Atsushi was standing at the railing in the park, watching the boats in the bay. Akutagawa didn't bother with any pretense this time, storming through the crowd of people with his sights set directly on the infernal fucking weretiger.
He'd stood in his bathroom this morning and stared at himself. He could still feel the imprint of the weretiger's hands on his skin, even if there were no fresh blossoming bruises as proof. It was infuriating. He'd allowed that man to touch him so, and there was no record that their tryst even existed in the first place.
Had it?
Maybe it was all a weird dream, maybe his brain was playing a trick and he'd imagined this day from the start...he'd imagined the way that Chuuya had knocked over his coffee on the desk and flung the offending cup at the wall. He'd imagined the trajectory so well he was able to catch the cup today, earning a snort of recognition from his superior.
He'd imagined pushing the weretiger into the wall and kissing him desperately, his baser instincts overriding the common fucking sense he tried to maintain. And everything after that as well, the stuff he kept to his lewder dreams; as if he bothered to acknowledge their existence in the first place.
Yes. He'd imagined all of it, he had to have because otherwise he took Atsushi home and let the blasted weretiger fuck him stupid and he had no other explanation for it other than he wanted it to happen.
Atsushi clearly sensed his ire incoming, and half turned, one elbow still on the railing. "You're early again today," he said, a split second before Akutagawa punched him.
He definitely was not anticipating the blow, which took him back against the railing. He stared at Akutagawa, completely baffled, and rubbed his face—the exact spot Akutagawa had struck him the previous day that also didn't exist because he'd fucking imagined it.
"What the fuck have you done to my head, weretiger?" Akutagawa snarled at him, and Atsushi blinked in sheer confusion.
"What...?" he said, straightening. "That's new."
"Did we have sex yesterday?"
Atsushi took a step back, which put him flush to the railing again. "What?"
"Don't fucking "what" me, weretiger." Akutagawa stepped in close. "Did we, or did we not?" He grabbed Atsushi by the front of his shirt, yanking him in, their faces now far too close for this but he needed to know the truth.
"You remember it?" Atsushi asked, suddenly breathless. The look on his face was indescribable, like he wanted to be happy, or excited, but was mostly concerned. As he should be because Akutagawa was this close to throwing him over the railing and into the bay. "You remember yesterday?"
"What did you do to me?" Akutagawa snarled. "Yesterday was Sunday, and now today is Sunday as well, did you fucking infect me?"
Atsushi's eyes were doing something they hadn't, yesterday—they were glittering. Akutagawa hadn't even realized how dead the weretiger's eyes had looked until now—and that, weirdly, concerned him most of all. Atsushi pushed free of Akutagawa, who released him as he took a few steps away, looking past him and thinking hard. "I didn't do anything we hadn't done before," he said, finally.
That was fucking insulting. "How many times?" Akutagawa asked, deadly serious. "How many times did I take you to my apartment and allow you to do that—?"
Atsushi refused to meet his eye, flushing pink. "I don't know," he said. "I have no real way to keep track of how many days it's been, anything I record it on resets at midnight. I just...I really got tired of fighting you, you know? I never actually wanted to fight you, I wanted to try to be friends. You're a jackass, though, and mean to boot, but you're also really fucking horny too, so we always end up fucking instead."
