Who is Mark?

Shimizu blushed hearing Takase call him his boyfriend, which made all of the troublesome thoughts disappear. Then he followed Hirahi back to his room and got dressed.

"Are you feeling alright? You shouldn't move too much, I can bring you food to the bed. It's your birthday after all."

"I'm alright, but who was that?" SHimizu could barely think about the pain in his hips, his heart hurt more. "And will you really sleep with him?"

Takase was confused. Did he not hear the whole conversation? He thought.

"Why would you ask me that? Of course I won't sleep with other people."

Shimizu wasn't convinced. "Then why did you tell him you would?"

"I never told him that. If you didn't hear the whole question, don't misunderstand." Hirahi got annoyed. "Look, he asked me to pretend that we have slept together and tell his ex, he wants to make him jealous."

Suzuki finally looked up at Takase. His eyes were teary.

"I'm sorry." He said and kissed his boyfriend.

"Alright alright, since we got rid of that, let's go, I'll introduce you to my friend."

When they got back, he was still eating.

"I thought y'all wouldn't come out again." He said stuffing his face with rice.

"Mark this is my boyfriend Suzuki, Suzuki this is my friend Mark."

"Only friend." Laughing childishly corrected Mark.

"I'm Marquel Corman, everyone just calls me Mark." He introduced himself again and shook Shimizu's hand.

Hirahi sat Shimizu and started feeding the food he prepared, completely ignoring his friend.

"Is this for real, Taka? or are you just fucking with me?" Then he turned to Shimizu, grabbed his hand and asked.

"How much is he paying you to pretend, if you tell me the truth I'll pay you double."

Shimizu tried to shake the man's hands off but he was too strong and didn't let go until Takase intervened.

"You're hurting him, let go. I told you this is for real."

"Tsk. You're an idiot you know!? He's not even a cat." (cat=gay) "You must have forgoten about the past."

"Shut up!" Shimizu got startled since this is the first time he saw Hirahi this angry. "I haven't forgotten, I never will. Just shut up and leave."

Mark ignored the frustrated man and looked back at Suzuki.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Mark said while smirking.

"He doesn't need to know. Now leave."

Mark got up and did as Hirahi asked.

After the pair finished eating, Hirahi told Suzuki that he has to leave to pick something up and will be back in an hour. As soon as he left, the doorbell rang. Did he leave something behind? Wondered Shimizu and checked the camera. It was covered by something, he just assumed it was Takase so he opened the door anyway. To his surprise it was MArk standing by the door, grinning.

"Let's talk."

Shimizu let him in. He sat down at the sofa and requested some tea. While Shimizu prepared the tea he mentally was preparing himself for what's about to happen. He knew nothing good would come out of talking to him, but his curiosity got the better of him.

"Since Taka hasn't told you, I decided to take the initiative." This will either break them up or strengthen the relationship. If he decides to end it or hurt Hirahi the same way… This time I won't hold back.

"I've decided to tell you about Takase's first relationship."

Shimizu was shocked but continued to listen.

"Takase first fell in love with a guy named Ritsu. He was a new student that was placed in Taka's class for the last year of highschool. He was nice to everyone and quickly made a lot of friends. At that time Taka had just found out he was gay, so he kind of shut himself in. I couldn't even hold a proper conversation with him. But somehow being the intrusive person that Ritsu was, he got into Taka's personal bubble. After a while Hirahi began to have feelings for him, but couldn't muster up the courage to tell him. So he thought that after they finish school he will just forget about his feelings. But Ritsu for some reason decided to go to the same university as Takase. It wasn't a coincidence, he deliberately asked Hirahi and applied to the same place. Because we chose different majors, me and Taka hung out rarely, we never lost contact, just decided to focus on our studies. At that time Ritsu wiggled his way into Takase's life and pestered him every day. One day Hirahi couldn't bear it, got drunk and confessed. I guess he accepted because afterwards they started dating. It was all great at first but in the 9th month of dating, Ritsu began to change. Takase's friends and classmates who knew of their relationship would often see him in clubs flirting with other girls or guys and would tell Taka about it. He never believed them until I saw him making out with a girl. I took a picture and showed it to him. When he confronted Ritsu about the picture he accused me of being jealous and editing the picture while calling Hirahi psycho for believing me. He forgave him believing that it was someone else who looked like him. Hirahi turned a blind eye and then Ritsu began to flirt with people on campus, right in front of him!" Mark began to lose composure.

Shimizu gestured him to the tea and after Mark calmed down he continued.

"As I was saying, he began openly cheating on Takase, while he was on campus with him, and when Hirahi approached him while Ritsu was with someone else he'd always ignore Taka, like he didn't know him. He would apologize for doing so, while making up some random excuse, about not hearing or seeing him. It felt like he was a master manipulator because he'd use the fact that he apologized to make Hirahi feel guilty that he got mad. But what Ritsu did next made me hate him the most. One day when I asked him to the movies with a couple of our other friends we ran into Ritsu, and he was absolutely fuming with rage. He made a scene at the movie theatre about how he didn't spend enough time with him but always hangs out with his other friends. Basically he went on a whole rant about how Hirahi hates him and wants to break up. After that incident Taka stopped talking to others and completely shut off from everyone. Just like when he found out about his sexuality, the only one who he let in was Ritsu. He cut off contact from everyone completely and would ignore them on campus. I would often go to his classes just to check if he was doing alright. When I started noticing a difference in what he wears, he started wearing baggy hoodies and would often cover up his face, at first I thought he was being hit or abused in other ways but thankfully it wasn't it. When I followed them one day I heard Ritsu telling Hirahi that he looked like he wanted to seduce other men with his appearance, when he wore a simple white shirt with black jeans. When Takase began to beg Ritsu for forgiveness and said he'd never do it again, I realized that he stopped wearing his favorite clothes because of that. It might not seem that way now, but Taka was always very into fashion, he loved throwing on different outfits and experimenting with clothing, that's why I thought that was out of character for him to go back to bland hoodies. Ok getting back on track with the story.