It was a day just like any other the day it happened while at the same time, it was as far from any other day as it could be. 

I wasn't sitting in the library this time but outside, in the park, on a blanket with a book and my notepad, completing my last essay for university which I would never hand in because I had lost my place because I was a porn star. The sun was blazing on top of my head, creating a pleasant warmth beneath my black hair that absorbed the sunrays. Once, when I was a teenager, I had cut my hair short and dyed it blonde alongside my eyebrows. It was a good look, I realised when I found a photo last year, especially with my glasses, but I remembered how surprised I was that the sun didn't have the same warming effect on my scalp anymore. 

I looked back on my assignment, or ex-assignment. We were doing children's books, and I re-read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman that I'd chosen for my essay. Many didn't consider it a children's book but it truly was one, or at least that had been the intention of the author. But sometimes, the intention of a creator didn't match the outcome, just like SpongeBob was intended to be a cartoon for adults yet was widely accepted as a children's show. 

My essay was about what parts of the book pointed towards a juvenile audience, and what made it clear that a more mature pool of readers would appreciate it more widely. The most difficult part was trying to delete the second and third books out of my head when writing my essay; The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass dealt with much more mature concepts such as parental love, jealousy, religion and the hardships of growing up and realise what a fucked-up world the adult one was. 

Suddenly, a drop landed on my notepad, smearing the ink out. I looked up. The sky was a beautiful corn blue. I looked down again. It took me a while to realise that the droplet was a tear, and that tear was coming from myself.

I sighed, dried it off the page half-heartedly, rolled onto my back. Who the fuck didn't notice when they started to cry? As I stretched my arm to the side to pick up my mulberry bubble tea and take a sip through the straw, I saw the bench where I had met the longboarder. We'd taken each other's numbers and stayed in touch. We'd gone for drinks together on the same weekend, and I had told her about me and Tobirama. She had been incredibly upset that he'd treated me badly as well, but she had also displayed a softness towards me I wasn't used to. It was a very, very long time ago I had a friend.

"Have you ever made out with a girl?" she'd asked me.

I shook my head.

"No. I was never interested in girls."

"Wanna try?"

I did, in fact, wanna try.

We ended up making out for a long time on a couch. She had a masculinity to her that I was attracted to, so I did get hard and when I touched her under her skirt, I felt she was wet even through her underwear. When I pushed them aside to touch her she moaned softly in my ear, and what I did find didn't freak me out even half as much as I had expected it to. I honestly enjoyed myself immensely. She stayed over at my place, and we had our arms around each other, talking about past relationships and our experience in the porn world for hours. But nothing more than that. We had both wanted to try each other, and we had done that, and we agreed that we were satisfied. Now, we texted daily and I was grateful for her. She was grateful for me. It felt incredible. 

I turned back to my notepad, tore the pages off and crumbled them up; I saw no point in my stupid essay. Instead, I made a plan. I wrote a bullet list, scratched, re-wrote, then cleaned it up on a new page until I felt done.

Then, I went to the library to set my plan into action.

It was time to apply for the best university in the country for English literature.

Just when I was about to begin writing an e-mail to the principal of that university, my phone rang.

"Hi, Will", I said, trying not to laugh, I found the fact that I was speaking to my porn director in a library while applying to an academic faculty incomprehensibly funny.

"Hi, Izuna. Care to film a kink again?"

I found many aspects of Will questionable, but I liked that particular part about him. He was so direct. He never pretended he phoned me to ask me how I was and then just happened to have a role for me. He phoned me so I could provide him money. And I didn't mind, as I liked money as well. I had even started looking for apartments, but had put that on the shelf since I was expelled; I might need an apartment in a different city if everything went my way.

Even so...

Care to film a kink again?

"No", I said.

"It's not with Tobirama."

Oh... Well, in that case.

"Okay", I said.

I did everything I'd written down on my list. I had planned on taking a walk home afterwards, but there was something nagging me.

I took my mulberry bubble tea, walked out into the sun but then started walking in the opposite direction of home. I reached his apartment complex within twenty minutes, and buttoned in the code; he had let me watch when he had dialled it.

"In case you'd like to pay me a surprise visit", he'd said with a wink before we went up to play video games and eat pizza.

I was glad he had because I would have found it frightfully awkward to call the intercom or phone him. A thought suddenly struck me; what if he wasn't home? What if he was away, filming? Or at the gym or wherever it was big men went to remain big? My mind started spinning as I opened the door and walked to the loft where Tobirama lived, knocked on the door. Why was I so desperate for him to be there? Couldn't I just come back if he wasn't? I felt that I had used up my courage just to get here now. How could I ever do it again? What would I do if-

The door opened, and Tobirama stood there, and when he saw it was me, his face dropped in relief.

"Izuna, I'm so happy to see you..." he said with his dark voice, and he really looked as if he were. I could basically see the entire world roll of his shoulders. 

He had a light stubble which suited him immensely, and he looked tired, but he was pretty as ever. He wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms which looked incredibly stylish on his strong legs. 

"Can I come in?" I asked.

He stepped aside, let me into the hallway where I took my shoes off. Betty came to see who it was, and I believed she recognised me, because she stood and watched, like a kid getting a visit from their favourite aunt but too shy in the beginning to step forwards.

"Do you want anything? Food? Tea?"

"No, thank you", I said, walking into his living room, my almost empty bubble tea still in hand, sitting down on the couch. Betty went to sleep in her bed. Tobirama stood in the doorway to his living room, arms crossed but not in an unfriendly way, but rather like he didn't know what to make of his body. "Sorry for coming unannounced", I said.

"I told you, you're always welcome here", Tobirama said and I melted a little. "Izuna, what happened?" he asked. "You just didn't want to speak with me anymore."

I realised then how wrong I had done. Yes, I had a good reason for not wanting to stay in touch with him. But it wasn't fair that I hadn't even told Tobirama I knew about it. How could he ever move on?

"You know Camilla?" I asked.

I was completely prepared he would frown and be utterly confused, the girl lost in a long line of other girls he'd filmed with, but to my astonishment, he answered immediately.

"Yes, of course", he said. 

"I saw her in the park directly after last time you filmed with her."

I saw the gears starting to click in Tobirama's mind as he figured out what this meant. I also saw the exact moment when it dawned on him, because he hid his face in his hands.

"God..." he murmured.

"Were you going to try and hide it from me?" I asked, angered.

He looked at me over the top of his fingertips.

"God, no!" he said. "When I phoned you last time? And you hung up on me? I wanted to talk to you about it."

Oh...

"Yeah... Sorry about that", I said.

"I'm the one who should apologise", he said. "But I don't know how to apologise for something when an apology isn't enough."

"It's not me who needs an apology. It's Camilla."

"She won't answer my calls."

"I wouldn't if I was her, either", I said.

Tobirama seemed incredibly hurt by this. So hurt, in fact, that it shocked me.

"You wouldn't?" he asked.

I looked down.

"I hope I would have enough poise not to", I said truthfully. "She is an incredible girl."

Tobirama sighed, sat down on the chair at his pottery wheel. We sat silently for a while, contemplating the situation. Finally, I looked up at him. 

"Tobirama, what happened?" I asked.

"I don't know", he said. He was jumping his leg, stressed out.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

He looked at me then.

"I don't remember. I remember my mind starting to spin, but then, everything went blank. When I woke up from that state of mind, Camilla was hurt. The director and his assistants as well."

I just gaped. Whatever I had expected, it wasn't this. What had I expected, really?

"You don't remember?" I repeated, dumbstruck.

"I was under a lot of stress", he said.

Wait, what? I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe any of it.

"Are you..." I began. "FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Tobirama jerked, but there was no end to it now. "You physically abused that girl and you say you don't take responsibility for it because YOU DON'T REMEMBER BECAUSE YOU WERE UNDER A LOT OF STRESS?!"

"I never said-"

"Holy fucking shit, Tobirama, she was manhandled by a man three times her size and YOU'RE under stress?! While fucking her?!"

"Listen-"

"You can go fuck yourself."

I was quiet. He was quiet, looking away. He had crossed his arms again, but this time, it was as if he was protecting himself. 

Or protecting me from him... 

Before that thought could fully form, he uncrossed his arms, stood up, lifted one of his huge vases, and threw it into the wall. 

I screamed, but before I'd had time to even consider what had happened, another vase crashed into the wall.

It happened again and again and they were getting closer and closer to me as Tobirama lost more and more control. I slouched down, curled into a ball , protecting my head with my hands over my ears as the sound of breaking ceramics was deafening and it was intermingled with something I then identified as Betty's screamed. 

"Stop!! Tobirama, stop!! I'm sorry!" 

He didn't hear. I heard his grunts as he started lifting chairs. The mug of mulberry bubble tea I'd been holding was on the ground, the bubbles and purple liquid creating a puddle between me and him that I wished I could turn into a deep lake to bring distance between us. And my heart hurt, as if someone had tied knots between our heartstrings and they now burst open, one by one. 

That pain was worse than the one that had left burn scars on my body.

And then, one of the vases actually hit me.

It was already broken, so when it touched the skin on my cheek, it cut it open. Later, I would be frightfully grateful it wasn't my eye because it would've blinded me, but in the moment, I was so shocken I became dead silent, not feeling any pain.

Then, the pain started burning.

The cut was deep, going through the most superficial layer of muscle.

And I broke down crying.

While Tobirama went berserk, I cried and cried and cried. Never in my life and I been so frightened. Never in my life had I even been close to being this frightened. 

And then, after a long, long time, he came back to himself.

"Izuna, my love..." 

No.

I wasn't having that.

I wasn't having any of that.

"I hurt you..."

If Betty hadn't come to protect me, I wouldn't have dared to leave. I would've just curled up in a tighter ball until he disappeared because he must disappear at some point surely? Just like everything bad in nightmares always disappeared. 

But Betty came, and some primitive part of my brain told me to run.

I stood up, ran to the front door of Tobirama Senju's apartment.

I ran all the way home.