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Karube didn’t believe in fate — never had, never would — but he could believe in Niragi’s god-awful sense of timing. If there were such a thing as a gold medal for showing up at the worst possible moment, said man would probably have a shelf full of them — stacked under his bed beside his questionable taste in boots and chronically bad decisions in life.
“Stop standing in the doorway like some haunted Victorian child,” he called without looking up, pen scratching lazily against paper as he made a half-assed list of items to restock for the bar. “And just haul your ass over here already. I’m not gonna bite, promise.”
“Fuck off,” Niragi muttered, his voice low and petulant. The steady tap-tap of his cane punctuated each step as he limped his way inside, irritation practically radiating off him in waves. “Kuro was sleeping in the hallway again. I nearly tripped on her fat ass.”
“Maybe she’s trying to take you out.” Karube couldn’t help the smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. “Can’t blame her. She’s got a good eye for self-destructive men pretending they’re invincible.”
“How about I take you out instead, jackass?” his partner shot back, scowling in annoyance as he eased himself onto the beat-up stool in the corner of the storeroom — his stool, the one nobody else dared touch. He winced slightly as he adjusted his leg, stretching it out in front of him. “Where the hell is she even getting fed? She's been turning into a bowling ball lately.”
“Same place you do, probably." The blonde-haired man snorted at that, waving a vague hand at them both. "Stealing scraps and scowling at the hands that feed you.”
Niragi rolled his eyes with practiced disdain, though his mouth twitched upward nonetheless. As always. Karube caught it in the corner of his periphery — begrudging fondness twitched faintly on his face, eyeliner still slightly smudged from whatever Niragi had been doing before this, hair a tangled mess of black curls against his forehead, outfit plain but deliberate — and shook his head with a reluctant sigh.
“She’s your responsibility as well, y’know,” he said, adding cat food (again) to the bottom of his list because, apparently, the only thing powerful enough to drag this grumpy asshole out of his mancave and into Lucid during his days off was the threat of their adopted stray’s needs being compromised. “You were the one who went all ‘we can’t just leave her out in the rain, Karube, she’ll starve and die and you’ll cry at my funeral’ or whatever dramatic shit you spewed that day. I was just unfortunate enough to get robbed into your shenanigans."
Niragi sniffed. “That was a valid threat. And you did look like you were gonna cry.”
“She was soaking wet and bit me.”
“And you’re still here,” his partner said, gesturing lazily at him with one gloved hand. “So either she was right about you deserving it, or you’re just into biting.”
Karube gave him a flat look. “You really wanna test that theory right now?”
“Depends.” Niragi held his gaze with a grin, sharp-edged and a little mean in the way he had long since realized meant I like you more than I should. “Are you planning on crying this time too?”
A laugh slipped out of the blond before he could stop it — rough and startled. “You wish.”
“I don’t have to wish,” his partner hummed, victorious, leaning back until the stool creaked under him. “You’re already soft. I’ve seen you talk to Kuro everyday before work like she can understand your goodbyes.”
“She’s smarter than you.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t try to hide when she wants attention either, so you do you.”
Karube paused, pen hovering above the clipboard in his hand. Niragi wasn’t really looking at him anymore — his fingers were busy tugging at the frayed edge of one glove, twirling the threads between them. His posture had eased the way it always did when he felt safe, though his bad leg still twitched now and then as he shifted his weight on the stool.
“You okay?” The blond tilted his head a little, squinting at his partner. “Your leg’s giving you hell?”
“As it always does.” Niragi answered him with a shrug, which was surprisingly mild considering how sharp his temper usually ran on days like this. “Seems like the rain’s gonna come soon.”
“You could’ve stayed in bed, y’know.” Karube couldn’t help the sigh that escaped his lips at that answer. “Just because Kuro gave you the side-eye this morning doesn’t mean you had to come all the way down here.”
“She meowed like she was dying,” the younger man huffed, absentmindedly pressing down on his bad leg. “I wasn’t about to let her suffer just because my injury decided to throw a tantrum.”
The bartender made a soft noise in response — not quite agreement, not quite affection, but something in between. He scratched out a misspelled word on the list and looked up at his partner fully.
“You wanna crash here for a bit?” he asked, nodding toward the faded couch shoved into the corner of the storeroom. “I’ll finish up and we can head home after. Order in. Cat-sit. Be gross and domestic.”
Niragi snorted — a half-laugh, half-scoff that still sounded like affection if you knew how to hear it. “You trying to bribe me with couch naps and greasy takeout?”
“I’m trying to stop you from limping back to our place like a stubborn idiot when your body’s already screaming no thanks.”
That earned him a long, unreadable look — one that said you’re full of shit and I’m listening anyway — before his partner let out a sigh and dragged himself upright with a low grunt, favoring his leg as he crossed the room.
“You better not eat all the fries this time,” Niragi muttered begrudgingly, flopping down on the couch like a man defeated by gravity and pride in equal measure. “Or else I’ll jam this cane down your fucking throat.”
“No promises.” Karube grinned happily, grabbing his phone and heading over like he always did.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Karube had always considered himself decent at video games.
He wasn’t great with them, per se — his time or patience were limited given how he had to juggle between his responsibilities, and he would rather relax after a day of working his ass off at Lucid than to grind out combo chains or whatever the hell the kids were calling it these days — but at least he was functional. Passable, even, and certainly good enough to beat most drunk assholes who wandered into his bar bragging about their KD ratio.
None of that, however, meant shit when his opponents were his boyfriend, his best friend, and his best friend’s suspiciously smug boyfriend — and the game in question was fucking Mario Kart.
“This game is rigged,” he muttered, scowling at the TV as his character — Wario, which had felt like a power move at the time — had veered off Rainbow Road for the fourth time since the race started. “There’s no way you guys aren’t cheating.”
“To be fair,” Arisu said mildly, “you’ve driven off the course thirteen times. No one’s cheating, you’re just bad.”
“Thirteen!?” Karube turned to look at his best friend, affronted. “Who the hell’s keeping count?”
“I am,” Niragi offered sweetly, leaning back against the couch with his arms folded behind his head, cane resting just within reach on the coffee table. “It’s been a spiritual experience to compete against someone who can be this bad at gaming.”
“… You’re enjoying my suffering way too much these days.” The blonde-haired man couldn’t help but squint his eyes in mild annoyance. His will to live was draining out of him through his fucking pores now, even. “Aren’t you supposed to have my back?”
“It’s more fun to watch you suffer,” Niragi said, tilting his head. “Besides, you’re the one who said, and I quote, ‘one more round, I can feel it in my bones.’”
“Which means your bones lied to you, Karube,” Chishiya added (un)helpfully from his spot on the couch, where he’d been idly scrolling through cat videos ever since bowing out of the game four rounds ago. “Much like your sense of self-worth.”
Karube shot him a glare. “Didn’t you lose to Arisu five times in a row?”
“Yes,” the doctor shrugged, utterly unfazed, “and then I quit while I was ahead, unlike some people here, who, apparently, have a kink for public humiliation.”
Arisu snorted into his can of soda like it contained liquid gold, while Niragi wheezed and slapped a hand against his thigh as if that would somehow lessen the burn. (It didn’t.)
“Fuck’s sake,” Karube muttered, slouching deeper into the couch. “I don’t even know why I hang out with you assholes.”
“Because we’re the only ones who’ll put up with you,” Chishiya said flatly.
“Because you’d die of loneliness otherwise,” Arisu offered at the same time, cheerful and far too honest for his liking.
“And because I give really good head,” Niragi purred just to twist the knife even further, lips curling into a shit-eating grin.
“Jesus Christ.” The bartender couldn’t help the long suffering sigh he let out at those responses. “You’re literally the worst.”
“Pretty sure that’s not what you’ve moaned last night,” Niragi added sweetly, which earned him a cushion square to his chest.
“Not in front of the children, jackass!” Karube hissed, jerking his chin toward Chishiya and Arisu.
“Children?” his doctor friend raised a judgmental brow at his comment. “You do realize Arisu is literally the reason we had to ban tequila shots at Lucid last month, right?”
“Hey, that was only one time!” Arisu protested, visibly wounded. “And I cleaned up the puke myself.”
“Yeah, after you tried to clean it with a dish towel,” Karube reminded him, one hand dragging over his face. “And broke the mop as a result of your shenanigans.”
“Okay, wow,” the brunette rolled his eyes with a begrudging huff, hands raised in mock surrender. “I come here to have fun and play Mario Kart, not to get emotionally attacked by my friends.”
“You’re the one playing Peach in a pink convertible,” Niragi snorted. “Emotional attacks come with the territory.”
Arisu, as cheerfully as he always would be, flipped them off with both of his hands before going back to the race like a mad man chasing the grand prize.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
There were stretches of time when Karube almost forgot that coming out of the Borderland meant he’d carry traumas that would last the rest of his life.
Almost being the key word.
It wasn’t like he could ever really forget — not in any permanent sense, not when he still remembered the screams and the blood and the way cold sweat clung to the back of his neck like a second skin. Some nights, though, life cut him a break. Lucid would be unusually quiet. Niragi would feel good enough to share a drink or two, maybe even flirt if the pain pulling at his leg wasn’t too bad. Kuro would curl up between their pillows like she trusted the world to keep still long enough for a nap.
When that happened, Karube liked to fool himself into thinking that, perhaps, the worst had passed — that he was a normal human living his normal life just like anyone else in this world would do.
And then his body would remind him otherwise.
He didn’t remember the nightmare in full — just flashes of red smeared across his hands, something heavy crashing above his head, Niragi’s name caught at the back of his throat until it went raw and hoarse — before the sick lurch of falling tore him awake violently. His shirt was plastered to his skin when he sat up, and it took him a long, long time to calm his mind down from all the screaming he’d heard in his dream.
Somewhere near the foot of his bed, Kuro stretched, yawned, and promptly rolled over. Next to him, Niragi started stirring the moment he sat up, squinting a sleepy eye at him.
“What the actual fuck,” came the groggy growl. “Is it time to die again or are you just having a midlife crisis in silence?”
“… Just give me a minute,” the blond sighed, dragging a hand down his sweaty face. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“Bit hard when you’re breathing like you lost a fight to a vacuum cleaner,” Niragi grumbled, sitting up with a quiet grunt. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand, his other reaching out automatically to grope around for his cane. It was always within reach, even at night — a habit neither of them commented on anymore. “What was it this time?”
Karube stared down at his hands — dry, steady now, very much not covered in blood — then shook his head slowly, careful not to aggravate the lingering dizziness that always followed his worst nightmares.
“Not sure,” he admitted. “Just… a mess. Noise. Your name. Something falling. The usual.”
Niragi gave him a long, unreadable look, then tapped his fingers against the blanket in a nameless rhythm — slow and familiar and comforting. “Was I hot at least?”
“Are you seriously—”
“What?” the younger man shrugged, sharp grin still tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It matters. If your subconscious is gonna drag me into your PTSD freakshow, I better be dressed for it.”
“You were screaming,” Karube deadpanned. “And bleeding out on the ground, I may add.”
His partner blinked at that. “… Was I hot while screaming?”
The bartender let out a noise somewhere between a tired groan and a half-choked laugh, leaning forward to bury his face in his hands. “You’re the worst.”
“Yeah-yeah-yeah, but you still sleep next to me every single fucking night, so…” Niragi said cheerfully, pulling and draping the blanket messily over them once more. “Lie back down, barkeep. I’m sleepy.”
Karube barely had time to react before cold hands slipped beneath his shirt and yanked him down, splaying across his stomach with all the grace of a malicious little goblin. He opened his mouth to complain, but before he could get a single word out, teeth then sank into his shoulder instead — sharp, abrupt, and totally uncalled for.
“OW—!” The blond yelped. “What the fuck?!”
“Your thoughts are too loud,” his partner declared. “There, now they are quieter than before.”
“You’re such a dickhead,” Karube snapped, half-glaring, half-scandalized, because what the actual fuck. “You really just—who bites someone out of a night terror episode?!”
“Me,” Niragi said with a shrug, clearly proud of himself. “And it works, so you should be grateful.”
The bartender could only stare in disbelief afterward.
“You bit me.”
“Yup.”
“And, in your opinion, that helps with night terrors.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You absolute freakshow.”
“You’re welcome,” Niragi replied, stretching like he hadn’t just committed a war crime and grunting as his muscles protested. He then reached down to adjust the pillow stuffing beneath his bad leg, shifting his weight like someone who lived in constant negotiation with his body. “Anyway. Mission accomplished. Your fight-or-flight response has officially been rerouted to me. Again.”
Karube couldn’t even argue. The dream was gone now — fully gone — replaced with the heat of a bite mark and the heavy knowledge that he was dating someone who needed to be supervised 24/7.
“You’re lucky I love you,” he muttered begrudgingly, slumping onto the mattress once more. “Or I’d have thrown your sorry ass out the fucking window.”
Niragi blinked. “Bold of you to assume that wasn’t the plan.”
“God, I hate you.”
“Lie to yourself harder, barkeep.”
Kuro chose that moment to hop up onto the bed, sniffing at his face and batting her tail in disdain before wedging herself between them like the sentient loaf she was. He reached out to run his hand down her fur, while Niragi shifted closer beside him, nudging their foreheads together with a soft thunk.
“Sleep.” The younger man ordered. “Or I’ll have Kuro bite you.”
Karube huffed a tired laugh and let himself settle, warmth in his chest where the fear used to be.