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The blood oozes from the wound, thick and dead and congealed, and this impossible thing is what shakes Maou back to his senses.

The alley, the ground shining pebbled and dark under his bare feet, stinks of blood. The sensation of copper red teethgrit tang hits through his sinuses, bangs through his throat, and swirls around the black drain in his stomach. Hungry.

Taiyou's blood wells slowly, like dark honey from the comb. His eyes—

"Fuckin' hurts, Maou-san." The wheezing whistle of breath catches every time Taiyou's ribs try to expand, hit the sword between them. When he smiles up at Maou, his teeth are rust brown.

Maou can't find words.

"You gonna pull this out of me or what?" Taiyou's gaze points straight into the twilight sky, for all the good that does him.

"Are you going to kill me if I let you go," asks Maou quietly.

"Eventually," Taiyou answers, and the following laughter turns into a scream of hysteric rage as the sword digs into his lungs.

Maou says nothing. His eyes flick to the mouth of the alley, focus poorly with the jumbled sense of light. Taiyou's other arm is over there somewhere, buried under a pile of street thug parts, he remembers that much. He kneels on the ground, then sits heavily, feeling the leg of his trousers grow heavy with living blood. One armed, he drags his coat to him and awkwardly flings it over his own head.

"You're scared. Haha. Fuck." Taiyou clears his throat, spits blood as he struggles. "Just a guy. I told you. You're just a guy."

Maou thinks, it'll hurt less if you don't say anything, then reconsiders. It's subjective.

Taiyou's eyelids struggle to close. "Hey, Maou-san. Close my eyes for me? It's just, y'know, feelin' kinda dry."

Maou reaches over, pulls thin skin over and down, one by one, then retracts his hand.

Taiyou flashes that old, brittle smile again. "Cheers, whore."

They wait for the sun to rise for a few minutes, Taiyou's clot-phlegmed coughs echoing over the even more distant sound of rising Omotesando foot traffic. Maou doesn't apologize, and Taiyou doesn't ask.

"What color is the sky?"

Maou looks up from under his coat. "Dark."

"Blue yet?"

"A little."

"Liar. You like making things sound prettier than they are."

A car horn goes off in the distance. It's somehow louder than the screaming earlier.

"I know you're scared of dying. You're welcome."

The blood soaking into Maou's slacks is beginning to stiffen. He reaches to the cuff and wraps it around his finger, watching the thickened fabric fold like bread.

The sky is turning pale and cold. Taiyou coughs again, giggling like a kid at the top of a rollercoaster. The stump of his elbow is growing new fingers, little fresh pink nubs like rosebuds, thin nails like fish scales. Maou stares at them, blank.

"All right, I've thought of them. My last words. Ready?"

Maou watches Taiyou cough, and cough, then sniff, spitting a deliberate glob of blood off to the side.

"It was a lie, Senpai. It is a lie. That's my ghost. My ghost, you stupid bastard." Taiyou laughs. "Don't forget about me, huh? And never trust your eyes. Friendly advice. Shit I shoulda done."

Maou agrees silently. If one of them had trusted a bit less, there's a fair chance they both would've lived through the next hour or so.

"My blood tastes like candy. You should try it before I go." Taiyou makes a soft sucking noise. "Suck the rest of the life outta me, why don't you."

You were so beautiful, Taiyou-kun. I'm so sorry.

The sky slowly turns the color of the inside of a mussel shell, bleeding out the dark from the little slice of alleyway sky.

"You know what's nice about all this?" Taiyou turns his head. Midnight can see one of his sockets slowly swell back out, eyelids puffing back to fullness. "I really do feel like I did what I set out to do. Now I'm just trying to come up with a better last oneliner than the one I had. Maou-san. Any ideas?"

Maou's eyes have been blurring.

"I made him shut the fuck up, too? Will miracles never cease."