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The very first thing Denji learns is how to spell Yoshida's name.
Yoshida teaches him everything that he learns at his school. He holds a bright red crayon and teaches Denji how to count and teaches Denji how to spell. Yoshida knew how to spell a number of words, but his name was one of the words that was easiest for Denji to learn.
When Yoshida leaves, Denji practices spelling out the words at any given moment. There are no colorful crayons in his abode and so he uses anything he could get in his grasp, anything to write.
Yoshida, he traces with his finger on the dingy, stained walls. Yoshida, he scrapes into the dirt with one of his dad's shattered glass bottles of alcohol. Yoshida, he spells in his head, as his mother cries in front of him, sniffling and cradling her bruised cheeks. They are simple strokes, all formed to make a name that Denji ingrains into his head. Yoshida, Yoshida, Yoshida.
Yoshida, he begs for, when his dad pulls on his hair and when Denji sees stars from the onslaught of brutality.
The days that Denji lives are mere countdowns to when Yoshida finishes school, for when Yoshida meets him in that same abandoned warehouse, with his backpack full of wonders and marvels that Denji could only dream of seeing.
He taught him everything he knew, he touches Denji with a soft gentle hand unlike the brutality of his father, nor the franticness of his mother. The touch that Yoshida offers is gentle and accommodating, slow and steady in its guidance.
To Denji, Yoshida is his only reprieve.
For Denji who had not been given normalcy, much less kindness, Yoshida comes as the only person in his life who Denji can confidentially say he likes. There were many things Denji likes, the comic books he would find in trash cans, bread that had not gone completely bad, and Yoshida's crayons, that were always sharpened and new the next time Denji saw them, no matter how much he snapped and tore them the day before.
But never were people underneath the list of things that Denji favors, barring Yoshida who Denji thinks he likes far more than most things, if not all, on his favorite list
In the midst of beatings, Denji would always dream of a savior. Blindingly dazzling and all protecting, like some sort of hero, the savior of Denji.
In the past, he had thought his mother would be the one, because she had not beaten him like his father. She never hurt Denji and so Denji had hoped, with a gleeful and naïve heart that she would swoop in and protect him.
But she could not protect even herself. So, they were the same, Denji thought, both waiting for their hero.
To his mother, what she sought out for was a god. With her clasped hands and her words of prayer, she had seeked her hero in the form of a greater, unreachable being.
Denji wonders what his mother had prayed for. When she was crying as Denji's father had beaten her to the inch of her life, she had prayed. When she was choking up blood, cursing the world for her illness, she had prayed. Denji remembers his mother always with clasped hands, closed eyes, and always begging for anyone stronger than her to save her. She had never asked or told Denji anything, because Denji wasn't strong enough to do anything, even weaker than his mother.
He had been the one needing of salvation from her, and she would not find any from him, nor would he in her.
*
"Surgery?" Denji mumbles angrily, lowering the comic book in his hands as he glares at the nurse, as if blaming her, somehow. "That means I'm going to miss him."
The nurse does not even bother to look up from her paperwork as she waves a hand. "I'm sorry," She apologies dutifully, but her voice is quite disingenuous.
Denji designs a response as he sinks deeper into his sheets, the sheets practically overtaking his entirety, as the comic book lay on his side, forgotten. He raises a bony finger upwards to slightly lift the covers so he can somewhat breathe. "I don't want your damn sorries."
In a sequence of unfortunate events, it fell right on the day Yoshida could visit, he thinks in annoyance. If he had a say against Yoshida, Denji wouldn't even be in this hospital, much less worry about this surgery.
"Well, why don't you write him a letter?" The nurse offers simply and she is rustling through the cabinets before Denji can even say anything.
"Yoshida hates letters," He responds with a face.
"How could anyone hate letters?" She argues.
Without further comment from her, a pen and sheet of paper finds itself in Denji's hands and despite Denji's best efforts at his latent learnings, he is not quite skillful at the practice, but Denji is much too prideful to admit he can't write very well. Yoshida had taught him from childhood to his relative youth, but his writing wasn't the best, the extent of it being to formulate sentence in the loosest sense. He warily eyes the nurse who's looking at him expectantly.
Yoshida, he starts to write at the top of the sheet of paper, slowly and easily, the words coming without any problem to him.
Leaning forward as she takes a small glance, the nurse exclaims with raised brows when she takes a glance, "You have beautiful handwriting!" as if she hadn't expected it from such a crass person like Denji. Denji bristles slightly at the implications, but does preen at the praise.
"Yeah, whatever, give me some privacy, lady. This is a personal letter," Denji grumbles with a flick of his hands. The nurse hums in affirmation and looks the other way, busying herself in checking Denji's charts.
Denji slowly returns towards his letter as he lifts the pen and places it against the paper and the new words that he writes are written quite hideously, nothing like Yoshida's name he had written originally. He had gotten a disproportionate amount of practice with Yoshida's name compared to other words.
Yoshida,
I want steem pork buns.
The remainder of the paper, he had scribbled a bunch of squiggly lines to make an effort to seem as if he had written something substantial. He doodles a smiley face on the side at the end of the pseudo letter and folds the sheet of paper in half and calls for the nurse to pocket it.
"Don't you dare read it!" He points menacingly at the nurse.
She laughs at his antics and waves a manicured hand, as if acting like it was positively foolish that anyone would want to read his letter. "No, dear, I promise."
Denji cannot trust her because of his soon lack of consciousness from going through the surgery, but he finds that he cannot care. It's not as if Yoshida would let Denji be bullied by some nurse.
When he wakes up, it's four in the morning based on the clock besides him on the cabinet, only being able to be read by the sparse moonlight shining through the cheap hospital curtain fabric and Yoshida is seated besides his bed, with closed eyes and clutching his hands.
Denji squeezes back lightly.
As always, Yoshida was cold to the touch.
There's a paper bag full of steamed pork buns that are cold and soggy, simultaneously next to Yoshida, laying on Denji's bed. They taste decent enough, obviously from the place that Denji likes best, but they're too cold now that it doesn't taste quite right.
Denji eats steamed pork buns in the nighttime, holding Yoshida's hands, and staring at the ceiling.
*
How strange to see such a big, burly man that has only shown Denji the cruelty of humanity, crumpled on the floor, covered in his own blood and everso present of his mortality.
"Denji?"
"Aren't I your hero, Denji?"
"Yes..." Denji responds absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving from the corpse on the ground. "You're my hero, Yoshida."
"I saved you, Denji. I protected you from the evil villain." He tilts his head slightly, as his hand runs through Denji's hair, sticky with blood. "Shouldn't you be thanking me?"
Denji finally takes his eyes off of the corpse.
In his head, it feels like he's seeing a comic book hero saving the day, at the very last page. He's read sparse number of comic books that he's managed to find in the garbage bin, but they all ended the same, with the hero saving the day from the fearsome monster. Or at least, that was what he had garnered from the pictures, as he couldn't understand the words of any of them.
Smiling, Yoshida takes Denji's hands into his, his fingers wrapping themselves around Denji and now, Yoshida's hands are covered in blood. The sight of Yoshida's hands covered in blood makes Denji feel equal parts shameful and parts of joy. He feels as if he had ruined his source of reprieve, his hero, but simultaneously, it is Yoshida who had taken his hands, dirtied himself to match Denji's own state.
The blood covering Denji coagulates, the drying of the liquid sticking to his entire body, and Yoshida leads him, with that steady and stable grasp, that familiar warm hand of his that never let go.
Yoshida opens the door of their dingy, rundown apartment. The light shining in is almost blinding and it is deceptively bright and cheerful, despite it all, the harsh rays raining down on his own bloodied body and his father's mangled corpse.
The door closes behind them with a slam, but Denji doesn't look back because this was the last page of a comic book, and no one looked back after the ending.
Could happiness be attainable with a whimpering, unimportant death, he wonders.
*
Today's caller! Mai! She says that she wants to move onto the next step with a classmate and friend. He's quite chivalrous and seems to like her back as well, but she's afraid to take the next step into becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. My advice? The radio blares and before such advice can be said, it does the robotic equivalent to a whimper as the sound distorts and stutters, before finally going out into silence.
"Stupid thing," The nurse besides him mutters underneath his breath as he hits it on the back. No response.
Huffing, Denji closes his eyes and feels the breeze of the open window on his skin and the afternoon is nice, too nice that he feels suffocated from being stuck inside this bed. With his eyes closed, all he can hear is the banging off the radio by the nurse and in the distance, the revving and passing of the cars in the parking lot.
"Hey."
The nurse looks upwards from the radio to look at Denji. "Yes?"
"What's your advice?"
"To what?"
"That radio thing. What would you say to her?"
"I wasn't truly listening."
"Alright, forget that then," Denji groans as he slumps into his covers, waving his arms. "I'm hungry."
"Come on now, Denji. You can't eat before an upcoming surgery."
"I wouldn't die from one damned slice of bread." Probably, Denji figures. He's eaten much nastier things and has turned out relatively fine, after all.
"Better safe than sorry."
"I'm going to eat that potted plant if I have to," Denji grumbles, popping his head from underneath the covers to eye the plotted plant resting on top the windowsill.
"Please refrain from doing so," The nurse seriously advises, as Denji has a less than stellar track record in putting things that shouldn't be put into his mouth. "It's plastic."
Sighing, Denji deigns a response as he goes back to laying on the bed. The radio buzzes something awful as it makes defective noises. With the lack of a radio, Denji thinks he'll die like this, starving to his death and from the lack of stimulation.
"Before I forget, just a question for you, Denji."
"What?"
"Is Yoshida coming today?"
"Who knows."
The nurse pulls into a considering expression, scribbling something on his clipboard.
Whenever the topic of payment comes up, Denji can piece enough clues together to know because none of them ask him about Yoshida otherwise, barring the times when he has to go through a bunch of tests and surgeries.
Yoshida doesn't tell Denji anything about his job he had found. It's a job that pays easily, however, because Denji still resides in the hospital, undergoing a multitude of surgeries.
Someday, he will get a new heart, Yoshida promises him and Denji thinks that Yoshida always kept his promises.
Denji doesn't particularly wish for a new heart. He wishes to run as much as he can with the heart he already as, be besides Yoshida for as much as possible, until it eventually gives out on him and perhaps Denji's weakness was at fault.
Because of the hunt for a new heart, Denji is within the confines of his hospital bed and if Yoshida wasn't at school, then he was away, busy with his job. He does not wish to die, but he prefers to burn brightly than to snuff out his flames with not much clamor for just a few moments longer.
It reminds Denji of when his parents were still alive and he could only meet Yoshida in those sparse gaps of time when Yoshida had left school. Before his sickness, there was that few moment of time in which he and Yoshida did everything together. The traces of Yoshida's life that Denji had no stake in bleed everso slightly into the moments Denji has with Yoshida and he cannot help but feel bitter.
Today, Yoshida does in fact come, with a smile and in his school uniform.
Yoshida does his homework on the side with due diligence of a student and Denji definitely wouldn't do any homework if he were to go to school, but having the option would still be nice. However, despite it all, he thinks he quite hates the uniform because it represents what took up most of Yoshida's existence.
Staring at Yoshida in silence for a while, watching him scribble whatever numbers that Denji couldn't properly understand, he finally breaks the silence. "You have a girlfriend?"
Yoshida glances upwards with a look. "I'm too busy for one."
"So if you weren't, you'd get one. Is that what you're saying?" Denji scrunches his face.
"Well, not quite. Why the sudden curiosity?"
Denji wonders what the advice truly was towards the radio caller. He thinks about the situation and compares it with his own. Chivalrous? Denji didn't really know what that meant. Friend and classmate? Well, one of them was ticked off on the list, so he might as well consider them both ticked off, as he was physically unable to become Yoshida's classmate. Seems to like him back?
"...Nothing. Just that I can't have you dating before me."
"Do you want to date someone, Denji?" Yoshida asks, his voice slightly strained.
"Obviously."
"I don't think you should, Denji."
"What? What do you mean?!" Denji flits up from laying on the bed and sits up completely.
"Don't get up so suddenly," Yoshida advises, with a pinched smile and he doesn't continue until Denji leans his back against the bed again. "Just a thought. You're still in the hospital, you shouldn't be dating anyone yet."
"Yoshida..." Denji thinks about it. Perhaps this was the advice that he had sought for, given it by Yoshida himself. He thinks he'll have to confess after he got a new heart.
"Yes, Denji?"
Despite the advice given, Denji thinks that he's not quite sure of his mortality. Perhaps, like a fool, he'd die without ever getting better, without ever telling Yoshida anything. Denji is going to die, Denji's own mortality will suffocate Yoshida.
"... Introduce me to a hot girl in your class." And Denji raises the covers so that he completely disappears underneath them.
"They're all taken," Yoshida remarks casually. When Denji lifts his face from underneath the covers, Yoshida is resting on the palms of his hands, watching Denji intently. When they make eye contact, Yoshida smiles, waggling his fingers in a mock greeting.
"They can't all be taken?" Denji says in disbelief.
"They're pretty for a reason, no?"
Denji can't truly argue with that logic. He blinks owlishly as Yoshida goes back to his homework, no longer indulging Denji in his words. By that slope, Denji wonders if that means Yoshida also had minimal chances now, and conclusively decides that this was good news.
He brings the covers up to his nose, covering his small smile. Yoshida was handsome, kind, the only person to ever truly care about Denji, and if there had to be one flaw about him, it was that he didn't love Denji, not as much as Denji did him.
*
There were multiple times in which Denji had thought that death was going to overtake him, its cold unfeeling grasp wrapping a hand around his neck and Denji's entire existence, worthless and amounting to nothing gone in an instant.
Death stalks him when his father had been too rough in his violence or when he had been on the brink of starvation.
One vivid memory he had was when he had eaten something from the dumpsters and had gotten so sick that he almost felt paralyzed, unable to move a single limb, and that was when he had feared the tendrils of death.
The ironic tranquilness of the situation had given Denji just about enough time to truly think about his mortality. Laying on the ground, lonely and still hungry despite all he had eaten from the dumpsters, Denji had wished that he had at least died with a full stomach. He had thought that his wishes were small and simple.
Perhaps, he was a lot more selfish than he had initially thought, for despite having a full stomach, he does not wish to die.
When the blood flowing out of his mouth flows like droplets clinging to anything it could desperately reach, he wishes for more time.
Time. Denji wishes he had an abundance of it because his time has been stretched to the limit, nor has he properly enjoyed majority of his existence. He could feel himself physically deteriorate and the only thing scarier than the knowledge of death is the knowledge of Yoshida forgetting him.
Denji doesn't want Yoshida to forget him. Denji is selfish enough that if he were to die, he would want to haunt Yoshida to his very death, to make his very existence suffocating. If he could bring Yoshida down with him, then he would choose to do so.
Denji's love was particularly selfish, ever since he and Yoshida were at that young age. For someone like Denji, who had nothing to have on his own, the things he did have, he wanted to have by his ownself. Rather than selfishness sprouting from love, it was purely from Denji's own lack of stability in the things he kept.
"I wish I was your only friend, Yoshida," Denji would tell him when they were young enough that his father was still alive, a constant in his life, as he draws some sort of conclusion from seeing Yoshida surrounded by classmates of his elementary school.
Sometimes, when his father did not care enough to look for him in his moments of minimal lucidity of his drunken stupor, he would wait outside the school walls for Yoshida. He felt different from Yoshida, however, the kids surrounding Yoshida looked no different from him. It was merely Denji who had bruises and cuts littered all over his body and face, with baggy clothes that could never fit him, unwashed and unchanged.
A girl besides Yoshida has skin untouched by anything and clothes that cleanly match her. Denji draws her in the sand of the sandbox with a skinny branch that digs into his flesh, a stick figure with a bow on her dress, before angrily scribbling over her.
"You are, Denji." Yoshida tells him, as if it were the most obvious thing ever.
"Really? What about all those kids around you?
"Classmates."
"Is that different from friends?"
"Very."
"Really?!" Denji says as he perks up. They all were of Yoshida's kind, unattainable by Denji, but they were all nowhere as close as to Yoshida as Denji was.
"Mhm. But it has to be mutual."
"Mutual?"
"The same. So I have to be your only one as well," Yoshida tells him with a smile. "Simple, isn't it?"
"Of course!" Denji responds. He doesn't even need reaffirmation from Yoshida, for he truly only has Yoshida.
Laughing cheerily, Denji draws another stick figure of Yoshida and Denji, side by side. The scribbled stick figure of the girl is now the one that looked completely out of place and different from Yoshida. He writes their names on top of the stick figures and he writes his own name sloppily, unsure, because he's not quite sure if this is right or if this is the word for apples, as Yoshida had recently taught him. Following that, he writes Yoshida's own name, with practiced ease.
"You're my hero, Yoshida," Denji whispers, like it was some sort of secret, staring at the name before him in an almost trance.
Yoshida smiles as he taps on the bottom of Denji's shirt. "Do you want me to save you, Denji?"
Denji nods in response.
"From what?"
Denji thinks about what being a hero entails. A monster was all Denji could think about, but for Denji, the scariest wasn't monsters that wrecked havoc on cities and buildings. The scariest for Denji lived in his home and bled blood that Denji shared with him.
"Monsters," Denji lies, despite it all. He doesn't want Yoshida to refuse because Denji's own fears were jumbled up from the regular.
Yoshida simply hums in response as he leans closer towards Denjii. He takes the stick in Denji's hand and crosses out the name above Denji's stick figure, before properly writing his name, the familiar letters being recalled by Denji once again, like Yoshida had taught him so many times before.
"Don't forget it next time, Denji."
Eagerly, Denji nods in earnest.
*
The first time it happens, it takes the bright red splattering of blood for Denji to finally click the pieces together.
His chest pains, the occasional spikes where he struggled to breathe properly, and those moments of fragility that were occurring too often for Denji to not notice.
Sometimes, Denji felt like he was reliving the moments in his life over and over. The same scorn by people was monotonous and repetitive, but it never failed to show up. This time, Denji thinks the repetition of mortality was truly a joke. He had seen his scene with his mother multiples times, but now, it was playing once more.
Unlike his mother though, Denji does not want to pray to any God. He does not want to spend the last days of his existence, crying his heart out, begging for deliverance of his pain. For Denji, he simply wants to not live like he has always lived for the last few moments of his small, insignificant candle wick of a life.
When his flames are completely snuffed out, Denji wonders what mark of his life would be left behind. The only person to know his name is Yoshida, and Denji's memories in his minds would surely also succumb to time. So he wipes the blood off his face and struggles to reign in his tears.
Mother, he thinks, when the blood flowing out of his mouth flows like droplets clinging to anything it could desperately reach. Laying on the pillow, his tears drip, soaking through the fabric. I want to be happy.
*
The only time he had seen Yoshida angry was when Denji had enough of the suffocating hospital walls that made his eyes strain from the pure whiteness of it, the smell of medicine and sickly death, and Denji thinks that if he stay just a moment longer, he would truly die.
If he could not get Yoshida to stay with him, he'll bring Yoshida to him.
And so, he had ran. Escaping the nurses and doctors, weaving through patients, and when he had landed outside, he laughs loudly and happily. He finds that his feet guides him to the old warehouse where he and Yoshida had stayed at for majority of their lives and when he gets to his destination, no longer does Denji feel that burst of happiness from freedom. Denji walks around the place, his foot getting scratched by the terrain beneath him, and the view is familiar to him, but distant.
He sits down on the ground and simply waits.
The sun is in the midst of setting when Yoshida finds him. He is not angry, with a simple expression of his face.
"You're supposed to take these," Yoshida says. He crouches down towards where Denji is hunched and unfurls his hands to reveal the pill bottles that Denji took on the daily.
His heart palpitations make him gasp for breath and the pain almost makes him cry, but besides it all, Denji doesn't want to take it. "I don't want those damned thing"
Yoshida pops open the lid and takes two out. "Aren't you in pain, Denji?"
"No," Denji lies, as another pang of pain practically brings him forward.
Sighing, Yoshida taps a finger against Denji's jaw. "Stop lying, you're gritting your teeth."
Denji instantly unclenches his teeth in protest, but Yoshida takes that as allowance to grip Denji's loose jaws to shove pills in his mouth.
Struggling, Denji manages to wrangle his way out of his grasp and spit it out on the floor. They plop onto the grassy ground, slimy with his saliva. "Stop it, dammit!"
"Why are you so resistant towards this, Denji? Hm?" The smile in still on Yoshida's face but it is far more exasperated than it was previously.
"Why do you care so much," Denji scoffs.
"I'm just worried, Denji."
Liar, Denji thinks. If he was truly worried, he would stay forever by Denji's side.
Clenching his fists, Denji looks away from Yoshida in protest. He doesn't say anything anymore because he knows Yoshida would simply respond in that perfunctory response and that same smile. Denji had been so gleeful to be called Yoshida's only friend and now, he is more selfish than he used to be. He hates to be just friends.
"Denji."
"Eat it yourself," Denji grumbles underneath his breath.
"Denji," He repeats again, unrelenting.
Annoyance furrows inside Denji. Yoshida was always like this, a constant overprotective force and yet, the distance between them felt far lonelier than anything. Anger blossoms in his chest and his already short breaths become practically suffocating as Denji furrows his brows.
"No, I don't want them! You always--" The squeeze in his lungs makes him coughs and bright splattering red covers his mouth. It has been awhile since Denji had seen such vibrant red, nor tasted the metallic tang because of his diligence in taking pills ever since he had been transferred to the hospital. For a brief moment, even Denji is shocked to see such a scene before him.
A scene more shocking that the bright metallic blood is Yoshida, who pulls a hand around his face and practically yanks him towards him with furrowed brows and clenched teeth of his own. This was an expression Denji had never seen before for all his time together with Yoshida.
"Don't spit it out or I'll force it down your throat."
And two pills get placed inside his mouth and Yoshida clasps his hands around Denji's lips, refusing to move until he see the bobbing of Denji's neck.
So Yoshida was this cruel when he was angry, Denji thinks, as he swallows down the pills. Despite the harshness, inwardly, Denji smiles. He wonders if Yoshida's anger had only ever been shown to Denji.
*
The days Yoshida comes back from his part time, he always smells of blood. If there is one thing Denji is used to, it is the smell of blood. Yoshida's scent is of soap and blood, different from the times he comes from school.
Denji clutches the sheets in thought as he looks at Yoshida's exterior, clean from blood. "What were you doing?" He questions, despite not expecting much, from how much Yoshida always deflects and dodges answer questions related to his job.
"Nothing much."
"What, do you work as some sort of butcher? You reek of blood."
"Does that scare you?"
"I'm used to it." Blood was never something that Denji was not surrounded by, whether it be others or his own.
"Even if it's not mine?"
"Well, if you're some sort of hero, blood that isn't yours can't be that bad."
"I'm not a hero, Denji," Yoshida says simply with a small smile.
Denji stares the a ceiling, simply inhaling and exhaling, taking in the presence of Yoshida besides him. The unread new volume of the new comic book is laid besides him, no doubt another one of those predictable stories.
"Then don't be one," Denji says simply, closing his eyes. He's groggy from the surgery and Denji constantly keeps almost slipping into slumber. "Just stay with me."
For it did not matter if Yoshida was the hero of a story, or even the villain of one. For Denji, it was only Yoshida he cared about.
Yoshida takes his hand into Denji's and it reminds Denji of after his father's death, when Yoshida had been the only pillar in his life-- or perhaps it always has been Yoshida. From start to end, it was always Yoshida.
He knows that he was the one to kill his father that day.
It was Yoshida who had told Denji that he had done it, had taken that knife and skewered him akin to some sort of cattle, but it is no secret to Denji. His mind pretends it doesn't know, but inwardly, Denji has never forgotten.
The warmth of sticky blood, the horror of his father's face, and the way that everything felt rotten. Denji wonders how much of it has rubbed off him, to what extent was his own stench of death and rottenness because there was a clear difference between him and Yoshida. The stench of alcohol and decomposing food, the scent of his father, unbathed and smelling of death before he had even died. Everything in Denji's life has always been dirty.
Yoshida had been a hero for killing his father, but for Denji, he was a villain for driving that knife through his own father.
For someone starved of his family ever giving him anything, he had received only ever received some things from his family. He had gotten his sickness from his mother and perhaps he had gotten his cruelty from his father.
His small hands, that had killed someone, were shaking, but it was Yoshida who had taken his hands in his own warm ones but perhaps, he was shaking as well, for they were only youths.
Today, Yoshida's hands is firm and unshaking.
Denji thinks that for once, he does not care about the afterwards. Denji worked best like this, simple and straightforward, and it was only with Yoshida that his philosophy would get twisted.
"I like you," Denji turns his head to face Yoshida. "I like you a lot."
The hand around Denji's hand trembles for just a split second. "Denji--"
"Shut up," Denji pointedly says, as his hands grasp tighter around Yoshida's hands, in case Yoshida attempts to pull away. "You keep your promises, right?"
Yoshida does not pull away, instead his own hand also tightens further around Denji's. He nods.
"Then when I get that new heart like you promised, I'm going to seduce you. You're going to completely fall for me. And if you don't fall for me, just die," Denji grumbles.
"You want me to die?"
"No. That's why you have to like me."
"Is allowing me to like you some kind of favor?" Yoshida questions with a smile.
"Isn't that obvious!"
Yoshida chuckles. He doesn't respond directly after, as he brings their clasped hands together, pressing his lips to Denji's knuckles. "I won't die," He says with a whisper.
Denji examines the kissed dorsal of his hands and it feels hot in the air, despite the fact no longer were there anything pressed against it. "Is that a yes?"
"Well, if I don't date Denji, you'll be troubled without me. You can't do anything by yourself, after all," Yoshida says with a laugh.
"Don't complicate things," Denji grumbles in annoyance, despite the truthfulness of the words. "It's a simple yes or no."
"Oh, Denji." Yoshida gets up from his seat besides Denji, his limbs resting on Denji's hospital bed. His knees rest at Denji's sides, and Denji feels strangely entrapped. "You better not regret it."
And he kisses Denji, capturing his lips and it feels like searing hot and cold simultaneously for Denji.
Idiot, Denji thinks. That should be my line.
*
"Is that tasty?"
The boy looks up from the alleyway dumpsters, snapping to look at Yoshida from his voice.
Yoshida wonders what enjoyment one would get out from eating rotten peaches from the dumpsters.
Contrary to his belief, the boy nods.
This boy would eat anything, Yoshida thinks to himself in slight amusement. An idea flits into his head and Yoshida takes off the backpack and rumbles through it, the boy having lost interest in him by now and going back to digging through the trash.
"Here," Yoshida takes out and offers a bunch of crackers that he had opted not to eat during snack time.
Eagerly, the boy snatches it from Yoshida, unwrapping the thing like it were some sort of gift. He's fast in his speed, but he also some what savors it simultaneously, chewing on the them in what seemed like forever. He smells and looks exactly of what he had just been digging through, but Yoshida does not mind, nor focus on that aspect. He observes the joy flashing through his eyes, as if this was the best thing he's eaten, and how the boy cannot seem to contain his happiness with him eagerly pacing around in small circles.
Cute, Yoshida thinks cheerily at how he clamors to food. It's like feeding a puppy.
"What's your name?" He asks.
"Denji."
"Follow me, Denji," He says.
Denji looks at him for a few beats, glancing down at his empty hands, now that he had consumed all the crackers. All that was left were crumbs now, and so he licks his palms clean from all the crumbs and it was only then that he trails towards Yoshida.
Grasping Denji's hands in his own, they were sticky from Denji's sweat and saliva.
"I'll buy you more food," He tells him as he guides him outside of the alleyway, to the streets.
Yoshida likes feeding puppies, not out of any kindness in his heart, but because he likes the reactions they give afterwards. They would clamor to him in complete trust and love, as if that one piece of food was worth their entire lives, barring it all out to give to Yoshida.
"Really?!" Denji questions. "What are you going to buy?"
"All you ever want."