Red on the floors. Red on the walls. Red on my shoes, my pants, my fuckingface.
They screamed, I think. Some of them, at least. But I didn’t hear it. They didn’tsing. They choked and gargled and used their last words to express fuckingsurprise. It wasn’t music, what left their lips. It was trash noise.
There were eight, maybe nine. One tried to run like a coward the second he saw me. One actually pulled a gun. I don’t know who died first. I don’t know who died last.
I just know they all diedwrong.
Because I didn’t feel the pleasure of the kill.
Ryo stood by the door like he’d walked into hell. I think he tried to say something. I think he reached for Naoya-san. I almost fucking gutted him for it.
His hands were onNaoya-san.
My tanto was at his throat before I remembered who the fuck he was.
“I’m untying him,” he said, calm, not moving. Smart for once in his goddamn life. “I’m just untying him, Kaito.”
And I let him.
Naoya-san hasn’t said a word since Ryo backed off and I stopped seeing red. He’s half-sitting, half-slumped against the mirror wall, but even like this—bruised, bloodied, nose probably broken—he still looks like he’s in control.
I, on the other hand, am standing in the middle of a graveyard of meat. My hands are shaking, and it’s not from the adrenaline, but from the shame that burns under my ribs and makes my stomach curl.
It creeps in slow, shame. It sticks to my bones, like the blood on my skin. There’s so much of it. All over the floor, pooled at my boots, sprayed up the mirror. It was so fast, so violent, I didn’teven remember half the kills. I was all muscle and rage and instinct.
And he saw it.
Naoya-san saw all of it.
I can’t look him in the eyes.
He stands on unsteady legs, walks to me like his nose isn’t pulped and his body isn’t covered in bruises that shouldn’t be onhim. He cups my face, gently, thumb dragging through the blood there. It’s sticky. I feel it smear.
Then he kisses me.
Just like that. Straight on the mouth like I’m clean. Like I’m human.
When he pulls back, there’s blood on his lips.
He doesn’t wipe it.
“Thank you for saving me,” he says.
“It was my fault.”
Naoya-san’s head tilts, the smallest shake.
“You’re mine. You do what I allow you to do. If someone’s at fault, it’s me.”
That shouldn’t feel like safety, but it fucking does.
“No,” I shake my head, the shame rising again. “You didn’t make me—”
“Kaito.” His tone is firmer now. “Enough.”
I shut up.
“I’ll have to call the police,” he says, glancing at the bodies like they’re nothing more than bags of trash. “You need to go now.”
