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Folklore within Japan had always been something that Hanako-kun had dismissed as Yugi Amane . They had no relevance to the plot of his life, no symbolism to the structure of his household where his mother fell into a despairing pit and his brother seemed to be getting worse and worse every other day, locked away and cowering when someone’s shadow grew too tall, the nail marks on his skin reminded him of when he tried to enter the playroom and a barely awake Tsukasa had grew too frightened to figure out which was his shadow and which was the shadow of his father, that of which Amane had been growing into every other day. With such being said, it was more than obvious that Amane did not care much about the whispers surrounding the halls or the way people picked at his brother and him, mumbling as if he couldn’t hear them speak on and on about the bruises littering his skin with no more sleeves to keep them hidden. He had only one goal to care for when he was alive in that hellhole of a school (it’s almost astonishing just how right he was) and that was to live and to bring his brother with him, to the moon, to the far reaches of the galaxies because there was no place for them here on earth, no place for them anywhere except up in space where you could bounce from planet to planet and collect rare rocks—take pictures of the solar system.
Of course, by now, it was obvious that such a goal had been a pipe dream from the very beginning. Instead, he pushes a knife into his little brother’s sternum and gives up on letting Tsukasa free, twists it inside his own stomach and wakes up covered in blood with hazy memories and twitching fingers. By the time he became Hanako, the folklore of Japan had begun to be more prevalent than he had ever anticipated it to be. The rumors that surrounded the halls had names and faces and pasts that once alive Yugi Amane could have never been able to comprehend but Hanako understood—he knew that the whispers and the mumbles and the way girls cupped their hands over their mouths, the notes littering the floor and the constant prattle about of rumors, was what they, as supernaturals, needed to survive.
He knew that what had once been dismissing rumors that Amane could care less about were now the very glue that bound him and many of his colleagues together, knew that without these whispers, and without the folklore they had come from, the seven mysteries would be no more and Hanako-san of the toilet would be nothing but a bruised and battered child collecting pebbles by the Sanzu River as bare as the day they were born. Thus, Hanako supposed that he had the rumors to thank for sparing him of such a fate, that because he could take on the role of an old legend spoken even in the western areas of the world, he could bring himself to the near shore and atone for his sins.
And while that prospect was all well and fine, there was just one little problem.
Why were there red threads everywhere he looked?
Some of them tangled with others, others were stretched to the point of looking so thin, it was almost astonishing how he could still see them with the naked eye. Humans seemed to walk past them with no care in the world and even asking the trouble making mokke had given no answer as the deceitful little devils seemed to have zero clue about what was going on and wouldn’t answer him unless he gave them candy or, in much more eviler terms, let them steal whatever they wanted without any type of reprimanding. The thought itself was ludicrous and Hanako only had to watch as the mokke all dispersed after getting their offer rejected.
For a moment, Hanako wondered if the threads that were everywhere in the school led to a supernatural rogue amongst the students. It was possible that these odd red colored threads were doing some sort of invisible harm he wasn’t aware of and maybe, if he followed them, he’d be able to handle it without dragging Yashiro and the kid into it—that is, if he could follow them. No matter how many times Hanako started to follow one thread, it became tangled with another and then another and he was getting dizzy just trying to figure it all out.
Everywhere he looked, red threads tangled with each other forming webs or simple knots that Hanako had to urge himself not to untie no matter how unsettling it seemed to keep it as is. Following one single thread led him to a hallway of multiples, trying to follow them via the knots they were all leaving behind was even worse and if that wasn’t all, scouring the school had given him a headache because each and every place he visited was simply covered in red. It was like seeing a bloodbath and Hanako had briefly wondered if touching the strings would cause them to stain his fingers—if this wasn’t the work of a supernatural being then could it be a new rumor instead?
While he had his fair share of rumors having being dealt with alone, and with the other mysteries as their title suggested, this large scale job demanded more than just the hands of a toilet ghost and a red handle knife (never mind the fact that Hanako couldn’t even cut the damn things) and his efforts to keep his friends out of the rubble of supernatural business had once again, gone down the drain. Not even Yashiro, cluelessly staring at him as he sulked about on the window sill, could cheer him up.
“I’m telling you,” Hanako grumbled heavily, “I just came out of my stall one day to pester Tsuchigomori-sensei and his entire classroom was filled with all these weird red threads and so were the halls and the stairs and—” he threw his hands up the air, clearly fed up with the whole thing. The threads weren’t even that bad but seeing them constantly, and having no idea what they were or how they appeared was beginning to set him on edge. What if it was some sort of elaborate trap? What if Yashiro got caught in it? His brows furrowed heavily as the girl, clad in her uniform and stockings, looked over at the kid. They both looked confused, Hanako wanted to bang his head against the wall.
Placing a hand on her chin, Yashiro could only frown at him. “Threads? I didn’t see any threads…did you see any, Kou-kun?” And She looked over to the kid who shook his head back and forth, not even noticing the threads tied around both of his thumbs and leading to god knows where as he crossed his arms over his chest. The threads were tugged on a bit but they never seemed to break, only stretching further as Yashiro, seemingly convinced, nodded her head. “If me and Kou-kun can’t see them then I don’t really think it’s a rumor, Hanako-kun, I mean, didn’t you say that because of our bond, and because of Kou-kun’s exorcist powers, we’d be able to see any rumors and supernaturals no matter what? I even remembered Aoi…”
Yashiro trails off into thought and Hanako sulks even further. Great, his one chance at figuring out what was going on and it was duped from the start. His scowl deepens further when his assistant finally notices his sour mood and as if she was struck by lightning, her eyes brightened up and she immediately rushed forward. “But if it’s a legend you’re looking for then I have just the thing, Hanako-kun!” The ghost and exorcist stare at her with varying degrees of confusion, though Hanako was sure that his assistant was sick or something, he knew every legend talked about in the school and around the area, he was the leader of the mysteries, how could he not?
“Legend?”
The two echoed in confusion and Yashiro’s head bobbed up and down in excitement, hair bouncing along. “Yes, yes! The legend of the red string of fate! A romantic and old Japanese folktale!” Her eyes are bright and Hanako finds himself staring into them longer than he needs to as she whips out some old ruler from her bag and dramatically points to the wall. “The red string of fate is an old romance based folktale centering around the idea of soulmates! It’s said that if you have a red cord around your thumb, for males, and your pinky finger, for females, that the other end of the cord attaches to the soulmate you’re destined to be with no matter what the time, place, or circumstances are! Isn’t that just—” and Yashiro swoons about how lovely it is as Hanako’s eyes are centered on the strings around the kid’s thumbs and the one laced around Yashiro’s pinky. “—though, I don’t think these threads are what you’re seeing Hanako-kun, it could be worth a try looking into it! Oh, what if my thread is tied to some handsome prince in the school?!”
Off she goes, checking her hands and bidding Hanako and the kid goodbye as the bell rings for class to start. “Ah, class is starting!” The kid barely has time to blink when Yashiro grabs at his wrist and yanks him out the bathroom door. “Bye Hanako-kun! I hope you find what you’re looking for!”
Hanako doesn’t know what to tell her when his thumb gets tugged on as she rushes out the door.
Tsuchigomori-sensei & Yako.
While not fully believing in the silly folktale that Yashiro had told him of, Hanako had to sourly admit that with Yashiro and the kid’s inability to see the red threads like he did, there wasn’t much else he could do on the matter. Trying to make them battle against something they had no way of seeing was not ideal in the slightest. Thus, he’s left to poke curiously at the threads all over the school with his knife, trying and failing to see what was up with them. He tugged on them as hard as he could, he tried to chew on them to see if they had any taste, he even jumped on a few from high above but nothing seemed to suggest any foul play. Even the mokke were beginning to get wary of his actions, refusing to play cards with him as the only thing Hanako would do was stare outside his window at the various threads amongst school grounds. What were they? What purpose did they serve other than to agitate him? And why was he the only person that could even see them?
Asking again wouldn’t do any good as Yashiro was, rightfully so, getting rather exhausted with his constant questions. She couldn’t help with this, and neither could the kid who was more than willing to tell him to shove off the more he pestered him and wouldn’t let go. Yet, Hanako couldn’t help it. This was perhaps the first time he’s even dealt with something as big as this and perhaps even the first time he’s even seen it to begin with launching him into a whole new world of confusion and wariness that was not helped by the fact that the only person affected by these threads were him and him alone.
The only saving grace he had was when school would let out and the majority of kids would wander off back home. He would watch them from his window, as the tangled threads disappeared until only a few scattered ones would remain. He had tried to find what they were connected to but some of them were way out of his reach as a being bound to the school, going as far as out of the gates and who knows where else. It left him sullen, frustrated that his curiosity was being blocked by his inability to leave the school. Not even playing cards with the mokke was letting him ignore the nagging feeling at the back of his head and eventually, he left them cheering for their own victory, determined to see if he could spot any other thread within his walking (well, it was more like floating, no?) distance in the school.
At first, nothing seemed to catch his eye. All the other students had gone home so the halls were empty. Not a single red thread in sight and for a moment, Hanako wondered if this odd rumor only showed its face when humans were present. It wouldn’t be too far fetched at least but that meant his curiosity on them would be diminished to a mere harmless rumor surrounding the students of the school and Hanako was way too stubborn to believe that was the case.
Thankfully, his stubbornness paid it off.
Slinking into Tsuchigomori’s office, Hanako opened his mouth, loud and ready to sigh and complain about just how frustrating this all was when he spotted it. A single red thread wrapped around the thumb of his sleeping Sensei’s hand and as he followed the thread across piles of paper, the flickering lamp, a bunch of books opened up and closed, they finally rested upon a fox sleeping on the shelf, the end of the cord wrapped around what could be considered her pinky finger if she was in human form.
Hanako stared, and he stared some more, and the words Yashiro had said bumbled around in his head. It’s said that if you have a red cord around your thumb, for males, and your pinky finger, for females, that the other end of the cord attaches to the soulmate— he tunes the rest of the words out, now occupied with floating over and examining the long red thread that tied his Sensei together with a shape shifting kitsune. Tugging on the string seemed to show no sort of attachment to the wearer, almost as if they weren’t even aware it was there in the first place, and pulling out his knife, he crouched down on Tsuchigomori’s desk in an attempt to cut it in half.
Again, the result was as ineffective as the last time he tried.
With no way to cut the string, Hanako was beginning to wonder if what Yashiro had said was true. It couldn’t be cut, it was tied around Yako’s pinky and Tsuchigomori’s thumb and it stretched and tangled with the one tied around his own thumb, laying limp on the wooden desk as Hanako examined both threads curiously. His still looked as brand new as Tsuchigomori’s, bright red and never faltering and he wondered just how he’s never seen it before.
Gently letting the threads go, he hopped off the desk, eyeing the two with big eyes. To think that they would be soulmates was beyond his own understanding but as he watched them under the light of the moon, with their threads tied around each other's finger as if their very souls were intertwined, Hanako decided that perhaps, there was some sort of truth to the age old folktale even if Fate was nothing but a cruel mistress to her followers.
Even if he’d never believe the thread around his thumb was meant for him.
Kou and ???
Now armed with the knowledge that perhaps Fate was kind to her followers, that perhaps destiny did play a role in who you’d forever lay with till the ends of time, Hanako was becoming a bit more intrigued with the threads that surrounded the school now that he knew (or well partially knew) that they belonged to soulmates that were destined to stay with one another throughout time. Of course, the whole concept itself sounded rather absurd—how could you stay with someone for the rest of your life? How could you be the one to another person as if they couldn’t just choose someone else to be with? He refrained from asking Yashiro anymore questions, more curious with looking for the owners of the threads he had seen all over the school.
Each female and male had their thread connected with someone else’s. While they couldn’t feel it and didn’t even know they were there, Hanako could see each and every thread perfectly no matter how small it was. Briefly he had wondered if any other mystery had their own threads apart from No.2 and No.5 but shoved the idea off in a moment’s notice—there was no way anyone else in the group could possibly love another person, it was strictly impossible.
That being said, his curiosity would not be swayed and as Yashiro fell sick, it was the perfect opportunity to see what was up with the kid’s threads without being interrogated. Unfortunately, Hanako had to try his best to hide from not only the kid (who would no doubt become agitated at all his invisible prying) but steer clear of his brother as well, not too keen on explaining why he’s been following Kou all over the place since school began. At first, Hanako was certain that he could find whoever was attached to the kid’s thread just like he had found Yako and Tsuchigomori—it couldn’t be that hard, right?
Unfortunately, it was.
With all the students (or nearly all, he never truly counted) in school, the threads were once again back to being tied together, tangled into webs or intricate patterns that resembled red lasers too much. He poked and prodded at a few of them but ultimately left them alone when they didn’t have the results he wanted. Why would the kid have two threads around his fingers? As far as he was aware, Yashiro had not mentioned the prospect of a third soulmate and he wriggled his own thumb around with a frown as the long thread began to get tangled up with the others in a sea of red.
Following Kou around was not proving to be as eventful as Hanako had hoped. At first, the ghost had decided perhaps following wherever he went would lead him to the other owner(s) of the thread however, since Kou had two instead of one, they both seemed to tangle around others and even following the threads themselves led him to dead ends and a complete mess of a school. No matter what he did, even if he held the thread with two fingers, did Hanako ever find himself even closer to his destination and agitation was beginning to seep into his bones. Of course there had to be something wrong that ultimately stopped him from seeing more of whatever he wanted to explore. Why did he think fate would be so kind to him as to let him this luxury of sparing him once in his afterlife?
Even the thread wrapped around his thumb is a harsh reminder, trailing out of the school and off to where a girl is sick in bed, buried underneath the covers to fight off a horrid cold. The thread mocks him, long and unable to be cut, stuck on his skin as some sort of cruel joke that whoever had the other end, was destined to him no matter what.
Aoi and Akane.
Perhaps, Hanako could take back the statement of no other mystery would have a red thread around their finger however, this case surely had to be different, it surely had to be one of exceptions to the rule because No.1 wasn’t even a complete mystery, comprised of two supernaturals and a human they duped into a contract, the time hooligans of the school were completely exempt from the red string of fate’s rules and yet—Hanako still finds himself blindly staring at the thread wrapped around a pale pinky and a gloved thumb, numbly blinking at the fact that a supernatural was destined to fall for a human girl and it was different, not even the same, but he still couldn’t help thinking about it and he still couldn’t help resenting the fact that Akane Aoi, the present of the clock keepers, could so wholefully wear his thread attached to Aoi Akane like it was no big deal, not bound to the limitations that he himself sullenly recalled whenever his thumb came into his view and the thread dangled down from it.
Likewise, Akane’s thread was just as sturdy as the others and just like him, Akane’s supernatural form was unable to be seen by normal humans, every time he donned on the suit and the owl mask he was no longer a human but one of them and yet, and yet —-
There is a red string around Akane’s thumb. The thread is long and Hanako sullenly watches it even as Akane berates and shouts at him, he watches even as Akane helps him to catch Mirai, even as he wonders if the other two had red threads too. It’s red and unable to be cut no matter what Hanako tries, long and stretching, he can grasp it with his hand and pull all he wants but it doesn’t even snap and only disappears into the sea of threads tangled around the school. Wherever Akane walks, Aoi is there behind—their thread seeming to grow stronger even through such deepening secrets. You’re a supernatural, he thinks as Akane’s gloved hand has his thread securely wrapped around the thumb, you’re practically one of us! And yet, Akane does not deal with the resentment, the scorn, the mocking of that red string around his thumb as Hanako solely does, all by his lonesome because he was sure if Yashiro could see it now, she’d wallow in her own soup of sadness for not having been given a prince of her own.
He couldn’t even find a way to joke about it, not when he can clearly see his thread waving in the air whenever Yashiro walks into his bathroom and he’s reminded of Akane and Aoi, a supernatural and a human, two completely different dispositions amongst the pair, shown in their threads that tie them together. Cruel, Hanako thinks as he tells Yashiro to mop the bathroom floors and gazes oddly amongst the threads circling the kid’s thumbs.
How utterly cruel .
Kou and who ?
When Hanako saw Kou’s strings again, he didn’t think he’d ever know who the other end was attached to. He had accepted the fact that he wouldn’t be able to find Kou’s destined other person but it looked like fate had other plans and he watches the long silk like thread settled on the floor, running over broken glass and crumbles of rock to tie around the thumb of someone hunched over the bones of the former no.3, to tie around his thumb like a little accessory and nothing more.
It doesn’t help that the thread seemed to be going in a complete circle and a rather large one at that. Starting from Kou, it moves on to this strange kid in the middle of a crow feast and then slithers over to his brother sitting on the cage bars (or was that a swing?) before circling back to Kou’s other thumb and Hanako was tempted to tell the kid to yank on his arms and send the two flying if he wasn’t so perplexed by the events unfolding before him. So now, even Fate was testing his hand? Aoi and Akane had been a sort of fluke to begin with, as Akane’s contract would allow him to be with his soulmate for the rest of his life but Kou? The very person whose brother despised any supernatural that came his way?
Well, that hit a little too close to home.
Their threads form some sort of too big circle, he could have called it a summoning circle if he wasn’t so shocked by the evidence, and it was clear that all three of them would be together whether that be romantically or platonically, Hanako himself had no real clue. All he knew was that despite this Mitsuba not being the real one, as said by his brother, Fate had still decided that it had the soul of who Kou was destined to be with and took matters into its own hands. He couldn’t even focus on the fight, fully distracted by the thread wrapped around his brother’s pinky and thumb.
Tsukasa had never been one to reject the idea of romance though he was curious about it, and often asked too many questions, Hanako couldn’t exactly tell if his brother loved or hated the thought of being romantically involved with someone and he wasn’t even sure if the boy even understood it at the ripe age of twelve and a half. His mornings and nights, evenings and afternoons, were plagued only by shadows and lingering footsteps, broken toys and heaving sobs, nails coated in blood and the sudden snap back to reality before Amane found himself shoved back and Tsukasa’s little voice begging him to stop opening the door, to throw away the key and leave him alone until he rotted away on his own time.
The thought itself had sounded quite repulsive if he was being honest.
Still, if not even Amane could show his familial love to the boy trapped underneath his father’s looming shadows and his mother’s beating fists then what say another person could romantically love him all the same? Hanako had known, ever since Tsukasa had been allowed to set foot into school, that romance was dead for them—dead for the boys who couldn’t even hug each other without receiving bruises and cuts in return, dead for the twins who died by Amane’s hand and were pushed into the afterlife with nothing but memories of their past and seals on their cheeks. He thinks, maybe he should apologize to Tsukasa for twisting the knife into his chest and killing all potential romance in the bud, perhaps he should sit on his knees and ask God to give them another chance at life but he didn’t have to do it, not when Fate clearly showed him that dead or alive, Yugi Tsukasa was just as destined for love as he had ever been.
The thread sits there, floating in the air because Tsukasa is floating too, and Hanako wonders if he should tell the kid that he has two soulmates waiting for him on the other side, that perhaps Fate would be kind and give them all a new chance to love each other as she had planned for them too or, he could keep quiet and watch as Kou’s threads get longer and longer when they leave no.3’s boundary and eventually tangle within his and Yashiro’s.
It’s the thought Fate would allow even a supernatural to be with someone they shouldn’t that makes Hanako reach out and grab Yashiro’s wrist, it’s the feeling that perhaps there is hope for them with the little thread tying them together that he shouldn’t feel so alone and lost in a world where everyone was finding each other and he was stuck because he had found a knife and a terrible way out of his situation. “Hanako-kun?” And Yashiro stares at him with those big eyes of hers, his reflection shining in the depths of murky red, and he thinks back to seeing her slumped against the wall, thinks back to Mirai anxiously floating around them as he held her close to his nonexistent heart, her skin feeling just as cold as his was and no matter what he did, her heartbeat slipped away from underneath his very fingers. He thinks back to such moments and slowly, his hand slips away from her wrist as she stares at him, quizzically.
“Is something the matter?” She even puffs out her cheeks and looks close to huffing out of frustration, “if this is about me cleaning the toilets overtime for you, I won’t do it! It’s already so late!”
Hanako wishes, almost desperately as a matter of fact, that his problem could have just been her skipping out on cleaning duty with him. He wished that he didn’t have to see the thread tying them together the only red thing in his line of sight, he wished that he didn’t have to forgo whatever Fate had planned for the two of them but unlike Kou and Mitsuba, Tsukasa and Kou, or Aoi and Akane, Yashiro simply couldn’t be involved with supernaturals. Her involvement had already caused so much for her and he still can’t find the words to apologize for the scales on her skin or the excuses she’s had to come up with for washing her hands. She stares at him with furrowed brows, concern gleaming across those bright eyes and Hanako decides what’s the harm in keeping another secret from her anyways?
She makes a noise when he cups her face and pulls on her cheeks, laughing when Yashiro whines pitifully, “I wasn’t going to make you clean so much but now that you mention it…” and he grins, tries his best to ignore the red thread brushing against her warm skin, “then I guess you can work overtime tomorrow!”
Her eyes widened at the words and Hanako could only smile as she groaned in dismay. The red thread brushes against her nose as he moves his hands and sends her on her way, watching from the window as she waves goodbye one last time, their red thread of fate floating between her fingertips.
Hanako-kun and Yashiro Nene.
Long ago, perhaps when he was still Amane as opposed to who he was now, the thought of star crossed lovers had never been much of something he considered. Sure, the idea of having a lover you couldn’t meet up with or were separated from was heartbreaking to say the least but Amane had more important matters to tend to and being frustrated about a stray red thread wrapped around the weird girl’s pinky as she asked him if he had been crying was not one of those matters. He still had to find Tsukasa and make sure his brother was okay, he still had to get patched up by Tsuchigomori and bring his brother to eat donuts to stave off the guilt eating at his stomach for lashing out again, for crying and gasping for air because Amane didn’t heed his warning and opened the door anyways and Tsukasa screamed like he was being burned alive.
Those matters were more important than a girl, more important than the idea of star crossed lovers and even through death, when Hanako didn’t have to look after his brother anymore, when Hanako merely had guilt and trauma having a tea party with him every day of the week, the idea was ludicrous, uncanny, completely and utter crap. At least, that was what he had believed until a girl summoned him from his stall for the first time, until he bonded that girl to him through the use of the very scales he had so selfishly given to her in hopes that she could help him with his plans.
Until he noticed the red string of fate tied around him and Yashiro’s fingers.
At first, the idea of having his own red string had never crossed his mind either. He was dead, a ghost, there was no way that he could have a soulmate that wasn’t already dead or too old to even be considered dating material. He was from the 60’s, everyone he knew as a child was probably dead, in a retirement home or had somehow always been a supernatural entity and the last one had only happened to one person he knew in school. There was no way that his thread would connect to anyone in the school. At least, that was what he had expected to happen.
Instead, Yashiro bounces into his bathroom and his eyes nearly go out of their sockets when he catches sight of the thread wrapped around her pinky and following its trail leads it to his thumb to which, rightfully so, Hanako panics and he panics as silent as he could. This wasn’t just some case of Kou having supernatural soulmates, even if his brother was just as much of a ghost as he was, the very thought of succumbing Yashiro to being his soulmate was both endearing and horrifying at the same time.
He could be glad that they were meant for each other, he could be glad that Fate decided they should be together but it didn’t feel genuine to him in the slightest. What better way to mock a ghost than to give them a human lover? One of whom was slowly reaching their limit? What happened to soulmates who died before the other? Could he even bother to look at his hand knowing that Yashiro had such little time to live and that he was destined to be a leader of the seven mysteries until he atoned? She didn’t deserve such a life with him, involved with supernaturals as she already is, and he desperately tries his hardest to slice his knife across the thread, over and over and over but not even a dent has been made leaving for him to frustratedly stab the red handled knife into the window sill.
Yugi Amane never had to deal with this. Yugi Amane’s main priority had been his sick brother and deteriorating family. He had no time for strings of fate or threads around people’s fingers. Hanako, as horrible as it sounded, was not exempt from such a life. Instead he stares around him at all the red threads that covered the school from top to bottom, he stares at Kou who has two strings attatched to supernaturals, he stares at his brother whose no longer alive and still so, so sick that he had seen his murder as some sort of saving grace from the world even as he sobbed and trashed around when Amane had pinned him to the floor, even when he screamed when the knife cut through skin and blood bubbled from his throat and stained his teeth, even when he turned his head to cough it all up and his fingers lay sticky with the residue, he smiled at him now and mentioned the murder as if it was the only solution they had, stripped down to being trapped with a seal on his cheek once again, Hanako almost wants to accept the punishment Tsukasa is giving him by destroying the foundation he was trying so hard to protect. He stares at Aoi and Akane, keeping deep dark secrets from each other and wonders how long it’ll be until everything falls apart, he stares at him and Yashiro, and thinks of the day when everything falls apart.
Life is not fair was what he learned as Yugi Amane. You couldn’t be born into a happy family, you didn’t choose what happened to you, you could only choose what actions to take from therefore, you could only deal with the cards life had dealt you with and pray that you’ll make it out alive. The afterlife, much to his chagrin, had been the exact same. You didn’t choose the punishment given to you, you could try and negotiate but the end result would always be the same. You’d be punished one way or another and you’d live your afterlife as a soul wandering around to atone for your sins, getting a human assistant and a friend you can count on, realizing that this was also part of your punishment as god had intended and stare sullenly at the red thread wrapped around your thumb because you were a human’s destined soulmate and how cruel fate is to tear your love apart before it even began to bloom.
The moon stares at him through the stained glass window of his bathroom. What had once been a source of comfort from the irrational screams of his brother, or the stinging wounds underneath his pajamas being nipped at by the cold night air was now a sullen thing, nothing worth more than a pipe dream and yet he still watches it from his window sill hoping that he could picture himself back home with Tsukasa clinging to his side as they watched the stars and Amane spoke to him about bunnies pounding mochi on the moon and his notebook would be filled with doodles of all sorts of things he liked from dinosaurs to stars to a weird girl with chubby ankles that Amane swore he had never told Tsukasa about her at all (though perhaps he had, perhaps he did).
Here, the moon lies as an in between of hope and longing, despair and acceptance that dreams are no more once you’re dead and even the fake world he had set up had been such a fool’s errand. The moon laid out of his reach even then, the red thread still wrapped around his finger never disappeared and Hanako had once been hopeful that this world could allow him to be a soulmate just as Yashiro wanted but Fate was never kind to Yugi Amane and even when he took on a new persona and adopted a new role, even when he was no longer Yugi Amane than he was Hanako-kun, fate would give him the same just punishments as before.
Both of them had murdered their own flesh and blood after all.
Both of them had plunged a knife deep into their brother’s chest, twisting it over and over and over until the screams tapered off, until the blood stopped splashing all over his face, until their fingers were wet and sticky and their sobs wrecked their body. They had both killed, had both turned to the heinous act of manslaughter to their own baby brother and it was logical, it was understandable that they were punished without being forced to carry and stack pebbles, it was okay that he had to atone for his sins but be punished all the while he did it. Nothing justified a murder, nothing justified what he had done and Hanako was okay with that, the punishments stacking on top of his shoulders as he wriggled his finger in front of him and watched the thread wriggle too.
Yashiro Nene deserved someone better. Someone who wasn’t a murderer, someone who could care for her when she couldn’t do so herself. She needed a person who would love her even through her last days on earth, not a ghost who had picked the selfish way out and was still paying from his crimes, not a ghost who had so easily thought of her disposable until now, until the mere thought of losing her was enough to send him into a rage that hurt her friends, hurt her all out of the desperation that the only way to save her was to keep her locked away just like his brother had been and hadn’t that turned out so swell?
“Hanako-kun?”
The door creaks open gently and Hanako stares as the thread tugs when Yashiro flexes her fingers and places her bag down in the corner. He’s been staring an awful lot at the threads around the school now, perhaps he should be a jerk and tell everyone he’s able to see who their loved ones will be? It’d only work on supernaturals and humans like Kou or those who had a sixth sense for them but the plan sounded funny nonetheless—maybe he could convince Akane he’d be married to Teru. “Kou-kun said he’s going home to take care of his little sister so I’m here alone today,” she continues as Hanako hums in response. He remembered a time he had to go home to take care of Tsukasa as well, when Tsukasa still let him use the key and wrap him up in a blanket, when Tsukasa still rocked back and forth in the corner of their bedroom as Amane checked to see if their parents were getting home soon. He didn’t do that anymore, now that they were as dead as a wilting flower, but it was alright—Amane hadn’t been a very good big brother anyways.
He could hear Yashiro beginning to mop at the floors and for a moment, wanted to keep the silence that stayed between them. It was peaceful, quiet, and gave him ample time to sort out his thoughts as he watched his thread get tugged whenever Yashiro moved her hands. Should he tell her that she had been right in her hypothesis about what the threads were? Or should he let her be, keeping one other dark secret from her just like he always did?
Unfortunately, Yashiro chose the option for him.
“Hanako-kun, do you remember the threads you were talking about earlier?” She’s glancing at him, still mopping the floors while wearing gloves and keeping her hair tied back. He wishes the kid were here to dispel the tension and say something stupid. He wishes he wasn’t dead so he didn’t have to worry about lifespans and red threads.
Instead he hums, keeps his hand tucked inside his pockets as he grins at her and shrugs his shoulders. Playing dumb would have to do. “What threads?” His head tilts and he raises his free, non-thread hand to his chin, “are you imagining things, Yashiro?” She puffs out her cheeks, stomps her feet on the floor for good measure and points the broom at him as if he was some sort of culprit in a mass betrayal and in hindsight, perhaps he was.
“You know what I mean, Hanako-kun!”
Indeed he does but that didn’t mean she had to know he knew what she meant now did it? His brows raised for a moment and he shrugged once more. “Maybe I do,” he hums, “or maybe I don’t, you can’t tell I know what you mean, I mean, unless what you mean is that you’d rather date me instead because I am saying yes to that.” Flirting was easy when he knew she didn’t feel the same way about him, teasing her was better than facing the truth of the situation at hand. Her pout stays on her face even as she storms up to the window sill and places her arms on it, surprising even him when she shoves his legs off. “Uh, shouldn’t you get back to work?” Why does it matter to him how close she was? Yashiro couldn’t even see the thread wrapped around her pinky finger and disappearing into his pocket.
“I was just thinking…” and she ignores him while staring up at the moon, “maybe those threads were the fabled red strings of fate and, and maybe you could see who I was connected to too?” A hopeless wish, a pipe dream that she’s had since she was a child, Hanako finds himself smiling behind the pain in his eyes and laughing all the same. “Hey!” She scowls. “What’s so funny, Hanako-kun?!”
He’s tempted to tell her the truth, tempted to say that the person she was connected to was none other than a murderer’s ghost stuck haunting the stalls of the girls' toilets. Hanako figured he could have said that, figured that he could have dived into the truth and faced the consequences head on but neither him nor Amane were full of anything brave, nothing but piles of cowardly mush stored in their rib cages that they dared to call a heart. “Hmmm? Just funny that you’re still searching for your prince after all we’ve been through, I’m almost hurt, don’t you like me, Yashiro?”
And he leans in close, almost to the point that their noses are brushing together, laughing as she pushes him away, smiling when she denies having liked him at all and watching as she stiffened as he replicated the fake world and smiled at her through his bangs. “Are you sureeeee?” The mop whacks him on the head before he can escape and immediately dashing out of the bathroom with Yashiro hot on his trail, Hanako peers at the red thread circling his thumb and decides that keeping one more secret from the love of his life was just fine by him.
Besides, who would love a ghost anyways?