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The vertigo hits him all at once. Just behind him, Hikaru offered a fleeting goodbye. Not a see you soon; after all, would they? Life is something that wails on you until you break your back or break your mind. He may live to see old age, flesh and organ slowly rotting until his heart stops beating. He may not make it back. He may find his exit cut off, leaving him no choice but to nip at Hikaru's heels and hope there's space for one more wherever he's going. What if neither of those happens?
What if this goodbye is their final goodbye?
He doesn't have time to think about it. There are more pressing matters, such as the cool touch of something that may be death or may be his last chance at life lighting him up from within. He feels pushed down and weightless all at once, suspended and held together. He feels like an old motor trying to start, like someone's yanking the rip cord on a chainsaw that has nothing left to give.
With each frantic footstep, the fog begins to lift and the echo of shapes and colors dance in his vision. A cry distorted and hollow shakes him. He chases the sound and every wet sob, human and not.
He begins to burn. He feels his fingers and the weight of a head pressed against his as sensation wakes in him. Ache grows stronger and then duller, tamping down the fire to just warm embers. Another step and he stumbles like he missed a stair, like a ghost limb already took form in the empty space matter left behind.
But then, it catches him—cold, balming on the pain etched inside him. He holds it too, embracing the viscosity in all of its terrifying beauty. He trembles, but it's not because of fear.
The mass quivers all around him. It cradles him and cries in noises he's never heard, speaking to him in tongues neither of them know. He lets the thing roll him around within itself so gently.
He only knows he's upside down by how the creature gathers beneath him, molasses settling at the surface. Gravity bears no weight in such an embrace. All he can feel and hear is that which encompasses him, and it's everywhere. It's the most soothing experience he has ever had.
Is this what a fetus feels in the womb? It's no wonder why a baby cries when it's born and takes its first breath.
"So ya came to get me?" Yoshiki speaks with a warbled voice. The creature says nothing, but it winds tighter around him. It feels like an affirmation, like a promise to hold him even after this.
"Thanks," he says, barely above a whisper. His chest feels tight, like someone reached inside of him to hold his heart, too. "I'm glad I met ya."
There's more squeezing and a pop, and he feels like a book being overwritten. He takes a breath, gasping and wet, as the backs of his eyes burn. He sees nothing before his eyes close. He feels…water?—no, not water…blood—rushing in his ears. Life sources through his broken body, something else not alive but not unalive tangling with blood vessels and weaving between flesh and bones.
Where is he?
"Yo—…"
Cicadas sing somewhere far away. Nearer, ants stomp their tiny feet underground.
"Yoshiki—"
Metallic tang coats airways. Sweat and salt soaks the tongue of an open mouth.
The crackle of fireworks, crunching of bones cuts through the effervescent warble. The tongues continue, punctuated by staunch hands—or something like hands—cradling…what exactly?
Where is he?
"YOSHIKI!"
A cry rips through what can only be half a body. It sounds like scissors gliding through wrapping paper and a fork driven across a ceramic plate.
He's…
He's on the ground. His head is supported against something solid as the blood that had flown both ways through his airway settles long enough for him to take a small breath. He's alarmed, but it all begins to come back to him as his lungs fill with something other than blood.
The hole. Right, the hole. They were closing it and tried to return to the other side, but it was collapsing. They made it out, then?
The droning of the otherworld isn't present. It's quiet if not for the crying and rattling behind him, the stomping of ants under the earth, and the cracking of a branch somewhere in the woods.
Then another realization comes.
He was dead.
He tries to open his eyes, remind himself of the shrapnel wedged in his abdomen, but there's nothing there. It's tossed aside, soaked in his blood, just as the rumpled shirt on his torso is.
But there's little more than just a dull ache left behind. Glancing down his feeble body, his leg is still lobbed off just under his knee, but the pain has disappeared as well. No blood continues to spill out. All he feels is the sensation of pins and needles, like the limb is asleep and waiting to wake up.
Something shifts underneath, cool and dexterous, and he recognizes it as the insides of 'Hikaru'. Only, it's stemming from his own amputation.
The crying behind him tears through him. He aches physically in his chest with a pain greater than either of his mortal, fatal wounds.
He takes a deeper breath. The blood in his throat has subsided to little more than the trickle of mucus he gets in his throat when he catches a cold.
He glances back, a sky full of stars obscured by the wavering, imposing mass he's come to behold. Attached to, or rather, underneath it, 'Hikaru' sobs through half a face of flesh and ichor. He hasn't realized Yoshiki's awake yet.
It's funny, in a way. The human Hikaru almost never cried, and when he did, Yoshiki always cried harder so Hikaru's tears evaded him. Now, 'Hikaru' cries with his whole body, his whole being. He melts like paper mache unraveling, waves of sadness unspooling as he heaves and sobs. There's no one around but Yoshiki and this larger-than-life creature stretching into the sky like a tree, and Yoshiki realizes he's going to have to be the strong one this time.
He has to be the put-together one, dead as he may be.
"'Hikaru'," he rasps. The blood hasn't fully cleared.
The fabrics of the illegitimate still in their frenzy, freezing like a predator moments away from striking caught in the flashlight of a hunter. 'Hikaru' buckles over him, blocking his view of his unraveling. Half of his face bleeds with tendrils, an unblinking red eye barely peeking through.
"Y-…Yoshiki?" He lowers his voice to meet Yoshiki halfway. A teardrop falls from the eye cradled by his insides and lands on Yoshiki's cheek.
"Thanks," Yoshiki says, and it already sounds stronger than just a few moments ago. No wonder 'Hikaru' wasn't troubled by a knife in his abdomen.
He reaches his left arm toward 'Hikaru's face, clammy as the blood hasn't begun its usual circuit again just yet. His fingers thread through the exposed ichor, petting through the mass like he would 'Hikaru's hair. He watches the warble of 'Hikaru's irises flooded with disbelief.
His thumb runs across the outer wall of 'Hikaru's form, gentle and reverent. "I knew we'd make it."
'Hikaru' crumples as he sucks his lip between his teeth. He rests his head against Yoshiki's as a cry rips through his chest, ricocheting through his inner form. His hands, one human and one an imitation, both soaked in Yoshiki's blood, slink around him and hug him tightly around his waist. His arms rest heavy over the gash site in Yoshiki's stomach, and if there weren't forces at work to dilute the pain and reverse the damage, he'd definitely be writhing in agony.
But the pain still remains dull, and he can't find an argument or reason to pick a fight after all they've gone through, and when he's being held like this.
"Yoshiki, Yoshiki—!" 'Hikaru' cries. He chants Yoshiki's name and his name alone, like a mantra or a prayer. He nuzzles their foreheads and their noses, wanting closer and closer and closer and closer.
'Hikaru' can't die, but he just came face to face with the weight of dying when he saw death fitted on Yoshiki. This is salvation for him as much as it is for Yoshiki.
The thought lifts a stone Yoshiki didn't realize was still sitting in his chest.
"I can't be without ya," 'Hikaru' gasps, his tongue tacky with tears and his nose dripping. "Can't lose ya."
He's rambling, babbling insecurities his sweet little head provides to him that could never be true. No, I ain't gonna leave ya. No, this ain't yer fault. No, I ain't gonna die.
I ain't. I ain't gonna die.
He rattles the thoughts out like a broken record, and the mass in the sky scrambles around itself, just as anxious.
There's no fear or hesitation when Yoshiki acts. Something that would've sent him spiraling barely a month ago feels natural to him in the moment, a tool in his repertoire to literally bring the illegitimate down and an answer to all of his fears. It doesn't even feel second-nature—it just is his nature.
He brings his other hand to the human half of 'Hikaru's face, holding him tenderly with both hands. 'Hikaru' blinks in surprise, and Yoshiki fixes him with the most resolute stare he can muster.
And then he guides 'Hikaru's face the extra inch, the soft skin of his chin brushing Yoshiki's nose, and slots their mouths together.
Yoshiki dreamed his first kiss would taste of watermelon.
The rare nights he let himself fantasize about something he usually tried to keep under lock and key, he closed his eyes and thought of a first kiss that needn't be complicated. He and Hikaru would be sitting on the engawa, the sun setting on them as they share watermelon slices. Hikaru, always a messy eater, would have a face full of juice, his chin dripping. Yoshiki would point it out and laugh as Hikaru scrambles to wipe it away with his hands. His hands would be just as sticky as he pulls them away, clumsy where they pull on Yoshiki's stretched-out sleeve for approval.
Yoshiki wouldn't scold him for staining his shirt, because the juice clinging to the boy's lips would be far too distracting and dangerously tempting. Yoshiki would playfully mumble something about how Hikaru needs him, how it's his duty to take care of him, and seal their lips to lick off the excess.
Hikaru's sticky hands would cling to him, pushing into the kiss and falling with Yoshiki to the floorboards. His shirt would be ruined by the time they come apart for air, a souvenir and roadmap to always remember.
Yoshiki's first kiss tastes of copper.
The blood on his chin has dried, but the wet tongue lapping at it cleans him while leaving a trail of saliva in its place. Saliva and blood slicks their lips and sinks between their teeth, and though the taste isn't great, Yoshiki can't bring himself to ask 'Hikaru' to stop. 'Hikaru' plunges his tongue into Yoshiki's mouth, like he's seeking out more of the substance, more Yoshiki, and Yoshiki groans into his mouth in response.
'Hikaru's hands roam, torn between smoothing over his wounded stomach, cupping the hands on his own face, and holding Yoshiki's face. Sticky smears of blood mark every inch of him he touches.
Yoshiki creeps an eye open, finding blown red pupils already watching him. His blood—Yoshiki's blood—coats his chin and peppers his white winter hair. Like static, his inner form crackles where it's still exposed along his face.
'Hikaru' rests his hands over Yoshiki's again. They tighten over them, one less human than the other. They cling to him as he sighs into Yoshiki's mouth, and the exposed matter under his palm threads through Yoshiki's fingers to join that over it. It feels like a hug.
The matter rewiring his body feels the same way.
Yoshiki sighs in return, a smile pulling at his lips as peace fills him, joined with 'Hikaru' like this. There's no rush.
Not even to come apart for air.