#two months ago ogasawara was supposed to be in funeral arrangements. two months is a long time.

[dirtbra1n]

there’s a word for it. a name. for the people who take care of corpses before a funeral. hanzawa masato doesn’t remember it right now, though, because right now he’s up in the midnight hours, lying flat on the couch in the living room. too warm. he doesn’t care to remember it, the name.

it’s way, way too warm.

dying used to be simpler than this. there was no pavement, there were no buildings, there were no faceless people.

cold, though. there was cold.

the water wasn’t really flowing, too shallow, he was slowing it down, but his blood was. staining the ice.

it was gross.

he couldn’t stretch out his legs, couldn’t reach his arms out over his head. his fingers were cold and useless and deadened, and slow. the air he was struggling to breathe was pushing in and flowing out of his lungs through the puncture wound in his chest. so slow.

he’s been there before. he’s here now.

sitting stiff in the water, soaked to the bone, dying in isolation. bleeding out, masato thinks he’s alive. suffocating, he’s convinced he won’t be for much longer.

he’s not sure he’s anywhere.

dying used to be so easy.

instead of waiting until he couldn’t stand to look at himself anymore, kneeling until his head went under and waiting it out, probably getting swept away by the current until he crashed downstream—he wouldn’t know, he never lived to see that part—instead of that—

he’s wading around a little lost. he’s bleeding. the ghosts only look at him when they know it’ll sting worst, long shadows cast over the water, malformed specters dancing in mockery of him. he thinks his feet are getting a little worse than sliced up by jagged hateful rocks out of sight. that’s depressingly the least of his worries. it’s being impaled by the moon in a loop of time that fucking hates him. but he’s already bleeding. he’s a little surprised that he’s still got blood to bleed.

instead of releasing what could have become a burden, it’s him standing, helplessly, in the river, night after night after night. because it’s nighttime now. it keeps being nighttime.

it’s the kind of thing you’d almost expect to be a relief.

“hanzawa senpai.”

masato turns his head, creaky like a wooden doll. “…tashiro-kun.”

kimono-clad, he offers a hand. “you’re not face first in muck this time.”

masato doesn’t take it. a sharp smile curves his cheeks, not insincere. “thank you. ‘this time?”

tashiro smiles sheepishly down at him. squints. “did you die?”

“do I look dead?”

it’s hard to see from the water, but masato knows that tashiro’s shifted his eyes. saw it in the back of his mind, recorded on crackly film. he says, instead of answering, “I’ve got bandages.”

masato wishes he had something to rest his elbows on, to brace himself on. it doesn’t feel right playing his games standing upright, his hands in his sleeves instead of holding his head on his shoulders. “ta-shi-ro-kuuun, what do you think I need those for?” masato knows what.

tashiro replies anyway, drily from up on uneven paving, “hanzawa senpai, you’re bleeding. you need blood. to survive.”

“tashiro-kun, did I die?”

things are splintering a little. crackly film.

a web of cracks splitting tashiro’s composure, his voice shaking, “why did you?”

that wasn’t what masato asked.

—

“hanzawa senpai.”

“…”

“senpai.”

“…tashiro-kun.”

“you’re not face first in muck this time.”

the smile’s carving itself in, muscle memory. masato’s not going to ask what he meant by this time. “thank you.”

“did you die?”

“do I look dead?”

in the old school projector film behind his eyelids, the flickering doesn’t feel out of place. “I’ve got bandages.”

“ta-shi-ro-kuuun, what do you think I need those for?” masato’s always known what.

“hanzawa senpai, you’re bleeding. you need blood. to survive.”

“tashiro-kun, did I die?”

the shadows cast by a lantern hidden just behind tashiro make his shoulders look broad. masato swallows down a laugh, but he’s not sure what’s funny. “don’t be shallow, senpai, looks aren’t everything.”

the laugh comes out anyway. he manages, “I feel dead, forget the looks.”

“I can’t. I won’t.”

masato takes his turn to squint. they weren’t taking turns. it doesn’t matter. he doesn’t know if he still feels like laughing. he knows for sure that he can’t think of anything to say.

it’s just as well. tashiro isn’t having the same problem. “I think you should just, I don’t know. care about yourself more.”

masato swallows. his lips press into a chagrined line. “I don’t not care,” he says.

tashiro looks right through him. his eyes are like headlights.

he doesn’t actually need to say it, and masato can tell that he almost doesn’t, but maybe tashiro thought he needed to hear it out loud, feel it taking up space. maybe he was right.

“your caring sucks, senpai. it killed you.”

masato doesn’t want to follow that thread. “how many times have you been here, tashiro-kun?”

tashiro doesn’t buy into it. his demeanor is at once solemn and jarringly pleading, “senpai, won’t you live for once?”

masato means to say it like a joke, because it is one, but by accident the words, “how could I begin to deny you,” are dropping off his tongue, he doesn’t even know why, he doesn’t know why he said that, and no amount of exaggerated irreverence can hide from tashiro—eyes like cleavers, more like—the characters slipping into the water.

the ripples aren’t all that big, but they’re big enough.

like when your head aches, or the gash in your chest is losing you too much blood, or the water is tugging itself a little too close to that gash to be comfortable. something like that. something like that. it’s enough.

he doesn’t think he’s making any sense. it’s just too warm.

“maa-kun,” his older brother’s crooning, pushing his damp bangs off his forehead with cold fingers, “I think you’re sick.”

masato blinks away what he hopes is sweat. “gross.”

“not gross, worrying. sit up please.”

“I’ll throw up.”

“you won’t.”

“you’re right, I won’t.”

he’s getting fussed over in the middle of the night, on the couch that he’s sweating all over, and he’s watching a fan across the room spin and it’s nauseating and he stops looking at it. he’s getting fussed over in the middle of the night, by his older brother, because his mom’s out of town visiting her sister. he’s getting fussed over in the middle of the night, feeling a little out of his body. feeling a little—not at all—a lot like a little kid again. feeling sick, and pathetic.

he goes into the bathroom, wobbly and upset and over-warm, and he throws up.

—

reality’s tearing itself up, his dreams are eating it up, he’s falling apart and melting at the seams, he sits in almost-too-cold water until he thinks he’s gonna throw up again.

put him on ice, already, the sooner the funeral the sooner he can get some fucking rest.

his older brother’s sitting against the door frame, slipping in and out of consciousness. he murmurs, reaching forward to pet his hair, “‘s it too cold?”

masato doesn’t think it’s sweat. “it’s okay.”

—

it wouldn’t have been a very good joke, even if it’d come out right.

masato thinks he just choked around, “I want to. I want to.”