Archive of Our Own

baby, i need more than a word from you

can't stop singing your song

it always plays when you're gone

The first emotion Yoshida ever feels about Denji isn’t apprehension, whether for the Chainsaw Man or Denji himself, it isn’t a slight aversion to the way he carries himself, nor faint amusement at the way Denji trips over the mundane, the way he slurs his words and smiles when he shouldn’t.

No, it’s burning, consuming, maddening curiosity. Interest in the way he lives, like he simultaneously has nothing to lose, even less to fear, but also like a breeze could send his world toppling to the blossom covered ground. Attention to the way he moves, stumbling like a foal, newborn to the world, but with the bold power, the gentling grace, of a river.

It’s the same now, even months later, although ‘interesting’ struggles to coalesce all that is Denji into mere words. Yoshida watches keenly, Denji. Watches him breathe and live through nothing more than a dark eye and a thin smile. He watches and he wants.

“Denji,” Yoshida says in lieu of greeting, watches the other startle with a barely contained grin. Denji himself scowls, lips tilting down and bunching up so much it could pass as a pout. He knows it's not, not because Denji never pouts, but because he wouldn’t do it where he thought Yoshida could see. Yoshida always sees.

He’s with that girl again. Mitaka Asa. Yoshida keeps his face neutral, keeps the twitch in his hands tucked into his pockets, quiet and reserved, and wonders if they’re involved. The thought, Asa touching Denji’s fair, freckled skin with romance thrumming underneath petal-soft touches and not the reverence Yoshida would wholly give, makes his stomach twist, makes bloodlust flare over his skin, over his knuckles. There’s something about her, the girl, that rubs Yoshida the wrong way. Perhaps it’s how her eyes are sometimes too keen, too inhuman, maybe it’s her unusual interest in Denji, perhaps it’s the way she hangs off him sometimes, like she… likes him. Not because Denji is uninteresting, of course. Yoshida wouldn’t even be here, tense and faking leisure at the sight of Asa too close, if Denji was uninteresting. No, he is too interesting and Yoshida senses he is not the only one to understand that. That might be the issue.

“Denji,” Yoshida says again, just to taste it.

“What do you want?” Asa answers for Denji and Yoshida can’t spear down the flash of irritation that rises in him, unsure if he even wants to. She's brave, something Yoshida's grudgingly impressed by, even though it irritates all hell out of him. His hands clench harder in his pockets, tightening the longer Asa looks at him like something to be wary of, something dangerous. He smiles. He could be. Not to Denji, never him. But her? Anyone else? Yes, he could be dangerous. Very.

Asa steps in front of Denji slightly, like she is trying to protect him. Heaven couldn’t protect Denji better than Yoshida, but he lets it go when he sees the discomfort and frustration on Denji’s face. Asa doesn't know he hates being ignored. Yoshida smiles thinly. “Mitaka.”

“Did you need something?”

Annoyance is something like an angry, hateful caress across his skin, biting and sparking wherever it touches.

“Yes.” Yoshida doesn’t snap, his inflection neither rises nor falls, gods forbid he ever bares underneath his skin to any one but the sole captor of his interest, but something in his eyes, his smile, must betray his impatience because Asa stumbles over a step back. He can feel his grin widen, wolfish, teeth sharp and showing. To her credit, she stands tall for a second longer, searching and suspicious for something in his eyes, that inhuman part of her strong and defying. Then, she trembles, balking and a little afraid, and steps away. Yoshida’s smile is mild when she whispers something to Denji and scampers off.

Denji whirls on him, scowl deep and dragging lines down his sharp cheeks. Yoshida’s fingers clench again, twist into the lining of his pocket, different this time, with the need to touch. Touch and hold and cradle and never let go. “What the hell? What’d you do that for?”

“Denji.” Yoshida can’t stop the smile that crosses his face, genuine this time. “Come eat with me?”

He splutters, affronted at Yoshida’s disregard for his question. He pokes a finger into Yoshida’s chest, completely unafraid as he stares him down. As if he could do anything. He could, maybe. He is the Chainsaw Man, after all, but Yoshida is a head taller and he’s broader in the shoulders, lean but muscled, and he’s got a devil who’s caress could kill. Denji is muscled too, deliciously so, and he’s strong and defiant in a way that makes Yoshida want to put it to the test.

Yoshida is drawn away from (enticing, consuming) thoughts of Denji’s muscles when said Denji gets up in Yoshida’s face, brows furrowed and nose scrunched. Faint freckles paint his skin and Yoshida’s teeth ache. Denji’s so cute. He’s so interesting and so cute. Yoshida invited him for lunch but now he craves something different, sweeter, headier. Words almost a foreign thought, he barely listens to Denji rant about giving him space and leaving him alone, nodding at the right intervals to seem like he’s listening and not fantasizing about splaying his hands across Denji’s waist, stomach, thighs, throat. About wrapping them tight, digging them into soft flesh, listening to gasps and wanton moans and begs for more. He would give Denji more. He would give Denji anything.

“So?” he asks when Denji’s done ranting, panting soft breaths on Yoshida’s chin that he has to pretend doesn’t make blood rush up his spine to his head and make him dizzy. He’s so close. So close his chest, although covered with the school uniform, almost touches Yoshida’s, just a hair’s width of space, and, fuck, Yoshida wants. “Will you come eat with me?”

It’s always a question with Denji, a tender inquiry, a plea. He wants Denji to choose to go somewhere with him, choose him. It’s never offhand, never a demand. No, he’s too mindful for that. Denji deserves more thought than a casual outing. He deserves roses and all those plushies Yoshida knows he secretly collects.

Denji falters, thrown from Yoshida’s lack of attention to his desire for space. He settles back on his feet and steps back, away from Yoshida, running a hand through golden strands. He eyes Yoshida, then sighs, rolling his eyes, the warm brown flickering with emotion Yoshida can’t catch, and stalks down the corridor.

“You’re paying,” he calls over his shoulder.

Yoshida always does, but he doesn’t say that. He’d spend as much money as deathly possible on Denji. He’d do anything for Denji. The walk to the cafe they always visit is quiet, unlike normal. Not that Yoshida is the one always keeping up the chatter. As much as Denji likes to pretend he doesn’t like Yoshida, he talks to him. A lot. In that warm, gruff voice that makes Yoshida want to lick as much of it as possible out of his mouth and swallow him whole. He stops Denji before they can enter the cafe with gentle fingers wrapped around his elbow.

“You good?”

Denji scowls and doesn’t jerk out of Yoshida’s hold. “I’m fine.”

“You're sure?”

“Yeah.” He snatches his arm back this time, hurriedly entering the cafe. Yoshida sees the tips of Denji’s ears pink and wonders why he’s suddenly at a loss for words. The cafe isn’t too busy this time of day, and the woman at the counter recognizes them. Yoshida pretends not to see the wink she sends Denji, nor the way his cheeks flush. The sudden pit in his stomach, the itch across his back has nothing to do with it. It’s a coincidence that he picks the booth farthest away from the register.

“What do you want?” he asks, perusing the menu as if he doesn't know it back to front with how frequently he visits. “My treat, remember?”

“Of course, it is,” Denji mutters and then he’s quiet.

He’s quiet when Yoshida orders too, merely pointing out what he’d like, scooting too close to be good for Yoshida’s health, the quiet scent of soap and mint wafting off him in mind numbing waves. Yoshida can’t resist shifting infinitesimally closer, brushing their thighs together, taking deep, indulgent gulps of Denji’s scent, his trademark fragrance.

“Hey, Yoshida,” Denji says quietly, when they are eating. He takes a moment to swallow down his mouthful of cake, whipped cream sticky at the corner of his mouth. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.” He needn’t say more. Yes, yes, and yes again. Denji could ask him for the world, and Yoshida would burn it down to place its ashes in his slender hands. He could ask Yoshida for his heart and Yoshida would deliver it bloody to his front door.

“Me and Asa have been on a couple dates,” he starts, quiet and unusually focused. Yoshida swears he feels something crumple in his chest like a paper ball. “But, they never go how we plan. Things keep getting, I don't even know, all fucked up.”

“And?”

“And,” he sighs, pokes aimlessly at his cake, “dude, I want them to. Like, really. I don’t know how, though. I want me and her to work, ya know? I don’t want her to think I’m, like, not putting in any effort, so.” He looks up, pleading with those eyes that Yoshida has never been able to resist. “Will you help me? Please?” 

Let it never be said that anything has ever been out of Yoshida’s control. Yes, he might have had a part in getting them, Denji and Asa, to this point, where they’re in the café, Denji and Yoshida’s café, sharing a cake and giggling over something Denji whispers, but it was never out of his control. He planned this, he did. He told Denji the steps to follow, the words to say, the clothes to wear—even loaned him his shirt and as much as that was a sight, the knowledge of what he was going to do with it almost ruined it. He made sure Denji would do everything right, to make sure he and Asa would have the perfect date. It doesn't make displeasure any easier to swallow.

He watches, fingernails digging into his skin through the thin material of his shirt as Denji leans over to whisper something in Asa’s ear, a flush, healthy and pink rising over his cheeks. Asa’s soft brush across Denji’s freckles is a slap to Yoshida’s face. He swallows.

Thirteen.

Thirteen touches today. Today alone. In this café, in their spot alone.

At this angle, Yoshida can see everything. The people milling around, the vines hanging in the back, the maneki-neko waving softly at the back, Asa playing with Denji’s fingertips.

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

Yoshida gets up, starts needing to break something, before he realizes. The wind is cool in his lungs, autumn’s chill kissing the inside of his nose, over his tongue. The scowl on his lips tastes like iron, smeared over sharp canines, digging into the back of his mouth.

Nineteen. Nineteen touches.

Denji starts to become fidgety.

It would be hard to notice for anyone else. Denji contains boundless energy, trapped inside slender limbs and golden hair. Anyone else would brush off the bouncing eyes and restless fingers and endless sighs. Yoshida’s not anyone else. Not when it comes to Denji. And so, he notices when the vitality in his veins turns to sludge, turns anxious and tense. He notices when Denji watches the sky and watches the doors and hallways, waiting for something, someone.

He finally asks, like he senses Denji’s been waiting for, one quiet fall afternoon. They’re at a new café, closer to Yoshida’s place. He can’t stand the sight of the old one anymore, much less stomach anything in there, even though it’s been three weeks since Asa contaminated it. Nineteen days, actually. “What’s wrong?”

The tightness in Denji’s shoulders don’t go away, not even a little bit, but his lips unpurse and Yoshida might count that a small victory. He shoves a bite of dorayaki into his mouth, chews twice, swallows, and looks up with eyes that make fire lick up Yoshida’s insides.

“Asa’s avoiding me.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t care, but Denji looks so torn up, like his lungs are about to claw up and out of his throat. So, he leans in closer, offers his arm and shoulder and swallows his tongue over and over as Denji hesitates. He drops his head on the table though, looks up at Yoshida through long, flaxen lashes. He still offers a tiny smile, even though it folds itself frail and watery. Yoshida swallows down the thundering heartbeats battering against his rib cage. Not for the first time, Yoshida revels in this tentative friendship, this fragile camaraderie. That he should be the one that Denji comes to, that he should be the one Denji allows to comfort him, to offer his body, mind, words, to calm. 

“She,” Denji starts, clears his throat, “we were doing so good, I don’t know what happened. I did everything you said.”

Yoshida knows. He saw. Denji was a perfect gentleman, all kind and sweet, like chocolate melting on the pavement, like sugar underneath his tongue. But too much sugar has always upset his stomach, especially when it's not directed at him. Denji was a perfect gentleman, all kind and sweet, and Asa would have been a fool to not want more from him the way Yoshida does. To not want him the way Yoshida does. She is. 

He watches down at Denji, watches the last of the sun’s rays fan across his hair, over his eyes, brightening them to breathtaking levels, spotlighting the wetness in them, the tinge of red. Golden light ghosts over tan skin, stretching past his collar into neck, where Yoshida wishes he could take a peek, run his hands down, cup, squeeze, lick, bite.

“Our date…” The echo of a blush drags across his skin. “It was good. I was good. And, I thought it would work out, you know, then, a week later, she starts, like, avoiding me.”

It’s a struggle to not sing Denji’s praises. That he’s always good. That he’s beautiful and perfect and could never do a thing wrong. Instead, he asks, “Did you do anything? Recently?”

Denji’s brows furrow, burrowing a line between them, scrunching his face up like a kitten’s. Yoshida’s fingers itch to caress. His teeth ache to mark. “I don’t think I did. We were even talking about our next date before she started fucking ghosting me, I don’t know?”

Yoshida gives in, brushing his thumb against the back of Denji’s neck. He’s never had a lot of restraint when it comes to him. Denji startles, fires over a glare, but he doesn’t pull away. If Yoshida didn’t feel Denji press back into his knuckle, then again when he flattens his palm against that stretch of skin, he would think he’s crazy. If he didn’t see the way the tips of Denji’s ears bloomed pink, he would think he’s crazy. He is crazy. He must be, he must be going insane, because words that he would usually mull over, usually chew into something more bite-sized and digestible spill out before can stop them.

“Date me.”

“Dude, what?” He tries to sit up, tries to pull away, but Yoshida’s hand is still at the back of Denji’s neck, like a leash, a collar. “I’m not into guys.” Words are balls of barbed wire that dig under Yoshida’s skin. He forces a small grin to his lips.

“Not like that.” Exactly like that. Always like that. “I mean, let me teach you how to date people.”

Denji purses his lips, dragging distrustful eyes down Yoshida’s face. And he’s really not fair, chewing on his bottom lip like it’ll answer the questions milling around in his head. Yoshida presses his hand just a touch harder, whether to calm himself, to settle the blood rushing in between his ears, or to draw out a response, but Denji groans, light and pulled from the back of his throat, all the way from his chest, and Yoshida’s blood rushes away from his head so fast it startles him. 

(Well, not that one.)

“Come on, Denji,” he whispers, still pressing, sounding ragged even to his own ears, voice husky and ruined. “Let me help you.”

Denji looks up, all tanned, freckled skin, soft to the touch. His eyes are bright and scorching, sharper than anyone gives him credit for, looking up through low lids. Everything in Yoshida stirs and shakes and shudders. 

Finally, he whispers, low enough that Yoshida has to strain to hear it. “Ok. Ok, fine.”

(Later, when Yoshida is at home in bed, chest heaving and skin is burning hot, hot, hot, and clammy. When his throat scratches a little as he takes deep gulps of oxygen, swallowing down cool air from the cracked open window. When his mind is clear, finally free from fleshly, sinful, debilitating images of twisting, arching muscles, of skin sliding on skin, that make pleasure race across his skin and curve his spine carnal, he finally lets ease sink into his muscles.

He’s a little surprised, a little smug. An assignment that led to tying up the perfect end to their “story.” Two birds, one stone. And, of course, exceptional luck. 

People are surprisingly adept at putting coincidences together when they’re cursed, so Yoshida isn't altogether that surprised. The gods have an uncanny way of making sure each gets their own. In any case, she shouldn't have tried to get so close to Denji. She got what she deserved. The odds were in Yoshida's favour, as they should be, aligning to make sure he gets what he wants, what he deserves.

The pitiful thing is that Yoshida understands. Denji is sugar, a deep, vulgar—natural—craving, buried in the marrow of the human bones, aching to crawl out and wreak havoc. He understands why Asa felt the need, grabbed a hold of it, tasted it, wanted more. He understands why she touched, held, licked, let it sit on her tongue, coat it in sensual, nectarous acid, and wanted and wanted and wanted more. He gets why she took what wasn’t hers—she stole—and still wanted. She’s a fool for wanting more.

Yoshida understands.

It doesn’t mean he’ll allow it.

But what’s worse. What makes sickness roll around in Yoshida’s stomach and singe the inside of his throat is that because he didn’t know—Denji didn’t know how much Yoshida craves him—he was going to let her. He didn’t know of Yoshida’s devotion, the allegiance that would rip out his bones should he ever think of abandoning it. He didn’t know there’s nothing Yoshida wouldn’t do for him. He didn’t know anything of that, and he was going to let Asa touch and taste and take. 

Yoshida cracks his neck. Soon. He’ll know soon enough.

Nineteen days for nineteen touches. Honestly, even Yoshida was surprised.

He’s more than a little surprised with how quickly she connected all those deaths and misfortunes to Denji. It almost makes anger bite underneath his skin that she could think so quickly ill of him. But Yoshida hadn’t tried hard to be discreet. A wayward glance, a follow of a tracking of blood sideways, and she could have seen him. When that man fell from the building, he was down the street. When that truck hit that woman, he was inside the nearest shop. 

He wonders what that devil thinks of them, wonders if Asa saw her too.

He’d told her, to stay away, with his eyes and not as many words, that he could see her, the real her, hiding behind that meek, plastic exterior. And she’d listened, even though he saw her flare at first, but he supposes the human part of her won out in the end. It would have been harder to brush off the dejection he saw in her face and slumped shoulders and wobbling lips, if she hadn’t been trying to take Denji. 

If she hadn’t been trying to hurt him.)

Their first date—training, dude!—dawns on them simultaneously too quickly and not quickly enough. Yoshida meets Denji by the train station, trying not to let his eyes linger too long on the collar of his sweatshirt, the exposed skin of his wrists, the soft curve of his waist, the low hanging sweats. He grins wolfishly. Denji pinkens.

“Where’s your jacket?” he asks. “It’s cold out today.”

As if cued, the wind blows strongly, slipping into the space between Yoshida’s clothes. The crowd seems to shiver, take a deep inhale of freezing air. Denji shrugs loosely and tucks his hands in his pockets. Doesn’t respond. Avoids his eyes.

Yoshida nods and doesn't press. The train comes shortly after, pulling up to a screeching halt, the smell of steel and sparks sharp in his nose. Denji gets on first, and Yoshida is more than happy to press up behind him and pretend it’s because of the crowded car. He pretends he doesn’t feel Denji stiffen when he grabs the handle overhead, effectively caging him in. Yoshida knows what he needs to do, what he’s “training” Denji for. Eventually, this game, this rabbit trail will lead back to who Denji needs the most. It’ll lead right back to him.

The train lurches to a stop at a station, force and gravity shoving Denji right into Yoshida’s chest, a hand coming up instinctively to grab at his waist. It lingers, pressing into skin so warm Yoshida swears he can feel it through the thick cotton of Denji’s sweatshirt. He holds on even as the train starts moving again, until it starts to toe the edge from friendly and helpful into something more. Yoshida withdraws his hand before Denji can tell him to.

“Why,” Denji starts, voice breathy, “is it so busy?”

A regular Saturday; just like any other, but the train is jammed packed, filled with mothers with their giggling children and chattering tourists. Yoshida shrugs, nudging the other with his shoulder. “Maybe we’re all headed to the same place.”

“Where are we going anyway?”

Denji turns, wiggling against the press of the crowd, too little space to move as freely as needed, to look him in the eyes. Yoshida slides a cool glare at a businessman who elbows Denji’s side. The man sniffs and turns away. Like this, chest to chest, face to face, Yoshida can count every faint freckle that dots Denji’s face, can trace the constellations in them.

“Yoshida?”

“It’s a surprise.” Yoshida didn’t tell him where they’d go today, told him he’d have to find out, and have to trust him. He still showed up, traces of curiosity and eagerness hiding in brown eyes. Yoshida stares down and feels a genuine smile pull at his lips. He looks so cute like this. Standing like this, Yoshida can almost meld himself to Denji, can almost curl himself around a strong body and never let go.

“Asshole.”

“It’ll be fun”—he reaches around to cup Denji’s head, preventing an elbow from meeting his skull as the train jostles to another stop—“I promise.”

Another lurch, another press.

“Are we getting off soon?” Denji asks, pressing back into Yoshida’s hands, surprisingly soft strands filtering through his fingers. He thinks about Denji’s physicality a lot—the taste of his lips, the press of his palms, the dip of his skin under inquisitive fingers—and wonders if he’ll ever get to have it, if he’ll ever be able to give it back. He wonders if Denji thinks about him, about his physique, too.

“A few more stops,” is Yoshida’s whispered response, transfixed with rubbing and pressing together gold between the pads of his fingers. Denji doesn’t pull away, and it makes hope spring to life like a well in Yoshida’s stomach.

The train jerks to a halt, sudden and fierce, throwing Denji into Yoshida so hard he punches out a deep set groan from him. The speakers crackle to life with hurried apologies but all Yoshida can think about is the warm gasp against his collarbone, the tender brush of lips against his skin. His hand, dropped to Denji’s waist again, holding him close and steady, is covered by a large, warm hand, not his own. It’s too close, too sweet for Yoshida’s heart, hopeful to the point of bursting. Wrapped around each other, so close and intimate, he can’t corral his thoughts into something more painfully joyous if he tried. 

The train starts again, but Denji doesn’t pull away from the hollow of Yoshida’s neck.

They get off at the next stop, pink faced and avoiding all eye contact, all the brightness in their cheeks blamed on the cold, on the wind. 

“Come on,” Yoshida says when he can clear his voice neutral. “We still have to walk.”

Denji groans. “You better have brought food.”

He didn’t, and his mother might hang him from the roof if she finds out he’s been spending more money instead of saving like he promised, but this date is just a little too important to waste. “Next time.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah.” They turn a corner. “Next time, we’ll make something ourselves.”

Denji doesn’t respond and Yoshida thinks that’s good enough.

The street buzzes around them, icy wind slicing through the moving bodies and the building pulls up, tall and imposing as it looms over them. Inside is a reprieve from the cold, cloudy skies, loud with workers and visitors. Denji sticks close to Yoshida as they weave through a group of people up to the reception. 

“Two tickets please,” Yoshida says, “for the next show.”

The receptionist, pretty and brunette, with a kind smile, nods and punches something into the register. “That will be three thousand yen.”

Yoshida nods and reaches for his pocket when he's stopped with a hand on his arm. Denji slides the money across the counter.

“What are you doing?”

Denji frowns, brows and nose scrunching up. “I pay, right?”

“What?”

“I pay. On a date, I’ll be the one to pay.”

The receptionist looks between them, eyes flicking back and forth between Denji’s confused scowl and Yoshida’s steadily pinkening cheeks. He looks away, rubbing a hand over a hand to hide his smile. His stomach swoops, fills with disgusting butterflies. 

“Right?” Denji pokes his head into Yoshida’s line of sight, hair falling into his face. “Dude, are you ok? What are you doing?”

He waves him off. “Nothing. Yeah, you’re right.”

He collects the tickets from the receptionist with a small smile and bow and heads for the elevators. Of all the times he’s been here, never has eagerness rushed so powerfully over him, thrumming and trilling and alive. Denji gets in beside him and stands closer than Yoshida thinks is friendly. The ride is silent and all he can focus on is Denji’s gentle inhales, the battering of his own heart, so loud he swears they could hear it if they tried hard enough. When they step out, Denji’s soft gasp makes his whole month. Stars painted all around the walls of the planetarium, drawing out soft, strong constellations. Their beauty still pales in comparison.

“Do you like it?” He whispers into an unguarded ear. 

“Yeah,” is Denji’s hushed, awed reply.

“My dad used to take me here a lot when I was small, before he…” Denji turns inquisitive eyes to him.

“Died?”

“Yeah. He was a Devil Hunter.” He’d been young, when it happened, young but old. Young enough for it not to rip his heart clean open, old enough for death to tear it halfway to pieces. Old enough to remember soft hands and an even softer smile.

Denji looks down at his shoes. “That sucks... I get it.”

Yoshida is used to probing, piercing questions, used to uncomfortable, artificial condolences, to sad and pitiful eyes. Never camaraderie, never solace. He looks down at Denji, finds solidarity in the hunched shoulders, the sad eyes, the impassable chasm of loneliness nestled in his chest. He wonders, if he’s the only one to look at the Chainsaw Man and see tragedy personified.

“Come on.” He nudges Denji towards the door to the auditorium. “It’s cooler inside.”

The inside of the auditorium still takes Yoshida’s breath away like the first time little seven-year-old him saw it. The room is dark but expansive like it could swallow them whole, a large dome above their heads. 

They changed the seats, Yoshida notes. The previous ones, a little uncomfortable and theatre-like, are gone, now replaced with wide, comfortable loveseats that look like a cross between beds and clouds, and mats decorated with painted flowers. Denji sinks into one at the far end of the room, somehow picking the best seats in the house, and doesn't even look when Yoshida drops down beside him. Slowly, people start to file in, start to cram inside, and before they know it, the show starts. Denji’s sucked into it immediately, stars and galaxies and blackholes reflected on the dome pulling him in. He doesn’t even notice how Yoshida spends the entire show staring at him, his parted mouth, his starry eyes. The announcer drones on in the background, pointing out constellations and their mythologies and Denji’s enraptured. Yoshida’s just captivated.

Subtly, or as subtly as he can be when he’s besotted, he slides his hand over to Denji’s own that’s settled in the space between them, and takes it in his own, lacing their fingers. Denji stiffens and doesn’t pull away.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

Yoshida swallows and doesn’t turn his head. “You’re supposed to do stuff like this on a date.”

It is not at all subtle and it is not at all smart and Denji still doesn’t pull away and Yoshida is going to die.

When the show’s finished, the beauty of space burned onto the back of their eyelids, Denji sits in awed, hushed silence, still staring up at the dome. Then, he says, “You like the sky, right? ‘Cuz you’ve been here a lot?”

Yoshida nods.

“Will…” Denji clamps a hand over his mouth and looks away and it’s all Yoshida can do to not melt into a puddle of stupid, sticky goo beside him. “Will you teach me how to find the things?”

“Things?” Yoshida asks. “Constellations?”

Denji nods and Yoshida is floored. Hurriedly, he voices his assent, a breathless “Yeah,” because if it was possible, Yoshida would pluck the stars out of the sky for him. His hand burns where Denji’s holding it. As if cued, Denji drops his hand, stands, and Yoshida tries not to let disappointment swallow him whole.

Outside, Denji busies himself with the gachapon and those rigged claw machine games in the lobby, groaning in frustration when he loses round after round.

“Let me try?” 

He steps out of the way with a quiet grumble. Yoshida’s never played these before, doesn’t need to, to know there’s no point, but Denji’s so excited. And, the plushies are cute, if he has to say so, and faintly, Yoshida wonders if Denji will add it to his collection. Yoshida maneuvers the claws and watches it lower down to the plushies, clamping around a large dog and begins to retract. Yoshida watches with mild interest—he’s more focused on Denji’s quiet chantings of “please.” 

Oh.

The claw drops the plushie into the tract.

“Seriously?” Denji punches his arm. “That’s so not fair.”

Yoshida’s grin nearly splits him wide open. “What can I say? I’m just that good, sweetheart.”

The pet-name slips out unbidden, light on his tongue, too light to stop, and races up Denji’s cheeks in pink. He rolls his eyes and punches Yoshida again.

“Just get me another one, asshole.”

He does as he’s bid, fishing another one, a cat this time, out of the lot, and watches smugly as it drops into the chute. Denji plucks it out and cradles it, like the other, to his chest. 

“Why do you need two?” Yoshida pokes Denji’s side, smirking when he yelps and bats him away with a free hand. “Gonna add them to your collection?”

“Shut up, I don’t have a collection!”

“Sure.”

“I don’t!” He looks away, cheeks so ruddy Yoshida feels moved to take his temperature. “It’s, it’s for my… little sister.”

Yoshida didn’t know he had a sister. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Denji shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, says, “Yeah,” and doesn’t offer more.

They walk out into the cold.

“Are both for her or is one for you?”

“Can you shut up?”

Yoshida listens to a gruff voice over the phone, orders and unsaid warnings through his ears. Sometimes, he forgets, gets too into the act, he doesn’t realize it isn’t real, none of it, doesn’t realize that he has a job to do. 

Nayuta gets sick, with one of the countless viruses passed around the cesspool she goes to, and spends a whole week sick in bed, worrying her brother to death. Yoshida knows, not because he’s been around Nayuta enough to know when she falls ill, but because Denji worries, and when he worries, he goes quiet, and Yoshida will never (has, will, whatever) admit that he likes to hear Denji speak, but maybe he misses the sound of his voice, loud and gruff but still so moving. And Denji being the gentle brother he is, who has been devoting all he is to nursing her back to health, meets Yoshida at the gate, tired and droopy-eyed, red in the face like he’d trudged through hell and back, and immediately, Yoshida wants to send him back home.

“I’m fine.” He hacks a cough into his shoulder, mask riding up a little. He’s not wearing a jacket again, probably with Nayuta as he sends her off to her own school, and immediately, Yoshida shrugs off his own. Denji waves it off and Yoshida fights not to crumple. “I think I caught Nayuta’s cold.”

Tenderly, he presses a hand against Denji's forehead. It burns hot. “I thought you didn’t get sick,” he murmurs gently, slipping down to cup Denji’s cheek. It’s warm and clammy.

“Fuck off.”

“How is she?” Yoshida removes his hand when a student passing by eyes them. 

Denji rolls his eyes, attempting to shoulder past Yoshida to the school, yet cooperates without even a growl when Yoshida holds him back. “She’s better.”

“That’s good. You should go home,” he says gently, nudging Denji towards the gate. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“I’m not—”

“I’ll come over later,” Yoshida whispers, pressing his head against Denji’s for a quick second, grinning small and quiet when Denji doesn’t push him away. “I’ll make food for you and Nayuta.”

Denji sighs, fluttering tired eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, I want to meet her.”

“She’s really bossy,” Denji warns, coughing again. 

“So are you.” Denji punches his shoulder, but dissolves into a fit of hacking so strong Yoshida has to hold him for a moment, lest he topples over and faceplants into the cement. “It’ll be fine.”

Denji’s silent, sending a forlorn look back at the school, calculating the pros and the cons and the in betweens, before nodding. He's cautious like that. Yoshida wants to hug him but he doesn’t know if Denji might allow it and students are starting to arrive, milling on the green while they wait for the bell to ring. 

“I’ll tell the teachers you’re sick today.” 

Denji smiles and gives him a half hearted wave but before Yoshida can return it, he’s already trudging away, coughing all the way to the gate. Yoshida watches him go, till he’s too far down the street to see him and around the corner. Then, he heads in the opposite direction.

He has a rendezvous to be at, fifteen minutes ago, but Denji is sick and Yoshida worries like an idiot, so Kishibe and what he needs to say will wait. Yoshida grits his teeth against the cold and turns into the park entrance. It’s near empty, as it should be at the time of day, but a few stray adults, exercising even in the cold weather, give him sideways glances. He finds Kishibe sitting against a bench, staring into the distance like people his age do, smoking a cigarette.

Yoshida drops down beside him, feels the cold wood seep through his trousers, inhaling the acrid plume of smoke deep, and feels it curl around his tongue. He stares in the direction Kishibe’s staring in. The scenery doesn’t change.

“So, what am I doing here?”

Kishibe doesn’t respond, just sucks deeper on his cigarette, tapping crumbling, ashy pieces off the end. The suction makes his scar shrink on itself, pulls his already sallow cheeks in. His eyebags have grown, Yoshida notices, and his hair seems limper than normal. But there is no ‘normal,’ Yoshida supposes. Never has been. There can’t be, at least not when you work in Public Safety. 

Kishibe blows out a puff of grey smoke and offers the stick to Yoshida. He takes it.

“You have a job to do,” Kishibe says after a long moment. The cigarette burns in Yoshida’s hands. “Devils are moving. And we don’t know why.”

Yoshida doesn’t look away from the scenery and the trees and the distant sky. He feels Kishibe’s eyes, sharp and piercing zero in on his face. 

“We want you to find out why.”

“I’m supposed to be watching out for De—the Chainsaw Man. I’m supposed to be watching out for the Chainsaw Man.” The wind sweeps through the park, rustling the trees. It hides the crack of Yoshida’s knuckles.

“It can wait.”

Yoshida takes a drag of the cigarette, feels biting nicotine fill his lungs and burn his chest. He holds and holds it, till he thinks his breath will be forever stained black. “What do I need to do?”

Kishibe debriefs him and fills him in on what’s expected of him and doesn’t ask for his cigarette back, which Yoshida appreciates more than the former. Devils are moving and people are dying and it’s worrying. It worries Yoshida’s superiors enough that he needs to get up and go up and find out what exactly is happening. 

“Find the famine devil, that’s all.” Kishibe tucks another cigarette in Yoshida’s pocket, pats him on the shoulder with enough force he has to steady his feet and bids him goodbye with a short, gruff murmur. “Don’t die, kid.”

Yoshida stands in the cold, with the wind sliding up his arms and he waits for a car to come to take him away. The drive to the centre of Tokyo is silent, the only sound is the whirring of the heater. Buildings rush past in a palette of grey and grey, swerving when the car does, dancing around corners and stopping at junctions. And when the driver pulls up to the building, it fits right with the others, grey, grey, and more grey. The driver doesn’t say a word, not even when Yoshida steps out of the car, he only stares straight ahead, waiting for Yoshida to close the door and promptly driving away as soon as it’s shut.

The building looms overhead, old and cracked, all the way to the pavement like its roots dig into the cement and change it when it changes. When Yoshida steps inside, the lobby is empty, cold, and quiet, but the elevator hums with electricity, dings when the doors slide open. The top floor is just as cold, just as empty, but Yoshida isn’t even surprised to see the famine devil sitting in the corner, staring out the giant glass windows overlooking the city.

“Famine,” he says, uninterested and unimpressed. She doesn’t even look at him, doesn’t look up from the food spread in her lap. “We need to talk.”

She shrugs, motions to the space in front of her. He ignores the chair to stand, acts like he doesn’t feel just a little silly and resentful, watching a devil eat mochi, cross legged in front of him like a child; pretends he can’t feel the steadily increasing headache building behind his eyes. 

“We’ve noticed that devils are rallying,” Yoshida says without preamble, reciting words drilled into the walls of his skull, staring out the window the same as her. The city is beautiful. “Why?”

“What will I get if I tell you?”

Yoshida fixes her with sharp glare. She stares back, unfazed, and takes a bite out of her mochi. 

“I don’t know.” Yoshida grits his teeth. “I can tell you what you’ll get if you don’t, though.”

She shrugs again and Yoshida feels his eye twitch. She taps the ground. 

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

“The end of the world. The Devil is coming.”

“Which one?”

She tilts her head, flaxen hair falling into iridescent eyes, and for the first time in this conversation Yoshida can see emotion dance in her odd eyes, a stark change from infuriating indifference, but her eyes dance with humour and patronization and gods, Yoshida is going to hit something. “The Devil. Death.”

Denji comes to him. 

Yoshida’s actually not sure how he knew where to find him, but it still makes him want to throw up rainbows and sparkles and butterflies and all that shit when Denji shows up in the library that afternoon. The library is quiet, no one in the school ever really visits, so Yoshida usually has the space to himself, but when Denji plops into the chair beside him, he thinks he might not mind sharing. His presence doesn’t take away from the all consuming thoughts of evil that plague him day and night and day and night, nor does it heal it, because Yoshida’s human and he will worry about work and devils and his mom and the world and Denji, but it lessens it. Just a little.

Denji lets him study for about a half hour more, tossing a small, red ball and browsing through the manga Yoshida left on the table, but he gets bored easily and he needs the attention he knows Yoshida will immediately provide. Yoshida’s tired of having to sneak peeks as Denji’s face anyway. 

“What’re we gonna do next?”

“Next?”

“For our da–training, I mean. I mean, training.”

“I told you already.” Yoshida packs his stuff, watches Denji through the side of his eyes as he tosses his back on to the table. He tosses the ball into the air again.

“You did? When?”

“On our last date. We’re cooking.”

Butterflies die and resurrect and multiply when Denji doesn’t refute their outing as a date. Because it was and Yoshida will die on this hill, covered in fire lilies.

“Cooking what?” Denji sits up, and his uniform, a little big and loose, slips down to reveal a stark collarbone.

Yoshida stares. “What do you like to eat?”

He shrugs. Tosses the ball again. “I dunno. Anything. Everything.” 

Yoshida mulls that over as they leave the school. His and Denji’s hands brush so often they might as well just link their fingers and pretend that’ll keep the chill out. They get to the junction they usually split up at and Yoshida’s tongue is lead.

“Denji,” he says. Do you want to go out with me? Do you want me to be yours for the rest of my life? “Do you want to come over to mine tomorrow? We’ll cook then.”

Denji eyes him quizzically for a second, but he’s learning to trust Yoshida, learning to lean in at the right moments and catch exactly what each word, spoken and not, what each flicker of an expression means. It terrifies Yoshida straight off the knife’s edge into the unending pit of love.

He smiles a little, one Yoshida hardly ever sees, the one he reserves for fond memories and past lives and Yoshida just might throw up all over Denji’s beat up sneakers. “Sure. See you later.”

“See you.”

When Denji’s disappeared around the corner, Yoshida pinches himself so hard it smarts even minutes later. 

Even if it was a dream, he wouldn’t want to wake up.

Yoshida is calm. He is perfectly calm and in utter, complete control of the situation, not at all nervous, not at all worried. Calm.

“You look stressed,” is the first thing his mother says to him. 

She must have heard the way his heart batters against his ribs.

“I am… Not. I’m not.”

She hums unconvinced, sips her coffee, takes a look at her watch. “Shit, I’m late.”

She scurries around, gathering her briefcase, her notes, papers, toeing on her heels and cursing up a storm. 

“I’m gonna be home late tonight,” she calls out. She always is, but Yoshida doesn’t say that. He hands her her lunch and follows her to the door, dealing out a gentle smile when she kisses his cheek. 

“Ma,” he says, just before she slips out of the door. He’s not nervous or scared or anything of the sort—why should he be? He’s wanted this, wanted Denji, for ages—but he needs to say the words, make sure they’re real and true and won’t wake him up the moment he utters them or he might go insane. “Someone’s coming over tonight.”

“Oh. “She shrugs on her jacket, pulls out her gloves, smooth, now worn, leather, the last present his dad ever gave her. “For school?”

“A date.”

She grins, sharp canines poking out at the edge of her smile, pushing apple cheeks and warm eyes all the way up and Yoshida struggles to see himself in her. “Who is he?”

He rolls his eyes. “Somebody.”

She pulls him into a heavy but gentle hug, uncaring that he’s two heads taller and not her little baby anymore, and rubs a soft circle in his back. Tension bleeds out of his shoulders. “Is he cute?”

“Very,” he sighs into her shoulder. “I like him. A lot.”

“I’m glad.” She pulls back and looks like she wants to say something, and her eyes mist over like they are wont to do when she thinks about his father, but she presses her lips tight and gives him a peck on the cheek. Yoshida swears he feels her breath stutter and he holds her just a bit tighter. When she pulls back, her eyes are dry. “Have fun tonight. I love you.”

“Love you too.” But she’s already out the door.

Yoshida wanders around the house, fixing the blinds and fluffing the pillows as if he didn’t spend the whole of last night making sure the house was spotless. He checks the pantry and the fridge, then checks them again and again till he realizes he’s really going insane, and leaves for school. The walk to the station, quiet as always, passes in a blur, cars whizzing this way and that. The bus is crowded, uncomfortable, but Yoshida still gives up his seat to a young mother and her crying baby.

The day is just as tedious, just as boring, just as dull. It drags on and on and on, and Yoshida can’t wait for the last block, can’t wait for the end of the day really. It’s his favourite class, the only one he shares with his favourite person, and when he gets to English, Denji’s already in his spot, in the far right, at the very front of the class.

And Asa’s in front of him.

Yoshida watches, he doesn’t hear what she’s saying, he’s too far away, but Denji looks nearly consumed with what Asa says and it makes jealously burn like a pit from hell in his stomach. He rakes a hand through his hair, and glances away from Asa. 

The small smile and wave offered across the room almost douses the flames that threaten to eat Yoshida alive. Asa peeks over her shoulder and stiffens, doesn't relax even when Yoshida takes the seat beside Denji. It’s not his, but the teacher loves him and the other student will just have to find somewhere else to sit. He drops his bag on the desk and she flinches.

“Asa,” he says gently, ignores how his teeth feel too damn big for his mouth, how his smile feels like plastic shoved into a hearth, thin and runny and not at all real.

She gives him a stiff nod. “Yoshida.”

“Come on,” he cajoles. “Don’t be like that. I won’t bite.”

In his heart of hearts, he knows he’s lying. Asa must too, because she stiffens and takes a miniscule step back. She turns to Denji, and Yoshida can see regret and hurt and heartbreak and it drives him just a little crazy. 

“So, yeah,” she says, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Denji says and Yoshida wants to scream. It is not ok. It will never be, because she liked Denji, almost in the way Yoshida does and she almost had him. The idea of her touching him, holding him, of lips, hands, that aren’t his own against Denji’s make him want to hurl.

Asa nods, flicks a wayward glance over his way and leaves before he can say a thing. It makes loathing burn his tongue, gritty at the back of his teeth like gravel. 

“Are you two friends?” And Yoshida hates how crestfallen Denji looks.

“Something like that,” he bites out. They’re silent for the rest of the class.

When the bell finally rings Yoshida’s simmered down into something less volatile, less unstable, and more like a pot of water that’s just about to bubble, but irritation—frustration—still itches at his skin, still makes him want to claw his eyes out. Denji taking his wrist between calloused fingers, rough but smooth at the same time and so warm, shocks him more than the biting cold hitting him square in the face.

“You good?” he asks with his usual gruffness, but Yoshida sees his eyebrows furrow and his lips pull down into a pout. Nothing even matters when Denji looks at him like that, like he’s someone he cares for. Asa and her devil won’t see this, they won’t get to have this, but Yoshida does. He will. All the fight leaves him in seconds. 

He shifts his hands to rub at Denji’s palm and the smile that splits his face warms him from the inside out. “I’m fine now.”

Denji eyes him a second more then scoffs and snatches his hand back. “Loser.” Yoshida sees the smile he tries to hide in his shoulder. 

“Come on,” he says, and urges Denji towards the school gate, towards the bus station, towards his home.

Seeing Denji in his space is like a breath of fresh air when he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. He watches keenly as Denji wanders, curious but gentle, larger than life and still taking up as little space as possible. He watches Denji pick up a picture frame, the only picture he has of his dad.

People say he looks like him. He supposes he does on the outside. With the midnight hair and dark eyes and tall stature, but his father was warm and kind and Yoshida struggles to beat back the cold, the empty sometimes. 

Nevertheless, it’s a nice picture, if Yoshida says so himself. His father’s arms are wrapped around his mother and him, cradling them to the side of his body, protecting them, rooting them. Denji’s smile is small and sad and wistful. Somewhere between Yoshida’s ribs aches and heals and warms.

“Denji,” he says softly, so he won’t startle him. “What do you want to eat?”

“Udon is fine,” he answers offhandedly, still staring at the picture, index finger tapping against the wood frame.

Yoshida frowns. Udon’s easy to make, real simple, and easier to devour. This date will be over and done before he knows it. But Denji’s still staring at the picture and Yoshida will just have to think of something else. He's an ok cook. Good, even. More a habit born out of necessity—his ma works and works and comes back when the night is pitch, and his father is dead and burned, and he is sole and all alone—than genuine talent, but he is praised often for it and sometimes necessity is a gift.

He’s frying the mushrooms and cutting the carrots when Denji comes into the kitchen—sans picture—and rests his head on Yoshida’s shoulder. His breathing stutters. The knife nearly slips from his grip.

“Yaki udon. That’s what I’m making,” he says, instead of fixating on the sharp, insistent press of Denji’s chin digging into the muscle of his shoulder. Denji makes a noise in the back of his throat, a cross between a groan and a scoff. Yoshida smirks, keeps cutting the carrots. “What, you don’t like vegetables?”

“I don’t mind them,” he says, shifting his head this way and that, completely unaware of just how close to the edge the feel of his hair against Yoshida’s neck drives him. “Power hated them, though.”

Yoshida gives in and lets the knife drop, drifting a hand to card through Denji’s hair. “Why?”

Denji doesn’t react—doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away and Yoshida feels a little ill—just nestles deeper into his shoulder and huffs out a laugh. “I don’t know,” he sighs, “she just hated them. She always gave them to me, even though Aki always got mad.”

Denji doesn’t talk about them, Aki and Power, often. But when he does, he talks about them like they’re family, not blood related, but bound through something stronger. He talks about them like he needs them, like speaking their names without seeing their faces again, peels the skin off his heart. He speaks about them like if it were another life, he’d like to join them.

Denji sighs, presses heavier into Yoshida’s back, and Yoshida swears he can feel his heartbeat. He picks up the knife and resumes chopping, praying Denji doesn’t notice the shakiness in his hands. “Nayuta doesn’t like them either, so I have to eat them a lot.”

Yoshida swallows cotton. “You’ll like this, don’t worry. Can you get me an onion? They’re in the pantry.”

“Maybe.” Denji sighs and pulls away to retrieve the vegetable and Yoshida needs his warmth.

Yoshida adds the vegetables he’s already chopped to the pan, chopping the onion quickly, wiping his eyes discreetly, hoping Denji doesn’t notice. He does and he laughs so it’s all ok. He watches out of the corner of his eye when Denji hops onto the counter, watching him cook. Yoshida’s distinctly made aware that he isn’t supposed to be cooking all alone, but cooking for Denji feels almost as intoxicating as the man himself. 

“We should bake something,” he says, stirring the veggies and watching them steam. “So you can take some home for Nayuta.”

He dumps the noodles inside the skillet, adds a cup of water, covers it, and turns to Denji. He’s smiling. It’s all gentle too, and Yoshida knows it's for him. So warm it feels like sunlight, tender and pressing right into the soft spaces of Yoshida’s heart, and it’s all for him. Denji sits on the counter, soft and inviting, looking like a thousand butterfly kisses and Yoshida is so, so gone, taking in every available inch of him. He’s something straight out of Yoshida’s dreams. He takes an involuntary step forward. 

The pot whistles.

He turns quickly, cheeks burning and grateful for the distraction, the opportunity to get away from commiting a grave mistake. He doesn’t know what he would have done if Denji kept smiling at him like that, kept smiling like he wants Yoshida, like Yoshida completes him. 

The noodles are done anyway, and food is a more pressing, and feasible, matter than trying to reach into Denji’s brain and pluck out all the thoughts he has of Yoshida. The kitchen is quiet, almost painfully so, and when he hands Denji his bowl, he doesn't look him in the eye. They eat in silence, the sound of their breathing and clicking chopsticks loud in the quiet, but it’s not weird. They trade glances, eye each other from underneath lashes and with sideways peeks. Yoshida doesn't know how to name it. (He might be going a little crazy but this feels real. It might be. It’s probably not. He is crazy.)

They finish quickly, because Yoshida didn’t eat breakfast this morning, and he knows Denji didn’t either, so he dishes them another bowl and pretends he isn’t watching Denji eat like a creep. (Denji’s watching him too, so fair’s fair.)

“Should we bake cookies?” Denji drops his bowl in the sink, looks back at Yoshida over his shoulder and Yoshida’s hands feel empty. “Nayuta really likes them.”

“Whatever you want.” I’ll give you anything you want. Yoshida hopes he’s part of anything. “The flour’s in the pantry, with the sugar and some other stuff.”

Denji nods obediently, and goes to find the ingredients in the pantry as Yoshida prepares the oven. He comes out with flour and sugar and chocolate chips and other things piled high in his arms. Yoshida grimaces.

“We’re about to give Nayuta diabetes.” Denji laughs and Yoshida wishes he could bottle each and every one to stack and grow and hoard like a collection. 

As they mix the ingredients together, Yoshida quickly learns that Denji is well versed in the arts of baking. 

“Nayuta is really demanding,” he says.

He also learns quickly that Denji is not to be trusted around anything sweet. He’s known Denji has a sweet tooth, he couldn't have spent all that money at bakeries and cafés without figuring it out. But Denji latches onto sweet things, like chocolate and sugar and just has to eat it.

“Stop that,” Yoshida says for the nth time as Denji eats the chocolate chips that are supposed to go in the batter and not his mouth. The counter is dusted with flour and sugar, spilled over from Denji’s messy stirring, at least before Yoshida took it from him.

Denji grins, chocolate over his teeth because he’s been chewing the chips like a maniac instead of letting them melt on his tongue. He swirls his finger in the flour, making ridiculous patterns, looking up at Yoshida through his lashes. “Make me.”

Yoshida’s fingers twitch against the spatula and he turns back to the bowl, praying the heat at the back of his neck isn’t visible. Dumping the rest of the chocolate in, significantly less than when Denji first brought them out, he gently stirs them in and tries to think of pleasant thoughts. Denji creeps silently to Yoshida’s shoulder, dips his hand in the batter when he’s distracted with greasing a pan, sneaks a finger out before Yoshida can smack it away. He turns to glare at him but it lacks heat. “You’re going to get salmonella.”

Denji grins, puffs up his chest and gets right up in Yoshida’s space, so close they can almost touch. “I never get sick.”

Yoshida raises a brow, trying to listen but also trying to burn every pore on Denji’s face behind his eyelids. “You were sick almost three weeks ago.”

“Fluke.” He snatches some batter again, yelping when Yoshida smacks his hand right before he puts it in his mouth, smearing it against his cheek. He punches Yoshida but Yoshida’s felt enough of his real punches to know this one is soft. 

“Stay away,” Yoshida warns.

Denji smirks again, not even bothering to wipe his face first, and reaches around for another snatch of batter but Yoshida’s quicker, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into his chest. His hand falls to Denji’s hip out of instinct, head dipping low like he wants to seal them together. The shift is immediate, sudden. Denji’s shy gasp reverberates through the kitchen, their hearts beating in tandem, and Yoshida cannot focus. The batter on Denji’s face, the spread of his lips, the huff of his breath, the tight press of his chest right against Yoshida’s own. There’s too much going on, not enough time to map it all, to categorize it and fit into little boxes to break down. They’re quiet and Yoshida’s stomach squeezes so much he might throw up.

“Yoshida,” Denji breathes, and he’s never had much impulse control.

Denji’s lips are soft, softer than he expected, and slightly chapped. They taste sweet like raspberries and his mouth tastes of mint and oranges and summer and Yoshida wants to melt into him and become one. He bites at Denji, groaning deep and guttural when he kisses back with the same fervour, arching into Yoshida, pressing against him, pulling him, like he can’t get enough. His hands squeeze Denji’s hips, once, then once again when he gasps, pulling him impossibly tighter. They kiss bold and messy, with too many teeth and too much tongue and spit, and if Yoshida were watching it, he would think it’s gross and needs to be locked behind a bedroom door, but he’s feeling it and he feels Denji’s lips, tongue, mouth, hands, feels Denji against him and the world spins and spins.

Denji pulls a breath away for a shaky inhale, red faced and gasping, letting out a low groan when Yoshida dips down to bite at his ear, his jaw, his neck. He wants to devour Denji, wants to spread him open and crawl inside him until they merge into one thing, wants to cut him up into tiny pieces and eat him just to have him. Each press, each stroke of Denji's mouth, lips, tongue, is one closer to the edge. Everything burns high and bright and Yoshida distinctly fears this might be the end. That he has gotten all he could ever want and now, he'll implode and disappear into tiny particles of joy. Not human, but whole. Complete. Alive. Denji’s hand pulls the hair at Yoshida’s nape hard, sharp pin pricks of pain, sending shockwaves of electrifying pleasure down his spine and Yoshida is ready to fall apart and crumble into dust.

Denji pulls away sharply. Wide eyed and almost terrified, he almost stumbles on unsteady feet. Yoshida leans heavy against the counter and wonders if he’s just fucked everything up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Yoshida says, low, and he can’t. He’s not particularly sure what he’s for, he’s not sorry for kissing Denji, never would be, not even in a million years, but guilt swamps him, heavy and boggy and threatening to pull him under. “Denji, I’m sorry.”

Denji shakes his head, takes a step back, hurt and closing up and Yoshida’s head spins trying to figure out how to get him back. “That’s not—what are you doing? What are you doing?”

“What do you—?”

“Is this,” he splutters, blush rising high on his cheeks, “a joke to you? Are you just fucking around with me? If you are, I swear, I won’t forgive you.”

“Why would I—?”

“I just—Are you just going out and cooking and being all romantic with me for nothing? Or is this—”

Oh.

Yoshida takes Denji’s hands, tucked into his crossed arms, and pulls him forward, gentle because he’s starting to recognize the emotion that controls Denji’s face.

“Denji,” he says, smiling softly while Denji glares up at him, still bright and blushing. Yoshida spots a bruising bite mark and feels heat rush up his spine. 

“Denji,” he says again, just to taste it. “I like you.”

Denji glares harder, tries to tug his hands back, but Yoshida’s grip is firm, unrelenting. “That’s not funny at all.”

“Am I laughing?”

“You’re an asshole is what you are,” he says, but he’s loosening, relaxing, believing a bit, with those wide, trusting, hopeful brown eyes and Yoshida wants to shatter into a million pieces. He leans his head down instead, grazes his lips against Denji’s freckled cheek, feels his shuddering inhale in his bone marrow. “Yosh-Hirofumi.”

Shit.

Yoshida had needled him countless times about his name—his first name—needing him to speak it, just once. And Denji would brush it off with pink ears and rolling eyes and quiet murmurs to buzz off, and maybe Yoshida should have listened because he thinks his heart stopped. He holds Denji tighter, stares into his eyes, hopes his voice doesn’t tremble.

“Denji, I”—need you, crave you, love you—“like you.”

Yoshida’s only warning before Denji crashes their lips together is a bitten half sob, and then Denji’s in his arms, whole and real and Denji. He kisses Yoshida like he might never do it again and although Yoshida would burn the world to the ground before it could ever happen, he still bites back a groan, digs his fingers into the flesh of Denji’s hip, and kisses back with just as much, if not more zeal.

Denji sniffles, presses tighter to Yoshida, kisses him like he wants to eat him alive, murmurs against his lips, “Hiro.”

Shit.

Denji loves Yoshida’s hands. He loves his hair and he loves his lips and his smile and his little mole on the side of his mouth. Yoshida knows all this because he mumbles when they lie down together and press tiny kisses across each other’s faces. He knows he loves his height too and he loves his warmth and his wide back and his lips. And he knows (hopes) he might love him too.

Yoshida adores mornings like these. When the sun rises, streaming in through the little window of Denji’s room and fanning over them, waking them up to warm light on their faces. When they spend hours wrapped around each other and locked together and breathing in the same air, completely hidden away from the real world. From devils and evils and muddy greys, just Denji and Hiro shut tight in a little bubble that nothing could shatter.

“Gross.”

One thing.

Denji sighs into his neck. Yoshida grins and rolls his head to smile at Nayuta.

“Morning, Yu.”

She drops down between them, sharp elbows dropping into Denji’s side, ignoring his yelp and subsequent groan, and throws her head against his collarbone. 

“I wanna go out.”

Denji pinches her side. “No, we have to clean today.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“You promised,” he says, raising himself on his elbow to stare down at her, eyes furrowed. “And we have to give the dogs a bath after their walk.”

Nayuta pouts, eyes flicking back and forth between Denji and Yoshida like she can convince him to intervene on her behalf. Yoshida has noticed she’s been controlling her powers a bit better, been reining it in quicker. It’s a little easier to refuse her demands lately, even if he doesn’t want to.

He looks up at Denji.

“No.”

“Come on.” His hand finds Denji’s hip over Nayuta, pressing into warm skin, and squeezing. “We’ll do it later, I promise.”

Denji scoffs. “That’s what you guys always say.”

“No, I mean it. You won’t even have to do a thing, we’ll do it all.” Yoshida spares a look at Nayuta, with her wide, pleading eyes, smirking slightly when she nods fervently. “Come on, sweetheart.”

Pink tinges Denji’s cheeks and the tips of his ears, as it’s wont to do when Yoshida calls him pet names. Though he’ll never admit it to Yoshida’s face, Yoshida knows how much they fluster him.

“No, fuck off.” Denji smacks his hand away and sits up quickly, turning his face into his shoulder but Yoshida still sees red. He nudges them off the bed with his feet, muttering and snapping reprimands when they linger a little longer. Yoshida watches from his position on the floor as Denji flutters around like a butterfly or a particularly haggard mother, herding Nayuta towards the bathroom and struggling to control her from grabbing things she doesn’t need. He seems upset, with his hissed reprimands and his furrowed eyebrows, but Yoshida knows him enough to know he’s not, knows he could never be—at least for long—with him or Nayuta. He also knows what to do, and exactly how, to soften him up.

It’s a while before the door to the bathroom creaks open, Denji’s hushed whispers as he hurries Nayuta into the room quickly so the water doesn’t dry and give her a cold. Yoshida’s already almost done, washing away the pans and bowls, setting out plates, and the dogs have started to rouse, so he sets aside some bowls of food for them and waits.

Nayuta comes rushing out first, yelling and giggling as Denji chases after her, a mass of boundless energy trapped inside her, knocking hurriedly into things she doesn’t bother to put back. Denji does it for her. 

“Nayuta!” Denji yelps, when she skids around the corner of the hall, nearly running smack into the door. “Quit running!”

She ignores him and slides to a stop in front of the dogs, dropping to her knees and gathering all seven of them into a deep hug. They’re fully awake now, filling the apartment with barks and yips as they fall over themselves to near drown her in a mass of fur and muscle. 

Yoshida’s eyes find Denji, of their own volition—it’s always been second nature to gaze upon him and want to carve him into a million different statues—and drink him in. He watches Nayuta and smiles, so small and gentle that Yoshida doesn’t even think to move but then he’s standing in front of Denji, gripping his waist, pulling him in.

They pull away for a small second, staring and searching and wanting and Yoshida gets the sense that he’s not the only one who wants to pick the other to pieces and meld the two of them so soundly together no one could ever be able to tell where one ended and the other began. Denji watches him so softly and so kindly, scanning his face like he would drink in every inch of skin, like he is wondering how he ever got his hands on him. It makes Yoshida’s stomach tighten and flutter and damn, those fucking butterflies, he might be about to throw up.

They lean in at the same time, eyes half lidded but slowly falling shut, sinking into a kiss that tastes like mint and oranges and cinnamon.

“S’mthing smells good.”

“I made you breakfast,” Yoshida murmurs into his lips, grinning when Denji makes a small, short sound at the back of his throat and leans up for another kiss. 

He pauses, pulls back and eyes Yoshida suspiciously. “Why?”

“What, I can’t make food for you anymore?” Yoshida has to look somewhere over Denji’s shoulder to keep from smirking. “Noted.”

He pinches Yoshida’s side harshly. “Ugh, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Do I?”

Denji growls, “Shut up, asshole,” and yanks him down for another kiss though this one is significantly deeper, more passionate than the last few. Yoshida wishes they could stay like that forever.

“I’m hungry.”

Yoshida sighs and looks down at Nayuta, but it melts away into a grin when he sees her staring up at him like a miniature drill sergeant, flanked by her fleet of soldiers. 

“Come on then,” Yoshida says, leading them to the kitchen, small but homey and serving them their breakfast, pancakes with chocolate chips for Denji’s sweet tooth and blueberries for Nayuta freaky fruit obsession. He sits with them, eating plain pancakes, nothing but honey to accompany it, smiles as they devour it. (He feels a little less incomplete.)

“So,” he starts when Denji’s mouth is full of pancakes and and chocolate sticky honey. “We should go see a movie today.”

“Yes!” is Nayuta’s immediate concurrence. Yoshida looks to Denji, knowing Nayuta will follow after with her big, wide, pleading eyes. He ignores them.

Yoshida waits, because he can almost see Denji’s eye twitch. He throws an arm over the back of Denji’s chair and turns his head towards him, waiting for him to face him head on.

He rolls his eyes. “I knew you weren’t being nice for nothing.”

“I’m always nice, come on.”

Blank. Stare.

“Ok, fine,” he capitulates, pressing his nose to the space where Denji’s jaw meets his neck and pressing a small bite there. “Not always, but today, I’m nice because I want to be, not because I want to bribe you.”

Denji snorts, asks drily, “Really.”

Yoshida kisses his neck, fiddling and toying with and pressing Denji’s tee sleeve and the skin underneath. “Really. For my favourite person, of course.”

Yoshida knows Denji, he knows, and he knows exactly why Denji sighs and melts into him and his arms, knows even as he’s stabbing his pancakes, he’s not really upset. 

He pecks Denji’s cheek, close to his tiny smile and whispers, “I meant what I said, sweetheart. You won’t have to do a thing today.”

Denji lets a small sound Yoshida wants to chew from his mouth, but then his shirt is being pulled, back away from the light of his life, and he can’t do a thing but follow Nayuta as they go to walk the dogs.

They finish quickly, and even though the wind is biting and sneaking down his jacket and up his spine and closer to winter, he finds he enjoys it a little. Nayuta and the dogs play around in the park a little bit, running around, using the playground like a giant obstacle course. Of course, she has no internal compass to lead her way, so she runs herself dizzy and bumps into too many things and people, but Yoshida is always there to catch her when she falls back in a gasping, giggling mess. 

She skips all the way home, pushing the door open, flushed in the face and with too much force, but she looks really happy so Yoshida figures he’ll fix the dent in the wall when they get back.

Denji’s already ready by the time they get back, bag packed and ready, and the dishes are suspiciously missing from the sink but Denji avoids his eyes when he slants a questioning glance at him. He pokes his side as they leave, waving bye to the dogs, watching Nayuta make them quiet. They’re too loud on the way to the theatre, scaring more than a few passersby with raucous laughter and by the time they reach the building, their faces are tinged pink and red, and not from the cold.

Yoshida pays for the tickets because Denji’s not doing anything today, and the snacks too, because Nayuta’s stomach is like a black hole, she’s always famished.

Yoshida will always remember when Denji, half-asleep and curled into Yoshida’s side, whispered, “You like to cook, she likes to eat. You fit.” He doesn't think, no, he knows, he’ll never forget the way his body warmed with affection, Denji at his side, Nayuta at his other, whole and happy and near bursting because he fits.  

When they find their seats at the back of the theatre, sat and ready to watch some old western movie rerun Nayuta picked, Yoshida finds himself softening and relaxing. The movie doesn’t start for a while, but when it does, Nayuta immerses herself in it, eyes fixed on the screen, popcorn abandoned in her lap.

Yoshida laces his and Denji’s hands together.

Lights dimmed and all, it's hardly noticeable when Denji lifts the armrest and cuddles into Yoshida’s side, hair tickling under Yoshida’s neck, but Yoshida notices. He barely watches the movie, pictures clicking past without a single one registering in his mind, focused—all his focus—on the ghosting of Denji’s breath against his collarbone, hand in his.

It’s warm and Yoshida is warm.

Twenty nine seconds. Ten thousand dead.

Nayuta stirs, hardly noticeable, but Yoshida’s trained for worse. She’s awake, has been for a while it looks like, bright eyed and staring out the window at nothing. Denji sleeps softly by Yoshida, passed out halfway through their home movie night, because and Yoshida quotes, “Going to the movies is too damn expensive, Hiro.” His hands are still wrapped around Yoshida’s arm, holding it close to his chest like it’ll keep him from running away. His soft breaths calm Yoshida’s racing heart and he doesn’t wake him just yet, just looks out the window, then back at Nayuta. He checks his watch discreetly. 7:12. The sun will rise soon. The brightening sky casts its light over Nayuta’s face from the window, pouring into shining eyes.

“Yu? What are you doing?” 

She doesn’t blink, just tilts her head towards Yoshida and he is struck by the resemblance she has to Famine. A chill, frigid and snake-like slips down his spine.

“It smells bad,” she says, and Yoshida is struck by the hint of fear in her voice. 

“What does?” She doesn’t answer. “…Nayuta?”

“Here. It’s here.”

And the screaming starts.