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The mission had concluded with the sort of sterile efficiency that always left Chuuya Nakahara feeling completely unspooled.
At twenty-two, an executive of the Port Mafia, he still couldnʼt shed the adrenaline with a simple change of clothes. He tossed his keys onto the sleek entryway console, bypassing the spare pork pie hat resting exactly where he had left it by the door.
His boots struck the dark hardwood floors, the sharp sound echoing through the empty top-floor penthouse. It was a space designed for luxury catalogs, not for living. Minimalist and suffocatingly expensive. Deep burgundy and black leather furniture anchored the open living area in a rigid, untouchable arrangement.
A curated wine rack monopolized an entire wall, its dark glass bottles reflecting the muted port lights from outside, while vast abstract canvases, art that cost far more than he would ever admit aloud, hung in sterile precision.
He walked past the kitchen he rarely used, its pristine marble countertops cold and unmarked by daily life.
Down the hall, the bathroom housed a rainfall shower he didn’t have the patience to stand under tonight. Through the half-open door to his bedroom, shadows clung to a mattress made with military exactness, the sheets pulled taut enough to bounce a coin. A dog-eared poetry collection lay abandoned on the nightstand. His closet, visible in the gloom, was immaculate, every dark coat and tailored suit mathematically aligned.
The medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror, however, was a chaotic ruin of gauze, painkillers, and insomnia remedies.
Tonight was a bad night, evidenced by the crystal glasses that had begun to accumulate on the coffee table from the hours before his deployment. He ignored them entirely. This penthouse was supposed to be a sanctuary, but it invariably felt like a waiting room. It was a holding cell where he existed merely between obligations, never truly settling into the marrow of his own life.
He needed the outside.
Chuuya slid the heavy glass door open and stepped out. The balcony was a narrow slice of wrought iron and concrete, just enough space for one person to lean against the railing and breathe.
A heavy glass ashtray rested on a small table, already filling too quickly. The wind at this height was vicious, whipping his ginger hair across his face and stinging his striking blue eyes.
Below, Yokohama sprawled like a glittering circuit board, all nodes of industry and dark veins of water reflecting the city’s electric hum. From up here, the people below looked theoretical. They belonged to a completely different world entirely.
He needed something to do with his mouth, something to do with his hands. The habit had taken root when he was too young and had stuck with parasitic loyalty. It wasnʼt about the nicotine; it was the ritual of it. The airtight excuse to step outside, the brief parenthesis of forced stillness.
From the pocket of his dark slacks, he unearthed a well-worn case of imported French cigarettes, Gauloises, always. The blue packaging was slightly battered, its corners softened by the violent cadence of being carried into warzones and boardrooms alike. Tucked inside the carton rested a silver lighter, marred by a single, distinct scratch along its edge.
Chuuya slid a cylinder free. They were unfiltered, uncompromisingly strong, the kind of vapor that didnʼt just fade into the air but lingered stubbornly on fabric, sank into skin, and tasted heavy on the tongue.
He flicked the scratched metal, cupping his bare palms to shield the flame from the biting gale, and the tip flared a brilliant, angry orange. He drew the first breath, pulling the harsh, unmitigated heat deep into his lungs.
The slide of the glass door behind him barely registered over the wind.
“You know, the warning labels on those are remarkably graphic.”
Chuuya didnʼt flinch. He exhaled a long, thick stream of gray into the night.
“How the hell did you bypass the lobby security again?”
“A magician never reveals how he slips inside,” Dazai Osamu mused, his voice carrying a lazy, dark lilt.
Twenty-two, formerly the Mafiaʼs youngest executive and currently a nuisance of the Armed Detective Agency, Dazai stepped onto the tiny balcony. He was tall, infuriatingly so, and insufferably lean, wrapped in bandages that suggested a history he preferred to joke about rather than explain.
With two people, the small space instantly became a claustrophobic trap. Dazaiʼs height cast a long, deliberate shadow over Chuuya, the proximity settling over the Mafia executive like a physical weight.
Dazai wrinkled his nose with exaggerated, theatrical disgust. “God, it smells absolutely foul. Tastes like cheap tar, destroys your stamina, and leaves you tasting like an ashtray. Why do you insist on putting such toxic things in your mouth just to feel a burn?”
“Because it usually keeps you away.” Chuuya tapped his index finger against the paper, letting a millimeter of ash fall into the abyss below. “Except when it doesnʼt.”
Dazai stepped closer. He always claimed to despise the habit, delivering his lectures with pristine revulsion, yet he never missed an opportunity to invade Chuuyaʼs space the second a Gauloise was lit. His brown eyes, lazy on the surface, endlessly calculating underneath, tracked the glowing cherry in Chuuyaʼs hand, then dragged slowly, deliberately, up to Chuuyaʼs parted lips.
“Itʼs a filthy vice,” Dazai murmured. The wind tossed his tan coat against Chuuyaʼs hip. “So eager to swallow down all that heat, only to blow it right back out. Seems like a waste of a good reflex.”
“Then step inside and leave me the hell alone.” Chuuyaʼs voice was a low rasp. His pride was his armor, thick and impenetrable, but standing this close to the detective, having to tilt his head back just to meet that dark, heavy gaze, always made it feel like a prison.
He caught himself staring at the curve of Dazaiʼs mouth, tracking the way the taller man's tongue darted out to wet his lower lip. Hatred, Chuuya told himself fiercely, his jaw locking. I am looking at his mouth because I hate him.
“Itʼs cold inside,” Dazai complained, leaning his forearms on the wrought-iron railing right beside Chuuyaʼs arm. Their sleeves brushed. A masterclass in deflection, Dazai treated intimacy like a rigged game, one he could win merely by pretending he wasnʼt playing.
“Besides, Iʼm observing a man who enjoys ruining himself. Consider it an educational experience. I’ve always wondered how much you can take before you lose your breath entirely.”
“More than you can handle, bastard.” Chuuya took another drag, holding it in his chest, his blue eyes flashing as he looked up at his former partner.
Dazai tilted his head, looking at Chuuya through his lashes. “Weʼll see about that.”
The unfiltered cloud drifted over them, sharp and bitter. Dazai hummed, a low vibration that carried over the gale.
“Give me a taste.”
Chuuya froze, the French cigarette suspended halfway to his mouth.
“What?”
“I said, give me a taste.” Dazaiʼs tone lost every fraction of its playful lilt, dropping into a heavy, gravelly register that completely obliterated the narrow gap between them.
Chuuya scowled, shifting his body fully to level a glare at the brunet, his neck craning slightly to maintain eye contact. “I thought you hated the taste. The smell. The myriad of ʻhealth risksʼ.”
“I do.” Dazai didnʼt blink. The gale dragged a strand of dark hair across his bandaged cheek. His gaze dropped from Chuuyaʼs eyes, locking entirely on the executiveʼs mouth.
“Then what the fuck are you asking for?”
Dazai shifted, turning his torso toward the executive, looming over him with a predatory stillness. The calculating brown eyes grew darker, tracking the rapid, betraying pulse at the base of Chuuyaʼs exposed throat.
“Iʼm asking you to do the work for me,” Dazai murmured, his voice dropping into a heavy, gravelly register that completely obliterated the narrow gap between them. “Take it nice and deep. Let it get burning hot in your chest... and then part your lips and let me swallow whatever you blow out. I want to taste your secondhand.”
A beat of absolute silence descended, heavy and suffocating, swallowing the roar of the port below. The suggestion hung in the freezing air, dripping with a thick, undeniable innuendo that was far more dangerous than the nicotine.
It was a battleground. It was always a battleground with them. Chuuya could refuse. He should refuse, extinguish the ember in the glass tray, and walk back into his immaculate, empty penthouse. But backing down felt like surrendering, and Chuuya Nakahara did not bow to anyone, especially not to the man currently trying to look down on him.
Chuuya’s eyes narrowed into violent slits. If Dazai wanted to play this game, Chuuya was going to drag him down into the dirt to do it.
Without a word, Chuuya reached out. His hand shot forward, his fingers curling aggressively into the expensive fabric of Dazai’s lapels. With a sharp, sudden yank, he dragged the taller man down by the collar, forcing Dazai to fold at the waist and obliterating the infuriating height difference.
Dazai gasped softly at the sudden force, stumbling a half-step forward until his chest hit Chuuya’s.
“You want it so bad?” Chuuya breathed, their mouths suddenly mere inches apart, Dazai forced to bow perfectly to Chuuyaʼs level. “Come and take it.”
Holding Dazai captive by his coat, Chuuya brought the Gauloise back to his lips. He drew in a massive, deep drag, the paper crackling loudly, the cherry burning a violent crimson against the dark. He let the caustic, unfiltered heat rest heavy in his lungs, feeling the harsh burn, feeling the way Dazai’s breath hitched in anticipation against his cheek.
Chuuya tilted his chin upward.
Dazai closed the final inch, parting his lips hungrily, his dark eyes sliding shut.
Chuuya parted his own lips and exhaled.
Dazai inhaled sharply, taking the thick, hot plume directly from Chuuyaʼs mouth into his own. It was a phantom kiss, a visceral, wet exchange of breath entirely masked as a vice. The smoke curled and twisted between their teeth, blinding and intimate. Dazai took everything Chuuya gave him, swallowing the heat, his throat working visibly as he drank in the bitter cloud.
The warmth of Dazaiʼs skin radiated against Chuuya's cheek. The scent of sterile gauze, rain, and bitter coffee completely eclipsed the city smog, mixing violently with the dark tobacco.
Dazai leaned infinitesimally closer, chasing the very end of the exhale until the tips of their noses brushed, his chest rising as it filled with Chuuya’s breath.
The ritual fractured into a war of attrition. Chuuyaʼs heart hammered a frantic, violent rhythm against his ribs, but he held his ground, his fist still twisted tightly in Dazaiʼs collar, keeping the detective tethered exactly where he wanted him. He framed it as dominance. He called it keeping a leash on a stray.
Dazai kept his lips parted, holding the noxious cloud deep in his own chest, his eyes fluttering open to lock onto Chuuyaʼs. He was pretending it was just a clinical experiment, a morbid dare. Yet his hands, those long, bandaged fingers, twitched, rising to grip Chuuyaʼs hips, fighting a suppressed, desperate instinct to drag the smaller man flush against him and grind away the last millimeter of space.
Finally, Dazai broke the alignment. He pulled back just enough to turn his profile, exhaling the borrowed, wet smoke out into the Yokohama gale. He coughed, a soft, ragged sound, his chest heaving under Chuuyaʼs fist. He licked his lower lip slowly, tasting the ash and the lingering ghost of Chuuyaʼs mouth.
“Disgusting,” Dazai whispered. His voice was scraped raw, lacking every ounce of its usual theatricality. It sounded entirely too much like a plea.
“You asked for it,” Chuuya rasped. His own lips felt flushed, hypersensitive to the freezing air and the wet, heavy taste of the exchange.
“Curiosity, Dazai deflected smoothly, though his hands hadnʼt left Chuuyaʼs waist, his thumbs pressing into the fabric of the executiveʼs slacks. He was breathing hard, his gaze dropping back down to Chuuyaʼs mouth with a dark, starving intensity. “A morbid fascination with how you taste.”
“Right.” Chuuya’s grip on the collar tightened. He didnʼt let Dazai straighten up. He held the taller man bowed, feeling the erratic thud of a pulse that wasnʼt his own radiating through the tan coat.
Dazai swallowed hard, his eyes entirely black in the sparse light. “Again.”
Chuuya felt a wicked, triumphant heat curl low in his stomach. He brought the Gauloise back to his lips, keeping Dazai anchored firmly in his grip, bowed, breathless, and entirely at his mercy.
“Open up, then,” Chuuya commanded softly.
Dazai's lips parted, but instead of complying, a slow, devastating smile curved across his face. His thumbs pressed harder into Chuuya's hips, digits digging into the cut of muscle just above the pelvic bone.
“Patience,” Dazai murmured, his breath still carrying the ghost of Chuuyaʼs exhale, “or are you really so eager to watch me choke on something of yours?”
The words landed like a lit match on gasoline.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, Chuuya went perfectly, dangerously still. The wind howled between them. The cigarette trembled between his fingers, its ember a furious punctuation mark in the dark.
Then something primal snapped behind those striking blue eyes.
The Gauloise hit the glass ashtray with a hiss, abandoned mid-burn. Chuuyaʼs free hand shot up, fisting in the bandages at Dazai's throat, and he hauled the taller man backward through the balcony door with a force that made the glass panels shudder in their frame.
The penthouse swallowed them whole, the glass door clicking shut with a finality that severed the city’s electric hum. Inside, the silence was absolute, heavy as velvet, broken only by the ragged syncopation of their breathing.
Chuuya shoved Dazai against the wall beside the abstract canvas, some overpriced splash of crimson that suddenly felt prophetic. The bandages twisted under his knuckles, rough and familiar, a texture he’d memorized in a thousand nightmares and never admitted to tracing in dreams.
“Your mouth,” Chuuya growled, his thigh pressing between Dazai’s legs with deliberate cruelty, “is going to get you killed one day.”
Dazai’s head thunked back against the plaster, but his smile only widened, sharp and wrecked. “Then let it be tonight.”
The words dissolved whatever fraying tether had held them both in check.
Chuuyaʼs grip on the bandages at Dazaiʼs throat shifted, no longer shoving, but dragging. He pulled the taller man down the dark hallway, past the bathroom with its chaotic medicine cabinet, into the bedroom where the sheets lay pulled taut as a surrender flag no one had meant to wave.
Dazai went where he was led. For once, without argument.
The bedroom received them in darkness, the port lights casting long amber rectangles across the military-precise bedding. Chuuya released his grip on the bandages only to shove Dazaiʼs shoulders, sending the taller man stumbling backward until his spine met the edge of the mattress.
Dazai sat down heavily, looking up at Chuuya through the gloom. His chest rose and fell with uneven rhythm, bandages peeking through where his coat had fallen open. That calculating gaze tracked every micro-expression flickering across Chuuyaʼs face, the rage, the want, the war between them.
“Well?” Dazai murmured, his voice still scraped hollow from the smoke. His hands rested on his knees, palms up, an oddly surrendered gesture from a man who never surrendered anything. “Youʼve got me here. Now what?”
Chuuya stood over him, chest heaving, the taste of ash and want still bitter on his tongue. The port lights carved amber slashes across Dazaiʼs upturned face, catching on the sharp edge of his jaw, the shadowed hollow of his throat where the bandages had loosened.
Chuuya answered with action.
His hands found the lapels of Dazaiʼs coat again, yanking the tan fabric down off his shoulders with a violence that popped one button free. It hit the floor somewhere behind them, irrelevant.
Dazai lifted his chin, baring his throat like an offering or a dare. His pulse jumped under Chuuya's gaze, rabbit-quick, contradicting every ounce of his performative calm.
Chuuyaʼs thumb pressed into the hollow of Dazaiʼs throat, feeling the flutter of pulse against the pad of his finger. The bandages there were thin, almost translucent from wear, and the heat beneath them was feverish.
“Now,” Chuuya said, his voice dropping into a register that made Dazaiʼs breath catch audibly, “Iʼm going to give you what youʼve been begging for all night.”
Dazaiʼs lips parted, perhaps to deliver another cutting remark, another deflection wrapped in silk, and Chuuya took the opportunity. He surged forward, his free hand fisting in the dark hair at the back of Dazaiʼs head, yanking it back with a controlled brutality that exposed the long, bandaged line of his throat.
Chuuyaʼs mouth found the pulse point first, not a kiss, a brand. His teeth sank into the bandages and the thin skin beneath, hard enough to make Dazai hiss through his teeth, hard enough to leave a mark that would purple by morning.
“Chuuya—” The name came out fractured, nothing like the lazy drawl Dazai weaponized so effectively. His hands flew up, bandaged fingers digging into Chuuyaʼs shoulders, neither pushing away nor pulling closer. Frozen in the paradox of wanting and refusing to admit it.
Chuuya bit down harder. Dazaiʼs spine arched, a sound escaping his throat that wasnʼt quite pain, wasnʼt quite anything else. His fingers curled into the fabric of Chuuyaʼs shirt, knuckles white.
“You want to talk?” Chuuya snarled against the salty tang of Dazai’s skin, his breath hot and wet where he’d bruised the skin. “Then talk around this.”
Chuuya pulled back from the bruised throat, his eyes blazing in the amber half-light. His hands moved with military efficiency, belt first, the clink of metal loud in the charged silence, then the zipper. He shoved his slacks and boxers down in one rough motion, stepping out of them and kicking them somewhere into the darkness.
His cock stood flushed and rigid, angry with the same adrenaline that had been coursing through him since the missionʼs end. Chuuya didnʼt give himself a moment to feel exposed. Exposure required shame, and shame required admitting this was something other than violence.
“Open,” he commanded.
Dazaiʼs calculating gaze dropped, tracking the movement with a hunger heʼd never allow himself to voice. For a heartbeat, his composure cracked, lips parting, breath stuttering, the whites of his eyes visible in the dim light.
Then the mask slid back into place. That devastating, knowing smile curved his mouth as he leaned forward on the mattress, elbows bracing against the pristine sheets.
“Bossy,” he murmured, looking up through his lashes. “You always this demanding with your—”
Chuuyaʼs hand shot to the back of Dazaiʼs skull, fingers wrenching tight in the dark hair, and he thrust his hips forward.
The words died in Dazaiʼs throat, replaced by the sudden, filling intrusion. His jaw stretched wide, a muffled sound escaping around the thickness, a protest or a moan, impossible to distinguish. His eyes went wide, then fluttered, lashes casting shadows across his cheekbones as his body struggled to accommodate the brutal pace Chuuya set.
“This is what you wanted,” Chuuya growled, his voice unrecognizable to himself, guttural, stripped of every polished edge the Mafia had cultivated in him. “Isnʼt it? Something to shut you the fuck up.”
Dazaiʼs throat convulsed around him, a wet, desperate sound escaping through his nose. His hands flew to Chuuyaʼs hips, bandaged fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, but he didnʼt push away. His grip anchored, steadied, pulled.
Chuuya set a punishing rhythm, his hips snapping forward with the same precision he brought to everything: ruthless, efficient, designed to break. The wet, obscene sounds of it filled the dark bedroom, punctuated by Dazaiʼs muffled gasps whenever Chuuya withdrew enough to let him breathe.
“You talk so much,” Chuuya panted, his head falling back, the long line of his throat exposed as pleasure coiled tight at the base of his spine. “So fucking much. Every goddamn mission, every goddamn encounter—”
His fingers tightened in Dazaiʼs hair, wrenching the brunetʼs head back at an angle that let him drive deeper. Dazaiʼs throat offered resistance, then yielded, a surrender disguised as inevitability. The wet heat of him was devastating, tight and slick, and Chuuya hated how perfectly it swallowed him.
Dazaiʼs eyes were watering now, lashes clumped dark with moisture, but he didnʼt tap out. His jaw worked around Chuuyaʼs length, tongue pressing flat then curling, and even wrecked like this, even choking, even with saliva slicking his chin and his chest heaving for air between thrusts, he found a way to look smug. Like heʼd orchestrated this. Like Chuuya was dancing on strings heʼd tied himself.
The rage that ignited was instantaneous.
Chuuya yanked Dazaiʼs head back, withdrawing completely, and the sound Dazai made, a broken wet gasp that was half-deprivation and half-relief, cracked something open in Chuuyaʼs chest that he refused to name.
Dazaiʼs lips were swollen, slick, parted around nothing. His chin glistened. Those calculating eyes were blown black, lash-rimmed and ruined, and for one devastating second he looked exactly like what he was: someone who had wanted this.
“Get on the bed,” Chuuya said. Not a request. A command.
Dazai moved.
Not with his usual performative grace, but with a shaky, uncoordinated scramble backward onto the mattress that stripped away every pretense of control. his chest heaved with breath that still couldnʼt find its rhythm. He looked up at Chuuya from the center of the bed, hair wild, mouth wrecked, throat bearing the dark bloom of Chuuyaʼs teeth, and waited.
Chuuya didnʼt make him wait long.
The rest of the night existed only in fragments. Heat. Pressure. The wet sounds of bodies meeting in the dark. Dazaiʼs bandages unwinding like a slow confession, revealing pale skin mapped with scars and fresh marks that Chuuyaʼs teeth and nails left behind. The taller manʼs voice breaking on syllables that werenʼt words, just raw, animal sounds punched out of him with every thrust. Chuuyaʼs own throat torn ragged from growling things heʼd never remember saying. The headboard cracking against the wall. Someoneʼs hand shattering the wine glass on the nightstand. Neither of them flinched.
Morning found them in the wreckage.
The penthouse was unrecognizable. Sheets twisted into ropes, pulled free from the mattress corners. The wine glass lay in amber shards across the hardwood, a dark stain spreading beneath it like a wound. One of Chuuyaʼs prized abstract canvases hung crooked on the far wall, the crash of the headboard having knocked it loose. The room smelled of sweat and sex and the faint bitter ghost of Gauloises, the abandoned cigarette long since burned to nothing in the ashtray on the balcony outside.
They lay on their backs, shoulders not quite touching, staring up at the ceiling.
The ceiling was a blank white expanse, cracked in one corner where water damage had warped the plaster years ago. Chuuya had never noticed it before. He'd never had reason to lie here, still and silent, with nothing to do but look up.
His chest rose and fell with forced evenness. Every breath pulled at the scratches that scored his ribs, four parallel lines, left hand, Dazaiʼs bandages having slipped to expose bare fingers at the crucial moment. The sting was clean, almost surgical, nothing like the messy bloom of bite marks that decorated his collarbone and the meat of his shoulder. He could feel them all, each one a small hot sun burning against the cooler morning air that seeped through the balcony door theyʼd never reopened.
Beside him, Dazai breathed with the careful rhythm of someone in pain.
The taller man lay perfectly still, one arm folded across his chest as if protecting something vital, the other flung out toward the edge of the mattress where his fingers hung over into empty air. His bandages had become abstract, a strand wrapped loosely around his bicep, another tangled in the destroyed sheets, the rest lost somewhere in the chaos like shed skin. Without them, his body told stories Chuuya had never been meant to read: old scars silver in the morning light, newer ones red and raised, and the fresh constellation of damage from the night before.
Bite marks tracked down the long column of Dazaiʼs throat, overlapping now, the earliest ones already deepening from red to purple. Chuuyaʼs teeth had left their signature across both collarbones, the junction of neck and shoulder, the tender flesh beneath the ear. A particularly vicious mark sat just above Dazaiʼs left hipbone, a bruise the shape of Chuuyaʼs mouth, ringed with the indents of canines that had broken skin just enough to bead bright red before Dazaiʼs own blood had slicked them both.
The scratch marks were worse. Dazaiʼs back, had he rolled over, would display the evidence of Chuuyaʼs rage in raised, parallel welts, some already scabbing, others still pink and raw where fingernails had raked deep. Chuuya had felt them being made, had felt Dazai arch into the pain rather than away from it, and that memory sat in his stomach like swallowed glass.
Dazaiʼs thighs were a ruin of their own making. Chuuya could see them in his peripheral vision, the inner skin rubbed raw from friction, from the drag of Chuuyaʼs hips between them, from the way Dazai had locked his legs around Chuuyaʼs waist at the end and pulled until the angle made them both cry out.
The taller man was keeping them pressed together now, thighs tight, a subtle tension that spoke of deeper soreness. The kind of ache that would follow him for days. The kind that would make sitting down a deliberate, careful negotiation with memory.
Chuuya didnʼt look. Looking required acknowledgment, and acknowledgment required language, and language was the one weapon Dazai could still wield against him.
So they stared at the ceiling.
Chuuya cleared his throat, the sound dry and grating in the quiet room. He didnʼt turn his head. He didnʼt want to risk catching Dazai’s eye, didnʼt want to see the calculating machine behind the ruined mask spinning back to life. He needed to anchor the perimeter before the detective could find his footing.
“This means nothing,” Chuuya said.
The words were flat, delivered with the same sterile efficiency he used to file post-mission reports at Mafia headquarters. A boundary drawn in the dirt with a bloody finger.
Beside him, the steady, careful hitch of Dazai’s breathing didn’t falter. For a long moment, the only sound was the distant, muffled horn of a container ship navigating the canal far below.
Then, Dazai let out a breath, a shallow, raspy sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t died so quickly in his torn throat.
“Of course it doesnʼt,” Dazai murmured. The lazy, theatrical lilt was entirely gone, replaced by something hollowed out and dry. He didn’t look over either. He kept his splayed fingers hanging over the edge of the mattress, suspended in the empty air, completely motionless. “It never does.”
Chuuya closed his eyes, his jaw locking against the sudden, cold ache that settled behind his ribs. The sting of the scratches and bites felt distant now, numbed by the heavy reality crashing back into the room.
He heard the rustle of the destroyed bedding as Dazai finally shifted, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed with the slow movements of a body counting its structural failures.
Chuuya didn’t open his eyes to watch him gather his clothes or re-wrap the loosened gauze. He just listened to the quiet, dragging footsteps fade down the hardwood hallway, followed a minute later by the distant, sterile click of the heavy front door locking into place.
Leaving him completely unspooled.