#aib au

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

Oil fries in the pan as you flip the meat you're cooking, the side dishes already prepared and ready to eat. You hum with a nod, satisfied with the spread you've cooked — happy the recipes you read came in handy and turned out well.

The front door slides open and a smile falls onto your lips unconciously. You don't turn from the stove as you speak, "welcome home, Shuntaro!"

He grunts in response, kicking his shoes off and throwing his work bag to the side. Sliding up beside you, Chishiya eyes the food you cooked curiously, nodding his head the way you did earlier. You grin, "hard day? Did they let you work with patients today?"

"Still a student, technically," he responds. Chishiya grabs the cutlery you need, filling one cup with your drink and the other with his own. He grabs one of the dishes, absentmindedly setting it on the table. "Proabaly won't be around people for a while still."

You frown, following behind him. "That sucks. You're the smartest person in that building."

The left side of his lips quirk up, "thank you."

Hitting his arm lightly, you can't fight your own grin. "As if I needed to inflate your ego anymore."

The only sound is your eating — conversation with Chishiya never felt needed. You often found comfort in his silence ; found it easy to be in his presence. When your food is finished and you're washing the dishes, you notice him lingering in the doorway. You let him take his time — sometimes, your boyfriend simply needed a moment or two before his thoughts could escape his head.

But, he never spoke up. Chishiya simply stood there, staring at you and through you simultaneously. You blinked at him, hands still soapy, "everything okay, 'taro?"

“Let’s break up.”

You pause, a wobbly smile masking the strain in your throat. You face him fully, “what?”

“Let’s break up.” He doesn't meet your eyes as he speaks. He looks over your shoulder — looks to the pictures of you together throughout the two years you'd been dating.

“…why?” You wipe your hands dry, hoping to hide how they tremble. Chishiya eyes them through furrowed eyes — he noticed. You hide them helplessly anyways.

He shrugs passively, “I’m bored.”

“And nothing I say will change your mind?” It's now that he meets your gaze. It's dark — empty as he looks at you. Ice crawls into your chest, settling there as your breathing begins to get heavy. You nod slowly and look to the floor. “Okay. Let’s break up, Chishiya.”

You hope the sound of his last name burns him as much as it did you.

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

Music hits the pool area as you walk out, nodding to the beat you hear. Grinning at those you're familiar with, you perk up at your chosen group. The ones who brought you in when you were lonely.

"Ni—ra—gi!" you sing as you approach him. Sat on his lap is a girl with her bikini top slipping down slowly. Her lipstick is smeared and her cheeks flushed as her eyes widen at your voice. "Oh, am I interrupting?"

Niragi glares — he's really just hiding his laughter, "you always do. What do you want?"

You hum slyly, going behind the girl to settle her bathing suit correctly. Her breathing picks up and her hips twitch at your touch — Niragi hides his snort. "Have some newbies Hatter is welcoming. Wanna check 'em out?" You bend so that you're eye to eye with the stranger, "or keep having fun instead?"

With a squeak, the girl practically launches from Niragi's hold and skitters away. You blink owlishly, "was it something I said?"

Niragi's loud, boisterous laughter leaves a trail as you sneak into the secret meeting. Aguni eyes you before rolling his eyes discreelty and tuning back into what Hatter is saying. It's the same spiel you were given — this was a free paradise that only called for your loyalty. Loyalty being the cards you earned every game, of course.

If someone was going home, it was going to be Hatter first and foremost.

You eye the trio standing in the middle of the room, watching as the shorter male fidgets. He glances around — meets your gaze and gulps. He mutters to the girl he’s with, tugging on the end of his shirt.

Grinning, you lean close to Niragi and lower your voice to a whisper. “Traitor.”

“Them?” He raises an eyebrow, incredulous. “You really think?”

You put your hand out, “wanna bet?” Niragi clicks his tongue as you wiggle your fingers, insisting he shakes your hand. “Hm?”

He shoves your hand away, “never making a bet with you. Not again.”

As the meeting concludes, you grin widely.

Your name is called as Hatter beckons you forward. He leans on the desk in front of his card display, grinning as his top men join him. He gestures grandly, his arms open wide. "Liking your promotion?"

It's a silent nod to the gun strapped to your thigh — to the absence of a bathing suit. Aguni crosses his arms lightly, sticking his chin out. You grin — recently, it's starting to look more and more like Niragi's teasing smile than anything like yours. "It's fun enough."

Hatter laughs loudly at your words. He nods his head, "rumor has it you could beat any of my militants, anyways. Would rather have you on our side — on my side."

Niragi slings an arm around your shoulders as he hums in agreement. "Not a good idea to get on this one's bad side. I've seen it — scary shit."

Hatter cackles again as Mira eyes you now. She tilts her head a little, deciding to speak up. "Wonder where that temper of yours came from."

You simply grin again, closing your eyes with a sweet facade. "An old friend. That's all."

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

When he's recruited to the Beach, Chishiya isn't sure what to think. The man he was partnered with was lasered at the last second, leaving Chishiya in a remaining duo. The woman — Rei, she said — eyed him warily before nodding.

An unspoken rule of the Beach was the ability to bring more people in — more cards in.

It's a loud place, music booming and people cheering as if they aren't in danger. In the entry way of the hotel, there's a small crowd gathering, whooping and jeering. Chishiya unknowingly strays closer to the circle and away from his tour guide.

In the middle, a man with his hair half-up is laughing loudly. His arm is around someone else as they stand over the bleeding lump of a person on the floor. As he laughs, Chishiya can see the shine of a tongue ring gleaming in the lights. His arm is tapped and he's dragged back to the introduction of everyone.

For a second, though, Chishiya thought he caught a glance of you.

Hatter calls for a meeting, as he usually does to welcome newcomers. Niragi stands with his gun slung over his shoulder — Chishiya squints his eyes, thinking of how familiar he looks before his attention is taken.

A long, lanky figure begins to speak to Aguni. The only indication of the conversation is the raise of his eyebrows — he seems surprised by something. Aguni's lips part, as if he's going to speak, before he eyes Hatter and his mouth falls shut.

The door behind him opens and Chishiya feels cold. A shiver runs down his spine, trickling in line with the sweat that's built up. He keeps his eyes to the ground, as if he subconciuosly knows danger is around. A sharp, musical lilt of someone humming interupts the meeting in the room.

"The traitors," it can't be, "have been taken care of, your highness."

Stock-still and frigid Chishiya stands as you come into view. You look different — it's been three years — a wide, estranged grin on your face as you ignore the blood dripping down your face. Niragi saunters up to you, "the hell happened?"

"Had a knife," you let out an annoyed breath, sweeping at the cut above your eyebrow. "Not a very good one, though."

Hatter's laughter calls everyones attention back his way. His grin is just as wide as yours — just as corrupted and red. "Thank you, [Name]! For your sacrifice, the Beach will live another day."

You simply bow your head before standing with Aguni — the militants, Chishiya remembers.

Tilting his head, the blond secretly looks you over. You'd gotten toned — leg and arm muscles built and presenting themselves nicely in your shorts and shirt. You stood relaxed, surrounded by numerous weapons and threatening figures had no impact on you at all. Maybe you were part of that threatening crowd now — part of the fear that clung to the Beach.

Chishiya wondered if you'd noticed his differences as well — his longer, lighter hair and how he slouched more when he stood. He wondered if you'd even seen him in the first place.

Sharp, animalistic eyes catch his gaze. The lanky, tattooed figure watched him before saying something to the pierced one from before. Chishiya shot his eyes away before either had the chance to see him staring.

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

"Seem to have caught the newbies attention." Niragi speaks casually as you roam the hallways. He lets out a snort, rolling his eyes and head until he's looking at Last Boss.

Last Boss grins, "always do."

You curl your nose, swatting away the rifle Niragi holds on his shoulder — it'd bounced your way one too many times. "We had a newbie?"

Standing in disbelief, Last Boss pauses in the middle of the hallway. He looks Niragi's way, mouth parted in shock before he's slowly shaking his head. "[Name], you are..."

"Something," a feminine voice speaks up. The girl is with a crowd of three, her eyes trailing up and down your body slowly. She turns to wink your way as her friends scatter. "Something, truly!"

With a giggle, she's gone.

Before they can comment, a bell is tolled, signaling the time for games. Niragi lets out a huff, following behind as you wrap your arm in Last Boss'. A stranger allowed their attraction for you to overcome their fear for everyone else. You had to be magic.

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

You had to be magic.

It was a spade's game, to Chishiya's disinterest. He'd made an acquaintance — Kuina agreed on wanting to leave before Hatter, and had a history of combat. She would be useful in these games — except, they switched games at the last minute.

Chishiya couldn't have regretted it more.

You seemed to be the star of the show, everyone focused on you as your fellow militants grinned ferally. Poser — a four of spades where one player selected was not who they said they were. It should've been a hearts game, maybe diamond.

Said player could only be exposed by the color of their 'blood'.

Everyone was given a heavy, white t-shirt full of paint. Red meant you were human — blue meant you were an imposter. Chishiya gulps at the display in front of him. The red staining your skin wasn't just paint — he looked down apathetically at the two half-concious people who'd taken you on beforehand.

"You." A friend of yours is looking his way, at his pristine, unstained shirt. They tilt their head, "let us see your insides, hm?"

Letting out a huff, you swipe the sweat off of your forehead. Three others have joined you in your battle — think some of these people are actually dead. Standing straight, you see a newer militant cornering someone ahead. Shrugging, you saddle up beside them to help.

Your voice dies in your throat.

Dark, almost empty eyes meet yours and you hold back a gag. They shine sparsely, with disgust, maybe empathy and the smallest hint of regret. Your fist clenches around your trusty knife, praying to it that your voice won't break. "...Chishiya."

He almost jumps when he notices your attention on him. The stray militant has joined into the clump of fighters feet away — it's only the two of you once more. He lets out a breath, "[Name]..."

Your fist connects with his cheek before you can think. Chishiya stumbles back — doesn't have time to guard himself before you're nailing your fists into him once again. Your knees connect to the floor harshly as you go down, following his body as he collapses.

How dare he call you so casually? So lovingly? Your swing misses — Chishiya simply stares up at you. How dare he come into the world — this solace of sorts and destroy the walls you'd built? How dare he — three years later — still linger on your tongue and in your thoughts?

A choked, staggered sob leaves your lips as the voice overhead chimes.

"Game complete!"

Chishiya is still laying on the ground as you stand on wobbling legs. His eyes are half-lidded, hazy as he gazes at you, stock still. The red under his broken nose copies the red bleeding from his shirt. Not the traitor this time, at least.

You let out another sob before turning, grabbing the card and leaving the game.

— ♧ ♡ ♢ ♤ —

a part two is already in the works! have to figure out a definite plot, is all <3 if you’d like to be tagged in this series or any other aib work, let me know!! ♥︎

niragi suguru is the delinquent everyone's scared of. pierced, dyed hair (he started showing up with silver streaks junior year just because they told him not to), carries a switchblade he's absolutely used, fistfights behind the gym, smokes on the roof during class. the kind of guy who laughs when someone cries

they don't fit together. that's the whole point

it starts because chishiya watches niragi beat the hell out of a kid in the courtyard and instead of looking away like everyone else, he just... tilts his head. studies him. like niragi is a specimen

niragi feels the stare. looks up with blood on his knuckles. and this pale little shit in the back just smiles at him like interesting

niragi doesn't know whether he wants to kill him or fuck him. (spoiler: both)

how niragi's yandere manfiests:

possessive in the most violent, territorial way imaginable. niragi doesn't do subtle. niragi puts a boy in the hospital for asking chishiya for notes. breaks a girl's phone because she took a picture of chishiya at the cultural festival

leaves bruises on chishiya's wrists and neck and then gets off on watching chishiya pull his hoodie sleeves down in class, knowing they're there

he's the kind of yandere who WANTS to be caught. wants people to know. carves his initials into chishiya's desk, writes his name in sharpie on the inside of chishiya's bag. marks his territory like a goddamn animal

when chishiya even looks at another student for too long niragi goes quiet in this scary way, and chishiya's insides LIGHT UP with malicious glee because he loves what he can do to him

texts chishiya at 2am things like where are you who are you with if i find out you lied i'll fucking slit their throat with you watching

he means it. chishiya knows he means it. that's the appeal

how chishiya's yandere manifests:

chishiya doesn't threaten people, chishiya ruins them. with surgical precision. quiet little moves no one ever traces back to him

that girl in niragi's class who laughed at something niragi said? chishiya digs up her family's financial situation, leaks something nasty to the right person. she transfers by the end of the month. niragi never even knew she existed and that's the point

he plays dumb, plays bored, plays "i don't even like him that much, he's just entertaining" while having niragi's schedule memorised, knowing his home address, knowing where he smokes, knowing exactly which of niragi's friends is starting to get too close and needs to be... inconvenienced

chishiya's yandere is ownership disguised as indifference. he'll let niragi rage and threaten and break things and just smile, because every crack in niragi's composure is proof that chishiya has him. that he got under the skin of the scariest kid in school and nested there

will gaslight niragi ON PURPOSE just to watch him spiral. "i don't know what you're talking about. i wasn't even there." when niragi has PHOTOS. chishiya just tilts his head. makes niragi feel crazy. loves it

the one time niragi actually breaks down, grabs chishiya by the collar shaking, eyes wet with rage, stop fucking playing with me, chishiya finally kisses him. and it's the cruellest tender thing niragi's ever felt

their dynamic:

everyone at school thinks they hate each other. niragi shoves chishiya into lockers in the hallway. chishiya insults his intelligence loudly in front of teachers. they're banned from being partnered on projects

meanwhile they're fucking in the art supply closet during lunch

niragi is rough, hand around chishiya's throat, teeth on his jaw, say it, say you're mine, say it you little bitch, and chishiya lets him, smirking the whole time, because niragi needs to hear it and chishiya can't say it any other way

they never say i love you. they say things like i'd kill for you (niragi) and i'd let you (chishiya) and somehow that's worse

they share a blacklist. chishiya makes it. niragi enforces it

they both carry knives. chishiya's is cleaner

darker bits:

there's a kid who used to be niragi's friend. started getting concerned about how obsessed niragi was getting. tried to intervene. chishiya noticed. niragi noticed chishiya noticing. the kid "moved away." neither of them asked each other about it. they just knew

they have a shared alibi for something. neither has ever said what. it's the most intimate thing they share

chishiya once drugged niragi's drink at a school thing because niragi was getting too loud about him in front of people. woke up in chishiya's bed with his phone wiped of every number that wasn't chishiya's. niragi was furious for six hours and then grateful for the rest of his life

codependent in a way that would make a therapist quit the profession

okay that's enough brainrot, HAVE A FIC TOO because i have no self control 👇

✮ ROOFTOP ✮

The bell rang twenty minutes ago and the rooftop door shouldn't have been unlocked, but Chishiya had the kind of patience that turned locks into suggestions. He sat on the railing with his legs crossed at the ankle, hoodie sleeves pulled down over his knuckles, the wind pushing his pale hair into his eyes. Below, the courtyard was emptying out in slow streams of uniforms. He watched without seeing any of it.

He heard the door slam open behind him. Didn't flinch.

"You fucking liar."

"Hello to you too, Suguru."

Niragi's footsteps were heavy on the concrete, uneven in the way they got when he was too angry to think about walking. Chishiya could smell the cigarette smoke on him before he even arrived, cheap menthol and something sharper, adrenaline maybe. Blood, possibly. He hoped it wasn't anyone important.

A hand closed around the back of his hood and yanked. Chishiya let himself be pulled off the railing, let his back hit the concrete hard enough to drive the breath out of him, and smiled up at Niragi with a mouth that still tasted like the apple juice he'd had at lunch.

"Your technique is sloppy today," Chishiya murmured. "Rough morning?"

"Who the fuck is he."

"You'll have to be more specific."

Niragi straddled him right there on the rooftop, one knee on either side of Chishiya's hips, the blade of his switchblade already out and flashing in the afternoon light. He pressed the flat of it against Chishiya's cheek. His hand was shaking. Chishiya noted that with the detached interest of a scientist watching a reaction in a beaker.

"The guy. From class 2-B. I saw you. In the library. He was—he had his hand on your fucking arm, Shuntaro, don't play stupid with me, I'll cut your tongue out—"

"He was showing me a page in a textbook."

"Bullshit."

"Mm." Chishiya tilted his head against the blade, pressing his own cheek into it rather than away. A thin red line opened up. Niragi's eyes went black. "Bullshit. You're right. He was flirting with me."

Niragi made a sound that wasn't quite human.

"I didn't flirt back, if that helps."

"It doesn't help," Niragi hissed, and the knife moved, down to Chishiya's throat, pressed flat and hot against the pulse there. Chishiya's pulse did not speed up. It never did, not when it mattered. Only Niragi had ever noticed that, and only Niragi had ever resented it. "You let him. You sat there and you let him—"

"I was gathering information."

"About what."

"About whether you'd do something about it."

Niragi froze.

Chishiya watched the thought land in him, slow as poison. Watched the outrage flicker, shift, complicate. Niragi's mouth opened. Closed. The hand holding the knife trembled harder, but not with rage anymore, with something uglier, something needier, something Niragi would never have admitted to anyone else on earth and possibly not to himself.

"You—" Niragi's voice cracked. "You set me up. You set him up."

"I gave you an opportunity."

"You used me."

"Suguru." Chishiya lifted one hand, slow, careful, the way you'd approach a wild animal, and brushed his knuckles along the line of Niragi's jaw. Niragi's breath hitched audibly. "I only use things I want to keep."

"Fuck you."

"Whenever you'd like."

The knife clattered against the concrete. Niragi's hands were on him then, both of them, one fisted in his hoodie and one in his hair, yanking his head back, exposing his throat. Niragi's mouth came down on the cut he'd made and sucked at it, hard, and Chishiya let out the smallest sound he would ever permit himself, something like a sigh, something like a laugh. His fingers slid into Niragi's dyed-silver hair and tightened.

"Tell me his name," Niragi rasped against his skin. "Tell me right now."

"After."

"Now."

"After, Suguru." Chishiya's voice was honey-soft. "Or I won't tell you at all."

Niragi bit him. Hard. Left teeth marks in the hollow of his throat that would take a week to fade, and Chishiya's eyes fluttered closed for just a moment, the only time he ever let himself look anything other than amused. When he opened them again Niragi was staring down at him with a look that should not have existed on a seventeen-year-old's face, pupils blown, lips wet, an expression that was part worship and part murder and entirely, entirely Chishiya's.

"You're insane," Niragi breathed. "You're fucking insane, you know that? Who the fuck does that. Who sets up their own—their own—"

"Their own what?"

Niragi couldn't say it. He never could. The word snagged in him every time like a hook.

Chishiya smiled, slow and terrible and fond. "Mine," he supplied, helpfully. "You were going to say mine."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Niragi kissed him then, and it wasn't a kiss so much as a collision, teeth and tongue and the copper taste of the cup on Chishiya's cheek bleeding into both their mouths. Chishiya kissed back with patient, maddening precision, the way he did everything, like he had all the time in the world and was graciously loaning some of it to you. Niragi whimpered into it. He would rather have died than admit he whimpered into it. Chishiya filed the sound away in the private place in his head where he kept all the pieces of Niragi that belonged only to him.

When they broke apart Niragi was panting. Chishiya wasn't.

"His name," Niragi demanded, forehead pressed to Chishiya's.

"Yamazaki. Second year. He takes the train home from the east exit at six."

"Six."

"Don't kill him."

"What."

"You heard me." Chishiya's hand slid down to curl around the back of Niragi's neck, thumb stroking over the knob of his spine. "His uncle is a prosecutor. A hospital visit is fine. A funeral is inconvenient."

Niragi stared at him. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face, wide and wrong and delighted, the smile that had made three different teachers request transfers.

"You already knew about the uncle."

"I already knew about the uncle."

"You planned the whole thing."

"I planned the whole thing."

"I fucking love you," Niragi said, and then his eyes went huge like he'd shocked himself with it, like the words had fallen out without his permission. He opened his mouth to take it back. Closed it. Opened it again.

Chishiya didn't say it back. He never would. But he pulled Niragi down and kissed the pulse in his throat, right where his own bite mark from last week was just starting to yellow, and Niragi shuddered all the way down to his shoes.

"Six 'clock," Chishiya murmured against his skin. "East exit. Don't be late."

"I won't."

"And Suguru."

"Yeah?"

"Wear gloves this time."

Niragi laughed, a real laugh, ugly and bright, and kissed him again, and somewhere three floors below them a boy named Yamazaki packed up his textbooks with no idea at all that he had been, briefly, the most important person in either of their lives.

They start off as FWBs. Switch dynamic, though Chishiya likes being on top slightly more than Arisu.

During their FWBs phase, they are actually rough with each other — not to the point of inflicting pain or ignoring boundaries/consents, but it's definitely different than how they are now when it comes to sex.

They actually both use sex to cope with their issues. It backfires (spectacularly of course) when Arisu collapses due to exhaustion, and that health scare stops them from having sex for a few months while they focus on getting the help they both really need at the time.

When it's Arisu's turn to top, he's very, very handsy (in a good way). Lots of caressing/kissing/marking hickeys, you name it. Loves to worship his partner and makes the man feel good. Very sweet in bed.

Chishiya likes taking time with prepping. He doesn't like the idea of hurting his partner (he's a doctor after all), and making Arisu cum from just opening him up or sucking him off (or both, which is usually the case for them) is a huge boost for his ego.

Lots of orgasm teasing/edging. Chishiya likes hearing his partner beg, and Arisu loves it too, so win-win.

They both have decent stamina and healthy libido, with Arisu being on the higher end of the spectrum (lol).

Chishiya is a bit of a quiet lover. Arisu, on the other hand... (but also, can you really blame him though?)

Aftercare and cuddles are a must once they finish. Not having them is a no-no for these two men.

The blond man cards shaky fingers through his hair, pulling the locks into a haphazard bun at the base of his neck. Anxious sweat beads at his forehead, the drops glistening under the harsh lights of the room he'd woken up in.

Not your shared bedroom. Not even a room that he recognized, not really. A cold, bright white room with a single table sprawled in front of him, a tripod outfitted with a camera mirroring his position. The red light on the front blinks methodically - menacingly - letting the man know that he's being recorded. But for what purpose?

Worst of all, you're nowhere to be found. You had just been here, hadn't you? But now that he thinks about it, when was the last time he had truly seen you?

The heavy metal door to his left creaks open slowly to reveal a man in a crisply-pressed black suit, an air of familiarity surrounding his poised form. When Chishiya's chestnut eyes meet the man's blackened ones, he's instantly ripped once again from reality and slammed harshly into the barely-lit hallway of the prison that had haunted his dreams for months. The blond blinks rapidly to clear his blurry vision, finding his gaze still locked with the man's once he does. The taller man leans non-chalantly against a door frame across the room, a smirk growing slyly across his face as if he's noticed that Chishiya is finally back again. After what feels like an eternity of tense staring between the men, he breaks their eye contact to turn his attention back to the petite woman in front of him.

Chishiya's head throbs, threatening to explode, as ghost-like visions of a life once lived fade in and override his senses. A shredded red and yellow striped shirt flutters to the ground at his feet. The faint banana taste of biscuits that had once been his favorite, but had inexplicably made him gag lately, dances on his taste buds. The sickly sweet, coppery stench of blood overwhelms his nose. A far too giddy mechanical voice coupled with a bright chime only increases the intensity of his headache, the sound echoing through his skull as if it wanted to crack it open and peek inside.

And you. Your shaking body falling out of a prison cell once the door buzzes open, dropping weakly into his embrace. Between your fingers you hold a bloodied Jack of Hearts card. "We have to get all the cards, Chishiya," you tell him, voice scared but determined, "I think it's the only way out."

He shakes his head in disbelief, trying once again to push away the delusions. The blond knows this isn't really you. You were somewhere safe, not stuck in a weird post-apocalyptic dream with him. "I want to wake up," Chishiya mumbles to no one in particular, squeezing his eyes shut and begging to be finally be released from this prison. Wake up.

The frequency at which these breaks in reality were happening to him had become alarming in the last few weeks. At first, it had been just during sleep that he visited these false memories. And now it was happening at a near constant, the visions of death and destruction and betrayal all but consuming him. The line between reality and Borderland (where had he even gotten that name?) had become heavily blurred. It took everything inside of him to keep it from spilling on to you, to protect you from whatever disturbance the incident in Shibuya had caused inside his head.

As long as you were safe, he would fight whatever demons he had to.

When Chishiya blinks again, he's back in front of the camera with the man in the suit studying him intently, a crooked grin plastered on his face. "It will all come back to you soon," he drawls, making a slight adjustment to the camera before snapping his piercing eyes up to meet Chishiya's again. "You just have to collect the Final Card."

The breath catches in the blond's chest upon hearing that - collecting cards. That's what the fake you had said in the dream. Could you have been right - the only way out is through? Or maybe even this white room with the blinking camera and the man in the suit is a part of his delusion. How could he be sure? Chishiya opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to find the right words to get the answers he desperately seeks. Before he can, however, the man has turned on his heel to head back toward the exit.

"I have to gather the others," he says offhandedly, offering an explanation to the question Chishiya hadn't even asked out loud. Where are you going? "Oh, and your beloved will be participating as well," he offers again, barely turning over his shoulder to look at the shorter man. He barks out a cold laugh, slamming the door on his way out. A too loud click of the deadbolt indicates that the man had locked Chishiya inside.

But the blond is too distracted to worry about being locked in this room, his entire body stiffening as he processes this information - you would be participating too. Had you been suffering alongside him all this time that he thought he'd been protecting you?

He knew in that moment that he would give everything in this final fight - even his life - if it meant he had a chance to save you from hell.

Let the games begin.

♤ ♡ ◇ ♧

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Breathe in, out. The white fabric of his hoodie jacket moved with the movement of his chest as Chishiya did his breath exercises to keep his heart rate stable. The heavy door of a facility he wasn’t aware of slammed shut behind him, severing the suffocating stench of sweat and blood from the cool, fresh air.

Chishiya stood on the pavement, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his white hoodie. His fingertips brushed against the stiff edges of a playing card. Six of Diamonds. The card felt absurdly weightless for a piece of paper that had just purchased him exactly one hundred and forty-four hours of continued existence.

Six days.

He exhaled a deep breath that he held in, forgot to let out. Tokyo was dead. Tokyo was an absolute, suffocating void. The loudness of the metropole — the distant traffic, the electric drone of neon signs, the murmur of ten million overlapping conversations had been shut down. The current silence made his ears ring.

He began to walk, his steps heavy and slow. The light pollution that gave Chishiya a headache every night was gone, Tokyo was dark.

The only source of light were the flickering stars up above, and the moon Chishiya was absurdly afraid of. For a logical man like himself, his rare phobias made no sense. Chishiya held the hoodie tighter, trying to cover the moon out of his sight. He looked straight ahead. Cars sat abandoned in the middle of intersections. A bicycle lay overturned on the sidewalk, the front wheel still spinning lazily in a localized draft. As if humanity had simply evaporated mid-stride.

His brain worked when he was unnerved. He thought about the card he was hiding in his pocket. The game, Blackjack. The desperate, animalistic pleading of the man who had tried to cheat and paid the price. Chishiya processed the images with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a petri dish. The borderlands, as he was beginning to conceptualize this place, operated on a brutal, unyielding logic. Extend your visa, or die. The methodology of survival was entirely left to the individual. Funny, he thought. He could have just waited and finished one job he failed before, he saw how the laser worked— Later, Chishiya thought, his mind saving the idea as Plan C, or D.

His current plan, well, was to be a King. He was understimulated in the real world… Here, games were fun.

Chishiya’s mind continued its never ending thoughts by starting mapping the variables of this new ecosystem. The games tested specific qualities. Clubs for balance, team work whatever. From his understanding, clubs were a combination of all the skills. Hearts for psychological manipulation, he was good at that. People were easy. Diamonds for intellect, which he clearly possessed. He was a med student, come on, half of Japan was on his dick for that. But. . . Spades. Spades for physical skills, which he possessed barely. The physical toll of Spades, the sheer brute force required to outrun a collapse or fight off a threat, was a severe vulnerability. He was roughly 170 centimeters on a good day, if his back was straight and if he had height-supportive shoes on. He had a slim body, a thin waist that contrasted beautifully against his broad chest and shoulders. He was a beautiful man, yes sir, he wasn’t a brute to run and get into physical fights.

He needed a buffer. A shield.

He didn't want allies. Allies were a liability; they required emotional investment and offered a false sense of security. What he needed was a pawn. Someone physically capable, naturally aggressive, and most importantly, driven by a raw, unrefined instinct that Chishiya could subtly direct.

The physiological aftermath of the game finally registered as the adrenaline got off. A dry scratching in his throat and a dull ache in his calves from standing motionless for hours, calculating odds while a rope rested against his neck. Resources were the immediate priority.

He walked through the grid of streets until he found a commercial avenue. A chain grocery store sat on the corner, its massive front windows entirely intact, though the automatic sliding doors had been forced apart, wedged open with a metal trash can.

Chishiya approached with the silent, measured gait of a predator. He paused at the threshold, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness inside. The overhead fluorescents were dead, he had to find a flashlight for the light. The air inside was stale, holding the distinct scent of unwashed floors and a faint, sweet rot coming from the unplugged refrigeration units in the back.

A sharp metallic clatter broke the silence.

Chishiya froze, instantly melting into the deep shadow beside a magazine rack. His breathing slowed, shallowing out as he listened his surroundings.

The sound of tearing plastic. A heavy footstep. The rattling of a metal shelf.

Someone was in the back aisles, resource hunting just like him.

Moving with deliberate, noiseless steps, Chishiya navigated past the registers, slipping into the aisle dedicated to household goods. He peered through a gap between bottles of laundry detergent, securing a clear line of sight to the food aisles.

A figure was tearing through the canned goods. Male, perhaps a year or two older than Chishiya. Dark hair, unruly and unwashed. He was wearing an unbuttoned, patterned shirt over a t-shirt, his movements erratic and aggressively sharp. He was actively destroying the displays as he gathered supplies. He shoved cans into a plastic shopping basket, deliberately knocking the remaining items off the shelf to clatter loudly. Perhaps he was trying to be intimidating, he wanted to scare people off — or to let them know about his presence.

Chishiya watched closely. The stranger's right hand tightly gripped a rusted length of iron pipe, the heavy metal resting casually against his shoulder. His knuckles were white, the veins in his forearm popping. Hot— Chishiya, not the time, you’re not here to shop for men.

It was a completely reckless display. Making that much noise in an unknown, hostile environment was a quick way to invite an ambush. But as Chishiya analyzed the stranger's posture, he realized it wasn't stupidity. It was adrenaline high. The darting eyes weren't filled with the paralyzing terror Chishiya had just seen in the Diamond game. They were wide with a frantic, volatile energy.

Interesting, Chishiya thought, his eyes tracking the man's slim, muscular build.

The stranger kicked a cardboard promotional stand out of his way, sending it skidding across the aisle. "Fucking garbage," he muttered, his voice raspy, laced with a harsh, artificial bravado. He took a swing with the pipe, smashing it into a plastic shelving unit. The plastic cracked loudly. A laugh followed.

Chishiya’s mind instantly built a psychological profile. The exaggerated swagger, the unnecessary violence toward inanimate objects, the desperate need to assert dominance over an empty room. He was dangerous, highly unstable, and entirely driven by the need to overcompensate for years of powerlessness.

He was perfect.

In a spades game, this guy would swing that pipe until his arms gave out, purely to prove he was no longer the weak link. He was a weapon desperately looking for a target. Chishiya decided, right then, that he would provide one.

He needed to test the waters. To see just how deep the instability ran.

Chishiya stepped away from the detergent and mirrored the stranger's path, keeping exactly one aisle between them. As the stranger moved toward the beverage coolers, his pipe dragging along the floor with a harsh scrape, Chishiya slipped into the adjacent snack aisle.

His eyes scanned the shelves. The collapse of civilization didn’t make Chishiya lose his specific tastes. He bypassed the stale potato chips and savory snacks, his eyes landing on a familiar yellow box. Vanilla cookies. He reached out and pulled the box from the shelf. The cardboard was smooth under his fingertips. He tucked it neatly under his arm.

He moved further down the aisle, picking up three bottles of mineral water, his movements fluid and entirely soundless. He could hear the stranger muttering on the other side of the shelf.

"Where's the fucking beer... warm piss, all of it." A glass bottle shattered against the floor.

Chishiya stopped. He stood directly opposite the stranger, separated only by a thin wall of metal shelving and boxes of instant ramen. Slowly, deliberately, Chishiya cracked the seal on the vanilla cookie box. The cardboard gave way with a soft, distinct tearing sound.

He reached inside, pulling out a small plastic sleeve. He opened it. The crinkle of the cellophane was unnaturally loud in the quiet store.

The muttering on the other side stopped instantly.

The scraping of the iron pipe ceased. Total silence descended on the store, thick and heavy.

Chishiya pulled a cookie from the sleeve, raised it to his lips, and took a bite. The dry snap of the biscuit echoed like a gunshot.

"Who the fuck is there?" the stranger barked. The voice was loud, aggressive, but Chishiya caught the microscopic tremor in the pitch. The underlying panic of a cornered animal.

Chishiya didn't answer. He chewed slowly, letting the sweet vanilla dissolve on his tongue. The contrast between the mundane act of eating a cookie and the lethal tension in the air amused him slightly.

Heavy, deliberate footsteps rounded the end of the aisle. The stranger stepped into view, the iron pipe raised, ready to swing. His dark eyes locked onto Chishiya, wide and wild. He looked like a live wire, practically sparking with misplaced aggression.

Chishiya didn't flinch, didn't back away. He merely leaned his shoulder against the shelving unit, holding the half-eaten cookie in one hand, the box tucked under his other arm. He looked at the stranger with heavy, half-lidded eyes, projecting an aura of apathy.

The stranger stopped, his grip on the pipe tightening. He clearly didn't know how to process the lack of reaction. He was expecting someone to run, or cower, or raise their hands in surrender. He wasn't expecting a bored-looking guy in a white hoodie eating a cookie.

"I asked you a question, creep," the stranger sneered, taking a slow step forward, brandishing the pipe. "You deaf?"

Chishiya swallowed the bite of the cookie. He held the stranger's gaze for a long, uncomfortable moment before finally speaking, his voice smooth, quiet, and utterly devoid of intimidation.

"I wish I was. You're very loud," Chishiya observed mildly. "If there were players hunting here, you would have been dead three aisles ago.

The stranger's jaw tightened. "The fuck did you say to me?" He closed the distance, stopping just a few feet away, the heavy iron pipe hovering inches from Chishiya's face. The smell of stale sweat and metallic adrenaline radiated off him. "You think you're smart? I'll cave your fucking skull in right now."

Chishiya looked at the pipe, then back up to the dark, furious eyes. He didn't even shift his weight.

"You could," Chishiya agreed softly. "But you'd be wasting energy on someone who isn't a threat. And given the physical requirements of what's out there, wasting energy seems... counterproductive. Don't you think so?"

The stranger blinked, the raw aggression faltering for a fraction of a second against the sheer wall of logic. He wanted a fight, a reaction, a target. Chishiya was giving him a mirror.

"Who the hell are you?" the stranger demanded, lowering the pipe just a fraction, though his muscles remained coiled tight.

Chishiya took another bite of his cookie. He chewed deliberately, maintaining eye contact. He was already establishing the dynamic. He wouldn't fight back, but he wouldn't submit either. He would simply exist, immune to the bullying, forcing the stranger to deal with him on a different level.

"Someone who understands how the games work. . ." Chishiya said finally. He pushed himself off the shelf, standing up straight. He wasn't physically imposing, but his utter lack of fear created a different kind of gravity. "And someone who knows that swinging a pipe at everything that moves is going to get you killed before your visa expires."

The stranger scoffed, a harsh, ugly sound, though he didn't raise the pipe again. "I can handle myself. I don't need lectures from some bleached-blond ghost."

"Clearly," Chishiya murmured, his eyes dropping to the plastic basket on the floor, overflowing with dented cans and shattered glass. "Your gathering methods are highly efficient." Chishiya looked back, raising his brows to his forehead as a grin entertained his lips. “And, I’m a natural blond.”

"Shut up, you ain’t natural. I can see your roots even in the dark." the stranger snapped, his face flushing dark. He kicked the basket, sending a can of peaches rolling across the aisle to bump gently against Chishiya's sneaker. "I take what I want. That's the new rule. No one tells me shit anymore."

"A philosophy that will undoubtedly serve you well." Chishiya replied, his tone entirely unreadable. He bent down, picked up the can of peaches, and casually tossed it back toward the stranger. The man caught it clumsily against his chest, glaring.

Chishiya turned his back on him. It was a calculated risk, turning his back on an armed, unstable individual, but it was necessary to cement the psychological upper hand. He walked slowly toward the front of the store, his footsteps barely making a sound compared to the stranger's heavy boots.

"Hey! I didn't say you could walk away!"

Chishiya paused at the threshold of the shattered glass doors. The dead streets of Tokyo stretched out before him, a sprawling, concrete labyrinth of death traps and expiring visas. He looked over his shoulder. The stranger was still standing in the aisle, the pipe gripped tight, looking angry, lost, and dangerously volatile.

"I'm leaving," Chishiya stated simply. "You're welcome to stay and fight the shelving units."

He stepped out into the cool night air, the box of vanilla cookies secure under his arm. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. He could hear the heavy thud of the stranger's boots, the aggressive scraping of the iron pipe against the doorframe as the man followed him out into the dark.

For a fraction of a second, the heavy, suffocating silence of the dead Tokyo rushed back in to fill the void. Chishiya didn’t even have time to register the shift in cadence before the sound of a heavy boot slamming against the asphalt signaled the incoming violence.

He turned, but not fast enough. Niragi hit him like a derailed train.

A large hand grabbed his shoulder and easily slammed his thin body into the wall behind him. Chishiya’s spine connected with the brick wall with a sickening thud. The back of his skull cracked against the masonry, sending a blinding flare of white hot static across his vision. The slam knocked the breath from Chishiya’s lungs in a sharp hiss and a grunt as he felt a faint ache from his back. The same hand, rough and smelling of oxidized metal from the rusty pipe he was holding, clamped onto the front of his white hoodie, twisting the fabric tight against his collarbone.

"You think you're untouchable, huh?!" Niragi screamed, the sound echoing harshly off the narrow walls. Spit flew from his lips, catching the faint ambient light from the street.

Before Chishiya could draw a breath to respond, Niragi pulled him forward an inch and slammed him back against the brickwork again.

Chishiya’s teeth clicked together violently. He tasted copper. A dull, throbbing ache began to blossom at the base of his skull, radiating outward. He forced his eyes to focus, cutting through the physiological shock to look at the man pinning him.

Niragi was breathing in jagged, ugly gasps. His dark eyes were dilated, reflecting a chaotic mix of terror, exhilaration, and deep-seated fury. His free hand was balled into a fist, trembling with the sheer force of holding himself back from delivering a lethal blow.

"Looking at me like I'm a fucking bug on the pavement," Niragi snarled, pressing his forearm against Chishiya's throat, cutting off his windpipe just enough to make his next breath a thin, wheezing whistle. "Like you know something I don't. Like you're better than me.”

Chishiya didn’t thrash. He didn’t claw at the arm pressing into his neck. He just stared back, his expression an infuriating mask of cold, clinical observation. He noted the erratic pulse jumping in Niragi’s neck. He cataloged the frantic micro-expressions of a boy who was desperately trying to convince himself he was a monster. Even a violent reaction, was a reaction, and Chishiya loved every second of this.

"You..." Chishiya rasped, his voice barely a whisper through his restricted throat, "...dropped... your pipe."

Something in Niragi’s face fractured. The sheer audacity of the apathy, the absolute refusal to play the role of the terrified victim, severed whatever thin thread of control he was holding onto. With a guttural yell, Niragi pulled his right arm back and drove his fist into the side of Chishiya’s face.

Chishiya’s head snapped to the side. The skin over his cheekbone split against Niragi's knuckles.

A loud ringing instantly drowned out the ambient silence of Tokyo. The world tilted on its axis, spinning sickeningly. Chishiya slumped against the wall, his knees buckling, but the fist twisted in his hoodie held him upright, bearing his dead weight.

Blood trickled down his cheek, hot and fast, catching on the corner of his mouth.

Niragi stood over him, chest heaving. He looked down at his own knuckles, bruised and already beginning to swell, then back at Chishiya. He was waiting for the begging. He was waiting for the tears, the panicked apologies, the desperate pleas for mercy that he himself had recited a hundred times behind gymnasiums and in locker rooms.

Instead, Chishiya slowly rolled his head back to the center. His pale hair was plastered to his forehead with cold sweat. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the asphalt, right next to Niragi’s combat boot. He looked up, his dark eyes slightly unfocused but burning with an icy, unyielding arrogance.

"Is that... the all you can do?" Chishiya murmured, his speech slightly slurred from the swelling in his jaw.

"You stupid, arrogant cunt," Niragi breathed, his voice dropping an octave, losing the hysterical pitch and settling into something far more dangerous.

He didn't hit him again. Instead, Niragi twisted his hand deeper into the fabric of the hoodie, burying his knuckles against Chishiya’s sternum. He pivoted on his heel and yanked downward and forward.

Chishiya stumbled, his legs refusing to coordinate fast enough to catch his balance. He pitched forward, only remaining upright because Niragi was practically carrying him by his collar.

"Walk," Niragi barked, hauling him roughly out of the alleyway and back onto the deserted street.

When Chishiya’s legs dragged, scraping the toes of his sneakers against the rough concrete, Niragi yanked the hoodie violently, nearly choking him. "I said fucking walk! Or I'll drag you by your bleach—fried hair until your scalp peels off!"

Chishiya forced his legs to move, falling into a clumsy, stumbling half-jog to keep slack in his collar. The pain in his head was a relentless, rhythmic thudding, synching perfectly with his elevated heart rate. "My hair is pretty." He muttered, Niragi gave an exhausted sigh.

Chishiya focused on the environment, using it to detach from the physical pain. He noted their trajectory. They were moving away from the commercial district, heading deeper into a dense residential grid. Narrower streets. Overhanging power lines that hung dead against the starless sky. Niragi was moving with purpose, navigating the labyrinth of side streets without hesitation.

He was being taken to a controlled environment. A secondary location.

Mistake, Chishiya thought, his mind struggling to compartmentalize the concussion protocol. I pushed the variable too fast. The aggression algorithm overrode his self-preservation instinct.

But even as he stumbled, gasping for air every time Niragi jerked his collar, Chishiya didn't feel fear. He felt a cold, sharp spike of irritation at his own miscalculation, layered beneath a deep, clinical fascination with the creature dragging him through the dark.

They moved through the skeletal remains of the city. Block after block of dark windows and abandoned vehicles. The only sound was the harsh scraping of their shoes, Niragi’s ragged breathing, and the distant, lonely whistle of the wind tunneling between the skyscrapers.

Niragi finally veered off the main road, dragging Chishiya toward a cluster of older, mid-rise apartment buildings. They were decaying structures, the kind with exterior concrete stairwells and rusted iron railings.

Niragi hauled him up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Chishiya stumbled on the second flight, his shin cracking hard against the concrete lip of a step. He let out a sharp, involuntary hiss, his weight pulling heavily against Niragi’s grip.

"Get up!" Niragi roared, not stopping, simply dragging Chishiya the rest of the way up the flight by his neck, the fabric of the hoodie digging into Chishiya’s windpipe, threatening to crush his larynx.

They reached the third-floor landing. Niragi dragged him down the open-air corridor, stopping violently in front of a door marked 304. The door was already damaged, the locking mechanism mangled, suggesting Niragi had claimed this territory with force rather than finesse.

Niragi kicked the door open with his boot. It hit the interior wall with a loud bang, splintering the dry wood.

He hauled Chishiya inside and shoved him hard.

With nothing to catch his balance, Chishiya pitched forward, crashing onto the hard wooden floorboards. The impact sent a fresh shockwave of pain through his battered skull. He rolled onto his side, coughing, tasting dust and the iron tang of his own blood.

The apartment was pitch black. The air was heavy with the smell of old cooking oil, mold, and damp cardboard. The door slammed shut, severing the faint ambient light from the exterior corridor. The darkness was absolute.

Chishiya laid still, slowing his breathing, listening. He could hear Niragi moving heavily across the room. The rustle of fabric. The metallic clink of something heavy being dropped onto a surface. The pipe. He must have retrieved it before they left the alley.

Click.

A beam of blinding, white light pierced the dark. Chishiya squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away, throwing a hand up to shield his face. The LED flashlight beam was agonizingly bright against his dilated pupils.

"Look at me." The command was soft, but laced with a lethal, coiled tension.

Chishiya slowly lowered his arm, squinting into the harsh glare. The flashlight was resting on a low coffee table, angled perfectly to spotlight Chishiya where he lay on the floor.

Niragi was pacing the periphery of the light, a restless, predatory silhouette moving through the dust motes dancing in the beam. He kicked a low stool out of his way, the wood screeching against the floorboards.

"You walk up to me," Niragi started, his voice vibrating with a frantic energy, pacing back and forth, dragging his boots deliberately. "You just... you stand there, eating a fucking cookie, acting like you're the director of this whole goddamn movie."

He stepped into the edge of the light, looking down at Chishiya. His patterned shirt was rumpled, his dark hair falling in sweaty strings across his forehead.

"You know what happens to guys who look at me like that out there?" Niragi pointed a finger toward the reinforced window, heavily taped with black trash bags to block out light. "Before all this? I had to take it. I had to sit there and let arrogant little pricks like you look down their noses at me."

Niragi crouched suddenly, bringing his face dangerously close to the beam of the flashlight, casting grotesque, elongated shadows across his features.

"But we aren't out there anymore, are we?" he whispered, his eyes wide, unblinking. "The rules changed. The smart kids? The ones who think they can talk their way out of a beating? They're meat now. They're just fucking meat for the games.

Chishiya pushed himself up, ignoring the spinning of the room, shifting until his back was resting against the peeling wallpaper of the living room wall. He wiped the blood from his chin with the back of his hand, looking at the crimson smear on his pale skin before returning his gaze to Niragi.

"Are you quite finished with the monologue?" Chishiya asked, his voice steady, though noticeably raspy.

Niragi lunged, grabbing Chishiya by the throat and slamming his head back against the plaster. The flashlight cast them both in stark, horrific relief.

"Talk!" Niragi screamed, his face inches from Chishiya's, his breath hot and foul. "Say something smart now! Tell me why I shouldn't just crush your goddamn windpipe and leave you to rot in this shithole! Speak!"

Niragi’s grip was tight enough to restrict airflow, but not tight enough to strangle. He needed answers. He needed validation. "Why me?" Niragi demanded, his voice cracking slightly, betraying a sudden, jarring vulnerability beneath the rage. "You watched me in that store. You saw what I was doing. You're supposedly so fucking smart, so observant. And you decided to piss me off? You wanted my attention? Are you stupid?"

He released his grip slightly, letting Chishiya draw a shallow, rattling breath, but kept his hand firmly locked around his throat.

"You want an alliance with me?" Niragi let out a harsh, barking laugh that held absolutely zero humor. "With the guy smashing shelves with a pipe? You think I'm gonna play bodyguard for some weak, bleached-blond freak who can't even take a punch?"

Chishiya looked into the frantic, desperate eyes staring down at him. He saw the violent tremors in Niragi's arm. He saw the absolute chaos of a mind that had entirely detached from reality to cope with trauma.

Chishiya swallowed hard, forcing his damaged vocal cords to work.

"You..." Chishiya started, his tone utterly calm, devoid of the panic Niragi was trying to induce. "...are highly aggressive. Prone to volatile outbursts. You lack impulse control."

Niragi’s eyes narrowed, his grip tightening marginally. "Keep talking. Dig the grave deeper."

"Your survival strategy relies entirely on intimidation and blunt force," Chishiya continued smoothly, maintaining eye contact despite the pain radiating through his skull. "You expend maximum energy on minimum threats to mask a profound, deep-seated insecurity."

"Shut the fuck up, I ain’t insecure!" Niragi raised his free hand, forming a fist, preparing to shatter Chishiya's jaw.

"But," Chishiya cut in, his voice cutting through the damp air with razor-sharp precision, "you are willing to enact violence without hesitation. You do not suffer from the moral paralysis that gets most people killed in the games."

Niragi froze, his fist hovering in the air.

"I don't need a bodyguard," Chishiya said, tilting his head slightly, leaning into Niragi’s grip rather than pulling away. It was a subtle subversion of the power dynamic. "I need a weapon. And you, regardless of your delusions of grandeur... are the bluntest, most destructive weapon I have encountered in this city."

Niragi stared at him, his chest heaving, his mind violently recalibrating to process the insult layered perfectly over a twisted compliment.

"You think..." Niragi started, his voice dropping to a dangerous hiss, "...you think you can use me?”

"I think," Chishiya replied, a faint, bloody smirk playing at the very corner of his mouth, "that without a guiding intellect, you will swing that pipe at the wrong player, in the wrong game, and bleed out on a gymnasium floor before the week is over. You have the force. But I..." Chishiya tapped his own temple lightly with his index finger. "...have the board."

Niragi didn't move. The silence in the dark apartment stretched, pulled taut to the breaking point. The flashlight beam hummed faintly, casting the two of them in a frozen, violent tableau.

Then, Niragi’s grip on Chishiya’s throat tightened, his knuckles turning stark white as he leaned in closer, the stench of adrenaline rolling off him in waves.

"I should kill you," Niragi whispered, the words trembling with restrained fury. "Just to prove you wrong.”

Niragi’s hand trembled against Chishiya’s throat, the pressure fluctuating erratically between a lethal grip and a hesitating twitch. The flashlight beam cut a harsh line through the dark, illuminating the stark contrast between them ; Niragi’s flushed, sweaty desperation and Chishiya’s chilling, bloody placidity.

Chishiya didn’t break eye contact. He let the threat hang in the air, feeling the chaotic thud of Niragi’s pulse echoing through the fingers pressed against his carotid artery.

"You could," Chishiya agreed, his voice a raspy, damaged whisper that forced Niragi to lean in closer just to hear it. "It would be an immediate release of frustration. Yet, it would be remarkably short-sighted."

Niragi’s upper lip curled, baring his teeth. "Stop talking like a fucking textbook. I'll snap your neck right now—"

"You can use me, too."

The words slipped out of Chishiya’s bruised mouth, cutting through Niragi’s hysterical momentum like a scalpel.

Niragi froze. He blinked, the manic glaze in his dark eyes fracturing into sudden, jarring confusion. His grip loosened by a millimeter. "What?"

"I said," Chishiya breathed, shifting his shoulders slightly against the plaster to alleviate a sharp pain radiating from his spine, "you can use me, too. It’s a reciprocal equation."

Niragi let out a breath that sounded like a scoff, but he didn't pull away. He stayed rooted, hovering over Chishiya in the dim, localized glare of the flashlight. "The fuck are you talking about, bleached boy? Use you for what? Bait?"

"My speciality lies in Hearts and Diamonds," Chishiya said, his tone leveling out, adopting the clinical cadence of a professor outlining a syllabus, despite the blood drying on his chin. "Games of psychological manipulation, probability, and logic. I am highly proficient. I have zero emotional attachments to exploit. Though, as we've established, I lack brute force."

He deliberately let his eyes track down to the thick, corded muscles in Niragi’s forearm, still pinning him to the wall.

"You cover Spades," Chishiya continued, bringing his gaze back up. "You are built for physical survival. You thrive on adrenaline. You have the aggression necessary to clear arenas that require violence or endurance. If we partition the labor, I handle the cognitive load, you handle the kinetic load, we can clear Clubs together trivially. We clear everything. It's the only statistically viable method of long-term survival." For a long, agonizing moment, Niragi just stared at him. The silence was thick, oppressive.

Then, Niragi’s face twisted into a sudden, ugly sneer. He let go of Chishiya’s throat and took a step back, wiping his hand on his patterned shirt as if he'd just touched something diseased.

"You think I'm a muscle-headed grunt?" Niragi spat, his voice rising, bouncing off the peeling wallpaper. "You think I'm just some dumb fucking Spade you can wind up and point at a target?" He kicked the leg of the coffee table. The flashlight rattled dangerously.

"You're an idiot," Niragi snarled, pointing a bruised finger at Chishiya's chest. "My specialty is Diamonds, you arrogant cunt. I'm smarter than every single piece of dead meat out there. I build the systems. I know how the games are rigged. I don't need you to do my thinking for me."

Chishiya let out a slow, deliberate exhale. He rubbed his bruised throat with his long, pale fingers, wincing internally at the sharp spike of pain, though his face remained entirely impassive.

"Are you?" Chishiya asked mildly. He slowly pushed himself up the wall until he was standing, albeit unsteadily, leaning heavily against the structural support. He looked Niragi up and down, he was checking him out at this point—the heavy boots, the unbuttoned shirt, the sweat, the aggressive, coiled posture.

"Let’s be empirical for a moment," Chishiya said, gesturing vaguely between the two of them. "Look at my arms. Now look at yours. You just dragged my dead weight up three flights of concrete stairs without suffering cardiovascular failure. If you were truly a Diamond at your core, you would have calculated the caloric waste of this entire interaction and walked away from me in the grocery store. You didn't. Because you want to hit things."

"I hit things because they piss me off!" Niragi shouted, stepping back into Chishiya’s personal space.

"Exactly," Chishiya murmured. "Impulse. Not logic. And beyond that..." He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to ensure Niragi was listening. "...I'm a doctor."

Niragi stopped. He stared at Chishiya, his dark eyes scanning the oversized white hoodie, the unkempt bleached hair, the slender, unassuming frame.

A harsh, grating laugh ripped out of Niragi’s throat. He bent over slightly, shaking his head, the manic energy bleeding into genuine, incredulous amusement.

"A doctor?" Niragi wheezed, wiping a bead of sweat from his eye. "You? You look like a fucking high schooler who fell into a vat of bleach. What are you, twelve? Thirteen? Get the fuck out of here."

"I am a medical student," Chishiya corrected, entirely unfazed by the mockery. "I'm doing my clinical rotations. Or rather, I was. Regardless of your delusions regarding your own intellect, playing Spades is a high-attrition strategy. You are going to get hurt. Lacerations, blunt force trauma, fractures. When you do, your iron pipe won't stitch your skin back together. I can patch you up. I have anatomical knowledge."

Niragi’s laughter died down, leaving a heavy, suspicious scowl in its wake. He looked at Chishiya, really looked at him, searching for the lie. He found nothing but a blank, terrifyingly calm void. Chishiya tilted his head, leaning slightly forward into the beam of the flashlight. The light caught the dried blood on his pale cheek, turning it a vivid, stark crimson. He let a cold, mocking smirk touch the corners of his lips. It was a dangerous, highly calculated gamble to push the boundary, to see exactly how much cognitive dissonance he could induce in the unstable man in front of him.

"And," Chishiya added, his voice dropping into a soft, almost conversational register, entirely at odds with the violent reality of the room, "if you require other uses... I suppose I'm pretty enough. Aren't I?"

The reaction was instant. Niragi violently recoiled, stepping back so fast he nearly tripped over his own boots. His face contorted into a mask of absolute, visceral disgust, his jaw dropping open in sheer bewilderment. He looked at Chishiya as if the smaller boy had just mutated into a massive, venomous insect.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Niragi exploded, his voice cracking, entirely losing the menacing lower register he'd been trying to maintain. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? What kind of freak says that shit after getting his face bashed in?"

Chishiya didn't flinch. The smirk remained, a fixed, unsettling feature in the harsh light.

"I'm merely presenting all available assets on the table," Chishiya replied smoothly. "Optimization of resources."

"Shut the fuck up!" Niragi yelled, throwing his hands up in a gesture of absolute defeat. The psychological warfare had completely overwhelmed his capacity for violence. He couldn't punch someone who looked at him like that; it felt sickening, wrong in a way he couldn't even begin to articulate.

Niragi turned his back, pacing frantically toward the far side of the room, where a low, unmade mattress lay on the floor.

"Just... shut the fuck up," Niragi muttered, running a shaking hand through his dark hair, pulling at the roots. "Don't speak. Don't look at me. Don't breathe too loud. I swear to god, if you open your mouth again, I'll throw you out the fucking window."

He kicked off his boots, letting them hit the wall with a dull thud, and collapsed onto the mattress, lying on his back and staring up at the invisible ceiling.

"Go to sleep," Niragi ordered roughly, not looking in Chishiya’s direction. "Before I change my mind and cave your skull in."

Chishiya remained pressed against the wall. The adrenaline that had been sustaining his hyper-vigilance was beginning to crash, leaving behind a cold, shivering exhaustion and a throbbing, rhythmic agony in his head. The room was spinning slightly, the edges of his vision blurring into static.

"I can't sleep," Chishiya stated. His voice lacked the arrogant lilt from earlier; it was flat, strained.

Niragi groaned loudly, a sound of sheer, unadulterated aggravation. "I literally just told you to shut your fucking mouth."

"If I sleep, there is a statistically significant probability that I will die," Chishiya continued, speaking more to the dark room than to Niragi. He raised a trembling hand and gently touched the back of his head. His fingers came away sticky. "You struck my occipital bone against solid masonry. Twice. I am currently exhibiting symptoms of a moderate concussion. Sluggish pupil response, nausea, auditory ringing. If I have a slow-bleeding epidural hematoma, falling asleep will result in a coma, followed by respiratory failure."

Niragi shifted on the mattress, turning his head to glare at the silhouette of Chishiya standing by the wall.

"Are you always this dramatic?" Niragi snapped, his voice laced with annoyance rather than rage. "I barely touched you. It was a warning shot. You're fine. Just sit down and shut up."

Chishiya didn't argue. He knew his body better than the thug lying on the bed did. He slid slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the floorboards, pulling his knees up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs, trying to conserve body heat. The apartment was freezing, the concrete walls bleeding the night air into the room.

Niragi turned his back, pulling a thin, dusty blanket over his shoulders.

It wasn't a peaceful silence. The silence pressed against Chishiya’s eardrums, a physical weight that threatened to crush him. The only sound was the harsh, rattling breath of the boy on the mattress a few meters away, and the relentless, deafening thud of Chishiya’s own heartbeat in his ears.

Silence fell on the apartment.

Minutes bled into hours.

The flashlight battery eventually died, plunging the room into an absolute, suffocating blackness.

Without the visual anchor of the room, Chishiya’s mind began to drift. The clinical detachment, the sociopathic armor he wore so perfectly, began to crack under the strain of the physical trauma and the sheer, unending isolation.

He was alone.

He had always been alone. He understood that human connection was a biological imperative driven by evolutionary necessity, a flaw in the system that created vulnerabilities. He had built his entire life around avoiding it. But here, in the dark, bleeding onto a filthy floor in a dead city, the logic failed to warm him.

A deep, profound loneliness, a cold, hollow ache in the center of his chest that had absolutely nothing to do with the concussion, began to spread. A terrifying, alien sensation. He was a creature of logic, but right now, his intellect was screaming that he was going to die in the dark, and no one would ever know, and no one would ever care.

He listened to Niragi’s breathing. It had evened out, deepened into the slow rhythm of sleep. Chishiya shivered violently, his teeth chattering, echoing loudly in the quiet room. He pressed his face against his knees, squeezing his eyes shut against the darkness. The floor was so cold.

Slowly, painfully, Chishiya uncurled his stiff limbs. Every movement sent a spike of nausea through his stomach. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, the floorboards creaking softly under his weight.

He didn't think about the parameters of the game. He didn't calculate the risk of waking a volatile, violent psychopath. He just moved blindly through the dark, guided solely by the sound of the breathing.

His hand brushed against the edge of the mattress. He paused, holding his breath, listening for a change in Niragi’s cadence. Nothing. Just the steady, heavy inhale and exhale.

Chishiya crawled further, his knee pressing into the thin, lumpy fabric of the mattress. It was a purely instinctual movement, entirely divorced from his rational mind. He needed an anchor. He needed proof that he wasn't the only living thing left in the void.

He lay down carefully on the very edge of the bed, his back to Niragi. He didn't pull the blanket over himself. He just curled into a tight ball, making himself as small as possible, shivering uncontrollably.

It's safer off the floor, his mind supplied, a desperate, frantic rationalization to excuse the behavior. Heat rises. The floorboards leech kinetic energy. This is a tactical maneuver to prevent hypothermia.

It was a lie, and he knew it.

He felt the mattress dip slightly behind him as Niragi shifted in his sleep. The sudden proximity of another human body, the radiating warmth, the smell of sweat and dust. . . It was overwhelming. Chishiya squeezed his eyes tighter, pressing his knuckles against his mouth to stifle a ragged, breathless sound that threatened to escape his throat.

He lay there in the dark, hovering on the dangerous precipice of sleep, utterly terrified of closing his eyes, yet clinging to the rhythmic breathing behind him as the only thing tethering him to reality.

Eventually, the cold lunar glow shifted, bleeding into the harsh, gray light of early morning. The plastic trash bags taped over the windows were imperfect, duh, Niragi made them. In the upper right corner, a jagged tear allowed a single, concentrated beam of light to penetrate the gloom of the apartment.

Niragi shifted. The rhythmic breathing broke its cadence. A low, gravelly groan vibrated through the thin mattress. Niragi’s arm twitched, his hand dragging lazily across the coarse fabric of the blanket until his knuckles brushed against something soft.

Still half-submerged in the thick, hazy remaining of sleep, Niragi’s brain fired a slow, disjointed sequence of neurons of unexpected sensations. Warmth. Softness. A faint, lingering smell of artificial vanilla sugar cutting through the stale musk of the room. His fingers flexed, tangling in a mass of fine, slightly coiled hair.

A heavy, satisfied exhale pushed past his lips. His mind, desperately grasping for the familiar routines of his old life, immediately supplied an explanation. He had brought a bitch back. Some loud, chaotic night out in Shibuya, ending in a cramped room with a warm body. It was a comforting, grounding delusion. He pulled his hand back slightly, meaning to drag the girl closer by her hair, his thumb brushing against a sharp, bony shoulder blade beneath a thick cotton hoodie.

Wait.

The tactile feedback was wrong. The shoulder was too broad, the musculature beneath the fabric too rigid.

Niragi’s eyes snapped open.

The gray morning light filtering through the torn plastic illuminated the room in stark, desaturated tones. He blinked, his vision clearing instantly as the massive spike of adrenaline flooded his system.

He was staring at the back of a white hoodie. The hair tangled in his fingers wasn't long and feminine; it was a chaotic, bleached mess, the ends curling slightly against the nape of a pale, bruised neck.

The memories of the previous night slammed into him with the force of a physical blow. The grocery store. The pipe. The alleyway. The infuriating, dead-eyed med student who had calmly offered himself up like a piece of tactical equipment.

"What the fuck?" Niragi recoiled violently, yanking his hand back as if he had just been burned.

He kicked out blindly, his heavy boot catching Chishiya square in the center of his back. The force of the blow sent Chishiya rolling off the edge of the mattress. He hit the floorboards with a sharp, involuntary gasp, his limbs scrambling for purchase against the dust.

Niragi shot up into a sitting position, scrambling backward against the wall, his chest heaving. "Are you out of your fucking mind?! Did you sleep in my bed?!"

Chishiya remained on the floor for a long moment, slowly pulling his knees beneath him. His head throbbed, a brutal, rhythmic pounding at the base of his skull that flared with every beat of his heart. But the nausea was manageable, and his vision, while swimming slightly at the edges, remained focused. He had survived the night. No epidural hematoma.

He pushed himself up, resting back on his heels, and slowly turned to face the bed.

The morning light hit Chishiya fully for the first time. The shadows of the alley and the harsh, artificial glare of the flashlight had obscured him, but now, sitting in the dusty gray light, the details were unavoidable. Niragi’s frantic rant died in his throat.

Chishiya’s face was battered, thanks to Niragi. The skin across his cheekbone where Niragi had struck him was split and crusted with dried, dark blood, the surrounding tissue blooming into purple and green. His pale skin looked almost translucent, sickly and exhausted.

But it was his eyes that forced Niragi to pause.

They weren't dark. They were a pale, striking violet, entirely unnatural and piercingly sharp. They were half-lidded, heavy with exhaustion, but the gaze was unwavering, devoid of any panic or shame for having been caught seeking comfort in the bed of the man who had beaten him. The bleached hair framed his face in soft, unruly curls, an absurdly delicate contrast to the violence painted across his features.

"I informed you that sleeping on the floor would rapidly accelerate my core temperature loss," Chishiya said, his voice a hoarse, dry rasp. "Given my compromised neurological state, hypothermia would have compounded the trauma. It was a tactical necessity."

"A tactical necessity," Niragi repeated, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He stared at the violet eyes, feeling a deeply uncomfortable, complex knot of revulsion and bizarre fascination twisting in his gut. "You're a fucking psycho. You know that? You're actually, genuinely broken in the head."

Chishiya reached up, gingerly touching the swollen skin around his jaw. "Broken in the head? Yeah, you fucking did that.”

Niragi swung his legs off the bed, his boots hitting the floor with a loud thud. The panic was fading, replaced by the familiar irritation and dominance. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring down at Chishiya.

"You talk a lot of shit," Niragi sneered, running a hand through his dark, messy hair. "You sat there last night running your mouth about how smart you are, how useful you are. You said you could fix me up."

He stood up suddenly, the movement sharp and aggressive. Walked to the corner of the room, kicking aside a pile of empty cans, and dug through a stolen nylon duffel bag. He pulled out a white plastic pharmacy bag, heavily crinkled and stained with dirt, and turned back to Chishiya.

Niragi threw the bag. It hit Chishiya in the chest, the contents rattling loudly before spilling onto the floorboards. Rolls of sterile gauze, a bottle of iodine, medical tape, and a small, sealed suture kit scattered across the dust.

"Prove it," Niragi commanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, authoritarian register.

He grabbed the hem of his patterned shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it onto the mattress.

Chishiya looked up. Beneath the bravado and the aggressive posturing, Niragi’s body was a roadmap of violent encounters. He was lean, corded with wiry, dense muscle, but his skin was marred with deep, ugly bruising. Across his ribs, a massive contusion bloomed, the colors indicating blunt force trauma that was at least three days old.

But what Niragi was pointing to was his upper left bicep. A jagged, angry laceration sliced across the muscle, roughly four inches long. The edges of the wound were red and inflamed, the dried blood around it flaking away to reveal a slight yellowish discharge. It was infected. Likely a knife or a sharp piece of environmental debris from a Spades game.

"I got clipped two days ago," Niragi said, pointing at the gash. "It burns like a bitch and my arm feels heavy. You said you're a med student. Fix it. Or I throw you out that fucking door right now."

Chishiya didn't immediately move. He cataloged the wound, his mind effortlessly slipping into the familiar, sterile parameters of medical assessment. Localized infection. Erythema. Purulent exudate. It required debridement, aggressive sterilization, and closure to prevent systemic sepsis.

He looked at the supplies on the floor, then back at Niragi’s face. The thug was watching him intensely, daring him to fail, waiting for the facade to crack so he could justify discarding him.

Chishiya slowly pushed himself up from the floor. His muscles screamed in protest, stiff and aching from the cold and the physical trauma, but his hands were steady. He gathered the supplies, moving with deliberate, unhurried grace, and placed them on the low, rickety coffee table.

"Sit," Chishiya instructed softly, not looking at Niragi, uncapping the bottle of iodine.

Niragi bristled at the command, his jaw tightening, but the throbbing ache in his arm forced his compliance. He sat on the edge of the mattress, leaving only a few feet of space between them.

Chishiya stepped into that space.

The proximity was immediately suffocating. The smell of Niragi. Fuck, that scent… A potent mix of dried sweat, oxidized iron, and raw, feral testosterone, washed over him. It was a scent that, logically, should have triggered his fight-or-flight response. Niragi was exactly the type of man Chishiya despised, and desired in the old world. The loud, aggressive bullies who dominated through sheer physical intimidation, the ones who had shoved him against lockers and sneered at his quiet, observant nature, but never touched him the way he wanted them to.

Men like Niragi always rejected him. They saw his intellect as an affront to their masculinity, a threat that needed to be violently suppressed. And . . . Chishiya wasn’t the height of masculinity, was he? His gender issues were quite visible. He couldn’t be a man like Niragi, or his kind.

And yet.

As Chishiya saturated a pad of sterile gauze with the dark brown iodine, he felt a strange, undeniable pull deep in his chest. It was a self-destructive, entirely irrational attraction. He had recognized it the moment he saw Niragi swinging the pipe in the grocery store. There was no pretense here. No polite society to mask the inherent cruelty of human nature. Niragi was a monster, but he was an honest one. And in the Borderlands, honesty was the rarest commodity of all.

"This will be exceedingly unpleasant," Chishiya murmured, stepping closer, positioning himself perfectly between Niragi’s spread knees to get the correct angle on the bicep.

Niragi looked up, his dark eyes locking onto the pale violet ones just inches from his face. "Just do it."

Chishiya pressed the iodine-soaked gauze directly into the infected laceration. Niragi’s entire body went rigid. A sharp, violent hiss and curses tore through his teeth, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped beneath his skin. His right hand shot out, instinctively grabbing Chishiya’s hip in a bruising, iron grip to anchor himself against the searing pain.

Chishiya didn't flinch. He didn't pull back. He leaned into the grip, his fingers pressing firmly around Niragi’s bicep to keep the arm stabilized as he aggressively wiped away the dried blood and the purulent discharge. The iodine burned away the infection, sanitizing the raw, exposed tissue.

"Keep still," Chishiya commanded quietly, his voice a cool, soothing contrast to the agonizing procedure.

He discarded the ruined gauze and tore open the suture kit. The light in the room was poor, but Chishiya’s hands moved with practiced, mechanical precision. He threaded the curved needle, his eyes narrowed in absolute concentration.

As he worked, stitching the jagged edges of the skin back together, the silence in the room shifted. The aggressive, combative tension melted down into something entirely different. Something heavy, thick, and highly charged.

Niragi was staring at him. Not with the frantic rage from the night before, but with a dark, intense scrutiny. He tracked the movement of Chishiya’s pale hands, noting the steady rhythm, the complete lack of hesitation. He looked at the bruised, swollen jaw, the delicate curl of the bleached hair falling across Chishiya’s forehead, the faint, rapid pulse beating frantically at the base of his pale throat. The pain in Niragi’s arm was a grounding fire, but the proximity of the boy standing between his knees was rapidly becoming a different kind of irritant.

Chishiya finished the final knot and snipped the excess thread. He reached for a fresh piece of gauze to apply the final compression.

As he pressed his thumb against the edge of the wound to check the tension of the stitches, a single, thick bead of dark crimson blood welled up from the very end of the laceration, slipping past the thread and coating the pad of Chishiya’s thumb.

Chishiya paused. He looked down at the blood on his skin. It was warm.

Slowly, deliberately, Chishiya raised his hand. He didn't break eye contact with Niragi. The violet eyes were entirely unreadable, a vast, alien ocean of calculation and repressed instinct.

He brought his thumb to his mouth, parted his bruised lips, and licked the drop of blood off his skin.

He tasted the iron, the salt, the raw biological reality of the man sitting in front of him. A deeply weird, entirely instinctual assertion of presence. A silent acknowledgment of the violent intimacy they had just shared.

Niragi’s brain flatlined.

The circuitry that governed his rage, his survival instincts, and his fragile ego completely short-circuited. He stared at Chishiya’s mouth, at the faint smear of crimson left on the pale lower lip.

*If you require other uses... I suppose I'm pretty enough. Aren't I?*

Niragi’s breath hitched. The air in the room suddenly felt entirely devoid of oxygen. The throbbing pain in his arm was instantly eclipsed by a massive, rushing wave of heat that pooled low in his gut. He was exhausted, terrified, and highly volatile. He had a game to play in less than eight hours, a game where he might very well die. His body was entirely flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, and the twisted, defiant act of submission standing right in front of him triggered a raw, predatory hunger that bypassed all logic.

Niragi’s hand, still resting on Chishiya’s hip, suddenly tightened with crushing force.

Before Chishiya could react, Niragi’s other hand shot up, his fingers burying themselves deep into the soft, curly bleached hair at the back of Chishiya’s skull.

He yanked downward and forward in one violent, seamless motion.

Chishiya stumbled, his knees buckling under the sudden force. He crashed hard onto the floorboards right between Niragi’s spread legs, his hands slamming into the mattress on either side of Niragi’s thighs to catch his balance.

The impact jolted his concussed brain, sending a sharp spike of static across his vision, but the shock of the physical dominance overrode the pain.

Niragi leaned forward, his chest practically flush against Chishiya’s face. He didn't let go of the hair. He twisted his grip, forcing Chishiya to tilt his head back, exposing the pale column of his throat, forcing the bruised violet eyes to look directly up into his own dark, dilated pupils.

The air between them was electric, thick with the smell of iodine, sweat, and undeniable arousal.

"You think you can play games with me?" Niragi breathed, his voice a dark, jagged rasp that vibrated in Chishiya’s chest. The aggressive bravado was gone, replaced by a lethal, commanding intent.

Chishiya’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. He was entirely at Niragi’s mercy, pinned to the floor, his neck exposed. And God help him, the sheer, unadulterated dominance of it sent a thrill of dark electricity straight down his spine.

"You offered," Niragi whispered, his thumb pressing hard against the swollen bruise on Chishiya’s cheekbone, making him flinch. Niragi’s eyes tracked down, locking onto Chishiya’s bruised, parted lips. "You said you were useful. You said you were pretty enough."

Niragi pulled roughly on the hair, forcing Chishiya an inch closer. The heat radiating from Niragi’s body was suffocating.

"I need to enroll in a game this afternoon," Niragi stated, the words heavy and absolute, leaving no room for negotiation. "I need my head clear. I need to not be thinking about some arrogant little freak who licks my blood and looks at me like a puzzle he wants to take apart."

Chishiya swallowed hard, the movement of his throat highly visible under Niragi’s intense scrutiny. The clinical detachment had entirely shattered. He was hyper-aware of every point of contact, the heavy breathing, the terrifying, intoxicating danger of the man holding him.

"So," Niragi commanded, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl as his hand tightened further in the bleached curls, pushing Chishiya’s head down just a fraction. "Prove it.”

The silence that followed Niragi’s command was so absolute it made the ringing in Chishiya’s concussed skull flare into a high-pitched whine. He was still pinned to the floorboards, kneeling between Niragi’s spread thighs, his neck craned backward at an uncomfortable, straining angle.

Chishiya didn’t blink. He kept his violet eyes locked onto Niragi’s dark, dilated pupils. He was calculating the exact velocity of the situation. Niragi thought this was a display of dominance. A way to demean, to reduce Chishiya from an irritatingly articulate puzzle into something utilitarian and subservient. It was a classic, brutally transparent psychological defense mechanism. Niragi was overwhelmed by the intimacy of the medical care, terrified by the weird, electric tension caused by the blood-licking, and entirely consumed by the stress of his impending Spades game. He needed to reclaim the high ground the only way he knew how: by forcing someone else onto their knees.

But Niragi had made a critical miscalculation.

He assumed Chishiya shared his frantic, fragile relationship with masculinity. He assumed this act carried an inherent shame.

It didn't.

Chishiya shifted his weight slightly, adjusting his bruised kneecaps against the gritty, dust-covered floorboards. The movement was slow, deliberate, lacking any of the frantic, trembling hesitation Niragi was clearly waiting for.

Niragi’s breath hitched again, his jaw set so hard the muscles ticked under his skin. With his free hand, the one not anchored in Chishiya’s hair, he reached down. The harsh, metallic rasp of a heavy denim zipper being forcefully yanked down echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.

He pushed the denim and the fabric beneath it down just enough, his chest heaving with ragged, uneven breaths. He was trying to project a vibe of lethal, untouchable authority. The bored, violent king of the Borderlands demanding tribute.

Chishiya let his gaze drop. He looked, his violet, feline eyes narrowed and then, a slow, highly incredulous breath pushed past Chishiya’s split lips. The terrifying, suffocating tension that had gripped the room was replaced by a profound, almost comical sense of anticlimax. Chishiya looked back up. The icy, unreadable void in his violet eyes had cracked, giving way to a spark of genuine, offended amusement. He didn't pull away from the grip on his hair. Instead, he tilted his head just a fraction more, raising a single, pale eyebrow.

"Are you serious?" Chishiya asked. His voice was a dry, raspy whisper, completely devoid of fear.

Niragi’s face, already flushed with adrenaline, darkened significantly. The grip in Chishiya’s hair tightened, a sudden, defensive jerk. "What the fuck did you just say?"

"I asked if you were serious," Chishiya repeated, the corner of his bruised mouth twitching upward into a ghost of a smirk. "You threaten to cave my skull in with a pipe. You demand I prove my tactical usefulness. You ask me to satisfy you and calm your nerves. You act like you're going to tear me apart..." Chishiya let his eyes drop again, very deliberately, before bringing them back up to meet Niragi’s furious glare.

"...and you offer me this soft shrimp? Truly? Wouldn’t you at least have the courtesy of getting an erection before demanding my attention?"

Niragi froze. For a split second, his brain entirely failed to process the audacity of the insult. When it finally registered, the reaction was explosive.

"Shut the fuck up!" Niragi snarled, his voice cracking violently, completely losing the low, menacing register he had been trying to maintain. A deep, humiliating flush crept up his neck, turning his ears bright red. He tried to yank Chishiya’s head forward, to force the issue and shut him up, but his own posture was suddenly rigid with mortification. "It's the fucking adrenaline, you psychotic little prick! I haven't slept in two days, my arm is on fire, and I'm stressed! Just... shut your mouth and fucking do it!"

Chishiya let out a soft, breathy sound that was dangerously close to a laugh. It aggravated the throbbing in his jaw, but the sheer psychological victory was a potent painkiller. The big, terrifying monster of the Borderlands was currently stammering excuses about performance anxiety in a freezing, abandoned apartment.

Chishiya had entirely dismantled the power dynamic, flipped it upside down, and handed it back to Niragi in pieces.

"Oh, it's the adrenaline," Chishiya murmured, his tone dripping with mock sympathy. He didn't back down. He leaned into Niragi’s space, closing the physical distance until he could feel the frantic, uneven warmth of Niragi’s breath against his forehead. "I see. And here I thought you were supposed to be the master of your own biological responses. The great, untouchable Spades ally.”

"I swear to god," Niragi hissed, his eyes darting away, staring intensely at the peeling wallpaper over Chishiya's shoulder. He was trying to look anywhere but at the bruised, beautiful face looking up at him. "I'll kill you. I'll actually kill you. Don't fucking look at me."

Chishiya’s smirk widened, a dangerous, deeply confident expression that completely transformed his battered features. "Do you not want eye contact?" Chishiya teased softly, his voice dropping into a low, velvet purr that sent a visible shiver down Niragi’s arms. "That seems counterproductive. I thought the entire point of this exercise was to establish dominance. How can you assert your superiority if you're too embarrassed to look at me? I’ve been thought I have cock sucking eyes."

"I'm not embarrassed!" Niragi snapped, his gaze snapping back down, instantly colliding with Chishiya’s violet eyes. “Fuck off, fuck you and fuck your slutty eyes.”

It was a mistake. Chishiya’s eyes were magnetic, heavy with a dark, knowing amusement that completely stripped away Niragi’s defenses. Chishiya wasn't a victim. He wasn't a pawn. He was a highly active participant who found this entire unraveling absolutely fascinating.

"Prove it, then," Chishiya whispered. He didn't wait for permission. He didn't wait for Niragi to issue another hollow, trembling threat. Chishiya took control. He reached out, his pale, long-fingered hands resting lightly on the denim of Niragi’s thighs. He felt the instant, involuntary flinch of the muscles beneath the fabric.

Chishiya had soft hands, slender fingers. A med student knew how to use his hands well, and he took enough anatomy classes to do this correctly. He gave his shaft few strokes, trying to wake him up. His hands pressed on the veins, trying to rush the blood circulation, feeling him getting warmer, firmer and bigger in his palm.

Niragi was wired tight, a mess of conflicting fight-or-flight signals, trapped between the overwhelming urge to push Chishiya away and the paralyzing, addictive need to let him stay. Chishiya leaned forward. He despised mediocrity in all its forms. If he was going to engage in an act, any act, he was going to execute it with absolute, flawless precision.

Furthermore, he liked men. He found the raw, jagged edges of the male ego endlessly entertaining to navigate, and he found Niragi, with his violent outbursts, his desperate need for validation, and his current, flushed state of utter vulnerability deeply, irrationally intoxicating.

He began. He parted his lips, sliding the growing piece of meat inside. It tasted practically nothing, and smelled nothing. Niragi was oddly clean down there. Which was odd, Niragi didn’t look like a guy who’d have good hygiene — but he had. Perhaps he was just washing his dick, Chishiya thought, mindlessly moving his head up and down, wrapping his tongue around to feel any taste.

Niragi’s reaction was violent. His breath caught in his throat with a sharp, ragged gasp. The hand tangled in Chishiya’s hair, which had been gripping the roots with aggressive intent, suddenly lost all of its menacing rigidity. The fingers spasmed, curling tightly into the bleached curls not to push or pull, but to anchor himself, as if the floor beneath the mattress had suddenly dropped away.

Chishiya worked with a slow, agonizingly deliberate rhythm. He didn't rush. He used the contrast of the freezing ambient temperature against the overwhelming heat of his own mouth, mapping the sensory feedback with surgical focus. Every time Niragi tried to pull away, to turn his head and escape the intense psychological weight of the act, Chishiya’s hands would tighten marginally on his thighs, grounding him, holding him captive in his own unraveling.

It was a masterclass in psychological warfare masquerading as submission.

Chishiya kept his eyes open. He weaponized his gaze, staring up through his pale lashes, watching the exact moment Niragi’s tough-guy facade shattered into a million irreparable pieces. Niragi was falling apart. The tough, untouchable aura was gone. His head fell back against the wall, a choked, entirely helpless sound tearing its way out of his throat. His free hand reached down, his blunt, bruised fingers blindly grasping at Chishiya’s hoodie, twisting the fabric into a tight fist just to have something to hold onto.

Chishiya took a deep, visceral pride in it. His jaw ached terribly, the bruised muscle protesting the repetitive motion, but he pushed the pain into a separate mental compartment. He was entirely focused on the erratic, jumping pulse in Niragi’s femoral artery beneath his fingertips. He was charting the collapse of a tyrant. He altered the pressure, slowing down just when Niragi’s hips snapped forward, silently denying him the quick, easy release he was desperately chasing.

"Fuck," Niragi choked out, the word fracturing into a breathless, desperate static. "Chishiya—fuck, stop—don't stop, just—"

He couldn't even form a coherent threat anymore. His vocabulary had been reduced to jagged exhales and involuntary, pleading stammers. Chishiya’s eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. He didn't stop. He doubled down, ensuring that Niragi was stripped entirely of his aggressive armor, ensuring that he felt every single agonizing, brilliant second of the care he was being given. Chishiya was meticulous. He took care of him with a thoroughness that bordered on devotion, entirely at odds with the violent reality of their meeting. Deeper and deeper, as long as Niragi could reach.

The tension in the room wound tighter and tighter, a physical wire pulled taut between them until it began to sing. Niragi’s fingers were white-knuckled in Chishiya’s hair, his other hand gripping the white hoodie so tightly the seams threatened to tear. His breathing was a harsh, rhythmic rasp that echoed off the peeling wallpaper. He was entirely consumed, completely at the mercy of the bruised, bleached boy kneeling on the filthy floor.

And then, the wire snapped.

Niragi’s entire body went rigid. A sharp, high, and entirely unguarded sound tore out of his chest, echoing loudly in the cold morning air. His hips jerked forward, his thighs trembling violently against Chishiya’s hands as the tension finally broke, cascading through his system in a sudden, overwhelming flood of his release.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his head dropping forward as he struggled to drag oxygen back into his burning lungs. For a long, heavy moment, the only sound in the apartment was the harsh, ragged cadence of Niragi’s breathing. Slowly, deliberately, Chishiya pulled back.

He didn't scramble away. He didn't look down in shame. He remained exactly where he was, resting back on his heels. He raised the back of his pale, bruised hand and calmly wiped the corner of his mouth. Sour, wasn’t it? Niragi had a terrible diet from what it tasted like. Fucking battery acid. Yet, Chishiya didn’t reach out for water to clear his mouth.

Niragi slowly opened his eyes. He looked wrecked. The violent energy that usually propelled him was entirely depleted, leaving him looking hollowed out, exhausted, and terrifyingly vulnerable. He looked down at Chishiya. Chishiya was already looking at him. The violet eyes were calm, analytical, and completely devoid of judgment. He reached up, casually adjusting the collar of his oversized white hoodie, smoothing out the fabric where Niragi had nearly torn it.

"Better?" Chishiya asked, his voice a soft, raspy whisper that cut through the silence like a knife.

Niragi couldn't speak. He stared at the boy sitting on his floor. He had wanted to break him. He had wanted to use him, to turn him into a tool, a punchline. Instead, Chishiya had crawled into his bed, stitched up his arm, mocked his erection, and then proceeded to dismantle him so completely that Niragi didn't know which way was up anymore.

It was terrifying. It was sick. It was the most toxic, dangerous dynamic Niragi had ever encountered.

He looked at the calm, bruised face, the pale hair, the cold, knowing eyes. Niragi knew, with absolute, horrifying certainty, that if Chishiya walked out that door right now, he would follow him. He was already addicted to the poison.

Niragi leaned back against the wall, his chest still heaving, and ran a shaking hand over his face.

"You're a fucking nightmare," Niragi whispered into the quiet room.

Chishiya’s lips curved into a faint smile.

"I look forward to our partnership," Chishiya replied. “Perhaps I could help you to change your diet for the better. If you keep wanting me to swallow, you need to add a pineapple or two in your plate.”

“I’ve never asked you to fucking swallow—” Niragi zipped himself up, letting out a deep, tired breath. “You’re hell.”