He struggled endlessly beneath him.

Squid pulls the rope taut around butch’s neck. The thin layer of thread cut into his palms, but no matter how painful it felt he couldn’t let his grip lossen.

butch’s choking breaths filled the silence of the arena, forcing Squid into reality that he was no longer perched on top of a tree playing mindlessly with the bright orange yo-yo. Instead he has his yo-yo knotted around the larger boy's neck, hoping that the cannon would go off, and Squid would have his freedom.

But it didn’t, instead, butch pushed against his ribs with the edge of his elbow, and swung his body in all directions, but Squid had wrapped his long dangly legs around his waist, a terrible position to be in. Because the scabs on his knees rub against the harsh material of his pants, reopening his wounds. He could feel every bruise throb, and every cut bleed.

Sweat trickled down his face, and it still wasn’t enough.

With a grunt, butch pushed himself onto his knees, grabbing Squid's legs, he forced what little strength he had left to ram into a tree behind them.

Squid's breath left him in a silent scream, the tree's rough bark stabbing into his thin shirt, and despite the shock. Squid still heard it, a snap, drill it’s way through his ringing ears.

his hands, red and bleeding, but it wasn’t the blood that shook him–it was the pieces of rope, and the frail orange pieces smashed into the ground.

He heard a shift of leaves, and looked away from his broken yo-yo, to see butch on his hands and knees, coughing and sputtering out spit, his once purpling face slowly regaining its color.

“Bastard.” Butch said, holding his sore throat.

They both looked at each other, gasping for air. Squid can see it in his eyes. How much he wanted to kill him, hurt him, and without a weapon of his own anymore he knew butch would get what he wanted.

And then that gaze shifted, Squid followed his gaze.

Both weren’t staring at each other anymore. Instead

their gaze trained on the knife, the one that stood closer to him. Squid knew that that’s butch’s knife, because unlike squid, who sponsors had only given him a silly yo-yo. Butch’s sponsors had given him an actual weapon.

A weapon that got knocked out of his hand the moment Squid attacked him.

Butch shifted again, towards the knife, and without saying anything they both lurched to it.

Squid’s hand touched the handle first, his grip was loose, but when he felt a hand grab his shoulder, he tightened it and pulled it towards him.

With a grunt Squid turned onto his back, unknownly exposing his neck to butch. Cold hands wrap around his neck, squeezing out every puff of air in his lungs.

They’re both facing each other, but the edges of his vision start to darken and blur in a mess of colors he can’t apprehend.

Butch doesn’t see it coming, and neither does Squid. In one last act of desperation squid raises the knife towards the only part of butch he can reach.

His neck.

Butch makes a sound, that squid can only register it as surprised when he stabbed him in the neck. Maybe he didn’t see Squid grab the knife? Or maybe that was just the sound someone made when dying.

Both of their cries were muffled by the sound of the cannon.