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Looking back, the seeds were sown earlier than he’d like to admit.
Hoeru was three, shorter than the rest and more shy than the others, too. He spared a hesitant look toward all his peers, who had long since gathered into their own little friend groups. The hierarchy was made. The cute girls and the strong boys. The stupid boys and the neutral girls. The rowdy boys and the tomboyish girls.
In the complicated system that was preschool, Hoeru had nowhere to settle. He wasn’t strong; he was a crybaby. He wasn’t stupid, at least not like them. He certainly wasn’t loud enough to be put along the loud-mouthed boys, either. Whatever friends Hoeru made were tentative at best and temporary at worst. By the following day, Hoeru was yet again left alone, whatever truce they’d come toward long since forgotten as the new day arose.
Hoeru learned, even before he could read the signage at the storefronts or add or subtract numbers, that people left all the time.
At the very least, preschool was only temporary. It was a life he lived during the day, and at night, he had his brother. Hisamitsu Nii-chan, who stayed with him.
His brother would remain.
He would be alongside him even as others left.
Everything changed when he was eight. They were lost in a strange forest and even stranger monsters. Hoeru was pushed against the familiar shirt of his brother as someone let out a blood-curdling scream.
He was eight, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t loud. He wasn’t strong.
Hoeru could only tighten his grip on his brother’s arm as the voice began to die out and the wet breathing slowed to a stop. His face was still in his brother’s torso, too scared to pull away, too scared that he would see what had happened.
His brother held onto his hand as they wandered around. Two brothers. The two of them.
Hoeru learned what blood was. He learned how much a human could have of them, and wondered if he had just as much, or if he had less because he was much smaller.
The seed that was sown at three had grown since then. It was a seedling, still—but it was growing slowly but surely.
He had his brother, still, and that was all that mattered. Hoeru lulled himself into a shallow sleep, occasionally waking to the sound of his brother’s sharp inhales. Nightmares, he understood, seeing the way his brother’s brows furrowed and half-formed words came out in sharp, quick breaths.
There wasn’t much he could do than to comfort him as well as he could. Hoeru was just eight, maybe shy of nine. He didn’t know how long they’d spent in the forest or how many days had passed. The full cheeks of his brother’s sharpened as time went on and they wandered aimlessly, and Hoeru wondered if he looked just as miserable.
They were dirty. Lonely. People had disappeared. Some had left in a sweeping cry, with blood and other things expelling from their bodies, faster than his brother could shield him from the grotesque view.
It was alright, Hoeru told himself.
It was alright.
His brother had left and so had Mine-san. Hoeru was beginning to see the patterns in his life and how people came and went.
The seeds from all those years prior had grown in size, and its thickening branches pushed against his ribcage and suffocated his chest. They curled into the cavity of his body where his soul, once full and vibrant, laid, and took the place of where his hopes and dreams once were.
Hoeru carried along with his life in the foreign world that wasn’t so foreign anymore. He could navigate himself through the forest and into the strange city. He knew the place like the back of his hand, better than he’d ever known his hometown years ago.
The anxiety returned and so did the tightening of his chest. People came and went, and Hoeru was always, like a rule of thumb, left alone. At least now, in a world where there seemed to be no one but him, Hoeru knew that no one could leave him as long as no one came close to him. As long as he never let them in.
He let the plant grow vines around his ribcage, pushing against organs as it circled his torso, and grew into a monumental length that could no longer fit him. His skin was too tight against his bones—too thin and translucent, so much so that he could see the veins popping out and every bruise leave their mark.
More than the plant—a parasite more likely—that was nestling itself in his body was the crippling silence that rang deafeningly into his ear. He learned early on that while having no one meant that no one could leave him, it also meant that it was easier to forget.
His mom. His dad. His brother—
Hoeru dragged his feet through the dirt floors of the forest and the concrete pavements of the alien city, and when it came time to rest, where he knew that it was safe, he spoke to himself, listening to the coarseness of his voice and the emptiness that hung like a void in his chest.
I’m Tono Hoeru.
(The fear that clung to his frame when he hesitated to say his name. He hadn’t heard anyone call for him in so long—hadn’t thought of it in years, that he began to forget.)
My birthday is December 22.
I was born in Heisei year 16.
I like my mom’s hamburgers. I don’t like Natto.
My favorite person is my brother.
Hisamitsu Nii-chan.
He was lost inside an alien dimension that didn’t care if he lived or died, but he still had parents on the other side, back at home, waiting for his return. For their son who departed too early and too soon.
He wasn’t about to give the world the satisfaction of becoming one with the void, losing his voice and everything about his identity. Hoeru refused to let go of the characteristics that made him human, clinging onto those phrases with desperation.
He was human. He wasn’t a monster. He was human.
Hoeru had a name. He had a backstory and a family. He wasn’t about to lose his identity and everything that made him, him.
So Hoeru continued his routine of reminding himself of his humanity.
I’m Tono Hoeru—
Heisei—
Hamburgers—
Nii-chan—
People left all the time, and it was a fact that Hoeru knew too well. In that case, he wasn’t sure why he was so surprised, but deep inside, he knew exactly why.
For as long as he understood that people came and went, the last people he expected to leave him were his parents.
His chest was too tight and his breath came in short and quick gasps. He couldn’t register anything but the feeling of despair and the sight of his parents, older than he’d last seen them, and happier, too. Two little boys stood before them, their child-like laughter audible.
When was the last time Hoeru had laughed? When was the last time he smiled?
Hoeru stared down at his scarred and calloused hands and flexed his fingers experimentally. He hands were bigger, now—uglier, too. He wasn’t a child anymore; at least, not the child that left their home a decade ago.
It was a new era, now. Reiwa, they said. Hoeru had spent a decade in that hellscape, fighting his way through for an utterly useless purpose.
People came and went, but he believed his parents were different.
He believed wrong.
The first time he left on his own, he knew he wasn’t in his right mind. His brother had shoved cotton balls into his ears and stuffed him full of seeds of regret, growing more plants and vines than his body could ever tolerate. It was too much and too big. Hoeru, whose skin stretched over his body already, couldn’t fit any more than the parasitic vine that had made him its home so many years ago.
Hoeru fought his teammates, abandoning any regard for them. He ignored the way his chest tightened and his face burned as he struggled to hold back tears. His eyes came back dry, but the feeling was still there. It only fueled his feeling of brokenness.
“You’re junk for life.”
He couldn’t talk to people like a normal person, and he certainly couldn’t cry like one, either. No One World destroyed ever fiber of his being, molding him into something that wasn’t quite human but not quite monster, either.
He wondered if he’d just let himself go in all those years in No One World, then if he would fit in more among the monsters.
It was too late, now.
He left his teammates and surely, they would leave him too. People always left him for a new, better shining thing, and he wouldn’t blame his teammates if they did the same. Hoeru was unfit to be a ring warrior, and he’d known that since day one, when Tegasword asked for his wish. He knew it well enough and also knew that it would only be so long before they decided that he wasn’t worth the effort.
They wouldn’t be the first ones.
Once again alone, Hoeru retreated back into himself and into his brother’s arms. Hisamitsu—no, Kuon, he said.
He inhaled the musk of his cologne that burned his nostrils and held onto his thick wool coat that was more luxurious than anything he’d ever touched. Something was off and everything had changed. His brother was right there, albeit with a different name, and yet Hoeru still felt as though his brother was still gone. His chest was still empty, only filled by the parasitic vines that made themselves home inside his cavity.
“You did well, my dearest brother,” his brother whispered gently in his ear as he caressed the crown of his head.
Hoeru didn’t say anything, just shoved his face deeper into his brother’s shoulder, hoping to disappear and for the ache in his chest to stop.
His empty hand felt strangely heavy. Even as his brother held his hand with his own.
Even as he gently pulled him into a slow walk.
His brother was crueler than he remembered and his touches left something unpleasant stirring in his stomach. If Hoeru was uncertain then, then he was absolutely certain now. This was no longer his brother. Hisamitsu Nii-chan would never say those words. Would never pull at his hair in a motion to pull them right out of his scalp.
He would never whisper into his ears that he was broken and useless; that he needed proper guidance because he was nothing but a shattered porcelain doll that needed to be meticulously repaired.
His brother had changed for the worst, and Hoeru understood it now, staring into the eyes of his injured teammates. Even after betraying and attacking them, they stuck to his side, asking for him to return.
The parasitic plant inside of him began to shrivel up from the tip, its venomous leaves withering into dirt and dust as the decay spread. Suddenly, Hoeru found that it was easier to breath. His chest wasn’t so tight, and he almost felt as though he could find his dream once more.
It was his teammates and their bright sun, of course, that had withered the parasitic plant inside of him.
For the first time in many years, Hoeru felt optimistic for the future and truly believed that something good would happen.
The tentative sense of optimism is shattered when Ryugi pulls out his Tegasword against them. It’s Rikuo all over again.
Hoeru doesn’t want to fight him when he’s begun to see him as a friend so long ago. He doesn’t want to deal with the emptiness in his chest, staring into the spot at Tegasword Village where Ryugi always stands. He’s dealt with it with Rikuo and no more, no longer—
A bone-deep exhaustion washes over him as he looks into Ryugi’s determined eyes, filled with so much pain, just like Rikuo. His eyes glint yellow and Hoeru knows that there are no other options. Trying to convince him is futile—he knows that much. Everyone is far too stubborn for their own good, and as much as Hoeru likes those traits of their’s, it’s in these moments that he wishes that things were different.
“Alright,” Hoeru says quietly—except he doesn’t take out his Tegasword. Not yet. It’s only when Ryugi transforms that Hoeru understands that there is no out.
He’s reluctant to fight him when they should be doing everything to work together, but it would be more disrespectful to dismiss Ryugi’s determination, even if it’s in the wrong spot.
Hoeru doesn’t want to fight, and it’s obvious to anyone who watches. It doesn’t mean he holds back, but rather that his mind is screaming—
Why? Why? Why?!
Isn’t it enough that he had no friends?
Isn’t it enough that he lost his brother—twice; Mine-san, also twice; and his parents?
Why?
Hoeru doesn’t want Ryugi to leave but the outcome of the fight is obvious to anyone who watches. It ends with him, as it always does. His fingers shake as he lifts his Tegasword. His breath stops when Ryugi just stands, waiting for it to end.
He’s a monster, after all.
A normal person would try to reason verbally, rather than fan the flames.
Hoeru can’t look at Ryugi in the eye. He stands stiffly, his fists clenched, and his jaw tight, as Ryugi slowly drags himself past him. He almost doesn’t look—almost contemplates just standing like a statue until the other man is gone, but fails when he smells the defeat from the other man. His usual pleasant cologne, so different from Kuon’s nose-numbing ones, is masked by the smell of blood and other injuries.
Injuries that Hoeru has caused.
He turns his head despite his best efforts and hears the moment Ryugi speak. It isn’t his usual firm voice, filled with his lush background and strict teachings, but something entirely different… something Hoeru doesn’t like.
(Something he’s responsible for.)
He doesn’t even spare a glance at the rings on the ground, too focused on the battered frame of Ryugi, who speaks in soft and gentle whispers that’s a clear dichotomy from his appearance.
I’m sorry, Hoeru wants to say.
Don’t go, he wants to whisper.
Ryugi stumbles past the other members and in that moment, Hoeru sees his short and pathetic life flash by.
Friendless and a loner with only his brother as a companion.
His brother, gone, and Mine-san disappearing before his eyes.
His parents no longer his own, having moved on so long ago.
Hoeru wants shove his hands into his body and rip everything apart. He wants to pull at his hair and scream and cry at the unfairness of it all—and isn’t that selfish? It’s Ryugi who’s struggling, who’s bloody and beaten—by his own hands, and yet Hoeru can only think about himself at that moment.
He can only think about how crippling loneliness can be. They’re all outcasts in one way or another, and Ryugi is lonely, too, isn’t he? If he leaves, then Ryugi might become Hoeru, empty and devoid of any and all hopes and dreams.
My name is Tono Hoeru—
December 22—
Year 16—
“Wait.”
His fingers curl around the coarse brown fabric, so light and so hesitant that if Ryugi chooses to pull away, then there’s nothing Hoeru can do. But more than the feeling of inadequacy is the feeling of fear.
He’s scared that if he lets Ryugi go, then he’ll disappear forever and never return. Hoeru doesn’t want that—he wants to see Ryugi as often as possible, working diligently at Tegasword Village, humming some lunatic song he composed for the god. He doesn’t want to never see Ryugi again. Not when he’s one of the very few friends Hoeru has.
He doesn’t care if it’s selfish of him. Not when the rest of his teammates look just as miserable. He doesn’t care that his voice comes out like a pathetic meek whisper. None of that matters.
Hoeru tugs at the coarse fabric between his fingers. “Please don’t go,” he says quietly.
His knees feel weak, but that’s weird. Hoeru is completely uninjured—the victor, by all means, in their impromptu fight. If anything, it should be Ryugi, who’s clutching at his frame and swaying precariously side to side that’s on the verge of collapsing.
He looks down at the scuffed tips of his boots, resolutely not meeting anyone’s eyes. He feels his face burn, the familiar feeling of dry tears, and yet this time, it’s different. His eyes aren’t just burning emptily, and it’s a strange and foreign feeling that he isn’t sure how to feel about.
A strange noise leaves the back of his throat as he tries to cull the tightening of his chest and the changes in his vision.
It’s stupid to get so emotional over something like… this. But thinking of his parents—of his brother and Mine-san, he suddenly feels everything all at once. The inadequacy and the loneliness, and the thought of having someone else experience such a thing—
“… Tono?”
The fabric in his grip is pulled away and Hoeru almost thinks that Ryugi has walked away. And yet when he blinks away the weird things that are obstructing his view, he sees Ryugi’s familiar shoes, then the hem of his robes, his belt, and—
“Don’t leave me,” he whispers wetly, almost inaudible.
He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. His parents, his brother, Mine-san, or Ryugi?
He feels something tickle his cheeks as he blinks a few more times. It’s a weird feeling, he thinks. He quickly reaches his arm to wipe at his face with the sleeve of his jacket, harsher than he intends, but it doesn’t matter. His eyes feel strangely wet and it’s not… unpleasant, but it’s far too foreign for Hoeru to contemplate over it at that moment.
He hears Ryugi’s sigh first, then feels the fingers curling around his wrist, pulling his arm away from his face.
“Don’t rub your face with your sleeve,” Ryugi chastises, his voice still soft, but more corporeal than before. “Ah… See, you’ve gotten your face all red.”
Hoeru stills when he feels something softer dab at his cheeks. He blinks away at what he now registers as tears and watches as Ryugi holds his face in one hand while he gently wipes away the tears with his handkerchief.
The redness isn’t from rubbing, Hoeru knows, and he also knows that Ryugi is well aware. But at that moment, he pretends that nothing is wrong. That Ryugi still has his Tyranno ring and they’re still tentative teammates.
Something in the air shifts and the spell keeping them all in their position breaks, letting the others move freely. Kinjiro moves first, ever the concerned older man (teenager?), who peers over to look at Hoeru, then at Ryugi. Rikuo moves to stand beside Ryugi, his face still contorted in worry, but lightening when it lands on Hoeru, whose face is embarrassingly still blotchy with the visible remnants of crying.
Sumino, of course, breaks the ice, poking at his cheek and with a teasing voice, saying, “My, at your great age, crying?”
Hoeru jerks his head to bare his teeth, but he’s quickly pulled back, albeit with not as much force as before. Of course, Ryugi no longer has the Tyranno ring, so his actions are no longer met with barely controlled force. It dampens his mood for a second and he feels his chest tighten again. Yet as he’s pulled back to face Ryugi, something inside him lightens, because he’s still here. He hasn’t left.
“Well, he is the youngest, after all,” Ryugi muses quietly. He finishes dabbing at his face moments later and finally frees Hoeru from his grip.
He tries to pretend that he doesn’t miss the warm and gentle touch and instead rummages his pocket to look for his own handkerchief.
It’s old and not nearly as soft as Ryugi’s nicer ones from the department store. It’s made of gauze, patched up with little embroideries over the years, but it’s clean and does the job.
“Ryugi, wait,” Hoeru quickly moves before the older man can think of leaving. He tries to mimic the other man’s actions, grasping at his face and, as gently as possible, dabbing at the cuts on his face.
Hoeru, being shorter than Ryugi, has to crane his neck to see the injuries in better lighting, but it seems to be working. Ryugi is still, silent under his ministrations, which Hoeru takes as a victory. At least until the other man suddenly breaks out into a soft smile and reaches a hand out to grasp at Hoeru’s own.
“Tono, you’re being too rough,” Ryugi tells him.
Hoeru blinks. “Oh—uh—“
Ryugi continues with a smile, his eyes shaped into crescents and little faint crows feet forming around the corner of his eyes. “But I appreciate it, thank you.” He tilts his head slightly near the end.
Thank you.
It’s a nice word that has Hoeru bubbling with warmth.
He tries saying it himself, but finds that it isn’t nearly as easy. He stumbles across the words, almost nothing leaving his mouth, before he can finally say it.
“T-thank you, too. For uh…” He turns slightly pink as he remembers what he’s done. Crying, of all things. Like a child.
There’s a pause as Ryugi looks at him. Hoeru is almost scared that he’s done something to break the tentative peace around them. He almost dreams of turning back time to stop himself from saying such words—
But Ryugi lets out a warm chuckle that has Hoeru’s anxieties washing away. “My, you’ve become such a well-mannered young man.”
“All your work, of course, my love,” Rikuo adds with a grin, falling back into the role of a ‘father’.
Well. There’s a sort-of tentative peace, Hoeru thinks as Ryugi, despite no longer having the Tyranno ring, still manages to shove Rikuo a good few meters back, toppling Kumade in the process.
They return to Tegasword Village as six, and Hoeru smiles at the lightness of his chest.