One more hour until boarding. 

Katsuyuki's gaze lowered down to his lap. It hovered there for as long as he comfortably could hold it - no more than a few seconds - before it again flicked around the lounge. His fingers drummed against the pleather armrest. At this hour, the room was near deserted, yet he still felt a creeping unease, the imagined urge to scour for threats that were conjured by a paranoid mind. His eyes drifted back up to the departure board.

One more hour until boarding.

These conferences were never something to look forward to, but this time, his discomfort was more pronounced; not the usual dread of once again failing to reach his father's painfully high expectations, or of the swift punishment from Yegor that came with it. This was an anxiousness born of guilt, as if his superiors would know what he'd been up to just hours prior, as though the smell of sex still clung to his skin like the smell of fresh blood on a wounded animal.

Now and then, the scent of him would come back to mind, as though the aroma still lingered faintly; the sweet coconut fragrance in his hair, the alcoholic sting of cheap cologne, the dizzying mix of sweat and pheromones.

He caught himself rubbing at his forearms, his subconscious striving to brush Yuanfei's marking scent from his body. With a stiff sigh, he leant back in his seat and reached for his coffee. Greenacre's premium lounge was never a particular high point. Despite their best attempts to present a facade of luxury, the coffee still tasted like burnt shit. He took another sip, holding back the urge to grimace, before abandoning the cup on the table beside him. Not like he needed the caffeine anyway; the adrenaline was doing a fine job of keeping his mind active.

One more hour until boarding.

Seeking another way to occupy his restless mind, he reached for his phone. He tapped his foot in anxious rhythm, staring down at the blank screen. He'd never been much of a writer, much less a journaler, but there were things he needed to get off his chest – and, with no one to tell, he was left with few other options.

He tapped out a few words.

Something happened tonight.

Getting even a single sentence out bristled him with frustrated embarrassment. The experience felt somehow degrading, pathetic in its conflicting amateurishness and earnestness. He erased the text, back to blank canvas.

After fumbling and scrubbing out a half-dozen half-sentences more, his failures were beginning to grate on his patience. This wasn't difficult. It needn't be perfect, or even good. It wasn't for anyone's eyes but his own. It was just to get the poison out.

Casting a quick glance around the lounge - one last safety check - he took a deep breath, steadied his hands and lifted his phone once more.

It happened. I don't know if I've been expecting it or not. In hindsight, it's clear that the charade had already gone on too long - something had to give. Somehow it feels like an impossibility and an inevitability at the same time.

The friendship was already strained, fluctuating between hot and cold. I tried to find a way to justify it, to frame it not as an aberration but instead a normal (though unmentionable) facet of a standard male friendship, but that justification has been getting harder to buy into as things have developed. The dynamic between us has taken on a wild new shape, growing rapidly out of control, thriving into something that would be wholly unnatural in any typical bond between men.

It's not normal to have anything remotely sexual between male friends, no matter how much I tell myself otherwise.

I don't know why I can't hold it back. It shouldn't even cross my mind as a question to be entertained, let alone be a struggle to repress. Excuses can only stretch so far - and when they're overused to this degree, they wear so thin that they can't cover the ugly truth anymore. The reason why I can't resist these disconcerting urges is that I feel the same way he claimed to feel. I denied how I felt for a long time, and I've denied that he could share those feelings just as long. I sure as hell wouldn't presume he's guilty of something like this - but now that he's confessed, I suppose it's obvious in retrospect. I wonder if he feels the same about that too.

When he admitted how he felt - despite the way I took it - it was like a weight was finally gone. I'd been hiding under this heavy burden of denial for so long, one that both shielded and crushed me. I was scared to come out from under it. His confession forced me out. It was liberating in a way, stepping out from under that shadow of denial. But at the same time, I felt so exposed. Hearing his confession, the things he claimed to be feeling, it's like he'd reached into my mind and pulled my own thoughts from it, repeating them back at me. In that moment, it felt almost like I was being mocked, confronted by my ugly little secret. Of course I reacted the way I did, because that's all I ever fucking do. I lash out. It's like a reflex. I repress my feelings for him and mask it with aggression. More hot and cold bullshit. That ugly secret wounds my pride, and I alleviate the pain by passing it onto him.

But this time, at least, there was more to it than just embarrassment - there was fear too. I'm a danger to him. Yegor has already threatened him once because of me. If someone found out about this - if someone did something about it - I couldn't take it. It pains me to even think about; not just the thought of him getting hurt, but it being my fault. Not that it excuses it, but for once, that violent reflex wasn't entirely selfish. It felt like putting up a wall was the only way to protect him. Apparently not. Nothing I do can keep him from getting hurt.

But somehow - as always - he forgave me. Even when I asked him to meet me before I left and confess even more to me, he trusted me enough to comply. Even after what I'd just done. I doubted he'd show – I wouldn't blame him for it. I'd already roughed him up for confessing once, then I had the audacity to ask him to do it again. But I was wrong. He came back. He confessed things I'd never dared to even admit to myself. I felt vulnerable all over again – but I didn't let it control me this time.

I suppose by this point, the truth was already obvious anyway - not much point denying it further: he's felt this way for quite a while. So have I.

Things moved so fast from there. I barely remember how we got from the doorway to the bed - it's all a blur – but once he was under me, clothes off and sprawled on the sheets, it's like time stopped. He stared up at me with those incredible, expressive eyes. He had this look that pulled me into him completely. It' was intense, but gentle; deep and captivating, but a little lighter, almost playfully compassionate. All I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my head as I took in the full sight of him. There's something so beautiful that radiates from him when I look at him like that – it's not just his face or body, but something that permeates from somewhere deeper too. Something in the way he looks back at me. It's hard to describe.

I lost my nerve for a moment. Seeing his body – all of it – nothing could prepare me for that. There's no going back from something like that. There's no explaining away of why you're not repulsed by a man's body, no comforting excuses you can tell yourself when you see it all, and love it all, and want it all. But it turns out it's something you can overcome quickly when you realize that this is your chance to actually have it all.

He smiled at me, and I brushed his hair away from his face, and got another look at his cut. Seeing it up close, still dressed shut, it resurfaced something. For a moment, it took me out of the chaos. I felt something else. Anger. Despair. Protectiveness. Some combination of those. Seeing what the people I'm associated with have done to him disgusts me – not just that I allowed him to get in harm's way. The mere connection I have to those people made me feel culpable. Guilt by association, I guess. He'd told me earlier in the night it wouldn't leave a lasting scar. That lifted some of that weight away, the knowledge that it'll fade. Yegor might have left a his scar on me, but he's failed to do the same to him. He can move on from this; Yegor has no permanence on him. I guess I'm projecting. I think he caught it too, because suddenly his fingers were running up the side of my cheek. It was a strangely tender touch. Comforting. It's not a feeling I'm used to.

For so long, it's felt so, so wrong to see him like this. Years of being told it, and believing it, that I'd have to be a degenerate to do it. But now that it was actually happening, it just felt so right for me to be there. It wasn't the heinous, shameful sin that I'd built it up to be. There was no humiliation or disgust. The internal conflict was gone, at least for that moment. It was like I'd stepped outside of myself , left behind the part that's built up all this negativity and hatred, and exposed something vulnerable inside me that I don't think I ever thought could be reached – I don't know how else to describe it. All that baggage I'd been carrying was gone. It was just the two of us in that moment, doing whatever we wanted. Whatever felt right. It's like there was no reality outside of just him and me – the world stopped beyond that room.

Once it started, that feeling distilled into something more visceral. All my senses honed into him. The feel of him. The sight, and sound, and touch of him. All I felt was him. It was intense, near overwhelming, hard for me to conceal just how much I was into it. Of course there was a physical component to it – I don't want to get into details, but sure, it of course felt good in that way – but it was the emotional element that caught me by surprise, like there was this feeling of connectedness and belonging that I'd never even known I was missing this whole time.

I don't know how to describe it - but the experience was so reciprocal. Every action of mine was responded to with a reaction of his own. He was so responsive. He'd lean into every touch, the rhythm of his body flowing into my every movement. I realized just how much I've felt like a passive observer in my own life, my body going through the motions while my mind watches it run on autopilot from a distance. Tonight, I felt truly present. I was really there for once, as in the moment as I could be, fully absorbed and embracing the agency of doing what I truly wanted, and revelling in the consequences of it.

Every sigh of mine prompted a sound of pleasure from him in return, each of my actions eliciting one of his of equal intensity. And in kind, every beautiful little motion he made resonated so perfectly in me that I couldn't help but reciprocate. I was lost in him, able to process nothing but him, longing for nothing but more of him. I could've spent all night that way, and every day for the rest of my life. But here I am, waiting for the 02:15 to Moscow. God, I wish he'd come to talk to me a little earlier. I wish I could've had even just a few more minutes with him.

I told him feelings weren't going to get involved. That was for both of us; a warning for me to hold it back, and - when I would inevitably fail - a plea to him to keep an emotional distance where I couldn't. Of course I'd fail. I just didn't think I'd fail so quickly. It turns out it's not so simple as a physical urge, despite what I'd tried to convince myself - but I have no other choice than to continue trying to believe that. After all, it can't work out anyway; we both know that. I can't treat this arrangement as anything more than a casual hookup - and that's fine. It has to be. 

This will do. While we're both single, while I can enjoy this small window of freedom, while he hasn't yet found someone to replace what we have, this will do. I'm under no illusions that it can't last, and one of these days he's going to find someone that cam give him what he deserves - someone that he can be with openly and proudly, someone that'll treat him right, someone that can show him more affection than I ever could, even if they could only feel a fraction of what I feel for him.

There's no point wishing on if things could be different; the temporary reprieve of hope only makes reality that much more painful. It borders on delusion to even entertain the possibility. I'm certainly not going to put that false hope on him either. It's better this way, staying mindful that our friendship can go no further. This is its limit. All I can reasonably hope for is that he's willing to stay here with me for a while. Perhaps I ought to actually find out if he even does feel that way. I left so quickly after we finished – I was so fucking awkward and embarrassed – I didn't even check if he liked it. I didn't even tell him I liked it. With the way I left, it's not hard to believe he'd think I didn't. I wasn't particularly forthright with expressing it. God knows I'm not ready for that. But maybe I need to take on my share of the burden of humiliation and let him know that I did like it. I more than fucking liked it. And if I have to stop short of every other little thing that I'd kill to have with him, I can at least tell him I want to keep doing this strange, confusing, beautiful shit with him. He deserves to know how wanted he really is for once.