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It's my fault.
Their class's choir performance plays softly from his phone's speakers. The words echo in Yoshiki's ears hollowly. He doesn't hear them at all.
He's my responsibility. I knew he was messed up, so I'm the one who should've…
Should've what? Should've abandoned his best friend, the boy he loved, the one reason Yoshiki had to stick around all these years? Should've killed him on the spot, because the thing wearing his skin wasn't human, must be inherently evil? How could he have known?
He should've known.
I should've known. It's my fault. A woman is dead, Asako could've died—who knows how many people he would've killed if I didn't say anything? Who knows how many he will kill even now that I have?
Every life lost is blood on Yoshiki's hands. Not Hikaru's, never Hikaru's. Hikaru wouldn't kill anyone. 'Hikaru' doesn't know better. 'Hikaru' could never understand. No matter how hard Yoshiki tries to teach him, it would be like trying to explain color to a blind man; there is simply no basis in his mind for the concept of murder to even exist.
He's dangerous. Too dangerous to live. One misstep and the entire village will be nothing more than a pile of corpses at Yoshiki's feet, and he'd still be standing there because otherwise they'd never eat ice cream together again. Because 'Hikaru' doesn't want him to die. Because Yoshiki could never bring himself to leave.
The knife is cold in his hand, and as he hides it behind his back he can feel the weight of it shifting as he trembles. He tightens his grip, digging his nails into his palm. They're rough where he's chewed them. His palm stings; he barely notices.
He'd at least tried to make today a fun one, even though every laugh he'd forced out had grated on his throat like sandpaper and pooled tears in the corners of his eyes. He thinks he might've had fun, too, if his thoughts hadn't kept turning back to Asako's body collapsed in the road; to red and blue lights outside an old woman's house; to the cold steel he'd taken from the kitchen that morning and shoved into his schoolbag.
Somehow, he doubts a single knife would be enough to end this.
The music reaches a crescendo; as Yoshiki pulls himself from his thoughts, he realizes 'Hikaru' has been singing along. The innocence of the scene makes Yoshiki's stomach turn.
So this is it, isn't it? He's about to—to stab this thing that was basically as naive as a child, just because he's convinced that it would mean less bloodshed in the long run? Furthermore, he's sure that it won't die, that it will forgive him for the assault in a heartbeat or kill him even faster… He almost hopes it does kill him, just to save him the guilt of failing. The guilt of trying in the first place.
So this is it.
The knife scrapes bone on its way in. The vibrations travel up Yoshiki's arms and make his teeth grit together.
For a long moment, nothing happens.
Yoshiki pulls the knife out; tries again, higher this time, twists the blade. Something splatters, hot against his face, heavy on his hands, viscous and metallic and nauseatingly red.
He had hoped the thing wouldn't bleed.
Hikaru's body slumps against his, confused mumbles falling from its lips. Yoshiki can't bring himself to shove it away. He wraps his arms around it, instead, pulling it in even closer in some messed up facsimile of a hug. He thought… For sure, by now, he thought it would've stopped him.
He holds the knife loosely, reverse grip, points the blade toward Hikaru's back. The thing is still mumbling, still confused, still not angry, but Yoshiki thinks its voice is getting weaker. One last time, he slips the knife between two ribs, hoping to either kill it faster or at least snap it out of whatever was keeping it from shoving him away and snapping his neck in retaliation.
After that, the voice fades out. Yoshiki hugs the body for a long time, even as it cools down and the blood thickens on his skin.
He's covered in it.
This… wasn't supposed to work. He was so sure this wouldn't work! And yet, here he is, cradling the stone-cold body of his best friend for the second time in a year…except this time it's his own fault the boy is dead.
A wave of nausea crashes over him. This wasn't supposed to work!
It's all he can do to throw himself from his futon and vomit on the floor rather than down the back of Hikaru's shirt.
…So this is it, then. This isn't what he'd wanted—but then, nothing had gone the way he wanted it to, not since before Hikaru had run off to that damned mountain and gotten himself killed.
Looking at the boy now, crumpled gracelessly on the bedsheets, feels somehow more wrong than seeing something else wear his skin. Yoshiki gently pulls the knife from the boy's ribs, pushing him carefully up and over until he lays on his back. One more swipe of his hand closes the boy's eyes, and with that Yoshiki can almost pretend he's just asleep.
It doesn't look like a good dream.
"I'm sorry," Yoshiki whispers, somehow quieter still than he'd spoken when he'd called his mother to say goodbye.
"So this is it, huh?"
The knife is cold in his hands.
—
Elsewhere, three men jump with surprise as a hamster squeals in its cage.
"What the hell was that?" one man yells.
Tanaka follows the hamster's gaze toward the cursed forest that started all of this.
"Seems like your 'Nounuki-sama' went back to the mountain," he comments idly.
"…Huh?"
"Guess your problem solved itself." Tanaka shrugs nonchalantly, but in his mind he is seething. This had been his best chance to end this whole mess.
Dammit.
—
A woman and her daughter return home after a long day of work. They call out their greetings at the door, to no response. This is not unusual, as the husband is never home until late and the son often stays out with friends. Still, the silence feels heavy.
A lingering doubt grows in the mother's mind; her son had given her such a strange phone call, after all, and while she hadn't thought much of it at the time… Yoshiki hadn't even tried to interact with his father in months.
She climbs the stairs alone, leaving Kaoru in the genkan and making her way to stand outside her son's room.
Even through the door, she smells copper. She opens it anyways, despite the crushing certainty she already has of what she'll find.
She is wrong.
There's blood everywhere—she isn't prepared for the sight of it. It stains the white sheets and white walls red; paints Yoshiki's skin and clothes where he sits slumped at the side of his bed, face buried in the matress, with one hand wrapped loosely around her best knife and the other interlaced with Hikaru's fingers.
Hikaru, who has two stab wounds in his chest. Hikaru, whose face is smeared with blood where Yoshiki must have pulled his eyes closed. Hikaru, who is dead at Yoshiki's hands.
When she screams, her son doesn't so much as twitch.
—
There are flowers on two boys' desks at Kibougayama High School. Their presence looms over everyone's heads, weighing down their shoulders with grief and horror and the painful reminder of their own mortality. It hadn't felt real, that morning, when the students had first entered to find them sitting innocently on their classmates' desks.
It had started to sink in, by now.
Asako can't stop glancing back at them; can't focus on class when the petals keep whispering last-goodbyes, don't-forget, I-love-you-I'm-sorry-it-had-to-be-done…
Luckily, no one seems to be trying too hard today. Even Kanda-sensei goes easy on them.
When the bell rings, Asako is the first to leave. The next train to Kubitachi isn't for hours, so she hurries along by foot. It's hardly any faster.
When she makes it to the Tsujinaka household, Yoshiki's mother is sitting on the front porch, staring into space. She looks awful. Even so, Asako butts in without pause.
"What the hell happened?" she demands. She's a panting, sweaty mess, but two of her best friends are dead—she can't rest until she knows why.
(Funeral flowers should never sound like I'm-sorry-I-hurt-you, didn't-love-you-enough, loved-you-too-much in a dead boy's voice.)
"…You're one of Yoshiki's friends," Tsujinaka-san mumbles. Her voice is hoarse, and her eyes are red from crying. Asako nods, suddenly hesitant. A long moment passes, with the older woman gazing blankly through Asako until finally seeming to come to a decision.
"It was a suicide," she says, at last. "My son killed himself."
The world drops out from below Asako's feet. There's no way…
"And what about Hikaru?" she asks, voice shaking.
"Yoshiki, he—" Tsujinaka-san's voice hitches. "I just—I don't understand how this could happen—!"
Her face screws up in devastation, and she flees into the house with a hastily-whispered apology. As the door swings shut between them, Asako tries not to notice the light glinting from the woman's wet cheeks.
The words sink in.
They mean nothing on their own, but Asako remembers Yoshiki's face last night when she'd called Hikaru possessed and he'd sat beside her and told her he believed her. The reassurance had been heavy on his lips, his smile faint and hollow. And his eyes…
She shudders at the memory.
The first tear rolls down her cheek.
…This is my fault, isn't it?
If Asako hadn't said anything, maybe Yoshiki wouldn't have gotten it in his head that… Well, maybe the two of them would still be alive.
The first tear is followed by a second, then another, and many more after that. Asako lets herself break into a thousand pieces on the Tsujinakas' doorstep, because the only boy there who she gave a rat's ass about is dead, and she's pretty sure she's the one who convinced him to do it.
(The flowers had asked her not to cry, that morning. The flowers clearly don't know what the hell they're talking about, anyways.)
—
Rie realizes something is wrong almost immediately. As soon as she feels the familiar wave of anxiety slot itself back into place on that mountain, she knows that there is no good explanation for why it returned. She tries to tell herself that that boy had taken her words to heart, that the thing with his best friend's face had left peacefully with just a talk, but…
She can't shake the feeling that she's lost her chance to witness something incredible.
The obituary posted carelessly on the back of the paper still horrifies her. She'd only met the boy twice, only really spoken with him once, but… she had hoped his story would end better than hers had. Instead, there are two fewer children in this world, and she's sure she can make a decent guess as to how they left it.
She wonders if her careless intervention had caused this, or if those boys had always been destined to die.
She doesn't think she'll ever find the answer to that question.
She visits their graves a few weeks later, once the families have had time to get through the funerals and the earliest stages of grief. There's a girl there—a middle schooler, if Rie had to guess. She's sat in front of the Tsujinaka boy's grave, knees pulled to her chest, glaring at the headstone. Her eyes are wet.
"Are you alright?" Rie asks, even though it feels like another unwelcome intrusion into these children's lives.
"Go away," comes the response.
"Oh, of course… I'm sorry to bother you…"
Even though she says that, Rie doesn't leave right away. She stands awkwardly to the side for a moment longer, then shifts forward to lay the bouquet she'd brought at the base of the grave. It's been long enough now, she notices, that the grass has started to return to the dirt that covers the two boys' coffins. Someday they'll be forgotten, covered up by the passage of time, never anything more than a pair of epitaphs and two grieving families. Never old enough to leave their own mark on the world.
"You're still here," the girl mutters into her knees.
"I'd like to pay my respects before you kick me out, if that's alright," Rie replies. She's genuinely asking, not trying to be snide, but from the corner of her eye she still sees the girl flinch. "I'm sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?"
"…It's fine," she says, barely a whisper. Silence falls once again.
Rie sits properly on her heels, claps her hands in prayer, wishes these boys a peaceful afterlife (hopes they'll never be one of the impurities she has to cleanse, that somehow they won't lose themselves enough in death to hurt people like that)… As she bows, the girl finally speaks.
"Why did he have to leave?" she asks, voice bitter. When Rie glances over at her, the girl is staring at the grave again, eyes full of disdain. "He was supposed to be better than everyone else. He was supposed to protect me, he promised he would, so—" Suddenly the child is sobbing, arms wrapped so tightly around her legs that her knuckles turn white. "…So why did he leave?"
Rie's heart breaks. Why, indeed?
"Sometimes, people break their promises," she whispers. "It's awful, and sometimes it's unforgivable, but there's not much you can do about it besides move on."
"Mom says I hafta forgive him, 'cos he wasn't in his right mind when he left."
"Maybe he wasn't. Either way, he left you; no matter what the reason was, nothing will change that. You have a right to be angry."
"I'll never forgive him."
Rie looks over at the girl once more. She's still glaring, eyes hot with fury and hurt and a deep sadness that has no place in the heart of someone her age.
She looks exactly like what she is: a grieving child.
"…That's alright," Rie says at last, voice a mere breath on the wind. "You don't have to."
The next time she visits, exactly one week later, she packs a small chocolate bar in her purse. Just in case.
—
In the heart of the woods near Kubitachi, atop a mountain which the locals denounce as cursed, Something wanders aimlessly amongst the trees.
It is cold, and it is empty.
It is a being of instinct; it doesn't care to think too deeply about the past or future. Still…
Something is missing.
It doesn't know what. It longs to travel down the forest paths, wander the human villages in search of that missing thing, but even the thought of leaving the mountain fills it with a sense of something that, if it could remember its brief glance into the heart of a human, it might label as self-loathing.
It doesn't leave.
It stays, isolated and hidden from what few humans pass through. It takes in every impurity it comes across, trying desperately to fill the void within itself, but no matter what it does it continues to feel hollow.
Time passes in that manner. Never once does the Something leave the mountain; never once does it feel anything other than cold and hollow and disgust with itself. Nothing changes.
Until it does.
One day, a soul appears. It burns warm and bright, and it does not flinch or flicker at Something's approach. Something wants nothing more than to wrap itself around the flame and absorb every last bit of heat from within it… but it can't. Something keeps it from even so much as touching the soul, no matter how enticing its light may be.
Something remains empty.
And yet…
"The least I can do is keep you some company, since I'm the one who sent you back here 'n all."
It's less cold, now.
Eternity gets easier.