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One time, Hikaru laid down in the grass and refused to get back up.
It was early, the sun not yet over the mountains, and the grass was still cold and wet from the morning dew. Yoshiki remembers how the blades clung to his bare arms when he reluctantly lowered himself to the ground, the chill of the earth soaking so thoroughly into his sleep clothes that he almost immediately started to shiver. It was uncomfortable, and the back of his neck was beginning to itch.
More than anything, though, he remembers Hikaru’s profile so delicately etched in the pale light. How the sight of it made him feel like his heart might collapse from the rot he was born with.
Back then, Yoshiki spent more nights there than at home, as if his 42 kilograms could fill the gaping hole that Indou Kouhei had left. As if he could ever make that four-person home five again.
“Hey, Yoshiki,” Hikaru had said. “If you go and die before me, what do I gotta look for?”
Hikaru was ten, and Yoshiki was eleven.
He remembers thinking it was set to be another dreary sort of day. The persistent overcast that painted that winter in his memories once again blanketed the sky in a dull grey, diluting the small bit of orange now starting to seep over the mountains. The Indous’ garden had been dead for months by this point, and what little snow remained from the night before had already turned to muddy slush. It was like the color had drained from Kubitachi entirely, and all the sunrise could do was illuminate it. It was awful.
“Huh?” Yoshiki replied, voice soft from sleep. “Look for? You mean like a sign or somethin’?”
“Yeah.”
In previous recollections, Hikaru’s question had never stuck out to him. His daddy had died just a few weeks ago, after all, and something irreversible had shifted within him since. Once, in a moment of raw honesty—prompted by an auntie’s attempt at consolation minutes prior—Hikaru said it felt like his leg had been sawed off, but nobody else could see the bleeding. Before Yoshiki could even think of how to care for this part of Hikaru he had just been given, it was snatched back with a quick laugh, with Hikaru saying he’d still be the best player on the soccer team regardless. And then he never said stuff like that again.
It wasn’t until recently that Yoshiki became aware of the parasitic symbiosis the Indous had long endured with the village they once betrayed—the way both the living and the dead must’ve influenced every facet of Hikaru’s life from the moment he could write his own name. It’s a pain he found out too late, their daddies’ wish not to involve him be damned. He can’t help wondering what he might’ve done differently if he knew the kind of shame Hikaru had been born into. If Yoshiki might’ve eased that burden at all, the way Hikaru’s company had eased his own even as he unknowingly remained at the very heart of it.
What Yoshiki did know at the time was that he didn’t like thinking about that kinda stuff, and he knew he was lucky he never really had to. Kouhei was the first time someone close to him had ever died. His death brought up all sorts of feelings, like how he wasn’t sure he’d be all that sad if it had been someone within his own family instead. If maybe he wished it had. Most folks would’ve done, really, because why’d it have to be him? It felt like Yoshiki’s own dad had died, but as much as he and Hikaru told each other everything, he knew he couldn’t say something like that—not with a dad still alive back home. He couldn’t say he didn’t wanna talk about dying all that much either. Hikaru surely asked because he didn’t know how his daddy might be reaching out to him, and Yoshiki didn’t want to leave him hanging like that, so…
“Some sorta bug, I guess,” was his answer, shirt twisted around two fingers. “One of ‘em darters you like so much.”
He remembers wondering if that said too much.
“Okay, but how’m I supposed to know which one’s from you, though?” Rolled over onto his arm, Hikaru’s bottom lip jutted out in a familiar pout. It was missing the usual accompanied tone, though; he sounded quietly devastated. “There’s gotta be a million of ‘em when they come down the mountains. You’ll all look the same an’ then there’s no point.”
The immaturity that came with being a kid made Yoshiki want to grumble that he was being awfully picky for seven in the morning, but something else within him knew better than to fuss.
“Then, uh…” Yoshiki sifted through his limited knowledge of abnormalities commonly recorded in the two kinds of darters around Kibogayama before realizing none of those would really work. Hikaru was just as stubborn as he was clever—he’d just reason himself to death that anything possible in the real world was just that. “I’d send a whole swarm of orange. ‘Stead of red.” He swallowed hard. “Yer favorite color, so there ya go. Ain’t no orange darters ‘round here, autumn or otherwise.” And just to sweeten the pot, “An’ they’ll land on yer hand easy, every time.”
With Yoshiki’s proper answer, Hikaru’s expression shifted. It wasn’t often he looked like that, face all blank and everything wiped clean. Yoshiki could only imagine it meant he was thinking real hard about something, but what, he never knew. A weird part of him only hoped he was the only one who got to see it.
Whatever it meant, Hikaru must’ve come to some kind of decision; he laughed, smiling in that way that always burned up Yoshiki’s insides like nothing else.
It was his real smile, and Yoshiki hadn’t seen it in weeks.
“Alright,” Hikaru said, fully satisfied. He rolled onto his back. As his arms outstretched, the back of his fingers accidentally brushed the hair on Yoshiki’s arm and then stayed there. “Holdin’ ya to it.”
Though it wasn’t exactly the grandest gesture, and the average person probably wouldn’t wanna be bothered by a bunch of flying critters in the middle of their grieving, Yoshiki liked bugs and Hikaru knew that. That wasn’t why he picked them, though. While he couldn’t deny living vicariously through short bursts of unfettered life seemed far more promising than the slow death Kubitachi was bound to give him…
…he chose bugs because they were the only thing Hikaru seemed to hold anymore.
They had stopped holding hands at some point. Hikaru pulled away first, or maybe Yoshiki did. Even now, he couldn’t remember that first exact separation, but he could always recall the way Hikaru’s face would twist out of place when folks were looking their way, so he chose not to think about it too hard.
Not like they didn’t touch at all, of course. Hikaru was keen on throwing an arm over his shoulder up until the very end, and Yoshiki never had to guess who he’d lean on for a photo. Still, that certain intimacy they nurtured so seamlessly in their early childhood began to falter as soon as they neared the end of elementary school, eventually skittering into awkward lapses of hot and cold once junior high came around. By high school, Hikaru’s preferred choice for lounging was still Yoshiki’s unmade bed, but even the privacy of their homes felt ultimately compromised by some unknown, looming spectator.
It… It really sucked. Hikaru had been so clingy when they were little. Always quick to hug or cuddle up for a nap. On particularly indulgent days, Yoshiki would try to convince himself Hikaru was to blame for his feeling some sort of way about him—as if it were anyone’s fault but his own that he ended up so wrong. Yoshiki knew it was weird to miss it so much. He was weird. They were still best friends. They still told each other nearly everything. They still spent every single day together. Yoshiki had everything another guy should ever be expected to give him and yet…
Bugs, though. Kouhei loved talking about this time when Hikaru was maybe two, he came running out of the house, hands clasped over a little spider and wailing the whole way. The thing was too small to even pierce skin, mind you, but Hikaru still flung it into the grass as if his very life depended on it before marching right over to Yoshiki playing on the engawa and whacking him upside the head with a sob. His daddy had found the whole thing hilarious, of course—even nearly forgetting to scold his son as Yoshiki rightfully began to scream—and said it was like Hikaru’s little brain thought the whole ordeal was Yoshiki’s fault.
Yoshiki loved that story. It made him feel good hearing it, because it was his fault. Hikaru was sweet on bugs because of him. It was a mark he made, something Hikaru could never undo like he did the hugs and hand-holding. As rough and off-kilter as they had gotten over the years, he’d always take the time to gently sweep a bug into a cup or his open palm, even the spiders and centipedes that made his skin crawl.
Just too many legs an’ eyes, he explained once. Ain’t their fault, but gah.
Yoshiki and Hikaru had just as much in common as they didn’t, but it meant the most that Hikaru liked bugs. Even weird, funny, strange bugs. Dragonflies the most, which was awful fitting since he liked lizards for the same mythical creature, though he never did give much of a reason for the former. Maybe he liked bugs more than animals because they’re skittish and kinda faceless, so you can’t really tell if they like you or not. Cats and such always seemed wary of Hikaru despite the mellow way he’d approach them, and he never did go crazy over animal videos like Yoshiki did, but he still respected them a ton. A lot of self-proclaimed animal lovers don’t really respect animals, so it never bothered him that Hikaru considered himself indifferent. It was just one of those things about Hikaru that made Yoshiki…
It was why he really was his best friend.
Hikaru was stingy with it, like he didn’t quite know how to show it right anymore, but he was so damn full of love.
What about you?
There had been one last part of that memory. Obviously, Yoshiki asked Hikaru the same thing.
What’s yer sign? If—if you die first.
And Hikaru grinned like he knew it would happen all along. Even though he couldn’t. Even though Yoshiki refuses to believe he’d just—
You’ll know.
That’s all he said. It wasn’t a fair answer after Yoshiki had been so pressed for his own, but he couldn’t bring himself to question it. A part of him worried that he really was meant to know it, that Hikaru had that much faith in Yoshiki for the answer to be obvious. He didn’t want to upset him with the admission he had no clue, so he didn’t ask. He figured he wouldn’t need to know, anyway, because Hikaru was the younger one and they’d have dozens of years before that’d even be something to think about.
But then one day, Hikaru fell into the grass and never got back up.
Dad once told him to never go up that mountain. Yoshiki didn’t think about that at all when he went. He only thought about how no one else would be able to find Hikaru. No one else knew that his natural speed made him impatient, so he was never too good at pacing himself and often tired out before reaching a destination. No one else knew he was distracted easy despite those uncomfortably sharp observation skills—like when they climbed Mount Tenban back in elementary school, and Yoshiki’s heart pounded more from the way Hikaru nearly tumbled right off the ledge of the trail than from their clasped hands as he barely caught him in the nick of time.
No one else knew that Hikaru didn’t just not answer his phone, not when Yoshiki was serious about him picking up.
That he’d never make his mama go through something like that again unless he was already gone.
A part of Yoshiki already knew, but it was still his responsibility to find him. Hikaru had always been his to take care of. Hikaru may have grown up too fast and forgotten that, but Yoshiki didn’t. He had been there the day he was born. There wasn’t a moment in Hikaru’s life that Yoshiki hadn’t been there.
He used to help him hold his cup up so it wouldn’t spill. Yo-chi-ki was who he wanted when he couldn’t sleep at night.
He should’ve laid down next to him, just like before. Even at the very end he was a coward who ran away, whose own legs betrayed him and walked down that mountain with no recollection of it at all. He held Hikaru the way he had always wanted to and then he left him there. He just fucking left him there.
Six months later, that first malicious thought popped into his head.
Ain’t this what you wanted? You finally got away from him.
Except he hadn’t, because Hikaru was still there. Not in the body that held the same warmth, whose voice warped and melded into something familiar yet uniquely its own, but in the fresh air of Kubitachi. He was in the sweet smell of the summer grass and the sticky residue of popsicle on his fingers.
Yoshiki’s sure now he would’ve been in Tokyo as well. Indou Hikaru would’ve haunted him on every street corner he’s never been.
He figures that’s the issue. Plenty reminds him that Hikaru’s gone, but as for that special sign he promised all those years ago, there’s nothing Yoshiki can say for certain. Still, he takes note:
The disembodied tail of a grass lizard, still moving without its owner.
His favorite ice cream melted beside an overflowing trash can.
A tree frog squashed between rice paddies along the bike path to school.
Sawagani crabs sunbaked only centimeters from the creek.
A murder of crows that scream at him, only to fly off when he approaches.
The blossom-end rot on his relatives’ watermelons.
And then there’s Hikaru.
Even now, Yoshiki doesn’t know what to make of him appearing. What his purpose might be for taking over Hikaru’s life. It just sorta happened, is the explanation as far as his memory can recall, but Yoshiki can’t imagine it’s that simple. Indous were the one thing their god was never supposed to touch.
He doesn’t like to dwell on the theories that follow, though. The possible consequences of Hikaru’s interference, or what might happen to a soul after 49 days without a funeral. Perhaps the real reason Yoshiki hasn’t heard from Hikaru isn’t from his own failure or incompetence—maybe his soul just can’t get through to him. Maybe it’s lost or… taken somewhere. Could he even find rest with his body moving around? If Hikaru knows the answer, Yoshiki’s too afraid to ask. He’s not sure he could handle confirmation that he’ll never see him again. Worse, that all of this is prolonging some sort of suffering on Hikaru’s part.
It’s the natural consequence of a secret he’s determined to keep, but he gets it now—the leg thing. Even if he’s only got himself to blame, it doesn’t make the bleeding any easier. More than anything, he doesn’t want to forget Hikaru and leave him behind, but his own selfishness is still hard to swallow. No one can know the truth. No one can grieve Hikaru or get to know the real Hikaru. And as for the ones that do…
Kurebayashi probably understands better than she’d ever guess, though Yoshiki isn’t audacious enough to believe his feelings could possibly compare to that of an actual widow. She definitely doesn’t get why Yoshiki won’t let go, but he wants to believe she’s trying to. That’s just how grown-ups tend to be.
And Asako… Asako looks at him like a stranger sometimes, that bubbly smile just slightly off, and he can’t blame her. He knows how it looks. She has a lifelong friend of her own; she must be wondering all the time if she could ever go about things like this if it came to Yuuki. What it might mean for Yoshiki’s character, that he’s acting like Hikaru’s role in his life could be played by just anybody. But it’s not like that, even if nobody believes him. He can’t come out with the whole truth and grieve Hikaru in front of her, for one, because it wouldn’t come out right. Not if he can’t be… fully honest, about who exactly he’s grieving. But he hasn’t replaced Hikaru—even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. To try and replace his own foundation would be trying to lose himself entirely, but if it had happened, Yoshiki wouldn’t still be missing him every damn moment of the day.
Would it really be hard to believe Hikaru is just someone worth caring about, no strings attached?
Even if their initial connection is entangled and indebted to Hikaru’s identity, and even if a part of it will always be that way, Yoshiki can see the separate entity that lies far beyond it. As painful as it’s been, Hikaru’s death is simply how Hikaru was born. However it happened, they can’t change that it did. Hikaru can’t change whatever he might be, the same way Yoshiki can’t change a thing about himself. Of course it’d be easier if that wasn’t the case, and Yoshiki knows the road they’re going down only gets darker, but what else is there for people like them? Hikaru would still be dead, and the two of them alone with nowhere to go. Yoshiki can’t handle that. He won’t accept it, either—not for Hikaru and especially not for himself.
It’s just… It’s nice to not miss him alone, even if Hikaru can’t miss someone he’s never been apart from.
And it’s nice, having someone like Hikaru by his side.
Hikaru does a lot of the things Hikaru did. It was something Yoshiki needed at first, and then it became something he resented. Now, as the anguish and nausea have slowly settled into some sort of acceptance of this reality, it’s become… kind of comforting. When Hikaru has to be Indou Hikaru, it’s uncanny how well he plays the part. He’s relaxed in areas since Yoshiki acknowledged the truth, but it’s nothing anybody else would notice. From the way he hops a bit to slip on his other shoe to the way his nose crinkles when he laughs, it’s all nearly one in the same.
When they’re completely alone, Yoshiki learns what about Hikaru he’s decided to keep.
Hikaru still likes chewing on his straws. He’s always tugging on Yoshiki’s sleeve for his attention, though Hikaru had the decency to only do it so rough on his loungewear. He can’t sit still, or keep track of a pencil for too long, and he often goes huh? with the inflection of some sorta goose when he doesn’t catch something the first time around. He has plenty of fun playing soccer, and he’s gotten real good at catching frogs out back. He’s got that mighty big appetite. He can fall asleep pretty much anywhere in no time flat.
Hikaru’s kind. Considerate in that way where he won’t bring much attention to it. It’s in his nature to be nice, even if it’s hard for him to understand what ‘nice’ entails for humans. Just like Hikaru, he enjoys being helpful where he can—any laziness is only ever at the expense of Yoshiki’s patience. Hikaru doesn’t think so, but he’s just as clever too, though his expertise lies more in his own kind than in reading the room.
Probably the most human thing of all: Hikaru messes up a bunch. Hurts people and their feelings. Not that Yoshiki has ever been a saint, but it’s worth pointing out. Hikaru was just as much of an ass as he was a sweetheart. Yoshiki was never looking for perfection. He won’t ever demand it.
And when it comes to the differences, he appreciates them all the same. Each one is something new to learn about Hikaru, and at the same time it’s something Yoshiki never stopped and realized about Hikaru. With every brush stroke of Hikaru’s portrait still in progress, he’s able to refine Hikaru’s own a little more. In a way, it’s like he’s still with them—growing up too. If folks can’t see the difference, that can’t be his fault. If they won’t believe he can tell his heart apart from his home, that shouldn’t be his problem. Yoshiki can, and he’s determined to cherish both of them, placing each little piece that makes them in their rightful place.
While Hikaru used to just hum the jingles played in the supermarket, Hikaru will sing under his breath at any given time, words complete nonsense as if trying to make up his own lyrics. Hikaru doesn’t smoke either, not that Hikaru ever did it too much. He fiddles with the lighter, though, like somebody who doesn’t have to worry about getting burned, eyes glimmering whenever he catches that little spark.
Hikaru’s polite to the wrong people and he brushes off more than he should; Hikaru never cared for proper respect towards elders or senpais, and he was never afraid to hold a rightful grudge. They’re both sociable, but Hikaru rarely sought out deeper connections, preferring his small circle above all else. Hikaru finds any and all human interaction interesting, always eager to be included in whatever presents itself.
Hikaru always liked bright colors, but Hikaru pulls out the plain shirts when he can. While Hikaru’s uglier moments were only ever directed at Yoshiki, Hikaru’s targets have been more… varied. He’s nothing but kind to Yoshiki, but it means he also lets him get away with crap he shouldn’t. Hikaru was more secure in their friendship. He was also less honest. Hikaru’s an open book with a whole lot of secrets hidden in his borrowed memory. Sometimes Yoshiki thinks about picking him apart to learn them, but… he knows better.
Hikaru would like him. Yoshiki really believes that. He might make some joke about Yoshiki liking him too much to let him go, but he’d be good to Hikaru. There’s things Hikaru would be better at when it comes to looking after him, and Hikaru would probably understand the parts of Hikaru that Yoshiki could never see just right.
Maybe he’d make him soft again. Maybe he could let him know he’s allowed to cry.
Yoshiki’s real wish, the one he has deep down… He knows it’s impossible, because he’s always wanted what he can’t have. He’ll stomp over his own morals just fine, but he won’t make Hikaru take the blame for the consequences that’d surely follow. He won’t make Hikaru hate him, either, risking the safety of the village for some stupid, self-absorbed fantasy. Knowing Yoshiki’s luck, it’d never turn out right.
So he’ll stick to the basics. All he needs is for Hikaru to be okay in the end.
And if Hikaru had ever asked again, he would’ve known Yoshiki’s answer changed.
He’d still send the darters, of course, but it wouldn’t be just that. Selfish, dirty, wrong as he is, he wouldn’t be happy with Hikaru simply holding him anymore. He’d also have to be the ants in the summer that won’t stop crawling up his leg on the engawa. The bumblebees that mistake that stark white hair for a springtime flower. He’d be the housefly in the kitchen, lingering no matter how much he’s shooed off.
He’d be the little spider crawling up the futon Hikaru shares with his wife.
So small it shouldn’t matter, but he leaves her arms anyway to take it outside. He’d never squish it. He wouldn’t dream of it, because it’d upset Yoshiki that much. Because Hikaru’s sweet on bugs. He’s sweet on them because of Yoshiki. And every time Hikaru sees one, he’ll be thinking of Yoshiki.
Because there was a point where Yoshiki was the one that mattered.
So Hikaru leaves his wife for him, if only for a minute.
He’d be the worst. Annoying, bothersome, a nuisance—each insect puppeteered out of his own sick need to not be left behind. He’d tether them tighter than ever, as if to say, I was here once. We were always together and we still are. What kind of life could you ever have without me? What kinda life would that even be?
“Hey, ya comin’ or what?”
Yoshiki looks up. Hikaru waits up ahead.
Don’t you dare forget me.
As Yoshiki stares at him, backlit by the sun, he wonders if Hikaru ever felt the same way.