Archive of Our Own ^beta

Humans are complex. Monsters are rather simple. 

What does that make you?

.

You blink at Yoshiki, taken off guard by his offer. 

“I don’t want ya to force yourself to be human,” Yoshiki says again. “So if it helps…”

You wonder if you should turn him down, if that would be the morally correct thing to do. But you’re so cold, so empty, and Yoshiki is so warm. His soul calls to you, so how can you turn down an offer like this? To simply feel him inside you, fill yourself up with his warmth? Feel just a little less cold and empty and alone, even just for a few minutes? 

You set down the volume of Master + Master you’re reading and lean back in Yoshiki’s bed, letting your back rest against his window. You nod, eyes wide.

Your insides shiver in anticipation. Even just the prospect of it has you excited. It’s lame, it’s so lame, but you can’t be bothered to care. It’s been a while. 

“Yeah,” you hear yourself say. “Let’s do it.” 

Yoshiki licks his lips nervously and nods back, kneeling on the bed before you. The mattress dips and bounces as he settles into a comfortable position. He stares uncertainly at your chest and then his own hand.

“I don’t want ya to feel like you can’t have this,” Yoshiki says. His voice is soft, like he’s talking to himself rather than to you. “You’re already forcing yourself to stick to human values.” 

You don’t know what to say to that, so you simply grin and wonder if the smile reflects how jittery you feel. Your hands fumble in their eagerness to unbutton your shirt. 

Yoshiki stares at your bare chest as you open yourself up. He stares too long, you think, dark eyes like lasers on the seam you’ve split for him. Tentatively, he reaches a hand forward, fingers brushing at the edges of your skin. 

You swallow, restraining yourself from grabbing his wrist to shove his hand inside you. Be patient. You’ve messed this up before, made him uncomfortable. You’ve attacked him. More than once! That he wants to do this at all is more than you deserve. Don’t mess this up again. Let him take his time. 

Yoshiki takes a deep breath and buries his hand into you. 

The shaky sigh that escapes you should be embarrassing, but you can’t bring yourself to care. All you care about in that moment is how warm he feels. Like wrapping yourself up in a towel fresh from a drier, but within the depths of your core. Nothing comes close to it, no analogy can justifiably compare. Human language wasn’t created to describe the feelings of a monster like you.

Your fingers curl into the sheets of his bed, gripping them tightly so you aren’t tempted to grab him, pull him in deeper.

“...feels so good,” you breathe. You need him to know. “Ya feel so good.” 

Yoshiki’s cheeks darken and he dips his head to hide from you. You wish he wouldn’t.

“That’s good,” Yoshiki murmurs. “I’m glad. Tell, uh, tell me if I should do anything different.” 

“Reach in deeper,” you respond automatically and then correct yourself. “If you want.” 

Yoshiki makes a small sound but nods, leaning forward until his entire, scarred arm is pushed into you, his shoulder pressed against your chest, his hair tickling your collar bones. 

You gasp, sigh, embrace his arm to suck in every ray of light that radiates from his soul. His fingers twitch in response and your own hands shoot up to wrap around his shoulders, hugging him as close to you as Hikaru’s body allows.

What you would give to pull him entirely inside you, consume every square inch of him. He’s just so warm. So, so pretty.

But you mustn’t, because then you’d lose him altogether. So you focus on savoring his arm. 

“That’s, hhh, that’s great,” you tell him. “Higher too, if ya want.” 

He crooks his arm, curling his fingers deep into you.

“Nnn! Yes,” you pant, “like that.” 

Yoshiki nods into your clavicles and rotates his arm, curling and uncurling his hand within you as you whine with pleasure. It’s perfect, he’s perfect. You instinctively try to climb up his arm, through him towards his core to engulf his soul. But you catch yourself, force yourself to settle for quivering around his fingers.

“Thank you,” you say. “Thank you, thank you, feels so good, thank you.”

Monsters are simple. All you need is this.

The next time Yoshiki extends the offer, you can’t stop yourself from being a little selfish.

“Can I touch ya back?” you ask, your insides caressing his hand with each stroke of his fingers deep inside you. “Please?” 

A crease appears between Yoshiki’s brow and he begins to pull out, pull away. Your stomach sinks and you cling to his retreating fingers with desperate tendrils. But he doesn’t leave you entirely. His fingers linger just beneath the skin you reside within as he looks nervously into your eyes.

“How do ya mean?” he asks. 

“Like I did that one time,” you say. “At school. But you told me not to do things if it made you uncomfortable.” 

You run your tongue over your teeth. Maybe that means you shouldn’t be asking this at all. What if just asking means making him uncomfortable? 

“Oh,” Yoshiki responds. A split second of relief crosses his face. You don’t have time to dwell on it before he continues. “Y-yeah. Yeah, let’s try that. But please stop if I ask ya.”

Your heart skips and you nod eagerly. “Of course!”

Yoshiki nods back, jaw tight. Cautiously, he reaches back inside you. 

You light up, mouth wide with an involuntary smile as you sink into Yoshiki and race up his arm. 

He flinches slightly, but you can’t slow yourself from reaching for his soul, for his heart, for the back of his mind. The sweetness of him swallows you and you try to swallow him in return, touching every cell and strand of DNA you can find. 

Yoshiki makes a funny sound, eyes fluttering. His free hand jerks up to grasp your shoulder, bracing himself as you slide through him. 

“Is that okay?” you manage to ask, eyes wide as you continue to feel as much of him as you can. You should probably care about his answer more than you actually do.

“Y-yeah,” Yoshiki answers. His voice is tight, a little breathy, but it tremors with something pleasant.  

You shiver and Hikaru’s body shivers with you. Yoshiki’s enjoying this. His enjoyment is all the permission you need. 

A thrilling joy floods you as you surge further into him. 

Not a soul alive or dead or anything between is as lucky as you.

To your absolute delight, it becomes A Thing. 

After school, on weekends, sometimes in an empty hall between class. You mix and you soak him in and you simmer in his warmth. And he shivers, full of you. 

As weeks stretch to months, the two of you mix.

Of course, it’s not all you do. You still read manga and eat ice cream and do homework together. The mixing just becomes an undeniably fantastic addition to your regular schedule. 

You feel more and more like you. 

And you don’t feel so cold. You don’t feel so alone. 

But occasionally, you do notice something off about Yoshiki. Not all the time. Just here and there. But you do notice. 

Sometimes, Yoshiki’s breath will hitch in an odd way. Or occasionally he’ll get flustered about the whole thing for no good reason. And then he gets all weird about it, won’t look you in the eye during or after it. 

It’s not super often. Maybe it’s no big deal, but it does make you a little self conscious. It’s gross, you know that. That stuff inside you (you). But Yoshiki is always so nice about it. Nicer than he should be, always so nice to you, so he never tells you how disgusting it is.

Maybe you should pay more attention to your embarrassment. It’s probably warning you, raising flags that you’re scaring him off. 

But he just feels so good.

It’s hard to focus on being ashamed when you’re busy remembering to make Hikaru’s body breathe while Yoshiki’s warm fingers twist around you.

You can’t be so much a monster that you hurt Yoshiki. You can’t. You have to pay attention to this.

“What’s wrong?” you make yourself ask when his eyes widen and then duck behind his bangs. He refuses to look at you despite the way his body is pressed tightly against yours so he can stretch his hand even further into your depths. 

He stiffens against you. 

“Nothing’s wrong.” 

“You’re lying,” you reply, frowning. 

He doesn’t respond. He still won’t look at you, either.

“Am I scarin’ ya?” A traitorous waver makes its way into your voice.

“No!” Yoshiki quickly protests. Hastily, he draws back to meet your eyes. The motion pulls his arm out from you so fast, the sudden, slurping emptiness echoes in your human gut. “It ain’t - you’re not doing anything wrong.” 

You hunch your shoulders against the sudden, hollow chill inside you and stare back at him. Whatever face you’re making, it makes Yoshiki’s grimace in return.

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Yoshiki says again, more firmly this time.

“Then what’s the problem?” you ask. “Something’s obviously bothering ya.”

“It’s -” he cringes, cheeks darkening. Again, he looks away. “It’s nothing. I’m just - It’s my own issue. You’re not - Don’t worry about it. You’re not doing anything wrong.” 

An invisible, cruel hand twists around in your human intestines. You don’t believe him. 

“... Do you wanna stop?” you ask. The words feel robotic in your mouth. It’s the correct thing to say. And you never, ever want to hurt Yoshiki. Never. So you don’t regret the question. But you do hate asking it.

“N-” he starts, then hesitates. “I - I don’t know, I - sorry.” 

The shuffle of your pants on your bedroom floor is too loud as you adjust yourself to sit up properly for a conversation. Only the quietest, slick sound comes from your chest as you seal yourself up, closing off the grossness within you.

“I don’t understand,” you admit. The inside of your cheek stings from biting down on it. 

“Sorry,” Yoshiki says again. Despite his bowed head, you catch how much darker his face becomes. “I’m just a little confused.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Yoshiki laughs hollowly. 

“You’re just so close and I -,” he says, words mushing slightly together in his urgency to get them out. “I think I - well, I don’t know. It’s making me feel things.” He swallows. “I think.” 

“Feel things?” you ask. You dig your fingers into your knees, tension building in your own muscles as you feel the tension rolling off Yoshiki in waves. 

Yoshiki nods tightly. 

“I think it’s just the, ya know, the contact,” he says. “It’s just a lot of touching so I, uh, it’s really probably nothing. I don’t think it’s actually any feelings, not that way. Just physical probably.” 

He’s babbling, words coming out faster and faster as he explains. You try to catch them all, and even though you’re damn sure you didn’t miss anything he said, he might as well have been speaking another language for all you grasp. 

“You’re turned on?” you conclude valiantly. 

You didn’t realize Yoshiki’s face could get that red. He grinds the heels of his palms into it. 

“Maybe.” The word is muffled and weak in his hands. 

You open your mouth to respond but no words come out. Before you can get your voice to cooperate, Yoshiki continues. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make it weird. It’s my fault. If you don’t feel the same - if it’s not - if you’re uncomfortable we can stop. We should stop.” 

“I’m not uncomfortable,” you reply, confused. It’s the truth. You’re not uncomfortable. Honestly, you feel a little stupid. Contextually, yeah, it makes complete sense. There’s been so much touching… you’ve seen enough porn in Hikaru’s memories to draw the connection. It should have been obvious. 

“Ya sure?”

“I wouldn’t lie to ya,” you say. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”  

Yoshiki’s hands drop, just a bit. Just enough to look at you through burning eyes. His gaze drops to your lap, lingers for a split second before darting away. Then his hands fall quickly to cover his own lap, a pained expression crossing his flushed face. 

“We should stop,” he repeats. “For now. I’m just - I’m sorry.”

Humans are complex.

Sometimes, their emotions make no sense to you at all.

It’s not the politest thing in the world to read someone’s phone over their shoulder, but you can’t help yourself. It’s not your fault that Yoshiki’s reading the flashiest possible article. 

You’re reading a study guide on his bed while he scrolls his phone on the floor. The screen is as exposed to you as if he were playing a video out loud. You can’t help it. And you can’t help that your curiosity gets the better of you sometimes.

You recognize the logo of the university in Tokyo that Yoshiki applied to, but the colors on the page are all wrong for it. It’s not until Yoshiki scrolls past the large English letters that you recognize the obvious rainbow.

“LGBT” followed by community information in “proper” Hyoujungo. 

Your eyes linger on his cracked phone screen before looking up at the ceiling. 

He doesn’t feel like he belongs here, in Kubitachi. You know that. He wants to be around people like him. That’s only natural.

Still, a selfish part of you wishes you are all he could ever need. A desperate part of you trembles at the idea that he could find people he belongs with more than you. 

But you know better than anyone how torturous it feels to not belong. Yoshiki deserves to find belonging the way you found it in him.

You hope he finds it.

But you don’t know what to do with the complicated feelings that stir inside you at the prospect.

It’s midwinter during your final year at Kibogayama High when Yoshiki abruptly asks to try mixing again. 

“Ya sure?” you ask.

There’s a bit of redness in Yoshiki’s ears and cheeks when he nods, but the nod is firm. 

A thrill runs down your spine. 

It’s so cold, both outside and inside you. How are you supposed to turn that down when he’s so sure and so warm? 

The mixing sessions don’t gradually ease back into place like you thought they might. No, they abruptly return to full frequency. 

It’s like seeing the sun again after months of endless night.

Even better, Yoshiki remembers all the ways he can make you feel good. The exact angle to bend his arm into the space that should touch Hikaru’s brain were it not for the endless void that is you. The exact way to run his hands through the rippling mass of you. The exact way to slick his fingers with you to slide in smooth and efficient. 

And he so sweetly lets you touch him back, coursing through his veins.

“Hey, Yoshiki,” you say, voice thick.

Yoshiki’s weight is pressed heavily into as he rests atop you on your living room couch. Your mama is out for the day, and it’s more comfortable than your simple futon. Makes it easier for Yoshiki to get a good angle inside you. It’s also handy for when he gets weak and collapses into you when you touch him just right, at the spot where his brain stem and limbic system meet. 

“What?” The tone of his voice sounds stern, but you’ve long since learned he just sounds like that when he’s feeling flustered. 

“Can I touch you more?” you ask. A stricken look crosses his face and you clarify, “I mean, can I let more of me out. I know it’s gross but… can I touch you on the outside too?” 

Again, that odd, complicated expression that you don’t know how to read crosses his face. But then he smiles reassuringly. 

“It ain’t gross. You’re not gross at all,” he assures. “It’s okay. Come out if it makes ya feel good. I told you I don’t want you to feel like ya can’t be you.” 

He’s so nice. He’s so nice, it makes your eyes burn and you nod. Hopefully the gesture can convey just how happy it makes you, because you don’t trust your words at the moment. 

You allow yourself to seep forth from the opening in your chest. With Yoshiki already atop you, the tendrils of yourself easily slide up to brush along his neck and cradle his face. You don’t go into his nose, his mouth, his ears. Too overwhelming, you suspect. 

Don’t scare him off, don’t scare him, don’t hurt him. 

It’s hard to fully tamp down the hope that someday he’ll let you go into his warm mouth, into the heat of his throat without it overwhelming him. But god, you’re so blissfully thankful to feel him inside and out, and stroke over his lovely face. 

He closes his eyes at your touch. 

“That okay?” you ask, stomach twisting with a flash of anxiety. 

Yoshiki nods. His voice is airy when he answers. “Feels nice.”

The anxiety washes from you in an instant. You beam and let more of yourself out, jumping on the chance to feel even closer to him than ever. To soak up his heat, like curling up before a fire on the coldest of nights. 

Better yet, how Yoshiki buries his face into your neck, pushing himself tight against you, hips gently rolling now and then. 

He’s getting turned on again. You do notice it this time. 

But he seems happy and you’re happy. And you don’t mind, so you don’t say anything about it. Saying things about it just seems to make him uncomfortable. Like laughing at someone’s growling stomach when they’re hungry - it doesn’t matter but some people get weirdly embarrassed by it, so it’s better to just ignore it.

Instead, you simply savor how perfect he is. 

Yoshiki has a harder time ignoring it, though.  

He’s beneath you, the textbook he was studying for graduation crumples under his shoulder as you press down onto him, into him. 

Your soft moan is echoed by a groan of Yoshiki’s own as you sweep tendrils of yourself across his mouth, silently requesting permission to go inside. Your breath hitches as you feel his mouth open and you pool onto his tongue. Eager, too eager, shivering in delight at how good it feels to touch the inside of the outside of him. 

You push harder against him and his eyes fly open, hands abruptly shooting up to your shoulders, pushing you off of him. 

You immediately sit back and withdraw your insides, apologies tumbling from your mouth faster than you can even think them. 

Yoshiki urgently shakes his head, sitting up as well. His hand jerks out towards yours, but he freezes, the whites of his eyes still too visible around his irises. 

His mouth opens wordlessly for a few short moments before he says, “S-sorry, don’t be sorry, it’s okay, that was my fault. Just, um, panicked a little.”

“I scared you,” you say, regret choking your voice. You swallow hard, forcing yourself to be good, to not leak out through your eye, not now. Not when he doesn’t want to see any part of that gross stuff.  

“You didn’t!” he denies with another quick shake of his head. “I -” 

He flushes and that’s when it clicks. You glance down at the bulge in his pants and he draws his legs up to cover it. 

You look back into his eyes a little blankly, the relief that you didn’t hurt or scare him slowing down whatever intelligent thought you should probably be having with this additional information.

“Sorry,” Yoshiki says. The defeat in his voice makes your chest squeeze like a bruise.

“Ya still feeling confused?” you ask, despite beginning to connect the pieces yourself.

“...Yeah,” he answers with a miserable nod. He wraps his arms around his knees. “M’sorry. I know it’s not… like that for you.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” you say, reaching out to touch his knee. But you stop yourself, draw your hand back. “I don’t mind. I promise. It doesn’t bother me.”

He looks away, off at nothing. A crease forms between his brow while he worries his lip between his teeth. You wish he wouldn’t overthink everything so much.

“It really doesn’t bother me,” you insist when he doesn’t respond. “We can keep mixin’ if you want. It’s okay if it feels good to ya.” 

You’re not sure if it was the right thing to say, because the clouds in Yoshiki’s eyes get even stormier. 

The silence that follows is painful. 

You begin to lean away - give him space and pretend you never said anything - when he leans in after you and puts a hand on your chest, where you normally open yourself for him.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind,” Yoshiki says. He licks his lip nervously.

A burst of excitement shoots through you like a light and a grin devours your face. 

“Not at all,” you say as your chest splits open to let his hand inside.

Graduation is a big deal. You know this from TV, from how much space it preoccupied in Hikaru’s mind, from how much your mama cries happy tears over it, from how much focus Yoshiki puts on his final scores. But it’s another one of those funny human things to you.

Like so many things, it seems much more complex to all the humans around you. But you don’t see how it’s that different from the end of the prior school year. 

Maybe it’s because of what comes next. College, work, whatever everyone decides to do… that part of daily routines will be different now. You won’t get to study with Yoshiki anymore after school. The people you see every day will be different.

That part is sad. But everyone treats this like a happy occasion, so you don’t think that’s the reason it’s such a big deal. At least not entirely. 

Well, whatever the case, you’ll be happy as long as you get to stay with Yoshiki. You’d go with him anywhere.

When you mix that night, Yoshiki's breathing gets ragged, his voice hitches and mirrors your whimpers of pleasure. 

Skittering joy spreads throughout every cell in your body at the sound. You’d devour him whole to keep him with you forever if only it didn’t mean you’d never hear his happiness again. 

You plunge yourself into his throat and feel his larynx vibrate around you. You whine. It’s not fair how good it feels to take him in, stroke every part of his perfect, pretty soul you can reach.

Yoshiki swallows frantically around you, but he doesn’t pull away. No, he instead presses himself hard against you, pushing his full weight onto you, pushing you back into his bed.

His face buries against your neck and you tilt your head back into the sheets, letting more of yourself flow from your throat into his.

You’re so deep in your own bliss, you don’t notice right away how much Yoshiki begins to move against your body. Squirming motions, jerky and aborted like he’s trying to figure out how a body even operates. Your tendrils consume a rough moan straight out of his mouth. 

Hastily, his knee digs into the mattress by your thigh to push his hips away from yours.

You withdraw yourself from his mouth so you can see his face better. He gasps when you pull out, breathing hard down at you, eyes dark and glazed. 

“You okay?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he answers breathlessly. He swallows hard, opens his mouth once, twice, and says, “Hey, can -” and closes his mouth again, jaw twitching from how tightly his teeth clench. 

“What?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Nevermind,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

Before you can call out his lie, he clenches his hand into a fist deep inside you, twisting to shove his arm in, down to his shoulder. 

Whatever responsible thing you were going to say wipes clear from your mind as you moan. 

You’re supposed to be helping Yoshiki pack for college. He’d helped you finish gathering your things to head to Tokyo yesterday. Now it’s your turn to help him.

Instead, your back is pressed against the side of his bed as you sit on his bedroom floor, your head rolled back to rest atop the mattress as you gasp from the firm pressure Yoshiki has on your insides, deep behind where Hikaru’s ribs should be.

His whole body is flush with yours, his face buried in the crook of your neck. Your neck is damp from his panting breaths and you tickle the inside of his skull to get him to shudder, breathe harder. To make little noises along with you as you touch him back. 

He’s less restrained today than he normally is. Each movement and touch feels more spontaneous, more intense. The heat of his body warms your own. It’s not as warm or sweet as his soul, but it still feels good. Really good. 

There’s no mistaking the hardness that digs into your stomach as Yoshiki’s hips roll against you. It makes you grin. Normally he refuses to let you notice that sort of thing.

(You always do notice though.)

A giggle escapes you before you can think better of it. 

“A bit raunchy, don’cha think?” you tease.

You instantly regret it when Yoshiki sucks in a hissing breath through his teeth and freezes. For a terrifying moment, he doesn’t move at all against you and your mind trips over itself in an attempt to backtrack. 

Yoshiki pulls away from you to sit back on his heels. Immediately, the cold rushes back in. 

Mercifully, Yoshiki stays where he is, knelt between your legs.

His face is flushed with the shame you’ve gotten too used to seeing there and he dips it towards the ground. He can’t seem to bring himself to lift his head to face you directly, but he peers up at you through his lashes, eyes dark and bright at the same time. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen his pupils so blown, not even when he’s been terrified by some impurity.

“I don’t care,” you remind him quickly. “Promise. I don’t mind a bit.” 

Yoshiki’s eyes drop to your crotch. Something like guilt or disappointment flashes in his eyes. It makes you feel something like guilt or disappointment in yourself. You laugh nervously, involuntarily. 

“Do…” Yoshiki starts to ask, but falls quiet. Fear that he won’t finish his question grips the entire length of your spine and you bite back another inappropriate giggle. Thankfully, he continues before you can say anything else stupid. “Do ya feel… that way at all? From this?”

You hesitate, pretty sure the honest answer isn’t the one Yoshiki wants to hear. But you won’t lie to him, you won’t.

“I don’t think so,” you say. He begins to dip his head further to hide behind his hair and you rush to explain, as if you have any idea what you’re even explaining. “I don’t really know what that feels like for you, is all! I guess. But I don’t think - well, I don’t think I’m feeling the same thing as you, but ya do make me feel real good, Yoshiki. Really good.” 

To your dismay, Yoshiki’s expression crumples miserably. It was the wrong thing to say.  

The silence that stretches between you could span the whole ocean. 

“...Wanna try kissing?” you ask uncertainly. 

Yoshiki’s head jerks up, wide eyes locking with yours. His mouth moves around the word ‘what,’ but no sound comes out. 

You swallow, voice shaking around another anxious laugh as you say, “If - if ya want to. We can try. You make me feel so good, Yoshiki, I wanna make you feel good, too.” 

He flinches. It’s small, but it’s there. Body and soul recoiling from the idea. 

Another wrong thing to say. This time, you’re the one who has to look away. Your shoulders raise defensively around your ears. 

“Yeah,” Yoshiki suddenly says. 

The volume of his voice startles you into looking back up at him. He looks… not scared, but something like that. Unsure maybe, but also extremely sure when he nods at you. 

“Yeah,” he says again, slower and softer. “If you’re sure.” 

Relief washes over you. You sit up straight, drawing your shoulders back and nod. Thank god. You didn’t say the wrong thing after all. 

You don’t really know anything about kissing, not in practice. Just in theory, from movies and manga. And porn. Hikaru kept a pretty vivid memory bank of it, and you’ve watched some yourself out of curiosity. There’s not as much kissing in porn as you would have expected. Still, you think you know enough. 

Yoshiki licks his lips, eyes boring into yours. He glances down at your mouth, conflict written across every millimeter of his face. But then, hesitantly, he leans towards you. 

In your haste to meet him halfway, you lean in too fast. Your mouth crashes against his in an awful mash of teeth that makes you both reflexively jerk back, hissing. 

If it hurt for you, that had to hurt a lot more for Yoshiki. 

“Sorry!” you apologize, cringing hard enough that the mattress creaks behind you. 

Yoshiki wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and laughs. Tension releases from his shoulders and he shakes his head with a smile before leaning in again. 

This time, you let him do all the leaning and close that distance himself. 

Your eyes are wide as you watch him close his. Like everything he does, he’s soft and careful when he brushes his lips against yours. 

At first, you don’t dare move for fear of messing up again. It’s a good thing you don’t need to breathe, because you’re pretty sure you forget to. At least until you feel Yoshiki’s shaky breath ghost across your lips before pressing his mouth more firmly against your own. 

All the theoretical kissing knowledge you had abruptly wipes from your mind. You have no idea what to do. You watch Yoshiki’s closed eyelids flutter, so close to your own that they’re out of focus. 

Tentatively, you move your mouth against his. Just a bit. 

He sighs sharply through his nose and shuffles closer to you, bracing a hand beside your head on the mattress for balance. He tilts his head so your lips slide into a better fit together. 

You bring your hands up to his shoulders and do your best to copy his movements, but you don’t think he has any idea what he’s doing either.

Quickly flipping through memories, you settle for following advice you remember from a magazine Hikaru read when he was fourteen. Hoping you’re doing it properly, you take Yoshiki’s lower lip between your own and suck gently. 

Judging by the sound Yoshiki makes, you must have done something right. There’s a wet little sound when he reciprocates and pulls gently on your upper lip. 

Feeling more confident, you open your mouth and breathe into his. Yoshiki’s breath hitches, opening his mouth in return so he can close it down again around your lower lip. His eyes squeeze more tightly shut, trembling delicately. It makes his pretty little mole beneath his eye dance.

You smile against his mouth, feeling more and more sure of yourself. You move your mouth more - faster - and Yoshiki picks up the pace of his kissing in return. 

When you run your tongue experimentally across Yoshiki’s lips, he groans more loudly than you’ve ever heard from him before. 

He pushes hard against you, breathing heavily, and gets his own tongue just inside your lips. You can feel his arousal pressed against you again.

Even now, you don’t really get it. You think maybe his mouth is open too wide, or maybe yours is. It’s clumsy and you accidentally pinch his lips against his teeth more than once. The taste reminds you of going to the dentist. A bit like toothpaste and sorta just generally… mouth flavored, if that makes any sense at all. 

But it doesn’t feel bad. You love the way his voice trembles weakly, how flushed his face becomes. You love how forcefully he leans into you. Like another type of cuddling, just wetter and with a bit more maneuvering. 

The brush of his hand against your chest startles you. A sound of surprise sticks in your throat, morphs into a whine of pleasure as he reaches his hand deep inside you again.

Yoshiki moans in response to the sound you make. His tongue breaches past your lips and licks along your teeth. You open yourself wider - both your mouth and your chest - to give him access to go deeper. 

Oh. He’s really into that. 

A broken sound spills from his mouth into yours. His tongue rolls against your own and you feel him shiver against you, hips rolling and jerking into your stomach, just above your groin. The firm pressure of his arousal grinding into your clothes makes him shudder.

You grin widely, about to break the kiss to say something, when Yoshiki’s trembling catches with a sharp hitch of his breath. He yanks himself away from you. With a squelch, the motion pulls his hand from your chest and he grinds his face into palms. The wetness from your insides glistens on his fingers just like your saliva does on his lips. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, voice breathless but unmistakably terrified. Your heart drops like a cold stone into your gut. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Sorry I -” He takes a deep breath to compose himself, bringing his hands away from his face. He still doesn’t look at you. “I’m sorry, I’m just - I’m confused. I can’t I - I need to stop, I’m sorry. I need to think.” 

“Did I do something wrong?” you ask weakly. 

“No! No. I - like I said, I just need to think. I’m sorry. You didn’t - it ain’t your fault.”

“Oh. Okay.” You watch him anxiously, the cold fear in your gut making you feel sick. You can’t tell if he’s telling the truth or just lying to be nice. 

What if you scared him off completely? Did you cross a line? What if he hates you for it?

Yoshiki finally looks at you, looking just as freaked out as you feel. Your body shakes and you can’t get it to stop. 

“I ain’t mad at you,” he says, like he can read your mind. “It’s okay. I promise. I just need to think.” 

“Okay,” you dumbly say again. 

“You should go home,” Yoshiki says. His tone is kind, but the words cut like razors. “I’ve kept you late. I can finish the rest of my packing - there ain’t much left.”

“Okay,” you repeat, closing your chest. 

You button up your shirt with trembling fingers. The buzzing, buzzing, buzzing in your veins doesn’t go away at all as you walk home. It only gets louder, to the point that it’s deafening as you lie on your futon in a futile attempt to sleep.

Humans are so complicated.

If you were more human, maybe you could understand.

If you were more monster, maybe you wouldn’t have such confusing feelings in the first place. 

“This place ain’t so bad,” you declare, words muffled by the konbini sandwich you’re chewing. “But it’s so damn hot already and it ain’t even summer yet.” 

Yoshiki drops his backpack in the genkan of your shared, tiny apartment. It’s only a step from the genkan into your tiny kitchen for him to grab a drink from their mini fridge. He cracks open a soda and fans himself with his free hand.

“I think our AC ain’t workin’ right,” he says. “I’ll call the landlord tomorrow.” 

You grunt in wordless agreement. Summer in Kubitachi is no joke, but not even that had prepared you for heat on the sixth floor of a cheap apartment complex. 

You’ve been here in Tokyo with Yoshiki for a month now, but in a lot of ways it still feels like you’re on some weird trip together. It doesn’t quite register that you do, in fact, live here now and that life has changed. 

In so many ways. 

Yoshiki hasn’t kissed you again, which isn’t surprising considering how terribly you’d screwed everything up. He hasn’t mixed with you again since that night either. That’s one of those changes. But at least he didn’t leave you. 

Yoshiki nudges your futon with his foot, getting you to scoot over and give him room to sit down on the floor with you. Like everything in the city, your apartment is tiny. It’s more of a glorified dorm room than anything else, but you get your own kitchenette and bathroom. 

“Get to see more cool bugs today?” you ask, folding your futon into a makeshift chair to sit on. It’s challenging with one hand full of sandwich.  

Yoshiki replies with a general sound of agreement and shows his phone to you. You tilt your head, trying to figure out what you’re looking at. It’s some sort of branching tree with different looking ants on it. 

You prefer real frogs and beetles, but seeing the light that shines in Yoshiki’s eyes when he starts explaining the ant tree (evolutionary chart?) to you is more fun than catching frogs could ever be.

“Hey, would you wanna try kissing again?” Yoshiki asks one night.

Your Nintendo Switch falls to your lap and you look at him in surprise. Your Mario Kart Yoshi wails from driving off the road. 

Yoshiki shifts uncomfortably on his own futon. His university books are shoved off to the side for the weekend, abandoned in favor of staring at you with an intense yet closed off expression. 

The sudden silence when you turn off your Switch is deafening. 

You swallow and nod slowly. Pressure hums like cicadas in your stomach. You don’t want to mess this up again.

“Sure,” you say, mouth dry.

Yoshiki frowns. “You have to mean it.”

“I do!” you insist. And you do, you really do. You’d do anything for him. Anything to make him happy.

(You’d do anything for him to let you close again, to touch him again, even in just a human way.) 

For a horrible moment, you think he’s going to change his mind. Fear flashes behind the veil of composure in his eyes. His jaw tightens and he nods back.

You set your Switch to the side and eagerly scoot over to him. The knees of your crossed legs bump up against his, and that small contact alone sends a spark of excitement through you.

It’s only been a month or so, but you’ve missed him. 

You wait for him to lean in, but he doesn’t. He just keeps staring at you with fervent eyes. 

You fidget and then lean in yourself. Gentle, careful you tell yourself. Don’t mess this up. 

Your knuckles go white from how tightly you clench your knees. Your eyes bore desperately into his as your lips graze against his. 

You wait.

For a moment that lasts an eternity, he simply stares back at you, unmoving with your lips ghosting against each other.

And then he closes his eyes and reaches a hand up to grasp the hair at the back of your head. He pulls you in for a proper kiss, his breath shaking as he sighs into your mouth. 

A small sound of delight escapes you. You want to let yourself loose from this body, plunge yourself from Hikaru’s throat down Yoshiki’s and embrace the soul that you’ve missed so terribly. But you restrain yourself, moderating yourself into this human contact. 

You suck on his lower lip in the way you remember he liked before. 

It works. What starts as a groan quickly turns into a whine and he pulls your head forward, even tighter against his mouth. His tongue is quick to find its way into your mouth, licking your teeth, with extra attention to your crooked canine.  

It feels even stranger now, with no mixing at all. There’s no blissful filling from mixing to layer atop the bodily sensations. But it’s not bad. Maybe a little funny. Mostly your belly lights up with joy at how much Yoshiki is responding to it. 

You push your tongue into his mouth to slide it against his, sweeping it against the roof of his mouth. 

The moan you get in response is deep, guttural. He surges forward, shoving you down against your futon, mouth moving frantically against yours.

The sudden passion of his movements takes you off guard. Your stomach swoops and your mouth opens with a smile. He takes advantage of it, pushing his tongue more insistently past your teeth.

You balance yourself by wrapping your arms around his back. It must communicate something to him, because he swiftly drops his body onto yours. 

Whatever dam burst in him floods forth with a ferocity you didn’t expect. His erection is growing fast, hips grinding against yours. He whimpers.

Oh, okay then.

A giddy excitement runs through you. You’re doing this right this time, you’re making him feel good, you’re making him feel so good. 

You giggle and run your hands down his back which makes him grind his tenting cock hard against yours. 

And unfamiliar but pleasant electricity shoots from your groin into your gut. 

“Yoshiki - !” you gasp. 

Yoshiki yanks back at the shock in your voice. He sits up, looking at you with alarm and you sit up after him, head spinning at the abrupt change. 

Yoshiki squints, eyebrows drawn. His lips pull into a grimace. When he leans forward this time, it’s to press his forehead against your shoulder.

“Sorry,” he says, voice gruff. 

You’re absolutely lost at the sudden shift. 

“Yoshiki?” You’re unable to keep the anxiety from your voice.

He just shakes his head against your shoulder.

You lie awake long after Yoshiki falls asleep that night.

Despite how nice it feels, you don’t actually need to sleep. So nights like this are the perfect time to try to sort out your thoughts. 

Why does Yoshiki have such a hard time with this? Is it because of something you’re doing? Is it because of Hikaru’s body? Is it because of some human rule you don’t understand? 

He always looks so guilty and you can’t fathom why. How can any of this be wrong if it makes him happy? If it makes you happy to give it to him? If you both want it for one reason or another?

One of Hikaru’s memories filters through your circling thoughts. A memory of lying back in his sheets at night, hand on himself as warm pressure built in his groin.

Ah. So that’s what you felt, in that split second before Yoshiki pulled away. 

You grimace. Did Yoshiki notice? Is that why he pulled away? Why would that make him upset? Last time, he seemed disappointed that you weren’t hard like he was. 

Or maybe he didn’t notice and his overthinking Yoshiki-brain found some other reason to freak out. 

Yoshiki told you that you can’t do things that will hurt anyone. But you don’t understand how this is hurting anyone at all. 

“Why is it bad?” you ask Yoshiki the next morning. 

He freezes where he stands, back turned to you, about to crack open an egg in his little frying pan. He sets the egg back in its carton and slowly turns to face you, expression unreadable. 

“Why is what bad?” he asks, but his tone tells you he already knows what you’re asking about. 

“Why is it bad that you get turned on when we kiss or mix?”

Yoshiki’s face contorts in a way that suggests he would rather die than have this conversation, but he responds anyway.

“It doesn’t - That ain’t… It’s complicated. That kind of stuff. If there’s feelings… or no feelings for you…” 

You huff. His inability to finish a thought makes it all that much more difficult for you to grasp this.

“You’re worried about if I don’t have feelings?” you ask. He slowly nods. “Okay, but then ain’t it okay if it’s just physical? You said it was just a physical thing, so ain’t it fine?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You help me fill my physical needs when ya mix with me,” you say, ignoring the pang when your mind reminds you he hasn’t actually mixed with you in a while. “So I’m more than happy to help ya with your needs, too.” 

Yoshiki’s face reddens, mortified. He covers his face with his hands and takes a deep breath.

“That’s…” he tries, voice strangled. “Okay. Yeah, okay.”

“Then you’re good with it?” you ask. “I can help ya with that stuff, I promise. I wanna make you happy, Yoshiki. I like helpin’ ya.” 

His face flushes even darker, but he nods into his hands. 

You think about the press of Yoshiki’s erection against you, of the porn you’ve seen, of the memories of Hikaru’s nights alone with his magazines. 

“Even if it’s more than just kissing,” you clarify. 

Yoshiki does his best impression of a beet and nods again, still hiding behind his hands. 

“Only if I can help you,” Yoshiki says, muffled into his palms. He takes a deep breath and lowers his hands. “I meant what I said about ya not needing to be human. I’m sorry I haven’t been… If you’re, if you’re gunna help me with… that, then it’s only fair that I help ya too. With what you need.” 

The back of your mind wants to point out that Yoshiki’s been helping you with that already for a while, but excitement that surges through you doesn’t care to protest fairness in any capacity. 

You’ve missed touching him so much. You’ve missed the heat of his perfect soul, so much. 

“Then let’s do it,” you say.

Yoshiki looks as nervous as he did the first time you mixed, back in that gym closet. It feels like an eternity ago.

Yoshiki has drawn the curtains of your apartment. It probably isn’t necessary for a 6th story window, but you know better than to draw further attention to his anxiety. It would just make him fret about it even more. Worrywort.

You pull off your T-shirt as he stands before you now, face stubbornly pink and eyes raking over your chest. You haven’t even opened yourself yet. 

“You too,” you say.

Yoshiki looks away, but obediently unbuttons his pants and pulls down the zipper. He leaves it like that, not yet exposed, but underwear visible and easy to access. 

He still won’t look at you, so you take one of his hands and pull it to your chest. 

He’s trembling. 

Delicately, you split open your chest and push his fingers inside. Start with something familiar, safe.

You sigh as the warmth of his hand spreads through you. 

God, you missed this so much.

Yoshiki’s shoulders relax with a shuddering breath and he takes a half-step closer to you. It forces you to crane your neck up to see his face. He’s looking at you now. Fear lingers in his eyes so you smile in an attempt to encourage him. 

He looks down, rubs his shaking fingers through your insides. It almost gives you the impression of how a child would pet a cat or stuffed toy for reassurance. 

You don’t sink into him and reach for his soul. This isn’t the time. He does so much to make you feel good like a monster. It’s your turn to make him feel good like a human.

Instead of reaching for him with your insides, you reach a hand forward to press against his underwear.

His breath hitches, free hand flying up, twitching uncertainly before grasping the back of your hair like an anchor. He ducks his head to press his forehead against yours. 

You try to look up into his eyes, but his gaze is glued to where your hand touches him. 

You curl your fingers to cup him gently through the thin layer of cloth. He’s not hard yet, but the weight of him sits warmly in your hand. Warmer than the rest of him. 

You follow his lead and stare at your hand on his crotch. He swallows thickly and it sounds louder than it should to your ears. He pulses slightly in your hand.

Experimentally, you begin to move your fingers over him the way he’s moving his own inside you. His chest jerks with quick, shallow breaths. 

“That okay?” you ask, unable to tear your eyes away. You feel him nod against your forehead.

You try to remember how Hikaru did this to himself, but it’s difficult. For starters, Yoshiki’s dick is facing the opposite direction than the one in your memories. And Hikaru was always looking at something, watching something, thinking about something. You have no idea what Yoshiki is thinking while you move your hand.

You feel blind. It’s terrifying. Which is ridiculous, because you still don’t even fully understand why this is such a big deal. But it obviously is, so you don’t want to screw this up.

Yoshiki seems to remember his own hand is still inside you and makes an attempt at stroking you back. But honestly, you’re so focused on what you’re doing, that for the first time, you barely think about the pleasant warmth he spreads through you. 

It doesn’t take long for Yoshiki’s dick to firm up. Not fully hard yet, but it gets a lot easier to figure out what to do with your hand when you have a proper length to work with through his underwear. You watch, fascinated as it begins tenting, pulling the stretchy cloth tight.

Maybe you’re supposed to kiss him now? But his forehead is still tight against yours, his eyes still locked on your hand around him. So you try adding your other hand by setting it on his hip. 

He jumps at the contact but doesn’t pull away. That’s good. You push your thumb into the hollow of his hip and belly which draws a quiet, shaky sound from him. His fingers dig tighter into your hair.

Growing more confident, you give his stiffening cock a firm squeeze. 

He gasps. His shallow breaths turn into open mouthed pants, damp across your face.

With your fingers circled securely around his length, it only takes a few more firm jerks to get him fully hard. 

The hand he has inside you clenches into a fist, squishing you firmly between his fingers and you let out a startled, involuntary whine. 

That’s not fair, you’re supposed to be making him feel good!

But ironically, your warbly voice gets him just as worked up as the hand on his dick. Another sound escapes Yoshiki, deeper and needier.

“H-harder,” he whispers, breath hot against your skin. 

Who are you to deny a direct request?

You take a little step closer so your chests are nearly flush, leaving just enough room for Yoshiki’s arm to slide deeper into you and for you to jerk your hand along him. 

The fabric of his underwear grows sticky, wet with precum. You push your thumb against the wettest spot, where the head of his cock pulses behind the cloth. 

The sounds he’s making are unlike anything you’ve heard from him before. Different from what you’d expect from porn. Better. 

You slide your other hand under his shirt. The skin of his stomach jumps and you run your hand down to dip the tips of your fingers beneath the elastic of his underwear. 

You pause, waiting for permission. 

Yoshiki’s hips jerk up into your hand and he lets out a frustrated groan. He lets go of your hair to push your hand aside and yank the band of his underwear down.

His cock pops free so fantastically that it bounces up to slap against your own bare belly. 

“Whoa!” you laugh. You break your forehead’s connection with Yoshiki’s to look up at him. Your next giggle dies in your throat when you see his expression. 

His eyes are black - only the thinnest ring of dark grey visible around his blown pupils. They shine, glazed and bright against the deep red of his face. He’s got a little spit on his lip from how hard he’s breathing.

You don’t have time to process before he grabs your hand and presses it against the bare, velvety hot skin of his cock. 

He whines and you hastily wrap your fingers tight around him again. Hot, damp breath suddenly warms your skin when Yoshiki hides his face into the crook of your neck. His hips jerk forward, fucking clumsily into your hand, the head of his cock grinding into your stomach. He releases your hand so he can pull you tight against him, palm powerful against the small of your back.

Oh, he’s totally coming undone. 

“Yoshiki?” 

Saying his name pushes him over the edge. Thick, hot fluid spurts onto your hand, your stomach.

His legs go weak. His weight is suddenly heavy against you, leaning hard on you for support as he catches his breath. Each inhale and each exhale is loud in your ear with his mouth so close. 

When his breathing slows, he doesn’t move.

“Yoshiki?” you say again.

One last, sharp sigh against your skin and he pulls back. You barely even notice the sudden cold as his hand slides out from you. 

He won’t meet your eyes, instead his stare is fixed on the drying cum across your hand and stomach.

Impulsively, you wipe it up into your hand and stick it inside your chest. Pleasure tingles down your spine as your insides swallow it down.

Finally some piece of him you can consume without hurting him. All yours to keep inside you forever. You sigh in relief. It’s better than a glass of cold water after a full summer’s day of yard work. It doesn’t even come close. 

Yoshiki makes a strangled little sound and you close up your chest, belatedly embarrassed. Was that gross? 

You anxiously check Yoshiki’s expression. His face is still red and his bangs stick to his forehead, slick with sweat. 

He doesn’t look disgusted or scared. Thank god. 

Your relief is short lived because his face suddenly twists.

You follow his gaze to look at your completely flaccid groin. 

He jerks his head away when he notices you caught him staring. You laugh nervously and rub your neck. 

“Was that good for ya?” you ask. 

Yoshiki’s shoulder’s hunch and he hurries to tuck himself back in his pants.

He keeps his head turned from you, but he nods. 

You don’t talk about it afterwards. 

You think about it. A lot. You think and you worry, but you don’t bring it up. Because Yoshiki doesn’t bring it up either, and he’s the one who knows how to navigate these strange, needlessly complex human things. 

A few days later, he asks to try it again.

Whatever nerves or reservations Yoshiki’d had about the whole thing must have been resolved in that mysterious brain of his, because it becomes a regular thing. 

Just like when you’d first begun mixing, it quickly becomes an activity integrated into your lives. He comes home from class; you jerk him off. He needs a break from studying; you mix deep into him, pouring yourself down his throat into his soul. He can’t sleep; you kiss while you run yourself through his neural network and he humps himself to completion against your thigh. 

Each and every time, you revel in the intimacy. It’s impossibly amazing how warm you feel, how close it makes you feel to him, like peeling back layers and walls you didn’t even know were still between you. 

You’re hundreds of miles away from the mountain you roamed for centuries, and you’ve never felt more at home.

You truly are a simple monster. All you could ever need is this.

“Hey, can I look at ya?”

“Hmm?” you respond distractedly, flipping through Yoshiki’s textbooks as you lie on your stomach, kicking your legs. “Wha’dya mean? I’m right in front of ya, dummy.” 

“No, I mean can I look at your insides,” Yoshiki clarifies. “Can I look at you.” 

You still, fingers lingering on the page you were about to turn.

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna,” he adds quickly. “I’ve just never really gotten, like, a full real look at ya before. You usually come out when… uh, something’s happening. So I thought…” 

He trails off and you’re left with one of the most confusing emotions you’ve encountered yet in your short time as a human.

Part of you recoils at the very thought - shame and agonizing embarrassment make your cheeks grow hot at the idea of him staring at those gross parts of you. It’s one thing to mix… but to just be openly looked at? All that disgusting stuff oozing everywhere on full display?

Part of you though… part of you is so happy at the thought. A blooming light surges behind your ribs, so full you think your ribs could crack from the feeling. 

What the hell are you supposed to do with that? Such opposite emotions? 

“Hikaru?” 

You look up at him shyly. “Ya sure you wanna see that?” 

“If you’re okay with it,” he answers.

You sit up and search his face for any sign of fear or disgust. When you find none, you nod. 

You’ve spent so long keeping it all suppressed deep inside your body, it feels strange when you let yourself pour out from your eye, your chest, your scars.

You watch Yoshiki’s beautiful soul burn bright before you, a look of wonder on his face as you fill up your small apartment, winding carefully around him. 

He reaches out a hand to softly stroke a part of you that flows near him. Shivery warmth ripples through you and it’s strange, it’s so strange. 

How can this feel like this? You don’t think you’ve ever felt anything so intimate as Yoshiki simply looking at you and not looking away. 

Curiosity gets the best of you one day, while Yoshiki is out at class. 

You sit naked in the tub after your bath and take your penis into your hand. Why did this feel so good to Hikaru? Why does this feel so good for Yoshiki? 

Naturally, this sort of thing is important for humans. They need it to procreate. Like eating and sleeping, their instincts tell them to do it for the survival of their species. Eating and sleeping feel good to this body even if you don’t strictly need it, so maybe… 

You give yourself some tugs the way you remember Hikaru doing, the way you’ve done to Yoshiki dozens of times now.

The stimulation does work. It’s not like you haven’t had an erection before. Sometimes it just happens from sleeping, or watching a super cool fight scene in an anime, or because of the shock of cold when you walk outside in the winter. Bodies are weird.

Moving your hand up and down yourself feels a lot like that. It builds the pressure in your groin and you get yourself hard but… There really doesn’t seem to be much point? It feels good, you suppose, in the way that cracking your back when it’s gotten stiff feels good. 

But certainly nothing to warrant the way Yoshiki falls to pieces under your touch.

It doesn’t even feel like that moment of electricity you’d felt once, as he ground himself against you.

You pick up the pace, jerking yourself until a rush bursts through you, muscles tight as your semen spurts into the bath.

You watch it swirl in the water and frown. 

No, that didn’t feel anything at all like eating. Ice cream is way better than that.

You don’t think about that sort of thing again until Yoshiki brings it up during his first break between semesters. 

His lungs are still heaving from his orgasm when he asks breathlessly, “Can I touch you back?”

“Ya already did?” you respond, pausing to shudder happily when you put his cum inside you, consuming every part of him you can. You can still feel the echo of warmth where his hand was only moments ago.  

“No, that ain’t - er, I meant,” Yoshiki fumbles, and his sudden nerves make you alert. 

“What do you mean?” you ask, paying more attention now.

“Can I touch ya like you just touched me?”

Oh. Oh. 

You blink owlishly at him from where you sit between his knees. 

“Yeah,” you say. 

Inexplicable jitters scurry through your veins. But god help you, you can never turn Yoshiki down. Especially not when Yoshiki rarely asks for anything.

And it makes sense that Yoshiki would want this. You like touching him in your way. So it’s only fair. It’s only right.

(And maybe, just maybe, curiosity burns through you anyway.)

“I - I don’t know if it’ll be the same for me,” you add anxiously. “I don’t wanna disappoint ya.”

“You could never disappoint me.” Yoshiki says it like he means it. Maybe he believes he does, but you know you’ve disappointed him in the past. You’ve seen how his face dropped at your lack of response in that way. 

Still, you spread your legs and fumble to unbutton your jeans. You pull your dick out rather unceremoniously in your nervous haste. Then you stare and wait. 

Yoshiki’s eyes widen at the sudden presence of your soft penis. Shit, you should have let him take it out. Or you should have tried to rub yourself hard first. You don’t know. Anything but this. 

There’s a lump growing in your throat and you swallow hard. The last thing you should do right now is cry.

Why does this feel so bad? You’ve never cared if he’s seen you naked before but now you’re suddenly terrified he’ll hate what he sees and want to stop doing any of this with you anymore.

“Hey, are you alright?” Yoshiki asks, prying his eyes away from your dick to look in your eyes. You force yourself not to look away. “Please don’t force yourself, it’s just if ya want to.” 

“I do!” you insist a bit too quickly. And it’s true, you do it’s just - “Nerves, just gettin’ to me I think.” 

You smile weakly and laugh. 

Yoshiki nods knowingly and the memory of him hiding his face from you, trembling, the first time you touched him vividly flashes through your mind. 

Oh. 

Yoshiki reaches a tentative hand towards you, still slightly slick from your insides. He pauses and asks again, “This okay?”

You nod quickly. Once he gets going, it’ll be easier. You can get hard from stimulation. You can give him that much. There’s nothing to be worried about. 

He cups you. You startle a little - it’s so much more sensitive than anytime you’ve touched yourself. He breaks eye contact to look down at his hand on you. His bangs cover his face.

You curl your hands anxiously around your knees, then stretch your fingers out and reach up to grasp his shoulders instead. 

And then you watch as he begins to move his hand. 

You suck in a sharp breath through your teeth. 

“Holy shit,” you breathe. That feels way different from touching yourself. 

Yoshiki chuckles softly. His fingers tremble slightly around you. He’s nervous too. 

He brings in his other hand to softly juggle your balls while he pumps your dick. A shiver runs down your spine and pools as heat low in your belly. 

Your dick responds, twitching with a baffling interest, quickly rising in Yoshiki’s hand and - ah! There, that electricity shoots up from your groin through your gut, making your breath hitch on a high-pitched sound. 

You lean forward to brush your cheek against Yoshiki’s, grounding yourself in the familiar as a long, drawn out whine spills from your mouth. You’re definitely hard now. You don’t think you’ve ever been this hard. 

You hear Yoshiki gulp, and you look down at his lap, where his own cock is pulsing with renewed interest, half chubbed just from jerking you.

Precum drips from you, making you slick as Yoshiki pulls and tugs you with one hand while he uses the other to massage your swollen head, rubbing a calloused thumb over the slit there. 

Entirely involuntarily, your hip jerks up. You moan and wrap your arms around Yoshiki’s neck, pushing your face into his shoulder as you fight to catch your breath. But with every blissful stroke of Yoshiki’s perfect hands, your lungs heave and halt under waves of pleasure that spread through you at his touch. 

“Yoshiki I -” you gasp, hips jerking hard into his hand. “I - you - I -”

He groans softly at your babbling and grunts, “More?”

“Please,” you beg.

He tightens his grip, picks up the pace and you keen, muffled into his shoulder as an orgasm tears blindingly through you. 

Your head spins as you catch your breath. Yoshiki’s still pumping you as your cum finishes spilling out in waves. His grip is gentler now, but it’s still nearly too much. Everything is so sensitive - too sensitive now that you’re done.  

“Whoa,” you breathe into his ear. His chest rumbles with laughter. 

“Good?” he asks.

“So good.”

Impossibly good.

Well, not as good as him inside you, and nowhere near as good as feeling every groove of his brain. But possibly better than any human sensation you’ve experienced so far.

Maybe even better than ice cream.

Yoshiki touching you in the human way becomes a part of the mix. 

Just like you never turn down good food despite never feeling hungry, you never turn down getting jerked off by Yoshiki. It’s too good a feeling to pass up when the opportunity arises.

“I wonder if eatin’ while mixin’ would feel this good too,” you wonder out loud as you rub and jerk each other - his other hand deep in your chest while you knead the space between his cells.

Yoshiki’s hand pauses and a look of utter bewilderment crosses his face. But it quickly passes when his eyes roll from your deep caress at the base of his brain stem. Hot cum splatters over your hand. 

The first time you ask for a handjob from Yoshiki - unprompted, no mixing attached - he gets deeply flustered, blushing and promptly dropping his homework to acquiesce. 

You don’t really get why. It’s nothing out of the ordinary aside from you being the one to ask. Sometimes you’re in the mood for papicco and ask for that too, but he usually makes you wait until its convenient for him to get it. And it’s not like you’ve been without an opportunity to touch each other for a while. It’s become nearly a daily thing at this point. 

But it feels good. 

Sometimes you want papicco because it feels good, sometimes you want a nap because it feels good, and sometimes you just want an orgasm because it feels good.

(And maybe you like that it means you get Yoshiki’s undivided attention for it.)

Apparently, initiating unlocks something in Yoshiki. He clings extra close to you this time, mouth moving in sloppy, needy kisses over your face as he gets you off.

He hugs you so close as he grinds against your hip, cumming so hard he shakes atop you, and doesn’t let go after.

Fireflies dance in your stomach, alight and wild from how tightly Yoshiki holds you, like he’d die were he to ever let go. 

You really are a monster, because some part of you would also rather die than ever have him let you go. 

But then, a monster shouldn’t care so much in the first place. That’s too complex a feeling. 

So maybe it’s a human emotion that will damn you someday. 

Human complexity truly is as much a source of torture as it is bliss. 

Something in Yoshiki begins to shift. There are days where it seems like he’s terrified he’ll simply drop dead if he’s not actively drowning in you, touching you, connecting to every tiny minutiae of you. 

The first time he lets you try putting your mouth on him, swallowing him with your human body, he’s so dazed after, you have to pull his arm to help him sit up, grinning stupidly as you laugh. 

And then that shift will kick in and suddenly he’s weird about things, not letting you touch him again. Usually not for long. Maybe a day or two. Maybe even just a moment or two. But you notice it. A sudden withdrawal that leaves you in a momentary existence of ice and terror. 

And then he’s back to sharing himself, his warmth, his fire, and you wonder if you were ever cold in the first place.

Yet, the cold always seems to return somehow, even when Yoshiki isn’t acting strange. 

It takes over you, the gnawing, endless emptiness within you unbearable. So you seek him out. Crave his warmth. His intimacy, no matter how he wants to provide it. You simply need him. 

You can’t consume him fully, but you’ll devour as much of his love as you can, no matter the form it comes in. Anything to chase the loneliness away.

On one of those cold days, you watch Yoshiki tiredly scroll through his phone, taking a much deserved break from his studies. His exhausted eyes send pangs of longing through the frozen void within you.

You crawl over to him, scooting onto his futon, and rest a hand on his thigh, using the other to playfully knock his phone to the side. You lean into him, drawing your lips along his jaw and throat in the ways you’ve learned he likes.

His throat bobs and you run your tongue lightly along it, pulling a full-body shiver from him. Grinning, you throw a leg over his thighs to straddle him and roll your hips into his. Learned association makes your chest begin to open in anticipation while you try to get him worked up. 

He makes a small sound, hips rocking with yours, head tilting back to let you kiss more thoroughly along his neck. You dive in to nibble at the hollow of his throat, savoring the vibrating hum when he makes another little noise. 

“Hikaru,” he says. There’s a note of something serious on the edge of his breathless voice. 

You lift your head to meet his eyes. There’s something there - something he wants to say, you can see it - but he doesn’t. So you lean in to kiss his lips instead. Maybe starting with something sweeter will help soothe whatever thing is on his mind. 

But he doesn’t kiss back. No, he turns his head away.

The rejection feels like his knife in your side all over again. The same cutting sense of betrayal and confusion. The same panic that something has gone wrong without your knowing. The same terror that you’re hurting him, you’re losing him. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, hating the obvious fear in your voice. 

Yoshiki winces, but doesn’t reassure you. Instead, he pushes you off of him. It doesn’t matter how gently he does it. It feels like a twist of the knife.

You sit at his feet, eyes burning, unable to keep yourself from trembling.

A monster like you wasn’t built for emotions like these.

“I’m sorry,” Yoshiki says. He grimaces, rubs his eyes harshly before turning them to lock with yours.

No words come to your mind. Sorry for what? You’re too scared to ask. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “All this - all this stuff I - it ain’t - I’m sorry, everything is starting to - I’m blurring the lines in my head.”

“What do you mean?” you ask weakly.

His eyes bore fervently into yours. He swallows. 

“I… don’t think this is just a physical thing for me anymore,” he says, voice like parchment paper. “I - I’m sorry, I didn’t really realize at first but I, I’m getting feelings for you.” 

His face twists and he adds, “Or maybe I did know, but I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. I'm sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Feelings?” you echo. 

He nods, clears his throat and looks down. “You know. Romantic feelings.”

“Oh,” you say. No emotions race to make themselves known in response to this information. You think you’re probably feeling something, because it’s getting hard to see past the tears in your eyes, but you also can’t feel anything at all. “Does that mean we have to stop?”

Yoshiki flinches. 

“Maybe,” he says. “I guess that depends how you feel.”

“Oh,” you say again, hating yourself for not having words when they matter the most.

“Do you understand?” he asks quietly.

You don’t understand at all. It’s been years and you still don’t understand this. Romance, friendship, family, any of it. You don’t understand the distinction, you don’t understand why it matters. No matter how much you try to grasp it, it’s like holding water. It falls through your fingers the moment you feel you have even the slightest grip on the concept.

You shake your head.

“Do… you have feelings for me?” Yoshiki asks in response. He hesitates and clarifies. “Do you have romantic feelings for me?”

The question seems to physically hurt him to ask, which makes the answer even harder to admit.

“I don’t know,” you say, regret saturated in every word. “Maybe.”  

Whatever these romantic feelings are, they’re powerful, you know that much. You hear it all the time in songs, see it all over TV, see it in manga and in books. And you know you love Yoshiki that much. You love him so, so much. More than anything. More than any of those things in media could ever try to capture.

But you also know these feelings make people weird over things like touching and kissing and sex. That people get so drastically emotional over those feelings being reciprocated, and that it makes them care about gestures like dates and flowers. And you know it must go beyond that - that it can’t be as simple as dates and flowers - because dates and flowers are morally wrong somehow if you don’t have those romantic feelings in return. Then it means you’re playing with someone or leading them on. It means that you’re hurting them by not feeling the same way.

You don’t think dates or flowers matter at all to you. You don’t think marriage matters to you. You don’t think any romantic gesture matters to you. It’s not that you hate any of those things. You just feel nothing about them. You like sex because it feels good and you love that it makes Yoshiki happy, that it makes him pay attention to you, that you can touch him and be close, so close. 

But you don’t think it matters to you beyond that. Any other way to get that sense of closeness would be equally enough for you.

“I don’t think so,” you conclude miserably.  

All that matters to you is Yoshiki. You don’t understand what difference it makes - how that love is felt or expressed. You just love him. You want to consume him, take his gorgeous soul deep into your core and bathe in its heat. Swallow him and keep him with you forever, integrate him into you. 

But you also want to stay by his side, laugh with him, play games and eat ice cream and hold him close. So you can’t devour him entirely. Instead, you want him in every other way you can, regardless of what that means in the context of romance or friendship or other human rules. You love him in a way that no human ever would. In a way no human ever could. 

Because you’re not human. You’re a monster.

But if you were still just a monster, none of this would be so complicated. None of this would hurt so much.

“Does this mean we have to stop?” you ask.

A tear drips from your cheek while your insides run down the other. Disgusting, humiliating. But you can’t get it reigned in. So you leak even more.

You startle at a sudden warmth on your cheek. Through your tears, you see Yoshiki reaching out to you, his hand cupping your face. His face swims as you blink more tears free, but you can still make out his devastated expression.

All you do is hurt him.

“I don’t know,” Yoshiki answers. “I need time to think.” 

“I just want you,” you say desperately, pleadingly. “It ain’t matter to me how. I’m just happy to be close to ya. I just want you to be happy. I just wanna make you feel good.”

Tears gather in Yoshiki’s lashes, but they don’t fall when he squeezes his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. "I need time to think.”

You lie awake all night, torturous anxiety eating through every thought you have. 

Once the agonizing night passes and Yoshiki wakes up, you approach him timidly. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m really sorry I upset ya.” 

Again, you’ve said the wrong thing. You know it the instant Yoshiki’s face blanches at your words.

“You ain’t got anything to apologize for,” he says, voice too controlled.

You bite your lip.

“I don’t mind if ya have feelings for me,” you say. “I don’t mind at all. I’m happy to do whatever ya want if it makes you happy. I just want ya to be happy, Yoshiki.”

Yoshiki physically recoils at your words. 

“Please!” he begs in a voice louder than one he ever uses. You flinch and he buries his face in his hands. “Please just give me some time to think.”

“Okay,” you say. Your voice is as broken as your heart. 

You honor his request and don’t bring it up again.

Days stretch into weeks. Weeks stretch into months. He doesn’t talk about it and you don’t bring it up again.

But he doesn’t leave you. He doesn't leave you. 

He doesn’t find a new apartment without you. He doesn’t stop playing video games with you on weekends. He doesn’t stop going to the movies with you. He doesn’t stop eating ice cream with you.

He doesn’t mix with you anymore, but he doesn’t leave you.

It’s the day before Yoshiki starts his second year at college when he approaches you from behind. 

You’re looking through your tiny kitchen cabinets for a snack when he wraps his arms around your waist, chest flush to your back, and plants a tiny kiss against your neck. 

You spin around with wide eyes. He looks back at you with a question in his. A request. 

Carefully, cautiously, he leans in and brushes his lips over yours. 

You choke on your breath and dive into his kiss, hands shooting up to his hair, terrified he’ll pull away again. 

He melts against you, mouth moving desperately and tongue sliding powerfully against yours. 

You tug on his hair, probably too roughly, to pull him in even tighter, licking his palate, sucking on his tongue until he moans. 

He directs you, hands on your hips, to your tiny living room. He doesn’t break the kiss the entire way, stumbling over discarded books until he has you shoved up against the wall. 

You feel like you’re drowning, mind struggling to catch up while every other part of you drinks him in like he's the first rain in centuries. 

You shove your thigh between his legs and you’re immediately rewarded with him grinding forcefully down on it, erection already rock hard against you.

You release his hair with one hand in order to grab one of his from your hip. You shove his hand up under your shirt, chest splitting open wide, and push his hand into the gaping maw.

The sound that spills from you the moment his warm hand touches you (you) is closer to a sob than a proper moan. You yank on his arm, pulling him in deeper, not even bothering to keep your voice low as you writhe around his fingers, sinking into his arm to touch him back.

His hard cock thrusts into the hollow of your hip, his voice high and needy as he whines into your mouth.

But it doesn’t last. As quickly as it started, Yoshiki yanks himself away, spinning away from you, hugging himself tightly as his body wracks with tremors. 

You can’t help it. A loud sob escapes you before you shout:

“What the fuck do you want!?” 

Yoshiki sinks to his knees, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking. “I’m sorry.” 

Your insides overflow, seeping out from your old wounds. You gulp down a huge breath, frantically trying to compose yourself before you make things worse. But you’re so fucking confused and hurt and angry and scared of your own anger.

You said you’d give him anything, but how the hell can you do that when he keeps changing what he wants? Your emotions can’t even keep up - your instincts sure as hell can’t. You can’t even satisfy your monstrous nature, much less him. Not like this.

You stare at his soul. That pretty little flame flickering and bright. It sputters like a faulty candle wick. 

For some reason, the alarm that makes you feel gets your insides back under control. At least a bit. Your eye still runs disgustingly down your face, but your wounds close up and you manage to look more human than monster when you walk over to kneel beside him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again when you settle next to him. His voice is clogged with unshed tears. “That wasn’t fair.” 

It really wasn’t. You don’t say anything. You don’t know what to say. 

“I’m sorry, I still - the feelings are still there,” he says.

Despairing frustration makes your throat close. You tilt your head back, eyes pinched so tightly shut it hurts. You sniff loudly but can’t get the tears out of your voice when you finally reply.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” you say and feel Yoshiki wilt beside you. “I don’t care if ya have feelings. Why’s it such a problem if I ain’t bothered by it?” 

Yoshiki laughs brokenly. You force yourself to look at him, despite the razors that cut into you from the hopeless, defeated look on his face.

“It hurts if the feeling ain’t mutual,” he answers.

You grind your teeth. Again, that reason. Again, you can’t understand. 

You know that but you can’t understand it.

“How do you do it?” you ask morosely. “How do you even know that?”

Yoshiki hesitates, head turning slightly towards you. “What do ya mean?” 

“How do ya even know if the feeling is mutual?”

“You said it wasn’t.”

“I don’t know!” You cut yourself off with a hiss so you don’t yell again. You exhale sharply, swallow, try again. “I don’t know because I can’t feel what you feel. How do ya know for sure if someone - anyone - has the same feelings?”

Yoshiki’s shoulders shake and he bows his head. But his voice is flat when he answers. 

“You don’t. That’s what makes it so hard.” 

You laugh helplessly. “Then why does it matter? I don’t know if I’m feeling the same thing as ya, but why does it matter if I’m happy and you’re happy? I want to do these things with ya and I want ya to be happy. I feel happy making you happy.”

Yoshiki’s breathing stills but he doesn’t respond. You can’t see his expression behind his bangs.

“I probably don’t feel the same things you do,” you continue, fresh tears falling from your eye. You don’t bother to wipe them. “I ain’t human. I know you don’t feel everything I do, but I don’t care. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same. I just want ya to be happy. I just love ya.”

You wrap your arms around your knees and bury your face into them. You sniff again, ugly and wet. 

“I just love ya so much, Yoshiki.”

“I…” Yoshiki murmurs. “I think… I need more time to think.”

You laugh wetly into your arms.

Of course. Humans are complicated, after all. 

“Can we mix again if we don’t have sex?” you ask meekly, a few days later.

Your fingers tremble where they curl around the hem of Yoshiki’s shirt. Your head is bowed, staring down at your feet.

You’re so cold. 

So cold, so empty, so lonely and your fight only made you colder, emptier, lonelier. 

And more selfish, apparently, because you can’t stop yourself from asking for this, no matter how much your heart shakes, terrified of rejection. 

But you can’t bear going months without it again. Without some form of warmth and comfort amidst the confusion and hurt.

“Hikaru…” 

You flinch at the tone of his voice. Soft, but muddy.

He reaches out a hand to cup your face, tilting your head up to look at him. 

His brows are drawn, eyes narrowed with remorse. But his everpresent frown turns up in a tiny, reassuring smile. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m sorry, I ain’t been fair to ya. I told ya I want you to be able to be yourself. I’ve been neglecting that. I’m sorry.” 

The apologies feel wrong and you wish he wouldn’t say sorry, but the burst of joy in your chest buries that concern. 

“Really?” you say, smile splitting your face so wide your cheeks ache.

He nods, a shadow of regret passing over his features. But he smiles and pulls you down to your futon.

You try to go slow to savor every bit of this. The back of your mind warns you that this could be the last time.

You heed its warning. You’ll go slow and nice for him, so he doesn’t pull away. 

And if he does anyway, you’ll have gone slow enough to soak in enough warmth to hopefully last the rest of your life. 

You sigh, not caring how vulnerable you sound when he slides into you. You sink into him, connecting and flowing together. When you wrap your arms around him to hug him close, your bodies fit together like they were made to.

You pet his brain, massage his spinal cord in languid strokes. He releases a shaky breath against your ear. 

You moan when he runs his hand through you in the place Hikaru’s spine should be, mirroring the way you flow down his vertebrae. His shuddering groan feels like a reply.

And then he’s laying you back against your futon. You don’t resist, happy for the pressure and weight of him to settle atop you. 

Careful not to let your lips meet his (don’t kiss, don’t kiss), you reach up into his mouth, pool over his tongue and slip down his throat. You vibrate alongside the guttural sound rumbling in his neck.

Despite how careful you are not to touch him in a human way, Yoshiki’s breathing grows heavy anyway. His free hand buries into your hair and his hips roll into yours.

He’s hard.

You feel him try to speak around you and you pause to pull out of his mouth, eyes locked with his. 

“I don’t mind,” you remind him with a whisper. Please don’t run away again. 

He hesitates. Then nods with a soft little moan. His eyelids flutter as you shift inside him in response. 

He connects his lips to yours, tongue sliding powerfully against you as you rush to fill his mouth again. Euphorically, you whimper, hands grasping and running along his back to pull him closer, closer.

The friction when he grinds himself against you sparks that distinct, familiar electricity in your groin, heat coiling tightly like a spring in your belly.

The sensation of his hard cock crushing against yours - even through your clothes - sets free whatever Yoshiki had been trying to hold back. 

His teeth sink into your lip with a growl and he thrusts frantically against you. 

You gasp, swimming down his nerves to stroke his pelvis, his testicles, his cock from the inside while your hips jerk up to rub desperately against him on the outside. 

That’s all it takes for him to come undone, grunting loudly into your mouth as he comes. It’s gross - sticky and messy in his pants, but the wet friction against you as he rocks through his orgasm quickly pulls you to your own climax. 

Yoshiki collapses down atop you, face buried in your neck. Together, you lie there panting, sweaty, his arm still in your chest and your insides still shimmering within his veins. 

And then he jerks away, pulling himself completely free of you. He rolls off you, facing away from you on the futon and curls in on himself, knees to his chest.

And sobs. 

No matter what you say, you can’t console him. When you try to tug his hands away from his face, his eyes break at the sight of you. He yanks his hands free to dig back into his sockets. 

All you succeed in doing is make him cry harder.

And each futile attempt to comfort him makes tears stream down your own face in return.

The confusion hurts nearly as much as the rejection, as seeing him break down so completely.

You don’t understand anything. It’s your first time being alive and you don’t understand any of this.

But, you realize, it’s his first time being alive too.

Yet despite the agony, you can’t seem to stop. Either of you.

You try to stop - stop mixing, stop touching, stop it all - because it just seems to hurt him. And every time it hurts him, it hurts you. 

But you can’t. Time after time you fall into each other, desperate to chase the loneliness and cold away. Begging for reassurance that he’s still here, you’re still here, neither of you are leaving. 

Neither of you are alone, isolated, without a home.

And so you give up. He gives up. And you fall deeper into each other, no matter what destruction may come your way.

It doesn’t go badly every time. 

Despite your anxieties, it would be a lie to claim your lives spiral into misery and chaos. 

Well, chaotic might be an accurate term, but you’re not miserable. Not all the time.

His cheeks flush with joy the first time he sucks you off. And oh, it does something to you that you can’t explain - not even to yourself - to watch him swallow. Take in part of you like you so helplessly crave to swallow the entirety of him. 

Like maybe, in that small moment, he understands how you feel. Just a little bit.

“Ya sure it’s okay?” he asks, over and over again while his lips trace each groove of your body.

“Yes,” you promise, over and over again in return. As many times as it takes for him to believe you. “As long it’s okay with you.” 

The first time he lets you enter him, your slick insides caressing that special spot his human body has, you ripple in excited delight. You giggle, excited like a child seeing snow for the first time, and kiss each mole on his perfect face as he falls apart.

So many possibilities, so many things to try, so many ways to devour him. 

All he has to do is stay.

“I like it, I love it,” you repeat for the millionth time. “I feel so close to ya when we do this Yoshiki. I love you so much, so much. All I want is to feel this close to ya.” 

Yoshiki’s lips rest, barely grazing against yours. His heavy breaths ghost across your face. The post-sex sweat on your forehead makes each puff tingle on your skin. He brushes a slick strand of white hair to the side, eyes drinking you in like it’s the last time he’ll ever see you.

“I love you,” he replies. 

When he says it, it’s an apology. 

You take his hand and press it against your cheek. You close your eyes, nuzzle into the touch. “I know ya do.” 

“It’s not the same,” Yoshiki whispers. His lips brush yours with every syllable.

You open your eyes to hold Yoshiki’s gaze, forcing him to listen to you. To hear you.

“You were the one who told me we didn’t have to follow the rules,” you remind him. “Ya said we could have our own thing, right?”

The moment the words leave your mouth, you see it. Something finally clicks into place behind Yoshiki’s eyes.

Funny, how no matter how many times you tried to put it into words, repeating Yoshiki’s own words back to him is what finally brings him some peace.

After that one small, significantly insignificant little moment, things get easier.

Mixing feels simply good again, sex no longer comes with the threat of ending in tears.

It’s not that things suddenly become perfect. You still get anxious, terrified he’ll leave one day. He still overthinks and shuts you out while he drowns in his own head. But you try. Both of you do. And you both slowly get better at catching yourselves.

No, it’s never perfect, but it’s everything you could ever ask for.

Maybe part of being human simply means accepting that things will always be complicated.

You hum happily as Yoshiki’s fingers run down your ribs, practiced and confident. In turn, you knead the exact spot within the grooves of his silly, overthinking brain to make his eyes roll.

His tongue dotes on that crooked tooth of yours while you worship the burning fire of his soul.

You don’t know how he feels. No matter how hard you try, you will never truly understand. You still don’t get why it’s so complicated. But you can enjoy it without fully comprehending it.

You can appreciate what you have with him, even if your feelings don’t perfectly align.

The biggest relief is that Yoshiki seems to have come to the same conclusion.

You don’t know what your love is. You can dissect every interaction, write it all down and study it like a scholar. On paper, you suppose it could be described as romantic, but you still don’t think you can truthfully call it that.

You just know you love him in your own, monstrous way.

Monsters are simple. Humans are complex. 

You don’t know what that makes you.

.