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Yoshiki pulled his knees into his chest. In front of him, Hikaru was sprawled out on his bed, chattering away again. His eyes sparkled at the new manga in his hands, a million thoughts and questions filling the air. About characters, powers, friendship. Mindless, sweet conversation. He was always like that. Yoshiki didn’t really mind it from him. He’d grown fond of the light chatter, leaned on it to pull him out of his own head. But he couldn’t hear him very well this time. His responses were clipped, uninteresting, as he struggled to steady his breathing.
Today hadn’t been any different than their usual routine. They had gone out earlier, taking advantage of their weekend time. Caught a movie, ate decent food, frivolously spent money. Summer had passed by now, the air a soothing temperature, so they even took their time meandering between the few stops they had. It wasn’t a bad day at all. And at home with him, Yoshiki would usually be able to tune out his worries. At least for the rest of the evening, it would be peaceful, listening to Hikaru drone on and on. It drowned out Yoshiki’s constant thoughts, the stress that corroded his mind on the days he was alone. Their most mundane moments became his greatest comfort in the world.
So why do I feel like this? What happened?
Yoshiki curled tighter into himself. It was quite cool in his room, but sweat beaded on his forehead. His jaw tight, his heart thudded rapidly in his building anxiety.
What’s different?
It took Yoshiki a moment to notice the chatter had stopped. Opening eyes he hadn’t realized he’d squeezed shut, he found Hikaru staring at him silently. His worried face, cradled in the evening glow, held a devastating beauty.
Don’t look at me like that.
He knew Hikaru could see deep down inside of him. He knew it was nearly constant. He’d catch him staring, often. Not at him, but through him. Pupils blown out like a cat ready to pounce. Straight to his core. He’d known for a long time, and for the most part, it didn’t bother him anymore. Yet, on days like this, it still made him feel terribly vulnerable.
His “soul”— Hikaru said it was like a brilliant flame. But, what else? What else did he know, what else could he see, always staring so intently at his most raw and honest form? Yoshiki felt like he could see the less brilliant parts inside of him, too. Like he could sense every single thing he kept so fiercely protected.
“…Did I say somethin’ stupid again?” Hikaru’s voice was a sheepish whisper.
Then again, sometimes, he felt like Hikaru couldn’t sense anything at all.
Yoshiki somehow managed a quiet laugh at his earnest question. Hikaru propped himself up on his elbows, feigning offense, and huffed.
“Well ya could at least tell me! You’re always so quiet, I dunno what you’re thinkin’…” His words trailed off.
Yoshiki let out a deep, shaky sigh. He watched Hikaru’s brow furrow in response, noticing how the light traced delicately over his features. The skin on his cheeks looked beautifully soft, while his chin grew the same slight roughness he’d teased Yoshiki for having. His white hair bounced slightly as he shifted, and the vibrant orange sunlight filtering through it looked like flames. Yoshiki found himself drinking in the imagery, committing it to memory, like it was the last time he’d see it. He almost wondered if this moment was an illusion itself.
As if to combat the feeling, he reached a hand out and slipped his fingers between Hikaru’s locks of flame.
“…Maybe you did. I dunno.”
“That’s not…very helpful…” Hikaru’s ruse seemed to melt at Yoshiki’s touch, words dissolving into contented sighs. Yoshiki felt his own tension already melting away as he palmed his hair, gently drawing his nails along his scalp the way he’d pet a cat. The soft, rhythmic movements lulled them both into a sense of ease.
Flames…
Idly, he now found himself wondering if Hikaru felt the same way he did, while looking at that flame inside of him. Is that why he stared so much? Did he also linger on the sight, afraid to look away, afraid it would disappear? Did he also want to reach out and touch it, just to know it’s still there?
He curled a piece of Hikaru’s hair around his finger, once, twice. Entangling them.
Did he also…think it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and fight this brutal temptation?
Yoshiki felt a scalding wave of discomfort at the idea. He knew it was completely different, that what Hikaru saw and felt wasn’t anything like his own experience. It wasn’t something he could even hope to understand. This was just his human musing.
But, when he caught Hikaru’s gaze finally, half lidded in pleasure, with that inhuman glow which seemed to arrest all his senses on contact—he felt that desire flood to every crevice in his body. It was overwhelming.
I want him to want me. Even if just in his own way.
I want him to need me. As much as I need him.
It was terribly selfish. He knew that. But he was reaching his limit. Emotion welled up inside of him, and spilled down his cheek.
Ah, that’s what was different.
He quickly hung his head in an attempt to hide the tears. He didn’t let go of Hikaru’s hair.
I’m at a breaking point, again.
“Yoshiki…”
His voice felt like needles in his chest, instantly the sweetness of the moment evaporating into harsh pain. He choked down a sob. He felt Hikaru’s head rise, but he only held on to his hair tighter.
Silently, arms wrapped around him.
With a tentative warmth embracing him, the waves in his heart intensified at even this slight pressure. He didn’t have the strength to push him away. This time, he didn’t even want to. Collapsing into Hikaru’s chest, he felt his inhibitions slip further and further away as he cried.
I really am weak.
A shaky hand crept up his back and into his hair, mirroring his hold still on Hikaru’s. His movements mimicked the soothing strokes Yoshiki had given him so many times. Had he not been crying, he might’ve laughed at him for this. Hikaru had never tried to return that gesture before. He couldn’t even pet a cat right.
But still…it feels nice.
Yoshiki’s body quivered in silent sobs. Hikaru’s hold tightened slightly as he shifted closer into him, and he rested his chin on Yoshiki’s head. Slowly, he started to sway back and forth.
What, do ya think I’m a kid now?
Yoshiki silently laughed through his tears.
I guess I am cryin’ like one.
Humiliation crashed over him again. He felt like unraveling completely. But Hikaru only nestled him closer, his gentle hands a stark contrast to the violent hold Yoshiki had on him. His whole body was rigid and ached, that grip on Hikaru acting as his only lifeline. He felt if he pulled hard enough, he might be the one to pull the other inside himself. He wasn’t sure if that impulse was his own, or a subconscious way of trying to understand Hikaru. But, desperately, he wanted it—to blend, to mix, to lose himself in him. To lose track of where one ended, and the other began. The desire threatened to burn a hole straight through his own chest.
I’m really losin’ it.
“…H-hikaru…” His voice was barely a rasp. He brought his other hand up to Hikaru’s chest. “Here…” Yoshiki gently rubbed his sternum.
What am I doing?
Hikaru leaned back, pulling through Yoshiki’s resistance, to look him in the face. He was a sopping mess of tears, breath hitching uncontrollably.
“Yoshiki, what…what do ya want? Are you okay?”
“Please…It’s-it’s okay.” Yoshiki pulled at the shirt covering his heart.
Something between bewilderment and concern spread across the boy’s face. He wasn’t sure what he was asking. Or maybe he didn’t want to hear it. He placed a hand on Yoshiki’s cheek, and wiped some of the tears away.
“That’s…It’s too dangerous, ya know it is…”
Yoshiki could only silently plead to him now. Hikaru’s face grew colder, that inhuman spark returning as he struggled within himself. The air between them stilled, every passing second of silence adding pressure on Yoshiki’s heart.
I’m sorry.
I don’t care about that.
Don’t make me say it.
Please.
Yoshiki wished, if nothing else, he could sense his feelings in this moment. Everything his body refused to say for him. Every deep, disgusting feeling, every urge, every desire. All of him. Every single thing he would change his mind about later, as he always did. Wishing it could’ve just stayed in the private crevices of his own mind instead, with that guilty regret of ever being seen at all. He wanted it laid bare, now, before that fear crept its way back in. Before he had a chance to think and think and overthink himself to death, sentenced to that lonely corner of his again.
“…Are ya sure about this?”
More than anything.
I’m not afraid of you.
I need you. Show me you need me.
Please.
“…You really oughtta be more afraid of me, Yoshiki.” Hikaru’s quiet remark could’ve been a coincidence, he vaguely remembered hearing him say something like that before.
But in this moment, to Yoshiki, it was a gesture of divinity.
Hikaru’s hand melted into Yoshiki’s face. His neck split open, pouring himself out. His eyes, gentle and inhuman, imprisoned him again. Instantly, that surge of indescribable pleasure seemed to fill every crevice in his body, and spill over the top.
But — it was different this time. Because he was used to it? No…
From what he glimpsed before submitting to the sensation, the appearance was different. Where he expected tendrils the incomprehensible color of rot, a shifting mass that assaulted his vision, and radiated a frigid air…Instead, a soft glow seeped from his neck. It moved somewhat like storm clouds, flowed like iridescent paint, and settled on his skin like sunlight. Incomprehensible all the same, but it seemed to stroke a different part of his sensitive mind now. And…
It’s warm.
Yoshiki sensed his heart, his very core, was being cradled in warmth. The touch of his insides, while still just as all-consuming, was terribly gentle. Waves of deep, warm comfort glided over him again and again. He felt like he was being entombed in the palm of a soft hand, or wrapped in a veil of humid mist.
Suffocating, and gentle.
The heat flooding his body — his own response or Hikaru’s touch, he wasn’t entirely sure. But he felt it in everything, from his fingertips to the deepest corners of his brain. It rumbled through him and purred, drowning out any remaining trace of pain, fear, or shame inside him. The blinding ecstasy was so overwhelming it threatened to erase the memory of what anything else ever felt like. His mind, and all inhibitions, melted and flowed like the very monster’s form weaving through his cells.
In this trance, he lost track of where he was in his body, in space, in time, if he was alive, or dead. He didn’t care — couldn’t care. His subconscious, eased open and completely unraveled, too numbed by pleasure. It felt like he had reached beautiful, eternal bliss. A few seconds stretched infinitely. Time was meaningless, as he coasted in the high.
His eyes saw nothing and everything and he felt only what his monster granted him in this moment.
Then, suddenly, he was back.
Dizzy in the afterglow, his sight returned as the haze in his head receded. He saw sunlight and Hikaru’s face, brimming with tears. His hair that looked so brilliant in this light, a nervous tremble making it flicker like flames again.
“Are you okay…?” His expression said he had already decided he wasn’t.
Hikaru brought his hands up to cover his face, but Yoshiki caught it first. He held his cheeks and pushed their foreheads firmly together.
Then, as gently as he could, he ran his fingers along Hikaru’s features. Under his eye, down his cheek, along the roughness of his jaw. Some of Hikaru’s form still trailed from his other eye, and dripped down the side of his face. Yoshiki softly pressed a kiss into it.
Hikaru had completely erased the boundaries between them. He had taken the most sensitive truths hidden in his mind, cracked them open, exposed them, and caressed them. He had taken the pain plaguing his heart, silenced it, soothed it, and consumed it. He had taken Yoshiki’s terribly lonely, isolated self, and forever, irreversibly, bound himself tighter to him.
He knew he did. It didn’t have to make sense in his human mind. He could just feel it. He had seen him, accepted him, sapped the agony from his secrets. He had done it all, without Yoshiki needing to say a word.
Even from the guilty, tormented look on his face afterward — Yoshiki knew the intensity of his desire was the same.
It was everything he wanted.
“Yeah.”
For once, as he held the boy in his bed, his mind felt beautifully quiet.