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Shu’s hands really are so beautiful, Eichi thinks as finds his eyes snagging on them. It’s a shame they’re attached to such a horror—he would probably have fantasies of cutting them off and sticking them on one of his dolls. So dramatic, honestly. He’s lucky he’s got such an elegant face to go along with such a horrid personality.
No, Eichi is… not normal, not quite. He’s poorly socialized but not quite so badly socialized as Shu. His defects fall within the limits of what money can make up for—personality-wise, anyway. So, no, he’s not fantasizing about disembodied hands.
They would feel awfully nice wrapped around his throat, though. He can’t breathe half the time anyway. It’d be nice if there was a pleasant reason for it for once. Eichi bruises so easily—maybe Shu would like that? No, no, he’s got that thing for dolls. Nito-kun and the odd-eyed one that follows him around like a pet, skin like porcelain, small and willowy and cute. The bruises would probably horrify him.
He might like to see Itsuki Shu horrified.
He is staring. This corridor is mostly deserted at this time of day, the afternoon sun sliding in through the plate glass in a way that catches the highlights in Shu’s hair, turning it strawberry pink and delicate. His eyelashes fan so beautifully against his cheek. Eichi has a few good seconds to look before Shu glances up, turning his head like he’s heard his name called. He meets Eichi’s eyes and his face does a number of things in rapid succession. He looks startled and then afraid and then deeply, deeply annoyed.
“Itsuki-kun.” Eichi smiles at him, and his scowl deepens.
“Don’t you have something to ruin?”
Eichi smiles a little wider. “Not today.”
“I didn’t know the devil rested. Although I suppose the devil probably isn’t quite so ill.”
Oh, mentions of his illness. He hates that, and Shu knows it. Anger flares in him, and he wants to say and do a number of horrible things. He smiles instead. He knows it makes Shu nervous.
“Probably not,” he agrees easily.
Shu’s lovely hands flex at his sides. The one wrapped around his little doll clenches tight around her middle.
“Won’t you wrinkle her dress that way?” Eichi asks, pointing at the crinkled silk.
Shu makes a strangled noise that could ungraciously be called a squawk. His throat works, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Lovely hands and a lovely neck—and he turns on his heel.
Retreat. Cute.
Eichi huffs in frustration. Shu probably thinks Eichi is making fun of him, but he’s not. Well, he mostly isn’t. The white silk of the little dolly’s dress is almost the same color as Eichi’s skin. He wants to stop Shu, to make him wait. To hold his hand up against it to compare. Shu likes fragile things, and what’s more fragile than Eichi?
Shu stalks down the hallway with his spine rigid enough to snap, a little scurry in his step, the quick-tempoed noises ringing in the empty hall. It soothes Eichi, a little. It’s so fun when he’s afraid. Today has been a bad day. Eichi never has good days, exactly, but lately his body has been more unruly than usual. He indulges himself and watches Shu leave, idly wondering which room he’ll have a breakdown in. 3A is deserted at this time of day, but maybe 2B? Depends how far he can get. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
Eichi has an idle fantasy of leaving a soft blanket in one of those rooms, something in an inoffensive natural fiber in those moody, gothic reds Shu favors so much. Something that smells like Eichi because he thinks it’s funny. Because it thrills him, a little, and he’s determined to take his kicks where he can get them.
He won’t, of course. Shu’s fits are hardly behavior that he wants to encourage. They’re here to produce idols after all, not weaklings, but still—he would like to see it.
Keito frowns at him when he returns to the Student Council room a little later, a little worse for the wear. He leans on the back of his chair, hand gripped tight and bloodless so he won’t fall over. His vision blurs, and the old panic rises up in his throat that this time, this time it won’t come back—that he won’t—but it eventually resettles, and he can breathe again.
He takes a long, shaky breath and reaches for his inhaler. Keito waits patiently until he’s finished.
“You look a little flushed. Do you need to go to the infirmary?”
Eichi waves off the concern. “No, no, I’m fine.”
He sinks down into his chair harder than he’d like, chagrined at his unreliable body. There are stacks of paperwork to go through. He almost, almost misses the hospital. No, what a cursed thought, even in jest.
He picks up the first proposal with a sigh, sliding it in front of him and uncapping a red pen, wondering if they have any of the good tea left, but first—a streak of light outside the window, a bird against the sky. It catches Eichi’s eye, and his head turns, tracking it until it’s out of sight, red against the piercing blue of late afternoon.
He sighs, turning back to his work and the dimness inside, like going blind after staring at the sun. He almost runs his hand through his hair—frustrated, tired, in pain—he’ll mess it up, and he won’t care, but he stops at the last second. He puts a hand up to his neck instead and traces the soft skin there, idly dragging a nail across his pulse as he reads.