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"Hikaru is in the nurse's office?"
The idle background chatter is the first thing to hold Yoshiki's attention in the last hour. Normally they would've eaten lunch together, but Hikaru had mentioned having something to do… He'd been vague about it and said it wouldn't take long, but as the time had ticked by and Hikaru hadn't come back he'd had an inkling that something was off.
It wasn't long ago that Hikaru had essentially broken himself in half, and they'd already seen plenty of evidence of how impactful that had been for his body; it might not have otherwise been Yoshiki's place to tell him what to do, but having sat idly by while he went off on his own still feels irresponsible in hindsight. Though he's only carried it with him for a short while, Yoshiki is losing count of the number of times the supposed bone fragment has weighed more heavily in his pocket than its mass should allow.
"Yeah… I guess while he was talkin' to Miyu he got a nosebleed or somethin'."
"Haha, embarrassin'. Sure he's not just skippin' class?"
He wouldn't. Not for no reason. Not without Yoshiki, he wants to believe, though he shyly considers the possibility that he's giving himself too much credit. Even so, he pushes his chair away from his desk and sets off into the hall.
"Oh! Hey, Yoshiki!"
Sure enough, there he is, looking real comfortable on top of the blankets of the cot closest to the window. Giving him an anxious once-over Yoshiki takes in that there's not so much as a drop of blood on him, which is equal parts confusing and reassuring.
"Hey."
"What're ya doin' here? Ya alright?"
"I should be the one askin' ya that…"
"Oh. Haha, guess that's true…"
"Ya look just fine. What happened?"
Hikaru sits up from where he was reclining and pulls his legs into a crisscross, raising a hand to the back of his neck and giving an unconcerned smile that crinkles his nose. The slightest hint of red adorns his cheeks in a way that makes Yoshiki want to look at the floor; he consciously resists.
"'Nother close call…" While Hikaru gets started on talking, Yoshiki takes a seat at the end of the bed. Compulsively smoothing out the topmost blanket gives him something else to focus on. "Miyu asked to talk to me fer some reason, n' I was curious, so I went with it… turns out she had some tickets fer Nagashima Spa Land! Got so excited my eye started leakin' again…"
His hand stills more or less immediately, but only for a second. The original Hikaru was always popular with the girls, so this was something he should've come to expect. They didn't usually get around to actually confessing to him, though… twice in the span of a few months made for some impressive numbers compared to his track record so far. He guesses it's one of those things that comes along with maturing… figures being closer to summer break would be emboldening, too — if things don't go to plan, you've got a couple months to rebuild your self-esteem before you've got to see the person again.
He again takes to smothering the part of him that wishes to go back to simpler times; every time he's sure he's finally killed it, and every time he finds out that he's wrong. He turns instead to hoping that things today had gone better than they had with the girl from class D — a much more realistic standard.
"Didja at least reject her kindly this time?"
"Huh? Why would I reject her?"
That certainly isn't the answer he was expecting.
Yoshiki's mind goes blank. His chest burns cold. He's not panicking, he thinks. He's not panicking, right? He's not. What a stupid thing to panic about.
He can't help but picture it, though. His mind starts playing a slideshow of manufactured images all on its own. He can barely place the girl's face at all, but he's not short on experience when it comes to imagining Hikaru, turning him over this way and that way in his mind in a fashion that regularly works to his detriment.
What kind of face had he made? Had he smiled? Had he worn the same gentle blush as he had at the summer festival? Had his pupils sharpened to radiant points like before — in the storage room, the empty classroom, the stairwell?
This Hikaru and the original Hikaru are different. There are expressions this Hikaru makes that are unique only to him — and (he'd thought) unique to Yoshiki, too. How naive. But even more than that…
'Do you think she saw?' he wants to ask. 'Do you think she saw your insides, before you could turn away?' The question should come from a place of concern — nothing else makes sense — but it roots itself firmly elsewhere.
"Yoshiki?"
He doesn't realize he's been clenching his fists until an open hand folds over one of them. He forces his fingers to relax their grip on the blanket; the gesture feels jittery and distant.
"Ya alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Yer lyin'... yer all tense. What's gotcha so upset?"
"I'm not mad…"
"I didn't say mad… are ya mad at me?"
"I just said I'm not mad!" He's not mad — he's actually not — but he knows he's doing a poor job of being convincing about it. With a deep breath he slips his hand out from under Hikaru's to run it through his bangs, dropping back on the cot with a quiet fwump before resting his arms at his sides and squeezing his eyes shut.
He feels the mattress shift beneath him. It's not long before that hand reaches out again, grasping his left forearm with stunning firmness. When Yoshiki opens his eyes Hikaru hovers over him, his other hand clenched in the sheets on Yoshiki's opposite side. A familiar oil slick of color pools in his left eye and spills out over his cheek before splitting off into tendrils that bat anxiously at the surrounding air, his face twisted into an expression of— of what? Sadness? Hurt? Despondency? Why?
"Yoshiki… seriously, I—"
"Hikaru—"
"—I didn't mean to make ya mad—"
"Ya didn't, so—"
"—so please—"
"—I'm not mad, so calm down—"
Hikaru's true, nebulous form spills slowly over Yoshiki's shoulder and spreads across his neck, his expression at once incredibly affected and entirely out of focus. Suddenly, Yoshiki feels foolish for not having expected this.
He'd barely lashed out for a moment, but it had been a moment of inconsiderate selfishness and immaturity. Between tearing out half of his insides and being literally beheaded it's no wonder that Hikaru is so destabilized; Yoshiki could've — should've — tamped his feelings down, but there's no helping Hikaru's volatility right now.
"—I really didn't mean to upset ya— I thought ya'd be happy, or excited, or somethin'—"
'I am happy fer ya,' he wants to lie, but Hikaru has spread up the left side of his face; his hearing is dampened as Hikaru probes into his ear canal and overflow soon fills one of his eye sockets, violating his tear ducts and blinding him as pressure builds around his optic nerve. He fills his nose in a way that blocks Yoshiki's throat well before he slips into his mouth, and as he attempts to speak — to breathe, to make any sound at all — he only chokes everything down further.
While his mind becomes cloudy and his eyes flutter back in his head he waits for the discomfort, the fear — a part of him would welcome it — but it never comes. The question of 'am I going to die?' floats through his mind as nothing but an afterthought while Hikaru slips under the collar of his shirt, over his chest, down his left arm… it's almost a comfort in contrast to the heat that's begun to spread under his skin. With great effort that he barely has the will to summon he lifts one heavy arm and anchors himself to Hikaru's sleeve, and keeping it there soon becomes an unconscious process; the boundary between Hikaru and himself shifts and blurs in such a way that he would forget his body entirely if only he allowed himself the privilege.
In the pleasant sense of absence that overtakes him, only one feeling breaks the surface and grabs his unwilling attention: a familiar warm moisture pricks at his left bicep — first in beads, then in thick lines that spill down his inner arm — and he becomes alert to the fact that he's bleeding. Whether displacing them or eroding them entirely, Hikaru has forced himself past Yoshiki's angry days-old scabs and into the flesh and veins of his upper arm and shoulder.
That's right… this is hurting him, isn't it?
He wishes so badly that he could just let Hikaru take him entirely — spread through his circulatory system all the way to his heart. Even dying doesn't sound so bad. Unfortunately, an even stronger feeling is nestled deeper: the understanding that, in whatever way he's capable of, Hikaru would be sad.
He can't say for certain how long he has before he loses consciousness — they've never gotten this far before — but being unable to breathe will inevitably take him out eventually. By sense of touch alone he moves his hand up Hikaru's sleeve and presses as firmly as he can manage against his shoulder. Just a word stopped everything last time, so surely—
Separating feels like being turned inside out and pulled apart: Hikaru's tendrils leaving his nose and throat almost make him throw up; he's shocked when his hearing returns and his eye doesn't dislodge from its place in his skull; the sensation of Hikaru removing himself from his open wounds leaves a wet vacuum behind like a tangle of roots being pulled from a muddy garden. Resurfacing from the cool dark leaves Yoshiki covered in sweat and blood and his own saliva, his whole body tingling like a sleeping limb, each of his five senses individually overwhelming and together incomprehensible. The first things he makes sense of are Hikaru's tears on his face.
"I'm sorry— Yoshiki, I'm sorry—"
'Yer fine,' he wants to say, but he hasn't quite caught his breath yet.
"—I didn't mean to do it, fer real, I'm not just doin' whatever I want—"
"—Quit apologizin'..." The words come out in a heave, but they do come out. "Honestly… it doesn't even bother me anymore. Just don't go runnin' off this time…"
"I even opened up yer cuts again… dammit all… I dunno what's wrong with me…"
"—Nothin's wrong with ya." In a way, being put in a position where it makes sense to verbalize these feelings is the most difficult thing that's happened to him in recent memory. "If somethin's wrong with ya, somethin's wrong with me, too… so knock it off already…"
If he had slightly less presence of mind and slightly more control over his body he might mop at Hikaru's tears, but Yoshiki has almost exhausted his boldness for the day. Even if he wanted to, Hikaru has already pushed himself away to stand up. Hadn't he just told him not to go?
"Can ya move?" Between sniffles his voice carries from just a few feet away. He hasn't gone too far, and it sounds like he's at least trying to get himself together…
"Dunno… probably?" But why? He doesn't really want to yet.
"Guess if it had to happen anywhere, the nurse's office was the best place fer it…" Ah. So they're doing this again. "I got the first aid kit, so can ya pull yer legs up? Yer kinda at an awkward angle right now…"
When it comes to cleaning him up, Yoshiki knows better than to argue. It's not necessary — it's even pretty uncomfortable — but Hikaru won't feel better until they get it over with. He shifts his legs up onto the cot properly but draws the line at flipping himself entirely around, settling to lie at the wrong end and kicking his shoes up onto the pillow. He feels bad for the next person who ends up in here, but he's already pretty well screwed it up by bleeding everywhere, so…
Hikaru climbs back onto the cot and tosses one leg over Yoshiki, kneeling over his lower torso and setting the first aid kit open across his chest. When he pushes up the sleeve of Yoshiki's uniform to bare his bicep and shoulder he gives a sympathetic wince. Yoshiki tries not to dwell on it for too long, instead choosing to count his blessings: at least Hikaru doesn't ask him to explain why he does it anymore.
As someone generally pain-averse, it's surprisingly easy for Yoshiki to forget that cuts actually hurt. His self-destructive behaviors always feel too calculated, too well thought out to be genuine breakdowns; the motions feel sterile and matter-of-fact, and he never really feels any of it until later. While Hikaru wipes the blood away from the edges of his injuries the sting of the alcohol is immediate and real. What cruel joke is it that wound care hurts more than inflicting the wounds in the first place?
At least the next part isn't so bad; the feeling of Hikaru maneuvering the gaps in his skin back together to apply the butterfly bandages feels bizarre, but not especially painful.
"Yoshiki... about the thing with Miyu..." God, please hit him with the alcohol wipes again. "I really am sorry... I dunno what I did, but if ya tell me, I'll never do it again, so..."
"Ya didn't do anything..."
"I just figured it'd be fun, yanno? Goin' on rollercoasters n' stuff with ya..."
"I already told ya— huh?"
"Did I say somethin' wrong again?"
"It's not like that... what do you mean?"
"Nagashima Spa Land— it's, like, an amusement park—"
"—I know what Nagashima Spa Land is. Who said anythin' about me goin' with ya?"
"...Me? She had two tickets, so..."
"Hikaru... seriously..." This was bad in a whole different way. "How'd the interaction go? Like, sequentially..."
"Well... she told me she had two tickets and handed em out towards me? So I took em... I got too excited thinkin' about goin' with ya though, so I said thanks real quick n' had to run off—"
He shouldn't laugh, he knows he shouldn't laugh, but it happens before he can stop it. The last two hours of stomach-turning stress all bursts out of him at once. Seriously... he lifts his hands to cover his face and the first aid kit slips onto the sheets beside them while he slicks the sweat from his brow through his bangs.
"Yoshiki— yer bandages are gonna— uuuwhuh—"
Yoshiki reaches up and ruffles Hikaru's hair with all the strength left in his terrible body, pulling his face firmly to his chest.
"—Just forget about it. Hikaru... if ya wanna go so bad I'll get us the tickets myself, so give Miyu hers back..."
"Why?"
"Let's talk about it later... just… give em back and tell the poor girl yer sorry. Ya better act like ya mean it, too."
His stupid cuts are already open again. Guess Hikaru will just have to start all over.