Toshiya. I promise.'
The teenager smiles at him, kisses him one last time, and then another last time, and another.
'When you look back on this,' he says quietly, 'Years later, you'll know how right it was. I know you felt it. This was the way it was supposed to be.'
One last kiss, and another last kiss. Toshiya hesitates by his bedroom door.
'Come back soon,' he says, and Kaoru makes a promise that he knows he has no way of ensuring he keeps.
He stays awhile in Toshiya's room, just absorbing the feeling of the teenager's space, until at last he climbs awkwardly to his feet and grips the brass doorknob on Toshiya's closet.
He opens the door and the scene changes.
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