Hibari's arms tightened around Akira's body as he stepped out of the car, the weight familiar now in a way that made his chest ache. The evening air hit them—cooler than it had been, carrying the smell of distant rain and exhaust fumes from the street below Kanato's apartment building. Akira's head lolled against Hibari's shoulder, his breathing shallow, his face slack in a way that looked too close to death for comfort.
"I've got him," Hibari said, though no one had asked. Kanato was already at the building entrance, keycard pressed to the reader, the door clicking open with a sound that seemed too ordinary for everything that had happened tonight.
Seraph walked at Hibari's side, close enough that his shoulder brushed Hibari's arm with every step. His pale eyes never left Akira's face. Fixed. Unblinking. Like he was counting breaths even now.
The lobby was empty. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in that sterile white that made skin look gray. The elevator doors opened before Kanato pressed the button, like the building itself knew to get out of their way.
Inside, the space felt smaller than it had ever been. Four men. One unconscious. The mirror on the back wall reflected them back—Hibari's jaw tight, Kanato's hands shoved into his pockets to hide how hard they were shaking, Seraph's posture so still he might have been carved from stone.
Seraph's hand lifted. Slow. Careful. His fingers hovered over the bruise blooming across Akira's throat—purple and red, the shape of someone's grip pressed into skin that had already known too many hands. He didn't touch. Just watched. The elevator light stuttered across Akira's face, and Seraph's hand stayed there, frozen, a breath away from contact.
"Seraph." Kanato's voice was rough. "He's alive."
"I know." The words came out flat. Empty. Seraph's hand dropped to his side, but his eyes didn't move from that bruise. "I know he's alive."
The elevator chimed. Doors slid open. The hallway stretched before them, carpeted and quiet, each door identical except for the one at the end that Kanato was already unlocking.
The apartment opened around them—warm air carrying the ghost of Kanato's cologne and the faint static hum of electronics in sleep mode. The leather couch sat where it always did. The lamp in the corner cast its familiar yellow cone. Everything was exactly as they had left it, and somehow that made it worse.
The door clicked shut behind them. The lock turned. And the quiet settled over them like a weight—heavier than the sirens, heavier than the shouting, heavier than all of it. No one moved.
"Here," Hibari said, and his voice cracked on the single syllable. He crossed to the couch, lowering Akira onto it with a tenderness that made something in Kanato's chest twist. Akira's head found the armrest, his legs folded, his body curling slightly even in unconsciousness, like he was trying to make himself smaller even when he couldn't feel anything.
Hibari straightened. Stood there. His hands hung at his sides, useless now that he wasn't carrying anything. "He's burning up," he said quietly. "I can feel it through his clothes."
Lauren had appeared in the doorway to the hallway, Rou and Kuzuha behind him. Sho's silhouette at the back. They had been waiting, then. None of them had gone home.
"Should we move him to the bed?" Rou asked, voice low, careful. "The couch isn't—"
"No." Kanato's answer came too fast. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots. "No. He—sometimes. When he has flashbacks. The bed can trigger him."
The words landed like stones in still water. Ripples of understanding that no one wanted.
Kuzuha's expression tightened. "Right. Of course. The couch is good." He paused. "Can we get him anything? Water? A blanket?"
"I'll get the stuff from my room." Hibari was already moving, his voice steadier now that he had something to do. "I've got a cooling patch. And a throw blanket that's softer than anything else in this apartment."
He disappeared down the hallway, his footsteps quick and heavy.
Seraph knelt beside the couch. His hands found the first-aid kit that lived under the coffee table—Kanato kept one there for stream accidents, for the time Akira had cut his finger on a broken glass and bled all over the keyboard. The kit was white, unzipped, the contents spilling out as Seraph pulled out antiseptic wipes and gauze and medical tape.
He didn't ask for permission. He just started working.
The first wipe came away pink. Then red. The bruises on Akira's face—cheekbone, jaw, the corner of his mouth—were raw and angry. Seraph cleaned them with a precision that spoke of practice, of doing this before, of knowing exactly how much pressure to use and when to stop.
Kanato watched from the doorway. His fists were still shoved in his pockets. His jaw was a line of granite.
"There's a cut on his lip," Seraph murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "From the inside. He bit down when something hurt."
No one responded. What was there to say?
Lauren moved first—crossed to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, set it on the coffee table within reach for when Akira woke up. Rou pulled a chair from the dining table and sat at the edge of the room, his presence heavy but silent. Sho leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching.
Kuzuha's voice was quiet when he spoke. "The police took the radio staff into custody?"
"Yeah." Kanato didn't look at him. "Manager confirmed it."
"Good. That's—that's good."
It didn't feel good. It felt like putting a bandage on a wound that had already gone septic.
Hibari returned with a folded throw blanket—gray, impossibly soft—and a cooling patch still in its wrapper. He knelt beside Seraph, unfolding the blanket, letting it settle over Akira's body. The patch he pressed gently to Akira's forehead, smoothing down the edges.
Akira's brow furrowed. A small sound escaped his throat—not quite a whimper, not quite a groan—and his head turned slightly, instinctively seeking warmth, seeking safety.
Seraph's hand found his. Squeezed once. "I'm here," he said, and Akira's face relaxed again, like the words had reached him even through unconsciousness.
Everyone in the room saw it. No one commented.
Seraph exhaled slowly. "I need to change his clothes. He's soaked through."
It was a neutral statement. Clinical. But everyone understood what it meant.
"Do you need help?" Hibari asked.
"No. But stay."
Hibari nodded. Stayed.
Seraph's hands moved with the same practiced precision he had shown with the bandages, but slower now. Gentler. He unbuttoned Akira's shirt—the one Akira had worn for the radio recording, a nice one, new, the tags barely washed off—and peeled it away from skin that was clammy and too warm. Each button was a ceremony. Each inch of revealed skin was a prayer.
The bruises were worse closer up. Across his ribs. On his collarbone. A ring of dark purple around his wrist where something—rope? zipties?—had bitten into the flesh.
Lauren turned away first. Stared at the wall. His jaw was tight enough to crack teeth.
Rou's hands gripped his own knees. His knuckles were white.
Kanato made a sound. Not a word. Something that got caught in his throat and died there.
Seraph kept going. His face was carved from stone, but his hands—his hands were trembling. Just barely. A fine tremor that would have been invisible to anyone who hadn't known him for years. Akira's pants came next, unfastened, pulled down, revealing the abrasions on his knees from where he had been forced to the ground.
And then the boxer briefs. Green. Akira's favorite pair, the ones with the little embroidered star on the waistband.
Seraph hesitated. His fingers touched the waistband. Stopped.
"There's—" He couldn't finish the sentence. His hand hovered, and everyone saw why.
The bruises on Akira's inner thighs. Finger-shaped. The clear impression of someone's grip, hard enough to leave marks that would take days to fade. The skin was discolored in the shape of hands that had forced his legs apart.
Hibari's breath caught. A sound like he had been gut-punched.
Kanato's fist slammed into the wall behind him. The impact was a gunshot in the quiet room. Plaster cracked. His knuckles split. He didn't seem to notice.
"Fucking—" He couldn't finish. His forehead dropped to the wall. His shoulders shook.
No one told him to be quiet. No one told him to calm down. They were all feeling it—the same nausea, the same fury, the same helpless horror that rose like bile in the throat.
Seraph's hand finally moved. He pulled the boxer briefs down, folding them, setting them aside. He found a pair of sweatpants in Kanato's room—soft, gray, drawstring loose—and worked them up Akira's legs with a care that bordered on reverence. Then a sweater. Kanato's sweater. The dark blue one that Akira always stole from Kanato's closet, the one he wore when he was cold or tired or wanted to smell like home.
Seraph dressed him like he was handling something fragile. Something precious. Something that had been broken one too many times and might not survive another crack.
"There," he said, when Akira was fully dressed in clean, warm clothes. "There."
Akira's tail had manifested at some point—limp, curled against his own thigh. And beneath the sweater, just above the waistband of the sweatpants, a faint glow was beginning to pulse.
The incubus mark.
Hibari saw it first. "He's hungry."
The words cut through the room's tension. Lauren turned back. Rou leaned forward. Kuzuha's eyes widened with recognition.
"Kanato said," Kuzuha started, "that Akira burns energy faster when he's sick or injured. That's—the mark. That's what it looks like when he needs feeding?"
"Yeah." Kanato's voice was hoarse. He pulled his hand away from the wall—blood smeared across the cracked plaster—and stared at it like he couldn't remember how it had gotten there. "Yeah. That's it."
The glow intensified. Akira's tail twitched. A small, distressed sound escaped his throat—a sound that was almost a whimper, almost a plea, made entirely without conscious thought.
Seraph was already moving. He shifted behind Akira on the couch, sliding into the space between Akira's back and the cushions. His legs bracketed Akira's hips. His chest pressed against Akira's spine. He was careful, so careful, lifting Akira into a half-sitting position with Akira's head lolling back against his shoulder, still unconscious, still lost, but present in the way his body leaned into the contact.
"Seraph—" Lauren started, uncertain.
Seraph didn't answer. His hand found the collar of the sweater—Kanato's sweater, now Akira's—and pulled it down. Just a little. Just enough to expose the curve of Akira's neck, the junction of throat and shoulder where the skin was pale and the pulse was visible.
And then he pressed his mouth to that spot. Not a kiss, not quite—more like a press. His lips parted. His eyes closed. And the room went still.
The glow of the mark intensified. Wavered. Then steadied, pulsing in time with something that wasn't a heartbeat—a deeper rhythm, an energy transfer that made the air feel charged, electric, alive.
Lauren's mouth opened. Closed. He looked at Kuzuha. Kuzuha was watching with an expression of careful understanding.
"He's feeding him," Kuzuha said, voice low. "It's the most efficient way without—without actual sex."
"I know what he's doing." Lauren's voice was strained. "I just—"
"Didn't expect to see it." Rou finished the sentence.
Hibari was still kneeling beside the couch, one hand on Akira's knee. He hadn't moved. His eyes were fixed on Seraph's face, on the focus written there, on the way his brow was furrowed like he was channeling something through that single point of contact.
"Let's give them space," Kanato said. His voice was rough but steady now. He had stopped shaking. The anger had been banked into something colder, something that would burn longer. "Come on. We'll talk in the streaming room."
He led the way. Lauren followed after a beat, then Rou, then Sho. Kuzuha paused at the doorway, glancing back at Seraph and Akira—at the way Akira's tail had curled around Seraph's wrist, at the way Seraph's hand was splayed across Akira's chest, feeling his heartbeat.
Kuzuha's expression was unreadable. Then he turned and followed the others.
The streaming room was dark except for the monitors' standby glow. Kanato flicked on the overhead light—harsh, fluorescent, stripping away shadows and leaving them all exposed. He dropped into his gaming chair. The others found seats: Lauren on the spare chair, Rou on the edge of the bed against the wall, Sho on the floor with his back to the desk. Hibari stood. He couldn't sit down.
The silence stretched. No one knew how to start.
Hibari broke first.
"It just—" His voice cracked. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. "It just keeps happening. Every time he starts to feel safe, every time things start to get better, something else—" He couldn't finish. His breath came out in a shudder. "He deserves something good. He deserves something good, and I can't give it to him because every time I try, the world finds a way to hurt him again."
Lauren's voice was quiet. "This isn't your fault."
"I know it's not my fault." Hibari's hands dropped from his eyes. They were red-rimmed, wet. "But I don't care whose fault it is. I care that it happened. I care that I found him on that floor with his wrists bleeding and his clothes half-off and I couldn't—I couldn't get there fast enough."
"You got there when it mattered." Rou's voice was firm. "You stopped it from going further."
"Did I? They already—" Hibari stopped. Swallowed. His jaw worked like he was trying to keep words down. "They already did things to him. I saw the bruises. We all saw the bruises."
The mention of the bruises landed like a stone in still water. Ripples of shared nausea passed through the room.
Kanato spoke without looking up. "He was so excited about this." His voice was flat. Hollow. "The radio invitation. He talked about it for days. Brought it up at lunch. Showed us the email. Read it out loud like he couldn't believe they'd asked him."
He paused. His hands were clasped in front of him, fingers interlocked, knuckles white.
"He asked Seraph to do a collab stream with him to announce it. Because he was too nervous to do it alone. He said—" Kanato's voice broke. He forced it steady. "He said, 'If Seraph's there, it'll be fun. People will watch to see him, and I can just talk about the radio thing, and it'll be fine.' He was so nervous. And so happy."
No one spoke.
"He bought new clothes. A nice shirt. Spent an hour picking it out. Showed me and Hibari like three options before he decided." Kanato's thumb pressed into his palm. "For a radio program. Where no one can see him. He bought nice clothes for a radio program because he wanted to look good for it."
Kuzuha's voice was barely a whisper. "They probably sent the invitation just so they could do this."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Everyone felt them settle.
"They used his excitement to trap him," Rou said slowly. "They knew he'd say yes. Knew he'd be there. Set the whole thing up from the start."
"Or someone paid them to set it up." Kuzuha's voice was careful now, measured. He was choosing his words like a bomb disposal expert choosing wires. "The MC called Akira 'merchandise' on the CCTV recording, right? Kanato mentioned it."
Kanato nodded. Short. Sharp.
"That means someone commissioned this. Specific. Targeted. They knew who they wanted." Kuzuha's hands were flat on his knees. "And given what we saw—the restraints, the way they handled him—they weren't just going to hurt him. They were going to take him."
The word hung in the air. Take. Like Akira was an object. Like he was something that could be owned.
"There's a market," Kuzuha continued, "for people with spiritual traits. Rare beings. Incubi, succubi, half-demons, anything with a supernatural energy signature. They sell for a lot on the black market."
Hibari's head snapped up. "What?"
Kuzuha's expression was pained. "I don't talk about it because I don't want to think about it. But I know—I know people who've been targeted. Ririmu."
The name landed. Ririmu. The little half-succubus, Kuzuha's debut friend.
"She's been attacked by demon hunters multiple times," Kuzuha said. "Some of them try to catch her alive. They know what she is. They know she's rare. And people with the right connections will pay a fortune for someone like her. Or someone like Akira."
Kanato's chair scraped back as he stood. He paced to the wall, turned, paced back. "So this wasn't random. This was—"
"Targeted." Kuzuha nodded. "Someone knows Akira is an incubus. Someone with money. They paid the radio staff to set up the kidnapping, and they were going to sell him to the highest bidder."
The room was silent. The weight of it pressed against them from all sides.
"How do we find them?" Hibari's voice was steel.
"We don't." Kanato's answer was immediate. "Not yet."
Hibari turned on him. "What do you mean, not yet? They tried to take him. They hurt him. They—"
"And he's lying on my couch with a fever, unconscious, being fed energy by Seraph because he can't even wake up to eat." Kanato's voice rose, cracked, steadied. "I want to find them. I want to kill them. But right now, Akira needs us here. Not out looking for revenge."
Hibari's fists clenched. His chest heaved. For a moment, he looked like he might argue. Then his shoulders sagged.
"I hate this," he said. "I hate that he keeps getting hurt. I hate that we keep finding him afterwards. I hate that I can't—" His voice broke. "I just want him to be okay. I want him to wake up and smile and make that dumb joke about my cooking. I want to hear him laugh again."
Lauren stood. Crossed to Hibari. Laid a hand on his shoulder—firm, grounding.
"He will," Lauren said. "He will laugh again. He's survived everything this world has thrown at him. He survived SPIA. He survived the honey traps. He survived today. He's not going to break now."
Hibari's hand came up to cover Lauren's. Squeezed.
"I know. I know. It just hurts."
"I know."
Kanato had stopped pacing. He stood at the door, looking out into the hallway that led to the living room. The light from the lamp cast a dim glow. He could see the edge of the couch from here. Could see Seraph's silhouette, still holding Akira against his chest. Could see the faint pulse of the mark, steadying now, the glow softening as energy transferred from one body to another.
"He's still feeding," Kanato said. "We should let them be."
He turned back to the room. His expression was tired, drawn, but his eyes were clear.
"Tomorrow, we figure out who did this. We find the people who commissioned it. We make sure they can never touch him again." He paused. "But tonight, we stay here. We keep watch. We make sure he's safe."
Kuzuha nodded. "I can make some calls. Quietly. See if anyone in the underground has heard about a contract on an incubus."
"Do it," Kanato said. "But be careful. If word gets out that we're looking, they might try again before we're ready."
"I know how to be quiet." Kuzuha's voice was dry. "I've been doing this longer than you've been out of the mafia."
For a moment, something like a smile flickered across Kanato's face. Then it was gone.
"I'll stay too," Rou said. "If you need extra hands. Extra eyes."
"Same." Lauren. "I don't have the connections Kuzuha has, but I can watch a door. I can make sure no one gets in who shouldn't."
Sho spoke for the first time. "I know some people in the security business. I can ask around. Off the record."
Kanato looked at them—at this room full of people who had no reason to be here, who had their own lives, their own problems, their own traumas. And they were staying. For Akira.
"Thank you," he said. The words felt too small. He said them anyway.
A sound came from the living room. A shift. A murmur of voices—one deep, one too soft to make out.
Hibari was already moving. Kanato followed. The others stayed back, giving them space.
At the couch, Akira was stirring. His eyes were still closed, but his hand had found Seraph's, holding on. His tail had uncurled and was wrapped around Seraph's thigh.
Seraph's eyes were open. Watching Akira's face. His hand tightened on Akira's.
"He's coming out of it," Seraph said quietly. "The fever's dropping. The mark is stabilizing."
Kanato crouched beside the couch. Reached out. His hand hovered over Akira's hair—not quite touching. Waiting for permission he couldn't ask for.
Akira's eyes fluttered. Opened. Unfocused, then slowly tracking to find Kanato's face.
"Kanato?" His voice was wrecked. Hoarse. Small.
"I'm here." Kanato's voice cracked. "I'm here, Akira."
Akira's mouth opened. Closed. His hand tightened on Seraph's. His tail curled tighter around Kanato's wrist where it had found its way there.
"I want to go home," Akira whispered. "Can I go home?"
Kanato's hand finally touched his hair. Gentle. A brush of fingers, nothing more.
"You are home," he said. "This is home. You're safe."
Akira's eyes closed. His breath evened out. And in the circle of Seraph's arms, with Kanato's hand in his hair and Hibari's hand on his knee, Akira slept.