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Sometimes, Yoshiki can barely look at 'Hikaru'.
Not because he's a monster, a parasitic entity that burrowed its way into the real Hikaru's body and made a living there. Not because it masquerades as a parody of Yoshiki's old friend, living amongst them like an inconspicuous weed in the garden of humans that they call Kubitachi. Not even because Yoshiki knows that 'Hikaru' has killed, hurt, and will do so again.
But because sometimes, Yoshiki looks at 'Hikaru', and he wants so ardently that it makes him want to rip his eyes out.
Maybe they are the problem: the eyes that look at 'Hikaru' and recognize that same fair skin, the same pale hair, the same snaggle-toothed grin that made Yoshiki ache when the real Hikaru had worn it, months ago.
Objectively, he knows Hikaru is attractive. The handful of confessions he had gotten, then and now, make it obvious that Yoshiki isn't the only one who looks at his friend and feels that gravitational pull towards him, the one that makes him catch a glimpse and want to stare and stare.
He never does, because that's wrong. Dirty in a way that can't be scrubbed off or cleaned no matter how hard he has tried. He had looked at Hikaru, and looks at him now, with a shame that curdles in his gut because of how much he wants to keep Hikaru in his sights.
It was that shame, borne from Yoshiki's awareness of his own desire, that made him careful before with the real Hikaru. The acknowledgement that he looked at his best friend and wanted something different, separate from the distance that came with the label of friendship. The craving for more.
But it has changed, morphed just like the soul inhabiting Hikaru's body, adapting to the new entity that now resides within.
Yes, Yoshiki had cared for the real Hikaru. Cared too much, too intensely.
And the same longing now reaches its pathetic, affection-starved arms towards the monster that has taken his place.
'Hikaru', with the flecks of red in his eyes where there was once black. 'Hikaru', a thing that crawled into his dead friend' body and out of the mountain. 'Hikaru', the divinity that has declared its love for Yoshiki without truly comprehending what it really means to love someone, and is yet desperate to learn, to try.
Yoshiki looks at this 'Hikaru', and the disgusting want that had manifested sometime between a childhood with Hikaru Indou and an adolescence with him stretches its aching limbs and yearns.
He wants to tell it that this is the wrong one, that the one it truly longs for is long gone and will never, ever return.
But he watches 'Hikaru' cry at movies that the real one would have laughed at.
He observes him taste things that make him blush in utter joy, a beaming smile smattered with crumbs. He listens to 'Hikaru' say I like you, I like you so damn much (words that the real Hikaru would have never said, sentiments that Yoshiki will never know if he had felt). He looks at all of these things, and he knows, he knows that this is someone completely different than the Hikaru that he had grown feelings for.
And yet, he still looks at 'Hikaru', and there it is: shame, so painful and yet so familiar. Because Yoshiki still wants so badly despite it all. Wants this fake Hikaru in a way that makes his fingers curl at his sides to prevent himself from reaching and touching, so soft and reverent, like he really wants.
Sometimes, Yoshiki thinks that is all he's ever known. Want and shame. The desire to leave this claustrophobic little village behind, the shame of abandoning everything and everyone that has raised him and watched him grow, even if it has been with judging and cynical eyes. His longing for Hikaru, the human one whom they have shared their worst moments with, coupled with the nauseating self-disgust of wanting so badly something that he shouldn't.
And now this.
'Hikaru' had stayed over for dinner that evening, and the two of them are in Yoshiki's room, probably long after 'Hikaru' was supposed to return home. Neither of them acknowledge this. It's night now, a welcome respite from the blistering heat of the day, and from the open window, a breeze flows through the room and tousles their hair. From where he's sitting at his desk, mindlessly finishing the last of his homework, Yoshiki brushes his bangs back down in front of his face and resumes jotting down notes.
The entire time, he is uncomfortably aware of 'Hikaru's gaze on him from where he's sprawled on Yoshiki's futon, flipping through another edition of Master x Master. Or at least, he was reading.
Now the telltale crinkle of turning pages has stopped, and nothing remains to fill the silence in between them except for the distant chirps of crickets outside.
'Hikaru' seems to do this a lot. Fix his gaze on Yoshiki with a single-minded purpose, like he's going to disappear in the blink of an eye at any second. An intense stare only magnified by the vivid crimson speckled in his eyes, boring a hole through Yoshiki's concentration like a knife through butter.
Yoshiki has always chalked it up to some sort of monster habit. 'Hikaru' likely sees things that he can't, even with Yoshiki's sudden awareness of the spiritual world that has seeped into his home, his life. And the two have experienced several very real, very terrifying threats. It only makes sense for 'Hikaru' to be on alert like this.
Yoshiki tells himself that that's why 'Hikaru's unceasing stare on him makes him sweat, his hands clammy. It's just the possibility of there actually being something there, and not just the back of his head.
But now, it goes on far longer than he's accustomed to. Yoshiki tries to drag his concentration back to the schoolwork in front of him, but 'Hikaru's eyes on him are a palpable presence that crawls up his spine through the thin cotton of his shirt. God, this has to be one of 'Hikaru's otherworldly abilities; the way he can completely capture Yoshiki's attention without even saying a word, only the pressure of his gaze.
What does he want? Because he has to be wanting something, right? Yoshiki can't think of any other reason for this pointed attention, pinpricks of awareness that make the hairs on the back of his neck stand.
A long moment trickles by, and then another. Yoshiki's given up on his homework, the words in his textbook blurring into an incomprehensible mass of nonsense that he can't be bothered to decode at the moment.
God, maybe it's just because of how late it is. Maybe that's what making everything seem so surreal, so strange.
Yoshiki is no stranger to overthinking, so maybe that's just what this is -- another bout of needless anxiety, a giant waste of his time and energy. Maybe 'Hikaru' is just taking a break from his manga. Maybe Yoshiki is just paranoid, and maybe he's not being stared at at all. Maybe he's just projecting, because sometimes, all he wants to do is to stare and stare and stare at 'Hikaru' with Hikaru Indou's body and make sure that he's real, he's here, and not a rotting body decomposing in the middle of the forest --
"Is there somethin' there?" Yoshiki blurts out bluntly, turning to face 'Hikaru' with an expression schooled into a suitable deadpan.
The pale-haired boy doesn't move an inch from where he's sitting on the futon, save for a slight cock of his head to the side. Watching Yoshiki with those grey-crimson eyes, his expression unreadably neutral.
He doesn't know whether to feel relief, that he wasn't being paranoid after all, and he really is being watched, or apprehensive, because then what is 'Hikaru' doing?
"Nah," 'Hikaru' confirms, a small, crooked grin appearing on his lips, "why?"
Maybe he's just trying to be mischievous. Yoshiki furrows his brows, swiveling his chair to fully face the other boy. "I can feel ya staring at me."
"Oh. Hm. I didn't think ya could tell," 'Hikaru' says, which only confuses the hell out of Yoshiki even more. Did he really think that he wouldn't notice?
Maybe it's the dumb-looking disbelief on Yoshiki's expression now, but the grin on 'Hikaru's face suddenly widens, elongating into something more akin to a playful smirk. "What, does it distract ya?"
Yoshiki blanches, feeling his cheeks warm embarrassingly. He prays that it's dark enough in the dim lighting of his room for 'Hikaru' not to notice. "No," he says firmly, lying through gritted teeth, "it's just weird, and I'm trying to finish my homework. Cut it out."
Of course, 'Hikaru' doesn't make this easy. It's a pattern that's continued since they were kids: Yoshiki slips up, and Hikaru would latch onto it, pestering him to no end until he inevitably got bored and moved on.
Yoshiki prays silently for the same thing to happen now, so that they can go back to their companiable silence in peace. He shouldn't have said anything in the first place, damn it. Let 'Hikaru' do whatever strange inhuman thing that he pleases, as long as it doesn't bother him.
But it does, this unrelenting attention. He wants to flinch away from it, but also wants to bask in it like a dying flower to the warmth of the sun. It's messy, and confusing, and utterly addicting.
'Hikaru' tosses his edition of Master x Master to the side. Yoshiki winces as some of the pages bend from the awkward landing. "But, Yoshiki," he protests, whiny and coy, "I just like looking at ya so much. Even the back of your head is so pretty."
A memory surfaces, unbidden: 'So, what, you hate something about your face? Like your moles?'
'You're not wrong...'
'You kiddin' me? Personally, I think you've got a handsome face.'
He's just teasing. Trying to get a reaction out of him. This is intentional, and fabricated, and all fun and games. It's intentionally cringey, probably stolen straight out of a shitty shoujo manga.
"You shouldn't say such embarrassing things," Yoshiki stares at some point behind 'Hikaru's shoulder, determined to look anywhere but at him directly. Oh God, this is just cruel. 'Hikaru' has no idea what he does to him, not with Hikaru Indou's face, his voice, the teasing smile etched excruciatingly into Yoshiki's heart.
"But it's true," 'Hikaru' insists, and when Yoshiki dares to risk a glance at him, something in his expression has shifted, and suddenly he looks ever so slightly, frighteningly, genuine. "I could just look at ya forever. Heck, I wish I could."
Yoshiki is too tired for this, too sore, too vulnerable. He thinks he always will be, because he doesn't know how to deal with the yawning gape in his chest that takes each of 'Hikaru's words with greedy claws and sinks it deep under his skin until he feels it from the tips of his fingers, to the ends of his feet.
His hands curl at his sides, and his nails dig into his palm. The sting is a welcome distraction from everything else that his stupid, shameful body is feeling. "Don't say things ya don't mean," he says, coldly, because he needs to combat the blistering warmth in his chest somehow, before it burns like coal.
Yoshiki startles at the sound of the futon squeaking as 'Hikaru' stands up and crosses the meager space of his room until Yoshiki can see the scabbed skin of his knees from his lowered gaze. 'Hikaru's legs are painfully bare, save for where his shorts sit mid-thigh. The expanse of skin right before him all of the sudden, scarred from old tumbles and roughhousing incidents, dusted with whitish hairs, knots Yoshiki's stomach into an intangible jumble.
"Yoshiki," 'Hikaru' calls from somewhere above him. His voice is inquisitive, and surprisingly tinged with melancholy. "Why don't ya ever look at me?"
Oh. So he's noticed.
Yoshiki's mind is blank. Usually, this reprieve from the unceasing barrage of thoughts and worries would be nice, but now, he wishes that he could conjure something, anything, to answer 'Hikaru's question.
The silence stretches between them, thick with an uneasy tension that makes Yoshiki dig his nails further into his palms.
He should lie. The truth is too convoluted, too exposing. Maybe the best course of action is to deflect.
"I do look--" he starts reluctantly, but 'Hikaru' interrupts with a frustrated noise that sounds like a growl.
"Don't lie to me. You're always looking away, at anywhere but me. It doesn't happen with other people, so why?"
'Hikaru's voice has a desperate edge to it now, and he splays one hand across his chest, crumbling the fabric there under his fist.
"It's because I'm not the real one, isn't it?"
He takes Yoshiki's stunned silence as a guilty admission, even though Yoshiki is reeling, struggling to keep up with this staggering escalation of events that make his head spin. "I know, I know I can't expect ya to look at me like ya looked at the real Hikaru, but can't you at least look at me at all?"
Another memory. They're standing in an empty classroom, and 'Hikaru' has Yoshiki's wrist in an iron-like grasp.
‘It hurts. What am I supposed to do?’
‘I know where we stand. But I can't help liking you!’
They've done this before, haven't they? Yoshiki, struggling to come to terms with the reality that Hikaru is dead, and he's become hopelessly intertwined with this new 'Hikaru' that looks just like him but isn't. 'Hikaru', betrayed and desperate for Yoshiki to return this twisted sense of attachment.
The hand clutching the shirt in front of him is trembling. "I know I'm not right, I know I'm asking for too much, but God, Yoshiki, it really fucking hurts when you can't even look at me in the eyes. I'm sorry for being so selfish, when you've given me so much already, so much of what you would have given the real Hikaru, but if I really disgust you that much, why do you bother being this nice to me anyway? Are you just -- scared of me? Scared of the monster?"
Fuck. Yoshiki can't do this again.
"Stop,” Yoshiki blurts out, standing up from his chair with enough force to send it screeching backwards. Fuck, fuck, fuck, what is he doing? "You're not getting it right at all!"
And then, in the jarring silence that follows, they're looking at each other, really looking at each other.
'Hikaru' is breathing fast and shallow, his eyes wide, a curl of eerie black-and-white visible in his right eye. He's flushed, staring pleadingly at Yoshiki like this world, in all of its immense and horrible glory, has shrunk to the space in between them, the pocket between their two bodies.
Yoshiki knows that the purple mark of 'Hikaru's handprint still taints his skin. He knows what happened last time, when he had hurt 'Hikaru' like this, what that swirling mass in his eyes means.
Yoshiki should be scared. Terrified of being hurt again by this strange, powerful divinity. But.
With that desperation etched on every curve and plane of his face, 'Hikaru' is so beautiful it hurts. Like he's carved a matching slit in Yoshiki's chest, reached in, and took his heart in hand, pressing in the most sore and sensitive places.
How could a pain like this feel so unmistakably good? So right, even when Yoshiki knows, to the depths of his core, that it's wrong?
"I..." Yoshiki sucks in a breath, harsh and loud, because he's forgotten how to breathe, in the suffocating silence between them.
"I can't look at you sometimes. Not because of what you said. I know you're not the real Hikaru, and I know you're some kind of m -- something different -- but." He swallows, unclenches and clenches his fists. The words are jammed in his windpipe, a dam of sentiments torn from the deepest, rawest parts of his insides and balled up into something sharp and painful.
"But what?" 'Hikaru' inquires, clearly wavering and on edge, but also almost reverent in the way that he just can't stop staring at Yoshiki, like there is something worth staring at there. Like he really can't look away.
It burns like the most concentrated of spirits, leaving a vivid warmth in its wake that Yoshiki can't get enough of.
It's already too late to go back now.
"Do you remember when I, uh..." he begins slowly, then clears his throat. Coaxing the words out of his throat one at a time is difficult when he's spent a lifetime choking them down.
“I was upset at ya, and ya found me in that empty classroom. And ya...went inside me."
That was one way to describe the way that the cold, wet tendrils of Hikaru's insides nearly engulfed him whole, filling him, claiming him as it poured into his body.
'Hikaru' laughs, but it's scratchy with nerves. Unmistakably anxious. "Yeah, well, how could I forget that?"
Yoshiki needs to look away so, so badly. He's already exposed enough. He should stop. What if he tells 'Hikaru' the truth, the entire truth, and he...
He pictures the crosses swinging on the necklaces of hundreds of necks across his hometown. He thinks of that heir from long ago, the one labeled as "diseased" and cast away from his family in shame. He thinks of the warnings, the whispers, the judgement cast onto those who should know better, ‘the sick degenerates that they are’.
And yet.
'Hikaru's expression is a starving plea, a silent insistence that threatens to pull the words from the choking cavern of Yoshiki's mouth.
This time, things are different. This time, 'Hikaru' is begging for him to explain himself, and how could Yoshiki continue to let him believe that the disgust he feels is directed at 'Hikaru' rather than himself?
"At first, I thought it was disgusting. I felt like it should have been disgusting. It felt alien, and overwhelming. But..."
His throat spasms, threatening to close up again--
"...then, it started to feel good. Really good. And that scared me, more than the fact that you're not human. And not Hikaru."
Yoshiki sucks in a breath, and the rest of his words come out in a haphazard jumble, flooding out of him as the dam breaks and lets everything rush through.
"It feels the same way to look at ya, and want more than anything I've ever wanted, even if I know it's wrong, between us, and that I'd wanted the real Hikaru first. It scares me that you're right here, and that ya like me so much, when I feel the exact same way, and I don't know what to do about that because you're not Hikaru, but I still want ya all the same even in ways that I hadn't felt for him. So when ya look at me like that, when ya say things like that -- it makes it even harder, and it hurts like hell. Because I want ya, too much for my own good, or for anyone's, and I know it's wrong, I know--"
And then Yoshiki is quite rudely interrupted by a hand seizing the front of his shirt, reeling him in with a strength that nearly knocks him off his feet, and then, and then--
Their lips come crashing together. "Crash" is the right word, because 'Hikaru' kisses him hard enough to bruise, and Yoshiki gasps into his mouth, his mind spinning again, his body alight in holy fire, the nerves of his body like embers that scorch through him until there's nothing left but ashes and bones, and the point where their lips are melting together. Their teeth clack, their noses have hit hard enough for there to be an ache deep in his nostril, but fuck, how could Yoshiki care when he's kissing 'Hikaru', 'Hikaru' is kissing him--
They break apart as fast as they came together. 'Hikaru' is panting, his lips parted, his hands still tangled in Yoshiki's shirt. The red of his pupils are dilated, absorbing the grey around them, and within, Yoshiki can see all too clearly the swirls of 'Hikaru's insides, that flutter and twitch nonstop.
Yoshiki...he's panting too, and he doesn't know what kind of expression is plastered on his face, but 'Hikaru' takes one good look at him and he's giggling all of the sudden, slapping his other hand over his mouth in a way that fails to cover his massive grin.
"Oh, shit, sorry, I just -- ya just -- you're so cute sometimes, ya know that?"
Yoshiki blinks, and tries to school his expression into one that isn't so...dumbfounded? Shocked? Absolutely fucking wrecked and flustered?
What the fuck just happened? He'd been talking, practically ranting about how he felt, and then 'Hikaru'--
"I learned how to do that in a manga," 'Hikaru' is saying, his eyes shining in excitement, "and, well, ya were saying a bunch of stuff that was making me all warm and fuzzy, and I didn't know how else to show you how I felt, so..."
He shrugs, letting go of Yoshiki's shirt, and that snaps him out of his trance. "And, I don't know, I guess it felt right to do in the moment, since you were telling me that ya wanted me and all--"
Yoshiki grabs 'Hikaru's hand before he fully retracts it, and he falls abruptly silent. A long moment passes in silence, and 'Hikaru's expression flickers, sliding the smile of his face in increments before it settles on something looking uncomfortably like fear.
"Uh...Yoshiki? Ya good?" His tone is cautious. Uncertain. "If -- if you didn't like that, I promise I won't ever do it again, and I'm really sorry --"
"Do it again," Yoshiki rasps.
'Hikaru' stares. "What?"
"Kiss me," he pleads, and he's pulled into 'Hikaru' again, into those cool and slightly chapped lips that meet his with the same intense fervor as their last kiss.
Their noses bump again, though less violently. They struggle to find a good angle for a bit, tilting their heads until they find a good fit, and stay there for a bit, their lips moving clumsily against each other's in a rudimentary rhythm that is so perfect that Yoshiki could cry.
They pull apart reluctantly once more. Yoshiki is embarrassingly out of breath. 'Hikaru's eyes are wide, so wide, a tendril of his insides just beginning leaking out of his eye.
Shit. 'Hikaru' had his eyes open the whole time that they were kissing, hadn't he?
Yoshiki groans and places a palm over them, wincing at the cold, squishy sensation of 'Hikaru's tendril.
"Ya don't keep your eyes open when you kiss someone, idiot."
'Hikaru' sputters and flails, trying to take Yoshiki's hands off his face. "But I want to see ya up close!" he protests, a disgruntled pout pursed on his lips. "Why can't I? Since when is that a kissing rule?"
"I don't think that manga ya read taught you all that well," Yoshiki sighs, and leans in to kiss the pout off of 'Hikaru's mouth.
'Hikaru' shuts up immediately, responding eagerly, the dark mass of his leaking eye curling like a cat's tail on Yoshiki's cheek in a manner that seems unconscious. He isn't even sure if 'Hikaru' knows that it's happening.
Yoshiki decides to let it be.
-
They keep kissing. He isn't sure for how long.
The shame comes, and it's inevitable. It's a festering rot that Yoshiki doesn't know how to cut away yet.
But, fuck, it feels so good in a way that nothing else has before. Letting himself kiss 'Hikaru', cradling his face in his palm. Looking at him close enough to be able to count every eyelash, every faint smattering of freckles.
And so, eventually, the shame quiets. In this space, the haven of Yoshiki's room, there is no one but the two of them, and that is enough. It has to be.
-
"Hey, Yoshiki."
They're lying side by side on his futon. It's far too late for them to be awake, and 'Hikaru's voice is a little too loud in the silence of the Tsujinaka home, but Yoshiki doesn't care. He turns, finds the crimson dot in 'Hikaru's eyes through the dark.
"What is it?"
A flash of teeth as 'Hikaru' smirks playfully.
"I didn't know that ya liked me inside of ya that much."
Yoshiki groans, his cheeks burning as he tries to turn back around, but 'Hikaru' grabs his shoulder, his tone turning a little too genuine.
"Ya know, I kinda liked it too. Maybe we should try it again? Ya could keep your mouth open, just like last time, and--"
Yoshiki shoves his pillow in 'Hikaru's face, and that's the end of that.