Warning: Rape, mentions of drug use and divorce

It was a rainy day in November when I first saw him, in the shopping complex, just outside the steps that led down to the tube train. He was skinny, scruffy, with the slightest hint of a beard, and though the sound he managed to coax out of the cheap-looking guitar with long, nimble fingers was good, he wasn't anything special. College drop-outs with a flair for musical expression were ten a penny; I could take the money from his almost-empty hat, spit on him, and nobody would care, because I was a straight-laced businessman with a suit, a suitcase and a career, and he was just a brat who was down on his luck.

I don't know what made me notice him. Maybe it was that it was cold enough to see the breath of passers-by, and he was wearing a thin summer jacket that looked at least a size too small. Maybe it was that it was raining, and he was located directly between the the well-covered tube and the sheltering overhand of a shop entrance and yet was choosing to sing out in the open, under an umbrella that only served to protect his guitar, raindrops soaking him, plastering his hair to his scalp and sliding down his neck into the back of his jacket. Everything about him said "I don't care", but the look on his face betrayed him. Eye closed, eyebrows furrowed and quivering, he looked fragile, fearless. Almost broken, but not quite.

I brushed past him, the first time, and forgot about him until the evening, when I came back from the office and he was still there, and his hat was still almost empty.

I went home to a wife who hated me.

I noticed him a lot from then on. He didn't always sit outside the station, but he rarely ventured outside the shopping district. Often, if I couldn't see him I would hear him, that wavering, breakable voice strangely clear above the roar of the passing traffic. Two weeks after that, I dropped fifteen-thousand yen, in a neat roll, into his plaid hat.

The look on his face was almost comical. He waited until I'd started down the steps leading to the tube before he dropped his guitar and ripped the notes from the elastic band that held them, checking them, certain they were fake.

He stumbled down the steps after me and grabbed my shoulder, spluttering, waving his hands, practically turning in circles.

He tried to give the money back, and I told him I didn't want it. He asked me if it was real, and I said yes. He didn't look like he believed me, not that I blamed him.

You don't believe me, I said.

I'll prove it to you, I said.

I called in sick to work and took him to an American pizza restaurant on the outside of the shopping district. He clammed up completely when it came to placing the order, and I had to choose for him, and he fidgeted like a child with the chicken pox as we waited for our food to arrive.

He mumbled, This is a joke isn't it?

This is the part where I get arrested.

And I'll panic and then-

It'll turn out I'm on a TV show or something.

It was such a ridiculous conclusion that I couldn't stop a smirk from twisting my lips, and he knew instantly that he'd said something wrong, because he went bright red and his fidgeting took to the next level. He told me he was sorry, he was really sorry. He kept saying sorry until the waiter slid a plate in front of him, when his voice caught in his throat. Generally, when in a restaurant one eats their pizza with a knife and fork working in from the crust, but he ate like a child, with grubby fingers, and got tomato sauce all over his face and in his stubbly beard. Anyone would have thought he'd never seen a good meal in his life.

He'd polished his plate before I was even halfway through my own meal. Scrubbing his face with the napkin and picking at the stray mushrooms and olives that he'd dropped on the table, he smiled sheepishly at me and thanked me. Again, he tried to give me back what remained of the money, but I pretended not the hear him, and he didn't try again.

That should have been where it ended. It would have been where it ended, if the kid hadn't insisted on telling me his name.

Yosuke.

I nodded in acknowledgement, and spent the rest of the working day in the city before going home to a wife who wouldn't touch me.

Yosuke waved casually at me whenever I passed him on my way to work from then on. I noted with bitter amusement the flicker of hope that flashed in his eyes whenever he saw me; he was secretly anticipating my charity. And I was never one to disappoint – I made taking him out for dinner once a week a personal habit. After he got past his initial awkwardness, Yosuke made up for previous silence with mindless, incessant chatter. The kid just wouldn't shut up. Somehow he got it into his head that I wanted to know every pointless little detail of his life; he couldn't bear that I might judge him badly for what he did, he had to explain himself, make excuses, prove to me that he had reasons for being such a failure.

It was typical teenager stuff. Kid never gets on with his parents, slowly loses contact with his friends, threatens to run away and gets told not to bother coming back. He's eighteen, he's young, he thinks he's invincible. Sets off to the city, guitar in hand, and one week later he's run out of money and clean clothes. Of course, he's too proud to call his mommy and apologise.

He wasn't completely helpless, he assured me. He worked, sometimes, when he could. He would play at clubs and bars on open nights, and sometimes even get to provide a little background music at restaurants. He got by, just fine.

He tugged at the sleeves of his too-small summer jacket. He struck me as the sort that would once have cared very much about his appearance. He probably still did, only now he didn't have daddy's credit card to buy his way through life. How was it, I wondered bitterly, learning that the earth didn't revolve around him?

I asked him, out of mere curiosity, where he lived. He hesitated before providing me with an answer. Block thirty-eight, K-12, city centre. When he asked why, I smiled and told him that I was interested in him.

Okay, he said uncertainly. He even called me 'dude', which almost made me laugh aloud.

One night, on my way back home to a son who couldn't stand me, I took a taxi and told the driver to take the long way around, through the city centre. Block thirty-eight, building K-12 wasn't difficult to spot – with the herd of drunken fools falling about outside.

A homeless shelter.

It was easy after that. I didn't even have to take him out any more. All I had to do was talk to him, listen to him. Years of climbing the social ladder had taught me how to pretend to someone that they were truly special to me, and Yosuke, child that he was, was oblivious to my rehearsed lines and ironed-on smiles. He lapped it all up like a thirsty puppy. I looked at him in a way that told him he was the centre of my world for those few minutes I had alone with him. When I turned up to watch him perform one of his own songs in a tiny, smoke-filled dive, he looked like he was going to cry.

He couldn't have been much older than twenty. But after two years or more on the streets – two years living as the lowest of the low, dirty and unloved and sleeping in shop doorways – he was desperate for someone, anyone, to care about him.

I argued with my wife. We couldn't be in the same room as each other for more than ten minutes before one of us lashed out.

My hand crept across the table to rest gently over Yosuke's. He let it linger for a moment too long before pulling away with a gasp. Baby steps, I told myself. Yosuke was giving off all the right signals. He made no secret of his attraction to women, but when it came to love, the truth was that he would fall for anyone who showed him even the slightest bit of kindness.

I changed my schedule, only spending time with him once every two weeks. It worked like a charm – he was all over me, desperate, please don't leave me, I don't want to be alone. Of course, he never outright admitted it, but by then it was clear. He was dependent on me, on my friendship. And every minute I wasted on him got me a little further to where I wanted to be.

Late night arguments at home rarely ended without somebody storming out of the house, slamming the front door behind them. When it was my turn, I decided, before booking into a hotel, to make a quick stop at the shelter.

The place was foul, dirty, and stank of cannabis. I attracted more than a few funny looks as I made my way through reception, still wearing my grey pinstriped business suit and tie. I found Yosuke in a shared room, sitting in a collapsed bunk, strumming his guitar. After a day's playing, the tips of his fingers were bleeding.

He looked shocked when he saw me. Then ashamed. He never meant for me to discover the identity of K-12.

I didn't have to say anything. I just smiled, tilted my head and walked out of the room, and Yosuke scrambled to his feet and followed me.

I took him to a hotel, four stars. To him, walking through the glass revolving doors must have been like stepping through the pearly gates of heaven, because his jaw slackened, and his brown eyes went wide. He kept making breathy little gasps as I led him through the white marble foyer, and when I opened the door of the en suite room I had paid for, with the cream-coloured furniture and the crisp, soft beds with maroon linen covers, he refused to go in.

I can't, he said.

I can't let you do this.

Why are you doing this?

Because I care about you, I said. And I took his hand and led him in, and even when the door was safely closed behind us, he didn't pull away.

I didn't do anything to him that night. I paid for all the right TV channels and made myself comfortable on the huge sofa, and after Yosuke emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy robe with a look of absolute bliss on his face, I raised an arm out to him. He snuggled up to me, resting his damp head on my shoulder, and we took everything we wanted from the mini-fridge and watched an action film marathon until he fell asleep. I had to carry him to the bed like a child. He was surprisingly light in my arms, and when I laid him down, his robe slipped. He was all ribs underneath, with only the slightest thin layer of muscle to protect him.

The next morning, I told breakfast was included in the price, so he had no problem eating enough for five. Cereal – plain muesli first, trying to look mature, but he couldn't resist going back for two bowls of little kids stuff too. Then toast with butter, then toast with jam, then French croissants. After that he went onto the cooked breakfasts. He literally moaned when he bit into a strip of bacon.

I smirked and asked him if he was all right, and he laughed. He'd been doing that a lot more lately.

Back at home, my son announced that he was taking time away from college until 'everything was sorted out' – by which he meant, Natsuki and I had come to an agreement over the preliminary divorce proceedings. I was furious. I hit him, and he hit back, and then Natsuki got involved. She took his side, obviously, and I was practically forced out the door.

So I took Yosuke back to the hotel. It was a little sooner than I'd anticipated, but I knew I could pull it off with the right words and the right looks. When I secured the door behind us, I wrapped my arms around his unsuspecting waist and pulled his back against my chest. He fit neatly in my arms, he was so thin. When I softly kissed the side of his neck, the hair on his nape bristled, and goosebumps broke out over his skin. He broke away from me, chest heaving, and retreated into the bathroom, spluttered, apologising, blushing furiously.

I gave him five minutes before going in after him. The standing shower was made of glass, and with no curtain to cover him, Yosuke jumped up like a frightened animal. Doubling over in an attempt to cover himself, he slipped and slammed his shoulder hard against the wall, wincing, he whipped around, back to me, ducking his head and hugging himself.

I slid back the door of the shower, toed off my shoes and stepped in behind him, thankful I'd chosen to abandon my jacket on the arm of the sofa as the drops of water that pelted Yosuke's bare body splashed onto me. He felt even smaller without his clothes. I held him gently, but he was tense, and refused to look at me even when I placed a finger on his chin in an effort to turn his head. It looked like I could only get so far by being kind.

His skin was surprisingly smooth under my hands. After years of street life and sleeping rough, I had expected him to be physically tougher, not that it was a bad thing. Soft, young skin was a rarely-seen pleasure to old, weathered hands. I stroked him lovingly, and he shuddered beneath the touch.

Yosuke's own hands were cupped protectively over his crotch. I tried to coax them away, but he held them firm, and I had no intention of forcing him. Instead, I nipped teasingly at the shell of his ear, causing him to make a small noise in the back of his throat, then recoil in embarrassment.

Trapping his arms with my own, I lightly caressed up his wet body and brushed the very tips of my fingers over his nipples. He made another noise, this one not quite so small. Peering over his shoulder, I saw how his nipples, dark against his skin, had already hardened into little peaks, the warm water rushing over his skin breaking around them. I flicked one, and this time he cried out; surely it couldn't be normal for a man's chest to be so sensitive. Maybe – the thought sent an icy thrill rushing through me – he'd never been touched before. Want seized me, and I bit down on his neck and pinched both nipples hard. Yosuke's body jerked, and he let out a strangled moan and grabbed my hands. I quickly secured them in place against his chest and looked down. He was already erect.

I smirked and asked him, Were you touching yourself?

He whimpered and shook his head, the flush that had taken over his cheeks spreading down the nape of his neck.

Look at me, I said.

He kept shaking his head, but his whole body was shaking too. I held his shoulders and turned him around, and he buried his face in the curve between my neck and shoulder. Wrapping one arm around his trembling form, my free hand crept downwards to cup his erection. He writhed and twitched as I stroked him, loud, breathy moans spilling from his mouth as he quickly came undone. It took little over two minutes for his orgasm to sweep over him. A jet of warmth spilled over my fingers, and Yosuke's legs crumpled beneath him, leaving him dangling, arms hooked tightly around my neck.

I turned off the shower with my free hand, and set him back on his feet. He swayed a little, as if he was about to faint, and kept a look of dazed confusion on his face as I quickly dried him off with a complimentary towel. I forced down the annoyance I felt at not getting anything back, and half-carried, have-led him to the bed, where he practically collapsed, exhausted. This time, I had to make him believe it was all about him. That I wanted to do these things to him because I cared about him and wanted to make him feel good.

The next morning he asked me, after quite a bit of blustering, why I did it. It was the best question I could have hoped for.

Why do you think?

And I kissed him gently along his jaw, making him go red.

I was confident that I could push him further the next time, and I did. Squashed into the back of an elevator with three other people, I snaked my hand around Yosuke's hips to cup his bottom. His muscles clenched under my palm, and Yosuke stared at me wildly, silently telling me to stop, someone might see. I couldn't resist squeezing and watching with relish as his eyes widened and a deep blush rose in his cheeks.

In the room that had become known as ours, he turned on me and demanded to know what I was doing. I silenced him with a finger to his quivering lips. Suck it, I ordered.

I knew he would do it. I was his friend, his benefactor, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he owed me. Without me, what did he have to go home to? A broken-down dive filled with thieves and drug addicts. I gave him money, food, a warm bed to sleep in. And now I was going to give him pleasure. And all he had to do was let me.

He blushed under my gaze as he reluctantly took my fingers into his mouth. He was afraid to touch them with his tongue, and when he did he wasn't very good at it. He wouldn't close his lips, and he kept drooling, then apologising incoherently and choking on his words. Beside the slickness of his tongue, his teeth kept grazing me. I made a mental note not to experiment his oral skills on any other part of my body any time soon.

I withdrew my fingers and gripped the back of his neck, winding my fingers into his hair and tipping his head back, exposing his vulnerable throat. He whimpered when I sucked on the skin there. It didn't take long for him to wrap his arms around me and press his body flush against mine as I slid my hands up his shirt and over his back, then down to stroke the sensitive inner parts of his thighs.

When I was absolutely sure he was close to losing it, I forced him up against the wall, catching only a glimpse of his overwhelmed expression before I seized his hips and wrapped one of his legs around my waist. He took the hint, and lifted the other of his own accord, so that he was completely off the floor, completely at my will. I was tempted to yank his jeans down and fuck him against the wall right there and then, but no. That would scare him, and all my work on him would have been for nothing. I settled for grinding my crotch against his. Any electrical currents of pleasure running through me were nothing in comparison to what Yosuke felt, judging from the noises he made. He kept rubbing erratically against me even as I took him to the bed, and when I laid him down, he was half-sobbing.

He gasped fully when I popped open the button of his jeans and pushed them down over his knees, along with his underwear. Clambering over him so that we were face to face, with him laying on his back and me on my hands and knees above him, I pushed his arms up above his head. I wondered if he would try to cover himself. He didn't. He kept wriggling, whining needfully and shamelessly thrusting upwards into nothing. Pushing up his T-shirt with one hand, I dipped my head and whirled my tongue teasingly around a single perked nipple, then sucked hard, eliciting a long, loud moan from Yosuke.

I glanced up at him, one eyebrow quirked, and saw he was shielding his face with his hand as if, now that he was totally exposed, his face was the only remaining feature of his modesty. He stared at me through spread fingers, disbelieving, fearful yet excited too.

I touched a single finger to the tip of his erection, and he gasped and resumed the thrusting that had momentarily ceased. I snatched my hand away, and he whimpered in protest. Twisting himself around so that he laid face-down, he began rubbing himself against the bed, choked little noises escaping his throat as he finally acquired the friction he needed. His ass was on display to me now, practically begging me with every jerk of his hips. Releasing his hands, I sat back and took a firm hold of his buttocks, spreading them apart.

He froze, his breath still coming out in short, shallow gasps. I fumbled for the lubricant and condoms I had brought along in preparation, and Yosuke's hands tightened around the pillows. He began to squirm, though not with pleasure, and when I touched a cold, wet finger to his entrance, he flinched. Wait, he told me. Wait, wait.

I was sick of waiting. I pushed my fingers past the protesting ring of muscles and fully into him. He wailed and thrashed, and I pressed my free hand to his back to calm him.

I didn't waste too much time preparing him or trying to find his prostate. This wasn't about him any more. This was my reward for being his good Samaritan for so long – because, after all, we both knew he had no other way of repaying me.

Still, saint that I was, I rolled on a condom before plunging into him. He screamed and clutched at the bedsheets, every muscle in his body contracting deliciously. I gave him a moment to get use to the feeling. But only a moment.

I hadn't had sex in what felt like a lifetime. Twenty-five years of marriage, fifteen of them without so much as a kiss. Yosuke, young, inexperienced and virginal, was like nothing I'd ever experienced. So hot and tight, and the noises he made weren't too bad either. I finished up in less than ten minutes, which at my age had to be record timing.

The following morning, Yosuke wouldn't look at me. He laid, curled up and trembling, at the very edge of the bed. Typical virgin, he could barely stand without my support, and I had to gently ease him into his clothes, not saying a word. There was blood on the sheets. He cried when he saw it. I sat him on my lap and rocked him gently back and forth, and he clung to me and sobbed like a punished child, as if I, the one who had caused him so much pain, was the only one who could relieve it.

From then on, all our little rendezvouses concluded with sex. I knew better than anyone what the consequences would be if we were discovered. He was street scum, young enough to be my son, and what's more, a man. My reputation would be ruined, and the divorce proceedings would run entirely in Natsuki's favour. I would be left with nothing.

Perhaps that was part of the thrill.

Yosuke, in spite of his protests, was the most delicious little slut. He shocked me with his flexibility; I could hook his legs over my shoulders and proceed to press our bodies close together with ease, leaving him helpless, feet in the air, completely at my mercy. Of course, I showed him none. When we did it upright, he would stand with his legs locked straight, and I could push down on his back until his palms lay flat on the floor just in front of his feet, allowing me ultimate power as I grasped his hips hard enough to bruise and thrust fiercely into him.

He never liked me to see his face, but that was okay. I didn't care about his face. All I cared about was his young, strong body. He was different to women, all sharp angles and jutting bones. Not an ounce of fat on him, but still he moaned when I squeezed his ass and thighs. He moaned when I did a lot of things, actually. So pathetic, tears almost always escaped his eyes, and he clung to me, desperately, arms and legs forming a cage around me.

However amazing the sex was, he never failed to annoy me afterwards. He would snuggle up to me, back turned, trying to get me to put my arm around him, and when I did he would wriggle irritably and pretend he didn't want me to do it. He tried to pester me into saying I loved him, too.

It was a good two months before Natsuki found out. By this point I had abandoned the hotel visits completely and settled for fucking Yosuke on the sofa at home, then driving him back to the shelter before my wife or son came back. Sneaky bitch, she'd persuaded a friend to follow me. She knew all about Yosuke. She even had pictures.

I tore them up. She informed me smugly that her friend had copies, and the look of self-satisfaction on her face was too much to bear. I had been in love with her once, I thought. So in love. But now all I felt was a sheer, burning hatred, and I slapped her hard across the face. She left with triumph shining in her eyes – I had bruised her lip. I had cheated on her, and now I had hit her, and in return she was going to strip me of everything I had.

Furious, I did the only thing I could. I went to the shelter and got Yosuke, practically throwing him into the back of my car and heading back home in silence. He was shaking. He was scared.

I parked haphazardly on the street outside my house. Get out, I ordered. Yosuke shook his head, so I reached in and grabbed him by one stick-like arm. He tried to cling to the seat, but I was bigger than him, I managed to haul him out and throw him over my shoulder and carry him, kicking and screaming, into my house.

I threw him down on the bed – my single bed, Natsuki and I hadn't slept in the same room for years. He shouted at me, demanded to know what was going on.

So I told him. Everything, about me, about my wife, about him.

He tried so hard not to cry. I could almost see all the clichéd lines running through his head as his lips tightened and his eyes welled up. Stupid, little-girl fantasy things that he would never say. 'I thought you loved me'. 'I thought I was special'.

Slowly, hurt turned into rage. He said nothing I didn't expect. The usual 'you used me' and 'I hate you' showed up somewhere amongst his incoherent rant, and for some inexplicable reason, I was suddenly dangerously angry. I hit him. He fell back against the bedpost, blood exploding from his nose. He touched it and gasped, eyes bulging in disbelief. Of course; he had never seen that side of me before.

Yes, look, I thought. Look at what I can do to you. I can do this to you, I can do whatever I want to you, because you're a vagrant, a beggar, a drain on society, and nobody loves you. Nobody cares about you. I could kill you, right here, right now, put my hands around your skinny little neck and choke the life out of you, and nobody would care. Nobody would even notice you were gone.

I reached out and touched his cheek. He flinched.

I'm sorry, I said. I didn't mean to hurt you.

He trembled as I undressed him like I was stripping the leaves off an artichoke. I planted gentle, loving kisses down his throat, over his chest, on each of his pert little nipples. I unzipped my pants, my mind set on having him one last time. I wasn't going to use a condom. I wasn't going to use lube.

He tried to push my hands away when I pulled down his jeans. He struggled and kicked and yelled, and I had no choice. I hit him again. And again and again, until his face turned slippery under my fists. He begged me to stop, voice bubbling with blood, and when I didn't, he lashed out, grabbing my clenched fist with both hands just as it was about to make contact with his jaw.

Stop, he said. No longer a plea.

I clutched the collar of his shirt and ripped my arm back, splitting seams and sending buttons ricocheting across the floor. A bony fist struck my cheek, but he was weak from the beating I'd already dished out, and caused little more than a dull throbbing pain. Not enough to beat down the red hot anger inside me.

He started shrieking when I forced his jeans down over his skinny legs.

He was still shrieking when I heard a car pull up outside, and the front door bang open. I clamped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. They had already heard him. They knew he was here.

Natsuki started screaming at me, her voice laced with contempt as she made all sort of threats that were certain to become reality. Another voice joined in, inevitably her friend. Fear and relief leapt into Yosuke's eyes, and he watched me in silence. There was nothing more I could do.

I left him laying there, half naked, on the bed, white sheets turning red around him, and zipped up my pants and tucked in my shirt. If I was going to face my family, I was going to do it with dignity. I made my way onto the landing.

My wife and son stared at me from the foot of the stairs. Natsuki was crying, which shook me a little. Her friend put her arm around her, and my son started walking up the stairs as I descended them. We passed each other halfway, never once breaking our gaze, neither of us wanting to be the first to look away. His eyes had always unnerved me, ever since he was a child. Piercing. Grey. Neither mine nor his mother's.

I didn't turn around when he opened the door to the bloody mess I'd left behind. A deathly silence filled the house, only penetrated by Natsuki's occasional sniffs.

My son spoke first.

"Yosuke?"

"Sou...ji..."

–

I wanted my first Persona 4 story to be a cute, dorky Souji/Yosuke. What the hell happened? Not that I didn't have fun writing this, though. Reviews in this fandom seem to be getting rarer and rarer, so I'd be very grateful if you could drop me a word! Thanks for reading.