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Toki is dead, Toshokai is finished, and the man he once knew as Kanetaka is making breakfast in the kitchen. Muro isn’t sure which of these futures he expected the least. Toki had been an assumed constant of his life; reassuring in his solidity, the frankness of his violence. Toshokai was the only world he had. And whatever he might have wanted from Kanetaka–
Well. He didn’t get it from Kanetaka, in the end.
Muro lingers in the corridor, watching the older man from a distance. He’s shirtless, apparently unfazed by how the cooking oil spits and sputters in the frying pan. Even from here, Muro can see the marks he left last night: fading bruises, dark arcs of teeth. He remembers how the other man hissed as he bit down, a shiver running through that muscled back. The memory stings.
“Did you do this for Emiri too?” he asks. “Were you fucking her all along? Is that why–” You won’t let me kill her, he almost says, but no, that’s pathetic, he doesn’t need permission from a cop “–you care whether she dies?”
The cop doesn’t look up. He swirls the frying pan; its contents sizzle. “There’s no point taking revenge.”
A bark of laughter. “That’s rich coming from you, Mister I-spent-a-decade–”
“That wasn’t revenge,” Idezuki Gorou says. “It was atonement.”
Muro wonders if last night was the same. Some kind of apology for destroying Toshokai. Maybe even for betraying him, if Muro can believe that he meant anything to Idezuki.
The cop could have– killed him, arrested him, whatever. Instead he brought Muro back to his apartment, let him do anything he wanted; yielded and yielded and yielded further, taking whatever Muro wanted to inflict. Teeth on skin, a hand twisting in his hair, and Muro inside him, rough and insistent, hungry for something impossible.
It’s not quite what Muro had wanted from Kanetaka. Not that he’d been allowed to want anything, anyway – not within the rules of the yakuza world, their relationship codified in kyoudai and aniki. But Idezuki’s an undercover cop, a traitor, so it doesn’t matter what Muro does with him.
Idezuki must have recognised that too. He didn’t resist, last night; didn’t so much as protest when Muro came inside him, cursing, then went for a second round.
Muro crosses the room, slow and lazy. Peers over Idezuki’s shoulder at the stove; then presses close and wraps his arms around the other man’s waist, a parody of intimacy.
Emiri probably did this too, he thinks. The thought makes his teeth itch.
“Watch it,” the cop says, impatient; it’s the most honest he’s sounded since yesterday. “I’m cooking.”
Muro laughs. Nuzzles the back of Idezuki’s head, briefly, then mouths the shell of his ear. Last night Idezuki shuddered when he did so, arching back against him; this morning he stays very still, the seconds stretching, before he lifts the pan from the fire and turns off the stove. Not in concession; the omelette is done.
Idezuki slides it onto a plate. Says: “You shouldn’t keep Anna waiting.”
Muro jolts back. “How–”
“Your phone. Two missed calls and a string of messages.”
Right. Muro had woken to the buzzing of his phone, its screen alight with text – then placed it face down and followed the smell of breakfast into the corridor.
“None of your business,” Muro mutters.
Idezuki brings the plate to the table. Muro follows and sits down, automatic. Something about this should bother him. He picks up the laid-out cutlery, instead, and begins to eat.
“When you’re done here,” Idezuki says, taking a seat across from him, “you should go meet her.”
Muro ignores him. The omelette tastes decent, if underseasoned.
“Toshokai is gone,” the cop goes on, as if that isn’t the entire problem, the core of what he’s taken from Muro– “Which means you’re safe. Both you and that girl.”
As if it matters. As if some worry about safety was why Muro hadn’t gone with her. He shoves another forkful of omelette into his mouth, swallows. He can sense the cop’s gaze on him. Another bite, sliding warm down his throat. It won’t be enough. He could really go for some cheap onigiri right now.
“Please,” Idezuki says.
Kanetaka wouldn’t have said that. Muro glances up. The cop looks – tired, maybe. Sad, even, implausible as that is. Would Kanetaka have looked at him like this? Muro doesn’t know. His memories of Kanetaka are beginning to blur, eroded by the betrayal. The firm strength of his body: in an overgrown building, in the ruins of the Golden Bough. In an unfamiliar bed. How he used to smile, the slightest curl of the corner of his mouth, a sign no one else would catch. How his hand felt in Muro’s hair. The soft pained sound he made, last night, as Muro pinned him down and thrust deeper and whispered aniki in his ear. A lie told for them both.
“You just want to get rid of me,” Muro says. A thought occurs to him – takes root, flourishes, vicious and barbed. “So you can find that Emiri of yours. Is that it? A happily-ever-after?”
Idezuki shakes his head. “I want the same for her as for you. Freedom.”
The same. Muro sets down his fork, throat tight with fury. “What about what I want?”
“Like I said–”
“Not revenge,” Muro says impatiently.
Idezuki stares. Surprise softens his features, turning him more unfamiliar yet. “What, then?”
It’s a fair question. Muro glares back at his plate; scrapes up the last shreds of omelette, taking sharp and angry bites, until it’s clean. He wants to return to Toshokai. He wants the warmth of blood on his hands. He wants the warmth of a hand in his hair. He wants a familiar body against his, not yielding but responding. He wants mornings and mornings yet. He wants, and wants, and wants, the way he’s hungered all these years, desperate and insatiable.
“Let me stay here,” he says, looking up. “With you.”
Idezuki sighs. It’s a short, almost impatient sound. It’s nothing like the sound he made last night, low and trembling, as Muro eased back into him.
“Look,” Idezuki begins. “That’s impossible–”
Muro gets up, chair scraping against the tile. “You–”
“– because the police know about this apartment.”
It takes a while for Muro to place exactly where the objection falls. The realisation sets something singing through his veins, fierce and bright. He grins. “Guess we need to move, then.”
Idezuki closes his eyes, shoulders slack in resignation. This too is unfamiliar – but Muro’s willing to learn. He leans across the table, begins to reach out just as Idezuki says, very quietly, “I trusted that you’d kill me.”
Muro's grin widens, ironic. “I trusted you.”
Idezuki doesn’t respond. Muro lets himself make contact: the fall of his fringe, the stubbled curve of his jaw. A face he might yet recognise. Toki is dead and Toshokai is finished and a man he doesn’t know is leaning into his touch, ever so slightly. Kanetaka wouldn’t have done so. Kanetaka–
“Idezuki-san,” Muro says.
The other man opens his eyes. Muro holds his gaze, earnest, and adds: “I’m still hungry.”
Idezuki stares – then laughs, rough and almost-warm. He picks up Muro’s empty plate and walks back to the stove, a foreign ease in the line of his back. Muro watches him, patient, waiting for his image to resolve.