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Despite how horrified he is with it, every time Hikaru asks Yoshiki to stick a hand in his chest, there's also an unexplainable excitement that sends a spark through his veins.
“Ew, again?” Yoshiki complains, trying to sound disinterested.
Hikaru laughs. It's so full-bellied, it makes the side of his bed shake against Yoshiki's back. “Do you really hate it that much? I still think you should get better at resistin’ impurities so they don't enter you again.”
“Ya know, it's startin’ to sound kinda wrong…when you say it that way,” Yoshiki says, turning his head to look at him with a flat stare. “I don’t wanna. I didn’t like the feeling.”
Hikaru's smile melts away, and he looks a little hurt. Why does his face gotta affect him so much?
Hikaru continues, “I hear ya… but I promise I'll go slow. That time, I was still tryna rush to get to practice. I mean, it wasn't fair to you, and I won’t do it again. But if I go slow, you can focus on pushing me back. Kinda like a tug o’ war.”
Tug o’ war? “Is it possible to push ya back out?”
Hikaru hums. “It should be. Maybe? We can try.”
He should refuse. “Why not? Couldn't hurt,” he says instead, though he struggles to meet Hikaru’s gaze when the other leans over the edge of the bed to look at him.
“Are ya sure? I'm not tryna pressure you…”
Hikaru has gotten better at double checking with him since that time in the unused classroom. Seems he really didn't like making Yoshiki uncomfortable. Seeing Hikaru be so delicate with him makes him feel a bit more confident. Hikaru won't hurt him.
Not on purpose, at least.
“Yea. Let's just do it,” Yoshiki says. “The salon doesn't close for another few hours, so no one should be coming home anytime soon.”
A light blush dusts Hikaru's cheeks, and he’s starting to look excited. Yoshiki still hasn't been able to determine what exactly this whole chest touchin' thing is like for Hikaru. He says it feels good, but Yoshiki can't tell if it's the kind of good like scratching an itch deep inside your ear canal, or if it's the wrong kinda good.
Right now, he's thinking it might be a 64% chance of it being something innocent and a 36% chance of it being… not. The possibility that they're doing something obscene is not 0%, and Yoshiki doesn't know what it means that he wants to do it anyway.
Hikaru changes positions on his bed to lay on his back. He then undoes his shirt, leaving his chest out in the open for everyone to see.
Yoshiki quickly reaches over him to close the blinds to his window, praying to any god that'll listen that none of his nosy neighbors saw.
“Ya can't just do stuff like that without warning,” Yoshiki says. He doesn't mean to sound annoyed at him. He's just annoyed in general.
“But you said ‘yes’ already…”
Yoshiki takes a deep breath. “It's fine. You didn't do nothin' wrong.”
“Ya sure?”
Yoshiki settles back into a kneeling position next to the bed. “Yea, I'm sure.” Hikaru searches his face for a moment before relaxing and closing his eyes.
Yoshiki's gaze travels down Hikaru's body as a hairline slit cuts through the skin on his chest. Inviting, but not too imposing. It's been easier lately to not imagine this Hikaru as the old one. ‘The real one’, he corrects himself in his head. Or maybe that's also wrong. That Hikaru is gone and not comin' back.
A hand comes to rest on top of his where he's clenching a fistful of sheets. He doesn't remember grabbing them.
“It's okay,” Hikaru says. “I'm still breathin'. If it gets tough, just let me know, and we can stop or I can tell you a joke or somethin'.”
Yoshiki smiles and ruffles Hikaru's hair with his other hand. Hikaru used to complain when he did that, but it's pretty obvious he enjoys it. His smile always turns dopey when he does it.
“Thanks,” Yoshiki says. With the weight in his chest feeling a bit lighter, he finally reaches over to prod at the line on Hikaru's abdomen. The hole doesn't spread open on its own. Hikaru is waiting patiently for Yoshiki to take the lead. “It seriously doesn't hurt you? Like on the edges here?” For emphasis, Yoshiki drags his finger across the seam, along the edges of skin and muscle. It's smooth, as if cut by the sharpest of kitchen knives.
“Nah. Feels kinda like I'm standing on the edge of somethin',” Hikaru says.
“Why would you be standin’ on the edge of somethin’? How do you know what that feels like?”
Hikaru smiles, but doesn't open his eyes. “Okay then… It feels like when you get to the top of a roller coaster and it's about to take a huge dip.”
“Scary?”
Hikaru laughs. “No, silly! It's ‘excitement’. I'm really excited for you to come inside me.”
Yoshiki blushes, but fixes him with a flat glare. Hikaru peeks an eye open, smiling a bit wider. “Dude, stop sayin' it weirdly like that,” Yoshiki says. “Do you get how that sounds?”
“‘Course I do. I like the way it makes you react. It's kinda funny, isn't it? How words can mean two different things at the same time. Relax, it's not like anyone’s around to hear.”
Yoshiki rolls his eyes and plunges his hand in without warning. Yoshiki has to close his eyes against the feeling, but the discomfort he feels isn't nearly as strong as the last few times they did this.
Hikaru gasps and Yoshiki feels his fingers being squeezed inside him. When he opens his eyes again, Hikaru's face is screwed up in a way that looks like pain… or something else. Yoshiki ignores it. Hikaru's just being dramatic.
“Hnng! Oh,” Hikaru says softly. God, why does he have to make sounds like that? “Sorry. I wasn't prepared. It's been a while since I've had ya like this.”
“It's been, like, a week,” Yoshiki says flatly.
“Has it? Oh.”
The coolness is pretty refreshing, like when you wash your hands with water so cold, you begin to feel thirsty. Yoshiki doesn't want to lick it, since he associates the texture with salmonella. Maybe it'd feel nice as a foot bath?
But he's not gonna stick his feet in Hikaru's chest. That'd be fucking grotesque.
Hikaru likes it when he moves his hands around and squeezes the different squishy bits inside him. It's strange. He's noticed a few things about it. Some of it has a definitive shape while some of it is formless and malleable. Some bits are kinda stringy like spaghetti, and some bits are hard like bone. Maybe it is bone. Basically, there's a lot of different textures inside Hikaru, and Yoshiki doesn't know if he likes it or hates it. He does know, however, that this is not what a normal human body feels like. Knowing that probably makes it a bit easier for him. Knowing that he’s not just feeling up the internal organs of his dead best friend. It's fundamentally, entirely a different thing inside now.
“It's like you're performing surgery on me,” Hikaru says.
“More like medical malpractice,” Yoshiki replies under his breath. It takes a second, but then Hikaru's stomach clenches and he falls into a fit of laughter. His insides move too, completely rearranging around his fingers.
“Yer killin’ me, Yoshiki! I dunno how you can say such hilarious things with the same straight face.”
It's really hard not to smile at that face.
“Are you ready?” Hikaru asks.
Yoshiki is not, but he nods his head anyway.
When Hikaru starts touching him back, it feels like the threat of static shock at his fingertips. He remembers how he and Hikaru used to spend hours going down the awful, burning hot, plastic slide at the singular children's park in Kubitachi. They would point and laugh when their hair began to defy gravity, and then dare each other to touch the metal poles.
For a moment, Yoshiki forgets he's supposed to be fighting against this feeling. It spreads quickly to his wrists and he tenses up.
Then the feeling stops there.
“Breath, Yoshiki,” Hikaru instructs. So he breathes. “When you're ready, pay attention to the feeling. Get familiar with it.”
Yoshiki slowly opens his eyes. He flexes his fingers, wherever they are in Hikaru's chest cavity. Yoshiki can feel that it's much larger inside than it appears outside, as though his body bends the very planes of existence.
Yoshiki focuses on the static in his hand and imagines it is his blood. Imagines Hikaru coating the fibers of his muscles with his goop or sliding along the strands of his DNA. He wonders if this is what Kobayashi meant when she said ’mixing’, or if she meant someone more, something much more terrifying. This isn't terrifying. It's exhilarating. He imagines reaching out and touching the parts of Hikaru that are inside him. He pulls on them.
Hikaru's throat makes a sound. He felt that? That means he's doing something, right?
“Yoshiki, yer… Yer really bad at this. It's like yer tryna pull me further in,” Hikaru says.
Oh. Right.
Yoshiki twists his hand, feeling bolder. His hand has become numb to the coldness in Hikaru's chest, like adjusting to the temperature of the river when you go swimming. It's colder than the heat of the sun, but it's probably not much cooler than regular room temperature.
Hikaru smirks at him as he pushes against the feeling of Hikaru creeping up in his veins. With just a little thought, it recedes down his hand, out of his fingers, until it's gone.
“Just like that,” Hikaru says.
“I-I did it? That was me?”
“Yea, that was all you. Nice job! But, I wasn't pushin’ that hard. I'm going again,” he says, seconds before that static feeling comes back.
It takes Yoshiki a moment to remember that he's supposed to push back from inside himself, and not through his hand in Hikaru's chest. His hand pushes in deeper, farther than should be allowed with how thin the other boy is. His hand should be halfway through the mattress by now.
Suddenly, his hand presses down on something large and pillowy. Hikaru curls in on himself and chokes out a gasp of air. Then he laughs, and Yoshiki feels it against his hand.
“What was—”
“Stop punchin’ the air outta my lungs!” Hikaru wheezes out. “Feels really funny.”
Yoshiki recoils. “Yer lu—you’re just playin’ with me, right?”
Hikaru grabs onto his hand, preventing him from pulling out further. “Not joking. You can probably squeeze the air right outta me.”
This sends a chill down Yoshiki's spine.
Hikaru tugs on his arm, urging him forward until his knuckles brush against it again. The lung. “Just be gentle,” Hikaru says. “I don't mind ya touchin' it.”
Yoshiki wages war in his mind, about whether he should or shouldn't, while his hand moves on its own to caress the expanding and shrinking thing in his hands.
“Here, I'll hold my breath in, and you can push the air out like a whoopie cushion,” Hikaru says. He doesn't give Yoshiki a chance to say anything. He takes a deep breath. The large organ expands against his fingertips, and then it stops. The muscles there don't tremble or pulse. It's just still.
Hikaru's chest isn't moving.
Yoshiki pokes at it with a finger. It's like a bike tire. Instead of deflating, it bounces back.
Hikaru's chest isn't moving.
Yoshiki begins to panic. It's stupid and illogical, but he panics and squeezes his fingers into it, with more force this time. A sound almost like a burp forces its way through Hikaru's throat. And then his chest stirs to life again with laughter.
Hikaru's chest is moving again. But Yoshiki can't breathe.
“Hey, hey! Are you okay?” Hikaru asks, and he feels Hikaru's insides wrap tightly around his hand.
Yoshiki looks away. “I told you. Don't ever stop breathin' like that.”
“But—I was holdin' my breath. That's different.”
“I don't care,” Yoshiki says, squeezing his eyes shut.
He feels a hand on his left arm. Yoshiki is clenching the sheets again.
The tendrils around his right hand pull him deeper until he's holding Hikaru's breath in his hands again. The organ expands and shrinks steadily. Yoshiki matches his breathing to it. Expanding and shrinking.
After several long minutes, the lung in his hands stutters to the sound of Hikaru's voice. “I know where another cool one is,” he says. “Can I show you?”
In and out.
Yoshiki nods his head. Hikaru looks pleased.
The tendrils pull him towards the wall more, sliding his arm up a bit in the direction of Hikaru's head. At this point, he's past his elbow inside him.
“Be soft,” Hikaru says, and his knuckle brushes against a small, fluttering thing. This thing also moves like it's got a mind of its own, pulsing and fragile. The feeling reminds him of the first time he held a newborn Kaoru.
His heart, he recognizes instantly. Hikaru is letting him touch his heart. Yoshiki doesn't flinch away this time. He can feel the veins and arteries coming off of it, stretching far into the void that is Hikaru's chest.
“You have organs?!” Yoshiki blurts out, his mind finally catching up to him.
Hikaru gives him a look of disbelief.
“The fuck else did you think I meant when I said you were punchin' my lungs?”
Yoshiki shook his head. “I thought… I mean yer insides… I thought you'd replaced everything inside with whatever you are.”
Hikaru looks offended by this somehow. “It's all still in there. There's just more stuff in there now. I've been usin’ those parts, you know. How else do you think I eat or have nosebleeds?”
Yoshiki hadn't considered this. “I thought it just—I thought the stuff inside you just ate everything as soon as it went down yer throat.”
Hikaru crosses both arms high over his chest, careful not to jostle the one sticking out of his torso. “I sweat and piss and stuff too. And I still got bones. I even broke one of ‘em by accident once.”
“You what?”
Yoshiki doesn't get an answer though. Instead, he gets static in his hand. Yoshiki pulls his hand away from the heart to avoid squeezing it.
“The weird goopy stuff inside me doesn't need to do all that. This body does. It's still a human body.”
Yoshiki would beg to differ. Nothing about this creature seems human.
“How did we even get here, honestly,” Hikaru huffs. “This isn't an anatomy lesson. We're supposed to improve yer supernatural resistance.”
Hikaru doesn't let the static climb higher than his hand again. It's a little harder when Yoshiki pushes against it this time though.
Yoshiki expels the static back to his fingertips as he moves away from the gentle, fluttering heart. He starts looking for more things to examine. “I don't see why we can't do both. We're not doing biology until next semester, but it doesn't hurt to study ahead.”
“You don't study biology by touchin' actual human insides,” Hikaru huffs.
“Sure ya do,” Yoshiki says. “In medical school. They practice with cadavers.”
“Are you tryna be a doctor?” Hikaru asks.
“No,” Yoshiki says honestly. He half expects Hikaru to tease him for being curious and making up excuses.
“You used to love playing doctor, didn't you,” Hikaru says.
Yoshiki feels a flush rise in his cheeks. It wasn't like that. They were really young when they did that. It wasn't like that!
“Shut up,” he says under his breath.
Hikaru gives him a triumphant look. “Alright then. We can try to identify organs, if you think that’d help you ‘study’. I'll come inside you when you let yer guard down.”
Hikaru laughs the ugliest laugh when he catches a glimpse of Yoshiki's tired face.
“Do whatcha want, but I'm still testin' ya,” Hikaru rephrases. “You better stay focused.”
Yoshiki nods, and continues his internal exploration. Hikaru himself does not seem too sure which things are human parts and which are other either. And they find that bones don't appear to be in the right place. From the outside, everything looks like it should, but just beneath the surface, there could be several human things or none. And nothing stayed where it was. They had general locations, but the contents shifted so often.
Bones are easy to identify. At some point, he pulls up several diagrams on his phone to compare feeling to image. He tasks Hikaru with writing down everything he finds.
Organs Yoshiki Has Touched:
- Lung
- Heart
- Spinal column
Lung- Stomach
- Esophagus
- 1 rib (
“...Which rib is it?” Hikaru asks.
“I don't know. There's too many.”
“They're not connected?” Hikaru asks.
“Shouldn't you know?”
Hikaru shrugs. “I don't usually dig around in there,” he says. “Doesn't feel as good when I do it.”
Yoshiki smacks Hikaru's shoulder with his phone and gingerly feels the shape of the rib. It's connected to plenty of stuff, but not human stuff. The weird alien goop inside him must connect everything together. It holds everything in place. This rib should be connected to the rest of the ribcage and to the spine, but instead it's suspended in the void. Yoshiki wonders what parts of him are out of his reach.
“It feels really good when you do it, Yoshiki,” Hikaru continues after a minute. There's a mischievous glint in his eye. He knows exactly what he's doing.
The sudden push of static up his forearm makes him flinch, but he's a bit quicker with his reaction this time. Hikaru has been relentless with the embarrassing comments, but no matter how many times he does it, he always catches Yoshiki off guard when he follows it up with a renewed invasion of his veins. It's hard to remember he's supposed to be defending himself when Hikaru is acting so pliant beneath his fingers.
“Just write one of the lower ones,” Yoshiki says finally. “It feels like a floating rib. It's pretty short.”
Yoshiki turns the phone towards Hikaru so he can see.
“Alright, alright. You don't gotta show me. Let's move to the next one!”
Yoshiki smiles. “Well, aren't you havin’ fun now.”
Hikaru ramps up his attacks, but keeps writing notes as Yoshiki finds new things. They come across some things they aren't sure of, so they begin to dig deeper with their search queries: ‘how big is pancreas’ ‘breast tissue feel like what’ ‘how soft is appendix’ ‘average circumference of small intestine’.
They write down their best guesses for what they might be, and then move on.
Yoshiki's fingers brush up against something human before long. This one's probably an organ. He prods it a bit, but it bounces back. Feels similar to the lungs a little in that it feels like it can expand too.
Hikaru chokes as a breath catches in his throat. “Oh, shit, not so hard!” he says. “Be gentle with that one too.”
Yoshiki startles, but doesn't take his hand away completely. He brushes gently across the surface of it. It's pretty round. “What… Do you know what it is?”
“My bladder probably,” Hikaru says, as though it's nothing. This time, Yoshiki does snatch his hand away, withdrawing his arm completely.
Hikaru raises an eyebrow, an expression that eventually melts into one of pure amusement. “It's not that full,” he says, as though that's the problem. Truthfully, Yoshiki's not sure why he feels so embarrassed by it. Everyone pisses. Everyone’s got a bladder.
Why is he still fucking thinking about it?
“If yer so sure, write it down,” Yoshiki says, ducking his head down to hide his face. Then he dips his hand back in, trying to avoid touching that area again.
Yoshiki finds more things to study. Bones are easy and fun. Organs are basically wild guesses based on size, shape, and whether or not it hurts to squeeze. Hikaru keeps taking notes and Yoshiki has to keep reminding him to keep his voice down.
“But it feels good, Yoshiki,” he’d say, breathy and strained. “It's difficult sometimes.”
“Try harder,” Yoshiki would reply. “Or I'll stop.”
“No! Don't stop,” he'd whine back.
There's a 64% chance Hikaru's just exaggerating with his reactions to mess with him. Yoshiki could ask him.
He doesn't.
The static in his arm presses deeper into Yoshiki’s veins when he finds something much smaller, more firm than a lot of what they've been looking at, but not a bone. It sends a chill down Hikaru's spine.
“Huh?” Hikaru speaks to no one.
“What, are you feelin' something?”
“Yeah, actually. Hmm maybe? It's hard to tell. It's so faint.”
Yoshiki is focused. Hikaru's hold in the veins of his arm continues to creep, but it's nothing he can't handle. He takes note of the approximate size and begins crafting another search query. “Does it hurt? I'm gonna press it a bit harder.”
Hikaru squints his eyes, thinking. “Nah, it doesn't hurt. It's… a little ticklish maybe? It feels funny, but in a good way. Makes my stomach feel tight.”
Maybe it's a particularly strong muscle or a ligament? They've come across things like that too.
“Hmm,” Hikaru hums. “It feels nice. Ooh, can we stay here for a bit?”
Yoshiki hides his blush against Hikaru's side. Hikaru's real shameless, ain't he? Saying it feels good and telling him to keep going. Yoshiki knows he'll oblige. He knows it sounds wrong, like they're doing something wrong. But they're not doing anything wrong. So it's okay. They're practicing his resistance to supernaturals and studying human anatomy. This is very clinical and purposeful, he tells himself.
Hikaru clears his throat. “I'll be pushin’ into ya a little harder now, so you keep resistin’ it, okay?”
Yoshiki buries his face further into the sheets of his bed. He keeps saying such embarrassing things!
The unnatural pressure in his arms begins to spread, running over his biceps and up towards his shoulder. Yoshiki splits his attention between pushing back against the pressure and prodding the firm thing inside Hikaru some more. Hikaru hums a pleased little sound. It reminds him of a purring cat who can't get enough petting, who keeps coming around because Yoshiki's the only one who can do it.
It makes him want to try a little harder to make Hikaru feel good. Not in a dirty way! Or… he can't tell. Is it possible to elicit such a response from someone and have it not suggest something dirty is happening? Even if it's not, it still looks that way, right? Then is something like this ever okay?
Yoshiki doesn't know what he wants or why he wants. He knows what he shouldn't want. He knows it's gross to think this way. And he doesn't know what kind of pleasure this touching gives Hikaru. He should care to know. But he doesn't ask because he wants to keep going. He wants to make Hikaru feel good. He wants to take care of him. It doesn't matter what it might mean. He doesn't want to know what it means. If he knows, he might have to stop, and he does not want to stop.
Focus on the static. Focus on biology class. Do a search for ‘small ticklish organs’.
“Wait, I’m startin' ta feel…huh? Nah,” Hikaru says. “That can't be right. Huh? What is that?” Hikaru says with a nervous laugh.
“Is it bad?” Yoshiki asks, slowing his movements. He doesn’t even know what he's asking. What does he even mean? ‘Bad’ in what way? He keeps his head down so Hikaru can't see the mix of emotions that's surely apparent on his face.
Hikaru whines when Yoshiki stops moving. “N-no, it's not bad. It's just confusin’.”
Yoshiki sneaks a glance at Hikaru's face. He's flushed in the cheeks, but looks determined, like he's just as curious about it as Yoshiki is. So he carefully continues prodding it. Back to the anatomy identification game then…
God, they're seriously twisted.
“Any ideas what it might be?” Yoshiki asks.
“I'm not sure. Aren't you supposed to be the biology nerd?” Hikaru asks. “Maybe a kidney?”
“I thought we already found a kidney?” Yoshiki says.
“Don't we got two?”
“This doesn't feel at all like the last one did,” Yoshiki argues.
“Then… liver maybe? I feel like it's around that part of the digestive system.”
This is absolutely not a liver. The shape is too different. “What makes ya say that?” Yoshiki asks him.
“It feels… It feels similar to when ya touched my bladder, but also different…”
“Hmm?” Yoshiki says, lifting his head for a moment to squint at the other. Hikaru's face is a little pinker when he avoids his gaze. “Yer not gonna pee on my bed, are ya?”
“Nah, it's not like that,” Hikaru huffs. At the same time, the pressure in Yoshiki's arm spreads. Alarm bells begin to ring in his head. It feels somehow hostile? But he manages to get them back to an equilibrium.
A breath, and then he runs his thumb against the thing even harder. Hikaru gasps. It's an instant boost to his ego, knowing he can affect him so strongly like this. It also makes his ears burn with fresh embarrassment.
“Hnng, Yoshiki, I think this one's not good,” Hikaru says, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Maybe we should move on.”
Hikaru's voice would imply otherwise. In fact, it sounded like this one was really good. Yoshiki knows what he sounds like when he wants him to keep going. “What do ya mean not good? It sounds like it’s good.”
Yoshiki continues a little softer, a little slower, making Hikaru gasp again. Maybe Yoshiki just pressed a little too hard earlier? Still, he gives Hikaru a chance to stop him, to pull away. Instead, Hikaru wordlessly increases the pressure of the static crawling up inside his arm. It doesn't get to reach the ends of his shoulder blades before Yoshiki pushes it back down, reaching another stalemate just below his deltoid region.
“Are ya sure you wan’ me ta just move on?” Yoshiki asks.
He turns his head to inspect Hikaru's face. He's looking up at the ceiling with his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. One of his hands is covering his mouth, the way he does sometimes when he's embarrassed.
“Oh what? Yer totally enjoying this, ya creep! It's okay,” Yoshiki says, trying to look smug. “It's definitely an organ then, right?”
Hikaru opens his mouth to say something, but it comes out sounding a lot like a moan. “Uh huh,” he sighs, and Yoshiki's blood burns. He is honestly surprised Hikaru has managed to hold his sounds back for so long. He moaned like this a lot when they first started doing these things together.
God, Yoshiki's seriously fucked up. Why is he still going? Friends aren't supposed to make their other friends moan ever. Yet at this point, he's done that countless times. And he still agreed to do this, knowing it would happen again.
But there's still a 54% chance this is not something lewd, not something to be ashamed of.
“I know you enjoy me doin’ this, so I really don't mind,” Yoshiki says when they make eye contact. “Just don't be too loud. The neighbors will definitely get the wrong idea.”
“I'm tryin',” Hikaru says, sounding breathless. “But I really think… Yoshiki, I think it's dangerous.”
Yoshiki has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment as the static of Hikaru's touch spreads into his chest. The hair on the back of his neck stands, and he feels a drop of sweat run down his forehead.
Yoshiki considers the risk, but he doesn't think he needs to stop quite yet. It doesn't feel like he's in danger. Not yet. It's nowhere close to being as uncomfortable as the first time Hikaru ‘touched’ him back. “Does it make you wanna consume me? Like last time?” he asks.
Hikaru nods vigorously, and why does he find that kinda cute instead of kinda terrifying? “Yea, o-of course. But it's not just that.”
Yoshiki can tell Hikaru is trying to hold back a lot, taking deep breaths to calm down whatever he's craving. Yoshiki has the urge to reach in with his other hand to hold his lungs too, to see if he can feel the way Hikaru's breath stutters.
“Just tell me when it gets too difficult to hold back. I'll keep resisting ya. This much is still fine for me,” Yoshiki says. “I… I trust you.”
Hikaru's other hand, the one not covering his mouth, comes to grip his shoulder tightly. It makes him pause for a moment. But Hikaru doesn't push him away, just holds him in place as his eyes screw shut and his breath catches in his throat.
Hikaru's chest stops moving. He's holding his breath again. Yoshiki told him not to do that. Yoshiki resumes his prodding, hoping the feeling is overwhelming enough that Hikaru has to let it out.
It works. Hikaru gasps, releasing the air with a strangled whine. “Yoshiki—” Hikaru says. Yoshiki can't help but watch the way Hikaru's throat bobs when he swallows around his name.
The tendrils in his arms begin moving further again. A little stronger this time. He forces an equilibrium at his neck. “I'm listenin’. Tell me when to stop.”
“I— Yoshiki, I need—!”
Yoshiki laughs, as Hikaru can't seem to get the words out. His voice sounds so desperate and needy, like how he'd first sounded in the gym storage room. Yoshiki hates it.
Yoshiki turns his head back into the bed and says, “I gotcha, don' worry. Just keep yer voice down.”
Why does it feel so much like a climax of some sort? The pressure of Hikaru climbing further into him, the increased effort it takes to resist it, Hikaru's suggestive sounds, the way the air just feels so heavy and tense.
Why doesn't he hate this?
The grip on Yoshiki's shoulder tightens as Hikaru digs his fingers into him. Doesn't hurt too much. Doesn't push or pull.
“Please—!” Hikaru breathes.
Yoshiki doesn't lift his head. “‘Please’ what?” Yoshiki asks. Will he ask him to press harder? To keep going? To go faster? To slow down?
What are they doing?
Does it matter?
“No, STOP!” Hikaru yells, and the static pressure in his arm suddenly recedes, then vanishes, near instantly. It feels like a cold bucket of water dropped on his head.
Yoshiki's head snaps up. What did he just do?
There are tears in Hikaru's eyes. He barely has time to register it because the grip on his shoulder pushes Yoshiki away, dragging his arm out of Hikaru’s blackhole chest cavity. Yoshiki feels Hikaru’s body shudder around him as he slides free.
Hikaru turns completely away from him on the bed, onto his side. He curls up with his arms wrapped around his stomach. Yoshiki tries to reach out, wants to check on him, but Hikaru flinches away before his fingers even make contact.
Yoshiki messed up. He fucked up. He did something wrong. He hurt him. Why didn't he stop earlier? Why did he even agree to do this in the first place?
“I’m—” Yoshiki starts, but Hikaru is louder.
“I'm sorry!” Hikaru blurts out. And then he starts sobbing. “I don't—I didn't know! I didn't mean to,” he cries.
“Hey, what's… what'd I do? Did I hurt you?”
Hikaru shakes his head. “It's my fault,” he says.
Yoshiki feels sick. He doesn't believe that. Yoshiki was the one doing everything.
“Can I… can I touch you?” Yoshiki asks, feeling lost and guilty and angry with himself. Why did he do that? Why did he allow them to get so far into their twisted, horrible, disgusting little game?
Hikaru shakes his head again, stronger this time. “You don't wanna touch me. I can't believe—I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing! I don't even know what you're so sorry for…” he says. What should Yoshiki say? How can he make it better? “If yer feelin' guilty about… how it feels good to have me inside ya, I already told ya, I don't mind it. I understand it. That's just how it is, right?”
Hikaru curls up further.
What's Yoshiki supposed to do now?
“I'm sorry,” Yoshiki says. “I dunno what that was, but—”
“It wasn't supposed to feel good like that,” Hikaru says, curling up tighter. “I don't know why—I didn't notice it at first,” he says between sobs. “It just felt so good.”
Yoshiki’s heart stops for a moment, then sputters to life again with renewed vigor. He feels his entire body heat up. He’s all of a sudden itchy and uncomfortable and hot with embarrassment and… something else that he doesn't want to name.
“Feels good… like what?” he asks, though he could guess. “How… how do you know?”
“I know,” Hikaru whines, turning his head into his pillow. His voice is muffled. “I'm pretty stupid, but I'm not that stupid. I know what it feels like.”
And Yoshiki had liked doing it. He had enjoyed the way his blood would light ablaze from Hikaru's enthusiastic sounds, trying to believe that there was some normal, acceptable explanation for all this. But instead, he had…Hikaru was—
“Yer hard?” Yoshiki asks. He's never said those words in that order with that implication out loud before. It sounds wrong hearing it in his voice. He doesn't even know why he asks, because he shouldn't want to know the answer. He should leave. He should pretend this never happened. He should calm himself down. He should give Hikaru some time alone.
Hikaru cries harder. It reminds Yoshiki of himself. Yoshiki cried in that exact spot many times, curled up the same way, from thoughts he wasn't supposed to have. Not too long ago, he'd found himself in this same position after a sleepover with Hikaru. Hikaru had noticed, and Yoshiki wanted to die of embarrassment, but Hikaru didn't let him feel ashamed. Yoshiki had been grateful for that.
Hikaru shouldn't feel ashamed either. Not when Yoshiki’s the one who caused him to get like this.
“You didn't know,” Yoshiki says. “It's okay.”
“It's not okay! You h-hate this kinda thing, and I just… I just made you—I forced ya t—”
“No!” Yoshiki says quickly, finally reaching out to touch Hikaru's back with the tips of his fingers. “If anything, I pushed you too hard. I didn't pay attention either, even with all the obvious signs. You didn't force me.”
The signs were there. Yoshiki ignored them. He probably knew what they were doing, deep down. He kept telling himself it was different. If anything, Yoshiki was the one who forced him. He should have known. He should have stopped.
“I'm disgusting,” Hikaru says, and it hurts. Because if Hikaru thinks he's disgusting, what would he think of Yoshiki?
“Don't say that. Please, don't say that,” Yoshiki says. He hates how close it sounds to pleading. He tries to sound a little more confident. “Yer bein’ too harsh. You said it yerself, it's a normal bodily function. Everyone experiences it. And, I suppose at least we know what organ that was, right?”
Hikaru sniffles. “What do ya mean? It doesn't make sense. It's not like you were touchin' me down there.”
Yoshiki feels another surge of blood rush up into his cheeks, so strong and sudden it nearly makes him delirious. He tries to ignore the other places he feels blood rushing to. “If we're talkin' organs,” Yoshiki starts. “It could've been yer pr— uhh… like, yer… you know?”
He can't get the word out.
Hikaru turns his head just a bit. His eyes are wavering, like he's trying not to completely fall apart. He's fuckin' clueless, isn't he.
Yoshiki looks away and grips the back of Hikaru's shirt tightly.
“Yer p-prostate?” he says quietly. He's saying all kinds of words out loud for the first time today. Yoshiki waits for some sort of reaction.
Hikaru's voice sounds a little less sad when he asks, “P-prostrate? Huh?? What's that?”
Yoshiki ignores the way he mispronounces the word, because he doesn’t want to have to repeat it. “Didn't you pay attention in health class? When we learned the reproductive system?”
Hikaru turns his head back towards the wall. “Nah. The original Hikaru… after gigglin’ a bit with Maki, he realized it was actually really boring to listen to, so… I'm pretty sure he fell asleep.”
“But we had a test on it…”
“He failed it.”
That actually sounds about right. Both the original Hikaru and this Hikaru were bad at studying in nearly every subject. Of course he wouldn't remember.
Yoshiki feels the need to apologize again. He should have known better. He hadn't failed the tests from health class. He uses the internet. He should’ve known. But instead he had been trying not to think about it. “I’m sorry. I wasn't thinkin' about reproductive organs. I mean, I knew about prostates feelin’ good to touch, but… it didn't cross my mind. I guess I also thought… since I wasn't actually ‘touchin' you, that you were feelin’ somethin' different from…ya know.”
“How did ya know about it feelin' good?” Hikaru asks. “The prostrate thing, I mean.”
Yoshiki's mind goes blank, and he hates how his body reacts. “I'm not answerin’ that.”
“Have you touched it before? On you? But it's not like you can split yer stomach open—”
“No, I haven't touched it!” Yoshiki says quickly. “I just know people can. There's a way to do it.”
“Oh,” Hikaru says.
And then the room becomes painfully silent. Yoshiki's blood thrums in his veins. This is so humiliating. Has he unintentionally been… were they accidentally having—
Yoshiki can't finish that thought. He wasn't prepared for their relationship to suddenly advance to something like that.
“It felt pretty good then?” Yoshiki asks. He can't help himself. “Like, in general, is it worth experiencing?” He'd spent years now, trying to convince himself that this sort of thing was not worth craving. That he'd be fine going through life never having experienced it. That it's a terrible thing to be curious about.
Hikaru nods. “I can't stop thinkin’ about it. I didn't want it to stop,” Hikaru admits. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. It's okay. I'm not upset.” He swallows hard before he speaks again. It takes a lot of effort to keep his voice even when he says, “You probably wanna relieve that, right? I can give you some privacy.”
Yoshiki releases his grip on the other's shirt. Hikaru squirms.
“Do ya hafta leave?” Hikaru asks.
What kind of question is that? Yoshiki's throat feels tight. Other things feel tight too.
Hikaru continues. “I think… I'll feel bad if you leave. I don't like this feelin'. It's like… it's like my chest is stuck wide open an’ vulnerable and I can't do nothin’ about it.”
This is getting really bad. He shouldn't. He needs to leave. This isn't right.
Hikaru wants him to stay. Yoshiki is part of the cause. It’d be wrong to just… leave him like this. Not if he needs him here.
“I c-can’t touch ya again,” Yoshiki says softly. “I'm sorry, but that might be too much for me.” They can't. Because what happens after that?
“That's okay,” Hikaru says, and Yoshiki watches as Hikaru pulls his arms tighter around himself. He looks so tense. “I just want you to be here. I don't want you to leave. Yoshiki, I can't do it if you leave.”
Yoshiki must be insane. He can't believe he's considering this. He needs to leave the room. He's in no better shape himself. His heart is beating so fast, he feels like he might explode.
“It's somethin' you should do in private,” he says.
“I know,” Hikaru says. “But I'm goin' crazy thinkin’ about you bein’ inside me. If you leave… I don't want you to leave me. I wouldn't know what to do if you started hating me because of all this."
“I'm not gonna hate you,” Yoshiki says. “I'll come right back.”
Hikaru shakes his head, burying into his pillow again, but he eventually says, “Okay.” His voice sounds so wobbly.
Yoshiki takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“Fine,” Yoshiki says.
Neither of them move for several seconds. Yoshiki feels a heavy sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Why would he agree? He can't take it back now. Is this really what Hikaru wants? “If I just sit… if I sit on the floor, will that be enough?”
Hikaru nods.
Is he really doing this?
“Are you sure? It's okay?” Hikaru asks, and he sounds too hopeful. “You don't have to.”
“I know,” Yoshiki says when he turns to sit on the floor again. He leans back against the bed the way he had been sitting earlier. He doesn't have to.
“It's okay?” Hikaru asks again. Yoshiki nods.
If this is really happening... If Hikaru is about to do that, in his room, in his bed, right behind him, he needs to set some boundaries. “Don't—don’t make a mess. Use the tissues,” Yoshiki says, pointing to the box near the head of his bed. “Keep the curtains closed. You're not allowed to make any sounds or the neighbors will hear.”
“I know,” Hikaru says, and he somehow already sounds ragged. The bed moves as Hikaru shifts around behind him. “I'll hold my breath. Just don't look, okay?”
“I'm not gonna look!” Yoshiki yells out, curling his knees to his chest. The pressure feels good. His heart hammers in his chest.
Through the hands he covers his ears with, Yoshiki hears several things. He hears the sound of several tissues being pulled out at once. The sound of clothes sliding against skin. The elastic of a waistband. Yoshiki closes his eyes. He can't stop himself from rubbing his thighs together. It's really hard not to react when he knows what's happening right behind him. He's imagined what it would look like so many times, to have Hikaru on his bed like this.
His ear twitches against his fingers when it picks up the faintest sound of something wet.
It's unbearable.
“You can't look either,” Yoshiki says finally, quietly, ducking his head low. “Turn towards the wall.”
“Are you—” Hikaru says, his voice too uneven, too breathy.
“Don't! Please,” he says, feeling tears well up in his eyes. He's disgusting. His heart beats almost painfully against his ribcage. “Is that… okay?” he asks. It's not okay. Nothing about this is okay.
Yoshiki waits like he's awaiting the death sentence. He feels the bed shake against his back and the sound of Hikaru carefully shifting around behind him. Had Hikaru been facing him?Had Hikaru been planning to do it while looking at him?
“Yeah,” Hikaru says. His voice sounds tame this time. “It’s fine with me. Thanks, Yoshiki.”
“Don't thank me. I don't deserve it.”
“You do,” Hikaru says back. “Thanks for makin' all this… feel less scary. It means a lot.”
“Stop talkin' already,” Yoshiki says, reaching without looking to grab a few tissues of his own.
Hikaru stays true to his word and doesn't utter a single sound. Years of practice makes Yoshiki quiet as well. It's not completely silent. It's inevitable that it'd sound like something. Neither of them comment on the occasional, unmistakable sound of skin on wet skin.
Yoshiki can tell the exact moment Hikaru goes over. His bed shakes, for one. He hears the sound of tissue against skin. And when Hikaru stops holding his breath, it may as well have been a blissed out sigh. It probably was. At least it was quiet enough. At least Yoshiki would be the only person to hear him like that.
That thought is enough to send him over the edge too. He accidentally lets a gasp slip out. The two of them are silent for a long time after. Neither moving. Neither looking.
Yoshiki is seriously twisted. He might never be normal again.
Eventually, Hikaru breaks the silence. Of course he's the one to do it. “Yosh—”
Yoshiki doesn't let him finish. He gets up without a word and runs to the bathroom.
He thinks for a moment he might throw up, looking at the evidence of his sins balled up in a handful of tissues. He thinks of the real Hikaru, his childhood friend, and wills himself to be sick. But what he had been doing with this supernatural being was distinctly not human. The two images won't mix. Thinking of the real Hikaru doesn't make him sick. Sad maybe, but not disgusted. This Hikaru had wanted him there. He'd been fine with it. He'd been thankful for it.
Yoshiki doesn't throw up. Instead, he flushes the tissues and washes his hands.
When he returns to his room, Hikaru is sitting up straight on the edge of his bed. Every part of his exposed skin is red.
Yoshiki feels his own face flush. It's fine.
“Did you make a mess?” Yoshiki asks. He can't look him in the eye. Hikaru shakes his head. “Then go wash yer hands.”
Hikaru gets up and slips past him without a second glance.
When he's gone, Yoshiki takes a deep breath. He regrets it instantly, because the air smells noticeably muskier than it had before. There are balled up tissues in his paper waste basket.
That dummy. That's not paper waste.
Yoshiki approaches his bed and smoothes a hand over the sheets. They're not wet. He lays down facing the wall in the space Hikaru had been. He shouldn't feel this way. He shouldn't have done that. But Hikaru had wanted him there.
His sheets have the slightest hint of his scent now.
Yoshiki doesn't turn to look when he hears footsteps return or when the bedroom door closes again. And then there's silence. No movement behind him.
“Don't just stare at me,” Yoshiki says flatly, keeping direct eye contact with a scratch on his wall.
“Can I climb on?”
“Yer not spoonin' me,” Yoshiki says.
“Back to back?” Hikaru suggests.
Yoshiki nods.
The mattress dips a bit under Hikaru's added weight. He somehow manages not to touch him on the small bed. Even so, Yoshiki can feel the warmth of his back against his. He feels stinging tears well up in his eyes again. He understands how Hikaru felt. This kind of fragile, exposed feeling is unexpectedly painful. Yoshiki's not sure how he'd have felt if Hikaru decided not to come back and lay with him. Hikaru could have left and gone home, but he didn't. Even though Yoshiki was cold to him. Even though Yoshiki yelled at him to stop talking. Even though he'd just gotten off to the thought of Hikaru doing the same behind him.
“Thank you,” Hikaru says, breaking him out of a cycle of thoughts.
Yoshiki doesn't reply.
“Thanks for lettin' me stay,” Hikaru continues.
Yoshiki slides his body backwards a little to gently bump the other. An invitation. Hikaru pushes back too, and they stay pressed together there.
Not too long ago, the two of them sat back-to-back like that in the bath. They'd been vulnerable then too. It was a different kind of vulnerability, but Hikaru's presence felt nice just the same.
Yoshiki thinks about what to say. He wants to know how Hikaru feels about him. What did it mean, that they'd done that together? Will this change things between them? Yoshiki hadn't been prepared for that to happen.
Yoshiki falls asleep before he can decide on what to say.
BONUS:
Yoshiki's breathing evens out before long. Hikaru is surprised he didn't say anything after all that. Surely there's a lot on Yoshiki's mind. But he let Hikaru stay at least. He let their backs touch. That means he's not angry, right? That means he doesn't hate him.
Yoshiki didn't yell at him for getting too excited. He didn't leave him or end their friendship, but instead stayed next to him. He allowed Hikaru to touch himself, even though he was embarrassed by it. He decided to be vulnerable with him—he'd done it too—just to make Hikaru feel less bad about it.
He'd been just centimeters away.
Yoshiki had been so quiet, Hikaru couldn't tell if he'd actually been doing anything at first. He wanted to look so badly, but Yoshiki would've hated that. And eventually, he didn't need to look. Hikaru didn't miss the way his breathing got fast. He didn't miss the soft gasp he'd let out when he finished. Hikaru hadn't done anything to him, and yet Yoshiki came apart because of him. And then he let Hikaru stay.
He's not sure if Yoshiki will acknowledge it when he wakes up. Probably not. Hikaru would prefer to talk about it, to understand these feelings better, but that's okay. For now, it's comforting enough to know that Yoshiki still wants to stay with him.
At some point, Hikaru falls asleep too. He doesn't know for how long. All he knows is that when he wakes up, the door to the bedroom is open, and Kaoru is looking right at him with a look of disapproval. She points to her wrist at an invisible watch, then retreats, closing the door behind her.
That can't be good, right?
He glances at his watch. They'd been asleep for 3 hours??
Hikaru sits up and nudges Yoshiki awake. The boy in question blinks sleepily before shooting upright to look at him. Yoshiki's phone buzzes from somewhere on the floor where he'd left it. Hikaru leans over the side of the bed to pick it up. It's a single text notification from Kaoru saying ‘you two are not beating the allegations’. Then another notification pops up that says ‘Kaoru 🪲 sent an animated gif’. When he taps on it, Yoshiki's lock screen pops up.
Yoshiki snatches the phone from him. He goes pale when he reads it, and then adorably pink. Then he flops onto his back with a sigh. “Would she believe it if I told her you planned to stay the night, but we were too tired to get the futon out so early, and ended up falling asleep by accident?”
Hikaru laughs. “I'm sleeping over?”
Yoshiki kicks him. “Ya are now! And don't laugh. Things were confusing enough as it was… Now she's gonna think something happened between us.”
“Something did.” Hikaru says. Of course Yoshiki wants to deny what happened.
“I-I can't…” His voice is so soft and it hurts. “I can't do this right now. I—.”
“That's okay. It doesn't have to mean anything in particular,” Hikaru says. “Things can just be what they are… if you want. We don't gotta talk about it.”
Yoshiki covers his face with his hands. “I… I think I'd appreciate that.”
“Okay,” Hikaru says. “But just because I won't talk about it doesn't mean I'm gonna forget about it. Cos I won't forget. And I don't want you to forget about it either.”
Yoshiki doesn't respond to this, but Hikaru can see the tips of his ears turn pink again.
Hikaru feels like touchin' him in some way to express the love he's feeling. He can't think of anything that wouldn't make Yoshiki upset. He curls a finger around the hem of his shirt instead. Yoshiki peeks at him through his fingers, but does nothing to stop him.