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“tabito,” hiori says one day. “what will ya do when i die?”
karasu looks up from his phone. “the hell kinda question is that?”
truth be told, hiori doesn’t know either. it just came to his mind, and he tells karasu almost everything that comes to his mind. hiori shrugs in response. “i dunno.” he shuffles closer, puts his head on karasu’s shoulder. the hard wood of the bed’s headboard touches the back of hiori’s head. “just tell me.”
karasu puts his phone down. “guess i’d bury ya. give ya a nice funeral too.”
“would ya cry?”
hiori knows the answer already. from where his head rests on karasu’s shoulder, he can see how karasu raises an eyebrow. “i don’t think this is just ‘comin’ into yer head’. this yer way of askin’ if i love ya or not?”
hiori thinks that that might be it, and for a second he thinks about how karasu knows him better than he knows himself. maybe it’s his piercing stare, the look that makes him feel like karasu can see all of his insides, whether it be his organs or what’s on his mind. he wonders if karasu knows that he would rip his stomach open and give him all his organs if he really did want to see them.
“maybe,” he says instead. when he looks up, he can already see karasu’s annoying smirk painted wide on his face.
“aww, hiori,” he drawls. “if ya wanted to know if i loved ya, you coulda just told me ‘n i woulda said it. i’m not that mean.”
ugh. now hiori wishes he didn’t say anything at all. “changed my mind,” he mutters, cheeks flushing a dark red. “ya don’t hafta answer it.” he moves to lift his head off karasu’s shoulder, but a strong hand puts itself on his head and keeps him on karasu’s shoulder.
“keep yer head where it is,” karasu says, his voice low and commanding. hiori complies. karasu’s fingers brush hiori’s cheek, and hiori is still a little mad, but he nuzzles into the touch anyway. karasu’s hands are big and cold and comforting, and hiori can faintly smell the sharp tang of iron on them.
“did ya get into a fight?” he whispers, angling his head so that karasu’s entire palm meets his cheek. the cool skin chills his cheek, and hiori shivers, the cold racing through his skin, into his bloodstream and touching the innermost parts of him. he likes the feeling. he doesn’t feel too mad anymore, not when karasu is taking care of him like this. but the more he thinks about it, is it really considered being ‘taken care of?’
but he doesn’t ask it. karasu is giving him some attention, whether that be for better or worse. he still smells the blood on karasu’s hand, and he asks his earlier question again. “karasu,” he repeats, “did ya get into the fight or not?”
“mind yer own,” karasu responds, absentmindedly flicking the stray hair on the side of hiori’s head. hiori knows him enough to know that it’s essentially a confirmation. he takes a breath in, but his chest constricts when he tries to get it out. he coughs a couple of times, and karasu moves his hand down to pat his back.
“did ya win?” he asks once his coughing spell has ended. karasu snorts from above him.
“shoulda figured that’d be the only thing ya would care about. what about poor ol’ karasu’s health? what if i broke a bone or got my lights knocked out?”
“yer not screamin’ in agony, so i know yer not hurt too bad.”
karasu does not say anything in response, just brings his hand up and continues to stroke hiori’s head, running his thumb along his cheekbones. it feels nice, and hiori closes his eyes and relaxes into karasu’s shoulder, bony as it is. his neck aches slightly, but it’s not too bad. karasu smells like blood and oranges and fresh laundry, and hiori lets his eyelashes flutter against the column of karasu’s neck.
“ya smell nice,” hiori murmurs.
“...why the fuck are ya sniffing me?”
“cause ya smell nice.”
“that’s not—ya know what, never mind.” karasu sighs, continuing to pet hiori’s head.
they sit there for a while like that, in silence save for the faint whirring of the fan overhead and the rustling of hiori’s hair as karasu strokes it. hiori wonders what time it is, but at the same time he supposes it doesn’t really matter. it’s sometime at night, he thinks, anywhere between one and six. he thinks he has a lecture early in the morning, or maybe that’s the next day. whatever. worse come to worst, he can tell his professor he’s sick. or karasu will do it for him if he can’t wake up in time.
the silence is almost deafening, just the way hiori likes it, and his eyes close, forehead pressing deeper into karasu’s neck. his head feels like lead and he’s considering just going to sleep here and now before karasu suddenly says, “i wouldn’t cry.”
“huh?”
“if ya died. i wouldn’t cry.”
“oh.” hiori doesn’t know what to say exactly. he knows karasu wouldn’t cry for him—hell, he doesn’t think karasu would cry for anyone—but it doesn’t stop it from hurting inside, raw and jagged like barbed wire. for half a second, he assumed that he wasn’t just anyone to karasu. but he supposes he’s never been more than that for anybody he’s ever met. he’s tied to just being plain old hiori, not special to himself or for anyone else.
“yer mad about that,” karasu says. it’s not a question, just a simple statement, like he’s saying a fact. and hiori guesses it is a fact. well, not entirely. he’s mad, but at the same time he’s sad and he’s resigned all at the same time.
“i guess so,” he says instead. he can feel karasu staring at him, right through his head to try and figure out everything that’s going on inside of him. go ahead, he thinks. you know everything there is to know already.
karasu sighs, continuing to pet hiori’s head, and for a second hiori wonders if he’s done something wrong to make karasu quiet like this. usually he wastes no time running his mouth. but when karasu speaks again, his voice is quiet. “if it makes ya feel better, i’d do a lot worse if ya were dead.”
hiori hums. “like what?”
“i’d kill myself right after ya,” he says simply, like hiori’s stupid for not knowing it earlier.
“would ya really?”
“course i would.”
he tries to stay mad. he fails. “that’s kinda hot,” he mumbles.
“and i’m sure ya meant ta say that out loud,” karasu drawls. he’s right. “yer thing fer, what’s it called, broken girls sure ain’t obvious as anythin’.” he twirls hiori’s stray lock of hair around his finger, gently tugging on it, and hiori frowns.
“quit that.”
“make me.”
“if ya don’t stop, i swear i’ll kick ya,” hiori says, tone completely flat. he’s lying and they both know it. but then again, karasu knows everything there is to know in the first place. he hopes karasu knows that he’d kill everyone on the planet if it made karasu happy. he’d kill them both if it meant they were together in life and death, intertwined like ivy growing on a wall. the sea always makes its way back to the stars.
but when he looks over and sees the twinkle in karasu’s eyes, it seems he’s already aware.
karasu knows him better than anyone else, after all.