[He says it on a rush of air so great it peaks the mic on his phone a little bit, as if he were holding his breath all the while to use it only for this. He probably was. And just the one word is full of teeth: he must be grinning. Not necessarily like a monster. Maybe just like a young man cradling his phone with both hands in delight. Maybe just like Link.
...Or maybe the monster. He says next, with cheer,] Phew! If you didn't call tonight I think I woulda lost it!
[Yoshiki doesn't dare to breathe again until he knows the apocalypse did not, in fact, come to pass. This was a dicey decision on his part from the first. Maybe it was a test. Maybe he just wanted to see...
...]
Yeah, sorry about that. The train was running kind of late, and then we got lost on the way to the hotel. Must've gotten turned around like ten times over. [Yeah, he does sound tired. Not all that different from usual, but this is a sort of weariness he doesn't want. He's already regretting it. Link should have fought harder to stop him from going. Monsters are supposed to be monstrous.] But, we're here now, so...
Wow. All sorts of things going wrong. [If another guy said it, it might be teasing. Another day, even, it might be teasing from Link. But right now, it's a little... It's fluttery, aerial, like an ember caught up off a fire on a draft--but yet alight. Like an ember, it does come from the fire and it carries fire with it. The kind that consumes.
A more human word might be "anxiety".]
...Weeell, not all sorts of things. You're there, after all. [He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of their bed, now drawing circles on the coverlet with an index finger. It's turquoise, because Link wanted something bright but Yoshiki didn't want orange.] ...You... [Plural. You plural, he says, this time. Yoshiki, and the people Yoshiki is with. But when Link says it, he doesn't just sound wistful and immature--he sounds a little like a monster. So he clears his throat quickly and sounds boyish again.] Anyway, I guess that all means you're tired, right? So then I should thank you for calling me even though you'd probably rather be in bed. Hey, thanks.
[Link did go out of his way to make sure they had the money for single-person accommodations. He worked extra shifts just to make sure of that. And he put up the money for a new jacket, and a new tripod... no need to worry about food, either... but the private room, that was the most important part. Obviously, Yoshiki is glad no one else gets to overhear anything he's saying here. Especially if he ends up saying something weird.
If he closes his eyes, maybe he can pretend he's still lying in a sea of turquoise.]
I'd rather be talking to you.
[He's not trying to be sweet, mind you. It's just the truth. He can't imagine what sort of nightmares are going to visit him now that he's thinking a little more clearly. If he can stay awake for the next ten days--ten fucking days--what is he, a total moron?--then that'd be for the best.
Quietly, as if he knows it's naughty:] Do you have to work tomorrow? We could just... stay up.
[I'd rather be talking to you. to you. to you. to you. t̶o̴ ̴y̵o̶u̴.̶ t̵͕͐õ̷̠ ̷̱́ŷ̶̨ơ̸̖u̷͙͆.̸͎̅ T̶̬͉͖̆O̷͓̖͚̠͒͑ ̷̮͇̠̿͋Y̶͖̫̙̻̒͜Ǒ̷̬͑̔̅Û̸̘̗͒̈́.̶̜̹̩͙̍͗̋̄̓ͅ
It feels good.
He laughs. He does work tomorrow. Not that it fucking matters.] We could just stay up! You're so right. Like a sleepover when you're not actually allowed. I never... [Got to do that with you. But he wants to say better things than that for Yoshiki.] ...realized it at first, that I could get something new outta this. [Another hehe. He thinks, I hate it, though. When he speaks again, his voice is a little muffled. He's holding Yoshiki's pillow now.] You do have to have fun though. You can't go all that way and have it be like the point is to suck. I think that'd be worst of all, like what a waste, right?
[It's a full, strangely glottal sound. There's a lot of saliva in it. Too much...]
Right. You worked your ass off for this. What was it, fucking... [He rubs at his face with the heel of his right hand--the bruises seem lighter than they were this morning, getting dressed. It's crazy.] It was a lot of money, right? I don't even want to think about how much. And the insurance... There's no way I'm letting that go to waste. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain buckets, but we're still going out to this field in the morning to take pictures of the fog. It should be nice. Lots of fun. Just wet.
[He only stops speaking when he thinks he's gotten past the worst of the black impulse. I want to go home. I want to go home early. As soon as possible. Buy me a train ticket and I'll come to you right away. That's not the point, though. It can't be a waste. It can't be a waste. He can't just wish for something like that. It can't be a waste, like that. Link worked so damn hard...
Oh, god, he hopes the way his teeth squeeze together isn't the least bit audible. Breathe, man.]
[A volley back, quicker and without all that wet weight: ] Oh! Not like...
[He did work a lot. It didn't really feel bad or anything. Mostly, he just kept thinking about how pleased with him Yoshiki would be...
When he realized he wouldn't be going along, it was the memory of Yoshiki's reaction to the hotel booking that made Link force himself to stop crying and tell Yoshiki to go ahead.]
...I didn't mean about money or whatever! I don't care about money except for Yoshiki shit and cool shit and delicious shit. [Oh, very responsibly,] And budget-and-living-expenses shit. 'Course.
[He flops onto the bed, face-up, holding Yoshiki's pillow to himself. His sound is somewhere between a sigh and a hum.]
No, I just meant... I don't want you to go and it's all bad... if it has to suck 'cause I miss you, I at least don't want it all to suck. 'Cause... [He doesn't know how to put it into words--and it's gotten easier to forego doing that when he can just press himself to Yoshiki and press Yoshiki into him and--
Ugh.]
It's important to you... That's all. But yeah, I definitely want a souvenir. [He sniffles, sheepish before he even asks--] You miss me too...?
[Honestly, Link has this uncanny ability to make Yoshiki feel better and worse at the exact same time. The money is little more than a scapegoat for--well, for the tears, really. The upset. What was the point of putting Link through all that anguish if he's just going to change his mind about it? Why did he make Link cry like that? How can he even stand himself when he's doing things like that? Selfish prick. For all the ways he's changed, and he's still changing, (and changing,) his being a selfish prick hasn't changed at all. If only Link could reach inside him and rearrange his shitty, shifty attitude...
This is definitely a lot easier when they don't have to speak.
It's also why he knows he can't hide the way he's feeling forever. Sooner or later--ten days at most--Link is going to look into his eyes and see all the ways in which Yoshiki was on the verge of begging to come home. And what is he going to say about that? Is he going to be pleased? Is he going to be pissed off? Yoshiki would be furious, probably...
His head hurts. His chest hurts, too. His arm hurts even more, cut off from the source.]
I...
[He groans in defeat, and maybe it's his head that hurts the worst, actually. Despite that, he feels himself starting to smile by degrees.]
Why else would I be asking you to pull an all-nighter...?! Come on, Link. Should be obvious.
Huh? Oh, yeah. Haha. [Should be obvious. True. Why else would Yoshiki ask that of him? Why else would Yoshiki say that I'd rather be talking to you? (Link shivers when he thinks of it. Feels good.) Obvious. Yoshiki misses him, and wants to spend time with him.
...When you know better, it's not instinct. It's selfishness. It's ego.]
... Wanna say it to me? ['Course not. But the way Link asks it, like his very voice is beating with the blood of a blush, like his mouth is full of saliva with no place to put it--Ah! Woah... It's just like petting my head. Yeah, he wants something.] Kinda like a souvenir on its own... if I got to hear you say that...
[Yoshiki sighs to himself. If he had to say everything Link wants him to say, they'd be on the phone for a hell of a lot longer than a single night. That's just how it is when you give him a single mouthful.
His slow but persistent pacing, back and forth, back and forth, comes to a stop in front of the hotel room's big and spacious windows. It's dark outside. The stars are showing themselves off, and it won't be until later when the storm clouds come to cover them up. Yoshiki stares at the stars, and then he stares at the dark spaces in between, all that unfathomable emptiness.
He has never felt more homesick than he does in this moment.]
Give me a sec.
[He puts down the phone.
It's annoying as hell to get those heavy, squeaky curtains pulled shut, cutting them off from the rest of the world. More than worth it, though. He doesn't want anything--not the stars, and not the absence of them--to eavesdrop on this call.
Next, Link gets to hear the shimmy and shuffle of Yoshiki sitting down on the bed.]
I'm back, [he says, as if he really went much of anywhere.] You still there? [More shuffling. He's pulling over his backpack and then searching through it, on the hunt for more energy bars. The distance didn't do anything to hinder his ridiculous appetite.]
[One sec is like the dark spaces between stars. It's far away. It's more than you think. But Link waits, and simmers, and waits, and bubbles up inside and outside of himself a bit, and waits, and recedes back into himself, and he properly waits one second for Yoshiki. It's all right, because now it's over.]
I'm here! [here! here! here! His voice is fuzzy through the phone. His voice is the dark space between stars. His voice is clearer than humans could ever hear. His voice is a marble right inside Yoshiki's ear.
...His voice is fuzzy through the phone. It's an eager voice.] I'm still here. [Link rolls onto his side and curls around Yoshiki's pillow, inhaling his shampoo's scent, his dead skin, his little particles.] Just, you know, chilling... I'm on your side of the bed. Definitely gonna drool on your pillow at some point...
[Really he wants to put the pillow into his mouth. Breathing in the scent, the cells, isn't enough. He curls inward a little more, squeezing the pillow against himself. He's starting to remember how empty he feels when Yoshiki isn't with him. Hungry...] Did you grab a snack? I bet you're hungry.
[Yoshiki tilts his head. He hears... something. It's almost too big to be audible, or maybe it's too small to be. Maybe it's the many stars outside, emitting wavelengths from millions of light-years away. Maybe it's the vibration of antimatter itself. Whatever it is, it's enough to put him on edge and over the edge--]
Oh, gross, dude.
[Drooling...?! Could be that's his punishment for running so far away.]
It's your job to do the laundry while I'm not around, you know. [He has to say it through clenched teeth, but not because he's enraged. He's just using them to help tear open the first of the energy bars. He adds, warily,] I showed you how to use the washing machine, but we can go back over it if you don't remember.
[The wrapper flutters away, out of sight, and he peers at his scrumptious-looking prize.]
Asahi Choco Protein Bar. Supposed to be, uh... filling. Hopefully. I'm about to starve.
[If they were still at home, Link would be springing up and going into the kitchen right about now, or ordering takeout for him, or pulling snacks out of nowhere. The energy bar is a poor substitute for even one of Link's weird little "experiments," but the taste is still incredible for being so sweet. Really, this whole photography workshop is a poor substitute for another evening at home. This bed is garbage for being empty and cold. This weak connection over the phone... Yoshiki bites down and chews ravenously, almost forgetting himself. He'll have to apologize later, that's all. When all is said and done.
At least he can offer this much for Link's peace of mind:]
I miss you so damn much.
[...He doesn't seem to notice the unnaturalness of his own voice. The indescribable longing.]
[From Yoshiki's first admonishment, Link is laughing. The laughter courses like the waning cycle of the moon: he starts out snickering, then giggling without an edge, then giggling softly until it's softened all the way down into these little peeps slipping out in his breath--and then just his breath. New moon. The light-absorbing desire which makes his breath so heavy thus smothers the last of his laughter.
Yoshiki misses him so. damn. m ]
Mmhuhh...
[...He has to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Yoshiki will be able to hear him sucking in some saliva. So damn much. Link's skin feels like the sound of crackling fat on a sizzling hunk of meat. His breathing, still, has all the wet anticipation of rainclouds.
He didn't actually know it would feel that good to hear. Didn't know it would slither into his own fibers. Didn't know it would rearrange something inside him until bundles of tender nerves slip along each other like tectonic plates, causing earthquakes in his chemical makeup and his cosmic one too, as if the overwhelming delight to hear Yoshiki's words has been made sensual manifest. Like, it feels good. Yoshiki's voice, Yoshiki's throat, the way the final word came from a place beyond--outside of, profoundly within--Yoshiki's throat... The quality of his voice was so like the quality of the monster's own voice that Link wonders if this is why guys like masturbation so much.
Link's breathing is a little shaky, and so is his hand when he tucks it against his own void of a belly. He's glad, then, that Yoshiki did get something to EAT. EAT. EAT. EAT.
--Link blinks his eyes rapidly. Was that him? Was that him, or Yoshiki? Like--he knows what the gnawing is. He knows that the feeling of emptiness without reprieve can be his sometimes. He knows what it is to be starving. But was that...his? And even if it's his, why can't he tell?
Because we're mixed. We're all mixed up in each other. Being far away does underscore how close they really are now. They share nervous systems. They share the breadth of the other side. Or--they're getting there. To a point where Yoshiki can still be himself, individually himself, while still never having to be apart. I'm here! said Link, in its way like a wish. Well, why couldn't he make it at least a little real?
At last he collects himself enough to speak.] I'm glad. Super glad. I'm super really fucking glad. [He's breathing like Yoshiki did something to him. Like Yoshiki touched him just now, be it mean or sweet.] I want... to try something cool. Yoshiki, can I?
[One bite, two, and a third. The energy bar's gone now, and the chasm in his stomach is no smaller. EAT. Hurriedly, Yoshiki tears open the next one, fumbling a bit, cursing himself under his breath. He knows this isn't the way hunger is supposed to work, but he could not care fucking less when he's all fever and famine. A car could be about to run his ass over and he'd still be shoving food into his mouth once he gets himself going. A freight train, even. The moon itself, crashing into the planet... EAT. These days, he finishes his meals faster than Link himself does. It's why he only picks and pokes at his food around anybody else, so they won't wonder what the hell's wrong with him. And there is something wrong with him. EAT.Polyphagia, it's called. That's the medical term for it. The everyday humdrum. And the symptoms--extreme, insatiable hunger. It can be a sign of diabetes, or hyperthroidism, or atypical depression. It can be a sign of a tumor, or a syndrome, or a metabolic disease. The doctor looked at his chart, looked back at him, looked back down at his chart, and then told him they'd do some blood work. They never found anything, of course. EAT. All he got for his trouble was a nurse quietly, clandestinely, sliding a little pamphlet over to him when he was checking out. He opened it up. Domestic abuse hotline. His vision went colorless. The bruises on his body felt like they were burning. EAT. But he thanked her, and then he went outside and tore up the pamphlet into tiny little pieces.
EAT.
Just as he's tearing apart the next wrapper. He has long since lost count of how many he's eaten. He might've had two dozen bars to start with, and at the current rate he's going, he'll be all out of them before the rain even gets to fall.]
--Huh?
[His mouth, stuffed full, makes it a lot harder to talk. He struggles to chew and swallow what's left. But he's reached a marker, a milestone, with a blessed modicum of awareness for him, thankfully, thank god. This superspiritual affliction isn't one he ever wants to dwell on, for as long as he's not forced to dwell on it.]
You... [He blinks a few times. The chocolatey grit is stuck between his teeth, sharper on his tongue.] I thought for sure you'd be asking me to say it again. You're never satisfied... [So why is Link satisfied now? Suspicious, right? "Something cool"? All of a sudden, Yoshiki notices how weirdly wet his own mouth is--his lips. He wipes at them and grimaces. The saliva, a streak, seems to glow in the hotel room's darkness. Ugh. God damn it.
He opts for a nibble this time. The worst of the hunger comes and goes like a wave.]
[He struggles to chew and swallow what's left. Yoshiki struggles to chew and swallow what's left. Link knows...what's it's like...the struggle...the hunger. It hurts. He braces his hand more firmly against his stomach. It hurts.
Link struggles to swallow what's left. He parts his lips...]
Don't fight, okay? [His voice is as soft as his blush--so only sort of soft, for the brilliance of it. And heated.] Let me do it, okay? Yoshiki...[Patiently. It's got to be done patiently. Yoshiki crouched with him and showed him how to properly beckon a cat. Slow and quiet and patient. Low to the ground. Yoshiki taught him how to better coax.] Yoshiki, hey... Come.
[Link thinks it will work well because they're so far apart. But also because they're so close. There's no way he could call something into him--like the monster in the forest--from such a distance, but there's also nothing that traverses that distance as does his connection to Yoshiki. This can't devolve into the monster swallowing Yoshiki whole--but Link thinks that they can get close.
So he murmurs, so much more sweetly than he has to any other recipient of his call,] Come. Come. Yoshiki, come on. Come. Yoshiki, come here. [And the words pour into Yoshiki's ear like a timelapse of nightfall.] Come. Come. [Yoshiki's body isn't crossing any distance at all. But he's still being pulled. By now he can surely feel it--he's being pulled toward an embrace.
The bruise in the shape of the monster's hand around Yoshiki's forearm, lighter today than it's been in years, now blossoms back like a prize perennial flower, filling back in as if Yoshiki's skin is linen and the bruise is a broadening seep of dark ink.]
Come.
[Link's hand lays right over the bruise, curling gently, from right behind Yoshiki.]
Come.
[Link loops his arms around Yoshiki's shoulders and noses at his neck.]
Come on.
[Link, with his head in Yoshiki's soft lap, turns to nuzzle his cheek against Yoshiki's thigh and belly.]
Come on, Yoshiki.
[Link takes Yoshiki's hands in his own as if to lead him elsewhere.]
Now.
[All of this happens at once. All of it is real. And Link is still in their bedroom in Tokyo.]
I can feel you... [This, now, is the voice of a young man, though it couldn't be uttered by anything but a monster. Only he could make this happen right now. The nerves in his body are screaming but he doesn't think it's pain. Just absolute awareness. He is concentrating--he is searching so hard for the parts of himself inside Yoshiki. He's pulling Yoshiki with all his might, almost, almost close enough to make purchase on those fragments.] Can you feel me?
Not a violent one. Not painful. It isn't hitting the back of his head too hard. Yoshiki's head is still in one piece, in one place, and he's still in one piece and one place, sitting on a bed in a hotel room in Hokkaido, on a ten-day retreat. Tomorrow, he's supposed to go out and take pictures of the fog even though it's going to rain buckets. They're scheduled to hear from experts on topics like timing, composition, capturing a mood. It's supposed to be nice. He's supposed to have fun. But the cracking...
It's a startling thing. It's like someone took an egg and smashed it on his head as part of a prank. It's a real mess, actually, with the yolk seeping into his hair and down the back of his neck. Most unusual of all, it's very cold, so very cold, even though there's no need to keep their eggs in a fridge. Hikaru is laughing his goddamn ass off. There are tears in Hikaru's eyes when Yoshiki whirls around on him, enraged, ready to tell him off. The yolk is so very cold and it's supposed to be the hottest middle of summer. Hikaru has these happy tears in his eyes-- At least someone is happy, Yoshiki thinks angrily. I hope he's real happy now.
Yoshiki hadn't thought about Hikaru in months at this point. (The monster would be happiest if he knew about that.)]
What the ffffu... fffff... oh, fu-ckkk...
[The egg yolk, though. It isn't egg yolk at all. It's cold, and slimy, clingy, and more so needy, and it should be awful by definition, but the sightsmelltastetouchsound of it is more alluring than newly opened designer shampoo. It's coating him from the inside on out, from the outside on in, filling his lungs, overflowing his heels. It drags him straight out of the color spectrum. Out of infrared, radio waves, X-rays, gamma. His vision doubles, then triples; he's getting a better idea of what it's like for dragonflies to have those compound eyes with thousands of facets.
If he believed nothing could faze him, he believed very wrong.]
L-Link━̸━!
[Yoshiki also can't feel the empty bed he's sitting on anymore, or if he's still in one piece. All he can feel is one instance of Link's hands, and another, and another, and another one of them, the endless repeating patterns of him, grabbing and pulling and prodding and rubbing him all over, invading every crevice. In the real world, Yoshiki must be in the full-body equivalent of rictus, a young man having a heart attack, except as far as he knows a heart attack has never felt so--]
Please.
[...has never felt so good.
That's bad, says the exorcist, a monolith of concern. No good.
How can it be bad when it feels so fucking good?
Young man, please stop this very moment.
How's he supposed to do that when being with Link is the only reason he wakes up in the morning?]
I f-f-f-feel... feel... I can, feel, you... ahh-ah-hhhh━̸━━̸━
[Thank god for private accommodations. Yoshiki is keening like his life depends on him singing a few bars. They've got a duet to complete. His own hands are churning, fused into clawed fists, claws biting into palms, palms biting into bedsheets, but he's holding on to Link, too, all the while, clutching at his face and his shoulders and both of his hips. This can't possibly be called pleasure, but it's the furthest thing from pain he has ever experienced.
Tears flood down his face in frostbitten blotches. He's wracked with every stage of grief for all the times he wasn't, isn't, and won't be allowed to feel this wonderfully again.]
Don't let me go, [he begs, disappearing into the event horizon.]
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[He says it on a rush of air so great it peaks the mic on his phone a little bit, as if he were holding his breath all the while to use it only for this. He probably was. And just the one word is full of teeth: he must be grinning. Not necessarily like a monster. Maybe just like a young man cradling his phone with both hands in delight. Maybe just like Link.
...Or maybe the monster. He says next, with cheer,] Phew! If you didn't call tonight I think I woulda lost it!
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...]
Yeah, sorry about that. The train was running kind of late, and then we got lost on the way to the hotel. Must've gotten turned around like ten times over. [Yeah, he does sound tired. Not all that different from usual, but this is a sort of weariness he doesn't want. He's already regretting it. Link should have fought harder to stop him from going. Monsters are supposed to be monstrous.] But, we're here now, so...
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A more human word might be "anxiety".]
...Weeell, not all sorts of things. You're there, after all. [He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of their bed, now drawing circles on the coverlet with an index finger. It's turquoise, because Link wanted something bright but Yoshiki didn't want orange.] ...You... [Plural. You plural, he says, this time. Yoshiki, and the people Yoshiki is with. But when Link says it, he doesn't just sound wistful and immature--he sounds a little like a monster. So he clears his throat quickly and sounds boyish again.] Anyway, I guess that all means you're tired, right? So then I should thank you for calling me even though you'd probably rather be in bed. Hey, thanks.
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If he closes his eyes, maybe he can pretend he's still lying in a sea of turquoise.]
I'd rather be talking to you.
[He's not trying to be sweet, mind you. It's just the truth. He can't imagine what sort of nightmares are going to visit him now that he's thinking a little more clearly. If he can stay awake for the next ten days--ten fucking days--what is he, a total moron?--then that'd be for the best.
Quietly, as if he knows it's naughty:] Do you have to work tomorrow? We could just... stay up.
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It feels good.
He laughs. He does work tomorrow. Not that it fucking matters.] We could just stay up! You're so right. Like a sleepover when you're not actually allowed. I never... [Got to do that with you. But he wants to say better things than that for Yoshiki.] ...realized it at first, that I could get something new outta this. [Another hehe. He thinks, I hate it, though. When he speaks again, his voice is a little muffled. He's holding Yoshiki's pillow now.] You do have to have fun though. You can't go all that way and have it be like the point is to suck. I think that'd be worst of all, like what a waste, right?
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[It's a full, strangely glottal sound. There's a lot of saliva in it. Too much...]
Right. You worked your ass off for this. What was it, fucking... [He rubs at his face with the heel of his right hand--the bruises seem lighter than they were this morning, getting dressed. It's crazy.] It was a lot of money, right? I don't even want to think about how much. And the insurance... There's no way I'm letting that go to waste. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain buckets, but we're still going out to this field in the morning to take pictures of the fog. It should be nice. Lots of fun. Just wet.
[He only stops speaking when he thinks he's gotten past the worst of the black impulse. I want to go home. I want to go home early. As soon as possible. Buy me a train ticket and I'll come to you right away. That's not the point, though. It can't be a waste. It can't be a waste. He can't just wish for something like that. It can't be a waste, like that. Link worked so damn hard...
Oh, god, he hopes the way his teeth squeeze together isn't the least bit audible. Breathe, man.]
Souvenirs, then. Want me to bring you any?
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[He did work a lot. It didn't really feel bad or anything. Mostly, he just kept thinking about how pleased with him Yoshiki would be...
When he realized he wouldn't be going along, it was the memory of Yoshiki's reaction to the hotel booking that made Link force himself to stop crying and tell Yoshiki to go ahead.]
...I didn't mean about money or whatever! I don't care about money except for Yoshiki shit and cool shit and delicious shit. [Oh, very responsibly,] And budget-and-living-expenses shit. 'Course.
[He flops onto the bed, face-up, holding Yoshiki's pillow to himself. His sound is somewhere between a sigh and a hum.]
No, I just meant... I don't want you to go and it's all bad... if it has to suck 'cause I miss you, I at least don't want it all to suck. 'Cause... [He doesn't know how to put it into words--and it's gotten easier to forego doing that when he can just press himself to Yoshiki and press Yoshiki into him and--
Ugh.]
It's important to you... That's all. But yeah, I definitely want a souvenir. [He sniffles, sheepish before he even asks--] You miss me too...?
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This is definitely a lot easier when they don't have to speak.
It's also why he knows he can't hide the way he's feeling forever. Sooner or later--ten days at most--Link is going to look into his eyes and see all the ways in which Yoshiki was on the verge of begging to come home. And what is he going to say about that? Is he going to be pleased? Is he going to be pissed off? Yoshiki would be furious, probably...
His head hurts. His chest hurts, too. His arm hurts even more, cut off from the source.]
I...
[He groans in defeat, and maybe it's his head that hurts the worst, actually. Despite that, he feels himself starting to smile by degrees.]
Why else would I be asking you to pull an all-nighter...?! Come on, Link. Should be obvious.
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...When you know better, it's not instinct. It's selfishness. It's ego.]
... Wanna say it to me? ['Course not. But the way Link asks it, like his very voice is beating with the blood of a blush, like his mouth is full of saliva with no place to put it--Ah! Woah... It's just like petting my head. Yeah, he wants something.] Kinda like a souvenir on its own... if I got to hear you say that...
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His slow but persistent pacing, back and forth, back and forth, comes to a stop in front of the hotel room's big and spacious windows. It's dark outside. The stars are showing themselves off, and it won't be until later when the storm clouds come to cover them up. Yoshiki stares at the stars, and then he stares at the dark spaces in between, all that unfathomable emptiness.
He has never felt more homesick than he does in this moment.]
Give me a sec.
[He puts down the phone.
It's annoying as hell to get those heavy, squeaky curtains pulled shut, cutting them off from the rest of the world. More than worth it, though. He doesn't want anything--not the stars, and not the absence of them--to eavesdrop on this call.
Next, Link gets to hear the shimmy and shuffle of Yoshiki sitting down on the bed.]
I'm back, [he says, as if he really went much of anywhere.] You still there? [More shuffling. He's pulling over his backpack and then searching through it, on the hunt for more energy bars. The distance didn't do anything to hinder his ridiculous appetite.]
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I'm here! [here! here! here! His voice is fuzzy through the phone. His voice is the dark space between stars. His voice is clearer than humans could ever hear. His voice is a marble right inside Yoshiki's ear.
...His voice is fuzzy through the phone. It's an eager voice.] I'm still here. [Link rolls onto his side and curls around Yoshiki's pillow, inhaling his shampoo's scent, his dead skin, his little particles.] Just, you know, chilling... I'm on your side of the bed. Definitely gonna drool on your pillow at some point...
[Really he wants to put the pillow into his mouth. Breathing in the scent, the cells, isn't enough. He curls inward a little more, squeezing the pillow against himself. He's starting to remember how empty he feels when Yoshiki isn't with him. Hungry...] Did you grab a snack? I bet you're hungry.
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Oh, gross, dude.
[Drooling...?! Could be that's his punishment for running so far away.]
It's your job to do the laundry while I'm not around, you know. [He has to say it through clenched teeth, but not because he's enraged. He's just using them to help tear open the first of the energy bars. He adds, warily,] I showed you how to use the washing machine, but we can go back over it if you don't remember.
[The wrapper flutters away, out of sight, and he peers at his scrumptious-looking prize.]
Asahi Choco Protein Bar. Supposed to be, uh... filling. Hopefully. I'm about to starve.
[If they were still at home, Link would be springing up and going into the kitchen right about now, or ordering takeout for him, or pulling snacks out of nowhere. The energy bar is a poor substitute for even one of Link's weird little "experiments," but the taste is still incredible for being so sweet. Really, this whole photography workshop is a poor substitute for another evening at home. This bed is garbage for being empty and cold. This weak connection over the phone... Yoshiki bites down and chews ravenously, almost forgetting himself. He'll have to apologize later, that's all. When all is said and done.
At least he can offer this much for Link's peace of mind:]
I miss you so damn much.
[...He doesn't seem to notice the unnaturalness of his own voice. The indescribable longing.]
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Yoshiki misses him so. damn. m ]
Mmhuhh...
[...He has to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Yoshiki will be able to hear him sucking in some saliva. So damn much. Link's skin feels like the sound of crackling fat on a sizzling hunk of meat. His breathing, still, has all the wet anticipation of rainclouds.
He didn't actually know it would feel that good to hear. Didn't know it would slither into his own fibers. Didn't know it would rearrange something inside him until bundles of tender nerves slip along each other like tectonic plates, causing earthquakes in his chemical makeup and his cosmic one too, as if the overwhelming delight to hear Yoshiki's words has been made sensual manifest. Like, it feels good. Yoshiki's voice, Yoshiki's throat, the way the final word came from a place beyond--outside of, profoundly within--Yoshiki's throat... The quality of his voice was so like the quality of the monster's own voice that Link wonders if this is why guys like masturbation so much.
Link's breathing is a little shaky, and so is his hand when he tucks it against his own void of a belly. He's glad, then, that Yoshiki did get something to EAT. EAT. EAT. EAT.
--Link blinks his eyes rapidly. Was that him? Was that him, or Yoshiki? Like--he knows what the gnawing is. He knows that the feeling of emptiness without reprieve can be his sometimes. He knows what it is to be starving. But was that...his? And even if it's his, why can't he tell?
Because we're mixed. We're all mixed up in each other. Being far away does underscore how close they really are now. They share nervous systems. They share the breadth of the other side. Or--they're getting there. To a point where Yoshiki can still be himself, individually himself, while still never having to be apart. I'm here! said Link, in its way like a wish. Well, why couldn't he make it at least a little real?
At last he collects himself enough to speak.] I'm glad. Super glad. I'm super really fucking glad. [He's breathing like Yoshiki did something to him. Like Yoshiki touched him just now, be it mean or sweet.] I want... to try something cool. Yoshiki, can I?
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EAT.
Just as he's tearing apart the next wrapper. He has long since lost count of how many he's eaten. He might've had two dozen bars to start with, and at the current rate he's going, he'll be all out of them before the rain even gets to fall.]
--Huh?
[His mouth, stuffed full, makes it a lot harder to talk. He struggles to chew and swallow what's left. But he's reached a marker, a milestone, with a blessed modicum of awareness for him, thankfully, thank god. This superspiritual affliction isn't one he ever wants to dwell on, for as long as he's not forced to dwell on it.]
You... [He blinks a few times. The chocolatey grit is stuck between his teeth, sharper on his tongue.] I thought for sure you'd be asking me to say it again. You're never satisfied... [So why is Link satisfied now? Suspicious, right? "Something cool"? All of a sudden, Yoshiki notices how weirdly wet his own mouth is--his lips. He wipes at them and grimaces. The saliva, a streak, seems to glow in the hotel room's darkness. Ugh. God damn it.
He opts for a nibble this time. The worst of the hunger comes and goes like a wave.]
Yeah, sure. What's the worst that could happen.
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Link struggles to swallow what's left. He parts his lips...]
Don't fight, okay? [His voice is as soft as his blush--so only sort of soft, for the brilliance of it. And heated.] Let me do it, okay? Yoshiki...[Patiently. It's got to be done patiently. Yoshiki crouched with him and showed him how to properly beckon a cat. Slow and quiet and patient. Low to the ground. Yoshiki taught him how to better coax.] Yoshiki, hey... Come.
[Link thinks it will work well because they're so far apart. But also because they're so close. There's no way he could call something into him--like the monster in the forest--from such a distance, but there's also nothing that traverses that distance as does his connection to Yoshiki. This can't devolve into the monster swallowing Yoshiki whole--but Link thinks that they can get close.
So he murmurs, so much more sweetly than he has to any other recipient of his call,] Come. Come. Yoshiki, come on. Come. Yoshiki, come here. [And the words pour into Yoshiki's ear like a timelapse of nightfall.] Come. Come. [Yoshiki's body isn't crossing any distance at all. But he's still being pulled. By now he can surely feel it--he's being pulled toward an embrace.
The bruise in the shape of the monster's hand around Yoshiki's forearm, lighter today than it's been in years, now blossoms back like a prize perennial flower, filling back in as if Yoshiki's skin is linen and the bruise is a broadening seep of dark ink.]
Come.
[Link's hand lays right over the bruise, curling gently, from right behind Yoshiki.]
Come.
[Link loops his arms around Yoshiki's shoulders and noses at his neck.]
Come on.
[Link, with his head in Yoshiki's soft lap, turns to nuzzle his cheek against Yoshiki's thigh and belly.]
Come on, Yoshiki.
[Link takes Yoshiki's hands in his own as if to lead him elsewhere.]
Now.
[All of this happens at once. All of it is real. And Link is still in their bedroom in Tokyo.]
I can feel you... [This, now, is the voice of a young man, though it couldn't be uttered by anything but a monster. Only he could make this happen right now. The nerves in his body are screaming but he doesn't think it's pain. Just absolute awareness. He is concentrating--he is searching so hard for the parts of himself inside Yoshiki. He's pulling Yoshiki with all his might, almost, almost close enough to make purchase on those fragments.] Can you feel me?
[No, Link hadn't been satisfied at all.]
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Not a violent one. Not painful. It isn't hitting the back of his head too hard. Yoshiki's head is still in one piece, in one place, and he's still in one piece and one place, sitting on a bed in a hotel room in Hokkaido, on a ten-day retreat. Tomorrow, he's supposed to go out and take pictures of the fog even though it's going to rain buckets. They're scheduled to hear from experts on topics like timing, composition, capturing a mood. It's supposed to be nice. He's supposed to have fun. But the cracking...
It's a startling thing. It's like someone took an egg and smashed it on his head as part of a prank. It's a real mess, actually, with the yolk seeping into his hair and down the back of his neck. Most unusual of all, it's very cold, so very cold, even though there's no need to keep their eggs in a fridge. Hikaru is laughing his goddamn ass off. There are tears in Hikaru's eyes when Yoshiki whirls around on him, enraged, ready to tell him off. The yolk is so very cold and it's supposed to be the hottest middle of summer. Hikaru has these happy tears in his eyes-- At least someone is happy, Yoshiki thinks angrily. I hope he's real happy now.
Yoshiki hadn't thought about Hikaru in months at this point. (The monster would be happiest if he knew about that.)]
What the ffffu... fffff... oh, fu-ckkk...
[The egg yolk, though. It isn't egg yolk at all. It's cold, and slimy, clingy, and more so needy, and it should be awful by definition, but the sightsmelltastetouchsound of it is more alluring than newly opened designer shampoo. It's coating him from the inside on out, from the outside on in, filling his lungs, overflowing his heels. It drags him straight out of the color spectrum. Out of infrared, radio waves, X-rays, gamma. His vision doubles, then triples; he's getting a better idea of what it's like for dragonflies to have those compound eyes with thousands of facets.
If he believed nothing could faze him, he believed very wrong.]
L-Link━̸━!
[Yoshiki also can't feel the empty bed he's sitting on anymore, or if he's still in one piece. All he can feel is one instance of Link's hands, and another, and another, and another one of them, the endless repeating patterns of him, grabbing and pulling and prodding and rubbing him all over, invading every crevice. In the real world, Yoshiki must be in the full-body equivalent of rictus, a young man having a heart attack, except as far as he knows a heart attack has never felt so--]
Please.
[...has never felt so good.
That's bad, says the exorcist, a monolith of concern. No good.
How can it be bad when it feels so fucking good?
Young man, please stop this very moment.
How's he supposed to do that when being with Link is the only reason he wakes up in the morning?]
I f-f-f-feel... feel... I can, feel, you... ahh-ah-hhhh━̸━━̸━
[Thank god for private accommodations. Yoshiki is keening like his life depends on him singing a few bars. They've got a duet to complete. His own hands are churning, fused into clawed fists, claws biting into palms, palms biting into bedsheets, but he's holding on to Link, too, all the while, clutching at his face and his shoulders and both of his hips. This can't possibly be called pleasure, but it's the furthest thing from pain he has ever experienced.
Tears flood down his face in frostbitten blotches. He's wracked with every stage of grief for all the times he wasn't, isn't, and won't be allowed to feel this wonderfully again.]
Don't let me go, [he begs, disappearing into the event horizon.]