Archive of Our Own

i. blood

Oct. 31, 2005

“Thank you…Chifuyu.”

The blood on his hands is undeniably not his own, but knowing so does nothing to relieve the feeling of being ripped in half and left to hemorrhage onto the ground in front of them. There's pain tearing through every limb, every nerve, every part of him. He must be dying.

It’s wet too— wet red, wet salt, Takemichi’s voice over meaningless words— and the sky is dry and blue. Everything is fading to the ringing in his ears and the blur of the body in his lap. He’s seeing too much and understanding none of it. 

(Baji, dressed like a stranger, tears in his eyes, smile on his face, in his arms, finally, finally, Baji, Baji, Baji-san—)

His throat hurts. Everything hurts. When did he stop screaming? Why does no one hear? Why is he so cold? 

Why is he so cold?

He clutches Baji to his chest like desperation alone will tether his soul to earth. He’s not ready to let go.

Somebody speaks. A siren blares mockingly through the air. Hanemiya Kazutora opens his dirty, traitorous arms towards the two of them, like Chifuyu isn’t there, like Chifuyu could ever give him up.

He presses harder against the holes in Baji’s chest and pleads with every higher power he can think of to take it all back, to spare him because he knew, he knew he was alone, and he wasn’t able to protect him, he wasn’t able to save him. More voices touch the edge of his awareness, insignificant, until one registers. 

Mikey, his leader. Mikey, who has known Baji since they were children, who loves Baji enough to start a war to bring him home. Mikey, who is walking away. 

He doesn’t understand. 

Why? 

It hurts. 

Why? 

He doesn’t understand.

How can he be so strong?

But who is he if not weak and bound to the role he plays, the orders he follows? The heavy steps of Toman sound the dissonant tune of a funeral march as they disperse. 

It is over in mere minutes.

Chifuyu gets up, and everything important to him flows out of his body from a wound too deep to close. Hope feels like a pipe dream, his efforts futile in the face of the harsh reality stained on his hands. He doesn’t know what else to do, feet moving on autopilot further and further away from his best friend. Something hardens inside of him, irreversible. 

It’s the last time he ever sees Baji Keisuke’s face in person. 

Chifuyu bleeds. He must be dying.

ii. bruises 

Nov. 1, 2005 

He wakes up the next morning, sore and dirty, his failure crusted over on unsalvageable clothes and unspeakable memories. He wakes up, and watches the clock move from 7:03 to 7:04, watches time move forward.

Baji Keisuke is dead.

Chifuyu doesn’t remember how he got home last night or how he explained it to his parents or how he fell asleep at all. He just remembers feeling his body going limp in his arms, feeling the final squeeze of a pulse, feeling him go. 

Baji Keisuke is dead. 

He sits on the floor of the shower and watches as the water washes the blood down the drain; irrationally, he reaches out to cover the holes so that the crimson collects around his fingertips. When he lifts his hand, it’s gone in an instant. 

Baji Keisuke is dead. He feels numb. Empty. 

When it begins to run cold and his teeth begin to chatter, he turns the tap off and shivers as the air nips at his battered body. How many minutes pass before he stands, he doesn’t know. How many more it takes for him to move is irrelevant. He doesn’t bother with clothing himself, not when he barely has the energy to hold his head upon his neck, and though he steels himself to face his reflection, he’s still woefully unprepared for the sight of it. 

Bruises were a familiar friend to Chifuyu— years with Toman and his prior pastimes meant that he was never too long without proof of his reputation somewhere on his body, always on his mind— but these, these were something else entirely. Because how else could Chifuyu explain the look in Baji’s eyes as his knuckles split the skin of his lip, or the calm that washed over him as blood and spit leaked from his mouth. He almost felt like smiling then, knowing what wasn’t said but already in motion.

Looking in the mirror to see the last traces of Baji Keisuke scattered across his skin is both a blessing and a curse in its own right. Coupled with the bags under his red-rimmed eyes, Chifuyu’s whole face seems to sag with the weight of it all: the trust, the desperation, the heartbreak, the grief. He reaches up to trace the mess of color on his cheeks.  

He understands now that these bruises were both a gift and a goodbye, a last will and testament for Chifuyu alone. He’s glad Baji Keisuke never pulled his punches; they were his own language of love. 

“I could never hit Baji-san,” he had said, and it was true. There was no point in denying the very foundation of his faith, the conviction he would hold to the grave. Now, if he looks hard enough, he can see the pattern of Baji’s hand across his jaw, and he knows it was worth it. 

Closer inspection finds that the welts from a week ago are already lightening, his skin melting back to pale pink and white. And at once, Chifuyu realizes he’ll never be ready to look in the mirror and see what’s left of him fading, fading still. Something settles in the hollow of his sternum at the idea. 

It is suddenly very hard to breathe. 

He moves without thinking, pressing the discolorations harshly between his nails, and he thinks waking up has never hurt this much— not because of the bruises on his skin, but because he can still feel the steady thrum of his heart against his chest. 

(He's heard some scars, invisible as they are, last a lifetime.)

He pinches harder, feeling the blood vessels break under his fingernails as yellow-green gives way to red. The pain pricks at his face in little crescents as he judges the wounds he’s prolonged. The taste of bile lingers on his tongue.

Is this punishment? Is it deliverance? 

Whatever it is, it’s not nearly enough.  

Nov. 2, 2005

“I’m sorry,” are the only words he has any right to say, and even then, he can’t look her in the eye.

Nov. 3, 2005

A gift never given sits in the back of his closet. A birthday reminder pops up on his phone and he shatters the screen with the force of how hard he throws it to the ground. 

Nov. 4, 2005

He dresses in all black and swallows his own feelings to hold Baji’s mother as she cries. 

Nov. 5, 2005

Nov. 6, 2005

Nov. 7, 2005

Nov. 8, 2005

“I want to leave Toman,” he says. “I can’t do this without him.”

“You can leave,” Mikey replies. “You want to snuff out the First Division’s flame? Then let it die.” 

Nov. 9, 2005

“I’m staying.”

He doesn’t have to look to know that Mikey is smiling. 

“I know.”

Nov. 10, 2005

Nov. 11, 2005

Nov. 12, 2005

Nov. 13, 2005

“Baji-san— saying ‘thank you’ isn’t fucking fair.” 

He thinks he gets a free pass for cursing at the dead today when this reality is the way it is. His face has mostly healed but his ribs still ache from boot prints he wishes would tattoo themselves into his bones, the mottled pattern of rubber tracking faintly across his side. The pain in his heart is sharper, still fresh. 

A half-eaten tray of food sits in front of him: a promise fulfilled, the first solid food he’s been able to stomach since that day. 

Two weeks have passed. The world cruelly keeps turning.

He has to keep moving. Baji wanted him to keep moving, but he has unfinished business with the boy who made all these decisions himself— no, he has his own agenda today. God knows it’s been keeping him up at night, this choice, this truth.  

(You think you have forever and then you’re thirteen years old and the love of your young life is bleeding out in your arms. And you wonder, where did it all go wrong?) 

When he confesses to a headstone instead of a living, breathing body, the words get stuck in his throat and he chokes over a feeling he knows will never exist outside of his wildest dreams. Under his breath, in the back of his mind, a message written and deleted and written again, never sent— he’s tested the phrase on his lips over and over again in the hours before he falls asleep. This is the only time it matters, the only time it counts. 

And he knows he’s a coward for not saying it sooner, for being embarrassed by what it meant, because Baji would have understood. Even if it would be preceded by a shove or a punch or a disbelieving look, he always understood: he was made of love. 

“I love you,” Chifuyu says, “more than anything,” and it’s the most honest he’s ever been about it. 

It’s quiet save for the words wavering in the air. 

“More than anything,” he repeats, resolute, and then it bubbles out of his chest until he’s sobbing the words like a prayer: “Did you know that? I love you. I love you, Baji-san. I love you, Baji-san, fuck, please.”

Begging, crying— for all intents and purposes, are unacceptable behaviors in Chifuyu’s opinion— and still, he’s done enough of the two in the past few days to last a lifetime. The unsympathetic face of the stone stares back, unchanging, unresponsive. He hiccups over a sob and sucks in a breath, feeling broken and pathetic and more lost than ever. 

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

A breeze ruffles through his hair and it feels like an apology. The sun shines overhead like a familiar smile. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to an answer and it blooms tender and purple on his heart. 

Chifuyu cries. 

Nov. 14, 2005

Nov. 15, 2005

He stands two steps away from his sworn enemy and he names the one he wants to follow, the one who shoulders the legacy that Baji left behind. It’s what he would have wanted. The flame burns brighter. 

He’ll protect it this time around. 

iii. scars 

Having the remains of Valhalla in their ranks brings with it an impending sense of doom. 

Where, when, how, he doesn’t know— but he knows something’s coming, the way he knew Kisaki was the enemy, the way he knew Baji was still on their side. The constant feeling of being on edge wears him down like a river against rock. It does no one any favors when the burden feels too big for him to bear. 

He clears his head these days by being a son to another mother, sharing tea, sharing stories, sitting in silence. He always comes over uninvited and always leaves with the promise to return. It feels like routine is all they have left to hold on to. They never speak of what happened that day, but the door to Baji’s room is open like she’s waiting for him to come home. 

It’s during one of these visits that Chifuyu steals a shirt from his closet, stuffing it into his bag while Baji’s mother is busy making tea in the other room. It happens so fast and so easily that she doesn’t suspect a thing, calling him into the kitchen to ask what kind of snacks he’d prefer instead. Later, when he gets home, the first thing he does is shake it out and press the soft fabric to his face. It still smells like Baji, so distinctly spiced and clear that tears spring to Chifuyu’s eyes unbidden. Like this, he can almost pretend that he’s leaning against him, watching his cat climb up the windowsill. 

And then the shame creeps in. Who the hell does he think he is? 

How could he do that after everything he’s done, after everything he’s already taken from her? She trusted him. She opened her home to him. And what does he do— take more? 

Baji would be so disappointed in him. 

He lies awake that night and holds the garment close, breathing in the faint scent of detergent and aftershave. This stolen time was much more than he deserved, and he still can’t help but wish it wouldn’t end by morning. 

The next day he waits outside her door for hours, and when she gets home late from work, he throws himself onto his knees, apologizing incoherently over tears that just won’t stop. He feels horrible, disgraceful, and he cries even harder when she takes the shirt from his hands and uses it to wipe his face clean. She holds him close and leads him inside, depositing him at the table as she prepares another cup of tea. She doesn’t speak, just waits until he’s calmed down before she disappears into the room with the open door. He doesn’t know how to exist when he hears his name called so kindly, but he raises his head and looks into the same eyes he’d know anywhere. 

When she hands him his Toman jacket, it feels like forgiveness. 

Nov. 30, 2005

An unbelievable story. A future where it all falls apart. Takemichi has nothing but truth in his eyes and Chifuyu always trusts his friends. A new adventure awaits, thrilling but bittersweet. 

Even when the rules of time itself bend, the one person he wants to save is always, always out of reach. 

Dec. 25, 2005

He’s so sick of playing Kisaki’s games, so sick of pretending everything is fine. He should have stabbed him with that shard of a plate when he had the chance. 

In the aftermath, they are swollen, barely standing, black and blue all over. Shiba Taiju spits curses at Toman’s name. The church pews are stained and broken, reduced to scrap wood around them— if he wasn’t going to hell already, he doesn’t have much of a choice anymore. His head is spinning from being thrown to the ground over and over again. His face must look even worse than it feels. But when they collapse outside to Draken waiting on the steps, the cut in his lip pulls wider and wider as he smiles around bloody teeth. The Black Dragons lay defeated before them. Hakkai and Yuzuha remain innocent of any crime. Takemichi cries. 

Victory tastes like falling snow. 

He looks over to where Mikey stands and can hardly contain himself. The First-Division Vice-Captain has critical information to report after tonight. There’s a traitor in their midst. 

Jan. 2, 2006

Chifuyu expected consequences but he didn’t expect this. It feels too easy, too good to be true as he watches the bastard chase after their leader in vain. The jeers that follow Kisaki and Hanma out ring with a sense of finality, and he feels like he can finally breathe again.  

The dust settles. Peace is on the horizon. The Takemichi he knows returns to the future he fought so hard to create. The one that remains is someone he’s ready to stay beside to preserve it. Mikey stands strong in the face of conflict and he never once stands alone. The love they have for this gang carries them forward. 

No matter what happens next, Toman will never lose. 

Jun. 25, 2006

Months go by. He laughs. He smiles. He has fun. 

He misses him more with every passing day. 

Oct. 31, 2006

Fuck this, and fuck all the consequences, and fuck whoever dares to underestimate Matsuno Chifuyu because he lost someone. He isn’t afraid of anyone when he throws open the door to a den of strangers. He kicks over a table, makes a goddamn mess of the place, and with a sickeningly satisfying crunch, he breaks Kisaki Tetta’s face. Nobody expected him. Nobody stops him. Nobody moves at all. 

When he starts walking away, he hears Hanma Shuuji’s hyena laugh rise to a cackle in the midst of delayed cacophony. He doesn’t escape unscathed, but he leaves with Kisaki’s blood on his hands before anyone else’s touches them.

And god does it feel good. 

Nov. 3, 2006

He lights a candle and walks up three flights of stairs so neither one of them will be alone. 

Dec. 19, 2006

Chifuyu is older than Baji Keisuke will ever be. He goes out to celebrate with Takemichi and the others and comes home to vomit the contents of his stomach out until he’s dry-heaving over the toilet. Fifteen feels too permanent, another point of no return. Again, he wonders fruitlessly why it had to be this way.

The nightmares come back in full force after that.

Sometimes he wakes up in a cold sweat with the low timbre of Baji’s voice reverberating in his chest. Other times the specter opens his mouth and while nothing sounds, blood pours out. Those are the nights he reaches into his nightstand for proof of a foxkill grin that never pales in comparison to the one in his mind’s eye. The edges are tattered and worn from the run of his thumbs up and down the likeness of his two best friends (Baji and Peke J, twin smiles, twin fangs, immortalized). 

The pain has dulled but has never truly faded. 

Peyoung yakisoba, a stairway landing, a GSX250E, stray cats, a stretched-out hair elastic, thick-rimmed glasses, songs, songs, too many songs to count, a dream— there’s a difference between never forgetting Baji Keisuke and always remembering him. Chifuyu can blink and see him in every place, every person who passes him by on a busy street (fiery eyes, animal figurines, hair like silk, a pile of weights). He stops bleaching his roots and that feels like remembering too. 

Some days he rides his bike (his bike) too fast to nowhere and pretends the heat of the leather is the warmth of a body under his hands. The way the engine rumbles feels close enough to a laugh that never sounds right in retrospect. Chifuyu keeps Baji Keisuke alive with every sharp turn and red light run, the way they used to when they still had all the time in the world. 

And if his hands have burns over unhealed burns from lingering too long on metal that reminds him of a glint of teeth—

Well. That’s no one’s business but the past’s.

iv. time

There’s irony in how it starts and ends with Hanemiya Kazutora— the kanji that brought Baji and Chifuyu together, the knife that tore them apart. 

Here he is now, copying that very name onto the back of an envelope, hand wavering as he writes out tora. The papercut he gets sealing it feels like a bad omen, but Baji-san saw something in him so goddamn it, Chifuyu was willing to try and see it too. Even if it meant letting go of a hatred that had been building under his skin for the last three years.

The first letter he writes doesn’t get a response. Neither does the second, third, or fourth. 

A few days after he sends the fifth letter, he gets a single sentence in return: 

I thought you hated me. 

And it feels like a betrayal because his instinctive response is I do. There is no room for forgiveness in his heart, not for him. Only a sense of duty, driven by the need to carry on the legacy of someone dear to him, would drive him to such lengths. He doesn’t care about how it makes him seem. 

Baji-san didn’t, is what he sends in response, and because he doesn’t do shit halfway, he also includes a very generous how was your week at the end. 

When the mail is delivered the week afterward, Chifuyu isn’t waiting by the door. He doesn’t shuffle through the bills and adverts with any urgency. He certainly doesn’t zero in on the stamp from the penitentiary and rip open the envelope with any sort of expectation. He doesn’t care, obviously, but it’s nice to know that Kazutora is willing to work with him on this, that another piece of Baji can live on through postal updates and false camaraderie.

Chifuyu,

Today I had rice and miso. I also had rice and miso yesterday, and I will tomorrow. I miss eating strawberry pocky. I am working very hard. How are you?

Kazutora

Kazutora,

I’m fantastic. I just ate an entire box of strawberry pocky. Go to hell.

Chifuyu

It’s not easy. There are bad days, and worse. He rips a letter from Kazutora to shreds before he even opens it, and then sets it on fire for good measure. He writes something scathing and cruel when he’s too grief-stricken to censor his feelings and sends it without a second glance. He calls him Hanemiya even though Kazutora asked him not to sometime between letters 9 and 13. He ignores him for weeks at a time. 

On what would have been Baji’s eighteenth birthday, Chifuyu opens a bottle. He drowns himself in an inescapable stupor of rage and despair, and he thinks that misery demands company tonight as he pens something brutal and honest to a fault. It’s only that the older he gets, the angrier he becomes. Baji was fourteen. He was only fourteen, and when Chifuyu thinks of the part he played, the hero he failed to be, it feels sickening. They were just children. They still are. And he knows that means Kazutora too, that Kazutora doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of such fury when all he’s been trying to do is atone, but it’s easier to pretend he’s just words on a page. 

Hanemiya,

Do you ever think of him? I do. I never stop. 

I hope he fucking haunts you the way he haunts me. I can’t sleep because I close my eyes and see his face and staying awake means I have more time to look at him. Except the more I look, the less I see, and then I remember the way it felt when he stopped breathing after saying my name. I remember how cold he was. How he was crying too. 

Everything he did was for you. Everything he sacrificed was for you. He was the only one who cared about you and he trusted you, so how could you do that to him? Why would you do that to him? After all this time, I still don’t understand.

I hate him for believing in you and I hate him for doing it all himself and I hate him for leaving me behind. I hate you the most. You took him away from me. You took him away from all of us and he still loved you enough to die for you. You never deserved someone like him, you fucking coward. 

I hope you fucking rot. 

Chifuyu

Chifuyu

I’m sorry. I know it’s unforgivable. He never leaves me alone and I deserve that.  

I’m starting to forget his face. No matter how hard I try to remember, it never looks right. I think I deserve that too. 

Kazutora

The consequences only make themselves clear after a week. Chifuyu curses at that letter, curses at himself, curses at the universe for making him feel this way and then seals a photograph with his next missive. It’s nowhere near the apology he owes Kazutora but regret only gives him so much to work with. He doesn’t know when that started to matter.

Sometime later, he receives a single sentence in response, and if the paper is saturated with salt and smudged ink, he pays it no mind.

Chifuyu,

Nice job on graduating. Did you end up picking a university program that you like? I know you were still deciding a month ago. It’s strange that you have a plan for the future like a real adult should. I still don’t know anything about the world outside of what I do here. The daily routine is easy but nothing lasts forever. 

That one guy I was telling you about almost burned the kitchen down during recreation hours. Idiot. How do you mess up omurice?

Kazutora

Kazutora,

I’ve had my part-time job for a few years now and, you know, I only applied there because of who it reminded me of, except I really love it now and I think I want to keep doing it. There’s a business program not far from home that I’ll start taking classes from and then maybe I’ll start working up to having my own pet shop. Is that stupid? Probably. But if he were here, he’d be the one dragging me into it anyway and I like thinking about that. I want to do everything I can. 

The world is still going to be here when you get out. I know not knowing what comes next is scary but I think you’ll be just fine. At least you know how to make omurice. 

Chifuyu

Kazutora never once asks him to visit. Chifuyu never offers. They both hide behind paper conventions that grow thinner and thinner as the years go by until eventually, Chifuyu can admit that he’s afraid. There’s a stretch of two months where he doesn’t hear from Kazutora, and he wills himself to not give in, to not care. It’s happened before. They’ve been doing this for years after all, but he wakes up one morning and he’s terrified that something happened, that Kazutora wrote his last letter and it was goodbye, that he didn’t know he was losing something until it was already gone. 

He barely bothers to get ready in his hurry, the penitentiary’s visiting hours and address already engraved into his subconscious from how many times he’s actively ignored the information. When he parks his bike in front of the building, something starts to build in the back of his throat. As he clears his pockets into a plastic bin, his ears start ringing. The gravity of what he’s doing finally starts to kick in as the guard leads him to the visitor’s room, but by then it’s too late to turn back. 

Kazutora stares at him from the other side of the glass, alive and well, and Chifuyu feels a knot unravel in his gut as he drinks him in. They both look at each other for the first time since that day. Chifuyu opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. He can’t get the words out. He doesn’t even know what he wants to say. Kazutora looks shocked, scared, confused, but more than that, he looks worried. 

“You didn’t write,” Chifuyu says. It comes out breathless. 

“Oh,” Kazutora says, and there’s a lot behind it that neither of them is sure how to approach. He keeps looking at Chifuyu like he isn’t real, like he can’t quite comprehend that he’s in front of him now. Chifuyu can’t help but feel the same.

“I-”

“Your hair,” Kazutora starts.

They look at each other again. Chifuyu just can’t seem to stop looking. A minute passes, maybe two. He pushes his chair back abruptly and stands.

“I’ll send a letter.”

Kazutora follows the movement with his eyes.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll send one back.” 

A strangled noise of acknowledgement escapes Chifuyu and he leaves without another word, pausing once to look back at the twenty-year-old man behind him, so different from how he used to be but so similar nonetheless. Somewhere down the line, they both grew up. 

Impulse carried him this far, but now reality begins to settle in. He feels so acutely overwhelmed that he doesn’t process signing out or collecting his things, stumbling out the doors and back into the open air. There are too many things at war in his mind that he’s not sure what to make of any of them. Whatever they had shared over the past five years had been suddenly, unexpectedly brought to a head in a meeting that lasted all of five minutes. Seeing Kazutora is not something he had planned for, ever, if at all. 

Feeling a sense of relief at the sight of him is something else entirely. 

Kazutora,

It’s been a weird couple of months. I still have at least a year left before I can start anything, but the lady who owns the store I’m working at is retiring soon. She said it’s mine if I want it. Am I even ready for that? Fuck, I need to start saving.

Mikey left Japan. He’s currently traveling around with Emma and Izana. Toman hasn’t been Toman for a while but not having him here feels like a really big change. I don’t think any of us know what to do now that we aren’t looking out for him. Draken, especially, he was moping about it for at least two weeks before Mitsuya kicked his ass. We have bets on how long it’ll take for him to confess to Emma once they get back. Let me know if you want to join the pool, or don’t, because I know I’m going to win. 

I shouldn’t have shown up without warning you first. I wasn’t really thinking. Just write back this time, asshole. Don’t be inconsiderate.

Chifuyu

Chifuyu,

All this time I’ve been imagining you as blond. How long have I been wrong? Even though we’ve been doing this for years, I guess you’ve been stuck in my head looking like you did back in 2005. But time passes, things change, and you haven’t grown taller at all. At least I got one thing right. Don’t get mad and stop reading now.

I want to ask why but I won’t. I just can’t think of anything else to say. I never thought— never mind. I never thought I’d see the day Mikey would take a vacation away from here. More importantly, I’m joining the damn betting pool whether you like it or not. Draken has been gone on Emma for almost as long as she’s been gone on him. It’s only a matter of time before Mikey gets fed up with hearing about it and just confesses for them. I give it 24 hours before Izana breaks too. 

About the store, nobody cares more about it than you do. Even though you still have a year left to get the proof on paper, you’re doing it for him, aren’t you? You’ll figure the rest out as it goes. Just remember that she’s leaving it in your hands for a reason. She believes in you. Send me a picture of your cat again and I’ll decide whether or not I believe in you too. 

I’m sorry I didn’t write. I’ll find another way to be inconsiderate for future reference. 

Kazutora

Whatever walls Chifuyu had been carefully constructing to justify their involvement with each other had come crashing down from the moment he walked into that room. Now that he knows what he looks like, now that he’s seen, he can’t forget: Kazutora’s face, Kazutora’s voice, Kazutora, in the flesh. 

Sweat begins to prick at his skin in all the wrong places, and his clothes feel too wrong where they touch him, and his lungs feel like they’re closing up—

There’s an itch under his skin. An itch that feels like deceit.

When did it become less about doing it for Baji and more about doing it for himself? Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? It's him that cares about Kazutora. 

He tastes salt on his tongue and restrains himself from biting through it. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, what did he expect after spending the last five years writing letters back and forth like it would bring Baji back? Baji was dead. Kazutora killed him, Kazutora killed Baji, Kazutora was the reason Baji killed himself. 

Why does he feel so dirty? Why does that make him feel worse?

“What do you want from me, Baji-san?” he asks on a shaky exhale. “You want me to say that he’s not a bad person? He isn’t. You want me to say that he’s innocent? He isn’t.” The floor is hard against his knees from where he presses himself to the ground, the whir of his ceiling fan static in his ears. His stomach turns as black spots begin to blur his vision. He doesn’t know when his hands started to tremble. “I can’t forgive him. I can’t forget. I can’t do anything right, can I?” 

Because Chifuyu has only ever been selfish and has only ever put in the effort when he wanted to save his own shallow self-worth, and then there’s Kazutora: Kazutora, who sat across him with nothing but concern in his face, Kazutora, with no ulterior motive, Kazutora, who he left there, Kazutora, who won’t ask for an explanation, who will never ask for the forgiveness Chifuyu knows he deserves. 

Kazutora, who understands. 

He realizes it with a start— that he knows Kazutora better than anyone else and that Kazutora knows him just as well. Chifuyu feels like laughing at the absurdity of it all because of course, of course, he does. The two of them, so fundamentally bound by the memory of Baji Keisuke, that in his absence they simply drew closer to each other. The person he spent years hating, now one of the most important to him. 

Baji and Kazutora, two sides of the same coin he keeps flipping in his head and the feeling that lives in between. His heartbeat races as he stumbles over uneven breaths, willing himself to calm down. He can’t use the excuse of distance or denial to ignore it anymore. The rush steadies. 

As if his life wasn’t complicated enough already. 

He never visits again but the remainder of Kazutora’s sentence is unavoidably colored with this knowledge. When Kazutora tells him that his mother visited, he gets upset. When Chifuyu finally gets his degree, the first person he wants to tell is him. Takemichi is his best friend but Kazutora occupies so much of his everyday life that he feels like more. Every passing week, every letter sent, carries more awareness that this is not something he can come back from. Kazutora is a commitment he makes every day, no longer a chore or an obligation, but a responsibility to himself. 

It reminds him of another choice he once made— his ill-fated tendency of picking those who go where he can’t follow. 

Sleepless nights continue to plague him, but on sunny days, he goes out walking. Without fail, his steps follow a time-worn path to a memorial ground lined with trees. He sits facing a headstone with pen and paper in hand and wonders how you can miss both the dead and the living, how both can be so close but so far out of reach. 

How they are too young to have suffered so much for so long. 

He has learned the hard way that the future is a fickle thing, that he is no exception, that if he wants something he has to take it for himself. No more last words and what-ifs and could-have-beens— what matters is now.

The first seed of an idea begins to take root. Five more years go by and it grows, it grows, it grows.

2015

The two-bedroom apartment he found last year is both affordable and of good quality. He can cover the rent on his own with his eyes closed, which is nice because Kazutora’s an ex-con who probably won’t be getting hired anywhere soon. It takes a village, as all things that matter usually do—  phone calls, and meetings, and footing the bill for several expensive dinners because Pah-chin won’t accept his usual consultation fee— but it comes together nonetheless. Chifuyu is grateful for the support of his friends in this particular endeavor because it proves that they care just as much as he does. Well, maybe not as much, but it’s a near thing. After all, Kazutora never stopped being one of them in their eyes.

Between Mitsuya taking him furniture shopping, and Takemichi helping out with the store, and everything else, he makes sure to have time for another visit over tea with someone who deserves to know more than anyone else what he plans to do. She smiles like she knew it would happen all along— and maybe it would have in another life. In this one, he fought for it. 

And then the day arrives. Chifuyu pulls up to the release gate with a line he practiced for far too long poised on the tip of his tongue. 

“Long time no see, Kazutora-kun.” Kazutora freezes where he stands at the sound of the horn and the look on his face is worth all the anxiety Chifuyu has had over the last few weeks. “Need a ride?”

He doesn’t expect him to be there and it shows. Chifuyu has a flash of irrational fear that Kazutora is going to start walking away, but he gives a tentative nod instead. It’s not a dramatic reunion by any means— not when Kazutora gets into the car as cautious as a stray— but Chifuyu will take it. He feels a little wired from the fact that Kazutora is right there next to him. Everything else is relative. 

The man in question shifts in his seat as Chifuyu pulls out of the prison complex. Already the space between them feels thick with tension, broken only by the occasional change of music on the radio. 

“Where are we going?” Kazutora asks, the first he’s spoken since he got in. Loaded question. Chifuyu drums his fingers against the steering wheel as he contemplates the best way to go about this. 

“Where do you think?” 

Deflection then. 

“I don’t have any place to go,” Kazutora says, cheeks heating up with embarrassment. He looks pointedly out the window as Chifuyu chuckles. 

“Don’t you?” In the reflection of the glass, Kazutora frowns like he still isn’t really sure what’s going on. Chifuyu decides to take mercy on him. “I didn’t think you’d want to go back to your mother’s and I have an extra room.”

Kazutora whips his head around with an incredulous expression. “You’re kidding right?” His jaw drops a little further at the shake of Chifuyu’s head. “You want to live with me?”

“You can say no,” Chifuyu reminds him— but please don’t. Kazutora seems rendered speechless yet again. 

“I— what the fuck is that?” 

It’s Chifuyu’s turn to be confused as Kazutora leans forward to peer through the windshield. “What? Tokyo?” 

“That is not Tokyo.” His voice takes on an awestruck affect as he scans the urban sprawl. “So much has changed. How did it get brighter and dirtier?” 

Chifuyu watches Kazutora watch the world out of the corner of his eye for the rest of the drive. As they get closer to their destination, turning onto side streets with less traffic, Kazutora gets quieter and quieter, not really looking here or there. When Chifuyu pulls into park, the car is in total silence. There’s a substantial pause before he shuts off the engine and turns to Kazutora, who is staring at his shoes. 

“Will you at least come in?” he offers. 

A complicated array of emotions flash across Kazutora’s face. “Don’t pity me,” he says. “I know why you’re doing this.”

Chifuyu can’t help it. He’s been repressing his nerves all day and he just— snaps. 

“Don’t use him as a fucking excuse.”

Kazutora blinks. “What?”

“You think he’d want you to deny a roof over your head because of him? You think that would make him happy?” 

“No, I—” 

“I’m not doing this right now. Shut up and come upstairs.” 

He gets out of the car and barely refrains from slamming the door shut. Kazutora slowly follows suit, no other protests to be heard. 

The elevator ride up to their floor is punctuated with the occasional sound of settling machinery but nothing more. Already, it feels like everything has gone wrong, the atmosphere soured by Chifuyu’s outburst. It only condenses further once they reach the apartment door. Kazutora’s gaze is heavy on the back of his neck as he turns the key in the lock. He hits the light switch as they kick off their shoes at the genkan, illuminating the entryway, and walks further into where he can drop his keys on the kitchen countertop. 

Chifuyu sighs. “Before you say anything, can I just show you around?”

Kazutora has already stepped over to the couch, sweeping his fingers over the upholstery like he’s afraid it’ll disappear if he touches it hard enough. “Yeah,” he says, voice soft. He looks up at Chifuyu with an indescribable expression. “There’s more?”

“There’s more,” Chifuyu confirms. “The room on the left, that’s all yours.” Kazutora opens his mouth to object but he holds up a hand. “I put towels and extra shower supplies in the bathroom earlier and there’s a toothbrush under the sink.” 

“I, uh, didn’t know what you wore in clothes so I just bought some a size up from what I am,” he continues. “Mitsuya picked most of them out, that’s kind of his job now.”

Kazutora looks like he’s about to cry. “Takashi helped?” 

“Everyone did,” Chifuyu says. He’s starting to feel better about this, about them. “Go wash up before we talk any more. I’ll order food. Is there anything you want?”

After ten years behind bars and on his first day of freedom, Kazutora wants. “Ramen,” he murmurs. “Real ramen. With an egg.”

It makes Chifuyu smile despite himself. “I know just the place.” 

He waits until he hears the shower turn on to text Souya’s personal number, knowing that their order will be pushed to the front of the queue regardless of the rush. When he puts his phone down, he has to take a moment to absorb it all. Kazutora is here. 

After years of something he still can’t put a name to, after everything they’ve been through, Kazutora is here. 

It feels unreal but the sound of water falling around a body a few feet away is more than enough proof. Chifuyu feels a little seasick, like the ground is swelling with every passing moment that Kazutora exists so close to him. When Kazutora reappears with damp hair and clothes that hang a little too loosely on his frame, he has to look away. 

The arrival of the food is a welcome opportunity to go clear his head. Chifuyu heads downstairs to meet the delivery person and when he comes back, Kazutora is standing in front of one of the living room shelves. 

“Food’s here,” he calls out. “What are you looking at?” The color drains from Kazutora’s face as he turns around. There’s something in his hand. 

Chifuyu immediately knows what it is. 

In the end, regardless of who he was doing this for or why, Chifuyu could never have built a home without Baji in it. It would be too dishonest to erase his influence, to pretend like he wasn’t the reason behind so much of who he is today. There’s a piece of him in every part of Chifuyu’s life— more than the pictures on the walls or the jacket in his closet— and the memories keep him from forgetting the good when the bad is too much to bear. 

Even now, as Kazutora clutches a photograph to his chest, he has no regrets. But the familiar pangs of grief still begin to creep up his throat.

“You went to the beach?” Kazutora asks. He sounds far away, like he’s lost in a memory of his own. “He loved the beach.”

There was no avoiding this conversation now.

“Kazutora—”  

“Chifuyu, this— this is too much. Food, clothes, a bed,” he gives Chifuyu a pained look. “Do you even want me here?”

Isn’t it obvious, he wants to say, but something stops Chifuyu from answering— something lodged in his throat, most inconvenient, but truthful. Against his better judgment, he thinks of that day. 

Kazutora’s eyes are sad with acceptance. “Haven’t I hurt you enough?”

He has. What happened ten years ago has caused suffering unlike anything Chifuyu has endured in his life since. But Kazutora knows that just as well as he does— he lived it too. 

“I didn’t just do this for Baji,” he says, and it burns as it comes out because so much has changed. Forgiveness is one thing, but Chifuyu doesn’t blame him anymore. It’s more than he ever thought he could do. “I did it for you.” 

Kazutora’s face crumples. 

“Why?” he asks, and it is wracked with guilt. “Why me?”

Why indeed. He’s been asking himself that every day and it always comes back to this. 

“The letters,” he says. “Almost every goddamn one. I kept them.”

“You—” Kazutora falters. “What?”

“It wasn’t just you, you know.” Chifuyu can feel the familiar prick of tears behind his eyes, involuntary. “I wanted someone else to remember him too. I didn’t want to be alone.”

I still don’t— is so clearly heard, though left unsaid. It is too sincere of an admission for the very first night. The weight of the last seven years settles over them like a thick cloud. 

Kazutora sways on his feet as if to come closer before stopping himself. He’s crying too. 

“I’m sorry,” his voice breaks. “I’m nothing but a burden.”

“You are not,” Chifuyu denies with force. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that.” 

“I killed him.”

No, he thinks, you keep him alive. Tonight, he is so ugly and full of ulteriors. He knows tomorrow will be the same. 

“He killed himself,” Chifuyu says, and the words threaten to choke him. “His choice. Not yours.” 

It sobers them both into silence. When the stillness stretches on for too long, he finds Kazutora looking up at him.  

“You deserve better,” he says. 

Chifuyu’s lips twist in a bitter smile. “If we always got what we deserved, we wouldn’t be here.” 

The significance of that is not lost on either of them. The food has long since grown cold.

“I don’t know how to move on from this,” Kazutora whispers. 

“Then don’t,” Chifuyu says, with all the experience of holding on too tight. “Move with it.”

-

The first place he takes Kazutora is Draken’s shop, the owner of which swings one large arm around his shoulders and uses an equally large palm to the back of the head to pull him in for a hug. The shock is unmistakable on Kazutora’s face, the set of his spine evident that he was more prepared for a hit than anything else. 

“Draken—” 

“You kept your promise,” Draken says, and Chifuyu doesn’t know what it means but Kazutora smiles. There’s no mania pulling at his cheeks, just a hesitant curve upwards that he hides with a duck of his head. 

“I did,” he replies. Draken releases him and his answering grin is enough in itself. 

“Welcome home, Kazutora.” 

(The second place he takes him is to see Baji’s mother, and when he drops onto his knees in front of her, she wraps her arms around him with a fierceness only a mother could possess. It’s not the first time Chifuyu ever sees Kazutora cry, but it is the first time he sees a child instead of a killer. It strikes him in a way he isn’t prepared for. 

There’s a pain in his chest he hasn’t felt in a while and it feels like history.)

-

His expectations were low to begin with, knowing that no amount of letters in the world could sufficiently prepare them both for the trials of cohabitation, but living with Kazutora is nothing like what he thought it would be.

Every morning, Chifuyu wakes up early to open the shop and Kazutora still operates on a prisoner’s schedule, rising with the sun. Crossing paths is a given, but when Kazutora sees him, his entire demeanor defaults to politeness— not an ounce of the spark Chifuyu has witnessed on paper over the past decade to be seen, as if he’s afraid that having a personality will be held against him. 

He doesn’t know how to handle Kazutora navigating the apartment like a baby deer, and honestly, it doesn’t seem like Kazutora knows how to handle it either. He flinches at every loud noise and apologizes every five minutes for things that aren’t even his fault. 

Thin ice, eggshells, whatever you want to call it— they were walking on it gracelessly.

Baji’s picture watches over them from the shelf in the living room, though Kazutora tries to make himself as small as possible whenever it catches his eye. They haven’t spoken of him once since that first day. What else is left to say?

The desire for human connection soon outweighs whatever residual self-reproach Kazutora possesses. He begins to spend more time outside of his room, where Chifuyu will find him at the end of a workday, eyes plastered to the news or out the window. He says good morning and goodnight like clockwork and no longer looks away when talking to him. The day they start eating meals together feels monumentally like progress. 

Kazutora then asks for permission to start cooking and Chifuyu has to remind him that the kitchen belongs to him too— but he later finds him in the kitchen with a pot of boiling water bubbling over on the stove, smoke rising from the oven. The panicked look he shoots at Chifuyu is so hysterical that he can’t help it, feeling himself tear up with the force of how hard he laughs. 

Just like that, the invisible barrier breaks. 

The first olive branch is a box of strawberry pocky that Chifuyu leaves on the table next to a can of beer. Kazutora flips the tab open with slow fingers that shake over the pink snack box, and when they drink to an old memory, the alcohol is not the only thing that makes him feel warm. Another night, he catches Kazutora turning his head at the muffled sound of an engine in the distance and he thinks of the bike he has carefully stored away. When he offers to take him on a ride, Kazutora lights up in a way that reminds Chifuyu of the person he had been writing all this time. He doesn’t miss the nostalgic look that passes over his face at the sight of it but his concern is drowned out by the howl of delight that escapes Kazutora as they speed through back roads. He resolves to keep finding ways to bring out this Kazutora, the one that wants to live, and later that week he introduces him to the pets. True to his name, Kazutora favors the kittens. 

In moments like those, Kazutora walks through life with his big golden eyes widening at everything around them. It’s endearing, which is annoying and a little gross. Chifuyu always averts his eyes when he gets caught staring. 

Time goes on. Kazutora starts to shed the skin of good manners in favor of a passive attitude to rival his own. He makes enough dinner for two and leaves a plate covered on the table. They fight over what to watch on the TV. Chifuyu learns how to share a bathroom. The strays choose a new favorite. And as proximity would have it, he finds himself noticing more about Kazutora every day: 

Kazutora wears socks all the time because he gets cold easily. He always has at least two blankets wrapped around him on the couch. He cries at heartfelt scenes in movies. He’s a lightweight. He prefers sweet over spicy, but he doesn’t like candy. He’s left-handed. When he doesn’t like something, his nose twitches. When he does, his eyes crease. His knuckles are scarred from being torn apart over and over again. He doesn’t sleep well. He paces. He talks to himself. He talks to Baji. 

The walls are thin in this home that they share. 

Chifuyu listens, and when listening becomes too much, he drinks. The peace is as ephemeral as a sunset and the presence of good days brings with them bad ones that linger. 

Good and bad. Bad and good. The gray area they exist within feels like a fog: beautiful or blinding depending on the day. Kazutora smiles at breakfast, Chifuyu cracks a joke, but the insomnia, the alcoholism, it grates on them both, it becomes an excuse to unbury unspeakable feelings and reopen still-healing wounds. 

It never gets easier to pick up the pieces afterward, but they do it with methodical efficiency. Kazutora folds into himself until Chifuyu reaches out to bring him back. I’m sorry is never more than a look between them that speaks volumes in its silence. 

Dysfunctional as they are, it doesn’t escape the eyes of their more well-meaning friends. He can play it off when someone makes a passing comment on the bags under his eyes but when Kazutora starts losing weight, it can’t go ignored. The intervention consists of some truly uncomfortable scrutiny that Toman’s ex-captains subject them to, and it’s frustrating because Chifuyu knows what the problem is, knows that he just needs to try harder, knows that he’s failing again at protecting Baji’s wishes, and he’s so overwhelmed that he doesn’t even notice when he starts to yell. 

He walks out when Draken not-so-subtly suggests professional help but when Mitsuya sends a phone number, he calls it— for Kazutora. And Kazutora goes, gives it a try, and then keeps going. 

Chifuyu takes longer to accept the fact that he needs help too. 

One day, Kazutora comes back from a session and he doesn’t have to say anything for Chifuyu to know what he’s thinking. He makes the appointment without putting up a fight because compromise is the backbone of their household and vows to not say a word to whoever they put in front of him. 

The therapist tells him that she’s perfectly content with being paid to sit in silence and Chifuyu walks out of there too. He makes a return appointment for the next week purely out of spite, but when she sits back to listen, it spills out of him like a dam breaking. Everything— from Bloody Halloween to the letters to cold ramen on the floor to now— and Baji. In his youth, he’d always been able to talk endlessly about his captain. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he let himself. 

She asks him why he only cries when he talks about Baji and that makes him laugh because he’s shed so many tears in this lifetime over Baji Keisuke that giving them all to him is only right. 

“What else is there to cry about?” is a rhetorical question but she answers it with one of her own— asking if he ever did take the time to mourn his own lost youth.

His own? Oh. His own.

Chifuyu hasn’t been thirteen for a very long time and his tears have only ever belonged to one other person. Having the permission to allow a few for himself is something he never knew he needed. 

He makes another appointment. 

2016

Kazutora grows out his hair, keeps growing it long past his shoulders until he looks like a ghost, and Chifuyu thinks oh—

Oh. I'm not the only one. 

It only spirals from there, with hair ties left around the house or a sudden trick of the light. Painfully, inevitably, Chifuyu gets a little too drunk one night and calls him by his name instead, desperate, hoping, wanting. When he kisses him, it almost feels like coming home. 

Almost. 

They both cry about it in the morning— Chifuyu because of what he did, Kazutora because of why he let him— but when their hands meet in the middle, neither one of them lets go. 

Falling in love with someone new hurts in a way he can’t even describe because it’s not like he ever fell out of love to begin with. The emotion simply settled into his bones where he expected it to stay for the rest of his life— and it has, because even now he feels a twinge of heartache at the thought of what could have been. But the past remains the past and Kazutora is his present. He has everything he wants and some days it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

Kazutora feels it too; Chifuyu can see it in the way he still hesitates before every touch that he’s thinking of someone else. The guilt is another thing they share, different from what either of them has been feeling for the past ten years. It tastes like poison. 

How could he ever feel guilty for loving Baji Keisuke? It is as much a part of him as the blood in his veins and the life in his eyes. How could he ever feel guilty for loving Hanemiya Kazutora, when that too is the same? From words on a page to a person in the flesh— from strangers, to friends, to this— everything good about him, about his life, is in some way part of Baji’s legacy. He would want them to be happy. He made it so. 

Chifuyu still remembers that first day, the sun setting on his battered body as pride alone kept him upright. He remembers wiping his hands on a sweat and blood-stained shirt, remembers how his pulse quickened as Baji appeared out of nowhere, shaking out his hair and baring his teeth like a young god. His heart never stood a chance. 

Baji was— Baji was invincible until he wasn’t— a force of nature, burning red-hot against the sky. Chifuyu loved him the same way the tides followed the pull of the moon. It was as easy as breathing, and it would be easy to stay that way, to let himself live in bygone days and fester like an open wound. It would hurt, but it would be easy, in the way well-practiced habits usually are. 

He’s just— he’s so tired of hurting. He wants them to be happy too. 

The initial distance is necessary. Taking the space to process what this development in their relationship means is healthy. These are all things that his therapist says, but then he watches Kazutora quietly stocking shelves and feels so overcome with it that waiting seems useless. They’ve come so far from where they began and the road they had taken to reach this point was much longer. He has only ever been this sure once before. 

He waits regardless because he owes it to Kazutora to work through the reason this all started in the first place: that night, when he closed his eyes and pictured a ghost because he was afraid of wanting what was already there. He waits, because he loves Kazutora— not because of Baji, not despite him— and after everything, Kazutora deserves the time to decide if he loves him too. He waits, and when Kazutora finally falls back into his arms, Chifuyu makes sure to cradle his face like the precious thing it is before he kisses him again. 

Because Kazutora is kind in a way he doesn’t allow many others to see. He walks on the edge of the street to leave more room for passersby. He has full-on conversations with the pets when he thinks he’s alone. When Chifuyu comes home from long days at work, he holds him against him with arms so strong but so gentle, that Chifuyu wants to take him apart just to put him back together again. It becomes less of an almost and more of a given. He looks at Kazutora and he knows it to be true. 

They are by no means healed just because they found each other— the fog still rolls in without warning— but the nightmares are easier to weather with someone to guide them through. Every day is a day that they try and that is more than enough. 

They never use his name as a weapon, not anymore. 

By the time Chifuyu realizes it, it feels silly to even bring it up— after all, anyone could assume it just by looking at them— but he says it anyway because his lover deserves to hear it. 

He forgave Kazutora a long time ago. 

Oct. 31, 2017

A plane passes overhead through a clear blue sky. Chifuyu watches it go from where he’s kneeling in front of another half-eaten packet of Peyoung yakisoba. 

“Remember when I wanted to be a pilot?” 

Kazutora shifts from where he stands behind him but doesn’t interrupt. 

“I always wanted to know what it felt like to fly. The world is so big, Keisuke— bigger than me, bigger than Toman, bigger than anything we could have conquered. I wanted to see it all.”

“And then you died,” he exhales. “You always did know how to keep me grounded.”

His companion coughs at that, though it’s good-natured. “Ouch,” Kazutora says. “He’s already dead, you know. Don’t make him feel worse.”

“Do you feel bad, Keisuke?” Chifuyu asks the grave in front of him. “You shouldn’t.” 

He looks back at the man he loves and thinks of the life they’ve created together, all because of a boy who left his window cracked and his heart wide open. It’s been a lifetime since he’s seen his face in front of him, or heard his voice, or felt his touch, but he belongs in everything they do. Chifuyu owns a pet shop. And Kazutora helps Chifuyu with the pet shop. This is how Takemichi describes it, succinct and to the point (not at all like him), and it sounds too simple. But isn’t it? Isn’t it so beautifully simple with Kazutora by his side? No one understands him the way he does, and no one ever will. Baji Keisuke lives all around and in between them and they built a home on the love they share— not just for each other, but for him. 

“You saved us both. That’s worth more than any blue sky.”

The wind rustles through the leaves on the ground, the sun shines a little brighter, and he knows he’s been heard. His lips twitch when he hears the muffled sniffle behind him, turning to see Kazutora rubbing his forearm over his eyes. 

“Keisuke would have liked that,” he says, and it’s clear that his voice is fighting a quiver. 

“You liked it too, you big baby,” Chifuyu says, reaching a hand up to catch Kazutora’s fingers between his. “You don’t think his head would have gotten too big?” 

“It was big as hell already.”

“What was that about him already being dead—” 

When Kazutora pulls him up and closer to stifle the rest of his sentence with his free hand, Chifuyu doesn’t fight it, leaning into his touch instead with a hum against his palm. Predictably, Kazutora drops his head into the crook between Chifuyu’s neck and shoulder with a soft huff. 

“He’d be happy for us, right?” Kazutora asks against his skin, a thinly-veiled alternative to is this okay. It’s not the first time Chifuyu’s heard the question, nor will it be the last— god knows he’s asked it enough times himself. He alone understands the ache that threatens to corrupt even the most fleeting moments of happiness they share, so he nods because today he really believes it. 

“I think he’d laugh, if he could see us now,” Chifuyu answers, looking back down over the name carved in stone. “Being together like this.” 

“It only took ten years.” 

“You know how proud he’d be,” Chifuyu says, and Kazutora tightens his arms around him. “He’s been waiting for so long,” he continues. “So have you. So have I.”

Kazutora’s eyes take on a distant look and he doesn’t need to say much else for Chifuyu to know what he’s thinking about. He squeezes his hand. 

“We should start heading back. I trust Takemichi with my life but not with my shop.”

“Hina-san is there with him, you know.”

“Hina-san is an angel who is going to stop talking to us if we keep making her work without pay.” 

“She likes the cats too much to mind,” Kazutora says, with all the confidence of someone who also likes the cats too much to mind much else. 

“And you,” Chifuyu reminds him. “You especially.” It has the desired effect, Kazutora turning red in an instant. If he had any more doubts about his boyfriend’s character, they would have all been null and void the moment Tachibana Hinata decided that they were best friends. 

Kazutora mumbles something unintelligible in an effort to save face before he drops his hand to pay his respects again, reaching out to hover over the flowers he left when they arrived. Chifuyu steps away to give him a moment of privacy. He’s glad Kazutora comes with him these days, comes with him at all, when he felt so undeserving before. Chifuyu knows he has far more to say than he could ever begin to imagine. 

“See you later, Keisuke,” he hears after a few minutes. “Chifu?”

“Just a second,” he responds. Kazutora nods and makes his way back towards the entrance of the cemetery. 

Chifuyu bows his head, a wistful smile on his face. 

“You were a good new dream,” he says, and the voice of his younger years echoes the sentiment behind him. “The best I could ever ask for.”

He wakes up every morning to a head on his chest and an arm around his waist. He knows two different ways to make coffee and an endless amount of ways to make Kazutora laugh. There’s always dog hair or cat hair or strange “unspecified” long blond hair on every surface of their home, and recently, he’s been thinking about investing in a better vacuum cleaner. An izakaya by Draken’s shop knows them all as regulars. He’ll be the best man at Takemichi’s wedding next summer. He visits the fifth floor of his old apartment building for tea every week. A worn-down photograph hangs on the wall behind the countertop at his favorite place in the world.

Chifuyu sighs with satisfaction. He has the rest of his life waiting for him. He finally feels like living it. 

“Thank you...Baji-san.”