Archive of Our Own

They meet up at the arcade because that’s where they met the first time and they certainly cannot meet in their usual spots and Keisuke knows they have all grown past these games anyway. It’s Kazutora who suggested it and Keisuke thinks maybe they didn’t, maybe they can still play.

She spots her near the dance mats and it’s a good thing Kazutora is facing her because from the back she would have never recognised her. Of course Keisuke went to pick her up from juvie and in the twenty-four hours she has been out it seems Kazutora has changed completely. Her hair is chopped and layered and with blonde bits and she looks so cool in her heavy make-up Keisuke’s heart skips a bit.

“Hi”, she breathes out, standing in front of Kazutora.

“Hey”, Kazutora grins. Her eyes are heavy on Keisuke, the gold of it made more evident by all the eyeliner. “Wanna show me the music I missed while I was in?”

Keisuke laughs, pushes her towards the mat. Kazutora goes easily, feet stomping on the ground.

“Fine”, she chuckles, “I’ll beat you so easily. You don’t know shit about these songs”.

Kazutora gets ready on the mat, turns around to face her. She is still smiling but her eyes are wide, head slightly tilted.

“You came here without me?”, she asks, a chuckle escaping her. Her earring, Keisuke’s earring, dangles across her neck.

She did, once, with Chifuyu, and Chifuyu hated it because she hates dancing, because everyone was eyeing her undercut and because she lost so badly to Keisuke her cheeks had flushed so red she had had to turn around and stomp away just to hide. It had been cute.

“No”, she tells Kazutora, watches her smile widen. It wasn’t the same anyway.

Kazutora’s hand rests on her shoulder, close to her neck. She can probably feel how fast Keisuke’s heart is beating - if she had a tattoo like Kazutora does it would be moving and contracting and exhaling, alive and breathing.

“Good”, Kazutora says, smiling, her eyes on Keisuke’s eyes, her lips, fingers twisting in her hair, “It’s our place. Right?”

Keisuke watches her, the tremble in her lips, her wide eyes. Thinks of her free bangs on her face driving down the Tokyo streets with all of them and how she cannot cross those streets anymore.

She grabs Kazutora’s wrist, gently, squeezes her hand.

“Right”, she smiles, and Kazutora’s blush spreading across her cheeks is answer enough.

-

One day when they meet Keisuke is waiting outside and Kazutora doesn’t come on foot like usual but on the back of a motorbike, arms around a guy who looks twice as tall and twice as wide as her. He kisses her deep when they say goodbye and Keisuke feels her eyes getting so wide she has to bite her cheek not to jump onto Kazutora when she crosses the street to come to her and says, Hi, like nothing is different, like nothing has changed. Her lipstick is smeared across her lips but it looks purposeful, like her wild hair, slightly running eyeliner and glassy eyes. Like she has just come again and again and again and wants the whole world to know. Keisuke doesn’t want to just know, she wants to smell it, taste it, feel it under her fingers.

“Who was that?”, she asks, later, when they are laying on the grass at a nearby park.

Kazutora shrugs, bites her lips and shakes her head. The movement makes her hair fall off her shoulders, the marks on her neck melting into her tattoo.

“Just a guy I am fucking”, she says, looking away, unbothered. She inhales from her cigarette, lets the smoke out slowly.

“Oh”, she answers, quietly, “do you like him?”

Kazutora snorts, takes another drag. “He is funny”, she says, after a while. “I like the sex. He -”, she starts, stops again, eyes blinking fast.

A moment passes. Keisuke wonders where she met him, maybe in juvie, she heard sometimes they let the kids mix. He has the look for it. She wonders if Kazutora’s mum knows, if she is okay with it, but Kazutora is out almost every night after midnight with her, and Keisuke knows her own mum has given up, doesn’t even wait up anymore, just begs her to be careful in the morning, so Kazutora’s mum is probably the same. She has a lot going on. There are so many questions she wants to ask. How does he treat you, what does he do, how old is he. Did it hurt the first time. I thought you were waiting for me like I was waiting for you.

Instead she settles on: “Is it good?”

She plays with Kazutora’s zippo; a tacky thing with a tiger printed on it, with stickers all over it; cute and garish and perfect. Studies it instead of looking at Kazutora.

“You haven’t fucked a guy yet?”, Kazutora says, kicks her feet and looks up. Keisuke shakes her head, watches the flame flicker as she blows on it. Kazutora focuses on her more, narrows her gaze.

“What?”, Keisuke asks with a little laugh that tumbles out her throat, fiddles with her hairband.

Kazutora shrugs, smiles to herself. “That’s crazy. You’re just so beautiful”.

Keisuke flushes, she can feel it make her cheeks ache. She shakes her head, lets her hair cover the blush. It makes her throb, embarrassingly; sat here soaking her underwear while Kazutora talks of her boyfriend.

“It’s more intense”, Kazutora says plainly, taking pity on her flush. “Harder to come”.

“Nah I get that, like -”, Keisuke struggles for the word, lies on her back so they are matched, so their hair bleeds into eachothers on the grass. "What’s he like?”.

She watches her in profile, rememorises the arch of her nose, the twist of her lips, her liquid gold eyes.

“I’ll show you”, Kazutora grins, turns onto her side so they are facing each other. “If you want. There’s this thing he does with his tongue…”

Her tricky, smart fingers are playing with the edges of Keisuke’s t-shirt, sliding across the planes of her abs, only cotton and years lost between them. Keisuke takes her wrist, laughs, unsure. She has only ever felt Kazutora’s tongue on her neck, her lips.

“I thought - I wasn’t sure -”, she feels silly, even saying it with Kazutora’s wide golden eyes bearing down on her. “Well you’re cooler than me now”, she grins, “with your boyfriend and your hair -”

Kazutora lurches, throws her arms around Keisuke’s neck and brings their mouths together.

It’s everything Keisuke has been dreaming off, pitifully, everything she felt so dumb about the second she saw Kazutora on the back of that bike. It fills her up and makes her warm, tilts the world back onto an axis she recognises.

It suddenly feels okay, with Kazutora’s hands on her cheeks, possessive and incessant. Her lips drop open, let her in. It’ll work out, she thinks, as Kazutora keens - all high and gentle - nothing has changed.

“Keisuke”, Kazutora breathes into her mouth, presses their forehead together and grins. “I’m yours, only yours”.

“Thank god -”, Keisuke murmurs, rolls them so she is on top, smiles so wide it hurts her cheeks. Her hair curtains them both in thick black curls, shielding Kazutora. “I’m only yours - only ever yours -”

And they giggle, into each others mouths, like everything that was simmering is at ease. Keisuke knows she can make this right, all of it and with Kazutora back and safe and in her arms; it feels in reach.

“Are you?”, Kazutora smiles, kisses her cheek, her neck, and twists Keisuke onto her back. She lays beside her, propped up on her elbow, her hand slipping past the waistband of her sweats.

“Am I?”

“Mine?”, Kazutora gasps the word as her hand slips past her panties, feeling how thoroughly soaked she is from lying side by side. “Keisuke…”

She pulls her hand out, settles on her chest like a cat might and looks up.

“Course I am”.

They seal it with Kazutora’s hand down her panties and her lips on her neck and the red of her gloss stuck to Keisuke’s skin and then Kazutora shows her how to do it to her and guides Keisuke’s hand inside her. Keisuke never wants to leave - this park, suspended in time, Kazutora’s warmth, the trembling in her thighs, her delighted chuckle when Keisuke sucks on her own fingers and Kazutora does the same, tasting each other, looking into each other eyes as they do it like they are just trying each other’s ice cream instead.

-

She meets Chifuyu during the interval the day after and tells her everything about it, eyes shining, Chifuyu transfixed.

“Baji-san”, she says, at the end, grazes her neck, tucking her long hair back, “You have…”

Her fingers press in over the hickey Kazutora left her last night. She thought about stealing her mum’s concealer but there wasn’t much left. She giggles, tries to pull away, but Chifuyu’s fingers are insistent, still pressing, hard on her skin.

“Chifuyu”, she says after a while, grinning, grabs her wrist. Chifuyu’s eyes snap to her face, her breath stutters. “Sorry”, she says, smiles crookedly, brings her hand back. Chifuyu’s touch always feels so warm. “You know, the others are noticing you keep skipping meetings. You should tell them. I wanna meet her”.

Keisuke thinks about it, the three of them, Toman uniforms on, each with their own bike, she’ll get a new one for Kazutora. She wouldn’t even need her boyfriend, then, to drive around, can do it on her own, stop pretending she is lazy and the fuel costs too much and it’s just better to hitch a ride. Keisuke knows she is lying, knows from how her eyes used to light up as soon as she was on her bike.

“You will”, she smiles, matching Chifuyu’s grin. She swings their hands together as they head back to class, fingers brushing each other's thighs. “Imagine the three of us all wearing uniforms. We are gonna look so fucking cool”.

-

She doesn’t even get to ask Mikey if he is willing to consider - if he would - they are childhood friends, after all, Mikey is like a brother to her. Pays attention to her in a way that feels safe and loves her in a way that feels real. She knows it was the same for Kazutora, that Mikey saw her like that, too, that he wanted to keep her safe. Surely he would -

“I joined another gang”, Kazutora tells her, playing with her hair on her bed. She is wearing some lace lingerie that looks so adult Keisuke would think she had stolen it from her mother if Kazutora hadn’t said her - boyfriend, lover, whatever - had gotten it for her. Who knew someone like Hanma Shuji had taste.

Keisuke’s heart skips a beat, her face scrunches up.

“What do you mean, another gang?”, she asks, propping herself up on her elbow. Kazutora’s bedsheet are dark around them, her room different from how she remembers it.

Everything is different from how she remembers it.

Kazutora shrugs, faces the ceiling. “Shuji asked”. She blinks, hands twitching. “I want to - I mean - I know what they say - I just want to -”

“They are not saying anything”, Keisuke rushes to say, even if it’s not true. Even if deep down she knows Mikey is still grieving, even if she sometimes still sees a black bloodied head on the floor when she closes her eyes. Mikey doesn’t talk but the others do. Kazutora is crazy, has always been, you see what happens when little girls have shit fathers, it’s sad but he fucked her up, nothing to do about it. Was she in love with Mikey, wanted to get his attention? Was Keisuke, also? But no, they were childhood friends. Has she seen her now? All that make-up, the hair. Souya’s mother met Kazutora’s and she ran away, didn’t even want to speak - who wouldn’t really, now she really looks like a bit of a -

Kazutora shakes her from her thoughts, hovering over her. Her eyes are very wide, long eyelashes crumpled with mascara fluttering quickly.

“You don’t have to lie, Keisuke, I know”, she gets out, voice trembling, “It’s okay, though, like - I am sure Mikey said - I am sure he told them horrible things and -”

Keisuke shakes her head, quickly, bucks up under Kazutora.

“That’s not true, come on, you know it’s not, you could come back, you could -”

“Nah”, Kazutora interrupts, drawing back. She sits on the bed, hugs her knees. “I couldn’t. Don’t lie to me. Shuji doesn’t, that’s why I like him - he - he really understands me, tells me the truth and -”, she swallows, heavily, “I just wanna, I don’t know, leave it all behind.. You know? Like, forget about it. Completely. You understand?”

Her eyes are pleading, now, voice wavering. Keisuke sits back up, hugs her close into the crook of her neck.

“Of course”, she gets out, stroking Kazutora’s hair, her back, “Of course. Just - don’t forget about me, okay?”

Kazutora chuckles into her skin, wetly. “Keisuke”, she breathes out, “I could never”.

-

She begs Keisuke to meet him for real. Her infamous Hanma Shuji. She promises he is lovely, that he wants to meet her. That it will be fun.

She thinks the three of them would get on, have fun, are compatible that way. Keisuke smiles, wide and toothy and says she's down, that she'd love to.

But she doesn't sleep the night before they meet, feels sick with nerves and what ifs and it feels too much like last time; hurtling towards something inevitable, Keisuke sick to her stomach and Kazutora smiling like she doesn't have a care in the world.

She realises that she would stay this way; sleepless and staring at the ceiling, hand on her heart to try to calm it, to see Kazutora smile like that forever.

He cuts such an imposing figure, Keisuke thinks - and she isn’t intimidated by much.

“Are we not fraternising with the enemy?”, he drawls, lips curling.

Kazutora clings to his arm, his jacket around her shoulders, big enough to sit where her skirt ends like a dress. It’s not like Kazutora doesn’t have one of her own, matching in white but Keisuke guesses this is what couples do.

“She’s not the enemy”, Kazutora defends. “She’s my person”. And then, with an edge to her voice she adds, softly. “Mine”.

Hanma’s gaze rakes over her, makes her wish she was in her Toman uniform, makes her want to tug her skirt down. They both came straight from school, to outsiders they must look like friends; sharing food and clothes and smiles.

“Sure”, he shrugs, blows smoke at her.

And she has never trusted anyone less. It is not jealousy, because she knows how jealousy feels - intimately - and this is not it. He makes her guts squirm. He makes Kazutora look so small, and so fragile in his grip and she smiles up at him like he’s the gentlest, kindest man to walk the planet.

Maybe Keisuke is missing something but as the day goes on and they share each other's space, when she feels his leering gaze on where her and Kazutora’s hands are joined she knows - she knows - he is playing them both.

“Do you like him?”, Kazutora asks as she applies her lip-gloss, elbows on the bathroom sink. It’s the first moment of privacy all day, really, and even then, Keisuke was half convinced he’d follow them into the ladies.

Kazutora’s gaze flickers to her and there is something so imploring, so hopeful in her gaze. A desire for companionship - the type she has lost - a group; a gang. Keisuke can’t tell her. Can’t ruin this.

“He’s cool”, she says, awkward, “he’s tall”

She giggles. "He's a catch right?", and then, more focused, her grip tightens. "Wild too. How tall is Mikey anyway? Still 5"3? He's got a foot on him, a whole foot, that's a lot, hell I have -", and Keisuke watches her grip tighten till the tube of her gloss bursts over, trails sticky down her hand. "I'm taller. Invincible - what a fucking joke", she snarls.

Keisuke never knows what to say, not when she gets like this, she doesn't have the words. She just watches, tries to find a place to cut in and even when she can, when she finds the space or when Kazutora runs out of breath all she finds she can do is deflect.

"I like your jackets", she says and it's so dumb, that she has nothing else to offer. She feels itchy with nerves.

"Yeah?", Kazutora smiles, like nothing is amiss and then softer, teasing. "Want one?"

And she breathes out a laugh, relief filled. Keisuke smiles, grabs her wrist to wash her lip-gloss stained hand in the sink. It goes away easily, easily enough she can forget about it, blink it away when Kazutora kisses her deep, so Keisuke can taste the gloss on her tongue instead.

-

Sometimes she thinks, it’s not Kazutora who is the problem, really. She is aware that - okay, they all have issues. She still sets cars on fire, she thinks sometimes, desperately, it’s not that different. So it’s not really Kazutora who is the problem. People like her, like Keisuke, like Mikey, Draken, Chifuyu - they all join a gang to look for… something. Kinship, maybe, someone who can understand, can scratch the itch beneath their skin.

She doubts someone like Kisaki Tetta has any itches at all, and if she does, they are fake, like everything about her - her appearance, her bad fake tan, her terrible bleach job, like she saw Chifuyu, or Draken, and decided she needed to fit, but didn’t quite know how to. Her desire to join Toman, be close to Mikey - that’s fake, too, Keisuke knows, or at least, the reasons she gives for it.

It takes her a while to figure her out. Tetta is reserved, stone-cold, talks to Mikey and no one else. Keisuke’s mum always made fun of her for taking home too many strays, had joked about it the first time Kazutora had slept over, wide-eyed and with bad bangs covering her forehead and with her vest way too small for her body, holes in her tights. She stopped joking around the time Kazutora got her tattoo, cut her hair short - and then.

Tetta doesn’t look like a stray. The way she holds herself gives her away. But Keisuke has always given everyone that benefit of the doubt.

That stops when she spots her on the streets, one day, the trees on the sidewalk covering her. She is wearing her school clothes - it suits her more, Keisuke thinks, than whatever she is trying to achieve in a Toman uniform. She is wearing her school clothes and leaning against a motorbike, and those seats could only belong to one person, really.

“You cannot be here -”, she hears her hiss, “What are you even doing?! Don’t you have a job to do? I thought I had made myself clear -”

“You did, sugar, don’t worry”, Hanma croons, lips around a cigarette, “Just wanted to see you. Report back. All is good. The gang is growing and …”

They start walking - Keisuke has to hide behind a corner to not get caught, heart thumping in her chest. She thinks of telling Kazutora and wants to throw up. Maybe Hanma likes her anyway, she thinks, a bit desperately, maybe Kisaki is just… just..

But he strokes her hair out of her face in a way that's far too telling, listens to her words in a way he doesn't listen to Kazutora. She smacks him away, holds his wrist, flushes like the school girl she is. Keisuke wonders what the fuck it is about a man like Shuji that gets people like this - almost feels sorry for Tetta for a moment. Then she plucks his cigarette out his fingers, puts it out under her foot, whispers something in his ear that makes his eyes go wide and hopeless and Keisuke realises, clear as day, he is not the threat. He maybe never was.

Her fingers are itching. She wants to throw Kisaki against a wall, punch her face in, listen to her glasses break. She wants to set a car on fire with Kisaki inside it, Hanma, too, for playing with Kazutora’s feelings, her heart - how fragile she is, how vulnerable.

She is almost crying, she realises, gulps it down with her next breath. I love her, she wants to scream at Hanma, I love her. Let her go.

That night she cannot sleep. She thinks of Hanma’s leer and Kisaki’s words and Kazutora’s wide eyes shaking and filled with tears and Keisuke watching her go, hands behind her back, pulled into a police car and driving away, glass between them year after year.

-

Kazutora is crueler. Every time they see each other it's clawingly more obvious. Or Keisuke is seeing it now with eyes unclouded; the effect Shuji has on her. They must spend too much time together because she sometimes takes on his mannerisms and everytime she does Keisuke feels like she loses her just a bit more.

She talks of their reckless violence and Keisuke can only breath a hopeless, be careful, in response, because she doesn’t want to say, you just got out, what about your record, what if they catch you again. Kazutora only grins.

"Don't worry, sugar", she winks, “Didn’t you used to be more fun?”

And she knows this can't go on. She cannot hear her talk of her wound up hatred for Mikey and then face him at night. She can't stand Chifuyu's concern, she can't even look at third Division Captain Kisaki fucking Tetta. So really, it's an easy call - when you lay it out like that.

“Mum”, she asks one night at dinner, feet kicking under the table, “what would you - what would you do if, like, the person you really like was - I don’t know, changing? And you want to show them they don’t - they really don’t need to?”

Her mother looks up, gaze worried, strokes her cheek.

“Keisuke”, she says, “Sometimes people fall under bad influences. Having good company, the right kind of company, it can help. You know what I am saying?”

She nods, bites her lip. She can be that, for Kazutora, she knows, hug her close and ride together and kiss her deep and never see her shaking again. I am with you until the end. She smiles at her mum, ignores her when she suggests going to the neighbourhood book club - she’ll stay by Kazutora’s side. No matter what kind of hell awaits us.

She tells her in the October cold air, knees red and breath fogging.

"I'm leaving", she says. Kazutora's cold hands spasm in hers, her eyes wide but earnest; child-like. "I'm done with them, Kazutora. I'm done".

Her lashes flutter, her gaze searching. "Keisuke -"

"It's no fun without you", she grins, teeth baring, heart clenching, "I miss you, I miss you like crazy and I want it - I want it like it used to be".

"Just you and me?", Kazutora asks, voice small, like she can't believe she's hearing the words.

"Just you and me", Keisuke promises. She’ll get her back. Just the two of them.

Kazutora smiles, wide and genuine, her shoulders relaxing in a sigh of a laugh. She throws her arms around Keisuke's neck, squeals when Keisuke lifts her. When they pull away though she frowns just a little.

"Shuji won't trust you", she admits. Keisuke snorts, shakes her head.

"Fuck what he thinks. I'll show him, it'll be fine".

“Yeah?”, Kazutora breathes out, face inches away from hers.

“Yeah”, she says against her lips, tracing her mole with her fingers, the vein under her eyes, “Fuck what everyone thinks”.

-

They take a day to plan. Her mum calls her in sick which is always a blessing. Kazutora lays on her bed, phone above her face as she explains;

"He doesn't really trust you, y'know", and she flashes her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry" .

Keisuke shrugs, Toman uniform stripped to her waist, she lounges against the headboard in her bra. "Don't mind".

And the mistrust is fair. ‘Cause she could be a spy, or something. This ends with her and Kazutora, together, and with Toman. Somehow.

"Is the hazing bad?"

"Nah", Kazutora promises. "Not for you at least".

There is a pause, Kazutora stares at nothing before she asks, face pinched. "How did they take it?"

She sniffs, doesn't think about the shock in Mikey's eyes, the way he'd tried to speak and couldn't seem to. The way her heart soared in her chest at that look that made him seem so young, too young, too sweet, too forgiving. Too trusting. Like Chifuyu, convinced that she has a plan - believes in her more than Keisuke does.

"Dunno. Was a whole mess. Caused enough trouble to get myself kicked out".

"But he wouldn't?", Kazutora asks, looking at her nails, lips slightly curled.

"Nah, course he wouldn't", Baji bites her lip. "Told it to him straight in the end".

Kazutora pouts a little, rolls onto her front and wraps her arms around Keisuke waist, plants her head on her stomach and flutters her lashes up at her. "Anyone in particular you'd wanna beat up for Shuji?"

A few. Kisaki takes first place, closely followed by that wheedling blonde who won't leave Mikey alone.

"Oh yeah", she breathes, vents out like it's a playground squabble. "You should see Mikey's new charity case. Puts us to shame".

She should take Kisaki. Newly minted captain Kisaki Tetta; punch her stupid glasses off and see if Shuji reacts. Show Kazutora in front of all his stupid cronies that they're both fucking hacks. That feels dreamy, that feels right.

She lets Kazutora do the buttons up on her uniform. "Last time in it", she teases, seems to watch her far too carefully.

Keisuke laughs, feels sick and terrified all of a sudden. "Your jackets are cooler anyway".

They sneak out of Keisuke’s room, past her mother’s, where she is sleeping. If she saw Kazutora she knew she would have words to say. After the incident she would always wait for Keisuke up at night, head in hands, tears in her eyes. She’ll be more careful, this time, she promises to herself, holds Kazutora’s hand tightly.

Out of her house the sun is shining, the air is crisp. Kazutora’s eyes gleam in the sun, her smile wide.

“Come on, let’s - ”

“Where are you going?”, she hears behind her, feels her stomach drop.

Kazutora tenses, eyes narrowing.

“Who is this, Kei?”, she sing-songs, swinging their hands.

“I - This is Chifuyu”, Keisuke gets out, makes herself look at Chifuyu while she says it. “She is with Toman. Lives here”.

Chifuyu is looking between them, brows furrowed. Her bangs make her look like a child, her big blue eyes barely intimidating when all Keisuke can see in them is confusion.

“Oh”, she breathes out, attempts a smile, gaze shifting, “Kazutora, right?”

“Mh mh”, Kazutora hums next to her, her grip on her hand tighter, “Heard the stories?”

Chifuyu laughs, strained, puts her hair behind her ears, showing her undercut, like she does when she feels too small, too young, wants an edge.

“Yeah, well, Baji-san is always -”

“Baji-san?”, Kazutora interrupts, laughing, eyes wide, fixed on Chifuyu, “Wow, you really got yourself a groupie here. A pretty one, too. Didn’t know this was your type”.

Chifuyu blushes, furiously, her cheeks flooding with red. Keisuke snorts. Her palm is sweating and she is sure Kazutora can feel it, how nervous she is, how her heart rate has spiked up.

“Kind of”, she lies, smirking, hugs Kazutora’s waist instead, watches hurt flashing through Chifuyu’s eyes even as she stays quiet, convinced, still, that there is a plan, that Keisuke knows what she is doing. “Doesn’t matter. Should we - ”

"No!", Kazutora breathes, delighted. "No we're in no rush and you -", she pulls out of Keisuke's grip, puts her arms behind her back and takes a step towards Chifuyu. "You are so cute. You should have introduced us properly, Keisuke, why did you keep her hidden?"

Keisuke blinks, feels all tight in her chest. The answer is wrong either way. She knows Kazutora in these moods. She just didn't think - Chifuyu is no threat, she wants to say but it would be a lie, in some ways because they have been inseparable since they met.

"She's my vice captain", Keisuke says, because she and Kazutora had the same role. Wants to add, I just wanted a friend. Kazutora laughs, throws her arm around Chifuyu. Chifuyu who tenses, shoulders bunches, tries to smile and laugh with her even if her eyes won't leave Keisuke's.

"She can be your vice captain and cute, y'know?", she lilts, “Got lonely, Keisuke? Couldn’t wait?”

Her eyes are open far too wide, earring tingling with the tilt of her head. She thinks of kissing Chifuyu drunk and after smoking and how Chifuyu had thrown her arms around her, and how after she had said, sorry, and told her about Kazutora, snuggled in bed together. She breathes in, closes her eyes.

“It’s okay”, Kazutora continues, grin wide, “I didn’t either. We are both a bit slutty”, she whispers to Chifuyu, crookedly, “aren’t we? What about you?”

“I don’t think you are -”, Chifuyu rises up to say, tilts up on the tip of her toes, voice indignant.

“Of course you don’t”, Kazutora reassures, smiles at her. It looks so genuine Keisuke feels a shiver going down her spine, grabs Kazutora’s hand, pleading.

“Come on”, she says, “Let’s go”.

Kazutora smiles at her, placidly, arm still around Chifuyu. She looks eerily calm when she tells her: “Sure. Chifuyu can come too, mhh?”

Keisuke studies her face, the set of her jaw, the trembling in her eyes. Thinks of Kazutora as a little girl squashing ants on the streets, misplaced anger. She wants to say, this is not your enemy, wants to say, Chifuyu did nothing to you. Did nothing to me. To us.

But Kazutora’s jaw is trembling, her gaze between challenge and plea.

“Yeah”, she gets out, weakly, “Of course”.

Perhaps the only thing she can give Kazutora is reassurance. That she comes first, for her, always will. She glances at Chifuyu and the worried set of her brows and feels bile rising at the back of her throat as they start walking, Kazutora skipping down the road, Keisuke feeling heavy in her Toman uniform. Suddenly she cannot bear to see it on Chifuyu either.

“You’re really leaving”, Chifuyu states. It’s not a question, it’s far too raw for it to be that. Her jaw is set, her eyes searching.

Kazutora turns around, smiles bitterly. “You didn’t tell her first?”

She pouts on her behalf, even if she can’t help but smile still. The jut of her lips shows her lipstick, her eyes big, eyelashes fluttering.

“Told everyone”, Keisuke says, looking Chifuyu in the eyes, “not my fault if she didn’t hear”.

Chifuyu’s gaze doesn’t waver, seems to look into her fucking soul. It makes her feel so fucking awful she thinks maybe she won’t even mind hitting her. Leave me alone, she wants to scream, you don’t understand.

Except she does, really. Has helped Keisuke write letter after letter, has heard her confess about that night, tears in her eyes, say, I didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it, has backed her up when the others let a comment too much slip, stood her ground when they complained about crazy girlfriends, crazy girls, wouldn’t Keisuke know, she had the craziest of them all. And Chifuyu, always by her side, biting back, hand in hand, smile wide, sharing dinners, punches, scabs on their knees.

Kazutora grins next to her, says, tugging Chifuyu a little, “Mean. Isn’t she mean?”

Chifuyu shrugs back, steps away from Kazutora. “I don’t think so”, she says, and Kazutora blinks in response, laughs high.

“Are you that close, Keisuke?”, she asks her, earring tingling in the air.

Keisuke watches them, Chifuyu’s resolution, Kazutora’s insecurity. She doesn’t know where she stands, amongst them, how to reassure them both. She wishes Mikey was here, shamefully, she wishes she had told him. She wishes whatever clicked in Kazutora’s mind that made her want to choke him would unclick. But Chifuyu never met the girl who tugged Kazutora’s sleeve and asked not to do things. She’s older now, she can’t afford to meet her either. She has to believe she has grown up from then.

“Nah”, Keisuke grins, breezes past both them, ties her hair back. “Of course not. Otherwise I would have stayed in Toman, no?”

Chifuyu flinches at that, can’t seem to help it. Kazutora pulls her along, between them: “Sad? Don’t worry. She’s in very good hands in Valhalla. You can meet them all. You two can say your farewells. I think it deserves an audience”.

She watches the realisation settle on Chifuyu’s face, watches the fear that makes her steps stutter, the way it morphs across her pretty features into sad resignation. She has never seen her scared, never seen her upset. Even beaten up bad she never looked anything but tough. She does not look tough, when she looks up at Keisuke, she looks thirteen.

“Really?”, she asks, eyes downcast, jaw tight. Keisuke looks at her, really looks, thinks of a hundred apologies and says none of them.

“Aw, kitten”, Kazutora says, and it’s Hanma’s words, again, crooned and fake-sweet, strange in Kazutora’s mouth. She squeezes both of Chifuyu’s shoulders. “You’re shaking”.

Chifuyu doesn’t respond, seems to see everything she needs in Keisuke’s gaze. Keisuke can’t think what she sees, to make her look like that. Her fear perhaps, maybe that’s all she needs. Behind her, through the dilapidated double doors, she can hear commotion; hungry, looking for a show.

Kazutora looks between them, grin turning tight. “Do you two want a moment?”

Of course she does. A moment would give her time enough to hug Chifuyu close, to make a promise she probably can’t keep. But a moment can ruin a fucking lifetime and Keisuke can’t risk it. Kazutora needs unfeigned loyalty. A moment would take it from her.

“No”, Chifuyu says, on her behalf almost, like she just knows.

“Got nothing to say to you anyway”, Keisuke says, heart in her throat.

There will be time for that later. After all of this.

-

It’s like she blinks and then it’s done. One minute Chifuyu’s face is red with her slaps, then bloody with her fists, and the minute after she is staring in the mirror and cannot even recognise herself, her grin fixed on her face. She shakes her head, looks at her arms, trembles as she gets the water running.

“Shit”, She murmurs under her breath, hands under the tap. The blood really won’t come off. It’s right up her forearms, caught in the hairs, dried now. Kazutora’s hands wrap around her waist, fingers between the buttons of her uniform, stroking the skin of her stomach. Her cold nose pressed into the crook of Keisuke’s neck.

“Second thoughts?”, Hanma is leant up against the door like a spectre, arms crossed. His head almost touches the lit up exit sign.

Keisuke sniffs the October air right in her lungs. “Nah, just can’t get this - fucking blood out-”

“She’s just a little shaken”, Kazutora coos. “Aren’t you?”

The fluorescent sheen of the public toilets gives the blood an eerie quality, making her skin look washed out, wrong.

“Well shit”, Hanma is on his phone, typing away, smiling to himself. “I mean, I would be. A scar is bad ass on a dude. She’s gonna be like veritably -'', he takes a moment, makes their eyes meet in the mirror. “Unfuckable”.

Keisuke bites her lip, incisor into the flesh. Doesn’t think of anything at all; not the sound of Chifuyu’s whimpers, when she couldn’t hold them back anymore, the sound of her choking on her blood, the shock in her swollen eyes. Her nervous laugh when it all started, as if she was trying to be in on the joke. If Shuji weren’t there, right there - always there - then she might cry and Kazutora might understand but they can’t and there is not an inch of room for regret.

“Think I give a fuck, Shuji?”, she feels Kazuotra purr against her, warm body pressing closer. Pleased. She focuses on the sound of her earring, the little clicks of her jewellery. She smells the same, even after all these years. There is some comfort in that, some familiarity. Even if what she just asked her, pushed her to do was…

“Course you don’t. Very badass”, Shuji winks.

Kazutora smiles, hopeless, kind of overwhelmed and laughs all delighted.

“See?”, she turns to Shuji, arms still tight around Keisuke’s waist. “I told you she was cool”.

She unravels herself, heads to get some paper towels for all the blood on Keisuke's face. Shuji fills the space, closer than they've ever been before. He puts his hands on her shoulders; coaching, encouraging. The breadth of them make it feel like a cage, the tips of his fingers on her collar, right on her pulse.

Their gazes meet and he must see the terror in hers, his smile drops just a little.

"You've bust your knuckles", he says.

She checks, hasn't even considered them but he's not wrong. They're bruised, bleeding even under the blood; hers and Chifuyu's mingled.

"Fuck", she laughs, trembly, "So I have".

Kazutora is back, damp tissues in her palm, glancing between them both. She lets her head be supported by just Kazutora's hand, eyes fluttering shut when she sweeps warm water across the marks.

"You really didn't hold back huh?", he says, watches her carefully.

"Why would I hold back?", she asks him, but the words don't feel like her own, she feels so separate, like Kazutora's touch comes a second too late. It feels like when you take too many blows to the head, when you teeter between conscious and not, nauseas.

Hanma whistles. Claps his hands. She watches the look he exchanges with Kazutora, too fast to be readable. Or Keisuke is slow. She feels out of it.

Kazutora takes her hands, squeezes them. "Come out with us".

Us. She feels more sick. Us; like she isn't with them. Like him and Kazutora have something they don't. It feels so much like an invitation, like this is something they do regularly and it flashes white hot through Keisuke that was it was stupid to think Kazutora was only ever spending time with her. It's just - well, Keisuke was.

"We need to celebrate", he says, winks. “You look like you need something strong”.

She swallows, dizzy. Yeah, maybe she does. "Sure. I mean - yes, cool, where?"

“Shuji knows a place”, Kazutora tells her, stroking her hair, her cheeks. “They don’t check for IDs, drinks are cheap. Or free. If you work the bartender a bit”, she winks.

Hanma laughs, puts his hand on Kazutora’s shoulder. “Haven't had to pay for a thing since I brought her. Not even harder stuff”, he says, wiggles his eyebrows, “If you know what I mean”.

She is staring at them, Keisuke realises, lips dropped open. She doesn’t know what they mean. Or maybe she does, it’s just - it’s just all so -

“Come on”, Kazutora says again, pleads, bats her eyelashes. “Please? We can go back to mine first, get changed. We haven’t been out together in ages”.

We never went out together, Keisuke wants to say. They had a beer at the park, a cigarette, at most, before the incident. She nods anyway, forces herself to smile.

“Oh - cool. Yeah, cool”.

Maybe she can forget about it all, for a while. Kazutora jumps on the back of her bike, instead of Hanma’s, and that makes her heart soar.

“See you in a bit”, Hanma winks, and then heads off, engine rumbling.

Keisuke starts the engine, too, heads to Kazutora’s. Kazutora’s body is warm against hers, her arm tight around her waist, her lips to her neck, her cheeks. She lets herself cry, a bit, lets Kazutora lick her tears way, hold her closer. The air is cold on her face - helps her focus. Maybe it will soothe Chifuyu, too.

By the time they get to Kazutora’s Hanma is already waiting downstairs, hands in pockets. Keisuke expects him to wait in the living room but he follows them to the bedroom, sits himself on the bed. He looks so at ease there it makes Keisuke want to vomit again. Kazutora looks at ease, too, shucking off her clothes, shimmying out of her skirt.

She watches her open her wardrobe, pick an outfit, only black lace covering her. She is always wearing such expensive lingerie. Hanma is watching her, too, gaze hungry. She doesn’t want to undress.

“Uhm, I - I think I -”, she starts, nervously, arms around her middle.

Kazutora turns towards her, clothes in hand. “Everything okay?”, she asks, smiling, throws her a skirt and a top. “Come on. These should fit you. Maybe a bit too short on you”, she giggles, eyes glinting.

Keisuke smiles back, starts unbuttoning her uniform slowly. She has changed in front of guys plenty of times, she thinks, this is no different. She bites her lip, focuses on Kazutora’s body, the familiar jut of her limbs, the moles on her back. She feels stupidly childish in her plain white underwear, but Hanma whistles all the same.

“Didn’t know that’s what you were hiding”, he grins, voice low.

Kazutora clicks her tongue, annoyed, places herself in front of her. She is still in her underwear, too, hiding her from sight, now.

“Don’t mind him”, she tells her, caressing her shoulders. “He just likes to play”.

Hanma laughs, Kazutora giggles, rolling her eyes fondly as she watches Keisuke wear her skirt, her top, turns around when she is done to go back to her clothes. Her outfit is similar, skimpier, maybe, but still. They still match, even if it’s not a uniform, and even something this small, this silly makes her breathe easier with relief.

She leans against the window, watches Kazutora adjust her make-up.

“So do you guys go to this place often?”, she asks, awkwardly. She was with Kazutora so often before tonight and yet forgot to ask what she did with the rest of her time, swept up in her love, her plan, Kazutora’s skin, her eyes, her smile.

Hanma shrugs, lights up a cigarette. Kazutora’s face doesn’t even flinch in the mirror. Is her mother still around?

“Kind of”, he says, exhaling, “Often enough. She likes the music”.

“Techno”, Kazutora says, fixing her hair. Her tongue stops on the T, against her teeth, makes the word foreign and attractive in her mouth, “it’s so cool, you’ll see. Do you have anything left?”, she asks, turning to Hanma.

He grins, takes something out of his pocket. It’s pills, Keisuke realises, her mother’s face flashing across her mind, saying, I know you smoke, sometimes, but please don’t -

“Come check”, Hanma drawls, places two pills on his tongue. Kazutora giggles, delighted, seats herself on his legs. His hands go to her waist, so big they engulf her, and then they are kissing, filthy and deep, Kazutora’s hands on his cheek, angling his head. She watches, transfixed - Kazutora kisses her differently. Her teeth nip at Hanma’s lip, her hand at the back of his neck, keeping him still.

When she pulls back the pill is on her tongue, eyes glinting as she gets water from her bedside table, offers it to Hanma, too. Keisuke feels flushed all over, hands under her thighs. She is glad her hair is covering her face, her blush, the way her eyes track Kazutora’s throat as she swallows, the way her tattoo moves, eyes catching.

“Want some?”, Kazutora asks, smiling, grabs a ziploc bag from Hanma’s pocket, so close to his crotch she almost snarls with jealousy, wants to get mad at Kazutora, too, at how she is sitting on Hanma’s lap instead of staying close to her, after what she did.

“Wait”, Hanma interrupts, puts a hand over Kazutora’s, looks back at Keisuke. “Have you ever taken it before?”

His eyes are searching, small smile in place. Keisuke feels herself trembling with rage at his act, his possessive touch, the complicity he has with Kazutora after knowing her for such little time.

“First time for everything”, she spits out, grabs the bag from Kazutora and drops one pill, eyes on Hanma’s as she swallows it with water, too. He looks so amused she wants to slap that smile right off his face. Kazutora claps on his lap, cheers a bit.

“It’s gonna be so much fun”, she promises, her smile full of teeth, “You’ll see. Lets go”.

The drive over is short, the air on her face not sobering like it was before. Hanma has put loud music on his phone, driving next to her, Kazutora still on her bike, her arms warm around her, her laugh high.

When they get there she can see why Kazutora was so excited to come. The club is seedy, a hole in the wall, dark and dirty but Kazutora takes it all in stride. She seems to thrive, her laugh harmonious with the sub bass, her features brought out by the lights. She belongs, not with the place maybe but with the music; carefree and lit up and pretty. Maybe Keisuke has been spoilt. Ruined by a good set of friends from since before she could remember, built up by them. Because she does not belong. She doesn't belong here at all and she feels it in her bones.

Hanma, too, when she loses track of Kazutora - all lithe and small - she can find him in a crowd. For all his flaws, and his awful inciting nature, he has the stature of someone unapproachable. He can, with barely a smile, tell whoever Kazutora is talking her mouth dry too that she’s taken and - no fists are thrown, or bottles. They listen to him like they’d never listen to Keisuke. But Hanma doesn’t need to say he’s taken, not really, not when Kazutora is all over him like she’s never been touched by another soul.

It makes Keisuke’s skin prickle, and her breath hard in her chest to watch them. It’s barely jealousy, it’s far more hopeless. She just aches for her, for them, for an inch for what they have. Even when Kazutora kisses her; sloppy and unbalanced, it feels empty, like she needs more suddenly to feel a fraction of what she felt before she saw them like this.

She sees the attraction. There is something about him. A kind of magnetism. Or maybe that’s just - what you’re like at seventeen. Though, Mucho is about that age and he doesn’t feel like this. Shuji is funny, stupidly funny, and he has Kazutora waiting on his words, he has her. It’s enough to see why this is needed, enough to make the blood under her fingernails feel worth it.

He can drink too. Keisuke can - could - keep up with Draken and stay standing and he was the tallest of them. She regrets trying to match Shuji, trying to feel like she’s the same breed as him because she isn’t. He is dangerous in a way she will never be. In a way - she thinks - he has the capacity to make Kazutora.

“Are you okay?”, he asks, bent down to press the words into her hair. It’s not the first time he’s asked and Keisuke isn’t stupid enough to mistake it for concern. It’s laced with humour, like he expects her to fall over any second, or breakdown, or admit her own ruse.

He’s been for a smoke, he smells of it and his hands are blessedly cold when they rest on her nape, thumb drawing circles. Her lashes flutter. A part of her wants to tell him No. A part of her wants to say that if she closes her eyes for more than two seconds she can only see Chifuyu’s mangled face and blood stained blonde hair, can feel every set of eyes that watched them on her body. She wants to say no and that she blames him. That she’s going to make him watch while she makes Kisaki whimper like she made Chifuyu whimper. See if he smiles then.

“Mhm”, she manages, leans back against him when she stumbles slightly. “Good”.

He is easy to lean on, she can admit, his arms solid around her, the lights bright, the music loud.

"Sure?" He pushes and when she tilts her head back she can see the length of his throat, the tendons as he talks. She has a teeth-itching desire to bite him, break the skin. They stare into each other's eyes for a moment too long, a moment too deep. His hands feel very heavy.

“Here you are”, she hears next to her, Kazutora jumping at her side, teeth baring, swaying to the music, “went for a smoke?”, she asks Shuji.

He nods, kisses her over Keisuke’s head. Suddenly she feels herself trembling between them, swept in, their bodies warm against her skin. Her throat feels parched, the music rises in her ears. The stroboscopic lights make Kazutora’s movement in front of her eerie, jumbled, make her seem too close and too far away at the same time.

“Isn’t this great!”, Kazutora screams over the music, hair moving wildly around her, “dream team!”

She hugs them both, squeezes Keisuke between them. She can feel Hanma’s deep chuckle into her back, his arms still around her. Kazutora pulls back, kisses Keisuke on the mouth, grabs her face, smiling wide. Her pupils are blown out, only a slither of gold left, the vein under her eye trembling.

“Dream team”, she chuckles again, jaw moving fast, “Mickey won’t stand a chance. I’ll kill him so fast”.

She laughs, loud - the bass is too heavy, suddenly, the lights too confusing.

“What?!”, Keisuke shouts over Hanma’s laugh, shrugs him off only to see him wrap himself around Kazutora, engulf her in his arms. “What?!”

“Yeah!”, Kazutora screams again, jumping up and down, “I am stronger anyway! Right? Right?”

Her eyes flicker madly from Keisuke’s to Shuji’s face, moving fast, too fast. Shuji laughs with her, drops a kiss on her head.

“Of course, kitten”, he drawls, makes her chuckle all delighted as she lurches towards Keisuke again.

“Kei”, she breathes out, close to stuttering, “It’s gonna be so good. We can forget it all. Okay? We can forget it all! I’ll fix it, I swear, I’ll fix it”.

And then she is throwing her arms around her, kissing her deep, making her stumble back into someone. She keeps her eyes open, the lights doing her head in, too bright, too fast, too loud - and she thought that - she thought the plan was - the plan was -

“Is she -”, she turns to Hanma. “Is she okay?”

Kazutora’s lips are on her neck, down to her collar, taking a bite at the bone.

“Keisuke -”, she giggles. “Don’t be such a bore -”

“She’s fine”, he puts in over them with this sick authority like he’s seen her much worse, or - made her worse. “You’re alright, aren’t you?”

“God -”, Keisuke steps away from both them. “She isn’t. You are a fucking class act, you are -”

Kazutora laughs, high pitched and giggly but - with this edge that sheers through Keisuke.

“Him? Why - why are you acting like he’s the problem? He is not the problem”, she hisses, grabs Keisuke’s arms with her thin, freezing fingers, rings and nails digging into her flesh. “He did not make me like this - we know who made me like this. Have you - have you fucking forgotten what we did?!”

Keisuke can only watch her, wide eyed, stumbling a little in her grip. Kazutora’s eyes are so wide, the vein over pronounced where her eyeshadow has smudged. Keisuke’s mouth opens, closes, she cannot find the words, just stares.

“Stop looking at me like that! We’re going to kill him, Keisuke, do you not get that?”, she shrieks. “If I put a knife in your hand would you do it? Would you? You better not -”, she breathes, hysterical, “If you are here to tell him, to go back to him and - and - Keisuke if you do that to me -”

She feels so sick, like a fever all over her body, straight down to her toes. She shakes her head numbly.

“How can you say that”, she mumbles, feels like she hasn’t blinked in years, voice trembling. “How can you say that after what I did today -”

“Because you love him!”, Kazutora shouts.

And Shuji laughs, openly at them, like it’s the best thing he’s seen all day - all week. His lazy, delighted gaze settles like a brand on her and she feels so fucking humilitated under it.

“I don’t –”, she chokes. “I -”

“Alright, baby”, he says, snakes his hands around Kazutora’s waist and rests his chin on her shoulder. “I think you’re gonna make her cry”, he pouts.

Keisuke flushes, feels her features pinch tight, her throat ache and her eyes sting. She turns on her heel, hand over her mouth, stalks away before he can see her cry.

“Oh come on!”, she hears Shuji call, “She’s fucking with you, Baji”

She stumbles, feet too fast for own head into the toilets. It feels so silent, like this vacuum. Like without Kazutora to fill her up, or the music or - a gang to stare at her while she pins a girl under her and -

She stares at herself, nose red and lip trembling. It is so silent. She hears the door, moves into a stall and locks the door before they see her, presses her head against the cold plastic and when they are gone she can’t bring herself to move.

She slides down, skin far too cold against the tiles, far too hot under her clothes. She pushes her hair back out her face, tries to even her breath and fails, tries to wipe her face clear of tears and fails. She bites back a whimper, refuses to sob, tilts her head back and closes her eyes. Regrets it when it makes her head spin.

She can’t face them. She can’t stay here. She doesn’t know why she thought she could do this. She wrenches her phone with twitching fingers out her pocket and flicks it open to see no messages and laughs, almost hysterically, at how she expected one from Chifuyu.

Because they always talk at night.

She may not even be conscious.

She imagines her, beat up and alone - as alone as Keisuke feels, just as confused and hurt.

Suddenly this plan feels pathetic, she doesn’t know what she was thinking or how to fix it, it feels so awful and overwhelming. She wishes she were anywhere but here, or that she were sober or that - that she could talk to someone, anyone. She feels as sick as she did that night she spent in a cell, just as empty and breathless -

She loves Kazutora so much. So much that she feels like she can never help, like - like she could fall and all Keisuke could do is fall with her and she can’t see the bottom anymore, she doesn’t know if she ever could.

She’s typing a number before she realises, listening to the line click through before she registers what she’s done. Because it’s muscle memory, when you’re hurt or upset, to want someone you love.

“Hello?”

He sounds sleepy - he always sounds sleepy - and he won’t know who it is because Mikey refuses to save their numbers, thinks he can memorise them even when it’s obvious he can’t. Her and Draken have laughed about it for - for so long.

She swallows now, unable to find any words. Their conversations used to be easier than breathing. Now she can’t even - tell him her name.

She imagines him dead. She imagines him under Kazutora and realises - realises she can’t because it would never be that way. She would not be warning him, to tell him now, she would be begging him.

If Kazutora faces him she will die.

The silence is filled with his breath, the rustle of the sheets. It takes on a different quality.

“Keisuke”, he says, so soft. She squeezes her eyes shut, tears escape, slip down her cheeks.

“Tell me where you are”, he says, softer still but more frantic, “I’ll come - let’s talk”.

He can’t come here, not after that, she would break Kazutora. None of them deserve that. She shakes her head, like he could see her.

“Keisuke”, he must hear her sob. “Are you safe?”

She is being so unfair, to choose Kazutora and then call him. To leave him and go to her. She is unfair on them both. She wants to promise him, promise him she’ll make it right, not to worry. She wants to promise Kazutora the same.

She can’t do any of that lying on a fucking club bathroom floor. She’ll make it right to him, to both of them.

“I’m really sorry, Mikey”, she sniffs, rubs her eyes.

She hears him sit up, hears his breath pick up. “Don’t hang up, please, Keisuke -”

There is no point apologising, she can only make it right. She hangs up, hangs up before she can say I needed to hear your voice or You make me feel like I can do this. Before she can admit that she isn’t sure she can help Kazutora, that she feels so lost and so in love.

She slumps against the bathroom door, hugs her knees. She just hoped - she just wanted -

There is a knock on the door, suddenly, then Kazutora’s voice, tremulous. “Keisuke”, she says, wetly, and Keisuke can hear her biting her lip, “I’m - are you alright?”

She doesn’t answer, just burrows her head in her knees more. “Fine”, she croaks out, “Just peeing”.

And it’s the stupidest excuse - the bathroom door doesn’t reach the floor, Kazutora can probably see her back. She can hear the bass of the music outside, the rustle of Kazutora’s clothes, catches the slide of her legs to the floor as she joins Keisuke on the other side of the door.

“I am sorry”, Kazutora gets out, voice cracking. “I didn’t mean - I didn’t want to - scare you - I just, I’m just -”

She exhales, loudly, her head thumps against the door.

“I’m just so fucking scared”, she hears her say, her voice breaking, closer to a sob, “I don’t wanna - I don’t wanna see him, I don’t want to think about him anymore, about that night, I - I just want to make it right, do you understand? I just wanna make it right”.

Her hand is on the floor, shaking, her skin bitten red around her painted fingernails, Keisuke can see it even through the tears. She grabs it across the door, holds Kazutora’s hand tight.

“It’ll be fine”, she croaks, delirious, head swaying and heart aching with all her pain and her love, “it’ll be fine”.

It has to be. Kazutora has killed once and took the fall - Keisuke knows she got away easy, that she should have stopped it, should have recognised Shinichiro’s shop, should have said more to the police, should have never let Kazutora be put away for two fucking years while she run free with Mikey, still. Kazutora has killed once and maybe - maybe Keisuke should kill for her. The idea spins around her head, wild and untamed - of bashing Kisaki’s head in, Hanma’s too, never let Kazutora be scared again.

“I love you”, she blurts out, tears drying on her face, face against the bathroom door, “I love you. Don’t be scared. I won't let anything happen to you”.

Kazutora’s hand shakes in hers, squeezes tighter. “Can you open the door?”, she asks, voice small.

Keisuke sighs, gets up. Her skirt - Kazutora’s skirt - is probably so dirty, now. As soon as she opens the door Kazutora’s wide eyes are inches away from her voice, trembling and begging, liquid gold much more visible now.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, Kazutora mumbles against her lips, throwing herself in her arms, kissing her over and over again. “Don’t go, okay? Don’t go. I’ll - we can -”

She shuts her up with a kiss, holds her tight, kisses her neck, her jaw. She can feel all the bones in her back, one by one, counts them slowly like when they were kids, traces her shoulder blades.

“Stop saying that”, she forces herself to say, smiles tremously at Kazutora, relief plain on her face, “I didn’t mean to make it weird. I think it’s just - the drinks, and the drugs, I’m -”

Kazutora is nodding, fast, taking her by the hand, pulling her out of the toilets. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I get it, you should drink more, have you had water? Shuji says -”

She carries her through the club, hand still clutching hers, gets her water, strokes her hair. Her body is still thrumming to the beat, her feet still moving.

Hanma is not hard to find, he’s talking away with a guy who’d been shamelessly flirting with Kazutora as though they are buddies now. He smiles when he sees them though, spreads out both his arms like he’s going to hug them but ends up mostly just herding them away.

“What’s up?”

“Keisuke is - I think - we’re -”, Kazutora starts, like she’s not sure what she’s going to say. Keisuke realises, warmly, that she’s in her corner, that if she wanted to she could ask Kazutora to come home with her and she would, they could leave him and never look back.

But this was her night, and she adores him for some reason, and Keisuke can’t bear to be the one to ruin it. Besides, at this point, she couldn’t bear to go home either. It’s easier to explain a whole night away then it would be to explain her state; tear stained cheeks and unsteady legs and dilated pupils. Her mum would never forgive her and the thought makes her ill.

“I’m fine”, she promises, grins. “We can keep going, It’s cool”.

Shuji’s gaze is unreadable and surprisingly hard to hold. An intensity to it she wants to shrink away from. He puts a hand to her forehead.

“You’re kind of hot”, he admits with a shrug. She feels her mouth open, indignant against how patronising he is. “It’s no trouble”, he adds, “there are other places we can go”.

Kazutora smiles then, shoulders dropping in relief, squeezes Keisuke’s hand, delighted.

When they are out, finally, in the cold night air; Shuji a few steps ahead and Kazutora clinging to her arm, walking with uneven steps, he turns back to her and grins.

“I’m sure we can find something for you to burn down between here and there if you need to!”, Shuji shouts at her, hands in pockets.

Kazutora is watching her own feet, her grip on Keisuke like she is the only thing keeping her upright, anchored.

“You told him about that?”, she asks, whispered between them. Kazutora giggles, sweetly, flushes across her cheeks.

“I tell everyone about you”, she babbles, smiles big.

The words make her shiver, weirdly, she is not sure why - out of pleasure, or fear. Hanma is fiddling with the doors of a random car, opens it for them.

“Your carriage”, he says, wiggling his eyebrows. Kazutora laughs, delighted, crawls in the backseat, beckoning her over.

“Isn’t this great”, she whispers in her ear, all over Keisuke when she joins her in the back, practically crawling in her lap, “who cares about bikes anymore”.

She wants to say that she prefers bikes, that she likes to feel the air around her, that she knows Kazutora does too - her mouth is too busy, Kazutora kissing her over and over again as Keisuke pulls down the window.

She meets Hanma’s eyes through the rear view mirror, cat-like gaze bright and studying them, sliding from Keisuke’s face to Kazutora’s back.

“Don’t you have to look at the road”, she spits out, hugs Kazutora closer.

Hanma laughs, takes a sharp turn, making them tumble to the other side of the seats, Kazutora shrieking slightly.

“I thought she was the possessive one”, he drawls, eyes still on them, on the way Kazutora is now splayed all over the seats, clothes in disarray.

“And you don’t seem to be at all”, Keisuke says, eyes narrowed.

Hanma shrugs, takes another turn. “I don’t own her”, he says, winking, and Kazutora laughs, again, props herself up to kiss him on the cheek, then on the mouth when he turns around slightly, still driving. Keisuke has no idea how he manages to do that - know exactly what to say, how to say it, how to phrase it, to keep Kazutora happy and swooning. She thinks of Kazutora whispering, mine, in her mouth, of her shivers of pleasure when Keisuke says the same. She watches Kazutora open the window, too, stick her head out, her arms, her torso, wild and floating in the night, and thinks, maybe she doesn’t know what’s best for her at all.

The car comes to a stop as Hanma pulls over, hands sure on the wheel. They are in such a nice part of town Keisuke is starting to think he will break into someone’s house, too. Her head spins as she gets out of the car.

“Where -”, she starts, but Hanma is ahead of her. Again.

“Just a place I am house-sitting”, he says, swinging the keys around. “Don’t worry. All legal. No one to bother us”.

“You house sit?”, she asks, incredulous. Feels a flare of panic that he might just be lying when he looks at the keypad to the gate, scrunches his face.

“Yup”, he says, concentrating, checking his phone. “They have a cat”.

Oh, she thinks. He feeds cats on the weekend. He’s a stand up guy, maybe. Just - occasionally hot wires cars and takes girls clubbing. She feels sick.

Their voices seem too loud, like their presence is a disturbance, their breath too much inconvenience for the space around them. The neighbourhood is silent, eerily so. It’s scarier than a busy street at four am; this heavy blanket of impenetrable silence. She wonders if every place he takes them to is unsettling or if it’s just something about him.

He puffs out his cheeks.

“Stay there. I can get open on the other side”, he jumps, effortlessly, hands catching the top of the 7ft gate like it’s nothing, scrambling his legs up the lacquered wood and disappearing.

Kazutora’s jaw drops. Keisuke’s might as well.

The gate does slide open, true to his word. They follow him up a little well lit path, gravelly underfoot to a stupidly fucking nice house. All Keisuke can manage, even as she stares is;

“Where’s the cat?”

“Shy thing”, Hanma says, upturns a plant pot and takes out some keys. “Unapproachable, scratches”, he pouts.

She almost hesitates, when he kicks open the door because it looks so dark and so - not where they should be but Kazutora is shaking from the cold beside her, knees red, hugging herself, teeth chattering and whoever lives here has kept the heat on.

They settle on the sofa, a long thing in a charcoal that matches the lighter charcoal of the floor, the grey of the wall. Everything is so pristine it feels gift wrapped, like no-one has ever lived here. Beside her Kazutora luxuriates, spreads out, arms above her head and skirt pulled up, exposing her thighs, her panties. Keisuke bites her lip, turns away to pull at the blanket beside her, covering her own thighs as Shuji reappears with ice cold beers.

She feels like she needs them, honestly, finally something she recognises. Kazutora’s head dangles from the arm of the couch, arms stretching.

“This”, she says to him, head tilted back upside down, he smiles down at her. “Is really fucking cool”.

Keisuke laughs too, nods in agreement. Yeah, it is. She can feel herself relaxing, the atmosphere closer to a Toman night, maybe, beer and weed shared between them.

“Was this from their fridge?”, she asks, takes the cap off with her teeth if only to watch his gaze sharpen on her, show him she has an edge, too, is not just some pathetic girl who cannot handle a club.

“Uh yeah”, he says, distractedly. “They won’t mind - they have like a crate”.

He offers her his too, bottle opener limp in his hand. She smiles, toothily, takes it for him. He laughs, kind of breathless and impressed. “That’s - really hot”, he smiles.

She gives it back, shakes the bottle a little. “I know”.

Kazutora sits up slightly, leans her cheeks in both her palms and watches them both, as though she’s just delighted to see them interact. She guesses she probably is, with her desire for friendship; reformed and remade and nothing like before.

“How’re you feeling?”, he asks her, puts his feet on their coffee table and tilts his head. “Any better?”

She shrugs. “Kind of tired”.

Her knuckles are beginning to throb, she wishes she’d iced them before coming out. She just wasn’t doing much thinking, she guesses.

He tips back most of the beer. “You know what I saw -”

He stands then, springs to life and moves to a back wall with loads of fucking books. More than anyone would ever read. He plucks a bottle of wine off the shelf.

“You can’t”, Keisuke says.

“Why not?”, he blinks, “They’re not drinking it”.

Kazutora’s face pinches. “It’s dusty”.

“That means it’s good”, he reassures her.

“It probably costs more than that car you stole”, Keisuke says, “I’m serious you can’t -”

He opens it, keeps eye contact with her, opens his mouth wider with every squeak of the cork, grins: “It’s fine - I’ll be the one in trouble. Who else is here? The cat?”

And it’s just so recklessly stupid and incriminating that Keisuke can’t help but laugh, laugh so hard she has tears in her eyes. He looks at her, laughs with her but seems nonplussed.

“What?”, he takes a swig. “It’s not that big a deal”.

He resettles between them, gives Kazutora the bottle. Kazutora takes a swig, too, pulls a face, takes another swig.

“Fancyyy”, she gets out, giggling. Keisuke laughs, too, steals the bottle from her.

“Like you know anything about it”, she says, drinks too. The wine is really sweet. It settles into her head, immediately, her chest.

“Hey”, Kazutora says, lazily, head swinging from the arm of the couch, poking her with her shoes, legs on Hanma’s lap, “We had top notch drinks in juvie”.

Hanma snorts, caresses her thighs. “I remember - fuck me, it was bad. Like - everyone would sneak in pure alcohol”.

Kazutora giggles, again. Keisuke has never heard her talk about juvie this freely, this - carelessly. She looks between them. It’s good, she thinks, head spinning slightly, that Kazutora has someone to talk to about it like this.

“You were in too?”, she asks, sips from the bottle again.

“Fuck yeah”, Hanma answers, winking, “Respectable citizen now, though. House sitting and all”.

“You just stole a fucking car”, Keisuke laughs, passes him the bottle again. “And I bet you were the one bringing the alcohol in”.

His eyes get big, he brings a hand to his chest. “Me?! No. Those are baseless accusations. I would never”, he says, then winks at her, takes another swig.

Suddenly all she can think of is how fucking nice he is, how fun. Yeah, he brought them clubbing and the place was weird but - this is nice. Really nice. She laughs, freely, traces with her eyes his hand over Kazutora’s thigh, caressing her. Yeah, it looks hot - Kazutora looks hot, all smeared makeup and wild hair and - his hands are so big. She wants to grab Kazutora like that, have Kazutora pin her down one-handed.

“Should have brought me some”, Kazutora grins, raises herself from the couch to wrap herself up around him, take the bottle from him.

“I am giving it to you now, aren’t I?”, he smirks, rolls her eyes at Keisuke, like she is in on the joke. “She is so greedy”.

“She is”, she teases, gets up on all fours to grab Kazutora and kiss her, “Aren’t you?”

She looks like it too, right now, half on Hanma’s lap, kissing Keisuke deep, one hand on each of them to keep balance. It’s only fair, Keisuke thinks, heart thumping, she got so little as a child. Got so little in the past two years.

“Fuck yeah I am”, Kazutora giggles against her mouth, “Like - this whole house. I should have it”.

She stands up, suddenly, pulls Hanma up with her. “Come on, come on”, she grins, swaying slightly on her feet, “Let’s see what else we can get Shuji in trouble for”.

Keisuke laughs, stands up, follows behind Kazutora as she stomps around the house, Hanma after them.

“It’s fucking fancy”, he drawls as they make their way through corridors, open doors and peak inside. Suddenly the house doesn’t look so intimidating, Kazutora narrating every room, making them both laugh as she stomps from door to door.

They end up in the bathroom, Kazutora’s nose up in the air as she twirls around room.

“This”, she says all serious, “This is where I wash just my feet”.

“And what about other stuff?”, Hanma asks, leaning on the door, all grin and cat eyes.

“Well”, Kazutora sways, thinks about it for a moment. “I have a bathroom for each part of my body”, she giggles, her eyes on Shuji, hands trailing down herself, “And a bedroom for every position, too”.

Hanma laughs, loud, Keisuke joining him, pulling Kazutora out into the corridor again. They stumble giggly from the bathroom to a bedroom. Shuji a step behind them.

“Now this”, Keisuke says, forcing her laugh back to point around the room. Soft beiges and teenage memorabilia, a line of trophies and a well made bed, not a thing out of place on the desk. “Is a bedroom, Kazutora”.

Kazutora’s mouth drops open in indignation, a laugh forced out her throat. She throws herself back onto the sheets, puts them into disarray.

“Oh yeah?”, she giggles, teases. “This is just what a room looks like without clothes everywhere, Keisuke”.

Keisuke stumbles, bottle in hand, to the dresser. She trails a hand along the vanity, with a bunch of polaroids stuck on the mirror, fairy lights above it. The girls in the picture are incredibly forgettable; glasses, mousy features, a strawberry blonde with a better demeanour. Their uniforms are prim, their poses proper. They have friendship bracelets.

She can’t begin to imagine her and Kazutora like that.

“Ooh, she’s almost half way through the - ” , Kazutora has leant over to the bedside table, picks up a chunky book, with a little tab bookmarker and checks the title, “Dictionary”.

Keisuke snorts, unattractively, covering her mouth even if she’s now laughing too hard. Kazutora kicks her feet, delighted.

“Keisuke could never -”, she says to Shuji, “she’s really dum-ah”

Keisuke launches at her, covers her mouth before she can say anymore, uses her other hand to tickle her waist. Kazutora shrieks, squirms wildly until Keisuke pins her hands. She whimpers, lets out an exhausted sound of defeat, leans up and kisses her like it’s an apology, all breathy and full of smiles.

Keisuke relents when she feels Kazutora push up, and enjoys the way the room spins when she is pushed under her. Feels a shudder of arousal pulse through her as Kazutora kisses down her neck, to the ridge of the strappy little top she’s borrowing, chest heaving under her affections.

Kazutora’s thigh slips between hers. She pulls back, lips glistening.

“You are so easy, Baji Keisuke”, she purrs.

And whatever indignant reply she has dies on her lips when Kazutora grinds her thigh against her cunt. God, She is happy being easy, if it keeps Kazutora here and doing that.

She arches back, hands coming to Kazutora’s shoulders, and listens to her whispered laugh.

Her gaze meets Shuji’s, stood like a particularly human shaped coat in the shadow of the door. Feels her hair fall off her shoulder, down her back, Kazutora’s body warm over her.

“It’s a big bed”, she hears herself say, feels Kazutora moan against her.

“Keisuke -”, she breathes, affected.

“Yeah?”, Shuji says, shrugs and joins them. The dip of his weight in the sheets makes her realise his presence more clearly. His hand on her calf making her flinch.

Kazutora sits up across Keisuke’s waist, braces her hands on the planes of her stomach as Keisuke lies underneath her. She strips so easily, so unaffected, shoulders pink from the cold, nipples hard. Shuji’s hands bracket her ribs, slip up to her breasts, fingers spread across her sternum. Kazutora’s hand threads into his hair, tug and pull as he sucks marks into her neck, bites her purple. He is just so big, Keisuke thinks, caressing Kazutora’s thighs, it’s so easy for him to take over, engulf Kazutora completely. The thought makes her shiver.

Their eyes meet over Kazutora’s shoulder, pupils blown.

“Do this a lot?”, he asks, grinning, lips on Kazutora’s neck and hand trailing up Keisuke’s thigh, his other one circling Kazutora’s nipple, making her quiver above her.

She grips Kazutora’s waist, tighter, sits up slightly to bring her closer, sneak a hand over her panties.

“Do you?”, she bites back, and hates how unsure it sounds, how childish. His hand has almost reached her cunt, circles around it to grab her ass instead.

He laughs warmly, eyes aglow in the dim light of a room that isn’t theirs. He acts like it is. Like how he acts as though Kazutora is his, filled with the type of audacity Keisuke almost envies. His touch, too, is so unlike hers, even as possessive as Kazutora is or as fierce as Chifuyu was when they kissed and nothing more, they are still nothing like him. His touch; laced with intent, placed on the inside of her thigh like a challenge.

His jeans feel so rough, his body so clothed compared to Kazutora, compared to her. His hand slips into her panties, leaves the rest of her bare for Keisuke to stare at. From where they’re joined, with Kazutora across her hips, his knuckles brush errantly against Keisuke’s clit, two layers of fabric between them and still too much. Kazutora leans over her, eyes wide as she tracks her reaction, watches her hips try not to grind, her bitten off moans and her small squirms. The light casts her in striking opposites; her pale skin and her inky black tattoo, the blonde of her hair against the dark, even the marks Shuji’s left on her. Keisuke can only stare, chest heaving and hands limp in her hair in surrender.

Kazutora kisses her, all tongue, so hot it makes her head empty, so languid it feels like an eternity. When they part, she chases Kazutora’s lips, whimpers at the loss as Kazutora grins, sneaks a hand up her skirt where the material is bunched at her stomach.

“Oh Keisuke -”, she giggles, sliding her panties down, “you’re so wet”.

She flushes. She has been all night; watching Kazutora be so effortlessly beautiful, even when they fought, even after that, she thinks she would beg to keep her close. She’s aching now, toes curled, wants to tell her all that and more but when she opens her mouth all that comes out is a garbled moan, no words at all.

“Fuck -”, Shuji croaks, almost a laugh and not quite.

“Isn’t she hot?”, Kazutora says, with a gentle smugness, a possessiveness that makes Keisuke melt. “Here”.

She guides his hand, holds his wrist in her grip tight enough she can the indents of her nails. She’s watching his face so closely, so intensely, he seems to have to repress a shudder. Keisuke feels his fingers, so utterly foreign against her lips that her eyes go wide, body tense. She feels almost embarrassed; too wet, too eager for his humour filled eyes. She’s shuddering, twitching against the calloused pads of his fingers. They stay like that, him panting, her squirming.

“Keisuke”, Kazutora grins, enthralled, watches the sweat roll down her neck, hair caught in her lip and cheeks so red they hurt. She must look a wreck. “You’re so pent up. A fucking breeze against your clit could make you come”, she giggles.

Probably, Keisuke thinks, tries to close her thighs with a desperate little whine. Kazutora tuts gently, shakes her head. Shuji’s finger slides inside her, puppeteered by Kazutora’s gip.

“‘Tora - Kazutora -”, she squeals, begs. “Please - seriously - please -”

She is so embarrassingly close to the edge and his finger is so fucking long, pushes rougher and deeper than her own, than even Kazutora’s. It feels scorchingly different, so raw it makes her thighs shake.

“Don’t move your finger”, she tells him, pats his head. His finger twitches in response, against his will, presses against her walls in a way that makes her teeth clench. Drool down her cheek and back into her hairline.

Kazutora’s nail circles her clit, brushes over it lightly.

“I can’t -”, Keisuke gasps. “I really, really can’t - I’ll -”

Kazutora’s hand slides to her thigh, strokes the inside of it instead, delights in the frustrated sob it pulls from her. His finger alone is not enough, not nearly and Kazutora’s teasing is too much, leaving her right on the edge; aching.

“You want to fuck her?”, Kazutora asks Shuji breezily, hands on her thighs, caressing her, his finger still inside her. She can feel his aborted twitch, his intake of breath.

Keisuke looks at him, makes eye contact - her eyes glazed over and his gaze studying her, attentive, pupils blown but still alert, moving to Kazutora, after, like she is studying her too, like he is being careful.

“Is that what you want?”, he asks, voice rough, pushes a second finger in, making her whimper, “Is that what she wants?”

Kazutora giggles, moves down the bed, puts herself next to Shuji and leans down to lick a stripe down Keisuke’s cunt, catching Shuji’s fingers, too, making them both groan. Keisuke genuinely doesn’t know who is influencing who, now, her thoughts too jumbled, mind foggy with arousal as she watches Shuji grab Kazutora with some kind of wonder in his eyes, kisses her deep and filthy, hand in her hair. They look like they fit in a way Kazutora never fit with anyone else, except Keisuke.

“So?”, he prompts, low, rubs his finger inside her, looks back at her, too.

“I - I don’t - ”, she babbles out, flushing, she doesn’t know, truly, the thought unsettles her. To be fucked by Hanma Shuji in some girl’s bed, with Kazutora watching. It shouldn’t be like this, she thinks, suddenly, still squirming as Shuji presses into her with another finger, it shouldn’t be like this. The fairy lights and pictures on the wall seem to mock her, childish, a life they never had. She turns her gaze back to Kazutora, slightly desperate. “How - does it -”

Kazutora is looking at her, completely still, examining her flush, her stuttering.

“No”, she says, suddenly, takes Shuji’s wrist away, making her whimper from the loss. Her eyes are too wide again, her hands shaking. “No”, she repeats, again, voice pitching high.

He laughs, breathy, strokes Kazutora's hair out her face and bops her nose. "Cool". And then with a wink at Keisuke. "Quite a lot of first times for one night, huh?"

And she wants to resent how he does that, how he can seemingly escalate and descalate Kazutora with so little but all she can do is laugh her agreement, fall back against the sheets and spread herself out. "Yeah, maybe yeah".

Hanma smiles, like he understands, scratches the back of Kazutora’s neck. “Why don’t you show me what you like, kitten?”

Kazutora shivers, slightly, eyes still wide, lips dropped open. She looks over at Keisuke, asks, almost shyly: “Can I?”

Her hands are in her lap, now, only her skirt and shoes on, nipples erect and face flushed. She suddenly looks so young, unsure, like she could belong in this room, had she had better parents, a better life. Shuji kisses her cheek, the corner of her lips. Her eyelashes flutter, open and close, as she tries to keep eye-contact with Keisuke.

There is really no other answer Keisuke would give her, wet and open, spread on the bed. “Yeah”, she breathes out, nods her assent.

Kazutora is on her in an instant, kissing her messily, bunching up her top. Her hands are rough but not as rough as Shuji’s as she finds her breasts, cups and squeezes them. Keisuke makes a shaky little noise into her mouth as her thumb slides over one nipple, then moans loud as she pinches it, meanly, sending hot sparks down to her cunt.

She hears Shuji chuckle, at the end of the bed. He has taken his cock out, red and flushed, is watching them intently.

“Well, I taught you that”, he teases as Kazutora gets both her nipples now, fiddling with them. God it hurts but it’s so, so good. She cannot stop squirming as Kazutora watches her with wide eyes, face flushed, pulling and twisting.

She grins at Shuji’s words, tells him: “Mh mh, even tried your tongue trick on her”.

Shuji groans, low. When she opens her eyes she can see him watching them, hungrily. The image of Kazutora beneath him like - like she is spread right now, open and wet and drooling, body lax - it’s enough to make her shiver, make her moan out loud too. Kazutora is kissing down her stomach, now, bunching her skirt up even more.

“You should show me”, Keisuke pants out, looking at Shuji, “another time. How you do it”.

His hand moves faster, eyes going between her breasts and Kazutora’s face, now buried between her thighs, licking between her folds.

“On her?”, he asks, breath erratic. Kazutora groans against her cunt, circles her tongue over her clit.

“Yeah”, Keisuke says, “On her. Wanna see -”, she gets out, arching from the bed when Kazutora puts her tongue inside her, “wanna see if you are good - good for her -”

“Fuck”, Shuji swears, hand moving faster, squeezing and releasing at the tip of his cock. He sounds regretful, almost, that he is not getting to show it to her now. Kazutora’s tongue on her pulls sounds out of her cunt, squelching, wet and filthy.

“Are you? Good for her?”, he asks, challenging, trying to get his smirk back. It doesn’t quite work. The words cut her deeper than she thought.

“I’ll - I’ll -”, she stutters out, toes curling and eyes shutting close as Kazutora twists her nipples again, licks deeper into her and then draws back to suck on her clit. It’s too much - the pressure, Kazutora’s clever fingers, Shuji’s gaze on her like a brand, hot and scorching. “I’ll show - show you -”

And then she is coming, stuttering and shuddering and moaning, rutting against Kazutora’s face with no shame at all, like she never did before, using her tongue. The thought is heady, wine and arousal spinning in her head - that she could get used to this, could get used to the two - the three - the three of them together, like this, easy and comfortable and - hot, fucking hot, she thinks, deliriously, as Kazutora pulls back, gives her her hand to rut against to chase the end of her orgasm.

Kazutora falls back beside her so they are facing each other, laces her hands into one of Keisuke’s.

“You are so perfect”, she mumbles, sticks her own fingers together with Keisuke’s in her mouth, licking between the crevices, licking the palm of her hand. She licks it as if she was starving, tongue lolling out, drooling all over her hand.

“You are”, Keisuke gasps, walks her fingertips up the front of Kara’s panties, then slides them down again but inside, bare skin touching the place where Kazutora’s the wettest, finding her clit. Kazutora is already so wet but she slicks up even more, when Shuji settles on the other side of her, front to her back, kisses her neck, licks her tattoo.

Their eyes meet over Kazutora’s shoulder, Shuji looking as hungry as Keisuke feels, desperately so.

“Let’s get these off, kitten”, he kisses down Kazutora’s arm, sliding her panties down as Kazutora kicks her shoes away, her whole body trembling, eyes closing, breath deep. Shuji’s hands are on her breast, massaging, soft but calloused. Keisuke lifts her skirt completely, bunches it up against her stomach. It’s one of those pleated ones - with her make-up almost gone and her eyes glassy, only the skirt around her, Kazutora looks too young and too adult at the same time.

“Dream team”, she whispers again, high and wine-drunk, smile loopy and eyes glazed over as she arches forward into Keisuke’s hand, then back into Shuji’s touch.

He laughs, soft and affirming, kisses her stunningly and leans across Kazutora to kiss her too. She’s too out of it to respond properly, flushes at thought, her tongue still against his. He tastes like cigarettes, not like Kazutora does sometimes, but intensely and when he pulls back, grinning, Keisuke can only murmur;

“Sorry”, with a breathy giggle, at how bad that must have been for him.

“Nah, it’s hot,” he admits. “You’re gorgeous”.

Kazutora nods, thrashes almost, in agreement. “You are - she is. I’m so glad”, she smiles, wide with relief, “so glad you like each other”.

“Anything -”, Keisuke breathes, feels his gaze shift to her. “Anything for you, Kazutora”.

He smiles, crooked and unreadable, odd on his face. “You really love her huh?”

Keisuke nods, sends tendrils of black curls over her eyes, must look so desperate to him.

Kazutora smiles at her, exchanges a look that feels so special, so secret. She turns back to Shuji, hooks her legs around his waist.

“Fuck me”, she breathes to him, flutters her lahses, holds his gaze as he holds hers, one hand on his cheek, his tensed forearms either side her head.

Keisuke shudders, feels out of place, or like she’s intruding somehow but unable to move; flushed across her cheeks, down her neck. She stares between them.

“Course”, he murmurs, kisses her cheek, almost her lips but note quite, produces a condom out of his pockets.

“I can -”, her chest feels too tight, her gaze over them both; Kazutora naked, him almost fully dressed. Her head spins. “I can -”

Kazutora’s gaze whips to her, eyes wide. “Don’t go - don’t - stay, please - stay -”

He drags his lips down her neck, settles back on his knees, pulls her hips up onto his. “No-one’s going anywhere, sweetheart. Nowhere”.

Keisuke nods frantically in agreement, takes Kazutora’s hand in hers, kisses her knuckles, across each one of her fingers. Shuji lays his cock on her stomach and Keisuke’s mouth feels dry at the idea of it inside Kazutora. It doesn’t make sense to her, and that - her own uncertainty - makes her flush even darker.

Has both their eyes on him when he pulls off his t-shirt. It feels girlish to swoon, stupid to be affected by something so unaffecting; she has seen a body like his before. Maybe it’s just the context, or how Kazutora’s gaze goes all dark and hazy. His hands wrap around her waist, thumbs either side of her belly button, fingers spread from her hip to the beginning of her ribs. He lifts her, rearranging her like she’s weightless. Her hips flush to his, her legs around his waist.

When he slides into her Keisuke can’t look, can only focus on Kazutora’s eyes, watch them wide, roll back, fall shut eventually as she gasps, brokenly and hitched. Keisuke gasps too, like she can feel it herself. She cups her cheeks, tilts her head so her unfocused gaze meets Keisuke’s, kisses her and feels him rock through her, their noses rubbing from the force he pulls her back and forward with. She moans into Keisuke’s hair, drags her nails through Keisuke’s hair.

“This is what you always wanted isn’t it?”, Shuji grins. There is a flush across his cheeks, Keisuke sees, a tremble in his abs and a tenseness to his thighs, his breath tight in his nose.

Kazutora nods, struggling to find her words. “I - I -”

Keisuke can suddenly see them, so together and yet still thinking about her. Kazutora’s focus still on them and not on him.

“Kazutora -”, she breathes, stunned.

“I just wanted - ”, her lashes flutter, an unholy noise pulled from her at whatever he does. “Fuck - fuck - Keisuke -”

Her fingers claw the sheets by her head, writhe under him, back arched.

“I’m here”, Keisuke breathes, sits up on all fours to watch her, leans over her, hair tickling Kazutora’s collar from the length. “I’m here, Kazutora -”

“She spoke about it”, Shuji pants, his hips gaining a rhythm that makes Kazutora mewl and keep, “Didn’t you, kitten? Didn’t you say?”

He looks slightly fevered, now, hair unstyled and flopping on his forehead, sweat all over his body, his hair. Kazutora doesn’t answer, gulps down air, overwhelmed. Keisuke cannot resist bringing a hand down to where they are joint, stroke over Kazutora’s folds, her hand coming back wet and stick, circling her clit, touching briefly Shuji’s cock where it’s disappearing into her. They both groan at that, Kazutora’s eyes shooting open, face flushed, looking down where her hand rests. She circles back to her clit, keeps her fingers there.

“What did you tell him?”, she asks, feels joined in the fever, the craze, feeling hot all over again and truly she thinks she could come just by watching this and rutting against one of this stupidly childish pillows.

“That I wanted it to be you”, Kazutora gets out, face flushed, hiding in the pillows, “That I wanted to feel you inside me first and do the same to you and -”

She moans as Keisuke grabs both her cheeks, kissing her deep. Shuji keeps the pace, tilts Kazutora’s neck up slightly with his huge hand, tracing her tattoo.

“And that you wanted her to see, right?”, he prompts, voice rough, nosing at her chest, “and touch and be with you and -”

“I am only ever yours”, Keisuke interrupts him, desperately, fingers moving faster over her clit, “only ever yours. We can do anything, together, I promised, remember, I am never gonna - never gonna -”

“Never gonna leave me?”, Kazutora whispers out on a moan, “Never?”

Keisuke shakes her head, kisses her nipples, her stomach, her nipples again and her neck, her full lips, everywhere she can reach. Kazutora trembles, turns her head towards Shuji:

“And you?”, she asks, voice small, “What are you gonna do?”

She is looking at him, eyes wide but glazed over, whole body shaking against Keisuke’s hand, the tip of her fingers. Keisuke watches him, too, meets his gaze when he says, placating: “Don’t worry, kitten. Where else would I go?”

And as Kazutora is coming, trembling and shaking in relief, wetting Keisuke’s hand, she can tell, she knows that he doesn’t mean it. That he likes her, maybe, they might fit, too, but he is not sticking with her like Keisuke is. He comes too, with a grunt, pulls out and throws the condom away. Keisuke wishes she had been the one inside Kazutora, etched so deep she could never, truly never let go, be rid of.

He sweeps his hair back out his face, seems to look around like he's seeing the place for the first time, whistles out between his teeth and grins at Kazutora.

"That was good", he says and then. "Well, you're always good".

Kazutora giggles, exhaustedly. She lays still for the first time all day, gaze sedate and limbs relaxed. She smiles at Keisuke, squeezes her hand and lets her gaze flutter shut.

Shuji pulls one of many blankets up from where it was kicked off the bed, drops it around Kazutora's shoulders, covers her up. She looks at peace, finally, features gentle and breath even. She's smiling just a little.

“You two should get some sleep”, he says, pointing his chin, getting up from the bed. “I can drive you back home after”.

He strokes Kazutora’s hair again, puts his t-shirt back on and buckles up his trousers. Suddenly Keisuke feels too naked, top bunched up to her armpits and skirt aside. She flushes, fixes her clothes.

“Yeah”, she gets out, attempts a smirk, “Go back to your house-sitting”.

He snorts, shakes his head. “I think I have lost that job”, he says, exiting the room.

Probably. Keisuke is still wearing her shoes, in bed, the sheets are in disarray. She looks around the room again, cuddles closer to Kazutora.

“Com’here”, Kazutora mumbles, wraps Keisuke under the blanket, too, puts it over their head like when they were little girls.

“I love you”, Kazutora tells her, lips wet, voice tired and honest, “I love you so much. Thank you for staying with me. I was so scared you wouldn’t”.

Under the blankets it is easy to tell the truth, easy to forget where they are, in a house, a world not theirs, that they have broken into, ruined with their games. A house that maybe in another universe they had, too, friendship bracelets keeping them forever bonded instead of a shared murder.

“I was always going to choose you”, she whispers, strokes Kazutora’s hair away from her face. Her eyelashes flutter, slowly. “I thought you were - you know - leaving me behind with your, boyfriend, and the gang and the hair - you just look so, adult, I -”

She is rambling, she realises, as soon as Kazutora kisses her, wet and hot under the covers, grabs her hands.

They are forehead to forehead now, looking into each other eyes, the gold of Kazutora’s wet and honest.

“I’d never leave you behind. I’ll always be with you until the end. Remember?”

She remembers. She nods, watches Kazutora smile wetly, kisses her forehead and huddles closer, keeps her head in the crook of her neck.

She must doze, for a while, because when she wakes up her throat is parched and Kazutora is sleeping soundly against her shoulder, cradled around herself. She looks so beautiful. She looks so young. She moves her head, gently, not to wake her, fixes the blanket around her before getting up, moving to the kitchen for a glass of water.

As she gulps it down she looks around, looks around the house. From the windows she can see the morning light starting to come in, Hanma’s figure sat outside, like a weird guard dog. She grabs a blanket from the couch, goes to meet him.

“All good?”, he smiles at her as she settles down on a chair next to his, covers herself from the cold.

“Yeah”, she says, “Just thirsty. Needed water”.

Silence falls. She watches Hanma smoke, placid, tranquil. Here on the porch, the sun rising and the sky turning pink, he almost looks like he just woke up, instead of being out drinking and stealing all night. He always looks so - unphased. By life, people. Kazutora’s violent demands that she encouraged at first and then was never able to handle.

“She’s a wild one”, he says, once the silence becomes too much. She is all that they have in common, they have never really been alone. “I don’t know where you found her,” he jokes.

She sniffs. Every thread of wild in Kazutora was sewed by Keisuke. There is a phrase, she thinks, something Chifuyu told her that she can’t remember that sums it up. Chifuyu was always better with words. She looks at the scabs on her knuckles, and can hardly believe that was today and not years ago. She feels like a whole different person. He is watching her, some twisted version of sympathy on his features.

“Do you think -”, she starts, sniffling from the cold, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. “I mean, are you going through with this plan? You really trying to kill Mikey?”

Even forcing herself to say it without hesitation makes her nauseous. She cannot imagine that, cannot imagine anyone managing and that is both a blessing and a curse, because she cannot stop picturing Kazutora bruised and beaten on the floor. Would Mikey do that? Would he stop? It can’t get to that point, she realises. Because if he did, if he killed her, Keisuke doesn’t think she could forgive him. Forgive him like he forgave her.

Hanma chuckles, lightly, exhales. “Well”, he says, turning around to face her, eyes meeting, his lazy gaze on her, “don’t we all have people we want to kill?”

She meets the challenge, doesn’t look away. His smirk seems so knowing, his gaze piercing in an unaffected way. She thinks of his demeanour when she saw him with Kisaki Tetta, their ease. He is so unbothered, she realises, suddenly, he is so sure he is going to win this - he has someone he trusts, someone whose orders he can follow. Like she did with Mikey. Like Chifuyu did with her. The thought makes her ache, makes her wish she had told them, let them know her plan - but she is in so deep, now, she cannot turn back. Her gaze drops away, evading.

With the corner of her eyes she can see Hanma’s smile getting wider, like he knows her answer before she has even said it. And suddenly she knows the answer, too, as she is looking down at her hand in her laps, her fingers, where they have just been, inside, around Kazutora, who she wants to keep safe, help, be free with. She thinks of Kazutora saying, pleading, I just wanna make it right, her hands already stained red.

Keisuke can make it right, for her, she knows. She is thinking of Kisaki Tetta and cars on fire and kicks and screams when she raises her chin at Hanma, meets his gaze again, unflinching.

“Yeah”, she says, slowly, her own lips curling, showing her teeth. “I guess we do”.