Work Text:
They stop in front of a hotel. A curse is withering away below Chōsō’s feet while Yūji stares up at the building and considers it. It’s the middle of winter now. The wind has picked up and the day has grown as cold and dreary as the night. For a pair of boys roaming the streets with no destination in mind, the days blend into a choppy mix. They live according to their broken sleeping cycle.
Amongst the dilapidated buildings in a deserted city, this one stands with its shaky lights still blinking. It acts as a beacon and draws them forward like flies. 'Sakura Hotel' reads a red neon sign. Yūji turns away. Before he can take a step, however, Chōsō speaks up.
"Let’s rest here tonight." He looks away from the sign and back to Yūji—a small smile graces his face as their eyes meet. Yūji does not return it.
His breath condenses as it leaves his nose. "I’m not tired yet."
"You look like you are." Chōsō shifts his weight to his other foot—the wind brushes by, tossing his hair aside roughly. A few months ago, the same thing occurred to Megumi. Back then, Yūji had wasted no time in trying to tame it, much to his friend's chagrin. It was funny. Now, Yūji watches the dark strands of Chōsō's hair with remorse. He turns away.
"I’m not."
"Even if you aren’t," he continues, his voice a tightening vice on Yūji's jaw, "We should stop for tonight. The weather won’t get any better."
He scoffs. "You don’t even get cold."
"But you do."
"I’m fine—" He grits.
"Yūji."
They have only known each other a short while. Their first encounter ended with another near-death experience on Yūji's part, and an apparently mind-deluding experience on Chōsō's. Every other sentence out of his mouth starts with Yūji's name, accompanied by a query regarding his state of being. From an outsider's perspective, he resembles a loyal servant, a knight in shining armour. Yūji looks at him and sees nothing but an obnoxious buzzing bee that won't depart from him. He waits earnestly for the moment it will sting him while it whispers honeyed words in his ear. But, of that obnoxious buzzing, Chōsō has one of two tones: worried, and angry (which has never been directed towards Yūji). The way he speaks to him now is new. Assertive.
Yūji pivots on his foot and meets Chōsō's unwavering gaze with a frown of his own. They stare each other down as the wind bustles around them angrily. A shiver slithers up Yūji's spine. He knows Chōsō sees it even if his expression doesn't falter. "Fine," he spits and stomps into the building; Chōsō's footsteps follow right behind him lightly.
They don't climb up very high. The floors are as barren as the streets outside but the warm air is all-encompassing. It draws the walls in, closer and closer. Maybe Yūji has grown too used to the cold. Occasionally, a curse will slip through a door, or a hole in the wall. One kick from Yūji, or a shot of blood from the ring circling Chōsō's head and they’re dead. Chōsō had offered to extend the ring around Yūji's head but was declined.
Around them, the bland yellow halls pass by uninterestingly. A few lights blink; shadows flicker. There's a spark, then the whine of a human child. They halt.
Yūji sniffs the air and follows the scent of blood to a room two doors behind him. It's locked. He busts it open with a swift kick. The room is a mess: the bedsheets, rumpled; the snacks, scattered. It seems as though the residents left in a hurry. But hidden in a corner blocked off by the hanging duvet is a pair of size 5 shoes belonging to the feet of a small girl. Gnawing at her neck is a small, greyish-blue thing no bigger than a soccer ball. A set of 8 eyes roll around on its head out of tune with its thin appendages. Its teeth are stained red. That is all that Yūji sees.
He kicks it with more force than necessary and feels no remorse when it crashes through the window with a squeal before its life is swallowed up by the same wind that invades the room. Despite this, Yūji falls to his knees and cradles the child in his arms. Her little lashes flutter faintly, a light brown like the hair on her head. He sucks in a sharp intake of frigid air.
Death grows like weeds across his lawn. Each day finds him out on the grass attempting to pull each one out. He gives each one his full attention because he fears if he doesn’t, he will get used to it. But a treacherous voice whispers within him, “You are used to it.” Because as the rain falls, so do they grow, over and over until there is no choice but to become used to it.
“She’s gone,” says Chōsō. Yūji lays her small body back on the ground and shuts her eyes. His trembling hands hide inside his pocket. He attempts to swallow the ache in his throat; it doesn't leave.
They continue on their way.
A few floors later, they settle on a clean room with the door forgotten ajar. It's neat. Unused. Two twin-sized beds are lined against the east wall separated only by a larger-than-usual nightstand. Above its oak wood rests a digital clock that reads 10:17 p.m.. Across from the mattresses is a dresser made of similar wood, above which a television is mounted. The pair stumble in without fanfare. Curtains frame the north wall, most of which is made up of clear windows. A small table and two cushioned chairs have been placed before the view though there's little to admire outside so Yūji shuts the windows.
While Chōsō inspects the room, Yūji turns to the television. He grabs the remote fully expecting it to remain off. A click of a button and the screen blinks to life. Chōsō pauses while Yūji scoffs disbelievingly. Immediately after, all the lights in the room flicker, and then the entire building blinks before everything shuts off.
“Figured,” Yūji sighs. It was about time for their luck to run out.
Chōsō crouches at the foot of the bed closest to the door and pulls the backpack off his shoulders. Out comes a pair of flashlights, both of which he flicks on and leaves on the floor to act as lamps.
With a heavy sigh, Yūji throws the remote onto a bed and goes to check the bathroom. Even more surprising, he finds running hot water.
"Chōsō," he calls. His voice has grown gravelly over the days. It's a cruel reminder of his adolescence. Despite the hell he is forced to live through, his body will still go through puberty and his voice will continue to crack and fall. Were this a normal world where curses didn't exist, his friends would be laughing right now, pointing and mocking his voice cracks all while theirs cracks as well. Yūji would be embarrassed and mock them right back until the moment passed. He supposes now that he should be thankful Chōsō doesn't ridicule him.
"Yes, Yūji?"
But, if this were a normal world, Chōsō wouldn't be here. Yūji swallows again. The feeling doesn't leave. He steps out of the bathroom before Chōsō can rise from his position on the ground. Yūji doesn't blame him for sitting there. Their clothes are worn and soiled. The thought of staining the stark white sheets with their grime is slightly off-putting.
"We can shower."
Chōsō curls right back up, not before handing him a flashlight. “Oh, alright. I’ll go in after you.”
“You sure?” He asks, leaning heavily against the wall. The sight of the beds brings forth all the exhaustion he’s been hiding within. He turns his eyes to the floor. “I’m not sure how much hot water is left.”
“You need it more, Yūji. I’ll be alright.”
He should fight this more; it’s become their routine, but Yūji finds that he’s too tired to.
“Okay,” he whispers and slinks into the bathroom.
In the tub, ruddy water pools at his feet. The sight of it, though unappealing, does nothing to him. Yūji stands there, staring, and staring, and staring.
He only shuts off the water once his body ceases its trembling. His skin has turned pale and cold to the touch; as he is now, there's very little setting him apart from a corpse.
The flashlight standing upright near the sink casts abnormal shadows into the corners of the bathroom. They shift with each of his movements and inch forward when he isn't looking. Outside, Chōsō hasn't moved from his spot on the floor; one would think he's been petrified into a statue. "All yours," he calls. The lack of warmth behind him is as obvious as a lie gets, but Chōsō says nothing.
He smiles. "Thank you."
Yūji settles onto one of the red couches with slowed, stiff movements. The bathrobe falls around his tucked knees and exposes his already chilled skin to cool air. He leaves them be.
Before him, the panorama of faded blue curtains stretches and just when they begin to morph into faces, the bathroom door creeps open.
"Yūji?" It’s always unnerved him, the gentleness with which Chōsō utters his name, as though the syllables would crack and shatter like dry clay if he dared to raise his voice.
"Yeah?" He doesn't shift at all.
"I, don't know how to work anything in here."
Yūji blinks at the curtains, then bursts into laughter. The image of him standing in Yube's—a friend from middle school—bathroom and struggling with the shower knob while the rest of his mates played Smash Bros flashes through his mind. It hadn't occurred to him then to get out and ask for help, so he struggled with it for five minutes until Yube walked in without knocking. The memory of their nasal voices brings mirthful tears to his eyes and he continues to laugh until the images turn yellow. He belatedly recalls that Chōsō is waiting for him and he turns around.
"Sorry, sorry. I'm not laughing at you." As his hands pass over his eyes one last time, the sight of Chōsō's wistful smile comes into view. "What?"
"Nothing," he mutters with a slight shrug.
Immediately, Yūji's lips tip downward. He slides off the chair and lumbers back into the bathroom. Without even checking to see if Chōsō's watching (he knows he doesn't need to—Chōsō is always watching him), he tugs the shower knob out and turns it to red. The water sprays out in short bursts before the pressure settles.
"Thank you."
"That's the body soap," he says, pointing to the tube in the corner of the tub. He spots two others he'd somehow missed, "And shampoo? And conditioner? Damn."
"You didn't wash your hair?" Chōsō asks.
Yūji sighs and tries not to fall to the ground with the weight of it. "I'll do it another time." It's easily the worst lie he's ever told in his life.
"I can do it for you."
"No thanks," he says without really thinking about it. Chōsō grabs his elbow before he can turn around.
"You didn't use any warm water. You could fall sick, Yūji."
A spiteful smirk curls his lips into something unnatural. "Me, get sick? Even before I became this I never got sick. I'll be fine."
"Yūji—"
He snatches his arm away. "Does it even matter?"
"To me it does."
"Yeah, well maybe you should stop caring about so many things. It'll just wear you out faster."
"Not that many things. Just you." Throughout the entirety of this exchange, Chōsō's warm visage remains unchanged, whereas Yūji's ebbs and flows like the unpredictable ocean. Around them, the water continues to run.
A shiver slithers up his spine again. He’s always cold these days.
Tentatively, Chōsō touches his elbow once more. "Please."
'If it will make you stop looking at me like that.' The words pace along his tongue but in the end, he relents. With all the pompousness of a petulant child, he shrugs off his robe and plumps into the tub. The water is tepid now. He mourns the heat and he curses himself for doing so.
Under the work of Chōsō’s fingers, Yūji’s anger washes away with the dirt of his hair. As they rub and curl and scratch, dull pink brightens even in the low lighting. Yūji finds himself fighting sleep as the motions continue and just when he’s about to give in, Chōsō stops.
“All good,” he chirps. The flow of water halts, then there’s a towel on his head and a robe around his shoulders. Chōsō maneuvers him to his feet and wraps him in cloth until he’s satisfied. A pleased smile is perched on his hollowed cheeks but Yūji takes no note of it. He wobbles out of the room and falls head-first onto one of the mattresses. Nothing happens after that.
It is another night of terror.
There is a faint wailing carried in the air closely accompanied by the smell of blood. The city is a crater of graves, a masterpiece of his own making. Lying in the deepest pit is a cold body. One eyeball looks to the cloudless, starless night while the other is amiss—in its place, a bundle of worms.
“Yūji.”
He jolts awake. The room is darker than he remembers. Before him, there is no sky, only a white ceiling and the face of his self-assigned companion. Belatedly, Yūji notes how hard he’s breathing. He matches the slow rise and fall of Chōsō’s shoulders silently.
“Want some water?” His voice is gruff. If Yūji didn’t know any better, he’d think Chōsō had been sleeping. A cool plastic bottle is pushed into his hands before he can answer.
“Thanks,” he croaks after gulping down half of the bottle’s contents in one go. He offers it back to Chōsō who turns it down with a wave of his hand. “How long was I out?”
“You don’t have to keep watch tonight.” Part of the curtain has been pulled aside to reveal the sorry state of the world beyond. On the coffee table between the two couches lies the new novel Chōsō pilfered from Kinokuniya two nights ago. Red Rising, or so it was called; a sci-fi story. Yūji has learned that Chōsō will read anything.
“You’ve been saying that for the past week.”
“And you haven’t taken the offer up once.”
Yūji frowns. “You have a human body you know. You need to sleep too.”
The knowing look that Chōsō levels him with initiates a series of sparks within him so sudden, he hurls the nearest thing he can reach which just so happens to be his towel.
Chōsō makes no move to dodge the throw and even laughs when it hits him square in the face. “So you do get it,” he says, draping the towel across the second bed.
“Shut up,” Yūji mutters as he shifts. His feet are ice cold—his entire body is. It only occurs to him now that though their bodies are clean, they will have no choice but to re-wear their dirty clothes again. Some time ago, Chōsō had pointed out the state of Yūji’s clothes and offered to pick some new ones out for him. Yūji had responded with a curt “No” and the topic was buried. As he sits on this clean bed in a stark white robe, his skin clear of grime and his hair freshly washed, he somewhat regrets shutting the offer down.
Nausea stirs wildly in the pit of his stomach. A deep, hateful voice that sounds an awful lot like his sneers in his ears, “How dare you?”
“Is it still bothering you?”
“What?”
Chōsō is perched on the bed beside him, watching him carefully with those eyes. Those. Damn. Eyes.
“Why do you look at me like that?” He whispers. It’s almost too faint for the slow moving air between them to carry, but the sound travels much to Yūji’s constant dismay.
“Like what?”
‘Like I said something funny. Like you saw something that made you think of me. Like being with me is fulfilling. Like there’s something worth caring for within me. Like I deserve to live. Like I’m worth loving.‘
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Chōsō apologizes so often Yūji’s learned to tune it out; they all sound the same when he apologizes for something he can’t control but wishes so desperately to. Yet, this one sounds as though he doesn’t mean it at all. “But I don’t think I can stop.”
He scoffs. “You didn’t even try.”
“I don’t want to.”
Yūji’s face twitches.
“Yūji—“
“Stop.”
“You know,”
“Stop. Whatever you’re going about us being brothers and you just doing your duties, just keep it to yourself. I killed your brothers. I’m not one of you. You don’t owe shit to me other than the right to kill me.”
“Yūji.”
“You don’t get to forgive me for it! Not when I chose to do it and I was happy to! Not when I chose to fight you to death without even asking who you were! Not with all the curses I killed! Not with all the people—“ He dry heaves over the side of the bed abruptly. The words clog his throat and all that comes out is dry coughs and saliva. A cool hand rests on the base of his back. He smacks it away. Chōsō is unrelenting under the heat of Yūji’s wet gaze—neither of them is willing to yield.
Several tense moments pass between them, underlined by the quiver of Yūji’s eyes and Chōsō’s soft breaths. Eventually, Chōsō forfeits, as he typically does.
“You carry a lot of guilt for things I would argue you shouldn’t, and you don’t want to share the weight of trying to right them. I know I can’t stop you. But,” he enunciates. Stepping up and yanking the hood of the robe over Yūji’s head, he adds, “You can’t stop me from believing what I choose. I am your older brother and I live for you. You can carry all the guilt in the world, and I will carry you, for as long as I can.”
There are too many mines in his eyes, all old and finicky little things that ignite at the mere spark of his voice. “What is wrong with you?” He sobs into the hands of his 15-year-old body. The skin of his palms are hard and dry, not by the effort of school activities or home labour, but the unforgettable, unforgivable action of killing another human being. At every explosion, a tear rolls down his cold cheek and all it does is set off another mine. Yūji cries, and he cries, and he cries until it’s all he can do. His body crumples into the arms of his older brother.
It is another night of terror.
A faint wailing carries in the air, closely accompanied by the scent of mint body wash. The bedroom is a picture of sorrow, a consequence of their actions. Lying on one of the cushions is a pair of entangled bodies. One caresses slowly, protective and caring in their ministrations while the other clings on with the desperation of a dying man muttering their last words over and over again: “Please don’t leave me.”