Edited
'Aiden is the luckiest artist ever.'
'The bravest male singer to come out of the closet.'
'The first gay artist to hit it so big worldwide so fast.'
'Is there even anything Aiden doesn't have?'
'Aiden on top 10 richest singers of the year again.'
'Many people saying: I wish I was Aiden.'
'The celebrity who has it all.'
The articles made him laugh. Every time an article came out, saying he was perfect and had such an amazing life, one they wrote about in fairy tales and assuming Aiden was living one, he wanted to laugh. Well, he really wanted to cry, but... laughing was always a better option. Especially in media conferences and interviews where they were cameras and people everywhere.
Was his life perfect as they said it was? No. It was far from that.
Going through his rough childhood, the amount of mental abuse he had to endure, he thought by becoming an adult, he would be okay. He thought wrong.
He had learned to hack as a joke. A way to prank his friends and teachers. One time, he hacked into the school's system and changed everyone's grades to A++. Grades didn't matter, anyway. He became the Robin Hood of the area that year, before he left the city to start working at that big company.
After the first time doing the dirty job for that disgusting old man who seemed to never want to die, he told him straight in the face that they wouldn't do any favors for them ever again. He was childish to think a big government mafia man would take him seriously, though.
Some 8 months later, he got kidnapped. The old man loved making scenes. The ones in those shitty mafia movies, with the head of the gang sitting with a fur coat hanging over the shoulders, a cigar between the lips, and a hand twirling the ridiculously expensive wine, all the while looking at the person who was tied to a chair with a gun over their head, terrified and clueless.
That was how he had felt the first time: terrified and clueless. He wasn't even 20, and he had somehow managed to upset one of the most powerful men in the country, enough for him to threaten him with a gun, with his life.
He said he didn't want to do anything for that old fuck, but the man had a different opinion. Upon seeing that he didn't really care if he was killed right at that moment, the strategy was changed. He was told if he didn't do what he was asked, Ian, the boy who was as bright as the sun, would be the replacement, if not in danger of dying. That was how he ended up being, as the mafia boss liked to call him, his 'bitch'.
After winning the dance competition and coming back to their works, he was contacted by them again. He couldn't keep doing this. He just couldn't. After a month of weighing everything in search of a way to both guarantee everyone's safety and being secure from the man himself, or rather being secure from not being forced to do something he really didn't want to be a part of, he came up with an idea. He had to become famous. Famous enough that no one could touch him.
Sure, he had really and honestly enjoyed being on the stage and all the applause he had received while dancing, but that wouldn't be enough for him to leave programming behind, the thing he was really passionate about. It was perhaps the only fortunate thing in his life, that he happened to really love being a singer and doing what he did from that point on as well. His original dream had been earning enough money for himself until 35 and then retiring, traveling the whole world, and then it didn't matter anymore. As long as he had seen every place, it didn't matter when and how he would die. Everyone died at some point, anyway. It wasn't like anybody really cared or loved him. His own parents didn't seem to care, so why would anybody else?
But of course, although he had grown up a bit, he was still naive to believe being so ridiculously famous would stop the person he hated the most on this planet from forcing him into doing things. He meant it. When he said he would take his own life if they ever summoned him again, he meant it. Every last word of it. But it didn't matter whether they'd take him seriously this time or would just kidnap him again in half a year or something, the damage was done.
The screams, the look of horror, and all the redness didn't leave his mind. Her screams were loud enough in his head that Aiden couldn't hear the voice that was being so active over the past few days. He knew it was there, digging and feeding on his sorrow, but he couldn't really hear them clearly. How could people want to be him? How could anyone want to be in his place? Constantly having nightmares, not once sleeping a whole 8 hours without waking up in fear, unless he was dead tired. But then they weren't to blame. No one knew about his dirty little secrets. And they would never know. He would never tell anyone about what kind of person he actually was. He did a mafia boss's dirty work. He had done it exactly 7 times now. Each time had left a permanent scar on him, but the last one had been the final straw. It had broken him and no matter how many miles he ran, no matter how much he cried while sneaking out of the apartment and going deep into the woods outside of the city where he was alone and screamed his lungs out in helplessness, he didn't seem to be able to put himself back together.
And then there were the people around him. He didn't even know why they bothered with him. He wasn't worthy of all the worry in their eyes. He had let a girl be tortured and get ripped apart, he definitely didn't deserve to be cared for. Sometimes he couldn't even hear them talking. They would talk and talk and he would float in a sea of the color red, filled with that beautiful girl's blood, and he would let himself drown. A shake of his body would pull him out of that state, the look on the one who had been talking to him, showing that he should give some sort of an answer, but he had none cos he hadn't been able to listen to their words in the first place.
He remembered how it had felt loving the tall guy. He saw the blue hair he liked, but now he really didn't know what all the fuss was about. He knew one thing, that he hated being touched, but Edwin kept trying to get close to him. That was why he stayed out more and came back only to fall straight asleep on the couch in the living room.
But that day, the person who he was living with had another idea. He watched how the slim boy changed the passcode and locked it from the inside, but he didn't really care. He could easily mute his surroundings so the guy could talk all he wanted. But then, something on TV caught his attention. A scene pretty similar to the image he had in his head. He remembered again. He had forgotten a second ago, focusing on the boy. And now the memories were back. When he came back to reality by the annoying touch of his... boyfriend, he felt the desire to wreck him. At first, it was just a tiny dot in his head, but with each word and each inch that the younger boy moved closer to him, the desire grew bigger. He really wanted to see him in pain. Why did he always have to be the only one suffering alone?
And that was when he acted on the voice that told him to break the fragile-looking boy into pieces. To ruin him so badly, it would leave him in red, black, and blue. That was what he had intended to do, but something was stopping him from going completely berserk. Something, someONE, was begging him to stop from the inside. It was like someone was caged deep inside the dark hole in his chest, screaming and begging him to stop. He didn't. He only went as gentle as he could on the boy under him.
His head hurt. He was hungry, so much that he felt like he could eat a whole elephant in one sitting. Aiden groaned as he opened his eyes and found himself in the bedroom of their apartment next to his beautiful lover. He smiled, seeing his innocent-looking face pressed on the pillow. But his smile didn't last long as he saw a scratch surrounded by a bruise just below Edwin's left eye on his cheekbone and remembered the events of the day before.
'Den, stop.'
'Stop, Aiden, STOP!'
'We shouldn't be doing this.'
'Slow down, it hurts.'
Edwin's voice and the pained look on his face filled his head. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe he had done such a horrible thing to the most precious human being.
His hands were shaking like crazy when he reached out for the blanket that was covering Edwin to his head, covering his whole body, and after hesitating for a second, not ready to actually see what he had done, he pulled it off of the sleeping figure completely. His breath got stuck in his lungs as he saw all the marks that could easily sell off as actual bruises with how intense they were. Edwin was covered in them. His wrists were a purplish-red and had an imprint of his fingers around them where he had held him tightly. His shoulders and neck were a crime scene. A big angry bite mark was more than visible and showing off in the crook of his neck. Aiden couldn't spend a whole 3 seconds looking at his doing without tearing up. The warm liquid started rolling down his eyes, dropping on the sheets like a waterfall. He was frozen. He couldn't turn his head away from the person who was sleeping so beautifully, covered in what he had created, but he couldn't keep his eyes on him either. He found it hard to breathe and, without him knowing, his grip on Edwin's forearm tightened. So much that it made Edwin's body jerk in sleep and he shifted his body, opening his eyes slowly at first.
Upon seeing Aiden by his side, looking at him, he woke up completely and smiled widely, like he had forgotten what he had gone through a few hours back. Like he didn't blame his ass of a boyfriend at all.
"Hey, baby." The sweet voice talked to him, but it didn't pass his eardrums, really. Edwin's fingers curled around his grip, and that was when he realized he was crushing his bones under his palm.
Aiden let his hand off Edwin's body in an instant, jumping back and off the bed. He stepped all the way back till his back hit the wall. His hands were scratching on its surface as his whole body was trembling and tears kept falling down without him being really aware of it.
"Hey... what's wrong? Aiden? Babe, what's wrong?" Edwin panicked upon seeing Aiden like that and tried to sit up but failed, as his body curled on its own due to the sudden pain that shot through his spine. Swallowing hard, he made himself stand up and put a robe on quickly to cover the evidence, failing cos most of the horror was located on his neck and shoulders that couldn't be covered by it, and walked toward Aiden who was looking at his every move with terrified eyes.
Edwin straightened his arm, trying to reach Aiden, to calm him down, but his hand was pushed away as he slipped further away from him and slid down the wall, pulling his knees to his chest and curling his arms around them. The older hid his face in the little space he had between his arms, and his body started moving back and forth. He looked so small like that, curled up in the corner of the room, trembling and sniffling.
Edwin walked to him again and he let his fingertips brush against Aiden's hair, but he was pushed away instantly.
"Stay away from me." Aiden yelled at him, having looked up at his fallen body to the ground. "Stay away. Please. I... I hurt you..." His voice cracked, and he grew paler.
Edwin sat up and crawled to him again, cos he really couldn't manage to stand up anymore, and hugged Aiden like that. He let his hands circle tightly around his boyfriend and stroked his hair repeatedly. Aiden's head kept on hanging low.
"Shhh, I'm fine! It was a bit rough, but nothing my body couldn't handle. Okay? We're fine." He whispered slowly, making sure his words would pass the chaos that Aiden's head must have been in at that moment.
Aiden looked up at him, making Edwin loosen his arms a bit as he looked into the now red eyes of the older because of the endless tears. He let go of his knees as he raised his hand to stroke over the bite mark hesitantly. Edwin didn't even feel the touch with how light and careful it was. For a second, he thought Aiden had calmed down a bit, but little did he know what was about to come.
Aiden looked at him with glossy eyes, tears having slowed down a bit but still coming out of the corner of his eyes, one after the other. The older took his hand in both palms and pressed his lips to the back of it.
"Edwin... I'm sorry..."
It sounded like something final. Like the last words someone would say before leaving. Edwin was scared. It was nothing like he had ever seen as the older let go of him and curled up again, clutching to his chest and struggled to breathe. It didn't take long for him to fall to the ground completely while shutting his eyes tightly and inhaling roughly, only to fail. He couldn't get any air in.
Aiden was going through so much pain, physically and mentally, and none of it was under his control. He had lost himself. There was nothing left he could do. Everything was ruined. He had believed that Edwin was the only person that really loved him, the only one that only looked at him and him alone. But... after what he had done, he had ruined it all. Edwin couldn't possibly be looking at him or feel the same way about him ever again. He had lost it all. His sanity, his lover, his will to hold on to something. He was as good as gone. Darkness got closer and closer to him as Edwin's panicked screams calling his name got further away. And then, a while later, he was at peace. He didn't feel anymore. He just wasn't anyone anymore. He let the oblivion swallow him whole. It was the best thing to do.