"don't 'i don't know' me— i got eyes, man." which are locked dead-on the target across the street: some punk who, as far as they can tell, is buried in more trouble than he knows what to do with. finding out exactly how deep is the whole reason kaito and @giriure are parked on this corner in the first place... a fact kaito's brought up more than once in the last hour, as if repeating it enough will make the guy do something incriminating on command. this same hour's also looked less like a stakeout and more like the two of them trading increasingly ridiculous theories about him just to kill time, with mana mostly occupied trying to keep kaito's hand off the door handle every time their mark so much as breathed wrong.

it hasn't been going great. kaito knows he's a lot to deal with on a stakeout. yagami's better equipped for this side of things. patron saint of patience, all that. he's made peace with it.

same old kamurochō bullshit.

she's next to him, all sinuous grace and dangerous spark even now, sweat glistening on their skin. they wipe it off with a huff, slide him a look. eyes him up and down, taking her sweet time about it. and then: "you know, i must admit, considering what they say about you, i thought you'd be... taller."

"loved, am i?" he leans into her touch. she's warm... so warm. "after all this time, i fear i've become rather out of practice accepting such things." his eyes close. "it's... strange." a swallow. "i spent so many years teaching myself not to want it. not because i believed myself incapable of being loved, perhaps... but because it seemed a luxury. one i had neither the time nor right to indulge." his thumb continues to stroke the back of their hand. the words come easier than they ought to. one confession gives way to another; old wants and older sorrows alike unspool from the depths of his heart beneath their tender hands. "it was simpler to devote myself wholly to the work before me. simpler to accept that whatever became of me in the end was of little consequence, so long as everyone else reached tomorrow." his voice begins to waver. "i spent years convincing myself i had made peace with that. that if i was remembered, it would be enough. that if i could help bring about a better future, nothing more was required."

i believed it, too.

oh, they cannot be serious. "absolutely not." he turns over, burying himself further in his blankets with a sleepy grimace. @giriure's hands are back on him. shaking him. relentlessly so. he groans, muffled by the pillow. "you are a menace." another shake. "an actual menace. historians will study you one day as a cautionary tale regarding unchecked impulse control." he cracks open an eye anyway, and with it comes immediate regret. mana is already dressed for travel, bag packed, visibly excited in the most concerning way possible. this sort of determination has never once in history meant anything good for him personally.

they don’t feel like leaning in for it— smile stretching and hand slinking out to pull the lighter closer, all while holding onto his hand to do it. then let’s go like it’s nothing. turns sideways just enough to blow out the first drag in a direction anywhere but at him, “thanks.”

can see him out the corner of her eye reaching for the box that isn’t where it should be, hidden behind her back, and starts to shake her head. “mm–mm, i‘ll be nice,” another pull, inhales the smoke and nicotine as deep as she can hold it. pulls it back ‘twixt two fingers, and reaches up, offering it, right before him. index and middle pressing it to the seam of his lips cloyingly, “here.”

mana is a bloodthirsty hound, and he’s learned, too well, how precisely her and her monstrous needs align with the parts of him that answer before he can stop them. an inevitability— a visceral exposure, undeniable, sinking in with the certainty of teeth that don’t need to tear to be understood. her touch finds him. travels from hand to wrist, the warmth of her skin seeping through his.

the lighter burns between them. they meet eyes over the flame, and it catches red, oranges, and fluorescent greens off their faces. a blur of neon, turning the surrounding city into nothing more than color, kamurochō less a place now than a smear of light. yagami’s heart races in the moment, and he’s sure she feels it too, quickening beneath the pads of her fingertips. but it ends as quickly as it began, or so he thinks... she thanks him, lets him go, and he steps back when she does. he chews on words he doesn’t articulate, and finds no clear distinction between not knowing how to say them and not wanting them to exist in spoken form at all.

instead, he reaches for his own vice. dipping his hands into his pockets, automatic, thoughtless, he searches through leather, denim, the worn familiarity of himself, until he realizes what he’s looking for isn't there but missing.

better yet, stolen. yagami huffs and rolls his eyes, following the outline of his culprit’s hand tucked behind their back, the glimpse of a pack of seven stars peeking through. of course. there’s no chance to ask for it back because something else intercepts. it is only after this that he becomes aware of the cigarette at his mouth. the taste of a filter wet with spit that’s not his own. it leaves him heady, coaxing him open in spite of himself. lips part and close around the offered cigarette— even if it was his to begin with— and the inhale folds into mana, his hand finding theirs, closing over it as he draws her closer.

closer than necessary, pressed flush against him. his other hand follows, sliding behind the small of her back, fingers brushing the fabric of her jacket, then knuckles and cardboard, then lingering just a beat too long. he doesn’t take it. not yet. he keeps them there. his pulse picks up again; he puts on teasing indifference.