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Ohkawa stood up, regaining consciousness right on top of his own corpse. The sight initially made him flinch, but there was more horror to it than just its looks. That was him, after all. Laid out on the ground in an egregious amount of blood, Kai's knife sticking straight out of him. He wanted to throw up, but came to the distressing realization that he couldn't. He was dead, and whatever there would've been to throw up was in a red heap on the floor.
He spent his last hours being braver than he'd ever been in his life, and for that he was proud of himself. Which is why he allowed himself to sit and cry for a while, he felt he deserved it. Just for a while, Ohkawa spent his first few moments in the afterlife hyperventilating and balled up on the old splintered wooden floor.
Once he was over mourning himself, he got up and started looking around, feeling just a bit safer. He remembered how Katayama had helped him, and immediately set his sights on finding him. He wondered if his voice could carry through the halls if he called out for him. Despite his skepticism, he does so.
"Ryosuke...? Ryosuke!"
... Nothing. His voice bounced through the hall, frightened and echoey. Ohkawa felt a cold, loneliness seep into his bones as the moments passed. The only people he knew for sure were in this closed space were Kizami and the girl he'd saved. But then again, maybe they'd ended up in another one by now. He needed to find Katayama.
What felt like hours passed. Ohkawa was taking a break on the ground to just... stare off. He'd run out of tears to cry, and felt emotionally and physically drained. His back ached. Just feeling a breeze on it had him feeling like his knees were going to give out, god forbid he brushes it against something on accident. But he kept going. He walked, and walked, and witnessed multiple people dying at the hands of other spirits, their own friends, or themselves. It hurt that he couldn't help them. Everything hurt.
Despite all this, he didn't feel compelled to give up. It's not like there was anything else he could do. He'd be walking around Heavenly Host forever, and he'd much rather do it with Katayama. It was all he wanted, really. He longed to see just a glimpse of him. His smile, his hair, or even just to hear his voice. That'd be enough.
He thought about all the conversations they'd had. JRPGs, the newest updates of manga they'd read together, Ryosuke's lengthy game critiques that Ohkawa always paid full attention to, anything they could think of. Very few thoughts went unshared between the two. In those memories, Ohkawa reminisced on every aspect. From the cold wooden school chairs in the student council room to Ryuosuke's face lit up with passion while he rambled. It felt so distant now, like something he'd probably never get back.
Suddenly, it occurs to him that Ryosuke might have still been occupied with the ghost children he'd saved him and Yoshiki from. It should've been his first thought to go over there, but he figured Ryosuke was following him right up until his death. And so, he heads off toward the classroom, hoping, praying (even if he knew will at this point that God had no jurisdiction over Heavenly Host), that he'd be there.
He hears faint music through the closed classroom door. It fills him with hope. He also hoped the ghost children weren't there anymore, and Katayama was just playing the console for fun by now.
As he opens the door, he's greeted with an empty classroom. His heart drops to his stomach. Just as he was about to panic, a large, blueish glowing blob comes into vision right across from him. As his eyes adjust to the jarring contrast of light and darkness, he almost collapses at the sight in front of him. It was nothing more than Katayama, sat on the floor in front of the PSP with the same ghost children from earlier.
Previously green, now mostly fluorescent blue eyes stared at him for a second before Katayama was getting up and running at Ohkawa. He hugged him for the first time on that day. They'd never been particularly touchy with each other, but to feel Katayama's arms wrapped around him had Ohkawa trembling in pure relief. In that relief, copious amounts of tears began to fall from his eyes. He'd really thought he was sucked dry of any emotion he could've had, but Katayama was just a special case, it seemed.
His touch felt like an air hug more than anything, a faintly there whisper of an embrace. It made Ohkawa that much more emotional, remembering that this would be their existence as living dead. Unable to truly touch, feel, taste, generally do anything ever again. But at least they had each other. That was more than most people in Heavenly Host could say.
"I- I thought I'd never.. G-God.." Ohkawa stammered shakily.
Katayama buries his face in the boys hair, trying not to show himself cry. It didn't smell very good. Mostly of blood and the faint undercurrent of rotting bodies thats laid over the whole school. But it didn't bother him in that moment, preoccupied with the notion that he wouldn't have to be alone for the rest of his existence in the horrifying school.
"I know. I... hoped you'd make it out, though." Katayama said, voice wavering just a little. It made Ohkawa's heart hurt.
Ohkawa stayed silent for a bit. "Maybe this is... better. We're always together, so... I don't know what I would've done without you and everyone else."
"You would've been fine. You're pretty brave when it counts, you know?"
The shorter boy smiled, knowing his words were true. After the saves he pulled off? He was pretty willing to accept praise for his bravery.
"If you say so..." he feigned humbleness. " Hey.. do you want to keep playing with them..?" Ohkawa looked toward the ghost children, now crowding around the dropped PSP.
"Not really. They'd probably get mad if I took the console though, so let's just go.."
With that, they quietly exit the classroom. Walking about the school, they don't see Kizami again. Or any of their friends, for that matter. When Ohkawa expresses worry about it, Katayama reassures him they're around. Sachiko's the only spirit that can hop closed spaces, after all. The rest of them were stuck wherever they died. Eventually, the pair settle down on a staircase to take a break.
Ohkawa's hunched over, with his chin in his arms. Katayama sits with his back to the wall. Like this, he can see the gruesome carving stretched across Ohkawa's back. He'd noticed it before of course, but figured it was a bit of a sore topic. At the moment though, there wasn't much else to talk about.
"So.. what happened while I was gone?" he asked.
"You didn't see?"
"I didn't become a ghost immediately after. Cooldown period, man."
Ohkawa laughed, just barely. But his face quickly dropped into sadness. "I didn't want to believe it, that you.. died. It didn't feel real, so to me it just wasn't. Yu-... Kizami was trying to help, at first." The brunettes face screwed up as he talked, like he ate something spoiled. "He.. kicked you down the stairs. To get me to see that you were really gone. But I freaked out, and called him a murderer. I ended up being right, in the end. He tracked all of us down and killed us."
Katayama was, by all accounts, horrified. There wasn't a single part of him that would've guessed Kizami could be so cruel.
"You know that wasn't your fault right? To do something like that, he must've had something wrong with him before coming here." Katayama said gently. It made Ohkawa realize that he was actually carrying a bit of self guilt over that. "...Thanks." he whispered. Right after he found himself crying, again. He was a little sick of being such a crybaby, but he knew better than to think he could force himself out of it. Katayama found himself yet again pulling Ohkawa into his arms. The way his heart strained as he held him, he questioned if there was more to it than just pity.
"I really thought I'd n-never see you again, Ryosukeee..." he sniveled. "Never t-talk to you again.. And that scared me so bad, because I– I never realized how important you are to me. I never t- told you."
"Tomohiro...come on, stop crying over me like I'm not right here. You don't have to worry about any of that anymore, right?"
"I.. I don't ever want to be anywhere you're not, Ryosuke. Because.. b-because..." he trailed off. Maybe he got a little over passionate. Katayama didn't miss a beat though, immediately repeating "Because?" back at Ohkawa.
"....Because I love you." he admitted in a near whisper. But Katayama was so close to him, he heard the words with full clarity anyway. Katayama felt like he should be blushing at the moment, what with the fluttery feeling in his stomach, but he probably didnt have enough blood for that. So, he did the most logical thing he could think of, and replied with:
"I love you too."
For a while, there was silence. But then Katayama chuckled, and Ohkawa laughed, and everything felt normal again.
"Hey, are things.. different now?" Ohkawa asked.
"They dont have to be." Katayama says.
"What if I want them to be..?" The brunette blushes just slightly, looking Katayama in the eyes.
"Then... we can hold hands and stuff. O-or like.. whatever you're thinking." Katayama looks away.
"..Okay. Can you.. close your eyes, please?"
Katayama felt his heart skip a beat, and quickly did as he was asked.
Ohkawa didn't say anything more, just leaned closer to Katayama's face, eventually pressing their lips together for their first, very awkward kiss. It was almost funny, but they both felt like they could shake out of their skin in nervousness so neither felt the urge to laugh.
"...Do you wanna see if that PSP has any other games on it?" Ryosuke finally asked after a moment of silence.
"Wh– at least tell me if it was good?! But yeah... that sounds fun."