Chapter Text
Empty. That was the best way Yahaba could explain it. He felt empty.
Everything hurt. Every hit, jab, and slap. It all hurt, but yet, he still felt empty. Yahba looked over at the razor sitting under the cabinet. He reached for it and sighed. He felt empty.
But he wanted to feel something. Anything.
“Sorry, Akio, Ryoichi. I just can’t do this anymore,” he whispered to no one but himself as he sat alone in his bathroom. He was alone and empty and tired. So, so tired.
He dragged the metal across his skin. He watched as red covered his arm and dripped to the floor. He still felt empty and alone and tired.
Red. Red. Red. Just, red.
Then, nothing.
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Yahaba woke up to the sun shining in his face. He blinked slowly, willing the sleep from his eyes. Once he opened them, he looked around at his surroundings. The room was plain, yet bright. White walls and a clean smell. Yahaba pushed himself onto his elbows and looked around more. He was in a hospital.
He looked over at the monitor next to him to see it turned off. Odd.
Looking at his surroundings more, he noticed that all the machines usually hooked up to a person in the hospital were turned off. The nightstand next to him was covered in cards and wilting flowers.
Yahaba got himself out of the bed and turned back to look at more to see if there was something he was missing. When he did turn around, his eyes widened in shock.
Laying there, was himself. Yahaba was looking at himself. He stared down at his hands in confusion, noticing a purple glow surrounding his body. He took another look at his body, and finally it clicked. He was dead. He didn’t really know how to feel. Was he grateful that it had ended? Or was he sad that it was over? He wasn’t sure.
Yahaba turned away from his body, and walked out of the hospital room. He didn’t really want to be there anymore than he had to. Abandoning his body seemed like the normal thing to do now that he was dead. He wasn’t ever going to need it agian. Once he had left his room, he saw many more people like him, ones with glowing auras around them. They had different colors though. He spotted yellow, white, and lots of green. Yahaba walked right past them, some old, some young. He doesn’t care. They don’t matter.
He walked out of the hospital, and no one tried to stop him. He spotted even more people like him on the streets. It seems that whatever happened to him wasn’t uncommon.
Yahaba kept walking down the sidewalk and noticed how different the world was now that he's dead. It seemed livelier. But that could just be because of how packed it was with that amount of dead people that were walking around.
He kept walking. He passed his favorite restaurant, the bookstore he would take his younger brother to, the coffee shop he and his friends would hang out at, the arcade his older brother took him to before he left for college. He passed more and more shops until he reached a park. He walked around there for a bit and sat down when he found a bench. He didn’t feel tired, but he was tired .
He stared up at the sky and zoned out. He didn’t know what to feel, but he knew he was confused.
After a while of staring up at nothing, Yahaba felt something nudging his leg. He looked down to find a dog looking at him. Surprisingly, the dog had an aura too. Its aura was a bright orange, one that hurt Yahaba’s eyes to look at. He guessed that this dog was dead too. He reached down and let the dog sniff his hand, and watched as the brindle dog leaned his head into Yahaba’s palm. Yahaba started to pet the dog for a bit until he heard someone shout. He looked up to see someone walking towards him.
The dog perked up at the person’s voice and went over to them, tail wagging. Yahaba looked closer at the guy as he pets the dog. After a moment, the guy looks up and spots Yahaba. The stranger looks Yahaba up and down, so he does the same.
“You new?” The guy had walked closer to Yahaba stopping right in front of him. His hair was odd; bleached with two stripes of his natural hair color wrapped around his head. His eyes were sharp, piercing and had thick eyeliner surrounding them. If that didn’t make him intimidating enough, his aura was a bright red.
Yahaba realized he had been staring at the guy for too long, and just nodded to answer his question. The guy sighed and sat down next to him. The dog laid down by their feet, eyes closed in content.
Yahaba looked back up when the guy spoke again. “Welcome to the afterlife, I guess.”
Yahaba just nods again.
The guy looked over at him with an odd look on his face, most likely because he hadn’t said a word. His head was full of questions, yet he couldn't bring himself to ask any of them.
The stranger must have realized his inner turmoil and quickly asked, “You good?”
“I’m fine.” His voice felt rough. He clears it, hoping that the next time he speaks it won’t crack. The stranger next to him shrugs and turns to look out at the park.
He turned his head so that he wasn’t looking at Yahaba anymore. “Guess that's the best someone like you can say,” he huffed out.
Yahaba recoiled. What?
“Someone like me?” he asked, slightly offended at the odd accusation.
“Yeah. The ones who commit suicide are usually quiet when they first get here,” he explained easily. This whole thing must not phase him anymore if he could talk this bluntly with Yahaba.
Still, Yahaba was confused. “And how do you know how I died?”
“Your aura.” The guy looked at him like it was obvious. “It's purple. That means you died by suicide.”
Yahaba looked back down at his hand, the purple glow still there. A permanent mark that showed how he died. He looked over at the stranger, his eyes still drawn to the burning red around him.
“And you?” Yahaba was curious. He figured that they would be even once the other guy answered. Yahaba still didn’t know how this world worked, and it seemed that this guy did.
“Murdered.”
Yahaba’s jaw dropped. He had said that so easily, even to a stranger. “Oh, I-”
“It's whatever. Those fuckers are in prison now so I don’t care.” He shrugged it off and didn’t say anything else, just continued to look at the scenery.
“I see.”
After that, neither of them said a word. It was quiet, but nice. Yahaba had never experienced a comfortable silence with a stranger before, but he liked it. Whoever this person was, Yahaba liked him. Maybe they could spend more time together.
They stayed like that until the sunset and people slowly left the park. It was getting cold now, fall slowly turning into winter.
The stranger sighed and stood up. He turned sideways, facing Yahaba as he stretched his arms above his head. Once he was finished, he looked down at Yahaba before reaching down and patting his dog on the head. He sighed once more before looking Yahaba in the eye.
“I gotta go. Got more dogs at home,” he said, his gaze steady and fierce. Yahaba almost looked away.
Yahaba nodded. “It's fine. I’ll be here.” He understood. They were strangers. Nothing more, nothing less.
The guy nodded and started walking away. Yahaba watched as he disappeared into the crowded street at night.
Yahaba turned to look back up at the stars. He was alone once again. Yet, he didn’t feel empty. Not anymore.