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At the edge of every soul, in the spaces no human was meant to see, was a line. An endless red glow stretched from their being, dragging across ground and floor, to an end point far from their own existence. The thread had no essence, nor body. No thoughts, or sense or feelings flowed through. As far as Mahito understood, that line was no more alive than a fingernail, and no more seen than a daydream–nothing more than a thing.
The first time Mahito had seen a human soul, he hadn’t thought much of the strings. Of all the nuances of the form of existence, one fraying edge seemed insignificant. There were far greater damages to most humans than an unprotected thread, tangling into the world in ways humans were never meant to know.
For the first months of his existence, Mahito learned to understand the soul. Each passing life had been less to him like a sculpture, and more like clay. Every stroke of his cursed technique, and his will, could change them. The essence of a human contorted in his grip with little more than a tap, the flow of life itself molding where Mahito willed it to go. Not once had someone stopped him. They hadn’t known to try. The masses walked by, lumps waiting to be molded, blind and numb to an existence their minds hadn’t been made to know.
When Mahito first came into existence, that anonymity had been a blessing. The ignorant soul was an easy target, and Mahito found no shortage of ignorance for prey. The souls changed. Wills wilted. Yet. no matter what Mahito did, one part of each human still remained. The flow of life persisted, seeping through one finger in a thin, red line, where a foreign essence flowed through. In male souls, the fraying seemed to come from the thumb. In women, from the smallest finger. Occasionally, through holding hands, the two fraying lines made one. What from a distance were two separate bodies held together in ways no one should have seen, except him.
When two people with these bindings were alone, the thread would get thicker, the souls pouring in. Their bodies would touch Hands folding, mouths meeting, as if they each meant to consume the other in every way they could short of breaking the skin and engulfing them completely.
Had there been a soul to see him, Mahito could have asked what caused the fraying. Without a soul to question, Mahito did what he could to discover. He watched from the open anonymity of his own existence, watching strangers who’d never know.
On every human soul, there was a thread. The sliver of their soul that wound into the web of existence, glistening red as blood. From his pinky to his thumb, on Mahito, nothing was there.
It was natural enough, Mahito told himself, when no one was there to hear.
“Of course I’m not like them,” Mahito whispered. “They’re human. Imperfect. This, without marks, is what’s best. It’s what’s worthy of a curse.”
No one could hear to contradict him, so Mahito assumed it was true.
Mahito wandered through the alleyways, past the tangled webs of each person’s splitting souls. From all that he had seen, the red strings intertwining had no purpose at all. At worst, they were a flaw. At best, a curiosity, like the tailbones on skeletons that life had long outgrown. Mahito wandered, because it was a curse’s nature to wander, without reason, or purpose–just the primal, simple knowledge that it was what he was meant to do. He wandered, and he wondered, until, one day, he saw him.
From a distance, there’d been little difference between this human and the others. The man was taller than most. His hair was lighter. His suit was well-pressed and ill-matching, with a tie even a blind man may have questioned. Glasses with no arms covered his eyes, like a veil forced between him and the rest of the world. The distance he’d placed was innocuous, unremarkable, as he strode through the near-mindless crowd. A bouquet of cut flowers held tightly in his arms, the parchment paper pressed against his palm. The dull and listless brown made what wasn’t there all the more clear. At the spot where his soul should have been leaking to an infinite red string, his thread had an ending. The red cord frayed, the line split, as if the useless appendage had been cut straight through.
It was impossible, as far as Mahito understood it, to damage those strings. He had seen the bodies shrivel, contorted souls in shapes that they’d had no reason to take or hold, and yet, the strings, Mahito never managed to touch. Because they’d had no body–no flesh–any effort to mold them had gone straight through.
The man walked forward, through the city, the frayed edge still dangling. He passed a plastic card to the florist, paying for the bouquet. The petals of the sunflower pressed against his shoulder as he went on his way.
Not a soul had ever seen Mahito. As such, there’d been no reason to hide. The tangled web of others’ strings cluttered the sidewalks, encircling the legs of humans who didn’t know enough to trip. Mahito hopped between the gaps, nearly skipping on his way as he followed the man with the broken thread. Mahito’s own hand tucked under his chin, his thumb tapping below. Mahito wondered, then, what would happen if he tried to change a soul like this one–a soul with a broken string, no red essence flowing through.
So, he stalked them.
In the heart of the city, the threads of each soul practically formed a fabric. The veil of shining reds encased both their feet, hiding the stranger’s steps in the flow. The buzz of others’ souls passed by, their intentions fading. Occasionally, another human would stop to peek–to admire the sunflowers on the man’s shoulder, or to gape at his height. The man went on.
The buzz of town receded. Others’ souls went on their ways. Whatever path the man followed, it turned off the best worn trails. The man kept on. The mass of threads lightened, their feet coming back into view. Where, before, they’d seen buildings, now, there were headstones. A skyline of resting places stretched across the hill, the peaks of weathered kanji setting shadows like the skyline of a city for the dead.
A single, red string reflected off the top of Mahito’s boot. The essence pulled in two directions. One, Mahito couldn’t see the end of. At the other was a girl. A young woman with black hair stood in uniform. She raised her hand, the string fluttering from her little finger as she gestured towards the man. She smiled. He didn’t.
“Nanami-san. You made it!”
“You should be studying.”
“Sunflowers! How sweet,” she giggled. “He’d love that!”
Against his own instincts, the man she’d called Nanami-san smiled, too. “I should have brought rice,” he said, forcing the expression. “He’d have liked something he could eat more.”
The girl tilted her head, her pigtails swaying. “Oh, it’s fine! You can eat a sunflower. That’s what the seeds are for, right?”
The compliments and comments seemed to slide off, the man’s soul turning cold–as if, the more the girl tried to warm towards him, the more he pulled away.
“I’d have needed to cook them to eat them. These are raw,” he dismissed. “They’re not edible, this way.”
“You know, I don’t remember my brother being that picky.”
Mahito imagimed, if he were a human, this would have been a time to hide. Given that he wasn’t, he draped his arms across a headstone, and leaned in. His legs crossed as he settled on his perch, watching the flow of intentions pass through each soul.
The young girl was easy to read. Earnest, and straightforward, like a nursery rhyme written down. Her soul flowed steady, the tide of her focus setting eagerly towards Nanami.
“Either way, I’m sure he’s happy you’re here,” she said through a smile. “It means a lot, you know, that you still stop by. I mean, most people don’t come for the death anniversaries outside of the milestones, anymore. The first years, Ijichi-san and Gojo-san came by. But, now, you’re the only one.”
It was the kind of comment and tone that was supposed to reach another’s essence, to join their moods together until they were reflections of each other. Humans were social, that way. The flow of her positivity, which was meant to bridge that gap, meant nothing but a stone in Nanami’s soul.
Nanami bowed his head. His expression stayed steady, locked with the same severity as the bones in his cheeks.
“You can go home, Haibara-san,” Nanami told her, the words more distant than he stood. “You have school. I’ll tend him from here.”
In a normal conversation, each human faced one another. Nanami turned from the girl, and the grave, into the distance down the hill. The lenses of his sunglasses flashed in the sun’s reflection, the tint of each circle hiding his eyes. Though there was no way to see what he was seeing, specifically, Mahito saw the flow of his intent. For all the places that he should have been looking, this human had turned towards him.
Mahito swayed in. He set his chin over his wrists, watching on. “Huh,” he mused. “How interesting…!”
Nanami didn’t move.
Haibara’s shoulders raised, her pigtails practically wagging as she looked back with concern. “It’s an excused absence, for family. I don’t have to–”
“You should go,” Nanami cut in, cold. “I’ll take care of it.”
A chill set into the thought, crawling just enough that Haibara could tell the difference. She pulled her hands together, the red string swaying as she did. The other side of the thread brushed Mahito’s boot in the pull. A shudder passed through her shoulders as she turned her back to Mahito, and into who she could see.
“Nanami-san. Is something wrong?” she started to ask. “You seem upset, today.”
If this had been a normal conversation, sunglasses or not, Nanami would have turned to face her. The direction of his nose would have set evenly with his stare. It didn’t. Instead, he stared away, at an angle from Haibara–and straight on to Mahito.
“It’s fine,” Nanami said, without looking towards her. “Go home. Study. Your brother wouldn’t want you here.”
For the first time, Haibara’s soul flickered with some protest. She leaned in, stepping towards him. The way her soul was flowing, the thread so easily in view, it made Mahito curious. The only thing that was more peculiar than the flow of emotions through these souls, out of sync, was where Nanami was facing.
“No,” Mahito told himself, wondering. “That’s not possible…” He shuffled closer, looming in. A pigtail swayed over his shoulder with his step.
In all the time he’d spent wandering, and learning, there had never been a soul who knew he existed before Mahito touched them. Even then, most of his experiments stayed blind. That a stranger could see him before he’d held their hand or gripped their soul felt impossible–and yet, somehow, he wondered.
“What do you mean, he wouldn’t want that?” Haibara asked, stepping into Nanami’s line of sight. Her back turned to Mahito, her shoulders sloped, her neck bare at the nape where her pigtails pulled apart. She bounced in protest. “I’m studying at home. Yu–”
Mahito stretched his arm to reach Haibara. His fingers passed straight through her string, towards her neck. If these souls were normal, he would’ve brushed her easily. His cursed energy outstretched, the essence of himself flowing through him.
Nanami stepped into his path. His hand raised, swatting Mahito away.
“What the–” Mahito snapped his hand towards his chest. He hadn’t formed the thought before he’d gaped, all but blathering back. “You can see me?!”
It wasn’t until Mahito heard his own words that he felt the weight of his soul set in. The doubt twisted to realization as the human’s soul stared straight into him.
A new chill set through Nanami. His arm outstretched, blocking Mahito’s reach towards the girl. Though the sunglasses hid his eyes, Mahito could feel that Nanami’s stare hadn’t left him.
“Go home,” Nanami insisted, even more firmly than before.
Mahito let himself lean forward. He tilted to one side, his pigtails swaying with his posture. It should have been horrifying, to face someone like this, yet, the exhilaration set through him like a purr.
“Oh, sure!” Mahito smiled back “Where’s your address? I’ll join you.”
At the same time as Mahito had spoken, Haibara squeaked back, too. “Wha–? Why?”
It was possible, of course, that it was a coincidence Nanami was staring in this direction. Mahito knew that, and yet, he didn’t think that was true. So, he did the first thing he could think of to test it. Slow enough to telegraph the movement, Mahito lowered his hand. His fingers outstretched, his bare thumb pressing for the skin of Haibara’s neck as his cursed energy flowed through. He reached for her soul again, as if he’d meant to latch inside her.
Nanami brushed Haibara’s shoulder, then wrapped his arm and leg around her, pushing her with both limbs behind him. The sunflowers dropped across the grave, outside the vase, as he reached behind his back. Like a star about to collapse, or a lightbulb about to break, the essence of Nanami’s soul flashed with cursed energy.
Mahito’s own cursed technique cycled inwards, deflected yet again. He watched in awe as the human reached behind his back, unsheathing a weapon he’d been hiding. The wrapped, blunt cleaver settled in the man’s grip, his soul flowing through the object as if it were part of his body, too.
By the instinct to survive, Mahito could tell he should have moved. He understood, and yet, as Nanami’s posture contorted to attack him, Mahito gaped in awe. The cloth of Nanami’s cleaver seemed to shift, the fabric tinted white to red with the nub of his severed string.
The man’s charge turned to a blur, his own soul extending. In the time it would have taken to blink, the natural protections around Mahito’s body seemed to split away, a fraction tearing through his side. Mahito had just sensed where it was coming, to tell himself to move, when the blow struck him through. A new sensation ripped through his soul, his eyes snapping wide with no intention at all.
Mahito’s hands pressed into his stomach, his body aching with protest that consumed all his attention in the shake. He poured his energy through himself, shifting his shape until the damage patched away. The empty sense subsided, the internal scream pushed back out into relief. Only then, as Mahito blinked the tears from his eyes, did he understand what just happened.
“Interesting…” Mahito mused, settling into the epiphany. “That must be ‘pain’.”
Nanami raised his weapon once more. His cursed energy set, the cold intensity in his soul rising to a beacon. In the brightness of his presence, the existence of the other human was eclipsed entirely. Wherever the girl fled, if she even had, Mahito wasn’t sure. All he knew, then, was how little he cared to know.
The man with a severed string stood before him, ready to fight, as if he could see Mahito just as well as Mahito saw him.
The next attack braced. Mahito raised his hand, too. He wretched up, his stomach contorting, until he’d released the shrunken souls of two old experiments into his palm. The clay of their existences unraveled in his grip, the old strings solidifying between the pair. They twisted around each other as the former humans took new forms. The souls expanded, their shapes changing as they sprung free. That freedom was short-lived. Again, Nanami’s cursed energy spiraled through his soul. The transfigured souls Mahito sent towards Nanami splintered right through, fractured into segments, then split apart to die.
The newly fractured corpses of the soulless husks of mangled bodies fell before the graves. Each fraction flopped, a last twitch of life passing through their mangled limbs, the red string fading out.
The twitching stopped. Nanami did, too. Only then, in the shared pause, did Nanami’s soul skip with realization of his own. The lenses of his sunglasses flashed under the sunlight, his stare tilting down to the corpses as he realized in a hum. “They’re still here…?”
Where his questions would have risen, Mahito cut in, too.
“You can see me,” he said, sure.
The arc of Nanami’s cleaver fell to his side, still bracing. A pulse of his soul passed from his fingers to the blade, his life itself flowing through.
The younger girl vanished into the rows of others’ graves. Mahito had no time to mind. The sole focus of his attention stood ahead, the folds of the cleaver’s wrappings against his thigh.
Nanami didn’t speak. He didn’t mean to give anything away. From the outside of his body, there wasn’t so much as a twitch in his brow. The stillness of his shell looked like composure, all the way down to his dead string. It wasn’t the body that Mahito saw twitch, some faded recognition passing through. No–it was Nanami’s soul that gave pause.
Mahito raised his hand over his head. He rolled his shoulder, his stitches shifting. “You can see me, right…?” , he asked like a hum. “Seems like it, to me.”
Halfway through the stride, behind the dark of his lenses, Nanami sent Mahito a glare. The focus pointed straight on Mahito as he spoke. “They didn’t vanish. That means…”
Apparently, something that the man wasn’t willing to say.
Mahito pointed back towards himself. “What’re you talking about? You mean that, at me?” He blinked, squinting back. “Why would they?”
Nanami didn’t answer.
Mahito flopped with a pout. “Sheesh, how antisocial are you? And here, I’d want to talk! You’d have a good voice if it wasn’t all scolding, you know!”
Mahito’s hand stretched farther. His finger settled at Nanami’s neck, swiping for some graze of Nanami’s soul. He didn’t reach him.
The object in Nanami’s hand, still ringing with his soul, let a new current pass through. The same sense of instability started to pull through Mahito’s stomach, as if some invisible weapon were digging into him before anything could strike. Why it happened, he couldn’t tell. All Mahito knew, for sure, was that it came from the man in front of him--and that Mahito couldn’t let it happen again.
A human’s instinct, when targeted, was simple. Mahito had seen it all the time. If he tried to touch a soul, it would retract to flee–a try at self-preservation that it would never quite reach. That same instinct to burrow pulled through Mahito.
When Nanami thrust towards him, Mahito reached past that instinct. He held half his ground, leaving his feet and his stomach in the same place, exactly at the point where the invisible thing was trying to cut him. And, while Nanami was busy attacking, Mahito reached for his thumb.
The fraying, severed string at the end of Nanami’s left hand caught in Mahito’s grip. He wrapped the edge around his wrist, then his thumb, the red string embedding to the indent as he reinforced his own soul to match the strand and take it in.
The wound Nanami’s cleaver had set into Mahito’s side mended, the last throb of pain dulling away. A part of Nanami’s existence that he likely hadn’t seen held tight in Mahito’s grip, a leash to his soul that the body couldn’t fight for.
Mahito chuckled. “Hmmm. Interesting. I wonder…!”
“How annoying,” Nanami uttered, unbothered. “I wasn’t working today.”
“Was this ever working?” Mahito tugged at the string. “This looks broken, to me.”
The sternness in Nanami’s soul set in deeper. “I don’t mean a lack of function. I mean my job. That ‘working’!”
“A job?” Mahito blinked. “Why would I care about your job?”
“You shouldn’t. I do,” Nanami glared. His grip tightened on his weapon, that same focus burrowing in irritation. “If I were working, I’d be paid to deal with you. I don’t do this for free.”
“Perfect. Don’t do it!”
Mahito raised his hand over his head, watching for some sign of Nanami pulling towards him. Instead, the thin strand seemed to stretch, the red turning thinner as Mahito flung it around. Nanami watched him flail, without following the string.
“Ah,” Mahito added, realizing. “You can’t see this part, can you?”
The flash of anger seemed to fade, Nanami’s expression dulling with exasperation as he muttered “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mahito snickered. “Then, no!”
Nanami’s attention stayed firm. He turned his weapon in his grip, the fabric covering the blade taking new spots as he decided, with conviction Mahito couldn’t explain.
“I’m not taking this as a personal day.”
“So, what? Your day’s impersonal, now? Here, I thought you were always ‘in person’. Having a body and all.”
A new current flowed through Nanami’s soul. He hadn’t pounced, yet his posture clearly braced to attack. Mahito did the same. He crossed one leg over the other as he leaned in.
“If you wanted to play, you could ask. How about ‘tag’? I’ll be it,” Mahito purred, “and you’ll catch me.”
A new light danced across the silver silver of Mahito’s eye. He wrapped the tether of Nanami’s string to his thumb, his own soul reinforcing. The red string in Mahito’s grip melted into his sutures, the frayed end tying to the base of Mahito’s thumb.
Just as Mahito saw it start, a red flicker passed through Nanami’s soul, then echoed off his own. The light popped so quickly, Mahito couldn’t stop. He pressed an arm over his face.
“Ow. What was that?!” Mahito whined. “You got a siren in there, too?”
In all the time Mahito had spent touching others’ souls, the rules had seemed steady. There was a core essence to each one. Unless he touched them to mold them, or someone else left a wound, the soul was as stable as the body. Even the useless parts, like the hair or red strings, didn’t change without Mahito trying. He wasn’t trying.
A foreign scent carried through the air, a bitter sting of coffee, and the earthy murmur of a forest in a thunderstorm. Despite the musk, the sky hung clear. The only cloud in Mahito’s view was the kind inside Nanami’s soul.
Nanami moved towards him. His cleaver raised, new spots embedding in the bandages as his soul flowed through it to strike. The smells of coffee and petrichor grew clearer, a thin, red line shining between them as the leash flowed both ways. The same thing Mahito had meant to play with tied him tightly, the thread still hooked around his finger. He gaped, watching the flow in fascination.
That same fascination let Nanami strike.
The current of Nanami’s soul struck a weak point in Mahito’s side. The blunt blade slashed straight through. Mahito flopped across the ground, a new pain in his chest.
Mahito’s body folded inwards, his hands pressing against himself as he raced to reinforce himself. He scrambled past the pain, writhing, still winded. The red string wriggled in his grip like a worm, thrashing through the grass between headstones. Just as quickly as he’d started, Mahito froze. The shell of his soul sprawled, flopping, helpless across the ground–but so was Nanami.
The human wheezed, struggling to gather himself. The lenses of his sunglasses set straight up to the sky, his thoughts wandering with it. For all the things he tried to consider, the most he managed was a mutter.
“Crap…”
Where, before, Nanami clutched his weapon, now, he clenched his own hand.. He pressed down across the cuff, his other hand curling to a fist that hid his thumb, and the bindings around it. The line of the red string lay between them, strained, and fraying, but there.
Behind the lenses that Mahito couldn’t see through, he could still tell that Nanami was glaring straight through Mahito’s soul. His words wheezed with a threat he hadn’t spoken, sharp in the glower as he asked in anger, “What did you do?”
Mahito’s pigtails bounced, the rest of him flopping in a whine as he cried back. “How am I supposed to know?!”
“You did it. You should know.”
Mahito raised a finger, pointing back at himself. “Do I look like I know?!”
The red thread on Mahito’s thumb swayed like the chain on a handcuff. Nanami didn’t see it.
There was a short pause, just long enough that Nanami could seriously consider his answer. At the end, he said,” No.”
“Then you should ask yourself, too! What did YOU do? Hm?!?”
Mahito pushed up against the pavement, his shoulder pressing against a gravestone as he stretched his neck. Just as he felt one of the sutures pop, his attention snapped back, too.
“Wait. You smell, now,” Mahito blinked, realizing–and all the composure he’d once had fell out into a gape. “Why do you smell?”
Nanami twitched, his eyebrow pulsing, too. Every brace he’d made to attack broke away, not with bloodlust, but annoyance. “How would I know? You’re a curse.”
“How wouldn’t you know? You’re the one doing it! God!”
Nanami didn’t flinch. All he did was keep glowering, his stare and his words both as flat as could be.
“I don’t smell.”
“You do, now!” Mahito pointed back repeatedly, his finger tapping into the air like a jab. “There’s a smell off your soul! It’s all wet! Wet dog! And coffee!”
Nanami squinted, confused.
“What?”
The red string between them started to slack, the threads waving with the glow. Mahito kept gesturing towards him.
“Who has a soggy soul? This is weird!” Mahito shouted. “You’re weird!”
A vein in Nanami’s forehead twitched. He thought past a few obvious statements, his soul churning.
“If the ‘soul’ has to do with your cursed technique, I won’t know how that works. You’re supposed to explain that to me.”
“Well, I don’t know, okay?!”
Of all the things that the human could have said, Nanami’s answer was “no.”
Mahito tossed both his arms into the air. The string flung over his head with exasperation as he all but shrieked, “What do you mean NO?!”
Nanami stayed unimpressed. “You asked if it was okay. It is not.”
“I wasn’t asking!”
“Then don’t raise your voice like a question. It’s confusing.”
“I didn’t raise anything!” Mahito shouted back, doing just that. “My voice is level!! My voice is average height! You’re too tall!”
A pause passed between them, one heavy enough that, without a word being spoken, Mahito heard everything Nanami could have meant to say.
Mahito’s hands fell to his side, his shoulders slouching. He realized as he deflated that, as frustrating as it had been to get attacked out of nowhere for reasons he still hadn’t determined, somehow, a straightforward conversation was worse. Mahito let go of a breath.
“You’re friendlier when you’re trying to kill me, you know that?” Mahito snipped.
The sarcasm was as lost as any common sense would have been, if anything but the most uncommon of senses had been here.
At the same time as he’d spoken, Nanami broke his silence, too. The disbelief that he’d had to specify this turned to flat fact as he told Mahito, “That’s not what ‘raising’ means.”
“Then what does it mean?” Mahito asked, emphasizing the words as if maybe, somehow, being louder would help make his point. “What other raising is there? Lifting Atlantis from the ocean? I don’t think Atlantis is a thing! So, not that!”
Whatever irony there could have been in a curse discussing impossible things, Nanami didn’t flinch.
“It means being louder. That’s what raising is.”
“Then just say ‘louder’! Oh my God–”
There was a pause–a heavy enough silence that Mahito could practically see Nanami’s thoughts lift off him. With every fraction of his soul, the man wondered what kind of God something like Mahito had to believe in. Mahito scoffed.
“Fiiiine. Fair point,” Mahito answered what he hadn’t been asked. “There’s plenty of gods, though. Even if people make them up, it’s as good or bad as being real. Which one it is, well, that depends who you ask.”
Mahito twisted the red string between them, watching it glisten as he pulled it into a loop. Body and soul, Nanami didn’t move.
“Why am I even talking to you?” Nanami asked, still exasperated. Mahito tilted his head.
“Because, you’re learning basic conversation?”
To anyone else, it should have been a joke. Mahito had seen how it worked, from person to person. When someone laughed, the infection was catching. Mahito let himself chuckle. Nanami didn’t.
“No,” said Nanami, just as sternly as before.
Mahito stomped into the ground. His hands stretched to either side, flailing as he gaped back in frustration.
“What do you mean, NO?!?”
“I mean no.”
“What kind of definition is that supposed to be?! That’s like saying ‘wetter’ means ‘more wet’.”
“It does mean ‘more wet’.”
Mahito raised his hands to either side of his head. He pulled out his pigtails, the string tangling to his hair as he screamed “That’s not helping!”
“I’m not trying to help.”
“Stop it! You don’t need the last word.” Mahito’s pigtails flopped. “Those are boring last words!”
However far Mahito could have rolled his eyes, it wasn’t far enough. The flat intentions in Nanami’s soul hung through his speech, dry and lifeless as he answered. “Your last word could be arranged.”
As much as Nanami thought he meant that, Mahito couldn’t help blurting back, “Not like that, you ninny!”
The second the words left his mouth, Mahito saw a skip through the human’s soul. The red string looped to Nanami’s thumb fell flat in the space between them, Nanami’s hand dangling at his side as he stared.
“...Ninny?”
A look crossed the narrow ledges of Nanami’s brow, as if his soul itself was questioning where anyone had heard that word, and thought it right to use it.
“It is a curse word!” Mahito snapped back. “I said it! That makes it one! They’re all curse words, okay?!”
The shouting did nothing to break through Nanami’s sternness. He stared back, just as judgmental, and a desert’s worth of dryness as he asked. “Why would that be ‘okay’?”
“Why would I know?!”
Whatever tension or anger should have been on Nanami’s face turned stern to the point of blankness. His words lay just as flat as his eyebrows.
“You should stop talking.”
“Why, are you gonna talk for me?”
Mahito gaped right back, expectant. He watched the flow of intention across Nanami, searching for some sign of what his soul meant to do. Like the faint wrinkles through Nanami’s forehead, creases in the skin where the proof of old worries had been left behind, the human wasn’t moving. He stayed flat, still, willing himself to be unchanging, and doomed himself for it.
If there was one thing Mahito had learned, watching human souls, it was that they weren’t a static thing. Each breath, on its own, weathered them. Every memory weighed them down. Scars accrued, and damage gathered, until the corrosion of existing in space traveled in through the soul to the very thing meant to protect it. To live was to change. To try to stand still, in the face of that, was a fight no soul could win, severed strings or not.
Mahito let out a huff. “Some chatterbox you are! I’ve had more conversations with a wall.”
“I can speak,” Nanami insisted, with as little enthusiasm as possible. “A wall would find you more palatable.”
“Ugh. Fine. Be boring,” Mahito rolled his eyes. “At least a wall could agree!”
Mahito lowered his hand. He turned his hand, the cuff of the red string flowing with it. He raised his other hand, and twirled the thread around his finger. The remnant of Nanami’s soul cradled into the groove. An echo of Nanami’s essence passed through, a pulse in the thread.
“For someone so sour, your soul still seems fun,” Mahito mused, watching the glow pass through. “At least this part likes me…”
A part of Mahito’s soul that he hadn’t known was there started to pull from the other side. A blood red glow inside himself passed through the thread, the red string strengthening where their souls drew together.
Mahito was still watching the light when the red string pulled taut. A disruption pressed into his back, the pressure tearing in. He could feel Nanami’s cursed energy before his blade landed, his technique tugging at the parts of Mahito where he meant to aim.
Mahito let his hand drop, his soul bracing to reinforce itself. The ripples Nanami tried to set through him turned in flux, pressing back against the gravity of Nanami’s technique with his own. In the focus he meant to give it, Mahito barely noticed the color change along the string. His own reinforcements leaked from his thumb through the cord, stretching to the other side with a pulse all their own.
Mahito couldn’t be certain. He’d never seen this before. What it would mean, he’d only know if he tried to absorb the strike–yet, his instinct told him to freeze. In its place, the odd calm of epiphany made Mahito lag behind. He looked up, straight to Nanami in defiance.
“You should stop,” Mahito told him plainly. “You’ll hurt yourself, if you–”
He hadn’t spoken fast enough.
The reinforcement Mahito tried to set in his soul broke apart. Nanami’s cleaver cast through Mahito’s shoulder. His stitches split, his arm dangling where the blunt tool slashed in. Sutures that he couldn’t see clung through the lower half, keeping his limb with the rest of him. The slash, without interruption, should have severed straight through. In the thrash of pain, Mahito barely realized that hadn’t happened. The white fuzz of agony put Mahito’s soul on instinct alone. His good hand pressed over the wound, pinching the two sides of his skin together until he could remember the shape of his soul and fix it.
Mahito shouldn’t have had the time to catch his breath, or regain his ground. If what he’d seen had been wrong, Mahito wouldn’t have. Yet, at the same time as Mahito strained to keep himself together, Nanami clutched the same spot. His senses set alight, his soul consumed with the echo of Mahito’s pain, pulsing through the red string. The shared beat of existence flowed between both sides of the binding, their senses blending. The glow of this bind was brilliant, and befuddling. The kind of thing Mahito could have watched for hours, and done nothing else at all. His eyes fell to that thread, sensing Nanami’s heartbeat through each wave of cursed energy.
Nanami didn’t see that.
“Whatever cursed technique you have, I’ll still exorcize you,” Nanami insisted, grunting stubbornly.
“You shouldn’t!”
“I will.”
From the flow through his soul, Mahito could tell he meant it–but he hadn’t moved. It wasn’t much, as far as hesitation went. Still, the second of stillness was something. It would have to be enough.
“You won’t,” Mahito said, deciding he’d make that true.
Mahito’s cursed energy flowed into his shoulder, his soul mending. The traces of pain trailing through the string faded, their shared current settling to a lull. His fingers pressed into the cord.
“If you did what everyone else with these things did, maybe I’d break this back off,” Mahito spoke to himself. “Seems cute, though, to keep you.”
No matter how clear the sounds had been, Mahito knew Nanami wouldn’t hear him. As far as Nanami understood this moment, Mahito was babbling nonsense. A human being had no sense for strings. Even if Nanami could see Mahito, and use what he did know to regard him as an enemy, he would never see what was there.
Nanami’s hand wrapped to the hilt of his weapon, his cursed energy swelling, like to attack a soul which he shouldn’t have seen in the first place was the only action his own soul knew to take.
If Mahito held where he did, or stayed quiet, nothing would change. He could see, from a distance, what intentions flowed through Nanami’s soul. He would move forward blindly, even with sight, and strike Mahito down, pain and all.
“Hm…” Mahito let his soul purr, a new wonder settling in. “Where did you learn that, I wonder? To hate this well. How strange is that, to already have prejudice against a mystery? You shouldn’t even see me.”
Nanami raised his arm, his elbow bending with what would have been a strike. Mahito walked forward, anyway, bowing in. His lips drew to a smile.
“There’s a way, how people bound to people react, when they’re close. I’ve seen it,” Mahito mused. “They touch, like it’s warm.”
Stern as he stood, Nanami watched Mahito less like a monster, and more like something crazy. He twitched. Mahito drew closer, crossing his personal space.
“Sometimes, they’ll touch hands,” Mahito remembered. “Trap each other by the fingers, where they can’t escape. Other times, they mush their mouths. They seem to like that, the ones who share strings like we do, now.”
The red thread off Nanami’s hand twisted into tangles, weaving under both their feet. Mahito rocked forward, drifting in all the more. He felt the warmth of Nanami’s soul, his pulse changing in Mahito’s presence, as the smell of coffee in a storm sank deeper through his senses.
Mahito brushed his palm against Nanami’s shoulder. He knew, in the touch, that he could have tried to change him–to melt Nanami’s soul in place, and force it not to leave. Instead, he pressed down, holding through the shoulder pad of his suit.
He all but tasted the breath from the other side when he whispered, “I like it better, when you talk, you know. We can chat, like people would. I’m close enough to people.”
As warm as he was, Nanami stood firm. His pulse shook with uncertainty he hadn’t meant to show.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he said, sure.
“Is that what that’s called, if I touch you that way?” Mahito asked back. “To kiss?”
Nanami didn’t say.
There hadn’t been much space left between them. Mahito leaned through it “That’s fine. I’ll start,” said Mahito. “I’ve seen it. The things those tied like this do, when they don’t know someone’s looking. Whatever you’re thinking, I’d bet you’ll like this, more! They all seem to.”
Mahito drew closer, still. His lips stayed parted, close enough to brush by.
Close as he was, he didn’t get to.
While Mahito held himself close, Nanami struck through Mahito’s gut. There’d been no reinforcement. No channel for his cursed energy, weakening Mahito’s soul where the wound was meant to go. The top of the cleaver jammed under Mahito’s rib cage, unencumbered. The air he meant to breathe ripped straight from his lungs. He folded in on himself, both hands pressing to the bloodless wound, his knees straining not to buckle in the instinct to collapse. The red string swayed from his hand, the thread tangling all the more as he grappled to speak.
“Seriously?!” Mahito gasped “You–!”
Before Mahito could find the breath to snap, a new weight hit his shoulder. Where Mahito collapsed, Nanami did, too. The weight of his body meshed with his soul, both straining for the same breath he’d wounded Mahito and taken away.
Nanami held his hand steady to his gut, clenching the wound. His shoulders tensed, his instincts pulling him to groan. He didn’t make a sound. Whatever his body wanted, his soul didn’t let himself give in. In the place of complaints, or whimpers, Nanami focused on his own form–on holding himself together, even as his stubbornness fractured him.
Mahito knew, from the feeling, that Nanami’s string hadn’t been meant to be cut. His soul had been damaged, forced to take a new shape in the loss of whoever had once been on the other end. Mahito knew just as well, however this soul tried to fight him, Nanami would hurt himself just as much.
It wasn’t worth the effort, now, to try and wound this man. Even in retaliation, the most interest in this soul came from the pain Mahito hadn’t caused. Mahito could have disconnected the thread, if he’d meant to. Whatever he bound to himself, there should have been a way to take right back off of himself. To cut the line, block his smell, and return this human to being someone Mahito could hurt, would be easy.
But, at least for now, for as long as he could see something he never had before, Mahito didn’t want to.
He placed a hand that no human should have seen on Nanami’s shoulder. His fingers stroked the surface of the human’s body, as if another part of Mahito meant to sink in.
“Someone was supposed to be here, weren’t they?” Mahito asked, his voice softer than he’d meant to say it. “Some other soul, you put your mouth on before, had your string…”
A ripple of recognition passed through the surface of Nanami’s soul. He pulled his shoulder back, his body retracting from Mahito in a recoil.
“That’s not your business,” Nanami wheezed.
Whatever bitterness Nanami had meant to put in the words, Mahito couldn’t help but snicker.
“Obviously. Why would I have a business? That’s so boring. I’ll just steal.” Mahito laughed the thought away. “You’re missing a soul, you know. On the other side of you.”
The flat “what are you talking about…” that Nanami uttered, Mahito was tempted to ignore. Nanami had done the same to him, plenty. Mahito let that temptation light the blue of his eye, a new spark of mischief flashing. And then, he turned away, to the lowest skyline of headstones across the cemetery hill.
“The strings between souls,” Mahito said, sincerely. “You know, where a human meets a human, so they’re one.”
“No,” Nanami said.
“No, you don’t know?”
“No,” Nanami repeated, his words twice as stern. “No, no one’s missing.”
Mahito turned his head, contorting himself just enough that his eyes could meet the human’s. He looked intently, as deeply as he could, to watch the lies drift over his soul. He cackled.
“Oh, wow! You’re a terrible liar! Ha–” Mahito pointed back at him. “Just awful!”
Nanami’s shoulders stayed flat as they could through the pain. “You’re terrible in general.”
It should have been an insult. Mahito just laughed.
“Fine, fine. I’ll take it. Let’s get you lying lessons first!” Mahito rubbed under his eye, wiping the tear of amusement away. He stopped to catch his breath, and center his focus back on Nanami. For a second, he did. Then, the next, Mahito saw the slope in Nanami’s shoulders–his too-stiff expression, and his wrinkled, spotted tie–and he broke down laughing twice as much. His hand pressed over his mouth, swallowing laughter as new tears fell back out.
“Oh my God. It’s like you have a mouth full of crumbs and said you didn’t steal from the cookie jar!” Mahito gaped. He kept going. “Just, covered in blood, by a dead body, no, officer, I just found him like this!? HAH–”
Again, Nanami leaned away from Mahito. His eyes set on the back of Mahito’s neck, narrowing with what his mind meant to make a glare, if only his soul could match it.
“You’re so serious,” Mahito laughed, his stomach aching from how hard he clutched it. “You’re a constellation, you’re so sirius…!”
If Nanami hadn’t known what Mahito was talking about before, then by now, Mahito had lost him in all ways but one. The one way left–the way Mahito could still feel him–was the tether of a stolen, red strand of his soul, once broken, now tied to the base of Mahito’s thumb. The line of the red string pressed against his skin, the glow of their souls reflecting red across him. The light caught under his chin, setting shines and shadows no one else would see.
In all the time Mahito had observed souls, it had only been in humans that he’d seen these strings. The red thread he’d stolen, to keep inside himself, was something a curse wasn’t supposed to have. Mahito held it tight all the same, a treasure trapped along his thumb. He looked down, watching it shine in awe, as he told himself the truth.
“I’m not letting go.”
Whoever had once been on the other side of this line, Mahito had no way to know them. When the body was missing, the soul, too, had no binds to tether it or signs of what once had been. The most Mahito could do was to look for Nanami, and wait to see him.
The human at the other side of the string stared back at Mahito, unimpressed. “You’re not touching me.”
As far as Nanami had understood himself, he’d had every reason to believe that was true. Mahito knew better.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be sure…”
“I am.”
Mahito let himself smile, a knowing curl setting through. The pull that should have reached the corners of his lips set through the cross of sutures on his cheeks, into his brow.
“Hmmm… really? I’m not.”
As long as this thread was there, and Mahito didn’t cut it, in a way, they already were touching.
Whatever doubt could have been in that murmur. Nanami stood firm. From the outside, the language of his body tried to say there was no other truth outside the ones he chose to know. His expression locked in, the dark circles of his sunglasses blocking the rest of the world from his eyes.
If Mahito were human, to deceive him would be simple. The shell of himself that Nanami presented was so flat, there wasn’t much to read from him. There was no hesitance to the slope of his shoulders, or the tone of his words. No, every doubt and uncertainty Nanami carried was buried deeper than his tone, locked into the shadowed, neglected caverns of his soul.
Mahito watched closely for the truth of Nanami’s tell. He could see, on the surface of Nanami’s soul, just what restrictions this man had placed on himself. What Mahito didn’t know was why. And if there was one thing Mahito knew, it was that the things he didn’t know, yet, were the ones most worth finding. He swayed in.
“I don’t think you should lie to me,” Mahito told him.
Nanami stood tall. “You shouldn’t think in general.”
Mahito’s lips curled all the more. “Oh, do you want to arrange that?”
If Nanami had a second to react, he would have come up with a retort. Mahito watched the gears of his own ideas start turning. Before those thoughts could make it, Mahito jumped up across Nanami’s shoulders. He wrapped an arm to either side, draping himself across his neck.
“You know what else you shouldn’t think?” Mahito asked him.
Nanami turned his head to set a glare. Like the mantra of reason, again, he said “no.”
The way that he’d said it, Mahito knew the implication. He ignored it.
“Right, no,” Mahito agreed, his head lowering with a nod. “You shouldn’t think ‘no’, at all. No’s are boring.”
The curse wrapped his hand around the thread, spooling the red string against himself. His hand stopped in front of his chest, still clutching tight. He added, in a murmur, “I shouldn’t think you’d like this, either.”
What ‘this’, in this case, referred to, it wasn’t possible for Nanami to know. He hadn’t seen the string. As far as Mahito understood, it was impossible for a human being to see that thread. But, as far as Mahito had known, it also wasn’t possible to see him, so that might change. If not now, then, someday, maybe past tomorrow, it would.
“I don’t like this,” Nanami said bluntly, believing that he’d meant it. At the time, he did. He spoke, with conviction, as if the words that crossed his tongue were absolute. His soul set in certainty, yet, his soul didn’t agree.
A pulse of red passed through the thread, the essence of Nanami’s soul flowing through into the string tied to his thumb. The light lingered, unshaken and sinking.
If Mahito listened to nature, he should have pulled the thread out. Whatever these red strings were for, they weren’t meant to be part of his soul.
Mahito pressed his other hand to his thumb, his fingers holding his thread down. The light laced into him, molding to the creases in his palm. In a place he should have tried to escape, Mahito stood still, and smiled. “Well, that’s what you shouldn’t think, then.”
Mahito watched with all the fascination he had no reason to spare, watching the other’s soul sink inside the cuff around his own. This thread–this thing–wasn’t made to be part of them. At best, Mahito had stolen it away. His soul flowed through the other side of a leash he’d bound both ways.
Mahito could have taken it off. He’d put it on himself. It should have been easy to remove, had he wanted to. He didn’t want to.
“Nanami…”
The smile spread across Mahito, a new mark upon his soul. He looked up, catching a gaze that hadn’t meant to meet him as he glimpsed up to the stone above the grave.
“Who’s ‘Haibara’?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Yup,” Mahito bobbed his head, his pigtails swaying. “Of course I don’t need to. I want to.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Ugh. Fine. Then, don’t talk.” Mahito puffed out an exhale. He blew his bangs away from his eyes, rolling them as he did. “You’re good at it, though. Talking.”
Nanami’s breath made a sound. What it was supposed to be, Mahito wasn’t sure. “What would you know about good?” he asked, impatient. “You’re a curse.”
Mahito raised his hand. The red string swayed from his thumb, the arc pulling between them.
“Aren’t all of these strings?” Mahito asked, still watching the line. “If you don’t want who’s on the other side, it’s cursing you, too.”
A shadow only Mahito could see stretched across his face, his own stitches eclipsed behind the line as he watched their souls twisting. For all the puffs and frustrations, a flicker of life sparked back inside the center of Nanami’s soul to get an answer at the other end.
Mahito’s eyelashes settled, his stare fading as he watched the sway.
“You missed it, didn’t you?” Mahito uttered. “Having someone at the other end.”
Nanami’s stare narrowed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” Mahito smiled. “You haven’t asked what I meant.”
“Why would I want to?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Pft! You should want to! If it’s something you don’t know, then that’s something left to learn.”
“Not everything is worth learning.”
“Yeah, yeah. But how would you know it’s not worth it, until you’ve already learned?”
The kanji on the grave watched back, the freshly washed headstone all too clear. The family name stared back at both of them. Mahito saw the name ‘Haibara’ engraved, a blur at the corner of his eye. He didn’t turn towards it. All he did, then, was watch Nanami.
The name wasn’t just on the headstone. For Nanami to see it left an imprint. The shape it should have had, Mahito couldn’t see. All he could do, now, was understand that shape could still change. That cut tether hadn’t needed to stay dangling, alone.
The string on his wrist had never been meant for something like him. But, if Mahito made himself fit, maybe that didn’t matter.
A new tension set across Nanami’s soul. He faced forward, his hands flat at his side, as he watched the sunflowers sway where he’d left them tipped over.
“You aren’t ‘someone’,” Nanami insisted, cutting his silence straight through.
Mahito closed one eye.
“Why would I be ‘someone’?” he asked, still smiling. “I’m me. Anything else wouldn’t be fun.”
Nanami’s nose wrinkled. His focus narrowed, suspicion burrowing.
“You shouldn’t smell this way.”
“What are you, now? The stinky police?” Mahito puffed back with a pout. “I’ll smell how I want!”
It wasn’t until Mahito finished complaining, and he truly looked, that he saw the next wave through Nanami’s soul. In the part of his mind that should have been still, the path through his nose into his mind set alight in recognition, and the dread of knowing it shouldn’t be there.
“Ah–” Mahito rocked onto the heels of his boots. “I see. It changed, when I put it back, didn’t it? I smell like what’s supposed to be here,” he said. “Like the soul on the other side of the string.”
Nanami’s brow creased, a new glare setting in. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Would you want me to stop? Maybe I can turn it off. The smell.”
“Can you turn off being so loud? It’s a cemetery,” Nanami pressed his hand to the back of his neck, his bones creaking. “You’re being disrespectful.”
From the answer Nanami hadn’t given, Mahito knew what he meant.
“You can just say it. I can see it on you, anyway,” Mahito smiled to himself. “You don’t want me to stop.”
“I do.”
“Nope. You like it. Smelling someone, again,” Mahito teased. “You like smelling. Smelly smeller.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Yup. You do. Sniffy smelly smeller.” Mahito turned away, straight towards him. “If you didn’t, I could take the nose off your face? How about that? Problem solved! No sniffing.”
“No, it’s not,” Nanami drolled. “ You’re the problem.”
If Mahito couldn’t see straight through Nanami’s body, maybe he would have believed that. The stitches on Mahito’s face creased with mockery as he beamed back. “Oh, ha! Perfect! I love being the problem!”
“Can you shut up?”
“Can I? Hm… Probably. Will I? Hm…”
Mahito pulled his hands behind his back, one pressed against the other wrist, holding tight to the string of their souls. He looked back, a new knowing setting through the silver of his eye.
“If I will… You’d have to tell me.”
The headstone stood tall between them, unmoving, as memories long gone were meant to do. Nanami stood just as still, rigid on the hill. In a space full of bodies with no souls left to spare, his own rang in harmony with what he chose to keep. The scent of a thunderstorm that had no reason to be there moved towards Mahito, crisp, damp and impenetrable, stolen from a soul that no longer existed to have it.
It was the nature of most people that there was another human being at the end of the red strings off their soul. In the absence of that second person, well… maybe, this time, this would do.
Mahito flopped his head to the side, perching on the shoulder of the human soul at his side. He felt an answer to a question Nanami hadn’t asked him ripple off his soul. He answered, anyway.
“Okay,” Mahito uttered, his words turning quiet. “Then, I won’t.”
“Please, shut up.”
“Oh, you’re a pleader?” Mahito bounced with a snicker. “Fine. Plead with me.”
“...That’s not what please means.”
“It’s not? Then, what is ‘please’, if not pleading?”
“It’s being polite, asshole.”
“Hah! You think I have an asshole? Why would I do that?” Mahito tilted his head. He squinted, still thinking. “...Would you want me to have an asshole? I could try. Can’t say I’ve had a reason to.”
Mahito could tell, instantly, that wasn’t what Nanami meant. Before Nanami could correct him, Mahito snickered into the back of his hand. The red string swayed, their souls weaving together.
It didn't matter, here, what Nanami would have said. What mattered, now, was the feeling through that thread. The grumble of frustration that set into Nanami passed through that red string like a purr, a pulse of something that Mahito wished was familiar even when it was new.
Mahito craned up, snuggling into his perch. He basked in the frustration as he wrapped his arm around Nanami’s neck. The red string pulled tighter, a bond between their souls that he hadn’t meant to make.
It was an accident, veering on mistake, to have an experiment like this. If he’d wanted to, Mahito could list a thousand reasons to take the thread right out. He didn’t want to. So, instead, he closed his eyes, drifting in the scent meant for a stranger, and he let himself fall in.
Behind Mahito’s back, in a space of his body that he couldn’t turn to see, was a line. A faint, red glow passed between him and the human at his side, warm and tethering. The line was separate from the body. It carried no thoughts, or sense, or feelings. What it was for, and what it meant, Mahito wasn’t sure.
Now that he had one, he knew he’d like to learn.