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It was the scent of blood that makes Denji stop his movements.
Limply, Denji lets go of the collar he held in his grasp, merely hearing the head thump towards the ground as he lifts himself up, unclenching his furled fists that slightly ache with the tension.
It felt like pummeling dough, one that had bones and spewed out red liquid with every punch.
He's managed to get enough hits in to one of them to the point of drawing blood that completely covers his fist, but he's not in a good shape either as he lifts himself upwards, slumping out of the halls as he forces himself into one of the classroom, quickly closing the door behind him. His back lays against the walls and Denji struggles to focus properly after the punch that's landed straight between his eyes.
Bastards, He thinks to himself. He wipes down his bleeding nose with the underside of his wrists, smearing blood further onto his face and onto his arms. It stops the bleeding for seconds before it's pouring down his face again in torrents.
Denji waits patiently in the classroom. Instead of being lost in his own thoughts, lest he thinks about his own situation, he counts the seconds in his head and the instant he counts to thirty-four, the door slides open, stopping his counts as he hears footsteps enter the classroom.
They're slow, measured footsteps like they were not in a particular hurry.
"Denji," Yoshida says, smiling as he closes the door behind him.
Gritting his teeth, Denji feels like he cannot look at him. He keeps his eyes trained on the floor, his eyes trailing the lines dented into the floor. His nose drips like a half-closed faucet, blood flowing out like droplets loosely clinging on before falling because of their weight.
"Look at me, Denji." It's quiet and calm, but it feels like there's a warning behind it.
Denji refuses to. If Denji were to look now, he thinks he will not wholly be Denji anymore, that he would just exist to become Yoshida's mere lapdog. He would let a string of curses escape if he weren't so muddled.
This time, it is Yoshida who concedes as Yoshida crouches down behind him, lifting his chin upwards and forcing Denji to look at him. Denji is not in any position to be able to escape him so easily so he simply allows himself to be moved, decently satisfied in making Yoshida be the one who was forced to bend towards Denji's will.
"You're bleeding," Yoshida comments as he takes a good look at his face.
"No fucking shit."
And then Yoshida leans forwards, as he licks up the blood trailing down Denji's face. He licks starting from the bottom of Denji's lips, lapping at the blood, before his tongue moves upwards to the top of his lips, his tongue swirling as he catches the droplets on Denji's face.
For Denji, the act of consuming was the biggest form of love, the mingling into one body until there was only them. On Yoshida, it made Denji feel as if he were nothing but a victim to be devoured, to become apart of Yoshida and lose himself to.
He's done this multiple times that Denji is not particularly phased by it, but the ache in his face makes Denji lift his sore arms and push Yoshida away.
"Stop, it fucking hurts," Denji mumbles.
"Sorry, Denji." He didn't sound sorry.
Denji doesn't know what Yoshida truly wanted Denji to do for him. Everything about Yoshida was a contradiction, in the way he treated Denji as if he were some sort of prized possession. For everyone else though, to Yoshida, Denji was lesser than a bug Yoshida would squash with his shoes. Both sides of Yoshida was something Denji did not particularly like.
"Are you okay?" Yoshida questions after a few more beats of Denji ignoring him.
And it is the most simplest, yet kindest question one could ask Denji and the only person to have asked him such a question is Yoshida. Simultaneously, Yoshida was the reason for why Denji was not.
In this world, there was no one as nice to Denji as Yoshida was, and perhaps, there was no one as cruel to Denji as he was as well.
Denji sucks in a breath before he finally mutters back, forcing out his words, "Big words coming from a fucker like you. Just leave me alone."
It is a plea disguised as a rough demand because Denji has a habit of aggression.
Yoshida's figure turns colder, but the smile stays plastered on his face, like a play at acting gentle.
Denji ignores Yoshida as he attempts to lift himself upwards. He fails as his limbs unsuccessfully flail around and he lightly glances over at Yoshida, but Yoshida does not make a move to help him. Perhaps, it was Denji's fault for being so used to relying on someone as cruel and trigger happy as Yoshida. Snorting, Denji decides to rely on himself again, as he tries once more, only for his hands to slip on the ground and Denji nearly falls onto his face if it were not for Yoshida swiftly catching his arms and keeping Denji upright.
The instant Denji is sat upright, he swats at Yoshida hands away.
"Why so hostile Denji, hm?"
"You keep acting like it isn't so obvious you're the one who sent your fucking dogs after me."
"Why do you think it's me?"
"Because it's always fucking you. Always you."
"Then do you hate me? Should I help you and get revenge for you?"
Yoshida strings Denji along, bringing him to the highest, only to be the one to pull him back to the lowest point. Denji does not know what Yoshida truly wants from him, if he were mere enjoyment for Yoshida, but Denji does not want to know, for being oblivious would be a far greater alternative to knowing exactly what Yoshida wants from him. Denji would rather unknowingly walk into Yoshida's trap than to lose the moments of Yoshida's kindness because of his awareness.
Denji doesn't know what he wants. For Denji, he is used to aggression. He tells Yoshida to leave with a spew of crass words, but he was the one who had been waiting for Yoshida in the first place. For someone who is usually as simple as Denji, he does not know why, when it came to Yoshida, he became so dissonant and complicated.
"Does it matter? Would you stop fucking bothering me if I say yes or no?"
Yoshida simply smiles.
"Fuck, whatever... Buy me lunch today. I forgot my wallet." Denji doesn't even have a wallet, he brings whatever spare change he can find in his pockets to use, and Yoshida knows this as well.
Laughing, Yoshida brushes Denji's bangs out of his eyes. "Okay," He says. "I'll buy you as much as you want, Denji. Anything you desire."
And Yoshida is true to his words that day. He buys anything that Denji even remotely glances towards. He buys him three boxes of pizza that stain his fingers transparent with oil and covers his face with tomato sauce, to which Yoshida wipes away. Then he eats a caramel double fudge chocolate lover's sundae which colors his teeth brown and then finishes it with a strawberry whipped cream rainbow sprinkle ice cream cone. He takes too long to finish it, the strawberry ice cream a droopy mess as it runs down his hands and to his arms, to which Yoshida licks up for him.
Afterwards, he brushes Denji's teeth for him when Denji is too tired to open his eyes, tucks him into bed, and Denji wonders if the price of this was the torment he had gotten.
For Yoshida, it was an exchange. A nonsensical system that Denji could not wrap his head around but all he knew was that for every time Denji suffered, Yoshida paid it back in full.
***
Rotten milk.
It falls down his hair in chunks onto his shoulders and legs and the only reason why Denji doesn't gag like the rest of the people around him is because Denji is used to drinking it when he went fishing for food in the dumpsters of grocery stores. To Denji, instead of the rancid smell, it is the people laughing around him that gets him ticked.
"Gross!" A girl near him says and it's accompanied by another crescendo of laughter that sounds even louder in his ears.
The only thing stopping Denji from throttling the person behind him is because he hadn't thrown a punch first.
When they find out he was Chainsaw man, surely they would admire his graciousness.
When they find out Denji is Chainsaw man, Denji could almost imagine their looks of horror as they prostrate themselves to Denji, begging for his forgiveness with tears and snot running down their faces and trying to get in Denji's good graces. Denji would pay them back tenfold, he thinks to himself, and that is the only thing keeping Denji steady as he walks towards the bathroom.
He turns the corner and the sounds of giggles and laughter reach his ears, to which he promptly ignores, before the laughter turns crueler, more mocking.
Denji finally raises his eyes, meeting the eyes of abyss-like darkness.
Yoshida smiles. He lifts his hands, his slender fingers waggling in a greeting.
The people surrounding him, as if Yoshida were some sort of God, jeer and laugh at him, like buzzing noise surrounding his ears.
It's Yoshida's fault. Anything Denji did was faced with the scrutiny of the people around him and in the middle of it all was Yoshida.
When Denji becomes popular, it will be Yoshida who will have it the hardest. Denji will make him so tormented that it will be Yoshida clinging onto Denji and Denji would no longer feel like he was a mere plaything for Yoshida to indulge himself with whenever his mood served him. It will be Denji who will have Yoshida dancing around his grasp and it will be Denji who had the last laugh, effectively getting rid of that everso present nauseating smile on Yoshida's face.
Denji sticks out a middle finger without sparing them another glance and continues to walks towards the bathroom. He thinks of all the things Yoshida would buy him for today's torment.
He runs his hair through the faucet, attempting to get as much of his hair clean, grumbling curses over the cold water that gushes out. The school faucet never worked properly. He uses the soap from the soap dispenser to wash the milk out of his hair, smelling like a mix of milk and lavender.
He sniffs his clothes and the scent is offensive to the nose. Denji is quite pissed about the possibility of soiling his only uniform, not to mention it was his favorite shirt, with the bold red font of "Chainsaw Man!" on it that he had bought for such a cheap price in the usual dingy thrift store he always frequents.
Denji cannot even change into his gym clothes because they were all cut up. He had worn it to gym class without much care and had gotten detention for it by his gym teacher for wearing clothes that showed half his abdomen and a larger portion of his underwear. Yoshida always buys him a new one afterwards so Denji isn't too miffed by it.
He strips down all of his shirts, shivering at the open window air hitting bare skin, and puts it in the sink, pumping the soap dispenser enough times to make the slimy texture flow out of his palms and Denji goes to washing, ignoring the droplets of cold water from his hair hitting his shoulders. His movements and rough and angry, as if he were venting all the anger of the world into his shirt.
"Why didn't you say hello to me, Denji?" The voice is of mock hurt.
Denji hadn't heard the door open, but he hears the door close.
"Fuck," Denji says at the presence of Yoshida. He tries not to think about the last time he tried to talk to Yoshida at school, angrily trying to confront him. He thinks he remembers one of the kids who had mocked him had been standing besides Yoshida when he had just passed by them.
"Spoilt milk? My, they're so cruel today, aren't they?"
Contrary to Yoshida's words, today was quite tame. At the very least, Denji did not bleed today. Or perhaps, there was some truth to it, that the humiliation makes Denji feel so small and so insignificant that it's nothing like a kick to his face or the pulling of his hair.
A particularly harsh scrub leaves Denji's fingers aching. "It's all your fault anyways."
It feels like they've had this conversation one too many times and it always ends the same and starts again the next day, like one perpetual loop that Denji has become accustomated towards.
"Don't be like that Denji, aren't we friends?"
"Who wants to be friends with someone like you," Denji spits out, despite knowing the slew of people who wanted to be Yoshida's friend.
Without acknowledging Denji's harshness, Yoshida lands a hand on Denji's back to which Denji instantly jolts at, feeling Yoshida's cold fingers and palms against his more warmer bare body. Yoshida's hands roam around as they wrap around to Denji's front, playing with the chainsaw pullstring, fiddling with the thing and making Denji squirm.
"I want to be your friend, Denji. Can't we be friends?"
And Denji knows that the concept of friends isn't as skewed as the relationship Yoshida and him have, but Denji, in all his hard headiness, simply wants a friend. His wants for someone to even call a friend, even if it was just pretend, is the only thing stopping him from another onslaught of biting words.
He doesn't respond, in the end. He gets to aggressively scrubbing the shirt and the lack of hot water from the broken school faucet, coupled with the cold biting winter air makes his frozen fingers hurt with every scrub as his whole body shivers.
Without a word, Yoshida takes his hands off of Denji's pullstring, wraps his own hands against it and Yoshida's hands are cold, but they're warmer than Denji's at the moment. It's a testament to how reluctant Denji is to scrubbing the clothes anyways, when he lets Yoshida take the hands out of the sink.
"I'll buy you new clothes. Just toss them out."
"What am I going to wear then, smart ass?"
Yoshida gently lets go of his hold on Denji's hands. Denji observes from the mirror, Yoshida slowly and methodically unbuttoning each button of his school uniform, unbuttoning all the way to the bottom, revealing his white button up shirt underneath. It's smooth and without any crinkles as if Yoshida had ironed it out more than once.
He shrugs his black school uniform off and takes Denji's arms, slipping it into the sleeves that are way too big for Denji and by the time he's completely button Denji up to the top, Denji can't even see his fingers peeking out of the sleeves.
He silently glances upwards. Yoshida was smiling in his white button up shirt.
"You're going to get in trouble for not having a uniform."
"Yeah, I am."
Denji glances back down at his sleeves. He tries to wrestle his fingers out of the sleeves. The tip of his index and middle finger peeks out.
"You..." Denji starts, in lieu of his internal curses." You better take me to a buffet after school today. The most expensive one."
"Okay."
And he does.
It indeed does taste luxurious. Even their self-serving frozen yogurt machine that Denji abuses to the point that an employee had to come over and refill it. It tastes good, but it wasn't all that pleasant with the aftertaste of rotten milk that Denji cannot get out of his nose, despite the shower he had taken at Yoshida's house before their trip to the buffet. He's scrubbed his skin red and raw multiple times but he still cannot seem to stop smelling the scent.
"Goodbye Denji," Yoshida says afterwards as he kisses him on his forehead, leaving Denji alone after dropping him off at home.
Yoshida buys him things. He tends to Denji's wound tenderly. He runs his fingers through Denji's hair. He tells Denji that he's his friend. Denji gets all he's ever wanted from Yoshida, but Denji cannot feel quite good about it either. Not when Yoshida is the reason why Denji's wishes were half unfilled. He'll never get the multiple girlfriends he wanted, he'll never get the awe of the people around him, not even indifference, but at least Yoshida does manage to fulfill some parts of Denji's goals. Everyday, he goes to sleep with a full stomach and there is nothing that is too expensive for Denji.
It still is quite infuriating though.
Denji enters his room when he no longer sees Yoshida's silhouette outside his building through the living room window. He stares at the interior of his room.
Yoshida was gone, had left him minutes ago, but everything in this room reminded Denji of Yoshida. The trinkets Yoshida had bought for him, the new computer that Yoshida had gotten him, the potted cactus that Yoshida had settled on buying when Denji had proclaimed he wanted to raise a plant, and the new chair that Yoshida replaced when Denji broke his old one.
There were traces of Yoshida everywhere. Denji thinks it's particularly sickening. He collapses onto his bed in anger. Denji wonders if this could keep on going, if he was really going to let someone like Yoshida become his source of reliance. He turns over to face his wall to no longer see any of the things Yoshida has bought him, to forget every and anything about him.
The instant he turns, he's faced with a plushie of a dog that Yoshida had won for him at a crane machine, after Denji had failed numerous of time before angrily making Yoshida win it for him, in which Yoshida had succeeded at once. It was cute and soft to the touch and a reminder of how Denji is so deeply intertwined with someone like Yoshida.
Irritation buds up inside of him as Denji lifts an arm up weakly and sinks his fists into the plushie.
Stupid Yoshida.
Denji punches it again, harder this time.
That Yoshida and his stupid smile.
Denji throws the plushie against the walls and despite his strength, it just makes a small, muted noise as it plunks onto the ground afterwards, the sound most likely coming from its buttons eyes, the only hard part of it's body with everything being soft and cotton. Denji can attest to it because he knows how it feels after hugging it to sleep nearly everyday.
Forget being friends with him. Denji wants to kill Yoshida.
Besides him, the phone that Yoshida bought for him pings. It's either some sort of spam or Yoshida, as the only number inside it is Yoshida and a few number of restaurants Denji orders takeout from-- or rather, makes Yoshida order from.
Despite the almost certainty of who it was from, Denji's eyes unconsciously flit towards the small screen. It was indeed a text from Yoshida.
Good night, Denji. Sleep well.
Denji stares at the screen for a few seconds that creep into minutes as he continues to stare and stare. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, as if he were waiting for Yoshida's texts to shift and morph into something that doesn't make Denji feel like an idiot.
"Aaaarghhhh!" Denji screams as he throws the phone towards the wall as well, pulling the covers over him as he huddles up into a small cocoon, his limbs mushed together.
***
"Hey, let's settle this once and for all!"
"Denji, get off from there."
Looking back, Denji looks at the ground hundreds of feet below him. It's not particularly scary to Denji and he lightly leans back against the railing loosely, not acknowledging Yoshida's words. Before he can do much though, a hand reaches out, pulling him off from the roof railing of the school and into Yoshida's arms.
Instantly, Denji pushes him back. "Now's not the time for that, Yoshida."
"Oh?"
He unbuttons part of his school jacket and fiddles with the inside, having taped the object to the inside of his jacket as it didn't quite fit inside his pants pockets and made a quick obvious protruding shape. Everyone makes it a point to avoid him like he was some disgusting being so it was quite easy to hide.
Denji wrangles it out of the tape and takes out the steak knife inside, proudly grasping the handle.
He didn't expect much reaction from Yoshida, but it still was a surprise how little reaction Yoshida gives him at the sudden weapon, merely curving his index finger and placing it on his lips. "Are you planning on killing me?"
"No, stupid! Shut up and look closely!" Denji lifts the knife as if it were some sort of grand offering.
And then Denji plunges the knife straight into his stomach with a grin.
"Denji?" For once, Yoshida is finally showing some reaction as he momentarily does look genuinely surprised as he leans forward with his arms stretched out as if in a move to take Denji's hold off the knife himself, but it is so minimal that Denji feels like it was barely there.
"Make me popular."
"What are you doing? Doesn't it hurt, Denji?"
"I said shut up, didn't I! I know you have some weird fucking thing for seeing me suffer, so look! Aren't I doing this for you right now?"
"You're willing to do all this to be popular?" Yoshida's smile is a bit icier than usual.
"Yeah. I know it's all because of you that everyone hates me, so you're going to fix it. I won't even hold a grudge if you do." That was a lie. The instant Denji became popular, he was going to make Yoshida his errand boy.
"Denji..." Yoshida says. "Dream on."
"What? What more do you want from me?!" Denji's voice almost turns into a whine out of frustration.
"Denji, I think you're misunderstanding something."
"Misunderstanding what? Come on. How much more do I have to suffer for this?" Denji grunts as the knife pokes around in his insides. "Should I get beaten up a few more times by your friends? I wouldn't even fight back. I'll even let them kill me over and over again. Just make me the most popular guy in the school!"
"If you don't want their hate, then I can make it happen. But you will never be able to have their love either."
Angrily Denji takes the knife out of his insides and languidly throws it to the ground. "Fuck, this is so lame." His hand covers up the knife wound because of the blood gushing out of his stomach in torrents after Denji had taken out the foreign object, staining the ground.
Yoshida walks towards Denji, crouching down and picking up the knife on the ground in one swift motion. "Besides, like I said, you're misunderstanding. I don't particularly want to see you be hurt."
"That's bullshit. I'm not that stupid."
"Then Denji, answer me this. Do you want to become popular? Do you want to be loved by everyone?" Yoshida doesn't glance at Denji as he wipes the Denji's blood off of the knife with his sleeves, the black sleeves showing little of the bright red.
"No shit, that's what I skewered myself with a knife for."
"Then I won't listen to your demands today." Yoshida runs his fingers against the dull part of the blade, still not looking up at Denji.
Eagerly, Denji snaps his head upwards with a huge grin on his face. "What, so you're going to do it someday?"
"When you no longer want everyone to love you, I'll make them stop." The grin on Denji's face drops.
"Ugh, that makes no sense! You make no sense!" Denji messes up his hair by aggressively running his fingers through the strands, no doubt smearing it with his blood. "What's the point then! You're going to make me popular when I don't want to!?"
"This isn't for your benefit, it's for mine," Yoshida says and then he leans up so close, finally looking at Denji's face. "So stop wanting other people. Hate them and just need me. For everything they do to you, hate them just a little more and then when you've reach that point of wanting to kill them, I'll let it go."
"I really don't understand what you're saying, you fucking weirdo."
Yoshida's face with was terse and unlike his usual expression relaxes into another one of his familiar smiles. "That's fine too. Just stay like that."
Denji does not want things to stay static. Denji did not realize how much of people's adoration he had desired, for he was always used to being without any love that even scraps of it is something Denji would cling onto.
"Fuck, just let me go to school in peace then if you can't make me popular."
"Hm, I'll think about it based on how you behave. Let's go to the nurse, Denji." And then Yoshida leaves the rooftop, leaving Denji alone, dripping blood onto the ground.
***
"He got expelled for putting a knife in you. He's going to go to reformation school."
"Did you frame him?"
"Isn't that what you would have preferred?" Yoshida questions with a smile.
Denji tries to remember who he was. His mind draws a blank and after a few more beats of digging into his memories, he vaguely thinks it was one of the people standing next to Yoshida that had always laughed the loudest when mocking Denji.
"Is that how you treat your friends?" The idea of something Denji wanted so desperately being made into a small mockery like this makes Denji make a face as he turns his head back towards the chalkboard, continuing on wiping the sprawls of math that Denji didn't understand during class, nor at the moment either. It doesn't matter because Yoshida would teach him if Denji really needed it.
"It's all one-sided anyways. I only want to be your friend, Denji."
"No thanks." Denji curves the eraser, starting to wipe the opposite direction, his body moving along the board. Clean up duty made him feel like an actual student and that was the only reason Denji hadn't just ran off.
Yoshida follows him with every step he takes. "Lovers then?"
"Even less," Denji mumbles, making a face.
"Come on, Denji. I treat my lovers far more gentler than I treat my friends." Yoshida's arms wrap around him gingerly, as if it were some sort of promise, a temptation.
Denji wonders if being lovers with Yoshida would entail only the kind parts of Yoshida, which is all Denji wants out of him. He won't be his lover though, no matter how good Yoshida would be to him, out of pure spite.
"I'll think about it," Denji says, pulling a mocking face. "Based on how you behave."
"Then what should I do? Shall I make everyone who bullied you suffer? I'll ruin their lives, one by one, Denji. I'll bring you their deaths if that's what you want," Yoshida says, his fingers reaching up to play with Denji ears as if he hadn't said cruel things to people who had called themselves Yoshida's friends and looked at him as if he had saved the world in his past life.
Denji squabbles, attempting to wring himself and his ear free. "Hey now, if anything, aren't you the one at fault here since you're their leader or something? I should want your death."
Humming, Yoshida tugs at his ear gently. "Alright, when you agree to be my lover, I'll kill everyone in this school and then myself."
Freezing, Denji glances at the figure behind him, wrapping his arm around Denji's own figure. There was still a smile on his face, but it was anything but playful. "Are you... serious?"
"No," Yoshida says, laughing as if Denji had said something hilarious. His whole body moves with his laughter and Denji could feel it in his own body as Yoshida had wholly intertwined their bodies. "Why would I try to purposely bring myself apart from you?" He does not say anything else about the people who tormented Denji though.
Denji glances back at the blackboard which was clean barring the white skid marks of chalk left behind by the eraser. Denji is not one to think about words too much, but for once, he really thinks about Yoshida's words. He wonders, if he truly did become Yoshida's lover, would he make the lives of the people who tormented him as miserable and wretched as he promised even without Denji asking that of him.
Denji places the blackboard eraser down. He thinks of the thumbtacks in his shoes, the roaches in his gym clothes, the look on his classmates' faces after someone spread the rumor that he had stalked Yoshida, the feeling of fists against his face, and most importantly, the mocking laughter and jeering whispers.
He thinks of Yoshida's words on the rooftop. Hatred to the point of killing intent.
"Hey, Yoshida."
"Yes, Denji?"
"Be my lover."
Yoshida laughs and it's loud this time, unlike his usual soft laughter. "Gladly."