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‘Please take me.
‘I don’t want anything else.’
Slowly, nights with Minato have become closer to rituals for Ryoji.
Although, this time is different. Because, today, he only crumbles inside Minato’s grip as they lay sprawled out on the bed and shuts his eyes until no more light can enter them. He breaks into a thousand pieces in the other’s arms, and doesn’t care if he gets put back together or not. It’s all senseless, and lacks reason.
Every crack and seam he feels himself shatter into is palpable. But he does not care.
He doesn’t know if he’s crying or not. He doesn’t know if they move. He doesn’t know if Minato speaks.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
Biting his lip hard, he thinks of melding with the other. He thinks of Minato being more than an other, being more than someone else, being something.
A million words go unsaid though never unheard.
Ryoji grasps at Minato’s jacket. He feels guilty for being so heavy-handed with it, but can’t stop himself. It’s a terrible habit. It’s awful. It’s just awful.
He thinks he cries. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t⸻
Pulling himself deeper, Ryoji should feel awful for the indulgence, and for being so unfathomably selfish. He tries to make himself smaller: small enough to be compressed into a ball, small enough to be kept as close as possible to Minato’s heart. Perhaps even small enough to become a substitute for the organ.
Ryoji misses it: being there, staying there, and living there.
He won’t be given the privilege of dying there. He’ll never be able to.
Minato makes a noise, and Ryoji releases his vice grip a fraction of an amount. Minato’s chest is no longer warm to the touch, and Ryoji’s hands are still cold. He’s always cold.
He can’t leech forever. He knows. It’s abhorrent—just another demonstration of how much of a monstrosity Ryoji is within the cavern of his chest.
‘I’m sorry.
‘I’m so, so, so sorry for putting you through this.’
He presses his head into the nook between Minato’s chest and neck and still cannot tell if he cries. He cannot tell if he is even capable of displaying himself in such a way: can something so monstrous really feel?
And, he feels Minato’s head move down, and feels the waves reverberating through their entanglement as he says something. Ryoji doesn’t hear it, but he doesn’t need to—particularly not when he feels Minato’s lips brush against his head: an ultimately pale imitation of a kiss.
‘It’s okay.’
Drawing his legs even farther up towards his chest, Ryoji shrinks himself up himself like a crying child, and presses his eyelids against his hands.
‘It’s not.’
He balls himself up and creates a thousand more cracks beneath his paper-think skin. Surface-deep, at best, but they crack and shatter.
Ryoji feels Minato’s exasperated out-breath on his skin, and he senses Minato’s hands come up to his back to hold him back. If putrid green has begun to seep through the blinds of the dormitory, Ryoji doesn’t know it: he wouldn’t be able to see, nor does he want to.
Perhaps, then, they can become like normal lovers, ones who are none the wiser to the ending of everything—none the wiser that spring will never come, seasons will never change, and no more beginnings can be had.
There’s a world out there, somewhere, where they are ordinary. One where they hold hands and laugh as ordinary people do, and where they go to Chagall every day and talk about nothing and everything. One where they speak of trivial things, like the weather, like food, like video games.
Oh, but Ryoji doesn’t entirely like that idea. In that world, they also talk about fathomless topics. What does it mean to live—can you truly learn to live if you haven’t learnt to die first?
How can one prove that they are truly real? Does the universe only exist within your own head?
And, they’ll never find the answers, but that’s okay, because normal people don’t know them. Normal people don’t know what the Answer is, nor do they seek it.
But Minato and Ryoji would. Because Minato chasing the Answer is one of the (many, nigh infinite) things Ryoji admires and adores about him. Even if they were normal, the idea of removing or modifying Minato as he is sickens him, almost—for as much of reality can be changed and shaped to fit a new one.
Then, many, many years down the line, they’ll hold hands in an empty place—(perhaps it’ll be in the spring, where cherry blossoms are abound, or perhaps it’ll be by a river, where there are only insects with their fleeting lives to bear witness)—and then Ryoji will stop them. He’ll point something out in the distance, get down on one knee, and for a fraction of a second only the wind whistling will be audible over his pumping heart.
Because, humans get nervous when they propose, don’t they? Even Ryoji, Death though he may be, can fathom the fears of rejection and going unloved that so many humans harbour.
But what they fail to know is that they are loved, because Ryoji loves them. They all bear live, they all tell stories.
In that other world, they’ll all know that he loves them, but he’ll be human enough for them to not fear the prospect of a macabre concept falling in love with their very disposition.
But, even in that universe, they’ll always be someone he loves more than life itself.
And, when Minato turns around, he’ll say yes, and relief will flood Ryoji’s senses, and he’ll cry, really cry, and they’ll kiss, and they’ll hug, and they’ll live, and they’ll only part in Death.
Ryoji’s hands, still twisted in Minato’s jacket, feel wet when he next thinks about it. His breaths hitch, shudder, and now he knows it.
“Ryoji,” He hears it, this time.
Only scrunching his eyes shut harder, as if that would change anything, Ryoji pulls in deeper. Maybe he irrationally hopes that it means that he’ll be able to go back inside of Minato’s heart. Maybe he’s only being childish.
“Ryoji.”
Though he doesn’t want to look up, and doesn’t want to open his eyes to the world, he does. He searches every flake of blue and silver that he can find in Minato’s eyes, as usual, though tears still roll from his eyes in ways that were unprecedented.
‘It’s okay.’
It’s not as though Ryoji has never cried. It was much less harrowing to feel in November, and his physical form became null when he cried earlier that month.
He can’t disappear now, because he refuses to. He’s far too stubborn to vanish because he still wants.
Minato cups his face. His eyes look pained.
This is all Ryoji’s fault.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
It’s the only thing that can go through his head. It’s the only thing he ever could utter.
As Minato cradles the sides of his face, the tears just don’t stop coming. It feels so hideous, so far from perfect, and far too human for comfort.
Really, it should be a good thing—to feel human. Yet, it feels like feigning what he isn’t, and what he can never be. It never felt right, even before Ryoji was confronted with the full force of what he is, and it’s never going to feel right, either.
Because, in reality, Ryoji’s life and identity is only borrowed. Not from the ‘real’ Mochizuki Ryoji—a person who can’t possibly even exist in other universes, not by that name—for such a person doesn’t exist.
No, it’s borrowed from the person holding him as he sobs. Everything is: down to his face, his voice, his kindness, his laugh, the tears he cries, and his very ability to love.
All of it, borrowed.
The floodgates just don’t close, and Ryoji folds his hands over his face as water seeps through his fingertips. In spite of all of that, Minato doesn’t let go, because he never does.
In another world, possibly many others, where many things went differently—and, perhaps, this is the only one that could logically truly exist—Ryoji doesn’t exist.
Minato’s family lives. Aigis is human. Everyone can have their happy endings unstained by his existence.
In Ryoji’s place, Death still exists (because without death, what meaning does life hold? If nothing is finite, then why hold on to it?), perhaps by a different name. Perhaps by Thanatos, Anubis, Yama, Ankou, Mors, Hel, Ereshkigal, or Azrael, but not by Mochizuki Ryoji.
In that universe, Death is an unfeeling individual, just as Ryoji once was, but that stagnant oblivion will never cease, not even for a blip as short as the month that he lived—or the two months that he felt.
Death will take Minato at the end of his long life (either away from or back to his Eurydice) and Death will say nothing, because Death does not love.
Neither of them would be burdened by the mistake that Ryoji has made in this timeline. Neither would be punished by Ryoji’s own want.
Though he lacks the need to, Ryoji takes a deep breath. He doesn’t stop weeping as his breaths shudder through sobs.
‘Are you okay?
‘…Nevermind, I know that’s a stupid question.’
Ryoji manages to bark a laugh in complete spite of himself. “I’ll be alright.”
Words were just never necessary. A thousand conversations can happen in the midst of their silences.
He doesn’t really believe his own statement, and he’s sure that Minato doesn’t either—but it’s fine. He’s crying less, though he just can’t stop. There’s a small, potentially selfish part of him that wishes he could vanish back into the nothingness he spends his time away from Minato in, if only so that the tears stop coming.
It’s unclear how long it takes for him to pry his hands from his face, but by the time he does, Minato is carding through his hair, and Ryoji still hasn’t stopped sobbing.
‘Thank you.’
Minato’s eyes crinkle, and for the first time in so long, he smiles.
It’s such a wonderful sight, and it’s one that Ryoji had missed more than anything else, for all of his wishes.
Still, he feels guilty. It shouldn’t be him, of all things, bringing such a look to Minato’s face. Yet, of course, Ryoji is his own worst enemy.
Still—still—Ryoji moves closer to Minato’s face, and they continue with their ritual, of sorts.
It’s warm, Ryoji always finds whenever they kiss. Minato is always so warm, and Ryoji would bask in it far more if he didn’t only leech off of Minato’s body heat with nothing to offer in return.
He still weeps, even as their kiss deepens, and when they break apart Minato wipes them away like it’s ordinary, and something vehemently shudders inside Ryoji’s chest, and it burns.
This has to stop.
This will be the last time. It has to be.
In this reality, the one that is unavoidable—the one that is inevitable purely because he knows Minato like he knows death to be the fixed end, and like he knows life to be a gift—Nyx’s avatar stands above a group of teenagers giving their life in futility.
Ryoji will see through her eyes. Ryoji will, finally, feel nothing, and will not be able to love.
But Minato still will. It kills Ryoji inside to consider.
Ryoji will command her body, and try to slaughter the boy who he loves more than, perhaps even as life itself. His god, the one that Death has grown to worship.
Perhaps, if it would become a perfect star-crossed romance, then maybe Nyx’s Avatar will still feel something. Maybe then Ryoji, commandeering her elongated limbs, will be able to kneel at the altar, and still love.
But that’s a foolish wish. It’s a far cry from reality.
Ryoji can’t indulge like this anymore.
He can’t influence Minato’s decision.
It’s not fair to him.
December 31st: that will be the next and final time that they speak. Neither of their wishes or wants matter.
So, when Minato breaks away, his eyes flickering with apprehension, Ryoji forces a smile, sheds one more tear, and Minato wipes it away⸻
‘I’m sorry for loving you like this. You’re everything to me.
‘…And, I love you, more than you’ll ever know.’
⸻and, then, Ryoji is nothing again.