Chapter Text
Rules.
They were his way of coping with life, and after they escaped, he needed so many of them.
They were perfectly normal, of course: additional regulations on how to fold and sort his uniforms, arranging his bookshelf by author, and strict bedtimes. He had to retire early, because it would make up for the lost hours tossing and turning, and sobbing, and waking up in the middle of the night to find the pillow soaked with tears.
All of the survivors had been excused from school for a month; their minds were too full of tragedy to learn anything. This left Ishimaru with plenty of freetime, which he spent catching up on weeks worth of homework he’d missed. He was getting sloppy, though; he drew boxes to fit each of his math problems in so he would stay organized.
His parents were busy people, and had to leave on a business trip for a few days. They trusted Ishimaru wholeheartedly, and left a note on the fridge. He should have read it, but he didn’t.
The first day they were gone, he did something sick, sick and disgusting. He made toast. Perfect French toast, dipped in egg and cinnamon and milk. He spread butter on his toast, as usual, and had a healthy, delicious breakfast. Despite its healthy, deliciousness, however, it didn’t stay in his system for long. He remembered the execution of his best friend, the little plastic box that popped out; it had been labelled “Mondo Butter” and Hagakure had told him he’d found it on the hallway floor--it probably contained Oowada’s remains, and he'd predicted they weren’t going to be pleasant to look at. The Super-High-School-Level Fortune Teller had been right for once.
Inside was not butter, but a strange, foul-smelling red liquid. Ishimaru had been in his room when he’d opened it, and he'd yelped and dropped the container and it had spilled onto him and he had vomited and had to find cleaning supplies from the storage room and clean it all up himself.
Ishimaru shuddered at the memory and gagged again, running to the bathroom to vomit up his breakfast. He wasn’t able to keep anything else down for the rest of the day except milk and a few crackers, and he hid the butter in the back of the fridge.
Ishimaru had an odd dream that night. He dreamed Aniki hadn’t been electrocuted, they were sitting together and he kissed his best friend and held him, and then he felt dirt under his knees and stopped for a moment and asked where they were.
“We’re in a graveyard, Kiyotaka. I’m dead. You’re kissing a dead body. Isn’t that sick?” It was sick, but he didn’t care. He laid his head on Mondo’s maggot-infested chest, content as could be. He felt his flesh being torn away from his bones and looked up as Mondo swallowed.
“What are you doing, Aniki?”
“Just returning the favor,” he said as he grinned widely--so cute, even with the blood dripping from his lips and bits of flesh stuck in his teeth. Ishimaru smiled back at him, glad to see him so happy.
He woke up sweaty and sticky and oh god no what was wrong with him. Ishimaru walked into the shower and turned it on as cold as he could stand. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was an unhealthy behavior and might give him a cold, but for once in his life he did not give a single fuck.
Wait, why am I thinking that? That’s a vulgar word--
“Fuck,” he said, slowly, putting a hand to his lips to see how it felt. “Fuck,” he whispered, sliding down into a sitting position. Ishimaru turned the temperature of the water up to a more reasonable setting, and cried. It wasn’t his usual spontaneous crying as he shouted out his feelings; he just sobbed, so quietly.