neo culture

[ID: A sketchy digital drawing of Hanzawa Masato from Sasaki to Miyano. He is standing with his back towards the viewer, turning his head to look up at the camera. He's standing knee-deep in a flowing river and has sunburns on his neck, arms, and face. Blood pours out of his back, staining his shirt and diluting into the river below. One version uses blue lines with red blood while the other uses green lines and red blood. The artist's signature "sunnfish" is written in the water. /End ID]

The big change to the main plot is "What if Tashiro miraculously won against the ping-pong president in his first match, and wasn't forced into the club?" Which I realize is more unrealistic than "Hirano was a little more protective of Miyano" or "Kagi scored one place lower on his exams"... it also kind of kneecaps the arc Tashiro has in the Love & Passion LN chapter, but I guess that's the point. Maybe prev pres had a stomachache that day.

Downstream from that, Tashiro never joined any clubs (he kinda ended up as a floater/pinch hitter/errand boy for all the other clubs) and didn't grow closer to the old folks at the bath house. He's still friends with Miyano, Kuresawa, and Shirahama, but he barely knows Hanzawa as "That cool guy on the disciplinary committee with Miyano who seems to be everywhere".

(I don't know if the hirakagi and sasamiya adult aus are supposed to take place in the same universe? For my purposes I'm gonna say they don't. And this one doesn't match up with them either. So keep that in mind.)

Fast forward 10-ish years. Where Are They Now?

Hanzawa:

Works in advertising. There are parts of it he likes and parts he dislikes, but he does everything with gusto. His powerpoints make angels weep with envy. Made his way up the corporate ladder shockingly fast. Very, very good at his job. Married to it, even.

All his siblings have settled down with a romantic partner except for him. All his friends, too. (Including the previous president. I have Thoughts on this. But mainly I want hanzawa to be the only one left that hasn't shacked up with anyone.)

He doesn't really want to date anyone, but still finds his day-to-day a bit lonely despite maintaining a vibrant social life:

He still keeps a packed schedule-- he's rarely actually in his apartment except to sleep and sometimes eat, because he goes out so much. Plans all the office parties/get-togethers because he's a weirdo. Remembers everyone's birthdays and gives them relevant gifts. Tries not to give himself a single moment alone with his thoughts (no sober ones, at least).

Close with Hirano, the previous ping-pong president, and Ogasawara (and their partners, to an extent). Gives them relationship advice. He grew closer to Ogasawara in particular after graduating high school, when Hanzawa's brother brought Ogasawara's brother home and they suddenly became prospective in-laws. Hanzawa's fond of him, Ogasawara thinks he's weird but a reliable friend.

He successfully dodges most of his family's attempts to set him up with people. But sometimes they ambush him with a "by the way, this is my friend from work… I'm going to leave you two alone… bye now". Recently, it's started happening more often. His mom likes to tease him about wanting grandkids.

Lives in a swanky condo. It's a pretty immaculate place, albeit a little sterile-feeling. He finds it difficult to personalize his space, so it looks like a model home.

I feel like he'd smoke. sorry king.

Doesn't particularly like drinking (prefers keeping a tight leash on his mental faculties), but still does it socially. And/or when he really needs to turn his brain off. He's a very put-together drunk, though.

(...to an extent. If he has more than like, 3 drinks, he goes pillbug mode and starts whining a lot. And if he really has too much, he politely excuses himself from the social gathering, goes home, and lets some pretty intense feelings of despair and frustration wash over him in the privacy of his own apartment. At a certain point, the familiarity of it can be soothing.)

Drink of choice: "whatever everyone else is ordering".

Still dyes his hair religiously. Some of his piercings are starting to close up.

His lifestyle's pretty taxing on his body. And he's not getting any younger... One day he ends up collapsing at work. Which brings me to:

Tashiro:

I have mentioned my fondness for paramedic tashiro in the past. Well. Tashiro's a paramedic

He likes his job, even if it's really stressful. Likes helping people in times of crisis, and his cool head makes him good at it. (Honestly, the stress is kinda good for him.)

I can't decide if he lives in a worn-but-homely apartment alone or if he lives with older relatives. Reader's Choice

Still a really friendly guy; mellowed out a little with age, so he's like a chill brother to his coworkers. Good at grounding people, and working with people in shock. Loves sharing snacks with people.

Shirahama, Kuresawa and Miyano are still his closest friends, though they also had no idea what he was going into until he casually brought it up late into their third year of high school LOL. But he's pretty happy, all things considered. Marches to the beat of his own drum.

Likes to pick up a bunch of different hobbies that sometimes end up helping him with work/life related problems, Golden Boy style. He'll happily do most activities, but prefers ones that keep his hands busy. Whittling and soap-making are up there. If he lives with older relatives, I think they could get him into basket weaving or something. Ties into how he's v dextrous with his hands in canon. :]

His relationship with alcohol is like. Very normal. Drinks socially, and cracks open a cold one on warm evenings. Drink of choice: Beer, sake, or chuhai depending on the situation.

Still dyes his hair. Ropes Shirahama into helping him. He cut it short and re-bleached it right out of high school, but then realized he liked having it long. So now he grows it out. Keeps it in a cute braid like Mio in Harukaze no Étranger. This is really important btw hey are you listeni

Anyways. Hanzawa's coworkers call an ambulance for him when he doesn't wake up right away; he passed out from exhaustion, and ends up waking up on the ride to the hospital. He still recognizes Tashiro-- Prev pres likes to bemoan "the one that got away" when they go out together-- and strikes up a friendly conversation with him. More than anything else, he's frustrated at himself and embarrassed for passing out and making a scene at work... So instead of dwelling on that, he decides to get a good grade in ambulance ride (normal to want possible to achieve) and does his best to act perky and alert while talking up this paramedic he went to high school with. Tashiro, to his credit, takes it in stride and tries to subtly keep Hanzawa from overextending himself.

Once he's checked in, they give him some fluids and make him rest for a bit. His whole family somehow finds time to come in and embarrass him with how openly concerned and doting they are. They love him very very much. Hanzawa valiantly tries and fails to fight off a migraine.

He's discharged by sundown, with strict orders to rest for a few days. Which is a little problematic, because he kind of doesn't know how to do that. He fully intends on just going back to work the next day and being like "So sorry for that outburst! I'm fine!"

On his way out, he stops for a smoke break and runs into Tashiro again. He's just clocked off, so he's eating his dinner on a bench outside the hospital. ("And why didn't you go home first?" "I'm too hungry to drive!") Tashiro still keeps a mountain of snacks on him at all times, so he gives Hanzawa some and invites him to sit and eat together.

They're both pretty sociable people, so conversation comes very easily. Tashiro's so easy to talk to that Hanzawa lets slip his intention to go back to work, and Tashiro gets mad-- fully, genuinely mad, which is a little novel to both of them. Though maybe "frustrated" is a better word?

(Tashiro's not that dumb. He's good at his job, and he's observant, and he remembers the high school rumors that Hanzawa had a clone. Hanzawa's not the first person he's watched run their life into the ground like this, and he won't be the last. Wouldn't anyone want to try changing course when they see what's happening? When they've seen how it ends dozens of times? It's weird how heated he's getting with a near-stranger, though...)

Tashiro makes Hanzawa swear to take it easy sometimes. Has him pinky promise, which Hanzawa finds endearing.

Other than that, the topic of ping-pong comes up. Hanzawa mentions prev pres's "one that got away" comments and how he was thinking of making Tashiro the president of the ping-pong club, somehow sensing his latent potential at first sight. Tashiro laughs and says the matchup was unfair, but he can't really complain since he won.

Hanzawa asks if Tashiro still plays-- he doesn't, and hardly ever did outside of his brief stint with the club. He bounces the question back to Hanzawa, who gives a fairly non-committal "well, here and there" answer. Hanzawa mentions it's a shame that Tashiro isn't making use of his talent for the sport, and since he's been given a lot more agency in this scenario (and because he likes acquiring new hobbies that he can do with his hands), Tashiro's the one to suggest meeting up again to play sometime. Thinks he remembers the bathhouse near his place having a table. Hanzawa, who's somehow the most relaxed he's been in his entire adult life in this moment, readily agrees.

So that's their rapport for most of the adult au. They meet up once every week or two to play ping-pong and hang out. Hanzawa is kind of shocked at how easily and genuinely he gets along with Tashiro, and comes to really look forward to their meetups. In my head there's a plot beat where Hanzawa needs to cancel one of their dates for work reasons, and guilt starts to gnaw at him when he realizes he's been prioritizing ping-pong above his job for awhile now. (This equates to him being like 5% less constantly-on-the-ball than he was before, but his co-workers still notice.) But when it comes time for their next meetup, he feels silly for even thinking of flaking out. Why would he give up something that makes them both so unabashedly happy?

For his part I think Tashiro just really enjoys Hanzawa's company, and maintains the same desire he has in canon to learn everything he can about the guy. As much as Hanzawa will let him, anyways. At the start of each of their hangouts, Tashiro poses a question ("What kind of food do you like?" "Why'd you join the ping-pong club?" "How come you dye your hair?" "How many piercings do you have, anyway?" etc) that kind of defines the "theme" of the rest of their day together. Neither of them fully realize it yet, but Hanzawa is willing (desperate) to share all of himself with Tashiro, even the ugly bits.

\o/ that's most of what I had. Tashiro's presence in his life doesn't exactly fix all of Hanzawa's problems, but through playing and talking with him he learns to understand and respect his own desires a little more. Helps him face them more head-on, if nothing else. And Tashiro gains a cherished friend, one he finds he can open up to in ways he sometimes can't with Shirahama and co.

I also think Hanzawa finds plenty of excuses to crash at Tashiro's place more and more often, because it feels a lot more homey than his own apartment. (If Tashiro lives with family, they get pretty acquainted with Hanzawa real fast. Dote on him a little.) Whether or not he eventually moves in with Tashiro, I can't say, though it would make a nice parallel to the hirakagi/sasamiya adult aus..... they'd grow houseplants together.......... They'd do all of Tashiro's little handicraft hobbies together................... Hm

Extra "oh, they could probably do this" bits that I didn't really develop beyond one or two sentences:

Tashiro asks to stay over at Hanzawa's after a really, really rough shift

Hanzawa practicing his Big Important Presentations with Tashiro as his audience. Whenever he focuses too much on subliminal messaging, Tashiro is like "hey that's really weird" and Hanzawa has to be like "this is par for the course in the world of advertising ^_^" "scary..."

Hanzawa's apartment slowly starts filling up with little knickknacks that Tashiro carves (aformentioned whittling hobby)

Tashiro is Hanzawa's plus-one to his sister's wedding after the friend he was gonna take had to bail last-minute. Hanzawa's a little anxious about it, since even if he specifies "this is my PLATONIC FRIEND tashiro" he's worried his family might still think he likes guys. (Whether he does actually like guys is something that's perpetually in the "please try not to think about it" quarantine zone of his mind, even if he's been indulging a few more looks at it lately.)

Tashiro thinks about this for a couple of seconds and offers to dress as a girl. Hanzawa is like. I'm flattered but I think that might give off a different false impression. And Tashiro is like. Well why don't I try it anyway. And they do. And they look cute

Hanzawa has his annual physical and his doc is openly shocked that his BP isn't sky high like it usually is

Tashiro picks up an instrument (guitar? piano? koto?) and lets Hanzawa listen in on him practicing/fooling around on it.

Tashiro offhandedly says "you're so cool, hanzawa-san" and hanzawa gets really really flustered

Double brunch date with Hirano (protective over his friend. Hanzawa was his best man. knows it's strange for Hanzawa to let someone so close to his heart so quickly, trying to suss out if this new guy has bad vibes, will threaten his life if he does.) and Kagiura (also cares for hanzawa, trusts his judgement a little more than Hirano does, mainly there for quiche). Ogasawara is there too because I love to make him suffer because I wanted to squeeze him in somewhere. I like his and Hanzawa's relationship a lot. why ogasawara the bus driver etc etc

Tashiro borrows interesting-looking books from Hanzawa's bookshelf and gives little verbal book reports when he's done with them. Similar to the sasamiya BL situation, but with like... detective fiction. If you're familiar with that one post, I think he also has a lot of trendy books with titles like "The littlest things we know to be small" "The dark wife" etc. Tashiro feels like he doesn't always "get" them, but Hanzawa likes hearing his perspectives.

They watch one of Shirahama's streams together. Hanzawa gives a really big anonymous donation mostly just to fuck with him

Speaking of Shirahama. Every time Tashiro mentions his hangouts with Hanzawa, Shirahama's like hey man... you sure you and this guy aren't dating...? and tashiro's like I don't think we are? And shirahama gets increasingly distressed at how nonchalant Tashiro is about this weird quasi-dating relationship he's in.

It takes a while for Hanzawa to cross paths with Tashiro's friend group. Tashiro doesn't really volunteer a ton of specific information about his life in the meantime (including but not limited to Hanzawa's name), so they're all kind of under the impression that he was like. Taken in by some mysterious CEO or something. In a gay way.

Bonus round: What's Prev Pres Been Doing This Whole Time?

My thoughts on what the previous ping-pong club pres would be doing in this hypothetical adult au are almost identical to what I think he'd be up to in canon (just sans Tashiro), so I didn't really get into it. Also, this section is easily the least grounded in canon because of how little we know about him. But here are a few quick bullet points.

Haven't thought of a surname, but the given name I've given him in my mind is "Ryuuichi". So there's that. Mainly just wanted the dragon symbolism bc of his big personality. And he's "number one", of course.

It's important to me that he has a very rich personal life that we the audience never get to see. Obscured to us. With that said

Happily married to his partner, whom he met in college. They have a kind of smarmy know-it-all vibe and bounce off of prev pres's grander one v easily... Kind of like.... A certain sport.......................anyways they have a strangely loving, spirited relationship. Sometimes Hanzawa (+/- Tashiro once they get acquainted) goes out with them, and like clockwork prev pres always starts some pointless argument (like "How many holes does a straw have?" pointless) that ends with him and his partner excusing themselves to make out in the bathroom.

Once he learns Hanzawa reconnected with Tashiro, he all but begs to play with the two of them. So he tags along on Tashiro and Hanzawa's ping-pong dates sometimes.

still has weird gay tension with hanzawa Obviously. gets to have it with tashiro too when they meet and start playing together. lucky him. unlucky for everyone else. their bathhouse chats range from "shockingly normal convo between three adult men" to "hazardous to everyone in a 5km radius"

Knows Hanzawa like, uncomfortably well. Uncomfortable for Hanzawa at least. Sometimes he still slips up and calls him "sir".

^ it goes both ways to an extent. Sometimes Hanzawa finishes prev pres' sentence when he trails off and he has to be like "reading my thoughts again? come on now."

He has, like. A Normal Ass Job. But still loves ping-pong! Plays with Hanzawa, Tashiro, and a couple of people from his workplace.

Drink of choice: partial to cider.

read on ao3 (1,142 words)

As long as Kristoph was still in his holding cell, waiting for the knife, Klavier would remain on the knife’s edge. Someday, Klavier would need to steel himself, face the truth down, and look into the spectre of death looming ahead—but it was someday, still. Not today. Not yet. “You knew I was lying.” “Hm?” He’d let his mind wander. “About my sight,” Lamiroir said. “You knew that I was lying.”

it's been a week since Here Comes Justice! released, so I'm uploading my fic in full, now! please check out the zine if you haven't already, and a big thank you to @aa4zine2026 for everything. fic under the cut as usual.

“gonna tell you something weird.”

“…mhm…?“

tashiro squeezes his eyes shut, groggily rubbing a thumb over quick-drying salt at the outer corner of his eye. “just dreamed about hanzawa senpai dying on me.”

“…” shirahama breathes in; tashiro can hear him hold it. similarly, the sound of his hand being dragged over his face is crisp and loud.

finally, he says, “fascinating.”

—

thing is that tashiro could go for a vending machine drink, right about now.

he kind of doesn’t know why he does it, didn’t really take the time to think about it. all he knows is that the time read 2:41 a moment ago and changed the second shirahama’s voice crackled over the phone, “what?”

first sentence and so many things to say already. tashiro immediately so strongly characterized by acting before he thinks, and the moment itself happens in this cluttered, scattershot sentence, bridging together the reflection the action and shirahama’s dialogue all in one. Full approval to the disregard for conventional dialogue tags. not only does the lapslock allow you more leniency just by being what it is, keeping all this stuff in one paragraph really sells the surprise and fluidity of the moment. 

tashiro squeezes his eyes shut, groggily rubbing a thumb over quick-drying salt at the outer corner of his eye. “just dreamed about hanzawa senpai dying on me.” 

“…” shirahama breathes in; tashiro can hear him hold it. similarly, the sound of his hand being dragged over his face is crisp and loud.

finally, he says, “fascinating.” 

this exchange is so awesome. not just saying this because shirahama saying fascinating like that is totally how I talk, but it’s like. there’s a deliberate casualness to the whole situation. The way tashiro phrases it like it’s something weird, nothing more. The way he’s not crying, those aren’t tears—we’ll just reference “quick-drying salt”. shirahama’s silent but exasperated in a kind of comical, gag-like way. it just manages the tone so well. it’s serious, in some senses—in a lot of others, they’re just highschoolers. it’s kind of a comedy. that doesn’t make it any better or worse. 

could go for a vending machine drink, yeah, but he hasn’t had the chance to yet. hard to sneak out of club when you’re the president. harder still when you’ve got a nosy little ghost creeping over your shoulder about it.

not that anyone’s dead. that was a metaphor. the ball’s put back in play. tashiro’s mind wanders back outward.

placing all this introspection in the context of playing ping pong is SO good. also hanzawa as a ghost. really good. love how tashiro’s maybe inherited some of that sadism but he’s still very himself as club president. points to tashiro for the correct usage of the word “metaphor”.  

started keeping a personal score of how many piercings he’s got to compare against the cagey answers he gets when he asks the question, Hey, senpai, how many piercings have you got now? 

just feel like letting u know that when i first read this at 4am or whatever my insomniac self opened it’s mouth and replied, Hey, Tashiro, why don’t you bite his ear and find out? 

tashiro gonzaburou is curious about hanzawa masato and wants to know things about him. 

this sentence is so good like. you’ve showed this already but just saying things so plainly is. it’s good. hits hard, because it’s a sentence that’s so simple it’s almost over-sincere. 

someone who had piercings before and more piercings after, and likes milk tea, and will not turn down a favor asked of him no matter how many other favors he’s doing already. 

such a choice thing to pick as tashiro’s last hanzawa description. like, the other stuff we know, but it’s like… all those details, the 100-person groupchat, the milk tea, the piercings… we, the audience, know it because of tashiro. and like this thing about favors is… it’s implied, sure, but the confidence in which tashiro states this suggests some kind of like. personal involvement. his voice message about wanting hanzawa to sleep. of course you know this, dirtbra1n. you wrote it, and you’re a genius worthy of any inner circle. 

a weird senpai who decided out of the blue one day to finally hammer in that last nail in tashiro’s custom-made president-shaped coffin. 

i feel so crazy about this description. like, as far as weird senpai go, tashiro has two. the coffin is custom-made, like it’s meant for one person, but it’s president-shaped, which isn’t just the one shape. but it’s a special, unique kind of coffin nonetheless. like i know you address this at the end of the scene, but it’s so awesome how this sentence so perfectly leads you into thinking like… oh, that’s hanzawa, tashiro’s special senpai… sike! 

ping—pong—ping-pong-PING—PONG. “ha-HA!”

so obsessed with this. like the formatting conveying the increasing intensity of a volley in ping pong, and then crucially, that rush of excitement as a win. it’s so like—in the middle of a really introspective bit, tashiro’s natural charm and excitement spark into sight. 

tashiro, spooling thought back up as neatly as he can the table’s net, clocks two corrections to make.

yeah this line fucks. that spooling phrase, that’s so awesome. how’d u know I like zeugmas. 

sat with his legs criss-crossed on unfinished stone, knife getting weaved through idle fingers, tashiro watches up the river. 

thinking about this. tashiro’s the butcher. he’s the one with the knife, but he’s not like… ruthless. he’s idle. you’ve used the term weave—like butchery is a kind of domestic work. (skipped the playlist forward to put on butcher vanity for this one. just for fun. will borrow a lyric from that song and call this an “aortic work of art”.) the stone is unfinished, because they are. he’s looking upstream, for something to arrive towards him. not for something drifting downstream and away. 

he’s sat for three more blinks before he hears one solitary CRACK, maybe a musket, some kind of old-timey gun for sure, and falls back with a hole in his forehead. 

this just makes me think of tashiro buying that gun on his school trip. it also makes me think of. well. that taisho era au, but… well. won’t that kill me, too? oh also perfect sonic description as always. i love how your writing utilizes sound and onomatopoeia in particular. 

hanzawa senpai, spoken of by the devil, is here in front of him, and he looks… 

wordless feelings about the way you’ve decided to mess with the phrase “speak of the devil” into spoken of by. it’s doing untold damage to me. it’s also a decidedly sinister kind of descriptor, which contrasts with the following description in a painful way. 

scared. big shoulders shuddering a little, strong arms connected to shapely, masculine, trembling hands, toned legs tense enough to break into a run, handsome face almost hidden in full, half-dozen piercings in his ear, at least, glinting.

this description is SO. tashiro’s assessment reveals so much. the way he describes hanzawa as attractive all while cataloguing his fear. the way he specifically does this in a way that highlights hanzawa’s masculinity, and we know tashiro’s kind of got some gender things going on— 

and you pull back from all of that with the hiding, of the face, and the assessment of his ear piercings once again; he’s keeping score. 

“tashiro-kun,” he says. tashiro startles. feels a little stupid after. hanzawa senpai raises his head enough to look at tashiro’s face, sort of. “how are you?” 

this is something i have to steal (learn) from again. tashiro’s actions are neatly caught between hanzawa’s dialogue instead of breathing in their own paragraph. it makes the moment feel tight, intimate. 

it’s not really an answer to his question when hanzawa senpai says, plainly, lightheartedly, his eyes sliding shut and that smile pulling at his lips, “I’m doing bad.” 

would love to know what tashiro means by that smile. the fact that i don’t know is proof of tashiro Knowing things, though, and that’s really cool. Neat to see how they unintentionally mirror each other, though. like, hanzawa’s saying this like it’s a drink order. tashiro recalls hanzawa dying in his dreams like it’s a bit of whatever, too. both are a kind of non-confrontation. 

“I like someone.”

oh, wow. “I didn’t know you could do that.” 

this is fucking hilarious by the way. like i laughed out loud in sharp delight when i read this line. tashiro describes the silence before this statement like a black hole and once he gets the words he goes oh, wow. it’s comedy. tears in my eyes. 

he’s home and wearing one less shoe than he was a second ago when a big long reel of spooled memory barrels over him.

he’s wearing no shoes when he says, out loud, “Wait.” 

this is also so funny. I mean the reaction is vague, but seeing where it’s placed, i have to imagine this is tashiro going: wait, hanzawa senpai likes someone. the recurring use of the spool, and the mundane of taking off his shoes as he’s grappling with something potentially catastrophic—it’s amazing. 

embrace it. go into the water, take hold of his wrist before he plunges under, go down with him. pull him into your chest before you can think better of it. 

[head in hands] there’s two different kinds of embracing going on here. also really good usage of the second person. it makes everything feel so instinctive. like it’s a command from the soul. 

senpai’s warmth clings stubbornly to your chest—he’s far from small, so the temperature feels like a botched seam in your subconscious; pressure from the inside and out, water pressure compressing you to one single, massive point of contact. 

“botched seam in your subconscious” what an incredible turn of phrase. the way you’ve used this water pressure to both obscure and amplify the language of touch and sensation of temperature… there’s water pressure, and then the pressure of contact, the warmth of someone against yourself… 

you won’t see the glossy stone you rocket into; only hear the sickening crack. 

love how this mirrors the previous. the CRACK of a gunshot and now the crack of glossy stone. 

I’ve played a game like this before, you know. girl insists on cleaning up all on her own and she gets—

shirahama undercutting this situation is so. it’s like. the way it’s a game, like something that can be gamed, and solved. the way mr. dating sim is referencing like. a horror event. the way the horror event is what gets mentioned, here, alongside the drowning and the dead. that’s what it is. also i love that you introduce this here and not at the moment of tashiro in the classroom, which is debatably more relevant. 

sopping wet, tashiro says, “this is so gross.”

worse than wet, a gnarly broken… everything, replies, “you’re telling me.”

they’re soooo funny. twirls hair. gross, tashiro says. I’m reading this as that crack of stone. hanzawa’s probably bruised/bleeding to death. probably already is, but he’s dream-talking. gross, because they’re children, and because tashiro is blunt like that. 

jolts, pitches, watches his heart plummet. watches himself plummet, too.

love how this mirrors the dream, with the plummeting… makes the horror feel real for us, too. 

he gives the classroom a courtesy sweep. 

love the wordplay in this. sweeping like looking for intruders but also sweeping because he’s holding a broom so might as well sweep the floors. it’s what those things are made to do. 

the cold has a numbing, vicious bite to it. the sound of his shoes on cement and old, dead, dry grass is deafeningly loud cutting through the still. 

just. really good words. can you tell i’m having a hard time getting the proper words to appreciate it. because i am. it’s just like… the words you use are so cood at conveying a feeling of death… apart from the dead grass, it’s dry and old like a skeletal thing, and the cold is numbing, cement is unforgiving, and there’s a still. it’s just such a good job in terms of evoking non-motion. 

it’s not his or shirahama’s genre, but tashiro feels eerily like the protagonist of one of those first-person horror games. crunching and slipping, no good foothold. he swallows stiffly; his collar, pressed up against his adam’s apple, is too tight. 

noted tashiro girlisms enjoyer is not going to be normal about the collar pressing against his adam’s apple. that protagonist shirahama mentioned was a girl. 

shadow of the moon, not much else to look at. he takes a picture to send shirahama, accompanies it with a text that reads have u gone outside today

they’re so friends. absolutely the type of people to make fun of each other like this. love how quickly shirahama reads him in response. also “not much to look at” yeah i’m going to go crazy about how it’s just the shadow you see. 

still unstained, tashiro squints wearily at his reflection in the cleaver’s face. 

tashiro as butcherrrrrr. really good. again i love how its unstained, and not like. no blood. you’re so good at being vague in a really pointed way. 

ta—shi—ro—kuuun. tashiro cradles his phone in his hands as he goes back down the hall. are you free? I know it’s late.

hanzawa drawing out tashiro’s name like this will never not get me. it’s the stringing out of the name and then the consideration, the admission of the time. why is he so weird!!!! like the way he says that name, it suggests this kind of… play, playfulness, right, like he’s yanking tashiro’s chain, and then he moves right out of that space but the past doesn’t disappear. 

at one point or another, he takes the cleaver to old wood.

you know. this doesn’t make me think butcher. this makes me think woodcutter. like a folk hero. 

tashiro’s looking down at hanzawa senpai standing in a dried up waterway with a trash claw in his hand. 

really good line. waterway—river—dried up and dead. last uses of the word “claw” have been used to describe the creeping edge of paranoia. now it’s just this mundane thing hanzawa’s holding. if I’m crazy I say it’s representative of how he keeps distance. you can’t touch the trash with your hands. 

tashiro’s been calling so long his voice has gone raw, rumblier, and hanzawa masato hears it through the din of blood in his ears and static behind his eyes and he croaks, so quiet, reverent, out of his mind, “god?” 

god… i love how blurred everything gets here. they’re texting, tashiro’s alone in the school, hanzawa’s there, he’s the cleaver, and all of it works even though it darts around reality. dunno how you always do it so effectively. also insane sequence of description words. you’re so good at prose… 

hanzawa senpai, with something like a dozen cuts in each foot, is leaving a bloody trail; it makes tashiro wince. senpai won’t let him wrap the—he’s not gonna admit it but he won’t let tashiro touch him, damn it.

just going to essentially repeat what i said first time i saw this. the way you’ve chosen to omit tashiro calling the injuries what they are—a wound, damage, cuts, scars, slashes, anything—and cut into touching really enhances that this frustration’s core lies at intimacy and not injury. it’s really good i love how the blood is not really the problem here. 

you’d think, running from a flood—taxing, tiring, kind of pointless, a massive pain in the ass—that you’d take a leg up when it’s offered to you. 

I love how that description of a flood is also a really good way to describe hanzawa. 

senpai, though. he’s running like—tashiro swallows around that something again. he’s running like he’s not bleeding out, first of all. like his eyes aren’t foggy. like you can’t nearly see straight through him—this would be funny irony if anything funny was happening at all. 

tashiro, thinking something is ironic: wow, this is like, funny irony, but like not-funny irony. wonder what word that would be.

anyways. something interesting about the clear vision of this. hanzawa without foggy eyes, but he’s seen straight through, but also nothing is clear. 

laughs as he apologizes to the faceless people he blusters past, even though they haven’t heard one single objection. 

thinking about this. he’s smiling he’s laughing. he looks like he’s having fun. he has to apologize, almost compulsively. guy who’s so scared of everything. that’s what I see. 

“tashiro-kun,” hanzawa senpai manages, pulling the less mangled arm, the one tashiro moved to take hold of, up to his face to wipe at his eyes. 

I’m very delicate. are these not-tears again. or is that fogginess. is that fogginess tears. probably I won’t survive the answer. the way he’s laughing through all of this but has to manage dialogue. 

another peal of rough laughter sees old blood spat onto the stone. “no. you go.” 

yeah this fucks so hard. laughter bites into some kind of violence with your description… the rejection here. Like… you know the hit is coming, but you can’t really brace for it. [head in hands] OH MY GOD… i was like “hm that expression sounds familiar” and i think it might be from an mtv interview stephenie meyer gave soon after the release of the book, breaking dawn. I’m so cursed forever. fuck butchery hanzawa i have worse horrors than you dude

tashiro watches senpai’s throat bob. old blood gets older, looks like it’s been there forever. “you’re going to see me cry.”

GUY WHOS INCAPABLE OF VULNERABILITY!!!! GUY WHO’D RATHER DIE!!!!!!!! man. the usage of dreamscape is so good here… it magnifies the feeling so deliciously. you’re so good at. is the word surrealism? the following exchange just slaps so much. the frustration tashiro’s feeling, the forced defeat, the lack of humor in the situation. even though hanzawa’s, well. who’s to say that it’s laughter. 

he’s lying down in bed when he says, “oh, my drink.” 

this gave me whiplash. that vending machine drink? from ping pong? i saw like three deaths or some shit, what do you mean, your drink— 

why shouldn’t he get mad and frustrated and have cracks in his composure spilling over each other. why shouldn’t his face fall when he sees someone he cares about dying all over again for the— 

the spilling here, cracks… it aligns interestingly with tashiro describing himself as some kind of human kettle. also this makes that plaintive statement about caring for hanzawa and worrying for him have so much more weight. Like, man, of course it’s something he has to introspect deeply about and state. of course he has to state it, if someone keeps acting like he won’t believe it. 

why shouldn’t tashiro crumple when the moon drops out of the sky. 

“just” the shadow of the moon, huh. 

why shouldn’t he stare up at it when he’s fallen on his back, hard, with a stupid, smoking hole in his forehead. 

a witness, mourner, undertaker. the only person around to look the corpse in the eyes. 

well. butcher also looks at corpse, i say, super intelligently (not). dunno about the eye contact. I think it might feel like that. but eyes… well, hanzawa’s tend to be closed or obscured quite often. eye-smile, you know. 

tashiro got brought into it. all of it has hurt. it can’t be helped; if you see someone drowning, you try to pull them up. that’s all. that’s interesting. 

gasping, grasping, coughing, free fall. three beats: CRAAACK.

CRACK. crack. CRAAACK. you’re so good at sounds db

“sorry,” says shirahama, raspy. “can’t use my hands right now. talk.”

“wh—what are—”

click. click. br-ri-ring!

ah. “never mind.” 

[EXTREMELY DELIGHTED LAUGHTER]

“oh, I see. ‘another one’.” 

tbh if my friend texted me at odd hours of the night, telling me about the homoerotic dreams he’d been having, even if they were kind of serious, I would be razzing him. shirahama you’re so funny.

isn’t that because you did a bad job!? “st—” 

so like. I think about this comment a little. that’s the frustration here, I think, that tashiro wants to be able to do something. that this should be a case of doing, like, a bad job, instead of an unskippable cutscene. 

shirahama weeps, “mysterious older girl.”

a crease forms between tashiro’s brow. “I think… I probably can’t help.” 

who else is mysterious older… not-girl, I suppose, but like a coffin, that isn’t custom-made. there’s more than one shape that fits there. part of me is also like. sooo curious to know what kind of game mechanics are involved in this galge that’s not real. i think shirahama & tomoda should kiss. 

he closes one eye and goes blind in the other.

oh just kill me. the fact that this sentence is placed in the middle of mundane dialogue makes me feel like i’m devouring my skin. also the fact that the dialogue sounds mundane but it’s shirahama’s ambiguous vote of confidence regarding tashiro’s continued survival. so that’s also kind of insane.

a note of longing floats from one bedroom to the other, “mirai.” 

wonder if that’s supposed to mean future…? fascinating. also really good prose, that drifting longing. the way it establishes connection between shirahama and tashiro, but also suggests like… tashiro’s longing, too. 

shirahama sobs.

tashiro’s throat closes up a bit. “shouldn’t have said that, sorry. I’m sorry. give the book back, return the bracelet later.” 

something really tender about how this gets a bit too real, even though it’s a game and what’s going on with tashiro is… well, i don’t actually know what that is. 

a screenshot of the game menu reads, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO RESTART?

OH FUCK OFFFFFF. <- thing i said when i read this line. then i opened up my DIE OVER? playlist because of course tashiro post is going to make me have dating sim au feelings. of course that’s a normal fucking thing i should be expecting, because you want me dead— 

tashiro climbs back under his covers and throws an arm over his eyes. swallows hard. an echo of words he wanted to hear just once: I want to. 

way too many things to say about this scene but i truly don’t have the words. literally just look at that conversation. the overflow of want, imbued in that whole thing. the fear and the trepidation and the unknown of it all. I want to live. shirahama’s maybe too attached to the game. tashiro’s attached it with—the river, i guess. I don’t know whether I’d describe him as too attached. he just is. but I personally don’t want to say he’s too much. don’t really wanna call shirahama that, either…

tashiro’s still flat on his back when he hears hanzawa senpai’s voice say, dull and rumbly and cracking, “please, god, just make me clean.” 

trash claw. that reverence, when he saw tashiro. tashiro, reflected in the cleaver, but still unstained. clean. I am putting things together without proper conclusions except for like. tears. from my eyes. ha. you can’t see my cry, though. 

he’s set flat on his back when that stupid gun shoots him, too. 

“those dreams you’re having are your dreams, and generally I think it means something when you get into these… situations… over and over with one person in those dreams.”

[EXTREMELY DELIGHTED LAUGHTER PT. 2] 

tashiro, someplace between bored and enraptured, and able to stand on two feet, is carving notches into rotting wood. 

love this line. it’s like, the constancy of this dream. of course it’s boring in a way. but hanzawa, voice worn anew, that’s gotta be something special. also the “able to stand on two feet” is such a good way of conveying the magnitude of how injured hanzawa is. I’m glad it’s not easy for him to die. 

“ta—shi—ro.” he felt warm breath on his ear and jumped. “d’you wanna free pass to say my name?” 

THIS IS EVIL. the—the same way hanzawa says it, minus a honorific. but that three-syllable stretch, that’s all… well, if anyone’s copying, it’s probably not prev pres. 

tashiro caught his breath enough to say, “what would I want that for?!”

“oh, you did.” 

this dialogue arrangement is so… the way it’s like, oh, you did hear my question, but visually it sounds like hes saying you did about the wanting. which… I remember love & passion. that was a wanting that did until it didn’t, all of a sudden. 

tashiro looked up at the president. the president was looking down at where tashiro was rubbing the space over his heart. 

the height difference here, and the sort of like… physical tension that it creates here. really good setup for the [GUNSHOT] later. it’s just such immediately good characterization, though, of a kind of unreachable existence. he’s imposing and a tease and unknowable and knowing. 

tashiro paused to take a sip of his water. “…mm?” a little dribbled out the corner of his mouth. 

[head in hands] you knowwwwwww i get fucked up about water bottles. you KNOW!! whatever. I’m going to delude myself into thinking you used the word “dribbled” because shirahama plays basketball. “why would linking that be relevant right now—” I didn’t say I was smart, okay? 

two long strides; he crouched right in front of him. brought his glasses up to sit atop his head. went over the corner of tashiro’s mouth with his pinky, like tashiro didn’t already wipe the water there. 

[GUNSHOTS] this doesn’t qualify for laughter. I’m like seigi handling richard’s… hair. pinky finger, like it doesn’t mean anything. glasses off, to be… I don’t know. eye to eye. I asume that’s why he crouches. the way this emphasizes his like… height, physically, and also just the. largeness of his existence. 

he smiled knowingly. “break’s over. up we get.”

choked. just remembered tashiro fervently wishing for hanzawa to get up. 

hanzawa senpai, from the storage room, called back distantly, “one more round!”

the distance of this gets me, like… they didn’t fully know each other, yet. not that they know each other now, but—the stuff is different. one more round! tashiro’s hollow emptiness when the prev pres leaves. one more round, and he’s locking eyes(?) with hanzawa. 

another lifetime, maybe, when tashiro through the throbbing in his forehead hears a low voice—electrifyingly familiar—ask liltingly, “do you want to be clean or don’t you?” 

the bathhouse… taisho era au strikes with a vengeance. anyways. why does this dialogue sound like he’s asking, do you want to be alive or don’t you? also the idea of prev pres existing in this au is going to have me killed. 

“tashiro.” his name jolted through him, and another ball went flying past him, closer this time. tashiro’s gaze fell back across the table just in time to see hanzawa senpai reloading the president with another missile.

they’re so weirdddd. it’s like. the way with how you’ve constructed the paragraph, for a moment one might mistake this dialogue for hanzawa. you get to just in time to see hanzawa senpai and then you lead into reloading the president with another missile, and so you recenter, tashiro recenters, and hanzawa moves into the background. what’s wrong with everybody. 

tashiro’s whole mouth feels kind of numb, actually. “what?” 

oh? like, say, cotton mouth?

he saw a smile tugging at the president’s lips out of the corner of his eyes. “‘that so? why not? practice against me off the record… thought you’d do more with it.”

tashiro’s brow furrowed. “your arm’s like a gun.”

loud laughter hit him at the back of his knees. the president’s arm drew back. “hey, tashiro,” he said gamely. tashiro dropped his weight into his feet. “incoming.” 

oh first time i read this i knew the gun was something but on the second time around I am Realizing something. let’s connect prev pres to a gun for a moment. let that linger. 

instead of confronting it I will think about the subtleties of calling something off the record. Of, once again, the emphasis of prev pres’ strength. that bigness, it’s unavoidable. it’s like it creeps into every bit of tashiro’s narration, like he’s incapable of not noticing it, not commenting on it. 

an arm holds him up by the waist; tashiro’s head rolls limply onto a broad shoulder. warmth drips low in his ear, “guess you’ve got sharper ears than I gave you credit for after all, huh?”

I don’t even want to place this into context. brain isn’t working enough to do so. can’t delighted laughter about it either this is like. sexy-threatening. 

tashiro figured it out a while ago. that he wants to win, but not the way everyone else does. this much time spent playing against the old folks at the bathhouse, more time spent in club without him than with him, and he still gets a taste in his mouth, once in a while, that says, I want to beat him. 

this is just a really well-constructed paragraph. like not really any analysis here, but this just says the thing in the most correct way to me. it’s just so good, but in a way where it’s just plain effective. 

hungering for the chance. hungering for the chance to get one over him. 

[hollering] and on top of him!!!!

the entire thing feels like tashiro’s got this unfulfilled something, playing out this game of cat and mouse. because they saw something in you.

he saw something in you. you don’t even realize you’re idolizing him until—

the they -> he shift might’ve done me in. 

yet.

shirahama’d amended his statement: 

I’m trembling. I couldn’t think of what statement this was and then all of a sudden I remembered that thing about bucket lists and then I really started shaking. 

tashiro doesn’t recognize the cleaver but he knows it’s his hand holding it because he sees the trembling of the blade and feels the trembling in his wrist and forearm, bicep, shoulder, chest, ribs. connective tissue being sheared by the fiber. he doesn’t recognize the cleaver but he still sees his reflection in the metal. 

love the disconnection of tashiro from this idea of a butcher, because like, he is that, he’s holding the knife and everything, but he’s not quite… all of it. 

some time ago—he doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter—tashiro pinched his lips together. “uh.” wet them. 

[despairingly] so, like, tashiro, there’s this thing called chapstick, and they come in some pretty like, fun flavors, which maybe, well, I don’t know if you’d be into it but others could be, I guess you both could be—

senpai closed his eyes.

senpai covered his face.

something about this strikes at me, because it’s exasperation, but also like… obfuscation. he’s hiding. 

senpai has got that damn look in his eyes now, too many moving parts; self loathing and good humor, anger and pity and hurt. he asks skeptically, like it’s been weighing on him, “you couldn’t use a normal knife?” 

don’t know why this specific section made me cry, but oh boy, I cried. badly. madly. just. they’re both kneeling, looking at each other, but it’s still too much, to get all the words out, to really do much of anything. hanzawa’s hurt—he looks like he’s hurt, and not just ‘cause he’s bleeding. he for-real looks like he’s got negative emotions up in his noggin. 

tashiro wants to tell him, you don’t trust me. I’m better with this thing than I look, I’ll show you. it’ll tell me something, so give me the worst you’ve got.

and this, the weird begging of it… this dialogue makes we weepy

“man,” says shirahama, muffled, distressed, “do you remember ‘hey’?” 

I am also so distressed right now. The way shirahama’s still keeping that faux-casual veneer though even in that there’s this sense of distress. it’s fucked up!

“look at you, tashiro,” the arm curling just under his hip trembles for a second. “tall enough now that I have to really hoist you to keep you off the ground.”

now I’m frustrated. really good way of keeping this height emphasis fresh, by the way. now I’ve remembered that tashiro’s taller than hanzawa now. still not as tall as prev pres, I bet. 

all he sees is skin. he heaves a sigh and feels a jolt run up the body carrying him so vividly it pings in his brain as plain electricity. 

and, of course, the way it’s electricity mentioned in the taisho era au, with that nameless person… the way it’s all skin. that’s suggestive. that’s a tease. 

bullet hole be damned, tashiro drops his head back onto its perch.  

[frenzied stillness] it’s the gun again. 

the quarter of a face he can see smiles a little. “you can handle a little cruelty from me, can’t you?” 

not only is this line killer, i love that he can’t see prev pres fully. 

talking to the train tracks, tashiro announces, “I think something is really wrong.” 

what train tracks. what train tracks— 

shirahama only replies, “congratulations on finally hitting puberty.” 

[EXTREMELY DELIGHTED LAUGHTER PT. 3] shirahama thanks for being my buddy thru this all… 

—

lasts only until he emerges with a little kid’s wet cough before laughing hard enough to push tears out his eyes. 

thinking about how this is how we see hanzawa cry, first time. he’s laughing here, too. 

“now then,” tashiro and hanzawa senpai watch him reach over his head to tug at the neckline of his uniform shirt. it comes off in one motion after that. “should be for the best that you two make way…!” 

[broken laugh] do you want to be clean or don’t you? 

[faintly] I am not addressing the. the rest of that. I don’t have words for it. 

there’s a sign over hanzawa senpai’s head. if tashiro squints—it’s a dusty ditch-sign and the evening’s only getting dimmer—he can barely make out the words NO DIVING.

ignoring the fact that they totally failed that, i love how kind of mundane the sign is. it’s just placed well, this bit, in the whole of everything. 

tashiro’s head is lying on—

[...]

—the president’s forearm. there is the occasional muscle tremor. tashiro feels no particular way about this. 

WELL I DO. 

hanzawa senpai has got his wide eyes on when tashiro turns his head. 

tashiro’s bangs just got brushed down. If I’m having a crisis, hanzawa better be having one! 

long pause. tashiro squints an eye to see hanzawa senpai pinching his lips. “…hold still for a second.” tashiro’s eyes fly open as hanzawa senpai takes his more busted hand to brush up tashiro’s bangs. “I suppose so.” he takes a finger and flicks tashiro’s forehead dead center. “you’re back in one piece, after all.” 

hair fixation. I respect that. I am also thinking about holes, now. Specifically a kind of, say, “a yawning, lonely feeling of loss” and then I don’t get it. What happened to the loneliness? tashiro’s back in one piece. 

a snapshot: tashiro’s wrist, between jaws, and a crunch. 

read this and thought to myself: man. I have got to get weirder. 

shirahama sits up to look at him. he has tears in his eyes. “can you give me like twenty minutes to pretend I’m dead.”

“I think I’m just really touch-starved.”

“Please.” 

[EXTREMELY DELIGHTED LAUGHTER PT. 4] yeah i also pretend i’m dead for like twenty minutes each line i read. shirahama and me, we get each other. kinda-sorta. I think I’m actually prev pres, which is a terrifying line of thought to go down. 

he doesn’t look down at it to swing it right again. sheepishly, he coughs, “cosplaying the meat guy at the supermarket.” 

HE’S THE BUTCHER!

“ain’t enough for you to just let me haunt you, huh, tashiro?”

tashiro shifts his feet, squints, exasperated, across the table. “I can’t just take it lying down forever, you know.”

the table rattles. tashiro hasn’t ever felt his heart pound like this. he’s asked: “spoiling for a fight?”

the weird romantic of all of this… it’s crazy! not enough to be haunted… what, does he want to be hunted, too?

dull teeth grin sharply at him.

taisho era au strikes again… shining, dull teeth. really good way to give prev pres character, again. 

“get home quick. and, ah, good luck tomorrow,” he says. 

looming feeling of danger. good luck for what, I think to myself. there’s also something about ceilings and sky and looking up that i haven’t quite pinned down yet. perhaps it’s for me to get another time. 

—

miyano, to his right, looks at him with massive doll eyes. kuresawa, to his left, fixes him with a stare over his glasses before going back to his phone. 

I know they don’t get much space here, but you perfectly pin them down here. It’s so great

hanzawa senpai, dead center, looks down at him, hands ghosting over his neck where he was ‘evening his complexion’ a second ago, before tashiro went and opened his mouth, and he says, “really?” 

yeah. perfect use of the word ghosting, there. thank you so much. also great it’s the cultural festival i’m going to be sick. sure, go even his complexion. go cover up a bruise. i’m kidding. don’t. tell someone how to, though.

fingers poke lightheartedly where bone juts. tashiro’s in a glass jar, and he flinches.

he’s getting studied. he should learn, though. if he’s going to hold a cleaver, he better learn.

probably bl. tashiro poses with a hand on his cheek and says, “thanks, miyano.” 

and once again i’m haunted by miyano saying it’s “too easy” to imagine tashiro in a BL situation. 

the picture he takes of his feet, hovering as he sits on the windowsill and clad in black crew socks—he left the shoes somewhere else, he figures miyano will chase him down about them later—is waiting to be sent with incomplete text suck i when he spots someone out the very corner of his vision.

like tashiro, I want to delight at the way he and shirahama bicker, but like him, the slightest bit of prev pres is going to divert my attention. and kill me. I really do love shirahama and tashiro though. They bicker in a really fun teenage way, but also a way that’s like, elegant in a way that fiction can achieve over reality. It’s so cool…!

funny thing about crossdressing, see, is the worldview shift. that broad back looks broader, a piece-of-work senpai haunting his memory like a grief-hallucination. 

oh i just straight up want to highlight this whole thing. It’s all explosions. grief-hallucination, like somehow that hyphenated compounded noun fucks me over because it’s so succinct, because you could use more words but you really, really, don’t have to. as always I admire your creativity with the writing format. and here that constant emphasis of like… broad back, of height, intersects with the specific gendered context tashiro’s in, and things get so crazy I feel dizzy.

how many people in the world could possibly look like that. 

I think I might’ve said this already but it bears repeating: you do such a clever job of having tashiro describe people in a way that shows he thinks they’re attractive, all without him really ever needing to really confront that fact. it’s so obvious but it’s also subtle and that’s amazing, to pull that off, and do it with such variety. 

it’s a second of stirring in his stomach that bridges the space between shoujo manga and violent murder. his feet are back on the ground but they might as well be dangling out the window; an impulse in the shape of today you are a girl has him gripped by the shoulders, nearly chasing after a living ghost and using strangers as stepping stones to do it. 

yeah this paragraph just fucks in its entirety. once again another perfect set of words that just lays out the situation with the words that are just the correct ones to use. love is violence. 

thundering resonance. tashiro croaks, “what?” 

it’s electricity again, I see… 

“—this vision of a lost lover. and she goes running after him, obviously, because he moved away when they were kids or whatever. and she missed him sooo bad, so she’s really hoofing it down the stairs and out the front gate and she’s only delicately out of breath, after the whole thing, which I thought was kinda stupid, but whatever. he’s standing a block away, staring back at her over his shoul—tashiro what are you doing?”

we CANNOT be talking about lost lovers at the moment of prev pres’ approach. 

the president’s voice carries like it’s nothing, “you look pretty cute today.”

I think I’m being like. Strangled? sure his voice carries. it’s big and booming or whatever. of course it’s like. inescapable.

tell me your name for real this time. it’s not really fine with me either. “have you, uh. been dreaming about anyone lately?”

the president’s shoulders shake, lips splitting impossibly wider. his eyes shine. tashiro hears thunder. “nooope.”

okay so I think this might be totally out of left field. but like. nooope. but he’s also there, of course, if i’m tracking places and universes right. I think I am. there’s a dream bathhouse, right? “thundering resonance,” I remember that, that line was recent… but I was thinking, really thinking, about that gun. his arm like one. the one that shot tashiro and opened a hole in his chest. got him flat on his back. a bullet hole, like a yawning kind of emptiness in the center of your chest. like you’ve lost something. 

Shirahama Kyouji - 19

color palette ask game !

[ID: A digital drawing of Shirahama from Sasaki to Miyano. He is shown from the waist up, grimacing and looking to the side with a full-face blush. He is wearing a Hatsune Miku t-shirt, where shes smiling and posing cutely, with "みく" ("Miku") written under it. It's rendered with a sketchy style, using a limited color palette of dark red, red, light pink, blue, and dark blue, labeled "19." on the side. The artist's signature "sunnfish" is written near his shoulder. /End ID]