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gaspardcaderousse · 9 days

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Nauseam, Infintium

On the night of one August 31 out of thousands and thousands, Kyon gets a phone call and takes a little trip and will remember none of it tomorrow. (itsukyon, 3.7k words. content warnings for discussion of literal and metaphorical death, plus briefer discussions of suicide [with some light imagery] and animal death. crossposted on ao3.)

August 31, 6 p.m. Kyon stares at the ceiling of his bedroom.

August 31, 7 p.m. Kyon stares at the ceiling of his bedroom.

August 31, 8 p.m. Kyon stares at the ceiling of his bedroom.

He can’t see a point to moving when he’ll wake up tomorrow, unaware and almost two weeks younger, cut off from his future for the sixteen-thousand-and-whatever-eth time. This lethargy must be what it feels like to be depressed, and he wishes he was annoyed, instead; he wishes he could go back to when he was just annoyed. He wishes he was anxious, or angry, or sad. That last one comes closest, but “sad” sounds so shallow compared to the cold weight pulling down on his eyelids, his legs, his chest.

He can’t see a point because there is no point. So he’ll wake up tomorrow and not remember, and in the meantime, he tries not to think about anything at all, as if that might help.

His attempted lack of thoughts is interrupted by the ringing of his cellphone. He closes his eyes but doesn’t move, and finally the ringing stops — except it starts again almost immediately. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, but the caller makes one, two, three more attempts until finally Kyon gives a groan of frustration and sits up, grasping with irritation at the incessant little device. He doesn’t even bother to look at the number.

“Hello?” he snaps.

“Good afternoon, Kyon,” Koizumi replies pleasantly. “Could you meet me on the roof of Nagato’s apartment building?”

Of all the voices that could have soothed him right now, Koizumi’s just makes Kyon want to throw something. He looks at his phone for a moment, fantasizing about embedding it in the drywall, then realizes that nothing is really stopping him, is it? But he’d rather not spend the last few hours before the loop restarts listening to his mother’s admonishments, so he puts the receiver back to his ear and says, “Why?”

“I’m afraid it’d be easier to explain once you get here.”

“When?”

“Immediately, if you can. Unless you’re too busy?”

Kyon grinds his teeth. Koizumi knows damn well he’s got nothing else to do. He stays quiet for as long as he can, just to keep that smiling bastard waiting, then grumbles, “I guess I can pencil it in.”

He hangs up before Koizumi has the chance to respond. It feels good to shut him up — the best he’s felt all day.

He considers standing Koizumi up or running late, just to piss him off. The thought of that polite, charming boy leaning against the railing of that roof, frowning with his furrowed eyebrows and his sweat-damp (and hopefully sunburnt) summer skin, gives him a rush of schadenfreude-laden joy. He isn’t sure why; Koizumi hasn’t done anything wrong, really, it’s just the way his voice sounds, so smooth and unbothered that it’s almost smug. Kyon reminds himself that Koizumi is just as stuck as he is. Besides, lying in bed for so long has left his skin feeling sticky and hot. He stands slowly.

As Kyon shambles through his living room, his eyes catch on the fishbowl next to the door. The little orange fish inside it had been the product of so much effort on his part that Haruhi allowed him to keep it — as if he had even wanted the thing. But he took it home anyway, almost without realizing, and now his sister is attached to it.

The fishbowl is tiny, and as Kyon pauses to watch the orange splotch swim around and around, he can’t help but feel a stab of pity. In such a small, plain bowl, it can’t go anywhere; it can’t even change its trajectory very much. It just swims in circles. This has never occurred to him before.

He could buy it a bigger tank, if he can think of a place to put it. But no — they won’t have the fish come tomorrow.

Kyon takes his time on the trip to Nagato’s apartment building, letting the humid summer air wash over him as the sound of cicadas wraps in on itself again and again until it’s a blanket, covering his ears, droning on and on and on until every other sound is blocked out. When the thought of listening to it for another second starts to feel unbearable, he speeds up, and then he starts to think.

Why did Koizumi invite him out like this? He had called Kyon’s phone — what, five times? Six? It must be important. Suddenly, it dawns on him: Could Koizumi have discovered a way to end the time loop? The prospect squeezes at his chest, desperate, and he quickens his pace until the building is upon him.

When he arrives on the roof, his clothes are thin with sweat and his sides are heaving from running up all the stairs. Everything is empty except for Koizumi, facing Kyon from where he sits across from the door with his back against the railing. He smiles, but he doesn’t otherwise move, and Kyon wonders, disturbed, how long Koizumi has been sitting in that spot, watching for his arrival.

The sky is wide above them, and the stars are as bright as they’ve always been.

“Have you figured it out?” Kyon pants. “How to end the time loop?”

Koizumi raises his eyebrows in (surely false) surprise. “When did I ever say that?”

“Have you?”

“No.”

All the energy seems to leave Kyon’s body right then, but somehow, he doesn’t really feel surprised. He trudges over to Koizumi, still catching his breath, and mutters, “You lying bastard.”

“I never lied to you. It seems like you jumped to conclusions,” Koizumi protests, the smile never leaving his face. He leans away like he’s afraid Kyon’s going to hit him, but the movement is too casual to be genuine.

“What else was I supposed to assume? You called me five times. I thought it was urgent.”

“I can tell,” Koizumi comments. His eyes run over Kyon’s body — noting his sweat-drenched clothes, no doubt, with an amused detachment that makes Kyon curl in on himself. “Actually, it is urgent.”

“Out with it, then.”

Koizumi watches him for a moment then stands, turning to look out over the city. He’s wearing a brown tweed jacket, for some reason, with a pink button-down, and it annoys Kyon. The expression on his face, meanwhile, is unreadable.

“It’s almost nine,” he says finally, eyes drifting up from the city to the sky. “The world will reset in just over three hours, and the past week or so might as well have never happened. Only Nagato will remember. Isn’t it strange?”

That doesn’t answer Kyon’s question, of course, and he’s about to say so before Koizumi continues, “Pardon my honesty, but I’ve been restless all day. The idea that we’re going to forget all of this at the stroke of midnight — it disturbs me. I’ve never been particularly afraid of death — not more than the next person — but it’s coming in mere hours, and that knowledge is unnerving. In a way, we’re going to die. These versions of us will die. After all, what is any human but a collection of memories and feelings? The memories that we’ve collected over the past few days, the experiences we’ve had together, they’ll cease to exist soon, and when they do, the versions of us who lived through them will, too. The thoughts we have now will be obliterated. The people who wake up in our beds tomorrow will be different. Isn’t it strange?”

Kyon frowns. He doesn’t want to think about this, but he understands; he can’t help it. “Yeah, it’s strange. But what can we do?”

Koizumi turns his head and looks at Kyon. He’s still smiling, but it looks even faker than usual, and for a long second he doesn’t reply.

“Nothing,” he admits, finally. “Whatever chance we had to change things has already passed; you must be able to feel that as well as I can. I’ve given up entirely. For now, though, we have a few hours left before we die, and I’d like to be awake to see what happens when the world ends, even if I can’t remember it tomorrow. I don’t think I could sleep even if I tried, anyway. I felt that spending this time together would be better than spending it apart, since the end result won’t change.”

A wave of irritation hits Kyon before he can process the implications of Koizumi’s words. “Those are just your feelings, Koizumi. I wouldn’t call them urgent.”

“On the contrary, nothing could possibly be more urgent,” Koizumi argues, his smile widening. “The ending is already set in stone, and nothing we do can deviate all that much from its path; we have nothing except our feelings. If we aren’t going to indulge them some, there’s nothing left for us to do. Trust me, Kyon, I’m very serious about this.”

“I don’t like how vulnerable you’re being right now,” Kyon blurts.

Koizumi blinks, and the smile actually falls from his face for a split-second before it’s back as if nothing happened. He sort of laughs. “Was it that obvious? I’m sorry. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me — I’d rather not be left alone.”

Kyon doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just leans his arms down against the railing and looks at the city, the sky, anywhere that isn’t Koizumi. Suddenly, it occurs to him. “This is Nagato’s apartment building. Where is she?”

“When I decided I wanted to meet up, she was the first person I asked, naturally; it is her home, after all. I made it clear that it was up to her whether she joined me or not, and she said I was free to use this space, but she wouldn’t be coming.”

“I wonder why,” Kyon says, frowning.

Koizumi shrugs. “She’s lived through this same day hundreds of times. Maybe she’d rather not do this again if she doesn’t have to.”

“But surely she’s suffering more than any of us.”

“You’re probably right, but what can we do about that? If she prefers to spend the night alone, I can’t blame her.”

Kyon goes quiet again. Then, “What about the others?”

“I couldn’t invite Miss Suzumiya, obviously. It’s nothing personal, but we can’t talk about the time loop with her around, and there’s nothing else to talk about, really.” He pauses. “Which leaves you, me, and Asahina. Again, it’s nothing personal, but Asahina has been inconsolable ever since she discovered she can’t return to the future, and I don’t wish for that extra stress as I’m dying. Besides, I’m not sure if third-wheeling for the two of you would make for my ideal last moments, either.”

“You’re not dying, though,” Kyon argues crossly. He elects to ignore the third-wheeling comment.

“The person I am tonight is,” Koizumi replies without missing a beat. “The person I am tonight won’t ever wake up again. The same is true of you. I thought I explained it well enough that you’d be able to understand.”

“I do understand,” Kyon snaps, “I just don’t want to think of it that way.”

Koizumi huffs out something like a laugh, then turns back to look out over the city. He’s quiet for such a long time that Kyon wonders if he’s going to speak again, but finally, he says with some hesitation, “I’m glad you understand. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I often… talk to you at length when I’m explaining things. This may not be obvious, but I usually rehearse ahead of time.”

He seems like he’s about to continue but doesn’t. Kyon feels oddly embarrassed.

It gets quiet after that, and Kyon can’t stand it. He’s afraid that he’ll look at Koizumi and see his face all quiet and pensive, red from the heat, eyes distant like he just told Kyon something personal, which maybe he did. Maybe his discomfort is what Koizumi wants, just to get him to say something, just to get him to acknowledge the odd confession. But what is he supposed to say? That Koizumi is eloquent? He is, but that’s nothing new, and it only ever pisses Kyon off. That he’s sorry Koizumi goes through such efforts for him? He’s not; it’s Koizumi’s own fault. Something else? Like what?

He decides to change the topic altogether. “What would you have done if I hadn’t showed up?”

“Were you planning not to?” Koizumi asks.

Kyon scowls because Koizumi knows the answer, and Kyon knows that, and Koizumi knows that Kyon knows that, the smug fucker. Still, he grumbles, “No. But what if?”

Koizumi pauses, as if he’s actually mulling the question over, then says, “I suppose I would’ve jumped off the roof.”

That was the last answer Kyon expected, and his stomach drops painfully. He turns to look at Koizumi without meaning to, as if his expression will tell him anything, but no, he’s still just gazing out at the horizon like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, calm.

“You’re not serious,” Kyon begs.

Another pause, then a quiet laugh, barely a chuckle. “You’re right. I don’t have the courage for that; what if it stuck? I don’t want to die.”

“No one does,” Kyon responds lamely, and Koizumi just shrugs his shoulders.

Neither of them say anything else. Koizumi’s silence is almost disturbing, but Kyon suddenly feels so nauseous that it doesn’t matter. First he sees the image of Koizumi’s body, broken and bloody and unnatural on the sidewalk, hears his voice, I don’t want to die. Then he sees the ceiling of his room above him. His sister’s goldfish, swimming in circles in its little fishbowl. We have nothing except our feelings. If he had bought it a better tank earlier on, at least it could’ve had a pleasant week in Kyon’s house before the world resets. Cicadas. I don’t want to die.

The sky suddenly feels like a closed dome and Kyon realizes he can’t stand to look at it anymore, so he turns around and sinks down until he’s sitting with his back to the railing, just like Koizumi was when he first got here. The rest of the roof is still empty, and Koizumi sits next to him.

How long do they sit there? Minutes? Hours? Hundreds of years? It’s not midnight yet, but he’s not sure if it matters. Nagato said before that the details of each loop differ. Have he and Koizumi done this before? How many times? Will they do it again? Will either of them ever know? They won’t, most likely, and that’s fine, because Kyon isn’t sure he wants to. He wishes it was over already because every second makes him dizzy, and every second feels so long. What time is it?

“Kyon,” Koizumi says, finally.

“What?”

“Have you ever been kissed? In the real world, I mean.”

What.

Kyon coughs hard, suddenly not dizzy anymore. He turns to stare at Koizumi, who is looking at him but still smiling, and lets his jaw hang slack with shock. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you’ve ever been kissed before,” Koizumi repeats.

“Why the hell are you asking me that?” Kyon splutters, suddenly very aware of Koizumi’s mouth.

“I kissed someone in middle school once,” Koizumi pushes on as if Kyon hadn’t spoken. “It… Ah, it wasn’t all that nice, if you can believe that, but I don’t think anyone knows how to kiss in middle school. It never led to anything. I’ve never actually had a real relationship.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Koizumi’s mouth twitches. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Kyon stares for one second, two. His brain makes dial-up noises. Welcome to the SOS Brigade website!

“Do you want to kiss me?” Koizumi repeats, at the exact same moment that Kyon blurts, “I’m not gay.”

Koizumi blinks. “What did you say?” “I said I’m not gay.”

Koizumi’s mouth twitches again, and then his smile actually widens for a moment. “And?”

“I’m not bisexual either.”

“Are you sure?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Koizumi says, and his smile morphs into a rare, serious line. “That’s alright. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

All that Kyon can do, it seems, is stare. He’s suddenly aware that his face is burning up and his mouth feels awfully dry. The dizziness, though, the nausea, are both gone. He doesn’t know how to feel or what to say, so he just mutters, “You’re making fun of me.”

“No,” Koizumi says with more feeling than Kyon is used to. What feeling that is, exactly, isn’t clear, but his face is still serious. “I’m not making fun of you. Don’t worry about it — we don’t need to argue. There’s less than an hour left now, and I’d rather spend it… peacefully. Just forget I said anything.”

Koizumi looks off into the distance somewhere with a pensive expression on his face, but Kyon can’t wrench his eyes away from him. His heart is pounding and his thoughts are racing so fast that he can barely keep up with them, but he doesn’t feel disgusted or angry like he expects to. Disgusted or angry, no. Distressed, yes — but he can’t put his finger on what type of distress. He almost hates Koizumi for doing this, for making everything so difficult and wrong, but the look on his face is so sad that Kyon just feels disturbed. Koizumi has always been a liar, and for a second Kyon wonders if his sadness is just a ploy to change his mind, but it can’t be, because it’s clear from the way his jaw is set that he’s trying to hide it.

Koizumi isn’t meant to look sad, Kyon realizes with an itch in his throat. He’s always got that same smile on his too-handsome face, and sometimes (often) Kyon wishes he could see that smile crumble into something tragic just for the satisfaction of piercing through his good-boy act, but this feels — bad. Not just wrong in its strangeness, but painful, too. Maybe he’d like to see Koizumi annoyed or angry or nervous, but he doesn’t like seeing him sad.

Do you want to kiss me? He hears it for a third time, this one just in his head. Now that his shock has faded, the question sends a current through him, spinning his stomach around and growing thorns around his neck. Even the slight breeze can’t cool the summer air.

Koizumi is handsome. This is a fact. Kyon has acknowledged this before because it is a fact. Koizumi’s face is so well-sculpted that it’s shocking it’s not intentional (or maybe it is, Haruhi). Koizumi’s nose is slim and straight, his teeth are white, his eyes are clear, his hair is perfect, his skin is smooth, his lips are shapely and must be soft. Kyon has always known it. Sometimes it crosses his mind, but he doesn’t dwell on it. The thought of dwelling on it horrifies him.

He resents Koizumi. He really does.

Less than an hour blocks Kyon from the complete obliteration of the him that exists right now; less than an hour separates Kyon from the moment he will disappear from his own memory. None of these thoughts will remain. Not a minute of this struggle will persist. Maybe that’s a good thing, because he isn’t sure if he could see Koizumi’s face in the clubroom every day with this knowledge. Maybe it’s a good thing.

Even though it’s late, he is wide awake. Even though it could be a good thing, he’s afraid.

It’s summer. Kyon remembers their visit to the pool days ago, and the feeling of the cool water on his skin relieves him for a moment before it becomes agonizing in its absence. He imagines himself swimming. He imagines himself swimming around in circles, around and around and around, in Haruhi’s little communal pool. He imagines himself pressing his hands up against that great empty dome of the sky, and he wonders what lies beyond it. How many times has he lived through this moment? How many times can you repeat an experience before it loses its meaning? Does the meaning return if you forget the experience? Does he feel ill?

He imagines flushing that fish down the toilet.

Koizumi stirs next to him as if he’s about to speak, and Kyon grabs him by the lapel of his jacket and kisses him.

It’s not a smooth thing. His lips smush awkwardly against Koizumi’s, and the other boy doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe. Koizumi’s lips are soft, and finally he shifts, cupping Kyon’s cheek with a surprising hesitancy for someone so charming. His fingers are gentle at first, maybe fearful — certainly fearful, then, as they press down harder into the skin behind his ear. They’re shaking, and Koizumi opens his mouth, inviting, and Kyon accepts. He puts his hand hesitantly on Koizumi’s arm.

His thoughts have almost caught up with him when he’s distracted by the increasingly strong trembling of Koizumi’s arm and then, suddenly, the other boy is spluttering. Kyon reels back, wondering what the hell he did wrong, when he realizes that Koizumi is—

“What the hell are you laughing about?” Kyon snaps, realizing now how hot his face has become. He’s an idiot. He’s an idiot.

Koizumi’s laugh is uneven and frantic, and he scrubs at his face with his hands. His voice is desperate in a way that Kyon has never heard it as he gasps, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m not — I’m not laughing at you.”

Kyon’s anger is replaced by concern, but a host of other feelings remain, cold and hot at the same time, paralyzing him and begging him to move. He manages, “What is it, then?”

“I just—” Koizumi cuts himself off and drops his hands. His breathing slows and he tilts his head back, as if looking at the stars. His eyes are closed. “This is the only way, isn’t it?”

“The only way?” Kyon repeats, furrowing his eyebrows.

“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.” Koizumi drops his head back to eye level and takes a deep breath. He puts his hand on Kyon’s shoulder. “We don’t even have half an hour left, you know. We ought to make it count.”

Despite himself, Kyon finds himself agreeing; he can’t imagine not agreeing anymore. He scoots closer to Koizumi and leans in once more, squeezing his eyes shut, until their mouths meet again. For a while, he makes it count.

And then—

And then

#haruhi suzumiya #koizumi #itsukyon #alex's writing

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graham--folger · 10 months

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like an angel to me (2771 words) by alexiley Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Regency, Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Pre-Relationship, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), (to his own feelings anyway), Attempted Sexual Assault, (not graphic), Dancing, Ballroom Dancing, Crowley in a dress Summary: It truly is a lovely affair, Aziraphale thinks to himself excitedly. Aziraphale attends a ball hoping for an uneventful but pleasant evening. He gets half of what he hoped for.

#look at that! new fic!#good omens #ineffable spouses #good omens fic #alex's writing #ao3 wouldn't let me share it the normal way so hopefully this works

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sugurushimura · 4 months

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never-ending up and down

It's the eve of the meeting at Yellow Box Warehouse, and Misa is getting bored. (mostly one-sided mogimane. 2.9k words, no major content warnings. crossposted on ao3.)

“Mocchi, I’m bored.”

It isn’t enough for Misa to announce that with her words alone. No, Amane Misa jumps to her feet and tosses her hand of cards into the air, then buries her dainty little fingers in the stack on the table and shoves them cascading onto the floor. Her former hand falls around her like snow as she turns back to Mogi and points a well-manicured nail at him.

“I don’t wanna play Go Fish anymore.”

Mogi blinks at the mess of cards, thinking back to last hour’s tossed chessboard. Misa had been losing then, too.

Then again, Go Fish is boring.

“We can stop,” Mogi offers, setting his own hand down on the table in a neat pile and beginning to pick up Misa’s mess. “What would you rather do?”

Misa sighs, loud and vocalized. She crosses her arms and walks away from the couch to the wooden dresser, then around the perimeter of the nicely-decorated hotel room with soldier-like steps until she reaches the window. In a single, sweeping movement, she pulls the pink velvet curtains open and presses her pale face against the glass.

“I want to leave,” she whines again. “Maybe if I yell loud enough, someone will come and break us out of here…”

Mogi’s blood runs cold. He stands up, blurting, “Hey, you don’t need to—”

“I’m not actually gonna do that,” Misa scoffs, pulling back from the window some. Her reflection rolls its eyes at him. “Duh, Light told us to stay here. I’m a good girl, Mocchi.”

Mogi relaxes. Eloquently, he replies, “Oh. Right.”

For a moment, they watch each other, and Misa’s expression is blank and unamused. Suddenly, she blinks and turns to face him, grinning.

“I’ve got it! Let’s just pretend this is a sleepover,” she exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Did you ever do sleepovers when you were in school, Mocchi?”

He has to think about that one. “Yes.”

“What did boys do at sleepovers?”

“I don’t know. Watch movies.” He frowns. “My friend swallowed a hundred yen coin on a dare once and had to go to the hospital.”

Misa grimaces. “Yeah, let’s not do that. I guess it would be hard to pretend this was a sleepover, anyway, since you’re a guy.”

Mogi isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just says, “You could pretend I was a girl.”

Misa stares at him with her big brown eyes, then breaks out into giggles. “A girl? Come on, Mocchi! I’m not a method actor, you know.”

He has no idea what those things have to do with each other, but it had been a stupid response anyways, and he realizes that now that she’s laughing at him. Color rushes to his cheeks.

“Don’t be like that,” Misa teases. Her giggles die away, but the smile remains as she walks back to the couch, folding her arms over its stiff back and leaning to look at Mogi. ��We might not be able to pretend this is a sleepover, but I have an idea.”

“What?” Mogi asks, thinking apprehensively back to every other idea Misa has had in the past four-odd years.

Flashing a peace sign, Misa exclaims, “Let’s play two truths and a lie!”

“Oh.” Mogi blinks. “Sure.”

“Yay!” Misa pumps her fist and walks back around the couch to reclaim her seat. “You know how to play, right?”

He finishes collecting the cards and sets them down in a stack on the table, then sits back down. “I do. Who’s starting?”

Misa taps a finger against her chin. “I’ll go! Let’s see… Here: my natural hair color is black—not dark brown, really black—and… my first manager was arrested for drug possession, and I haven’t eaten broccoli since I was five years old.”

When Mogi first met Misa, he had been arresting her.

The problem hadn’t started yet.

He had never been the type to keep up with idols or models or any of that, so he had never even heard of Misa-Misa before L identified her as a Kira suspect, back when he barely even knew Yagami Light. He had seen her around, and sure, he thought she was cute, but it was an objective assessment more than anything. Amane Misa was a model, after all. The possibility that she was a serial killer had been of considerably more interest. She hadn’t put up a fight, and that had been that.

“The last one is the lie,” he decides. “You’ve eaten broccoli more recently than that, right?”

“Wrong!” Misa crows, pumping her fist. “I tricked you! My first manager wasn’t arrested for drug possession—that was my second manager. My first manager died in a car crash.”

Mogi stares at her, dismayed.

She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, it’s fine! He was a creep anyways. It’s your turn now.”

He shakes his head. “Um, okay. Uh… My family is Buddhist, I was in my high school’s Art Club, and I dated Matsuda’s sister for a year back when I first joined the NPA.”

Mogi never actually saw Misa’s confinement. After her arrest, L had him running errands and crunching numbers and overseeing the old office, so he never even set foot in whatever facility L was using. It wasn’t until after the higher-ups cut off their funding during the Yotsuba case that Matsuda told him about it—bound, blindfolded, unmoving, alone, nearly starving. Pigtails left in until her hair began to fall out. Horrific. The idea that he had contributed to that disturbed him, whether she was guilty or not, but it was too late by then, and Misa seemed so bubbly that he could almost forget about it entirely.

The problem hadn’t started then, either. He had focused on his work.

Misa gasps. “Matsu’s sister?! No way that’s true… Oh, but I want it to be! Aw… I’ll say the Art Club one is the lie. You’re a chef, not an artist! Please tell me you dated Matsu’s sister.”

“No, I was in the Art Club. I don’t think Matsuda has a sister.”

“Dang!” Misa huffs, crossing her arms. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

Mogi just shrugs. Apparently, that answer doesn’t satisfy Misa, who leans forward with a smug little smile on her face. “When was the last time you dated someone, anyway?”

“Not for a few years,” he says after a pause. “Because of the investigation.”

“That’s a bad excuse! Light has had plenty of time for me, you know,” she points out, shoving an accusing finger in Mogi’s direction. She seems to think it over for a moment, then taps her chin dejectedly. “Well, not so much recently, but that’s not his fault. We’re going to get married when this is over, you know. You could be getting married, too, if you’d started dating someone when Light and I did!”

“It’s your turn,” Mogi replies uncomfortably.

Misa sticks her tongue out at him. “Fine. I punched Matsu once, I have an Armorer Works M712 modelgun, and I won a surfing competition when I was 15.”

Mogi had never really spoken to Misa until he was assigned to act as her manager. He hated every moment of it; filling overenthusiastic Matsuda’s shoes isn’t exactly easy when you’re used to doing research and heavy lifting. The one decent part, at least, was that Misa was nice. She told him he was doing a good job, which was more than L did. L had just handed him the role and sent him on his way.

But the problem hadn’t started yet.

Huh. “You… you didn’t punch Matsuda. He would’ve told us.”

“Nope! I punched him during a movie shoot a few years ago because he tried to convince me to film a love scene,” she crows. “I made him swear not to tell anyone. It was easy, though—I think he was embarrassed to get punched by a girl. The real lie is the surfing competition one.”

“Why do you have a modelgun…?”

“One of the Yotsuba guys sent it to me after I interviewed with them,” Misa answers, wrinkling her nose. “I dunno why. It was really expensive, so maybe he was trying to show off. I don’t even remember his name now… I mean, he’s dead anyway. I think it was the bald one.”

Mogi can’t remember the bald one’s name, either, just Higuchi’s and Namikawa’s. For some reason, the thought of Misa receiving an expensive modelgun in the mail from a horny businessman is making him upset, so he decides to move on.

“I can sew, I can juggle, and I can pop my thumb out of place on command.”

After L died, the Task Force moved their headquarters into Light and Misa’s apartment. It had seemed a bit intrusive, but Mogi would’ve let them use his house if they had asked him to, so he couldn’t blame Light for offering. It had worked out well—except that Misa insisted on showing up in lingerie on odd nights, summoning a preoccupied Light to bed with her. At least, Light always seemed preoccupied. Mogi wonders now if he was really just disinterested.

Of course Misa was attractive. Of course Mogi blushed when she walked into the room. But, then, so did everyone except the Yagamis.

Still, the problem hadn’t started yet.

Misa frowns. “Okay, I need to get serious. Hm… The last one is a lie. I bet you can sew and juggle.”

“You’re right.”

“Yes!” She pumps her fist (again) in celebration. “My turn. I’d never been in a long-term relationship before Light, I dated a girl once, and I lost my virginity in high school.”

He had been fine with going back to headquarters and keeping an eye on Light in Aizawa’s place. He really had been. Misa had asked for him instead, though, ostensibly because of Aizawa’s haircut, and so he stayed, for days and days that turned into weeks and weeks, even as they returned to Japan.

She didn’t do anything suspicious for even a second. Instead, Mogi was swept away in a constant barrage of shopping and cooking and listening to Misa complain about Light’s old ex-girlfriends who she’d never met, and it almost felt like he had been turned from an investigator to a babysitter. Or a bodyguard. Sometimes he almost liked it, when he wasn’t busy worrying about the Kira situation. It was easy to like it, with Misa around.

Then one night, Misa had said something like, “Even though Light loves me and trusts me, he may think I’m having an affair because I’ve been with you for five whole days under the same roof,” and Mogi had just said yes, but he hadn’t really thought about it until he was on his own. Then he thought about it.

Oh no, he thought.

That’s when the problem started.

The fact that she’s engaged is bad; the fact that her fiancé is probably Kira is worse; the fact that she is/was also probably Kira is worse still. It never would’ve worked out.

Mogi feels like he’s been shot. He blinks hard for several seconds, hands stuck blandly on his lap. “You—isn’t that kind of… personal?”

Misa immediately breaks out into a fit of laughter, covering her mouth with one hand and pointing at Mogi with the other one. “Come on, Mocchi! How much time have we spent together lately? None of that stuff has mattered for a long time, anyway.”

“I don’t think I should say,” he begs. “Your sex life is none of my business…”

“Are you embarrassed?” Misa asks, laughing. “Well, you have to guess anyway, otherwise I win.”

“You can win.”

She pouts. “Come on, Mocchi! Aren’t you having fun? I am.”

Mogi sighs, and he suddenly realizes that he’s been hunching his shoulders to get closer to her height. He doesn’t move.

“The… the last one was the lie,” he finally says, defeated. He doesn’t really want to imagine that, which is mostly why he chooses it.

Misa immediately laughs, covering her mouth with one hand and pointing at Mogi with the other. “Wrong! You must think Misa is really pure. Well, things happen. Just don’t tell Light or he’ll get jealous. Not that it matters to me anymore—none of the boys I dated in high school hold a candle to my Light.”

Mogi wishes he was at home right now.

“Anyway, the one about dating a girl was a lie,” she continues. “I’m not a lesbian. Ew.”

Mogi doesn’t feel quite right about that but decides not to comment on it. Misa doesn’t need to know about his experience with the Tokyo gay scene. No one from his professional life does, for that matter.

“Do you want me to go again?” he asks instead.

Misa sighs. “You could at least pretend you’re enjoying this, Mocchi. Smile a little bit!”

Mogi lifts the edges of his mouth up into an empty smile, and Misa shakes her head, amused.

“I know you can do better than that,” she says. “Let’s do one more round! It’s not like you’re going to beat me, anyway.”

Mogi stares off into the dark world outside their hotel window, grasping at the little memories and skills that thread together in the fabric of his mind. Despite it all, he just isn’t very interesting. You’d think he’d have more stories to tell after this many years working on the Kira case and even more working with the NPA, but what does he do outside work? He exercises, he cooks, he sleeps. Sometimes it feels like there’s barely time for that anymore.

After racking his brain for as long as he can without eliciting prodding from Misa, Mogi finally says, “I wanted to work in television when I was a kid, last time I dated a woman I found out she was already married, and my first job was as a busboy.”

Ever since Takada entered the picture, Misa has been different. Spiteful, bitter, cruel. How much she really knows about Takada’s relationship with Light, Mogi can’t tell, but he can tell that she drinks and mocks and curses and raises her voice more often than she used to. And then she went out for dinner with Takada one night and left the building wasted and indecipherable, and Mogi let her lean her skinny little body against his as he led her to the car.

The Misa of a few months ago would never have told Mogi to take guesses about her sex life; that topic was surely off topic, aside from the odd insinuation about her and Light. Ever since that night, though, Misa has told Mogi a lot of things that he never would’ve thought to ask—not sexual stuff, really, just odd personal details and petty grievances with her peers and obscure details about random things. He wonders if she ever feels lonely.

He can’t help but pity Misa—thin, pale Misa with her fine hair, somehow undestroyed from years of bleaching, and her dainty fingers, unbruised despite all the death and tragedy they’ve caused. If Light is really Kira—and Mogi is almost certain by now that he is—then there’s no way he really loves her. As long as Mogi has known Misa, Light has been the sun around which she revolves, but what good does the sun have for the Earth? If he wins—and Mogi tries not to think about that, but if he wins —he’ll surely throw her away in the end. If he loses, he’ll be gone. What will she do without him, after having already lost so much? Mogi can’t bring himself to answer that.

But as much as he pities Misa, Mogi also can’t forget the thousands of people who have died because of her and her fiance. Ukita Hirokazu, Yagami Soichiro.

He can imagine her doing it. That’s the thing: He can’t even tell himself that poor, beautiful Misa would never hurt another person. There’s not a doubt in his mind that she would; there’s not a doubt in his mind that she has. He can’t imagine she feels bad for it, either, or ever has. She would probably kill him, too, if it came down to it.

Is it wrong to forgive an unrepentant murderer just because of her smile, her voice, her eyes, her hair, her hands, her complete isolation from everything left for her in the tragedy she’s made? It is. He knows it is.

Amane gasps. “Okay, I know the one about television is a lie. No way!”

Mogi, dazed, barely has time to confirm her guess before she exclaims, “Really?! You dated a married woman. You?!”

“Not for long,” Mogi insists, embarrassed. “Just for a few days. I broke up with her once I found out.”

“Oh, Mocchi, that’s so scandalous,” Amane laughs. “But it’s kind of romantic, isn’t it? She must’ve really liked you.”

He stares. “Romantic? You mean—cheating?”

“Well, I would never cheat,” she scoffs. After that, though, she smiles, leaning back and resting her cheek in her hand. “She must’ve been a lesser woman, though, and I can see why she’d choose you. You might’ve been my type, if I wasn’t so in love with Light. You’re a really sweet guy, you’re a great cook, and you’ve got a nice body. I’m sure you’ll find someone after the Kira investigation ends!”

“You think so?” Mogi asks, mostly to himself.

“Sure I do,” Amane says, and maybe he’s imagining the sadness in her voice.

“Near,” Commander Rester says, “I don’t think we’re going to learn anything useful from this.”

Near tosses a dart into his circle of Lego figures, sending the Misa toppling to the floor.

“No,” he sighs, “of course we’re not.”

#Kanzo Mogi #Misa Amane #Mogi/Misa #alex's writing

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az-attempts-to-write-shit · 2 years

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so i wrote the first gay kiss scene in my royal gay romance here it is don't be mean plz I'm new at writing

also im thinking of calling it strawberry smitten

Ria popped one of the strawberries into her mouth. “Okay,” she said, her mouth full of half-chewed berry. “Favorite food?” Oh god. “Pick a different one,” I pleaded. I would do anything to not have to share it with her.

“Why?” Ria asked, swallowing her mouthful of tart red goop. “Do you not have a favorite food?”

“No, I do,” I responded hesitantly. “It’s just… it’s embarrassing!”

“Is it like spinach or something?” She guessed.

No,” I said, steeling myself. “It’s… potato soup.”

Ria laughed. “Really?” She said, her giggles mostly subsiding. “I mean, it’s a little basic, but still. You shouldn’t have been that scared to tell me. You can tell me anything, Liza.”

Really? I thought. Anything? Like the fact that all I want to do right now is kiss you, even though you’re engaged to my brother?

Ria suddenly grew quiet. She stared into my eyes as the silly moment between us became something deeper.

Something genuine.

Something scary.

Something…exciting.

With my eyes, I asked her a question. Is this ok? She without saying a word she responded. Yes.

Before I could convince myself it was a bad idea, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. She stilled and for one heart-stopping second, I worried I had misread the situation. Then she kissed me back and fireworks erupted inside me. I know that it’s cliché, but at that moment it felt like all my life I had been missing something, like a part of me was empty. But here, in this moment, with Ria, I felt complete. I felt content. I felt…happy.

It was all so new and exciting, and for once in my life, I wasn’t scared of all the what ifs, the things that could go wrong. Instead, I couldn’t wait to venture into the unknown with Ria. With her next to me, I could do anything. My heart soared.

I pulled away to take a breath and sat back on my feet. Ria exhaled a shaky sigh. “Well,” she said. “That was unexpected.” My heart plummeted. “I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I shouldn’t have done that. That was a mistake, wasn’t-” She shut me up by pulling me in and kissing me again. When she released me, she flashed her signature mischievous grin.

“Who said anything about it being a mistake?” She asked with a twinkle in her eye.

if you have any advice or suggestions plz lmk

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alex-the-huntress212 · 6 months

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"Who was he? You never talked about him." "I never had a reason to."

I haven't written Chase in so long, this might be shit until I rework him!!

CHARS: CHASE RAIN, LEO BLACKWOOD

The rooftops. It was peaceful during the night time of the shitty city of Los Santos. A boy sat silently, his eyes closed. Chase Rain, a boy who was just glad to be back home. The blue haired boy could never understand why exactly everybody hated this city. Well, he could name a couple reasons. Himself being one of them. He'd give himself a reputation. At least some may say. Whenever there was blood on his knives, at least mainly his knives, Chase would lick the blood off and enjoy the taste. Not an issue though! Even his... friend... could say so.

Hearing a pair of footsteps walking up behind him, a brow raised in return. Though his eyes never opened once. A voice was what made at least one eye open. "Hey Chase?" The voice had an accent. It was a slight French accent, not very strong. Chase, being in a quiet mood, only seemed to hum in response to the boys voice. When he looked to his right, his eyes landed on his closest friend, his roommate, Leo. The French boy was a nice kid. Made sure Chase wasn't injured, and if he was, he'd patch up the blue haired boy. "What do you want, Lee? I'm tryna' relax here." The other boy grumbled in return, lifting his head and officially facing Leo.

Though the look on the brunette's face led a confused look to appear across Chase's. Leo was holding something. Chase knew what it was. It wasn't a good thing. The day itself was good. But the memories that followed right after. The way Chase could feel his heart beginning to shatter. The photo of two boys. Chase, and his most.. favorite.. person in the world. The blue boy stared at the photo with widened eyes, only leading a guilty look to appear across Leo's face.

"Who was he, Chase? You never once spoke about him." Leo had begun to speak, looking to his friend with his eyes narrowing slightly. He held the photograph in hands, staring down at it right after. "You never talked about him, yet there's photos of you both everywhere in the apartment.. Who is he..?"

Even with the questions, Chase didn't dare to answer until he had manned up. Taking a pack of cigarettes out and a lighter from his other pocket, he'd light a quick one before staring out at the stars. A slight smile began to twitch upward, himself not knowing exactly where to start. There was a couple seconds of silence before the boy took a breath in, and let a soft chuckle out.

"Well. For starters, that was my best friend. Not even my best friend. He was my boyfriend. From boyfriend, to husband. From my husband.. Well. You see where it ended up." He began, leaning his head back and letting a slightly wheezy chuckle escape. How the actual fuck was Chase supposed to explain that whole story without breaking down like someone would on their wedding day?

Chase couldn't muster up the words to explain it. He'd remember the day, how his whole world tumbled down. "It wasn't... like- neither of us really.. did anything bad? We were good! Shit just went downhill after he had some things goin' on and y'know, Lee." He took another sharp breath in, running a hand through his hair. "It wasn't his fault. Just... not in the right mind. Or something like that. I don't know, you know my words are shit when it comes to things like this." He continued, shaking his head and letting his now slightly longer hair cover his eyes.

Now Leo could see why Chase kept the photos around. So all the good memories wouldn't fade away and corrupt the blue haired boys mind. "So that's why you have all the photos... Right..?" He questioned, earning a nod and hum from Chase. Though the other boy only stood from where he'd been sitting. "It's getting late. C'mon. We can head back home. Get a drink or whatever."

Leo had stood himself, but watched as Chase begun to walk away. He felt his heart begin to curl up on himself, but begun to follow right after the biker. Stupid idea to have asked.

#florida? fuck yeah! [chase rain]#GTA OC #Alex's Writing #fall out #:(

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willgrahamscock · 3 months

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When TikTok discovers a certain type of media that is horrific and problematic in nature and all the replies are about how disturbed they were, and ripping apart the motifs not realizing that the horrors translate to carnal desire & a love you couldn’t even fathom I do have to stop myself from commenting that me and the mutuals have been circle jerking to it on tumblr dot cum for half a decade and you wouldn’t last a day on here

#alex says things #like especially #saltburn #that was just a taste of the shit we say and write for #hannibal #nbc hannibal

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alexthetrashyracoon · 1 month

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Simon loves you. He adores you. He worships you.

You love Simon. You adore Simon. You worship Simon.

That’s one thing you two have in common.

The other thing is that you two hate your own bodies.

You hate the fat on your belly and the fat of thighs that make every jeans you wear too tight. You hate how slabby your arms are when you wave at someone and wear a t-shirt. You hate the stretch mark on your stomach and under your arms, around your thighs. You hate the little double chin you’ve gotten over the years and can’t get rid off, no matter how hard you try.

Simon on the other hand hates how rough his body is, how firm and hard. He hates the scars all his years in the military had left behind. He hates how there is always a reminder of a bad past, one where you didn’t have a place just yet. He hates how calloused his hands are, from years of punching people or holding weapons. He hates that no matter how hard he tries, he always is a bit too rough, never too much to hurt you, but it’s not easy to relax.

So one of these days, your parents invited you and Simon over for brunch and you agreed to go. But now you’re standing before the full body mirror and stare at the tight shirt you chose to wear, you swore the last time you had it on it wasn’t like this. Tears gather in the corner of your eyes as you squeeze the pouch of fat on your belly.

That’s when Simon walks inside. He’s dressed casually, jeans and shirt. He looks good, handsome. But as always he hides most of his body behind long sleeves and pants.

“You’re beautiful.” He whispers into your head, wrapping his arms around your waist to take your hands away from the small pouch. “You’re gorgeous, sweet, sexy. There are a million words I could say to describe you, but they won’t be enough. You’re perfect, the way you are.” Simon says softly, looking into your eyes through the reflection of the mirror.

You believe him.

Because you might hate yourself but you love Simon.

Simon is the same. He believes you when he stands at the sink and looks at his scarred hands. Those hands aren’t made to love someone, they are made to kill and destroy. Those hands aren’t meant to touch someone as pure as you.

That’s when you walk into the bathroom. You see him, hate and disgust in his blue eyes.

You place your smaller hands on top of his before taking them and placing his hands on your cheeks. Smiling softly.

“Your hands are made to protect, you save not just me but many people. They are gentle and kind. You are gentle and kind. You aren’t a machine that’s made to kill. You are perfect, just as you are.”

And Simon believes you.

Because Simon might hate himself but he loves you.

#simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley x reader #cod x gn!reader #cod x you #alex writes #fanfiction #cod mwii

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kristsune · 2 months

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So while listening to Episode 6's case, I remembered that during the early premiere stream Jonny and Alex talked about Needles a bit. So I figured I'd put them together to make a nice little intro for Needles because I fell in love with him immediately.

#the magnus protocol #the magnus protocol spoilers #tmp #tmp spoilers #tmagp #needles #jonny sims #alexander j newall #my audio #let bloody hear it for #harry roebuck #what an incredible performance #i can see how that would convince alex if the writing wasnt enough #because wow #absolutely wicked #i hope we get to hear from needles again in the future

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aromanticbuck · 13 days

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AITA for coming out at my sister's wedding?

I (32M) recently realized I'm bisexual and I have my first bf (45M), he's a rescue helicopter pilot (this will be relevant later). I'm out to my sister (41F) and my coworkers, including her husband, who I have worked with for years, but not to my parents or most of the other guests. Everyone has joked that I'm a little too close to my best friend (32M), and we might as well get married, but he's straight and has a gf. They're not relevant to this story, but to give context to how much my sexuality probably shouldn't be a surprise, even if it took me by surprise.

I told my sister and her husband I was bringing a plus one, and they both knew my bf, they were supportive of it because he makes me really happy.

Everything kind of started at the bachelor party. It was just me, my brother-in-law, and my best friend, and we did the usual stuff. We stayed a night in a hotel, went out to get drunk, sang some karaoke at our usual spot. It should have been a super chill night. Until my best friend and I lost the groom??? But it way more stressful than The Hangover makes it look.

He'd been taken by these guys who tried to kill him (no, I don't know why) and we didn't realize he was missing until less than an hour before the wedding. My mom kind of threw a fit about us being late, and then blamed me for losing the groom, which is kind of a normal reaction from her. My dad didn't yell as much but again, this is a normal reaction, I'm kind of the disappointment child. Basically, we had to find my brother-in-law because he still needed to marry my sister.

Before anyone worries: they did get married. He's fine. The hospital says they're discharging him tomorrow to go home. They're gonna reschedule their honeymoon so he's well enough to enjoy it.

Long story short, it turned into a rescue mission, and driving would have taken too long, and my best friend suggested we ask my bf to borrow his helicopter again (long story, but we had to borrow him for something a few months ago, it's how we met!) so I asked him for the favor. My mom asked who he was, since my best friend just used his name, and I told her he's my boyfriend, and she freaked out about it.

When we go to the hospital with my brother-in-law, my parents both yelled at and scolded me for taking attention away from the biggest day of my sister's life by pulling some "stunt" with my bf (to SAVE my brother-in-law from being violently murdered), and I think my dad somehow grounded me?

AITA?

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alastrrz · 4 months

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｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ﾟ。 DATING THEM ; SCHLATT

　ﾟ･｡･ﾟ

genre; fluff/comfort

type; headcanons

read below!

I like to think Schlatt jokingly likes PDA. If you guys are around close friends, he'll smack your back end or roughly give you a shoulder massage, just to say "this one's mine", y'know?

If he's drunk however, his love language is suddenly touch x10. He's all over you, hugging you from behind, touching your hair, kissing your forehead and neck, anything you could think of.

He also likes gift giving, but he does it really subtly. If he sees you looking at something for a little bit too long, he'll go back to the store when you're not with him and buy whatever you were looking at.

I like to think most of you guys' quality time together is when he needs someone to help him clean, or vise versa.

When you guys are done cleaning, it turns into a fight with the mops. One time, he accidentally hit you across the head with the mop handle, and he felt horrible. Don't worry, he kissed it all better.

He loves when you show him your music. He has a private collaborative playlist on spotify with just you two. He calls it "THE relationship". You told him that was a silly name for the playlist, but here you are, months later, with that still being the title.

Absolute BED HOGGER. You two will fall asleep spooning, but the way you wake up is NOT how you fell asleep. There was one time you actually woke up half way on the floor. He is also a blanket hogger, which has lead to you both having separate blankets.

Claims he is not a blanket or bed hog, but you have a lot of photo evidence showing otherwise. "I do NOT hog— Okay well.. That was ONE TIME." You show him the album you have called "Jay being a hog". "Okay maybe.. Maybe I am a hog."

#alex's writing #jschlatt #schlatt #mcyt #jschlatt x y/n #jschlatt x you #jschlatt x reader #schlatt x you #schlatt x y/n #schlatt x reader #mcyt x you #mcyt x y/n #mcyt x reader #mcyt fluff #mcyt comfort #jschlatt fluff #jschlatt comfort #schlatt comfort #schlatt fluff

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gaspardcaderousse · 1 year

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even souls lie

Daniel and Terence D'Arby, at intervals of five years.

(d'arby brothers, 7.2k words. content warnings for child abandonment and somewhat graphic violence. crossposted on ao3.)

1968.

When Daniel’s parents had first told him, grinning to tears on the living room couch of their tiny San Francisco apartment, that they were having a second child, he had entertained some grand illusions of what that actually meant. They had been excited, after all, so why shouldn’t he be? Adults almost never got this animated, so surely that meant he should be happy, too.

The months that followed had been a rush of anticipation, too fast and too slow for his fourth grader’s brain to handle—pushing the stroller around on the carpet while he waited for dinner, bragging to the children in his class, making colored pencil drawings of what his brother’s stand might look like. The prospect alone of having a second person in the world who could see his Osiris, the way his mother assured him the baby would be able to, was enough to keep Daniel up at night, long after he was supposed to be asleep.

The actual process, apparently, is less glamorous than he’d thought. His mother goes into labor in the middle of a Thursday night, and at first he’s happy to be out and about at midnight—midnight!—but the novelty only lasts so long.

He falls asleep in the hospital lobby at some point, then wakes up early the next morning to find that the baby still isn’t out yet, so he returns to the delivery room, as if the process will go by faster if he keeps an eye on it. The doctors try to stop him from going back in, but his father insists, so he leans up against the far wall, craning his neck and marveling nervously at the bloodiness of it all. His mother kind of sounds like she’s dying, but his father assures him she isn’t, and after a few minutes of that, he fishes one of his books out of his father’s work bag and entertains himself with that instead.

When the baby is finally born, Daniel is so absorbed in his book that he almost misses it entirely. Something catches his ear, though, whether it’s a word of excitement from his father or a particularly loud gasp from his mother, and he rushes back to the bedside in time to see—

A little red thing, resting gently in the nurse’s hands. The sight of it is almost scary—it’s all shriveled and wrinkled-looking, with raw skin and smears of blood on its misshapen body. His parents are so happy that they’re sobbing (something that Daniel has always thought to be some sort of contradiction), but their 10-year-old son doesn’t see what’s so great about it, honestly. He had been expecting something that looked more like baby Jesus in that movie they watch every Christmas. He hadn’t been expecting it to be ugly.

He frowns as he watches the nurses swaddle the baby and hand it back to his mother, who cradles it in her arms with a tired joy. He wonders how she isn’t as disappointed as he is—after all, she’d been screaming like a murder victim for seven hours for this.

“Do you want to hold him, Daniel?” his father asks, still leaned over his mother’s side.

“Sure,” Daniel answers with feigned enthusiasm, reaching his hands out.

His father carefully lifts the baby from his mother’s arms and then places it into Daniel’s. Looking down at it, he doesn’t see much of a reason to change his stance—especially since the little monster is screwing its face up and letting out a whiny shriek almost as soon as he’s holding it. He scrunches his nose up in distaste.

His father laughs, placing a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “We’re naming him Terence. What do you think?”

“He looks like a monkey,” Daniel answers honestly.

1973.

Daniel watches his father storm out the door and then retreat down the sidewalk to his beat-up car with a sort of bitter triumph. His cheeks still sting, but the black-and-silver patches of skin and the horrified look on Martin’s face had been worth it.

He turns to the mirror hung on the dining room wall and leans his face up close to it, examining how the tattoo looks on his face—silver ink appearing almost metallic against the peach of his face, straight black lines dividing it into equal strips, just like he had always imagined it. Definitely worth the months of saving up his winnings. His father has almost given up on asking him where he gets the money for these things; after all, what can he do about it? He’s too busy working overtime at the mechanic’s to investigate, and he can’t punish Daniel because he needs him to take care of Terence. He leans away from the mirror, satisfied fingers still tracing over the ink.

“Terry,” he calls, “I’m making mac and cheese for dinner.”

His brother rounds the corner into the dining room so quickly that he must have been waiting on the other side. His light brown hair is cut too short to be messy, and he’s dressed simply in the plain t-shirt and shorts that Daniel used to wear when he was younger. His eyes are narrow with curiosity.

“What kind?” Terence asks.

“The kind you like.” Which is, luckily, also the cheapest kind. Thank god for Kraft dinner.

“Good.” He follows Daniel into the kitchen. “Are you in trouble, Dan?”

Daniel huffs out a laugh and opens the cupboard. “Of course not. Martin’s pissed, that’s all. You shoulda seen the look on his face.”

“Why?”

“‘Cuz it was funny.”

Terence stares at him. “What did you do?”

“Oh. Here, I’ll show you.” Daniel turns towards his brother, crouching down so that their faces are level, and points at his cheek. “Look—it’s a tattoo.”

Terence takes this as an invitation to press his cold little hand against Daniel’s face, and Daniel swats it away. Sure enough, though, the ink doesn’t smudge.

A gasp escapes the kid’s mouth. “Wow.”

“Right?” Daniel echoes, standing back up. “It looks even better like this than when I was just drawing it on with markers.”

“Do mine,” Terence orders suddenly, clambering over to his chair at the kitchen table.

Daniel goes to get the markers from the dining room, and when he returns, Terence is still standing next to the chair, staring up at him.

“Dan, pick me up,” he orders.

Daniel crosses his arms. “Why?”

“Put me on the chair.”

“Do it yourself.”

“I want you to do it.”

“Come on, Terry. You’re a big boy, aren’t you?”

Terence glares at him thoughtfully for a moment before turning and climbing up onto the chair. It wobbles under him on its unsteady legs, and he grips the back of it for support.

Daniel approaches his brother’s side and uncaps the black marker. He starts by outlining the shape on Terence’s chin, then on his nose and up to his forehead. Terence keeps his eyes closed, chin tilted up as Daniel colors the shapes gray, then marks them with horizontal black lines. He’s slow, careful to keep them as straight and even as possible, and he’s satisfied when he pulls away to see that he’s more or less succeeded.

“Done,” he announces, capping the black marker.

Terence blinks his eyes open. “I wanna see.”

Daniel hoists Terence up by his armpits and carries him, legs dangling, into the dining room. He presents him in front of the mirror and watches Terence examine the faux tattoo with his pale eyebrows drawn seriously together.

“Second line is wrong,” he tells Daniel.

Sure enough, the second line from the top of his forehead is just slightly crooked. Daniel shrugs his shoulders, setting Terence back down. “No, it’s not. It’s fine, Terry.”

“It’s wrong. Fix it.”

“I told you, Terry, it’s fine. The mirror just made it look weird.”

“Are you lying?”

“So what if I am?” Daniel asks, heading back into the kitchen.

“Don’t lie,” Terence mutters, following him.

“It’s just a drawing.”

“So is yours.”

“No, mine is a tattoo, so it’s permanent.”

“I want a tattoo, too.”

Daniel laughs, pulling the box of Kraft from the cupboard. “You’re too young for a tattoo, Terry.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You said I was a big boy,” Terence complains, pulling himself back up onto his chair.

“Big enough to get on your chair by yourself, not big enough to get a tattoo. There’s a difference.”

“When will I be big enough to get a tattoo?” “When you can walk into a tattoo shop by yourself and not get told to leave,” Daniel tells him with a smirk. “Or when Martin lets you get one—fat chance!”

Terence is quiet for a moment. Then: “Why do you call dad Martin?”

“Because it’s his name. I don’t call you ‘brother,’ do I? No, I don’t. So why should I call him ‘dad?’”

“Everyone else does.”

“Well, I’m special.”

“Can I call him Martin, too?”

Daniel’s smirk widens. “He’d hate that. So sure, why not?”

“Why don’t you like him?”

Daniel pauses, not turning to face his brother. Finally, he says, “Because he’s a square.”

“He’s not a square,” Terence replies scornfully. “He’s a bunch of shapes, not a square.”

“It’s a figure of speech. It just means that he’s lame.”

“Did you like him more when mom was alive?”

It’s an innocent question. Terence is still only five, Daniel tells himself, and even his stand hasn’t shown any powers yet—he can’t mean anything by it.

But it’s sore. Daniel barely remembers how Martin had acted after the accident; all he can recall is the vague image of his father holding his two-year-old brother in his arms as he huddled over the side of Daniel’s hospital bed, expression obscured by the haziness of his memory. They had moved up to Stevenson after the funeral, so that Martin could be closer to his family—family that barely came to see them after the first week anyways, especially once Martin started working. Now Daniel barely sees him, either—it’s funny, really. Daniel makes enough money now in his endeavors that Martin shouldn’t need to work so much, but Martin doesn’t need to know that. No, it’s better that his father keeps busy. Better that he doesn’t know. Better that he doesn’t have time to ask questions.

Daniel sets a pot in the sink.

“Not really. He’s always annoyed me.”

1978.

The city lights flicker outside Daniel’s window, cold and impersonal against the blacked-out sky, just the way he likes it. The cars moving ant-like below his hotel balcony provide only a vague reminder that human life exists outside his little enclave, too distant to be meaningful. The summer night air passes pleasantly against his cheeks, and he lets out an easy breath. He’s been almost entirely nocturnal ever since he left Stevenson over a year ago, dwelling in seedy bars and dazzling casinos, but he’s at liberty to turn in early every so often. After all, what’s the point of living if not to follow one’s whims?

He slides the window shut and steps over to the armchair, his house robe swishing around him. Sometimes, on nights like this, an invoiceable lack gnaws at him from the back of his mind. He hasn’t had a consistent companion ever since John took off almost a year ago now—not that it matters, really. It doesn’t matter at all.

Daniel pours himself a glass of bourbon and sits down, reaching for the television remote. The screen flicks on to a news channel, a dark-haired woman sitting in front of a blue background.

“...for their children,” she’s saying. “Parents in this small Washington town, however, have had to do just that.”

Daniel’s thumb hovers over the channel button. Instead, he sets the remote down on the side table, leaning back in his seat.

“At least seven children between the ages of nine and 11 have turned up dead in Stevenson, Washington, in the past two months alone. In each case, the child was reported as missing days before his or her body appeared, often in secluded parts of town. All but two of the children were boys, and all but one came from low-income families. All seven attended Columbia Gorge Elementary School.”

Numb, Daniel watches the still, familiar image of a stout, brown-brick building drift onto the screen. He takes a sip of his bourbon.

“At first glance, this may appear to be the work of a serial murderer. The autopsy reports, however, have stumped police.”

The school building is replaced by the white starkness of what seems to be a police station, where a man in uniform is seated in front of the camera. Daniel doesn’t read his name.

“The bodies show no signs of foul play,” he says. “There are no wounds, no abrasions, no bruising. We haven’t found any traces of poison. All their organs seem like they were in good shape. It seems like all seven of the children suffered sudden cardiac death, but none of them had any record of underlying health conditions that might contribute to… to SCD.”

“The question, then, is what could be causing these tragic deaths. Police have closed Columbia Gorge Elementary indefinitely to investigate, just days before school would have ended for the summer,” the woman’s voice interjects as the school building appears again, this time as a video. A pale, gray-haired man with deep eye bags is in front of the camera, wringing his hands together like they might fall off if he doesn’t. He must be standing in the parking lot—behind him, teachers are ushering children outside to where their anxious parents must be waiting.

“It’s awful—awful,” Principal Woronov is saying with a voice so taut it might snap. “We’re cooperating with the authorities, of course. If there’s something in the school that could be causing an illness—causing something that could be hurting our children, we need it taken care of. We can’t let our kids be put in danger. It’s an awful, awful situation, and there are so many questions. Why those seven went missing, for instance, and where they were before their bodies were recovered—there just hasn’t been any closure. Not for us, and certainly not for the families. Hopefully the authorities are able to get to the bottom of this soon, and hopefully we’re able to help. We just want…”

Suddenly, Woronov’s words flicker out, smothered by an acute pounding in Daniel’s ears. Behind the principal’s stooped frame, a small figure passes by under the guidance of a middle-aged teacher. The child is maybe nine years old, with a mop of light brown hair and a familiarly striped t-shirt. For anyone else, it would be difficult to make out through the pixels of the TV screen, but Daniel can see it clearly: Carefully marked on the boy’s chin, nose, and forehead is a mess of gray lined with black.

For just a moment, Terence glances at the camera. His eyes are disinterested, cold.

One of his brother’s classmates had gone missing in a similar manner just days before Daniel had left town. He had pushed it out of his mind almost religiously, and he certainly hadn’t mentioned it to Terence, but he could remember how it felt the first time he had clutched one of those little poker chips in his hand, shaking with sick excitement and all the adrenaline of any 14-year-old boy who had just won a game. For him, it had been the beginning of a career—a passion, a lifestyle. But Terence had only been nine when that boy had gone missing. Terence had only been nine, and he had watched Daniel with too much admiration.

Admiration and, at times, irritation—that glint of anger aimed right at Daniel as Atum loomed over his younger brother’s shoulder. Liar, liar, liar. Why can’t you ever tell the truth? But the answer had been obvious, hadn’t it? Of course Daniel couldn’t tell Terence the truth. Of course he couldn’t tell Terence where he went at night, where he got his cash from, why he sometimes appeared in the early morning with twitching hands and bloodshot eyes. Of course he couldn’t. Besides, it wasn’t in his nature to tell the truth.

And Terence found out anyway.

Daniel had been planning to leave regardless; Stevenson was small, and his ambitions were big. Terence had just made him more sure—Terence and his watchful eyes, Terence and his admiration. Terence and the drawings on his face.

He changes the channel.

If Terence wants to get away with much more, he’ll need to change his methods—and he’ll need to figure that out on his own.

1983.

It’s late afternoon now. Daniel takes a slow, steady breath and knocks on the door to his father’s house.

When he left, he had never intended to return—there hadn’t been anything left for him in that building, after all, and the world outside held so much. If he did return, he wouldn’t do so for a long time. And then, suddenly, it had been a long time: Daniel had realized, finishing another row of poker chips in his book, that he had left home over five years ago. For another year after that, he had turned the idea of returning about in his mind without really committing to anything, and then he had found himself trailing a target in Portland. The drive would barely even be an hour.

On a whim, he had decided to do it; if the wind had been a bit stronger, if he had been a bit more hungry, if a person on the sidewalk nearby had caught his eye, he might not have gone at all. He had made his decision, though, and now here he is.

Daniel stands on the doorstep so long that he begins to wonder if his family is gone despite the car in the driveway. Just as he’s beginning to contemplate leaving and returning to Portland for a few more days, the door swings open.

In the past six years, Daniel has changed a fair bit; his skin has tanned, his hair has assumed a clean middle part, his mustache has tidied up, his wardrobe has been remade entirely. He’s certainly not as skinny as he used to be. Terence, on the other hand, has transformed. Most noticeably, years of growing have stretched him a head above Daniel even though his back is hunched, and his limbs are left knobby and long. His light brown hair hangs limply around his cheeks and stops at his chin, kept out of his eyes with a black fabric headband. He must have outgrown all Daniel’s old hand-me-downs, because he’s dressed in unfamiliar jeans and a heart-patterned sweater. What strikes Daniel the most, though, is Terence’s face. His skin is pale, spotted awkwardly with acne and zits, lips chapped and cold blue eyes glaring at him from under a few stray hairs.

Those drawings are still on his face, after all these years. It doesn’t take Daniel long to see what they are.

“Nice tattoos,” he offers weakly. All of a sudden, his strength seems to have left him.

Terence stares at him for a moment, silent, before his mouth twists into an unpleasant smile. “They look better on me. What are you doing here, Daniel?”

“Just paying my family a visit. Mind if I come in?”

Again, Terence is silent, his blank eyes baring coldly into Daniel’s skin. Finally, he steps aside, gesturing for Daniel to enter.

The living room and dining room look almost identical to how they did six years ago, Daniel notes as he glances around, suppressing a pang of nostalgia that threatens to grip him. The carpet is more worn. The mirror on the wall is foggy. The chairs in the dining room are new, and one of them has a backpack slung over it. That’s all.

“How’ve you been, Terry?” he asks, seating himself on the creaky old couch.

“Fine,” Terence responds robotically, shutting the door behind them. “What about you? Have you been living it up without me?”

Daniel leans back in his seat, doing his best to look relaxed and comfortable. On the contrary, though, something about Terence’s demeanor makes him uneasy—and Daniel hasn’t felt uneasy in a very long time. The feeling is too alien, too disorienting.

“You could say that,” he replies smoothly, trying (and, he believes, succeeding) to look and sound more calm than he feels. “For what it’s worth, it seems like you’ve done the same. How many souls have you collected by now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play games with me, Terry. I know what you’ve been up to.”

At the sound of his old nickname, Terence’s entire body jerks as if someone had shot him. He stares at Daniel silently for one second, two, three, with wide, empty eyes, before suddenly—finally—there is a change. A wide, wide grin stretches his face open, splitting the chapped lines on his lips, and he lets out a hoarse laugh. It’s an unpleasant noise, scratchy and dry and shaking louder and louder until Daniel almost thinks Terence has lost his mind entirely.

It trickles away as soon as it has started, though, giving way to the odd giggle. Terence shakes his head.

“You know what I’ve been up to? I don’t think you do. Do you think I have a neat little line of poker chips tucked away in a book in my dresser drawer? You must’ve thought you were smart to install that false bottom. No. You’re not as smart as you think you are, Daniel, and you can rest assured that we’re not the same. If you’re so sure that you know what I’ve been up to, then I’ll show you.”

Every instinct in Daniel’s body is telling him that that sounds bad, but more than that, a sick, cat-like curiosity has left him immobilized. He doesn’t move from where he’s reclined on the couch. “Go ahead, then.”

Terence’s grin widens so far that it almost looks painful. “I will. And, by the way, don’t ever call me ‘Terry’ again.”

He spins on his heel, walking over to the backpack in the dining room and unzipping. Daniel watches him closely as he rummages around in its main pocket and then draws upright with something small and partially obscured in his hand. He turns back to Daniel and approaches him, presenting him with the little object.

It’s moving, Daniel realizes, twitching stiffly and whining like a thing in the throes of death, and at first he thinks it’s some sort of small animal. As the gears turn in his mind, though, he sees that it isn’t an animal at all—it’s a doll. Its hair is brightly colored and spiked up into a disproportionate mohawk, and its little body is dressed in a miniature black jacket and torn jeans. The fabric, from the body to the clothes, seems to have been sewn together by hand, although the quality is undeniably good (to Daniel’s untrained eye, at least).

The little head jerks unnaturally and its gasping voice raises into words.

“C’mon, D’Arby, just let me go! Are you listening? You can’t keep me like this forever. They must be looking for me now. Just let me—”

Terence gently places his fingers over the doll’s mouth, giggling to himself. He returns it quickly to his backpack and turns back towards Daniel.

“Did you see that?” he crows. “He doesn’t realize yet that he’s never getting away—that’s because I just got him two nights ago. I had to drive all the way up to Tacoma for him, too. His band isn’t that big yet—and now it never will be, not without its singer. I was hoping for someone more famous, but I take what I can get. I guess that’s why you left, too, Daniel? Well, what I’m doing is much more interesting. You should hear the way they talk to me after a few months. You’d almost think they loved me.”

He’s completely insane.

Daniel’s stomach turns, but he won’t lose his composure so easily. Instead, he keeps his gaze fixed levelly on Terence, just like he had throughout the entire exposition. Evenly, he answers, “I’m not so sure ‘interesting’ is the word I’d choose.”

“Oh? Then what word would you choose?”

“Creepy,” Daniel answers, a rare show of honesty.

Terence’s mouth twitches. “‘Creepy?’ It’s not creepy. You, of all people, should be able to understand that.”

“I understand the appeal of gambling for souls, of course,” Daniel responds with a shrug. “Keeping them conscious and letting them talk to you? That’s quite another thing. They’re trophies, Terry, not prisoners—and certainly not companions. You shouldn’t get personally attached to them. It makes you look like a madman.”

In a single, flurried motion, Terence lunges towards Daniel. He grabs the collar of his brother’s shirt, knuckles twitching against the soft fabric, and bares his teeth like a dog. Daniel keeps his expression relaxed, disinterested. Most importantly, unintimidated.

His heart, though, is pounding in his chest like a kick drum. The reality that this deranged thing is what’s become of his younger brother twists sick horror at his stomach, and a nagging thought at the back of his mind asks if this could have been avoided if Terence hadn’t been left to his own devices for so long.

But no. It’s too late for that.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Terence snarls. “You don’t have any right to call me that—and you don’t have any right to tell me what to do, either. You don’t have any right to walk into this fucking house anymore. This isn’t your home, and I’m not your family. You’re not needed anymore.”

Daniel looks at him and, halfway between a taunt and a realization, says, “But you used to need me.”

Terence punches him in the face.

As Daniel’s head jerks back from the force of the blow and pain explodes around his eye, he realizes that he probably shouldn’t have said that, but in the moment, he just hadn’t been able to resist. He hadn’t expected Terence to be so strong—he hadn’t really expected Terence to hit him at all—but he finds himself sprawling back against the couch, too shocked to react immediately.

Before he can collect his bearings, Terence has grabbed him by the collar again, lifting him up and shoving him to the ground. Daniel’s able to brace a knee against the floor so that he doesn’t fall entirely, but in that moment, his brother’s foot drives hard into his stomach. All the air in his body seems to escape him and he doubles over, gasping and almost choking. The next kick lands on his ribs, and he falls.

Over and over again, Terence slams his foot against Daniel’s body with a strength that seems to dwarf his gangly frame. His chest, his arm, his chin—each screams at him that he needs to run or fight. Finally, he’s able to grab hold of the carpet, half-dragging half-pulling himself paces away from Terence, for all the good it does him. He’s found himself on the west-facing side of the living room, with his route to the door and the stairs blocked by his brother. To flee, he has to first get around Terence.

Worse than that, he can’t seem to find the will to fight. As strong as Terence seems, Daniel must be heavier than him—but he can’t seem to push himself up, can’t seem to raise a hand to do anything other than protect his face. He knows how to defend himself; he’s done it before. But now, despite the pain and the fear, something he’s never felt before has taken hold of him in a grip strong and dizzying enough to paralyze.

Once, he had held a baby Terence in his arms. He had watched his first step, heard his first word. He had shown his young brother his stand, the way his mother had done for him. He had cut his hair and cooked for him and taken him to school and read to him and drawn matching pictures on their faces. He had driven his beaten-up truck out of their driveway on a cold February night and he hadn’t looked back even once. He had created something horrific—something worse than even himself.

“It was my own fault,” he finds himself rasping in a voice that doesn’t sound like his.

Terence just laughs. Daniel sees him toss his head back and laugh so hard that his body shakes, stepping even closer to his prone brother. Even now, he resembles the boy Daniel used to know—the eyes, the nose, the cheeks. Maybe this is who he always has been; maybe Daniel just never noticed. Maybe Daniel hadn’t paid enough attention.

“Say that all you want. It doesn’t matter now,” Terence wheezes, kicking Daniel’s arm away from his face. “You’re familiar with death, right, Daniel? You watched our mother die, after all, even though it should have been you. Your little poker chips are as good as dead. Well, I want you to listen to me very carefully.”

He leans over, shoving Daniel’s arm to the ground. As he stands back up, he places his foot on top of Daniel’s fingers even despite his brother’s weak struggling and looks him in the eye.

“There are things worse than death,” Terence says carefully, “and I’m going to show you what they are.”

He drives the heel of his shoe down into Daniel’s fingers until, somewhere in the weak din of Daniel’s mind, he hears a crunch. Then another. Then another.

At some point after Terence pulls him partially upright to punch his face in again, Daniel feels his mind slipping away. He almost doesn’t hear the sound of the door open, or the sound of his father’s voice cutting through the room. When he comes to his senses in the hospital, he wonders why he came back to Stevenson at all.

1988.

Daniel finds DIO’s mansion lacking in terms of interior design, but he’d never say that.

You’d think that a man so unfeasibly rich would have a more trained eye for style, but apparently not. Certain rooms are littered with piles of gold and jewels and other treasures intermingled with the bodies of DIO’s victims, and while the bold display of wealth and violence is a fair choice, Daniel can think of at least ten ways off the top of his head to do it in a more interesting way. Outside of the gold heaps, almost every room in the building has the same dreary, dark feeling to it, suitable more to a horror movie than a man’s house (or a cult’s headquarters, because that’s really what this is). Even the lodgings for DIO’s other servants—in which Daniel chooses not to dwell, for what it’s worth—seem coffin-like.

Whoever DIO’s interior designer is, Daniel thinks as he wanders up the stairs to the mansion’s second floor, must not be the same person as his tailor. The garish yellows and greens, adorned with hearts and belt loops and odd curls, are nowhere to be seen on the walls or the carpets. The first time he had seen DIO, he would have been amused if he hadn’t been so afraid. He still fears his vampiric overlord (although “boss” would really be a more accurate word), but he wonders about his choices sometimes.

Strangely enough, Daniel finds himself standing at the doorway to what appears to be a dimly-lit costume room. The rows of hangers seem to go on forever, each supporting costume after costume of bright colors and luxurious fabrics, although it’s difficult to make out in the dark. Daniel steps forwards and begins perusing one of the rows, lazily inspecting each outfit with eyes that have swiftly grown accustomed to the dim lighting.

Some might say that it’s a bad idea to go snooping around the sprawling mansion of a menacing vampire, but if Daniel is going to be working underneath another person for the first time in his entire life, he’s of course going to familiarize himself with the terrain. There are other stand users who live here, yes, and even more who come and go, but even the most sadistic of them know not to attack another of DIO’s servants unprovoked—after all, DIO is employing them all for a reason. Even DIO himself shouldn’t have any reason to fault Daniel for this; it isn’t like there’s anything particularly suspicious about the costume room.

“What are you doing in here?”

Daniel raises his head at the sound of the voice, apparently coming from the other side of this row of costumes. He takes one costume in each of his hands and pushes them away from each other to peer through to the other side. The glare of his younger brother, glinting white and blue through the dark, greets him.

Daniel blinks. “Trying on DIO’s outfits, of course. What about you?”

He can faintly see Terence’s features twist into a scowl. “I’m fetching a costume for Lord DIO—Lord DIO, Daniel, not just ‘DIO.’ Remember your place.”

“Right, right.” Daniel releases the costumes he’d been holding out of the way and walks around to meet Terence on the row over. “Who makes these outfits, anyways?”

“I do,” Terence answers with a smirk. “You ought to learn how to recognize my handiwork. Lord DIO pays me lots of compliments over it.”

“I’m sure he does. He must love mustard yellow,” Daniel drawls.

Terence’s mouth twitches. “I wouldn’t expect you to have any aesthetic sensibilities, anyways.”

“I have eyes.”

“Oh, shut up,” Terence snarls. “Why do you have to loiter around here? If I had known Lord DIO was planning on employing you, I would’ve warned him against it. You’re not worthy of kissing the ground he walks on.”

“I’m not here to quarrel with you, Terry. This feud we have is entirely one-sided; I don’t care for it.” Daniel leans back against the end of the beam that supports the nearest row of costumes. “Besides, if you’re worth DIO’s time, we both are. We have the same ability, more or less, except I’ve been using mine for longer.”

“Please. The only thing you have that I don’t is your lies—which aren't any use on me, if you’d forgotten.” Atum shimmers into existence over Terence’s shoulder.

Daniel scoffs. “You can’t cover everything with yes or no questions.”

“But it’s more than you can do.”

“Who says that? Maybe Osiris has another ability, too.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I can communicate telepathically with cats.”

“Can you really?” Atum stares at him.

Daniel lets out a huff of laughter. “Of course I can.”

Terence scowls. “Fuck off. Can’t you leave me alone?”

“You’re the one who interrupted me while I was exploring,” Daniel answers with a yawn. “Why don’t you run along and bring Lord DIO his ugly yellow suit?”

A flash of anger passes over Terence’s face. “You’d better be careful, Daniel, or I’ll tell him you’re talking badly about his clothes.”

“And admit to him your handiwork got made fun of? Come on, Terry, you’re all talk. Didn’t you tell me once you’d show me something worse than death? I don’t think a few broken ribs and fingers are worse than death—unless death is nicer than I’ve heard.”

“I don’t know, Daniel. Did our mother’s death look nice to you?” Terence laughs angrily. “Besides, a few broken ribs isn’t what I was talking about. Trust me, I’m going to show you something worse than death—I just haven’t yet. You’ll wish you had died in her place once I do, and you can rest assured of that.”

The inclusion of their mother would have been upsetting if Daniel hadn’t grown used to Terence’s jabs over the last few months. “Nice one, Terry. And here, I thought you wanted people to think you were the better brother.”

“Luckily, I don’t need to prove the truth,” Terence spits. He folds the costume over his arm, turning to leave, and then pauses to send another angry look Daniel’s way. “And, by the way, don’t talk to Vanilla Ice again. She doesn’t like you. She told me so.”

“Vanilla Ice? Which one is that?” Daniel blinks, feigning confusion. “Oh, right. The former stripper. Don’t worry, Terry, I won’t interfere with your love life.”

Terence glowers at him. His done-up beehive of hair makes him look ridiculous, and suddenly Daniel is reminded of how meaningless this entire exchange is. He sighs, adding, “Come to think of it, I passed by her in the library. She wanted to see you.”

“Really?” Terence asks, eyes lighting up. “Well, I need to deliver this costume. Don’t show your face around here again unless Lord DIO summons you.”

With that, he disappears out the door, and Daniel hears his footsteps as he descends down the stairs.

He really should’ve had Atum double-check that one.

1993.

Daniel wakes up, shaky and hot in the darkness of his room, at two in the morning. His blankets are tangled uncomfortably around him and his skin is damp with sweat.

He can’t quite remember what he had been dreaming about, just a still-fresh sense of nausea and panic pounding at his ears. That could mean anything—almost every night for the past few years has brought visions of his mother, of Terence, of DIO, of Kujo Jotaro. More than a few show his victims, and those are worse. If someone had told him five or 10 years ago that he’d be living like this in 1993, a constant shadow of guilt and horror, he wouldn’t have believed them, but maybe it’s for the better. No, not maybe—it is for the better. Out of all the things he wants, to go back to who he was when he was in his prime isn’t one of them.

His nightmares have grown less frequent ever since he and Terence returned to their apartment from the road trip they’d taken a year ago. That’s something, at least. Hol Horse is only 15 minutes outside town, too. Rubber and the others are even closer. Everything he needs is within reach.

After all, someone else is closer still—someone who he’d rather not disturb at this hour of the night.

Carefully, with hands that haven’t yet stopped trembling, Daniel pulls the blankets off of his body. He lowers himself softly to the ground and goes out into the hallway, walking gently so that he doesn’t make too much noise. When he gets to the kitchen, though, he spots a figure sitting hunched over the table.

“Terry?”

Terence turns his head to look at Daniel. In the darkness, he looks older than he is, like an elderly man at 25 years. He sighs. “Why are you up?”

“I was going to get something to drink. Can I turn the light on?”

All he gets is a shrug in reply, so Daniel goes over to the light switch and flicks it on. He clears his throat. “Want some tea?”

Again, Terence shrugs.

Daniel hesitates, then decides to take that as a yes. Within the minute, a kettle of water is warming on the stove. He isn’t bold enough to take a seat, so instead he leans back against the refrigerator, hands clasped awkwardly together. Hesitantly, he asks, “Why are you up, Terry? Have you been sleeping okay?”

“You know I haven’t been,” Terence mutters. “I never have.”

“Sorry.”

“Forget it. I’m not upset.”

Still, his voice offers no further questioning, so Daniel falls uncomfortably silent.

Surprisingly, that isn’t the end of it. After a moment, Terence adds reluctantly, “I was going to get myself something to eat, but I started feeling sick, so I sat down. That’s all.”

“You feel sick?” Daniel asks, looking up. He doesn’t even try to stop the worry from edging into his voice. “Are you okay?”

“It’s fine. I’m just tired.”

“Have you slept tonight?”

“No,” Terence admits.

“Last night?”

“No,” he repeats, almost indignant.

“When was the last time you did?”

“I don’t know,” Terence snaps, “Thursday? I told you, Dan, it’s fine.”

“You should go to bed, Terry,” Daniel frets.

“Listen, I don’t feel sick anymore. It’s been an hour or so since then.”

“So you’ve been sitting here in the dark for an hour, doing nothing? That—that really can’t be a good sign. You should go to bed.”

Terence’s mouth twitches. “I thought I was supposed to be the one looking after you. That’s the whole reason we started living together. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Of course I haven’t. But a lot has changed since then, Terry,” Daniel supplicates. “I’m doing better than I was a few years ago—and I have you to thank for that. I can at least make myself useful.”

It’s an exaggeration, really, to say that Daniel has Terence to thank for his recovery; there had been some days where just looking at his brother had been too painful to bear, and Terence’s odd bursts of rage and spite hadn’t helped. But things aren’t like that now, and the same guilt still chews so powerfully on Daniel’s thoughts and memories that he almost really believes it. He really is grateful that his brother is here—that much, at the very least, is true.

“You’re right; a lot has changed,” Terence echoes unhappily.

Daniel looks back at him questioningly.

Terence shifts in his chair as if he’s suddenly grown uncomfortable. “You’re going to leave sooner or later, aren’t you? Probably sooner rather than later. Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong—we both know it’s true. This was never going to last forever.”

“I’m not leaving, Terry.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Terence snaps, voice wavering. “I’m not some child who you can keep secrets from, Dan. I know you. I can tell. You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with the—with Hol Horse. You’ve been spending a lot of time with Hol Horse lately.”

Ah.

Daniel makes his way around the table to rest a hand on Terence’s shoulder. His brother doesn’t react, so he says, “I don’t have any plans to move out right now. Really. And if I do decide to move out, I won’t ever be far away. You’re an important part of my life.”

“As if I have any reason to believe you.”

It hurts to hear Terence say that; Daniel has tried his best to mend things with his brother over the past few years, including the obvious baggage between them. Not that Terence has any obligation to forgive him. But, then, this is Terence, who has always looked for cutting remarks when he gets upset. Daniel shouldn’t take it personally, and he certainly isn’t going to try to defend himself.

Instead, he offers with a weak smile, “If I did anything that would hurt you, Rubber would hunt me down and kill me, so that’s one reason.”

Terence’s expression doesn’t change; he hardly seems to hear Daniel at all. Instead, he slumps over even further.

“I just wish I could have been enough.”

Daniel’s heart aches.

“You’ve always been enough, Terry.”

Terence makes a noise that at first Daniel thinks is a strange sob. As his head hits the table, he realizes that it was a snore. All of a sudden, his brother has finally fallen asleep.

#jjba #alex's writing #i GUESS i should tag the characters for this #daniel j d'arby #terence t d'arby

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graham--folger · 1 year

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Hugs, Touch-Starved, First Kiss, Making Out, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship Summary:

It’s odd that they don’t exchange any words as the bus continues into London, toward Crowley’s flat.

Aziraphale and Crowley take the bus back to Crowley's with a lot weighing on their minds.

#look i wrote something. it's been actual months ghhjsgjsgj #alex's writing #good omens #ineffable husbands

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sugurushimura · 1 year

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chump

Something is up with Hatori. Shimura gets to the bottom of it, almost without meaning to.

(for @teethrotter. hatomura, 4.6k words. tw for alcohol use. crossposted on ao3.)

When Hatori invites Shimura out for drinks after work, Shimura knows that something is wrong.

Something has been wrong for a while, actually. It’s in the way Hatori walks, each step just a fraction of a second slower than usual; it’s in the thin sound of his laugh, in the clipped length of his sentences, the barely-concealed shadows under his eyes. No one else at the office seems to notice, but Shimura certainly does, and it makes him ill with anxiety. This is Hatori, after all—optimistic, outspoken Hatori. Any departure from the norm is a cause for concern.

On Friday evenings in particular, Hatori almost always goes out with Higuchi and Namikawa. Shimura’s observed it time and time again (and even been invited once), and he hasn’t seen any signs of it changing. Today’s invitation, then, becomes the most recent item in a long list etched into Shimura’s mind of recent strange behaviors from the Vice President of Marketing.

“You aren’t busy tonight?” he asks hesitantly.

His eyes trace over Hatori’s face for any signs of discomfort or conflict, but he finds, unnervingly, that he can’t see behind his smile.

The laugh that follows it, though, is bitter. “Why would I be? It’s not like there’s anything else I’d rather do.”

It almost sounds like a compliment, but Hatori’s mind seems to be somewhere else. Shimura accepts anyways—maybe out of concern, maybe out of interest, maybe because he just likes being around Hatori. Whichever it is, he feels compelled almost outside of his own will, as if some unknowable magnetism is telling him that where he needs to be tonight is by his colleague’s side.

He knows that Hatori usually gets drunk after just a drink or two, so he offers to drive. Hatori can usually lead a conversation through the entirety of a ride, but today, he fizzles out after a few minutes. The air feels heavy, palpable, so Shimura puts on a CD.

“I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice…”

Somehow, the music doesn’t help.

Hatori’s choice of bar is surprisingly commonplace. The lights are dim, and Shimura finds himself squeezed onto a stool by the far wall with Hatori’s arm pressed up against his own. They just don’t have that much space, that’s all. Still, neither of them suggests they move, and Hatori feels warm through the fabric of their suits.

“I thought you normally went out with Higuchi and Namikawa on Fridays, that’s all,” Shimura says after a lull in conversation, as if continuing directly from back at the office. “That’s why I was surprised when you asked me here.”

Hatori, already finishing off his first drink, sets his glass down on the table and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He laughs, almost expectant. “They can be so depressing to be around sometimes. Higuchi is always in a bad mood, and Namikawa looks down his nose at everyone. Sometimes I just need a break, you know?”

That’s not the entire truth, is it?

“You wouldn’t rather spend the evening at home?”

A sick, unhappy look passes over Hatori’s face and disappears. “Not really.”

Then, after a pause, he adds, “Maybe I’d just rather be with you.”

Shimura’s breath catches in his throat, and immediately he realizes that Hatori is being intentional, somehow. His colleague flashes him a grin, and the glint of his teeth in the yellow hue of the bar is almost cruel. A trick of the light, Shimura would think, if only it didn’t reach his eyes.

Before he can dwell on it, Hatori shrugs his shoulders and waves down the bartender. As he wraps his soft little hands around his new glass, he adds, “Anyways, I thought about ditching them without saying anything. It’d be funny. But I don’t want Higuchi blowing up my phone, so I told them I wasn’t feeling well. They’re probably still going out together somewhere, so I chose somewhere I knew they’d never come. They both have really pretentious tastes, you know. It gets exhausting.”

“Why do you go out with them every week, then?”

“Force of habit, I guess? I don’t know. It’s not like I don’t like them. They can be funny sometimes.” Hatori takes a long sip and then blinks hard a few times. The alcohol is probably beginning to hit him. He continues, “Seriously, I like them. We get along. I just think I’d get sick if I tried talking to them for too long tonight.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’re not going to catch anything from me.”

“That’s not—”

“Don’t worry about me, Shimura. I’m great. Peachy. You worry too much, worrywart.”

“Sorry,” Shimura mumbles, dejected less because he had assumed wrong and more because he knows that he had been right. Something’s going on, that’s for certain. He doesn’t feel like Hatori’s lying to him, but something’s going on.

“You apologize too much, too.” Hatori chugs down what’s left of his second drink—already?—and turns to fix Shimura in a serious look. “If you spend your entire life worrying and apologizing, you’re never really going to enjoy things. You can’t always do what’s safest, or what won’t upset anyone. You have to live sometimes.”

Shimura stares back at him, opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds. Finally, he manages to say, “Sorry?”

Hatori holds his gaze for a moment longer and then sags in on himself, letting out a sigh. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. That was out of line. You’re a great guy, Shimura. I guess I just…”

Shimura waits for Hatori to finish his sentence, but his colleague only glances up at him and shrugs his shoulders before summoning the bartender for a third time. His face is red now, his eyes unfocused and mouth tight.

It’s almost too much for Shimura to bear.

“Hey, are you sure you’re alright?” he asks tentatively. “If you want to talk to me, I’ll listen. We’re friends, right?”

Hatori stares at his new drink as it slides across the wooden countertop to him, silent. Finally, he laughs out a dark, choked sort of sound, still not looking at Shimura. “I guess I should. You’re Mr. Personnel, after all. Everything makes its way back to you eventually.”

“What does that—”

Hatori’s glass slams down against the countertop, and the loud noise makes Shimura jump. For his own part, Hatori hardly seems to notice his companion’s alarm, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and sighing.

“My wife and I got divorced,” he announces in a low, self-deprecating voice, almost laughing. “Got it finalized this week. I’m moving into a new place tomorrow. I’m surprised the press hasn’t picked up on it yet.”

“You have friends all over the place,” Shimura replies mechanically, the momentary shock shutting anything else out. “Besides, you’re in charge of Yotsuba’s communications. No one wants to get on your bad side.”

Hatori just shrugs his shoulders, expression despondent. “Maybe. Sometimes it feels like my entire life is bad PR.”

Shimura isn’t immediately sure how to respond to that because, after all, Hatori isn’t wrong; a bastard child without any real business background gliding into the company on the graces of a quietly guilty absent father is a bad look on its face. It certainly ruffles feathers within the company. Shimura had never minded it, though, not since he had actually come to know Hatori; as far as Shimura is concerned, to know Hatori is to love him. Besides, the Marketing Division’s numbers speak for themselves.

As he searches silently for a reply, Shimura finds his mind wandering, all the thoughts that he had blocked out before suddenly slamming against him. Hatori, divorced? Shimura never would’ve thought of it; sure, he and his wife had never seemed all that warm towards each other, but he’d always been a family man, too. The idea that divorce would be the solution to whatever marital issues the Hatoris were facing had just never seemed plausible—or maybe it’s just that Shimura never allowed himself to think about that. To hope for that. It’s with a pang of guilt that he realizes a part of him is almost happy, and the next wave of guilt tells him that he should’ve realized what was happening before Hatori had to tell him. Should’ve said something sooner, rather than leaving Hatori to suffer through this alone.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying. “About the divorce, I mean. I’m sure it’s hard. Does anyone else at the office know?”

“Dad does. He’s not happy, but we both know damn well he’s in no place to talk. That’s all, I think… maybe. Who knows? I haven’t told anyone else. Just you.”

Just you.

Shimura swallows. “Well, um… Why did you get divorced, anyways? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Hatori laughs and takes a swig. “Fuck if I know. Because we married when we were still just 20, I guess. Then by the time we were 30 we didn’t really give a shit about each other anymore. Funny how that works, right? You try for years just to love one person and you still can’t do it. Maybe we never should’ve gotten married in the first place. We barely knew each other—we’d barely been dating a year. The kids make it all worth it, but other than that? Over a decade down the drain. A fucking decade, Shimura. Fuck.”

He ends the sentence with his shoulders hunched, running a hand over his face. Before Shimura can offer comfort, he continues, “She has custody. That’s the worst thing about it—she gets custody. I wish Japan would get with the fucking times already and let us both have it, but I guess not. Whatever. We’ve both been good parents. I mean, I like to think I’ve been a good dad. The courts just tend to side with the mothers on things like this, and it’s not like I wanted to make things messier. I get them on the weekends. I guess that’s… the best I could hope for, and I work weekdays anyways. Still feels like shit. I tried to make it work for them. I really did.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Shimura offers helplessly.

“You think so?” Hatori shrugs. “At first, we were going to stay together for them. It seemed like the right thing to do. But… but they knew. They figured it out. It was pointless. It was hurting them more, you know, being stuck between two people who… who didn’t like being together. It’s better this way, but it’s still bad. I wish there was… like, like a switch in my brain that I could just flip. I wish I could feel the way I felt back when I was young. But I guess then I’d just be a chump.”

Hatori chugs down the rest of his drink and, before Shimura can tell him to slow down, staggers to his feet. He blinks a few times, swaying, then says, “I need to get outta here. Too hot. Too many people.”

Shimura stands, fishing the money they owe and some extra out of his pocket, and steadies Hatori with a hand. He leaves the payment on the counter and obediently leads his colleague out of the bar.

The streetlights illuminate Hatori’s face, reddish and splotchy with alcohol and sorrow. He’s walking, at least, but not in a straight line, and when they reach Shimura’s car he immediately leans the entirety of his torso up against it with a tired groan.

“Where do you want to go?” Shimura asks.

Hatori doesn’t respond immediately, closing his eyes and shoving his hands down into his pockets. “Dunno. Not another bar. Not my house.”

“Is mine okay?”

Hatori’s eyes slide open, focusing hazily on Shimura. A smirk spreads across his face, followed by a little wheezing noise that Shimura realizes is a laugh.

“Perfect,” he agrees, almost miserably. “Let me crash on your couch like a stupid punk. Fuck, Shimura, I wish I’d met you in high school.”

Shimura just looks back at him for a moment, bewildered, before pulling the passenger’s side door open for Hatori. His own seat is cold compared to the warm buzz of the bar, let alone the feeling of Hatori’s arm on his. They aren’t touching now; Hatori is slouched in his seat, watching the lights on the highway, then the lights in Shimura’s neighborhood, flicker by. The sky is gray with light pollution. If they were out in the country, maybe they’d be able to see the stars.

“You know,” Hatori says finally, “I never saw Dad as a kid. Maybe… three times. Five. Less. I don’t know. When Aimi was born, I thought… I decided, that’s never going to be me. You’ll see me every single day. Or I’ll call, if I’m away. But I can’t call every day of the week, can I?”

“Why not?”

“I can’t.” Hatori shakes his head slowly. “I just can’t. I was supposed to always be there. How can I be there when I don’t even live with them most of the time?”

“But it’s like you said, Hatori—it’s better this way than the alternative. You’ll all be happier like this, and they must know that you’re always there if they need you. You’re a good father.”

“Am I? Sometimes… Maybe I’m becoming like my dad.”

The last few words leave Hatori’s mouth at exactly the same time as Shimura finishes parking his car and Shimura takes the opportunity to turn towards him, reaching over to grab Hatori’s shoulder in his hand.

“You’re not,” he says seriously, with more feeling than he means to show. “If I know you, and if what I know about your father is true, then I can say for a fact that you’re nothing like him. Trust me.”

Hatori blinks back at him, opening his mouth like he’s about to speak and then closing it halfway. His face is still red, eyes wet but not quite crying, and suddenly the sorrow and bitterness is replaced by an unrecognizable, wide-eyed expression that makes Shimura’s stomach do flips.

“Okay,” Hatori says.

Shimura helps him inside, and after brief conversation, they proceed to the guest room. Hatori can walk, at least, but his body sways, path waving about, and Shimura finds himself pressed up against his colleague’s side to keep him walking straight. Hatori hardly seems to notice, his red face damp with sweat and eyebrows furrowed as he stumbles determinedly down the hallway.

Hatori immediately sinks down onto his back on the bed once they reach their destination, raising his hands up to yank haphazardly at his necktie. Shimura walks over to the bedside table and pulls a water bottle out from the cabinet underneath (it’s always seemed prudent to keep them in here, just in case). He unscrews the cap and offers it to Hatori.

His colleague sighs loudly, arms flopping back down onto the comforter. He stares up at Shimura for a few seconds with a blank, undecipherable look on his face that suddenly distorts into one of exaggerated discomfort. He doesn’t even acknowledge the water bottle.

“Can you get my tie?”

“Um—sorry, what?”

“My tie. Undo it. My hands aren’t… you know.”

Right. Alcohol, coordination, all that. Shimura sets the bottle down and approaches the bed hesitantly. Mouth dry, he asks, “Are you sure?”

Hatori grunts. “Of course, man. Come on.”

Well, if Hatori’s tie really is discomforting him, then Shimura ought to help him, right? Anxiously Shimura approaches his side and stoops over, hastily loosening his colleague’s tie until it simply hangs over his shoulders.

Hatori jerks his head to the side. “Just grab it and throw it somewhere. I don’t want it.”

Shimura pulls Hatori’s tie out from under the back of his neck. Then, before he can pull his hand away, Hatori grabs it. He eases Shimura’s hand down to rest on his chest and has the audacity to smirk. “Why don’t you unbutton my shirt, too, while you’re at it?”

Oh shit.

Suddenly, Hatori bursts out into a fit of laughter.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!” he howls, tossing his head back and covering his eyes with his arm. “The look on your face was amazing! You should’ve seen it!”

Shimura feels himself going red and pulls back, cradling his hand as if it’d been hurt. “Are you feeling alright?”

Hatori’s laughter softens to chuckles. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

Shimura pulls away, setting Hatori’s necktie down on the bedside table and trying very hard to ignore what just happened. “Do you want some water?”

“Sure.”

Shimura hands Hatori the water bottle, and he turns to sit on the armchair in the room as his colleague pulls himself up to drink. After a moment, Hatori rests the water on the bedside table and pushes into a sitting position. He wipes his mouth on the back of his arm.

“You wanna hear the truth?” Hatori asks.

Shimura glances up. “If you want to talk about it.”

“God, why can’t you just say yes?” Hatori sighs, glaring. He doesn’t seem serious, but it’s hard to tell. “Sure, I’ll tell you about it since you want me to so bad.”

“Sorry.”

Hatori shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about shit lately, ever since we decided to divorce. I just feel like—like I wasted my life, you know? Like I sunk years and years into something that was so… so dreary for both of us, and now I’ll never get those years back. How many years ago before now did I stop loving her? How long have I been… out of love with her for? What was I doing all those years? Why didn’t I realize? How—how could I have realized at all?”

I could’ve told you, Shimura can’t help but think. I could tell.

“And now I’m alone. When I was in college, I thought—yeah, yeah I should marry Chiho, and then I thought yeah, we should have kids, Chiho and I. It’ll be good, to have people I care about around all the time. Seeing them every day. It’ll be nice. And it was really, really nice, you know, Shimura? It was like something clicked into place. I always had them around to fill the silence. And now I don’t—now I’m going to go home after work every day to an empty house. Who am I going to eat with? Who am I going to sleep next to? Who’s going to come bother me when I’m working to ask for help with homework? Who…”

He pauses, his breaths wavering, and slumps over himself in defeat.

“You can always call me, you know, if you need to talk to someone,” Shimura offers carefully after a moment. “We could even do dinner together sometime. Maybe a few of us could.”

“That isn’t the same. You haven’t been married, you haven’t had kids—you don’t get how it is, having that be your home. I’m sorry, but you just don’t. It’s like… your entire perspective of life is changed. The most fundamental part of your life has changed. It’s different.”

He stumbles over the word “fundamental,” a little groan of a sigh escaping his lips.

“Sorry,” Shimura says softly.

“No, don’t apologize,” Hatori says, sitting up some and turning to swat dismissively at Shimura. His every movement seems uncomfortable. “I’m honestly fine. I’ve accepted it, and besides, a lot of my colleagues are unmarried, so it can’t be so bad. It isn’t so bad, right?”

“I don’t mind it,” Shimura admits.

“Then I won’t, either, so don’t worry about it,” Hatori insists. “Seriously, it’s not so bad. I just… There’s some other stuff, I guess.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I mean, I’m wondering… Why did I want to get married, anyways? Was it really something I wanted for myself, or was it just something I… felt like I had to do? Like, okay, I’m an adult so it’s time for me to find someone to get married to and settle down with. Here’s a woman who likes me, we’ve been dating for a while now, so it would make sense to get married next. Is that what I was doing? Just going along with what I thought a normal person would do?

“And then, I started thinking… Is any of this really what I wanted? I graduated college and fooled around for a little trying to figure out where I was going, and then I decided to get a job working for my dad’s company because that’s just carrying on the family business, right? That’s what a son is supposed to do, right? And, you know, I wasn’t really part of Yotsuba’s family even though I was his son, so there was no family business for me to carry on, but I could pretend there was, anyway. I could pretend I was just like all the other rich kids, going to work for daddy’s company. Besides, it would get me way more money than I could get on my own. It all seemed so obvious, but—but was that really what I wanted? For a minute of that, was I ever really happy?

“Why am I here, sitting in an office all day? Is it really what I want to do? Why did I choose this?”

Shimura stares at him in silence for a moment, too surprised and stricken with sympathy to reply.

Hatori shakes his head, swallowing. In a shaky movement, he rises aimlessly to his feet, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. He lets out a long, low sigh.

“Do you ever feel that way, Shimura?”

Shimura blinks a few times, then swallows. “What do you mean?”

Hatori swings around on his heel, somehow sloppy and graceful at the same time, and moves over to Shimura in a waving path. He tosses his arm over the back of the armchair, leaning towards Shimura.

“It’s smothering, isn’t it,” he asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question, and the words come out slurred and strange. “Working at Yotsuba. I always wanted to be a writer, but it seemed so… so different. What’s the word… Unconventional. Or… or, eccentric. Difficult, too. That’s part of why I decided on Yotsuba. Now I barely write—I used to at least copywrite, but that’s not the same, and now my subordinates do it instead. Haven’t had the time for pottery like I used to, either. My entire life has been consumed by this thing. I mean, that entire damn building is just so lifeless, it’s depressing. And, you know, I get along with everyone well enough, but I know most people don’t like me. Or they like me fine but they don’t respect me. I keep telling myself I’m fine with that, but sometimes I just feel so fucking tired. As if people like Higuchi have any right to judge me. Nothing against Higuchi—I feel bad for him sometimes, you know—but I know I’m better at my job than him. Not that it matters, right? Because I’m still stuck here, I’m still stuck in this… this cold, stupid place. It’s too late to leave now, but I… I know it’s awful. I know how awful it is, wasting our lives there. And I didn’t even realize it until Chiho and I decided to get a divorce. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Hatori looks at Shimura, and it’s really and truly unnerving that Shimura can’t tell what he’s thinking. He’s used to being able to see the gears turning in his colleagues’ heads, and Hatori, always casual and unguarded, has been among the easiest to read. Now, though, even despite the alcohol, there’s a clouded film of distance over Hatori’s eyes, so detached and hazy that he might as well be feeling nothing at all. With an inward shudder, Shimura wonders if his friend is only so easy to read on purpose.

He swallows. “I like working at Yotsuba. Everyone has treated me well.”

Hatori frowns. “Really?”

“Sure. I—”

Suddenly Hatori’s body moves and Shimura cuts himself off, surprised. His colleague has leaned in to stoop over him, his unbuttoned jacket hanging stiffly over Shimura and his hand gripping the top of the armchair. Most direct is his face, which rests a mere few inches from Shimura’s own, breathing out the stench of alcohol. The frown is gone; again, his expression is sickeningly impenetrable.

“I don’t know about that,” he murmurs, almost whispers. “You’re not like the rest of them. You weren’t raised into this life—you aren’t stuck with rich parents to follow. Nothing to live up to. You—however you were raised, you ended up too damn empathetic. You’re so… you care about people too much. I can see it on your fucking face no matter what you do, and sometimes something will happen and I’ll think, fuck, damn, this guy is too nice to be here. Too… too real. Flesh and blood, just like a real man should be—not a fucking mannequin like the rest of us. Law student, right? Rugby star? That’s right—you were a rugby boy. But you ended up here, anyways, because you wanted to be like everyone else instead—just like all the happy, normal salarymen and their families on television, and you’ll still never be like them because you’re different. Could be out wrestling with some guy in the grass somewhere, and instead you’re here, doing whatever it is we do, cooped up in there like chickens, like a bunch of little robots. Barely able to breathe—as if it’ll ever really matter. You weren’t meant to live like this. And you realize, don’t you? You realize.”

Hatori leans his head to the side, just slightly.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?”

Something like a moment of clarity passes between them, and Shimura feels himself staring wide-eyed back at Hatori. Like me. A statement, really—and an absurd one, surely, to anyone else who knew them. But to Shimura, in this instant, it doesn’t sound absurd at all. The conclusion hits him, though, before the reason does.

Why?

A horrible dread grips hold of him. At the same time, though, he can feel the warmth emanating off of Hatori’s body, can see in intimate detail everything from the way his long eyelashes rest on his cheeks to the red flush splashed across his face. Even like this, he seems to glow in that easy way he always does. It’s so close. So easy.

If only Shimura was further gone.

Gently, he rests a hand on Hatori’s chest, and gently, he pushes him back just a few inches. Hatori relents easily, shifting back upwards until his head is above Shimura’s. The same tension still crackles in the air.

“You’re drunk,” Shimura says.

“So?” Hatori shoots back unevenly, as if he knows what they’re arguing about. As if Shimura knows what they’re arguing about.

“So—so you’re drunk, and I’m sober, and you should probably sleep this off, and I should… I should probably sleep it off, too.”

Hatori looks at him for a moment, eyes half-lidded and pale hair ruffled into clumps. Slowly, meaningfully, an uneven smile spreads over his lips. He gestures towards the door. “Or you could be drunk, too.”

Shimura’s eyes follow in the direction indicated by his colleague’s hand, down to where his kitchen would be. He swallows and answers hesitantly, “I shouldn’t.”

Hatori laughs, drawing back up to his full height and pointing his finger lazily to his own chest.

“Come on, Shimura. Don’t you wanna be like me?”

#Suguru Shimura #Arayoshi Hatori #Hatori/Shimura #alex's writing

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