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Drip…
It’s all the same.
Same hair.
Same eyes.
Same teeth.
Drip…
Shoulders.
Chest.
Stomach.
Drip…
Same old scar on his upper arm where he’d caught it on a tree branch four years ago. It was such a little thing, such an innocuous injury, but it’d left its mark permanently without any real reason to…
Nothing’s changed.
Drip…
His shirt dangles from one hand. He’d been about to put it on, got caught up catching his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’d watched it stare back at him for a second too long, not moving an inch with him.
It’s always like that now…
Drip…
Hikaru places a hand over his own bare neck, watching his fingers curl around it and press into his pulse. He can feel the blood rush through his carotid against the heel of his palm, feel the steady drumming of his heart inside his throat.
He drags his hand downwards, slowly. Experimentally. Like he’s touching someone else and not the same old skin he’s been living in for sixteen years now… His collarbones that collect sweat in their hollows at the height of summer, the subtle swell of pectoral muscles. He presses in, fingertips settling in the spaces where his ribs give each other room to breathe, and his thumb pushes just a little bit more into his solar plexus—a bony bird’s beak beneath the shell of his skin…
Drip…
His shell starts cracking.
“Hikaru!”
He gasps, pulling the digit from himself and squeezing his eyes shut against the sight of his body swiftly knitting itself together again. It doesn’t even scar.
“Hikaru!” His mother calls again, her voice carrying towards the bathroom and pushing past the surging storm that’s clogging up Hikaru’s ears. He calls back, a slightly panicked “Yeah?!” as he pulls his shirt on and starts frantically buttoning it. He sounds just enough like he’s just rushing, nothing more than that. “If ya keep dawdlin’ in there yer gonna be late!”
“Ah, shit…” He mutters as he’s forced to undo the last button and set it in its proper place. She’s right, God knows how long he’s been in here, and he’s still gotta pick up Yoshiki too.
Something that starts in his stomach and travels upwards through his veins and between his teeth goes all giddy at the thought of Yoshiki…
He ignores it. Ignores it as he kisses his mama on the cheek. Ignores it all the way out the door. Ignores it as he gets on his bike and sets off on the familiar ride to Yoshiki’s house.
There’s a sense of euphoria and freedom that’s not entirely his own as the wind hits his face.
“Th’ hell he gets all that energy from..?” Yoshiki sighs out from the sidelines.
The sun shines brightly overhead, hanging high in clear skies and Yoshiki feels like he’s melting into the ground because of it. Just sitting off to the side, taking pictures to honor his place in the dying beast that is the photography club has him on the proverbial edge of death, yet Hikaru runs around with his teammates like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He’s always been like that, so…
Yoshiki can’t pin the blame on anything else but Hikaru being Hikaru.
Click!
He catches a snapshot of Hikaru in motion and winces as the shutter snaps shut. When it reopens, all is well, but there’s a moment every time he photographs the other boy where it all goes pear shaped suddenly…
It’s just a second; minuscule, infinitesimal but it’s there—burns itself red in the folds of his brain, oil in water, peeling away from Hikaru like a shed skin.
“Ah…”
He lifts the camera back up.
Click!
Hikaru was smiling in that one, an arm thrown over Shirogane-kun’s shoulders.
He looked happy.
‘That’s gonna be a nice one…’ Yoshiki thinks, allowing himself a gentle, secret smile as the team sets up to go again.
Time passes slower now—and quicker. Sporadic little ticks that become a jumbled mess whenever he’s around Hikaru.
They haven’t talked about it. Not once, not since that day when Yoshiki finally couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take asking himself in an endless loop why everything had changed and yet no one was acknowledging it.
It was because everything that had changed was between him and Hikaru alone. That’s it.
And that fact hung heavy over both of them. Over every spoken word that never said enough and every fleeting, nothing touch between them.
It’s been two weeks.
They really should talk about it.
But…
“Agh! Dang it!”
Despite the heat and the exhaustion and the lingering feeling of dampness over his thoughts, Yoshiki is on his feet the minute Hikaru is off his.
Honda-kun’s apologies reach his ears first, followed by their coach asking for someone to walk Hikaru to the infirmary. There’s a hitch in Hikaru’s voice as he pleads his case that he’s fine, he can keep playing, it’s not a big deal.
“Hikaru.”
Hikaru’s eyes meet his, clear and bright, without a trace of that inverted rainbow that sometimes glistens there when the sun starts to set… But there’s something in his gaze, something piercing that makes Yoshiki feel just a little like he’s being dissected as those eyes trace a line down Yoshiki’s body to the hand his camera is held in, strap coiled around his wrist so he doesn’t drop it.
“Ahh, man…” Hikaru’s expression all of a sudden turns sheepish, an embarrassed laugh escaping as his hand hovers over his right knee. “Ya didn’t get no pictures of me eatin’ as- uhh, dirt, didja?” He jokes with a nervous edge.
Yoshiki shakes his head, tongue tied as he peers between Hikaru’s fingers at the hurt they’re trying to hide. Blood beads and settles into angry, red smears where his leg’s been skinned by rough earth. Yoshiki’s breath catches, his mind assaulting him with snapshots of blood mixed with heavy rain and weeping, prismatic slurry trailing down his best friend's face from little fissures that form in his humanity.
I’ll take responsibility.
That’s what he’d told himself, and that’s what keeps Yoshiki grounded as he offers a small smile and outstretched hand. Hikaru looks surprised, only for a second before he’s beaming and taking Yoshiki’s hand, letting himself be pulled onto his feet with a soft hiss and a stumble. His coach asks Yoshiki to take him to see the nurse, and he agrees, both of them pointedly ignoring Hikaru as he gives one last valiant whine before being led off.
It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things… But Yoshiki feels a lot better regardless, knowing that as they’re walking home, Hikaru’s leg is gauze wrapped and sanitized beneath his pants, his steps much more sure as their bikes click alongside their footsteps.
“Didn’t really hurt that much, y’know.” Hikaru interjects into their meandering conversation, turning up his nose at Yoshiki’s fussy question of “How ya holdin’ up?” when the familiar curve of his neighborhood starts coming into view. “Just a scraped knee, God… Yer as bad as my mama sometimes, man.”
“What..?” Yoshiki drawls, confused sounding, looking at Hikaru with a mixture of irritation and exasperation. It must be a funny looking combo on his face, because Hikaru looks at him and makes a show of pretending to try and stifle his laughter. Yoshiki’s pretty sure he did all this on purpose to get him making whatever faces Hikaru wants and scoffs, looking ahead again as his cheeks warm terribly. “Don’t take it out on me jus’ ‘cause you embarrassed yerself.”
“Wha- Wh-who’s embarrassed?? I ain’t embarrassed!!” Hikaru says, sudden and frantic, and Yoshiki can’t hide his smirk when he peers out the corner of his eye and sees Hikaru’s flushed face and wild eyes, his smile not all that convincing that he isn’t still at least a little flustered by his fall earlier.
Yoshiki laughs, and for one precious moment, everything feels normal between them.
Of course, his thoughts file back in again when the atmosphere softens and the cicadas fire back up in the trees and looming shadows they cast over them both.
Crimson spilling from an open wound, stark and familiar, the same hue that burns brightly beneath his own skin…
Red giving way to blue, to green, to yellow and purple, to silver and white and black, coalescing in a tapestry of shapeless shapes that slither beneath his skin, turning plasma to pine sap, copper replaced by the scent of starlight.
“... Hey…”
Hikaru’s expression shifts with Yoshiki’s tone, brows furrowing pensively, like he already knows what he’s gonna ask and wishes he wouldn’t just as much as Yoshiki does…
He wonders if what lurks inside Hikaru is apprehensive, or allured by whatever swirls inside of Yoshiki’s addled, busy mind.
“So, um… What’s in-...inside you…” Yoshiki stammers. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple. There’s no easy or simple or not uncomfortably bizarre way to say this. “It can…come out, sometimes…”
A kind of curious revulsion swirls in Yoshiki’s stomach, eyes darting to his feet as they carry him along on autopilot. He swallows the saliva pooling in his mouth before he mumbles, “Right..?”
Hikaru makes a noncommittal noise at first, the sound strained, a nervous sort of buzzing until, almost mechanically, he nods his head once. “Yea’, kinda… It’s like…” His mouth opens, some sort of explanation on the tip of his tongue before he realizes he doesn’t have an explanation. He looks lost, his grip on the handlebars tightening just a little, lips set in an unsteady line.
He looks like he’s trying to figure out how to explain it all in a way that makes sense. Yoshiki can’t help but wonder if he’s working through it alone or not…
“Happens when I get upset, I guess…” He finally lands on. He sighs, pulls his bottom lip between his teeth while he thinks, worrying the pink skin pinker. Yoshiki watches, and his fingers itch with some urge he isn’t brave enough to name. “At least, that’s how it’s been every time it starts to… Y’know…”
Yoshiki does know, so he allows that line of inquiry to rest as he considers his next choice of words very carefully. “But it’s not always… It isn’t just in there… All the time, under yer…”
He never claimed to be great with words.
A thoughtful silence hums its way between them, until Hikaru suddenly seems to grasp what Yoshiki is desperately trying to convey, the meaning caught within the cracks of his poorly constructed question. “Is this ‘cause’a my leg?” He asks with zero hesitation or shame, his own worries seemingly soothed as he finally starts understanding the topic.
Yoshiki’s ears burn a little as he nods. He half-expects Hikaru to take a shot at his poor communication skills—to laugh and tell him to just say what he means instead of beating around the bush the way he does, all frayed nerves and prickly edges so no one gets too close.
He doesn’t do that though. He stops to look down at his leg, sticking it out a little and rolling his ankle one way, then the other, as though staring long enough will give him answers that’ll satisfy Yoshiki’s morbid curiosity. “I guess not. I can still get hurt an’ bleed, same as I always have, but…” His voice softens, trails off. He brings one hand up to squeeze at his own shoulder comfortingly, soothing some quiet anxiety while he avoids Yoshiki’s eyes. “There’s…other stuff… S’how I know it’s in there still, all that stuff that was comin’ outta me…”
“Other..?” Yoshiki starts. He doesn’t finish his question, sees the way Hikaru is picking at the fabric on his shoulder, and just nods. “That’s lucky, huh?”
“Lucky..?” Hikaru parrots, eyes going a bit wide as Yoshiki gets back to walking. His feet unstick from the earth and he hurries himself to catch up, falling in step with Yoshiki effortlessly.
(There’s something stuck fast between his ribs—in the little pockets of air they’re supposed to have—that gives a small, fretful shudder whenever it feels like Yoshiki’s drifting away from them…)
“That it don’t show up when ya get hurt.” Yoshiki clarifies. He gives Hikaru a smile that tells him he’s relieved, and that he should be relieved too. That it’s one less thing for either of them to worry themselves over, something worth acknowledging as a positive.
It’s a sight that makes Hikaru’s chest feel lighter… Like, as long as Yoshiki has his back in all this, maybe whatever is happening will actually be okay…
“S’just been on my mind, y’know..?” Yoshiki says, and he almost sounds ashamed of it. Like he’s been doing something he knows he’s not supposed to. “What’s inside ya… Unuki-sama, or whatever it is ya got goin’ on. I’d been wonderin’ how it…works, in there.”
He’s been…thinking about it?
Something about that makes Hikaru’s stomach turn inside-out—makes his heart rate jump and his mouth suddenly feel way too dry.
“—was worried ‘bout if anyone else saw—”
His mind flashes to that morning, watching his own skin part around his probing fingers, the feeling of warm-cold around his thumb, pressure and empty space… Humans aren’t supposed to feel like that. Bodies aren’t meant to do that.
He feels sick…
“—yer daddy ever mention anythin’ ‘bout—”
But…
If it were Yoshiki, though…
Yoshiki, who’s been choking back his own fear this whole time, ‘cause he knows Hikaru’s living a nightmare all too real already.
Yoshiki, who’s trying his best to understand him—trying harder than Hikaru even is to get a grasp on what’s going on.
‘ I ain’t goin’ anywhere… ‘
Yoshiki, who chose to stick with him, even when walking away would’ve been easier…
“Hikaru..?”
Hikaru looks up.
He’s stopped, and Yoshiki has stopped too, a silent question on his troubled face.
Hikaru just stands there, hidden in half-shadow by the setting sun. There’s something heavy in his gaze, something aching and timid as his eyes fix on Yoshiki, and he suddenly feels ill-fitted in his own skin as he watches Hikaru’s throat work around the words, “Would… Would you want…t-to…”
A scream pierces the air.
Their attention snaps towards the source, hearts missing a beat in unison. An old woman stands before them, jaw slack in horror, tears streaming down her face and a bag of trash dropped and scattered around her feet. “Wh-whyyy..?!” She wails, breaths coming out in harsh pants. Saliva leaks down her chin, her dark eyes wide and fearful. “Why has…Nounuki-sama come down from th’mountain nowww?!”
Nounuki…-sama…?
The words curl around Yoshiki’s thoughts, and he suddenly can’t breathe. Like someone’s poked a hole in his lungs, and every breath just spills out as soon as it enters.
He turns slowly towards Hikaru, and God as his witness he’s never seen the other boy look so scared…
“... Let’s go.” Yoshiki finally says, looking back at the old woman briefly as she stands there, frozen and cowering. He turns his gaze back towards Hikaru, equally frozen, and there’s a bite to his voice when he calls out, “Hikaru.”
Hikaru makes a small sound, a sharp intake of breath as he finally meets Yoshiki’s eyes. There’s an intensity there, something Hikaru’s rarely seen but can make out distinctly through the thin curtain of his bangs. “Just ignore her.” He calls out, followed by a hushed muttering of “Hate when they get like this…” as he shakes his head and starts walking, measured strides meant to give Hikaru a chance to catch up. Because he will catch up—there’s no room for argument there.
He hears Hikaru’s footsteps, the steady sound of his bike clicking along beside him, and feels his anxiety ease just a little.
He misses the way the air around Hikaru turns to molasses, the way light starts dimming in a way that one could blame on the darkening twilight hour of the evening. However…
There is no way to explain the way his eyes glimmer with a shade richer than the blood running through his veins, leaking from a skinned leg…
The next day, when Yoshiki asks at school why Hikaru looks so exhausted, he thinks nothing of it when his best friend tells him through a full body yawn that he had a bad night last night… Nightmares, he says.
And when ol’ Hara informs them of the strange death that occurred in Kubitachi last night, and he sees Hikaru’s face go the deathliest shade of white he’s ever seen on a person, Yoshiki doesn’t say what he thinks…
“Wanna stay over at mine?”
When Yoshiki asks that, it’s a little bit impulsive. He’s aware, but Hikaru’s been living in a daze long enough now that people are starting to talk. Asako, not fifteen minutes prior asked Yoshiki if something had happened, and Yoshiki had to pretend he doesn’t know because he honestly really doesn’t. Just suspicions that eat away at him at night.
Something has to change, and Hikaru knows it too. Because after he’s finished staring blankly at Yoshiki, when his words catch up and Hikaru’s eyes light up a bit in recognition, he tries to reach for some excuse as to why he can’t make it and finds nothing there to grasp… Reasons come to life and die on his tongue before he can come up with enough details to make his lies seem reasonable, and eventually, he just deflates. Nods his head and then lets it hang tiredly.
That’s how they find themselves at Yoshiki’s house, playing pretend that everything is alright. They eat dinner together, suffer through homework, play video games with Kaoru sat silently between them, and Hikaru smiles and laughs and complains about regular stuff like a regular kid would. Like he always has before.
He seems a little lighter now, less fraught. He falls asleep easily on the futon beside Yoshiki’s bed, and because of that, because of Hikaru’s soft snoring in the darkness beside him, Yoshiki finds it a little easier to let his thoughts fizzle into a peaceful static and drift off to sleep himself…
It’s quiet.
His bed dips a little, right at the edge.
Something curls beneath Yoshiki’s skin, along his back. Fingers tracing his spine delicately from the inside, admiring each vertebrae…
[ It’s so pretty… ]
Yoshiki’s eyes flutter open. Clarity comes to him slowly, and a voice inside his head tells him to go back to sleep while another in his gut tells him to roll over.
He does. Turns away from the window to face the darkness of his room, and two pinpricks of ruby red leave his breath sticking to the walls of his throat, air turning back to water in his lungs.
Hikaru’s awake—or perhaps he isn’t. He’s sat on the floor beside Yoshiki’s mattress, hands laid upon the very edge, fingers curled into the sheets slightly. His face is relatively impassive, but his eyes are curious; big and round and reflecting light where the deep void of his pupils has been replaced by dying suns.
Yoshiki doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t tear his eyes away from the thing that looks like Hikaru but isn’t staring back at him…
I’m scared…
He thinks about his family.
I’m scared..!
He thinks about Matsuura-san.
I’m scared I’m scared
I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared
I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared
I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared
I’m scared I’m scared
He thinks about Hikaru…
“...”
He watches it watch him as he lifts a hand slowly, very slowly, very very carefully up and out towards the thing that isn’t Hikaru—watches the way its lips part a little and how its eyes actually cross to keep his fingers in focus as they raise up and above its head.
His hand settles there, a gentle weight against its scalp. He pets at bed-mussed strands of snow and its wide eyes scrunch a little at the feeling… Kinda reminds Yoshiki of the face Mincemeat makes when he scratches that one spot on the big cat's lower back.
“Go back t’sleep…” Yoshiki mumbles, voice thick with sleep and something else he hides behind a serene smile. “Yer jus’ havin’ a bad dream…”
A soft breath escapes it, silvery eyes and the secrets they hide searching Yoshiki’s for a moment… Then, it nods. Its expression’s gone sheepish, somewhat flustered, and despite the dim light and the exhaustion threatening to overtake him, Yoshiki swears he can see a pink tinge overtake its cheeks before it starts settling back into the futon reluctantly—purposefully lingering for a moment in Yoshiki’s touch.
He pulls his hand back, curls it into his chest so his heart beats against his knuckles. He doesn’t want to admit it’s a bit cute…
He won’t admit that.
He still sees the blinks of red; an error in his deteriorating reality, and he stares back as they watch him with evident intent. He doesn’t feel threatened… It almost appears as if it's waiting for something, but…
Ah…
“G’night… ‘Hikaru’...”
Its eyes crease.
He knows it’s smiling.
And just as his mind drifts into oblivion, he hears it. Familiar words in a familiar voice, but it lands in his ears wrong and lays huddled within the curve of his skull as sleep takes him.
“G’night, Yoshiki…”
“Ahhh, scaryyy…”
Yuuki can’t help but giggle, watching Asako’s full body shudder as she holds onto her broom like a lifeline. She pauses in wiping off her desk to raise a brow at her friend. “Still feelin’ squeamish?” She asks, as if she didn’t sit through biology looking equally pale.
“It’s just sooo creepy, y’know??” Asako makes a sound that is the very definition of suffering. It’s enough to pull Yoshiki from the single minded focus of end of the day cleaning that turns his thoughts to comfortable static, side-eyeing his friends as Asako cringes and Yuuki puffs her cheeks to hold back a laugh. “Just the idea there’s somethin’ that can do that… Don’t it give ya the heebie-jeebies?”
Ah, right… They’d just covered fungi in biology—a welcomed and fascinating distraction for Yoshiki that had unsettled most everyone else when the topic of cordyceps came up. Zombie mushrooms. Parasitic fungi infecting ants and beetles, puppeteering them to the highest points to disperse future generations through the air, completing their reproductive cycle at the cost of the hosts life.
The idea stuck to him like mold, a question roiling inside him yet lacking any answer, because he wasn’t even sure what the question was… Maybe that was his own fault, because as with every class that day, the second the teacher stopped talking his eyes and mind would drift over to Hikaru, sat at his desk. Staring ahead while seeing nothing. Tense shoulders dragging his posture down with them... Not in a lazy way. Not in the way Yoshiki knew him.
Drops of red in clear water.
Fingers curled in, resisting the visible urge to touch.
A voice made sweet with something akin to overripe fruit.
They hadn’t talked about last night.
In fact, they didn’t talk much at all after leaving Yoshiki’s house that morning. They systematically went through the motions and ignored the terror evident on Hikaru’s face when he bolted upright out of the haze of waking, eyes frantically looking Yoshiki over while his body remained glued to the futon…
Yoshiki was fine, he… He’s fine…
A fact that did nothing to erase the shame and guilt pouring off Hikaru in hazy waves that cast ripples across his shadow.
“That’s just nature, I guess.” Yuuki muses, calling Yoshiki’s attention back to the here and now. “Most of it’s prettier than anythin’, but then there’s the stuff that’s just plain nasty…” At that, she finally grimaces as well. Asako lets out a sympathetic hum, nodding in agreement. “Right? An’ like… Hey, Yoshiki?”
Yoshiki jumps a little, nearly dropping his desk as he moves it. He hadn’t expected to be pulled out of sitting on the sidelines of their conversation and into it by Asako, but he finds her inquisitive gaze aimed his way when he turns to her. “Y-yea’?”
“Ain’t mushrooms, like, super smart?” She asks, and he wonders whether she’d let her mind wander through class as well. But no, she heard enough to be as freaked as anyone, and it steadily dawns on him that this is just another moment of Yoshiki’s friends turning to him for odd facts and information—the reputation he unknowingly curated for himself coming back around again… “Well, uh… Depends… Both on yer definition of “smart” an’ what genus in particular.”
“Ah, m-makes sense… But in general they’re still pretty smart, right?” She tries again, and Yoshiki’s face feels a little hotter as he realizes he should have given a more direct answer before, like anyone else would have… He nods this time and says, “It’s still bein’ studied, but yea’. Fungi are really adaptive an’ good at problem solvin’, able ta detect changes in the environment and act accordingly. They form networks of communication, all workin’ together like a nervous system…” He pauses, glancing down at the wood grain of his desk that warps and twists strangely as it catches the light, his thoughts drifting to mycelium and grey matter and inverted iridescence… “Or like a brain… Always learnin’ somethin’ new…”
“Still sounds kinda creepy when ya put it like that…” Yuuki mutters, and Yoshiki can’t disagree. But it does get him thinking, and Asako’s tone is lighter when she asks him, “So, those zombie ‘shrooms then… Wouldn’t ya think that eventually, they might figure out some other way ta propagate themselves then? I mean, it all seems so needlessly convoluted, havin’ ta break down the host’s body, so…”
“Ewww, Asako!” Yuuki whines, tugging on Asako’s sleeve. “Don’t talk about it!”
“But I mean, c’mon! It’s possible!” Asako insists, directing her hopeful eyes and bright smile at Yoshiki. “Right?”
All the adults tell Yoshiki he’s too gloomy—brings gloominess into the village proper with his long bangs and too-formal tone…
He starts thinking for once that they all might have a point, given the way ever-cheerful Asako’s smile falters as he says in an even tone, “Nah… I don’t think so…”
Shimmering, white threads tied in delicate little knots around his ribs and vertebrae.
Left there by whatever had slipped beneath his skin and poured itself inside Hikaru.
“The consensus is that they’re smarter than plants, but they ain’t as smart as animals, let alone people.” He says, turning his gaze out towards the summer sky. The clouds float lazily, thick and white. “They don’t have none’a the capacity to consider if what they’re doin’ is “creepy”. Whether it’s right or wrong for them to build their life cycle off’a somethin’ else’s death…”
It’s really not so different from most other species on this planet—at least that’s what strikes Yoshiki for a brief moment. Wolves eat deer and rabbits, humans eat the cattle and the crops they raise… Even something as innocuous and beautiful as plants and flowers contain a myriad of parasitic varieties, all feeding off each other in ways that could be considered unnerving to the human mind.
But…
“They just don’t know any other way…” He surmises, letting out a soft sigh. “So they don’t got any reason to risk it by changing what works.”
The room feels quieter all of a sudden, the din of student chatter muffled around the tiny little bubble that contains just the three of them… All up until Asako takes a deep breath and lets out a relieved, giggling laugh. “Well, if that don’t make ya feel thankful to be human, then I dunno what does!”
Yoshiki’s brows shoot up, seeming to pull his head up with them to look at Asako with a puzzled expression. “What’re you on about?” Yuuki asks with an easy smile, her low spirits raised effortlessly by her dearest friend. “I just mean…” Asako grins, raising a peace sign that reminds Yoshiki of Hikaru, a gentle warmth sparking in his chest. “It just makes me feel thankful! Because I’m human, which means I get ta decide what way I wanna live!”
Deciding how you live…
If only Yoshiki were more like her… If only he had a choice in the matter…
Then maybe he wouldn’t be—
The door flies open with a clatter.
“But c’mon though, why would ya–?!”
“La la la, can’t hear ya Maki, I’m deaf now!”
Hikaru’s not deaf, but his fingers are jammed in his ears far enough that Yoshiki can’t help feeling concerned. He opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, but the second Maki spots the three of them he seems happy enough to do all the legwork—literally. He rushes over to the three of them, and without being asked he blurts out, “Hikaru got asked on a date!! By Saito-san!”
Hikaru’s face lights up red.
Yoshiki feels something cold pool in his gut.
Maki pauses for emphasis—or maybe just to catch his breath as Hikaru angrily shouts something Yoshiki can’t hear past the surging, swirling sound in his ears—before saying with an utterly mortified look, “An’ he said NO!!”
…
Eh ?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
“Huh..??” Is all he can work out of his throat—stupid, not even a real word, but his words don’t seem to want to work with him right now as his mind rolls this information over endlessly.
That…
That doesn’t really make sense.
Does it make sense? Knowing Hikaru, it… It’s just…
What??
“Maki, shut up!!” Hikaru shouts, but it comes out as more of an indignant whine. Yoshiki might have laughed if he wasn’t still frozen solid. “Ehhh?! Hikaru rejected a girl?!” Asako gasps comically, eyes all wide as Yuuki lets out a thoughtful sound beside her. “Wait, ain’t she the one you were goin’ on about all last winter?”
Yuuki’s right, Yoshiki in particular has had to suffer hearing Hikaru wax poetic about Saito-san for almost a year now, although… His fawning started to peter out after coming back from the mountain…
Huh… Why hadn’t he noticed that ‘til now..?
“Guys, please!! God, it ain’t a big deal!” Hikaru grouses, scratching his fingers through his hair anxiously as he attempts to appear nonchalant. “I didn’t say no, I said I was gonna be busy this weekend, an’ besides! It wasn’t even a date!” He clarifies with all the desperation of a man saying ‘It wasn’t me, officer!’ while the hydrant he just drove into gushes water into the air and all over his wrecked car… “Her best friend’s Honda-kun’s girlfriend. Figure I just got asked ‘cause he still feels bad about th’ other day, must’a brought it up or somethin’…”
“Don’tcha figure he would’ve asked ya then..?”
Yoshiki speaks without thinking, swallows around the dry air in his mouth as Hikaru looks at him like he’s just committed some cardinal, best friend sin they can’t possibly come back from. A traitor destined for the dungeon.
…
It’s probably not that deep.
“Exactly!! See?!” Maki gestures to Yoshiki, and he regrets that he’s put himself in the middle of this, but there’s no going back now, is there? “He gets it! Dude, that’s like, a PRIMO double-date set up!! What kinda plans could ya possibly have that ya couldn’t just put off fer some other day?!”
Hikaru opens his mouth to speak, a raised hand pointing a finger accusingly at Maki.
…
Nothing comes out.
His mouth falls shut with a definitive click of his teeth.
Yoshiki, Yuuki and Asako all send each other a distinctly exhausted look, but there’s a shared wellspring of joy and relief evident in their eyes as they all part ways for the day, no longer subject to the endless verbal brawl between Hikaru and Maki…
It’s quiet. Cicadas and summer birds and the ‘click click click’ of Yoshiki’s bike and Hikaru’s behind him the only sounds to fill the void between them.
They’re back to not talking, and Hikaru knows it isn’t fair. Knows he can’t keep doing this, because Yoshiki didn’t do anything wrong, but…
But how…
[ ...Like… ]
How does he even say it..? He’s sorry?? How the hell is something as pitiful as ‘I’m sorry’ going to even begin to express how fucking apologetic and guilty he feels right at this moment, has been feeling since he realized something was living inside his skin with him that he couldn’t comprehend the existence of, let alone why it clings to every single thought of Yoshiki like some treasure it has to add to its collection but it won’t ever be enough?
Because nothing is ever enough??
[ Like… ]
Should he say he’s sorry about what happened to Matsuura-san too, or what he thinks happened at least?? That he was scared shitless this morning because he woke up and all these memories of last night came flooding into him; memories of watching Yoshiki sleep, watching Yoshiki look at “him” with fear in his eyes…
[ I like him..! ]
Watching that bright light burn inside him… That golden firework crackling beneath Yoshiki’s breast, that beautiful something Hikaru doesn’t totally understand but makes his mouth water and his hands tingle with the need to reach out and touch, to covet, to wrap himself around and never let go?
Does he tell him that… That a huge part of why he turned down Saito-san, was because knowing that spending time with her meant not spending time with Yoshiki, and the mere thought of that almost made him want to cry..?
[ Don ]
‘
t
y
o
u
?
“Hikaru.”
Hikaru’s breath comes back to him in a rush. His head shoots up from where he’s been watching his feet move, and he finds that Yoshiki’s stopped ahead of him. He forces a smile, even though Yoshiki’s back is to him because it helps settle his own nerves just a tad. “Uh- Y-yea’? What?”
The silence stretches on again before Yoshiki lets one hand fall away from his handlebars, turning just enough that his eyes and Hikaru’s can meet. Hikaru feels something less like butterflies and more like angry hornets buzzing in his gut at the look on Yoshiki’s face. suspicious and a little bit sad…
“Why’d ya turn down Saito-san?” He finally asks, and Hikaru instantly bristles. His grip is a little tighter, brows drawn in a way that makes his fake smile look even faker, biting back thinly veiled annoyance. “Aw, c’mon man, not you too. It’s like I said, I don’t got time this weekend fer–”
“You always said,” Yoshiki interrupts suddenly. That is not something Yoshiki does. “That you’d drop everythin’ for any girl that asked ya out.”
“Yea’, well,” Hikaru snaps, dropping the fake, easygoing attitude and opting for another go at mildly irritated nonchalance. “Maybe I’m tryin’a be more responsible an’ keep the promises I make. I got a lot on my plate–”
“Like what?” Yoshiki asks in a sharp voice, turning fully towards Hikaru. It shouldn’t feel like he’s towering over Hikaru from several feet away, but that is what it feels like. He feels small and cornered all of a sudden, and that only makes him more defensive—distress and anger simmering beneath his skin. It makes the thing laying even deeper below that become anxious… “You haven’t said anythin’ ta me about–”
“Maybe ‘cause it ain’t none’a yer business, Yoshiki!” Hikaru shouts, and he doesn’t mean to. His voice is loud in his own ears, loud in a way where he knows he ought to pull back, to calm down, to lower his damn voice, but…
“Hikaru–”
But something’s wrong.
“What, so I gotta tell ya everythin’ all of a sudden?!”
Some part of him has flown into a panic, and he doesn’t know why.
“That… That’s not what I–”
[ Wait… ]
“Maybe ya haven’t figured this out yet, but I got a life outside of you, y’know!!”
[ Wait, please..! ]
He doesn’t know why, and he hates the fact that yelling at Yoshiki is making that frantic, fluttering knot of pain in his chest unwind a little…
Yoshiki looks startled, concerned, and it just ticks Hikaru off even more.
Why’s he gotta look at him like that?
[ Hikaru! ]
After all, it’s all his fault that..! That he’s..!
“Not everythin’ is about you, Yoshiki!” Hikaru’s voice comes out strained. There’s a distinct heat building up behind his eyes that makes his vision fuzz up at the corners.
Stop Stop Stop [ Stop it!!! ] Stop Stop Stop
Something swirls inside his stomach, fills up his chest and he shakes his head, fighting back against the pressure that’s struggling desperately to escape from behind his ribcage—reaching hands and wailing cries.
“So do me a favor an’ just leave me the hell alone!!”
“...”
The wind is cool and quiet, softened by the embrace of early evening. It rubs Hikaru the wrong way as he stands there and trembles under the weight of his outburst, one hand trembling at his side and his teary eyes locked onto the ground... He’s afraid to look up.
If the world swallowed him right now, nothing of value would be lost.
“... Okay…”
Hikaru doesn’t look up. Not at the sound of Yoshiki’s soft, defeated voice. Not at the sound of him adjusting his bike to start moving again…
It isn’t until he hears the fourth step of Yoshiki walking away from him that something tied tight around his neck pulls and he’s running.
‘ I seriously can’t wait to move out… ’
His own bike clatters loudly to the ground, and he doesn’t care.
‘ I can barely breathe with how cramped it is here… ’
His own harsh breaths muffle the sound of his pounding footsteps and pounding heart.
‘ If I do go to Tokyo for university, I’ll be livin’ on my own. ’
Something bursts, leaks… He’s not sure if it’s tears or something else entirely, but he’s not in his right mind enough to care which one it is.
‘ I ain’t goin’ anywhere… ‘
Please, let that still be true…
“Yoshiki!!”
Tell me that I didn’t screw up…
“Ah..!”
The cicadas hum gently, the swirl of sound quieting as the wave passes over them.
Hikaru’s fingers curl into the back of Yoshiki’s button-up. His grip is tight enough that when he sways from the waning adrenaline and lack of air, each gasp feeling like it’s doing nothing to fill him, the fabric pulls out a little bit from where it’s tucked into Yoshiki’s slacks.
They stay like that for a moment, Hikaru panting behind him—watery little hitches interspersed between breaths and Yoshiki staring on ahead, wide-eyed.
He doesn’t have to see it to know what he feels is there, a vast something looming heavily behind him, heavy yet light… A weighty shadow with enough mass to hang over his shoulders as it weeps into his neck.
Hikaru grips tighter, pulls a little with intent.
“M’sorry…”
Yoshiki lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a few small tears falling free as he blinks.
He moves slow enough that Hikaru can disentangle his fingers from his shirt, and Yoshiki can’t help the shiver that plagues his spine when those fingers drag along his back as he moves, staying in contact for as long as they can before falling limp at Hikaru’s side.
It’s so rare to see Hikaru cry, and…
There really must be something wrong with Yoshiki, that that’s what startles him the most. Not the grey rainbow leaking down Hikaru’s face from his nose and eye, trailing out the corner of his mouth like drool with purpose.
“Yosh’ki…” Hikaru mumbles his name out around his tears, around the entity making its escape and doing nothing with its freedom. Just trailing down his face as though imitating the emotion welling upwards and out of Hikaru. “M’scared…”
“Why..?” Yoshiki breathes out, as if there aren’t a million answers to that very question—a million reasons why Hikaru would rightfully be terrified…
He wants to hear them all. Wants Hikaru to tell him, so he can share the weight and take at least some of it off his best friend's shoulders.
“I don’ wanna get close ta ‘er…” Hikaru sobs out quietly, bringing a hand up to wipe the teardrops and fractals off his face, an action which does nothing for him. “I don’ wanna get close ta anybody… I’m scared’a what might happen if I… If- if it…” He sniffles, raises his head. He faces Yoshiki head-on as the sunlight peeks out from behind a thick cloud, its rays making the pulsing wave crawling down Hikaru’s face shimmer.
It’s striking.
Yoshiki probably shouldn’t find it as beautiful as he does…
“A-aren’t you scared?”
The question hits Yoshiki almost like a slap to the face, demanding to know why he’s not more scared than he is. Because he is, of course he is, why wouldn’t he be? Who in their right mind wouldn’t be terrified of what’s going on here, what the potential for catastrophe might be if he’s right about Matsuura-san (and he’s sure that he is, he’s sure—it keeps him up at night, makes his stomach churn with the urge to vomit the second his head hits his pillow)...
The simple answer is yes.
The correct answer though is…
It’s more complex than just that.
“...”
Hikaru’s eyes widen—the familiar one and the one weeping something ancient and primal and adrift in a confused humanity—as they take in the smile on Yoshiki’s face. So gentle, so familiar…
It feels like home.
“I ain’t scared of you…”
Yoshiki reaches out, hesitates for a moment and Hikaru’s feelings are only mildly hurt by the way he flinches… But then skin meets skin and sludge wrapped in lighting, Yoshiki’s fingers prickling like he’s separating fresh laundry as liquid threads cling to him with a throbbing desperation and pool underneath his nails.
Living water becomes somehow waterier as he uses his thumb to wipe the saline droplets still trailing down the shorter boy’s face, and the motion seems to bring on a fresh wave of tears as Hikaru leans into it, letting his eyes fall closed as he digs his nails into his pant legs, sinks his teeth into his lower lip to try and quell the heaving breaths shuddering out of him. “You… Yer lyin’... Tryin’a make me feel better…”
“I’m not.” Yoshiki assures him with a shake of his head, continuing to caress over the firm line of Hikaru’s cheekbone, solid even as the flesh above it distorts and moves with him. “I…” Yoshiki exhales a breath that carries the nervous shiver of a half-laugh with it. “I’m freaked out… I- I can’t imagine…bein’ in this situation and not feelin’ like…”
Like he’s done something unforgivable to the one person who mattered most, and now…
Now, the aftermath is something he’s not so sure they can contain.
“But yer still Hikaru.”
His voice is firm. There’s tears in his own eyes, glistening there in the fading light as another cloud drifts lazily overhead, blanketing them in a soft shadow that emboldens Yoshiki enough to ask, “Are you scared? Of me..?”
The crease in Hikaru’s brows draws in even further, eyes wavering and wide for a moment before his gaze falls to somewhere around Yoshiki’s stomach, just below his chest… Just below the light that blazes brightly inside him…
It’s so pretty…
He’s scared.
He’s scared for Yoshiki, for his family… Scared about everyone and everything—what if they found out? What would happen to them if they found out..?
What if, what if, what if…
But…
Hikaru clenches his eyes shut. He gives a firm shake of his head before letting it hang low, still cupped in Yoshiki’s hand. “N-no.”
He’s not.
He was before, watching Yoshiki walk away from him, but… Yoshiki’s not a half-asser, like he is.
Yoshiki keeps his promises, and he told Hikaru he’d stay.
So what is there to be scared of?
“... Well, then…”
Yoshiki’s touch falls away from him, and is suddenly replaced by fingers pressed hard into Hikaru’s scalp, ruffling his hair and drawing a startled, wet sound from his throat as his rigid posture falters, forcing a balance to stay upright. “H-hey!! Yoshiki, wha- C-cut it out!”
Yoshiki huffs out a laugh and lets up, allowing Hikaru to right himself and shoot Yoshiki the most affronted, red-faced look of shock of confusion as the thing inside him writhes and jitters in a way Yoshiki can only guess the meaning of. Either it’s mirroring Hikaru’s fluster, or searching for his hand that’s gone missing from its reach.
It makes Yoshiki wonder something…
“Maybe it just has ta learn…”
“Learn?” Hikaru questions as he brings a hand up to cover where his skin has slowly started to congeal back into one unified shape. Amorphous little appendages slowly slithering with some reluctance back into his face, slipping over itself as it retreats into the safety of Hikaru’s facial features; eyes and nose and that single, crooked tooth that fits Indou Hikaru so well somehow.
Yoshiki nods, pauses… Thinks back to biology class, to that gnawing question that took root inside of him… To his conversation with Yuuki and Asako, about cordyceps, about all life in general and how humans seemed to be the only ones with any choice in their own survival, everything else in the natural world working off of primal instinct and millions of years of evolution.
Animals, plants, mushrooms… They were all content to keep doing what works until it doesn’t. Unuki-sama could be exactly like them, but…
‘ G’night, Yoshiki… ’
But what if it wasn’t? What if it was more like him, more like Hikaru?
How much time could it spend in Hikaru’s body before the boy’s humanity started to seep in and fill the spaces between churning waves of pure, undiluted essence?
“A new way ta live…” Yoshiki whispers, and Hikaru’s brows shoot up towards his hairline. He says nothing, a rarity that means he suddenly has Hikaru’s undivided attention. “How to be human.”
“Y’think…” Hikaru begins, tentatively, his voice scratchy. His face has slowly but surely come back together, all signs of his unravelling now ones you’d expect from an overwhelmed teenage boy; eyes red-rimmed, a damp sheen across his upper lip. “Y’think it can do that..?”
Does he..?
…
He’s not sure if it can, but…
“I don’t see no reason why they can’t.” Is what he says instead.
Because that’s something he is sure of.
“The way I see it, we gotta try at least.” They have to. They have to because what little security they can muster as far as allowing Hikaru to live a normal life(whatever “normal” can even be called now) is on the line. ”Ya said there’s stuff you’ve noticed it likes. Normal stuff. That means that it- that they’re already startin’ ta acclimate, y’know?”
He’s not sure what kind of hole he’s digging by speaking in a way that humanizes the entity… But if the goal is to teach it how to be human—how to pretend well enough that no one will ever know what they’ve done—then the first step is to treat it as though it already is… Right?
“So we just… Just build on that… Teach ‘em how ta act like you if they suddenly take over…” He says because he has to, because there’s already a precedent for it that they need to prepare for, no matter how uncomfortable it makes Hikaru look. “Guess we should try ta curb that though, huh..?”
“Yea’, I… I’d prefer it.” Hikaru says, smiling as if he’s unbothered, even though the way his eyes suddenly fail to meet Yoshiki’s tells a different story. “An’ how ta handle gettin’ stressed out or spooked by stuff, huh? Not ta… Ah…” Hikaru’s voice trails off, and the look on his face echoes the one he wore the day Hara-sensei told them about Matsuura-san’s demise…
Hikaru’s hand drifts over his father’s watch, fingers trembling as they seek some kind of comfort in the keepsake.
“Hey…” Yoshiki’s voice is coaxing, soft and careful… And when Hikaru finally brings himself to look at him, the tired acceptance he finds there makes his stomach drop.
“It’s okay.” Yoshiki tells him, even though it’s not. It’s not.
It’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not–
“We gotta do somethin’ about the whole ‘watchin’ me sleep’ thing, though...”
…
Eh?
“It’s creepy.” Yoshiki says with a sour scrunch to his nose, mouth set in a flat grimace of distaste.
That’s…
It bubbles up slow with a few stifled giggles, pushing past Hikaru’s tightly pressed lips, and then…
Then he just can’t stop.
He’s laughing. Loud and bright and out of his own control in a way that feels purely human, completely like himself as tears well up in his eyes and he doubles over, hands on his knees. He hears Yoshiki above him between bouts of overwhelmed cackling, things like “Oi, quit it” and “It ain’t funny”.
“Yes it is!!” Hikaru manages to gasp out, manages to look up at Yoshiki with tears in his eyes and a smile so wide on his face it almost hurts. “That’s it?? That’s where ya draw the line on creepy?! Not like– Not any of the other weird shit’s been goin’ on, THAT’S what gets ya?!”
It’s so messed up and yet so Yoshiki. Yoshiki, who loves weird things and hates being perceived. Yoshiki, who would start having second thoughts only when the weird thing perceives him.
“I..! I’m gonna throw up..!” Hikaru laughs out his warning, and Yoshiki makes an ill sound. He takes a couple safe steps away from Hikaru, and again the thought shoots through him like lighting that this is where Yoshiki draws the line? Vomiting and watching him sleep?
Hikaru manages to keep his lunch in, and by the time his laughter quells to thin giggles in a breathless, hoarse voice, Yoshiki is nowhere to be found. His head shoots up, looking around frantically for a moment, and then fingers are hooking into the back of his shirt collar and jerking him back just a bit. He finds Yoshiki behind him, standing beside his once again upright bike.
It’s such a tiny gesture, done without any fanfare and it makes Hikaru’s face feel warm. “Ah… Thanks, Yoshiki.”
The taller boy nods and their hands brush when they trade grips on the handlebars. Hikaru’s attention stays locked there, even as Yoshiki walks around him and back to his own bike. “Ah, h-hey!” Hikaru calls out, his voice a little louder than it needs to be for the distance between them. He turns and finds Yoshiki looking at him curiously, expression flat, but there’s a light in his eyes that tells Hikaru the lack of feelings on his face masks a flurry of tangled thoughts the older boy is currently parsing through.
“Uh, you… Y’wanna go ta my place?” Hikaru asks with a suddenly nervous quaver. Why the hell is he nervous now all of a sudden? “I just… What ya said, about helpin’ Unuki-sama be more human…” Or at least act like it is… He shudders to think about the implications of it actually becoming human given the fact it resides in his body. “I wanna try. We got to, right? I just…” He hesitates, pulls at the corner of his lip with his teeth idly as the terror creeps in a bit. “I don’t want nobody ta get hurt…”
Again.
Yoshiki lets the silence hang between them for just a moment before nodding. “We gotta try.” He says, sounding much more sure than he feels. He’s not so sure he’s fit to be the one deciding what constitutes “normal”, especially when it involves teaching as much to some ancient something, but…
Hikaru needs his help.
So he’ll fake it.
He has to, to put Hikaru’s mind at ease.
“We gotta stop at mine first.” Yoshiki says as he readies his bike to move. Hikaru’s face lights up at his implied agreement, and a small smile peeks out of the shadow of Yoshiki’s bangs to taste sunlight at the sight. “Y’ready?”
Hikaru grins, nods his head with a chipper, “Yep!” as he follows in Yoshiki’s footsteps. Conversation flows easy in intermittent bursts, and it’s like they’re themselves again.
And the whole time, he sees that bright light shine through Yoshiki’s back, feels Unuki-sama curl happily through his nervous system with each pulse of sunlight seeping out of the boy.
[ I love it. ]
… Yeah…
Hikaru's not sure why, but…
He does, too.