The cicadas wouldn’t shut up.

They screamed from the trees like the whole mountain was trying to say something Yoshiki didn’t want to hear. Heat pressed against his skin, thick and suffocating, the kind that made his school shirt cling to his back. He stood at the edge of the trail where they’d found what was left of Haruki.

Found. That word was bullshit.

They hadn’t found him. Not really.

Yoshiki’s fingers curled into his sleeves. “You died here,” he muttered, voice flat, like if he said it without feeling it might become true in a normal way. In a way that made sense.

Behind him, gravel crunched.

“Yoshiki.”

That voice.

Too bright. Too alive.

He didn’t turn around. “Don’t.”

A pause. Then softer, almost confused, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t say my name like that.” Yoshiki swallowed, throat tight. “You sound like him.”

“I am him.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The cicadas got louder, like they were laughing.

Yoshiki finally turned.

There he was.

Haruki. White hair catching the sunlight, eyes that should’ve been warm blue but sometimes weren’t. A stupid straw between his teeth, like always. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t gone up this mountain and never come back.

Like Yoshiki hadn’t spent nights staring at the ceiling thinking about how cold his body must’ve been.

“You’re not him,” Yoshiki said, quieter now. It hurt more like this. “You’re just… wearing him.”

The thing tilted its head. That same familiar gesture, copied too perfectly. “But I remember things. I remember you. I remember how you look at me.”

Yoshiki flinched. “That’s not enough.”

“It is for me.”

Of course it is, Yoshiki thought bitterly. Because you don’t know shit about what it means.

A breeze moved through the trees, but it didn’t cool anything. It just carried that smell. Dirt, leaves, something faint and rotten underneath. Yoshiki’s stomach twisted.

“You shouldn’t come up here,” Yoshiki said. “Not with me.”

“Why?”

“Because this is where you fucking died!”

The words cracked out of him before he could stop them. His chest heaved, and suddenly everything felt too loud, too close.

“You died,” he said again, but it came out smaller. “You died and I wasn’t there.”

Silence.

Even the cicadas seemed to hesitate.

“I don’t understand,” the thing said after a moment. Its voice had dropped, less cheerful now. “You’re upset because I died, but I’m here.”

“You’re not.” Yoshiki laughed, sharp and ugly. “That’s the problem. You’re standing right there, talking to me, and it still feels like you’re gone.”

The thing took a step closer.

Yoshiki didn’t move.

“Then what should I do?” it asked. “If being here isn’t enough.”

Yoshiki stared at it. At his best friend’s face. At the gap in its smile. At the eyes that sometimes looked too deep, like there was something endless behind them.

“You can’t do anything,” he said. “You can’t fix it. You can’t be him.”

Another step closer. Too close now.

“But I want to be,” it said, almost desperate. “I want you to look at me the same way.”

Yoshiki’s breath caught.

Because that was the worst part.

He already did.

That stupid, painful, buried feeling he’d never said out loud. It was still there, tangled up with the grief, with the anger, with the sick realization that he was talking to something that shouldn’t exist.

“You don’t get it,” Yoshiki whispered. “I loved him.”

The thing froze.

For a second, its expression slipped. Something raw and wrong flickered underneath the human mask, like black water shifting behind glass.

“…Loved?” it repeated.

“Yeah.” Yoshiki let out a shaky breath. “And you’re not him. So what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

The cicadas screamed again, louder than ever.

The thing stared at him, like it was trying to solve a puzzle it didn’t have the pieces for.

Then, slowly, it smiled.

Not quite right.

“Then,” it said, voice soft and strange, “you can love me instead.”

Yoshiki’s stomach dropped.

“No,” he said immediately. “No, that’s not how it works.”