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Karma’s house is on the opposite side of his. His mother has recently been dulling her edge—no, it’s better to say that she has wrapped her edge, and Nagisa doesn’t have the energy to help wrap it again if she does so decide to unwrap it. This is to say that he runs to Karma’s house after stepping out of the train. Being sweaty and with aching limbs is better than pacifying his mother.
The house is big. Not impressively big, like, it won’t make you say “wow, that’s such a big house.” It’s a two-store construction for an average family. But it’s certainly bigger than it should be when you realize that it’s a house for one. Even when his parents come back from overseas, Karma has told him, they won’t come to this place; they’ll go to a hotel. That’s how much they hate this house, Karma said once. It went without saying, but they also hate the person who lives there.
Nagisa knocks on the door. He knocks again after 30 seconds. He is about to knock for the third time when Karma opens.
“Ah, Nagisa,” he says, looking straight into his eyes. “I was wondering who Koro-sensei would send.”
Karma moves to the side.
“He didn’t send me,” Nagisa clarifies, stepping into the house and out of his shoes. He places them in the shoe rack. “I offered.”
“Huh?” Karma smiles, tilting his head. “You missed me that much, Sho-kun?”
“Please, don’t mispronounce my name on purpose.”
“I’m saying I missed you, too, so you don’t have to feel embarrassed,” Karma replies, already walking up the stairs to his room, not even making the effort of being a good host.
Nagisa sighs, and follows him.
“We didn’t see much of nothing today,” he says as he slides his backpack off his shoulders to look for his notes. “But Koro-sensei did give us an exercise booklet to finish for next week.”
“I won’t do it,” Karma says cheerfully, throwing himself onto his bed.
“I figured,” he mutters. “Still, I decided to come check on you.”
“So, you did miss me.”
Nagisa ignores him. Though, to be honest to himself, Nagisa got this bad feeling when he didn’t see Karma at the classroom. It’s not like Karma failing a day is out of the ordinary. But the feeling—
The feeling of total wrongness.
No.
Of total evil.
“Somewhat,” Nagisa says. “Rather, I wanted to see that you hadn’t gotten in any trouble.”
Karma doesn’t say anything for a while. Nagisa observes the way he lies on the bed. That’s what he does, after all. Observe. And what he sees worries him, because he doesn’t see anything. Wrong or otherwise, There’s a blank air around Karma. It’s not oppressive, it’s not distorted, it’s not evil. But it’s unsee-through. Like—there’s nothing to see through. Like Karma isn’t even there, even though he clearly is.
Then, Karma rolls over his stomach, and looks over his shoulder. As if trying to gauge Nagisa’s reaction from behind the wall of his back. Hiding.
“I saw a tiger.”
“Huh?”
“Really, Nagisa, keep up with the program.” Karma shakes his head. “On my way to class, I saw a tiger.”
“A tiger.”
“A tiger that doesn’t exist, of course,” Karma affirms—or attempts to. There’s a twist to his mouth, as if saying the words is a great effort. “I assume that it was a hallucination. There’s no way that it wasn’t a hallucination. A hallucination spurted on by dehydration; I haven’t been drinking water for the past three days. You could say that my blood is syrup. It’s made up of Monascus, not hemoglobin. So, definitely, a hallucination. But because it was a hallucination, I decided to skip class. I was pretty responsible, y’know.”
Five times, Nagisa thinks, blinking. It’s the logical explanation. It’s the only explanation, actually. But because he said it five times… like he is trying to convince himself… it must have been a really scary tiger.
“Furthermore, the tiger was red,” Karma continues, now propping his chin over his crossed arms, no longer looking at Nagisa. “Tigers aren’t red. They are orange. Even when portrayed in fantasy—like the White Tiger of the West—they aren’t red.”
Also, it spoke, he finishes. He does not turn his head to look at Nagisa.
“I see,” Nagisa says. He can’t see anything, actually, but maybe if he says it enough, like how Karma said hallucination five times, it might become true. “I see. So… what did it say?”
“To go north, you must go south. To reach the west, you must go east.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s from Game of Thrones.”
Karma looks over his shoulder again. “Oh? You know that? You watched it and you didn’t tell me? I’m extremely hurt.”
“I mean to say that me knowing that is entirely your fault.”
Before they drifted apart in their second year, Karma had tried to get him into Game of Thrones, but Nagisa had refused. Mostly because it was shamelessly explicit, but also because he hadn’t wanted to give Karma the satisfaction of saying “I told you so” if he had ended up liking it. That had happened way too many times already, and Karma gloated to the point of his face being fixed on a grin for 90 percent of the time.
“Is it?” Karma sounds genuinely bemused. “I guess so. Though I don’t remember showing you that. Anyway, why would you remember that?”
“Karma, what did the tiger say?”
He looks front, fully showing his back to Nagisa. “I don’t remember anymore. That’s why I threw the Game of Thrones quote.”
Liar.
Liar, liar, liar.
The evil feeling in Nagisa’s stomach curdles. He has completely removed his mother from his worries.
“Is that so,” he says, walking over to the edge of the bed, so his shadow falls over Karma’s body. Karma refuses to look at him, even as Nagisa’s thigh bumps against his shin, which is carelessly thrown on the bed, halfway hanging in the air. “I imagine that if I hallucinated a tiger that could talk, I would remember what it said. And if I was you, who has near perfect memory, I wouldn’t forget, as opposed to simply remembering. So, Karma, is that so?”
If someone who knew Nagisa were to see him right now, to hear the tone of his voice—they would assume he has been replaced with an alien. He is normally mild-mannered, isn’t he? He is not one to take control of a situation, isn’t he? He is so quiet and reserved, isn’t he? Isn’t he? Yes, he is. But—he is also the person who is dating Akabane Karma. It’s not a secret, but it’s not like they go telling people that they are dating. It’s just a fact. It’s something that is; it doesn’t need to be stated or explained. And to date Akabane Karma, one can’t merely be a snake in the grass. If that was all Nagisa is, then he couldn’t be dating Akabane Karma. He would have gotten himself killed already.
Very slowly, Karma rolls onto his back. He doesn’t meet Nagisa’s eyes, though.
“Do you know where the phrase ‘tiger by the tail’ comes from?” Karma asks. Without waiting for an answer, he continues. “It comes from a Chinese proverb. I won’t try to say it in Chinese, but the translation is ‘He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.’ The predicament of a man holding onto a tiger’s tail is that it’s neither safe to let go or to continue to hold on. It's a metaphor for a situation where trying to extricate yourself might be fatal.”
For a lack of words, Nagisa crawls over Karma until he settles on the redhead’s hips. Karma is forced to finally look him in the eye.
“Nagisa-kun—” Karma says. Another wall, Nagisa thinks. When he manages to take one down, he builds another one. “In The Classic of Mountains and Seas, there are many animals with tiger characteristics. In a mountain called Cherrysunny, there is an animal which looks like a horse, but it has a white head and stripes like a tiger, and a scarlet tail. If you wear some of it in your belt, it will help you to have children and grandchildren.”
“Wait, hold on a minute. No longer! It wasn’t a tiger?” Honestly, following along Karma’s train of thought is exhausting. He can’t even see the train’s rails—that’s how difficult it is to follow.
“It was a tiger,” Karma replies. “Don’t mind, don’t mind. I’m actually just bragging about how much smarter than you I am. You could say I’m tsundere-ing.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you know, Nagisa-kun? Red hair is the staple of the tsundere trope. I’m just abiding by nature itself. And if you think about it, we are like Asuka and Rei. Though you are not much of a kuudere—”
Nagisa grounds his hips against Karma’s, making him fall off the train as his eyes flutter close and a moan is ripped off his throat. Pretty, he thinks absentmindedly.
“Nagisa,” the redhead gasps; his voice is shaky. “Don’t—”
“You won’t tell me, is that right?” Nagisa says. Then, he states, “You are afraid.”
Karma’s eyes flash with anger, and he tries to push himself up, but Nagisa holds him down. Logically, Karma should be able to push him off. It would be so easy. But he doesn’t want to, Nagisa concludes. He wants to be held down. He wants Nagisa to manhandle him, doesn’t he? It’s all so clear to see—he’s been purposefully aggravating Nagisa for this moment. He needs this. Whatever he is afraid of is strong enough to leave him in this weak state. Fragile. Handle with care, indeed.
Who is Nagisa to deny him?
If he needs this so much, how could anyone deny him?
When he looks so pretty and needy.
Another assumption about Nagisa is that he is the self-controlled one. The innocent one. It might have to do with his placid expression or his hair or, most likely, with his height—but people assume that Nagisa is below perversion. That he isn’t grown enough to reach perversion. That’s a misassumption, of course. Nagisa is not so short enough to be actually confused with a child, even if he is confused with a girl.
All of this is to say—when Nagisa kisses Karma, he slides his tongue into the other’s mouth with no shame. Though some of it has to do with the fact that they are all alone, with the curtains drawn and the house empty. He runs his tongue along the back of Karma’s teeth. Karma’s canines catch slightly at Nagisa’s bottom lip when he softly bites it. Nagisa groans in the back of his throat, tilting his head for a better angle, his hands coming to hold Karma’s neck, his thumbs resting lightly on the dip of the collarbone. Karma’s hands slide around Nagisa’s shoulders, dragging him closer, until their chests are pressed together.
Maybe he shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he is. This is for Karma, after all. But he is just a man.
Karma bites a lot when he kisses. Nagisa can feel the soreness bloom in his tongue, his lips. At some point, Karma manages to draw blood in-between them. It’s cloying and all-encompassing on the senses, and it drips out from Nagisa’s tongue and bottom lip. Fuuuuck. He can’t help the twitch his dick gives.
One of his hands, reverent, glides over Karma’s cheek, cradling it. In response, the hand in Nagisa’s shoulder shifts to the back of his head, gripping the strands of hair.
Nagisa smiles faintly. The deeper Nagisa kisses him, the more Karma melts under him. It’s a slow process. He runs his other hand down Karma’s chest, down his abs, which spasm under his fingertips.
He pulls away and suppresses a moan.
Karma is lovely, pupils blown into little black holes, and his mouth is pretty and red with blood that he has bitten from Nagisa’s aching tongue.
“Arms up,” he murmurs, licking a stripe up Karma’s neck, whose eyes are bright with a sharp glint at the order. He nibbles and sucks at the glorious column of the redhead’s neck until he lifts his arms above his head. “Good boy.”
Karma’s body is wrecked with such a shiver he almost feels bad. Nagisa kisses his neck as an apology before quickly stripping him of his shirt. Then, he does the same with his own vest and shirt. They go back to kissing while Nagisa gently coaxes Karma’s nipples into hardened buds with feathery caresses and pinches. Karma’s breath hitches and he grounds his hips. Their clothed dicks rub against each other, making both of them gasp. At this, Karma’s thighs part around Nagisa’s hips. Nagisa grabs one, lifts it further up, and takes control of the rhythm with which their groins meet.
At a particularly harsh thrust, their mouths part away to breathe.
“Nagisa. What if I told you,” Karma says, voice breathy. His cheeks are rosy. Nagisa wants to bite them into a proper red, “that my birthday is in June?”
He presses his mouth to one of Karma’s cheekbones. “I would say—that’s not your birthday. Are you hallucinating again?”
The sole of Karma’s foot clashes with Nagisa’s abdomen, pushing him away, onto his back. Nagisa winces a bit. Karma glides off the bed and stands up. He stretches, his joints popping. With his back arched, Nagisa gets to appreciate how slim Karma’s waist is, and his dick quivers in the confines of his pants.
Nagisa sits up, feet coming to the floor.
Karma tilts his head over his shoulder to pin Nagisa into the mattress with his stare. Then, a smirk curves his shiny mouth.
“My, my, Nagisa—you look positively disheveled,” he sing-songs. But, even if the tone and cadence are correct, Nagisa can’t help but think that he’s pretending. “And are you so shameless that you won’t cover yourself with a pillow? Do you want me to look?”
Nagisa’s face does flush, but he holds steadfast. “If you wanted to stop, you didn’t need to kick me off, you know.”
“But I didn’t want to stop,” Karma replies. He hooks his thumbs underneath the waistband of his joggers, and brings them down his toned legs, alongside his boxers. “See, you jump to conclusions, Nagisa. You have concluded that I am out of my mind today, haven’t you?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Has he been jumping to conclusions? Is that the energy he has been projecting?
You are not wrong, actually, Karma says.
“And you have not been jumping to conclusions,” he continues. “You are not guilty of that. You are, however, guilty of second-guessing yourself. Stop walking on eggshells around me; I’m not fragile goods.” Nagisa stares at him, unimpressed. “I’m trying to tell you to take off your pants.”
Nagisa does as Karma says, but he says, “Then you should stop being so roundabout about everything today.”
“Tsundere-ing—not roundabout” Karma replies. He looms over Nagisa for a moment, taking in the sight of the slighter boy’s frame.
“Stop staring at me,” Nagisa mutters.
Karma smiles full of teeth, “Okay.”
Then, he sinks to his knees, and his nose brushes against Nagisa’s dick, making him shiver violently. Karma pauses. His own dick grows unbearably hot and throbs so hard it’s painful. His eyes go wide, dazzled, and he makes a small noise on the back of his throat. He stares at the light curls at the base of Nagisa’s dick before mapping the length.
Needy indeed, Nagisa thinks, and he tenderly puts his hand on Karma’s head, caressing his hair for a second before pushing his face closer.
Karma licks the tip with the delicateness of a cat seeking warmth, and Nagisa hisses. Karma licks again, and again, and again—until the fingers grabbing his hair pull painfully. Only then does he take a small portion of it into his mouth, teeth carefully tucked behind swollen lips. He takes more and more into his mouth with every passing second, his hands moving to cup and fondle Nagisa’s balls. His throat is working up and down.
Nagisa is careful not to push his dick deeper than what Karma’s rhythm dictates, even as his hand jerks at times and harshly pulls at the red hair.
He is transfixed by the sight in front of him.
Karma on his knees, his eyes closed, tears clinging to his long eyelashes, mouth stretched around Nagisa’s dick.
“Karma…” he breathes shakily. It takes all of his willpower not to cum right then and there. “You are beautiful.”
When Karma pats his thigh. It takes him a second to understand, but eventually, Nagisa shifts his hips forward until his dick is fully trapped in the divine heat of his throat, until Karma’s nose is pressed against his crotch, until the tears in the corners of his eyes spill.
Nagisa grips the edge of the bed. He does his best to avoid tugging Karma’s hair too hard.
That is—up to the moment that Karma’s eyes open to glare at him.
Not fragile goods.
Then does Nagisa tug at his hair hard enough for Karma to gasp around his dick, sending vibrations that threaten to make Nagisa cum too early, and starts fucking Karma’s face in earnest. When a thrust is hard enough to make him choke, Karma’s hands grip Nagisa’s trembling thighs to hold himself together. He is gagging on it now. Milky-white drops of precum dissolve on his tongue until saliva drips down his chin.
Nagisa cums the moment that he feels Karma gently drag his teeth down his length. His release immediately overflows from Karma’s mouth, making him dizzy as he is forced to swallow or suffocate. When he tries to pull away to breathe, Nagisa’s hand in his hair keeps him in place. He can’t escape.
And, really, he doesn’t want to.
Karma’s eyes are filled with tears as he looks up. Nagisa is panting, chest heaving with exertion, lips glossy with his own spit, and bottom lip split open where he had bitten it earlier.
“Does it hurt?” Nagisa asks, smiling softly. The same smile with which he ruined Takaoka’s life twice.
“Mmmgh—” Karma chokes, and nods as much as he can while his head is held still.
“Could you repeat that? I didn’t get it.”
“Mmmmmrfgh—”
“C’mon, you were so chatty earlier, weren’t you?”
Nagisa is happy with just hearing the sound of Karma’s mouth being so stuffed with cock that his throat won’t even work properly. He only does let go when Karma’s eyes roll all the way back due to the asphyxiation.
Karma’s breath is ragged as he sniffles. His eyes are half-lidded, clouded with a heavy, hazy glaze; and his mouth is the most perfect shade of red, swollen and parted as he takes in shallow breaths.
It takes a little bit of effort, but Nagisa manages to maneuver Karma’s pliant body onto the bed. Nagisa lies him on his back, and he leans down to lick the tear streaks on his cheeks while he jerks him off. Karma holds to his shoulders like a lifeline, little broken noises coming out of his lips as Nagisa’s hand tightens and loosens in slow intervals around his oversensitive dick. He had been so focused in sucking Nagisa off that he had forgotten himself.
“Nagisa,” he stutters. “Nagisa, please.”
“Hmm?”
Karma makes another broken noise and more brilliant tears roll down his cheeks. Nagisa licks those, too.
“Nagisa.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck me.”
Nagisa kisses him—deeply, tenderly. His dick swells again, brought back to life just by how sweetly Karma is now that all his defenses have been properly stripped down, from his physical strength to his voice. All that’s left is for Nagisa to fuck him stupid. He reaches blindly for the drawer where he knows Karma keeps the lube.
He pulls away from Karma’s mouth to lather his fingers with lube.
“Hold yourself open,” Nagisa asks in a murmur.
The silence that follows envelops them. Karma’s gaze meets his eyes. Nagisa waits patiently. It’s not like this is the first they’ve done it—it certainly isn’t. But all that has led to it makes it feel as if it were. Nagisa waits because the request is not only for Karma to open himself physically.
Karma’s breath comes in short and shallow.
One-minute passes.
Two.
Three minutes later, Karma closes his eyes and his head falls against the bed. He folds his legs against his chest, and holds himself by the thighs. His hole is tight and pink and fluttering. A blush travels from Karma’s neck to his ears.
Nagisa can’t look away.
His chest expands with such affection and fondness that he feels lightheaded. Though that might also have to do with the fact that all his blood is currently stored in his throbbing dick.
“Thank you,” Nagisa says softly.
Thank you for trusting me.
Slowly, he presses his index finger into the ring of muscle, coaxing it open until he can pump it in and out, and quiet moans escape from Karma’s throat. It’s tight and very hot inside. The lube makes a squelching sound when he wriggles deeper in, turning Nagisa’s ears pink. He pushes a second finger in. The louder and more high-pitched the sounds Karma makes, the more erratic Nagisa works him open. Nagisa watches, mesmerized, as his fingers disappear and appear from Karma’s hungry hole, which seems to swallow him and try not to let his fingers go.
“You’re doing better than the first time,” Karma rasps suddenly, eyes still closed, lips parted to moan afterwards.
Nagisa smiles. “I would tell you to break up with me if the bar stayed that low.”
“My thighs are starting to burn.”
“Don’t act as if you don’t like it,” he hums. “Good boy.”
Then, he pulls his fingers out with a wet sound and a disappointed whine from Karma, which is quickly replaced by a long moan as the head of Nagisa’s dick presses against his rim. Nagisa eases his dick inside Karma, inch by inch, dragging gasps out of him. Nagisa almost falls forward with the heavenly way that Karma’s hole sucks him in, opening so nicely.
Karma is blissfully relaxed as Nagisa pushes in. And then Nagisa slams his hips forward, bottoming, and Karma cries out, thighs quivering and fingers leaving red indents where he holds on to them for dear life.
“Bastard,” Karma moans.
Nagisa is panting, but he still manages to laugh.
He starts thrusting now. Each thrust rubs the tip of Nagisa’s dick against Karma’s prostate. A full-front assault. Karma's face is flushed, his red hair splayed out like a halo on the pillow. Every time Nagisa bottoms out, Karma’s body jumps and his toes curl. Every time Nagisa pulls out, Karma's breath hitches, turning into a string of breathy moans that mingle in the air alongside Nagisa’s.
“Nagisa, Nagisa,” Karma blabbers, face lax in pleasure, a string of saliva running down from the corner of his mouth.
Nagisa leans down, his blue hair falling into his eyes as he hovers over Karma, their foreheads almost touching. He slows his pace just enough to tease, rolling his hips in a deep grind that has him fucking himself back against Nagisa, trying to get the friction he desperately needs.
Karma reaches up to tangle a hand in Nagisa's hair, pulling him closer. "Don’t stop, please. Don’t—”
Nagisa's heart beats loudly. Karma isn’t one to beg easily, but he is almost doing so right now. Nagisa picks up the pace again, thrusting harder, the slap of skin lewd in his own ears. He watches Karma's reactions intently: the way his abs tense with each deep push, the quiver in his thighs that make his grip loosen up, the way his chest moves up and down. The bed creaks under them.
"You're so tight," Nagisa whispers brokenly. “You’re perfect.”
Karma's response is a strangled moan, his head tilting back to expose the column of his throat, and Nagisa takes full advantage to bury his face there, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses. He feels the almost irresistible temptation to suck a hickey there, but ultimately decides against it. Their classmates know about their relationship, but Nagisa is not as shameless as to mark Karma in such a visible spot when they have classes tomorrow.
“Let go for me,” Nagisa murmurs into his salty skin.
Karma shakes his head stubbornly, even as his hips jerk up erratically. "Not... not yet. I want—I want to feel you longer.” He tightens almost out of instinct, and Nagisa chokes in his own spit as Karma’s hole clamps down on his sensitive dick.
He feels his own release creeping up.
In retaliation, Nagisa pulls out completely and rams back in so hard that it punches the air out of Karma’s lungs.
Karma's entire body tenses, thighs shaking so much that he finally does let go of them to wrap his legs around Nagisa’s waist. He tries to say something, but his throat can only work out loud, drawn-out moans as he comes, spilling between their abdomens. His hole spasms around Nagisa, taking Nagisa right over the edge with him.
“Nagisa,” Karma murmurs in his neck, doing such a good job at sounding self-assured and not at all exhausted that Nagisa confirms once again that he is a devil. “I’ll tell you—what the tiger said.”
Though they had just fucked—taking a shower together is what makes Nagisa feel like a degenerate. There’s just a different type of intimacy to showering together. Where sex is meant for two people, they are taught that showering is a one-person endeavor. So, Nagisa spent the whole time with his face burning while Karma washed him all over. Then, Nagisa washed him right back.
They wiped each other’s bodies and put on their underwear.
Lastly, they fall on Karma’s bed, on their backs.
Nagisa waits.
“You know that stereotypical phrase that the girl tells the guy right as they are about to fuck?” Karma ends up saying.
“…Please take care of me?”
Karma snaps his fingers. “Yeah, that one.” Then, he turns on his side, bringing Nagisa’s gaze to his face, and says, “Nagisa-kun, please take care of me.”
“…”
Karma looks to the ceiling again. “No, that wasn’t right. Let me try again.” He turns on his side, again. “Nagisa, please take care of me.”
“…I can’t go another round,” Nagisa whispers.
Karma smirks. “Huh, is that so? Okay, okay. I wasn’t planning on throwing myself at you again. To be honest, I’m quite sore myself.”
“Right.”
He considers telling me his feelings to be scarier than sex, Nagisa thinks.
Karma rolls over his stomach. His left arm brushes against Nagisa’s own left arm. “The truth is,” he says, abashedly, aka, head bashing into his crossed arms, “that I was filled with envy—for a creature that doesn’t exist.”
Nagisa hums, to let him know that he is listening, and moves over to press a kiss behind Karma’s ear.
“Nagisa,” Karma says, lifting his head to look at him. “My parents are having another baby. A wanted one—I can tell. I found out from my mother’s social media. They did a baby shower and all. They didn’t—even tell me. They didn’t care enough to tell me. They didn’t see me as family. They didn’t throw a baby shower for me—I would know. They don’t love me, at all. That’s all there is to it—I should have known already.”
But I still had hope, I guess, that they’d come back one day, he says with a laugh.
“They already have a name, y’know. Takumi. Who already has a name for their child? Who loves their child so much to already have a name by the fifth month? Did they already have the name prepared for when they finally had a child they actually wanted? Takumi. Written with the kanji for ‘skill, craft, art’.”
Nagisa actually grimaces at that.
Takumi.
Akabane Takumi. 赤羽技
Akabane Karma. 赤羽業
It’s genuinely cruel. Malicious in its intent. Disgusting to even think about it.
“I hate them,” Karma says conversationally, but Nagisa can hear the venom underneath. “The tiger’s voice was crisp and clear when it spoke. But I didn’t hear it from it. The voice came from the inside of my head. And it said, let go. As if it’s so easy.”
He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount. Nagisa remembers.
“In the end, that was all. Sorry if the actual words are anticlimactic after spending so much time refusing to tell you.” Karma sighs, and he drops his head back onto his arms. “But, hallucination as it might have been, it’s still real to me. Or, rather, what caused it comes from a very real place. I didn’t lie when I said that it was probably caused because I hadn’t drunk water in three days. The specifics of it, however, that’s all due to what you may call hopelessness. The envy it sprung from is real. The hate that birthed it—is real.”
Nagisa sort of doesn’t know what to say.
What do you say to someone who has been so scorned by his own parents that they didn’t even bother to tell him that he is going to have a brother?
To be so—unloved.
Loathed.
Nagisa doesn’t know what it’s like to be left behind, abandoned.
He doesn’t know—
He knows what it’s like to be raised by someone who didn’t want you.
But he forgave his mother, didn’t he? He let go of the resentment, didn’t he? He chose to move forward, didn’t he?
Except that he still worries she will unwrap her edge. That she will suffer another outburst. Is he okay with that? Nagisa needs to be honest. Karma is being honest. So, Nagisa needs to be worthy of him.
“Karma,” he says, “the tiger won’t bite. The phrase ‘the tiger by the tail’ means that it’s neither safe to hold on or to let go, right? You are suffering right now because you don’t want to let go—you are afraid of letting go, of accepting that your parents don’t love you. But the phrase doesn’t apply to you. The tiger is yourself, after all.”
Karma looks at him.
“The tiger was born from your subconscious, was it not? You said it already—it might have been a hallucination, but it was real. It was real because it’s you. Deep down, you know that nothing will happen if you let go. Deep down, you know that it won’t break you. You are afraid of letting go because nothing will change. You are not clinging to a hope that your parents will love you one day. You’ve always known that won’t happen, isn’t it? You are afraid that finally recognizing to yourself that you have let go and feel nothing means that they broke something in you. That you are incapable of feeling sorrow at what should be traumatic. That you are not human. But—I think, it’s more inhuman for someone to pretend that everything is fine, for someone to accept it all in.”
You are perfect, Nagisa states confidently.
Karma stares at him some more before eventually looking away. Now that Nagisa takes a good look at him—Karma is clearly here, and there’s a light air around him and a light blush on his cheeks and a light in his eyes.
“I don’t know about that,” Karma says. “I’d prefer for you not to think so highly of me. I fear for our height difference if you keep thinking like that. But… what you said—that was pretty nice to hear. If I were a woman, I’d love you.”
“As long as you are human—I don’t really care.”