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Kazutora used to believe that there was such a thing as unconditional love, even for someone like him.
That at some point he would find the person who fulfills this hope. A hope on which his younger self clung so desperately like a dying man to his last breath.
At twenty-seven, he is certain that he has found that person. But today he’s not sure which is worse; knowing that fate plays against them? Or to watch helplessly as that very someone loses the fight against his own darkness?
“I don’t think it will do you any good.” Carefully but firmly, his fingers close around the bottle of whiskey that Chifuyu was about to put on his lips. While he does so he tries to ignore how wrong it feels to take something away from him, of all people. Again.
Suddenly he is the center of an oceangreen gaze. If he wouldn’t be so timeworn, he would have shuddered under the piercing intensity. The familiar warmth behind those eyes has been washed away by cold self-loathing, and Chifuyu looks at him as if they would hate each other to death.
It feels odd, this whole situation. Like the calm before the storm.
Despite being uneasy about it, Kazutora doesn’t back away. The time in which they stare each other into the ground feels endless to him.
Then, accompanied by a disparaging Tz, Chifuyu finally releases the bottle and turns away with the intention to put as much distance between them as possible.
“Spit it out.” Kazutora places the whiskey on top of the kitchen counter. “What pisses you off?”
Chifuyu leans backwards against a wall near the huge floor to ceiling window; limp like a puppet whose strings have been cut. The night wraps around Tokyo like a sinister veil, the lights of the big city flicker brightly and hectically, but up here there are only the two of them. Only the two of them and the fragile illusion of being far away from it all, even though they’re caught in the middle.
Everything about this apartment feels too big. Too cold. Too expensive. It’s not a home. Just a soulless apartment for a soulless everyday life. Surrounded by all that dark emptiness Chifuyu seems so lost, like a stranger in his own four walls, like an echo of a person who only lives for the greater good instead for himself – which makes Kazutora an echo, too.
“Remember the brothel job I did on Takemichi’s behalf a few weeks ago?” Chifuyu asks huskily. He sounds just as cool as the pale light that flows around him like liquid silver. “Where I should acquire girls from Manila for forced prostitution?”
Hanagaki. His fingertips twitch. Of course Chifuyu had to do the dirty work for this little fucker again. He should have known.
“One of the girls tried to escape.”
Kazutora’s hands clench into hard fists, so tight his knuckles turn white. His intuition already anticipates how things will unfold, which is why his well-known hatred for the current Toman surges up like a red-hot jet of flame. Nevertheless, a small part fights against this premonition. The part which hopes that his intuition is wrong. Please, please, just let it–
“And they killed her for it.”
His eyes widen. He feels paralyzed. Empty. Numb. And at the same time he wants to smash something to release all his raging anger. That Toman sank so low that they no longer spare women isn’t new. Only recently he beat the shit out of some lower-ranking members when they harassed a student.
But this … This is beyond cruel. Even for Toman…
“Fuck!” The oppressive atmosphere immediately shatters into a thousand little pieces. Chifuyu bangs his fist loudly against the wall behind him because cursing alone is no longer enough to vent his frustration. Usually, he’s in good control of himself. But now? Now his control is crumbling like a house of cards in the wind.
“I could have saved her!” Chifuyu hisses through clenched teeth. “Instead, I just paid the dirty money and…!”
He stops himself. His clenched fist opens, powerless. For a moment, his shaky breathing is everything that can be heard, until a scornful laugh struggles out of his throat. He runs his hand across his forehead to push back his black hair. “After all, I guess I’m just a ruthless asshole like Kisaki, huh?”
“Enough.” Determined, Kazutora approaches him. He grabs his shoulders and involuntarily pushes him closer to the wall so they are face to face. “Never say that again.” He pauses to let his words sink in. The heavy emphasis gives his calm voice something menacing. “Never.”
Chifuyu’s hair has fallen back into his forehead and a familiar pair of eyes gazes at Kazutora from behind jet-black stands. He has raised his metaphorical walls again, but something feels off. Something you probably only notice when you’ve known him long enough.
Behind these eyes, Chifuyu seems so unreachably far away. As if he is falling. Straight into the darkness.
Before you were released, he fought alone all those years, Naoto once confided to him when they met for business reasons, as he dryly put it, at night in a shady bar somewhere in Shinjuku. He is a cop and was Chifuyu’s only ally for a long time, but it never went beyond a relationship of sole purpose. Nevertheless, he can be trusted.
They share a mission and an almost ridiculously dogged determination. Apparently, the current Toman caused the death of his sister – so he devoted his life to Toman’s downfall and won’t rest until this goal is achieved. Thirst for revenge and a strong sense of justice. A deadly combination. Kazutora knows best.
Sometimes I worry about Chifuyu, but I can’t get through to him. He’s used to settle emotional things by himself, Naoto explained while staring at the table. Then he signed in resignation. But it’s probably the smartest thing to do in his position. Naoto’s gaze rose to meet him directly. In Toman, sentimentality quickly ends in a body bag.
Kazutora presses his fingertips a little deeper into his shoulder. “You–” don’t have to fight alone anymore.
But it’s no use. Even though he is touching, holding him, it feels like Chifuyu is far out of his reach.
It’s like he wants to fall. He probably even has to, in order to keep his position in Toman.
He’d rather crash alone, full force, and then silently tries to put the pieces back together before showing himself even remotely vulnerable.
And it fucking kills Kazutora. It kills him that he might not even be able to save the one who saved him.
As if burned, Kazutora lets go of him and takes a step back in awe. “Sorry…”
It still feels wrong to get close to him. Or trying to tell him what to do…
“I know what I’m doing. And I know for what I’m doing it,” Chifuyu replies monotonously and pushes himself off the wall to stand up straight. He grimaces like he’s disgusted with himself. “But I won’t ever use it to justify or sugarcoat my actions.”
“You had no choice,” Kazutora intervenes.
Chifuyu’s eyes narrow. An unmistakable warning.
Back then, this would have been enough to make Kazutora back away.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his soul, there’s still a scared child that fears being abandoned by a loved one if it doesn't do as they please.
Rationally, however, he knows that this fear has no right to exist. That he and Chifuyu are equal, always have been, and Chifuyu never demanded anything else because he hates hierarchical structures, even if Kazutora’s guilt tries to tell him otherwise.
“You know what Kisaki does to a Judas.” Kazutora hates how cold he sounds. But that’s the reality they live in. “He will murder you as soon as you act conspicuously.”
“I get it.” Chifuyu pushes past him to end their conversation. “But maybe I could at least have saved her. If for once in those ten years I’d had a fucking backbone instead of acting like a trained mutt, I could’ve saved her!”
Before he can rush past him, Kazutora grabs his upper arm. With that, he seems to have finally torn the already tense thread of patience.
Chifuyu quickly turns to face him. Hostilely gleams in his eyes. The threatening bite in his voice cuts like a blade. “Fucking let me–”
“You think I want to watch you getting executed?!” Kazutora hisses, sounding like him; razor sharp, but a thousand times more insistent. “Do you think I can do this? Watching you get shot? You?!”
They stare at each other devastatingly. As if they were just waiting for the best opportunity to jump at each other's throats.
“...The only one I still care about?”
His grip loosens. It doesn’t feel right to hold him this rough…
The tense atmosphere dissipates as quickly as the reverberations of an explosion. Chifuyu’s seriousness melts into a shocked expression. Maybe even horrified.
“So don’t you dare to put yourself into more danger than you are already,” Kazutora warns and lets go of his arm.
He then takes a deep breath. Allows his eyelids to close while doing so. Tries to ignore the uncomfortable foreboding that's growing inside him like cancer.
He’s never been good with words. So he stops thinking about if it's right and just says whatever comes to his mind:
“I have a lot of respect for you. And I can’t even imagine what you’ve had to do or endure as part of Toman’s higher-up’s.” In the middle of this empty apartment, Kazutora’s muffled voice sounds far too loud. “But our goal wouldn’t be within reach if you hadn’t fought and persevered all these years.”
Chifuyu tenses up.
“If you hadn’t picked me up at jail back then … Toman would have killed me long ago.” Kazutora exhales shakily. “I owe you my life, Chifuyu. In more than one way.”
He hesitates. Like he has to arm himself from the weight of the words that are about to follow.
“And I know that Baji…”
“Don’t say it,” Chifuyu hisses warningly. His expression darkens and the silvery light makes his eye color appear ice cold.
Again, Kazutora would have backed away when he was younger. Even now his common sense tells him to keep quiet, but the sentence has left his mouth before he can stop himself.
“I know that Baji would be proud of you.”
And then, everything happens so fast. Too fast.
Within the blink of an eye, there are fingers on his collar. Relentlessly, they wedge themselves in the hem of his black long-sleeved shirt.
That’s all Kazutora notices before he staggers back indignantly, so uncontrolled that he stumbles several times. But even if he fell, he would be jerked up again immediately.
He could do something, but he lets himself be directed backwards without resistance. The shadowy furnishings scurry past his field of vision unnoticed and wandering shadows buzz through the room like startled ghosts, as their rumbling movements repeatedly break the pale glow from outside.
He gasps in surprise as his back collides with a wall, somewhere in a secluded area of the apartment that the light can’t reach.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Chifuyu snaps accusingly. “I killed in Toman’s name!”
Killed.
It reverberates like an ominous echo. Through the apartment. Through his mind. Through his heart. Petrified, Kazutora stares into Chifuyu’s enraged face. He couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.
“I’m already a part of it all!” Pure self-loathing rages behind oceangreen eyes. Melting flames. Burning ice. “Even if we bring the old Toman back,” he presses him tighter against the wall, “I’ll go down with the one that got dragged through dirt and blood by Kisaki!"
In this somber darkness every contour seems to blur, but even that can’t hide his emotional state any longer. How the metaphorical wall of rationality slowly collapses. Piece. For piece. For piece.
“If Baji would be here,” he continues in a tear-chocked voice. The desperation sounds so painful, as if he had to rip every word out of his throat. “If Baji saw me like that, he would never-!” His breathing gets heavier. His hands tremble as if he were electrified. “Fuck, he would never be proud of scum like me!”
Suddenly his body gives in. As if the nature of his whole being wasn’t made for honest emotional outbursts. Exhausted, his head tilts forward so that his forehead rests on Kazutora’s chest. Right above his heart which pounds so violently that it probably beats bruises into his lungs.
If Tokyo’s nightly ocean of lights weren’t flickering erratically, it would have seemed like time stood still. It’s noisy and busy outside, but here they’re plunged into deafening silence.
Chifuyu still holds him by the collar, but no longer exerts any pressure. Instead, his hands just linger, weak and unmoving, yet he doesn’t let go. As if he needs to hold on with all his remaining strength. As if he needs to hold onto him.
Kazutora remains in place, completely frozen. Doesn’t know what to do. Or if he is even allowed to do anything. But for Chifuyu, he would remain like this all night if he needs it.
“Baji…”
Slowly, Kazutora directs his attention to Chifuyu and all of a sudden it feels like his heart is ripped out of his chest. He has never seen him so vulnerable. So utterly exhausted and defenseless.
“If you were here. If you could see me like this,” Chifuyu continues weakly. He runs his fingertips through Kazutora's medium-length black hair. “... What would you say?”
Now he finally understands what is happening here.
He understands who Chifuyu is actually seeing in this dim lit darkness.
He understands to whom he looks so broken and yearningly, like he just found something dearly beloved that was taken away from him a long time ago. No … Not something. Someone.
He understands that a lot would be a lot easier for him to endure if Baji would still be here instead of…
This realization feels like he fell into ice water. Piercing. Cold. Indescribably painful, like he is ripped apart.
Kazutora barely notices the warm hand on his neck. But when Chifuyu gently pulls him closer, that’s all the clearer.
His throat goes dry. Bone dry. And his heart definitely shouldn’t be pounding as fast as it does right now.
Halfway through, Chifuyu pauses, startled, finally realizing what he is doing. “I– ” He immediately lets go of him and backs away. “I shouldn't have — I am so sorry, I–”
“It’s okay,” Kazutora assures in a whisper. He takes a step forward so that they are face to face again. He guides his hands to the left and right of Chifuyu’s jawline to hold his head in position with gentle firmness. “It’s okay.”
Chifuyu frowns doubtfully. His gaze rushes across every muscle of the other’s face, as if he is trying to find something that confirms his doubt. When Kazutora notices that the gaze lingers on his lips, however, he leans towards him. At first hesitantly, appraisingly. Then with unbridled speed, as if they need each other like the air to breathe.
And then nothing seems to matter anymore. Except for soft lips that desperately press against his.
What usually starts with warmth now starts with smoldering heat. Where there should have been a slow approach, there is an eager urgency and a willingness to take whatever the other wants to give. Their kiss is fire and all the repressed feelings for each other are gasoline.
The kiss deepens. Kazutora’s fingers wander from Chifuyu’s jawline to his black hair and he buries them in it. At the same time, he feels two hands gripping his hair as well and they hold tightly onto each other while swaying in the eye of the storm.
Chifuyu leans against him, stumbling forward slightly.
“You’re falling,” Kazutora breaths.
“Anchor me,” Chifuyu whispers.
Without interrupting, Kazutora switches their positions. He pushes him backwards against the wall and they continue to kiss each other breathless. A shower of sparks trickles down his spine as he slips his tongue between the others lips, and the gesture is met with a reluctant sigh.
He almost hopes to taste some whiskey, because that would be a damn good reason to stop all this right now. To not engage in this absolute self-torture. Chifuyu gives himself to him completely, clutching at him like a drowning man, and Kazutora knows none of this is meant for him.
Nonetheless, he surrenders. To Chifuyu. To this moment. To this fleeting dream of togetherness in the middle of their grim reality that slips away as quickly like sand between fingers. His heartbeat races and he kisses him harder. He kisses him as hard and fervently as if he can never kiss him again. And maybe he can't. Maybe he actually can't.
Chifuyu clamps Kazutora’s used lower lip between his teeth. When he exerts a gentle pressure that makes Kazutora shiver, a smug grin creeps onto his lips. A gesture as playful as it is fearless. If he was intimidated by playing with fire, he could have smothered the flames long ago. Instead he keeps stoking them.
Purposefully, Kazutora goes for the crook of Chifuyu’s neck, who tilts his head to the side invitingly. Beneath his lips he feels hot skin and a fluttering pulse. He slowly kisses upwards. Neck, jaw, cheek. The closer he comes to his ear, the heavier the other one’s breathing gets.
“Bed,” Kazutora whispers softly.
A promising gleam flashes in Chifuyu’s eyes. He seals the invitation with a slow but sensual kiss, until he grabs him domineeringly by the collar to lead him to the bedroom – which takes them three times longer than usual, at least, because they can’t keep their lips from each other for long.
In the doorway Kazutora pauses and, just like before, places his hands on the other one's jawline in order to be able to look directly at him. “Tell me if you don’t like something,” he demands breathlessly. “Or if you want me to stop.”
Chifuyu mumbles something unintelligible against his lips and Kazutora gets weak briefly before pulling away.
“I’m serious,” he insists, looking at him uncompromisingly. “Promise me. Look me in the eye and promise me.”
With an ordinary one night stand, with himself or with anyone else, it wouldn’t matter to him as much as it does right now.
But when it comes to Chifuyu, it’s different. It’s something completely different.
“I promise,” Chifuyu answers, putting a hand on Kazutoras cheek. It’s so extraordinarily gentle it almost makes him flinch “Will you promise me too?”
Mindfulness. Still a strange concept for Kazutora, especially when it involves himself.
Convinced that he somehow internalized it, he confirms it with a quick nod.
And when he brings their lips back together, it’s like it lit a spark.
A spark that burns them up.
Tokyo’s shimmering skyline can be seen from the bedroom. A beautiful sight for such a rotten city.
The faint patter of the shower fills the stillness as Kazutora roams through the room to pick up his clothes from the floor. His shoulder blades tense lightly as he slips into his black long sleeved shirt. Chifuyu’s fingertips must have left a scratch or two.
Once he is fully dressed, he pauses for a moment. Impassively, he stares into the void as his memories carry him back half an hour. He went into this with the expectation that Chifuyu just needed him to feel close to Baji again … And Kazutora would have just gone along with it.
It would have been pure self-torture, but for Chifuyu he was willing to endure it all and it would have been okay. It would have been okay because love doesn’t come unconditionally for everyone – and life has taught him that he belongs to the ones who have to pay for it. That he is only worthy of love when he can give something in exchange.
His mother only cared for him when he gave her his loyalty.
His father only stopped raising his fists when he lived up to his high standards and delivered absolute obedience.
Junpeke only tolerated him because he had money.
Give or be invincible. Give or be meaningless. Give or starve. An endless circle.
And then there is Chifuyu.
The one who shook his entire concept of love. The one who scratched the surface of a blunt acceptance that his younger self was rebelling against by all means. The one who could just take what he wanted but refused to do so. Or at least that's what Kazutora thought he wanted.
With Chifuyu, it felt so … Honest. As if it was important to him that they could both enjoy it equally. When Kazutora wanted to bury his face in his neck to make it easier for him to imagine someone else, Chifuyu gently held his face to look at him. To see him. To see something he definitely isn’t supposed to see.
And it scares Kazutora. It scares him so fucking much because he murdered the last person who saw that in him with his own hands.
What Chifuyu gives him is too much. It’s way too much. It’s more than he deserves. More than he’s worth. More than he can allow.
The darkness becomes scarier as his past opens up in front of him like a deep black abyss.
Undone, Kazutora wipes his face with shaking hands and looks up to the ceiling, asking himself the same question like Chifuyu did earlier;
Baji. If you were still here and could see me like this, what would you say?
He composes himself as good as he can before heading straight for the–
He stops abruptly when Chifuyu appears in the doorway. Directly in front of him. His hair is still slightly damp from the shower, he’s wearing black sweatpants and–
What the…
“Uh, is that the self made thing you told me about?” Kazutora asks bluntly. “You know, the one with the totally sick design, or something like that?”
There is a scribbled snowflake in the middle of the light blue textile crime of a shirt which also has a scribbled, smiling black cat in it. A cat with pointy devil horns. Or, wait … Pointy ears? Yeah, ears. Probably.
“Rude,” Chifuyu comments. “You don’t make fun of other people's clothes.”
“Says the one who cracked a joke about tiger-printed underwear earlier and almost killed the mood. Fair is fair.”
An amused laugh. “Touchè.” Chifuyu raises his hands in surrender, casually dangles them again and flops down into his bed.
Kazutora watches him and inwardly fights back this comfortable feeling that is due to the short-lived but cheerful atmosphere. When you dance with death every day, it would be beyond reckless to indulge in this illusion.
As he turns to leave, he feels someone grabbing his arm. He could easily tear himself free, but he doesn’t. Although he knows that he should do it. He should absolutely do it.
He looks back over his shoulder. Chifuyu is holding his upper body up with one elbow while he uses the other arm to reach out for him. Even in the dark he seems so lost in the midst of all this hypocritical luxury.
“You can stay the night if you want,” Chifuyu offers. “It’s late…”
Kazutora’s neutral facial expression successfully hides even the most inconspicuous emotion. But actually both of them know that it would be wrong. Very wrong. And he wishes he was strong enough to refuse. To do what’s right. But he isn’t. Not when it comes to him.
“Well, it’s definitely better to sleep in your palace than in my rundown apartment,” he comments nonchalantly. “As if I would let this opportunity slip.”
Chifuyu moves a little to make room and the mattress sags slightly as Kazutora settles onto it. While doing so, he is awfully careful and slow. As if they didn’t fuck like there’s no tomorrow just a few moments ago.
He lays sideways so they can look at each other. While they just lie there in silence, he hopes that his inner tension won’t show. It’s strange. Receiving security, without giving anything in return, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But it’s not. Not for them.
Right now, he feels like he is around Chifuyu Matsuno rather than a high-ranking member of the country’s most fucked up organisation. He is lying next to him, ready for bed, and they look at each other without any hidden motives. It’s a kind of intimacy Kazutora has never experienced until now.
“So,” Chifuyu begins. “That wasn’t really just a relationship of convenience of us. What are we going to do with it?” he asks with his charming intrepidity, from which he probably doesn’t even realize how charming it is. Kazutora admires him for it. That he stays true to his feelings, unafraid and under any circumstances.
His inner panic must reflect in his eyes, as Chifuyu adds: “We don’t have to give it a name if you don’t want to.”
“No. We don’t have to,” Kazutora confirms.
“Okay.”
“Chifuyu, I–” He sounds desperate. Pleading. So fucking pitful. His chest tightens painfully.
Gently, he brushes a few damp strands of black hair aside and puts his hands on his cheek. “I won’t let you go down with Toman.”
Those words weigh heavily. In his heart. In the silence.
Chifuyu’s eyes widen in shock before his lips twist into a wistful smile. “Kazutora…”
“I won’t,” he resolutely affirms. “That’s why we can’t mean anything.”
“Why?”
“Because people died when they got close to me.” His past crashes down on him like a hailstorm. “And dying is so damn easy here.”
He feels so much at once that he feels nothing at all. With his thumb, he gently strokes Chifuyu’s cheek. “I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
Oceangreen eyes linger on him. These unmistakable oceangreen eyes of which he knows every nuance by heart, but could drown in them all over again.
They are as fearless as always. So, so fearless. Chifuyu is not looking at him. He is seeing him.
“Then push me away.” Chifuyu closes his eyes. Wraps a hand around the one on his cheek in silent understanding. “I know what it means.”
From then on, it doesn’t take long until he falls asleep.
Kazutora, on the other hand, is still awake.
Chifuyu makes a vulnerable impression when he is asleep. So Kazutora doesn’t allow himself to close his eyes to make sure he is completely safe.
And the longer he looks at him, the less he fits in here. Here, into this life. Into this grim reality.
Chifuyu shouldn’t lead a life of violence and corruption in the shadows of justice. He shouldn’t be sitting alone in a soulless apartment, silencing his conscience with hard alcohol so he can bear with himself. His front door shouldn’t be locked with the most expensive security standards. He shouldn’t just be able to calm down with sleeping pills and wake up screaming in the middle of the night because of nightmares.
Instead, he should follow his dreams and become a pilot. He should live a peaceful life with a perfect relationship and a perfect girlfriend like in those lame shoujo mangas he used to love so much. He should be happy. Kazutora doesn’t care with whom, whether it’s him or anyone else, but he wants Chifuyu to get out of here alive and find the happiness he deserves.
And maybe there’s even a chance they’ll both find happiness. Together.
In another life.