Work Text:
“Stop--stop doing that, sir,” Kafka flushes, trapping his smiling mouth beneath his outspread fingers, feeling the heat of his cheeks against his palm. He squirms away, shifting one thigh then the other to scoot along the hardwood, approaching another one of the bordering blanket piles.
“Doing what?” Narumi smiles, bouncing a controller on his knees, and his eyes flicker pink, the craggy cross in his iris expanding and contracting as he sizes Kafka up. It makes him shiver, and Narumi’s smile only stretches wider, his head tilting coyly. Here, fingers stained red from MSG-dense flavorants, a discolored duvet stretched around his shoulders and bunching lamely in his lap, when his teeth glint white, he still looks like a predator. Like he wants to eat Kafka alive.
Kafka grumbles, his nose scrunching into a snuffle and eyes squeezing as his head shakes, not unlike a dog having tasted something unpleasant. Narumi laughs, jagged, but not without melody, like the ringtone of an old cellphone. He reaches over to wipe his fingers on Kafka’s bare knee, streaking the skin with a pale, ruddy stain. A growl--that draws another obnoxious giggle--and Kafka resettles his shoulders.
“Have you always growled,” Narumi grins, the sound of his scrolling through the character select screen plinking in the background, “or is that a monster thing?”
“Ugh,” Kafka says, flicking the thumbstick to the randomizer and clicking a succinct, thoughtless select, “I don’t know, man--sir.” He half-grimaces, drawing a hand to his face to awkwardly pluck at the corner of his mouth, the lining of his cheek popping wetly. Narumi’s brows lift. The line of questioning isn’t necessarily uncomfortable--in fact, he loved puzzling over the interesting ramifications of his new anatomy with Leno--but hearing it from Narumi makes a strange, itchy heat begin to fester beneath his skin. He wonders vaguely if it’s an attempt to throw him off his game, but the innocuous, feline furl of his lips as he happily scrolls through the various skins of his selected character implies otherwise.
“I’d be more worried about yourself if I were you,” Kafka murmurs, and he’s flushing again, “what does that eye thing even mean?” Having moved subconsciously closer over the course of their short interlude, he reaches across Narumi’s lap to fish a chip from the bag at his hip, and the crinkle of plastic covers the pleased hum Narumi lets rumble in his throat. He selects a stage and, for good measure, elbows Kafka in the ribs. The other man coughs around a wince, faking an aggrieved sob, and settles in to watching the screen.
Narumi’s eyes flicker pink once more; he wants to capture this brief moment, as mundane as it is, enamored with the way Kafka’s shoulder blades shift, his body tightening with intent, with purpose, with a determination that Narumi’s own effortless confidence lacks. The man who had asserted his own will to live, unbending under the flippant push of Narumi’s thumb. He wonders what silly determination exists in him that is--at least superficially--stronger than his own power for subjugation.
His mouth waters, salt-laden saliva welling up about his molars, his tongue twisting in his mouth as his thighs tighten.
Narumi blames his loss on the momentary distraction.
“You-piece-of-shit!” He rattles, shrill and indignant, wagging hands raised in the air to scrabble like descending spiders, “That was a shitty, mid pick, too, and you don’t even know how to combo properly, all you do is use those ground moves that make the player model glitch for long enough to start executing the next one!” Narumi fumes, and this was his best character, too, “You don’t have pride, is that it? No self-respecting player would win like this, is that what you are, Hibino Kafka, a shameless hack with no--”
Kafka is blinking at him, lids-half lowered and wrists crossing as he hunches over. He’s grinning, the bastard. Narumi cannot help himself but look closer--his canines imperceptibly lengthened, his forearms just barely glittering with something mistaken for sweat, known to be the afterimage of scales.
“You don’t care about pride, sore loser,” Kafka laughs, “Overwhelming power, right? No way to do that dirty.” He laughs like an approaching storm, and his lips are bright red, capsaicin irritation lightly inflaming the sensitive flesh, and a piece of corn chip is caught between his incisors.
At his jaw there is a patch of missed stubble, and the gloss of a thin scar just below his ear where he’d nicked himself with his razor. There is fine hair on his throat, following the crest of his Adam’s apple, and the line of tendon in his throat draws down to exposed collarbone shadowed by his baggy sleepwear. Narumi first attributes the pinkness between the cleft of his chest as a flush, but he startles to recognize the fine edge of it; the still healing scar of when Hibino Kafka, with his miraculous drive to live, had forced his own first through his chest, punched through the intuitive space that, in any other creature, would have held his swollen, beating heart.
“You’re doing it again.” Kafka says, and when he draws his hands to cover his mouth, Narumi’s eyes flicker to the sparse strands that cross his knuckles, veins pulsing at the back of his palms. He growls too, now, his ankles shifting to pull the pocket between his folded legs smaller and smaller, his stomach tight.
Maybe he’s a monster hazard just the same, “You wanted to know what it did, Kafka?”
Kafka nods, but his brows furrow, as if unsure he wants the answer--perhaps too happy to entertain the fantasy of Narumi’s attention. Narumi’s long-fingered hands stretch forward once more, tracing the ghost of that stain he’d left on Kafka’s knee visible only to himself. Kafka’s skin darkens so, so handsomely.
He lets the rest of his body follow that outstretched hand, leaning into Kafka’s space so he can thumb over that spot of missed stubble, brushing reverently over the hair-line scar as if in apology, and the older man tilts his head into the touch. The hand on Kafka’s knee draws up the creamy length of his thigh, tracing the definition of muscle as it follows up to the joint of his legs. “It lets me see…” he brings his mouth to Kafka’s ear, the heat of his breath reverberating off the curve of his skin, and he lets his tongue unfurl into empty air, letting Kafka hear the wet constriction of muscle as he licks headily at his own lips.
“THAT YOU’RE A FILTHY FUCKING CHEATER, YOU BASTARD!” He barks, the words squeaking in his throat, and he uses the hand on Kafka’s cheek to yank at his hair, jolting forward to bite savagely into Kafka’s ear. “I’m going to turn you into a suit, motherfucker!” He smacks at him with his free hand and Kafka screams, squirming and thrashing.
(Unable to unhook himself from Narumi’s claws, Narumi’s fangs. Tearing, chewing.)
“What’s wrong with cheating, come on, come on--ahh! Ahhh! Ouch! Ow, spicy in my ear, ow--stop!”
(Shinomiya opens the door, red-faced and panting, eyes wide in alarm. Her superior and her--her, her Kafka--are tangled on the floor, Narumi slumping in a pleased exhaustion, curled up to pin Kafka, who lies prone on the floor, screaming his lungs out. Narumi glances at her--eyes gray, his pupils dark and round, and sends her that signature smug, feline expression. She claps both hands over her face.)