"Poker. It's such a human game," Karasu muttered, frowning at having lost another hand. He squinted at the cards as if that would make them reveal his win. Then squinted just as hard at Bui.
"I know," Bui rumbled. "You're terrible at it."
"Fuck you," Karasu said, without heat. It was a cold night, frigid, and they'd stolen one of Sakyo's best cars. Half-drunk on demon whiskey, around a crackling campfire with a fresh corpse buried nearby, too low for scavengers, Karasu was strangely relaxed and open.
His pale skin gleamed in the firelight, white stucco against torches, Italian marble, something too-perfect and unreal. He sprawled—the benefits of height—and stared at his cards. It was dark, only the flames and stars to light them, but not dark enough to stop a demon from reading the cards with precision.
"You really ought to fold," Bui said helpfully.
Karasu's eyes flicked up, a dangerous look on his face. Bui snorted, cocking an eyebrow. Karasu's arrogance held out for a moment, before, sniffing disdainfully, he put down his cards. "This is boring," he growled, unfolding from his lounge and pacing around restlessly. "I want to do something, let's find another tender ningen to share."
"You took more than your fair helping," Bui retorted, collecting all the bits for gambling and putting them back in the car, returning with a bottle of Sakyo's own bourbon.
Karasu flitted to the bottle glowing amber, lit by the campfire's sparks. "He'll notice it's gone, you know."
Bui said nothing about the truth of who would bear the brunt of the punishment, just shrugging. Karasu grinned, a nail coming out. He sliced the top off, glass too, transparently signalling that this would be his indulgence and he wouldn't leave any of it left over. Whatever they didn't drink of this sordidly expensive liquor would be poured out in libations to the gods, what gods demons had.
Bui was fine with that. Just like he was fine with licking the foaming sheen from the skin of Karasu's adam's apple, tight over the flesh, when Karasu tipped back the sliced glass neck and chugged it. Karasu groaned, but they were both too drunk and sated from the earlier toy to do much more than touch each other, like boys helping each other tug, Karasu hissing obscenities between swigs and demanding Bui go faster, and softer, tighten his grip, no not that tight you whoreson dogfucker.
Karasu shattered the rest of the bottle over Bui's head when Bui started turning him over. Bui gagged him with two fat, scarred fingers and humped his ass under the starry sky.
Bui had come and they were lying down, half-nude, drunk and sated when the motorcycle cut through the night.
"Playtime's over," Karasu told Bui sadly, and lay in a state of melancholy while the hog roared down the desiccated dirt road.