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The first time Yoshiki had been struck by the thought of what Hikaru might have been thinking in his final moments, he'd dismissed it with all the fear and ferocity of a veteran fleeing from his haunting memories of war. It didn’t matter what Hikaru thought as he lay there dying on that mountain; Yoshiki would never have any way of knowing.
It was a pointless question. That’s what he told himself during the long nights his head rested against his grief soaked pillow.
But now…
I really don’t want anyone to be sad, but…
Yoshiki in particular
I don’t want to be sad.
The nights are far longer.
The room is filled by only the sounds of cicadas outside, of pencil on paper and the occasional fluttery page turn as ‘Hikaru’ reads on his bed, back against the wall. He’s trying and failing at pretending to read just as hard as Yoshiki is at pretending to write down what new information they’ve managed to scrape together from his father, that Tanaka guy, Kurebayashi-san…
From ‘Hikaru’ himself.
‘I’m goin’ back up the mount’n.’
There’s a surprising similarity in the hum of cicada song, the circling vibration of a million tiny tymbals in unison, and the swooping rush of waves on a shore. Ever since that day on the beach there’s little Yoshiki can do to escape the sound of rushing water echoing in his ears. His head is stuffed with sea foam and there’s a burning in his lungs that feels like drowning when the questions start to pour in again.
How on earth were they supposed to get the holes in the various villages closed without arousing any suspicion? God, why did there have to be four??
“Hey, Yoshiki.”
Why were the impurities pouring out now, at this specific point in time? Was it just because ‘Hikaru’ had come down from the mountain, or was there something else at play here?
“Yooooshiki.”
What was ‘Hikaru’ really?
'You’re not The Great Brainsnatcher in the first place.’
“Yoshiki..?”
If the ritual really was meaningless…
‘I’m goin’ back up the mount’n.’
Then what did Hikaru die for..?
'I really don’t want anyone to be sad, but…’
What was the point of any of this??
‘Yoshiki in particular, I…’
Just what did Hikaru die for?!
“Yoshiki!!”
With a sharp intake of air that hits his lungs so hard he coughs, Yoshiki whips around to face the boy on his bed. ‘Hikaru’ is up on his hands and knees at the closest edge, Master x Master discarded to the side in a way that will warp the spine, but the look on his face says ‘Hikaru’ cares about as much as Yoshiki does in this moment. His eyes are wide and searching, brows knitted in worry as he stares for a long, tense moment at Yoshiki while he sucks in shallow breaths of air.
He doesn’t notice it at first, but ‘Hikaru’ does, silvery eyes softening as a tear rolls down Yoshiki’s cheek.
“What’s up..?” He calls softly, and that’s when Yoshiki recognizes the emotions rising up in him, hastily moving to scrub at his cheek and eyes, tears stemmed before they could manage to escape anymore. He sniffs, regains what little scraps of composure he’s managed to hold onto and clears his throat. “I was just… Just thinkin’... If we’re able ta close the holes, there’s always a chance’a them openin’ up in other places, so--” ‘Hikaru’ shakes his head, finally allowing himself to sit back again, legs tucked underneath him. The way he sits and stares reminds Yoshiki a little of a dog whose owner has come home in some sort of distress, even tilting his head in a placating, questioning way.
“Nah, that ain’t what I meant.” Ah, so he also didn’t buy Yoshiki’s bullshit excuse... Neither did Yoshiki, honestly. “I mean, what’s up with you? Ya just look…really far away right now…” ‘Hikaru’s voice grows soft at the end, his smile small and nervous as he rushes out, “Is it somethin’ I did?”
Is it something he did…
The answer isn’t as straightforward as Yoshiki would like.
“No,” is what Yoshiki answers with immediately, but then he goes quiet in that way where ‘Hikaru’ knows there’s a ‘but’ following close behind. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it carries still in the way he turns back towards his desk—towards his notes, half-scribbled, pathetic little things that offer even littler insight. ‘Hikaru’ watches his profile, watches the little shifts and twitches of facial muscles, the flutter of eyelashes. He can almost feel the way Yoshiki’s teeth grind together as he clenches and unclenches his jaw around words unspoken.
It mixes awe into his worry.
“When Hikaru… When he died…” Yoshiki began and then trailed off, turning his head slightly, away from ‘Hikaru’ even more. “I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout what ya said, and… I guess it just surprised me a l’il is all.” ‘Hikaru’ remains silent with a question hanging in the air, his gaze attentive in a way Yoshiki can feel burning through him even without looking. It doesn’t surprise Yoshiki all that much when he asks him, “What’s so surprisin’ about it?” but Yoshiki’s shoulders hunch slightly all the same.
“I dunno…” He does. “Guess I just figured he’d be thinkin’ ‘bout his family, sure… Maybe Saitou-san…” Yoshiki pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is softer, lower, unsure as the words slip out, “Never woulda thought he’d make a wish like that fer me…”
“I mean, I don’t see why not,” ‘Hikaru’ crosses his legs and holds them at the ankles, his posture seeming to relax more and more as the conversation goes on. But there’s a tense, inquisitive air that hangs around him like that damp feeling that precedes a summer storm. “Makes plenty sense when ya think about it, at least to me. Hikaru loved you.”
The words hang heavy in the air.
“Don’t- don’t say that…” Coming from somebody else, someone with a more basic understanding of human emotions would get Yoshiki’s hackles up, yes. But even so… Those words from someone else's lips, it would make more sense he thinks—the love of a brother, of a friend…
‘Hikaru’s understanding of “like” and “love” is somehow limited and convoluted at the same time, by his own admittance he doesn’t understand all of it very well... That leaves far too much ambiguity when he makes claims of Hikaru having loved him. It’s not a big deal, Yoshiki shouldn’t be making it a big deal, but…
“Why not?”
Because…
“Because it- he…”
‘I like you.’’
‘I like you so damn much.’
“He didn’t. He never told me a damn thing like that, so…” Yoshiki turns back to him, just enough, just enough to cast a withering, damp-eyed glance his way. “Please.”
The air feels thin, like when you’re high up in the mountains, yet the humidity hangs thickly in his lungs long after he’s exhaled. ‘Hikaru’ stares, long and hard and there’s a warring look in his eyes that makes the perfect red edges of his pupils shimmer as they shift around and distend, spheres turning to splatters of blood that warp the iris, stain the sclera.
He’s considering.
There’s a trepidation in his consideration that makes Yoshiki’s stomach turn sickly.
“Yoshiki…” ‘Hikaru’ starts, soft and tentative, like Yoshiki is some scared, wounded animal that will flee or snap at the slightest startle. “Do ya miss him?”
His heart lurches, catching on each rib as it tilts sideways in his chest.
“Every single day…”
Another pause, another tense moment as ‘Hikaru’ visibly wrestles with some great conflict in the sprawling vastness of weeping fractals and grey matter churning in his skull. Bleeding greys dart to meet Yoshiki’s eyes, then drop to the floor, chewing intermittently on his bottom lip between the times his mouth opens only for nothing to come out. That crooked tooth Yoshiki has spent a lifetime and a little under a year staring at digs at the corner of his lip, and the part of Yoshiki that wants to warn him, care for him because he’s seen enough of the other boys blood already, is subsumed by the greater part of himself that’s choked by the lump in his throat, building and building…
For a fleeting moment, the cicadas quiet outside when ‘Hikaru’ speaks.
“There’s…somethin’ I wanna show ya, Yoshiki.” It’s not a barely coherent musing, but a sure statement. Despite that, he somehow seems more nervous than before. “Please..? Would’ja trust me? Just for a minute…”
Everything inside of him is screaming no, no, no, but he promised to stay with him. To carry the burden of his inhuman existence for the assurance that ‘Hikaru’ would do the same, that he won’t disappear again and leave him…leave him…
‘I wonder just how long
you can continue clinging onto “Hikaru”.’
Ah, that’s right…
And yet…
“What is it?”
‘Hikaru’ seems to brighten at even the intimation Yoshiki might go along with whatever he’s driving at. His shoulders loosen, and his hands stop incessantly picking and pulling at his school pants. He lifts those same hands, palm up, silently beckoning Yoshiki over to him and despite the many reasons why he shouldn’t…
Yoshiki stands. He stands and takes the few steps over to close the distance and puts his hands in ‘Hikaru’s, feeling particularly cool and dry against his own skin that’s slick with summer heat and what’s surely the beginnings of a heart condition, provided he’s even human enough to get sick anymore…
He was already sick, really.
“So, what did you..?” He trails off, and ‘Hikaru’s silent answer is to nod his head in a way that indicates Yoshiki should sit down. He does, and ‘Hikaru’ turns fully to face him, Yoshiki only meeting halfway with his feet planted firmly on the floor. Pulling his legs up to put the two of them on the same level, to make them share space feels like just too much somehow.
‘Hikaru’ doesn’t seem to mind, and if he does, he says nothing that would scare Yoshiki off.
“I’ll hafta reach out to ya,” Yoshiki’s skin prickles, like stepping against moss-slick stone in a river, the slimy texture offering almost complete assurance you’re gonna fall. “And it’s gotta be a l’il deeper than last time, but… It’s the only way. ‘Cause there’s somethin’ I wanna try’n show ya…” ‘Hikaru’ pauses, swallows the tangle of nerves buzzing in his throat and straightens up, anxious yet determined. “I think I need ta show ya.”
Many’s a time Yoshiki has wondered if the things ‘Hikaru’ does to him—or makes clear that he wants to do to him—are simply his animal driven instincts to seek out his own pleasure. To satisfy a need, to take him in or be taken by him because in a way Yoshiki barely (guiltily, shamefully) understands, it just feels good.
Now isn’t one of those times though. He’s pleading in a way that holds a desperation for his request to just be understood, for Yoshiki to not despise him, abandon him (as if Yoshiki ever could) if it ends up being something he doesn’t like, something that hurts him.
Despite the times his truest self has seeped through the cracks in an attempt to do just that, ‘Hikaru’ has never wanted anything less. Not Yoshiki, never Yoshiki…
He’d sooner tear himself up into as many more pieces as it took if it came down to Yoshiki or him.
Their hands are still clasped together, and ‘Hikaru’s grip tightens ever so slightly.
“Please?”
The answer is no.
“...Alright…”
He needs to say no.
“I trust ya…”
He’s lying.
But it’s a beautiful lie, when it makes ‘Hikaru’ smile so serenely like that…
Calloused hands—familiar, yet far more gentle than he can recall them ever being in their past life—reach for him, and it takes everything in Yoshiki not to instinctively jerk back. There’s a moment of hesitation before ‘Hikaru’s hands are cupping the back of his neck. One stays there, but the other moves up slightly, tangling in the shorter strands along the back of his skull as if to keep him there, whether he wants to be or not.
He moves in close, and Yoshiki’s skin burns where their foreheads touch, where ‘Hikaru’s breath fans out over his lips in meticulously counted puffs of air, because Yoshiki had said how it was creepy and even worse, highly suspect when he didn’t breathe at all… Now, he actually kind of wishes he hadn’t said anything.
This close, Yoshiki can’t make out any really discerning features on ‘Hikaru’, the proximity blending skin and hair and blemishes into one big mush of pale colors. But his eyes, specifically the lava-like crimson centers of them, stick out amongst a blurry sea where home used to be. Yoshiki hears the sharper intake of breath that might have preceded a word, a question. Maybe to ask him if he’s really sure about this, and then if he’s sure he’s sure.
He answers in equal silence, loosening the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck and bracing one hand against the mattress comfortably, rather than keeping both of them balled up on his knees as he tries not to fall apart.
Yoshiki watches, as close as he’s ever been as matter becomes distended and vibrates itself into displacement, staring at the growing shock of red as it leaks down through the firmer tissue of the eye itself, expanding and collapsing in contradictory ways as flesh starts to split and spill prisms stuck somewhere between oil and tar.
‘Hikaru’ leans closer.
Their noses brush, filling each others lungs and Yoshiki feels an even greater need to recoil from the almost terrifying intimacy of it more than from the feeling of ‘Hikaru’ spilling onto his skin, thin tendrils, not quite liquid or solid crawling across his cheek to cover more ground. They trail down along his jaw, across the bridge of his nose. One moves to prod at the corner of his mouth while another licks just beneath the lower set of lashes on his right side.
It feels gross.
It’s wet and slimy, yet smooth and firm enough he thinks it would be tangible if he went to grab it right now, rather than spill through his fingers like one would expect it to.
It feels gross…
What terrifies him is he doesn’t hate it.
“Is this okay..?”
Yoshiki feels more than he hears ‘Hikaru’s question, and as his eyes come back into focus from where they’d trailed off, meeting his gaze head on, Yoshiki can feel a slight stinging in the back of his head that gets stronger and more distracting as the seconds tick by, like the beginnings of a migraine you know you’re too late to head off.
This is his chance. He can turn back now and he knows ‘Hikaru’ will accept it. He’ll be disappointed, sure, maybe even dejected for a day or two, but he’s got enough control over himself right now that all Yoshiki has to do is say no.
He can just say no…
“Yeah…”
‘Hikaru’ sinks into the deepest parts of him, and he’s gone.
His senses stretch out across miles and miles of formless self.
Light and matter expands, contracts, and pushes itself along between tree branches, rising up like a vapor beneath dirt and gravel. His body offers no protection to bug nor bacteria as rain hits his surface like an umbrella, yet passes through him like he’s not even there…
Maybe he isn’t.
Looking down at his hands, he sees their outline, but nothing more than that. The spaces are filled and overflowing from the intimations of form by shuddering, slinking fractals of every color Yoshiki has ever known, and some he cannot even begin to process because for him, they simply do not exist.
Ahh…
This is ‘Hikaru’.
Or rather, Nounuki-sama.
Was this what he wanted to show him? What does it mean to share an existence with something that could snuff out his life like a candle? What does it mean for him to allow someone once so purely mortal to know what a vessel of fleshless flesh feels like to be housed inside of?
He aches to understand it all. To the point of panic he yearns to understand himself, but it feels like his mind has been pulled apart into some stringy, winding thing, the folds of his brain stretched out more and more into one straight cord of information and memory.
It’s cold…
He feels empty…
Is this how ‘Hikaru’ always felt before coming down from the mountain?
…
Is this what it means to feel truly lonely..?
“Yo…shiki…”
It’s a soft, weakened and scratchy sound that sends tremors of something primal surging through the endless, roiling void he has become. He is one big visual center, and he starts using every individual inch of himself to try and find the location of the voice, of that pained, brilliant voice that sounds like home, warms him from the inside out, makes him want to scream with the mouth he does not have, rend apart vocal chords that do not exist for him. He is a single celled organism and a grieving human, pulsing in bands of light is his repeating chant of Hikaru, Hikaru, Hikaru—
“ Hikaru. “
Same place, just a little off time…
Hikaru’s lying in the same patch of long grass, blood running down his face, pooling around the same dulled silver eye…
Hikaru’s breathing is shallow and frail, barely visible underneath his raincoat. It’s the only sign he’s still alive, not still and cold as stone. Yoshiki can taste the blood in the air, feel the creak of broken ribs struggling around the slow inhale, exhale of his failing lungs…
He’s dying.
Again.
Those silver eyes, staring dead ahead for a time start struggling to focus and slowly, carefully, shift to lock onto the sprawling mass of shadows and colors and dim, warping light that make up the bulk of him. His lips part in a gentle gasp, and so slowly, oh so carefully, he lifts one arm up and out towards ‘him’,
Towards ‘Hikaru’,
Towards ‘The Great Brainsnatcher’.
“Go…”
The rain goes quiet.
The world stills.
“Keep…h-hi-...”
‘Yoshiki’ reaches out to him. He’s never wanted anything more than to reach him right now.
“Com…ny…”
His hand spreads out much farther than it’s meant to, winding through the air towards Hikaru in threads of something not quite liquid, not quite muscle, nor flesh…
“In…m…pla…”
His voice grows quiet. His light dims, and ‘Yoshiki’ feels the surging swell of panic rush through what barely qualifies as veins in the human sense.
Please, no…
Don’t die.
Don’t leave me again.
Please, don’t go..!
Don’t go!!
“ Hikaru!! “
‘Yoshiki’ wraps himself around the outstretched hand like a lifeline, slides between Hikaru’s fingers in a wet, vice grip, and is left unsure whether the world goes white or black as they become one.
He comes up out of the haze with a harsh gasp, like breaking the salty surface of the sea after a wave sweeps you off your feet and pulls you under.
It takes a minute that feels like hours for his scattered senses to fall back into place, eyes and ears and fingertips. His skin buzzes, feels almost carbonated, and every nerve and cell inside him is jumping in unrestrained panic. Strangely enough, the emotion itself feels muted, far off from him... His tongue feels dry and heavy in his mouth, catching on his teeth. His long bangs tickle his nose, and the bridge automatically wrinkles in response.
His eyes burn, hot and wet and stinging as the tears roll in and gather along his lashline…
“Yoshiki..?”
His muscles lock at the sound of his name being called in that voice, because of how familiar yet how wrong it feels in ways he cannot explain. His eyes crack open to stare down at his feet, and the world is shimmering oddly beneath them. Waves of black and white and sunshower grey, shifting with a sound similar to wind chimes when he moves one foot slightly.
“Yoshiki..!”
Sniffling, overwhelmed and oversensitive like he’s been scrubbed raw, Yoshiki still manages to raise his head as his name is called again with a shock and awe that reminds him of ‘Hikaru’, but… Something’s wrong…
His eyes lock onto familiar twin pools of clear grey…
His pupils are solid black.
He’s wearing the same raincoat he wore as he drew his last, that shade of orange Yoshiki can’t stand anymore. He’s free of dirt, of blood… He’s standing now, a hand held out towards Yoshiki hesitantly, almost unbelievingly so, eyes wide and brows drawn…
He’s smiling.
“What the… How?”
Yoshiki answers his question with another question, as his voice breaks and the tears start pouring out of him.
“Hikaru..?”
One summer, when he was six and Hikaru was five, he’d gone on a trip to Tokyo for two weeks to visit his grandparents. It was the longest he and Hikaru had ever been apart at that point, and to his credit, Yoshiki had managed not to cry until they were well out of town.
When they had finally returned to Kubitachi after what felt like three summers and a winter for good measure, he’d planned on doing the exact same thing as when he'd left. He hadn’t been emotionally prepared for the presence of Hikaru’s mama and daddy waiting outside their house for them, and Hikaru himself, running to him with the biggest smile and arms outstretched.
He hadn’t managed to keep from crying then. He’d ran to him, and the two collided in a way that sent them off their feet and tumbling to the dirt, embracing and rolling around with the sort of shameless, exuberant affection that comes with being small.
He feels like he shouldn’t need air where they are—wherever they are right now—but the way their bodies collide knocks the air out of Yoshiki’s lungs just as well. At least they manage not to fall down this time.
Hikaru’s arms are strong and tight around him, almost painfully so, and there’s a wateriness to his laughter as it filters into Yoshiki’s ear loud and clear from where his best friend’s chin digs into his shoulder like it belongs there. Like they’ve always been meant to be this close...
Maybe this was how it was always meant to be. They fit like two puzzle pieces, locked together in a way that Yoshiki would have never even entertained the thought of before, chests and hips aligned perfectly as Yoshiki digs his fingers into hair and fabric, unable to help but laugh himself where he’s nestled into Hikaru’s neck, dampening the skin with tears that won’t stop coming.
They stay like this, only tangling together further as they sink to the ground in a twisted lump of two people who never thought they’d see each other again, laughter quieting slowly into heavy breaths as they simply share space and warmth and oxygen.
Hikaru’s the first to pull away.
Yoshiki has to force himself not to pull the other boy back to him.
“I can’t believe it… I thought I’d never…” The relief and sadness roll into Yoshiki in equal parts, coming off Hikaru in waves that settle underneath Yoshiki’s skin. Hikaru’s hands cradle Yoshiki’s face just to feel, to wipe away the tears that slide down his cheeks unbidden with a tenderness that feels so foreign to them both in a way. “How’d ya even get here, I-I mean…” Hikaru’s eyes leave his to look around, and the loss of eye contact hurts. Actually hurts in a way Yoshiki will never admit to, and he loses his chance (thankfully) to dwell on it as Hikaru’s brows furrow and his dawning confusion becomes palpable. “Where… Where’s here anyways..?”
Yoshiki sniffs back a fresh wave of tears as he looks around and finds the shimmering shift of the ground they’re seated on—legs tangled, Hikaru’s hands having slid down to rest just below his jaw, around his neck, Yoshiki’s skin heating up from the inside at the feeling—is the same above them and on all sides, stretching out towards the horizon no matter the direction. Yoshiki sighs and, selfishly, allows himself to encroach on Hikaru’s space once again, nuzzling into his neck as far as the bunched hood of his heavy winter coat will allow while Hikaru’s arms wrap around him once more.
He’s never felt safer.
His chest feels sticky and hot, and a wave of muted sunlight seems to slither through the monochrome with his contentment.
“Somewhere… M’not really all that sure myself…” He answers honestly, because he truly isn’t sure where they are, how they got here… How in the fresh hell Hikaru is in his arms right now…
He doesn’t want to question it, just in case the spell breaks.
“Doesn’t make a lick’a sense though, I mean…” Hikaru sighs in frustration or exhaustion against Yoshiki’s temple, fingers gripping protectively at his back. One hand moves up to tangle in the short hair along Yoshiki’s nape as he ponders, and the feel of it sends a chill down the older boy’s spine.
He doesn’t want to question it, but he knows.
“Last thing I ‘member was bein’ on the mountain, climbin’ it and then…” Hikaru starts mumbling, goes quiet soon after… And after a few shared heartbeats, he gasps and jerks back, puts enough space between himself and Yoshiki to meet his eyes, his own wide and swirling with confusion, a fearfulness in his gaze that breaks Yoshiki’s heart. “I-I fell… I fell, and then everythin’ was…” He looks down at his hands, hands Yoshiki desperately wants to hold, to pull him close and lie to him that everything is fine, everything will be fine, he’ll make it fine…
Even now, in whatever bubble in spacetime is allowing them this moment, he knows he can’t… And his heart just breaks all over again.
The world around them turns stormy, but no sound accompanies the dark clouds holding them other than the same, gentle chimes.
“Yoshiki… Did I… Am I dead..?” Before Yoshiki can answer, Hikaru’s expression turns even more grave as he grabs Yoshiki by the shoulders, just about startling him outta his skin. “Wait, are you dead?! How in the hell did you die, you ain’t the adventurous type!!”
Yoshiki’s expression sours, looking about as impressed as he has every other time Hikaru has thrown a casual insinuation his way... Which is zero. “It ain’t that, I’m just more cautious than you…” Hikaru rolls his eyes, the tense of his shoulders and the set of his jaw still betraying how at loose ends he’s feeling, and with good reason too. But he still can’t help but snap, “I’m plenty cautious, but you’ve pretty much taken “caution” an’ made yerself the spokesperson for it. Really, ya oughta be thankin’ me fer gettin’ you outta the house often enough ya ain’t ghost white!” Hikaru reaches out to give Yoshiki’s bare arm a good pinch, a wavering smirk tugging at the corner of his lip as he does so. Yoshiki should be annoyed by this…but he’s coping right now, they both are, and so instead he snorts out a soft laugh and gives Hikaru’s shoulder a shove. “Screw you, man…”
“Ha! You wish!” Hikaru barks out a laugh, and something ugly and sweet lurches in Yoshiki’s stomach, and the way Hikaru’s eyes zero in on him almost makes Yoshiki think he felt it too… But no, he’s just been through too much, become too “mixed up”, making his mind wander to things that simply cannot be possible with this Hikaru. Those silver eyes finally leave his—he’s actually glad for it this time—as they unfortunately take notice of the deep, deep bruise that sticks out starkly in the shape of fingers, his fingers, curled around Yoshiki’s wrist like a brand. “Oh shit, Yoshiki? Where did this..?”
Hikaru’s gentle touch skims over the throbbing, mottled flesh, hot with rushing blood and something thicker than blood beneath it, and the illusion shatters.
Yoshiki’s vision swims. He feels sick as the world around him, and Hikaru himself, flashes black and white for a fleeting moment, and then it all falls back into place. The air pulses between them, yet there’s nothing left to breathe.
Hikaru’s expression is unreadable, and the same cold, churning nausea that had gripped Yoshiki’s stomach that dark night on the mountain rises up to greet him once more.
“Ah…” Hikaru’s eyes say it all, shock followed by a confused sorrow that lingers still, even after a small, resigned smile works its way onto Hikaru’s face. “So I was right, then… And Unuki-sama…” His hand closes, it’s all he’s been staring at since Yoshiki wrenched his arm from him like he’d been burned, and he finally meets Yoshiki’s eyes again, dull and shining all at the same time. “I wasn’t sure he would… Heh, wasn’t even sure what I’d been seein’ was really real or not, but…”
Yoshiki’s stock still. A stone statue, not even flinching when Hikaru leans in and rests his head on Yoshiki’s chest.
His voice is soft, yet the words echo inside Yoshiki’s head and all around them both…
“Is he takin’ care of mama..?”
The air leaves Yoshiki’s lungs quietly, shuddering out of him, and the far off marble of the horizon wavers with it.
“Yeah…” He replies, bringing his left hand up to thread through Hikaru’s hair, spiky yet soft, something Yoshiki’s never understood and never mentioned…never would. “He’s lookin’ after her… She’s doin’ fine…”
“Mm…” He feels Hikaru shift against him, mumble out a ‘that’s good’ into the fabric of his shirt. He feels the brush of fingers on his marked skin once more, and it’s electric. Hikaru tilts his head up to look Yoshiki in the eye, peering under his long bangs from where he stays nestled against his chest, making no moves to pull away. “And you?”
“Hm?” Yoshiki hums, tries a smile and isn’t sure he likes how it feels on his face right now… Still, he can’t help but smile when he looks at the boy half-seated in his lap, the boy he’s spent his whole life adoring and hating himself for it. “And me..?”
“Is he takin’ care of you?”
Hikaru’s fingers gently curl, fitting around the mark with an aching precision.
“Is he keepin’ ya safe?” He asks with a barely concealed desperation. “Is he makin’ sure you… You ain’t lonely..?”
There’s an unspoken question beneath his spoken one; ‘did I make the right decision?’
Yoshiki’s not sure how to answer either question.
“I…” In a very physical sense based on presence and proximity, he ain’t lonely. How can he be, when almost every waking moment of every day is filled with ‘Hikaru’s smile, ‘Hikaru’s voice, ‘Hikaru’ pressed against his side, an oil spill wrapped in sunlight and his best friend’s flesh…
It would be so easy to ease Hikaru’s heavy heart and just say yes, but…
“I… I ain’t lonely, but…” Hikaru’s hand slides down from where it’s clutching his bruised forearm to instead lace their fingers together. It’s sweet and grounding and makes Yoshiki feel both better and worse in equal measure.
His useless lungs push out just enough oxygen to be truthful for a change, and his voice breaks along the words spoken.
“He’s not you.”
He looks through his bangs into Hikaru’s eyes, and the heartache floods into him from a single look, layering itself smoothly over his own, becoming part of it.
“How long’s it been?” Hikaru asks, voice hushed as if there are listening ears in this place that exists only for them at this moment in time. “For you.”
“Too long.” Yoshiki answers in truth once more. Figures now’s the only time he’s ever been truly straightforward in his life… “Almost a year now… Spent six months wonderin’ if I’d gone crazy or not, but…” He pauses, glances towards their joined hands and sighs. “I knew… How could I not know..?”
Hikaru lets out a long breath that puffs his cheeks out and flaps his lips on the way out, making a noise that pulls a soft laugh from Yoshiki. “I see… But yer here now,” Hikaru starts, confusion painting his face the way it always did when face to face with a test he hadn’t studied for. “Is it ‘cause of him, y’think?”
“Must be…” Yoshiki mumbles, raising Hikaru’s hand in his. Looking at the way they fit together… Thinking about how they haven’t held hands like this since Hikaru’s daddy died… “He said he wanted to show me somethin’...”
Hikaru hums, and his thumb strokes a knuckle on Yoshiki’s hand. It gives him butterflies. “How long d’ya think we got until..?”
“Dunno…”
“In that case…” Hikaru takes a deep breath, and somehow he manages to find space to shuffle closer to Yoshiki, the sudden motion making his lungs catch and his heart skip a beat as pink paints his cheeks and the dust motes that flutter in from somewhere in this vast expanse around them. Hikaru’s eyes are hardened and pinpoint focused on his own as he asks, “You got a girlfriend yet?”
One beat, then two, then… Yoshiki laughs out loud and presses his free hand to Hikaru’s entire face, pushing him away as the younger mirrors the joyous sound, kept from being forced very far by the way his legs are bent beneath Yoshiki’s longer ones, the two framing each other perfectly. “What kinda question is that?!”
“A very serious one, why else would I be askin’?!” Hikaru crows as he yanks Yoshiki’s hand off his face and out of the way, greeting him with a toothy grin that doesn’t entirely hide the mellow sadness that lingers in his eyes. “I wanna know everything. Everythin’ that’s changed since I’ve been gone, what ya’ll’ve been up to, so c’mon…” The hand in his, Hikaru presses it against his cheek, nuzzles the tendons that decorate the back of it with an unusual reverence that makes Yoshiki’s thoughts skitter to a halt. “Start talkin’. Please..?”
He does.
Yoshiki tells him everything. He spares no detail great or small. He recounts the good, the bad, and the downright terrifying as closely as he can remember ‘em. He tells him about the summer festival they went to with Kaoru, the friends she’s made. How school has been and how their friends have been holdin’ up. He tells him about how far ‘Hikaru’ has come in terms of being human, and all the hiccups and pitfalls therein. He tells him about Tanaka, about Kurebayashi-san. About the Impurities invading the village, and the holes that reside in each one, the plans they’re making to try and close them up. Hikaru fills the spaces in-between with questions, from whether or not he, Maki and… ‘Hikaru’ got in trouble for that hole they put in the school wall, to how Yoshiki’s been coping mentally with having to stand shoulder to shoulder with something unimaginable and incomprehensible that just will not leave Mince-Aniki be until that cat loves him.
He sees the whole, undiluted scope of human emotion pass over Hikaru’s face as he tells him everything, as it dawns on him that making up for his family’s great sin was meaningless… And it steels Yoshiki’s resolve all the more.
He won’t let the place Hikaru called home, the home he tried so hard to protect, succumb to madness... And he won’t let Hikaru’s wish be in vain either.
He will not lose ‘Hikaru’... He’s almost entirely sure his heart couldn’t take that at this point…
Hell, his heart can barely take the fact that this is almost surely a one time thing—a temporary ripple in reality created by ‘Hikaru’ to give him this chance to…
The chance to…
‘Hikaru loved you.’
His heart stops, sinks… Then blooms into something fierce and uncontrollable, and when the world begins to shimmer and shine with warm hues of sunkissed peach, a terrifying thought shatters Yoshiki’s skull as a syrup slow awareness starts to light up in Hikaru’s eyes, sharpening his gaze in a way Yoshiki can feel suffused into every fiber of his being.
It’s as if Hikaru is seeing him for the first time, and that thought scares him to death because, in a way… He thinks that might be true.
Earlier, he was sure that his own body and awareness had become one singular, spectral thing with ‘Hikaru’s ever morphing existence, and he became himself again when he was dropped in here with Hikaru. But now he’s sure, the undulating watercolors that seep into the soft greys around them, the shared happiness and pain that almost feels like something tangible moving back and forth between them lovingly—something secret and shared just between them.
Here, they’re as close as two humans are ever gonna get.
Yoshiki feels whatever Hikaru is feeling, and Hikaru feels what Yoshiki does in kind.
Hikaru feels Yoshiki’s love for him, and the surge of all-consuming panic that follows close behind…
“Yoshi--”
“N-no…” Yoshiki wavers back, starts to disentangle himself from the boy who has haunted his days in every way one can be haunted by another person. Sweat gathers at his temples, along his nape, sticks his bangs to his forehead in a way no more unpleasant than the roiling need to escape or vomit churning in his gut. There’s a feedback loop of distress, Hikaru feeding off of his discomfort in his own flesh and mind, and then it doubles as that same feeling rolls over itself inside of Yoshiki. This isn’t right… This isn’t right, this is awful. It’s so gross…
It’s disgusting…
He
is
disgusting…
“I’m so sorry.” The words slip out as his eyes throb within their sockets, the heavy weight of frustration and fear of being known like this starting to build up and weigh his head noticeably. Hikaru’s fingers chase after Yoshiki’s when he pulls them apart, so he bunches his fists up in his own uniform top, held tightly to his chest as though to protect his frail heart, burdened by rot and shame. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, you weren’t supposed ta- I-I mean, ya weren’t meant t-to…”
“Is that what it was..?”
Despite the tension thick enough to taste between them, there’s a placid note plucked from Hikaru’s throat that renders Yoshiki frozen. He doesn’t look at Hikaru, doesn’t blink or let his eyes wander from the spot on the ground they’re fixed to, because he’s scared of what he’ll find in his best friends face—his real face as he looks upon it for what will most likely be the last time ‘til he dies, provided his soul isn’t snuffed out and adoringly consumed by ‘Hikaru’ one day…
That might not be so bad, actually… To be prevented from facing this small-scale calamity he’s created in the afterlife.
To be held by someone who finds him beautiful as he recedes into a peaceful oblivion…
Hikaru’s calloused hands find Yoshiki's jawline, and tilt him ever so gently to face the boy he loves so fiercely it terrifies him…
Hikaru’s smile is welcoming and quiet.
He’s so beautiful.
“All those years, I always wondered what it was that was makin’ ya keep me at arms length…” Hikaru lets out a humorless chuckle, shaking his head in a way that feels something like a begrudging acceptance. “I guess I didn’t really help with that much… But we’d always been close, so…when things started changin’ between us, I couldn’t figure out what exactly I’d done wrong, but you…” There’s an unsteady look in his eyes. His head is ducked, but not enough that Yoshiki can’t still see it, and breathing comes a little easier somehow when Hikaru looks back at him not with contempt, but with remorse…
What should he feel remorseful about?
“I’m sorry…”
“Why..?” Yoshiki whispers back, helpless to do anything but sit and stare and suffer the desperate hum that curls between their stuttering heartbeats, wanting to connect somehow, in some way…
“For not realizin’... For not knowin’ a Goddamn thing and lettin’ ya hurt this much…” Hikaru’s sorrow and regret are just as steady and strong as the joy he’d poured into Yoshiki upon seeing him again, and every minute drop of those feelings washes over Yoshiki and draws him in closer, his hands coming up to lay atop those that frame his face. “None’a my crushes ever hurt this bad…”
“None of your crushes would’ve been the talk of the town gossips, or…” Yoshiki hesitates, his tongue trips all over the words, but he manages still. “Or made you hate me…”
“I wouldn’t.”
It’s not just words. It’s a declaration that tilts Yoshiki’s world on its axis.
His gaze leaves Yoshiki raw and open, defenseless under a scrutiny that dares him to imply something so flagrantly untrue one more time and see what happens.
“Yoshiki, I would never,” His grip around Yoshiki’s face is a little firmer, keeping him still, keeping him from hiding himself away behind a bowed head and too-long bangs like he does around nosy neighbors and his chatty relatives. “Could never hate you. Y’got that? You’ve been there for me all my life, you mean the world to me an’ nothin’ is ever gonna change that.”
Yoshiki can only nod dumbly after a moment that stretches eons, and Hikaru heaves a sigh, grabbing Yoshiki around the shoulders and pulling him into a crushing hug that pretty much forces the taller boy awkwardly into his lap, making him feel suffocated in all the right ways somehow. “God, I just… I wish I’d known… I wish you’d just told me that you were…”
“What difference would it have made..?” Yoshiki’s words are hushed, whispered softly like a child as his arms wind snuggly around Hikaru. Embraces left in a childhood time capsule are finally allowed to breathe the humid air squished between their bodies.
Hikaru doesn’t answer him. There’s a lump in his throat Yoshiki can hear him swallow around, but he can feel something sweet and tender seeping out of Hikaru’s soul and straight into his own. No boundaries, no expectations…
Those don’t exist here, and so they discard words altogether, sinking into what little space was left between them, and just feel.
The world is alight with colors Yoshiki couldn’t even comprehend before. Now, he sees them for what they are, and it’s so very beautiful.
Yoshiki feels it before the world really starts to shake apart. There’s a tingling in his head and a numbness starting in his fingertips and toes that tells him he’s gone too far.
It’s lasted too long.
“Is this it..?”
Hikaru feels it too.
“Yeah…”
Yoshiki’s voice is already wet with something so much more profound than any sadness he’s ever felt.
When he meets Hikaru’s eyes again after years of soaking in his warmth, he keeps his gaze there, watches through his blurry vision as tears cling to Hikaru’s lashes…
He always did wonder if Hikaru really wanted to cry…
“Well, then…”
And the cheeky bastard still manages to smile, all the same.
“Yoshiki, can ya promise me somethin’?”
Yoshiki chokes down a sob, grits his teeth and nods once. Hikaru brushes his bangs back, and he leans in, pressing his forehead to Yoshiki’s.
It makes the throbbing worse.
“When everythin’s said and done… When you and him got everythin’ figured out and can start livin’ life the way you wanna live…”
They’re so close their noses brush, and Yoshiki can smell the acrid tang of blood and the scent of wet earth.
“Just be you. Go to Tokyo, study your Goddamn critters or whatever else you were hopin’ to use that big brain of yers fer, and just live… For once in yer life, get out there an’ live a l’il without me havin’ta drag yer mopey ass outta the house, m’kay?”
The world starts to melt around them.
Yoshiki sobs into the airy gap between their lips.
“A-and you??” He gasps out, voice quavering and weak to his own ears, his eyes widening as his vision starts to tunnel. “What about you? What about what you wanted? Yer plans for the future?!” The tears burn trails of fire down his face as they just keep coming, and he can see Hikaru’s streaked with shiny tracks as well. “Hikaru?!”
Hikaru looks more at peace than Yoshiki’s ever seen him…
“Dummy, I’ll be fine. ‘Cause now I know, that…no matter what happens…”
The world splinters loudly and turns sticky, and so do they. Flesh becomes a mere suggestion and their thoughts slosh out of their skulls and pool together into a single point of light, bright and shimmering as their souls touch and congeal for one brief, euphoric moment.
“ You won’t forget about me, neither! “
They scream every word ever left unsaid through each other's vocal chords, allow their feelings to burrow deep into each other's cells, and at the end of everything…
There’s peace.
“Yoshiki…”
‘Hikaru’s voice reaches him in waves, cascading downward into him like he’s the sun and Yoshiki is somewhere deep, deep beneath the waves, meant only to rise when death inevitably comes for him.
“Yoshiki..!”
The world feels muffled, muted... He’s paper mache, easy to tear, easy to claw into, yet ‘Hikaru’ is so careful in his haste to extricate himself from Yoshiki’s body. He clears himself from Yoshiki’s airways, unmuffles his ears, disentangles from Yoshiki’s hair, leaving it tousled, dry yet wet…
“Yoshiki!!”
A single tear follows ‘Hikaru’ out of Yoshiki’s tear duct, and he finally takes a breath and sees him.
Really sees him…
“There you are…” ‘Hikaru’ pants out, his tight grip on Yoshiki’s shoulders loosening up the slightest bit. His jaw is slack with his heaving breaths, a hint of a smile in his relief, but his gaze is frantically studying every inch of Yoshiki—looking for cracks he may have made in the very human body and soul he can’t get enough of, would kill everyone in this village to protect…
He’s not Hikaru.
He’s not, and he never will be…
And yet…
“You alright?” ‘Hikaru’ frets and fusses as Yoshiki sits and stares, clumsily attempting to smooth out the thin, silken hair he selfishly allowed himself to get lost in earlier while the older boy was under. He grabs the first thing he can blindly get his hands on, Yoshiki’s blanket, and does his best to wipe away the spit and mucus he’d dragged out of Yoshiki in his frantic exit of his insides. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t sure how long I was gonna be able to keep that up, o-or how long it’d be safe for ya, but…”
“Was that all real..?” Yoshiki’s voice is dry and hoarse, and even the simple motion of working his jaw around the words is tiring. It feels like he’s been running and screaming for hours, but he knows very well where he’s actually been, more or less. “How… How did ya…do that..?”
“Well…” ‘Hikaru’s gaze drifts away from him, and his cheeks turn the lightest shade of pink that burns brighter in the setting sun pouring in through the window. “I… I’ve been thinkin’ about this for a while now… About how I’m somethin’ outside the cycle of life, death and rebirth… S-so I started thinkin’ that maybe,” ‘Hikaru’ looks back at him with this pleading look, this tentative hopefulness so thick in the air Yoshiki can taste it, taste ‘Hikaru’s bone-deep desire for Yoshiki’s praise. “Maybe I exist somewhere outside’a time, too?”
The cotton coating Yoshiki’s brain starts to peel away, bit by bit, his eyes widening as the pieces start falling into place in slow motion. “S-so, you… Then that…”
“I know how much ya miss him, and… I know I ain’t never gonna be able ta fill up that place he left in you…” ‘Hikaru’ reaches for him—slow but sure this time, not approaching a scared animal, but taking his friend’s hand and holding it in both of his, giving it a squeeze and savoring the texture of Yoshiki’s blood warmed skin against his own. “But you’ve done so much fer me, Yoshiki. Yer nice to me, make me feel like what I am don’t matter as much as who I am.” ‘Hikaru’s smile falters, his gaze turning sheepish and downcast. “Even though I ain’t Hikaru… I wanted to try an’ do somethin’ to take some of that pain away…”
“You brought me back…” Just like that first time ‘Hikaru’ had lost control. When he’d thrown Yoshiki to the floor as his feelings spilled out all over them, and wormed his way inside, sparking memories that weren’t his own, of a distraught young man cradling his beloved’s head. “Y-you brought me back to… To when he died, wh-when Hikaru…”
“I’m still learnin’ how to appreciate life an' death as more than just the natural state of things,” ‘Hikaru’ chimes in as Yoshiki’s breathing becomes less and less steady. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and his eyes shine in the fading light in a way that makes ‘Hikaru’s insides twist somethin’ fierce. “But I know fer sure that, if it were me… If somethin’ happened to ya and I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye…” ‘Hikaru’s voice trembles and breaks ever so slightly, the glistening swell of tears beading at the corners of his eyes as he pulls one hand from Yoshiki’s with reluctance, only to lift that hand and cradle Yoshiki's flushed cheek. “I don’t think I’d be able to handle it… I’d break…”
‘Hikaru’ smiles tenderly, and that’s all it takes for him.
“I wanted you to have that chance, so you could say everythin’ ya wanted to him… That was my wish for you, Yoshiki.”
He’s not Hikaru…
But he doesn’t need to be.
It starts as a pathetic whining in his throat, his stomach tightening in sporadic little bursts as he instinctively chokes back his feelings like he’s always done. Maybe it’s because they’re alone-- No… That’s not it; his family could come home any moment, and even then there’s the potential for prying eyes and ears on the street below them, visible from his room as they sit perfectly framed by golden twilight.
In truth, it is because it’s ‘Hikaru’ himself that allows Yoshiki to let himself finally, completely shatter under his watchful gaze, heady with a sense of devotion and acceptance that’s simply impossible to understand, to feel like he’s truly deserving of.
Yoshiki doesn’t need to understand. ‘Hikaru’s arms are open, and he falls into them willingly and lets go.
The sounds he makes are terrible, humiliating. Pathetic, wailing cries that rattle his entire body as he sobs openly against ‘Hikaru’s chest, allowing his loneliness and grief to spill out all over both of them. His damp breaths and tears that seem to never end leave their mark on ‘Hikaru’s shirt, which Yoshiki clings to as though it’s the only way to keep himself from shaking apart into his most base elements, atoms spilt all over his bed like blood from a gaping wound. If this were anyone else, anyone at all, Yoshiki would have the good sense to be ashamed of himself for allowing such vulnerability, for splitting himself open down the middle and leaving his bare, tender insides on display to be poked and prodded at…
Anyone but ‘Hikaru’, who holds him close and strokes his hair.
‘Hikaru’, who scoops his bloody innards off the floor and tenderly arranges them back where they belong to the best of his ability, what with his minimal understanding of human anatomy.
‘Hikaru’, who whispers in hushed words of comfort to him, wracked by equal emotion, that he’s here for Yoshiki, that he always will be.
‘Hikaru’, who by some means known only to himself—and barely at that—gave Yoshiki the precious, heartbreaking chance to see his everything one last time…
Only ‘Hikaru’ will ever see him this lost, this fulfilled, this human…
‘Hikaru’ makes him feel human.
The irony isn’t lost on Yoshiki.
Yoshiki rises to meet his gaze. The sun has long since set.
“Feelin’ okay?” ‘Hikaru’ whispers for no other reason than to let the moment rest, give Yoshiki time to truly settle back into his own body that’s been emptied out of all it has to offer. “I’m sorry I didn’t give ya more of a warnin’... I’m not sure ‘bout what that might’a done to ya, so if anything’s hurtin’ or doesn’t feel right, you should-”
Yoshiki silences him, cupping his cheeks and leaning in until the only space between them is a hairs breath between their lips. Yoshiki can feel the puffs of air turn slow yet shaky, and those drops of blood that make up the centers of his eyes glow brilliantly in the low light.
Yoshiki shuts his eyes, and just feels.
“Thank you, ‘Hikaru’...”
He can feel the pleasure building in ‘Hikaru’s chest where it’s pressed against his own, and while he’s fairly certain still that ‘Hikaru’ went into this with no intention to receive anything in return, it gladdens him all the same that he can give ‘Hikaru’ that, at the very least. He wants to give him so much more…
‘Hikaru’ deserves the world, but his thanks will have to suffice for now.
“A-any time, Yoshiki… Though I ain’t sure I could actually do somethin’ like that again… Ain’t too sure how I did it this time really, heh…”
“Just gonna keep guessin’ yer way through life, huh?” Yoshiki laughs out, low and scratchy. He could really use some water…
“Guess so! But that’s alright, ‘cause you’ll be there to help me, won'tcha?”
“... Yeah…”
It can wait.
“Any time,”
The whole world can wait for them, but not forever.
‘When everythin’s said and done…'
'Just be you.'
'Live.’
' I’ll never forget you, neither. '
“I promise.”