Chapter Text
Gaku Yashiro is happy.
This he knows, knows as he walks down the hallways of the hospital laughing, knows as he surreptitiously punctures the muscle-relaxant-laced IV to save the life of Kumi (what better reward does his dear Spice deserve?) and walks out the front of the hospital into the waiting arms of the police.
All of this he does while smiling, soft and calm (Calm! Calm for perhaps the first time in his life!). There is no resistance, for what reason would he resist? Spice is standing there, staring at him: face closed, eyes bright, posture loose. The boy (not a boy anymore) knows the power he has, the way he carved a hole into his very being and winked when Yashiro wept at the emptiness.
Complete control over him, that is what Spice has. That… That is why he’s no longer angry, no longer scared, no longer anything other than content. If Yashiro had any more tears to shed, he would shed them at the sight, the sun that had come out over them silhouetted in the distance behind the boy. A halo, if one were to believe in those things.
The others, the others… Kenya and Hiromi and Sachiko and Kayo… they’re naught but shadows. Greyscale and faded in the wake of Spice’s (Satoru? No, it never felt right.) brilliance.
He’d laugh more if his lungs didn’t hurt from the effort of holding back words. The boy wouldn’t want to hear them, wouldn’t wish to fill his ears with Yashiro’s syllables, scant as they were. No, he simply relished his ability to watch the boy’s face, perhaps for the final time. Maybe he’d get a chance at his execution, if Spice came. Oh how he wished Spice would come. The only thing that would make the future moment sweeter is if he were to hold the noose himse-
Dokun.
Ba-dump.
He reluctantly tore his eyes away from the boy, turning towards the source of the sound: a heartbeat so loud he could feel his ears ringing. The sky was blue and bright, the clouds having been chased away by the sun (by Spice, telling him what Yashiro had known but never would have admitted). And yet, something in it was bluer. Bluer than the sky, than the water he had watched Spice sink into and survive, bluer than the shirt he always wore as a child.
A butterfly, so blue it hurt his eyes.
Spice must’ve seen it too, for he was staring with Yashiro.
Staring and scared.
Why was he scared? The butterfly was so beautiful.
Beautiful like Spice, staring at him from the passenger’s seat, a look of horror on his face.
Beautiful like Spice, his fist colliding with Yashiro’s cheekbone.
Yashiro jolted as the boy’s fist (A boy again?) made contact, anger and the many other emotions on Spice’s face (horror, grief, hate, mourning) driving the punch’s force as it turned his head to the side.
“You-! Why-! It was perfect! It-!” Yashiro’s heart jackrabbited as Spice tried and failed to get a coherent thought out, eyes full of burning, seething, roiling hatred.
He was young again, the same young that he had been when the decoy car had been driven into the lake, the same as when he screamed that he knew his future. It was not, however, the same, no matter how deep he looked. No, this Spice was more angry, more bitter. So angry and so bitter that it seemed like the fragile walls of humanity around him had broken down and been replaced by some furious demon, eyes like coals.
He could feel blood leak down the split skin of his cheek as he spoke the only word he could.
“Spice?”
All of the sudden the boy stilled, face going from anger to abject horror. All the other emotions fell away for just an instant, just enough time for Yashiro to realize that Spice knew the Who who sat with him in the car. Not Yashiro-Sensei, no, but the man who called himself Manabu Nishizono for 15 longs years of waiting.
“No. No, this can’t be happening.” Yashiro could practically taste the Denial in the air, could taste the neurons firing as Spice realized that, for once, he was not the only person whisked backwards in time. The fear was delicious, and all too dry. In the seconds that elapsed as Yashiro stared at the boy in front of him who had taken over his mind, the fear was no longer satisfying.
“Spice.”
“This isn’t how it works! This isn’t how any of this works! I shouldn’t be back, you shouldn’t be back!” Spice was struggling, squirming and tearing at the seatbelt to escape. This time, unburdened by raw panic and aided by days of regret and recollection, Spice was beginning to extricate himself from the plastic.
Yashiro was practically breathless as he whispered again:
“Spice…”
The boy was beautiful, flushed with terror and adrenaline as he was. How Yashiro had forgotten, the 15 years robbing his mind of their last ride’s precise details. Facial features faded, exact intonations became varied, and the snowy night around them became a blur.
Seeing it now, seeing the boy wriggle from the restraints and surge at him with intent? He remembered just how Spice had torn a Him-Shaped-Hole inside the man.
“Spice…”
“Stop calling me that!” Spice’s fist made contact with his face again, this time a clear shot to his nose. The sensation of blood gushing down his lips and over his shirt collar was heady, rich. With a groan of pain, he brought his hands up and wrapped them around the boy’s sides, not ever daring to push him away.
The pain was something that Spice was giving him, and he would never be able to say no to Spice.
“Spice…”
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Stop talking to me!” The boy’s voice cracked as he half-sobbed the words out. Since when had Spice started crying? The tears ran down his face like 4 little rivers, pouring from either side of his eyes. A red, humiliated expression had claimed his features, a dozen emotions warring for which would come next.
Yashiro’s heart flip-flopped in his chest, moving between aching and bursting in maneuvers that would hospitalize the most prolific acrobat. That Spice was willing to grace him with his fury, his wrath? That he was willing to tear into him like a wounded animal? If Yashiro was one to blush, he would blush.
He wasn’t, however, a fact he celebrated in the past but couldn’t help despising now.
“Spice…”
“Just why? Why! Why..!” His strikes were growing weaker, the blows no longer breaking Yashiro’s skin and damaging his knuckles. They hurt, of course they hurt, but Yashiro could endure. He always did. Just like Spice, and just like Spice. All three of them, bound up in spider’s silk, they all endured.
His voice was growing nasally and wet when he spoke again, his bloody nose still dripping sanguine down his lips:
“Spice…”
Spice didn’t reply, his hands stilling where they sat against Yashiro’s chest. He was breathing heavily, drawing in great gasps of cold night air that made his slight body shiver. If Yashiro were more present, less enraptured by the boy’s beautiful pain, he would’ve turned up the heat, or turned the car back on. Anything to stop the little shivers that made the boy jerk like a marionette.
He settled for running his hands up and down the boy’s sides, rubbing warmth back into cold skin and shuddering bones. If the boy hated it, he didn’t voice the discomfort. He simply sat, kneeling on Yashiro’s lap, sobbing quietly.
A distant part of Yashiro knew the scene shouldn’t be so beautiful, shouldn’t make his head spin with euphoria (and blood loss). The boy was a mess, and so was he. The night was too bright from light pollution, and the snow was turning black at the edges from the dark tarmac beneath. Spice was a mess, face downturned and covered in tears and snot and saliva. Yashiro was a mess, bloody and bruised. They were both cold and making pained, gasping noises.
And yet…
And yet he was the most beautiful thing Yashiro had ever seen.
Nothing compared. Not Spice at the base of the building, throwing him a cheeky wink. Not Spice standing in the hospital entryway, calmly looking at him. Not the butterfly, so blue that reality shuddered and sent them rocketing back into the past. None of them held a candle to the Spice in front of him, now: Spice, angry and broken and quiet in equal measure, with Yashiro’s hands rubbing warmth into him as best they could.
“Spice?”
“I c-c-could’v-ve been-n ha-app-p-p-py.” Spice whispered, his voice coming out shuddering through the chatter of his teeth. “W-wh-w-why w-won’t-t-t it let m-m-me be h-a-ap-p-py?”
Yashiro’s heart broke for perhaps the second time in his life as the words left the boy’s lips, spilling saliva down onto Yashiro’s bloodstained shirt. Of course Spice would be upset, he had won. He had everyone he loved around him and had Yashiro at his mercy. It should have been a happy ending, one with Spice going on to do what he wanted with his life: Anything. Everything.
And yet…
And yet he was here, with him.
Why?
“Spice, I-”
Spice cut him off before he could speak, voice once again filled with fiery conviction.
“Satoru. P-please, please, ju-j-just p-please c-c-c-call me S-s-satoru.” Desperation etched itself into Sp- into Satoru’s voice, so thick that Yashiro could feel its presence in the air of the car.
“Satoru. I don’t…” He stared down at the boy, his youthful face a pleading mess that in another time would’ve been erotic. Now however… now the beauty just ripped into him, tearing chunks out of his chest like a poorly-sharpened knife.
Satoru tried to say something, to capitalize on Yashiro’s silence, but a wet, broken hiccup stopped the words before they could leave his mouth. More furious, humiliated tears gushed from his eyes and down his face.
“Satoru…” He reached up, rubbing his fingers across the boy’s cheeks, brushing away the salty tears as tenderly as he could. What use would he be if he couldn’t help the one person who was more than a grey outline to him? “Satoru…”
“P-put me in-n the r-r-ri-riv-ver Y-y-yashir-r-ro.” The boy raised his eyes, still wet with tears, and stared into Yashiro’s. The teacher, listening with rapt attention, felt his heart freeze like the salty liquid on Satoru’s face threatened to.
“I-”
“P-please!” The desperation had seemingly doubled out of nowhere, burning from within Satoru like a flashlight held up to a hand. It shone out from under his skin, making him glow like something divine, even if his lips were the same faint purple-blue that his eyes were. Just left of brown…
Yashiro could do two things.
That he knew.
He could do as Satoru asked, could wipe his DNA from all over Satoru’s shivering body, could tuck him back into the passenger seat, and could drive the car into the river. He could wait, wait another 15 excruciating years. He could wait as the seasons turned, as he pretended to be someone else, as he gave the hospital funding and gave comfort to Sachiko. He could wait and wait and wait until the boy opened his eyes in 15 years.
He could go through the motions: could tamper with Kumi’s IV, could break the spying kid’s camera, could tap his finger on the wheelchair as he brought Satoru to the roof once more. He could throw himself off maybe, or perhaps do the same thing he had done, and tear his eyes away from the Butterfly. He could go to jail and be executed. He could look Satoru in the eye one last time as the noose tightened. He could live and die for Satoru.
Or-
Well.
It was never a choice was it?
“No.”
Satoru stared at him incredulously.
“What do you mean “No”!?” The chatter-teeth stutter had vanished under the force of his indignation, eyes wide and angry once again.
Yashiro just smiled.
“No. I don’t think I will.”
The boy spluttered, unable to form words as Yashiro brushed a strand of hair from over his eyes, from over his beautiful, furious eyes. His heart settled in his chest, quiet for the first time since the Butterfly dragged him back through time. He felt… calm. Yes. Calm, for perhaps the second time in his life. And both times due to the boy in front of him, the boy glaring daggers at him, the boy who had begged for him to call him Satoru.
“You know what I think we’ll do?” A smirk played at his lips, one that must’ve been incredibly sinister if something small and scared had taken over Satoru’s eyes. For what reason would Satoru be afraid? He knew that Yashiro wouldn’t hurt him. Not now, not ever again.
“I swear, if you don’t put me in that damned river I’ll- WAH!?” Satoru jolted as Yashiro picked him up bodily, hands wrapping around his pale frame. He kicked and wriggled and flailed about in protest, trying desperately to escape the older man’s grasp, but it was for naught. This wasn’t Yashiro letting him climb out of the seat and beat his face black and blue. This was Yashiro, still smiling, lifting the boy up and gently tossing him into the backseat with a muted “oof!”.
“I think we’re going to go on a nice, little drive. See the sights, go on a road trip perhaps?” He stretched his neck, then his arms, then his back, working the aches and pains from the uncomfortable (or much too comfortable) seating arrangement out of his joints. He could see Satoru’s mouth working silently in the rearview mirror, eyes filled with a level of indignity that was positively adorable on his tear-stained face.
“You-”
“I kid, I kid!” He smiled as wide as he could as the heat came on at full blast, a wave of warmth that made his fingers cease aching almost immediately, “Sachiko must be worried sick, wouldn’t you say?”
Slowly, ever so slowly, the boy’s face was beginning to return to something beyond pale and drawn. Blood rushed back into it with gusto, turning it a lovely shade of red that would’ve marked a deep blush in any other situation. Ohh what Yashiro wouldn’t give to be the one causing such a lovely expression…
However, he was stuck with fury for now. Beautiful, but not quite as soft as a blush.
“If you even think about touching her Yashiro I’ll cave your fucking skull in.” Violence positively leaked from the boy, saturating the warm air between them. Again, if Yashiro were one to blush he would. He would turn beet red, and stammer as the violent intent made his heart swoon. If he were a character from one of the Mangas the boy intended to write, his eyes would glimmer with little hearts.
He was none of those things however, but how he wished it so.
“Why would I touch her Satoru?” He cocked his head. Surely the boy knew how much he meant to Yashiro?
“You’ve done it once, and now that we’re here? I can’t imagine you’d want me to have anyone else.” The words were caustic, spat out the boy’s mouth like arrows and finding their way into his chest. They hurt, hurt enough to cause a flinch. Did Satoru really think so little of him?
He put on his best smile, the one he wore as he walked down the hospital entrance and extended a hand to brush at Satoru’s still-slick face. The boy stilled but didn’t move away.
“I can’t live without you Satoru, why would I want you to hate me?” His hand, so big in comparison to Satoru’s face, cupped the boy’s cheek. He ignored every little part of himself screaming to take more than he had right now, instead letting his cool skin rest gently on the comparatively clammy skin of Satoru’s cheek.
“You would think I’d come around.” The conviction in Satoru’s voice surprised him, at least until the blush deepened and he clasped a hand over his mouth. An unwanted admittance, the voicing of his inner thoughts. It was one of the things that so drew him to the boy.
“Hm, perhaps… But that seems… unnecessary.” He closed his eyes, letting the smile overtake his face, “You made me unable to live without you. It wouldn’t particularly make sense to have put a you-shaped hole in me and not feel drawn to it?”
He opened his eyes once more, staring as calmly as he could at Satoru: his slightly parted lips, his slack cheeks, his wide, bright eyes. Shock perhaps. Far from fear or anger or grief. Just shock. It seemed that Satoru hadn’t prepared himself for the question.
“Just take me home.” The words were barely audible above the sound of the heating vents struggling to warm the cold winter night, but Yashiro heard them all the same. Tired, resigned, exhausted. But not scared, not disgusted.
Yashiro counted that as a win. Who wouldn’t?
“Buckle up Satoru, I promise the seats in the back aren’t trapped.” His attempt at good humor earned a frosty silence, but all Yashiro could do was laugh. Satoru was Satoru was Spice.
He put the car out of park and began the slow drive back to Sachiko Fujinuma’s house.