notes:
chapter tws: disassociation/hallucinations, graphic violence, drug abuse
please take care of yourselves! please DO NOT read if any of this stuff bothers you. stay safe u all!! we're getting right into the thick of things from the start.
d>e>a>t>h>m>e>t>a>l ; panchiko
post rave maximalist ; machine girl
October 1997
Two bites into his lunch, the classroom door opens and shuts, right on schedule. Really, Denji's stalker isn't even trying to be sneaky about being a total creep anymore– although, even if he did try, it wouldn't work, because Yoshida's been joining Denji for lunch every day since he first showed up. It's routine at this point. Shiny black shoes click against the tile floors of the classroom before tapping to a stop right in front of Denji's desk. A bookbag slumps to the floor.
Denji smothers his smile with a massive bite of rice, topped off with an edamame bean, keeping his gaze fixed on his bento box.
"Denji," that quiet voice murmurs, soft and sweet as ever. It practically drips with honey, so positively over the top that it makes Denji want to hurl.
He takes his time chewing, sorting through the food in his mouth, and refusing to meet Yoshida's heavy stare. First a couple of bites on this side, then a couple there, move the rice back to the left, swallow the excess...
Yoshida chuckles. His presence looms over Denji as he leans forward, and then a gentle finger is tapping on Denji's shoulder. "Denji," he tries again, louder this time. More insistent.
Another heap of rice, a mini sausage balanced precariously on top this time, pauses mid-route to Denji's mouth. "Not interested." Denji forces the grin that has inadvertently spread across his face before finally looking Yoshida in the eye. His face is still stuck halfway between a smile and a scowl. "You're a stinky stalker creep."
Black eyes crinkle and soften into an amused smirk, a chuckle playing at the corners of Yoshida's lips as he tilts his head, bangs falling in front of his face to cover his eyes. Denji wonders, vaguely, how Yoshida manages to see behind that curtain of hair. He supposes that Yoshida can't see through his hair and instead navigates his surroundings with some sick sort of echolocation to gracefully avoid obstacles, like a bat. Or a vampire. Yeah, like a vampire– Yoshida's tall and brooding enough to pull it off.
"This particular stinky stalker creep wants to walk you home today," Yoshida says. He has a wide grin plastered across his face, and there's something challenging in his tone, almost like he's daring Denji to say no. And Denji had tried, the first week, to say, no. These days, he doesn't even begin to think about declining Yoshida's requests– which isn't to say that he doesn't complain. Denji likes to think that he complains a healthy amount about every single thing that Yoshida demands of him.
When Denji doesn't respond immediately, Yoshida tilts forward, hands bracing the wood of his desk on either side of Denji's pink plastic lunchbox. The wood creaks under the extra weight, but neither boy pays it any mind. "Please?"
"Again?" Denji huffs. "How am I supposed to get chicks if you keep hoarding me after school?"
Yoshida arches an elegant brow. "Hoarding? That's a new word."
"Uh huh," Denji nods. Nayuta had taught it to him last night while they were doing chores. Denji's a big hoarder, she'd said, poking at the boxes full of random stuff Denji kept shoved in the big room at the back of the apartment with a broom handle. The previous tenant hadn't taken all their stuff when they moved, but Denji didn't have the heart to throw it out. While it had felt wrong to jam what felt like a whole personality into a single room, Denji had quashed the feeling and done it anyway. Except he'd kept the TV out in the living room. He needed that. "My kid sis– well, friend, I guess– Nayuta–"
"You mean the kid you took from Control," Yoshida cuts in. And his grin, already so overexaggerated and silly feeling, takes on a far more artificial quality, more plastic than Denji's bento box. Something in Denji's chest tightens as he watches the mirth in Yoshida's eyes drain away into an expression far more adjacent to... a forced sense of politeness. Like he'd rather be talking about anything other than Nayuta.
This happens every single time Denji talks about Nayuta. Without fail.
A long beat of awkward silence stretches on, tense, until Denji sighs and impales a mini sausage with his chopstick. "Party pooper," he accuses, popping the sausage into his mouth. "Conversation ruiner. I've told you like, ten million times that I don't remember where I know Nayuta from."
The banter comes back like an exhale, a slow sigh of relief. "Right. So the Little Control teaches you new words. And she's in, what, elementary school?"
it's like Yoshida's slip-up never even happened. To be honest, Denji prefers it this way– he's glad Yoshida never presses for more information like the officers did, back over the summer, when Denji had woken up head throbbing and memory a blank slate in a teeny tiny humid cement cell. Hell, he hadn't even been able to remember how old he was, much less who the fuck some stupid old lady named Control was.
But he'd remembered Nayuta, at least a little bit. Seeing her tiny face, tinged red with the heat of late June, had struck something in the nerves of Denji's brain, neuron sparking to neuron a message that this little girl was familiar to him, at some point. Even if, for the life of him, he couldn't remember exactly how he'd met her, he knew that this girl was a part of his lost memories, a part of that gaping hole in the Swiss cheese that was his brain. That, in and of itself, had been reason enough to take her in.
Of course, that odd feeling– something akin to deja vu– came again and again. Sometimes with the photographs that the officers shoved in his face and sometimes with the odd glances of familiar faces from just across the hall, the blink-and-you-miss-it kind. The same things popped up again and again, both in the newspaper clippings that were delivered in fancy-looking manilla files and in the hazy glimpses from a crowd of passersby. Dark red hair. An old suit jacket. The flash of a pistol.
Through lots and lots of experiments, tests, and mildly uncomfortable sick-o-anal-sis sessions, the officers had concluded that Denji, in the time that he had not been the him today, had one, been a total druggie– enough to have completely destroyed his liver; two, gotten into multiple fights involving knives, guns, and maybe even a bomb; and three, fucked up his head in response to something "seriously horribly traumatic." Something so bad that it warranted Denji's brain locking everything even remotely related to the "seriously horribly traumatic" experience into a safe, throwing the aforementioned safe into the ocean of his subconsciousness, and crushing the key in one of those hydraulic press thingies.
And honestly? Denji couldn't have cared less. So fucking what? What was the big deal? He'd go back to his house by the woods with Nayuta, work for Eternity's cover business, pay off his good-for-nothing father's debt doing semi-legal grunt work, and live a comfortable life with a pink-haired hottie with big tits and a bigger ass. Who cares if he keeps seeing familiar faces in complete strangers? Who cares if he can't remember his developmental teenage years?
The officers, however, cuffed him, straight-jacketed him, tied him to a teeny tiny wooden chair, and shined a bright light in his eyes on a daily basis. They, apparently, cared a lot about what he'd been up to in his developmental teenage years. Maybe it was because Eternity, the organization that Denji had supposedly worked for, had been wiped out two and a half years ago. Maybe it was because he'd been found curled up in a bloodstained warehouse, which, despite the lack of dead bodies, was clearly the site of a massacre. Maybe it was because, according to their undergrounded sources (the police had underground sources? Denji had thought that was a movie-only thing!), Denji was the infamous "Chainsaw" or whatever. Maybe it was because Denji was the right-hand man to the one and only Control, leader of one of the most notorious yakuza groups in the greater area, that had only recently mysteriously collapsed. Maybe– and just maybe– it was because Denji's supposed alter-ego Chainsaw was a convicted murderer.
Denji had no idea who Chainsaw was. The name didn't ring any bells at all, not like Nayuta's had. But, he had to admit (and he did, right there in the interrogation room) that Chainsaw was a totally sick name. Like, really cool. Coincidentally, that had not helped his alibi. Not even a little bit.
However, the officers had set Denji free after only a few months of monitoring, a far cry from the two years that they had initially promised. Perhaps it was because he had so vehemently denied all allegations of knowing who Chainsaw was– even if it was a really cool name– and connections to the Horsemen– Control's yakuza group. Perhaps it was because they believed that the sicko-anal-sis doctor's conclusion of a "seriously horribly traumatic" event proved his innocence.
And then the stupid stalker sitting across from him showed up the day they set him free. He'd been wearing a suit and tie (something oh-so-familiar) and carrying a large box full of donated items that felt just a little too similar to what Denji used to wear in his house by the woods. Then again, everything felt a little too similar these days.
Yoshida fucking Hirofumi, with his smiley eyes, pretty mouth, and ice-cold hands had been the main issue. Because just from seeing him from afar, a silly little nickname had sprung to the tip of Denji's tongue, an affectionate Hiro that Denji didn't even know he had in him. And then Yoshida had stuck out his hand for Denji to shake, a motion that felt so foreign yet familiar that Denji had nearly passed out then and there.
Now, here he was, cosplaying as a normal high schooler– with a job, an apartment, a lack of a dating life, and a loving family waiting for him to get back from school– all while fending off stalker Yoshida, who knew way more about Denji than he was supposed to. Way more about Denji than even Denji knew about himself. But, Denji consoles himself, chewing thoughtfully on the weird skin part of an edamame bean, at least he hasn't been interrogated by anyone else since the police.
"Denji. Denji. Den-ji!" Yoshida waves a hand in front of Denji's face before giving up and flicking him on the forehead instead.
"Shit– Ow! What!" Denji's hands fly up to clutch at the red spot on his forehead.
Yoshida frowns, knocking the side of Denji's head with the base of his palm. "I was talking to you." The other boy had moved when Denji wasn't paying attention– now, he's seated on a chair pulled out from the desk in front of Denji's, straddling the back of the seat.
"Yeah, and I wasn't listening, dude." It's a little odd to see constantly composed, fancy pants Yoshida sitting in such a casual manner. He feels more like a prim and proper rich boy, born and raised to be the leader of his family's next big company than a stupid stalker of an even stupid-er high school boy. But whatever.
Yoshida's eyes twinkle with smothered laughter as he huffs out a halfhearted "Rude." Not that Denji is looking at Yoshida's eyes, or anything. "At least let me pretend to ask you for permission to walk you home."
Denji flicks a grain of rice off his desk where it had fallen, aiming for Yoshida's big stupid face. It misses and lands on the grey of Yoshida's winter uniform jacket instead. "What if I say no, huh? What if I want to walk home all by self?"
"I'd have to walk you home anyway. And we'd both feel worse about it," Yoshida replies, not missing a beat. He picks the rice off his jacket with a finger and sticks it into his mouth. "We've been over this."
They have, indeed, been over this. "Fine," Denji relents, dropping his chopsticks into his empty lunchbox and snapping the lid shut. "Walk me home, mister Yoshida sir."
Yoshida is waiting for him by the time class finishes, leaning up against the red brick of the walls surrounding the school, tapping away at the keys of one of those fancy new phones, the kind that flip. "'S that real?" Denji asks, tilting a head at the phone as he approaches by way of greeting.
Yoshida glances up and nods, flicking his phone shut and slipping it carefully into his uniform pocket. Denji's a little disappointed that Yoshida already knew about his slight pickpocketing tendencies, but then again, what was there that Yoshida didn't know about him already? "Hey Denji. You're going straight home today, right?
"Yeah." A pause. "Stalker. How'd you know?"
Yoshida smiles and shrugs without answering, slinging his schoolbag higher onto his shoulder. Stupid mysterious persona. "After you."
"Asshole," Denji mutters under his breath, pushing past Yoshida. The other boy just laughs, following Denji casually onto the pavement, keeping a bit of distance between them.
If Denji remembers correctly, he used to sell smokes this time of day, right when the students and businesspeople were on their way home. He remembers hanging around behind buildings, trading packs of whatever he got from Eternity for crumpled fistfuls of money. It was all a game back then, really, and Denji was good at playing games. Obviously, the fact that he remembers doing it means that it'd happened a long time ago– before he got roped into all that weird Horsemen shit– but it still feels like he's breaking routine every time he's going straight home from school.
Whatever. While he hadn't really minded dealing, it wasn't exactly the most pleasant job of all time, and he had to turn over all his money to Eternity. He'd only done it to pay off his (well, his father's) debt and Eternity wasn't around anymore anyway. And Denji's got a pretty cushy job serving burgers at the restaurant down the block from his school, so it's not like he's pressed for money, or anything. In fact, the life he's living right now is the life he'd dreamed of back then. He's got a bed (that he doesn't sleep in, but it's the thought that counts) and a house with a roof and a stalker/friend too. The only thing he's missing now is a girl, one that isn't a little sister to him.
Denji's steps slow as he nears what's easily his least favorite part about his walk home: rush hour in Tokyo. It's busy– too busy, with too many people and not enough space. Tiny businesses are lined up along the side of the pavement, little restaurants and convenience stores dotting the bustling street amid the towering skyscrapers of the larger corporations. All the old people are getting off of work, so the sidewalk is crowded full of people rushing to get home, briefcases and backpacks swinging about.
A sudden wave of middle schoolers crashes through the crowd, a tidal force of conversations about cute boys and pretty stationary, and Denji feels like a salmon trying to swim upstream. There are so many smells– flowery perfume, body odor, cigarette smoke– it feels like he's choking, bile steadily climbing the long route from his stomach to his mouth.
Craning his neck as far as he can above the crowd, which isn't very far, Denji searches for Yoshida, or any semi-familiar face, really. His eye catches on every tall guy with messy black hair and piercings, but, especially in Tokyo, it's not exactly a specific criterion. Still, Yoshida is meant to be Denji's stalker. Why is he never around when Denji needs him?
People keep on bumping into Denji. First an old dude with wire-framed glasses, who mutters a quick apology before returning to yelling at his subordinate over the phone. Another guy, slightly younger with thinning black hair squeezes past the other side, briefcase forcing Denji further toward the inside of the sidewalk. A group of schoolgirls converse loudly, laughing about something or another as they meander slowly through the middle of the path, forcing a bottleneck around them. There's too many people, too many conversations going on at once– it's all too loud and there's too much of everything. Denji is sweating, palms cold and clammy where they cling tightly to the strap of his schoolbag. People are spinning around and around... or maybe Denji is the one spinning.
Denji squeezes his eyes shut, and he wants to go home, wants to curl into a tiny little ball and teleport back to his apartment. All he has to do is to get through this part, and then he'll be back to his silent walk home, Yoshida's footsteps echoing his from just behind. Two sets of footsteps are all he needs right now.
Solace comes in the sweet form of silence.
Carefully, Denji cracks open his eyes, peeking upwards. Ah. It's another one of those moments. The crowd has parted like a school of fish would for a shark, and conversations are muted, faded to nothing but white noise rushing through Denji's ears. His surroundings are blurred; he can't focus on any one face for too long without feeling dizzy.
Solace comes in the outline of a... girl? Nah, she looks older. A woman , then, with dark red hair tied in a long braid over her right shoulder. She's wearing a suit, and somehow, Denji knows how it would feel under his fingers, coarse fabric rubbing into his cheek. A name rises to his lips again, the easy familiarity of it just out of reach. Denji knows her... knew her, at least. But what was her name?
She smiles, tilting her head, hazel eyes finding his over the vast expanse of empty pavement between them. Denji wants– wants to reach for her, wants to run toward her and, and, and he doesn't know. He doesn't know what he wants, only that he wants to touch her and prove that she is real. But she isn't. The people he sees in these brief moments of peace are never real.
Still, he tries to move. His efforts to lift his feet from where they are frozen are futile, but he tries anyway. All the while, the woman stands still, like a picture against the blurred backdrop of pedestrians. Denji would almost believe that she was a picture if her arm wasn't moving, trailing up and up and up until her index finger is pointed right at Denji.
He freezes. She tilts her head. Cherry red lips fall open, their image so clear, even from this far away, to mouth a single word.
"Bang."
Denji blinks.
She is gone.
The crowd is back to its packed nature, a shoving expanse of "excuse me's" and "I'm sorry's". Too many people in too many places, too close to Denji's body. Where the woman stood is a shifting mirage of faces, none of which strike the same familiarity as hers did.
Denji sways on his feet, tilting backward, then forward. Who was she? Who was that? Someone bumps into him, but Denji no longer pays it any mind, still too caught up in his own head. He feels like he's underwater, like everything's muffled, except instead of the calm silence of peace, he is frantically gasping for air, fighting the current while too far away from the shore. He can't breathe, can't–
An ice-cold hand wraps around his wrist, tugging him back to where he stands. On earth. On steady ground.
It takes a moment for him to realize where he is. And then–
"Fuck! Let go of me!" Denji attempts to jerk his hand away from whoever has grabbed him, but the hold is steady.
The person leans down, breath hot in Denji's ear, and whispers, "Calm down, Denji." It's this voice– Denji knows this voice. He can't remember who's it is, but he recognizes it, and that's all he needs for now. So he follows without a fight when they tug him backward into a narrow alleyway off the street, where the rush of the crowd is just a little quieter.
"You okay?" The voice asks.
"No," Denji spits, eyes downcast. His head feels like it's spitting open down the middle and he wants to stick something long and sharp up his nose and just... gouge his brains out, just to make it stop hurting so bad. Just to make it stop thinking, even if it's only for a moment. Because all he can think about right now is pink hair tied back in a long braid and sharp hazel eyes that seem to stare right into his soul, and then some.
"Hey. Denji." Footsteps echo in the narrow space of the alleyway. A cold hand pats once, twice, three times at Denji's cheek until he looks up.
The nickname tumbles out before he can stop them. "Hiro," Denji breathes.
His smile is gone– no, Yoshida's brows are furrowing, his face is contorting and flicking through a slideshow of emotions before settling, finally, on an expression that Denji has never seen before. And, even in the shadow of the alleyway, Denji can see something softer cross Yoshida's face. Hope.
"Denji?"
"Fuck. Dude, sorry. I– I don't know–" For the first time in his life, Denji understands regret: the feeling of his heart dropping into his stomach, an anticipation of the events to come. His voice breaks. "Um. I don't know where that came from– I promise you I didn't mean it."
And that godforsaken smile is back. "Right. You feeling better?"
"Yeah."
Yoshida doesn't press— no, they pretend like nothing ever happened.
"Let's get you home then."
But as they walk, Yoshida's footsteps trail just a little bit closer. Denji would never admit it, but he likes it.
Denji lives in a two-story apartment building just off of the industrial zone– one of the cheapest places in the city. His bedroom is in the first room on the right and he sleeps there with his seven dogs and the Little Control. There are no windows in that room.
Every morning, Denji eats toast with cream cheese, jam, peanut butter, and normal butter. On weekends, he adds olive oil. The Little Control eats cereal. They eat in the living room, in the back of the apartment. There are windows looking in from the back, from the balcony.
When Denji gets back from school, he switches out of his uniform and throws on one of the three threadbare t-shirts that he owns. All of which have a Pochita design on them. All of which Hirofumi had bought.
From his perch on the roof of the building next door, Hirofumi feels like a total fucking creep. It's one thing to keep a look out for someone that he knows, someone that is familiar to him. It's another thing to spy and catalog every movement of a total stranger, and at this point, Denji is no better than a stranger. Camped out there, on the rooftop, braving the harsher winds of late October, Hirofumi feels like he's doing another one of Control's old espionage jobs, the ones where he would sneak into bars and spy on executives of other yakuza groups.
Except now, he's spying on his former best friend. Former, because his best friend no longer remembers him. Hirofumi bites back a long sigh. He's not one for self-pity, but holy fuck does he want to pity himself right now.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and Hirofumi shifts so he can dig it out, setting his binoculars down. Denji is eating dinner with Nayuta right now, a not-so-healthy meal of microwaved macaroni and cheese with steak, doused with an unreasonable amount of ketchup. While it could potentially have long-term detriments to Denji's health, it's not like it's immediately dangerous. Not enough that Hirofumi has to snipe it out of his hands or something. It's funny to think about, though.
"Hey, Fami," he greets, holding the phone up to his ear. "Staked out right now."
"Octopus. How is Chainsaw?"
Hirofumi hums, holding the phone in place with his shoulder, while his other hand reaches for the binoculars. "Fine. Doesn't seem to be exhibiting behavioral issues, other than the normal withdrawal symptoms."
"Remind me, if you would."
"Irritable, but we both know he's always been like that." He presses the binoculars back to his eyes. Denji is licking his plate clean of excess ketchup.
Famine shuffles something around on her desk before responding. "It's been..."
"Almost three months," Hirofumi responds. He's been counting.
"It's a little long... but we don't have any data points. He should be fine."
He's not, Hirofumi thinks.
"As long as he's healthy when we get him back," Famine says. "Have you bugged his flat yet?"
"Negative." Hirofumi hasn't even gotten the chance to step foot on the stairway leading up to Denji's apartment, much less wiretap the entire place. Then again, even if he had gotten the chance to check out Denji's apartment... "I'll work on it."
"By the end of next week."
Hirofumi squeezes his eyes shut, tight. Tight enough for pinpricks of stars to burst like fireworks in the darkness of his eyelids. "Yeah. By the end of next week. I'll keep you updated, Fami."
She doesn't respond.
The phone hangs up, and Hirofumi is left alone on a rooftop with nothing but the low tone of the beep accompanying him.
Stakeouts had always been more fun with Denji— perhaps because the other boy had never been able to sit still. Even when they'd been catching Fox and Angel, Denji had been fidgety and jumpy all the time, poking around at odd trinkets that hadn't been burnt down, despite Hirofumi's constant warnings. Really, Denji was much more suited to jumping into the fray, fighting tooth and nail until someone, usually him, emerged victorious.
And that had been the biggest difference between Denji and... new Denji, other than the lack of that flicker of recognition in the other boy's eyes.
The Denji Hirofumi knew had been willing to fight. He'd been willing to do whatever for whoever, so long as it meant he could be happy. But this Denji? This Denji was already happy. And he isn't willing to fight for anything anymore.
It hurts to think that Denji is completely okay with never remembering Hirofumi ever again. Sometimes, when the nights get especially hard and Hirofumi has to watch Denji pace around and around the living room, hands fisting at his hair and shoulders hunched over, Hirofumi wants to believe that if Denji suddenly remembered everything , he'd want to come back. But Hirofumi knows Denji a little too well, and he knows that even if Denji did remember, he wouldn't want to return.
He doesn't have the heart to tell Famine that there's zero fucking way, in any world, that Denji returns to the Horsemen. Not when he has the Little Control and an apartment and a job and enough food to last him the rest of the week. Denji's too selfish for that, and Hirofumi hates to admit that he'd help Denji stay in his paradise.
Hirofumi can't take that away from Denji, no matter how much he wants to.
Maybe that's why it feels so wrong to keep tabs on Denji like this. Because he knows, with every new piece of information that he relays onto the Famine, he's taking away another bit of Denji's chances at a normal life— the life both he and Denji had fantasized of late at night in their shared cot at Control's hotel. The life they'd fought for, until the very end.
Fuck, Hirofumi's exhausted, both mentally and physically. Moral dilemmas are draining. He flings his binoculars off to the side in favor of blindly groping beside him for his water bottle, which he'd filled to the brim with hot water in preparation for tonight.
He should be heading down to his room soon. Hirofumi had watched Denji go down the hallway toward the bathroom, yawning all the while, and watching Denji sleep is a little too far, even for Hirofumi. And he's got an early morning tomorrow, what with writing up reports and all.
Just a little longer , he tells himself, reaching for his binoculars again. Just to make sure Denji really goes to bed.
He keeps watching for much too long, out of some odd sense of paranoia. He presses the binoculars as close to his eyes as he can, plastic digging into the curve of his sockets. It's so cold his entire face feels frozen, and his fingertips are numb, even through his gloves. But he braves it out, just for Denji. It's not creepy if I'm protecting him, he reminds himself yet again, as he tries for the umpteenth time to look just a little further down that dark hallway, so maybe he can peek into the open doorway of the room Denji sleeps in.
It's useless, he knows. The room is at the wrong angle and far enough down the hallway that even if Hirofumi had night vision lenses, he still wouldn't be able to see. Still, he continues watching the empty living room, the balconies of the rooms surrounding it, and the street below.
The streetlamp flickers. Hirofumi shivers but doesn't make any movement to pull his jacket tighter.
Perhaps it is the drowsiness finally creeping up on him. Perhaps it's the delayed reaction time from the cold.
Hirofumi doesn't notice when the door to the rooftop slams open behind him until it is far too late.
September 1995
"I'm bait, aren't I," Denji whispers into the darkness of the hotel room, staring up at the ceiling from his spot on the bed.
Hirofumi stays silent, still in the shadows. Denji does this now and then– speak into the void until his voice becomes gravelly from overuse. Often, he talks himself to exhaustion, words thick and slurred until he eventually falls asleep. Hirofumi doesn't mind; it's not like Denji's voice is uncomfortable to listen to, and some guys like to talk to themselves. Who is he to judge?
And Hirofumi, though loathe to admit it, likes listening to Denji's thoughts. He doesn't get to see the other boy during the day, no, but he's heard about the missions. It's the kind of stuff Control had Angel do, back when he was still on the field. It's the kind of stuff Hirofumi hopes to do someday.
"Yo, Octopus. I'm talking to you. You know I'm bait."
It's the first time Denji has addressed him directly. He doesn't respond, keeping his gaze fixed to a blank spot on the opposite wall. Part of him aches to respond and the other urges him to stay silent. Because no, Hirofumi doesn't know if Denji is bait or not. Well, he does. Everyone is Control's bait in one way or another, but Hirofumi isn't smart enough to know the details. Not for anyone as new as Denji yet, anyway, and Control is good– too good– at keeping her intentions under wraps.
"Fine. Be that way. Shithead." Denji flips onto his side, a petty display of halfhearted anger when Hirofumi doesn't respond. The blankets shuffle as he shifts his position and Hirofumi takes the opportunity to sneak a glance at the hunched figure on the bed, curled into a fetal position.
Denji's a loud person with a loud personality– he's brash, immature, and doesn't think things through– but he's a quiet sleeper. Sometimes, Hirofumi wonders if the Denji who comes into the room, all hustle and bustle and loud and extroverted, is the same as the Denji who sleeps a little too still to be normal.
It's unnerving, watching Denji sleep, the only indication that the other boy is still alive the steady rise and fall of his chest. Sometimes, Hirofumi has to resist the urge to cross over to Denji's side of the room and check to see if he's still breathing.
Like now– with Denji ceasing his out-loud pondering, the room falls into a sort of deep silence, broken only by the low hum of the air conditioner and the faint sound of cicadas chirping in early September before they, too, tuck in for the night.
Just as Hirofumi is about to conclude that Denji is, in fact, asleep, Denji starts talking again. His voice is low, only just above a whisper, like he's scared to get caught telling Hirofumi whatever he's about to say, even if they're the only ones in the room. "Before Miss Makima took me in, I never got to sleep in a bed as soft as this one."
Hirofumi doesn't give any indication that he's listening to Denji's words, but he's on alert, for sure. Denji has a way of getting his attention and keeping it.
"An' no one ever talked to me like I was important. Before, they did, sometimes, when they wanted money from me or my old man. But after a while, they stopped asking before taking," Denji murmurs.
Hirofumi feels like he's intruding on something. Like Denji has inadvertently unlocked the door to his soul, and Hirofumi is looking in from the doorway like a glorified peeping tom that Denji invited in. Welcome or not, a peeping tom is a peeping tom. It's awkward, too, standing there, listening to Denji talk about his life before the yakuza. Hirofumi never hears anyone talk about it so openly– it's like an unspoken rule to never talk about what got you into the business.
And here Denji is, breaking all the rules. Hirofumi supposes that it's in character.
"Miss Makima talks to me like I'm a person," Denji adds, twisting so that he's looking at Hirofumi from over his shoulder. "She talks to me like I exist."
A beat. Denji flips so he's lying on his back again, facing the ceiling. "I think I'm in love with Miss Makima."
Hirofumi's been following up until that moment– but the thought of Control ever letting anyone love her is so outlandish that he can't help but break, letting just the barest hint of a chuckle escape from his lips before he clamps his mouth shut again.
Denji scowls, the expression clear on his face even in the darkness of the room, the sliver of light from the crack in the curtains briefly illuminating the downturn of his mouth before he turns fully so he's looking at Hirofumi. "Dude. You're laughing at me."
Hirofumi can't stop the ugly snort that erupts from the back of his throat, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing out loud for real. "Sorry," he chokes out when he thinks he's composed himself. Still, he keeps a hand firmly clasped over his mouth, just in case.
"Bro..." Denji props himself on an elbow to squint at Hirofumi from across the room. "You're laughing at me," he finishes, lamely.
"I can't imagine anyone loving Control," Hirofumi murmurs from behind his hand.
Denji nods, satisfied with Hirofumi's answer, flopping backward into bed again. "She's hot," he explains. "And she's nice to me. Y'know?"
"No."
"Okay."
Silence.
"I've been thinking that I'm okay with being bait if it's for Miss Makima. 'Cos she's given me the best life I ever had."
This time, Hirofumi looks– really looks– at Denji, taking in that perpetually messy head of blonde hair spread in disarray over the thin pillow, like a work of art. Taking in the skinny arms clutching at the sheets despite the heat of late summer, if September counts. Taking in the scars that litter over the other boy's skin, nail marks and just barely faded bruises on the skin poking out from under the other boy's ratty, threadbare t-shirt.
And he realizes with a start that like this, Denji looks the same age– maybe even younger– as himself. He looks small, tiny even, wrapped up in that big blanket like a burrito in a king-sized hotel bed. Too young and too small to be in the yakuza.
"She'll kill you," Hirofumi whispers. He hadn't meant to say that.
Denji responds after a long moment of thinking. "I'm okay with if she kills me, I think. 'Cos it means things can't go downhill from here, not if I'm dead. And it'd be totally cool to die in the arms of a hot girl like Miss Makima."
"Dumbass," Hirofumi grits out. Like he'd let his assignment die. "What'd'you think I'm here for, then?"
"Dunno," Denji hums, letting his eyes close "What are we here for?"
His breathing evens. It isn't long before he's silent again.
Hirofumi waits. He waits the whole night for Denji to say something again, but the other boy never does.
Hirofumi is always assigned to boring missions– night shifts guarding important people, waiting on Control's fancy dinner parties, and doing espionage assignments on high-ranking executives of the Horsemen. Which makes sense, he supposes. He's one of the youngest members, after all, even if he's much stronger than most of the other trainees. And that's excluding the fact that Control only needs him as a bargaining chip.
Although his role as that, too, is wearing thin. His father doesn't ask to see him as often anymore, so Hirofumi rarely leaves the facility. When he does, it's no longer under the Yoshida name– the slip he's been given ever since he turned thirteen always says Cthulhu. Like he's a little business deal. His father only requests to see him to keep up appearances, to pretend like he still cares about his son so he can secretly plot his takedown of Control.
Hirofumi's been summoned to a Cthulhu cover store today, supervised by some random Horsemen minion he doesn't know the name of. Sighing, he tosses his permission slip onto the locker room bench and digs in his locker for a change of clothes. He isn't opposed to the suit Control requires them all to wear, but it's uncomfortable to be in for long hours, especially after he's been standing all night. The sunlight of an early Saturday morning streams in from the open window, stinging the backs of his retinas. That's how Hirofumi knows he's exhausted.
Maybe he can take a nap before he's due to meet his father.
And then, as he's halfway through pulling a comfortable sweater on, someone opens the door of the locker room, calling his name. And all of Hirofumi's hopes and dreams of having a nice restful morning are shattered into a million little pieces.
Someone slams his locker shut behind him. "Octopus."
Hirofumi turns, grabbing his slip from the bench and tucking it into his pocket. If it's an older guy, they'll mess with him a little first before telling him whatever it is they need to tell him. And all the new trainees this round are older. As much as Hirofumi dreads the meeting with his dad, he can't exactly afford to have the news of him being Cthulhu's son floating out and about in the organization. Technically, it's classified information.
But the person leaning up against the lockers is Kishibe . Well, Hirofumi is required to call him Claw in front of everyone else, but the man is Kishibe in private. "You're on duty," Kishibe supplies, taking a long drag of his cigarette.
"I've got a meeting with Dad today."
"Control will cancel it," Kishibe responds. He teases the cigarette between his teeth as he reaches over to ruffle Hirofumi's hair. Up close, his eyes are red and his breath stinks of booze. "The Denji kid requested you personally."
I should have guessed that would happen, Hirofumi scolds himself, clumsily tugging his sweater back over his head again. "I'll see to it, then."
Kishibe laughs quietly before it dissolves into a hacking cough. "I'm walking you up there," Kishibe grins, baring cracked yellow teeth when he succeeds in clearing his throat.
Hirofumi just rolls his eyes.
Walking to the central building during the day is weird. There are more people around, for one, and they give both Hirofumi and Kishibe a wide berth, like they're scared or something. Which, Hirofumi supposes, makes sense. He's read the reports on Kishibe, despite the older man's constant admonishments not to, and even though he looks like a harmless old druggie, he's actually a complete tank when fighting.
It makes Hirofumi feel a little better about himself, because even if he hasn't been in an actual fight since Control took him in as a baby, at least he was taught by the greatest fighter to ever grace the Horsemen. (Kishibe, on the other hand, will tell Hirofumi not to limit his accomplishments off of his teacher's successes. As if beating the newbies at training is anything compared to what Kishibe has done on the field.)
As they're waiting for the elevator, Kishibe grounds his cigarette underfoot on the clean tile of the building, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Red-rimmed eyes find Hirofumi's. "So," he starts. "Denji, huh."
"I'm assigned to him," Hirofumi responds, deadpan. He's not humoring Kishibe today.
The elevator arrives with a soft chime, and the two step in. "He's fifteen. Like you," Kishibe says.
"Yeah."
Silence. Kishibe presses the button for the top floor after swiping his security card. Silence again.
"It's weird to see another kid working here," Hirofumi murmurs. "But it's kinda nice, I guess."
Kishibe nods, digging around for another cigarette. "Yeah? Any idea why he asked for you? That's like asking to get on Control's radar."
Hirofumi scoffs, sticking his hands deep into his suit pockets. "As if I wasn't already on her radar. She watches me like a hawk."
"But Denji?"
After a long moment of debating whether or not to tell Kishibe, Hirofumi decides that it wouldn't hurt. He can trust the man, even with his less-than-pleasant addictions. After all, Kishibe is practically the dad he never had, which sounds much more pathetic than it really is. "He talks to me while I'm guarding. I think we're..."
"Friends?"
"Friends," Hirofumi agrees.
At that, Kishibe grins, pausing in his search for a pack. "I can't believe my darling baby Hiro–"
"Stop," Hirofumi groans, but he's suppressing a smile too.
"You're growing up fast," Kishibe teases, flicking a lighter out of his pocket. "You were barely one when Control got you, you know?"
"And you're a sap. I thought you were supposed to be a battle-hardened strict old man."
"You're telling me I'm not?" Kishibe waves a hand threateningly, faking a grab for his gun.
Hirofumi lets his smile crack through, playfully rolling his eyes with exasperation as Kishibe lights his cigarette, letting the ashy smoke cloud the air. "Claw might be the battle-hardened yakuza executive, but Kishibe isn't."
The atmosphere is comfortable, normal, even. It reminds Hirofumi of the books that his middle school teacher would read to them, a picture of a life that all the other kids had– going straight home to a loving family after school with parents that cared and nothing but homework to do when they got home. It's brief moments like this where Hirofumi can pretend that he's just another ordinary kid.
The elevator stops, and the doors slowly slide open. Just as Hirofumi's about to step out of the elevator, calloused fingers tug him back, spinning him to face Kishibe. "Today's your debut."
Hirofumi nods.
"You move like a newbie," Kishibe comments, after a long beat. "We both know you're good. Get confident and kick ass." He shoves Hirofumi out of the elevator, the tip of his cigarette just barely grazing the younger boy's suit jacket as Hirofumi stumbles past. "I'm proud of you, Hiro."
"You're not coming this time?"
Kishibe squeezes his eyes shut, lifting his cig to take another long, slow drag. Smoke billows out of his mouth when he exhales. "Control's killing me today." Ash dusts and falls to the carpeted floor of the elevator.
Hirofumi wants to say something but the words get stuck before he can even think them, a mess of jumbled letters and regrets in his head. Kishibe chuckles through yet another long exhale when Hirofumi glances up, meeting his gaze.
He seems too comfortable for knowing he's going to die. But that's always been Kishibe, laughing in the face of danger. Hirofumi's heard stories about his mentor laughing as he fought, killing in ridiculously skewed fights with a smile on his face.
But– it's too soon. When Hirofumi had reported him, he hadn't meant for Control to punish him like this, not so severely. Perhaps he had thought that, knowing his and Kishibe's relationship, Control would spare Kishibe's life. Maybe only torture him a little bit. But this? This is no reward. If Hirofumi had known that this would be the result, then he wouldn't have reported at all; no, he would have purposefully lied for Kishibe's sake ten times over if it meant death.
The doors slide shut.
The faint feeling of being ordinary, of having anything in his life that resembled how it should be drains away. Hirofumi is left standing alone in the middle of the hallway, plush carpet blood red underfoot. Because of course Kishibe is dying today.
It's a long, foreboding walk to Control's office.
Hirofumi is still in a daze when the mission starts. Will Kishibe still be alive when he gets back? He sneaks a sidelong glance past Denji, who is squeezed beside him in the back of the car, at Control. She looks serenely out the window, her long hair hanging down her back, a picture-perfect statue.
"I'm awesome, dude," Denji boasts loudly, talking to no one in particular. He's probably explaining all the details of the mission in his unrefined way, but for the first time in a long while, Hirofumi finds that he isn't interested in his duties whatsoever, too caught up in memories of cigarette smoke curling through the air and long afternoons of training in the gym. With a certain gray-haired scarred man who would be dead by the end of today.
Maybe, Hirofumi thinks in a futile attempt to comfort himself, Kishibe is paranoid.
But Kishibe is never wrong. Hirofumi used to admire that particular trait of the older man– the ability to always guess the opponent's next move– but today, he hopes that he never gets that good. He can't even begin to imagine the dread of knowing that no matter what he does, the fight will end with death.
Tuning out Denji's words, Hirofumi peeks at Control again. His eyes catch her heavy gaze, hazel eyes bleeding into black, and he whips his head back around again to stare pointedly out the car window. In the reflection of the glass, she continues to observe him. Control's always given him goosebumps– something about the way she's always smiling, or maybe the way she never seems to blink. Or, perhaps it's the fact that, like Kishibe, she always seems to know exactly what Hirofumi is going to do next.
And after a long while of watching her watching him, Hirofumi knows that Control knows exactly what he's thinking. He knows that Control knows that he knows Kishibe is going to die. The thought twists something in his gut, a hazy tentacle of guilt and dread slowly winding around his esophagus to twist his heart into a firm hold, settling heavy and foreboding in his chest.
"I'm not supposed to fight today," Denji chatters on, turning to look at Hirofumi. "Miss Makima told me not to, y'know, 'cos the meeting today is a fish all or something. But I'm here for backup in case things go wrong. Which they won't, 'cos Miss Makima is the best, but if they do, then I'll go cray-cray and kill everyone."
"Official," Hirofumi corrects. Hopefully, if he seems normal enough, Control's suspicions will diffuse.
Denji scrunches his brows, looking petulantly at Hirofumi. "What?"
"The meeting today is official. "
Control smiles. It's an odd smile– her lips quirk up but her eyes stay exactly where they are, cold and calculating. Hirofumi averts his gaze, staring forward at the headrest in front of him, where another lackey sits.
Denji jabbers on about something insignificant and Hirofumi only half listens. It isn't until Control finally speaks that he jerks back into reality. The car skids to a stop and he snaps backward, hitting the seat behind him with a barely muffled grunt. The light ahead is red.
Control is still smiling, pensive, as she watches him. It feels almost mocking, but Hirofumi can't tell. He can't discern any noticeable difference in Control's expression at all, other than the fact that it feels different. "Octopus," she says, and her soft voice seems to float over the rumbling engine of the stalled car, like the waves of her voice are moving on a different frequency. "I'll brief you now."
"Yes ma'am," Hirofumi answers mechanically, stiffening in his seat. His tongue feels too thick in his mouth.
"I'm meeting with Bat to pick up a potential prospect. I'm hoping it will go smoothly, but Bat has been... uncooperative recently. You remember how Claw came back after the last negotiation."
Control watches him closely for a reaction after mentioning Kishibe's code name, but Hirofumi stifles his automatic wince and nods. "Stitches. Broken rib."
"Hence why I'm bringing Denji here. And you, of course."
Denji cuts in and Hirofumi wonders whether the blonde boy is really brave or just stupid. Possibly a combination of both. "Miss Makima needed someone to guard me, and I picked you," he explains. He looks a little too satisfied with his decision to drag Hirofumi out of a nap and an off day, and if they weren't sitting under Control's watchful eye, Hirofumi might have slapped Denji. Perhaps letting his guard down around a certain blonde haired boy last night had been far more of a liability than he thought it had been.
Hirofumi's hand twitches where it's resting on his lap, aching to bury its knuckles into Denji's stupid dopey face.
But he forces his palm to rest flat against his knee. Because he has self-control, unlike Denji , who is now unabashedly eyeing Control's breasts as he talks.
"You don't need to step in," Control adds, addressing Hirofumi. "Your only job here is to make sure Denji doesn't hurt himself. He's still new to this."
Hirofumi contorts his face into as best of a smile as he can, nodding an affirmative.
"I almost die every single fight," Denji brags, nearly elbowing Hirofumi in the face as he flexes a scrawny arm. "But I'm alive, which is totally cool! Like, how do I even do it?"
Ah. If that was Denji's attempt at comforting Hirofumi, then it's safe to say that he's failed miserably, because what the fuck?
Control laughs at that, a soft and controlled tinkle of bells that sends shivers down Hirofumi's spine. It sounds so fake, like plastic, but Denji beams at the sound like a well-trained dog. "I do hope you stay alive, Denji," she says, pinning Hirofumi with a cold stare over Denji's shoulder.
There it is– the thinly veiled threat that Control is known for making.
"I hope you stay alive too." Hirofumi plasters a wide smile across his face and bumps Denji's shoulder with his own, ignoring the other boy's bewildered expression. He doesn't dare return Control's glare, but in his head, he does. In his head, he scoffs loudly and responds with a snappy retort, one that would render Control speechless.
Shame he's only brave enough to do it in his head. Someday I'll sock both Control and Denji in the face.
By the time the limousine finally pulls up in front of a large penthouse, Denji is practically vibrating with excitement, still yapping on and on like a little kid. After almost half an hour of listening to the other boy talk, Hirofumi's head is starting to swim, especially since the other boy's thoughts don't make much sense at all– like he's just been stringing together the words "boobs," "butts," and "blood" into as many random combinations as he can. He misses the Denji that he sees late at night when it's just the two of them, when Denji isn't pretending to be way cooler than he really is just because there's an objectively hot girl in his vicinity.
Hirofumi lags behind Control and Denji as they make their way through the lobby of the penthouse, blending in with the other bodyguards. They're big and bulky, mindless minions that have only been in the Horsemen for a few months. Hirofumi's been here long enough to know that Control only hires these guys for muscle; they act as shields for a couple of weeks until Control rotates them out for a new group of newbies when they all inevitably get shot.
Still, Control's bodyguards get trained in a separate group from Kishibe's trainees, which means that none of them know Hirofumi (or Octopus, he supposes) well enough to pick on him, and he blends right into the group. And while Hirofumi hasn't been listening to everything that Denji's been saying, he has been watching.
He watches as Denji's eyes keep themselves glued to Control's ass while they're climbing up the grand staircase to the main floor. (Disgusting!)
He watches Denji plaster his body against Control's side when they all squeeze into the elevator, laughing as he unsuccessfully pretends like there's no other choice but to stay stuck to her side. (Even more disgusting!)
He watches the bodyguards pass Control a cheap smoke grenade, the small kind that they give to trainees when they're practicing for the field. (Useless!)
He watches Control slip a bottle of clear liquid into Denji's suit pocket, leaning in close to whisper something in the other boy's ear as the bodyguards loudly clamor off the elevator. Watches Denji nod seriously and immediately stuff his hand into his pocket, the outline of his fingers through the fabric rolling the bottle back and forth.
Denji fidgets with the bottle all through the meeting. He doesn't even try to look engaged, settling instead on playing with the mystery liquid in his pocket and shuffling at the fuzzy rug with the dirty red sneakers that poke out the hem of his dress pants. At least he's finally shut up (on "Miss Makima's orders"), even if it means he's attempting to recreate the Mona Lisa on the tiny fibers of the rug.
To be fair, Hirofumi isn't paying much attention to the negotiations either. He'd tried at first, but didn't understand half of the words Control was saying, and eventually just gave up, settling on analyzing the opposing group's bodyguards to cure his boredom. They're far better trained than that of the Horsemen, all standing stock still and completely straight, a stark contrast to the shifting mass of flapping suits and half-concealed cell phones behind Control. Hirofumi, though, prides himself on his training– he hadn't been in the Horsemen for sixteen years for nothing. Even if he isn't paying attention, he keeps a nice pleasant smile stuck on his face, just for illusion's sake.
The stuffy old man sitting across from Control is just as stoic as his bodyguards. He looks... odd. Even weirder than Control does, albeit in a completely different way. Where Control looks so perfect it's almost creepy, the head of Bat just looks normal creepy, if that's even a thing. He has round, bulging eyes that seem to stick too far out of his sockets to be healthy and he's so old there are tiny strands of white hairs poking out of his ears. Every once in a while, he'll stop in the middle of his sentence to wet his lips with a slimy-looking tongue. It has a greyish tint that looks like it belongs more on rotting flesh than muscle.
The meeting drags on for seemingly forever, the room almost completely silent except for Control and Bat's increasingly more passive-aggressive comments.
Denji perks up first. Suddenly, the hand in his pocket is turning the bottle faster and faster, flipping it this way and that, almost in anticipation of something happening.
And then, the weird little man sitting across from Control hisses something under his breath, and one of the empty-eyed men standing behind him jerks into action, hand darting to his waistline.
Control is up and out of her chair before the gun is even fired, like she knew it was going to happen, which she probably did. Damn her and her stupid creepy foresight.
The bullet hits the bodyguard standing to the right of Hirofumi. It's loud– both the sound of the bullet and the sound of his skull shattering as it rebounds, lodging soft metal deep inside his head. Time seems to slow as the man stands there, frozen, for far too long. And then he sways, slightly, like a reed in the breeze and topples into Hirofumi.
Hirofumi freezes, covered in brains and blood, and he still has that stupid cordial smile plastered across his face. The weight of the guard's body sits heavy in his arms and–
There's a loud bang from the door of the office and suddenly, the room is covered in a puff of smoke, thick in the air and even thicker in Hirofumi's lungs. It takes a moment for him to force his feet to move, and by then, his blood is pumping with so much adrenaline he can hardly feel his own skin, much less acknowledge the blood he's covered in.
Gunshots ring through the air, bullets whizzing through fading smoke as Hirofumi drags the dead body of the bodyguard in front of his chest like some sort of makeshift meat shield, feeling his way for the edge of the room. He'd seen bookshelves somewhere earlier, but where exactly were they?
The smoke clears and the office is already in disarray, with books scattered across the floor and splintered bits of furniture sprinkled between. Control is nowhere to be seen– Hirofumi glances wildly over the fray of fighting bodyguards, searching for where she could have gone, but the door is still tightly closed. Locked, even, by the looks of it.
He reaches the corner closest to the door and crouches beside a bookshelf there, barricading himself into his own little space, still clutching the fucking dead body. And then he remembers his assignment.
Fuck!
Peering around the edge of the bookshelf (and letting out an embarrassing yelp when a stray bullet buries itself into the wall just beside his head), Hirofumi looks frantically for Denji who is–
Triumphantly pulling the glass bottle out of his pocket, popping the cork off like it's nothing, chugging whatever's inside, and tearing his shirt off.
Why the fuck did he tear his shirt off?
"Denji! Don't!" Hirofumi shouts, ready to throw his meat shield off to the side and charge out to stop the stupid kid from joining the fight, but then the entire room explodes into a chaotic mess of sound.
Everyone is retreating, yelling, and charging for the door– Bat's men and Control's men alike.
And in the hazy mess of his adrenaline-riddled mind, Hirofumi vaguely realizes that yeah. The actual field is a way different from the silly little espionage missions Control had me do before.
Perhaps the incentive for such an epiphany is the fact that there is a hoard of screaming grown men charging in his general direction, fingers scrambling on the handle of the only door leading outside. Which is locked– as Hirofumi had noted. What he hadn't noted was that it was locked from the outside.
Denji, meanwhile, is tearing into anyone he can get his hands on, allies and enemies alike. He fights like he's fighting for his life, which he is, kind of, but the way he claws through the crowd of bodyguards is animalistic. Gunshots fire, barely aimed, and Denji gets shot in the leg nonetheless, but he doesn't seem to care at all. He disarms the shooter quickly and efficiently, jamming the poor guy's head into the base of the stolen pistol, and shooting two more oncoming guards in the head. When the gun runs out of bullets, he grabs a chair and swings it with almost inhuman strength, knocking another dude in the back of the head. It comes away bloody and Hirofumi can feel a rising wave of nausea swirling in his stomach.
It is brutal.
Bat– and the guards the Horsemen brought too, seeing Denji's inability to differentiate between the two– never stood a chance, not when Control had a ridiculous inhuman weapon like Denji up her sleeve.
Hirofumi watches with a muted sense of horror as Denji takes a bite of a lackey's arm and jerks , skin tearing off muscle like cellophane wrapper. Yup. Ridiculously inhuman.
Most guys have given up by now, reducing themselves to lying on the floor and playing dead or throwing themselves out the window of the building, glass shattering as they plummet to the ground below. Others try to shoot in a final futile attempt at life, but Denji is a blur of motion, even with a shot log, attacking people mindlessly like someone feral.
By the end of it, Denji is panting, covered in blood– most of his victims and some of his own– and surrounded by a pile of dead bodies that have been mutilated beyond recognition. He's swaying on his feet from blood loss, shooting aimlessly at the bodies piled haphazardly on the previously pristine rug.
And fuck, what is Hirofumi supposed to do? Denji's gonna bleed out at this rate– half his face has been clawed off and his leg is twisted in an angle that legs are not supposed to be at, but his feet are still stuck where they are, like his muscles have been turned to stone.
Police sirens wail in the distance.
Slowly, Hirofumi drops the body that he's been covering himself up until now. It's riddled with gunshots, blood and guts pouring onto the floor, clammy skin far too cold and rubbery for Hirofumi to even comprehend as once human.
He tears his gaze away from the bodyguard's lifeless face, forcing himself to focus on Denji before he dies like the idiot he is. "Denji," he calls, then flinches when Denji turns, blank amber eyes darting frantically around the room. There's no expression in his eyes at all and his entire face is slack and empty, a slow string of drool spilling out the corner of his mouth.
Hirofumi takes everything back. He'd take annoying boobs butts and blood Denji over this... caricature of Denji any day.
"It's me," Hirofumi tries again, voice cracking. He's shaking, can't stop shaking, even as he wills himself to take a step forward, nearly stumbling over another body on the floor.
Don't look down. Just don't look down.
Denji's gun drops with a wet squelch on some guy's face.
Don't look. Don't look down. Come on, don't look.
"Denji?" Hirofumi inches closer, closer, and closer, until he's standing at arm's length from the other boy, who stares at him blankly.
Finally, after what seems like millennia of tense silence, vague recognition flashes through Denji's eyes.
"Oc-to-pus," he whispers, voice broken. And then he sways forward and topples into Hirofumi's arms.
notes:
this is my first time writing anything like this, so feedback is always welcome!!
i'm so excited for where this fic is going you all have NO idea. i've been planning this for literal MONTHS!!!!!!
crossposted on ao3 and quotev