Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

However cold the winter had been, the summer was even hotter than that. The heat weighed low on the ground, making the shrubs droop down and the bugs creak shrilly, sweat sticking shirts onto skin before vaporizing into itchy salt. It was hot like the sun wanted to burn everything into the asphalt, as if even the nights had closed their eyes to the deadly high temperatures; hot like the inside of a cremation furnace.

Hikaru might have died in January, but he hadn’t died until after six months of Yoshiki averting his eyes and ignoring his uneasiness.

Hikaru died on that sweltering summer day when Yoshiki first addressed the thing wearing his corpse.

Yoshiki didn’t want anything to change. He didn’t want the best friend he loved to be gone. He didn’t want to lose Hikaru.

Now at this point, every time he closed his eyes, he saw Hikaru’s stony, rain-drenched corpse. Every time he looked at the thing that wasn’t Hikaru smiling at him, there was only Hikaru’s cold corpse in his mind. But in the end, it was a simple matter. It was just that Yoshiki was clearly the kind of person who’d lie down beside his dead friend’s body until they both rotted.

Those six months were a testament to Yoshiki’s selfish desire to keep the Hikaru he loved from slipping through his fingers.

In contrast—

“So ya…”

…in contrast, the words that finally escaped his throat were a testament to Yoshiki’s respect for his best friend.

“Yer not Hikaru, are ya?”

The thing inside Hikaru didn’t have anything of itself. It had Hikaru’s dead body and Hikaru’s disconnected memories and Hikaru’s remnant personality and Hikaru’s feelings, however much remained, that it seemed to feel as well. Yoshiki called it Hikaru because they both wanted it to be Hikaru, though of course it couldn’t ever really be Hikaru.

Yoshiki had put that truth into the world by speaking it out loud. He had been the one to make it clear that no matter how much that thing tried to fit into the life Hikaru had left behind, it would never be able fit the way he was supposed to. And in accepting the stranger in Hikaru’s body, he had been the one to tell it that it didn’t have to deceive him anymore.

He hadn’t realized it at that point, but the creature wasn’t scared of being shunned by anyone but Yoshiki. He didn’t care about other people finding Hikaru strange. He didn’t care if they found it suspicious that Hikaru was acting differently. He didn’t care if they didn’t like him anymore, so long as Yoshiki was willing to accept him as Hikaru nonetheless.

By the next day, he was already not hiding his differences anymore.

Hikaru might have died in January, but he wasn’t dead until that summer day when Yoshiki finally killed him.

“Somethin’ about your scent’s weird, Hikaru!” Maki said, a week or so after Yoshiki confronted Hikaru. He had started smelling the air the moment he came by Hikaru’s desk and was now rubbing his nose as he stared down at the sitting Hikaru.

“Your smell’s weird,” Hikaru immediately retorted, before leaning down to smell his wrists and then his shirt and underarms, “No it’s not! Yoshiki, Yoshiki is my scent weird?” 

Hikaru stuck his arms forward to push the thin-skinned inner side of his wrists under Yoshiki’s nose.

Yoshiki startled in his chair at a kick of learned fear before leaning away nervously in an attempt to show a more normal reaction. His heart was knocking around his chest with painful, nauseating force. He was aware of every single side-eye that glanced at him.

“I… I’m not gonna scent an alpha,” Yoshiki muttered, “Yer being disgusting, Hikaru.”

Hikaru had been the kind of alpha that led shounen mangas and videogames. He had been vibrant and friendly and reckless, with a scent that radiated out of his body even when he didn’t want it to, to the annoyance of many of their classmates. An omega in the next class over once told Hikaru he smelled like fresh linens drying in the wind. The alphas and some beta guys usually complained that his scent was painfully acidic and sour, burning their nostrils all the way back home when he sweated during gym class.

To Yoshiki, he smelled like biting a watermelon slice forgotten under the sun, too heated and somewhat disgusting and still shockingly sweet, without a hint of sourness. Scenting him felt like filling your parched mouth with sweet, clear water, swallowing down too much, and finding sticky, warm residue of sugar on your lips and down your cheeks.

Yoshiki had yet to find another scent that quenched the dryness in his throat like Hikaru’s did. Not another alpha, nor any omega or beta. Even a distant whiff of it could electrify him enough to run another ten miles.

Actually, Hikaru had asked Yoshiki to try scenting him several times before— every single time had ended with Yoshiki in the bathroom of his house, shaking on the tiles. He’d feel sugar clinging to the roof of his mouth and between his teeth for hours afterward, and no amount of digging his teeth into his arm would hold down the fear and nausea nor stop the saliva pooling down his throat with every swallow. Yoshiki loved scenting Hikaru.

But not like this, where everyone could see Yoshiki being way too willing to scent another alpha. What if they saw him react to it? What if they thought Hikaru wanted Yoshiki to scent him in a weird way? He was crazy for asking it like this. At least he should have framed it like a joke. How did he dare to ask it with such obviously intimate casualness?

“It’s just gonna burn anyways,” Yoshiki muttered, as if he’d ever once found an alpha’s scent uncomfortable.

“Yeah, Hikaru,” Maki laughed at Yoshiki’s answer even as Hikaru started pouting. “Yoshiki’s had his nose burnt too many times on yer nasty smell, sitting next to ya all day!”

“What, am I just gonna have ta accept that my scent’s all weird and not ask others then? Yer not making this fair!”

“Ask others what?” Asako and Yuuki came closer to Hikaru’s desk. “What’s going on this time?”

“Maki’s sayin’ my scent’s gone weird,” Hikaru huffed, “What’s that even supposed to mean? And now Yoshiki’s not helpin’ me defend myself!”

“Yer scent?” Asako asked, eyeing Hikaru with somewhat more scrutiny than a stupid comment from Maki warranted. She had been acting a little off since Hikaru’s death, but since no one knew that he was dead but Yoshiki, he assumed that she must be acting considerate due to the whole ‘Hikaru got lost in the mountains’ debacle. “Well, lemme defend yer honour for ya! Give it over!”

“So you can scent me but Yoshiki won’t?” Hikaru huffed again with a trace of annoyance, but when he raised his hand towards Asako, his words were passed over without anyone noticing.

Asako was a beta, so she wouldn’t be affected much by his scent, but she could still identify any differences. She pitched her hand on the desk to lean down and smell Hikaru’s wrist. Yoshiki had to bite the back of his lips with force at the sight of her holding the back of his wrist and bending close enough to kiss the palm of his hand while Hikaru’s long-lashed eyes stared intently at her. This wasn’t even the Hikaru he had lost. He wasn’t even the Hikaru he loved. And yet.

“Hmmm… yeah, Maki’s right,” was Asako’s final verdict. “It’s weird.”

“What?!” Hikaru snatched his hand away from her, giving Yoshiki a brief burn of satisfaction before the fear once again overwhelmed him as Hikaru turned to push his two hands at Yoshiki. His eyes were excessively pleading as he stared up at Yoshiki, waving his hands in front of Yoshiki’s face, “Yoshiki ya gotta tell them they’re wrong!”

“I…” Yoshiki lowered his head to let his bangs cover his gaze. He didn’t want to look at Hikaru’s face right now.

Yoshiki was the one person who knew Hikaru’s scent the best in the whole world. He would go so far as to say that after the changes of puberty, even Hikaru’s mother might not know his scent as accurately as Yoshiki did. After all, she wouldn’t have had the insane desperation to catalogue every little change to it that Yoshiki had experienced.

Hikaru had always made fun of Yoshiki for knowing where he was standing, whether it was in a festival crowd or behind a wall. He’d thought it was funny and nice that Yoshiki knew him well enough to track him like a hunting dog sniffing a rabbit in its hole, instead of creepy and psychopathic. He’d told Yoshiki that that would have been sooo romantic if he had been an omega, though unfortunately for Yoshiki’s non-existent love life, he wasn’t. Yoshiki had told him go drown yourself in the river.

He’d also told Yoshiki that one day, his omega would know his scent better than even Yoshiki, and that’d be the day I’ll know that’s the wife I’m marryin’, Yoshiki, ya bloodhound!

Good for them.

But it was always nice to scent Hikaru, was the thing. Even when it hurt like a punch to the gut. Now too. It would smell so nice, and it would be satisfying because Asako didn’t get to have Hikaru begging her like this, and the scent would linger in his mouth so painfully good for the whole rest of the day.

It would be nice in a terrible, awful, disgusting, defiling way. It would be nice and if Hikaru knew that Yoshiki thought so, he would…

…well, this thing in Hikaru’s body would probably think ‘that’s great!’ and ask Yoshiki to scent him again.

“Cmoooonn, Yoshikiiiii, just one try!” Hikaru said, clambering closer to Yoshiki’s desk on his chair with the most obnoxious floor-scraping noise ever. “How am I supposed to know the truth if you don’t tell me!”

“….fine,” Yoshiki sighed reluctantly, still looking only at the top of his desk.

Hikaru’s hand was immediately placed palm-up right under Yoshiki’s gaze.

“Well?” Hikaru asked excitedly.

Yoshiki glanced quickly up from behind his bangs. The rest of their friends also seemed to be excited and amused, likely not finding this weird except in a ‘Hikaru playing a prank on Yoshiki’ kind of way. “Yeah, Yoshiki, well?” Maki echoed, cackling. “Burn your nose for the sake of science!”

“Stop making fun of the poor guy!” Yuuki hit him on the arm, but she was also smiling in amusement. As the only omega among them, no one’s scent here was truly bothersome for her, but she had a sensitive nose so she didn’t enjoy scenting anyone. She claimed she’d surely like it if it was romantic, but Maki was the only one who really seemed to believe that.

“Well, Yoshiki!” Asako laughed as well, and Yuuki’s playful attacks turned towards her.

Yoshiki pulled Hikaru’s hand carefully into the cup of his palm and raised his wrist up to his face. It was like all he could focus on was the brushstroke blue veins under Hikaru’s skin, the almost invisible peach-fur-thin white hairs on the inner side of the wrist, the bones and sinew on the back of Hikaru’s hand pushing into the palm of his hand. His heart was coming up his throat. He was going to let on that he liked this. He was going to be found out. Could anyone hear his breathing changing?

Hikaru’s wrist was loose in Yoshiki’s hand as he pressed his nose onto the gland near his wrist. Warm and heady. The scent slid almost liquid-dense everywhere in Yoshiki’s nose and mouth. Watery watermelon, too-warm and sweet as it filled his mouth, and a hint of…

Yoshiki froze.

It only took a second, but he slowly loosened his frozen muscles and let go of Hikaru’s hand. “Huh,” He let out.

“What? What’s that mean?” Maki demanded, “Do ya need to wash yer nose? Did ya fry yer brain?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yoshiki said. He straightened up as nonchalantly as he could and turned his gaze sideways under his bangs to eye Hikaru. He was still sitting too close in his chair, holding his arm close to his chest with a satisfied smile, watching Yoshiki back with that now familiar syrup-sticky look in his eyes. Yoshiki turned his gaze to the others. “Are ya stupid, Maki? No one’s gonna keel over and die from smelling somethin’ bad.”

“So, what’s the verdict, Yoshiki-sen?” Asako demanded.

“I guess,” Yoshiki said softly, “It’s a bit weird.”

It became increasingly clear just how much Hikaru had been acting before Yoshiki confronted him.

Now, he didn’t hesitate to laugh out loud to jokes they’d heard a thousand times till it became tiresome, cry during the most boring argument scenes of the drama movie they always watched during free hour, admit that he wasn’t afraid of horror stuff anymore. Before, he had been careful not to let on a single thing. Now, it was almost scary how obvious it would have been that Hikaru’s body was being puppeted by a body-snatcher, if anyone would ever think of that possibility.

As the days passed… no matter how much Yoshiki wanted to see Hikaru as the one he had lost, it became more and more obvious that this just wasn’t him.

Even when Yoshiki went to visit Hikaru at his house, there was no escaping how the familiar rooms of Hikaru’s sunny and airy house were all permeated with that changing scent. He sat under the burning sunlight in the livingroom, glancing at Hikaru. He was on the ground after devouring a watermelon slice in three bites, joking around just the very same way he used to joke around, then falling asleep with drool at the corner of his lips just as he used to. Almost the same. So, so close. But just not it.

Just a few months past, the whole Indo house had been covered in marks of Hikaru’s and his mom’s scents, both of them intimately familiar and unchangingly welcoming to Yoshiki. Whenever he came over the house would always smell like a greeting, a cheerful Hey Yoshiki, it’s you, nice to see you. A smell that was accepting and friendly, unlike all the others in the village who invited him in with smiles into houses that always reeked of scrutinizing curiosity and schadenfreude. Whether it was their opinion of him in their scents or his own pathological perception, Yoshiki had always hated breathing the air of any house in this village other than Hikaru’s.

But that intimately familiar smell of the house was slowly starting to fade. The house smelled of Indo-san’s usual marking, with barely any of Hikaru’s heavy and strong alpha scent. Even now as the fan blew periodically on Hikaru’s sweaty skin and raised his scent through the summer heat, it left no doubt at all to the fact that something about him was changing.

Not just his soul, which was already gone and replaced by some unknown creature, but now as the creature in him relaxed, even his dead body was slowly changing in some unknown way.

Yoshiki sat beside the familiar sunflower garden and the familiar wide-open screens and the familiar body of his friend, and he leant on the table with his hands suffocating his breath. Trying not to breathe any air in, trying not to think of a single thing. He didn’t think of the fact that he’d have to eventually acknowledge that this alien couldn’t really take the place of his best friend.

Hikaru had already died twice in Yoshiki’s heart.

Yoshiki wasn’t ready.

He wasn’t ready to kill Hikaru a third time.

Hikaru was an alpha like Yoshiki himself and fairly muscled from biking to school and running around and helping out the adults in the village. He was strong and fit. Sometimes he’d crouch down and the definition of his calves and thigh muscles flexing would be impossible to look away from.

However, they were both highschoolers and when it came to fights at this age, height and weight were basically everything. Yoshiki was lanky and not particularly more built than Hikaru, but after he’d shot up at the third year of middleschool, he’d become nearly unbeatable in strength among his agemates. He’d rarely ever wrestle with Hikaru for real, but when he did he’d usually win— except when Hikaru used evil cheating moves like licking him.

Yoshiki had only barely started to accept that this wasn’t Hikaru after all.

“What’s this, an interrogation? Yer so creepy!”

After all, he’d have to accept it at some point.

“As I thought, is it because I’m not the real Hikaru? Is that why yer mad at me..?”

But how did it end up like this?

“So I… I can’t be enough, for ya..? ...Hey…”

“Isn’t that obvious?! You… ya look the same as Hikaru… act the same, talk the same… but in the end you’re just not Hikaru, are ya!”

 “Ah…Sorry, yeah… No, you’re right. Haha, it’s plain true so I can’t even say anything…”

Yoshiki wasn’t used to being pushed down and held in place without even being able to put up a token resistance.

“…I can’t even say…”

Hikaru was pressing Yoshiki down on the classroom floor with his whole body. His face had entirely leaked out of reality, covering the classroom in those maddening, disgusting swirls of his muddy insides. There was a strange ringing in the air, like alien musical notes or an awful case of tinnitus, entirely burying the sound of the downpour of rain outside.

Yoshiki was held down on the floor like some hollow-boned bird pinned by a heavy cat, struggling like crazy but unable to push Hikaru back even half an inch. And he was terrified.

It was terrifying.

This was the monster living under Hikaru’s skin.

The worst part was that the growing edge of that new scent was still clinging to Hikaru’s mutilated body, something completely different from the smell Yoshiki had known all his life. Still only barely there, hidden by Hikaru’s original alpha scent, but timidly and unceasingly persisting behind it. An obvious strangeness that only appeared if you paid attention to it, or if you were Yoshiki and the dissonance blared at the back of your mind at every moment.

As if frantic to reach Yoshiki, the creature engulfing the classroom surged towards him and down into every crack in Yoshiki’s skin. Down his mouth and past his tongue and into him. A flood of what felt like slime and mud and ten thousand live snails connected to each other, and it felt—

‘Disgusting… disgusting, disgusting… it feels so bad. Stop— stop—’

‘It feels awful— it feels so bad— it feels so—’

Yoshiki couldn’t breathe. He was going to die. He felt—

‘—good? It… it feels good? It feels good… it feels so good…’

It felt so good, it felt so good, it felt incredible, it felt like concentrated pleasure and joy. It felt so good and Yoshiki couldn’t understand it. It was so obviously awful and wrong and revolting but it felt so good and right. How could something so monstrous happen to feel good?

Hikaru’s true form suddenly vanished from inside him, letting Yoshiki gasp for his first full breath in a minute.

He was flattened on his back with every muscle trembling, covered in sweat, panting to catch his breath. He had to take a long while just to let his colour-burst vision of the ceiling realign back to normal. The floor and his uniform and even the overturned desks and chairs seemed to smell violently of his own alpha scent. Normally it was so reticent and faint that even in rut it would barely stick to his sweat-soaked pyjamas, that even scenting him might not let someone get his smell properly, but now it was clinging to everything around him, lingering low on the ground like a humid fog.

Eventually, his ears stopped ringing and other sounds beside his rabbiting heartbeat started filtering into his consciousness.

The sound of the rain pouring down behind the cracked windows of the classroom sifted softly closer.

The laughter and chatter of people came muffled from outside the room.

And with them, louder than anything else, sniffling coming from the boy past him. Sniffling, then a choked down sob, a cracked and carefully silenced whine. A voice that was entirely blocked in the nose; “Yoshiki… not ya, I can’t do this to ya… Not to ya…”

Yoshiki somehow managed to push himself to sit up. When he reached up, his wrist was bruised dark in the shape of Hikaru’s fingers. “Hikaru?” He asked hoarsely.

“I’m sorry,” Hikaru’s face was wet with large drops of tears falling one after another, the pattering spirals of his true alien insides still unfurling out of his body. His reddened terrified eyes met Yoshiki’s eyes for a mere moment before Hikaru stood up and backed away from him. “I’m sorry,” He said again.

Yoshiki’s voice was still trapped in his chest when Hikaru caught the handle of his school bag and dragged it behind him as he walked out of the classroom. A wet sniff every few steps, feet shuffling heavily like a criminal walking to his execution. Hikaru only paused minutely at the door to tilt his head in Yoshiki’s direction, but didn’t seem to dare to face him fully.

He whispered,

“…don’t hate me…”

Yoshiki, look!

Yoshiki!

Yoshiki, Yoshiki!

Wow, see, Yoshiki!

Yoshiki?

Yoshiki!

…don’t hate me…

The Hikaru who Yoshiki had loved was already dead.

This Hikaru… this Hikaru was indeed something akin to a replacement, but honestly he sucked as a replacement. He certainly looked the same and got all the tones and mannerisms right, but he failed at everything else.

His likes, dislikes, fears, interests, hobbies, even the amount of attention he was supposed to give his different friends were all wrong. He didn’t even talk about omegas or his various crushes anymore. He was always looking at Yoshiki. And after so long, Yoshiki had to finally accept what he had already realised the first time he scented this Hikaru— in the end, Hikaru had not even been able to properly keep the gender of his body right.

Yoshiki’s lips parted to breathe in as he stood behind the closed door of Hikaru’s room where Hikaru had shut himself in after their… fight. The orange light of the setting sun was poking out from under Hikaru’s door. The light cast a line on Yoshiki’s socks, and those were the only part of Yoshiki not in the shadows.

He had raised his hand to knock the door before he smelled the scent in the air and froze in place.

Alongside the last rays of sunlight, an unfamiliar scent spilled out from under the door like a despondent little raincloud. Even though Hikaru obviously wasn’t human himself, he was almost achingly human in the way he cried and the raw and honest way his scent mirrored his mood. If only it was that scent which Yoshiki had loved so, that scent which belonged to a dead man who only Yoshiki knew to mourn.

Yoshiki closed his eyes and bit his lip to push the darkly spiralling thoughts down.

He breathed in. Breathed out.

That fog of scent was already clinging to his ankles. When he went back home, his mom was going to demand what he had done and how he had ended up with such a smell on him and it was going to be a whole fight, because Hikaru’s scent reflected his mood like crazy, and alpha Yoshiki causing an unfamiliar omega such despair would probably normally end up with him in jail.

He breathed in. Breathed out.

To Yoshiki, Hikaru’s alpha scent had been too-warm and kinda off and overwhelmingly sweet and vibrant with the fragrance of the watermelons he loved.

But this… Despite the noon heat that wrapped close and humid on Yoshiki’s skin, this smell that spilled out of Hikaru’s room now was colder than winter air. It was a scent that filled Yoshiki’s mouth with a stinging coolness as if he had lost in an ice-cream speed eating contest, leaving the taste of some refreshing but undefinable fruit, an icy buzz in his brain, and an overwhelming sweetness that stuck to his tongue like syrup— the single unchanged thing to the scent.

Beside the way it smelled to him, though, there was no doubt right now that it was an omega’s scent.

Yoshiki finally forwent knocking and pulled the door open directly.

The scent emanating from the suspiciously high pile of fabric at the corner of the room immediately shifted. Suddenly, the cold ice-cream scent was gone and the heated watermelon was filling the room instead. The fabrics hadn’t even twitched, totally letting on that Hikaru had long since known that Yoshiki was standing behind the door. Perhaps, though, what he didn’t know was that…

“…I could smell ya from out the door, Hikaru,” Yoshiki said quietly, walking closer with his cap’s brim pulled down over his eyes. “Yer underestimating humans.”

“Hn?!” An exclamation came from under the huge pile of blankets and clothing before it hurriedly fell silent.

Sighing, Yoshiki approached the pile.

There were a dozen blankets and coats and cardigans over where Hikaru seemed to be peeking out at Yoshiki. The orange sunlight lit everything on the pile up, casting dark shadows under the cover of it, so nothing of Hikaru himself could be seen underneath. But while Hikaru might have flipped his scent to alpha as soon as Yoshiki entered, the scent emanating from him couldn’t entirely hide the way that a far colder scent was marking the room and the pile of clothing and blankets.

Despite the misery radiating out from Hikaru himself, the marks left in the room seemed to smell like it was saying, Yoshiki welcome, Yoshiki, Yoshiki, you’re welcome here, you’re always welcome, I want you here, Yoshiki stay.

Yoshiki didn’t think even his own bed smelled this much like he was supposed to be there.

It felt a bit painful in his chest.

“…Hikaru, hey.” Yoshiki lowered himself to his knees to see the large shadow where he assumed Hikaru’s face was.

Hesitantly, Yoshiki apologized. In return, Hikaru apologized back.

In hindsight, it was a little funny how they had to go back and forth about it.

He didn’t know what he’d been thinking they’d say when he came over here. He’d only had an inkling of Hikaru’s personality and maybe a deep desire to reconcile somehow, someway. His aim for this conversation hadn’t been to get Hikaru to tearfully throw himself at him, promising not to question him for meeting anyone and pleading for him to not hate Hikaru despite the presumptuous act of puppeting the dead corpse of his best friend, but it just so happened to move that way.

By the end, Hikaru’s cheek was in his palm, warm and squished and rougher near the jaw edge. His tears slipped down the inner skin of Yoshiki’s thumb all the way to his wrist before falling onto the floor. Hikaru would never have allowed Yoshiki to hold his face like this. Hikaru would never have cried like this. Hikaru would never have pleaded for anything like this.

Hikaru’s face was half-turned into his palm, impossibly endearing.

“You really… are way more of a brat than he was,” Yoshiki murmured, the thought pulling up a smile from the paleness of his expression.

In response, Hikaru could only sniffle. “Ya ain’t mad?”

“Nah.”

Yoshiki lowered his hand from Hikaru’s cheek.

“You’re just a really lonely little brat, aren’t ya?”

 “Lonely?” Hikaru asked with his tearful gaze turned up to meet Yoshiki’s. “Do ya think what I’m feelin’ now’s loneliness?”

“…” Yoshiki’s smile returned, faint. “Who knows.”

If it was this Hikaru… if he really just didn’t know anything… then Yoshiki had to be the one to teach him stuff. All the human things that he didn’t know. Yoshiki slowly grasped Hikaru’s hand in his, a gentle hold turning stronger until he had his fingers clasped around Hikaru’s palm. He could be the one to teach him.

With his hand in Yoshiki’s hold, the absolute despair in Hikaru’s scent softened until there was no emotional spikes left in it. Yoshiki’s tensed-up back relaxed a little too, as if he’d released his muscles in instinctual response.

“So, that over there…” Yoshiki said, glancing over at the now-scattered pile of heavily-marked clothing and blankets.

Hikaru blinked as if waking up. He left his hand loose in Yoshiki’s hold as he turned around to survey his own mess, sniffling one more time with a shrug of his shoulders. Anyone else might have been embarrassed to have someone else see this, but to Hikaru it seemed like it was the most natural thing in the world. He shrugged a little before replying.

“I dunno…” His nose was blocked. “I felt like gettin’ in one, but making it wasn’t easy like I thought it’d be.”

If Yoshiki didn’t know Hikaru, he’d have thought the pile was only a stack of nest materials left haphazardly for later use. But he knew him and suspected that this itself was actually an initial attempt at a nest. It was just really bad compared to what he’d seen of his mom’s nests. But no one had taught Hikaru how to make a nest, and Yoshiki imagined that he hadn’t tried much to figure it out himself before making the most nest-like pile he could and burying himself in it.

He must have been trying to comfort himself. Had this Hikaru even known what sadness or rejection felt like, before Yoshiki tried to cut off their ill-fated relationship? He must have been trying to make himself feel better by whatever way came easiest instinctually.

Yoshiki remembered being four or five and getting into his mom’s nests when he felt scared after a nightmare. Nests were made of warmth and security. Even now, even when he knew he was never gonna get in a nest again since he definitely wouldn’t get married, Yoshiki kept those memories with fondness.

“Do ya know where I went wrong?” Hikaru asked.

“Well…” Yoshiki hesitated. How was he supposed to know? “Maybe ya could search up instructions?”

Hikaru turned his lips into an unhappy upside-down v, like an exaggerated pout. Yoshiki felt a pang in his heart despite the fact that he’d already decided that he couldn’t treat this Hikaru as the one he’d lost. That Hikaru had also hated looking up instructions; he’d rather make a hundred fruitless attempts at something than look up a single hint for it. Yoshiki was always the one who had to secretly search for tips and then secretly slip them into a conversation for Hikaru to take the advice.

“Okay, fine. I’ll search it up for ya,” Yoshiki sighed. “But you’re gonna be the one makin’ it. It’s too embarrassing.”

“Sounds good!” Hikaru’s pink-tinged grin could light up the village and the town too with how pleased it was. “Hey… ya know,” He added quietly, tilting his head down a little with that smile still on his lips, “Yer really so nice to me, even after I did all that… So, well… Thank you, Yoshiki.”

Yoshiki couldn’t move or respond for a while. Maybe his brain had been fried by the sudden shock of that bashful, pleased expression on an otherwise familiar face.

It was so obvious, suddenly, that Yoshiki could have never succeeded in putting a wall against him. One way or another, he’d have surely folded eventually. How was he supposed to stay away from something that smiled so genuinely with Hikaru’s face and so desperately needed Yoshiki around? It was like a trap that was set specifically to snare Yoshiki's heel.

After a moment, Yoshiki laughed under his breath at his own ridiculous weakness. This was dangerous, wasn’t it? Just like Kurebayashi-san had said, this was a dangerous and harmful creature. It was a twisted relationship. A relationship between a snail and a baby bird, a slimy little stupid snail cozying up to the baby bird like it didn’t know it was just future food. It was going to ruin him, wasn’t it? It was going to ruin his life.

It was dangerous. He knew that. But equally as much, he couldn’t help but think that this baby bird was his baby bird now. Maybe if he taught him well enough, no one would have to get eaten at all.

Well... Either way, Yoshiki didn’t know how he was supposed to take the danger of it seriously when the first thing he had to teach Hikaru about humanity had ended up being nest-making.

“It’s okay,” Yoshiki said, wry smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “We’ll figure it out somehow.”

They would figure it out somehow.

Chapter Text

Yoshiki was right. The scent clinging to him indeed ended up as a big fight with his mom. She was furious and wanted to know who this omega was, where Yoshiki had met them, and how they had ended up in such terrible despair with him in such close proximity. In the first place, there weren’t that many people in the whole town area that his mom didn’t at least tangentially know; possibly, she was assuming that he met someone from out of town. She didn’t take it well that he didn’t want to name them.

“I can’t tell ya, Mom,” Yoshiki could only say, head bowed, “I’m sorry, I can’t say. We’re just friends. They’re going through somethin’ right now.”

In the end, his mom compromised by making him swear up and down that nothing truly bad had happened and that Yoshiki would absolutely tell this unknown omega who had supposedly never even met his mom that they could come to her for anything.

“I’m an omega who moved here from out of town too,” She said when she finally calmed down, sighing, “It’s not easy, being an outsider. Tell them I said this too! If they need an adult who understands, I’ll lend an ear or a hand anytime.”

“Okay, Mom,” Yoshiki said. He raised his gaze up from the shadow of his hat to see that his mom was sitting down with her hand flicking the hair of her forehead. She looked tired —she usually did— but there was something determined and kind in her eyes when she looked up at him across the foyer. Her scent covered the kitchen with a strong smell of worry and curiosity both.

“I’ll lend an ear to you too, Yoshiki,” She said.

Yoshiki’s guts clenched painfully, pulse suddenly skipping a few beats. He flicked his head down behind his hat to whisper out a strangled, “Thanks, Mom,” before hurrying up the stairs to his bedroom. Behind him, he could hear her sighing again.

The next day, when he met up with Hikaru to bike to school again, he seemed to have the familiar alpha scent once again settled around him. Now that Yoshiki had smelled the full force of it, he could tell that the insuppressible sliver of the new omega scent had grown underneath the alpha one.

In class, Maki once again raised a fuss about the increasing weirdness of Hikaru’s scent— this time, the rest of their classmates also joined in on the speculation, wondering if Hikaru had some sort of strange disease. They hadn’t yet identified the strange thread as anything but a weirdness in his alpha scent. At their ribbing, Hikaru laughed loudly for such a long time that he ended up in a breathless fit. They only dispersed when the teacher came and told everyone to go back to their seats.

Hikaru’s mischievous, smug gaze flickered towards Yoshiki for a second before class started, his eyes curving with delight above his wide grin. Another secret they shared.

This wasn’t going to last.

Yoshiki didn’t hear a single word of the morning lectures, focused entirely on keeping his breathing normal despite the way his chest ached against it. His stomach would randomly start stabbing him whenever he let his thoughts wander. He just kept his head buried in his arms and tried to keep himself together.

The day ended. Then the next. Yoshiki kept the fear at the back of his mind where the grief lived and went on with his life as much as he could. He already hadn’t been able to sleep at night since the day he saw Hikaru’s corpse anyways; this didn’t add or detract much. Hikaru was dead. He was never coming back. Yoshiki had lived for more than six months with that knowledge. Compared to that, what were some ghosts and monsters? What even was their classmates’ teasing?

Awful things kept happening, but things that were new in good ways also happened, so Yoshiki just kept going on.

The next Monday, Hikaru was laughing uproariously as they biked to school. “And Mom was so worried!” He had tears in his eyes from laughing too much. “She was about to beat him up!”

“Ya shouldn’t make her worry so much,” Yoshiki said softly, voice low.

“I know, I know, but Yoshiki ya should have seen the face the doctor made!” Hikaru pedalled slower to align their bikes and waited until Yoshiki glanced over at him. When Yoshiki looked, Hikaru twisted his face into a hideous exaggerated expression of surprise with his eyes large as pingpong balls, his mouth stretched like the Scream.

“Pu—” Yoshiki couldn’t help but let out a laugh, amused despite himself.

“He said I was a medical mystery!” Hikaru said, hiding his fully wide snaggle-toothed grin behind a hand as they both slowed on the way up a hill, “He couldn’t figure out why my scent was changing and wanted to send me as a study! Well, of course everything looked normal to him, ya know? I’m not sick after all!”

Indo-san had finally figured out that the occasional omega scent that remained smeared in Hikaru’s room wasn’t from him bringing home his friends and hurriedly taken him to the doctor downtown. Yoshiki had searched it up; there were more ways a teenager could find their scent changing suddenly than there were ways to fix it. It probably wouldn’t cause too much trouble so long as Hikaru had a doctor’s note or something. Nobody could get mad at someone for actually just being sick, instead of sick in the head, right?

“I’m not comin’ to bust ya out if ya get taken away for experiments,” Yoshiki said.

Unlike Indo-san, he had yet to even speak the word ‘omega’ out loud in relation to what Hikaru might be doing to his body. No matter how much he thought about it, nothing managed to escape the constriction of his throat. He didn’t know what to say anyways. Maybe he wouldn’t have to confront anything if he just didn’t speak out.

“Ya traitor! I’d have come and saved ya!” Hikaru cried out jokingly, “I’m not riding with ya anymore then!”

With that, he sped furiously down the hill on his way to leaving Yoshiki behind.

Sighing, Yoshiki chased after him.

During the schoolday, everything was still fine. Hikaru was still masking his scent with the alpha scent that Yoshiki knew so well, though it smelled increasingly interesting with how that icy omega scent creeped into it to varying degrees based on how much attention Hikaru was paying it. Even Maki had stopped commenting on it, and instead, his cedary musky scent wavered with great embarrassed confusion in Hikaru’s general direction whenever the ice-cream scent grew larger. He was only a beta anyways, so Yoshiki didn’t know what he was making such a fuss about.

Indo-san had called the principal to explain the situation to him and to make sure that no one other than he and a few teachers would know about this embarrassing disgrace. Yoshiki knew that she hadn’t even told his mom, even though they were fairly good friends. She was probably afraid that this would become a whole topic in the village and ruin Hikaru’s future entirely.

Yoshiki didn’t know how her talk with the principal had gone, but a teacher came to pull Hikaru out of the changing rooms before PE started. Yoshiki waited for a long time but eventually went outside when Hikaru didn’t come back to change. There, he found Hikaru already changed, waiting for him with a confused expression. “Hatako-sen told me to change in the toilet until I got better,” Hikaru said. “Isn’t that weird? No one else’s changing in the toilets.”

“O-oh,” Yoshiki said, not raising his gaze up from the tip of his sneakers. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Yoshiki?”

“Nothing. Let’s go, we’re gonna play dodgeball today.”

Hikaru was instantly cheered up, running off towards the rest of the class alphas and boys. “I love dodgeball! Yoshiki hurry up!”

“Mm,” Yoshiki smiled faintly when Hikaru looked back at him with a grin, though it slid off his face when Hikaru turned away.

Of course, Hikaru’s team won dodgeball. Yoshiki hadn’t expected anything less. To celebrate, they shared papikkos on the way home. When they were biking alone without anyone closer than a mile on the empty country road, Hikaru closed his eyes against the sun and the wind and his scent freed itself into a sweet lemony cold omega scent that cooled the humid heat around them.

Yoshiki breathed it in silently, letting the scent lift the uncomfortable sweat from his skin. He didn’t say a thing.

The summer festival came and went.

Kaoru had always liked Hikaru because he was fun to be around, helped her tease Yoshiki whenever she wanted, and had a strange maturity hidden under his brash joy that reared up whenever Kaoru seemed to need someone to shield her from the adults. Yoshiki hadn’t thought she would notice that Hikaru had changed inside, but he had somewhat expected that their relationship might grow a bit more distant.

It seemed he had been wrong, though. Even though Hikaru didn’t bully Yoshiki much anymore and didn’t try nearly as hard to make her like him and the only really nice thing he’d done was pull her away by the hand from gossiping adults at the summer festival, they were now getting along like a house on fire. They chatted up a storm whenever Hikaru was visiting, Hikaru was the one Kaoru ran up to when she came back home with mom, and she wanted him to see all her toys and hairpins and glittery colourful pens. Yoshiki just couldn’t figure it out at all, but it felt like Kaoru was suddenly the one who wanted Hikaru to like her.

“Can I show yer necklace to Hikaru, Mom? Can I please, please, please? I’m told him you’re gonna give it to me next year and I wanna show him!”

“What’s going on with you and Hikaru-kun these days?” Mom was the one who finally asked what Yoshiki had been desperate to ask. “Are you trying to steal your brother’s best friend?”

“Whaaat?” Kaoru huffed, pouting her lips up at Mom, “Can’t I be friends with him too? Yoshiki’s way lamer than me!”

“You didn’t use to like him this much, did you?”

“Well, yeah,” Kaoru said, “But now he’s really fun to talk to and he’s actually interested in my stuff, so it’s nice telling him. We get along! He’s just cooler, ya know Mom?”

Mom hummed as she continued chopping half a head of cabbage. Her knife hit the board, thunk thunk thunk. “That’s nice. Do you have a crush on Hikaru-kun?”

Yoshiki’s heart stopped where he was hidden behind the doorframe, listening in on them.

“No way!” Kaoru said, “Why do ya have to turn everythin’ weird?!”

“I’m just asking,” Mom protested, “You said he’s cool, didn’t you?”

“I don’t have a crush on him!” Kaoru made exaggerated disgust sounds at the concept of having a crush. “He’s cool in the way I wanna be like him!”

“Okay, okay, I’m just asking,” Mom laughed, “You can show him the necklace if you want to.”

“Whatever! Now I don’t wanna anymore. Eugh, Mom!”

Kaoru stomped out of the kitchen and Yoshiki tried to act like he wasn’t eavesdropping on them. When she saw him, he managed a nervous smile that wasn’t at all suspicious. She glared at him.

“Don’t ya dare tell Hikaru about this.” She said before leaving mulishly towards Mom’s room, where she would presumably still get the necklace she had claimed she didn’t want anymore. The popping annoyance in her cloyingly floral scent barely remained in the hall, infinitely more subtle than the wild and vibrant feelings reflected in Hikaru’s own omega scent whenever he released it fully.

Yoshiki didn’t understand her.

On his next visit, Hikaru was given some pills to try by the doctor, and they were supposed to lessen the omega hormones in his body or something. Indo-san had told him sternly to always take them on time. He took them with laugh as Yoshiki watched.

“It’s not like they reach anything inside me if I don’t want them to,” Hikaru smiled widely with his eyes in crescents, smug and predatory like Yoshiki was in on a secret crime he was planning to commit.

Yoshiki thought back to the icy raw meat feeling of the void inside his body and said, “Guess not.”

He didn’t say anything else about it.

Their bathroom got haunted by some terrifying hair-ghost and Hikaru came over to get rid of it for them.

In the aftermath, Hikaru sat on the toilet seat while Yoshiki stood over him, both of them sopping wet, and Yoshiki brought out the first aid kit. Hikaru had gotten so rattled by the situation that he didn’t seem to have noticed the muddy, almost-familiar alpha scent he was letting through. He was too busy tracking Yoshiki’s every move like Yoshiki might suddenly get hurt the moment he blinked.

Yoshiki was entirely silent as he held Hikaru’s forearm in his hands and disinfected the large purple-red wound there. The shape of Yoshiki’s teeth could be perfectly identified on the wound.

“Ya know there’s no point to ya doin’ this,” Hikaru said, though he didn’t move his arm from Yoshiki’s hold. The nauseating weight of his hot, sweltering watermelon scent pressed against Yoshiki’s body, filling him from the inside out. Yoshiki was flushed and heated everywhere and trying his best to act like he wasn’t.

“I know,” He replied, putting aside the disinfectant and pulling out a large bandaid instead.

Hikaru normally healed his wounds within seconds. Yoshiki had never seen him walk around with a large wound for longer than a few minutes. But he kept looking at the imprint of Yoshiki’s teeth with a curious look in his eyes, and the wound was still there after fifteen minutes. He hadn’t healed it. Maybe he was going to let it heal in a human way.

Hikaru’s scent right now was skin-tingling and overwhelmingly familiar. If Yoshiki didn’t treat this wound, he was going to pull it to his neck and smear his scent over it instead. Try to put some approximation of a claiming mark on Hikaru from beyond the grave as if that could somehow make him belong with Yoshiki.

Hikaru was dead.

“It’s just to keep it covered until ya heal it,” Yoshiki murmured, smoothing the white bandaid over the bite, not daring to look up and see Hikaru’s face.

His hands were still shaking, full of the feeling of Hikaru’s neck giving way under his palms as he tried to drown him.

Yoshiki said, “…sorry.”

Hikaru laughed loudly. “Relax, Yoshiki! Ya can’t hurt me.”

But Yoshiki could. There were many ways to hurt someone. More ways than just hitting them or cutting them, more ways than even anything you did directly to them. There were ways to hurt people that would ruin their whole life without once being in the same room with them. There were thousands of ways to hurt people.

The Hikaru who’d died had once asked him why he was so careful all the time and why he apologised so damn much. Hikaru couldn’t understand it. He never thought about hurting others and didn’t feel the need to know about it, so even if he hurt people it would always be on accident. Not like Yoshiki. Yoshiki knew everything he was doing. He knew hundreds of ways he could hurt people, which was why he had to be more careful than anyone else.

As for this Hikaru… Yoshiki might not be able to kill him, perhaps no one could ever, but he could definitely hurt him. This was a creature who could heal broken bones in seconds, and yet after more than fifteen minutes, blood was still welling under the flimsy bandaid on his forearm, dotted in the shape of Yoshiki’s teeth.

“I can’t relax.” Yoshiki smiled a pale smile under the low shadow of his bangs. “It’s scary.”

“Oh,” Hikaru blinked up at him, before his grin turned wide and his eyes curved into uncanny crescents, “Don’t worry, Yoshiki, I’ll protect ya from anything!”

Inadvertently, Yoshiki’s lips softened a bit into a slightly more genuine smile. “Yer the one who almost got drowned in a bathtub, idiot,” He said, putting away all the firstaid stuff, “Sorry if you’re not inspirin’ much confidence yet.”

“Wha— I could have totally killed that without any accidents if ya hadn’t come in! Grrrr, next time there’s an impurity, you’ll see how I handle it in a flash! Just ya wait Yoshiki!”

“Don’t say it like you want there to be a next time…”

There were many ways to hurt someone.

Asako dying would hurt Asako and her family and her village and her friends. It would hurt Yoshiki even though he had been the one who brought a killer near her.

Hikaru killing someone did hurt Yoshiki even if he didn’t particularly like the person killed. Hikaru being a murderer hurt Yoshiki more than Matsuura-baa-san being dead because Yoshiki was selfish, and he selfishly liked Hikaru and wanted him to be happy and fit in.

If you wanted a fox to be happy in a chicken pen you had to accept to lose a few chickens. Yoshiki was selfish because he wanted the fox and he wanted the chickens too. Somewhere inside, Yoshiki had always known it wasn’t gonna happen… he’d just been so desperate that he hadn’t wanted to be careful. He’d known this was going to hurt people and he had closed his eyes and ears to the reality of it.

Yoshiki had already known that a stab wound likely wouldn’t kill Hikaru.

He had been prepared for it from the moment he pulled that knife out of his dufflebag. It was possible that a stab would kill Hikaru, but more likely it would only hurt him. Yoshiki had pushed that knife into Hikaru’s stmoach knowing all of that. He had known that Yoshiki wanting him dead might be the biggest hurt this knife would cause Hikaru today.

Hikaru liked and depended on Yoshiki. But he loved life. Yoshiki being angry with him might hurt him, Yoshiki wanting him dead might even break his heart, but it probably wouldn’t hurt him so much that he’d leave this body and never return.

Forcing him to kill Yoshiki for this, though, could hurt him that much.

This way, Hikaru would either die or leave the village.

And one way or another, Yoshiki would die having done one right thing for once.

Instead, Yoshiki ended up with half of Hikaru’s existence in the palm of his hand.

Yoshiki had hoped to kill them both and put a clean end to the whole convoluted curse they were plaguing the people of the village with.

Killing Hikaru was easier to stomach than holding a broken half of him in his hands. If Yoshiki kept hurting him, would Hikaru continue breaking more and more pieces of himself off in some childish desire to make it better? Could Yoshiki even hurt him again now?

Lying at night in the darkness of his room, Yoshiki held up the broken bone piece between his index and thumb. It didn’t reflect light, but there still seemed to be fractals of nauseatingly dizzy colours extending out of it that only appeared when Yoshiki tilted it just right. This was an incredibly small, even inconsequential piece of his friend’s body… and a whole half of the creature who loved Yoshiki so much it would rip itself into two to make him feel safer.

This, too, was as much Yoshiki’s doing as if he had reached his arm into Hikaru’s chest and ripped half of him out with his own hands.

If Yoshiki wanted Hikaru to be less scary and inhuman, Hikaru would definitely cut himself into smaller and smaller pieces. He could probably become far less than what he was now and still survive. He could probably become so small he’d fit in a single one of Hikaru’s hair strands, instead of so large that Hikaru’s body expanded infinitely inside to fit all of him in.

Yoshiki thought that if the time came where he had to tell Hikaru to become any smaller, he would rather just kill them both properly this time.

After so long, and so many terrible awful things, the next week Yoshiki was sitting on the floor of the abandoned shed he and Hikaru had found when they were kids. Their very own secret base, with their little cache of games and snacks still safely stored, and even the old musty cardboard box they’d used to keep the now-dead injured crow baby still remaining at a corner of it. Now, a few streams of sunlight were the only sources of illumination in the boarded-up shed as Yoshiki stacked large stones atop each other next to Crowley’s little grave.

He made a nameless memorial for the Hikaru that only he knew was dead.

He’d have wanted to write Hikaru’s name on the stones, but not only would it seem crazy if someone found it, it might also cast suspicion on the Hikaru that had returned. Also… Yoshiki felt like he couldn’t write a name that was still being used on a gravestone. If, one day, he was calling Hikaru by a different name… Then, on that day, he would write ‘Indo Hikaru’ on this grave.

Yoshiki put his hands together and closed his eyes. ‘Hikaru… I miss you…’

“Yoshiki? Whatcha doing over there?”

“Making a memorial.”

Hikaru flopped onto the ground next to him. Whenever he came so close, the cold taste of his ice-cream scent cooled the humid air filling Yoshiki’s lungs. Yoshiki glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The few beams of sunlight had all somehow fallen onto Hikaru, shining brilliantly on his white hair and his depthless light eyes, framing the carefully gentle way he was making an effort to look at Yoshiki’s pathetic little gravestones. Suddenly heartsick, Yoshiki had to turn back to the two graves.

The only time that the crushing grief in his chest eased a little was when Hikaru was smiling beside him, so different from the Hikaru he had lost.

Yoshiki glanced at Hikaru again. He was watching Yoshiki from over his forearm curled around pulled-up knees, and under his cheek was the flimsy white bandaid hiding the bloodied wound in the shape of Yoshiki’s teeth. It was still there. Yoshiki couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t healing— even if Hikaru didn’t heal it with his unnatural powers, it should have closed up and started disappearing by now.

He was entirely nonchalant about keeping that bite, but Yoshiki couldn’t get it out of his mind. If anyone saw it, they were going to think it might be a wrongly-placed half-bond mark from an omega Hikaru was dating. If anyone saw it when Hikaru was hanging out somewhere isolated with only Yoshiki beside him like now, relaxed enough that his scent flipped entirely to omega, they were going to think Yoshiki was the one he was dating.

“Why’s it healing so slow?” Yoshiki asked quietly without looking at Hikaru. “The bitemark, I mean. Ya fixed a whole stab wound in under a minute, didn’t ya?”

“I don’t know,” Hikaru leant back to raise his arm under the sunbeam. The light shone bright enough that the still-purple wound could be vaguely seen under the bandaid, a circle of blood and bruises marking the meat of his forearm. “Whenever I think I should make my body heal it, something at the back of my brain keeps itchin’ and itchin’ like it doesn’t want me to do that.”

Yoshiki reared back in shock, face burning hot. “W-whatcha sayin’ out loud?! How shameless are ya!”

“What’s that supposed ta mean!” Hikaru protested, hitting Yoshiki on the shoulder as he glared. “Yer the shameless one! I just said I dunno why I can’t heal it, didn’t I?”

Yoshiki sat forward again with the full momentum of his body. He breathed in the cool, sweet scent smearing all over him. He breathed out in a huff.

After a moment, he pulled his hands together to clasp them over his lap.

“Do ya really not know?” He asked, “Really?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Hikaru replied, shifting in place to crisscross his legs and lean back against his hands. He turned his head to watch Yoshiki full on, like he always did. His every look at Yoshiki had the joyful, free confidence of someone who didn’t hide a single thing or keep a single secret. “Well, I do know that it’s probably cause I like ya a whole lot. It has somethin’ to do with that right?”

Yoshiki curled closer to the clasped hands on his lap. His face was almost entirely red now. Sometimes the things this Hikaru said had a way of making Yoshiki feel tiny and terrified, like some ugly little bug hiding in a dark hole, living its whole pathetic life curled up in fear. But not in an entirely bad way. In the way where the bug might only feel the full weight of its miserable life only if it looked up in its dark hole and saw a tiny pinprick of light above.

Come to think of it, that whole ‘mixing’ thing which Kurebayashi-san had warned them about also felt similar to that. Terrifying and disgusting and enthralling nonetheless.

“Ya know why yer scent’s changing at least, don’t ya?”

“Oh,” Hikaru suddenly looked abashed, rubbing the back of his head and glancing up at Yoshiki with hesitant eyes. “Um. Sorry. About that, ya don’t want me changin’ Hikaru’s body like this, right? I just wanted to… try… But I guess ya want me to put it back to how it was. I’m sorry, Yoshiki.”

“So you’re really changing yerself to an omega,” Yoshiki spoke, speaking the word out for the very first time. “How are ya even doing that?”

“Y’all already have everything inside you,” Hikaru said with some soft wonder, looking up at Yoshiki through his lashes, “I guess maybe cause you present as kids? It’s just a matter of shutting down one part or pulling up the other… the scent changed on its own when I started. I didn’t think it’d be so obvious… but…” Hikaru mumbled the rest of the sentence so inaudibly that Yoshiki didn’t understand a word of it.

“What was that?”

“…I was a bit happy,” Hikaru repeated in a tiny voice. He was pushing all of his fingers together in the cross of his legs, fidgeting nervously. He glanced up again. “I dunno why… I was happy that you noticed. I was happy when Maki and them looked at me all different. Then I thought I shouldn’t be happy, cause I was supposed to be actin’ like the real Hikaru for ya and ya wouldn’t want me to be… all different and stuff.”

“Yer not even good at acting like him anyways,” Yoshiki laughed.

He couldn’t imagine Hikaru looking at him up with such honestly vulnerable eyes for any reason.

“Hehe,” Hikaru lowered his head, embarrassed. “Well, when ya say it that way…”

“So… why an omega?” Yoshiki asked.

“Well, at first… Um, objectively, it’s not like human bodies are that different, one from another,” Hikaru mumbled, “So I wasn’t really thinking of changin’ it around and makin’ ya mad. Ya know— ‘cause ya wanted me to act the way the real Hikaru did.”

“But?” Yoshiki asked.

Hikaru stopped, pursing his lips. “You’re gonna think I’m creepy.”

“It’s fine.”

“…don’t be disgusted with me, okay?”

“Just tell me already,” Yoshiki said.

“Remember when we saw that couple near the taiyaki shop like ages ago?” Hikaru said awkwardly, “After we talked about me not bein’ Hikaru?”

Yoshiki tried to remember. The memories of those days were mostly covered in a haze of painful misery and sleepless exhaustion, punctuated by crystal-clear snapshots of Hikaru joyfully discovering the world. Luckily, he did seem to remember it— he’d found Hikaru staring in shocked awe at an omega with his belly huge from pregnancy, accompanied by an alpha almost half a meter taller than him. It’d been interesting, because there were like five male omegas total in the whole town, but not nearly as shocking as Hikaru had made it seem.

“It was the first time I saw somethin’ like that. There were three whole souls inside him,” Hikaru said, still enraptured even after weeks had passed, “That’s gotta be warm like crazy. And I just thought… no wonder, everyone’s gotta want to be an omega. Being human is fun, but they seem to have the best of it. It just seems better all around, ya know. So I thought maybe, if I became an omega too… maybe I could give it a try?”

“Give it a try?” Yoshiki asked. Give what a try?

His brain seemed to be stalling, slow as one of those ancient dusty computers from their school library that showed a dark screen with a buffering icon for five whole minutes before it could boot up, and then suddenly it clicked. Wait. No.

Yoshiki’s brain came alight with panic and he shouted, “Ya can’t just get knocked up out of nowhere! Yer still in highschool—”

“I can wait a bit?”

“—and, and what if ya eat their souls—”

“I’ll be real careful!”

“—and who’s even gonna be the dad?!”

“Well…” Hikaru was looking at him with a hopeful half-smile and Yoshiki was about to go insane.

“Yer crazy! This is crazy,” Yoshiki made a shaky, nervous groan. “This is crazy. No, this is ridiculous. You’re just gonna get knocked up cause ya wanna keep human souls in yer pocket? You’re making no sense! Who’s even gonna take care of those kids after they’re born?! How’s that even fair to them!”

“Eh, there’s all these souls around here wanting to get reincarnated,” Hikaru said with great ease, “Really, I’ll be doin’ them a big favour if ya think about it! And humans like babies, right? Someone’ll take them in.”

Yoshiki finally couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed Hikaru by the top of his head to stare straight into his eyes.

“Hey, what’s the deal with—” Hikaru met Yoshiki’s shaking gaze and instantly fell silent as a scared mouse.

“Hikaru,” Yoshiki said, “No kids unless you figure out what it means to be a parent!”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Hikaru hurriedly nodded, once again giving Yoshiki that pleading sad gaze, not resisting the iron hold Yoshiki had on his head. “No gettin’ knocked up. Got it. I was gonna ask ya anyways, for real.”

Yoshiki hurriedly let go of Hikaru’s hair and leant away. His heart was beating a triple beat in his chest. He turned his head down to hide the furious blush on his face. “Don’t say it like that, idiot,” He muttered, “So that whole soul thing’s what got ya to change into an omega?”

“Are ya creeped out?” Hikaru’s eyes were still wide and sorrowful as he stared at Yoshiki. “You’re creeped out, aren’t ya? I really wasn’t gonna eat them… And I don’t even know if it’d be possible in the first place, so… It’s not just that either. I dunno how to explain it. I just thought I’d really be missin’ out if I didn’t change it after all. But if you hate it, I’ll change it back. Um, but it’ll take a lot longer now, since there’s only half of me in here.”

“You’ll really change if I ask?” Yoshiki asked, staring at Hikaru’s face which was half shadowed by the angle of the falling sunbeams. “But it seems like ya really like being an omega.”

“I do but… you know I’d do anything for you, Yoshiki,” Hikaru smiled in embarrassment and scratched his cheek, glancing over with his light eyes turned into crescents above pink cheeks. “I’d do anything ya ask me to, even if it’s awful or hard.”

For all of a moment, Yoshiki couldn’t take his eyes off of him. He could only silently continue watching. He only noticed how weird he was being after a long while, ducking his head to hide his eyes under the shadow of his hair.

Hikaru wasn’t human. Even when doing things that should have been the most obvious and normal for a human, he couldn’t do it in the right way. Even just to avoid killing people, he had resort to such crazy measures as ripping himself into two and giving Yoshiki one half of himself. Right… But even something like him… even something so wrong and so monstrous and so ill-fitting as Hikaru should have a place to belong somewhere, right?

Maybe there was no one in this world who’d answer that in affirmative.

But Yoshiki wanted it to be true.

Then, for it to be true, he would give Hikaru the whole of everything he had in him.

“No need,” Yoshiki replied hoarsely. He had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Ya don’t have to try to be human, either. Actually, I’d like it if ya didn’t. You should just be… whatever ya want.”

“Really?” Hikaru asked quietly, his small smile brighter than the summer skies.

His icy cold scent rose high in boundless joy, sweeter than the near-inedible strawberry vanilla ice-cream sold at the corner store. A recklessly omega scent that left no doubts in anyone who might smell it.

“Mhm.” Yoshiki promised, smiling as he reached forward to rub Hikaru’s head with as much condescending playfulness as he could bring out from himself.

“Hahaha, stop that!” Hikaru tried to escape Yoshiki’s hand, grinning wildly as he said, “No takebacks, Yoshiki!”

“Mm.” Yoshiki’s hand lightened slowly until Hikaru could once again straighten his head up. Before Yoshiki noticed, he was just carding his fingers through Hikaru’s soft white hair while Hikaru leant into the touch. “I know.”

Chapter Text

At school, things kept changing. Hikaru cared the least about keeping up appearances when he was at school and the most about it when he was coming over to Yoshiki’s house. It didn’t seem to be something he was consciously doing, so Yoshiki didn’t know how to bring it up with him. Whenever he alluded to it, Hikaru either joked about it or teased Yoshiki for being a prude. He just couldn’t find the words to tell Hikaru to hide himself in a way he’d understand Yoshiki meant it. Every time the words rose in his mouth, they tasted like bile.

Once, when Hikaru was running across the school grounds towards Yoshiki after school, he bumped into one of the third-year senpais under the open corridor. It was raining like crazy that afternoon, so he’d had his drenched uniform jacket over his head— when he hit the senpai, the senpai immediately reached over as if to help him up with a sweet smile, saying, “Hey, ya okay there? Are ya one of the first-years?”

Yoshiki, who was waiting under the awning of the building nearby, felt his heart drop. He knew that the senpai had come across Hikaru’s scent at an ice-cream-leaning moment and couldn’t recognize him.

The first-year omegas were all friendly with each other this year, going around in large groups with some beta girls, and no one had been able to date one yet. The senpai probably couldn’t differentiate them by scent. There had been a rumour going around that Hikaru was the most likely to snag one of those first-year omegas, before… everything. It wasn’t happening now for sure. And anyways that was a dumb rumour cause Hikaru had always liked soft-spoken and mature beauties like Satou-senpai. He wasn’t really into younger omegas.

Speaking of third-year senpais… while most of the alpha senpais knew Hikaru by scent, not a lot of them interacted with him. There were always fights even in the football club on whether Hikaru’s uncontrollable, throat-scraping scent was sufficient grounds of keeping him out of the club rooms. The alphas who didn’t have to approach him wouldn’t. The scent he emitted whenever he was excited was annoying enough for them to turn away in corridors and avoid the area when they smelled it.

“Thanks!” Hikaru smiled briefly under his jacket before turning to leave. “I gotta go.”

“Hey, wait,” The senpai stepped into Hikaru’s way, still smiling that wide smile, “Ya didn’t answer my question. Yer a first-year after all, aren’t ya? Ya talk so rude even though you’re an omega!”

From the tone of his words, he didn’t think that was a particularly bad thing. Yoshiki froze in place, unable to move. Upperclassmen had always hated how Hikaru didn’t talk to them in keigo. But rudeness from an alpha was one thing, and from an omega first-year maybe it was a whole other thing.

The senpai hadn’t recognized Hikaru. He was probably one of those who didn’t even come close to Hikaru normally. And that’s why he was properly perceiving the omega scent that was overwhelming Hikaru’s alpha scent today instead of pushing it aside as ‘just a weird sick smell’.

If Yoshiki went there, would the senpai recognize Hikaru by proxy?

“What do ya mean?” Hikaru asked, frowning, “I ain’t gonna start talkin’ in keigo to you just cause I smell like an omega.”

“It’s okay! Yer cute so it’s okay with me, haha,” The senpai stepped eagerly towards Hikaru, making him step back towards the wall with a bemused look on his face. “You don’t have an umbrella? You can share mine if ya want! I’m Yamahashi Hiro from 3-C. Which class are you from?”

“I already know who you are,” Hikaru said, furrowing his brows as if he couldn’t figure out why this alpha senpai was being so overbearingly friendly to him, “And I don’t need yer umbrella either. The hell? Look, I have to go, my friend’s waitin’ for me.”

“Yer friend can share my umbrella too, if they want. What do ya think about me showin’ you two some cool places around town? I live near the market so I know a lotta small shops no one else knows!”

The senpai took another step forward. Hikaru now had his back pressed against the wall, his face shadowed entirely by a column. From under the awning, Yoshiki could only see the faint, faint glow of his red pupils staring up at the senpai.

“You’re bein’ so annoying,” Hikaru said slowly. “What’s wrong with ya now? Didn’t you say last year that I’m the most irritatin’ kouhai you’ve ever smelled? Why are ya bein’ so friendly now? Yer not even possessed by somethin’.”

“That’s funny! So where’s yer friend waiting?” The senpai laughed, clearly not listening to a single word Hikaru said. Maybe he was more nervous than he let on, talking to an omega first-year whom no one from his year had managed to befriend. Possibly, that was even the main reason he was so insistent on chatting up Hikaru despite his rude disinterest, his wide, muscled shoulders and his somewhat-off scent.

“Whatever. I’m leavin’ now,” Hikaru said, hitching his jacket properly over his head and walking past the senpai.

“Wait, c’mon, we’re schoolmates aren’t we? Ya don’t need to leave so fast, I—” The senpai grabbed Hikaru’s arm, pulling him back towards the wall.

“The hell’s yer deal?!” Hikaru’s back hit the wall again, but he tugged his arm out of the senpai’s hold with anger, “Yer so persistent for no reason!”

The senpai was also getting annoyed by now. “Why are ya acting like I’m some harasser! I’m just bein’ a nice senpai and offering to show ya around places, aren’t I? Ya don’t have to be so cold!”

“Huh? You are actin’ like some harasser!” Hikaru’s eyes were starting to narrow where he was hidden under the shadows. “Seriously, what’s yer deal? Ya wanna fight or somethin’?”

“Ya think ya can actually fight me?” The senpai clicked his tongue. “Do I look that weak to ya, huh? I’m just bein’ nice cause yer an omega, ya don’t wanna know what’d happen if I actually went against ya!”

He grabbed Hikaru’s arm again —same arm, the one that Yoshiki’s teeth hadn’t been on— and slammed it hard against the wall. Hikaru was staring at him from under the jacket with icy cold eyes that glowed with pure condescending disgust, an expression Yoshiki had never seen on that face before. He hadn’t even known that Hikaru could make such an expression. Something was flickering like dark tendrils at the bottom of Hikaru’s feet: A shadow, or maybe something far worse. Yoshiki’s heart started beating like a battle drum, fear squeezing his throat.

“Now what, huh? Ya can’t even get outta this, can ya?” The senpai taunted, an equilibrium returning meanly to his demeanour.

“Hah,” Hikaru let out a laugh, mocking.

He snapped his arm forward with such force that the senpai was thrown back, stumbling a few unbalanced steps before he finally fell on his butt on the concrete ground. It was that easy for Hikaru to get out of the senpai’s hold. If Hikaru had wanted to really throw him, that senpai would have probably flown all the way across the school and smashed against the wall like a crushed bug. He had held back. Yoshiki’s heart slowed a little.

The senpai was still staring up at Hikaru with wide eyes. Fury soon returned to his expression. “Ya rude bitch!” He rushed up and at Hikaru.

This was going to end in a murder.

Yoshiki felt adrenaline pour cold from the top of his head down to his feet and ran out from under the awning into the rain. He threw himself between the furious senpai and the equally furious Hikaru. He ushered Hikaru behind his back closer to the wall, blocking him, and Hikaru went easily where Yoshiki pushed him.

The senpai grabbed Yoshiki by the collar instead. “Get outta the way!” He snapped, “Ya think yer some hero of justice? Did ya come to laugh at me too?”

He tugged up at Yoshiki’s collar, but he couldn’t pull him up because Yoshiki stood inches over him.

“…” Yoshiki couldn’t say a word.

He swallowed, staring down at the senpai with silent eyes and trying to figure out what to say. He had never been in a single fight before. He hoped a teacher would come by soon.

If it came to the point where Yoshiki had to throw a punch, they were literally done for. Or rather, the senpai was. Hikaru would destroy him.

As the initial tugging didn’t work on Yoshiki, the senpai’s furious, embarrassed scent poured over him like a threat. It smelled grassy, not sweet but certainly heavy, and although it was so obviously an alpha scent it didn’t bother Yoshiki’s nose at all. It just made him nervous and ashamed, trying not to breathe it in. He ducked his face down.

By then, the senpai finally placed Yoshiki’s gloomy face, long bangs and moles. “Yer that shadow always following Indo around, aren’t ya?! Tsujiwaka!”

“…it’s Tsujinaka, senpai.”

Behind Yoshiki, a large palm gently pressed on his back. “Yoshiki!” Hikaru whispered happily, “Why’d ya come? I have it handled! No one’s gonna get hurt, promise!”

Yoshiki stared back at the senpai, not moving. He trusted that Hikaru did mean what he was saying… he just wasn’t sure if it would hold when the senpai kept pushing him. If the senpai tried something absolutely out of line then Hikaru might truly kill him out of nowhere.

“What do ya want, Tsujinaka? Go back to yer stupid friend already!” The senpai growled deep from his chest, shaking the front of Yoshiki’s drenched uniform rather ineffectually. “Do ya have a thing for this first-year or somethin’? Don’t tell me yer dating him?!”

Yoshiki was frozen. He couldn’t say a word in response. He wasn’t good at talking back to people older than him, and he was afraid if this turned into a real argument he’d only be able to stammer.

After so much hesitation, that was all he could manage was to murmur, “Senpai… please leave.”

The senpai tried to shake Yoshiki back and forth by the fist in his shirt again. His fist only tugged Yoshiki’s shirt one way and the other. The senpai’s scent grew more and more hostile, his growl becoming lower and more defensive, while Hikaru’s cold scent was also rising annoyed behind him. Yoshiki felt like a mere paper barrier between Hikaru and his potential victim.

As Yoshiki kept standing, the senpai breathed in quickly in instinct before exclaiming in disgust, “Yer so fucking weird too, like a brick wall! Can’t smell a thing on ya!”

The senpai glared up at Yoshiki’s frozen eyes hidden under the shadow of his wet bangs. He had to turn his head up pretty far to do so. Yoshiki still didn’t know what to do, so he could only stare back in silence.

The senpai swallowed visibly.

“Please leave,” Yoshiki said quietly again, lowering his head a little further and hiding his eyes more under the shadow. The senpai’s nose flared again, only to get nothing out of Yoshiki’s scent.

“Wh…” The senpai jerked his hand off of Yoshiki’s shirt. “Whatever! Do what ya like with this weirdo then! Betcha yer omega’s only interested in Indo anyways, ya dumb beanpole!”

He walked away so fast it looked he like was running.

Yoshiki watched him until he disappeared into the empty school building, then he breathed out a sigh of relief. His shoulders slumped.

At the same time, he noticed the muddy shadow surrounding his feet on the shoe-wet floor pull away behind him. When he turned back to look at Hikaru, he spotted the anemone tips of the half-transparent slime disappear into the smiling Hikaru. It had been curled around Yoshiki this whole time, waiting to strike? Terrifying.

“Wow, Yoshiki, didn’t know ya had it in ya!” Hikaru stared up at Yoshiki with feverish eyes that completely destroyed the teasing air of his cat-smug smile. “Ya were real cool, staring down that senpai like nothing. Why’d ya have to get in between though? I told ya I’ll protect ya from anything myself, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell ya that?”

This felt a bit dangerous.

“Do ya know how scared I was? I— I don’t wanna stand up to senpais either,” Yoshiki said, lips pursed, “I just thought he might try somethin’ really outta line on ya, so…”

“Huh?” Hikaru’s expression calmed a little into something less vibrantly dangerous. He asked curiously, “What do ya think he could even do to me?”

“I dunno, somethin’ perverted.” There was still a curious expression on Hikaru’s face, so Yoshiki had to admit it through gritted teeth, “Like kissing ya suddenly or something.”

“Oh, ew! Who wants to kiss a lame ass alpha like him!” Hikaru was indignant. “How long have I been savin’ my first kiss for someone special?! Let’s go Yoshiki, I’m not even gonna stand around here in this hall anymore!”

Yoshiki was tugged away into the pouring summer rain as Hikaru stomped through the splashing mud, still muttering under his breath.

He didn’t know if Hikaru was aware of it, how he sometimes spoke like he had always been the Hikaru Yoshiki had lost. That first kiss had been saved by that Hikaru, and that special someone was always meant to be the omega he would marry into the Indo family, except now those special occasions carefully saved by Hikaru were entrusted into the hands of something who didn’t care one bit about humanity. Hikaru had died, leaving behind every good and correct thing he had planned for his future. Now the broken shards of that future were left around for others to pick up.

If Yoshiki asked now, he could probably easily steal that special unattainable first kiss reserved just for future Mrs. Indo. Probably Hikaru would happily give it to him. Of course, a kiss now wouldn’t be future Mrs. Indo’s special kiss; the one Yoshiki had always fantasised guiltily about stealing. It would just be Yoshiki’s kiss.

The two of them would slowly loot Hikaru’s corpse clean of every treasure he’d guarded.

Monster.

Quietly, Yoshiki asked, “You still care about those things then?”

“What do ya mean?” Hikaru turned over his shoulder to look at Yoshiki with an eye-crescenting grin. “You beat down a senpai to protect that first kiss for me, didn’t you? It’s my treasure now!”

Yoshiki lowered his head and muttered under his breath; “I didn’t beat him.”

“Ya beat him.”

“I didn’t!”

“Yoshiki I heard ya beat a senpai for confessing to the first-year omega yer dating!”

Maki cried out indignantly, and his incense-like scent poured out in a wave of betrayal fake as the tears in his eyes.

“How could ya keep this secret!” He complained, hitting Yoshiki’s desk with his healthy arm, “Ya managed to get a date?! When! How! Also which senpai was it?!”

Yoshiki was mortified. “I-it’s not true,” He managed to say.

“It’s true!” Hikaru jumped up from next to him, grinning widely, “He was so crazy, just starin’ down that senpai like it was nothin’! The senpai tried to throw him down but Yoshiki didn’t even budge! The guy was so scared he ran with his tail between his legs!”

“Holy shit, is that true?” Asako came over with Yuuki by her side, looking at Yoshiki and exclaiming theatrically, “Who even are ya!”

Yoshiki buried his face in his hands. “That ain’t what happened!”

“He’s been replaced by an alien,” Asako said, “That’s the only explanation comin’ to mind.”

“Hmm,” Yuuki said, tapping the side of her cheek, “Scifi horror now?”

“Got it in one!” Asako laughed, putting her arm around Yuuki’s shoulders, “What would ya like yer prize to be, valued customer, ma’am? Yer the star of our quiz show!”

Yuuki laughed loudly. “It ain’t hard to be the star of yer ‘What weird genre of movies is Asako into now?’ show.”

“Yoshiki, don’t tell me that the alpha who had a fight here after school was ya as well?” Asako grinned at him, “I heard Hara-sen’s still searchin’ for them, and yer the only senpai-beating delinquent I know around!”

Yoshiki let out a pained sound from within his hands.

“Huh? Someone got into a fight in the classroom?” Hikaru raised his eyebrows.

“Oh right, you were skippin’ that day, weren’t ya?” Yuuki said. “The class prez found the chairs and desks thrown around in the morning, and the floor was covered so hard in some alpha’s scent that they had to put us in another classroom till lunch while they cleaned it. Hara-sen’s sure it was a fight but no one’s been found yet. They couldn’t identify the scent. And hear this, the prez is still sayin’ that it’s gotta be a mistake!”

“Whoa, that’s crazy! How did I miss on that?” Hikaru leant forward on his desk, gaze sparkling with curiosity. “So what’s prez thinkin’ happened then?”

“I dunno.” Yuuki shrugged before smiling impishly, her eyes narrowed into crescents. “She’s totally on the side of the mystery delinquent though. Says that alpha couldn’t harm a mosquito, there’s no way they were in a fight, or if they were they must’ve been bullied into it or somethin’. Don’t ya think she’s just fallen for their scent, though?”

“She found it first and got the most of the scent,” Asako hummed contemplatively, “The teachers who smelled it also didn’t think it was a fight, right? Hara-sen’s going on and on ‘bout how there’s no good reason for an alpha leavin’ their scent all over school property but maybe the class prez ain’t totally wrong either.”

“She said it was the gentlest scent she’d smelled.” Yuuki giggled. “I think she’s totally into them!”

“I can’t believe I missed all that!” Hikaru exclaimed, “How come none of ya told me before?! Traitors!”

“You were skippin’ school and Yoshiki here was surrounded by an aura of doom and gloom, so we thought ya two were arguin’ or something,” Asako said, “After that… ummm, I guess it slipped our minds?”

“It was just a few days before the choir competition too, so,” Yuuki said, and she crossed her arms to frown at them, “Ya both skipped on us that day too! And we’re the traitors? Now ya for sure owe us a trip somewhere when summer vacation starts. And you too, Yoshiki!”

Yoshiki nervously raised his face from where it had been buried in his hands and peeked over the tips of his fingers. “…sorry.”

“Let’s go somewhere really fun this time!” Hikaru said instead of apologizing, shining like a high-voltage lightbulb electrified by the idea of a trip. “Camping! No, wait— let’s go to the beach!”

“Oooh, the beach sounds good!” Asako said, “Right Yu-chan?”

“Mm, sure!”

“No!” Came an unexpected protest.

Everyone turned to Maki, who had his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Yes to the beach! But no to the topic! No more changin’ the subject,” Maki said. He pointed his hand at Yoshiki. “We haven’t dug out his secrets yet!”

Yoshiki hurriedly hid his face with his hand and cowered behind his bangs, asking plaintively, “Can’t we leave me be..?”

“Huh? No way! How can ya hide this from us?” Maki said, “It’s crazy that yer dating someone! Did ya k-kiss yet? Did ya put a bite on them?! Reveal the name of yer lover already!”

“I keep tellin’ ya, there ain’t one,” Yoshiki said, muffled in his palm.

He’d probably never date or put a half-bond mark on an omega his whole life, let alone marry them and mate. He probably wouldn’t even be able to do it if he wanted to, the way his scent refused to appear. Even Maki was more likely to be able to mark someone; he clearly liked Yuuki so if he could get her to date him, he was no doubt gonna find a way to do it, transient beta scent or not. Yoshiki just didn’t know why he had to project all this onto him.

“Hikaru says the rumours are true, don’t ya?” Maki turned to Hikaru. “Reveal the name of his lover!”

“Well, the whole senpai beat down did happen… But there weren’t any first-years ‘round,” Hikaru laughed, “Ya wanna know who the senpai was hittin’ on?”

Yoshiki’s eyes widened, and he was just about to stop Hikaru before he admitted loudly:

“It’s me!” Hikaru made a gesture above his head. “I had my jacket over my head like so, and he couldn’t recognize me at all! So he thought I gotta be a first-year!”

A sudden quiet, before their friends started laughing like crazy. Yoshiki slowly lowered himself over the desk to bury his head in the cross of his arms.

“What the hell?!” Maki laughed, “That’s crazy! Was he some pervert or somethin’?”

“And to go for Hikaru?” Yuuki laughed with that honest laugh that sometimes ripped shrilly out of her lungs. “Ya look nothin’ like an omega! Yer shortness’s the only thing ya have goin’ for ya in that way. Did we have a blind senpai? A-chan, do we have a blind senpai?”

“Haha, stop it Yu-chan!” Asako laughed too. When Yoshiki stayed unmoving and Hikaru only grinned silently, though, it somewhat softened with uncertainty. “Um, maybe..?”

“How’d that even happen? Did he come over to ya keepin’ his nose pinched? Did he have a summer cold?!” Maki kept exclaiming in disbelief. “I mean, even without seein’ ya, just smellin’ ya it’s obvious… that you’re a…”

Yoshiki glanced between his bangs and his arm at the semicircle of his friends, a shiver gathering at his back. At Maki’s words their laughter had finally ended in a silence filled with deep confusion. Hikaru was still grinning, his brows raised.

“Huh?” Maki muttered, rubbing the side of his neck and averting his eyes as a bit of embarrassment rose on his cheeks. “Was yer scent always this… sweetish? It’s even weirder now, smellin’ ya… and here we’d thought ya couldn’t get any weirder than yer burning fire scent!”

Asako sniffed carefully at the air. “…I’m somewhat seein’ why a senpai didn’t recognise ya? It’s till yer scent but it’s a bit, um, I dunno. If I walked by ya in the dark, I wouldn’t recognise ya either. That…” She hesitated. “That doesn’t seem good. Right?”

She then looked at Yuuki next to her, both of their eyes widening in sudden realisation when they noticed how Yuuki had automatically positioned herself at the angle furthest away from Hikaru upwind— the same way any class alpha who’d come to talk to them would. Yuuki smelled the air too, wrinkling her brows when she did so.

“I guess it’s that sickness ya had…” Yuuki blurted out, indelicate and blunt as she always was, “Ya smell a bit like an omega, Hikaru.”

“Sometimes, yeah,” Hikaru laughed, “And ya know, I never thought of it but it can be really annoyin’ right, Yuuki? I mean that senpai was totally talkin’ all over me there!”

Yuuki blinked. Did she seem uncomfortable? Yoshiki couldn’t tell. His chest was crushed inside like an empty crumpled can and he couldn’t look up properly. Her scent just smelled confused. “I guess, it can be,” Yuuki said finally, and she snorted once before starting to tell a story, “Last week when me and Asako were out, lemme tell ya, this group of beta guys in the town centre kept talkin’ and talkin’ and we couldn’t get a word in so we…”

Yoshiki breathed again.

Another day had passed safely. One more day, then one more day... they'd just have to keep living like this.

Just one more day at a time.

Chapter Text

Yoshiki was twelve. It was his first day of middle school. He stood by the desk in his bedroom while he slid notebooks into his bag, deliberately slowing down as he did so. Taking way longer than he needed to.

Downstairs, his mom and dad were yelling at each other— she’d tried to kill the ants invading the kitchen by spraying vinegar and he’d asked her not to, even though that colony of ants was close to destroying everything they had. By now it was mostly her yelling, asking if he couldn’t at least try to care a little about the house they lived in. Yoshiki didn’t know why she still insisted on arguing about what he said and what he did, seeing as he wasn’t going to change. The walls transmitted their muffled voices into the whole house. Next door, Kaoru’s room was entirely silent. She hadn’t gone to school three days in a row and cried for a whole hour when Mom asked her to go today. He didn’t know what was going on with her.

As the walls kept echoing with screams, Yoshiki continued arranging and rearranging the pens in his bag, waiting for the sounds to die out.

Downstairs were his parents fighting, next door was Kaoru and the silence.

Just down the road from his house, at the intersection by the river, Hikaru should be waiting for him.

Yoshiki kept that in the forefront of his thoughts and continued fixing his already-prepared school bag, counting the minutes until he could go.

Thirteen. Middle school was awful in a way no one had prepared him for. In class, only around a quarter of the kids were still unpresented. Every boy around him had a girl or omega they liked, everyone was talking about scents and bites and necks and wrists, and Yoshiki sat in a shadowed corner of the freezing cold gym, terrified of being found with nothing to say and no way not to say it.

Soft skins and sweet scents and the cute voices of the girls next door didn’t mean anything to him. He wasn’t strange… just a late-bloomer. They were all still children. His best friend was still the only and most interesting thing in his life. It was normal. Everyone else just had to be rushing, exaggerating their crushes somehow, too desperate to be adults. Yoshiki didn’t want to be an adult. Yoshiki didn’t want anything to change.

One of the girls had presented as an alpha this year. It could be said that she was still adjusting… but actually she fit in better than Yoshiki had ever done. When she glanced over at Yoshiki clutching a book in the corner of the gym, one of the beta boys punched her on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, ya know, Tsujinaka’s probably gonna…” with a gesture he didn’t understand. She must have, because she laughed in response, “Hey, don’t push him off to them, ain’t like he gets along with the omegas either.”

Yoshiki’s fingers crinkled the side of the page, but he didn’t raise his head. Logically, just a few people talking like this didn’t mean everyone thought that. It didn’t mean anything. But it still coiled slowly inside his chest, suffocating him.

When he hesitantly raised his gaze up from where he was sitting curled up, all the other kids standing around the gym looked like nothing but tall, indifferent shadows looming over him.

Impossible to understand.

Swallowing, he lowered his face back down to the book he hadn’t read one bit since he sat down here.

Right then, something small and foam hit his head. Yoshiki flinched when it hit, but when he looked down he found that something was just a badminton ball. He turned towards where the ball had flown towards him.

Hikaru’s back was moving cheerfully to an empty space in the other corner of the gym, waving two badminton rackets up over his shoulder.

Breathing in a small laugh at Hikaru’s clearly intentional coolness, Yoshiki grabbed the ball and ran off after him.

Fourteen. The summer festivals were extra fancy every three years or so. The last time it’d happened was just before Hikaru’s dad had died. Hoping to be of support to Mrs. Indo this year, Yoshiki’s mom had spoken to the families helping organise it so that she could help out. They’d told her she couldn’t. She was of course welcome to enjoy the festivities, but she couldn’t help put it up. Not like everyone else. It wouldn’t be “appropriate”.

Hikaru had presented as an alpha this spring, while Yoshiki was still lagging behind. Always the slow one, the hesitant one. Worse, Hikaru was reticent this year in a way that Yoshiki couldn’t break through no matter what he did. The villagers were all full of praise for him, talking about how he’d claimed the Indo house instead of his mom, how he’d taken over for his dad in joining the festival committee meetings at the Mikasa family house. His smiles were just as bright as the vibrant sunny taste of his new scent, and yet there were walls in him now that no one was allowed through. Not even Yoshiki.

He made stupid jokes whenever Yoshiki mentioned him helping the adults with the committee. He made even stupider jokes when Yoshiki asked what it was like to grow up to be an alpha. But when they were just hanging out at the river silently, Yoshiki would glance at him from the corner of his eyes, and Hikaru’s gaze towards the mountains was always silent. Closed off.

No matter how much Yoshiki pressed against it, he couldn’t get past that wall.

In the dead of winter, Hikaru went to some inexplicable camping trip. He was still gone when Yoshiki presented as an alpha, still gone as he adjusted to the changes of his body, still gone when he realized that no matter how much the aunties pressed him to, he couldn’t manage to show them his scent. By the time Hikaru returned, the village-wide scrutiny of Yoshiki’s presentation was already long since over. It had happened all too quickly.

Suddenly, they’d both become adults.

That night, they sat side by side on the floor of Hikaru’s bedroom. They didn’t talk. They looked at their phones. Played a few meaningless videogames. Sucked worse at them than they’d ever done. Hikaru asked somewhere in between, like he was teasing Yoshiki for questioning him during the summer, so what’s it like growin’ up and bein’ an alpha for ya, Yoshiki?

“Doesn’t feel like anythin’ changed,” Yoshiki muttered.

Hikaru looked at him for a while with his eyes caught frozen in a way Yoshiki couldn’t read at all. Then he turned back to beating Yoshiki’s ass in Smash Bros.

He just said, that’s good.

He didn’t say anything else.

Fifteen. Yoshiki and Hikaru were best friends. They were closer to each other than they were to anyone else in the world. For most of the day, there was Asako and Yuuki and their classmates, the photography club and the football club, Yoshiki’s mom and dad and sister, Hikaru’s mom, all the countless villagers who knew their hobbies and grades and weekly plans. But in those small moments, the quiet hours that were more real than anything else, there was only Yoshiki and Hikaru. Those were the pauses in Yoshiki’s day that breathed air. The little inhales that kept his life going, gasping but alive.

Sixteen. Yoshiki was going to leave this village. He couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t possible.

Even though everyone knew how much Yoshiki wanted to go to the city for university, no one knew that he wasn’t planning on coming back. Just the same, no one knew how damn scared he was of it; of finding a whole life in a busy city where he didn’t know anyone, of being isolated in a small apartment all on his own. Of being alone for the rest of his life.

Hikaru didn’t like talking about the future. He’d rarely respond to conversations about it. Sometimes, when there was only the light of streetlights and lamps around them, Hikaru would say I’m gonna bother ya so much when I come over to yer apartment that you’ll never have time to find a pretty city omega, with teasing smile and a look in his eyes that said he was giving some sort of concession. Once, he said instead, I’m never gonna get outta here my whole life, but since you’ll probably travel till we’re both grandpas it’ll be like I’ve half travelled too I guess.

He didn’t need to say any of those. Yoshiki had always known that after highschool, they’d still call each other every day, and Hikaru would come stay at his flat so often that Yoshiki wouldn’t be able to bring anyone over, and Yoshiki would keep coming back to the village even if he hated it to death because Hikaru would have a family here. Even in his wildest, most desperate thoughts, even if he ran away and changed his name and left for another country, it had been a foregone conclusion that Yoshiki would still find a way to contact Hikaru.

“Don’t be stupid,” Yoshiki said, “I’m not a travelogue. Yer just gonna have to come with me if ya wanna see places.”

In response, Hikaru’s smile was blank and distant.

Yoshiki had always known that Hikaru wouldn’t come with him. That was fine though. Even if he didn’t take a single step out of his house, Yoshiki would always come back for him, year after year after year after year.

Seventeen.

Seventeen.

What was there to say.

Seventeen. Hikaru was dead.

Yoshiki was seventeen this year. He’d probably die soon one way or another. If the anxiety and sleep deprivation didn’t kill him, an impurity probably would, or the soul-eating creature puppeting Hikaru’s body would eat him, or the adults would tie the two of them to one stake and burn them alive.

It was terrifying, sure.

But it was also kind of comforting, wasn’t it?

Even Hikaru was dead.

So then…

Then…

A stick obscured the line of ants Yoshiki had been absently watching next to the shrubbery.

He stared wide-eyed as the stick gouged the soil around his feet where he was crouched then disappeared behind him. Hikaru was giggling as he drew something around Yoshiki that was no doubt stupid and insulting.

Yoshiki looked up, waving the neck of his shirt to unstick it from clinging to his sweaty skin in the afternoon heat. “Oi,” He said, “Whatcha doin’ right now?”

“Nothing, nothing, you can keep bein’ all boring in peace,” Hikaru sing-songed. He was still working on something behind Yoshiki.

“You cleaved through all the ants I was watchin’ like some ant kaijuu,” Yoshiki said, “What are ya drawing?”

“Nothinnnng,” Hikaru said not-at-all-suspiciously.

Yoshiki looked behind himself. Hikaru had drawn an ugly-looking alien with a crooked tiny body next to a large arrow pointing at the circle surrounding Yoshiki. Right beside it were the words: “Take me back home, UFO! It’s me, Zemorph!” Zemorph was written in hiragana for some reason. Ze-mo-ru-fu. Why? That wasn’t how it was written in the manga. Hikaru knew that wasn’t how it was written in the manga.

Yoshiki sighed, tired.

“What’s that?” Hikaru made a defensive posture with the stick raised in front of his face. “Ya wanna fight me now that yer true identity’s been found out, Zemorph?!”

“I really don’t wanna hear that from you,” Yoshiki huffed.

“I’m just thinkin’ Asako may’ve been onto somethin’ this time!” Hikaru grinned.

“Ridiculous.”

Hikaru poked Yoshiki’s back with the tip of the stick. Yoshiki pushed it away, but Hikaru managed to tap his hand with it before Yoshiki could avoid the movement. Then it turned into a fencing match over the fate of the stick with Yoshiki at an overwhelming disadvantage, considering the fact that he didn’t have a stick of his own. He was going to grab that stick if he had to hold Hikaru down and rip it out of his hands.

“If she managed to catch me,” Hikaru stuttered out each word between peals of loud laughter, wrestling Yoshiki’s hands away from himself. “Maybe she knows somethin’ about ya!”

The stick poked Yoshiki sharply in the gut but Yoshiki managed to grab Hikaru’s head thanks to the sacrifice of his stomach. Hikaru’s cold scent surged in delight like he was having the time of his life. He struggled out of Yoshiki’s hold while still laughing, raising the stick up in the air. Big mistake— that was where Yoshiki had the advantage. Yoshiki grabbed his wrist and finally jerked the stick out of his hand.

“Hah!”

When Yoshiki stepped back with the stick leant on his shoulder, smug, the corners of his lips were trembling up. Hikaru, on the other hand, was laughing uncontrollably. His laughter was full and uninhibited, slowing down only to start again in a wild burst that made his head tilt and grin glint brightly under the sun. The way he laughed was still the same. The way he kept looking at Yoshiki in the midst of it like he couldn’t take his eyes off of him was unbearable.

Yoshiki lowered the stick slowly and after a moment he crouched back down next to his shrub.

The ants had somehow survived the attack of the stick kaiju. They were now trying to find their way back into a line through the gashes in the soil, busily meeting each other in pairs, separating, meeting in threes, separating, generally looking around for familiar scents. Finding their ways back to each other.

After a few seconds, Hikaru crouched next to him too, still trying to stifle little giggles that kept escaping him. His eyes turned to Yoshiki from the corner of his whole-face grin, overly warm and wholly interested. “So whatcha lookin’ at anyways?” He asked.

Yoshiki wrapped his arms around his knees, holding the stick in the hand on the side far from Hikaru. “The ants there,” He replied.

“Ya really like bugs and stuff, huh?” Hikaru said, “Ya watch them on youtube too right? What was it, that one guy making ants ant homes? Ant farms?”

“I guess,” Yoshiki said.

They looked at the reforming line of ants for a while.

“It’s really cool how they can move together like that even though they’re just bugs,” Hikaru said.

“Ants form whole societies,” Yoshiki said, “They’re good at workin’ together and supportin’ the colony as one.”

Hikaru started watching the ants with more clear interest. “Aw, look Yoshiki, those two’re talkin’!” He pointed at a pair of ants facing each other and waving their antennas around. “They’re totally talkin’ right? I didn’t know they could do that!”

“…mm, they are,” Yoshiki looked down at the two ants as well. The words came automatically and spilled out of his lips, always so easy to find when it was on a topic like this. “It’s got a long explanation. But ants are really close to humans in how they communicate. That antenna wavin’ is how they smell each others’ scents.”

“Ants have scents too?!”

“It’s not exactly like ours,” Yoshiki said. “They have pheromones, but not like… personal scents. Or maybe they do. I dunno if they can recognize individuals by scent? They use pheromones for things like laying tracks, or understanding each other’s status, or just to make sure that they’re from the same colony. A lot like us, right? How they use scents to understand each other, communicate intent, read emotions and so on.”

“That’s crazy…” Hikaru leant down closer at the dozen or so ants on the soil, his eyes wide and sparkling with interest. “It was supposed to be boring when ya were watchin’ bugs… it’s not boring at all. So them talkin’ and linin’ up now is all by using their scents?”

Yoshiki turned his gaze from Hikaru to the ants. Most of them had finally found the pheromone track they’d been moving on and were indeed lining up over the soil that Hikaru had broken through with his stick.

“Oh, what about that one?” Hikaru asked, pointing. “The others are all ignorin’ him! What’s it gonna do now?”

Yoshiki saw the ant Hikaru was pointing at. It was dragging one front leg as it walked, and one of its antennas was broken too. It must have gotten half-crushed by something, possibly by Hikaru’s stick waving act. It seemed to be going over to other ants, but they were indeed moving past it without noticing or caring about it.

“I dunno,” Yoshiki said, “But if it can’t communicate with the others, it’ll probably die soon.”

“Can he not make a scent like the others?” Hikaru asked. “Is that why everyone’s excludin’ him? Isn’t that, like, too pitiful?”

“…” Yoshiki watched the injured ant drag its broken body forward trying to join the working and talking group of ants. Because the others didn’t even notice it, the ant couldn’t seem to find a place to enter the line up and could only crawl back and forth waiting for a small space to be made for it. There was no space for it.

“Yoshiki?” Hikaru turned to him. “Huh? What’s wrong with ya?”

The ant was still going around in powerless, useless circles as he watched.

“Hikaru,” Yoshiki said, “…worker ants are all beta girls. So it’s not a him.”

“Huh, okay.” Hikaru blinked. “That’s cool, I guess. How do they have kids then?”

So they watched the ants move over the small patch of soil next to the shrubbery and Yoshiki told Hikaru all about ant reproduction, the omega queen and the alpha males, and how they didn’t really have human-like genders, it was just an approximation of what they had. Hikaru listened intently to the whole explanation and asked actual questions about it. Yoshiki didn’t think he’d ever had someone listen to him talk about bugs with such curiosity.

Finally, as the shop behind the road was closing up, they were just silently watching the ants. The line group had long since left. From the original ants, there was only the broken one left behind. It had stopped trying to communicate and was now going around in random shapes, looking quite aimless.

Yoshiki shifted his eyes under his bangs before he got up from his crouch. He dusted off his legs.

“Let’s go, Hikaru,” He said, “We still gotta put together everythin’ we know before talkin’ to Old Man Takeda.”

“Mm, okay,” Hikaru said absently.

But rather than getting up, Hikaru turned towards the ants. He casually reached his hand down towards the soil by the shrub. His fingers closed in around the broken ant.

Almost toppling onto Hikaru, Yoshiki caught his wrist before he squished the ant.

“Yoshiki?” Hikaru looked up at him, blinking at Yoshiki’s wide-eyed horrified expression.

“What are you doing?!”

“I—” Hikaru hesitated, raising his murderous fingers from the soil, “I was gonna squash her. That’s fine, isn’t it? I’m not hurtin’ a human.”

“No it’s not!” Yoshiki felt like all the blood had drained from his head, leaving him pallid and dizzy. He demanded shakily, “W-why would ya even..?!”

“Isn’t it sad that she’s sufferin’?” Hikaru said softly, almost mumbling. “I feel so bad she keeps tryin’ and they still hate her. She’s got a soul so it’s better if she’s reborn as a healthy ant and joins the others, right?”

“Th-that’s…” Yoshiki’s breath trembled. “No. Ya gotta, ya gotta let her live still.”

“Huh? Ya said she’s dyin’, though.”

 Yoshiki didn’t know how to explain this. “She might still survive,” He managed to say.

“But the others are never gonna let her in, are they? Ya just said so. She’s gonna die if she can’t join them,” Hikaru said, pursing his lips, “I mean, it’s not her fault. But it’s not like I can kill all the other ants instead? This way at least she won’t have to be in pain.”

“Give her a chance,” Yoshiki said, his voice going down an octave into almost pleading, “Give her a chance to, to live the life she’s already got. Okay? Y-ya can’t kill her.”

“If ya say so…” Hikaru furrowed his brows, clearly unable to understand Yoshiki’s strange and hypocritical reasoning, but still willing to listen just because Yoshiki was asking him something.

He pulled his hand away from the ant and Yoshiki let go of his wrist, relieved. They got up together. Hikaru was still throwing contemplative glances at the ants, trying to figure them out like that would give him any hints as to Yoshiki’s obvious mental problems. After a moment, though, he turned to look up at Yoshiki. His red-tinted eyes then obviously and immediately softened.

“Ya just can’t help bein’ really kind, can ya, Yoshiki? Even to little ugly bugs and stuff.” Hikaru grinned and brushed over Yoshiki’s arm with a gentle fist, leaving behind a smear of cold, cold, cold, dark woodsy vanillin scent that would probably remain on Yoshiki for the whole rest of the day no matter how much he washed it.

It was funny how stupid this whole conversation was. Yoshiki kept his head ducked behind the shadow of his hair. “I told ya, it ain’t anything like kindness.”

“Hm, hm, I’m not listenin’ to ya anymore!” Hikaru laughed, walking on ahead. “Let’s go figure me out!”

Sighing with a dim smile, Yoshiki followed after him.

Just…

While they were slowly leaving, Yoshiki glanced back a bit at the shrub illuminated by the afternoon sun.

He could almost see the black dots roaming over the soil, the harmonious and unified ant colony moving with purpose, and the broken scentless ant that couldn’t join them. It wasn’t anything like kindness. Kindness was what Hikaru had tried to do. Yoshiki’s contribution had only been to prolong a meaningless, purposeless life of pain and isolation. Maybe it really was his perspective the one that was limited; he couldn’t see souls, so death felt like a tragic finality to him. Maybe it wasn’t actually that scary.

In a moment of uncertainty, Yoshiki thought: Maybe I should let Hikaru kill her. Wouldn’t that be nicer?

“Are ya coming already, Yoshikiii?”

Jolting out of his mood, Yoshiki turned back around and chased after Hikaru’s back. “Stop runnin’, Hikaru!”

In the end, no matter how nice it was, he just couldn’t.

The visit to Old Man Takeda’s house was a disaster.

The sword cleaved through Hikaru’s neck, dropping his head into Yoshiki’s lap.

There was thunder cracking in Yoshiki’s mind. The awful insides of Hikaru were flooding the room like a scream of pure frustration, the scream echoing in Yoshiki’s brain too, this couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening, he hated this, he hated it, it couldn’t be happening, Hikaru, Hikaru, HIKARU—

Yoshiki grasped Hikaru’s head in his hands and pressed it to his body against the flood. He was going to force Hikaru’s halves back together if it killed him. He was going to bet everything he had, every single thing he was, on the fact that Hikaru was a monster.

He couldn’t be dead, because he was a monster. This couldn’t kill him. It couldn’t.

He couldn’t be dead.

He wasn’t going to be dead.

He wasn’t going to be dead even if Yoshiki had to hold this body together with his two hands for the rest of his life.

He wasn’t dead.

It took Hikaru several days to wake up, and he almost absorbed Yoshiki whole in an instant when he first opened his eyes. If Kurebayashi-san hadn’t been there, it might have been bad. But it wasn’t.

A few hours passed in deep conversation, but Kurebayashi-san soon had to leave. Yoshiki had long since told his mom that he was gonna be staying with Hikaru in his sick room tonight, so they ate dinner together while a nurse bustled around doing who knows what to all the things Hikaru had been attached to. Eventually, the nurse also left them alone to sleep.

At night, they lied in their respective cots in the darkened hospital room. Yoshiki stared out of the window at the dim stars of Kibougayama. There was no wind, not a single rustling thing, just the heavy oppressive heat and the shrill whiii, whiii, whiii, whiii of the cicadas. They’d clearly given them a hospital room with broken air-conditioning. Even at night, it was unbearably hot. His thin tshirt and shorts were muggy from the sweat, and no matter where he turned the bed cradled him too-warm and uncomfortably wet. That annoying shrill noise kept going. Whii whii whii whii.

He couldn’t sleep. The scene of Hikaru’s head flying off and falling to his lap was probably going to remain burnt into his retinas forever. He was probably gonna be awake through the night for several days. At least he was used to spending the nights lying in the dark with his eyes closed like some sort of uncomfortable meditation. This way, no one came asking him why he’d been awake all night.

“Why are ya still awake?”

Yoshiki blinked. He glanced behind over his shoulder to find Hikaru on his back with his eyes closed, one hand curled under his head and the other by his belly.

“How’d ya know?” Yoshiki whispered back.

“Yer heart’s all out of sync,” Hikaru said, “I can’t sleep with ya runnin’ a marathon next to me, it makes me wanna join.”

Yoshiki could only chuckle helplessly under his breath. He’d love to hand his position in this stupid prizeless marathon to Hikaru, though unfortunately he couldn’t. “Sorry,” He said instead, “I can’t really help it.”

Hikaru shifted on his hospital bed to turn towards him. His pupils glowed ominously from under the shadows as he stared directly at Yoshiki. It was somehow more eery to look at him at night, as if there was some unearthed instinct like some little animal at the back of Yoshiki’s head which shrunk away at the sight of its natural predator. It was scary when that momentary freeze happened, but Yoshiki didn’t find the after-memory uncomfortable… just interesting, maybe. He didn’t want to know what that said about him.

Yoshiki turned to his side, silently meeting the undivided wild-animal focus of Hikaru’s gaze.

“Want me to make it slow down?” Hikaru asked in a contemplative voice. “I could probably do that much with how mixed we are. And you have my half on you too, so it’d be easy.”

“Y-you can do that..?” Yoshiki exclaimed, heart speeding up into a terrified, disorderly rhythm.

“Whoa, it really went crazy,” Hikaru grinned boyishly, instantly lifting half the terribleness from his gaze. “Sure, if ya want me to.”

“I thought being down to half meant ya couldn’t kill people easily…” Yoshiki murmured, swallowing down his dry throat. “If you can slow someone’s heart down… can’t ya stop it easy, too?”

“Well I can only do it for ya,” Hikaru blinked. “And why would I stop yer heart? You’d die and yer soul would move off to the other side. That’d be the worst in every way. I mean Yoshiki, ya know I couldn’t kill you. And now that I’m only half the size, I can’t just swallow yer soul without warning like I could before either.”

Yoshiki’s expression must have been quite something, because Hikaru took one proper look at him and started backtracking.

“Ah, haha, ya know I’m not gonna, right?” He let out a small laugh, “Aw Yoshiki, yer such a worrywart! I’m really not gonna do anything. Y-you know I don’t lie to you. Don’t worry, okay? And if ya want— I’ll stop my heart whenever you ask too, right? So it’s fair. See, I’ll do it now!”

The healthy pink on Hikaru’s starlit face drained away, turning the almost ingratiating smile on his eyes and lips into a sick, pasty white.

“Wha— don’t ya dare!” Yoshiki scrambled down the cot and onto Hikaru’s bed, grabbing his wrist with his fingertips pressed hard onto his pulse point.

Hikaru’s arm was cold and growing stiffer on his palm. He couldn’t feel a single thing from the vessels under his fingers. Cold and hard like stone, like a severed head in his hands, like a rain-soaked stiff face under his palms, a stone statue, freezing cold, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Yoshiki’s heart tumbled up his throat.

“H-Hikaru, I mean it! Start it back right now. I’m not joking, don’t ya dare stop yer heart!”

“Okay, okay, wow sorry!” Despite the nervous teasing tone in his words, Hikaru scrambled to sit up with his eyes wide like he’d gotten freaked out by Yoshiki’s reaction.

Soon enough, a faint fluttering movement started under the tips of Yoshiki’s fingers, thmp thmp thmp thmp. At the rapid rise of his blood pressure, a reflex flush rose on Hikaru’s face, glowing vibrant red on his cheeks and neck. The greyish pallor disappeared. Yoshiki’s relief was so deep and sudden that he almost tilted face first onto Hikaru’s chest.

God. Seriously.

“Why did ya even do that…” Yoshiki murmured, exhausted. Death was so scary. It was so scary when Hikaru’s body broke in ways that would kill a human. It was terrifying when he acted like he was gonna pull his head off. It was terrifying when he stopped his heart. “Ya can’t do things like this. I mean it. I— I really don’t like it.”

He didn’t manage to say, I’m terrified when my brain tells me you’re dead. I have to remind myself every day that you’re not dead. Don’t make it harder, please don’t make it harder.

“…sorry,” Hikaru said softly.

As if to say sorry in another way, Hikaru’s scent eddied and pooled over the hospital bed all the way to Yoshiki, a comforting icy-cold sweet peach. Yoshiki sighed into it and breathed in slowly, his body relaxing despite himself. The scent gently brushed cool air over every bit of his uncomfortably hot skin.

Finally, Yoshiki shifted on the side of Hikaru’s hospital bed to lower his legs from the side, sitting properly. He glanced up again to see Hikaru’s upturned brows, the contrite sadness on his face.

“It’s okay.” He gave Hikaru a small smile, shaky and pale. “But… really don’t do it again.”

“Okay, I know,” Hikaru said, smiling back and rubbing the back of his head. “You’re really a scaredy-cat ‘bout things like this, aren’t ya? Yer screams were so loud when I was sayin’ ‘I could pull off my head easy’ too.”

Yoshiki sighed. “Don’t even joke ‘bout it.”

“I’m not gonna,” Hikaru said, laughing a little.

He took Yoshiki’s hand from his wrist and raised it to the air in front of his body. For a moment, Yoshiki’s eyes widened thinking that Hikaru was gonna offer to let him touch his insides again. But Hikaru’s hand pulled Yoshiki’s wrist until the ends of Yoshiki’s nails were brushing the skin of his neck and stopped there.

Hikaru tilted his head with a smile and said, “Ya can touch and see for yerself if it’s attached.”

Yoshiki’s hand twitched in response, making the tips of his three longest fingers graze Hikaru’s neck. He froze with those faint points of contact hanging awkwardly between them.

“What, that’s not okay either?” Hikaru asked, leaning against his hands as he kept sitting and raising his brows playfully. Surrounded by the pink flush of his skin, the distinct line on Hikaru’s neck was especially obvious.

“No, but…” Yoshiki hesitated. “Are ya okay with it? It feels bad.”

It used to be a joke around middle school for some of the alphas to try to grab each other by the back of the neck without warning. Being touched on the neck like that was uncomfortable enough to make them jump, and supposedly this was funny or something. It wasn’t specific to alphas either. Yasuda had done it to one of the class omegas and she’d let out a shrill scream and dug her nails through his arm, followed by him getting a long earful from almost every adult in the school area while blood still dripped down his hand.

Yoshiki habitually avoided stupid games like that but even he had gotten caught once by Hikaru. He’d thrown him off without a single second’s thought and Hikaru had slammed his shoulder into one of the lockers. He'd had to ice his bruises for the rest of the week after that. The feeling that accompanied a hand on his neck glands could only be described as a terror of disgust and embarrassment, something like what Yoshiki would feel if he was ordered to strip naked in the middle of class with everyone watching.

“It’s fineee.” Hikaru tipped his head to let Yoshiki see the line better. “Come on already, Yoshiki.”

“I guess… if you’re sure...” Actually, Yoshiki was curious to see if that obvious line indicated any actual break in Hikaru’s skin or muscles… or maybe it’d feel like a scar of some kind? Was his head still actually cut off, only held in place by some flimsy ghost magic? He needed to know.

Yoshiki leant forward on the bed to get closer to Hikaru who’d leant back. His gaze flickered to the door and the window, but he didn’t see any shadows or moving lights. There weren’t any signs of anyone coming over. Hesitating for a moment, Yoshiki finally reached out. He carefully traced his thumb on the line passing right under Hikaru’s adam’s apple, which moved under his fingertip when Hikaru swallowed. He tried to keep his fingers light as he followed the line to the side of Hikaru’s neck. He didn’t feel anything but soft skin.

Hikaru let out a long, audible breath, his calm red pupils watching Yoshiki from the dark shadows on his face. “You can touch properly, ya know?”

“I don’t wanna make ya feel bad.”

“I’m not even feelin’ a thing yet,” Hikaru replied, the corners of his lips tilting impishly.

“Fine,” Yoshiki said.

His heart was galloping in his chest as he turned his hand to approach Hikaru’s neck palm-side this time. This felt terrifyingly more intimate.

Slowly, Yoshiki brushed his fingers down the side of Hikaru’s throat first, then smoothed his palm over the skin of it, following the line backwards until the soft hairs on Hikaru’s nape were under his fingertips. Even when he pressed his thumb down below the line, the flesh and skin didn’t depress like there was a disconnection in between. Thank god... It seemed to have healed properly despite the apparent line.

“Haaaah…” Just as Yoshiki’s fingers stroked the side of his neck above the line, Hikaru’s breath caught and expanded.

He turned entirely boneless. The weight of his head slumped fully into Yoshiki’s palm and his whole body spilled down onto Yoshiki like a canned drink whose bottle had vanished.

“What the— Hikaru?!” Yoshiki hurriedly caught Hikaru’s shoulder with his other arm, holding him in place against his front. It felt as difficult as holding a palmful of liquid that kept trying to seep through his fingers. He shifted to let Hikaru’s head rest on his shoulder, supporting him from the side. “Are— are ya okay?”

In response, Hikaru giggled breathlessly as he toppled on Yoshiki, his every muscle loose and soft. Heat pressed into Yoshiki’s skin everywhere Hikaru leant onto. He didn’t dare move.

“Hikaru?”

Hikaru rubbed his face into Yoshiki’s shoulder, moving his neck under Yoshiki’s palm like a cat nuzzling into his hand. “Woww,” He mumbled into Yoshiki’s skin, “Yoshiki, feels so good...”

“Wh-what,” Yoshiki was frozen in place, unable to lift his hand from Hikaru’s neck or push him away. “T-this feels good?”

“Mmhm,” Hikaru seeped closer to the crook of Yoshiki’s shoulder. He was smeared all over Yoshiki’s side.

Right then, Yoshiki seemed to hear a rattle outside the hallway. Was it the nurse coming? They were almost snuggled up, curled so close together. Too close. Without thinking it through, Yoshiki pushed Hikaru off of his shoulder and slouched away from him. He glanced at the door, his heart drumming nervously in his chest.

There was only the silent humming of the hospital and the cicadas. Nothing moved outside. Whii, whii, whii, whiii, whiii, whiii, whiiiiii…

No one was coming.

Hikaru had fallen onto the bed, his head on the side of Yoshiki’s thigh and blinking blearily up at him like he had been woken up from a nap. His mouth was upturned in a pout. “Yoshiki,” He said, accusingly.

“…” Yoshiki’s heart gave a contrite little squeeze. “Sorry.”

“Make up for it!” Hikaru said instantly, tilting his head on Yoshiki’s lap to bare his throat to him.

Yoshiki raised his hand, only to pause. “…really?”

It was really not supposed to feel any good, but… Hikaru seemed to enjoy it a lot. At least it wasn’t the same as that terrifying reaction he’d given when Yoshiki was touching his insides. This was… this was probably fine, right? Just for a bit? This wasn’t anything wrong… more like a shoulder rub. Hikaru didn’t feel things like that anyways.

Yoshiki swallowed the fear down his dry throat, letting his heart sink back down as his body unwound piece by rusted piece.

Finally, he put his hand back on Hikaru’s neck. His thumb moved over the line on his neck, stroking further up on the space that opened when Hikaru curled his head sideways on Yoshiki’s thigh. Hikaru’s good mood was immediately restored. He grinned as he closed his eyes, leaning into Yoshiki’s hand.

“It really… feels nice?” Yoshiki turned his hand to brush the knuckles of his fingers up and down the side of Hikaru’s neck like he was scratching a cat. “It doesn’t feel weird and invasive to ya?”

Hikaru was melting onto Yoshiki’s thighs, curled like half a shrimp around Yoshiki’s body. His breaths were soft and relaxed over Yoshiki’s shorts, one of his hands caught in the hem of his shirt. In response to Yoshiki’s question, he hummed in pleasure, low in his chest. “Mm, it does.”

“Huh?” He had to be answering so cryptically just to confuse Yoshiki, there was no other explanation. Yoshiki huffed. “Didn’t ya just say it feels good?”

“It does,” Hikaru’s voice was sticky like melting toffee and filled with pure thrill. “Feels like… hmm, like you’re tellin’ me to rip off my skin for ya?”

What the hell.

Yoshiki’s hand froze in place again. “And ya like that?!”

Hikaru turned his head on Yoshiki’s lap to look up at him. The red pupils in his eyes found Yoshiki’s own, seemingly laughing at him. “Aw, Yoshiki,” He smiled in that same sticky soft tone, “Wouldn’t I obviously love it if ya wanted me to pull open my skin for ya?”

“…don’t say things like that,” Yoshiki said with a sigh.

In response, one of Hikaru’s hands behind his back moved only a fingertip to trail up Yoshiki’s spine ticklishly. Goosebumps ran up Yoshiki’s back. He shuddered instinctively and snapped:

“Hey!”

Hikaru was already muffling his laughter into the hem of Yoshiki’s tshirt. His hand dropped back down next to the other one at Yoshiki’s side, sitting there obediently once again.

“Ya used to sound way more angry sayin’ ‘Talk properly! Don’t say it like that!’,” Hikaru laughed evilly, “Am I meltin’ the prince of darkness Tsujinaka-sama’s steel heart with my adorableness?”

“Idiot,” Yoshiki rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t help the way his lips were curling in amusement. “I just don’t got the energy anymore. You’re embarrassing so often, who’s got the time to yell for each?”

Hikaru let out a few more deep giggles before he settled back down on Yoshiki’s lap. Despite the way the summer heat caught between their bodies and radiated warmly on Yoshiki’s sweaty skin, it wasn’t uncomfortable. That was probably because of the chilly comfort Hikaru’s scent brought.

Yoshiki brushed his fingers over the white peach-light hair behind the largest muscle on Hikaru’s neck, feeling as if tiny motes of ice were catching on the backs of his fingers when they skimmed Hikaru’s scent glands. Hikaru hummed again, happy. It increasingly smelled like vivid, delighted strawberry and cream.

This really wasn’t normal, was it? He couldn’t imagine ever sitting down and touching the scent glands of any of his friends. It wasn’t normal, how close he was to Hikaru. It wasn’t normal how much comfort this brought him. It wasn’t normal how much he enjoyed it. This was exactly the kind of disgusting perversion that got people beaten to death in places a little worse than theirs.

He thought about pushing Hikaru away and going back to his cot. But then… what? Just another awful night. Lying there in the dark for another few hours thinking about terrible things. Turning from side to side to get away from the inescapable heat until he slipped into an uncomfortable half-sleep for the next few hours. Then, nightmares, waking up, going to sleep, more nightmares, waking up to finally find the dawn creeping by the horizon and putting an end to his suffering.

At least like this, Hikaru’s proximity gave Yoshiki a break from the incessant spiralling. If he thought too long about it, he might realize that the idea of a beating to death would be scarier if he got to have this in his life than if he didn't. He didn’t think too long about it.

Hikaru bumped his forehead onto Yoshiki’s hipbone. “Yoshiki, c’mon.”

“Okay, okay.” Looking down at the obvious puppy-eyes Hikaru was directing up at him, Yoshiki gave in. He moved his hand once again to rub his knuckles up Hikaru’s neck, then to scratch the hairs on his nape, treating it as petting an overly affectionate creature.

As Yoshiki petted him, Hikaru mmm-ed in joy and draped his head over Yoshiki’s thigh in order to give him even more space. Once there, as if to say ‘eh, since it’s already like this…’, he rubbed his face on Yoshiki’s shorts and covered Yoshiki with the icy cold sweetness of his scent. Really like a cat.

It was nice, though, so Yoshiki didn’t say anything.

Hikaru’s eyes squinted happily as he murmured, “Haha, this feels more like a reward for gettin’ my head cut off.”

“…” Yoshiki lifted his hand. “I’m not gonna do it if ya keep talkin’ like that.”

“Aw, Yoshiki,” Hikaru pouted, “I know, I know, ‘be careful with Hikaru’s body’, right?”

Yoshiki put his hand back down to rub Hikaru’s nape in half an agreement, letting him enjoy it for a minute. He turned to glance at the treetops outside the window, the dark canopy of foliage with its leaves lit yellow and white from below by the streetlights. There were no cars passing by. No sounds but the cicadas, still. Whii whii whiiiiiii whiiiiiiiii whiiiiiii.

The hair at Hikaru’s nape was damp with sweat as his fingers passed through them. Yoshiki thought to himself, That’s disgusting, while knowing simultaneously that it was a lie. He could go so far as to lick the sweat off of Hikaru’s skin before disgust would overweigh how much pleasure such a real and human and awful act would give him. Instead, he kept scratching his nails through Hikaru’s warm sweaty hair.

“Death’s scary.” Yoshiki said.

“Huh?”

“Death’s scary for humans,” Yoshiki said, “It’s really scary. It’s gotta be scary.”

He didn’t know how to explain that he was saying this in a positive way. That it was good for death to be scary. That death had to be scary for life to continue.

The worst periods of Yoshiki’s life were all lumped together by how, for various lengths of time, he no longer found death scary anymore.

“I’m not gonna die though.” Hikaru patted Yoshiki’s leg cheerfully, seemingly trying to assuage him. “I’m not alive in the first place, ya know? Even if I couldn’t stay in this body anymore and went back to how I was before, I wouldn’t be dead.”

Yoshiki said, “You’d be dead for me.”

Hikaru sucked in a breath like he’d suddenly been grabbed from an angle his hands couldn’t guard and he snapped a wide-eyed gaze up at Yoshiki. Yoshiki’s eyes widened too— he hadn’t meant it that way. It should have been the first thing he thought of, but it wasn’t. Despite everything, he hadn’t meant it that way.

“The me in you… I’d be dead too, for you,” Yoshiki explained, “If ya lose this body, we can’t do the things we do together anymore. Maybe that’s not death, but… what we have would be dead. I’d be dead in you and you’d be dead in me. Isn’t that final enough?”

Hikaru’s tensed up body relaxed again. His scent, which had disappeared in a single second, returned slowly back to fill the hospital room with cool comfort. He just said, “Mm.”

“So don’t joke like that,” Yoshiki muttered finally, rubbing the back of Hikaru’s hair with force enough to hide his embarrassment, “It’s scary for me. Ya have to take care of yer body.”

“…” Hikaru murmured, “My body.”

Yoshiki’s breath caught in his lungs. Hikaru was dead. Each time the thought felt like a sea urchin in his throat, too painful to swallow but too deep to cough out, something that could only be endured forever. Yoshiki didn’t want him to be dead.

But he was dead.

He was dead, so every day, Yoshiki sat here and cut more pieces of his corpse to give away.

“Your body,” He said quietly.

“Okay,” Hikaru answered, sounding surprisingly serious, “…Okay.”

This time Yoshiki already knew beforehand that Hikaru was gonna consider it a reward when Yoshiki lowered his hand back down to continue petting him on the neck. He just did it anyways.

If a stupid little reward like this could change something, he’d be happy to do it a hundred more times.

Chapter Text

Yoshiki was sitting dazedly at the breakfast table, chewing the corner of a plain piece of toast that was the only thing he could stomach right now, when Kaoru came stomping down the stairs in her pyjamas. “Wow,” She said, surprised, “Yoshiki ya look awful.”

He raised his gaze to glare at her, still chewing the tiny bite of toast he was hoping to be able to swallow eventually. “I’m fine,” He mumbled around the food.

“What’s wrong with ya? Have ya been trainin’ to win a Mr Largest Eyebags of Kibogayama competition? They’re getting worse every day!” Kaoru insisted, scampering towards the table just in time for their mom to put a plate of eggs in front of her seat.

“Stop bullying your brother, Kaoru,” Mom said before turning a stern eye onto Yoshiki, “You do look sick. Do you need to take a day off, Yoshiki?”

“I said I’m fine,” Yoshiki said, snappy. The bread was starting to swim in front of his eyes.

They’d both come back home yesterday. Yoshiki had been relatively okay in the hospital room with Hikaru, but the moment he had to sleep in his own room, all the awful feelings rushed right back.

He hadn’t been able to go to sleep until early morning. His mind had swum with the memories of Hikaru’s corpse and his knife in Hikaru’s belly and Hikaru’s head falling off his shoulders. The blood on Hikaru’s orange jacket, the blood on Hikaru’s school shirt, the blood on his hands that wouldn’t get out from under his nails no matter how many times he washed it.

And when he finally fell asleep, he had a nightmare like he’d never had before.

In the dream, he saw himself searching though the rain until, rather than Hikaru’s dead body, he’d found Hikaru’s severed head in the mud. When he had held him in his arms, Hikaru’s severed head had smiled at him and said it was feeling so much better now. Yoshiki had cradled it to his chest to bring it to the village, and everyone who had seen it in his arms had smiled at him and said they were glad Hikaru was feeling better now.

Yoshiki had carried it with him everywhere. He kept thinking that he had to do something, he had to do something, but no matter how scared he got he just couldn’t control his own body. He couldn’t do anything but silently carry Hikaru’s smiling head, unable to force open his mouth and say something about the strangeness of it. Then one day during school he’d placed Hikaru’s head on the desk and it had told him, ‘Yoshiki, it hurts all the time,’ and then it had fallen down and died. Smashed into a splatter of bloody paste on everything around the desk, with one dead eye in the remaining part of Hikaru’s face still looking at Yoshiki. The lesson had continued. The teacher had told Yoshiki to stop screaming all the time and to please cry more quietly.

He had woken up with his fist covering his mouth, so scared that he couldn’t even breathe in as he kept crying. In the end, he hadn’t gotten another wink of sleep.

If Hikaru didn’t end up killing him one of these days, maybe the anxiety and sleep deprivation would get him after all.

He wanted to talk to Hikaru so badly. The Hikaru who didn’t cry and was never scared of people and who always knew what to do, who was kind of Yoshiki’s hero but had died without knowing it. Hikaru’d have known just what to say to make these awful feelings go away. Though, of course, if Hikaru was still here there wouldn’t be most of these feelings in Yoshiki either.

He wanted to tell Hikaru he cherished the time they had had together. That he’d listen to him complain even if the subject was going to be awful. That he could tell Yoshiki about the scary things, even if Yoshiki was going to be scared.

It was too late.

It was always going to be too late for that Hikaru.

“If you’re going to school, you’re about to be late,” Mom told him, glancing up at the clock. “Hikaru-kun hasn’t come over yet either. I wonder if he’s slept in again? He’s been so responsible these days that I thought he was starting to grow out of it.”

Yoshiki looked at the clock. It was nearly twenty minutes past when Hikaru would have been banging on their door yelling at Yoshiki to hurry up already because he didn’t want to be late. Unlike his mom, Yoshiki knew that Hikaru wouldn’t have overslept. The Hikaru now loved going to school and was always giddy with excitement in the morning.

“I’m gonna go wake him up.” Yoshiki got up urgently from the chair, grabbing his bag on his way to tug on his shoes.

“Okay, but don’t force yourself if you feel bad, and come back early if— Yoshiki! Listen to your mom, hah…”

Yoshiki ran out the door before his mom could even finish her sentence.

The path was the same as it always was, cheerful and bright under the summer morning sun, but Yoshiki was already covered in cold sweat by the time he reached the front door of the Indo residence. There was a strange ominous feeling to the silence of it, a strange lack of any sounds or movement behind the door. The heavy, terrifying presence of something different weighing over the house.

Yoshiki pushed the front door open with a quiet, “Hello,” but he didn’t see anyone from the hall. He looked around silently. The shoes rack was still full. No one had left yet.

There was still an unsaid ‘may I come in?’ hanging on the tip of his tongue when Yoshiki heard a loud crash coming from a room near the kitchen.

The cold sweat turned to ice on his skin. He raced to the dining room, terrified at what Hikaru could have possibly done this time, or if there was some other impurity that was fighting against him, or if Indo-san and Hikaru’s grandpa were hurt.

He reached the half-closed sliding door and caught a glimpse of the inside.

And the sight inside was—

Before thought could form in his mind, Yoshiki had already flinched back, flattened against the wall. Hiding from the sight of the people in the room. He couldn’t even process what he’d seen there without his heart running too fast to sustain. Even with his eyes fixed unmoving at the wall across him, he couldn’t stop the sight from filling in his mind.

Inside the room, Hikaru was on his knees at one side of the table, his large blue eyes confused and nervous as if he was being held in place by a force he couldn’t understand. His mom and grandpa were sitting on the other side of the table. Indo-san was teary-eyed with her palm on her lips while Hikaru’s grandpa was nearly purple with rage. There were the broken shards of a porcelain bowl at the corner of the wall behind Hikaru, likely the source of the crash Yoshiki had heard.

Yoshiki kept staring across the hall where he was hidden, unable to turn around to look into the room again, his breathing getting faster and faster. The rushing oxygen dizzied his head, making the walls spin around him. He couldn’t make himself move a single inch.

The whole house was covered in an icy sweet scent, so very clearly that of an upset omega.

“What have ya done?”

“What?” Hikaru’s voice answered, confused.

A thunk sound. Someone had hit the table.

“What have ya— have ya done?!” Hikaru’s grandpa was slurring over his words like he always did, but Yoshiki had never heard of him so furious, so… so disgusted, so disappointed.

“Father…” Indo-san’s voice stopped him, the word doughy and cracked in half. “He doesn’t know what he’s sayin’, he’s just a kid. He’s…”

“He knows enough to’ve done this!” Hikaru’s grandpa hit the table again, rattling the dishes. From his voice came only mumbling words that Yoshiki could barely make out, fast and hoarse like sutras. “It’s Unuki-sama… Unuki-sama’s curse is on us, it’s all him. He’s gonna end our whole line! First was Kohei, now it’s this, it’s all him, we weren’t forgiven… Our family’s finished, the village is finished… He’s the one who turned you into this. He’s the one. He’s the one.”

“Grandpa…” Hikaru’s voice was entirely lost, soft and uncertain, “No, it’s not… Um, I didn’t—”

“What more could ya do!” Hikaru’s grandpa snapped, before taking in a few heavy, scratchy breaths as if to try and calm himself down. “Yer father trusted ya, he trusted ya to take over as an Indo alpha, and you..! You’ve turned yerself to this… You want me to die, huh? You want to kill me. You want to kill the whole village! How could ya do this to the body yer mom grew for you? Ya don’t even care ‘bout the duty of the Indo alphas!”

“Father, calm down,” Indo-san said, and her voice finally cracked into a quiet cry before she stifled it. “Yer gonna get another brain bleed, calm down… Father!”

There was a scuffle as if she was holding onto Hikaru’s grandpa. The sliding doors rattled with every movement of the flickering shadows cast on the wall through the paper. The sound of the wind and the cicadas outside came distorted through the sounds of the fighting behind Yoshiki, swimming nauseatingly through the unhappy mix of three scents. The muggy heat of the wooden house was wrapped tight around his throat, bearing down on him.

“Just tell yer Grandpa it’s not like that, okay? Hikaru,” Indo-san’s voice was careful and soft. Too careful and soft. “It’s not like that… it’s not like…”

Yoshiki couldn’t breathe. He slid down the wall, dropping heavily onto the floor, the darkness of the hallway twisting around his eyes.

“It’s not like that?” Hikaru repeated what he was told.

Another crash. Yoshiki flinched, blocking his ears. One more dish must have broken behind Hikaru.

“Stop lyin’! Yer scent’s all like this and you’re still lying’!” Hikaru’s grandpa breathed heavily. He couldn’t speak another sentence after that, his breaths too fast, a rustle of cloth following him sitting back down harshly.

“Oh Hikaru… where’s this even comin’ from suddenly?” Indo-san’s gentle voice shook, growing wet and stuttered. “Did… did somethin’ happen? Is that it? If Kohei was here… I’m sorry, Hikaru. If he was here, you’d have been fine. He’d have known what to say to ya. I couldn’t protect ya right. I couldn’t do it right…”

Yoshiki curled up tight, eyes squeezed shut and palms on his ears, trying to block out all the sounds.

When he’d heard of what went down at his distant cousin’s place after Yuusuke-kun was seen kissing another alpha all the way in his university at Okinawa, Yoshiki had spent the whole day in an unnameable stupor. Yuusuke-kun had had to leave that night, not even carrying a bag on his back as he walked away in the dead of the night with a fresh bruise on his face, and then he had never been allowed to return again. He hadn’t had a home anymore, nor any family, and nowhere to belong.

At his first sight of the expressions the family uncles had, Yoshiki had thought that they were going to chase Yuusuke-kun down and kill him.

The night after their relatives had all gathered in Yuusuke-kun’s house to comfort his desperately crying mother at the table and his unstoppably smoking father out at the porch, Yoshiki had gone to bed and thought about what exactly must have been said to Yuusuke-kun that day. He had thought for so long that he had absently chewed his nails bloody just lying silently in the darkness, imagining endless configurations of conversations.

Every possible synonym of disgusting and twisted, certainly. Yoshiki hadn’t known them all back then.

He did now.

“We can figure it out. Right… we can figure this out. Just, just calm down. Please, Father, just—”

“Calm down, calm down?” Hikaru’s grandpa exclaimed, voice wet and heavy like spittle was flying out. “If I don’t put him right, if I don’t put him right now, if I don’t put him right… Kohei’s gonna cry tears of blood in the afterlife!”

“Father!”

“My family’s only heir’s saying he wants to live as some perverted half omega!” Hikaru’s grandpa spat, “You’ve made yerself a monster!”

Shaking everywhere, Yoshiki found his head snapping towards the dining room again. He barely peeked behind the back of his arm, body braced as if for a blow. But it couldn’t protect him enough.

There, right within Yoshiki’s line of sight, Hikaru’s honestly confused expression was broken by two silent lines of tears falling down his eyes. He himself didn’t seem to understand why he was crying, furrowing his brows and raising his hand to touch the teardrops on his cheek. Yoshiki was so close to throwing up he had to push his two hands on his mouth, but he couldn’t seem to look away.

“Huh?” Hikaru said very quietly, his shoulders shaking.

When Hikaru raised his head shakily to stare at his family, his face was now melting down into the chaotic sludge of his inner self.

“Huh?” What remained of Hikaru’s mouth said again, confused.

The sludge burst forward from his head, filling the whole room almost instantly, racing towards Hikaru’s mom and grandpa. Indo-san screamed in terror and Hikaru’s grandpa gasped choppily, whispering “U-Unuki-sama..?!” before he collapsed on the floor with his eyes turned white from fear.

“Hikaru, stop!”

Before he’d noticed he was moving, Yoshiki’s feet scrambled up the tatami floor.

He ran into the dining room and past the table. On his way past her, Indo-san’s hand caught his wrist, saying, “Yoshiki-chan, run away—!”

Yoshiki ripped his arm out of her hand and rushed to the end of the room. The moment that Yoshiki entered the room, the awful true body rushing out of Hikaru’s head had turned back in like a film reel ran in reverse. By the time Yoshiki’s arms grabbed Hikaru, he was already back to a fully human omega and falling into Yoshiki’s chest in tears.

Yoshiki only managed to catch him in an embrace, holding onto Hikaru as he dropped tears into the crook of his neck.

“Yoshiki, I’m sorry,” Hikaru whispered, “I don’t know why I did that. Sorry. I’m— I’m not gonna hurt them. I swear.”

Yoshiki was gasping to catch his breath. He was terrified. Cold sweat drenched his school uniform, sticking his shirt to his skin. But when Indo-san turned her wide eyes at Hikaru, his first instinct was to pull Hikaru closer to shield him from her.

He didn’t want her to see him. He didn’t want her to look at him like that.

“What’s that thing?” Indo-san asked with tears pouring down her eyes. Her expression was horrified. Her normally comforting scent was full of violent rejection. “That’s not my son. That’s not my son! Where’s my son, Yoshiki?!”

“I… I,” Yoshiki’s voice failed him, lost tiny somewhere between his gasps.

What could he even say? Hikaru’s grandpa was still on the ground, unconscious. The small cupboard that held a shrine for Hikaru’s dad and grandma was still open behind Indo-san, their pictures staring at them. Indo-san’s eyes were huge. Scared. Yoshiki was scared too. He was so scared he couldn’t stop trembling.

What was he supposed to say?

What could he even say?

This was it. It was over.

Everything was over.

Finally, Yoshiki only managed to choke out a, “I’m sorry.”

He pulled Hikaru and ran away from the room.

He kept running and running, hand wrapped around Hikaru’s own. He stumbled across the house’s gate but managed to right himself and continue running up the village without letting go. He could feel Hikaru’s bones creaking in the claw hold of his hand but couldn’t seem to loosen his hand.

Hikaru ran after him, pulled by his hand. He wasn’t crying, only sniffing occasionally as if to hold in the snot leftover from what happened before. “Um, Yoshiki,” He called out quietly as they kept running, his voice coming from a distance into Yoshiki’s ringing ears. “Yoshiki?”

Yoshiki kept going until they were way out of the village. The forest hid them in its indifferent embrace, with millennia-old trees the only thing surrounding them, the cicadas and birds the only sounds beside their rustling footsteps. Just their panting breaths, the leaves and soil scrunching wetly under their rapid steps, and whiii, whiii, whiii, whiii, whiii all around. Yoshiki had half a mind to walk all the way up Nonuki-sama’s mountain where no one could enter and never to return to the village again.

Hikaru was still following obediently behind him, not protesting Yoshiki squeezing the bones in his hand until they creaked, not dragging his feet even as they got further and further from civilization, just letting Yoshiki take him wherever he wanted.

Yoshiki’s feet slowed to a stop next to a giant cedar tree far out of the forest trail. Here, the other trees grew close enough to it that Yoshiki and Hikaru could barely fit into the space, hidden entirely. Everything smelled like soil and moss and dying leaves on the ground. He couldn’t stop trembling. He was going to throw up.

Yoshiki leant against the cedar to hold in the nausea rising in his gut, not letting go of Hikaru’s hand even then. Hikaru stood close enough to be pressed to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Hikaru said again, his voice shaky, “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that… I can’t even kill them. Mom and Grandpa both know… I don’t know what…”

A flash of darkness rolled through Yoshiki’s vision, swaying him as it went. He slammed his free hand over his mouth to stop himself from throwing up and turned his head back towards the tree.

The rough bark scratched his cheek as he forced himself to just breathe in and out through his nose. Slowly, the sludge-like nausea in his throat dripped back down to his stomach. It took him a long minute, but he finally managed to unplaster himself from the tree and bent down halfway to breathe in deeply, shakily pulling his hand from his mouth.

“Hey,” Hikaru said hesitantly.

Yoshiki made a quiet sound, half a question and half a groan.

Hikaru still had his hand squeezed in Yoshiki’s palm and couldn’t move his fingers well. He didn’t pull it out of Yoshiki’s hold, but he used the bit of space he had to twitch his hand just enough to brush a few fingertips over Yoshiki’s wrist. “Are ya okay, Yoshiki?”

“Am I..?” Yoshiki let out a wheezy laugh, rubbing his other hand over his clammy face. How pathetic was he?

He turned his head to look up at Hikaru. He was staring down at Yoshiki with a worried expression on his sun shadowed face, a halo of his hair glowing diamond bright from the sunlight streaming through leaves. The corners of his long-lashed eyes were bruised red. Tear tracks were drying on his cheeks.

“Are ya okay?” Yoshiki asked, his voice hoarse like he had hurt his throat, “What happened there? Why did you attack Indo-san and Hikaru’s grandpa?”

“I didn’t mean to. I promise, I didn’t mean to do that.” Hikaru didn’t seem to know how to explain himself. “I… I know this’s gonna sound like an excuse, but it’s not okay? So don’t give up on me. Ya know I don’t care what anyone but you thinks of me. So I don’t really get how it happened either... It’s just that, when Grandpa said that… Something appeared in me.”

“What?”

“When he called me a monster,” Hikaru said, his tone still uncertain, “I felt something. I dunno what. Something that wasn’t from me, I think… kinda like how I already liked ya so much even when I first took this body. Maybe it was something Hikaru had expected to feel? Something he already felt for a situation that didn’t happen yet? I dunno how to describe the feeling… It just came all of a sudden and I couldn’t control it at all.”

Yoshiki remembered Hikaru looking up shakily with tears running down his face and his heart felt like it was being shredded when he thought of that emotion originating from the Hikaru he had lost. Painfully, he asked, “What kinda feeling?”

“Um, kinda like I wanted to prove him right,” Hikaru said, tilting his head and looking away, “Like I wanted to show him a real monster.”

Yoshiki’s throat was blocked by an immeasurable lump.

“Do ya think I was angry?” Hikaru asked.

Yoshiki could only swallow and swallow again. “I don’t know,” He finally whispered, “Yer the one who gets to name it now.”

Hikaru shuffled even closer to him, so close that he almost fit into the shape of Yoshiki’s body. Yoshiki could only see the top of his hair from this position, the sunlit bright strands of it brushing his shoulder and neck.

When Hikaru spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft. Like he was asking Yoshiki for permission for something. “…I don’t wanna feel angry.”

Yoshiki finally loosened his hand from around Hikaru’s bruised one, only to move his fingers down to hold it properly.

Hikaru immediately held Yoshiki’s hand back, squeezing gently to avoid hurting him. An icy bright strawberry-scent of joy grew like a cloud, sticking to the tree bark and their clothes. So easy to please.

“Okay.” Yoshiki lowered his eyes away from the sweet-scented hair strands. “Feel what ya like.”

Yoshiki alone probably contained more than enough fear and anger for the two of them anyways.

They didn’t go to school that day. They ended up in Yoshiki and Hikaru’s secret hideout instead, not doing anything in particular but just watching out for some undefinable sign on what they were supposed to do now.

Hikaru kept glancing nervously at Yoshiki from where he was lying on his stomach over some threadbare blankets left on the floor. Yoshiki sat beside him, facing the wall where the crooked and silly lines of the Mario level he and Hikaru had designed as kids, just tracing the characters with an absent gaze. Hikaru’s gravestone sat beside the open doorframe, namelessly watching them.

Throughout the day, the morning sunshine had faded into a cloudy pale afternoon, and now the heavy cloud cover obscured a dull sunset that cast the whole area in dim colours. Although it was still light out, everything inside the tiny, shabby cabin was cast in a navy-blue tint by the rainy weather.

Hikaru’s life was over now.

Now that it had happened, there was even a sense of unreality to it. All of Yoshiki’s nightmares usually went up to the argument part and not beyond it. The fact that bugs were still buzzing, birds chittering, the weather changing… it was almost funny.

Hikaru’s life was over and so was Yoshiki’s probably. It was almost funny because one of his worst fears had happened and Yoshiki didn’t even feel like crying, just absently sitting in his childhood secret base, thinking ‘oh, one of my worst fears happened,’ like some character from those boring-ass social-period movies. Their lives were over but somehow they were still alive, and around, and sitting here together in the forest hanging out like nothing had happened. Ridiculous.

“Um, Yoshiki, hey…”

Yoshiki’s eyes turned to Hikaru.

Immediately, Hikaru skittered his gaze away. He pointed across the blanket, “Look, that wall’s covered in cicada shells. I didn’t notice ‘em last time we came over. They must’ve really thought it was the outdoors here, haha!”

There were indeed at least a dozen cicada shells left behind at one corner near the floor. Cicadas usually knew not to moult inside rooms, so maybe this shed was by now just another part of the forest for them. Maybe the wood was hollowing out from the inside, and the screws were rusting hidden under the forgotten pillars, and grass spores were spreading their roots under the floor in preparation for the day they’d sprout into just another patch of the forest. Maybe the shed was so broken inside it would collapse onto their heads this very night, killing them instantly.

Maybe it wouldn’t kill them instantly but crush them beyond repair, and they would bleed out for hours lying next to each other until the adults found them in the morning. Maybe then the ones who found them would see their corpses hand in hand under the wreckage and feel a smidge of regret. Maybe not.

“What was that called, when ivy and grass come to eat old buildings and ships and stuff?”

“Reclamation,” Yoshiki responded.

“Yeah, that!”

Right, maybe it was nature’s reclamation. Or maybe those shells were all just left behind by a single group of deranged cicadas coming back again and again every year, unable to figure out that this was the wrong place for it to moult. There could be bugs with mental disorders, couldn’t there? Who was to say there couldn’t?

“What do ya think it’s like?” Hikaru kept chattering about irrelevant things. “I mean, cicadas. Do ya think they know they’re gonna become somethin’ else afterwards? They just make a shell and dissolve inside, right? What do you think it feels like?”

It probably felt like dying. What else? Yoshiki didn’t even care about this right now.

“Indo-san seemed okay with things when she was taking ya to the doctor,” He asked, “And yer grandpa didn’t mind it either. What happened today?”

Hikaru kicked his feet up and down over the blankets. Yoshiki’s eyes fell onto them and that was when he suddenly noticed that Hikaru wasn’t wearing his sneakers.

“Ya know, yesterday, ya said it’s okay to be myself and I can think of this body as mine and all…” Hikaru led with, his head in the cross of his arms, “It really meant a lot. So I, I went and completed everything I was changin’ inside. But now that I can’t pull up an alpha scent like before, Grandpa started sayin’ I really had to go to the hospital and Mom wanted to take me to one in the city or something and I just…”

Hikaru tilted his head away with an embarrassed grin, not meeting Yoshiki’s eyes.

“I thought, ‘Yoshiki said not to worry Mom!’, and I didn’t wanna go to some stupid city hospital without ya,” He said, “So I told them I couldn’t go back to alpha anyways, but I’m all good so don’t worry ‘bout it. And then after a bit more, somehow all that happened.”

That ‘after a bit more’ was probably an underestimation of some kind. Who knew what else had been said in such an argument?

Yoshiki glanced at Hikaru’s flushed, embarrassed face, then back to his feet. He was still in the socks he had been wearing in his livingroom before Yoshiki dragged him all the way here without a thought for his feet. The white socks were now covered soil and leaf matter, small sticks stuck to the bottom, probably insanely uncomfortable. There were frays and holes visible under the soles and toes, and worst of all there was a small bloody scratch on the side of one foot that Hikaru hadn’t noticed enough to heal.

Despite all of his terrified childhood plans, all those crazy emergency plans he’d spent nights thinking, when it really mattered Yoshiki hadn’t remembered to grab Hikaru’s shoes on the way out.

“It’ll take me longer this time— a few weeks… or maybe a month, if ya want me to change it back. And I might have to do it in the mountains, cause it won’t be pretty doin’ it all at once when I’m only half,” Hikaru was still smiling for Yoshiki, but his gaze was directed closer to Yoshiki’s chest than his face and his lips were curled shakily, a little desperate. “They might forgive me if I change back, right? I guess I should probably start as fast as I can.”

Hikaru dropped his dirty-socked feet back down and started shifting up on his elbows, as if he was going to walk out to the mountain right this instant. Yoshiki didn’t think before his hand shot out to grab Hikaru; not aiming for any part in particular, ready to claw onto a fold of his shirt or the tip of his fingers if he had to. Instead, his palm wrapped around Hikaru’s forearm over the white bandage.

“Hss!” Hikaru froze in surprised pain, the reaction of a creature unused to deep wounds going unhealed, and Yoshiki almost let go. Almost. “Yoshiki?”

After a long indecision, Yoshiki couldn’t make the choice to release him in any way. In the end, he kept his hand as light as he could like that was some sort of a compromise. “Calm down for a sec,” He heard himself saying from a surprising distance, and was surprised at the fact that he sounded a little reasonable. “Wait a bit.”

“But if I don’t do somethin’ soon enough, they’ll tell everyone about me being a monster…”

“Don’t say that,” Yoshiki said immediately. He hated it when Hikaru called himself a monster. He hated it so much. “Yer not a monster. Just— wait a bit. For real wait a bit, okay? Yer solution to everything’s always mountain, mountain, mountain. Changing back to alpha isn’t gonna fix what your mom saw. And if ya think about it, it’s not even that bad.” His voice was growing shakier, making it harder to talk, but Yoshiki couldn’t seem to stop. “It’s nothing compared to all the impurities comin’ to town, right? You’re so impatient. It’s not even that bad. Why would ya even have to go so far?”

Outside, a slow drizzle of humid summer rain started whispering through the leaves. The raindrops hitting the aluminium shed roof filled the air around them, accompanied by the distinct sound of water seeping in through the holes in the roof. One thin stream on the wall carried a cracked cicada shell away with it.

A leaking drop fell down and hit Hikaru’s temple with a plip, sliding down his face and onto his tightly clenched hands as if it wasn’t miserable enough seeing him with scratches on his feet.

“Yoshiki,” Hikaru whispered, just as shaky as Yoshiki.

Yoshiki’s eyes moved back up to Hikaru’s face. He was still smiling, lips curled up as if that would make him look any less nervous and worried.

“This’s real awkward, but…” Hikaru said, “Then what am I supposed to do?”

Yoshiki swallowed.

“Mom and Grandpa both know that I’m not Hikaru. I can’t kill them, you’ll hate me. So I…” Hikaru paused. Then he started again, “I think I should really try to change back to alpha. Maybe if I… if I act really well like the real Hikaru, they won’t want me gone. Transforming back would only be a month in the mountain… then I might still have a place to live. How much I enjoy bein’ an omega doesn’t matter as much as stayin’ here with you, does it?”

“…You can’t hide away to change yer body for a month and come back like nothin’ happened. I mean… In that time I and the whole town would be eaten away by ghosts twice over already.” Yoshiki said, “And how’s that supposed to change anythin’ at this point?”

Hikaru listened slowly, no longer smiling. Then he said, "But I don’t know what else to do."

He kept looking into Yoshiki’s eyes like he’d find an answer there.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hikaru said.

Somehow, that sentence cut into Yoshiki’s heart like nothing else had today. It dug in like the sharp tip of a fishhook, curving into the muscle and meat, tugging his breath out of his chest. Hikaru didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do either. Then what? Some things just had no good solutions. But they couldn’t not do anything forever either. What was there to say, now?

Yoshiki had to move his lips several times before he could actually make any sounds fall out.

Finally, in blurted words, he said, “We can figure it out.”

Hikaru looked at him for a long time, before he lowered his head back into the cross of his arms. It was impossible to tell what emotion had been mixed into that first instinctive expression, but at the very end, just before he hid his face, there was a bit of undeniable softness in it. The hook in Yoshiki’s heart loosened, calming the pain in his chest.

“Okay,” Hikaru murmured muffled into his forearm, lashes low over his gaze. “But now we’re stuck here in the base. Ya can’t really live here, can ya? It’s too small.”

“…” Yoshiki didn’t know what he’d been thinking, exactly, when he led them here to his and Hikaru’s childhood hideout. But looking around it now, the shabby shed was indeed too small and dilapidated to shelter them from anything but the sunlight. “We’ll figure it out,” He insisted nonetheless, “This is nothing compared to the impurities killin’ people. If we’re gonna figure that out, we can figure this out easy. Okay?”

Hikaru’s face was impossible to see, buried fully in his arms. After a moment, he nodded a small nod.

“Mm.”

As the rainstorm outside grew harsher, the shed had gotten darker and darker, turning into something strange and dim.

Before they figured anything out, out of nowhere, a phone started ringing. Hikaru straightened up next to Yoshiki and Yoshiki sat up fully. It was dark enough that the pupils of Hikaru’s eyes glowed crimson in the shadow.

The ringtone was from Yoshiki’s phone ringing muffled inside his pocket.

He was frozen in place, unable to move.

Hikaru stared at Yoshiki’s pocket from where the ringing was coming. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands and shuffled close enough to Yoshiki to see the pocket from right above. He asked, “Yoshiki? Are ya gonna answer that?”

Hand shaking, Yoshiki pulled his phone out. On the screen was a terrifying name:

Mom

They both silently watched the phone ring and ring again. Yoshiki’s heart was beating hard enough to suffocate him.

After another ring, Hikaru leant close to put his hand on Yoshiki’s wrist beside the phone. Lit up in faint blue by the bright screen of the phone, Yoshiki could see Hikaru’s fingers curved over the purple bruise in the shape of his hand. He didn’t do anything, but somehow Yoshiki was comforted just by having his hand on him, just by seeing that growing harshness on Hikaru’s blue-lit face as if he wanted to eat everything that might upset Yoshiki but was holding himself back for him.

Yoshiki breathed out. He accepted the call and brought the phone carefully to his ear.

“Yoshiki? Yoshiki! Can you hear me?”

“Um, hi Mom,” Yoshiki whispered, so quiet he almost couldn’t hear his own words.

“Where are you right now? Are you still hanging out after school? Is Hikaru-kun with you?” His mom demanded in rapid fire, “Yuki-chan’s called saying some really weird things, Yoshiki are you both safe?”

Yoshiki stalled. “What did Indo-san… say exactly?”

“Something about you being in danger and Hikaru-kun taking you somewhere, I’m not going to repeat it right now,” Mom said firmly before pausing to take a deep breath. She asked, “Yoshiki, what’s going on with you two? You’re worrying me.”

Yoshiki opened his mouth and closed it several times, unable to form a proper answer. How could he possibly begin to explain what was going on with him and the cursed god possessing the dead body of his best friend? Sometimes he could barely believe it himself, and he was the one living through it. “Sorry,” He whispered.

“…” After a long while, his mom just sighed. “Well, tell me, are you both safe and sound right now?”

“Yeah,” Yoshiki tried to give a pale smile at the concern, but it feebly faded away. He asked, “Mom, hey, is Hikaru’s grandpa okay?”

“Yuki-chan called from the hospital,” Mom replied, “So you know what’s going on over there? He was up and awake and Yuki-chan seemed much more worried about you. She was barely coherent, it was hard to understand.”

“I didn’t touch them,” Hikaru whispered under his breath next to Yoshiki’s other ear, quiet enough that it couldn’t be heard by his mom on the phone, and Yoshiki shivered. “I didn’t hurt them at all.”

It was just shock that made Hikaru’s grandpa collapse, then.

“Okay,” Yoshiki said, relieved despite himself. He repeated, “We’re fine too.”

“There’s a storm coming, stop hanging around and just come home, okay? I’m gonna try calling Yuki-chan back to see if she’s feeling better yet. I called you first thing, but I want to make sure she’s calmed down.” Mom said, “You’re sure you’re both good, right?”

Yoshiki said, “Yeah, we’re fine.”

“Okay, good.” Mom sounded harried. “Come home now. See you soon, Yoshiki.”

She hung up.

Hikaru pulled back from Yoshiki’s ear to lean back and face him. “So… what now?” He asked.

Yoshiki tipped his head back. The dark roof of the shed was still leaking rainwater, tap ta-tap tap ta-tap ta-ta-tap tap, right next to them. Hikaru’s gravestone was probably getting wet too, but nothing would happen to it, because it was just a few forest stones. The wall Mario level might be running if there was any water getting to it, but it had been there for more than ten years now and if it was gonna wash off it would have long since washed off.

Everything in this shed would likely remain unchanged for another lifetime even if Yoshiki did nothing. Everything but he and Hikaru.

This childhood base just wasn’t enough for them to live in.

“Hikaru,” Yoshiki murmured, “Do ya wanna come over to my house?”

Chapter Text

Yoshiki and Hikaru had once tried a trust fall exercise for fun when they were eleven. It had gone like this:

The moment Yoshiki was told to fall, he fell right into Hikaru’s hands.

When it was Hikaru’s turn, he twisted around at the last moment and stayed standing, giving an embarrassed laugh at Yoshiki’s wide open arms and annoyed expression.

They hadn’t tried it ever again, but Yoshiki knew that —even up to the very day Hikaru died— if they had tried again he would have fallen eyes closed into Hikaru’s arms.

He had of course never played trust falls with his family. But once, when he was a kid, he had somehow gotten stuck on the top of another family’s shed. It had been fairly close to the ground, but not so close that he would have been able to jump down uninjured. His dad and mom had stood right under his hanging feet, his dad’s arms opened and both of them telling him to just jump, Dad will catch you, Yoshiki!

Yoshiki had been terrified. In the end, they’d had to borrow a large ladder from a neighbour to be able to get him down from there.

This Hikaru would close his eyes and fall into Yoshiki’s arms anytime he asked. This Hikaru would close his eyes and fall into a knife, probably, if Yoshiki asked. Actually, Yoshiki deliberately stabbing him and then being handed half of his whole being in a palm-size bone was probably not that different.

“Haha,” Yoshiki let out a quiet laugh, already drenched by the pouring rain as he and Hikaru walked down the village path.

“What’s so funny?” Hikaru demanded from behind him, his short hair plastered to his face. “Are ya going mad now?”

“Who knows,” Yoshiki smiled faintly, and in response Hikaru splashed up some muddy water at his legs.

Hikaru’s socks were by now unsalvageable. His feet were buried in mud to his ankles, which was deathly cold even on a hot summer night like this, and there was a rip on the hem of his school pants from the branch that had cut his foot. Yoshiki had tried to give him his own shoes instead, but Hikaru had been impossible to convince.

I don’t really feel pain like ya, he’d said. And I can heal these in a flash, unlike you who’ll get an infection and die if you get a teeny tiny little scratch. Ain’t NO way I’m wearing yer shoes.

Yoshiki could have protested how likely he was to die of a small scratch, but on second thought the kinds of things that Yoshiki would absolutely die of —like a stab to the stomach— were probably indeed considered small scratches by Hikaru. In the end, he couldn’t argue and was still wearing his shoes.

Soon enough, they reached Yoshiki’s house.

In the darkness of the storm-covered night, the familiar house that he had lived in his entire life looked more terrifying than an abandoned shed or a haunted house.

Both of them stood under the rain for a minute too long before Yoshiki stepped up to the door with Hikaru by his side. He opened the door slowly, his hand shaking as he did so. Behind him, Hikaru might have seemed casual, but Yoshiki could tell that he knew how scary this was for Yoshiki by the way the icy sweet omega scent of his rippled tensely.

“Hikaru…” Yoshiki said, “I’m sticking with ya one way or another, so just stay put no matter what Mom says, okay?”

“I know already,” Hikaru said, pursing his lips.

With that, Yoshiki stepped past the front door.

The entrance hall was pitch-black dark. Only the entrance to the kitchen was lit brightly, the light spilling onto the hall like a threat, forming two bright yellow patches on the black floor and looming walls. Even the cute cat doll on the cabinet and the glass frame of the family photo near the dining table glinted strangely, lined by single stretches of reflected light.

His mom’s voice came from inside the lit kitchen, strained and frazzled. Under hers was the staticky rapid sounds of someone speaking from a phone call, though it was impossible to understand the words from afar. Only Mom’s answers were clear.

“Yuki-chan, I don’t understand anything you’re saying! Nonuku— what? What are you even talking about? Just calm down for a second, okay? If you think about it logically—”

Mom paused, breath held in. More static.

“Please, Yuki-chan, you can’t say that,” Mom said after a moment, “You can’t say that about Hikaru-kun… he’d be devastated if he heard you. You can’t. Are you staying over with your father-in-law at the hospital tonight? …That’s good, take some time to think things through first. Hikaru-kun’s just a kid, okay? I don’t understand what exactly you fought about but you’ve got to—”

Another pause.

“Yoshiki’s just fine, okay? Nothing happened to him, he should be about to come home. Hikaru-kun would never do anything to him!” Mom didn’t seem to know what to say, her voice rising on the edge between worry and disbelief. “Yes, we just talked—”

When Hikaru came to stand next to him, Yoshiki closed the front door behind them with a click.

“—and that should be him,” Mom’s voice came. “Yoshiki’s home, I’ll talk to you again later okay? Take care, Yuki-chan.”

After that, a chair scraping sound came as Mom must have gotten up from the table. The soft patter of slippers walking on tiled floors. Shadows with sharp corners moved across the patches of stark light on the wall. Mom appeared at the kitchen door, her hand rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.

Yoshiki stepped sideways to push Hikaru behind him, so he couldn’t be seen immediately.

His mom had already started speaking before she even saw them, stepping closer. “Yoshiki, finally! I’ve been trying to parse Yuki-chan’s words all evening and now I have a headache, can you tell me just what happened with Hikaru-kun this morning? I…”

She froze just past the kitchen door, looking towards them.

Her eyebrows rose high on her forehead, nose flaring as she finally smelled the rain-dampened scent of nervous omega coming in waves from behind Yoshiki. Her own scent rose instinctively in a comforting blanket of warm bread and freshcut lilies around her, making Yoshiki bite his lips in fear.

“Who’s that with you?” Mom asked softly, approaching with a gentle smile, even though she had certainly recognised the ice-cream scent of the omega Yoshiki had refused to tell anything about. She was acting like she didn’t already know about them because she didn’t want to make them uncomfortable. She really didn’t know anything, anything at all. “What’s with that pose, Yoshiki? Are you protecting your friend from your mom? You should have brought them in so you two can dry off first.”

Yoshiki turned his head to hide his gaze behind the shadow of his bangs before he hesitantly lowered his arm from where it was keeping Hikaru behind him.

“Yoshiki?” Mom asked, blinking.

Hikaru peeked out a little from behind Yoshiki, smiling nervously. “Hi, Auntie..!”

“Hikaru-kun?” Mom asked, uncomprehending. She scented the air again, looking at Hikaru who was half hidden by Yoshiki, and her eyes widened like saucers. “Hikaru-kun, your scent!”

“Um, yeah,” Hikaru laughed, rubbing the back of his head casually, so casually, like his other hand wasn’t holding onto a pinch of Yoshiki’s drenched shirt hidden behind him. “Surprise! I’m an omega, haha.”

“You…” Mom put a hand on her forehead. The kindness in her scent had changed into shock, disbelief, confusion and a hint of discomfort that Yoshiki immediately caught, before she hurriedly erased everything, leaving the air around her as blank as the surface of water. Now, nothing could be read of her emotions. “Oh,” She let out. “Oh, I… okay.”

Yoshiki didn’t let the nauseous beat of his heart stop him. He gathered courage for a long time before he forced himself to blurt the words out like he was trying not to throw them up. “C-can Hikaru stay over tonight?”

After a terrifyingly long pause that had Yoshiki’s pulse running like he was freefalling down a plane, his mom finally responded.

“…of course,” She said, before she gave them both a shaky, close-lipped smile. “Hikaru-kun is basically a resident of our house too, isn’t he? I’ll put another plate out.”

Trust falls, right? Even if the fall was small and open-eyed, and the arms were hesitant and weak and not particularly tight, being caught did feel so nice.

With tears burning his eyes, Yoshiki laughed a quiet tiny laugh. “Thanks, Mom,” He whispered.

His mom smiled back a little stronger, more of her usual steel behind it. “Go dry up first,” She waved them off. “We can talk about everything later.”

Throughout dinner, Yoshiki’s parents seemed too thrown-off to really talk about Hikaru being an omega now. Mom was still holding her scent fully in. Although Dad tried to make a hesitant comment towards Hikaru —more an opening remark than anything else—Yoshiki ignored him with such fierce silence that no one responded and he didn’t make any comments again. Kaoru seemed to be vibrating with the need to question Hikaru, but she was glared down by Mom so she kept silent.

In the end, the only thing Mom said about this was, “I’ll see if I can have a proper talk with your mom, Hikaru-kun. Don’t call her yet.”

Hikaru, who probably wouldn’t have even thought of calling his mom unless Yoshiki made him, blinked at her before smiling brightly. “Okay, thank you, Auntie.”

It was hard to tell what exactly Mom intended to ‘have a talk’ with Hikaru’s mom about. It wasn’t like she herself had asked Hikaru anything about the situation. Maybe she was going to tell Indo-san that they should all sit down and have a calm talk about Hikaru’s whole gender thing and if they could change it back to normal. Maybe she was just going to try and convince her to at least let Hikaru stay home until graduation for the sake of propriety. Yoshiki had no idea and didn’t intend to ask.

Now, hours later, Yoshiki was lying on the futon he’d set up in the living room, watching the dark ceiling. He’d put it up hidden behind the couch where no one would see him from the door unless he was sitting up, so he could have some semblance of privacy. It was much more comfortable than the shed anyways.

His mom had almost sent them all to bed before she remembered that usually Hikaru would just sleep in Yoshiki’s room. First she told Hikaru to go sleep in Kaoru’s room. Then, before Kaoru’s delight could even fully rise on her face, Mom had changed her mind and told Yoshiki to make a futon in the livingroom. At that, Dad started to say, “Is that a good idea, for—?”. Mom cut him off and told Yoshiki he’d be giving his bedroom up to Hikaru and taking the futon.

He could hear still them arguing up in Dad’s room this late at night. He couldn’t hear what they were saying fully, but he could hear well enough. The walls would rattle every time they fought.

“…got to talk to….” Then a loud thump, footsteps following each other. “…teenagers, we all…..” “…normal!—” More inaudible murmurs. “…doesn’t talk……how he looks these days?! Did you even….grades too!….”“..his mother…..” Mom’s voice rose high. “I don’t understand him! He’s an alpha, he needs his dad to relate to him! Now with Hikaru-kun’s issue too, does it seem normal to you?!” “I’m not an alpha either. If it’s just by that—” “So now you can’t even be a father to our son cause you’re a beta?!” Their voices grew muffled again. “…not what I’m…..wanna talk to me!” Dad’s exasperated voice drowned Mom’s for only a single second. After more mumbled sounds, he said, “…so if ya… Hikaru…even?…” Murmurs. “He has to do with everything!” “…wanna….let him stay…” “.…words in my mouth! You…..” And on and on and on, the sounds of their argument spread through the walls.

Yoshiki kept staring tiredly up at the ceiling. The whole livingroom was filled to the brim with their muffled yelling. It was a little cruel of him, but he hoped they would never be able to resolve their differences on this. He hoped they would argue about Hikaru on and on for years, so that he and Hikaru could at least graduate highschool before they came to some decision and the uncomfortable limbo ended. After that… What after that? If they got that far it’d be a miracle.

The rain had cleared and there was now dim starlight streaming in from the windows. The light illuminated a moth that was flying around aimlessly around the ceiling ever since they turned the lights off. Unaware of danger, it seemed to be searching desperately for a lit bulb to press against. Yoshiki couldn’t sleep with all the shouting upstairs, so he was just as aimlessly spending the time watching the moth fly around.

After a moment, the moth started bumping up at the dark lightbulb of the ceiling light with surprisingly accurate memory. Right then, the bulb was suddenly turned on. Light filled the whole room in an instant.

With a quiet tzt!, the moth burnt and fell down next to Yoshiki.

“Oh,” He said, sitting up to stare down at the dead moth, “Ya killed it.”

Hikaru was standing by the door in Yoshiki’s pyjamas. He held a pillow against his chest with one arm, his free hand on the light switch. When he saw Yoshiki carefully gathering the moth in his hand, he hurriedly switched the light off. The room was once again cast in darkness as Yoshiki got up to put the moth out the window where it would at least be dead in its natural environment.

“Sorry,” Hikaru said, bending his head into the pillow until his face disappeared in it. His voice was muffled but came clear compared to the argument echoing from upstairs. “I keep doing that.”

“What’s up with ya?” Yoshiki asked, coming back to sit down at his futon.

“I think yer mom and dad are arguin’ about me,” Hikaru said. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Well, ya know my parents,” Yoshiki said with a wry laugh, “I’ve heard them fight ‘bout stale bread longer than this. Yer just an excuse to argue. …and why are ya just standin’ there like a ghost instead of sittin’ down?”

“Can I come over there?” Hikaru asked.

Yoshiki raised his brows. “What are ya talking about?” He asked, already shifting to the side to make space for Hikaru to sit on his futon. “Why wouldn’t ya be able to?”

“I dunno,” Hikaru said, still muffled into his pillow. “I gotta change in the toilet and now you’ve gotta sleep in the living room. Yer sister saw me after washing up and I thought she was gonna go crazy when she saw the bite on my arm… asked me all sorts of weird ass questions ‘bout ya. Now I can’t figure out if yer mom’s gonna be mad at ya if I come over there.”

Kaoru had seen the bitemark? Yoshiki forced himself to act normal, ducking his head down. His heart was rolling up in his throat. “She might have thought I gave ya a half-bond bite. It’d normally be on your wrist but… close enough, right? She doesn’t know it was an accident…”

“A half-bond bite?” Hikaru asked, “Oh right. Bite on the arm. So Kaoru thinks I’m dating ya now?”

If Hikaru had always been an omega, it would have been the obvious conclusion to the point where if they said they weren’t, Mom would have gotten on Yoshiki’s case about committing like that to an omega he wasn’t dating. If Hikaru was still an alpha, Kaoru would have thought he was either dating someone in school or that he’d gotten bitten in a fight. But in these circumstances now, Yoshiki really couldn’t tell what Kaoru might be thinking.

If his parents heard though, they’d probably just imagine some twisted and perverted relationship between two mentally ill teenagers. Reasonable enough, really.

How could they ever know that this was the closest Yoshiki would ever get to marking an omega?

“I’ll ask her not to tell Mom tomorrow,” Yoshiki said. He was still hanging onto the hope that if they were very good and pleasant and as close to normal-looking as possible, she wouldn’t throw Hikaru out of the house. Maybe things could continue on unchanged for a little longer.

It was silent for a long moment.

“I didn’t think changin’ the insides of my body was gonna cause so much trouble,” Hikaru said, turning his head up a bit from the pillow to give Yoshiki a look up his lashes. “Now it’s a whole thing… on top of the Nonuki-sama stuff at that. It’s a real bother, right?”

Oh.

“It’s fine,” Yoshiki moved his lips faintly to give Hikaru a smile.

Hikaru’s quieted scent immediately brightened at it. He crossed the dark livingroom in quick strides, stepping around the couch. At a proper glance, he was clearly fresh out of the shower. His hair was fluffy and somewhat damp. He didn’t have socks on but his feet were clean and dry and the scratch on his ankle had a fresh bandaid on it. Yoshiki’s smile softened at the sight of Hikaru like that, clean and warm and dry.

Hikaru still had his pillow hugged to his chest when he threw himself cross-legged on the futon, the two of them sitting close enough for their shoulders to press together behind the couch. They sat silently for long enough that Yoshiki started hearing the doors slamming and footsteps thumping upstairs again. After another while, the sounds died down. They were all probably going to sleep now.

In the dark livingroom, they sat together on Yoshiki’s futon. Hikaru’s scent covered the whole air, sweet and calming. Hikaru plastered his side on Yoshiki’s teasingly. “This doesn’t bother ya either?” He asked, voice a little sly. “Me bein’ so close?”

“What, cause yer an omega?” Yoshiki rolled his eyes.

“No, cause ya were real flustered by my chest when I was undressin’ at school that time,” Hikaru said grinning. “Ya liked Hikaru, right?”

Yoshiki’s breath got caught in the brambles of his throat and he immediately ducked his face under the fall of his bangs. He couldn’t deal with this question right now. He couldn’t deal with this question ever.

“Well?” Hikaru asked, bending down to look up closer at Yoshiki, “Whatcha got to say for yerself?”

“I’m not flustered by your chest.” Yoshiki grabbed Hikaru’s too-big tshirt to tug the neck of it nearly off his shoulder, leaning in close enough that that berry cold sorbet scent was the only thing in his nose. He looked down at Hikaru’s chest and stomach, easily visible from under the shirt caught in Yoshiki’s grip, and indeed didn’t feel a skip of his heart.

“What, why not,” Hikaru poked Yoshiki’s side, pouting. “What’s not flusterin’ about me? Ya don’t like me?”

“I’m not flustered by annoying omegas like you,” Yoshiki said, huffing. “We have our own thing anyways, don’t we?”

“Ah, guess so,” Hikaru seemed pleased about that, smiling a true smile that radiated pink to his cheeks. He shoved Yoshiki playfully with his side against his. “So that means yer not gonna blush up if I try an’ change around ya now? Shame.”

“It’s cause you’re tryin’a embarrass me all the time.” Yoshiki said. “I’ve damn near gotten used to ya.”

Then he tugged at the neck of Hikaru’s shirt a few more times to make his point while Hikaru tried to wriggle away.

“Who’s the one stretchin’ the shirt out this time!” Hikaru said, laughing as he pushed Yoshiki off of his shirt.

They fought for the fate of the stretching shirt, hidden behind the couch, covered in silent darkness. After a few too many scary thumps and hits against the couch and the small table nearby, Yoshiki lifted his hands in defeat and got pushed down inelegantly by Hikaru’s palm on his face.

He ended up lying on the messed-up futon with Hikaru’s pillow under his head and Hikaru collapsed beside him, giggling quietly in pure joy. When Yoshiki raised an arm to cover his face, he felt a smile wide against the back of his hand.

“Hey,” Hikaru whispered after a moment, voice still smiling. “I’ve got a question for ya.”

“Hm?”

“Remember how he kept asking ya to scent him? And ya always did?”

“Ya mean Hikaru?” Yoshiki said quietly.

He had become unable to really say no to Hikaru after a certain age. He had dreaded anyone asking him about it and was planning on calling himself a weak-willed coward if it’d get him out of that question. Whenever Hikaru wanted something from him, he’d hem and haw and shake his head a few times before he’d eventually always fold. Especially whenever Hikaru asked him if he wanted to scent him.

It had been terrifying and painful to scent Hikaru. It was also the single closest thing to intimacy Yoshiki had gotten in his life. Yoshiki didn’t love it so much as he desperately, pathetically craved it.

There was an illness where people with a certain deficiency would go so mad that they’d start eating dirt to satisfy it. Yoshiki’s desires were all like that. He’d eat fistfuls of soil —the metaphorical soil— until he’d wreck his stomach, disgust himself to tears, and when he was done he’d still look at the dirt and wish he could swallow another mouthful. He knew it was only ever going to end with him sick to his stomach, shaking on the floor. He was probably gonna keep doing it until he died.

“Right,” Hikaru turned to his side to look at Yoshiki in the darkness. “Did he ever scent ya back?”

“Don’t ya know that?” Yoshiki asked.

“Some of his memories are still blurry to me,” Hikaru said, “Maybe he did it where I can’t see! I wanna be sure.”

“Okay,” Yoshiki muttered. Whatever he said. “Then, no. He didn’t. I asked but he ended up changing his mind.”

“Oh.” Hikaru let out a quickly muffled huff. Yoshiki glanced at him. Under the dim starlight, Hikaru was smiling like a fox who’d swallowed a whole rabbit, his eyes wrinkled smugly above the hand he’d pressed against his lips to muffle his reaction.

Was he really that happy to have something that the previous Hikaru didn’t have about Yoshiki? How ridiculous. There were too many things that the previous Hikaru didn’t have with Yoshiki. Endless things that he would never have, because he was dead and gone.

When he saw Yoshiki looking, Hikaru slid closer and closer on the futon until he almost had his nose pressed into Yoshiki’s hand which was lying palm up on the pillow between them.

“Since I let you scent me once,” Hikaru said, “Can I scent ya back now?”

“There’s barely any point to scenting ya. The whole room can always smell most of what you’ve got,” Yoshiki said, throat still closed painfully tight. He wasn’t moving away but also not moving closer. “And yer already nearly scentin’ me right now.”

“I’m bein’ good and holdin’ myself back, see?” Hikaru pouted, pointing to the two-centimetre space between his nose and the thin skin on the inner side of Yoshiki’s wrist. “Cmon, please!”

“Didn’t ya smell it when ya tried to kill me that day in class?”

“No…” Hikaru muttered awkwardly, “Ya had yer scent out then?! I was mostly outta this body and my nose was blocked afterwards, so I didn’t smell a thing… Now I’m really curious, pleaseeee, Yoshikiiiii!”

Yoshiki turned his gaze to the ceiling before rolling to his side and stretching out his arm between them.

“Fine.”

Hikaru made a happy noise and immediately shuffled closer. He rolled half over Yoshiki’s arm, holding Yoshiki’s elbow with one hand and bending his face into Yoshiki’s wrist. He breathed in once, confused, before almost nuzzling under Yoshiki’s palm trying to find any scent. He had set himself on a difficult quest, probably. Yoshiki’s scent was silent, deficient, almost impossible to dig out. It was one of the many things wrong with Yoshiki.

Yoshiki let loose his hand joints to give Hikaru his way while staring across the room sleepily. Maybe if it was Hikaru, he might be able to figure it out. The idea of Hikaru pushing his nose through his defences and finding the source of his scent wasn’t as scary as it was when others wanted to smell him. It didn’t make Yoshiki shrink away under his skin with shame and fear. It didn’t make him want to hide underground and never come out.

Anyways, the Hikaru now was probably the person who knew the most about Yoshiki in the whole world. He already knew more about him than Hikaru had before. He’d probably come to know him better and better, as time passed. That should have been scary, it was usually scary, but Yoshiki had a hard time imagining Hikaru finding out anything about him that would truly disgust or scare him.

Yoshiki had put his arm in a rip inside Hikaru’s chest and they had both enjoyed it to varying degrees. Yoshiki had had the dead meat-like sludge that was Hikaru’s true form force its way inside him and he’d still somewhat enjoyed it. Eventually.

Honestly, some worse form of disgusting and scary just wasn’t coming to mind no matter how much Yoshiki thought.

This Hikaru wasn’t a good and upright human like the one before had been. This Hikaru was wrong and twisted, like Yoshiki was. Even the things he didn’t understand about Yoshiki, he probably wasn’t going to mind.

Slowly, minute by minute, Yoshiki’s bow-tense body relaxed into the futon.

“Oh, it’s stronger now,” Hikaru whispered into Yoshiki’s wrist, tilting his nose on the skin of it, “Found it.”

Hikaru threaded his fingers through Yoshiki’s to hold his hand in place. He pressed his lips on Yoshiki’s wrist, bottom lip tracing his skin as he breathed his scent in like he was tasting it. Yoshiki’s whole body twitched in embarrassment at this kind of almost erotic action, but… Just this once, he looked away and let Hikaru keep scenting him.

“…So? W-what’s it smell like?” Yoshiki asked quietly, ignoring the heat on his cheeks.

Hikaru didn’t answer for a long time, his face now close enough to feel melted into Yoshiki’s arm.

All of a sudden, Yoshiki felt something freezing cold and terrible and slimy leaking down his arm to his shoulder to his head. The alien fractals of Hikaru’s true body were all out and about to devour him. “Hikaru!” Yoshiki’s heart sped up, pulse pounding loudly all the way in his ears. The little animal instinct at the back of his mind was trembling in fear at a corner.

He flinched back but couldn’t pull his arm free of Hikaru’s insides. A rough gasp escaped his chest as he jerked his other hand up to rip Hikaru off of himself.

Before he could do anything, Hikaru sniffled.

Yoshiki froze, hand still in the air.

His brain was still pulsing in terror. The hand he’d raised was trembling in the air, and his very skin numbed from fear, a dizzy unsteadiness in his core. His heart was drumming deafeningly loud in his ears, thump thump thump thump thump!

But… Even as instinctual fear froze his every vein, Yoshiki first whispered softly, “H-Hikaru. Hikaru, let go!”

Hikaru gasped. His insides vanished in an instant and he scrambled back away from Yoshiki. Yoshiki sat up on the futon, slowly lowering his arm. Hikaru was looking up at him with tears already swimming in his eyes.

The little animal in the back of Yoshiki’s mind finally quieted down into silence, unwilling but helpless.

“Hikaru?” Yoshiki whispered.

“S-sorry.” Hikaru rubbed his eyes roughly with the backs of his hands. “I didn’t mean to let all the gross stuff out.”

Yoshiki didn’t care one bit about that. He leant over a hand on the futon to look closer at Hikaru, worried. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Hikaru silently shifted, turning his face into the futon, his face hidden by the bedding. "I'm sorry."

No matter how long Yoshiki waited, he didn’t say anything else. There was only the unmoving darkness of the living room settled over them. Only the croaking of the frogs and the buzzing cicadas filling the air between them.

“Hikaru,” Yoshiki said again, imploring for an answer.

Whiii, whiii, whiii, whiii…

“Just once,” Hikaru said, voice rough and low, muffled in the futon, “I wanted to at least scent ya just this once before I’d tell ya it’s okay if ya have to let them chase me out of town.”

Yoshiki’s chest crumpled in fear at the mere words. “H-huh?”

Hikaru curled up closer until his forehead and freshly-dried hair was pressed on Yoshiki’s hand on the futon. The way he held the back of Yoshiki’s arm and tilted his nose close to the wrist was careful, almost hesitant. He scented Yoshiki again like a starving animal reaching for a taste of the meat inside a trap it’d already lost its limbs to.

Those were now definitely normal tears falling around Yoshiki’s thumb. Hikaru’s nails dug into the back of his forearm and he let out a wet and devastated sound from deep within.

“Yoshiki how can ya smell like this?” Hikaru said, breathless, “How can ya smell like this? I thought you’d only smell of somethin’ cool, fireworks or temple bells… Just how did you survive to this age while smellin’ like this? How haven’t ya been snatched away by something before me? I wanna find a way to hold you in my mouth forever. Yoshiki, Yoshiki, I want to live inside ya.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Yoshiki said, but he couldn’t help the way his muscles started loosening at the crazy obsessive words compared to the way he’d flinched at Hikaru letting himself be chased away. “Now yer exaggeratin’ for sure.”

“Ya don’t get it.” Some monstrous fervent devotion slipped into Hikaru’s choked voice. “Yoshiki, you smell like a fold in the veil just the right size for me to curl into.”

Yoshiki made an uncomfortable sound. He asked, “What’s that smell like in human words?”

“Like Yoshiki. Like something I can’t find anywhere else in the universe.”

Hikaru breathed quiet and shaky. Then, eventually, his hoarse inhale turned into a cracked whisper.

“Do ya think they’ve told everyone yet?”

“Who?” Yoshiki looked down at the shadowed head of white hair pressed close to his hand. Hikaru only shifted to turn his face further down into the futon, just a little, hiding again. His voice got even more muffled.

“Mom and grandpa.”

“…”

Silently, Yoshiki leant closer and reached his free hand down to Hikaru’s head. He rubbed his hair instead of answering him.

Hikaru’s scent was filled with honest misery, icy cold and covering Yoshiki’s futon with frost. He dug his fingertips into Yoshiki’s forearm, way too strong. Yoshiki winced a little when he felt pinpricks of pain there, five little future bruises, but he didn’t move away.

“I wanna be good,” Hikaru said, raw and bleeding, like he wanted it so badly the wish tore his throat on the way out. “I don’t wanna be the reason yer life’s ruined. I want to tell ya it’s okay if you’ve gotta let me be. I want ya to think I’m good. I want to be good for ya.”

Yoshiki could only keep looking at him silently. After a moment, he stroked down Hikaru’s hair to his back, hand shaky and light. His palm barely fit in between Hikaru’s wing bones which were hunched in tightly together as if he was in great pain.

Yoshiki let his hand remain motionless over the tiny gap in between. He whispered, “Okay.”

“Maybe Mom already told everyone,” Hikaru said, hand tight around Yoshiki’s wrist. “The adults might all be dustin’ out their shovels and rifles so they can hunt me down in the morning. What if they really do chase me out the village? You can’t live without people around. I can’t drag ya to the mountain, you’ll hate it. You’ll hate me.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Yoshiki said, just on the chance that if he denied it fast enough it wouldn’t become true. He continued with much more certainty, “And I already told you, didn’t I? I’m gonna be sticking with ya.”

Hikaru only turned his face further into the futon. Yoshiki trailed his fingers up and down between Hikaru’s shoulder blades over the tshirt, wondering why he wouldn’t face him. It only took a moment before he realized the answer. With his hand on Hikaru’s back, he could clearly feel it when Hikaru’s body start shaking with silent sobs.

“Hikaru?” Yoshiki tried to tug at his side to see his face, but Hikaru resisted. Only his hand was still wrapped around Yoshiki’s wrist right next to his face. His crying was muffled in the futon and barely audible. With the darkness of the night blanketing them, even someone looking at him from close in might not notice it. Possibly only Yoshiki, who had his hand on Hikaru’s shuddering back.

Yoshiki could only watch Hikaru’s back without any way to snap him out of it. Helplessly, his lips also started trembling. Why was this guy always crying? He was going to drive Yoshiki crazy.

“What the hell’s up with ya?” Yoshiki’s tone sounded cracked, “Why are ya hiding? What happened to cryin’ proudly with yer whole face out? Hey, come on.”

“If I’ve gotta lose ya anyways, I wanna eat you,” Hikaru let out a long painful sound, muffled and tiny. “I like ya so much, I want to eat yer soul.”

Yoshiki’s breath caught, his heart skipped over three beats.

“I’ll eat you so quick. It won’t even hurt.” Hikaru’s hand was shaking on Yoshiki’s wrist. His hold had grown so light Yoshiki could easily rip his arm out. “It’s all, it’s all because of this stupid body. I can’t make it right, I just can’t fit in it, and now everything’s gone all wrong. No one likes me bein’ Hikaru. So… so just let me eat ya. Then I’ll drop this body and we can go somewhere else together… go to the ocean together. Or somewhere else. Doesn’t have to be the mountains.”

It took a moment before Yoshiki managed to find some words to say. “Didn’t ya say you wanna be good for me?” He whispered.

Hikaru let out a choked sound from deep within his chest, a sob with as much breathless pain as if Yoshiki had ran him through with a spear.

“I’m sorry,” Hikaru said, his voice muffled, “I can’t. I can’t be somethin’ good for ya. I don’t wanna be alone. I’m so scared of bein’ alone.”

Without any more words, Yoshiki’s hands reached Hikaru.

He wrapped his arms around Hikaru, his hand pushing Hikaru’s head to his shoulder, the other catching him between his wing bones, pulling him into a hug.

Hikaru’s breath hitched.

For the first minute, he was stiff like a dead body in Yoshiki’s embrace. Pressed so close together, even the heat of their bodies merged, seeping into Yoshiki’s skin. His hands were trembling. He hoped Hikaru couldn’t tell. He shifted so they were tight against the base of the couch, hidden from every eye and angle. His trembling hand smooshed Hikaru’s hair until his face was pressed into Yoshiki’s tshirt.

Finally, Hikaru thawed in Yoshiki’s hold. He tucked his head into the crook of Yoshiki’s neck, his tears falling drop by drop onto the skin on Yoshiki’s neck.

His hands were caught between their bodies, pressed against Yoshiki’s chest. His fingers clenched into his shirt until Yoshiki felt the neck hole dig into his spine from the back. Hikaru turned his face into Yoshiki’s neck, his breath tracing damp and warm where Yoshiki’s scent lingered as if he wanted to bite Yoshiki’s throat out whole with his scent.

“I can’t live without this,” Hikaru whispered, voice breaking on the word without, his tears falling endlessly between their skins. “Ya can’t leave me all alone. Even if they hate me, ya can’t throw me out.”

Yoshiki was unable to speak a single word, feeling like he was the one made up of nothing but freezing wet chicken pieces inside.

Hikaru pleaded, “Yoshiki, don’t abandon me.”

Yoshiki froze entirely. His heart filled with such violent revulsion that it felt as if someone had clawed onto a rope of scar tissue and ripped out a wound deeper than his heart. It hurt. It hurt. Hikaru was still pressed tight into his chest, wrapped in his arms, but his cold sweet omega scent was now leeched of every taste; turning into pure, miserable watery ice. Fear was condensed into every drop of it, possibly forever staining all of their furniture with a flavour of despair.

All the hair on Yoshiki’s skin was standing on end. His bangs had fallen across his wide eyes but he didn’t even think to move it away as he stared at the back of the strands. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting…

“I’m not gonna,” Yoshiki said.

His arms clutched Hikaru tighter and tighter.

Hikaru’s hands dug into his chest. “…promise?” He asked from under Yoshiki’s throat, voice muffled but honest, like he was going to believe Yoshiki with his whole heart even if Yoshiki would just nod vaguely without a single word.

Yoshiki couldn’t nod. He couldn’t say ‘yes,’ or ‘I promise,’ because all of those felt like styrofoam in his mouth, empty and suffocating. If he was the one who asked, Hikaru would fall into his arms eyes closed and never wonder if Yoshiki’s arms would be able catch him. He’d never wonder if Yoshiki’s promises were worth shit. If he were to wonder, that would be too scary. Wondering was even scarier than trusting, and trusting was terrifying.

Yoshiki breathed in. Watery cold ice had given way to mind-numbing shaved ice with a distant sweetness, hesitant. Hikaru’s scent stuck to the back of his mouth as he let his breath out again.

He said, “If they throw you out, I’ll take you with me to Tokyo.”

And out of nowhere, tears bit at his eyes. His heart was beating like a rabbit on the run; sprinting, sprinting, sprinting. He couldn’t even believe what he’d said at first. But immediately following the disbelief, a throat-crushing wave of fear and relief and longing swept down his body. He’d been the one to say those words, but somehow he felt like he’d been the one begging for security and someone else who’d promised to take him away. He’d been the one to say it, but he wanted it to be true so badly he could feel his eyes burning.

“How’s that gonna work?” Hikaru asked, soft and quiet. His hands loosened to press lightly on Yoshiki’s chest, leaving behind a stinging line behind Yoshiki’s neck. “Someone might come tell the people there that I’m a monster, can’t they?”

“Don’t call yerself that,” Yoshiki said again.

Hikaru muttered, “Is now the time for that?”

“They ain’t gonna believe it,” Yoshiki whispered, “The people there. Cityfolk don’t believe in monsters.”

Hikaru nodded slowly under Yoshiki’s chin, seeming determined to believe him.

“Okay.” He said in a quiet voice, half muffled in Yoshiki’s sleepshirt, “Ya like Tokyo, right?”

“I like it,” Yoshiki said, “I always thought of going to college there and never returnin’.”

“But yer family and everyone who likes you all live here, don’t they? Won’t they miss ya?”

Yoshiki’s lashes lowered over his eyes in an expression that was too ugly to be seen. He looked towards the edge of the window and the darkness through it. The night was loud with cicadas and croaking frogs, the buzzing desperation of another moth somewhere just outside. Everyone was asleep in the house. There probably wasn’t a single person awake in a two-mile radius, except for Yoshiki and Hikaru. That must be why Yoshiki’s always alert rabbit pulse had disappeared safely, leaving only a strange quietness in his head.

Yoshiki said, “They’re people who like Hikaru too.”

“Well, yeah,” Hikaru replied, “They all like Hikaru, but there’s only you who likes me.”

Somehow, the truth slipped out of Yoshiki easier than a ripple of water, impossible to hold on to:

“…me too.”

Hikaru paused for a second. “Huh?”

Hidden by the darkness of the night and the shadows of his hair, Yoshiki closed his eyes.

He whispered, echoing, “…only you for me too.”

Chapter Text

Yoshiki was always careful. He always triple-checked to make sure he didn’t leave any tracks. He averted his eyes from alphas so that he wouldn’t take advantage of them. He hid the unnatural want in his gaze. He dug his nails into his arms when he started thinking too much. He always kept his head down so no one could read anything in his silence. His desires were ugly and predatory, anyone subjected to them was a victim, but he made sure he didn’t reach out for anything he really wanted and that way he didn’t hurt people. He was always so, so careful.

Hikaru was also starting to be careful. He tried to read the atmosphere better, he approached human emotions cautiously and with respect, he was determined not to hurt anyone anymore.

If Hikaru hadn’t been careful about some aspect of human life, it was only because Yoshiki hadn’t warned him about it. If Hikaru wasn’t careful about hiding what he felt about being an omega, it was because Yoshiki hadn’t told him he should be. Yoshiki had failed him. He had as good as ruined Hikaru’s life himself.

If someone asked him why he hadn’t warned Hikaru, he wouldn’t even be able to give a concrete reason why.

He just… really hadn’t wanted to see Hikaru be any more careful.

He hated seeing Hikaru be careful.

Yoshiki wanted to find some monstrous, inhuman place for them to live so disgusting that Hikaru could live freely, laugh recklessly, and never hesitate on the things he wanted for the sake of others again.

In the morning, everyone emerged well-behaved from their own designated rooms. Yoshiki’s mom passed by the livingroom and caught the last remaining traces of the miserable and scared scent Hikaru had left on their couch and tables, but as usual nothing from Yoshiki’s scent. She just gave the furniture a long look, a tired and uncertain expression on her face, before sighing and heading to the kitchen. Not for the first time, Yoshiki was grateful for the reticence of his own scent.

After his mom walked away, Yoshiki caught Kaoru in her room to talk. He swore her into silence on the matter of Hikaru’s bite wound. Then he was caught right back in an interrogation where he could barely stammer out half an answer to every ten questions.

“So are ya two dating or not?” Kaoru demanded outright, finally.

Yoshiki’s face had gotten pale purple like he was on his deathbed and crumpled like paper. “We’re not like that,” Yoshiki said.

“But that’s yer bite right? No one else’s claimin’ Hikaru? He was dating that omega from yer third-year, don’t tell me she—”

“He wasn’t datin’ her,” Yoshiki said in a snap. He hated how he was still so hung up over the Hikaru he’d lost. “It was just a crush.”

“So it’s some alpha who..? Claimed Hikaru?” Kaoru’s eyes were huge. “And ya two are still gonna be friends?”

Yoshiki was about to go lock himself up in the bathroom in the dark to just sit balled up for a while, actually.

After a moment, he lowered himself down the wall of Kaoru’s cutesy room, across where she was sitting crosslegged on her futon. “It’s my bite,” He had to reveal finally. “But it’s not like that. It ain’t like that between us.”

Kaoru seemed almost annoyed at how confused she was about the weird nameless ways Yoshiki and Hikaru had changed their relationship. “Cause he’s an alpha?”

“Pretty sure he’s not,” Yoshiki said.

“But ya still see him as an alpha… so ya can’t date him..?”

If only it was that simple. “I just treat him like I did before,” Yoshiki said, “He’s my best friend no matter what else he’s also. That bite’s not— it’s not somethin’ like that, it was more of a fight really… we don’t like each other like that. We’re not dating. And why are ya so curious about it anyways?”

“No reason.”

“Really?”

Kaoru pursed her lips. She sat more properly on the futon but pulled her pillow over her lap as if it was a barrier between herself and the room, hugging it with her face down on the top. When she did that, she suddenly reminded Yoshiki so much of Hikaru that his heart went soft and sweet; a terrifyingly strange feeling. He turned to stare down at his lap instead.

“Everyone’s mad at him, right?” Kaoru asked.

Yoshiki leant back against the wall. “I dunno,” He said, “Probably.”

“Is he gonna be an omega forever now?”

“I think so,” Yoshiki said. His hands were awkward in the cross of his legs, ugly bumpy fingers and roughly bitten nail beds that stood out on pale skin. A mole stood awkwardly on the side of his index finger. He rubbed it with a thumb. “Apparently he’s all omega inside and pretty happy ‘bout it.”

“It’s kinda weird,” Kaoru said.

“…sorry.”

“Why are ya apologising?” Kaoru rolled her eyes. “It’s just weird cause Hikaru used to be… I dunno, more like an alpha than you and everyone else. Wasn’t he? We were always way weirder than him. But he seems really happy now so maybe he was just good at actin’ I guess…”

Yoshiki didn’t know what to say about that. Hikaru had been a completely closed book for him. He wouldn’t be able say anything on how happy he was, even though he’d always seemed pretty cheerful. The Hikaru now cried often, but he laughed even more often and Yoshiki always knew he meant it when he laughed, because it was so obvious when he was faking it. He said, “Don’t mind it too much, if ya can.”

“I don’t anyways,” Kaoru said. “He’s cool.”

“…”

That was the end of the conversation. He’d come here to tell Kaoru to not tell Mom about the bitemark and Kaoru wasn’t gonna tell, so Yoshiki could pat himself on the back and leave. He didn’t need to endure this weird, off-putting exchange any longer.

He didn’t know why he’d even opened his mouth when he found himself saying, “Ya didn’t use to say that ‘bout him.”

“…so?” Kaoru’s hunch over the pillow turned defensive.

“Nothing,” Yoshiki said. Why was this conversation was still continuing? He ducked his head under the shadows of his bangs so neither of them could see each other. “Just curious I guess… Ya two have been real friendly these days so I thought I’d ask.”

“He was cool before too. Way cooler than ya,” Kaoru said. She didn’t add anything else.

“Ya didn’t use to talk so much with him though.”

Kaoru’s discomfort was now palpable in the air. Yoshiki glanced over at her. She buried her head in the pillow, and the awkward rejection was so heavy around her that suddenly Yoshiki was looking at himself rather than Hikaru. God, why was he even still here? What the hell was wrong with him? He was so creepy. Why couldn’t he ever be normal about anything?

“Never mind, it’s nothin’,” Yoshiki pushed himself from the floor, dipping his head down so he could avoid showing Kaoru his pursed lips.

“…couldn’t say words right…” Kaoru muttered into the pillow, her voice muffled and so quiet it was almost incomprehensible. “And I..”

“What?” Yoshiki asked, pausing half-up with his weight pressed on his arm.

Kaoru pulled the pillow a tiny bit away from her lips.

“He kept saying words weird, or asking stupid questions, or he’d say somethin’ that didn’t make sense,” She said almost inaudibly. “I dunno, I noticed last month or something. A few days ago we were talkin’ and he said aquorom instead’a aquarium.”

“Ya like him cause… he’s not talkin’ right anymore?”

Kaoru shrugged.

In the quiet, Yoshiki just slowly sat back down.

“He’s never embarrassed ‘bout it,” Kaoru whispered after a long while, “I wasn’t sure if I should tell him first, but when I fix it he says thanks and laughs.”

He did do that, didn’t he? Kaoru raised her face from the pillow, turning a pair of liquid grey eyes up at Yoshiki.

“He asked me all sorta dumb questions ‘bout that glitter pen Mom gave me when I showed him. We talked about it for an hour or somethin’. It was fun. He keeps talkin’ about ya and listens to my lame stories like he’s really curious, and he’s not scared if what he says is weird,” She said softly, “He’s not scared that I’ll hate him cause he’s weird.”

“Kaoru…”

Kaoru pushed her face back into the pillow, leaving only a messy head of black hair visible over it. “I dunno how to explain it,” She said, pushing her face further and further in.

After a moment, she finally said:

“Feels like something’s wrong with him now.” Her voice was muffled. “So I don’t gotta be scared if there’s somethin’ wrong with me too.”

There was a painful thump in his heart. Yoshiki replied, “There’s nothin’ wrong with ya.”

“Yes there’s.” Kaoru said clearly, pulled back from the pillow. “There’s lots’a things weird about me! Ya just don’t see it since ya think it’s fine cause I’m an omega.”

“I don’t!”

“Ya do!”

“Why would I even—”

“Yes ya do! That’s what everyone thinks!” Kaoru said, “I don’t wanna go to school cause I feel sick and then I get so weird all the kids hate me, they all know ‘bout Mom and Dad, even Yu-chan’s gone, and I’m so scared all the time I can’t even breathe there. I don’t wanna go but I wish I could’ave! I wish I could be normal! I wanna have friends and get to go to Tokyo like ya but I can’t cause I’m not smart like ya— and the only reason everyone’s okay that I’m sick and stupid’s cause I’m an omega!”

Yoshiki was up and shuffling next to Kaoru and before he even noticed it, his side was pressed all against Kaoru’s side as they both huddled together on the smallest corner of the futon. “I… I don’t think that,” He spoke fast but words tripped themselves over his heavy tongue, nothing properly comforting ever coming to the tip of it. “Yer not stupid. Don’t say that.”

Kaoru sniffled. “Yes I am.”

“You’re not. You’re smart too.”

“…ya suck at this. Way to convince me, Yoshiki.”

“I’m sorry,” Yoshiki muttered, “I’m not good at talkin’. But yer not stupid, okay? I never thought that ‘bout ya.”

Kaoru said “Mm,” in a soft, doubtful voice.

“You’re totally gonna take over Mom’s hairdresser, like Hikaru with their mushroom farm,” Yoshiki said. He didn’t know how to properly explain how much he didn’t think Kaoru needed to hate herself. He could only quietly continue talking; “That’s why… that’s why I thought it’s okay if ya don’t wanna study. You’re so good at drawin’ and doin’ nails and hair too, and ya love learning up stuff on yer own. I always thought the aunties were the stupid ones for sayin’ things like ‘have a baby soon’ or ‘marry my son next year’.”

After a moment of silence, Kaoru asked, “Why didn’t ya say anything?”

“I…” Yoshiki’s breath was cut in half. Hesitantly, he admitted, “…I’m always scared too. That’s just why. Why didn’t ya ever say anything?”

Kaoru kept her head buried in the pillow and Yoshiki kept his gaze pinned away from her, towards the far corner of the room. After a moment, slowly, Kaoru leant her weight against his side. Yoshiki leant back against her just a little, so she would feel his weight too.

“Did ya think I’d say somethin’ bad?” Yoshiki asked, burying his face in the cross of his arms around his knees. “We never talk ‘bout this kinda stuff. Ya thought I’d be mean about it, that’s why we never talked?”

“…dunno,” Kaoru said. “But yer closer than ever with Hikaru and he’s gotten super weird so… so it it feels like maybe ya don’t mind weird things like everyone else. I guess ya seem a bit cooler now too.”

“I never minded.” Yoshiki could only laugh wryly under his breath. “I’m weirder than ya both, Kaoru.”

“No way, everyone loves ya,” Kaoru huffed, “Yer the heir of the family! Everyone’s waitin’ for when ya’ll return from Tokyo with a huge degree or somethin’ so they can brag in town. At worst, you’re just too shy for an alpha.”

Yoshiki’s first feeling at those words was validation, sickening and proud. Despite everything, she still didn’t know. No one could tell. That was how well he’d hidden himself all his life.

There were times he felt like he must be stepping back and forth on the edge of being totally obvious. So obvious his parents might just sit him down and say, ‘We’ve always known and can no longer endure your perversion, you should leave now’. So obvious people should point at him and laugh in the streets. It felt like a single twitch of his fingertips or blink of his eyes could expose him to everyone. Like only when every part of his body was six feet underground would he truly be hidden.

And yet, even his only sister didn’t know what she wasn’t supposed to know. He’d hidden so well. He was so good at this. If he just didn’t say anything. If he just nodded and agreed right now, it’d be the highlight of his acting. He didn’t have to relate to her. They weren’t even close. What did she know really? If he just didn’t say anything right now…

“I…” Yoshiki whispered, “I guess I’ve just gotten good at hidin’. I’m worse than ya think. I’m way worse. I’m just…”

They were both quiet as Yoshiki took in a breath only to find it blocked in a silent vowel. He barely managed to continue, quieter than he’d ever been, a whisper.

“I’m just always hidin’,” He said, “Cause I’m so scared all the time, so scared that I can’t even breathe.”

Kaoru laughed, just as quiet. “Yer not saying that to make me feel better?”

“Why would this make ya feel better?” Yoshiki smiled faintly under the shadow of his arms, joking, “I’m feelin’ way worse right now.”

Kaoru laughed again into her pillow. “Weak.”

They sat in silence for another minute, surrounded by the faint clatter of Mom making breakfast downstairs and Dad putting his tools together next room over. Hikaru was still in the bathroom, washing up. The sounds of water were starting to sputter, so Yoshiki thought he was probably gonna be done soon. Yoshiki should also leave soon to get dressed before breakfast.

“I always thought…” Kaoru started weakly, falling silent before she finished speaking. When Yoshiki shifted to look down at her from over his upper arm, she was curled up tightly next to him. She started again, “I always thought you’d probably find some annoying city omega to marry when ya went to college.”

“What?” Yoshiki asked, incredulous, “Where’d ya even get that?”

“Hikaru was always talkin’ about how cool Tokyo omegas are and how you’d like them for sure, wasn’t he?” Kaoru said, making Yoshiki’s heart drop terrifyingly for a moment. “But I always thought… if ya married one they’d be super posh and find us weird and you’d never come back to see me, just like Uncle Junichi. Then it’d just be me and my kids and all, and I’d call ya like Dad every year and you’d always say ya were gonna come home for Obon this time for sure but you’d cancel every time.”

“What kids. Yer just eleven,” Yoshiki said as he stared away and down at one of the plushies on the floor. “I’m not gonna marry some city omega. I’m just goin’ there to study, I never even thought of findin’ a date or anything.”

“Whatever,” Kaoru huffed. “That’s cause ya never plan anything properly.”

Yoshiki did plan everything in the most intricate detail just like Kaoru did. It was only that they were all insane last-resort emergency-escape kind of plans, not plans for some undefinable distant future, so he couldn’t share them.

“That sounds like an awful future to me too,” Yoshiki whispered.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Yoshiki said.

“I thought for sure that ya…”

Kaoru didn’t seem to know how to continue.

“Ya don’t really like anyone here but Hikaru,” She said, and her words were so shockingly and terrifyingly correct that it instantly made Yoshiki’s stomach cramp up. How did she know? He wasn’t even that close with Kaoru. They’d never had a proper conversation before this. They always kept to themselves, hid their thoughts, and let the normalcy of day-to-day life pull them onwards without resistance.

How had she read him so accurately in this without even noticing what was truly wrong with him?

Heart beating like a cornered bug, Yoshiki somehow moved his trembling lips around a few words. “I like ya. And Mom.”

“No ya don’t,” Kaoru said. “Maybe ya love us but you don’t like us. You never speak to us. When Hikaru’s not around it’s like he takes ya with him, even when yer still sitting at the table. When he was lost in that mountain…”

Yoshiki’s breath cut off completely. His ribs were stuck on shrunken lungs, stretching and stretching trying to take in a breath, but they couldn’t pull open even a single inch.

“Last winter, I mean… when Hikaru was gone for days and everyone was saying— they all said he was probably already dead.” Kaoru’s voice was shaky and cracked. “And when ya left that night, I thought you were going to die too.”

Yoshiki had also thought he was going to die. That was why it was so scary to hear Kaoru say that. Kaoru’s sweet, faint scent started to rise deeply around the room, and it was filled only with residual fear like how dried flowers smelled when you accidentally crushed a petal into dust, cloying rotten dryness.

“Ya came back but it wasn’t ya that came back. Mom was so mad at you for going out when ya weren’t supposed to but it was like ya weren’t even there. You kept throwin’ up with a fever, you wouldn’t eat, drink, you wouldn’t even speak, and after a while they wanted to take ya to the hospital,” Kaoru let out a wet, wry laugh, “Cause everyone thought you’d fallen and gotten brain damage that night. Do ya remember?”

“I don’t,” Yoshiki said.

“Well it wasn’t brain damage,” Kaoru said, “Since Hikaru came back and ya looked awful ‘bout it but you started eatin’ again anyways.”

“…” What could he even say to that? Yoshiki muttered, “Sorry.”

He was awful. He wished he’d been born as something good and nice. He wished he didn’t need his best friend around to protect him from the crushing, squeezing, nauseating pressure of being alive. He wished living here didn’t suffocate him with every breath. He wished the casually nice things about life didn’t shrink and shrink like until they popped out of existence whenever he thought about Hikaru being gone. He wished he still enjoyed the things he used to like when he was a kid.

“It’s whatever,” Kaoru sniffled one more time before her voice grew louder and firmer like she was pushing out everything sad in it. “I’m just sayin’, since yer gonna marry someone eventually, it’d be cool if it was Hikaru.”

Yoshiki was thrown so out of his mood that he almost fell over. Face burning red, he turned around to look at Kaoru with complete shock on his face. “What?!”

Kaoru was determinedly not looking back at him. “Hikaru’s way better than some vain city omega who’ll think we’re lame. He likes us. He likes the village too. And he loves ya a lot these days, so if he’s gonna be an omega I think you can marry him.”

“You… seriously, Kaoru…”

Kaoru didn’t mention anything about Yoshiki ‘liking’ Hikaru or ‘loving him a lot’, like she’d specifically mentioned for Hikaru. After that previous conversation, it’d almost feel ridiculous to bring it up. If there had ever been any lines between Yoshiki and Hikaru, they must have blurred away sometime this summer. And did it even matter if Yoshiki liked Hikaru when his whole day to day life kind of depended on him?

The worst part was that Yoshiki did like Hikaru. Even now. Even this Hikaru. He liked him in many strange and indescribable ways, ways in which he couldn’t even think of liking anyone else, even if he didn’t feel for him what he felt for the Hikaru he’d lost.

“When yer gonna marry someone, you should marry Hikaru,” Kaoru repeated softly. “He’s an omega now so it works out perfect.”

Yoshiki was suddenly really tired.

“It doesn’t work like that, Kaoru.”

“Yes it does,” Kaoru said.

“The adults aren’t ever gonna believe Hikaru’s an omega. They’ll think he’s sick in the head. You’re totally reachin’ right now.”

“Well, I think if he smells like me and acts like me, he’s probably like me. And he’s bad at school like me too!” Kaoru pursed her lips. “…his scent’s so pretty now, isn’t it? All cold and beautiful, like night air in the winter. And don’t ya think his cheeks are lookin’ softer? Maybe he’s gonna be more and more like an omega. What’s gonna happen then?”

Yoshiki didn’t know. Maybe one day he’d look up and he wouldn’t be able to find a single trace of Hikaru —the one he loved— in what remained of his body. Maybe Hikaru’s corpse would be entirely picked clean by the two of them. At least it made this Hikaru happy though. So… there was that.

“Ya don’t think the adults are gonna…” Kaoru muttered, “That they’ll do something crazy ‘bout it, do ya?”

That was exactly what Yoshiki was thinking they’d do. Worse, he was almost entirely sure that if Indo-san spoke out about the Nonuki-sama thing, the villagers would all come together to try to actually kill Hikaru. The window to hide it had passed them by all of a sudden. Now they could only hope for the best.

“I’m tryin’ to make sure he stays in Mom’s good graces at least,” Yoshiki said. “If Mom’s okay with hidin’ him here, Dad won’t argue either, so…”

Even if he’s got nowhere else to go, maybe he can feel a bit safe in our house, Yoshiki thought but didn’t say. It was something, at least, to have a house to run to when this village wanted to suffocate you.

“That’s why, ya gotta keep quiet on that bitemark,” Yoshiki said, “I’m tryin’ not to make her want Hikaru gone. She might be okay with him bein’ how he is, but I dunno what she’ll do if she thinks I’m gonna be involved.”

“…okay,” Kaoru said, though that one word contained all the disappointment of the world. “Are ya two ever not gonna hide it?”

Yoshiki’s breath hitched again. Hide what? He didn’t ask. There were so many things the two of them were hiding, together and separately. His bitemark wasn’t even a true bond mark. It didn’t even have any of Yoshiki’s scent on it. It was just an accident.

An accident that Hikaru kept unhealed and open because he loved being connected to Yoshiki, and that Yoshiki didn’t argue against because he was clinically ill or something.

“I dunno,” He managed to say.

Kaoru nodded like that made sense.

“I get it,” She said, “When ya aren’t scared anymore, right?”

Yoshiki kept staring at the wall across them. After a moment, he laughed faintly. “I guess.”

If they ended up in some undefinable, distant future where they didn’t have anything to be scared of anymore, maybe.

They had breakfast together with all five of them sitting at the table.

Dad watched Hikaru and Yoshiki with a gaze that was hard to describe. There was a look of deep confusion on his face that Yoshiki had only seen on Maki’s face when he saw a maths problem he’d tried for an hour to figure out being solved with an equation from an entirely different module. Yoshiki didn’t know what to call that emotion but it was uncomfortable to be under the focus of it.

Mom also didn’t seem to know what to say, just watching the two of them as they ate breakfast as casually as they could; Yoshiki silently and Hikaru with half-forced jovial chatter interspersed by truthful exclamations of ‘This is delicious, Auntie!’. Kaoru chattered with Hikaru, helping him act normal by throwing insults at Yoshiki that Hikaru could back her up on. Yoshiki was really, really thankful for it.

As time passed and the breakfast came to a close, Mom’s fresh-bread scent slowly started to join Hikaru and Kaoru’s sweet scents, turning the kitchen air into something relaxed and familial. She smiled when she told Hikaru not to chew with his mouth open. Hikaru’s relief cut through the room like sugary cold lemon and Yoshiki was careful not to bring any attention to it —guessing they probably couldn’t read Hikaru’s scent as easily as he could— by ducking to hide his small smile.

Since it was a Saturday today, only Dad had to go to work. After he left with another awkward look at the two of them, Hikaru was dragged away by Kaoru saying she wanted to show him something in her room. This left the dishwashing all to Yoshiki. Sighing, he collected the plates and headed to the the sink.

Unexpectedly, when he put a plate onto the drying rack in front of the window, a shadow light with the morning sun fell onto the sink, startling him.

Mom silently dried the plate on the rack and then took the next one right from Yoshiki’s hands. Yoshiki stood in tense silence for a long while before he made himself grab another plate.

“I can do it Mom,” Yoshiki said, turning eyes down to the soapy plate in his hand, “Don’t ya have that show now?”

“They’re on break this week,” Mom said, “I can’t come help my son out?”

“…Okay,” Yoshiki said. She could watch something else instead. “Thanks.”

“Mhm.”

They silently went through the plates. A long few minutes went by in peace. Outside the window, the birds were chirping, bugs buzzing in their shrill voices. The neighbours must be speaking in their garden cause their voices came in indistinct murmurs. By the time he started in on the glasses, Yoshiki was almost relaxed.

That was when Mom made a distinct quiet sound —the start to a conversation— and Yoshiki’s back immediately tensed up again.

“The omega you couldn’t tell me about, going through some hard times… was Hikaru-kun, I see.”

Yoshiki continued scrubbing the clean glass roughly. His head bowed. “Mm.”

“So you’ve known about this for a while,” Mom said. She reached over to pluck the clean glass right from Yoshiki and leaving his hands empty with nothing to do. “You two’ve always been close... It’s nice of you to lend an ear when your friend’s going through things.”

Yoshiki couldn’t figure out where she was going with this. His heart was starting to pick up pace, the heat of the morning weighing closer on his skin with every second that passed. He swallowed to wet his mouth. He mumbled, “It’s not cause of bein’ nice or anythin’.”

“Hm…”

A moment of silence, filled only with Mom’s few abrupt inhales that didn’t manage to become words. Eventually, she figured something out.

“Hikaru-kun… Whenever I get his scent from you, he always seems pretty unhappy,” She said. Her hands were clumsier than usual, clattering the cups against each other as she handled them. “I guess that’s… to be expected, huh?”

Yoshiki gave her another washed cup without raising his head. “I guess…” He said. He hadn't thought that before. But it did seem reasonable to expect that Hikaru would be miserable all the time. Of course he would be. What else? He was barely surviving one day after another in a hostile village where everyone hated him. Could he possibly pass every day having fun and enjoying himself?

“It’s been a hard time for you too,” Mom said. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the awkward tilt of her lips. Her scent radiating to him was so deliberately approachable that it felt a little nauseating. “Hasn’t it? Taking on this burden for him, hiding his secrets… your best friend isn’t the same, and everything’s different… It’s hard for Hikaru-kun, of course, but it’s not easy for the people around him either.”

Yoshiki stared straight down at the windowsill above the sink, outside which a little spider was walking. It went all the way up and then over the metal hinges in the silence. A house spider, papery and tiny.

It wasn’t easy for the people around him. Sure. When a spider fell and landed on someone, they were gonna scream and flail and get bitten as a result. What was a spider supposed to do, though? Not land on anyone? Should it float in the air forever then? Not bite? Was it supposed to obediently let itself be crushed, dying for a giant’s peace of mind? Yoshiki slowly held another cup in the sink before turning on the faucet.

“It’s okay,” He said.

The sound of whooshing water flowed between them.

“…we don’t talk much these days,” Mom spoke indistinctly from behind the sound of spilling water. “Maybe it’s not the same thing since I’m an omega, but actually I had a pretty hard time in highschool too.”

Yoshiki finished washing the glasses and took up the cutlery. He kept his head low as he rubbed them with way more force than the action necessitated.

“My parents didn’t listen to me much. I had issues with sleep cause I couldn’t deal with the stress. But I wasn’t responsible like you,” Mom said with a small huff, “After a while, I wanted to stick it to my parents so I dyed my hair and got a fake tan. I looked quite ugly like that, looking back on it… I got into some really wrong relationships. I’m lucky I got my head back on straight before it was too late. That’s why, I’m proud of you for being such a steady and good kid, even though highschool is such a difficult time.”

There was a pause.

Yoshiki’s hands had paused on the handle of a knife. It shook a bit under the flowing stream of water. Splashed his wrist. He slipped it into a bowl half-filled with soapy dishwater to hold onto the counter.

He asked, “Wrong how?”

Mom let down a cup too fast and hard again, surprised. “Wrong, how?” She repeated.

“How… was it wrong?” Yoshiki asked, not looking up from the sink.

A pause, several seconds too long. “Well… They certainly weren’t marriage material,” Mom huffed out a joke after thinking it through. She continued more seriously, “They weren’t the normal type you’d find in a classroom or a small town like here. I was a teenager, so things that weren’t good for me seemed cooler and better. I wasn’t thinking of what it’d do to me, or the people who loved me. It wasn’t— I’m not gonna get into it now, cause it’s not something to brag about. Everything was better when I turned back around. Don’t do things like that.”

Yoshiki silently reached back into the half-bowl of dirty soap water to get back the knife he’d dropped. Then, when he realized Mom was waiting for him to answer her, he let out a sound. An acknowledgement or something. Just a short, “Oh.”

“I just wanted to say, when you’re at this age, the future seems really far away. Whatever’s happening in front of you feels way more important. You want to do crazy things to get away from your normal life and how you’re really feeling…”

The knife was nearly dulled under the water from how much Yoshiki had cleaned it. He dumped it to the rack and moved onto one of the still dirty knives, barely even seeing the sink as he worked.

Mom cleared her throat. “But you’re moving along really well, Yoshiki. You’re a responsible kid… keeping up with your normal life even when it’s not easy. I know you’re gonna do great. What I mean is…” She came to a stop with a deep inhale and let it out fast, harshly. “Yoshiki, can you please say something back?”

Say something back.

Without raising his head from the last few of the dirty cutlery he was scrubbing, Yoshiki said, “Is that what Hikaru’s doin’, for ya?” He lowered his bangs far over his eyes. “Doin’ crazy things to get away from his life?”

“What?” Mom paused. “Huh? Ah… Ah, no. You know I haven’t gotten the chance to speak to Hikaru-kun yet. Yuki-chan hasn’t been answering my calls either. I was only talking about myself.”

“Why didn’t ya talk to Hikaru first then?” Yoshiki said. “Don’t ya wanna know what he has to say? If he’s what’s makin’ everyone’s lives hard.”

“That’s not what I said, Yoshiki. You too… just like your father, putting words in my mouth… forget it. I’m just—” Mom spoke the words too hard, “I just want you to know, I’m here to talk if you need. Your dad too. You can always come to us for advice. Whether it’s about school or, anything else.”

The back of Yoshiki’s back felt like it was burning all the way to his ears, which were ringing. What the hell? He finished washing the last spoon without raising his gaze from under the shadows on his face. He didn’t even know what to say. No matter what he said, it would be too harsh, too hurtful… Yoshiki had gotten his mom’s bluntness and abruptness, though unfortunately not her ability to speak out her mind.

Ask for advice. Seriously. Anyways, he’d already gotten the gist of her advice.

“Okay,” He said.

He put the last spoon on the rack without looking over there and pressed his hands down on the towel. Mom took the spoon to dry it.

He muttered, “Thanks, Mom.”

“Yoshiki…” Mom sighed, helpless and tired. “…” She also didn’t seem to know what to say. After a moment, she just gave up. “Go on then. See if your sister’s done bragging to Hikaru-kun with everything she got from my closet.”

“Okay.”

Yoshiki left the kitchen like he was escaping. He caught a deep breath when he reached the stairs, but when he glanced back, his mom was still staring at him. Yoshiki’s heart seized in his stomach. He hurriedly turned around to climb up. He felt shrivelled and tiny inside his own skin, too hot and sweaty and disgusting. He wanted to scrub this feeling off of himself until he’d peeled his skin. Somehow, he’d once again managed to get by without being found out. Maybe he really was just that good at acting normal.

What was he going to do..? Right, go see what Kaoru and Hikaru were doing.

He headed to Kaoru’s room with his every back muscle still knotted tight into each other, heat radiating off of his skin. Past the hall, Kaoru’s door was half-closed. Yoshiki didn’t even knock before he started pushing the door. “Hey, are ya two still hangin’ ou—”

The sight past the half-open door rooted him to the floor, wide-eyed and shocked.

“Yoshiki, look!”

Hikaru spun around to see him, laughing in pure exhilarated joy. Kaoru was trying to adjust something behind him, but Yoshiki barely registered her before his eyes snapped right back.

Hikaru was dressed up. He was in a graceful white yukata that Yoshiki felt like he’d seen his mom wear once and never again, holding up his sleeves to show the dense pattern of little blue flowers on the fabric. The obi was matching blue and wide with way more ribbons than a masculine yukata would ever carry. There was even a pink flower clip attached to the side of his hair.

Yoshiki’s first thought was, oh that looks so weird. Like accidentally stumbling on the pic of an alpha crossdressing online. His limbs were too gangly, his shoulders too wide. Yoshiki’s gaze tripped over Hikaru’s hands, his jawline, the shape of his body under the flowery fabric. It didn’t look right. Yet, he couldn’t stop staring.

After too long of a silence, he blinked several times to cut his own gaze off. He had to say something. An irrelevant question. He asked, “Is that yukata Mom’s?”

“Auntie Hotaru bought it for her but she gave it to me cause she didn’t like the colour,” Kaoru explained, looking up at Hikaru with muted smugness in her eyes. “It’s still too big for me but see, it fits Hikaru just right!”

“Look at this,” Hikaru said, showing Yoshiki the tied knot of the obi at his back. “Kaoru’s makin’ it in a bunny shape. Ain’t that cute? Ain’t she so talented?”

The blue obi was tied in a miserably wrinkled shape with two little extensions up a bunched-up knot on the side. That was a rabbit..? Yoshiki blinked again, finally distracted. He let out a little laugh, saying, “It’s super wrinkled, ya know. Barely even a rabbit. Pretty cool though, I guess.”

He closed the door behind him when he stepped into the room, just in case. Hikaru spun in another little circle, his every step bouncing more than they usually did, a hard-to-understand magnitude of joy visibly buoying all of his little movements. When he met Yoshiki’s gaze again, he grinned.

Despite everything, Yoshiki felt his whole chest loosen at the sight of Hikaru’s grin, his heart rate calming into something slower. Vanilla icecream had filled the whole room, sweet and cold. Yoshiki’s overheated body seemed to cool down second by second. He pushed his lips up into a smile to return a smidge of Hikaru’s joy.

“Yer such a downer, Yoshiki,” Hikaru said with a teasing glance towards Kaoru, even though he was beaming so happily. “What wrinkles, lemme see.”

He took a few steps towards the mirror but immediately creased open the whole bottom of the yukata. “Oops!” He patted it down before shuffling to Kaoru’s mirror on much tinier steps. He turned his back to it so he could stare at the obi knot. Across the room, Kaoru leant sideways to also see the obi reflected in the mirror.

“What, it totally looks like a rabbit,” Hikaru said, turning again and again, raising his sleeves and folding, lowering his head to see his flower clip and then his face, again and again. Smiling uncontainably bright at each sight. “Don’t listen to what yer brother’s sayin’. He’s just got no sense.”

“Hey.”

Kaoru nodded with that tiny little smirk of hers that she got whenever she beat Yoshiki in a game. “I know,” She said. “Yoshiki doesn’t get fashion at all. If Mom left him alone, he’d wear nothin’ but print tshirts and cargo shorts. I don’t think he’s tied a single obi in his life!”

“Right, right, he doesn’t get it,” Hikaru nodded sagely as if he knew one bit more about fashion than Yoshiki. It wasn’t only Yoshiki who lived in loose tshirts and shorts. But whatever. He wasn’t gonna argue when he was outnumbered.

“Sorry for bein’ the only alpha in the world who ain’t got a sense for the intricacies of cute obi knots.” Yoshiki rolled his eyes as he walked closer.

“So what d’ya think?” Kaoru piped up from behind, “It looks pretty on Hikaru, right?”

“Oh, right!” Hikaru perked up like he’d forgotten that part of dressing up, not noticing the way Yoshiki had frozen. “How does it look, Yoshiki?”

Yoshiki stared at Hikaru. If Yoshiki didn’t think of him as the Hikaru he’d lost, it actually looked… pretty normal? Like this, Yoshiki might have been easily convinced by Hikaru's scent if he met him for the first time today.

He just didn't know what to think.

When Hikaru noticed his complicated gaze, he laughed and made another circle on his tiptoes to show his outfit off. He was grinning so brightly it lit his whole face up.

A flash of his snaggletooth peeked under the vibrant pink of Kaoru’s coloured lipbalm. His long white lashes curled his light eyes into two crescents. The way he was holding the too-long sleeves made his fingers look tiny in the yukata.

When Yoshiki saw it again, even the obi tie had started to look just like a cute bunny shape. 

“C’mon, Yoshiki!” Hikaru asked over his shoulder, the pink petals of the flower clip obstructing his smiling gaze, “Convincing? Ugly? So-so? Though I guess ya gotta say I’m pretty even if it doesn’t fit me, right? Cause that’s the rule.”

Yoshiki looked at him for a long time, before smiling as he lowered his eyes.

“Nah,” He said quietly, “It fits ya. Looks pretty.”

“Ya hear that Kaoru?” Hikaru put his hands on his hips. “Your styling’s winnin’ a bunch of honours!”

“I ain’t honoured to get Yoshiki’s praise.” Kaoru rolled her eyes, which made Hikaru start laughing till he had tears in his eyes, pointing at both of them in turn.

“If ya two could see what I see, haha! The way ya roll eyes at me is exactly the same! Yer literally clones!”

“What?! Who’s the same as Yoshiki?” Kaoru exclaimed at the same time as Yoshiki pushed Hikaru’s head down from on top of his hair with a, “No it’s not!”

“Hey, hey, the flower— Yo-shi-ki, flower!” Hikaru protested, running away on tiny back steps with his hands protecting his hair clip. “I didn’t say nothin’, seriously. Wh, what the… look, now it’s crooked! Kaoruu, can ya fix this?!”

“I dunno,” Kaoru crossed her arms, stomping off theatrically to the closet at the other side of the room, “I guess since I’m Yoshiki’s clone, and since he can’t do it, I probably can’t either.”

“Aw, come on, why are ya so easy to offend,” Hikaru pouted at her back, that one-hit-KO upside-down-v pout of his enhanced by the bright pink colour on his lips, “I didn’t mean that!”

Without even realizing, Yoshiki began laughing under his breath. Each peal of laughter seemed to wash away some dirty water in his lungs, leaving them refreshed. The air didn’t feel so stifling and humid in here like this.

Before Hikaru could chase after Kaoru to do a dramatic apology speech for her amusement, Yoshiki found himself speaking quietly, “Hikaru.”

“Hmmm?”

“…Hey.” He said when Hikaru’s gaze found his own, “Are ya still enjoyin’ being here? Ya know… down the mountain?”

Hikaru blinked. “Huh? What d’ya mean? Isn’t that obvious?”

When Yoshiki kept waiting for an answer, he laughed loudly. Warm. Bright. So clearly making fun of Yoshiki. He raised the round sleeves of his flowery yukata as if it meant something.

“Can’t ya see me having fun every day?”

Chapter Text

The garden in the back of the house had dried until it began letting out a haze of air under the hot morning sun. The only places where water still lingered were the very bottom of the shadowed bucket by the tree and the hose faucet that was dripping water steadily, drop drop drop… The clatter of the kitchen could be heard muffled as Mom worked on lunch inside. Kaoru’s anime was playing at full sound in the livingroom behind Yoshiki.

“You’ll never get away with this! With the power of all five PRETTY GEMs, any monster can be defeated! PRETTYYYYYYYYY BEAAAAAAAA—”

Yoshiki was on the porch, leaning back against the wooden column as he watched Hikaru crouch beside the old water bucket. He didn’t know what Hikaru was looking at that was so interesting. “Yer gonna get dirt on Kaoru’s yukata,” He called out.

“I’m not!” Hikaru called back cheerfully, still staring at the bucket. “There’s tiny little eggs in this, did ya know? I thought they were dust or somethin’ but they all have tiny little souls!”

“Bug eggs I guess?” Yoshiki said, blinking. No one had touched that bucket since Yoshiki was a kid, if he remembered right. It wasn’t impossible that some bugs might have taken to the small amount of muck that always remained in it. Bugs had souls too, huh. It was strangely comforting to think about.

Hikaru left the bucket behind to come over to him. There was a bright pink flush on his cheeks and forehead from being under the sun for too long, almost the same colour as his hairclip. He was still wearing the white yukata with a pair of Yoshiki’s two-sizes too large flipflops on his feet. When he came up to the porch, the way he sat down was pinpoint omega— legs kept together to avoid pulling open the yukata hems. Yoshiki realized that maybe all the omegas around him had just learnt to move like that from wearing skirts all the time.

“Wheew, it’s so hot!” Hikaru fanned his face with his hand, leaning back to stare up at the sky with a happy smile.

“You’re just sayin’ that aren’t ya?”

Hikaru tilted his gaze to Yoshiki with a foxy squint of his eyes. Grinning. “Ya don’t wanna complain ‘bout the heat with me?”

Yoshiki huffed. Here he was, covered in hot sweat from head to toe, his tshirt sticking to his body, skin burning to a crisp. His brain crying at him to please find a cool cave to hide in. And Hikaru was playacting like he didn’t love it when his body overheated. “Not if ya don’t actually care about it.”

“Wow, okay,” Hikaru said, cackling, “Suffer alone, then.”

Yoshiki groaned.

They sat on the porch, watching the bugs flit around the fenced-up backgarden. At least Hikaru’s scent radiated a cool relief beside him. The smell of a peaceful comforting peach sorbet. Hikaru was humming along to the ending sequence of the children’s anime Kaoru watched. A song about the undefeatable power of friendship and the way it overcame all hurdles or so on, from what Yoshiki could hear. All kids’ anime had the same theme.

“Look, Yoshiki!” Hikaru pointed at the wooden column on his other side. “Cicada.”

Yoshiki looked over.

There was a wrinkled orange cicada shell on the column. Either there were a lot more of these shells this summer or Yoshiki was noticing them twice as often because Hikaru was showing him one whenever he saw it. He hadn’t seen this many cicada shells since he was seven and on a competition with Hikaru to collect all the shells they could find. In a way, this Hikaru was like a seven-year-old too. So interested in shells for no reason.

“Why don’t ya collect some if ya like them so much?” Yoshiki offered.

“Hmmmmm, should I?” Hikaru mused, “Where am I gonna keep them though?”

That question stabbed into Yoshiki’s chest like a fishhook, painfully sharp and impossible to force out. Everything Hikaru had owned was still in the Indo house. They were all gone. After swallowing two times, he finally managed to say:

“…ya can keep them in my room, if ya want.”

“Oh, really? Thanks a lot! Maybe I really will collect some then.”

Humming a repeat of the children’s anime’s ending, Hikaru swung his feet beside the porch. Because he was holding his legs high, the bottoms of his flipflops skimmed over the yellowed grass. Combing it forward then backward under the flowery yukata.

He was still looking at the cicada shell. “That’s left behind when the cicada turns into the flying version, right? Cicadas and butterflies… they all begin as ugly little worms,” Hikaru said absently.

“Metamorphosis,” Yoshiki said, “That’s what ya mean?”

“Yeah, yeah, exactly,” Hikaru said, “Metamorphosis… it’s interestin’ isn’t it? For ya too, since ya like bugs so much.”

“I guess.”

“Isn’t it weird that everything that goes through it becomes cuter?” Hikaru said, his tone unexpectedly intent. “I’ve been thinkin’ about this for a while now. Isn’t it really weird? I mean, I get it if they become prettier for other bugs around them, but it’s weird that they become prettier for humans as well, right?”

Yoshiki stared at Hikaru for a long while before turning back around to the sunlit garden. “It probably has to do with bright markings for visibility and stuff, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe…” Hikaru didn’t seem convinced. “But, seriously, all of them? Isn’t there anything that meta-meta-somethin’-s into an uglier thing?”

“I dunno,” Yoshiki said, “Frogs maybe? Kaoru thinks tadpoles are cuter.”

“Well, I think frogs are cuter,” Hikaru said, effectively ending that line of conversation. “Really, though, not a one that becomes somethin’ creepy and crawly? So weird.”

Yoshiki pulled his legs up to the shadowed porch, turning away from the sunlit Hikaru to stare at the wooden columns instead. A gust of wind rattled the windchime on the porch roof, ringing a bell sound alongside the screaming cicadas in the garden. Somehow, even the wind was hot, not bringing along the tiniest bit of relief.

“It’s good they become prettier,” Yoshiki muttered quietly, “I mean, would ya even metamorphose if ya knew you’d just become uglier?”

“The bugs?” Hikaru asked. “They have to though, right? Cause it’s their nature. What else? Are they gonna wriggle in the ground like worms forever cause they’re scared of turnin’ ugly?”

Yoshiki leant with his arms around his legs. Curled up on himself. He glanced to the side from between his hair and elbow. Hikaru was still staring at the shell with a curious gaze. His expressive face was enhanced by the still dark pink tint on his lips. It really did suit him. Yoshiki turned his head around in the darkness of his arms.

“Maybe,” He mumbled, muffled.

“Silly,” Hikaru said. Yoshiki shuffled in on himself. It was kind of embarrassing to be called silly by Hikaru of all people. “It’s not like they’re gonna mate with a human, so why would they even care? They’re bugs.”

Yoshiki curled up even tighter. Covering his face almost entirely with his arms. Balled up. Even bugs could get crushed under the sole of a shoe for the simple sin of looking too ugly to humans. Shouldn’t they care, then?

“You care ‘bout lookin’ pretty wearing a yukata,” He said.

“Huh? Oh, ya mean even though I’m not a human?” Hikaru said. He hummed in thought. “Do I though? I liked wearing it in a normal-lookin’ human way I guess. But lookin’ pretty..? I’d still wear it if it was ugly. It doesn’t matter even if I look ugly as hell since I ain’t lookin’ to attract a human, does it?”

Yoshiki didn’t know how to explain in a way Hikaru’d understand that it wasn’t that simple. Being ugly was being weird, being weird was ugly. It had little to do with romance. It didn’t even have to do with physical beauty. Even the smallest imperfection; even just bad posture, the wrong types of relationships, a few moles too many, too-long bangs… and more. It was ambiguous. Difficult to define. Ever-present in each aspect of your life, infecting every conversation and interaction, spreading outward like a stain into the very fabric of your world. Humans didn’t like ugly things. Humans wanted to destroy ugly things.

Of course, that itself was a human way of thinking about it.

“Never mind,” Yoshiki said in the end. He leant his head against his forearm to look at Hikaru. “I guess ya don’t need to worry ‘bout it.”

“I don’t know if you gotta worry ‘bout it either, but okay,” Hikaru huffed.

The warm wind rang melodiously through the windchimes on the porch. Yoshiki stared at Hikaru for a while, wordless, before turning to stare at the sunny overgrown garden. Hikaru let out a soft smug sound at his win. There was nothing to do but to watch the bugs for a while longer. “Nnngghh! I should probably go change,” Hikaru said, “I’m bored and we can’t do anythin’ fun in Kaoru’s yukata. I can borrow yer clothes right?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks, Yoshiki!” Hikaru didn’t get up right away. “What should we do after? Wanna go searchin’ around the village for cicada shells?”

“Hell no.”

“Awww, such a decisive ‘no’…”

Yoshiki said quietly, “Can I ask somethin’?”

“Oh, the mighty wise sage Yoshiki has somethin’ to ask little ol’ me too?” Hikaru grinned at him. “What’s up?”

Yoshiki asked, “Does it really matter that much to ya, wearin’ Mom’s yukata or lipstick and what not?”

“Yeah?” Hikaru blinked. “I like it. It makes me happy.”

“I get that but, just,” Yoshiki struggled for a bit, “Why?”

“Huh? I dunno how happiness works. There’s these little sparkly tangles in yer brain that go wild when somethin’ good happens. Ya should search it up online, I dunno what they’re called.”

Yoshiki stared at him, exasperated. “I meant, ya don’t even care whether yer pretty or ugly or how ya look. Why does it make ya happy to wear your clothes more omega-like?”

“Oh. I dunno…”

Hikaru tilted his head and hummed.

“If I had to say… it feels kinda like gettin’ icecreams with ya?”

Yoshiki didn’t get it. “Like getting icecreams?”

“With you. Like I’m fittin’ somewhat right and even though I’m me, I’ve got a place to be,” Hikaru tried again. At Yoshiki’s blank gaze, he made another attempt, “Like I’m a shapeless creature but a human sees me in the dark so I get four limbs and a head like them?”

Those metaphors were getting wilder and wilder. In the end, Yoshiki didn’t get what any of that had to do with omega clothes. He thought maybe this was one of those inhuman feelings that he was just not going to get. He stared at Hikaru’s contemplative eyes and pink lips.

“I just like it,” Hikaru finally said, “Like breakfast and movies and school and you.”

“Okay,” Yoshiki sighed, leaning back against the column. “I guess… it’s just a part of bein’ human, for ya.”

“Yeah!” Hikaru beamed. “One of the good parts!”

Hikaru had headed up to Yoshiki’s room to change. Yoshiki leant back on his arms at the porch and watched the garden faucet drip water, drop drop drop drop drop drop. He didn’t know what they were gonna do today, actually. They still had a mountain’s worth of things to research to get to the bottom of what Hikaru was. None of them felt like good leads to follow, though. And he didn’t know if he was up to dragging Hikaru to town with him right now.

He was wondering if a break was really what they needed when he heard the doorbell ring. He got up with a sigh to cross the livingroom. He’d just gotten to the hall when he saw Mom about to open the front door.

“Oh, Yoshiki,” Mom said, when she saw him, “Thought you were upstairs. Since you’re here can you grab a glass of water for Suzuki-san? It should be him with the eggs here.”

“Sure.” Yoshiki went to the kitchen and pulled open the overhead cupboard for a cup.

There was another doorbell ring.

“Sorry, I’m coming,” Mom said, right as Yoshiki heard the click of the front door, “Suzuki-san, thank you as always, I—"

A soft, quiet voice. “Good mornin’, Satoko.”

Mom gasped. Yoshiki dropped the cup with a clatter and dove after it before it could roll all the way to the floor. It was Indo-san.

“Yuki-chan? You’re back,” Mom’s voice hesitated, “You… You don’t look good, Yuki-chan. Do you need to sit down?”

“I’m fine,” Came Indo-san’s voice. It was scratchy rough and scarily calm. Sounded like she was desperately trying to smile. “Is… Hikaru, here with y’all?”

“Yuki-chan, about Hikaru-kun…” Mom said, “Look, if you’d like he can stay with us for a few more days. That way you can focus on your father-in-law… and think things through. You don’t want to hurt Hikaru-kun too much. I know you love him. You should phrase what you want to say well.”

Mom sounded soft but her words were iron-firm. For a single second, Yoshiki was so thankful to her that his chest could explode from the feeling. She was trying to keep Hikaru safe. Despite everything else, he’d been right to trust her with this.

“Thank you, Satoko. Yer a good friend,” Indo-san laughed tiredly. “But no, I should talk with him now.”

“…” Yoshiki could almost see Mom pursing her lips. “Okay. Come on in then.”

“I’d rather get to talkin’ back home,” Indo-san said, “Thank you. I’ll just take him and go.”

Yoshiki, who was listening in from the kitchen, froze. His heart started beating at thrice the speed, fear seeping cold into his veins. Why did she want to take Hikaru somewhere? Had she spoken to people? Were they waiting there in ambush?

“Hikaru-kun!” Mom called out towards the stairs, “Your Mom’s here asking you to come home for a talk!”

“Oh,” Hikaru, whose footsteps were audible coming down the stairs, called back. More footsteps came quick as he thumped across the hall towards the door. “Um, okay then. Thank ya, Auntie!”

Right as Hikaru was about to pass by the kitchen towards the light spilling in from the front door, Yoshiki’s hand reached out from the shadow and grabbed his wrist. He yanked Hikaru close as he stepped out of the kitchen door. Hikaru went with the pull as he always did, raising his brows but nevertheless falling next to Yoshiki.

The two of them were now stuck, half-hidden under the cool shadow of the hall. When Yoshiki glanced over at the door, Indo-san’s expression was impossible to discern. The white glow of the harsh morning light veiled her entirely. She kept staring at Hikaru though. He was sure of it.

“Yoshiki…” Mom started, but then she merely sighed. “Hikaru-kun has to talk to his mom.”

“I,” Yoshiki said quietly, “I should come too.”

“Of course you shouldn’t,” Mom said, frowning, “They have to talk properly with each other, mother and son. You can’t meddle in that.”

“Mom—"

“Yoshiki.” Mom gave him a hard look that said shut up in every way but the phonetic. Then she added, softer, “You can wait here and hang out with Hikaru-kun when he’s done talking to his mom. I’ve made enough lunch for him too either way, so he should come back and eat it.”

Throughout their conversation, neither Indo-san nor Hikaru said a thing. But Yoshiki couldn’t let Hikaru walk alone into a possible ambush, and he didn’t think Indo-san herself would be entirely safe even if no one tried to kill Hikaru in between. He couldn’t leave either of them alone in this.

“…” Yoshiki’s throat squeezed painfully, but he forced out; “I-Indo-san… I should come.”

“Yoshiki!” Mom scolded.

“…right,” Indo-san sighed, “You’re right… ya should come, Yoshiki-chan.”

“Yuki-chan?” Mom’s voice went high, shocked. “What are you saying? You…”

Indo-san didn’t say anything else, just waiting for them to walk over to her.

It felt more like an accusation than if she had pointed at Yoshiki and told him to die for what he’d let happen to her son.

But it was what Yoshiki had wanted, so he held himself together and followed Indo-san and Hikaru out to the Indo residence.

There were lots of ways to hurt someone.

Once Yoshiki could see her properly, Indo-san looked like she’d had her every bone broken one by one until the morning. Her eyes were rimmed by red and purple bruises that instantly eclipsed Yoshiki’s own. Hikaru hadn’t even touched her, but he’d hurt her in ways that couldn’t be described. Yoshiki, too, had hurt her. Arguably he’d been the one to hurt her worse, cause he’d known what was happening was wrong in every way and he hadn’t warned anyone at all.

They were silent the whole way to the Indo residence. Yoshiki kept a hand on Hikaru’s arm, watching nervously from under his bangs for any suspicious groups of villagers. There weren’t any. As for Hikaru, he didn’t seem to know what kind of expression he was supposed to make. He still had the tint of Kaoru’s lipbalm on his lips, which now looked terrifyingly obvious instead of subtle and cute.

He kept glancing over at Yoshiki as if asking for hints on what to do. He was upset though. It was obvious.

It came as a sort of surprise to Yoshiki that Hikaru did care about Indo-san’s opinion of him.

They reached the Indo residence.

Yoshiki whispered close over Hikaru’s shoulder for a mere second, “Be careful.”

Hikaru blinked for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed crimson and inhuman. His scent disappeared sharply from his skin like he wasn’t filling his whole body anymore.

They both followed silently behind Indo-san.

The house was dark. There were scattered shoes and a few rumpled clothes on the floor like they’d been left behind in a hurry while Indo-san was taking Hikaru’s grandpa to the hospital. They all toed off their shoes in silence. The smell of the house hadn’t faded, so it smelled familiar and kind, like it was welcoming Yoshiki. But Yoshiki’s heart was thud-thud-thudding in his ribcage, and even the familiar scents were nothing but a source of fear.

Indo-san didn’t speak as she led them through the dark hall.

Finally, she brought them to the same sitting room where Yoshiki had found Hikaru yesterday morning.

The bowl and plate were still broken on the floor, shards glinting under the sunlight that streamed in through the half-gap of the open garden doors. The spilled soup had long since evaporated in the heat. A sour smell faintly filled the room. The breakfast dishes from yesterday were piled up haphazardly at one side of the table. Outside, the screaming cicadas and croaking frogs were far closer and louder than at Yoshiki’s house.

Indo-san sat down.

There wasn’t an ambush.

Just Indo-san, sitting at the table under the shadow of the paper doors. Her round face pale with exhaustion and the cat-curved lips that Hikaru had inherited directly from her shaking painfully. Waiting for them to sit across her.

After a long while, Yoshiki sat down just as shakily across the table. Hikaru sat next to him.

“Yoshiki-chan…”

Whiiii.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—

“Where’s my son?”

Yoshiki’s throat closed completely.

He put his trembling hands together on his lap, trying to force some sound out of his lungs. He only managed to whisper, “He’s… already…”

“Is he somewhere in the mountain?” Indo-san asked. Her voice had gotten even shakier, eyes reddened. “At that… that shrine, where he goes each time?”

“I-Indo-san,” Yoshiki murmured, “Hikaru is—”

“He’s trapped in this thing, right? He’s trapped and—”

“H-he’s dead.”

Indo-san was already crying. She’d probably guessed it long before. She must have been up all-night thinking it through; the monster in Hikaru’s body, the strange occurrences in the town area, the ghost stories, the Indo family legacy. She must have guessed that Hikaru was probably dead.

“How… how do you— How do you know—? Maybe he’s, maybe he’s trapped somewhere, and he’s just…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m r-really…”

Yoshiki was so painfully stiff that his every muscle ached, but his clasped hands were trembling under the table like a saltshaker. He couldn’t control his limbs. His eyes were staring at Indo-san, but both the room and Indo-san were blurring. Everything was blurring into wet smears. Like spilled oil. Everything was shaking. The room was screaming.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii— Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii— Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—

Yoshiki heard his voice whisper from a distance:

“Hikaru’s… Hikaru’s dead.”

The unravelling spiral that was Indo-san covered her face with her hands, sobbing out a hoarse, painful groan. “My son… Hikaru… Hikaru..!”

Her whole body mixed into the sunlight from the side garden. She turned into a heat haze like the ones that swam above asphalt at 40 degrees. The cicadas were screaming in his ears. It felt like Yoshiki was screaming too, except that his throat was squeezed shut by a belt so not even a whisper was coming out. There was only the screaming-chirping, Indo-san’s sobbing, the cicadas, my son, no, Hikaru, no, no, a truck rattling by the road at deafening decibels, crying, he couldn’t breathe, sobbing, Hikaru, please, no, Hikaru, Hikaru, Hikaru—

Hikaru’s hand grabbed Yoshiki by the wrist, painfully hard.

Air burnt into Yoshiki’s lungs.

His throat was burning. He folded down over the table, unable to watch Indo-san break down. Trying to get a breath in. It felt like everything was over. This was it. Yoshiki’s world had ended. Indo-san was sobbing across the table, curled into two on the table as she cried into her hands, her shoulders shaking, and Hikaru was dead. Yoshiki was just listening to her cry, unable to even process it, and Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Hikaru was…

Yoshiki hadn’t done anything, he had just been sitting there, and somehow Hikaru was dead.

His throat cracked into itself before crumpling inward. A sob escaped, then another. Tears fell down his eyes like thrown from an old bucket, streaming messily down his face. He couldn’t stop sobbing. Yoshiki raised his hands to cover his mouth, but he couldn’t keep his croaked voice from escaping. Suddenly, Yoshiki couldn’t stop crying, and it was too loud, he couldn’t keep silent about it.

Suddenly, Hikaru had gone and died on him, even though he was always supposed to be there for him.

It had already been six months.

Hikaru was long since dead.

They hung around the room for the whole morning, just sitting absently. Yoshiki still felt cracked. Tears kept falling down his eyes at random moments, despite him not thinking of anything. Catching him unaware before he noticed and wiped them off. Indo-san had left to collect herself hours ago and he didn’t know what she was doing. He hadn’t dared to go around the house— he didn’t feel like they had the right to casually peruse this house that didn’t belong to either of them.

It was scary how much the house smelled everywhere like Indo-san and Hikaru and Yoshiki you’re welcome here and yet it still had nowhere for them to be.

While Yoshiki stared across the room, intermittently pressing his hands to his leaking eyes with a sniffle, Hikaru sat next to Yoshiki unusually silently. He kept looking at Yoshiki with those wide eyes. Despite everything, despite even the fact that Hikaru was dead, his presence was enough to make Yoshiki feel a little better.

Eventually, Yoshiki shifted up from the table. Hikaru asked, “Yoshiki?”

“C’mon,” Yoshiki said, offering Hikaru a hand. “We can’t stay here all day.”

Hikaru took his hand and Yoshiki pulled him up.

They found Indo-san in a small room at the corner of the Indo estate. It was a familiar room. He’d seen the Hikaru who was dead come here often to pay respect to his dad. The shadowed hallway and the light seeping out from the gap in the sliding door filled him with dread and pain. Without any other way, Yoshiki slid the door open wider.

Inside, Indo-san was kneeling in front of the cupboard that had housed Hikaru’s dad’s memorial for as long as Yoshiki had known of it. Incense was rising from beyond her small figure. Yoshiki swallowed and bowed his head before he shuffled into the room.

Hikaru stopped at the door and didn’t follow. Yoshiki also didn’t ask him to. He walked over to Indo-san. When he came to a stop next to her, she had a picture frame of Hikaru on her lap.

It was a framed photo of him sweaty and tousled, grinning at the camera with his hand in a victory sign. This was one of the few photos of the Hikaru who’d died where he wasn’t making a funny face. Whether it was because he’d always disliked being photographed or because he found it hard to stop himself from making jokes, almost all of his direct photos were ridiculous. This one was right after the last middleschool soccer tournament. It was a photo Yoshiki had taken of him.

Yoshiki knelt slowly down next to Indo-san’s pillow, looking down at Hikaru’s picture sitting in her hands. The rising incense blurred the glass until he could barely see Hikaru’s joyful eyes. He was dead.

Hikaru was dead.

Indo-san rubbed her thumb on the frame as if to clean off a piece of ash.

“I just wanted to tell his dad about it,” Indo-san said painfully. “…but I just can’t believe… that I’ll have to put him here…”

Yoshiki took in a shaky breath.

He hesitantly took an incense from beside Indo-san, glancing at her several times as he did so, waiting for her to stop him. When she didn’t tell him to keep his hands off, he lit an incense for the Indo family shrine, the image of Hikaru’s picture in his mind. He hadn’t gotten to do this. He hadn’t thought Hikaru’d ever get this.

“I made a memorial for him,” Yoshiki whispered in a cracked voice, “I’m sorry. It’s in our secret base. Um, that shed where ya found us when there was a big storm years ago. It’s just a stone marker. I put a few of those manjuu for him, since he liked them so much.”

“That’s good.” Indo-san’s soft, pretty face was trembling, “H-he should have that from ya.”

She looked at Hikaru’s picture with her eyes swimming in tears.

“Can ya tell, Yoshiki-chan… is this photo still him?” She whispered.

Yoshiki rubbed his own eyes with the shoulder of his shirt to dry off the overflowing tears. His face hurt from rubbing too much and probably looked awful. He didn’t know how he was going to explain it to everyone who asked. Somehow, he hadn’t thought of that before crying his heart out.

“Yeah.”

“I still can’t believe…” Indo-san said. “Last thing I did thinkin’ Hikaru was alive was to argue with him and let Father say all that. How stupid…”

 Yoshiki didn’t say anything.

“I thought he just wasn’t thinkin’ things through,” Indo-san laughed quietly, wiping her own tears off with the palm of her hand. “...I didn’t want him bein’ bullied. I thought maybe he saw weird things on his phone or, I dunno, he was hangin’ out with bad people who said something, or he was scared ‘bout bein’ an Indo alpha cause of that accident last winter. I wanted him to be happy… I just… Just…” Indo-san whispered to herself, “What wouldn’t I do, if he’d just come back to me?”

Yoshiki bowed his head, the back of his throat burning with sorrow. No more sobs were forming in his exhausted rib muscles anymore; just a creaking, aching groan that would escape him if he so much as opened his mouth.

“What’d it even be, if he wanted to be an omega or anythin’ else?” Indo-san laughed wetly again. “What even is that, compared to him bein’ gone?”

“I’m sorry…” Yoshiki whispered painfully. He thought that if Hikaru hadn’t lost control and let out his inner self during that argument yesterday, Indo-san probably would have come around to accepting the omega thing eventually. Indo-san was even gentler than Yoshiki had ever thought her to be. Hikaru had been right to offer his own house as a refuge for Yoshiki to escape to whenever the village suffocated him too badly.

What a waste it was, that the Hikaru who’d been her son was now… long since dead. And the Hikaru now could never be him.

What a waste that it was already too late for Hikaru and his mom.

He was dead.

“I keep thinkin’ and thinkin’, but I just can’t figure it out…” Indo-san said, “Since when, Yoshiki-chan?”

“…” Yoshiki swallowed. He murmured, “That… Mountain. That, that time he—”

“That time he went missin’ during the ritual.” Indo-san kept her face soft like it would hide the way she clenched her hands tightly in the fabric of her long skirt. “That stupid ritual no one tells me anything about..! I should’a never let him do that. I should’a stopped him. He was scared of the dark! He hated ghost stories and scary things. Kohei always said Hikaru shouldn’t be involved. He’d always said… Some bullshit ritual, I should’a told him to ditch it and fought the elders off myself!”

But now it was too late.

Indo-san turned to the door behind them, where Hikaru was still lingering. Then looked back at her lap. The incense had snuffed out and the stillness of the pictures hurt Yoshiki’s eyes even more than the ashy smoke.

“Ya must think I’m such a bad mom, don’t ya?” She said quietly. Her shoulders were shaking. She laughed again with tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t even tell it wasn’t my own son. I thought he just, what, hit his head? For more than half a year, I couldn’t even tell a thing… Ya knew right away but not his mom.”

“I… I didn’t,” Yoshiki said half under his breath, staring down at his lap. “I wouldn’t have known either, but…”

In Yoshiki’s head, thunder still echoed deafeningly. Maybe it would echo forever until he died.

“That night, I found him. His body. After that… after that it was obvious.”

In that thunderous night, lightning flashed white through the pouring rain— each flash cut through the darkness for a few seconds, illuminating the blood-wet, unseeing eyes of Hikaru’s dead body on the ground. The smashed dark red corner of his head, like an egg with a cracked hole, leaking out into the plant roots for bugs to eat. The icy mud, the howling wind, the marble-cold skin under Yoshiki’s palms. Blood smearing over his hands. Blood on orange fabric. Hikaru’s dead eyes. Sloshing rainwater. Hikaru’s dead eyes. Thunder.

Then darkness again, until the next lightning strike.

Under Yoshiki’s blind hands; wet, harsh, hard stone.

“He was dead,” Yoshiki said, “He was dead when I found him.”

“Why didn’t ya tell anyone?” Indo-san asked.

“I don’t remember,” Yoshiki whispered, rubbing a misshapen corner of his nail. “What I remember’s just… when I woke up, he was back. And everything was just like it used to be.”

“How can ya say that?” Indo-san covered her mouth shakily. “Yoshiki-chan, ya knew he was dead. Why didn’t ya tell me? Tell anyone?!”

“I didn’t want anything to change. I didn’t want him to be dead,” Yoshiki said, cringing down into himself, “I’d do anything for him not to be dead.”

Indo-san let out a painful sounding sob. Yoshiki kept his gaze down, agonized and guilty and ashamed. For a moment, all he heard from Indo-san were trembling cries and streaked, shuddering breaths.

Then he heard her inhale purposefully. Her hand reached over to the shrine and took hold of a frame with careful gentleness. Inadvertently, Yoshiki’s eyes followed the hand as it took the picture of Hikaru’s dad all the way into her lap, where Hikaru’s dad stared up at Indo-san with a smile just as wide as the one on Hikaru’s picture. It seemed to give her strength, because her broken-hearted face firmed a bit.

“Yoshiki-chan…” Her voice was watery. Indo-san wiped her tears quickly with her palms, a rapid flutter of her hands throwing aside the unstopping tears. When he turned to meet her eyes, she was looking at him like he was another one of the pictures on the Indo family shrine. She said softly, “I’m worried ‘bout ya too, Yoshiki-chan.”

“I…” Yoshiki didn’t know what to say. “I’m fine, Indo-san.”

Indo-san glanced back at the door where Hikaru was. Then she turned to Yoshiki to whisper. “Ya can’t continue like this… Yoshiki-chan, that,” She hesitated, “That’s Nonuki-sama. Ya know what that is right? It’s a monster, a man-eating disaster god. Ya can’t… ya can’t treat that thing like it’s Hikaru.”

Yoshiki winced. He had duck his gaze before he could tentatively ask, “…please don’t call him that. Please.”

“That’s some alien creature walkin’ around in my son’s… my son’s skin. It’s been actin’ like him for the last six months..! Ya bein’ so nice to it, how ya treat it like it’s… still Hikaru, Yoshiki-chan that’s wrong,” Indo-san said in a strained voice. He could tell she was in incomprehensible pain. Still trying to sound kind. But the words cut through his skin piece by piece anyways. “If ya know that’s not Hikaru… even if ya can’t tell anyone, you should stay away.”

Yoshiki’s gaze flicked back over his shoulder. Outside the room, Hikaru was half-hidden behind the door and buried in shadows. He looked so small sitting curled up with his knees to his chest, dwarfed by one of Yoshiki’s oversized tshirts. He had his head buried in his arms as if he was asleep and couldn’t hear them. Yoshiki knew he could. He was just always finding new ways to try and be more considerate.

Being considerate was excruciating.

That’s why it hurt so much when no one but Yoshiki ever tried to return a bit of that hard-learnt kindness back to him.

“Ya can’t put yerself in danger like this. It could kill ya, or vanish ya! When I was yer age, Matsuura-san’s youngest daughter was stolen by Nonuki-sama, and she was barely Kaoru-chan’s age. What if it hurts ya? We’d lose ya… like I, like I lost Hikaru.”

“He’s not gonna hurt me,” Yoshiki said.

Indo-san brushed the tips of her fingers over Yoshiki’s bruised wrist, and the touch felt so bad that Yoshiki snatched his hand away. Indo-san looked at him painfully and pulled back to wipe a few more new tears away from her eyes. “What’s this bruise?” She asked in her scratchy voice, “Someone else’s hand? He’s usin’ my son’s hands to—”

“That… that was an accident.” Yoshiki cradled his forearm close to his chest. “Mixing, um, we tried somethin’ and we weren’t thinkin’… I also accidentally bit him once… So it’s fine. Even.”

“Yoshiki-chan… it’s not fine if it hurts ya!”

That’s not what I said, the words got caught in the airtight bramble in Yoshiki’s throat. He lowered his face under the shadow of his hair, chest shrivelling smaller. He couldn’t say this. He couldn’t. It’d be too much. I hurt him too. We gave each other a pair of bruises. Why is it okay for me to hurt him, but he’s so dangerous if he hurts me? Ya just hate him because he can’t be Hikaru. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries. Ya just think he’s a monster, so obviously he wants to hurt people. Stop sayin’ these. Stop lettin’ him hear ya say these. Leave him alone, leave him alone, leave him alone—

Indo-san shakily touched a hand on his upper arm, brows curved up as if prepared to be thrown off. Yoshiki held himself as stiff as a statue to let her. She leant in close to whisper almost inaudibly, “You’ve gotta stay away for the next few days, Yoshiki-chan... I,” She let out another cracked sob, barely holding herself together, “Ya… ya have to. Father was, he was in bad shape. He called the others after he woke up. Takeda and them... They’re gonna get someone to check if it’s really Nonuki-sama. I don’t want ya gettin’ caught in the middle. I can’t let ya die to this. I can’t let ya die too.”

Yoshiki jolted in fear only to be held in place by the hand on his arm. Indo-san’s short fingernails desperately dug into his flesh. They’d already told people after all. It was too late by far.

He couldn’t open his mouth and say anything in response. It’d be too much. All the words clambered deep in his throat, and their numbers were so large that they blocked the air from moving in. His breaths got lighter and lighter, let through silently through his half-pursed lips. He couldn’t move away. Hikaru was dead and even Indo-san wasn’t safe anymore. And Yoshiki was scared. He was so scared.

The cicadas outside were screaming. Audible even through the walls. A muffled endless cacophony of buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. The clock in the foyer was moving loudly, tak, tak, tak, tak. Indo-san’s voice hand hurt on Yoshiki’s arm. It hurt that her son had died and she was still trying to keep Yoshiki safe. It hurt that this Hikaru was being hunted for his life and she was still trying to keep Yoshiki safe. She was so kind. So pure and good. Yoshiki was the one in the wrong. Yoshiki was the one who was sick.

Yoshiki was sick because he wasn’t grateful. He was just scared. He hated this conversation. He hated that she’d let this happen.

And, just for a small moment, he hated her too.

“Hikaru wouldn’t have wanted ya to put yerself in danger. Especially for some… monster that’s taken over his body. He wouldn’t have wanted—”

“He would have.” The words fell before he could swallow them down. His teeth flashed behind his lips with each one.

The words cut the air and the soft atmosphere both. They cut Indo-san’s voice in her throat. They cut her hand from Yoshiki’s skin when she jerked back, leaving a thin distance like a membrane between them.

As Yoshiki gasped for another breath, he found that he was shaking. He missed the Hikaru who was dead. He was so stupid —Hikaru was— for making them end up like this. Couldn’t they all’ve had a happy ending? Now he was just dead. Why did he even die? Why did he make such a wish? What was he even thinking?

Why did he have to die? Why was he dead? Why? What was he even thinking?

“It’s what he wished for.” Tears spilled down furiously down Yoshiki’s face. “Yer Nounuki-sama grants wishes. Hikaru wished for this. So he… No, really, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t let him see me being so weak, he wouldn’t’ve thought I couldn’t be left alone. He knew it, I guess. Ha!”

The laughter escaped him harsh and angry and wet.

“Haha… He wished for someone to stay by my side,” Yoshiki said, his tears falling down an ugly smile. He raised his palm to hide the awful ugliness of his face. “He couldn’t even die peacefully, thinkin’ I’d be too sad if he left me alone! Maybe there’d be no monster, no nothin’, maybe he’d just be gone if it wasn’t for me. So it’s my fault. It’s my fault this happened. It’s my fault so—”

So blame me for being too fragile, but don’t blame Hikaru for being a monster.

Indo-san’s gentle face was cracked in grief and confusion. She raised her hand towards him again, but Yoshiki flinched back and got up to his feet. A shaky energy filled his limbs. He didn’t know where to put his hands or feet, feeling like he was walking in between thousands of busy ants, trying not to crush a single one under his fumbling awkward weight.

“Sorry,” He said, ducking his head down and wiping the tears with the back of his hands, “Indo-san… I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I… I should go.”

“Yoshiki-chan—”

“About him,” Yoshiki started voicelessly. He bowed quickly down with his back foot already positioned to leave. “That. I’m not gonna say please help support him or anythin’. Just please don’t tell them he’s a monster, Indo-san. Please, please don’t convince them any more. They’ll— they’ll kill him. Some outsider already came to try to kill him! He’s not gonna hurt anyone ever again, please. I’ll even give my life as guarantee. I’m begging ya, just, ya can blame me if ya want, just please don’t say bad things ‘bout him…”

Indo-san looked at a loss, her reddened eyes wide. She didn’t get up. Yoshiki had basically thrown up all the words he could possibly say so he stumbled away as fast as he could. He grabbed Hikaru and took him away.

Sitting in the shrine room with the pictures of her family on her lap, Indo-san watched them leave.

Before they left, Yoshiki stopped and waited for Hikaru to grab some shoes.

Next time he needed to, he’d probably even have the presence of mind to pack a bag for him. With experience, you could get better at anything.

In another year, Yoshiki would be an adult. One more year after that, highschool would end and there would be yet more changes in his world. Every year, the changes would spread. He would find a new life. Grow up. He would get more and more choices, and things wouldn't stay the same.

In another year, he and the Hikaru who was dead would have both become adults.

That Hikaru would never be anything but a seventeen-year-old. He’d always be the same boy who Yoshiki loved, never changing, never growing. The last choice he’d ever made would always be to ask a monster to accompany Yoshiki.

He’d have probably made better choices if he’d more time.

But he had probably saved Yoshiki’s life, so Yoshiki couldn’t complain.

Chapter Text

“Yoshiki can you go get mirin from the store? And some more ginger… flour too, hold on, let me write you a list.”

“I’ll go too!”

“Ah, Hikaru-kun, actually can you help me with this? Kaoru you too! Yoshiki are you going?”

“I’m goin’.”

Yoshiki took the list and walked out of the house quietly. The road to the village general store passed by in a heat haze. The way back with the groceries in hand was even hotter, somehow.

The noon sun was shining down the grass and bushes around the cracked road, turning everything into a blurry strange yellow. Yoshiki barely saw anything other than the path in front of him as he hauled the three bags full of groceries back home. It felt like his head was bound in a distorted plastic wrap, muffling everything around him.

He kept putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat had soaked his tshirt. Humid heat caught between his damp hair and hat. The plastic bag handles were thin enough to dig into the joints of his fingers but large enough to slip and slide from the sweat in his palms.

As he passed by, the sunflowers beside the road towered ominously over the broken wood fence and stared down at Yoshiki like dozens of heads. Despite the way he felt like they should have all shrivelled and died this summer, they were all blooming in a joyful bright yellow. It was as if at any moment the dead Hikaru should pop out from behind the tall stalks, snatch Yoshiki by the arm and drag him somewhere. But he knew. That Hikaru wasn’t going to appear in his life anymore. He was dead. It’d been so long that he might even have gone beyond and reincarnated. Born as a happy baby somewhere in another part of the world. Living a happier life than what they had in dull, close-minded, haunted Kubitachi.

Inside Yoshiki, Hikaru was dead. Once and for all.

After hours of crying his heart out, tears weren’t even coming to his eyes anymore. It just ached in every inch of his muscles and all of his joints until Yoshiki felt physically ill.

It’d be so nice if he could lie down on the road until his body melted into the soil and fertilized the next batch of sunflowers. But he wanted to get back home for dinner, so he kept his eyes forward and continued walking back.

It took another few minutes before he’d made it to the road over the creak that led to his house. The sound of the frogs screaming somewhere nearby overwhelmed the chirps of the birds. Turned into an unending buzz in Yoshiki’s ears. There, the first house he had to walk past was the one where old granny Matsuura used to live, before she… died. Yoshiki kept his eyes forward as he’d resolved to do so rather than averting them like he would before.

In the end, that was how he spotted the movement of shadows on the edge of the garden behind the house. More than two tall shadows, moving along with the whispered voices of adult men.

“—this time—” “—believe..!”“—Hikaru—”

Hikaru.

The word ripped through the plastic film around Yoshiki’s mind and dropped the world into sudden, terrifying clarity.

That was Takeda-san’s voice.

And what were they talking about? Hikaru.

He’d only just talked to Indo-san this morning and they were already here..?

Yoshiki threw his mom’s carefully listed groceries by the garden wall without a thought and snuck into the garden. His feet barely rustled the overgrown weeds as he walked carefully closer to broken, smelly house. He stood behind the corner to eavesdrop on the talking group.

Before he even looked, he could tell by the smell that they were all alphas. Four… no, three alpha scents. Two of them were frustrated and scared, the third was something between helpless and apprehensive. One of the angry scents definitely had Takeda-san’s distinct gunpowder bitter smell. Yoshiki had never been more grateful for the absence of his own scent.

He peeked carefully behind the corner.

As expected, Takeda-san’s back was pacing in front of two other alphas from the so called ‘festival committee’. He was rubbing his hair into a mess with one hand before he snapped at the others, “When’s that useless, carefree guy gonna come already?!”

“Calm down, Hajime,” One of the others muttered from behind him. He was hard to see from Yoshiki’s angle, but he thought that it was Mikasa-san by the distinctive voice. “We already know he’s not punctual. He said it’d take a few days before his investigation was done, didn’t he?”

“How can ya not be anxious…” Takeda-san’s voice rumbled with tightly restrained emotion. “Ten patients were attacked in a single night! Old man Indo… dammit, the only thing he wanted was to warn us, to protect the village… and now he’s fightin’ for his life in a hospital bed! If not for all that, we’d have still been twaddlin’ our thumbs waitin’ for that Tanaka or what to tell us what to do!”

Yoshiki’s heart dropped. What? Hikaru’s grandpa was hurt again?

What was going on?

“Ya know what he said,” Mikasa-san’s voice said, much more quietly. “…the more one fears those ghosts and all, the more they’re called over. The hospital was full of people freakin’ out about ghosts and accidents. Worst of all Indo-san… There’s nothin’ we could’ve done. Most we can do’s wait here and watch.”

BANG!

Yoshiki flinched when Takeda-san punched the wall.

The rattle of the wooden sidings rocked the whole house. “Dammit…” Takeda-san let out a rough, low sound.

“We have to let the doctors do what they can,” Mikasa-san said.

“What can they do?! They can’t even figure out what’s wrong with the folks attacked by the impurities, let alone fix them!” Takeda-san spat out, “What, it’s uncertain, what, we have to wait an’ see! There’s a dozen people there lyin’ in their beds, unconscious with their eyes open!”

Takeda-san’s next step brought him too close to the corner Yoshiki was hiding behind. The glint of the harsh sunlight shone between his shadow and the house. Takeda-san pivoted on his heels to make another lap just as Yoshiki was shrinking further back to hide. His heart was sprinting fast, but his palm somehow managed to muffle his rapid breathing.

“And it’s so hot out here, dammit!”

“Now yer just complainin’ about everythin’ that comes to mind,” Mikasa-san muttered.

When Takeda-san was just out of Yoshiki’s field of vision, another tall shadow shifted close, hidden by the sunlight beaming on them from the back. “Hey… do ya both really think that that thing from the mountain’s inside Hikaru-kun?” His low voice trembled a bit. “How’s that even possible? He just… All this time, he’s been actin’ so normal, hasn’t he?”

“How are we supposed to know?!” Takeda-san exploded, before hushing himself back to whisper harshly; “This is why that Tanaka guy needs to hurry up and come over already!”

“…” Mikasa-san murmured, “But has he really been actin’ normal?”

Takeda-san stopped for a moment. After thinking for a long while, he let out another strangled sigh.

“My wife’s been sayin’ somethings,” He said, angrily fanning the neck of his tshirt against the heat, “…one of the neighbours went to pass Tsujinaka’s wife some eggs, and they smelled that Hikaru’s scent’s totally changed. Smells like an omega now, or so he says.”

“What’s that got to do with… ya know what, though?”

“Anything that’s out of the ordinary,” Mikasa-san said in a low voice, “All the violent incidents in the town, the Nishidaya elders hangin’ themselves, those people downtown who went crazy… No matter what it is, when things goin’ against the natural order happen, it’s always an omen.”

“Are we really gonna let that shady company deal with Kohei’s kid based on somethin’ like that?” Takeda-san muttered, as if to himself.

Yoshiki’s heart was already beating three-times faster.

“What else can we do? People are dyin’ by the dozens,” Mikasa-san said, “This’s the only lead we’ve got, ain’t it?”

“Tsk…” Takeda-san grumbled under his beard. “If only we could talk to a proper witness or somethin’ at least..! Doesn’t feel right. And the Tsujinakas too, seriously! Are they gonna stay holed up in their house all weekend?!”

Takeda-san paced beside the house wall, his hand combing his sweaty hair back again, walking and walking— walking right towards where Yoshiki was hidden.

Yoshiki took a hurried step back to run away.

His sneaker cracked on a broken piece of glass bottle behind him.

“Who’s there?!”

Before he could run, Yoshiki was caught by a fistful of his tshirt. Takeda-san’s huge arm pulled him back almost to his tiptoes, and the alpha himself was looming over him with his scent turned threatening and wary. Yoshiki’s back was covered in cold sweat, his breath fluttering like a butterfly caught in a loose fist.

“Huh? Tsujinaka’s boy?”

Slowly, Takeda-san’s scent mellowed down. He let go of Yoshiki’s shirt to let him settle back on his feet and Yoshiki immediately took a few steps back.

The other two men came over too, shadowed by the sun behind their backs as they scrutinized him. “Whatcha doin’ eavesdropping on yer elders?” Mikasa-san sighed, “What did ya hear?”

“S-sorry, um, nothin’, I… I only,” Yoshiki managed to stammer, barely holding himself present by clawing at the edge above a panic attack. He had to lie. He had to say something. “Heard someone… heard someone say Tsujinaka so I c-came to see…”

“Worried we’re talkin’ behind yer parents?” The final alpha of the group, Matsushima-san, spoke softly.

“It ain’t got nothin’ to do with ‘em,” Takeda-san said gruffly, looking away. “We’re talking ‘bout Hikaru. Ya know how he’s left his mama’s house… his grandpa’s said some worryin’ things about him, so we came to check it out. He’s stayin’ over with yer family, right? Have ya noticed anything?”

Yoshiki’s gaze flicked from up at Takeda-san to Matsushima-san down to Mikasa-san, eyes jumping rapidly before he ducked his head. He shifted to cover the mark on his right arm with his other hand. “Wh-what about Hikaru?” He murmured, talking as calmly as he could even though his voice trembled with every breath, “He’s just… had a fight with his folks. I dunno if there’s anythin’ worrying at all.”

Mikasa-san readjusted his glasses. “He hasn’t been actin’ weird? Nothin’ different from before? Hasn’t done anythin’ wrong in yer house?”

Yoshiki opened his mouth and then closed it. What was he supposed to… They knew already. Didn’t they? Or maybe they weren’t quite sure yet. But could Yoshiki even convince them?

“He’s… ya know right?” He said breathlessly, slouched back with his palm hiding the purple mark of Hikaru’s hand. “Indo-san… sh-she took him to the doctor, cause his scent’s turned strange… other than that, he’s just the same. So I dunno what y’all came to see. What did his grandpa say?”

The three glanced at each other under the shadowed cover of their faces like Yoshiki didn’t know what they were hesitating about. Then they nodded to each other, looking at Yoshiki with trusting eyes. They believed him? They really… just believed him? One shrugging his shoulders, the other narrowing his eyes. Takeda-san muttering, “So it’s just some illness?”

Yoshiki carefully shifted his marked arm even further out of sight, unable to believe his own eyes. They couldn’t see that he was lying. It was so strange.

It was just like this mark on his arm. To him, it was terrifyingly obvious. Deep purple and vibrant in the clear shape of Hikaru’s fingers, impossible to miss. It felt like the moment one of the uncles glanced down, they should notice how deeply involved he’d gotten with Hikaru. They should know he wasn’t one of them. It had to be so obvious.

And yet... They kept glancing down, probably because Yoshiki couldn’t stop being super suspicious about the position of his hand. But not a single one of them had their eyes caught by the hand-mark, the way that sunglasses-guy had his eyes that night.

It took Yoshiki a long while to realize what was happening, since it seemed so unreasonable to him.

Despite how crazy obvious it was, the village uncles couldn’t even see a smidge of the mark Hikaru had left on Yoshiki.

They couldn’t even tell.

Yoshiki lowered his face to hide under his bangs as he muttered, “Hikaru… everyone’s bein’ weird ‘bout him. But he’s just… upset. Y-ya know he can’t go home now, and…” He swallowed harshly, his voice growing quieter as he spoke. “And I think he misses his mom. It’s just… it’s just been a bad summer for him. Now yer also sayin’ he’d do something wrong to us? He hasn’t done a thing but help Mom with chores and play with Kaoru… d-don’t ya think it’s cruel to ask that?”

By the time Yoshiki finished, his words had fallen into whispers, his throat constricting. But he’d said it. And all three alpha scents were rippling in contemplation, hesitating about their cautious tension as they listened.

Yoshiki glanced up. Matsushima-san was the first to soften, his sweat-covered face turning kind and awkward. “We didn’t mean anythin’ like that,” He said carefully, “It’s just cause his grandpa was worried that he’s gone… w-what was it Hajime?”

“Just worried he’s gone delinquent after arguin’ with his folks.” Takeda-san muttered under his beard, eyes narrow as he gave the other two men glances.

Mikasa-san spoke calmly, “We’re only lookin’ out for y’all. If Hikaru’s doin’ well, then nothing to worry about.”

Yoshiki watched them with a detached sort of wariness, the fear too distant to feel, his thoughts moving somewhere behind a hard pane of plastic. So it worked. They thought he was being honest. They really didn’t know that Yoshiki knew what Hikaru was. Even though Yoshiki lived with Hikaru and ate with Hikaru and spent every moment of his life with Hikaru, they didn’t think he knew anything. They thought he was just another victim in Hikaru’s life of deception and secrecy. The thought that he would lie for Hikaru’s sake didn’t even occur to them.

In the eyes of these men, Yoshiki was still a normal boy, a young alpha with a bright future, a highschool student untouched by the monsters haunting him. He wasn’t involved in Hikaru’s life, not so far gone he couldn’t be pulled back from the clutches Hikaru’s monstrous world. He could still return to his normal life. He could still be saved.

Yoshiki wasn’t a monster.

For everyone around him, Yoshiki hadn’t changed one bit since the day Hikaru had died. Still stuck in place, as innocent and unchanging as the Hikaru who had died, forever preserved in memory.

No one knew.

“Do ya know anythin’ else about their fight, Yoshiki?” Takeda-san asked, his tall body blocking the sunlight and towering over the other two. Yoshiki had always found him intimidating. Looming over Yoshiki with all of his face cast in a dark shadow, he looked past even intimidating. He looked demonic. “If ya know somethin’, tell us. When somethin’ like this happens it affects the whole village.”

Right. ‘Something like this’. Lile Yoshiki didn’t know that they wanted Hikaru dead. What a liar.

Yoshiki took in a shaky breath. He could already see what he had to say in his mind.

‘Hikaru’s grandpa, he was rambling somethin’ strange before we left.’

‘Is he okay?’

‘He hit his head pretty hard when he fell. Started sayin’ he saw a monster afterwards. Called Hikaru weird names, sayin’ he was possessed.’

‘We thought maybe he was seein’ things. That’s bad, right? For head wounds?’

‘I hope he’s okay.’

He opened his mouth.

Takeda-san and the others were listening to him.

It was the perfect story. Sure, it was cruel and evil, an awful rumour to start about a grandpa who had only ever been kind to him, something that would stick forever once it spread. But so what? He shouldn’t have tried to get Hikaru killed. The dead Hikaru wouldn’t have wanted to see his grandpa get slandered like this… but he was dead. He should have stayed alive if he wanted to stop Yoshiki. Discrediting his grandpa might be the only thing that could save them right now.

Although… even if it worked now, the lie wouldn’t hold forever. Hikaru’s grandpa might be sick, but he wasn’t senile. If he woke up, he’d be coherent and reasonable and they’d see that he knew what he was talking about. Moreover, Indo-san knew the truth. That maniac with sunglasses and a katana was also around. They could all confirm Hikaru’s secret.

The truth would come out.

And from then on they’d know everything they needed to know about Yoshiki as well.

Yoshiki took in shaky, light breaths. Wide-eyed. In the overwhelming noise of the frogs and cicadas, his quiet panic was buried somewhere impossible to touch. He just had to say it. So what if they knew that he was a terrible person? He had to say this. Wasn’t Hikaru’s life more important than anything else? He could say it.

‘Hikaru’s grandpa—’

That was all.

‘Hikaru’s grandpa—'

He couldn’t say it.

The sun beat down on his face, hot and unbearable. His cold sweat had boiled and salt remained sticky on his shirt. The tshirt felt velcroed to his skin. Takeda-san and the others were tall shadows swimming around him. Why couldn’t he say it? Why couldn’t he say it?

“H-Hikaru’s… Hikaru’s g-grandpa…”

“What about him?” Mikasa-san asked.

Yoshiki took another breath.

No air came in.

Seriously?

His head spinning, Yoshiki let out a single word in a faint voice,

“Nothing.”

Oh.

He didn’t say it.

…Seriously?

Yoshiki dropped the dripping grocery bags beside the back of his house’s garden wall and tucked his body there with them, huddled behind the bags.

There were no shadows left below the wall anymore at this time of noon. The closest tree was a ten meter away, the wall’s shadow itself only a finger’s width on the ground. The sun shone directly from above, baking the cracked eggs and half-melted cream leaking out of the bags. Ants started clustering around the leak right away, their bodies light but their shadows black and obvious. Yoshiki’s shadow underneath him was just as tiny and incredibly dark.

Yoshiki had tears burning in the back of his eyes that would fall if he so much as blinked.

He curled up with the phone held carefully hidden next to his ear. On the line, Kurebayashi-san’s kind voice came crackly and indistinct. “I did notice somethin’ happening over at the hospital… So some patients lost consciousness and won’t wake up? I guess it’s gotta be that dirty scent I smelled yesterday. With so many impurities in town, it was inevitable they’d be attracted to the hospital.”

“Hikaru’s gramps was also attacked,” Yoshiki whispered, “Do you think—? Is he… is he gonna be okay?”

“If they’re just unresponsive, it could be that some impurities left stains in them,” Kurebayashi-san said, pausing to think as she spoke, “Sometimes it can happen with impurities too small to manifest. They attach to the soul itself like a sort of stain. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be impossible to get rid of them, maybe with some sort of purification ritual… I can’t do that, though. I dunno who could. Don’t ya worry though, I’ll try talkin’ to some people I know to see if there’s anything we can do.”

“So it’s really… really not Hikaru’s fault,” Yoshiki said. He didn’t know why his voice came out more devastated at this fact than the possibility that Hikaru had been the one to harm his grandpa. “He really didn’t do anything…”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Kurebayashi-san said. She hesitated before adding, “Yoshiki-kun, you don’t need to take this responsibility onto yerself.”

“I know,” Yoshiki said, “Like ya said, Hikaru didn’t do it.”

Hikaru hadn’t even done anything. He hadn’t done anything bad at all, yet Takeda-san and the others were all here to try and kill him. Wasn’t that so unfair? Yoshiki might have found it easier to accept if Hikaru had done it all in the first place. And yet, all Hikaru had done was to be pulled around by Yoshiki, cry in the livingroom, be pulled around by Indo-san, cry in her house, wear a yukata and dance in Kaoru’s room and laugh way too much for someone being hunted down by murderous adults... He hadn’t even done anything bad.

“No I mean, Yoshiki-kun ya don’t need to be invol—”

Yoshiki didn’t know what courage suddenly poured over him that the words spilled out of him, talking over her to demand, “Can ya talk to Takeda-san?”

For a moment, both he and Kurebayashi-san were frozen silent.

“…sorry,” Yoshiki said, ducking his head back down under the noon sun to hide the phone. “W-what were ya saying?”

“No, it’s okay.” Kurebayashi-san cleared her throat. “Takeda-san?”

Yoshiki explained all that happened today.

“I— I’m sorry for askin’ so much of ya,” He whispered, tugging his hand on his hair. “But I didn’t know who else to ask.”

“I get it, Yoshiki-kun,” Kurebayashi-san said, “I’ll try speaking to this… Takeda-san was it? I’m not sure what I can do, though, since it’s true that Hikaru-kun is the cause of all these incidents.”

“But it’s not his fault!” Yoshiki exclaimed, before muffling his voice in a hurry to whisper, “It’s not his fault… If ya think about it, he’s been protectin’ this whole town for centuries now, keepin’ the impurities up the mountain. Isn’t he owed some bit of time? We’ll figure some other way out, so ya have to stop them from killin’ Hikaru…”

“I understand what you mean,” Kurebayashi-san sighed, “It’s not a situation with any simple answers.”

“Can’t ya tell them he’s harmless?” Yoshiki pleaded.

Kurebayashi-san took a breath before she spoke again.

“Yoshiki-kun… he’s not harmless, though, is he?”

Yoshiki blinked. For a moment, Kurebayashi-san’s words almost didn’t even register. Then, when they did, he couldn’t understand them. Huh?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked slowly. “Um… Kurebayashi-san, ya want them to hurt him too now?”

Kurebayashi-san began with, “That’s not what I…” Then she said, “You know as well as I do that Hikaru-kun is capable of doing great harm. Things humans can’t even resist. So he’s not harmless. It’s, no matter what, it’s not right to ask others to ignore that danger.”

Yoshiki’s hand clenched tighter around the phone as he moved his gaze down the shadows of his bangs. “Obviously… obviously I know that Hikaru’s strong,” He said slowly. “He’s not human. He’s not somethin’ we could match, he could break a human’s mind in half in a second if he wanted to… he’s done it too, before he realized he’s really not supposed to do things like that. If ya ask, couldn’t he hurt someone, obviously he could.”

Hikaru’s shaky, desperate smile flickered in Yoshiki’s mind.

Yoshiki…

If ya want me to, I’ll go back to the mountains.

Hikaru, crying large tears down his blotchy red face, holding onto Yoshiki’s tshirt with tugging fingers.   Yoshiki… don’t abandon me.   Hikaru, in the bathroom of his house every morning and night, carefully smoothing down a bandage on his forearm to cover the open wound of Yoshiki’s teeth, smiling a heartstopping grin when he was found out.   Nuhuh, I ain’t healin’ it ‘til I’m satisfied!   Hikaru’s wordless, questioning glances full of uncertainty, trying to figure out what to do when Indo-san refused to even look at him. I guess she hates me too now, huh… no, don’t worry, haha, I told ya I don’t care what anyone but ya thinks of me!

I don’t wanna be alone. I’m so scared of bein’ alone.

They all like Hikaru, but there’s only you who likes me.

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his fragile parts. It… it doesn’t mean he can’t be hurt by us,” Yoshiki forced out shakily, everything inside him bubbling, boiling under the summer heat with nowhere to burst out from, and he had to press his teeth down so hard to keep it all tightly under a lid that his voice came out thin with tension. “We could hurt others too. Anyone could. Right, Kurebayashi-san? And, and Hikaru doesn’t wanna hurt anyone. He’s tryin’ so hard to be good. Just because he could hurt someone someday without wanting to… it doesn’t mean he’s harmful.”

He didn’t know how to make her understand such simple, obvious truths. Sometimes it felt like nothing from desperate begging to the most logical argumentation even registered in the ears of the people around him. What about this didn’t make sense? He couldn’t figure out what they were thinking.

“I’m not sayin’ this to… to invalidate yer friendship or anything, Yoshiki-kun.” Kurebayashi-san didn’t seem to know how to communicate with him either. “Please don’t take it as some sort of attack on yer feelings. Just that… as an adult, and someone who’s seen a lot concerning the things beyond this world, I’m worried about ya.”

“You’re… worried about me?” Yoshiki couldn’t even say anything for a moment before a sudden bout of incredulous laughter spilled out of him.

After years and years, suddenly everyone was so worried about him now. Now, and not when Hikaru had died. Now, and not when he had presented. Not when he’d stopped being able to eat without medicine. Not when he’d dreamt about an alpha pressing against him and woke up nose deep into his first panic attack.

They were all so worried about him, and not Hikaru, who was literally about to be killed on sight.

“I dunno if it’s good for ya to be so involved in this kind of conflict,” Kurebayashi-san said nervously, “I get that you want to… to speak out for yer friend, but I don’t think ya have to take this responsibility onto yer shoulders is what I mean.”

Yoshiki bent down over his legs, his hand clutching his face. He didn’t have to speak out for Hikaru? He already barely did anything helpful, and he was the only one even trying to do something. Kurebayashi-san’s words sounded absurd. Almost ridiculous.

A dry, quiet laugh fell and fell out of Yoshiki’s crumpled chest. “Then who’s gonna speak out for him?” He asked, and Kurebayashi-san trailed into silence. “His mom? The village elders? Kurebayashi-san, you? Who do ya want to speak out for him then?”

“Yoshiki-kun, rather than you… as an adult, I’ll take this on and do my best to—”

“You’ll do yer best?” Yoshiki didn’t even know what he was supposed to say to that. “There’s at least ten adults here doin’ their best who knew Hikaru was going on some shady rituals up the mountain… How come he ended up dyin’ alone then? Do ya know? Do ya know how come I had to find his corpse under a cliff days after he died?!”

There was a strange, unknown anger roiling hot inside Yoshiki. Kurebayashi-san at least was supposed to understand, wasn’t she? She was the only person he could ask for help. The only person…

“Are you really… are you really even gonna try yer best?” Yoshiki asked, his voice tapering off as he went on, the boiling anger draining away to leave only dry heat, burning on an empty desert. “You’re all so worried ‘bout me,” He said, “I’m human, right? I’m the fragile one. I’m the harmless one. It’s so sad if I suffer.” His words fell harsher and harsher, biting into each other, “No I’m just tryin’ to figure it out, Kurebayashi-san, how much should Hikaru suffer before ya worry ‘bout him? How badly should he be hurt before ya can feel bad for a monster?”

“Of course, he shouldn’t have to suffer either,” Kurebayashi-san’s voice rose, desperate, “But you’re just seventeen, Yoshiki-kun! This isn’t right. You’ve got yer whole life ahead of ya, a good life, a normal life, somethin’ that many people want but can’t have. Ya shouldn’t have to worry like this.”

A good life. A normal life. Something many people want but can’t have.

Yoshiki laughed again, and before his laughter ended tears were already spilling down his eyes. He couldn’t believe how stupid this conversation was. He didn’t even know what he wanted to prove here.

He pressed his knuckles to his wet eyes in the curl of his body, demanding, “…Don’t ya think it’s unfair that I’m the only one worryin’ here?”

“I understand where you’re coming from, Yoshiki-kun. I really do.” Kurebayashi-san’s voice sounded kindly. “He’s… very human-like, isn’t he?”

But in the end, he wasn’t one. And that was it, right? What really mattered. Everything else was just… packaging. Hikaru’s effort, his joy, his desperation. The tears he couldn’t stop crying, the way he was so sweet to Yoshiki’s family now, the pain that occasionally struck him when he least expected it, the hours spent watching baby animal videos to figure out what life meant. Just surface dressing.

Just… human-like.

Yoshiki said, “I wish I hadn’t let him try so hard to fit in.”

In response, Kurebayashi-san couldn’t say anything.

He took a deep breath, but let it out before it turned into anything else. There wasn’t anything he could say either.

Finally, he just said, “Please don’t talk to Takeda-san.”

“Yoshiki-kun, I…”

“Kurebayashi-san,” Yoshiki said with tight eyes, his head dropping in the curl of his arm, “Please don’t make it harder for us.”

“…” Kurebayashi-san sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, Yoshiki-kun. This really… I didn’t mean to say it this way. I hope ya know, I’m not actually tryin’ to get Hikaru-kun hurt. It ain’t anythin’ like that. I just…” She sighed again. “Ya know what, I’ll reach out to yer village folks to get them to come downtown for a few days, okay? To see if I can do somethin’ for the people in the hospital. That should distract them for a while, don’t ya think?”

Yoshiki’s gaze was hidden in the darkness of his arm as he tilted his ear away from the overheated phone screen under the baking sun. After a moment, he let out a dry laugh, singular.

“If ya could, Kurebayashi-san,” He said, “That’d be good. Thank you.”

“Okay,” Kurebayashi-san’s voice sounded relieved. She said with more cheer, “I’ll let ya know when I’m done talking. Say hi to Hikaru-kun for me too, okay?”

“Mm.”

Yoshiki hung up.

He lowered the phone to the ground and put it somewhere. One of the bags next to him collapsed into the other under the weight of some unknown package. There was no wind. Just the sun high up, burning. He pressed his forehead on his sweat-damp arm.

Sitting there, listening to the frogs croak, Yoshiki only had one thing in his mind.

“…it’s really hot.”

That evening, Yoshiki got a heatstroke.

The groceries he’d brought were ruined. If his mom scolded him about it, he couldn’t remember it. The only reason he even knew he’d gotten overheated was because Hikaru thundered down the stairs the moment Yoshiki entered the house to grab hold of him.

“There’s somethin’ wrong with you!” Hikaru scrutinized him top to bottom while Yoshiki could only blink absently. “Yer heart’s beatin’ weird. Too fast. What’s wrong with ya?”

“…I dunno,” Yoshiki said softly.

Hikaru patted up to his shoulders, then pressed his hand on Yoshiki’s forehead. “You have a fever!” Hikaru’s eyes went huge and he called, “Auntie! Yoshiki’s sick!”

Yoshiki’s mom forced him to lie down with cold towels on his forehead and a bottle of water he was supposed to finish before she came back to check up on him. He’d been temporarily relocated to his own room to rest, and the curtains were all closed to block the light.

As Mom brought towels and scolded him, Hikaru fretted nearby. The way he was acting so freaked out, you’d think Yoshiki was suffering some terminal illness. To Hikaru, Yoshiki’s feeble little human body probably seemed as fragile as an empty shell, liable to shattering from the simplest poke. He only left once he’d been assured that Yoshiki would survive the heatstroke if he only rested.

Yoshiki lied down on his bed until the dim light from behind the curtains faded away into the darkness of night. Hours passed without a single thought. His head was muddy.

The fan rattled in his room, turning this way and that with a loud creak. Tratratratra, tratratratra, tratratratra, tratratratra... The nausea and dizziness didn’t even register, really. He usually felt either nauseous or dizzy anyways. But the heat was overwhelming, suffocating. Yoshiki turned his face into the bunched-up linens of his bed. Everything smelled like Hikaru’s cool, sweet scent. He clearly hadn’t marked anything in Yoshiki’s room, but his scent was nonetheless saturated into every fibre of fabric and cotton nonetheless.

Inexplicably, Yoshiki felt his chest fill with unease at the smell. Heart heavy and uncomfortable. Guilty. He couldn’t endure it and got up in a rush, pushing himself away from the bed to sit down on the floor beside it.

Pulling the cold wet towel over his face again, Yoshiki leant his head back against the edge of the bed and closed his eyes.

It was only after the room was completely dark that he woke up from his doze.

Someone was knocking on the door.

Yoshiki pushed the now mostly-dried towel off to the bed and looked up. The bedroom was too dark to see much of anything. A faint bit of wind had started to seep in through the window, fluttering the curtains where they met. The light of the only streetlight beyond the house across Yoshiki’s window trickled into the dark room, feeble and grey.

After a moment, the door was opened by a large man shadowed entirely by the glaring corridor light.

Yoshiki blinked, head still spinning. “Dad?”

Dad’s voice came low behind the ever-present rattling of metal and plastic fan. “Are ya feelin’ better now?”

Tratratratra, tratratratra, tratratratra—

“Yeah,” Yoshiki said quietly, shifting to avoid the line of light shining right on him.

Dad stood at the door for a while more before walking in and closing it behind him, shutting off the only source of light. Then, it was only Yoshiki and him, and the fan wind that blew onto them for a few seconds each in turn. Yoshiki pulled his legs up to his chest, not looking up.

“…no dizziness or sleepiness?” Dad asked, his words unsure, “Heatstroke’s dangerous.”

“I’m fine,” Yoshiki said.

Sighing, Dad looked away too. He rubbed the back of his head with one hand, the other holding something beside his leg. His scent was faint and uncomfortable like it always was. Cold in a different way from Hikaru’s freezing sweet scent. Yoshiki wasn’t sure if Dad wanted to be here any more than Yoshiki wanted him to be, so it was probably Mom who’d forced him to come talk to Yoshiki. That argument had been going on for a while now.

“Yer mom’s sayin’ you’ve been a bit down these days. Is that why ya sat outside for so long?” Dad asked, “I know ya need some alone time as a teenager, but it ain’t a good idea to sit out in the sun with yer mom’s groceries in hand, is it?”

“Yeah,” Yoshiki said, voice quiet. “Sorry.” He couldn’t exactly say that he’d been trying manoeuvre the village uncles away from killing Hikaru, could he? No one would believe him, and moreover if someone did believe him they’d try to kill Hikaru too.

He felt numb. He’d thought he could at least send them on a wrong lead or get someone to speak out for them or something, but he hadn’t even managed that much. He could have done it, but he hadn’t. He’d been too scared. So stupid.

He really… just didn’t know what to do anymore.

Dad sighed. “Ya know, Yoshiki…” He hesitated for another moment. “Actually, when I was in highschool, I wanted to be a writer.”

Yoshiki shifted lower onto his legs. Dad was standing tall in the darkness looking down at him, more like a shadow looming in the corner of the room than a person. He wished Dad would at least sit down if he was really gonna talk. It was uncomfortable glancing so far up in the shadows to try to see an expression on his face.

“I even went to Tokyo to study literature,” Dad’s voice in the darkness continued, “It was a good experience, even if I didn’t end up makin’ a career as an author… I even met yer mother there. Well, things didn’t work out that well after university, so I took yer mom to come back and take over logging for my dad. And I know it might not sound so glamorous to you, but it’s a good life I’ve got here.”

Yoshiki felt a tightness in his chest that he couldn’t identify, too blank and featureless to be any real emotion. “…a good life…” His murmur was muffled, inaudible.

“What I’m tryin’ to say is, if you’re worryin’ about yer future, don’t be,” Dad said, unaware of Yoshiki’s thoughts, “This village will always be here. Yer mom and I, the family business, yer school friends, Hikaru and Kaoru too… everything’s still here if things don’t work out. Even if things seem incomprehensible and strange now, before ya know it, everything’ll be back to normal like nothing happened.”

Yoshiki tucked his face deep into the barrier of his arms.

“If ya want… ya can have a look at this some time.” Dad’s dark silhouette put a book in front of Yoshiki’s feet. Yoshiki tracked his movement from behind his arms as Dad straightened back up. He turned away before he said, “I’m sure ya studied it in school, but well. It’s worth takin’ a new look at it. Even if it seems dark at first, there’s good advice to be taken from it… Yer dad got through some hard times readin’ this book. It’s had a big part in helpin’ me come to terms with life.”

Yoshiki barely looked at the book cover. He could somewhat make out the kanji on it through the dim glow flickering between the curtains.

‘No Longer Human’..?

Yoshiki’s lips trembled a bit, rising on the corners in a strange grimace. Dad was recommending this book to him? Was this even a book you could recommend to your kids? Sometimes Dad felt more like an alien to Yoshiki than Hikaru did. He looked away again. The squeezing blank nothing in Yoshiki’s chest had crushed the irritation before it could even rise, filling his chest with watery sludge. An emotionless, sticky kind of feeling. Just suffocating numbness.

“Yer mother thinks you’re a lot like me.” Dad said dryly before he added, voice stronger, “She ain’t right though. Ya take a lot more after her. You’re stronger and kinder than I am. How close Hikaru’s with ya still, after, ah, well… everythin’ that’s happened… that’s all the proof you’d need.”

“…” After a long pause, weakly, Yoshiki let himself take one proper look at the book.

Several times through his life, he’d glimpsed his dad’s distinct copy of this book when he was told to call his dad out of his study. It was old and rippled with use, scrap papers full of annotations sticking out from the frayed pages. A cherished possession that Dad would put away in a locked drawer when he was leaving the study.

“This one isn’t yers, is it?” Yoshiki asked quietly. It was a clean copy of the book, clearly unused.

“I have a few copies,” Dad said, “I didn’t think ya’d wanna see all yer old man’s ramblings, and I know how irresponsible I was in highschool— ah, yer much more responsible than me, ‘course. Well, ya can look at it sometime when yer older.”

What did he think Yoshiki was going to do to his precious copy? Tear it out?

Yoshiki muttered before he’d thought his words through, “Ain’t the whole point of the book ‘bout trust?”

Dad didn’t respond for a long while.

In the silence, Yoshiki leant his cheek on the forearm over his knees and stared at the empty darkness at the other side.

When Dad spoke again, it was about something else.

“Actually, Yoshiki… despite what I said, I do think you’ll be doin’ okay in the big city,” He said, “There’s all these things people say ‘bout how life’s so different in the city and so on, but it’s not really. In the end, it’s about the one livin’ there that makes the difference. It’s not so different.”

Yoshiki’s back tensed slowly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked in a dry whisper.

“I’m tryin’ to say that you’ll do well there. You’ll be fine, like you’ve been in highschool,” Dad said, “It doesn’t matter what you do, or who you’re with, or where you are. What matters is that you’ll always be takin’ yerself with you.”

As he listened, Yoshiki’s muscles clenched up.

What mattered was that he’d be taking himself along? Was his dad casting a curse on him? More like he couldn’t escape himself no matter how hard he ran. He was the one who would just continue making those stupid mistakes. The one who kept falling silent at the moments that mattered the most. The one who couldn’t help but cower in fear in front of people who wanted to take everything from him.

“Ya don’t have to be nervous ‘bout it, really. It’s not…” Dad rolled his words a little, unused to speaking so much. “Ah, I mean. Things aren’t gonna change much whether you’re in the city or the village.”

The noose of that sentence caught Yoshiki by the throat.

His eyes froze behind the cover of his arms and knees, wider than they should be. The emotionless sludge of a feeling filled up his chest, then higher, choking down everything he was feeling. Drowning all of his thoughts in the fathomless slow sound of waves.

He probably tried to say something, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice. Just a hoarse inhale.

“Even if you’re studying in Tokyo,” Dad said, his musty ink scent saturated with calm, soft like he was saying something soothing, “Nothing’s gonna be all that different. It ain’t such a strange, terrible place.”

Was Yoshiki shaking? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even think. There was just the silence. The overwhelming, soul-devouring, dark grey emptiness. Nothing inside of him.

“School’s pretty much the same thing, ya study and ya pass, though I guess there’s a bit more freedom. Ya sleep in a bed and use trains to go places, and the food’s not as good as yer mom’s but it’s just normal Japanese food. People speak in a different accent, but they’re still more of the same people. After a few weeks, it becomes like part of yer home right away.”

He wanted to close his ears, but he couldn’t even move.

“I… had a hard time when I was yer age too.” Dad kept talking. Yoshiki didn’t even know what he was talking about, really. “Course, I was just a lonely beta kid with impossible dreams, I wasn’t smart or strong like you are. But everything seems world-changin’ when you’re a teenager. When ya grow up and look back on it, you realize it didn’t change nothin’ after all. Whether you’re here or in the city… Life just keeps goin’ like before. Right, uh. Just like before.”

Just like before.

Like nothing changed.

The idea that the city wasn’t a strange, terrible place was inconceivable.

In Yoshiki’s mind, going there would be scary. Surely, the city would be terrifying and hard to understand, but maybe eventually Yoshiki would get habituated to the complete change of it. And he’d be one of those strange and different people, living a strange and different life… And if he entered the city and became like those people, his life would change. He wouldn’t have to live like this anymore. He wouldn’t have to live feeling this way.

Without his say so, he ended up thinking about it. The future his dad was talking about.

The future that he was forever trapped with the same awful unchanging brain in his skull. The future where he looked back on Hikaru’s death and the monster’s arrival and found out that honestly… his life hadn’t been changed that much by it. The future that was just like before.

Just like before.

Just more of this same life, on and on.

More of this life if he lived in the village. More of this life if he lived in the city. More of this life, no matter where he ran to. Everywhere in the whole world. Inescapable. More and more and more of a life just like this.

More of these feelings in him. More of the darkness of his room. More of the unending dizziness, the lack of sleep. More of the awkward silences. More of all the words caught in his throat. More of his own disgusting body in mirrors. More of pushing down the anger. More of hiding the fear. More of shaking on the bathroom floor, unstoppable. More of the grief. More of the nausea. More of shrinking away from others, weak and worthless. More of the guilt. More of failing the only person who actually loved him.

Nothing changing, ever, no matter where he went or how long he waited.

Just more of his life now, forever.

He wanted to die.

“Right…” Dad’s voice came. His faint scent, uncomfortably present, filled the room. “That’s what I wanted to say. I hope you… you, Yoshiki can you at least respond to yer dad once in a while? Yer scent’s impossible to pick up, I can’t even tell if what I’m sayin’ is making sense to you.”

Yoshiki couldn’t even force out a sound.

“If ya don’t feel like talkin’, ya can just say it,” Dad sighed, voice tired.

Dad’s words fell flat between them, disappearing in the shadows of the room.

Without moving even the slightest, Yoshiki whispered hoarsely, “I don’t feel like talkin’.”

Sighing again, but not saying another word, Dad too soon disappeared behind the shadows. The door closed with a clack. Inside, there was only silence left, and the endless rattling of the metal fan.

Tratratratratratratratratratratratra…

Bent in over himself in the too-hot darkness of the room, Yoshiki curled his hands into his hair.

He wished he was dead.

When Yoshiki was twelve, one of the aunties gave him a frame of pinned butterflies that her daughter had bought her. They were pretty, but she thought it was too creepy to have dead bugs in the house. And since everyone had told her that Yoshiki liked those things, she’d come to gift it to him. Yoshiki had held the frame up in his hands and hadn’t been able to say that he didn’t like taxidermy bugs because every time he saw them, he thought about how terrifying it’d be to get pinned to a board and left to die.

He still had that frame in his room, dusty and untouched. Throwing it away felt like an insult to the butterflies that had died for it. Hanging it felt like he was condoning their suffering.

Now, in the faint grey light barely streaming in between the closed curtains, he could see that Hikaru had put the cicada shell from the porch on the desk next to it. He’d probably been trying to keep things organized properly for Yoshiki’s sake. Bugs next to bugs.

“Death’s scary for humans. It’s really scary. It’s gotta be scary.”

It wasn’t that he couldn’t recognize beauty, objectively. The taxidermy butterfly corpses were beautiful. Sunsets were beautiful. Raindrops and snowflakes were beautiful, if you looked at them individually. The mountains were beautiful from behind a camera. Beauty just didn’t mean anything to someone who couldn’t derive an emotion out of it.

Hikaru in that yukata was beautiful too. Anyone would say so. All vibrant blue and white, laughing in the morning light with his sleeves fluttering like wings.

It was a shame that it didn’t even matter.

It didn’t matter how well Hikaru acted. It didn’t matter how much he tried. His efforts meant nothing to the people whom he was trying to be like. It didn’t matter how good he looked outside, because he was always going to be a monster inside.

What even… was the point of all this acting, then?

In the darkness, Yoshiki sat curled up around his knees, numb. All the sounds outside clattered down for dinner. He didn’t even know why he was still sitting. He couldn’t get a hold of his own thoughts. If he could just stand up, he’d probably die. But he couldn’t.

His brain’s stupidest tantrum was that it desperately wanted to keep him alive, no matter how much it made him want to die. That night six months ago too, he’d ended up so bizarrely fixated on the bug flying over his bed that the morning had come before he realized he couldn’t die because he hadn’t told anyone where Hikaru’s corpse was in the mountain.

He thought about Hikaru.

He’d promised to take Hikaru to the city. If he died, Hikaru would probably cry really hard. Then he’d probably go confront the villagers and end up getting killed by the katana-sunglasses-guy.

Wasn’t it unfair that they had to suffer like this? Hikaru hadn’t even done anything this time. He’d been so good. He hadn’t even done anything.

Rather than a concrete thought, something else was growing too large to contain inside Yoshiki’s head, silent and overwhelming and all-consuming. A feeling that he couldn’t even understand, nothing humane like fear or sadness. More like the monstrous insides of Hikaru than anything else.

“What do ya think it’s like? I mean, cicadas. Do ya think they know they’re gonna become somethin’ else afterwards? They just make a shell and dissolve inside, right? What do you think it feels like?”

It probably felt like dying. What else?

Without moving his gaze, Yoshiki slid the new book his dad had just given him close to himself. He held the paperback cover in two hands, just looking down at it through his bangs. It sat in front of his overheated body, mocking him.

When he’d read a few chapters of this book for school, he had despised it. He had hated every scene that happened, he had hated the main character, he had hated each line and every single word of the book. Had it hit too close home? Maybe. He had barely been able to concentrate on a few sentences at a time, so he didn’t remember it too well. He just remembered that the main character had been scum, trash through and through, a waste of space and existence. He had been the source of all of his own problems ‘til the day he died, just like how Yoshiki was the source of his own.

What a joke.

There was no thought in Yoshiki’s mind when he dug his fingers tight around the cover and—

RRRRRRRRIIIPPP

Tore the book’s cover clean off.

“I mean, would ya even metamorphose if ya knew you’d just become uglier?”

“What else? Are they gonna wriggle in the ground like worms forever cause they’re scared of turnin’ ugly?”

Yoshiki patiently ripped the cover up, piece by piece, into a hundred or so black cardboard flakes.

The cardboard flakes were too heavy to fly up in the wind of Yoshiki’s fan. They wriggled on the ground, more like worms than anything else he’d ever seen. Yoshiki’s heart beat a little stronger. He felt better. He had fucking hated this book. He fucking hated a lot of things that he never let himself think about.

Yoshiki clenched his hand on the now naked first page of the book in a fist and tore it off. He ripped the paper into four, then sixteen, then sixty-four pieces.

As they fell, the paper flakes became white snow, scattering in the wind of Yoshiki’s too-loud fan.

He ripped apart the second page. The third. The fourth.

Sitting in darkness, he continued ripping the whole book apart. His mother knocked the door, at some point. She said something, put something down with a clatter in front of the door, and left. Yoshiki continued ripping the book apart. Hikaru snuck through the door and, still in the darkness, asked him hesitantly if he wanted to watch a video with him. “I’ve been lookin’ up things about what ya said last time,” He said with what sounded like a soft bit of worry in his voice, “I found a cool video on a whole colony of ants talkin’ together! If you’re still feelin’ bad, wanna watch them together? Ya can tell me ‘bout what they’re doing.”

Yoshiki didn’t want to watch a video. He didn’t want to talk either. He didn’t care about ants right now. He’d truly wanted to die, just then, but now he was buzzing inside instead. He didn’t want to die. He was too angry to die. He knew it was illogical. He knew he was sick in the head. But he didn’t want to die because dying was too clean.

He didn’t want to die. He wanted to explode into a million bloody pieces and stain every corner of the village square to the point where the whole village would have to gather to even begin scrubbing his blood off the cracks.

He didn’t want to die. He wanted to come into his own bedroom at night and so gruesomely murder the son his family loved that a pixelated photo of his room would be on the news for the next two years.

He didn’t want to die. He wanted to go as the dead Hikaru had gone and sacrifice his own corpse in a curse that would suck in the whole town area, haunting the village forever.

“Maybe there’d be no monster, no nothin’, maybe he’d just be dead if it wasn’t for me.”

Quietly, Hikaru sat in front of him with his back to the door. He stayed there, without an explanation, just watching Yoshiki through the complete darkness as Yoshiki methodically shredded the book page by page by page by page.

Whole mounds and fields of paper snowflakes had accumulated on the ground, visible even in the darkness with black ink like ants all over them. Yoshiki grabbed a whole scene-full of pages to rip out and scatter. Scene by scene, then chapter by chapter. The pages crumpled in his fists as he pulled their fibres apart. Some of the words tore in half, one kanji going to the right while the other floated away under the chair.

Hikaru asked, “Is that interestin’?”

Yoshiki pulled the book apart silently, sitting with his back against the side of his bed.

He grabbed another fistful of pages and tore them between his hands. After ripping so much, the book had dwindled to a hundred or so pages thin, with only the back cover hanging flimsily down.

“Yer heart’s beatin’ really fast,” Hikaru said. “I don’t get it. Is it fun?”

Yoshiki didn’t think it was fun, exactly. He didn’t know what this feeling inside him was. It was a good feeling though.

The snowflake papers flew up when the fan turned its head around, rattling as it went. Tratratratratra, tratratratratratratra, tratratratratratratra. White flakes rose everywhere in the air; raining down the ceiling, being blown back up and falling again. Like an endless snowfall trapped in a dark snowglobe. The flakes fell all over Hikaru across the room, making him snicker and twist in the darkness as he tried to brush them off.

Yoshiki ripped the last chapter into flakes.

The paper pages tore easily into pieces in his hands, one by one by one, and as he kept pulling them apart he found his lips parting.

He asked quietly, “Do you think humans will accept you if you just keep tryin’ to fit in?”

The silence he’d broken remained spongy between them for a long moment until Hikaru realized he’d been asked a question.

“Huh…” Hikaru’s silhouette turned to face him in the total darkness. His expression was impossible to see, but his voice came clear. “Mm, I dunno… Maybe? Didn’t ya say in the city—”

“If the city’s the same. If it’s just like the village.”

Hikaru moved his head and thought for a time. “I dunno,” He said, “Probably not, then.”

Yoshiki’s head was lowered, buried in the shadows. All he could see were the paper flakes falling down around him. “Hey…” He asked, voice tense with some trapped emotion, “Is it even worth it?”

The room was too dark to see anything. The flat curtains blocked even the most meagre light. Yoshiki could only see the bed at his back and the paper flakes flying closest to him. He couldn’t even see Hikaru still there. It felt like he was the only one in the room. The only one in the world, speaking to himself all alone.

“Yeah?” Hikaru’s voice reached warmly through the darkness. His tone was grinning. It hadn’t even wavered once. “Even if no one accepts me, I still have ya. Just you’s worth it all.”

Yoshiki lowered his hands to his lap. His gaze was down under the shadows of his hair. He saw the last flake of the torn back cover roll down his fingers and disappear into the darkness.

“Still have me,” He murmured under his breath, inaudible. “Still have me… Right, you’d still have me.”

As he pressed those words in his teeth, a breeze pulled the curtains behind him apart. A trace of cold, impassionate light trailed in through the thin space in between. It cut through the white snow paper in the air, turning fluttering pieces silver and blue.

Without him noticing, the moon had risen outside.

The line of light cut over Yoshiki’s nape and bisected the room.

Moonlight extended all the way to the door. It shone on Hikaru like gilding; lining his pure white hair and red-reflected pupils, the tilt of his questioning, receptive smile.

By the time the thin light rose above the door, Yoshiki’s eyes had lifted up from the ground, sharp through the curtain of his bangs.

His gaze was pinned to Hikaru.

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The white light of the flashlights swept across the dense cover of trees. The shadows were almost pitch black, the trees curved and twisted down in countless branches.

Footsteps crunched on needle leaves as they walked higher up on the trail.

They climbed up the bumpy hill. Yoshiki had to catch his balance by grabbing onto tree trunks and branches and the light of his flashlight swayed as they moved through the forest, making it a difficult hike. Meanwhile, at a glance back his shoulder, Hikaru seemed to be hopping up after him on a simple stroll.

“This is crazy, just so ya know,” Hikaru said when he saw Yoshiki looking. “Couldn’t we’ve gone when the sun’s up?”

“We’re almost there,” Yoshiki said.

Hikaru let out a long sound. “I know we need to find more clues but it’s the same if we come back later, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we just go back home for now?”

They kept hiking up the winding forests of Nisayama Mountain. Yoshiki had only climbed this trail once and never again. Yet, he could walk the right way with his eyes closed. The way up was burnt into his mind, impossible to forget.

“Nah.” Yoshiki continued walking up in the darkness. “It’s better at night.”

They’d snuck out of the house while everyone was still asleep with hours till dawn. The flashlights were bright enough to let them see where they were walking but not much else. There was a complete silence in the darkness under the tree canopy, like all the animals were asleep, waiting for the sun to rise. It was a false impression, of course. Mount Nisayama was always silent. No birds or mammals lived on it; only the rare bugs and crawling arachnids in the darkness. It had been that way even before Hikaru had died up here and brought everything on the mountain down with him.

Yoshiki wanted to come up here before dawn broke because it had been night too, that time.

But now that he was here, it felt nothing like that night. The air was hot and humid and everything smelled like green leaves. It was silent and calm without a hint of the chaos of that storm, the yelling of the village uncles, the rapid heartbeat throbbing in his ears. Hikaru was walking quietly behind him, instead of lying dead at the bottom of a cliff.

Soon, they reached it.

The small space between the treeroots under that cliff.

Looking at it, thunder cracked in Yoshiki’s mind. For a moment, his ears went deaf from the overbearing booming. He could feel the freezing rain pouring down his face. He could feel his hands shaking from the cold. He could almost see it. A single lightning strike cutting through the dark.

Hikaru’s corpse lying in the mud, eyes open and bloody.

All light snuffing back out of the world. Then, the sound of rain. A flood in the darkness.

Thunder.

“—ki, Yoshiki!”

Hands wrenched him back to face Hikaru’s wide blue eyes. For a moment, Yoshiki saw double. Hikaru was standing in front of him, his palms hot and sweaty on his arms, his lips moving in the white light from the flashlight. Hikaru was on the ground next to him, frozen cold, a corpse in the complete darkness.

Yoshiki was breathing so hard that he couldn’t take in air. His head spun. He had to catch his balance by grabbing onto a tree nearby. Even when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t stop seeing Hikaru’s dead body. He was going to throw up. No, he was going to pass out.

He slammed his free hand on his mouth and stood frozen for ten breaths.

He was done being like this.

He’d had enough.

He raised his eyes up from the ground. When he had his eyes closed, all that he could see was Hikaru’s corpse. But with his eyes open, forcing himself to take in a deep breath, his vision was filled with the magnified worried face of the Hikaru here with him now. His nose and cheekbones were lit brightly by the flashlights caught between their bodies. Leant down in front of Yoshiki, his warm palms were on two sides of Yoshiki’s face, his crimson pupils looking up at him with an intense expression.

“...said it. I told ya let’s not come, but did ya listen, nooo,” Hikaru was muttering. His fingers were squeezing Yoshiki’s cheeks so hard that Yoshiki pulled back. Hikaru’s eyes flicked between the two of his, worried. “Yoshiki!”

“I’m fine,” Yoshiki said, voice a little hoarse.

Hikaru took in a long breath, but in the end, he just breathed it out normally. He said quietly, “Liar.”

Yoshiki smiled faintly. “…Sorry.”

“I don’t like it here. There aren’t even any clues… Can’t we just leave?” Hikaru twisted his lips. His pupils were still glowing red, narrowed to a pinprick as he looked around in the deep darkness of the trees. “This mountain is filthy.”

Silently, Yoshiki pushed himself away from the tree. Hikaru’s hands fell from his face. Their shadows fluttered enormous through the torch’s white light, rippling all around the towering trees. The silence of the mountain was increasingly unsettling. There weren’t any sounds, not even the bugs that had been there in the past. Nothing but the empty dry wind fluting as if through bone.

Yoshiki’s shoes crunched too loudly across leaves as he walked over to where Hikaru’s corpse had lied. The flashlight illuminated nothing but grass blades and thorny brambles.

Without saying anything, Yoshiki sat down next to where Hikaru’s corpse had been. Then he dropped backwards, lying on the ground. The back of his head hit the soil where the insides of Hikaru’s head had leaked.

It was awful.

Yoshiki could only stare up at the darkness of the tree canopy in the unnatural silence. It felt like time had stopped. It felt like Hikaru’s dead body was lying in the mud right next to him too. Like if Yoshiki reached out his arm, his palm would find Hikaru’s freezing stiffened palm and they could finally end this, both dead, hand in hand.

A soft sound came from somewhere to the side, the cone of white light shining closer and closer. As Yoshiki glanced up at him, Hikaru crouched close to his face. His fingers trailed through Yoshiki’s bangs to pull them back, trying to see Yoshiki’s eyes. In the bright flashlight, his nails were too pearly pink to be natural. Kaoru must have painted them. That was nice to think of.

When Yoshiki met his eyes, Hikaru was staring at him with a difficult to read expression half-shadowed by the harsh light. His scent came faint but true with Yoshiki’s nose this close to his hand. Creamy and sweet icy peach. The scent Yoshiki was most familiar with. Like the road heading back home.

After a while, Hikaru whispered, “Want me to lie down too?”

Yoshiki turned to stare up at the darkness again.

“Nah.”

There’d be no point if Hikaru lied down here. There was no need to add a third body to the chaos of things.

Actually, Yoshiki also knew.

He knew that this was stupid. It was just the ground.

There was nothing here.

Sighing, Yoshiki let Hikaru grab him by the hand and pull him to his feet. He glanced back at the white-lit dry soil, wanting to say something, unable to find any words.

In the end, he could only step away without a word. Just that… when he finally got up, he felt a little lighter. Like he’d left some part of himself lying there after all.

It felt like such a sacrilege that the dead Hikaru would never get to know all the secrets he’d hidden, all the ways he’d change, the person he’d become. But… the Yoshiki who that Hikaru had known had belonged to him. Their friendship had been everything to him. And that would never change. But just as Hikaru had died, the seventeen-year-old Yoshiki couldn’t last forever either. If that was the case, Yoshiki would just kill the boy who Hikaru had known here and leave his corpse with him. Then they could at least accompany each other. Two dead boys who would never grow up. Killed in the same spot with no remains left to find.

It didn’t matter if no one else would ever find out, because Yoshiki knew and that was enough.

“Hey…”

After a while, Hikaru tugged Yoshiki’s hand a little.

When Yoshiki managed to look back, Hikaru was watching him carefully, waiting and waiting before asking, “Are ya gonna cry?”

Was he..? Yoshiki blinked.

He shook his head.

“Ya can cry if ya feel like it,” Hikaru said, his hand squeezing Yoshiki’s own, a strange gentleness radiating from the matter-of-fact way he’d say the most taunting things. “I know you’re a crybaby. It’s okay, I won’t tell.”

Yoshiki shook his head again.

“…huuh.” Hikaru didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

Before he could say anything else, Yoshiki quietly leant down to grab his flashlight and bag back.

He put on his bag without letting go of Hikaru’s hand, and then held the flashlight out towards the bushes. “We still have to look for clues,” He said quietly.

“Clues?” Hikaru said, “Right… clues. Yoshiki do ya know that you’re more stubborn than a dog with a bone?”

“I’m not stubborn,” Yoshiki said, “We just can’t go rummage around the temple behind Indo-san’s house so we’ve got no other options. We gotta figure out the ritual Hikaru was doin’ here that night so we can figure out what you even are.”

“Right now?” Hikaru asked.

“What, ya don’t think we’ve gotta figure out yer situation anymore?” Yoshiki asked, glancing at him. “I think it’s only gotten more urgent.”

Hikaru just looked at him for a long time. “I do, but…” His expression said he didn’t agree with what he was saying. Eventually he admitted, “I just… thought ya could take a break or somethin’.”

“You really think there’s time for breaks?” Yoshiki asked.

Hikaru lowered his head before laughing a little. He rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “…yer right. That’s true.”

“We can take a break when this is all over,” Yoshiki said, “And go to the ocean. We promised, right?”

“Right,” Hikaru smiled, cheered enough by that for his grin to crease his eyes, “We’ll go see the real life ocean. And then go see Tokyo together!”

“Yeah,” Yoshiki said, his face softening as well. “That too.”

Hikaru grinned up at him again and turned to point his flashlight directly into the bushes like a sword. He left Yoshiki watching him bemusedly from behind as he set out with a new determination. The light of his flashlight moved from right to left to right to left. “Alright! Let’s find a lead to follow!”

With that, they set to searching outward. Yoshiki dug through the bushes and stared up at tree branches. They walked out from where Hikaru’s corpse had lied to the place above the cliff where he must have fallen down, but even after searching for more than an hour, they couldn’t find a single thing. No items that Hikaru might have dropped, no signs showing the alphas of the Indo family which path they should take, not even a proper soil path forward. Nothing.

“Maybe someone else took all the clues… that sunglasses guy even, maybe,” Yoshiki sighed to himself as they stood on the hill from where Hikaru must have fallen. He stared down at the clearing below, pointing the white circle of his flashlight at the treeroots. The dry wind rustled again through the empty grass there below. At the sight of that clearing, Yoshiki’s heart ached but didn’t give in. He could even be fine with it, eventually.

He turned his flashlight back towards the darkness behind him. “Hikaru did ya—” He froze.

Behind him, Hikaru was standing unmoving with his face turned up towards the sky, his eyes wide and mouth parted.

Yoshiki stepped over to his side, touching his shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong?” His voice came out low. Looking around, he whispered, “Is there an impurity?”

Hikaru moved his eyes away in a slow blink. He had to pull his gaze down from whatever was so interesting up in the dark tree canopy hiding the sky above them. “Ya can’t see that?” He asked, glancing back up at the tree leaves, “Huh... I think even you’ll be able to see in a second though.”

“What are ya talking about?” Yoshiki asked, turning his head to stare up. He directed his flashlight towards the tree canopy but the light didn’t add anything to it except new jagged branch shadows. “Is there somethin’ there?”

Hikaru moved his gaze from right above them to somewhere further in distance like he was following something unseen, slowly turning towards the slope that led towards the higher peak of the mountain. “Yoshiki,” He said before flashing Yoshiki an excited grin lit half-up by their flashlights. “I think I know where we’re supposed to go!”

“…huh,” Yoshiki said, “Okay. Where?”

“Wait a bit. It’s gettin’ stronger,” Hikaru said, and he pointed straight up. “I think it only appears when dawn’s coming!”

“Seriously, Hikaru, are ya bein’ cryptic on purpose?” Yoshiki didn’t know whether to scold him or sigh at his antics. “’It’? What’s ‘it’? What only appears at… dawn…”

Blue motes of light blinked into existence in the pitch-black darkness of the tree canopy; one light, then three, then ten.

“What the…” Yoshiki stared up, wide eyed. He even forgot to hold his flashlight up.

A hundred million miniscule stars appeared up the dark trees, flowing in the direction of the mountain peak. They streamed in curling paths, little planktons swimming through a pitch black ocean, rippling into strange shapes like faces that stared down at them from above. They became screaming heads, laughing heads, crying heads. They all stared at Yoshiki’s face without eyes of their own. Endless gossamer phantom faces of sobbing men and bug-eyed women and grinning children that appeared from and disappeared into the shimmering river in the darkness.

The firefly-like, strange creatures covered the sky everywhere Yoshiki looked, as far into the distance as he could see. Possibly they covered the whole mountain. They were all moving in a single direction, but they all wanted him to see them before they’d stream out of his line of sight.

They were looking at him. Crying. Screaming. Laughing. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely. Lonely.

They wanted him to look at them.

Yoshiki’s feet staggered as he stared up with shocked eyes.

A hand grabbed his wrist. A tug ripped Yoshiki’s gaze away from the trees down to Hikaru instead. Hikaru, whose lips were curled in an annoyed pout, his pupils glowing crimson in the darkness when they glanced up. “Okay, that’s enough lookin’,” Hikaru muttered, “Ya saw them already. No need to appreciate it too much!”

Hikaru’s scent stabbed sharp like an icicle, nauseatingly sweet and hissy, and his fingers were bruising tight around the mark on Yoshiki’s skin.

Yoshiki flexed his hand but didn’t move to free it. “Are you… jealous of those weird lights?” He asked, somewhat disbelieving. That’s what Hikaru’s scent seemed to be telling him, at least.

“Hmph.” Hikaru didn’t respond, staring straight at him like a wild fox caught in a flashlight, lips still pressed tight in annoyance. He said, “Don’t fall for ‘em just cause they’re bright and shiny instead of dark and slimy. They’re all the same inside!”

“That’s really not gonna happen,” Yoshiki said.

“Whatever. Don’t look anymore. I’ll lead you where they’re going,” Hikaru said, “You just follow me, okay? And don’t look at—"

“Don’t look at anything other than ya,” Yoshiki finished.

Hikaru blinked out of his wild-fox still expression into a very human surprise. He really was jealous. It was kind of funny… and silly too. Especially since Yoshiki didn’t know how he could even like a human the way he liked Hikaru, let alone some weird, disembodied face-river in the sky.

“I know already.” Yoshiki smiled faintly. “Lead the way, Hikaru.”

Hikaru’s cheeks pinked, pleased, and he smiled back.

“Alrighty, leave it to me!”

The blue lights swirling up in the darkness all flowed up to a point near the peak of the mountain. Yoshiki and Hikaru followed the spirit particles there, where they found something.

It was in a small clearing almost impossible to see behind overgrown vines and young trees. The blue spirits glowed in the darkness but didn’t illuminate anything around them, simply appearing as a singular vibrant spot of colour in the black canopy. They might have passed right by their target if not for the way the blue lights whirlpooled ominously high up in the tree canopy above a mountain wall.

They directed their flashlights below that spirit whirlpool in the sky. A shrine entrance was built into the stone wall, hidden by vines and bushes. There was a narrow triangular roof jutting out of the wall whose tiles had all worn down, and under the roof opened a dark cave that looked like it was carved by some giant earthworm, framed by two torii beams with their red paint cracked and faded into a dull brown. Ancient talismans covered the entire wall and the columns, their cinnabar writing blurred out from age, fluttering in the warm wind.

Yoshiki took a step closer through the white-lit bushes, careful to avoid looking up at the river of spirits. “Is this the place?” He asked, his heart twisting at the idea that the dead Hikaru had had to come here to this desolate place for some twisted rituals. He glanced back to ask, “Do ya remember anything?”

But the moment Hikaru saw the shrine, he stumbled with his head clutched in his hands. “Ngh!”

“Hikaru—?” Yoshiki ran up to help steady him on the loose soil of the slope. “What’s wrong?”

“It…” Hikaru had folded in half over himself, gasping on Yoshiki’s shirt with his hands clenched in his hair like he had a headache. “It was here. I remember. I— My daddy showed the way many times. Hichi-san… he’d put Hichi-san here every three years. She’d always come back. I was— Hikaru was so scared.”

With the strength of experience, Yoshiki tuned out the way Hikaru would talk about the distant past like it was his own whenever he got overwhelmed. “Is that all ya remember?” He asked, “Nothing about you? About Nonuki-sama?”

“Mmm,” Hikaru mumbled, still wild-eyed and hazy, “Offerings… This village used to cut off heads to offer to me, those were the special offerings for wishes… The special offerings Matsuura-san’s daughter said… The Indos were the keeper of heads. They were supposed to come here to apologise to me.”

“What the…” Yoshiki whispered.

“There’s, there’s even more though.”

Hikaru stepped closer to the shrine as he told Yoshiki all that he had remembered when he saw it. Everything Hikaru’s dad had told Hikaru when he was just a little kid, all about the duty of the Indo family, the ritual that was actually an apology to the god of the mountain, how much Hikaru had freaked out when he found Hichi-san back in the family shed for the first time.

Yoshiki could only let out a humourless laugh. “…that’s so messed up.”

“Yeah.” Hikaru rubbed his forehead tiredly. “It’s so weird that this was all… done for me, or something. I don’t think I even need heads. What would I do with them?”

“Maybe ya ate them?”

“Huh? No way.” Hikaru made a face at him. Lips pressed together in embarrassed discomfort with crossed eyebrows that threatened to get mad at Yoshiki if he didn’t take his words back, a new expression that somehow entertained Yoshiki more than it deterred him.

“What do you think there’s inside, then?” Yoshiki changed the subject instead. “If not heads?”

Hikaru approached the torii beams lining the cave entrance. He looked up at them with curiosity. “I don’t really remember anything about this place. I don’t think I ever saw the inside when I was just a monster. That’s weird… I thought I’d been everywhere on the mountain.”

“You never saw it?” Yoshiki followed him, eyeing the shadowed cave. “Isn’t this a shrine for ya though?”

“It is, right..?”

Hikaru looked up at the cave entrance with wonder shining in his eyes. Yoshiki’s eyes also softened a little, pleased to find something about Hikaru’s inhuman side that had been appreciated by the people here.

There was so little of his true nature that Hikaru got to learn in a positive light. Yoshiki hoped that past the dark entrance, they would get to see a few nice offerings, some pretty decorations, a few lines of appeasement for the monster the villagers had called Nonuki-sama.

“What do ya think there’s inside?” Hikaru whispered, “I can’t remember a thing about it… It’s gotta be pretty nice though, right? Like Mikasa-san’s family shrine?”

He stepped closer and raised his hand up to the entrance.

“Hss!”

He was burnt back in a sharp flash.

“Hikaru!” Yoshiki somehow caught Hikaru before he fell.

They stood shakily, Hikaru clutched in Yoshiki’s arms, both of them breathing hard as they stared up at the yawning dark entrance of the cave. Now it seemed to tower over five times larger, as terrifying as a sinkhole trying to swallow them whole. Taking in a trembling breath, Hikaru raised his hand under the pale light of their flashlights. They both looked at it with wide eyes.

His palm and his fingers had been ripped off, leaving behind only wriggling translucent fractals and half a hand.

“It’s some old barrier,” Hikaru said quietly, straightening up in Yoshiki’s hold like he was too used to it to even react by now, and he muttered; “…Ow.”

“Does it hurt?” Yoshiki’s two hands were shaking like his nerves were malfunctioning when he reached for Hikaru’s burnt hand.

His chest was burning. No, actually, his head was burning too, bubbling groundwater of fury and fear rising in his mind. He hated this village for putting up a shrine for Hikaru and not letting him enter. He hated them for spurning him at every turn, hating him in every structure they built, for not letting him have a single good thing. He hated Hikaru for stepping forward and getting hurt all the time. He hated himself for not being able to protect him from a stupid little barrier.

Yoshiki took Hikaru’s hand gently in both hands and watched as the iridescent swirls of Hikaru’s true form carefully brushed over his fingers. Now Yoshiki’s eyes were burning too, stuffing his chest with pain, and he had to grit his teeth to stop tears from building. “Can you… can you fix this?” He asked Hikaru, voice rough.

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” Hikaru looked down at his own burnt hand, then up at Yoshiki, then back at his hand. At the sight of Yoshiki cradling his hand, his eyes squinted in a smile with a scent of sweet wild strawberries in ice rising around them. His fragmented slimy colourful tendrils snuggled entirely around Yoshiki’s fingers. “I’ll fix it up in a bit, ya know.”

Yoshiki’s heart also slowed down as time passed, the boiling water in his head slowly sinking back under the soil. “Okay,” He said, not letting go of Hikaru’s hand.

In a minute or so, Hikaru’s burnt off fingers grew back into a human hand. When Yoshiki caressed the newly-formed skin on his newly-formed fingers, it felt unnaturally soft and white, like airy cotton or the surface of a cloud. There were no lines between the joints of his fingers or the inside of his palm, just pure soft skin.

“It’s gonna get rougher in a few days,” Hikaru assured him, flexing his fingers in Yoshiki’s hold. “They’re all baby cells still.”

Yoshiki felt an angry nausea swirl in his stomach at that. He checked every part of Hikaru’s new hand with focused eyes. The nail polish that Kaoru must have put on for him had disappeared from all five of his right hand fingers. He didn’t know if Hikaru minded that. He probably did. But at least he seemed fully healed.

“Guess I can’t go in, Yoshiki,” Hikaru said wryly, his small laugh not carrying a single trace of bitterness for the people who had put a weapon between him and the shrine dedicated to him.

“I’ll look around inside,” Yoshiki said.

Hikaru didn’t seem too pleased with that plan, but he also didn’t protest. “Run back here if ya see somethin’ strange. Be careful, okay? And don’t look at any impurities.”

“I know.” Yoshiki smiled as much as he could.

He grabbed the flashlight back and put his hand into the side bag he was carrying, wrapping the fingers of his hand around the handle of the knife in it. He’d brought it with him just in case it’d be useful against an impurity, because he really didn’t have any other way of protecting himself. He didn’t know how useful it would actually be, but at least it made him feel better.

He walked through the cave entrance with his flashlight illuminating the way.

The inside of the cave smelled musty with old air and was completely dark. The walls were covered in dark moss, tiny pale bugs scattering away from the beam of Yoshiki’s flashlight. He could see dust particles floating in the air through the cone of light. Above him, the braided paper talismans on the ceiling all fluttered in a wind that he couldn’t feel, their colour turned yellow from age and raining even more dust over him as he walked.

He kept going inward. There were more cracked off-red columns in pairs lining the curving path of the cave, two, then four, then eight.

A shadow scuttled at the back of his field of vision and Yoshiki jerked his flashlight behind himself.

There was nothing.

Just a spider moving in the darkness.

Breathing shallowly, Yoshiki turned his trembling flashlight back to the front. He could see the end of the hollow mountain cave here; a large room housing a towering torii gate. The huge cavern was covered in countless ropes hanging from column to wall, tied up in long talismans and charms, almost crowding the whole cave with loose paper. Another gust of wind without a direction rippled all the talismans, beckoning him in.

Yoshiki could barely see anything in the dense darkness beyond the circle of his light. But when he directed it at the centre of the cavern, he finally found something.

Below the torii gate was an altar with a pillow on it. And right in the middle of the pillow was a face-shaped dark stone, staring at him.

He approached slowly, legs shaky on the dark cave floor. He had to figure this out. Any impurities that may be here probably couldn’t kill him instantly before he could run out to Hikaru. He wasn’t that afraid of them. He wasn’t. If there was one thing he was actually afraid of, it was Hikaru being hunted down by the villagers before they could escape.

“…like hell I’m gonna let that happen,” Yoshiki muttered under his breath, clenching his hand around the flashlight.

“Haha, yeah, keep it up kid!” A deep voice responded to him from inside the darkness.

“UAAH—?!” Yoshiki jumped back, swinging his flashlight to find a tall man staring at him from the side of the shrine room. He hadn’t even smelled a thing. “Wh-who are… It’s you!”

It was that man; the scarily tall man with bleached hair and sunglasses, the one who’d claimed to be an ethnologist and let Yoshiki hold his hamster. The one who’d used a katana to cut Hikaru’s head off. He still had his sunglasses on despite the darkness of the cave. He didn’t even have a light on himself, so Yoshiki didn’t know how he was going around in the shrine.

“Heya, Tsujinaka-kun,” The man smiled as he rubbed his scraggly chin, “Didn’t expect to see you here! What a coincidence, haha.”

The sunglasses man moved through the low-hanging talismans to grab the strange stone on the altar. He flicked it in the air with his free hand before stuffing it into the pocket of his muddy shirt. His other hand was held beside his waist, holding something stick-like in the darkness. Yoshiki’s eyes looked everywhere around them, but nothing could be seen beyond the small range of his flashlight. Just pitch-black darkness.

“It’s hard work climbing up here, isn’t it? And so early in the morning too, ugh.” The man stretched his back with a groan.

“Wh-what are ya here for?” Yoshiki demanded, voice coming out harsh and quiet. “How did you find us?”

“Haha!” The man laughed loudly, so careless that it sent spittle flying in the light. “It’s really a coincidence this time! Isn’t that funny? Guess your investigation led you here too, hahaha!”

He walked over to Yoshiki inside the beam of Yoshiki’s flashlight. His steps were steady despite the picth-black cave, the glare of Yoshiki’s light, and his sunglasses. How was he doing that? The man’s grin was so casually friendly that it was terrifying. A few drops of cold sweat collected on Yoshiki’s back as he sauntered towards him. He didn’t know what to do.

The light flicked glinted over what the grinning man had in his other hand and—

Wasn’t that the katana that had decapitated Hikaru?

Yoshiki took half a step back before he’d even thought to do so, then another.

On a hurried step back through the rustling paper, his heel stumbled over a stray rock. He had to let the flashlight fall to catch himself on the wall, and the light rolled on the stone floor to glare into the empty space between him and the man.

The ray of light cut between them like a line, leaving them both in half-darkness.

The man came to a brief stop, raising his eyebrows above his sunglasses. “Really, no need to be scared of me, Tsujinaka-kun!” The man rubbed the back of his head. “Last time we had a bad meeting, but I don’t actually go around beheading highschoolers in my free time, haha, ahahaha! I mean, especially not human ones, hahahaha!”

Yoshiki’s heart was racing in his throat, making him try several times just to swallow past the lump. He was terrified. But more than that, more than anything, he hated this man. He hated him. He hated him so much that his hands shook, that his nails dug into the flimsy stone wall of the tunnel. That even as his other hand trailed into his bag, his fingertips kept trembling. Hikaru still sometimes brushed his neck with light fingers when he thought Yoshiki wasn’t looking. This man had made a fool of Yoshiki and gone after the one person he’d ever actively wanted to protect. This man wanted to kill Hikaru.

He forced the words out of his throat, low and hoarse, “What, what do ya want then?”

“Nothing, nothing, really I’m even done checking this shrine out.” The man’s smile was still so casual as he started walking again, now so close he loomed over Yoshiki through the talismans. “If you’re here, then that means Indo-kun’s just outside too, right?”

The man was clearly heading towards the exit. He was going to pass by him. Smiling, smiling, smiling as if they were all good friends.

Held at the man’s side, the chipped and broken katana that had cut Hikaru’s head glinted dully in the thin light.

Yoshiki shakily blocked his path.

“Ah, sorry, can I pass?” The man grinned, like Yoshiki hadn’t obviously done that on purpose.

What was Yoshiki even going to do though? What could he do? This man could attack Hikaru at any time so long as he had that spirit-cutting katana. It wasn’t like Yoshiki could keep him here in the cave forever.

Gritting his teeth and clenching his hand tightly around handle of the knife in his bag, Yoshiki finally said, “G-give that sword to me.”

“Huh?” The man tilted his head. He raised the sword up. “This?”

Yoshiki blocked his way more fully. “You… you took it from Old Man Takeda, didn’t ya?” He said, “I— I’ll give it back to him. Give it to me.”

“Actually it was mine first,” The sunglasses-man said, tilting his head, “You need it for something? Hmm, I’d lend it but… I might still need this for a while, so I can’t give it to you, haha! Ah. Can I go now?”

The man took a step forward, but Yoshiki didn’t move at all. “N…no. The sword first.”

“Hmm? What, you’re gonna keep me hostage till I give you the weapon?” The man grinned widely with his scruffy lips like this was hilarious.

Yoshiki glared at the man, his heart running faster and faster. He could already tell that this wasn’t going to work. This man was never going to hand the sword over. He wanted nothing but to kill Hikaru, so of course he wouldn’t give Hikaru’s allies any weapons. There was no talking it out.

But Yoshiki couldn’t let him go find Hikaru outside the cave. He had to take that sword one way or another. He had to take it. He couldn’t let that nightmare happen again.

“You’re really insistent, whew!” The man rubbed his chin again. “What’s going on? Did I make you mad or something? Haha, I thought we’d totally bonded over hamsters and shiitake mushrooms, but I guess I was wrong!”

Yoshiki’s blood ignited in fury. For the first time, a low growl began in his chest before he could even control it, grating and rusty like a grind of stones. What hamsters? What mushrooms? Did he not even care about how he’d hurt Hikaru?! How could this man be so— so cruel, so careless, so heartless, so—

“Oh. Oh! You think I’m gonna attack your friend, don’t you?” The man laughed again, he swung the katana up to rest it on his shoulder, “Haha, it’s not like I can kill that thing with this sword.” He kept talking. “You still haven’t figured it out? That’s funny!” He kept talking. “If that’s the case why don’t I stab him once and show you? Hahaha, I’m just kid—”

Between one breath and the next, Yoshiki slammed against the man, digging his nails into the hand with the katana in it.

The man’s back crashed through the talismans but he threw Yoshiki off in a single move, stronger than him. Yoshiki grabbed his shirt in a fist, his knife lashing towards the man’s sword hand. The sound of his heartbeat sprinted fast tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu in his ears. The knife cut through the man’s upper arm. Blood splashed out, staining all the paper around them.

The man tried to throw him off again, only for Yoshiki to strike him with his whole weight, hurling them both onto the floor. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness until they rolled over to the flashlight and everything glinted too bright.

“Whoa!” The man laughed and laughed and laughed as their scuffle grew more violent, “Hahahaha!”

He slashed the sword forward, reckless and true— it was going to hit Yoshiki.

But Yoshiki’s eyes no longer saw the oncoming death. He was singularly focused on getting that sword. What came past the blade striking him no longer mattered compared to what would happen if Yoshiki didn’t act here.

The one thing he couldn’t accept was Hikaru’s head being cut again.

In a single lunge of his hand, he grabbed katana by the blade.

It didn’t even cut his skin.

Yoshiki had only just gripped the blade when the man punched him off with a laugh and jerked the katana back. In a reckless slash, Yoshiki’s knife caught the man on something hard, the edge of a bone. The man rolled away, now out of the light. Yoshiki threw himself back onto him. He leapt for the sword but missed by the fingertips. His nails only scratched into the man’s neck.

More laughter, throaty and deep, “Hahahahaha!” before Yoshiki was slammed away, still growling wildly.

Snapshots of stark light and darkness flashed from the rolling flashlight. The shadow of a fist before his vision rattled. The man’s toothy, open-mouthed laughter above him. Yoshiki’s own hands slamming the man’s head down through the paper. His ugly reflection in the man’s sunglasses, his teeth bared and eyes blown like a rabid animal. The swirling trail of blood on the ground. The sunglasses flying off at a single hit. The man’s blurry and unmoving eyes below him. More and more laughter.

The katana was there above the man’s head. Yoshiki’s breath caught and he lunged for it, only for the man to backhand him before he could get to the katana. Yoshiki’s knife gouged bloody the skin on the man’s arm. He scrambled for the katana but the man caught his shirt and pulled him back. “Ow, ow, hey, haha!”

In an instant of pure thoughtless frustration, Yoshiki’s target changed. His arm snapped down.

His knife was on the man’s throat.

For that a single second, they both froze in the narrow white light. Yoshiki was breathing so hard that his head was dizzy, he couldn’t get any air in. The edge of the knife was pushing bloody against the man’s neck. An inch, and he’d be dead.

“Okay, okay, time out,” The man was panting as he grinned up at Yoshiki with all his bloody teeth, his eyes milky white without his sunglasses. He raised his hands next to his head in surrender. “Whew, that’s the knife at my neck right?”

Swallowing once, then twice, before he could even get in enough oxygen to speak, Yoshiki said, “Give me the sword.”

A few chuckles spilled down the man’s throat, before they caught into true, honest laughter. He sounded more genuinely entertained than any of the other times he was laughing at Yoshiki. He sounded like this situation was even something to enjoy. “Were you always like this or did you change a lot since we last met?” He asked, “You’re one crazy kid!”

“Stop laughin’,” Yoshiki snapped.

“Alright, alright, wow, you really don’t know what’s gonna come out of an egg when it cracks,” The man continued snickering. He waved one of the hands still beside his head, “Be my guest. Take it if you want. As you can see, I’m in a bit of a bind right now.”

Yoshiki threw him a wild-eyed look. Then he reached up without moving the knife from the man’s throat, wrapping his fingers around the handle of the katana fallen just ahead. He grabbed it and scrambled away from the man with both the blades in his hands.

The man sat up with a wild grin, rubbing the thin red line of blood on the front of his neck. “Ow, ow… Well, I might need some weapon again later on, but I can come back for it later I suppose,” He said, “Whooo, this was a bit more of a workout than I was expecting today!”

His every movement was so relaxed. Yoshiki, who was halfway to hyperventilating where he was splayed against the cave wall despite having all the available weapons on himself, couldn’t understand it.

“How can ya be so casual about all of this?” He demanded, voice harsh from his stifled lungs.

“Man, Tsujinaka-kun, you’re so panicked for a boy who totally won his fight,” The man observed, scratching the edge of his eyebrow in bemusement. “And here I thought you were pretty cool, jumping right into my katana like you’d decided to take it if it killed you.”

“I hate you,” Yoshiki said, and there were tears burning in his eyes. “I hate you.”

“Well, I’m totally ambivalent towards you,” The man said casually.

“Are you crazy?! I almost killed you. I almost killed you, like a— like a monster!” Yoshiki slammed his hand on the wall as he pushed down the tears, breathing hard.

His stomach was roiling, bile hitting the back of his tongue, and still he clutched the two blades to himself and didn’t let go. What was he trying to do here? What could he even do? All he’d done was to nearly kill a man, a human being with their own life, their own family, just like Matsuura-san had had. Just like he’d told Hikaru again and again he must never do.

What had he even thought he could do? This was the so-called change he’d been so desperate for? He’d only become a monster himself. Maybe other than that life he despised the only path he could take was this, was just a life of hurting people and himself, a life worse than death.

Painful, frustrated tears stung Yoshiki’s eyes. At that moment he thought that if he saw the villagers coming over with hunting rifles to put him down, he’d let them take their shot at him and agree that the world would become safer. Maybe he’d just mixed too much with Hikaru, and this was the result. This was the loss of humanity that Kurebayashi-san had been warning him about all along.

“I almost killed someone,” Yoshiki squeezed out hoarsely from his throat, his vision blurring, “Like some monster…”

Across the edge of the flashlight, the man muttered. “Oh, bother…”

Yoshiki’s gaze snapped up like a startled animal to find the man still smiling, his smile way too calm to be reasonable in this situation. “What..?!” He choked out, his voice a wet mess of countless emotions.

The man sighed. His blurry white pupils didn’t land on Yoshiki at all, but his expression nonetheless felt directed at him, and it felt a little bit more kind than anything he’d shown from behind those strange sunglasses. “Tsujinaka-kun,” He said, “If you’re scared of monsters, you should go back home to your normal life before it’s too late.”

Yoshiki flinched, all of a sudden feeling very much like a kid, looking down to his lap.

“And if not, wipe your nose and get up.”

When Yoshiki looked back up again, the man’s scruffy face had spread into a grin. “This world’s disgusting and monstrous, you know! Really, any adult with some sense would tell you to turn back now, before you can’t recognise yourself anymore. Luckily, your friendly town uncle Tanaka has none of that! Just try to keep a bit of moderation in your heart, hahahaha!”

“…” Yoshiki sniffled. Through his blocked nose, he muttered, “’Tanaka’? Is that a fake name or somethin’?”

Tanaka continued grinning like some madman.

Yoshiki moved his creaky hand joints to squeeze the knife and katana on his lap. In the thin edge of the white light, he could see his own eyes reflected on the chipped blade. A bruise was starting to form on the side of his eye and dirt streaked his cheek. His hands were covered in flecks of blood from Tanaka’s wounds. His forearm was ripped by an abrasion that had turned dark pink and purple, finally starting to hurt now that the adrenaline was draining out of him.

A disgusting and monstrous world…

Okay.

“Now where are my sunglasses?” Tanaka asked, scratching the hair at his nape and making a show of looking around, “Are ya gonna help an old friend find his lost glasses or not?”

“…..?”

Yoshiki raised his head back up slowly. With every passing second, the absurdity of the situation settled more in his heart, banking the fire burning there.

“………beside your foot,” He said, voice kind of confused and exhausted.

“Ah! Thank you,” Tanaka said and reached down to pat pat on the cave ground until his hand hit his sunglasses. Yoshiki just watched silently, completely at a loss for what to do now.

“Are ya… can you not see?”

“Eh, it’s an old problem,” Tanaka said, putting on his sunglasses and getting up. He glanced at Yoshiki directly from behind his glasses. “I can still see when I’ve got these company products on. It’s a spiritual kind of ailment after all! You’d know about those, wouldn’t you, Tsujinaka-kun?”

Yoshiki’s hand went hesitantly to his wrist.

“So can we finally leave now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, or am I still being kept hostage?” Tanaka laughed as he patted his bloody and dirty white shirt down to its proper place.

“Oh.” After a few seconds of disorientation, Yoshiki gathered the blades in a hand and grabbed the flashlight he’d dropped. “…okay.”

In a situation that seemed like a cut off sequence from some nightmare, Yoshiki walked out of the cave with Tanaka walking confidently behind him. He was even humming the familiar chorus of some stupid idol song on repeat. It made Yoshiki’s back shiver in discomfort, goosebumps rising any time he felt like Tanaka’s footsteps might be coming closer to him. But whenever he glanced back, Tanaka was always at a distance, safely spaced away from him.

The knife wounds that Yoshiki had inflicted on him had stopped bleeding. He was just covered in small and big scabs with dark stains on his shirt.

Yoshiki turned forward again, his head down as he walked in the pale light of his flashlight. He held the katana tightly in his free hand. “Um… I,” He whispered, “You… you’re gonna clean those wounds later right?”

Tanaka finished the last bar of his cheerful song before answering, “Hmmm? Aw, Tsujinaka-kun are you worried about me?”

“No, I’m just… I’m not— I want you to be gone,” Yoshiki said. His words gained strength as he went on, fed by his hatred for the situation he and Hikaru were forced to be in. “I want you to be gone. I want you to disappear, and everyone else who wants to hurt us, all of them too, I want y’all to be gone from the world forever.” Then he said quieter,  “But I don’t… I don’t want you to die. So if you’d just make sure ya disinfect yer wounds at least or something…”

Tanaka laughed. “You’re a pretty good kid.”

Yoshiki’s heart clenched. “What do ya even know?” He muttered under his breath, staring straight down the dark tunnel. “I tried to kill ya…”

“Eh, dying’s not the scary part, is it?” Tanaka said calmly, his nonchalant voice ringing in the cave compared to Yoshiki’s muffled whispers, “It’s what’s there after. I mean, once you get past all the monster stuff. If you can, haha!” Then his tone became curious. “What if there’s nothing? I’ve never been one to ‘rest in peace’… Can you imagine me ‘resting in peace’? Isn’t that scary? Isn’t that the worst?”

They walked for a few more seconds in silence. Then Yoshiki murmured, “Hikaru says we reincarnate.”

“Good things come to those who strive, huh?” Tanaka hummed in too dramatic a tone. “Good to know!”

After a while Yoshiki finally spotted the light streaming in from the entrance. It was red and orange in the hue of dawn, dappled by the shadows of tree branches and leaves. The sun must have risen while he was stuck in the cave. At the sight of it, his feet sped up. He was almost hurrying by the time he got out of the cave into the brilliant light of a mountain-peak dawn.

Hikaru was right there, lit up by the orange sunlight outside the cave. He was standing by one of the torii columns, his expression impatient and anxious, watching the cave the same way Yoshiki had watched the bathroom door in his house when Hikaru was exorcising the hair ghost.

He jumped when he spotted Yoshiki leaving the cave, the anxiety cracking into relief. Yoshiki immediately passed by the invisible barrier that kept Hikaru outside to go to him. Slowly, his heart calmed down. It was so strange. Being beside Hikaru was objectively more dangerous than being anywhere else, but somehow it gave Yoshiki a sense of security instead. An enveloping feeling of safety that was difficult to describe.

“Yoshiki? What the hell happened to ya? You’re all messed up!”

When Yoshiki came to his side, Hikaru’s hands reached immediately up for his hair, tiptoeing as he tried to comb it down. Yoshiki bowed his head down to let him. How badly had his hair gotten messed up that it eclipsed even his blood-flecked hands and dirty shirt? He couldn’t imagine it.

“Did you find an impurity? I told you to run out if you see somethin’!” Hikaru sniffed over Yoshiki’s shoulder and then his neck. “Ya don’t smell like something’s gotten to ya… What even happened?”

Hikaru pulled back to tug Yoshiki’s sticky sweaty hair this way and that without any results. His eyes widened when his hands came out covered in little blood clots like dirt.

“Is this blood?” He asked, his crimson-pupiled eyes narrowing immediately in fury, “Yoshiki!”

“I’m fine,” Yoshiki said. Hikaru glared up at him, but his lips were crumpled up upset and his lashes were trembling, so Yoshiki could only find it endearing. “I mean it, for real. It ain’t even my blood, Hikaru.”

“Then whose—”

“Hey there, Indo Hikaru-kun,” Tanaka smiled, raising a hand in greeting, “We meet again! How’s it going?”

“You—!” Hikaru’s scent disappeared as he glared at Tanaka. Yoshiki grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him from directly lunging at the man… like Yoshiki had done, honestly.

“Woah, woah, I’ve already gotten it from your friend, you know!” Tanaka said, “I’m the source of the blood, if you wanted to worry about the injured party? Anyways, Tsujinaka-kun and I are buddies now. You wanna fight your friend’s buddy?”

Hikaru was so thrown off he didn’t even say anything before whirling at Yoshiki with wide eyes. “Yoshiki?!”

“Ugh… it’s not like that,” Yoshiki said, pursing his lips in distaste before he had to admit, “We’re in a truce… of some kind. Maybe.”

“Haha! So suspicious!” Tanaka barked out a laugh.

“We can have a truce if you promise you’re not gonna attack us again,” Yoshiki said sourly.

“Eeeh, I dunno about that,” Tanaka shrugged. His sunglasses were directed right towards Hikaru. “Whether I gotta find a way to kill him or not has yet to be decided… I’m on the side of humanity, after all! Indo-kun’s one thing, but I might have to tussle with you too if you keep getting in the way, Tsujinaka-kun, hahaha!”

Hikaru stepped out from behind Yoshiki’s arm, gesturing towards Yoshiki’s chest with the baby-smooth of his newly healed hand. “Look, we’re on the side of humanity too,” He said, “We’re tryin’ to find a way to get rid of the impurities together, and I won’t be able to kill anyone easily since—”

“Don’t tell him that!” Yoshiki exclaimed, covering up the piece of bone that housed Hikaru’s ripped-out half with his palm.

“Why not?” Hikaru huffed up at him, “We can have a truce with him, right? He’s saying he’s gonna attack you for no reason cause he doesn’t know we’re on the same side!”

“Let him attack if he wants!” Yoshiki said, “Don’t go givin’ out yer weakness to this psycho!”

“There’s no point to fightin’ him!”

“There’s no point to tellin’ him everything either!”

Hikaru and Yoshiki glared at each other.

Ahead of them, Tanaka started laughing again. His laughter was ugly and amused, in fits that ended and started again with spittle, and it only fully died out when he’d gotten bent down in half with his arms on his belly. Yoshiki snapped his eyes from Hikaru to him, eyeing him warily. “What’s so funny again?” He gritted.

Tanaka let out a final chuckle and wheeze when he tilted his sunglassed-gaze up at them. “You know, I’d say it’s interesting to see you on your little way to self-destruction,” He said looking at Hikaru, before turning towards both of them and laughing, “But see, actually I’m not even sure which of you to warn about self-destruction anymore really, hahaha!”

Hikaru’s eyes widened, his hand jumping to clutch at Yoshiki’s arm. “What’s that mean?” He demanded. “Why’d you say that? Yoshiki’s fine.”

“Oh he’s fine alright, the little demon almost killed me,” Tanaka guffawed, pointing a thumb to his neck where a thin line of blood stretched out. “I almost wanna see what he’ll be like if he goes all crazy and destroys everything!”

Hikaru glared, his red pupils narrowed deathly cold. “Ya don’t know shit! Yoshiki doesn’t destroy things!”

“It’s fine, Hikaru,” Yoshiki said, glancing at Tanaka once. Tanaka grinned creepily at him. Despite how off-putting the man was, Yoshiki could somewhat tell that he hadn’t said that with malice. And so what if Yoshiki went all crazy and destroyed everything? Better than letting Hikaru be destroyed and staying forever in this perfect normal village that he despised.

“Right, he’s just lyin’,” Hikaru said, still upset. His fingers clenched tight enough to dig into Yoshiki’s flesh, but he didn’t seem to notice. “He doesn’t know ya… What self-destruct? Stupid. Yoshiki’s kind, he’d never destroy anything, he’s fine…”

“Eh, I don’t really care about that. I’m just here to stop people from dying,” Tanaka said, “Well, I’ve still gotta keep investigating. After all, I haven’t even decided what you are yet, Indo-kun! We’ll see each other again soon though, I’m sure.”

“We don’t wanna see ya again,” Yoshiki muttered and Hikaru nodded beside him.

“So coooold, haha,” Tanaka rocked back on his heels. “I didn’t even do anything to you! Here I am, bloody and patched up and all you’ve got is a few bruises and a little cut in your bangs, Tsujinaka-kun.”

Yoshiki grabbed at his bangs in a hurry. He tilted his head down, trying to tug out the part that had supposedly gotten cut, but he couldn’t find anything. He pulled at the locks uselessly, his hand sticking to his hair. It was all matted with sweat and dirt and patches of blood, and in places impossible to identify individual strands from each other. Yoshiki huffed and tried combing his messed-up hair back down at least.

“No sympathy for your buddy, huh,” Tanaka sighed theatrically, “I suppose I’ll take that as my cue to leave then.”

He turned around to leave. They instinctively shuffled back as he walked past them all the way down the bushes, warily watching him leave from beside the shrine entrance, when Tanaka paused by the trees.

He turned around to say, “Before I go, about that katana, I might come back for—”

Yoshiki’s fingers still had his bangs caught when his gaze cut at Tanaka. He gripped the katana tight and bared his teeth, his scent rising high, a growl starting deep in his chest.

Tanaka raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” He drawled as he stared at them from behind his sunglasses, “Never mind then. I’ll find something else, whew.”

Yoshiki let out the rest of his growl into a silent exhale, staring at the man with irritated eyes. He really just couldn’t like this asshole.

“Yoshiki..?” Hikaru grabbed hold of Yoshiki’s sleeve from the side.

Yoshiki shook his hair back into place and his scent dimmed away immediately  —more used to being hidden than not— as he turned towards Hikaru. At Yoshiki looking normal, Hikaru also relaxed a little.

“Stop fallin’ for his gloating,” Hikaru laughed hesitantly, “Seriously. Weirdo.”

“Sorry,” Yoshiki said, shrugging with his gaze back under the shadow of his bangs.

Tanaka laughed again.

“Well, I’ll see you pair of little monsters some other time then!”

He waved his hand casually over his shoulder, walking into the shadowed treeline. Without even looking back, he added one last line:

“Just so you know... some people say it’s better to be dead than to be mixed.”

With his hand raised, Tanaka’s shirt collar parted just enough to reveal the unexpected extent of the strange dark scar on his neck.

Yoshiki’s eyes widened.

Tanaka disappeared past the trees without saying anything else. Some other thing, something true, something he said about being mixed, instead of some people. By then even his silhouette had vanished, and there was only Yoshiki looking at the empty mountain forest with huge eyes, his heart beating like a wild bird about to take flight.

In the end, Tanaka gave him no real words, no useful advice. He only left behind that gap of what wasn’t said by people, a gap empty and unknowable and filled with endless possibilities.

For Yoshiki, though, that was enough.

It was the first time he was seeing a gap at all.