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He had always believed he was the one doing the keeping, that the leash, the bowl, the shelter of his home were proof of ownership, but death exposed the quiet lie. When the dog’s breathing thinned into absence, it was not a possession that slipped from his hands, but a witness to his life that vanished, taking with it the version of him that had been seen without judgment. The house did not feel empty because something was gone; it felt altered, as if reality itself had been rewritten in smaller, colder terms. In the dog’s absence, time grew sharper, more deliberate, no longer softened by the rhythm of paws and unspoken companionship. And so he understood, too late, that he had not owned a life, he had been entrusted with a fragment of meaning, one that loved him without language, and in losing it, he was forced to confront the unbearable truth: that love is not measured by its duration, but by the silence it leaves behind.
Ness slammed Kaiser's locker shut, harder than necessary, jaw tight.
He slammed the door, the taller one barely avoiding the cool metal that almost beheaded him if it weren't for his lightning fast reflexes.
“Tch. That damn—” ness trailed off, walking away from Kaiser, walking between his broader frame and the now closed locker, as if that slam just now was just to show he was pissed.
“Isagi?” The voice behind him was soft, betraying how irritated Kaiser was with his usually obedient dog.
As much as it annoyed him how much Alexis kept bringing that bastard up, he couldn't shake off the feeling that ness had something else inside of him, something dark and revolting, something—no, the thing that made ness so unbearable to be around these days.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t start, Ness. We already talked about that way too much.” he tried his best to deviate the topic.
The pink-haired man was standing there, head slightly tilted, eyes… wrong. Not the usual shining devotion. Something more furious, like rebellion and anger simmering in the pot of the wizard that didn't know any better but to mix around the three elements of kaiser, isagi and ness.
“You’ve been saying his name a lot lately.”
Kaiser scoffed, brushing past him. trying to ignore how pissed ness looked, “Because he’s in my way. Try keeping up.”
But Ness didn’t move, he didn't scramble miserably to apologise like the pet he was always proclaimed to be, his owner being Kaiser.
Kaiser dreaded these kinds of moments, he most of the time, behaved like a total asshole, and a brat, but ness didn't bat an eye, always obeying to head and toe.
But once ness felt even a little bit jealous, he completely changed, into a form of monster, his core being a ball of dark energy, all bottled up towards one goal, hearing kaiser say one sentence,
even half of it would do.
“Ness, i belong to you”
Those words, are all that ness needs to hear, to go back into his natural state.
My kaiser.
My michael.
Isagi stole him from me.
Let me introduce you,
My, a possessive pronoun that one uses to describe clear as day ownership of something.
Stole, a possessive verb, used to conduct the fact that another person took something that was in your possession.
Ness kept quiet, the dark thoughts ramming through his mind, rushing the blood from his legs, to his shoulders, to his head as he felt it become light and suddenly weightless.
The anger and jealousy boiling deep in his heart—no, his soul, didn’t respond. It only responded in ways it accommodated, as that monster inside of ness only grew bigger.
And that silence…that was what made Kaiser pause.
“…Ness?”
A hand grabbed his wrist.
Hard, a grip that might bruise if he kept it up for too long.
Kaiser’s eyes widened slightly. Not from pain, but from surprise.
“…What do you think you’re doing?” he tried to sound composed, as if his composure hadn't killed itself the second ness walked with that air floating around him.
No answer.
Instead, Ness pulled him back. firm, unyielding…and slammed him lightly against the lockers. Not enough to hurt, enough to get his point across. His eyes dark, showing disheveled possession. The kind that Kaiser couldn't just shake off now that it was awake.
Kaiser’s breath hitched, more from shock than anything. “Ness.” A warning.
Usually, that was enough.
Usually, Ness would fold instantly, apologize, cling, worship.
Like the worthless dog he saw himself as, as if kaiser was his emperor, his owner.
But not in this instant, usually ness would get in his wild state, but much less than he was now.
It was different this time, too different.
He was spiralling slowly, looking kaiser in the eye directly, his gaze alone being enough to make Michael feel nervous, his eyes drop lower, looking to the side, anything that would make him avoid the stare that was eating him up, ravishing him without a sound.
His nervousness half obvious, half not cared about as ness slid his arm around the other's throat, his thumb digging less then softly into his pulse point, feeling the warm flesh just under his finger, slowly rising up and down with the hurried beat of Kaiser's heart hitting and going back to hide, as if all his senses were telling him to run away, to step back and hide, to push him away and yell.
But his guts—his guts told otherwise, no secret to a man's heart, kaiser is a masochist.
He was enjoying this, gonna enjoy this far more than he let on.
“Why,” Ness said quietly, stepping closer, “do you keep looking at him?”
Kaiser frowned. “Are you insane? I’m not looking at him—” he said, voice full of confusedness and a mix of dishonor and a hurt ego.
His voice a trembly rumble from the pressure on his Adam's apple.
“Yes, you are.”
The grip tightened.
“…You’re crossing the line,” Kaiser spit back, the grip around his throat that just tightened, making him have a hard time breathing in fully.
“And you crossed mine first.”
Ness leaned in slightly, their space gone, breath steady while Kaiser’s wasn’t as controlled anymore.
“You’re mine,” Ness murmured. “You made me this way.”
Kaiser let out a dry laugh, trying to regain ground. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t belong to anyone.”
“Then stop acting like you need him. You only need me.” In that moment, ness’s eyes flashed with a red heat, a flash of crimson slipping through his wide, bloodshot eyes.
Kaiser clicked his tongue, trying to push him back, but Ness didn’t budge.
Not even a little.
“…Since when are you this strong?” Kaiser muttered, more to himself. He always knew Alexis was stronger than him, but he humbly kept refraining from showing off strength, especially in front of kaiser.
“What would you say if I were to walk off right now? If I just went off and became somebody else’s dog, their pet?”
Kaiser’s pride flared immediately. “You think you can just—what? Manhandle me because you’re jealous?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
That… that wasn’t supposed to happen.
Ness was supposed to back off after hearing that.
Kaiser was instead met with a sharp ‘yes’ that fumbled his senses.
Kaiser went quiet.
“Say it,” Ness said softly.
“…Say what?”
“That you don’t care about him.”
Kaiser scoffed again, weaker this time. “I don’t—”
Ness’s grip tightened just enough to cut him off.
“Properly.”
Kaiser’s eyes narrowed.
He should push him off.
He should laugh, mock him, break this weird moment.
But something about the way Ness was looking at him—
Like he’d snap if Kaiser said the wrong thing—
“…I don’t care about Isagi,” Kaiser muttered.
Ness studied him.
Longer than comfortable.
Then, slowly… his grip loosened.
His hand moving down slowly, to caress around Kaiser's chest. One warm, soft palm, he could feel the heat through his shirt.
Kaiser exhaled quietly, rolling his eyes like he hadn’t just been pinned. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“Only for you.”
“…Yeah, that part’s not new.”
“If you look at him like that again…” Ness whispered “i’ll kill him.”
That answer—
way too fast—
made Kaiser pause.
Then scoff.
“…You’re insane, you’ve gone batshit crazy.”
Kaiser tried to shove him off out of pure instinct.
Nothing.
Not even a shift.
His brows furrowed immediately, irritation spiking. “What the hell—move.” he honestly expected ness to move away his impossibly rough and strong grip, off of Kaiser's wrists, that were now probably sore and had visible purple, deep bruises.
No response.
Only that stare.
Kaiser clicked his tongue and pushed harder this time, actually putting strength into it, twisting his shoulder, trying to break the hold like he would against anyone else.
Ness had him pinned like it was effortless.
“Stop moving.”
His voice was…
Flat.
And it worked, if only for a second.
Kaiser stilled, not out of obedience, but surprise. His eyes narrowed, something sharper creeping in.
“To repeat my question from earlier…Since when,” he muttered, breathing slightly uneven now, “did you get this strong?”
Ness leaned closer. Their space vanished. “I’ve always been strong,” he said softly. “You just never noticed.”
Kaiser scoffed, but it came out thinner than usual. “Yeah? And now you’re showing off?”
“No.”
His lips curled into a crooked smirk, even as he tested the hold again, twisting, trying to wrench at least one arm free.
Nothing.
Not even close.
“…Heh.”
A breathy, almost amused sound slipped out.
“Didn’t know you had this in you.”
“You keep saying his name.”
There it was again.
That obsession.
Kaiser rolled his eyes, though his pulse had definitely picked up now—whether from being pinned or from the way Ness was holding him, he wasn’t about to admit.
“I say a lot of names,” he shot back. “Try not to get insecure—”
His words cut off sharply as Ness leaned in, grip tightening just enough to make it impossible to ignore.
“I don’t like it.”
Kaiser inhaled slowly, then exhaled through his nose, head tilting back slightly against the wall.
He should be pissed.
He was pissed.
And yet—
“…You gonna keep me like this all day?” he muttered, voice dipping lower, almost taunting.
Ness didn’t hesitate.
“If I have to.”
That answer came too fast.
Too certain.
Kaiser’s smirk widened just a fraction.
There it was.
That unhinged devotion finally snapping into something sharper.
He shifted again, not to escape this time, but to test, to feel just how immovable Ness really was.
Ness’s thumb pressed slightly against his wrist—not painful, but firm enough to remind him exactly who was in control right now.
“Yeah, yeah, I got that part already.” kaiser muttered, in a salty tone, showing his displease at the current position he was forced in.
Kaiser turned his head slightly, eyes half-lidded now, studying him.
Really studying him.
“…Didn’t think you’d ever grow a spine,” he added, tone sharp, but not as cutting as usual.
Ness leaned closer again, voice dropping to something almost dangerous.
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“Wow,” he muttered. “You really have lost it.”
“Don’t test me.”
Kaiser’s grin sharpened.
“Or what?”
Ness briefly softened his gaze for a minute, his mouth opening with a rough crack of his jaw, the way he prepped for the lines, was more intense than what he expected.
“Fine.”
His hands gently ran off Kaiser's body, as he stepped back, his eyes trailing all the way down to kaiser's wrists, that were tinted in a dark bloody purple, the hand shaped marks and bruises left on kaiser's body, would be a reminder for him later, a reminder of this day for the next few weeks that it would probably take for it to heal.
Ness stormed off, going home, or so it seemed.
Kaiser just stood there, shocked, his mouth fell agape, not knowing whether to be concerned or glad.
Kaiser after showering, went back home, very much ready to talk things out. For once his dignity and pride wasn't getting in the way, and he had actually set his mind on this decision.
He felt pretty bad for neglecting ness, and saying all those things about isagi Infront of him.
He got home, opened the door, removed his shoes, sighed and focused.
“Ness?” He called out, voice unusually soft.
No answer.
He let out a soft exhale, and walked over and around the apartment, finally reaching Ness's room. He didn't knock, he just walked inside, calm as ever.
As he mentally prepared for the worst, he was surprised to be met with an empty room.
Oh.
Oh.
Kaiser clicked his tongue.
“…Late?”
That was new.
Ness wasn’t late.
Ness was always there, before him, beside him, orbiting him like it was his only purpose.
He couldn't help but feel a wave of worry hitting him, it was late, what if something bad had happened?...
He took out his phone from his left pocket, staring blankly at the screen, hesitating before pressing the call button.
It rang once, then twice, and the third time it switched to voice mail.
Shit.
Kaiser kept pacing, calling again and again, as his human sense of empathy and guilt were finally brought back to his arrogant attitude.
Just where is he?!
00:00
Kaiser was leaning on the back of the couch, when a door click made him snap his head towards it, it was finally ness, he felt a rush of warmth and finally, relief.
“Where the hell were you?! Do you know how worried i wa—”
He didn't look at Kaiser.
Didn’t greet him.
Didn’t say a word.
He just walked past.
Like Kaiser wasn’t even there.
Kaiser frowned.
“…hey.”
No response, Ness kept walking.
“Hey.” Sharper this time, still nothing.
Not even a glance.
Kaiser’s irritation sparked instantly, pushing off the wall and grabbing his wrist, only for Ness to pull it back immediately. Like shaking off something unimportant.
“…Don’t.”
His tone was flat, he didn't even turn to look at Kaiser.
Kaiser’s eyes twitched.
“…The hell are you doing?”
No answer.
Ness moved on like the question didn’t exist, completely ignoring Kaiser's existence for the next day.
Kaiser slept those two nights, his heart heavy.
He knew what he did wrong.
But it wasn't like ness, to get upset over such a thing, especially for two days straight.
Finally done playing games, Kaiser cornered Ness, “Alright,” he snapped. “What’s your problem?” Ness stopped.
For a second, Kaiser thought,
finally.
But Ness just looked at him.
Not with devotion.
Not with obsession. Just… neutral.
“I don’t have one.”
“…Bullshit.”
Kaiser leaned closer, voice dropping. “You don’t get to act insane one day and then pretend I don’t exist the next.” He was clinging on to whatever irritation had formed from all the ignoring.
“You said you don’t belong to anyone.”
Kaiser froze for half a second, shit, was this guy really mad about that?! Not isagi?!
“…Yeah. And?”
“So I’m respecting that.”
Kaiser scoffed, trying to brush it off. “Since when do you listen to me that literally?”
No answer.
Ness stepped around him, kaiser blocked the way, one of his warm palms delicately landing on the shorter man's shoulder.
Enough.
Kaiser grabbed him again.
This time harder.
“Okay, we’re not doing this anymore.”
Ness stopped.
Slowly.
Looked down at the hand on his wrist.
Then up at Kaiser.
No reaction.
No tension.
“…Let go.”
Kaiser didn’t.
“…Make me.”
Ness was obviously the stronger one, they both knew it.
He could pull away any second he wanted to, so just what was kaiser getting at?
Ness gently removed his hand again, with no force this time, he just slid his wrist out of the others grip, already turning away to go off somewhere.
“…You’re really pushing it,” Ness said softly.
Kaiser’s breath came out uneven, but his smirk forced its way back. “Oh, so you can look at me.”
“Don’t go testing me.”
Kaiser swallowed.
“…Tch.”
The sound was quieter this time.
Less defiant.
“…Stop ignoring me,” Kaiser muttered again, quieter this time. “…I’m sorry.” he continued, the words leaving a bitter trail down his throat, the sentence itself feeling unnatural for him.
“You’re sorry,” Ness repeated softly.
Kaiser exhaled sharply. “Don’t make me say it twice.”
“You shouldn’t joke about that.”
Then he stayed silent for another beat.
“You don’t get to decide when I stop, I'm your pet, but you’re mine. I don't like sharing.” Ness said quietly.
“…Yeah,” he murmured. “I figured that out.”
Ness grabbed Kaiser by the side, his calloused and rough fingers digging into the others flesh, by that same hold, he dragged him towards the couch.
“If you have that figured out, why do you keep talking to that son of a bitch?”
“I said i wont do it anymore, stop making me repeat myself” he complained, letting a groan get dragged off his tongue as ness straddled his lap, grabbing him by the collar in an impossibly harsh grope.
They were in a rather awkward position, crotches smashing against each other in a heavy grind as ness landed just right, perfectly anchoring himself on kaiser’s lap. Each shift making kaiser wince and yelp, he exasperantly used his arms to hold ness by the waist. Making him sit still. His head dropped forward as he breathed into the other's chest.
The pinkie held up his hand, taking a good fist of the other man's hair and tugging on it, forcing Kaiser to look up at him, and oh man.
The flush, the ragged, shaky breaths…shit, ness was getting hard, and the feeling of Kaiser's erection against his wasn't helping him calm down.
Oh shit kaiser looked hard, and needy…the fact he hadn’t commented on the hand fisted toughly into his hair, made it only clearer he gave his green light for ness to do as he pleased.
Ness leaned forward, hand still in Kaiser's hair, their foreheads brushing together holding eye contact for an arousing amount of time before ness closed the distance and kissed him on the lips.
Whatever they shared in that instance, whatever it was, that was a damn makeout, nothing could stop them in the fire of their moment, the heat engulffing the both of them. Tongues met, shooting in and out and colliding inevitably, kaiser tasted like the wine he always sipped on, right around evening while watching the sunset as the night stars fell into vision. He always looked so calm and relaxed while doing so.
Over the years it became a habit for ness to sit next to him, not to stare at the view, but to stare at his view, his beautiful, wonderful, amazing, kind kaiser.
No one will ever understand the devotion ness held in his heart, his full consciousness was born for the sole purpose of serving Kaiser as his dog. And he would do all that was in his ability. To please him.
Just don't cross the line.
And don't get it wrong.
Ness didn't belong to Kaiser.
Kaiser belonged to ness.
Have you ever seen a dog own the person that took it in?
Now you have.
They were both drowning in the others flavors, tasting the different shades and aromas.
Ness pulled away first, both to catch his breath and look at sight beneath him.
“Micha, are you still going to talk to isagi?”
Kaiser hesitated, he hesitated.
This was ridiculous, how could he not talk to isagi when they were teammates? They surely despised each other. But that didn't shake off the fact they had to communicate even if it was begrudgingly.
“I can't promise you that, Alexis, we're on the same tea—”
That was all the response that ness needed, he wanted to believe that kaiser was only saying that to get a rise out of him.
But he wasn't.
Maybe he was better off letting isagi replace him.
Isagi was a better player, more so, he was a striker.
What more could ness need? He wasn't gonna play soccer knowing he had to share Michael.
His Michael.
No one else's. He was his.
“It's always just been him and me together”
They always told everyone this as kids. Me and him. Us. Not him and isagi.
Not them.
Maybe it was ridiculous. But ness always met each and every single demand that kaiser had.
One, just one thing. That was all Kaiser had to say, even if it was a lie, it was all ness had to hear, why, why couldn't Kaiser for once do something for him?
He never even considered asking him for anything, one single sentence could save the whole day—no, their whole life.
Was it such a big deal?
No it wasn't.
Just stop talking to isagi! Am I asking that much?!
I hate him. I hate him.
I—
I hate him.
If ness couldn't have kaiser no one could.
No one.
“Why?!” He yelled, he got off kaiser immediately, gripping his head at the clawing ache that only grew worse every time he would open his mouth.
Ness felt dizzy. His head suddenly weightless, his vision went blurry, he saw three of each object in the room, his eyesight warping, making everything seem unreal…
Unreal?
Oh. That's what it was!
This is all a dream, it has to be!
And the only way to wake up from a dream is to die.
Right?
Right.
“Hes suffering a severe concussion, just what on earth happened?...we have to operate immediately, or his life will be between fate's hands.”
“Please save him…” Kaiser sobbed in the waiting room. Ness had hit himself with a lamp, the glass shattered and he bled out on the floor, in front of him.
For some reason when he saw Ness's corpse like that, he didn't feel a thing, he felt paralyzed, he stood still.
He stood impossibly still.
He couldn't move.
Thank the Lord he found the strength to reach out and call an ambulance, he felt nothing, his whole body was numb.
I can't do this anymore, why did I say no?
Was it worth this?
Ness wasn't gonna make it, he knew he wasn't.
Kaiser walked out of the hospital. His heart heavy, his face flowing with dried tears.
Ness didn't make it.
There exists a peculiar cruelty in the aftermath of belonging lost, not the vulgar ache of absence, but the aristocratic torment of knowing it might have been spared by a single, tremulous syllable.
I stand now in the ruins of what once received me so wholly, so without interrogation, as though I had always been meant to arrive there, and yet I am exiled by my own exquisite restraint.
What is pride, if not a gilded silence? What is composure, if not the careful suffocation of the one word that might have altered the architecture of fate? I rehearse it still, that phantom utterance, turning it upon my tongue like a relic of a language I refused to speak when it was needed most.
Had I surrendered to its simplicity, had I fractured the moment with that fragile admission, I would not be consigned to this mausoleum of hindsight, where every memory is embalmed in regret.
For it is not loss alone that rends the spirit, but the unbearable clarity that nothing was taken; it was forfeited, quietly, deliberately, by the cowardice of withholding what should have been given freely.
There was no grand farewell, no final declaration carved into permanence, only the stillness that follows a decision made too calmly to be undone. If you search for me, you will not find a body so much as an absence, an outline where something once insisted on being.
I linger not as a memory of who I was, but as the echo of a moment in which I chose not to remain, a silence stretched so thin it almost resembles peace. But it was never peace.
How could it be?
Thank you, ness.
From the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.