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Some days in Kubitachi roll over from being hot into being feverish. Days your head pounds just walking from one house to the next, and the sky is a painful, blazing blue. Days you can swear the relentless, throbbing whine of cicadas is actually the sound of the sun beating down. Days the wind is dead silent, trying to hide from the sticky, viscous heat.
Yoshiki crouches on the pavement, looking through the viewfinder of his camera. He focuses, carefully, on the mantis perched serenely on the sunflower leaf.
“Yoshiki, I’m melting,” Hikaru complains from somewhere behind him. Yoshiki doesn’t answer, and hears him pace a couple of steps a moment later. “Ya can’t do this to me.”
The mantis must hear him or something because it crawls a little, forcing Yoshiki to turn slightly and refocus the lens. “The more ya complain the longer it’s gonna take,” he says.
Hikaru huffs out a breath, paces a bit again, then falls silent.
It’s only after Yoshiki has taken the picture to his liking that he realizes that he hasn’t heard Hikaru at all for several minutes. In the seconds it takes for him to turn around he wonders if Hikaru has left without him.
He hasn’t. He’s just standing across the road looking out at the sunflowers, his bike lying on the ground. Yoshiki stands up, and Hikaru’s head snaps in his direction.
Despite the blazing sun, a cold, nervous sensation travels down Yoshiki’s spine. He never heard Hikaru walk over there, certainly not with his bike. The uncomfortable gap between where he’d thought Hikaru would be and where he actually was makes him frown.
“Hey, look at this,” Hikaru says. He takes a sunflower by the stem and pulls it down a little. “It’s got little flowers in the center. Why’s that?”
Yoshiki blinks, then says, “Sunflowers are composite flowers. They’re, uh, made of smaller flowers. Those middle ones are the disc florets.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. The petals are actually flowers too, they’re called ray florets. Come on, it’s hot.”
Hikaru leans over and rights his bike. Yoshiki packs away his camera and then does the same. “Yer tellin’ me,” he mutters as he makes his way over to Yoshiki. “I’m the one who had to stand here for- like, half an hour.”
They start walking, and Yoshiki can hear Hikaru just fine. The quiet scrape of gravel, the clicking of the gear chain. He just must have been too focused on his camera. “That did not take half an hour,” Yoshiki says. “Barely even took five minutes.”
“Yeah, well, you could bake cookies in five minutes out here,” Hikaru shoots back. “Don’t downplay my sufferin’, ya hear?”
A bead of sweat rolls down the back of Yoshiki’s neck and he swats at it. “God, yer impossible…” he mumbles, and Hikaru makes an unhappy humming sound. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry already. Happy?”
Hikaru makes a big show of thinking about it. Finally, he says, “Hah, yeah. ‘M happy.”
It doesn’t sound like he’s answering the question Yoshiki asked. But if it means he’ll stop whining, he’ll take it.
———
“It’s stupid,” Yoshiki says. It’s another hot day and the fan in the back of the classroom wheezes. He can tell whenever it turns to face him by the movement of warm air against his neck. “Really. Nothin’ interesting.”
“Oh come on,” Asako says. “We won’t judge.”
“I might,” Yuuki cuts in unhelpfully.
Yoshiki looks down at his arm and the cast around it. It’s annoyingly itchy and his forearm feels like it’s in an oven. He wiggles his fingers a bit, then sighs. “I was tryin’ to get a picture of a fox… then tripped over a root and broke my wrist tryin’ to catch myself.”
Maki and Asako wince a little. Yuuki says, “Yer right, that is stupid.”
“Tell me about it.” There’s Hikaru, helpful as always. Yoshiki feels the fan turn to face him, and then turn away. “I watched it all happen.”
“Ya didn’t even try to catch him?” Asako asks.
“Spare me the mental image,” Yoshiki replies.
As a matter of fact, the second he actually conjures up said mental image, he’s kicking himself. A strong arm hooked around his waist, his back pulled against a warm chest. It’s exactly the sort of thing he used to think about his Hikaru, the kinds of unbidden thoughts that served to remind him of the sickly desires that crawled beneath his skin.
Hikaru reaches over the table to gently touch his shoulder, and Yoshiki flinches away. A strange look crosses over Hikaru’s face as he draws his hand back, one that makes Yoshiki avert his gaze. “…Sorry. I just asked how long you’ll have that on for.”
“This? The doctor said, like, six weeks.”
Hikaru’s eyebrows go all the way up. “Six weeks? I didn’t know it took that long.”
Yoshiki squints back at him. “Well, it’s not like it takes a day, ya know.”
Hikaru bares his teeth in something that was probably supposed to be a smile and looks away guiltily. Good. Yoshiki didn’t appreciate that heart attack he had a month ago when Hikaru fell from a tree and got up with an elbow going the wrong way. And he definitely didn’t appreciate Hikaru entering class the next day looking like it hadn’t happened at all.
The fan turns to him again. Yoshiki says, “It’s too bad. I was workin’ on a photo collection.”
“Oh yeah?” Maki asks. “Did it have anything to do with that fox worth breakin’ your arm over?”
Yoshiki scowls and mutters, “I’m tryna do, like, an animal thing I guess.”
“I’m no photographer, but you can at least move yer fingers, can’t ya? You can still take pictures, if yer careful.” Asako suggests.
“…Yeah. I guess.”
“Why not look for one of ‘em squirrels always runnin’ around here?” Hikaru asks, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head. “They’re basically infestin’ this place.”
“Maybe,” Yoshiki says back. Actually, he’s not feeling it. He’s got a specific vibe for his collection- one he can’t quite put a name to yet- but he knows squirrels don’t exactly fit that feel. “Or the frogs down at the pond.”
“Ohh, my ‘n my brother used to hang out there a lot,” Maki says. “One time, there was this really little one and we made a bet on who could catch it first, so we…”
Yoshiki stops listening as he feels the air from the fan against his neck again. God, why does it have to be so hot? he wonders, trying to poke his fingers under his cast to try and relieve the itch. Asako suddenly takes a couple steps back from the table, but he’s the only one who looks up at her. “Asako…?”
Then she’s brushing by him, and Yuuki looks up too as she makes her way to the window. “Girl, what’re you doin’?” she calls.
“Nothin’, y’all just keep on. I’ll be right back.”
“Alright,” Yuuki answers, but she keeps looking for a second, brow furrowed. Then her expression softens, before resetting to something neutral as she turns back to Maki. “Why go through all that trouble when you coulda just gotten a net or somethin’?”
“Ah…” Maki jerks a bit, then hangs his head. “Man, I shoulda thought of that.”
Yoshiki is still watching Asako. She’s now stopped by the window, but instead of peering out, she shuts her eyes and tilts her head. The stillness that overtakes her body then makes an icy feeling coil in his stomach.
Her eyes snap open in a sudden, startling motion and she walks along the wall to the back of the classroom, looking at something outside. Or looking for something outside.
She said she could hear ghosts, right?
Instinctually, Yoshiki turns to Hikaru to get his attention. His protection. What he sees makes some deep, biological instinct in him flip on like a switch, and he startles backwards.
Hikaru’s face is a picture of deadly focus. He’s ever-so-slightly hunched over with one hand against the desk, head tilted so a shadow falls across the bridge of his nose. The darkness over his eyes only makes that red stand out- that quiet, threatening red that flickers to life whenever the monster in Hikaru comes closer to the surface.
Yoshiki turns around to look at Asako, still milling at the rear of the classroom, then back at Hikaru who’s watching her intently. It makes Yoshiki oddly uncomfortable, the way he can tell exactly where she is from the way Hikaru’s eyes move, the way that the rest of him is absolutely motionless.
Asako comes up behind him, and Yoshiki hates that he already knows that the second he sees Hikaru slowly straighten up in his chair and shift his stare somewhere over Yoshiki’s shoulder.
Then she makes her way around the desk and gently touches Hikaru’s shoulder, which sort of surprises Yoshiki. It surprises him even more- and stirs an unpleasant feeling in his lower chest- when she leans down with her mouth by his ear. Both Yuuki and Maki are now watching them with open curiosity.
Hikaru stands up casually as Asako steps away from him, stretching an arm over his head. “I have to grab something, alright? I’ll be right back.”
“Are you okay?” Yoshiki asks.
“Eh? Yeah, yeah,” Hikaru replies. He turns around and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Relax, will ya?”
Asako looks at the door a second after he’s left, then wrings her hands together and goes after him.
“Ah-chan!” Yuuki is out of her chair surprisingly fast, grabbing Asako’s wrist. “Seriously, what’s gotten into ya?”
“Nothin’!” Asako yanks her wrist back, and Yuuki takes a few steps away from her. “Sorry… I just… forgot somethin’ too.”
Then she’s out the door, leaving Yuuki standing by the desk with a raw, cracked-open expression on her face. Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something, then closes.
Oblivious, Maki cackles and remarks, “Man, I think he’s gonna ask her out or somethin’!”
Yoshiki tenses involuntarily, but bites his tongue at the last moment. He can’t get defensive, then he’d look… well, he just can’t.
Yuuki must think differently- of course she does, she’s not wrestling down a shapeless, nameless curse inside her own psyche- because she whips around and snaps, “Shut up for a second, will ya?!”
Maki raises his hands in surrender and leans back. “Geez, okay! What, ya like him or somethin’?”
Yuuki rolls her eyes and stalks back to her chair. “Don’t be stupid, Maki.”
It has to be an impurity. Asako thought that Hikaru was half-way possessed or something like that, didn’t she? She probably heard something and told him about it. Yoshiki pushes back his chair. “Y’all give me a second.”
“What, you too?” Maki says. “Don’tcha think we oughta give ‘em some privacy? Hehe…”
“I said shut up!” Yuuki repeats.
Yoshiki ignores them and makes his way out of the room and down the stairs. As he reaches the last few steps to the bottom floor, he hears a deafening pop and then a short scream from Asako. He breaks into a run and rounds the doorway into the courtyard, then stumbles to a stop.
Asako’s sitting on the ground, leaning on her arm and looking up with wide eyes. Hikaru stands facing away from Yoshiki, but his head is angled to face her. Ice flushes through Yoshiki’s veins, and he stammers, “Wh… Hikaru…?”
Hikaru looks over his shoulder, then turns all the way around. A line of blood carves a path down his face from his nose. “Hey,” he says, wiping it with the back of his hand.
Yoshiki’s eyes flick to Asako, and he’s suddenly back to that night when he found the two of them face to face, right before Asako collapsed. That blank look on Hikaru’s face. “What’s… goin’ on…? Why’s she…?”
“She’s pretty sharp,” Hikaru sniffs. He wipes at the blood again, this time with the heel of his palm. “Heard one of ‘em impurities out here.”
“Is she… okay?”
Asako slowly gets back to her feet and presses one hand to her ear. Hikaru looks over at her, and says, “I guess the sound scared her or somethin’.”
“It’s awful,” she mutters. “It’s like- these horrible screams and… cries for help and then this… sick, wet crunch. It’s so loud.”
Hikaru’s jaw drops slightly and he replies, “That’s so freakin’ ominous, please don’t say that.”
Yoshiki hesitates for a second, then heads over to Asako and touches her arm. “You sure yer fine?”
She side eyes him for a second, frowning, then lowers her hand away from her ear. “Yeah. ‘M good.”
“Hikaru?”
“Huh? I’m fine, I’m fine.” He sniffs again. “Just need a tissue or somethin’.”
Asako moves away from Yoshiki and tugs on Hikaru’s sleeve. “I’ve got one in my bag if you want.”
He looks at her, then breaks into a bloodstained grin. Yoshiki’s insides twist, and suddenly he’s aware of how hot it is out here, standing in the afternoon sun with their shadows dark under their feet. His cast prickles. All of a sudden, he says, “Y’all two seem close.”
Asako and Hikaru look at him and the sun burns hotter. His skin crawls. That was a stupid thing to say, he should apologize.
Before he gets the chance, Asako says, “I dunno… I just knew he could deal with it. Now I feel kinda bad- I didn’t think he’d bleed like that. What’d you do to it, anyway?”
“Honestly, I dunno… just kinda…” Hikaru makes a motion with his hands like he’s crumpling up a piece of paper. “Crushed it up… ‘n put it in me… somewhere. I guess?”
“Helpful,” Asako remarks.
Hikaru shrugs with one shoulder. “I dunno what to tell you. I jus’ used to creep around up there-” he points over his shoulder at the mountain. “And grab whatever I came across.”
Yoshiki’s brow furrows. “Hikaru… yer, uh, tellin’ her a lot.”
“Oh. She knows.”
Everything seems to stop for a second, even the drone of the cicadas. Then he says, “Wait… what?”
Asako exhales hard and crosses her arms. “Yeah, I know. And I’m right pissed that you’ve been keepin’ it all to yerself, too!”
Yoshiki’s not sure what to say- he’s still surprised that she knows and that Hikaru hasn’t killed her for it. “…Sorry.”
“Hmph! Let’s go, Hikaru, yer gonna bleed on yer school shirt.”
“Heheh, wouldn’t be the first time.”
Asako tugs on Hikaru’s sleeves and walks him to the door, and then grabs Yoshiki’s when she passes him. “C’mon, both of ya. I’m gettin’ pissed off again thinkin’ about it!”
“At me too?” Hikaru asks.
“Yes, at you too! Either of ya coulda told me!” Asako looks at Yoshiki. “Ya don’t need to do everythin’ on yer own, ya know! And you-!” Back to Hikaru. “Man, I don’t even know! Yer an okay guy, but yer downright creepy, yet ya take it all so unserious-like!”
She marches the two of them back to the classroom before finally letting them go and tossing Hikaru a tissue pack. Yuuki and Maki are sitting up with wide eyes trained on Hikaru’s bloodied face. Asako sits down with an annoyed huff, and Maki says, “I guess it didn’t go well… sorry dude.”
Hikaru dabs at his face. “What’re ya talkin’ about?”
“Nothin’,” Yoshiki cuts in. “It’s not like that.”
“Ohh, tryna protect his dignity… gotcha, gotcha.”
Yuuki elbows Maki in the side, then hooks her arm through Asako’s. “Forget about him- are ya okay?”
“I’m the one bleeding,” Hikaru complains.
“Don’t care. Shut up.”
Asako’s face clears of annoyance and she giggles. “Alright Yuu-chan, I’m fine. I don’t even know what yer so worked up about.”
Yuuki’s face reddens, and she looks at the table. “Yeah, yer right… I dunno, I guess the heat’s getting to me.”
“We could all get ice cream after school,” Hikaru offers, grinning.
Yoshiki looks at his mouth, still stained red, and that sticky, terrible thing inside him stirs. A new thought arrives in his mind, of gently sliding his broken wrist into the maw of Hikaru’s chest. Of letting the cold, shifting membranes fold and press down on the injury. He thinks of the heat of the pain that would bring, the numb pleasure, and exhales shakily.
He realizes his fingers are twitching and crushes them in his other hand, sending a prick of pain down his arm from jostling his injury. Yoshiki grits his teeth, and says, “Yer mouth’s bloody.”
“Oh.” Hikaru says. He runs his tongue along his teeth, then smiles again. “Whaddya say?”
“Sure,” Asako and Yuuki answer in unison, before looking at each other and breaking into giggles. “Stop stealin’ my lines,” Asako says, and they start to play fight.
“I can’t,” Maki whines. “I gotta help my mom with somethin’.”
Yoshiki thinks for a second, then answers, “I dunno, I kinda wanted to go to the pond.”
“Never mind, pond it is then,” Hikaru replies, chipper. “Y’all two can go get ice cream.”
“Hehe, y’all have fun muckin’ around in the mud,” Yuuki shoots back, in the process of dragging Asako into some sort of headlock.
Hikaru laughs. “Yeah,” he says, weirdly sincere. “We will.”
———
Yoshiki is not having fun.
It feels like a sauna here next to the pond. He’s covered in a sheen of sweat and his slacks are stained from kneeling in the mud. Hikaru has rolled up his pants to the knees and taken off his shoes, and is sitting peacefully on a fallen tree with his legs in the water.
“I thought you were looking for frogs,” Hikaru says.
“I am, but hang on.” Yoshiki looks through the viewfinder to make sure the summer darter is centered. It’s beautiful, perfectly alighted onto part of a twig sticking out of the water, the translucence of its wings on full display. He snaps a picture, and then dares to inch a little closer. “Dragonflies are nature’s best hunters,” Yoshiki says to no one in particular. “They catch their prey like, ninety-something percent of the time. That’s really good for an animal.”
A quiet splash as Hikaru moves his legs, and he comments, “I didn’t even know they hunted anythin’.”
“Yeah, other insects mostly.” Yoshiki strains his back by leaning over further. Holding the camera with the end of the cast going over his palm is harder than he’d thought, and he ends up having to balance it more than actually grip it. The dragonfly twitches its wings, and shifts a bit, making the red of its slender body even clearer. He takes another picture. “Like mosquitos.”
“Haha, really? I hate those things.” Hikaru says, laughing. The dragonfly immediately takes flight, gliding across the pond and then somewhere out of sight amongst the bushes. Hikaru looks after it, and then at Yoshiki who lowers his camera. “Shit, sorry.”
“It’s fine, I got the pictures I wanted anyway.” Yoshiki sets the camera down and sits down on a rock, working off his shoes with only limited help from his broken arm. “Now I gotta find some frogs.”
With some effort he’s able to roll up his pant legs, and then he hangs the camera around his neck and picks his way out into the water. It’s warm, which is uncomfortable, especially considering that the water is stagnant, but it’s definitely cooler than the air around it. He feels rounded pebbles against his feet as he wades out a couple steps and looks around.
He sees a series of ripples and watches a frog hop onto a stone, and then make its way under a bundle of tall grasses. He carefully inches towards it, and freezes when it hops again before settling down.
“What’re you doin’?” Hikaru hisses from where he’s sitting. “C’mon, catch it!”
Yoshiki ignores him and makes it a couple steps closer, raising his camera. Just as he goes to press the button, the frog startles and darts back into the shallow water. Yoshiki sighs and lowers the camera. “Dammit…”
“What was that, man? Ya gotta catch it!”
“I’m not gonna catch it, I want a picture of it in its natural state.”
Hikaru hooks one finger into his collar and tugs it back and forth. “You serious? That’s gonna take forever.”
Without meaning to, Yoshiki eyes the curve of Hikaru’s neck as he tilts his head to the side. The lines of his throat leading down to the dip of the collarbone. A drop rolls down from his jawline to his collar, and Yoshiki’s mouth fills with the taste of sweat.
“What?” Hikaru asks, and the taste in his mouth goes sour. Once again, he can’t stop himself from looking. From stolen, sticky glances that catch over each and every angle of his friend’s body. Yoshiki thinks of flies trapped on flypaper.
Hikaru deserves better. Better than having a friend who’s constantly looking him up and down, who’s constantly thinking about the paleness of his bare skin. Everyone deserves the luxury of being comfortably unjudged around the person closest to them, but Yoshiki can’t even provide that. He just can’t help being this awful, formless thing that burrows its filthy gaze into everything like a parasite. A wasp leaving its young in an apple to bore their way out and leave rot in their wake.
Yoshiki gets the overwhelming urge to apologize, but he can’t figure out exactly what he would apologize for anyway. For looking? For having to not look? For thinking of holding his best friend against his body even on nights so hot physical contact would be torture? For imagining the feeling of his best friend’s ear between his teeth? For being?
If there is a word- actually a word- for Yoshiki, one that carries all of his shameful little secrets, it is not human. It is something that cannot be said.
If Hikaru even vaguely picks up on the pit of despair that has made itself known to Yoshiki once again, he doesn’t let on. “What is it? Oh, a bug’s after me, innit? Hehe, yeah, they all want a taste of this.”
The grief Yoshiki feels as he looks at Hikaru is like an old friend. Maybe the only one he deserves. He says, “Yeah, lots of them around.”
“I wish I hadn’t scared off that dragonfly. He oughta come back and eat these guys, or at least the- frog!” Hikaru sits up straight, then lowers his voice. He puts out one hand and points somewhere behind Yoshiki. “Turn around, real careful. He’s under that branch.”
Yoshiki turns and sure enough, there it is. It’s brown, with a couple darker stripes running down its back. It doesn’t seem to notice as Yoshiki slowly, slowly leans down. Encouraged, he lifts his camera and adjusts the zoom. It blinks, unbothered. Yoshiki takes the photo.
As he stands back up, the frog turns and wriggles its way farther into the shade of the branch. “Aww. Did ya get it?”
“Yeah, got it. Thanks.” Yoshiki wades out of the pond to where he left his lens cap. “Let’s head to yer place.”
Instead of an answer, Yoshiki hears Hikaru gasp. When he looks over, Hikaru’s standing up, barefoot in the mud. “Look,” he whispers. “A bird.”
Yoshiki follows his gaze and sees a brown-eared bulbul sitting in a tree. “Uh… nah, that’s fine, I got what I wanted.”
“No, no,” Hikaru says. When Yoshiki turns back over to him, he slowly lowers into a crouch, one leg in front of the other like he’s about to pounce at something. He’s still watching the bird in a way not unlike how he was watching Asako. “Just wait a minute, it’s about to take off.”
Yoshiki starts to say ‘What are you talking about?’, but before he can get the words out the bulbul is off its perch and gliding over his head.
Hikaru lowers his stance further and puts one arm out vaguely in front of him, and then goes still. There’s a flicker of that red again, and Yoshiki gets the inexplicable feeling that he should be warning off the bird.
The bulbul keeps flying, but some instinct must tell it off because it starts to veer off for the safety of the trees. Soundlessly and entirely without warning, Hikaru lunges after it. It jolts out of his reach and he lands back in a crouch before vaulting forward and giving chase.
Yoshiki just watches from where he’s standing as they both shoot past him. This is probably the point where he should ask Hikaru what on Earth he thinks he’s doing, but he finds that he’s completely frozen. Like his body thinks that if he stays still enough, Hikaru won’t notice him.
It’s all at once so staggeringly bizarre and so viscerally unnerving that Yoshiki doesn’t even breathe as he watches Hikaru pursue the bird around the side of the pond. It’s only once he sees Hikaru pitch forward and fall does he exhale. Then he inhales again, so that he can call, “What the hell’s wrong with ya?”
He watches Hikaru push himself back to his feet and casually walk back as if he didn’t just try to grab a bird out of the air like a lunatic. “Sorry,” he huffs as soon as he’s within earshot. “Thought ya might want a picture. Look!”
The feeling that Yoshiki experiences then, upon watching Hikaru hold up the living bulbul, is not one easily described. But calling it incredulity will do. He looks between the bird and Hikaru several times before saying, “Have ya just completely lost yer mind?”
“What? Yer taking animal pictures. Behold!” He lifts the bird. “An animal!”
This has to be some kind of joke. But the look on Hikaru’s face is so earnest that Yoshiki can’t help but start with, “Okay… I appreciate it.” Hikaru beams, his snaggletooth showing, until Yoshiki adds, “But catching animals with yer bare hands is not normal behavior.”
“We used to catch frogs.”
Yoshiki considers this, then says, “Okay, that’s different. Catching frogs and bugs and all is different. Ya don’t catch birds.”
Hikaru frowns, then smiles again. “No birds. Gotcha. Ya want a picture?”
Truth be told, the bulbul doesn’t fit the vibe of his collection either, not to mention being trapped in the hand of some kind of cursed mountain deity is not its natural state. On the other hand, he’s never really seen one this close, and besides, it feels kind of mean-spirited to just refuse. So he uncaps his camera, adjusts the setting, and takes the picture anyway. “Alright, ya can let it go.”
Hikaru does and the bird takes off immediately, probably relieved as all get-out. They both watch it go, until Yoshiki remarks, “Yer foot’s bleedin’.”
“Huh?” Hikaru looks down at his foot, tilting it a little to easier see the cut running along the side. It’s nothing too bad, but he still says, “Ah, shoot. Figures.”
“Ya probably shoulda put on yer shoes before all that,” Yoshiki says, leaning over to put on his own.
Hikaru sniffs. “Yeah, I guess.”
Putting his shoes back on with just the one hand turns out to be a little harder than Yoshiki thought, and the fact he thought he could do it standing up doesn’t help. He tries to get the back of his shoe over his heel with a sharp tug and feels his other foot slip. His heart drops, and his mind snaps back to falling just like this a few days ago and breaking his wrist for the trouble.
Then Yoshiki’s back in the present. The present, where an arm is hooked around his waist, and a chest is pressed firm against his back. He gets the weirdest sense of deja vu, to when he thought about this earlier and couldn’t even bear to entertain so much as the idea of it.
“Dude,” Hikaru says, and Yoshiki feels his breath against the side of his jaw. “How many times are ya gonna fall?”
A warmth flushes through Yoshiki and it nearly makes him nauseous. Because no matter how much he tears at the fibers of his soul and loathes himself it doesn’t take away from the raw, unspeakable truth that this is what he is. He looks down into the water in a second of clarity and sees his wide-eyed, flushed face among all the duckweed and pond scum and insects. Where it probably belongs.
Because the truth is he can lie awake and remind himself that he is appalling, as if he can be excused for his desires by being painfully aware of the very fact that they are inexcusable. He can do that all he wants, but at the end of the day his hands still absently carve the shape of Hikaru’s face into the air, every detail shamefully memorized. At the end of the day he still looks at that snaggletooth and thinks about it sinking into the side of his neck. At the end of the day, his best friend catches him when he falls because that’s what best friends do and his entire body still comes to life like a flower after rain.
Yoshiki can hate himself for being a monster, but that doesn’t make him any less of one.
So when that revulsion crawls up his throat, he makes a desperate, stupid decision. Without thinking much of anything besides how much he needs to get away, Yoshiki wrests himself forward with all the strength he has. Hikaru, probably caught off-guard by the sudden ferocity, only has the chance to say, “Yoshiki-!” before they’re both knocked straight into the pond.
———
“How many times’re ya gonna apologize?”
“Sorry,” Yoshiki replies reflexively, then cringes when Hikaru shoots him an exasperated look. “I mean… just probably woulda been better if ya didn’t bother catchin’ me at all.”
“Hahah, yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” Hikaru chuckles. Yoshiki stays silent, just awkwardly shifting in place in Hikaru’s doorway. Pond water runs down his back and pools inside his cast. When he doesn’t answer, Hikaru reaches over and lightly shoves his shoulder. “Man, ya know I’m kiddin’, right? I mean, I was half-plannin’ to take a swim anyway. I only didn’t ‘cause I knew you’d nag me about it.”
“Ya don’t have to say that,” Yoshiki mumbles.
“Do ya really think it’s above me to take a swim in a pond?”
Despite himself, Yoshiki snorts, then puts his hand over his mouth. Hikaru grins and starts to say something, probably some stupid remark about how he made Yoshiki laugh or something, but then his mom appears in the door.
“Bath’s ready,” she says. “Hikaru, lend him something to wear. I’ll wash yer uniforms when I get back.”
“When you get back?” Hikaru repeats.
Indou-san shoulders her purse. “Grandpa and I have to head over to Udekari. Kako-san’s taking over his daddy’s store, so we have to make sure we’re still his shiitake supplier.”
“We’re like, the only ones who sell that ‘round here,” Hikaru says back.
“…We’re also seeing if we can negotiate up the price.”
Hikaru laughs. “Hehe yeah, thought so.”
She huffs, then makes her way to the door to put on her shoes. Yoshiki moves aside to let her through. “We’ll be back in an hour or two, until then you can watch tv, and there are some snacks. You can just leave yer clothes on the drying rack.”
“Thank you so much, Indou-san,” Yoshiki says, nervously bowing. “I’m really sorry.”
“Oh c’mon Yoshiki-kun, ya don’t think I’m used to this? That’s my son, after all,” she answers, pointing at Hikaru, who immediately looks offended. “Alright, I’m leavin’.”
“Bye, mama,” Hikaru replies as Yoshiki bows again and says, “Bye, Indou-san. Thank you again.”
Then the door closes, and it’s just them standing, dripping, in the living room. “Okay, ya wanna bath first?” Hikaru asks.
“Uh, yeah, thanks.” Yoshiki doesn’t move though, just shifts his arm and feels the water inching its way inside. “Wait, do ya have a bag or something? I don’t wanna get my cast wet.”
Hikaru snorts. “Ya fell in a pond. It’s already wet.”
“Yeah well, it’s not supposed to be. I’m probably gonna have to go back to the doctor tomorrow. But it just feels weird ‘n kinda gross.”
An odd look crosses over Hikaru’s face, but it’s gone before Yoshiki can remark on it. “Okay, well, I probably have a bag around here somewhere. How’re ya gonna wash yer hair like that though?”
“What? I dunno, I’ll just…” Yoshiki lifts his arm and bends it and is surprised to find how much it hurts. “Shit- wait…”
Hikaru watches him struggle to even touch the top of his head, then lights up and suggests, “Hey, why don’t I do it?”
“Do what?” Yoshiki mumbles, still preoccupied with figuring out the best way to go about showering.
“Wash your hair.”
Yoshiki keeps fidgeting with his hair for a second before he actually hears Hikaru, at which point he lowers his hands and turns around agonizingly slowly, like a rusted hinge that screeches when moved. “…What?”
He’s pretty sure it’s a joke- one of those stupid ones that always hits a little too close to home. The dumb little jabs like you gonna confess your love for me? And if ya never find a girlfriend, I’ll marry ya! But when he faces Hikaru and waits for the punchline, he’s met with nothing but an innocently expectant silence.
“We can’t do that. It’s… weird.” It’s wrong, it’s gross, it’s monstrous.
“No it’s not. You can’t wash yer hair. And here I am, two-handed! Makes sense.”
“We can’t,” Yoshiki repeats. “What if someone…?” He’s not sure what he’s trying to say. The house is empty except for them, but he can’t shake that ever present small-town feeling that someone will just know somehow. “I mean, it’s just- we can’t, alright?”
“Aw, c’mon. You can wash my hair and we’ll be even.”
Even after all this time, Yoshiki can’t help but be astounded by how much Hikaru doesn’t understand. Does he really think this is about being even? It’s about being normal. Like if Yoshiki pretends enough then his mind will get the message that this is how it’s supposed to be.
He is supposed to be refusing to let his best friend wash his hair because he honestly finds the idea weird and uncomfortable, not because he’s scared of how much he wants it.
Yoshiki can’t feed the monster. He’s been working so hard to starve it. But its hunger is suddenly very hard to ignore, so when Hikaru adds, “Fine then, what’s your plan if I’m not the one who does it?” it’s too easy for him to tell himself that it’s a necessity. His arm is hurt and his cast is already ruined, it just makes sense. It’s not weird, he’s not doing it for any reason other than that he absolutely has to.
That ugly grief that resides somewhere in his soul tears violently at his insides, but the second Yoshiki’s will had buckled an inch it had given the rest of the way easily. “Fine,” he says. “I guess.”
“See, was that so hard?” Hikaru teases, completely unaware. Yoshiki frowns.
They make their way through the house to the bathroom, trying to avoid getting water on the floor. Hikaru opens the door to the bathroom, then shuts and locks it once Yoshiki’s inside. Immediately the whole thing feels weirdly intimate.
“Alright, go ahead,” Hikaru says, and he turns around without being asked.
“If you think about turning around, even as some stupid prank, I’ll…” Yoshiki grasps for an appropriate threat and comes up empty. “…literally murder you.”
“Uhh, what happened to ‘killing bad’?” Hikaru laughs.
“I’m serious!”
“Geez, alright!” Hikaru puts his hands over his eyes, still facing the wall. “What kinda creep do ya think I am, anyway?”
Yoshiki huffs and stares at Hikaru for another second. He doesn’t look like he plans to move, so he swallows hard and starts undoing the buttons of his shirt. It comes off, and Yoshiki briefly looks down at himself and feels a wave of dislike. He’s never been keen on his body- he’s always been lanky and sort of angular, like a spider or something. He glances back over at Hikaru, who’s still turned away.
In a rush, Yoshiki removes his slacks, then undresses entirely before entering the tub and sitting down. The water is pleasantly cool after the heat and feels clean. He leans out of the tub and folds his clothes into a square, then clears his throat.
“Ya done?” Hikaru asks.
Yoshiki’s heart beats with shame. This is messed up. He was close with the real Hikaru but they never did anything like this because the real Hikaru was normal. Human. Yoshiki draws his knees to his chest and makes himself as small as he can, his arms out and still holding his clothes. “Uh… yeah.”
Hikaru drops his hands and turns around. He doesn’t stare or react or anything, and the first things his eyes actually stop on are the clothes in Yoshiki’s hand. “Oh- hang on, lemme just…”
He approaches the bathtub and takes the clothes, then turns again to place them on the rack. Yoshiki props his cast against the ledge of the bathtub against the wall and wraps his free hand around his knees, hugging them closer. Hikaru says, “You like the rose bath salts, right?”
“Yeah.”
Yoshiki doesn’t look up as he hears a cupboard open, then things moving around. “Damn, we don’t have rose. Ya want lavender, coconut, or orange?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters.
“Well, it does to me! Orange it is.” The cupboard clicks shut, and Hikaru comes back to the side of the tub and leans a knee against the ledge while opening the lid of the jar. Yoshiki moves his hand to the back of his neck, like he can fold himself in half and disappear. After a second, he hears Hikaru go back to the cupboard and smells the distinct scent of ripe oranges. It’s surprisingly soothing.
“Okay, yer turn,” Hikaru says.
Yoshiki finally lifts his head to look at Hikaru, who’s undoing the top button of his shirt. His mind goes through a series of rapidfire thoughts, most of them just curse words, before he’s able to choke out, “What’re ya doin’?”
“Um, undressing? Turn around.”
“What?” Yoshiki’s heart drops into his stomach. “Why?”
Hikaru stops unbuttoning his shirt and says, “…Because… I did it for you? ‘S like, polite or whatever.”
“No, I mean- why are you undressing? You’re getting in?” Yoshiki asks, aghast.
Hikaru has the gall to stare at him like he’s the one who’s lost his mind. “What did you think?”
Nope. Nope. Nope. “I can’t do this,” Yoshiki says, bracing his hand against the tub and planning how to get up. “I’m not doing this.”
“Seriously?” Hikaru keeps staring, then cackles. “Yoshiki, how do ya have the energy to freak out over everything? You said okay!”
“I said okay to you sitting on a stool or something and then taking yer own damn bath!” Yoshiki snaps back, frantic. “No no no, hand me my clothes.”
“Yoshiki,” Hikaru repeats, and then kneels next to the bathtub. Yoshiki instantly curls back into himself. “Man. It’s not that serious. Jus’ scoot forward so I’ll have space, look, it’s a big tub.”
Yoshiki just shuts his eyes and presses his hand to the side of his face. “No, this is so weird. This is so, so weird.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. Yer makin’ it weird. How could this possibly be worse than stickin’ yer hand in me?”
Him mentioning that makes Yoshiki feel even worse- what kind of freak would have done that before, twice- before the part of his mind that processes words notices that it’s technically a fair point. Without meaning to, he lifts his head back up a little and cracks open his eyes. Hikaru breaks into a smile.
“See? ‘S fine, right?” Yoshiki doesn’t answer, then nods, very, very slowly. “Okay. Great. Turn around.”
Yoshiki leans his head against his knees and faces the wall. There’s a minute or two of the sounds of fabric rustling and footsteps, and then he feels Hikaru step into the water behind him and sit down.
“Ta-da!” he says. “No one’s dead.”
That is debatable, considering that Yoshiki feels like he’s had seven consecutive heart attacks and gone to some horrible purgatory where he’s sitting in a bathtub with a monster wearing the corpse of his best friend. Before he can pursue that particular line of self deprecation any further, Hikaru pours cool water over his head. “Somethin’ on yer mind?” he pries as he uncaps a shampoo bottle.
Yoshiki knows he can’t be honest, so instead he grabs the bar of soap and says, “So, what was that… uh, impurity today?”
“Huh? Oh, jus’ one of ‘em weird head things. It was pretty small, so…” he trails off and closes the bottle, and then all of a sudden his hands are in Yoshiki’s hair. He cards his fingers up from Yoshiki’s neck to the crown of his neck, and then repeats it. It feels… relaxing, like maybe Yoshiki could fall asleep. Which is terrifying since he never feels like he could fall asleep.
“Man, yer hair’s so long,” Hikaru says. He scrubs gently with his nails, then slides his fingers through Yoshiki’s hair again. “Whoa. I could make you a unicorn.”
“Do not,” Yoshiki hisses. He can feel his heartbeat slowing, and he starts to rub the soap over his shoulders, then down his arm. This isn’t so bad, so long as he can face away and pretend it’s not really happening.
Hikaru laughs, a genuine, imperfect sound, and says, “What, ya don’t wanna be a Yoshicorn?”
“…No,” Yoshiki answers, and all of a sudden he’s fighting a smile too as he scrubs down his chest and stomach. He reaches his good arm behind him to try and clean his back, and Hikaru’s hands trail down his bare neck and help. They’re cool from the water and surprisingly tender. Without meaning to, Yoshiki exhales audibly, but if Hikaru notices he doesn’t say anything.
“Can ya turn around?” Hikaru says. “I need to reach yer bangs.”
Yoshiki hesitates, but he doesn’t protest as much as he probably should. Instead, he slowly turns himself around, keeping his eyes down and moving his cast to rest on the other side of the tub. After a second, he raises his head and faces Hikaru.
It’s not as weird as he thought. After all, he’s seen Hikaru without a shirt before, just not vice versa. As soon as that occurs to him, he instinctually curls up and draws his hand over his stomach, like he’s trying to protect his vitals. The way Hikaru watches him gives him the unnerving feeling that protecting his vitals is exactly what he should be doing.
“What’s wrong?” Hikaru asks.
“Nothin’.”
“Don’t curl up like that, then,” Hikaru says back. Without warning he leans forward and presses on Yoshiki’s collarbone. The sudden shock of the contact makes Yoshiki inhale sharply and straighten up. “See? Much better.”
He moves his hand up to Yoshiki’s hair and combs his fingers up, against Yoshiki’s forehead. Slowly, he turns his hand and presses his palm there, holding the bangs out of Yoshiki’s eyes. His mouth breaks into a smile. “Hey.”
Yoshiki feels oddly vulnerable, especially considering he’s already not wearing anything. But now without anything between his eyes and Hikaru’s, he can’t help but duck his head and look away. “Knock it off already. Aren’t ya supposed to be washin’ my hair or somethin’?”
“I wanted to see yer eyes,” Hikaru laughs. “Ya looked kinda like one of ‘em ghouls.” Yoshiki hunches his shoulders and glares, at which point Hikaru drops the smile and sighs. “Fine, fine, geez.”
Hikaru puts more shampoo on his hands and rubs them together before leaning in again and working it into Yoshiki’s hair. Yoshiki has to bend over a bit since Hikaru’s shorter than him, which means he ends up with his head tilted down and nothing to look at but the surface of the water and the planes of Hikaru’s body.
He fights it, of course. He’s always fighting it, lest he cross an uncrossable line and his guilt- or his town- eats him alive. But the water is nice, and the air smells like citrus, and Hikaru’s hands feel shamefully good working the shampoo into his hair. He’s tired and he knows, logically, that no one else is in the room.
So when his resolve yields, he doesn’t have it in him to feel that familiar surge of hatred. There’s only a quiet disappointment. Of course you gave in, of course your eyes are going to slowly trace their way across his skin. They always do.
Yoshiki follows the line of his collarbone to where it meets the sternum. Then down, down the center of his chest, the place where it splits open for his hand. He looks over the place he drove the knife into, scans for any sign of his Hail Mary attempt on his best friend’s life. Of course, there’s nothing. Just smooth, porcelain-like skin.
He hears a soft splash, and then water’s being poured over his head as Hikaru musses his hair to wash all the shampoo out. Yoshiki wipes down the soap and feels pleasantly clean. Then Hikaru’s hands are pulling back, and he says, “Right, then. There ya go.”
“Uh-” Yoshiki blinks, then sits up. Awkwardly, he meets Hikaru’s eyes and then mumbles, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Yer turn,” Hikaru says back, before holding out the end of the shampoo bottle.
“What, were ya serious? Ya want me to wash yer hair?” Yoshiki looks at the bottle, then back at Hikaru’s. He says, “Wasn’t the whole point of this that I can’t use both my arms right now?”
Silence, then Hikaru’s face scrunches up. “Oh, right. Duh.” Yoshiki begins to chuckle, but then Hikaru adds, “Ya wanna try puttin’ yer hand in me again?” and Yoshiki is definitely not laughing anymore.
“…Wait, what? Why?”
“I dunno, why not? I helped ya out, right?”
Of all the things wrong in this situation, it is probably not the inane amount of naïveté that should be reminding Yoshiki how not-human Hikaru is. But it’s such a weird way to think of equivalency that he has to stop. In what world does ‘I helped you wash your hair so you should stick your hand into my chest’ count as a normal bargain?
“…Ya mean, ya want me to do that because you like it?” Yoshiki wraps his arm around himself and says, “I didn’t even ask ya to wash my hair, you insisted. Is this why? ‘Cause you wanted me to owe ya or somethin’?”
Hikaru stares at him like he’s crazy for the second time today. “What’s with ya and assuming the worst? I mean, yeah, I do like it. But I really was just helpin’ you out, so ya don’t have to or anythin’. Like that thing we talked about, like- I can’t just do stuff if other people don’t wanna.”
If nothing else, Hikaru does seem to put considerable effort into taking the things Yoshiki tells him to heart. Even if the fact he had to learn those things in the first place- like it’s sad when people die- is a bit alarming. Then again, he could just be playing all mature and sensible so that Yoshiki agrees.
…Damn. Maybe Yoshiki does assume the worst a lot.
Besides, does he really not want to? It’s awful and embarrassing to think about, but Yoshiki doesn’t really hate it. Or, if he does hate it then he also sort of likes it with equal intensity, whatever that says about him. He thinks about it more than he cares to admit, with distaste or fear or something else he’s not sure. Whatever it is when you can’t help but be fascinated by some decaying corpse you found on the side of the road.
He looks back at Hikaru, who’s pouring water over his hair and combing through it with his fingers, apparently having left the topic behind. “…My hand’s wet though,” Yoshiki says. “Does that… matter?”
“What, your cast?” Hikaru answers, wiping the water off of his face so he can open his eyes. “Or like…? Oh. Oh. …Uh, nah, I don’t think so. I doubt that I’m picky.”
“Ominous. Thanks,” Yoshiki mutters. He swallows. He can’t be doing this again, can he? A third time? Surprising himself, he says, “Fine, I guess we can, then.”
In a hurry, Hikaru sits up and says, “Okay, good. ‘Cause I really wanted to.” and Yoshiki feels the urge to laugh at the idea that Hikaru could be conniving enough to manipulate him into doing this, because right now he’s perked up like a dog that just heard it could go on a walk.
Yoshiki watches as Hikaru presses his thumb into his stomach, just above his navel. The skin resists, then all of a sudden gives way like the seam was always there just waiting to be opened. Slowly he drags his hand upwards, widening the crevice up to his collarbone, and Yoshiki abruptly gets a vivid sense of what he’s doing, like he’s watching from the door. Sitting in a bathtub, watching his friend tear a line into his chest. His friend, who is also in the goddamn bathtub.
Hikaru pulls his hand away and lowers it to his lap. “Alright. ‘M all yers.”
Yoshiki doesn’t like that phrasing. Or doesn’t like how much he likes that phrasing. Hesitantly, he lifts his hand, then moves it forward so his fingers graze Hikaru’s navel, just under the surface of the water. Slowly, he slides his hand inside, up to the wrist.
A wave of nausea crashes into him hard as his fingers meet the cold flesh of something. His stomach lurches and bile stings his throat, but he manages to reach in a bit farther. The revulsion begins to die down into background noise. “‘Kay,” he mumbles. “It’s fine.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the place where his hand disappears and experimentally shifts his fingers. They find their way into the spaces of what had felt like a smooth surface- what was really, it seemed, a bundle of thick fibers twined tightly together. The tissue presses back against his hand as he works it in, awful and clammy. Like a corpse.
With that unwelcome thought he thinks he tastes bile again. He bites his tongue and wonders if he can make some excuse, pull out his hand, and be done with this- until he hears a quiet sigh and looks up.
Hikaru meets his eyes, then looks off to the side. His mouth opens, closes, opens again. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“Uh… okay.”
Yoshiki looks back down and tries to move his fingers again and finds he can’t. Instead, he can only follow the tendrils farther in, so he does. The coldness swallows half way up this forearm before the pressure gives as the fibers split off somewhere else. He slides his fingers across the minute folds of a membrane, surprisingly soft. Not quite like rubber, more organic. The way he imagines the body of a jellyfish might feel. It gives way easily as he presses, folding it on itself.
“Haah-” Hikaru breathes. “Could ya hang on a second-?”
Yoshiki stops, then says, “Yeah. You alright?”
Hikaru just half-nods, then puts his hands on the sides of the bathtub and pulls himself up slightly before settling back with his legs folded under him. Without warning, he scoots a little closer so their knees touch, then puts his hands back in his lap.
Yoshiki watches for any more movement but there seems to be none, so he tentatively carries on. He’s painfully aware of how screwed up this is, as unnatural as a lamb sticking its neck into the jaw of a wolf just because the wolf likes it. If not more, because he can’t imagine that the lamb would be enjoying itself.
I’m not enjoying myself, Yoshiki thinks with a surge of annoyance, and without meaning to he tugs on the thin membrane under his fingertips. Immediately, a pulse travels through Hikaru’s insides. The membrane tenses, pushing back up against his hand, and coils of sinew squeeze around his arm and convulse, dragging him a couple inches further in. Hikaru shudders.
Revolting, but… interesting. He presses his palm flat against a series of cartilaginous ridges and runs his hand across them. Tissues part to make way for the movement, sliding against his skin. He presses his thumb to the groove of the ridge and eases along it. Hikaru shudders again, more intensely, and makes a low-pitched sound.
A weird curiosity sparks in Yoshiki’s chest and then he’s leaning forward further, letting the sensation crawl up nearly to his elbow. He cards his fingers through the creases, then slowly flips his hand over and strokes them like it’s fabric he’s trying to smooth out. He glances up and feels a flush of feverish warmth.
Hikaru’s breaths come shakily through his open mouth, and he watches Yoshiki through half-lidded eyes. There’s a glint of red there, where there should be black, and it gives Yoshiki a terrible satisfaction to know that Hikaru is hungry.
Yoshiki’s hands move across a delicate band of tissue, and he thinks of dragonfly wings. He runs his thumb along the edge of it, making it pleat, before hooking his finger on it and yanking back. Hikaru’s eyes snap open with a gasp and he keens forward, one hand bracing against the floor of the bathtub and the other grabbing Yoshiki’s arm, just above the cast. It makes his wrist bump into the tub sill and sends a jolt of pain all the way up to his shoulder.
“Gahh-” Hikaru groans. His shoulders rise and fall with each breath, and he slowly leans in until he’s resting his wet hair against Yoshiki’s collarbone. “You don’t… gotta do that.”
Yoshiki is still focused on the remnant throbbing of his wrist, but he does have the presence of mind to ask, “Sorry. Did it hurt?”
“Nah, it was just… a lot,” Hikaru huffs. He lifts his head back up and breaks into a grin, removing his hand from Yoshiki’s arm. “Feels nice though,” he adds, and then he’s moving his hand up to the side of Yoshiki’s face and holding it there, cool against his burning skin.
“Okay,” Yoshiki says. “Good. I think.” He stares at Hikaru’s face for a second, looks over the flush on his cheeks and the snaggletooth bared in his smile and the dim red light somewhere behind his eyes. Yoshiki’s stomach clenches, this time not from nausea, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s slipping his arm out of Hikaru’s chest.
Hikaru’s eyebrows go up and the hand leaves Yoshiki’s face, and then the masses of membranes are seizing around him, desperately trying to drag him back. Before they can get a firm grip he wrenches his hand the rest of the way out, so hard he falls back a little with a splash.
“What’s wrong?” Hikaru asks.
“Nothin’,” Yoshiki mutters. “Wanna try something.”
Hikaru watches him with furrowed brows, not doing anything right up until Yoshiki starts pulling on the end of his cast. “Whoa-” Hikaru says, hands coming up and then just hovering in the air uncertainly. “Wait, dude-”
“It’s fine, it’s ruined anyway,” Yoshiki cuts in, managing to inch the cast a bit off of his arm. His wrist aches under the pull, but Yoshiki grits his teeth and bears it.
“Yeah, but-” Hikaru looks between Yoshiki’s arm and his face. “I think the doctor should be the one takin’ it off…”
“It’s fine,” Yoshiki repeats. He gets it all the way off of his hand and then the rest of it slides down his arm relatively easily, revealing the dark, scar-like bands of his mixing. Then his wrist, red and swollen, comes into view, but he still feels nothing but a heated hysteria. “I’m going back tomorrow anyway.”
He places the cast on the floor of the bathroom outside of the tub, then gingerly reaches his arm out to Hikaru’s chest. His fingers have just come to rest against the edges of the seam when Hikaru reaches up with both hands and carefully grabs his forearm, stopping him. “Yoshiki, I… I kinda don’t think that this is a good idea.”
Oh god. If Hikaru’s saying that then it really must be incredibly stupid. And yet he just can’t stop. He doesn’t know why he just can’t stop. All Yoshiki does know is that he feels dizzy, delirious even, as if he’s been standing in the sun for hours and is on the verge of heat stroke. He’s reminded of the time he accidentally drank alcohol with the real Hikaru.
Grief sinks its nails deep into his chest when he thinks about it, and he decides that he needs to ride this dazed, numb rush as far as it will take him. He doesn’t want to think about anything right now. He doesn’t want to hate himself right now.
Yoshiki shifts onto his knees and leans forward, planting his hand against Hikaru’s shoulder and pushing him backwards. He doesn’t do it hard- and he’s not particularly strong anyway- but Hikaru quietly follows his lead, getting off of his knees and scooting backward until he’s against the back wall of the tub.
Hikaru leans back, watching through his eyelashes as Yoshiki settles between his legs. Just far enough to maintain a flimsy sense of decorum, but close enough that the insides of Hikaru’s knees brush the outsides of his. “Man,” Hikaru says through a nervous laugh. “What’s gotten into ya? Yer not usually so… uh…”
It’s a fair question, one that Yoshiki should really be trying to answer before it turns into a ‘what the hell have I done?’ afterwards. But he’s already taken this concerningly far, so no matter what he does now he’s going to regret it anyway. Can he even make this worse at this point?
Yes, he thinks, but what he says is, “Will ya just shut up?”
“Are you being serious? You shouldn’t do that, I mean it. You’ll fuck up that arm somethin’ good,” Hikaru warns. “Yer bones are already fragile as is, ya know. It’ll hurt.”
“Be careful, then,” Yoshiki says. “And shut up. Please.”
Hikaru stares at him for another second, then slowly shuts his eyes. “Yer so goddamn stubborn,” he mutters. There’s a long silence that follows, long enough that Yoshiki becomes nervous that common sense is about to catch up to him and knock him upside the head. But then Hikaru opens his mouth again and says, “Fine.”
When Yoshiki pushes his hand into Hikaru’s chest, his first thought is that it’s pleasant. The dull heat from his swollen wrist quietly gives in under the liquid cold of Hikaru’s insides. Like an icepack, Yoshiki thinks faintly. He slowly moves his hand back and forth, careful not to agitate his injury.
Hikaru blows out a breath and opens his eyes, staring at Yoshiki. After a second, his hand comes up to rest against Yoshiki’s face again. The corner of his mouth goes up.
Yoshiki feels his face warm and rolls his eyes. He finds a sheaf of thin, gauzy sheets and digs his fingers into them like he’s testing whether they’ll tear. They don’t, instead wrapping around his wrist and squeezing, making Yoshiki hiss through the sudden pain.
Weirdly enough, an eager smile slowly overtakes Hikaru’s face. His eyes widen, and Yoshiki sees his pupils dilate to the point that they nearly swallow the grey of his irises.
“Did that hurt?” Hikaru asks with clinical interest.
“Yeah, a little,” Yoshiki admits. “Did that feel… good?”
“Yeah, a lot,” Hikaru answers. He trails the tips of his fingers from the side of Yoshiki’s face down to the curve of his jaw. His gaze follows. “I think I like ya like this.”
Yoshiki doesn’t know exactly what that means and he doesn’t want to ask, either. Still a bit out of it, he works his hand in deeper, the membranes parting to let him through. His fingers meet a smooth surface that splits when he applies pressure, and behind it he finds a bundle of slick, coiled tubes. He thinks of intestines.
The following flush of disgust comes with something else, something that hits square in the stomach. It’s only as the queasiness drains away that Yoshiki is able to identify the unmistakable thrill of pleasure. “Haah,” he pants. “Hikaru…”
“It’s good, yer doin’ good,” Hikaru says, eyes going half-lidded. Yoshiki watches with a stab of nervousness as he easily surveys Yoshiki’s body, down, down to the skin of his stomach. There’s no sign of any vicious internal struggle, probably because he’s not looking in the dirty, selfish way that Yoshiki looks. If he was, then…
He’s not, though. He doesn’t even get those feelings. This is different, this is him watching the thing he wants to eat, even if it doesn’t really explain the blown pupils or the fervid flush across his face, creeping to the tips of his ears and down his throat. Yoshiki has never really thought about it, but prey drive has to be some kind of desire, doesn’t it?
“Tell me how this feels good to you,” Yoshiki mumbles, threading his fingers between the intestines. They writhe against his hand, gently winding around his palm. Whatever Hikaru’s experiencing has to be alien to him, because he knows that anyone doing something like this to him would be an immensely bloody, immensely painful ordeal.
Hikaru tilts his head lazily and arches his eyebrows. “…I dunno,” he answers after a second. “‘Cause it’s you, I guess.”
Yoshiki’s heart stutters painfully and he accidentally tightens his grip, digging his nails into the soft tissue of the coils. Hikaru immediately jerks, shutting his eyes and pressing his chest up into Yoshiki’s hand. The movement jams his wrist backward, sending an excruciating pang through his nerves so strong that he feels it in his spine.
But Yoshiki hardly even notices it, enamored with the raw honesty of Hikaru’s reaction. The way his head lolls back. The way the hand on Yoshiki’s jaw slides to the back of his neck while Hikaru presses the knuckles of the other against his mouth. The way his hair is plastered against his forehead, his neck covered in a sheen of sweat. He swallows hard, and Yoshiki eyes the movement.
This feels wrong, and beyond just the general sense of unease he feels whenever his insatiable wants make themselves known. It all feels weirdly private, something he shouldn’t be seeing. But then Hikaru moans a muffled, “Fuck, Yoshiki,” through his hand and suddenly all of Yoshiki’s persistent little doubts are drowned out by the pounding in his ears.
“That wasn’t an answer,” Yoshiki says, pressing harder. “What about me?”
Hikaru’s hand falls from his mouth, which cracks into an uneven, hungry smile. He runs his tongue over his snaggletooth, and then draws Yoshiki’s face closer with a pull on the back of his neck. “How d’you want me to explain it?” he asks. “Yer not gonna get it.”
The awkward angle, Yoshiki hunched over like this, forces him to brace his free hand against the side of Hikaru’s waist. He feels Hikaru shiver. Distantly he knows he didn’t have to- he could have easily just leaned against the side of the tub- but Hikaru’s skin is cold and smooth and Yoshiki has wanted this so badly.
“Try me,” Yoshiki says.
The intestines suddenly constrict around Yoshiki’s wrist and yank him forward. The sharp sensation he feels is as raw and liquid as the second he broke his arm in the first place. He’s vaguely aware of tears springing to his eyes, but at the same time there’s some thick, formless ecstasy from the way the pain makes his head swim.
Then they’re contracting harder and pain tips into agony. Yoshiki gasps at the abruptness, the ease at which something nearly pleasurable became unbearable. “Hikaru,” he manages, and then the coils are loosening. The agony recedes like a tide, leaving just an unpleasant heat that sinks into Yoshiki’s stomach. Hikaru’s hand clutches tightly against the back of his neck, his eyes trained somewhere off to the side in focus.
Slowly, his gaze comes up to rest on Yoshiki’s face. When he doesn’t say anything, Yoshiki carefully untangles his fingers from the bundle of intestines and crooks his elbow to reach higher, higher, somewhere behind the collarbone. He doesn’t focus too much on what he finds, just lets his fingers roam over folded webs of tendons and soft, slick chambers of flesh.
“I want to take you apart,” Hikaru says, and then blushes as if he’s said something immensely romantic. “There just ain’t a better way to put it.”
Yoshiki waits for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. Which he’s not going to take because that’s the worst thing he’s ever heard. He absently plucks at the lacework of sinew and prompts, “How do ya mean?”
Hikaru gently pushes Yoshiki away a little, then leans back and inspects his body. Slowly, his hand slides away from the back of Yoshiki’s neck and tenderly skims the pulse point beneath his jaw. “I want to put you in my mouth,” he says, half to himself. “I feel like that’s the only instinct I have. I don’t really wanna eat or, or make love or whatever. But I wanna take everything apart.”
“Including me.”
“Especially you,” Hikaru huffs, with a guilty smile. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about it. You. It’d be so easy. Starting here.” He gently taps Yoshiki’s pulse, making him feel the overwhelming urge to run. He doesn’t.
Then Hikaru’s hand meanders down to his collarbone, then trails along his sternum. Yoshiki goes deathly still, partially from fear and partially from the surge of exhilaration. Get away from me and please, please, touch me, touch me.
“You’ll never see what I see here,” Hikaru tells him, those red eyes following his hand intently. “But it’s beautiful. I could have it. There’s so little in the way,” he adds, splaying his fingers in the center of Yoshiki’s chest and pressing down, like he can just reach into his ribcage and take whatever he pleases.
Hikaru’s hand moves on, across Yoshiki’s bare stomach where no one has touched him before. Well, except for Kaoru who usually defaulted to socking him in the gut whenever he took something she wanted, but this is wildly different. He can do nothing but sit as Hikaru’s fingers stop just shy of the surface of the water, right under Yoshiki’s navel.
“You’d be mine,” he continues passionately. His eyes are wide again, face flushed and sweaty. Like he’s reciting something from one of those questionable magazines Maki ogles at in shop windows and not some unhinged psychopath dialogue. His voice trembles. “You’re so warm and alive and I feel it even when I’m near you. I meant it when I said I loved you. I love you.”
No matter how much Yoshiki reminds himself that Hikaru doesn’t understand what that means like he does, the words hit him like a sack of bricks. He exhales, eyes wide, and Hikaru meets them steadily.
“When ya touch me,” he says, ragged. “I guess I think you love me, too, or somethin’? It kind of feels like it. And I can feel how alive you are, with all your blood and bones and, and, I feel like one day I’m gonna get to have you like I want to have you. Whenever we’re like this I feel like I know what it’s like to get what I want. Like I could just- ahh, dammit-”
Without warning, he hooks his arm around Yoshiki’s waist and drags him in with surprising ease. It forces Yoshiki’s arm all the way into Hikaru’s body and presses their chests flush together. The lower half of Yoshiki’s body stays where it is, nothing but the brush of their knees.
“Hikaru-” Yoshiki stammers.
“Just tell me what ya want,” Hikaru mumbles, tucking his face into the crook of Yoshiki’s neck. “I’ll do it, hell, I’ll do anything.”
“You don’t gotta…” Yoshiki tries. This is too much, he’s going to have an aneurysm or a stroke or the part of him that’s been keeping him alive in this town is going to strangle him with his own veins, since it seems to be his heart that’s always doing this to him.
Yoshiki realizes then that he feels Hikaru’s heartbeat, or maybe his own. How many times has he thought about this? Dreamt about it shamefully? The cool, flat plane of Hikaru’s chest against his, arms around his back holding him like they want him.
With a little sound Yoshiki tries to shift, to lessen this pressure in his chest before he suffocates on the smell of sweat and citrus and his best friend. All he really accomplishes is accidentally bumping his hand into a bundle of folded membranes.
Hikaru’s mouth opens against Yoshiki’s neck and he moans softly. He doesn’t know how or why a small, quiet sound like that should be able to make heat flush down his body, but it does. Yoshiki shivers and reflexively drives his hand deeper, ignoring the ache in his wrist.
“I want to.” Hikaru says, breath hot. “Tell me to do somethin’ for ya, Yoshiki. Please. It don’t gotta be a wish.”
Yoshiki shuts his eyes tight. So much is happening- the cold, nauseating pulse of Hikaru’s viscera, his palms pressed flat to Yoshiki’s back, his mouth against Yoshiki’s throat. “Just keep doing this,” Yoshiki pants. “This is…good.”
It’s as honest as he can bear to be. He has to remove himself from this somewhere, he can’t say that it feels good, or that he likes it. Keeping it distant, vague, impartial, it’s the only way he can get anything out of his rapidly closing throat.
Hikaru mumbles something Yoshiki doesn’t hear, fidgeting a little. There’s a flash of fear as he feels Hikaru’s true form pressing against his neck- but it’s not, it’s too warm, too wet.
Yoshiki lets out a ragged breath as Hikaru drags his tongue lazily down the side of his throat. The hands on his back slowly slide up, one tangling in Yoshiki’s hair and gently tugging his head to the side. “What are you-?” Yoshiki starts, before cutting himself off with a low groan. “Nnh… Hikaru…”
Yoshiki grabs a handful of Hikaru’s insides and pulls. Hikaru makes another small sound and then his teeth are gently pressing into Yoshiki’s shoulder. It’s terrifying and exhilarating and intoxicating and the point of his one fang is against Yoshiki’s skin. On a knee-jerk reflex, Yoshiki thrusts his hand in all the way and digs his nails in as hard as he can.
In return, Hikaru bites down harder, making Yoshiki moan. His shame is finding him again, and like this, no less- flushed and panting, letting his desire get the better of him. Yoshiki tries to stave it off as much as he can- just a few more minutes before he burrows into his own soul and destroys himself. He lifts his free hand from Hikaru’s waist to his hair, holding him against Yoshiki’s neck.
“Yoshiki,” Hikaru manages. He presses his chest to Yoshiki’s harder, then suddenly jerks up. “Yoshiki,” he says again, this time near panicked, and suddenly the soft, slick membranes are crushing his hand.
Before Yoshiki can register the change in tone or the pain, something cold and liquid unspools against his throat. Only dully realizing the danger, he doesn’t move until Hikaru braces both of his hands on Yoshiki’s shoulders and shoves him back, so hard that he falls completely into the water. The violence of the motion wrenches his wrist, made worse by the desperate grip of the coils in Hikaru’s chest. A boiling pain shoots up his arm into the rest of his body, so bad that sees a flash of white and momentarily feels on the verge of throwing up.
“Gah-!” he gasps, pushing his head out of the water and breaking into a coughing fit. He wipes at his face and opens his eyes just in time to see Hikaru turn around, clasping both his hands over his nose and mouth and bowing his shoulders like he’s ashamed. “H- Hikaru?”
Hikaru looks over his shoulder, just one eye visible. It’s still a dull red, but the shape is starting to break down. Yoshiki watches the grey of his iris soften into something watery and run down his face like a tear. Then he turns away fully again, splaying the fingers of one hand to cover his eyes, too. “Don’t look at me,” he chokes out.
Yoshiki feels a stab of guilt because he sort of wasn’t planning to. He can barely stomach how Hikaru’s real form feels, and that’s only when he can’t see it. Realizing this, especially after the ardent (if worrying) speech from before- makes Yoshiki feel cruelly superficial. “Hey…” he tries, reaching out and carefully laying his fingers against Hikaru’s back. His wrist is tender, and throbs in time with his head, so badly that he suspects he might have injured it substantially more than before. “Just… it’s okay…”
“Don’t,” Hikaru mumbles, voice layered over itself. The way it is when he calls to impurities to destroy them utterly. “Don’t say that. Ruined it again. Gross, ain’t I?”
Yoshiki watches him squeeze his eyes shut and barely lift his head. There are rivulets of thick black sludge running between Hikaru’s fingers and down from the line on his neck, making his stomach flip. He can’t figure out what to say.
“…Thanks,” Yoshiki finally offers. Immediately Hikaru’s head comes up and his hands pull away from his face, a dark, thin line of the slurry drawn between his fingers and mouth. Something moves behind his teeth, and Hikaru bites down hard like he’s biting his tongue, then winces as if he did.
“Thanks?” Hikaru repeats through a mouthful of…something.
Through some willpower he didn’t know he had, Yoshiki doesn’t move or look away. “For washing my hair.”
The sludge recedes, slowly. Back into his neck, back into his mouth. Even the stains on his fingers disappear under his fingernails. Hikaru stares at Yoshiki, stunned, before suddenly breaking into a flustered smile and ducking his head. “Gee, uh… ‘course. Anytime.”
It’s so endearingly out of place, so deceptively harmless, that Yoshiki nearly smiles too. Then he lifts his hand, brings it down on Hikaru’s head, and says, “Let’s watch a movie tonight.”
———
So they do, some stupid old rom-com they found in a drawer.
Technically, Yoshiki’s not actually watching it. He’s in a borrowed t-shirt and shorts, curled against the arm of the sofa and clicking through the pictures on his camera. Hikaru, on the other hand, is way too invested. He’s cross-legged on the floor, hugging a pillow, and every five minutes he swats at Yoshiki and says something like, “Shit, why’s she movin’ back home? Don’t be stupid Tamami-san!”
Yoshiki briefly looks up. “What, wasn’t it because she has to take over her mom’s restaurant?”
“Well, yeah,” Hikaru says back, like he’s being stupid. “But what about Daichi-san? I thought she loved him.”
“She does,” Yoshiki answers, looking back down at his camera. “But she probably realized it’s not worth everyone hating her over.”
“I thought love was supposed to be the greatest human emotion or somethin’.”
“Well, it’s not.”
Hikaru doesn’t say anything, turning back to watch the heroine get on her flight back to her hometown.
Yoshiki reaches the pictures he’s been taking for his collection. He tabs back- the frog, the dragonfly, the fox, the mantis. There are more from last week, like a hawk he saw, and a centipede. He eventually finds the very first one he took, one of Mince-aniki. He’d been in the middle of stalking a pigeon, ears up, pupils dilated. Yoshiki blinks, glances over at Hikaru, then back down.
It’s a good collection, even though he doesn’t know what it is that pulls it together thematically.
“Hey,” Hikaru says, then waits until Yoshiki looks at him. “I, uh, got pretty weird back there, hah. Sorry ‘bout that.”
“Ya mean the serial killer speech?”
Hikaru throws an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Was it actually that bad?” he asks. Yoshiki doesn’t answer, and Hikaru sighs. “Okay fine. Yes. That. Well, I just wanted you to know I wouldn’t do that, if I could help it.”
“…Thanks.”
There’s a brief silence, which Hikaru breaks by dropping the pillow to the side and getting to his feet. “Aaanyway, we have rice crackers, do ya want some?”
Yoshiki’s not really that hungry, but he says, “Yeah. That’d be nice.”
Hikaru disappears into the kitchen, and Yoshiki stretches out his legs. He’s still trying very hard not to think about earlier, or how he’s going to explain to his doctor how he lost his cast and made his wrist worse. It still faintly pulses.
“I’m glad you finally came to your senses,” Tamami’s mother says on the screen. “What were you thinking, going to Tokyo?”
Yoshiki clicks through his collection again, counting as he goes this time. There are nine photos in total, ones that he’s happy with. Ones that capture his recent fascination with- well, whatever it is.
There’s a sound from the doorway. “I’m back!” Hikaru calls, coming in with a bowl in his hands. He nudges the pillow aside with his foot, then puts the chips on the coffee table. “What did I miss?”
“Huh? I dunno, her mom’s being mean to her or somethin’.” Yoshiki considers his camera again. Nine is good, but a weird number. He should get one more, round it out to a ten.
He looks up again at Hikaru. He’s leaned over the table, the TV behind him. A curious interest overtakes Yoshiki, and he switches his camera to photo mode and lifts it. “See?” Hikaru remarks. “Seriously, why’d she bother to come back?”
“You know what?” Tamami bursts out, almost on cue. “Forget this! I thought that maybe if I just- did everything like you wanted it’d be enough for you! But it never is! Well, I want to live for me! Because what I feel for Daichi-san… it’s worth it!”
Hikaru throws up his hands and lets out a whoop. “Hell yeah! Tell her!”
Through the viewfinder, Yoshiki studies him. Backlit against the screen, teeth bared, the red of his eye made visible in the shadow. He’s looking away, framed in side profile. “What’d I tell you?” he crows. “She figured out what’s worth it.”
Yoshiki presses the shutter-release, taking the photo and finally finishing out his collection. And by the time Hikaru has fully turned around, the camera is innocently in Yoshiki’s lap, leaving Hikaru- and his ego- none the wiser.