Work Text:
He hadn’t been a good student—he skipped biology and slept through history—but even from shooters and slashers, he knew that death changes people. Either the enemy’s health bar slowly lost color, or his own screen turned red and pulsed, hinting at the need for a heal or medkit. Piles of enemies underfoot. Level exit after a couple of scripted cutscenes. Game over.
They said different things about Nijimura’s death—some said he was stabbed at night in Compton, others that he got caught up in a gang fight in South Central, or that he simply scratched himself on a fence at a streetball court and died of tetanus. Akashi probably knew the truth, but he wasn’t about to share, and no one else could bring themselves to call Nijimura’s parents in L.A.
“He should be already buried by now,” Kuroko’s voice, distorted by static, barely reached through the thick cushion of brain freeze and denial. “I don’t know how much time has passed.”
“And what of it?” Haizaki snapped, kicking a small rock with the toe of his boot. “You done?”
“I’m done,” he hesitated as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m really sorry, Haizaki-kun.”
“Oh, fuck you…”
“See you on the court.”
He wanted to hurl his phone under the wheels of the arriving train.
He took the long way home, dribbling a battered basketball off the road, and the rhythmic thumping helped him zone out. He didn’t want to think, but images from the past rose before his eyes on their own. Nijimura yelling at practice that he’s too slow—his shout rings like a bell in a head emptied out by adrenaline. Nijimura punching his shoulder with a clenched fist—jokingly, kinda, except he’s not holding back. Nijimura dragging him out of the arcade, forcing him to show up for the game—and he hisses, resists, and fights it, but deep down already knows: he’s lost.
When he got home, Haizaki almost vengefully turned on Street Fighter and spent the entire night playing, trying not to break the joystick out of anger. Chun-Li’s qipao animation was a small distraction—from the helpless rage, the vague grief, and the feeling that everything had truly gone to hell now. At gray dawn, he switched Street Fighter for Mortal Kombat, and it was right then, under the furious “Finish him!” blaring from the speakers, that someone knocked on the door.
Haizaki stepped out of his room, yawning mid-stride, and immediately tripped over a biology textbook. He slipped on the smooth cover and went flying headfirst, flailing to grab onto something—anything—but found no grip. As he opened the door, he was groaning from the pain, palm pressed to a gash on his forehead. Crimson spilled into his eyes—there was, somehow, way more blood than expected—and maybe that’s why it took him a second to believe what he was seeing. Like the image got stuck on his retina and just wouldn’t register in his brain.
“Got into a fight?” Nijimura caught him by the wrist and almost gently moved his hand aside, trying to get a better look at the cut through the blood streaks. “Or was it a bad training session?”
“I fell,” Haizaki muttered, then laughed, suddenly remembering how he used to say the same thing about a black eye from a fight, a scraped rib, or a limp. “Slipped and hit my head on the nightstand.”
“Let’s clean that up,” Nijimura said, still holding his wrist as he walked into the house without asking. Haizaki had no choice but to follow. “Where’s your first-aid kit?”
The image reached his brain—and his brain, unfortunately, processed it.
“Nijimura?!”
His head hurt so much from the fall that even his own scream echoed in pain. His vision darkened, and he blacked out before he could even take three steps from the door.
*
Death changes people. Haizaki was absolutely sure of that and wasn’t about to change his mind. Death changes people—and the living, by and large, are shit. He didn’t want to return to basketball, dreaming of going to PAX someday instead, and maybe one day winning a League of Legends tournament. Or at least landing another Q in Street Fighter.
Nijimura leaned over him, gently dabbed around the edges of the cut with cotton, and set it aside. Then he pulled out a fresh one from the pack—one not yet soaked in blood, which was already starting to dry, even on his chin. A sharp smell of alcohol hit his nose.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Haizaki groaned, opening his eyes only to shut them again. “You were stabbed in Compton, beaten in South Central, and then died of tetanus.”
“In that exact order?” Nijimura remained serene. The wound stung. Staring into the darkness under his own eyelids, Haizaki thought about postmortem changes and tried to recall what he’d seen when he opened the door. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Nijimura’s face—the morning light had hit his eyes too harshly after the dim hallway. But his hands—those had been ice-cold.
After applying the bandage, Nijimura leaned back and stood up, rising easily to his feet. Haizaki took the offered hand, pulled himself up—and only then looked him in the face.
The face was grayish-green.
“You look like shit.”
“So do you. Anyway, about the death thing…” Nothing had changed since Nijimura’s last visit, so he found the tea on the shelf without hesitation, then clicked on the electric kettle and stood still, turned away. “I got hit by a car. Who told you all that crap?”
“They say all kinds of things,” Haizaki muttered, leaning both hands on the counter. “Though I don’t buy that you’d get mixed up with gangs. Or the mafia. Or dealers. Or…”
“Shut up,” Nijimura said gently. “I already know what you want to ask.”
“Then answer.”
Not much had changed since middle school—at least that’s what Haizaki noticed: the stiff, almost military-straight posture, broad shoulders, and the same familiar tilt of the head. Only the hair had grown out longer than he remembered, smooth strands now brushing the base of his neck. And his suit? Caked in dirt from head to toe.
“My answer: I have no idea why I’m alive.”
Silence hung in the air. The kettle hissed, releasing a plume of steam. Gritting his teeth, Haizaki took a couple of steps forward and grabbed Nijimura’s hand. Nijimura relaxed his grip in surprise, and a spoon clattered to the floor.
The hand was normal. Almost the same as always. Greenish and very cold, but completely normal. Definitely not rotting, at least.
If you follow the order of postmortem changes, I should’ve started decomposing by now,” Nijimura said softly. He didn’t pull his hand away, letting Haizaki examine it. Trying not to think too much about what he was doing, Haizaki raised his fingers to his face and sniffed. There was a faint smell of street dust.
Haizaki let go of the hand and grabbed him by the shoulders, turning him around, then ran a palm across his face. Soft, icy skin. His eyes had faded into such a light gray that the iris around the dark pupil was barely visible—it looked truly eerie. Nijimura stared at him thoughtfully, letting him do whatever he wanted.
His head spun—either from sensory overload or just sheer fear.
“Okay, okay,” Nijimura grinned, grabbed his shoulders with firm hands, and gave him a shake, forcing him to snap out of it. “Let’s not faint on me… damn it, Haizaki!”
“Sorry,” he muttered, swaying and grabbing onto him so he wouldn’t fall. “Too many corpses in one morning.”
Nijimura frowned, listening. Then he burst out laughing when he heard the Mortal Kombat soundtrack drifting down from the room upstairs.
*
“We came back to sell the house,” Nijimura said, turning down the second joystick but watching the game with interest. “Me and Mom. Didn’t call anyone—I’d hate to do goodbyes again.”
“You’re such a dick,” Haizaki shot back honestly, finishing off Scorpion with an especially angry combo to get rid of the sharp urge to punch his ex-captain in the jaw. Noon slammed through the open windows, and in the harsh sunlight they both looked unnatural—one gray from exhaustion and sleepless nights, the other…
Haizaki didn’t want to think about postmortem stuff again.
“Hmph,” Nijimura didn’t react to the insult but clearly caught something deeper in his voice, making Haizaki grit his teeth, cursing his own loose tongue. “Really? What would you do, Haizaki?”
“I’d find you,“ with every word he felt more like sewing his mouth shut, “if I ever made it to L.A. Damn captain.“
“Calm down.“ Nijimura raised open hands, his sleeves too long for him catching on his thumbs. “You gonna keep listening, or are we diving into some sappy middle school memories?“
Haizaki shrugged it off and settled in, clutching the joystick to utterly demolish Raiden the next round.
“Go on.”
Nijimura died—and he noted this with barely concealed glee—unbelievably stupid. A nighttime highway and a drunk driver somewhere in Roppongi—and no, Haizaki didn’t want to know how he ended up in Roppongi at night, because that would only give too many reasons for bad jokes. And in response to bad jokes, the former captain had always known how to crack his knuckles in a way that made words get stuck in your throat all on their own.
“How are you gonna get home now?”
“You've gotta be kidding me.“ Nijimura flipped onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. “I don’t even have digestion or breathing, let alone papers. No idea who’s gonna tear me apart first—doctors, conspiracy nuts, or religious freaks.
Haizaki paused the game and set the joystick aside, turning to face him.
“You expect me to hide you here forever?”
“Nah,” Nijimura squinted, resting his chin in his hands, staring straight at Haizaki, ignoring the deliberately rough tone. “We have to figure out how to send me back.”
“So why the hell didn’t you go to Akashi with this?“ muttered Haizaki, stretching and trying to loosen up his stiff shoulders. “He was stuck on you all through middle school, and I was just...“
“And you were just running from me,” Nijimura answered lazily, tilting his head to the side, “and you’re still trying to run away.” Haizaki’s neck cracked loudly in the silence. “It’s simple. He’s the first one who’ll turn me into a lab rat. Greater good, you know.”
“Freak,“ he turned away but didn’t pick up the joystick, just stayed sitting with his hands folded on his knees, “and you’re a freak too. You two were perfect for each other.“
What saved him from the pen flying at his head wasn’t even reflexes—it was just that he knew his ex-captain way too well.
“Maybe,” Nijimura said calmly, lying back and thinking, “but that’s why I can’t go to him.”
“Or maybe,“ Haizaki snapped his fingers in the air, then licked the tip of his thumb out of habit, riding high on the thrill of a sudden genius thought, “you’ve just got some unfinished business?“
“You’ve watched too many horror movies.“
“Jump out of a plane, get a tattoo, plant a tree, win the Winter Cup,“ he glanced over his shoulder, unsure, “to fuck a girl?“
“The Cup’s out; the tattoo’s impossible. The tattoo artist would’ve to be completely wasted—otherwise, they’ll notice the whole no-blood situation.“
“Plant a tree.”
“Been there. Remember second grade—”
“Spare me. Parachute?”
“Done,” he frowned. “Don’t ask.”
“Hm. Girls?”
Despite no circulation and a clear greenish tint to his skin, Nijimura managed to blush. Or it just seemed that way from how embarrassed he looked.
“There!” Haizaki triumphantly raised his hand. “We’ll just get you laid, and boom—transcendence.”
“Haizaki, you’re an idiot.” Nijimura rubbed his forehead. “Corpses don’t have heartbeats.”
“So?”
“No heartbeat means no blood flow. No blood flow means no oxygen to the organs. And definitely no blood rushing anywhere... down there. Got it?”
Haizaki thought hard. Then, after a few seconds, he looked Nijimura dead in the eye and gave him the most obnoxious, shit-eating grin he could manage. Because pushing buttons was fun. And because Nijimura had always taken the bait.
“You’re telling me you can’t get hard?”
With a groan, Nijimura dropped his head onto his folded arms.
*
The process of testing boundaries via a game of Never Have I Ever was so full of nervous excitement that Haizaki had to keep reminding himself: corpses couldn’t catch STDs. Or get addicted to heroin.
“No,“ Nijimura crossed out five items on the list with one heavy stroke and shot Haizaki a heavy look. “These aren't my unfinished business.“
“Why not?“
“Because to finish something, you’ve got to start it first.“
“Buzzkill,“ Haizaki tossed a rubber ball overhead, catching it lazily in his open palm, completely unfazed by the sarcasm in Nijimura’s tone. “What about traveling?“
“What, after emigrating at fifteen and living without papers? What do I look like, the Phantom Stranger?“
“Who?“ Haizaki started to push up on his elbows, mouth already open, but Nijimura waved him off, eyes still on the list.
A solid chunk of the options were about basketball—maybe ten of them—because Haizaki couldn’t think of anything more likely to drag Nijimura back from the grave than that. If anything could pull the old captain out of his coffin, it was the game. He used to be an insufferable dick about it—and maybe that’s why they were the best.
And even though Haizaki had heard from others that he’d quit in L.A., deep down he knew: Saturday streetball wasn’t the same as a real match, a real team, and a captain’s armband. No matter how much Nijimura told himself to bury the past, the guy he used to be had to miss it—miss it so bad it made his teeth ache.
Nijimura rolled over a worn-out ball from the corner and began spinning it slowly in one hand. Then, ignoring the previous question completely, he asked:
“You still play?“
“What?“ Haizaki jumped, clutching the controller so tight it cracked faintly in his hands. “No. Why?“
“Why not?“
Haizaki lost the round and sighed, leaning back with his arms stretched out. A sharp feeling from the past surfaced—like he was about to get smacked for real. The captain rarely bothered to hold back when it came to persuasion.
And he could be very convincing.
“I lost to Ryouta.“
He remembered that Nijimura knew how to listen, understood with just a glance, and could read his players by their eyes. There was no need to explain what that meant, even if he had disappeared for a couple of years, wasn’t his captain anymore, and had recently died altogether. He stood silently behind Haizaki as if carefully weighing his words. Then suddenly, he knelt down, reached out, and gave his shoulder a reassuring pat.
“You’ll be fine,“ he said plainly. Then squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll get you back on the court.“
Haizaki howled, jerking around to face him, eyes blazing with a mix of anger, hope, and confusion.
“Are you out of your mind?! I quit! I burned my sneakers!“
“Because you're a drama queen,“ Nijimura shot back, looking up at him, deadpan. “You’ve always needed your little theatrics. But it’s okay. I’ll fix it.“
It sounded like a threat.
It was a threat.
Haizaki turned back around and snatched up the controller, bristling.
“Drop the fuck dead.“
“I did,“ Nijimura grinned, “and you’re still a damn good player. Talent doesn't go away.“
“It totally does.“
“Shut up and get dressed. We'll start small.“
Haizaki never quite found it in himself to throw out his Fukuda Sogo uniform. He hadn’t even tucked it away properly—it still sat in the drawer, faintly smelling of laundry detergent.
Changing with his back to Nijimura, he yanked off his shirt in one swift motion and bent forward briefly, stretching out his back. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Nijimura still watching him with a kind of detached curiosity.
Maybe he was just assessing the physical condition of his former player.
He couldn’t stop the memories. On the court, Nijimura used to list off his strengths like a checklist: reflexes, reaction time. Long legs, flexible back. Perfect small forward material.
Granted, he used to add—usually with an eye-roll—that sometimes he wanted to knock some sense, principles, and basic morals into Haizaki the way you’d set a broken bone. But since it was too late to fix his attitude, he’d just train him as an athlete.
Meaning: push him until he blacked out from exhaustion.
Haizaki hated those moments. And yet… he couldn’t deny they made him strong. Maybe even kept him from turning into what he was now.
“Can’t believe you actually came back from the dead just because I quit basketball,“ Haizaki muttered, frowning as Nijimura rose to his feet effortlessly, flipping the ball on his palm with a smirk.
“It’s called responsibility for your own, Haizaki,“ he said, lobbing the ball straight into his hands with pinpoint aim. “You probably wouldn’t recognize it if it punched you in the face. But don’t worry, I’ve got time to beat it into your thick skull.“
Haizaki reflexively passed the ball back, and Nijimura caught it, laughing.
“After all,“ he added, “I’ve got all the time in the world now.“
*
Despite Nijimura’s impatience, they had to wait until evening, because, under the midday sun, he would definitely attract too many glances from passersby on the street.
“I swear, next time I’m putting makeup on you,” Haizaki muttered as he walked ahead, hands shoved deep into his pockets, hunched over. Nijimura walked beside him—calm, upright, barely bothering to hide his face. “Just to be sure.”
“Not a bad idea.” Nijimura couldn’t care less about the sarcasm—especially not at something that blatant. “I’m dead, after all. Don’t sweat, don’t overheat. Still a stunner, though.”
Haizaki almost tripped and cursed through clenched teeth—and narrowly dodged a light jab to the ribs for it. Scowling, he kicked a piece of trash off the sidewalk and hunched deeper.
“I’ll do it, yeah. If there’s a next time,” he finished the thought, casting a side glance at Nijimura. But he remained as serene as ever.
“When was the last time you trained?”
“A week… a couple weeks ago.”
“You’re digging your own grave.” Nijimura shook his head. “You’re a small forward, Haizaki. Speed is your thing. And not the speed of stringing combos in game rounds.”
“Fine motor skills,” Haizaki grumbled in reply—though Nijimura doesn't seem to be listening anymore. The court was already in sight, and he grinned, picked up his pace, pulling off his windbreaker on the go.
“Winner gets the first serve, Haizaki.”
He had no plans to compete. Winning was the last thing on his mind. More than anything, he wanted to turn around and get the hell away from this street, away from the court lit only by dim streetlights behind the fence, away from Nijimura’s enthusiasm, away from the familiar habit of the former captain grabbing him by the sleeve or the collar and dragging him forward—always further, always longer.
Muttering another curse, he nearly jogged to catch up but still didn’t make it in time. Nijimura was already laughing, tossing his jacket onto the court and rolling his shoulders.
“Give it to me.”
Haizaki would rather give up, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to admit it out loud. Smirking, he made the first move toward the basket and claimed his two points with a simple dunk. When he turned back, he saw Nijimura hadn’t even flinched—he just stood at the edge of the court, smiling as he watched.
“You move well. Let’s go again.”
For about twenty minutes, the court blurred into dull streaks of gray, yellow, and white, because there was no time to really look or think about what was next. Nijimura set a pace so hard that Haizaki was wheezing just trying to get the ball and kept losing it on the simplest drives. Meanwhile, Nijimura was barely out of breath—technically, this damn corpse didn’t breathe at all—and kept whispering right in his ear, cutting off his attack again and again:
“Slacker.”
Even when Haizaki finally nearly matched his speed—the speed that once seemed impossible during practice—Nijimura kept pushing from behind:
“Faster! Faster! Faster!”
Rage swallowed him whole just two steps from the basket when a single jump wasn’t enough to even the score. He stopped, legs trembling, standing just outside the three-point line, then turned and flung the ball with all his strength. It slammed into the fence with a loud clang.
“You’re such an asshole, you damn captain,” Haizaki said honestly, stepping forward, but Nijimura didn’t move. “I want to punch you so bad.”
His mind was empty. No whistles, no yelling—just the pounding of his own pulse and the rasp of his breathing. No thoughts—only exhaustion closing in, adrenaline ringing in his ears, raw, twitchy energy making his knuckles itch. He wanted, needed, to drive them into those sharp, goddamn beautiful cheekbones—to wipe that calm, patient smile off his face.
Nijimura stood still, arms down, not moving an inch.
Haizaki stepped forward. Then again. Nijimura smirked, tilting his head back—an unbearably smug, infuriatingly confident motion. Haizaki could barely breathe from the fury. Thinking was out of the question.
Grabbing a handful of grown-out hair turned out to be painfully easy. They were the same height now. And Nijimura kissed like he did everything—maddeningly demanding, fingers gripping the back of his head, immediately seizing control.
His lips were ice cold.
Haizaki recoiled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, barely stopping himself from spitting on the ground. Nausea hit like a wave, and he doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He refused to look at Nijimura—who stood there for a few more seconds, hand still outstretched—then quietly lowered his arm and turned away, lips pressed tight, eyes on the ground.
*
Sleep came badly—waking up again and again, Haizaki heard quiet footsteps, rustling, the wind hitting closed windows, and sometimes—an off-key singing or the splash of water. It wasn’t even nightmares—just a smoky haze that melted his brain. On the fourth or fifth awakening during the night, he jerked upright, bare feet hitting the cold floor, and shook his head. As he stood up, he almost tripped over the ball lying at his feet.
He walked down the hall, habitually dribbling the ball on the floor. The sound announced his arrival even before he entered the room and squinted against the sudden light, so Nijimura didn’t even turn around. He just vaguely waved a hand and quickly closed some open Facebook tabs, returning to some articles about—Haizaki glanced briefly at the monitor as he passed by—theories about the afterlife.
Apparently, he was trying to figure out his chances of triggering a zombie apocalypse. The noise of the coffee machine and the clatter of keys hit his brain just like the light did before, and he grimaced, leaning heavily on the tabletop with his palms. His face was burning, his body refusing to obey as if every joint was a spring-loaded doll’s hinge.
Nijimura opened a map, bringing up the locations of nearby temples, and that’s when he finally couldn’t hold back—he let out a hoarse, cracked laugh, clutching a cup trembling from lack of sleep.
A dead guy at a temple—that would be funny.
Nijimura shot a brief puzzled glance at him over his shoulder, then returned to his reading—obviously, he didn’t need sleep at all. Haizaki could drown in the thick, tense silence hanging there—fragile and heavy.
“Do you really want to go?”
The first words barely came out, but Nijimura turned around and rubbed his eyes with his palm—more out of habit, signaling that by four a.m. he should want nothing more than to sleep and dream.
“No,” he cut him off, “that’s stupid. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Watching the ball bounce back to his feet after a light throw against the wall, Haizaki shrugged briefly, taking another sip.
“Had a… dumb dream.”
Nijimura, of course, didn’t offer lullabies or sleeping pills, but almost dragged him outside, where it was quiet and dark at the start of the gray dawn, and pulled the too-long sleeves of his T-shirt down.
“To twenty points,” he declared.
The basket above their heads flickered dimly in the streetlight. At first, Haizaki played at half speed, even though it was clear that Nijimura was going easy on him—but his body barely wanted to move in the chilly night air. But later, he found his rhythm and by the end of the game almost caught up, making the loss feel less humiliating.
“Not bad,” Nijimura grinned, outplaying him with a slick move before lightly jumping up to score the final three-pointer, “but you’ve still gotta work on your speed.”
“You’re pissing me off,” Haizaki grumbled, catching a pass and slowly shifting the ball from hand to hand. “Is that to make me sleep better or what?”
“You’ll see,” he kept smiling—soft and confident—“you’ll flack out like drugged.”
“What?!”
“Forget it,” Nijimura suddenly laughed and held out his hands, silently asking for a pass, but Haizaki hesitated, looking at his face. Painted in the faint streetlight, almost happy, it didn’t seem scary at all. Come to think of it, it never had been.
“Listen,” he squeezed his fingers so hard the ball almost slipped free, and Haizaki cursed, gripping it tighter, “I gotta say something.” Nijimura raised his eyebrows and straightened up. Seconds of agonizing silence pressed even harder than before. “I’m sorry.” He passed the ball, suddenly remembering that they’d practiced a similar setup once back in middle school, learning to play under pressure.
Nijimura was silent; the ball bounced against his chest to the damp court, then ricocheted off the fence and rolled to the edge.
“I’m sorry,” Haizaki repeated, hoping for nothing in particular and just trying to cope with the dull anger at himself, “sorry that you…”
“Shut up,” Nijimura advised without malice, sighing and fumbling in his pocket for a flashlight because the ball had rolled off into the darkness by the road. “You’re really bad at talking.”
And he turned away, not even looking as Haizaki tried to fight back a smile. A stupid smile—so wide it made his jaw ache.
*
Turns out hiding his skin tone wasn’t all that hard—although at first, Haizaki made him look less like a normal person and more like a very much alive, but a drag queen. Nijimura grimly glanced at his reflection and didn’t even say anything—just punched him in the shoulder with a closed fist and went off to wash his face.
It went better the second time.
“Don’t overdo it this time,” he grumbled, leaning his elbows on his knees while Haizaki, biting his lip in concentration, covered his face layer by layer with some sticky flesh-colored gunk. “Otherwise, we’re heading to Roppongi together.”
“Everyone knows you there anyway now,” Haizaki snapped back, trying to get more comfortable on his knees so his legs wouldn’t go numb. At the pointed, threatening look, he just gave a crooked grin. “I’m talking about the news; don’t get snappy. You got hit there, remember?”
Nijimura flinched, then tried to smile.
“Not a big story. Some drunk hit a teenager. Nothing worth talking about.”
Haizaki barely caught the reply, too busy trying to even out the tone on his chin and cheeks, and hopelessly thinking that now his skin looked more like corpse wax than before. To mask the actual death was fucking hard. Those online tutorials didn’t help much.
“You should’ve gone with a full-on Crow look,” he said offhandedly.
“We can wait until October—fine by me,” Nijimura replied so friendly it was obviously mocking, “by then, no one will be surprised anymore.”
“You’re lowballing yourself,” Haizaki said, silently pulling up his shirt.
“What..?” Nijimura frowned, instinctively grabbing Haizaki’s wrists, who scowled in irritation, nearly hissing through his teeth.
“The neck,” Haizaki said, his knuckle briefly sliding under Adam's apple, “or are we keeping it?”
Without a word, Nijimura let himself be undressed, twisting his grown-out strands around his hand and lifting his head, trying not to get in the way. Haizaki rubbed the cream quickly from chin to collarbones, then carefully blended the skin tone with his fingertips. Gentle, but still rushed. The embarrassment showed in every move—it hung in the air along with the faint scent of dust.
“That’ll do,” he said grimly at last, pressing his fingers to his chin and forcing his head down. “At least we won’t end up in jail.”
Haizaki scrutinized his handiwork carefully, not really thinking about how the skin remained as cold as ever. Later, stepping out into the summer midday, he did his best to keep his mind off of it—forcing himself not to keep glancing at the familiar face, now damn near alive. The disguise wasn’t perfect, but it erased all the differences from the Nijimura he remembered.
Nijimura glanced at him and grinned, grabbing his forearm with a firm grip.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I think there’s someone you need to talk to.”
A few blocks. Loud streets. Somewhere along the way, that grip slipped down to his wrist, fingers circling like a bracelet. And in the rush of walking, the coldness of his skin started to feel like a blessing instead of a horror movie prop. Haizaki was out of breath, muttering curses. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t keep up—it was getting harder to squeeze the air into his lungs.
The neighborhood they ended up in was totally unfamiliar.
“Now listen,” Nijimura turned him by the shoulders and looked him in the face—so gently that if you didn’t know him, you might not notice the threat behind it. “I promised I’d get you back to basketball—and I will. If I’m still alive after that, we’ll try something else. Girls. Skydiving. Whatever’s on your list. But right now, this is more important.”
“What the hell—” Haizaki started to fold his arms, but Nijimura wasn’t listening anymore. He shoved him between the shoulder blades. “Wait, goddammit!”
“Wait for what?”
“Are you just gonna disappear if this works?”
“Obviously.” He frowned, and now there was visible nervousness. “Not sure what’ll happen to the body…”
Haizaki could barely hear over his own heartbeat. And Nijimura’s heart had stopped long ago.
“You’ll die,” he said flatly, turning fully toward him, brows drawn. “You’ll really die.”
“Obviously,” Nijimura repeated.
Haizaki fidgeted, shifted his weight, and rubbed his forehead, totally at a loss—it was all happening too fast, and maybe that was the point. Nijimura just looked at him silently, waiting. Ready to shove him toward the unfamiliar front door if he hesitated—Haizaki could guess whose house it was, just like he’d guessed that the temple on the map last night was only a decoy. That’s how Nijimura had always been. Death hadn’t changed him at all.
“I don’t want this,” he said, shaking his head, jaw tight. “This is forever, you get that?”
Nijimura held his gaze for a moment, then stepped in close, placing a hand at the base of Haizaki’s neck—same as on the court at night, same as he used to do before throwing a punch. The cold of his lips didn’t scare Haizaki now. If anything, he gripped his shoulders hard under the shirt, fingers digging in. No bruises would form, of course, but it still hurt. He could tell.
“It’ll be okay,” Nijimura murmured, and Haizaki loosened his grip, watching his half-smile take shape. The lips were pale and parted. His breath was probably just a reflex, but for a moment longer, Haizaki could feel it on his face.
“Now go.” Nijimura stepped back and suddenly gently pushed him on the shoulders. “I have to go home.”
“Screw you,” Haizaki snapped, turning on his heel and walking away without looking back, let alone saying goodbye.
Ishida answered the knock—predictably confused. As for Haizaki, he didn’t even feel surprised anymore. He should’ve guessed from the moment Nijimura mentioned “coming back to basketball” that this would end with a handoff—from former captain to current.
When the long, unpleasant conversation finally ended, and he stepped out again into the blinding daylight, the stench of asphalt and dust, the street was empty.