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Daigo was not an elegant man. He wore the trappings of civility well, but beneath the tailored suits and styled hair, he was a tiger, claws sheathed but no less deadly for it.
Yoshitaka admired Daigo's roughness, the raw edges Daigo hid so effectively from almost everyone. He was honored to be one of the few to be allowed to see behind the façade, to see the jagged parts that could slice through the unwary, the parts that he wanted to slice into him, to excise the cancers of his inadequacies.
No, Daigo was not an elegant man by any means, a statement that was even more true when it was just the two of them, when Daigo shed the skin of the sixth chairman and became simply a man—a frustrated, exhausted man.
He rarely admitted it, but Yoshitaka could see how the infighting of the Tojo officers ate at him. Daigo may rule with a softer hand than some preferred, but his grip was still firm, prepared to clamp down on those who squirmed under his leadership, worms who deserved no better than to be crushed.
Yoshitaka grudgingly included himself with those worms, recalling too clearly his own machinations—meant for the good of the Tojo clan, for Daigo, but far from productive in hindsight. That Daigo had never addressed his betrayal, had let it die with Richardson, was a dangerous weakness, but Yoshitaka had sworn to never abuse his regard again.
Next to him, Daigo sighed and stubbed out the cigarette he'd been holding for the last several minutes without smoking until it burned down to the filter. He reached into his breast pocket and freed his cigarette case, opening it to retrieve another cigarette before clicking it closed and replacing it within his jacket. His eyes cut to Yoshitaka then, a corner of his mouth lifting as he slid the filter between his lips and leaned closer.
Yoshitaka echoed the faint smirk as he fished his lighter from his own pocket and flicked the wheel, the flame springing immediately to life. He touched it to the tip of the cigarette, holding his breath as Daigo inhaled, as the tip flared brightly with the vacuum. Snapping the lighter shut to extinguish the flame, he sat back and took in the sight of Daigo with his eyes closed as he exhaled a narrow plume of smoke.
Perhaps he'd been a little wrong about that elegance.
At peace, moving no more than required to bring the cigarette back to his lips, Daigo had the boneless grace of a resting predator. It was the end of a long day and the product slicking back Daigo's hair was losing its hold, leaving a few stray pieces falling over his temples, and Yoshitaka's fingers itched to push them back even as he was loath to disturb Daigo's repose. Instead, he sat and watched in silence disturbed only by the sound of Daigo's inhales as he drew the smoke into his lungs, accompanied by the soft crinkle of burning paper, and his heavy exhales, weighty with the smoke carried on his breath.
Yoshitaka had never developed an appreciation for cigarettes; he disliked the taste of them, the acrid smell of burning tobacco, the way they labored his breathing, even the subtle give of the cylinder between his fingers. Even with their seeming omnipresence in his worlds, civilian and yakuza, he'd always found a way to politely decline any offers without revealing his distaste. He found them generally to be a sign of weakness, a vice men partook of because it was expected of them, to demonstrate their superior manhood.
Yet none of that applied when it came to Daigo. It was a ridiculous double-standard, Yoshitaka realized, that what he found repulsive in so many was somehow reassuring in Daigo, but he didn't care. He might not like it, but it was just another of those jagged parts that Yoshitaka wanted to take hold of.
Abruptly unable to help himself, Yoshitaka slid his fingers between Daigo's hold and his pursed lips, tugging the cigarette away without resistance. Daigo watched him lazily as Yoshitaka stubbed it out and pushed him down on the sofa on which they sat, hands pressed against Daigo's shoulders as he leaned down until their noses nearly touched.
"Those things will kill you."
Daigo's laugh was tinged with tobacco, a flavor that Yoshitaka ignored as Daigo wrapped a hand around the back of Yoshitaka's neck and tugged him lower to bring their foreheads together. "Something else will long before they can," he murmured huskily.
"Fatalist." Yoshitaka closed his eyes; this close, Daigo's face was a blur anyway. "I won't let it."
"Hmm." Daigo's thumb rubbed behind Yoshitaka's ear, a deceptively gentle brush of skin that did nothing to calm him. "You can't save me from everything, Yoshitaka."
Yoshitaka shifted to bring his mouth to Daigo's ear, to roughly whisper, "Watch me."