Ambivalent

by Funuke

Summary:

Something that used to be so simple and comprehensible is now a feeling so prominently indescribable.

And yet to Shiki, he’s just a possession. Something to pass the time with.

The bed is hard and flat against his back. There's an ache that claws up his spine from his backside that’ll probably linger into the next day. Akira is used to the soreness by now, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to ignore the discomfort.

He turns to lie on his side. Being in this position doesn't help soothe the stinging ache in his back, but it does let him see Shiki's profile better than if he were lying flat on his back. He rests his cheek against the pillow and lets his gaze trails upward.

Shiki is seated on a wooden crate just a few feet away from the bed, one long leg crossed over the other. The moon is out. There are no curtains, no shades here to blot out the light, so it shines through, unfiltered through the windows, and it illuminates the bed sheets; the soft folds and creases in the fabric.

Shiki picks up the water bottle that's on the nightstand and drinks from it, head tilting back in one smooth motion. The water sloshes in the bottle. Akira watches, silent. When Shiki finishes taking a sip, he twists the bottle cap and sets it down, as seamlessly as he'd picked it up.

“What?” Shiki says without looking at Akira. His voice is surprisingly soft, but it still causes Akira to bristle.

“Nothing,” Akira says. He didn't mean to be caught staring at Shiki. Every muscle in his body is tense. He watches Shiki, waiting for him to get up, to do something to him, but nothing happens.

Eventually it becomes clear Shiki has no intention of doing anything at all. Instead, he remains sitting there under the moonlight, his gaze still not on Akira but fixed on some imperceptible point in the dark. And from this angle, Akira can see just the hint of his profile, the barest impression of it, his expression obscured by his hair and the surrounding shadows.

He doubts he'd be able to interpret Shiki’s expression even if he could see his face. He and Shiki don’t know each other very well. They spend their days apart and their nights together in bed, but even when they're together, the separation is still there. It's present between them even now, the distance.

Akira’s shoulders drop. He leans more of his weight onto his side, and the bed sheets rustle.

“…I can’t sleep,” he mumbles.

“And that's my problem?”

Akira presses the flat of his cheek into the pillow. He looks up indignantly at Shiki. It isn't Shiki's problem, but it should be, because he's the reason why Akira aches all over right now and can't fall asleep. That's what he would say, but he finds that the feeling isn’t really all there. What little indignation he felt from that comment is already gone. Instead, he keeps his silence and observes Shiki.

The moonlight peering in from the windows is a faint and luminous hue, soft in its sheen around the room. It dabs Shiki's skin and catches on his hair; smears his profile against the dark. It makes him look paler than he already is. Under the light of the moon, he looks somber like this, in a somewhat eerie, beautiful way. Akira looks away, because he finds that thought traitorous.

He clutches at the bed sheets and pulls them closer to him. It’s strange, he thinks. The resentment he would usually feel at a time like this isn’t there. Something that used to be a constant is now absent, and the absence of anger is unfamiliar to him.

Even weirder is that he hadn’t sensed any malice from Shiki's words during their brief exchange. They had just been… talking. It wasn't a normal conversation—nothing between them could pass as normal—but it was a neutral one. It was as close to normal as they could or maybe ever would get.

Maybe it’s because the moon is out and there's no rain. It's one of the few rare times that it's truly silent in Toshima, the kind of silence that can be appreciated instead of taken for granted, and for that reason, Akira doesn't want to disturb it. If Shiki won't agitate the stillness between them, then Akira won’t, either.

Some time passes and Akira still finds himself lying awake on the bed. He’s turned and tossed and tried to find a comfortable position, but there aren’t any. The ache in his back is bright with inflammation, but it's not physical discomfort that stops him from falling asleep, it's mental. He's been able to fall asleep in much worse conditions and circumstances before—in the unfavorable dark of Toshima, sitting against the wall of an abandoned building, liable to an ambush at any moment. He has a bed here, in a building that isn't quite abandoned. It should be safer here, but there's nothing safe about being in Shiki's presence.

It’s a surprise Shiki hasn’t said anything to him yet with all the noise he's making. Each time Akira shifts his position even slightly, he hears the rustling of the bed sheets keenly. It disturbs the silence. When Akira turns to settle on his right side again, the side that gives him a view of Shiki’s profile, he sees Shiki with his sword. Not just holding it, but cleaning it. It makes Akira pause.

Shiki has a cloth in his hand. Akira's eyes trace the languid motion of his hand moving across the length of the blade. There's a certain grace to his movements that can only be ascribed to being borne from familiarity. It's natural, deliberate. His hands look strangely delicate, the way they’re poised around the handle and edge of the sword.

He never realized how long and slender Shiki’s fingers looked until now. There's so much he doesn't know about Shiki.

It’s evident from the way Shiki handles his sword that it’s well-maintained and cared for, but Akira’s surprise comes from how he didn’t notice the signs of that fact sooner. How sharp it is, the lack of rust or chips in the blade, the way the steel cleanly reflects whatever it mirrors in its length.

Akira waits to find the right moment to speak and then asks, “What do you use to clean it?”

He immediately regrets it. It almost feels wrong, hearing his own voice being spoken out loud in the dark when it's this quiet.

He doesn’t have to clarify what he means. Shiki’s gaze lowers from the sword and to him.

“Just oil and a cloth.”

“It doesn’t rust?”

“No,” Shiki replies, simply. Then his head tilts slightly, as if there's a thought that lingers in the air. “As long as you clean it after every use.”

Akira makes a slight sound in his throat. After every use. He never realized it before, the amount of diligence and care needed to maintain such a weapon. He rarely used weapons himself, more comfortable with his fists; more comfortable using his own body as a weapon.

Somehow there are more facets to Shiki. Akira hadn’t expected that.

When Shiki is done cleaning his sword, he sets the cloth aside, then tests the weight of the blade in his hands. He holds the sword level to his gaze, at a slight angle, the tilt of his head offering a partial view of his expression—a subtle look of concentration, faintly discernible in the moonlight.

Akira watches with quiet intrigue. His eyes follow the length of Shiki's blade. He makes a conscious effort to still his breath, unwilling to be a point of distraction for Shiki.

A newfound sense of fascination grasps him as he watches. The kind of weapon that Shiki wields—it's delicate but fierce. He thinks he can see those same traits reflected in Shiki. But only in the quietest part of his mind will he admit that.

When Shiki appears satisfied with his assessment, he finally sheathes his sword, then sets it upright against the nightstand.

“That sword… seems important to you,” Akira says.

Shiki pauses and looks at him.

“You could say that,” he answers quietly.

The answer surprises him. He didn't think Shiki would've admitted. He never even considered that Shiki would have any attachments, material or otherwise.

He then realizes how intently he’s been listening to Shiki’s words this whole time, few as they are.

Akira thinks about his own attachment. He took so long to admit it, and it was already gone by the time he finally realized.

Maybe even Shiki has things that are important to him. Akira doesn't want to pry further than he already has. He's already tested the limits just asking these questions. He gazed into the abyss to try and find something in Shiki, and the abyss had gazed back, red-eyed and knowing. He should stop here, before he loses himself in it. Before he uncovers too much about Shiki and loses what hate he has, because if he doesn't have hate, then what does he have?

Akira sighs. He doesn't know why he asked all these questions in the first place. He's never been interested in learning about others before. Shiki might be the first. He always considered it a pointless endeavor to understand the thoughts and feelings of those around him, but it’s impossible to not concern himself with Shiki, when Shiki dominates his life so wholly and thoroughly. When he’s the center of which all Akira’s thoughts orbit lately.

Shiki had said he wanted to break him. Maybe it’s already started, only in ways Akira can't see. Akira still feels like himself, but something has changed, something has morphed in the lingering dark, and he can’t see what it is. Ever since that night, when they had that conversation in the moonlight and Shiki had forwardly asked for his name, something changed. The air between them sits differently now.

Akira turns to lie on his other side and faces the window. The moonlight is soft and heavy on his eyes. It turns the room all hazy and wispy. The ache in his back no longer seems as severe as it was before, reduced to a forethought in his mind. Exhaustion is finally catching up to him. He pulls the bed covers up over his shoulders.

Shiki is no longer sitting on the crate. He's gotten up. He stands by the window with his arms crossed, looking out at the view. The moonlight falls upon him, soft and tremulous.

Akira wonders what Shiki is thinking about. But it's a pointless endeavor, he knows. Whatever exchange of words they have can only be surface level in nature.

He falls asleep not long after.

 

---

 

“Why did you come here?” Shiki asks him, on a particularly quiet and moonlit night. They've become more and more common as of late, these nights where the moon is visible and its glow is gentle enough to illuminate the placid silence between them.

Akira looks up from where he sits on the bed with his knees pulled up to his chest. He isn’t sure that he actually heard Shiki ask him that question. Shiki, who couldn't care less about him. So he's surprised when he sees Shiki looking at him from where he stands by the window, arms crossed together, waiting expectantly.

Akira is confused. “Here?” To this apartment?

“You joined Igra for a reason,” Shiki says, more like assumes, but his tone of voice makes it clear he’s already determined this assumption to be true, so there's no point in asking if it is. He remains standing at his spot by the window. The moonlight shines upon him in such a delicate and eerie way.

Akira thinks about it. It's not that he doesn't want to answer, but he doesn't know how he should frame it. Others have asked him that same question before, but they never pried deeper after he offered some noncommittal answer, content with just the surface-level explanation. Their surface-level impressions of him. He’s always let people make their own assumptions about him. It never bothered him anyway, what people thought about him.

“I didn't have a choice,” he says.

“That’s not an answer.”

Shiki's stare on him is intense, or maybe that’s just the effect of the moonlight. Maybe it's Akira’s own eyes playing tricks on him in the dark, wanting to see things that aren't there.

Akira shifts minutely where he sits, keenly aware of the sound of the bed sheets rustling beneath him. Aware of Shiki's gaze on him, those red eyes regarding him with the barest gleam of moonlight reflected in them.

He did have a choice. It was either life or death. Freedom or imprisonment. Igra or execution. He chose the one that gave him a chance of living.

“I didn’t want to die without having any say in how,” Akira says as an answer, this time. “So I took the other choice. It was my only way out.”

Shiki seems to regard him for a moment. The air turns contemplative. But then the moment passes, and Shiki says, “That still doesn’t answer my question.”

Akira frowns up at him, half confused, half irritated. “I already told you, I—”

“What do you fight in Igra for?”

Akira stills. Suddenly he's acutely aware of how noisy the rain is. He wishes it was either quieter or louder. Quieter so he didn't have to hear its incessant pattering against the windowpane. Louder so it would at least wash away the silence that infests the room like a lingering disease, a disease that worms its way into his head through his ears, feeding off all the thoughts in his head.

He should ask why Shiki even cares to know. But he recognizes the unfairness and hypocrisy of that, of him always asking Shiki questions, Shiki indulging him by answering, and then him not answering Shiki's question in turn. If he doesn't answer this question, then Shiki has no reason to answer any of his questions, either, and Akira would rather risk baring himself to Shiki than Shiki never answering any of his questions again.

There's a chill in the room. Akira feels it creep up his nape. He already has his jacket draped around his shoulders, hanging over his back, so he simply pulls it closer to himself. It’s too bothersome to put his arms through the sleeves. And he feels vaguely self-conscious about doing that right now, as if it will draw even more of Shiki's attention to him.

Akira presses his face into his folded arms atop his knees. He looks out the window. The glass is beaded with droplets. Lines of rain streak down the windowpane, trailing and converging into a wet blur. The pattering echoes around the room.

“I don’t know,” Akira says, finally, quietly into the night.

This time, Shiki doesn’t accuse him of saying a non-answer.

The sound of the rain has become a little less suffocating. Akira glances up from his knees. Shiki's gaze is no longer on him. He's looking out the window.

Akira goes back to looking at the rain, too. He recalls that there are plenty of people who reside in Toshima, going through the motions of just surviving, without ever being an active participant in Igra. Akira wonders why he didn’t take that path. He could’ve just as easily broken the transmitter and pretended he died. Why hadn’t he? He has no loyalty, no attachment to the CFC.

He always knew, deep down, it was all a setup; didn't even know if they would keep their end of the bargain, if he succeeded.

“I just… wanted to see what it was like. To feel what it was like.”

Shiki doesn't dignify him with a response or give any acknowledgement of his words. He just continues to gaze out the window in that dispassionately beautiful way of his. Akira can see the line of his jaw on his profile, pale cheekbone framed delicately by his hair.

It was nothing noble, idealistic, or grand. He had simply wanted to test his own tenacity and desire to live. There was nothing more to it than that.

Even Shiki has a reason for being here, something to work toward, a purpose to live for, and that makes Akira strangely envious and resentful.

He convinced himself that he needed to defeat Il Re so he could clear his name and go back home, but that’s not true. It was just a convenient excuse.

It's him, going through the motions again, living the meaningless life he sought to escape. It followed him here all the way to Toshima. He thought he could escape it, but he can’t even bring himself to escape this apartment.

Akira sighs. He runs his hands up and down his arms, feeling the need to find something to do with his hands, and then rubs his face. He curls in on himself. His bones and joints feel creaky from disuse. Some days, the soreness and aches flare up more than others. His mind is deteriorating. He doesn’t know how long he’s been in this apartment anymore. He stopped keeping track of the days, finding even that pointless.

The passing of time here isn’t so different from before. The same monotone apartment, the same slog through the days. The only difference is, instead of Bl@ster fights, he spends his days looking out the window. Looking for a reason to live all the same.

He can't find it here, though. It's come back to haunt him, the meaningless of it all.

He wonders if Shiki thinks lowly of him even more, now.

The rain has softened enough that the pattering is barely a murmur of taps against the glass windows. Akira quietly unfolds his knees from his chest. Then he lies down on his side, wrapping his jacket around himself, using it as a makeshift blanket. He lies on the side that’s facing away from the window, away from Shiki.

He doesn't want Shiki to ask any more questions. He doesn't want to ask Shiki any questions, either, for the time being. And time passes very slowly in this room, so the only thing he can do is sleep most of the hours away, and watch the days bleed into each other.

 

---

 

The scent of rain comes through the crack in the window, damp and cool. Akira catches a whiff of it one day when he wakes up in the morning, or afternoon, or whatever time of the day it is, his arm laid bare across his forehead. The weather in Toshima makes it impossible to tell. It’s always monotonously cloudy, the sky either damp with condensation or grayed out with dim sunlight. He doesn’t have any frame of reference for time anymore. The next hour could mark the passing of twenty four hours, and he wouldn't know.

There’s very little that he knows these days. He spends his days holed up in the walls of this apartment, gazing out the window, watching the city erode under the rainfall. Today in particular, there's a deep rumble of thunder that echoes every so often, muffled from where it rolls between the clouds.

He doesn't know how long Shiki's been gone this time, but it probably hasn’t been more than a few days. Maybe two or three. Time doesn't matter to him now. There are still supplies in the form of Solids and water, so he doesn't have to worry about sustenance at the very least.

By nightfall, the rain has gone quiet. It's too dark to see, but Akira can tell based on the sounds. The rapping and whistling gusts against the windowpane have petered out.

Shiki returns to the apartment sometime later. His arrival is preceded by a series of footsteps that echo in the hallway just outside the door to the apartment. When he returns he doesn't need to shake the rain off him; it just seems to slide seamlessly off him, dripping down the smooth leather of his coat and onto the floor.

Shiki steps further into the room and begins to remove his coat. Immediately, Akira’s gaze is drawn to the way it slides off his shoulders and the long, poised line of his spine. He always stands so straight, so self-assured in his own strength. It's a trait that Akira’s come to recognize as being so intrinsically him.

With the coat off, Shiki nonchalantly drapes it over the single wooden crate in the room. He sets his sword upright against the nightstand next. He always sets it without so much of a sound. Akira has spent enough time observing him to notice these details, now.

Then Shiki removes his gloves, haphazardly tossing them aside onto the crate.

Akira can't make out his expression in the dark. Shiki's standing too far away. He can only see well enough to separate Shiki's face from the shadows, but that doesn't matter, because Shiki begins walking toward him.

Akira doesn't move from the bed. When Shiki is at the bedside, he pauses for a moment, his figure a lone, towering shadow in the dark. And then he reaches a single pale hand toward Akira.

Akira’s breath catches in his throat. Shiki's fingers are numbingly cold against his skin. As they slide against the underside of his jaw, Akira feels the chill seeping into him. Or maybe it’s his own body heat that's seeping out from his skin. Being stolen away by Shiki's touch.

Shiki makes him tilt his head up. Their stares meet, and for a moment, Akira is left observing the outline of Shiki's face; the boundary between skin and shadow, the silhouette that hangs across his impassive, impressive features, bearing the coldness of the moon.

But then Shiki’s lips move, and his features are no longer impassive.

“Weren't you waiting for this?” he asks quietly, in his usual cruel tone. As if none of it ever happened. As if those instances in the moonlight, those conversations where they had pried and peered into each other, seen more of each other than they've ever shown anyone else—none of it ever happened. Those instances, those small kisses, that insignificant moment when Shiki had laid kisses upon his bare shoulders and bleeding wrist; when Akira had brushed his mouth against his warm cheek; when their lips had met for the briefest of moments—all of it, hidden away in the desperate dark.

He should resist. He doesn't.

A creak sounds. Akira’s back meets the bed and the bed sheets cradle his form. Shiki’s hands are on him, framing the slant of his shoulders, but then they trail down the length of his arms, long fingers pressing against his skin, deathly delicate. Akira feels a tremor slip through his spine.

Akira lifts himself up onto his forearms, though he doesn't manage to get very far. Shiki is too close to him. Both his hands are on Akira's wrists, but he doesn't bind Akira’s hands up or put some form of shackle on them. Instead he just holds Akira's wrists. Maybe his touch is the shackle that binds Akira here. He could’ve escaped at any time before Shiki came back. Why hadn’t he?

“…You’re cold,” Akira mutters without thought. It’s a meaningless comment, one that doesn't necessitate a response, and one that Shiki doesn't respond to. But Shiki leans in closer to him, and Akira is suddenly all too aware of Shiki’s breath against his face, the weight of it in the air between them. Akira peers at him through his bangs.

Now that they're this close, he can see the details of Shiki’s face that were too hidden to make out before. There are traces of rainwater on his face, clinging to his features, heavy and wet on his skin. His hair holds a damp curl at the ends. It's disheveled and limp but the ends of his hair still fall around his face in all the right places, such that it ends up looking deliberate.

Akira can smell the blood off him, too, rain-tinged and metallic. There's another deep, rich aroma underneath all that though—the smokiness of leather. It's such a distinct combination. Akira breathes it in, lips half parted. He thinks he can almost taste it, the scent of Shiki; his skin, his touch.

Something blocks out his vision. Akira tenses, tries to pull away, but there's only the bed behind him and his head dips back. He’s pushed down so that his back is flush against the bed again.

He feels the weight of Shiki's hand pressed firmly over his eyelids. It's cold, and the lines of his fingers smooth into Akira's skin. Akira breathes, his other senses desperate to piece a visual together—and then he tastes Shiki's mouth on his own.

It's different from the last time they kissed. It’s more intense than all the other kisses they've given each other. Shiki doesn't pull away immediately. His lips remain there, wet against Akira's own, and the warmth melts deeply into Akira's mouth instead of becoming a phantom sensation on his lips.

Akira feels his breath in his throat. All that comes out from him is a faint moan, rising from the bottom of his throat. Every sensation feels heightened. The rain-tinged scent of blood and leather fills his head with such haziness. It smothers him, like Shiki making another claim on him, like Shiki imprinting him with another mark of possession. The piercing in his navel aches. He can’t see, but he can feel, intensely, Shiki’s presence against him, all around him.

When Shiki had driven the piercing into his navel, he had forced Akira to watch; made him burn the moment into his memory. But now he's taken away Akira's eyesight, and Akira can only memorize this moment—this kiss—through all other sensations instead: the taste of saliva between their mouths, warmly wet; the smell of blooming blood and rain, heady on the palate; the sounds of their breaths, smothered within the dark; the heat of Shiki's body breathing so close to his own, bleeding into the center of his consciousness, lighting his nerves afire. It's nothing like being marked with a piercing. There's no blood, no pain, but it feels overwhelmingly possessive all the same, all hot and dizzying.

The hand covering his eyes doesn't feel as cold against his skin anymore. He can't even perceive any temperature difference between them. Everything is so warm. The heat of their mouths, melting into each other.

Akira breathes a gasp when Shiki’s lips finally lift away from his. Shiki sighs a low breath. There's a pause before the hand covering Akira's eyes falls away. Akira blinks dazedly. For the first few seconds he can only perceive the blur of shadows in his vision, but then his eyes adjust.

The hand that was covering his eyes is now at Akira’s hip. It slips under his shirt, drags the hem of his shirt upward, fingers gliding, until his skin is exposed in the dark. Then those fingers splay against his bare body, palm pressed to the skin, and Akira becomes lost in it.

Slow, slender fingers trace the contour of imaginary lines on his body. They narrowly avoid the dip where his navel lies. Akira doesn’t know if that’s deliberate. It must be. Shiki’s always in control—of himself, of everything between them.

When Akira glances down, he sees the head of Shiki's hair by his neck. Shiki is mouthing at his neck and Akira trembles under the weight of his breath, as though his skin has the frailty of paper. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he can't see Shiki's face. He doesn't know which he would prefer, either.

Eventually Shiki’s hands stop at the waistband of Akira’s jeans. Akira looks away; tilts his head to the side. The windows provide the faintest illumination of soft white in the night.

Akira holds still when the button of his jeans comes undone and the waistband is loosened. He wants to hide, to blot out his vision with his arm, but he can't. Shiki wouldn't let him, if he tried to shut his eyelids against the inner curve of his elbow. So instead he keeps his head angled toward the window, so that all of this remains in his peripheral view.

His breath is warm and dry in his throat by the time Shiki's bare hand wraps around him. Akira stiffens under the heated touch. A flush sweeps across his neck and he doesn’t know how Shiki manages to do it, to make him feel so good in the moment and yet so awful about himself at the same time, in the part of his mind that isn't completely dominated by him. It's humiliating, the fact that he's already this aroused, when all they did was just kiss an insignificant kiss.

Shiki’s hand drags up against him, coaxing subtle tremors out of his hips. Akira pants quietly, his breaths falling out in ripples. Knees weak and quivering, he flattens himself against the bed sheets. His body aches like it’s seeking something but can’t find it, unsure of what that sensation is, utterly intangible and unknowable, like trying to see without sight.

His whole body feels prickling hot even though he's exposed from his knees all the way up to his chest. Sweat forms at the base of his neck, dampening the collar of his shirt. The tug of Shiki's hand pulls all the mellow heat into the pit of his stomach. A half-whine pools from Akira's mouth.

He tries to reach for Shiki, fumbles for him in the dark. His hand finds Shiki's wrist, fingers perching atop the slender bump of his wrist bone.

Shiki’s face drifts closer. “What?” His voice is low in Akira’s ear.

Akira’s nape quivers on the side where Shiki's breath is ghosting his ear. He parts his lips. It’s hard to get the words out. His mouth trembles, shaping the words, but there's no sound.

Shiki speaks again. “This isn't enough for you?” His mouth is close, soft, brushing the inner edge of Akira’s ear.

Akira angles his head slightly toward Shiki. “…Yours too,” he says under his breath. Take it off, he would say, if he could. But it feels too intimate, and it’s not like him to say something like that, so he doesn't.

He doesn't need to, anyway. There’s a pause of breath, and then Shiki's wrist drifts away from Akira’s hand. The bed creaks, a discernible shift in weight. In the quiet dark, the sound of a belt and zipper being undone echoes softly.

Akira swallows. He hears his own heartbeat pulsing, all the way up to his throat. Tentatively, he reaches a hand toward Shiki.

Shiki's already hard. That's what surprises Akira. He didn't think Shiki would've been so affected.

Akira's breath comes out shaky as he starts to move his hand in slow strokes.

He’s never touched Shiki like this. Not in this way. He doesn’t think Shiki would’ve let him before, either. He’s not sure when things changed, what happened between them, why it’s different now. All he knows is that he just wants to touch Shiki, in the same way Shiki is touching him.

Their hands brush each other, following the same movement, the same motions in the dark. Akira feels the bump of their knuckles. There’s heat building from all the friction. He glances down to see where the barely visible form of their hips are nearly grinding together, separated only by their hands.

Shiki is unnaturally quiet. Or maybe his natural self is when he's quiet, and Akira is only realizing this now. He doesn't know anything about Shiki. They don’t know each other at all aside from their bodies. Does he feel what Akira's doing to him right now? Is he affected by this? Or…

Everything is centered on the feel of Shiki's hand on him, on the feel of his own hand on Shiki. Akira can hear Shiki's breaths, shallow and quiet just like his own. Their faces are so close. Shiki is looking intently at him; Akira can feel it, the red of his gaze, hot on his skin. It's too visceral and too intimate, so Akira presses his lips closed and hums a moan in his throat, eyes fluttering shut.

There's pleasure rising in him, slow and intense. But as the heat builds, his breaths become short, and tension blooms warm on his nerves. Pleasure pulses throughout him, radiating from the center of his hips. He starts to spasm in Shiki's hand.

Heat spills onto his stomach. Akira tilts his head back, panting. There's sweat on his head where his temples meet the tangle of his hair. His limbs are quivering, strained in this position, but soon enough his breathing slows to a lull, and the tension in him dims. His body softens into the bed sheets.

Akira glances down to where Shiki is still hard, leaking in Akira's hand. Desperately, wantingly, Akira begins to move his hand again, in that repeating motion. His hand is slick around the shaft and glides smoothly. He can feel faint pulses emanating from Shiki, so hot and raw in his grip.

Shiki's breath is warm and soft against Akira's face. His midnight hair sweeps low and heavy between his eyes. He presses his hips toward Akira's hand and slides in and out, spreading slick all over his hand.

Akira’s throat emits a soft whine. There's something primal about the way Shiki is grinding into his hand. It's deeply mesmerizing. But the movement isn’t what keeps and holds Akira's attention. It’s Shiki’s face during this moment: his dim gaze, framed dark and heavy by his lashes; the parting of his lips, quivering with each passing breath; the telltale traces of sweat on his skin, more human than doll.

Akira can't look away. If the circumstances were different, maybe he would feel compelled, at this moment, to reach for Shiki's face and hold it in his hands. But the circumstances aren’t different. And doing such a thing would bring up questions that Akira doesn't think he himself is capable of answering. So he just lets his gaze rest on Shiki's face, on the delicate and thin lines of his features. The balance between them is precarious and perplexing enough as it is.

Shiki eventually comes, long and pulsing. The low sound of his breaths—uneven, thick with heat, hot in Akira's ears—is a treacherously pleasing thing to listen to. Akira inhales deeply enough for his rib cage to feel like it's collapsing in on itself. The moment seems to pass by impossibly slowly, but then it feels like it's too soon, because now he doesn’t have a reason to stare at Shiki’s face anymore.

Akira lets his hand drop to his stomach. He angles his head toward the window; looks out the glass pane. His skin is uncomfortably flushed and sticky with sweat. The lingering dampness seeps into the sheets and the neck of his shirt, but he doesn't feel like moving or wiping it off.

The bed sheets shift around. Shiki moves lower so that his face is level with Akira's neck. Akira's breath hitches when he feels Shiki pressing soft kisses to the underside of his jaw, and then lower, to the column of his neck, the bump of his throat.

He doesn't understand what Shiki's intentions are. Shiki’s mouth tickles against his skin, and Akira has to hold his breath in so that he doesn’t release a tremble.

Shiki moves past his neck and down to his waist. His hands grab the sides of Akira’s waist and the breath that Akira was holding in comes out in a soft voice of surprise. Akira looks down to see Shiki pressing his mouth to his stomach—(more kisses, again)—where his navel lies at the center; the eye of the storm.

Shiki's tongue catches on the piercing in his navel. Akira’s breath heaves in his chest. Heat starts to rouse in him once more. He thought it would hurt, and briefly, his body had tensed up in anticipation, but there's hardly any pain. The only vague discomfort he feels is from how sensitive that area is, still healing from the raw wound that remains, but otherwise, it's wet from Shiki's tongue, and Akira's mind traces the small, circular dip of his tongue against his skin, teasing, flicking. His waist trembles in Shiki's hold, but Shiki keeps him steady and pinned to the bed.

The next time Shiki moves, it's to raise his face back up to Akira's own. He takes Akira’s face in his hands and makes Akira look at him.

“I’ll make you show me everything,” he says.

Akira’s breath is in his throat. He feels Shiki's gaze on his skin. His back is pressed against the bed but he thinks he might sink into it. Under the weight of Shiki's gaze, he’ll drown.

Shiki lets go of his face. He grabs Akira's leg and makes him lift it up easily enough. With his other hand, he slides his fingers into him, smooth and probing.

Akira's body responds with just a twitch. It doesn’t take much for Shiki to open him up with his fingers. He doesn’t feel as tense as he normally would. Maybe it's because his body has finally gotten used to this, or because he's still coming down from his earlier high. His body feels languid and sluggish, more flesh than bone, and therefore malleable to Shiki’s touch.

He's hard again. Shiki is too. Shiki pulls his fingers out and soon enters him, keeping Akira's leg held up. The pressure is intense but not overbearing. His body isn't as resistant as it once was. Akira feels himself open up easily, and with that, a wave of shame washes over him, hot and discomforting. He turns his head to the side and presses his face into the narrow crook of his arm.

It's all Shiki's fault. It has to be. Because of him, he feels like this. Because of him, he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

Shiki pushes down on him. Akira can only lie there, his leg still lifted in the air, held up solely by Shiki's hand.

The bed is creaking softly. He hears Shiki's low breaths above him. Akira keeps his own mouth shut, swallowing down any noise. His throat feels strained, dry, the oxygen in his airway thick like smoke. Each thrust into him is slow, deep, and Akira feels it viscerally, the drag of it, grinding against him inside. It’s almost more torturous than if Shiki were going brutally fast. Akira just wishes he would get this over with quickly, so he wouldn’t have to endure this; keep his face hidden against his arm like this.

The crook of his arm is wet. He doesn’t realize this until Shiki lets go of his leg and grabs his elbow, making him pull his arm away from his face. He blinks but his eyelids close once more when Shiki presses his mouth to his eye.

Shiki's lips are soft against his lashes. His tongue dips out briefly. Akira’s eyes tremble underneath the wet brush of his tongue. Only when Shiki’s mouth lifts away does Akira allow his eyes to open again.

His eyes are still wet, but the sting of salt is gone. All that remains is a patch of saliva, and even that is already drying, cool on his skin.

Akira blinks away the remaining wetness. When his gaze refocuses, he sees Shiki’s face in the dark. He can't make out what kind of expression Shiki is looking at him with. Surely contempt. Maybe scorn.

It’s fine that he doesn't know. It wouldn't change anything. The bed is still creaking beneath them to the sway of their hips. And Shiki is still breathing quietly above him. Akira is tempted to turn his head and stare out the window for the remainder of this, like waiting out a storm, but before he can act on that thought, Shiki lifts a hand to hold his chin.

Shiki’s grip is loose around his jaw. Akira’s gaze drifts downward to where Shiki’s thumb is brushing his lower lip. When he looks back up, Shiki’s face is close to his own, and their mouths are touching.

Akira’s breath stills. He doesn't mean to part his lips but it just happens. Shiki's tongue slides into his mouth.

Akira’s mouth gets caught up in it, in the kiss. Their tongues are sliding together. It's as warm as the heat pooling between their hips, maybe even more.

Their noses bump at this angle. Akira watches Shiki's lashes flutter, low and refined over his lidded eyes. Their faces are close, intimately so. Shiki is holding his gaze. It's too much, so Akira closes his eyes.

Shiki’s hand moves from his jaw to the side of his face, cupping it. A few loose strands of Akira's hair become tucked between his fingers. And then he lifts his other hand up, too, so that he’s holding Akira’s face in both his hands.

His hands are warm and callused and they brim with veins that beat with bloody vitality, but right now the strength and bloodlust that Akira has become so inclined to expect from them is absent. Instead Shiki cradles Akira's face in his hands; makes him tilt his head up so their mouths meet better at this angle. Shiki's tongue is deep in his mouth, the kiss between them dangerously wet. Akira breathes a whimper into it. Shiki's breath is suffocatingly warm. If he doesn't drown from Shiki's gaze then he'll surely drown from this.

He doesn't know where to put his hands. At first Akira just lets them rest idly upon Shiki’s shoulder blades, but then he clutches the back of Shiki’s shirt and buries his other hand in Shiki’s hair. His legs, meanwhile, find a natural spot around Shiki's waist. They hook around the dip of his lower back. Shiki's hips press flush against him, scorching deep, and Akira's spine becomes curled tight. He breathes helplessly into Shiki's mouth.

What are we? he wants to ask. What am I to you? What are you to me?

He doesn’t ask. He already knows. A possession. A pet. Shiki wouldn’t care, anyway. The answer is still the same. So their mouths break apart instead. And still, his face is in Shiki’s hands, framed by those fingers; those long, pale fingers. Fingertips that dip into his hair and cradle the back of his head.

Akira lets his eyes open. Shiki is watching him. His gaze is intense. Their faces are so close, foreheads almost touching.

Akira wants to look away. He can’t. His insides feel as red as Shiki’s eyes. It’s all over his skin, burning. How can he feel this way? It's too terrifying, humiliating, revealing, being seen like this, being splayed out underneath that too sharp gaze, having nowhere else to look but into those red eyes.

He buries his face in the spot between Shiki’s neck and shoulder. The fabric of Shiki’s shirt has a powerful scent to it. Akira's hand remains clutching at Shiki's back. He feels the weight of Shiki's muscles moving when Shiki lowers his hands to hold him in his arms instead. The space between them disappears, and with that, the warmth between their hips grows hotter.

He doesn't mind it as much as he should, being held like this in Shiki's arms. For a moment, and only during this moment, their bodies fill in the existing gaps between them. But even when they're connected like this, even when they're this close, even though he can feel Shiki so deeply in him and Shiki can feel him so intensely in turn, nothing has changed. After this they will go back to keeping each other at arm’s length and speak of moonlit nothings.

Shiki's arm snakes around the small of his back. A soft sound escapes Akira’s throat. Shiki's hips pull back and they separate, but it’s only for a moment as Shiki turns him around so that Akira is facing the bed.

Akira is silently glad that he does. It’s better that they don’t face each other. This way he doesn’t have to face these feelings, see them reflected back at him so carelessly.

Shiki's presence is a warm and heavy weight across his back. His chest is pressed flush to Akira's body. In this position, Akira can no longer cling onto him, so instead he clutches the bed sheets with his hands. The side of his cheek rests upon the bed, leaving a subtle imprint in the white sheets.

His neck is flushed with heat. Droplets of sweat trickle down his temples and nape, dampening the ends of his hair where skin meets scalp. When Shiki's breath descends upon him, ghosting over his bare nape, his skin only burns warmer. A shiver rolls down Akira’s spine but the sensation is overshadowed by the weight of Shiki’s head settling against his shoulder.

Shiki breathes so softly and closely to the damp skin of his nape that Akira quivers. He feels it as keenly as each thrust into him. The bed sheets are creased from his white-knuckled grip. He buries his flushed face against the sheets, panting into the shallow fabric. His hair is disheveled and it clings to his skin, but the intense heat is what lingers in his mind.

A hand brushes his elbow. Fingers draw a lonely line down the length of his forearm. They stop when they reach his hand—then Shiki interlaces their fingers together, his palm hot on the back of Akira’s hand. Akira's grip on the bed sheets loosens.

Shiki’s breath is low in his ear. He grunts softly when Akira tightens around him. The warmth of Shiki’s presence on his back is enough to melt into him, Akira imagines. Shiki's body clings to him, more persistently than any strand of hair or droplet of sweat on his skin. There is no gap that exists between them.

A hand snakes around to the front of Akira's body. It grabs him with a subtle but no less firm hold, stroking him in time to the thrusts that enter him. Akira’s hips tremble against that hand. He cranes his head to the side, just enough so that his cheek is laid flat against the bed and his breaths are no longer muffled into the sheets. A wild heat spans across his shoulder blades, from bone to bone, wallowing in the soft dip of his spine.

Shiki's hand is warm, with a grip that draws heat all the way up to Akira's core. Akira closes his eyes. A soft, breathy moan escapes him when he tenses, spilling against Shiki's hand. Behind him, he can feel Shiki's hips stuttering, can hear Shiki's strained breaths in his ear.

Heat seeps into his depths. Shiki's hips are flush against his. Above, he feels Shiki's weight easing onto his back, all the hot tension releasing. Shiki's hand squeezes over Akira’s own through their tightly interlaced fingers and Akira pants through it, through the sensation of Shiki melting into him, spasming within the deepest part of him.

Even when the spasms stop, Shiki remains on top of him, lying there like the act of breathing itself causes too much exertion. His hand is still warm over Akira’s own, their fingers not wound together as tightly as before, but still completing the gaps in each other’s hands. Akira cranes his neck just a bit more to the side. The bump of Shiki's nose is at his nape, buried in his hair. Shiki’s breathing is slow on Akira's skin, steady. The rise and fall of it reminds Akira of a faintly beating heart.

Akira wonders what Shiki's face looks like right now. What kind of expression is he making? He wants to look, but turning his head in this position would make it too obvious, so he can only rely on his imagination. And he does imagine: slender cheekbones, flushed with pale heat; soft lips, slightly parted; a trickle of sweat that leaves a shiny trail on the skin, complexion as fair and unblemished as a doll’s.

For a while, they remain like this. Shiki makes no effort to move or get off him. He lies quietly on top of Akira's body with just a still beating breath. Heat lingers between them. Akira gazes helplessly at the sheets. He clutches them in his hands.

Akira wants to turn his head and face him. Why did you bring me here? he wants to ask, again. But he can’t. After all, he already asked, didn’t he? And Shiki had already given him an answer: that he found him fascinating. Intriguing. That's all Akira is to him. That's all there is between them.

That answer doesn’t satisfy him. None of this does. He wants to turn around and look at Shiki, to hold his somber face in the dark and memorize the color of moonlight on his cheek, the cheek that he once brushed his lips against.

A heavy creak echoes from the bed as Shiki pulls out and rolls off him. He settles in the empty space beside Akira.

The hour is dark and cold. Moonlight falls in through the glass windows with a long glimmer, shedding luminosity. It seeps into the soft white sheets.

Akira isn't sure how long he’s been lying there, on his stomach still. Shiki hasn’t made a sound at all since he pulled himself off from Akira. He's been silent for a while now. Is he asleep? Akira doesn’t know. He doesn’t dare to turn and look over his shoulder. There’s an evenness to his breath that can be interpreted as slumber.

But he does want to turn around. To reach out and touch his face. He doesn't. Can't. Instead he remembers what happened the last time he did. Remembers the way Shiki had recoiled from his touch. How he got up and left afterward, the moment gone before it even began.

(A mistake. It had been a mistake. Something born in the heat of the moment. He wasn't himself, wasn't thinking clearly at that time. He wouldn’t do that again. He would never humiliate himself in front of Shiki like that again, because Shiki would laugh at him if he did.

Except Shiki didn't. He hadn't laughed at Akira. He had gotten up from the bed, startled, and looked at Akira for a while, vaguely quiet, his eyes holding some sort of unnamed but guarded emotion. And then he left. He left and didn’t return for days.)

So Akira turns around only just enough to lie on his back. And as he lies there, still and silent on the bed, face upward, he stares at the ceiling, at the slanted shadows of the window frames that splay across from one end of the wall to the other, lit by the moon. A draft of wind blows in through the crack of the broken window. He shivers but doesn't move to grab the blanket or his jacket. The moment is too placid. It's fragile, like glass, the fractured glass in the cracked windowpane, the small crevice where translucent moonlight seeps through. If he moves or makes a sound, it'll shatter.

He lies there, awake, listening to the silence. But it’s not silent. He can hear the wind humming against the glass. He can hear the faint beginnings of rainfall outside, taking shape in the form of a light drizzle. He can hear Shiki's breaths next to him. They're slow, and quiet, and he thinks to himself, numbly, that this is the first time he and Shiki have lain so close together like this.

When he wakes up, the bed is half empty, soaked with the cold remains of moonlight from the night before.

 

---

 

It rains on and off the next few days. Akira watches from where he sits curled up on the bed in the secluded apartment, looking out at all the debris scattered across the murky asphalt. Thunder rumbles amongst the far-off clouds, a great passing echo in the city.

He presses his hand to the window and flinches when the cool glass grazes the skin on his palm. The wound has scabbed over but it hasn't quite healed, still raw and sore to the touch. Maybe it never will; an everlasting reminder of his sin.

How long has it been since then? He doesn’t know. He doesn't know about the outside world anymore. These days he simply passes the time by gazing out the window, searching for some meaning hidden between the lines of the rain, looking for a reason to live.

Maybe it’s better this way. Caged in so that his blood can’t harm anyone else.

He lowers his hand and tips his head against the windowpane. The glass is cold against his temple. He gazes out at the decaying buildings on the street. It's a sight he's become used to seeing—not that he enjoys it. But there's nothing else to do but watch the world flow on while time ticks at a standstill in this apartment, so he does. He watches on.

Some time ago, when he still lived a life of relative mundanity and quietude, he found himself wandering the streets and alleyways of the CFC one day, with no destination in mind except wherever his own two feet carried him. He had been trying to get away from all the noise, all the loud chatter and cheering. The slaps of enthusiasm on his shoulders and back, the shouts of those around him, chanting his alias, as if his victory were their own.

What are they cheering for? It's the same thing every day. There's nothing to get excited over. It’s all meaningless in the end.

He had brushed past the swarm of onlookers, shrugging off their voices and presence in his personal space, where he then emerged from the crowd alone. Slipping into an empty alleyway, he left all the fanfare behind, letting it fade into the background.

I’m not trying to die on purpose, he would say, if someone asked, but no one ever did. I just don’t see any meaning in living.

It wasn’t death. It was the nothingness. The state of living just because.

“Have you no fear of death?”

(The bodies. The dead bodies at the orphanage. When you unzipped the bags, only then would you see. Their sleeping faces, captured in the singular moment of eternity. Their sunken skin, pallid without even the slightest hue of life left in them, the lines on their faces all smoothed out.

They looked at peace. It was beautiful. As if they were sleeping. It’s all the same either way. Isn't it? Just that one is temporary. The other eternal.)

He doesn’t fear death, because death is beautiful, and because the nothingness is much worse.

But for the first time in his life, he may have found something more beautiful than death.

Why do you fight in Igra? he'd asked Shiki, on a night that now seemed so long ago. You don't look like you want to become a drug lord.

And Shiki had asked, Have you ever seen true madness?

And Akira had seen it then and there: the wrath, the single-minded determination and the fire in his eyes. When he looks at Shiki he sees the promise of strength in his muscles and veins beneath the skin. He sees the pale strokes of light on his moonlit profile. The flutter of his coat as it trails behind in the dark wind, weightless like raven wings.

He has pale skin but not in the way dead bodies do. He smells of blood and rain, of death without the decay. He is death incarnate but not dead; a breathing composition, a still life in human flesh, the other side to a decomposing corpse. When he had laid himself on top of Akira, Akira had felt the warm-blooded heat of his body. The palm of Shiki’s hand over the back of his own had been stained with sweat, their fingers so intimately intertwined.

Akira has never seen anyone so alive. He has never met anyone so synonymous with death. What does Shiki possibly find interesting or fascinating about him in turn? Akira has no aspirations like him. He doesn’t fight with purpose like Shiki.

He fights simply because it’s something to do, because it’s all he knows and has known since his inception. He’s never felt the need to seek more from it. He was content enough to simply be. Not content, but content enough. Wandering through the alleyways, drifting from day to day, wondering what the point of it all was.

(Except it wasn't. It wasn't enough. Isn't that why he came here, why he threw it all away, only to end up with less than what he started? He thought he could grasp it, find the meaning to all his fighting somehow, but he’s ended back right where he started, or even further away, now.)

Why did he let Shiki change him this way? Something that used to be so simple and comprehensible is now a feeling so prominently indescribable. His every thought and emotions revolve around Shiki. He can admit that, now. And yet to Shiki, he’s just a possession. Something to pass the time with.

And maybe for a moment, it’s all in his head. Caught in his own head, the cracked windowpane in his skull, the one you can peer into through the broken glass. Why else would he feel this way—and for Shiki of all people? He’s been caught up in his own head this whole time, held prisoner by his own thoughts, these four-way window frames that surround him like a cell, all-seeing and all-encompassing. There are no shackles or chains here. The bruise on his chafed wrist from weeks ago is already fading, and Shiki hasn’t cuffed him since.

It's just him. Him and the broken windowpane in his skull.

 

---

 

A meow.

Akira shifts from where he lies on the bed. He lifts his head, casting a long glance around the room, but there's nothing there. Eventually, after a while of silence, he lays his cheek against the pillow and lets his arm drape past the edge of the bed.

It could’ve just been his imagination. Maybe he mistook something else for that noise. He hasn’t seen any small animals, let alone any wildlife at all since coming here to Toshima. It's not a surprise why. Food is scarce here and the city lacks the fauna to support a natural ecosystem.

Another meow comes, softer this time. Slowly, as though any abrupt movement might chase that sound away, Akira sits up, head tilting toward the window.

…He's not just imagining things. He’s sure of it now. That's the sound of a cat meowing.

It sounds nearby. Akira creeps closer to the window. He directs his ear toward the opening and strains to listen. It’s coming from outside the apartment, probably somewhere down the street. But…

He glances at the doorway of the apartment.

Would it even matter to Shiki if he left? He already knows the door is unlocked. The only question is why.

The more time he spends here in this apartment, the less he knows. Akira waits for another sound, something to spur him into action, but only silence echoes back.

He shifts to sit with his back against the window, watching the doorway. The air that drifts in through the crack in the window is cool on his skin. His flesh becomes dotted with tiny bumps, and so he rubs his hands over his arms.

After a while of idleness, he finally exhales and finds the resolve to pull himself away from the bed. His body is sluggish, muscles worn down from atrophy, but he forces himself to stand regardless. His bare feet lightly touch the concrete floor and a shudder snakes under Akira's skin. He finds his shoes somewhere in the corner of the room.

He slides his jacket on through the sleeves afterward. The jacket is thick and heavy in a way that feels unfamiliar, like he’s wearing someone else’s clothes and not his own. It doesn't fall on his frame like how it once did, is his prevailing thought. But maybe that's just his tired imagination.

Standing at the doorway, he casts a glance over his shoulder at the interior of the room, this room that he's become, admittedly, so familiar and complacent with, though it stings his pride to admit that.

He’s just going to take a look around the area. Whether he leaves for real or not… he'll make that decision later, when the time comes.

Not allowing himself the opportunity to change his mind, he grabs the knob and pushes the door open.

The door groans eerily but without much resistance. The ease in which it opens surprises Akira. He thought it'd be heavier. So much anxiety and so many thoughts circling in his head about what might happen if he opens the door, that Shiki might come back the moment he does, and now the door is open, just like that. It almost feels too easy.

Akira looks out into the hallway. It’s dingy and dark, even more run down than the room inside the apartment. There are cracks crawling along the walls of the hallway, and the floor is speckled in layers of years-old dust. He steps out into the corridor, ignoring the grime beneath his sneakers.

The last time he was here, he hadn't even made it a few steps past the door before stopping and resigning himself to sitting on the floor, wondering what he was even doing. This time, he walks down the corridor without stopping, even if his steps are unassured and slow. Maybe it's because he has a goal in mind, even if it’s something as miniscule as investigating a sound he hears outside. He still doesn't know what he plans to do after that.

The air is musty, thick and unpleasant enough to choke on. Akira holds his breath while he walks, shoulders hunched and hands buried in his jacket pockets, a little shifty in his stride. He's been holed up in the apartment for so long that being able to walk around freely like this feels abnormal, like he's doing something wrong, like he's somewhere he's not supposed to be. Someone should stop him, but no one’s here. No one except him.

At the end of the hallway is a set of worn stairs. He vaguely remembers being carried up these steps, but he hadn’t gotten a good look then. The memory comes to him in blots, as dark and rainy as the night had been, consciousness blurring into ink and fatigue hanging low across his eyes. He remembers the sway of his limbs, cradled in Shiki's arms, rainwater dripping from him like a rag that’s yet to be wrung.

Quietly, he descends the flight of stairs, and then he's at ground level.

He remembers this area of the building even less, but the entrance is right there. A faint shadow of daylight spills in from the street outside. Akira walks toward it and steps out onto the street.

His skin feels unnaturally exposed under the dull daylight. He tips his head toward the sky and its gradient of gray, and he observes the shapeless clouds. The wind carries the premonition of rain on its tail, ruffling the fur of his hood. The static of a tiny drop dots his face.

He shouldn't be here, he thinks, already feeling out of his element, his clothes and the skin on his own body hanging all wrong. He should be back inside. The thought sinks numbly in his mind. Something about being here, outside, sets him on edge. He doesn't know why. Even the air, full and wide as it is—not like the stale air that he’s been breathing inside that stuffy apartment—doesn't help to clear his senses. The crisp cool air is sharp against his nostrils, and all he can taste is the phantom flavor of rain on his tongue. Impending.

The sound of a meow draws his attention. Akira turns his head. It's faint but unmistakably nearby. He remains where he stands, eyes scoping out the area, but as the meows continue, he finds himself walking down the street, following the source of that sound, his feet deliberately avoiding stepping over any debris.

He finds the cat lying near the entrance of an alleyway, hidden in the shadows, its black fur matted and covered in dirt. Akira crouches to get a better look at it—only to see the dark bloodstains that color its fur. Instinctively, he reaches to scoop it up into his arms. The cat, trembling vigorously, reaches to crawl out of his hold. Its limbs paw awkwardly along his forearm.

Akira stares at its fragile form. He doesn’t know what he should do. Its wounds are open and bleeding, smearing red on his skin. There’s no way it’ll survive out here on its own. Not with those injuries.

If it were any other place, maybe it would’ve had a chance of survival. But in Toshima there is only death—not even the mundanity of nothingness, because that would at least imply living—and the cat is by its lonesome self. It never stood a chance.

Akira considers briefly, absurdly, letting the cat go. Letting it die out here in the alleyway. Putting it back where he found it, where it belongs. Wasn't its fate already sealed the moment it got these injuries? What good could he do for it now?

As he ponders this, the first drops of rain fall upon his face. Akira tips his head up. The sky is clouded over.

A downpour soon follows.

 

---

 

What is he doing?

He is back here again, within this solitary apartment, his solitary confinement.

Akira sets down the cat on the floor. He watches as it struggles, futilely, to walk on all fours. It limps and looks around the room, head turning in every direction. When it bumps into a piece of furniture it jerks back, skittish.

Akira takes a step forward and the cat remembers his presence, head snapping in his direction. It remains still and watches him, waiting. As Akira comes nearer, it begins to slowly retreat backward.

When Akira is standing at the edge of the bed, the cat scurries to hide underneath the bed. Akira stares at its hiding spot for a moment.

He feels bad about bringing it here. It didn't do anything to deserve being brought here (unlike him, who did deserve it, the sin of his blood). But if he left it out in the storm, it surely would've died sooner rather than later.

(But isn't dying the same as just living? He still doesn’t know the difference, all these years later.)

Akira sits down at the foot of the bed, taking care to leave some distance between him and the cat. He looks out the window. The storm seems particularly bad and he doesn’t know when it will let up. The rain rattles against the windowpanes with such ferocity that he thinks he can hear the glass reverberating.

Time passes while he watches the rainfall. At some point, the cat crawls out of its hiding spot. Akira barely notices its small moving form out of the corner of his eyes, his focus leaving the window.

The cat gives him a long stare. It turns its head and noses the air. Then it limps across the room. When it reaches the door, it paws at it and meows.

“You want to leave?” Akira asks. He's not that surprised. The cat must be confused. Wandering, lost, placed in an environment it doesn't recognize, entirely against its own will.

“…It's better if you stay here,” he says, glancing towards the windows. It's still pouring, and with no respite in sight. “At least until the rain stops.”

It’s not like it can understand him, anyway. The cat paws at the door for a little longer before giving up or seemingly losing interest in it. It moves away from the door, and this time, it doesn't return to hiding under the bed, but instead explores the room and the barebones furnishing of it. The crate and the nightstand hold the cat’s curiosity for a while, but it's not long before its interest wanes.

Then it turns its attention to Akira.

The cat meows at him. It stares up at him with its big, round eyes and thin-slit pupils. Akira becomes vaguely confused. At first he thinks it's just the cat acting upon its natural instinct to meow, but as it continues to meow incessantly, he realizes it wants something.

He doesn't know what it wants, though. He's never been good at communicating, even less so when it comes to trying to talk to an animal that can't understand him, and that he can't understand in turn. The best he can do is just gauge the cat’s reactions and try to guess what it wants from there.

“Are you hungry?” he asks on a whim. Or maybe it's thirsty, or both. How long had it been out there wandering on the street until Akira found it?

Akira fishes for the Solid in his pocket. He was planning on saving it for later, but he doesn't feel particularly hungry, and he doubts his appetite will set in anytime soon. He can always… wait until Shiki comes back with more anyway.

The Solid is apparently meat flavored, according to the packaging. Akira's appetite further withers, but maybe the cat will be more appreciative of the flavor. He tears the wrapper open and leans down, extending a hand toward the cat.

“Here.”

The cat bristles but doesn’t back away. It holds Akira’s stare and cautiously creeps closer. When it's close enough, it taste tests the Solid with just a few licks.

It doesn’t take long for the cat to start nibbling and pawing at the Solid, seemingly swallowing faster than it can chew. Akira lowers his hand further so that it has an easier time eating.

“You’re really hungry, aren’t you,” he murmurs.

But Akira can't blame it. The cat probably eats whatever scraps it can find in the dirty streets of Toshima, and he doubts those scraps are more edible or nutritious than a Solid, as chemically processed as the latter is. Maybe it was starving before Akira found it. It's almost a bit unnerving, how frenetic the cat seems now when it looked ready to succumb to its injuries just a while ago, lying on the ground, barely breathing.

(And then he remembers—how desperate he was to drink the water in the bottle, how thirsty and delirious he had been. Going so far as to even humiliate himself by bowing his head like a dog and drinking from Shiki’s hand. The need was overwhelming, the anguish both mental and physical. His heart had pounded in his chest with each gulp of water.)

He finds that thought strange. When the body realizes it's dehydrated or starving, it'll override any and all senses to focus solely on getting sustenance. There is an ingrained, biological need somewhere in there; the need to live. It was present in him without him even realizing.

The cessation of function, he thinks to himself numbly. That’s what death is.

After the cat is sated, Akira gives it some water. To this, the cat reacts with the same amount of desperation and eagerness it displayed while eating the Solid. There's no bowl or something he can pour the water into, so Akira crouches to the cat’s level. He tips the bottle’s opening toward its mouth.

When the cat finishes drinking, it lets itself slump against Akira's hand. Akira closes the water bottle and keeps the cat upright against his hand. The black fur makes it hard to tell, but the cat’s still bleeding, and as he inspects further, he finds the main cause of the blood: a gash on the right leg.

“Sorry,” he says softly, smoothing the cat’s fur with the back of his hand; a caress, a small gesture, as much as the cat will allow. “There's nothing here that I can use to patch you up.”

The cat doesn't seem to mind. It simply rests against Akira’s hand, head drooping and eyes slowly blinking closed. A purr starts to emit from its small throat, low and rumbling.

Akira smiles a little. He carefully slides his hands underneath the cat and cradles it in his arms. It’s small and light, and it looks thinner than it probably should be.

“Let’s get you washed up,” he says.

The cat doesn't protest or try to slip out of his hold. Akira brings it to the bathroom. His eyes go from the sink, to the tub, and then back to the sink.

He decides to use the sink. The smaller space and tinier faucet probably won't frighten the cat as much. And the tub brings back bad memories.

He turns on the faucet and checks that the water is warm before placing the cat in the basin. The cat flinches from just the water skimming its fur. It shuffles around in the sink for a bit, visibly agitated, before reaching to climb out of the sink, but Akira’s hand holds it at bay. He keeps the faucet running at a low volume and eases the cat under the water, limb by limb.

The cat is unkempt and dirty. Akira tries to rub blood and dirt out of its fur the best he can without applying too much pressure or agitating the wound on its leg. He manages to get most of the stains off. There are still tangles and knots weaved here and there into the cat’s fur, but there’s not much he can do on that end.

Akira brings the cat back to the main room. He takes off his jacket and uses it as a makeshift towel and blanket, wrapping the cat up in it before lowering it to the bed.

The cat seems to find it satisfactory enough. It curls up and nestles itself within his jacket. A slight smile reaches Akira’s face and he sits down on the bed next to the cat. He lifts a hand to its head and gives it a soft pat. The cat doesn’t shy away but instead leans into his touch.

He almost forgets about the storm outside. Akira continues petting the cat lightly, giving slight brushes with the palm of his hand. He does this until he hears footsteps approaching from the hallway outside, steady and familiar. Akira’s hand pauses. His gaze lifts to the door.

When it creaks open, Shiki is standing there in the doorway.

 

---

 

By the time morning comes, the rain has stopped but the cat’s still here.

Akira is sitting on the bed, watching the cat a fair distance away while it occupies itself by shuffling around the room, still with a limp, or sitting on the floor, tail flicking in the air. It occasionally paws at the door.

Shiki hadn't done anything after returning to the apartment yesterday. He looked at the cat and Akira but said nothing. Instead he'd simply taken a shower in the bathroom, and when he came back out, he looked at Akira and the cat again, but still didn't dignify them with any words. He spent the night sitting on the crate while Akira and the cat shared the bed.

That was yesterday, but it’s morning now and Shiki is still here, lingering like a shadow, standing by the windows and looking out at the view. His arms are crossed over his chest and the look in his eyes is a vague mix between unimpressed and disinterested. His profile looks less favorable in the ashen daylight compared to how he looks under the moon, but despite this Akira still finds himself looking at him, studying the angle of his cheekbone and jawline, the way it all connects down to his neck, and the framing of his hair around his face, as dark as his lashes, accentuated by the soft, sloping point of his nose.

Akira looks away. The scene of Shiki's profile by the window, of him standing there and looking out at the city, as if he can see beyond what's there in the view, is too captivating. Akira distracts his thoughts by focusing on the cat instead.

He isn't sure, but he thinks the cat’s limp has gotten worse. It's more enthused with its movements, but that just makes the limping more pronounced. Akira wonders if the wound on its leg will heal. He's supposed to have let the cat go by now, let it return to where it belongs. Out on the street, alone, wandering like the stray it is. But he can’t bring himself to do it.

He's barely known the cat for a full day, but he’s developed this unnamed attachment to it. He wonders, with a rueful press of his lips, why that is. He’s never been one to form attachments with others, nor did he ever see the need to, so why now does he feel so easily for this small creature, whose life is more ephemeral than his own?

Thinking about the cat hasn't helped at all. His mind’s still cluttered with thoughts. He’s trapped within the window of his head again, the only difference being that for once, the focus of his thoughts isn't Shiki.

It’s a while later that the cat collapses on the floor, meowing weakly. Akira is by its side in seconds, checking up on it. The bleeding from the wound on its leg has restarted, and the cat struggles to breathe. It makes small, raspy sounds in its throat, coughing and convulsing. Akira instinctively lifts it into his arms.

He hears footsteps behind him, then the clear-cut sound of a sword sliding out of its sheath. Akira bristles. He turns his head, looking behind him.

“…What are you doing?” Akira asks in an accusatory tone, his glare rising from the sword to Shiki's face.

Shiki looks at him like it’s obvious. “What do you think?”

He says it so calmly and dispassionately that it momentarily renders Akira speechless. Akira's jaw works slowly, and he can only grit a few words out through his teeth. “Leave it alone,” he says, shielding the cat from view as though he’ll be able to physically block the blow with his body.

“You can tell just by looking at it,” Shiki continues, unperturbed by his own callousness. “It’s already too late for it.”

Akira cradles the cat closer to him. His gaze lowers to its small, shivering form, warm and bleeding in his arms. “It’s still alive,” he says.

“What does it matter? It’ll be dead soon.”

Akira brushes his hand over the cat’s back, smoothing its fur. He feels the weight of Shiki's sword coming down by his neck.

“Move,” Shiki demands.

Akira ignores the prick of the blade, cold and thin against his skin. “No.”

“You would rather let it suffer a slow death?”

He knows Shiki doesn’t actually care about giving the cat a merciful death. That's what pisses him off: how Shiki tries to frame it as a logical choice instead of the callous act it is. He thought Shiki would be above that, but he doesn’t know Shiki at all, does he?

“If you already know it’s going to die, then why interfere?” Akira asks, biting the words out. “Or do you also get off to killing animals for the sake of it?”

It's been a while since he and Shiki have opposed each other like this. Their conversations as of late have been neutral at best, aided by the low, brooding light of the moon, but now the ridge of differences between them has reopened like the wound on the cat’s leg, and the air surrounding them bleeds with tension.

Akira’s gaze lingers on the cat, the withering cat in his arms. It reminds him of himself. Caught between two choices, always trying to escape fate somehow.

Life or death. Igra or execution. Run after Keisuke, or don’t. Fight against Shiki, or submit. Escape the apartment, or stay.

Die by Shiki’s blade, or rot away.

The sword on his neck shifts to a slightly different angle.

“…I knew an unsightly cat just like this one,” Shiki says, so quietly that his voice is barely above a murmur. “Struggling to live so pathetically the same way.”

It’s the first time in a while that Akira has heard him talk with such disdain in his voice. But he doesn't think the disdain is directed at either him or the cat. The inflection in Shiki's voice lends to something more.

Akira looks up at Shiki. The dab of cold daylight coming in from the windows is bold against the somber details of Shiki's face, bringing depth to the pale hue of his skin.

“…Isn’t it natural to want to live?” he asks Shiki. He isn’t sure what compels him to say this. Maybe it’s his tendency to be at constant odds with Shiki. Maybe it’s the pity that he feels for this cat. He always thought he saw no real difference between life and death, that the end result was the same; just the process was different, but maybe, he's started to understand, just a little. After all these fights, all these deaths, after experiencing the mundanity of this apartment—this solitary apartment where time stands still when Shiki isn’t here and nothing else exists outside these windows and walls—he's started to see, the reason, the meaning to it all. Why he agreed to join Igra instead of accepting a death sentence; why he fought so hard to resist Shiki; why he tried so desperately to save Keisuke (but couldn’t, in the end…).

Something akin to a scoff sounds from Shiki’s throat. The sword lifts away from Akira’s neck, and Shiki sheathes his weapon. He walks away.

Akira lets the cat rest on his lap. It’s small between his hands and its limbs are thin. He can see the faint lines of its rib cage through the fur on its underbelly, its chest swelling and sinking with each passing breath.

Shiki’s footsteps stop by the door.

“Fine, then,” Shiki says. “Leave.”

The words startle Akira out of his thoughts. He thinks, at first, that Shiki is talking to him, but when he looks up, he realizes those words weren’t directed toward him at all. Shiki is looking at the cat, his head angled downward slightly.

The cat slinks out of Akira’s lap.

“Hey…” Akira reaches a hand toward it but stops, fingers left hanging in the still air. He watches the cat tread toward where Shiki is standing.

When the cat is at the door, it noses at the air, neck stretching high. A soft sound, a sort of lilting trill, leaves its mouth.

Shiki turns the knob and lets the door creak open, just wide enough for the cat to slip through.

“You should at least choose your own place to die,” Shiki says quietly.

The softness in his voice surprises Akira.

The cat huffs a hushed breath through its nose. It leaves through the doorway, balancing itself on its limp, and doesn't look back.

Shiki closes the door once it’s gone, and it shuts with a quiet thud. As he walks back to his place by the windows, he passes by Akira.

“I knew,” Akira starts, still looking at the door. “It was already too late for it. But…”

He's tired of the finality, the inevitability of all.

Somehow, he knew. That was the last time he would ever see the cat. But what right does he have to stop it from leaving? It can only stay if it chooses to.

“Akira.”

Akira lifts his head, looking toward the windows, at the light of day that blooms around the apartment, suffusing into the muted gray walls. It’s the second time Shiki has said his name. Somehow, it doesn’t sound all that unnatural to his ears.

Shiki is looking at him expectantly. He's standing by the bedside, waiting.

Slowly, Akira gets to his feet. He walks toward Shiki, and when he reaches the bed, Shiki takes him by the elbow.

His limb feels unnaturally thin in Shiki’s hand, and as Shiki pulls him onto the bed with a grip that's far more gentle than what Akira is used to, Akira finds himself settling on top of Shiki's lap. His arms fall upon Shiki’s shoulders, while Shiki caresses his waist with the same tenderness that Akira held the cat with.

The scene feels like a haze. Akira thinks he’ll probably remember it as such: a memory filtered only through the dreamlike lens of half-consciousness. Together they sit in the light by the windows, looking at each other through the veil of their bangs, eyes laid low behind the shade of their lashes. And as Akira’s head dips forward, their foreheads softly press together. It’s a strange angle, having to tilt his head down to meet Shiki's eyes. He's not used to looking at Shiki like this. He feels acutely aware that he's being watched through Shiki's own eyes.

A breath passes between them. Akira recalls that his jacket is discarded somewhere in the room. He doesn't know, doesn't remember where exactly; he left it with the cat last time, and now the cat is gone. The cold air that drifts in from the open crack in the window ripples timidly over the back of his shirt, but it's soon replaced with the palm of Shiki's hand, searching for some spot hidden in the dip of his spine.

Shiki's hand lifts up to the side of Akira's face, sliding into his hair. He pulls Akira’s head forward by the subtle grip on his hair, so that their lips meet. Akira's breath feels too shallow in his own chest, pressing against his rib cage. There's a sound stuck there in his throat, obscuring the muffled chords of his voice, beating and bleeding. The sound of his heart.

He clutches the back of Shiki’s shirt, a common gesture he’s so used to doing, now. The ruinous light from the windows spreads hazily across their faces and their joint limbs, and Akira feels his eyelids shutter closed, feels the hollow of his own eyes cradled within their sockets, the weight of Shiki’s gaze upon them.

When their mouths separate, Akira takes a moment to breathe. He lets his head slump against Shiki’s shoulder, arms dangling and looping in a limp wreath around Shiki’s back. His lips feel raw and wet and a warm flush dampens his skin, his own body betraying him and turning him all lightheaded. He thinks Shiki might push him down or grab him by the waist or turn him over onto his hands and knees, but instead Shiki lets him remain in his lap, one hand poised at the low curve of Akira’s spine, the other at his nape. Akira doesn’t know what else to do but keep his face hidden in Shiki’s shoulder.

But eventually, Akira feels a pair of hands on the waistband of his pants. He raises his head from Shiki’s shoulder and looks at him. Shiki is regarding him with some sort of noncommittal expression. One that's too complicated for Akira to interpret what it means.

It doesn’t matter. Akira tips his forehead to Shiki’s and they look at each other through the dimness of their low-lidded eyes. He feels Shiki's breath on his lips.

The button and zipper of Akira’s jeans become undone. Shiki’s hands are on him, grasping him by his hips, his sides. Akira remains straddled in his lap.

The position is novel. It's unusually intimate. And as Shiki enters him, Akira's hands claw up Shiki's back, dragging against the dark fabric of his shirt.

It’s warm. He can feel Shiki’s heat beneath him, the rise of their hips, together. Their hands pull at each other’s backs. Akira hears the soft, repeated echo of Shiki's breath in his ear, low and warm.

They spend however many minutes or hours holding each other like that, caught in this stasis of meandering hands and lingering breaths. After night falls, as the moon’s light dips low in the sky, they lie there, facing each other in the quietest hours of the night.

For once Akira is able to see Shiki's face in the prelude to sleep. He looks at him and his closed-eyed expression while Shiki holds him close. It never used to bother him that he lacked the aptitude to perceive other’s thoughts, but now it troubles him so. He can never tell what Shiki is thinking. Why did he let the cat leave, why did he bring Akira here, what does he see in Akira that's worth sparing? These are the thoughts that are always reflected in the window to his head, pinned there by daggers and knives, the dark glass and splintered moon in the pane.

 

---

 

One day he finally receives a call on the transmitter.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet,” Emma says on the phone, sounding more annoyed than concerned before revealing the truth.

After the call ends on an abrupt note, Akira hurls the communicator against the wall, feeling all the frustration and confusion in him release in that one throw. It breaks into several fragments of electronic pieces. He then sits down on the bed with an exasperated breath, rubbing his hands over his face.

He doesn't want to believe it. Shiki is Il Re?

He doesn’t think Emma has any reason to lie about it, but then, why hadn’t Shiki said anything? 

But it's not like the topic was ever brought up. There was no reason for Shiki to ever mention it in the first place.

Akira looks out the window. Even if it's true that Shiki is Il Re, he doesn't want to fight him. He hasn't thought about completing his mission for a long while now, and he… feels like he's seen too many of Shiki's sides to be able to fight him without hesitation. The thought is ridiculous, but he knows. It's easier to fight someone who you feel nothing toward. He still can't say what his feelings toward Shiki are, but he knows they're more than just nothing.

He spends the rest of the morning lying down in bed, waiting for Shiki to come back. It’s a while later that he hears footsteps approaching from down the hallway outside. Akira sits up from the bed, wondering how he should confront Shiki, but then he realizes there’s something off about those footsteps. They’re much quieter and softer from what he’s used to hearing, and the stride is different.

Akira gets up and goes to the door, planning to investigate, but it opens on the other end first before he can even turn the knob.

It’s not Shiki standing at the doorway. It's someone else, the quiet presence of a person who Akira only scarcely recalls meeting once. The stranger’s footsteps are delicately light, so soft and near noiseless that he might as well be walking on a cloud, and as he approaches closer, Akira feels anticipation rising from the pit of his stomach like a heavy fog.

“…If you’re looking for Shiki, he’s not here right now,” Akira says, remembering the incident with the suitcase, aware that this man has some unknown connection to Shiki. But none of that is his business.

The man steps closer. Akira’s first instinct is to back away, but the man’s hand reaches out, far too quick for Akira’s arm to evade, and as he catches Akira with his slender fingers, Akira flinches. His skin is so hueless that it leaves the impression he could pass through Akira. That was what Akira had thought at first, but as he holds Akira’s arm now, it becomes clear that his hand exists in a way that can only be coldly corporeal.

His grip isn’t all that strong. Akira doesn’t think he’s a fighter. He has such a delicate disposition, warm-toned clothes falling in shapeless folds around his body, and his hands look so frail, like they’ve never held a weapon before. Akira could pull his arm away if he really wanted to, but something stops him.

The difference in body temperature between them is oddly startling. Akira wonders if the man is even alive. How can his hand feel so cold? He almost reminds Akira of the sleeping bodies at the orphanage: dead but not decayed, with skin so pallid and smooth and absent of any blemishes, dips, or wrinkles. In his undeveloped memories, the bodies had looked more like sculptures than corpses to him, their lifeless limbs posed so naturally in repose, mimicking a state of deep slumber.

The man tugs on his arm gently.

“Come.”

The emotionless lull of his voice is unsettling. Akira stays rooted where he is. He doesn’t want to go with him, but the man’s grip on his arm is unyielding. He can feel static tingling where the man is touching him.

The man lowers his gaze, pale lashes falling limp over his eyes. His light-hued lips part but no sound comes out.

Akira hesitates. The man before him—he seems absurdly out of place in a place like Toshima. As though he came from a dream.

Maybe he really did. He has a soft, sunless complexion that’s further washed out by the pale bleak light coming in from the windows, and his hair frames his face in velvet brown waves. As Akira stares at him, he realizes that the man’s eyes occasionally flicker a different color. He thought it was just a trick of light, but his eyes really are changing colors, flickering between lilac grey and violet blue, even shining purple in various fleeting moments.

The hand on his arm is no longer cold, he realizes. It’s warm.

The man seems to sense the changed air between them. He beckons for Akira to follow him, again, tugging gently on his arm, murmuring in a smooth voice.

This time, Akira goes with him.

 

---

 

Outside, a light drizzle beads the misty and ashen air. Akira follows the man, letting himself be guided by the arm. His grip on Akira’s arm is light and he’s not pulling Akira along so much as simply keeping hold of him. They pass through open-wide streets and narrow alleyways, making turns every so often, though the environment remains the same either way: abandoned buildings, dumped debris, slick asphalt.

It feels like he’s leaving the apartment for real this time. He doesn’t know the way back. He hasn’t been keeping track of where they’re going, and Toshima is still unfamiliar enough that he wouldn’t know how to retrace his steps from here.

They manage to avoid encountering any others while traversing through the ruined city, and eventually, the rainfall transforms from a drizzle to the beginnings of a storm.

While they walk through one vacant street, Akira spots something in the corner of his eye.

“Wait,” he says, halting in his steps.

The man, either unhearing or uncaring, continues forward, leading Akira by the arm still.

“Stop,” Akira tries again.

He doesn’t stop.

Gritting his teeth, Akira twists his arm out of the man’s grasp. “Let go!”

Their connection is finally broken and Akira hurries over to the side of the street where he thought he saw something. Crouching down, he brushes a few pieces of debris away with his hands, and a dull ache settles in his chest.

Even through the stormy rain, he can tell. It’s the black cat.

He looks at its small form. Its breath is already gone. In its final moments, it had decided to lay on its side, curling in on itself, limbs splayed lopsidedly against the ground, a morbid end to its pitiful existence. Under the rain, its dark fur is terribly slick and drenched.

It’s messy. It’s grotesque. Not like the sleeping bodies at the orphanage at all, the ones that were cleaned and preserved, stripped of all decomposition so that all that remained was the marbled and marveled, pallid husk of something that was once alive.

The man crouches beside him. Akira hadn’t even heard him approaching, his footsteps veiled by the rain.

“Why do you mourn?” he asks, somehow sounding both imploring yet detached. “This was simply its fate.”

“No,” Akira says. It reminds him of himself. Alone, lying on the ground. “It wasn’t fate. Maybe it was destined to die no matter what, but at least it got to choose how it would die in the end.”

Die by Shiki’s blade, or rot away. The cat chose to rot away.

The man looks at him as if he doesn’t understand. That’s fine. Akira was once the same.

Akira lifts the cat into his hands, careful to not disturb the position of its passing, and he looks at it for a long while. It was alone to the very end.

He should at least help it find a proper place to rest, he decides. Some place where it won't be disturbed or found by onlookers. With that, he stands, cradling it in his arms. The man next to him stands as well and Akira turns to him.

“Do you know a quiet place here?” he asks the man.

The man’s expression remains unchanged, revealing nothing of his thoughts of Akira’s request, and under the rain’s transparent shadow, the color of his presence almost seems to waver in the wind. But he does answer with a slight incline of his head.

The two of them resume their walk through the city. The rain splashes in ringed puddles on the ground. Akira quietly follows behind the man, who moves with a steady, trancelike stride. He never turns back to see if Akira is still following, though he remains only two or three steps ahead. He seems unbothered by the rain even though it’s soaking into his clothes, wetting the waves of his loose brown hair down his nape.

What quiet place the man has in mind happens to be a church. There’s no one else inside. Standing just past the decrepit door of the church, Akira looks around at the walls and rows of crooked pews, all of it covered in dust. He takes everything in with bated breath. The windows are shattered, letting in rays of rain, and the floor is wet with puddles in some spots, but otherwise, the building provides adequate shelter from the storm.

He’s never been inside a church before but it seems lighted with a sacred sense of solace. He can hear the pattering of the rain as it echoes against the solemn walls and over the wooden roof of the building. At the end of the aisle, in the center, lies an altar and a large crucifix above.

Akira finds a spot in the corner of the church to set the cat down. He lowers it gently to the floor where it’ll be obscured in the shadows, and then sits beside it. The strange man who’s accompanied him and helped him thus far remains standing not too far away, opting to merely watch with a silent gaze instead of joining.

As a settling calm washes over Akira, chasing the chill of the rain away, his thoughts turn contemplative. He looks forlornly at the black cat.

Maybe if he had made it stay in the apartment, it would’ve survived. Maybe it would’ve been able to live longer. Would it have? He doesn’t know. There are these thoughts circling in his mind, all of different possibilities, of different pathways and choices. In the end, it was the cat’s own choice to leave, so none of that matters. There was nothing more he could’ve done for it.

Akira spends a few more moments with the cat. As he sits there, the echo of the rain seems to turn into a hymn, symphonizing with the immutable silence of the church.

Just before he’s about to get up, Akira makes a decision. He reaches behind his neck and unclasps the beaded chain that hangs there. Then he clasps it around the cat’s neck, the tag on the chain gleaming faintly in the dimness of the church.

It would be proof. Proof that he’d been here. That he was a witness to the cat’s final act of will.

When he pulls his hands away, a dull sensation sinks into his bones, like the day’s fatigue is finally catching up to him.

“Let’s go,” Akira says, standing up. Enough time has passed. He tips his chin toward the man. “You want to take me somewhere, right?” The man was willing to help him, so Akira feels that he should return the favor.

The man parts his pale lips as though he has something to say. But then he closes them again, and his gaze is dim. He holds one outstretched hand toward Akira.

Akira walks up to him and takes his hand, and together, they leave the church.

 

---

 

He stares at Shiki’s back through the rain. The black trail of his coat flows in the wind like a long shadow. In his hands, he’s carrying Nano’s deceased body.

Akira stays behind, watching from just a few steps away, feeling as though if he steps any closer, he’ll intrude on something. Instead he keeps a firm grip on Shiki’s sword. Shiki had given it to him to hold for the time being.

The place they’ve found to lay Nano at rest is at the very edge of Toshima. A place where no one will disturb, Akira presumes. Shiki lowers Nano onto a large, flat rock with a sort of careful fragility; the same way Akira had held the pitiful cat in his hands.

Maybe it’s Shiki’s own form of reverent mourning. Akira doesn't question it. The rock is surrounded by withered trees, with skeletal branches that reach high above and provide some level of coverage in terms of obscuring the rock from possible onlookers. The rain’s already washed off all the blood from Nano’s face, but the stains in his clothes remain.

In death, his pale face looks strangely placid.

Shiki stands in silence there for only a brief moment before turning away. As he passes by Akira, he takes his sword back from Akira’s hand.

“Let’s go,” Shiki says, not missing a beat.

Akira casts one last glance at Nano’s peaceful state before following after him.

“Where are we going?” he asks Shiki.

“There should be an underground sewer somewhere in the city that leads to Nikkouren.”

Shiki doesn't explain anything more than that. Akira stays quiet beside him, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. A numbing chill has seeped into his bones after being out in the rain for so long. He pulls his hood up, shielding his head from the torrential downpour, but it doesn’t do much to fix his already drenched hair. It at least keeps the wind out of his face.

The storm is so strong, the wind blowing raindrops in every direction, that Akira can barely see in front of him. He tries to keep his eyes on Shiki’s figure, just a vague, black moving shadow in the rain. He can’t pinpoint it, but something’s changed about him. Akira thought he saw it—he’s sure he did, back during that confrontation in the abandoned lot.

An uncomfortable sensation settles in his stomach. Anxiety, or maybe dread. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to Shiki now, and he’s not sure if he wants to be present to witness it.

He suddenly feels a hand grabbing his arm.

“Don’t fall behind,” Shiki says, pulling Akira close to him.

Akira peers up at him through the fur of his hood. Shiki isn't looking at him, still facing forward and walking ahead like the rain isn't even present, bracing through the roaring wind like it’s nothing. It might be his imagination but he thinks Shiki slows in his stride a bit. Akira finds himself better able to match his pace now.

The trepidation in his stomach eases, if only a little. He lets Shiki lead the way.

 

---

 

“Go wherever you like,” Shiki says.

Akira suddenly finds it hard to breathe.

Shiki doesn’t look back at him despite saying those words. His stride remains the same but Akira feels like he’s falling behind, legs slowing down. It’s only Shiki’s hand on his wrist that prevents him from staying rooted to where he is.

Was Shiki really letting him go after everything?

He wants to ask Shiki what he means by that, but the words won’t come out. He’s already asked too many questions, anyway, and somehow he doubts Shiki will answer this one, either.

The air in the tunnel is too stale and thick. Akira feels the chill of a faint draft that hums through the tunnel every so often. His body's still cold from being out in the rain and in his drenched clothes. The only source of warmth he feels is, strangely, from Shiki’s hand on him.

Akira looks down at Shiki’s hand, the only thing keeping them connected like this.

“Look,” Shiki says. Akira does.

A glimmer of light appears in view.

He… doesn’t want to go anywhere near it.

Shiki turns back to look at him when he notices Akira lagging behind. “What are you doing?” he asks, sounding like his assured usual self, in a way that could only be uniquely him, the Shiki that he knew from before everything that's happened today, and the one he's known all along.

Shiki pulls Akira forward with him by the hand.

A vague sense of melancholia constricts Akira's chest.

He’s become the black cat, the one that got away, the one Shiki let get away.

He wants to tell himself that he's not following Shiki, that he’s going his own way and that their paths just happen to align for now, but that in the future, they’ll separate.

But as they near the end of the tunnel, and Akira squints from the blinding white light, he finds himself feeling glad that Shiki is still holding his hand.

Notes:

The scene with the injured cat was shamelessly inspired by a doujinshi called "good luck, baby" by Mizugami Rairu. It's a beautiful doujinshi with a gorgeous and detailed artstyle, but not only that, it features a profound exploration of both Akira's and Shiki's mindsets, and manages to capture exactly what it is about Shiki's ideals that Akira was drawn to. The artist took the motif of the injured cat in Nano's route and explored it through the framework of Shiki's route, highlighting the themes of loss (the unknown parallel between Akira losing Keisuke and Shiki losing Rin), the inevitability of death (the cat's wounds being too severe for it to be saved), and the struggle for free will against fate, all of which culminate to the singular moment of Shiki letting the cat leave under the principle: "There's no need to offer condolences to those who live in this city. It's enough to be able to choose where to die."

In the end, Akira comes to the somber realization that, just like the cat, he cannot leave without Shiki's permission (and yet it was Shiki who let the cat go and told it to choose its own deathbed).

All in all, really great, brilliant and poignant writing. It's one of those rare gems in fandom where you can tell the creator genuinely cares about portraying the characters with nuance and exploring the canon themes laid out in the narrative. I'd share the doujinshi, but I'm not sure if the artist is comfortable with having their work shared so publicly. Plus, I initially found it through a user who had posted it on another platform, and I'm not sure if that user would be okay with me sharing, either. So I'll just leave it at that.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 8 of Vereor [Route]