Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

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Byobuguara was heavier than she looked.

Or maybe they were just weak.

Or exhausted.

Whatever the reason, they'd barely managed to stumble their way up the muddy hill back up to the school with Byobuguara slung between them, her head lolling from side to side as she snored. Mudano had said she'd be fine, that she'd just lost a lot of blood, in pretty much the same tone of voice his old man used to use to scoff and shrug off his bruises and skinned knees.

Kougasaki hadn't seemed particularly concerned either, but he wasn't completely sure what Kougasaki might look like if he were concerned. Would his forehead wrinkle? Would he take off the mask? Or would Kougasaki have looked exactly the same no matter what he felt?

Would he have worn the same stony expression if they all died?

He was pretty sure he didn’t wanna know the answer.

The rain didn't let up at all until they'd managed to get up the hill and within sight of the crumbling, brick school building. Then as they crossed the last few feet, the downpour lightened to a sprinkle before stopping altogether.

He cursed beneath his breath and Kougasaki just sighed, before they both grabbed a door handle and jerked the double doors open to reveal the darkened, quiet hallway beyond and stepped through.

By the time they reached the infirmary, a big room in the back of the stone outbuildings behind the school proper, they'd both been panting like they'd run a marathon. In a lot of ways, Shiki thought the room looked a hell of a lot more like a clinic than any nurse's office he'd ever been to. 

The room was huge, easily half again as big as their class room, with a high ceiling and big windows that framed the cloudy sky and the treetops of the forest below. There were rows of beds and a dozen big cabinets of varying sizes and colors all shoved up against the back wall. There were bins marked for hazardous waste disposal, a big cart stacked with towels and linens, the whole place reeked of disinfectant and bleach and looked like it was gearing up for a war. Which, he guessed probably wasn’t that far off. He didn’t really get the whole Oni versus Momotarou thing, but that guy that had killed his old man had been pretty determined to kill him and the school was definitely in the business of training soldiers.

The nurse's office looked like it was ready for anything.

Anything except, maybe, two soaking wet teenagers squelching their way across the clinic's dusty tile floors with a third draped between them. They were all muddy and water-logged from the long trudge through the woods and they'd almost slipped and fallen twice making their way down the hall, their sneakers sliding and squeaking against the cheap tile floor.

A cranky man in scrubs who'd been hanging out in an office chair with his booted feet on the desk when they thrust the door open stood up and glared disapprovingly at them. Though whether that was because they'd interrupted his afternoon of doing nothing or because they were dripping all over his floor, he didn't know. Either way the man turned away from them without a word to go rummage through cabinets, pulling out hoses and transfusion equipment and piling it all onto an empty cart.

"Put her on the bed," he grumbled, gesturing for them to lay her down on a bed near one of the dusty windows.

Between the two of them, they managed to get across the room and tug and shove Byobuguara's limp body onto the bed. They had just backed away from the bed when the nurse, or whatever he was, shoved the cart, now piled high with equipment, between them and the bed.

"Great, thanks, now get the fuck out," he commented, waving them off as he started setting up equipment.

So they did.

“This happen a lot?” He asked Kougasaki as the door clicked shut behind them, leaving them in the silence of the long, empty hallway full of mud and sad narrow puddles wherever they had stopped to adjust their grip on the way in which, looking at it, he realized they'd done kind of a lot.

Kougasaki gave him a look, one fine blond eyebrow hiked up in disbelief, “What do you think?"

"Man, I don't know, I just got here," he griped, shoving his hands into his pockets, face warm with the awareness of all the things he did not know.

Their footsteps echoed around them as they made their way back out of the building.

He looked around the building as they went, peering into empty classrooms and deserted halls lit by flickered florescent lights, all of it was a lot more modern than he would have expected since the main part of the school he'd seen on their walk out to the training grounds in the woods had looked like a giant freaking castle. The interior of the building where the clinic was located gave off a vibe of cheerful neglect. Everything was tidy, but old and out-dated and breaking down in places and everything seemed to be covered by a fine layer of dust like folks only ever cleaned when they had to rather than for the sake of keeping things clean. It reminded him of the store which in turn reminded him of his old man which just made his chest ache and his eyes sting so he tried not to think about it... with mixed results.

When they stepped out into the insultingly bright late afternoon sunlight, Kougasaki strode purposefully across the yard without a word like he knew exactly where he was supposed to go and had absolutely no time for strangers or delays. He jogged to catch up and fell into step with him, glad to have someone to point him in the right direction, even if it was Kougasaki.

Something that lasted until they were almost halfway across the yard and Kougasaki suddenly stopped dead and whirled around to face him. He'd been following so close behind him and he'd turned so suddenly that he plowed right into him sending them both stumbling. He put his hands up automatically, catching hold of Kougasaki's arms to keep them both from falling.

He felt as much as saw Kougasaki go stiff and still in his grip, a sound splitting the quiet between them that was something between a growl and a scream. It was an awful sound and he tightened his grip, looking around for the source of the noise only to realize, too late, that it was Kougasaki himself that had made it.

“Get off of me,” Kougasaki hissed, a fine tremble shaking through him. “Or I’ll cut you to pieces and leave you for the crows.”

He let go, stepping back with his hands held up between them, “Sorry.”

He even kind of meant it.

Kougasaki’s eyes were wide and wild, his breath hissing out like steam from a boiling kettle as he turned his head to glare at him, gaze darting between his face and his hands as if he expected him to make another grab for him.

“Sorry,” he repeated, unsure what else to do or say. It wasn't like he'd meant to grab him.

Kougasaki stared at him for a long moment before he nodded tightly, his eyes narrowing a bit, "Fine. Don't talk to me. And don't follow me."

He grimaced, rocking back and forth on his heels. He was still trying to figure out how to phrase his argument when Kougasaki began backing across the grounds.

He stepped forward after him automatically.

Kougasaki stopped, eyes narrowing, his gloved hands coming together in front of him, fingers tugging roughly at the fingertips of one glove to pull it loose.

Shit.

He grimaced and blurted out, "I don't know where anything is.”

"So?" Kougasaki replied just as quickly, yanking free the glove to reveal his pale hand, ringed with scars.

He remembered watching him split one of those scars and, more specifically, he remembered the blade that had whirred to life from the blood that seeped out of the wound.

Shit.

"So, I don't know where we're supposed to meet up with everyone else." He blurted out, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Won't Mudano get pissed if we end up wasting his time by making him look for us both separately?"

It wasn't his main reason for following Kougasaki, but it was definitely a good one. After the pig messenger thing had arrived Mudano had given them a flat look and told them that they’d just slow him down and it was unnecessary for them to come along to get everyone else. That they should instead save him time by taking Byobuguara up to the nurse’s office and then to stay out of trouble until he'd gathered supplies and returned with the others.

And getting himself lost definitely wouldn't be something Mudano considered staying out of trouble.

Kougasaki stared at him for a long moment as if he were looking for signs of deception.

Like maybe that was a thing people lied about. 

Kougasaki was really freaking weird.

Or maybe he was normal, for someone who was... like them.

He had no idea.

Eventually Kougasaki heaved a heavy sigh and turned, continuing on his way down the path and when he fell into step behind him, Kougasaki didn't tell him to stop which he assumed meant his reasoning had been accepted. Before long they had worked their way around to the front of the building.

Against all odds the front of the building was even sadder than the side, the paint faded and peeling and there were a series of crumbling concrete stairs that led up to the chained and padlocked doors. There were a couple of scruffy looking bushes on either side of the entrance with old candy wrappers and paper cups caught in them. He wasn’t even surprised to see the faded sign that proclaimed the building CONDEMNED sealing the doors shut.

Kougasaki fell as much as sat down on the third stair, landing with a wet plop and an obvious grimace. When Kougasaki didn't tell him to get lost, he figured that was probably the closest he was going to get to an invitation and sat down beside him. Not so close that they were touching, that'd probably be weird and Kougasaki would probably snap his head off again, but he did sit close enough that they were definitely sitting together not just like... in the same area or whatever.

He wasn't really sure where the school was located. Mudano had told him it was on an island... Demon Island, maybe? Some bullshit like that, but it wasn't like it really meant anything to him. He could have told him it was anywhere and it would have meant just as much to him, he'd never been outside the town he'd grown up in. Hadn't even thought about it much and he'd never been such a good student that he paid attention to where places he never intended to go were. Demon Island, wherever it was, was quiet. So much quieter than his hometown. Like the rest of the world outside of this place didn't even exist and, maybe, that was the point.

If they were gonna practice doing all the things he'd seen them do with blood, it was probably better if there was no one around to see or hear them do it. 

The school building towered high overhead like something out of some cheesy horror film. Some Dracula thing, probably. Layers and layers of stone, he could see a big bridge or something leading away from the front of it. Could probably play a hell of a survival game in there.

The idea would have really excited him once, now it just made him feel a little sick, after all his whole life was some sort of fucked up survival game now. 

Or maybe that was just the exhaustion from all the fighting he'd done the last... day? Two? Shit, he really needed to ask about that. Whatever it was, maybe it was finally all hitting him, he hadn't eaten anything and he felt kind of dizzy and his muscles were sore and if he felt bad, he was sure Kougasaki felt even worse.

Or at least he looked like he felt worse, sitting on the steps beside him with his knees drawn up, all curled in on himself. His hair looked gold in the late afternoon light, like... straw the brass accents on his favorite of the guns he'd gotten in last week.

Ah, man, what had happened to all the guns?

He was pretty sure he didn't wanna know.

"Stop looking at me," Kougasaki muttered, mostly to the ground since the sound was muffled by his arms where they were wrapped protectively around his head like a scarf, dark shirt sleeves blending right into the dark gloves he'd pulled back on to hide his scarred hands. 

How did anyone get that many scars?

And what had happened to his face? He'd only seen it for a minute and they'd been fighting so he hadn't been paying all that much attention to it, but he was pretty sure it was kind of fucked up too. What had happened to him? He'd said something about his dad doing taking everything from him... had he done that too?

"How can you even tell I'm looking at you?" Shiki asked, frowning, mostly because he wanted to know and not because the accusation bothered him. Like he gave a shit what Kougasaki thought. Even if Kougasaki had helped him out in the end, he was still kind of a jerk.

Kougasaki turned his face just enough that he could glare at him, narrowed eye peeking out at him between the fall of his pale hair and the framing black of his sleeve and mask. They'd known each other for like three hours, but he was already sure that that was a look he was gonna be seeing a whole hell of a lot of over the next... how long was their training supposed to last anyway? Mudano hadn't said and he hadn't thought to ask about that either. Sure, the place he'd taken him to was a school, kind of, but it was less like high school and more like a... vocational school or something.

Whatever. He was used to looks like that. He used to get looks like that at his old school too. 

Before he'd been expelled.

Before his old man had... fuck.

"Shut up," Kougasaki muttered suddenly, shaking him from the spiral of his thoughts and back into the present.

Kougasaki sounded tired. Did he realize how tired he sounded? How the syllables slurred together just a little? Probably not. He'd probably have been a lot pissier if he'd known.

"Is every day here this intense?" He asked instead of saying anything about it or shutting up which earned him an exasperated sigh.

Yeah, he was pretty familiar with that sound as well.

"Pretty much."

He hadn't really been expecting an answer, but it was a nice surprise, which beat the hell out of most of the surprises he'd gotten during the last week. More surprising still was when the words kept coming, Kougasaki's tired, slurring voice stumbling a bit over the syllables. "We're training for war. What'd you think it would be like?" 

He sounded... not curious exactly, but he was looking at him like he expected an answer which meant they were having a conversation which was weird, really weird, but beat the hell out of Kougasaki telling him shut up yet again. "Hadn't really had time to think about it. I mean, I didn't even know I was an Oni or whatever until yesterday or whatever."

He could see the old man's bloody hand curling into a fist, held out, the words oozing from him like the blood trickling down his forearm.

...become strong enough so you won't lose...

"What."

He glanced up, startled by the sudden movement, the sharpness of the word, as Kougasaki sat bolt upright, his exhaustion seeming to fall away in an instant as if it had never been, hard, narrowed gaze trained on him like a sniper's scope.

What the fuck had he said to cause that reaction?

"What do you mean you didn't know?"

Oh.

He looked... pissed. 

"Oh, uh, yeah, I didn't... my old man never told me not until some Momotarou asshole came to try and kill me."

"Your old man, who was a Momotarou, never told you that you had Oni blood," Kougasaki repeated and he didn't know what to do with the disbelief on his face or the way he spoke, every word like gasoline on the smoldering heat in his veins making it flare hotter and hotter until it felt like he was gonna burst into flames. "You didn't know."

"Shut up," he snapped, fingers digging into the dirt at his sides, "I'm sure he'd of gotten to it."

Even though he really wasn't.

Why the fuck was he even defending him? He wasn't sure his old man wouldn't have just kept on lying to him for his whole stupid life. Because he was... what? Easier? What about this was easier? Wasn't like his old man had ever had a problem telling him when he was a disappointment, when he fucked up. What was it he'd said...? So much of... yesterday? Had it just been yesterday? The day before that maybe? He'd spent so much time since then unconscious or fighting that he wasn't even sure how long it had been.

He brought his hands up, slapping his cheeks hard as he felt his eyes begin to burn, to tear up again. No way was he crying in front of Kougasaki. Just... no way. Fuck. He'd never let him live it down. He wouldn't say anything about it, probably, but he'd definitely be judging the fuck of him silently from across every room they ever sat in together. 

Fuck this school. Fuck his life. He couldn't imagine being stuck at this stupid school for years. Doing exercises like this nonstop? How long could it possibly take to be strong enough to take that guy out?

But everything had happened so fast he'd totally forgotten to ask that too. Forgotten to ask anything, anything that mattered. He was so stupid sometimes. He didn't know anything about the school or even about what he was supposed to do there beyond learning how to control his power.

In the moment, it hadn't seemed like it had mattered much, and he thought maybe it still didn't, but it was weird, not knowing, and the not knowing was bothering him now. The pile of things he didn't know just kept growing and growing and it felt like any second he might all topple over and crush him beneath the weight of it. 

He hadn't even been to his room yet.

Did he even have a room? 

Did it cost money?

If it did, he was so fucked, he didn't have anything. Everything was....

No, no, Mudano knew he didn't have any money or anything, so it was fine. It was definitely fine. This wasn't a big deal, he could handle this. 

But he had to sleep somewhere. They wouldn't be in class all the time.

Holy shit, would he have to room with Kougasaki?

That was a terrifying thought. Kougasaki would probably kill him in his sleep or something. He didn’t seem like he’d be easier to get along with outside of classes or battles.

"Are we gonna be roommates?"

The question had fallen out of his mouth before he'd even really thought about asking about it and Kougasaki grimaced. 

Or at least he was pretty sure he did. 

It was hard to tell with the mask and all, but....

"No."

He was pretty sure he'd actually gone even paler than he usually was. He wasn't that bad. What a asshole.

"No, like you don't wanna? Or no, like you know we ain't gonna be?"

"Just no," Kougasaki snapped and he was definitely glaring at him now. "We are not going to be roommates. Shut up."

"Oh. Okay. Does everybody get their own room or something?"

"Shut up. I don't...” he hesitated, scarred fingers sliding into his straw-colored hair, pulling the strands taunt. It looked painful. “Stop asking me things. Why do you keep asking me things? We’re not roommates. We're not friends. We’re not anything.”

"Shut up, I know that," he snapped back, glancing away, face hot with something that he'd rather think of as irritation. "Who else I am I supposed to ask?"

"Anyone! Anyone who isn't me! Ask Mudano or... or... anyone," his voice sounded a little rough, like someone was scrapping at the inside of his throat with sandpaper. "Stop asking me things, stop talking to me, just... why are you like this?"

It shouldn't have hurt. It wasn't like he cared what he thought of him. It wasn't....

"Fine, whatever," he snapped, turning away to glare at the trees and scooting further away across the stair. "Who'd want to be friends with you anyway?"

Not him, definitely not him.

I mean, sure, they had the whole Momotarou dad thing in common, but that obviously didn't matter to Kougasaki. He didn't even want to talk to him about school, why the hell would Kougasaki be willing to talk to him about that? And it wasn't like he could make him. And, sure, he'd come back and he would have let him win so he could stay in school, but... but it wasn't like that meant anything. He'd probably just done it on a whim. 

It had just been nice to talk to someone, because if he was talking he didn't have to think because everytime he started thinking he... 

It had reeked of smoke and beer and blood, so much blood, and he....

He didn't wanna think about it.

He wanted to focus on something else, but the asshole next to him just kept shutting him down every time he tried to ask him stuff. And there was nothing to do out there but sit and wait for Mudano to show up. He just wanted a distraction, that was all.

He wasn't trying to make friends with him or anything. He'd never been good at that. Too loud, too violent, too... much. Which was fine, it wasn't like he hadn't figured out how to make it work for him. It wasn't like he'd ever really needed friends, especially not there, not when he wasn't even planning on staying there long enough to get to know anyone properly anyway. There was no point in that. He’d just be there long enough to figure out how to use the blood and then he could just... go. Go track that guy down and avenge the old man and then... and then maybe he'd... go back and help at the shop or... well, run the shop or... or something.

Or maybe he'd just die avenging his old man.

Then he wouldn't have to think too hard about what came after.

Whatever.

It didn't matter, he could always figure it out later. What he’d do, where he’d go.

Fuck.

No school, no job, no old man. All his stuff was still back at their shitty little apartment over the store. He wondered if the cops had come yet, if someone had bothered to lock up the shop properly. If there was even still a shop to lock up, the Old Man had driven the car right through the front window. 

Shit.

Thinking about his Old Man was still weird. He knew he was gone, he knew that. Knew that he was doing all this to find the asshole who'd killed him and kill the fuck out of him in return. But, like, there was also a part of him that was still thinking in some deep, dark, shitty corner of his head that everything that had happened the day was just a bad dream. Like,  at some point, he was gonna fall asleep or fall off a building or something and this time... this time he'd wake up passed out at the counter in the liquer store in a puddle of his own drool and his old man would be so, so pissed about the expulsion thing. 

Only that wasn't gonna happen. 

His old man was dead and imagining he wasn't wouldn't bring him back. Hell, it didn't really even make him feel any better.

Thinking about him at all just made him feel... bad.

just really, really bad.

While things were happening, he’d been okay, and he'd even been mostly okay while he'd been arguing with Kougasaki. But sitting there in the quiet of the fading afternoon, his brain was like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and running over the same track with nothing to distract him.

If his old man had just told him....

If he'd just known then he could have done something, he could have....

"I'm not used to talking to people."

The words were quiet, slow and reluctantly offered, the voice that offered them still rough and strained, the syllables still slurring and slow.

A sudden motion, caught his attention, dragging it back over to Kougasaki, whose fingers moved slowly through a complicated pattern of movements before dropping back into his lap and... oh.

He'd seen people doing that before on the train, on tv, or something like it anyway. 

"I'm still shit at it," Kougasaki murmured, shrugging his shoulders. 

"They're teaching you that here?"

He didn't ask why, but he wondered.

Kougasaki nodded, short and a still stiff, "Mudano suggested it. It's stupid. It's not like I need it to reach my goal."

"But it's easier to talk that way... because of your mouth?"

Another shrug, "I was doing fine without it."

Shiki scooted a little closer to him, shifting across the step slow enough to give him plenty of time to move if he didn't want him getting any closer. He was pleasantly surprised when, even though he definitely gave him a bit of side eye, Kougasaki stayed put, "Could you show me some?"

By the time Mudano finally showed up to collect them the sun had dipped down below the tree and Shiki was pretty sure all he'd actually managed to learn, despite Kougasaki going through a bunch of different symbols with him, were a couple of characters that probably didn't even make sense put together. But while he sat there, watching Kougasaki's fingers and trying to duplicate the motions, he was only thinking about moving them the right way. Sometimes Kougasaki would glance at him and sigh, because he'd done something wrong, but he hadn't called him an idiot or anything, he'd just showed him again and eventually he'd sucked a little less forming the characters even if he still wasn't sure what he was saying with them, if anything.

"Glad to see you two haven't killed each other yet, come on, up, move it, we have a boat to catch and you're wasting time."

They followed Mudano down a steep path through the woods to the dock, which felt further away than it probably was because their muscles had had time to settle and now they ached and every step he took felt stiff and awkward. The path wound them through the trees, but it was still muddy and slick from the earlier rainfall and on his clumsy legs, he kept stumbling over his own feet and having to stop to adjust in order to avoid falling and taking the rest of the trip down to the docks on his ass. He had no idea how the fuck Mudano managed the path on his skates, but he just continued to glide further ahead of them every time he had to stop.

Kougasaki never stumbled, but he never got any further ahead on the path either. He hadn't asked him to wait or anything and he'd have told him to just go if he'd said anything about it, but he... didn't. So, he didn't say anything about it either as he was pretty sure if he had, Kougasaki would have left him behind without a second thought.

And it was... nice... to have the company.

When he wasn't stumbling over his own feet or the occasional rock or root, Shiki kept practicing the signs Kougasaki had taught him, the ones he could remember anyway, working through them over and over, the movements becoming smoother, more natural until he barely even had to think about them. Whenever Kougasaki side-eyed what he was doing he didn't say anything so he must have been doing alright.

By the time they broke free from the looming trees and out onto a narrow set of stairs built into the cliffs his mind had drifted to other things, to the horns on his head where he thought he could almost feel energy leaking out. It felt a little like steam rising from a hot drink. Like maybe if he could just put a lid on it, he could stop that energy from leaking out into horns. Maybe. Probably.

It wasn't much. He still didn't feel like he'd be able to do enough in a fight, but it felt like a good start.

Chapter Text

“The line between being too careful and not being careful enough is a line you only get to cross once.”
― Grady Hendrix, The Final Girl Support Group

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The most horrifying thing about sharing a room with Shiki was how quickly he adjusted to having him around all the time. 

Jin had spent years on his own, sleeping light, sometimes in the park and sometimes behind dumpsters and under overpasses because sleeping heavy meant pain, meant starving. Letting his guard down meant having what little he had taken by people who were bigger and stronger than he was, passing out from blood loss if he tried to defend himself with those powers he’d barely been able to use at first. If he was unlucky it might have meant death and while sometimes, on bad days when his stomach turned sour because he’d eaten something a little too rotten or hadn’t eaten anything at all, he wasn’t all that sure that would be a bad thing, he refused to die until he’d killed that man. So he’d gotten tough and he’d gotten mean and he’d fought when he needed to fight and he’d run been he’d needed to run.

He’d spent years running and hiding and watching his own back. Not needing anyone, so the very idea of working with others, of depending on them, made him feel sick, the memory of that text message that had saved him still rubbing him raw beneath the skin even with all the years that had passed since then. He tried not to think about her, because thinking about her, about them hurt. Instead he focused on him, just on him, and on putting an end to him the same way he’d put an end to them. Because if he could just do that, if he just do that one thing, maybe it would make it right. Or if not right, then something he could live with at least. But no matter how hard he practiced, the idea of beating him seemed a distant dream.

Until Mudano found him.

The first few nights after he’d been half-dragged to the school by Mudano had been awful. Even alone in a room on the second floor. In a room with a lock and a bed and only one tiny window… he’d still barely slept at all.

He’d instead spent every night jerking awake again and again where he’d shoved the bed back against the far wall. Every time he lay still, back to the wall, heart in his throat, staring at the door, unblinking, until his eyes ached. He’d startled at every creak and squeak and distant voice. Because those walls, that window, that single way out were their own kind of hell. The entire castle felt like a kill box.

The days had been nearly as bad even though for those first weeks no one had come to bother him and he’d barely seen anyone at all, even in the common areas. He’d slipped into the kitchen between meals and stolen fruit, snacks, anything he could shove in his pockets or his bag and get out without anyone noticing or stopping him.

Sometimes he ate his way through those pilfered snacks when sleep alluded him.

Sometimes the very idea made him feel sick and he just sat in the corner of his bed with his chin resting on his knees, bile burning at the back of his throat.

He barely remembered sleeping in Kyoto, too exhausted to care if he was on a mat in the makeshift medical staging area or propped up against a wall in the hall. It didn’t matter. Shiki had always been close by, sleeping off the exhaustion and blood loss and he stayed near enough that he could keep an eye on him.  Not because he was worried - he wasn't - but just to make sure he didn’t get any ideas about wandering off or almost killing himself again.

And then they were back at the school, back to training and lessons and he expected things would return to how they were before Shiki had come, before the call that took them to Kyoto. Only... it didn't, because almost the moment they returned Mudano assigned them permanent rooms. And suddenly Ichinose was there, all the time, and there was no escaping him. Each day he was beside him in class and each night he lay in the bed above him, tossing and turning and occasionally waking up with a shout from night terrors he couldn’t bring himself to ask about. Droning on and on when he was awake about nothing and everything, filling all the silence that had previously felt as if it might crush him with noise.

It should have been awful, having someone around all the time after all those years he’d been alone. Especially someone like Shiki.

But for some reason... it wasn't.

With Shiki there with him, above him, everything felt simple.

He felt easier in his own skin then he’d felt in years, since before, when he’d been a stupid kid who loved his father too much and understood nothing about the world or his place in it. Nothing about what he was. Which was revolting, of course, because he didn't want to feel at ease. Didn't want the company. He didn't need it. He'd been fine on his own. And yet just having Shiki there made the room seem less dangerous as if he could trust him, rely on him. And it was the last thing he wanted.

But with Ichinose there, he could finally rest. Sometimes he slept for hours at a time, closed his eyes and didn't wake until Shiki thumped to the ground in the morning. 

It was terrifying how quickly he was coming to depend on him.

“And then I said that gun’s sight was shit and she said…”

He wasn’t really listening to what he said, he never was this late at night, Shiki talked like most people breathed. Just said whatever came into his head and most of it was garbage nonsense he couldn’t care less about, but… something about that endless stream of bullshit was a strange, disconcerting comfort.

It reminded him of the few times he’d managed to scrap enough money together to ride the train out of the city, all the way to the end of the line. Of sitting huddled in a corner, reading discarded newspapers and deliberately ignored by commuting salarymen and aunties as night fell and they left the city behind. He could almost fall asleep to the quiet relentless sound of the train speeding through the night and the murmur of unobtrusive announcements over the loudspeakers. Yet even that wasn't quite the same since even there he'd still jerked awake every time someone sat down near him and every time the doors whooshed open to allow in another stranger, another potential threat. 

“You don’t mind me talking to you like this, do you?” Shiki had asked one night, his voice going quiet as he dropped over the side of his bunk to peer down at him.

He frowned up at him. 

He should tell him he did, tell him to shut up or go fuck himself or something, but being mean to him was pointless. He always just shook it off and kept on doing what he wanted to do anyway. So he flipped him off half-heartedly before he curled his hands through a soft denial.

“That’s a no, right?” Shiki grinned and something about the way he said it made his face feel too warm.

He hadn't intended to teach him anything when he'd shown it to him that day and it wasn’t like it mattered to him that he had. He’d shown it to him that first day on a whim, those few signs he could remember from the lessons Mudano had been forcing on him, more to shut Shiki up then because he cared whether he learned it. He hadn’t expected him to keep working at it, picking it up a little at a time. Getting ridiculously excited whenever he recognized a sign or was able to make himself understood as he slipped his fingers through the shape of curse words and insults in the middle of class, grinning at him like they were sharing a secret even when they were insulting each other.

It made him want to learn more and faster so he could stay ahead of him, have new things to teach him when (if) he asked.

Ichinose dropped his hands down and moved them with painstaking slowness through a series of signs which… didn’t actually make any sense together since he was pretty sure whatever he meant to convey it didn’t have anything to do with a goose needing to take a dump. It was kind of stupid that Shiki butchering JSL should make his chest feel tight and warm, but it didn’t make it any less true.

“Just use your words, asshole,” he grumbled, a little surprised when Shiki laughed out loud and proceeded to flip backwards out of the bunk above, landing with ease and kneeling down beside his bed, folding his arm along the edge of his bunk so he could drop his head down on it and stare at him like a giant creep, teeth flashing white in the relative darkness of their room.

"What?" He asked, sharper than he meant to, because something about the way Shiki was looking at him made his face feel hot, his skin feel too tight.

“So, like, I was thinking that maybe we could go see a movie or something while we’re in the city.”

It felt like falling.

Like someone had pushed him off one of the school's stupid, high-ass towers and he was plummeting through space, no chance of rescue, no way out.

Trapped.

“No,” he replied immediately, the word rough and hoarse, his throat tight with something desperate and unreasonable.

The last time he’d been to the movie theater was with his sister. She’d taken him to see some animated thing he could barely remember now, the memory buried beneath a lifetime of pain until it was just a blur of bright colors and the taste of sour candy on his tongue.

No.

The idea of sitting beside him in the dark, of going places, of doing things together like they were… what?

Friends?

No.

No.

He couldn't... it wasn't safe. 

He didn't need that, didn't want it, it would ruin everything.

The stupid fragile peace that he didn't even want would be shattered to pieces and he couldn't....

No.

They weren't friends.

They weren't anything.

Just people who existed in the same space.

If he tried to make more of it than it was, he’d make it weird and awkward and then Shiki wouldn’t want to be around him anymore. 

Fuck.

Not that he cared about that, not really, but if Shiki asked to change rooms he might get stuck with someone even worse like... Mudano. Wasn't someone rooming with Mudano? It seemed like there had to be though he hadn't paid much attention to room assignments other than his own. He'd rather bleed out or quit than room with Mudano. Did that man even sleep? There was no way he could relax if he were in a room with him. He’d just gotten used to this, to Shiki, and the idea of being stuck with someone else was… intolerable. Not because Shiki was important, no, not that, but just because he was... easy to be around, simple.

Fuck.

“Oh, uh, sorry, you got plans?” 

No, he didn’t. At all. Of course he fucking didn't. But he could lie and say he did. That was what people did, wasn’t it?  They lied to be polite, they lied to make things okay, they lied and they lied and they told you they needed you to pick up milk and….

Fuck.

“No,” he choked out, feeling like the world was closing in around him, narrowing down until Shiki’s face was all he could see. “Just go on your own.”

He meant it to sound… he wasn’t sure how he meant it to sound, whatever he intended, it didn’t come out right, because he was a self-sabotaging asshole. Because he was shit at this. Because he didn't know how the fuck to not be like this.

“Oh,” Shiki’s face went strangely blank, wiped clean of expression, and it was like watching a door close, swift and firm and final. “Sure. Yeah, no big deal. I better get some sleep. Night.”

And before he could say or do anything else in response, try to salvage things or, far more likely, make things worse, Shiki was on his feet and scrambling back up on his bunk.

Fuck.

He didn’t know how to fix this.

Wasn’t even sure he wanted to fix it.

Or that there was anything to fix.

It wasn’t like he enjoyed listening to Shiki prattle on. It wasn’t like he wanted his attention and he didn’t care about him or his stupid feelings.

He was just… he just wanted….

No. Fuck that.

This was fine.

He was fine.

Better than fine.

He’d never needed anyone before and he definitely didn’t need anyone now. Especially not some chatty little shit like Shiki. He rolled onto his side, rolling to face the blank expanse of wall, and pulled his blanket up higher, burrowing down beneath it.

The silence of the room was deafening.

For the first time in weeks, his sleep was broken and restless and he was glad when he woke in the morning to find Shiki had already gone down to breakfast instead of waiting for him like he usually did.

It was a good thing.

The best.

He’d always been off better alone.