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Vill-V was a peculiar one.
Because of the MANTIS surgery's side effects, her mind fractured into multiple personas. She could, in theory, split herself infinitely. But if she ever tried, her brain simply wouldn't survive the overload. And so, she kept herself at a modest eight personalities.
Among them prowled Kevin Killer MK 5, a persona singularly obsessed with a deadly fixation: crafting an arsenal of Kevin-killers, each designed to end the indomitable leader of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers. Regrettably, her relentless ingenuity met with failure time and again. The white-haired regarded her creations with a rare flicker of amusement, treating her lethal inventions as mere sparring tools to hone his own prowess.
Once, Vill-V had even gone so far as to invite him into her lab to test her latest batch of Kevin-killers. Predictably, it hadn't taken him more than a minute to emerge, unscathed and infuriatingly composed.
From behind, the Fifth of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers called out.
"...Is it over?"
“Yes.”
"Tsk. Another violent disassembly, huh? I'll have to check how many of those parts you gave me are still salvageable."
In truth, the relationship between Vill-V and Kevin was an odd one. One poured her genius into crafting lethal devices meant to kill him. The other allowed her to try as she pleased, indifferent to the outcome. They exploited each other. One to hone her engineering, the other to refine his combat.
That was why Kevin found the Kevin-killers… amusing.
Even Kevin Killer MK 104.
“Testing? That is not an excuse for you to randomly manhandle me, Kevin!”
Even as Kalpas roared in outrage, Kevin pressed him into the mattress with one hand mercilessly clamped around his throat. His glacial gaze flickered over the restraints, the strange suppressive gear that the gray-haired brute always wore like a second skin.
Since the day they'd become… official, the Sixth had every reason to believe that the First was seriously and secretly unhinged. For some reason, they actually matched each other’s freak.
How the hell they'd ended up as a pair was a long, long story.
After all, Kevin was among the scant few capable of ending Kalpas’ life. If the opportunity ever arose, would he meet his end at the hands of this infuriating bastard? A possibility. One that, perversely, carried its own allure.
After the white-haired discovered he could touch his partner without hurting him, he wanted the fiery man in his bed at least three times a week.
Imagine a man forged by the MANTIS surgery, his frigid body temperature a barrier to intimacy, now discovering the perfect piece to complete his entire existence. That hulking white wolf of a man seemed to sprout wings, perpetually tethered to his fiery counterpart.
To Kalpas, children and cats were exceptions to his guarded heart. Dogs, however, were not. To others, Kevin might not look like one. But to him? Absolutely.
The strange thing was, the First’s face rarely shifted. His emotions were buried so deep they were almost invisible. And yet, Kalpas had long since learned to read them, the signs were always there if one paid attention.
Kalpas himself carried a notorious history. He'd once been thrown into the Deep End because of his extreme danger and unpredictability to MOTHs. Even then, it was Elysia who dragged him out, on the condition that Aponia bind him with a Discipline: he was never again to harm the innocent. On top of that, the organization sought further control, commissioning Vill-V to craft a specialized restraint.
Indeed, those leather straps adorning Kalpas’ body were no mere accessories. They were deceptively simple, like belts. They were the Kevin Killer MK 104, a creation of the fifth-ranked Flame-Chaser, designed with lethal intent.
"So this thing was originally meant to kill me, wasn't it?"
The white-haired man's expression didn't change in the slightest. His hand drifted to the sensitive expanse of Kalpas’ inner thigh, two fingers slipping beneath the taut leather strap that hugged his lover’s skin. The chill of his touch was swallowed by the searing warmth of Kalpas’ flesh. Kevin couldn’t help but wonder if these restraints didn’t suffocate him, binding him so tightly.
The leather straps encircled Kalpas’ thighs in relentless loops, snaking behind to accentuate the firm curve of his backside. If the Hero of Humanity were to judge, (he had memorized every inch of Kalpas’ measurements, don’t ask) the man’s physique was nothing short of extraordinary. Those black pants he favored already clung to him like a second skin, and the straps only exacerbated the effect, drawing the eye with sinful precision. Honestly, what had Vill-V been thinking when she designed this?
In truth, he owed her a debt of gratitude.
Kalpas lay bare-faced, his mask discarded. His ash-gray hair spilled in a disheveled cascade across the white pillow. His expression burned with irritation, yet the faint blush dusting his cheeks betrayed another truth entirely. He turned his head to the side, avoiding Kevin's gaze, muttering under his breath.
"...You want it again, don't you? Fine. Just get it over with, then let me sleep."
But MANTISes technically didn't need sleep though.
He heard every word, his lips curling into the faintest of smirks. With a subtle nod, he resembled a loyal hound rewarded by its master, eager to please.
Kevin watched the gray-haired man in silence, a quiet reverence stirring within him. This unguarded visage of Kalpas, raw and unmasked, was a privilege reserved solely for him. The other’s shirt clung far too tightly to his body, the torn collar doing little to conceal the rise and swell of his chest. And strapped across it, part of the Kevin Killer MK 104, the harness bound his torso snugly, anchored by an energy hub that rested like a ring against his abdomen.
The restraints snaked across his body, a network of control that, to his eyes, was nothing short of electrifying. A flicker of covert desire smoldered in the depths of his gaze. Perhaps this Kevin Killer MK 104 could indeed kill him…not in the way Vill-V intended, but in a far more intoxicating manner.
Vill-V would be delighted, no doubt.
With a deliberate motion, Kevin tugged at the taut thigh strap, letting it snap back against Kalpas’ skin with a satisfying sound. The gray-haired’s sharp intake of breath betrayed his surprise. He immediately grabbed the nearest pillow, pressing it over his face to hide. He’d always had trouble expressing emotion, which was why he wore a mask so often. Yet lately, under Kevin’s persistence, Kalpas had been forced to show his face more often than not.
Strong, muscled arms clutched the pillow tight, his nails digging into the soft stuffing. The white-haired exhaled heavily, gaze locked on the sight. His lover was hiding from him again. Wasn’t it only in their monthly sparring matches that Kalpas never tried to retreat?
Kevin’s hands roamed, tracing the contours of Kalpas’ hips, his icy touch surely sending shivers through the other man’s heated skin. He knew, deep down, that his lover secretly craved the chill of his touch against his own fiery warmth. The gray-haired man seemed to find a peculiar comfort in sharing a bed with him, as if the leader of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers, were little more than a living air conditioner fueled by instant noodles for someone whose body burned hotter than most.
“Kalpas… are you shy again?”
“Shut up.”
“...”
Getting Kalpas to lie obediently in bed like this had been its own ordeal. The first time they made love, they’d demolished the bedroom entirely in the chaos of their struggle. The second time was the same. The third, no different. The MOTHs’ damage-control division was probably exhausted by now.
With each encounter, Kevin had grown more patient, yet simultaneously more commanding, more brazen. Where once he’d been reserved, his audacity now knew no bounds.
The results, however, were undeniably rewarding.
“You—!”
The white-haired man abruptly flipped Kalpas over, forcing his face down into the pillow he had been clutching. His broad back, wrapped in that tight, dark-gray shirt, was now fully exposed before him. Kevin, without a word, yanked his partner’s hips back. The sudden pull made those firm, round curves slam right against the hardened length straining beneath his own pants. Their bodies ground together, separated only by two thin layers of fabric.
This time, Kalpas didn’t utter a sound. Kevin could tell he was biting back his words, stubborn as ever.
The restraints strained under the motion. Odd as it was, Kevin also knew the gray-haired man never wore underwear. Which explained why his outer pants always looked stretched to their limit.
“Can’t you hurry the hell up?!”
His insufferable white-haired lover always lingered on these maddening preludes. But instead of a reply, Kevin answered with a cold, deliberate kiss pressed to the nape of Kalpas’ neck, his demeanor infuriatingly leisurely. He pinned Kalpas’ back, forcing it to arch into a graceful curve under his weight.
Kalpas swore that when he first met the top-ranked Flame-Chaser, Kevin hadn’t been someone worth noticing. He thought so. Having snapped the neck of the Fifth Herrscher and wounded a Cocoon member like Sakura, he had joined the MOTHs after Project MANTIS began. Back then, the white-haired was merely a notable figure, clad in the standard black military uniform of the organization, his demeanor tinged with a subtle tension he tried to conceal.
Little by little, he began to hear of that man’s feats. The one who had played a decisive role in bringing down the Sixth and Seventh Herrschers, delivering glory to all of humanity. Rumor had it that he hadn’t always been this way. Once, perhaps, he carried himself differently. But after certain events, ones best left unspoken, he grew gruff, silent, and unpredictable.
And so much stronger, frighteningly so.
Even an outsider like Kalpas, someone not wholly human himself, couldn’t comprehend the sheer pace of Kevin’s growth, the bottomless potential clawing outward with every battle. He was drawn to that strength, irresistibly so. They sparred, again and again.
Until, eventually, they dragged each other from the simulation room… all the way into their bed.
The white-haired stripped his partner’s pants away in a single, effortless motion, exposing bare skin to the biting chill of the air. Kalpas’ brow furrowed, his arousal already evident, straining against the cold. His face remained buried in the pillow, oblivious to Kevin’s intentions behind him.
He could feel the calloused hands of the swordsman behind him, rough from wielding a greatsword, reverently tracing every inch of his skin with a worshipful touch. Just as he was about to tell the bastard to cut it out, another sensation seized his attention. Something tight, unyielding, digging into his thighs dangerously close to his groin. The surface scraped raw, harsh, and maddeningly familiar.
Kalpas’ eyes widened. He craned his head back just enough to catch sight of the unthinkable.
“Kevin, what the fuck.”
“...”
After tearing away his pants, Kevin had left the restraints in place. Kalpas wore twin thigh straps, each looped around four times, the final band climbing over the curve of his ass to connect with the ring-shaped energy hub at his abdomen. The Kevin Killer MK 104 might have looked ordinary if he were clothed. But now, with nothing covering him, those leather straps dug cruelly into his flesh, cinching tight until the swell of his thighs and the round fullness of his rear spilled against them.
Kevin pressed a gloved hand to his mouth, stifling a sound.
Vill-V, he thought darkly, this Kevin-killer really might just kill him.
He knew Kalpas’ pride was a towering force. It wasn’t merely ego. Kalpas’ understanding of human emotion was shallow, primal. He was accustomed to watching others writhe beneath him, his world defined by combat or death, with victory always his. To bare himself so vulnerably to another man, in such a humiliating position, would wound that pride deeply.
Kevin could read him like an open book. He could predict the rush of blood that would flood the green-eyed man’s face, the way he’d squirm to flip over and reclaim control. Yet he also knew Kalpas would only manage a wounded, animalistic growl as his hips were gripped tightly, pinned down until bruises bloomed beneath his hands.
He leaned down, pressing another kiss to the nape of Kalpas’ neck, then another, marking the flushed skin with a vivid crimson bloom. In the same moment, he tugged his own pants down, freeing the aching hardness that strained against its confines.
He whisper brushed against the gray-haired’s ear, his breath a chilling contrast to the heat between them. “Don’t worry. You’re beautiful like this.”
“Shut your mouth.” Kalpas snapped, his voice thick with defiance.
“I mean it.”
“…Stop.”
Truth be told, Kalpas couldn’t bring himself to believe the word ‘beautiful' in Kevin's honeyed murmur. He didn’t deserve such a sentiment, not him.
There was no need for the white-haired to ease his lover into it. Their lovemaking was too fervent, too consuming for Kalpas’ body to ever tighten again so soon. Both the him and Kevin possessed stamina that bordered on inhuman. They could spend their days on grueling missions and still have the vigor to tangle in bed by nightfall.
In a haze of desire, the tip of Kevin’s arousal grazed the warm, inviting heat of Kalpas’ entrance. With a deft hand, he brushed aside the leather straps clinging to the other’s backside before plunging in fully, without a moment of hesitation.
“Hng—”
Kalpas’ shoulders trembled once, then stilled. A low, muffled groan reverberated in his throat, stifled by the pillow he clutched so fiercely. His muscles tensed under Kevin’s searing gaze, the sculpted lines of his shoulders standing out in stark relief.
Beautiful. Utterly breathtaking.
The white-haired yanked him backward, pounding into that tight heat with ruthless precision. Even the bedframe quivered beneath the sheer force of it. Kevin knew better than to hold back, anything less than merciless would never satisfy his partner. They were MANTISes, after all, their endurance far surpassing that of mere mortals.
His hair clung to his forehead, damp and disheveled. The unnatural warmth of Kalpas’ body, hotter than any human’s, offered a fleeting balm to his own subzero chill, a cold that hovered below minus thirty degrees.
And then, Kevin spoke, voice low but unwavering.
“I love you.”
“I told you to shut your fucking mouth—Ah—!”
Those words sent a shiver through the Sixth. Love? What did that even mean?
The moment Kevin brazenly voiced his affection or dared to praise him, Kalpas’ body reacted, tightening around him as if those words struck a nerve. Kevin’s gloved hand clamped down on his jaw, forcing his head back, forcing him to meet him. Their mouths crashed together in a rough kiss, swallowing every curse and every breath.
Kalpas’ lips were cracked, dry as always. It didn’t matter. He knew one kiss would be enough.
Their tongues tangled, fighting for dominance as fiercely as their bodies. The gray-haired’s eyes slipped shut, as though he could concentrate better if he treated even this as a battle. Little did he know…
The azure eyes took in the debauched sight before him. Then, with a wicked twist, he thrust deep into Kalpas’ vulnerable entrance, striking directly against the swollen prostate. The sudden jolt sent Kalpas convulsing, his emerald eyes flying wide as the unexpected surge overwhelmed him. Kevin’s icy tongue claimed his mouth in a searing kiss, pushing him to the brink of oblivion. The gray-haired vaguely recalled sinking his teeth into the other’s tongue, a desperate act drowned in the tide of pleasure. The brutal ecstasy of being fucked within an inch of himself tore a sound from his throat, raw and shameless like a cornered beast mewling where it was most vulnerable.
Pain. Only pain could ever remind him he was still alive.
“Here?”
The white-haired murmured idly as he pulled back from the kiss. Kalpas didn’t need to know that. Thanks for nothing.
Kevin showed no signs of faltering. One hand deftly tended to Kalpas’ throbbing arousal while he angled his thrusts to relentlessly target that sweet spot. Each thrust plunged deep and precise, leaving the organization’s rabid hound reduced to throaty whimpers. He bit down hard on his lip, but it couldn’t stifle the lascivious moans spilling forth. Kevin's pace was too fierce, too profound, leaving no room for adjustment. The leather straps of the Kevin Killer MK 104 only heightened the torment, chafing against his inner thighs and backside, leaving angry red marks in their wake.
With one final, brutal thrust, Kevin spilled deep inside just as Kalpas’ own climax ripped through him. For a moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breaths. His abdomen ached, distended slightly, his feverish body trembling between heat and chill. Sticky warmth leaked out of him, seeping down the backs of his thighs.
He felt the white-haired finally withdraw, leaving his tender flesh aching in protest.
Then, the bastard’s demeanor shifted. Erratic, almost infuriatingly gentle. With a tenderness that bordered on loathsome, Kevin carefully turned Kalpas over, handling him as if he were something fragile, precious.
Not this again.
Kalpas despised it when he acted like this.
Soft. Affectionate. As if he truly cherished him.
The white-haired leaned down, pressing slow, indulgent kisses across his face, each one laced with a reverence that set the gray-haired man’s nerves ablaze with irritation. This was unnecessary. Totally pointless. If Kevin wanted to tease him, he should’ve done it before they’d lost themselves in passion.
“Stop it.” He rasped, trying to shove the other away, only to realize his strength was still spent from the ordeal.
Kevin only pressed a kiss to his ear, his breath low, voice soft as snow.
“I love you.”
A storm was raging within him. To him, pain wasn’t merely the proof that he still lived, it was the very shape of the love he had once known as a child. He had fallen from the sky, turned into the so-called God of a superstitious village.
Except the villagers had never treated their God with kindness.
Pain had been his only constant companion since childhood.
But making love with this human was… strange. It hurt, yes, but it also brought pleasure. He drank from both sensations, yet he could never get used to those moments when the hero would suddenly slow down, abandoning violence for something almost tender.
Kevin was unpredictable and Kalpas despised change.
The man hailed as humanity’s strongest pressed a kiss to Kalpas’ collarbone, his icy touch trailing upward to linger at the pulse point of his neck before drawing it into a fervent, sucking kiss. His mind flickered to the past, to how they’d sliced his throat to harvest his blood for Honkai-suppressing elixirs. Faint scars still lingered there, and Kevin, with a gentleness that bordered on absolution, kissed each one as if to soothe old wounds. His kisses burned, a paradox against the frigid chill of his body.
Kalpas turned his face away.
“Enough.”
He could never grasp what that man meant by love. Wasn’t love supposed to always walk hand in hand with pain? Yet for this white-haired bastard, love meant something unbearably gentle.
Devoid of agony.
Kevin’s lips descended, branding another crimson mark across Kalpas’ chest. He lingered there, his mouth drifting to the valley between, savoring each moment with deliberate slowness. His other hand wandered, tracing a languid path down to Kalpas’ ankle, fingers teasing the curled toes that betrayed his tension.
Strange, wasn’t it? Kalpas was never shy during their passionate entanglements. He simply loathed the vulnerability of his moans being heard. But when Kevin indulged him like this, showering him with tender attention like this, his skin betrayed him, flushing crimson across his neck and shoulders.
Kalpas bit down hard on his lower lip as Kevin’s kisses trailed lower, grazing the taut plane of his abdomen. A shiver coursed through him. His thighs instinctively twitched, threatening to snap shut, only to clamp tightly around the white-haired’s neck.
Being ensnared by his lover’s thighs? That was a sensation the Hero of Humanity found far from unpleasant.
“…I don’t understand you.”
Those captivating emerald eyes gazed down at Kevin, sharp and searching. The ashen fringe that typically veiled one of Kalpas’ eyes had shifted during their fervent exertions, now revealing both piercing pupils in full.
“There’s no need to understand.”
Kevin’s reply was simple, steady. With unshakable calm, he caught Kalpas’ ankle in one hand and pressed another kiss to the arch of his foot. The toes curled in response, shy, almost endearing. The white-haired’s lips curved faintly.
“There are many ways to love. I only choose to love you.”
…Many ways.
Since when?
A low, near-deranged chuckle lodged in his throat at the absurdity of it all. The cold, decisive man before him suddenly wielding words as light as air. Kevin straightened, his broad, sweatless frame looming above, every muscle cut sharp in the dim glow.
Kalpas decided he no longer cared to think. If this was Kevin’s way of loving, then perhaps he wanted to feel it. Perhaps this man truly wasn’t like the others. Perhaps love didn’t always have to be synonymous with pain.
“You damn dog.” Kalpas sneered, a provocative edge to his smirk. His fingers slid beneath the leather strap cinched tightly around his thigh, four punishing loops that left his skin flushed and tender. With a defiant tug, he pulled the strap aside, his gesture brimming with challenge.
“Round two. Or are you already spent?”
It was a reckless, self-destructive taunt.
Kevin’s face reverted to its signature impassivity, though a subtle furrow creased his brow as he regarded the man beneath him. Typical Kalpas, one round could never sate him.
But the sight before him was nothing short of electrifying.
With a fluid motion, he hooked his lover’s legs over his shoulders, cock already straining hard from the taunt he’d just endured. Their desires burned fiercely, their endless stamina a given in their MANTIS nature.
A fleeting thought crossed Kevin’s mind. Should he tell Vill-V that her Kevin Killer MK 104 had utterly vanquished the Hero of Humanity? She’d likely craft more of these devious contraptions in the future.
But now wasn’t the time for such musings.
“Ah—!”
In one swift motion, Kevin seized both of Kalpas’ wrists with a single hand, yanking them toward him as he thrust deep into the still-unyielding heat of the gray-haired man’s entrance.
Kevin swept his sweat-dampened white hair back, his breathing steady as he sank into a state of utter focus. In this moment, nothing existed beyond—
“Hah— Harder. What, are you afraid?”
Kalpas swore the cock drilling into him was swelling inside, stretching him even more.
And Kevin obliged, driving in with brutal precision, striking his prostate dead-on. The man who had just taunted him threw his head back, chest heaving, every breath ragged and broken, lips parted but unable to form a sound. Unable to resist, Kevin leaned down, capturing a pert, rosy nipple between his teeth, his hips driving relentlessly below as if intent on unraveling the man beneath him. Kalpas writhed, eyes squeezed shut, a softer, more vulnerable moan escaping him than usual.
“Kalpas.” Kevin rasped, his thrusts unrelenting as he marveled at the vision before him.
“What—urgh—what?” Kalpas managed, his voice breaking under the onslaught.
His hand drifted to the slight swell of the gray-haired’s abdomen, pressing gently as if to say, ‘Do you feel me? I’m this deep inside you’. Then, with merciless rhythm, he drove into him again, denying him even a moment to catch his breath. Kalpas’ traitorous body responded instinctively, arching back to meet each thrust.
He wanted to punch the other so bad, but every ounce of pain had long since transmuted into exquisite pleasure.
Just as Kevin leaned in for another kiss, Kalpas clapped both hands over his mouth, turning his head aside. His ears blazed crimson.
“Finish… first.” He muttered.
The white-haired pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand, his voice a low, reverent murmur.
“Understood.”
-
In the end, they tangled through the night, a whirlwind of fervor. And though last night’s passion had bordered on madness, both MANTIS still rose early, as if nothing had happened. True beasts, through and through.
Taking advantage of a moment when no one was paying attention, Kevin deliberately wrapped his arms around his lover from behind. Kalpas had half a mind to shove him off with an elbow, but he reconsidered, letting the impulse fade. When left unprovoked, he could be surprisingly composed, even warning others before his volatile temper flared. One might call him a selectively unhinged madman.
“Kevin, what now?”
The white-haired man closed his eyes, resting his chin on his shoulder. Clad only in a fitted white turtleneck, his usual long black coat draped over his arm, Kevin’s cool body temperature felt soothing against his warmth.
“You promised me a kiss.”
“Since when?”
“Last night.”
“But it’s not exactly time for sex right now.”
His grip tightened around Kalpas’ waist. The man really was too blunt for his own good. Thankfully, the place was nearly empty.
“Who said a kiss requires one?”
“…”
The masked man said nothing. The white-haired only lingered in thought for a breath before pulling his heavy coat up to shroud the both of them. In the dim space beneath it, he slid Kalpas’ mask up just enough and claimed his lips in a secret kiss. Kevin was the only one this madman had ever allowed to see his face and he intended to keep it that way.
Kalpas still refused to say a word, clearly unused to this sort of intimacy.
Kevin wasn’t any better, truth be told. But his partner was even more impossible to read than he was, so he often ended up being the one to take the first step.
At last, the gray-haired man hooked his thumb under his mask, wiping across his lips with a dismissive huff.
“Troublesome.”
Kevin only shook his head, a faint smile ghosting over his features, mood oddly lighter.
His lover hadn’t pushed him away. That was enough.
By the end of the day, Kalpas still avoided his gaze, the emotions simmering inside him clearly too heavy to untangle yet. That was fine. They would take it one step at a time.
Pain, after all, did come hand in hand with love.
Though, it was never the greater share.