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Yoshiki wants to speak, but there is a sadness that stops him. The words begin to come up for air only to be lodged in his throat as if getting them into the open air would have him shot on sight. He can see it clearly in his dreams, haunting him in the waking hours no less graphically. Perhaps it is mainly fear and the sorrow is secondary– nothing but a consequence of thinking he might be killed for any reason. If there is some other reason, he’s either not conscious of it or it has been too deeply buried.
The world around him materializes threateningly every morning he opens his eyes, heavy, like an anchor that pulls him down and makes every move painfully slow. Every breath he takes brings him closer to death.
On autopilot, he brings himself up and out of bed. He either has static in his ears or thoughts that run so fast he can’t catch what they are saying. It’s all distorted, like some kind of evil that has found a home in him. Spellbound, and not the fun kind. He strains to clear his throat and snaps his fingers next to his ears, then shakes his head wildly like he does when his hair is wet.
He can’t remember the person he used to be before Hikaru died. He can’t remember anything beyond that point. His mind struggles to form any coherent thoughts at all. Everything has been shoved to the back of his brain, where he can’t reach, so that the only thing that he feels strongly about anymore is fear.
In the kitchen, his mother comments on how slow his movements have become. He tunes it out as usual and only then realizes he has moved to a new room in the house. If he were a child, he’d think teleportation was real. He’s chewing on something but it doesn’t even register. Soon enough, his limbs move on their own again.
It’s too bright outside.
He hears someone’s voice in the distance but it’s too vague and slips right over his head. He walks faster, hears footsteps, picks up the pace. To anyone else, it would appear he’s finally moving at a normal speed.
“Yoshiki!”
He keeps walking, eyeing the sidewalk. His backpack is too heavy. The sun is too bright. He averts his eyes, turns away his face, and looks down, down. Ah, he already had that thought. But it really is very bright.
His palms are sweating. It’s hot too.
Someone starts talking to him. He sees their shadow next to his and shifts his attention to the blood rapidly pooling to his feet, always on the verge of fainting.
They keep talking. Somehow, his voice comes out and responds. He looks at them while he talks because it’s the polite thing to do. The normal thing to do. Everything is normal. It has to be.
Something catches his eye then. A speck of red, like a mirage, a ray of sun. Goosebumps follow down his neck as if on cue. It’s nothing new, really. He sees red in many colors. His old toys, certain sauces, abandoned rainboots, his own blood, glimmers in Hikaru’s eyes.
He looks at his eyes then, really looks, unlike before where it he’d shrug it off as a trick of the light. Hikaru seems to enjoy the eye contact because he grins, though this also isn’t unusual for him. Right?
“Went a little quiet there.”
Yoshiki notices he has stopped in the middle of the road and pretends it never happened. Hikaru is looking at him in a way that makes Yoshiki’s legs tingle. The hairs on his arms are standing upright and he thinks it might be his body trying to acclimate to the heat.
“Nah, s’ just hot.” He almost chuckles, strangely.
“Is it? Too bad I can just–”
“Nah, s’ fine.”
“I didn’t finish my sentence.”
“It’s fine.”
Hikaru looks at him, keeps looking at him, always looking at him with those bizarre, stupidly, impeccably harrowing fucking RED eyes. Why does no one fucking notice?!
There’s been many times Yoshiki has thought that was it for him. He can’t do it anymore. In his head, he thinks love may be a strong word, but he feels something for Hikaru, or whatever he is. He feels it very strongly and his body reacts in ways he can’t stiffle. He’s terrified.
“Yer breath’s going fast.”
He doesn’t like it. He can’t. Yoshiki wants to rip that grin off his face and throw him back to whatever pit he came from. He wants to bury himself inside him and live there forever. He wants his friend back. He wants too much.
“You got real prickly skin, you know that?”
Shut up.
“Kind’uh clammy too. You sure sweat a lot.”
Shut up. Shut up.
A dry laugh comes out of him. Yoshiki doesn’t recognize his voice. The pitch feels off. It’s too high. But it makes the static stop. He’s intrigued and so utterly disguised.
Don’t touch me!
Hikaru’s eyes narrow. He knows Yoshiki feels the pull too. He’s not sure if this is something humans can feel, but he feels it, and he knows Yoshiki is lying. Regardless, he doesn’t press. There are better times for experiments. He is not willing to take risks right now.
Yoshiki doesn’t realize what happened until Hikaru lets go of him. Even after, he isn’t sure. He never is. He’ll go insane if he thinks about it too much. His thoughts sometimes betray him. He forces himself to believe his body forms pleasure from pain to keep himself sane.
There is no one else around. It’s eerily empty, even for what Yoshiki is used to in such a small town. He wishes there were more people. He wishes he didn’t feel so alone.
Hikaru feels that pull. His senses are very attuned to Yoshiki’s, like a pet or a child to their parent. He feels every subtle change in his system as if it were his own. Perhaps it is. Like a parasite. He feels part of him inside Yoshiki, and part of Yoshiki inside him.
“Yer not alone, Yoshiki.”
Yoshiki’s body feels like a live wire, and something inside him stirs. A roiling heat inside seemingly absorbs all the warmth in his skin, making him almost cold. He’s not sweating anymore. His system has somehow stabilized. He laughs again, the words lodged in his throat again, floating somewhere unknown in his foggy mind. The pressure in his neck dissipates.
He can't blink again. Something else will happen. He can't.
In the end, his voice returns. He clears his throat, the vibrations odd to his ears. Shouldn't his voice be high as it used to be when he was a child? When he and Hikaru would get ice cream? But wait. They've gotten ice cream recently too. This is fine. It's normal.
“Thank you.” He says, his tone weak.
Something inside him bristles like an animal. It feels separate from him, and the blood flushes to his face. His body is both warm and cold. He is but a teenaged boy with no control over his body. Some kind of monster.