―i wear your hands like a necklace, like a noose.

HIS PHONE HAS BEEN RINGING FOR THE PAST TWO MINUTES. hisashi is about to go crazy, but not crazy enough to actually pick up giran's frantic calls in the middle of a fucking yakuza compound. hisashi squints at his contact―blank, purple icon, GAPTOOTH in the name slot. 

he sighs, slumps his shoulders, and puts out his cigarette. the wind is worrying his hair for him, so hisashi worries his lip instead.

okay, so, maybe he is crazy enough to pick up giran's frantic calls in the middle of a yakuza compound. sue him. 

"pretty boy," giran starts as usual, "how's it hanging?"

"just.. " hisashi murmurs into the receptor. "..yeah."

"just yeah?" giran frowns--hisashi knows he does. he can hear the crunch around the unlit cigarette in giran's mouth; giran doesn't smoke on the phone when he's talking to gain something, "you sure?"

"huh? yeah."

"ignorin' me, pretty boy?" he says, and hisashi resists the urge to crush his phone into a billion little pieces. instead. he takes a deep breath. so deep.

hisashi rolls his eyes, "was jus' talkin 'bout how it's hanging---let's, let's leave this short, yeah?"

giran laughs, and this is the crutch their relationship resides upon, giran needs hisashi's information, hisashi needs his medication, giran knows the guy that supplies anderson and his makeshift lab ― so comes the issue. hisashi is stuck in a loop of eternal suffering. depression makes his control slip.. sigh.

sometimes, hisashi wishes mizu cracked his skull in, that hisashi was a whitness to the stand of his demise (hisashi is the golden child, and who knew red and gold went so well together? the bloody crown of tyrants warped to a lump of metal. would his father be proud?)

"sure, anyway―what's-her-name, nacchan? yeah, she told me bout yer lil job the other day, you up for another?"

hisashi was never a fan of giran's runs, he sighs. sleep, at this point, feels like a distant myth.

"how much?"

he can almost hear the grin on the other end of the phone.

"'nough for you to pay rent for three months. enough for yer lil shit to get a new wardrobe."

all the people he knows and their incapabilty to give straight answers.

hisashi used to avoid rooftops like these. with a view as pretty as this, it's easy to see where the lush district ends and the slums begin―it makes his lungs burn, makes him focus on the pulse in his fingertips.

(sometimes, sometimes, giran is funny. mostly, though, hisashi resists the urge to defenestrate him at any given moment.

giran is so lucky they aren't sharing a roof right now.)

this is what their tenuous relations rely on: hisashi avoids speaking directly, giran plays around like a cat with a very, very dangerous feather. this is besides the point. giran lights a cigarette blows a puff. hisashi can hear the wheeze on the other end of the line; the business part of this conversation has begun.

he's put out his cigarette. shit's getting serious.

"it's a track and retrieve," he says, voice bleeding bluntness in the face of his dragging (hisashi's specialty), ".. from the shie hissaikai compound."

hisashi narrows his eyes, "i'm not, uhm, looking for an earlier cremation than what i'm, ah, set for."

"hey! you know them? didn't know you were so well known to yakuza politics!" there's something sharp behind his tone; he's smelled blood in the water.

hisashi fumbles, "i'm not.. i live in, in, their district, you know that. and, and aki.. she knows what's―uhm goin' on."

"well, anyway! if you're not up to that job, i got one more, long term hire ― won't pay much, but i know a guy who got a need for a lab tech. ya' up for it?" there's always something ugly and peeled back about the way that giran offers second chances. like there is no other choice than to agree to them.

"i think i have it figured out for now." hisashi wants to leave, to hang up, "i'll---see each other yeah? we should, we should catch up, no cigarettes---i need to cut down. also," hisashi squints, "can you get me a pair of contact lenses. i broke my---"

"i heard all about it!" giran laughs, "in some bum park too!"

hisashi, running on fumes, a cup of coffee, and spite, resists the urge to add manslaughter to his ever growing list of crimes. survival of the fittest is a damning thing for the weak, after all, and he still needs giran for jobs when yami-san doesn't pull through. so. he breathes deeply. four seconds later and giran is still laughing, hisashi bids him a polite goodbye and walks back into the compound.

one of the top dogs---hisashi saw him with the big boss overhaul—-hisashi thinks his name is .. rappu? rappa? hisashi thinks. he's standing by the door-mask strained against his face, hair spilling pink out the back. hisashi settles on rappua and hopes for the best.

"huh.. a mouse?" he says, and hisashi does not flinch, thank you very much.

".. sir. i was jus', was jus' going back. to th―-to eri-chan."

"nē? you're the brats babysitter? that old man found a new one―-well," the man pauses, "took him long enough."

"what―what do you, uhm, mean?"

the man continues, "well, the old one let 'er get away, the boss's been .. i think looking for weeks now."

"but- the old one, where, uh, where is he?"

rappua coughs and laughs at the same time, making some crumpled wreck of a noise. "you don't know? his quirk.. that guys the only one to beat me to death! seventeen times―! i don't think he'll be happy enough ta' bring you back. if ya mess up.."

oh, he thought too much about the threat to nayami and didn't even register himself in this equation. god, his math teacher would be so disappointed if he cared enough to be disappointed. hisashi might have taken a calculated risk, but man is he bad at math, "well, i should. i should be going, thank you.. uhm, sir."

"rappa!" rappa says, "see you 'round mouse!"

hisashi thinks incredulously: mouse? and that is the end of that. hopefully it doesn't come back to bite him, but hisashi has always had bad luck. stones and glass houses. birds and stones. hisashi dreams of falling, but he's not asleep right now. a shame, really.

(the room is always a touch too cold.

"eri-chan!"

"ku-tan.. you came back?"

something about eri makes him swell with rage. he glows green in the dim light of her room, haunting, but he doesn't notice, and eri is all too used to saying nothing at all.)

nayami likes to drive up hisashi's anxiety by waiting for him outside the apartment building in the winter and in the rain―nayami is not immune to being sick, in fact, he's pretty susceptible to it. so, in hisashi's humblest opinion, nayami should wait inside.

nayami is, of course, waiting outside for hisashi. he's swinging his legs, not wearing shoes, in a hole ridden sweater.

hisashi is going to go postal.

"can-can't you wait inside?" hisashi asks, exacerbated.

"can't you come home earlier?" nayami says; glaring and seething. his wet hair is dripping all over his face.

hisashi takes a deep breath in. then another. "no. let's get, yeah, let's get you dry."

(sometimes, when hisashi looks at nayami he sees the world differently. it's darker, dingy, worse. the cruelty that slinks in dark alleyways is burning in the light; all eyes facing up up up, isn't society supposed to be fair? aren't all men born equal?)

nayami curls into hisashi's side, and hisashi let's go of the rage broiling in his stomach.

"don't forget.. " nayami mutters, petty. as though his isn't trembling, "medicine."

and the day continues.

and begins. again and again and again and again and again―it seems to go on and on.

until―

"haa? who're you? i know you! no i don't―"

hisashi blinks, decides internally that this man in a latex bodysuit is not talking to him, and keeps walking. this, as per hisashi's luck, doesn't actually do anything. latex keeps following him around the compound, and hisashi is on strict order to.. what was it again?

oh yeah. not let anyone near eri's room. ugh. life is so complicated and confusing and difficult and frustrating. hisashi is only twenty-two! he's too young to go clinically insane!

left foot pivots. he's found himself out of the situation without breaking overhauls policy! 

except it happens the next day. 

and the day after that.

and the day after that.

hisashi's always, always stuck in this perpetual cycle of again.

at some point he can't keep avoiding his problems. no matter how much he wants to, and he really, really wants to.

"hey, uhm, who are you?"

latex-man.. grins, and frowns. hisashi thinks. it's very hard to tell through the mask.

"i'm twice. no i'm not, i'm jin. call me twice! don't call me anything!"

(hisashi thinks in simple philosophy; a man is a monster when you don't love it. a god is only a god because you made it. this is no monster, no god, no abomination of human kind, this is a man, and hisashi knows men like he knows monsters.

like the back of his prescription bottle.)

hisashi also knows he doesn't get paid nearly enough to deal with this shit.

"do you need, do you need help? are you, uhm, lost?" hisashi asks, counting down the seconds until he can go to eri, then go home, take his night pills—-talk with nayami about what five years from now looks like — pretend he sees a five years from now, and then sleep, wake up, take his morning slurry of pills, and repeat.

(the world is again, again, again.)

"no, i'm not lost―where are we by the way?"

hisashi blinks, pretends that he's patient and loving and understanding, "first floor, southeast wing of the, of the shie hassaikai compound, west shizuoka, japan."

he tilts his head at hisashi, "haa? southeast? oh shit i'm not supposed to be here. it's fine if i'm here, overhaul said so. no he didn't, he said to stay out of this wing―it's fine!"

hisashi breaths and breaths. "y'know what.. twice? how 'bout we pret-pretend this never, that nothing happened, yeah? you get outta here, i-i, uh, i never saw you, right?"

"saw what? you saw me. no you didn't!"

"so, i'm, i'm, i'm, going now, and when i come back, you won't be here, right?"

"yeah! no!"

hisashi smiles, all friendly, and walks backwards, then around, finally, he pulls the trick vase to the basement. meandering down the stairs and turning all the corners until he's standing outside her room. 

his button-up feels itchy today. his gloves are making his hands sweat more than usual. hisashi politely ignores all this for the sake of knocking on the door and entering slowly. he avoids looking at eri—he doesn't know whether it's him or her that gets more uncomfortable, but it's a situation he doesn't want to be in regardless.

so. 

"good morning, eri-chan."

the day continues as it always has—or as it has been recently. eri's in trouble today because she ran away — or, well, tried to run away yesterday after he left. 

she gives him scared looks, he tries to appeal in a way that won't turn him inside out. also, he might me chipping away at the ground day by day in attempts to make a tunnel that leads to outside a train station where he can safely get her to.. well. hisashi should probably think of where she's going after he gets her out of here.

"hey, eri-chan, if you could. if you could live anywhere.. where would it be?"

she responds so quietly that he barely hears her at all, "with mama."

ah.

this made things unnecessarily complicated. hisashi tries to find something to continue this conversation. how does one act like a normal, well adjusted, totally not neurotic, functioning citizen again? "uh, yeah, i miss my mama, too."

eri looks at him quizzically.

oh. right, he forgets she's, like, six years old. she wouldn't realize that other people have other lives and thoughts and feelings ― that, in layman's terms ― that the world doesn't revolve around her. that her suffering and joy are not the driving forces of the world.

he forgets how young she is sometimes. oh. he should have this conversation with nayami.

hisashi makes note of it. keeps it tucked in his mouth for later ―

he's about to reassure his question when she cuts his train of thought off.

"can you―" she says, her words are jutted, cut, uneven in a way that spells for grief, "―can you teach me how to read?"

and isn't that just heartbreaking? it loops in his head for a minute before he realizes he never answered.

hisashi's mouth curls up nervously, "ah, yeah. i'll, i'll, i'll do my best"

he teaches her the basics on coloring books with crayons, teaches her to write all cutesy in the way aki-san and yami-san write. 

"do you know how to, how to write your name?"

she shakes her head, letting out a quiet no. hisashi mills it over. how should he spell it? eri can be written? she's no painting, and the peace of a creek does her no justice. so. so blessing. blessing and justice. e-ri.

"here," he lines the characters, slow, "this is your name."

and they write. they write and write until the white door opens and in comes overhaul and this time, this time it's rappa standing next to him.

"..mouse!" rappa says. "mouse! how are you?"

"overhaul-san, rappa-san." hisashi greets, head tilted down. this respect he must afford to everyone else springs nausea over him; he hates them. desperately. he hates everyone that can stand to hurt anyone so small, so powerless, so fragile. "i've been. uhm, well. and, and you?"

"good, good little mouse." and he doesn't say it with condescension, but hisashi still hates in his entirety. wholey. with every cell in his body.

"you're bleeding, yatō." overhaul says, a disgust roiling over his voice, "don't get it on my floor."

hisashi puts the back of his hand to his nose. nothing comes back. then by his eyes. still nothing. then, his mouth, his ears — ah. red red red red—hisashi gives a polite smile and nods. 

"sorry," he says, head bowed, careful to keep the blood from dibbling down his jaw to the floor, "it won't happen again."

he can't see overhaul, but he can still hear the disgust when he says, "good."

and hisashi can only think i hate you i hate you i hate you as he walks out. eri-chan trembling in his hands.

so. so hisashi needs a plan. hisashi really, really needs a plan.

—

so.

aki-san might actually stick a bullet in his head for this. but, see, hisashi knows a guy. 

arsonist. 

whatever. 

maybe a shared cigarette and lukewarm beer in a cemetery shouldn't be the foundation for a friendship, but hisashi never fell out of contact with blue. and knowing him, blue's got to have something, anything, that hisashi can use; hisashi's only got about eighty-thousand yen to his name, but.

but eri needs help.

so. blue. a phone number he texts stupid pictured of cats to and asks for cat pictured in return. blue. blue who's a dick at the best of times. blue who grafitti's fuck endeavor all over the country, but especially in kyoto. blue who's got wide eyes and too many teeth and skin  in desperate need of grafts. blue who smokes his lungs out once a year on his sisters birthday, his own birthday. blue who doesn't get drunk because he just burns through the alcohol.

hisashi scrolls through his contacts to the face of a black cat, where he knows he's a white one. it's labeled cleanly STAPLE'S #1 CUSTOMER, and he holds in a breath.

hey, the message sends, i need a favor.

the reply is damn near instantaneous: 

for like 20000yen and some of that hot soba i gotchu bro 

whatchu need

?

and hisashi doesn't bleed on the floor when he laughs, but it's very, very close.