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“So, about this weekend,” Yoshiki asked.
Yoshiki saw it on Hikaru’s face the instant he spoke. He’d be spending the weekend alone.
“Ah, this weekend's no good for me,” Hikaru said, “I’m going to the mountains.”
The mountains?
Hikaru was secretive about it. What made that weekend so special? Yoshiki hoped they’d spend it as they typically did: on the floor as a movie played in the background, bathing them in the glow of a lackluster shounen anime while they’d vent a week's worth of frustrations on one another. Yoshiki felt a pang of self-pity. He was so pathetic.
Hikaru turned away from Yoshiki, hand on his neck. Yoshiki saw a spot of discoloration there, just below his gakuran’s collar; a mark Yoshiki sucked onto his skin a week ago. He hadn’t attempted to hide it, and a sour part of Yoshiki wondered what Hikaru said when asked by his peers.
Hikaru’s joke about Hara-sensei didn’t cut through the tension, but Yoshiki laughed regardless.
What was going on in the mountains?
It was hard to tell with Hikaru. He wasn’t always forthcoming, and Yoshiki decided it wasn’t his business. They weren’t dating or anything.
A blaze of anxiety ripped through Yoshiki like wind toying with a flag. Maybe Hikaru has had his fill of him.
-
He knew something was wrong the first day he visited Hikaru. The nurses fiddled with the machines, drew fluids and administered them. Read the cardiographs and blood pressure, then swiftly exited the room, so it was just Yoshiki who loomed by Hikaru’s bed. His mother and granddad had gone to speak with the doctors, Yoshiki assumed. He really didn’t care —all Yoshiki felt was profound relief. Hikaru was alive.
The radiographs backlit on the light display showed Hikaru’s bones and organs, all present and all undammaged and that should be the totality of evidence Yoshiki needed to believe that Hikaru was fine.
“Thought you were dead,” Yoshiki said offhandedly.
“Nope, but I might have better luck next time.” Hikaru said, his smile wide.
“That ain’t funny,” Yoshiki muttered.
“Ah, m’ bad.” Hikaru’s face fell. He looked insecure and then contemplative, his brow creased in a way Yoshiki rarely saw.
“What happened? Why’d ya even go up there?” Yoshiki asked against the doctor's orders.
“I dunno. I don’t remember,” Hikaru said. His fingers gripped the flimsy white hospital sheets. All the white made Hikaru’s skin look washed out into purple and blue hues.
“If you do remember,” Yoshiki asked, “would you tell me?”
Hikaru nodded. He tucked his chin and seemed to look at the intravenous fluids needle gouged into the thread-like veins of his arm. Yoshiki wanted to brush the dirt and pine resin matted in his hair.
Something wasn’t right. Hikaru just needed to remember.
He could fix him, Yoshiki thought stupidly.
Yoshiki took Hikaru’s face into both hands and kissed him. Firm, open-mouthed.
The type of kiss Hikaru enjoyed best. The type of kiss that would’ve had him trying to convince Yoshiki to crawl under the knitted hospital blanket. Yoshiki probably would’ve done it too. He’d do anything to keep that stream of affection from Hikaru, even if it felt slightly exploitative.
The creature didn’t return the kiss, just stared at him with Hikaru’s big, beautiful eyes, mouth unresponsive and slack as if at a loss for words. Yoshiki knew there was something terribly wrong.
“Sorry,” Yoshiki said tersely and left the room.
-
Yoshiki was willing to believe Hikaru had simply sustained a traumatic brain injury.
Memory loss, changes in personality. Those could be explained with a traumatic brain injury. Sure, he looked dead to Yoshiki that night —the last night Yoshiki truly slept a full eight hours, delirious with fever —but maybe Hikaru wasn’t dead-dead. Maybe he was unconscious. Near dead. Yoshiki’s not a doctor. He didn’t check for a radial or carotid pulse. It seemed reasonable to believe Hikaru could’ve recovered on his own, besides, low temperatures reduced blood flow and inflammation, preserved tissues… Yoshiki was wildly mistaken, but the belief was a balm on his heart.
-
Months later, Hikaru came out to Yoshiki as a literal monster.
Oh, Yoshiki initially and foolishly thought, unable to comprehend what he’d seen. Since when did his village have monsters? Hikaru split apart like rotten, bloated fruit and unfurled into pulsating paisley, while Yoshiki held himself together —quite well, actually. He’d been primed for chaos with cortisol most of his life. He’d break down in privacy.
Well. That meant his Hikaru’s gone for good, Yoshiki thought.
What was supposed to happen next? Because Hikaru was gone, and the universe hadn’t crumbled. Hikaru was dead, and Yoshiki was alive. Was Yoshiki expected to exist without him?
-
Is it really worth the trouble? Has he always been so fragile? He really hates himself sometimes.
It’s beyond unfair. Every day feels like a personal attack. He looks skyward and suspects if there is a god, then Yoshiki’s being punished for something —he can think of a few things he’s done deserving of divine judgment. He supposes that Hikaru’s presence negates the existence of a god or maybe, Hikaru is an evil incarnate, the antithesis to god. Maybe Hikaru is god.
Yoshiki’s stomach turns.
He vomits until yellow bile wafts through the water. He stares down into the bowl, catching his breath. Yoshiki recalls the way a snake will regurgitate its prey to make a quick escape from a larger predator. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
The door to the bathroom opens loudly.
“Yoshiki! We’re gonna be late!” Hikaru warns.
Nauseous and shaky, Yoshiki stands and flushes the toilet. He psychs himself up.
He’s got nowhere to go; he’s destined to be with the monster.
-
Though everything is bad and wrong, it’s fairly easy to pretend the opposite, even if his stomach can’t. Yoshiki could consider it a talent to adopt a shameless indifference to cope. He’s good at compartmentalizing. Disassociating. Daydreaming.
At night, he’s sick of himself. Sick of being paralyzed by the unknowable. His own thoughts and dreams threaten to cannibalize him. He’s not sure he can reinvent himself into something kinder, more accepting but his options are limited. Hikaru is no longer Hikaru and Yoshiki can no longer be Yoshiki.
When he’s able to function, Yoshiki begins mentally documenting this Hikaru’s discrepancies, since they spend an abnormal amount of time together and Yoshiki’s angry.
This Hikaru chews anything he can get his mouth on. He tends to fidget. He enunciates some words improperly. Has an obsession with the local tomcat. This Hikaru cries a lot, nearly as much as Yoshiki, but more than a monster should.
In his opinion, at least.
It would be insensitive to imply this Hikaru shouldn’t have feelings. He does. So many, in fact, it’s overwhelming to Yoshiki. Fresh and infantile and repulsive. Every breath it takes is a slight against Yoshiki, but he tries not to be so critical. He tries to remember that this Hikaru didn’t steal his Hikaru, he’s just persevering him. Kind of. Yoshiki reminds himself that his Hikaru could be dead and buried and he’d never see his face again.
He should be grateful.
This Hikaru also contains an infinite void of horror. Yoshiki can’t describe its mass or other properties, but he has the texture figured out. It’s weird he doesn't get sick when touching this Hikaru —thrusting his hand into the unknowable and paring soft flesh apart with his fingers. It's weird Yoshiki would do it more than once. Weird to do it again, and again.
Weird that they both would like it so much.
-
“Why did ya kiss me in the hospital?” Hikaru asks one day as they push their bikes along the road. The midday heat is ramping up, creating mirages that tremble over the asphalt.
Yoshiki bites the inside of his cheek. “It was an accident.”
“Didn’t feel like an accident,” Hikaru laughs briskly.
“We, uh,” Yoshiki says, “we sometimes did stuff like that. Kissed, n’ stuff.”
Hikaru inhales deeply, like it just occurred to him. Yoshiki’s not sure how accessing memories goes, but that seemed a bit too convenient —like there should be some kind of paywall between what this Hikaru knows, and what his Hikaru’s done.
“Oh!” Hikaru gasps, “oh…”
“What?” Yoshiki asks.
“I see,” Hikaru says with color high on his cheeks.
“Yeah,” Yoshiki says, staring at the asphalt and feeling his face flush too.
The spokes on their bikes click rhythmically as they walk and it’s too loud to Yoshiki’s ears.
-
Their interactions are easy, easier than it was with Hikaru, if Yoshiki’s being painfully honest with himself. This Hikaru is not guarded; not dismissive. This Hikaru is earnest; available. He’s curious and protective and dangerous. And he wants to be with Yoshiki.
Yoshiki finds himself enjoying this Hikaru. He’s funny, but not often at another's expense and seems to like Yoshiki’s peers in the superficial way a stray dog would. He sticks fast to Yoshiki though, more adamant and clingy and moody than his Hikaru ever was.
He finds himself wondering about Hikaru’s mother —surely she could tell, right? She was not a particularly observant mother at times, consumed with her own long-standing grief concerning her husband's passing. Couldn’t she see that her son was different?
“What’s yer mama think?” Yoshiki asks, lounging on the engawa and fanning himself with his homework.
“She says I’m not old enough to practice drivin’ by myself but we have the truck jus’ sittin’ out there.” Hikaru fumes.
Hikaru was really looking forward to driving before he died. Obtaining a license is a privilege not many get in Japan, but necessary for country life at times.
“She must know something you don’t.” Yoshiki smiles.
“Grandpap taught me how t’ do it. I know where the keys are too.” Hikaru says, twisting towards the entrance of the Indou residence.
“Hey, maybe we shouldn’t —”
“I know what I’m doin’,” Hikaru insists, disappearing inside the house.
Yoshiki’s not accustomed to this Hikaru being so stubborn, it reminds him of his Hikaru. Little vestiges of the original shining through like gold flecks in slurry. Surely there's a way to appeal to him with reason.
“Ya can’t even drive it on the road, it’s not legal.” Yoshiki says, trailing behind a curiously furious Hikaru who’s taking long strides through the tall weeds.
“I reckon none of this will be legal,” Hikaru says, yanking the compact truck’s door open. The hinges scream.
“Exactly! Then why do ya wanna do it?” Yoshiki throws his hands up.
Hikaru brushes something off the fabric seat and climbs in.
“Because I want to. Are you comin’ with me or not?” Hikaru says, leaning out of the driver's side door.
Yoshiki stomps to the passengers side. The truck’s upholstery is dry-rotting and kicks up little dust particles when Yoshik drops onto the bench seat. He puts on his seatbelt.
Hikaru cackles. “Oh yee of little faith!”
“Correct,” Yoshiki mutters. He hopes the battery is dead.
Hikaru plunges the key into the ignition and wrenches it. The engine turns slow at first, sputtering like it might not start, but Hikaru’s persistent and it roars to life after another crank.
Yoshiki grips the seatbelt nervously as Hikaru wiggles the gear shift experimentally.
“I think this one is first gear,” Hikaru says, pale eyes flitting up to Yoshiki, “right?”
“Don’t ask me,” Yoshiki says, turning to look out the grody window and Hikaru tries to jam the truck into gear.
“You’re bein’ difficult,” Hikaru laughs, and it sounds slightly manic.
“I’m bein’ difficult?” Yoshiki scoffs.
“Oh, I forgot about the clutch,” Hikaru says, and one slender leg reaches down into the floorboards. Suddenly the truck lurches forward and the engine stalls.
“So much for knowing what you’re doin’, huh?” Yoshiki jabs.
Hikaru doesn't say anything, but his neotenous features scrunch with focus, like he’s filing through pertinent memories. He cranks the truck again, presses on a few pedals simultaneously and then they're moving.
“It’s all coming back t’ me,” Hikaru says but Yoshiki is pretty sure this is the farthest Hikaru’s ever managed without adult supervision.
The truck shakes and sways over the bumpy terrain, emitting a loud groan as Hikaru cuts the steering wheel towards a narrow dirt road. There’s the smell of exhaust permeating the cab and Yoshiki blissfully wonders if it’s enough to kill him.
He’s not sure if his anxiety would be worse driving with this Hikaru versus his Hikaru. Under the same circumstances, both are sub-optimal.
“Where we goin’?” Yoshiki asks.
“I was thinkin’ jus’ up to the bald n’ then back.” Hikaru says.
The engine revs under Hikaru’s toe, making a harsh grinding noise as he forces it into a higher gear. The gravel crunches under the slick, treadless tires, and it feels like the road gets progressively more narrow as they drive into the crowded forest. It could just be Yoshiki’s vision tunneling; a fight or flight response.
“You’re kinda worked up t’day, aren't ya?” Yoshiki says as clinically as possible, “what’s on yer mind?”
He notices how Hikaru’s hands wring the steering wheel, eyes thankfully fixed to the road ahead.
“Ain’t anythin’ important,” Hikaru says softly.
“Talkin’ about your emotions n’ stuff is helpful sometimes.”
“Yeah, cuz you’re so good at it?” Hikaru says snidely.
Yoshiki bites his tongue for a second and takes a deep breath. “Never said it was easy.”
Hikaru itches his nose. “I guess I'm having a lot of feelin’s and it’s getting kinda annoyin’.”
Yoshiki waits patiently for Hikaru to expand further. The road winds through an aged forest, part of which looks like it was clearcut sometime over the last twenty years and allowed to regrow. It’s sobering that even plants fight to exist, jockeying for space and sunlight. There are reedy saplings encroaching onto the degrading, unkept gravel.
“You n’ Hikaru had your thing, and me n’ you have our own thing. But, sometimes…” Hikaru frowns, and the truck rocks aggressively as they drive over a washed out section of road.
If Yoshiki wasn’t already tense and nauseous, he certainly is now.
“Sometimes what?” Yoshiki coaxes, his mind already conjuring up five different responses depending on what Hikaru’s got to say.
“There’s a feelin’ in the back of my head. I think I could do it. I think I’d like it.” Hikaru says.
Yoshiki’s stomach drops. “Do what?”
“I think I could be like Hikaru, fer you. I wanna be that close to you.”
The absurdity of that statement has Yoshiki reeling. “There ain’t no way you can do what Hikaru did fer me.”
Hikaru taps the brakes a little too hard, and the truck pitches forward and Yoshiki finds that the old seatbelt still works properly.
“Why not?” Hikaru demands.
“You know exactly why not.” Yoshiki says. It should be a tacit admission. They’ve had this discussion before and it ended in Hikaru harrowed and pouring himself into Yoshiki.
Hikaru glances at Yoshiki hotly, and then looks lower.
“The road, Hikaru —”
Hikaru swerves a bit, and overcorrects, running over a thankfully small tree that Yoshiki sees spring back up in the passenger sideview mirror.
“You don’t understand.” Hikaru says lowly and Yoshiki feels himself get defensive.
“What have I not understood?” Yoshiki says quickly, a warm bead of sweat wind down his arm.
He’s changed his own viewpoint and morals to suit the monsters. He’s pleaded with fate, begged for forgiveness, opened his mind and body for Hikaru’s pleasure, lost pieces of his soul to a world beyond, and he’s suffered, and suffered and suffers.
“Ya don’t understand how much you mean to me, Yoshiki…” Hikaru says, accelerating the truck as they approach a clearing with tall grass. He shifts into third gear as the engine redlines in second.
“I know that! Hey, slow down, we’re goin’ too fast,” Yoshiki says, pushing Hikaru’s shoulder.
“If ya knew that you’d let me be —”
Against his better judgement, Yoshiki grabs the steering wheel and yanks it around, sending the rear wheels skidding and spinning the truck out in a cloud of dust. The front of the truck strikes something solid. Yoshiki snaps against his seatbelt and Hikaru hits the steering wheel.
The engine stalls, ticking slowly as the metal bits cool. There is no smoke, only dust settling around them. Horrified, Yoshiki hurriedly unbuckles himself and guides Hikaru to recline onto the worn fabric seat.
“Hikaru?! Are you okay?”
A fat tear rolls down Hikaru’s cheek, cutting through a smear of blood from a busted lip and diluting it pink.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. No one else in the world knows how I feel like ya do,” Hikaru sniffles, “I just keep seein’ it in my head and I want it too.”
Yoshiki wants to laugh at how absurd Hikaru is, how blatantly unconcerned he is with having the truck nosed into a ditch, but it would be tactless. Yoshiki slumps against the sticky vinyl door, catching his breath as Hikaru dries his tears with his shirt.
It occurs to him that even if Hikaru may want to be desired in that way by Yoshiki, Hikaru moreover longs to be exalted like his Hikaru was. Idolized like his Hikaru. This Hikaru wants to be the center of Yoshiki’s universe like some stupid, selfish god.
Fine, Yoshiki thinks, scooting across the bench seat, he can be selfish too. Hikaru looks up at him with big watery eyes, and all Yoshiki’s organs draw up into a painful ball in his chest. He misses his Hikaru so much.
Yoshiki brings his face close to Hikaru’s, staring into his unsettling eyes. He can smell his acrid blood and sweat.
“Ya already have everythin’ else of mine,” Yoshiki sighs and Hikaru pulls him in.
This Hikaru kisses clumsily, in the shallow, unpracticed way a virgin would. Yoshiki grabs hold of his neck, and brings him in closer.
Hikaru goes lax like he’s melting. It feels amazing, Yoshiki’s not going to lie. After seven months of looking at the body of his Hikaru, tasting him again is deeply satisfying, aside from the mild tang of blood. A raw pain ripples in Yoshiki’s chest, brimming at his waterline. He feels like he could cry. Yoshiki squeezes his eyes shut, sucking Hikaru’s lip until he opens his damned mouth for him and it’s still not enough. He needs to be closer —lost in the jelly of Hikaru’s eyes; smothered by the paisley placental slime erupting from Hikaru's chest.
It’s very good, but he’s still not his Hikaru. He weighs the same on Yoshiki’s lap, but it’s not his Hikaru. All the callouses on his palms feel familiar but it’s not…
-
Hikaru follows Yoshiki out to the overgrown greenhouse at the edge of the Indou property.
It’s late in the evening when the summer heat relinquishes its hostile grip on Kubitachi. The sun paints grainy slices of orange and yellow behind dark silhouettes of trees, indistinct and fuzzy like a silk screen print.
The weeds are high, tickling Yoshiki’s arms as he parts through them, careful not to disturb a spider’s intricate web nearby.
“You sure come out here a lot,” Hikaru says directly behind him, “are the logs gonna up and walk off?”
“You never know,” Yoshiki says, mildly annoyed to have company. The greenhouse had been a place of respite for him since his Hikaru died and Yoshiki’d been visiting semi-regularly. Not once had this Hikaru joined him until now.
But, this is Hikaru’s greenhouse on Hikaru’s property and Yoshiki’s emotions are too volatile to explain. He doubts this Hikaru can conceptualize the depths of Yoshiki’s sorrow sometimes. He swallows his emotions down, affecting a more neutral disposition.
He peels back the plastic and studies the logs, as he usually does, and they look like the same old logs, as they usually do.
“They growin’ anythin’?” Hikaru asks.
“Na,” Yoshiki says, “they’re not gonna fruit unless I soak ‘em again.”
Hikaru makes a strained noise. Yoshiki glances at his beautiful, confused expression.
“Why’re ya checking on ‘em then, if ya know nothin’s gonna be growin’?”
Yoshiki shrugs, aware of how dumb it appears.
“We can do that, ya know. We can soak ‘em.” Hikaru says helpfully, “I remember how ya’ll did it n’ everythin’.”
Yoshiki frowns, recovering the logs with the opaque plastic.
“It’s okay.” Yoshiki says, wrapping his hands into the hem of his shirt, “I didn’t really wanna grow shiitake anyways.”
-
It feels wrong. Kind of like what Yoshiki would imagine infidelity would be like.
Hikaru’s laying between Yoshiki’s legs and sucking him off. Saliva drips onto his abdomen. It’s mesmerizing to be caught up in the thickness of lust. Yoshiki recalls how his Hikaru would do these sorts of things to him, hurried and passionate, eyes locked onto Yoshiki’s face.
Hikaru hums, releasing Yoshiki’s dick and switches to lazily pumping him by hand.
“Whatcha thinking?” Hikaru asks, licking his lips.
Yoshiki wavers between a truth and a lie, and chooses the lie.
“Think’n about how good it feels.”
Hikaru’s smiling eyes narrow on Yoshiki. “That’s not what yer face says.”
Yoshiki exhales. “Thinking about him.”
This admission is not outwardly offensive to Hikaru, but his grip on Yoshiki’s dick tightens.
“What’d he like to do?” Hikaru asks.
“I dunno, yer the one with his memories and feelin’s, so you tell me.” Yoshiki replies, keeping his tone benign, “what did Hikaru want t’ do?”
Hikaru gets that contemplative stitch between his brows, lowering to suck gently on Yoshiki’s glans and Yoshiki flexes his hips slowly.
“Well,” Hikaru says, “He really liked fuck’n ya.”
“No kidding,” Yoshiki says deadpan.
“Shuddup,” Hikaru says, thumbing Yoshiki’s frenullum, "there's a whole buncha things he wanted t’ do with ya.”
What didn’t we do? Yoshiki thinks, arousal spearing his insides, but this Hikaru seems unreliable at times, so he can’t dispel the suspicion that perhaps it’s what this Hikaru seeks.
“How’s that?” Yoshiki asks.
“It’s hard t’ tell but I can feel it.”
“What’dya mean?” Yoshiki breathes weakly as Hikaru’s hand moves faster. Sloppy, short, twisting strokes.
Hikaru puts it in his mouth again, sucking hard enough to hurt a little. He pulls off and strands of thick saliva dribble from his lips, rolling down Yoshiki’s shaft.
“Might be easier if I jus’ show ya.” Hikaru mumbles, turning loose of Yoshiki’s dick, and it slaps wetly against his belly.
Hikaru climbs over Yoshiki, and settles gingerly onto his lap. The pressure of Hikaru’s naked body is thrilling, but it doesn't hold a candle to the intensity of his eyes when he’s like this. Yoshiki can’t even begin to compare it to his Hikaru.
Yoshiki’s relieved that Hikaru’s insides don’t feel the same as the vein of cold, damp awful in his chest.
“You okay?” Yoshiki is compelled to ask, even though he knows Hikaru is fine. Though Hikaru doesn't experience physical pain in the traditional sense, he’s still an emotive time-bomb and Yoshiki treads carefully.
“Ya, it feels nice. Really nice.” Hikaru says quietly, tilting his head back and his spine arching in the way that tugs on Yoshiki.
His limbs twitch, spasming with some innate primitive desire. Hikaru has the same primeval desire, which is to consume —to take things into his body —which, Yoshiki guesses, is what he’s doing.
Yoshiki curls his backbone a little, pressing himself deeper and Hikaru hugs him back in the most perverse sense.
“Can I move?” Yoshiki asks.
“Huh?” Hikaru blinks gauzy eyes, unfocused and distant as if he was peeking past the veil of reality. “Oh.”
Yoshiki thrusts one good time, and Hikaru falls onto his chest.
“Ah —” Yoshiki gasps, “sorry,”
“Let me, uh, here,” Hikaru mutters, flushed and clumsy. He braces his arms by placing clammy palms on Yoshiki’s shoulders and grinds against him.
Holy shit, Yoshiki thinks, unable to keep himself from meeting Hikaru on the downstroke with opposing force, taking everything he can reach. It feels fantastic; magnetic, like all the iron in his blood is drawn to Hikaru and he is so, so hard.
“How’s it feel?” Yoshiki pants, his hands petting Hikaru’s thighs, muscles tensing and relaxing as he slides against Yoshiki’s sweat-slick hips.
“Mmm, kinda like w-when you put yer hand in me,” Hikaru stammers as Yoshiki jostles him, “jus’ a little different.”
“That’s —good,” Yoshiki slurs, his arousal narrowing to a tenuous point; a knife’s edge of pleasure.
For a gracious moment, Yoshiki disassociates; disassembles reality and pushes it far away. Hikaru folds over him, his hair tickling Yoshiki’s nose. Yoshiki inhales, and it’s like he’d never gone.
“Hey,” Hikaru whispers to Yoshiki’s ear. “Can I come out?”
Yoshiki freezes. He swallows dryly. “Yeah, you can come out…”
Hikaru’s skin under Yoshiki’s hand suddenly feels too loose; degloved. Yoshiki moans, and covers his face with his arm.
“Don’t look away, Yoshiki.” Hikaru coos.
So he doesn't.
-
“Yoshiki, what’s this bug?” Hikaru asks, crouching at the edge of the hot sidewalk.
Yoshiki stops walking and doubles back, bending down to inspect the insect with Hikaru. It’s not alive, but not quite dead.
“It’s jus’ a cicada.” Yoshiki says, gesturing at it with his popsicle, “see the wings there?”
Hikaru makes a small noise of affirmation. Hikaru’s own popsicle is melting all over his fingers and dripping red slowly onto the sidewalk. Too bright to be blood.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Cordyceps got it." Yoshiki says.
“Whats that?”
“It’s a parasitic fungus. It infects an insect and takes over its faculties, n’ stuff.”
Hikaru pauses thoughtfully, watching the cicada do nothing but be a prisoner to its host.
“Cordyceps…” Hikaru repeats and sucks his teeth. “It must be pretty clever, huh?”
Yoshiki meets Hikaru’s uncanny pale eyes, gleaming in the low evening light. Red pupils seem to score right through him, bleeding into the too bright gouts on the sidewalk.
“Yeah, it’s pretty clever.” Yoshiki says.