I hadn't watched porn since I met Madara for the first time. Not once.

It hadn't been a conscious decision. The need had just disappeared. Evaporated, just like that. I hadn't felt anything in particular about it; not joy, nor relief, just a mild acceptance.

Now, I knew that was all over with.

I didn't even do what I usually did when I walked in through my front door before I started surfing, which was to do chores and make myself ready for bed to give myself an illusion that I still had some control over my addiction. I just went to my laptop immediately and started searching. This time, I even masturbated, but nothing happened. It was so very far from what I had experienced with Madara, where I had had to hold back not to come by just looking at him. Now, I beat myself for hours, and I didn't even get hard.

I started to panic. Not because I wasn't horny, but because the hollowness inside of me could no longer be filled with what I saw in front of me on the screen. The anxiety didn't subside; on the contrary it was increased as my worry for the absence of effect got to me more and more the more time that passed.

After four hours, I managed to give myself an ejaculation by pretending I was fucking Madara's mouth, closing my eyes to what I saw on the screen. At some time during the process, I had stood up, but I couldn't remember when. But I was standing up, fists clenched, dripping cum on my carpet, naked and angry and sad. So, so sad.

I lifted my laptop and threw it into the wall so it broke into a thousand pieces. 

I thought I would be anxiety-ridden when I came back to the crime scene, but I wasn't. Instead, I felt a deep emptiness within myself as I entered the park surrounding the cathedral.

It was all cordoned off, the entire cathedral and a large area around it, including Madara's little cottage, and there were police cars both inside and outside of the restricting bands.

I didn't know you could feel the absence of someone so much. Madara wasn't there, and I felt it within my core. The excitement I had felt approaching the church ever since I had learned who the new deacon just wasn't there anymore, which was honestly just as it should be.

I stepped into the cathedral, being greeted by some officers who nodded politely towards me. I had been absolutely certain they would distance themselves from me, knowing what I had done, that they would be thinking this was my fault because I had fucked someone who was in such a vulnerable position. But they hadn't. Some even came to me, shook my hand, said they were truly, truly sorry that something so terrible could happen.

I had to do everything in my power not to cry.

I approached the part of the church where the activity was the strongest, where Madara had been killed. Then, I saw something that made my heart stop.

No...

A face... A face so familiar, its visual input felt as a knife through my heart. The pointed chin. The long nose. The thin, arched eyebrows.

But no... It wasn't him. It wasn't Madara. Madara was dead. This man had long hair. His priest robe was slightly less decorated than that of Madara. And he was much, much shorter than him, hardly reaching me up to my chest, I guessed, although estimating his height was quite challenging seeing he was sitting down on the altar.

You must be Izuna. Madara had talked about his little brother a lot. He must truly be something extra, I thought, as he had managed to get permission to just sit there while the police force investigated around him.

I walked up to him. He didn't look up at me, only down, to the spot where his brother had been shot. I guessed the team must be done with investigating that particular part. I suddenly felt incredibly proud of them, these people who charged forwards with such brutality yet were so thorough, I didn't doubt for a second that they wouldn't miss a single hair. I hadn't had any headspace for pride in my work before. There had only been pornography, and my need for it.

"Hi", I said.

He jerked in a way that was rather adorable. He was quite different from Madara, I could see, in the way that he moved quite jerkily, while Madara was very slow and mellow in everything that he did.

And he was certainly more impulsive, because he did something I could never imagine Madara do with someone whom he'd never met; he threw himself forwards, hugged my waist and burst into tears with his face hidden against my stomach (he was actually shorter than I had first thought).

"Oh, dear", I said, putting my arms around him. "Oh, gorgeous, don't cry. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here."

"I want him to come home", the little priest wailed.

My first reaction was to comfort him. But then, I frowned. There was something in the way he said it...

But no. Surely not.

We had been lucky, the police arriving so quickly. Just as Madara had started the mass, I had gotten an alert on my working phone, telling me they had information on someone who had entered the cathedral with a gun.

But I had still been too late. I had not had time to throw myself in front of him to take the bullet for him. Because, by God, I would have, not giving a fuck that I hadn't worn a bullet-proof vest. But even if the police force had stormed the cathedral only seconds after my reaction, preventing the shooter from getting more than one shot, I had seen the wound. Sure, Madara hadn't been shot in the heart but in the stomach, but it was deep and directly over his splenic artery. When the paramedics rolled him away, he was bound to be dead already from the blood loss.

But what Izuna implied...

"What are you saying?" I whispered.

He looked up at my face with his tear-drenched one, his arms still cutely around me.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Is Madara alive?" I whispered.

And then, when Izuna realised I thought Madara was dead, he smiled. An actual, genuine smile, and in that moment, he looked so much like his big brother that I felt my knees go weak.

"They operated on him all night. He lives."

I fell down to my knees and didn't really know what I did, but I think I scream-cried.

At lunchtime, me and Izuna went for a walk in the park. I wanted nothing but to go to the hospital where Madara was in intensive care, but they wouldn't allow me to because of an infectious outbreak in the hospital, no matter how much I shamelessly used my title. So we tried to make time pass best we could, Madara's brother and I.

Neither of us felt we could eat, but I forced him to accept a paper cone of fries with salt and vinegar I bought for him in a stand at one corner of the park. As we walked, he would sometimes offer me a fry, feeding me as if I were bird. The salt and vinegar tickled my tongue and I loved the taste.

"What's up?" I asked Izuna, noticing he was deep in thought.

"I'm worried. About my brother."

I shook my head.

"He almost died. Anything else would have been strange."

"No, you misunderstand me", he said politely. "That's not what I meant." I was silent, waiting for him to elaborate; if he was anything like his brother, he would without any cue from me. "He will have to choose", he continued. "After what has happened, he cannot be with you and continue as the deacon of the cathedral. And I'm afraid he will make the wrong choice."

I felt my heart freeze to ice. Then, I chastised myself. Of course, he would have to choose. And he would choose God, because that was what he had always done. I hated myself for what I had done to him. Had I been any less selfish, I would have realised my feelings for him were not good for him, and then left him alone to find his peace with his new life as a deacon of the spoken-about cathedral. There was no doubt in my mind that he would have succeeded in that, and become a loved and integrated part of the life of many Catholics, and that he would win back trust to his beloved church.

Yet, I had ruined all of that for him, trying to convince myself it was because I loved him while in reality, it was because I thought it nobody but myself. He had freed me from an addiction I had suffered from for more than a decade, and I had felt there had been no way for me to let go. And look where that had brought us. My selfishness was the reason Madara had almost died. The guilt was eating me up like acid from the insides.

Me and Izuna had sat down on a park bench. He leaned back, eating his fries, in civil clothes not to draw attention to himself; a black shirt, black trousers, his hair in a loose fishtail braid slung over his shoulder. I couldn't help but notice he hadn't offered me a fry for a while now. I couldn't help but feel a bit hurt by this man.

"Don't worry", I said. "I will distance myself."

I knew it was true. I felt strong now, and I knew I would rather take a lifetime with my addiction than cause Madara even one extra second of pain.

"I think you misunderstood me again, Sir", Izuna said. I frowned and looked down on him. He was smiling now. "The wrong choice would be to choose the church over you. You are the right choice for him. Not the fucking church." I couldn't speak. "Do you want the last fry?"