Chapter Text
Maybe it was all his fault. Maybe when he cursed out that morning, with teeth biting his lower lip so hard that it bled, “I hope the world fucking ends already.” Maybe he really was the reason why it did. Literally.
Before shit went down the drain, Hasumi Keito was already having the worst of his days, which is crazy because he can’t remember a day where anything was ever good. He had lived his life in nothing but pain and suffering, but today, it was ten times godawful. Waking up at 4 A.M. in his small room in a rundown apartment that he had a hard time paying, with a salary that should be illegal with the amount of work hours he had to put in to acquire it, Keito has not had a break in his life. He looks around for his glasses and what’s left of his pack of cigarettes, his lovely little breakfast, along with an instant coffee that he will be buying later from the convenience store on the first floor of his building.
He leans on his elbows as he examines his area through his little one-man balcony (if you could call it one), the ashes of his cigarettes fall to somebody else’s balcony as the morning breeze carries it. He consumes another breath of tobacco, exhaling it with a heavy sigh. Another day, another worthless grind.
Keito knows, of course, that no matter how hard he tries, no matter how many sleepless nights he spent, no matter how many important meals of the day he skips, he will never escape. Poverty and misfortune, it was like his shadow, not even at night time would it disappear. He had decided to live with it, to put up with it, to accept it like a reflection in the mirror, acknowledging that it will always be there, reminding him. But Keito still tries, he works and works, and smiles, and smokes, he sleeps the most he can (4 hours) and eats what he has (the 7/11 cup noodles), because deep inside, there is this childish hope, that he can make it, he doesn’t know what or how, but it whispers to him that the light, it will come soon.
So he holds on to it, he washes his hair and face on the sink, he chews on his last piece of gum, he puts on the only other suit he owned, he sprays the last bit of his cologne, then picks up his briefcase full of whatever the fuck his boss wanted him to advertise. He looks at his dirty mirror, at himself, and says to himself: “Let’s get this shit over with.” He doesn’t forget to buy the instant coffee of course, it was like a little treat for him, something like a comfort.
“Here ‘ya go.” The cashier said in a lifeless tone, she looked pale, Keito thought of how other people might have it harder than him, it squeezed his heart a little. The man almost jumped when the cashier squeezed his wrist too, her hands were cold and sweaty. “Please take care.” She begged.
How nice of her… Keito thought as he pulled back his arm harshly. “Yeah.” He replies briefly. He walks away without looking back, he feels a shiver run through his spine. That was bizarre. Ah, it must be the cold. He downs his coffee, and just as fast, he spits it on the street. “What the—?” He stares at the cup and sees a whole fingernail. “Fuck!” He throws the cup on the ground and walks away. “Can this day get any worse?” He mutters.
Actually maybe that was also his fault for jinxing it, because his boss, stocky and cranky and smelling like piss and alcohol, throws the advertisement papers at his face when he arrives. “You have the nerve to be late when you have the least sales!” Keito was, by the way, only 6 minutes late. “Pick that shit up, and you better make it past the usual districts.” He says threateningly, a deep frown etched on the man’s face.
He adjusts his glasses and picks the colorful prints diligently, the other man walking away in an angry manner. “ I hope the world fucking ends already. ” He could taste the blood from his lips from how hard he bit it, as he stacks and arranges the papers neatly in his bag, he now has 2 extra sets to promote, along with what he already had. Plus, his boss wants him to go further from the routine locations. Great, extra hours, which doesn’t even give me a raise in my salary. He walks down the building, pulls the muscles on his face and dons a smile. “Business time.”
He spends most of the day running around, papers in his hand, telling people to buy this, to subscribe to that, to order those, to experience these. Some thirty minutes of smoking, he gets back to work, wandering through city districts, some places his usual, while others were unfamiliar territories. Right, territories. Which leads him to another adversity.
The wall of some random building, which he was aggressively pushed to, was wet, not from rainwater, but from an open pipe that leaked of god-knows-what. It smelled bad, it almost made him hurl out whatever was in his stomach (nothing) had he not realized the situation that he was in. Like a scene from the movie, big and burly men had him surrounded on a back alley of a busy red district. Keito’s stance was that of a bullied kid holding on to whatever he has for dear protection. He knew his cheap little briefcase would do nothing to protect him from bullets and knife stabs, but that was the only thing he had.
What did he do wrong? Remember the mention of ‘territories’? Well, Keito is in the wrong one right now. He wasn’t being greedy of course. He was just smart enough to understand that red light districts had easy and gullible people, but he was also stupid enough to forget that these places are more dangerous than the men his boss had around him. So here he was, his hair being gripped on by some dude who had stitches on his arms.
“‘Ya don’t look familiar, mister.” He states in a gruff but smug manner, “Are ‘ya lost?” Keito can’t come up with the right words despite working for years in a job that requires words more than anything else. “Cat got ‘ya tongue? Well, how ‘bout I make it easy? Yeah? You and your coworkers, trespass, unacceptable , I catch one, do something bad, return as a blood-drenched gift, your boss understands, no more trespassing. Simple, right?” His fellow men laugh automatically, like those laugh sounds from audiences during a comedy skit. “Do ‘ya get me?”
Keito didn't reply, there were no right or wrong answers. He will still get beat up to the point of a spare breath.
“Okay, so, maybe: less words, more action.”
The first thing he noticed when his consciousness returned, was that it smelled like shit. Like rotten food and everything bad out there. He opens his eyes and is met with his glasses holding on for its dear life. Cracked and bent, just like maybe a few of his bones. He managed to move, and he could feel what he was on. The crinkle of plastic bags made him shiver. Disgusting. Even with my current financial state, I wouldn’t be this down bad. He thinks, as he stands up with a limp, every part of his body was screaming at him. He could feel the ongoing pour of blood in his nose, dripping on the already wet ground.
Another thing he noticed was that it was eerily quiet, no, too quiet for the usual bustling district. Where were the giggles of the barely-clothed girls, the booming laughter of the horny drunk men, the mixture of different songs from different karaoke bars? What was left were buzzing noises that the neon lights made. Had he gone deaf from the intense beating he had received? He didn’t think so.
He holds on to the grimy walls of the alley as he walks towards the main street, where the lights are bright. He was almost near when he saw someone pass by him. For a second he contemplates whether he should ask for help or not, considering the man that had passed by looked like one of the mob people, big and burly and bright red hair that shined underneath the scintillating lights. He knows not to trust anyone in this place but he realizes that if they wanted him dead then they could’ve gone on with it, but they didn’t, because his purpose was to come back to his boss as a ‘lesson learned’. So he decides to trust that intuition and groans out what could be considered a ‘call for help’. It barely was, with his croaky voice after the assault he had received, he sounded like a monster. He tries again, louder, but with the same battered voice.
The man, who had actually already been so far, stops in caution. Keito sees him pause in the middle of the street, it was weird how there was not a single soul anywhere near them, it was as if time stopped when the man stopped in his tracks. He looked around, and in Keito’s point of view, it seemed like he was wondering if he was hearing right.
The voice in his throat manages another ‘help’ sound. Still hoarse, still sounding like it came from a creature. The red-haired man whips his head towards the source, and pounces on him aggressively. They both fall down, the stranger on top of Keito with his hands around his already bruised neck.
“Fuck,” the man says gruffly, his voice filled rage, “so there’s one in this area too, huh.”
Keito struggles, he feels himself lose consciousness as more blood from his nose trickles down to the side of his cheek. “Please—“ He manages through despite his lack of air. “I’m sorry… I a-already… learned… my… l-lesson…!!!” The other man blinks and his hands release its intense grip around the neck it was forcing the breath out of, Keito claims them back to his lungs, sucking in despite the howling pain his chest and neck is in.
The red-haired man stares at him with wide eyes. “You..” He trails off, observing the coughing man underneath him, he doesn’t stand up from his position, still pinning the green-haired man below him with his knees on both his sides.
Keito had his upper body weight on his left arm as his right hand touches his neck, the cold of his fingers contrasting with the warmth the other man’s grip left on him. He looks back up through his cracked glasses, to the man who had just attacked him.
“You’re… human.” He says in disbelief, like it wasn’t the most obvious thing. Keito wanted to shout WHAT!? What did he think Keito was? He may have sounded inhumane with the croak of his voice, but he looked human despite his battered appearance.
The man on top immediately holds on to Keito’s face, twisting and turning him, a worried expression on his gruff face. He can’t help but to reverberate a pained moan, tears pricked his eyes when his head was moved in some way. “Shit, you are human. Those things could not have been able to do this. What happened to you?”
Keito wanted to laugh at that. What the fuck didn’t happen to me, that should be the question. Also, for him, it was funny how he attacked Keito and then just randomly proceeded to act concerned. It was ironic, it really was, especially with their positions right now. But Keito chooses to back down on this one, especially with his current condition. “P-Please… just spare me…” He wheezes out of himself, even with his broken bones, he’ll try kneeling if it meant for him to keep away from danger.
“Fuck,” the other man curses, his brows furrowed as he thinks hard on what to do, “Here.” He reaches into the pocket of his black sweatpants, pulling out what seems to be a handkerchief and offering it to Keito, who looks bewildered at his gesture, and at the appearance of the handkerchief. On his hand laid a Hello Kitty designed handkerchief, with pink laces on the seams. It was a spectacle to behold.
“Thank you.” Was what Keito managed to get out of his damaged throat, really he was getting tired of the different areas pain was coming from. He wipes the blood running from his nose with his shaky hands, ignoring that he was feeling woozy and that sleep would feel so good right now, sleep would feel so good for forever. He didn't realize he had stopped moving and that his eyes were getting droopy every second, and that the other man was shouting at him in a panicked manner.
“— Oi!” The other man has his hands cupping his face, and Keito, despite the fact that he was practically blind and falling unconscious, thinks that he was pretty handsome. “Fuck, you’re losing it! Stay with me! Don’t sleep on a concussion!” He says in a panicked manner, brows furrowed, hands shuffling around Keito. The green-haired man replies with a hum, a small nod, as if he understood what was going on right now and not letting himself be defeated by the drowsiness taking over him.
“Fight it! Don’t sleep, dumbass!” Keito doesn’t understand why, that with every word the other man speaks, he can feel a grumble pressed on his chest. He manages to peel his eyes open and he sees that he was on a higher elevation compared to before, he sees that he is on the other man’s back. He saw that the blood from his nose was leaking on the other man’s neck, fairly darker than the man’s hair, which seemed to glow under the neon-lights. His legs hurt where the other man was gripping to keep him from falling.
“It hurts…” He says to his ear, barely a whisper but with his distance from the other man’s ear, it was loud enough. The grip loosened, and the ear was just as red as Keito’s blood.
“S-Sorry.” Was the reply, continued by a “Please stay awake, you need to fight it.”
Keito hums, “You’re awfully kind… For a man who almost choked me to death…” He receives a chuckle that Keito felt in vibrations.
He could also feel the thumping of the man’s heart, fast as he is after all carrying body weight while running, but even faster now that all of a sudden he came to a halt. The grip on his thighs tighten. Keito is disgruntled at the disturbance of his peace, peeks through his eye, and looks at what made them stop at their tracks.
Chewing and crunching and slurping and biting, each sound made every single hair on Keito’s neck rise. Nausea hits him in the throat much worse than a punch would, it took him a lot of sheer willpower not to throw up. His heartbeat synchronizes with the other man, clearly they’re both just as petrified at the scene in front of them. They both stood still in fear of attracting attention of whatever is delightfully having a feast of blood and flesh in front of their eyes.
“S-Sorry.” Was the reply, continued by a “Please stay awake, you need to fight it.”
Keito hums, “You’re awfully kind… For a man who almost choked me to death…” He receives a chuckle that Keito felt in vibrations.
He could also feel the thumping of the man’s heart, fast as he is after all carrying body weight while running, but even faster now that all of a sudden he came to a halt. The grip on his thighs tighten. Keito is disgruntled at the disturbance of his peace, peeks through his eye, and looks at what made them stop at their tracks.
Chewing and crunching and slurping and biting, each sound made every single hair on Keito’s neck rise. Nausea hits him in the throat much worse than a punch would, it took him a lot of sheer willpower not to throw up. His heartbeat synchronizes with the other man, clearly they’re both just as petrified at the scene in front of them. They both were at still in fear of attracting attention of whatever is delightfully having a feast of blood and flesh in front of their eyes.