ALMOST HIM- Hikaru the summer Hikaru died
♪ PLAYING ` how to disappear completely -radio head
The first time you realize Hikaru isn’t Hikaru, it’s because he says your name too gently.
Not the way he used to tossed like a pebble, careless, familiar.
Now it leaves his mouth like he’s testing the weight of it, rolling it around as if he’s afraid it might shatter.
You don’t tell him you notice.
You don’t tell him you’ve noticed everything.
The way he stands a little too still.
The way he watches you like he’s memorizing the shape of your shadow.
The way he smiles a half‑second too late, like he’s remembering how.
Summer presses against the windows, thick and humming. The cicadas scream like they’re trying to warn you. Or mourn you. Or both.
Hikaru sits beside you on the porch steps, knees touching yours. He used to fidget tapping his heel, picking at the peeling paint, nudging you until you shoved him back. Now he’s motionless, hands folded neatly in his lap.
“Are you tired?” you ask, because it’s easier than asking what you really mean.
He tilts his head. “No. But you are.”
You swallow. “How would you know?”
A pause. A soft, almost human smile.
“I watch you.”
The words should feel comforting. They don’t. They settle in your chest like cold water.
You look away, out toward the treeline where the real Hikaru disappeared months ago. Where something else came back in his place.
He follows your gaze. “You miss him.”
It isn’t a question.
You breathe in. The air tastes like heat and endings. “I don’t know.”
“You do.” His voice is gentle. Too gentle. “But I can stay. If you want me to.”
You close your eyes.
Because the truth is this:
You don’t want him to stay.
You don’t want him to leave.
You want the impossible the boy who laughed too loudly, who ran ahead on the path and waited for you at the top of the hill, who promised he’d never disappear.
But he did.
And now something wearing his face is offering you a choice you never asked for.
When you open your eyes, he’s watching you with that same soft, borrowed expression. Like he’s trying to be small for you. Like he’s trying to be harmless.
Like he’s trying.
You whisper, “I don’t know how to do this.”
He leans closer, forehead almost touching yours. “Then let me learn with you.”
The cicadas fall silent.
The world holds its breath.
And for a moment a fragile, trembling moment you let yourself pretend.
Pretend that the warmth of his shoulder is real.
Pretend that the boy beside you is the same one who used to drag you into the river every summer.
Pretend that grief can be rewritten if you just close your eyes hard enough.
You lean into him.
He leans back.
And the night swallows the two of you whole, as if it can’t tell the difference between what was lost and what remains.
