Chapter Text
It starts with the scratching.
It starts with bits of grimy flesh scraped underneath chipped fingernails, leaving patches of dried, carmine blood in their wake. Fingertips dig ruts into skin. Kei is always scratching—digging. He scratches all over, no one concentrated place scoured with the idle obsession. It is all over and it is constant. Tadashi watches with trepidation.
“It’s just irritation from sweat,” Kei tells him. “That’s all.”
But it does not convince Tadashi.
They do nothing but sweat. It shines from peeling, sunburnt skin, dampens their clothing, slicks their foreheads and lower backs with salt. It rolls mercilessly into their squinting eyes and blurs the ground underfoot. Sweat is the blanket with which they sleep. It is a constant, supplied generously by the perpetual heat and coaxed unto them from the blaze of the sun overhead. Sweat is comforting in its sheer constancy. It is a welcomed third party, never missed simply because it never leaves. But never has it made Kei scratch like this.
Kei leans against the fuselage of a fallen plane, half-buried under years of dirt and sand, raking his fingernails up and down the great length of his arm. He does this absently as he speaks.
“I wonder if the engine is still inside.”
“Could we get in there to see?” asks Tadashi.
“The doors are buried.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think people were trapped in here after it went down?” asks Kei, in such a way as to propel his own thoughts rather than to invite Tadashi’s opinion. Tadashi is used to this. Kei lives locked inside his own head and Tadashi only gets in when he throws his entire body weight against the door. Kei slides his hand over the gritty material of the plane and goes on, “It had to be relatively recent—this is aluminum. Not terribly recent, with any luck. Two hundred, three hundred people landed, stranded out here in the badlands.” He pauses. “I can’t imagine many of them made it far.”
Tadashi kicks at the ground. “I don’t really want to think about that, seeing as we’re out here.”
Kei hums agreeably. He scratches at his collarbone and Tadashi counts the red streaks he leaves on his skin until the numbers no longer sound like words. One, two, three, four; four, three, two, one; one, two, three, four. The same order each time, the same content, the same pattern until nothing is the same at all. The same heat, the same sweat, the same sticky sleep, the same scorched skin and endless wandering. The same search for green; for blue. Until nothing is the same at all.
____________
They find a staycamp come nightfall, the six-point star of torches inviting in its familiarity. Tadashi’s stomach rumbles. A charred, savory smell wafts from the bonfire at the camp’s center. He walks close to Kei through the grounds as if they’re bound. They are mere spectators to the show the main fire puts on: yellow sparks dance through the purple sky, flames of red and orange licking at their feet, framed in twirling ribbons of inky smoke. Tadashi takes a deep breath in through his nose. His mouth waters.
The heat of the day lingers in the night. It is a ridiculous phenomenon, a deception that the sun performs as it slides below the horizon. Tadashi won’t ever get used to it. The heat is perpetual. It is ever-present and inescapable. In the night, Kei scolds him when he lies too close.
“It’s too hot for that.”
“Kei,” he tries.
“C’mon, move.”
Tadashi’s protest is lost in the horrid sound of scratching. He shuffles to his knees and tugs his sheet further from Kei’s, and each inch has the effect of a mile. He pulls their bag of supplies closer to act as a pillow, the plastic water bottles within it crinkling against one another. Red dirt sticks to the slicked skin of his legs. They would be cooler just sleeping on the ground rather than fabric, no matter how thin it might be, but Kei can’t be convinced.
“We aren’t animals,” he says.
But Tadashi’s not sure anymore. He waits for something he can’t control; a neglected dog forgotten in the summer sun, padding around outside the back door to be let in. Tadashi takes a long drink from his thermos as he contemplates this. With his thumbnail, he scratches off a little more of the unfamiliar logo on the plastic. He wonders how it looked when it was brand new, some odd years before Tadashi found it sticking up from the ground like a gravestone. It came from a department store, maybe, or was given as a gift from an insurance company to its workers for meeting proper deadlines. Tadashi nearly grins at the thought; at how far away the world and its waning inhabitants have shifted from such things. Tadashi would kill to wake up to an alarm again. He would kill to commute hours in cars and on trains, through crowds and booming thunderstorms. He would sacrifice everything he knows to have even a mere scrap of normality back.
He shakes his head to derail his useless train of thought, pressing the heels of his calloused palms into his eyes until he sees sparks. When he opens them, they lock onto something on the horizon. A black, inky shadow lumbers through the distant dark. Tadashi follows it with wide eyes, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He wants to reach to Kei, to ask if he sees it, to say something, anything, but his words catch in his dry throat. When Tadashi squints, it’s gone—faded into the dark palette of sky beyond the stretches of faint light.
He flinches as Kei suddenly shifts on the ground next to him. He needs to sleep. Kei reaches up and rakes his nails over the back of his neck. Tadashi turns away and lies down, the earth firm and warm beneath him. He can’t bear the sound.
Scratch, scratch, sc—ratch.
They aren’t animals. Even if sometimes it really, really feels like it.
____________
“Stop. You have to stop.”
When Kei ignores him, Tadashi swats his hand away. Quick drops of crimson trail down Kei’s shin and collect on the ground in tiny, morbid pools. Lowering his head, Kei looks at Tadashi through his eyelashes.
“It itches,” is all he says, low and robotic like the word has been pulled from him without his permission. His hand returns to his knee to scratch again but his fingers just slide over the splotchy skin there, slick with blood. Tadashi catches his wrist. In his grip, Kei’s hand twitches.
“But why, Kei?” he asks desperately. “Why does it itch?”
“Don’t know.”
“What happened to irritation from sweat?”
“I lied, okay?”
“To me?”
Kei levels him with a look. His free hand comes up to scratch his collarbone, so Tadashi grabs it and pins both Kei’s wrists together. Kei doesn’t fight him. He just stares at him with wide, amber eyes. He looks so young, Tadashi thinks. His lips turn up in a mirthless grin when the realization slams into him that they are young—they’d just forgotten somewhere along the way. The sun and the heat and the badlands sapped the youth straight of them, leaving them just souls and skeletons. Tadashi puffs out a labored breath. Useless shade from the tree they sit beneath casts weakly over them—the only one for miles. Its dry, wispy branches stab at the sky, more snapping and falling to the ground now and then. They fall like voyeurs for a closer look at the spectacle below: Kei bleeds. Tadashi eyes a smear of red on the back of his own hand from when he grabbed Kei. Kei bleeds so dark but so pigmented, the only dash of color in an otherwise achromatic panorama.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he answers.
Spikes of frustration jab at Tadashi’s chest. As he replies, he tightens his grip on Kei’s wrists, fingernails clutching at Kei’s hot skin to emphasize his plea.
“But you have to be honest with—”
Tadashi stops short when Kei breathes a sudden, jagged sigh. He goes still as stone. Kei’s eyelids flutter shut beneath dirty glass lenses. Experimentally, Tadashi clutches again. A sharp intake of breath results in another deep, pleased sigh. A pulse of white hot heat sweeps low in Tadashi’s abdomen; a different, comfortable kind of heat, as if the warmth on his skin seeps right through to cradle his insides in its cupped palms; a warmth he’s learned to ignore as of late. But it’s harder like this—Kei’s wrists pinned together in his tight grip, his breathing hard and uneven, so uncharacteristically responsive.
Tears prick Tadashi’s eyes. He’s eternally grateful that Kei has closed his.
Kei’s hands dip through the air when Tadashi lets go of him. Kei lowers his head. Tadashi wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead with his thumb, gently, sweetly, deflating slightly when Kei doesn’t stir. He counts down from three, his thoughts swirling feverishly.
He rests his fingertips at the top of Kei’s forearm, right below where the sleeve of his shirt falls. Kei doesn’t shake him off. Tadashi goes blank. Mindlessly, he scrapes his fingernails down the smooth skin and Kei lifts his arm into the touch, increasing the pressure of Tadashi’s fingertips against him. Kei buries his face into the crook of his opposite elbow and bites at the skin there in the way Tadashi remembers he likes to stifle himself—and the memory hurts, it stings so bad, a lightning strike through his chest. Blood bangs in Tadashi’s ears. He hardly catches when Kei says his name, low, gruff, right into his own skin. Ferocious flames lick Tadashi’s insides and his nails follow Kei’s unspoken order, raking harshly down the remaining length of his forearm. Kei shakes. Shudders rip up through his spine, body quivering under Tadashi’s touch, so strange and violent that Tadashi relents. He rests his fingertips lightly on Kei’s wrist, just above the raised blue veins that reside there. Kei looks up. His wide eyes gleam.
“Dashi, more.”
Tadashi shakes his head, coming back to himself.
“You can scratch more,” Kei pleads. “It’s better when it’s you.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You did.”
An alien desperation drips from Kei’s voice, sticky and sweet in Tadashi’s ears. They both eye the streaks of scarlet Tadashi’s careless venture has left down the length of Kei’s arm. Tadashi wants to cry, no, he does cry, salty tears sliding through the dirt on his cheeks. Embarrassed, he covers his face with his hands. Kei scratches again. By now, Tadashi recognizes the sickening sound as well as he does his own voice. He imagines a spade diving into clotted soil, sandpaper against roughly-cut timber, cat claws ripping through silken cloth. Anything but the self-inflicted mangling of what was once lovely alabaster skin.
“But I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t—I can’t contribute to it.”
Kei blinks. “To what?”
Tadashi meets his gaze, spits the word like it’s toxic.
“The scratching.”
Silence stretches between them. Branch after branch snaps from the tree and land around them with impressive thuds. Unnatural, thinks Tadashi, for dried bark to fall so heavily. He looks away as Kei retraces the former path of Tadashi’s fingernails with his own. Tadashi shifts onto his knees and crawls closer. Kei flinches when Tadashi rests his hands on his thighs and presses until Kei’s legs lie flat, spread just enough so he can sit between them. The wariness in Kei’s stare hurts more than any burn, any cut, any words slung from a sharp tongue.
But he stops scratching.
Inch by inch, Tadashi slides his palm up Kei’s thigh. Kei hesitantly lets his arms fall to his sides. A single drop of sweat drips from the tip of Tadashi’s nose. He takes a second to eye the resulting pinprick it darkens on the dirt before his gaze returns to watch his own hand in wonder. Kei sucks in a breath and wraps his fingers around Tadashi’s wrist.
“What’s gotten into you?” he rebukes firmly.
Tadashi braces himself for the shove off, for the recoil, for the reprimands. He will pretend to shrug them off but will instead think of them long into the night. He will think of them for days to come. He will think of them as they walk from camp to camp, tired eyes regarding the protrusions of Kei’s shoulder-blades through thin, worn fabric. Kei’s rejections linger about Tadashi like the heat—perpetually, invasively, resolutely.
The fingers at the inside of Tadashi’s wrist stay there, unmoving, as if Kei takes his pulse. Tadashi holds his breath. He counts the seconds.
Seemingly satisfied, Kei finally wraps his fingers fully around Tadashi’s wrist, a loose yet insistent grip that puts Tadashi’s head in a pleasant spin. Even more so when Kei increases the pressure of Tadashi’s palm on himself. Kei’s unexpected encouragement has Tadashi panting in desperation. Any single thing he could say would break the moment—would shatter it, sending jagged, fragile pieces spinning dangerously through the air they heave in, out, in again. He groans, low and guttural, staring up at Kei; his mouth has gone slack, pink lips slick around dull white teeth, and Tadashi would give anything for the courage to lean up and kiss him. Tadashi pulls his own lips into a tight line and traces the curve of Kei’s open mouth with half-lidded copper eyes. Tadashi’s hands move to fumble with the fastenings of Kei’s pants without him realizing; a natural progression embedded in him for years. Tadashi crawls closer to get a better angle. As his hands clutch Kei’s hips for balance, Kei whimpers.
Tadashi stops cold.
It is not one of Tadashi’s kinds of whimpers—desperate and whiny and lewd. It is the kind that comes with pain.
Tadashi’s heart simultaneously drops into his stomach and catches in his throat. Tentatively, he pulls the fabric back from Kei’s skin. The quick loss of his erection dizzies him. Waves of intense nausea crash in his gut.
Across Kei’s hip is a constellation of abrasions. Skin has been torn messily away, ripped by persistent fingernails and left ghastly blotches of maroon in its wake. He has scratched himself raw. A pale bubble pokes through the sea of scars. Tadashi regards it closely, petrified and sick to his stomach. An infection—how could it not be, living in endless miles of nothing but dirt and sand as they do? And so ends their search for green; for blue. Only upon further inspection does Tadashi realize: it’s bone. He stares at Kei’s hipbone, unmarred by the protective layers of skin and muscle. Kei has torn those away until there was simply nothing left to discard.
Just bone. Beige, unburdened, protruding bone.
Tadashi turns from him and vomits. It splashes onto the shoulder strap of their supply bag and Tadashi shoves it away as he empties the contents of his stomach onto the dry dirt.
“Look what you did to yourself,” he panics, “Kei, that’s not—”
“Dashi.”
Tadashi listens for more but it doesn’t come. He loses his train of thought with the way Kei regards him, golden eyes soft and knowing. Gently, they prod him. More hot tears roll over Tadashi’s freckled cheeks and gather at the bottom of his chin. One by one, they drip onto his hands as they clench and unclench in his lap. He flinches when Kei goes on.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” he says, voice steady, “but I can’t stop.”
Tadashi warbles, “The scratching? The goddamn scratching? You hurt yourself—bad, real bad—and you can’t because I need you here and I’m so, so—”
He stops himself, all at once realizing the uselessness of verbalizing anything else. He shuts his mouth. Kei has locked himself in his head again, staring down at the ground between them, latching the deadbolt on the door. Tadashi is too scared to knock. He searches his thoughts, his logical brain, both scrambled and flipped upside down so many times that it’s getting increasingly hard to keep himself level. Kei now regards him as he thinks. Tadashi meets his eyes.
“There’s something—I don’t know—something must have happened to you out here,” he accuses.
He stares hard at the horizon of the horrid badlands that surround them. Solemnly, Kei nods.
____________
“We’ll find grass again,” Kei comments so offhandedly that Tadashi’s not sure if he speaks to him or himself. “We’ll find it and we’ll lie in it.”
“Yeah, Kei.”
“You think so too?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Kei stops walking and turns when Tadashi catches up to him.
“Why?” Kei asks.
Tadashi blinks against the falling sun. “Why what?”
“Why do you believe that, Yamaguchi?”
Tadashi can’t envision a world—ended or otherwise—in which there is nothing to strive for. He thinks the light at the end of this dingy hell of a tunnel must be the brightest he’ll ever see. Tadashi won’t care if it blinds him. The sweet juice of fresh fruit dripping over his lips, the wind whipping tall grass around his ankles, the scent of frigid dew in the midmorning—he won’t need his sight for these things. He won’t need his sight to feel Kei’s hand in his.
In front of him, Kei rucks up his t-shirt to rake his fingernails just above his navel. Patiently, he waits for Tadashi’s reply. It takes every ounce of willpower left in Tadashi not to step forward and scratch the taut, sensitive skin himself, maybe with his teeth after dropping to his knees at Kei’s feet. Tadashi overtly leers at the skin of his midriff but looks away when he remembers the grotesque wound that lies just beneath the waistline of Kei’s shorts.
“Because there’s no other option but for me to believe it,” he answers.
Kei hums thoughtfully. His shirt falls to cover him when brings his arm back to his side.
“I expected something more optimistic from you.”
“That wasn’t optimistic?”
Kei shrugs. “Not really.”
Tadashi rolls his eyes and grins. He taps his pointer and middle fingers against his temple.
“Then I’ll try to think of something more optimistic,” he promises. “Just for you.”
The shadow of a grin flits over Kei’s lips, so quickly that Tadashi nearly misses it.
“Don’t do that,” Kei disagrees.
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“But what if I want to?” asks Tadashi.
There’s a beat and then Kei steps close to him—so, so close, so overpoweringly close that Tadashi feels the heat of Kei’s skin through both of their shirts and the mere inch of space that separates them. Tadashi’s mouth parts slightly when Kei cocks his head. Kei just stares, golden eyes gleaming brilliantly like they’ve absorbed the sun itself. He searches Tadashi’s face. Tadashi wonders if he can tell his freckles from flecks of dirt.
Kei stares at his mouth when he says, “Then I guess you should.”
Tadashi wets his sunburnt lips. He brings his hand to rest on Kei’s side, just above the hem of his shorts. His skin is warm and damp, soft. The fabric of his shirt sticks to his side even when Tadashi’s hand falls back to his side.
“How bad does it hurt?” he wonders.
Kei’s own hand comes to rest on the spot where Tadashi’s was.
“How bad does what hurt?” he asks.
Tadashi gapes at him. Kei blinks, doe-eyed.
“Your hip. Your hip, Kei,” Tadashi says sternly, touching his own hip so Kei understands. “Where your skin is missing.”
“Oh. Not too bad, really.”
Tadashi’s mouth hangs open again. All that muscle, all that blood and scabbing and scarring, all those nerve endings exposed, rubbing all day and night against dry fabric. All that sweat, dirt, and god knows what further infecting it by the minute—and Kei hasn’t noticed a thing. No wonder he keeps on scratching.
____________
An elderly man at the next staycamp plays with the main fire. He moves it with his hands, swaying the flames back and forth, contorting them, snapping them like elastic. They lick his wrinkled skin with no consequences and for a second, Tadashi wonders what he’d do with persuasion like that.
They eat the food they’re provided and fill their water vessels. Standardly, every tent, canvas or makeshift, is taken. Kei rarely minds this as likes the stars—they remind him of before. They are one of the only aspects that did not change when all else did. Tadashi would mind their lack of shelter a little more if Kei would utilize the privacy. He doesn’t linger on this and leans back on his hands, finds the brightest star, and focuses on it. He knows Kei does the same.
“What kind of magic do you think each of us would have, if we would’ve gotten some?”
“We didn’t,” Kei responds instantly, “so I don’t care to think about it.”
Tadashi frowns. He swears the star they ogle flickers. Kei turns to him from where he lies on his back a few feet away and quirks an amused eyebrow.
“Magic?” he implores.
Tadashi nods. “What would you call it?”
Kei turns back to the stars.
“Not sure,” he mumbles. “Powers, maybe. Magic makes this all sound like a fairy tale.”
“You think so? I kind of like the sound of it.”
Kei looks askance at him and scratches the side of his neck with vigor.
“Then this is one shit fucking fairy tale,” he says.
He’s not sure why, but Tadashi laughs. He laughs heartily, slapping at his chest for air and listening to his voice bounce through the scorched night sky. He has no idea why. It’s not funny. But then Kei turns to him, the barest hint of a grin on his lips, and Tadashi decides that maybe it is. Maybe it has to be.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you!” calls a sourceless voice and Tadashi claps his hand over his mouth, calming himself quickly. Kei looks unimpressed as he continues to scrape at the skin stretched around his left collarbone.
“Not cute,” he mutters and Tadashi nearly loses it again.
Kei switches hands to scratch at his opposite collarbone. He clears his throat.
“I heard what power or otherwise that developed depended on what one was doing at the time.”
“Where did you hear that?” asks Tadashi.
“Some camp. Where else?”
Tadashi hums thoughtfully. He folds his legs into his chest and rests his chin atop his knee. The hushed mumbles of the others scattered nearby are oddly familiar. They are reminiscent of the dull, constant hum of crickets in the summertime. Tadashi compiles a grand list of the things he would do to hear the particular cacophony just once more. He regrets every time him and Kei ever laid awake in bed before the fall out, grumbling about the birds chirping while they attempted to go back to sleep in the mornings. He glances at Kei who still looks up at the sky. Starlight sinks into his blond hair. Tadashi lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and when Kei catches him staring, he doesn’t look away. The stars watch, bewildered as Kei reaches up and brushes something off Tadashi’s cheek. Kei grants him a small, quiet grin. He keeps his hand on his face for another moment—just a moment—yet Tadashi falls for him all over again, tumbling head over feet and praying that the dry ground won’t smash him to pieces when he lands.
He will fix Kei. He has to.
____________
Tadashi’s wide awake even when Kei falls asleep. He rolls away and rises to his feet. Paranoia seeps into him as he navigates the camp. The bonfire throws leaping shadows on the tents and tarps and he breathes deep to keep his heart from climbing up his throat. He’s relieved when he finally reaches the center.
The older man still manipulates the fire, his silhouette crouched against the angry yellow flames. Tadashi doesn’t blame him. He’s envious of what the man possesses—not the magic, the powers, the persuasion—but what he possesses, shrunk down to simply this: something to pass the time. Something to do. An act to occupy the cruel, constant monsoon of thoughts within him. Motions to busy his idle hands.
It’s with inherent caution that Tadashi inches closer. He watches the flames ripple through the night air, stringless puppets at the will of withered, masterful hands. Tadashi looks down at his own.
“It feels like cotton to me,” the old man says out of nowhere. “You were wondering, weren’t you?”
His voice sounds nothing like what Tadashi expected. It’s soft like the cotton he claims to feel as the searing flames slide over the skin of his palms. Tadashi interlaces his fingers in his lap. He stares hard at the ground.
“Yes,” he answers.
The man gives a gravelly hum. Tadashi looks up to see an easy smile on his cracked lips, his face reflecting the orange glow of the flames with which he toys.
“Ask me, son.”
Tadashi starts. “What?”
“You want to ask me something, don’t you?”
The man’s voice is so certain, so knowing and gentle that Tadashi feels that even if he didn’t have something to ask, he certainly would now.
“Does it feel nice,” Tadashi implores, “a power like that?”
The question feels intimate as it passes his lips. Tadashi’s face starts to burn.
“It’s not unpleasant,” the man replies.
“I thought,” says Tadashi as he absently digs the toe of his sneaker into the dirt, “I mean, I heard that whatever power you got is linked to what you were doing when everything happened.”
The stranger’s shoulders sag beneath an unknown weight as he considers this.
Tadashi hesitantly goes on, “What were you doing when—um, when the world—y’know?”
There’s a dull drone from the far end of the staycamp that both of them ignore.
“I was a firefighter. It was something ridiculous—a small, pitiful fire in a school classroom. A science experiment gone wrong. A one-man job, and that one man was me.”
The words ring in Tadashi’s ears, words he hasn’t heard in years: firefighter, school, classroom. They all stick to his brain like candied caramel; too sweet to enjoy and even harder to get rid of. He looks over at the man when he softly clears his throat. His subsequent laugh is mirthless and empty, a jarring contrast to his obliging grin.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he says.
Tadashi doesn’t even know where to start.
“What about people who worked in hospitals? Doctors, nurses,” Tadashi lists, his mouth working quicker than his brain, “people like that? Do you think some of them got powers, too?”
The man frees the fire and lets the flames dance of their own accord.
“Not sure how many of us there are,” he answers.
“Do you think there are people who can heal?”
The man looks him over at once, searching for any sign of any disease, any condition, any discoloration or disorder. He stays subtly watchful even when Tadashi knows he finds nothing.
“Healers, eh?” he implores, and Tadashi nods. “Could be.”
“You really think so?”
“Makes sense to me, son.”
That’s enough for Tadashi. A hopeful spark flickers to life in his chest.
“Maybe you’ll find someone who can do the same things with fire as you can,” says Tadashi.
The man stares at Tadashi for a long time before he chuckles. Tadashi grins.
“Maybe so,” the man agrees. “ And I hope you find your healer.”
“So do I.”
“Yamaguchi.”
Tadashi flinches hard at the intrusion. He turns to find Kei looming over him. The collection of flames glare from Kei’s glasses, making it look like his pupils themselves are on fire. Tadashi has to catch his breath. He climbs to his feet and then Kei’s pulling him away with a firm grip on his bicep. Their bag is slung over Kei’s shoulder—if he left it at their plot, it’d be stolen in an instant—and it bumps against his mangled hip as he walks. Tadashi looks over his shoulder at the older man who has once again taken to manipulating the fire in front of him.
“Thank you,” Tadashi tells him, squeezing every ounce of sincerity he has left into the statement.
The man stares at the back of Kei’s head as he calls after Tadashi.
“Stay safe, son.”
Kei walks them around the perimeter of the campsite rather than weaving through it, around makeshift tents and groups of slumberers. His grip on Tadashi is insistent. It’s cool on Tadashi’s warm skin and puts a floaty feeling in his stomach.
“Kei?”
He’s barely gotten the word out before Kei spins on his heel to face him.
“Someone tells you they’re going to kill you not one hour ago and you decide you should go traipsing around camp in the middle of the night?”
Tadashi winces. “I was just—”
“And talking to strangers, on top of that.”
“He was very—”
“Eight-year-olds know not to talk to strangers, Yamaguchi. Five-year-olds know not to talk to strangers.” Kei hunches over to scratch fervently just above his knee before he straightens again and orders, “Don’t wander off like that.”
“He said there might be healers, Kei,” Tadashi whispers. Kei stares at him silently for a moment. Tadashi waits for any acknowledgement of what he’s said but he finds nothing. He tries again, “Did you hear me? People who can help us.”
“Yeah,” Kei whispers back dismissively. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Tadashi parrots.
He searches Kei’s face for any trace of hope but Kei gives him only a weak, dismissive grin like Tadashi has just told him he put a tooth under his pillow and expects a wad of cash to replace it by morning. Tadashi frowns at him petulantly.
“You don’t believe it?” he asks.
“I want to…” Kei trails off. He peers over his shoulder. Tadashi follows his gaze, searching for shadows. “We should get back.”
Tadashi agrees, fear prickling in his chest. Their soft footprints crunch the dirt. Kei keeps his hold on Tadashi the entire way back to their plot and only lets go to shake the debris from his sheet. There’s silence save for the sound of shuffling as they both arrange themselves under the navy sky once more. Tadashi hears Kei scratch. Guilt pervades him for giving Kei a reason to be awake; he doesn’t scratch in his sleep. Tadashi can at least find solace in that. Minutes pass before he breaks their silence.
“Were you worried about me?”
“Only every waking moment of my life,” Kei answers resolutely.
“I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t—don’t leave me.”
Tadashi’s heart swells and breaks simultaneously; Kei’s voice is so small. He would reach out and cradle it in his palms if he wasn't certain it would fracture upon impact. Tadashi blinks up at the stars. A rebellious tear spills from the corner of his eye and rolls over his temple.
“I won’t leave you, Kei,” he promises, “and I won’t let you down.”
Kei turns over to fix Tadashi with a steady stare. They fall asleep facing each other.