Today is too cold to fall in love, Munakata Reisi thinks, as curls of smoke float up from elegant fingertips just a graze away from his cheek. The Red King shoots him a slanting, sloe-eyed smirk as he pads by to fold his lean frame down on a step. The flame casts flickering shadows over his face, licking over his angular cheekbones and framing his lips in gold. In this moment, Reisi notices, Suoh Mikoto appears carved from marble, a candlelit chiaroscuro drawn by one of the Renaissance Masters, cast in stark black and white against the blazing amber heat of his eyes. The snow falls bright around them, trapping the two kings in a moment both sweetly hollow and painfully full. Their ribbons of smoke blend with the trees' velvet darkness.
Reisi's cigarette tickles his lips as he speaks. "I'm sure you've seen the shape your Sword of Damocles is in. The sword is the symbol of a king and manifests the truest image of its king's condition. Your sword will come crashing down soon."
The last time he'd seen Suoh Mikoto's sword at full power, Reisi had been plummeting through the air, an unfamiliar exhilaration thrilling through his body at the sight of the Red King grinning up at him from the rooftop. He'd landed and taken his place standing with his men while the HOMRA thugs whispered in furious awe; he'd smirked and drawn his sword as scarlet fire exploded from the hands of the mocking, dangerous king who only seemed to come alive when they fought each other. They'd begun their breathless dance early, azure blade swinging faster and faster against carmine fists, power only they could understand singing through their veins. The Red King's Sword of Damocles had burned in the sky like a crimson torch that night.
Suoh's low, disinterested drawl cracks the swelling silence. "Oh, really?"
Reisi finds himself choking on the Red King's apathy, rage rising in his chest at this man who refuses to let himself fight back against the burdens of his crown. "Your Weismann level is at the brink. The added burden of killing a king here will certainly exceed your limit. You'll cause a repeat of the Kagutsu Crater tragedy." He stares at the redhead, coldly furious. He wants to shake the prideful, captivating man until his ennui falls away, wants this king who fights him so passionately to step forward and want to live. "You no longer have any right to be a king."
Suoh says nothing, just exhales slowly. The corner of his lips quirks up as he gazes at the Blue King with eyes like heated glass. Sheer veils of smoke twine around his wrists like manacles as he brings his cigarette back to his mouth and breathes in.
Reisi thinks that if the redhead's unstable powers consume him, Suoh Mikoto might laugh while he burns."It's time to step down, Red King."
Now Suoh's expression changes, shifting from neutrality to incredulousness, wry amusement flickering over his face. He closes his eyes. His lashes, vivid copper against the pallor of his skin, feather heavy over the tops of his cheekbones. When he speaks, his voice drags with laughing self-derision. "I've never taken any action as a king."
Reisi looks at this stubborn, damaged, dangerous Red King, and wants nothing more than to break him open as much as Suoh has already done to him. He wants to crack his composure and watch him struggle under the harsh light of day. He wants to wrest the most private, most painful parts of Suoh Mikoto's being out into the open, to bring this king who lives for violence, recklessness, passion, and impulse— everything Munakata Reisi opposes—under rigid, precise control. He wants proof—reassurance?- that he's not anything like this impossible king because he would never give up like this. He would resist. He would fight. (Wouldn't he?)
"There are innocent high school students here who have nothing to do with this. Your men are here too!" He wants Suoh Mikoto to fight, wants Suoh Mikoto to want to fight, wants it so badly that it sticks like a knife in his chest, and that knife spreads into blistering rage as he realizes how goddamn angry he is at the Red King. Suoh, why is it that the only thing you want is to burn?
They've always been far too aware of each other, far too attracted to the insistent heat flaring between them, but it's not until he's fisted a hand in the redhead's shirt and the Red King's sprawled under him on the snowy ground that Reisi suddenly realizes how much he wants to kiss Suoh Mikoto. Suoh stares up at him with wide, dark eyes, more vulnerable than Reisi's ever seen him, and Reisi can feel every plane of the Red King's body pressing into his.
He leans down, furious and desperate and hurting so badly that he wants to scream. He hates this irreverent man who can so effectively shatter his unflappable exterior; hates this haunted, passionate king who leads without responsibility or care; hates the fact that, out of everyone on the planet, it's the volatile, mercurial Red King who infuriates and captivates him so completely time and time again.
Muscles taut and humming with heat, Reisi tilts his head down towards Suoh. Suoh's eyes flare like embers and his body tenses against Reisi's, sensuous mouth unconsciously opening slightly. The moment unfolds around them, thrumming and hot and honey-thick. Suoh presses upward into Reisi in an imitation of resistance, invading the Blue King's space, driving his hips into Reisi's and eliciting a choked gasp from the dark-haired man. Reisi growls, forcibly pushing the other man down with his body, unwinding his fist from Suoh's shirt to shove him back to the ground. Their auras thrum, licking at each other hungrily. The heat between them swells.
A breath above Suoh's lips, Reisi snarls down at the Red King, "Do you understand?!"
When Suoh speaks, his low voice is roughened by arousal, hot amber eyes searing into the Blue King's, but his tone remains flat. "I will settle my own business while you take care of yours. Isn't that all there is?"
Damn you, Suoh Mikoto. Eyes widening at the Red King's insolence, Reisi draws back and moves to stand. He straightens his glasses, infuriated with the man sprawled before him. "Barbarian! You're beyond reason." Anger— at Suoh, at the Colorless King, at himself— makes his fingers shake. He ignores the colder agony searing inside his chest. Suoh. I don't want to lose you.
Suoh curls his feet under him and stands with his effortless grace, sending Reisi his mocking, sloe-eyed smirk. The cigarette dangles from his lips as he grins, almost carefree again, smoke rising in ribbons past his lion's eyes. "You didn't think you could actually change my mind, could you? That's so not your style."
It hurts again, so much worse than before, Reisi thinks, to realize that he cares, cares more than he thought was possible, about this beautiful, broken Red King who wants to burn away his own life. He knows Suoh so much better than he wants to admit to himself; he registers the soul-deep exhaustion in Suoh Mikoto's amber eyes, understands that the violence of the Red King's power— the overwhelming blaze of Suoh's vitality, his passion, his life— is too much a burden for a single man to bear. Suoh. Damn you. Damn you. Don't make me do this.
Reisi turns away, letting Suoh briefly witness the pain twisting across his features before he carefully composes his face back into its normal professional expression."Not really. I just came here to see a friend."
As he says those words, Munakata Reisi knows the profound, visceral bond they share can't ever be love. It will be fire and blood and release and a final shattering, saving embrace, but today is too cold for love.
The Red King gazes back at him through the falling snow with those lazy, laughing golden eyes and smiles. "Go."
Reisi goes.