An incredibly thin slit ran along his suntanned skin from his throat down to his chest.
“Ah, c’mon already,” he urged.
Yoshiki reached out his hand more than once, only to withdraw it each time.
Hikaru shrugged impatiently. “Hurry up! Clubs’re ’bout to start.”
Yoshiki couldn’t bring himself to quip how that was rich coming from someone who never took club practice seriously.
“I gotta just…psych myself up for it,” Yoshiki said.
He took a deep breath, followed by another, as if that first one wasn’t enough.
Then, while holding his breath, he inserted his hand into Hikaru’s slit.
The sensation—like having a tongue lick his fingertips, and the chilling, damp feeling—were the same as before. The pressure he felt as it slowly tightened around his skin reminded him of the chicken that he had his hands all over in cooking class. The back of his throat tightened up. He felt like vomiting.
But the feeling didn’t last as long as the first time.
“…It’s not as bad as before.”
“Ha-ha! See? You’re gettin’ used to it.”
Getting used to it? No way I could get used to this.
Then Yoshiki remembered Kurebayashi telling him that he would “mix.”
Just as that thought crossed his mind, he felt something slither into him through his fingertips.
Something that wasn’t himself crept up inside Yoshiki, starting from his index finger and on to his hand, his wrist, and then up his arm.
Yoshiki screamed with Hikaru staring intently at him all the while. Hikaru’s eyes were filled with a twisted excitement, and his cheeks were flushed. He had an aggressive look on his face, like that of a child playing with a new toy for the first time.
“The hell?! It’s on me…?!” Yoshiki hollered.
He tried to pull his arm back, but something inside Hikaru had a strong grip on it.
Hikaru nodded, his expression unchanged. With every quick nod, every “yeah” he uttered, something hot seemed to bubble and pop around the nape of Yoshiki’s neck—like oil for frying chicken.
The same as that time. Like when Hikaru confronted Yoshiki about meeting Kurebayashi. Yoshiki was being attacked by Hikaru’s insides—just like before.
He was overcome by the ominous sensation of Hikaru trying to engulf him.
As that sensation brushed against his cheeks, he knew that it had reached the deepest parts of his mind—places that he didn’t want anyone to touch.
And in that moment, he finally spoke up.
“Stop it!”
Hikaru’s eyes widened, and in that instant, Yoshiki pulled his arm free. He then heard the sound of something dragging, and with it, the feeling of Hikaru inside him also disappeared.
The mark on his right arm from the last time Hikaru had tightly gripped him still remained. Yoshiki imagined that it wouldn’t fade away that easily, but it actually seemed to have grown darker.
“…What’d you do just now?” Yoshiki demanded, his shoulders heaving as he breathed in and out and in again. Then he glared at Hikaru.
Hikaru, however, looked around the room, acting as if he didn’t know what had just happened.
“I just thought I’d try touching you for a sec… Guess that won’t work if yer not used to it,” he said.
“Is that the truth?” Yoshiki interrogated Hikaru, recalling the look on his face when he asked if Yoshiki wanted to try feeling his insides again. “I ain’t too sure about this, but you weren’t just doin’ that ’cause it feels good for you, right?”
It appeared that having someone touch his insides or the act of absorbing someone into himself gave Hikaru some sort of pleasure or sense of satisfaction. Yoshiki had suspected as much before, but now it was crystal clear.
“So? What was that about?”
Apparently, Yoshiki had hit the nail on the head. Hikaru let out a small, choking sound but said nothing in defense and looked away from Yoshiki. Hikaru’s reaction was straightforward to the point of being anticlimactic.
“Ya know, ya shouldn’t be doin’ things people don’t really like. Ya got that?” Yoshiki said.
“Wh-what…? Yeah, I know. But…,” Hikaru added, as if hesitantly reaching his hand out toward Yoshiki. “I really wasn’t lyin’ to ya. I wouldn’t lie to ya…”
He sulked like a child who had been scolded by his parents, and seeing him like that, Yoshiki couldn’t help but believe him. He didn’t think Hikaru could lie to him in the first place.
Because if Hikaru did lie to Yoshiki, then Yoshiki was probably truly alone in the world.
“I believe you,” Yoshiki said. “For now.”
“…‘For now’?”
Hikaru’s shoulders slumped, and he scratched his cheek with his pinky finger. Yoshiki glanced away and nodded.
Yoshiki then softly touched his own right arm. The sensation of being inside Hikaru no longer lingered on his skin.
But beneath his skin, in some very deep place beyond his muscles, veins, and even deeper than his bones—within some part that could only be described as “Yoshiki’s core”—Hikaru still remained.
It felt gross. But that wasn’t all. There was also an undeniable, almost spine-chilling pleasure—a sensation so overwhelmingly clear to Yoshiki that it made him want to turn his eyes away.
He wondered if this is what Kurebayashi meant when she warned him about “mixing,” “getting close to whatever that thing is,” and “becoming a part of it.”
If this feeling continued to build up, would he mix with Hikaru and become inseparable from him?
I can never let that happen, he thought. Yoshiki was absolutely sure of that.
And yet, he couldn’t forget the look of ecstasy on Hikaru’s face. He even wondered if he’d been making the same face as he felt Hikaru crawl into his body.
“Also, it might attract things from the world toward ya more easily.”
That night, Yoshiki recalled that warning from Kurebayashi.
Kaoru had seen a “ghost” in their bathroom.