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He dreams sometimes.
About the time before. He’ll be sitting left to his older brother, staring at porcelain dishware loaded with family heirlooms, the most beautiful sort of poisons. Across from him, on the right, his younger sister would be biting on her thumb, irritated about the entire ordeal, and to her left, their oldest brother would sigh, and ask her to keep her composure. After all, this is the first time in a very long time that all of us are together.
Wouldn’t it be best for us to show mother and father how much Yugamu has grown?
Five sets of eyes would then pierce him, each sizing him up, each begging to know—how exactly will you impress us?
He knows exactly how to defuse the bomb that has become his dinner plate. It wouldn’t take long. He knows what pieces to avoid and which ones to mix. His father, with his latex face and perfectly fitted dentures, he deigns to look at him with the eyes of a stranger. They’re so green. They were blue last month. And brown, before that—but they always seem to see beyond Yugamu. They see so far away, further than the complex. His mother, after acknowledging his challenge, trains her gaze on the space behind her husband. She can carve out an escape route from an open space. The lady of the house does not offer a word of encouragement, she trusts his skill wholeheartedly.
And yet.
The black sheep of the Omokage family, all he can really do is sigh. For the love of murder—
A mass of limbs and blankets shifts and Yugamu has a knife in his hand faster than he can recognize, faster than he can remember. A tuft of red hair peeks from under the blanket. He tastes blood, and then, relief.
The blade that he keeps in strapped against his thigh falls back into the folds of his clothes.
Takumi sleeps a lot. More than Darumi, who spends most of her time haunting the kitchen like a vengeful wraith, cursing Tsubasa’s strict budgetary restrictions. No family sized hot chip until we paid off last week’s grocery bill. No bulk size sour gummies until she finished the bag they had in the pantry. Tsubasa is the sort of girl who is early to rise, late to sleep, but on this morning, she’s shepherding Darumi to the bath.
But Takumi…
He really does sleep a lot. Yugamu swallows back the initial anxiety and smooths out his expression. Fondness. He can pick it out in the way he feels his heart melt. Tender. These are words that he would have never associated with himself. Not ever, not in a million years, a hopeless romantic like him would yearn for an eternity before submitting to the warmth that was Takumi’s forehead pressed against his body. Yugamu pulls the duvet up so he can slink down. He lays on his side and lets Takumi readjust until his arm is around his waist. He could stare at him forever, probably. Count every eyelash, press his fingertips against every scar. The idea drives him crazy. The Revive-o-Matic could bring them back from the dead, again and again, but they’d have to wait for scraped knees to scab and for kitchen knife incidents to heal.
Time was a harsh mistress.
He knows this. He presses a hand against Takumi’s cheek, slides down his thumb against the curve of his jaw. Featherlight, barely touching, but he still gauges every reaction with a scientist’s fervor. A hitch of breath, a lazy sigh.
An eventual, “Mm, good morning, Yugamu.”
“Ah. Good morning.”
It’s still weird to say. The word gets stuck in his throat, and it takes a well-timed cough to get it out. Takumi smiles, expression still thick with sleep. He yawns and stretches out, before he pulls Yugamu closer. Takumi makes himself perfectly comfortable, but before he succumbs to the clutches of sleep, he steals a kiss.
“And good night.”
Takumi stays out the latest of all of them. He works overnight jobs, he works day jobs, he promises that he’ll find something more stable when warehouses start hiring in the spring, but for now, this was easier. He could be the business district’s gopher until things got better. He’s gotten stronger. He’s gotten darker, the summer sun picks at his skin and it makes him look healthier. Freckles. He’s got freckles. They dust his shoulders and while the current position makes it difficult to move, Yugamu thinks he could count those too. He could write a history on Takumi Sumino, he could write a dissertation, he could present a thesis and win a Nobel Prize on the piece of sun he’s managed to capture in a 500 square feet apartment.
Yugamu wants another kiss. He won’t be greedy. He comforts himself by watching his chest go up and down and looking at the way the light catches on his earring. The little blue drop pendant seems out of place next to Takumi’s hair, but it makes Yugamu feel like he’s made a breakthrough.
Darumi comes barreling back into their shared room, hair tied up in a sloppy ponytail, wearing Tsubasa’s sweatshirt with a pair of Takumi’s boxers. She’s holding that family size bag of chips, surely having defeated Tsubasa in a war of attrition (“But Mistress Tsubasaaaaaa, I’ve been soooooooo well-behaved--!”).
“Darumi.”
Yugamu presses an index finger against his lips, hoping she would simmer down. She rolls her eyes, bounces on the bed anyways, and crawls into his arms. He folds. He twirls pieces of her dyed hair with one ringed hand, and with the other, he holds on to Takumi’s wrist.
“Seeing you so lovey-dovey is kinda gross, Yugamu. You’re getting infected by the normies.” She sticks her tongue out.
“Right, right. I apologize for not holding down our last line of defense.”
She smiles, razor sharp and dangerous, but it’s hard to feel the threat when her makeup is more off than on. She practically purrs. Seeing her so domesticated only makes him think about how he looks with his own bell and collar. He wears her set of black hoop earrings, and they all have Tsubasa’s matching set of rings, all personally designed and engraved. He still remembers piercing everyone’s ears in their dingy bathroom, all four of them squished up against the mirror.
It's so normal. It’s so kind.
Do you believe people like us…deserve a happy ending?
It’s a thought. It’s a thought that plagues him more than he would be willing to admit. It’s a thought that stares back at him from his dinner plate in the bunker, it’s a thought that pierces like a bullet, it’s a thought that feels like drowning in wave after wave of Invaders, katar in hand, slicing through skin with a practiced flourish.
Darumi lets it sit in the air, before cackling in her awful way.
People like us, huh.
Well, duh. Don’t you know how stories like these go?
“Especially with a dumbass like him.” She juts her chin at their sleeping leader, their pathetically sweet lop-eared bunny rabbit.
“Mistress Tsubasa, too. She’s a crazy bitch but she keeps her word. And she said she’d always be by our side. So…!”
“Seriously, are you PMSing? Did Takumi sync all our cycles again?” Darumi snorts, but Yugamu keeps a neutral expression, hoping that his heart doesn’t betray him.
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry for being a buzzkill.” Yugamu presses a kiss on her forehead. Darumi wipes it off with her sleeve, but she’s still giddy and pink all the same. She tags Yugamu out, and he makes his way to the kitchen.
Tsubasa hands him a cup of black coffee in his favorite mug. It’s got a nondescript bug on it. She picked it out last time they went out.
“Busy day today?” She’s tired, but her voice is bright. He can tell she’s had another long night. He makes himself a note to make sure and deep clean before she gets back later.
“I have a prep course today.” He lets his voice trail a bit, but Tsubasa punches him in the arm.
“Then, go get it done! ‘Cause I need someone else to help with the bills and once Dr. Yugamu Omokage makes bank, we’re going to be living in the lap of luxury!”
She says this, and they both think about an old friend. Tsubasa scratches at the back of her neck and fills the space with another awkward laugh.
“But seriously, you’ll be fine. No one else has a better understanding of the human condition than you.”
She’s not wrong, but…
“I’ll see you later, then.”
When he gets back home, the TV is on, with its crystal-clear visuals and audio. The actual television is a piece of shit, Tsubasa said with affection, but she’s a miracle worker. She made it sing. They’ve watched so many B-grade horror movies on the barely big enough thrifted sofa. In the kitchen, Takumi has his hair pulled back, an apron over his chest, and a pot of curry over the stove top.
“Don’t you want to take a bath first before you attack me?” He scoffs, still busy with dinner preparations. Yugamu makes a noise of assent, like, yeah, after will be fine, as he bites down on the nape of his exposed neck.
“Thanks for the meal.”
Sometimes, he'll dream of the future.
He dreams about getting his license, about opening up a clinic, walking distance away from their home. They’ll upgrade, one day, but he still wants all of them to be a tangle of limbs and blankets, he wants to hear Takumi snore against his ear and he wants Tsubasa’s hair in his face and he wants Darumi’s head resting on his chest. He wants to protect this kindness that has been bestowed upon him.
He thinks about one day, he’ll take them to meet his family. When he left the business for good, he took Takumi, and he bowed his head so low, he was sure that he’d break something. I’m sorry for disappointing all of you, he had said. The Omokage clan’s gaze peeled him, layer by layer, as Yugamu pressed his nose against the concrete floor.
Please, forgive me. Please, let me go.
He was ready to fight his way out.
But he didn’t have to.
They let him leave.
They said thank you. And his father, with his stranger’s eyes, asked if he had finally fallen in love.
He has found love in his holy executioner; he has found kindness in his arms.
As he shifts, arms numb from his new found family’s weight, he sinks into the creature comfort of threadbare sheets.
Yugamu Omokage dreams of a future he can reach with outstretched hands.