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"I could eat it, you know," Obikawa's voice is barely louder than a whisper.
His hand gingerly traces Tokinaga's scars on his back, seemingly deliberating for a moment, "...your skin. If you’d want."
Tokinaga glances up from the mobile game Obikawa is watching him play. The latent tension within the room’s atmosphere sparks into something sharp and charged. The flexing of Obikawa's jaw seems all the more deadly.
He scrutinises him, hand inching towards his phone to check for any missed messages from the facility. His movements are akin to how one would move when in front of a prowling tiger: Avoidance of eye contact, arms by your side, submissive posture- or whatever.
Obikawa's chin is still tucked under the folds of his ratty sweater, comfortably curled up on Tokinaga’s couch. But the crook of his lips, the gleam of his teeth, his elongated tongue, cartilage and flesh, they emerge from Tokinaga's nightmares.
It reminds him of the dreams he has of Obikawa eating his friends, his co-workers, and himself. It reminds him of the subway again, reminds him that Tokinaga is nothing but easy prey as Obikawa presses down on his abdomen, leans closer and closer—
Or maybe Tokinaga hasn't been getting enough sleep lately. He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to steady his breath. Obikawa is his friend.
Obikawa seems to take the silence as a begrudging concession, or a sign of genuine consideration of his proposal. He jolts upright, the movement jostling them both as he swivels his head to look at Tokinaga. "Really? Seriously? It wouldn't hurt, since I'm a God. Someone as scrawny as Tokinaga would be out before you even knew I bit you!" He beams, puffing up in a manner not unlike a posturing cat.
Tokinaga can't hide the disgust writ large on his face. That's exactly what I'm terrified of, idiot.
Because, what Tokinaga is most afraid of is this. Vulnerability. He knows what blind stupidity is and letting an IPO inject unknown substances into his already deteriorating body is nothing short of a death wish — not as if Tokinaga doesn’t have one, but he has to pick his battles.
However, Tokinaga has learnt the hard way that being around Obikawa can make anyone make very, very strange decisions. And, you know what? He’s tired. He is tired of living within a body with limbs that rot directly before his eyes, eyes that beg to be let out of their sockets, and a heart that screams for respite.
If the way Tokinaga was ordained to go by was being eaten by his best friend, he’d be okay with that on his tombstone.
And maybe it’s because he has so little to hide from Obikawa, it’s so easy to thrust his life into Obikawa’s hands, give in and take his shirt off.
Obikawa barely looks at his mangled skin. His eyes remain trained on Tokinaga’s. He smiles a little bit, almost reassuringly, and Tokinaga can’t bring himself to look him in the eye.
-
There's movement behind him, so subtle it wouldn't be as significant if the silence wasn't already as palpable as it was. Tokinaga shifts and fidgets as he waits for the pain to begin.
It never comes. There's only more shuffling behind him, before Obikawa murmurs, voice reverent— jarring from someone of literal godlike status, "Does it hurt?"
And that's what's even more terrifying, isn't it? The fact that Tokinaga can't feel the pain, can't feel any sensation blooming from his back. Even as Obikawa peels layer upon layer of epidermis with his teeth, Tokinaga is still the pliant lamb on the altar, unknowing of the threat he lies in. Even now, Tokinaga willingly lies in the lion's den, waiting for luck or fate to catch up to him, up for death’s taking.
But, Tokinaga thinks to himself, if this were how he were to go, would it be so bad?
The shifting stops again, but resumes after a pause. Oh shit, he hasn’t responded. Obikawa probably thinks he's hurting him. Not as if Obikawa's presence itself doesn't already, but Obikawa is doing him a favour, showing a normal amount of concern for someone consensually eating the skin off your back.
Tokinaga crushes that vindication to deal with later.
Breathe. Obikawa is your friend.
It doesn't matter. He quells the rising swell of fear, compressing and packing it almost too neatly into a dull ache, such that his heart cannot beat each time without a cry of agony.
Maybe the reason why Tokinaga does not feel anything, even now, is because he is broken. Maybe there was nothing left to salvage to begin with. Maybe, once Obikawa eats the death out of him, he will find that there was nothing left of Tokinaga that wasn't already rotting. Would he be angry? All his hard work, done for nothing? Or would he move on, as if Tokinaga never existed to begin with?
Obikawa always claims that if he'd eaten Tokinaga that day, he would remember him for the rest of his life — which would be eternity. But he knows that's bullshit.
Obikawa can be earnest, charming, and make Tokinaga feel alive in ways he never knew he could. But Tokinaga - of all people - knows how the dead will always die wronged. He knows it will never be his memory that would be cherished or remembered.
Because what is remembered are remarkable moments, and Tokinaga is anything but remarkable.
What would be remembered, instead will be a sick, embellished fantasy that Obikawa will make up in his delusional mind, warping Tokinaga until he isn’t anything like the original — warping Tokinaga into someone desirable.
Maybe Obikawa wouldn’t even grant him that luxury of being remembered. Tokinaga just doesn’t know anymore. One minute he’d be promising Tokinaga the world, but in the next, he’d be tossing him aside, eyes set on greater heights. And Tokinaga will be nothing more than a discarded toy in which his owner’s interest in had waned.
The worst part is, Tokinaga won’t even be able to blame him when that time comes.
He jolts when he feels something wet and warm trickle down his back. The gentle pressure starts to burn. But in this position, back hunched and legs crossed, he can barely crane his neck enough, nor can he muster the courage to look. The most he can do is to strain his eye to level a glare at Obikawa’s hair, black spots already vignetting his vision.
“...Hey. That hurts.”
Obikawa draws back immediately, almost as if he’d been burned. Bizarrely, his expression resembles one of guilt, or at least the closest expression of apology Tokinaga has ever seen the IPO try to mimic. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, resolving to gape at Tokinaga for a good few seconds.
Tokinaga blinks — equally as bewildered. There’s almost an expectation for Obikawa to start apologising, but that concept alone is so foreign it leaves Tokinaga speechless in anticipation.
Obikawa finally breaks the silence, but he doesn’t blink or look away, “You didn’t tell me if it hurt when I asked,” he points out petulantly.
Tokinaga pinches the bridge of his nose again and forces himself to exhale. The motion causes the skin - or whatever left of it - on his back to shift and stretch, as the burning sensation intensifies. He realises that this might’ve been the most sensation he’d ever felt from his back in years. It’s painful, unbearably so, but the pain is— it’s real.
Though the pain itself pales in comparison to the emotional freight train that was Obikawa trying to eat him in the subway, he finds that he is grateful for this.
Tokinaga is a veterinarian. He cares and heals for the weak that cannot fend for themselves. But in a world like this? His job is a liability. The strong fight on front lines, blood and teeth and glory. The weak are just collateral, Tokinaga is just collateral.
And for the weak to survive in this world, he must hide and tread carefully, every step a potential landmine. That means suppressing reflexes like fear or anger, dulling the edge of instinct into something as harmless as he is.
Tokinaga finds that the habit has become morbidly comforting. Every tide of emotion, every wave of grief for people he wasn't strong enough to save, just a grain of sand on a vast shore. So insignificant, in the grand scheme of things, almost like Tokinaga.
How do you realise the shore has been eroded past return, if not when it is too late? The shore does not bear its scars, proof of its victories, nor does its struggle ever make itself known.
Tokinaga does not display his scars, nor does he bear his pain for the world to see. Yet his wounds run deep beneath his veins, battles won through spirit, defeat mapped upon his soul.
So as Tokinaga carefully strokes the broken skin around the exposed flesh, he wishes that this wound would never heal.
He wants the world to know that Tokinaga Sachiyuki has gone through hell and back, fighting tooth and nail just to survive, just so he could choose peace instead of violence for one more day.
He wants the throbbing ache that overpowers his pulse to be real, to prove that it isn’t all just in his head.
Tokinaga feels light-headed. He's unsure if it's from the loss of blood or from the rush of sick satisfaction oozing out of his back. He can’t really think straight anymore.
Obikawa still hovers behind him carefully. Is he worried? Tokinaga wonders as blood loss threatens his consciousness.
Obikawa is so close. He can feel his teeth ghosting his neck, like a silent request for more. Tokinaga's breaths sync with his.
It's like watching a slow, horrific car crash. Except Tokinaga is both a passenger and a passerby.
His brain can't supply any critical thought besides an acute awareness of Obikawa's oppressive presence, Obikawa's body pressing against his, Obikawa's lips moving against the tender skin on his neck, Obikawa, Obikawa, Obikawa.
Tokinaga's heart almost jackrabbits out of his mouth. He'd call it survival instinct, if he had any left.
Oh. Was this his plan all along?
Obikawa's eyes are still distinctly human, yet it's like something within him - or Tokinaga - has shifted.
Orokapi is not Tokinaga's friend.
The God speaks.
“You’ll stay by my side,” Not a request, nor a demand, Orokapi is stating fact, “Until the end. And I will show you,” He draws closer. Tokinaga stops breathing, “a feeling so absolute it could never be made up in your head.”
Tokinaga thinks, only slightly hysterically, that this might be what some people call a religious experience.
Had he secretly been craving this? Ever since that moment in the subway. Did Obikawa simply awaken a part of him he never knew existed — the desire to be consumed?
Obikawa is an unstoppable force, an unrelenting pressure on an open wound — Tokinaga’s bleeding heart.
"Okay," Tokinaga can barely hear himself over the thrumming of his blood. He has never felt so alive.
"Okay," he repeats, louder. To Tokinaga, who has ascended past any rational thought, the situation is almost romantic.
Because it's a confession, of sorts. Tokinaga, who bears the burden of the people he loves on his shoulders, confesses that he is tired.
Tokinaga, who had believed himself content shouldering this weight alone until the end of his miserable life, confesses that all he ever wanted is for someone to bear it with him.
Obikawa's face melts into a dopey grin, form deflating. His eyes crinkle into crescents, but they remain so, so human. "Do you know I love you, Tokinaga?"
It's hard to comprehend. He finds it hard to believe that anyone would be willing to love him.
But, something deep inside him is compelled to believe Obikawa. It's deep enough he'd call it gut feel, an almost instinctual urge to trust Obikawa with his dreams, his goals, his life.
And maybe, Tokinaga is foolish enough to believe this is love.
"Yeah, you do?" Obikawa hums, pulling Tokinaga's shirt back over his scarred back. It stings.
Obikawa's eyes are still painfully human. It strikes him that they look just like Tokinaga's.
Maybe, Obikawa is as foolish as him.
"I think I love you, too."