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The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed half past two, and almost on cue, a breeze blew in from the windows cracked open by an inch, gently kicking up the curtains and flooding the mansion floor with moonlight. A thin stream of smoke drifted through the air as Satoru Mashita, a half-finished cigarette dangling from his left hand, poured himself over the messiest corner of the Kujou estate’s entrance hall; a long, dark oak coffee table now lined with borrowed documents, case files and all sorts of other paper clutter, with a plush red velvet sofa about an arms length away. His ears perked up at the sound of the clock, and as he looked over at the time, squinting ferociously in the dark to make out the numbers, he breathed a hefty sigh of defeat at the realization that it was, in fact, stupidly late. The darker hours of the night tended to blend together once the nearest desk lamp had been switched on, making it nearly impossible to keep track of time when on his own.
Kazuo Yashiki – who’d invited him back to the mansion to stay the night once they’d come to the conclusion that the case they were currently investigating, and hoping to wrap up in one evening, might have to bleed into the next – had been sent upstairs an hour or so earlier; the man’s sleeping schedule was abysmal enough, he wasn’t about to push it any further. Mashita could take this hit, for the both of them. But it’d gotten to a point where even he had started to go cross-eyed from staring at lines upon lines of text and images for far too long, and it was very much dawning on him that he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Quickly putting out what remained of his cigarette in the nearest ashtray and swiping his suit jacket off the back of the sofa, he hauled himself upright, stretching out his back and arms until they cracked, before flicking the downstairs light off and making for the stairs.
As much as he enjoyed the luxury of this mansion in the daytime – the warmth and sunlight that streamed inside made every diligently polished surface glow a brilliantly vibrant gold every morning – he couldn’t deny it terrified him at night. It was built for a family, with far too many rooms to count and more space in one building than he ever thought he’d see in his life. It was certainly not made for the forty something ghost hunter who moved through the world like he was scared to remind it he existed, and the spiky detective who occasionally stuck his neck through the door. The sheer thought of how many rooms went unused in this place, and subsequently what those rooms might be hiding, was enough to make his hair stand on end, and send shivers all down his spine.
He tried his hardest to pay it as little mind as he could, feeling his way down the upstairs corridor, until he caught sight of an open door at the end of the hall. If it weren’t for the rising crescent moon framed by the distant window, he wouldn’t have noticed. He glanced over his shoulder. His “bedroom” was down the other way. He told himself there was no point in poking around a place that wasn’t even his, that he should just put it out of mind for the time being, and if he was still thinking about it, ask Yashiki in the morning. It wasn’t even that big a deal; one singular door out of possibly hundreds had been left open.
But then that eerie chill came again, almost like a rushing wind that whistled past his back, and he unintentionally leaned a little closer to the room. Close enough he could now see it was the bathroom, and there was a figure sat in the bathtub.
The light was off, and he was still halfway down the corridor, so all he could see was the tops of their bent knees, along with the soft lapping of their trouser fabric in the gust slipping in through the window. For the briefest of seconds, a horrible thought crossed his mind; what if they’d been followed? Yashiki would always say he could feel a chill whenever a spirit drew near, or it’d be a sudden pounding behind his eyes, a shortness of breath, an ailment of some kind always seemed to strike whenever they were in danger. It wasn’t like it was an especially unfamiliar chill, and in both this line of work and the police force, he’d always learned to suspect the worst, but logic soon found its way back to him, when he told himself that Yashiki merely went upstairs an hour ago, and he’d never actually checked if he’d gone to bed.
With a huffed sigh of relief, he padded his way over to the bathroom, hovering in the doorway with one hand on the frame, and eyes on the figure slowly coming into focus in the dark.
“That you, Yashiki?” he asked, voice cracked and tired with the day’s strain. The figure did not move, or give any indication he’d heard him. Mashita simply sighed, and reached around the doorframe to feel around the wall for some kind of light switch or cord. He could never remember which one it was, and straining his vision so much to try and see in this pitch black bathroom really was starting to give him a headache.
“Jesus,” he mumbled, “What’re you doin’ in here with the lights off?”
“Don’t touch that—” Yashiki piped up, and Mashita’s hand leapt off the wall in surprise rather than compliance. “It’s nice like this.”
“I can barely fuckin’ see you.”
“Your eyes adjust to it.”
He glanced out of the window, the moonlight glittering as it reflected off his cheeks. They almost looked wet.
“Besides,” he continued, “The moon’s nice and bright tonight.”
“Gettin’ off to the natural lighting, huh?” He quipped, “Damned hippie.”
Yashiki gave him no answer. Not even an uncomfortable shuffle in place. It was like he didn’t even hear him. Mashita pushed off the doorframe, taking deliberate steps towards the bathtub, dumping his suit jacket on the tiles by the door, and reaching a hand out to tap Yashiki on the shoulder.
“Hey,” he tilted his head, “You ok?”
Again, Yashiki didn’t answer. Now Mashita was this close, he didn’t really look like he was all there. His eyes were glossy and unfocused, just staring forward at nothing in particular, his mouth slightly agape, but not enough to indicate a lack of control, and there were definite streaks of tears running down his face, just about defined by the moonlight. Mashita crouched down, extended hand now shifting over to take Yashiki by the face, and ran a thumb over his cheek, wiping away the steadily drying tears. He felt the man lean into his hand, eyes fluttering closed in the first sign of life he’d exhibited yet, and he hated how much the visible softening of his expression made his heart pound just that much faster.
“Yashiki?”
“Can you do me a favour?” he interjected.
“Uh—” Mashita muttered, “Sure, I guess.”
“Come sit in here with me.”
Mashita blinked, slightly stunned. “Might need a couple more drinks before I can properly think about that.”
“Please?”
He turned a little, and the two finally met eyes. Mashita’s throat started to dry, as it always seemed to do when Yashiki looked right through him; even if he wasn’t doing it intentionally, there was never a time when his gaze didn’t make it increasingly difficult to be sensible. He couldn’t imagine being in such a confined space with somebody who sent him absolutely mad, let alone how he’d ever be able to hide it, especially if that idiot would be sitting less than a few feet away from him with absolutely no idea at just how strange the situation was. He cleared his throat, blinking a few times to regain some semblance of stability.
“Are you drunk?” Mashita huffed.
“No.”
“On somethin’?”
“No.”
“You sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine,” Yashiki insisted, “I know what I’m asking.”
“Do you?”
“Perfectly.”
Mashita’s thoughts came to another halt; perhaps he did know what he was doing to him. Despite their newfound closeness, there was a lot they both held back from one another, as people do. Yashiki didn’t need to know everything about him, and he, as much as he might want to, didn’t need to know everything about Yashiki. Maybe he hadn’t been as oblivious in his past as he’d led Mashita to believe.
With a smirk, he pushed himself back onto his feet, preparing to kick off his shoes, before catching Yashiki still wearing his out of the corner of his eye.
“You’re fuckin’ weird, old man,” he scowled, before very carefully bending his legs, and clambering inside the bathtub. Yashiki tucked his knees a little closer to give him some more space, intently watching him as he lowered himself down, opening his legs out and slipping them either side of Yashiki so he could stretch out. They slot into one another almost perfectly. Mashita would have been hard pressed to call it comfortable, but it wasn’t as bad as he expected. Yashiki’s dark, hooded eyes wistfully staring away at him over the top of his knees however, was exactly as he’d predicted, and he couldn’t stop himself grasping at the edge of the tub to keep himself from saying something stupid.
“Right, okay, I’m in,” he sighed, “What now, hm?”
“Can you feel it?”
It was so quiet, Mashita was certain he’d just imagined it.
“…what?”
“Can you feel it?” Yashiki repeated, straightening up a little, “Around?”
“Feel what?” He leaned forward, “What do you want me to feel?”
He falls silent again, and Mashita can do nothing but stare. He tilts his head, quietly prying for more, and yet he does not concede. He had to have been messing with him at this point; was it really so hard to just explain things to him every once in a while?
“Talk to me, dammit,” he pressed, inching closer again, “What should I be feeling?”
Again, nothing.
“Kazuo!”
He lurched forward, grabbing the other man by the shoulders and giving him a firm shake, only really succeeding in startling him a little, until he felt something ripple up his back, freezing him in place. He drew back, hands tensing against Yashiki’s arms as the other man registered something was off. Was this the “it” he had to feel? He sank his teeth into his bottom lip in deep anticipation, his skin prickling under his clothes as Yashiki kept his eyes ferociously trained on him.
“Look outside.”
Mashita obliged, the inky black horizon beyond the bathroom window his first instinct, but Yashiki was quick to grab him by the jaw and sharply turn his head in the right direction; staring out into the corridor.
The door at the other end of the mansion was now open, even though Mashita could have sworn it was closed no less than a few minutes earlier, and he could just about see something lying on the ground. His eyesight was by no means at its peak, but even he could discern the outline of a limp, unconscious body, strewn across the carpet, jaw loose and slack, eyes unfocused, but still finding a way to shoot daggers into his soul, as if, somehow, it was his fault, and despite what his remaining logic was telling him, there appeared to be flowers blooming from their chest. Pale, wilting things that looked just as unnatural as their host, their once vibrant petals and leaves now almost grey in their final moments. The corpse’s slick black hair tangled with the vines, matted with blood that stuck to their face in more places than not, obscuring it almost entirely that Mashita could hardly tell he recognised them. Faintly, albeit, he’d only been shown the occasional picture, but they were still painfully familiar. Saya. He thinks of the name before he even remembers who it belongs to. Saya Kujou; Yashiki’s little sister.
“Do you see her?”
Now, somehow, it makes sense.
He was still a little uncertain about the bathtub, of course, but Yashiki’s silence and that eerie chill now were perfectly clear. He nodded, still a little tense, and leant away from the other man, sinking back into the tub. Yashiki followed, crawling forward just an inch to keep staring at Mashita, a hand now having found its way to his knee. Mashita barely noticed the newlyfound contact, still fixated on Saya.
“How does she look?” Yashiki uttered, “Is she angry? Sad?”
For a moment, Mashita wondered why he was even asking. Could he not see Saya? How did he know she was there, then? Did he not want to see her? In any other situation, he’d have just urged him to get up and take a look himself if he was so curious, but there was an edge to his voice that stripped all fire from Mashita. There was an ache that bled through his words, a forlorn drag that sounded almost painful to haul out of his throat. He knew exactly the kinds of things loss did to a man, and for somebody who’d spent his entire life surrounded by the dead, he figured Yashiki had a lot of grief on his shoulders. The least he could do was help him carry some of that weight.
“She—“ he stammered, somehow focusing even harder on the body. “She’s smiling.”
“So she’s happy?” It almost came out as a plea.
“She doesn’t look like anything,” Mashita shook his head, “She just looks empty.”
Yashiki gives a sharp inhale, prompting Mashita to snap out of his fascination with Saya’s body, and look back to the bathtub. He slightly jolted at just how close Yashiki had gotten, and almost instinctively reached out to paw beneath his glasses, and wipe the fresh stream of tears from his cheek. He inhaled again, eliciting more tears, and a croaked attempt to say something. Mashita, unfortunately, couldn’t make out a single syllable. He barely lasted a second like that before he suddenly collapsed forward, crumpling into Mashita’s front and tightly wrapping his arms around his waist, clinging onto his shirt as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. Mashita’s hands shot up, a little uncertain as to what to do with them. They weren’t exactly the type for this kind of touch. Sure, they’d bump shoulders whilst walking, sit so close their thighs would press together, wrap an arm around a neck to discuss something a little more private; nothing like this, though. Mashita could feel the shake of his body with every sob he heaved into the crook of his neck, and he hoped he’d be far too distracted to listen for the pounding of his heart.
Eventually, the detective’s hands settled on his back, rubbing steady circles wherever he could reach, and muttering occasional comforts when they came to mind until Yashiki’s tears finally subside, his grip softening as his breathing calmed. Unconsciously, almost, Mashita pushed a hand up Yashiki’s spine, tangling in his hair and lightly holding him in place, before he lent down and planted a kiss on his crown. The kiss was hesitant, fearful even, as if he was desperate for it to be received well, but even more desperate for that uncertainty to be hidden. Despite that, something about the rest felt so natural; they fit into one another with no gaps, as if their bodies had grown with the shape of the other in mind, Yashiki’s hands fit Mashita’s waist, Mashita’s fingers tugged Yashiki’s hair with perfect strength, as if this was all they were ever meant to be. He wasn’t particularly sure what came over him. He’d been perfectly good at holding his ground up until then. What changed? What about this sudden shift in proxemics has let him slip just that little bit?
Yashiki’s breath caught as Mashita pulled back, straightening up to look him in the eye. He couldn’t get a read of the other man’s expression, simultaneously shocked, a little embarrassed, with tiny remnants of that crystalline sadness, and what could only be described as awe. Eyes still filled with tears, sparkling up at him like the galaxy itself that made Mashita all the more glad he was sat down. His hand tensed against Yashiki’s head, and the other man clearly took this as a sign, as without any warning, he hauled himself up – hands firm on Mashita’s hips – and kissed him. Hard. As if it were the only thing he knew how to do.
Mashita almost froze up entirely against his lips, every thought tumbling from his brain in a sudden avalanche of dumbfounded overwhelm. He wasn’t sure what to do. Yashiki moved with precision, every advance slow and tender, as if he was afraid he might break something if he went too quick, and when he eventually pulled away for breath, he seemed to have done exactly that.
Mashita merely blinked, eyes wide, cheeks flushed and undeniably hot to the touch, and lips pursed, expecting, begging for more. Yashiki couldn’t help but smirk, just slightly, at seeing how fast the other man had already dropped his guard, especially as he opened his mouth to say something, and Mashita cut him off by swooping him up in another kiss, this time, now he had a grasp of the game they were playing, much more assertive.
Nothing was especially heated; passion bled through the pair in other ways. There was no rush, they knew they had all the time in the world, and despite the quickening racket both their hearts were making against their ribcages, desperate to claw out of their chests and melt into one on the bathroom floor, they did not act with haste. Mashita was used to speed, getting things over and done with before either party could think too hard about what exactly they were doing, but something about Yashiki was so damn enticing, he found it so easy to just let go without needing to think. It was subconscious, unintentional; natural. As if they’d done it a thousand times before. As if it was all that ever mattered and all that ever would. As if nothing else existed. As if it were just him, Yashiki, and a bathtub on the entirely vacant second floor of Kujou Mansion.
Mashita’s tongue forced its way into Yashiki’s mouth, drawing faint whimpers from the back of his throat as, in response, one of Yashiki's hands snaked its way up his back, tugging on his collar, and the other found his chest, tracing the outline of his body over the top of his dress shirt, eventually picking at the knot of his tie, and loosening it enough to expose a few inches more of Mashita’s collarbone. Yashiki began to drop his focus down, trailing lower and lower; first nipping at Mashita’s bottom lip, then kissing his way down his neck, biting and sucking the hardest when he found a spot that seemed to be exceptionally tender, and finally settling on his shoulders, plucking at a few buttons to open up more of his shirt, laying bare more skin to mark.
Mashita’s hand slipped from Yashiki’s hair, instead it snaked its way down his front, mapping out the creases and folds of his shirt, the muscle and bone of the body beneath it, and eventually the waistband of his trousers, held up by an expensive leather belt. With a little more brute force than he’d expected, he pushed a few fingers between Yashiki’s hip and the fabric, flinching a little when a hand came to grab his wrist – in an attempt to help him, he assumed – and almost completely distracting him from the fact that Yashiki had stopped pecking at his skin, and was now lying in the crook of his neck, almost unmoving. Mashita paused his advance, and nudged him a little with his other elbow, a subtle “where’d you go?”, more than anything, just to see if he was still with him. What he got in response, was a sharp suck of breath between clenched teeth, and a torso that jerked with every new, heavy sob Yashiki had been pouring into his shoulder.
Oh god, of course, what the hell was he thinking? Until about five minutes ago, they were here for one reason and one reason only, and that reason was hardly something to get this excited about. What kind of insensitive idiot forgets something like that?
“Woah, hey,” he stammered, retracting his hand almost instantly, “Okay, alright, we’re stopping there.”
“What?” Yashiki blurted out, “But I don’t—I’m sorry—“ he started; “I promise I—”
“No, no buts,” he planted a hand right in the centre of his chest, prying him off and away, “I’m not goin’ any further if you’re still thinking about your dead sister.”
“I’m not thinking about my dead sister,” he whined, almost pouting. Mashita would have laughed in any other situation.
“Then why’re you cryin’?”
He opened his mouth to rebuke, but a deep cracked cry was all that came out. Mashita huffed, trying his hardest to reinstate his grip on the bathtub.
“Come on,” he beckoned, gesturing Yashiki try the same, but was instead met with a hand gripping fast onto his shoulder, pinning him back in place.
“No.”
He paused, a little taken aback at his sudden assertion. “I’m not going—”
“I don’t mean it like that.” Yashiki balled up his fist in the fabric of Mashita’s shirt, fingers trembling at the intensity, trying his absolute hardest to get the words out in the right order. “Can we just…” he looked up, barely audible, “Stay here?”
“What–you—” Mashita couldn’t form a single thought, other than; “Really?”
Yashiki didn’t get through whatever he wanted to say next, instead opting to fall back into Mashita, hands meekly reaching out for whatever part of him they could hold for some kind of comfort. Whatever they’d just done could wait to be discussed, he supposed. They were here for other reasons – reasons Mashita was still not all that clear on, to be frank – and perhaps whatever had spurred this on would still be there in the morning, when they were both less tired, less confused, and Yashiki considerably less distracted, and subsequently distraught, by thoughts of a dead relative he only just remembered he even had.
“If you insist,” Mashita sighed, almost joking with him, leaning back into his prior position and letting Yashiki drape himself over him whichever way he needed to. “You really are weird, sometimes.”
Yashiki didn’t answer him, instead sinking further into his hold with a grip bearing considerably more wear than it had a few moments earlier. He’d forgotten just how late in the evening it was, he must be awfully tired.
Mashita couldn’t remember exactly which of the two had been first to doze off when the morning came, but he was, at least, very certain it was the most sleep either of them had gotten in a long while.
END