𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞
Hikaru x fem reader
On the steps of the old school, behind the shadows of new buildings, where summer twilight blurs the line between reality and delirium, you sit hip-to-hip with the one who wears the name and face of Hikaru. His profile is motionless, frozen like a statue. Only the faint tremble of his pale lashes betrays something alive beneath that mask.
Flushed. Uneven patches of red bloom across his pallid cheeks, creeping down his neck, scorching the tips of his ears.
How strange…
Hikaru ran five laps earlier, yet now he barely seems to breathe — though normally he’d be complaining about his throat parched dry, gulping water so greedily his Adam’s apple would leap like a wild thing.
"You’re breathing weird. I mean — you’re not breathing at all, really." Your voice betrays your unease, but this conversation was inevitable. Four months have passed since Hikaru returned. Four months since Hikaru returned. Four months since Hikaru changed — and you noticed.
It was all in the smallest, stupidest details. The pressure of his pencil wrong when he writes your name, the slant of the letters unfamiliar. The way he wrinkles his nose now, the pattern of creases around his bright eyes not quite right.
Phantom things, barely there, but the web they weave is undeniable — and you watch from the sidelines as the threads multiply: his habits unlearned, his jokes misfiring, his childish whims sometimes tipping into something beyond.
Even Yoshiki didn’t notice at first.
A silence falls between you, so thick even a bird can’t bear its weight — it startles upward with a trill, snapping Hikaru from his daze.
Too long. Too unnaturally still. A person would have turned to you, laughed, asked, "What are you talking about?" But this thing hasn’t yet learned how to answer you properly. It must sense the memory of the real Hikaru living in your heart— and it, this impostor in his skin, only stirs dread. Bitter, perhaps, that your love belongs to the one who’s gone, not to it. It wears his identity like ill-fitting clothes, watches you through his eyes, but in their depths yawns a terrifying abyss. Not your boy. Not yours.
“Hikaru?"
"Huh?!" The same bright, brassy tone, perfectly pitched — yet an icy finger trails down your spine, pressing into each vertebra. "How am I not breathing?! You’re imagining things… Just spaced out, that’s all."
You nod, feigning understanding, fingers pleating the folds of your skirt. No matter how it tries, you’ve unraveled its secret. Somewhere deep, in a place untouched by reason, you’ve known for a while: the real Hikaru died that summer. But how it hurts when this thing turns to you with his smile, when it says "good morning" or "see you later" with his lips. A stupid heart refuses to accept loss, refuses to understand — not when his fingers, so warm and alive, tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.
How can he be dead?
The dead are cold to the bone. They reek of rot and decay. They rest in the earth’s belly, visited only by worms in eternal silence. The dead don’t breathe, don’t scrawl your name crookedly on chalkboards. Their eyes are glassy, extinguished — but this, this thing wearing Hikaru, stares at you with vivid confusion, almost childlike. It sends you silly texts, spits watermelon seeds, tugs your braids — what kind of corpse does that?
You fell in love with Hikaru, yet keep loving his shadow. Is that fair to this Hikaru? Whatever took his place has memories, feelings — it’s alive, and it reaches for you too. Yes, its nature is untamed, its essence mad — but how can you resist when it smiles with lips that once kissed your cheeks and whispered "I love you"?
"Hikaru," you murmur, squinting slyly, leaning close. You note how it stiffens, bares teeth in response. "I want to kiss you."
Hikaru snorts, pausing. Cicadas rasp their endless song below; above, the first stars flicker to life. He worries his lower lip, scans your face with a gaze so unnervingly intent your cheeks burn with shame. Boldness withers under eyes that seem ready to devour you.
"You sure?" His voice is hoarse, threaded with hunger. In his mind, wild, fractured thoughts thrash: Kiss me, kiss only me, never want anyone else.
Your answer is a timid brush of lips. A strange kiss— yours too cautious, his too greedy. A clash of contradictions, but the taste of Hikaru’s mouth drowns your fear.
Cool mint burns your lips; dizzying vanilla soothes. His mouth is soft, sweet…
Shame floods your chest with warmth, tenderness pinching beneath your ribs. Hikaru is relentless, yet there’s fragility in his hunger. As if starved. As if he’s wanted you indecently long. As if he’s done holding back—but terrified of scaring you away.
Heat sears your mouth, then plunges into abyssal dark. A wet, hollow click — and viscous, clinging coolness envelops you like a shroud of impatience. What kisses you now isn’t Hikaru, but something ancient and ravenous, craving ownership. Your palms flatten against his chest, fingers twisting his school shirt in spasms.
Eyelids shut, lashes trembling—you’re too afraid to open them. For a single, fleeting moment, Hikaru’s mask cracks. Something alien, dark, grazes your cheek — like an echo of the voids mystics whisper of.
A shadow-flame dances, nothing like human fire. Chaotic, cloying, it resembles the Hell described in holy texts. The abyss touches your cheek with a boy’s tender fingers.
"More," it whispers in a voice no longer human. That hot breath pleads, craves — yet beneath it lingers Hikaru’s ordinary curiosity.
You should recoil. You should flee. But against your own will, you press into his swollen lips again. Kiss with the recklessness of the doomed, drunk on how something cold and inhuman responds with a rapture beyond mortal limits.
And you cradle yourself in sweet lies — that you still love Hikaru, even as your heart surrenders to the monster. The worst part? You don’t resist. Better this Hikaru than emptiness…
Love always holds something predatory—we long to consume the ones we adore. But what happens when your beloved has already been consumed by another?
What becomes of you, impostor in Hikaru’s skin, when a girl’s heart clings so desperately to his memory, it’ll love even a shadow?
