Chapter Text
Yoshiki stumbled backwards trying to get away from the hand that just popped out of the ground. His heart pounded against his chest like crazy as his eyes looked in horror how the hand twisted to an impossible angle to try and get a grip of something. The earth round them kept shaking as more cracks appeared.
The pale fingers twitched once, twice, clawing weakly at the dirt as if it was relearning how to move as more soil collapsed inward to reveal a complete arm that dragged itself free, followed by another.
Yoshiki froze.
His breath caught in his throat as a figure slowly pulled itself from the ground, movements jerky and uncoordinated, like a corpse remembering how to live. Dirt clung to tangled white hair. The body shuddered, coughing violently as it drew in its first breath in maybe decades.
The figure collapsed onto its knees, gasping.
Then he lifted his head.
Yoshiki forgot how to breathe for a second. His eyes were pale blue, almost colorless in the daylight, like frost caught in glass. They were unfocused at first, blinking rapidly as if the world was just too bright after being underground for who knows how long.
Then, they settled over Yoshiki and only then did he noticed the faint hint of red threaded through the blue, subtle but unmistakable.
The face was also thin, pale as wax with lips cracked and what looked like burnt marks all over the clothes he was wearing. He looked pretty young. Probably around Yoshiki’s age, but horribly out of place under the open sky.
The man then fixated his eyes into something else in the ground, Yoshiki followed his gaze back to the diary that had fallen from his hands from the shock. When his body finally responded, Yoshiki slowly tried to gain some space between him and the stranger by trying to stand up and reach for the book.
His head was running a thousand thoughts with each second of unbearable silence.
What did just happen?
Was the man a ghost or something? Or was Yoshiki so tired he was just seeing things now?
Then out of nowhere something seemed to click. And before he could stop himself, Yoshiki heard his own voice saying
“Hikaru?”
The white haired man seemed to react to the name, drawing his eyes back to meet Yoshiki’s. He opened his mouth once, no words coming out for a second, like he had forgotten how to use his own voice, brow furrowing as though the very act of speaking had slipped beyond his reach. He closed his mouth and his jaw tensed.
For a heartbeat, nothing came out.
Then, hoarse and uncertain, his voice finally emerged. Rough with disuse, but somehow grounding.
“…Yeah?
Yoshiki stoped moving.
He answered. This man is Indou Hikaru.
But he was quickly pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of Hikaru coughing. He found the man sitting on his knees and frowning. He pressed his palm against his sternum, then lower, brow furrowing deeper when he felt the steady beat beneath his skin.
He looked down ant himself next, brushing dirt from his sleeve with slow awkward movements. His pale fingers poked through the burnt holes on his shirt, his eyes staring at the marks for a bit too long. He looked like someone trying to remember what their body was supposed to move like.
His gaze wandered across the field, the trees and finally to the building behind them. His eyes narrowed with confusion.
“Did they built a bridge?” He tilted his head in confusion while looking at the structure.
“You…you know this place?” Yoshiki asked carefully.
Hikaru nodded confidently at first, but confusion seemed to be in his eyes as he kept looking around, like he started to hesitate. “I think so.” He glanced back at the tree looming over them. “The place I remember did not have this many trees. It was mostly a graveyard.”
Yoshiki opened his eyes in disbelief. “A graveyard you say?”
But the man ignored his question, his attention snapping back to the diary lying in the grass.
“That’s…” He seemed. a little uncomfortable. “That’s mine.”
Yoshiki finally reached out for the book, fingers curled reflexively around its cover. “You recognize it?”
“I wrote that.” Hikaru answered, tensing at the sight of Yoshiki grabbing what was his. “I guess you’ve already read it right? That’s how you know my name, uhm…”He looked like he was trying to remember his name even though that had never met. “Sorry, what’s your name?”
Yoshiki realized how awkward must be for Hikaru to acknowledge that some stranger had read his diary, so he stumbled to stand up and offer the book back to the white-haired man.
“Tsujinaka,” he introduced himself, bowing slightly, “Tsujinaka Yoshiki.”
“Hey Yoshiki,” Hikaru stood up and reached for his book, “Do you happen to know what happened to this place? Last time I checked this was a graveyard but now there’s not a single grave at sight.”
Yoshiki tilted his head at the sound of his name in Hikaru’s voice. Only a few people inside the monastery called him by his name. But he would let it slide for now“That’s what I wanted to ask you. In the map inside the diary, this place seemed to be used for something different, but it has been the exact same ever since I’ve been here and apparently before.”
“How long have you been here Yoshiki?” Hikaru kept looking at him like he was trying to recognize him from somewhere. “I have never seen you in the monastery and I’m friends with almost all novices.”
That was when it hit him.
Hikaru wasn’t confused about where he was, but rather when.
Yoshiki swallowed hard. “Indou,” he said even though he had already called him by his name before. “How old do you think you are?”
The man opened his mouth, disbelief in his eyes. The question probably felt like a joke to him. “Pretty sure I’m twenty. Do I look older to you?” He mocked Yoshiki.
He doubted for a second. Hikaru clearly didn’t know how many years had actually passed since his death. And he still wanted to make him a bunch of questions, like how was he alive or if he ever found out the truth about his parents and Nonuki-sama. But his better judgement was that given where they were standing someone could easily see them from the bridge and think the worse about him. It was absolutely forbidden to bring outsiders inside the monastery and the field was still technically a part of it.
Hikaru was asking him something else, Yoshiki could see his lips moving but his brain couldn’t really process any words at that time. Frustrated and quite anxious about getting caught and the possibility of being expelled or something worse, Yoshiki reached to grab Hikaru’s pale wrist, cutting him mid-sentence.
“Whoa—” Hikaru started, the word turning into a surprised huff when Yoshiki grabbed his wrist and dragged him forward.
There was a small cabin a short distance away, half-hidden between trees. Yoshiki had seen it from afar multiple times. Used to store the tools the monks brought out when the grass grew too Wilde or some branches began to overtake the paths. He had never really had a reason to go inside since he was never on garden duty, that was normally reserved for those with some physical condition, something Yoshiki lacked.
He didn’t even know if the door would be locked, if there was a key hidden somewhere or if someone would already be there.
But it was a shelter.
Probably the only one in the whole place, as imperfect as his plan was, it was probably better than standing in the open where anyone could wander by.
Yoshiki tightened his grip on Hikaru’s wrist, leading him through a half messy path of overgrown branches and weed, keeping his steps quick but careful, and constantly checking over his shoulder to make sure nobody was following them. Every snapped twig they stepped on sensed a jolt through his chest. The cabin grew larger with each step, weathered wood, a slanted roof and vines crawling in the wooden walls, wearing off the paint, like nature was trying to reclaim it back.
The door seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t covered by vines, like it was the only part of the cabin that was taken care of. Yoshiki’s hand wandered over the silver doorknob, secretly praying that the place was empty.
Before he could make another move,Hikaru was already a few steps inside, grinning carelessly as he looked back at Yoshiki. “Look, it’s open!”
As Yoshiki walked behind Hikaru, his thoughts unraveled.
Why was he doing this?
He knew the rules. He probably knew them better than most. Helping out someone who wasn’t a part of the monastery lists was one of the things you could do if you wanted to either be thrown out of this place and bring shame to your family or to be severely punished. And Yoshiki wasn’t particularly interested in any of those options. He still had imprinted in his memory the cries and the sound of wood hitting against skin echoing through the stone corridors late at night, and how no one seemed to talk about it the next morning. He had learned early on not to ask questions about the punishment system, only to obey well enough to avoid it.
The memory made his stomach twist.
If they were caught, there would be no gentle explanation nor quiet reprimand. There would be consequences. Public ones. And if the Abbot decided he had gone too far, Yoshiki could be sent away. Cast out.
The thought of returning home hit him harder than fear.
His father’s face surfaced unbidden in his mind. The stiffness with he had stood that last morning, hands clenched at his sides and unable to meet Yoshiki’s eyes. After all, sending him to the monastery had been practical, necessary. There had been no room for hesitation in that choice. If Yoshiki returned now, marked as a failure, what place would there be for him in Kubitachi?
He pictured the narrow dirt roads, the endless labor and the future felt like a rope tightening up against his neck.
Like a trap.
He had never belonged there. As a boy, he remembers running across the tall grass of his garden, chasing after whatever animal he had found. If he was lucky enough, he would catch it with a jar after a while. Just to look at it. Yoshiki’s curious eyes would stare at the life form that seemed so different from himself, he wondered what made them both be alive and so different.
When his mother reached him how to write, he invented a system to keep track of the things he caught in the garden. Paper was expensive and his family wasn’t exactly rich. At first, Yoshiki tried writing in the dirt with a stick, but quickly found that those notes would survive not even a whole day. he settled for using the discarded pieces of wood his father left around the forest. He would pick the larger ones and take a small knife to carb the information there.
Fortunately, that didn’t last long, it definitely was a pain in the ass to take literal hours to finish a single sentence. So when his mom appeared with a notebook, pen and ink for his birthday, he felt like the world was opening a door meant just for him.
From that birthday he knew his dream was to study animals. As a kid, he never knew that could be an actual job, but at the monastery’s library, in one of the many research projects he started in his free time, he found out there were a few people that worked categorizing animals and plants. They were called encyclopedists.
The monastery had never been his dream.
But it was a future.
Yoshiki never built the courage to tell his parents what he wanted to become. From an early age, he knew he wasn’t exactly built for a physical job. He had always been taller that the rest of the kids, but most of the time they out strengthen him. But he was also smart enough to understand that leaving all his time to study animals wouldn’t exactly bring food to the table, so he settled to whatever his father decided for him.
And yet, as he followed Hikaru inside the cabin, Yoshiki realized that despite everything, he hadn’t hesitated when he reached out to pull him away from the field or when he discovered the diary in the library. Maybe he hadn’t weighted the risks long enough to talk himself out of it.
Or, maybe something in him had already decided from the moment he picked up the mysterious book from the shelf.
The inside of the cabin was dim and stale, the air thick with dust that stirred at their movement. Narrow beams of light slipped through gaps between wooden doors, cutting thin lines across the floor. Shelves lined the walls from end to end, sagging slightly under the weight of old tools.
Empty sacks lay folded in one corner, and a small work table stood against the far wall, its surface coated in a fine layer of dust, as though no one had touched it in years. The smell was dry and earthy, like old wood and neglect.
Hikaru paused near the center of the room, glancing around with mild interest. His shoulders visibly loosened, like the tension he carried from before disappeared in the darkness.
Yoshiki remained by the door, hands still hovering near the latch. His pulse was loud in his ears as he trained to focus in listening for any sounds beyond the walls. Voices, footsteps, anything. When nothing came, he finally let his art drop to his side as the leaned against the door to close it shut.
His breath caught in his throat as his eyes went up to look at the man in front of him. Hikaru was staring back at him now.
The dimness of the cabin softened the pale blue of his eyes, and in the darkness, the red threaded through them stood out more clearly than before. It reminded Yoshiki of embers buried beneath ice.
The air seemed to thicken between them. Hikaru didn’t look away. He didn’t even blink. He simply watched Yoshiki as if he was expecting him to move or look away first.
Yoshiki’s chest tightened, a strange warmth blooming beneath the lingering fear. He wasn’t sure what unsettled him more, the fact that it should be completely impossible for this man to be standing in front of him or that his were not empty, not dead. Warm.
The moment stretched for longer than it should have for Yoshiki.
The quiet pressed in on him, the weight of Hikaru’s gaze settled heavy in his chest. He forced himself to breathe, then to move. A small, deliberate step back, breaking the invisible thread between them. His eyes dropped to the dusty floor, to the scattered footprints they’d left behind.
“Sorry,” he said softly. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for.
He cleared his throat and gestured clumsily toward the open space near the work table, where the light a little more evenly through the cracks in the boards. “We should… sit. It might be easier.” Yoshiki said awkwardly.
Hikaru blinked, then smiled faintly as if the suggestion amused him. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
They lowered themselves to the floor with their backs against the wooden walls and in front of each other. Yoshiki drew his knees in close, fidgeting with his fingers to keep himself from shaking.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Yoshiki stared at the floor for a second, trying to gather his thoughts. Should he say something first? What should he say? Finally, he let out a slow breath.
“Uhm…” he stated shyly, not sure about his words. “So this is kinda weird to ask but,” he paused for a second trying to find the least awkward words with no results. “How are you still alive?”
The white-haired man seemed like he was having the time of his life holding up a chuckle and failing miserably. “You don’t need to be so serious with me Yoshiki, you know? And I think that’s a totally valid question to ask. And the answer is I’m not sure.”
Yoshiki tilted his head, encouraging Hikaru to keep talking. “If I’m honest with you, I don’t even think I am actually alive. Though I have to tell you, I can’t really say I don’t remember exactly dying either.”
Yoshiki made a mental note about Hikaru being as terrible to explain things as he was in his diary. His mind seemed to drift with no purpose and his mouth was way faster than his brain.
“So I do remember them people setting me on fire, but after the pain, I only felt like I was asleep. Like those times when you know you are sleeping but you also can’t wake up. I don’t know for how long I felt that way but, at some point I heard my own words being spoken out loud with a voice that wasn’t mine and after that, I crawled my way out and appeared there with you and my book.”
He didn’t answer right away.
They set me on fire. Hikaru had said it so easily, like he was talking about bad weather or some other minor inconvenience. No strong emotions attached to his voice.
“They…” his voice caught in a gasp. He swallowed and tried again. “Who did what now?”
Hikaru stopped his rambling to look at him weirdly. “The higher ups, they set me on fire.” He repeated bluntly.
The cabin felt too small all at once, the air too thick to draw a full breath. Yoshiki’s thoughts raced, colliding with one another, sermons about mercy, books that spoke of peaceful conversions, the silence around anything darker. None of it fit with what Hikaru was describing. None of it explained how someone could talk about being burned alive with that kind of distance. Or about something someone could do to get that type of punishment.
“That’s not…” Yoshiki shook his head, struggling to find the words. “That’s not something you should say so lightly.”
Hikaru looked genuinely confused. “Oh. I’m sorry,” he paused. “I guess that thinking about it for so long desensitized me about it.”
“Why would they do that to you?” Yoshiki couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that someone in the very place where he had been living for the past few years had been killed in such a tragic way. “Does it have to do with… you know… the Nonuki-sama thing that you were writing about?”
Hikaru’s shoulders stiffened almost immediately.
It was subtle. The way his posture straightened and how his fingers curled slightly at his sides, but Yoshiki noticed it all the same.
“…That’s not something I want to get into right now,” Hikaru said lightly, brushing off the subject. “Some things are better left where they are. At least for now.”
Yoshiki hesitated. He could hear the unspoken not yet hanging beneath the sentence. He nodded, slow and careful, even though he still had a dozen questions lingering his head.
“Alright,” he said. “I won’t push.”
Hikaru let out a breath, relief flickering across his face before he masked his worry with a smile. Yoshiki noticed how his left canine sat slightly out of place, crooked just enough to catch the light when his lips curled upward. It softened his expression and made him look younger than what he was. It was an oddly gentle detail, something human and imperfect that reminded Yoshiki that the man in front of his was human just like him.