"I think it were the vikings."
"Hm?"
Nozomu looks up at Mikoto, blowing his red, burning nose. His eyes are bloodshot, the skin of his cheeks red and stinging from the time he spent crying.
"The burial rite you were talking about that one time ... Lying the body into a boat and letting it drift down a river, into the open sea." Mikoto raises his glass and stares at the bronze liquid inside, ponders for a moment, then takes a sip. He is barely able to conceal his scowl at the burning sensation that floods his throat, but then again it's not like he has to hide such a thing in front of his brother. Any vanity is lost between them.
Nozomu stays silent, breathes in and out deeply, trying to regain his composure.
"Do you want some lotion? Your skin looks like it's going to peel off." Mikoto asks sincerely, but the shake of the other's head doesn't come as a surprise. Nozomu never wants to look particularly appealing - Mikoto knows Nozomu doesn't consider himself handsome. Which is a pity, in his opinion. His fair, white skin and his already weak immune system suffer from the bad food, the insomnia and the constant neglect of his own body.
"However ..." Mikoto begins and pushes himself off the chair, noticing his vision is spinning slightly. He has been sitting too long, and drinking too much, he concludes with a mental growl. He walks over to the couch Nozomu is sitting on, where he has been sitting for a few hours now, pouring his heart out to Mikoto, sometimes trailing off, sometimes talking as if he wasn't aware of his brother even being in the same room as him. "I doubt such a burial would be possible nowadays."
And with that he sits down next to Nozomu, silently offering.
Nozomu turns to gaze at him with tired eyes; "Probably."
And Mikoto hold his gaze easily - the alcohol helps him with that. Nozomu's eyes flicker from Mikoto's face over his body swiftly, and the proposal that Mikoto is doubtlessly making hangs in the air right between them, growing fatter, and, with each second, making Nozomu increasingly more uncomfortable. So he decides to simply do it, and leans down to let his head rest on his brother's lap. He is grateful when he feels Mikoto's hand almost instantly tangle in his black strands.
"People would probably freak out and call the police if they saw a boat with a corpse inside sailing down the river." Nozomu murmurs, and tries to breathe in the smell of Mikoto's trousers, only to realize that they, like everything Mikoto wears and owns, smell of nothing - only of the material they are made of, as if a ghost without body scent or sweat was wearing them. Not even this Nozomu can grasp with his hand, not even this part of his brother is tangible to him.
They stay silent, because what is there to talk about? Their stances towards so many things are fundamentally different, making it seem absurd that they are siblings - Mikoto, who doesn't even believe that something like the human soul exists, that a person's ego is merely a complex, but fragile result of brain acitivity that vanishes as soon as the brain dies and Nozomu, who believes firmly that the miserable life he is leading is the divine punishment for a sinful life he lead in a previous decade ("Then your current way of living won't give you a good perspective for your future life, will it?" Mikoto had remarked dryly once.). Who believes that his name did determine what kind of human being he would become from the day of his birth, that cursed day on which he entered this world that offered him nothing but despair. Mikoto, on the other hand, who justifies his actions with the impossibility that the incestuous acts between him and his brother could spawn genetically malfunctioning offspring.
And yet the moment Mikoto gazes into his brother's face he spots the similarities instantly - the same black hair that is slightly more unruly than his own, the same green eyes with fine, black eyebrows that constantly seem to be frowning.
And yet there always seems to be something else still hidden deep within Nozomu, something that he, as an doctor, wants to reach out for and bring it to the surface, even if that means tearing him open and penetrating his body with an imaginary scalpel. Something trembling, endearing, alive. The mundane differencies between them are known to him, they are obvious to anyone who knows the two of them well enough.
Only when they are intimate, Mikoto can take a peek into his brother and see what is normally hidden from sight. He can watch Nozomu staring at the starry night sky from his balcony, his hair ruffled by a mild breeze, and he knows that his brother is probably paying more attention to the wind that is blowing, the wind that he longs to throw his body into, than to the beautiful landscape of the skyscrapers and the thousands of bright lights.
But it is so much more endearing to push Nozomu's legs apart, to open his body, and penetrate that outer layer of him with practiced ease and drive him against the balustrade that he is feverishly clinging to, in both panic and lust. Nozomu is going to bruise and ache after this, but for the moment he seems captivated with staring into the abyss in front of him, (how many meters exactly Mikoto doesn't know) his body rearing up against the handrail, towards the abyss, longing to fall, and shrinking back all the same, into Mikoto's steadying embrace.
This is the side of Nozomu Mikoto longs to see; torn between Eros and Thanatos, the drive to live and to die, struggling against each other, mingling, until Nozomu himself is unable to tell which one is winning. Instead, they entertwine, loop, create a symphony of desire and despair that leaves Nozomu gasping for air, his maddening organ hurting with arousal. He cries out for Mikoto, God, then Mikoto again, staring into what could become his own demise, and spills his body into it, gives this part of himself to the world under him, soiling and baptizing it.
His experience as a doctor is completed by his experience as his brother's lover; as the latter, he sees the unimagineable part of his brother that is accessible to him exclusively. Egomanically, Mikoto is absolutely confident that he will forever remain the only person in the world who is able to truly cherish his brother this way.
As Mikoto is exhausted and sated himself, he pulls Nozomu's shaking hands back from the handrail and sits down on the concrete ground of the balcony, half-naked, sweaty and breathless. Nozomu is breathing hard, exhausted beyond his capacities from the thrill of it all. He has been pushed almost too far, so Mikoto mumbles soothing words into his ear and pulls him close. Nozomu accepts weakly and buries his cold and yet flushing face in Mikoto's chest. This part of him, too, is only visible to Mikoto, who has satisfied his curiosity by opening Nozomu and rummaging in his brother's body and heart.
For now, it's time for Nozomu to heal, to lick his newly inflicted and welcome wounds.
"I thank you." Nozomu whispers, voice cracking with exhaustion.
"I know." Mikoto answers, because he does. It is simple, and makes perfect sense to both of them.
The traffic far below them continues its quiet hissing, its honking and rolling, unimpressed by their performance.
Only the wind envelops them like a thin blanket.
They aren't cold yet.