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Yoshiki lay on the bed with a wet washcloth draped over his face. Late afternoon was the worst time of day. The whole town seemed to feel it. An indolent sort of laziness crept over the town this time of day on Sundays. Even the rowdiest of children seemed to slow down. Every movement felt like moving through syrup, thick, sticky, inescapable. The heat was sweltering, and the fans weren't helping. Opening the window just let bugs in and did nothing for the temperature in the house.
A fan buzzed loudly in the centre of the room, a sound to rival the cicadas outside. At least those didn't seem slowed down by the heat. They could scream through anything. There was something morbid in that thought, but Yoshiki refused to entertain it. His life was morbid enough without thinking about screaming more than he already did.
The washcloth was becoming cloying, the heat and humidity seeping through. It had been soaked in cold water, but it no longer even felt cool. Yoshiki left it in place anyway, reluctant to move.
"Yoshiki," came a wavering voice from the floor. Hikaru — Nounuki-sama? Whatever? — sounded so much like the original Hikaru that it made Yoshiki's heart hurt. Here in the listless summer, he could pretend that Hikaru was really there on the floor beside him.
"Yoshikiiiii, it's hot," Hikaru's voice complained. "I'm all sticky."
"Yeah," Yoshiki said.
"Ya think if I take all my clothes off, I'll be less hot?" Hikaru's voice asked.
Yoshiki went completely still. The fan buzzed. The cicadas screamed. His heart pounded in his ears.
He'd seen Hikaru without clothes before, of course. They'd been going to the onsen since they were kids. It shouldn't have even registered as a thing.
But this wasn't Hikaru. Sure, he knew what Hikaru's body looked like, even with that monster wearing it. Still…things were different. He felt too warm all over in a way that had nothing to do with the oppressive summer heat. He thought about that hole in the centre of new Hikaru's body, the unfathomable thing inside, dark and wet and possessive. The handprint on his arm tingled. His pants felt too tight.
"Yoshiki! Don't ignore me!" Hikaru said. If Yoshiki had been paying proper attention, he'd have heard two things: the pout that the pseudo-boy affected (learned from Hikaru's memories), and something more insidious. Hikaru didn't always seem to know that he was doing it, that dark sound, the static in the line between whatever it was and Hikaru's voice.
Yoshiki no longer bothered being afraid of that tone, even when he noticed it. It was just part of who and what this Hikaru was.
"I'm not," Yoshiki said. "Do whatever ya want."
He forced himself to breathe. Hikaru's laughter bounced around him, light and genuinely amused. There was something so innocent in that not-boy's tone that it annoyed Yoshiki. How Hikaru went back and forth from childlike to…that other thing…Yoshiki couldn't ever quite grasp. It was nothing like the original Hikaru.
It was still Hikaru, though, in some way, twisted in Yoshiki's mind. He had never figured out how to reconcile it. The longer this went on, the less he tried, the less he actively differentiated between them. He knew this Hikaru was a monster, an imposter, a dangerous thing clinging to a life it did not and should not have. For better or worse (definitely worse), Yoshiki wanted it to stay here.
Losing Hikaru twice was too unimaginable to consider.
There was a rustle of clothing. Yoshiki felt his heart pound again. Was he seriously just…?
Reluctantly, Yoshiki reached up and dragged the wet cloth off his face. He dropped it with a plop that reminded him of some squishy, fleshy thing. He could feel that thought lodge in his throat for a second before he swallowed and was passably normal again.
He turned his head, unwilling to exert himself enough to sit all the way up.
Hikaru — whatever — stood there in just his underwear, grinning from ear to ear in that way he had. He wore that grin as well as the original ever had, blinding and bright and completely unaware. Yoshiki hated that grin, because it was too much like Hikaru. So few of the creature's habits were actually Hikaru's. But that smile? Yoshiki had wanted that smile pointed at him all the time, long before Hikaru had—
(Died.)
—become this. Been taken over by this.
He still wanted that smile bad enough that he started to raise a hand to reach for…what, exactly? He didn't know. His hand stayed there in the air, as if the thickness of the humidity and not his own mix of fear, hesitation, and desire was keeping it there.
It was good, Yoshiki thought, that he was already flushed from the heat. He could feel his cheeks flush deeper. Even his long bangs in his face wouldn't obscure it. Whether this Hikaru would even notice, or know what it meant, was anyone's guess. Sometimes he didn't know a damn thing. Sometimes, he could intuit more than Yoshiki expected. Sometimes, he'd read some book or snagged some memory in what he'd kept (taken) from Hikaru.
Yoshiki constantly made the mistake of thinking he could predict what new Hikaru knew, or thought, or felt. How could anyone do that now?
Hikaru stared down at Yoshiki's outstretched hand, grin fading into inscrutable blankness.
There it is, Yoshiki thought. Hikaru's face only made that expression now, with Hikaru no longer inhabiting his own body. It was just this side of sinister, watching the god-creature in his best friend's skin calculate something. At least his face stayed a face. Hikaru wasn't losing himself back to whatever awful, unfathomable shape he'd had before. He was just thinking.
Watching him think was both unbearable and entrancing. Yoshiki wanted to look away, but when he tried, all he did was drag his gaze further down Hikaru's mostly-bare body. That was worse, of course. What right did he have to look at Hikaru like this now? He could see the line that would open into…not really a body, but some other space or place or dimension. He didn't really know what it was or how it worked. He only knew what it felt like.
He wanted to tear his eyes out and never look at Hikaru again.
He wanted to crawl into that gap and let Hikaru consume him. He had a feeling that if he offered, Hikaru would consider it, like he was considering now.
Yoshiki jerked his eyes back up to Hikaru's eyes so fast that it drew the creature's attention.
Immediately that praying mantis calculation disappeared, replaced by Hikaru's bright grin.
Maybe I'll die today, Yoshiki thought, not for the first time. Maybe he'll kill me. Maybe I'll ask him to.
Hikaru reached out with both of his hands and grabbed Yoshiki's, clumsy the way he would have when he was a child. He was never a child, of course. Yoshiki knew that. But he remembered their uncoordinated limbs clashing against each other as children, laughing and running wild in the spring rain, the frigid cold. Did Hikaru remember that now? Yoshiki couldn't bear to ask.
"Yoshiki," he said, more soft than bright. The teasing lilt that he had stolen from Hikaru wasn't there, but neither was that sense of unease. This was purely the creature, but at his utmost sincere.
It was so endearing that Yoshiki forgot, for a long stretch of moments, to be horrified.
He turned his hand in Hikaru's grasp and laced their fingers together.
"We could take a bath," Hikaru suggested.
"It's too hot," Yoshiki said, but he was already sitting up.
"Can't we make it cold?"
"Not really…even with the heat off, it stays pretty warm. Ya know that, don't ya?"
Hikaru shrugged. Maybe he knew. Maybe he didn't understand, because when he didn't know how things worked, he didn't understand them. He tended to forget little things like that, the banalities of human life, water temperatures and turning faucets off when brushing teeth and closing the window when it rained.
"Oh," Hikaru said. "I wanna forget that it's hot. It's not convenient. How can I touch you when it's so hot!"
Yoshiki's eyes went wide, staring at Hikaru's pouting expression. He refused to have any idea what Hikaru meant by touch you. It could have a whole range of meaning, especially the way Hikaru expressed things. But Yoshiki's traitor mind took it to a place he had tried not to allow himself to think of when Hikaru was alive.
It seemed like desecration to think about it now, his hands on parts of Hikaru's skin that he'd never had the chance or bravery to make familiar. If he died, would Hikaru forgive him in the next world, for these thoughts? For allowing…whatever this was?
"It's too hot," Yoshiki repeated feebly, tugging his hand out of Hikaru's grasp. Hikaru's fingers trailed along his palm as he pulled, not exactly letting go, but not forcibly holding on either.
"I think I can be colder," Hikaru said. "If I get too cold, I might die. Right?"
"Ya can't just get too cold when it's this hot out," Yoshiki said, trying to sound like that should be obvious. There was a lingering note of uncertainty in his tone, though. Could Hikaru just stop the processes of being human to the point he died again? Yoshiki couldn't allow that. If they didn't kill each other, then they had to live. That was their twisted, unspoken agreement, at least as far as he was concerned. Whether Hikaru understood that was anyone's guess.
Hikaru nodded as if Yoshiki had said something very wise and not common sense.
"But inside. If I'm cold inside, I'll die," he said, matter-of-fact.
"I guess," Yoshiki said. "Ya aren't cold inside, though."
Hikaru's grin turned feral. To Yoshiki, who had memorised Hikaru's face entirely, that grin looked too wide. He imagined Hikaru's face splitting open, all that strange chaos stuff pouring out into the air, onto his skin, into his mouth.
"Ya wanna reach in and see if you're right this time?" Hikaru asked, suggestive. Yoshiki wondered if he knew how that fucking sounded. He did. He had to know.
Yoshiki's pants felt too tight again. He couldn't stop thinking about it now. Hikaru had never felt cold inside, where the real monster's essence or form or body existed. He hadn't felt warm, either. The brand on Yoshiki's arm wasn't the same as a normal burn.
"Ya want me to?" Yoshiki asked.
"I want to touch Yoshiki," Hikaru answered, tilting his head to the side a little. "But it's too hot, so Yoshiki has to touch me instead."
Yoshiki had long since given up on trying to make logical sense of things like this. He felt like a crazy person enough of the time as it was. Whatever logic his creature best friend worked on wasn't human. They both knew that, no more pretending.
"Fine," Yoshiki said. It might have seemed dismissive or uninterested to a human, to Hikaru.
This Hikaru just smiled that almost-too-wide smile. He spread his arms wide, offering his body — Hikaru's body and the real form inside it — to Yoshiki.
Yoshiki didn't hesitate to accept the invitation, desecration or not.
He pressed a hand against that impossible opening in Hikaru's chest and let it engulf him.
The cold he found beyond Hikaru's skin was so shocking that he gasped. The sensation was at such odds with the heat of the summer.
Hikaru laughed, breathless, forgetting how laughter was supposed to sound, only remembering how it felt.
"Yoshiki," he said. Yoshiki heard Hikaru's voice all around him.
Tendrils spilled out of Hikaru's chest, wrapping icy cold against Yoshiki's arm.
"Fuck," Yoshiki gasped.
"Good fuck or bad fuck?" Hikaru asked.
Yoshiki's own breath hitched so hard he almost coughed.
"What the hell—"
"Did you say that because it's good or bad?" Hikaru pressed. Some of the tendrils detached themselves while others held on tighter, the strange proof of Hikaru's anxiety.
"Dunno," Yoshiki said, which was the truth.
"Lemme touch you more then?" Hikaru asked, that annoyingly innocent tone at odds with the offer. Yoshiki knew what he was asking for. He could pretend he didn't, or pretend that Hikaru was too naive to know.
After all that had come between them, he knew better.
He drew his hand back. Hikaru let him go, though that swirling stuff he was made of didn't retreat back into Hikaru's body.
Yoshiki couldn't meet Hikaru's too-intense eyes as he reached for the buttons on his shirt, pulling them open with muscle memory more than conscious thought. He was still staring at Hikaru's body, though since he'd dropped his gaze, it snagged lower than he meant to look.
Before he could process that, he dropped his shirt off his shoulders and reached for Hikaru again. Hikaru reached for him again — not with human hands, but with whatever he really felt things with.
Yoshiki gasped at the rush of cold, abyssal starstuff that threw itself against his bare skin. His cock was hard in his pants immediately. Humiliation washed over him, hot where this touch was cold. He was angry at himself for wanting this, but not angry enough to stop it from happening.
He reached out his other hand and groped for something real, something solid. Part of him was searching for a Hikaru that was no longer there. Part of him was just looking for an anchor, something to remind himself of the world and its solidity.
"You can touch however you want. It's fine if it's you," Hikaru said around him.
Yoshiki's hand was on Hikaru's dick before he could even realise that's what he was doing. He wanted to touch himself, but that was unimaginable.
Hikaru made a strained little noise that Yoshiki could feel vibrate along whatever it was touching his skin. It made him shudder. His chest was too tight, breath shallow, nipples painfully hard from cold and shame and desire.
"Hikaru, please, I…need…" Yoshiki said, trying to make anything he could say make sense. "I mean…let me…can ya just…"
"Shh, I know what ya mean," Hikaru said softly. It would have been reassuring from another person, probably. The low tone in his voice reminded Yoshiki of a threat. He hadn't thought his dick could get harder, but the idea of that did it.
There is something seriously wrong with me, he thought. His shame did nothing to deter any of this, though. He only knew that if Hikaru knew he felt shame, he would blame himself. Hikaru didn't understand shame or regret, but he understood blame.
Yoshiki didn't want to push him like that, for reasons that were mostly selfish. It wasn't really self-preservation; he probably would have accepted death like this. He didn't want to have to flip this around and be reassuring. He just wanted. Whatever Hikaru wanted right now wasn't the same; he wasn't human, and he'd said before that he didn't feel things the way people did.
This desecration felt like indulgence, too.
"Your pants are still on," Hikaru pointed out.
"Yeah," Yoshiki said, "'s fine."
"Yoshiki," Hikaru whined.
Yoshiki tightened his hand on Hikaru's cock and listened to him make that sound again. It wasn't a moan like Yoshiki had imagined in secret fantasies that he tried to pretend weren't about Hikaru. It was encouraging, though. He squeezed tighter. Hikaru's hips bucked into his touch and Yoshiki moaned.
Cold washed over his face, past his lips. Had Hikaru known he'd been thinking about this, wanting this? He didn't know if the warmth that started to spill down his chin was his own spit or some other thing that he didn't have words for. It didn't matter either way. It was disgusting and he wanted it to get worse. If he allowed this invasion, if he welcomed and invited (desired, begged for) it, would that make up for the fact that he had his hand too tight on Hikaru's dick?
Dark, cold things slid under his waistband. He felt Hikaru shift above him. Hands — warm, the semblance of alive — followed, shakily undoing Yoshiki's pants enough to let all the rest of that in.
The second the cold, awful, strange thing enveloped his dick, Yoshiki came so hard he saw stars sparking in the zillion colours of Hikaru's real self. He thought he heard Hikaru laughing. He couldn't decide if he hoped it was just his usual inappropriate bullshit or something more unkind than that. It was fine either way.
He came back to himself slowly. His hand still moved on Hikaru's cock, stuttering, grasping, unsure. If Hikaru minded that, he didn't let on.
Darkness retreated back where it dwelled in the boy's body, leaving lingering cold trails along Yoshiki's skin.
Hikaru reached down with one hand and pulled Yoshiki's hand away from his cock. He was still hard, but that kind of thing didn't bother him.
Yoshiki looked down at their hands. They were just hands again, nothing strange or terrifying. The heat of the summer crept back in. Yoshiki felt clammy all over.
Maybe he had died after all. Maybe this was just what it was like. He wanted to ask Hikaru if this is what dying was like, but Hikaru got weird about questions like that and now was not the time.
Yoshiki's face was buried in his hands before he realised he was crying. His tears felt too hot after that coldness, even in the heat of the room.
He heard Hikaru made some noise that might have been fretting, but he couldn't manage to slow his tears. He could feel hysteria start to bubble in his chest. If anyone else heard, if they came in, found them like this…
Those thoughts only made that threatened hysteria come closer to the surface. Yoshiki could only contain it for so long, the way Hikaru could only contain so much in his skin for so long. That comparison, too, did nothing to lessen that bubbling feeling.
Hikaru slid a hand into Yoshiki's hair. At first, it felt like comfort. Then, it felt like pain, fingers twisting and pulling until Yoshiki jerked his head up, wincing from that unexpected pain. Hikaru let go as soon as he did, though there was nothing like remorse there. He probably didn't realise how much that hurt, or how inappropriate it was.
Not that Yoshiki could judge anything else as inappropriate, sitting here half-undressed, pants open, underwear wet and gross now. Now they'd have to shower, temperature be damned. At least he would. Hikaru wasn't really dirty, but Yoshiki knew he'd come with. He knew he shouldn't allow it, the temptation of it, but he wanted Hikaru there anyway.
"Did I hurt you or somethin'?" Hikaru asked, something like concern passing over his face.
Yoshiki shook his head. "No. I…it was good."
"Oh. Good!" Hikaru said, accepting Yoshiki's words without question. He moved closer. Yoshiki didn't figure out what he wanted until the boy — not a boy — was straddling his lap.
"It's too hot," Yoshiki said, wrapping his arms around Hikaru.
"Yep," Hikaru agreed, staying exactly where he wanted to be.
Yoshiki pressed his face against Hikaru's chest and prayed to anything besides the entity wearing that body that he would fall through Hikaru's torso into nonexistence. The hole stayed shut, though, only that faint line along Hikaru's sternum proof that it was there at all.
Hikaru had no heartbeat. Yoshiki couldn't feel it.
"Don't go," he said, voice thick with tears. "Hikaru."
"I don't wanna go anywhere you aren't," Hikaru said. Yoshiki nodded against Hikaru. He pressed his mouth to that line, an open-mouthed kiss that Hikaru couldn't appreciate. He wasn't sure if what he tasted was sweat or his own tears. There was something else vague in the mix of salt and heat, something like smoke and acid. He wanted to chase that with his tongue.
He couldn't stand this.
Still, he was reluctant to pull his mouth, then his face, then his arms away from Hikaru's body.
"Feel better?" Hikaru asked, as genuine as he knew how to be.
"No," Yoshiki said. He had decided it was pointless to lie to this boy, this dead boy, this god or demon or whatever he was. He could lie to himself and the people around them, but he owed Hikaru — the real one, and the impostor one — the truth as much as he could give it to them.
"I want ya to feel good," Hikaru said with a pout.
"I'm a mess. Let's go shower."
Hikaru brightened immediately. He threw his arms up in the air like a celebration, back to that bright laughter that Yoshiki wanted to bottle up and keep forever. That was better than the darkness. Besides, Yoshiki already had the darkness, that little piece of whatever Hikaru was that he kept on him now at all times. Whatever he could keep of the light, he would. It would never be enough to make up for anything, for the betrayal of Hikaru's death, for Yoshiki's obsession with keeping this Hikaru for himself. But they would make do.
He shoved Hikaru off balance. Still laughing, the pseudo-boy tumbled off Yoshiki's lap. He caught himself on his feet, more dextrous and coordinated than he sometimes was.
"Shower!" he declared.
Yoshiki shoved his pants off and fetched their crumpled robes out of his closet.
Hikaru caught the one Yoshiki tossed to him and turned to reach for the door. Yoshiki followed, nearly crashing into him when Hikaru whirled back around to face him.
Hikaru's face scrunched up in a conspiratorial grin, a look definitely learned (stolen) from the real boy he had once been. Before Yoshiki could begin to decipher that, Hikaru leaned forward and smacked a wet kiss against Yoshiki's lips. Yoshiki's heart skipped in his chest.
Hikaru, seemingly thinking nothing of that kiss, turned around again and pushed the door open.
Yoshiki swallowed the beginnings of despair that snuck into his thoughts and followed Hikaru to the shower. He allowed himself to press his own fingers to his lips for a moment where the kiss lingered more in his mind than in any physical way.
Don't go, he thought. Stay just a little longer. He meant it so desperately that he forgot to hate himself for it, at least for awhile.