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It’s quiet, too quiet.
Ramuda is most comfortable in the loud, bustling atmosphere of Shibuya, and this apartment is the opposite. But, well, it’s Samatoki, and he’s not home, but he’s close enough. As close as Ramuda’s going to get, at least.
“You’re not asleep.” Samatoki accuses, voice thick with drowsiness in a way that Ramuda refuses to call cute. “Little fucker.”
“Can’t a boy try and get some beauty sleep~?” Ramuda titters, rolling onto his side and smiling at Samatoki. He feels it fall a moment later, though he wills the man next to him not to notice. “…you’ve got tired eyes.”
“Th’ hell is that supposed to mean?” Samatoki grunts. His eyes are weary, nowhere near their usual fiery luster. It’s not like him. It scares Ramuda. It means he trusts him.
“You haven’t slept much lately, have you?” he says instead of answering. “Or you’ve just seen too much, ehe~”
“No shit. But you can’t talk either, y’know.” Samatoki says, staring at the ceiling. Ramuda notices how the moonlight bathes his figure in a pale glow and makes him look almost like a ghost. Maybe Gentaro could write this into their next novel. Maybe he could design something based on it. “I see everything that happens in ‘Hama. Kinda need to.”
“Hm, hm, I getcha! But that’s not what I meant. You’ve seen everything everywhere. Death, war, the loss of people you loved-“
“ Shut up. ” Samatoki hisses, rolling to face the wall. His back is scarred and tattooed, and Ramuda instinctively reaches out and traces an old gash that starts at his upper shoulder, touches feather-light and despite how angry he’d sounded Samatoki leans into it, craving contact. “God, you’re clingy.”
“Your back is freezing.” Ramuda retorts, but he kisses a small tattoo nonetheless. Really, he doesn’t care how cold Samatoki is, because he’ll always feel what he doesn’t deserve for a split moment when he makes contact with his skin. Samatoki lets him feel, for a moment, like he’s loved. But it’s easier to banter and keep up their eternal back-and-forth instead of saying what they feel, because Ramuda doesn’t even know how to put it into words. Samatoki is worth more than just empty talk; he’s worth everything. “It’s annoying.”
“Rich from you.” the yakuza spits back, though Ramuda’s learned to know the difference from his noncommittal teasing and real annoyance by now, and this is the former. “I run cold. Y’know that.”
Ramuda presses against Samatoki, tangling a hand in his hair and letting his head rest between the other’s shoulder blades. “Then I’ll warm you up~!” he proclaims, kissing the other’s back again, so gentle that he’s not even sure Samatoki felt it. “Amemura Ramuda, Samasama’s favorite personal heater, at your service!”
“What’s with you always lavishin’ all the attention on me?” Samatoki asks, wiggling from Ramuda’s grasp to face him. “I mean…you love yourself more than the average guy.” Not true, Ramuda thinks bitterly, but Samatoki doesn’t need to know.
…although, with the way he looks at him Ramuda thinks that maybe he knows. Fuck, he’s weak. He pulls off his shirt, crumpling it and dropping it off the side of the bed, as the heat finally gets to him. How Samatoki is so icy, he’ll never understand. “Mhm.” Ramuda mutters, choosing very pointedly once again to not answer before turning away from Samatoki, hopefully to sleep for a bit and get all these damn thoughts out of his mind.
“Damn, you’re off today. Need a fuckin’ reminder of how pretty you are or somethin’?” His tone is accusatory, but his words make Ramuda’s traitorous heart flutter as he feels a cold hand roll him over onto his back. “‘Cause I’ll do it.” There’s a question behind it and Ramuda nods and gives a whispered, broken please as consent. Samatoki turns ever so slightly red, gripping Ramuda’s hand.
Slowly, he kisses Ramuda’s stomach, and takes extra time on the dark birthmarks that litter it. They’re ugly, and he doesn’t know why Rei put them there, but a shiver shoots up his spine when Samatoki presses his lips to them. “God, I got lucky.” Ramuda says, and Samatoki exhales against pale skin.
“You sound like you’re in love or some shit.” Samatoki grunts, words a harsh contrast to the way his fingers skim over the small stretch marks along Ramuda’s hips. “Careful with those thoughts.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.” He hisses, then forcefully shuts up when Samatoki kisses his chest, tensing when his lips brush more stretch marks, these ones much more prominent. “They’re gross, aren’t they? Ugly, too.”
“Nothin’ that’s part of you could be ugly.” It’s not true, far from it, but it threatens to make Ramuda cry; something that he’s barely capable of. “Stop talkin’ bad about yourself before I get real emotional.” Ramuda doesn’t reply. Truthfully, despite how human emotions scare him he wouldn’t mind seeing the emotional side of Samatoki. He wants to see every side of Samatoki, he realizes. And that, that’s the thought he was worried about. “Anyone would be the luckiest asshole in the world to see this every day.”
“Well, you are an asshole.” Ramuda jokes, and Samatoki laughs at him, a bark of a sound as he rests his head on Ramuda’s shoulder, leaning forward to leave a chaste kiss on a mole on the side of his neck. “But we can’t have anything. Not because of you.”
“I know.” Samatoki whispers, finally moving up to kiss Ramuda’s face. “‘S fine. I’ll get over it someday.” It hurts, hurts him so much that Samatoki is so apathetic about this. He wants to be with Samatoki, more than he’s ever desired anything, and for a fleeting second he considers abandoning everything to be with this man that he wasn’t even supposed to meet.
“You’re the one talkin’ about my eyes all the fuckin’ time…” he trails off, hovering over Ramuda’s face. “I’ve seen everything, but so have you.” We aren’t so different, really, goes unsaid.
“What do you see?” Ramuda breathes, willing himself not to meet the striking red eyes before him. “In mine?”
“Conflict. Struggle. More humanity than you’ll ever know.” Samatoki replies, cupping Ramuda’s face in his hands. “I dunno. I’m no poet. All I know is that I could look at ‘em forever.”
“Dangerous territory.” Ramuda chokes out. “I already told you we can’t.”
“Let a guy dream.” the other man grumbles, kissing Ramuda one last time-on his chapped, cracked lips-before falling back to the bed. If he opens his mouth now, he knows that more than just blood will flow out. He can’t tell Samatoki everything. But he can tell him something.
“One day,” he says, and Samatoki turns to gaze at him. “we can. I don’t know when, but I’ll fight for this. For you.”
“I don’t need someone else dyin’ for me.” Samatoki bites out. Ramuda shakes his head, curling up to the other man’s side and willing the tears not to fall. “I’d fight for you too.”
As Ramuda drifts into sleep, Samatoki wraps his arms around him, protective and, as much as he will never admit it, loving. Ramuda’s dreams that night are full of him, in a world where they can be something.
-
When he awakens the next morning, Samatoki and his perfect life are gone, the only evidence it ever existed the faint smell of cigarettes in the bed next to him.