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Back and forth.
They walk on a tightrope, pulled too thin and taut.
It will snap one day.
But right now, Oikawa brings out some tape and ties the wearing threads together. The tape brings back the rope together, but its stickiness makes both of them stuck to their spots, unable to move, unable to run away, unable to back away from the distance between them, too close for comfort.
Futakuchi slicks the rope below their feet with glue, which would harden given time, but right now, it was just slippery and dangerous. They could fall anytime.
Sad smiles, lonely smiles. All of it sends them both into a bottomless pit. Sweet breaths as they kiss, meeting in the air surrounding them. Wondering eyes with stars, secretive, furtive, hiding emotion, allowing lips to touch where their hearts can’t reach, allowing them to close the distance their hearts are unable to touch. They drown within each other.
They are on a seesaw, balanced, neither unmoving, just one tilt could tip each other off the edge, send them to spiral in the shadows. Back and forth, they swung, children in a sunset playground, not wanting to leave, but knowing that they had to soon, or it would all be too late.
They are on the end of the scale, going up then down, down then up, as they spit out lies at each other, seeing who drowns in their poison first, green venom bubbles and froths, spitting and acidic, burning through their bodies, poison wriggling into their system like worms and making them struggle to breathe.
They are toxic that way. They hurt, they lie, they do everything to make the other person miserable, but they end up going back for kisses in the dark and skin on skin where no one else can see.
They are simply in love, not with each other, but the fact that there is someone like them, someone who knows pain like them, they are in love of their warped reflections in a warped mirror. They are in love with the fact that they are not going through pain alone, not each other, because why would you love again if you know it’s simply painful?
They aren’t proper lovers, no. They are there for each other, but not there at the same time. Oikawa watches normal lovers huddle together under bright sunlight, bold, open, genuine smiles and hugs and kisses. He wants that with Futakuchi. But at the same time his heart cowers away because it’s so wrong to feel that way. He chose this path. He chose this murky road on that night of drunken kisses and sweet little nothings being whispered in reddened ears. He can’t ask for more, or less anymore.
They spend time together, after their hurried frenzy of their bodies touching, they spend it back to back, not looking into each other's eyes and caressing their cheeks. They have a distance, one which both are willing to break, but too afraid to actually step over the line. They just dream alone, let their hopes fill their thoughts, and when they’re together, they hide it, speaking gentle white lies, hiding, running from fear, running from everything, hiding.
If he speaks out, Oikawa knows Futakuchi will leave. The pain in Futakuchi would disappear, and he’s going to leave, he's bound to forget. Oikawa doesn’t want it. It’s going to hurt. He wants to keep Futakuchi in their caged world. He wants the boy to stay in their world, he wants to hold him, he wants to keep the gentle kisses they share, he wants it all.
They drown in an empty room, sitting opposite each other, their presences destroying each other, filling up the air with their mixed scents, muddling common sense with intoxicating figure, distance making them crave, shadows melting with each other, pain landing kisses on their bodies. They sit in grim silence, Oikawa picking on an ugly scab on his left arm, Futakuchi fiddling with his beautiful hair.
They hear faint city noise outside, they see bright red flashes outside their blurry windows. Broken streetlights flicker on and off, trying to blink away the droplets of rain. They drown, noise dies away in the rain pattering and drumming their fingers on the roof, kicking at the windowsill.
Futakuchi stands, and Oikawa instantly lashes out and shoves him on the hard floor, seething. All the breath is knocked out of Futakuchi’s lungs. Oikawa opens his mouth to speak, and there is refusal in the back of Futakuchi’s mind, begging, pleading for him to clamp his hands over his ears so that he wouldn’t feel venom again.
Oikawa knows. He takes his hands and pins him to the ground like handcuffs. Futakuchi is helplessly open to the hurt, helpless in front of Oikawa’s knife which would stab his flesh while dripping with honey. Sweet, kind, deadly blade runs across his skin, tracing bone and flesh. Oikawa opens his mouth and Futakuchi shuts his eyes.
“Don’t go.”
You’ll leave when we all stop singing, right? When the music stops playing?
Then let it play on. Don’t go back, don’t go away from me.
Don’t look outside the window, where the blinding city lights are. Focus on me. Look at me. I want to keep you here with me.
Look at me, Kenji.
Futakuchi stares up at the man above him, feels body heat. He needs it badly.
Futakuchi wraps his arms around the other, hands behind his neck so that he could strangle him if he needed to. He tilts his head up slightly, and Oikawa wastes no time.
Their lips connect in a moment of spark and fire.
The tightrope thins again.
They listen to their lies sing, listen to the music which makes their ears bleed. They dance to their lies, being guided with nothing but the sweetened words and the feeling of each other’s bodies against them. They are lulled by the hateful waltz they are accustomed to do.
They secretly sing their lies, sing their lullabies which send them both to sleep, to greet old nightmares which can’t be eased without each other. They fall in a doze, a doze which they can only fall into when they are next to each other. They can't do anything without each other.
Rain knocks on their cage like a key to freedom. The sky’s still grey, it’s still full of water, full of tears as it sings, a harmony to their heart’s melodies. The rain yells, it screams, pierces their ears in unholy shrieks, trying to throw them freedom, trying to promise them that they don’t have to suffer.
They don’t take it, and they stay locked up in their heaven. They stay in their cage, cage of love, woven with intricate lies, delicate, not destined to trap them forever. They don’t need the key. It’s all going to melt away anyway, it’s going to melt away in the rain, eventually they’ll be free.
But let them stay locked up now, at least.
They are the only ones in the world right now, looking at each other, looking for each other under the dirty lies which blackened them with grime.
They like it that way. Filthy love. Dark love, like bitter chocolate. Deceiving love.
Poison drips in their bodies again. Lies, sweet, soft lies lap against the shores of their hearts.
Drip.
They latch closer. Tug their hair. Bite on flesh.
Drip.
Hands touch. Lips kiss. Heat sparks.
Drip.
They stay locked up. For now.
Let me stay with him, give me time to draw out tomorrow, give me time to bask in the past with you. Give us a little longer to figure this out. Let us stay together, even if it’s not forever, let us look for the truth in our white lies, no matter how dirty, no matter how filthy it is. Let us sleep a little longer together, even if we’re not looking at each other, let us sleep in this cage.
Let us stay locked up.
Let us play this seesaw game of lies.