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It’s summer. A hot, wet, and thick summer that smothers your lungs when you take a deep breath. A rush of clear blue water streams past Yoshiki as he walks, listening to the slap slap slap of his trainers against dirt roads. Somewhere distant, a bird calls and he doesn’t look up, staring down at the floor, imagining with each step he sinks further and further into the earth. A line of ants crawls alongside his shoes, all in order, marching towards some mysterious goal. His head swims with a pungent heat and he swears the ground is getting closer to him. Maybe he really is getting sucked up into the centre of the earth, somewhere he would melt and morph into molten rock. Maybe Hikaru is there, he hopes, laughing up at Yoshiki from just under the Earth's crust.
His heart beats against his chest, jack-rabbiting sharply amongst his bones. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him.
But he’s not there. He’s gone. A puppet corpse now. ‘Hikaru’s’ filling him out like a glove, dancing and singing with his skin stretched over his mouth. Sometimes it makes Yoshiki sick. Thinking about it too long. He thinks, maybe it would be easier if he didn’t like him so much. If it wasn’t so hard to hate him. He sighs. The sun beats down further on him like a drum. He swings his plastic bag to the song stuck in his head, one from a distant commercial from when he was a child. A-ding! A-ding! A-dingalingding! The kind of catchy tune that follows you all day until you're tired in bed, just waiting for it to leave you alone.
Hikaru’s house isn’t far. He knows when he arrives, there’ll be a door cracked open, waiting for him. A free seat, a piece of watermelon and a sharp smile. The icecreams in the bag sweat and drip condensation down the seam of his shorts. He speeds up his pace slightly, swaying under the heat, eyes still trailing the ground. The ants have begun to diverge their paths, creating a small fork, some carrying crumbs of food forward while others turn and lead into the bushes but each and every ant travels with purpose, skittering in a single file further into their future.
How? He wants to ask them. How do you know where to go and what to do? Who tells you these things? I want to know. I want to know what to do.
He drags his eyes from the ants, feeling stupid and hot under the sweltering sky.
—--------
“Yoshiki!” Hikaru bounds up from the floor from where he was laying, right near the door. His eyes are bright and open. Sometimes Yoshiki can catch the flash of red right in the centre of his pupil, when the angle of the sun is just right.
I miss him. I miss him. I miss him.
Slipping off his shoes, he swings out the bag in offering. “I hope you weren’t waiting for me.” Hikaru flushes under his gaze and snorts a laugh.
“Ha! Me? No, I was just- I was taking a nap, it’s so hot ya know?” He drags out this question staring at Yoshiki with wide eyes, as if maybe it’ll distract from the red of his ears or the electricity that seemingly hums through him whenever Yoshiki is around. It doesn’t work. Most of the time.
Yoshiki just gestures to the bag again.
“Oh ice cream! Aw man, didja hafta get papico?” He whines, leading Yoshiki further into the house and out towards the engawa. Yoshiki stares intently at the back of his head, Hikaru can probably feel it, his gaze is so intense sometimes. More than a few times Maki has had to yell at him for it when he zones out in class and it starts scaring the girls.
“It was all they had left.” He shrugs explaining, moving to sit down on the deck.
“I gesh dat’s fine den.” Hikaru mumbles around the plastic bottle, already gnawing on the sides. He wordlessly passes Yoshiki the second one and he quickly gets to work on it, craving the ice in the suffocating heat. It’s basically melted already, but he sucks up the lukewarm liquid anyways. It tastes like summer.
There’s a patch of sunlight on Hikaru’s face and he grins sloppily when he catches Yoshiki staring from under his bangs. His heart trembles more but this time it’s different. It’s unsteadier. Not unfamiliar though. I miss him. I miss him. And he’s here. He’s here. He’s here.
“Hey Yoshiki?”
At first he thinks his heart has forgotten again. It’s not the real Hikaru. But when he looks up again, at Hikaru’s white hair shining under the sunlight and his slightly sharper canines and the gleam of red of his eyes, his heart gets faster and he knows. It’s not beating for real Hikaru, it’s beating for the Hikaru here and now. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.
Yoshiki can feel his face heating up and he ducks forward, his fringe falling further over his eyes, letting his hair hide him. He fiddles with the empty papico bottle, sticky syrup coating his fingertips. Hikaru’s pale hand lands just near his thigh as he leans across, right in front of Yoshiki.
“Yo, Yoshiki.” He grins, toothy and annoying. Yoshiki wants to push him away. Or pull him closer. He doesn’t know. Looking desperately to the side, avoiding Hikaru’s keen face, for something that could save him. He leans back on his hands, trying to create some distance so that maybe he could gain enough sense back to respond. But Hikaru just follows, his face looming forward as he rocks on his knees further. His hand has crept onto Yoshiki’s raised knee and his index finger is tapping a small beat on it.
Yoshiki is still looking away. The garden is well kept and neat. The summer sun is still high in the sky. He notices all these things. He feels Hikaru close in, nose almost at his chin as his neck strains to keep his attention on counting every blade of grass.
“Yoshikiiiiiiiiiiii,” His breath is warm and smells of cola, “Let’s make out, Yoshiki.”
That gets him to react. “What?” He yelps, flailing, almost falling all the way onto his back. He catches himself on the front of Hikaru’s shirt. He’s sure his face is surely red now. Hikaru just stares, grinning like he’s told a funny joke.
Yoshiki gapes, somewhat coming back to his senses, dropping his hands from Hikaru’s front quickly. “Ya can’t be serious?”
At that, Hikaru’s smile drops slightly, his eyebrows drawing into the centre. “S’not that crazy of an idea…” Now it seems, it’s his turn to be bashful, and he turns his head to the side. Mumbling, he confesses, “Y’already know that I’m crazy about ya.”
Both boys blush a furious red at this statement. Yoshiki just shakes his head in disbelief. “Where’d ya get this idea from anyways?”
“Does it matter?” He mutters. “ I was watching this movie with my folks… and I don’t know, I thought…” His face is practically crimson and Yoshiki’s heart is churning. At the confession, at the look on his face, at the idea of him and Hikaru…
“We can…” He begins, and Hikaru’s head lurches upwards at the sound. Yoshiki is sure he’s sweating all down his face now. “If you want to, we can.” He mumbles off.
“Really?” Hikaru’s eyes light up, 1000-watt smile returning full force as he ducks closer to Yoshiki.
He shrugs, scratching his neck. “Yeah, I want to.”
Hikaru almost loses his mind. “Ya want to?” He’s crawling almost on top of Yoshiki now, never having stopped approaching slowly.
Placing a gentle hand over his face, Yoshiki softly pushes his face away, embarrassed. “Yes I do, don’t make me regret it.”
Eyes crinkling in a smile above Yoshiki’s hand, Hikaru barks “I won’t!”
Taking his hand away slowly, Yoshiki is violently aware of the lack of air between their faces. All it would take was Hikaru leaning down further a few centimeters. If he had kept encroaching how he was, maybe they already would’ve been kissing.
He looks down at Hikaru’s lips. They’re a sweet pink, a little bit chapped and sticky from the ice cream. Hikaru sways forward a bit further and their breath meets in the middle, floating between the two. Yoshiki looks at Hikaru, his mouth is parted slightly and his pupils are blown wide staring down at Yoshiki’s lips. He’s staring forward intently, but not moving, at a standstill. He looks kind of dumb. It annoys Yoshiki that he still wants to kiss him though.
“Hikaru…” He whispers, trying to egg the other boy forward without actually saying it, for the sake of his sanity. He doesn’t think he could handle it if Hikaru made him beg. What he says instead shocks Yoshiki.
Still dangling a half centimeter away from him, his parted lips barely move. “I want you to do it.”
Yoshiki gasps softly into his mouth. “What?”
Hikaru looks up into his eyes suddenly, sways forward ever so slightly. His gaze is hot and thick over Yoshiki’s face and he whispers, never breaking eye contact. “I want you to kiss me.”
“Oh.”
“Mhm. Please?”
Spurred on suddenly by the word, Yoshiki licks his lips. Ignores his heartbeat and tentatively breaks the barrier between them. It’s nothing. A sweet press of dry lips together. But it lights something in either boy. They break apart slowly, still staring at each other.
Then Hikaru leans in again, pauses before Yoshiki minutely nods, and captures his lips again. This time, their lips are open, Yoshiki trembles with the sensation of Hikaru’s wet mouth. He grips his shoulders, shifts his weight on his legs, pressing impossibly closer. Hikaru catches his waist, plays with the seam of his t-shirt, flirting with the bare skin of Yoshiki’s stomach.
The kiss is inexperienced, neither knows what they are doing, Yoshiki nibbles on Hikaru’s lower lip, making him groan. Electricity zips through them. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.
Hikaru tries to slip some tongue, it doesn’t work and it gets slobbery. They break apart to wipe their faces on their sleeves, but this round they waste no time going back to it. A cold hand slips underneath Yoshiki’s shirt, making him shiver, it traces down his spine then up his chest, just touching.
Under the bright sun, in Hikaru’s backyard, in the middle of the day, it feels illicit, it feels illegal. It makes Hikaru tremble and Yoshiki whimper as they fall into each other.
Yoshiki fumbles for Hikaru, grabbing and sliding his palms over whatever area he can reach. He bites down harshly on Hikaru’s lip, almost vindictive with it. He draws blood and he laps at it with his tongue. It’s salty. He can almost believe that Hikaru is human. But he doesn’t dwell on it, now isn’t the time for such thoughts, he thinks. Now he focuses instead on the guttural sounds it rips from Hikaru’s throat. On the fingertips that are drawing shapes into his hipbones.
Hikaru pulls his hair and he doesn’t mind. Yoshiki scratches down his back. Somewhere in the middle they lose their shirts, but their pants stay firmly on. They’re both excited but they're both aware distantly, this is enough. Just this is enough.
Yoshiki kisses down Hikaru’s chest, remembers the slit that opened up in him here, traces his index finger down it like a promise. Like, I’ll come back to this later.
They indulge in each other until the sun starts to set. When the risk of Hikaru’s mum coming home is too large, they slip their shirts back on, swapping just for the secrecy of it.
Hikaru has Yoshiki’s and Yoshiki has Hikaru’s. It makes Yoshiki smile and he clings to the hem of Hikaru’s shirt on his shoulders. The rest of the ice creams have melted in their bag, leaking sugary syrup into the garden where they rolled off the engawa. The sun is still somewhat visible in the sky, a rich orange now, spreading pink and yellow through the clouds.
They both stare up at it, pinkies just barely brushing where their hands lay. Hikaru is unusually mute.
“What’re ya thinking about?” Yoshiki prods quietly, unwilling to fully disturb the comfortable silence.
Hikaru doesn’t turn to face him but he speaks gently into the beginning of the night. “I was dreamin’ about a place or a universe where we could be happy.” Yoshiki says nothing, heart pulsating wetly in his chest. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. Hikaru turns then, his eyes sad. “Y’know, where we could be human, together… I don’t know… I just, sometimes I wonder.” He shrugs one shoulder and turns back to the sky.
Nudging his shoulder with his head, Yoshiki rests in the crook of his neck and swiftly intertwines their fingers, embarrassment forgotten in the moment. Hikaru seems surprised and flickers his eyes over to stare at Yoshiki from beneath his fringe.
Yoshiki twists and speaks softly, “I think I’m already happy just here.”
Hikaru opens his mouth, then shuts it. He gives a small smile and places his head over Yoshiki’s.
“Okay.” He whispers.
The sun sets slowly over both of them.