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Hikaru smiles a toothy grin at the video of their classmates' performance, and Yoshiki can't help but think how unfair this all is.
The wonder on the being's face is as painfully human as it is non-human. It's a familiar sight; Indou Hikaru himself, the real Hikaru, Yoshiki's best friend, used to brighten easily, like the sun through scattered clouds. So much so that Yoshiki, the rotten sunflower, couldn't ever look away, no matter how strongly he'd wished he could. And sure, at times, Hikaru had shone exaggeratedly so, but it was never too much as to not fall within a pattern. There was wonder at the newest manga or at a girl offering him chocolates, but never at class movies or lame mandatory choir performances.
Now, when the pattern has been so clearly broken, what remains is an expression which is as sincere as it is out of place.
Yoshiki's mind stirs with bitter thoughts. Even after what feels like too long, he still finds it so hard to wrap his head around the unreality that is his everyday life.
The being sitting beside him with fair skin and unruly hair, with a fragile innocence worthy of protection, with Hikaru's mannerisms and personality, that same being... is not really human at all. It's a mistake given form, a desecration of the most precious corpse. In death, Hikaru couldn't rest or be mourned. No, there was none of that, because this thing took his place, accepted Hikaru's life as his– its own, as if it had any right to do so.
Though maybe, what's worst of all, is that it's kept Yoshiki tethering on the ravine's edge, instead of letting him rightfully fall.
The being is smiling now, and it looks happy, but does it really feel happiness at all?
Yoshiki would prefer it if he didn't know the answer. That way, he'd find it easier to hate, he thinks.
Unfortunately, he does know, and that alone manages to replace the warranted hate with overwhelming unfairness. The being sitting beside him is not human, not at all, but it's alive, stumbling through its stolen emotions like a toddler, learning and seeing everything for the first time. It lives a lie with complete honesty because it doesn't know how to do anything else, nor was it ever allowed to do something different.
And now, Yoshiki is about to take away any chance for that happening. Just how wrong is that?
It's wrong, his mind concludes with the same truth he's spinned around countless times. He's made his peace with it, he thinks, though he can't help but feel his guts twist... It must be the guilt. Does he even have any right to feel guilty at all? Or has he morally gone beyond the threshold of humanity, like a mindless monster who can't help but succumb to its evil nature?
"They sound good huh?"
His train of thought is suddenly interrupted by Hikaru's voice. While Yoshiki got lost in his own whirlpool of contradictions, the being's attention had remained entirely concentrated on the video of the choir performance. It’s tempting, so very tempting, to forget about everything and launch into the familiar routine of casual chatter... But Yoshiki is too tired and his throat feels unbearably tight. It’s like he’s burning on the inside.
So, the only answer short enough that he can spare is a simple "They do."
He wishes that's where it'd end. Of course, it never does.
"Maybe I should've gone too," the being mutters absentmindedly, as if its place is among the humans. And perhaps, with its pure, if not naive intentions, that's where its place would be. But it just wouldn't work, not when its nature makes it so it can't grasp concepts as unequivocally simple as death... It's abnormal, it's... terrifying.
That's why Yoshiki must be righteous in his decision. He must be.
And yet,
"Fails to reignite..." It takes only those sudden, muttered words for all of Yoshiki's pent up emotions to collapse in and onto themselves.
The being sitting beside him has begun muttering along to the choir performance. There's bliss and ignorance spelled on its stolen face, so pretty– pretty but disgusting. Nausea threatens to overwhelm him, and he feels hate inundate the inside of his body, though it comes out only as his lips tightening, his nails digging in his palms. But the hate isn't directed towards the being. No, it's directed towards the other monster in the room: himself.
"Towards the future," the voice keeps singing along harmlessly, but still so cruelly. If Yoshiki could give it more of a thought, maybe he'd even think it sounds good. But, as it stands, he can only concentrate on its painfully sincere expression, which makes Yoshiki feel– ah–
Wrong, wrong, entirely wrong...! His mind seethes at him. Everything about this is wholly wrong, and it's all, but absolutely all, Yoshiki's fault.
Yoshiki may not be the one to have tried killing Asako – to have killed – but he may as well be. In this, he's as much of a monster as the mistake sitting beside him, for accepting it and for letting it believe it could ever live happily. Granting the being a safe haven, no– giving it the chance to experience friendship, to be accepted– that's the cruelest of all, because it can't last. It's not human.
From the beginning Yoshiki knew that, of course, and yet he'd trudged on, as if the monster deserved to have it all taken away. What a good person would've done is not given it any false hope to begin with. But Yoshiki couldn't help it, couldn't do anything but cling onto his own selfish desires even though he should've known better. In that way, maybe he's worse than the monster itself.
"This pounding in my heart..." It smiles unknowingly, and the being really must not know any better if it is acting this guilt free.
But... Just like any other wild animal, it can't really be held responsible for its nature, right? So, in truth, the monster shouldn't be blamed for being a monster. The human, on the other hand, should be.
Oh... it was entirely egotistical of him to think he could teach it about humanity. How could he, when Yoshiki himself doesn't know anything about it at all? Preaching about morals, like he's in any position to speak, when all he's done is for his own grotesque ego and for the farce that is everyday life.
Thank goodness, he thinks, thank goodness the world will be rid of two monsters today.
"Now..."
Yoshiki doesn't know when it is that he gets up, and his mind doesn't register his fingers unzipping his bag.
"Joy, dear friend..."
The only thought he can spare when his fingers close around the handle of the knife is that it fits. This weapon... It was made to be held comfortably by a human hand.
"See that gleaming shadow of our days..."
Yoshiki's feet carry him back to the bed. A step, another. Sweat polls in the clenched hand that holds the handle. His body sits on the bed as if nothing's amiss. A knee is folded under a thigh.
"And chase after it..."
The sunlight falls beautifully on Hikaru's exposed neck. The skin there looks soft, though softer still are the white tufts of hair reaching the nape.
"Woe, dear frien–"
The knife goes in easily.
It fits.
Something shatters on the floor. It sounds muffled, drowned out by the harsh drums which echo far away in tune with a heartbeat.
There are two people, and they both breathe heavily but in a constant dissonance. The air grazes their skin. White hair lightly brushes the other's shoulder, and pitch black covers one's face. Somehow, their bodies are close, empty and still. Like puppets on string, or reanimated corpses.
Impossibly, so utterly impossibly, time stretches on.
The sun keeps shining. The clothes are as tight as a second skin. The sweat gathers uncomfortably. The fingers feel clammy, frozen and tight on the plastic handle. The pressure of the knife is strange, alien. It no longer fits comfortably. The sun is like scratches on skin. The sun will cut them. The sun will burn them. It will–
Then, everything explodes in a cacophony of sounds and matter.
Yoshiki takes a shallow breath. Again, again, and again. He's on the floor. His eyes are everywhere. There's red, there's red, something sticky on his hands?, red, red, now it's in his hair?, red, red, his scalp hurts. Why? Why? Why? Black strands mix with the red. It looks odd. Unwelcome and wrong and red.
Another breath. He can't move. His limbs have turned to lead. He's stuck, and he will die here. He will– he will–
"Yoshiki?" An achingly familiar voice breaks through the silence. It's Hikaru, except it's not. It sounds too confused, pained with too many tears stuck in his throat. Hikaru would never cry, so it's not him.
Hikaru is already dead.
Through his bangs, Yoshiki steals a glance just as he– it coughs. Blood spills on the bedsheets, slightly glistening in the eerie red glow of the sunlight. The being that stares at him from the bed looks like a wounded animal, his eyes filled with small, unshed tears. His left side of the face melts, the indiscernible matter moving in slow but panicked motions as the sunlight slightly cuts through it. It looks alien – wrong – so Yoshiki can't help but look away.
"Way to go!" Someone's voice spews from the discarded phone's speakers. The irony of it all makes a laugh die in his throat, and his fingers grip tighter onto his hair. The present moment feels stifling, the recording more like a fantasy than reality. Yoshiki wants nothing more than to be there, with them, in that video.
His mind desperately clings to a world like that. Where Hikaru is alive, or maybe where this monster could be more human. In that world, spotlights burn their skin instead of the sun, and words are sung instead of stuck. By the end of it, Yoshiki would be glad it's over, and he'd laugh with Hikaru. Or maybe, Hikaru's eyes would sparkle with wonder, and Yoshiki would feel happier just by seeing such a sight.
Absentmindedly, he pulls out more strands. The pain of his scalp becomes unbearable, grounding him irredeemably in the present.
"I was convinced I could teach ya to be different..." Yoshiki mutters. The words are less like spoken dialogue and more like a thought said aloud only for himself. Something warm and wet trickles down his cheeks, down his reddened hands, down his forearms and onto the floor. Dots of water form, and he wonders if he's that far gone to cry for a monster.
Another cough. "You hung out with me all day..." Hikaru says, and his voice sounds betrayed. "...plottin' to kill me from the start?"
The question hangs limply in the air.
There's another breath from Hikaru, and now he sounds just like a dying human. How cruel... Why– why must he copy the mannerisms of a human so closely? Why can't this be just like the movies, where the monster dies in a fanfare of joy? Why can't Yoshiki bring himself to feel any lighter?
This is what I wanted, right...?
Maybe, it's because he's a monster himself.
Maybe, in the end, he has more empathy for a monster than for the humans who are threatened by it, who have already been hurt and died.
"I wanted your last memory to be a fun one," he finds himself saying, and it's true. Today wasn't a farce, a way to have the monster let its guard down and make the killing easier. It wasn't even a way for Yoshiki to run away, not wholly at least. No, the main reason concerned Hikaru's feelings and his last impressions of a human's life. It was really all for his sake, he thinks as he takes one last, dry breath.
Yoshiki's mind keeps swimming with tangled emotion. And yet, ever so slowly, he can't do anything but raise his head from the floor.
Hikaru is still on the bed, except with his knees pulled to his chest, with his arms wrapped around his legs. Even with his face hidden, Yoshiki can tell that indescribable ooze must already be covering half of it. There's so much, it slithers and spills forth, wrapping silently around skin and clothes, covering one of Hikaru's arms up to the elbow. As it spills more and more, Yoshiki absentmindedly wonders if it will leave a stain on his bedsheets.
Was it worth it? he wonders. The pain looks just as heavy to bear, or maybe heavier still. 'Killing him in his sleep would've been kinder,' remarks a voice inside his head. He wants to berate himself for that thought, but a void meets him where his emotions used to be. The world feels too far away, all sounds are muffled and his vison is blurry.
"I'm s'rry..." Hikaru whispers, and it's something bare and empty, devoid of any energy.
"Ah– Wha–"
"I'm s'rry... for bein' scary... for not understandin'–" Another cough. More red. "how humans work..."
Yoshiki feels the dam break, his faux resolve fading into something sharp and raw. Vomit gathers in his throat. The floor becomes unsteady. The walls are closing in. The air drains of oxygen.
His terrified human mind tries to make sense of it all.
This is real. Hikaru is really dying.
No, that's not right.
'I ain't got a life,' Hikaru's words from that fated night echo in Yoshiki's head and he realizes that, though the being may not die, it can surely do something similar to it. The overwhelming amount of red is enough proof for that, right?
The drums throbbing in his ears are back, and he's suddenly on his feet. No, now he's on the bed, in front of Hikaru's curled form. Yoshiki's hands uselessly hover over the other's slacked shoulders. The bedsheet feels sticky with blood, its cotton texture harsh and alien. Yoshiki catches sight of the red on his own hands. Red. Red. Red. Hikaru's blood. Both dried and fresh blood. Blood. Everywhere– there's so much blood...
He's going to bleed out.
It's a human rationalization, but it's enough for the thought to propel something in Yoshiki, fear and guilt and desperation now clawing at him with aching intensity. He begins pulling at the fabric of Hikaru's shirt, trying to unravel his limbs and then maybe reach that damned blade. But then, should he even remove it? Would it be smarter not to do so, at least not until an ambulance gets here? But– the hospital. Can they even treat something like Hikaru? And... his phone... Has it cracked? Then, Hikaru's phone? No, no– he doesn't know where it is and it might be too late if he starts searching for it. Then, then... just what– what should he do?
Hikaru remains as still as a statue in the face of Yoshiki's weak attempts to unravel his body from its protective stance. It's useless, absolutely useless. A wet sob escapes him.
"It's all my fault..." Yoshiki whispers, but Hikaru doesn't react, doesn't even move besides burying his face further, hunching in on himself. The mesmerising tendrils are going haywire, twisting constantly into beautiful shapes and colors. Yoshiki swallows–
And now Yoshiki is shaking him, because if there's one thing Hikaru needs to learn it's this one.
"Hikaru, it's my fault, mine– MINE!" he's yelling like he's never yelled before, desperation seething into his tone. "Stop it, stop it–" His nails are scraping the fabric, then the skin, digging into the soft flesh of Hikaru. "Stop...!" Vague pink lines now cover Hikaru's exposed forearms, but it does nothing to untangle the mess of limbs and alien matter.
Yoshiki lets his head hang, and his face must be pinched in an ugly scowl. "Ya don't–" his voice cracks, "deserve this–"
"No, yer wrong!" Hikaru finally raises his head to look at him, but the sight that greets Yoshiki must be that of a stranger, because the real Hikaru has never looked this broken. What he can see of the exposed grey eye seems puffy and red-rimmed with too much emotion. Overflowing rapidly.
"You're wrong, wrong, WRONG!" Hikaru frowns. He spits the words like a curse, and the substance of his half-face convulses. "If I understood everything better– no, if I wasn't a monster, ya wouldn't, ya wouldn't... do this! But I'm scary an' I'm scaring ya by bein'– bein' here– s-so..." his voice stutters, then it collapses into a harsh series of coughs.
Yoshiki's instincts yell at him to run and never look back. The monster is terrifying, unstable and unreasonable. But he's rooted in place, and he can't move, much less think, no matter how much he may wish to prod at Hikaru's words. There's something to be understood there, something... something–
The coughs only get worse. Warm blood splatters stain Yoshiki's shirt along with his neck. Red and tears and ooze trickle down Hikaru's face as his features twist into something raw and pained. Yoshiki's eyes widen, everything stills. The sun threatens to scorch his skin.
This can't be happening, it isn't happening–
No... there's no time for this–! His eyes snap to Hikaru's now slightly parted legs, to his abdomen peeking through. He pushes against the folded knees, bringing the wound to light. Hikaru's white shirt glistens with red as if painted... and the knife–
The knife is somehow deeper, no sight of the blade visible. Only a small handle. Red and odd ooze haunt the area of the wound.
"Wh– why–?" he asks uselessly, his arms frozen still.
Hikaru barely brings himself to even look down.
"Yosh'ki... it's fine," Hikaru's words slur, drowning in the air, or maybe it's Yoshiki who's started to drown. That must be why his weight sinks in the bed's mattress, why he can't really move. Can he even really breathe anymore? Or will he suffocate with air, like a fish left out in the sun to dry?
"Did– Did ya... push the knife deeper?" When Hikaru had curled in on himself, was that what he really was doing? Was it an accident? It must've– it must've been, right?
Hikaru says nothing, his half face remains still. His emotions – which are normally so apparent, so obvious and clear – feel unreadable to Yoshiki's eyes now, as if he's staring at something wholly indecipherable.
Or maybe, it's just that Yoshiki doesn't want to know the answer.
Ah, his lungs are devoid of any air. His mouth's gone dry. Cold chills travel along his spine.
"It's bett'r this way..." Hikaru begins, but it doesn't sound like Hikaru, not at all. He smiles, a sad, forced thing. The snaggle tooth – the same one which would always catch Yoshiki's attention – is now tainted with blood. "The monst'r goes away and ya... get to move on... you'll go to Tokyo, get a girlfriend an'– an' be h-happy–"
"STOP IT!" He can't do this, he can't do this. "Shut up, shut up! I don't need that– I–" Sobs wreck his throat, snot dribbles grossly in his mouth. "I don't want that!"
Something other than the forced, wrong smile makes its way on Hikaru's face. His one visible eye widens slightly in surprise. The sunset's light makes his pupil appear red, as if caught in a camera's flash.
Hikaru opens his mouth to say something, only for a sudden tremor to envelop his body. A violent shake, a cough, more warm blood spills on Yoshiki's shirt, dripping on his skin, and then Hikaru is slumping forward. Yoshiki easily catches him, but not before he notices the strange matter melt downwards like an unnatural kind of mud. It touches Yoshiki's shoulder, his right side, bringing with it a whole array of sensations. He doesn't twitch away.
The slumped body – the skinsuit of his friend – presses on his own like dead weight. The handle of the knife feels like a strange addition to the soft flesh, and it's more unnatural than the strange ooze.
"Then..." Hikaru's voice is a bare whisper, the fringes of his hair brushing Yoshiki's neck. He's clutching Yoshiki's shirt, stretching it like he always does, though it feels endlessly more important than any other time. "Whaddya... want?"
Mucus falls down Yoshiki's chin. His eyes burn, and he can't stop blinking. Did a strand of hair get in, like always? Is that why he's crying like there's no tomorrow? Maybe there won't be. Not with the way the sun's heat won't stop aching.
He tries stifling the sobs, but it only makes the feeling of drowning worse. Inadvertently, a faint smile forms on his lips, the kind that his face's muscles twist into during useless crying.
Yoshiki's arms find their way to Hikaru's back, and he burrows his head in the crook of the other's shoulder. It's warm, still so warm, though he doesn't know why he's surprised. They're fully embracing now, and Yoshiki feels his fingers clutch the fabric of Hikaru's shirt like he's holding on to dear life. He might as well be.
This is what I wanted, Yoshiki tries to tell himself. This is for the best. The words taste just as bitterly as a lie, but he still tries to swallow them.
Yoshiki resolves himself to what happens next, because there's nothing left anymore. Not with the way Hikaru's body keeps withering faster, somehow, than even a human's.
"Kill me," he manages to croak out. "Hikaru, kill me. Please."
The words fall like a final plea. The sun keeps burning, its howling rays piercing their skin.
Yoshiki lets out a breath, and he's suddenly holding a statue, or something as still as one. But no, it's still Hikaru, because he sluggishly rises from the embrace, fingernails digging into Yoshiki's forearms as if holding himself up is the most gruelling of tasks.
They lock eyes. For a second, there's terror written all over Hikaru's half face, more terror than when that knife had entered him. And then, it's replaced by a million things at once. The tendrils of matter sway in on themselves, their rapid shadows falling on Hikaru's cheeks. Then, Hikaru frowns, his jaw goes slack, his neck muscles tense. Still, that red glint in his eyes persists, more vivid than any of the blood trails littering his face.
Throughout it all, a question clouds Hikaru's features like black fog. He's never stopped frantically searching every inch of Yoshiki's face for an answer, every pore and mole, every patch of skin covered by the shadow of his bangs. It's too bad that Yoshiki doesn't have an answer to give.
Finally, Hikaru looks down, and the matter stops convulsing, stabilizing sadly as if drooping. Falling, like a mockery of a tear.
"I can't," Hikaru mutters, and the words sink defeatedly in the mattress, forming a pit of quicksand that threatens to swallow Yoshiki whole. "Ain't what... Hikaru woulda want'd– N-not what I want–" they fall, fall down the hole, leaving a throbbing echo in Yoshiki's skull.
No, no no... He's clutching Hikaru's shoulders tight, desperation seeping into his limbs like blood in white fabric.
...no, no, "No, you need to kill me, you need to–" Yoshiki's mumbling, but his mouth feels foreign to his body, like a dead organ. "You have to, you have to, please, Hikaru, please–"
Hikaru grabs him by the shoulders.
"Yosh'ki, sto–!" It looks like he wants to say something more, maybe something that'll wake him up from this impossible reality, but Hikaru's voice collapses into another series of coughs before he can finish. The smeared blood on his chin stares at Yoshiki, as if inviting his guilt to resurface. My fault, my fault, it's all my fault–
Like a puppet with its strings cut off, Hikaru suddenly collapses against Yoshiki's chest. There's warm sticky liquid between them, gathering just as tangibly as the red haze of sunrays. He can feel the smaller body tremble, the tendrils reaching out to caress Yoshiki's skin. Seeking comfort. He allows them to, and he's met by a cold feeling just as striking as the white head of hair buried in the fabric of his clothes.
He feels Hikaru shake his head defeatedly.
"...'m sorry," Hikaru mutters terribly. It's broken, almost unintelligible. "–useless... couldn't– fulfill his wish..." Whatever else he's saying shatters in the air, the words made so much more fragile by the weakness of his voice.
But it doesn't matter whether he'd talk louder, Yoshiki still wouldn't be able to understand anything. He's too far away to hear – buried deep beneath dirt or floating up in the sky – so the sun must've already wiped the Earth of everything sickening, taking him away with it. He's left his body behind, and now he's stuck uselessly watching. Watching with his eyes glued. Watching with a hollow vessel.
Still–
"So– if ya want me gone then... that's fine too. 's for the bett'r– ah, 'm s'rry, so sorry..."
–the last of the drowned murmurs somehow manages to reach him.
And then, the weight pressing against the chest of Yoshiki's empty body goes slack. The hand clutching his shirt limply falls down his lap.
Impossibly, the cold touch of the tendrils becomes even colder. Like an ice cube left out to melt, the matter seeps into the bedsheet and Yoshiki's pants, flowing similarly to how water would. He can't help but distantly think that there's something unsettling about the lack of intent found in the matter. It keeps Yoshiki's body frozen and his eyes glued to one of the sun-kissed walls.
Impossibly, time seems to slow.
The sticky red liquid, the odd substance seeping, the burning sunrays and, most of all, the foreign weight still pressing on his chest... It all becomes part of his life now. It must be how reality has always been, and it's hard to imagine a time before this present moment. Maybe, truly, the world has stilled in its destruction, or it has never been destroyed at all. No, in reality, he's only allowed himself to believe it so. The world was never destroyed, and he can keep on living. He can, and it might all be alright.
Then, the weight pressing against him crumbles on its side, falling sadly in a heap of limbs and skin. Terribly, he allows himself a look at it.
Ah, it's Hikaru.
The crown of white hair easily catches the sun's light, making it appear as blinding as an angel's halo. The skin looks as soft – as perfectly fair – as ever. No hint of moles, no, only those little imperfections Yoshiki has always found so endearing. A too short nail, a chapped lip, hands that are smaller and less rougher for a guy who plays sports. Everything else is as he knows it, too. A perfect nose, perfect chin, perfect features. And the eyes. The body is on its side, which means only one eye is visible... it's grey and it stares so longly with a hint of red swirling in it–
Except it's not Hikaru's, because Hikaru is already dead. There are countless tears shed on this corpse, and Hikaru would never cry.
Yoshiki sees his hand reach out to wipe them, only for the skin to glint in the sunlight.
The blood stares at him accusingly. Beneath his nails, beneath the smallest crevices of skin, beneath it all, he can feel it as if it were poison. It makes his hands tremble. It makes the skin poisonous. He should peel it, he should scrape it, he should– he should–
Suddenly, muffled groans fill the silence. Are they Yoshiki's? Maybe. So then, the warm water which flows down freely– that must also be his. It goes down his cheeks, his neck, onto the body that lays in a pool of its own blood and insides...
Yoshiki is closer to it now, putting the body on its back. He's clutching its shoulders, tight and tighter. Half of the face has melted into technicolour, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't. This is Hikaru. No, it's Hikaru. He won't let go, he won't let go. He leans over, enough so that his lips are near its ears. The familiar sight of his dark bangs falls like a cascade, obstructing the impossible surroundings.
He makes sure Hikaru can hear him as he says "Kill... Me..."
It's all Yoshiki can utter, the only words that fit through the lump in his throat and the taste of blood. A sob. Then another. There's the sound of someone trying to pathetically suck up the disgusting mucus, only for more to appear, like a never-ending stream. It dribbles down shamefully, turning his face into something cold and hot, prickly with every tear.
"Kill me," Yoshiki says again, louder. Someone wearing his own skin is shaking, his dirty hands desecrating that perfect face as he holds it.
"Hikaru, kill me," again. The weight remains still, the human eye is nothing but a beautiful orb.
"KILL ME, DAMMIT!" It all looks blurry.
He's poised over Hikaru, leaning so heavily that their noses are inches apart. Yoshiki lifts his hands from the body's shoulders. He cups the perfect cheeks as his fingers absentmindedly trace the edge of the other's ear, small tufts of hair greeting the skin as he does so.
His hot breath brushes Hikaru's lips desperately, though Yoshiki can feel nothing similar. But Hikaru doesn't need to breathe, right? No, no, who says he has any need for eyes, for ears, at all? Those are human limitations, a tight box Hikaru can't and won't ever fit into. It'd be senseless to believe that– that–
Even now, he's so perfect.
Yoshiki's thoughts swirl into a devastating whirlpool.
He's wilted under the sun's gaze.
Yoshiki wants nothing more than to come undone.
He's wilted, and yet he still reflects the light so beautifully, just like he's always done.
Yoshiki wishes a touch wouldn't be so desecrating. But maybe... Maybe–
Before Yoshiki knows it, his body is already surging forward, and the gap between him and the victim of his emotions closes like a mended wound. His first act of botched love is tentative, but wholly deliberate. He can feel his lips unceremoniously crash into cold ones, fitting in an odd way. There's the taste of blood, which can only promise destruction.
He's never done this before, but he's fantasized enough to guess. Push, pull, let distance form for the smallest second, push, pull–
Their sudden proximity makes his unending tears land gently onto frozen cheeks. Some black strands stick to his forehead, some others fall onto that perfectly tarnished face. He thinks it should hurt more. It doesn't. He's only met by skin that's just as soft as it looks, some baby fat on the cheeks, countless pores and, of course, lips. Hikaru's lips. Plump and chapped, but still so, so perfect... Just like everything about him.
–push, pull, and then–
He stops. He lets out a warm breath, and he looks again at the sight before him. The blood on the chin glistens dangerously. I can't– I–
More warm tears spill, and he falters.
A wilted flower... The victim's coloration makes him look like a sacred angel basked in brightness.
Wilted... It's Hikaru, his best friend, but also an endearing entity who can't die, who shouldn't die. And he can't know – not for sure – if he doesn't inspect every inch of skin. Right?
Yoshiki blinks away his tears, his guts twist, and–
It takes that one second of indecision for it all to erupt into something desecrating and shameful, as if he were a man eating after a whole life of starving.
Yoshiki collapses onto the body forcefully. He presses hungrily on those lips once again, spewing emotions that should've gone to grave with him. His mouth fills with copper. It's all blurry. All that remains is Hikaru, Hikaru, Hikaru– Hikaru during the school's recess, Hikaru concentrating on an assignment, Hikaru crying under blankets, Hikaru protecting him with those eerie eyes of his, Hikaru–
Yoshiki stops only briefly to breathe, then sinks in some more. The sun's light peels his skin right off, the pain of it throbbing at the back of his head. But to his blurred consciousness, it sounds like the alarm announcing the world's end. It should be terrifying, it should deter him from anything more, and yet, it only serves to make his desire stronger.
As he presses further, his fingers begin blindly caressing the soft skin. He ignores how the victim's lips feel wrong, somehow too dry, and the way the teeth act like unmoving stones. No, it's all just as he's imagined it in countless dreams. It's all as it should be... And perhaps, if Yoshiki does this enough, he will be rewarded with some sort of reciprocation.
His mockery of love reaches the edge of the victim's slacked mouth in rough motions, then the cheeks with their dried tears, the ears and the neck. He does it all in quick pecks, and yet the action still ends up feeling stretched, as if it was of a magnitude that shouldn't be underestimated. Maybe that's just how it is for first timers, but Yoshiki knows instinctually there's more to it.
Every touch is a sin that can't be undone. Every shred of intimacy is a lie. Those are the truths he doesn't want to reach beyond the haze of his mind. It's better, and so much easier, to not let his mind prod at those thoughts. Instead, he finds himself grasping at straws, desperately searching for any reaction. Some sort of secret that will make this any less dreadful, anything buried beneath.
There is another horrid kiss that should be disgusting but isn't. Under the feel of Yoshiki's hopeless lips, the victim remains an unresponsive bystander made of flesh and something. In turn, the lack of response fuels the overarching emptiness that won't stop slithering underneath the remainders of his skin. It boils him. His guts restlessly swim in a pit of wholly unpleasurable sensations.
Still, Yoshiki desperately sinks. Into emotion and hollowness, so familiar yet cruelly foreign. He slightly raises his head to adjust his grip and, as he does so, he lets their foreheads connect. Some sweat lingers there, but it's mostly the feel of short, fluffy hair that greets him. His thumb caresses the edge of the victim's cheek. Then, the space right underneath the eye. Their noses clash as Yoshiki seeks to graze his lips on the corner of the victim's mouth. Another one-sided kiss.
He sneaks a glance at the victim's eye. Through his own half-lidded eyes, Yoshiki can just about believe he's being watched.
He brushes their cheeks together, letting part of his face dip into that slacked alien matter, the one which covers the victim's left side. It's gone colder, so much colder than he knows it, and it's lost many of its mesmerizing patterns. Now, it seems less like a predator and more like dead prey.
No more indescribable sensations well within him at the touch of the matter. The lack of anything, the feel of nothingness... It's striking enough to shatter the ignorance of wrongness that he's always been guilty of, the same ignorance that's allowed him to make a horror out of the most prized victim.
Hikaru... And now, Hikaru.
Just how much more will he take before he's satisfied?
He allows himself another brush of their lips. This should be perfect, it should be, but–
It's no use, no use at all– the illusion has already been thoroughly shattered. His guts wrench in terror as the skin of the husk underneath him suddenly becomes clammy all over, mutating into something foreign and disturbing. The hair feels matted with blood. The head's gone slack, held up slightly only by his own desperate hands.
A corpse. He's holding onto a corpse. And he's kissing his own grief.
The vomit climbs. It becomes too much. He barely manages to avoid the target of his rotten desire before the dread of his guts finally escapes through his throat, out his lips and onto the already tarnished bedsheets.
Yoshiki coughs. Once, twice. The air becomes even mustier. He tries not to choke, but it's useless. The dreadful taste of his mouth is just as hard to swallow.
A mix of blood, liquid technicolour, and vomit stares at him from the random spot he'd chosen. He turns his head away shamefully, as if he could will it out of existence. The smell lingers, and he feels dirty all over.
He's on his knees now, bangs still fallen as he looks down. Yoshiki stares at his victim, and he can't really see, but he tries understanding nonetheless because there's no one here to judge him. So, he has to judge himself, lest the monster go unpunished.
On the previously white sheets rests the victim that was once Indou Hikaru, then an unknowable being, and now, finally, a rightful corpse, no less than an empty sight. Shallow emotions lay spilled all over as if they were something to be satisfied, not to be scorched and left to rot, buried beneath layers of evading glances. The emotions – so rotten as they were – had taken the form of thoughtless kisses, all marked by faint blood marks. They lace the victim's skin in odd ways.
Oh... Yoshiki runs his tongue over his own lips.
A coppery taste meets him, and he realises the leaked blood from Hikaru's mouth must have ended up on his own lips. Then back on the victim's skin as he'd indulged.
The thought fills him with a kind of dread.
A lover would've flushed at the thought of getting their partner's spit in their mouth. They would've thrived, thinking it was an opportunity for closeness. But Yoshiki– he's only left with the taste of a corpse's blood. Empty copper.
He wants to laugh at it all.
Ah–Hah ha, what a mockery of intimacy! Love, love, shameful love, or maybe senseless devotion that morphed into selfishness, though it was clearly not selfish enough to withstand anything more– Ha, how cruel, how utterly cruel! Useless, too!
Spit and maybe tears fall from his face and onto the victim– no, the corpse, as he buckles under an unstoppable fit of laughter.
He can't help it! It's hilarious, really! He's stolen so much, so much– First, it was the idea of his best friend, which he'd tarnished with his countless rotten desires and thoughts. For years and years, as if he had no self-control. Then, when Hikaru had appeared like a gift from beyond the heavens, he couldn't just appreciate him. No, Yoshiki just had to hold onto self-righteousness, as if he truly had some sense of morals. As if he wasn't just another monster wearing the skin of a human. Hah! What a joke!
And then– then–!
Yoshiki chokes, though it doesn't deter him from laughing uglily. Vomit climbs up his throat.
–then! Yoshiki had killed him!
"I KILLED YOU!" He shouts at the corpse's face as if it could actually hear him. He blabbers, and his mouth feels heavy with spit. His eyes are widened and dry.
"You died! You– YOU'RE DEAD!"
Hikaru's body remains impassive in the face of the raw, barely incomprehensible words. Yoshiki feels himself being torn apart.
"Hah... Ah, ha, ha–"
He smiles like an idiot. It must look stretched and horrifying.
Hikaru had died alone on a strange mountain, rain in his face and a pool of blood underneath his head. Hikaru hadn't died alone, but he'd died next to an evil monster who became an empty statue the moment he'd been faced with the consequences. No, no, what's worst of all is that Hikaru had died thinking he really was some inhuman abomination, all while the real abomination watched on.
And that – that fact alone – led Hikaru to plunging the blade deeper– deeper, deeper, as if there was any need for something like that...
Oh–
It clicks for him then.
Yoshiki's laughter dies in his throat. It turns into grotesque chuckles, then whimpers. The sounds stretch for too long, then they jump off their expected length and volume. Tears get into his mouth as a scream rips itself from his throat.
The knife hadn't worked. It hadn't, not really. Or at least, it didn't work how I'd expected it to–
The words of realisation haunt his mind. Yoshiki wants to cease thinking, but he can't. Another harsh scream. Maybe this is his punishment.
–so then, maybe Hikaru would've been fine if he hadn't chosen to die. Because he's a monster, and monsters don't die from knife wounds, but they can die from their own volition.
The screams dry his throat of any vomit. They dry him raw, like an infected wound. He wishes he could barf so that he could spill his guts and die.
That must be how it is. So, really– He'd chosen, he'd chosen, he'd wanted to die, he'd... He'd–
The guilt that gnaws at him acts like a ravishing beast, slowly tearing him apart at the seams. He comes undone under the sun's glow. The scorching heat is unbearable. It won't stop burning him alive.
Yoshiki leans over the corpse, hands tightly holding onto the bloodied fabric of its shirt.
"S'rry, s'rry... I'm sorry– I– sorry.." he mutters through hiccups. It's useless, absolutely useless.
"I– I..." He's shaking– shaking so hard, it's impossible to see. He tries to swallow the sob, but it ends up as a horrid mess of a sound and a scratch down his throat. It's impossible, it really is...
He leans, further and further, until he's close enough to bury his head in the abdomen of the corpse. The handle of the knife – still stuck in the skin there – pushes uncomfortably against Yoshiki's neck as he lays his head down. Then, there's blood – some of which is still fresh – that gets all over his face and hair. The disgust doesn't meet him. Instead, there's only empty comfort at the scrapes of warmth he finds.
Time slows. Little else happens, and what has already happened ingrains itelf as a constant. The horrid, scratching sounds that escape his mouth. The over encompassing hotness of his face– no, of the sun. The soft skin under his head, then the ribs that poke from underneath. The ooze that's more like sadly spilled petrol now.
Truthfully, Yoshiki doesn't know how long it takes for the world to stop its constant loop of destruction.
All he knows is that – by the time he wakes to some form of consciousness – the sun's glow has already mostly dwindled. He looks to the side, and the underside of Hikaru's jaw greets him. The long dark shadows of his room – the ones he'd once found so familiar and comforting – make the skin there look as bleak as a corpse's.
It is a corpse.
Of course.
Yoshiki raises his head, then his body from where he'd laid. He's back to sitting on his knees, his weight sinking in the horribly smelling mattress. The inside of his skull must be filled with cotton – or something similar to it – because he can't really tell what he's thinking. Everything aches terribly, as if rot has begun eating away at his flesh.
He eyes the knife still stuck in the corpse's side. The dark handle sticks out awfully, like a monolith in a sea of red. How wrong.
He raises his limbs. They feel made of lead. Somehow though, they manage to move with practiced, automatic movements, as if this is what he's been practicing for his entire life. His fingers close around the dark plastic, but what meets his skin is uncomfortably shaped. Maybe it simply wasn't made for his hand.
Regardless, Yoshiki pulls, and the knife comes out easily with a satisfying quelch. Red drips down its blade, slowly, slowly landing onto his lap. The liquid is simply cold, not even warm enough to be considered room temperature.
He studies the blade like a foreign object. Through the splatters, he can just about make out a ghoul wearing a human's face. Puffy eyes, sticky strands of hair, blood decorating a cheek... Ah, it's his reflection.
Immediately, the familiar taste of vomit overwhelms his mouth. Averting his eyes does no good, because his gaze lands on the decaying husk.
Empty. Empty... Warmth and faux life gone. It's skin is smeared, its hair is disheveled, its eyes are unblinking. The red that pools underneath it branches out on the bedsheet like beautiful spider lilies. In another world, January might've been a month during which a glass vase of spider lilies sat on Hikaru's desk. No doubt it would've been joined by another soon after.
This world is not that world, but as it stands, the result is still the same. Two vases, two empty desks, all from tomorrow onwards. How pitiful. How tragically hopeless.
Yoshiki clenches the knife tighter.
In a way, the thread of the future he's chosen to unravel with his undeserving hands is a selfish one. But, when has he been known not to be selfish? He's clung, stupidly, to hope, to delusions, to so-called morality. It only makes sense that he'd choose this route, the one where he doesn't have to deal with the consequences, where he won't go through with Hikaru's punishment of life, where he's already prepared everything for... It makes sense, it's the easiest.
But then... Just why is he still crying?
Yoshiki bites down on his lip until he draws blood. It doesn't quite taste like Hikaru's. More tears well up.
He raises his head to watch the cold light creeping through the barely closed curtains. Even like this, Yoshiki can tell the setting sun doesn't see two monsters anymore. No, it only sees one and a victim.
He turns the knife towards himself.
What did Hikaru say? It isn't that bad– you just change shape a little...? Of course it can't be that simple, but... Ah, maybe, whatever Hikaru is– was... Maybe I'll find him on the other side. Maybe... I'll see Hikaru again, as well.
Even now, he can't stop falling prey to hope.
Yoshiki shuts his eyes. He tries to swallow the sobs... and–
He buries the knife deep in his guts just as the door to his room opens.
-+-
Satoko Tsujinaka is only slightly surprised when she notices an additional pair of sneakers at the entrance of her family's home. It's a familiar pair, so she's not at all that worried, but–
Yoshiki usually calls whenever he has Hikaru over.
No matter. It just means she'll have to cook some extra food for dinner. Or maybe– ah, that rice might still be good to eat. She'll have to check, then she'll have to call Hikaru's mom if the boys want to have a sleepover as well. Though, she might have been too lenient on Yoshiki lately... He's a good kid, but if he's begun skipping school, then she's not sure if–
"Mom, where should I put the flour?"
Oh, Kaoru's already made her way to the kitchen. The strewn about contents of the smaller grocery bag tell her she's begun unpacking too. Satoko reaches the table and she puts down the second grocery bag, this one much heavier than the one she let her daughter carry.
"It's alright, I'll unpack," Satoko reaches over to grab the packet of flour from Kaoru's hands. "You go check on your brother."
"Okay." Soon enough, Kaoru's silhouette disappears up the stairs.
Satoko lets out a sigh. Honestly, she's not sure what's up with Yoshiki lately. He's always been a gloomy kid – Lord knows it's impossible not to be in a village such as Kubitachi – but she has a hunch this might be something deeper. And today's call... She's tried to brush it off, but the moment keeps gnawing at her from the back of her mind. It's an annoying feeling, like she's forgetting something, or that something is slipping through unseen cracks.
Oh well... She has to stand up on the balls of her feet in order to reach the upper shelf of the cupboard where they normally store flour. It slides in easily next to the other remaining packet.
As she closes the cupboard, the one sound a mother doesn't ever want to hear pierces her eardrums. It echoes. Her heart throbs.
Kaoru's screaming.
And it's terrible. Much too terrible.
Her feet act before her mind catches up. She exits the kitchen in a rush, and very nearly flies over stairs. She knows, somehow, this is horribly important, because she hasn't heard Kaoru scream like this ever before. Not when she'd seen a giant spider that one time, not when she'd encountered the so-called wig ghost.
She squints at the darkness of the second floor. Down the hallway, in front of the open door to Yoshiki's room, Kaoru sits on the floor, frozen still with her knees nearly to her chest.
"Kaoru?" No response. "Kaoru, what happened?"
But her daughter won't look up. The small amount of light that comes from Yoshiki's room makes her face glisten as if she's crying. It only accentuates her look of horror.
Dread fills Satoko's stomach, and she can't stay still any longer. She makes her way towards the open door and–
And–
Two unmoving figures lay in a terrifying pool of blood and something, the fading sun their only witness as it peeks through the curtains. One is still breathing, one is not.
But they're both just as achingly hollow on the inside.
-+-
