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Roaring flames engulfed the both of them.
“Nageki,” Hitori coughed through the smoke. “Nageki.” His voice just couldn’t shout, no matter how hard he tried. He’d open his mouth and words would fall out of it, flat. Even so, he repeated the name, over and over. His body was boiling, his limbs gone numb. He pounded on the door, even as the flames licked at his flesh and ate away at him. He didn’t run away, he promised he wouldn’t run away this time.
“Liar,” said Nageki. His face amidst the fire, crumbling like coal, disintegrating before Hitori’s eyes. “You abandoned me.”
The smoke filled his lungs and his breath wouldn’t come anymore. Every inhale brought with it a burning agony in his lungs. He opened his mouth, gasped for air, just enough to spit out an apology to his brother, but flames filled his throat and fizzled out his last thought.
“Hitori! Hitori, please wake up!”
His eyes felt as though they’d been glued shut. He tried to crack them open, but was met with only stinging pain and squeezed them shut again. He felt pressure on his chest and something spilling from his mouth.
“Hitori! Hitori, I’m sorry! Please don’t die! Please!”
With a heaving cough, Hitori spat out more water-- ah, so his lungs were full of water. That was strange. He felt hands on his chest and back, helping him choke out the last of it and urging him to breathe.
“Ah-” he tried. His voice came out in a weak croak.
“D-don’t try to talk! It’ll make it worse!”
He finally cracked open his eyes to see Kazuaki Nanaki looming over him, his own big brown eyes pooling with tears.
“What-”
“You fell asleep in the bathtub,” Kazuaki whimpered. “You almost drowned! You could have died!”
Hitori coughed once more. The sound rasped out of him, the same as if he had been a victim of smoke inhalation. Right… smoke. He’d dreamed of fire, and of Nageki, again.
“You keep doing that…” Kazuaki drew out his words, nibbling at his nails. “Are you getting enough rest lately?”
“I think so,” Hitori said. His voice was coming back, to his relief. He didn’t remember falling asleep any more often than usual, though, so that was a bit worrying.
“I-I’m really sorry, by the way, but I, um, I had to give you CPR, so I,” he blushes. “I sort of had to give you mouth to mouth, b-but I’m really sorry--”
“Kazuaki, I hardly think that matters,” Hitori said, hoping he came across as reassuring rather than blunt. He was still trying to teach himself not to be rude to Kazuaki just because he could get away with it. It was a horrible habit. He wanted to do better.
“Heheh, okay…” Kazuaki said, smiling shyly.
“I mean, I was drowning, so you had to,” Hitori continued, not wanting to give him the wrong idea.
“Right! Of course. Um. Are you okay?”
You ask that now?
“Yes, I think so. I’m just going to lie down for a while, alright?”
“Uum, I dunno if you’re supposed to do that? I don’t know that much about first aid, but it seems like it could be bad for you?”
“I just need to rest,” Hitori said, as gently as he could. “You can lie with me, if you want to.”
“Oh! Yes please!” Kazuaki brightens up. “I really didn’t want to just leave you alone, you know…”
“You don’t need to worry about things like that,” Hitori stumbled slightly on his way back into the bedroom, immediately refuting his own point. Kazuaki caught him and led him over to the futon, where he sat down. The other man joined him enthusiastically, cuddling up against his side.
“S-so,” Kazuaki started. “Um, you fell asleep yesterday at breakfast. And the day before that you fell asleep a couple of times when you were working on grading stuff? And I wanna, uhh, make sure that you’re okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” Hitori said. He didn’t usually talk to Kazuaki about his problems, and he liked it that way. Taking care of Kazuaki made him feel good, to his surprise, and he found himself genuinely beginning to care about him, something that he hadn’t known was still possible for him. However, with that came the guilt of it all. The how dare he love someone other than Nageki. How dare he allow himself even a moment or two of happiness. It was all so much, all the time, and it made him think about giving up more than he’d care to admit. To try again with the original plan.
He didn’t really want that, though. He knew that Kazuaki would do anything for him, and to take advantage of someone as kind and gentle as that seemed just too awful, even for someone like him.
It was a process, like Kazuaki said. The boy was smarter than Hitori had originally given him credit for. It was something he had to tell himself again every day. He wondered if having to talk himself out of doing something hideous every day made him irredeemable. Kazuaki didn’t seem to feel that way, but Hitori didn’t know if he was a very good judge.
That was all beside the point. The point being, that talking to Kazuaki about things like this would only make it all worse. Telling Kazuaki about Nageki would just make his little brother’s voice louder. It was more than he deserved already, to even think about not following through. He’d done enough.
And he didn’t know what to do next in the slightest, and it left him paralyzed in the fear and nightmares and hallucinations that he found himself in now.
“Um, well,” Kazuaki said. “B-but, I don’t know if I believe you. And I know mostly you help me with things, b-but, if there was even a little chance that I could make you feel a bit better, then I think I’d like that?”
He looked at Hitori with his cowlike eyes. He looked so sincere.
Fine, Hitori rationalized, if it’s to make Kazuaki happy.
“I don’t know why I’ve been falling asleep so often,” he said. “But I’m having pretty frequent dreams about my brother. You remember the things I told you about, right?”
Kazuaki nodded.
“I keep wondering if I’m wrong, somehow. If I’m doing the wrong thing. Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you after all,” he laughed uncomfortably, “but I just keep getting worried that Nageki…”
He trailed off. He couldn’t decipher Kazuaki’s expression, which frightened him. He was normally so easy to read. He looked worried, Hitori guessed, and maybe angry. It was an unusual expression on his face. Hitori didn’t like it.
“Uh, Kazuaki?”
“S-sorry! I was trying to think of what to say! I’m not really good at taking care of people. Usually I get taken care of.”
“Hah, I know,” Hitori said. “It’s kind of you, though. Even the thought to do it. It shows that you care about me, which is meaningful in itself.”
“Ahh, you’re a lot better with words than me,” Kazuaki said.
“That’s not true. You’re the poet.”
“I’m better on paper! And even then, it’s not that good… oh! Wait, sorry, I started talking about myself again!” Kazuaki’s eyes blew wide and he flushed.
Damn. Hitori had been counting on that.
Kazuaki stared at him, waiting for him to say something else. This really was uncomfortable, but Hitori supposed it wasn’t hurting. Yet. Maybe later he’d get nightmares. That had happened the last time he’d tried to open up. And while he hadn’t fully hallucinated Nageki in a few weeks, talking about him or thinking too hard about him usually triggered his appearance.
“I don’t know if I want to keep talking about myself,” he said.
“Oh! Uh, that’s okay, I guess. Do you want to talk about narcolepsy?”
Where did that come from? “I’m not narcoleptic. I don’t think. Wait, do you think I might be narcoleptic?”
“Umm, it did occur to me? So I googled it, and it says it can be brought on by trauma and PTSD--”
“I don’t have PTSD,” Hitori said. Though, maybe he did? He hadn’t actually given it much thought. Come to think of it, it was more likely than not. He had nightmares, flashbacks, hallucinations. He’d chalked it up to no more than guilt, or maybe punishment for his actions, but this did make a bit more sense.
But-- no, they were talking about narcolepsy. He should save this issue for some other time.
“Though… I think that does make some sense. I’ve been falling asleep in my tutoring sessions as well. Sometimes they have to find other adults to come wake me up. It’s not very responsible of me.”
“W-well, uh,” Kazuaki swayed from side to side, obviously nervous. “I- I mean, there’s ways to, y’know, get help for that kinda stuff-”
“I’m not going to start seeing someone,” Hitori snapped.
“O-okay! Sorry! I didn’t mean to imply that you should--”
“No, it’s okay. Sorry for shouting,” he said, immediately regretting his actions. “I think,” he sighed. “I think there might just be some things I’m not ready for. I might need some time. And money.”
“Can I help?”
Hitori looked at him, confused. “How?”
“I could talk to you more about stuff like this? I mean, you always talk to me when I’m really sad or I want to hurt myself or something. So m-maybe it’s my turn to help you too?”
“You really don’t have to do that,” Hitori said.
In all honesty, they’d both be better off seeing a therapist for these things. Hitori didn’t mind taking care of Kazuaki, but it did create a tangible imbalance between them, and he wasn’t quite comfortable sharing the same way his friend was.
So… maybe he’d give it some thought.
He told Kazuaki as much.
“If you really think it would help, I could just start working more hours. And you know, Kazu, you could get a job too.”
“Ahh, I know! I will! I just… uaahh…”
“You don’t have to right now,” Hitori said hurriedly.
“B-but, did you mean that? About going to, uh…”
Apparently he wasn’t the only one having trouble saying the word therapy out loud. It was hard for him to acknowledge for long enough that he might actually deserve any kind of respite from the pain. He figured Kazuaki had similar issues.
“Yes, I think so. It’s not… something I’m very good at. Looking after myself.” That was easy enough to admit. He didn’t like to talk himself up too much anyway nor when other people did so, so this felt more like a boast than an admission. That was probably also not a healthy thought pattern.
Ugh. Were any of his thought patterns healthy?
“I know,” Kazuaki said, cheerily. “But you’re really good at taking care of me, so maybe we should just work together about it!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when we cook we always cook for both of us, right? What if we tried to do the same thing but with taking care of ourselves? You’re only good at taking care of other people, and I’m no good at taking care of anyone, so it would be good for both of us!”
“Hm. I suppose we could try it,” he said. It scared him more than he wanted to admit. He didn’t deserve this, he kept repeating to himself.
“And, and we should still try the other thing,” Kazuaki said. “The ...therapy thing. ‘Cause I know it’s bad to make someone else tell you not to hurt yourself. And I think you would probably feel a little better talking to someone about Nage- about your brother- who wasn’t, uh, part of your plan.”
That’s a good point. Talking to the boy he’d almost killed for his brother about how he still occasionally felt like doing that did feel horribly wrong, though Kazuaki always accepted it with a cheerful smile. He trusts me, Hitori thought.
Strange. It was all strange.
“Um, can I say something a little bit much, maybe?” Kazuaki looked doe-eyed at him and crept closer to him, so their sides were pressed together.
“Sure,” Hitori said.
“W-well, I want to take care of you too,” he said. “B-because it’s my turn, but also because I really, really like you. And I want you to be happy. Even if that’s far away from now, to think that one day we could be happy together makes me smile.”
Hitori looked at him, surprised. “You really want that?”
“Mhm,” Kazuaki said, and nestled his head into the crook of Hitori’s neck.
And Hitori thought, even if just for a moment, that maybe he could do that too. It was a process, and it always would be. But for that moment, for the first time, he thought it could be achievable.