There it was. The sky was a little bit overcast and hid the pinkish shades quilted on the horizon, but another breathtaking dawn was now breaking on the majestic view of the Rainbow Bridge.

Tokyo had just woken up and got ready to face another fervent day of work and other various commitments, and just like any other inhabitants of the Japanese metropolis, one particular person tiredly fluttered his eyelids open in an action that spoke of automatic daily routines.

Not a groan of discomfort, not a sound but a heavy sigh accompanied the scrutiny of those accustomed eyes on the Tokyo Bay, that day a bit too grey, a bit too foggy, but that was just how the scenery presented itself lately, when winter slowly shifted into cold, damp spring.

There have been many other mornings that started in the same way, and the disenchanted charm of the view had by then lost its meaning, not able to hit anymore the wonderment and enthusiasm that once was the main feature of a little child.

With a different body and a different heart, a 18-year-old young boy moved his hands on the soft mattress and pushed himself up to sit in front of the broad window on the iron grey sea, his legs dangling from the edge, toes slightly grazing the cold marble floor. The white sheets fell from the little shoulders and pooled around his waist, once in a while not stained with the bad, suffocating presence of a stranger.

A shiver of cold imperceptibly rolled down his , exposing his perfect, smooth and milky white skin not only to the creeping lights of the dozy-looking morning, but also to the annoying drafts of air that prickled the warm flesh. 

If one was to look at him right now, he would have seen a wonderful boy entering the blossom of his youth who had just woken up from a letargic one-night sleep, probably meeting a bright future sprinkled with hope in his deepest dreams. Whoever was to observe him, would have probably been too captured by the enthralling - and maybe a bit too inusual - beauty of that creature, to notice the lifeless mask that he wore to keep the deceiving, surrounding world away from himself.

No. His beauty was so overwhelming that it didn't even matter if the boy's body was unpleasantly marked with a quite large burn on his stomach, stretching diagonally on the left side hip. 

After all, there was a reason if those people who breathlessly drowned in his beauty, his presence, his scent, were willing to do anything just to spend a little of their time in the boy's company. That night had been no different from the many others.

The boy fisted the sheets which messily covered his lower body, before letting go and casually touching the paper notes scattered all around the large double bed.

Neatly, too meticulously, he collected them all, unfolding the notes to check the silver hologram to certify their authenticity, just to bind the stack with a thin, elastic rubber band. 

1.000.000 yen.

His last benefactor had been too generous although he hadn't been able to give the much older man what he really wanted.

A stinging pain flashed into him and penetrated the skin right on the spot where his brand new burn appeared. Even though he hadn't been able to satisfy his customer's greed and lust because of that wound, the boy had been paid well enough for his services: a night at the kabuki theater, dinner in a lavish restaurant from a luxurious hotel and the last stage was to be the customer's most anticipated part of all.

But something went wrong.

Right when the badly assorted couple was about to leave the table to reach the intimacy and the comfort of a private suite, the beautiful young boy met a little accident on his way to work. An inexperienced and rather clumsy waiter, carrying a tray with boiling hot black coffee, unexpectedly tripped in his steps and bumped into the boy, consecutively spilling the steaming beverage right on to his light shirt. 

"What an idiot! Can't you be more careful? Look at what you did!"

It was the angry voice that came from the older man, who was scolding the young waiter as he showed the large stain of coffee on his companion's clothes that glued on his skin, overtaking him with a quick sensation of pain.

"It's okay..." 

He lied. Nothing was okay when such a boiling hot drink had hit him right on the stomach and the wet stain was making direct contact with the bare skin underneath. If not treated it would have left quite an annoying mark.

"I'm sorry, I really am! How can I... fix that?"

The waiter immediately swam in his panicked reaction. He took a dry cloth from his apron pocket and crouched in front of the boy, beginning then to tap the wet area nurturing a faint hope to fix his mistake somehow. He lifted his chin and the boy, who towered him, had a chance to get a glimpse of the waiter's troubled eyes, two chocolate orbs which reflected all his worry and that gave out many more details that those he really wanted to convey.

First of all, he had just unintenti