Trick or treat Kinoshita and Futakuchi!
Come trick or treating in my inbox! Leave a “Trick or Treat” and a character or ship in an ask, and I’ll treat you to some autumn-themed fluff or trick you with some twisted spooky aus! Is this a trick? Is this a treat? Who knows, certainly not me!
The day had begun just this side of cold, as it usually did near the end of October. Chilly, that was the word for it. There was a chill, a nip, a bite to the air, but it wasn’t enough to be called cold. Hisashi left the house with just a light jacket, a windbreaker the origins of which he could no longer remember. Did people even wear windbreakers anymore?
The meeting place was once a grove, home to a beautiful old tree and its younger siblings. Now it was just another suburban street corner. Hisashi didn’t have the energy to sneer at that. He hadn’t in god only knew how many dozens of years now.
Futakuchi was already there. Hisashi knew he was, even when he was still blocks away. The morning was drawing to its end, the sun reaching its height, and it was no longer chilly enough for a jacket. Hisashi paused outside a fast food chain to take it off and tie it around his waist. He knew what sorts of looks he was attracting, between the jacket and the fact tha the was pausing and the fact that he was on foot at all. But much like the energy to sneer, the energy to care had faded decades ago. He looked up at the hazy sky with the most he could muster up of a wish for times long gone, and kept walking.
When he reached the street corner that was once an ancient grove, he stopped beside his old companion.
“Not long now,” he murmured. Futakuchi didn’t answer, but Hisashi knew that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard. “Do you think this one will wipe them out?”
Futakuchi did answer that one, a slow shake of his head and a sigh. “Humans are a persistent species, you know that,” he said. “This has been building longer than we’ve been alive, you know. And how many cataclysms have they survived in all that time?”
Hisashi didn’t point out what they both knew: that those cataclysms were exactly why they were there, in the suburbs instead of a forest. He also didn’t point out that they, too, were a cataclysm, and that if humanity survived them, it would mean their long lives were for nothing.
“Not nothing,” Futakuchi murmured. Hisashi glanced at him.
“I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted.
“That you don’t need to say it out loud?” Hisashi nodded. Futakuchi shook his head and took Hisashi’s hand in his own. “It may not be the humans we need to worry about this time,” he said. Hisashi hummed. Futakuchi was right. This horror the humans had created was more insidious than anything the gods had come up with yet, including the two of them. Hisashi squeezed Futakuchi’s hand.
“We’ll survive,” he promised, looking out over the sprawling watercolor-stain of humanity stretched before them. He sighed. “We’ll survive like we always do, and so will they. I just.”’
“What is it?”
Hisashi looked up to find Futakuchi looking at him, something that didn’t happen as often as they both wanted it anymore. Hisashi smiled, a sad little thing. “Remember when they were beautiful?” he asked.
“They’re still beautiful,” Futakuchi pointed out.
“No, I mean… Remember when we could find them beautiful? Before they brought all this beyond the point of no return?”
“I do,” Futakuchi murmured. “You were the most beautiful of all of them.” He reached out with his free hand to cup Hisashi’s cheek. “You’re still more beautiful than any of them could ever be.”
The sun beat down directly overhead, and Hisashi was beginning to sweat. “I have to return,” he said, reluctant. But Futakuchi smiled at him, squeezing his hand.
“Not long now,” he promised.
“Not long now,” Hisashi repeated. He raised Futakuchi’s hand to press a kiss to each of his knuckles, then let it go. As he walked back through the endless grid of suburban streets, wishing he could see just one playing child or laughing couple, he glanced at the sky where hung the sun, heavy and red and ready to lash out.
Not long now, at all.
