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New Low (nihilistia x Verse)

Credit: Verse

The danger with living like this, was that eventually your adrenaline always turned sweet. He was worried for Carmen, possessive even, but the anxiety that fueled his actions morphed into the kind that carbonates your blood when you're going down with a roller coaster car. He remembered breathing like drowning in cold water and then cackling like he was being tickled, when he'd killed a man. So with Carmen on the line, and him trying to save her from the perspective of having been the Shun she knew, soon let him enjoy it for the action. Didn't mean it was all giggles, though. Katosh was not just a guest of honor, but someone who'd kill you himself if he wasn't happy. Shun's level in the Yakuza wouldn't be worth retaliation, not enough to deter someone like Katosh, anyway. And his happiness was valued at the guns. So Shun had reasons to keep him jolly even if his childhood friend didn't have anything to do with it. And he was playing a lot of cards here, appealing to some fun-loving place in Katosh's heart, since he wouldn't get that far with threats. After all, they were all lost boys looking for a playground.

It wouldn't have worked without Tina. She was dependable for the shit she was good at. Shun didn't really like the way she played with the ruskie, but he'd made her do it, and she followed along. He liked seeing her dance. They all did. It softened the hard men up, and Shun was allowed to water them with whatever he could pull out of the fridge. Ah, there was a bottle of expensive whiskey, too, metal label, half empty. One of the gorillas took that, and even he balked after the first swallow. The music went into their beginning stupors, and Tina was making way with Katosh, who was still thinking about Carmen a bit, but increasingly not so. Wasn't used to not getting what he wanted. Get the fuck over it. Sometimes you gotta party your head off. Shun saw when Carmen left and let it happen. At least she wasn't so off her mind that she didn't see the danger. He didn't even worry about what she'd get up to by herself. At any rate, wouldn't it just be like when they threw a big one in their home? Always some casualties. He was just happy to have her away from the men who thought they could just have her. Shun wasn't going to sort that thing out in his heart yet.

His head tilted soft when Tina gave him the look. She knew these guys. She hadn't been there when he drew a small revolver to make a big hole in flat face, but she'd talked to him about it afterward. His nervous jitters had been so disrupting the kitchen light had bounced off her piercings, real pretty. The gang didn't really scream preppy, either, but he'd told her about the Import Houses, and he'd even let her know when one of her friends got stuck there. So Tina was dancing for her life. And Katosh was buying it. Shun had his arms around two Neanderthals and they did like the stream. One of them let out a loud, long sound when Tina offered to pad the female numbers. Shun gestured with his hand to show his vote too. Danger wasn't as imminent anymore. Music and booze usually solved tensions, if you could get the other party to ingest them. Katosh was all hands, all of a sudden. He was dangerous, but part of that was because he lived in the moment.

Katosh breathed in through his pressed teeth when she talked like that. Every man has a thing for girls who adorn their bodies, even the ones who don't think they do. "Yeah?" About the unseen ones. He wrapped his arms around her but not so tight she couldn't move. He wasn't a trained dancer, but he'd been VIP in enough clubs to know a few moves that got the member she'd feel on her ass in the conversation. Which was all guys ever did, up in the VIP, anyway. "You gonna let me lick your little dangling rings?" he asked, accent thicker when he spoke into her ear. He grabbed her ass and pulled her against him. If she moved, they'd be humping, especially the way he went up and down with the music. There was a reason not all girls tried what she was doing. The music dropped for exactly long enough that she'd hear the next thing. "I'm gonna tear dem off wit my teeth." the last lisp was wet. Who would have guess the weapon buyer had a dark side when the alcohol content in his blood went up? With her hair, she looked enough like some of the girls he got off the boat from Europe, anyway.

Shun had come up next to them while the gorillas were calling for more girls. They were momentarily distracted by the ones on the screen, so Shun just raised the volume, hoping it'd keep them longer. He didn't worry about Carmen anymore, she was put away, locked away somewhere. Instead he loved the one he was with, finally, and moved closer at whatever pace the music allowed. He was within earshot when Katosh thought it'd be classy to lick her earlobe and pull up his own shirt to show off the gun there. Of course he'd come here strapped. Fucking canons in crates wasn't enough. "You want to go again?" Katosh asked her and there was some clarity in his blue eyes, real boy-like glee then. "You can't always keep winning."

Shun remembered kissing her on her head, when she tasted like sweat and indoors, after having been in bed for so long, after the incident. Girls around these parts all had their ups and downs, but Tina was steady. Until that happened. She sure as fuck wouldn't want to. And if she did, it'd be to play decoy. He wasn't sure he wanted that anymore. Yeah, things changed when Carmen left the room. So he moved.

It was a quick tackle, separating his girlfriend from his customer. His eyes flashed cold when they met with hers as she traveled back in the prolonged moment. Maybe she'd see what he was going to do. What he was already doing. A barrage of semi-automatic pops went off before Katosh's ass hit the ground. The reason Shun had lived long enough to freak out over having killed someone, was because he had fast twitch muscles. Three gorillas down, and two were barely moving, all of them making pools on his floor. A girl with her mouth open and her tits out was frozen around the splintered glass on the screen. The music was gone. Shun drank up the spirits of the dead as smoke slithered out the barrel that pointed down at their Russian friend, sans handgun.

"You don't play roulette with a fucking glock." he said, and Katosh was speechless, looking between the gun and Tina, like she'd be able to control her man, but there was this manic anger building in Katosh too, his pride hurt.
 
Her phone quickly chimed with friends accepting her invitation. Because of course. Actually, Tina would be worried about them if they didn't come when whe promised them drinks and snow. She was still kind of worried because she knew what she was putting them up to. She'd called them in blind. And if she wasn't so preoccupied with other things, she'd feel like one shitty friend. Luckily they werent real friends, and all she could focus on anyway was not making a face while the hands on her made her skin crawl. She'd been expecting him to touch her, but that didn't make it any better. Especially not when the space between them closed up. Tina was glad not to be facing him when disgust twisted her features, wrinkling her nose as she felt him hard against her lower back.

Turning made it worse. She still felt his dick and now his excited breath too. Could practically feel it beading on her skin while his fingers dug into her ass and hiked her skirt. There was a feral look in his admittedly pretty eyes that she recognized from before. If this were a club, and he wasn't someone she was supposed to be entertaining, she'd be putting her knee to his groin and maybe a fist to his nose. But that would just be rattling this dog's cage. Tina still tried to smile, but his flirting was sounding more and more like intimidation. Even before he tried to threaten her with ripping out her jewelry. She liked taunting men, but suddenly it wasn't so fun anymore. It halted her dancing shot her veins full of ice.

She'd never used a gun, wasn't that kind of Yakuza girlfriend, but she wasn't a complete idiot either. Tina knew when his movement drew her eyes down that she was looking at a pistol. Even if she hadn't looked down the barrel of a revolver, she'd know the difference. Her lips parted, but it was like choking on the words. She was normally all yesses when hosting Shun's friends, but that sure as hell wasn't how this night was supposed to go. She wasn't so friendly now as she jerked away from his tongue. Tina's hands were back on his chest and firmer now, a clear no, without need for words. She could get out of his arms if she really wanted to, but she couldn't outrun a bullet.

Just how long would a kick to the nuts subdue him? Long enough for her to run to the bedroom so he could shoot the shitty lock? Hell, he could probably break down the door without need for a gun. Bet he wouldn't give her such a quick ending after that. She'd be leading him right to Carmen, and would probably get them all killed. Oddly, she was more worried about Shun than anything else. Even as she looked possible death in the eye, having done everything she could, it still felt like failing him. The thing about being in a manipulative relationship is instead of being mad for being put in this position, she felt guilty for getting herself killed. Shun was supposed to make it nice for her.

Tina managed to shake her head, a plea forming on her tongue when the scene changed. She made a sound of relief being removed from Katosh and his bad breath, but Tina could hardly tell what was happening until it was done. She screamed at the sound of shots being fired, bringing her hands up over her ears and cowering back. They lived in a kind of shitty neighborhood, so the sound of gunfire wasn't that foreign to her, but she'd never heard it up close. Or watched the way a body twitched on the way out. It made her sick to her stomach. As much as she didn't want to look, she couldn't tear her eyes away. "Oh, God," Tina barely whispered. And then again and again, voice climbing in her panic, "oh my god! Oh my god!"

Even if she'd narrowly avoided being assaulted or even killed, as a woman, she wanted to stop the bleeding. Even if they were the 'bad guys' of this story and she knew it was hopeless. Tina kept herself behind Shun's larger frame but couldn't stop her staring. The muscle he'd brought were the innocent ones here. Certainly not in life, but they hadn't done anything to her. Yet Katosh was still there, looking right back at her. She wanted to beg Shun to shoot him, but could only manage her hushed mantra through panicked breathing. What the fuck. What the fuck. She had no idea a body had that much blood in it.

Shun had never come to her rescue like that before. Never really needed to. It would be hot later, her knight in shining armor, but in that moment Tina was barely keeping herself together. She couldn't look Katosh in the eye, but then she was tripping over her own feet past him in a rush towards the kitchen. She barely made it to the sink before her stomach emptied. The vodka didn't taste so good anymore. It got on the counter, and a little on the floor. That was going to be a lot more straight forward to clean than all the blood seeping into the floor. Tina kept retching until she had nothing left to give. She turned on the water to rinse her mouth and caught Carmen in the corner of the vision. The gunshots had woken her from her drugged stupor and she was staring wide eyed at the scene from the doorway. Tina shot her a look that made her slowly back away from the horror story she'd come alive for.

As if all that wasnt enough, there was finally a knock at the door. If it had just come a few minutes sooner, maybe all this could have been avoided. Tina looked towards Shun before making her way to the door. Her stomach turned again as she had to navigate around the bodies and pools of blood. What did she even say? She barely cracked the door, blocking the opening with her small frame. It was Aska, with her dark hair up in two buns and bangs long. She was perhaps the most unshockable of Tina's friends. They'd met through Shun, had a threesome once or twice, she was really only the jealous type when it came to Carmen. Aska was a fence, which was a good business in a city like Yareli, she'd been well taught, family business. "Party's over," Tina said, her voice and expression both wavering in her shock. She gripped the door and the frame to keep her hands from shaking.

Aska's brow raised and Tina went fishing in her shirt for the baggie of coke. A sort of peace offering for wasting her time. But the guest was more preoccupied with the blood coming under the door and seeping around Tina's bare feet. The sensation made her stomach burn with acid again. "Some party," she said rather calmly and took the packet, but didn't move from the doorstep, looking over her head instead for Shun. Aska was already there, though. Morally grey, didn't seem to swoon over blood and there was evidence to get rid of, so Tina grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, making boot prints in the blood. "Text Beck and Tessa not to come," she said, not sure why she was still keeping her voice hushed. The inside of the door was sprayed with blood. Tina got it on her fingers, locking the door. Some of it ended up smudged on her forehead as she irritably fixed her hair. The fucking things she did for Shun.
 
Credit: Verse

He'd grown up long bones. He had the reach but he didn't have the meat, always. Fast like a viper, though, for some reason. He thought that was all it took for respect, to beat up the next guy even if your face was pretty, but other color boys don't bow to yellow unless its in overwhelming numbers, or they step into new turf. And that was school yard logic, thinking man-to-man was worth anything after the fact. Shun still had to hold his head and curl up like a fucking turtle when more came, after he was tired of trying to get them. Cried and then mom made him fried rice because she thought that was better than the good stuff he actually liked. Made that dish taste like fucking tears even when he hadn't been beaten up. Always thought he was going to be a big man. But he wasn't. He was just fast. But maybe that would change when you grow up. Maybe being a new adult in Yareli was a bit like being in the wild west. And drawing first was all that mattered. These days he fought even odds or he laid the fuck down. More trouble inside the ranks than what was coming at drug runners from other directions.

But those two times he taken a life, he'd made it out because he had a way to skip a moment. His only job was to fit as many motions in as possible, before time caught up. Only seemed like a party trick, to see how many times he could slap a guy before he felt the first one. Useless when there's gun, and more than one opponent. But he'd seen it now. He had even hesitated a bunch, as Katosh fell slowly on his ass. Shun refreshed in the moment, and fed off the anger instead of the panic, and reached out and took the shooter. And then he send the bullets off, missed enough times that he could calibrate. That's why they'd gotten it center mass. Not quite dead, two of them, but he wasn't worried. He'd known they were there, soon, the same place his other send-offs were. They could talk about him if they wanted, but they wouldn't have seen it either. All they'd know was that there was an asian boy once, and now they were on a black and blue, gritty shore at the wrong delta of the river Styx.

He stared Katosh and his raised palms down as Tina moved away. They listened to her wretch together. He felt kind of proud he could get her to that, in fact, pride was pumping something in his blood right now. He'd tried to push it down, this feeling that he was immortal and that he could do god-things, discarded it like childhood hubris, but what the FUCK was this feeling then? Maybe he could kill his way out of this one. Wasn't anyone who would blame him from turning men who'd touched his girl into sieves, right? Sure, Katosh was a VIP, but this had to mean something? Meant Shun hadn't backed down. He was fucked, yeah, but he could fuck things right, too.

"Okay, listen, freend." Katosh said. He was collected now. Not his first time almost sucking off a gun. High capacity firearm, and by the caution in the accent, there had to be enough left to off him. "I not touch your girl anymore. I want to party. I'll clean them up." his thumb pointed at the men. One of the survivors had stopped moving. Shun threw a look over at Carmen when she came out. He looked like a wolf about it, and then he was Shun again. He nodded to the kitchen, not back to the bedroom.

"Things changed, didn't they, just now, Katosh?" Shun asked and it was like he was reading out of something, he was so calm. Like he was sorry but now they had this problem, right here. Tina went to open and she came back with a girl he knew from when both their faces were on his cock, and life was a little simpler.

"See, more girl, we can party, I forget about the guys!" Katosh said with an Italian fucking gesture. So that was just all of would-be Europe, then? Shun shrugged. "I know you japs are particular about your women. I shouldn't have done that." he went on like Shun had said something. It really did feel like he had a fucking out now. But he was also looking forward to digging this hole deeper and see where it would spit him out again. His brow was hard as stone and of course his hairband broke and let his hair around his neck and cheeks.

"Tina. Aska. What do we do about this?" he asked and then looked back at Carmen again. He couldn't help but thinking it was her fault, all of this.

And then he thought he made a decision, turning back to their guest and taking a step toward him, even if they were still pretty close. Katosh hadn't landed that far from him. Shun's gunarm grew longer and that suggested the sentence had been decided. His gait certainly suggested only one course of action from here. Katosh kicked himself back and flapped his hands like he could deflect the waiting bullet if it came. Soon he was sitting in blood.

"Wait! Damn it! Fuck! Shit!" he also included some pretty rapid Russian rap verses that sounded almost beautiful, in their rushed, hissed regurgitation. But he wasn't just pissing himself, he was angry too. Katosh was more formidable than he gave. It was too much of a mess right? These kind of guys would lie and drink with you, and then they'd turn around and saw you up until you were just a head and pain receptors and whatever parts you needed to shit yourself. Shun knew he should be taking some time, but he was really craving to just pull the trigger and see how his life would turn out.
 
Carmen's mouth felt dry as she stared unblinking at the scene. He'd been showing her, ever since the alley, that he was a different Shun than the one she had known in childhood. She didn't want to accept it. But the proof was right there, as five dying men and his unwavering gun hand, pointed down at their leader. Why did he look at her like she had played a part in causing this? And how? By simply being there when she didn't even want to be? For looking like this... this Angel? She must have been some woman for him to care so much about a lookalike. She'd come to learn they were far from doppelgangers, and understood it even less. She lingered by the door, watching the way he could change his face like masks now. It was more disturbing than the growing blood pools on the floor. Carmen hadn't seen any of the tenderness she'd known as a girl. She didn't think it existed anymore. The drugs dulled her reaction. Tough it was violent, she'd seen her share of dead bodies. Mostly in the form of ODs, and those were graphic too, but never scared her straight.

Tina, well she was barely keeping it together. The only thing holding her frayed edges from unraveling was knowing there was work to do. The bodies were in her home too, and she was supposed to be Shun's ride or die. This was her fault, wasn't it? Even if she hadn't been behind the gun. She was supposed to be babysitting so this had gone down on her watch. And the one person she actually wanted to see dead was alive. Who would he blame for this? Oh, God. She hoped he was more scared than mad.

"Oh, shit," Aska said, stepping in, dark eyes doing a quick head count. It was worse than she thought, but she didn't scare easy. "Yeah, you all really know how to throw a party," she answered Katosh's words flatly as she stepped over his men towards one of the crates. The blood was sticky on the treds of her boots. She bent to lift the lid and look in. "Damn, Shun," she said, impressed and let the wood settle heavily back into place. Aska knew he moved a lot, but that was a lot a lot.

She didn't care what had happened—things were interesting. And when he asked their opinion, Aska was all toothy smile. "Fuck it," she said, as way of telling him to do it. What was one more body? She was already stepping towards Katosh, kicking the Glock he'd threatened Tina with across the floor, making a streak in the blood before bending to pick it up. As if the guy wasnt already absolutely shitting himself. Maybe Aska didn't have what it took to pull the trigger, but she looked good behind it. Whatever she'd walked into, it felt better holding it. She was a good friend, reliable when the glitter fades. Didn't scare easy like other girls. Her work made sure of that.

His question had Tina quickly stepping in. Actually putting herself between Shun and the man on the floor. She held her hands up like she could make an appeal, or had any fucking say at all. She was giving him eyes though, asking him not to make any more trouble. Trouble that could get them killed. Somehow killing Katosh seemed like it could only make things worse. They didn't know who he could have told about coming here. They were too small to be taking out big players. Plus she thought she was this bad bitch, but the death made her stomach twist. "Hey! Look, I'm okay. No harm done. Let him go, we call it even. Right?" Tina asked and glanced back towards Katosh, and Aska with his own gun pointed at him.

It hardly seemed even to her. Five dead or almost dead. And why? Because he'd threatened her. She was nothing, she understood that. And Shun wasn't worth much more to the people that mattered. This was a good way to ruin everything he'd worked so hard for. But he and Aska seemed to see things differently than her. And there was Carmen, just a fly on the wall, looking pale for her complexion in the bedroom doorway. Tina was ready to throw hands with her. Though for now, she looked at Katosh, wanting him to agree with her so maybe Shun would believe him. Not like he ever listened to her.
 
Credit: Verse

Aska had always struck him like this kind of gal. He thought her life was cheap, because she was only one thing, one energy. But that could be useful. He'd learned that when he had to manage the complicated task of rotating people depending on their personality and skill. If he sent the wrong person to deal, then he wouldn't meet quota, then he'd be down one rung on the latter, just like that; a lot of work down the shitter just because one fucking junkie thought it'd be smart to cut out the middleman when they were the middleman. And Aska was useful now, wasn't she, holding a gun already slick with blood. He trusted her enough to have a chambered bullet in the same room as him, and not fire at his person, at least. She was pushing a certain agenda. He could feel it in his finger that she was right, and that he wanted to do it. See what happened. Maybe this was the fire that would light up his legend. He would just stomp this Russian motherfucker out and then no one would fuck with him. Only it was complicated. Because beside Katosh's affiliations, he was connected to the Yakuza, fucking Lenaka himself, up on the mountain.

And then he had to see reason step in. She was so vivid now. Pretty little wifey, after she had put herself on the line to mitigate this whirlwind of shit. Shouldn't he have his prioritize straight by now? She was right fucking there. She would have been his heroine in Joan of Arc garb, she would be a whore with her ass in the air for him, too. And she made sense. And she looked good when she was fearful of her life and looked at him, always searching him for something he thought he couldn't live up to. Not some dark myth about him, but like, a person she could rely on. They weren't like that, but she at least expected him to be human, sometimes. He didn't know if he wanted to disappoint her or restore her faith in people. Seemed like he had royally fucked them either way. What's one more body? Katosh might not forgive. They weren't going to party this one out. Wasn't enough contraband or hookers in this city to draw a line through it. Or maybe there was some bullshit way of making peace and appealing to some unspoken rules about each other's women.

He had some right to turn Katosh's skull into shards and savory dessert, didn't he? Shun looked from his pretty blonde to the uglier one behind her. And Katosh looked so indignant too, like this was causing him discomfort rather than the dread he should be feeling at having two barrels trained at him. As far was threats went, he and Aska probably didn't make a blip on his worst list. The same way Shun wouldn't look at a flight of stairs with awe and horror, despite the deadly potential there, always. His arm got straighter and he swore the bullet got hotter where it laid, staring at the ruskie through the ring. He wanted to give Tina something. She had done well tonight, fuck, she was still doing it. She was trying to keep this ship afloat and not just release them into the wild, where two prominent syndicates, one of them the largest in Yareli, would be after them. Shun had delusions, sure, but they weren't that big. It made his gunhand tremble. At least they'd be on their way and not suspended in this moment anymore. Who the fuck knew what a rightfully placed shell could do?

So he stepped into his girl, which meant he aimed at her for a moment. But the closer he got, the more the weapon protruded beyond her. There was a sound that suggested he was squeezing the handle pretty hard. Katosh started screaming, blades of saliva connecting his jaws, furious and unrelenting in thinking he was worth more than dying in this apartment. And then Shun wrapped his other arm around Tina, and held her to his chest real tight. With his head over hers, he turned to Aska, and nodded at her. He coldly pulled the trigger after that, fully expecting the other woman to let off a salve too. With Katosh's own gun. The fucking unwanted guest would die on his floor tonight, adding to the blood soup of his men. As the firelight sparked and the bangs filled up the space formerly choked by European electric club music and its cheap rhymes, he turned his head to look at Carmen. There was amusement and pride in his dark eyes as he buried his nose in Tina's hair, inhaling her before Aska's gun was empty.

And then, still locked into a stare with his old friend, he turned his gun to the side. If they remembered now, if his plan had worked, it had only been Aska's gun that popped off after the initial click of his. Which meant it Aska's her bullets in Katosh's corpse. Shun undid the safety on his own weapon with a flick and, and without even looking at their latest guest, let his own bullet fly, wherever it may hit her. Of course, Aska might not have bought it, or she might not have gone all firing squad on a big player in the Yareli pantheon, but if she had, and Shun thought he'd made the bed pretty well for that, he'd shoot her down. And let Tina go so he could kick Aska's gun away and point his at her.

"That was such a fucked up thing you just did, Aska." flashes of when he was balls deep in her ass and she was just a good time girl before his eyes. He didn't have any loyalties to her just because she let him in. "I bet they'll throw you in the Import House for this, if they don't do worse." His grin was soft but other parts of him were getting hard. "But it was a good play." he offered. It is always a shame to waste a good party girl. But he would have to say this time, it'd be worth it. "Right Tina?" he asked without looking back at her.
 
Two shots went off in short succession from Katosh's own gun. Aska knew her way around one just fine. She'd just never used one like this. Outside of a range, no ear protection, feet away from the man she shot. So close she was hit with the blood splatter. She'd say things like, I ain't a killer, but don't fucking push me. Guess she'd have to come up with something new. She was struck by how it felt to hold that kind of power in her petite, manicured hands. As much as Aska wanted to play it off cool, it ignited her blood and her breathing picked up after watching the way his body fell, limp, and they heard no more of his screams.

It was quiet, for a moment. Tina still had her face smashed into Shun's chest. She'd seen more than enough, and her hands were up to cover her ears. Did that mean Katosh was really dead? She didn't want to look, couldn't look. Her hands slowly lowered, hearing only her own ragged breaths. She finally lifted her head, looking up at Shun's calm features, right before a third gunshot rang out. She cried out, but not as loud as Aska.

He was either a good shot or just lucky. Bastard wasn't even looking when his bullet buried itself in the arm holding the gun. It thudded against the floor and her bloodied fingers from holding the gun rushed to the wound, just above her elbow. Aska didn't mind blood until it was her own. "FUCK!" She screamed, pulling her hand away just for there to be another gush of blood, dripping hot down her arm. Her hand was shaking when it pressed back over the hole that was there.

Tina's fingers clutched at his shirt, eyes wide with shock as he began to pull away from her. She was never so firm as now, even before he spoke, trying to stop him but far too small to have an effect. "Shun, what are you doing?" She asked in a hushed tone, but he brushed right past her. Instead of grabbing for the gun, Aska backed away from him. Her time as a killer was going to be very, very short lived.

"What?" She asked, shocked by his words. "You set me up," she said in disbelief a breath later. Suddenly, Carmen felt like she had overstayed her welcome and disappeared from the bedroom doorway. "You called me here to put me up to this?" This time, Aska's anger was aimed at Tina who dumbly shook her head. She was never going to believe that she had nothing to do with it. This was Carmen's fault, no hers. At least, that's what Tina was trying to tell herself. She was believing it less and less. She had invited Aska into a blood bath, and she'd stayed to help them. She was officially the worst friend ever.

"I'd rather die," Aska said and meant it, about the import house. Growing up, she hadn't been warned about beating teen pregnancy, covering her drink in clubs, and not catching chlamydia. Her father had taught her about the real threat to girls in Yareli. A fate worse than death, really. Girls went missing all the time here. Aska knew what it meant when weeks passed without their bodies being found washed up.

But Tina didn't like that talk. And definitely didn't appreciate Shun putting her in the middle of it. She thought she would always come to his defense, but she didn't know what to say. This was cold blooded, even for him. She was used to being on the wrong end of his anger. This wasn't anger, this was cruel cunning. Little thing put herself between him and Aska. Tina reached up towards him, her hand landing sweetly on his neck. "It doesn't have to go like this, Shun. Please. We can get this mess cleaned up, no one has to know. You won't tell anyone, will you, Aska?" She asked, glancing back, and receiving a desperate nod from the girl clutching her arm. But she didn't know the first thing about getting rid of bodies. And six of them was quite a lot. Aska had to know a guy, had a guy for everything, but she must have been too scared to speak.

Tina knew him well. Knew he got hot off this kind of thing. He wasn't stupid like Katosh, who'd died because he couldn't see past his own desire, but trying to appeal to the man in him was the last card she had to play. She wasn't at all surprised when the hand not on his neck reached for an already hard length. "You know, they're not getting any deader," she said, looking up at him with a flirtatious curve of her lips that didn't match the dread she felt. "Killing Katosh is the most romanic thing anyone has ever done for me. Come on, baby, don't do this."
 
Credit: Verse

Thought it'd take more to kill one of the main players. They were so legendary for the stupid boys who ran for them. And the ruskies had their own fucking bible of gnarly details. Katosh was most prominent, because he had backing from their old country. Real ghost stories and shit. Even if he didn't have the lore of the east asians, ruskies were bad. But his chest and lower jaw exploded the same as a father of two who'd gotten a big loan to jumpstart a contractor business and couldn't pay up. There was a cold, dull thing that lined the heat in Shun Kinoku's blood. He was familiar with it, he'd chased it.

He regretted not looking at Aska when he fired. Something between a thought and a heartbeat told him where she was, while he was busy keeping Tina to himself. But he looked after, when the girl was on the floor. Somehow he'd known that was it for her gun. Like nothing could touch him when he felt like this. She was all kinds of ferocious, but she didn't have her teeth anymore; they were on the floor, kicked away from her. He was black eyed and immortal, staring down. He let it all play out as he waited for the music of everything rushing past his eardrums crescendo, painful and pompous, so it could start dying down. That's when he registered the facts of the situation, as filtered through these two women, and the forever yawning Katosh.

Their conversation flooded back when Tina addressed and touched him. He had been swimming in illicit chemicals but was pulled into the present by something more acutely stimulating. She'd see his dark eyes regaining focus. He liked that she was so close to him while he was holding a gun. His tough girly losing her senses because of something he'd done. She was usually playing a playful bitch, and her resting bitch face was world class, but she didn't have control right now. The cock twitched under her familiar fondling. Aska was feeling what Tina was pushing, too. It was a bit like waving a baggie at Carmen, he imagined. Tina did know him.

A grin broke through the straight set lips, and the jutting angles of his jaw softener a bit. His hips pushed slightly into her petting and his free hand cupped the back of Tina's skull. He had been pretty damn romantic, hadn't he? And it'd be kind of a waste to put more unusable holes in Aska, wouldn't it? "You liked that, baby?" He asked and leaned down. His arm was still on her shoulder but the gun was at a softer angle. His lips parted so they could start eating her's. But then she'd feel the pull at her pale hair to have her lift her chin and expose her throat. His grin wasn't as dreamy anymore, and his eyes were just as black. "Do you think you understand this, babe?" He asked and it was hollow, but interested, like a wolverine counting whiskers on a mouse. His teeth scraped the edge of her jaw. He was playing with her. At least his breath was boiling.

"This bitch just killed Katosh." Plain and simple. He pointed the gun at Aska again and then waved her in. At the same time he stopped pulling his girlfriend's hair and palmed her scalp and applied pressure to make her bend her knees. They'd know what he wanted. They'd done it before. Last time it had been friendly. "Are you guys really going to tell me you can get me in a better mood than reporting her to Lenaka?" He proposed. Maybe the painfully hard flesh under Tina's hand suggested they had a chance, but the wound in Aska's arm begged to differ. He didn't really know where all this fuck-shit was going, but he liked being in control of this careening train.

How often could he make these moments happen? The rest of his life was on the other side and he felt sure about it, somehow. Like he could will any favorable eventually into reality. Tina's eyes were so beautiful when she tried to hide that she was afraid. Little darling. She thought she knew his work, but she hadn't seen a vietnamese teenager shit himself because his father's eye exploded from being shot crooked through his temple. He kissed her right there, in the indent in her skull, real sweet, but then she have better take both those knees. And be as sweet and as hungry and apply all the worship that he'd never seen in her with his cock in her face. He didn't know where his screaming nerves would make of this, otherwise. Maybe if she wasn't so beautiful when she thought someone would die.

And then, when he thought he got Tina sorted, he turned toward Aska, less affectionate. "You better hurry on your knees." Short, like he'd been telling her for a while. He had never gotten head from someone he shot, before. Actually couldn't wait to get her blood on his cock. This would be a gruesome, glorious sacrifice to his legend. Bet his girl and Aska would look good with red smeared faces and a cock to play with. He chuckled when he thought about it, maybe the absence in his eyes would look unhinged to them.

"You ever sucked cock to save your life?" He asked their guest, who was likely feeling betrayed and like her day had been going better before she decided to party at Tina's house. "This better be fucking revelatory, Aska." He actually liked her. She was fun. A good fuck too. But he was absolutely sure that ass wasn't worth Lenaka finding out his whitest friend had a minced meat smile courtesy of a rung on the ladder barely off the ground.

Actually. Maybe this night wasn't going too bad, after all. Maybe shooting people in his apartment was the best thing, this week.
 
Yeah, she nodded, as the hand behind her head pulled her in, she liked that. In those ignorant moments before she understood what he'd done, it really had been romantic. Killing the man who wanted to maim her, threatened her with a game she couldn't possibly win. It was enough that Katosh was an ugly creep. He got what he deserved, and she had no doubt about that. His body on the floor was a lot less disturbing than the others, even if his face looked the least like a face now. Tina was nothing like the muscle he'd brought, didn't have a clue about the lives they led, but she saw them more as accessories to crime than real criminals. She was an accessory too. Although a much prettier one. No one cared if they died, like how no one was going to be laying lilies on her grave, even if she even had a grave. One of them might be missed. Or at least his disappearance would be noticed. No one outside of the room would ever know the truth. Aska would go down for it regardless of what Tina tried. She still tried.

Romance looked a certain way between them, but guns usually weren't part of the conversation. It was of little comfort that it wasn't pointed at her yet. There was only so far she could go defending Aska. It was probably better that including his dick in this meant he put them to work. Just as Tina thought he might. There was nothing he wanted to hear that she could say right, but he always wanted this. It would be hands down the worst sexual experience Aska ever had, and that was saying something, but sometimes fighting for your life looks like a bloody blow job. Tina found it pretty fucking foul, but you only do good work at the feet of an executioner. Aska's fate was going to weigh heavy on her soul, especially if she died.

Tina felt the razor edge of his teeth, primed to bite, on her throat, hand rough in her long hair. She'd never really been scared of anything he could do to her, but she was really sticking her neck out for Aska, and it had her on edge. The best she could do was play along and hope their guest came to the same conclusion. His firm hand on the crown of her head elicited an almost immediate reaction as she'd felt it a hundred time before. But she'd never dropped her knees into blood like this. Tina's hands worked to free him of his pants. She recognized another woman on him. Carmen, no doubt, which would have been cause for a fight if the night hadn't taken this bloody turn. Mother fucker.

Aska got the clue and started shuffling over, clutching her injured arm. It looked bad and Tina could hardly stand to look. But they both nodded up at him, hoping that when they were done, Keijin Lenaka would be the very last thing on his mind. Tina was a good soldier, only stroking him a moment to try and brush off the remnants, the eau de Carmen, before taking him in her mouth. Gross. But not as bad as it was about to be.

As Aska neared, she dried her bloodied hand on her skirt, doing little to actually clean it and leaving her arm to leak. She shook her head at the question, wondering how many times he'd been in his position, hand on a gun and girl at his feet, working to see another day. She still blamed Tina, even as she had her mouth wrapped around Shun's dick. She had to know something like this would happen.

Tina lifted off his cock with a pop when Aska was next to her. A glance sideways at her and she saw Katosh's blood splattered on her carefully applied makeup, which wasn't going to look so pretty for much longer. They were a well oiled machine, having been around their share of dicks, and of course working alongside each other before. Tina felt a sense of urgency, but no one wants a hasty blowie. And Aska was taking her sweet fucking time about it. It was the worst pain she'd ever felt, kept her eyes weeping and her breath jagged. It was wrong, but Tina couldn't pity her now. Shun didn't want a job half done. So even though Aska was crying, it was her hand now on the other woman's head, between her stupid space buns, pushing it forward and a look that said get to work. Her eyes winced as she was bent forward, the strands of hair framing her face cut through her crumbling stony expression. So her lips parted around his cock and her non-dominant left hand reached, trembling and still quite bloody despite her effort to clean it, and smeared red down his length, below the initial reach of her mouth.

Tina, she could take a breath, even if her nose was wrinkled. She was quickly learning that she really did not like blood, and there was quite a lot of it in her future. She gagged at it before he even hit her throat. They swapped between sucking him and tending his balls. She was holding it together pretty good until Aska impulsively reached for her still slowly seeping wound, and then put it right back. Tina left her station to retch to the side. She didn't have much to give, and the floors were already fucked. She coughed to hide the fact she wanted to cry too. She shared a pitiful look with Shun, but what other choice did she have? This was not the time to play the bitch. So she put on a show, like Tina was so good at. Flaunting her little tongue tricks over his cock, even grabbing Aska's by the jaw and kissing her. She wasn't really into girls, it was a pretty good act.

All while Carmen shoved her bag full of wet clothes, and the contents of Tina's box. She managed to pry open the old bedroom window and tossed her bag down. She climbed over it and dropped the rest of the way. Would've hurt more if it weren't for the drugs in her blood. Helped that she was long and skinny. She had some practice sneaking around so they could go to parties. Sometimes just so they could lay next to each other and talk into the night. She left, wearing a jacket and cuffed pants she'd taken from Shun's closet, thinking she'd never be back. Clearly there was nothing left for her in Yareli, and she didn't want to know how the story of tonight ended.
 
Credit: Verse

There was music in his head. Not one of the chosen tunes, like when he heard hurried violins when he ran, or dull drums when he fought with his hands. Just any kind of mixed club music, some of it pitched, some of it base. Because he was having a good time, right now, in the middle of the high between confidence and real, addling chemicals. He had killed every man in the room, and now he got to enjoy the spoils, scott free. Who said you couldn't have everything? Guy like him chased power, and now he'd reached it, for however long he'd last. Tina, he loved her, sure, but she looked so fucking good when she was honestly horrified, and he could see it even if she tried to fight through it. Such a fucking trooper. She cooked and then she did this for him, too. He liked mixing fucking with the other things in life. She'd known. This was her choice, too. Better than the alternative, she'd told herself. So he had a little fun with her like she was actually one of the bitches who'd overstepped. There was enough ire in his suggestions that it brought Tina to her knees. Where had all her bitching, gone?

And it was knowing that, that made it all better when she started. He'd beaten her into similar moods before. He liked those sessions too. Felt freer with Tina because even if she got under his skin, he didn't have to do too much to prove himself, to instill something. It was honest, the way he beat on her. And then, when she gave, really gave what he wanted, her expressions were honest too. Worship, but with conditions. Let that unsatisfied part of his soul sing out in an aria while he got balls deep. Real quality time. But now she was weary. Now she was like one of the girls in the brothels who didn't know if the upstart jap would need to feed his ego by ending them, after this. Yeah, this was about whether or not he would go too far. He grunted about it, eyes half open but with tears because his heartbeats hurt in his ears when the girls were on him. He touched their heads to encourage, and he damn well nearly came when Tina turned to get rid of their dinner. It got to him so much that they'd been another couple when they ate that, together. He'd had most of her bowl, too.

But he didn't.

He held out so he could stand there in the blood they'd made. So deep in places it rippled as they moved their knees. Aska was pretty with her blood, fighting her wound so she could keep putting her mouth on him. Soon they were eating it too, the life and the liquids. How could he not feel like some made-flesh shinjigami? All the doubts they'd ever had about him should taste exactly like his cock right now. His baby discovered that he'd had another baby on there. And she couldn't have her fit about it. Did she know Carmen had been through the same? Now they just had a job to do, and they went about it with such costs to themselves he was about to tip them, even. "Fuck." he growled like he was angry, but if he was, it was because every nerve tickled him. He was everything he aspired to be, in that moment. When Tina looked at him, begging for something, he gave her some sympathy to let her know he understood, but when he guided her back by her cheek to his cock, she knew his answer to the plea. It was his to give, and Tina wouldn't have it more than Aska would.

They were spectacular, honestly, and looked good in the red addition. He would probably not get another one of these in his career of doing dark things under the Yareli moon. He felt as beastly as the ink art on the chosen Yakuza members with a good ritualist. "Okay." he groaned out, that pride of his, smeared with blood and female worship twitching. "Faces." he ordered to get a good distribution. This was primal. First their blood and now their white christening. Tina would know it was her job to steer it, that he wasn't happy unless they'd done this to themselves, too. Once he'd tossed her around when she'd ridden him but not let him cum where he wanted to. Like everything should be full service when you start. It had been a bit of a joke at the beginning of their relationship, but it stuck. He didn't know if she knew she was the joke, anymore. But she knew the amount was more than his usually, especially since he'd gotten off with Carmen before. He knew the cum would saturate their faces, and run pink down their chins. What if this was his new craving? That'd fuck up his life. But he didn't know how he'd feel after, when his usual addiction was momentarily sated, and there was a whole world of other fucking to do.

He pushed Aska's head away from his cock, like she suddenly disgusted him, like she hadn't gotten closer to death to try and get him off. As he tucked himself back in he waved the gun at her, but meant for the gesture to be seen by Tina. "Patch her up." he said and thought that might give them some relief. He knew she was good at it. She was almost a fucking field medic by now. Although that usually happened under more tender circumstances. "In the kitchen." Where he'd sit and watch them as he played on his phone, farthest end of the table, where he could keep a mountain of handguns, courtesy of pretty much everyone in the room, living or dead, except Tina. By the end of it, he'd been keeping watch casually, with the last of the liquor not offered to the men that were now failing bloodbags by his side, and a lot of attention on his phone. He liked the consequences of what he'd done, and how the two pretty things had to deal with it.

Of course, almost exactly when Tina had fixed Aska up, the door gave dully, and a meaty Japanese fellow stumbled in from having shouldered it. Yuu. Lenaka's fists. He had commented on Shun being all twigs and ribs, once. He looked around, putting his phone back in his pocket just as Shun did the same. "This her?" Yuu asked and pointed at Aska. Shun had been told he could be jolly, but he usually just saw Yuu's stone face. It was fucking horrifying. Like a cement block had a grudge. Now it was frowning. "You fucked her, didn't you?" he said with fatigue at the concept.

"Honey, step out of the way." Shun told Tina as he got up. If Aska tried something, Yuu would make her think differently, likely by breaking her leg with his heel. "Babe. Don't." he warned his girlfriend that would always be partially smeared in blood and his cum in his mind, from now on. "And go some place else. People are coming to clean up." He looked at her like he was sure she'd understand, and like there was violence for her if she didn't. Yuu huffed with something that looked like condolences when he passed Katosh, dragging Aska.
 
At least Aska was sucking like her life depended on it now. Tina wasn't sure she saw it as clearly as she did. Shun wasn't usually like this. Well, not at home. Their guest certainly hadn't seen this side of him, she only knew him from the good times. Good times were far and few between for girls like them in Yareli. They'd had a good run, though. But Aska's luck looked to be running dry. There was a bloodlust not satisfied by the men on the ground. He'd orchestrated the scene to make him look innocent and the way he controlled them almost made them both believe it. He was in Tina's head after all their time together, chipping away at her like rust. It made her easy to manipulate. Made murder look dreamy on him. It was easier looking at their life through rose colored glasses and the haze of drugs. Didn't need them when it was red all around her, better than roses when it was from her man. Barely tasted the blood when her throat was burning with bile and her tongue became coated in pre, now it was just any other night, really, if she just kept her blinders on and focused on cock. Easy.

Aska was having a different sort of time. It got worse, not better, the pain radiating, traveling from the hole he'd put in her. There was more adrenaline than there was blood left in her, which wasn't a great recipe for sensuality, but she sure was driven. All mouth so she could hold her arm, after Tina had given her a hard elbow for painting him in more blood. She directed the show, and knew it wasn't going to help things if she tried to make things easier on Aska. Girl had to put in the work, she wasn't bleeding out, rest of her still worked fine. For her, the moments felt like forever, but both girls felt a similar relief when it was over. His seed felt hot when it sprayed on Aska's now particularly pale face.

He shoved her and she caught herself with her bad hand, drawing out a sharp cry. Tina was already reaching after her, before Shun had to tell her to. "Come on," she whispered, pulling her up by her good elbow. The blood ran down from her knees, and she paused and looked at him when he specified where to take her, like he wanted to supervise. But she nodded and pulled a chair from the table and retrieved her little first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. She'd quickly wiped her face with a wet towel, leaving blood only framing her, washed her hands but nothing else. Aska was pathetic, her initial ire subsided as she wept while Tina tried her best. Bullet wounds were outside her usual scope of work, but she still pried that tin lid off.

"She needs a doctor, Shun," Tina said, and knew he knew that already, so there was no point in saying anything else about it. Wondered if he hadn't decided what to do with her yet, but his thumbs tapping on his phone suggested otherwise. Hearing it out loud made Aska cry harder, clutching and not using the towel she'd been given. That and the pressure Tina was applying, but the gauze just kept turning red. "No, it's okay, it's okay," she said, trying to hush her, or make it true.

Maybe Tina believed it for a minute, when the blood finally slowed, and she could wrap her arm up. But then a man the size of the door came in. One look at him and she saw enough ink to paint a pretty clear picture. No wyverns, alas, but the style was recognizable. At first, she was just relieved he wasn't pointing his finger at her. But Shun never called her honey, or she'd tell him not to, and when the man stepped towards them, her first instinct was to intervene. Though when Shun had to speak again, she heard the warning in his tone. Didn't think her flirting would work on Yuu anyway, especially not while she looked like she'd stepped out of some slasher porn. She'd done enough flirting for one night, look where that had fucking gotten her.

She held it together okay until Aska's struggle began. She imagined it was weaker than usual, clawing at him and finger painting on his nice pressed shirt. Or maybe she knew what was coming if she put a real fight. "NO! No, no, I-I didn't kill him!" the words were fast and panicked. She was already half way to the door and Tina had her arms wrapped around herself, holding each arm in, shoulders caving forward. Yet she couldn't look away as they made trails back through the blood. "I mean, I-I-I did, but... but...," not like anything Aska said was going to appeal to him. The tactic changed, turning on the people who had invited her there. "SHUN, YOU BASTARD!" Her voice turned to cracked screams. "Tell him the truth!" It was more of a sobbed plea, but she had a lot of anger left for Tina. "YOU DID THIS! BITCH, YOU INVITED ME HERE!" Aska screamed, and Tina's posture stayed much the same as she tried to cover her ears, finally turning. The rest of their apartment looked so normal. There were quiet tears, but her chin wobbled as she pressed her lips tightly together. "This is your fault, I WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP! TINA!" Her vocal chords sounded raw. "It should be you! IT SHOULD-" But Yuu decided to shut her up, and Tina shuddered just at the sound.

Should have listened the first time he told her to go. Scurried off to the bathroom then, turning the shower on as hot as it would go. The blood ran pink, while she roughly scrubbed her skin to the same shade. Started crying for real when the blood didn't immediately come out from under her fingernails and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. Tina was in there a while, even as she heard the door again and some movement outside. She left her bloodied clothes on the counter as she came out of the bedroom, eyes red, wielding her empty conditioner bottle to swing at Carmen for using it all, because it felt better to be angry about something. But that fizzled out when she walked into an empty bedroom. "Shit." The bottle fell and she looked under the bed and in the closet, even went back to the bathroom, and checked the closet that housed their stacked washer and dryer. "Ah, shit," Tina sighed again, the hand not holding her towel together running through her wet hair. She wasn't still on babysitting duty, was she?
 
Credit: Verse

It was like living the moment over and over, when he was sitting there at the table, and Tina was trying to be the dam that kept Aska from bleeding out. Glee in his teeth when they absently presented the smile, his eyes alternating between the women and the little screen. In his head he still saw them, blood touched and hungry for his cock. He thought their fear and willingness to live was beautiful. All primal and all in. Aska's fight through it, and Tina still meaning to put that flare in. Her pale hair drank the blood up pink, and he'd always wondered if it would. Looked so tough with her piercings and that made her distress all the more valuable. That was his girl. Just like he thought; she wouldn't be tough when the pressure was on. Kinda like he wanted it. There was something normal in her. He'd safeguard that, so he could take it out and play with it whenever he wanted. Wasn't like the rush when he backhanded her for being a bit too much, so they could grudge fuck after, this was out-in-the-wild stuff on her features. And Aska was fucking lost. His cock almost hurt from her sucking and attempt at getting her actual life out of the slit. These girls delivered. His cock and balls were still ringing from their team effort.

She didn't kiss Aska's temple every other lap with the bandage like with him, but she had more concern in her eyes. It took him out of the chat with Lenaka for an instance, but he still needed to mind what he said. This was to save his own fucking life. "Yeah." he gave about the doctor. A fact, sure. But he didn't have anything for that. Maybe Tina should be glad he acknowledged her. The iron was filling up their apartment, thick and heavy in the air. He'd known places like this. The ghost of the blood didn't leave even if the ghost of the murdered did. He tilted his head for Aska, too, like his small smile would have any comfort for her. She still had his cum on her, for crying out loud.

Of course she was screaming when she was dragged out. Yuu was as efficient about it as he thought. There were muscle apes and then there was Yuu; Lenaka's own crew. Now that was an expensive black car. Shun looked over his shoulder as he followed, gun hanging a bit more relaxed at his side now, but she knew he'd changed out the mag. "Don't worry." he said, but it was more of an order than to leave her with something to hang on to. If Tina wanted to stick with him, and the semblance of a partner, this had to be her trial. Or maybe he was too selfish and too excited about what would happen next for him that he just wouldn't put in the effort to say or do anything else. He really did feel like he was changing, like the world shifted so that he could grow inside it, and fit into his new throne at the center.

Listening to Aska's fit was almost lovely. He followed and looked at her with distance in his eyes. She put on a good performance. She'd been all smiles and jokes and smart lines before. Untouchable even when he was fucking her in the ass. It was cathartic to get to her like this. He touched her head and Yuu stopped out in the corridor to see it happen. He was watching Shun, not the girl, sizing him up. Shun didn't mind. He wasn't even going to put up an act about it. Maybe his real self had value to the bosses. "You think thrashing is going to help you, Aska? We're going for a ride. You be quiet, okay?" There was finality in his voice. She would still end up in a well furnished room inside the cellar of a shitty building.

Men who looked like they moonlighted as carpenters came to Tina's home and started working. There was a lot of dragging and violent scrubbing. Machines were used that made no less noise than the guns that had caused the mess. In the end it was clean and wet and smelled of industrial cleaner and bleach. Nobody talked to her, but since there was blood inside the cracks of the television, they took that as well. There was a wad of cash on the kitchen table for what they had ruined, broken or removed.

Lenaka was seated in a dark, wooden chair. This room smelled pretty nice for what it must be. Which meant someone actually had to keep up with it. Suppose it was a show of power, to bring something elegant to a dilapidated place like this. Or maybe the Wyvern just liked things to be fancy. Shun was more distracted by the tiny girl from his own home country, with adorable, almost practical hair, head bobbing dutifully up and down in Keijin lenaka's lap. Keijin didn't fucking flinch. Yuu had a strange look in his eye when he looked at the girl and her restaurant style apron, and nothing more. Admittedly she had a good ass on her. Lenaka's dark blue suit and red shirt was to die for. Aska was tossed infront of Keijin, and therefor behind the girl who was blowing him. Keijin's face was mostly swallowed up by shadow, but the tattoos on his neck shone through, as did the silver in his scar.

"Heard everything. You being honest?" Keijin asked and the voice was grave deep. Shun nodded and locked his hands infront of himself.

"Katosh was getting touchy and kill-y with my girl. Shot his guys. Then this party girl here shot him because she thought I would." Close enough. Keijin's skull turned to Yuu, who was still looking at the girl making smacking sounds on Keijin's dick. But Yuu shrugged to corroborate.

"Whatchu got to say, girl with the gun?" Keijin asked Aska. Shun had forgotten Keijin kept his back-alley tongue. "You know, I like that a Yakuza didn't shoot him. Me and Katosh go way back. He knows my Angel. Bad seat, for you, girl. But my heart bleeds for ya. Maybe you go out by this little jap here." he gestured at Shun and then let his hand fall down to rest on the sucking girl's head. Yuu twitched but didn't do anything about it. "Or we throw you in a room in a discrete place for him. One meal a day and a bucket. And probably jap cock on every visit."

It excited Shun. Didn't really matter if he'd done it or not. This was about who Keijin would rather blame. Aska had already chosen death before, but her adrenaline had soured since. Maybe that'd be fun too.
 
Being moved to a second location, that was bad, right? That was like a cautionary tales one hears in those true crime documentaries that white girls love, for some reason. Aska felt sick in the car, her head hanging low as she rubbed the side of her face where Yuu had cracked her for all her fighting and yelling. She wasn't used to being roughed up as someone like Tina and didn't want to call down another blow. She got around, but didn't care to keep a man like Shun or Keijin. They were fun to fuck, until their true selves came out. Dick was really all men like that were good for. Aska believed that now more than ever.

Looking out the window told her they were going nowhere good. Not like she didn't know where they were taking her, but they were deep in Kageyama stomping grounds. And when they pulled up to a rather nondescript building, the panic built in her again. "No. NO!" She acreamed again when Yuu dragged her from the car, lesson forgotten until she was struck again, but this time it didn't quiet her until she was in a building. Aska only stopping then because no one here cared if she was screaming. No good samaritan was coming to her rescue. It was her own friends betraying her.

Aska didn't expect him to be there. Surely this was below Keijin Lenaka. She'd never met him, but his ink was iconic. Barely saw any of it and it still made her take a wide eyed pause before continuing to stumble after Yuu, blood now dripping from her nose and over her lips. The girl didn't surprise her, given everything she'd heard, seemed like he fucked anything that walked. Guess that's just how these guys conducted business. She whimpered as she was tossed down, but kept her head low and hands on the carpeted floor. It took all of her willpower to grit her teeth and keep her mouth shut as Shun told his story in brief. The truth, but not the whole truth, was it?

It made Aska cower when he addressed her. She cautiously lifted her head to look at him, sitting up taller on her knees, hands limp in her lap. So it was true about his cock. Huh. Thought that was just kind of an urban legend. But it was there, covered in ink and the shine of spit. Angel? That wasn't all that surprising. His cruelty was storied as much as anything else about him. She had an idea what home life was like for Tina, she could only imagine how it was for little Angel Guerrera. "Well I'm sure he treated Angel like a queen, but I was just protecting my friend," Aska said with her usual wit, trying so hard to keep her voice level even though the panic was clawing up her throat.

Did he really want her account of things? The girl making on his dick was distracting. She didn't seem to notice Aska's fight. It was easier to watch than to look at his intense, unnatural blue eyes. "Tina invited me there, said they were having a party. She opened the door and she was terrified and there was blood fucking everywhere. There was a gun on the floor, next to the guy I shot." Aska didn't even know his name. She wiped at the blood from her nose off with the back of her hand. "So I took it before he could try. I was just trying to help. I didn't know who he was. Shun didn't tell me not to or I never would have done it. I would have gotten my ass out of there. Clearly you had everything handled," the last bit came out flat and she shot a look towards Shun. She didn't know the exact circumstances, but she doubted that's how he intended for the night to go.

"I didn't know he was important," Aska said after a pause, her voice cracking as tears welled in her eyes. She didn't want them to spill, but she didn't have any control over it anymore. "He just looked like someone creep who hurt my friend. I never would have done it if I'd known. You have to believe me." But it didn't matter what he believed. Didn't matter that she was just trying to play the hero. What was done was done. Some part of her knew they all saw what they wanted to. And they wanted someone to blame. Aska was an easy target.

"I'm not staying here," she said, crying now, big tears rolling down her cheeks and her body shook with soft sobs, unable to contain them any longer. No, wouldn't stay if she had any say in the matter. She'd sooner off herself than subject herself to a place like this. It was the stuff of horrors. She could at least give her vote. But it didn't matter what she wanted. Aska buried her face in her hands sniffling and trying to regain her composure. She looked at Shun then, pinching away the snot running from her nose. "I thought we were friends. Why the hell would you set me up?" They were both just trying to protect Tina, weren't they? "Being shot isn't punishment enough?" But her tone suggested that she knew the answer. If it was, they wouldn't have brought her here.

It wasn't up to Shun, though, so she looked back at Keijin like he was some idol. "I didn't know who he was," she reiterated between the sobs that were less and less under her control. Bordering hysterics. "You would have done the same for Angel, wouldn't you?" She asked and realized maybe not. Angel was a pawn like any other. Just one he happened to become attached to. "What if he was threatening your girl?" Aska asked, meaning their precious little Cielita. Maybe he was a better father than he was a partner. A scary thought. But maybe it would strike a chord in him. "I swear, I didn't know who he was."
 
Credit: Verse

It wasn't that he was void of it. There was plenty of some lilting hero complex left in the boy who'd placated the good stares that Carmen had given him when they grew up. Even if they did mostly criminal things. Yeah, he thought there'd be something else, and if he'd be bad, he'd be that good kind of bad. Ghosts of that pride and apparitions of sympathy superimposed their already flimsy forms on his heart and over his eyes when he sat in the car with Aska. But they didn't make him feel bad, or at least not bad as deeply as they used to. They just made him feel better about it, because it added to it, this thing that he was doing, this shallow erogenous activity. He'd mixed it up with fucking, but that was a bit like soaking your cigarette in heroine. He just wanted to matter, and if he stuck his dick in them, he did, for however brief a moment. He was with them when he was in them. And he'd always be in Aska now. He just had to wonder how much of her he wanted to take. It was dizzying, the mood she carried around, the dark miasma perfectly delicious as they went into the building. He was excited.

And then he stood there, after he had set the tracks, and she tried to derail this engine of malice. Keijin was a beast, taking this meeting here, with someone who Yuu obviously was attached to, head in his lap. That was something to aspire to, and maybe, just maybe, he would get closer to that after tonight, given how he was playing it. And then the girl with the shot up arm on the floor who he'd been intimate with spilled her whole humanity at Keijin's feet. That's what Shun wanted to see. He hadn't known it before, but he'd never had this kind of honesty from someone before. He inhaled through his nose, and when he was trying to redirect the blood from his cock with other thoughts, he turned away from the melting, dissolving Aska, and saw Keijin looking at him. Shun looked back at the girl who was pleading with the monster instead. Better be aroused than whatever Keijin was seeping. Sure, some of what she said could be incriminating but she wasn't doing well enough that Shun needed to jump in and correct her. Shun just liked the sound of her desperation and mourning. They felt like gifts to him.

He already knew the important part, and she had confessed to that. They could analyze the bullets and the blood splatter and the wounds, and crunch the fucking timeline if they wanted, but now they didn't need to. In their silence and her sobbing, there was an unspoken verdict for Aska. She had gotten to chose herself. Shun felt bad for her, but listened closely, and stared even more, when she promised that she wouldn't be here if she could help it. He wanted her spirit, but its remnants were still flickering. Her fear of death wasn't enough to make her his whore. Suppose he'd have to give that to her. He had looked at her coldly when she tried to appeal to him. Neither of them thought he had any sway here, but she wanted to know why. Didn't even consider it. It was her or him, because it sure as fuck wasn't going to be Tina. Katosh had just been himself too much, this weekend, and hadn't thought enough about the little yellow boy who got him the crates, or his girlfriend. Shun had to kill him, and now he was going to have to kill another because of it. There was not enough regret in him to reflect how fucked up this was, and maybe he'd feel about that later. Right now he had to do hero work, as far as he was concerned.

Keijin tsk'ed when she talked about his family. The turn of his head to throw the sound out of his smacking lips revealed his features in the light a bit more. He was carved up up straight to his cranium, defined and dapper. A judge, inhuman, with blue eyes. The noises of the girl sucking him off and Aska's sobs intermingled in the silence before he spoke again. "Not your meaning. But you did it. It was you. Not any of my girls." as simple as that. Her fate, carved in bedrock. The room was somber but the men were not. "She told you her wish. Thinking since she thinks the fact that she didn't know who it was, she wants us t'respect that." Keijin said to Shun and reached inside his jacker pocket. They all thought it'd be a gun, but it was a knife. Narrow blade and small guard. Gold handle, mostly. The details could have been the tattoo on any Yakuza man. He threw it to Shun and Shun caught it easily, with all his adrenaline.

He got behind her and had his arm around her neck to keep her in place. Held her gently first and then obsessively. It was her turn in his heart. That's what he owed. He bent low for her. "You're still my friend." he said into her ear, cold. First slice came down her front. It licked her sternum but the point was to part her clothes. Had to give Keijin a show. Had to give himself one, too. His arm retreated, out of sight, behind her. Let all of them wonder. The knife was perfect for its task, sinking into the middle of her back next, through that pretty wing of a muscle as she was kept in place with his adoring chokehold.

"What's worse, Gun girl, getting shot or getting stabbed?" Keijin asked from his perfect seat. A small shift of his foot gave away that the girl blowing him was doing something right, or maybe it was the visual. Yuu didn't like when the girl took the cue and moved her head faster and a bit more insistent turns. It should be a comment on the hypocrisy here, if killing a man who was having your woman was the crime being punished. Shun was curious if Aska could answer, and if she would. He knew her exact texture, the tension in her meat, through the handle. This was as close as he'd ever been to anyone.

He pulled the knife out and tried it on the same place, other side, and groaned in her ear as it happened. He held her tightly with the arm around her throat, but dearly, not oppressively, so she could still make the sounds she needed. He was hard as a fucking rock now. Aska was the kind to struggle, right? But she couldn't do much from this position, and one of her arms were out. She had entered the toy-stage of her womanhood a long time ago. But that didn't mean her fight didn't have value. But maybe she didn't see it that way, as Keijin and Shun commiserated over her dying. Shun smeller her hair and pulled back slowly this time.
 
The wyvern only seemed dismissive of her attempt to summon the spirit of his very atypical family. It was her last ditch effort. She was not leaving this place, whether that meant she died here or not. She could only hope her sentence would be quick, but that was a pipe dream. Aska knew that, even if she didn't want to believe it. Keijin had never been known for his mercy, and Shun was just excited to be running with the big dogs for once. Fucking pathetic. But she still looked to him like he could decide to be her savior. "You backstabbing..." She began but ended it with a sort of high pitched growl, because there were no words to fully encompass it. Asshole definitely didn't cut it. But what an unfortunate choice of words.

"Wait!" She cried when the monster before her reached inside his stupid suit. Aska preferred death, but she didn't want it. She was supposed to go get lunch with her dad tomorrow. She didn't know how the stupid fantasy romance novel, half finished on her nightstand was going to end. She had a cat. Who was going to take care of Salem now? Her hands flew up, despite already knowing just how well she could stop a bullet. Her right arm shook from the last one. Well, shook more than the rest of her body. The quaking was worse than the shivers she got whenever she took ecstasy. But it wasn't a gun. It was worse. A gun would be quick, if they were kind about it. But they never would be, would they?

The light glinted off the gaudy knife as it flew threw the air. She didn't want it to be Shun, but she didn't get to choose that. She could die at the hands of a legend, or at least the stranger in the corner who'd collected her. But she would die in the arms of her once friend. He was behind her knelt frame, arm forming a snug collar around her. "You're a heartless bastard," she spat out in response. He wasn't her friend, had never been his friend if he could do something like this to her. "I hope Tina learns to see it too," she said like it was a curse she was placing on him. Maybe he really did love his little girlfriend, but now she had serious doubts. She'd been jealous of what they had once. What a fucking idiot she'd been. And was, for falling into this mess.

The tough girl act was over as the tip of the blade introduced itself. It sliced through her clothes with ease. Opening the front of the stupid lace black top she'd put on when she thought she was going to a party, not her execution. The cut it left was shallow, blood beading down the crevice in it's wake. Aska was trying so hard not to give these sick fucks the satisfaction of her tears, so she practically choked on the whimpers and sharp gasps made by the tip of the knife. It hurt, but wasn't as scary as when that blade disappeared.

Aska squeezed her dark eyes shut, making fat tears roll down each of her cheeks. Her lips were moving fast, but almost silently. She wasn't the praying type, she didn't care to have her sins absolved before she met death, but these could very well be the last words she ever spoke. And these jackasses were the only ones here to witness them. What would she say if she was faced with her friends, her family? What would her legacy be then? All she wanted to do was apologize, to her father who had always warned her not to take risks. He thought he'd raised her up right. What would he think when she was just gone?

He was exactly who she was speaking to. Her words were still hushed as she began to cry, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Her words were comprehensible now, but barely. But her apology wasn't for any of the men around her. She didn't even try to get Shun's arm away from her neck. Not like she could make a break for it and run out of here. Even if she succeeded, and she wouldn't, she'd just be shot down in the parking lot. "I'm so sorry, daddy. I should've listened. I should've listened when you told me to be more careful," she sobbed. "I should've-" But Aska's words were cut short by a shriek when the knife was buried in her. It was all the answer she could give to Keijin's question.

It reignited her useless desire to fight back. She was no position to, not with the way she was being held, and the wounds she'd already sustained, but she tried to get an elbow into Shun, jerking with the strength that remained. It was quickly dwindling. Aska felt cold, but the blood dripping down her backside and pooling under her was hot. And if he wasn't holding her upright, she'd probably be on the floor. Her words lost their focus, all but stopping, but she still managed a blood curdling cry for the second jab. But it died like a lid placed over a lit candle. She sputtered through a weak, wet cough. Barely strong enough to bring up the blood, but it did, because even dying she put on a good show. Her eyelids drooped, and her head too. Ultimately falling forward until his arm stopped it.

Her eyes were opened then, but not looking at anything. Glazed and lifeless. There was only black nothingness. No God. But Aska already knew that.
 
Credit: Verse

Shun learned to take the shame with the elation. She had seen a very real part of him. And he was glad he would contain it with her conclusion. She had her anger still, full of defense when she was already falling. Nothing could stop this other than the other worldly creature with his cock getting sucked when Aska was going through the most important moment of her life. Sanctioned by Keijin, this act had been deemed inevitable, and therefore forgivable - a law of nature playing out. Even in her worst distress, Aska might agree. Nature wasn't fair. Nature just was. Dragons eat people.

Shun did wait when she asked, but the knife didn't. It sliced her face with a streak of light bouncing off its edge as it came through the air. It was a good weight. Surely some of this gold must be real. This lot was definitely the kind that played with plated guns, so Yuta had to think their blades were decked-out, too. His thumb rode the details on the high of the handle and steadied it. They were all happy to see more skin when it cut her up in front. It didn't make sense for a girl to be this stressed without them getting some titty. Once he'd cut her, he even shimmed the remains of the top to the side with the knife, to offer the view to Keijin. Despite his stoic, the killer hand of Yuji Honu fidgeted a bit, the blowjob getting to him while this scene also heated up, unbearably. It felt good to be able to entertain him.

She tried to judge him when he held her, and forced her to stay in place, but he if he cared about her opinion, or if Tina's could have stopped him, they'd be dealing with worse problems right now. Aska was a blessing in comparison, and he'd enjoy her as one, too, to another part of him that he had been skirting but silently feeding in this new life. He hugged her tighter when she started saying Daddy. These were real heartbeats sounding out of her lips. She was giving him everything inside her. It seemed to be exciting Keijin too, by his breaths and how he burred his fingers in the Japanese girl's hair and tugged her onto his dick.

Yuta groaned into Aska's ear when she called out for the first penetration. She should know she was appreciated. When he felt her slump he held her up easily and felt her weight. It was different from when he'd been holding her down and fucking her, or when she rode him while kissing Tina. He knew how it'd feel when he did it again, on the other side of her spine, but it still felt so good. Keijin cussed when she coughed up blood. "You've done well." Yuta said into her ear as she vacated her body for them to enjoy. He looked at her as he head was over his forearm. When he lifted his gaze he could see Keijin shift and hear the gulps of the woman eating his cum. When Keijin finally let her breathe and tip to the side, Yuu was quick to come and gather her.

Yuta dragged Aska over to Keijin's feet. He put her on her side but she rolled mostly face down, the knife pointing up. Keijin gestured for him to take it out, and Yuta was all too eager to. He then presented her on her back, so they could all see her hollow eyes and still warm breasts. When Yuta reached to return the knife Keijin instead took out its sheath and flipped it to him. "You want this, didn't you?" he asked, and Yuta knew it wasn't her, or the knife, but to be a person who does things like these. Like Keijin could make that happen, like Yuta hadn't been this creature all along. His pants were a tent, for fuck's sake. He wiped the blade on his shirt and sheathed it.

"I do." he said and put the weapon in his pocket. Keijin grinned.

"Right now that only means more dirty work. You run drugs, you run in death, too. But you got a talent for it, you got love for it, dontcha?" he pressed and stood up. He was a fucking giraffe.

"I will do anything if I can be..." he didn't know exactly. "This." Because he knew he wanted it. Kejin tsk'ed and shrugged. He put his hands in his pockets, real dapper, and walked toward the exit, kicking Aska's head on the way like she wasn't there, trampling her hair. Past Yuta, he pointed to his hard cock.

"You should take care of that. We got girls. They're your girls too now." he waved two fingers at Yuu who was still nursing the girl. She didn't look that off, like she'd resigned herself to this. Better that way. "Yuu will take you to River Parlor. Your name is Kiba. Yukibata." he decided and put a cigarette in his mouth. His blue eyes were lanterns before they went away through what had been a door, once. Yuu stood up with the living girl in his arms, wearing his humongous jacket. He looked like he knew where thye were going.

-

When Yuta came back to the apartment, a day later, he was bare chested, and bleeding from his right arm, where the angry spread of ink was vibrant and fresh. He didn't have a ritualist. He hadn't proven himself, but five of them had worked hard to put the marks they thought he deserved in his flesh. Jaws and teeth, spewing down his shoulder and trickling all the way to his knuckles. Over his other shoulder, with his good hand, he was holding the bag for his suit. The apartment he returned to seemed lackluster in grandeur compared to where he'd been, a brothel of higher caliber, to release his frustrations into to two women who reminded him of Tina and Carmen, even if they made more amicable faces.

But this place also looked more beautiful than ever. Because he felt glorious. He hung the tailored clothing up on a door frame and collapsed onto a kitchen chair. The scene had been cleaned, he could smell it.

His head fell back over the kitchen chair and he laughed.
 
Tina was glad when he didn't come home. She would have picked a fight she couldn't win. There was nothing left to argue about, but she was still angry. She'd take a swing at him, as she was known to do on occasion, but he'd hit harder. He wouldn't kill her, and she'd cry about that, probably while he fucked her. Because it could have been her, but mostly because it should have been. This gave her time to cool off. She sat on the foot of the bed until morning light, the duvet tightly wrapped around her. Dissociating, maybe, she didn't know what that felt like, just knew that the hours kept ticking as she stayed frozen there, even after her tears ran out.

The rest of the apartment still smelled like bleach and the furniture was out of place. The thrift store rug she'd put in the living room had been pulled in front of the door, covering a spot bare sub floor, where Katosh's men fell. The old linoleum had been lifted and damaged in places and there'd just been so much blood. It had to be pulled up and the wood underneath primed.

Tina didn't trust her stomach to keep anything down, but she was eyeing the liquor bottles. She'd wanted to be in a blissful, numbed state, but Carmen had taken her stash. She knew the code to the safe, Shun wasn't as sneaky as he thought. But she was well trained, which meant afraid, even of just taking a couple pills. Instead what she found in the kitchen was Aska's little clutch bag next to her homemade first aid kit. The cleaners hadn't taken it, and neither had Shun. She wouldn't be needing it anymore. Inside was only her ID and debit card, a bit of cash, keys and her cellphone. Oh, and some coke, but that's not the kind of time Tina was ater

She hid the bag amongst her stuff in the closet, not that he'd notice it anyway, but it felt like a secret. She laid on the bed with the face up beside her. The screen saver was a few years old. Featuring Tina and a couple of their other friends, all dressed up for a night out and holding bottles. Aska had her tongue out and vodka held over her head. It hurt to look at, but not as much as the picture that came up when her dad started calling. She was little, maybe about six, riding the man's shoulders, steadying herself with hands in his hair. His contact was 'Daddy' with a heart. He called her and about twenty minutes they kept coming in, texts too. Tina didn't know the password, but she could read the messages. She almost pressed the answer call button, but what did she tell him?

1:24 PM: Did you forget?
2:01 PM: Should we reschedule for Thursday?
2:47 PM: Call me when you get these.

She was relieved when the phone stopped dinging. Tina just hoped that Aska's dad would stop by before the cat ran out of water. Almost went and picked her up, since she had the key, but didn't think Shun would be pleased with her if she did. The same reason she didn't pack a bag and go stay with one of her friends for a while, when he still hadn't returned home. But he knew all her friends, and she didn't want to cause any trouble for them. The phone had been quiet a while, so she just stared at his bedside table, where she knew he kept the gun. Tina wasn't sure why, not like she'd ever be brave enough to pull the trigger, whether it was on him or on herself.

She rotted in bed until he did come home. Normally she'd be apologizing for not having any food fixed, but she just came out wrapped in a blanket, hair a mess. Her blue eyes scanned over the fresh ink. All the times they'd talked about it, Tina hadn't known the true cost of the marks, but she had a better idea now. "Carmen must have snuck out when you went all shoot out. She was gone when you guys left. Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be back. She's burned every other bridge," she said in a flat voice that was far from typical Tina.

She stepped up to get a better look at the motif, and glanced towards the garment bag. "So, what? You killed your friend just so you could be Keijin Lenaka's bitch?" Tina asked, and even though her face didn't change, her heartbeat picked up. Guess she was picking the fight anyway. Aska was gone, she just knew it. It's what she'd chosen. If they hadn't killed her, she'd probably just find some other way. Either way, she wasn't coming back.
 
Credit: Verse

The house had looked different. Not like there hadn't been bombs going off here, before. But this hadn't been a party that went so out of hand, other, unrelated families of the Yakuza had to come and give them a talking to, or an improvised bachelorette party that actually broke most of their furniture. Just some boards missing and a smell that assured them this home was free of sin, if sins were the fluids that they resulted in. No. This place was different in a transcendent way now. And he walked through it, owning it. Misery is easier to enjoy when you've made it. And bleach smells good, don't it? He stepped through the ghosts of the men; standing and looking at him and Katosh, and lying down and dying by his feet. Of Aska when she'd been here and performed he party tricks with Tina, and then when she'd held her bleeding arm, looking at him like he'd stolen her liver while she slept and hadn't had the decency to run away with it.

There were cars outside, but not too many. He reveled in the burn of the ink as he sat. Those needlers were brutal, but they had a vision for him; Keijin's vision. He looked down his shoulder at the arm, and held it straight like he was assessing a fucking gun for its use. His fingers flexed and that made some of the teeth move. He could see the jowls of a Doberman and the carnassials of a wolf. He thought the children's teeth in the crook was a mockery, but he'd wear it. The people you mock matter more than the people you don't see. He had done a lot tonight. It had been a fucking odyssey. To think it had started with Carmen, and a fuck for some pills that she ended up not connecting to, anyway. Hah. Maybe he should thank her. He was initiated now. For a mistake. Maybe Carmen was providence.

And then Tina came out. She looked beautiful because she'd also changed since he'd seen her last. She had journeyed too. He thought they had kinship, like she would be all he wanted her to be simply because that'd be convenient for him. Tina had player her part too. She was kind of supposed to be angry at him for doing this. But he thought he wanted something soft right now, to come down well. He waited for her to see. This was her life too, elevated. His sternum pushed as he hung his back over the back of the chair, real proud. He looked at the art again, all those mouths and all that hunger. And then she saw the suit. She was all frazzled and he had a thought to hold her for it.

But his head tilted about her voice, instead. He tried to decipher what mood this was. It was the first resistance the world had offered him since he'd killed Aska. And as any first born Asian son, he thought he was above it. Didn't she look just right, all messed up like that, though. Like her pussy would smell like tart anxiety and unwash. He thought she would just come to him and want it, because that'd be great as a roundoff. But her voice was tilted. He hadn't even asked about Carmen. His half smile didn't go all the way down but that didn't mean it was good news for his girlfriend. He inhaled through his nostrils and let it out, couldn't help but let it sound disappointed.

His eyes rolled and his tooth arm ran its fingers through his hair. Maybe there had been some left in the tank to take him from a fighting place to where he understood he might owe Tina for this one. She'd brought Aska here and she'd been doing her best to pacify Katosh. Even put herself between the Ruskies and Carmen for him. As a hostess, she'd been great. And better as a girlfriend. He licked his wrist because he thought the sheen on the bracelet of canines there looked wet. Turns out it was the choice of a Ritualist. He stood up and his little woman shrunk in comparison.

"Sounded like critique, Tina." he commented and held out his forearm, palm down. There was a skull of a bird there, chased by the mouth of a crocodilian - both looked prehistoric. He didn't even know birds had teeth. He put his other hand in the mess of her hair and kept her head just so, to make her look at it. He held the bird up for her face, pushed it against her nose and rubbed her face down into it. "I fucking took him out for you." he said into her ear but it wasn't an endearment. She could choke on the raw skin for all he cared. But he let go after having rubbed her against it for a few strokes, threw her back just a little. He'd let her save this if she wanted to. But he was grumpy enough from the many hours he'd been up to make this a shitshow, too, if she'd rather.

"This is the life YOU chose for us." he reminded her. Funny how logic bends when you're on adrenaline for a while. He walked with his shoulders to get right up on her again. Looking down "I'mma get into it because it's a good deal, but MAYBE" she had heard him bark words before, but this time it came from deeper because he had never believed in his own glory as much as he did now. "you should be grateful, huh?" Yeah, he didn't know anymore if he wanted to beat her good or fuck her. Either way "GET that blanket off." It was a sweeping gesture but it still touched her enough over her scalp that it ruffled her hair in a new direction. "The way you're talking to me, you're not going to need it."

He was happy to see her.
 
He'd talked about their suits and their stupid tattoos for years. Tina expected the smugness as soon as she saw that smile and the twisted ink. It only made the acid burn angry in her stomach. She didn't even flinch when he reached for her, after watching him kill five men. She did, however, shed a tear that left a glistening streak down his fresh tattoos, even though she thought thought she'd run out of those hours ago. The motif flooded her vision. "I didn't ask you to do that," Tina croaked about Katosh.

She wish that had never happened. She remembered when he showed her his gun. If she knew how things were going to end, she would have done things differently. Maybe things would be better if she'd been the one to take a bullet. One dead instead of seven. She wasn't scared of dying and then maybe she wouldn't have to carry around all this guilt, like hot lead burning a hole through her. This was all Carmen's fault, and that made her more furious than anything. It wasn't her fault how she looked, but anger isn't rational. None of this would have happened if they didn't look at a black girl and immediately see Angel Guerrera. They saw what they wanted to see.

"I didn't want this!" Tina yelled back when he tried to suggest she'd chosen any of this. "I wanted you, Shun. And this whole time I've never been the girl you actually wanted to come home to." She knew that. He'd only ever wanted Carmen, but she was a nice place holder, warm and soft in all the right ways. Loyal to a fault and had learned well how to exist around him to make him happy, and how to handle him when he wasn't. "I thought you'd come around. But no, you still love the girl who left you. Who left you again, by the way, when you did all this because you love me so god damn much," she said all fire and sarcasm. It was easier to be angry with Carmen than it was with him. It was hard for her to see any faults in him after telling him for years that he'd have all he wanted if he just played his cards right. Last night had been his fucking royal flush.

She let him cast aside the blanket. Underneath was a pair of shorts and a cropped tank top that showed her belly piercing. Not that the fabric hid the ones through her nipples. Her hair was an oily mess. Tina knew by the way he looked at her that she was asking for a whupping, or the kind of fuck that hurt by the end. Probably both. She kept going, but the words came out more hurt than angry. "Maybe you never cared, but she thought you were her friend," she said, glancing towards her bare feet. "Just know, anything Lenaka gives you, he can take away. I hope you're happy, I hope it was worth it."

Some small part of Tina wanted to ask if she'd at least been given a good death, but it didn't win out. She had a feeling she knew already. Pretty girls like them existed in this underbelly for the amusement of men like Keijin Lenaka. Instead, her head was full of one night they'd spent with Aska. When she'd come home with them to fool around. They'd all gotten too drunk and instead of going home after, Tina slept between her and Shun because she was the jealous type. She'd woken to Aska curled up to her back, arm draped over her waist. They'd both felt safe then. Like she'd felt safe enough to walk into a blood bath to help them.

It was too late to deflect. She shouldn't have come at him with so much rage. He'd be itching to hit on her about now, and Tina knew enough to know she'd been asking for it. But the last thing she wanted in that moment was for Shun to touch her. Not even if his hands were gentle, especially then. But they rarely were, and certainly wouldn't be this time after she'd been so outspoken. Tina wanted to wail on him, but instead she made a step towards the kitchen. "Have you eaten?" She asked, like she would when he came home on an average night. She always had ingredients to be able to whip something up. She took some pride in feeding him. This wasn't that. It was only a poorly executed distraction.
 
Credit: Verse

It was exactly as he wanted. The things that happened to him, the things he had now, they should make Tina react. Wouldn't be like he won the lottery, even if that's exactly what happened. Better. Being millions in didn't mean much on the street, unless you took it from someone else, and that someone else better be hurting. But Tina gave it to him a bit wrong. She always had edges, even if they weren't always so bad. His Cristina was the best out of the bad bitches. He should have seen it. She couldn't have had a night like he had a night, just now. She had to sit in it, live in it, without the rewards. She loved Aska more than him by a long shot. So here it was. No hero's welcome, no mead at the gates and no maidens to bed at the sound of triumphant horns. Just the wench. Just the witch. Just the one loyal to misery because a fucking pawn had laid down. Hadn't ASKED him? But he damn well DID it already, didn't he?

He shrugged, asinine. "I'll just take it back then. Yareli is always so keen on second chances." he answered. If he didn't hold on to this and fucking ride, then he'd be crushed under it. She would be minced meat just by association. It all came out of her, Carmen and all. His face made a play then, that he hadn't planned. Digust, not at the idea, but at the fact that she'd bring it up. Like it was a knife out of nowhere. Maybe it had started with Carmen, yeah. But it was hardly about her anymore. There were hundreds of teeth on him that told Tina exactly what this was now. It was the rest of their lives. He shifted on his legs as she went on. He wanted to be understanding, would give her the gift of shrugging this off once she was done, she had tried her best for parts of this, too. But he didn't like the truth in her accusation. He laughed at her scorned lover shit, though.

He was disappointed, and his expression reflected it in its collapse, fingers running through his hair as he looked up at the ceiling. She knew she was going too far. He was shit tired too. She wore it better though, and he'd missed her homecooking, and he didn't mean the food she offered. Shouldn't be like this, when he'd already gotten to cum in others. Should be sated. But what she gave him was real; what he took from the others wasn't. He hadn't paid for Tina's performance. Her dread was real, her rawness was bare. Her exhaustion reflected his own. He remembered their times together and what had led them here, not just directly, but what had to be in place for this to happen, at all. OF COURSE it was fucking worth it. How could it not be. "Are you fucking kidding?" he muttered. "One girl's life for climbing this high?" he asked like she was daft, gesturing to his inked arm. Like Aska never stood a chance against the beasts there.

She was being so stupid. She was all whipped up an he got that, but she couldn't honestly think any of this made sense, right? And for him to just let it be? If she wanted her emotions validated, and this was the part where he supported her because he knew what she was going through, then she shouldn't talk like Aska had ever been that much. He was so close to letting it go though, because he was filled-up with riches, and he could share them by not taking anything more from his girlfriend.

But then she asked all sweetlike, and framed herself in their kitchen. Like she was someone out of his family, all soft and ready to take care of him. Pump him full of her poison and then turned back as though they'd built this. No, he hadn't eaten. Not the stuff she made that tasted like warmth and like someone cared. Always a little bland but that had become real food to him now. But he didn't WANT that right now. And she didn't want him to have it either. He didn't even really know what she wanted. Just that usual chaos. Just something about how she held her shoulders up reminded him of fear, and switched his hunting instincts on when he followed her.

Lifted her up like they were in a show by the Russian opera house, where their ballets drew international crowds. He put her sitting on the table. First slap came hard. He thought the needled-in fangs cut the arc real nicely. Yeah, the arm still worked pretty well. Her face was familiar when it exploded under his palm. He didn't let her whine about it because he grabbed her face with both his hands so she'd look at him. "You want that therapy we do, Tina?" he asked. "You wanna play stupid wife who talks big and sucks cock all the same?" His thumbs made her smile for him and then he shoved her skull to the side. She couldn't go with it because he had her legs spread around him, on the edge of the table. He missed having her as a doll.

Another smack, this was a backhand, courtesy of his new arm. "I don't mind. If that's what your strange ovaries need, then I'll beat you up and fuck you all night. You can blame Carmen," another whack, another direction, "or Aska" slapped her right again, and had to keep her in place by holding that messy hair on the top of her head. His girl always looked best when she looked her worst. "or Keijin Lenaka." his fingers just mashed her features now, drawing in circles before the meat of his palm shoved her backward. Kept her in place by her throat so his other hand could stick in between her and her shorts so he could cup her cunt under there. He had darkness in his eyes and it was new. He honestly choked her for a moment, cold, and would like whatever motions or sounds she made, before he let go again.

"Or you can be a happy whore, happy I'm home." he said with a shrug when he let her breathe and slid two fingers into her, exploring her knuckle deep. He still had her by her throat, but he wasn't squeezing much. "How's the next couple of hours gonna be, baby?" he asked.
 
"Would it feel the same if it was my life?" Tina wondered before realizing she probably didn't want to hear the answer. This was what he wanted in life, not her. She was just something warm for him to climb into bed next to at the end of the day. Who would kiss his boo-boos and pour him drinks when the days were hard. Who was always good for a warm meal and a soft place to land. She used to consider herself a good hostess when business came home with him, but not now, not anymore. Aska was a means to an end. And Tina was too, she just served him in different ways.

She knew it was coming, knew she had asked for it, but she still made her way to the fridge, trying to figure out what she could whip up fast so she could go back to bed. She hadn't finished sleeping off her depression. It was worse this time than when Katosh's revolver clicked against her forehead but didn't discharge. Aska's phone would die, no more texts from her dad or their other girlfriends, and a few more days passed before Tina finally got up and washed off the funk. She still wasn't the same after.

She was shuffling through ingredients when the hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose when she heard Shun behind her. Prey recognizing predator. In fight and flight she always picked the prior, even after all the times he'd shown her that she couldn't win. Tina thought it was more cathartic to feel her anger, even if it meant she'd feel his too. "No!" She snarled when he grabbed her, and struggled in his arms until she was set on the table. She pushed back across the surface to get away, kicking at him. But he ended up between her thighs anyway.

The slap came faster than anticipated. Tina answered with a squeaky whimper and reached her hand on the same side up, but didn't actually touch. Blood was filling up the split in her lower lip. They did this dance a lot. Sometimes she antagonized him just because she was bored, or because she liked the side of him that came out when she was bitchy. This didn't feel like that and she looked at him, chin tucked, with all the hatred she didn't have the words for.

He grabbed her face and her breaths came faster. Tina would say she wasn't afraid of him, but he definitely had his moments, and there was something in the way he looked at her. A different monster came home than the one who had left her at a crime scene. She twisted her head away from his grip as he made her scowl into a smile. She gave his hands a half-hearted shove away, knowing they'd just come right back. Came back harder, as she shook her head in answer to his question.

It was like being a buoy in story waters. Knocked to one side, righting herself only to be knocked the other way. Not still until his hand was around her neck. That tight grip producing a croak as it cut off her air. But she was so used to it, it didn't even make her panic like it didn't once. Tina's pussy still quivered for his attention, and it made angry tears burn her eyes. She gasped when that cinching hold released.

"You're the only one to blame here, Shun," Tina said, with nothing at all behind her voice. She'd never felt so defeated. She'd bounce back, but not that day, not the day after either. "But you hold the mirror up to everyone else real good, don't you?" She asked sigh a single, disappointed laugh. She'd made up her mind. She'd hurt for it in the morning, but at least she wouldn't betray herself because she was too weak to take it. She couldn't help but think she deserved it, because Aska had to be the one to die. "Do I look happy?" She asked him flatly. But her cunt still squeezed around him, a sigh tumbling from her lips, so even she barely believed there was any intent when she shoved against his chest.
 
Credit: Verse

Like any other treat, he retrieved her from the fridge. Lit up like like there were lemon thins covering a cheap lightbulp. She had a lot of yellows on her already, but her skin was gray when he pulled. The door didn't close and mostly he was irritated with that, but you don't really put money into Smeg when there's Versace to buy. Either the food's good or it isn't. It'd go out on Tina, still. But today he didn't mind the extra illumination, let that door swing as he brought her along to the table. She should be happy, that he set it up himself. Just the dish, no cutlery. And she should be grateful. When she landed her face did that thing around all her ornaments, when they jiggled. He liked that better than when flesh settles after a good spanking on a plump chick.

No? "Of course No!" he shouted like it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, like all of this was normal and justified but her tone on the one-word answer was preposterous. Without No, it wasn't fucking fun. His eyes rolled when his endless, raw arm took her back from her backward sprawl. You're just being dumb, now, said his face when they were close again. Nothing he hadn't seen, and she was getting to him like she usually did. There was more weight in her refusal, sure, but maybe he needed the pepper, right now. He'd killed someone she loved - he was stepping all this up, this game of taking rewards out of her when she hated him. God could she take his hand though. Her face was home. Twice. How the fuck did she have her own category of hard-on than other girls?

He knew her, though. He'd trained her like this. Not like it coulda been any other way between them. Mouthy white girl with party in her blood, and his ambition to be something in the Yareli night. But also like any other jap. So he choked her, and her body recognized it. She was all wrapped up in Aska still. She needed this from him too. Best way to console a bitch is by fucking her. Everyone knew that. All the things she said with the venom on her lips just made it better. Meant he was inside her in other ways too. He groaned when her vagina tried to tear his cock off. "Hah." when her hands tapped his chest. "Wanna try something new?" he asked like they were best friends again.

He forced her on her back and that meant his upward cock carved against the other side of her stomach. Both hands on her throat and squeezing good, firm, but not to take all her air. Looked down at his good girlfriend. She was loyal. She liked to be just the right kind of pushy about it, but she'd gotten him out of this mess, hadn't she? A dark kind of adoration for her. She'd die for him too. She couldn't fucking help it. It made his ego sizzle but also his heart hug his blood.

"Tell me you love me." he told her, and there was an animal in his eyes, or all of them. Keijin had been right on the money, leaving him with just body parts and not a real totem. He started fucking her like she wasn't even made for it, like whatever she and her pussy were, they weren't human, or even an object whose purpose was to get fucked. Just to ruin her. It was hard and with a frantic frequency. The hands would allow her obedience, of course, but not other movement. They lifted her head off the table and then dunked it down. Makes you dull, doesn't hurt as much as it sounds, but you clock the damage and it fucks you up. He did it a couple of more times as his hips tried to push her up the table, but his hands kept her in place. Like the dunks complimented the heedless rhythm of his hips.

"Because I don't love you, Tina. I'm just stuck with you because you do go work." his voice faltered like he was crushing his tongue with his breath, because her familiar cunt was giving him familiar pleasure through his balls up to his guts. He was in the get everything for nothing kind of mood. And Tina was good for that. Small droplets of blood rose from the bands of teeth painfully imagined onto his forearm. She had always been so easy. He needed her to be easy now, too. And then, when he'd hunter her orgasm enough, just because he knew where she usually kept it, so he could humiliate her with that too since she liked the bad stuff when he did it well, he'd pull her down to the floor with his cock flopping in her face so he could paint it. He'd told her many times he liked his stuff hanging off her hardware.

But, depending on if she'd said any of the things he wanted, or been good about being fucked and skull-dunked, he may have to get cum on his knuckles. Because today Shun Kinoku got everything he wanted.
 
Funny how he hit her all he wanted, but it was his raised voice that made Tina flinch. Most of the time, when he hit her, it wasn't out of anger, or at least not his anger towards her. It was merely for the entertainment value. She'd learned over the years that she could handle rough handling. It was predictable, most of the time, because she'd learned to read his moods, but they were often bigger than his face suggested. He thought her objection was comical. It was, even if it came from a more genuine place than when she just wanted to get him worked up. Not like she believed it would stop him. He'd rape her, if it came to that. But it almost never did. Her body was attuned to his. He hardly even had to coerce her anymore. She was easily manipulated, when it came to Shun.

He was inside of her and that little bit of fight that flared in her was doused. Like her pussy was directly attached to all that attitude she carried. She held the wrist of the hand around her neck only out of instinct, not because she was trying to get him to release her. Though that could change, if his grip became more threatening. For now, Tina was unbothered about it. She was pretty sure he just liked the way she looked, collared by his new ink, eyelids still red from tears, nose chapped. Her little shorts were easy enough to move aside. The bottom of her shirt had climbed up, revealing the jewelry in her belly button. The fabric was thin enough that the pink of her nipples showed through, as well as the ball ends of the piercings.

She didn't answer his question. She didn't want new, just wanted it to be over. But even in her silent protest, he turned her on as he always did. She was wet, despite herself. She just knew him too well, or him her. Knew that even when he didn't care how it was for her, he usually succeeded in getting her off. Like they were made for each other, but the romance was dead, that night. That night, she was just the girl who'd been unlucky enough to grab his attention after Carmen had left him high and dry.

His intensity was punishing. Still riding that high, she could see. Tina was surprised the table wasn't sliding across the floor. She'd be pushed to the middle of it, if he wasn't keeping her in place. She couldn't be so lucky. She'd was looking anywhere but him when he flat out told her what he wanted to hear. It made her heart squeeze, because no matter how much love she had for him, it would never be reciprocated. Not half. She knew he didn't love her before he spoke it. But answered, because it was the truth. "I do love you. I've always loved you." Ever since she was just a booty call. She was just a live in booty call now, and not much had changed.

Tina was a loud fuck. Real or for show, it was hard to say and she never would. She was biting it back this time. Until he slammed her head against the table and she choked on a whine. Not the first time she'd endured the treatment, but she preferred being smacked around. The first blow to the head wasn't so bad, but with each one, they got exponentially worse. First, she just felt dizzy. Then she saw stars. By the end, it was disorienting and she hated the way it felt. And when she came, because he knew just how to make her, it was hard to tell what was that and what was from the repeated blows. It made her cry out his name. One hand left his wrist to cover her face. Girl who was never shy was shy whenever she had an orgasm. It was so good it made her pierced clit throb.

She knew he didn't love her, it wasn't groundbreaking news, but she still didn't want to hear it. Tina preferred her ignorance. It made her feel dirty, knowing every thing she'd given him, or given up for him, and none of it meant anything. He'd sacrificed her friend to his idol, just to tell her she was nothing to him. Stuck with her. Ha. As if he couldn't toss her to the streets. She wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Good work just made her feel like a whore. And she couldn't deny it when she was suddenly at his feet, her head still spinning, tongue outstretched like he was giving her a gift, even if she lacked her usual enthusiasm. Last time she was like this, it was with Aska bleeding beside her. She just hoped that someday, being on her knees wouldn't make her re-live it.
 
Credit: Verse

They both knew this was different. Their dance was superficial, they had their roles to play, and sometimes he'd even follow her, when she was feeling merry and generous but also like she wanted to mouth off. They were bad people, not the ones they'd grown up drawing, But there'd been peace between them. Some days and weeks they weren't even close; just this existence where their sharp edges didn't touch the other's soft tissues. Odds stacked in his favor but they didn't talk about it. They pretended her moods dictated things. Psycho girlfriend, all that. Suppose he was stepping up as the beast now. He felt it. Her flesh felt different; less exclusive and holy, because he'd killed Aska for so little - just the rest of his criminal career. A place at the table, but it wasn't worth a life. Not of someone who'd sucked your cock and smiled about it after, at least. Those kind of friends are worth something. In another life, maybe Aska could have been the kind of friend to chose to die for him.

He wasn't fighting the impulse too hard now, but it was used to not getting its way, so it didn't flare as much as it could. Cristina knew her boyfriend didn't have all his limiters on. He did like her look under him. And he fucking loved when she went a bit listless once he went balls deep. Tina was the nodes in her womanhood. She was teaching him the wrong lessons about her, about what she was. Because if he could mess her up, and then fuck her better, then really, where did his power end? Broken, pale thing, taking him and letting him. Ah, he liked being able to drive into her, and crush her high up in her belly. She wouldn't be talking much shit anymore, and had shut her up even on this subject, so that meant she was his. He thrust a little harder, squeezed her neck a little tighter and used her grip on his arm to steady himself for it.

In the quiet he saw everything in her take up the power of his impacts, and jiggle accordingly. A toy with shiny pieces. He had to hold his breath in short intervals so he wouldn't seed her, just from how defeated she looked. Fucking Tina when she was on her best behavior was better than any other. He looked down and shivered at the way his cock still parted her pink parts. With some more hubris, he just spit down on them, and a fraction of the foam got caught up in the slide in. It was satisfying. And then he got her. It was a power move too. He damn near made her a mommy when she whimpered and when she came. Her silence meant this was serious. Meant it was other. She still tried to hide but when her head was flailing like that, it was comical, and made it all the better for him. He liked the mess he made of her.

And then her pretty face, and all her silver. Good damn upbringing that she had her tongue out for it. He hurt when he came, that's how much he'd built this release. Just another thing Tina had given him. He made murderous sounds when he oiled her face for her, and then groaned when he grinded the belly of the cock over her cheekbone like the fucking bow of a violin. It spread the cum over her face, and it kind of prolonged the aftershocks in his length. But eventually he panted, having the obese limb rest there when he looked down on her. Both his hands ended up behind her head as he just looked. Well-fed and bloated on all the things he'd caused this world in less than a day. Hubris ringing through his dick. The vacant, celebratory fatigue in his dark eyes.

And then folded his cock against the low of his stomach, using her face. The hug couldn't be sweet, not when there was flesh and sperm on her eyelid and balls on her chin, but there was something tender at least, if only it was his complete satiation. And then he let her go. Whether he had meant what he said or not, Tina was a fucking champ. "That's good for today." he said like they were friends again. He staggered back a few steps, far enough that the binding slime-fibers between his cock and her features broke. He looked at her and wondered if he should go again, because he really liked it. His chuckle was a bit more playful now that he'd gotten what he wanted out of her. Hard to get Tina to this state. But it was worth it when you did. Maybe that's why they worked, because Tina's suffering would always be worth something, to him.

The shower would be going soon, and his arm would be raised against the tile, away from the water.

-

"Hey listen." Koda Johnson used to be the intermediate boss at a post office, but he got moved out of it because of aggressive expansion of underpaid van drivers and an amazing company with a relentless delivery policy. He still liked to organize and maybe throw his weight around, though, so here he was, policing the huts and beds in an old factory, converted to a shelter, but with the real company gone from the helm for some time.

The girl was pretty and young, which meant she was into the bad stuff. She hadn't deserved that bed, even if she had been robbed of whatever treasures she'd accumulated. They couldn't just be giving them away. He thought he might give it to her anyway, if she talked to him nicely, or gave a few promises to do something for the rest of them. She looked like she could at least clean out one of the long-time abandoned huts. But when he saw her face, he recognized her from the bulletin. A message for the red-speckled eyes and ears of Yareli. The syndicates left them alone as long as they complied. And this pretty girl in her bad state was one of the conditions, today. That and a cop lady who wouldn't take bribes, and guy on the run from the russians. That one they could bring in dead, if they could handle it.

Koda changed his tone and pulled his sweat-crusted beanie off, and squeezed it in his gloved hands. His smile wasn't worth much, but neither was he. "Oh, sorry madam. I just wondered if you'd want a better bed." Same voice he used to have for his own boss. Of course, if Carmen Evans fell for it, and he honestly would be insulted if she didn't, she'd be in a black car soon, being shuttled to whoever in the Yakuza wanted her, and he'd be maybe a few bills richer.
 
She felt bad, leaving Tina behind in all that mess. But this world wasn't Carmen's anymore. Little blonde aould handle it fine, she told herself, when her feet hit pavement, her vision still full of the red. She knew better than to look after hearing that bang, but she had anyway. It couldn't have been anything good, but it felt like she needed to see it. Then she'd see who her Shun really was now, and how stupid she was for thinking she'd show up they'd step back in time or some shit and everything would be like it was. Tina knew who this version of him was and stayed amyway, she didn't need her help. Carmen didn't know someone else would pay because she shared a slight resemblance to the most wanted girl in Yareli, and it was still worse than any nightmare she could dream up. It was a good thing she wasn't so fucked up she couldn't leave.

It did, however, hit her not much later. Carmen slept it off in a park, after running as far as she could with a bag heavy with wet clothes and the pills Tina had given her. She'd stolen the rest. There were only 4 pills left. Barely enough to get her through a day. Maybe she could sell the rest. She knew better, dealers aren't so friendly when you sell on their turf, but desperation throws caution out the window. It left her with a split lip and blood spilling from a cut at her hairline.

With nowhere else to go, she went back to her childhood home the following evening, when her supply ran dry. She was lucky that it was Davina who opened the door. Little sister about to graduate from high school. Carmen couldn't help feeling like there was so much she'd missed in the last couple years, spent in a haze. She wasn't even happy to see her big sister, and only reacted with a gasp, because there was still dried blood on her brow. "You're lucky dad's asleep," she said, no greeting. Which would have cut deep if the pills didn't have her feeling so numb. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her, so he wouldn't hear. "He said if you showed back up here high he'd call the police," Davina warned. She and Carmen had hardly spoken in the years since their mom died. She couldn't help but notice that she talked like their dad now, like some white girl. "We love you, Carmen. I can't watch you kill yourself. Fix your shit so we can help you. Please, Carmen."

She pushed the door back open and Carmen caught her wrist before she could close the door on her face. "Could I at least have some cash? I don't have anywhere to sleep, D." But Davina only shook her head, snatching her hand back and closed the door in her face. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place made her want to cry, but the drugs dulled it. She stayed there a while, pacing the pavement. She should have been anxious about where she was going to stay, but she was only worried about where her next fix was coming from.

Davina's warning didn't stick. Carmen found the fence gate unlocked. As well as the door to the shed. At least she knew where she'd be sleeping. It was cold, but safe. A lot safer than some of the places she'd crashed before, certainly safer than being with Shun. But in the morning, her dad made good on his promise. They had a screaming match in the street as he was on the phone. "Please, Carmen, this is embarrassing." But there was no reasoning with someone going through an unplanned detox.

"How could you do this to your own daughter?!" She cried with tears streaming down her cheeks, hands in her hair as she paced, when she should have just gotten her ass out of there. "How am I supposed to do this without any help?" Carmen demanded in a shrill voice.

Her dad looked defeated and sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know, Carmen. Maybe you need to hit rock bottom. I don't know how else I can help you." He'd already paid for rehab for her once. They'd had an intervention in his living room. Trouble is, every time she thought she hit rock bottom, she just kept digging.

The cops came. They cuffed her, because she wouldn't willingly get in their car. "You know I love you, Carmen," he said as she settled in the back seat, no longer able to dry her drippy nose.

"Oh, fuck off!" She said back and didn't look at him as the cop drove off.

She didn't have any drugs left on her person, and I guess he was feeling merciful. "I can take you in, or I can drop you off at a rehab center. Your choice." And of course she picked the latter. He didn't actually stay to make sure she'd checked herself in. She just left and found some shelter she could stay at a while, until she figured out what came next. Place was kind of a shit hole, but she'd had worse. She'd blown some guy so he'd throw some pills her way. She mostly slept, exhausted from a chaotic week.

Carmen didn't even question it when some stranger offered her better accommodations. No one ever gave anything for free, but she didn't care what she had to do. She'd surrendered to selling her body if that's what it took to get what she needed. A good place to rest her head included. She slept in the car, despite the short drive. It was too nice for what this was, but logical fear had been taken from her already.

With nothing better to do the previous days spent mostly catatonic, she'd twisted her hair into braids. Made it easier to maintain. She was decent enough at doing her own, her momma taught her how to braid. Carmen always made sure her hair was done, when she was sick. They had the same hair texture, not like Davina who had taken after their dad. She gave herself box braids, like she used to wear when they were back in school. She stirred when the car stopped, pushing her hair behind her shoulders. "Where are we?"
 
Credit: Verse

He liked the news. He'd gotten them kneeling by a half-way dead man. Motherfucker had him run. Shun could run. When he couldn't fight, he ran, until the fastest in the group caught up, dealt with him, and kept running. Saw it somewhere, and turns out the others hadn't seen the same clip. Worked every time because if you didn't have it in your fists, you had to have it in your legs. He and Carmen had probably ran laps around Yareli together, all together. He wasn't even sure Carmen hadn't taught him how to run. At first laughing, from store owners that wanted their jerky back, and then hard, from affiliations that didn't like their color of skin, and at last unhinged, when they set their dogs after them. So Myanenko here, who'd spit off about japs killing ruskies, hadn't stood a fucking chance. Talkers are usually good runners, and Myanenko wasn't half bad. But nobody's skinny yellow kid fast when they grow up.

Mostly it had been this kind of shit. He was becoming a blunt instrument for the Kageyama. Shun had other aspirations, but the respect felt smooth, going down. Three other guys with him, and they were all crazy. They'd already been put through it, when about ten men with almost every weapon except a gun came for them because one of them had put his knee through the wrong eye socket. Thing with bats and knives is, someone can take them from you. Somehow they made it out alive. Kuruto kept a Louisville with a chipped end. Carried it around in a sling like he was some kind of swordsman. Probably beat on people better than Shun himself, but the rule was, you bring in, you lead, and Lenaka had honored that. They listened to Shun. And he'd made them some money already.

That's why Denya had no problem dragging Maynenko away when the errandboy came with the news, so Shun could take the burner. Turns out you can use the jungle drums if you pull your weight. Shun had read the info on the phone while throwing glances at Denya closing a dumpster and slamming Maynenko ontop. Had to make a statement. Absently Shun ran his hand through his hair. He kinda felt like all these bodies were going to haunt him, and he was a bit worried, somewhere between his spine and his stomach about it. It was good fuel, double down, all that, but he was feeling it too, creeping. Looking at the arm and the teeth, even talking to them, helped, but he wanted to get through it to the other side.

So Carmen was good. They'd finished for today, anyway.

This warehouse was small, but it was theirs. Some amenities like a working bath and shower, a toiled that flushed, and all the pipe-lighting you could want to illuminate the chipped paint and the water damage, if you could stand the fire hazard of the wiring. Pretty effective scenery when you had to beat something outta someone. He waited in a denim vest so she'd know about his promotion when Kuruto brought her in. Big Shibuya native with a shaved head had to be a rude awakening out of the nice car. She could be a kicking and hissing clowder of cats, and he'd still drag her in. Threw her on the floor in front of the armchair Shun had claimed. It was sat in by someone bigger than him, but these furniture pieces usually never saw their original owners again, unless it was in irremovable stains. He found himself making fists in the soft, stuffed, cracked leather when he saw her with those braids.

"You left again." he said. Somewhere to the right someone flushed, and Hoya came out of the bathroom sipping up his overalls. He actually screamed when he saw her, and strode toward her, broadlegged like every stereotype of a farmboy he should be avoiding. Kuruto intercepted and basically hung him over his arm, stopping him.

"Eyy!" Hoya shouted, shrill but somehow still hoarse. Real fucking gyaru. "Heyy, Kuru! Look! Is she for fucking?" Shun looked over his shoulder at the big guy who dragged Hoya along. Hoya was funny and crazy. He wasn't for thinking. Shun leaned over, elbows on his knees, and maybe to put emphasis on the ink, as he got closer to her. His hands were clasped and supporting his chin.

"You know I should kill..." but he didn't want to say it. He stood up to make their difference abyssal. His sternum popped between the flaps of denim and his light boots dug into the dirty floor. One of the pipes stood along a wall with sharpie graffiti blinked and it made evening-length shadows out of him before it focused again. Like someone telling her he was her Shun, but he was also a fucked up boy who'd shot someone while she fled. Fuck did he hate it when she was just the desecrated memory of his childhood. "We were square. I was the last one, wasn't I? And now you owe me." Like he cared about her. She didn't know there was more truth in his voice for her than for Tina.

He wanted something real. Like he didn't know better. Things were careening and he wanted to fly, but killing and fucking and having to think about yourself in the middle of it was A BIT MUTCH. She looked like she had a bad life, like maybe soon he'd have to put her down, but he wanted to know how that smelled and felt like. But they were also friends and she'd ran out on him when that's what fucked them in the first time. He just wanted to see what was in there, before he caved and waved the shit she really wanted in her face, because he knew he would. He had it tucked away in one of his chest pockets. He'd even buttoned it to keep it safe from her. He just needed to be the boy she smiled with again, like she was still going to take over the world, before he'd fucked her in an alley for pills.
 
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