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When Mikiya left school, there was someone waiting for him. He had intended to go home for a bit, pick up some snacks and his usual gear, and resume his usual stake-out at Shiki’s house. He wanted to prove that the person he loved wasn’t the killer. He wanted to stay by their side. But that person was before him, smiling. Their hands were casually stuffed in the pockets of their red jacket, and their eyes were shining.
“Hey, Kokuto,” they greeted casually. As though it hadn’t been some time since Shiki had last spoken to him. As though SHIKI hadn’t told him himself that he was a murderous impulse.
Mikiya raised a hand in a wave as he stopped in front of him. “Hi, Shiki.”
Shiki’s smile was beautiful, wide and bright across a face that was usually closed-off and dull. “How’re you?”
Mikiya shrugged, adjusted his glasses, exhaled slowly. In the cold, his breath froze into a soft white cloud, and Shiki watched it with rapt attention. As though even his breath was important for them to witness and take note of. Perhaps for SHIKI, who was so rarely allowed to exist, it truly was.
“Doing well. And you?” Mikiya found himself saying such polite, normal phrases out of habit.
He chuckled. “Doing well.” He repeated the same words that Mikiya had given him, but they sounded so much sweeter coming from his lips. “I wanted to see you.” Without waiting for Mikiya to respond, he reached out and grasped his hand tightly.
He squeezed back gently, trying not to blush. “Shiki…”
Shiki sighed. “I really… wanted to see you,” they muttered, holding his hand so, so tight. As though it would vanish if he loosened his grip. It was painful, but Mikiya bore it with only a slight grimace. “Now that I’ve seen you… Haaa.”
“Do you want to go somewhere?” Mikiya asked. “Anywhere at all is fine.”
If it was for Shiki, Mikiya would do whatever was within his power. He was an ordinary person, and perhaps he had an ordinary sort of love for an extraordinary sort of person. It was likely ill-fitting, an affection that could only end horrifically. But Mikiya wouldn’t change his decision regardless. He liked Shiki. He wanted to be with Shiki. He wanted to grant them happiness.
They blinked up at him with dark eyes that seemed far too innocent to ever be those of a killer. “I…” They slowly, carefully loosened their grip on his hand, their lips trembling with words that never escaped them. And then, they shook their head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can… ‘Shiki’ will get mad.”
Mikiya placed a hand on his shoulder, and Shiki squeaked, their eyes going wide with shock as Mikiya pinned them down to the spot. It wasn’t that he was unwilling to let Shiki leave if they wanted to. He was the sort of person that would leave out treats for a rabbit for a year to hold it within his arms, rather than catching it in a trap and breaking its legs to do so. It was that Shiki didn’t want to leave. So he wouldn’t let him.
“Why does that matter?” he asked, his voice softening. “I know Shiki is ignoring me. But if you want to do something, then you can do it.”
Shiki shook his head. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He chuckled. “Shiki’s not a killer.”
“I don’t want to make her one,” Shiki retorted. He tried to pry Mikiya’s hand off, but to no avail.
He wouldn’t let go. So long as Shiki didn’t truly wish for it, he wouldn’t ever, ever let go. “You won’t kill me. And Shiki won’t either. So, whatever you want to do, do it.”
Shiki looked into his eyes, and Mikiya looked back. SHIKI shared the same body as Shiki, yet their gazes were painfully different. Shiki was always vulnerable yet closed off and cold. SHIKI always seemed carefree and invincible. However, beneath that was a fragile warmth. He was just as vulnerable as Shiki beneath that cheerful persona.
“I…” The masculine ‘boku’. “I…” The feminine ‘watashi’. “We…”
“Please.” Mikiya smiled encouragingly. “What is it that you want?”
“You.”
Warm, hungry eyes that had only known the cold before spring. Pale fingers that no longer tried to pry Mikiya’s hand away, but instead brushed against his cheek. Beyond him, beyond them, snow was falling from the gray, cloudy sky. There was no one else to disturb this perfect closed world.
Shiki’s face drew closer. The closer he drew, the redder Mikiya’s face became. It wasn’t that he was reluctant to be close with another guy. It was that the person he loved was drawing so near.
“Shiki. Do you really…” Mikiya’s question was cut off.
Shiki’s lips had covered his. They were soft, and he withdrew after only a moment. His face was tinged pink, and his fingers slipped away from Mikiya’s heat and retreated to the pockets of his jacket. He was similar to a boy who had finally confessed to his first crush, and was anxiously waiting for their response. …No, not just ‘similar to’. He was. At that realization, Mikiya didn’t hesitate to respond.
He kissed him back in the same way, lips meeting for a moment as a confirmation of love. And then he smiled. It was probably a lopsided, stupid expression. But, in this sort of circumstance, anyone would have such a reaction.
“It’s strange,” Shiki whispered. “I want to love you, and to be loved by you. I want to live an ordinary life with you. But… something like that, for me, that isn’t…”
Mikiya no longer needed to hold him by the shoulder. So, rather than wasting an arm on that, he hugged Shiki instead. Shiki felt fragile in his arms, a trembling lover who could not accept loving or being loved.
“Don’t say things like that. You love me, and I love you. So it’s allowed.”
Shiki didn’t reply. In the silence, there were only the two boys’ breaths and the falling snow. There was the warmth of being close in body and the coldness of being apart in mind. They could overlap and cross over for this moment alone.
Shiki stiffened in his arms. “Kokuto-san. Let go.”
Mikiya let go. “Shiki.”
She smiled at him. It was a hollow expression. “You’re an idiot.”
“I know that.” He smiled back, his heart full of longing. Of a desire to kiss her, to hold her, that he could not fulfill. If she did not desire it too, he could not do it. He was not so selfish or unkind.
“He is too.” Her voice was soft, but her words cut to the bone. She slit her own wrists with them, though no blood spilled. “Will you follow me home again?”
“Are you inviting me in?”
She hesitated before shaking her head, gaze hardening. “No.” She took several steps back. “I cannot. I must not.”
“Why not?” He just wanted to know, to understand.
But Shiki fled, and he knew better than to chase after a frightened rabbit. Her swift feet left only faint impressions in the white dust covering the world, as though she was little more than a ghost. She was running from him to avoid hurting him, and to avoid being hurt. To hurt others and to be hurt was human nature. In trying to reject that, Shiki was rejecting humanity and herself.
SHIKI was always hurting himself to avoid hurting others. Shiki was always hurting others to avoid being hurt. Denial and affirmation. Acceptance and avoidance. Retreat and advance. The concepts mixed together into an incomprehensible paradox, spiraling and spiraling into destruction, into nothingness. Mikiya could only take small peeks inside Shiki’s heart and pray for their happiness.
He watched the horizon long after they had disappeared from view. Shiki wasn’t a bad person. They weren’t some inhuman monster. They were a human being, just like him, made of flesh, blood, and tears. Until the day their innocence was proven, he would continue to watch over them, and to remain by their side. Until the day Shiki could take his hand without hesitating, and they could go home together.
Mikiya would love Shiki until they realized they were a human being with the right to love him back.