Chimamire Namida

Chimamire Namida Ch. 9 - "Ai is Itami"
By Shawna

It was still dark when Ayumi woke up, and a glance at the clock revealed it to be 3:30 in the morning. She had only slept for about two hours. She stretched, turning over in the bed. The motion caused pain to flare across all her muscles, and she sucked a breath through gritted teeth. Everything that had happened poured back into her mind, and for a moment she could not move. She glanced around the room and found Seto standing in front of the open balcony doors, letting the wind blow his hair back. He was still dressed in his unbuttoned dress shirt and pants.
Staring at him caused anger to bubble up inside her. She was in pain now because of him, would be in horrible pain for days after this. The beautiful dress he had bought her was ruined, as was the diamond bracelet that had matched her exquisite necklace, which she had, thankfully, taken off before the incident. Somewhere during their violent encounter, however, the bracelet had broken and fallen to pieces, and now there were diamonds scattered across the bed sheets, tiny pinpoints that caught the light of the moon and reflected it across the room.
Ayumi rose silently, slowly, from the bed, gritting her teeth against the soreness in her legs, and the pain deep inside her. She walked slowly towards Seto, raging, wanting only to hurt him. He heard her footsteps just before she reached him and turned around, so she rushed him, succeeding in hitting him once in the face before he caught her into his arms and held her tightly. She howled in frustration, struggling to break free of his grasp. She might as well not have bothered; he had overpowered her once tonight, and he easily did it again.
“Ayumi,” he said into her ear. “Ayumi, calm down.”
“No,” she cried, kicking her legs. “Let me go!”
“Not until you calm down.”
“I won’t calm down!” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “Don’t you realize what you did?! You-“
She fell silent when Seto turned her around and ran his hand along her cheek, and she was taken aback by his fond gaze. He leaned down, touched his tongue to the tear that had just spilled over from her eye.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, running his hands through her hair, cupping her face and tilting her head up. Before she could react, he pressed his lips lightly to hers, and she began to cry because of how sweet and gentle he suddenly was.
Don’t kiss me, she thought. Don’t look at me like that. You’re not supposed to act this way. I’m supposed to hate you.
When he drew away, Ayumi sobbed. She stared up into his eyes, more tears falling down her cheeks. He wiped one away with his thumb, smiling faintly at her.
“I said don’t cry.”
She looked down, her gaze falling on his chest, which was crisscrossed with scratch marks from her hands. It was his own fault that he had them, but she suddenly felt ashamed. She reached out tentatively, pressing her fingers very lightly to the slashes.
“They’re hot,” she whispered. “You have to wash them or they’ll get infected.”
“I think we both need a shower,” he whispered in response. “Can you walk all right?”
“My legs hurt,” she said. She wanted to add I think you pulled one of my tendons when you wrenched my legs apart, and on top of that I won’t be able to pee without horrendous pain for days, but bit her tongue on those.
He picked her up very gently, carefully cradling her against his chest, as though she was something incredibly delicate. Slowly, he made his way towards the bathroom, and supported her with one hand once they were there, using the other to turn on the water. While they were waiting for it to warm up, he set her gently on her feet, leaning against the wall, as if she would just fall right over if left unsupported. He shed his clothes and tested the water before stepping into the shower and helping her in behind him.
He was reaching for the shampoo when Ayumi b bac back into tears and huddled against him. He put one arm around her, holding her while she cried. She was disconsolate, unable to function, and so he kept his arm around her while his other hand washed her hair, and then his own.
He grinned reassuringly at her as he began to rub soap across her skin. He covered her upper body and then crouched down, running soap over her legs.
“Open your legs a little,” he whispered. “There’s still blood on you.”
This brought a fresh wave of tears from Ayumi, so Seto opened her legs himself and scrubbed away the remaining blood on her inner thighs. When he finished, he rose, began on himself, gingerly rubbing soap onto his scratches, sucking breath through gritted teeth when it hurt. Ayumi eventually brought herself down to just soft sniffles.
Seto smirked as he began rinsing both of them off. “I don’t think you’ve entirely slept off all the alcohol you drank,” he said. “You’re an emoal wal wreck right now.”
She wanted to tell him that being raped does that to a person, but the more she was thinking about it, the less like rape it seemed. She could not fully describe what exactly had happened, and she really did not want to. She wanted to tell herself that it had just been sex; violent sex was inevitable with the lifestyle she had taken up anyway.
But before, all her sexual encounters had always been with Katsuya and she had always had the power to say ‘owaru’ and make everything stop. Owaru had not worked on Seto that night. And she had bled. True, it was the first time, but it seemed like too much blood for just that. It was the blood that scared her the most. Not that the sight of blood was, in itself, enough to frighten her, but the thought of what it meant, that Seto had made her bleed, made her feel sick, mentally and physically. He had never shown any interest in actually having withwith her before; she could not understand what had driven him to force her tonight.
Ayumi was broken from her reverie when Seto leaned in and kissed her. She was at first startled, started to push him away. His tongue caressed her lips and they parted almost reflexively. She clenched her fists when he pushed her gently against the shower wall and gripped her hips, beginning to lift her up.
“Seto,” she said weakly, “No, please, it hurts so much…”
“I won’t hurt you this time, Ayumi. I’ll go slow.”
She opened her mouth to protest again, but her words slurred into a moan as Seto pressed against her, started to enter her. As promised, he went slowly, sliding into her gently. Nevertheless, she gasped in pain, as no matter how slow he went she was still injured from their last encounter. She draped her arms over Seto’s shoulders, clinging to his back as he moved one of his arms under her, supporting her. His other hand wrapped one of her legs around his hips. Instinctively, ignoring the pain it caused her, she put her other leg around him as well, holding onto him tightly.
They were both still after this, holding each other. Ayumi took a deep breath of the steamy air, drowsy but aware of every sensation: the steam curling around her face, the hot water hitting her left side, Seto’s heavy breath on her forehead, him fully inside of her. He moved his hips slowly, experimentally. Her eyes fluttered, mou mouth hung slightly open. He shifted his hips again, not thrusting, barely moving at all. Ayumi concentrated on ignoring the pain, slight as it was now, and enjoying the feel of Seto pressed against her, buried in her, hardly moving.
It was an almost eerie scene, with the steam and hot water surrounding them, and Seto moving so slightly, so slowly and gently inside of her. He leaned down, pressed his lips to hers, kissing her deeply. Closing her eyes, Ayumi allowed herself to get lost in the feelings only, to not see, to not think. She felt Seto’s hand trace down her stomach, lower, until his thumb pressed against her most sensitive area, rubbing against it with gentleness equal to the movement of his hips.
Tension began to build low in her body, and Seto continued to barely move, to rub her with his thumb. Release neared, her body began to shake, her muscles tightened and this was enough to bring Seto to the edge with her, and then they went over it together, at the same time, both crying out and clinging to each other desperately.
For some time, ever after all the sensation had faded away, they clung to one another, against the shower wall, letting the water run over them. Seto leaned back a bit, tilted her chin up, bringing her eyes to his. They did not speak; there was nothing to say. Seto leaned down and pressed his lips lightly to Ayumi's, coaxing them open with his tongue. Tears mixed with the shower water trickling down her face.
The hot water was beginning to fail when they finally broke apart. Seto could not let Ayumi alone: he helped her out of the shower, dried her, wrapped her in a soft robe, and after clothing himself, carried her back into the bedroom. It was now nearly 5 o'clock in the morning. It was lucky that they did not have school the next day, but a sudden thought occurred to Ayumi and she jumped, nearly falling off the bed, which Seto had just set her down on.
"My mother!" She gasped. "She'll kill me!"
Seto placed a hand on Ayumi's chest and pressed her back to the bed. His hand trailed up to rest on her forehead.
"Calm down," he said. "I called your mother while you were sleeping. I told her you had fallen asleep and I had put you up in the guest room. She said you could come home in the morning."
Relief flooded Ayumi and she relaxed against the bed. Pain still danced lightly across all of her muscles, and she ached, ached horribly inside and yet at the same time, had a pleasant, satisfied feeling low in her body. She still had not let herself think deeply about what had occurred; she did not think she could handle it. In the back of her mind, she was remembering what Seto had wanted to teer, er, what she thought she knew. He was lying down in the bed beside her now, and she reached out a hand tentatively, slowly, and placed it on his shoulder.
"Seto," she said softly. "If you want to tell me what you started to earlier, then... you can. I'm ready to listen now."
"I don't feel like talking about it anymore," he said brusquely. "And you're half asleep. You need to think about what's happened to you before you can listen to what happened to me." He shook her hand off.
Ayumi stared at his back, feeling slightly betrayed, hurt, and abruptly longing for Katsuya. Suddenly, Seto was different, or rather, the same: cold and distant again, without a trace of the pain or the passion she had seen that night. You need to think about what's happened to you before you can listen to what happened to me. That was what he had said, and it was true.
That night, she had gone to a formal event. She had enjoyed herself, she had loved the way Seto acted toward her and the way he smelled and how strong he was and how protected she felt by his side. Then he had wanted to tell her about his past, and everything had come crashing to pieces. She had been forced. All of the girlish notions she had always had about her “first time” all meant nothing now; her first time had happened and it had been quick, hard, against her will. She had gotten almost no pleasure from it and she had not even been fully undressed; her partner had been fully clothed. It was obviously not what she had always wanted it to be. And it had been Seto, Seto whom she had never really liked despite the fact that he was painfully handsome. She had her share of lust for him, but she did not want to actually do anything with him, and certainly not her first time and not like this. Katsuya had been her first sexual experience; she had just imagined that her first sexual intercourse would be with him.
Katsuya. What was she going to tell Katsuya? She did not want him to know about this. Shame suddenly burned up her cheeks, and anger, anger at Seto for taking from her what he had no right, no place too. He had never treated her exceptionally well except in recent weeks and he did not love her; did not even act as though he cared at all. Katsuya cared. He had said so. Seto was just angry. He had raped her because he had been raped himself and it drove him to such violence. But she had not really fought back to the full extent of her abilities, had she? Had she? Now it suddenly seemed her fault, all her fault for going with Seto to the dinner, dancing with him, pressing herself against him and inhaling so deeply of the scent that had, at the moment, been so masculine and so sexy. No, that was wrong, too. It was not her fault; it was Seto's fault. But she should have just listened to him, listened to what he had wanted to tell her and maybe none of it would have happened. She wanted to erase it all, but at the same time she had enjoyed it, somewhere in a more primal side of herself, and she had done it again and it had been so sensual, so slow and intimate. She had reached climax with Seto buried inside her, come at the same time as he, but what did that mean? Seto, who was so beautiful and so cold, who she had never really liked but always lusted after; Seto, who had been sleeping with Katsuya for who knew how long and now was sleeping with her and would probably go right back and sleep with Katsuya next chance he got, or sleep with both of them. All of this was too weird for Ayumi, too strange; she did not know what to do...
Ayumi fell asleep with her mind in a turmoil of these thoughts.
Seto lay on his side next to her, his back to her, silent but awake. He could tell by her harsh breath and movements that she was awake, thinking, torturing herself with thought, no doubt. After awhile, she wore herself out and fell asleep, but he stayed awake for quite some time after, thinking about what he had done.
Seto shut his eyes, clenched them tight as a wave of guilt came over him. Memories flooded back to him; they always did when he was awake around this hour of the morning. He had done it again: he had perpetuated his pain, trying to relieve it by forcing it on another. He had told himself that he would not do it again, after it had already happened twice. The first boy he had done it to had been barely 12, Seto only 13 at the time. He had raped the younger boy, the son of one of Kaiba-san's business partners, in the sauna by the Kaiba's pool. The two had been left alone to swim while their father conducted business. They had ventured into the sauna after swimming for a while, and had laughed and talked together. Everything was fine until somehow, Seto could not remember now, they had gotten on the subject of their fathers. The other boy had told of how good his father was to him, how much he loved him. Rage had built in Seto while listening to this, jealousy and anger and he had suddenly wanted, desperately wanted the younger boy to feel the same pain that he, Seto, had felt. And so he gave it to him; throwing the much smaller boy down onto the floor of the sauna on his stomach, clamping a hand over his mouth and thrusting into him violently. Seto could remember all of this perfectly: the way their bodies were flushed with the heat, the sweat that trickled down his face and both of the boys' backs, the muffled cries from the other boy, the tears that came out of his eyes as he struggled weakly beneath Seto. Seto had been young, it was the first time he had been dominant; it did not last long. After it was over he had told the boy that if he ever told anyone what had happened, his father's reputation would be ruined and his business would collapse. Seto had never seen the boy again, and he had never told.
Seto could not remember the boy's name now; it had been three years since that had happened. That time, as well, Seto had been ravaged by guilt and pledged to never do to anyone what had happened to him. Kaiba-san was dead just a year after the incident and Seto had assumed control over the business. Another year after that, he had claimed his second victim.
His second victim. It was an odd situation that brought them together, and an even stranger situation had grown from their forcible first time. That second boy was now more of his lover, though Seto liked to imagine he was raping him every time they did it; the second boy practically worshipped him now. Katsuya. Something strange happened to him the day Seto first took him, and Seto was not quite sure what it was.
And now Ayumi. It would be easy to manipulate her into not telling anyone; that was not what worried Seto. What worried him now was the second time, in the shower. Hd nod not felt the need to hurt her then, he had tried not to, in fact, and had not even pretended that it was rape. He had given her pleasure because he wanted to give it to her, not just to keep her coming back for more, like he did with Katsuya. He was not sure what to make of this. He flipped over slowly, softly, so as not to wake the sleeping Ayumi. She looked like a little girl, very young and very vulnerable, sleeping in one of his too-large robes in his too-large bed. Some of her turquoise locks had fallen over her face, and each time she exhaled, they waved about. Her face was troubled, her brow furrowed even in sleep, and this bothered Seto. Suddenly, he wanted her to be happy, to be comfortable, to look natural sleeping in his bed. He wanted to be able to roll over and look at her peacefully sleeping face every night. He wanted to be able to make love to someone for the first time in his life.
Seto did not like these longings; they made him vulnerable. But they were there regardless, and though he would not admit it to himself, it was comforting to have Ayumi in his bed, to not sleep alone. He draped an arm gently in the curve of her waist and drew her against him. She stirred briefly but did not awaken and he buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair and fell asleep.

**To Be Continued...**