#kitsunezai

Filing down his claws was painstaking, tedious work that required a great deal of patience. That was precisely why Dazai only ever bothered with it when there was something to gain—like getting under the skin of a certain dwarf.

At his master’s feet, Dazai dug his claws into the wooden desk again, lazily, without any real pattern. Press, scratch, and start over.

From there, he could feel Chuuya’s patience unraveling, in the way his pen grated against the paper. The redhead was not someone meant to be confined within four walls and buried under mountains of paperwork—he was made for action. Fire, a raging ocean, a storm. Nakahara Chuuya was a tempest, and Dazai longed to make it break.

His lips curled into a victorious smirk when the pen snapped under Chuuya’s grip.

Chuuya stood, muttered something in French—too low for that demonic tongue of his to stir anything in Dazai—and walked around the desk.

He didn’t explode. Didn’t kick him, didn’t grab his hair with intent to hurt. He simply stood there, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

“Master?” Dazai asked softly, drawing out the word with near boredom.

The crease between Chuuya’s brows deepened. Dazai wetted his lips, imagining smoothing it away.

That would be delightful. The human’s reaction, of course.

To his surprise, Chuuya crouched down and gently took hold of his wrist—not tight, not forceful.

Their gazes met, and, confused, Dazai thought he caught a question in the stormy blue of his eyes.

Carefully, Chuuya brushed his knuckles. The touch of leather was strange. Not unpleasant—perhaps even nice, if Dazai allowed himself to feel such things.

“You’re making a mess,” Chuuya said, a trace of exasperated fondness coloring his voice. “Your cuticles are a disaster, and look at these claws. May I?”

“May you?”

A near-playful grin tugged at Chuuya’s lips. Dazai had the sudden urge to bite it clean off.

“Will you let me take care of you?”

Oh.

Dazai looked down, wrinkling his nose. His claws were fine. Yes, they broke through his skin, hurt him—but he was used to it. It wasn’t worth fixing, not even worth the effort of weaving an illusion.

When he looked up again, his heart dropped.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Chuuya leaned in as if to press a kiss to his fingers. He didn’t. He only sighed and shook his head, a faint blush softening the scatter of freckles across his face.

Why?

beleaguered :3

His golden eyes left him feeling hemmed in—almost beleaguered. It was hard to focus on the meeting unfolding in front of him with the kitsune’s warm, suffocating presence beneath the table. Sharp claws traced uneven patterns along the inside of his thigh, the weight of his arm keeping him anchored, while the casual brush of his tails sent shivers up his spine.

He gripped his pen tightly and forced himself to follow Ace’s monologue—he wasn’t even sure what the man was complaining about this time, but however unlikely, it might be important.

He felt it more than saw it—the corner of his mouth lifting. The touch stopped, and before he could question his intentions, the kitsune shifted, resting his head on his lap, curling an arm around his leg. A soft sound, strained at first and then gentler, filled the space.

The silence that followed was absolute. It tore through the room and seized everyone’s attention.

The kitsune was purring.

Chuuya couldn’t breathe. Heat burned across his cheeks, his head spinning. The sound of his voice seeped into him, dulling his senses, unraveling the tension in his body. He was being manipulated—and Chuuya wanted nothing more than to bare his teeth.

He trembled, a broken gasp slipping from his lips. He shot to his feet, the chair crashing to the floor behind him—

Below him, nine white tails fanned out like a crown at his feet. Dazai wore a small, almost playful smile, his darkened golden eyes trailing slowly over his body.

Chuuya clenched his jaw.

“Boss?”

“Leave us,” he ordered.

“But—”

Dazai tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, long lashes lifting.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“My master is tense.”

Dazai leaned in, resting a clawed hand on his knee.

“But I can help you relax.”

“I know what you’re trying. It won’t work.”

“We’ll see.”

He approaches the summit without haste when he once ran up the beaten path through the torii gate and up the steps to Dazai’s shrine. The day they had met it was already in disrepair: weeds growing through the cracks of the wood flooring and the paint peeling from the walls. Unknown holes caused a persistent draft that a haori would then find itself draped across his shoulders, still warm and with an earthy scent.

What remains today is the rubble at his feet and the memory that someone once lived here. His knees grow weak and they feel like they’re about to give out on him when he tries to take another step forward inside, so he sits on the steps overlooking the shrine grounds where a skeletal tree waves its bony branches at him in the breeze.

Where he was once welcome with open arms and a teasing, needling comment that he couldn’t stay away from Dazai for long is now hostile and makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He no longer belongs here. No one, no thing does. Even the evening crickets are gone. It’s too early for the animals to hibernate, and yet he can hear himself think.

The hydrangeas he picked along the way fall to the ground. Pale purple petals pool around his feet and the wind whisks them away.

He’s really gone.

His throat tightens. This day came sooner than he thought it would, but it also happened to the wrong person. Dazai was supposed to be the one saying goodbye because although their love felt eternal, everything crumbled under Chuuya’s mortality—something he tried hard not to think about and continued to celebrate each passing birthday with a sunny smile knowing he still had so much time left.

It takes a while to will himself to his feet and cross the grounds to the edge of the mountain. The edge of the world. The forests beyond are as verdant and lush as they always are and equally lifeless this time. This place once called home is now a frozen fracture that doesn’t belong.

With a feather-light touch, the kitsune traced the curve of the human’s nose, slightly crooked, his lips parted, an invitation to sin, and the contour of his face.

His heart swelled when the redhead’s eyelids fluttered and a sound, half growl, half groan, slipped from his lips. The human curled closer, and Dazai couldn’t help but marvel at his presence. As he rested there beside him—as if Dazai were worthy of such an honor—the kitsune allowed himself the indulgence of studying him up close.

Ethereal. Perhaps, just perhaps, that was the most fitting word to describe him. Hair like fire, eyes like the ocean, freckles scattered across his cheeks like stars. Carefully, Dazai leaned in, wrapping the human in his tails, and when he caught a glimpse of that hazy blue gaze, his heart thundered against his ribs, and something tight coiled low in his belly.

Their lips did not meet—Dazai bit his nose instead.

“What the hell is wrong with you, you mangy fox!? I’ll gut you!”

Dazai twisted on top of the branch he was perched on. The forest held its breath in an expectant silence, while the kitsune played with fire.

He gulped, feeling his throat suddenly dry, and his vision sharpened, not missing a single detail of what was unfolding below.

The oni—there was no doubt, the stench was unmistakable, and the horns left no room for confusion—was drawing closer, about to fall into the trap. But Dazai couldn’t move, let alone invoke his magic. His eyes remained locked on the exposed muscles of the creature. The tattoos that marked his skin called to Dazai like a moth to flame, and he wondered, digging his claws into the bark and leaning toward the edge, if he could have a little more fun before devouring him.

The oni lifted his head, his misty blue eyes narrowing into two sharp slits, a storm of torment contained within them.

"I’ve caught you."

Dazai’s lips curled into an inviting smile before he snapped his fingers.

"Are you sure?"

Hopefully this gets the fingies typing! Your word is: Flatline

The little soul gem cut through the darkness—glowing almost too bright for him to withstand—a dreadful guiding light to reclaiming what had once been his and now fell into the hands (no, mouth) of what should be his enemy.

He chased after it. Trampled flowers. Sent fireflies scattering. Chuuya stuck his tongue out with the gem on it, a taunt for Dazai to come and get it if he dared.

To take back what he willingly surrendered under the promise of being liberated from this eternal life once and for all.

Yōkai made no promises. Certainly not beneficial ones.

If he could not tempt even an oni to absorb his power and kill him, then he had no choice but to try and get rid of his soul himself. Dazai stumbled and almost fell as he desperately reached for it—the only light he had in this world—and it was gone in an instant, licked over and seized between fangs. One bite would shatter it and him into a thousand pieces for every year on this earth he had lived.

He staggered and fell to his knees, clutching his chest over his heart where a void had opened up. It slowed down, sped up, skipped a beat, paused for a few. All signs it was about to give out and flatline.

His breathing grew uneven.

He hadn’t felt anything since being separated from his soul, and now he felt everything all at once assaulting his mind and body as Chuuya played with his soul like a toy, grazing his teeth along it and holding it up with two fingers to admire its blue halo illuminating the earth around them, his sly smirk, and Dazai’s own panicked expression.