Disclaimer: Ai no Kusabi is the property of Yoshihara Rieko and June. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: This story is mainly based on the anime, but has a very few references to Dark Erogenous, the audio drama.

Illusions
by Kadira (September 2004)

Images of the previous night flooded unbidden through his mind as Riki entered his flat. He kicked his shoes off and went straight to the shower, discarding his dirty clothes on the ground as if he was in a trance.

A trap. A fucking trap! And he had brought Bison and Guy into it, had done exactly as they wanted, as Iason wanted and that although he should have known better. Fuck it; he had brought them into it even though he had known that something wasn't right when Kirie had shown up again with an offer that was just too good to be true! But instead of listening to his primary instincts and Katze's warnings, he had played right into Iason's hands!

"Pets should obediently lick their masters' boots."

"Your name, it's on the Pet registry."

"Take him to the Midas Police Center, but don't hurt him."

Of course not. Couldn't just hurt the pet of Jupiter's favorite son, even if said pet happened to be a slum mongrel and was despised by everybody but the one who decided to become obsessed with him!

Riki closed his eyes and reached blindly for the water regulation. He turned the water scalding hot in an unconscious attempt to erase the words as well as the feelings they awoke within him in the heat. But it was as useless as his attempts at erasing those feelings throughout the last four years.

A pet! Him! Still! So much for a Blondie's promise. He should have known that he couldn't trust Iason when he had set him free. After his obsession with Riki, the sudden change of mind was just too good to be true. But he had been blinded by the prospect of finally being free and his own man again, even if it meant to trade the luxury of Eos against the smell, the monotony and hopelessness of Ceres. Not that he had seen it this way during the three years he had been with Iason.

With every week he had been forced to spend as a pet, with every new training session, the slums had become more like a paradise in his mind. A paradise that had been ripped away from him. He had missed the freedom of doing whatever he wanted when he wanted to do it, had missed the thrill of the daily hunt for money, had missed his gang. Especially Guy, of course, even if it was accompanied by guilt. During the three years away from Ceres, Guy's face, the only thing that had kept him together—an anchor that prevented him from breaking down and giving in completely, from giving Iason what he wanted, which was no less than the ultimate submission of body, mind and soul—had become no more than a very weak reflection. Towards the end, Guy was not much more than a name that belonged to some blurred pictures in his memory.

That had hurt even more than the rest. He could shut himself off from the unbidden demands placed on his body and the humiliation of being no more than a toy. He even had learned to live with Iason's unreasonable obsession and with the irregularity of what he wanted from Riki, which was not Blondie-like at all—but with losing this last hold, this last true memory he had off Ceres, with forgetting about Guy, Riki had been in true danger of losing himself completely.

He had hoped that he could forget the last three years and just continue with his life as if nothing happened when he saw Guy again, when he tasted the bitter stench of freedom that were the slums once more, but instead he had felt even more lost, even more out of place, even more torn than any time before. And it was all that damned Blondie's fault!

All of it!

And nothing he did could change the emptiness he felt or fill the hole the last three years had created within him. He had refused to think about the cause of it, had tried to drown the face, the seducing voice and the tormenting touch that was responsible for his irrational feelings in Stout as often as he could get his hands on it. It wasn't enough. No matter how much he drank, he couldn't get rid off the ghostly memories that haunted him, no matter if he was asleep or awake, alone or with the gang, no matter what he did or when he did it. Even after a year, those memories were still as vivid as the day when Iason had set him free.

Supposedly set him free. Only that he never really did it, that he never erased Riki's name from the registry.

Lying bastard!

Lying and deceiving bastard!

But he shouldn't have expected anything less, not after the three years he'd spent with the Blondie and during which he had got to know his methods first hand. Iason didn't let go of anything he was involved with, ever. He was uncompromising until the very last. There was nothing that could withstand him if he didn't allow it to start with. And he was very thorough - in everything he did, even if it was just in the taming of a slum mongrel. Setting him free had been just another move in Iason's game, as Riki knew now.

More than that, he was sure that Iason had known that it wouldn't work out, that the damage his touch and words had caused was too strong to be erased by what Riki thought he craved most - his freedom.

Riki slumped against the wall, trying to find support where none was, as he remembered the first months after his return to Ceres, as he tried to get on with his life as if nothing had happened - in all aspects, including his relationship with Guy. It had been hopeless, of course, but that he didn't want to see at the time.

He couldn't even think about his old pairing partner without remembering the Blondie's touch. The memory of it poisoned the mere thought as thoroughly as the actual feeling had poisoned Riki during his time as a pet.

Who is your master?

I...I don't...I don't belong to anyone! I'll never belong to anyone!

The memory came unbidden and uninvited, the words haunting and, even more, taunting him, even here and now that his world had broken apart once more. A bitter laugh escaped him. Brave words, which he even had meant and thought true then. Just one more thing he had been wrong about, one more thing to regret, for to this time already Iason had obviously completed his ownership over him. Riki just hadn't been able to see it. Not too much later, he had realized his error, when he unsuccessfully had tried to rebuild a life that had been ripped away from him and wasn't meant to be his anymore.

And now the culmination for there was no doubt that Iason was behind this insanity, his latest move in his brilliant plan to make Riki his. Like a child that chased after a toy, or one of the wild cats here when it found a mouse to play with.

How could he have been so blind and despite his instincts and Katze's clear warning ran head first into the trap, bringing his gang along with him?

Don't underestimate Iason... if you really want to be free, leave Tanagura.

Because that would certainly have stopped that bastard. If he had even made it out without problems, which Riki highly doubted. And if he had to be honest with himself, he didn't even know if he could have gone, if he really could have left everything behind ... including Iason.

He pressed his eyelids tightly closed when he remembered the only time during the last months when he had really felt alive. That damned auction they had gone to, more to amuse Kirie and to see what he was made off than anything else. He could still clearly recall the few terrible-wonderful seconds, when he had realized just who had entered the hall and caused the almost awed silence in the crowd. His heart that had decided to skip a few beats and the rush that had run through his body had made thinking almost impossible when their eyes met. When it had seemed, for just the barest moment until he had regained strength to break the contact and to turn around, as if they were alone, as if it were just the two of them in the wide hall.

I thought you had more sense than this, but I suppose you couldn't beat your feelings.

Kirie of all people had to say this! Not Katze or anybody else who knew him even remotely. Had it just been a lucky guess? Or was he indeed so transparent that anybody could read him that easily? Did Kirie mean something entirely different?

Riki had no doubt that Kirie had been in it right from the beginning, a handy tool for Iason to use. But how much did he really know? Was he aware that the returned leader of Bison held the position Kirie himself so desperately wanted? And what could he know about his feelings anyway, if not even he himself was sure what he felt? If he couldn't say if he wanted to kill Iason or beg him to fuck him?

Suddenly furious, Riki hit the shower wall so hard that, for a moment, it seemed as if it would break. The fucking idiot knew nothing! Certainly no more than he knew at his age, Riki thought, almost wistfully.

That was, of course, before he met Tanagura's # 1 Blondie, his own personal nightmare, Iason Mink who stole the innocence he didn't even know he still possessed and twisted it into something entirely new and alien. Riki just hoped that it would be different for Kirie, that the reward would be worth the betrayal. Unlikely, but Kirie reminded him so much of himself, that he couldn't help but wish that he would escape the web before it would be too late for him as well. Maybe Katze would be able to protect him and to get him out of the insanity before Kirie, if he was very unfortunate, would come to regret his curiosity and his desire to entangle with the elite for the rest of his life. Maybe the furniture could make him realize that the slum was a much better alternative than the rest. Hopefully it wasn't too late already.

Riki shook his head unconsciously. In the end, it all came back to one person, no matter his past, his failed relationship with Guy, the feelings he didn't want to have, the destruction of Bison. It was all one person's fault: Iason Mink.

Fucking Iason and his obsession with him.

"Fucking Iason," he repeated once more, this time aloud, but there was no force behind his words. He sounded just as resigned and empty as he felt as he opened the shower, wrapped himself in a bathrobe and grabbed a towel.

Fucking Kirie for getting involved in this. Fucking Guy for wanting to be part of his life again, for expecting something Riki couldn't give him; not anymore. Fucking Katze, and fucking himself for being unable to do anything, even the most basic things, like regaining control over his life. But most of all: Fucking Iason!

Exhausted, he went to the bedroom. He would decide tomorrow, which course to set, what he could do for Guy and the others - and for himself. For now, he just wanted to fall into his bed and not to think anymore. About nothing at all. Just sleep and oblivion, at least for the moment.

"It's been a long time."

Riki froze in his movement as the familiar voice he loved and hated and feared and desired to equal parts reached him and crawled into his consciousness like the poison it was. Like that first day, it caressed him inside and out, enveloped him, left his mind curiously blank and his feelings in a horrible storm while it awoke that almost instant craving for more. It was like an addiction, only more thoroughly. Desperately, he struggled to form a coherent thought while he tried to remember how to breathe. It seemed impossible and finally, not really succeeding in either, he turned very slowly around to face what had been inevitable ever since Iason had given him a glimpse of something that was never meant to be his again, only to take it away before he even had a chance to enjoy it.

"I...Iason. What did you come here for?" Surprise, amazement and all kind of emotions reflected in his voice, after a silence that seemed to last an eternity, but wasn't more than a very few short breaths, just long enough for the other's face to burn itself into his mind once more, to poison and haunt him further.

But despite the wavering in his voice, which he had no doubt Iason heard, he wouldn't give in. He didn't do it then and he wouldn't do it now. No matter how much the eyes seemed to burn him with their coldness, how they seemed to lay open every secret he ever had and could have, no matter how deeply hidden or how subconscious. No matter how angry those eyes made him and certainly no matter the hunger they awoke within him. He wouldn't give in, wouldn't get lost in the insanity that Iason brought over him. He wouldn't get lost in it!

Rage welled up within him, hot and burning with the memory of what happened only a few hours ago, the manipulation, and four years of unexplainable emotions that were still fighting within him and turned his life into a living hell. "Get out! I don't ever want to see your face again!"

Yet, one look into those eyes told him that it was hopeless, that he had lost. They told him everything he needed to know, the answer to every question he ever could have had - the betrayal and the game he lost once more, the beginning and the end and the beginning, the whole damned circle, what would happen now and no, that he wouldn't have a choice, no more than the first time, that the other man, his master - he spit out the title in his mind - had known from the moment when he let him go that he never could be free again, that there was no escape. Not for him.

Then the final, if not very surprising verdict, destroying ultimately his illusion of freedom, of having his own life: "I've come to fetch you," tone maddeningly calm but with a clear and cruel finality as the circle closed once more around him.

-- The End --