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Yone finds Kayn sitting alone at a bus stop, slouched against the graffiti-covered side with his legs slung over the side of the bench. He’s a mess; eyeliner smeared, split lip, blood crusted around his nostrils and flecking the front of his ripped shirt. The streetlight flickers above him, on and off, and in the darkness Kayn looks a little less than human. Like a corpse, or maybe a demon.
Even from outside, the bass from the nightclubs down the street thrum through the air. Yone doesn’t know if Kayn got kicked out for fighting or if the fighting happened after he was kicked out, but he finds he doesn’t really care.
The truth is, he’s in short supply of sympathy—it’s currently some ungodly hour in the early morning, and he’d gotten out of bed to drive across town for this. The irritation doesn’t ebb when Kayn looks up, sees Yone standing there, and smiles, loose and open like he’s happy to see him.
“Get up,” Yone says, and Kayn nods once, slow and easy, and pushes himself up to his feet. He slings an arm around Yone’s shoulders.
“See ya around,” he calls towards the empty bus stop, talking to no one, even as Yone pulls him away.
The walk back to the car is long and it feels even longer because Kayn keeps knocking his head against Yone’s shoulder and giggling in short, aborted bursts like he’s remembering something hilarious. When they pass under a street light Yone catches a glimpse of Kayn’s half lidded eyes, lit up by the fluorescent glow—there’s something purpley and hazy in them, sliding in and out of focus. Drugs, or booze, or both.
They stumble up the stairs of the parking garage like some strange, four-legged creature. Kayn is a warm, heavy weight against Yone’s side, and occasionally he lets out a sigh or hum, some strange, tuneless melody only he can hear.
When they finally make it to the van, Kayn pauses for a second, blinks, and whines, "I thought you’d bring the convertible."
“Not a chance,” Yone says, getting his keys out. The convertible is technically his brother's, but since Yasuo doesn’t have a license, the only person who drives it is Yone.
Not that Yone would bring it out on an errand like this—the streets might be dark, but anything concerning Kayn probably warranted a certain amount of discretion. And this time, he wasn’t wrong.
Yone opens the back door and shoves Kayn in, who goes surprisingly easily, letting himself be manhandled into the back seat. What Yone doesn’t expect is for Kayn to grab him by the wrist and yank him inside alongside him. Caught off guard, Yone barely catches himself on the headrest and avoids smashing his elbow into Kayn’s face. Kayn already looks like he’s had enough head trauma for one night as it is.
"Cut it out," Yone snaps, trying to regain his balance in the narrow space, but Kayn is a wiggly mass of limbs intent on clinging to him and dragging him further in. He shoves his face next to Yone’s.
“Thought it’d be Akali or no one,” Kayn murmurs, his breath hot against Yone’s ear. “Thought maybe I’d just be left out there. Or get arrested. Hah! That’d be a good headline. Hey, you think Alune would like that? Think she’d finally kick me out?”
“Stop talking,” Yone says. Kayn sighs, letting his head fall against the seat. His hair curls beneath him, damp with sweat. A shock of pink against black leather. He looks up at Yone; his eyes are lidded and dark, and there’s a hint of something strange behind them. Not quite blank and yet not quite there.
“How’d you know where I was?” he asks after a moment, sounding petulant but temporarily subdued.
“I didn't.” That was partially true—Akali pointed Yone in a direction, and the rest was guesswork. If anything, he just got lucky.
“Mm.” Kayn rolls his neck, and Yone hears something crack.
Yone pushes himself off the seat to reach around for the glove compartment and dig out a pack of wet wipes. He started keeping them around because Yasuo tended to make a mess when he was drunk or hungover or just—yeah. Yasuo was a mess. Used to be a worse mess even, but he’d pulled himself together with Yone around. So Yone had to be around.
But Kayn wasn’t Yasuo; some things were just self-evident. The rest of the group liked to joke that Yone was the team mom, and Yone let the comments glance off of him. His bandmates were grown adults; they didn’t need him to take care of them. He didn’t even particularly like cleaning up their messes either, because, again: grown adults. They could handle themselves.
Except—he still got out of bed when Akali called him. He still dressed himself and drove across town. Still dragged Kayn’s sorry ass down several blocks and up a flight of stairs.
He dabs at Kayn’s face with a wipe with more force than necessary, scrubbing away dried blood and dirt and who knows what else. And Kayn finally stops wiggling but he doesn’t stay completely still either, just stares up at Yone, unblinking, shivery even though it’s a mild night and he’s wearing a jacket.
“You should see the other guy,” Kayn says finally. He swallows, throat bobbing.
Yone sighs. “Save your jokes.”
“‘S all I got. Sorry.”
Yone puts down the wipe. He meets Kayn’s eyes. “What would you have done if I hadn’t come to get you?” he asks.
Kayn’s gaze flicks away. “Fuck if I know. Walk into traffic, I guess—”
“I told you to stop making—”
“I don’t know!” Kayn says, with enough force that Yone falls silent for a moment. “I don’t know, I’d call a ride or find someone to go home with or, or, you know what, that’s not even the point, is it, you’re just rubbing it in that no one gives a shit, and that Akali’s mad at me even though she’s not even on the same continent, and you’re just being a bitch about this whole thing because your beauty sleep got interrupted. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He’s grimacing hard enough that his lip has split open again, blood welling up, and Yone automatically reaches up to dab at it. Kayn glares at him. “You don’t know me,” he mutters, voice muffled, “so just drop it, okay?”
The phrase No one gives a shit echoes in Yone’s head. It’s not said in spite, or even a rare moment of vulnerability. It’s just stated with the tired surety of something that’s been repeated a thousand times, like it doesn’t matter if it’s true anymore or if it could even change.
And the thing is—Yone doesn’t know Kayn, not really. He doesn’t know his history, or why his old band broke up, or why he treats self-destruction the way most other people treat hobbies. The details he’s privy to are pretty much the same as what the general public knows.
And anyway, this scene is full of egomaniac idiots who burn bright and flame out early. It’s not like there’s anything particularly special about Kayn.
But he gets the sense that Kayn wasn’t always—like this. Or maybe he was, but he had something else too. Someone else.
“What about your dad?” Yone tries.
He knows almost immediately it’s the wrong thing to say. Kayn’s expression twitches, a switch being flipped, and all of a sudden his eyes go sharp and hard. Like an animal. Or a monster. He lunges forward, viper quick, and sinks his teeth into Yone’s forearm, right above his wrist.
It hurts. It hurts a lot.
Yone, to his credit, does not lose his cool. His training from the dojo kicks in—while he could get Kayn to let go of him in half a dozen ways, he realizes Kayn isn’t actually biting that hard, not hard enough to break skin. And—Yone doesn’t really want to hurt him, either.
At least, not that much.
Yone reaches up, grabs a fistful of Kayn’s hair, and pulls. The yowl Kayn makes is as exquisite as the stinging pain in his arm when Kayn unclamps his jaws, and fuck, that’s going to leave a mark.
That’s going to leave a hell of a mark.
Kayn's expression is crazed, and the inside of the car is dark, but not so dark that Yone can't see the edges of red bleeding through the purple of his irises. Wild. A feral creature. But when Yone tightens his grip on his hair, Kayn breathes out the softest sound he's ever heard out of him. Like a moan with not enough air behind it.
Yone lets go, but instead of leaning away Kayn scoots forward, until their faces are close together. Yone's gaze drifts down. Kayn's mouth is so red against the sharp white of his teeth. From the blood, probably.
"He's not my dad," Kayn says, enunciating the words very clearly like he wants them to stick. Slowly, he knocks his forehead against Yone's, just once.
"If you say so."
"You're not my dad either."
"Obviously."
"Okay."
"Okay," Yone repeats.
Kayn moves back. He lowers his chin, looks up at Yone through his lashes, and like this, his eyes almost look normal. Almost human. He smiles, closed mouth. Yone’s arm throbs where Kayn left indents with his teeth.
"Now that we've got that out of the way," Kayn says, "can I suck your dick?"
Yone almost rolls his eyes. It’s exactly the dumb kind of thing Kayn would say to try to press his buttons.
"No."
"Why not?"
Yone is incredulous. "Do you even have to ask?"
"Yeah? That's why we're talking about it."
Yone exhales out of his nose.
"It'll be fun," Kayn presses. "You should really cut loose every once in a while, big bro."
Button pressed. Yone recoils like he’s been cut. He backs away, ducks out of the backseat, and closes the car door, but not before he hears a dry bark of a laugh from Kayn. The kid’s a terror. But Yone’s starting to get him, he thinks. Just a little bit.
He walks around the car and gets into the driver’s seat. He buckles up and looks in the rearview mirror—Kayn’s not looking at him, just staring out the window, glassy-eyed and touching his mouth. Probably scratching his lip open again for fun, the idiot.
At some point during the drive he falls asleep, curled up around himself. Yone only catches a glimpse at a red light, but he looks almost soft, all his harsh edges smoothed by slumber. It’s uncanny. Yone doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kayn at peace.
There’s something ugly dwelling inside Kayn, Yone thinks, something like an infection, and it’ll claw its way to the surface time and time again unless Kayn learns to reign it in. Maybe he’ll grow into it. Or maybe it’ll eat him whole.
But—despite what some people think—he’s not a monster. At least, not tonight.
The rest of the drive home is silent.