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There is blood on Mitsuba’s hands, from the tips of its fingers to the middle of its forearm. It’s warm and sticky. The sensation is unpleasant on the skin, but that’s not why its body is shaking.
There is blood in its mouth, too. He feels it around its lips and the metallic, bitter taste on its tongue. It doesn’t think it’ll ever manage to wash it away; it’ll exist forever, doomed to taste something putrid in order to keep itself (alive) existing.
Mitsuba chews. Its eyes fill with tears and its hands won’t stop shaking. The air smells of death, but Mitsuba thinks that must be its own fault. Even after death, even being only an empty shell of something that was once alive, it feels as if death is following it, as if there is a clock counting the seconds it has left.
Maybe it’s true, and it’s all in vain, but there’s a hole in its stomach that’s impossible to fill. So it eats.
✩
Mitsuba’s first memory of waking up is hunger.
He was inside a body that didn’t belong to him and he was given a name that carries a story he doesn’t know.
Then Tsukasa ripped out a spirit’s heart and forced it into his mouth with a smile and asked doesn’t it feel good, to be fed? And Mitsuba didn’t know too much about himself or the world around him but he knew that this was unpleasant, his existence was wrong, it will never be enough, he will always be yearning for more, more, more.
It’s a familiar feeling. He eats, but he’s never sated. Even when his stomach churns with nausea, it keeps growling.
Hunger is a foundational part of who he is. He has been brought into this world with a hole in his core, and Mitsuba tries desperately to fill it. It’s exhausting, living trying knowing there is nothing he can do for himself.
✩
There is a hint of recognition every time Kou looks at him. Kou knows him, or at least thinks he knows him. Mitsuba doesn’t think there is anything in him worth knowing because there is no essence in him, only a body he fails to recognize as his own and an existence he has not asked for.
There are many things Mitsuba wishes he could ask. Who are you, to begin with, because there is something intriguing about Kou, an enigma he doesn’t think he is capable of deciphering on his own. Who am I. Mitsuba does not recognize the figure he sees in the mirror. An artificial creation, a poor imitation of something that was once human and can never be human again. There is tragedy in it, he supposes, in the unfulfillable desire to find something worth keeping in some corner of his being. Mitsuba doesn’t know what it is like to be human, so he doesn’t know if he could find that within himself.
He wants to ask Kou who he looks for every time he looks into his eyes. Sometimes, he wants to know if his disguise as a human is convincing enough, if Kou looks at him and sees reflected the real Mitsuba, the child who experienced what it was like to be alive and who died prematurely, who died twice and was brought to life once more, but incomplete.
“Stop looking at me,” he says instead, pushing Kou’s shoulder. He opens his eyes wide, his lips parting to let out something he doesn’t get to enunciate before Mitsuba adds, “You perv.”
Then Kou begins to complain, blushing to his ears, scowling and shaking both hands and, Lord, Mitsuba thinks he can hear his heartbeat from the distance separating them.
His stomach flips. If he had a functional heart, he’s sure it would have jumped on his chest. He sticks his tongue out at him in a mocking gesture to which Kou responds by wrapping an arm around his neck, shaking it to show his annoyance but gently enough not to do him any real harm, and the fact that Mitsuba cries saying “ah, careful, you hurt me” and “get your dirty hands off me” has less to do with actual pain than that sounds like something he would say. He’s not sure what this means. Even his reactions don’t feel like his own.
Kou looks at him as if he knows him, and Mitsuba feeds on it ingloriously and ungracefully, clinging to him like a leech that wants to drain his blood, holding onto him as if he were his guide, his compass. Would it bother Kou to discover that Mitsuba seeks him out like a moth to the light in the hope of finding in him what he cannot find in himself, or would he accept it as long as Mitsuba stays by his side, being the image of someone Kou came to cherish and whom he doesn’t think himself capable of letting go?
Mitsuba wonders if he will ever see him for himself..., but for that, Mitsuba would have to find out who he is . A question bubbles in his chest. How can he find out who he is, if he has appeared in the world taking someone else’s place?
✩
“I don’t think I’m a boy,” Mitsuba says for no apparent reason, staring at his reflection in the teacup.
Sakura tilts their head to the side, their expression maintaining its oh-so-usual indifference. Mitsuba doesn’t know why he told them. Perhaps because Natsuhiko wouldn’t get why making a big deal out of it, Tsukasa wouldn’t take it seriously, and he doesn’t know how much he can count on Kou to understand. Sakura understands, in a way. That doesn’t make the fact that they watch him that way any easier.
“So what are you, then?” they ask. Their voice is soft, calm, and that doesn’t mean anything because that’s how they always are, but Mitsuba relaxes a little, even so, because he’s ridiculous and an idiot and too alone in the world.
Mitsuba shrugs. “Something. An apparition. An—”
An empty shell, he was about to say, but he doesn’t think he’s capable of explaining that out loud. He feels it’s stupid of him, actually. That he shouldn’t have started this conversation to begin with.
Sakura hums, like they get it. Mitsuba would like to get it himself.
They take a sip of the tea and seem lost in thought for a moment, and then, crossing their legs, they begin to explain to Mitsuba something he thinks changes things.
(Not he, he tells himself. It. It works better. That fits him like a glove, and Mitsuba savors the taste on its tongue.)
✩
There is no humanity to be found within him, but Mitsuba tries because he has been created hungry, because his desires are so great that they threaten to destroy him from the inside out. So, when he’s offered the chance to live as a normal human, Mitsuba accepts it. Even if it is in a fake world, even if he will have to lie to everyone and himself. He thinks he can live with it, if it will give him the chance to experience all that he has lost.
He manages to exist in this world of lies for a very short time before Kou ruins it, because Kou seems determined to ruin everything.
He doesn’t understand. Isn’t this what Kou wants? Mitsuba has crawled under the skin of a boy who no longer exists, someone Kou came to value. He knows he’s not the person Kou really loves, but isn’t pretending enough? Mitsuba wishes he were real too! He wishes he could wake up in the mornings, take a deep breath, know that he’s alive, that he exists, that people see him for who he really is and not who they pretend he is. He wishes he had a life, but he doesn’t, and he has decided he can settle for this.
Isn’t this good enough for Kou? The real Mitsuba is definitely dead, there is no trace of him left in this world, but Mitsuba can do a good job. He can pretend that he is a child and not a monster who has been forced to live a life that was never his.
“I want everyone to die so they can be like me,” he says, and Kou watches him solemnly, looks at him intently before taking his arm.
“How about if I die too,” he offers, and for a moment Mitsuba thinks he’s joking, but Kou doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile in the slightest, “so we can be together forever?”
He doesn’t want to be alone, he’s sick of feeling lonely and isolated because this world will never open its arms to receive him, but all it takes is for him to offer to die for him to realize that this is not the company he wants.
Mitsuba knows the taste of blood, he knows how it feels to be covered in it, warm and thick, he knows what it is like not to be able to breathe freely because the only thing that fills the air is the smell of death. Death is not a stranger because it follows him every step he takes, but where does the sun go when it goes out? What would become of him if Kou were to die, if it were his blood that covers him, if he had to carry that weight on his shoulders?
He saves his life, and for a second Kou looks confused, as if he doesn’t understand why he’s done that. It’s so simple, really! How can he not understand? He can’t follow his light if his light goes out!
Kou is warm and breathing and alive. Is it crazy that Mitsuba wants to keep him that way? Mitsuba is always hungry, but it’s not this that will satiate him, it’s not holding Kou’s heart in his hands that will bring him any comfort.
He doesn’t know how to tell him, so he screams and calls him crazy instead. It’s ironic. Kou has everything Mitsuba longs for, and he’s willing to put that aside just so he can be by his side.
Kou is an idiot. If Mitsuba had a functioning heart, he thinks it would melt in his chest. That dark, malformed thing that is trapped in his ribcage, taking his rightful place, beats in such a way that it is a surprise that Mitsuba can breathe around it.
There is no humanity to be found in him, but Mitsuba longs for it. It’s unattainable, it’s too far away, he does not deserve it, but Mitsuba was born hungry and has always been greedy, has always wanted more than what he can hold in his hands.
Perhaps that is why he’s drawn to Kou; because he’s stupid, and Mitsuba despises him, but he’s undoubtedly, painfully human. He is everything Mitsuba wants and will never be.
Mitsuba thinks he hates him a little because of it.
✩
Mitsuba wakes up in the middle of the night sweating, his heart beating a mile a minute, his whole body trembling.
He rummages through his nightstand for his phone and dials the same number as always, the first one among his recent calls.
He closes his eyes, making himself small in bed, hugging his own legs. Three rings pass before they pick up.
“Sousuke?” Kou asks, his voice husky. Mitsuba thinks he should feel a little bad for waking him up, but he doesn’t. It was Kou who offered in the first place to always pick up, and Mitsuba is an opportunist. He should’ve known better. “It’s three in the morning.”
“I had another nightmare.”
That’s enough to make his friend pause. He hears him sigh so close to his ear that he could almost pretend he has him by his side. He wants to reach out a hand and take his, feel his warmth. Maybe that would make him feel better.
Mom would tell him he’s behaving like a young lady in love. The thought makes Mitsuba hide his face in his knees, even if no one is watching. God, how embarrassing. He should stop telling his mother everything.
He hears noises on the other end of the line. He can imagine Kou moving to sit up, stretching to turn on his night lamp. The warm light would illuminate the photos he has on the wall, courtesy of the best photographer in the world—Mitsuba, of course! Pictures of him with Tiara and with his mother and a picture of him with Mitsuba clumsily taken by Mitsuba’s mom, whom Mitsuba adores, he swears, but is terribly bad as a photographer.
Mitsuba has told him to take it off the wall, but Kou argues that he likes having it there. Mitsuba has asked him if he watches him every night before he goes to sleep, and the way Kou blushed was enough to make his stomach churn. Butterflies, they say. Mitsuba thinks it’s more akin to nausea.
“You want to talk about it?” Kou says in the middle of a yawn.
Mitsuba has a sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue, and even tries to let out the wry little laugh, but it leaves his lips as a quivering sound, evidence of his nerves. He’s still trembling a little.
He closes his eyes and tells him some more of the same thing: he dreamed he was dead, returned in the form of a monster, a spirit, the kind that Kou should exorcise.
Mitsuba tries to ask him, jokingly, would you exorcise me if I asked you to, but Kou is not amused and tells him to stop being an idiot. Mitsuba mutters “looks who’s talking”, and before Kou can argue, he goes on to tell him about the rest of it.
He tells him about the mirrors and the other apparitions, but he doesn’t tell him about the blood. He doesn’t tell him about the hunger, either, about the emptiness he seemed to feel in his stomach. Not because he thinks Kou won’t understand, because Kou may be an idiot, but he’s sympathetic. It’s just not something Mitsuba wants him to know about him.
✩
Mitsuba holds the heart of a spirit in its trembling hands and tries with all its might not to vomit up the contents of its stomach.
Tsukasa has told it that it needs to do this, and it’s true that it feels stronger the more it eats, but that doesn’t make the situation any easier.
The heart is warm between its hands, the blood is dark in an unnatural way, the corpse lies at its feet with its chest open in the middle, there where Mitsuba had to bury its claws. It can see the rest of its insides, organs and bones that look nothing like humans because there is nothing human about them, not anymore.
Mitsuba wonders how much humanity is left in itself, if any at all.
(Mitsuba craves it, the heart. It wants to eat it, it can feel the hunger tearing its insides apart, it needs the fulfillment only this can give it.)
It’s been worse since the severance, but it was always creeping inside it. Now it kills and it ravages, it destroys, it breaks them open and devours their insides. It tastes the blood on its mouth, licking its teeth and its lips clean, humming under its breath.
Then Mitsuba has to hold its breath to keep it inside, not because it’s disgusted, but because it’s not, and that makes it feel like a beast.
It wonders what would Kou think. Then it wonders why does it care about a dumbass’ opinion of itself, but truth be told, it doesn’t think it can be helped. Aren’t they friends, or something?
Licking its fingers clean, Mitsuba thinks. It wishes it could be human, but that has been proven to be a kid’s dream, impossible to accomplish. Mitsuba is getting tired of hunger, of the fear of falling apart if it refuses to consume.
If it cannot be alive in any way that matters, then it wants to be gone.
✩
Mitsuba raises the camera and points it in Kou’s direction. The angle of the sun highlights the blue of his eyes, the gold of his hair. It’s a disgrace that such beautiful features are wasted on such a foolish child.
“What are you—Stop taking pictures of me!” he complains, raising a hand in an attempt to cover the camera lens.
Mitsuba gasps. “Hey! Just so you know, that was going to be the perfect picture."
He pouts, stomping with his foot on the grass. He can’t believe it! Kou always does this. It’s like he’s terrified of the camera, for God’s sake.
“You should be more grateful,” he grumbles. “I’ve won awards, you know! And I’m taking pictures of you for free. Hmph.”
Kou takes some grass and throws it at him. The grass falls at his feet, but Mitsuba lets out an angry yelp anyway.
“Hey! You’re going to dirty my clothes,” he cries, kicking some dirt in Kou’s direction.
He rolls his eyes, sighing. “I’ll let you take a picture of me—just one! And just this once, because I don’t want your long face to ruin my day.”
Mitsuba smiles, settling in to find a good angle again. He starts giving directions: lift your head a little, move a little to the left, pretend you don’t see me..., once everything is perfect, Mitsuba takes the picture.
He has several pictures of Kou that he’s taken of him since they met. Kou doesn’t understand why, but Mitsuba thinks it’s pretty simple. He likes to keep pictures of important things, after all.
(When later they are both lying on the grass, looking up at the blue sky, Kou moves his hand lightly. Their fingers brush. The touch is so fleeting that it can’t be anything but accidental, but when Mitsuba turns his face to look at him, he feels as if something is squeezing his heart.)
✩
Mitsuba should have gotten used to the feeling of falling apart, but it hasn’t. Its body falls apart and Kou holds its hand while Mitsuba hides the severed arm because it already knows how that looks, it knows it’s disgusting, it doesn’t want Kou to see it like this.
But it was the one who left the school territory and crawled around looking for Kou. It was the one who forced him to take it to do something fun under the belief that this will be its last night.
And it will be, one way or another. It will either die at Kou’s hands or it will starve to death; either way, there will be no tomorrow for it.
It supposes that should be some sort of consolation, but when it tells Kou its idea and sees the look on his face, it realizes that maybe it is going to have some regrets at the time of its demise.
Kou doesn’t want to let it go. Mitsuba wonders if it’s because he values its existence, or if simply watching it disappear would be like watching history repeating itself.
It doesn’t matter, really, because Kou rips out the heart of a supernatural with his bare hands and tells it to eat and Mitsuba doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to, it’s sick of eating, it’s sick of wanting, of longing.
Kou presses his fingers inside its mouth and he feels the bile rising through its throat. When it bites down, it’s instinctive. It’s a desperate attempt to push him away.
The taste of blood is not the same. Kou is not rotten because he is alive, and Mitsuba feels hunger squeezing its stomach, a voice in its mind chanting eateateateateateat—
Understanding is evident in Kou’s gaze, and Mitsuba thinks this should be the end, that this is where he turns around and decides he’s had enough. But Kou is an idiot, so he decides to break down crying instead, because Kou can tolerate Mitsuba being a monster and a beast and he can tolerate that it was tempted to eat him whole but apparently can’t bear the thought of Mitsuba disappearing.
There is something begging to be said. Mitsuba feels the words on the tip of its tongue. I will crawl back to you if you feed me.
Kou’s heart beats inside him at a slightly unsteady pace. Mitsuba wants to devour it whole.
✩
Tsukasa digs his fingers into a supernatural's chest with precision, big empty eyes fixed on the mess. He's smiling. Tsukasa is always smiling, Mitsuba has come to realize.
“Mitsuba,” he says, a hint of something like disappointment in his tone. “We've been through this.”
He hears something wet, something break, something rip. Tsukasa looks up at him, unblinking. Mitsuba makes himself small because that's how he feels any time Tsukasa is around.
“You're weak,” Tsukasa says. His voice is soft like velvet. It makes Mitsuba want to throw up. “You know how you will get to be a big, strong boy?”
Mitsuba lets out a small sob. That's the only answer he gets to muster.
Tsukasa walks closer and squats down, stroking his cheek with a blood covered hand. Mitsuba blinks his tears away as Tsukasa's hand goes down, down, until his fingers force his mouth open.
“You need to eat,” he says, and he pushes the bleeding heart inside his mouth, giggling as Mitsuba chokes.
✩
Mitsuba lies with his back on the bed, looking at Kou’s sleeping form. He wants to reach out a hand to touch his cheek, vaguely illuminated by the light filtering through the curtains. He can see the slight rise and fall of his chest. Kou snores softly, because of course he can’t help but be annoying even in his sleep.
There is something warm fluttering in Mitsuba’s chest. He wonders if this is—
✩
Mitsuba throws up the contents of its stomach as soon as it returns to its boundary.
It keeps thinking about the fingers in its mouth, the taste of blood, the way Kou’s eyes swelled and reddened, filled with tears, at the mere possibility of losing Mitsuba.
Mitsuba doesn’t know too much about the world or itself. It doesn’t know what the feeling in its chest is.
Mitsuba doesn’t know too much about love, but it does know about hunger.
✩
Mitsuba has always known himself to be stubborn and spoiled. Everyone around him agrees, too. His mom tends to sigh and shake her head with a fond smile. Kou pretends to be annoyed, but he ends up indulging him nevertheless, at least most of the time.
They walk across the street, the moon shining in the cloudless sky. Kou has gifted him the penguin keychain he won at one of those stupid machines. He’s lucky; Mitsuba always gets the worst rewards, and then he has to act adorable to get Kou to give away his.
(He only gets all pouty and sulky. Objectively insufferable. He thinks his pretty face might make up for it.)
He holds the penguin between his fingers. It feels familiar, somehow. Like they’ve done something like this before. He knows they haven’t, because duh, he would remember if that was the case. He doesn’t know where the feeling of déjà vu comes from.
The air smells of rain. Kou’s smile is as bright as the sun.
Mitsuba feels he should be somewhere else. Feels like he should be—
✩
Mitsuba Sousuke dies at the age of thirteen.