ALL NIGHT - Nishimura Riki
📌summary: Tokyo, after midnight. The races hum under your skin, Riki’s name in your mouth like a burn you keep touching.
pairing: street racer!riki x fem!reader
warnings: just Riki being toxic and some suggestive themes
You tell yourself you are not coming, then you are on the train with your hoodie on and your heart in your throat, watching Tokyo blur into smeared neon. The group chat is full of coordinates and bragging rights. Someone says Riki’s tune-up is filthy, someone else says the cops are quiet tonight. Your friend sends a ghost emoji and a kiss and says, you will hate yourself if you go. You reply with a heart you do not mean and get off two stops early.
The air near the docks smells like wet steel and petrol. The crowd is already a living thing, humming in pockets, phones up, cash in gloves, a coil of voices in different languages threading through revving engines. Music thumps from a boot. A guy skates past with a smoke between his teeth. A girl laughs against a bonnet, eyeliner sharp enough to cut.
He is late, which is how you know he is coming. He never arrives on time to things that matter.
A set of headlights slices the night, blue-white and arrogant. The Nissan slides into the space like the asphalt was poured to fit it. Matte paint, low rumble, idle that vibrates against your shins. Riki kills the engine and the crowd tips toward him and everything else thins to haze.
He steps out braced in the kind of confidence that reads like danger. Black jacket, fingers ringed, chain glinting at his throat. His hair is a little too long, his mouth a little too knowing. When he looks over and finds you, it is a hit you feel behind your ribs.
You should leave. You do not.
He does the polite thing first. He tosses a greeting to the closest boys, taps knuckles, appraises someone’s new turbo with a nod. He is currency here, worship and challenge at once. Then he walks to you, slow like he is dragging the whole night by the collar.
“Thought you were off me.” His voice is low, lazy. The ghost of a grin. “That was the story this morning.”
“You are not that special.” You lie like it is breathing.
He smiles properly now. The kind that says, prove that. He stops close enough that your hoodie hem skims his jacket. He smells like petrol and wind and something warm you have not earned for weeks. His knuckle grazes your wrist. You do not pull away.
“Get in,” he says, and it is not a question. “Warm up run.”
It is an old trick. Keep you beside him to keep you, period. You should tell him to piss off. You are already rounding the bonnet.
Inside, everything is Riki. The seat set for him, the sticker you teased him about still peeling at the corner, the new scuff on the gear knob from a night you were not invited to. He starts the engine and the car shudders, a feral cat waking up.
He drives like he kisses, like he can take the city’s throat in his hand and make it purr. The docks drop away. Concrete, then light, then tunnel. Your palm slides against the leather and finds the harness strap, something to hold that is not him. The bass from the city spills into the cabin. He watches the road like it owes him money.
“Who were you with earlier,” he asks eventually, easy, like he is discussing the weather. “At Shibuya. The guy in the white shirt.”
“Don’t take me for an idiot.”
The speed nudges up. The tunnel becomes a ribbon, curved and endless. Your throat is dry.
“He is a bartender,” you say. “He wrote his number on a napkin with a smiley face. I did not call.”
Riki’s hand flexes on the wheel. The car stays smooth. “Throw it out.”
“It is already gone,” you say, soft, like you are offering him a secret. It is the truth. You left it under your drink like a napkin should be used.
He exhales once, a sound you have taught yourself to recognise as relief. You do not smile because that is how the trap shuts.
“Why do you care,” you ask, and you make it light. “We are nothing.”
He gives a small laugh that is not a laugh at all. “Sweetheart,” he says, and the word goes straight through you. “We are the only thing worth losing sleep over.”
You look out at Tokyo streaking past. The windows fog a little with your breath. The city is a pulse and you are a vein inside it.
“This is the warm up,” he says. “Two heats in twenty. Stay in the car.”
“I am not your decoration.”
“You are my calm,” he says, and for a second, you believe him. “You sit pretty and the gears fall where they need to. You leave and I start breaking things.”
The truth, ugly and exact. You swallow around it.
Back at the line the air lifts with the smell of rubber. The MC throws a hand up, the crowd tightens. Calls on the radio chatter by. Your door opens and cold slips in. Riki leans across you to fix your harness, fingers brushing your collarbone like an accident. He looks at the strap like it is an enemy he is willing to tolerate because it keeps you here.
“What happened,” you ask, too quiet. “To using your words.”
He smiles without humour. “Words are for the boys who lose.”
You hate how it turns you molten. You hate how you answer. “Win, then.”
“I will,” he says, and you can hear it. The promise. The threat.
He runs the first heat like he wrote it. Slick corners, perfect downshifts, the tail of the other car never close enough to deserve the view. He wins and he does not grin like the others do. He only looks for you.
Between heats you slide out because you are not good at doing what you are told. You need air. You need space. You get bumped by a shoulder too hard to be an accident. A rival pilot, grin sharp, eyes mean.
“Pretty talisman,” he says, making sure Riki can hear over the music. “Does she help with the clutch or just keep the seat warm.”
You are not thinking. You are already answering. “She helps him find the finish line.”
It lands. The guy laughs, ugly. He reaches as if to push hair off your shoulder. You do not let strangers touch you. You step back, chin up.
Riki is there in a heartbeat.
He does not shout. He does not have to. He only puts his hand on the guy’s wrist and squeezes, not hard enough to break anything, hard enough to make a point. “Hands down,” he says.
“Keep her on a leash if you do not want her sniffed,” the guy says, cocky, brave or stupid, which is the same thing around here.
Riki’s knuckles go white. You put a hand on his chest and feel it, the engine under his skin. You think of the police scanner, the way a night can turn sideways. You say his name once and he backs off, not because he is scared, because you asked.
The rival’s grin frays. He shrugs and walks away. Riki’s jaw works like he is chewing whatever part of himself does not know how to do better.
“You love making it hard,” he says, but he is looking at the space the guy occupied like it offended him.
“You love pretending I am furniture.”
He drags a hand through his hair. The gold chain kisses his collarbone. “You love me jealous.”
It is a low blow because it is partly true. You tip your chin up, stubborn. “I love you honest.”
He goes still. The night holds its breath. The MC shouts the two minute call. Someone’s tyres scream. Riki looks at you like a cliff looks at the sea, asking to be swallowed.
“Get in the car,” he says, softer. “Please.”
Second heat is dirtier. Someone tries to box him in and he refuses to be boxed. He plays with them, letting the other car think it has something, then taking it back, greedy. When he crosses the line first again, the cheer is a wave you could drown in if you wanted.
He pulls into the dark between two warehouses and kills the engine. The silence is a new country. Your breath sounds rude in it.
Your mouth is dry. “We are not a necklace,” you say, which is only clever if someone else is listening.
He looks at your throat. “You want one.”
“I want a lot of things,” you say. “Most of them make sense. You rarely do.”
He laughs, short. “You want out.”
You stare at him. “I want food. I want sleep. I want to not feel like my heart is a thing I keep dropping for you to step on.”
He shifts in his seat, turns toward you. The cabin seems to shrink. “You are dramatic.”
He leans in, and your spine presses into the seat like it can keep you. “I am simple,” he says. “I want you where I can find you.”
“Where you can reach for me when you feel like it and forget me when you don’t.”
His hand comes up, hovers by your jaw. You can feel the heat coming off his skin. “I never forget you. Even when I try.”
You should open the door. You should tilt your head away. You do not. His fingers find your chin, tip it. The kiss is not polite, it is not careful. It is a hand at the small of your back, a breath against your cheek, teeth when you push him, sweetness when you soften, a thousand undone apologies traded in the dark. He tastes like adrenaline and the lemon drink he always steals between heats.
You grab his jacket and he makes a sound that lives behind your navel. His palm slides up under your hoodie, not in a way to make you flinch, in a way that tells your frantic heart that someone else is here to carry it. He is not gentle and you do not ask him to be. You tilt, let him take, take back. Your knee knocks the gear knob and he laughs against your mouth like he owns you, which is a joke until it is not.
“Tell me yes,” he says, words blurring against your lip. “Tell me now.”
“You think you can win me like a pot of cash.”
“You are not a pot of cash,” he says. “Money is easy.”
He mouths your jaw, the corner of your throat. You clamp a hand in his hair and tug, not out of cruelty, out of the need to be the one to set some terms. He looks up, pupils dark. The chain at his collarbone glints.
“I hate you,” you say, breathless and trembling. “I hate what you turn me into.”
He nods like that is his favourite prayer. “Good. Hate me closer.”
It is very close now. Everything that hurts about him standing right here, asking. You are shaking with wanting to say yes and never seeing daylight again.
He stills. He is watching your face like it is a pit lane light about to flip green. “Say it,” he whispers, not a command, a plea.
“Yes,” you say, because your mouth loves betraying you, and because you have never been brave enough to lie to yourself in this car.
He moves like the night just signed a contract. The kiss turns hungrier. Your seatbelt bites as you arch, and he palms it away, thumb dragging the strap like he wants it out of his way forever. Your fingers push his jacket off his shoulders and his breath stutters, your name in it, the syllable shattered and bright.
He drags you onto his lap and the horn threatens social disaster. He slaps a palm against the wheel to shut it up and then laughs into your mouth, low and ruined. It hits you in the spine. You press your forehead to his and the world narrows to the fogged windows and the tick of cooling metal and the shape of him under your hands. His thumb strokes once at your throat, a possessive slide that makes your pulse jump under it. He feels it. Of course he does.
“Mine,” he says, and you should hit him. You should climb off. You roll your hips instead, chasing the friction that turns your bones to light. He swears, soft and reverent, like he is praying to the wrong altar and knows it.
“Say I am yours too,” you whisper, hating yourself, meaning it anyway.
He nips your lower lip. “I have been since the minute you told me I was not special,” he says. “You are a liar and I like it when you lie to everyone but me.”
You hope he does not feel the way that breaks you. You hope he does.
Your phone buzzes. The world sneaks back. You do not look. Riki does, and whatever he sees across your face makes his jaw set. He reaches for your hoodie hem and smooths it down, eyes tracking the fabric like he wants to memorise the exact place his hands were.
“Come home with me,” he says, quieter. “All night.”
It is the old song. You could sing it asleep. You breathe like you can find oxygen in the cramped air. “You do not have a home,” you say, and it is not cruel. It is the most honest thing in the car.
He goes still in a way that should scare you more than a shout. His fingers press once at your hip, a bracket. “I have a home wherever you are.”
“Nothing about me is,” he says. His smile is small, rueful and defiant at once. “Do not pretend you did not read the warning label.”
You slide back into the passenger seat, heart slamming. He starts the engine and the Nissan purrs like a satisfied sin. He drives without touching you, which is worse. The city shows its throat. You think about him saying home and feel something ugly and sweet gnaw at you, a stray that has found your doorstep again.
He pulls into a 24-hour konbini lot. The fluorescent light flattens everything. He gets out. He does not look back, a dare. He comes back with canned coffee for you, a green tea for him, and a packet of melon pan because you like sweet things when you have been crying, even when you pretend you have not.
You take the coffee. The heat stings your palms. “You are not forgiven.”
“Good,” he says, and breaks the bread in half, handing you the bigger piece like he is not calculating how much that looks like surrender. “I do not drive right when I am forgiven.”
You snort, unwilling amused. He looks at your mouth like it holds the map of the next few hours.
“Do you hear me,” he asks suddenly, quiet, the song you sent him earlier rattling a fresh nerve. “Do you have to leave my side.”
“Yes,” you say, because it is the healthy thing. Because you like the taste of saying it out loud. “I should.”
He nods like he deserves the hit. “And are you going to.”
You take a bite of bread you cannot taste. You take a breath your lungs refuse. You look at him and think of the way your body stops feeling like a misfiring engine when he is close. You think of the warning label, and of how you never read the terms and conditions, you just hit accept.
He does not smile. He exhales like he has been underwater. “Good girl.”
You hate the way that bolts through you. You take another bite to cover it. The stereo picks up a song with a chorus that might as well be the night bleeding through the speakers. All night long, all night long, all night long. Tokyo sighs beyond the glass.
He does. The roads are loose ribbons again. You slide your hand over the console. He threads his fingers through yours and squeezes like an apology, like ownership, like he cannot tell the difference. The air in the cabin turns warm and hush and your eyelids get heavy. When he drops one hand to the shifter your palm remains where it is, pressed flat to his thigh, testing a boundary he will never ask you to retreat from.
In the mirror you watch the city cast itself backwards. Headlights bead and vanish. The tunnel mouth opens like a throat. Riki drops a gear and the sound hits deep, bone-deep, where shame and need shake hands and make their pact.
“Stay,” he says, and the word is quiet and violent. “Stay until the sky gives up.”
You do not promise. You press your thumb into the seam of his jeans and feel him twitch. He swears, affectionate and ruined.
He takes you back to the docks because the universe has a sense of humour. The second race crowd has thinned. The boy who laughed at you is gone. The concrete shines with recent drizzle. It looks like the beginning again, which is the point.
He parks in the same spot he arrived in, angles the bonnet the same way, kills the engine. The quiet rushes back like surf. You stare at the same row of container stacks, the same flicker in the same broken floodlight. It would be funny if it did not feel like gravity.
“You can still leave,” he says, and he means it, and you want to scream because now, now he chooses the noble thing. “I will not follow.”
He lifts a shoulder. “I will not this time.”
You look at the door handle. You look at the way your hand stays in his. His pulse under your thumb is a drum you know too well. If you open the door, someone’s radio will hiss, someone will whistle, the night will swallow you and spit you out somewhere cleaner. If you stay, you will blame him in the morning and yourself at lunch and text him at dusk and show up at midnight and pretend you did not know this is how it would go.
He says your name, not sweet, not cruel, just your name, like the only full sentence he trusts himself to speak.
“We are not meant to be,” you say, and it sounds like a quote from a book you never finished.
“But I still want you,” you say, and it is the realest thing you have ever admitted in this car.
He shuts his eyes like he has been hit. When he opens them they are a storm you asked for. “Then stay.”
The city holds. Your phone buzzes again, insistent. You let it, then click the sound off. You shift in the seat to face him, your knee almost brushing his. The space between you is a thin thread ready to snap.
“Start it again,” you say, voice a rasp. “Take me for another lap.”
He breathes out a laugh that is almost pain. “All night long,” he says, a promise he should not keep.
“All night,” you repeat, and when he leans over to kiss you again, you let him, you pull him closer, you make it impossible to forget, because forgetting is not why you came. The engine turns over. The dock lights blur. Your hand finds the harness, then his shirt, then the edge of his grin as he mouths please into your cheek like he is not the one setting every term.
The tyres kiss wet asphalt. The car moves. You do not know where you are going aside from back to the beginning.
It is the same bench of light by the warehouse, the same music leaking from someone’s boot, the same cold nip at the edges of the warm air in the cabin. Riki drives a slow circle that becomes a second, and you do not say stop, and he does not ask you to.
You feel the night fold back over itself like a sheet. In the corner of the windscreen a reflection repeats, a ghost of you in his passenger seat again, again, again. You do not break it. He does not try.
The city says yes. The car says yes. You close your eyes, open your mouth, let it ruin you in the shape you already know.
You began here. You end here. The end is only the beginning set to loop.
maybe in an alternate universe street racer Riki exists - if you se me with him, I'm exactly where I want to be lollll
