The cicadas screamed so loud it made Yoshiki’s head hurt.

Summer in the village always felt wrong after dark. The air got too thick, the mountains looked too close, and every shadow felt alive. Yoshiki sat on the shrine steps with his school shirt half unbuttoned, staring at the boy beside him.

“Hikaru” swung his legs happily, gray eyes glowing faintly under the moonlight.

“You’ve been starin’ at me for ten minutes,” he said with a grin, showing that tiny snaggletooth. “You wanna kiss me or somethin’?”

Yoshiki immediately looked away. “Shut the fuck up.”

The thing wearing Hikaru’s body laughed softly. It sounded almost real. Too real.

That was the problem.

Everything about him was almost perfect. The way he tilted his head, the way he scratched his cheek when he lied, even the way he said Yoshiki’s name all soft and clingy. If Yoshiki closed his eyes, he could pretend none of this happened.

But real Hikaru was dead.

And this thing knew it.

A warm hand suddenly grabbed Yoshiki’s wrist, right over the dark mark spreading beneath his skin. “It hurts again?”

Yoshiki stiffened. “Don’t touch it.”

“But I wanna help.”

“You don’t even know what helping means.”

The smile on Hikaru’s face twitched for half a second. Something wet slipped from under his sleeve.

Black.

Thick.

Moving.

The organ-like mass slowly curled around his arm like it was breathing.

Yoshiki’s stomach turned, but he didn’t pull away.

Hikaru noticed that immediately.

“You’re scared,” he whispered.

“No shit.”

“But you still stay.”

The thing inside him seemed genuinely curious about it. His gray eyes widened innocently, like a child asking why the sky was blue.

“Humans run away from scary things. But Yoshiki always stays with me.” His voice softened. “Why?”

Yoshiki hated that question.

Because the answer was ugly.

Because even now, with that thing leaking out of Hikaru’s skin, with the smell of dirt and something rotten filling the air, Yoshiki still wanted him close.

He missed Hikaru so badly it felt poisonous.

“You said you took his body so I wouldn’t be lonely,” Yoshiki muttered.

“I did.”

“You’re fucking selfish.”

Hikaru smiled again, smaller this time. “Yeah.”

The black mass trembled behind him, stretching unnaturally across the shrine floor before shrinking back into his body. Yoshiki should’ve run. Anybody sane would’ve.

Instead, he grabbed Hikaru’s sleeve tightly.

The entity blinked. “Yoshiki?”

“If you leave too,” Yoshiki said quietly, voice cracking, “I think I’ll seriously lose my mind.”