#halscampfirestories

[softshuji]

Track 3 ft izana Kurokawa (part of the campfire stories collection)

Izana is counting your breaths.

In. Out. In. Out.

You're turned away from him, holding the duvet up to your cheek and wrapped around your fist like you're going to punch through a window. And he's watching your chest rise and fall, fast and shallow breaths because you've not been asleep for long and he knows you're always quiet when you do. Often, when he's late, he finds you under the covers and his heart will stop, or miss a beat because your chest hardly seems to move and your breath is near silent and then you'll stir or twitch as you're prone to do and he sighs in relief.

But this time, he's watching you, with his chest to your back and winding a finger around your hair, playing with the end as he listens hypnotically to the rhythmic undulation of your breathing. He's tracing the marks on your back, small birthmarks and old scars with a long finger till he reaches your tailbone and then pulls away to grab his phone from the nightstand.

When he sits up, you twitch again and he holds his breath as he watches you turn onto your stomach, the crown of your head now glossy with the light that spills in through the gap in the curtain.

Izana calls his last contact, one hand still resting on your back, his voice low and apprehensive.

'Hey,' Kakucho whispers, his own voice gravelly and rough and undulated with dryness. 'What's up? It's late.'

Izana clears his throat and Casts a glance to the slat in the curtain where an orange flare of light comes and goes as a car rolls past.

'Were you sleeping?' izana asks, keeping his voice low and quiet, a bare whisper above the faint hum of the heating chugging through the pipes.

'Yeah, sorta, but it's fine. What's wrong?'

'I....I need to ask you something.'

Kakucho sits up on his own side, and turns to flick on the bedside lamp, the bed cold and empty save for the duvet and a haphazardly thrown cushions on the bare bedspread.

Izana falters here. Because it's never been easy. And it's not easy now. When you're next to him, and so real under his hands, and kakucho is both his closest confidante, and he's surrounded by the two he .... Cares about.

'Yeah?'

Izana lapses into silence, weighs it on his tongue, his teeth coated in anxiety, a thick film that tastes of fear and salt.

'I....' He starts, his hand moving from your back to the bedspread, twisted in his hands as he pulls at the loose threads. 'I mean...she....there's something wrong.'

Kakucho's nerves flare to attention, and he's half a mind to grab his jacket and come straight over, ever the hero, ever the sacrificial lamb for his king. 'What? Is she sick? Shall I call a doct-'

'no no, not like that,' izana says, an ear trained on you and your soft and even breaths. 'She's uhm- she's- I think she's upset.'

'Huh? Did you have a fight?'

'No, no we didn't. She's just...I think there's something else.' and then, a whisper like a caress, said under his breath, like a secret he's afraid to divulge. 'I don't know what to do.'

Kakucho releases the tight breath in his chest and leans back against the headboard, fishing for a cigarette in the bedside drawer. 'Oh I see. Tell me what it is, I'll see if I can help.'

Izana frowns, more in confusion at himself than anything else, in difficulty at it all. 'She's....she seems sad a lot, and quiet recently. I tried to ask her what was wrong, and I tried to spend time with her, but it doesn't seem to work.'

'Ah. You're worried?'

'A bit.' After a pause. 'A lot really.'

'You think it's you don't you? That it's something to do with you?'

'I didn't....I didn't say that.'

'But you were thinking it. You were thinking about why she hasn't told you, or whether she doesn't trust you.'

Izana shifts uncomfortably and makes a sound from the back of his throat.

'It's fine you know. I've known you both long enough. I think I understand.'

'You understand?' and izana almost ends the call then, when you twitch and your legs brush his under the duvet, your soft thighs now rubbing against his for warmth. He strokes your neck absently, soft and gentle, the way you'd touch a butterfly without hurting the wings, marvelling at the softness of it under your touch. Sometimes he thinks of you like that. A thing whose wings he might break on accident, some slip of his hand that'll hurt you even if he doesn't intend you, because that's just what he is. A monster through and through. And you are so delicate, so good and wholesome and kind and so easily breakable that it's almost bound to happen.

'I do. I don't think you need to do anything though.'

'Huh? What do you mean?'

Kakucho taps the cigarette against his lips and takes a long drag, exhaling into the air where the whir of air con blows the smoke through the vents. 'I mean, it's not you. I think you just need to give it time, let her tell you when she's ready.'

'But she's upset-'

'I know. But you have to trust her. She probably doesn't want to bother you.'

'But it's not bothering me,' izana says, adamant, a twitch of defiance in his voice- to which kakucho can only chuckle in his chest.

'I know, but I think she assumes it does. So maybe remind her, tomorrow- you know, that you'll be there if she needs to talk.'

Izana cramps here. His chest constricting at the thought- at the show of vulnerability that that might entail because he's never been very good at the whole receiving and giving affection thing. If you asked, and even if you didn't, he'd carve out the world for you, and more. But you never seem to ask for anything and he often wishes you would. Be a little demanding, a little less compliant because it aches inside when he thinks of you being unhappy and swallowing it down for his sake. Like you're afraid to show anything to him that you think he doesn't want to see, like you can make that kind of decision for him.

'izana?'

Izana bites his lip, and his eyes fall on the way the duvet curls around your body, how soft and inviting it looks even now, moonlight drawing a finger across your skin, the curve of your arm and shoulder half hidden under the covers.

'I'm here. Just thinking.' And he clears his throat, again. A little lighter, a little more like he can sleep.

'you good?'

He has what he needs now, and it makes more sense than it did before. 'Yeah.' and then. 'Get some sleep kakucho.'

And kakucho takes that as his cue, understand the subliminal message underneath because izana is not half as complicated as he believes himself to be and get some sleep means thank you, means he appreciates it even if he refuses to mention it.

'Yeah. You too. I'll see you tomorrow.' Kakucho puts the phone down and the air con whirs, as it does.

Izana traces a finger along the curve of your ribs, counts them individually, along with your breath, before he slides into bed next to you, arms held tight and close around you with his lips finding the dip in your neck.

And counts your breath as he falls asleep.

Reblogs appreciated

[softshuji]

Track 1 feat Ran Haitani (part of the campfire stories collection)

Ran remembers it clear as day. The day he gave up the Girl he loved for his baby brother. It was hardly a surprise.

They were both young and free and spirited and you had come at just the right time, when they were both finding themselves, finding a foothold in the world, a steep climb on an even steeper cliff and you had come just then like cool breeze in summer.

Truth be told, he hadn't expected Rindou to like you as well. You weren't the type of girl he assumes he'd like. Or himself for that matter. You're opinionated, independent, the kind of Girl that spells trouble for the both of them and he warns Rindou, and himself, to be careful of you when he realizes the turn things are taking. How serious they're getting when you leave a toothbrush at their place and they let you hunker down because your parents are giving you trouble and you're scared of going back and he wonders often, why the two of them even cared at first.

But it was hard not to. And in the beginning, it hadn't bothered Ran that you'd spend so much time eating convenience store food with Rindou at night. The two of you hunkered down under blankets watching a rerun of some show you'd already seen but wanted Rindou too as well.

And you turn to Ran who walks in after cleaning the kitchen and offer a bite of sushi and scoot over to make a place for him and his chest feels a bit funny at it all. But he's watching Rindou more than the TV. That syrupy glaze, a smile that's hidden behind his palm holding his chin up and a thought occurs that he'd rather not dwell on too much.

You're Rindou's first real friend and there's nothing wrong with that. He likes that he's opening up to you, that there might be someone else who loves him when Ran knows he hasn't entirely succeeded as a brother and their parents are nowhere to be seen. He had tried, in some way, to get Rindou to pay less attention to this gang stuff. Focus on school perhaps, get a decent job and settle with a pretty girl like his brother deserves and he wonders often, whether some prayer has been answered when he finds the two of you poring over a textbook while Rin pushes a pen behind his ear and the plate of oreos is left abandoned on the table. Shouldn't he be happy?

He knows he should. But perhaps he can't avoid this feeling in his chest forever. When he hears your laughter in Rindou's bedroom and the door is slightly ajar to you laying on his bed as you scroll through your phone and showing Rin something over your shoulder. And his chest sinks at it all. Becuase Ran has always been a giver, has always wanted and needed and known sacrifice for Rindou's sake. Whether it be beatings, money, food and now you. It's just one more thing he can give that he'd like to, because Rindou is all he has and he could never ask for brother that's any more his own son in some way, someone he raised all by himself.

So he is proud, if a little upset by it all.

Rindou really likes you, he knows this. And you could be good for him, in the same way you would have been good to him too. So he doesn't mind , even if it aches, even if it burns when you reach over and brush his brother's hair back and Rin flinches and flickers with embarrassment.

It's just one more sacrifice to make.

reblogs and feedback appreciated!

[softshuji]

Track 2 ft. Sanzu Haruchiyo (campfire stories collection)

cw:yandere! sanzu, some suggestive content, some violence and drug usage, sanzu being weird and obsessive <3

Sanzu has your schedule down to a T.

You get coffee from the same cafe and you have one of those cute little apps that lets you get rewards the more you buy and because of this, you tend to stick to the same place.

You order the same thing every time. A vanilla latte and a croissant and you carry an extra bag so you can drop your croissant and lunch in it as you leave, and you smile at whoever happens to catch your eye- him on occasion though he wonders whether its intentional considering you always seem to be in a rush. In and out, quickly and efficiently.

Straight after this, you run to the supermarket to grab a small salad or boxed lunch and a protein shake or milkshake depending on the day and then you walk quickly in the direction of your building. It's not dissimilar to a bonten type- a little less luxurious and a bit of digging has told him you worked in finance for an accounts department of a larger firm. Small enough to go under bonten's radar but big enough to still pull in a small profit by the year.

Truth be told, sanzu isn't a huge fan of coffee anyway.

But he likes seeing you every morning, even though you've never spoken he likes how you smile and how you tap your lips when you're looking at the board or the menu, and how your outfits always seem to be so well put together and coordinated. You somehow seem to miss how everyone shies away from his table and gives him the kind of wide berth that is befitting for a man of his standing. So he drinks his unsweetened latte alone and then leaves once he's seen you enter the double doors of the building opposite your quaint little cafe.

There's been a few incidents however. A woman who knocks into you, looking down her nose when you profusely apologise for getting in her way and sanzu thinks about blowing the building up and bringing her head as a gift to you. She never bothers you again after that and gets the kind of scared look in her eye that reminds you of a skittish animal whenever she sees you. It's not long after she decides to forego getting coffee from there all together and you're none the wiser. The baristas are always good to you, and you praise them often saying they make the coffee just how you like it, taking it as just niceties when they seem to be pushy with offering you free food and gifts. And who are you to deny them when they're so kind? You always say you like to support your local businesses. You're smart like that.

On another occasion, a man almost hits you with his car as you're crossing the road and Sanzu stands instinctively, all consequences be damned- when you profusely apologise for not watching where you're going and quickly duck into your building. He puts a hand on his chest, splayed across his waistcoat, his racing heart now slowing and thumping against his ribs. He pulls out his phone then, talks low into the receiver, an eye trained on the cctv camera pointed away from his table in a very careless and tacky oversight by the managers, murmuring the plates and model of the car before he ends the abrupt call. You won't know and he has no intention of ever telling you that the driver's bloodstains were hard to get out his crisp white shirt and that he'd begged for his life and wet his clothes before Sanzu sliced his throat.

He hasn't told any of the others about these little escapades of course and they're often caught in their own love lives to realize he's sneaking around more often. But it's harder to hide it from Mikey. Not that he'd ever want to but it was getting difficult to explain why he was suggesting they take their more impersonal meetings in that cafe across the street, or why Sanzu was suddenly turning up with a hot latte every morning when he's not a big drinker at all.

'That girl? With the red lipstick?' Mikey says, his eyes roving over you as you stand to the side to put your purse away, sidestepping the cleaner who mops around the chairs.

Sanzu coughs, a red flush slipping across his neck and cheeks, a quiet mumble accompanying the kick of his feet on the linoleum. 'y-yeah, her.'

'Hm....'Mikey cocks a head to the side as he nurses a sip of his cappuccino. 'And what do you like about her that you can't find in one of the club girls?'

'The...the club girls?' The flush is crawling higher.

Mikey gives him a knowing look as he puts the styrofoam cup down and fishes in his breast pocket for a tissue before leaning down to rest his chin on his hand. He's feeling a little better recently. These escapades have been good to him, and Sanzu's excuses for getting outside have ensured he's seeing the sun more often. He doesn't have so much time to hide among the trove of his memories when they're following you to and from work and keeping tabs on you in the way they are.

'I know you haven't gone in over two months. The elder Haitani told me you've cut back on the cocaine too.'

'Oh.' He feels hot. The kind of heat that starts in his chest and traipses a line across his back, makes his shirt sticky with a growing film of sweat. He rubs a hand across his neck, trying to avoid Mikey's knowing and watchful eye. 'Y-Yeah, I just- y'know I don't need-'

'I'm not bothered by it. I don't care what girl you like or what drugs you take as long as you get your work done.' Mikey turns and watches you as you sit down at a table and pull out a book, some battered age old vintage thing and take a sip from your overpriced sugary drink, adjusting your hat and crossing your legs under the table. 'She's very pretty.'

'She is...' Sanzu says, a demure whisper that's uncharacteristic of him as he stares into his americano, deliberately avoiding catching your eye or Mikey's for that matter.

Mikey thinks he can see why a man like Sanzu would like a girl like you. You seem like the kind of girl who's in love with life, the innocent kind that's so easily breakable, that cries when someone else does, so trusting, the kind that takes pictures of the sunset just because she thinks it looks beautiful. He wouldn't have to ask permission from anyone to have a taste of his own. Maybe he will. Mikey needs some light and warmth too, and you seem the kind that might understand that. He imagines you might cry so sweetly for someone like him which would be an added bonus.

He clears his throat. 'So have you spoken to her?'

Sanzu shakes his head. There is a strange and jittery feeling in his bones, in his fingertips. The kind of thrumming he gets when he needs to do a line and drink himself stupid just to avoid being pulled under. He's slightly ashamed to admit to himself that he's getting desperate. He avoids the clubs all together and when he imagines another girl putting her hands on him, his skin gets itchy, crawls with trepidation and disgust and he has to pat his pockets for the packet of pills just to avoid blowing a hole in someone's head just because he feels weird and shitty about it all.

But he has thought about kissing you. More than kissing in fact. He'd like to peel your clothes back one by one, kiss you just shy of your bra before he slices it off and take his time to appreciate each and every sliver of skin, marvelling over every birthmark you no doubt have before he works you open to take him. He'd like to be gentle, and the thought makes him dizzy at how irrational and foreign it feels to him, would kiss your lips till they were red and swollen and you begged him so softly to touch you more. He'd maybe like to buy you nice things, take you to a proper restaurant, carry you to your apartment before you inevitably invite him in and you make love on the sofa before making love again on the bed and maybe he falls asleep listening to your heartbeat and it would be the good kind of sleep that doesn't feel tenuous and thick with grief.

'Hm you haven't spoken to her but you've been watching her for two months?'

'I wasn't-'

Mikey holds up a hand. 'Like I said, I don't care what girl you like but don't sit around doing nothing about it or someone else will just do it.' And then, more sombrely, a rare display of some unnamed emotion flickering across the expanse of his face, eyes flecked with something that is too big to name, 'Once something is gone, it's gone for good.'

Sanzu shifts uncomfortably and Mikey drains the last dregs of his overpriced lukewarm cappucino before standing. 'I need to see you later, but make sure you talk to the girl. Make her yours. Consider it an assignment for the end of the week.' And he pulls his coat around him before leaving, his collars turned up over the tattoo on the back of his neck.

Sanzu watches him leave with a strange mix of adoration and fear as he swirls the bottom of his cup around, watching the grains of coffee slip and slide over the porcelain white edge. Mikey's right. And then what? He'll watch some other guy take you, take what's rightfully his and for what? Because he was too scared to do anything about it.

'Hey, excuse me?'

A voice pulls him from his reverie, and you stand shyly in front of his table with your battered paperback in your hand, your hat in the other as your hair winds around your ears.

He freezes, hand paused around his cup, hard enough to believe he'll shatter it any second now.

'Uhm, I just wanted to say, I really like the colour of your hair.'

His throat is dry, sandpaper across his tongue. 'M...my hair?'

You laugh, a little incredulous and he wants to bottle the sound and drip feed it through his veins. 'Yeah, it's pretty, I love that shade of pink. It suits you a lot.'

His shirt is sticky with a film of sweat, harsh lights and breath coming too fast, a dizziness that has nothing to do with the caffeine. 'Th...thanks....' And he mentally kicks himself, squeezing the nails of his other hand into his palm, crescents indented on the ivory skin.

You wrinkle your nose. 'May I sit here?' you say and take the other chair when he dumbly nods, watching how your skirt flares at the waist, a tiny pendant peeking just shy of your shirt and he wants to dunk his head in ice water.

He doesn't talk much, and you fill up the space yourself. But it doesn't bother you as much as it should. He asks questions, and his eyes never leave your face, like he's committing it to memory and you talk animatedly, which he likes, because you seem so excited by something and it has his chest fluttering when he wonders how it feels to be loved by someone who loves so much and so often and so big.

You leave an hour later, and write your number on a napkin which you tuck into his breast pocket, firm muscle under your touch- and you tell yourself it doesn't matter if it doesn't go anywhere, that you're glad to have met this beautiful man regardless,

But Haru knows better. He expects to be seeing you more often now because after all,

he does have an assignment to complete.

Reblogs appreciated

[softshuji]

Campfire stories

A collection of drabbles and short pieces centering around various Characters and topics in the Tokyo rev universe. Each piece will be labelled accordingly with the first being titled "track one" featuring the chosen Character. Warnings will be individually on each track. There will be no taglist for the series since people can read what stories interest them but all tracks will be under the hashtag #halscampfirestories

Track masterlist: TBA

Track 1 ft Ran Haitani

Track 2 ft Sanzu Haruchiyo

Track 3 ft izana Kurokawa

[reiners-milkbiddies]

MY HEART 😭

Track 1 feat Ran Haitani (part of the campfire stories collection)

Ran remembers it clear as day. The day he gave up the Girl he loved for his baby brother. It was hardly a surprise.

They were both young and free and spirited and you had come at just the right time, when they were both finding themselves, finding a foothold in the world, a steep climb on an even steeper cliff and you had come just then like cool breeze in summer.

Truth be told, he hadn't expected Rindou to like you as well. You weren't the type of girl he assumes he'd like. Or himself for that matter. You're opinionated, independent, the kind of Girl that spells trouble for the both of them and he warns Rindou, and himself, to be careful of you when he realizes the turn things are taking. How serious they're getting when you leave a toothbrush at their place and they let you hunker down because your parents are giving you trouble and you're scared of going back and he wonders often, why the two of them even cared at first.

But it was hard not to. And in the beginning, it hadn't bothered Ran that you'd spend so much time eating convenience store food with Rindou at night. The two of you hunkered down under blankets watching a rerun of some show you'd already seen but wanted Rindou too as well.

And you turn to Ran who walks in after cleaning the kitchen and offer a bite of sushi and scoot over to make a place for him and his chest feels a bit funny at it all. But he's watching Rindou more than the TV. That syrupy glaze, a smile that's hidden behind his palm holding his chin up and a thought occurs that he'd rather not dwell on too much.

You're Rindou's first real friend and there's nothing wrong with that. He likes that he's opening up to you, that there might be someone else who loves him when Ran knows he hasn't entirely succeeded as a brother and their parents are nowhere to be seen. He had tried, in some way, to get Rindou to pay less attention to this gang stuff. Focus on school perhaps, get a decent job and settle with a pretty girl like his brother deserves and he wonders often, whether some prayer has been answered when he finds the two of you poring over a textbook while Rin pushes a pen behind his ear and the plate of oreos is left abandoned on the table. Shouldn't he be happy?

He knows he should. But perhaps he can't avoid this feeling in his chest forever. When he hears your laughter in Rindou's bedroom and the door is slightly ajar to you laying on his bed as you scroll through your phone and showing Rin something over your shoulder. And his chest sinks at it all. Becuase Ran has always been a giver, has always wanted and needed and known sacrifice for Rindou's sake. Whether it be beatings, money, food and now you. It's just one more thing he can give that he'd like to, because Rindou is all he has and he could never ask for brother that's any more his own son in some way, someone he raised all by himself.

So he is proud, if a little upset by it all.

Rindou really likes you, he knows this. And you could be good for him, in the same way you would have been good to him too. So he doesn't mind , even if it aches, even if it burns when you reach over and brush his brother's hair back and Rin flinches and flickers with embarrassment.

It's just one more sacrifice to make.

reblogs and feedback appreciated!