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“Thankfully, your body managed to save you a good bit of trouble by going into a comatose state,” said the doctor over his owlish glasses, as Giyuu sat glass eyed in a smooth hospital bed. “It prevented any major cases of cerebral hypoxia - or brain cell death from lack of oxygen.”
“Oh,” Giyuu shivered, pretending he understood. “Right.”
He wasn’t allowed to leave right away. His body still was in a compromised state, and that wasn’t taking into account his risk factor for suicide.
After school, Shinobu, Rengoku and Mitsuri would take turns bringing him his assignments to work on. Mitsuri was the most fun to study with, always armed with snacks and magazines, while Shinobu was the most helpful in terms of teaching.
During his visits, Tengen brought a guitar in, and took requests for songs from Giyuu, though he seemed extremely critical of the Beatles for no good reason.
Iguro had let him hold his pet snake, and told him so many snake facts. Giyuu was happy to listen. He had always been one to let others do the talking. Really, he was just happy they were finally talking to him.
He hadn’t spoken much since he’d woken up. His lungs felt heavy, damaged from the water inhalation.
Moreover, though, he didn’t think he knew how anymore. How to say the right words.
Muichiro had tried to bring him gifts like the others, but seemed to forget every time, so in the end they just watched cartoons together, curled up in blankets. Mitsuri had bought Giyuu a big cat plushie, which Muichiro apparently had a similar version of given to him by his boyfriend.
‘You have a boyfriend?’ Giyuu asked on a piece of paper as he blinked in faint surprise. Muichiro hummed, tilting his head. “…. I do.”
‘What’s his name?’
“Genya,” Muichiro chewed on his lip, doodling on a sketchbook with a cracked blue pen, leaving dark inkstains trailing over his hands.
Oh, Giyuu thought, not sure who that was at all.
“Shinazugawa Genya,” Muichiro repeated, as if in clarification.
Giyuu choked. Sanemi’s… little brother? Or a cousin, maybe?
Which reminded him of the last ghost to haunt his hospital bedside.
…
Sanemi sat, his hand in Giyuu’s, eyes flitting around the room awkwardly.
“I talked to Kanae.”
Giyuu’s heart sank, ice creeping into his chest. Or was he just hypothermic? He had been. Maybe he’d never changed.
Maybe it’d never change.
“We broke up. Officially,” Sanemi continued, biting his lip. “She wanted me to give myself a chance with you, I think. That’s… that’s what she more or less said.”
Giyuu froze, eyes flicking over.
Had Kanae really said that?
“But,” Sanemi continued. “… I know that it sounds like you still have feelings for Sabito. And I don’t want to force you to move on from that. So, it’s really up to you.”
Giyuu stared, silent.
He hadn’t talked since he’d woken up.
But the words were bubbling up like soda pop and rat poison all at once, dripping from his lips and down his chin even as he tried to stop them.
“Do you like me?”
Sanemi looked up, mouth gaping open. He hadn’t known how long it would be until he heard Giyuu speak again.
His voice was beautiful.
“Yes, idiot. Of course I fucking like you.”
Giyuu brushed a thumb over the back of Sanemi’s hand.
Leaning over, he kissed him.
—-
“I brought you more dango and sakura mochi, Giyuu-chan!!! I didn’t know how much you wanted, so I got four boxes…”
Sanemi’s hands ran through his hair, gentle, untangling the black licorice locks with bitten nails.
“Have some onigiri, best buddy! Freshly made by my younger brother. He’s the best cook in the whole world, you know! Say ah! I’ll feed it to you!”
Giyuu ran a hand over his chest, tracing the X of scars there. He’d been attacked by a dog as a kid, Sanemi had told him. Giyuu had always been scared of dogs.
“I brought you more of your Chemistry homework, Tomioka~ I’m going to assume you studied those ion bonds, like I was asking? Ahah!”
Sanemi pressed him back, back against the sheets of the hospital bed, gentle to not disturb any of the tubes running from his body.
“C’mon! The spring production is coming up, and I need you to help me pick out what show is going to blow the whole school away. We need something with panache, Giyuu. Something real flashy-flash. Something that screams ‘FUCK YES!’ in giant neon letters.”
Giyuu could hear his heartrate monitor spike as he wrapped a leg around Sanemi’s waist, lashes fluttering as he drank every bit of life from those plush lips.
“… their scales are more like fingernails than hair, so you have to pet along their spine, from head to tail. Otherwise, it’s like if someone tried to pry up your fingernails. That hurts a lot, okay? I would know…”
Sanemi was murmuring into Giyuu’s ear, praising him, calling him beautiful. Saying his name even as he could feel each ridged scar on Giyuu’s wrists, from where Sanemi’s fingers were wrapped around him. Holding him steady, tying him down.
“Wanna watch…. Anastasia…. again? …. okay…”
For years, it’d been Giyuu giving everything he had to the people around him. Draining himself dry for the empty clause of a hopeless cause.
“You’re cleared to go, Tomioka-san.”
Owlish glasses looked him up and down, two weeks over.
Now he was free.
———
Before, Sabito had never been a physical relationship. He’d put his mouth over Giyuu’s, left kisses and nips along his neck, rocked him to sleep in the company of strong lanky arms.
But their love had at its most been a language of soft words and smiles, simple connection and complicated understandings of what made them real to each other. Of what made them them.
Giyuu had stopped seeking that connection after Sabito’s death. His heart had died with Sabito, he thought. And dead things can’t learn to bring something to life.
Before, Sanemi had never been a romantic relationship. Sanemi crushed him against rough brick walls, hips grinding, hands squeezing and kneading at every inch of exposed skin in dark corners where Sanemi didn’t see Giyuu’s scars or flaws, and Giyuu couldn’t see Sanemi’s face.
He didn’t stay for the morning.
He didn’t even stay for the night.
This was different.
“How are you?” Sanemi asked, when Giyuu opened the door to let him in. Giyuu blinked. Sanemi was holding flowers. Forget-me-nots.
“Good,” Giyuu said softly, standing back to let Sanemi in. “What are the flowers for?”
“You,” Sanemi said gruffly, blushing and shoving them over into Giyuu hands.
Giyuu stood still, holding them in shocked silence.
Leaning in, he breathed in the blossoms. They smelled fresh, clean, subtle and lovely.
Giyuu let himself smile.
“Thanks.”
Sanemi let out a huff of surprise, but slowly smiled back.
“Yeah, whatever.”
———
Black petals scattered the floor by his feet.
Blue irises looked back at him from the mirror, at the soft pink lines down his arms, prying thorns leaving deepseated roots as he was torn from the ground.
Feet planted on solid ground. Clippers in hand.
Giyuu watched as the last of his long hair fell to the tile, black locks now stopping in a messy spill at his chin.
The weight fell from his shoulders like rainfall from springtime clouds.
———
“What the hell happened with you?”
Akaza raised an eyebrow as they passed his locker, looking Giyuu up and down.
“None of your business!” chirped Shinobu, smiling politely as she hooked her arm through Giyuu’s.
“I will feed your remains to my snake,” whispered Iguro from behind them.
Muichiro held out two fingers, pressing them against Akaza’s forehead. The boy stepped back with a confused furrow of his brow, while Tokitou shook his head in disappointment.
“He didn’t pass the vibe check,” he said simply, turning back to walk with them.
Tengen’s laugh was loud and boisterous, and Giyuu finally felt like he was home again.
———
The morning light flickered across the sky like looping waves, scrawling on a tapestry. Urokodaki’s red Jeep sat parked a ten or so meters away, his thin frame leaning against the side door.
Giyuu settled in front of the headstone, damp grass soaking his jeans.
His fingers reached out, tracing over the Kanji. He didn’t need to bring flowers - people had already left them out. Viral cases tended to garner fans.
Letting out a breath, Giyuu let tears prick to his eyes, nails digging into the folds of the light blue hoodie he’d stolen from Sanemi last weekend.
He was alive.
“Hey, Sabito.”