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There are many things that Chuuya has been made aware of, some of them even years before this very moment. Things such as the Coming of Age Ceremony being something that has been done for as long as their race—humanity—has existed. Things such as everyone who has managed to reach the age of eighteen is required to undergo such a ceremony, though one can spend four years to prepare for it fully. Things such as coming out of the ceremony alive and whole means that he gets to get a meteoric rise in standing, possibly even the leader's post. Things such as power, wealth and status waiting for him if he succeeds.
Things such as, the meaning of his life, the lack of understanding of it something that has rattled inside of him in despondency for as long as he can remember.
Just like all the others before him, and all the others who would come after him, Chuuya's been told of so many things.
The most important thing being that the Coming of Age Ceremony involves conquering one's demons.
Chuuya blinks rapidly at the sight before him.
He's entered the door after getting bathed in the ceremonial lake, filled with crystal-clear water that's supposed to wash oneself of their material and sinful thoughts. It's worked quite well, Chuuya's thoughts wiped clear but for that one observation about how he's never seen such a big body of water so free of mud and pollution in his entire life.
After the bath, he slips into the clothes that's been chosen for him by his elders, choosing to arm himself with a pair of gloves, Randou's keepsake hat, and a serrated dagger that he's found near the edge of the city during his first sortie to battle with the beasts encroaching upon the territory they've carved out for themselves.
This year's batch is one of the biggest, he's been told. A lot of teenagers managed to survive, thanks to Mori-san's work at collecting herbs and making tinctures out of them, medicinal drinks that help boost a human's immune system against the dark miasma that surrounds the entire world. Having Fukuzawa-san handle their military forces also helps keep the beasts and the Others at bay, which has boosted the survivability of everyone living in their city.
Still, even though he's certain that there's a lot of them simultaneously going through their Coming of Age Ceremony, he doesn't see any of them by the time he enters the doors that supposedly lead to the ceremony's site.
No, what he sees is something that is, hands-down, the weirdest fucking thing he's ever seen in his life.
"Ahhnngh, if you stare too hard, I might just blush~" This nonsensical line is uttered with a very indecent moan, paired with a very bland, dead-fish-eyed look. "Oh, please stop, I really can't take this kind of passionate, lewd gaze~"
Chuuya's eyebrow twitches. "Who the hell are you calling lewd?!"
Dead-fish-eyes guy blinks at him, looking surprised to see him respond. That surprise fades quickly though, the dull expression resettling back on the other's face.
"Oh, I seem to hear something barking at me..." The other's visible eye—because he's practically swimming in bandages, actually, now that he thinks about it, the guy in front of him is wearing nothing but a swathe of bandages that are wrapped around his body, some tight against his skin, and some dangling loosely like a shredded gown—twinkles. "Alas, I don't see anyone or anything? Maybe it's such a tiny microorganism?"
"I'll show you tiny, asshole!"
Chuuya growls and makes a move to run for the other guy and strangle him with his own bandages for some kind of karmic retribution. Despite the two of them not being near any body of water, the other man practically swims through the air, slippery like the sea-snakes that they hunt for food.
"Oh, maybe not a microorganism then," Bandage Bastard laughs, more derisive than amused. He walks backward, feet light enough that it appears like he's floating, and maintains eye-contact with Chuuya the entire time. "Perhaps it's better to call you a feral dog?"
"I'm not a dog!" Chuuya's heard of dogs, even though he's not rich enough to afford looking at the rare picture books. But he's heard of them, relics from a time when humans coexisted with beasts without bloodshed. Nowadays, the only types of dogs he knows are the giant four-legged beasts that prowl the highlands with feet that dripped acid in their wake, and howled loud enough to pierce the eardrums of anyone nearby. More importantly, Chuuya's not quite sure what to make of this... bandaged bastard who keeps on evading his hands eager to punch. "Y-You, why are you so annoying!"
"Annoying?"
The bland facial expression is layered with something like curiosity. Like this person in front of him can't quite understand how someone would find him annoying. Lack of self-awareness, that's what he has, Chuuya decides, adding it to the already-growing mental list of inadequacies of this man.
"You are very annoying," he confirms. There's a lot of disagreeable, despicable people in the world. There's a lot of completely unreasonable things and phenomenon that happen in the world. But Chuuya's pretty sure that this person in front of him is the most annoying person in the entire world. And because this person deserves to know the headache he's giving him, he adds: "You probably are the most annoying person in the entire world."
Blandly, "Oh, wow, with such glowing words, I think I'm blushing."
"You are such a piece of shit," he says very sincerely.
"Now, hatrack, why don't you tell me why you're here?" Bandaged Bastard suddenly changes the topic, alerting Chuuya to the fact that during his chase to punch the other, he's been lead deeper into the... whatever place they're in. Somewhere further away from the doors, surely, because now Chuuya can't see anything but himself and the bandaged asshole in front of him.
Everything else is surrounded by darkness. It doesn't alarm him, not really. The world is surrounded by such thick miasma that it's nearly pitch-black no matter the time of day anyway. This one is actually quite... comforting, is the closest word he can think of.
The dark miasma outside is tainted with such heaviness – it's said that the miasma feeds from the negative emotions it elicits in its victims, cannibalizing them and growing more powerful from it, until they're able to affect more creatures. An endless cycle of despair and destruction.
Compared to that, the darkness here is almost... clean. Sharp and incisive, actually, like each breath is dropping glass shards directly to his blood. But it's almost light. There's still the sense of danger, that he'll get killed if he breathes wrong, but there's the feeling of it being a quick, and painless death, if it happens.
"I'm here for my Coming of Age Ceremony," Chuuya enunciates each word slowly, because he has a premonition that the person in front of him is the type who'd pretend to mishear him and twist his words for some petty amusement. He thinks about asking if the other guy is in the same boat as him, but he... doesn't think so. Bandaged Bastard, despite the unfortunate sartorial choices (he refuses to call it a fashion sense) and the dastardly personality (he has a feeling that he's barely managed to scratch the surface of the other's annoying-ness)... feels different from him. Kind of otherworldly, to be honest.
Instead, he ends up tacking the question, almost-neutral, "...How about you?"
There is a chance that Coming of Age Ceremonies all over the world are linked, through some arcane magic, but he really doesn't think that the person in front of him is human. Not completely, at least.
Flippantly, the guy responds with a, "Oh, I thought you were some lost child."
"Quit insulting my height, damn it!"
"No, I don't need to," comes with a leery grin. "Your pathetic height, or lack thereof, is insulting enough on its own~"
"Better make sure I don't catch you, bastard," Chuuya threatens with another growl, "or else, I'm really going to kill you!"
Bandaged Bastard preens at him. "Mm, that would defeat the point of it, don't you think?"
Chuuya is suddenly stabbed by a sense of wariness, alarm bells ringing inside his head. The person in front of him looks human, if a bit taller, skinnier and weirder than him. He looks human, but there's something distinctly inhuman about him. Still, he's not someone who turns tail at the first sign of danger—and honestly, he's already rather expected this guy to be dangerous ever since the moment he's laid eyes on him. He stays stock-still, doesn't bother arranging his stance into something more battle-ready; the four extra years he's spent to train for this moment is to ensure that every single moment is him imbibed with battle readiness.
The miasma around the world, the beasts that ravage their territories, the Others that prey upon their lives. The fellow humans who are terrible in their own rights.
He needs the power to defeat them all.
He’s not about to flinch away from it just because he has to deal with some irritating bastard. He bites out a, “What is the point then, huh?”
“Mm,” Bandaged Bastard hums, affecting a thoughtful expression. It’s all faked though, Chuuya can tell easily. “How do you guys say it? Ah, it goes like this: the Coming of Age Ceremony involves conquering one’s demons.”
A beat.
Chuuya blinks his eyes rapidly at the asshole steadily walking backwards, momentarily breaking their eye-contact before resuming it. Bewildered, he asks, “…I’m supposed to conquer you?”
“Congratulations for possessing an iota of intelligence,” the Demon says silkily, making a show of slow-clapping. “I was worried that with your unfortunate height, you’d have no room for a brain, you know?”
He’s never been the most controlled person out there, he knows, but there’s hardly any forethought involved when he challenges the Demon with a, “How about I kill you dead so there would be no room for your annoying ass?”
A split-second pause. It’s hardly noticeable in the flow of things, but Chuuya senses it easily. It’s almost as though the all-encompassing darkness that surrounds the two of them flickers, the slightest bit. A subtle shifting, like their world is composed of precisely-stacked blocks and this pause has caused a one-centimeter slide to the left. Not enough to topple over anything, but in a world of carefully-arranged machinations, it’s obvious enough.
The Demon blinks at him. Aside from brief instances earlier, that one visible eye had been the color of clotted blood earlier, dull and lifeless. It changes to something a bit shinier, as though the light switch has been flicked on, the dark color warming up to something like the sturdy wood of Chuuya’s hut, the earth after a flash of thunderstorms.
It’s not much, but the expression on the other’s face changes to something that actually feels genuine.
Of course, because the other is a bastard, it disappears quickly, replaced by mischievous glee. “Oh, I’d love that! Can you really kill me, chibi?”
“I’m not a ‘chibi’!”
An amused, “Oh, would you rather me call you by your name?”
Chuuya tenses.
“How fascinating,” the bastard says in a tone that says anything but. “I didn’t think you’d be smart enough to know that it’s dangerous to be handing out your names to anyone.”
“If you’re really a demon, shouldn’t you be able to read my mind to find it out anyway?” Chuuya asks, nonplussed by the blatant ribbing from the other.
“Oh, I could try,” comes the airy reply. “But then, I fear that you look too tiny to have a brain, so I’d just end up diving to an empty brain.”
“I really will kill you!”
“I really am looking forward to it…” the Demon responds to his threat with indulgent amusement, “…chibikko.”
“Stop giving me shitty nicknames, damn it!”
“Whatever you say, hatrack.”
“Fuck you, bandaged waste of space!”
“How forward of you, slug.”
“Zip it, shitty mackerel.”
They engage in a rapid-fire trade of barbs, all while Chuuya presses forward to keep the distance between them constant, as the Demon continues on his backwards skip-walking. The loose bandages flutter in tandem with hand gestures as their conversation subsists on the roiling simmer.
It’s not that Chuuya is oblivious to his situation. He’s been noticing the Demon luring him further away from the doors from which he’s entered the grounds, and deeper into… wherever they are. He’s more than noticed the darkness draped over the other’s shoulders like some heavy overcoat.
And yet…
And yet he feels like it’s going to be okay.
It’s not exactly like complacency… and more akin to trust…?
At that thought, he wrinkles his nose like he’s taken a bite of week-spoiled food.
“Why are you making that face?” The Demon asks, curiosity in his tone. Chuuya thinks, blah, blah stinky mackerel, and is somewhat satisfied that the other doesn’t react as though he’s invading his mind to read what his thoughts. “Have you finally realized how pathetic it is to be as short as you are? Realized that the hat you’re wearing is tacky and is too obvious a tactic to make yourself appear taller?”
“Leave my hat out of this, asshole!”
“Hmm.” A considering hum. “An important present from a loved one?”
He thinks of the person who’s taken him in instead of simply leaving him to be devoured by the beasts on the forests where he’s been abandoned. Randou, whose death is one of the main reasons that motivate him to grow powerful, so that he wouldn’t have to go through such a loss ever again. “Yes.”
The Demon’s face sours.
In that split-moment, Chuuya thinks he understands something. In the face of the bandaged bastard’s spike of displeasure, he lightly adds, “It’s my father’s keepsake.”
The Demon’s face clears—a sight that Chuuya reads with startling clarity.
…Ah.
“I can sense you thinking stupid things,” the Demon tells him with a condescending tone. “You should quit while you’re ahead, okay? You might just end up overtaxing your poor brain.”
Chuuya clicks his tongue, but before he can spit out a retort bathed in acid, he finds his personal space getting invaded by an abundance of gangly limbs and a truly unnecessary amount of bandages. There’s the sharp tang of thunderstorms that fills his nose as the Demon reaches out and grabs both of his hands, their palms meeting over the barrier of their clothes.
There’s no direct skin contact, which is probably for the best, given that Chuuya already feels like he’s sizzling alive, a greedy immolation lighting up from underneath his feet and climbing rapidly up his nerves. It should be mortifying—but the Demon’s mouth drops open slightly as his eye widens, a look of shock so genuine that it’s almost enough to convince him to forgive the other for his irritating personality.
“You…” Chuuya finds his mouth go dry; he clears his throat a couple of times to get the rest of his words out. “…you mentioned something about conquering one’s demons.”
Dryly, “Congratulations, you prove to be capable of listening to one’s words.”
“Stop being so annoying for one fucking second,” he grouses, shifting his hands so that their fingers are intertwined, a layer of physical lock over their connection. “Does this mean that you’re my demon?”
Demons are categorized as part of The Others, a collective of supernatural entities that are able to survive in areas with high concentrations of the miasma that is poisonous to humans. No, not merely survive—Beasts are able to survive the miasma, but the Others thrive in the cloying darkness. There are even rumors that they are the source of that dark mass.
It doesn’t make sense to Chuuya that such creatures would be paired with humans, but he figures he should double-check anyway.
Bandaged Bastard’s face scrunches up childishly at that. “Demons don’t belong to puny humans.”
“But we’re supposed to conquer—”
“Oh, this is so terrible,” the Demon whines dramatically, “how can humans be so shameless!”
A roll of his eyes. “Maybe if you stopped talking in annoying riddles, you’d be easier to understand.”
“If you’re smart enough to understand riddles, this would go smoother.”
“I’ll kick your mouth shut!”
“You can’t even reach me, shorty!”
Their exchange devolves to become embarrassingly childish. It’s just like their earlier conversation, with the only difference being the link between their hands.
“It’s very boring here, you know,” the Demon says after a few moments. “So demons sometimes agree to accompany humans who make way to our domain, as a pastime. Sometimes they agree to lend their expensive assistance to accomplish the humans’ desires.”
“And sometimes they eat the humans,” Chuuya snorts.
“And sometimes they eat humans,” comes the agreement.
He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“Humans don’t taste good at all,” the Demon complains, making mock-gagging noises. “Too dull, too full of despair and apathy, and they mostly are quite ugly to boot.”
Chuuya ignores the dietary complaints of the Demon, and instead refocuses on, “So conquering demons is basically tricking your lot to lending your power to humans?”
“Pfft, humans are too stupid to trick demons.” And then, that eye blazes a deep scarlet, as he tugs Chuuya with additional force, so that he crashes against a lithe body and a terrifying amount of wasted bandages. “And nobody is smart enough trick someone of my caliber.”
Chuuya considers him, then admits, “I wouldn’t even bother tricking you.”
“Oh?”
“You look so smarmy, you’re probably an expert in trickery already. I’ll just pummel you to death.”
“Spoken like a feral dog,” is accompanied with a shake of the head, though there’s obvious amusement there. “Unfortunately for your muscle-for-brains body composition, I despise pain, a lot.”
“Demons already possess so many advantages over humans, and you’re even the ones who choose the method of conquest?”
“Power is absolute,” the Demon says sagely—or attempts to, at least. There’s something wicked on his face, that Chuuya can’t quite take his supposedly heavy words all that seriously.
“Fine.” Chuuya feels comfortable dealing with this creature, despite his obvious dastardly tendencies. Still, he thinks he can manage to muster up the willpower to beat him up thoroughly. “Then what’s our contest?”
“Contest…?” It’s echoed in the cavernous area; the endless darkness shrinks, the increase in the air pressure squeezing his lungs. “Oh, you’ll only lose if you participate in a contest with me.”
“Try me, dipshit.”
“Mm, I’m feeling generous, so I’ll be nice, this time,” is immediately followed by a sanctimonious grin.
Heavy silence swells between them, Chuuya struck speechless by the sheer shamelessness, until the Demon pouts in dissatisfaction and stomps his feet. “You’re supposed to say, ‘thank you for your magnanimity, Dazai-sama, your generosity is truly a sign that you deserve to be very tall and super gorgeous’! How can you be so ungrateful, chibikko?! That’s precisely why you’re stuck as a short-stack!”
He gapes for a few more moments, floored beyond belief, before he manages to come back with a heated, “My height has nothing to do with this?!”
A pointed sniff. “Your height is nothing, period.”
“I’ll show you ‘nothing’, asshole…”
“Anyway! Because I’m so nice, even to little, tiny, button-sized dogs who deserve to be stepped on,” Dazai proceeds with his blatant lies, “I’ll be very nice and not eviscerate you on the spot! I’ll even allow you to grovel by my feet so I’d go and provide you my sought-after company!”
Chuuya’s lips curl in a disgusted sneer. “I’d rather kill myself than do anything remotely like groveling for some bastard like you.”
Dazai’s eye glints, victorious. With fake magnanimity, he nods and says, “Alright, I accept that as our contest.”
There isn’t anything to say to that but, “What the flying fuck?”
“If I can make you beg, then it’s my win.” Dazai explains it with such a soothing tone, that he even nearly forgets to feel a sort of whiplash from the suddenness of it. As though it’s reasonable and logical, when it’s anything but. “Got it, chibi?”
His eyebrow twitches. “And what the hell do I get if I win?”
“Oh, there’s no way you’d win, so let’s not bother with that!” Dazai cheerfully declares.
Chuuya, because he’s still holding hands with the annoying piece of shit demon, grips the other’s fingers hard enough to break them, until Dazai is whining, “Ow, ow, that hurts, you brute!”
“What the hell do I get if I win?” Chuuya repeats as he slackens his grip slightly.
Dazai pouts, looking positively demonic. Actually, he looks a bit adorable, a shade of innocence painted over his face—which is absolutely demonic for someone like him, really. Bastards don’t have rights to look so cute, damn it. It takes all of Chuuya’s willpower to not do something stupid, such as sigh from suddenly feeling all sorts of tingly.
“If you, by some unforeseen and highly improbable miracle, manage to resist begging and therefore, win, then… I’ll accompany you.”
“…Why am I getting a punishment no matter what happens?”
“Ha?” Dazai’s tone goes really high-pitched from disbelief. “You’re so stupid, don’t you understand?! I’m such a catch so you should be grateful you can even have the chance to get me as your companion!”
“I’d really rather not spend more time with you than absolutely necessary,” Chuuya says, hoping that the demon doesn’t detect his deception.
Another pointed sniff, this time with a layer of wounded pride. “A chibikko with terrible taste, is what you are.”
“You’re simply terrible.”
An aghast, “S-Simple?! Me?! You’re such a stupid chibi!”
They lose a few more moments bickering like that, until Dazai drags him to a place that is still made of darkness, but has some shapes that look like furniture at least. Someplace like an extremely gothic bedroom, all black shadows. There’s something that looks like a shadowy cavern in the middle, and when Dazai pulls him towards it, he’s surprised to find that it’s quite soft and smooth. It doesn’t burn and it’s different from the sludge-like quality of the miasma. It’s just like a giant bed, only that there’s no bedsheets and the mattress is just a plane of darkness.
For a brief moment, he gets a clear picture of what’s to come next.
Dazai smirks at him, then proves his intuition right.
Despite his earlier hunch, the kiss still arrives suddenly, heralded only by the sudden swish of limbs cutting through air, the quick slide of those hands from his palms to crush him to a tight embrace. He feels those hands splay out over his jawline and upper neck, an equal threat to strangle him and to keep him hostage in the kiss. Chuuya has a feeling that he didn’t even bother to shut the door, the moment that he’s stepped into this space and has laid his eyes on Dazai, but any confessions of that level is swept away when a hot tongue occupies his mouth and licks his coherent thought to nothingness.
A breathless gasp escapes him when they pause in their kissing long minutes later. He finds himself flat on his back, his hat knocked away within the first minute and is two body-lengths away from him. Dazai has made himself comfortable perched over his torso, bent over him with a wicked smile and swollen lips.
He murmurs, “…Because you hate pain, huh.”
The incredibly low number of people who manage to survive the Coming of Age Ceremony all come out to be changed. Hollowed. Like they’re merely a shell of who they were before, ostensibly because of the harsh condition of the ceremony that forcibly awakens them to the grim reality of the world.
…Alternatively, it can also be because…
“If you win, do you plan on possessing my body?”
If demons are so powerful compared to humans and other creatures, then they should have already overrun the entire world. But they haven’t. That means that there’s something holding them back—and if they’re really so bored and yet unable to come out of this place unless there are humans who go for their ceremonies… then doesn’t that mean that they can’t wander around freely?
Dazai pulls back, making exaggerated mournful noises. “How can you kill the mood just like that, chibi? I can’t believe that you’d even think that I’d want to get stuck in such a tiny body!”
Chuuya rolls his eyes so hard they nearly fly off his sockets. He glares pointedly at where Dazai is unreservedly humping him as they speak. There’s an obvious tent of arousal in his pants, something that hasn’t subsided since the first press of their lips. “Yes, I can see that the mood has been well and truly killed.”
“If you beg me, I can allow us to continue,” Dazai says like the piece of shit he is, so Chuuya has no other recourse but to kiss him some more and stop him from spewing out more bullshit.
A part of him wonders, what could someone like you want from someone like me? A bigger—more eager—part of him thinks he already has his answer.
An inchoate connection has formed between them the moment they’ve laid eyes on each other. That bright spark that has splintered the heavy darkness around them and made it bearable, comfortable. It’s the first time they’ve met someone like each other, a synchronized fascination taking hook into their insides.
…Yes, Chuuya knows what the other wants from him.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to surrender it without a fight, though.
Chuuya paws off the clothes and the ineffectual loops of bandages, feeling sharp nails returning the favor. He’s bound to suffer through bruising and sore muscles after, he knows, but it only serves to egg him on in wrestling the clothes out of the demon and rolling across their wide bed. They roll on top of each other rather gracelessly, a fevered excitement fueling their frenzy and yet, they manage to keep their limbs interlocked, their open-mouthed kisses connecting more often than not.
Dazai’s hands dig into the expanse of his back down to his tailbone in a hard, clawing sweep. It draws a hiss from Chuuya, his skin reddening from the action. It drives him to buck up against Dazai’s mostly-naked body, simultaneously to dare the other to draw blood and to get away from the promise of scratches and closer to friction between their hips. Both of them have managed to tear their clothes off, save for the set of bandages tightly looped over Dazai’s right eye.
They roll again, this time Chuuya securing his spot by digging his knees on both sides of a skinny hip, thrusting against the erection that juts out from a nest of dark curls. The tip of Dazai’s cock leaks precum against his stomach, and Chuuya ruts against the entire of its length, sliding against the thick underside veins. He braces one hand against the scars on Dazai’s shoulder, while his other hand curves over the tip of their cocks where they lay side-by-side. He fondles their cockheads leisurely, coaxing the tip of his own cock to spill droplets of pearly liquid over Dazai’s, before he thrusts against him again, making for a stickier slide this time.
“Is this your way of begging, chibikko?” Dazai asks with a sex-roughened voice, dark and promising so many aches upon his person.
Chuuya huffs, before mercilessly rubbing against the slit on Dazai’s cock. It twitches against his palm, growing impossibly harder, the bulbous head a dark red from his ministrations. “Is this you begging, shitty Dazai?”
In response, Dazai’s entire body trembles, his visible eye blown wide with lust and something even more dangerous. Chuuya repeats the other’s name—despite knowing that it’s highly likely it’s not his real name, for the knowledge of that is considered sacred above all things—in almost worshipful reverence, murmurs “Dazai” into the crush of their kiss.
Everything is slick and warm, from the spit wetting their chins, to the almost clumsy connection between their hands that fumble to hold onto one another, to the drag of their cocks against each other’s hips.
He keeps one hand around their cocks, fingers curling to form a loose, slippery tunnel for them to fuck up to. Therefore, it’s easy to sense once Dazai is about to come, no noise louder than the low, enticing moans and the seductive little sighs that escape his mouth. Still, his body is incredibly vocal, from the dilation of his eyes to the flare of his nose, to the tremble of his fingertips, to the heat of his cock. Chuuya slides his hand down and squeezes the base of Dazai’s hardness, stopping him from falling over the edge.
The whine that Dazai lets out is criminal, the sound going straight to his own cock and dragging out a moan from him, despite his attempts to smother it by layering a new mark over the set of scars on the other’s shoulder. They rattle against each other, rocking motions as though they’re both getting tossed around in a violent ocean, with only each other for anchorage.
“I’m not going to beg,” Dazai grits out eventually, even though his hips continue to thrust up and seek more friction to tip him to orgasm.
“Me neither,” Chuuya offers, before rearranging their limbs so that he’s still rutting against Dazai’s cock—even if this time, he’s grinding his ass against him. It takes so much of his self-control to not just fuck himself open against that throbbing hardness, despite knowing that it’s a very bad idea. It’s worth it, though, letting that length tease all over his opening and then down to the puckered skin underneath his balls.
Dazai’s annoying condescension is still there, proving that it is really part of who he is, but it’s mostly overshadowed by the blaze of lust and the even hotter burn of fond affection. Like he can’t quite believe there’d be someone who’d dare to want to go toe-to-toe with him, like he can’t quite understand how heady of a drug that is, and how he wants more of it.
It’s worth it, but their self-control has its limits.
Dazai’s hands knead the muscles on his ass, large hands splayed over his cheeks as he pinches at the skin and continues massaging them, spreading them each time the head of his cock brushes against his hole. Chuuya shudders and rests his sweaty forehead against an equally sweaty collar, slapping his hips in tandem to Dazai thrusting upwards.
“What the fuck are you waiting for,” he ends up finishing that question with a plethora of cursewords, some unintelligible, because Dazai jacks their cocks together to milk them of more precum, before using that liquid to lubricate the press of his finger inside Chuuya.
It’s not enough—and just as that thought filters into his mind, Dazai curls his finger and lightly rubs at the bundle of nerves inside him. It catches him by surprise and he clenches against that finger, his feet kicking out and sliding uselessly against the smoothness of the surface they’re laid against.
“Yes, that’s it,” Dazai murmurs to his forehead, one hand securely wrapped against his waist to anchor him, keeping his ass lodged against that finger that continues to massage the area around his prostate, avoiding touching the nerves directly, but keeping a maddening pressure around it nevertheless.
Chuuya belatedly realizes that he already came, but that’s because he feels Dazai’s other hand snake to his front and gather up his release between their stomachs. He’s still stuck in that blissful high, but he senses that it’s going to be bad news, so he tries to fumble a, “W-Wait, are you—?”
He doesn’t manage to complete his question, because Dazai is transferring the stripes of cum inside him, keeping one long finger hooked over his ass, securely around his prostate’s vicinity. His other hand thrusts inside a finger lubricated by his own release, with an unpredictable rhythm that has Chuuya’s toes curling in overstimulation. Even though he only has two fingers inside him at the moment, Dazai plunders his hole as though he has an entire hand inside, spreading him wide and trembling for the taking.
The dual attack of those fingers, coupled with the fact that his cock is deliciously trapped between their bodies and that Dazai has gone back to kissing him, wet and filthy, is enough to bring him to a second orgasm minutes after his first. Or maybe it’s been hours. He’s not quite sure. He’s wrapped in that pleasurable haze, his entire body boneless with satiation.
Dazai bites the edge of his mouth and he lets out a sigh when the other’s hands repeat the same thing from earlier. Gathering up the cum from between their bodies, then using that as lubrication to fuck Chuuya open. This time, Dazai lays two fingers against his prostate, widening the area he’s touching and Chuuya mewls from it, as the other hand resumes with thrusting into him.
He feels like he’s been flayed open, no room for secrets. It’s unfair, really, that he already came multiple times and yet he still yearns for more, as though getting what he wants is only a precursor for insatiable greed.
“You really are a demon,” Chuuya mutters as the rest of his body is plucked like an instrument made for Dazai’s enjoyment. He’s utterly wrecked, but it’s not enough for Dazai, his own greed even more covetous than Chuuya’s.
“Ah, that’s true,” Dazai whispers back, “I wonder if you can cum two more times?”
“Fuck you,” Chuuya curses his body for heating up at that challenge, and he slumps bonelessly against Dazai, a shivering mess of body fluids and stimulation, as another orgasm is coaxed out of him.
Dazai chuckles darkly, belied by the fact that he peppers soothing kisses all over his forehead sticky with sweat-matted hair. “Is this the part where you beg me to stop?”
“Fuck. You.” Chuuya repeats with more aggression. He groans out a long, “Hnnghhhhhyes,” when Dazai finally, finally, fucks him with his cock.
They’re both a mess of desire at this point. It doesn’t take long for Dazai to flood him with his seed after that, squelching noises accompanying the rapid thudding of his heartbeat as Dazai finally lets go, babbling nonsensical words that could be a toss-up between love confessions and incantations to destroy the world.
…Put that way, Chuuya braces himself for the afterlife once he comes down from the cloud-high of pleasure.
When he comes to his senses, there’s still the cloak of darkness, but there’s also the smattering of stars bright enough to penetrate through the miasma. There’s the moon, the least blurry it’s ever been.
“We’re at a mountaintop,” the now-familiar voice comes from somewhere above him, a rumbling vibration against his face. “Quite nice, right? This is the first time you’ve ever been this high, ne?”
Chuuya closes his eyes and focuses on the fact that this is the most comfortable afterglow cuddle he’s ever had (nevermind the detail where he’s only ever had this particular afterglow cuddle in his life), despite the involvement of someone who’s a massive dickhead—he carefully doesn’t think about dicks, especially in relation to the one that’s been inside him… wait a moment.
He shifts his hips a bit and is met with a grunt.
A twitch of eyebrows. “Why are you still inside me, you insatiable bastard!”
“I wanted to plug you full of my seed,” Dazai shamelessly admits, “but since I couldn’t find a plug…”
“So you decided that the best thing is to just—!”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Making it sound so reasonable and that Chuuya is getting mad for no reason at all, Dazai even thrusts again and Chuuya feels his face burn when he senses a trickle of release slip out of his ass.
“I can’t fucking believe I’ve been cursed with someone as annoying as you,” he gripes, and retaliates by biting the nipple that’s offensively being right there, all pebbled and rosy, by his nose.
“By the way, I haven’t completed the spell to curse you with my dashing presence yet,” Dazai tells him, one hand drawing his mouth away from his chest and is tilting his head up in a show of height supremacy despite the fact that they’re both lying down. Asshole.
“What the fuck? After all that, we’re still not done?” Chuuya’s dick twitches valiantly like it’s more than happy to try for another round or two. Sellout. He tries to keep his expression stern and not at all tempted. “I can’t even move one finger, damn it!”
Dazai leers like him being immobile is part of the appeal. But then, his face sobers up a bit as he adopts something a more serious look. “Mm, there are a number of contract types for demons, you see. I can just unilaterally take what I want, of course, but since I’m very nice, I’d even—”
“Do we need to exchange names for it?”
Dazai pauses.
Chuuya keeps their gazes locked, even if he feels tempted to avert his eyes. He’s heard of it, of contracts formed with the Others. There’s a rumor that Mori-san’s prowess with medicines is because he’s made a contract with Elise, a girl with an extreme fondness for sweets. Similarly, there’s a rumor that Fukuzawa-san’s prowess with the sword is because he’s formed a contract as well.
There’s even a rumor that Randou’s death is caused by forming a contract and then marrying an Other, then getting killed by it once their relationship has exhausted its course.
In any case, names.
Very important, apparently. Chuuya doesn’t know a lot about magic or rituals, but he knows that when a human is corrupted by the miasma, the first step to their madness is when they denounce their name. As though the miasma can’t completely affect them without their name being announced to it.
Maintaining eye-contact, Chuuya says, “I don’t know what my real name is. But, I’ve been raised with the name ‘Nakahara Chuuya’.”
Dazai takes in a sharp breath, before bending down and crushing their lips together in a bruising kiss. Power and heat surges inside him, as Dazai practically devours him, suffocating him until all he can breathe and feel is his presence.
Just as suddenly as they kiss, Dazai pulls back, an attempt at a serious frown on his face. “You’re so tiny and yet you manage to be a massive idiot! You! Isn’t that your most important secret! Why the hell would you—”
“—I trust you, shitty Dazai.”
He says it as casually as he can, as though to downplay its significance. But it lies heavy between them nevertheless. It should be nonsensical and totally irresponsible, but it feels right. Something slots into Chuuya’s chest upon seeing the awestruck wonder on the stupid demon’s face, the rattling of the jigsaw puzzle pieces inside him finally sliding home.
It’s not exactly that he thinks Dazai is the meaning of his life.
It’s more like… he feels that he can find that meaning, if he has Dazai in his life.
He scrunches his nose at the soppy thoughts, and he scrunches his nose even more when Dazai brings one of his hands up so they can both work on detangling the loop of bandages over his right eye.
He doesn’t quite gasp upon seeing the exposed eye, but he does feel somberness crawl into him. With soft touches, he lets his fingertips trace the eyesocket, paler compared to the rest of his face, and made even paler still under the blurry silver of the moonlight. There’s a milky sheen over the eyeball, giving it an impression of something belonging to a corpse. It’s reddish-brown, but duller compared to Dazai’s left eye.
More importantly, there’s a set of characters imprinted into that eye.
The characters of ‘太宰’, meaning ‘great slaughter’, read as ‘Dazai’.
Chuuya doesn’t know if these characters were written on Dazai’s eye out of magic, out of some unimaginable method, out of cruelty. Still, he surges up, and presses a soft kiss over the flutter of eyelashes, feels the skin there grow damp and warm.
“I am the Demon of Cunning and Manipulation, Dazai.” The words are even softer than the hushed moment between them. “I am entering into a life contract with Nakahara Chuuya.”
Something hot boils inside him upon hearing those words, pulses of heat travelling all over his insides. Dazai’s eyes glow red, and instead of reminding him of blood, it makes him think of the rumored sunsets, the beautiful splash of color before the sun disappears from the horizon, only to return the following day. Separation marked by impermanence, for there’s a promise for perpetuity underlying it.
He thinks that Dazai hasn’t told him the full truth regarding the symbols on his eye. He knows that he hasn’t told Dazai everything about the reason why he doesn’t know if his name is real. There’s a lot of other things that remain to be discovered between the two of them.
Those things, he knows.
For now, though…
“…Did you really just make a contract while your dick is still inside me?”
Dazai’s answering smirk is filled with mirth. “Of course, Chuuya, or else it wouldn’t have counted!”
“You’re such a lying piece of shit, I hate you so much!”
For now, the two of them will focus on nurturing the inchoate world that they’ve formed between them together, and make it bloom.