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There are some fantasy creatures that, virtually immortal, would find it hard to be afraid of death. It is harder to find value in life. Death then becomes almost like a friend, a dream, an end to a means; something to be expected, like a gift instead of a curse.
This is the train of thought that Mugino Minato has whenever he watches monster vs superhero fantasies on TV lately. The monsters seem to come back just when you think they will be gone for good, and in others, like a recent anime he sometimes catches parts of when the TV stays on too long, they don’t age at all, while all their friends do. An elf, he thinks. Probably. She has pointy ears.
There are probably monsters that are grateful the heroes put them out of their misery, he quietly mumbles to himself, as he sometimes does when no one is around, which is becoming less and less often.
Ever since his mom and Hori sensei found him and Yori drenched in mud after the typhoon, she hasn’t been the same. Heck, she hasn’t been the same since… since he started hanging out with Yori. So, for a while. But now it was worse. Now she wouldn’t let him out of her sight.
After the boys had themselves checked out at the hospital, she even insisted on walking him to and from school now, Yori tagging along with them. It made things awkward. He already had a hard time breathing since he met Yori. Now, instead of gasping for air whenever he was around him, it was whenever his mom put herself between them. It was almost innocent. She didn’t really know what she was doing until he promised to be more honest in the future and that he would never do anything so reckless.
Minato thought it was all a big exaggeration, like a theater play or melodrama, but he also understood the heaviness of the situation. He felt it inside him; his fear, his guilt and shame… his feelings for Yori. He had memories replay in his head all the time— Yori’s glances whenever Hori sensei was gone, the bullying, Yori’s yo-yo on a string, his little noises, his smile, how they were forced against each other against their will, his phone ringing, Yori’s name on the caller ID screen, him letting himself fall off a moving car, his mom’s screams, his father’s disapproval, his screams… Yori’s screams.
Soon enough, Minato started to have more faith in death than in anything else. “Normal” life became a chore. He couldn’t ignore how he felt, but he also felt like he could do nothing about it, and it ate him alive. His consolation was the times when he and Yori would meet alone, in the woods, in the open fields, under the bridge, inside an abandoned train cart. That became his whole world. Everything else was a means, arbitrary, nonsense. He became dissociated. Nowhere was safe but with Yori and no one else. Nothing else mattered.
He knew Yori shared this feeling. He could hear it in his voice. He felt it when his father had dragged him inside and slammed the door. He felt it when Yori showed him this new world. It was entirely their own. People like that are often thought of as lonely, but a more accurate term to describe them would be trapped. There was nowhere else for them to go, but at least they had each other.
The TV is still on now, after dinner, as the darkness of night deepens. In the stillness, fear creeps in stronger. As he sits by his father’s shrine, staring at his unmoving memory, a daily ritual. He shudders. “Why was I born?” He remembers thinking not long ago. Even now, the question sits at the corner of his mind, waiting to be revisited. He still doesn’t know, but at least now he feels less dread than he used to. At least now he feels like he can be more honest with his mother. Slowly.
That night, he dreams of another memory.
“I’m cured of my sickness. I worried you, but I’m fine now.”
“Cured of what?”
“I’m normal now.” Yori says, his father grasping his shoulder tightly behind him.
“You were always normal.”
Was he?
“I like someone. I can’t tell anyone, so I lie. Cause they’ll know I can never be happy.”
Can he really not?
“So, your mom isn’t coming today?”
“I promised her I would tell her everything I did and planned to do so she let me off the hook for now… She expects me to at least send her a message when I get out of school.”
Hoshikawa Yori walks-in-step as if staring at an imaginary game of hopscotch on the ground, swinging around his yo-yo regardless of what nightmares he may have endured the night before. It never ceases to put Minato in a more cheerful mood.
Yori stops to look up at him. “Good. I was starting to think she might pressure us more”, he thinks. After Saori Mugino and Hori sensei had found them the next day after the typhoon, the hounding was almost to be expected. What Yori did not expect was for them to have been found. Perhaps he was too young to fully think things through. Minato, who was almost a year older, had definitely always been the more apprehensive of the two.
Minato is perched on the edge of the concrete culvert where rainwater collects, legs dangling, toes barely brushing the dark surface below. Yori sits beside him, knees pulled to his chest, notebook open in his lap. The sun beams behind them like it did when they ran free across the fields beyond the train tracks— the rain long gone. Minato hovers on the rocky steps, unsure about what to do now that it was high afternoon and their stomachs rumbled with hunger. They hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was more silently planned; a knowing look, a few scribbled notes, a meetup, a firm nod.
Not too far ahead, they hear rustling coming from the other side of the culvert and look straight up to the clearing ahead of them as if staring into another world. Minato’s mother, on her way back to looking for her son, thinks about what Michitosi Hori had told her the night before, after handing her a paper that had belonged to Yori, “It’s not bullying. They’re planning something. Look at this.” The names, side by side, written as if in silent conversation: Minato… Yori…
The boys grew tense at the rustling that grew closer, and then Saori appeared. Minato’s eyes widened, and Yori gasped, his eyes flickering nervously between her and Minato. They froze when they saw her standing there, as if caught in a moment that was both expected and impossible.
“What are you doing here? Do you know how worried I was?” She rushes forward, her heels clicking loudly against the concrete.
Minato opens his mouth. Closes it. Yori glances between them, shrinking and calculating how much trouble this is going to be.
“We were just—” Minato starts.
“Just what?” she presses, her voice climbing. “You disappeared. No note. No message. Do you think that’s acceptable?”
Minato slides off the edge and stands, fists clenched at his sides. “We didn’t disappear,” he says, too fast. “We knew where we were.”
“That’s not the point,” his mother snaps, inching closer and closer. “This is not the first time. You don’t get to decide that alone. There was a typhoon!”
When she reaches them, she grabs Minato into a forceful hug. She holds him so tightly Minato feels himself being crushed. Her desperate gasps echo loudly in the otherwise silent culvert. A few seconds pass in silence before she releases him. Minato’s head spins.
Saori turns to Yori. He flinches.
“Hoshikawa. I saw your assignment. The way you wrote your name.”
Yori’s eyes flicker— panic, exposed. “H-how?”
“Hori-sensei showed me,” She says, then stares at Minato in the eyes. “You were following him.”
Yori turns to Minato, and they glance at each other. “He wasn’t following me.”
Minato’s mother looks between them. Something hard settles into her expression. “Minato… what is this? Why are you always together? Why do you keep hiding?”
“We’re not hiding,” Minato says, voice trembling now. “You just don’t listen.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is!” He takes a step back — closer to Yori. Instinctive. Protective. “Every time I try to explain, you tell me what I’m supposed to feel.”
Yori’s heart is hammering. This is exactly what he feared. Adults don’t ask questions because they want answers. They ask because they want control.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Yori blurts. “We were just… thinking.”
“Thinking about what?” Minato’s mother asks.
Yori hesitates.
Minato answers instead— he might as well be honest now. “About leaving.”
The words land like a crack in glass.
“Leaving?” his mother repeats, breathless.
“Not forever,” Minato says quickly. “Just— away. Somewhere where people don’t decide who we are before we do.”
“And what do you think you are? Someone with a pig-brain? A monster?”
Yori reaches for Minato’s sleeve without realizing it—a small, grounding gesture. Intimate.
Minato’s mother sees it. Her eyes narrow.
“Minato,” she says carefully, “step away from him.”
Minato freezes.
“What?”
“Step away,” she repeats. “This isn’t healthy. You’re too dependent on each other.”
Yori feels something collapse in his chest.
“We’re not,” Minato says, shaking his head. “You don’t get it.”
“You’re eleven,” she says. “You don’t get it.”
Minato steps in front of Yori as if shielding him.
“No.”
“Minato,” Saori says quietly, “this is exactly why adults need to intervene. You think you’re protecting each other, but you’re isolating yourselves.”
“That’s not true,” Minato says, voice breaking. “You just don’t like that we chose each other.”
She inhales sharply, as if hurt, and grabs Minato’s wrist.
“Don’t touch him!” Yori blurts, standing abruptly. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t stop. “He didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Hoshikawa,” Saori warns.
Minato yanks his hand free. “Stop it! You’re proving my point!”
“Minato, you’re coming home. Yori— you’ll go with Hori-sensei.” She hurriedly takes out her phone and types a message telling Michitoshi Hori she found the boys. “He should be nearby. We spent all night looking for you.”
Yori’s breath stutters. “Please don’t separate us.”
Minato turns, eyes blazing. “You can’t do this.”
“Wait, hold on, hold on, I’m not— I need time to think, just like you two. Please, be honest with me. I won’t do anything. I promise.”
The boys settle down, their breathing slows as if in tune. “We… were just exploring,” Minato says.
“I see… but there’s something you’re not telling me,” Saori says gently. She thinks back to the moment when Minato jumped out of the car while it was moving. When she was saying something about staying with him until he had a family of his own, “the greatest treasure”, when he had said “I’m sorry. I can’t be like dad.” A sort of realization dawns on her then— something she will have to think about later.
Just then, another rustle comes from behind them, turning everyone’s attention. Then, Hori-sensei appears like a deer caught in the headlights. He lets out a breath once he sees them. “Thank goodness. Where have you two been?”
“I just found them here,” Saori says, as if she could not have figured it out if she tried any harder— that the boys would be found where they had already looked before.
“You two…” Hori-sensei starts, recollecting what Minato’s mom has told him, “are always running off together. We can’t help but wonder what you’re thinking.”
Minato looks at her, then at Yori, and finally at the ground. “It’s… it’s nothing bad,” he says softly. “We just… wanted to do it ourselves. Without anyone telling us what to do.”
Hori-sensei nods, understanding more than he let on. “I see. That’s… important— that independence. But part of growing up is learning when to trust others, too. Including the people who care about you.”
Yori shifts uncomfortably, clutching his backpack. “We… we didn’t want to get in trouble,” he admitted. “Or make anyone worried.” Except my dad, who worries about the wrong things, he thinks.
Minato’s mother’s eyes softened, glimmering with both relief and a lingering worry. “I know. That’s part of growing up, too. But even when you make your own choices, we want to be here for you. To see what you’re doing… to understand.”
The boys exchange a glance, a mix of caution and the faintest spark of recognition that the adults weren’t just prying— they were trying to connect. Minato’s small shoulders relaxed slightly. Yori’s grip on his bag loosened.
Hori-sensei stood, offering a hand. “Come on,” he says, his voice warm now.
The boys hesitate. Slowly, Minato steps forward. Yori followed, and together, they led the adults through the path across the culvert.
As they walked, Hori-sensei and Saori observed the small gestures between the boys— the way Yori glanced back to make sure Minato was following, the way Minato adjusted his pace to match Yori’s. It was clear: they were partners in this quiet adventure, navigating something meaningful, something that belonged only to them.
“You two really are clever,” Hori-sensei says. “But cleverness is nothing without care. And I see that you care… about each other, and about what you’re doing.”
Minato’s mother nods. She felt a sense of relief overcome her, as if she finally realized the truth— regardless of what Minato did, his heart was in the right place. Nothing mattered more than that. “Yes. And that’s the part I wanted to see. That’s what makes me feel… less worried, I think. Even when you run off and do things on your own, I can see that you’re thinking about each other, and about what matters.”
“I promised her I would tell her everything I did and planned to do so she let me off the hook for now… She expects me to at least send her a message when I get out of school.”
“Ehhhh…” Yori stops swinging his yo-yo and looks up with a nod of reassurance. Minato catches his gaze and they both smile, like a secret, or a promise.
“Then you should tell her you’re going to play with me.”
Minato turns his face away bashfully, still smiling. He felt better now that his mom had left them alone again, better than he felt even before the typhoon. The simple act of not having his mother there again, of knowing she trusted him enough again, made him feel like they never really had to hide in the first place. They didn’t have to run away, or escape. They could just… be themselves. Death began to feel foreign again.
“Where to?”
Yori grinned. Minato thought his teeth were whiter than most people’s, and unique— his two front teeth were larger than the rest, and he had canines that jutted outwards, as if they were still growing. It made him seem younger than he was. Minato hoped he never closed his mouth just so he could count his teeth over and over. Which ones were still milk, and which one where adult?
“You know where.”
“You’re really leaving?” Minato asks as they sit in the field by the abandoned train tracks. He’s been thinking about what Yori had told him about his dad leaving and his grandma taking him in ever since. He could barely sleep, and he had nightmares about pigs chasing them, about becoming paralyzed and not being able to escape being turned into a monster. Sometimes he cried in his sleep, and when he woke up the tears had dried on his face like a layer of melted ice. It almost stung his skin like a marking. It was like the mark that Yori had left in him, something he would never forget or be able to get rid of. Permanent, like an inked needle piercing his skin, a tattoo.
Yori shifts next to him, looking up at the clouds crossing the sky and holding up his hands to make out shapes every so often.
“Look, a cat!”
“I think it looks like a dragon. You like cats, Yori?”
“Yup! They’re cute. My grandma has one so I’m excited.”
Minato’s face flushes. Cute…
Yori is lying on his belly in the grass with his elbows propping up his head and his feet swinging in the air. After a beat, he pushes himself up and rests his head on his shoulder, looking at Minato from the corner of his eyes.
“We’ll keep in touch.”
He pokes a finger on Minato’s cheek, who bites his lip in response but says nothing.
“I promise.”
Minato finally looks at him then. He reaches for Yori’s hand, the one on his face, and holds it gently before setting it down. The sides of his lips tug into a half-smile.
“We can call every day!”
Minato laughs.
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
“Then, I look forward to it.”
They laugh. Moments go by.
“You don’t think I’m gross anymore?” Yori’s voice rings out like a clap against silence.
Minato looks shocked. His body lurches like it did when he joked about Yori’s dad leaving him, and heard his quiet “that’s right”-- I’m sorry. He grabs Yori again, like last time. They stare at each other for a long moment.
“No. It was just me. I thought there was something wrong with me. Never you. I heard the things our classmates said, and what your dad would say… it got to me. I didn’t think about how you felt. I was selfish.”
Yori smiles to himself, a quiet happiness.
“Hey, Minato…”
Minato’s heart flutters. He likes when Yori calls him by his first name.
“Yeah?”
“Can I…?”
“Can you what?”
“Never mind.”
Minato is still frozen. It’s like a spell hits him whenever he looks at Yori in the eyes. He can’t look away. He can feel him breathing. His heartbeat is in his hands, just underneath his skin. Minato absentmindedly runs his index finger over his thumb, Yori’s shirt in between. That’s when Yori lurches towards him and hugs him again, just like before.
“It’s not your fault, you know.” There are some things that you can’t think about forever; otherwise, you’ll never stop crying.
“Hoshikawa-kun…” How do we begin to forgive ourselves?
“What is it?”
“Never mind.”
“Tell me.”
Minato would rather bask in the feeling of Yori hugging him forever. He’s warm.
“If only some people can have it, that’s not happiness.”
Yori’s grip loosens, and he moves his face to Minato’s shoulder, breath on his cheek. This time, Minato doesn’t run. Yori plants a kiss on his cheek, which makes Minato break into the most genuine smile of his life.
“Hm?”
“Happiness is something anyone can have.” The principal’s words echo in his ears, along with the sound of off-tune wind instruments sounding in an otherwise empty classroom.