Chapter Text
Yumeno Gentaro looks down at his hands, fair and flushed pink at the knuckles, the thin white lines of even fingernails; then through his hands to the table below. He flips them, palms to the sun, but still his fingers remain half-transparent. The surface of the table buzzes with a soundless visual static. Beneath hands half-visible the table forms scenes of its own in speckled granite.
“Are you listening?” Ramuda demands.
“Of course.” Gentaro is calm, putting his hands beneath the table so he can’t see if they fade further. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.
Ramuda’s fingers splay out over his cup, drink as frighteningly pink as his hair. When he rolls his eyes his lashes flutter, a move Gentaro strongly suspects he practiced. He suspects also that Ramuda would prefer a different drink, the strawberry tea being insubstantial and non caffeinated, but they have an unspoken mutual agreement to ignore the other’s barriers.
Perhaps he’s a little flattered that Ramuda’s still trying to impress him, as if he cares in the slightest what Ramuda drinks.
“Right. I’m not paying a space cadet, you can think about poetry on your own time.”
Gentaro’s eyebrows raise. “I’m being paid?”
Ramuda cracks a smile. “Fair point. Focus though, would you?”
There’s no point to listening until Dice gets here but Gentaro doesn’t say that. Placating Ramuda is easy and he fixes his gaze on Ramuda’s fingernails, glossy against the red of his straw. He listens to Ramuda gush over some detail of his work and complain about a lotion he loved no longer being stocked and he desperately wishes Dice would come, if only to take the pressure off Gentaro to respond. He nods and he’s quiet, and beneath the table his hands are blurry and indistinct.
“Sorry I’m late.” Dice pants, one hand to the table. “You would not believe the mess I had to deal with to get here.”
Ramuda frowns. “No, I probably wouldn’t. You’re here now though, so sit down.”
“You guys already ordered! Shit.” Dice grins, easy going. “Ramuda, don’t you still owe me a drink?”
Ramuda sighs. “Fine. What do you want?”
Dice shrugs, draping his coat over the empty chair. “Something big.”
“Okay.” Ramuda sighs and recomposes himself. “If you drink out of my cup, I’ll be upset, so don’t do that--okay! I’ll be back in a moment! Gentaro, don’t let him.”
Dice’s gaze follows Ramuda’s back until he’s around the corner, then he deliberately takes a sip from Ramuda’s tea. Gentaro impassively watches him, saying nothing.
“You won’t rat me out?” Dice asks, setting the cup down. An easy grin stays on his features.
“No, I promise I don’t care enough,” Gentaro answers.
“You seem tired,” Dice says, leaning precariously on the back of his chair. “Are you feeling okay?”
Gentaro raises a hand to his head, fingertips to his temples. He wonders if his hair fades to nothing, if Dice can see the streets of Shibuya through his head. He wonders if Dice realizes how little of him showed up for their cafe meeting. A third? Half? He’s barely there.
“I’m fine,” he says, the words out before he can consider if they’re truthful or not.
Ramuda turns the corner as Dice leans further forward, his chair tipping. Abruptly Dice moves to catch himself, hand closing over Gentaro’s upper arm. Hard.
Breath catches in Gentaro’s voice to react--to yelp, or gasp, or blow it off with “ow.” Instead what bubbles from his lips is breathy and sharp and faintly vocal. Distinctly like a moan.
He claps a hand to his mouth, coughing. Dice pulls his hand back and his face is red, eyes anywhere but on Gentaro.
“S-sorry,” Dice murmurs. “My bad.”
Ramuda presses the drink into Dice’s hands, sitting back down. “Are you guys good? The atmosphere got all spooky.”
Gentaro collects himself faster than Dice, forcing words through his teeth. “We’re fine, but I’d be better if Dice could manage to walk without tripping over his own feet like a puppy.”
Dice shakes his head. “I’m as graceful as a cat, fucker. You got in my way.”
“I haven’t moved.”
“Enough of this.” Ramuda waves the conversation aside. “Group meeting--we all need to be pulling our weight and doing 110% to win some rap battles. We’ve been slacking! It’s time to turn over a new leaf. TIme to start fresh and redouble our efforts!”
“We’re not gonna do that,” Dice says, grimacing at his drink. “Maybe you’re the only one who’s been slacking.”
Gentaro’s arm hurts. He rubs the surely-forming bruise, throbbing under the skin. He’s not angry, it was an accident. But the pain feels sharp and strong and aches and he can’t bring himself to hate the sensation. It’s warm. It’s comfortably intense.
When he drops his hand, he sees it clearly. Completely opaque.
~
“Where are you staying now?” Gentaro asks, his voice light. Merely curious. Noncommittal.
“I have a new place, actually. I found a guy online who was looking for a roommate--boom. No questions asked. He’s out all day and I’m out all night so it’s going well so far,” Dice says in a flood. “It’s further out from the city though. Not in Shibuya.”
“Ah.”
“He’s got kind of a nasty kitchen and bathroom,” Dice continues, hands in his pockets. Wordlessly they decided to walk to the metro station together, even though Gentaro can reasonably just walk back to his apartment from the cafe.
“Oh.”
Dice pauses. “Why? Were you hoping I was out of luck again? Inviting me over?”
He winks, so Gentaro can’t take offense. He doesn’t like being called out on his motives and he hates when Dice has a lucky guess that turns out to be true.
“No,” he lies easily, slippery and quick through teeth. Too fast to take back, and as soon as it’s spoken he finds himself believing it. “Trust me, I’m not that invested in your living situation. I was curious.”
“It was a joke,” Dice mutters. “No need to get heated.”
“I’m not.”
They’re quiet. There’s a mutual unspoken agreement to not talk about the moan, but it’s a long time before either forget it.
~
Gentaro presses his fingers to the bruise. Purple-stained finger marks, faint in his skin. He bruises easily like watercolor paper, ready to flood with paint. He places his fingers where Dice’s gripped him and he squeezes.
The pain makes the room swim when he squeezes harder. His grip is tighter than Dice’s was. When he lets go he’s breathing through teeth, and the pain swims around him, dull and throbbing in his arm. It hurts.
What was that?
It’s scary not to know himself. It feels unsafe, because anyone could take advantage of him. When Dice hurt him it felt good, startlingly good, unusually good. More important than that, it made him feel present.
Present.
Gentaro’s fingers tap against the mirror, his reflection stripped from the waist up. He taps and he sees through his body, diluted in his apartment, and he knows he’s not fully there. He’s not fully anywhere. Like a ghost, like a Phantom, he’s part nowhere and part nothing, and it permeates him to the core.
He’s caught up in a dream. Sleepwalking through the day. Half-focused on his unfinished novel and the tired drippy lovesick protagonists, half-focused on the prose and the craft and the perfect upcoming sentence. Half-focused on revising, because he can’t leave a project until it’s perfect--except it never is. Half-focused on the scent of paper and unfinished computer documents that haunt him like spirits and take his mind with them, so he’s always somewhere between here and nowhere.
He feels more whole when he’s fully immersed in his work but that’s no way to live 24/7, and the outside world is constantly conspiring to tear him away. He has meals or he’ll starve, breaks or he’ll rot, conversations or he’ll run out of inspiration, bouncing words between himself all day.
He’s well adjusted. Recovered. Everything gets managed and finished and it doesn’t matter if only half of him does it, because it’s done well. Half of him living is still a victory.
When he sits to write, his eyes glaze over documents. He forgets the love interest’s name and catches himself typing half of someone else’s name--never mind who, he’s already forgotten. He can’t quite recall how he wanted to resolve the current scene and something about it feels horribly flat, horribly dull. Disturbing. Uncomfortable in all the wrong ways, he could never be proud of it, and at this rate he’ll never be able to show his family what he writes. It’s all too disturbing for them and he doesn’t want them to worry.
Rise, get a drink, and return.
When a few hours have passed and he’s made next to no progress, he closes the computer. There’s not enough of him to write today and that’s fine, isn’t it? There’s not enough of him present to create anything with heart or feeling or mood and his protagonist feels distant from him. Unrealistic. In the moment he hates the protagonist and hates his work and hates himself most of all.
Gentaro stands up to turn on the lights in the apartment and close the blinds. When his hands grip the blinds there’s barely anything of him and he sees straight through to the other side.
~
The following night he caves and calls Dice.
“Hello?” Dice answers after three full rings. Gentaro is sure the delay was him finding his phone so he doesn’t read into it. It’s not as though Dice has many other friends. It’s not as though he’s busy or that Gentaro isn’t important to him. Dice at least is honest and Gentaro is sure he’d know if Dice secretly hated him.
“Hi,” Gentaro says.
Dice shifts on the line and there’s silence. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Yes, everything is fine.” He’s not sure if it’s a lie or not but it becomes truth once it’s out of his mouth. “Are you busy?”
“Not for you!”
Gentaro’s fingers twirl a piece of hair between them. He’s not sure how to respond to that. “Do you want to get dinner?”
Dice is quiet for a moment. “Sure. I love dinner--you know me so well.”
“Because you’re predictable.”
“I’m not predictable!” Dice huffs into the phone. “You’re predictable. Wanna meet at our usual Shibuya station around 6?”
Gentaro smiles, relieved that Dice understands. He always understands. Gentaro doesn’t have to admit he wants Dice over, he doesn’t have to say he’s lonely, he just offers food. Dice understands him like Gentaro didn’t think he could be understood: not by a 20 year old, not by a self-proclaimed dumbass, not by a gambler.
“Yes. I’ll see you then.”
~
It’s a pattern. Once, an anomaly. Twice, plausible. Three times, a habit. And it’s been far more than three times.
They meet at a station and get dinner usually. Dice gets to pick and Gentaro buys, because they think it’s funny to pretend this is something it’s not--a relationship. Flaunt a nearly-nonexistent age difference and Gentaro gets to be the providing boyfriend for the night.
But half the time, Dice chooses fast food, so it’s not exactly big spending and ends up feeling nothing like a date.
They return to Gentaro’s apartment, up on the auspicious seventh floor and Gentaro always tells him the elevator is under repair. A complex system of lies and codes and barriers to intimacy. Control through deceit. It keeps what happens next from being anything more than an exploitation of convenience.
An easy way to meet needs.
Fucking Dice must be how Gentaro relieves boredom. It’s ridiculous to assume it’s anything more.
He’s barely visible when Dice rambles, faint and insubstantial.
Gentaro unlocks the door to his apartment and makes sure Dice takes off his shoes in the entry. He smells of some masculine soap, not a good smell but Gentaro recognizes the effort and deeply appreciates the thought. Dice cares enough to go out of his way for Gentaro.
“Your place is so creepy in the dark,” Dice says, dropping his coat onto his shoes.
When he steps away, Gentaro picks up his coat to hang it in the closet. He kneels to pick up everything that fell from the pockets--Dice’s cracked phone, his wallet, a knife. A pack of cigarettes that Gentaro takes to throw away later, because Dice is a convenience smoker and won’t replace the pack for a while.
“Creepy?”
“Yeah. I think it’s the doll.” Dice gestures to the large ball jointed doll on top of Gentaro’s bookcase. It’s far from the strangest part of his collections but Dice has to mention it every time. Painstakingly collected and cared for, Gentaro’s collections mean more to him than nearly any relationship.
Gentaro painstakingly hangs up his haori, and Dice passively watches from the bed. He doesn’t want to have to iron everything tomorrow and he’s comforted by routine, by the feeling of fabric against his skin. When he’s stripped to a high-necked shirt and loose pants, he returns to Dice.
“Do you wear--” Dice struggles to find polite words. “Regular clothes? Wait, modern clothes.”
Gentaro stretches his legs, considering the question. “At home, sure. Outside, I try not to. It’s just comfortable.”
It’s more than that, but he can’t find the words to explain and he hopes maybe Dice will understand without him saying. Antiquated clothing--it’s comfortable. It’s more neutral than he could comfortably wear in a modern style, which is nice because most days he feels more like nothing than a man, like a concept of a person that transcends far beyond a body, like a hundred past lives at once. It’s easy to plan outfits and he doesn’t have to worry about trends.
He feels mysterious and he feels distant from everyone else. He feels safe.
“I see.” Dice leans into his arm, navy hair spilling onto his palm. “Well, I like you the way you are. There’s nothing worse than a guy who wants to be everyone else.”
Gentaro’s hand rises hesitantly, half-visible. His fingers weave in Dice’s hair, soft to the touch.
“Thank you.”
“Did I hurt you badly the other day?” Dice asks, his words speeding up. “I’m really sorry. I’m so fucking clumsy sometimes and I don’t think ahead.”
Gentaro waves it aside, unconcerned. “It’s fine.”
“Did it bruise?”
“I can show you,” Gentaro murmurs. He pulls his shirt from his skin, letting it fall among his pillows at the head of the bed.
“Shit.” Dice gingerly touches his arm, the bruise violet today. Watercolor in his skin, transparent in Dice’s hands. “God, I’m sorry I hurt you.”
Gentaro twists his arm, concern the furthest thing from his mind. The fingertips pressed into his skin in purple are as much his doing as Dice’s. Half-nude in his own apartment, in his own bed, honesty comes a little easier to him. His barriers lower.
“Would you do it again?”
Voice light. Noncommittal. If Dice says no it’s fine because Gentaro doesn’t care; nothing Dice says can hurt him because there’s not enough of Gentaro here to be hurt. Words are words. Gentaro’s mean nothing and neither do Dice’s.
“Would I hurt you again?”
Gentaro nods.
“Do you--” Dice frowns. “Get off to it?”
A shrug. No response.
“I don’t mind. I mean, you know I like being roughened up sometimes. Nothing permanent but something to kick off the--whatever those brain chemicals are. It makes sense to me.”
“Endorphins?”
“Yes.” Dice nods. “Maybe you just like the rush. I think that’s normal.”
Dice’s concept of normal sex is unusually broad. Gentaro is comforted anyway.
“Would you do it again? I want to see--how it feels.”
He wants to feel visible. He wants to feel connected to his body again and completely opaque. He wants to see what happens if it’s taken to the extreme because he’s bored and Dice really does relieve him of the crushing weight of his own creativity. He wants to see what will happen if he stays in his body.
Maybe he wants a permanent solution. Maybe he’d rather not disappear.
Dice grimaces. “I’m not sure. I’m not creative, I’d just follow directions or fuck it up. And hurting you seems--rude.”
“Not if I’m asking for it.” Gentaro puts his wrists together, pale and vulnerable. “Not if I’m begging for it.”
Dice considers this. “I’m sure I’ll fuck something up if I take control.”
“Then let that something be me.”
Dice takes his wrists in his hand, lifting Gentaro’s arms above his head. He’s pushed back against the bed, hands against the headboard and trapped in Dice’s grip.
“I’m new to this,” Dice says. “If I take it too far you have to tell me. I’m--afraid to hurt you.”
The hesitation in his eyes could be confused for affection. It could even be confused for love. But Gentaro knows better and he knows how invisible he is--how disposable he is. He knows that when he disappears one day that Dice will move on quickly and he’ll be forgotten. His novels are his only lasting work.
It could be love, but Gentaro knows it’s not, because loving him is a waste of energy. It goes right into the void.
When they kiss, Dice bites into Gentaro’s lower lip. The pain is sharp and sudden, bloodless but metallic all the same. Gentaro’s lip swells and Dice’s tongue brushes over it like an apology Dice won’t speak. Don’t apologize. It’s what he wants.
Tight grip on his wrists. They likely won’t bruise but Gentaro hopes they do. He hopes Dice squeezes harder. The pain in his mouth feels like a kiss too, bitter and trailing off into nothing.
When Dice bites again Gentaro thinks he breaks skin and saliva mixes with trace amounts of blood.
Hot and red and hot again. Metallic blood in his mouth. Blood beads up at his lip and it hurts, a sour sort of stinging across his face and flooding his tongue.
“That’s good,” he murmurs. “Keep going.”
If Dice is hesitant it doesn’t show. When he gets into it he exhales into Gentaro’s mouth, eyes fluttering closed. He grinds against Gentaro’s knee and his grip is heavy, hard against the headboard.
Teeth sink into the soft skin of Gentaro’s shoulder. He grimaces as pain and blood both bloom under the surface of his skin, and like watercolor paper he absorbs color and substance. Bite. Suck. Burst what’s beneath.
Pain isn’t a symptom to Gentaro. It’s a byproduct of breaking. It’s a signal from tearing and crushing and burning, the destruction of his skin and healthy barriers to keep the world out. Pain tells him he’s been compromised. If he feels pain he’s doing something wrong, and numbness is the only way to cope with an angry world.
Red now but bruises will stain purple. He groans, low and breathy. Dice’s tongue brushes silent apologies over bruises and deep bite marks, not hard enough to draw blood but hard enough to hurt, and Gentaro aches.
Grip hipbones hard, prying and rough. Thumbs against bone. Gentaro buckles against the pressure, biting the inside of his cheek and he tastes blood anew.
He hung a mirror by his closet a few weeks ago, because he kept having nightmares and couldn’t see himself in the dark. When the lights went on he still couldn’t see himself--like he was invisible. The mirror lets him watch himself disappear.
Now he meets his own gaze, reflected back in silver. Pink lips, parted slightly. He watches Dice tug off his pants and drop them on the floor, crumpling out of sight. He watches himself bruise and gasp and writhe under Dice and he watches himself gain substance. He gains vitality, spoon-fed through the stinging pain blossoming across his chest.
Dice sinks his teeth into the soft of Gentaro’s thighs and he cries out. High and breathy and God it hurts so bad, breathe, breathe and watch the body take shape under Dice. Breathe and be remade. Be remade in blood and violet bruises, in pain on your own bed and sharpened under teeth. Born from fire.
Tears gather in his eyes and he pulls his hands back from Dice just so he can cover his face. He tastes blood in his mouth.
“Do you want me to stop?” Dice asks, tongue flicking against forming bruise in the sensitive flesh of inner thigh.
“No,” Gentaro manages. No and yes and no again. “Please keep going.”
Forged from fire. Being made could never be painless. Taking form couldn’t be easy, not to anyone, not to Gentaro especially. Did he expect being whole would be painless, when disappearing was so painful in itself?
Dice smiles wryly. “Talk to me. If you stop talking I stop touching you.”
Gentaro chokes. “What do I say?”
“You’re a writer, I’m sure you’ll come up with something. Tell me what this means to you.”
Dice sinks his teeth into Gentaro’s other thigh, sucking the skin to a flushed bruise. Thighs shake and his breaths are shallow. Trembling under Dice, trembling in the mirror.
“I can’t stop thinking about you breaking my skin,” Gentaro says. Words pour from his lips once he starts, uncontrolled. “I can’t stop thinking about you breaking blood vessels under my skin and blood coloring skin. I’m--fixated on it.”
Dice’s brows knit together but he doesn’t stop, tugging Gentaro’s boxers off and tossing them aside. One hand grips the base of Gentaro’s cock, stroking him hard. Tongue to bruises.
“I want you to hurt me.” Laughter bubbles to his lips and he bites it all back, lest he scare Dice and Dice stops. “Isn’t that ridiculous? I keep having dreams about it, about you snapping bones between your teeth and licking up my blood. I dream about you tearing into me, scattering tissue and skin. I fantasize about my destruction at your hands.”
Dice pauses, concern over his features. “Dude, you good?”
“More than good.” Is that a lie too? He can’t tell but it’s truth as soon as it’s spoken and he can’t back down. “It feels blissful. Painful bitter ecstacy.”
“See, that all sounds bad,” Dice mutters. But he takes Gentaro’s cock in his mouth, taking the length into his cheek. Tongue against the shaft, curving and wrapping. Hands gripping his skin, hard on the backs of his thighs and ass.
One finger beckoning for him to keep talking. Gentaro continues, his hands over his eyes.
“It makes me feel whole,” he continues. “It’s a pleasure to be undone by you. You make me hurt so fucking--ah, so bad, I can’t--”
Dice pauses, cock half in his mouth. The deeper he goes the more he destroys Gentaro’s ability to form sentences, his vocabulary dripping away from him.
“It makes me feel alive. Hurting to feel alive--isn’t that funny? It makes me feel complete and I haven’t felt like that in ages. I want to feel what everyone else does. You--oh-!” Gentaro’s head tilts back, breath caught in his throat. “You make me feel here. The pain is so good, and so awful.”
Fingernails rake red lines down his sides, from collarbones and over ribcage, dragging in the skin of his stomach. Dice is messy and fast, having more fun pushing Gentaro’s cock into his throat than using any distinct skill. Saliva clings to his lips and chin and slicks Gentaro’s entire length, wet and unclean and all the more erotic for that. Dice isn’t unusually good but he’s devoted to the action and without inhibitions.
In the mirror Gentaro could watch his back arch, he could watch a ripple run under his skin like a glitch. He could watch himself moan, high-pitched and breathy between his fingers. He could watch his body lose connection to shape and form, liquid like watercolor under Dice. If he cared to meet his own eyes in the silver reflection, he could watch himself flicker in and out.
But he doesn’t and he covers his eyes, lost to pain-tinged consuming pleasure and the ecstatic release of coming.