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It’s Koyama’s last mission, his last step to freedom, and it’s almost done. The two bags sewn into his jackets are weighing down his shoulders as though they weigh a ton each, and he’s exhausted from carrying them across the country. They’re a little lighter once he sets foot in Kabukicho, perhaps the atmosphere is welcoming them, yet the rhythm of Koyama’s heartbeat only speeds up.
He knows the police are active around here, always watching, and so are the underground organizations. Not only the one he’s finally going to be free from. He’s so close.
The moment he steps inside, there’s an energy pulling at Koyama. Pinching at his very skin, dragging him in a direction he’s never seen but somehow knows he needs to go. Through a crowd with drinks in their hands, then past an inconspicuous door and through dark hallways past people dressed in black, specks of neon lighting up on their faces when the flickering spotlights hit them.
Somebody calls for him, not with his name and he doesn’t hear it with his ears; it’s in his head but it’s more real than the sound waves vibrating in the air. When he comes to a stop at the end of the hallway he finds himself in front of a door cracked open, and the pulling hasn’t yet ceased. The worn wood is cool against his hand when he pushes lightly, needing to go inside but anxiously tense to do so, and his heart pumps faster for each millimeter that the door reveals of the room inside.
—
“You’ve got to be careful,” Massu tells him, a stern look in his eyes that Koyama knows is out of concern. “You have no powers. You can’t protect yourself.”
“I’m not weak,” Koyama argues, although he knows he’s right. He’s strong, for a human, but he could never match the strength of a Griffin protecting his treasured things. Or people. He’s seen it with his own eyes, Massu’s extraordinary power at use that time they got ambushed at night by a rival organization to that of Koyama’s. Massu had fended off the Hellhounds like it was nothing, and Koyama came out of it with angry red scratches despite having been on the edge of the fight.
“I know you’re not weak,” Massu smiles at him. “But there’s more to some of them than physical power.”
—
He’s feeling lightheaded as he enters the dimly lit room, his blood rushing to aid his heart as he’s hit with a shockwave of electricity the moment their eyes meet.
Clear, cold eyes, a hint of a blue sheen over a dark iris, winning him over in a matter of seconds.
“Tell me your name.” The voice is calm and inviting. Sensual, ensnaring.
“I’m Koyama,” he hears himself say without an ounce of hesitation. “Koyama Keiichiro.”
“Why don’t you come closer,” the voice pauses, “Kei.”
Koyama’s feet move on their own, slowly stepping towards the man sitting on a chair with a backrest taller than himself. It’s not until now that he’s taking in the rest of him, rather than just his eyes; he's got gentle features, black sleek hair slightly on the longer side and Koyama is instantly attracted.
“Why are you here?” the man asks next, effectively stopping Koyama in his tracks with his question. This isn’t where he’s supposed to be. He needs to carry out his task, he needs to finish it first, he needs to leave before his heart explodes with how hard it’s taking this realization.
“I… I need to go,” he manages to get out, but the moment their eyes meet again, the inside of his chest is numbed from the thumping sensation. “I need to see a Mr. Kato. I was told he would be here.”
Lips curling into a wicked smile. “Oh, he is here.”
“Do you know him?” Koyama whispers, voice killed by the anxiety rolling through his body.
“Well,” the man stands up in combat boots with a heavy platform sole, “you’re looking right at him. Kato Shigeaki.” He tips the lacquered hat on top of his head in a greeting. “But you can call me Shige.”
Koyama is bewildered. He’s encountered a lot of different types; vampires, werewolves, griffins, witches, fairies and more, each with their own peculiarities in regards to both powers and preferred aesthetics, but this one is different from all of those he’s met before. His aura is different, as well as the style of the materialistic things he surrounds himself with, and although Koyama has no powers, he has an intuition that tells him to not let his guard down.
“So you brought the goods, did you?” Shige prompts him, and Koyama forces his awareness back to the matter at hand.
“Fresh from the market.” He speaks according to the script.
“The fish from Fukuoka is always worth the money.”
It takes all his remaining willpower to keep his eyes from widening; it’s exactly the words he’s been told to expect, the sign that he’s talking to the right person. He’s slipping his jacket from his shoulders even before Shige snaps his fingers for one of his underlings to collect the goods and he lets them take the whole thing just as he’s been instructed.
He shivers at the air hitting his now bare arms, but his body is light. It’s over. The mission has been carried out. His lungs expand to their full capacity with smokey air as he draws the deepest breath he has all day, only for it to rapidly force its way back out when the look in Shige’s eyes makes him feel like he got a punch to the chest.
“You’re free to go,” Shige tells him, the tone of his voice light as he almost sings the words, and even though Koyama’s brain tells him it’s time to leave, this is what he’s been waiting for, let’s go, his body chooses not to. Instead he feels himself step closer to Shige, slowly, hesitantly, a motion that is met with the hint of a smile. “Aren’t you a sweetheart?”
Koyama’s knees lower gently onto the floor in front of Shige, shuffling closer when Shige sits back down in his chair, and it’s the strangest he’s ever felt. So vulnerable, entirely at this stranger’s mercy, yet there’s nothing else he wants more at this moment. Or so he thinks, until the tips of two fingers meet the underside of his chin and angles his head up and back, and he realizes he wants more of that touch. So simple and intimate at the same time, and entirely intoxicating. Their gazes lock and Koyama is drowning in Shige’s eyes, dark waves crashing against the edges of his irises, sucking him into the deep; when Shige’s eyelids break the contact as he blinks Koyama inhales sharply, like he forgot to breathe. His lungs hurt despite not being wounded, but he needs to see it again. Feel that pull.
But Shige denies him that connection and in its place offers a palm along the side of his face, slowly traveling towards his neck and leaving a trail of tingling in its wake. A voice far back in his mind reminds him of what Massu had said, that it’s not only physical powers that he needs to look out for, but Koyama can’t hear it over the sound of the ocean in his ears.
He’s lost, lost in the moment, lost to waves of fleeting but deeply touching intimacy, barely coming up to breathe but not long enough to get a grip on the situation. He’s aware of it all yet he can’t tell how much time has passed when he finds himself stretched out alongside Shige, both of them naked, and Koyama has never felt more vulnerable than when he notices the moonlight hitting them both from a window high up on the bare wall. The pale light seems to be reflecting in Shige’s equally pale complexion, and for a reason Koyama can’t explain, he finds it endearing. Like he’s spellbound, tied to this other individual with a bond he can’t see or grip, even feel. All he knows is that when he leaves, it’s without a small piece of his heart, and he needs to return, or he might be eaten alive by the fraction of a hole in his chest that is threatening to widen with each step he takes.
—
“I thought you were done.” Massu is, as Koyama could have predicted, not the slightest happy about the direction their conversation is heading. “That was your last mission. Didn’t they say you’re no longer in debt?”
“I am done,” Koyama insists, “I’m not working for anybody, not running anybody’s risky errands. I’m going there by my own free will.”
“Okay, but that’s the problem. You’re done with that world. You’ve finally reached the surface, why are you going back down?”
He had known this would happen. Had they switched spots, surely he would be saying the same things. Massu just cares about him, and deeply too.
“I love him.”
“You just met him, you know nothing about him, and even if he were the love of your life, I would drag you out of there to get you on the right path.” Massu is starting to get irritated, Koyama can tell, but he can’t help himself. It’s a pull stronger than anything he’s ever felt. “You might get yourself killed if you stay. In fact, it’s a miracle you’ve stayed alive this long. I’d much rather you be heartbroken than dead. Besides, do you even know what he is?”
Koyama shakes his head. “I couldn’t tell. I don’t think I’ve encountered one of his kind before. Maybe he’s like me?” He knows it’s useless. Shige undoubtedly has some kind of powers.
—
Shige is rough with him, whether they’re making love or not, whether Koyama is receiving or not, and Koyama loves every bit of it. When his skin is sensitive and his muscles sore, he feels alive, so alive it’s like a fire is burning in his chest, heating him all the way from the inside to wherever Shige is touching him. Fingertips trailing along his naked side from his hipbone to his shoulder, that tingling now followed by his own heat, and again the sting of his hair being gripped tightly. A moan escapes his throat despite the pain, a moan that Shige drinks down in a kiss that Koyama returns greedily.
“I could just eat you up,” Shige mumbles against his lips, and Koyama smiles. The nails that rake down his side hard enough to leave ridges behind don’t even make him wince; hearing how Shige feels overrides it all.
—
“He really said that? ‘Eat you up’?” Massu lets his face fall into his palms. “Koyama, is he a werewolf?”
“No,” Koyama glares. “I’ve met werewolves. They’re big and hairy.” Shige is smaller than himself, and he’s not particularly hairy either. “If anything he’s elegant looking. That aside, though. It’s not like he’s actually going to eat me. Other than when–”
“That’s more than I would like to hear,” Massu interrupts. “Just please, please be careful. Don’t trust him.”
But why shouldn’t he trust somebody he loves? Somebody that makes him feel so much, so strongly, somebody who it feels so natural to submit to. Maybe Massu is right, maybe it is supernatural powers that’s making him feel this way, but is it necessarily bad? What about all the good natured species? Just because Koyama isn’t one, doesn’t mean that he can’t love one.
—
It’s when they’re doing it in the shower that Koyama’s logical brain feels a sprinkle of doubt. His own hands are firm on the tiles and Shige is behind him, inside him, one hand tight in his hair and the other with nails digging into his hip as he thrusts. It’s painful but it’s delicious, the slide of Shige’s cock inside him bringing that edge of pleasure to it that he’s come to crave. Then, as if out of nowhere (or did Shige’s hand move for a second?), the water pressure changes and the shower head starts spraying water right on top of Koyama’s scalp. At first it’s no problem, but as his hair soaks it up and gets saturated it starts overflowing heavily into his face. With his mouth closed it’s fine, or would be, until the water clings to the tip of his nose and he begins to pull it into his nostrils with his heavy breaths. Breaths that only get heavier the harder Shige thrusts and soon his lips part and although he can still breathe, he might as well be underwater with how he struggles.
If Shige had readjusted them right away he would have thought nothing of it. It’s that he doesn’t that sparks doubt in his mind.
—
“You are not going back.” Massu is standing in front of his front door, on the inside. “I did some research, and there’s no way I’m letting you go back.”
“You don’t know him,” Koyama all but shouts at him. “He wouldn’t hurt me!”
“I’ve seen the bruises,” Massu spits out. Koyama doesn’t take his anger personally; it’s a common trait for a Griffin.
“Bruises I agreed to. Bruises that I wanted.”
“It’s not that easy.” Massu shakes his head, soft hair flowing gently despite the rough movement. “You can’t see him anymore. He’s going to kill you.”
“He wouldn’t do that. You just want me to stay away from him.”
“Koyama.” Massu’s eyes are more serious than he’s ever seen them, and Koyama realizes somewhere deep inside that he means it. That it’s not just words. “He’s a fucking Siren.”
—
Koyama can’t stop himself from returning. Or is it that the call he hears in his head is too strong? A melody, one of a foreign kind played with instruments he’s never heard, mysterious words he does not recognize. Still his body responds to it like it understands, and surely, the moment he steps inside the same room as Shige the call softens and he can shove it in the back of his mind.
The shine in Shige’s eyes reminds of fire when they reunite, fire except it’s in cool tones over his dark brown irises. Burning with a desire, and maybe even instinct, and with Massu’s recent words in his mind Koyama can’t help but notice how the hand that doesn’t close around his wrist goes straight for his neck the second they’re close enough to touch.
It scares him, the hard grip on his body, but it only lasts a moment. Shige’s touch loosens and becomes gentle stroking over skin, plump lips brushing against his own, and this is what Koyama recalls when they’re not together. Wherever their bodies press together is warm and full of mutual want, and when they pull apart Koyama notes the glimmering in Shige’s eyes, a hint of sunset orange cast over his gaze.
“Welcome back,” he says with a smile so genuine that Koyama practically melts. This is where he belongs, he knows it, somewhere deep inside himself. It’s just a feeling, one he can’t find a logical basis for, but it’s there and he can’t deny it.
“I think fate brought us together,” Shige tells him that evening. Uncharacteristically sappy for somebody dealing with drugs for illegal organizations, but the words echo true within Koyama’s body. “You were meant to come to me.”
Massu’s words have no strength against Shige’s, like battling a sword with a pliant stick, and Koyama has no wish to even try. With Shige’s naked back against his own chest as they fall asleep, their breathing matching up as they doze, he can’t even begin to think of wanting out.
Until the next morning.
Perhaps he wants out, just a little, when what wakes him is a tight grip on his throat and what feels like sharp teeth against his neck. A cough makes it past his lips and the pressure is all gone, and to his surprise Shige backs up rapidly until he’s sitting up in bed, leaning back against the wall as far away from Koyama as he can.
“I’m sorry.” He buries his face in his hands. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
Koyama’s heart skips a beat, in the least pleasant way he’s ever experienced. “Stop… what?”
“I’ve never had to not kill somebody.”
He goes cold inside. When Massu had told him Shige is a Siren it is what he had expected, but it’s different hearing it from his lover’s lips.
“I’ve never… wanted to not kill somebody. I’ve never felt like this.” Their eyes lock and Koyama registers the flames in his again, only now he realizes it’s not fire. Waves of a raging sea, waves that nobody can control. “Then… why?” Koyama raises his hand to his throat, feels his skin where Shige had touched him.
“I can only do so much to suppress my second nature. Sirens are aggressive, even among our own kind.” Shige looks away. “I envy you. Whatever you are, it must be nice to be able to hide it so easily.”
It’s perhaps the first time Koyama sees him be truly vulnerable, and it doesn’t make him any less attractive. It should, and he knows Massu would chew him out for not thinking the exact opposite when told his lover can barely keep himself from murdering him, but he can’t. Shige is telling him he doesn’t want to. He’s being honest, sensitive, earnest. Surely that’s enough?
—
Koyama doesn’t intend for it to be his farewell to Massu. He intends to return to his hometown sooner or later, but right now his place is with Shige. From tomorrow they’ll be in another city so that Shige can continue staying under the radar but still act in the organization. And when asked, Koyama had agreed in a heartbeat to come with him.
“Thanks for always looking out for me,” he says, hoping it doesn’t come off as too sappy, but Massu’s senses are sharp and maybe it would’ve been better to not see him at all today.
“I couldn’t not,” and they both know it’s not just a statement. “What’s up with that bag?”
Massu nods towards the large backpack Koyama left by the door of Massu’s apartment.
“Nothing.”
Silence.
“You’re going with him.” Massu shakes his head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
For some reason, Massu doesn’t tell him not to lie. He doesn’t tell him to stay. Doesn’t tell him it’s far too dangerous. He sends him off with his usual greeting. Never ‘goodbye’.
—
The sun is about to go down and even the backalleys get a glimpse of gold reflecting off Tokyo’s skyscraper windows; they’re about to leave and Koyama expects a silent travel under the radar, perhaps being escorted to cars with dark windows and driven to their destination off the highway roads.
Whatever it is that’s planned for them, he’ll never know. They’re still inside Shige’s bedroom when he hears a loud bang from downstairs and loud voices reach them next. An ambush.
More gunshots, the roar of a Wolverine, something soft hitting a wall, and then steps coming up the stairs. When the door is pushed open with force he’s surprised at first to see a familiar face; Massu, his Griffin aura turned up so high that Koyama thinks he can almost make it out with his bare eye, and he realizes quickly that he’s not the one behind the ambush. Just the stronger one, the first to make it to his side, but the steps coming up the stairs keep increasing in numbers. Some of them belong to Shige’s subordinates, struggling to hold the enemy back while heading to protect Shige at the same time, and Koyama realizes the only one there to protect him is Massu.
He’s never thought of himself as cowardly, rather the opposite, he’s brave considering he only has his human strength to fight with, but in that moment, he quivers. Finds his gaze darting around for a place to hide, somewhere he can be safer than he is in the middle of the room.
He’s too slow.
Koyama barely catches Massu’s bewildered look at Shige shoving him to the side to protect him, like a Siren shouldn’t care whether their prey survives, but the thought isn’t even done processing in his mind when another loud bang sounds through the air, followed by an immediate hit to his chest. It aches, stings, pulses all at once, spreading from his chest through his shoulder and into his left arm as he slumps onto the floor. The chaos around him doesn’t halt, but it blurs away out of focus and all sounds become muffled until it goes entirely quiet. Maybe there were some final bangs from where he remembers Shige and his underlings standing, but he doesn’t know. All he’s aware of is that the enemies must be gone as he’s got two pairs of hands on him next and Massu’s voice calling for him to stay awake.
With what power he’s got left Koyama forces his eyelids open, searching for those deep eyes, hoping to drown in them one last time and when he does find them, there’s another pang to his chest. Shige’s eyes are filled to the brim with tears, not at all evil or hungry or unfeeling. He makes out movement on his lips, his name and three words, followed by several others his brain can’t decipher before he feels his body grow hotter.
He’s got a fever, the onset so quick he feels like he’s combusting, and the hands on his body suddenly retreat so fast it seems like a natural reaction, like they’re risking physical burns if they don’t. Then, at last, his entire consciousness fades into a bright white and he hears flames licking the sides of his head.
Then the white fades into darkness, and Koyama finds himself able to open his eyes again. He hears sniffling from afar, a punch to a wall from the other direction, but the strangest thing of all is that his own body is naked, and covered in something soft. Soft? It’s powdery, and shaking his head sends some of it airborne until it falls back down on the floor. The smell clues him into realizing it’s ashes, and slowly, like he’s testing his body, Koyama sits up.
A cloud of gray follows him before it settles around him this time, and only now does he seem to get the attention of the others.
“Koyama?” That’s Massu’s voice, and it’s as confused as Koyama himself feels. “Oh my god.”
Koyama looks around himself, from Massu to Shige, initially surprised they haven’t killed each other while he was gone.
Gone? Passed out?
Dead?
“I don’t understand,” he finally says, looking down to inspect his own chest. There’s no hole where a bullet should have entered his body. Not even a scar. “I thought I was shot.”
“You were,” Shige offers gently, and he looks like he knows what’s going on. It must be why they’re both alive. A Griffin as strong as Massu wouldn’t have let him live for causing the death of a person he treasures. “Is this your first time?”
“My first time?” Now Koyama looks back at Massu. “I have no powers, I should be dead. Am I dead?”
Massu shakes his head, and when he looks up, there’s relief in his eyes.
“You’re a Phoenix.”