Chapter Text
"So how much do you hate it?" Miyuki asks, nodding toward the end of Tanba's bed.
Tanba rolls his eyes from where he's propped up against too many pillows, and gingerly shrugs his shoulders. He's been out of action for a couple weeks at that point, and his doctors are very adamantly insisting that he rest. Miyuki is impressed that Tanba is holding to it; like hell he'd be able to sit around doing nothing for that long.
"It isn't that bad," Tanba says.
Miyuki doesn't remotely believe him. "Yeah, if you say so. Has anyone else come by? Brought you flowers? Get well cards? Or told you anything about what's going on back with Seidou?"
He doesn't have to ask. There's no sign of tokens or well-wishes anywhere around his small, spartan bedroom, and though Tanba is the type of man to inspire loyalty and trust, he hasn't often been the recipient of that sort of fawning adoration from his subordinates. They aren't the type to visit him at home.
"I thought that was what you were here for," Tanba says, with the slimmest sliver of a smile. "What have I missed, Miyuki."
Miyuki shrugs, and grins back at him. He's tempted to hold his information over Tanba's head a little, make him ask for it, but it feels like especially poor sport when he's dealing with an invalid. "We're going to war with Yakushi."
"Of course," Tanba says. "We had to retaliate, after their disrespect."
"We've made an alliance with Inashiro," Miyuki adds.
That gets more of a reaction out of Tanba. He startles, eyes flicking hard toward Miyuki, then glancing searchingly down at his hands, before rising once again to stare Miyuki disbelievingly in the face. "Who decided on that? Who from Inashiro agreed to that."
"I did," Miyuki says, smugly. "It wasn't even that hard."
"An alliance with Inashiro..." Tanba says softly to himself. He's looking down again, turning the information over. "Things are changing."
"Yeah," Miyuki agrees. "It's gonna be a new age, for Seidou."
For a minute they're both quiet, Miyuki sitting forward in the chair he'd drawn up close to Tanba's bed, Tanba leaning back against the pillows but staring off as if looking at something very far away. Miyuki had thought it might feel strange, being back in Tanba's little apartment after so many years, but it isn't. Everything is more or less the same as he remembers and its as if no time at all has passed.
It does leave him increasingly aware that things will change, that perhaps Tanba can sit in the static bubble he's carved out for himself, but Seidou will keep moving forward whether he chooses it or not.
"Do you regret it?" Miyuki asks. "That you aren't going to be there while shit goes down?"
"I haven't actually gone anywhere," Tanba says. "I may not see everything that's happening for myself but I will always be part of Seidou. The men I have trained will act as they do in a fight, in this war, because we worked together. Seidou will not be able to move on without me, not right away."
"Yeah, I guess," Miyuki says. "Doesn't mean it won't be a whole different place when you get back. You'd better hurry up and get well quick, otherwise we will do our damnedest to leave you behind."
"Oh yeah?" Tanba asks, actually smiling. "How are you going to do that?"
Miyuki shrugs, grinning back at him in cheerful challenge. "I've made a new partnership. Furuya is going to back me up."
"Furuya?" Tanba repeats. "He's a good kid. I thought you turned him loose."
"Nah," Miyuki says. "After that last fight, I don't think he's going anywhere. I tried to — I let him work with you for a while, didn't I? But we work pretty well together. He listens to me, way better than he does to anybody else, anyway. We're gonna do great stuff for Seidou."
Tanba simply accepts it, nodding his head in agreement with the sense of Miyuki's words. Miyuki can't help feeling a little bit put out.
"Kataoka wants to replace you," he points out, changing subjects. "He said as much, when he called all the lieutenants in to the house. He said it was just going to be temporary, while you get better. But if you aren't careful, someone really is gonna pass you by."
Tanba frowns, expression darkening. "I can only heal as quickly as my body will let me. If it takes too long, and Kataoka finds too capable a replacement for me, I won't argue for my position back."
"I'm going to suggest Furuya," Miyuki says. "Your second has been doing it, since before Kataoka said anything. But he isn't really any good. So I'm going to put Furuya's name in."
The shock on Tanba's face is plain. Miyuki feels a little bit smug.
"You think he'll be good for it?" Tanba asks.
"I don't know," Miyuki admits. "I know he'll work harder than just about anybody. I'm probably gonna have to make him stop working so much, if he steps up. But you know, I think he'll inspire the same kinda loyalty you do. He's someone who can stand proud, so other people will look up to him."
Miyuki wants to be rubbing it in Tanba's face, that he won't be able to come back to his old job with Seidou, that the person taking his place is someone Miyuki has hand-picked, who is loyal to him above anyone else. He wants to push at Tanba because this is what they do — he pushes, and teases, and Tanba pushes passively back, as inviolable as a wall. This should have been a decisive victory in the little dance they do. It feels surprisingly hollow.
"Sounds like he'll be good for it," Tanba finally says, after a significant pause. "If you help him."
"I plan to," Miyuki agrees.
They fall silent again. Miyuki goes over in his head whether he has anything else to say to Tanba, any more news to share. He needs the excuse, a reason to stick around in the familiar little apartment that he used to know quite well. He remembers where Tanba's liquor cabinet is, remembers drinking from its contents late into the night, while talking about their future plans and all the things they were going to accomplish.
"What are you going to do," Miyuki starts to say. "When you come back? It's not like you won't, you're too stubborn to stay down. But I'm not going to let you do what you used to."
Tanba takes it in stride, admitting, "I don't know. I'll figure it out when I get there."
Miyuki laughs, a drier chuckle than anything meant to be mirthful. He's made that decision before, himself. He hurt a lot more people, when he first joined up with Seidou. And he'd been good at it, with his need to prove just how talented and resourceful and valuable he was. Now he runs books, looks after numbers. The fact that he's been in two bad fights in only a month is an anomaly of his current life.
"Isn't that what we always do?" Miyuki asks, almost wistful.
Tanba shrugs. "This is the life we married ourselves to. We can't do anything else."
"I can't get rid of you, either," Miyuki laments, leaning back in his chair as if in defeat.
"Were you really trying to?" Tanba asks, looking slantwise at him, eyes sharp with disbelief.
"I'm taking your job away from you," Miyuki laughs, like the answer should be obvious. "How much harder do I have to try?"
"Harder than that," Tanba says. "I'll still be a lieutenant. Injuring myself won't lose me that much. You'll still be working with me, just in some other capacity."
"Guess I don't wanna get rid of you that bad," Miyuki says. "We're just gonna be two old men, sitting around weighing in on this stuff even when the next generation takes over. God, can you imagine getting to live that long? Getting to see what happens with Seidou when we aren't the ones making it happen..."
Tanba's expression looks a little too soft, a little too sympathetic. Miyuki ignores it. He hadn't meant to get sentimental.
"Furuya still has that gun of yours," he says, changing the subject.
"You glad I gave it to him yet?" Tanba asks. From the way he says it, Miyuki knows, he knows Tanba did it with full knowledge of how much Miyuki would hate knowing that weapon was in Furuya's hands.
He shrugs, ill at ease. "If you mean, am I glad he kept me from getting my throat slit, sure. I'm not glad he killed two people. He's too good at it."
Tanba chuckles. "You sound jealous."
Miyuki scoffs at that, trying — and only somewhat failing — to laugh it off. "I don't want to be able to do what he did. I just want you to take your damn gun back, and make sure that if any police come sniffing around for a murderer, the weapon that did it won't be anywhere to be found."
"Furuya did visit me, once," Tanba says, surprising Miyuki.
"Did he?" Miyuki asks, trying not to sound too interested.
"He didn't know who else to ask about firearms," Tanba says. "He didn't want to get rid of the one he has until I could find him another one."
Miyuki makes an exasperated noise, and rolls his eyes up toward the ceiling. Furuya is impossible. Tanba is impossible. He has no grounds to be frustrated about it because if he's very honest, he's the exact same way.
"You picked your partner well," Tanba tells him, as if in consolation. "He'll shoot anyone who opposes you."
"Don't remind me," Miyuki says.
Tanba laughs, and despite himself, Miyuki finds that he's laughing along with him. He's not going to learn to love the idea of a gun any time soon, but Tanba is right — Miyuki cannot be mad that Tanba taught Furuya to shoot, not any longer. He is too good at it. And Miyuki plans to utilize every last thing at which Furuya excels.
"Thank you for coming," Tanba finally says, when their laughter dies off and quiet has once again seeped into the room.
"Don't mention it," Miyuki says immediately. "Had to keep you in the loop, since we're stuck with each other."
"It could be worse," Tanba says.
"Yeah," Miyuki agrees. "But between me and the kid, we're gonna make things a lot better."
