note: random thing i wrote an something am in the night. doesn't make much sense but ehhhhhhhhhhhh

bleed out this fantasy

.

.

.

Kei's eyes had always reminded him of blood. It's kind of a sick irony in itself, but Kaito finds them intriguing. Kei's eyes are dark and haunting, even adorable at times, blotting out his secrets under layers of silent, desolate hell.

Kaito holds him close, hands atop the pale flesh of his cheeks. Kei is cold, from his skin down to the black matter that makes him, but Kaito likes the way the blush across Kei's cheeks washes beneath his fingers because Kei is shy from the close proximity. Something makes Kei's eyes shimmer, his breathing shallow. Something is making him feel vulnerable, triggering Kei to crawl back into his snarky little shell because Kaito is too close, Kaito will know, Kaito is looking through him.

Kei looks down to shield his own eyes and the faintest piece of soul he's got beyond them. A brow raises like he's disgruntled as he steadies his breathing. "Need something?" he says, and it doesn't sound as sharp as Kei wanted it to.

Kaito's hand drags down to Kei's chest to filter out a heartbeat, and Kaito watches with something of interest as Kei's deep intake of oxygen, that he feels beneath his own hand, draws up his shoulders and makes his eyes flicker back up. The light in his blood red eyes is different — less shy and more daunting.

Kei is interesting. He's strange and crooked in all the best ways. Every single moment he has with Kei feels like disaster hovering over his head, a constant presence of doom, a promise of destruction if he keeps going after this boy, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Kaito wants to look into blood red eyes and see which parts were pieces of the greater lie, if not all of it.

He wants to know which smiles were fake, if there were truth in his words, if Kyushu and nothing but a distant Neverland to him. He wants to greet the devil inside Kei and fall asleep in the flames.

"I don't need a thing," Kaito whispers, a small smile adorning his features. He doesn't need Kei. He doesn't need the bloodshed or the lies or the nightmares of red eyes. He's never needed anyone to depend on because he's never had people he could depend on. And Kei is one of them. Kei will always be one of them.

But Kaito is curious, intoxicated, maybe addicted in a sense, and he likes the nightmares. He likes blood red eyes and crookedness. Sometimes — times like now, actually — he'll recognize the rings in Kei's eyes — faint, hidden little things, like tree rings, circling the crimson of his irises that Kaito guesses is an Ajin thing. He likes that, too, because it surfaces the twisted parts of Kei, the parts of him that come for blood and terror, the parts that plead death to those who cross him, to shield himself from danger when the truth hurts too much.

(Kaito will never know the ringed eyes tearing up at the memory of him, a painted portrait of sorrow and pain from watching his friend slit his throat. Kaito will never know how his name slipped through quivering lips and salt water because no matter how many times he'll die, he'll see Kaito behind closed eyelids and feel pain like he's never felt before. Kaito will never know how many times he came to Kei's rescue in the beautiful parts of his dreams, telling him they'll make it to Kyushu and be free and happy. Kaito will never know.

Kaito never needed Kei. But Kei had. Kei does.)

"Kai?" The blonde feels Kei's heart race, and he knows what's happening. So, he smiles warmly and presses their foreheads together, eyes closed and hearts beating. Kaito listens to his trembling breaths and he feels Kei's cold fingers hesitating over his arms, tracing the folded up cuffs of his shirt. Despite as much damage he's taken from this Ajin boy, he'll never wish sadness onto him. Because his eyes remind him of blood, dark and disastrous, and when he cries, it's like bleeding.