#so all of his judgy bullshit is meant to be how the audience feels too. which causes problems in a game where you're supposed to give a

[arolesbianism]

Everyday I see another youtube video or whatever say smth along the lines of "this character is badly written because they're unlikable/annoying/insert negative description here" and everyday I end up massively disappointed because I came here for analysis on the actual writing of a character not just a description of the feelings they made you experience

[junionigiri]

Close To You [BNHA oneshot]

Summary: While practicing their quirks, Monoma and Shinsou find themselves in the middle of a blackout. Both of them somehow clumsily confront their fears and find comfort in each other.

Rating: T for language

Relationship(s): Monoma Neito/Shinsou Hitoshi

Warnings: description of a panic attack and sleep paralysis

Happy Halloween guys! Please enjoy this insomnia-induced, rapidly written, unedited Monoshin.

It's a rainy Saturday evening, and Monoma Neito's high and dry at a certain room in the 1-C dormitories.

In front of him, Shinsou Hitoshi's staring back at him, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and his back leaning against the bed, the perfect picture of tired disinterest. His right hand is resting on top of his thigh, palms up to the ceiling, stoically waiting for contact. "Anytime you're ready, copycat," he drawled.

A little smirk's making its way up his mouth. Playful. Devilish. Makes him look absolutely handsome, much to the blonde's chagrin. He knows that the name annoys him, and he revels in it.

Copycat isn't Monoma's alias anywhere, and he's told the purple-haired mentalist that a number of times already. But it's the name that stuck. Shinsou's hinted that it's the perfect name for him, as he's as cunning and finicky as a cat, and he frequently yowls like one too, every chance he gets when it comes to that despicable Class 1-A.

Monoma doesn't know how to feel about the other boy consistently comparing him to a cat, though. True, he makes references of the annoying cat-like traits, but Shinsou likes cats all the same, doesn't he? Does that… mean something?

"Anytime this year would be nice."

"Shut up." Monoma finally obliges and places his left hand over his right hand. He feels something hum at the back of his head, something tingly and ticklish, a purple shot of electricity. He feels the cells in his body rearrange and reorient, aligning themselves to Shinsou's. Within milliseconds, his brain relearns the basics of mind control.

It's an overwhelming feeling, a little painful and nauseating even, but at least it isn't as painful as copying his other classmates' physical quirks. It's not something that Monoma shares with anyone without reluctance. Shinsou's aware of this, though, and thanks to this odd arrangement of theirs where they spend their Saturdays practicing their quirks on each other, copying his quirk feels more and more natural.

"Okay." Monoma trains his eyes on him. He feels his trademark overconfident smirk return to his mouth naturally as he feels the power surge through him. "Anytime you're ready, mindfucker."

A small bit of amusement sparks in his purple eyes. "That's not a bad-"

The use of the quirk is surprisingly technical. For someone to go under, he has to target the specific part of the brain that controls wakefulness. Shinsou's given him a long, boring lecture before about the reticular activating system and all that, and Monoma absorbed nothing except how sexy the other boy's monotone was when he talked about neurosciences and neuroanatomy.

After many failed attempts before, he finally got the hang of it. Just imagine clenching somewhere at the center of the brain, where the two halves meet. It's there somewhere. And now Monoma's holding onto Shinsou's mind, and he's staring blankly at him. "How are you doing, Shinsou?"

He tries to control the left side of his brain, like a person blindly groping for a specific present in a giant sack, much like Santa Claus. And fails. Shinsou's mouth doesn't move.

"So erudite, Shinsou," he says, a little teasingly. "Seriously, though, you can tell me anything. Like, your name. Or your age. The color of your briefs. What you had for breakfast."

With each question, he tries, and fails to capture that part of his mind that will get him to speak. The area eludes him-it's like grasping empty air, and Shinsou's silence is blank and not encouraging in any way. He tries a simpler command, repetition, but this also fails. It's absolutely frustrating.

It's also pretty damn exhausting, swimming through the grey matters of the unknown. He feels an ache in the middle of his forehead as he attempts to prod through the other boy's mind further. He understands clearly why Shinsou believes that using this quirk on more than one person might lead to him passing out.

Five minutes pass by in discouraging silence. Within the next millisecond, he feels his body transform back to normal, like a gear that's all wound down. He feels his grip on Shinsou's mind loosen, and the other boy blinks himself back to consciousness.

"Well… that was unproductive," the purple-haired boy deadpans as he regains his control.

Monoma frowns at him. "I tried my best. You're asking too much of me. Remember how long it took before I figured out how to make you walk without toppling over?"

"Three whole weeks." Shinsou momentarily makes a face showing him how much he remembers. Monoma would be pretty embarrassed about his incompetence if it weren't so funny watching him do it. He never realized how complex a motion walking was, until he spent all that time making the purple-haired boy trip over his own feet and fall on his face and/or ass too many times to count.

On the other hand, Shinsou made it look so easy-it was so quick and straightforward, how he made Midoriya-kun turn around and walk away from the arena before that infuriating green-haired marvel somehow bullshitted his way out of the quirk-but it was a beautiful, sophisticated act of puppeteering that easily went way above the audience's heads, both students and pros alike.

Monoma remembers how breathtaking it is watching him in action. He surmised that the only other person who saw the skill properly was Aizawa-sensei, thus making him the only person in 1A that he didn't despise.

But he digressed. In front of him, Shinsou's making a new, contemplative face. "Anyway… we can't give up now. There's a way to do it, I just know it." He picks up another book on neurophysiology. Each page that Monoma chances upon is full of highlights and notes and encircled pieces of jargon that makes him want to sleep just reading them. "Maybe just activating the speech areas on one side isn't enough…"

Monoma groans dramatically and flops, just as dramatically, on Shinsou's bed. Even as the mess of purple hair bounces slightly with the ripple of the mattress, and even when the blonde unabashedly peeks over his shoulder and makes one frustrated noise after another, he doesn't look up. "Well, whatever, Shinsou. You can test it on me again, but you have a better chance of getting my mouth to do something without your quirk than with it."

Shinsou snorts. "I know," is all he says in response. That devilish grin's back on his mouth. This boy's good at keeping up their back-and-forth flirting. It's almost more that Monoma can take.

His purple eyes are trained on that book, though, not even bothering to look at how Monoma's face is maybe… definitely blushing at his knowing baritone and the slightly inappropriate images that it evoked. Soon, he's got laser focus, and only the sound of the pages flipping fill the void. There's no room for not even a fraction of the inappropriate scenes that Monoma's dreamed up.

He doesn't do anything about it, though. He sighs and rolls over on the bed, his face to the wall. "Wake me up when you're done reading."

"Hm," the baritone goes again, after another pageflip. What he would give to hear that against his skin, with his hands all over that bulk, with the sheer purpose of touching, and not copying and practicing this godforsaken quirk. What he would give to hold his face and-

He bites his lip. This is why Kendou's so judgy with him lately. Just confess and make out with him already, oh my god you thirsty bitch, she'd told him for the five past consecutive lunches he spent sharing his moderately thirsty woes to her. Well, whatever. Just because Tetsutetsu finally got his head out of his metal ass and figured out that the redhead meant more than just stepping out of the dorm the twelve times she'd asked him out, and she was finally getting some action. Doesn't give her the right to be so preachy about her aggressive dating methods.

"Hey, copycat, get up," Shinsou's voice breaks him out of his irritable internal mutterings.

It's subtle, but he feels the clench inside his mind right as he heard his voice. He braces himself as he prepares his voice, knowing that he'll go under in the next moment. He inhales quietly, "Can't I just lie down-"

Just as he feels his mind slip into a quiet, blissful, suggestible state, all the lights in the room go off.

He's staring into complete and utter darkness, with absolutely all awareness and no control of his body. It's terrifying-he feels his heart throbbing in his chest, the sweat pooling at his back, the ache of his limbs and his trunk and his eyeballs trapped in paralysis.

He hears all sorts of noises that he isn't sure he's supposed to be hearing. The sound of the rains outside, the whistling wind. Vague, beating noises that he cannot identify. Shinsou's breath, but perhaps it's another person. A psycho with a knife. A monster with large fangs and claws. Fucking Slenderman could be looming over him, and he's trapped in a body that couldn't move.

He's worried that he won't remember how to move. How to breath. Shit, he feels his breath trapped in his lungs with no way out. His hands are turning blue. He wants to whimper, but even his vocal cords are stuck in limbo.

"Shit, the power's out." The abject terror lasts for only a few seconds, perhaps less than ten, but his sense of time's screwed from mind control and he thinks he's in that state for fifty years. Shinsou taps him on the shoulder with the back of his hand, and in an instant, he feels the rush of wakefulness flooding his body, his mind.

He gasps out loud and grasps the other boy's arm. "Fuck," he says, purely out of reflex, out of fear and relief. He's shaking a little too much-he knows because Shinsou's got his arm around him to keep him steady. It's taking a little too long for his eyes to get used to the darkness. When they do, they automatically fall on the other boy's eyes, darker but a little wider and more concerned than his usual sleepy stare.

"Are you okay?" Shinsou asks, his voice a little gentler than his usual deadpan. Monoma's heart would have skipped a bit, if it isn't already beating erratically in his chest from sheer terror.

"It… it was dark, and I couldn't move, and-I was probably-seeing things-monsters… I thought I was going to die-"

He's stammering stupidly. What a fucking coward, a few seconds in the dark and he's a blubbering mess like this. He knows that the other boy'll tease him about it eventually, but the sneer he's bracing for doesn't come.

Instead, Shinsou's rubbing comforting circles in his back, and he's letting Monoma lean against his shoulder as he tries to calm down. "You're okay. They're not 're not dying. I'm here."

The rumble of his voice reaches his ear, vibrates throughout his body, relentlessly brushes against his wildly beating heart. His touch feels electric for the brief moment that he automatically copies his quirk, and lingers there as the boy remains close. Like a sutra, Shinsou repeats the calming words, breath warm against the skin of his neck until the blond realizes that his own breathing's even and his hands stop shaking.

"I'm good… I'm okay now," he eventually tells him softly. A crack of lightning flashes through, momentarily covering them in a flash of white light, before darkness takes over, along with unforgiving blast of thunder. Monoma flinches and holds on tightly to the other boy's arm again.

"... you sure?" This time, there's a little humor in the other boy's voice. He doesn't shake him off, though.

"Y… yeah. We… should stick together, just in case," he tells him in the most casual, non-cowardly voice he can muster.

"Sure. I didn't know you were afraid of the dark. Or thunder."

"I'm not," he mumbles, affronted, even though it's a big fat lie. Back in the disastrous training camp, he didn't have to go through the test of courage because of make-up classes with Vlad-sensei, and he's secretly relieved for it. He doesn't like the dark. He doesn't like how easy it is for him to imagine terrible things hiding just at the corners of his eyes, waiting to touch him with their cold, bloody claws…

Thunder booms again somewhere in the distance and makes him flinch again. He feels Shinsou shake gently with laughter, making him huff with indignation. He manages to stammer out an excuse. "I'm just a little freaked out over that… that weird sleep paralysis thing that happened just now, okay?! You should keep comforting me!"

"Aren't you a handful, copycat." Shinsou teases him under his breath. He fishes out his phone. The glow of it under his face enhances the dark circles under his eyes. In this situation such a sight would be utterly dreadful, but Monoma finds further comfort in staring at his face. "Dunno what's going on. There's nothing here about any scheduled blackouts. We should go down and-"

"G-go down? Why on god's green earth should we go anywhere? It's dark and cold and scary-"

Shinsou cuts off his scared babble with a pointed stare. "I don't have an emergency lamp here. We keep a couple in the kitchen, though."

Monoma frowns at him as brattily as he can. "The kitchen's four floors down. Y-you want us to grope around, in the dark, all the way to kitchen four floors down?! Why the hell don't you have your own light here?"

The purple haired boy only shrugs. "No use nagging me about it now. You could sit here in the dark while I go get it if you want."

He's staring at him and the spot where he was incidentally holding onto his arm for dear life. He flexes it slightly, as if daring him to let go.

Of course, Monoma doesn't let go. (And not only because he's even more aware of how much larger and harder his bicep is now. Great, now he's terrified and thirsty-what is he to do about the excessive adrenaline rushing through his veins?)

"Fine. Lead the way," the blonde grumbles under his breath.

They stand up. With the help of the flashlights of their smartphones, they walk over the scattered books and things they left on the floor and make it out to the hallway, with Monoma stumbling only once.

It's eerily silent, with only the drumming of the rain filling the silence of an entire building. When he was thankful before to have Shinsou all to himself on that particular Saturday, now he's cursing the rest of 1-C mentally for choosing this weekend to go home to their little houses and left just the two of them to face the frightening dark and stormy night they had ahead of them.

But as far as blackouts go, even though this is terrifying enough, at least he's with Shinsou, who remained unafraid. As careful as his steps are, he's moving about as if nothing happened. Not a trace of fear, even as the wind whistled through the cracks of the building, and the windows beat from the winds and rain, and the doors and floorboards creaked under their feet. Even as they take the narrow wooden stairs down, he doesn't waver once.

They finally reach the common areas. Shinsou somehow pries his iron grip from his arm so he can search the cabinets for the emergency lights.

"Just stand there. Don't move." He doesn't use his quirk to tell him this, but he might as well have, with the way Monoma stands there like a statue, praying that the lights come back on within the next second.

It's much darker in the kitchen than it is upstairs. With the light of his own phone, Monoma can barely make out Shinsou's figure ducking through the cabinets from a distance. He seems to be taking his sweet time digging through them, and he couldn't help his impatient, "Anytime this century would be ideal, Shinsou-kun…"

"Yeah, yeah," the boy replies tiredly, ducking his head fearlessly in the darkness of the cabinet under the sink. He had half a mind teaching these general studies kids to teach them about making proper emergency kits. Really, in the 1-B dorm, Kendo nagged everyone to keep a box under their beds with a torchlight, bottles of water, a first-aid kit, crackers-

A soft, high pitched whine reaches his ear and intrudes in on his mental rant. Monoma freezes. "Shinsou?"

"Just a minute," he grumbles, a little irritated now. He doesn't look up.

He starts to sweat, but doesn't move. Shinsou told him to stay there and to not move, after all. And-apart from the sounds of the other boy stacking things on top of things from his side of the kitchen, there isn't any noise anymore. He tries to convince himself instead that all he heard was the wind. But, for posterity's sake, he asks anyway. "Did… did you hear-"

He hears the noise again. It's high pitched. It's not the wind. It's soft. It's…

"... yaaaaa…?"

It's close to him. Somewhere to his left…. no, behind him-

"... yyyeeeaaaaaaaa…?"

In the distance, Shinsou looks up, infuriatingly nonplussed. "What's that noise?"

Monoma opens his mouth to retort, or to scream, or to make some confused noise just so he won't hear the noise again and imagine things, like women in white crawling out of wells, but before he's able to, something soft brushes past his leg, and what is unmistakably a sharp, dripping claw clenches itself at the skin of his ankle-

Something inside Monoma snaps. He screams bloody murder, arms flailing, phone clattering in a flickering mess on the floor. He bolts further into the common areas, instinctively running towards the exits, but somewhere he trips on lush carpeting and falls with a painful thud on the floor.

He's freaking out. He doesn't even have the proper sense to scream or to make any incoherent noises. "Yaaaaa!" the voice calls out again mockingly.

"Monoma!" He's a little out of it when a dark purple mess of hair carrying a lamp with the lighting capacity of a fuckin' searchlight makes his way towards him and effectively blinds him. He hears the noise again and feels his body attempt to jolt himself to his feet, but a sharp pain at his ankle stops him. "Look at me. Relax. It's okay. You're okay. I'm here-"

"Sh-SHINSOU THERE'S A FUCKING MONSTER THERE THAT GOT ITS CLAWS ON ME-"

Shinsou shushes him gently, continues the calming mantra. "There's no monster, okay? Trust me-"

"No monster?! I felt it, look at my freakin' leg, there's clawmarks there-"

"Myaaaa!"

Monoma's eyes widen at the sight. Where Shinsou's kneeling beside him, the creature that made the noise ambles up to them confidently. Its tail is way up in the air, pupils in green orbs thinned into slits. its fangs and claws glint in the shine of the torchlight. Whiskers twitch, almost in amusement, as it stares at the messy heap that is now the annoyed copycat.

"... ughhhhhhhhhhh….!" The next moment, he's hiding his face in his hands in frustration. "Of course. Of course it's a fucking cat, Shinsou Hitoshi, you effing cat-head. Why in seven hells-"

Shinsou's carefully letting the cat sniff his hand. Again, there's no trace of fear or uneasiness, even as this strange cat, with all its long claws out, inspects him with interest. Monoma wonders briefly if this guy's scared of anything at all. In the light of the lamp, Monoma's able to see its scrawny form covered in soaked, tortoiseshell fur as it rubbed its head and the rest of its body against the other boy's leg. "There, there. You're scared too, aren't ya, buddy?"

The cat yowls in response and rubs itself against his leg again. Monoma couldn't help but feel some offense that the cat is getting just as much care as he and his twisted ankle are. He then remembers how Shinsou's compared him to this type of creature now demanding their attention, as if it didn't scare him half to death earlier.

Frickin' annoying. Monoma decides that he didn't like cats as much now.

"I think it's a stray," he hears the purple-haired cat-head say softly. "Must have been looking for a warm place to stay in this storm."

"How'd it get here?"

"Beats me." Shinsou shrugs and pets it, not minding how soaked the creature was. "They gave us old buildings to live in, unlike you guys. There's probably a cranny here somewhere it snuck into…"

A buzzing noise beats twice above them, and instantaneously the lights switch on, and the appliances hum back to life. Warmth soon seeps through them as the heaters come back on. The cat mewls happily.

Shinsou switches off the light and looks at Monoma's right ankle. He flinches upon movement. He knows it's going to swell later. "Can you stand?"

"I think so…"

"Stay there for a minute." It takes him a minute to open up a can of tuna for the grateful cat, who immediately gobbles it up and ignores the two boys, and to claim a bag of ice for the blonde's sprain.

He then comes back to him and lifts him up easily with just the pull of one strong arm. Monoma feels a little breathless as he feels himself leaning on the taller boy's sturdy frame.

"Okay. Let's go," he tells him in his usual deadpan, but he's so close, the blond feels it rumbling from the other boy's chest. He's only able to nod weakly as they hobble awkwardly out of the common area.

Oddly, Shinsou seems to be leading them towards the stairs, instead of the elevators, which are definitely up and functioning by that time. Monoma glances up at him questioningly. "Er… Shinsou? We aren't taking the elevators?"

Purple eyes blink momentarily, askance. "We just had that blackout. It might not be safe."

Monoma stares at the lights. The rain's still strong, but the winds are gentler than a few minutes ago. "It should be okay now, right? And anyway, what are you gonna do, carry me princess-style up four flights of narrow stairs?"

Shinsou starts to move, about to do just that, before he stops with the red-faced Monoma's hearty protests. "Hold it, hold it! Don't carry me, what are you gonna do if you drop me?!"

"I'm not gonna drop you," Shinsou mumbles under his breath. "… if that's the case, maybe we should stay here," he mumbles again, a little softer this time.

The blond blinks at him curiously. There's an undeniable anxiety in those purple eyes now. Gently, he asks him, "Hey… are you… scared of elevators or something…?"

Shinsou scoffs, but it comes out nervous, oddly enough. "No. I've ridden elevators before. I'm just a little iffy about riding it when the electricity's so unstable, that's all."

"Hm. Okay." He gives him a skeptical look, nonetheless. "Well… it's not like the lights are blinking out now, and it'll take like a second. I'm sure it's safe to ride the elevator now."

The purple-haired boy mulls it over for two more anxious moments of silence. Monoma's a little uncomfortable, since the ice bag is starting to drip down one of Shinsou's arms, and he's about to agree just spending the rest of the night in the grimy, unsanitary common room couches before he senses the other boy nod.

It's Shinsou who presses the up button, and in seconds it dings and opens. There's a beat of silence before he moves and lets Monoma hobble along next to him.

Dark eyes get a little darker as the doors close. Monoma feels the other boy's heart rate go up as he leaned against him.

It'll be okay, though, he thinks to himself, wondering why he suddenly feels uneasy too. He looks up at the numbers as they go up-

2-3-4…

Suddenly, the carriage comes to a shaky halt. The lights go off once, and in the next moment, they're bathed in the soft orange glow of the emergency lights.

"... Shit." It's only after a moment that Monoma realizes that it was his own voice that says this.

"We're trapped." It's Shinsou who says this beside him. To Monoma's ears, it sounds odd, and distant, and soft. Unnatural.

He feels Shinsou's grip on him loosen. There's probably a solid minute that they just stand there in stunned silence. Monoma's too scared to look at him in the eye, for the anxiety's radiating between them is almost palpable.

"We're trapped," he repeats. Monoma turns to him and he sees that his hands are coming up from his sides to grasp his hair. His face begins to look strange.

"Shinsou?" The blond stares at him, speechless, as the other boy's hands descend to cover both his ears. His face continues to contort. He's kneeling on the floor. Breaths rapid, and shallow. Skin pale. Sweat coming down in cold droplets.

"Monoma, we're trapped-we're going to die." His voice is still distant, oddly still, tense like a frayed rope lifting an anchor. "We're going to die-no-one's here to help us-we're going to d-die-"

"Shinsou-" in the next moment, he's next to him on the floor, kneeling on his swollen ankle. He tries not to let his pain show as he repeats the mantra used on him earlier to calm down. "It's okay. You're okay. You're not dying-"

"No, you're wrong, we're trapped, it's just like before-before, when they put me in that box-when I was-"

His purple eyes are wide open, but it seems like he's seeing something entirely. Monoma's frightened-he's never seen someone this terrified of something that wasn't there, something that was clearly a traumatic memory that's looping incessantly in his head. He knows that the hand on his back is little comfort.

Shinsou's babbling and hyperventilating at the same time, and his arms are beginning to stiffen. It's only a matter of time before he passes out if Monoma doesn't do something-

There isn't much of anything else he can do in this situation, except, "It's okay, you're okay. You're not dying."

"No… no, we're-"

Monoma grasps the center of his mind, and Shinsou instantly stops talking. His eyes are wide, but this time they're blank, all traces of anxiety temporarily suppressed. His eyes slowly fall from the sides of his head and onto his sides, and Monoma breathes in deeply in some semblance of relief.

"That's it, Shinsou. Just… breathe. Slowly, counting to four. Yes. Just like that."

He doesn't speak, but his breath goes into a natural, slow rhythm. Monoma touches his pulse gently and feels the other boy's heart rate slow down considerably.

"Good. We're good. We'll be okay. Just… keep your eyes on me, Hitoshi."

The name slips out of his mouth very naturally. If Shinsou noticed it, he doesn't have the faculties to react to him, other than to return the hypnotized stare back to him, on command. Monoma sees his own reflection in those purple eyes, now with some semblance of calm.

"We'll be okay, Hitoshi. They won't harm you tonight." He keeps his hands on him, keeps him close, listens to his quiet breathing. He doesn't know who they are, but whoever's got the gall to traumatize the strong boy in his arms to this extent deserved a swift trip to hell.

They remained there in dim, slightly more comforting silence. Monoma's internal clock told him that his five minutes are almost up. He prepares himself to re-copy Shinsou's quirk and put him under hypnosis as soon as humanly possible.

But just then, the fluorescent lights flicker back on, and the elevator clunks itself awake. As Shinsou snaps out of mind control, they ascend about another foot upwards, and the doors open with a cold ding.

Somehow, the two of them stumble out onto the lit hallway. They breathe heavily, with Monoma leaning against the wall and his sprained ankle screaming in pain, and Shinsou supporting himself with both arms on his knees, as if they ran an entire marathon.

They're both okay. It's been a fuckin' hell of a night, but they're both okay. Relatively. Monoma's got a sprain and Shinsou's got a terrible childhood trauma revisited from being trapped in a closed space but… they're both okay. They're both alive.

They're both here.

Shinsou's walking up to him, obviously a little shaken. Eyes still a little wide from the ride, but at least he's breathing a little easier now. "Hey."

"Hey."

He holds a hand out uneasily. It's still tremulous, but it looks strong. He wordlessly gestures for the blonde to just get in there and be supported. He obliges.

They hobble back silently into Shinsou's humble room. They remain silent as Shinsou places the pack of ice over his injured ankle and raises it on the pillows. Monoma's lying down on the bed once more, feeling warm and safe and out of place, trying in vain to keep his heart calm from the aftershocks of fear and… and something else.

Shinsou is eventually finished treating him. Without further ado, he collapses right next to him and groans in what sounds like relief.

There's a palpable moment of silence that goes between them, thick and awkward, begging to be broken. Monoma doesn't have the words, though, and all he is able to manage is a weak, "… so…"

"... yeah. That happened." Shinsou sighs and closes his tired eyes. "I… guess I have to apologize for freaking out. I can be pretty worthless like that…"

"No, don't say that." He tries not to remember the terror and pain in the other boy's voice when he broke down. They put me in that box. It echoed mercilessly in Monoma's mind. Before he knows it, he's holding on to the strong arm again, as tightly as he can, and presses his face into his shoulder.

"... Monoma?"

"Hitoshi. It's okay. We're okay. We're not dying."

The boy freezes for one second, and then softens at his touch. "Yeah. We're okay."

He smiles against his skin. They're both probably fucked in the head, but at least they're there. Somehow, they silently agree to talk about these things another time. They've got many five-minute intervals up ahead, after all.

Outside, the wind and rain's stronger than ever. Monoma closes his eyes and revels in the light and warmth.

-end-