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@kami-no-ito

death comes easily indie OC rp blog 18+ tracking kaminoito

25 posts

hitsuzen

Of course, Kenta isn’t surprised by the offer. He looks at the other man and he presses his lips together, and he thinks about living with him. Actually living with him. And though they’ve just met he finds it somehow awfully easy to see this man making breakfast, standing in an apron, cooking rice and tempura and miso soup.

It’s bizarre. Maybe it’s because he’s nice. Maybe it’s because he’s half-angel and half-angels can’t possibly do anything wrong, like breakfast or roommates or buying nice clothes and nicer towels and going on fucking morning jogs.

Kenta’s barely met him and somehow he’s torn between wanting to fall on his knees in front of him and beg for forgiveness and wanting to kill him again and again until he finally stays dead so he doesn’t have to live with this crippling guilt.

"I let you die and you’re asking me to live with you."

Kenta’s breath is soft, his eyes shutting tight and his hand suddenly brushing against his left arm socket, and the burn scar there’s gotten even worse since last night’s excursion. He pulls up his sleeve and he shows it to him, and the uglier the scar, the more times he’s lost this limb. He takes the man’s hand and he places it onto his bicep and though the touch is warm on his cool skin, there’s nothing comforting about it.

"I let you hurt even more just for this stupid arm," he whispers.

"And you’re asking me to live with you."

The man's words are initially soft, and then he sees the arm. Sees the ugly scar, and feels the coolness of the man's skin beneath his fingertips.

He traces the line of the ugly, angry-looking scar and his expression is still and hard to read as he listens to the man's words.

And when he finally lifts his gaze to meet Kenta's, his own expression is serious and his own voice is calm.

"You needed it," he says softly. "I was already dying. Nothing you could have done would have changed it."

He tilts his head. "Without you, I would have been lying there for hours in pain, dying slowly. I am grateful to you. For ending it quickly."

He squeezes the man's arm gently before giving him a reassuring smile.

"And yes...I'm asking you to live with me. To stay as long as you need. Or want."

hitsuzen

Nagase is much easier to be around if he just shuts up, Kenta realises. And he doesn’t make a move to start a conversation, either, his hands shoved in his pants pockets and his bag lightly tapping against his back with every step he takes. Of course, everyone is easier to be around if they’re quiet, but Nagase most especially.

Every smile he gives him, every kind word, just reminds Kenta that he’d taken from him without a second thought, even though the man didn’t deserve that pain. Didn’t deserve to die with two wounds bleeding out instead of one. And how exactly is he supposed to deal with that—the reason he was sent to hell in the first place right before him in the form of some half-angel nice guy?

Kenta doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know how to respond to the question that Nagase gives him, either.

A nice person like him can only mean that question is going down a very roommate-y route. Kenta looks over at him, and the suspicion is written all over his face, even as he squints and regards Nagase like some kind of old person without any reading glasses.

He actually stops in his tracks. His fingers curl around his backpack strap, and he regards Nagase from head to toe—from his wavy dark hair to his pierced ears to his nice clothes and to his shiny shoes. Jeez, the guy is tan. He always thought angels would be pale with red cheeks and pouty lips. But then again, he’s technically not your typical zombie, either.

"I don’t," he finally says.

Kenta looks directly into Nagase’s eyes when he does, squinting again.

The quiet isn't so bad, really. It's easy to be quiet with him, no desperation for conversation to fill the empty silence.

He does wonder, though, if the man is angry with him. Especialy when Kenta gives him that extremely suspicious expression, and it has him giving the guy a sheepish smile.

The gaze the man gives him has him pausing. The man regards him from head to toe with that piercing gaze, one that seems to bore into his very being, and it has him swallowing before those eyes meet his and his body jolts and somehow his cheeks are turning pink a little.

The man doesn't have a place to stay, and he's not sure if Kenta will accept if he offers a place to sleep.

He dips his head and holds up his keys. "You can stay at my place if you'd like...My work isn't far away and...well. If you needed..things...I could help you out."

He's sure there's a better way to word what he's offering, but he's not sure how to do it.

"I have an extra bed."

hitsuzen

Different is certainly one way to look at it, and Kenta lets out a small huff as he looks away. It’s not like he expected Nagase to live after, for Christ’s sake, and the guy doesn’t have to smile like that, either. Of course, there’s the off-chance that Nagase had meant ‘different’ harmlesly. But somehow everything the guy does offends Kenta in the smallest way.

Maybe it’s because he keeps dying and coming back to life. It’s just not fair.

Then again, thinking about who has it worse between someone who feels excruciating pain more than once a month and someone who has to kill other people to keep living, Kenta’s probably just a big whining baby.

"It happens a lot, and it does suck." Kenta’s grumbling as he says it, too, his arms folded over his chest. "It doesn’t hurt, not really. But it’s weird when you’re using your nerves as much as you can and nothing is moving because nothing is there any more.”

He doesn’t say that it only hurts when you’re trying to put a limb back on, and for this reason he ducks his head just a little to hide the scar around his neck. Ask about one scar and people usually end up asking about the others, and Kenta isn’t really in the mood for explaining why some burn marks around his sockets and joints are darker coloured than others.

Or why he has a scar under his eye.

"I’m used to it," he admits silently.

"But it still pisses me the fuck off when pinkies fall in my soup."

He thinks for a moment, that maybe he's gone too far. Asked too much of a man he's only met within the last twenty-four hours.

The question he'd asked had been intensely personal, and he's about to tell Kenta that he doesn't have to answer when the man finally does.

He gets the feeling that the man doesn't much care for him, wth the way he grumbles and explains about how much it sucks.

His insides tighten and he looks down at his hands and the way they're completely smooth. It isn't fair, really.

Kenta is dead and his limbs keep falling off.

He keeps dying and it hurts every time.

Why are they fated to this? It isn't fair.

But then again, life isn't fair. It's never fair. His mother had told him that enough times before she died.

He falls silent and doesn't ask further questions, instead just walking beside the man.

He doesn't know how to apologize for prying.

"...do you have somewhere to stay tonight?"

hitsuzen

"That’s terrible."

He sympathises before he can stop himself, and he almost hates himself for it. Kenta worries a hand through his hair, his expression growing a little bit frustrated at his own weakness. He’s not usually this iffy, but something about the guy—maybe the fact that forcing Kenta to think about the morality of killing other people just to steal their limbs—just has him feeling defensive.

Yes, he knows it’s wrong. Taking the lives of other people who actually have a reason to be living to fuel his own selfish non-life isn’t the best thing he could do.

But he’s already destined for Hell, right? So what harm is murder going to do him?

Kenta swallows, deciding to lay those thought demons to rest. “Twenty-three times. They usually as painful as having a rod sticking out of you?” He glances back at the other man, almost-pouting. But really, that’s just a default expression on Kenta’s end.

"Because that sounds like shit."

His lips quirk into an amused smile as the man runs a hand through his own hair, and he watches the expressions cross the man's face, and he can't read them clearly.

The man comments and questions and he lifts his chin and shrugs.

"Different types, usually. I've died from falling. Drowing. Electrocution-"

He tilts his head and considers. "Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes I don't feel anything. Last night was...well. That time was different."

He smiles and dips his head.

"It must suck to lose limbs...does that happen frequently?"

It's a point-blank question, really. One that's a bit bold for himself to ask, but the man had been quite frank to him himself.

hitsuzen

What the hell is up with this, anyway? He’s found some kindred spirit and it turns out to be someone who he’s stolen an arm from. Great. It’d be just his luck, really, especially after he remembers everything that’d happened to him back when he’d still been in the field. But maybe cursing God as many times as he did at that time was the reason he went to Hell in the first place. Kenta doesn’t know. Frankly, at this point, he doesn’t care, either.

As Nagase speaks to him, he tries not to feel threatened. Kenta’s already essentially told him his great big secret, and there’s nothing left to tell him that won’t sound like fiction. Assuming, of course, that Nagase believes him in the first place, which Kenta sincerely doubts he does.

"My name is Kenta," he says finally, waiting until Nagase is beside him and then lifting his head the slightest bit to look at him. "I died in 1945."

He doesn’t give his last name, and at this rate, he’s not sure he remembers it right any more, either. Hell, he can’t really vouch for his first name, too, but Kenta sounds as right to him as any.

"But you died last night. Half-tenshi. Angel?" Kenta smiles a bit, though it’s more sardonic than kind. "You’re too short to be a half-angel baby—or did the Bible lie about that, too?"

Kenta.

He has a name to put to the face now. To put to the man who he feels an odd comraderie for the man.

The man's older than he is. Considerably. And yet he looks younger...given that he's died, he's not surprised really. The man must have died young, though why he's still alive is a mystery to him.

The man asks him if he's an angel, and for some reason it has his stomach churning.

He's never told anyone else.

He dips his head into a nod, lips quirking into an amused smile.

"Half tenshi," he affirms. "My father....well." He laughs anxiously. "I do not know his name."

He takes a breath and studies the man for a long moment. "I died last night. And two weeks ago. And a month ago." He chuckles. "I've died twenty-three times this year so far."

my preferred method of comforting

hitsuzen

That answer has him stopping fully short.

And when Nagase catches up to him, Kenta turns back around and stares at him, his eyes completely attempting to gauge the man before him. Not fully human. Not fully human.

Kenta presses his lips together, and then he steps forward, his hand curling into the man’s collar as he leans in to look at him. It’s perhaps the first time his expression has been as deathly serious as it is since he ran away from hell, and his grip tightens hard.

"I’m dead," he says quietly.

And then he releases him and shoves his hands into his pockets, frowning as he walks at a more leisurely pace.

This time Kenta expects Nagase to follow him.

The way the man turns and stares at him, looking as if they're boring into his very soul, his stomach churns, and those fingers curl into his collar and that expression is...

...it's not something he's going to forget.

He is dead. That's what the man says about himself, his tone quiet and it has him staring for a long moment as the man releases him and walks at a more leisurely pace.

"Dead?" he asks the empty air softly, surprise still registered on his face as he hurries to follow after him.

It explains the missing limb. But he still doesn't understand how the man can be here if he's dead-

-not like he's really one to talk.

It's good he doesn't work until later.

"Um...what was your name--?"

hitsuzen

"Nice cop-out," Kenta says with a snort, and then he puts more chicken into his mouth and chews it noisily, making an effort not to look at Nagase even once. He’s afraid that he’s going to see more of the guy’s smiles, and god if they don’t remind him of when he’d been smiling with blood dripping out his lips.

He exhales in the most shuddery kind of way, and when he finishes his bowl he drinks down the tea and stands, placing the empty bottle down onto the table. “Thanks for the meal, Zombieman.”

And then he hefts his pack higher up his shoulder, the smallest sound of shifting coming from the bag in that jerky moment before he starts to walk again, his head ducked.

Guilt is an awful thing.

He's not sure how to answer the man more fully, and he swallows down his katsudon bite before straightening h is head to look after the man who's started to walk away.

"Because I'm not fully human," he calls out, his heart stuttering in his chest.

He's not sure it'll stop the man. Or why he wants it to, and that has him wondering why he's trying so hard to keep the man there.

Curiosity? Fear? He doesn't understand it himself.

But he's packing up his meal and hurrying after him, since it happen to be in the direction of his workplace.

hitsuzen

"Fuck—"

The curse is out of him before he can stop it, and Kenta grumbles as he sits down and looks at the bowl he’s been given. He unwraps it and opens it, breaking the little wooden chopsticks, and then proceeds to eat it with all the lack of finesse and hunger that’s typically attributed to the living dead.

"How’s it possible you aren’t lying dead in that stupid pit?" Kenta counters quickly, deciding that there’re better things for him to do than catering to a man’s questions. As long as he eats quickly, then he’ll be rid of this man quickly. This much he tells himself as he shoves mouthful after mouthful of rice and chicken into his mouth, stopping only to wash it all down with tea every so often.

He blinks at the sudden curse, eyes widening slightly.

And when the man answers his question with a question, his insides tighten and his chopsticks go down as he exhales quietly.

"If I could answer that for you, I would," he says softly, his brows furrowing, appetite almost gone.

"I have died before. Many times. And when I wake, I'm home. Alone."

He laughs, and scoops up rice to eat.

"SO you see, I cannot answer your question."

hitsuzen

He didn’t ask for the big tea, but if someone else is paying for it, then Kenta decides maybe the right thing to do would just be to go with the flow. So he takes the rice bowl when everything’s paid for and holds the bottle, too, and is interrupted only when he hears Nagase speak to him once more.

A curious expression takes hold of him—why the hell do you want to eat with me?—but then he decides that he at least owes the guy this, after putting him through excruciating pain just the night before. Sure, the man’s just bought him food and a huge-ass bottle of tea, but at this rate Kenta’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to persuade him otherwise.

This one certainly seems like one of those ‘stubborn to be an angel’ types for sure. And Kenta came from hell.

"Yeah, fine." He holds the bag in one hand and opens the bottle crudely with his teeth, dropping the cap into the palm with the plastic and taking a large gulp from it. Then he screws it back on. "Picnic breakfast. Okay."

Kenta stares at him, his eyes slowly squinting. “You’re not going to do anything weird, are you?”

He lets out a snort of amusement as he leads the man to the picnic table that isn't far from where they are just then.

"Anything weird?" he says calmly, eyes glittering. "SUch as taking a man's arm and using it for ones own?"

He gestures to the seat across from his own.

"I am admittedly curious...you didn't have an arm...and then you took mine and it looks as if it was always yours."

He leans closer. "How is this possible?"

ushinawaretatsubasa-deactivated

She nodded her head as she unpinnded the number. When she handed the number to the lady, she smiled. "Hewe you go." Sakura nodded squeaked hopping her Daddy would answer.

The lady at the counter dials the number, and while they wait he's picking out a child-sized chocolate bar with a shiny pink wrapper and placing it on the counter with funds to pay for it.

And then the woman passes the phone over and he holds it out to Sakura.

"It's for you."

hitsuzen

What is with this guy and his apparent need to redeem himself? All he did was try to find the person who cut his arm off, and honestly—it doesn’t take a lot of deep thinking—Kenta can’t blame him for that. He presses his lips together and looks at the other man, and the way kindness seems to sink into every muscle in his face and body has Kenta hesitating and finally giving in.

"Apple tea," he mumbles then, and he opens the door to the convenience store and waits for Nagase Souji to walk in before following after him. He knows he should probably give his own name in fairness, but Kenta doesn’t much care for little formalities like that. It’s bad enough that he’s acknowledging this man, allowing him to be a human being instead of being his last victim. Giving him his name would be a total loss. Kenta already killed him. And took from him.

Kenta walks with his head ducked, his shoes lightly scuffing against the floor as he walks along and fits his feet where Nagase’s footsteps would be if he left any. “And… chicken teriyaki. The rice bowl.”

The man’s smile is too kind. It makes him feel even worse about himself for being so selfish the first time they met.

He wants to ask how he survived.

He wants to ask where the arm came from.

But he decides not to.

The request for apple tea has him smiling and tilting his head as he nods, stepping inside.

He still doesn't know the man's name, nor what his true intentions are, but he remembers very clearly the way the man had looked without an arm and the pain that had lanced through his frame, and he takes a breath, picking out a large bottle of apple tea.

He gets the chicken teriyaki rice bowl when prompted as well, and gets a piece of chocolate for himself before he goes to the front counter and pays for the items.

He smiles at the man and then gestures to the door.

"The park near here has some nice picnic tables...would you join me?"

He has so many questions.

hitsuzen

Zombies usually eat people up, don’t they? Not offer to share breakfast and smile so freaking nicely it feels like Kenta’s talking to the reincarnation of his mother. He opens his mouth and closes it, and he ruffles his fingers through his hair in something like mild irritation.

"Well, Nagase Souji, I can afford my own food." A lie, but he has enough money in his wallet still, at least. And at least he has enough for now, even though it’s not good enough for forever. Scratching the back of his head, he presses his lips together before moving on to walk to the convenience store once more.

Kenta never really gets to know his victims, if that’s the right way to refer to them. Hosts? Donation sources?

This is bizarre to him. Strange. It’s easy to steal when the people you kill are just the means to an end, rather than human beings with personalities and likes and dislikes.

He remembers what this man’s blood had felt like on his hands, and how hot it had been, how the guy had screamed into the night sky above the both of them and suddenly went very still.

Seeing him smile had been something else entirely.

And Kenta can’t forget it.

Something about the way the man says he can afford his own food has him blinking, fingers curling around the katsudon in his hands, and he walks after him, pausing just outside the conbini.

"Wait--"

He holds out the katsudon. "Please. I'm the one who chased you and caused you trouble. "

He gives another sheepish smile, and looking at the man has him remembering the feeling of that knife slicing into his flesh.

Does the man have that knife with him even now? Is it still stained with his blood?

It has his stomach churning, and his fingers tightening on the still-warm plastic container.

"At least...at least let me buy you a soda or tea or something..."

hitsuzen

The dead guy is laughing at him.

And, okay—maybe it’s ironic to call someone else dead, but Kenta knows what he saw, and he knows he saw this guy bleed out of a wound in his chest and a hole in his arm socket. His lips pressed together, he listens to him speak, and then his head cants to the side dramatically as if he were mocking him.

Wanted what, you tanned little zombie? With your stupid round jaw and your weird muscles and your not being dead—

"… ha?"

Kenta’s arms slowly relax, but he keeps the plastic bag held in his fingers, his eyes regarding the other man and watching him supiciously. To make sure he were real? A bizarre reason. Kenta doesn’t believe him.

He wrinkles his nose. “You smile weird.”

And then he continues to walk, his throat tight.

When he’s gone perhaps fifteen steps away, he groans aloud and walks back, thrusting the plastic bag full of katsudon into the other man’s hand. “Take it,” he huffs, feeling more than a little obligated to do it.

"In exchange for giving me your freakin’ arm."

The man says he smiles weird, and somehow that has him running a hand sheepishly through his hair and then he dips his head in a little nod.

"AHh, you must think I'm crazy for chasing after you. Sorry--"

The man is walking away from him, but then turning around and offering the plastic bag at him and he blinks before curling his fingers over the handles.

"Ah..it's big enough to share. You need to eat as well."

He smiles warmly and holds up the bag. "Let's share this and then I'll treat you to some more food. As apology for chasing you down."

He grins and tilts his head. "I'm Nagase Souji."

Don't let him think you're crazy don't let him think about how you didn't stay dead. Just food. It's just food.

hitsuzen

Oh, man. Oh, boy.

Kenta doesn’t think he’s ever run this fast in his life, not even for war.

No matter how fast he runs, though, he can hear those footsteps trying to catch up. “Damn it!” he curses, yelling up into the sky as he continues to go onward. “I just want to eat my katsudon in peace!” And as much as a good idea as it seems at the time, he knows that it probably isn’t. Kenta growls and slows down just because he’s scared what he’s bought is going to end up spilling, but just at this moment he feels pressure clamping down around his wrist.

And he wastes no time wrenching his arm free (but it’s not his arm) and glaring at the man in front of him.

"I saw you die!"

It’s not the smartest thing to say, obviously. But Kenta isn’t the smartest person.

"Look, I took this arm fair and square, you can’t have it any more!" He’s more than a little frazzled, what with this man being the first one to ever survive after Kenta’s stolen from him. He pants, breathing heavily, and then he slowly backs off. "I just… want… to eat my breakfast."

Katsudon?

He can smell it now and the scent has his stomach churning, and he frowns when the man wrenches his arm free.

But the man doesn't keep running.

He saw him die.

And the man is yelling at him about how he took his arm fair and square and that he can't have it, and somehow it has him blinking.

And laughing.

"I said it was okay at the time," he says, shaking his head. "Just eat your breakfast, ah? I...just wanted to.." he pauses.

What was it that he wanted? To speak with him? To make sure he wasn't crazy?

He smiles a little sheepishly.

"I just wanted to make sure you were real..."

His stomach growls noisily.

hitsuzen

The man’s built much better than Kenta is, that much is for certain. It takes the entire night for the man’s arm to morph into the right size and shape for Kenta’s own body, and then he gets into the frustrating process of trying to get the nerve endings to work. He urges his fingers to wiggle, forces his wrist to rotate, and when everything’s set and ready, he finally manages to get some sleep.

Admittedly, sleeping in the park isn’t the best decision. But so far, it’s the only decision.

When he wakes up, his stomach growls. Kenta isn’t the sort of person to have money, and so the first thing he does is pickpocket a man at the train station. The wallet is his, slipped into his pocket, and then casually transferred to his bag when he’s far enough away.

There are very few things in his backpack: his butcher’s knife, a notebook, a pen, a scarf for when it gets chilly, and a sharp metal object, not unlike the tine of a very large fork.

And now a wallet, which is probably far more expensive than Kenta’s entire body combined.

He enters the nearest convenience store with his newfound money and doesn’t hesitate to get himself a rice bowl, and though he’s tempted to get even more, he knows he’ll have to make what he has in the wallet last a couple days until he runs out again. Of course, he can always pawn off the wallet, but stolen money can only last so long.

With a plastic bag in his newly regained left arm (to practise muscle control, of course), Kenta makes his way to the exit.

Then he’s gently nudged backwards by the frame of some other hapless chap.

"Hey—" As expected, he’s quickly shut up the moment he recognises who it is he’s bumped into. Kenta nearly drops his plastic bag, but somehow it seems his muscles refuse to cooperate, tightening instead of loosening their hold. With wide eyes, he takes in the man before him—the fixed shirt, the lack of blood, the fact that he’s standing (and tanned, too, it seems).

The guy has both of his arms.

Kenta has both of his arms.

He bolts.

He hadn't expected to see him here and now, with eyes wide with surprise.

And then that man is running, and for some reason he's running after him, heart pounding in his chest.

"H-hey! Wait!"

He doesn't know why he's following after him, stretching his legs to try to keep up with him.

His arm aches and his chest burns with remembered pain and yet he's still following after him.

He hadn't been dreaming after all. He'd really died again, and seeing that man again is proof enough.

He follows after him, his muscles burning as he gulps air and then he pushes harder, straining to catch up with him, reaching out to snag the man's arm.

His left arm.

ushinawaretatsubasa-deactivated

Sakura looked at his hand before reaching out and taking hold of his hand. At his question she wasn’t sure. “I.. don’t know.. Daddy never said anything like that before… it might?” Sakura wanted chocolate but she also didn’t want her father to become disappointed in her.

He nods as he carefully leads her across the street, making sure to do so only when it's safe.

"That's a big puzzle then...you see. I like chocolate the very best, and since we're just meeting, I thought it would be good to share--ah....I didn't introduce myself."

He laughs sheepishly. "My name is Nagase Souji. It's nice to meet you."

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