Chapter 5: The Cold Sample
The hallway to the kitchen felt like a tunnel. The floorboards were cold under Yamato’s bare feet. Each step echoed in the silent apartment, a counter-rhythm to the frantic beat of his heart. He pushed through the swinging door.
The kitchen was a monument to neglect. The smell hit him first—old grease, sour milk, the tang of something fungal growing in the sink’s drain. A single bulb under a metal hood cast a weak, jaundiced light. He yanked open a cupboard. Dishes were piled haphazardly, crusted with ancient food. His hands, still smelling of Taichi’s skin and his own sweat, trembled as they pushed aside cracked mugs.
There. At the back. A small glass jar, maybe once for jam. It was sticky. He ran it under the hot tap, scrubbing with a stained sponge until his fingers were red and the glass squeaked. He held it up to the light. Clean. Sterile enough. He dried it with a paper towel that left lint clinging to the inside.
The jar felt obscenely heavy in his hand.
He walked back. The bedroom door was ajar. Through the gap, he could see the neon laptop glow, and Taichi’s shape on the bed. He wasn’t reclining anymore. He was sitting up, knees drawn apart, the towel discarded in a heap on the floor. One hand was wrapped around the base of his cock, which stood thick and already leaking against his stomach. He was staring at the door, waiting. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, the warm brown almost swallowed. The parasite was fully at the wheel now, the lucid interval snuffed out by the promise of fulfillment.
Yamato entered. He didn’t speak. He placed the jar on the nightstand with a soft clink that was far too loud.
“Good,” Taichi said. His voice was different. Lower, smoother, a voice meant for whispering filth in the dark. It was Taichi’s instrument, played by a stranger. “Now come here. Make it quick. For the sample.”
The way he said it twisted the clinical purpose into something lewd. Yamato’s stomach knotted. He moved to the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. The air between them was charged, thick with the scent of Taichi’s shower gel and the sharper, muskier smell of his arousal.
Yamato lowered himself to his knees on the floor between Taichi’s spread legs. The worn carpet dug into his kneecaps. He looked up. Taichi’s expression was a mask of impatient hunger, his lips slightly parted. He gave his cock a slow, possessive stroke, smearing the bead of pre-cum over the flushed head.
“You know what to do,” Taichi murmured. “You’ve wanted to do it for years. Now you’ve got a fucking excuse.”
The truth of it was a physical blow. Yamato flinched. He leaned forward, closing his eyes for a second before making himself look. He took Taichi in his hand. The skin was hot, almost feverish, the vein underneath pulsing against his palm. He guided the tip past his lips.
The taste was familiar now—salt, skin, a faint bitterness that might have been the parasite. He tried to detach, to think of it as a procedure. Just a means to an end. Get the sample. Save him.
He couldn’t.
The moment his mouth closed around him, Taichi let out a shattered groan. His hips jerked forward, fucking shallowly into Yamato’s throat. “Yeah… fuck, just like that. Use that mouth. God, you were born for this.” His hands came down, not gentle, fingers tangling in Yamato’s blonde hair, pushing his beanie off. He held Yamato’s head in place, setting a brutal, rhythmic pace.
Yamato gagged, tears springing to his eyes. He relaxed his jaw, letting Taichi use him. Spit dripped down his chin. The sounds were wet, raw, animal. Taichi was talking, a relentless stream of filth.
“Take it all, you slut. Swallow me down. You love this, don’t you? Being my little fucking cocksleeve. This is all you’ve ever been good for.”
Each word was a lash. Each was also a key turning in a lock deep inside Yamato, freeing something shameful and desperate. He did want this. He wanted the Taichi who needed him this badly, even if it was a poisoned, false need. He sucked harder, hollowing his cheeks, his own cock aching in his sweatpants.
Taichi’s breathing became ragged, stuttering. His thighs tightened around Yamato’s shoulders. “Close—I’m gonna fucking come. Get the jar. Now.”
Yamato pulled off with a slick, obscene pop. His lips were numb, bruised. He fumbled for the jar, unscrewing the lid with clumsy fingers. Taichi took himself in hand, his fist flying over his slick shaft. His back was arched, every muscle in his abdomen standing in sharp relief.
“Look at it,” Taichi gritted out, his eyes locked on Yamato’s. “Look at what you do to me.”
The first thick pulse shot out, not into the jar, but across Yamato’s wrist, hot and startling. The second rope hit the glass side with a sharp spat. Yamato adjusted, aiming the tip. Taichi grunted, his whole body seizing as he came. Thick, white streaks splashed into the bottom of the jar, pooling and dripping. The smell, musky and visceral, filled the space between them. It kept coming, more than seemed possible, until maybe two tablespoons of fluid lay in the bottom.
Taichi collapsed back onto the mattress, spent, his chest heaving. A shudder ran through him. The predatory light in his eyes flickered, dimmed. Guilt and exhaustion flooded back in, washing over his features.
Yamato’s hands were steady now, clinical again. He screwed the lid on tight. He looked at the sample. Under the normal light, it just looked like cum. He remembered the researcher’s words. Under UV light.
He grabbed his phone from the desk, opened a specialty app he used for checking stage gear. A low-wave UV setting. He switched off the main light, plunging the room into darkness save for the laptop and phone screens.
He held the phone’s purplish glow over the jar.
His breath caught.
Swirling within the semen, like infinitesimal strands of glowing white neon, were hundreds of tiny, worm-like tendrils. They were moving, pulsing with a faint bioluminescence. Cupid’s Lament. It was beautiful and horrifying. The parasite’s matter.
A soft sob came from the bed. Taichi had curled onto his side, facing the wall, his shoulders shaking. The proud, desperate animal was gone, leaving a shattered man in its place.
Yamato turned the main light back on. He placed the jar carefully next to the laptop. A new message notification was blinking.
MothmanWasFramed: If you have acquired the sample, time is critical. The tendrils will degrade. Overnight shipping is not secure. I am in your city. Warehouse district, dock 7B. Come tonight. Bring the host. Do not tell anyone. If the parasite senses a threat to its integration, it may initiate a full bonding cascade. You would not get him back. Move. Now.
Yamato read the words twice. The city. Tonight. He looked at Taichi’s hunched form, then at the jar of glowing poison that was their only key.
“Tai,” he said, his voice rough. “We have to go. Right now.”
Taichi didn’t turn. “Go where?”
“To the one who can fix this. He’s here. We have to meet him.”
A long silence. Then Taichi slowly pushed himself up. His face was ravaged, eyes red-rimmed. He looked at the jar, at the ultraviolet truth still visible on Yamato’s phone screen. A profound, weary resolve settled over him.
“Okay,” he said, the word barely audible. “Let’s end this.”