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He was 17 when he met Sly Blue, and he liked him from the first time that they spoke. Back pressed against the wall, wiping away blood from a nose bleed, a small blue dog puttering around his feet. Mizuki told him that the best way to stop a nose bleed was to tilt back your head and pinch your nose, and had been flipped off in response. This boy was pretty young, young like him the first time he’d gotten a nose bleed and a swollen eye, young like he still was but didn’t feel.
Like things happen to do, it was only after he met the boy in the back alley that he learned about his reputation. He was Sly Blue, the rhymer. Sly Blue, the 14 year old who’d never been defeated in a match, even though his AllMate was kind of old and small and no one really thought the kid knew what he was doing, not really. Sly Blue, could get away with anything, Sly Blue, Sly Blue, Sly Blue.
With a name like that it’s no wonder it sat on the back of his tongue and forefront of his mind when he ran into the boy again. In a small group of rag-tag teens, older than the boy but younger than him, crowded around and talking loudly and smoking cigarettes and Hey, aren’t you Mizuki, aren’t you the head of Dry Juice? A small group of teens suddenly not looking so tough, suddenly have things to do and places to be and Sly Blue just stands there, hands in his pockets, and glares at him.
He asks him to join his Rib Team and Sly Blue laughs, takes a drag of something he thinks is Molly and blows it in the opposite direction, towards the wind so it blows right into Mizuki’s face and he thinks he sees Sly Blue flinch but it might just be his imagination. Sly Blue tells him that Rib is shit and lame and that no one plays it anymore, that Rhyme is much better, tells him he’s stupid for even asking and he just grins because this kid is full of cheek but there’s something about the way he talks that draws him, makes it so he can’t get enough. There’s something about the slight nick in his nose and those band aids on his brow that makes him think of a little brown boy getting beaten in a gutter - and he just grins, tells Sly Blue to reconsider.
Sly Blue looks at him like he’s some weird bug he’s never seen before, and asks what he wants. Drugs, money, to fool around? He isn’t like that, Sly Blue insists, he’ll have to go somewhere else if that’s what he wants. He explains that no, he isn’t looking for that. That Rib is his family and Dry Juice is his life. Sly Blue bares his teeth like an animal and there’s something distinct but unreadable in his eyes when he says that family is useless.
Every time after that, when he sees him walking down the street or runs into him near a Rhyme Match or sees him in a store, every time he asks and Sly Blue says no again. There’s always this annoyed expression on Sly Blue’s face but he thinks it might be softening when he’s told he can just call him Sly and instead of stalking him everywhere, why don’t they just hang out some time? So they do.
Sly turns 15 and he turns 18 and they see each other all the time, but now it’s through coil calls and at a hangout by a bar or an alley. Mizuki’s Rib team is growing in size and reputation, but Sly never seems impressed and his answer never changes from ‘no.’ Sly still plays Rhyme, is still undefeated and still turns up to hang out with gashes on his face or a weirdly bent finger sometimes but carries himself like a feral cat and no one messes with him, he says, no one messes with him and lives to talk about it.
Sly doesn’t like to talk about himself a lot but Mizuki learns enough because sometimes Sly gets so drunk his eyes cross and his words wobble and he talks about his favorite color (It’s black, the darkest black you can imagine but he doesn’t know why, he says it comes to him like the whispers of a memory in his dreams sometimes) or his favorite band (It’s GoatBed, Mizuki’s never heard of them and Sly makes a face like he’d been backhanded) or how he doesn’t sleep often but sometimes he’ll wake up in a strange alleyway with his face pillowed against Ren and it scares him so much, but it’s not a big deal, not really.
Sometimes they get together and Sly’s eyes are wide and red and he twitches, there’s coke caught on his cupid’s bow and he tells him about these weird guys who follow him around, say that they’re his biggest fans but how can he have fans when he’s not even a fan of himself?
Sly doesn’t like to be touched but sometimes Mizuki sees him slinking out of the bar that he frequents with a girl on his arm and she’s kissing his neck and tripping over her feet the whole time. Sometimes it’s a guy, but it’s all the same and they never go very far, Sly always comes back with gritted teeth and a knitted brow and he’s angry every time and Mizuki asks him if he has a home and Sly is drunk enough he says sure, doesn’t everyone got a home? Fixes Mizuki with this scrutinizing look and he just smiles.
Maybe it’s a trick of the light but the more time passes the more Sly’s eyes get less glasz, at first they lose their green undertones and Mizuki thinks maybe they’ve always been hazel, but then they look a little less brown and Mizuki thinks maybe they’ve just always been amber, but sometimes they look yellow like a cat’s eye and they glint in the dark and he’s not really sure what color they are anymore.
The first time Sly kisses him is on his 16th birthday. The night is young but they’re both really tipsy and Mizuki will never admit it but he’s been saving up money from his part time tattoo job so he can buy Sly something special, because you do that for people you like, people who you care for and he’s never ever defined that sort of line with Sly before and if anything Sly and his relationship can only be called volatile; but he gets him a small black spiked collar for Ren and the smile on Sly’s face is worth it, he thinks.
It’s just the two of them by the end of the night, they’ve blown twenties and fifties on dancers and they’re on the streets now with arms slung around eachothers’ shoulders. Mizuki offers to bring him home but Sly just frowns. Then he grins like a maniac and suggests they go to his place and Mizuki can’t remember if he really saw that frown or if he imagined it, he just agrees and they’re off. Mizuki has a small apartment near his work place because he got out of his foster parent’s hair a long time ago.
Mizuki is fumbling with his keys and has to use the spares he’s hidden in a flower pot by his door (Sly thinks it’s hilarious and so obvious, a flower pot in an apartment hallway, what a fucking idiot) and cursing under his breath. There’s a surge of blue and gold and very suddenly Sly is leaning into him, hot breath on his neck, telling him to just forget it. It’s hard to ignore but he does, wins against the door and brings them inside and Sly’s lips are crashing against his before he can even think. They taste like bourbon and cherry and Sly is sloppy but certainly not unpracticed, it’s a little too wet for him but the skin of Sly’s hands on his bare hips is soft and that long hair tickles his cheek and he can’t keep the kiss up because, suddenly, he’s laughing. Sly asks him, what’s so funny? Hey, shut the fuck up, Mizuki, shut the fuck up- Keeps trying to kiss him - but Mizuki is all giggles and they pass out together in a tangle of limbs on the couch with semis and Mizuki wakes up to an empty apartment and a memory of red lips and it’s almost time for work but he’s not nearly sober enough.
After that Mizuki doesn't see much of Sly, in fact for a time he stops seeing him altogether- asks around about him but just gets off looks and answers like "That guy? I don't know and I don't care- fuck that guy." and thats not helpful, it just makes him feel angry and sad and lonely. Not lonely for himself- Mizuki always feels lonely, even when he's a room full of people who he calls family but this is different, this is the kind of lonely you feel for someone else.
Things are going so well, he's got a job at the tattoo parlor full time and he's got money saved up and a place to himself and his team is so well known people flinch at the name, his name. Things are going so well yet he doesn't know why he feels like he's floating, doesn't know why he feels sad any time he sees a dog AllMate or catches a flash of blue hair and he wonders how that stupid boy filled such a big space in his life and when that happened, why he let it. Why he wasn't more careful.
The night Sly Blue shows up at his apartment with black bruises crawling all over his skin and a split lip and eyes bright as dandelions it's six months since he'd last seen him, that night when Sly kissed him on his birthday. Sly is furious and in pain and Mizuki can tell, he can tell something really wrong has gone on, really worse than the usual beatings Sly takes in the fights he picks (the ones that Mizuki discourages but is never around enough to stop, never there enough to force him to quit, never fast enough to protect him) but getting anything out of Sly is impossible, he talks like there's rubber on his tongue and his eyes shift around like he's following a fly.
Grams kicked me out, he says. Mizuki doesn't really know who Grams is because Sly's never talked about his family, never invited Mizuki over or even told him where in the district he lived. Sly says his Grams kicked him out and told him to clean up his act before he came back, told him she couldn't take it anymore, couldn't stand the thought of losing him and she was crying and he looks like he's been hit by a train when he says it. Mizuki wants to know who did this to him, who does he have to kill, he'll kill 'em for this- but Sly just laughs. Says you'll have to kill me, then. This is no one's fault but mine.
Mizuki lets Sly stay with him at his place, it's the least he can do, and Sly doesn't like to take charity but he doesn't object because he knows he ought not to, knows there isn't much else he can do. There's a change in him, like something vicious got kicked around until it lost it's bite, and Sly is quiet, doesn't get into fights as much, doesn't Rhyme as much. Stops wanting to.
Sly doesn't say much about how he feels no matter how much Mizuki tries to dig around but sometimes they sit and Sly lets him put an arm around his shoulder, let's him check on him when he's been in the bathroom staring in the mirror for too long, or let's himself lean on Mizuki by the window and watch the rain fall down against the glass.
Sly lets him give him a tattoo. It's a winding black series of strokes on his hip to his thigh and it's in the shape of a leaping lion. Sly asks him why he chose a lion( Sly didn't choose, said he didn't care, just do it) and Mizuki tells him he thinks theres a lion trapped inside of his body and Sly just laughs. Says he's a funny guy.
The first time they sleep together Sly is nearly 17 and Mizuki just turned 20. It just kind of happens, it just sort of falls into place; they're smoking together at first and then Sly is in his lap with his tongue down his throat and his hair fisted in his hands. Sly tastes like vinegar, smells like sea salts and weed and his ass fits perfectly in Mizuki's hands. It's just like before yet not at all, there's the same strength but no bite, and the sex is destructive and desperate and leaves them both with claw marks and bruises that wear on their very bones, their souls themselves. They lay in bed together after and Mizuki says they can't do that again. Sly agrees.
It happens again. And again, and again. They taste the wariness on eachother's mouths and get used to eachother's bodies and afterwards they lay sprawled in Mizuki's twin sized mattress and talk about life. About the world. About wanting to fix things (usually Mizuki) and wanting to destroy them (always Sly). They're in the middle of the act and Mizuki calls his name and Sly tells him no, no, call him Aoba. His name is Aoba.
Aoba turns 17 and he still won't join Dry Juice but he doesn't do rhyme, not anymore. He carries himself less like the same wolverine child Mizuki knew him to be when they met and more like a man beyond his years, beyond his time. A man who's seen too much and lived too little, a man who's still a boy in a man's shoes. He hasn't spoken to his Grams in a long, long time and he says he probably never will again. He says a lot of things but Mizuki doesn't know how many of them are true, doesn't know how many of them are lies that only Aoba believes.
And one night they lay naked together Aoba gets up, pulls on his pants; Mizuki asks him where he plans to go, and Aoba says he's leaving. Leaving for good. Leaving the island.
Mizuki says that's crazy, no one leaves the island, you can't leave the island, this island is a prison and their sentenced for life and Aoba just likes him at him and smiles wryly and says he's got to try. He has connections, he's got resources, he's got cunning and he's got his voice. He's got to try because he can't stay here, he doesn't know who he is here and he doesn't have a home, not anymore, not really ever. Not even here with him. For the first time in a long time Mizuki can feel tears in his eyes because he fights Aoba on this for hours and nothing he says can change his mind, Aoba just looks at him and talks in that tone and suddenly Mizuki loses his thoughts and he can't move, can't think right, can't do anything. He begs Aoba to stay, stay here, with him, stay, please, stay- and Aoba looks at him with a smile on his face and tells him hey, man, he loves him, but no fucking way.
Sly Blue is gone and Aoba leaves not long after, Aoba who Mizuki still doesn't really have figured out, Aoba who seems to have so little and yet own the world. Aoba who's a whisp in his life that extinguishes with the passing of the years, Aoba, Aoba, Aoba.
Mizuki goes on with life with the same emptiness left empty once again, fumbling against the current again, fumbling through the crowd downtown and fumbling because the face on the big screen is a face he knows well. A face he saw two months ago framed against his bedroom window, a face gaunt and pale and with eyes like the sun. There's words on the bottom of the screen in tiny,white font that read 'Platinum Jail' and a man in the background's got a wicked sort of smile, a wicked sort of composure, a twinkle in an eye obscured by a monocle.
Someone in the crowd stops and points and says 'hey. ain't that Sly Blue?'