The rain that started on Sunday hadn’t stopped by the next day. The classroom was sweltering even after everyone had left. A massive puddle had formed on the school’s sports field, and every inch of Kibogayama town looked hazy. At the foot of the mountain near the high school was a church; usually, the cross atop the church steeple stood out more clearly, too.
Yoshiki sat alone in the empty classroom, staring at the scenery he’d grown tired of seeing. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. There were the squeaks of indoor shoes scraping against the linoleum in light, short strides—sounds that didn’t belong to Hikaru.
“Huh? Yer still here?” said Yuuki. She slid the classroom door open and looked confused. “There’s a faculty meetin’ this afternoon, so everyone can go home early… Ya didn’t know?”
“I forgot somethin’ here,” Yoshiki told her. “I’ll leave as soon as I find it.”
He remained seated at his desk, not giving any indication that he was searching for anything. This caused Yuuki to appear even more puzzled, but she didn’t press the issue.
“Hikaru’s been lookin’ for ya,” she said.
“If you see him, tell him ta go home without me.”
The door rattled as it closed, and Yuuki’s footsteps faded into the distance. Yoshiki dropped his head down onto his desk, making a thud as his forehead hit the wood.
The cold surface clung to his brow, and he remembered Hikaru’s voice, whispering, “I don’t want to kill you,” as he held Yoshiki.
He thought of Hikaru with his indescribably colored insides gushing out on the bench in front of Yamahisa.
Hikaru had said he didn’t want to kill Yoshiki—but that meant he could.
That Nounuki that Old Lady Matsuura mentioned. Somethin’ trapped in the mountains. Distortions.
“You can’t keep bein’ with yer friend like this.”
“I don’t want ya endin’ up like me.”
“So ya can move forward.”
Yoshiki wondered what Kurebayashi meant by “so ya can move forward.” He already knew the answer, but he still had to ask himself.
A Hikaru that isn’t Hikaru. A Hikaru that isn’t human. I should stay away from him. We shouldn’t be involved with each other anymore.
It should have been a simple thing to do, but just thinking about it caused a dull pain to course through the pit of Yoshiki’s stomach.
“Hikaru.”
Yoshiki found himself muttering that word almost unconsciously, as if he was squeezing it out.
“Just what the hell are you…?”
A moment later, the classroom door clattered loudly open.
“Ah! There ya are!” came a voice.
The sound of hurried, restless footsteps quickly reached Yoshiki’s side—as if being there was the most natural thing in the world.
“Ya didn’t know there was a faculty meetin’ today? Let’s hurry an’ head home,” Hikaru urged.
“…You mind goin’ home without me?”
Yoshiki was aware of how curt he was being. He was speaking coldly, almost as if he were brushing someone off.
“Huh? Ya in a bad mood or somethin’?” Hikaru asked.
“Yeah.”
Yoshiki glanced at Hikaru, who was silently making a funny face. His eyes were open wide, and his jaw jutted out—it was the same funny face Hikaru used to make.
“Yer not laughin’ at my funny face!” Hikaru griped.
But you’re not him. What used to make me laugh was Hikaru’s funny face. The funny face my childhood friend, Hikaru Indou, made.
“Hey, for real. What’s goin’ on? Yer lookin’ pretty pale,” Hikaru said, patting Yoshiki’s shoulder.
Instinctively, Yoshiki swatted Hikaru’s hand away. The slapping sound was dry, in complete contrast with the weather that day.
“Ya just don’t know when to give up. Leave me alone. Seriously.”
Yoshiki remembered that he had once told Hikaru, “If I make excuses for myself, I can’t very well come down on others.”
He didn’t want to be rejected by Hikaru, so he couldn’t bring himself to reject Hikaru. He pushed that selfish part of him—the part that had these thoughts—deep within himself and glared at Hikaru.
Hikaru just kept grinning. Then his eyes began nervously darting around. “Whoa. You for real? Ha-ha…,” he said. “…Is it ’cause of me?”
“What’re ya talkin’ ’bout?”
“Huh? Well, I mean, yer clearly actin’ weird with me. Ya mad at me?”
“I ain’t really mad or anythin’.”
“Naw, y’are mad, though.” Hikaru raised his voice slightly as to cast aside the lingering tone of Yoshiki’s words. “What’s been up with ya lately? Are ya hidin’ somethin’ from me?”
“What? The hell? Ya interrogatin’ me now? Yer bein’ creepy, man…”
Yoshiki was aware he was speaking quickly. He had been caught off guard and was desperately trying to evade the issue.
And Hikaru seemed to have picked up on that.
“Okay, then why didja go into town the other day? And what’s with ya exchangin’ messages with some stranger?”
Yoshiki opened his mouth, but his reply vanished from his lips.
He’d sent a message to Kurebayashi the day he brought a watermelon to Hikaru’s house. Her reply had come quickly, but in a case of unfortunate timing, Yoshiki had stepped away, and when he returned to the living room, Hikaru had pointed to Yoshiki’s phone and said, “Seems like ya got a message.”
At the time, Yoshiki had brushed it off, saying it was probably his mother, and Hikaru didn’t press any further. But now, Yoshiki’s uneasy hunch that Hikaru had actually seen the message was quickly making him nauseous.
“…Either way, do I have to tell ya everythin’?” Yoshiki said.
“I’m pretty sure we used to talk about almost everythin’ before! If there’s somethin’ ya wanna say to me, then—”
But that wasn’t—
“Before? Yer sayin’ that like it was you back then.”
Yoshiki couldn’t say any more. Because he heard Hikaru make a soft, nearly inaudible gasp.
He could imagine the expression on Hikaru’s face at that moment. He didn’t need to look up.
“So that’s what this is about?” said Hikaru.
He grabbed Yoshiki’s arm. Even though he was right-handed, he wore a watch on his right wrist—a watch that Yoshiki remembered almost certainly being a gift from Hikaru’s father.
Hikaru’s father had bought it without realizing that it was meant for left-handed people, and the real Hikaru had only started wearing it in high school. Now, neither Hikaru nor his father were in this world anymore.
“It’s ’cause I’m not the real Hikaru? So I’m not enough for ya? That’s it, ain’t it?”
“Of course yer not!” Yoshiki spat, much more sharply than he’d intended.
His throat became flush with heat, almost as if it was bleeding.
“Y-you! The way ya sound, the way ya look, the way ya talk—it’s all exactly like Hikaru…but yer not Hikaru…!”
The rain pounding against the windows sounded unusually loud. With each pitter-patter, raindrops delicately hit the glass and trailed down, forming long streams.
A similar stream was also flowing from Yoshiki’s left eye.
Hikaru kept his grip on Yoshiki’s arm but said nothing. Then, after an excruciatingly long silence filled only with the sound of the rain, Hikaru just barely opened his mouth.
“Sorry,” he said. “Yer right.”
He repeated himself quietly, in an almost matter-of-fact manner.
“That’s just how it is. Yeah. Yer right. Yer right.”
Then he gradually tightened his grip on Yoshiki’s arm, and just as the dull, heavy pain caused Yoshiki to turn up his hand, Hikaru spoke again.
“But I’m…useless without you, Yoshiki. ’Cause yer my first…” Hikaru covered his face with his left hand. “Ugh, I…just don’t know what’s really my feelings or his at this point.”
From the corner of his twisted grimace and through gritted teeth, Hikaru whispered, “This is so hard.” He wept silently. “What am I supposed to do?”
Then, still crying, he shouted, “I know it ain’t right…but I still like you! And I can’t stop my feelings!”
The stream of tears pouring from the corners of Hikaru’s eyes changed color.
It was not quite black, or blue, or red, or even green—it looked like the shriveled remains of rat roadkill, or like the fishy-smelling scales of a dead fish, or even something like rain-soaked mud and cold bamboo grass.
Hikaru’s insides spilled out, causing his face to collapse into a crumbled mess of flesh. It erupted toward the ceiling as if trying to break through it before raining down on Yoshiki.
In fact, it was trying to drag Yoshiki inside.
The combined smell of mildew, dust, and sweat from the gym storage room, where Yoshiki had first touched Hikaru’s insides, came flooding back to Yoshiki, along with Kurebayashi’s voice.
“You must know it, too. That you can’t keep bein’ with yer friend like this.”
Yeah, I know. I know it all too well.
Yoshiki couldn’t speak. Hikaru’s insides were covering his mouth, his eyes, and his nose, suffocating him.
Something was flowing from Hikaru into him. It felt gross. Frightening. Uncomfortable. Yet there was also an almost touching, faint sense of pleasure to it.