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The night was too warm to his liking. The thin sheet covering his body was stuck to his skin by a sheen of sweat and the mattress underneath him felt like a furnace. Shimazaki could swear he had never experienced a summer like this one — probably a lie, invented by his mind in its overheated frustration. Even the air he breathed burned his insides and felt as thick as a liquid as it was forced down in his trachea.
But breathing had been a considerable issue for the past months. With or without brain-melting temperatures, every inhale was as repugnant as the exhale, when the metallic taste would invade his mouth alongside with whatever plant was growing inside him. He had the name for it somewhere in his memory — Minegishi had told him once, after a bit of wine and moderate pushing — but it was an unnecessary effort to try and remember. Nomenclature wouldn’t heal him.
Not that Shimazaki was looking for a healing experience, at this stage he was too comfortable with the lack of a way out. Doesn’t matter how many times he subjected himself to the medicine — love, or whatever it was called — because Teruki seemed more toxic than the disease itself.
Bright, blindly bright, in a way that even when the light dimmed with slumber Teruki still kept Shimazaki awake with his shimmer. It was a warm, lithe body — the only warmth Ryou was willing to tolerate — and it fitted neatly next to his, in a way that had Shimazaki wishing to be closer. Closer, and closer. Insomnia was a feast of frustrations and his only relief was hearing the steady breathing of the blond boy sleeping by his side.
Alive. Alive, alive, alive. A few years ago, Shimazaki wouldn’t be celebrating that, but occasionally karma gets creative with the punishments.
He wanted to touch him. Early today he had done that precisely — ran his hands up and down each bump of muscle, cherished him with rancorous delight — but it was not enough. Shimazaki was not a fool to pretend he didn’t know what was lacking, he knew all too well. Knew how much it would cost him to take what he wanted and also knew that it was a price too high for both of them to pay. Nevertheless, he trailed his fingers over the line of Teruki’s shoulder and pretended he could see the patterns he drew on the skin.
The boy’s aura flickered like the beginning of a fire, and suddenly Shimazaki wanted to light it up completely, feed it until it was a scorching column of flames. But regret came quickly as Teru’s attention seemed to spike up and he stretched, sliding away from the touch and outright warning Shimazaki it was not welcome. He knew it wasn’t. And the scoundrel in him sang malicious plans of punishment, reminding him of all the pain he could put Teruki through, with words and fists.
The boy sat on the edge of the bed with his naked back slouched. Uncomfortable. “Can’t sleep?”
“With you? Never,” he teased, “what if you decide to kill me while I’m at my most vulnerable?”
“That actually sounds like a plan, watch out ‘cause from now on I’ll be considering it.” Hanazawa rummaged through the things piling up on his bedside table and Ryou saw the flicker of relief as his hand closed around whatever he was looking for. A sound of paper scratching against plastic, then the snap of a lighter — and the room was filled with a disgustingly sweet smell. Teruki took two long drags before being polite. “Want one?”
“That’s mentholated, disgusting.”
The blond sighed, “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Hold on.” Shimazaki snatched the cigarette from his fingers. “This shit is so fucking awful it might kill these things inside me.”
Teru snorted — between a laugh and a grunt of irritation — and moved to light up another one. Ryou almost regretted accepting the smoke, the taste was even more disgusting than the smell.
“Would you rather die because of flowers or cancer tubes?”
Ryou frowned. “Are those my only options?”
“I could be the third one, if you’d like.” Teru shrugged. “Or Kageyama.”
“Sorry, but Minegishi got there first.”
This time it was actually a laugh, dry and short but still made Shimazaki’s skin prickle with something he would rather not call satisfaction. There were seconds of awkwardness afterward, and then Teruki’s aura dimmed. “Is it him?”
“Is it him what?”
“The person who’s killing you, is it Minegishi?”
Shimazaki swallowed, trying to wash away the awful mix of iron, menthol and petals, but it only got worse. “Why do you wanna know?”
“Well, you’re sleeping with me to fill a fucking void,” he said, his tone monotonous in contrast with the word choice. “I figured I could afford to be curious.”
Bad idea. Shimazaki was filled with bad ideas and Teruki Hanazawa was just another one of them — a vigorous, witty, and gorgeous idea but bad nonetheless. Yes, he could afford to be curious, of course, he could, it was beyond a god’s power to stop any doubt coming up inside that pretty blond head of his. However, Shimazaki couldn’t afford to be curious — to wonder and calculate and dream, with whatever possibility of future he could have if he’d just—
“I love you.”
Teruki froze — just what could have made him so cold.
“No, you don’t.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “You barely know me, asshole.”
Between Shimazaki’s fingers, the cigarette was steadily heating up and he took it to his lips to try and savor the very last drags. He didn’t feel any different — the gross taste still danced on his tongue and his throat was still sore. And he remembered the name.
“Narcissus pseudonarcissus.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s the plant in my lungs,” he explained, and then carried on with a summary of what he had heard once on a drunk conversation with his friend: “It’s a wild type with yellow petals, it’s poisonous enough to kill other flowers around it, kinda rare, named after a man who loved himself too much and never learned how to stop.”
Teruki’s aura spiked up, glowing in an unusual shade that Shimazaki hadn’t seen that often. When he spoke, he sounded like he was the one with a parasite stealing his oxygen. “Why are you telling me this?”
“‘Cause I want to hurt you, you fucking brat,” he spat, “yes, you can afford to be curious, and I can afford to be an asshole, because I’m in love with you and doesn’t matter what I do you won’t love me.”
He had void instead of eyes, and void shouldn’t burn when he felt like crying.
“Shut up,” Teru snapped back. “You don’t get to tell me what I will or will not, get the fuck out.”
Shimazaki sighed — perhaps he had just ruined his chance of spending the last months of his life having sex with a cute, young blond, but, for a reason or another, the world around him seemed a bit more tolerable. He put out the cigarette behind the headboard, less out of spite and more because he knew the other had the habit himself, and took his time stretching and feigning a yawn before sitting down to look for his clothes.
“Give me three days,” Teruki said, “and then you come back.”
“Three days, that’s weirdly specific.”
“It’s what I need to start pretending you’ve never told me any of this crap,” he threw a shirt in Shimazaki’s direction, then tapped his back to urge him to leave, “we’re going to start over.”