#fukushi

They’ve always met after dark. But it’s afternoon, now, the clouds dark with rain as cold wind yanks at Fukushi’s hair. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, pads up the subway station stairs. Piercings’s waiting at the top, his hair tied back without a care, wearing sweats and a hoodie and bags beneath his eyes. He looks younger, without his mask on, and discomfort juts briefly down Fukushi’s spine. ‘You good,’ Fukushi says, mostly for any onlookers, anyone listening in. Piercings shrugs. ‘D’ya care?’

‘You don’t do that,’ Fukushi snarls, ‘You don’t fucking do that.’ ‘Do what,’ Niragi laughs, grins wide, and Fukushi reaches and locks his fingers in Niragi’s hair. ‘Get jealous,’ Fukushi hisses, ‘Shut me out and then get fucking jealous.’ Niragi bares his teeth. This is wrong—this is the part where he disappears, where he finds some other drug dealer, where he leaves to find some anonymous body who wants nothing from him but his skin. Fukushi stares like he knows that. There’s a cut through one of his eyebrows and blood beads down out of it and his lips are all chewed up and he shakes his head, snarls, and punches Niragi in the stomach.