Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kenjirou is seven years old when he dies for the first time.

He remembers playing with his little brother by the river, the sun shining down hotly upon the earth. The water’s surface glitters, glistens, and it’s swelteringly hot.

The summer has been nice. Kenjirou teaches his little brother how to float on his back and later how to swim, but the pool is overbooked and Kenjirou hates being in pools with lots of awful sweaty people.

“Let’s have a picnic!” declares his baby brother. He’d seen it on TV a few nights ago and won’t stop talking about it now.

Dad thinks for a while then goes to prepare some food, because Mom’s out and they can have a boys’ day. He brings them to a nice spot by the river which has a very large, very beautiful, very ancient tree nearby, and they lay their blanket down in the shade it provides. Kenjirou sets up the food all by himself!

“If you go to play near the river, just tell me, okay?” Dad says. “I need to make sure you’re safe.”

Kenjirou nods. It’s very important to be safe, and he needs to look after his little brother, too. That’s his duty as a big brother.

Hiroki brings a ball and an action figure to play with, jumping up and down near the water’s edge excitedly. He points, exclaiming at the fish he can just barely see, and waves at the ducks that careen across the water. Kenjirou holds a slice of bread and shows his brother how to take little pieces from it to feed the ducks.

They have to move away from the edge to play with the ball, but Hiroki keeps failing to catch it anyways. He’s only four, so Kenjirou doesn’t mind. He tries to throw it really well so that it will be easy for Hiroki to catch.

Every so often, Kenjirou waves up at his dad, who’s resting beneath the tree. Dad waves back, smiling.

Then Hiroki drops his action figure in the water.

Kenjirou loves his little brother, and it’s his duty as a big brother to look after him. Hiroki starts to cry, making to reach into the water, but Kenjirou picks him up by the armpits and hauls him away.

“Go up and tell Daddy,” he says. “I’ll get your toy back, okay?”

Hiroki sniffles, nodding, and starts running up to where the tree is.

Kenjirou frowns, looking at the water. It can’t have gone that far— the river looked so still, and it couldn’t be too deep. Besides, Kenjirou can swim. He’d learned from a really clever teacher and he’d even taught Hiroki how to swim! If he gets tired, he’ll just stretch his arms and legs out like he’s a star, and he’ll float on top of the water.

Kenjirou slips his shoes off, then tentatively dips a foot into the water. It’s not too cold, having heated slightly under the sun. He thinks that he’ll be able to get Hiroki’s toy if it’s just floating around in the water.

He stands back on the edge, eyebrows furrowing, then hears his dad shout from afar.

“Kenjirou, don’t!”

He startles. His wet foot slips against the floor.

Kenjirou falls into the water.

Despite its still appearance, there are currents beneath the surface, and Kenjirou lets out a bubbling scream as he’s caught within them. His head slams against a rock, making him go dizzy, and he can’t see anything but the light above him. He kicks his feet, clawing at the water with his hands, tries everything to save himself— he stretches his arms and legs out in hopes that he’ll float, but he doesn’t.

He is crushed, air stolen from his lungs.

The pressure of the water makes a star out of him.

Kenjirou dies.

He wakes up on the river’s edge, a soldier toy clasped in his hands. He’s dry from his shoulders upwards, and he slips a little as he clambers upright.

Dad is rushing towards him, terrified. He grabs Kenjirou by the arms, looking him up and down, then lets out a choked sob. “Don’t ever do that again, baby. I told you not to go in!”

Kenjirou doesn’t say anything.

“You could’ve gotten hurt.” Dad presses a kiss to Kenjirou’s cheek, which is dry. His face is dry. His hair is dry. Kenjirou thinks of how the water had crushed him and compressed him into a burning ball of fear and horror and fury, and wonders why Dad didn’t see him die.

He holds out the toy soldier. “Is Hiroki okay?”

His little brother cheers, running up. “You got it!”

Kenjirou smiles softly, trying to ignore the aching of his chest. He puts the toy into Hiroki’s outstretched, tiny hand, and imagines that it really had been easy.

Kenjirou does not think about the kiln that had made a star out of him.

He doesn't listen to the kiln as it beckons his return.

Kenjirou is ten years old when he dies again.

He’s walking home from school, his bag heavy on his shoulders. It’s raining heavily and the visibility is low, and Kenjirou’s umbrella breaks in the wind.

He grumbles at it, putting his coat’s hood up instead, and wraps it up to shove it in his bag. He looks over his shoulder as he walks, trying to unzip the damn thing, and sighs softly when he finally does so.

He squints, trying to ignore the rain that flies into his eyes. It feels like knives against his skin, his fingers going numb in the cold. Kenjirou sighs.

He steps down from the curb, beginning to cross the road. The back of his hair gets caught on the zipper of his bag, pulling painfully, and Kenjirou turns to adjust it as he walks.

A blinding, excruciating pain erupts like a volcano all over his body. It starts on his side, destroying him from the inside and smashing his bones to dust. He thinks that his voice has been taken away, a scream caught in his breaking chest.

Kenjirou dies.

He blinks and he stops walking, a car speeding past. He is fine.

He is fine.

(The kiln calls to him. He knows that it is far too painful to be a star.)

Kenjirou is thirteen when he dies for the third time.

It’s stupid. He’s playing Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo with Taichi and absolutely destroying him, legs stretched out in front of him— they’re sitting on the living room floor, right in front of the couch. They’re talking, laughing, occasionally swatting at one another.

“I just don’t think that there’s any merit in it,” Kenjirou says, passing the finish line. “It’s a stupid theory.”

“You think everything’s a stupid theory,” Taichi says, his mouth full of rice. He’d somehow stuffed an entire onigiri in his mouth halfway through the round and spent a full three minutes trying to break it down. “Have some fun, Kenjirou. Have some whimsy.”

“Reincarnation is not a fun topic,” he groans. “It’s completely illogical. It suggests that you have a soul, and there’s no proof of that. And why would anyone reincarnate as an animal instead of a human?”

Taichi shrugs. “Maybe you can reincarnate as an alien.”

“Weirdo.”

“Am not. I’d be a jellyfish, I think,” he says, picking up another onigiri. Dad had given them the plate to share! Taichi’s eating them all, the greedy bastard! “Or a cat.”

“An orange one?” Kenjirou asks, picking at his food. “I figured you’d want to be something aimless. You’d trick some poor family into thinking you’re cute so you can get free food and shelter.”

Taichi starts laughing, his eyes curving up. Kenjirou watches his shoulders shake, watches the smile spread across his lips.

“Would it be you?” Taichi questions smugly. “Would you be tricked into taking care of me?”

“I’ve already been tricked into taking care of you,” Kenjirou complains, kicking him weakly. “And it’s not because you’re cute.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“I think you’re greedy,” Kenjirou snaps, whacking him. “You’ll be reincarnated as a planet.”

Taichi snickers and tries to get away from Kenjirou’s offending hands, reaching up to the couch to grab a cushion for defense.

“Maybe you’ll come back as a moon, then, since you claim to hate me yet can’t seem to get away from me.”

Kenjirou feels his face burst into flames. He makes a grasp at the other couch cushion and brings it down onto the top of Taichi’s head, who shrieks.

“As if!”

“You’re so mean to me.” Taichi rubs his head, but looks unbothered. His eyes trace Kenjirou’s face carefully, making him feel like he’s being stripped, exposed, and analysed down to a molecular level.

Kenjirou’s hands curl into fists around the cushion. His skin pulls tight. He looks away for a moment, wondering if his heart feels like it’s racing because of the pillow fight or if it’s for some other, strange, potentially-Taichi-shaped reason—

The cushion hits the side of Kenjirou’s neck.

He yells out at first. Taichi is pushing him off, laughing raucously, the Nintendo blaring joyful music in the background. Kenjirou can’t help but think that no music even comes close to the sound of Taichi’s laughter. He waves away the thought immediately.

Something feels off.

He gets dizzy.

The kiln calls out for him.

Oh, Kenjirou thinks, his body slumping to the side. Did he hit an artery?

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know much of anything anymore, as the world falls dark. The last thing he sees is Taichi’s grin falling and his skin going sickly pale, his amber eyes wide with terror.

Don’t worry, Taichi.

I’ll be back soon.

You won’t even remember any of it.

Kenjirou’s back feels heavy with the weight of remembrance. He is dying but he knows, if nothing else, that he will come back. He always does.

This is just a little bump in the road. A little slip on the riverside. Kenjirou will not fall to a simple pillow fight. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? To die in a play fight?

He can’t do that to Taichi. He can’t do that to his family, either.

There is a star bursting in his heart, filling Kenjirou with fire. He bleeds golden light, an angel’s wings blossoming in his chest.

Kenjirou wakes up just as Taichi’s reaching for the cushion.

“Don’t start a pillow fight,” Kenjirou says quickly, a little shrilly. “You’ll get food all over the floor, and Dad will kill me.”

Taichi is still.

His skin looks paler than usual, freckles standing out starkly.

I wish you didn’t have constellations on your cheeks, Taichi, Kenjirou thinks, grasping his best friend’s wrist. Stars are a terrible thing to find beautiful.

“Kenjirou,” Taichi breathes, eyes wide. His breath is shaky, and it takes him a few anguished seconds to finally look him in the eye. “Did we already have a pillow fight?”

Kenjirou stares at him.

Taichi has never looked so scared before. He’s usually so calm, so easily pushed into smiles and bad jokes. His eyes are a gorgeous brown like autumn leaves and warm candles and a hot drink on a cold day. They should not be cold and scared and full of fear.

“Oh,” Kenjirou says softly. “You remember.”

Kenjirou is supposed to be the only one who remembers. He is supposed to bear this burden alone— to find solace in how he was the only one who knew that sort of pain. It is not something that Taichi should know. Kenjirou doesn’t want Taichi to know.

“Did I kill you?”

“No, Taichi,” Kenjirou lies, and he links their fingers together until they are fully intertwined. “Nothing happened.”

He takes a shuddering breath. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Taichi is easy like that. Kenjirou pretends that the way his best friend trembles does not break his heart into pieces. “That’s good.”

Taichi’s chin falls down onto Kenjirou’s shoulder. They hug each other properly for the first time since they first met, silent, and Kenjirou acts like he doesn’t feel the brush of Taichi’s lips against the side of his neck.

He is just checking that it’s okay.

It doesn’t mean anything that Taichi remembers. It doesn’t mean anything that Taichi kisses the spot that killed him.

Kenjirou relaxes in his tight embrace, and he knows that despite everything that has happened today, and despite the conversation that passed between them, he feels safe with his soul cradled in Taichi’s careful hands.

You are not supposed to avoid me so desperately, the kiln tells him once, as he fills the bathtub with hot water. Don’t you feel pain?

Kenjirou dips his fingertips into the water. It’s scalding. “No,” he murmurs. “I am used to pain. I don’t feel it anymore.”

But it makes you feel sad.

“Not really. I ignore it.”

You repress it, the kiln corrects. You push it down and let it build beneath your skin. One day, it will explode out of you, and you will not recover the way you usually do.

Kenjirou watches the steam roll off the surface of the water. He does not dare add soap for bubbles. He prefers it when the water is clear; he likes being able to see how deep it goes.

He is fifteen and it’s his first time away from home. His roommate hasn’t shown up yet, and Kenjirou is taking advantage of the bathroom before the other can.

He lowers himself into the bathtub, splashing his face with water. “I’m not repressing anything. I just don’t care.”

You defy fate.

“I didn’t do anything.”

You do not value your life.

“I know that I’ll come back no matter what.”

What if you don’t? the kiln asks. What if you had your last chance?

Kenjirou is silent. He washes his hair. He breathes completely normally, imagines that his chest isn’t caving in on itself, and gets out of the water.

He is bleeding. Light is dripping from his head, his side, his neck. His brain aches.

“I’m fine,” he says, but the kiln is no longer listening. “I’m fine.”

A knock resounds on the door, followed by a disbelieving, melodious laugh. “Kenjirou?”

“Taichi?”

They turn out to be roommates. Kenjirou feels quite lucky.

The kiln is silent for the first time in years.

Kenjirou is drowning, being hit by a car, and having a stroke all at once. He screams and thrashes in the water that slams into his side, cutting the blood flow off from his brain. He dies over and over again.

He wakes up, a scream caught in his throat.

“Kenjirou?” A whisper.

“Do you remember?” he asks quietly, directing his question to the space above him. It is fitting that Taichi takes the top bunk; he has to be some sort of higher being to impact Kenjirou’s psyche in such a permanent, lovely way. “The pillow fight?”

Taichi shifts in his bed, the sheets rustling. Then the whole frame creaks, and Kenjirou sees a shadow start to descend down the ladder.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Taichi murmurs.

He nods.

Taichi slips into bed with him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Kenjirou leans onto the other boy’s chest, ear pressed to his pulse. He finds comfort in the evidence that Taichi is fine, Taichi is alive, and his heart beats rhythmically within his ribcage.

He is firm and real and alive. Kenjirou breathes easier.

“You were surprised,” Taichi mutters, adjusting the two of them until he is lying comfortably. Kenjirou lays on top of him, clinging pathetically like some sort of koala. “It was like you didn’t expect me to remember.”

“It hadn’t happened yet. You were starting to reach for the cushion.”

“But it did happen. You know it happened.”

“You didn’t kill me.”

“I did,” Taichi says, and the words are so heavy that they tear from his throat like nails. “I killed you.”

“No,” Kenjirou hisses. His eyes squeeze shut. He thinks of Taichi’s heartbeat. “You kept me alive.”

He didn’t want to die in such a silly way— didn’t want to make Taichi feel guilty for the loss of his life when it was supposed to be a joke. They were playing. Taichi was laughing.

Kenjirou wants Taichi to keep laughing— to keep playing— to stay happy without feeling the responsibility for Kenjirou’s death in his mind.

He is not worth anything, but Taichi’s happiness is. And if Taichi somehow has come to care for Kenjirou, then he will do anything to preserve that.

Taichi stopped Kenjirou from becoming a star that time, and had trapped it in his chest instead. Kenjirou had not been crushed.

Even in death, Taichi had handled Kenjirou gently.

He lays his head down, and Taichi’s lips press to his neck once more. He pretends that the star’s heat is the only thing that causes his eyes to burn with tears.

“Stay alive,” Taichi breathes.

“I will,” he replies. “I promise.”

Taichi holds Kenjirou’s soul in soft, freckled hands. He makes Kenjirou believe in everything metaphysical, everything illogical: souls, immortality, love, and perhaps God.

You forgave my sins. You blessed me with everlasting life.

You are something above me, Kenjirou thinks, but he’s okay with that. You are the only thing I hold any belief in.

His sleep is devoid of torment. He dreams of autumn leaves and warm candlelight and the sweet taste of hot chocolate on a winter’s night. He dreams of arms that hold him close and lips that press against his wounds.

He dreams of Taichi.

“Have you ever died before?” Taichi asks one day, helping Kenjirou tape his fingers. “Before— you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you weren’t surprised?”

He hums. “It happens, but then it doesn’t. I always turn out fine and no one remembers because it doesn’t happen.”

Taichi looks confused, but he nods anyway. Kenjirou shifts and places himself onto Taichi’s lap, leaning his face against Taichi’s shoulder.

“I’m trying to tape you up.”

“You’ve already done the ones that matter,” Kenjirou complains, eyebrows knitting together. “I have good pain tolerance.”

Taichi doesn’t look happy, so Kenjirou grabs at his face with irritation.

“Don’t look so miserable.”

“You never want my help.”

“I do,” Kenjirou says, and it feels sincere. “You’ve helped me.”

“Not enough.”

Kenjirou is very close to Taichi’s face, he realises. He can count each individual freckle that spills across his cheeks and nose, every fluttering eyelash that lines his amber eyes. Taichi is pressing his lips together as if physically restraining himself from speaking.

“You’re hurt,” he bites out eventually. “I want to make it up to you.”

“Volleyball is the only thing that hurts my fingers, Taichi. It’s fine.” Kenjirou feels a laugh building in the back of his throat. “You don’t need to make it up to me. You’re not a ball.”

Taichi’s face contorts with something akin to frustration, and Kenjirou blinks.

Hands are gripping his arms, pushing him back. Taichi looks into his eyes and Kenjirou’s heart stutters at the indignation and horror that lies within them.

“I killed you!”

Oh.

“I killed you,” Taichi repeats, his voice cracking. “I watched you die. I watched the smile drop from your face and your body go limp and I held you as you stopped breathing and then everything just— it went back.”

His eyes grow overly bright, tears beginning to collect in the corners. His hands leave Kenjirou’s arms, and Taichi begins to scratch at his own. He looks down, face crumpling.

“It was like none of it had happened,” he says, “like none of it had mattered. We just carried on like the world hadn’t split apart and I hadn’t murdered you.”

“I came back,” Kenjirou begins, but Taichi snaps.

“That doesn’t mean that it never happened! Weren’t you scared? Aren’t you afraid of dying? Can you imagine how I felt, killing you so easily, then seeing you dismiss it like it was nothing?”

“It was nothing!” Kenjirou scowls, folding his arms defensively. “I’ve died before! It never means anything!”

“You had a nightmare about it, though,” Taichi argues. “I bet you have nightmares about it all the time. That means it impacted you and you shouldn’t just— you shouldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. Doesn’t it hurt? Doesn’t it hurt to die?”

“Of course it hurts,” Kenjirou snarls. “That’s why I don’t talk about it. I’m not supposed to be alive, Taichi. I hear the damn kiln calling out to me all the time, beckoning for me to come back so it can turn me into a star, and I hate it. I wish it had killed me properly the first time.”

He regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth.

Taichi’s gaze is empty. Hollow. Tears stream down his freckled cheeks. Stars are made beneath water.

Kenjirou reaches for words that aren’t there. He stammers over a voice that does not want to produce sound. He is suffocating and he is dying and he doesn’t think that he will wake up this time.

“You are important,” Taichi says. “You are precious. I care about you. I love you.”

He stands up. He pulls away. He is a being that will forever be above Kenjirou, out of his reach, and when he tries to bend down to extend his hand, Kenjirou will spite it. Bite it.

“I love you,” Taichi says again, his voice breaking. “I wish you would love yourself too.”

It is not reciprocation that Taichi needs. He does not need Kenjirou to love him back, no matter how much he may desire it. Instead, he wishes that Kenjirou will love himself as Taichi loves him. He wishes for understanding.

Taichi has been suffering under the guilt of a murder that had only happened to the two of them, and it had only been temporary. And yet Kenjirou knows from experience how terrifying the situation truly is— knows that knowing is mortifying, and that remembrance is a burden that Kenjirou has always prayed that he alone shall carry.

He shares this burden with Taichi and has never commented on it. He has never considered how Taichi may feel about it.

They are both intimately aware of Kenjirou’s mortality and the consequences of it. They both have seen how the world rewrites itself around Kenjirou’s death to make it so it never happened.

To Kenjirou, his survival has always been so fundamentally wrong that he has hated it. He is afraid of it. He knows that he is supposed to be a star and that the kiln will make him into one, but he is a coward who fears the pressure that is demanded of it.

Kenjirou hates the idea of reincarnation. He does not want to be a star. He wants to stay himself, because despite it all he likes who he is.

He has a father who watched over him as he played by the river. He has a brother who had cried when he lost his toy, and Kenjirou died to get it back. He has Taichi, who cares for him, who loves him, who holds him and kisses where a grave was almost built out of him.

To Taichi, Kenjirou’s death is something so wrong that it has tormented him for years, regardless of whether it had been permanent or not. Taichi is afraid of losing him.

Kenjirou’s life is not something that can be easily thrown away. Kenjirou’s death is not something that can be easily forgiven.

It weighs harder when he remembers that Taichi seems to find everything easy— he is an easygoing person who does not stress about difficult things. He either finds a compromise or creates one.

Like how he put a star in Kenjirou’s chest.

The star is burning, bleeding, expanding. Kenjirou is gasping for air, legs weak as he tries to stand up, trying to reach for Taichi, but Taichi is upset.

All those years of repressing his feelings has transferred them onto Taichi.

Kenjirou fears that the pressure will kill him. Kenjirou fears that Taichi will fall for the beckon of the kiln. Kenjirou fears that a new star will join the sky.

“Please,” he chokes out, a beg. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t go.”

Taichi does not turn his back on him, although he is sad and somewhat angry and incredibly upset. No; Taichi hugs Kenjirou.

“I love you,” Kenjirou cries, clawing at his back. “I’m sorry. I love you. I didn’t know I hurt you. I want to make it up to you.”

Kenjirou’s fingers are taped together, wrapped by adoring hands.

Taichi’s expression crumbles. “I just want you to understand. I just— I want you to care about yourself, the way I care about you. I don’t know if my care means anything to you but it means everything to me.”

The warmth of Taichi’s love burns bright in Kenjirou’s chest. It is the light that flows through his blood. It is the star that Kenjirou does not fear. It is the representation of everything he finds beautiful— the warmth, the light, and the stars on Taichi’s cheeks.

Kenjirou is not invincible.

Once, he’d been thrown into a river that led to a land of death. But he’d been taken there by love— by a desire to wipe the tears from his little brother’s face. He had emerged seemingly invulnerable, unknowing of the one weakness that had not been exposed to the water.

Taichi’s sadness tears him open, leaving him raw and vulnerable. There is a star in Kenjirou’s chest that pulses and pumps blood through his veins, and it is his heart. It is his care. It is his love.

Kenjirou’s weakness is love.

Kenjirou’s weakness may be Taichi.

“Help me to live,” he whispers, reaching up. Their foreheads press together, Taichi’s breath fanning against Kenjirou’s lips. “Help me to breathe.”

“Will you think it’s worth anything?” Taichi asks.

“I will,” he says. “I will if you do.”

“I do. I always do.”

Taichi closes the gap between their lips and kisses him.

It is a soft kiss— a gentle kiss— and it only lasts a few moments. It is the wax seal on a vow to love Kenjirou throughout it all. It is a promise.

Kenjirou clings to him and doesn’t think that he will ever let go.

I love you, he thinks, and kisses Taichi again, tracing his thumb over the constellations. His heart is bursting, a supernova— a death and a birth all at once.

Maybe Kenjirou was right, and Taichi will one day be reincarnated as a planet. Maybe Taichi was right, Kenjirou will be reincarnated as a moon that orbits him. It does not matter; they are alive now and they need not dwell on what lies beyond. They know that they will be together in every life and every death, for they share the remembrance.

I love you, Taichi says, mouthing it against Kenjirou’s skin. His lips take their usual place at the site of Kenjirou’s undoing, at the artery of his neck. It is an apology, a caress to outweigh the heavy hit from years ago.

“I forgive you,” Kenjirou murmurs against Taichi’s mess of flaming hair. “I never once blamed you.”

“I forgive you too,” Taichi says, “for not valuing yourself. I’m sorry for not making you see it.”

Kenjirou leans his cheek against Taichi’s.

He does not know what this is— whether they are best friends or lovers or some special, third thing. Kenjirou does not mind so long as things stay like this. They are soulmates of some kind and Kenjirou would have it no other way.

The world is silent and yet Kenjirou hears so much.

He does not know what happened, nor why he survived those three deaths. He doesn't know how he went on so silently. He doesn’t know how he managed to ignore the call of the kiln.

He knows, though, that he was never ready to die.

Not when he hadn’t seen the smile on his little brother’s face. Not when he hadn’t met Taichi yet. Not when he hadn’t told Taichi that he loves him, that he forgives him, that nothing has ever been his fault. Not when he hadn’t learned to love himself.

Don’t you feel pain? the kiln asks.

I do, Kenjirou replies. But I think that I can work through it.

Good, it says. That is how all good things begin: belief.