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“Why do you always keep your clothes on during sex?” Tsuzuru asks, playing with fire. He knows Chikage likes him to be exposed, to have complete power over him, but it’s getting old.
Chikage doesn’t answer for a while, just lays there with the cigarette burning between his fingers.
Tsuzuru bites his lip, wants to take back the words that just came out of his mouth. He does not want to piss of Chikage, not by any means. He’s not sure what kind of punishment he’d endure.
With the rough sex they just had, Tsuzuru’s body can’t take much more.
“You’ve seen me without my shirt,” Chikage says, matter of fact.
Tsuzuru’s mouth presses into a thin line. They’re past the lying stage of their relationship, if that’s what this could even be called. Tsuzuru really isn’t sure what they are. They have sex, and then they go home and the intimacy falls through. Chikage isn’t a romantic, and neither is Tsuzuru.
Yet, Tsuzuru believes there’s something between them that’s more than just sex.
“You bathe separately. You always sleep in clothes. You change costumes once everybody leaves. I can’t remember any time you were naked in front of me, even when we have sex. So no, Chikage-san, I haven’t seen you without a shirt because you won’t me. Or anybody.”
They stare at each other, Chikage’s face unreadable.
Tsuzuru is about to open his mouth again to back track, tell Chikage to forget it; he’s already said too much. He’s not sure what came over him.
Then Chikage takes off his glasses, setting them neatly onto the table beside the bed.
The turtleneck follows after, Chikage lifting his arms to tug it over his head. Tsuzuru’s mouth runs dry at the sight, wetting his lips as Chikage shakes out his hair to get it back into place.
As Tsuzuru’s eyes travel the length of him, he begins to understand just why Chikage had never been shirtless around him.
His chest and abdomen are littered in thin white and pink lines, barely visible against his pale skin, but they’re there.
Scars.
Chikage is covered in scars.
Before he can stop himself, Tsuzuru’s hand reaches out to trace over each one, mouth agape. Chikage doesn’t say a word, just watches him curiously.
“How…” Tsuzuru breathes out. He doesn’t know much of Chikage’s past, actually he knows nothing, but he’s certain all of these scars have a story. Good ones. Ones Tsuzuru couldn’t even dream of writing.
“Would you believe me if I said I fell?”
Tsuzuru looks up to find Chikage’s lips drawn into an amused smile, but his eyes are guarded. Without the glasses, there’s no light to block out his expressions. Tsuzuru thought they were past drawing walls up, but he guesses not.
“Chikage-san, this is...”
All the scars are of different lengths and shapes, some Tsuzuru can’t even begin to describe. He has a long one down his side, and one traveling the length of his collar bone. Those two are the most intriguing to Tsuzuru, and the ones he spends the most time touching.
“Is this why you don’t change around us?”
“I don’t need you all asking questions.”
Tsuzuru has many. So he understands.
However.
“Chikage-san.” Tsuzuru sits up with a big breath, “We’re... together. Right? You know so much about me and still... I barely know anything about you! You dodge our questions, you dodge my questions and it’s hurtful. Sometimes.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking away from the blank expression on Chikage’s face, “Don’t you trust me?”
Trust is a very big word. Even after all this time, Tsuzuru truly feels like Chikage doesn’t trust them at all.
A laugh just barely bubbles out of Chikage.
“You never cease to impress me, Minagi Tsuzuru.”
Tsuzuru flushes at that. He starts to apologize, again having said too much, but Chikage beats him to it.
The words that unravel from his lips are stories of the past. Stories of his childhood and chasing the moon, stories of young adulthood and running alongside men named August and December, stories of the present where he stands beside friends, family, and how hard it was to open his heart again.
All are related to his scars, each one having a story so intricate that they don’t sound real. But the somber look in Chikage’s eyes makes Tsuzuru believe him, to open his own ears and heart and listen to the truth finally flow from his lips.
And when it’s all said and done, when the words finally stop and there are no more scars to reopen and let bleed out into the lack of space between them, Tsuzuru just lays there with his head on Chikage’s shoulder to take it all in.
“Thank you, Chikage-san... I didn’t think you’d actually tell me anything,” Tsuzuru chuckles, looking up at him. His breath vanishes when he does and he has to blink because an expression so fond can’t be coming from Chikage, right?
“It doesn’t come without a price.”
Tsuzuru’s eyes widen as the fond expression evaporates into something more... mischievous. One he’s more used to seeing on Chikage.
“A... A price.”
“Mm.” Chikage glances around the room, squinting at the bag he’d brought, “I have a new toy for us to try. “
Tsuzuru is starting to think he’ll leave here tonight with his own brand new scars.