The first time Mori kissed him, it wasn’t tender. It wasn’t sweet. It was calculated. Fingers gripping his jaw, tilting his face up like he was nothing but another project—a piece to mold, to claim.

And Chuuya let him.

Because it had started long before that. Before the stolen meetings, before the whispers behind locked doors. Before he realized Mori was no longer just his teacher.

Mori had chosen him. Not the other students, not the other prodigies. Him.

“You’re special, Chuuya,” Mori had murmured, his gloved fingers ghosting over his pulse. “You don’t belong with them. You belong with me.”

It was a lie, of course. Chuuya knew it was a lie. But when had the truth ever mattered?

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Dazai knew.

Maybe he had always known. Because Dazai always saw too much.

“You’re acting weird,” Dazai muttered one evening, watching as Chuuya adjusted the scarf around his neck—the deep red silk Mori had given him.

A scarf Dazai had once worn himself.

Chuuya scowled. “Mind your own damn business.”

Dazai didn’t reply. He just stared—at the scarf, at the way Chuuya carried himself now, at the invisible strings pulling him in a direction he shouldn’t be going.

“…You don’t see it yet, do you?” Dazai finally whispered.

Chuuya didn’t answer.

Maybe because he did see it.

But by then, Mori’s hands were already around his throat—wrapped in silk, tightening, tightening—

And Chuuya didn’t want him to let go.