Shishido was woken by the buzzer being repeatedly pushed. Next to him, Ohtori was twitching awake as well. Shishido murmured a protest and slid out of bed, sleepily walking over to the closet and grabbing an oversized t-shirt and pulling it on as he made his way to the door.

Pushing the buzzer, he let the pest up and waited near the door. He was going to kill this person, that much was sure. He was all nice and warm in bed with Ohtori, and he wanted a repeat of last night, dammit!

He opened the door and yelped as he was yanked forward and then picked up and twirled.

"RYOU!" his tormenter cried happily, setting Shishido back on his feet and then hugging the life out of him before pulling away. "How are you? Kitty told me you'd be here for at least two months, and since I got transferred here, I thought I'd take you out for breakfast and catching up!"

Shishido held a finger up and yawned, eyes closed tightly as he did so. Blinking his eyes open, he stared. "Holy… Chole!"

The tall man with white blond hair and wickedly dancing chocolate brown eyes smirked and kissed Shishido sweetly on the mouth. "I'm glad you remember me, doll," he purred, slipping an arm around Shishido's waist. "Come, let me whisk you away for a few hours."

"Excuse me," Ohtori said, voice chilly, as he stood behind Shishido, clad only in sleep pants, "but, who the hell are you?"

"Ah, Choutarou, this is Chole. An old fri—"

"Friend? I'm hurt, Ryou!" Chole pouted, running his fingers through Shishido's tangled brown hair. "It wasn't that long ago that you were in Boston!" He turned and smirked at Ohtori, "I'm his lover, Chole Smith. And you are…?"

Shishido struggled to get out of Chole's arms, "You son of a bi—"

"Ohtori Choutarou," Ohtori said stiffly. "And I do believe that I'm his lover."

"Chole! I never said we still—"

"So, lover, what do you want to do today?" He ignored Ohtori completely, causing the other man to glare, and grabbed Shishido's ass, pulling a wildly protesting and cursing Shishido up against his crotch.

"Chole, you bastard! Let go of me!" Shishido shouted, trying desperately to get out of Chole's arms. "Choutarou! Please help me?"

"Gladly," Ohtori growled, stepping forward and carefully extracting Shishido from Chole's grabby hands. "Now then, explain to me, both of you, exactly what's going on."

"I'm—"

"You shut up," Shishido snarled at Chole. He turned to Ohtori and ran his hand through his tangled hair. "Chole went to school with me and Neil, and we dated a bit. Mainly just slept together to take the edge off. Chole lives in the same neighborhood as my uncle, so I see him a lot when I go home to visit. Last time I was in Boston, I figured I might try a relationship with him again because, hell, I didn't think I was ever going to run into you again."

Ohtori raised an eyebrow and waited for Shishido to continue.

"So, we messed around a bit," Shishido said defensively. "I didn't think that he would get transferred to Japan. And wait! Chole, how the hell did you get my address?"

"Your uncle," Chole said simply.

"I'm going to kill him," Shishido moaned.

"Continue, please," Ohtori said softly.

Shishido closed his eyes tightly, panic rising inside him. No, he did not want this. He couldn't deal with losing Ohtori again. It would probably kill him to. He'd thought about it before, but Neil had always snapped him out of it. Unfortunately, Neil wasn't here; he was in Italy, with an 8 hour time difference.

"He's just a friend now, Choutarou, I swear," Shishido said desperately.

"I most certainly am not letting you go back to him," Chole said icily, the warm and smug smirking attitude fading to an icy coldness that Shishido knew all too well. "Ryou, may I remind you of something?"

"Oh gods, what?" Shishido asked desperately, just wanting to curl up and wish everything away.

Chole grabbed him once again and put his hand over Shishido's left hip. "Don't you remember this?" he asked Shishido quietly.

"This is none of your business," Shishido said, carefully extracting himself again. "Our relationship is none of your business."

Chole turned cold brown eyes on Ohtori, "I won't let him make the same mistake a second time. I've seen the scars you've left, and I won't give you another chance to hurt him worse."

"Chole!" Shishido snapped out angrily. "Get out! Now. I want you out of this apartment in two minutes or you'd wish your mother had drowned you as a child."

Ohtori had been frozen to the spot, hurt and shock plastered across his face.

Shishido couldn't stand to see that look.

Chole glanced between the two, from Ohtori's shocked face to Shishido's panicked one. "I refuse."

Shishido stalked over to him and smacked him, startling the taller man. "Get out!" he snarled, desperate to shut Chole up. "If you want to stay my friend, get out. You don't know the whole story! You pieced together bits and spun a wonderful tale worthy to be in one of your books. But this is not a book, Chole! This is life, my life. It won't be like before!"

"You're right," Chole said simply. "It won't, because I'm not letting you make the same mistake again."

Shishido looked like he wanted to scream.

"Look, Chole, was it?" Ohtori asked, voice shaking a bit. "Things have changed since then. I won't hurt him, and he's more than capable of fighting back."

"But you don't get it, do you?" Chole said with a smirk. "You know he could fight back, and yet it still happened. Why?"

"CHOLE!" Shishido shouted. "Get out! Now!"

"I'll come back to get you, then," Chole said smoothly. "I'll pick you up for dinner, and make sure you have a bag with you."

Shishido's eyes narrowed but he opened the door and Chole went through it. Slamming it and locking it behind Chole, Shishido closed his eyes and slid down to the floor and covered his face with his hands.

He couldn't… Why did Chole have to come here? He always was the more emotional and attached of his few lovers. That's what Shishido got for trying to find someone with almost the same looks as Ohtori and some of the same interests. The problem being that once Chole found out about Ohtori and what he had done, his blood had boiled and he'd sworn to Shishido to never let that situation happen again.

A sweet promise that now could potentially ruin everything.

"Ryou…?" Ohtori asked, kneeling next to him.

"I hate him," Shishido said, choking back tears. "Stupid idiot thinks… You wouldn't do that again."

"Why did you let me?" Ohtori asked softly, pulling Shishido into his arms. "That man was right, you never fought me back. You can't tell me shock, because I won't believe that past the first few times."

Shishido clung to Ohtori, wrapping his arms around his neck and burying his face in his chest. He didn't want to answer the question, didn't want to open up those closed doors. Yes, the wounds were still raw, still bleeding sluggishly six years later. Yes, he had let Ohtori hit him and hurt him, thinking in some twisted way he deserved this until it got to be too much. No, he never wanted Ohtori to find this out. It was his shame, and things had changed.

Ohtori was like he had been before, only more mature and levelheaded. Had this been the past, he would have been shouting and would have forced Chole out of the apartment and then turned to Shishido to demand and explanation, and probably grab his wrists so hard they would almost break. Had this been the past, Chole would not exist, and it would have been about Atobe, and the consequences would have been worse.

"Ryou?" Ohtori asked softly, holding Shishido tightly. "Please tell me. I need to know."

Shishido shook his head and tried not to cry.

Ohtori sighed and stood up, carrying Shishido in his arms. "C'mon, love, let's go back to bed and sleep some more, okay?"

Shishido nodded and clung tighter to Ohtori, as if terrified he'd vanish.

Ohtori got them both stripped and back into bed, and lay there with Shishido curled tightly around him until they both fell asleep.

~

The first thought in Ohtori's mind upon waking up was that the whole morning was a dream. How could something like this happen now? Now he and Ryou were back to how they had been; loving, teasing, happy with each other and life. Yes, they were operating on borrowed time for both of them with their jobs that would inevitably pull them apart again, but for now everything was perfect.

Seeing the clothes strewn on the floor and having Ryou curled so tightly around him proved that this morning had happened.

Ohtori closed his eyes painfully and stroked Ryou's hair. It hadn't escaped him that Chole looked a lot like him, from the height to the eyes to the white blond hair. He should feel a slight bit of joy over the fact that Ryou had never forgotten him, but all it made him do was worry. Neil had white blond hair too, but blue eyes, like Atobe, and had a tendency to act like Ryou did when he was feeling dramatic and also to act like Atobe when he wanted to. How many others had Ryou gotten involved with that were like him or Atobe?

Biting his lip, he carefully extracted himself from Ryou's desperate hands and slipped out of bed, grabbing the phone and taking it into the living room. Dialing Atobe's number, Ohtori sat on the couch and waited for the other man to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Keigo?" Ohtori asked, knowing he sounded like a wounded dog. "Can I talk to you for a bit?"

"What's wrong?" Atobe asked instantly. "Is something wrong with Ryou?"

"No… It's…" Ohtori began and then frowned, remembering how Shishido had acted throughout the whole episode this morning. "Yes, actually. Something's wrong, and it's affecting us both. I need to talk to you, and I'm probably going to need your help to corner Ryou."

"I'll be right over," Atobe said and hung up.

Ohtori gave a shaky sigh of relief and turned the phone off. This had to be done. Not just so that he and Ryou could move forward, but also so they could heal from what the past had done to them.

All the while that Chole had been talking, Ohtori had wanted to hit him and throw him out of the apartment for distressing Ryou like he did. Instead he had stood still, remembering that he didn't have the right to dictate who Ryou associated with or who his friends were. Ryou had a separate life that he had lived without Ohtori there, and who was he to judge on Ryou's friends.

That didn't stop him from wanting to hurt the other man and break every one of his fingers for even touching Ryou like he did. Half his reaction was brought out and magnified by the way that Ryou had reacted – desperate and terrified – and the other half was controlled, knowing that while he was furious about it, there was nothing he could do about it. He had always just reacted before, never thought it through. Hiyoshi and Taki, and later Atobe, had made him think before he acted.

Those three knew more about his relationship with Ryou more than anyone, except possibly Oshitari-san now. Hiyo and Taki, while they understood it, they absolutely refused to forgive Ryou for leaving like he had. Ohtori knew that he'd have to work on them to get them to realize that it had hurt them both, but it had hurt Ryou more to leave.

Ohtori was beginning to wonder, while he had mostly healed from the pain of their relationship, if Ryou had ever even tried to heal from it. From some of his reactions when Chole was here, the answer was a loudly resounding no, which bothered Ohtori more than anything.

Remembering how Chole had grabbed at Ryou's hip, he padded back into the bedroom and tugged the blanket down a bit to see Ryou's left hip. Five thin scars, lines that were faded from age, marred the otherwise unmarked flesh. Ohtori closed his eyes and choked back his cry of dismay as he remembered what it was from. Silently he pulled the blanket back over Ryou's sleeping form and went back into the living room.

Those scars…evidence of his temper and how he had taken it out on Ryou. He remembered what had caused those scars. They had been fighting, Ryou giving back as good as he'd gotten in the verbal spar, but he had tried to stop Ohtori from storming away. Ohtori had forcefully pushed Ryou away, sending him into a small glass table with a vase on it that had both broken and cut Ryou's hip and upper leg up pretty badly. The leg was fine, but the hip had gotten stitches and had been very deep.

That had been the worst thing Ohtori had ever physically done to Ryou.

The buzzer buzzed once, quickly, and Ohtori let Atobe up and in.

"Explain," Atobe said, looking rumpled and worried. "Now."

So Ohtori did.

~

Shishido woke to someone stroking his hair gently and two people talking quietly. One of the voices he knew automatically was Ohtori's, but the second took him a second to place. When he had, he turned sleepy eyes to Atobe, who smiled fondly at him and kissed his forehead.

"Hey there, lovely," Atobe said, brushing hair out of Shishido's eyes. "I heard you got a nasty surprise this morning."

Shishido turned away and buried his head in the pillow. He just wanted to block the morning out.

"Ryou?" Ohtori asked from where he knelt next to the bed. "We just want to talk to you a bit."

"I'm sorry," Shishido said, voice choked. "I don't know why he came, I don't know what he's talking about. He has no right to do this."

"No, he doesn't," Atobe soothed, stroking Shishido's hair. "But he did come, and this did happen."

"And he brought up some good points and a few questions," Ohtori said gently. "Will you answer our questions and hear us out? I know it'll be painful, but—"

"No," Shishido said, sitting up suddenly, hands fisting in the comforter. "You don't know how painful it will be. I don't… No good comes of digging up the past. It just makes everything hurt more and I want it to stop hurting."

"It will if you let it heal," Atobe said blandly. "Instead of ripping the wound open again and again. You need to let the past go, Ryou."

"I have!" Shishido snapped. "I leave it where it is, in the past!"

"Why does Neil look like me and Keigo?" Ohtori asked quietly; Shishido froze. "Why does Chole look like me?"

Atobe glanced up at Ohtori before looking back at the panicked expression on Shishido's face. Pressing the advantage, Atobe stroked Shishido's cheek gently. "I would have to say that you did a poor job of keeping the past where it belongs, Ryou, if you simply let yourself be attracted to anyone who would remind you of us."

"Coincidence," Shishido said faintly.

"You left knowing it would cause you more harm than good, didn't you?" Ohtori asked softly, joining Atobe and Shishido on the bed. "You did it to wake me up, and to shock everyone else into getting out of their ruts. But your plan backfired and hurt you worse."

Shishido said nothing.

"Why didn't you fight back?" Ohtori asked, voice pained. "You could've, I know you could have! So why didn't you?"

"Ryou?" Atobe asked, blue eyes serious but kind.

"I…" Shishido looked away, hugging himself tightly, hands curling around his elbows.

"Ryou, please," Ohtori whispered. "Why?"

"Because," Shishido said faintly, "I would have hurt you."

Atobe and Ohtori both frowned.

"What are you talking about?" Ohtori asked, reaching up to caress Shishido's face.

"If I had stopped you any of those times, I would have hurt you. Seriously hurt you. I didn't want to do that," Shishido said softly, haltingly. "I'd rather hurt than see you in pain."

"Ryou…" Ohtori whispered, guilt coloring his voice and eyes.

"You didn't trust me in the end, and that hurt so much," Shishido whispered. "Hurt more than anything else you could have done, Choutarou. That's why I left."

"And you continued to dwell on it," Atobe said softly, closing his eyes in pain. "Idiot."

"You expected me just to forget it all?" Shishido cried desperately. "You all were in all your self-obsessed ruts! Jiroh has always been trailing after you, Keigo, yet it took me leaving for you to realize it! Do you know how often he cried to me about it? Oshitari and Gakuto had been flirting around each other and we were on and off, but now you tell me they're living together and practically married! Hiyoshi and Taki both have adored you, Choutarou, and they still do, but not to the intense degree they had! Yet until I left, nothing changed! We all just went around in circles!"

"Ryou…" Atobe whispered, voice choked. Ohtori was sitting there numbly, holding one of Shishido's hands.

"Of course I dwelled on it!" Shishido snapped. "You all are my family, my life! I've known all of you forever and care about you all far more than I should! You thought I should just stop loving and caring about you all? I can't do that!" Shishido held his head in his hands, hair tangled in his fingers. "I love you too much to try and forget about you, Choutarou."

Ohtori didn't even try and wipe away the tears that were falling from his eyes as he pulled Shishido into his arms. "I'm sorry," he cried. "I'm sorry, so sorry, Ryou."

"So while you were away from us, you tried to find people to replace us?" Atobe asked, moving closer to both Ohtori and Shishido and kissing the top of Shishido's head.

Shishido nodded, crying into Ohtori's chest.

"Oh, my silly little peacock," Atobe sighed, smiling a little. "It's time to put all that away. You need to understand that it is now in the past. You're here, with us, in the present. The pain from the past won't come back. We won't let it."

Ohtori's arms were wrapped tightly and protectively around Shishido. "It's gone, it's over with," he whispered fiercely into Shishido's ear. "It won't be like that again. Ever."

"I know," Shishido whispered.

Atobe stood up and smiled at Ohtori, "I think you can handle it from here." Ohtori nodded and turned his attention back to comforting Shishido, which was all that really mattered.

Atobe left the bedroom and closed the door quietly. He sat in the living room and flipped his cell phone open and dialed rapidly.

"Jiroh? It's Keigo. Do you think you can come home soon?" As much as he hated to admit it, he needed to see his lover. Refusing to sigh, Atobe nodded and expressed his regrets when Jiroh said he had a board meeting to attend and then some social function that his older brother requested he attend. He said he'd see him later that night and hung up.

Closing the phone, Atobe stood up and left Shishido's apartment. Shishido and Ohtori needed time alone because that was all that would really heal those wounds.

Shishido had always been Atobe's best friend, ever since Shishido had snubbed Atobe when they had first met in elementary school. They had similar interests and enjoyed spending time with each other. Atobe didn't care, like he did with most people, how wealthy Shishido was, if only for the fact that Shishido was blunt and didn't sugarcoat the facts for Atobe like so many people did.

It hurt him terribly to see Shishido like this, so broken and no longer hiding behind the lie that everything was fine in his life. It was almost like it had been before, when Ohtori had been hurting Shishido. But times change, and the roles were reversed. The one who was the protector of the other had changed, the roles of who was the one to lead had changed. Shishido needed Ohtori more than he had ever needed anyone else before.

And Atobe was trusting Ohtori to do the right thing, and to make sure that he could heal the wounds that he had placed, on purpose or inadvertently.

Atobe just wanted his Ryou back. That's all there was to it.

The End

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