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Bad Luck Charm

PAIRING: Maneki x Serial killer!Reader (Jackpot Crash Course)

GENRE: Starts out as fluff, ends off with some good ol’ soul crushing angst

WC: 7k

SYNOPSIS: Reader is a serial killer who likes to bring Maneki along for their escapades. When he gets convicted and they don’t though? Guilt starts to brew.

WARNINGS: Reader is a serial killer, so some brief descriptions of death and blood, spoilers for Maneki’s crime, possibly slightly ooc because we don’t know a lot about Maneki, and also this gets really sad. There are a lot of flashbacks, and also switching between past and present tense for my own stylistic reasons. Maneki communicates with the reader mostly through sign language because thyroid damage = voice hurt. Okay that’s all!

divider by @cafekitsune

THIS FIC WAS A COMMISSION.

As far as Maneki was concerned, you were the closest to heaven that he would ever get.

You, a sinner, a killer, the very devil, were his salvation. It was terribly convoluted, but what else could be done? You were the one who took his hand and kissed over all the scars and told him he was worth something. And to be your something was worth anything. Anything, even the silence that he’d gotten so comfortable in. So he was silent. He held his tongue as you slaughtered, he waited, and he accepted you with open arms after. He held you, your frame shaking, laughing mad. That was what love tasted like. Like refusing to go to the police, even tonight as you laid next to him, feeling the gentle weight of his head on your chest, breathing you in. Your presence was a drug he simply couldn’t let go of.

“Maneki?” you spoke as you traced small, lazy patterns on his bare arms.

He looked up to meet your gaze, tilting his head to the side slightly as if to signify that he was listening. He could sign something to you, but he didn’t want to unwrap his arms from you, so instead he’d make do with his face.

“We should go out tonight,” you hummed, voice containing something sinister.

Maneki knew what ‘going out tonight’ meant. It meant it was another night where you would pick a victim. Some judgmental wealthy woman or the type of guy to harass someone on the street. Then, you’d make quick work of them the way you always did. You didn’t make a show of it, you didn’t have to, but you still made mess enough for Maneki to sit in the bath with you and clean all the blood off. It was disgustingly domestic for a murderer and their lovely little accessory to crime. Most would be sickened by your routine, but not him. You weren’t a monster, everybody you killed deserved what happened to them–that was what Maneki told himself, because it was easier to digest that way. If you only killed people who deserved it, you were a vigilante, not a killer. He wouldn’t be wrong to love a vigilante. You were helping clean up the world, it was like picking up trash off the freeway.

“Maneki, my love. Are you listening?” You ask, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He nodded, sitting up and letting his lips fall against yours for a moment. He kissed you like it was the last chance he’d ever get to, his lips finding rhythm against yours like poetry. It was almost as if he wanted to steal the air from your lungs, the way he kissed you with such an intensity that you forgot to breathe when he was with you.

You pulled away to catch a breath, and Maneki’s face splits into a cheshire grin. Just kissing you reminded him of exactly why he stood by you. You were salvation, you were his very reason for being. He was never letting you go. So, he unwrapped his arms from your torso, and began moving his hands.

Let’s go. He signed, before taking your hand in his and standing up.

“Really?” you ask him, eyes alight, “You’re usually never this eager.”

Maneki pauses, taking his hand back from you to sign again. I want to spend time with you. I love you.

You take his hand back and practically squeal in excitement. “I love you too! So much.”

Your lips graze his cheek and Maneki thinks he just might die. What was morality to your touch, to the soft of your lips against his face, to the look in your eyes when you told him you loved him? Nothing. Loving you was a type of ecstasy completely different to anything he’d ever had before. It was strange, but it made him happy, genuinely happy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt quite so inebriated by someone’s touch.

So you went out, and Maneki found himself watching the city through the passenger seat window with that same distant fondness he always wore when he was with you. Rainwater still clung to the streets from earlier in the evening, turning the roads glossy beneath neon signs and traffic lights. Everything outside looked warped, melted into streaks of red and gold against the glass. You drove with one hand on the wheel and the other lazily intertwined with his over the center console. Your thumb brushed across his knuckles every now and then, absentminded and affectionate.

Maneki tilted his head back against the seat. The radio hummed softly under the sound of the tires against wet pavement. You were smiling to yourself again, that small, dangerous smile that always meant your mind was somewhere else entirely. He loved that smile. He hated that he loved that smile.

You caught him staring and laughed quietly. “What?”

Maneki lifted your joined hands and pressed his lips against the back of yours.

Your expression softened immediately. It always did with him. “You’re clingy tonight.”

His fingers moved carefully in the dim light spilling from the dashboard, Can you blame me?

You snorted softly. “Fair.”

The city bled gradually into quieter streets. Fewer people. Fewer lights. The kind of area where nobody paid attention to strangers. Maneki recognized the pattern by now. You always chose places where the world already felt disconnected. Forgotten alleyways. Empty sidewalks. Streets where people minded their own business because they were afraid not to.

Your hand slipped away from his eventually as you parked near a row of dim storefronts. A bar glowed at the corner, buzzing faintly with muffled music. Cigarette smoke drifted out every time the door opened. Somewhere farther away, someone laughed too loudly.

You looked at him with excitement bright behind your eyes. “Walk with me?”

As if he ever wouldn’t.

Maneki climbed out after you, pulling his jacket tighter against the cold. The air smelled like rain and gasoline and the faint metallic scent that always seemed to follow Modos at night. You immediately hooked your arm around his, pressing close enough that your shoulder bumped against his. Anyone looking at you would think you were normal. That thought almost made him smile.

You rambled as the two of you walked, pointing out stupid little things—a flickering sign, a stray cat perched on a dumpster that Maneki particularly liked, a couple arguing across the street. Your voice carried so much warmth when it was directed at him. It always amazed him, how you could sound so alive even with blood drying beneath your fingernails from nights before. Maneki listened quietly, eyes on you instead of the road ahead.

You were beautiful like this. Not during the violence. Not after. Like this. Laughing softly under broken neon lights, squeezing his arm every time you got excited, looking at him as though he hung the moon itself above your head. He wondered if anybody else had ever seen you this way. He hoped not. The thought sat ugly and possessive in his chest.

You slowed eventually near the mouth of an alley, gaze drifting toward a man standing outside the bar with a phone pressed to his ear. Mid-forties, maybe. Expensive watch. Wedding ring glinting under the light. The kind of man Maneki had seen a hundred times before. The man’s eyes dragged openly over you.

Maneki noticed the exact moment your smile changed. Subtle. Nearly invisible. But he knew you too well. The warmth remained, but something colder slid underneath it, sharpening every edge. You leaned slightly toward Maneki, fingers tightening around his sleeve.

“There,” you murmured.

Maneki followed your gaze again. The man was still staring. Something unpleasant twisted in Maneki’s stomach. Jealousy, maybe. Or anticipation. At this point, the two emotions had become difficult to separate whenever it came to you.

You looked up at him. “You okay with this one?”

The fact that you asked at all made his chest ache. Always him. Always considering him, even now. Maneki glanced toward the stranger once more before signing slowly.

What did he do?

You hummed thoughtfully. “Saw him fighting with some girl by the door, she mentioned something about him following her all night.” Your expression soured faintly. “She looked scared.”

That settles it.

You smiled. “Thought so.”

The man started walking eventually, stumbling slightly as he disappeared down the sidewalk away from the bar. You waited a few seconds before following, your pace unhurried. Maneki walked beside you silently, heartbeat slow and heavy inside his chest. There was no thrill in this anymore, really, it was routine if anything.

The man turned into a quieter street lined with dumpsters and chain-link fences. The sounds from the bar faded behind you until all that remained was dripping water and distant traffic. You called out to him first.

“Hey!”

The man turned immediately, gaze lighting up at the sight of you approaching. Maneki hung back a little as you spoke, posture loose and friendly.

“You got a light?”

The man laughed. “Yeah, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

Maneki’s jaw tightened as the stranger stepped closer, fumbling through his pockets. He smelled like whiskey even from where Maneki stood. You smiled at him sweetly. He knew that smile, it was warm, inviting, terrible. Then the man touched your waist.

Everything after that always happened quickly. Maneki saw your expression flatten. Saw your hand move. Saw confusion flicker across the man’s face before pain replaced it. The sound he made wasn’t dramatic. Just startled. Wet. You caught him before he could collapse properly, dragging him deeper between the buildings with surprising ease. Maneki followed automatically, pulse loud in his ears now. The stranger tried to speak. You didn’t let him. Your movements were efficient, practiced in a way Maneki had long stopped trying to think about too hard. The alley swallowed the struggle almost entirely. A sharp inhale. A choking sound. Shoes scraping against concrete.

Then quiet–not complete silence, Modos was never truly silent, but quiet enough. The man sagged against the wall slowly before sliding downward. Maneki stared at the ground near his shoes instead of directly at the body. Rainwater crept lazily through the cracks in the pavement, tinged dark where it gathered. You were breathing hard, but Maneki didn’t figure you were frightened, he wasn’t certain fright was something you could even feel. No, you were never frightened. If he had to guess, you looked excited.

Maneki looked up finally when he heard you laugh under your breath. There it was again, that trembling breathless laughter you always gave afterward, like you couldn’t contain what lived inside you. Your hands shook faintly as you pushed your hair back from your face. Then your eyes found Maneki immediately. Always him.

Your expression softened with dizzying speed. “Hey.”

His throat tightened as you walked back toward him slowly, traces of scarlet smeared across your sleeve, your hands, the curve of your jaw where something had splattered. Beautiful and horrifying all at once. Maneki reached for you without thinking. You melted into him instantly.

“There’s my boy,” you whispered against his neck, still laughing faintly under your breath.

His arms wrapped around you tightly enough to hurt. He could feel your heartbeat racing. Could smell metal and rain and your perfume all tangled together.

You tilted your head back to look at him. “You’re not scared of me, right?”

The question sounded almost childish to Maneki, the way he loved you made his chest hurt so badly he thought it might split open. He touched your face carefully, thumb brushing beneath your eye before his hands moved to sign.

Never.

Your smile then was devastating. You kissed him hard enough to stagger him backward a step, fingers gripping the front of his jacket. Maneki kissed you back instinctively, desperately, like if he stopped then he would finally have to confront what sat cooling behind you in the alley.

Unfortunately for the pair of you, your moment of solace and sin was cut short as sirens cut through the night. They started out distant, but as a few more seconds passed, it became clear what they were there for.

You froze, and Maneki felt your body tense immediately against his. For a moment, neither of you moved. The sirens grew louder, grew closer, too close. Someone must have seen something, heard something, done something.

Your breathing turned uneven as you pulled away from him to glance toward the street. “Shit.”

Run? Maneki signed frantically and then he grabbed your wrist as if it would do anything

protect you, but even as he did it, flashing red and blue lights spilled across the wet pavement at the mouth of the alley. Too late.

“HEY! HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!” a gruff voice rang through the alleyway

You went perfectly still beside him. The world suddenly felt unbearably bright. Maneki’s grip tightened around your wrist. Another officer moved toward the body further down the alley while two more approached the two of you cautiously, hands hovering near their weapons.

You looked strangely calm now. You most certainly weren’t happy, but you weren’t upset either, it was something more like admission, like acceptance.

One of the officers barked another order. Maneki barely heard it over the rushing in his ears. Your fingers slid against his slowly until your hand found his. Then you squeezed once. A silent apology. Or reassurance. Maybe both.

The officer nearest to you noticed the blood first. Everything escalated after that. Commands were shouted louder, they forced your hands apart, you noticed someone grabbing Maneki by the shoulders and wrenching his arms behind his back hard enough to sting. Metal cuffs snapped around his wrists. Only a second later, you felt another officer shove you against the brick wall while you laughed once under your breath, exhausted and breathless.

“Stop resisting!”

“I’m not resisting,” you replied calmly.

Maneki twisted instinctively toward you, and your eyes met his immediately.

Despite the sirens, despite the officers surrounding you, despite the body only feet away, you smiled at him. Softly. Lovingly. Like this was still a date.You were still smiling when they dragged you away, and into separate police cars, and he just didn’t understand. Like usual, he was silent, but this had nothing to do with his mutism, he was just left speechless. It wasn’t often that Maneki got angry with you, usually handling you with care, as if you were composed entirely of glass, like too much frustration would break you, but as it happened, he was angry. How were you still smiling? How did you care so little that both your lives were going to end? You both knew how the prison system here worked, you both knew you’d die there.

***

You sit in the comfort of your one bedroom apartment around the east side of Modos. It isn’t as nice as the place you’d once had with Maneki, but it’s a place nonetheless. The words ‘Not Guilty’ hang heavy around your neck like a noose, knowing your darling Maneki is rotting behind bars. If there is only one thing you regretted in your entire miserable existence, it’s that you couldn’t save him.

You can still remember the courtroom in vivid detail if you let yourself think about it for too long. The polished wooden benches., the stale artificial chill, the fluorescent lights overhead that buzzed softly enough to drive you insane… you remember sitting there in chains while Maneki sat only a few feet away from you, hands folded neatly in his lap despite the cuffs around his wrists. He looked pale and exhausted, hollow beneath his eyes in a way you had never seen before, but he still smiled at you when you looked over. You felt that very well may have been the worst part.

Not the sentence, not the screaming family in the gallery demanding justice, not the photographs flashed across the courtroom until your stomach churned, not even the way the officers treated Maneki like some feral animal despite the fact he had barely said–or signed–a word the entire trial, no, it was the smile. He smiled at you. Because even then, he loved you more than he feared what was happening to him.

You had confessed. God, you had confessed to everything. The murder. The alleyway. The body. You’d practically thrown yourself at the prosecution and begged them to leave him alone. Maneki hadn’t killed anybody. Maneki hadn’t touched anybody. Maneki had only loved you, and somehow that had still ruined him.

Accessory to murder. The murder you committed. The murder you weren’t charged for.

You remember laughing hysterically when they listed the charge because the words sounded so absurd next to him. Maneki, who begged you to take in every stray cat he found on the street, who held your face in his hands like you were something sacred, who did everything he could to protect you from the fucking brutes that called themselves ‘officers of the law’.

The court hadn’t cared. Love didn’t absolve people of crimes, no, apparently it condemned them right alongside you. You got lucky. That was the cruelest joke of all. Your lawyer had called it “insufficient evidence.” There were holes in timelines. Mishandled reports. Missing witnesses. They could prove Maneki helped after the murder, but they couldn’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that you had committed it. Not enough physical evidence remained. You had been meticulous, and for the first time in your life, you hated yourself for being good at something.

Maneki had taken the fall anyway. You still remember the way he looked at you after the verdict was read. He didn’t look scared, he didn’t look angry, no, he looked relieved, as if prison was worth it so long as you got to walk free. You had screamed at him afterward. It was the first time you had ever screamed at him. The officers could barely drag you apart because you kept trying to reach him, hysterical and sobbing and furious all at once. You remembered shouting that it wasn’t fair, that he should hate you, that he should blame you for this.

But Maneki had only looked at you with that same awful tenderness.

Then, as the officers bound his hands, as they began to drag him away, he said something. After being silent for so long, he spoke to you: “I’d do it again.”

The memory makes your stomach twist violently even now.

Your apartment feels suffocating tonight, feels suffocating without him there to bring you back to earth. You sit curled near the edge of your couch with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, staring blankly at the television despite not actually processing anything on the screen. Empty takeout containers litter the coffee table. You haven’t cleaned in days. Maybe weeks. Time became terribly slippery after the trial.

Everything reminds you of him. The hoodie hanging over the back of your chair still smells faintly like his detergent. There’s a chipped mug in your kitchen he used to use constantly because he claimed the crack made it “unique.” One of his hair ties still sits beside the bathroom sink where he’d left it months ago. Months.

Your throat tightens painfully as you wonder if he’s cold, the prison uniforms had looked thin. You wonder if anybody there is hurting him. If they mocked his mutism. If they cornered him when nobody else was looking. Maneki had always been able to hold his own, of course, but you couldn’t help but worry. What if he isn’t even alive anymore? You’re too scared to even check. If he isn’t dead, he’s suffering, and you can’t do anything about it. For the first time in your life, violence can’t fix something.

You bury your face in your hands, “I’m sorry,” you whisper into the empty apartment for what was probably the thousandth time, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The words feel useless now.

You’d visited him twice after the sentencing.

The first time had nearly killed you. Maneki had shuffled into the visitation room looking thinner already, dressed in dull fabric that swallowed him whole. There had been bruises blooming faintly near his wrists. You remembered nearly vaulting across the table at the sight of them. The guards had watched you carefully the entire visit after that, but you didn’t care. Maneki had smiled at you then. You hated it now. You hated that he still looked at you with love after everything you’d done to him.

The second visit was worse because he looked happier to see you than before. He’d spent nearly the entire hour signing frantically, telling you about stupid little things just to make you laugh. A bird that nested outside his cell window, a guard that looked strangely similar to some celebrity you liked, a terrible meal he’d gotten last week. His hands moved faster than you had ever seen, it was almost as if he was trying to comfort you. As if you weren’t the reason he was trapped there to begin with.

You stopped visiting after that. You couldn’t begin to explain why. You could call it self preservation if you liked, but you knew in the depths of your soul that it was cowardice. Seeing him behind glass made something inside you rot.

The television drones mindlessly in the background until you hear some loud, obnoxious voice break through in the background. Your head turns toward the TV sluggishly as you wait to see what’s on. Bet and Forgive. You hadn’t realized the show was airing tonight, though you don’t particularly care… not until you see a familiar face appear on the screen, that is.

Your breath caught in your throat as you stared at the screen, light illuminating your awestruck face. Maneki sat beneath the harsh studio lights wearing that same soft expression you remembered so vividly. His hair had grown slightly longer since the trial, the ends were dyed orange now. There were shadows beneath his eyes that makeup couldn’t fully hide. But he was smiling. God, he was smiling.

The audience adores him, of course they do. You watch numbly as he opens and closes his fan to get messages across. He’s not signing now, though you suppose that adds to the ‘tongue-tied enigma’ role slapped on the bottom of the screen. The host–a mildly attractive man with messy pink hair and a smile that felt rehearsed–laughed at something, and Maneki ducked his head coyly afterward, shoulders lifting slightly in a way you recognized all too well. The gesture hits you like a knife to the ribs.

Suddenly you aren’t sitting alone in your apartment anymore,

No, you were suddenly nineteen again, and Maneki was meeting you for the first time. It had been raining then, not violently, but enough to turn the sidewalks silver beneath the city lights. You remember standing outside a convenience store at nearly midnight, half-soaked from the weather and irritated beyond belief because some asshole had tried to pick a fight with you a few moments earlier. Your knuckles were still aching faintly from it.

You had noticed Maneki staring after a moment, he’d been standing near the vending machines clutching an umbrella awkwardly in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. He looked startled the second your eyes met his, like he hadn’t expected to get caught watching you. You remember thinking he looked painfully out of place, too pretty for a city like Modos. No, he didn’t reek of sin the way everything else here did.

“What?” you’d snapped at him.

Most people backed off when you used that tone. Maneki had just blinked at you before fumbling quickly for his phone. You’d watched with increasing confusion as he typed something out with nervous hands before holding the screen toward you.

You’re bleeding.

You touched your mouth instinctively and your fingers came away red. Right. The fight. “Oh.”

Maneki hesitated before digging through his bag carefully. A moment later he held out a small packet of tissues toward you. You’d stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“You don’t even know me.”

He smiled sheepishly, then he typed again: You looked hurt.

Something about that response completely disarmed you. Not angry. Not dangerous. Not suspicious. Hurt. You remembered laughing softly under your breath before taking the tissues from him.

“Thanks.”

Maneki’s smile widened instantly. It was blinding up close, all warm eyes and flushed cheeks and quiet sincerity. You remembered staring a little too long. He had looked at you like you were safe to approach. Most people around here didn’t look at anybody that way.

The rain picked up slightly afterward, drumming softly against the pavement around you. You noticed then that Maneki kept glancing toward the street nervously every few seconds like he was trying to gather courage for something. Finally, after nearly a full minute of awkward silence, he pulled his phone back out. His fingers moved so quickly over the screen they almost stumbled over themselves, but then he held it toward you again.

Would it be weird if I asked for your number?

You read over the words with an enlivened fluster. He was handsome, he seemed kind, what was there to say but no? That it wasn’t weird, that you’d love to ger to know him more? So, after rereading the message a fourth time and looking back up at him to take in his face–quickly growing more nervous with every passing second, you grinned.

“Not at all! Can I just put it in your phone while I’ve got it?”

He had nodded, a smile blossoming across his face. You wanted to kiss him right then and there, but you’d held off, instead just typing your phone number in and handing the phone back.

The pair of you made fast friends after that. At first, it was just hanging out on weekends, then weekdays too, then suddenly there simply wasn’t a day where Maneki wasn’t somewhere nearby. He slipped into your life so naturally that you almost didn’t notice it happening. One day you were exchanging awkward texts at two in the morning, and the next he was sprawled across your couch in mismatched pajamas stealing food off your plate while some shitty movie played in the background as white noise

It should have scared you, probably. The intimacy of it all. You had never been particularly good at letting people close. Most relationships in your life were violently temporary, you rarely got to keep anything nice, let alone as nice as Maneki. People in Modos didn’t stay soft for very long, and they certainly didn’t stay kind. Everybody wanted something eventually. Money. Favors. Violence. But Maneki never seemed to want anything from you besides your company, besides your love. That alone made him dangerous, a threat to everything you had built up to keep yourself alive in this city.

You remember the first time he fell asleep on you. The memory came back embarrassingly clear now as you stared at the television screen through blurry eyes. You had both been twenty then, sitting on the floor of your old apartment eating instant noodles because your fridge was practically empty. Maneki had been speeding through rapid signs about some dumb reality show he’d gotten obsessed with recently, hands moving so quickly you almost struggled to keep up. You remembered teasing him for it. He had pouted afterward, though he didn’t seem like he was actually offended… He had before shoving your shoulder hard enough to make you laugh. He had laughed too… god, his laugh. Most people never got to hear it. It had been quiet, breathy, a little broken around the edges more than likely he wasn’t entirely used to making noise at all. The first time you heard it, you thought you might go insane from how badly you wanted to hear it again.

That night, somewhere in the middle of his ranting, his hands had slowed, then they had gradually stopped moving at all. You looked over only to realize he’d fallen asleep sitting upright against your shoulder, hands finally at rest as they sprawled where they had fallen rather than neatly folded into his lap the way they usually were. You remembered staring at him for nearly ten straight minutes afterward, terrified to move in case you woke him up. He looked so peaceful. You hadn’t known what to do with that feeling at the time.

Love had always felt scary to you before Maneki, not because you didn't want to be loved, but because love wasn’t easy. Your last few relationships were messy and complicated and brief. One in particular lasted only three days. When things ended, your heart bled like no other, because despite everything you built up, you craved to be loved. Didn’t everybody? You just didn’t want to be the one to bleed. Loving Maneki, though, had been horrifyingly gentle. It snuck up on you in quiet moments, in grocery store trips and midnight conversations and the way he always reached for your hand absentmindedly whenever you walked beside each other.

You remember another night too, the first time he ever told you that he loved you. You had been half-drunk, sprawled across his bed while rain hammered against the windows outside. Your nose was bleeding from a fall you’d taken earlier that evening. Nothing serious, you just tended to lose your footing when you didn’t have all your inhibitions clawing at you. Maneki had spent nearly twenty minutes cleaning the blood from your face despite your constant insistence that you were fine.

You remember laughing softly while he dabbed antiseptic against your split lip. “You know I’ve survived worse, right?”

Maneki glared at you then, sharp and irritated in a way that almost startled you. He set the cotton pad down before grabbing your face carefully between both hands.

You aren’t disposable.

The signs came hard and quick enough that you almost missed them. You had stared at him blankly for a moment afterward. Nobody had ever looked angry on your behalf before, not really. Maneki’s chest had been rising unevenly then, eyes glossy with frustration as he signed again, slower this time.

I don’t like seeing you hurt.

Something in you cracked open after that. You kissed him before you could think better of it. It wasn’t graceful. You remember accidentally smashing your forehead against his in your haste, remember the surprised noise he made against your mouth before he melted into it completely. Maneki had kissed you kissed like somebody starving, like he had spent his entire life waiting for you to come into his life, and now he couldn’t believe you were actually here, couldn’t believe that your pretty, bloody lips were finally against his.

You remembered pulling away breathless only to realize he was staring at you with wide, terrified eyes.

“Oh,” you’d whispered stupidly, “Was that too much?”

Maneki had looked horrified immediately. He grabbed your wrists so quickly it almost startled you before his hands moved frantically.

No. No, no, no. Then, after fumbling for a second, his hands slowed and his eyes met yours. I love you.

Your chest still ached when you thought about it now. Back then, he’d looked almost embarrassed afterward, cheeks burning bright red while he avoided eye contact completely. You remembered laughing softly before pulling him into another kiss, and Maneki had practically climbed into your lap afterward like he wanted to crawl beneath your skin and live there.

Maybe you should have left him alone then. The thought hit you suddenly and violently enough to make your breathing stutter. Maybe you should have recognized what you were. A killer. A parasite. You weren’t a real person, you were something poisonous pretending to be human long enough to fool somebody good into loving you. And you did. You’d fooled him into loving you, into standing by you, into taking the fall for every terrible, unforgivable thing that you had done.

The television continued playing mindlessly in front of you, studio lights flickering across your apartment walls in aggressive reds and flashing whites. Somewhere onscreen the audience erupted into applause over something stupid. You barely registered it. Your eyes remained fixed on Maneki instead. He looked older now. Not physically, necessarily, it was something in his expression. Some unbearable exhaustion hidden beneath the sweetness he still wore so naturally. You wondered how much of it was because of you. How much of him had been carved hollow trying to survive what you dragged him into. You didn’t have to wonder for long as that voice in the back of your head screamed that all of it was because of you, that you had ruined him.

You wondered if he still slept curled toward the wall the way he used to when he was upset. You wondered if anybody held him anymore. The thought nearly made you sick. Maneki was always seeking your touch in any way he could back then.. Early into your relationship he would pretend he wasn’t clingy, pretending it was coincidence whenever he ended up pressed against your side during movie nights or absentmindedly holding onto the sleeve of your hoodie while you texted anyone but him. Eventually, though, even he stopped pretending. He simply attached himself to you openly at some point, warm and affectionate and terribly earnest about it all.

You remembered waking up some mornings with him practically draped across your entire body like some oversized cat. You remembered the way he would mumble half-asleep little things against your chest while he thought you weren’t paying attention… One of the few times he actually used that gorgeous voice of his.

“Stay.”, “Don’t leave yet.”, “Five more minutes.”... You remembered how safe he told you he felt in your arms, how you held him like he was the only boy in the world.

Your stomach twists violently. You don’t realize the tears sliding down your face until one lands against the back of your hand. You blink sluggishly. Another follows after it. Then another. Your breathing becomes uneven embarrassingly fast after that. You press the heel of your palm hard against your eyes as if it will stop anything, but it doesn’t. If anything, the pressure only makes your head hurt worse.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper again as if ot would change anything, as if apologizing to the four unforgiving walls surrounding you would bring him back to you.

The apartment remains silent. Of course it does. Maneki used to fill every room he entered despite hardly speaking at all. It was in the little noises he made while cooking, the way he hummed soundlessly to himself while folding laundry, the rapid tapping of his fingers against tabletops whenever he got excited. Silence had never actually felt silent when he was around. Now it suffocates you.

On the television, the host leaned closer toward Maneki with an amused grin. You recognized the look immediately. The audience wanted romance. Bet and Forgive always did, tragedy sells well in Modos, but romance sells even better when soaked in enough tragedy to make people feel righteous about consuming it. A subtitle appeared briefly near the bottom of the screen as the host asked a question with a smile that felt all-too cheerful.

“So, tell us Maneki… Why did you do it? And what’s your main motivation to get out of here?”

Your body goes rigid instantly. The audience quieted. Even through the television screen, you could see the subtle shift in Maneki’s posture, the way his shoulders tensed slightly before relaxing again. You hated that you recognized those tells so easily.

The host laughed awkwardly afterward, clearly realizing he’d pushed too far too quickly.

“Sorry, sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want.”

Maneki stared at him for a moment, then he smiled. Your chest hurts so badly you think it might cave in. He reached for his fan slowly. Elegant fingers curled around the lacquered handle with practiced ease before snapping it open in one fluid motion. The audience practically leaned forward collectively.

You hate this show. Hate the way they turned him into entertainment. Hate the way strangers consumed pieces of him without understanding anything about who he really was. They saw a beautiful man wrapped in scandal and mystery. They saw a riddle, a spectacle. They didn’t know how he took his coffee. They didn’t know he cried whenever animals died in movies. They didn’t know he used to press sleepy kisses against your shoulder every morning before work because he claimed it was “good luck.” They didn’t know him.

The camera zoomed closer as Maneki wrote carefully against the paper stretched across the fan. His expression remained soft the entire time, almost fond. Then he lifted it toward the camera.

I did it for someone I love.

The audience erupted immediately. Some sympathetic noise passed through the studio while the host’s face twisted into something performatively emotional. You can’t hear any of it properly over the roaring in your ears. Love. Not loved. Not past tense. Not erased. Not hidden.

You cover your mouth quickly with trembling fingers as something ugly and broken escapes your throat. Why? Why would he still do this to himself? Why would he still love you after everything? You want him to hate you. God, you want it so badly sometimes. Hatred would have been cleaner. Easier. If Maneki hated you then maybe you could finally hate yourself properly too instead of drowning in this unbearable grief every waking second. But he didn’t. He loved you so much he destroyed himself for it.

Your breathing hitched painfully as more memories surfaced whether you wanted them to or not. Maneki standing barefoot in your kitchen at three in the morning making tea because you couldn’t sleep. Maneki dragging you back to bed after nightmares, wrapping himself around you so tightly it was almost impossible to breathe. Maneki laughing breathlessly while you spun him around your apartment after you got promoted at work. Maneki crying into your chest the first time he admitted he was terrified you would disappear one day. You remember kissing the top of his head afterward, murmuring soft reassurances against his hair while he clung to you desperately.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The promise made bile rise in your throat now. You had lied. Not intentionally, but you still lied, because you disappeared anyway, didn’t you? Maybe not physically, but emotionally. You became consumed by blood and violence and the sick satisfaction of deciding who deserved to live or die. Somewhere along the line you stopped being somebody capable of loving him properly. Yet he stayed. He stayed and stayed and stayed until it ruined him.

Onscreen, the host asked another question you didn’t fully catch, something about regrets, about prison, about whether Maneki blamed himself for what happened. Maneki looked thoughtful for a moment afterward, then sad. It was subtle enough that most people probably wouldn’t notice, but you did. You always noticed. His smile softened at the edges while his eyes drifted downward briefly toward his hands.

You remember those hands stained red in dim bathroom lighting while he scrubbed blood from beneath your fingernails silently. You remembered him shaking afterward sometimes when he thought you weren’t looking. You remembered every terrible thing he endured for you.

Maneki lifted his fan again. You watched his fingers tremble slightly in a way you were certain nobody but you could notice as he wrote.

No regrets.

Your vision blurs completely after that. A broken sound escapes you before you could stop it. You fold forward against the couch cushions, shoulders shaking violently now as sobs claw their way out of your chest one after another. The grief feels endless, you feel more likely to see Maneki face to face and get to kiss him all over than stop feeling the misery brewing in your stomach as centipedes crawled through the depths of it in place of butterflies.

You miss him. God, you miss him, not the idea of him, not the fantasy people built around him now, certainly not the tongue-tied enigma. You miss Maneki, the real Maneki. The one who stole your hoodies and burned toast constantly and signed too quickly whenever he got excited. The one who kissed you like you were something precious despite all evidence to the contrary. You love him so much it makes you sick, and you ruined him. The realization strikes you over and over, every day, like a blade twisting deeper each time.

Eventually your sobbing quiets into something smaller, weaker. You sit there curled against the couch with tears drying sticky against your skin while the television continues flickering across the apartment. Your head hurts. Your chest hurts. Everything hurts. Still, you can’t look away from him.

Maneki was silently laughing at something again now, though quieter than before. The host beside him was speaking animatedly while the audience watched with obsessive fascination. You wonder if anybody else noticed how tired he looked beneath the makeup and pretty clothes. Probably not. People only saw what they wanted to see. Your eyes drift toward his hands again absentmindedly. Long fingers with rings on them that you didn’t recognize, his black painted nails you used to tease him for chewing whenever he got nervous. Then Maneki suddenly looked directly into the camera. Not at the host or the audience, no, he looked to the camera.

Your breath catches instantly.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted his fan one last time. The studio lights reflected briefly against lacquered black wood before the fan snapped open in a sharp practiced motion.

Your name stares back at you from the screen.

And Maneki smiled.

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