Toshiki liked being with Juubei, cherished the opportunity to feel wanted, needed. He liked it when Saizou was with them, because Saizou knew that sometimes you really did need to laugh, in bed. But sometimes it was good to belong only to Kazuki, for a while. That was how he thought of it, anyway.

He hadn’t realized that Kazuki knew that.

There really wasn’t any other way to interpret Kazuki’s smile this afternoon, though, or the glint of his eyes under his lashes as white teeth nipped the end of his string and long fingers slowly drew the first one out. There definitely wasn’t any other way to interpret it when the weave of that string caught Toshiki’s wrists and pulled them together over his head.

“Kazuki?” he asked, abruptly breathless, holding very still. Not that he thought the strings would cut him, he’d been captured by Kazuki’s strings once, years ago, and he could feel they wouldn’t—nor let him go either. And that… that made his whole body taut and still and waiting.

“You like this,” Kazuki murmured, a statement not a question. His smile got a little wider as a shiver spilled through Toshiki, under his fingertips.

Toshiki had to swallow before he could answer, “Yes.” He moaned outright as the strings flashed and sang again and the net of them caught his thighs, lifting them, spreading them wide. By the time Kazuki delicately looped and fixed his string, Toshiki could barely move and he was dizzy with the rush of blood to his cock. Kazuki’s fingers stroking his entrance, slow and slick, made him shudder and moan.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Kazuki said, smiling at the breathless sounds Toshiki made as those fingers pressed deep into him.

“I’m yours, like this,” Toshiki gasped, muscles trembling as he tried to rock into the slow thrust of Kazuki’s fingers and couldn’t. Heat twined up his spine.

Kazuki’s eyes darkened. “You are, aren’t you?” he said, soft and thoughtful. It seemed an odd way to say it, but Toshiki was too dizzy with the feeling of being held and bound and touched like this to quite reason out why.

He couldn’t help whimpering when Kazuki’s fingers slid out of him. “Kazuki…” The hard stretch of Kazuki’s cock pushing into him made him groan, and the slow deliberate slide in and out of his ass told him that Kazuki intended to keep him right where he was for a while. “Please, yes,” he gasped, and the velvet huskiness of Kazuki’s laugh set him shivering.

Sensation closed around him like water over his head and he lost track of time as Kazuki drove into him slow and strong, gentle hands stroking over the taut muscles of his chest and stomach, sliding down to squeeze his ass firmly now and then, and spread him wider. Wound in Kazuki’s strings, he couldn’t do anything but take it, feel it, know that he’d given himself completely into Kazuki’s hands and they had closed on him.

It was that knowledge, the sweetness of it, that finally became more than he could take, and he cried out, broken and breathless, as slow-drawn pleasure snapped into fire and wrung out every nerve he had like a rag. He felt like he was going to melt with the heat of it, and when Kazuki’s steady fucking finally turned rough and fast he didn’t even have the breath left to moan.

He lay panting and dazed as Kazuki slowly released him. When Kazuki unbound his wrists, only to close his hands around them, fingers stroking gently, Toshiki flushed. “How did you know?” he asked, a little uneven.

“Mm.” Kazuki settled against him, thumb sliding over the inside of his wrist. “I was recalling the other day what you looked like, the first time we met. Do you remember?”

Toshiki snorted. “Of course I remember. I challenged you, and you toyed with me. Though I didn’t figure out that’s what you were doing until the end.” The end, when the delicate figure nearly dancing just beyond his reach had laughed, bright and pleased, and sent strings singing out to bind him in place so easily it had undone him.

“I wanted to watch you,” Kazuki pointed out, “of course I drew it out. But I was thinking of how you looked at me, then.” He was quiet for a moment before he said, low, “Should I have held you by me, when I turned to follow Ginji-san? Should I have demanded that?”

Toshiki’s breath caught and he had to close his eyes against the knowledge of the difference that would have made. “Anything you commanded, I would have done,” he said, husky.

“I knew that.” Kazuki’s voice was tense. “That’s why I didn’t. Should I have?”

“I…” Toshiki swallowed and spoke his heart. “Yes,” he whispered. “Please. That’s past, we can’t change it, but please. Hold me by you.”

Kazuki breathed deep, in and out, shoulders relaxing, and nodded. His hands tightened on Toshiki’s wrists. “You’re mine,” he said, quiet but sure. “I won’t open my hand again.”

Toshiki wasn’t ashamed of the sound that pulled out of him. Kazuki lifted his head and smiled down at him.

“I had thought there was a difference between having you like this,” he drew a finger down Toshiki’s chest, “and leading you. But there isn’t, is there?”

“Maybe for some people, but not for me.” Toshiki’s mouth quirked. “Not for any of us, really.”

Kazuki closed his eyes and asked, softly, “Truly?”

Toshiki had to wonder what Kazuki was really asking. He thought about what Kazuki had just told him, the reason he hadn’t commanded them back then; thought about the fire in Kazuki and the terrifying edge it used to have; thought about his own old rage, and the assurances that had finally quieted it. And then he tugged his wrists gently loose from Kazuki’s hands and wrapped his arms around him.

“We won’t leave you,” he whispered against Kazuki’s hair. “Never again. We won’t let anything drive us away from you.” He smiled wryly. “Not even you.”

Kazuki’s breath caught against his shoulder and slim, strong arms locked around him in answer. “Toshiki…”

“I’m sorry we didn’t see,” he said, soft. A faint laugh shook Kazuki.

“None of us saw. Can we forgive each other?”

“Already done.” How could he do anything else? Kazuki took such care of him, had given him so much. How could he not return every bit of that he could?

They lay together in comfortable quiet until the sound of the front door, and the others returning, roused them to smile at each other and get up and go out to help make dinner.