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When Yoshiki moved abroad for college on a scholarship, the first thing Hikaru asked was whether the ocean would taste different on the other side of the world. It was not, objectively, an important question. Yoshiki stood in the middle of the airport clutching his phone while commuters streamed around them in practiced currents. Hikaru leaned lazily against a pillar nearby, smiling in that bright, careless way that still made Yoshiki’s chest tighten instinctively. His family had dropped him off hours in advance “just in case,” and Hikaru had insisted that he wanted to stay longer until Yoshiki decided to go through security, and he’ll figure out his way back to town somehow.
“It’s still ocean,” Yoshiki answered flatly.
“Yeah, but maybe foreign ocean has a different vibe.”
“That sentence means nothing.”
“It means you should report back to me.”
Yoshiki adjusted the strap of his bag. “You’re acting like I’m leaving forever.”
Hikaru tilted his head. For a split second, something behind his expression shifted—something ancient and hollow and quietly inhuman. Then he grinned again.
“Dude,” he said lightly, “humans always say dramatic things at airports in like every movie we’ve watched. Seems important for the atmosphere.”
Yoshiki looked away first. That had become a habit over the past two years: deliberately ignoring the moments where the thing wearing Hikaru’s face stopped pretending perfectly.
“You have your passport?” Hikaru asked.
“Yes.”
“Wallet?”
“Yes.”
“Phone charger?”
“Hikaru.”
“Adapter?”
“Hikaru.”
“What? I’m being responsible and supportive.”
“Since when are you responsible?”
Hikaru beamed proudly. “See? You’ll miss me.”
Yoshiki wanted to say I already do.
Instead, he muttered, “I’m going to be late.” No, he wasn’t. But he didn’t know what else to say.
The silence that followed softened immediately. Hikaru seemed quieter beneath the fluorescent lights and departure screens.
“Yoshiki,” he said.
There were still moments where hearing his own name in Hikaru’s voice hurt unexpectedly. He didn’t confuse this creature for the boy he lost anymore. That confusion had faded long ago. The pain came from understanding too clearly that the thing before him had become someone else entirely. Someone impossible, and someone beloved.
Yoshiki finally looked back at him. Hikaru stepped closer.
“You’ll call me, right?”
“You hate phones.”
“I hate when other people use phones.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I’m special.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“And yet.”
Hikaru smiled faintly. Then, before Yoshiki could react, Hikaru reached up and tugged him down by the sleeve of his jacket, giving him a quick hug in the middle of the crowd. It lasted barely three seconds. Still, Yoshiki’s entire face burned instantly.
“Hikaru—”
“You looked too tense.”
“You can’t just do things like that in public.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” At that, Hikaru laughed softly, amused.
Yoshiki’s stomach twisted painfully. He had wanted this for years: distance from the village, distance from whispers and graves and memories soaked into every road back home. And yet now that he stood here, actually leaving, the idea felt wrong in a way he couldn’t articulate. Because of Hikaru. The real Hikaru had died years ago. The creature beside him had arrived wearing his face afterward, smiling too wide and asking too many questions. Yoshiki had spent so long fearing it. Then understanding it. Then loving it, and himself. But he would never admit that.
“Hey,” Hikaru said quietly.
Yoshiki blinked.
“You’re doing the scary overthinking face again.”
“I don’t have a scary overthinking face.”
“You absolutely do.”
Yoshiki exhaled slowly.
“I should go.”
Hikaru nodded once.
Then, unexpectedly, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small object wrapped in cloth.
“I got you something.”
“What is it?”
“Present.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.” Suspicion, misplaced and teasing, immediately sharpened through Yoshiki’s exhaustion. “Did you steal this?”
“Wow,” Hikaru said, sounding genuinely wounded. “You know one unknowable mountain entity and suddenly everything mysterious is theft.”
“That makes no—so you did steal it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Yoshiki sighed and took the bundle carefully.
Inside sat a tiny cicada made from dark wood, polished smooth from handling. It was surprisingly delicate.
“Found this bug. Thought of you.” Hikaru shrugged.
“Hikaru.”
“I figured foreign countries probably have crazy evil spirits too,” Hikaru said, scratching his head awkwardly. “This little guy might help.”
The simplicity of the statement hit Yoshiki harder than anything dramatic could have. Beneath all the unsettling smiles and inhuman instincts, Hikaru still cared with terrifying sincerity. It was the most human thing about him.
Yoshiki closed his fingers around the cicada tightly.
“…Thank you.”
Hikaru brightened immediately. “You’re welcome.”
Then, softer:
“Have fun, okay?”
Something in Yoshiki’s chest ached. It sounded more like don’t forget me. Suddenly the airport felt less like leaving for college and more like stepping into a folktale where travelers vanished beyond oceans for decades at a time.
“I will,” Yoshiki said, trying to blink away the tears.
***
The area surrounding the university looked like something from a watercolor painting. Narrow stone streets curved around canals lined with willow trees. Bicycles rattled over cobblestones. Students drank coffee beside ancient cathedral walls as though centuries were ordinary things.
Yoshiki hated it for the first two months. Not the place itself. The loneliness.
English exhausted him constantly. Every conversation felt half a second too slow, like his thoughts were swimming through syrup before reaching his mouth. The weather changed every hour. He missed proper rice. He missed the mountains, scary as they were. He missed speaking without translating himself first. Most of all, he missed Hikaru. Which was irritating. Because Hikaru remained deeply, fundamentally bizarre even miles away. Phone calls arrived unpredictably at three in the morning. Sometimes Yoshiki would answer to hear only heavy breathing and distant cicadas before Hikaru casually announced:
“There’s a deer outside our old school.”
“…Why are you calling me about that?”
“It’s staring at me weird.”
“Hikaru, I’m literally in another country.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re bad at being helpful remotely? Because you are.”
Or:
“Yoshiki.”
“What.”
“Do humans need all their teeth?”
“…Yes?”
“Interesting.”
“Hikaru.”
“I’m joking.”
A pause.
“…Mostly.”
Or:
“Found this bug. Thought of you.”
“You’re showing me a patch of grass, Hikaru.”
“Can you not see that, oh my god?”
“I might if you stop violently shaking the phone as if it owes you money.”
Despite everything, the calls became routine. Comforting, even. Yoshiki started anticipating them while procrastinating instead of doing his assignments, or while shelving books at work, because eventually he found work, too: at a cramped independent bookstore just off campus. Their collection of books about arachnids was to die for. The owner, an elderly woman named Margaret, hired him almost immediately—something about his blank stare and how he looked trustworthy around first editions.
The shop became home with startling speed. Warm yellow lights. Dusty shelves. Rain tapping softly against broad front windows while students wandered between stacks pretending not to flirt beside literary fiction. Yoshiki liked the predictability of it. Books remained slowly accessible even when people did not. Unfortunately, Hikaru became obsessed with the bookstore instantly because he wasn’t there physically.
“You work surrounded by books all day?” Hikaru asked over video call one evening when Yoshiki first got hired.
“Yes.”
“That’s incredibly suspicious.”
Yoshiki raised an eyebrow.
“You know. Ancient magical narrative symbolism.”
“What kind of movies are teaching you those words dude?”
Hikaru ignored the question. “Does the store have a ghost?”
“No.”
“How do you know if you haven’t checked?”
“How do you know I haven’t checked? And it’s a bookstore, not a haunted mansion.”
“Those low-key overlap a lot.”
Yoshiki balanced his phone against a stack of new additions while closing the register. Onscreen, Hikaru lounged upside down across Yoshiki’s old bedroom floor, entirely unconcerned with gravity or normalcy. Even through grainy video quality, his eyes reflected strangely in the dim light in a way that was painfully familiar now.
“You’re staring,” Hikaru observed.
“I’m tired.”
“Liar.”
Yoshiki looked away automatically. A beat of silence passed. Then Hikaru’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“You’re lonely.” It wasn’t phrased as a question. Yoshiki hated that not-Hikaru could still read him so easily across continents.
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
“Hm.”
“That’s not a good reaction.”
“You always say ‘fine’ differently when you mean miserable.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
Yoshiki shut off half the store lights with more force than necessary. Outside, rain blurred passing headlights into streaks of red and gold. Everything suddenly felt unbearably far away. Hikaru
watched him quietly through the screen.
Then, unexpectedly, he said:
“I can come visit.”
Yoshiki blinked.
“You don’t have a passport.”
“I could get one. Technicality.”
“Hikaru.”
“What?” Hikaru grinned suddenly. “You don’t want me sexily haunting the streets of your new home?”
The image arrived instantly against Yoshiki’s will: Hikaru wandering foreign streets in oversized sweaters, staring too intensely at pigeons, terrifying local cryptids by accident.
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
Hikaru lit up immediately.
Yoshiki straightened his face before Hikaru could say anything, whispering a preemptive “shut up.”
“You laughed.”
“You’re annoying.”
“You miss me.”
Yoshiki pressed a hand over his eyes, shaking his head. The teasing disappeared from Hikaru’s expression at once. For a long moment neither spoke. Then Hikaru smiled again, not wide or sharp this time, but small and warm and devastatingly sincere.
“I miss you too.”
***
Winter arrived fast and unfamiliar, unlike anything Yoshiki had ever experienced. The canals froze silver around the edges. Students wrapped themselves in thick scarves that covered everything but their eyes. Sunsets came before Yoshiki finished afternoon classes. And through all of it, Hikaru remained absurdly present. Packages started appearing at the bookstore every other week.
Inside Yoshiki would find increasingly bizarre items:
A scarf that smelled faintly like cedar forests.
Instant ramen.
A tiny dark grey stone shaped suspiciously like a human molar.
Photographs of Mince and some random cats Hikaru encountered.
One box contained only a note reading: “FOUND DIS BUG. THOUGHT OF U <3” No bug accompanied the message. Yoshiki stared at the paper for a full minute before texting:
Where is the bug?
Hikaru replied instantly: FREE NOW :P
One snowy evening near Christmas, Yoshiki stayed late reorganizing the mystery/crime section while Margaret locked the front door.
“You’ve smiled at your phone six times tonight,” she informed him matter-of-factly.
Yoshiki nearly dropped a stack of paperbacks.
“I have not.” He deadpanned
“That boy of yours must be charming.”
Heat climbed instantly into Yoshiki’s face.
“He’s not—”
“Oh, don’t bother denying it in front of me, dear.” Margaret waved dismissively. “Bookstores are built for romance. It’s practically structural.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Neither does young love.” She sighed, as if remembering her own youth with a wistfulness Yoshiki was very familiar with.
The words left Yoshiki’s mouth before he could stop himself, “Did you have…” a childhood friend you would die for who is technically already dead but also not really and who managed to find a way to fix your village’s historical curse because he wanted to stay with you and not go back to a sad Yoshiki-less mountain, “...something like that? When you were young?”
“Of course, I did. We met here for the first time actually. Back then, they weren’t as thrilled about girls kissing between the shelves, so we used to just sneak into the storeroom.” Yoshiki stood frozen in the middle of the aisle.
“What happened to her?”
“Well, now we kiss at home surrounded by our own bookshelves.” Yoshiki, visibly in disbelief, was trying to figure out if Margaret was talking figuratively or literally. She rolled her eyes and clarified, “I married her, Yoshiki.”
“Oh. Right. Of course. That’s lovely.” He knew that certain things were more normal in some places, some times, some rooms. This bookstore was one of those rooms. But he never thought he would be in such a place. That happened to other people, not to Yoshiki.
Margaret disappeared upstairs.
That boy of yours.
The phrase echoed strangely. Because what exactly was Hikaru now? Not human. Not dead. Not alive in any ordinary sense either. And yet.
Yours.
Yoshiki leaned against the shelf slowly.
Outside, snow drifted past the windows in soft white spirals. He thought suddenly of summer festivals back home. Cicadas screaming in the trees. Hikaru walking beside him beneath fireworks, smiling with too many teeth under the colored lights, sharing desserts with Kaoru. The memory hurt, deeply, but it was not as sharp as before. Like an old scar beneath winter clothing. His phone buzzed again.
Hikaru: are ghosts on ur campus sexier then me
Yoshiki stared at the message blankly.
Then another arrived.
Hikaru: asking for academic research purposes
Against all dignity, Yoshiki laughed hard enough to startle himself.
*Than. And you’re on a gap year dude, he replied.
The bookstore felt less empty afterward.
Hikaru arrived in March. Yoshiki had absolutely no idea how he got the money. One moment Yoshiki was shelving new arrivals during a rainy Saturday afternoon. The next, the bell above the bookstore door rang. Cold wind swept inside, and Hikaru stepped into the shop smiling like he hadn’t violated several laws of nature getting there.
Yoshiki froze completely.
Hikaru waved a hand casually. “Heyyyy.”
For one impossible second Yoshiki genuinely wondered if his exhaustion was finally causing hallucinations. Then Hikaru tilted his head.
“You’re doing the scary face again.”
The books hit the floor.
A customer yelped somewhere nearby as Yoshiki crossed the room fast enough to nearly knock over an entire display table.
“Hikaru—”
Before he could finish, Hikaru caught him effortlessly around the waist. Cold. Solid. Real. Immediately, without thinking, Yoshiki kissed him with enough force to knock them both backward into the door. Hikaru made a startled sound against his mouth before immediately kissing back, laughing breathlessly between it.
“Wow,” he murmured. “Okay. Good reaction.”
“You—” Yoshiki grabbed the front of his shirt like he might disappear otherwise. “How are you here?”
“Plane.”
“How did you pay for the ticket?”
“Rude thing to say to someone who traveled internationally for romance.”
“Hikaru.”
“I had help.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It’s more mysterious this way.” Yoshiki hated him. Hopelessly. Completely. Hikaru giggled. “I worked, like, three jobs.”
“You’re joking.”
“Dead serious. The amount of self-control it took for me to not let you find out was astronomical.”
A noise behind them made both glance sideways.
An elderly customer stood clutching a mystery novel, staring—not hostile, just awkward.
“Oh,” Hikaru said brightly. “Sorry. We’re boyfriends.”
Yoshiki nearly died on the spot. “So,” he said, with his scared face, “boyfriends?”
“You kissed me.”
“No, you kissed me actually.”
“You’ve been holding my hand almost every day for years.”
“For purely platonic emotional support.”
“Me when I lie.”
“I’m going to complain to your motherly lesbian boss.” Hikaru leaned against the table, laughing openly now.
Yoshiki stared at him, exasperated and fond in equal measure. Then, despite himself, he started laughing too. The sound surprised both of them. Happiness was slowly relearning the route back to him. Hikaru’s smile softened.
Living with Hikaru, even temporarily, reshaped every fragile routine Yoshiki had built abroad. Hikaru treated the tiny apartment like an anthropological experiment. He opened every cabinet. Touched every object. Stared out windows for concerning amounts of time. Examined Yoshiki’s revision notes with more interest than Yoshiki himself.
“This city smells weird and there’s no fun bugs,” he announced on day three.
“That’s because it’s a city.”
“There’s too much coffee.”
“That’s not a real complaint.”
“It is for me.”
“You drank four whole cups yesterday.”
“Exactly.”
At the bookstore, matters became worse—better? Hikaru inserted himself into Yoshiki’s shifts immediately despite technically not working there (yet). Margaret adored him. So did the customers. Yoshiki found this deeply puzzling.
“You’re very charming,” one student told Hikaru while checking out poetry collections, hoping to get his number.
“Thanks,” Hikaru replied cheerfully. “I learned by observing humans.”
Margaret, traitor that she was, laughed.
The worst—best?— part was how naturally Hikaru fit into Yoshiki’s new life. He belonged everywhere too quickly. Lounging behind the counter, reading upside down. Following Yoshiki through narrow campus streets with lazy affection. Resting his chin on Yoshiki’s shoulder while he sorted inventory. It should have unsettled him. Instead it felt terrifyingly, beautifully domestic.
One rainy evening after closing, Yoshiki found Hikaru asleep in the reading nook. Open books lay scattered around him. A lamp cast warm gold across his face. Rain drummed steadily against the skylight overhead. For a moment Yoshiki simply stood there watching him. Watching the rise and fall of his breathing. Watching something ancient and unknowable sleep peacefully among stacks of secondhand novels.
Hikaru stirred slightly.
One eye cracked open.
“You’re staring again.”
“Because you’re drooling on the books.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”
Yoshiki snorted softly. Then Hikaru reached toward him sleepily. An automatic gesture. Yoshiki took his hand. Hikaru’s fingers curled around his immediately, inhumanly warm.
“Yoshiki,” he murmured.
“What?”
A pause.
Then, very quietly:
“I’m glad you came here.”
It caught Yoshiki off guard entirely.
“Why?”
“Because,” Hikaru said, eyes slipping shut again, “you sound happier now.”
The simplicity of it nearly hurt. Because this Hikaru had always loved him with startling selfishness. Hungry, possessive, intense. But also like this. Gently. Carefully. Wanting Yoshiki near, but, more than anything else, wanting him alive and joyful.
Yoshiki sat beside him slowly and opened his other, closed fist to show Hikaru a white wooly aphid. It was small and spiky.
“Found this bug. Thought of you.” It made Hikaru laugh, and the sound filled the bookstore to the brim.
Rain continued falling over the city.
Inside, surrounded by books and dust and warmth, Hikaru shifted closer until their shoulders touched. The bug fluttered away.
And for the first time since leaving home, Yoshiki understood something clearly: Distance and mortality had not weakened what existed between them.
Yoshiki would continue to miss his old Hikaru forever. The grief would linger. He would call Kaoru and listen to her elaborately update him about their parents’ often strained relationship, but also about the solo adventures she went on with new neighborhood friends to get away from their bickering. His father would occasionally share an article about some obscure newly discovered bug. He would start sending his mom silly photos of Hikaru and himself. She would print them out and put them up on a wall in her salon. They would visit many ocean shores—it does taste different, Hikaru would say, loudly sloshing the water in his mouth, and Yoshiki would laugh. Hikaru would really get into painting and decide to go to art school (I don’t need to have good grammar to create art, you know what I mean?). They would go back, too, eventually, to what they left behind, once in a while. Yoshiki would cry at his Hikaru’s secret grave, and his not-Hikaru would wipe his tears and hold him until the sobbing subsided. They would have lives of their own, together, monster-human, human-monster.
But all Yoshiki cared about in that moment was the weight of the wooden cicada in his pocket and the feeling of their intertwined fingers, comforting and familiar. It did not dispel the cold entirely, but it was enough to make Yoshiki want to exist a little more, for a little longer.