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That stupid cologne. It was always the first thing Haru smelled when he woke up, stuffing up his nose with that tangy scent of weeping cedar trees and something like a lit cigar in a vanilla-pod wrapper. It was strong enough that he had to wonder whether Daisuke had instructed the staff to pour it into the cleaning supplies. Despite the eight-figure price-tag on just one bottle (yes, he regretted asking) he knew the man could definitely afford to. The vapours carouseled through the snort rolling at the back of his nasal passage.
‘Something wrong?’ came a low rumble from the chest he’d tucked his head against the night before and Haru lamely craned his neck back to meet familiar eyes, immediately getting caught once again in their ineffability. Blue; green; grey: Daisuke Kambe hoarded colours as unintentionally as his accounts hoarded money, no matter how much of it he threw around like pocket lint. More frustrating still, he made those colours richer: realer, that is. They were all at once spoiled and also sparked into life by the smugness he held on his face now.
Haru wrinkled his nose. ‘You smell,’ he murmured, still muzzy with sleep and far too petulant for a thirty-year-old man.
‘No, I don’t,’ Daisuke replied, unmoved, and because Haru had nothing to say to refute that, he merely mumbled for the other man to shut up and tucked his head back under his chin, squeezing him tighter to quell the flow of warmth leaking from his chest. As it turned out, it only further spread the warmth between them.
Just as he felt he might have been drifting off again, fingers fell into his hair, teasing lazy spirals across his scalp and gently tugging at the knots he’d acquired overnight.
‘I do have a comb, you know,’ he grumbled and Daisuke’s chest stuttered with amusement.
‘I can stop?’ he offered, the absolute bastard.
Haru huffed but said nothing more.
He was being silly, he knew. Six weeks into their relationship and he was still acting like some teenaged tsundere who couldn’t figure out what he actually wanted; but he did know what he wanted. This was what he wanted: everything right here. He wanted that nauseating cologne and the fingers combing through his hair. He wanted ineffable eyes and smirks that burst dams in his chest. He wanted Daisuke Kambe; Daisuke. He wanted every last bit of him, even the bits that made him want to tear his hair out.
He shifted to plant a kiss against one porcelain collarbone; or maybe wax was a better descriptor, because the man never shatters under the attention but rather melts. Daisuke pours over him, tugging him beneath rippling limbs and it’s Haru’s turn to laugh.
‘You’re gonna suffocate me.’
‘Good. Then you won’t have to work.’
‘There are easier, less fatal ways to get a day off, you know.’
‘And when have you ever taken them?’
Touché.
They laid there amongst the cotton and silk, sunlight rising slowly through the crack in the curtains and over their skin until rosy seconds morphed into pilfered minutes and Haru knew it was time to get up. He began to disentangle himself from his dead-weight of a partner, and Daisuke’s face began to twitch with a frown.
‘I’ll pay you your salary for today if you stay,’ he mumbled, dark brows pulling low over eyes still squeezed shut.
Haru rolled his eyes, finally managing to extract himself and pointedly ignoring the chill from the loss of warm limbs. Daisuke often made such comments, but they didn’t mean anything. He knew by now that Haru couldn’t be bought, especially when it came down to matters of duty; Kamei was always commenting (in an unnecessarily exasperated tone at that) that nothing short of an army could get between Haru and his work. Haru thought his colleague was underestimating him.
‘What am I, your escort?’ he said around a yawn, popping the joints in his back and running a hand through his hair where the ghost of primly filed nails still lingered. ‘Get your pampered ass out of bed and let’s find us some coffee.’
Daisuke looked up at him, disappointed and disenchanted, half-sprawled on his stomach from reaching out towards his retreating partner and head sinking into a down pillow. ‘I could easily order coffee up to the room,’ he attempted feebly.
Haru crawled partially back onto the mattress and bent forward to brush the hair – it was so goddamn soft when it was ungelled – out of his boyfriend’s eyes, lip curling as mischief laced together his response.
‘Well, then you’d be drinking coffee alone, wouldn’t you?’
Daisuke’s brows ticked to ten to two and Haru’s amusement only increased, but finally, he let out a put-upon sigh and rolled out from the other side of the bed, pausing only to put on his earring and dressing-gown before sweeping around the ridiculously large bed-frame and snatching up Haru’s hand at the other side.
Haru grinned triumphantly as his boyfriend pulled him from the mattress and towards the door. In fact, so pleased was he that he didn’t even take a crack at Daisuke’s unbolstered height.
Yeah. Everything he wanted; it was right here.
There was something filling his nose, and it wasn’t Daisuke’s god-forsaken cologne.
His alarm was going off somewhere nearby, a steady beep, beep, beep pulling him from his halcyon dreams and screaming at him to wake up! But that feeling in his nose; it was scratchy and invasive and he needed it gone right now.
His arm seemed to move on a delay, fingers twitching sluggishly before lifting from the (soft, so soft) sheets and the rest of the limb coming up slowly and heavily enough that he almost gave up halfway through; it was like swinging a bowling ball and, sure enough, his hand struck his nose a few seconds later, leaving it ringing like a woollen telephone. His fingers finally hooked around something plastic and began to tug.
‘Stop that,’ came a familiar rumble, a whisper on the wind in his ear, and fingers closed around his own, guiding them down to rest in the hollow beneath his ribs, at the border of what his instincts told him was forbidden territory and Do Not Touch.
Something was wrong: a tightness in that grasp that wasn’t usually there; a stutter in the thumb that failed to be delicate as it traced back and forth over the peak of his knuckle; a frayed desperation in the voice, punctuated by a sigh like a balloon losing the last of its air.
‘Daisk’,’ he tried and the thumb paused, but there was cotton in his ears and that damn alarm was still going off. He peeled open his eyes, realising that he’d been expecting dim light and gilded marble walls, or perhaps even the muted beige of his own apartment; instead, he was assaulted by the garish white of what felt like the headlights of every car he’d ever been in.
‘Haru,’ Daisuke uttered, quiet enough that it might disappear unnoticed if no one were there to latch on to it.
Haru hummed in affirmation and lolled his head in the direction of his partner, his eyes roaming the room without taking anything in. ‘I’m up,’ he said, as if Daisuke were merely trying to rouse him from a nap. He could tell from the look on his face that that wasn’t it.
Daisuke’s hair was a mess, more strands than usual hanging loosely around his forehead, like he’d run a gelled hand through it and then called it a day without looking in a mirror. The strands brushed his brows which sat higher on his face than usual, furrowed, yet hovering cautiously over eyes which gleamed with intensity, two polished stones of alexandrite, dripping purple-green bruises into the creases below them.
His hands tightened around Haru’s – he’d taken the left one hostage too at some point, possibly before Haru had awoken – and leaned forward, something else in his stare that would have been alien to Haru had he not recognised it from the first time Daisuke had shyly bumped their knuckles together, silently requesting to hold his hand.
‘You’re awake this time?’
Hopeful. Daisuke was hopeful.
Haru frowned. ‘I wasn’ awake before?’ He distantly realised he was making no sense, but everything was sort of fuzzy, like touching (and hearing and seeing) everything through thick wool gloves. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he wouldn’t be able to until that damn alarm-clock shut the Hell up.
His boyfriend let out another sigh, brows and shoulders slumping in what seemed to be relief, and Haru’s frown deepened. Daisuke didn’t slump. He also didn’t usually go out wearing anything that hadn’t had at least six zeros on the price-tag, but at the moment, he was clad in jeans and swallowed by the jade cable-knit jumper Haru had bought him in the office Secret Santa. Haru was the only person who had ever worn it before now; he figured someone might as well get some use out of it since his boyfriend insisted on being such a snob. It was probably the only thing in Daisuke’s wardrobe that had ever been worn even twice.
Haru’s gaze danced over the jumper, over oil-slick hair leaking its colours into the translucent skin under his eyes. He was struggling to make connections but even the tangled twine stretching across the board in his mind was screaming at him in bright red.
‘Y’look like Hell,’ he said, nausea rising to lodge in the space between his heart and lungs. ‘’M talking a million yen at most.’
Daisuke didn’t say anything. Didn’t even smile. He looked over at their clasped hands, rubbed his thumb over Haru’s knuckle again, expression dark and shimmering like wet paint ready to drip from the canvas before it could set. Haru needed him to come closer, needed to run his hands through it all until the subject, whatever it was – grandmother, it’s usually his grandmother – was smeared into oblivion. Something was stopping him from sitting up though, a distant warning-sign flashing crimson in the back of his mind and keeping him stuck to his pillow. A down pillow.
‘I bought the hospital.’
Haru blinked slowly. He looked at the chair Daisuke sat in (white leather with a high back); looked at the sheets on his bed (Egyptian cotton, no doubt); heard the nagging beep of the alarm-clock (oh, that’s a heart-monitor).
Oh. Hospital. They were in a hospital.
And Daisuke had bought it.
‘Why?’ he asked, unable to keep the disapproval from his tone.
His partner’s eyes flashed towards his for a moment before settling back on their hands. His face crumpled with something Haru was still too far away to decipher.
‘There wasn’t anything else I could do,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t know what to…’ His hands tightened around Haru’s and he took a breath, in and out, harsh and trembling. ‘It didn’t make a difference anyway,’ he spat.
Pure muscle memory had Haru squeezing him back; then, after the pregnant pause of a brain catching up to a train long-gone from the station, he tugged on his partner’s hands, causing Daisuke to cock his head and stare in confusion until he finally got the message and scooted his chair closer. The action pulled on something in Haru’s abdomen, and those warning-signs began to flash brighter again, drawing a grunt from between his teeth.
‘Are you in pain?’ breathed Daisuke sharply, jerking to his feet, hands hovering uselessly. ‘Can I get a nurse?’
Haru huffed and shook his head, but it was more in exasperation than refusal. ‘Shuddup and get over here.’ He gave Daisuke a weak shove to get him to sit back in the chair, then clumsily grabbed the closest hand and dragged it up to rest just above the curve of his hairline.
Daisuke looked so helpless for a moment, eyes begging for instruction, and Haru had to take a deep breath to counter the swelling crowding up against his lungs. He nudged his fingertips against the length of Daisuke’s fingers until his partner finally caught on and began threading the strands of hair; hesitantly at first, then more confidently when Haru hummed his dazed approval.
He dropped his own hand and turned his head into Daisuke’s palm, closing his eyes and enjoying the warmth and the break from the harsh lights. ‘That’s what I needed,’ he sighed, pleased when a couple of seconds later their fingers laced together again over the sheets.
He couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, sinking into bliss as Daisuke swept the hair out of his eyes, repeating the motion over and over as it kept drooping back into place.
‘I was dreaming,’ he murmured after who knows how long, letting the words lazing over his tongue jiggle loose.
‘What were you dreaming about?’ Daisuke said, with that honest curiosity Haru adored. He hummed again as the heel of Daisuke’s palm brushed his temple once more.
‘This.’
Daisuke paused. ‘This?’ he parroted.
Haru nodded, feeling the room sway even from behind his eyelids. ‘W’s combing your hair back. Wanted coffee. You w’re being stubborn.’
Daisuke was stroking his knuckle again: the one above his thumb this time since it was the only one he could reach with their fingers so firmly interlocked. ‘That wasn’t a dream; it happened last week. You were the one being stubborn, as always.’
‘Bast’rd,’ he muttered in a whoosh of air and Daisuke let out a deep, rich sound that, though a little threadier than usual, hugged Haru’s ears and settled like pop-rocks in his chest. ‘Love that sound,’ he exhaled.
Lips pressed against his temple. ‘Go back to sleep.’
Haru figured he’d give in to him, just this once.
The door inched open without a sound, and Suzue half-entered the room before pausing at the threshold, caught between the lively clamour of the hospital corridor and the unexpected serenity of Katou’s private room. On her last visit, the air had been rippling with the restless anxiety and desperation that rolled off her cousin in waves, even during the few short hours he’d found sleep; now, it was beginning to settle. She could feel it from the moment she laid eyes on the two men, fingers growing over one another’s and shoulders gently pulsing with easier breaths than had been taken in almost a week.
Daisuke had laid himself in a truly horrific position: one socked foot resting on the mattress next to Katou’s covered knee, while the other resided on the floor; the chair where his pelvis remained was pulled close to the bedside so that his upper torso and shoulder laid close to his lover’s and his forehead settled just grazing the other’s at the edge of the pillow.
She winced internally at the thought of the pain he would undoubtedly experience upon waking, but she didn’t have the heart to rouse him yet. Suzue wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her cousin looking so undignified, but she’d also never seen him look so distraught as he had over the last several days; even after his parents’ deaths, he’d remained stony-faced as a war-veteran many times his fragile age. It was for that reason that she’d also never seen him so happy as he had been since he’d fallen in with Katou Haru.
The man had helped him solve the mystery of his parents’ demise, but that wasn’t even the most of it. Katou never expected anything from Daisuke (other than trouble, of course) and yet he always made room for him in his world, little as it was. Daisuke had found a way to slot into the MCPT even after he’d achieved his initial goals in joining the police, and that was largely thanks to the inspector who, despite his apparently frequent complaints, never once let Daisuke drift too far from the real world, as was unfortunately easy to do when one possessed such unworldly amounts of money. In turn, Daisuke had been working on pulling Katou out from under that anchor that kept him in the office until the early hours; that made him sacrifice himself for the sake of saving a world that often didn’t want to be saved. It was in the middle that they found each other, their hands linking in the zero-gravity zone and saving one from being crushed into the dust, and the other from careening away into the inferno of a distant star.
Suzue had no doubt it was love, even if they had yet to admit it themselves.
She resolved to task herself with finding a half-decent cup of coffee which, even despite Daisuke’s recent purchase of the property, should prove to be a rather time-consuming venture; he deserved to rest for now, even if he’d be paying for his posture later.
Perhaps by the time she returned, she would be able to thank Inspector Katou herself for being stubborn enough to never let go.
Daisuke wasn’t used to dealing with… emotions. Experience had taught him that it was more prudent to relegate any feelings that might be considered distracting to that dark corner at the back of his mind in favour of getting whatever needed to be done, done. In this way, in any time of crisis, he hovered constantly just below the surface of devastation, encased in a misty-blue calm that made everything just fuzzy enough around the edges that he could continue on fighting against the roaring stream of fate. Not once had he allowed himself to break the surface; to take even one clear and burning breath.
That had changed with Haru.
His feelings for Haru demanded attention. When they’d first appeared, they’d crept over him like vines, almost without him noticing. He’d trimmed them back every time but they returned in force, budding and blooming before he could attempt to drown them; before long, he was draped in wisteria like an old English cottage. He was surprised Haru couldn’t smell it on him, but then again, he was always rather more preoccupied by Daisuke’s supposedly detestable cologne.
He had assumed at the time that the reason he was struggling to quell such feelings was because they were overwhelmingly positive: though they came with a certain ache that left him feeling breathless at times, they also left him feeling warm in a way which he could only compare to that which his cousin’s unending generosity provoked; except this was different: wilder and more insistent; shamefully needy; and, when validated, heart-wrenchingly sweet.
Recent events had taught him that his assumptions were incorrect: it was not a steadily growing euphoria which had pulled him to the surface to take those aching gasps, but simply Haru. Haru who had pulled him into his orbit with little hope of getting free again. Haru whom Daisuke had almost lost not one week ago. Haru whose blood had painted his hands and seeped into his calm, cool blue until he was burning alive in a sea of crimson and he had no choice but to thrash back into open air before he drowned.
Wisteria curled around his neck. He was at the surface but he still couldn’t breathe.
He thought he could handle it, that he’d have to; but this wasn’t like his mother’s death or his grandmother’s betrayal: there was nowhere to direct the anger he was feeling, nor the anguish that pooled in the bottom of every cell like an ice-cube that could lose its shape but not its substance. There was no one to blame for what happened: it was truly, without stepping outside the bounds of reason, unavoidable; Daisuke had replayed the event in his head, had analysed and cross-referenced every detail, enough times to be unequivocally, frustratingly sure of this fact.
Furthermore, Haru was okay. He was no longer in any danger, provided he restrict his activity for a while, and recovering more rapidly than expected considering the poor state he kept his body in with all his late nights and non-meals. He really was going to be completely, miraculously, okay.
So, why wasn’t Daisuke?
The threat was gone, the worst was over… so, why did Daisuke still feel like he was kneeling on that concrete, trying to hold together everything in his life that had so suddenly fallen apart? Why would his chest not stop tightening like four walls closing in around his heart? Why would his eyes not stop prickling, and his breath not stop catching at random points in the day?
The only time he felt at all safe from it all was when Haru was laughing with him, calling him names and prodding him tenderly with a half-hearted scowl, but even those moments were tainted by something sour growing black and sticky into the crevices of his heart; and Haru was more asleep than awake at the moment which, additionally, left Daisuke far too often to his own vices: namely, wallowing in his own anxiety-induced fantasies.
Haru had probably been right to kick him out.
He hadn’t left the hospital room for almost seven days. Being owner of the building meant he’d gotten away with sleeping there (what little he could), with hastily showering in the adjoining bathroom, with Suzue bringing his clothes… Stepping outside felt like popping a bubble, and while it felt good to escape the flowerbed of his festering anxieties, it was also terrifying to let his partner out of his sight after so long standing vigil over him.
He couldn’t help the irrational fear that he would suddenly blink awake and discover he’d only imagined himself a happy-ending; silly really, when his thoughts had never offered him such comfort so far, but telling fact from fiction was a much more difficult task when the last few months had condensed themselves into the happy prelude to a Shakespearean tragedy the moment that Haru’s body had hit the concrete.
Ultimately, he hadn’t been given a choice in the matter: once Haru found out about his recent habits (while loyal, almost to a fault, Suzue knew how to get her own way when she thought it necessary) he’d revoked all rights to ‘boyfriend privileges’ until Daisuke promised to go home to sleep in his own bed and eat a proper meal. The only reason he’d managed to fulfil either request was because Haru had passed out mere moments after the deal was struck and that usually meant he’d be out for the next few hours, ergo, unable to get himself into too much trouble.
(Haru would have had Daisuke remember that he was a ‘grown-ass man’, older than Daisuke even, but past experience should have been enough evidence to indicate how spectacularly age failed to correlate with maturity when it came to the inspector’s habits.)
Moreover, he’d hear from HEUSC if anything went wrong. It would be fine.
It should be fine.
…
He'd been absent for a grand total of three hours.
(He may have broken several traffic laws and near choked on his filet mignon in order to achieve such a short absence, but Haru needn’t know that.)
(He almost choked on his own heart too when he re-entered the hospital room.)
‘What are you doing?’ Daisuke thundered in astonishment, darting forward to catch his boyfriend under the arms before his pale, trembling knees could hit the lino. Haru had a white-knuckled grip on the IV stand which was currently in the process of running away from him, as walking sticks with wheels were wont to do.
Haru didn’t so much as flinch at the admonishment, although his face held enough tension in its grimace that perhaps the slightest further muscle twitch would be impossible. ‘I need to get to my laptop,’ he gritted out, lifting a shaky hand from Daisuke’s shoulder and pointing to the opposite corner of the room. There, his work bag sagged pitifully amongst the meagre pile of the couple’s belongings which hadn’t been deemed irrecoverable (read: soaked in blood) after the incident. Daisuke had forgotten they were still there: they’d been sat indifferently since their arrival like bathroom fixtures in the wake of a tornado, seemingly pretending as if nothing had ever happened; decidedly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but now that he’d noticed them again, they seemed rather obnoxious in their lingering silence.
Daisuke turned his attention back to his partner, carefully coaxing him over to the foot of the bed and easing him back onto it. Haru was light as petals at the best of times, but even more so at the moment, and he, thankfully, didn’t put up too much of a fight, more immediately engaged with trying to catch his breath.
Daisuke’s hand fumbled in drawing out his handkerchief, and he clenched his jaw in frustration, trying to regulate the breaths that were clamouring between his lungs and throat as he dabbed at the sweat glistening over Haru’s pale face. He looked almost grey, and his eyes were bruised despite him having slept for almost a week. He was pouting like a child but carried the exhaustion of an eighty-year-old man.
Daisuke studied him with feverish intensity, taking in the slope of his nose, the thin silver brushstrokes of scars long since healed, the single mole that peeked around the hinge of his jaw. He gave the last of his strength in seeking out these familiar details, in painting a picture that could come to life between his very hands and remind him that everything he was seeing, was feeling, was real. Everything was okay now.
The first thing Haru had said when he’d woken up – when he had truly woken up, not simply mumbled Daisuke’s name in drug-induced delusion – was that Daisuke looked like Hell; but Haru had looked worse. He had looked so unbelievably worse.
And yet he was still here. He would be okay.
He would be okay.
Daisuke let out a slow breath, but didn’t speak until he was sure he would be able to do so without his voice faltering. ‘You shouldn’t be out of bed, Haru. You’re not well.’ An understatement, of course, but it got his point across.
‘Yeah, I got that,’ his boyfriend retorted bitterly, eyeing him with exasperation as he continued to pant.
‘Oh, so you’ll admit it?’ Daisuke jested, though it fell flat under the strain of his worry, and Haru gave him only a half-hearted glare in response.
‘Just… can you get me my laptop, please?’
Daisuke frowned and shook his head, hands pressing down on Haru’s shoulders as one might on a jammed shoji door, careful not to tear the paper. ‘You should be resting.’
Haru let out a sort of tepid growl, still shifting as if to continue getting up without actually trying to. ‘I’m sick of resting,’ he said with all the conviction of a man who had just finished a 50K run. ‘I need to be doing something.’
Ah. So, therein lay the problem.
Daisuke’s brow dipped further. ‘You’re on leave,’ he reminded him.
Haru rubbed his forehead with his palm in that way he always did when Daisuke was irritating him, as if he were remembering the old wound he had gained on their first meeting. ‘That’s no reason to start slacking though.’
‘I believe that that is the exact reason to start “slacking”,’ Daisuke countered, raising an eyebrow. ‘You are quite literally being paid to slack at the moment.’
‘Daisuke,’ he said, taking his wrists as if to push him off but not adding any force just yet. He looked up at him, eyes shining the colour of fool’s gold and begging him to give into all of this foolishness. ‘He’s still out there. He could hurt someone.’
Daisuke’s heart shrivelled like a tazed mouse, letting out a pained squeak which stopped short against the thin line of his lips. He should have known Haru wouldn’t be able to let it go. Haru wouldn’t be able to let anything go if it were dragging him face down across the tarmac.
‘He already hurt someone,’ Daisuke said curtly, fingers twitching infinitesimally around Haru’s shoulders. ‘Don’t you count?’
‘I’m an officer,’ he replied in a dismissive tone which prodded again at the tortured rodent as it fell into Daisuke’s abdomen. ‘Getting hurt is part of the job.’
But you weren’t just hurt, Daisuke thought sourly as the dead weight sank to form a pit in his stomach; aloud, he said: ‘You’re forgetting that our friends are officers too. The MCPT are taking care of it; there’s nothing for you to do now except recover.’
Haru’s answering sigh progressed quickly into a frustrated groan and he shrugged violently enough to dislodge Daisuke’s hands, despite the pain it clearly caused him. ‘I’ve done enough recovering,’ he gasped, as if his hands hadn’t just lurched towards his wounded side. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You are not fine.’ Daisuke felt spittle fly with his retort, and Haru’s indifference finally cracked. He stared up at his boyfriend in confusion, and Daisuke felt the sentiment reflected in himself: the outburst had been unexpected.
‘You need to allow yourself to take a break or you’re going to hurt yourself further,’ he explained, deliberately curbing his tone, though perhaps it became moot when he chose to follow it with an acrid, ‘Why can’t you understand that?’
Haru’s waxy face finally coloured. ‘I do,’ he flared, ‘but I’m hardly gonna do much damage sitting in bed staring at a computer!’
A spark in the pit; the beginnings of a flame.
‘This isn’t about the damn computer,’ Daisuke snapped, and Haru’s eyes went wide: Daisuke didn’t tend to raise his voice in such a manner, and he very scarcely used expletives; but something was crawling back up from that pit in his stomach, determined not to die without a proper eulogy. He didn’t currently have the wherewithal to keep it contained.
He was tired. He was hurt.
It demanded satisfaction.
‘This is about you not looking after yourself,’ he continued shortly, hands curling into fists at his sides, eyes fluttering closed as he focused on his run-away breaths, ‘about wearing yourself thin at every opportunity and making decisions about your health as if it doesn’t affect the people around you.’
He could feel Haru’s outrage burning against his own skin. ‘My health? Who do you think you are lecturing me about my habits, Mr I-Smoke-Cuban-Cigars-for-Breakfast?! You’re hardly perfect yourself, you egotistical—’
‘I’m your partner!’ Daisuke spat, meeting his eyes with enough force that Haru physically drew back. ‘I’m the person who will be left behind the moment your body finally decides to give up on you!’ Daisuke himself hadn’t moved a muscle: strict training and muscle-memory held him taut as blood thrashed through his veins like live animals trying to escape an oven. ‘You almost died, Haru, and you’re pretending it didn’t happen.’
He couldn’t stop the hurt from leaking out between his stiff words and he saw it temper the fire in Haru’s expression; his own fire, however, was growing rapidly, consuming every last molecule of oxygen in his bloodstream and still yet demanding more.
‘You barely sleep or eat when you’re on a case, you don’t take time off; I have it on good authority that you’d jump from a roof if you thought it would help you catch a criminal faster.’ He swallowed thickly when his voice started to crackle. ‘Don’t you think those things matter? Don’t you matter at all?’
Haru watched him with sloped eyebrows, a wrinkle forming between them. ‘Daisuke—’
‘You can’t pretend that it didn’t happen,’ he insisted, his lungs working like bellows now, fanning the flames that were reducing his stomach to cinders. He could finally breathe but the air was ablaze from the moment it entered his mouth, scorching him from the inside out.
The fire was raging out of control, and he couldn’t pull himself back underwater.
‘I was there,’ he said, and it tasted like soot. ‘I saw how scared you were, but then you… You can’t pretend that you didn’t… that you didn’t…’
That you didn’t almost say ‘I love you’.
That you didn’t almost say goodbye.
Haru’s mouth dropped open, wavered, and his eyes flashed as something toppled out from them like a derelict building, too suddenly for Daisuke to catch; it smothered him instead, the flames going out under the wreckage, the last of the oxygen dispersed. His chest was left a vacuum, less than empty.
It hurt. It hurt too much.
Daisuke’s limbs finally unlocked and he spun around, ready to reach for the door, to look for a nurse to deal with his partner because he suddenly couldn’t be in this room anymore. He’d festered in it, consumed by the whispers of dark memories while filling it up with things like a child’s dollhouse, playing at happy families in a world of his own fabrication. He couldn’t save Haru by playing pretend; he hadn’t saved himself either.
‘Daisuke, come back!’
A hand closed around his wrist before he could even take one full step away. He fought not to shake it off. He would normally shake it off, submerge himself.
‘You were ready to leave,’ he said lowly, and devastation rushed over him so suddenly that it came leaking out again; he’d be mortified if he had the energy to care. ‘You were ready to give up.’ He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists again. ‘You have never given up as long as I’ve known you, but you almost gave up on me.’
There was a moment of silence, a loosening of fingers around his wrist. He lost his grip on the strangled sound he’d had trapped in his throat as his heart began to crack.
He started to move away again, but then his wrist was in a vice once more.
‘Not on you,’ Haru said, his voice thick and gravelled like wet cement. ‘Never on you.’
‘Giving up on yourself amounts to the same thing, Haru,’ Daisuke sighed with what little breath he had left. ‘What’s the point in me holding on if you won’t hold on yourself?’
‘I did though,’ Haru pressed, firm despite the cottony muffling of unshed tears. ‘I held on because you told me to.’
‘Because I told you to,’ Daisuke repeated quietly.
Haru’s hand slipped down, fingers tentatively picking at Daisuke’s until he allowed them passage, and the two of them gripped each other in the empty space between their bodies, allowing it to fill back up with air.
Finally, Daisuke turned around, met Haru’s eyes. They shone like fool’s gold, bright as ever, over that signature gleam of stubborn determination and, oh, how Daisuke was a fool for him.
Haru tugged him forward and Daisuke let himself be dragged along, let Haru wipe the tears from his cheeks, never once breaking their stare. Then Haru opened his mouth.
‘No,’ Daisuke said forcefully. ‘Don’t you dare say it now.’
Haru blanched, mouth snapping shut, hands slipping sheepishly from his partner’s face as his eyes began to dart in all directions but straight ahead. Daisuke caught his hands, caught his eyes; held him there.
‘This is not how confessions are made, Haru Katou,’ he said, but said it gently. ‘They’re not supposed to serve as a reassurance, or a consolation prize. I don’t want to remember this every time you tell me what I mean to you.’
He watched the cogs turn in Haru’s head, his expression flickering between everything from irritation to adoration. The latter was a little too much for Daisuke, being in such a raw state after his emotional outpouring, and he found himself scowling at their hands, willing the heat to fade from his face.
After a moment, there was a sigh.
‘Should’ve known you’d have demands, even for things like that,’ Haru muttered, ‘but okay. Fine.’
Daisuke smiled shakily, felt vines grow over the shattered parts of his heart, pulling them back together as easily as the stitches in Haru’s side. It would take some time, but they would both be okay in the end; of course they would.
He leant over and quickly pressed his lips to Haru’s forehead. Haru dropped his head against Daisuke’s chest, wrapping his arms around his back and melting against him.
They breathed. Daisuke felt dizzy with it.
‘Your heart’s beating a mile a minute,’ Haru uttered.
‘You frightened me,’ he replied. He didn’t clarify when.
Haru drew back, hands coming up to rest where his head had been, and studied him for a moment, eyes flickering up and down, brows lowering. ‘You didn’t change.’
Daisuke looked down at his ensemble and realised his partner was referring to the jumper: he was still wearing the jade-green one he’d left in that morning; an atrocious thing really – the quality of the fabric alone should be enough to make him break out in hives just looking at it – but it was the one Haru favoured when he failed to bring a change of clothes to the mansion, and the only gift he’d given him that couldn’t and hadn’t been consumed. He couldn’t explain why it had been such a comfort in those lonely hours while Haru slept, but taking it off had felt like a betrayal, even that morning when he’d known he’d have it back within the hour.
‘I had it washed,’ he said, but couldn’t bring himself to elaborate any further; the tips of his ears burned like he had. ‘You should lie down, before you tear your stitches.’
Haru let out a puff and rolled his eyes at the admittedly obvious diversion tactic. ‘They’re not gonna rip with me just sitting here,’ he complained, but to Daisuke’s surprise he lifted his arms in a signal for assistance anyway and Daisuke complied, allowing him to loop his arms around his neck awkwardly hoisting him back to his feet. Haru let out a few thready gasps of pain as his wound stretched, but Daisuke held onto him as he stumbled, guiding him in a shuffle towards the head of the bed. He had to repeatedly kick the IV stand ahead of them as they went and he felt Haru’s grunts turn into laughter, rippling in the minute space between their chests and travelling up through his throat and past his lips. Only once it had reached its summit did Haru emit any sound, a merciless giggle that would have made Daisuke’s own lips curl in response had he not been adamant about remaining just a little bit cross at him.
‘I’m so pleased you find our predicament amusing, considering it was your recklessness that landed us here.’
Haru choked out a couple more refrains before replying, ‘Who knew you were such an ungraceful dancer?’
Daisuke squinted in confusion before reassessing their position; indeed, it was reminiscent of the waltz, albeit clumsy and uncoordinated.
Haru was still laughing, though pain was clear on his face. ‘I should be leading,’ he added. ‘You’re too short.’ Daisuke frowned and knocked lightly on the side of his partner’s head.
‘I’m a fine dancer,’ he replied, gently lowering him back to the mattress.
‘Just fine?’ Haru goaded, and Daisuke did his best to look unaffected as he helped him lift his legs back up onto it too.
‘Excellent,’ he impressed, pushing him back into the pillows and reaching over for the sheets. ‘I’ll take you dancing once you’re feeling better.’
‘Why wait? With moves like those I can’t imagine it’d be any less painful.’
Daisuke straightened up, his task complete, and scowled directly at him. ‘You can be truly insufferable sometimes.’
‘Eh, you suffer me just fine.’
Haru grinned at him, full teeth and eyes and heart: full Haru. The scent of wisteria invaded his nasal passages, impossible to unstick.
He took another step forward, sat down on the bed beside his boyfriend and leant in, eyes sliding shut as he knocked his forehead against the other’s. ‘Don’t scare me like that again,’ he murmured, again uncertain of which incident he was referring to, but feeling the words ache in time with the pulse of his heart.
Haru’s hand slid up around the back of his head, thumb tracing a line from the base up and down his neck, and he brushed his lips briefly but firmly against Daisuke’s in that velvet soft way which made them cling to each other before the retreat.
‘I’m sorry.’
It wasn’t a promise but…
‘Thank you.’
It was two weeks later that Daisuke returned to Haru’s apartment with the news that their criminal had been captured. He had wanted to inform his partner the moment he stepped through the door, but rather found the man dozing on his bed, a third-rate detective novel on his chest and an empty bowl of what used to be the tuna natto Daisuke had prepared him that morning sitting on the nightstand. His laptop was still safely in its case on the shelf under the TV.
Daisuke’s heart swelled at the sight of his partner drooling in his sweats (God help him, a lovestruck fool) and he had to fight the urge to leave him sleeping, knowing Haru wouldn’t thank him for it while he was sitting on such heavily awaited news: the inspector had been running himself ragged trying not to run himself ragged in pursuit of the shooter, instead letting the rest of the MCPT take over. He was taking it easy for once.
Because Daisuke told him to.
Haru had been staring at his computer screen for so long he thought he might have merged with it. The only indication he hadn’t was the dizzying separation that occurred when a pot of ramen was set down in front of him. He blinked furiously, eyes stinging with dryness, and followed the arm attached to the steaming pot up until he met familiar eyes. Daisuke gave a short nod and a hard look as if to say both ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘E A T.’ and sat back down in the chair beside him, crossing one leg over the other and peeling the lid off of his own food.
Haru looked back at the ramen on his desk, then at the reports open on his computer, and let out a long, exhausted breath, stretching his arms out in front of him and bringing them up in an arc over his head. The scar on his side always pulled a little at this action, but it was no more uncomfortable now than cracking his back.
Everyone else had left the office hours ago: the numbers in the bottom corner of the screen indicated it had now passed 2am and Haru felt it in the heaviness of his limbs and the way his vision seemed to bounce like a screensaver as his eyes skimmed back and forth across pages of information.
There was a jolt under him and for a moment his tired mind thought ‘earthquake’; when the movement didn’t continue, he looked over at Daisuke, then at the shoe resting against the seat of his chair.
‘Did you… kick my chair?’
‘Take a break,’ he said, ignoring Haru’s bewilderment.
Haru frowned and dropped his chin onto his knuckles, looking back at the screeds of black on white. ‘We’re close, though. If I could just figure out where those damn supply routes disappear to…’ Another jolt, and Haru whirled on Daisuke with a glare, but his partner remained unaffected.
‘You’d be closer if you stopped starving your brain,’ he stated. ‘You need nutrients.’
Haru glanced again at the cup-ramen. ‘I’m not sure anything that comes out of the staff vending machine can be considered nutritious.’
Daisuke finished slurping up a mouthful of noodles. ‘I had assumed you would take issue with anything else I might have had delivered here. I’m compromising.’
Haru struggled for a comeback for a moment before letting out a grunt and snatching up the pot on his desk and ripping off the lid. The salty steam billowed up into his nose and only when his mouth began to water and his stomach gurgled did he realise how hungry he had been. All the same, he still grumbled between each mouthful:
‘I’m doing this for your benefit, you know. Your stupid rich people problems with your stupid super elements sending the world into stupid-mode.’
Daisuke’s lip curled slightly above the rim of his cup. ‘If I recall, it was you who made the existence of adollium public, not me.’
Well, that was hardly fair: he hadn’t exactly been in his right mind when he pressed the button, nor had he had any idea that he’d actually done it.
Nevertheless, Haru grinned: he had a come-back ready for this one.
‘Oh yeah? And who was the one who came running to me, begging for help rounding up the traffickers, huh?’
Daisuke’s slurps grew suddenly quiet. Then:
‘I do not beg.’
Haru huffed a laugh. In all honesty, he hadn’t: he’d stiffly and respectfully requested Haru’s assistance, and how could Haru have refused when, despite how he teased Daisuke, it was technically his fault the stuff was on the streets in the first place?
He’d definitely been surprised by his manner though.
Daisuke had changed after his confrontation with his grandmother. Despite everything that he’d found out, and the weight that came with knowing that your loved ones had done such a thing, he’d seemed lighter. Haru got the feeling he’d been hanging onto his anger and heartbreak, feeding it, for a long time. Finding the truth hadn’t fixed anything – far from it – but it had definitely made a difference in the way he carried himself from then on.
He realised he hadn’t really known the real Daisuke back then: the real Daisuke was calm rather than indifferent, was inquisitive rather than unyielding, thoughtful rather than thoughtless. Don’t get him wrong, he was still an asshole who did whatever he wanted most of the time, regardless of what people thought or asked of him, but the real Daisuke at least took some time to try to understand things, to understand others. He wore jumpers and was fond of dogs, and couldn’t take his drink long enough to hold up against even Saeki who was usually gone after one measly pint. He talked to children like they were adults and was always surprised when they claimed to like him for it. He listened to Haru when he gave him guidance on cases and was less (only slightly, though) frivolous with money when on the job, making an effort to do things by the book because that’s what Haru had asked him, had been training him, to do. He did things like making tuna natto because it was still, so far, the only thing he knew how to make himself; like dragging himself out of bed and down to the kitchen because Haru wanted them to get the coffee themselves; like buying entire hospitals because he didn’t know what else to do but only that he had to do something.
Haru stared down at the broth swirling in his half-empty cup.
He did things like bringing Haru cup ramen and sitting with him to work late hours at his desk because he knows that it’s not worth the effort to try to tear Haru away from his work, but he still wants to make sure he’s alright, that he’s looking after himself; and because he just prefers to be around him, no matter what they’re doing, or where they’re doing it.
Haru wouldn’t even be here without him. Haru wouldn’t want to be.
He wouldn’t even know who he was if Daisuke weren’t there to keep reminding him.
‘Daisuke,’ he said, his voice low, quivering.
One of Daisuke’s eyebrows twitched upward at the change in tone; he had clearly misinterpreted its meaning.
‘You don’t have to eat it,’ he said, stirring his own food stiffly, ‘but I don’t believe I’m crossing any lines by encouraging you to take a five-minute break.’
Haru stood suddenly, the force of the movement sending his chair slamming backwards into the desk. The ramen jiggled dangerously on the table as he slammed it down, splashing tiny puddles of soup onto the off-white surface. Words burst past his lips before he could consider what they meant.
‘Please continue to take care of me!’ he shouted in the silence of their twilit office.
Daisuke’s hand froze over his ramen-pot, noodles slipping from his chopsticks back into the cup. His face was still and eyes stretched in a way which made him look almost angry, but Haru knew it well by now as the expression he made whenever someone blindsided him with their affection. He’d done it frequently in the beginning of their relationship, and sometimes still did when Haru, Suzue or their colleagues managed to truly surprise him.
‘Was… Was that a marriage proposal?’
Now it was Haru’s eyes bulging.
That… that had sounded like a proposal, hadn’t it?
He hadn’t meant it in that way; although, that was what those words meant, wasn’t it? He wanted Daisuke to keep looking out for him and Haru wanted to keep being there for him too, keep helping him until he didn’t need it anymore, and ever after too. He couldn’t imagine a future without Daisuke by his side, without Haru glued to his in turn; he didn’t want to either.
What he did imagine was the two of them at either end of a couch, feet in each other’s laps and bickering over what to have for dinner; they both wore gold bands on their fingers and hyphens at the end of their names.
‘I…’ Haru stuttered, face growing unbearably hot. He quickly cleared his throat, spoke more confidently. ‘I guess it was.’
Daisuke continued to stare like Haru had offered him the world on a platter and couldn’t decide whether he needed to get it authenticated. ‘You… want to marry me?’
It suddenly seemed like such a ridiculous question that Haru couldn’t hold back a second outburst.
‘Well, I don’t wanna be with anyone else!’ It was said like an accusation, and yet there was another classic proposal hidden in his words. Christ, was he so far gone he could no longer speak to the man without asking for his hand?
Silence reigned for several long seconds while Haru stood almost panting, fists clenched at his sides and gaze fixed on his partner. Daisuke stared back, but his mind seemed elsewhere, satellites blinking in the galaxy of his eyes, sending signals back and forth.
‘Same-sex marriage isn’t legal in this country,’ Daisuke commented, as if remarking on the state of the weather, though those moon-wide eyes betrayed his tremulous emotions.
‘Yeah, well,’ Haru countered in a fluster, not really thinking, ‘there are some things worth breaking the law for.’
Daisuke’s eyes somehow went even wider. And then he started laughing. Not one of those deep laughs that rumbled in his chest, but instead one of those laughs that refused to remain within the confines of his body, that burst from his throat into the air and filled the atmosphere with a heady euphoria that was impossible to deny.
Again, the meaning of Haru’s words hit him a few seconds too late, and when he realised how ridiculously out of character it had sounded, he too burst into fits of laughter.
Daisuke met his eye again, expression radiating warmth and fondness and amusement and he tugged on Haru’s tie, pulling him down until their lips met and they were laughing between short yet drawn-out kisses. Haru ended up sat on Daisuke’s lap, hands curled around his jaw and into his hair, their foreheads knocking together as they chased each other back and forth.
‘You would break the law for me?’ Daisuke teased when coming up for air.
‘I have done,’ Haru uttered impatiently, remembering multiple counts of trespassing and crossing the threshold of his lips once more.
‘How about we change the law this time instead?’ Daisuke breathed into his mouth.
‘Mm,’ he agreed, tilting forward to burgle another kiss. ‘Works for me.’
It struck Haru at some point in the midst of their passion that whoever was on cameras tonight was going to have some prime gossip for the rest of the precinct come morning, but he was past caring. Let some homophobic bastards up top try to ruin this for them – they’d get what was coming to them. The entire MCPT had their backs and they could be downright scary when they needed to be. Saeki especially would do anything in the name of—
‘Daisuke,’ he gasped, pulling back as a thought popped into his head.
‘What is it?’ he replied, chasing his lips, eyes half-lidded.
‘I love you,’ he said pouring every ounce of what that truly meant to him into the word.
Daisuke smiled; no, smirked. ‘Obviously.’
Haru scowled and tugged on his ear, earning a satisfying little grunt. ‘Not as obvious as you,’ he prodded.
‘Then why did it take you so long to figure it out, Inspector?’
Haru growled and tugged again. ‘You’re one to talk, Mr Deer-in-the-Headlights. And don’t “Inspector” me while we’re getting engaged.’
Daisuke craned up to kiss his neck, murmuring his reply against the skin. ‘Hmm, maybe later then.’
It was suddenly too hot to be wearing a jacket, or a shirt and tie. Or any clothes at all.
Haru managed to restrain himself.
‘Come on,’ he said, slipping (regretfully) from his partner’s lap and shutting down the PC.
Daisuke blinked listlessly from his chair, heavy-lidded and flushed all the way from his cheeks to his chest which was peeking out from beneath the collar, loosened by the manhandling of his tie. ‘What about the case?’
Haru forced himself to look away from his handiwork, becoming suddenly very interested in his stapler as he adjusted his own mangled tie. ‘We’ve worked enough overtime for a week,’ he said, hardly believing such words could come out of his mouth. Thirty-one years old and he was giddy as a school-girl. ‘We can let ourselves have this, yeah? Since it’s a special occasion.’ He held his hand out. ‘I wanna celebrate. With you.’
Daisuke smiled, and Haru pulled his boyfriend – no, fiancé – up out of the chair and straight towards the door, feeling a sense of déjà vu, warm like coffee and silk-clad limbs. As they stood waiting for the elevator, Haru moved in closer until their arms were wrapped together as closely as their palms, and he couldn’t stop smiling. It would probably look terrifying to an outsider but it didn’t deter Daisuke; nothing ever did.
‘I’m buying the engagement rings,’ he chanced and Haru narrowed his eyes.
‘You’ll buy mine, and nothing more than four zeros.’
Daisuke went paler than the office’s semi-translucent fax-paper, but to his credit, didn’t outright refuse. ‘Seven,’ he countered, his voice straining even at that ‘small’ fortune.
‘Five,’ Haru returned after consideration, ‘and it’s got to look as crappy as whatever I can afford for you.’
Daisuke’s features blew wide. He looked about ready to deck him. ‘Absolutely no—’
‘Nope,’ Haru cut him off jauntily, in too good a mood to be irritated by his fiancé’s sulking. ‘We’re in this together. It has to be an even split.’ He frowned. ‘Well, as much as it can be.’
Fax-paper turned to tissue-paper. ‘Surely that doesn’t include the wedding costs?’
The look of genuine horror in Daisuke’s expression had Haru fighting to hold back a snort. He tilted his head, gave the illusion of mulling it over. ‘We can discuss that later.’
Of course, Haru would probably let him have his way in the end, if only because Daisuke obviously cared a lot more about the actual presentation of things than he did. Haru was less excited about the marrying side of it, and more about the being married. It was funny to watch him squirm, though; his partner’s face at that moment drew an honest-to-God giggle out of Haru, and he wondered if Daisuke felt as drunk as he did.
He got his answer when, instead of getting into the front seat of the car, Daisuke yanked Haru in behind the tinted windows in the back. His poor mangled tie might never sit straight again. Neither might he.
So much for restraining themselves.
It was only when Haru woke the following afternoon, wrapped in Daisuke’s possessive embrace like a precious childhood teddy-bear and reeking of that damned cologne again, that it really sank in. They’d be lying next to each other, looking after each other, looking out for each other, for the rest of their lives.
Maybe the smell wasn’t quite so bad after all.