train to okinawa 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
synopsis :: While on a train ride for a school day trip to Okinawa, Yoshiki is caught up in scenarios of ‘What if’s?’ about him and Hikaru’s circumstances.
content :: the summer hikaru died, yoshiki x hikaru, plot, fake hikaru, semi-toxic hikaru, angst, (kind of) non canon
wc :: 1.4k
a/n :: kind of short but i hope its okay .. this is a draft from my notes app im just revising onto tumblr and not fully proofread (ᵕ—ᴗ—) theres really no plot this is kinda just a scene i imagined a while ago
song :: intruso - enjambre
One month had passed since it happened. Neither of them chose to talk about it, or anything regarding it for that matter. Except right now, where both Hikaru and Yoshiki are sitting side by side on a bullet train, shoulder to shoulder, their proximity forced to the max.
Yoshiki stared at the window in hopes he’d find something interesting to look at. Something that wasn’t the stringy powerlines that cut through the farmland or endless rows of flooded rice paddies. His eyes were heavy from lack of sleep, and his hair was barely maintained. He couldn’t even put himself together. But it’s not his fault, is it?
It’s not his fault he’s been semi-grieving his dead (?) bestfriend for the past month. It’s not his fault he tries to avoid every interaction, fearing that he’ll end up forgetting the Hikaru he knew and cherished. Yoshiki missed him bad— even if he was right besides him. Even if he hated to admit that.
Yoshiki bit the inside of his lip, sighing, eyes unintentionally focusing on a reflection in the window of the actual weight on his shoulders. Tufts of white hair splayed in every direction, chest slowly rising up and down, cheek smushed against his shoulder, eyes shut. Hikaru. But not Hikaru. Not the Hikaru that Yoshiki buried feelings for.
“I wish I never asked him that,” reoccured in Yoshiki’s mind for the fifth time this ride alone as he looked away from Hikaru. He can’t help but keep remembering and replaying that day in his head.
The day he asked Hikaru if he was really Hikaru. A vision so clear, you’d think it was a distant memory the way he replays it in his mind on loop. The way Hikaru’s insides slithered out his neck after being caught, the guilt and shame that filled those fake eyes of his. He remembers it all like it was days ago. Yoshiki to this day, still feels at fault for asking him that question. Maybe this never would’ve happened. Maybe he would’ve grieved for only a week like the rest of his friends, and then sprung back like everything was normal because Hikaru just decided to come back from the mountains. But would that have even been possible, if he never asked it? He would’ve gone and kept his feelings down, and eventually confessed to the wrong Hikaru anyways. And if that happened Yoshiki would only be living a life built on a lie. Cherishing moments with the wrong Hikaru, talking to him like he remembered every single detail that only the real Hikaru would remember. But would he rather have that over a dead Hikaru? Atleast Hikaru’s body is still here, with some faint outline of the memories the real Hikaru had. Yoshiki still has the chance to confess regardless whether he’s fake or not. He could finally tell Hikaru how he felt about him. He could finally put a label on everything. He’d just have to live with the lie that this isn’t the Hikaru he truly loved.
“It’s better he’s here than no one,” he thought.
Before his mind could spiral further and become more condescending, a familar voice pierced through, coming from his side.
“Yoshiki?”
Glancing down at him, his eyes raked over Hikaru. Hikaru’s eyes were just a bit more open than his. I guess he’s been awake for a while.
“What is it?” Yoshiki replied, shifting his body so Hikaru could lay more comfortably.
Hikaru removed his head off Yoshiki’s shoulder. “How long do ya’ think till we get to Okinawa?”
Yoshiki thought about it for a moment. “Bout’ 20 minutes,” His focused in on Hikaru’s fingers grazing his arm absently, like a habit he’s always had. “Why?”
“Nothin’. Just wondering how much longer I have t’ be this close to you.” A smirk crept onto Hikaru’s face, all giddy and teasing.
This Hikaru knew how to press Yoshiki’s buttons in every single way that the other Hikaru didn’t. How squirmy and tense Yoshiki would get if he initiated touch first, how he avoided answering Hikaru’s questions about the other Hikaru. He knew every single word to set him off like that.
And it just killed Yoshiki.
He moved his arm away from Hikaru’s fingers, crossing it with the other and looking back out the window again. To Hikaru, Yoshiki wasn’t hard to read. Not at all. Avoidant eyes, sweaty palms, the nerving twitch in his pulse he couldn’t exactly tuck away. Hikaru knew him like he knew the forest. And maybe the only way you could navigate the forest was to pry it open, force yourself in, and take a look for yourself.
“Oh c’mon,” Hikaru teased, laying his head on Yoshiki’s shoulder again, nudging him insistently. “Say something, will you? This is boring..”
Yoshiki could feel every single eye on him. Hikaru’s fake ones. Asako’s. Yuuki’s. Even Maki, who never looked up from his phone this whole trip. “Hikaru. Stop it,” He mumbled, trying to regulate his breath.
“That’s boring though.. You don’t talk to me the whole ride, and then you tell me to quit it? Rude, Yoshiki..”
Across, the way Yuuki whispered something to Asako, though Yoshiki couldn’t decipher it. Of course he couldn’t. Not when Hikaru started getting all grabby and whiny now. Not when half his class peered over their seats and stared at the scene unfolding.
He just wishes Hikaru would shut up for once. So much so, that he voiced it aloud.
“I mean it. Quit it. Everyone is staring at us— Why don’t you feel like, like this is unnecessary?” Yoshiki was raising his voice to the best of his abilities.
And, well, as Yoshiki expected, Hikaru quieted down. But not without the cost of some petty remark beneath his breath right back at him.
“Bet you never treated the real Hikaru this way.”
Yoshiki’s jaw clenched. Not out of anger or frustration, but resignation and exhaustion. He was tired of this, tired of Hikaru’s constant nagging and attitude, tired of him just asking about himself. He bit back.
“I didn’t. Cause he’d never ask me something so surface level about himself or nag me about being myself.”
Quietly, Yoshiki pulled himself towards the window, took his hand off the armrest, and looked away from Hikaru. He didn’t care what Asako or Yuuki or Maki or anyone for that matter, thought about what just happened. He couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.
Hikaru played it off, though. Despite this being a different reaction from Yoshiki than usual, he played it off and snickered, making some distant joke to another classmate as they laughed it off aswell.
Yoshiki only glared at the rice paddies harder.
For however long this Hikaru was to stay, he’d have to put up with him regardless. Maybe if he never asked that question, and maybe if the real Hikaru never went on that mountain trip, this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t find Hikaru annoying like he does now. And he wouldn’t tell him to piss off everytime he asked to walk home with him. Yoshiki felt bad, sure, for telling him off, but how could he not? That’s something else using his bestfriend’s body just to taunt him. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t wanna play into it like everyone else. Hikaru was dead. That was undeniably so.
Yet a part of Yoshiki still hasn’t come to terms that he’s gone.
“I just wanna see him again,” he thought to himself, fighting the tremble in his lower lip. He’d do anything to bring him back, as sick and twisted as it was. He’d go through that forest a million times over, again and again, just to find the real Hikaru laying there, waiting for him. Even dead and cold, he’d bring his body back down and lay him to properly rest. Yoshiki doesn’t know what’ll bring him back. Or what can bring him back. He just knows that he can’t keep looking at this outline, this figment of a thing living inside his bestfriend’s body.
He clenched his fists around nothing, just crossing his arms in silence. Let them stare. He’ll let them look.
But not a single one of them will ever know the burning, seething wrath and shame he feels for the endless possibilities both his and Hikaru’s universe could’ve aligned together.
a/n :: (¬_¬")
