The sky was bright blue, making the previous days of nonstop rain seem like fiction. The enormous cumulonimbus clouds that practically engulfed the mountains lingered even after school had ended.
As he prepared to go home for the day, Yoshiki looked down at the bruise on his arm. Though the rain had stopped, the mark left by Hikaru’s grip remained fresh to an almost frightening degree.
“Hey! Somethin’ happen between you an’ Hikaru?”
Asako had her school bag on her shoulder. She spoke like her usual self except with a more probing tone.
Yuuki’s with her, so it must be written all over my face that something indeed happened.
“Sure is weird how Hikaru’s missin’ school an’ all,” said Asako. “An’ ya got this real dark aura around ya, Yoshiki…”
“Did y’all get into a fight after school yesterday?” Yuuki asked.
Yoshiki could only manage a vague response; he neither confirmed nor denied anything. It was a fight, but not just any fight. It was something far worse—something slimy and muck-like…something so disgusting, so terrifying, that even his body forgot how to tremble.
“I dunno what happened, but ya oughtta make up with him,” said Asako. “That boy’s been crazy about ya lately. I feel bad for him.”
“…Huh?”
Yoshiki looked up to see Asako nodding.
“For real,” she told him. “And…I just have this feelin’ it’s better if y’all stayed together.”
“Yeah, like Asa said, it’s like, lately, Hikaru’s been real attached to you? Something like that…”
“Like some punk kid clingin’ to his mommy.”
Suddenly, Yuuki pinched Asako’s cheek. “You can’t be talkin’ trash like that!” she chided. The conversation shifted to a gangster movie Asako had recently been into, and that was the end of it.
As they playfully exchanged quotes from the movie, Yoshiki found himself thinking about the funny face Hikaru had made the day before.
But that wasn’t all. Images of Hikaru’s face, calling Yoshiki’s name and running toward him, popped into his head, one after another—and surely, mixed among those images were memories of the real Hikaru.
But in the end, what stood out the most was the image of Hikaru crying beside Yoshiki after he had woken up on the floor of their classroom.
“…I want to apologize.”
It wasn’t until he said it that Yoshiki realized it was his own voice that spoke those words. Yuuki and Asako, still engrossed in their conversation about the gangster movie, didn’t seem to have heard him, so Yoshiki quietly took a deep breath.
“I’m gonna go.”
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and left the classroom without saying another word.
Asako waved to him. “Huh? All right, then. See ya tomorrow,” she said, but Yoshiki didn’t look back.
At the school’s entrance, he changed his shoes and grabbed his bike in the bicycle parking lot. His palms were sweaty, and the handlebars felt slippery. He looked at the red bruise on his arm. He felt like it was cursing at him, saying, “You’re the worst.”
There was no doubt that Hikaru was just a substitute for Hikaru. As Yoshiki pedaled his bike, he spat those words out deep within himself.
I really am the worst, and it’s ’cause I’ve been avoiding the things about me that are weird—the parts I don’t want to see, the inconvenient truths. I tried to not think about them. I ignored them. And it feels like, by doing that, I’ve let myself drift through life pretending that everything’s normal and calm—wishing for it to be that way.
But just as Hikaru could never fully become Hikaru, Yoshiki also couldn’t fully treat Hikaru as if he were Hikaru.
And yesterday, all that frustration and disgust, that cowardice, the sadness and regret that would never go away for as long as he lived, had been directed at Hikaru.
Yoshiki’s bruise, now under the bright sunlight, looked even more garish than before. He was sure that it wasn’t just a simple bruise.
And yet, here I am, still wanting to apologize so desperately. My fear, my anxiety, and everything else has become numb. My desire to apologize is so deep that I’m even willing to ignore the warnings of someone who understands my situation.
As he rode his bike, his shadow stretched dark and long down the slope leading from the mountainside where the school stood toward the town below. Sweat trickled down his forehead, brushed past the corners of his eyes, and then flew off behind him from his temples.
“Hikaruuu! Yoshiki’s here!”
Even after his mother called for him, Hikaru didn’t come out. Yoshiki made his way down the hall that he had come to know so well, and when he opened the sliding door to the living room, he found Hikaru in the corner, wrapped up in a towel blanket.
He was completely covered from head to toe and unresponsive.
“Hikaru.”
There was no reply. Unperturbed, Yoshiki sat down in front of him.
“Sorry ’bout yesterday.”
Yoshiki could’ve sworn he heard Hikaru gasp softly from underneath the towel blanket’s thin fabric. And then, slowly but surely, Hikaru began to lift his head.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Why’re ya tellin’ me sorry?” he asked.
“I…said some awful things to you.”
Yoshiki continued apologizing until Hikaru suddenly spoke over him.
“Why? I’m the one who was awful… After what I did to ya…”
“It’s all right.”
Yoshiki reached his hand into the gap in the towel blanket. Hikaru shifted around and then slipped his right hand out. The sensation of plunging his hand into Hikaru’s body suddenly flashed back into Yoshiki’s mind, causing him to instinctively pull away. As soon as he did, he knew that it hurt Hikaru. He could tell just from looking at Hikaru’s fingers.
“See?! Ya flinched. Yer scared o’ me, ain’t ya? I’m sorry…”
“N-no, I ain’t scared.” Yoshiki averted his eyes from his tense fingers and tried to downplay the situation with a “Say what?!”
But Hikaru shook his head while still wrapped up in the towel blanket. “Liar…,” he said. “I already showed y’all that. It was just downright disgustin’. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Huh?” Yoshiki mumbled, confused.
Hikaru kept repeating that he was “embarrassed” as he squirmed and swung his head around and around under the towel blanket.
“Oh…that…?” said Yoshiki.
Hikaru didn’t respond.
“Naw. It’s just…after what I said, I wanted to—”
“Sorry.” As he curled into himself, Hikaru apologized once again. “…Do ya hate me now?”
Yoshiki thought he would be lying if he immediately responded with “I don’t,” but it was also true that he could never hate Hikaru.
He could feel Hikaru’s gaze on him somewhere around his forehead, and when he cautiously lifted his head, his eyes met Hikaru’s. Those eyes that Yoshiki had become familiar with in his childhood trembled as they looked back at him through the small gap in the towel blanket.
Then, in an almost reflexive motion, Hikaru’s face emerged from the towel. He was practically close enough to graze Yoshiki’s nose with his own.
“Yoshiki…I…y’know…”
In Hikaru’s eyes, moist with tears, Yoshiki saw a faint reflection of himself.
“I wanna be near ya. That’s all I need. I don’t care who yer meetin’ anymore. I just don’t want ya to hate me, so I won’t do that again…”
Hikaru was crying his eyes out. Tears gushed down his face in a way that seemed appropriately in character, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“I won’t do that again!” he repeated. “I know it’s a lot after I already went an’ took yer friend’s body. I’m sorry for bein’ like this.”
Like a puppy seeking comfort from its mother, Hikaru nuzzled his forehead into Yoshiki’s chest. Yoshiki knew he was dangerous—he was well aware of that—and yet, he found himself touching Hikaru’s hair and couldn’t help but comb his fingers through those slightly curly, somewhat stiff locks.
He’s dangerous. He’s dangerous, but…
“You’re even more of a little kid than Hikaru was.”
But is it really just ’cause he’s dangerous? Is that really, truly all he is? Maybe he doesn’t know anything after only mimicking Hikaru for less than six months.
And in that case—
“Ya sure?” Hikaru asked cautiously.
He was wearing his school uniform. Perhaps he had planned to go to school, but when it came time to leave his house, he remembered what happened the day before, and he felt like he just couldn’t do it anymore.
“Yer just a lonely little kid, after all,” Yoshiki said. He almost laughed but held it back.
If Hikaru’s like a newborn puppy or kitten, then I’ll have to teach him a thing or two.
“Lonely…,” Hikaru repeated.
His eyes wandered as if he were searching deep within his own mind, flitting here and there before finally returning to Yoshiki.
“So is this what ya call bein’ ‘lonely’? Have I always been lonely, then?”
“Beats me.”
He’s dangerous. He’s definitely dangerous.
Yoshiki’s own voice echoed deep within his ears like a warning signal.
Even so, I can’t help but find him endearing.