The Trials of Neo City [WINWIN • YUTA]

🖤 40. Arrival of the Birds 🖤

The world spun underneath Yuta's feet as he spotted his lover knelt next to Shotaro, who was dying slowly and holding onto his abdomen desperately. Yuta sprinted towards them and fell to his knees, hands shaking.

Sicheng wondered why exactly Yuta had taken so long to help him haul Shotaro away. He looked at the oldest, then back to the dying boy, who coughed up blood on his jacket and on Yuta's hands as his eyes scanned Shotaro's wound.

"I needed to get them away from him. We have to help him." Yuta replied, as if he'd read Sicheng's mind. He gently propped Shotaro up against a wall inside of what looked to be a desolated studio of some sort.

Shotaro winced and held onto Yuta's arm. "Yuta, I don't think..."

"I can fix this!" Yuta wiped away the tears brimming in his eyes, trying to pull Shotaro's jacket out of the way. He looked at the hole Ten carved in terror. How would he fix this?

Sicheng tried to get Yuta's attention as the oldest boy's mind ran a mile a minute. "Yuta? Yuta! It won't-!"

Yuta held onto Shotaro and pulled the boy close to him, trembling. He looked up at the sky and growled now, yelling out to nobody: "Motherfuckers! You all made a promise to me! Send medicine, send aid, send bandages, anything! I know you hear me, you dirty bas-"

"Yuta!" Sicheng practically pried Yuta off of Shotaro. He looked into Yuta's teary eyes and shook his head softly. "He's not going to make it. They won't send anything in time."

"'Taro..." Yuta's voice broke, turning to caress the youngest boy's face gently before looking at his wound. A stab wound straight through his stomach, Ten's taunts carving a strange hole instead of just the wound. "You're not allowed to die. This isn't how it was supposed to go, how do I..."

A tear fell from Yuta's eye, then another and another. They fell on Shotaro's chest, like raindrops. Shotaro laughed gently, voice like a twinkling bell as he reached his bloodstained hands to Yuta's cheeks, cupping them. His eyes were half-lidded and smile lopsided, littered with a trail of blood.

"Yuta... Winwin... I'm not going to die... I'll just..." Shotaro's voice was meek and hoarse all at once, the strength leaving his body in red pools, so much of it that it was almost black. "I-I'm going to run in the clouds with Sungchan! And with my mother... and..." Shotaro hissed in pain as Yuta lightly grazed his wound, who then retracted his hand immediately. "And one day with you two!"

"What's it like there?" Sicheng asked after a painful silence, wrapping a hand in Shotaro's, hands dry and cracked with his own blood, his life. "In the clouds, I mean. Can you see them yet?"

He didn't even realize it, but tears then fell in pearls from his own face, landing on Shotaro's chest. He leaned his head in and Shotaro hummed, soft and weak sound that initially got stuck in his throat.

"Ah... I think I can. The sunshine is nice... better than this place..." his words were spread thin and far apart now as he heaved every few moments, Yuta holding him closer without words.

"I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to... I tried... we could have won!" Yuta sputtered, holding back ugly sobs. "You could have won!"

Shotaro let out a laugh, a sickening thing accompanied by coughs. "Don't be sorry, Yuta... there's no winning. You die... or you wish you h-had."

Yuta stayed silent and Shotaro sighed, coughing and lying back. "I think I'll... become a bird." He decided, smiling up at the faux sun. Yuta whipped his head around as if Shotaro had grown another head, bewildered.

"You're going to become a what?"

Shotaro smiled, eyes fading. His pupils dilated. "I think I'll become a bird... so that I can fly... and... see you both..." His voice was a whisper, barely audible.

Yuta held onto his hand tightly, watching Shotaro's chest rise and fall slowly, achingly slow.  Sicheng held onto the other hand as the two of them watched.
One, two.

"You'll be a beautiful bird, I think." Yuta tried keeping his voice still, holding back heavy tears, holding back desperate yells. "Promise me you'll visit, Taro. You'll have to visit."

Shotaro smiled and squeezed Yuta's hand, strength fleeting. He nodded and laid back, looking up at the sky.

His words were gone now, he was flying away.

One, two.

Yuta hummed some tune that Sicheng didn't know as Shotaro's hands becoming colder.

One, two.

One, two.

One-

And then Yuta felt it. Shotaro was gone, just like that. His chest stopped, his eyes were empty, there was nothing left apart from the ghost of a smile on his face and along his cheeks.

That day, Yuta wept.

No, that day Yuta screamed. Every fiber in his body, with every breath and every cell, Yuta doubled over and yelled, a feral noise from his throat and his soul as if his own life were over.

And unbeknownst to Sicheng, it might as well have been.