holographicprojector

[holographicprojector]

is there a 'your-favorite-character-is-a-communist' account because

holy shit

he's a fucking commie

[holographicprojector]

THE DEAD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND

Chapter 5 is out!

in first person because kusuo is talking

the resurrection is definitely going well

PHYSICALITY AS A FORM OF TORTURE - 5249 words

The last sound I heard with my ear was quite loud.

For a fraction of a second, I felt an immense pain shoot through the cauterized nerves underneath Kuusuke's contraption, on both sides of my head. I didn't have time to deduce that my body had been shot dead; I was engulfed in an inescapable numbness, wherein I could only feel Shun's hands desperately clinging to what used to be the thing I controlled. He'd taken out the limiter as a memento, not knowing what it really did.

He tethered me to this hutch of flesh I had been coerced into inhabiting for seventeen years, unable to continue down the path toward nullification. I am forced to remain here, to exist as an ideal in his mind while I yearn for the void's gracious embrace. He is denying me of nonexistence, denying me the sole escape from eternal torment. He plays with me like a doll. He has delusions of what I would say to him that are accurate yet rose-tinted.

He yearns for me just as I yearn for the bottomless abyss. It was my time at last... and he snuffed out what little hope I had. He imagines me alive and moving, imagines me lying next to him in a boundless, breezy plain. An impossible dream, for I am too broken to afford him the proper affection he so tremendously deserves. Too avoidant to be truly intimate with him. Too isolated to spend the proper time with him. Too socially inept to get to know him without reading his mind. Yet, at every one of our engagements, he acts like the mother he never had.

He finds me funny although I lack good humor. He finds me to be kind even if I am just indifferent. He finds me a pleasure to talk to when I can't speak. He finds me handsome despite my uncontrollable urge to contort my tissue cage into something only a mother could love. That's just it, isn't it? He remarks about it, too. About being some singular place superior to my own mother.

He takes better care of me than her. He addresses my undesirable traits rather than ignoring them. He sees me for who I am rather than a physical representation of an idea. This ideal he has of me now... it wouldn't be too far in the future. I could see myself getting there with his help.

Hm. No. No, I'm practically dead. Corpses can't progress toward anything but decomposition. All I can do is introspection now. Think about could have been, what happened to me now that it's all over.

I must remind him of his own mother. Neglectful yet observant, watching. Every interaction he has with me, he treats it like solving a puzzle. Getting the right permutation in order to receive a prize, whatever that may be to him. Either learning more about me or getting some fondness out of my aching heart. It beats too fast already, and he makes it go quicker, to the point of me actually getting a heart attack.

I don't know what I feel around him, but I can tell it's good. It makes me want to use my face muscles to express myself, even though my emotions are rudimentary. Someone else did the same to me, a long time ago. A blond boy that nearly saw right through me. I guess Shun reminds me of him, and I reminded Shun of himself. He kept clinging to me though I pushed him away, held onto my leg as I ran. He wants to mend me for some inexplicable reason.

He cares about *me*. Not my body nor what I represent. I can see it, despite keeping me at arm's length for so long. Despite doing what Aren told him and hitting me, beginning to hate me. He never fell out of his infatuation with who I was, with who I could have been. Even when he was 'alone' with Aren, he had passing thoughts of me. Even when we were in bed together, he pushed down his intrusive thoughts of touching me or himself improperly... a courtesy I was unsure that anybody was capable of.

I don't deserve him.

I don't deserve to live a life with him in it, for that minimizes the suffering I must experience for my actions.

He has dreams of things that will never happen. He has nightmares of things that did happen.

He dreams of me lying next to him, dreads my untimely death.

He locks himself in his room for days on end, trapped in a never ending breakdown, replaying my death over and over in his mind, speculating about what could have been done to prevent it. His once comfortable cave has been stripped down to a bed, a computer, and sheets too thin to hang upon. They know he wouldn't break it because it's too expensive, has too many of his valuables on it. He sits there, playing the same obscure game we played together so long ago. I say 'together', but it was more like playing it next to each other at the same time due to it only accommodating one player. We did that a lot. He knew my capacity for human interaction to be limited, and he adjusted to it rather than forcing it upon me. He's fallen asleep at his desk, still thinking about the game, how we played it so similarly.

Isn't that a part of what love is? Thinking about someone, even in their absence. Maybe, or that's just a normal thing people are supposed to do. I shouldn't give him so much credit. I'm thinking of him the way he thinks of me. But I just haven't seen many like him, not in this backwards world full of simpleminded selfishness, made in the image of a god with a cruel sense of humor.

"Kusuo?"

Hm? He can see me. A sense of relief washes glosses over his expression, only lit by the screen in front of him. Can he tell that I'm not alive? He shouldn't be able to see me, not when I'm a mere spirit. Only mediums can do that. Maybe it has something to do with the feelings he has towards me. He falters eventually, doubting my reality. He repeats the question, softer this time. "Kusuo?"

I shouldn't say anything. It isn't good for him to be talking to something only he can see. I would think he should go to a mental hospital, but his room already looks like one. He looks at me with pleading eyes. Nope, that won't work on me. He supposes it to be some sort of sleep paralysis and attempts to close his eyes, but his mind seems to be his enemy, replaying its brutal visions of what he has witnessed happen to me. It's disturbing. Even I don't remember it in that much detail. I should go somewhere else. What's my brother doing?

A detainee reeducation center. Great. Good for him. I doubt he'd go to a voluntary one. He's still thinking about me, but it isn't his usual perverse thoughts of dominating me or me dominating him. Is that *regret*? He must be on something. He isn't touching himself, either, even though he's alone in a dark room. It's like a brand new person! I'd vote in whoever gave him the drugs that caused this.

His eyes snap to me, wide and distant, like an owl's. Ha... did I say that out loud or something? He just stares blankly. It's like he can't have thoughts of me that *aren't* sexual or weird.

"I'm normal now, dear brother."

Hm. I wouldn't say that.

He furrows his brow, shifting his position in the chair at his desk. "I feel normal, at least."

Normal as in not having sexual thoughts about your brother, about raping him? How exemplary of you.

"You and I both know that wasn't rape. I'm not a rapist."

...

"That definition requires me to force you to. I didn't force you to do anything. You were the one who could have stopped it at any time."

...

"And I was the one who actually worked to stop it once you told me you didn't like it. I ran away from you while you just continued existing. You didn't do anything. That's grounds for hatred."

...

Kuusuke sighs, bowing his head. "Right. We shouldn't argue about that anymore, not when it's so far in the past."

You talk about it like it was only once or twice.

"Oh, so you want to argue about it?"

No.

"Don't bring it up, then."

So, we can't talk about it without arguing? I thought, since you were on those drugs—

"I'm being forcibly feminized! Stop speaking of it as though it is a positive!" Kuusuke palms his forehead, snapping himself out of it. He needs to speak like the lady teaching them the forgiving ideology of the new state, banishing the old, draconian ways. Minimizing the odds of recidivism, the whole purpose of the prison complex in the first place. "It... probably is a positive. I want to be a good brother to you. Not like how I told you, but how you want me to be..."

You're lucky I don't actually remember those two years, what you said or did during them. I probably wouldn't be able to look at you otherwise.

Kuusuke gets a stronger sense of shame about him. He chokes out his next words, like his mouth is offended to speak them and his throat is offended to voice them. "I'm deeply, *deeply* sorry, Kusuo."

I can't do much but blink. He's never apologized before, for he had thought of himself too proudly to do so. Well, not proud. As if he is always in the right. He gets down on the concrete floor, like he's begging. Begging for... my forgiveness? No. My gut reaction is no. The sex stuff may have been eleven years ago, but the fact that he tortured me relentlessly is still fresh in my memory. It's what caused my death. It's what's causing Shun so much grief. 

I can still feel the insects crawling all over my skin, under my clothes, desecrating me with their excretions and dirt. My legs burning, trembling uncontrollably as the muscles themselves deteriorate, unable to sit nor stand. Fangs sinking into my calves, spitting their venom into me. A sharp pain that lasts for far too long as the bone in my bicep snaps and comes off under the blunt force of a door closing. Beating me until I can scarcely breathe. Injecting me with calming medication so that I remember all of this, so that I can't pass out as a form of defense, so that I feel *all* of it without adrenaline blocking it out.

I didn't like it. Not nearly as much as I would have before I got to know Shun, and he got to know me. He witnessed it all. He watched all of that happen to me through the daily recordings, none of which my brother is aware of. That hidden camera is giving Shun so many nightmares. Why is he making himself suffer like that, watching me suffer? Why is he hurt when I'm the one hurting? Is that... empathy? He has so much of it. So much of it is reserved for me...

Kuusuke glances upward, nervous in the prolonged silence. He gives me an awkward smile. Hm. I don't want to deal with that at the moment. I leave without saying farewell. I know he's my brother, but I'm still giving him the cold shoulder. I don't want him to think all is forgiven, just like that. He'll just forget that those things are bad and repeat them. I have to act like I'm thinking about it really hard, leave him out to dry for a good few months— or years— even though I'll forgive him anyway. I wonder if he knows that. I wonder if he means it this time. Whenever he says that sort of thing, he actually thinks he won't do it again, but he always ends up reoffending. It's hard to read him because of that. He has a strange lack of discipline when it comes to tormenting me. Probably because he enjoys *getting* disciplined.

I feel kind of bad for him. Maybe it's the artificial feelings he made for himself within me, but I don't want him to die or anything. He's still family. He did what he thought was right. Rather, what he thought would please me. No— *him* and me, with a priority on himself. In the Saiko mansion, he just thought I was the same boy he'd left nine years before. I can't blame him. I mean, the whole point of the separation was so that we could become strangers to one another. He was also coerced into doing so. He probably would've asked or something had we met under normal circumstances. Hm. No. He'd force a game upon me. Maybe the current one would ask.

It isn't like I was even aware of what a normal brother would act like. The constant omnipresence is too overwhelming to deduce anything about what the ideal life would be, not when the thoughts of someone in agony are always the loudest. I thought it was normal to be under constant suffering. I thought it would make me normal...

I just want to be a person. I don't want to be a sick, otherworldly perversion of human anatomy. I don't want to have so much blood trickling down my hands, following me wherever I go. My body used to be unrecognizable when seen in a mirror. Shriveled and lanky. Not much more different than it is now, decaying in a freezer somewhere. What does Shun *see* in it? Why is he trying to bring it back? Why did he make it look so normal? He made my rib cage invisible. He made it look as though there were actually organs in my abdomen, like there was stuff moving inside me. He made me feel alive.

He doesn't see me anymore. That's good. It would be weird if I felt alive while dead.

I won't be dead for much longer now. My body looks more lively than it did when I was piloting it. I guess I did a bad job. It's so much healthier despite not having a consciousness. It should stay that way. I don't want to participate in this narrative anymore, seemingly taking every wrong turn imaginable. The world itself marches toward the inevitable end, unable to escape the Sun's orbit, doomed to be swallowed. The invasive species prattling upon this globe will destroy it far before its time. The heat death of the universe won't be witnessed by any being. All civilizations shall fail in this manner. A death that feels just as endless as the expanse of space. 

It's all so joyless, so pointless, yet a part of me wants to rejoin it. Although the unstoppable force of the universe's birth drives everything apart, it also pulls everything together. Over such vast distances, stellar objects remain attached to one another in the form of an orbit. Every object exerts a gravitational pull upon its surroundings. I feel attached to Shun in that sense. I feel as though the pull he exerts upon me is far greater than that of anyone else, and that is a peculiar feeling, one that I am not as scared of anymore. He isn't as scared of it, either. He's experienced too much to be frightened by inscrutable things like that. His pure heart has been hardened by the atrocities he has borne witness to.

I don't need to admit my feelings to him. He's already deduced it. He knows so much about me now, things I wouldn't tell him and stuff he wouldn't ask for had I been alive. However, I've grown to not mind him picking me apart. He wouldn't blackmail me with all of that knowledge; he'll use it to fix me instead.

As my healing nears its completion, there is some strange emotion that makes me feel lighter. Excitement, I think. I'm excited to be alive again. I'm excited to be with Shun again, because I can't do that when I exist on a separate yet parallel plane, where gravity does not exist. I want to feel the Earth's tilted spin below my feet, causing the seasons to change. I want to see the sky change color throughout the day, smell the differences between morning and evening air. I want to taste the sweetness of sugar, feel the saccharine release of dopamine in a way I haven't grown used to. I want to feel Shun, and he feels the same about me. I want to be able to want things without feeling obligated to hurt myself over them.

Maybe, I can do it this time. Maybe, I'll be able to view my body as an extension of myself rather than a tool to be used, one that I don't have any attachment to. Maybe, I'll be able to remain present within it for longer than a few hours at a time.

I can see the world through my eyes. I can hear it through my ears. I can feel it though my skin, smell it through my nose, taste the sulfury air on my tongue.

It's excruciating, though. The organs within me aren't enough to sustain my mutated genealogy. An affirmation of my inhumanity. I ignore the renewed self-hatred that bubbles up at the thought, ignore the renewed pain that lends itself to my existence. It still feels good, though. I'd forgotten how good it feels to hurt.

A mask strapped to my mask— no, my *face*— supplies me with clean air. The strange sensation of my lungs expanding and contracting is overwhelming enough without my body seemingly eating itself from the inside out. My abdomen cramps horribly, but my muscles are too weak to curl into it. Huh. It hurts a lot more when you can't curl into it. And this splitting headache is making me think I got shot again. Multiple times. What a pain.

Shun breathes slowly, having sat at my bedside before laying his head on my leg and falling asleep. He slumbers in a position that is sure to give him some back pain in the morning. That is, unless he wakes up. Uh. How do I wake him up? I can't lift a finger. I feel pathetic. It's so quiet in my head, too. There is nothing but my thoughts in it. I can only hear the sound of my own voice, nobody else's pained shrieks, or pleads for mercy, or lustful groans.

...

Hello.

Helloooooo. Why do I sound like that.

I look down at Shun and wonder what he's dreaming about. I can't see it anymore. I don't have any glasses on. I can see objects for what they are, really observe Shun's thin, resting face as he breathes through his mouth. Kuusuke's pyramid-shaped Limiter Mark Three isn't in my head, either. Nor the Mark Two or One.

Ha. Wait a minute.

I'm powerless. I'm normal! 

Ouch. I think my liver is replacing itself. I'm not fully powerless, then. I suppose my body only kept the powers most important to its survival.

*Kusuo...*

Hm? A thought. Shun's. I focus on it.

*I missed you.*

Must be dreaming of me dying again. Wait, that's past tense. I'm there.

-

"I missed you." Shun brushes his hand across Kusuo's cheek, gentle, and he gives him a fond look. He shivers as Kusuo strokes the back of his pale blue hair with a smile. 

Kusuo is only somewhat obscured by the lucent lampshade behind him. Shun can still admire the details of his young face. It almost doesn't look like him with those well-fed cheeks and lack of eye bags. His body doesn't jitter under Shun's touch. It isn't dead or bleeding all over him. It's exactly how he envisioned it would look like. He'd known Kusuo to be handsome underneath his broken shell. He's subconsciously drawn in by it, until he finds himself hovering over him, hands on his shoulders pinning him to the firm mattress below.

Those purple eyes stare at him. They take in every part of Shun's body, darting from limb to limb, underdeveloped muscle to underdeveloped muscle. Shun freezes up under the careful attention, unsure of his decision to continue. It was instinct that drew him to mount the boy in the first place. He shouldn't follow through. 

But Kusuo grasps his forearms, guiding his hands to his throat instead. Shun lets out a breath as he feels Kusuo swallow underneath his thumbs. He doesn't want to put any pressure on it, but Kusuo pulls Shun's head to be level with his, forcing him to shift his weight to his neck in order to stay upright.

Kusuo's breathing rasps like gravel, but he flashes a smile at Shun, causing his heart to skip a beat. Is this... payback? His cheeks get hotter once he sees Kusuo's do the same, urging him to go on. As he lowers himself, he can feel Kusuo's labored breaths on his face. "Suffocate me."

"A-Are you sure?" Shun murmurs, recalling the night at the retort. How he shoved him away on pure instinct, threatened him with a knife after his advance. Kusuo narrows his eyes at him before grabbing him by his hair and forcing his mouth onto his.

The ceiling fan spins slowly, creaking as the connection bends ever so slightly at each turn. The motor exhibits a soft whine, lugging those blades around in a circle. It can't quite be heard over the breathing below, increasing in both volume and whispered vulgarity as the encounter nears its end. That slow spin becomes unable to mitigate the bedroom's increasing temperature.

The two sigh into one another, and the ceiling fan's quiet clicks can be heard once more.

Shun shudders, struggling to keep himself from collapsing onto the blushing boy beneath him. He isn't as strong as he thinks he is. He extracts his hand from the darkness under the covers, lifting it to his face. Ropes of white, gel-like fluid run between his outstretched fingers, gradually dribbling down his palm. Knowing that Kusuo had nowhere to ejaculate, he had caught it, but...

Shun's eyes widen as he notices Kusuo's hands held together above his head. Held together by a third, white-knuckled grip. His blood runs cold, reading the crumpled contents of a piece of paper meant for him, which he had ignored.

"STOP."

Kusuo sniffles. That isn't sweat on his cheeks. Shun rushes to get off of him, scurrying backwards. He's crying. He made him cry. He's just as bad as... as...

"You're like ... Kuusuke," Kusuo chokes out in between hoarse breaths. Shun shakes his head in disbelief. He just messed it all up, didn't he? He was doing so well. Shun's distant stare slinks down to Kusuo's abdomen, and he claps a hand over his mouth, gagging.

"You're all over me," Kusuo mutters softly. Shun clutches at his hair. He wants to tear his own spine out. He doesn't deserve to live if this is what he's done. This skin suit is repulsive, covered in the fluids of an unwilling party. Tear it off. Tear it off. Tear it off.

"Bravo." A drawl accompanied by a slow clap. "My cute little brother is just too irresistible, isn't he? It's so easy to take his teases too far. Do you still blame me after experiencing it? Do you still despise me? That means you must despise yourself, doesn't it?"

Shun gasps for air, but his bloodstream refuses to take in the oxygen. He trembles uncontrollably, curling into himself. Everything around him seems to fall away into nothing. Everything except the flesh prison he inhabits. He must be being confined to it. The atmosphere itself fades, consumed by a void. Tear it off...

Something shifts beneath his face. He's lying on something. Shun groans, sitting up. His back is sore. Why did he fall asleep on a stool?

Oh. Right. Kusuo's body is here, dormant. If it's dormant, then what shifted beneath him? That woke him up, and if it woke him up, then Shun didn't really violate him; it was a dream. Thank goodness. He rubs his eyes. A dream that'll be tough to shake. Why does his own mind do that to him...?

Shun leans closer to the cadaver. Kusuo's eyes lock onto him as he reaches his line of sight. What? That isn't supposed to happen. Shun moves from side to side, and Kusuo's gaze follows. It must be his imagination. He's known to be delusional at the moment. Still, he stands on his stool and flails around. Kusuo furrows a puzzled brow, and he gasps. "Kusuo!"

Shun jumps down, hurting his knees more than he would like to admit. "Kusuo!"

He doesn't trust himself to say or do much more. He sort of just stands there, bouncing with excitement. Kusuo lifts his arm from beneath the covers with great effort and lets it collapse onto the table with a wince. His fingers twitch. He wants him to hold his hand. Shun doesn't hesitate to do so, cupping it in between both of his hands and lifting it off of the hard table.

*Hello.*

"Ah!" Shun jumps out of his skin, nearly dropping him. He didn't expect him to use his telepathy. It didn't hurt this time, though. It just frightened him. "H-Hello."

*I'm transmitting to your auditory nerve instead of your frontal lobe. Sorry.*

"What do you mean, sorry? That's better." Ha, he could've done that the whole time?

*I didn't figure it out sooner. Everyone I talked to that way just put up with it.* Kusuo twitches his fingers again, gritting his teeth. *I can't move.*

"Oh, that's, uh, expected. You were dead for a long time, so your muscles have completely atrophied. We were expecting your heightened healing to replace them."

Kusuo looks off to the side with a somber expression. *I didn't expect to come back useless.*

"I'm sure you'll be back to your former self given some rest. And, uh, maybe some therapy. I should read up on that."

He raises an eyebrow. *Therapy?*

"Hm? How else do you plan to regenerate your motor skills? Your thalamus is severely damaged, and it seems like your brain won't heal it properly, judging by your aphasia." Shun sits back down on the stool, leaning his face on Kusuo's shoulder. It rises upward and downward as he breathes. It feels so good to hear him breathing... "We'll cross the bridge when we come to it."

Kusuo lets out a dejected sigh. *That'll take years.*

"Not necessarily. You're still a special person." Shun squeezes his hand. "I wouldn't be surprised if your neuroplasticity is also heightened. It's why I was able to teach you to speak in near complete sentences before it was, uh, interrupted."

*Right.* He gives Shun a small smile, one he can barely see through the oxygen mask, so he take it off. Something about the way he squints while the straps snap off of him is so cute. Ahem. He's attractive. Kusuo looks elsewhere.

"I don't think I can carry you home if you can't move *at all*." Shun holds his chin, thinking. "But I can't leave you here for the professor to find out that you're alive."

*Why don't you want your professor to find out— oh.* Kusuo blinks, receiving the images in Shun's forebrain. *They made him a professor? He's smart, I suppose. So you can't call a car or anything?*

"Only government vehicles have gas right now. They blew up a bunch of Russia's pipelines— it's a whole ordeal." Shun waves his hand dismissively, not wanting to think about the geopolitics of their existence. "I thought you were a spirit, how do you not know this?"

*I like being on the Moon.*

Shun crosses his arms. Of course, Kusuo was off gallivanting in space while the planet neared its end. Kusuo grabs at him, pulling him closer by his sleeve. "Clingy."

*The telepathy only works when I'm touching you. I thought you liked the sound of my voice.*

Shun gulps. The tables turned quite quickly. "B-Beside the point. I need to get you out of here."

*Maybe I can walk if I concentrate really hard.*

"Sure," Shun says, tone dripping with sarcasm. "Sit up, then."

A silence. Shun checks his watch; it's three. *Good grief. Funny thing about that.*

"Okay! I have a real morning workout, don't I?" Shun remarks, standing. He mentioned a 'home', but he doesn't quite have that, made obvious by the toothbrushes in the sink and futon tucked underneath a table. He wonders if Aren has cleared out of his apartment by now, since he isn't paying the rent.

-

"I'm home!" Shun calls into what is supposed to be *his* apartment, out of breath. He doesn't bother taking off his shoes before walking in, too busy keeping Kusuo upright. "Helloooooo!"

*I think it's empty.*

They're both drenched in sweat, panting loudly. Even if they found a spare skateboard (basically a wheelchair, Shun had said) to put Kusuo on, it was still a major pain to drag him across a solid fifteen blocks. Shun's body is practically melting. He collapses onto the wooden floor before he can reach the sofa, and Kusuo soon follows, knocking what little wind there was out of Shun's body.

*Ow.*

"Shut up," Shun mutters, breathless. He takes off his face mask. "You fell on *me*."

*A bag of bones doesn't do much to break a fall.*

"You're one to talk." He sighs, catching his breath. Everything feels sticky. All of his muscles are sore and aching to the point of liquid. Shun lets out a whine; he hasn't felt this much pain since the invasion of the Saiko Estate. Kusuo just stares at him as he writhes in discomfort. He must feel far worse, how's he completely still? He's not blinking. "Kusuo?"

*Hm?* He responds immediately. Shun stutters, not having expected him to be present.

"You feel good on top of me," he whispers.

Kusuo quirks a brow. *Is this about the dream you had?*

"The dream I..." he gasps, tired eyes widening. "You saw that?!"

*You were sleeping on my leg.* For some reason, Kusuo can still stomach to stare at him unblinkingly. *Why did you dream of 'raping' me? We could have just had sex.*

"I-It was more of a nightmare," Shun stammers, flustered. "I can't get what Kuusuke did out of my head."

*He raped me? I wouldn't call it that. I wouldn't call what you did to me in your dream that, either.*

"That's the problem, isn't it?" He lets out a sigh, looking elsewhere, face hot with an embarrassed flush. "You can't see yourself as a victim, so you think the term doesn't apply to you. I... *violated* you, then."

*Violated me? It's still my fault, though. I initiated. I egged it on.*

He's never winning this argument, Shun realizes. What's the point in it, anyway? For him to admit that he's been raped? What good will that do? He's got enough on his plate already. "Uh, Kusuo?"

*Hm?*

"I-I can't, uh, get up."

*Me, neither. We have a lot in common.*

-

CHAPTER INDEX

[holographicprojector]

THE DEAD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND

Chapter 4 is out!

i learned that shun needs glasses recently. and i felt like he would wear goofy flip up ones. so i drew them on him.

anyway, i made kuusuke even more awful you're welcome!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65546560/chapters/171936214

THE PRECIPICE OF THE BLURRED LINE - 7266 words

"That's disgusting."

Akechi shakes the insulated jar in Aiura's face, producing strange squelching sounds as the organs inside come into contact with one another and the walls of the container. "Really? What is so disgusting about it? These things are inside of you, too."

"I don't want to think about someone's else's organs outside of their body!" Aiura shoves the jars away from her as Akechi shakes them again. "Gross! Stop being gross!"

"If the mere sound of flesh pushing against one another makes her squeal like a pig, then she shouldn't stay for the surgery," Kuusuke remarks from his computer.

"Dude!" Aiura makes an offended noise. "Stop being a dick, Professor Saiki! It's not like I can control it."

He doesn't look away from his screens. "Sure you can. Shun isn't."

Shun spits his toothpaste out into one of the laboratory's many sinks. The chemical taste in his mouth is unpleasant, but he feels clean again. "That's only because I witnessed many, many instances of gore during the revolution. Mhm. And who said you could call me 'Shun'?"

"Since you call me by *my* name..." the professor trails off. "No matter! No matter. The preparations for the surgery are complete."

"Yeah, I'm gonna take my leave," Aiura mutters. "Come on, Akechi."

"I want to see the operation, though!"

"You've had enough operations."

-

"I think that this is a good time to tell you that the organic isn't my strong suit and that I have never done delicate surgery before. Thread."

Shun passes him a thread and needle, trembling despite his attempts to remain calm. What if it doesn't work? What if they make a mistake? The admission of inexperience only heightens the paranoid thoughts. "As you're sewing his new heart in? That's a good time?"

"Mhm. You've been giving him the immunosuppressants, correct?"

"Yes." The incessant chiming and whirring of machinery is beginning to grate on Shun's nerves. The cardiopulmonary bypass machine beeps loudly, and Shun adjusts a knob to shut it up.

"You should slow your breathing." The professor can probably hear his surgical mask crinkle every time he takes a frantic breath. "I can't have my assistant passing out. We're already a bit understaffed."

"Really? Two people aren't enough for a heart-lung transplant surgery?"

Kuusuke doesn't detect his sarcasm. "No. That's what I just said. Scalpel."

Shun lets out another breathy chuckle as he passes the tool, sweating and shaking profusely. Don't drop it. Don't drop it. You're the *assistant*! How are you the one panicking?!

"You're not calming down," the professor comments. "You might drop a sharp object. You should split your attention. You're clearly overthinking."

"What else is there to put my attention on?!" Shun hisses, annoyed.

"Let's have a conversation. I hear those are popular nowadays."

"I-Is that how you start a conversation, professor?"

"No. I need an inquiry." He pauses for a moment, thinking. "What is underneath those dirty bandages?"

"These?" Shun says darkly, raising his arms. He represses the urge to revert to his middle-schooler antics about them restraining a paranormal entity of some sort. The reality is much more pathetic. "Oh, y'know..."

"Injuries? On both arms, in the same areas. Self-inflicted." Kuusuke lets out a scoff. "Aspiring to be a more perfect being is admirable, but it is futile when my little brother and I exist."

Shun scrunches his nose. The response is off-putting. "I've never heard someone talk about it like that."

"Obviously. My brother and I are two of a kind. Nobody else understands it because their genetics prevent them from doing so. Apes aren't capable of that sort of complex thought. Right lung."

He can feel the uncanny texture of the organ underneath his gloved fingertips as he holds it in place. Shun doesn't shiver this time, lost in thought, staring at his own forearms while he reels them back in. How can this be considered a good thing? And how can he speak of that as if it is an objective truth? Hatred of the self... what is the point in it? It's a chronic disease that wracks his very soul, makes him stutter and shake like an outdated machine. A trait, at this point. An innate negative, a con. He drifted toward Kusuo because he was fascinated by the notion of someone who had it worse than him, yet here Kuusuke is, speaking of it like it made him a 'more perfect being'. A god.

"Your silence is telling me that you don't understand it, either. I'm not disappointed. You shouldn't try to. Thread."

Shun passes the tools back with gritted teeth. "You can't blame me for not understanding it when you're being so cryptic about it."

"Oh? Do you want to try?" He can hear the smile in his voice, even as he is hunched over the operating area. "Teaching a monkey this concept would be an achievement. Doubly so while performing surgery."

"No, I get it. It's punishment for making mistakes, punishment that wouldn't be dished out be anyone else. But that doesn't make you more perfect. Everyone has the capacity to recognize their mistakes and learn from them without harming themselves."

"That's laziness. Those mistakes get repeated until there are greater consequences. Your species doesn't possess a foresight apt enough to predict the outcomes of cutting certain corners. Scalpel."

"It's not lazy. It's just being healthy," Shun murmurs. The professor tilts the blade toward his hand as he takes it, and Shun flinches away before he can cut it. All he can respond with is a concerned look as Kuusuke glances up at him, at a loss for words.

"Sorry," he says quickly, monotone.

"Sadistic pervert," Shun mutters under his breath, still loud enough for the man in question to hear.

"Desperate fetishist," Kuusuke counters in the same tone. "Left lung."

Shun doesn't even register the unpleasant sensation of cold flesh grating against his nerves anymore. He *is* a bit obsessed, isn't he? So much so that he's collaborating with a psychopath to resurrect him. Even if this succeeds, Kusuo is going to hate him for being the professor's assistant like this. Living in his laboratory, leeching off of his income. He shouldn't be doing this. He should've just forgotten about him, like Kusuo wanted him to. Shun just hopes that his insult is burrowing into Kuusuke's mind in the same manner.

"Thread."

He shouldn't be complying. He shouldn't be doing this. Kusuo should stay dead. He wanted to die. It would be so cruel to bring him back, so selfish. Suffering is innate to his existence. He shouldn't be here. Why hasn't he moved on?!

"Done." Kuusuke sighs, straightening up. His back cracks. "That wasn't so hard."

"Mhm. You're a prodigy," Shun says in a disinterested tone, looking off into the darkness surrounding the spotlight.

"And you're a great assistant, Kaidou. I couldn't have done it without an extra pair of hands."

Stop feeling proud of yourself! What you just did was disgusting. "I didn't do that much."

"I thought you disliked self-flagellation." The professor pats his shoulder. "Give yourself some credit. I'll make lunch."

Shun tears his shoulder away from the man's grasp. "You say 'lunch' like it won't be instant noodles again."

"Ah, come on. Be grateful. I'm basically your father now."

"What?" Shun glares at him, fists clenched, and Kuusuke steps back, extracting two cups of noodles from the cabinet behind him.

"I kid, I kid. Touchy."

"You're the one that's 'touchy'!" Shun snaps.

"Uncalled for!" The professor shuts the microwave, glancing at Shun over his shoulder as he sets the time. "Why are you so convinced that I'm some sort of sexual deviant?!"

"I... I know what you did to him!"

"Right, and what does that have to do with your implications of incest? It was just a bit of torture to set him straight."

"I'm not talking about that."

"What are you talking about, then? Spit it out!"

"You... you..."

"Come on, then."

Shun wipes his face, steeling himself. "You raped him."

Kuusuke doesn't even pause. "I did no such thing. Who told you that?"

"Who do you think?"

"Kusuo wouldn't say that! That incident was never to be spoken of."

"So it *did* happen."

"No. Absolutely not. I just know that this incident could be mistaken for... that."

"How could it possibly be 'mistaken'?!"

"He told me to!"

The microwave beeps. Its turntable screeches to a halt. Its lights go off with a click, and its screen flashes the word "DONE." The rustle of fabric against fabric can be heard as the professor turns to the appliance. The door rattles as he opens it, and the soup inside of the paper cups swishes as Kuusuke's shuddering hands place them on the table. Shun walks up to take his before Kuusuke puts a spice packet in. He keeps his face hidden away from Shun's prying eyes as he waits for the noodles to soften, undoing his ponytail and not bothering to tuck his hair behind his ears. 

Shun eats his food with a suspicious look. "Really? Kusuo, the most asexual person on the planet told you to?"

Kuusuke slurps loudly, ignoring the question. He sputters. "Nearly ate a hair."

Something about that makes him irrationally angry. Really?! He's not even explaining it! Honestly, the sheer audacity for him to even lie about that is appalling! Why is he helping him?! Before he knows it, Shun has tipped the cup in Kuusuke's hands onto his shirt, spilling boiling hot soup all over him. He watches as the professor yelps, dropping his cup as he runs to a nearby freezer chest, heaving a large bag of ice out of it and collapsing onto the floor with it draped over his body. Shun stands over him, trying to look as menacing as possible while eating out of his own cup noodle. "Explain."

"It's a topic of debate between which one of us started it, so maybe we should leave this one alone? I mean, if me and Kusuo agree that the two options are both or neither, there's no point in blaming me!"

"Come on. It's obvious. You're the one who's into it, and he isn't."

"Who said he wasn't into it?" Kuusuke lets out a nervous chuckle at Shun's unamused look. "Okay. Maybe I took it a bit far. But that's in the past! I'm rehabilitated now! That's one of the core tenets of Kaidouist thought, is it not?"

Shun sighs, kneeling next to the professor as he takes another bite. "Be honest with me, would you? Not much recovery is happening if you can't acknowledge it."

"I've done plenty of acknowledgment. It's the main reason I left for London at such a young age. I needed to rid myself of him. Besides, I was more attracted to the fact that he is the only person better at things than I am. He turned into something pitiful after I left. He really let himself go."

Why is he making sense? He isn't supposed to do that. Shun swirls around the leftover noodles with his chopsticks, too full to eat them. "So, basically, you're saying 'not anymore'?"

"I don't think middle school was anyone's proudest moment." Kuusuke winces as he sits up, ten gallon ice bag slipping down. It has begun to melt by now, and his entire front is soaked with cold water. "I shouldn't have taken it out on him. That's for certain, but I don't see myself going any other direction with the way he treated me. It's such a strange feeling... it's not his fault, yet it isn't mine either."

Shun offers him his leftover noodles. "Is this about him beating you?"

The professor's eyes widen as he takes the paper cup. "How on Earth do you know about all of this?"

He shouldn't tell on Akechi. That's just asking for harassment. "Some guy, I dunno."

The blonde makes an offended scoff as he scarfs down the remaining soup. "It started off innocently enough. Board games and speed-eating competitions. In hindsight, I liked those times the best. However, the same conditions that allowed us to evolve into a new species also came with their downsides. Rapid maturity. I was too curious to find out everything there possibly was to know, too clever to fall for lies. Kusuo has had all of society's ills beamed directly into his head ever since he was born. We... didn't have much of a childhood. It didn't take a lot to see reality for what it is. A bleak, hopeless hellscape. A dog eat dog world that would never feasibly improve. Starvation, disease, violence, lust, greed, stupidity... all immutable traits of the human race. They were all repugnant animals that we had been trapped with."

-

"You're fraternizing with the likes of them?" Kuusuke looks up from the chess board, shoulders relaxing as he loses the game. Again. For the thirty-seventh time. He doesn't get angry anymore. In fact, there isn't any sensation summoned within him as he stares at his taken king. Except for a strange pang in his chest, which he ignores.

*This one's different,* Kusuo says. His usual cold monotone has a warmer part to it. It's unsettling. *Maybe it's because I pity him. He's pathetic. Bullied and defenseless. I don't know why, but I feel like I want to protect him. It's weird.*

"I see. He doesn't have any of the sinful traits people typically have. You see him as a diamond in the rough."

Kusuo nods as he resets the chess pieces.

Kuusuke sighs. "It may seem that way, but it's human nature to be manipulative. He'll betray you, one way or another. You can't get close to him. Remember what Mama told you?"

*Nobody must know about my powers.*

"Precisely. Lower your guard, and you may slip. You must always be alert, defenses up. Just because *he* is defenseless doesn't mean that he can't hurt you."

*Right.*

-

Kuusuke groans as he is shaken from deep sleep, flailing against the figure above him. "Go away! I need my beauty rest."

*I think he's going to find me out.*

"You're kidding, right?" Kuusuke rubs his eyes, leaning over to turn on his lamp. He narrows his eyes at the large, dark stain on his baby brother's shirt. "Whose blood is that?"

Kusuo walks further into the light, taking his arms from behind his back and outstretching them with a guilty look. Fresh, horizontal cuts in exact patterns up and down his baby brother's stubby forearms, still bleeding. Kusuo wipes them on his shirt, stopping them from dripping. *I heard someone doing this, and it made them feel a lot better about something stressing them out. So, I tried it.*

Kuusuke pulls him closer, frantically ripping as many tissues as possible from the box on his nightstand and wrapping them around his brother's arms. Why isn't he healing? "Okay. Bathroom. Follow me."

*We shouldn't.*

"Did you make a scene in there, too? We have to clean it up, then." He switches on the lights and, indeed, the porcelain sink has been stained vermilion, liquid dripping down the counter and onto the white tiled floor. Dammit, even the carpet has some. Kusuo steps forward, but Kuusuke pulls him back. "Wait, don't restore them yet. You need to stop spilling first."

He drags Kusuo to the sink and disposes of the tissues as he holds his brother's arms under the faucet. They're soaked. He probably bled through them. The sheer volume of blood loss actually puts a bit of fear in him, even though he knows that his little brother is pretty much immortal. Why isn't he healing?!

*I'm tired.*

Right! His psychic powers come from his mind, after all. If that is sluggish or damaged in some capacity, his abilities would certainly become diminished. It must be why he was able to penetrate the insurmountable barriers of his ironskin in the first place! "You need rest, baby brother."

He nods, eyelids drooping as he swaps a bar of soap for a roll of bandages. *I can't sleep.*

"Hmm." Kuusuke wraps them around his arms. How does one make another sleep? Drugs aren't feasible; the only sleeping pills are in their father's drawer. Hitting Kusuo over the head with a bat might actually hurt him in this state. Punching him probably would, too. Damn, can't do anything. Kuusuke sucks in a breath as his brother's head lulls onto his shoulder. 

"You're warm," Kuusuke comments. A breakthrough! Of course, this is what animals of all kinds do to comfort each other! "Come on, let's go back to my room. You're clever. I have faith that you'll handle it."

Kusuo gives him an affirmative grunt.

-

"SaiTech antiPSIchotics? Are you taking these?" The professor holds up a vibrant bottle of pills, having taken it from Shun's designated sink while washing his hands. Shun can't read the cheesy tagline from this distance, but it is summoned at any mention of the product: "Spirits of 'loved' ones? Begone!"

He wouldn't be surprised if Kuusuke came up with that himself; incapable of love or grief. At least, that's what he initially thought. These stories *must* be true, the way he's telling them, and he's telling it that way on purpose in order to win over his trust. He won't allow himself to fall for it.

Kuusuke shakes the bottle of pills, considering them. "You should stop taking them. Being able to commune with my brother's spirit should make this easier."

"What?!" Shun yells without thinking, offended at the mere prospect. He can't deal with those... those *hallucinations*! They aren't real! They only serve to torment him, visions of Kusuo standing there, observing him with a blank look. Is he disappointed? Is he proud? Does he care about him at all? Is that really him, lying next to him, watching him sleep? Is that really his spirit, or is it a placeholder that Shun has crafted in the depths of his subconscious? Those purple eyes seem to be mesmerized by him just sitting there. He's staring; what is he staring at? Me? Is there something on my face?

"You heard me." Kuusuke holds them over the garbage can.

"Ah! No!" Leverage, he needs leverage! He can't live agonizing over something real only to him. Shun scrambles through the medicine cabinet and extracts the professor's own medication. "I'll toss these, then!"

A suppressed chuckle. "I don't think you want me not taking those."

"Huh?" Shun reads the label. He only recognized the bottle because of its unique color. "Cyproterone acetate," otherwise known as CPA: an antiandrogen. The professor should definitely be taking those to deal with the brother thing. What now? "Uh. Don't throw those away, please! I need to take them! Unless you want me to lose my sanity, that is. Do you want an insane lab assistant?!"

"Don't be so dramatic, I'm sure he doesn't appear to you *that* often."

"H-he does!" The pills rattle together in Shun's trembling hands. "Every single night, every single day, multiple times, without fail!"

Kuusuke blinks, raising his eyebrows. "His love for you is far greater than it is for me, then."

The professor narrows his eyes before pouring the pills out of the vibrant bottle and into the putrid container. The capsules fall among the stale cup noodles and wet papers at the bottom, irretrievable.

-

The Third Incident. Nine.

The once lively plaza has been reduced to a statue garden. Even the fountain goes still as the joyful conversation and playing come to an abrupt end. What is left is an eerie scene, disturbing silence contrasting the sculptures' happy faces. Like several bands of celebrated heroes petrified and displayed as trophies. Medusa's lair. "Kusuo, it's coming from your eyes. Don't look at me. Close them."

Kusuo frantically covers his face, sweating bullets and shaking his head. The sun is hot against the back of his scalp. *What do I do?*

"Remain calm." Kuusuke drapes a hand over his brother's shoulder. "We can just teleport home. This'll be passed off as some random event by the will of God if we aren't on the scene."

*Okay.* Kusuo puts a hand on his shoulder, and Kuusuke's eyes widen as they meet his.

Nonexistence is difficult to describe. It doesn't exist. Reality is only perceived when there is motion. Everything— no— nothing here is stagnant, for there is a glaring lack of things. This mind of mine has been frozen solid, yet it isn't cold. That brief time in the void isn't remembered. It is a phantom memory that is created due to the circumstances surrounding it, for nonexistence cannot be perceived. Only the things surrounding it can. There is a glaring discontinuity between the plaza and the scene at home I suddenly begin to witness. Like not paying attention to the television and being jerked back to the ground at the sound of an advertisement. This was no advertisement, however.

Kuusuke collapses to the wooden floor of his home, unable to hold up his own weight. His entire body is tense and sore. And the yelling. The yelling burrows into his ears, an abrupt change of pace from the peaceful void. "When is he going to come back?! When are they going to come back?! You might as well have killed both him and that entire plaza of people! You don't learn! You never learn! You're making me speak the only language you actually understand!"

Their father drags Kusuo to his feet by his shirt collar, veins bursting in his temple. Kuusuke's mouth hangs open as he watches Kusuo... let him do that. 

"Damn it all! I didn't ask to have my child become some freak of nature. You shouldn't be the way you are, not if you're going to just be *useless*!" He shakes his son, attempting to get a response of any kind. "Do something. Anything, at this point!"

Kusuo's gaze lies somewhere far away, focusing on nothing as his body is forced forward and back. His father slaps him across the face, only for his head to lull to the side with a blank expression. The toy glasses clatter on the ground.

"Stop!" Kuusuke finally shouts. He pretends like it was a morbid curiosity that allowed the situation to play out. Definitely not because he was struck speechless by this sudden consciousness. His father's attention jerks away from the empty vessel in his hands and to Kuusuke, who is struggling to sit himself up.

"Kuusuke!" He says it with an innocent and overwhelming relief, dropping Kusuo in order to absolve himself of guilt. He hits the wooden floor with a loud thud, enough to make Kuusuke flinch. "Thank goodness! Thank goodness you're alive!"

Well, he cares enough about him that he'll beat Kusuo if he gets killed by him. That should be a plus, but it makes him feel weird. What is this? Empathy? Did he leave that switch on? Kuusuke evades his father's incoming hug to kneel at his brother's side. The empathy thing doesn't matter. Is he hurt? Where? Does he need help? Kusuo has been too off as of late to be treating him like that. Like he's some inanimate doll.

Kuusuke slides the toy glasses back onto his face, green lenses obscuring the tired lines and discolored blotches etched around his little brother's eyes. "Hey, Kusuo?"

"Lunch is ready!" His mother calls from the kitchen, utterly oblivious to the situation past the counter. His father starts, walking toward the kitchen and hesitating before continuing. Good. Get him out.

"Hey, Kusuo. Papa's gone. I'm back; you didn't kill me." Kuusuke says it in the softest voice he can muster. It sounds like he's faking his concern, no matter how hard he tries. Kusuo's eyes snap to him with a weary look. A war veteran at the ripe, old age of seven.

*Why are you talking to me like I'm a dog?* He says it with a tone of offense.

"A dog?" Kuusuke lets out a nervous chuckle. "I wouldn't dream of it! You're superior to me in every way."

*Yet I'm the one on the floor.*

"Only because you let him do that." Kuusuke inhales. "Why did you let him do that? You usually dodge, and he gives up."

*I felt like it.*

Confounding. "What tangible reason is there to let someone beat you?"

Kusuo glares at him. *You know the reason. It feels good.*

"Feels...?" Kuusuke shakes his head. "No. No, that isn't what I feel at all."

*You don't know what you feel. You've convinced yourself that you feel no emotion, but I can still hear the thoughts that you ignore.*

Another shake of the head. No, that doesn't sound right! Who would enjoy that? Some sort of masochist. That's perverted. Oh, but it's true, isn't it? There isn't any other explanation. That's what the strange sensation is...

Kusuo winces as he sits up, holding his abdomen, and Kuusuke helps him stabilize. "You're bruised and sore. I'll go get numbing cream, okay?"

He must've said something wrong. Kuusuke yelps as Kusuo backhands him, gritting his teeth. *Stop talking to me like that.*

The right side of his face stings as he touches it. Did he really just do that? There's the pang in his chest again.

*You like it, too.*

He needs a justification. "Well, it's a noble thing to hate yourself, isn't it? When greed and selfishness plague this finite planet with infinite wars, it seems that the opposite would solve these problems. If only everyone engaged in self-critique..." Yes, that must be it. That's the only reason one would actually *like* to be beaten. The lingering pain on his cheek must feel good because it *is* good for him. "That is what this society of apes lacks."

*You give it such a palatable interpretation.* Kusuo sighs as he curls up, hugging his knees. *I need to pay for the suffering I've caused.*

"The Second Incident?"

Kusuo nods. *I can't make excuses for myself just because I was four.*

"So, you're doing it for a noble reason as well."

*I'm not noble. I never will be.* He glances at Kuusuke. *I'm just trying to pay back that debt. It's the least I can do.*

-

"'The Second Incident'?" Shun asks.

"It wasn't *that* big of a deal, but that was his main subject of concern," Kuusuke explains, making dismissive hand motions, lit by the light of his monitors. "He wiped a small nation from existence when they found out that he had powers. They were going to try to capture him. It was completely justified; I don't know why he feels so guilty about it."

"I assume the citizenry had nothing to do with it."

"Perhaps. Governments do things on behalf of their people, don't they?"

"It's that mindset that fueled the nuclear strikes on Japan." Shun massages his forehead as he shuts off the bypass machine. Kuusuke doesn't respond, focusing on restarting Kusuo's heart. He should be able to stabilize now that his most important organs have been replaced.

"Thanks for leaving the cybernetics on, by the way," the professor comments. Shun scrunches his nose. Those unsightly contraptions welded to his chest and stomach begin to expand and contract, fueling the cadaver before him. The fresh blood now coursing through its system has turned its skin from dead, cold gray to a warmer color. Shun takes a breath as Kusuo takes his first in eighteen months. The ventilator whirs. He can hear the oxygen rushing through the endotracheal tube and into his lungs. 

Shun glances up at the heart monitor. Thirty beats per minute. Forty. Fifty. Kusuo's chest rises and falls, and his fingers twitch. Kuusuke lets out a long sigh from his computer. "He won't regain consciousness."

"Why?" Shun leans past Kuusuke, squinting at the computer screen. 

"Look in the center. Here." The professor points to the middle of the top view. The thalamus— crucial in maintaining consciousness— has a strange latticed structure; a sort of incomplete frame along the bullet's merciless path. "It hasn't finished healing."

"I assume having him be not on the brink of death would speed that up?"

The professor nods. "I can't imagine being on the brink for longer than two seconds, never mind two years."

-

Thirteen.

The sheer torment wracking his body causes him to lose his vision, his sense of smell, his very sense of self. A crumpled, bleeding shape is all he is. He wheezes, oxygen filtering through his crushed trachea, battered nose unable to give air passage. All he can do is twitch, vaguely aware of the figure standing above him, fists clenched.

A sudden, welcome relief allows him to revel in the recollection. It's doing things to him. He's feeling things that he isn't supposed to, things he doesn't feel with anybody else. 

There's something cathartic about being beaten like this. It's so rare for someone to exercise superiority over him simply because there are none superior to Saiki Kuusuke. There is but one exception, and it is pacing the dark bedroom. *Good grief. You didn't tell me to stop.*

"I didn't think you would go that far." The phantom pains cause his nerves to tingle. His muscles are sore despite the restoration. It must be some weird mental quirk with the ability. His memory is preserved, but his body isn't.

*I would apologize, but you enjoyed it.* Kusuo stays turned away from him, arms crossed. *I hate pleasing you.*

"You do it because you hate it." He can't hide the smirk in his voice. "I wonder... would you ever take it farther?"

*It's already there.* Kusuo mutters, biting his thumbnail. Kuusuke falters, not expecting him to take the tease seriously. *Change your pants. You're disgusting.*

"If it's already there, then..." he pushes himself to his feet and pins his younger brother to the cold wall with a gentle thud, pressing up against his posterior. This should elicit a greater reaction. Kusuo freezes, holding his breath as he tenses under Kuusuke's hands. "A little more should be insignificant. I shouldn't be the only one enjoying our time together. The feeling should be mutual, no?"

*Get off of me.*

"Force me off, then. Show me you don't want it." His brother doesn't do anything but quiver. Why isn't he pushing back? He hates this sort of thing. Kuusuke leans his chin against his brother's neck, breathing heavily, unable to contain his excitement. He murmurs as he tightens his grip around Kusuo's wrists. "You enjoy making yourself suffer. So, let me do you a favor. I want you to be happy, Kusuo."

His little brother glances back, lifting his face off of the wall and stepping back into him, causing Kuusuke's breath to hitch. *You're my brother.*

"Brothers take care of each other." Kuusuke's hands drift from his brother's arms to his abdomen. Kusuo shivers against the nails gliding across his scarred skin. His nerves are upset with these off-putting caresses, so unusually gentle for someone so emotionless.

*Something's off; this isn't right.*

"What makes it wrong?" Kuusuke asks with a sly grin. "We can't produce inbred offspring. That's what usually makes it wrong, isn't it? Besides, you want this, don't you? You told me you wanted bad things to happen to you. I love you too much to actually hurt you."

The mere act of manipulating his brother like this is pushing him near the edge. Kusuo trembles underneath the contradictions, unable to make a decision. He shakes his head, absolving himself of agency. *Just do what you want.*

'You', his soul or 'you', his body? His soul is telling him to pull away, telling him that this is too far and that he should continue this away from his brother. Even though he can still hear him. In fact, Kusuo's uncontrollable exposure to his perverse thoughts are probably why he isn't reacting more violently. This is normal to him. Curious. As interesting as it is, he shouldn't pursue this. He shouldn't hurt him like this... not when he's forcing himself to be so fragile. Whenever Kuusuke refuses to reciprocate, he just does it himself. In front of him. With a look of pure ecstasy when he makes himself too weak to lift his own arms. He wants to wrench the blade from Kusuo's hands, but who is he to get in the way of what he finds joy in? He never sees Kusuo that tranquil and happy. That is, unless he's eating sweets. The only two things that bring his brother pleasure, polar opposites of one another. He... he should get him some pastries instead of hurting him, even though that's what brings Kuusuke pleasure as well, with his sadistic tendencies.

His body shakes with excitement, however. The sudden secretion of hormones that comes at this age has put a lustful haze over his judgment. He wants to indulge in that ecstasy. His upper body feels numb in comparison to his lower. Kuusuke's sense of touch seems to be heightened as he runs his hands down his brother's chest, over the disturbing indents of his rib cage, down his abdomen, and behind his unbuckled belt.

-

The professor chews through the pencil's eraser, absentmindedly staring at the brightening intracranial diagram before him. Kusuo's brain is coming back to life, anoxia be damned. Shun glances at the man sitting beside him. He's making him feel kind of bad with that usual smug, uncaring look completely wiped from his face, replaced with a distant stare. It reminds him of Kusuo. 

It's evident that he shouldn't be a threat anymore. Not when he's struggling to get through the recounting of his recollections like this, not when he is willingly castrating himself in order to force the behavior to stop. Still... he's fucking disgusting. It doesn't matter how much of that rot he tries to strip off of himself; his very core is infested.

Shun snaps a finger in front of him, forcing him from his trance.

"Oh." He quickly regains his bearings on his surroundings. "I thought this would be easier."

"Me, too. I didn't know you were capable of shame."

"'Shame'. That's what this is. I'm ashamed just thinking about it." He holds his chin. "How peculiar."

-

A ceiling of smoke covers the burgeoning nation of the PRJ. It is produced by the firebombings, yes, but the main culprit lies in the Aichi prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, the fiery heart of Japan. A cloud of soot and ash billows from the tip of Mount Owari, raining onto the ruined land below. Specks of magma erupt from beneath the Earth's crust, lava flowing down into the nearby town of Oshimai. What is left of it, anyhow. The tourist destination has been reduced to a river of molten rock.

Even in the dead of winter, it is warm enough to wear a light jacket without getting chilly. Only the shrubbery remains green during the catastrophe. Animals become displaced by the sudden shift in environment, carcasses lying among the brown leaves. They become easy, cheap sources of meat for processing and distributing among the starving populace, for they are already cooked. The harvest this year will be an obvious failure. 

The crisis is exacerbated by foreign aggression by way of the Philippines. Vital equipment for monitoring and predicting the flow of lava has been targeted and destroyed. International aid has been lackluster due to a lack of American funding, a consequence of the country's intensifying isolationism and antagonism toward the both the Sinosphere and Eurosphere.

In spite of this, the Japanese people shall persevere. They didn't come this far just to be done in by a natural disaster, by mere chance. Their allies are strong. They shall last through the Era of Calamity, break free of their moneyed shackles, and revel in the impending glory of the Progressive Era! 

Without hope in these trying times, there is nothing. We shall not yield to our enemy, the thieving united states that have ruled the world for far too long! We are an honorable people, a strong people, and we shall force the Calamity to pass! Break the boundaries of time itself and craft a new order wherein the majority shall benefit instead of the few! This is our one lofty ideal, the goal this nation will chase until the universe itself collapses!

-

"Inspiring," Shun says behind his teeth as he turns off the newscast. It's just him and Kusuo in the laboratory. The professor's bright monitors have been shut off, along with the surgical spotlight. What is left is a desk lamp that Shun carries around, stolen from Kuusuke's desk. The television lies on the floor unceremoniously, a major tripping hazard. Shun tries to slide it back underneath one of the many tables in the empty classroom to no avail. His muscle mass remains inadequate. Even Kusuo seems to be doing better than him on that front.

Shun misses that feeling. Kusuo could have just as easily kept him at arm's length, but he didn't. He kept trying to get close to Shun, and Shun did the same. He went too far, though. He went too far, and they drifted apart. Shun into Aren's hands and Kusuo into his brother's. He needs to rectify that. This ever-present urge has only strengthened over time, time spent mulling it all over. Maybe it's good that Kusuo died, putting a temporary pause on their relationship. That doesn't matter. He's done enough thinking, had enough regrets. Kusuo needs to come back *now*.

That peaceful look he has now needs to become disturbed once more. It needs to have an overwhelming guilt and self-hatred behind its blank stare. It needs to become tired and weary with the physical realm it inhabits. It needs to live.

*That doesn't sound like something I want to come back to.*

Shun scrunches his eyes shut, pressing against the pressure building in his head. That's not his voice. It isn't real. It isn't real...

*Good grief. You want me to come back yet hate when I appear to you like this. Is physicality so important?*

Of course! It's considered psychotic otherwise! For something to truly be real, it has to be interpreted in a similar fashion across multiple people. The sky is blue because everyone agrees that it is. Is Kusuo speaking to him? Shun would think so, but nobody else would. Ergo, insanity. He needs those pills back.

*I can't interact with you when you're taking those.* He can hear the disembodied footsteps of Kusuo walking up to him. Shun can feel his presence, but he keeps his eyes closed. *You're making me feel like a ghost.*

You *are* a ghost!

*No. This is my spiritual form. I'm interacting with you. Besides, I'm not dead anymore. My body is in a coma because I refuse to return to it.*

So, it's that easy? Why isn't he coming back, then? Is there some sort of outside force preventing him from doing so?

*I just don't want to come back. You should join me instead.*

"Stop telling me to kill myself!" Shun says aloud, shaking his head. "I can't die. I can't die. My family wants me here."

*Your family hasn't so much as called you since you left. Your father didn't bring you a present for Christmas, never mind stayed for dinner.*

"That doesn't matter." Shun stares at the floor, hands falling to his side. "I-I don't know how to justify it. I just don't want to."

*Well, I can justify why I—* Kusuo cuts himself off. *No, sorry. I can see why you don't want to kill yourself. What if I influence your luck, and a piano falls on you out of the blue?*

"Kusuo!" Shun hisses, annoyed.

*A joke. I was trying to lighten the mood. Try looking at me.*

"Are you going to be serious?" Shun mutters, focusing on the tiles below him.

*These are life or death matters, after all.* He does so. Kusuo blinks down at him, and he flashes a small smile. It feels natural, not forced like his other ones. Shun steps closer on instinct, drawn in by his younger-looking face, tired blotches and protruding bone rendered invisible by this ethereal gleam. Kusuo waves at him, eliciting a scoff.

"You're so awkward." Shun glances downward at his distinct lack of detail from the neck down. It's just the vague silhouette of a human body.

*I'm the awkward one,* Kusuo remarks, monotone. His hands hover over Shun's, illuminating them. He doesn't feel anything, though. He should. They phase through his being, but his mind doesn't fill in the gaps. The lack of sensation puts him off. *Is this why you want me to come back? To feel me?*

"'Feeling' you has a weird connotation." He senses the blood rush to his face. It's not wrong. Kusuo raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. Shun shakes his head, forcing himself to focus on Kusuo's face and not his abstract lower body. "Please?"

Kusuo tilts his head. *You want to feel me?*

Does he know what that even means? "Yeah."

He gets a conflicted look, glaring at his own lifeless body lying on the lab table. *I hate the way my skin feels on me. Why do you like it?*

"You just feel nice." He can't put a reason into words. It was bone dry and rough, like he didn't take proper care of it, but it still made his heart skip a beat, made him warm inside. Shun wriggles inside of where Kusuo's hand is supposed to be. Kusuo's gaze snaps to it.

*I don't like my body nearly as much as you do.* Kusuo clenches his fist, observing Shun's fingers rise out of his knuckles. *I feel disgusting when I'm piloting that thing.*

"I don't think it's fair, the way you and others treat it." Shun runs a hand down the cadaver's stitched up chest. The contraption attached to it has been removed in favor of a much smaller, more professional replacement attached to the heart itself. He's speaking as though this vessel isn't his, as though Shun hasn't gone through for trouble of restoring it for that specific reason. Kusuo sucks in a breath, straightening up. "This is yours."

*Doesn't feel like it.* Kusuo runs a hand down his own face. *It's more like I've been given an award I don't deserve.*

"You don't deserve to live?" Shun furrows his brow, having approached the crux of the problem. 

He nods. *My life is better now that you're in it. I don't deserve that.*

"Do you think I deserve this?" After all that work he's put in, collaborating with that pervert of a professor? 

The spirit goes quiet.

Shun lets out a sigh. "Everything is shit right now, and I don't know if I can go on without someone close to me..." 

*That's my fault. I was supposed to stop Mount Owari from erupting, but I was too weak.* Kusuo bows his head. *I had one job.*

"Well... you don't have to worry about that, now." Shun crosses his arms, looking out at the ashfall brushing noiselessly against the window. Little, deadly shards of metal filtering into every crevice of machinery and infrastructure, puncturing his throat and lungs.

*I don't have to worry about anything. It's great.*

"I'm not joining you."

*Forget about me, then. Like I told you to.*

"I'm trying."

*Obviously not, look at this.* Kusuo gestures to the body on the table, chest rising and falling with all sorts of cables and tubes hooked up to it. *Why didn't you cremate me like a normal person would? Instead, you kept my dead body and played with it like a doll. And now look. You've just helped my brother replace everything inside of me with other people's parts, other people's blood. This body isn't mine. It hasn't been for a while.*

"It's... his?"

*My brother's? Sure. I don't want it.* Kusuo crosses his arms. *Maybe we should stay like this. Separate but together. That's what you wanted, anyway.*

"Not anymore." Shun picks at his bandages, slouching. He'd kept him at arm's length for so long, scared of intimacy with such an unstable individual. He led him on for... how many years? Four? The calendar says two, but it was definitely longer. Throughout their time together, it's been like when one wants to get closer, the other pulls away. "I'm sorry."

Kusuo shakes his head, stepping closer. *You already apologized. I should be the one saying sorry.* He pauses for a second. *Right. I'm doing the same thing you did.*

Shun wants to feel Kusuo's hand on his cheek, but he doesn't. It's the same temperature as the too-warm air surrounding him. "I miss you."

*I'm right here.* He lets out a dejected sigh. *No, I'm not. I can see your point. I want to feel you, too.*

Shun gives him a half-hearted chuckle. "Don't refer to it that way..."

*You're the one making it sound weird.* Kusuo glances at himself, lit by lamplight. *Good grief. This is going to be tough.*

"I'll help," Shun says into the empty laboratory. The presence is suddenly gone. 

He rubs his eyes. 

Was that...? 

Did he...?

He cards a hand through his hair, glancing at the body beside him. No difference. The monitors. The same.

He needs those pills.

Shun turns away, biting his nails. He fell for his mind's own tricks. It wasn't real. It was just as real as every other appearance. He fell for it. He fell for it...

He can feel the grief creeping back into his mind, like he's just lost him *again*. How many times has he lost him? How many times has he felt the same agony as that bleak day of supposed victory? It settles into his very bones. Shun bends over, cradling his cramping stomach. This visceral reaction is produced solely by himself... nothing really happened. He created the event with his subconscious, yet he's collapsed to the floor, shivering and gasping for air. He grasps at the cold tile, grating his nails against it to distract from the tears burning his eyes with volcanic residue. He lowers his forehead against it, tugging at his pale blue hair. He can still feel Kusuo's warmth on his face, dribbling down his neck. He can still feel that dead weight upon his body. The gunshots. Bullets entering and exiting not just his head but everyone else's. Kusuo's blood mixes with his victims' as it pools beneath him.

For some reason, that red tsunami holding a thousand lives isn't as memorable to him. He replays Kusuo's death far more often. His lifeless body drops on him hundreds of times over. And Shun's strange, conflicted feelings with Kusuo's tight grip around his neck, with their faces so close to each other, still aren't lost on him. Kusuo was about to kill him, yet he was deriving from it a slight bit of pleasure that he didn't notice at the time. Something about it was so intimate to him. Kusuo must have felt the same because he stopped crushing him with the intent to kill. He actually... touched him. He caressed his cheek so gently, with such a soft expression. He lowered his blood-drenched body onto Shun's after that admission of love.

One can only assume... that he loves him back. Why won't he come back, then? Is his reality simply too much to bear? Shun is struggling with the constant recollection of one death— how about a million? At his hands? And the constant battle of someone else's phantom touch all over one's body...

Shun would rather cease existence. But what if there was someone with an unconditional love for him waiting for him? Someone who makes it bearable?

The sheets rustle above him.

-

"I love you," Kuusuke coos, running a hand down Kusuo's naked spine. He shivers, staring off at nothing. His grip on the bedsheets is loose. He isn't present in his own body, lying splayed out and limp. What a shame... it feels so good around him.

Kuusuke sighs as he opens the top drawer of his nightstand, extracting a paper bag as he zips up his fly. "I've got a sesame ball. Filled with delicious, sweet red bean paste."

His brother's attention snaps to the bag, conscious once more. He grabs at it, but Kuusuke jerks it away. "Ah, ah! What do you say when we're done?"

*I love you, too.*

"With your mouth."

"I—" Kusuo makes a pained grunt, voice rasping awfully. His vocal cords are inflexible with disuse, and the area of his brain that fabricates spoken language has been punctured. He struggles to form the proper sounds. "Lo ... love ... y ... ou."

He coughs once he's done, curling up and away from the damp spot on the bedsheets. Technically, he's missing a word, but Kuusuke lets it slide. "You know what? You can have two, since you've been such a good brother."

*Thank you.* Kusuo takes a large bite out of one, savoring it with a look of pure joy. Kuusuke smirks. Most of the negative feelings toward him and these encounters are gone due to that uncontrollable expression. He doesn't give his brother an opportunity to really think about their relationship with each other, how it got here, or how filthy it would be to him. He isn't human, after all. Morality doesn't apply to him, but he still practices it. Both of them are a species above such primitive concepts. Their conscience is evolved. It just makes sense that his only other equal is right for him. Kusuo should think the same way. *Where did you put my clothes?*

Kuusuke seats himself by his brother's bedside and strokes his lower back. "Stay like this for a while."

*I don't want to.* Kusuo shifts uncomfortably. *It feels bad.*

"What's the big deal? I seen it all before. We share a bathroom." He chuckles to himself. "Besides, it's not like you have any dignity left to keep. You penetrated me so instinctually I'd have thought you were an animal."

*Don't remind me.*

"You've already forgotten?" Kuusuke tilts his head with a smug smile. "Don't act like you're better than me if you can't process our time together. If you have to pretend like you don't enjoy it. You're more of a tsundere than our dear grandfather."

Kusuo gets a sad look, even as he is chewing his sesame ball. That isn't good. *I don't enjoy it. I don't like the way it makes me feel.*

"Hm? I was under the impression that you did." Oh no.

*No.* Kusuo glares at the sesame ball. *No, someone helped me figure out that this isn't what I really want. That there's chemicals in me that trick me into thinking so. You knew that, didn't you?*

Kuusuke shakes his head. "I thought you knew! Why did you let me do this to you, then?! You could've stopped me at any time!"

*That's why I don't really hate you for it.* Kusuo lets his head hit the pillow, dejected. *It's my fault, in the end. I didn't say so. How can I expect you to know when I didn't say it?*

"I knew. I know how you think, Kusuo." Kuusuke turns around. He can't look at him anymore. "I know you like it when I give you a challenge, but I expected you to fight back, like you always do! So, I thought that you were attracted to it."

*Exactly. How can you know when I didn't?* He pauses, thinking. *It's both of us. We shouldn't be in the same home if this is the conclusion. I should leave.*

"No! No. You're the youngest, you should stay with Mama and Papa." Kuusuke tosses him his clothes. His emotions are all out of sorts. They keep bubbling up. He shouldn't be feeling anything, anything at all. It's clouding his judgment. He's supposed to be doing this because it's interesting, because it's educational. What was that about morality? "This is wrong. I can ascertain that much. I can also ascertain that I should be able to more easily vacate the country due to my intelligence. I don't have to hide it like you do."

He can hear Kusuo walk up behind him. *Thanks. I'll miss you.*

Kuusuke sighs, massaging his forehead. "You don't have to say that anymore. You should hate me."

*Fine. I hate you. And I hate myself for letting you play with me. Yet, my self-hatred is what let me be used.* Kusuo takes his hand, and he turns around. *Time apart should fix it. Then, we can go back to being brothers. Normal ones.*

Kuusuke nods, jittering against his will. "Yes. Right. Normal. The common denominator between us and the apes, at least. I'll leave for London once I get done with ninth grade."

He's never going to be normal. Neither of them will. His obsession with his little brother is too deeply ingrained within him at this point. It's a trait. A component to this negative feedback loop that they have created together, spiraling down, down, down...

They hate each other just as they hate themselves. It's been that way for so long that it's hard to imagine a world where genuinely do love each other. Perhaps, in the far, far future, when decades have passed, there will be some semblance of that parallel plane. It must be in some other timeline, some other reality that he doubts that they'll achieve. He doubts that he'll shake off this obsession just by being halfway across the globe. He'll need to cut off all contact. He needs to become a stranger to this boy in his arms.

Kusuo withdraws from the embrace. *That's the last one. Until then.*

"Until then," Kuusuke mutters.

[holographicprojector]

an idea

kusuo remarking “how did his parents let him get this bad” to makoto may be from personal experience...

Okay, so... the idea that Kurumi and Kuniharu are largely to blame for the problems of his two children, Kusuo and Kusuke, It got into my head and doesn't seem to want to leave. Yes, they're sweet, loving, and everything else you want, but they're missing the most important thing in their parenting: EDUCATING their children.

Because of course, their first child turned out to be a genius and their second a powerful psychic, so why bother trying, right?

They forgot that despite all their children's super-gifted abilities, THEY WERE STILL CHILDREN who needed to be guided and corrected, because no one is born knowing everything. Both Kusuke and Kusuo needed their parents to teach them the difference between right and wrong, what to do and what not to do, how to treat each other and how to behave around others. The basics. But they didn’t.

They let Kusuke treat Kusuo like shit. They did nothing when the two of them got into physical fights, even when Kusuke ended up hurt. They normalized the battles between Kusuke and Kusuo, even though they were clearly unhealthy. They never corrected the bad attitudes that mostly came from Kusuke towards other people, even towards his own father. Kurumi was more worried about Kusuo becoming selfish because of his powers than about his actual well-being. It's important to acknowledge that Kusuke wasn't the only one who sees Kusuo as a "monster", his parents also saw him that way, even if they never said it out loud or weren't aware of it themselves.

[holographicprojector]

tying each other's ties

he insisted that he would not screw it up

[holographicprojector]

saiki & akechi's video game competition

one game later...

the supposed taiyaki reward

a moment later...

happy fucking pride month queers

[holographicprojector]

THE DEAD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND

Chapter 3 is out!

they are not amused. flashback chapter! Canon divergence where they go through elementary and middle school together. No memory-wiping or time travel and lots of *trauma*

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65546560/chapters/170170282

PARACOSMS - 9779 words

Shun massages his neck as he opens the door to the laboratory, lit up only by Kuusuke's many screens and surgical spotlight. The thick clacks of the professor's linear keyboard switches fill the classroom. 

"Do you have them?" The flat voice asks, not bothering to turn and look at him. 

Shun stares at Kusuo's body lying beneath the spotlight. "I'm sorry."

Kuusuke lets out a long sigh as he gets up to change the large blood bags. "I found myself unable to do so as well."

There is a silence as the professor pulls out another gallon of O negative and hooks it on the IV pole. He feels the other bag of congealed blood extracted from the cadaver before discarding it. There are a multitude of holes drilled into Kusuo's arms and legs, allowing blood transfusion in and out of the bone marrow, leftovers from his time in the mansion. His brother eyes them guiltily as he inserts a needle into one. 

"I think my little brother's death has instilled into me a value that I didn't have before, that life is precious. I thought something was wrong with me when I was standing over an unconscious stranger and finding myself unable to open him up, but that is the right reaction to have, it turns out." Kuusuke glances at Shun. "That is a problem. I will have to unlearn that. There's no telling what I may do to you if that happens."

"Me? Why me, specifically?" Shun asks without thinking. 

Kuusuke turns to stare at him. "You're the one that Kusuo cares about most. Since I have you living here, that's good leverage to exploit his primary weakness to get something I may want from him."

"And what might you want from him?"

He goes silent for a moment, averting his gaze, then murmurs. "I don't know anymore. I just want him to love me."

Shun keeps his expression free of judgment. "In a Mugami way or a family way?"

Kuusuke lets out an amused scoff before going serious again. "Familial. I... I already... I already tried—" the professor's head shoots up as he cuts himself off, and he points at Shun. "That demeanor you have isn't uncontrollable, is it?"

Shun furrows a brow, confused. "What?"

His eyes widen with excitement. "That's how you got my little brother to like you so much! The way you feign innocence— it's impossible to say no to you!"

"Hm? Do you think I'm trying to manipulate you?" Shun crosses his bandaged arms, but his face remains neutral. "It's reasonable to think so."

"Of course it's reasonable if I'm thinking it," Kuusuke mumbles.

"I don't just want to help you, I want to get to know you better. It's not like I'm doing so maliciously, and it's not like I'm *not* innocent when nobody's looking. I couldn't get the organs, and neither could you."

"You're purposefully speaking in a way I fully understand."

"Some call it an *explanation*."

Kuusuke makes a strange noise, caught off guard. "You're snarking me how I'd usually snark people!"

"And I think you can't fathom someone wanting to be your friend, so you're trying to rationalize it away."

"You are not a psychiatrist!"

"Maybe not, but I know how you people think!" Shun drifts closer as the conversation goes on.

Kuusuke takes a step back. "What do you mean by 'you people'?"

"You Saikis think similarly. You do a bunch of shitty things and then you lean into being wholly unlikable in order to isolate yourselves and be miserable forever because you think you deserve it. Eventually, you come across someone who sees through it and your brain breaks."

"I'm trying not to..." Kuusuke trails off, shrinking away.

See? Broken. Shun gives him a nervous smile in spite of his cool tone. "And that's admirable. It takes more than just over a year in some cobbled together rehab program to unlearn that. You're putting in the extra work."

"You're dangerous." The man straightens himself up and fails to plaster his usual smirk on his face. "You very nearly made me disclose a secret I'd take to my grave."

"It's a shame I didn't hear it." Shun runs a hand through his hair, backing off. He can infer it easily, anyhow. He doesn't want to hear more. "How's the extraction going?"

"There's a part I've saved for last." Kuusuke hesitates. "I thought you should be the one to do it."

"Why?"

"Stop it with the 'why's and 'what's and 'how's!" The professor catches himself yelling and pinches his nose bridge, composing himself. "Since you're his significant other—"

Shun scoffs. "What are we, married?"

The man glares at him. "Your organs are looking more and more enticing."

"Excuse me, sir," Shun murmurs, straightening up and giving him a short bow. As much as being implanted into Kusuo seems cool, his insides should remain his. 

Kuusuke hands him an IV needle. "Since he was left face down, rigor mortis has likely collected in his... crotch area."

Shun glances at the area in question, hidden by a loose hospital gown, and swallows. "Right. And why can't you do this? I feel like family would be more appropriate."

"Stop questioning me," Kuusuke says quickly. "You do it. It shouldn't be a problem for you; you're  *into* him, right? That means that this should be normal, to my knowledge."

"Not when he's dead. That's, uh, weird." Shun narrows his eyes, coming to a realization. "Do you think we've had sex?"

Kuusuke looks just as confused as he is. "Isn't that the point of a homosexual relationship?"

"No!" Shun exclaims, offended. "Okay, you do it."

The man takes several steps back. "Absolutely not!"

"I don't want him to live with the fact that I've seen it without him consciously showing it to me!"

Kuusuke shakes his head vigorously. "Absolutely not! I have my reasons!"

"What, is it your 'secret'?"

"Don't be so careless," Kuusuke says behind gritted teeth. "Must you be reminded of what I can do?"

Shun gulps. "I'll do it, I'll do it."

Kuusuke walks back up to the bedside as Shun lifts the gown, exposing the area to the spotlight, and Shun immediately feels his cheeks go red. He doesn't know what he expected, with those aforementioned grade school rumors, but it's unremarkable. Just average; clotted blood staining it an unnaturally deep red, a stark contrast to the pale gray of his bloodless skin. But he imagines him alive and breathing for a brief moment, and Shun knows he has to look away. He glances up at the professor, and they make eye contact, both of their blushes deepening with embarrassment.

"Get your mind out of the gutter!" they yell in unison, pointing at each other.

-

Shun is hastier than usual to get out of the laboratory, flustered from his singular task. That's enough for him today.

"Greetings, Saiki Kusuo's friend."

Shun startles at the strange voice suddenly addressing him and recognizes it as Akechi's. He swivels, meeting the blonde boy's unblinking gaze. "H-hello?"

"What were you doing in there? The students said that the lab was out of commission. Are you using it for something? What are you using it for? Are you hiding something important? An experiment? Are you conducting experimentation on living specimens with the help of the biology professor? I know that he's Kusuo's brother, by the way. I've met him before. He was very peculiar."

"How do you—" Useless question. They were friends in grade school, of course they've seen each other's homes and the people in them. "Me and the professor just have a private tutoring session in there every day."

Akechi leans closer to him, and Shun leans away. "You seem flustered. Are you telling the truth? There are many reasons for one to be flustered. Was the professor coming onto you? You report that, if so. Those are very serious allegations. People in positions of authority should maintain professionalism at all times with their subordinates. It can get complicated very quickly, I know that."

"Gross!" Shun physically recoils at the very thought, walking backward, away from the letter soup spewing all over him. It's overwhelming. He can't keep up and respond accordingly. "I-I'm not lying!"

"Your delivery sounds suspicious to me. Is it wrong for me to conclude that you are in fact doing illegal experiments in there with the biology professor? Possibly government-affiliated?"

"Yes! Yes, absolutely! Nothing goes on in there!"

"But you just told me you do private tutoring lessons in there with the professor. Just how much are you fibbing? I demand to see what is in there at once. I heard you referring to the specimen as the professor's brother. Am I correct in deducing that it is Kusuo?"

"Nope! Super wrong!" Shun lets out a nervous chuckle. "Try again, buddy!"

"Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall," Akechi remarks. "Why would the professor keep you around? He detests monkeys and those just as intelligent as them."

"It's hard not to get defensive when you've just walked up to me like this! How did you even get in here?" He has to slow this down to single sentences or something.

"Somebody let me in." Akechi backs away. "I see. I am being overbearing. Allow me to change directions. Ahem. I am sorry. I assumed that you would have as many questions for me as I have for you regarding Kusuo. We were both his closest friends at different stages of his life."

Shun nods along. "Right. He doesn't like to talk about his childhood, so it would make sense for you to think that."

That's right. Speak his language. Akechi smiles at the detailed summary. "You understand me. People would have usually left by now."

Leaving is an option? Shun leans against the wall, showing his willingness to stay and listen, and he watches as Akechi interprets the gesture's meaning. The boy is positively glowing at the prospect.

"Since we have established an understanding of each other, I would like you to be honest with me. Is Kusuo in that laboratory? If so, I would very much like to help."

"Can you get fresh organs?" Shun asks offhandedly. He can pass it off as a joke if need be.

"To save Kusuo? Definitely." Akechi averts his wide eyes, planning it out. "I would need to do it to a stranger while they are sleeping. I would need something to knock them out, a scalpel, an insulated container, and metal clips. I do not need anything else because I do not particularly care about the stranger's life over Kusuo's. He may bleed out and die."

"I don't need the details." Shun says it too late, and he crosses his arms, looking away. "Okay. Yeah, we're trying to resurrect him."

"How can you do that if he's been dead for so long? Was I correct in my speculation about him having psionic abilities? That would be most exciting."

"I mean, how else could you explain the brain act... ivity." Shun trails off only to find himself in the middle of another admission. Damn. This boy is running circles around him. Akechi beams with the excitement he mentioned earlier, and Shun scoffs. "T-this is unfair! You slip up and say something you don't mean to."

"I say everything that I am thinking, therefore I do not 'mean' to say anything." Akechi leans against the red wall next to him. "However, I do have things that I have kept to myself due to virtue of them never being brought up again. I do not even think about them. I think it is a defense mechanism."

How can an open book be so enigmatic? "How did you know that Kusuo had powers?"

Akechi gasps. "A question! I will answer thoroughly! You see, I was bullied when I was very young, about six, for obvious reasons. I'm sure you can infer them, for I speculate that you were bullied as well. You give off that energy."

Shun furrows a brow but does not say anything.

"I was— no, I shouldn't start there. My suspicions first started when I found myself suddenly healed from a beating I was taking from a couple of my peers. I thought that Kusuo did it because he dropped his name tag next to me. After that, that same peer spun around on the horizontal bar so fast that he burned his crotch. Even at that age, I knew of the laws of physics preventing that from happening, so I attributed it to Kusuo, since I had already suspected him as a magic user. I found myself trying to befriend him."

-

Second grade.

"Hey, Kusuo, did you do the homework? I didn't know what to make." Touma leans on Kusuo's desk, smiling down at the pink-haired boy. He gives him an uncaring look, and Touma takes a step back. "Don't make that face, you're making me feel bad. What's that trash you have in your hand?"

Kusuo glances at him, then his creation with a mean look, and Touma scrambles to fix it. "Oh! It's a robot! It's really good. It's— sorry."

A fond smile. Touma's gaze rests on it for a second before he extracts his own creation from his bag. "I just made a—"

The makeshift house is slapped out of his hands and crushed in one swift motion. Touma kneels to pick it up, only to be punched in the back of his shoulder by a spiky-haired boy, Takashi. "That's what happens, pant pisser."

His entire bicep aches with the blow, and he winces he stands, home resting limply at his side, reminescient of a crushed can. His attention slowly fades back to Kusuo, who is staring blankly in the other direction. Why hasn't he done anything back to them, like last time? Does he even notice anymore? Has it... really become that frequent that even his best friend has grown bored of it? Touma shuffles back to Kusuo's desk with a handful of popsicle sticks and glue. "Do you want to help me fix it, Kusuo?"

The boy seems to snap back to reality upon Touma asking him the question. He tries to make it subtle whenever he does this, but it is difficult to ease the mind from nothing to everything. These trances are common, coming into effect whenever he's bored or uncomfortable. Touma doesn't loathe him for it or anything. It probably isn't within his abilities to control that. 

Kusuo even ends up adding some nice extra details to the simple structure. A door and a window with shutters. Some fence posts. It turns out looking better than before a devastating natural disaster came its way. Touma cracks a grin at him as he turns in the project, and Kusuo contorts his typically neutral face into a smile for him. It doesn't even matter whether he has a secret or not, at this point. He's a good friend.

"Watch where you're going." Takashi sneers as he bumps into Touma's shoulder in the hallway, causing him to drop the basket of glass beakers he was carrying for the teacher. The shards shoot out in one direction in particular, at the pink-haired boy in front of him, helping with the errand. Touma watches in horror as they pierce Kusuo's legs, causing him to stumble, but he catches himself. Thank goodness.

The relief doesn't last long. As the blood begins to drip down Kusuo's legs and seep into his socks, Touma sees red. 

"Violence must be met with violence!" He yells as he throws his entire body with the right hook he sends to Takashi's smug face. For a moment, his hand is hurt more than Takashi appears to be by the punch, but it ends up sending him flying backwards with a force Touma didn't know he was capable of producing. Fire Crotch stumbles for a good thirty meters, looking for balance, before finally falling flat on his dumb face. Touma beams, turning back toward Kusuo, who seems unfazed by the shards embedded in his legs.

"I did it! I beat Fire Crotch!" Touma exclaims, still grinning from ear to ear. His smile seems to be contagious, because Kusuo gives him that fond look again, filling Touma with an inexplicable happiness, greater than any other he has ever felt. He doesn't know what to do with this catharsis other than hug the boy that made it possible.

Kusuo makes a surprised grunt, tensing up before stiffly wrapping his arms around Touma.

-

Third grade.

"Hm? Kusuo, how did you get hurt like that?" Touma finds him hiding behind a bush during recess. He's grown more distant as of late, to the point of actually avoiding him. Kusuo shrinks into the leaves behind him, hugging his knees. His forearms are covered in sloppily applied bandaids. Touma's immediate instinct is to lean closer, but he does the opposite, taking a step back. Kusuo likes his personal space, he's noticed. The pink-haired boy's stare follows him as he sits down on the grass, a good meter away. "I like your new glasses. They look cool."

Kusuo averts his eyes beneath those verdant lenses, hiding his face behind his knees. Touma shifts closer. "Did you clean them before putting the bandaids on them? They can get infected, and that would be really bad if that happened to you. You'd get hurt badly."

He's got the eye bags of an overworked salaryman. He can only somewhat see the discoloration of his face through the violently green, skintight lenses. His calves are noticeably thinner and bruised. Touma can't keep the concerned look off of his face. "Did something happen over summer break?"

He gets the feeling that Kusuo wants to shake his head, but something obviously did happen. He's turned from squeaky clean to unkempt and disheveled in the span of a couple months. "Are your mother and father okay?"

Kusuo shakes his head, and Touma flashes an understanding smile. "I'm sure it'll be fine! When I lost my dad, I struggled for a while, but I got used to it! Do you need help with laundry or taking a shower or cooking? I can show you how!"

Kusuo shakes his head again. That's not it. They're both alive and well. So... "They're mistreating you, then."

Touma finds himself sitting right next to Kusuo, who glances at him before going back to staring at nothing. "That isn't right."

Another head shake, and Touma narrows his eyes at it. "You disagree? Why? It's objectively wrong for them to leave you this way."

Kusuo shoots him a guilty look, causing Touma to scoff in response. "Nothing would justify this, not even burning the house down. I mean—"

"Wo ... r ... se." Kusuo focuses hard on the word as he says it, stuttering badly. 

Touma lays a hand on his shoulder. "You can't even speak coherently. This is wrong; it doesn't matter if what you did was worse than burning the house down."

Kusuo involuntarily flinches away from the touch, and Touma immediately understands its meaning, wide-eyed with his realization. "They're bullying you. Kusuo..."

The boy in front of him is shaking his head vigorously, pointing at himself. "De ... s ... er ... ve."

"You think you deserve it?" Touma sniffles, wiping his face as Kusuo nods with a look of relief on his face. Relief? *Relief*? Does he honestly think that he would agree? "No. No, no, no. Kusuo, who told you that? Who has drilled that into you? They're lying. You saved me, more than once. You're my best friend for a good reason."

Touma forces Kusuo to look at him, hands on both of his shoulders. The boy struggles to form words, seeming frustrated at his own inability to speak. Touma nods along as he stammers, repeating them as he speaks. "They ... know ... me ... better. They ... know ... what ... I ... did."

Touma subconsciously rubs Kusuo's tense shoulders, fidgeting under the unrelenting stress of the conversation. "Kusuo. Kusuo, that doesn't make it right. Listen, listen to me. It doesn't matter if you've even killed someone or killed a billion, this isn't right. Yet more suffering doesn't make up for it. Okay? Let me help you."

Kusuo mutters a shaky response, and Touma parrots it. "Don't ... help ... please ... stop ... caring— I can't just do that! Not when you're the only person who'd eat lunch with me; not when you're the only person who still *cares* about *me*. Don't you see how wrong it is for me not to reciprocate, Kusuo?"

He nods. "I ... don't ... care ... about ... you."

Touma goes silent for a moment, eyes wide. "You're just saying that. There isn't any way you mean that. Everything you've done contradicts—"

Touma's yell is suppressed by a squeeze of his windpipe as Kusuo shoves him into the bush, protruding branches sticking into his skin and scalp, scratching him up as he flails under the strong grip forcing him down. The sharp stubs of trimmed twigs poke him through his shirt, and Touma holds Kusuo's arms, gentle.

"Don't do this to yourself," he manages to choke out. He's trying to *make* him stop caring. Touma's vision blurs as he feels the oxygen fade from his brain. He doesn't get bullied anymore because of the way Kusuo strengthens him. It's only fair to return the favor. It isn't different. He doesn't deserve this, not even a little. He's a good person, he's a good person, Touma thinks as he closes his eyes.

Kusuo suddenly releases him from his grasp, breathing heavily as he shuffles away, back against the fence. Touma coughs, holding his neck, massaging the red imprints upon it. The very act of inhaling and exhaling burns as his trachea slowly recovers from the damage. He struggles to sit up, leaves sticking out of his blonde hair, and he focuses on Kusuo, away from the agony pricking at every nerve in his upper body.

The boy is curled back up behind another bush, trembling, and Touma crawls over, wincing as his sensitive palms push against the rough ground. His voice is raspy. "Are you okay?"

Kusuo flashes him a devastated look. "St ... op!"

Touma furrows a brow, confused. "Stop what? What have I done? Have I done something bad?"

Kusuo shakes his head, running a nervous hand through his hair. "I ... hurt ... you. Not ... the ... other ... way."

"I see. I'm acting as if I've hurt you instead of the other way around." He hesitates to place a hand on Kusuo's knee. "I don't want you to feel bad. You're not thinking straight, and that is obvious. What happened just now doesn't change my opinion of you at all. It would be scummy of me to kick you while you're down. I really do think you're decent, Kusuo."

Kusuo gives him another guilty look. "I ... can't ... kill ... you. All ... I ... can ... do ... is ... kill. I'm ... useless."

"Well, isn't that a good thing?" Touma counters. "If killing is the source of this regret, it's good thing you can't do it anymore. Besides, people shouldn't be used. That's immoral, that's inhumane."

"In ... hu ... mane?"

"Yes! It comes from the Latin 'inhumanus', meaning cruel, not human. What humans have that animals lack is the ability to perform acts of kindness at the expense of themselves without expecting anything in return. To perform acts of cruelty without good reason is the antithesis of that. Ergo, not human."

"That's ... why ... you're ... helping." Kusuo leans his head on Touma's shoulder, and he startles a bit, not expecting it. "I ... wish ... more ... people ... were ... human."

-

Fourth grade.

The front door to the Saiki home is more imposing than he anticipated. It looms over him, painted a plain white, no side windows to glance through. He has no idea what awaits him on the other side. It could be clean, like usual, the scent of cleaning agent fresh in the air. It could be a pigsty, trash bags stacked on top of each other at the entrance, crumbs scattered across the floor, muddy footprints and inexplicable sticky spots making him wish he kept his shoes on. Touma stands on his tippy toes to ring the doorbell, adjusting his backpack as he waits.

There is a sudden burst of frantic footsteps. They weren't expecting him. A lighter set comes scurrying toward the door, opening it slightly and stepping outside with an almost unnoticeable smile.

"Kusuo!" Touma throws his arms around him, and Kusuo returns the hug in his usual stiff manner. He makes sure to keep it brief, withdrawing as he lets his hands slide down to Kusuo's. "I haven't seen you in so long! I missed you, I really did. I just hope we get put back in the same class again. I like your new hair clips!"

They sort of look like antennas with inflated spheres at the ends, seeming not to hold back any hair at all. But Kusuo's blush is more distracting than the strange devices. Touma beams. He does that at any compliment, like he's embarrassed of being something to remark about, but Touma likes to see him happy. "How have you been?"

Kusuo shrugs, making a so-so gesture. He seems more attentive than usual, observing Touma's face and clothes like he's seeing them for the first time, so Touma decides to do the same. Something catches his attention, and he leans to the side for a closer look. "There's something in your hair. Is it ketchup? Your hair clip is blocking it. Here, let me get it."

Kusuo's hand shoots to grab his forearm, holding it in place with a dangerous look, and Touma gives him an apologetic grin. "Never remove that? Okay, sorry. Sorry."

He nods, the fond smile returning to his face, but it quickly disappears when his mother opens the front door. "Hi, Little Ku's friend! What's your name?"

"My name is Asumi Touma!" He responds quickly. Kusuo lets go of his hand as he steps forward. This woman, she looks so kind, but he knows her true, corrupt colors. She must be dealt with! Before he can confront her, though, Kusuo pushes him inside. Oh, thank goodness, it's the former. Nice and clean.

His mother giggles like a schoolgirl. "You're really eager, Little Ku! You know where the games are!"

Kusuo leads him to a large set of cabinets beside the television where, upon opened, an uncountable amount of board games lie stacked up to the ceiling of every shelf, some in completely different languages! The boy glances at him through his green glasses, implying that it's his pick. The choices are overwhelming. He spots a checkerboard box and extracts it. Chess. A classic among the wacky boxes filled with way too many colors and rules. He looks a bit disappointed at the decision. Touma supposes that it is, in fact, a bit boring compared to everything else in the cabinet.

"That's *our* game, baby brother. Are you going to play it with him?" They both startle at a drawl coming from the hallway.

"Hello! You must be Kusuo's brother!" Touma exclaims, waving his greetings. The brother doesn't react, continuing to lean against the wall with a smug look. Strange, it must run in the family or something. And Kusuo never mentioned having a brother. It never came up, Touma supposes. "It's a pleasure to meet you!"

The brother scrunches his nose. "Stop speaking to me, monkey. Can't you see that I am not interested in conversing with you? Of course not, a sheep like you just parrots what he has been taught to say in this backwards society."

"Spoilsport," Touma mutters as he kneels at the coffee table. He opens the box to see little circular pieces accompanying the pawns. "We can also just play checkers. Ooh, pen and paper!"

He hands the writing utensils to Kusuo, who grabs them as soon as they hit the table, jotting something down and sliding it to Touma. It reads: "We should play chess to bother him."

Touma narrows his eyes at Kusuo. "Really? He seems scary."

"He is. That's why we should do it."

Touma glances at the blonde watching them. "I don't want him to hurt you or something. That would be bad. You wouldn't like that."

Kusuo moves his king side pawn two spaces forward, and his brother walks over to watch them play.

As the game goes on, Touma focuses less on the board as more on reactions of the two Saiki boys in front of him. Every time Kusuo makes a blunder, he glances at his brother with a smirk, but the older doesn't smirk back. No, his older brother seems to grow more and more infuriated as the pieces move before his eyes in a way he cannot comprehend, until Touma checkmates Kusuo for moving his king into a corner without an escape plan, blocked by his own pawns.

"You need to *leave*," the brother says, voice shaking with attempted modulation. "Kusuo, show him out."

Kusuo shakes his head, causing his brother to grab his shirt collar, only to glance at Touma and let go of it. "I see. You're keeping him here to cover for yourself. He has to leave eventually, do you know that? And the longer you keep him here, the angrier I get. To the point where I wouldn't even use an 'experiment' as cover. So, show our guest out."

He shakes his head again, and his brother grabs his hair, dragging him to his feet. Touma watches with wide eyes as Kusuo smiles through it, not struggling against him or anything. The brother whispers. "No! Why would I take him as well?! It's supposed to be shameful, you buffoon, like your powers!"

Powers? Kusuo glances at Touma then back at his brother, smile disappearing from his face. He shoves his brother off of him, and they've traded expressions. "Ah, did he hear me? Oops!"

"Hey! Why are we doing that in front of a guest?" The father calls from the kitchen. "Kusuo, keep your hands off of Kuusuke! Stop starting things, for God's sake."

"He didn't start it though!" Touma retorts, standing as well.

Kuusuke grabs the paper from the coffee table, waving it around. "Explain this, then! 'We should play chess to bother him.' He played this with you for the express purpose of eliciting this reaction out of me, then pretends he doesn't want it when I give it to him. You may want to watch for this sort of manipulation when you're alone with him, I won't be here to call it out."

Kusuo suddenly tackles him into the cabinet nearby, holding his head in place before shutting the cabinet door in on his neck with such force that it shoves the furniture into the wall behind it. Kuusuke flails against the door, unable to make a sound other than choking.

"KUSUO!" The father calls as Touma rushes over. The brother's head falls in an attempt to make an escape, and the corner of the door begins to press on his neck, drawing blood.

Touma tries to pull him away by his arm. "Kusuo! Stop! Please!"

He does so, panting. He gives his brother a hateful look before turning back to Touma, expression softening. "Don't... don't look at me like that! You nearly killed him! How can you smile?! He's bleeding!"

"I'm ... sorry." Kusuo grows guilty at the realization. "I ... thought ... you ... wanted ... to?"

"There are thoughts you don't act upon specifically to avoid these circumstances!" Touma gestures to Kuusuke as he struggles to breathe, his mother pressing a cold towel to his neck. Who does this to their own brother?! A monster! Some demon is standing in front of him at this very moment, feigning confusion! "Surely, you have those as well."

Kusuo nods, and Touma sighs. "This should've been one of them. Farewell."

"Fare ... well?" Kusuo mutters, looking up from his shoes as Touma leaves him, nearly sprinting out of the home.

"Poor Kusuo," his brother says raspily. "You never know what people want from you. Tch, *somehow*."

-

Fifth grade.

A walk in the park! Touma takes a deep breath of the fresh summer breeze, the bottoms of his shoes smacking against the pavement. He's got a pep in his step, an oboe in his elbow! School's out, and he's carefree! He likes to go for a stroll before running his errands. He checks the grocery list again as he strides into the green zone, glancing upward. Ooh, he should add ice cream to the list. A truck is parked under a tree, playing a familiar tune as the man inside hands out his waffle cones to the various children celebrating their temporary release.

A peculiar-looking blonde sits on a bench, sticking out among the dark-haired crowd. Touma looks closer. That's Kusuo's brother. He doesn't strike him as the type to just sit on a bench surrounded by the people he despises.

"Thank you!" Touma calls to the man in the truck, jumping up to claim his ice cream, but he nearly drops it upon seeing the blonde in line behind him. "Oh! You startled me a bit!"

Kuusuke blinks down at him, expressionless. "I tend to have that effect, Kusuo's *former* friend."

"Akechi Touma."

"I didn't ask for your name." Kuusuke stuffs his wallet in his back pocket before taking two cones of ice cream. Touma quirks his brow at the plurality. 

"Did you bring someone?" Touma asks, glancing around the park.

"You're smart for a chimp." Kuusuke points at a tree. "I'm letting my baby brother out for his birthday."

The boy in question is just sitting against the tree trunk, staring at the sky. "He looks like he's having fun."

Touma tries to say it in a sarcastic tone, and Kuusuke scoffs. "He's probably cathartic at the prospect of being left alone for a while."

"Does that mean I shouldn't go talk to him?" Touma slouches as he licks his chocolate ice cream.

"Most likely." Kuusuke takes a large bite out of each cone. "Mm. It tastes better when you've got it in both hands."

Touma narrows his eyes. "Was one of them not for Kusuo?"

Kuusuke seems confused at the ludicrous question. "Of course not. I paid for them, after all. With my own money."

"Hm. Usually, you give someone a gift for their birthday."

"Someone like Kusuo doesn't care about gifts," Kuusuke says dismissively. "He doesn't care what anyone does to him, so long as he gets to be alone for a while. And it's not like he's doing anything to deserve a reward right now."

"Oh, Pavlovian conditioning?" He says it without thinking.

Kuusuke glances at him, trying to hide his surprise. "Where did a grubby child learn such big words? Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. It takes a great deal of discipline. I'm getting closer, though."

Touma takes a bite out of his waffle cone, having exhausted the exposed ice cream. "How is he responding?"

"Better than expected. He's grown very tolerant. I think he's forcing himself to enjoy it; I didn't anticipate that."

"And what is this 'it' you keep alluding to?" It's starting to sound more and more supervillain-esque. 

Kuusuke throws both ends of the cones into his mouth, crunching loudly. He gives Touma a suspicious look. "You have enough clues."

-

Sixth grade.

Be careful what you wish for...

Touma's eyes widen as he sees Kusuo sat in the center of the classroom, and they meet eyes before turning away from each other, acting as if they haven't noticed. 

"Akechi, you're sat behind Saiki there," the teacher says from the desk, looking at her binder. He'd rather be sat behind Takashi than that spawn of Satan.

They sit in silence until lunch, when they're the only ones left in the classroom. Kusuo places a sticky note on Touma's desk, and he reads it as he eats. "I miss you."

Aw, that's cute. A demon wouldn't say that. Wait just a second, they would! It's that manipulation his brother was talking about! He has to watch out for it. Touma crumples up the note and tosses it behind him, not wanting anything to do with it. He has to keep his mouth shut, too. They're not talking; they're not supposed to be talking.

Hasn't two years been a bit too long? Stop that! Talking to him is a trap! Kusuo gets up to retrieve his discarded note, unraveling it only to find no response. He sits back down and passes it to him again, with new writing. "Do you despise me?"

No, of course not! You saved my life, stopped me from being bullied! You're great! Yes, of course I despise him! He bullies his brother, not the other way around. It's a ruse. That day behind the bushes was a trick! He even tried to kill me! But he didn't. Someone told him that was all he was good for; it isn't his fault. Something new has been written on the note. "My brother lies a lot. I believe him. Do you?"

Touma's head goes silent at that. "Why do you believe him?"

"I deserve to be to told such things and internalize them. It adds more contradiction to my existence; it obscures the perception of myself until I can't recognize it. That is more torturous than anything he can do to me."

Even though he only half understands the words jotted down in front of him, something in Touma cracks, and he gets up to pull Kusuo out of his chair and into an embrace. He shouldn't have been able to do that so easily; he shouldn't be so light. Kusuo doesn't return the hug in his usual stiff manner. No, he grips the back of Touma's shirt as if he's been starved of it for as long as they've avoided each other. The desperation surprises him a bit, but he welcomes it, rubbing circles into Kusuo's back. Kusuo sniffles, holding him tighter. "I ... miss ... you ... and ... I ... can't ... tell ... you."

"Tell me what?" Touma murmurs, still in shock.

"What ... he ... does. What ... his ... lies ... are."

Touma strokes the back of Kusuo's hair, and the boy relaxes into him. "It's okay. It probably won't be for a long time, but it'll happen eventually. Things will work out. You have to believe that, or there's no point in pushing on. So, it'll be alright. It's not your fault that things just aren't right now. It's just misfortune. God likes to see people suffer. He isn't the benevolent being that scripture makes Him out to be."

Kusuo begins to shift uncomfortably. "Asumi? No— Akechi?"

"Touma," he corrects, breaking away slightly to see Kusuo staring downward.

"Touma. I ... think." Kusuo glances up at his concerned face. "I ... love ... you."

"Like a brother, right?" He says quickly. Kusuo nods, and Touma lets out a sigh of relief, holding his arms. "That's good. I've always wanted a brother. It wouldn't just be me doing the housework otherwise. I'm not expecting you to do housework in a house that isn't yours, though. That would be a bit mean. But brothers take care of each other, and I like taking care of you. I missed you, too, Kusuo."

"You're ... not ... touching ... me?" Kusuo mumbles. 

"Why would I—" Touma glances downward, and he takes several steps backward, taking care not to shove Kusuo off of him. "Ah, hands off! The brother thing was a lie, then!"

Kusuo quirks his brow, confused. That's not a good sign, and Touma immediately intuits what it means. He's associating brotherly love with sexual attraction. "Brothers ... take ... care ... of ... each ... other. Kuusuke ... says ... the ... same. And ... this ... is ... what ... he—"

"Shut up!" Touma interrupts. "That's not how it's supposed to work! I don't want to hear more about how your brother is molesting you! You're not supposed to feel that way about each other! He's lying, like you said! He's a... a liar."

And Touma took his advice. He let him have Kusuo for two years, all to himself, and this is the result. He should've been there, he should've been there... he abandoned his best friend just because he roughed up his abuser a bit. He should've known, he should've trusted Kusuo had a better motive to tackle him. Damn it, he should've known what 'it' meant! What else was he given deductive reasoning for?!

"I'm ... not ... molested. It ... makes ... sense." Why is he trying to argue? Damn it, Kuusuke. Damn it. It's such a basic fact that he doesn't know how to argue it. "Who ... else ... is ... going ... to?"

"You're just supposed to let the feeling pass." This is tough. He's never been attracted to someone else before, let alone had someone else attracted to him. Aren't they a bit young for that? Kusuo seems even more confused now.

"Then ... it ... breaks. That's ... why ... he ... makes ... me—"

"Shhhh!" Touma interrupts him again, wanting to preserve his relative innocence. That and recounting those events would probably cause a breakdown despite Kusuo's matter-of-fact demeanor. "False. Just false. Open up a health science book some time."

"Okay." Kusuo retreats further into himself as the conversation goes on, crossing his arms. He's embarrassed, acutely aware of the obscenity he speaks of. "He ... says ... there's ... no ... reason ... for ... a ... homosexual ... incestuous ... relationship ... to ... be ... shunned." Touma grips the edges of the desk he's leaning against as the explanation continues. How many times has this argument been made to him that he has memorized it, rattling it off as if he's been trained to do so? "Incest ... is ... immoral ... due to ... the ... genetic ... conditions ... it ... produces. Since ... there ... are ... no ... offspring ... produced ... in ... a ... homosexual ... relationship ... it ... is ... not ... morally ... incorrect."

Touma grits his teeth. That brother is psychotic and needs to seek professional help, and his lazy-ass parents need to straighten him out. There's something wrong with that reasoning, but he can't put his finger on it. He only knows the proper conclusion. That classical conditioning— it's why Kusuo was confused at the fact that he wasn't being touched. Whenever he hugs his brother, he... he... 

Touma massages his own shoulder, which has become tense with stress.  Don't deduce that filth. He doesn't need to know exactly what happens, just that sweets are the positive reinforcement. That's what his brother referred to that ice cream as. "I suppose the question here is whether you actually want it or not. Pretend there's no reward."

He only responds that way because he knows the answer. Kusuo shakes his head vigorously, sweating, nervous. "I'm ... sorry. You ... shouldn't ... have ... to—"

"Sh." Touma says it more gently this time, patting Kusuo's head. "If I didn't want to hear about it, I would've shut you up. In fact, I think it's good that you told me all of this. It explains a lot. It can't have been easy for you, and I'm glad you confided in me. I like you, Kusuo. I mean, so long as you don't diddle me." 

It explains a bit too much. His inexpressiveness, his difficulty communicating. It's a trauma response to the so-called 'experiments' his brother is conducting to give him as little to work with as possible. It's a bit disturbing watching Kusuo recount these things with a completely neutral tone. He suspects that his brother has something to do with the difficulty speaking as well. He's fluent on paper.

"I'm  ... sorry ... Touma." Kusuo keeps his hands held behind his back, looking at anything but him. It's weirdly charming. He's willing to go out of his way like that to fix their friendship. Touma takes them in his, holding them in front of him, fingers interlocking.

"Do I have to tell you it's okay again?" Touma smiles. "I know you didn't mean to. It's just a consequence of your environment. Anyone else would do the same. There's lots of studies about that, human experiments and stuff that are definitely not allowed anymore! I'm reminded of one where they took an identical twin and separated him from his family in order to see if they would develop differently. He obviously did, I mean, why would you think they would develop the same way in different circumstances? The primary trait of humanity is adaptability, after all! You just adapted to your environment, Kusuo."

Kusuo gives him a weary nod, staring at their interlocked hands as if the gesture is alien to him. Touma wiggles his fingers, beaming. "Now you get to be in an environment with me for most of the day! Better than that sadistic pervert, don't you think? I'll buy you sweets, and you don't have to do anything to get them!"

Another nod. "I ... feel ... better."

"Express it, then!"

Kusuo lets out an amused scoff before pulling the corners of his mouth into a gentle smile.

-

Seventh grade.

"The atmosphere is definitely more serious," Touma murmurs, leaning toward Kusuo, who is sat in front of him once more. "No toys or anything. Nothing to keep me occupied."

Touma had hoped against hope that the new middle school classroom would have some sort of fidget, but the room is barren, painted in cold colors. The concrete floor is hard against his shoes, a stark contrast to the foam floors of the elementary. Their uniforms are all black, and they all have to be worn a specific way, making him feel reduced to another tally to the school's attendance. He dreads having to sit still and listen to a lecture. *Multiple* lectures.

The teacher walks into the classroom, greeting the students as they stand at attention. Touma is already fidgeting with the inside of his pockets as he awaits his name to be called. Kusuo steps to the side to obscure Touma from the teacher's view, holding a metal infinity cube behind his back, having extracted it from, seemingly, nowhere. He twitches it, offering it to him.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! He can't say it aloud in the dead silent classroom, but he thinks it really hard. Kusuo flashes him a knowing look, raising his arm when his name is called and sitting back down.

-

Eighth grade. 

Touma's eyelids droop as he reads the assigned pages in the math textbook. He yawns, leaning on his hand while he uses the other to fiddle with the infinity cube. The boy in front of him leans back far enough that he lays his head on Touma's desk, covering the textbook. Touma blinks down at him. "Oh, hello. I was sort of doing something."

"Oh." Kusuo raises his head, but Touma guides it back down.

"It's fine. What's in that note of yours?" Touma asks, fiddling with his pink hair instead, taking care not to touch the clips. Kusuo hands it to him with a far less guilty look than usual. It reads: "I have good news."

Touma raises an eyebrow, setting the note on his desk. "Well?"

Kusuo writes the remainder of his message upside down, and Touma has to turn the note around. It reads: "Kuusuke is gone. He left a month ago."

Touma tries to contain his excitement, kicking his feet. "Oh, *that's* why you've been acting like that recently!"

He'd shown up to the Asumi apartment unannounced to help with housework. Like Touma mentioned on that day. They ate dinner together, played video games together, went to the park like normal friends do. And he seemed to enjoy it. Kusuo smiles, more genuine than before. More writing: "Thanks for being there during the toughest part, Touma. I didn't know how to deal with it even though I had it coming."

Touma glosses over that last sentence. "It's only fair. You helped me beat Takashi."

"Hey, faggots, why are you passing notes?! The teacher isn't even here!" Takashi calls from the corner of the room, surrounded by his new squad of about six people.

"It's 'cause they're spergs, duh," one of them says. Touma glances at them and doesn't respond.

"They're just bored and wanna pick a fight," he murmurs, and Kusuo nods in agreement.

"Mister!" Takashi calls as he walks in. "Mister, they're sodomizing in public!"

The teacher lets out a dejected sigh, sinking into his chair. "What am I supposed to do about that?"

"Punish them! They're breaking the law!"

"You do it, then. I have food poisoning."

"Can't catch a break," Touma mumbles, leaning over Kusuo as Takashi stomps toward them. Him shielding Kusuo means they should leave him alone, surely. "Your problem is with me and me only! I'm the one that beat you, Fire Crotch!"

"Take him, too. He should watch what we do to Lil' Pissy Pants." Damn.

Touma flails uselessly as he is dragged out of his chair by the collar of his buttoned up jacket, jamming his fingers underneath it to stop himself from choking.

"This one's empty." A large thud reverberates throughout the empty classroom as Touma is shoved into the teacher's desk headfirst. He holds the back of his aching head, panting while he watches Kusuo get forced into a chair next to the door. His arm is tied to the metal bar conjoining the chair and desk in an uncomfortable position. He has to contort his body just to keep his elbow from dislocating. One of them moves the desk to face Touma. Kusuo's calm demeanor has become rapt with anxiety, eyes darting from object to object, person to person, looking for a way out. Takashi stands over Touma, arms crossed and silhouette overbearing. "Okay, Pissy Pants. You know Hambrabi's code?"

"Hammurabi, you mean. The RX-139 Hambrabi is a mobile suit that debuted in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam in 1985, most notably piloted by Yazan Gable. It helped simplify the transformation process to make it suitable for mass-prod—"

"Shut the fuck up!" The wind is knocked out of Touma's lungs as the boy kicks his abdomen in. "You know it, then. And you know you're a faggot. Sodomites get what sodomites dish out."

"What are you—" Touma yelps, cradling his left shin. It won't stop throbbing. It's probably bruised...

"I ask the questions here!" Takashi puts his foot against the side of Touma's head and forces it into the concrete floor below. He can feel the individual grains of the rough concrete break his skin, burrowing into his flesh. Warm fluid rushes out of the side of his head, rapidly forming a puddle on the ground. He feels himself start to cry through the adrenaline blurring his vision, his entire body trembling with agony.

"Help!" He screams. "Kusuo, help me! Stop it! Stop!"

He tries to block the numerous pairs of shoes from beating him, only to have his hands restrained above him by a particularly overweight henchman. It feels like his hands are about to come off, flattened against the floor as the boys above begin to break him. One writes something on his forehead. Another shoves a mop in his face, saturated with his own blood. The sulfury scent is almost suffocating, as suffocating his lungs seemingly beginning to malfunction. He breathes in, but it feels like his very cells are choking to death. Every fiber of his being scrapes against one another, every movement a sharp pain in his nervous system. He only vaguely recognizes being picked up by his neck and bent over the teacher's desk.

The voices around him are reduced to incoherent mumbles. He can somewhat hear the clink of his belt as it is unbuckled, somewhat feel a cold draft around his legs. His pants are off. That means... that means...

"Stop! Stop it! Stop, stop, stop..." He can hear the weakness in his own voice as he repeats the word over and over and over again, kicking behind him even though he knows it won't do anything. The tough hands holding him in place don't flinch at all. He can't go on anymore. He falls unconscious, glad to be in a state of temporary nonexistence during the event.

Touma gasps for air, suddenly awake. His body still aches with abuse. It wasn't a dream. A nightmare, rather. It was real. He was really...

Was he, though? His downstairs region doesn't feel any different. Touma props himself up on the desk behind him, surveying the room. It's derelict. Cracks upon the walls, lights hanging from the ceiling with exposed wires. Desks and chairs separated from one another, legs covered in blood. Seven bodies lay splayed in different positions, thrown over different broken objects. One is draped out of the windowsill, red still dribbling from the shattered glass. A pair of legs hang from a missing ceiling tile, barefoot. The classroom is stained a deep orange by the sunset. He was out for like two hours, then. 

Kusuo is nowhere to be seen. What the hell happened? Someone came in here, just as he was about to be-- mhm-- and saved him. The only person that would be able to do this is Kusuo. So, why isn't he here, then?

"Where were you yesterday?"

Kusuo doesn't make eye contact with him, continuing to sip his coffee as he leans back in his chair. It's early. Usually, the gang is causing trouble in the back of the room, but it is eerily silent now. Touma can hear his clothes rustle as he adjusts his position in his chair. He's sat in front of Kusuo for now, to gauge his expression and detect potential lies. Kusuo looks out the window, pretending that he isn't there.

"Not responding makes you look more suspicious. At least give me an alibi. I'll just assume it was you who saved me. Again. From much worse circumstances, this time. I doubt he would've tried that in second grade."

Kusuo scrunches his nose at him before writing him a note. Touma mirrors the expression as he takes it, reading it. "I escaped as soon as the attention was only on you. I guess someone strong on the cleanup detail noticed what was going on and saved you."

"But the timing was way too tight for that. It was right when he was about to take my boxers off." Touma gags at the recollection, swallowing. Kusuo's eyes soften behind his toy glasses, probably against his will. His note says the complete opposite, though.

"Why should I care? It's not like they tried to rape me. They weren't going to do anything to me, they just wanted me to watch. And I didn't care, so it doesn't affect me. There's no reason for me to help you."

"Have you already forgotten what your brother did to you?"

Kusuo goes still.

"Right, so you know how it feels," Touma rationalizes. "And you didn't want that to happen to me. I strongly doubt that you've suddenly stopped caring about me, after everything we've done for each other."

Kusuo's handwriting is messier than usual his neat, print-like characters. "Maybe it would've been good for you to be raped because we'd have more in common. I shouldn't be the only one who has experienced that."

Kusuo withdraws the note, not intending for Touma to read that last part. He erases it and writes something new. "I haven't been raped, just coerced into doing that. But it's still closer than remaining a virgin."

"Why make the distinction?" Touma fiddles with the corners of the note as he rereads it.

"I'm not a victim."

Touma glances up at his expression to deduce what that means, only to find none. He wrote that completely straight-faced. Confusing. "You're not? I mean, in all senses of the word--"

"I could've stopped all of that from happening, but I didn't. I'm not powerless. I can't be tricked. I let it happen to me because I'm strong enough to take it."

Powerless? So, he has powers? That would explain the gruesome scene, his inexplicably strong punch, the Fire Crotch incident, and his sudden healing back in the first grade. Touma had long abandoned that narrative in favor of actually befriending him, but it seems as though he's... admitting it? His name lines up with it and everything.

Kusuo shakes his head. "I'm not a unique person at all. I'm just a narcissist. I have delusions of grandeur. I'm delusional, don't listen to me. Everything I say is a lie. I'm a liar, like my brother."

"You obviously don't know how to lie because you're just obscuring your true motives with a bunch of nonsense. Still, it's an effective strategy." He'll have to pick out the true statements among that flurry of justifications.

Kusuo lays his head on his desk. "Goodnight."

Touma glances at the window. "Class is about to start, though."

No response.

-

"He transferred later that year without telling me. I pried too much. I was too much of a burden on him, I think. By the end there, it was obvious he didn't want to be my friend anymore." Akechi drums his fingers on his ceramic mug. "Hey, but since I know he's a psychic for sure now, I know that he's the one that saved me from being gang raped!"

Shun chokes on his hot chocolate. He's never heard someone say the words 'gang raped' with such enthusiasm. They're sat outside of a cafe now, once Shun realized that the exposition dump could not be halted. It's a bit chilly now that it's night time, but the volcanic catastrophe in the southern tip of Japan is keeping the country warm. No matter. Akechi leans closer to him. "What did you think about my story? Was it good? Did I tell it well?"

"I feel like you should've spaced it out across several chapters," Shun comments. "I found it hard to properly digest, you know?"

"Do you need help digesting?"

"I can digest it myself, thank you very much." Anything to stop this chatterbox from talking. He must love the sound of his own voice.

"Cool! Now, it's your turn!"

"W-what?"

"Tell me everything!"

Shun rubs his thumb against the mug's handle, nervous. "I don't know about *everything*. Surely you left some parts out of your story."

"I didn't think you wanted to hear about me and Kusuo being happy together. Just the drama parts. I don't blame you! I can see the appeal. Tell me your drama. Spill your tea." Akechi is about to fall onto the table with just how much he's leaning closer. Shun narrows his eyes. Yeah, yeah, you were happy together. But guess who ended up with him? Shun. Ha. He pushes down the envious thoughts.

"My tea? Uh." Shun takes another sip, averting his eyes from the unrelenting stare. "With Kusuo or me generally?"

"Both!" He says in a high-pitched voice. "Both."

[holographicprojector]

THE DEAD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND

Chapter 2 is out!

i used photoshop this time and the difference is crazy. anyway, this chapter introduces two new characters. the fan favorites are on a mission

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65546560/chapters/169405705

TETHERED SPIRIT - 3388 words

"What are you going to do once we resurrect him?"

Kuusuke leans back in his chair, ripping his eyes off of the screen as Shun wires the many electrodes to a larger, cushioned ring, supposedly to scan the brain. Shun looks up at him, expectant as the professor fixes his disheveled hair into a low ponytail. He furrows his brow, thinking. "Not what I did last time."

"Vague." Shun returns to wiring the machine. "I want to give him a good hug."

"Hm." He rubs his eyes, tired of staring at the bright screen in the dim laboratory. "I would do the same."

"It's hard to believe that," Shun admits. The monitor's blue light reflects off of the glassware stacked beside him, and it dims as Kuusuke minimizes the window he was working on.

"Why?"

"Did you know that Saiko had a camera in that room?"

The silhouette in front of him goes eerily still. "No."

"I had to space that footage out over months; it was that hard to stomach what you did to him. It was daily, as well. You tormented him for every hour of every day for three months. Do you think he'll remember that when he comes back? Or would the drugs have made those memories too hazy for him to discern?"

Kuusuke doesn't respond. The computer tower whirs in the silence, fans filtering air through and from the vents.

"Is. Is he even going to be sane once he comes back?"

"Madame Teruhashi probably helped in that regard." He stands, dragging his keys from his desk. "We need his body first."

Shun sighs as he follows him out. "You have gas?"

"I'm the government's special man," Kuusuke replies with a smirk.

-

"It isn't at his grave." Shun bites his painted nails as Kuusuke turns the small car in the wrong direction. He glances at Shun with a furrowed brow.

"His body isn't at his grave?" He makes a U-turn. "Where is it, then?"

"A cold storage unit in the next prefecture."

"I know the place you mean. He's in one piece, then." Kuusuke breathes a sigh of relief. "I thought I had to reconstruct him from his ashes. Good job."

Good job? Kuusuke holds his shoulder in approval before returning it to the gear shift, and Shun bites his nails harder. He feels *proud* of himself. He shouldn't feel that way, not when those words are leaving that perverted mouth. If anything, he should feel the opposite way, helping this sadistic torturer. Keeping Kusuo preserved like that— it wasn't foresight. It was his inability to let go and a willingness to suspend Kusuo's spirit to this plane he so desperately wanted to leave. Why is he glad about this? He's no better than the man next to him.

Ah, so he should just play along if they are so similar. Don't worry about any of that pesky morality business. They both want him back, so they'll get him back.

The handle to the cold door is heavy, solid metal separating the two climates. Kuusuke helps him open it upon witnessing Shun's inadequate strength.

"I use this one, too," he remarks, glancing at the label. "Unit three."

The blast of frigid air expected from the chamber's opening doesn't come. Shun steps inside. Room temperature. Kuusuke picks up a jar with a rotten bit of flesh in it, vaguely resembling an organ. "Damn. They're all spoiled now."

"No power," Shun mutters to himself, staring at the freezer in the back of the room.

"That should've fared better," Kuusuke comments, averting his attention to the appliance. "The larger blackout only started about a week ago."

Shun heaves the freezer open and sticks his hand in it. Still cold. Good, that's good. Kuusuke walks up behind him, mouth hanging open. "Kusuo."

"He's not really there," Shun says quickly, aware of the emotions behind that illegible face. "That isn't him."

"It feels like it," Kuusuke whispers, outstretching his hand. Kusuo's body lies propped up in the preservative box, head lulling to the side, eyes staring forward without a single sign of life. A deep blotch of crimson is present on the right side of his face, flushed against the gray of his bloodless flesh. "For so long, all I had were memories."

Shun slaps his hand away before it can make contact with Kusuo's chest. "Don't do weird stuff to it."

"I'm not!" Kuusuke exclaims, offended. "What do you take me for, an animal?!"

"Exactly."

He falters. Shun can see the shame in his typically uptight body language, even with that characteristic smirk stuck to his face.

-

"You're helping that piece of shit?!"

Shun recoils at Aren's sudden volume. "N-no! We're just... collaborating! A temporary alliance!"

"Fuck that, you're helping him!" Aren clenches his fist, but he stays glued to the counter he is leaning on. A vein in his temple is threatening to burst. A pot boils next to him, and various soup ingredients and spices are strewn throughout the kitchen. Shun's grip tightens around the strap of his book bag, stepping back toward the apartment entrance. Aren glares for a moment longer before letting out a long exhale. "Talk."

Shun shifts uncomfortably. "It's important."

"What. What is important." He's trying to keep his tone measured. 

Shun chews his lip. He doesn't know how Aren would react. He *shot* Kusuo and showed little remorse afterward. He probably hates him. And to tell him that Kusuo is coming back? Shun glances at Aren's trembling fists. He was always jealous of Kusuo, Shun suspected. With their strange relationship up in the air, the outcome is entirely unpredictable. A neutral response, then. "It. It just is."

"That crazy piece of shit has caused both of us so much pain, and you're fucking helping him for no good reason." He gestures to his inanimate leg, and his tone is low. Dangerous. "Get out."

"But I'm the one that—"

"Get the *fuck* out!" A plate narrowly misses Shun's head, shattering against the wall behind him, and he books it.

-

"Clocking back in?" Kuusuke's office chair rattles as he turns to face him. "Oh. You look a little worse for wear."

Shun tries to fix his pale, disheveled hair as he shuffles into the laboratory. A table has been moved to the center of the room, lit up by a standing spotlight. The cadaver lies on top, tubes and cables stretching to and fro. Monitors are stacked atop steel carts, one of which shows a flat line. Kuusuke stands, cradling the brain scanner. "I wonder..."

"Wonder?" Shun asks, letting his bag fall off of his shoulder and onto the tiled floor.

"If there is brain activity, even though he seems dead."

"After so much time?" He doubts it. Kuusuke tucks the device around Kusuo's head.

"I thought I felt a heartbeat," Kuusuke mutters. 

Shun steps closer, eyes narrow. He places a hand on Kusuo's chest, only to feel a stone cold sensation. No movement at all. It sends a chill down his spine, and he quickly withdraws. "How?"

"It was just the one. I am uncertain of its reality." Kuusuke sits back down at his computer, a silhouette against the bright rectangle in front of him. The room seems even darker with this large spotlight in the middle, to the point of void creeping along the outer edges. Even in that void, the stowed glassware glistens brilliantly. "Kaidou, come here."

Shun leans back, craning his head to look at the screen. A window with what looks like a top view of the brain is maximized on the large monitor. The diagram is mostly blue— dead— but in the back is a splotch of yellow. His eyes widen. "Is that..."

"Brain activity." Kuusuke scoffs with disbelief. He points at the screen, mouth agape as Shun hunches over the desk to observe. "I... I have no explanation."

"Me neither," he breathes.

Kuusuke rubs his eyes and massages his temples. "I can't be brilliant without sleep."

Shun straightens up. "Sleep, then."

The professor blinks up at him. "You don't want to continue? You came back here for that reason, did you not? This will be easier than I initially thought."

"I came here to sleep," Shun corrects him. 

Kuusuke glances at the book bag behind near the entrance with a look of concern. "Do you have everything you need in there?"

"Just books." Shun quiets his voice as he gets more and more embarrassed. "I had to get out... quickly."

"How do you manage that?"

"I got kicked out of my own apartment," Shun murmurs.

Kuusuke sighs as he lifts himself from his office chair. "I will be back with an assortment of home essentials."

-

Aren grips the edges of the bathroom sink, knuckles white as he stares at himself in the cracked mirror.

He shouldn't have done that. 

His heart sinks further at the recollection of Shun's frightened stare, pinprick pupils refusing to recognize the danger before him as human. Aren presses his bulging eyes down, his very cranium aching with self-restraint.

That visceral reaction to a mere mention of Kuusuke was entirely uncontrollable. The rage coursed through his veins, caused him to shake as he resisted the urge to punch the poor, defenseless boy in front of him.

Aren stumbles out of the bathroom, missing the light switch. He can taste the alcohol in his own breath. This stupor he'll thrust himself into will be inescapable. This way, he can't hurt Shun.

-

Shun startles a bit once the door opens back up, not expecting Kuusuke to keep his word. He lifts his head up from the makeshift pillow of hardcover textbooks. The professor's silhouette remains criminally foreboding, even as he struggles to balance toothbrushes, deodorant, and other items upon the blankets he carries. A couple of boxes fall to the floor as Kuusuke heaves it all onto an empty table.

"Hm? Clothes?" Shun lifts a white tee from the pile.

"What else would you wear? A hollow barrel with belts strapped to it?"

Shun suppresses a chuckle, denying Kuusuke the satisfaction of laughter. He remains serious. "I guess not."

The professor hands him a corner of the blanket. "Is the material to your liking?"

"Does that even matter?" Shun mumbles. It's very soft, reminiscent of mink.

Kuusuke furrows his brows, confused. "Obviously. Sleep is important."

Shun continues to rub his fingers on the comforting fabric. "No, I mean... would you even get a different blanket if I didn't like this one?"

"Yes." Kuusuke blinks. "Maybe. But I knew you would like that one. It's the same one Kusuo had."

"The... *same*?" Shun glances at it, pulling it closer.

"Correct." Kuusuke scratches his head as watches Shun fail to *discreetly* smell it. "Ahm. It's getting late. I will go."

"Why do you have this?" Shun asks as he drapes himself in it.

The professor hesitates to pick up his bag, debating whether to tell the truth or not. "I took it with me when I adjourned to London."

Shun scrunches his nose at him, remembering the video taken from the airport terminal, a loud slap echoing in his mind, digitally compressed by social media. The man averts his eyes.

"It wasn't of his own volition."

-

Three days apart should've cooled things down by now. Shun grips the railing of the stairwell of the apartment building as he forces himself up. He can't have been that mad, right? He rests his hands upon his knees, trying to catch his breath. A little disagreement like that can't tear down a relationship of so many years. Despite these rationalizations, he shivers. That plate was thrown with enough force to kill him. He'd never seen Aren that angry, that hateful.

But he's okay now, right? Surely. The doorknob rattles underneath Shun's unstable hand, and he swallows hard. Aren wouldn't hurt him on purpose. 

On *purpose*. Shun shakes the doubt out of his system before unlocking the door to his apartment and shoving it open.

There isn't a single light on. The ominous void seems to pulsate just outside of the light cast from the hallway. Shun wipes his forehead. The wooden floor creaks as he steps out of his shoes, yet everything else stays eerily quiet. There is no movement within the apartment at all, not a single vibration. The only affirmation of the residence's reality is the hard floor pressing against the bottoms of Shun's feet.

There should be a lantern around here. Shun stretches a hand out in front of him in order to not bruise himself on some invisible kitchen countertop. He feels around the vague memory of the designated lantern location before finding purchase upon the object in question.

A shift, perhaps of fabric, behind him. Shun whips around, leaning against the counter and holding up the luminous object, making visible the pile of blankets and pillows on the sofa. They rise and fall, muffled, slow breaths coming from beneath them. He's sleeping. At midday, with the blackout blinds down.

"Aren?" He asks in a quiet voice, still afraid to wake the slumbering beast. No reaction. Shun places the dim lantern on the coffee table, and Aren remains none the wiser. He extracts a scalpel from his bag. The white light reflects off of its sterilized surface, soon to be coated in red. Shun leans over Aren, scrunching his nose at the distinct smell of alcohol practically radiating off of the man below.

Shun gulps, blade trembling as he slowly peels away each layer of blanket that Aren has coated himself in. It's okay. Remember what Kuusuke said.

"His organs are too decayed to resuscitate him at the moment. That and the blood in most of his blood vessels has congealed and grown almost solid. The only artery still somewhat flowing is the carotid." Kuusuke stares at the computer screen, and Shun follows his gaze as he explains. "We need to clear his blood vessels of that useless trash and put in new blood, and we need to replace his organs with properly preserved, donated ones."

"Great. Simple." Shun kicks the floor, uncertain. "How do we get that?"

Kuusuke turns in his chair to stare at him. "There probably aren't many left in Japan due to the war and power outage. We'll have to harvest them fresh."

"Harvest...?"

"Correct." His expression is unfazed at the prospect of murdering people in their sleep by taking away their vital organs. However, he furrows a brow, looking almost worried. "You can find a liver and kidney. Those don't kill. I'll find a way to do the rest."

"Right." Shun narrows his eyes at the floor, thinking about it before shaking his head. "No. No! Kusuo wouldn't want anyone to die because of him."

Kuusuke blinks up at him. "Unfortunately, organ fabrication technology is far ahead of our time and budget."

Shun scrounges his mind for an alternative. "He can heal, right? We can just increase his heartbeat to make him conscious again and then he'll regenerate his body back healthy."

"That is highly improbable. He's been dead for over a year, I doubt his body can even sustain psychic powers at this point. That would overload his brain and kill him for good."

Aren would understand... right? He wouldn't mind it. He wouldn't mind losing an organ or two. He probably hates Shun, anyway. He probably doesn't care at all, seeing as he has drowned himself in liquor. Is giving Kusuo a liquor-filled liver a good idea? The scalpel shudders lower, pressing against Aren's loose T-shirt as Shun holds a chloroform-saturated towel above his face.

This is okay. Yeah, this is okay. Aren looks peaceful here, deep in slumber. He'll stay peaceful. The towel hovers over Aren's nostrils. It's alright.

Shit, no, it isn't. Shun throws the blade to the floor, breathing heavily. No, no, no. It makes a loud noise upon coming into contact with the kitchen counter, metal clashing against the hard surface. Aren's eyebrows twitch as he regains consciousness, and Shun sprints out of his apartment as fast as he can. 

"Shun?" Aren calls, to no response.

-

"I can't do it. I can't do it," Shun mutters to himself, legs burning with overexertion. He struggles to breathe as he holds his side, feeling as though a knife has been forced through him. Stopping at the gate to the university campus, he takes a breather, leaning on his trembling knees.

"Hiya!" Shun's head shoots up at a girl's loud voice, seemingly addressing him. "Do you go here?"

She leans on the tall fence, hand on her hip as she waits for a response. Her hair is bleached blonde, makeup heavy and long nails painted with an assortment of patterns. Shun nods his head, panting.

"Awesome! Let us in, we're looking for someone." She walks up next to him, glancing at the gate with an expectant look only to receive nothing. "Well?"

"What?" Shun says in between breaths. "Why would I let you in— hff— if you don't go here?"

"Like I said, we're looking for someone." She takes on a more defensive tone.

Curiosity gets the best of him. "Who?" 

A blonde boy peeks out from behind her, eyes wide. "Pink hair, purple eyes, nonchalant demeanor, average height, lightweight, blood type: O negative, star sign: Leo, big willy, masochist, possible psychic, name: Saiki Ku—."

"Shut up!" The girl says behind her teeth, clapping a hand over the boy's mouth. She turns back to Shun, apologetic. "Sorry about that. His name is Saiki Kusuo. At least we think it is."

"Right." Shun wipes the sweat from his forehead. What? How could these random people know who Kusuo is? Especially the boy. He knew him intimately enough to ascertain that he has a so-called 'big willy'? Even Shun doesn't know that. "Who are you?"

"My name—" The girl tightens her grip over his mouth. "I'm Aiura Mikoto. I do fortune telling and shit. This is Akechi Touma, formerly Asumi. You don't know an Asumi?"

Shun shakes his head, straightening up. "No, Kusuo has never mentioned him."

"'Kusuo'? So you know him? Can you lead us to him?"

"Uhm. Uh. No." Shun wipes even more sweat from his forehead. These two look so excited to meet him. How is he going to break the news?

Aiura narrows her eyes. "Why not?"

"He's a *little* dead." Great response. They'll get that.

"A little dead," Aiura repeats. "How can someone be just a *little* dead?"

She doesn't get it. "Uh, like. If you're super dead but come back a little bit."

"It would just be dead, then." Aiura realizes what she's saying. "He's fucking dead?!"

Shun shrugs, attempting to keep it cool despite his memories coming flooding back. "Yeah. Psh. You know, war does that."

"That doesn't make any sense!" She raps her nails on the fence, nervous. "I saw a huge aura coming from this building!"

"Maybe, you're looking for someone else, then."

"No, he fits the description perfectly! Initials: SK, pink hair, really powerful. How many other people in Japan fit that description, especially now?"

"I don't know what to tell you," Shun mutters. "I watched him die."

He can still see the fountain of blood pouring from the side of Kusuo's head as the bullet leaves as quickly as it entered. Helpless as he watches what little light is left in them dissipate. The dead weight collapsing onto him, begging for a final embrace. The sheer agony coursing through his aching heart as he breathes his last breath. Covered in his blood, covered in *him*.

"That is not possible!" The blonde boy, Akechi, pipes up. "Saiki Kusuo had the same powers as a cleric and so many other things! He could have simply healed himself or stopped the bullet with telekinesis! He told me he was invincible! We were such good friends! He wouldn't leave, just like that. No, he wouldn't die so easily, not when he's invincible. He said so. He said he couldn't die. He said he wouldn't let anyone die again..."

"But he did," Shun murmurs. He sniffles. This sight is so pathetic. He sees himself in this boy, the same, broken self outwardly present a year ago, grief overwhelming him. He opens the gate before he begins to cry. He's already done enough of that.

"Goodbye," Shun says, to no one in particular.

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tomate needs more trauma and a tomato sauce moment

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THE DEAD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND

Chapter 1 is out!

apocalypse au but its not the fun kind its the eastern european kind

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65546560/chapters/168736471

A CEILING OF SMOKE - 2395 words

The Tokyo skyline isn't what it used to be. Buildings that once stood tall and proud are reduced to shadows of their former selves, beaten and scorched by red, white, and blue bombardment. A blackness stains the dilapidated infrastructure, ash raining down upon cracked concrete and asphalt, byproducts of white phosphorus. Those left alive commute with a melancholy weighing down their shoulders.

Slumped bodies litter the alleyways. Men in fluorescent vests clear the rubble blocking the arterial roads. Bicycles ring their bells, speeding past the salarymen and drunks dragging their feet along the sidewalk. The streetlights flicker on as the sun slinks under the horizon.

"Why not just get a big vacuum and take all the bad air out?" Aren strides along, hands in the pockets of his black jeans. He kicks a bit of rebar back onto the road. "There's ways to clean it, right?"

"Cheaper to give out a mask mandate and move the vulnerable away from the city." Shun takes a pensive drag from his cigarette and exhales slowly. Aren sniffs, wrinkling his nose.

"That smells even worse than the fire powder."

Shun chuckles, cigarette crackling. "My lungs are screwed anyway."

"I guess." Aren looks up at the craters and bullet holes littering the university building. Jaunty music played on off-tune guitars and random objects can be heard in the distance. A glass shatters as a trumpet-sounding instrument reaches a high note, accompanied by the rattling of a windchime. 

The library retains its structure for the most part, tucked amongst taller edifices guarding its knowledge. Shun's sneakers squeak as he climbs the short set of stairs, extracting a keyring from his pocket. 

"How'd you get a key? You've only been going here for a day," Aren asks as he moseys past Shun, who holds the door open for him. The lights aren't even on.

"Nepotism." Shun puts out his cigarette before entering the building. "I should read up on bio before I go tomorrow. I don't remember a single thing. Maybe you should, too, mister 'you-need-to-relieve-your-erection-or-you'll-pass-out'."

Aren makes a noncommittal hum, turning away to hide his embarrassment. "Sounds boring."

Even though the contents of the vast shelves are uninteresting to Aren, he can't help but take in a shocked breath at the sheer amount of information, all labeled and stored neatly. The carpeted floor has been recently cleaned, and walls have been painted with a fresh coat of maroon, still cold to the touch. It's quite the far cry away from the outdated library at PK Academy.

"The professor's surname is Saiki," Shun says after a moment.

"There's what, like a thousand people named Saiki in Japan? Just a coincidence," Aren says without thinking, still taking in the filtrated smell of books, much cleaner than the streets outside. He follows Shun to the nonfiction section, walking down the aisle until the spines of the books are covered in cells and plants and anatomy and other things having to do with biology. Shun grabs a book off of the shelf and points at the cover. 

"Pop quiz! What is this?" 

"Ahm. Uh." It just looks like a jumble of blue-white scribbles. Like lightning, but this is biology, so it has to be in his body. Wait, his body has electricity in it! "Electricity!"

"Close. Super close." Shun tilts the book, egging him on for the answer.

"Veins. Blood vessels. Brain."

"Brain?" Shun nods his head.

"Nerves."

"Boom." Shun shoves the singed book into his arms. "You need to stay smart since you're not going to do post-secondary."

Aren's knees bend a bit under the weight of the large volume, whose subject seems to be only the nervous system. How can so many words be written on just a smaller part of the human body? "You're getting stronger. Eating more?"

"Of course." Shun chews on the inside of his cheek as he browses the dense shelves. "If I reverted my body to the way it was a year ago, I'd keel over from this air alone." 

Aren heaves the thick book back into its place. "It's already been a year, huh."

"D-don't reminisce about that," Shun stutters. "I don't want to think about it."

"What, are you still not over him?" Aren puts his hands in his pockets, responding carelessly.

"I won't take you to ramen later."

"Come on. Fine, I won't say shit." Aren adjusts his square glasses, shifting in the uncomfortable silence. Shun drags a hand across several of the broad spines, but his eyes gloss over the titles all the same. He's thinking about it.

"I still see him sometimes," Shun mutters after a moment, hunched over. His hand falls limp at his side, gazing wearily at the text in front of him.

"Do you need more pills?" Aren asks. "I can drop by the pharmacy."

"No, that's not what I mean." Aren draws closer to hear Shun's pained murmurs. "They help, but they don't fully take away those visions. It slips, on occasion." 

Aren leans against the bookshelf, crossing his arms. "Is he doing well, at least?"

"I don't know. He just looks at me."

"Mm. Well, he *was* a looker."

"You're not allowed to make those jokes," Shun says with a small smile.

He shrugs. "If you don't laugh about it, you get mad about it. Then, you hurt someone."

-

The door to the apartment snaps shut. The clinks of keys jingling against each other echo throughout the dead silent apartment as Shun and Aren step out of their shoes. Aren stretches, yawning obnoxiously. "Mm. I'm tired."

"I couldn't tell." Shun collapses into an armchair by the tall windows to their balcony, overlooking the shattered city. That final attack a few months ago has absolutely devastated the once prosperous capital. White phosphorus poured into every crevice, planes speeding above. It was indefensible, carpet-bombing a well established nation like that. A civil war between loyalists and radicals doesn't excuse it. Shun lights himself another cigarette.

"Aren, why do you think America's allies turned against them?" It doesn't make any sense to him. Time and time again, that country has waged war for such small reasons, and Europe remained indifferent. Why was this the droplet that caused the mug to overflow? Why did they side with the communists? His father could probably explain it him, but he's not been able to speak to him for just as long, too busy being a statesman. Aren is silent for a moment, thinking. 

"When a dude has a really big gun and starts shooting innocent people, even his friends would be scared."

"But those friends stood to make a lot of money from that death."

"They don't have the big gun, though. Nothing stopping that dude from taking all of the money for himself."

Shun sighs, smoke billowing from his nostrils. Orange light crackles in his face. Buildings are still spontaneously combusting from the thermal weaponry. Large pillars of smoke stretch upward in place of skyscrapers. "That didn't stop them from burying us in debt."

"Weren't Russia and China going to pay that off for us?"

"Only half. Eighty billion *United States dollars*." Shun intonates the currency with disdain, and he takes a nervous drag. "Have you heard anything from Teruhashi?"

"Nope." Aren collapses onto the sofa. "She's gone off the grid."

"That's fair," Shun mutters. "She doesn't want to be used again. I wonder how Saiko's dealing with that."

"Probably complaining about being a peasant," Aren chuckles, and Shun lets out an amused giggle.

"Imagine! That spotless skin, wrinkling up from sun damage."

"Tch. Maybe it's a good thing they let him off easy."

Shun raises an eyebrow. "Guillotine Anarchist Guy has had a change of heart."

"You know what, yeah." Aren snatches Shun's cigarette to take a short drag before putting it back in his mouth. Shun blinks. "This rehabilitation thing, it ain't so bad. He's off being a rice farmer instead of dead or being tortured. It's a net positive."

Shun wrinkles his nose, offended at the used cigarette in his mouth. "You could've asked."

-

The walk to campus is fairly short and uneventful. Shun's shoes tap against the concrete, echoing throughout the eerily quiet city. The occasional construction noise rings in the distance.

The chairs in the lecture hall are a bit uncomfortable. Only two other students have arrived on time, and the front desk is empty. Shun clenches his fist, sweating, waiting with bated breath for the professor to stride inside. Professor Saiki. Professor Saiki. It sounds so strange.

The chamber gradually fills up with students, weary-eyed and tired. Then, the professor walks through the open door in a stained lab-coat, a portfolio tucked underneath his arm. He's blonde. And that lengthy hairdo. He turns to face his class with a clinical look.

That is. That's. "I am Doctor— Professor— Saiki Kuusuke, and this will be a boring class. The labs are completely decimated, there is only enough electricity for lights, and the air conditioning is shot. So, pictures will have to do."

Where is the air?! It seems to escape his attempts at deep breathing, not wanting to cause a scene, but it can't be helped. Shun lowers his head in an attempt to keep the blood flowing to it. His vision blurs, the sound of the professor's disinterested drone fading in and out. This can't be stopped. He's going to...

-

"He's..." Mister Saiki trails off, staring at nothing. His wife bursts into tears, thrusting her head into his chest. He tries to keep it together for her, but his voice cracks. "I was going to apologize. Being in this house alone was making me think... wasn't that the whole point of him leaving us? But he's..."

Missus Saiki drops the coffee jelly clutched in her trembling hand. The glass dish shatters against the doorframe, shards shooting out in all directions, and the soft jelly it was holding takes the shape of the ground it falls onto. She had thought that it was her son who was at the door. No, it was news of his death.

Her sorrow is suffocating. Shun tries to remain there, to be as stoic as the boy that once lived, but his body tells him otherwise. Like a hunger, an uncontrollable will to run fills the recesses of his mind, lacing every conscious thought until it overwhelms him. Shun shoves past Aren and runs, as fast as he can, away from the grieving Saiki home.

-

"You're Shun." A silhouette leans over him, darkening his vision. He can feel that demeaning presence above him. It makes his skin crawl. His body is too weak to flee from that immediate danger. 

The professor tries to sit him up, but Shun forces him off; shove that *filth* away! "'Shun'?! Don't call me that! Get your hands off of me!"

"Whoa. Hey. I'm just trying to help. Your blood pressure is low. I have electrolytes." Kuusuke offers him an opaque bottle. No. No, that's poison or hallucinogenics or something. He's going to try and kidnap him! His hands hook under Shun's back and legs, and Kuusuke lifts him up with a grunt of effort. 

Shun pushes against his face, flailing around in his firm grip. "HELP! HELP!"

"I am!" Kuusuke responds, annoyed. No, he isn't! This is just a tactic of manipulating the passersby into thinking so! He's about to be trapped in a dungeon of sorts! In a test tube as an experiment, yet nobody is helping! He can still hear that suppressed chuckle as thousands are martyred at his hands. He can still see that sadistic smile. Torturing his brother, torturing Shun— this man is not capable of reconciliation! A trail of blood follows him wherever he walks, as it does his whole family. How is he here? A professor? What is his ploy?

Kuusuke finally drops him onto some cold tile in a bright place. This stench— it's the bathroom. Shun hears the metallic clink of that water bottle next to him, followed by the crinkling of a wrapper being thrown onto the ground. "There. The faster you pull yourself together, the faster you may get back to class."

Then, he leaves. Just like that. Shun breathes heavily, shoulders tense and sweating. He... left? He could've sworn he was going to do something to him, something nasty. Shun clutches at his aching chest, catching his breath. He's gone.

-

The lecture is as boring as promised, even with the low resolution pictures of cells being projected onto the silver screen. The students filter out once it is done, some stealing glances at Shun as they leave, causing him to look away with an embarrassed flush.

"Mister Kaidou, can you hang back?" He hears the professor call. So, he's learned his surname. It's not like he has a choice anyway. His arms and legs are disobeying him, with their sudden jitters and constant trembling. The professor draws nearer once the chamber is empty, more cautious this time. "We must converse. Do you agree?"

"H-hasn't everything already been said?" Shun stammers, nervous even with the earlier gesture of goodwill. Kuusuke shakes his head.

"My captivity has changed me. They treated me like a citizen despite my heinous actions against this country. Being a professor here is part of my rehabilitation program. They concluded that, if I have students to care about, it will help my empathy develop from its inadequate state."

"How's that going?" Shun asks, skeptical.

"I *helped* you." He says it with a tone of disbelief. "I can say that I wouldn't have done so two years ago."

"And... this is all because of the program?"

"No," Kuusuke admits. "There also just isn't a point to being a terrible person if my brother isn't alive to balance it out. So, I think that we should start a new relationship together, without the burdens of our past."

"Your past, you mean."

"My past." Kuusuke averts his staring eyes. "Yes. Yes, you haven't done many things wrong. You treated my brother quite well in the past. I *really* do regret getting in between you two. That is why I plan to fix that."

"'Fix'?" Shun wrinkles his nose bridge, confused. "How can you fix that? He's dead. Are you going to..."

"Resurrect him?" Kuusuke fixes his coat. "Yes. And you're quite clever, so I am asking for you to assist me."

Shun's mouth hangs open. "Uh."

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the yap battle

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>_ ***master post b/c i think that is how you use this application***

>_ interests: saiki k, gundam, yugioh, disco elysium, halo, star wars, batman, voltron... >_ writing: (saiki k. - 1.1, 1.2, 2)

>_ drawings: mainly comics & rushed pieces but i can do final products (promise) and yes i draw long faces. everybody is sad.

>_ custom cursors: (yugioh - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7);(voltron - 1)

enjoy!

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"Do you. Do you, uh, maybe, perhaps, want to get ice cream after this?"

Will you get a heart attack if I do?

Why is he hiding behind his ice cream? I can see him.

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i can't stop laughing at this monstrosity i have created how cooked am i

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i did this in an hour bully me

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hello i made art for a fic i wrote :>