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I'm leaving.

After seven years of torture I could probably sell to Hollywood for a sizable profit, I’m getting out. I’ve packed my bags and the last of my belongings are out of the bathroom. At this point, fuck the little things – if there’s anything left when I’m gone, I hope it’s a benefit to the next hopeless victim of adult severity that inhabits these shoddy quarters.

God knows I’ve had my fill.

One last look…to make sure the room is just as I found it: bed made, bureau cleaned, and the nightstand as immaculate as the first night I arrived. The only indication that I was ever even here is the line of microscopic nicks on the wall behind the lamp. One for every day that I was forced to be here.

There are two thousand, five hundred and thirty-five of them.

I counted them last night…once more before I went to bed, just to be sure.

And now…I’m leaving. One last look, I think I can spare it that. But that’s all. It’s already had my tears, my pain, my passion, and my hate.

I can give it a glance.

***

My bags are stacked in a pyramid at the bottom of the stairs and I slip my canvas backpack over one shoulder as two of the younger students distribute the rest amongst themselves. I can’t remember their names; I think they’re new this year. How unfortunate for them. I hope their story is better than mine.

I walk without hesitation even though I think my mouth has a taste for my heart. That’s how I was raised, show no fear, even when it has a grip on your balls.

I barely remember shaking the Head Master’s hand or the chorused farewells of a place I had learned to endure for the latter third of my life. It was better than home, I guess. Though God knows I tried leaving in the beginning, often.

Papa always brought me back. And after the first time, I was enlightened to my father’s view on my delusion of freedom.

As in I didn’t have any but I do have scars.

But that was seven years ago. I think they’ve both forgotten about me. Neither one of them bothered to come today. Although Mama was kind enough to mail me the address of the apartment she so graciously purchased for me, fully furnished.

Like I want anything from them, after what they did…

Another thing I learned from my father. There is no ‘forgive and forget’.

I open the door.

I remember how to breathe once the initial disappointment has worn off. He’s not there. I’m not exactly sure why I expected him to be there, why I assumed my knight in shining would be there for my coming of age and not miss my coronation.

But he has.

And I’m trying my royal damndest to hold my head high so the crown doesn’t slip over my eyes.

***

The cab driver pops the trunk and takes the bags from the others and myself. There’s an awkward hush as they try to find something to say. I never made any real friends here…their parents always decided they wanted them back eventually, and I was left with nothing but another mark on the wall. I think it’s stupid of me to take a taxi – I mean, capsulize the baggage and fly to my new place; that would be so much easier. But Mama’s hell bent to make me a proper human gentleman. She blames my ‘illicit affair’ on my Saiyan heritage. Hn. She’s almost right, there…

She should be pointing that painted nail at my father.

Sighing, I shrug an indifferent shoulder to my aides, lifting the latch and opening the door. Tossing my hair out of my eyes, I slide into the backseat.

And am forced to swallow my heart.

Gohan…

I slam the door shut behind me out of habit. He’s here. He’s really here. And I can’t do anything but remember how to breathe. In…out…in…

Hentai.

I blush…he’s the only one in the world that can decorate me in those violent colors besides my father. I think it’s because he’s so familiar with them himself.

We stare at each other. We stare at the floor. I notice one of my shoes has come unlaced. It’s not until I’m prompted by the driver that I recite the address off the crumpled piece of perfume-tainted paper clutched painfully in my hand.

My voice shakes with the words.

Gohan coughs quietly, large hands smoothing nervously over his thighs. Good God, his hands are still as big as I remember and again, the crimson calls my thoughts. I…I don’t even know if he’ll want me…

“H…” He clears his throat a second time. “How are you?” He smells of candles and communion, though his collar’s not on. They never told me if he left the Order…but it pitches me backward into our forbidden frenzy – the feeling of my back against an unlocked door, the softness of his lips as he whispered my name in the wick-lit office before Bible study…the wobbly feeling of my legs as I tried my utmost not to stumble on the way to my pew in the first row…

He smells of church and comfort…and all my lasting fantasies are made real again with his uncertain query.

“Fine.” Lie. I’m so anxious I could piss my pants. Thank God for my father’s self-control.

“That’s good…” Right. Look up, look down, look away…I can’t bring myself to do more than stare at his profile when his head is bent in clueless concentration. God…he’s so beautiful…angelic almost…

And I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around him as I did when I was younger.

Instead we ride the rest of the way in apprehensive silence.

***

“Domo arigato,” I murmur, slipping the key back into my pocket to accompany the letter it was sent with. I step out of the way, allowing him into the hall and indicating with a nervous flip of my head to put my belongings next to what looks like a closet door.

The place is about as generic as is legally allowed; my mother must have hired someone to do it for her. God knows she never would have taken the time to do it herself. I can’t stand the blue they chose for the living room. It reminds me of the color of Papa’s training suits.

“You…want something to drink or…something…” Great, real smart, Trunks. Allow me to astound you with my brilliance again, Gohan.

“Water…thanks…” He walks a circle before perching on the edge of the loveseat. I wish we could just cut these adolescent pretenses…but I don’t know if he’s come here to love me or leave me.

Either way, I’m fucked. It’s just a matter of whether or not I enjoy it.

It takes me a few minutes of calculated searching to find the glasses. They’re in the same place as the ones at my parents’. How imaginative. My hands tremble and the stream of water slips over the brim of the cup to wet the back of my hand. Wiping it on the leg of my pants, I turn off the faucet, not daring to pause for fear that I’ll lose my nerve and run from the building….

Fail him again…

I sit next to him on the sofa and hand him the glass without looking; I can feel the familiar warmth of his body and I want to be a child again…to never have to account for what I’ve done…to lose myself in the rapture of his lips and hands….

He takes a hearty gulp, downs the entire thing in a single drought. And then he fiddles with it, turning it over in his hands as though it’s going to show him the secrets of the universe. One of us has to speak, or I’m going to explode.

I just don’t know…if I’m really ready to lower all my carefully crafted defenses…

Onegai, Gohan…

Make it all better…

***

“Did you really…mean all those things you said?” I swallow at his reluctant question, licking my lips and turning…finally…to look him in the eye.

Good God…I don’t know when you blinked, but you lost an angel in that momentary darkness…

And he’s sitting right here next to me with more questions in his eyes than Adam himself.

“I…in the letters?” He nods hesitantly, leaning forward to place the cup on the transparent coffee table. God, how can you ask…

Did I mean it when I said that everyday without you was like trying to breathe underwater?

That I was overwhelmed with images of you – in my dreams, my waking moments filled with the remembrance of your touch, the lingering taste of a mouth that made me feel loved…wanted…

That I wanted you, was faithful to you, that every person I fucked was just practice for you, for when I had you again…so that I could be perfect…

That you were my super hero since chibi-hood, and that when I saw you again it was like God was granting me the second chance at a love I’d only whispered to my pillow at night…

That you were the love of a father I wish I’d had…

Oh, I never told you that.

“Hai.” Surprisingly enough the midnight marble of his eyes doesn’t waver at my answer and it is I that lowers my gaze first. I can’t let him see my tears…I don’t want that to sway his decision…I need him to be here…but only if he wants to…

“But you never wrote me back…” Everyday I waited for the mail to come…for the remote possibility, that maybe…today…but when there was anything at all, they were just occasional concerns from my mother that I dutifully answered. But four ‘o clock every single afternoon…

“I…” God Gohan, speak…even if it’s just to tell me that I’m being childish and that my love for you is fantastic and impossible…

I think he tries to speak again but I’m a lost cause. I can’t see beyond the blur of my stinging tears, and I don’t want to brush them away for fear that he’ll see…

And then he’s doing it for me, the pad of his hand gentle and tender as it brushes aside the unwanted saline stain on my face. Trapped by tradition, I never indulged the human release, the freedom allotted in emotional solace; the liquid personification of my grief repressed and hushed by the harsh, unwavering regal training imposed upon me.

I’m fine for about a minute. A whole sixty seconds. That’s pretty good, right? For seven years worth of pain…

It’s the agonizing mumble of “T-chan” that breaks me completely, sundering my dignity and slashing my resolution of strength into little more than shards of light.

***

“Go-gomen nasai, Gohan…but Papa…” I try to breathe, really I do, but my throat is cinched tighter than my mother’s point of view and I can’t get all the words out…about how Papa…made me tell him about us…when he saw the marks on my arms…but I said you never hurt me – that I liked it when you touched me, that I wanted it…and that…

But he didn’t understand. And I’m so…s-s-sorry…Gohan…forgive me…

Onegai…

…his arms are as strong as I remember.

His embrace as comforting…

His lips…as soft and pliable…

God forgive me, I’ve lost all capability for conscious thought.

I’m crying freely when his mouth melds to mine and his hands careen down the slope of my back as though I were still a child in his grip…I taste tears and not all of them are mine, but I’m so lost in his sweet, musky, Saiyan flavor…

My arms are latched around his neck and my head tilts to rest against the firm support of his shoulder as he revives my dormant senses with his tongue. Fingers in his hair…the nape of his neck…over the impressive plane of his back…pulling at the hem of his shirt…

I’m moaning, and purring syllables that resemble his holy name; our movements frantic now, eager to taste and touch and memorize what has been denied too long and I want to offer up every inch of myself…

Because now it’s mine to give.

***

We made love in every room in the house.

Nothing will compare to the feeling of his body building a rhythm between my thighs. It hurt like hell but after seven years of utter despondency…

It was something I could greedily accept. In fact, everything he had to give me was devoured…

His whispered words of apologetic devotion panted into the sweaty tendrils of my hair as we lay…recovering…

The adoration in his hands as he bathed me in poetry from his fingertips…

The beautiful expression of blissful release as he tensed…whimpered…then collapsed upon my chest to curl like a child in my arms.

We didn’t stay in my newfound home for very long. When our desperate desire was sated enough to allow us the freedom of movement, we flew to his loft and praised God again. He held my hand the entire way there.

He’s still asleep though; he didn’t wake when I crawled out from under his body this morning. He was so warm…I think I cried again to look down…and see him there and to know that tomorrow I wouldn’t open my eyes to the bleached white of my own pillow…that it wasn’t just a dream…

I walked to the kitchen after that – I don’t think I’d eaten for the last two days. And being Saiyan only heightened my awareness of this very painful fact but something I saw on the table made my insistent stomach take a backseat.

My letters. All of them, protected by a little garrison of green bottles that smelt like cheap liquor.

So he did read them…I fingered the banded bundle, watching the progression of my writing as I matured, the post dates becoming more infrequent. I told you everything, Gohan…you were my priest…

But now you’re my lover and there’s one more thing I have to do.

***

I haven’t been to a church in years, but the smell of incense and candles…the scents that brought tears to my eyes for almost a decade make me smile now fondly in remembrance. It makes me want to find a dark corner and…

Heh, I was never a choir boy. I just sang my praises to God from between the legs of his earthly devotee every Sunday.

The confessional’s just as dark as it was when I was younger, albeit smaller…and when I hear the swish of the partition, I swear…it’s you…

But it’s not, and that’s why I’m here. You’re not my priest anymore. So I need to tell someone my secrets…

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been seven years since my last confession. Last night I stole one of your angels…” I smirk. “And I’m not sorry.”