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There was something wrong with Rohan Kishibe.
For months now, he had been chasing the high that he had first felt on the receiving end of Josuke Higashikata’s fist. That brutal, primal feeling of horror. Fear that struck bone and rattled his nerves, an electric sort of helplessness that would have him thinking on his feet.
And, more importantly, that made him want to draw.
“You’re a maniac, y’know that?”
“And you’re 10,000 yen richer.”
But Rohan couldn’t necessarily start taking hiatuses every month to recover, either. Which was how Josuke had re-entered the picture.
The irony was not lost on him.
Rohan returned his wallet to his pocket and Josuke rolled his eyes.
“So what, you just want me to knock you around a bit?”
“Of course not, that wouldn’t be anything new.” With a flick of his wrist, Heaven’s Door appeared. Josuke watched as pages burst from the handlebar of Rohan’s motorcycle. “There has to be real danger, and we’re…”
They were… not-quite-friends. Any true hostility had simmered away long ago. Now they just bickered like schoolchildren, teasing and taunting like it was a playground game. Like he’d yanked his hair and been called a name in return. It was all venomless, and what Rohan was asking for now was a fang to his throat.
“…You wouldn’t kill me, even if I asked.”
Josuke’s brow furrowed in something like concern, and the atmosphere chilled as the engine roared to life.
And it was just as exhilarating, just as terrifying as Rohan had hoped it would be. He squeezed the brake and swallowed his laugh at the absence of its usual resistance. Helplessness lit up his head like fireworks; a rush of adrenaline that made his hand twitch for a pen to commit the feeling to ink, carving black scars over the pavement canvas.
The tires left a poor imitation as he swerved, then skid—his momentum suddenly shifted, and he braced for impact as the bike tossed his body to the ground.
He heard the sound of bones cracking. Then he heard nothing at all.
…
…
“…Rohan, hey. Wake up, you asshole.”
Josuke’s voice eventually seeped through the heavy tar suffocating Rohan’s consciousness. His shaky hand reached out to him and a golden haze instantly set his fractured leg back into its natural position, his muscles rethreading themselves around electrified nerves. Rohan smiled to himself—it was so vivid he could picture the mess even with his eyes closed—until the warmth of Crazy Diamond’s aura finally disappeared.
“What about my bike?”
“That’s another 10,000.”
Rohan called him again two weeks later from a payphone in Tokyo. He gave him the address of a bar, and Josuke arrived only to find him slumped over himself in the alleyway next door. His laugh was tinged with red.
“I’ll give you an extra 20,000 if you drive me home, too.”
“I took the train.”
He fished a key out of his pocket, along with three bills. When Josuke threatened to let him ruin his upholstery, Rohan reached for a fourth.
They drove back in silence while that same satisfied smirk tugged at the artist’s lips. Rohan traced his thumb along his once-split skin. Bleeding out had been an entirely new sensation, a slow walk towards an inevitable end. If Josuke hadn’t shown up when he did—
Well. That didn’t matter much now, anyway.
“Rohan?” Josuke’s voice wavered from the other side of the door, and it only took a moment for him to start pounding his fist again. “Hey, c’mon, this isn’t funny!”
He’d called, and Josuke had answered; but this time his punctuality was almost suspicious, almost as if he’d been waiting for his phone to ring. Rohan couldn’t help but find the thought amusing, so the obvious choice had been to make him stew in his own worry for a little longer. Let him get a little desperate, only to swing the door open with a smile.
“You got here quick. Got your eyes on a new pair of shoes?”
“N-no! Of course not!” His face flared red at the accusation as he pushed his way past the threshold. “But the last time you called you were almost—“
Rohan waved off his concern. He didn’t need it, as Josuke discovered with a look that lingered and dragged down his body searching for a wound.
“40,000. And I’ll drive.”
Josuke’s mouth opened as if to protest, only to shut again as the gears in began to turn. So there were shoes.
Their car ride was a bit more talkative than the last, since without his attention on the road, Josuke could pay it towards conversation instead. At first it was mostly mindless small talk—the weather, his classes, a new TV drama that was airing soon—but as the car climbed up the winding mountain road, Josuke’s questions turned pointed.
“…Why are we still doing this, Sensei?”
Rohan clicked his tongue. Wasn’t it obvious? Hadn’t it always been for the same reason? “For my manga.”
“There’s no way.”
“What do you mean? The objective of an artist is always to improve, to bring their unique perspective to their work. And by experiencing many different things—“
“Yeah, but you weren’t hurting yourself when you were taking vacations and shit.”
There was a coldness to his voice that Rohan hadn’t expected. It wasn’t judgemental, but didn’t invite him to respond, either. His lip curled into a grimace and the silence settled back over them both.
It was only a few more kilometers, anyway.
They reached the dirt fork in the road at sunset and Rohan parked. He pulled the parking brake taut as Josuke grabbed the rucksack from the back seat.
“Are we having a picnic or something?”
“…Or something.” Rohan kicked dust over Josuke’s loafers. “You might want to change those.”
He knelt to brush them off, but the futility soon set in. “Could have used a warning, asshole.”
“It’s all the same as long as you get paid, right?”
Josuke’s expression darkened, and he mumbled something beneath his breath. “I’m not some sort of…”
But then nothing all over again. Rohan felt impatience itching at his tongue, his curiosity trying to lead him by the ear. Just ask.
He didn’t.
They kept to the trail for a while; the sun was slipping low quicker now that the season had begun to change. The last time Rohan had been up here, he’d been alone. Something about the second pair of footsteps put his mind at ease.
“There’s a woodcutter’s cabin up here to the right. That’s our stop.”
Josuke’s attention perked up, and Rohan tried not to let his eyes linger while he stretched his arms above his head. “Thank god.”
The cabin was at least in better shape than he remembered. Not too many spiderwebs, and no vermin nests or burrows that he could tell. Rohan set himself to housekeeping affairs as Josuke tried and failed to find a clean place to sit, only to be drawn back to each other as the corroded edge of a small lantern sliced neatly through Rohan’s thumb.
“I’m not sure Crazy D can fix tetanus, Rohan-sensei.”
He laughed at that. “Well, we’ll find out.”
A strange expression crossed Josuke’s face. Rohan was too enamored with the re-stitching of his skin to notice.
The shimmer of the ability faded, and Rohan continued where he’d left off. The sun was setting, and if he hoped to find his way back, there would have to be some sort of light in the window. While he capped off the fluid tank, Josuke had managed to brush off the dust from one chair.
“So what, is this place haunted or something?”
“No, that’s Mutsu-Kabe.” The thought of it made Rohan shiver, but a lingering spirit was the least of his concern tonight. “We’re one over.”
“Oh, shit. Does that mean you own this place?”
He was impressed that Josuke even remembered, though that didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes. “I’ll be back in a little bit, Josuke. Make yourself at home.”
Rohan didn’t spare a look back. He pushed forward, the fresh darkness settling around him like smoke while the autumn chill crept beneath the hem of his shirt. Stars twinkled from between boughs dappled with their last few leaves, and when his gaze finally drifted from the sky, the cabin was nowhere to be found. A shiver slid down his spine.
There was a different kind of fear to be found in the woods at night.
Rohan clenched his hand mindlessly, a haze of lingering warmth dissipating into the air. He wasn’t alone out here. How could he have been, with a chorus of coos and cricket chirps above and underneath? In fact, each snap of a twig seemed to be answered in the distance by some shadow.
He turned toward the low howl of a beast.
Ah. There it was.
Rohan pressed his palm to his chest. Thump-Thump-Thump. At first he wasn’t even sure if the bear had noticed him at all. It was beautiful up close, its pelt with an oil-slick shine in the moonlight. But his desire to reach out and touch was overpowered by a sick sense of self-preservation. His heart pounded in his ears, a steady accelerando of wonder and worry that finally reached a crescendo as the darkness looked back at him with a snarl.
He thought of Josuke waiting for him back at the cabin. Then, he ran.
His feet caught on stones, on branches and roots and underbrush, and he broke his falls against the bodies of barren trees. His shoulder dislocated on a particularly rough impact, but the scream that echoed through the forest didn’t sound like his own.
Rohan’s heart dropped to his gut.
“Josuke!”
There was a crash of splitting wood, crackling violence in the distance that he couldn’t ignore. That fucking idiot had followed him, he’d ruined everything! This fear was—
His fear had turned to terror.
It was worse than anything he’d imagined. Whatever helplessness he’d felt before was nothing compared to this. Heat seemed to crawl over his skin, boiling his blood and pushing him back through the night.
By the time Rohan found Josuke, the endless quiet had overtaken the world again. No sound except the percussion of his heart. He had propped himself up against a tree trunk, and looked almost peaceful, with the dark of his eyelashes stark against his cheek. Rohan wondered if he’d always been this pale or if he…
“Shit.” He dug his knees into the dirt and leaned in close to check Josuke’s pulse. It was hard to hear his heartbeat over the drumming of his own. “Higashikata, come on. Wake up.”
Josuke groaned. At least it was something.
“Can you walk?” Rohan searched his body for a wound, but Josuke had tied his jacket around his waist. He frowned as he reached for the knot, only for his wrist to be caught before he had the chance.
“I’m fine.”
An odd, sour pain turned his stomach as Josuke pushed him away to stand. He supposed he should be happy, but all he could think about was… well, him.
“What were you doing out here?”
Josuke scoffed. Rolled his eyes, too. But Rohan couldn’t help but think it was different somehow.
…Venomous.
He hadn’t looked at him like that in… a long time, Rohan realized. He still wouldn’t look at him now. Josuke’s foot dragged a bit as they walked, and he slumped into his left side. All he could do was follow behind like a shadow.
Rohan’s head was throbbing, but he didn’t dare acknowledge why. It was too confusing to confront with the moon staring through him.
They reached the cabin, but Josuke didn’t go inside.
“Didn’t you ever think that I would be worried about you?”
The question caught Rohan off guard, but it wasn’t truly something he could answer. And that only seemed to make Josuke angrier.
“That I’d be scared when you disappeared, or when I keep seeing you busted up and bloody and smiling at me like you like it? Did you think about me at all, besides wondering how many thousand-yen bills to get from the fuckin’ ATM?”
Rohan scowled. What did Josuke want from him? What did he want him to say? That he did think about him—that he’d thought about him first the moment he started running, and every moment after?
“…Of course you didn’t.” Josuke almost laughed in pain, “The great Rohan Kishibe doesn’t care about anything but his manga, and especially not my feelings. You selfish fucking asshole.”
Josuke turned to leave—not just him, but altogether—and Rohan realized he didn’t want him to go. He caught him by the wrist in a sickened pang of sentimentality. Josuke’s jacket had fallen from his waist.
The gore wasn’t the worst he had ever seen, but it turned his stomach just the same. Stirred those same feelings as before. Fear and anger, a noxious duo that threatened to seep from his mouth and hurt Josuke further. But more than that… Guilt.
He’d protected him from his own decision, and been hurt on his behalf.
“I’m sorry.” His tongue felt swollen, somehow still unwilling to admit his obvious fault. So the words went unsaid.
But Josuke hadn’t pulled away yet, and that was Rohan’s only hope of atonement.
He led him inside and pushed him towards the single cot. The springs groaned under Josuke’s weight, but comfort was the least of his concerns at the moment. “Stay still.” He ordered, and Josuke obliged with a grunt. He swung open the cabinet doors one by one until he found what he’d been after: a half-empty bottle of vodka, no doubt stashed away by a previous owner. He offered the first pull to his patient, and tried not to think too hard about their indirect kiss as the liquor burned down his throat. He couldn’t meet Josuke’s stare as he peeled the mottled fabric from his wound. “…You might want to bite something.”
Josuke furrowed his brow in confusion, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. Rohan ripped his sleeve and doused it in the vodka before pressing it to Josuke’s wound. “Fuck!” He jerked away, only for Heaven’s Door to render him immobile for a moment as Rohan continued to clean away the blood.
“It’s not too deep, thankfully.”
No response. Hmph. Well he didn’t need to make conversation anyway, and instead focused wholly on the swipe and press of antiseptic to flesh. Josuke had stopped squirming, but still winced with every new administration.
At least for a little while.
“…When did you start trusting me so much?”
Josuke’s voice seemed far away somehow. Timid. It was such a change from the anger that Rohan assumed it must have been meant to fool him. He kept his eyes on his work. “I don’t.”
“You do.” His muscles shifted beneath Rohan’s hands as Josuke turned away from him. “You would have rather died than ask me for help back then. Cut off your own finger, and then got pissed at me for trying to fix it. Remember?”
He huffed out something like a laugh. How could he forget? That stupid dice game had led to all sorts of misfortune. His house, his… whatever this was, with him. “Maybe I just know you better now than I did then.”
“What’s that mean?”
Rohan shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure either, even with his ears tipped in scarlet.
Josuke had saved him back then, over and over and over. Was it really so strange to rely on him like this? Wasn’t this what Josuke wanted?
Outside of the world of this cabin, what did Josuke want? He glanced up at his face, only to find Josuke staring right back.
He knew that look. He recognized that want.
“Lie back down.”
And like an obedient puppy, Josuke did. Rohan’s thumb brushed against the raw edge of Josuke’s wound and he watched, transfixed, as the pain worked through him. He pressed his lips against it next—and arousal slipped down to burn in the pit of his groin as Josuke arched back up for more.
Rohan heaved himself up onto the thin mattress and pushed himself on top.
Their first kiss was awful; rough and tactless, as if he was aiming to hurt him more than heal. Josuke sighed against him anyway, and Rohan reveled in the mingling of their breath as proof that they were both still alive. So he did it again, and again, until he was nearly breathless himself, and then did it again even still. Josuke finally bit him—hard—and Rohan recoiled in shock. It was healed before he even had the chance to taste the blood.
“H-hey, bastard! Slow down!”
He smirked, his hand dropping from where it had been planted along Josuke’s waist down to the tent in his slacks. “Oh, did you not want this?”
“That’s… not what I meant!” His cheeks lit up. “…But it wouldn’t kill you to ask.”
Rohan continued his descent, angling himself between Josuke’s thighs as he pressed kiss after kiss down sweat-slicked skin, scars and gore and all. “Even if it did, you’d save me, right?”
“Fuck off.” Josuke covered his face with one hand while the other shoved Rohan away. Cute.
He’d always liked it better when they were angry with each other anyway. It was a comfortable sort of antagonism. All bark, only a little bite. Though he was also pleasantly surprised to find his pulse still beating like a drum against his ribcage.
God, he wanted to draw him, to commit this feeling to paper and give it some sort of permanence beyond tonight. Rohan kissed Josuke’s palm. “I’ve never been as scared as I was hearing you back there.”
He wasn’t sure why he’d said it; maybe the uncertainty of his response was just another type of thrill. Josuke rolled his eyes.
“And you say I’m a liar.”
Rohan scoffed. He’d just have to convince him somehow.
Josuke woke up to endless black. Had it… been a dream?
He shivered at the thought, and then again at the chill. His shirt had disappeared somehow, too, when Rohan had…
His heart jumped into his throat, and the dull ache in his thighs seemed to further confirm their reality. All that was left was to look.
Josuke finally mustered the courage to turn—and he felt his lips curl up in a grin. Rohan was asleep in a chair next to him, like his mom used to do when he was sick, with his shirt draped haphazardly over his shoulders. He skimmed a finger beneath the edge of Rohan’s headband, and chuckled when he got a whine in response.
It was nice to be worried about, Josuke realized. Maybe in the end that was all Rohan had wanted, too.