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The human world has its delights, but it takes demons and degenerates to really set the city aflame.
Shu’s boots land lightly against the dirt road that brings him to the entrance of Traitor’s Turnpike, Vox’s latest lair and expanse of land that he’s brought under his control in this era. They’d met so many lifetimes ago, back before the Tokugawa set their sights on the demon’s compound, but it is nice to see his old friend’s treasures and ties slowly reclaim their former glory.
Creaky, enchanted gates swing open with no time to spare. Some sleek, neon purple supercar with a license plate reading PIYOCHN streaks past Shu. It kicks up a wind in its wake that carries his long hair past his shoulders, beckoning him further in. The flashiness of the turn pulls a laugh from his lips that carries into the darkness of the night.
Well, there are some things in this age that they couldn’t dream of so long ago—like fast cars, winding obstacle courses, and a race that could make even their ancient hearts beat faster.
Turns out that it’s precisely those things that keep Shu coming back for more.
When he walks the short distance to the welcome reception, the party’s already in full swing. A glass of sparkling something gets placed in his hand before he can even think to deny it, but he knows a few drivers need a little something to take the edge off before they get in their vehicles. Enough liquid courage to get them in the seat, but not enough to affect their drive time–at least, not in a way that decreases their performance. Competitors are already milling about—Shu manages a nod of acknowledgement when he locks eyes with Uki across the banquet table of food—but it’s not long before the host himself approaches.
“Well well, if it isn’t Mr. Shubert Yamino himself.” Vox’s voice is warm as he opens both arms to him, luxurious as ever in a tailored white suit and hands full of glittering rings.
Shu laughs at the nickname as he welcomes the lord’s embrace for a moment before nodding appreciatively in return. “Nice of the demon of the hour to make time for me.”
“For you? Oh, my friend, we both know that we have nothing but time.” Vox winks. Immortals certainly had their fun, knowing that they could stretch the nature of the past and the future like clay in their waiting fingers. “Though I didn’t hear you come in—no nasty skeleton carriage on the track today?”
“I think the disembodied horned horse head scared Ike too bad last time we raced,” Shu says so thoughtfully, his perfect cadence and tone to indicate concern for a friend—betrayed only by the slight upward curve of his lips. “So I’ll just borrow one of your cars today, Vox.”
A hearty laugh erupts out of Vox’s chest before he shrugs his shoulders. “Then by all means, help yourself—I look forward to seeing what enchantment you use to light it up today. Do see if you’ll even be willing to leave the talisman with me after, won’t you?”
“We’ll see,” Shu says, even though they both know he’ll do no such thing.
“Is that Shu? Shu!!” Another voice breaks through like a ray of sunshine in the dead of night, all out of place and yet warm all the same. “Oh—hey Vox!”
“I do think this is where I’m meant to be offended.” Vox mumbles. “The man just made me an afterthought at my own party.”
Though Shu didn’t have room or time to offer any words of comfort, suddenly stampeded in a hug by all 178 centimeters of Luca Kaneshiro as he was. The mafioso envelopes him in the familiar cloud of warmth; where Shu’s face is suddenly planted in his fur coat, he can’t ignore how it’s laced with the faint scent of sun and cologne with notes of gunpowder.
It isn’t as though Shu picks favorite humans. That path leads down its own bumpy road of heartache. But if he were to…
“What were we talking about?” Luca asks even as he pulls back, immediately going to clap Vox on the shoulder in his overly familiar way, not realizing many more mortals had lost limbs for daring to be so casual with the demon. He even instantly invites himself to the conversation. “I missed it.”
“Just that Shu’s decided to use one of my cars for the race tonight,” Vox supplies easily.
Confusion sweeps over Luca’s gaze before his mouth settles in a faint pout. “Huh? You could’ve asked me if you needed one, Shu. I would’ve had one of my guys bring up one of ours.”
“And have it combust on me at the starting line?” Shu raises one brow in challenge.
The corner of Luca’s mouth twitches. “Would I do that?”
A laugh of disbelief slips past Shu’s lips. “You nearly blew up Uki last week!”
Luca’s own boyish delight mirrors his. “Hey, hey, it all turned out okay!”
Suddenly, intruding within both of their thoughts, a soft, dulcet voice full of spite: Fucking bitch.
Which, unfortunately, only prompts the two of them to crack up worse, their amusement mingling in the air and crackling through the night with its own energy.
Vox spares glances between the both of them before exhaling in his own laugh of disbelief, turning on his heel to attend to the rest of the guests. “Until race time, gentlemen.”
“Whoa, leaving so soon, Vox?” Luca calls after him.
“Oh, you know, the busy work of a host,” he says over his shoulder, something twinkling in his gaze. “I’ll leave you two be—why not go pick out a vehicle? Shu, do make sure Luca’s hands don’t wander anywhere you don’t want them to be.”
The pair is left behind, Luca’s head tilting to the side in the same moment that Shu’s eyes narrow.
“What do you think he meant by that?” Luca asks, speaking only in shades of confusion.
Shu sighs before shrugging his shoulders, letting his jacket further droop off his arms.
“Oh, who knows?” he lies, as easy as breathing.
Everyone else’s vehicles are the culmination of hard work and fine tuning. Doppio stands outside the bright purple smudge that nearly clipped Shu on the way in, gesturing excitedly to Ver and Hex as he points out all the features that make it uniquely superior for cut of the edge racing and how D stands for Doppio Driftscythe . As their paths cross, Ver and Shu lock eyes and the soul prophet waves, his fingertips alight with beckoning flames and Shu can only manage a barely polite smile in return.
“Oh, that one’s mine, Shu!” Luca interrupts loudly and proudly, as Lucas are wont to do, bumping shoulders with Shu as he points out a sleek white car that stands at the ready for its master. It’s all gorgeous angles and sturdy frame, embellished with gold, the same portrait of strength as its driver. “You haven’t seen this one yet—I just got it in new this week so I could beat you.”
“Beat me?” Shu feigns surprise.
As if he hasn’t been named the victor for the past 3 races.
“Yeah!!” Luca only answers emphatically. “You!”
“Hmmm…” Shu tilts his head thoughtfully before offering up, “Are you sure it’s not Ike that you want to beat so badly?”
Given that there was a very funny case of mistaken identity in the past—
“No way!” Luca shakes his head immediately, dispelling the thought. In the next second, his gloved fingers find Shu’s wrist and circle around it, leather against pulse. “You’re the one I wanna catch up to, Shu. Just you wait.”
Ignoring the little suffocating feeling in his chest, Shu laughs. He brings up his hand where they’re connected. “Well… you caught me at least for now, you know. Is there something you wanna do with me?”
The liquid gold of Luca’s eyes shimmers with promise and his grin is the only thing Shu could see. There are so many humans in the world. There are so many humans in the world. And yet, this one—this singular one— possesses an energy and a charisma that even a sorcerer can’t quite manage to puzzle out. It’s enticing, addicting, and only makes Shu want to lean in closer to capture lightning in a bottle. In that second, he swears that Luca leans in, too.
An explosion cuts through the chatter. In one second Shu was face to face with Luca, in the next he’s pulled behind him, left peering over the white fur of his coat to identify the source of the noise.
From the smoke an irritated bundle of blue and much taller, laughing head of dark hair emerge. “What the hell did you even give me to put in my car?! That was sabotage! Can’t even win on your own supernatural merits, damn Zotto, you stoop so fuckin’ low, man.”
“It was a speed enhancer, hey!” Ren grins good-naturedly even as he tries to helpfully dust some ash off of Kyo’s shoulder. “I was trying to help—guess your machines here just aren’t as compatible as I thought.”
“Oh, so now this is a dig on how we’re some kinda inferior life force? Okay, reindeer antler lookin’ ass—”
“Luca?” Shu uses his free hand to poke at the other’s shoulder, looking up at him. “You weren’t trying to protect me from alien reindeer juice explosion, were you?”
A warm pink dashes up the expanse of Luca’s neck just as he flounders for an answer, pulling his hand away from Shu’s wrist as he takes a few steps back. Shu tells himself he doesn’t miss the warmth or the touch.
“N-No way!” Luca insists. “That wouldn’t be a very evil or mean thing to do and I’m—you know!”
Shu watches the way that Luca scrubs at his own face, as if that’ll get the blush to disappear off his cheeks. His nose scrunches cutely and his brows furrow in some confusing combination of embarrassment and frustration both.
“Oh yeah,” Shu agrees, if only for his pride. “So mean and evil.”
Luca nods resolutely, the most mean and evil golden retriever of a man there ever was or would be.
Looking to give him an out, Shu makes a gesture toward Ren’s motorcycle as they walk by it, an appropriately otherworldly looking vehicle with the way that it glows this fluorescent green color and almost seems to hover off the ground. “Rumor has it that Zotto’s an entire alien—like multiple galaxies away kind of alien. And a prince.”
“An alien?” Luca echoes, just a little too loudly, just like how he turns his head to find Ren in the crowd a little too fast. Though that’s the straightforward nature that Shu likes so much about him.
“Uh-huh,” he hums in response, mouth curling up at the edge.
It’s always fun, letting the tendrils of the supernatural finally slide in front of the human participants of the races. A fair number of them have their own abilities—the Student Council kids with their powers, even Kyo with his affinity for the moon—but as far as he knows, Luca is entirely human. Charismatic, powerful, and magnanimous maybe, but still terribly mortal.
Most people in these races are already a bit touched in the head if they’re participating in what many would call a death trap, which means that the idea of something outside their control isn’t too far out of their norm, but sometimes they get cowards—the limits of their imagination stalling out their legacies before they even get in the driver’s seat. Shu has a feeling he already knows which Luca will be, but he still asks: “What do you think? That we might not be alone in the universe?”
“Well the world’s always leaning a little bit toward chaos, right? Bit by bit,” Luca laughs in the same breath that he talks about something heady like entropy theory.
“And I’m sure you’re just helping that chaos along—doing the universe a favor so it doesn’t have to work so hard.”
“Right, you get it, Shu!” Luca seems delighted, but still has the audacity to continue. “So that’s why I think you’ve always made it easier to believe.”
“Huh—me? Believe in what?”
“Oh, you know!” Luca declares even though Shu certainly doesn’t. He tilts his head to get a better look at him, blonde hair catching against the moonlight and lamps illuminating the path. Shu wonders what it would be like to run his fingers through it. You know, for chaotic science. “Since I know you, it makes it easier to believe in magic and chaos and all that stuff that makes life more interesting.”
As every second passes, Shu can’t help but feel himself teetering closer and closer to a certain dangerous road. He doesn’t pick favorites, he doesn’t—
When he finally finds his voice again, he laughs. He smiles.
“You know what, Luca? I could say the same thing about you.”
“Hmm, this’ll do.” Shu’s fingertips trail over the hood of a black car in Vox’s garage, beautiful in its simplicity. His hands follow the curves and ridges of the vehicle, reading some of its past off of its exterior—the well-loved, red-rimmed wheels, the dark tinted windows, the aura reminiscent of a knife’s edge. A car that is meant to be a shadow, but tonight, Shu would make it slip through the darkness into the lead, ahead of even the light of the sun.
Luca’s face pinches immaturely. “You think you can beat me in this, Shu…? Come on, at least pick something more impressive! What about that crazy skeleton thing that you had last time? Didn’t it scream-cackle whenever you floored it?”
Shu shakes his head sadly. “Ike.”
“Haha, oh yeah, that was funny.”
Shu doesn’t push away the urge to roll his eyes even as a grin settles across his lips. Letting himself sit against the hood of the car, he tilts his chin up defiantly to Luca. “You think you can win against me so easily? How about we bet on it then?”
“You’re up for gambling now, Shu?” Luca’s surprise is clear, but Shu supposes he can’t blame him. He didn’t even bet candy in their last game of Blackjack with the boys.
“Let’s just say I like my odds,” he says the words languidly, even knowing that they’ll ignite Luca’s competitive spirit more than anything else. “So, what do you say? What are you wagering?”
“I win, you make me the president.”
“President of what?”
Luca pauses.
“Well I know what I want,” Shu interrupts him before the fate of the entire nation gets put into the hands of their resident pogman. “I win, you give me your new car. The one you had designed just to beat me.”
“Wh—hey!” Luca protests. “That’s not fair, I don’t even want Vox’s car!”
“I didn’t say that you had to,” Shu points out helpfully, even as his palms rest behind him, pressing against the steel of the car. He lets the energy from his fingertips dance into the surface below, permeating. “You can ask for whatever you want. I just wouldn’t get your hopes up. Or do, I guess, I’m not the boss of you.”
Luca let the suggestion rattle around in his skull for a few seconds before he suddenly straightens up, fingers snapping in realization. “Then I’ll be the boss of you!”
Shu pauses. “Huh?”
“Yeah! I win, then for a day, I get to be your boss.”
Expression turning wry, Shu already feels a slight wrinkle in his pride. Truly, there aren't a great many things that get under his skin—but being told what to do? And being told consistently especially if it goes against what he’d like to do, when he knows that Luca would capitalize on exactly everything that would irritate him…
“An hour.”
“Nope. I had to import that car from overseas.” Luca’s grin sharpens. “Are you feeling nervous, Shu? You could always call it off if you’re that worried about losing.”
“Hmph.” Shu lets his sorcery flow out from his palms with only more strength before sitting up, extending his right hand out to Luca. “You have yourself a bet.”
Luca meets him readily, palm sliding against Shu’s.
In that same second, Shu finishes the silent incantation he’d been casting, flames leaking from the underbody of the car, casting Luca’s surprise in shades of vivid purple and pink. His curse wraps around the car itself, power thrumming through its frame, almost making it creak under the weight of its own potential. A laugh escapes Shu’s mouth, delighted and spiteful.
“Sorry Luca,” he says. “I’m not nice enough to let you call it off.”
In a flash, Luca’s eyes only light up with eagerness at the challenge. His gaping mouth finds the shape of a grin, ready to face against his own personal goliath.
“Like I’d ever let you! Come on, Shu, show me what you’ve got.”
Vox taps on the window of his—now Shu’s—car as it joins the starting line-up with the rest of the racers.
Shu rolls down the window and his mouth manages both a smile and denial in the same breath: “No, Vox.”
“Oh come on now, you didn’t even know what I was going to ask. Uki’s the psychic.”
“Okay, then ask.”
“All I mean to say is that when you leave the premises today, if it just so happens to slip your mind to return my car back to its previous form, then I would hardly be displeased , in fact I would even say that—”
Shu presses the button to roll the window back up. In the increasingly smaller space between them, he only says again: “Nope.”
Part of the reason for his denial is that he never quite knows what Vox would be capable of with just a little bit more sorcery on his side.
The rest of the reason is that Shu doesn’t want to be so quick to explain that it’d be a miracle if this car frame was left standing by the time his magic finishes running its course through it.
Well, Vox won’t mind. Probably.
Traitor’s Turnpike could perhaps be called the race of the century—if it weren’t a near monthly event. Whenever it struck Vox’s fancy, a new slew of invitations would be sent out to racers across the city and beyond, somehow finding their way to the hands of prior contestants without fail. It’s how Shu had managed to get the call even though he’d traveled far out of the country. Every now and then, an extra invitation would be slid in, which is how Shu had brought Uki along so many months ago, and Ren had one day shown up with Kyo and his loud mouth.
As for the actual requirements of the race itself, Vox had wanted to avoid the cliche and yet there was no better way to say it: the only rule of Traitor’s Turnpike was that there were no rules.
A course would be provided, usually with some wild enchantment of bloody waterfalls, stars that fell to the earth, or roads with a mind of their own, and all contestants could do as they pleased to get ahead of their opponents. Their calling cards would become small earpieces so that they could still engage in the fine art of trash-talking. (Even if Kyo and Uki had yet to claim a crown for any actual racing, they were nigh unbeatable in the verbal bouts. It’s probably why they kept coming.)
Of course, it was hard for most racers to manage some fancy trick in the same breath that they were dodging a mechanical gorilla the size of a skyscraper, which meant that some advantages were evened out.
Some.
Shu’s car leads at the head of the pack in the starting line-up, as is his right after winning the last race. Ren’s motorcycle hovers gently to the side of him, and Luca’s convertible gleams in the moonlight further down. Their number continues after that: Doppio, Ver, Kyo, Uki, so on and so forth.
His earpiece crackles, and Ike’s voice is a welcome balm, levity even against the tension in the air. “Oh thank god you swapped cars, Shu.”
“I can curse the car a little more if you want, Ike, make it a little more bone-y,” Shu chirps back. Luca and Vox laugh in the background, probably for different reasons. Boney.
“That’s okay!” Ike insists. “I already feel my heart about to leap out of my throat, I don’t need any more anxiety!”
Their chorus of laughs come, before the lights overhead begin to shift. Shu’s hand grips on the wheel. The crowd’s cheers swell. Almost, it’s almost—
“Guys, pause.”
The immediacy of everyone’s variation of ‘Fuck you, Luca’ makes Shu laugh, and he swears that he and Luca steal a glance at each other right before the countdown starts.
Three. Two. One—
The screech of tires sound like a song, and the crescendo of engines harmonize in their freedom. Shu’s heart leaps into his throat as he lurches forward, commanding the road like the maestro of them all, tearing ahead and away.
Vox outdid himself with this course, Shu thinks—even though he’d personally opted for less skeletons this time around, it seems that Vox leaned fully into it. Their course is a Mammoth’s Graveyard, gargantuan in size and yet somehow undetectable to all humans living in the city just an hour away. In the corner of his eye, Shu watches Ren glide up the ribcage, using the spiral to gain momentum and squeeze out ahead. Despite what Kyo had said earlier, the princeling really does have some mastery of racing.
Ghouls and other specters seem to rise from the ground, and he can hear Ike’s spluttering in the headpiece, along with Vox’s offer for comfort. With a small laugh to himself, he chooses to ignore it, instead working on squeezing through that turn up ahead and seeing if he can use the tailbone as a launching point—a gasp for air and then:
Freefall.
Everyone is so small down below.
Shu remembers seclusion. He remembers waiting, watching, waiting and watching, and contentment. It’s just funny—when you look back and realize contentment isn’t living. Contentment isn’t your heart about to break free from the confines of your chest. Contentment isn’t enough, when there can be blinding lights and blazing smiles and people who make waiting feel stupid .
Vox’s car wouldn’t have survived this landing before, but the propulsion of flames softens the landing and lets Shu catch up with the rest of the pack, even blasting ahead of those who’d chosen the ground route.
“Where the hell did Shu come from?!” Ren exclaims, crazed laughter intermingling with shock, somehow making everything sound like a compliment.
“Shu! Shu Shu Shu!” Luca’s voice erupts in a way that definitely doesn’t mean anything good, especially given that he’s just a few feet ahead of Shu’s car now. Then, in the spirit of narrating each turn he makes: “Oil slicks you!”
Vox whispers into the connection: “ Slicks ? There had to be a better word for that.”
The commentary doesn’t stop reality. Luca’s car tends to always have some kind of trick up its sleeve, ranging from actual weapons to children’s pranks. This time doesn’t appear to be any different as a very literal slick of oil trails out from behind his car, leaving Shu’s spinning out right at the turn. The momentum doesn’t stop, leaving him like a whirling top and others who weren’t quick enough at the turn in a similar wake.
“Ohh, dizzy dizzy,” Shu can’t help but comment as he blinks a few times to clear his sights before letting the window roll down on the driver’s side. He extends his hand out to the cool air before engulfing it in flame again, moving to quite literally burn the oil from his own tires to regain traction—and if he sets part of the road aflame as he does, well that’s just part of the fun, isn’t it?
For the rest of the ride, he lets the window remain open, encouraging the wind to whip through his hair as he feels his car hurtling through the night, moving to close the distance that had opened up between him and the leaders. During a straightaway with little distraction aside from the curdling screams of fallen ghosts, Shu lets a handful of shikigami loose from his palm. The gusts pick them up, the helpers dance through the air until they locate their targets among other cars—if deemed harmless by other drivers, they’d find themselves with quite the sabotaging co-pilot.
“Hey, who’s littering?” Doppio spoke a few moments later. “That’s so disrespectful to the earth and the Mammoths, have you no hono—ahh! Aaahhh, what the heck is going on!”
“Bro, that’s crazy, I just saw Doppio get assaulted by a napkin.”
The next lap passes by in a similar blur. The very earth they tread on shakes as Luca lets loose a few bombs to shake some persistent people off his trail. Ren nearly gets spirited away by one of the ghouls that manages to catch up to him. Ver blazes by, boosted by the use of Shu’s flames and the spirits on the field. Uki projects so many insults into Vox’s mindspace that it nearly breaks his spirit. They swap their places, tango through their ranks, and send some people sprinting ahead while others splutter out in the bank until it only leaves Shu and Luca on this last, blazing, shrieking stretch.
The final corner turn is tight—there’s no room for error. Shu turns his wheel hard , and he smells the rubber burning, feels the strain of the steel. Still, it’s enough to let him inch just barely enough ahead of Luca and he whoops loud and triumphant, “Yeah, baby! ”
“It’s not over yet, Shu!”
“Let’s go, let’s go!”
Lightning strikes through his nerves. His breath is long since lost. The finish line is calling his name and yet there’s something in the air that makes him want this moment to stretch into infinity. He wants to reach out to it, wind it around his fingers, and trap it in his palm so he never has to come down from this high.
It ends in a flash—brilliant, blinding, bewitching. How long has Shu been the one under this spell?
He almost keeps going, he opens his mouth to challenge Luca to one more lap, one more turn, just one—but the car protests. Sorcery, curses, and adrenaline kept the whole thing running but almost like a steed that knows its job had been completed, it collapses a short stretch after the finish line.
Shu slumps against the driver’s seat just as he watches the sky break open in fits and flares of purple. Fireworks in the color of the victor.
Ah. He won.
A rap of knuckles taps quickly against the window and Shu quiets the sound of the earpiece, everyone’s yells of indignation and scattered congratulations fading into the background.
Luca’s grin illuminates the sky brighter than any firework.
“Congratulations Shu!!” He says first, delighted despite his loss. “I almost had you there though—damn, we should’ve done four laps!”
“Yeah,” Shu finds himself agreeing even though that’s a really unconventional number. He gets out of the car when Luca gives him the space to, but they don’t draw any further from each other than they have to. “I nearly spun out on that cliff because of you.”
“Hahaha, and then you set it on fire! That was so savage!” Luca only heaps on more praise, doesn’t even leave space for an apology. “I can’t believe we have to wait a few more weeks before we get to go again—I wanna keep going!”
“Me too,” Shu says. “I could keep going.”
His heart aches for it.
“S’too bad that your car doesn’t agree,” Luca reflects as he taps the roof of it. One of the tires had entirely given out by the end, leaving it looking slumped and sad despite being the winning vehicle. “Is that why you asked for mine?”
“Huh?” Shu blinks a few times, brought back to reality rather than the floating space he’d been thrown into after winning. “Oh—nah, you just seemed so proud of it, I wanted to borrow it. I can come collect it later.”
“Wait, hold on!” Luca protests, quick as anything. This time the pout on his face actually looks true. “You should only get something that you’d actually enjoy. Come on, name it, Shu. There’s gotta be something you want.”
It’s a funny question to ask.
Still wrapped in the spirit of adrenaline, his heart beating to the cadence of victory, Shu knows that there’s something he wants. Leaning against this car that isn’t even his that's hemorrhaging any traces of sorcery, with Luca in front of him, close enough that he can feel the heat radiating from his body. Fireworks in his colors draping the sky in his hues, watching the sparks fly against Luca’s face and reflect in his eyes, thinking about the nature of infinity and living moment to moment and what it means to crave something he’s gone his whole life without.
You .
What’s left for him to want?
“Y—”
“Okay, Sevens and my Shuey Shu, a Ten is speaking so listen up!!”
Shu and Luca both straighten, a crash of cold water thrown on them both as they look bewildered toward the race track. A few others who finished similarly look startled, all tuning in to the voice that slammed right into their eardrums.
“Mysta?!” Ike asks the question for everyone. “What happened? I thought that you weren’t able to come to this race!”
“Also: Seven?” Uki sighs. “If you’re a Ten, I’m at least a Twelve, damn.”
“Ssshhh, didn’t you hear the part where I said shut up a second?!” Mysta scolds them all before speaking more furtively, volume lowering. “So the reason I couldn’t show up is because I had a work thing, but it turns out the work thing is the department trying to bust Vox so that’s why you all need to listen to me and getouttathere .”
“Ohh, you bad doggy,” Vox’s scold felt a little more torn—twisted between appreciation and exasperation. “And your time of arrival is?”
“Uhhh.”
The motions of other drivers caught Shu’s eye—Ver slides into the passenger’s seat of Doppio’s car while Hex grabs the back, Ren tries to wrangle Kyo into a helmet before getting on his motorcycle.
“So I couldn’t get a second to really get away until just now so maybe like…”
Uki apparently found running to be too taxing, instead waltzing in to let himself right into Vox’s mansion without invitation.
“Two minutes? Wait, Sonny’s driving, so more like one—”
Luca’s hand catches Shu’s, and tugs him toward the white convertible waiting not too far away.
“You didn’t get a heads up even though you’re related? That’s cold.”
Shu laughs, amused and trying to avoid the distraction of how easily Luca’s hand engulf his. “Oh, well, you know - I’m sure he tried his best.”
One awkward moment passes when they both find themselves walking towards the driver’s side.
“But it’s my car—”
“Did you already forget who won?”
A siren finally pierces through the denseness of the trees, and Shu searches the horizon for it, clicking his tongue. Making a quick choice, he makes a long jump to the passenger’s seat and lets his knee rest against the back of it for balance. Pulling a tie off his wrist, he gathers his hair between his palms and pulls it up high, fastening it in place.
When he glances over to where Luca sits, the vehicle rumbling to life, he smiles at how entranced he looks over the simple motion, gaze fixed on Shu’s neck, shoulders, back—
“Ready for round two?” Shu challenges.
Plummeting back to earth, Luca blinks a few times before he gives him that sunlit grin. “Born ready!”
“Are you sure you’re okay like that?” Luca asks even as they lurch through the same course that they’d raced through—the quickest way back to the main road was right past the skeleton graveyard, Vox told them through the earpieces, along with a ‘godspeed, boys. See you on the other side.’
“Did you think that I was just going to be your passenger?” Shu questions, a laugh already trailing through his voice as he keeps his gaze upon the retreating horizon behind them. “I’m watching your six, boss man.”
“Oh! Pog!”
There was something nice about hearing the thrilled, slightly breathless twist to Luca’s voice just then.
When the first police car crosses over the horizon, the first thing Shu could tell is that thankfully Sonny Brisko is not the one at the wheel. Even still, he lets his hand splay across the bottom half of his face, painting it in shadows to even vaguely obscure his identity, something similar to a mask. Maybe it wouldn’t be all too effective, given that they were riding in an undeniably Kaneshiro car, but it’s worth a shot.
From there, it’s a game of offense and defense. The cop car speeds after, trying to close the gap between them, but Luca’s drive and drift makes it an extremely hard endeavor. In the same breath, Shu lets the curses fly from his fingertips, laying them out flat in front of their pursuer’s path so their only chance of not activating the traps would be to veer wildly—more than once, they fail. Just as they roll over and activate a curse that triggers the illusion of an entire ravine opening up, prompting them to screech to a stop, Shu laughs in triumph.
“Ooh, gottem!” He throws a grin over his shoulder, catching Luca’s gaze as the two of them bump fists in a motion that comes all too naturally.
The sound of a gunshot cuts their celebration short. Luca swerves their car in the exact moment that Shu dodges, but it doesn’t stop a sharp wisp of pain from stretching across his cheek.
“Shu!” Luca calls out, worry lacing the sorcerer’s name.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Shu reassures quickly, his sights already focused on the new set of cop cars on their trail. More bullets fly, going wide and the paper shikigami that Shu sends out in the next breath zip through the air, dancing their own way to their enemies.
While this is hardly the first time that Shu’s been chased through the centuries, it is his first time getting caught in a very literal car chase. Though he can’t help but find it fun—that there’s still more in this world to discover. It’s only all the more electrifying when done at the side of someone who makes every moment feel like they could set the world aflame.
“We’re almost at the forest—we can lose ‘em there for sure,” Luca reassures—but he still reaches out blindly until he catches Shu’s free hand in his, squeezing.
“Then let’s see that fancy driving, huh?” Shu teases, even as he reaches out to catch a bullet that strays a little too close to Luca’s head. The flames in his palm melt the bullet before it even manages to sting.
“Hold on tight then! We’re going for a whirl!” Luca announces before switching gears in the next second. As he drifts off the main path and toward the comically large skeleton bones, Shu knows what’s coming. Borrowing Ren’s maneuver from earlier but with a far larger vehicle, Luca pulls off the most immediate Monkey See Monkey Do known to mankind, and lets their momentum propel them faster and faster until they’re hurtling right through space.
In the spinning, somehow Luca’s hand fumbles for Shu’s again. Maybe it’s some half-baked attempt at keeping him attached to the car, maybe it’s something else. Shu decides he doesn’t mind it.
The shikigami complete their mission in the same second, attaching themselves to the wheels of the cop cars and slowing them until compared to Shu and Luca’s car they’re about as speedy as quicksand. They shoot after them in futile little bursts, but Shu and Luca’s laughter only adding insult to injury as each bullet gets caught in flames long before they reach their targets.
Mysta pipes in on their communicators a few moments later, checking in with everyone that they managed to get away safe, and that’s when they figure the coast is clear.
“Oh, you should’ve seen Uki,” Vox’s voice comes through so clear on the radio, it’s easy to imagine his ecstatic hand waving as he tells the story. “Perfectly polite, mind you, but entirely there in defense of our rights while also being very specific and particular in his criticism. Unmatched.”
“My back is aching from having to carry everyone’s weight around here,” Uki sighs, put upon but not without a note of fondness. “I’ll send you all the bill for my upcoming spa day.”
“Cool,” Shu agrees easily enough, but mostly so he can say the next thing: “Luca and I are gonna grab dinner, so see you all next time! Thanks for another chance to win, byyyyeeee.”
Plucking his earpiece off, he takes Luca’s burst of laughter in the next moment as a good sign that he’d left just enough chaos in his wake to be satisfied. Feeling bold, he reaches over to take Luca’s earpiece too, claiming more of his attention even as they wait at a red light like good, law-abiding citizens who absolutely did not participate in dangerous street racing on this fine evening.
“What’re you feeling for food?” Shu asks, already pulling up his phone to find a place that’d be open this late at night.
Luca hums thoughtfully before reaching a conclusion that only a mean, evil mafia boss could: “Pancakes?”
Pancakes at 3 AM it is.
“There’s a place down the road about ten minutes away,” he says after some brief scrolling.
“Hey, what the hell, Shu?”
“Uhh, is that too far? The other one is twelve and we’d need to make a U-turn so—”
“What, no, I’m talking about this,” Luca interrupts him, and quickly peels off his glove before reaching out to his face.
Closing one eye in response to the touch, Shu searches Luca’s face for some explanation—and only receives it when his thumb brushes against the skin of his cheek and the slightest ping of pain reminds him of where the bullet had nicked him earlier.
“Oh, right, I forgot about that,” he admits.
Luca’s brow furrows, the edges of his mouth turning downwards in displeasure. “You said that you were okay.”
“Well, I am—it’s so small I didn’t even feel it after a second,” Shu explains, but doesn’t pull away so long as Luca doesn’t. If anything, it’s so tempting to let his face rest more against his palm, welcoming the warmth against the cool, night air. Without the rush of adrenaline warming up his veins, the open top of the convertible really invites the chill.
It’s in the space of a heartbeat that Luca lets his thumb brush against Shu’s cheek. It’s easy to think of a moment in which he’d do this more tenderly, without a bullet as prerequisite. For some reason, it’s all too simple to imagine.
Shu doesn’t breathe a word of that thought.
“Tell me next time, okay?” Luca asks softer than he needs to, when there’s no chance of being overheard.
Still, Shu allows his lips to stretch into a smile, the curve of it just as easily fitting into Luca’s hand. “You still trying to protect me, boss man? That’s awfully cool of you.”
Amusement and fondness mingle in Luca’s gaze. “Do you think I’m cool, Shu?”
I think you’re radiant .
“I think—” Vivid purple eyes flick toward the stoplight as it shifts from red to green. Timing is half the key to winning races, and yet it feels like they’ve had nothing but false starts tonight. Shu figures he has the rest of the drive to the pancake house to decide whether that’s a blessing or not. “—you need to drive, Luca.”
They decide to get a tall tower of fluffy souffle pancakes to split between the two of them, and when Luca insists that he could cook even better with all the bravado in the world Shu at least has the dignity to mask his laughter with a cough.
Luca says that he wants a more scenic view than a diner’s countertop and some old paintings, so they let Luca’s car—with Shu driving this time, it’s his turn—climb up and up the local hills to find a nice place by a park that they can pull off the road and watch the glittering lights of the sleep-deprived city below. They shimmy onto the hood of the car, leaning back against the windshield and digging into the styrofoam between them.
It probably shouldn’t feel this idyllic. There’s really nothing that tender about a midnight snack run split between two runaways, mouths too eager to share stories between bites of syrup. Their sweet-sticky hands around flimsy utensils, gazes flicking between their meal and each other, like they don’t know what they’re more eager to get a taste of first. It’s more ridiculous than it is romantic.
And yet something unwinds in Shu’s chest, looking at Luca lit up by nothing but a streetlamp and the reflection of a million lights below. And yet he hangs off every word of every silly story, mumbling his encouragement just to make sure Luca keeps going, keeps talking, keeps rattling every little thought because Shu wants to hear them all. And yet there is something about feeling like you have all the time in the world to get to know someone, and yet not nearly time enough.
At some point, Luca tells a joke so bad that Shu nearly loses his balance and slips right off the car, but luckily the only casualty is his plastic fork. Before he can even suggest that maybe that’s a sign that he’s not meant to eat anymore, Luca thrusts his next bite of pancake - all loaded up with whipped cream and banana—right up to his face. “Come on, we’ll just share!”
Shu wonders what great feats humanity must’ve accomplished in order to deserve the miracle of Luca Kaneshiro walking amongst them. He also wonders what absurd acts of calamity he committed to deserve the havoc being wreaked in his chest.
In the end, he takes the bite without much fuss, letting himself focus on the way the sweetness settles on his tongue instead of—well, anything else.
Though it’s as Luca takes his next bite that he gets overly ambitious with the whipped cream, leaving some of it streaked across the corner of his mouth. When their eyes catch, he grins and the splash of white dances along with the angle of his smile. “What’cha looking at, Shu?”
Shu reaches out then, mirroring the gesture of Luca’s from earlier, fingers sliding across his cheek to cradle his face in his hand. He can’t help but theorize that Luca’s skin is warmer, like a little sun made a home in his chest and warms the rest of him.
Golden eyes widen minutely, and Luca’s instinctive tilt of his head only presses more against Shu’s palm.
Shu waits for the next interruption. A shooting star that’ll steal their attention away. A police siren, startling them both and signaling their next getaway. Mysta, somehow, screaming for his Shuey Shu. Again.
None of it comes. He waits an extra breath before answering: “You.”
Before his boldness can take too strong of a hold on him, he lets his thumb swipe against the smudge of cream, gathering it on his thumb and then jutting it out so it’s easier for Luca to see. “Maybe you’re the snack? How about that?”
Though he’s quick to laugh at his own joke, take the edge off of it before it cuts either of them too deeply, and licks the offending sugar off of his own thumb. Perhaps this is how he’ll learn to handle Luca—keeping his truth sandwiched between their flecks of humor.
Except he doesn’t think he imagines the way that Luca watches his tongue dart out to catch the whipped cream—how he mirrors the motion a second later, licking his own lips.
Given the way that Shu’s mouth feels dry suddenly, he kind of wishes that they also ordered a drink.
A determined furrow to Luca’s brow comes next, even though the words that leave his lips tremble a bit. “If I’m…. If I’m the sna….”
Shu isn’t sure if the lamplight is the reason for this red hue starting to cast over Luca’s expression, given how quick he is to turn away, but it makes his eyebrows raise regardless. “Luca?”
“G-Give me a second!” Luca sucks in a breath before trying again—through his hand covering the bottom half of his face. “If… If I’m the snack, then why do I wanna… Wanna…!”
Well, the hand covering his face does nothing to hide the way his ears flush red.
“Uh-huh…?” Shu feels his curiosity propel him into goading Luca on just a little more, waiting patiently. “What do you wanna do?”
“Why do I wanna… takeabiteoutofyou !!”
Now, without a doubt, that’s a line.
In fact, execution aside, it’s a pretty bold line that still prompts heat to climb up Shu’s neck.
The problem is that he can’t put entirely execution aside, not when Luca rushed out the last part like it was punched out of him, or how now he’s covering his face with both his hands and groaning loudly as if begging the heavens to strike him down where he sits. The mafia boss’s embarrassment far outweighs Shu’s own fluster, and that means that he’s entirely within his right to laugh.
“Luca…” Shu tries to ease in gently, even as he picks up their pancakes and covers the leftovers up, putting them aside before Luca’s flailing sends them sailing right off the hood. Letting his gaze rise from his task, he feels his lips curve into what he hopes is more of a smile than a smirk. “Are you hitting on me?”
The answering noise of despair only pulls another laugh out of Shu.
“Oh, okay, guess not,” he says quickly—
“No, I am!!” Luca finally pulls his hands from his face, now clear in its tomato red glory.
The definitive answer makes the warmth climb higher for Shu in return, and he can only laugh—but he can hear the notes of embarrassment in it too.
“Oh… okay.”
“Aauugghh,” Luca runs a hand through his hair, mussing up the strands and Shu feels that urge again to fix it. He wonders if this means Luca would let him. “I wanted to wait until I won the next race… Even though I was so sure that I was going to win this one! Unpog! This is unpog, Shu!!”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think overall it’s pretty pog,” Shu says before he thinks better of it. Though a streak of satisfaction runs through him. “Sorry to throw a wrench in your plans—but not that sorry.”
“It would’ve been cooler if I earned it…” Luca sighs. “Or like—if you had to do anything I asked for a day, then you’d have to listen to my confession and not laugh about it! I thought about that too!”
“I don’t know if you could control whether or not I’d laugh,” Shu admits.
“But it’d be better than—than that!! This!”
Shu worries his lip and tries to weigh his options of telling Luca that he doesn’t mind whatever ‘this’ is. Not at all. Not when the implication of what they’re talking about is still settling for him.
For now, he decides to keep that thought to himself too. Instead, he settles for the familiar: teasing.
“I guess that’s true—technically I made the first move, right? I think that’s just another thing I won,” he suggests.
Mortification strikes Luca in a blitz of a lightning strike, realization slamming into him. “Wait! No!! I want to do something first!”
As if being the first to steal Shu Yamino’s heart right out of his chest isn’t enough for him. Okay then.
“Well, there’s probably something.” Shu shrugs, as if unconcerned. For now, at least, maybe he is. Unconcerned and happy to rest on his laurels of claimed victories. “There’s other things that come after the confession, right? Maybe we should race for those—”
‘Too’ sat on the tip of his tongue.
Yet it feels all but stolen away in the next moment, along with every other thought in Shu’s head, when Luca surges forward and presses their mouths together. Balance becomes a skill possessed by other people a second later, Shu’s arms instinctively reaching for Luca and finding his answer when strong arms curl around his waist in turn. His gasp is stolen out of his lungs, and any concerns of cold disappear when Luca’s body presses against his. The metal of the car is cold where his bare shoulders slide against it, but it’s forgotten against the heat of Luca’s mouth, and the place where Shu’s shirt rides up and he can feel bare fingertips trace against his lower back like that was always their target.
He never thought he’d find a race that he was all too happy to lose.
It’s only when it gets hard to breathe that Luca pulls away—if just barely, when their noses are close enough to brush—and asks, “Oh—uh, can I kiss you?”
The laugh that leaves Shu in the next second is delirious, he’s sure of it.
“What?” He lets his head rest against the car hood, now draped entirely against it with Luca atop him, blocking out the entire skyline. “Isn’t it a little late to a—mmph.”
The rest of the sentence disappears against yet another kiss. He finds it hard to mind.
“Sorry,” Luca apologizes, but the word still curls upward with notes of laughter. “Every time you’ve laughed, I’ve always wanted to do that. I think it’s my favorite sound. I want to catch it for myself to keep.”
It turns out that while Luca trips over his own feet when trying to deliver canned pick-up lines, he finds an unfair level of suaveness when speaking from his own sincerity. This time Shu seals his lips with his own, if only in some vain effort to save himself.
It’s intoxicating how easily Luca meets him. The rumble of pleasure that courses through him when Shu lets his hands trail up his back, tracing the contours of muscle—it almost feels familiar, like they’ve done this before, or at least like they should’ve been doing this long ago. Luca presses against him until there’s no space left between, and Shu is extremely sure now that he must run extremely hot, if only for the way that he feels the temperature in his own body climbing with every passing second. It’s been a while since he’s felt something besides his own flames surging through him, but this new friction and heat is hardly unwelcome.
How funny it is that just a few hours ago, he’d made jokes of their mastery of time with Vox, but by the time the sun begins to peak over the horizon, he doesn’t know whether he’s been kissing Luca for a few minutes or a few eternities. Maybe the answer is a simple ‘not long enough’. Even still, the light glints across the sheen of the car and prompts Shu to open his eyes, breathless as he catches the gradient of dusty gold-lavender yawning across the sky.
When Luca notices the morning looming upon them, he just manages a laugh even with his kiss-bitten lips. “Shu, look! It’s our colors!”
It’s the hardest thing in the world to nudge Luca off of him, but Shu can’t help but feel that it’ll tempt fate to linger here much longer—and while he’s willing to play his cards most other days, this one feels a little too perfect to wager.
“Come on,” Shu utters a promise and a dare in one breath, “I’ll let you drive the car off a cliff—I’ll handle the landing—if you bring us back to the mansion now.”
Luca’s eyes shine with promise.
One way or another, Shu expects to be in for the ride of his life.
The next race is a mere three weeks later.
“That eager to hand me another trophy, Vox?” Shu teases even as he steps out of a white convertible with gold trim—though purple flames and a few well-placed skulls turn it from a Kaneshiro vehicle to a Yamino original in no time.
“Boast all you want, Shubert, but I think that the track this time will provide a very unique test for you,” Vox asserts even as he opens his arms to welcome him with a hug.
“Not looking at his boytoy’s big honking titties challenge,” Mysta supplies in the same second that he slides in to intercept, squeezing Shu in a warm hug before Vox even gets a chance.
Shu decides not to comment, instead laughing. “Nice of you to join us, Mysta. Does that mean a lower chance of ambush tonight? Some of us are more susceptible to bullets than others, you know.”
“The only ambush you’ll have to deal with tonight is my descent on this race, none of you will see my victory coming!!” The fox declares boldly.
Another car comes through the gate in the next second, this time so opulently gold that it catches the light of everything that so much as holds a glow. Streaks of black and white tamper down its intensity, keeping it even mildly tasteful. Far more tasteful than Vox’s comment of ‘not the only one coming tonight’ which Shu pretends not to hear. Some things just don’t feel worth it, you know?
Luca’s greetings are as eager and chaotic as the rest of him. Once his keys are taken to bring the vehicle to the starting line, he greets Shu with a kiss, then gives the rest of the boys a hug in turn—including Ike, who just so happens to wander up at exactly the right second. Then Luca comes back to Shu’s side anyway, bumping against him affectionately before tucking him against his side, almost like a yo-yo motion.
“Watch out, guys, this is the run where we make a banana split.” Luca’s trash talk still leaves something to be desired, but Shu finds that it ignites his desire to win all the more.
“I agree, Shu must be stopped,” Ike says in the most placid voice of all time, which is entirely at odds with the way that he seems to be polishing a knife.
“Did you bring a knife to a race fight?” Mysta tries and fails to subtly step away.
Smiling angelically, Ike puts away the knife as quickly as it had appeared. Not for the first time, Shu can’t help but feel like that coat of his is so full of secrets. “You have to use your resources, Mysta.”
“Yeah! Resources like boma.”
“Putting Luca’s absolutely unhinged bullshit aside, I do hear that dear Fulgur will be joining us this evening and I absolutely do not trust whatever tricked out nonsense he must be hiding in that motorcycle of his. So what say we take a little field trip to perform an inspection, gentlemen?” Vox claps his hands once, feigning innocence even in the face of his demon lord nature, and Ike and Mysta are all too eager to follow after him—whether to help or hinder him, Shu wasn’t entirely sure.
Shu is about to follow after, if only to see if Fulgur’s anywhere nearby to give him a fighting chance at defending his vehicle, when he feels a grip around his wrist.
“Can I help you?” He asks in his customer service voice, proud of himself for keeping it up even in the face of Luca’s unfettered excitement.
“I’m feeling lucky, Shu—all eight leaves on the clover tonight.” Luca tugs on Shu’s wrist, prompting him to come closer. He does so, resting his free hand on the mafioso’s shoulder for no reason other than he can. “Let’s make another bet.”
“Oh yeah? Well I’m no coward, so let’s do it,” Shu meets him readily, as he always does. “What do you want if you win?”
“Cross-country road trip, just you and me.” Luca nods, as if very proud of himself for knowing exactly what he wants—though there’s a blip of thought a second later. “Well, I guess the other boys can meet us at the different stops if they want—but for most of it, just you and me!”
Shu laughs, but can’t say he doesn’t understand. His time with Luca is precious, unrivaled, but he loves their friends too. “Oh yeah? And how long are we gonna be gone for?”
“As long as it takes, however fast or slow that is,” Luca answers. “I’ll work it out with mafia stuff—don’t worry about it.”
It’s Luca’s prize, but Shu can't say that he doesn’t find an appeal in it. Not enough to throw a race or anything, but it’s always Luca that manages to make losing not sound too shabby.
“Okay, deal.”
“And what do you want, Shu?”
It wasn’t even a month ago when Luca last asked this question.
It was harder to answer then, lodged in his throat somewhere next to apprehension and uncertainty. Not knowing if some signs were being read the right way, no matter how much Shu turned them over in the light and at different angles. Not being sure if it was the smartest decision ever to finally loosen his hold on his heart, only for it to tumble into the hands of a reckless mortal. Not seizing the moments in front of him.
It felt sillier now, in the wake of warm mornings and heated evenings, the trace of tattoos and literal playing with fire—knowing Luca Kaneshiro in all the ways he does, and finding that’s everything he never quite knew he wanted.
His fingers tangle in Luca’s hair and his heart flips when the blonde easily goes toward the touch, nuzzling into Shu’s palm.
His answer is the same, but now he can say it, unafraid of how it shines unashamed under the starlight: “You.”
Luca’s eyes crinkle with amusement and confusion alike. “Huh? Come on, you already have me. I’ve been yours for a while now.”
“I’ll still want you though,” Shu says honestly. “Think I always will. Is that not a good answer?”
“That’s cheating…” Luca huffs faintly before he leans down to knock their foreheads together affectionately. “‘Course it’s a good answer. Even if it’s not exactly something we can bet… I’m yours, no matter whether you win or lose. Stakes feel a little low.”
“Hm… Alright, then how about this?” Shu wracks his brain for a prize, eventually settling on one thing that Luca’s kept out of his reach: “I win, you let me be your getaway driver for your next few mafia things.”
Normally Shu doesn’t bother to offer up his assistance in Luca’s business, but this just sounds like a new path of adventure.
Luca’s expression turns wry. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to pick a new bet.”
“Too late for that,” Shu hums before pressing a brief kiss to Luca’s mouth, as if to bring back his good humor. “So do we have a deal?”
“Unfortunately,” Luca sighs before his expression brightens. “How about we seal it with a kiss?”
“Didn’t we just do that?”
“Shuuuuu.”
Luckily for Luca, it just turns out that kissing him has become one of Shu’s favorite things to do. Their lips meet, sealing their wager between them—caught somewhere between the precipice of romance and risk. Just where Shu likes them, really.
The sound of a car horn blaring and the strange pew noise of what Shu could only guess might be a laser prompts them to part, confused looks exchanged between them.
“I’m going to guess that they found Fulgur’s bike,” Luca says.
“And probably Fulgur found them.” Shu laughs, more amused than he should be when there was a chance his friends got fried to a futuristic crisp. “Let’s go bail them out.”
“It’s hard being the level-headed and responsible ones of the group sometimes.”
Even Luca couldn’t keep a straight face after lying that boldly, which left Shu with a much better excuse when he burst into laughter in the next second.
It still felt a bit absurd—more like someone’s manic dream than any type of reality that he gets to live through everyday. To have friends that make sure no two days look exactly the same and a wild, reckless young man whose chaos manages to match his in all the ways that matter. Shu’s lived through countless eras, but he can’t help but find unique promise to this one, even if it also always feels just one fast turn away from crumbling.
But if everything’s always meant to go up in flames, Shu couldn’t think of a better way to burn.