14 (Jun's POV)

Everything felt so good right now.

Again I knew I had drank too far over what I needed, but I felt real.

'Real.' Truthful. I was Shiomi Akuma. A devil in the kitchen.

Because with the food I made I could play on emotion, using spices, as if a demon in disguise.

From my appearance, a short, curvy dark brown haired girl, no one would of guessed I'd studied so much to hone my craft down to a science.

That I'd studied the science behind the spices I ground in my pestle and mortar in highscool, alone in my room.

Until I walked up on the stage in my dark clothing.

I had wanted people to take me seriously, not to laugh at me for being a glasses-wearing four-eyed nerd who locked herself up in her room to read, and so, when I wanted all the others around me to understand that I, that Me, Shiomi Jun was indeed a cook?

And it just a cook.

A chef.

A top of the line master.

I changed.

My clothing turned all black, I packed away my favorite 'SPICE' shirt, and I bought knives that meant something to me.

Like the kraken displayed on the handles, I was that aquatic wonder.

Rising from the depths of peoples laughs, their make funs, to stand and whip people in the ground like in the dead of night, like a nightmare I grasped their emotions with my silver plates and sank their ships.

With Azami at my side, (at the time, I thought nothing on him except that he was trying to help me, an undergrad become great as he was my boyfriend, being helpful).

But then.

He asked me to do something as a chef.

And I did.

Only to realize later that I shouldn't have.

That was what pulled me from it.

Yanked me to the other side of the fence.

I began to see Azami different.

He was toying with me, with young Shiomi Akuma, using me for his desires.

Ironic.

How my food pulled emotion, but with manipulative nature how, oh how he was playing with mine just as much in return.

Finding out he'd had a child in secret? Erina?

Now that was just the icing on the fucking cake.

"I've g'no ill-will t'wards her." I mumbled hearing a door shut. Locks being closed.

I was laying on the couch in my old cooking clothes.

I was Shiomi Akuma.

I had always been.

Isshiki was right.

And here I was exposed.

I felt a touch, a soft hand on a cheek.

I opened my eyes barely. I was so drunk, I couldn't move.

I had resolved to drinking after realizing what I'd done, what Azami had been making me do, how I was being used.

This reminded me of then.

Except.

This was not Azami's warm palm on my face.

Azami's hands were always cold to the touch, even after he'd been cooking and he'd washed them in steaming hot water.

Cold like cold heart that he'd always possessed.

This softness.

"H... ya...?"

"Yea."

I could see nothing but darkness.

He'd turned out all the lights.

That was fine.

It was late.

"Jun." Whisper.

"D'n ca... me..." I felt a finger go over my lip stopping me from speaking what I could, which wasn't much.

"Shh." He hushed.

So soothing he was being to me right now. Especially after what I'd said.

I think. I think I was touching his hand? While eating?

I couldn't of been. But I think. Maybe I was.

I'd hugged him. How could I not after how he'd acted towards that information?

He took it in. He let it mull. But he responded kind.

Kind kind Akira.

"It'z late."

I realized he was sitting on the floor by me.

I was too dazed.

I felt wetness on my cheek.

A light wet.

Arms wrapped under me and hoisted.

Like a doll I was in shambles in his grip.

I got sat down. Soft.

I felt a zips.

My short sleeved chef jacket and leather jacket. Gone.

Cold. I shivered in just my shirt and jeans.

(Akira folded the uniform she had neat and put it on his dresser. He'd brought her to his room, not feeling confident he could make it up the stairs tonight with her in tow, so he'd brought her to his bedroom. He would gladly open his sleeping space to her, his mind filled with nothing but Isshiki's words.)

I felt a warm, damp towel on my face.

"Le'me clean th'makeup off."

I nodded, I could barely stay upright and he kept having to anchor me to steady my form.

The towel was gentle, I heard it getting rung out into a bowl. A gentle soapy mix.

Hayama-Kun was passively cleaning me up.

(Akira was gaining so much pleasure from washing her face that he kept having thoughts of how he wished he could have a bath with her. A very personal one on one, private bath. He couldn't take advantage of her though. He couldn't. He wouldn't be Azami Nakiri. He was better. A rightful mate for her, and only for her. They were the best pair. Akira fizzled unable to wait to taste 'his' woman's food.)

He was done.

Now to get her into something more comfortable to sleep in.

It was nice Hayama brought me to my room once again. I was ready for sleep.

My eyes wouldn't even open at all now.

Wait. Was he digging through my dresser?

I heard a noise that sounded like a drawer opening.

Soon a piece of clothing came into my lap.

"Here."

"Waz...?"

"It'z a'huge tee."

"Ah." So he pulled out one of my large baggy sleep shirts. Good. I liked these.

(Really Hayama pulled out of his dresser one of his shirts. It was a soft v neck he liked. A lot of his clothing was v neck. He couldn't help but want what he wanted. And what he wanted was to see her in his clothes. So it was perfect that he'd decided to not take her up the stairs, due to being worried he'd slip with her in his arms due to being drunk himself.)

"Y'leave. K?" I said. This wouldn't be like last time.

"No. Y'worse this time. Bu'I'll turn 'round." He did.

With eyes unable to open, I rummaged in my lap sloppily. Where the hell was the collar?

'Oh.' Found it.

I wouldn't wrench my shirt up as hard this time. I wouldn't trap it on my hair.

'Slow.' I kept telling myself. 'Slow.'

So I did. And I'm not sure how much time passed, but I got the other shirt on. It was huge I could tell.

(Hayama didn't peek, but was hot in the face.)

"K."

I fell back on the bed. Arms above my head.

I felt a hand press down the mattress by my head, causing my face to lull that direction.

"Take y'jeans off."

"Ha... ya... wha?"

"They're uncom'f'able." He swallowed. "Shirts big'nuff."

My hands went down. Clumsy.

I couldn't get the snap loose.

I struggled.

"I'can help."

"Nah." No no no! He didn't need to do that! My hands willl start working here soon. He was! Where was he even!

Was he over me?

(Akira did anyway, aside her protest. Trembling, his hand fell on the snap and unlatched it, with two fingers he delicately grabbed the little zipper and smoothly glided the tab down. Then he, trying to be not soft and gentle, and not seductive, put his fingers under the jeans waistline and rugged down. For him this was a tease. She earnestly needed them off to be comfortable, but the truth that he was undressing a portion of her set him a fire.)

I felt the jeans glide off me.

So inappropriate this was.

But I was helpless. Stupidly helpless.

I trusted him so much.

How was it that we were this way? That we could be this way?

I already felt myself falling asleep.

(He pulled them off her and what was left that he was looking at were cute little black panties. Instantly his tongue swirled behind his lips, eyes set dead on where they shouldn't be. He approached. His lids closing. His mouth wet. Just a kiss. One. There. No! He yanked his head back. Pulling down the shirt instead to cover her. He couldn't damn it! He put a hand to his cheek and smacked himself.)

I heard something.

I didn't know what it was, but soon I felt arms around me again, tucking me into soft covers. It felt so good.

The bed moved down on the other side.

He was sitting.

(Hayama was not sitting. He took his shirt off over his head, and took his jeans off, to pull on a pair of overly comfortable pajama bottoms. And he slowly, once hearing her breath calm, climbed into bed as easy as a cat and laid aside her. His eyes open looking at her deep silhouette in the darkness. How nice this was. He dared. He dared himself so hard to be in the same bed with her. And the results were astounding.)

"Ha...ya... y'here?" I was senseless now.

"Yea."

Whispers in the dark.

"Wher... ere?"

(He took that as a way to touch her. Hayama pushed himself to caress.aybe if he showed more affection she'd get how he felt.)

I felt a warm hand go on my right side to rest.

"Ah." I blubbed.

"Jun."

"Don...t." A finger on my lips.

I felt a scoot.

Close. He was close.

"If'you'left Totsuki, would y'let me come'with you?"

"Y'alwa... ways." I swallowed. Why would he ask that? "make y'own dec... cisions." Is never leave Totsuki unless I was forced to.

(Akira wanted to speak out his feelings to her a bit. Just to nudge it along.)

"I'll follow you no'matter where y'go." He licked his lips. Drunk.

"I thin... think. I know." I mumbled to him.

I felt a sheet being pulled over my head.

The hand spread it's fingers on my side. I couldn't move, but it was gentle and that was all I cared about at the moment.

(Hayama's heart was beating out of his chest. She knows that he'd never leave her side! Always fight for her! Somehow this made him feel grand. He knew she recognized him as a guard, a shield, maybe even a follower of her. Not a cult 'follower' but someone so similar to her that he didn't feel he belonged anywhere else, and that she knew that.)

"Th'makes me happy."

"Hm?" What makes him happy? I wasn't understanding this conversation. I felt my head falling into blackness.

"You."