#rimomo

Momozou has been acting strange. For the past couple days, he's been oddly twitchy. On Wednesday he seems anxious and keeps close. On Thursday he keeps periodically looking behind him, to the point that Ritsu gets jumpy as well.

On Friday there is no student council, thank god, because Ritsu isn't sure how much more he can watch Kamuro and Tokugawa make out with their eyes across the table. They were far more tolerable in middle school when they were just childhood friends.

"Ritsuuu!" Oh, god, no.

Momozou comes trotting from around the school gate with one arm waving above his head and the other holding...are those flowers? Ritsu can feel his face deepening from peony pink to rose red.

"Momozou, what the hell are you doing?" He has a reputation to keep around here, dammit!

"Being a good boyfriend." His cheeks are slightly flushed, but he's obviously enjoying himself, the handsome bastard. He must have run from his own high school instead of waiting and meeting at a halfway point as usual. He probably cut his last lesson again just to make it right when class gets out, too.

"Oh, but you're always such a good boyfriend, Momo." The smile Ritsu gives is saccharine sweet, sugar added in excess to hide the bitter taste beneath it. Two can play at this game.

It works, much to his delight. Momozou’s face develops a petal of dark red that bursts and blooms towards his ears and down his neck.

"Kageyama, please remember that high school still has rules on PDA. You, too, Takenaka." Ritsu quickly wipes the smile from his lips as he turns to face none other than Kamuro and Tokugawa themselves. Are they giggling at him?

"Of course, President and Vice President. I wouldn't dream of subjecting other students to such a thing. Especially other council members." He really hopes they get what he's hinting at. The four of them walk together until they separate at the sidewalk. Kamuro wraps himself around Tokugawa's arm as though it were a trellis almost as soon as they step outside the gates. Ritsu and Momozou both make gagging noises once they're out of hearing range.

"They absolutely knew what you were hinting at, by the way. They just don't care," Momozou speaks up eventually. Dammit. He's going to start putting rude anonymous notes in the comment box next week.

The two of them stay out until almost dark, meandering around the quieter parts of the city, with Ritsu watching and observing the entire time. He picks out several incidents where Momozou acts as though he's Heard an unpleasant thought, or turns and looks over his shoulder for something that isn't there.

Ritsu has a lot of homework (well, they both do, but whether or not Momozou will do his is questionable), so he figures they'll see each other Saturday night after he's done. Sunday, at the latest.

He doesn't hear from the other at all over the weekend. Not so much as a text message. Shige tells him he wasn't even in school on Saturday. This is highly unusual, at least for this amount of time. On days when Momozou's headaches get too bad, when his skull starts to feel like cracked glass, he can't bear to look at a back-lit screen and will let social and educational obligations slide. It's never gone on for two days straight, though, even during large public events where crowds gather like dumb birds around shiny coins and their thoughts crow just as loudly.

On Monday Momozou still isn't in school. Not even the disbanded telepathy club members or his older brother have heard from him. Class lets out and he decides to try to call one last time. It goes to voicemail. Again.

Ritsu can almost physically feel the uneasiness welling up around him, a dark and sticky pool slowly growing deeper and deeper. The longer he thinks and stews in his own muck, the worse it gets. They've been going out for a few months, but they've been friends for much longer, would it be too pushy to show up at his apartment? What if Momozou is just avoiding him? But his mom is also gone for the week, so he's home alone. What if something's really wrong? What if he goes over there and finds a body-

That's enough of that. Ritsu takes all of the images his own traitorous mind has conjured and tamps them down tightly into a neat little box before taping it shut. It'll be fine. He'll get Momozou's homework from his high school as an excuse to show up and his boyfriend will answer the door and give some explanation and everything will be fine.

(Unless he doesn't and-)

Ritsu lights the damn box on fire.

No one comes to the door and he sinks deep enough that the uneasiness forces it's way through his mouth and settles into his lungs, threatening to drown. There's something really wrong here, he's sure, he just doesn't know what yet.

Now what should he do? There's a balcony with glass doors in the kitchen and Shou never seems to have trouble getting into Ritsu's room through the same set up, so... After making sure no one is around to see, Ritsu levitates himself around the corner of the apartment building and onto a tidy landing with potted plants. The doors stay shut at first, but just as he's wondering if he should jam open a window, there's an ominous click. They're unlocked now.

His barrier manifests itself unprompted in shards of color as he cautiously steps inside. The air feels thick and oppressive, weighing heavy on his limbs and clogging up his throat.

He nearly drops his bag when a voice filters from down the hallway, quiet murmurs slipping beneath Momozou's bedroom door. The thudding in his chest starts to go faster, knocking his breathing into something quick and shallow.

"This time I've gone all the way without you. There's nothing more I can say..."

It sounds painfully weak and wispy and yet its still familiar from days spent in each other's quiet company. Ritsu’s feet carry him to the door.

"So maybe I took a little too much. Maybe life didn’t want this part of me. If it helps to know, I never let you go. I'm sorry, but I lost my mind..."

It sounds wrong, wrong, wrong, because Momozou usually only sings to himself like that when he's desperately trying to block out something terrible and Ritsu is the only one here. (Isn't he?) The door eerily creaks open before he even touches the handle, inviting him in.

"So maybe I took a little too much. Maybe you sucked the life right out of me. I should have let you know I never meant to go. Sure, I lost my mind, but I never really Meant to Die..."

It sounds like a swan song.

Ritsu steps into the room and nearly trips over something heavy and solid. He looks down and the box from before flies open, spewing ash and soot and thick black smoke everywhere.

Momozou is laying curled into a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around his head and pressed hard against his ears. He's staring up with his sunken eyes blown wide and glassy, looking at Ritsu like he's not sure whether he's even real or a hallucination.

"Ritsu...?"

His eyelids slowly sink shut. The shadows beneath them have never been worse.

"Help..."

Everything goes still.

Time stops and stretches into something almost infinite until Ritsu dives down and grabs ahold of a wrist to check for a pulse. This isn't real, it's a nightmare, he probably just ate too many sweets before bed again-

The hand he's holding suddenly grabs back, tight enough to pop his knuckles, as the body in front of him jolts. He's ecstatic for all of two seconds until laughter starts to fill the air, because that is definitely NOT Momozou.

Ritsu throws himself back out into the hallway, scrambling to get up on his feet as the thing in front of him rises. There's a physical sense of revulsion boiling in his gut at the way Momozou's body moves like it's being pulled upward. It's still laughing.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the little brother! How sweet of you to save me the trouble of finding you."

The sound is an all out assault on his ears, it's Momozou's voice, but it's not at all the way that he usually talks. His posture and the way that he carries his long limbs is slouched where it shouldn't be. The sneer on his lips and the slant of his eyebrows has gone outright manic and murderous. Most startlingly, the whites of his eyes have turned a bright noxious purple.

Ritsu is made to revise that statement when more eyes appear over every exposed inch of skin, lining his arms and giving a spider-like appearance where they dot his cheeks and forehead. All of them are that same toxic shade.

"I was getting pretty impatient. It took three days to possess this body! Three days! Do you have any idea how boring it is to watch a kid either lay around or drive himself up the walls for three days straight in one tiny room? The answer is pretty fucking boring." There's a short pause as it stuffs Momozou’s hands in his pockets. "…OK, it was a little funny." The thing giggles again and it grates like nails on a chalk board.

Ritsu snarls as he raises his hand, aims straight ahead and lets loose his powers. Momozou's body is engulfed in color before it all suddenly disperses, flying at the walls in ripped apart chunks of blue and green and pink. Shit.

"Adorable. Alright, kid-" Another blast, stronger this time. Same result. "Awww, aren't you cute? Well, go ahead, then. Third time's the charm, right?" Ritsu grits his teeth as he forces his body to double the output. His aura whirls like a tornado with Momozou's body at the eye of its storm, but even still its sent flying back at him. "You done now? I suggest you quit." As if Ritsu would take advice from some evil spirit. He can already feel the pressure building up inside of him for another offensive. The thing just smiles and rolls Momozou's eyes and pulls something out of his sweatshirt.

A pocket knife.

"Do you really think you can threaten me with something like that?" Ritsu switches the charge to defense, shards of light glittering as his barrier comes into being around him. Momozou is taller and has a longer reach, but Ritsu has better stamina. As long as he can keep out of range, he should be OK.

"Oh, I think I could. You're not the one I'm threatening, though." Then the knife is pointed right at Momozou's throat and its as though a vacuum has sucked all the air out of the room, out of the apartment, directly out of his lungs. The uneasiness he'd been choking on before is drained and replaced with panic and cold fury, because how dare this thing go so far?

"There we go, now I think you understand. I'm gonna need some cooperation out of you later and if you don’t, well... This is a veeeeeeery nice vessel. I've never seen such a powerful telepath! But I just need it to be able to use its powers. It wouldn't hurt anything if I broke it a bit." The entire time it's talking, it's waving the knife around casually and Ritsu flinches whenever it gets too close to Momozou’s face or especially his eyes.

He should have known something was wrong earlier in the week. He never should have left him alone.

"You, on the other hand..."

Momozou's body lunges forward, slamming a fist against the wall that Ritsu only barely dodges.

"You're only the bait! It doesn't matter what I do with you!"

"You, on the other hand..."

Momozou's body lunges forward, slamming a fist against the wall that he only barely dodges.

"You're only the bait! It doesn't matter what I do with you!"

Ritsu ducks down and sidesteps, desperately trying to keep from being cornered. He can't get caught up against the wall like that again, he's not sure he'll survive it. He takes off the way that he came, throwing shock waves behind him as he goes, but he doesn't even leave a dent and that thing is still coming after him.

The living room passes by in a blur as he all but slams into the kitchen doors where he'd come in. C'mon, open, open...!!

No use, locked, stuck shut. He doesn't even have time to process the hand he feels on the back of his  scalp before his forehead is smashed against glass, leaving his vision swimming. There are fingers tangled in his hair on the top of his head and Ritsu covers them with his palm, grips tight as he twists and slams his fist into Momozou's arm hard enough that he let's go.

He can just see straight enough past the red in his eyes to throw himself over the island counter in the kitchen and put distance between them.

"Oh, kid, I haven't had a fight like this in ages!" The way Momozou's mouth is stretched open is horrifying and unnatural on his face. "Tell me, what would piss your brother off more? If you were all the way dead, or just almost dead?"

He really doesn't want either.

"Too bad! Those are the only options," it sneers at him. Ritsu feels his jaw drop. He's sure he didn't say that out loud. It starts to laugh again. "What did you think possessing a telepath did?! I can hear every plan you come up with before you even finalize it! I know every little observation you've made!"

He's pretty well fucked, isn't he?

"Oh, sweetheart, like you wouldn't believe."

A cloud of ominous indigo comes rolling at him in waves from Momozou's fingertips and it's almost a relief because it's the first thing Ritsu can actually use his barrier for. Seconds pass, though, and nothing hits. It's directionless, filling the kitchen like dark, opaque fog. There's a clear area of a few feet around him, but only for as long as he keeps the barrier going. He's already tired and there's a splitting ache developing in his forehead.

"Did you know that a lot of spirits have abilities, too? Mine is Toxic. You may as well drop that shield now, kiddo, it's gonna get eaten through in about five...four..."

Ritsu watches in horror as the dark begins to swirl closer through literal holes in his defense, filling his bubble and burning his throat as he's forced to breathe it in. This area is too small, too contained, he can't see and he can’t move without running into the counters-

A fist comes flying out of nowhere and crashes against the side of his face, sending him reeling. Something lands hard in his abdomen, right under his ribs and knocks the breath from his lungs. There's another hit against his back that pitches him forward before his legs are kicked out from under him and he goes careening into the tile floor. It all starts to blur together as he curls up in some attempt to protect his head, his ribs from a pain he hasn't felt so intensely since the Seventh Division.

There's something scratchy beneath his left elbow and Ritsu reaches out with his telekinesis, FLINGS it as hard as he can. Last second, no plan, running on fumes and instincts. It's the rug from in front of the kitchen sink, it's just enough that he's able to push his battered body up and make a run for it, bouncing off the countertops and cabinets the entire way. There's a growl behind him and it's moving in closerclosercloser-

A hand shoots out just as he thinks he can see the light at the end of the tunnel, grabs the back of his uniform and yanks so hard that he's nearly clotheslined by his own shirt collar. Vertigo sets in, everything is tilted sideways and he's not sure which way is up or down as his feet leave the ground. He's head over heels, flying and then falling and then crash landing against the living room wall. He's barely able to crane his neck up from where he’s been thrown to see Momozou's body walking out of the fog towards him. He needs to get up, he needs to move right now-

He looks to his right and spots Momozou's phone sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. If he could just get to it-

A foot comes down hard on his right hand, startling a cry out of his sore throat. There are poisonous purple eyes staring down at him, disturbingly blinking one at a time across Momozou's forehead. "So impatient! We'll get to calling your big brother in a little bit. First-"

Ritsu thrashes weakly as he's pinned, one arm trapped under each of Momozou's legs with his full body weight plus the spiritual powers pressing him against the floor. There are fingers around his throat, just tight enough to keep him from moving his head. The other hand...

The other hand is holding the pocket knife from earlier.

"Hold very, very still," it whispers to him, breathing out toxic wisps as it does. The blade is pointing at him this time, hovering directly over his left eye.

"Eenie..."

The blade switches to hang over his right eye.

"Meenie..."

Ritsu whimpers.

"Miney..."

He squeezes his eyes shut tight.

"Mo!"

His body tenses and his breath sticks at the back of his tongue, waiting for the worst thing he's ever felt. Nothing happens, but he's too scared to open his eyes.

There's a sharp intake of breath above him and he finally dares to peek through his eyelashes as the hand around his throat pulls away.

Momozou's sclera are rapidly flickering between purple and pale bloodshot pink, the illusions of eyes on his skin blinking in and out of existence as he stares out into some indefinable middle distance.  

"Momo...?"

One word and it's as though a switch has been flipped. Momozou's face loses all color and he's suddenly howling, flailing backwards off of Ritsu as he clutches at his temples.

"Get out, get out, get OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT OUT OF MY HEAD...!!"

He's not about to waste this opportunity. Ritsu heaves himself onto his hands and knees and scrambles across the floor to the coffee table. The cell phone still has a charge, thank god, and when he turns on the screen his brother's number is already pulled up. There's an unfinished message addressed to him:

Me: I think something is following me. I've been hchlbcxz

Message saved Friday, 9:13 PM. He'd been trapped in with this thing since then. Ritsu bites down on the inside of his cheek, presses the call button just a little too hard. He wonders if he'll ever feel more pathetic, calling Shige for help while having to watch Momozou scream and claw at his own skull as if he could physically dig the spirit out that way.

"Momozou? Is Ritsu with you? He-"

"We need help. NOW." All of his effort goes into speaking clearly, combating the shakiness in his hands and voice.

"Ritsu? Where are you?" The sound comes through seemingly flat, but Ritsu has learned over the past few years to read the little things. His brother's voice is just slightly lower, more forceful. Shige sounds actually angry, a rarity.

"Momo's apartment. Its- FUCK!" He jumps nearly a foot in the air when the phone suddenly explodes next to his ear. Momozou's hands come away from his face to reveal a cold and furious expression, something Ritsu has never seen from him before that chills his blood into sludge. The eyes are back.

"Alright, that's it, we are officially done screwing around here." Even the voice has gone acidic. Ritsu jumps to his feet, nearly knocking over the coffee table, when he realizes the knife is in its iron knuckle grip again. His legs are shaking as it starts to advance on him, ominous and looming. "Kid, by the time your brother gets h-h-here-" Its words stutter and fizzle out as Momozou's eyes begin to flicker again. Purple, pink, purple.

"...I'm most of what's keeping your body together at this point. You sure you really wanna keep pushing your luck? Wanna make this the hill you die on?" Purple, pink, purple...pink, locked directly with Ritsu's dark brown irises.

"Yeah," Momozou whispers. "I'm sure."

Ritsu watches wide eyed as the boy in front of him takes a deep breath...and then crumples forward with the release of air. He has to dive to catch him, elbows skinned on the hard floor. There's violet smoke rushing out of the limp body and steadily forming into a ball overhead, darkening the room.

"Ritsu...I'm sorry..." Momozou is dead weight in his arms as he scoots them backwards, away from the monstrosity forming in the middle of the apartment. "I'm so tired..."

They end up hunkered down in a corner of the room, Ritsu emptying himself into blast after blast of energy. Without a body to use as a meat shield, he can cause some actual damage, but it's still not enough, because of course it isn't. (Because he’s never been quite enough, has he?) There's fog covering the ground and steadily climbing higher when the mass in the center of the room sprouts eyes and mouths full of crooked needles. Ritsu sends up his barrier as resignation slowly sets in like lead through his arms and legs. He can't exorcise this spirit, even after the chance that Momozou gave him by pushing it out of his body (a chance he could have died for, still might die for).

He can sense where the toxic mist is pressing into his aura, eating through it like moths with flimsy cloth. Not much longer.

Ritsu presses Momozou into the corner behind him, spreads himself out to protect his boyfriend the best that he can. Maybe...maybe this is all he can do for now, try to make sure at least one of them makes it through this. There’s a shaky breath against his neck from where Momozou’s body is draped against his back, a hand bumping against his.

"Ritsu...I'm glad that I met you."

"Me, too, Momo."

He intertwines their fingers as darkness rushes in and covers them both.