Chapter Text
Chifuyu saw them before they saw him. A group of delinquents waiting on the corner of the street near his apartment building in downtown Shibuya.
There were around twenty of them— a pack of hungry wolves all clad in their gaudy leather jackets which bore the name of their gang, Mandala.
The collection of their garish motorbikes which might have been to intimidate any passing soul had completely blocked the only road to his apartment and there was no way for Chifuyu to avoid them. As if to make matters worse, many of them were armed—wielding bats, rusty pipes, and Chifuyu was willing to bet some were even hiding knives in their jackets.
They were there for him, he knew because he could recognize at least one of the guys swinging a baseball bat over his head, yelling at the rest of the group to keep a lookout for a little guy with blonde hair and an insolent scowl—said description almost had him laughing. Chifuyu was the reason for the guy’s huge black eye and a clumsily patched-up broken nose.
Kiyomasa , that was his name if he remembered correctly, they met yesterday in the convenience store where he worked part-time. They got acquainted when Kiyomasa thought he was too cool to pay for his smokes. Chifuyu beat the crap out of him in the alleyway right beside the store.
It wasn’t even about the cigarettes, but the way the guy snickered at him when he told him he had to pay. He thought Chifuyu’s smaller frame meant he would not fight and just accept the situation as it is. That was too bad because Chifuyu didn’t get a black belt in judo from taking shit from assholes like him—or his three friends who were there with him and joined in the heckling which ended all of them in the infirmary.
Now the odds were different… and it wasn’t in his favor. Looking at the group, he knew he could take on a number of them before he would go down. He had better fighting skills, that he was sure of, otherwise the losers wouldn’t have brought with them weapons—but they were just too many.
The logical thing to do was to run away and hide from them, but he knew if that he did that, they’d just come back. He didn’t want to live in an extra layer of hiding as he already had issues to begin with, besides, for some ungodly reason, they had already found out where he lived. It would only be a matter of time before they eventually get to him.
If he wanted to really avoid them, he’d have to change apartments or even leave town and he didn’t want to. He liked the neighborhood compared to the others he lived in and he liked his roommate, Takemichi. In hindsight, if he knew Kiyomasa would make a big deal out of this, he would have not done it. A pack of smokes and his pride was not worth all the trouble.
He knew the only other thing to do was to face this head-on. But not like this. This was just a suicide mission and not even a good one at that. If he wanted to win or even survive this, he has to lead them somewhere he knew he has an advantage.
A few blocks from where his apartment is, stood an unfinished and abandoned hotel. It was at the far end street between Dogenzaka and Bunkamura or the Love Hotel Hill.
It had long since been considered an eyesore in the street, nestled among the flashy lights and sparkling new love hotels that littered the area, but the old five-story building had constantly been a looming presence in the street he always passed by going to and from work.
They said it was haunted—or it looked haunted. Chifuyu wouldn’t say that for certain, but he could agree that time had not been so kind to it. Its once white facade had been weathered and greyed out by neglect. A thicket of nettles had settled in the flower beds on the front lawn and the fountain which would have been once magnificent was filled with green, swampy liquid. It was as if nature was slowly taking it back into its ruthless arms.
Every little thing about the place screamed Do not enter . From the boarded-up doors and windows to the iron chain link fence surrounding the property, and yet somehow the graffiti in its ashen walls were proof that those nor the rumors of it being haunted wouldn’t stop vandals from doing their thing.
Chifuyu knew the way inside this property only because he had seen local kids go in and out of it. He knew it was accessible in two ways—a small cutout hole on the fence found at the back corner of the property where you could squeeze your way in, or by climbing the tall, chain link fence. Either way, going there would mean the gang would need time to discover him, enter the property, and regroup.
It seemed to be the only viable option, so he decided to move. He took out his cellphone and sent a message to Takemichi telling him he’d probably be late, but he should lock the doors. The last thing he wanted was to not survive and have the rest of the gang storm into their shared apartment. Takemichi may be a lot of things—a kind roommate, a good cook, an even better friend, but he wasn’t a fighter.
He knew there was a definite possibility of not coming out of this alive, he had long since accepted that he was as good as dead, anyway. Abandoned by his parents, he lived his entire infancy in the orphanage until he was old enough to be enrolled into the system—foster home after foster home, he experienced all kinds of abuse from different people… except for one.
I'll see you soon. He thought before he raised his hand above his head and yelled at the top of his voice, “Oi, losers!”
It was Kiyomasa who spotted him first. Of course. His entire face transformed into an angry, ugly snarl as he hollered at his thugs, demanding blood. It was a battle cry and Chifuyu watched the pack suddenly become animated as they prepared to take him on. Their bikes rumbled, bats and pipes raised to the air. Chifuyu grinned at the ridiculousness of it all. They were nothing but a bunch of idiots who thought they were strong just because they have motorbikes and weapons. But there was still a lot of them—so he started to run.
His first foster parents were a couple who lived with two other kids older than him. His foster mom wasn't unkind to him but his foster dad was hell sent. He worked the entire day in a fisher market and at night, he would come home and drink himself to the brink of insanity. Whenever he got drunk, he’d look for some way to release this pent-up rage and overall discontent in his life.
That was where Chifuyu came in. He would beat him up until he was black and blue. He’d have bruises, cuts, burns, broken bones—sometimes it got so bad, he couldn’t walk the for three straight days he’d eventually need to skip school. The sisters weren’t any better, they shared their father’s temper and their mother's apathy. The mother couldn’t—wouldn't do anything. She'd watch as her husband punched and kicked Chifuyu, but she would always tend to his wounds and injuries, as if to stop him from saying anything to the authorities. If not for the intervention of a teacher who saw his bruises, he would have died in that house. Later on, Chifuyu found out the reason for the mother's lack of action. It was either her and her daughters or him—and she chose him.
There were still a lot of people in the main street as he ran. So he alternated between alleyways and tight backways—small spaces where motorbikes would have a hard time navigating to. He could hear the rumble of their engines following him, the distant, angry noises, but as he ran, he knew he would eventually lose some of them in the haste.
The next foster parents were a couple who lived in Aoyama. They’ve been married for many years but couldn’t conceive a child. They sent him to private schools and got him tutors for piano lessons, judo and all kinds of things they thought a kid deserved to have. They were both busy with their careers that Chifuyu felt like he was nothing more but a trophy child. He couldn't complain, though. It was a good life, except every night the husband would creep into his room, push him down the bed and force himself on him. Chifuyu fought and resisted at first… but the threat of throwing him out onto the streets and losing the life that he was enjoying was a pretty good deterrent to his resistance. The woman was indifferent and negligent of what was happening until she caught them red-handed. Even then, her husband blamed Chifuyu for seducing him... she believed him and kicked him out of the house the same day.
He could hear Kiyomasa yell out his name. The awful revving of his motorbike sounded so near. He slipped into another alley that led directly to the street where the hotels were located. People were not much help, blocking his path, making his progress slower. He pushed through them.
His last foster family was an old woman who lived alone in a small, decrepit house in Shinjuku. The house was in such a terrible state but she gave Chifuyu what he never had—an actual home. He called her obachan because she said he reminded her of her dead grandson. Chifuyu told her she didn’t have a grandmother or a mother but that he loved her just the same. She was the only person who truly cared for him without asking anything in return. She was the only one he valued truly… and then she was murdered.
One night when he was out late for club activities, robbers came into their house and killed her. The police said it was a robbery but Chifuyu was no fool. She was poor, and had none to give. But her house was smacked right in the middle of two commercial developments and they’ve been trying to buy her out but she had been refusing to sell. It was the house she lived in with her late husband and her only child who had died in a car accident with her grandchild. She had no remaining family, no relatives, getting the property would be so easy once she was dead.
He could see the building in the distance. He had seen it a hundred times now and though he had never set foot anywhere near it, there was always something about it that appealed so much to him. Maybe it was the building’s isolation calling to him. Or the fact that it had been neglected, beaten down by weather, vandals, thieves—and yet it still stood tall, unwavering. Maybe the building reminded him of himself.
As he squeezed into the small gap of the chain link fence, he wondered who owned the property. It was a huge land that had been put to waste but remained untouchable. They said the owner of the hotel had died before it was finished. Some said he basically just disappeared. Either way, Chifuyu was glad, as he broke through the shrubbery and looked upon its entrance, this building would be the witness to his valiant effort, or would be his tomb.
When he stood by its entrance, it was just now that he realized how truly magnificent and completely out of this world the hotel was designed. It didn’t look like anything that came from Japan. It had basalt pillars and columns tangled with thick vines that went over his head. The doors were made of redwood which had long since rotted away and the steps leading to it were slippery from an overgrowth of moss but he clambered up quickly, looking for a way in.
There was a broken window just near the door which was hastily boarded up. The bikes were getting nearer so he hurriedly pulled and tugged on the board to open it up. It took a couple of tries before the wood eventually gave way. He elbowed the remaining window pane and glass, clearing the way so he could wriggle himself inside.
A cloud of dust swirled around him when he stepped inside. He covered his mouth with his arm and coughed at the heavy, musky scent of old wood and decay. The place was huge, empty, and terribly out of shape. It was dark, the only light coming in was the orange light from the setting sun filtering in from the gaps between boarded-up windows and holes in the walls. He tried to look around, but the dust and the darkness were making it hard to see.
“Where’s that vermin?!”
“He was just here!”
“He came in here!”
From the commotion outside, he knew he was running out of time. Chifuyu started walking around to explore and find some smaller room he could wait in. The least he needed was to have everyone gang up on him at the same time. There were a lot of rooms to choose from but he chose the one at the far back of the hallway connecting the lobby to the actual hotel. It wasn't anything stratgegic, he knew there would be nowhere to run, but that was fine because he had no intention to run.
From the looks of it, this was supposed to be a stock room with the built-in shelves and cabinets attached on the walls. Some of them were so old they had already crumbled to the floor in heaps. “Perfect,” He smirked to himself as he planted himself right in the middle of the room.
He could choose to hide behind those rotting planks, but where’s the fun in that? If this was his last day alive, there would be no way he would spend it cowering in the dark. No, he would face death the same way he did every little monster he had in his life. He wouldn't fool himself into believing he had a chance of getting out of here scratch-free. If he's lucky, he might die quickly.
He heard a crash at the lobby from when they broke the door. He watched the entrance attentively, aware of every sound, every shadow that would appear. His senses were heightened by a rush of adrenaline and the moment he saw an ugly mug emerge from the door, he swung his arm full force.
His fist connected with a jaw and the body fell limp on the floor with a thud. He grinned, hah! You think I’d go down that easily?
There was another person rushing inside, alarmed and ready, “Shit! Tatsuyo! You bas—“ Whatever he had to say was swept away when Chifuyu kicked him on the stomach. He staggered back and fell on his ass. Someone stepped over him and swung a bat at Chifuyu, which he dodged by taking a step back, and countered with a spinning kick.
It hit the guy on his temple and fell down, unconscious, the bat clattering on the ground. Chifuyu bent down to pick it up, but a punch came from another person and then a kick on the other side, he staggered back as both hit him on opposite sides. He swung back and his retaliation caused the kicker to fall to his knees. More people flooded the room and Chifuyu managed to fight his way around them.
This went on for a few more minutes until the room had become too crowded from bodies dropping and bodies attacking. Chifuyu was bruised and bloodied, he could barely see out of his left eye which had been swelling from a terrible bruise. He couldn’t feel half of his face already, but he could taste the blood pooling in his mouth. In the middle of the brawl, someone yelled from the back and then the hits stopped and the crowd grew quiet. Chifuyu spat blood on the floor, panting as he wiped his mouth.
The crowd parted and Kiyomasa confidently strolled in. Chifuyu’s fist itched to punch his ugly face. “I told you.” Kiyomasa said in a singsong voice, “I’ll get you back.”
Chifuyu laughed, and blood flowed freely from his lips, “Yeah, and what did it cost you?” Chifuyu, even in his weakened state, began counting off the people on the ground, “Ten people.”
“You’re a cocky little shit.”
“I’m told it’s one of my best assets.”
“Let’s see how that smart mouth of yours will save you with what we’re about to do with you.”
Two people lunged at him from behind, grabbing him by his arms and pushing him down to his knees. When he resisted, they pushed him further back and he finally fell to the ground with a grunt as knees pinned him down on his back.
“You talk big for someone who needed these idiots to bring me down.” He barked. The pressure and weight on his back made it hard for him to breathe. He might have broken a rib during the fight and it was now puncturing one of his lungs.
“Yap, yap, yap.” Kiyomasa mocked and Chifuyu saw the glint of a blade as the man knelt before him. “Let’s hear you scream, shall we?”
He felt the searing pain on his shoulder as the knife plunged into his flesh. He writhed, kicked his legs and bit his tongue to swallow down a scream. Kiyomasa looked amused, “Oya, oya… he’s a tough one.”
He pushed the knife further, twisting it around until Chifuyu half grunted and half screamed. “Oh! We’re getting there.”
“Fuck you!” He hissed, seething with anger. It just got harder to breathe, the bodies pinning him down had become heavier and heavier against him. He could hear laughter around him and that only made him angrier. He almost bit the hand that gripped his jaw and forced him to look up, “Lost your tongue?”
He wanted nothing more than to wipe the smug look on his stupid face. He spat in his direction but it didn't reach his face, “I’ll fucking kill you!” The pathetic display, unsurprisingly didn’t stop him.
“Ah, he still talks.” Kiyomasa announced, “Maybe I should cut your tongue out. That’ll teach you to keep your cocky mouth shut, won’t it?” His hand traveled to his cheek then to his eye, “Or I could gouge your eyes out. That’ll fix that insolent look you have.” He smiled to himself, like he just said something brilliant, “What do you say Chifuyu? Where should we start?”
Before he could retort, the guy pulled out the knife from his shoulder and plunged it right on the other, deeper, straight into his bone. The sudden, ruthless act caught Chifuyu off guard and made him unintentionally scream. “See? They all scream.” Kiyomasa said to his pack, but to no one in particular. They all laughed.
The moment he started screaming, it was as if a devil had possessed Kiyomasa. He made his henchmen pull him up into a kneeling position, limp arms held apart, shoulders bleeding, head hung low. A bat was handed to him and Chifuyu laughed hysterically, “What? Can’t finish me off with just your fist?”
Kiyomasa looked incredibly offended, which isn't unusual for a simple-minded creature that he is. He dropped the bat to the floor and swung at Chifuyu.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
The punches came from every direction. They were fast and hard, leaving him no room to breathe. The pain wouldn’t let him think straight. He just wanted it to end. Blow after blow on his head, he felt himself come in and out of consciousness.
He wondered if this was his karma for doing what he did years ago, except he didn’t think that there was anything wrong with hunting down the man who killed his obachan .
He would never forget that day. It took a lot of sacrifice and effort to find out who he is. He wasn’t even a professional hitman but a regular evil person willing to do anything for a price. Somehow, they thought she was too weak and helpless to deserve a professional hitman, a thought that only fueled his rage. This also made things easier for him. He found out where he lived and studied his daily routine. He didn’t have a family, he lived alone and he wasn’t very careful.
When Chifuyu snuck into his apartment, the man had no idea he was coming. His obachan had no one in the family registry, the hitman probably thought the same thing Chifuyu was thinking about him. Nobody would miss him. Nobody would look out for him. Nobody would think of avenging him. He was alone and had no one. When he pulled the trigger to his head, he didn’t even make a sound. He died not knowing he had died. Chifuyu thought that was mercy, and he didn’t deserve it. So he pulled the trigger again and again emptying out his case to his head.
All the fear, all the running away and keeping a low profile, he thought was the price he had to pay. But dying like this might actually be his retribution. If he didn’t deserve a peaceful life, why would he deserve a peaceful death?
He closed his eyes and waited for the final blow to end him, he felt the wind of the punch on his face as it came down when—
CRASH!!
The noise was right outside the room and Kiyomasa’s fist hovered, suspended in the air as he turned to see what it was. Then there were movements, then whispers. Then another loud crash somewhere near him. Chifuyu forced himself to open his eyes and saw a body lying on the floor right in front of him.
“What the—who are you?!” Kiyomasa let him go and hissed at something walking in the direction of the door. Chifuyu could only see a dark, looming figure move behind Kiyomasa, just a shadow that lurked in the cover of darkness. But when the figure stepped into the light, a guy came to view and the very first thing that Chifuyu saw were his eyes.
Sharp gray eyes with an iridescent amber glow—eyes that didn’t look human at all. Everything he had on was black, no wonder he looked like a shadow—black turtleneck, black jeans, black boots, even his shoulder-length hair was pitch black. But his skin was so unnaturally, perfectly white he looked more of a marble statue than a human being. He had a cheeky grin that showed two fangs on the corners of his mouth.
Chifuyu might be hallucinating all this, but he just knew—this guy isn’t human. He never believed in ghosts, monsters, demons, to him evil didn’t need to come in scary forms because there’s nothing as evil and vile as humans.
But there he was—with equal parts dangerous and beautiful. He moved with a feline-like grace, he reminded Chifuyu of a panther on a hunt, and they were his prey.
He was dragging an unconscious henchman twice his size towards the room. “You guys are so noisy,” he complained and his voice was deep and rich, it echoed around the corners of the room.
Kiyomasa looked as stunned as everyone else in the room. If he had better sense like Chifuyu, he would just know not to fuck with the guy, but alas, he wasn’t so smart. Carrying the knife he had pulled out from Chifuyu somewhere during the barrage of punches earlier, he trudged towards the guy, “Who the fuck do you think you—“
Chifuyu watched in amazement as the new guy effortlessly grabbed Kiyomasa and slammed him on the nearest wall a few feet away. The impact instantly rendered Kiyomasa unconscious and he came down like a sack of potatoes.
“Baji Keisuke,” He announced, as if answering Kiyomasa's previous question, “And all of you are trespassing on my property.”
Baji Keisuke? He had lived in the neighborhood for at least three years now—he had never heard of that name, not even in passing. And… trespassing? Which meant he lived here or at least owned this place? The guy looked like he was around their age and the property had been here since forever. Maybe a great-grandchild of the original owners? It just strengthened his suspicion that he wasn't normal.
“Stop kidding us.” One of the henchmen—probably an idiot who didn’t just see how their leader was trampled over, yelled. Baji merely gave him a side glance, but said nothing. Instead, the guy cocked his head towards Chifuyu and stared at him hard, like he didn’t know what to make of him. Part of his hair covered half his face and all Chifuyu saw were those glowing amber irises that seemed to pierce right through him. It was like being electrified, the intensity that single glare possessed froze him on the spot.
“Monster.” He heard someone say in the crowd. One brave soul who probably regretted the word right after it slipped out because the guy looked over to that direction, a maniacal grin in place, “Ah… you kids are so troublesome.”
Kids. He didn’t look any older than him and yet he spoke as if they were children. Finally having had enough, and as if they woke up from a collective trance the entire Mandala gang, including those holding him down, began to take action. They circled the guy, brandishing their weapons. To Chifuyu’s horror, they jumped in to attack him all at the same time.
But his fear was unfounded when body after body were flung back one by one, falling to the ground in pathetic heaps. It all happened so fast, his eyes couldn’t keep up. One second a guy was yelling and attacking Baji, then getting tossed over, by the next. They were falling quickly like dominoes, it was almost unbelievable.
He watched these happening, head fuzzy and vision hazy as he continued to lose blood. He should get going—move while everyone was distracted but his body was shutting down. He wasn’t stabbed in any vital organ, but at this rate, he’d just bleed himself to death.
Chifuyu was never the type to surrender to his fate. When his own parents abandoned him in the hospital, when he was tossed into homes that abused him to no ends, when he lost the only person who showed him love—he fought his way through and survived. But to die in this place surrounded by strangers who barely knew him… he figured that this was probably the right end to someone who wasn’t supposed to have stayed alive this far.
He laid down and closed his eyes, ignoring the sound of fighting around him. The pain had slowly faded out and all he felt was warmth. Like he was being cocooned in a soft, cozy blanket on a cold winter day. He breathed slowly now, the pain in his chest forgotten. He could hear obachan calling him to go down and drink some hot matcha with milk, just the way he liked it. He raised his hand to reach out when—
“You.”
Baji’s cold voice cut through the warmth, the light, the illusion of peace and brought him back down to reality. Something cold was hovering right above his face, not touching—but just there. He opened his eyes and almost recoiled in shock when he saw sharp, glinting teeth and a peek of a ruby red tongue licking on what looked like blood over pale lips right above his eyes.
Baji was standing over him, face an inch from his in an upside-down position. His hair had cascaded down like a curtain around his head as Baji regarded him curiously, “Who are you?”
Chifuyu blinked at him—suddenly scared not just of their close proximity but at how sharp those fangs looked. Chifuyu noticed immediately how his eyes had lost their amber glow and only the gray pools remained. He swallowed hard, “M-Matsuno Ch-Chifuyu.”
Baji hummed in response, straightening himself up and away before sweeping his hair back with his fingers. He seemed to consider his answer, like he was trying to remember where he heard that before or if it was anything familiar, “Chifuyu, huh?”
Chifuyu looked around and even with his blurry vision, he immediately realized that the fight was over sooner than it had begun. There were piles of bloodied and motionless bodies everywhere—they all looked dead to him. As if reading his mind, Baji chuckled, “They’re all alive…” Chifuyu looked up at Baji. Hands in his pocket looking as immaculate as he was when he came in. What kind of monster is he?
He smirked, as if he heard that, too, “Do I scare you?”
Chifuyu couldn’t even answer. Yes, Baji looked incredibly dangerous—but he also didn’t feel evil. Like he was powerful, yes, he could kill him, yes—but if he wanted to, they wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, would they?
So he shook his head.
Baji looked surprised… then impressed. His lips curled into a smirk, “You’re interesting.”
Chifuyu returned the smile as best as he could—but it was hard with probably just half of the normal blood pressure running through his veins. He coughed, choking on his own blood.
“You’re dying, Matsuno Chifuyu.” He stated.
“I can see that.”
“Do you plan to do anything about it?” He asked, walking towards the unconscious bodies, checking them with complete disinterest.
He coughed again, and the pain in his chest was back tenfold. “I don’t think.. I could.”
A guy was trying to grab his foot, but he skipped over and stomped down to it, crushing its fingers under his boot, “Do you want my help?”
Chifuyu chuckled, “I… don’t think I’ll…” He took a deep breath and just that action sliced through his lungs. “I…won’t make it to the hospital.”
Baji barked out a laugh that reverberated around the room. He even felt it under his skin. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Chifuyu sincerely had no idea, but he wasn’t just about to point it out. But he saw the amber glint in those eyes and he swallowed nervously, “You… you’re not human, are you?”
Baji had half a mind to chuckle. He sat on the pile of human bodies like a makeshift throne and answered, “No.”
“What are you…?”
Baji leaned forward so he could fold an elbow to his knee and place his hand under his chin as if he was analyzing him, “Does it matter? I’m the only one who can help you.”
“It does… if it means I’m making a deal with a... devil.” Chifuyu breathed his answer out in sharp gasps.
“Do you think I’m the devil?” He did look surprised but unoffended by this. In fact, he just grew more and more fascinated. Chifuyu choked out a: No.
“What… what would it take?” Chifuyu asked finally, on the verge of passing out. Baji’s eyes lit up with their usual amber glow and he jumped out of his seat, stepping over the bodies once again.
He sat down beside Chifuyu. He watched him closely as he leaned down until they were face to face. The yellow glow around his irises, the smooth, poreless skin—he looked so perfect to be human but too beautiful to be a monster.
He grinned, the fangs peeking under his lips, “Let me drink your blood.”
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