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When Eita steps into the room, he sees a ghostly bob of sandy pale hair, with eyes to match, and skin like chalky water. Just mere seconds ago, the landlord had pressed a key into his hand at the entrance and fled away at the speed of light, mumbling incoherently about some urgent business to attend to. Eita had felt rather bewildered.
(Entry #17: It is said that once a zashiki-warashi inhabits a house, it brings the residence great fortune.)
The boy keeps his expression mild, but Eita can feel the displeasure rolling off him in steady waves. He is dressed in a yukata of a royal purple, with beautifully-embroidered birds of prey swooping in circles on the back, and it reminds Eita of a place he once called home.
“I have no idea how she got rid of me on the day you came to see the room,” he says, “but I can assure you that I’m here to stay.”
Eita takes a moment to process his words, then smiles, cordially.
“That’s fine,” he says, extending his right hand towards the boy. “I’m Semi Eita. What’s your name?”
The boy regards Eita with what he supposes is a cross of suspicion and hostility. “You can call me Shirabu,” he says curtly, and dissolves into the closet, like saltwater foam into the shore.
“Nice to meet you, Shirabu,” Eita says into the stale, humid air. He should really open a window. “I hope we get along well.”
He gets a nearly-inaudible huff in response.
Eita remembers his first night in Tokyo, clear as day. There are far less youkai in the city than there are in the country. What a joke.
He’d spent the entire shinkansen ride next to an entirely too talkative kitsune eating kitsune udon, unapologetically spilling broth over his pants whenever the shinkansen lurched forward or came to a stop. That should have been the first sign.
(Entry #23: The more tails a kitsune has, the older, wiser, and more powerful it is.)
The city that never sleeps. The streets were bathed in hues of neon reds and argon purples, bustling with the indistinguishable roar of street chatter. The air was stifling and humid, and he was hit with the scent of white hot charcoal, booze, and the slight musty afterthought of rain on concrete.
Between the long shadows and the faces basking in afterglow, the sea of bodies warm and cold, it was hard to differentiate between youkai and human.
As the crashes and booms of gongs and drums passed him by—he vaguely registered: a procession of some sort, humanlike figures with black wings and talons lumbering across the packed streets, palanquin heavy on their backs, the paper talisman over their eyes plastered to their ivory white faces—he had a thought.
Wooden talismans and brass bells clacked and jangled from the roof of the palanquin, a thin curtain threaded with indecipherable scribes in a myriad of colours veiling the figure inside. Bishamonten-sama, banzai! Bishamonten-sama, banzai! Topped off with the blaring sound of the charumera, Eita’s ears had devoured the four-dish course with the palate of a king.
Perhaps they might not be so different after all.
“I think I’ve found a guy,” Satori says in passing. Eita hums. Satori makes a face and bats away the smoke tendrils drifting up into the air. The enenra are upset, and flit away. Satori pays no mind. Some five stories below them, a car honks at a young child carrying a bag of groceries. Eita watches the child stumble onto the pavement behind the steel bars of the balcony.
(Entry #45: It is said that an enenra can only be seen by the pure of heart.)
“Apparently he’s real powerful,” Satori continues. “He’ll probably be able to do it.”
“Maybe,” Eita says. By the closet, inside the apartment, a yurei stirs in its sleep. “Like the five hundred and forty six before him.”
“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket, Eita,” Satori says, pouting at Eita. “It was only seven people. Did you know eight’s an auspicious number, according to Chinese belief? Sounds similar to ‘fortune’, apparently. Please appreciate the things I do for you, my BFF.”
“We’re in Japan, not China,” Eita retorts, exhaling. The wispy white trails make his eyes water a little, but he blinks the tears away. “But yeah. Thanks.”
“Aw!” Satori pounces on him. “Did Semisemi just say ‘thanks’? I’m so honoured!”
“Shut up,” Eita says, shooting a glare at Satori. He brings the brass rim to his lips for another drag, but Satori bats it away. “Your servant will wake up.”
“Don’t try to act tough,” he says. “It’s not good for you.”
Eita sighs, but sets the pipe down. He plops his head onto Satori’s shoulder, eyelids fluttering shut. His fingers trace patterns on the hard wooden body of the pipe, gold dragon streaks among the tallest of clouds in the sky. “It’s supposed to be intoxicating.”
Satori frowns.
“Stop that,” he says, a hint of sympathy in his voice. “You’ll be able to not see soon enough.”
Eita dreams.
He dreams of a tall figure with fluffy brown hair and gold rimmed eyeglasses. He knows the figure’s name, an innate emotion bursting with clarity, a sixth sense so sure that he’s certain he’ll still remember it when he wakes up.
He dreams of pink clouds parting for the brazen, deep sky, of a glass lake and sloping mountains. He dreams of candlelit paper boats and glowing red lanterns. He dreams of a dragon made out of the cosmos, playing catch with the twinkling stars. He dreams of snow, under a moonlit night.
“Eita.” The figure surrounds him, like a blanket of electric affection and sagiso petals, and it sparks a fiery warmth that burns from the crown of his head down to the very tips of his toes.
He says the figure’s name as well, a low pulsating hum in a semblance of my thoughts will follow you into your dreams, and the name tingles with raw power, like a tsunami breaking shore, but flows down his throat, smooth like spring water.
When Eita rises, he pours himself a glass of water, lets it slide down his throat. He ponders on the inkling, like an itch he just can’t scratch, of something he was supposed to remember.
Satori has given him the address to a small ukiyo-e gallery-cum-artist’s workshop, tucked away in a little corner on a more peaceful side of Roppongi, next to a run-down tattoo parlour. Eita eyes his destination with apprehension, but hurries past the burly men on the sidewalk, embellished with vibrant tattoos, cigarettes dangling from their fingers like accessories.
Eita slides the paper door open. It leads to a genkan, surrounded on all sides by wine red drapes. He takes off his shoes, pulls one aside, and steps in.
Red lanterns laced with gold hang from the ceiling. When Eita tilts his head up he sees hundreds of ofuda, all lined up in neat rows. Ukiyo-e crammed from wall to wall. Eita cringes and averts his eyes from some of the coarser depictions. There’s a breeze wafting through the room, even with all the windows and doors shut, and a pretty glass wind chime jingles softly.
Fairy lights, twined around slats, give off a soft pink glow. Light filters in from gaps between blinds, creating sunset-hued strips across the dusty wood-panelled floor.
It’s ten in the morning.
Half the area is taken up by a raised platform, the parquet giving way to a tatami floor about a meter into the platform. A familiar figure with glasses sits in the corner of the room at a desk, chipping away dedicatedly at a wood block. A wolf, with fur like snow under moonlight, reclines beside him lazily, tail curled around his back.
Everything around Eita everything seems faded, dreamlike, an ethereal sort of aesthetic he wouldn’t know how to appreciate.
He is, all at once, overcome by a sensation of déjà vu.
(Entry #1: Often revered like gods, okami are rare but powerful creatures.)
“Are you Oikawa?” Eita asks. The man clicks his tongue, a harsh tch that Eita suspects might have something to do with the sudden stillness of the wind.
“Slippers on wood, barefoot on tatami,” the man says. “On your left.”
Eita puts on the slippers. The soft cotton fits his feet like gloves. “Are you Oikawa?”
“Yes,” Oikawa says, finally looking up. When he sees Eita, there is an almost imperceptible falter in his motion, and something almost like recognition flashes in his eyes. But then he pushes his gold-rimmed eyeglasses up his nose, and gazes at Eita sharply. “I’m Oikawa Tooru. What business do you have here?”
Intimidating, but that’s okay. Eita’s dealt with tons of intimidating exorcists before. He prods again, in a loud, clear voice. “I would like you to do something for me.”
“Oh?” Oikawa says. Eita notices a crack in the right lens. “And what may that be?”
“I can see youkai,” Eita says without hesitation. “And I’d prefer not to.”
“That’s a mean feat,” Oikawa contemplates out loud. There is a lull in conversation, in the atmosphere. The wolf’s tail sways idly. The wind chime sings, a pretty melody. Eita allow this—he is far too used to it. “What will you give me in return?”
“Anything you want,” Eita says. “Within my means.”
Oikawa raises an eyebrow. “Even your life?”
Eita shrugs. Oikawa hums.
“Semi Eita,” Oikawa muses, tapping his chin. “Interesting. All right. I’ll do anything within my means to take away your Sight.”
Eita narrows his eyes, tilts his head slightly. “Have we met before?”
“Oh, you don’t remember?” A wolfish grin slides onto Oikawa’s face. A paper fan unfolds with a flick of his wrist. Eita follows the movement of Oikawa’s hair as the brown locks flutter in the gentle wind. “I’m disappointed.”
“Almost,” Eita replies.
“Almost is never enough, Eita-chan,” Oikawa chides, then turns back to his desk. He gestures to the wolf by his side. “Run along now. I’ll send Ichi for you when you need to be here.”
“All right.” Eita exits the shop with a slight bow in Oikawa’s direction, and slides the door shut with a soft click. Then, he remembers.
The first time, they go through hell and back, rather literally.
The sky had been a deep, dirty red, and the moon a sinister black. It felt as though the stars had been stabbed in the gut and left to rot in a pool of their blood. Oikawa had led them into the brass castle, through eighteen levels of hellfire, and pushed Semi into an open window. They were caught by fiendish tengu, and Oikawa cackled in glee as they fled for their lives from the fire-breathing beasts that had been set upon them.
Eita supposes he should count himself lucky that they actually made it out in one piece.
“You still want to do this?” Oikawa asks lazily, fanning himself with a too-exceptional nonchalance, as Eita leans against a wall to get his breath back. Ichi nuzzles Oikawa’s thigh affectionately, its tail waving back and forth in languid motions. Eita catches Oikawa’s glance, and straightens up immediately.
“Yes,” he says, offering Oikawa a small smile. “I do.”
Oikawa wrinkles his nose, and turns away. There is silence for a few contemplative moments. Eita may not be the best mind reader, but he thinks there might just be a whiff of amusement in Oikawa’s voice when he next speaks.
“All right, then.”
Oikawa dunks Eita’s head into a porcelain basin under the glowing full moon. He surfaces in a stream behind a temple, and Oikawa follows soon after. Oikawa sighs and wrings his robes dry, striding towards the temple.
They walk out of the temple gates, past its quaint old building and a magnificent cherry blossom tree at its entrance, the tree’s spirit watching them as they go. The night is cool, and a delicious scent rides the breeze. Oikawa stops by an oden cart owned by a father-son kitsune pair for a bite. The little kitsune presents Oikawa with a paper crane, gold with red trimmings.
When he and Oikawa arrive at their destination, there is nothing but a barren plot of land. Oikawa smiles at the sight, for some reason. A forlorn, wistful smile.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Eita asks. “There’s nothing here.”
Oikawa turns his gaze unto Eita, quizzical and scrutinising and relieved all at once, like he knows something Eita doesn’t. “What.”
“What?” Oikawa shoots back reflexively, his smile turning warmer and softer at the edges when he directs it at Eita. Eita really wants to smack him, but kind of really wants to take a picture and keep it in his wallet for an eternity.
“You’ve got that smug look on your face,” Eita says. “Like you know something I don’t. And it irritates me.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Eita-chan,” Oikawa chirps, glancing around with a polished casualness. “Just wait here for a second! I’ll be right back out.”
Oikawa steps past two pillars, into the barren land, and—disappears.
Eita thinks he falls into a state of unconsciousness. When he comes to, there is a boy standing a slight distance away, leaning against the pillar of what he supposes would have been an iron-wrought gate. The boy notices him staring, and speaks, a little amused, a little exasperated. “So you can’t go in either, huh?”
“What?”
“The shop,” the boy says slowly, scrutinising him. “On this plot of land, there’s a shop that grants wishes.”
This time, they dive into the stratosphere.
When they land, Eita glances back up toward the sky. They’ve left a gaping hole in the cirrostratus clouds, and stars manage a wink at him before the wind changes the sky by Oikawa’s hand.
They’ve landed in a small alleyway between two rickety buildings, a thinly-stretched clothesline hanging above them. Eita thinks he hears a train rush past. A scrap of newspaper drifts past him, sailing along Oikawa’s wind, and Eita catches a glimpse of the words “Phantom Shinbun” and a beautiful sunset.
“Ah, I haven’t been here in a while,” Oikawa says, trotting towards a street, his haori billowing behind him. “Come on, I have an old friend to visit.”
Oikawa and Eita stride through the busy walkways, teeming with humans and other creatures alike. Conversation between the two groups—two? Was there ever a distinction? Eita shakes his head, hoping willing the fogginess in his mind to go away—flows fluidly, smoothly. Eita stares at an inugami, not unlike Ichi except for the colour of his coat and the absence of a distinct magical something, and two bakeneko.
They do not stare back.
“Hey,” a voice greets them as they walk into a little shop by the sidewalk, past the bright neon of its entrance. The sign at the shopfront reads Stratosphere Optical. “Haven’t seen you around lately.”
“You know I’m a busy person, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sniffs, sauntering to the back like he owns the place.
“Don’t call me Iwa-chan,” the voice says from behind his newspaper. Phantom Shinbun. Huh. “Besides, what are you talking about, you used to come over all the time, complaining about homesickness and whatnot—”
“SHH,” Oikawa says, throwing his paper fan at the newspaper. “I’ve been busier lately.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Toned arms fold up the newspaper into quarters and set it down on the counter, revealing a tan face with sharp eyes that pointedly look at Eita, slightly amused. “Haven’t seen you around before.”
“I haven’t been around before,” Eita says. Tan-and-sharp-eyes snorts.
“Iwaizumi,” Oikawa cuts in impatiently, flitting about the displays around the shop. “Are my lenses ready?”
“You think?” Iwaizumi retorts, bending down and rummaging through a drawer. “They’ve been collecting dust in here for months.”
Oikawa rushes up to the counter, pressing his entire weight against the glass display like a kid at a candy shop. Iwaizumi snorts again, and emerges with a burgundy velvet spectacle case. Oikawa presses his palms together, his eyes radiating glee, and Eita has to supress a grin.
Then Iwaizumi opens the box, and Oikawa lets out a cry of dismay.
“Iwa-chan!” he yells. “Why are they round!”
“You didn’t specify the shape,” Iwaizumi says nonchalantly. He catches Eita’s eye, and smirks. “Sucks to be you.”
Oikawa wails, stomping over to the corner. He drops into a squat, muttering to himself in a fuming rage. Eita promptly takes a seat at the counter across Iwaizumi, and makes himself comfortable.
“People say that you never really forget your first love,” Iwaizumi says, scrutinising Oikawa with an odd mix of wistfulness and mirth.
“So yours was Oikawa?” Eita asks, a tad bemused.
Iwaizumi stays silent for a minute. “Yes and no,” he says with a chuckle that’s closer to a snort than anything else. “That’s all I can say about it.”
One night, Oikawa laces their fingers together and pulls Semi into the backroom of the shop. Semi has never been in there before, and it feels awfully intimate, sacred, as if Oikawa is ripping his ribcage apart and baring his heart, his soul, his entirety to Semi.
The walls are lined with books.
The ceiling is plastered with ofuda, and one side of the room is composed entirely of shoji. In front of the shoji there is a small table, on which lays various well-loved manuscripts and a messily scribbled-in notebook. A dim lamp sits beside the table on the tatami floor. A mini fridge and a small altar sit in the corner. Eita doesn’t recognise the faces in the frames.
The walls seem to be composed entirely of bookshelves, and have been filled to the brim with scriptures of all kinds. Stray books are scattered across the floor, along with lumps of dirty clothing that look like they’ve been kicked to the side in a round of hasty cleaning. And in the centre of the chaos, two mattresses have been laid out, with two pillows and two blankets sitting on top of them neatly.
Eita furrows his eyebrows. “What is this?”
Oikawa mindlessly rubs circles on the back of Eita’s hand. “You’ve done this before, Eita-chan.”
Eita frowns, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “How… do you know?”
“Why, it was the first time we met, Eita-chan,” Oikawa says, with a smile that tells Eita he knows what he’s thinking. “Don’t you remember?”
“Oh.” Eita’s face colours. “That’s what you meant.”
Oikawa chuckles. In a swift motion, he leans over towards Eita. His hands are cupped around Eita’s ear, his thumb tracing the line of Eita’s cheekbone. His eyes are clear. Eita slowly, hesitantly, reaches to clasp Oikawa’s slender, callused fingers in his own, his gaze never leaving Oikawa’s. Oikawa pulls away, ducking his head low, in a haste. He clears his throat.
“So, um,” Eita says, trying to tuck the lingering dredges of disappointment away from his chest. “We just sleep?”
“Y-yeah,” Oikawa replies, the realisation of what he did seemingly sinking in only just. He crawls over to a small open chest, and rifles through its contents. “Wait, I have something to give you.”
Eita waits in silence, cross-legged, on the futon. Oikawa returns with a necklace in hand, a small golden bell and a clear magatama strung on a thick woven cord. He crosses over his sheets to kneel at Eita’s back.
“Don’t lose it,” Oikawa says, clasping the necklace around Eita’s neck. His hands linger for a half-second longer than necessary. “No matter what.”
“Okay,” Eita says, a tad breathier than usual. His hands reach up to his chest, fingers toying with the pendants, cool against his skin.
If, in the deep of the night, their palms brush against each other once, twice, thrice—if their fingers tangle and weave like an intricate braid—if Oikawa traces spells of protection onto Eita’s skin—if Eita traces the names of flowers onto Oikawa’s skin—
—neither of them say a word.
The déjà vu hits Eita like a freight train, and the feeling of something misplaced lingers like the aftermath. The moon exudes a dirty yellow glow. The enenra dance to a foreboding tune, and gashadokuro roam the distant hills.
“Let’s get out of here,” Oikawa says. He brings out a paper crane of gold and red trimmings from under his robes, and brings it to his lips. He puts his hands together in a whispered prayer, eyes lidded, then releases the crane to the wind.
The wind whistles, an answering call, and a beast descends from the sky.
(Entry #203: The itsumade fly over places where there is suffering or death, yet little has been done to alleviate the pain of the living or pacify the spirits of the dead.)
They mount the beast, and Eita places his hands on Oikawa’s sides. Oikawa makes a soft sound of disapproval, and pulls on Eita’s arms so they wrap around his waist entirely. Oikawa tilts his head, and Eita can see the soft outline of his nose against the moonlight, and the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyelids dip, and his eyes are half-moon slivers.
“You’ll fall if you don’t hold tight,” Oikawa simply says, and they ascend, like a gunshot into the night sky. Eita’s heart plummets in exhilaration, and he can’t help the open-mouthed grin on his face.
“A human’s love is fleeting, but a god’s love is forever,” Oikawa says later, without preamble.
They lay side by side, the concaved side of the rocky crescent moon rough on their backs. In the distance, the itsumade swoops around a mountain, its cries a devastating agony.
Eita wonders vaguely if there’s something they should be doing, something they should be searching for. It doesn’t really matter, though. It’s nice, being with Oikawa, even while the night grows weary and their minds wander, aimless.
The city never sleeps, even under an entirely different sky. The flashing lights are of shades so vibrant Eita could never hope to be able to perceive them, and for the first time in what must be an eon, he ponders upon the infinity of the wondrous sights the youkai must see every day.
“There’s a war,” Oikawa states. Eita can tell, by the look in Oikawa’s eyes, and he wonders what kind of sights Oikawa witnesses when his mind is drifting across the universe. Eita hasn’t the slightest clue what Oikawa’s talking about.
“Rather beautiful,” Eita muses. “You can see Genbu from here.”
“Mm,” Oikawa hums, eyelids dropping shut. There is a soft thump and a cool weight against Eita’s body, locks of silky hair tickling his nape. Eita exhales, and watches his breath fade into the constellations.
“You’ve been coming home late these days,” Shirabu says sullenly as Eita comes tumbling into his room. The afternoon lights spills in from a window Eita’s sure he didn’t open, a neat square block on the tatami floor. Otherwise, the room is dim.
“I was with Oikawa.” Eita yawns, groggily pulling his shirt over his head. He stumbles onto the floor, and Shirabu smoothly slides a pillow under his head before he lands, making a sound of disapproval when Eita’s eyes flutter close without a word.
Shirabu opens his mouth, then hesitates. He sighs with an indiscernible shake of his head.
“You shouldn’t hang out with him so much,” he finally says, dragging the blanket he’d gotten out beforehand over Eita’s bare back. “I’ve not heard good things about him.”
“Hm,” Eita mumbles, cracking an eyelid open. He shifts under the blanket, his movements languid. “I think I love him, though.”
There is silence for a moment, and the glare that makes its way onto Shirabu’s face could disintegrate the sun.
“What,” he hisses, throwing a spare pillow at Eita’s face. “You’re in love with that guy?”
“I’m not in love with him,” Eita says with a sleepy sigh. He bats the pillow away half-heartedly. “Well, probably. I don’t know. I love him.”
Shirabu scoffs.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing I can do about it.” Eita says, with a soft smile on his face that’s directed to Shirabu as he settles into a dreamlike stupor. “But thank you for worrying about me, Shirabu. It makes me very happy.”
The last things Eita registers before he falls into a deep slumber are, in no particular order: Shirabu’s ears that are a tad redder than they normally are, a weary sigh, and a warm hand on his cheek.
The air is oddly still. Eita has a distinct feeling of being watched.
But the street around him is void of youkai and burly men alike, so he shrugs it off, albeit uneasily. He slides open the door to Oikawa’s shop, and stumbles in.
He shuts the door immediately.
(Entry #81: Occasionally, an onryo’s curse is born not out of hatred and retribution, but out of intense, passionate love which perverts into extreme jealousy.)
Right as he opened the door, he’d sensed an ominously strong wind raging against his back, and the feeling of something passing through him. It leaves an unsettling chill in his body. He raises his right hand to his chest, fumbling at the bell and magatama around his neck. The drapes have been pulled apart.
“Oikawa?” Eita calls out, hesitantly. “Ichi?”
“Oikawa.” A dark figure materialises in front of Eita and slams him against the paper door. It rattles under his weight. There is a heavy pressure around his neck. Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. The voice booms, distant. Eita’s vision blurs, and he grapples and claws at the ghostly substance around his windpipe. “Where is Oikawa.”
“I—I don’t—know,” he manages to gasp out. There is an insistent ringing echoing through his ribcage. His heartbeat accelerates in response. The pressure around his neck grows tighter.
“Where is Oikawa,” the figure demands. The ringing grows louder, and it drowns out the figure’s voice. Eita’s starting to think he’s not imagining it. “Where is Oikawa!”
A sudden bright light surges out from Eita’s neck, and the figure reels over. The pressure is gone. There is not a slightest breath taken. The light is blinding, but it is all Eita can do to stare at it, enraptured. A bell chimes, its rhythm steady and sure. Far into the distance, Eita thinks he sees a flash of tan skin, and a sharp, but warm gaze, familiar.
His hand instinctively reaches for the cord around his neck. The magatama is gone.
Then the light fades, and Eita finds himself face to face with the silver-white of Oikawa’s robes, the material taut against his back, rising and falling with every breath he takes. It reminds Eita of the burn in his own lungs, and he inhales. The figure has vanished.
Oikawa is shaking, Eita realises. Trembling.
There is a long silence that follows. It is broken by Oikawa. He does not acknowledge the tremor in his voice. “Eita. Why are you here?”
“What was that?” Eita asks. “Why was it looking for you?”
The shoji rattle eerily. Through the blinds, under the moonlight, Eita catches a glimpse of something white—a bone? Oikawa waves his hand, and the blinds snap shut. The cold yellow-grey strips of moon are replaced by a soft pink glow. Something in Oikawa’s eyes harden. “Eita—”
“No, Oikawa. Please,” Eita says. “I want to know what’s going on. I care for you. I—”
The unsaid “I love you” slips away from his throat like water in his hands. They both know Oikawa heard it anyway.
“You need to leave,” Oikawa finally says. “Somewhere far, far away. It’s complicated. They’re after me. I don’t want to put you in danger.”
Eita furrows his eyebrows. Takes a breath, then another. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Oikawa repeats, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah.” Eita takes another breath.
“I won’t run anymore. I won’t look for a way to stop seeing anymore. Honestly, I enjoyed being with you so much that I probably wasn’t looking already. But—I’ll learn how to use my sight. I’ll study a lot. I’ll become better, and then I’ll come back and look for you. So please,” Eita pleads, “please don’t disappear, all right?”
Eita exhales, fists clenched at his sides. The silence stretches out to an eternity, and Eita lowers his head, turning to leave—
“Eita.”
Eita stops, and whirls back to face Oikawa again. Oikawa gazes at him, desperation and love and heartache plain in his eyes. Oikawa looks as if—as if he really wants to kiss Eita.
But then the moment passes, and Oikawa looks away.
“Go,” he mutters. “Ichi will take you home.”
Eita buries his head in Ichi’s fur. They leap from building to building. The wind rushes past, leaving a roar in his ears and a chill in his bones. The moon mocks him. He blinks away tears, and tells himself they’re there because of the wind.
They arrive, and Eita dismounts. Ichi allows him one last pat on the head, then gallops off into the night sky. The wind tousles his fur, and the breeze carries to him the scent of sagiso.
When Eita steps into his room, he sees a vase sitting in the centre of the room, filled with an array of flowers frozen in glass. Shirabu is nowhere to be seen.
Edelweiss for power. The lilt of Oikawa’s voice echoes in his head. Eita sinks to the floor, closing his eyes. He can almost imagine the slope of Oikawa’s neck, the roughness of his palms, the upward curve of his lips as he recites the flowers and their meanings. Eita puts his head in his palms and sobs, uninhibited.
Edelweiss for power. Daisies symbolise faith. Shion for remembrance. Peonies represent bravery, violets for honestly. And lastly, my favourite, sagiso. I think you know what those mean, don’t you, Eita?