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“You won’t forget me right?”
It was a question delivered almost casually, as if jokingly, with eyes rolled to the side and body leaning on the door. Mashita’s eyes widened and his face contorted to a snarl, clenching his teeth in response.
“What?”
“With your mark gone, I mean.” Yashiki could tell he had made him angry again, and broke into a small sweat. He kept doing these this kind of thing to people without meaning to, it was frustrating. “Since you’re leaving tomorrow, I was thinking if you’d still remember me after you were gone and back to your old life.”
Mashita sat by the edge of his bed and drew in a long, mildly exasperated sigh. It seemed to calm him down somewhat. Yashiki wanted to know what about the question offended him so immediately but it was hard to ask, and he waltzed about in the room trying to look absentmindedly at the furniture. Mashita rubbed his fingertips over his eyes.
“You really think after all this shit we went through together, after almost dying twice, finding irrefutable evidence of the supernatural- You think I can walk away and just forget all that?”
Well when he put it like that, it did sound like a pretty big deal.
“No, but- Isn’t that the whole idea?”
“What…?”
“Wouldn’t you want to forget it and return to a normal life? I didn’t ask if you’re going to easily forget everything, I was just wondering if you’d want to forget me with it too.” He didn’t mean the question that seriously at first. It was more of a slip of the tongue than anything, so Yashiki was surprised at how all of this sounded out loud. “Not that you have to remember me, particularly. Just that in my current situation you’re really the one other person I really know.”
For now. The thought made Yashiki swallow dry.
Mashita shot him a dirty, nearly spiteful look. It felt so, at least, but it could just be a particularly bitter one.
“Are you an idiot?”
There was no window to reply. Mashita was always quick on his feet, and grabbed a hold of Yashiki’s collar with both hands, pushing his back slightly into the room’s desk. His eyes carried a heavy gloom and a quiet anger. Yashiki didn’t know what to say, or to really think.
“Do you think because I’m leaving that I’m choosing to abandon you? That I couldn’t give a shit? That I’m washing my hands off of all this for no reason and leaving you to die?”
There was a small tug inside Yashiki’s throat. Like Mashita had just stabbed him with a blunt knife, and it welled up inside his chest. He chewed his lip, feeling like there was so much noise inside his head to drown out at once he couldn’t tell which thoughts were his.
Mashita took note of his desperate eyes, not letting go of his jacket, and felt like shattering. He was scared to release the grip, to lose his own strong stance, but could feel it all being drained from him as he read Yashiki’s facial expression.
He did think all that.
Mashita looked away, knowing it was his fault this had taken place and he wasn’t justified in being mad about it. It pissed him off Mary had also warned him about this offhandedly and he ignored her. He felt hurt but was struggling on how to approach the situation. He saw Yashiki was gathering courage to speak.
“I’m so-“
He placed fingers over Yashiki’s lips instinctively, a little desperate, and it made the other man flustered.
“Don’t apologize. Yet, at least.” Mashita’s face was softer along with his tone of voice, but it was also sadder. His eyes started to traverse the room, as he searched for a way to say what he wanted, to unearth how he could even speak about something so personal out loud.Yashiki watched his gaze, feeling the anxiety build up inside him.
“Yashiki, I…” His grip was looser, and he wasn’t looking at him in the eyes. “If there was any point to me staying, I would.”
“Point…?” He asked quietly, not sure if it was a good time to speak.
“Everyone needs to know their own limits, you should understand… What you’re fighting here, ghosts and monsters, they’re things I can’t kill, can’t arrest, can’t bring in any help for…” There was a long pause. “I’m out of my element.” He laughed slightly and scoffed. “Not even when I’m there I’m of that much help anyway, I’m just extra baggage, almost dying and killing you along with me because I can’t fight these situations properly.” He gripped Yashiki’s jacket again, leaning into it and burying his face on the man’s shoulder. “I’m powerless, you might die at any time and I won’t be able to do anything. I can’t even walk properly on my own when you really need help, because I’ll just be marked again.”
Yashiki couldn’t see his face, but he could tell he was clenching his jaw hard. He felt something caught in his throat again, words he wanted to say but they wouldn’t come out, as if there were knots inside his neck.
Mashita felt arms wrap around him and squeeze him tightly, and he involuntarily made a small noise of surprise. Yashiki tucked his face on man’s shoulder and talked quiet and low, digging his fingers into his back.
“I don’t want you to die because of me, but you’re not…” It sent shivers up Mashita’s spine, feeling Yashiki’s voice so close and his hands grabbing onto him. “You’re not useless, or a burden.”
“I…” The words got caught in Mashita’s throat, and he felt himself unable to say anything, barely able to move. They were still far from used to each other’s contact, even if they had already broken some barriers prior, and with Yashiki holding onto him, he could only, for a brief moment, think of how warm he felt, how strong he held him, about how his voice sounded like when he was this close. Mashita felt a torrent of thoughts contradict each other in his own mind, struggling between pushing him away and pulling closer, rejecting the gesture and indulging in it, the fear of abandonment and the craving for closeness fighting to decide which should win. Before he could come to any conclusion, he was being let go.
“Ah- I’m sorry…” Yashiki looked apologetic and flustered, clearly having taken the lack of response as a rejection, expecting a cuss in return or something of the sort, and his eyes danced around looking at Mashita directly. “If that was, creepy, I’m sorry.”
Mashita clenched his jaw to suppress the frustration rising deep in his gut, and failed. His thoughts came out of order, in an array of contradictory impulses, and the storm was loose in his mind. In between grabbing Yashiki’s face and lunging into his lips his hoarse throat pushed out any words he could manage to say.
“You idiot-“
Their lips met before he could finish. Mashita wrapped his arms over the man’s shoulders and kissed him again and again, so aggressively as to feel that we wanted to bite him off, calling Yashiki an idiot with every breath between a kiss. Yashiki felt overwhelmed, feeling himself flush and his whole body shudder and tingle at the contact, their warmth combined feeling more than the sum of its parts, but confusion rose within him as well. He held his hands around Mashita’s head firmly and returned in kind, pressing his tongue into his mouth, tasting, squeezing the man’s lower lip between his teeth, earning a muffled whine in response.
He pulled Mashita’s face back a little and nosed his cheeks gently before softly kissing them, from one side to another and back, starting to speak between kisses.
“If you- want me- you need to say so- directly.”
Yashiki looked at his face while rubbing his thumbs on its sides tenderly, seeing that Mashita’s flushed face wear a disgruntled, sad look, his mouth contorted into a frown as he bit into his lip. It was so difficult to make languages meet, for the words to come out uncomplicated and succinct. Yashiki decided to keep talking, determined to get this conversation somewhere.
“It’s hard to feel you like me at all when you keep calling me things like creep and idiot.”
Mashita’s eyes widened, desperate to say the truth, but the word ‘dumbass’ gets caught in his lips and stays there, his face wincing from the knowledge of how Yashiki had been taking his teasing. He didn’t mean it to be so serious. Or rather he did, but he didn’t want Yashiki to actually believe it, take it literally, but in the position he was now he could clearly see there’s no reason to be able to guess what he really wanted to say.
Or to realise that Mashita didn’t know what to say at all.
He gripped his fist onto Yashiki’s shirt, wanting to attach himself to him and never let go, knowing how irrational it all sounded in his head. He felt tears well up in his eyes from pure frustration and shot a look that was about as sincerely straightforward as possible, pleading to be understood but aware it was impossible.
Yashiki was starting to understand.
He ran his fingers through Mashita’s hair and pressed his mouth into his lips, kissing him fully and much more gently than before. Mashita felt his body grow weaker in Yashiki’s arms and held onto him tighter, letting out a quiet noise from the depths of his chest. Yashiki let go for a moment, and led the other man into bed by the hand, pushing him into lying on his back about as patiently but firmly as he could. He crawled into the bed after him, wrapping around his waist with one arm and bringing his face closer with the other hand. Mashita reacted to his touches with shudders, but didn’t move on his own, his face stuck in a flushed frown that showed just a hint of vulnerability between stolen glances. Mostly he looked away from Yashiki’s eyes.
“Mashita…”
Hearing him call cut like a sharp knife sliding the tip of its blade over his spine. Mashita could feel the walls around him crumble into rubble and it made him increasingly terrified, anxious, but an additional unknown feeling kept rising beneath his skin, something good, something vulnerable. He felt himself torn and pulled into every direction, until Yashiki placed his hand on his cheek.
“Is it hard to tell me? What you’re feeling and thinking? Not just right now…” Mashita’s gaze darted around desperately, unable to see ways out, and the other man added. “You can just answer yes or no if that’s easier.”
“Yes.” It came out choked, warped and strained, but it was indeed easier that way. Yashiki kept caressing his face, and it didn’t make the process easier.
“Why…?” He couldn’t resist asking, the small tremble on his voice plainly indicating how he felt. Yashiki knew Mashita could read him easily, but it still felt rather embarrassing to be so obvious.
“I-...” He could tell Yashiki was being patient, such being confirmed by an understanding look that said ‘take your time’ with utmost gentleness. It made Mashita feel weaker. “I’m not trying to just deceive you, I just-“ He gripped onto Yashiki’s shirt again, meekly at first, and progressively tightened his fists, lying there and curling up ever closer into him until his forehead rested on the man’s shoulder, enough to press his eyelids into.
“I’m not-“ The voice came quieter, threatening to become a whisper. “I didn’t mean, to do and feel all this.”
It took him some moments to process the sentence, but the pieces were falling into place.
“Do you… like it?” It felt cruel to ask, somehow. Like Mashita would have to give up his pride to admit it, but he was too anxious to not ask. Surprisingly, the answer was much more honest than expected.
“... Of course…”
Mashita grunted in frustration once the words left his chest, so his hypothesis wasn’t entirely wrong. Nevertheless his heart skipped for a moment, hearing Mashita’s voice soften to such an extent. He pulled him closer into his arms slowly, feeling hands reach and wrap around his back at last. A glance of Mashita’s face showed he looked extremely flustered, and a little disgruntled. Of course, that was how Yashiki was learning to read his scowl, and the thought he could be mistaken still taunted and terrified him at the back of his mind.
He leaned into Mashita and gave his jaw a soft kiss, feeling the man become even warmer at the contact, and seeing his face become even more unguarded, more transparently showing repressed enjoyment than before. Yashiki kissed him there a couple more times, feeling Mashita shake in his arms and his breathing become more erratic and pronounced. Yashiki whispered in his ear, in an attempt to be less forceful, but it mostly ended up serving to send chills down his spine.
“Can I ask a selfish favour, Mashita?” It made the man raise his eyebrows and give him a questioning look, but he didn’t have the energy left to cloud genuine interest.
“W-what?” He clenched his teeth in embarrassment for stuttering but Yashiki caressed his cheek, smiling tenderly, and Mashita couldn’t even admit to himself that it helped immensely.
“If you’re not trying to hide the truth from me, can you be a little more honest with me, about what you think and what you want…?” Yashiki’s eyes clearly tried to say ‘I’m sorry for asking this’ before his sentence was even all the way out. “I’m just nowhere as good as reading people as you are.”
“You’re too easy to read.” Mashita blurted out, the first easy thought to express since the conversation started. He stared into the man’s eyes for a moment, having finally gained some footing to think clearly, looking for any hint of disingenuity or malicious intent and expectedly finding none in Yashiki’s gaze. Mashita sighed.
“Okay.” He couldn’t look into Yashiki’s eyes while saying it, pushing out a flat, unceremonious consenting word, and leaned into his shoulder again, trying to let it all sink in. He felt exhausted, like his barriers had destroyed and he was left so defenseless in another man’s arms. He felt a kiss on his forehead, and looked up to see the most gentle of smiles he’d ever seen.
“Thank you…”
They kissed again, this time both parties understanding each other for a brief moment, and they felt the tension leave from one another, exhaled between their lips. Mashita passed his fingertips through Yashiki’s hair and they embraced gently. They exchanged quiet glances that cried out all the words they couldn’t or hadn’t said to the other as much as they wanted to in the past three days.
Mashita nuzzled into the other man’s cheek and sighed.
“Only now that I’m leaving we’re able to do all this.”
Yashiki could tell it slipped carelessly, a lack of filter being a side effect to his perceived confidence in almost everything he said. It still made him sad, however.
“I’ll miss you.”
Mashita stared at him flustered. It was the second time he had said that to him just in that night, like he was about to drop off the face of the Earth. But now he had a clearer picture of Yashiki’s line of thinking, and he pinched the man’s cheek.
“You can call me, you know.”
“... I can?” His look was of earnest surprise, because he had not considered that was a possibility in the slightest. The obliviousness in his voice made Mashita let out a small laugh. It was much less loaded with bitterness and irony than usual, and Yashiki couldn’t help but think about how it was a cute, hearty laugh, and it took the edge off of being ridiculed somewhat.
“I need to go back to a sense of normalcy, and I really don’t think I’m much use to you, but I’ll still exist, in case you had no sense of object permanence. I’ll get you a burner phone or something.”
“That’s mean!” Yashiki said it with a smile, but it was more open and sincere than he usually was. “I don’t want to drag you down to the depths of hell with me, but…” He paused briefly to take in every feature of Mashita’s face and commit them to memory, in the hopes maybe that way the mark would not take it from him. “...I’m happy thinking I’ll see you again.”
Mashita frowned and his cheeks were red, he caught himself before calling Yashiki a creep as a knee jerk reaction to him being so blatantly open about caring for him, and struggled on what exactly to say. Somewhere, in the machinations of his brain, he stumbled upon it, but it only served to make him feel worse about leaving.
“I want you to make it.” He closed his grip on Yashiki’s shirt again. He trusted him to do it, he had to. He had apologized once and wasn’t feeling like he should do it again. He felt the man’s arms pull his body closer, and Mashita found himself against his lips once more.
“I’m not planning on dying like this.” Mashita could see Yashiki’s eyes had grown a little more faded, that he was beating down the terror that was dominating him to be reassuring. He was kind, but Mashita gritted his teeth at the idea that such kindness would be the end of him.
“You better not.” The tone was rather angry, but his face was calm. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away for long, but he had places to go, and things to cope with. He rested his head on Yashiki’s chest and felt the man pet his hair gently, and felt sparks run through every fiber of his body.
The fact it wouldn’t last forever was ever present, but at least for that moment, neither of them wanted the night to end.