Chapter Text
The first few weeks they live together, Shin startles Akira daily. He hates how Akira's face lights up when Shin seems like he might have remembered something, and then settles into an easy fake smile to hide his disappointment. As awful as talking about it is, he makes Akira sit down so they can figure out how to get through the day with even a little less trauma for either of them.
Akira says he's working on it, and all Shin needs to do is just say nope and he'll know no memories have returned and deal with his feelings like the grown adult he is.
Shin tells him to stop with the fake smile and it's a deal.
(He finds to his dismay that the fake smile really was reassuring the first time Akira doesn't hide behind it: he turns away, but not before Shin sees the stricken, wounded look in his eyes. But Shin appreciates the honesty, and a few weeks after the smile disappears they sleep together for the first time. Shin doesn't think this is a coincidence.)
*
Akira re-introduces Shin to his grandparents a few weeks after they start living together. They're nice, friendly people, but despite what Akira insists they're not 100% Team Shin (yet). They're who Akira learned the fake smile from, and it takes six months for Shin to find out why.
Akira has, by then, graduated from physiotherapy and is—according to him—fully recovered. Still, when his grandparents ask for help doing their New Year's shopping, including ten kilos of rice and cases of beer and oranges, Shin volunteers to drive them to the store and do the heavy lifting. He notices the butsudan in their front room as he carries food back to the kitchen, the altar doors open and the smell of incense in the air. When he's done hauling boxes Akira's grandmother invites him in and shows him the picture of her daughter.
"Mayu-chan," she says, fingers light as she brushes them over the frame. "She looks like him, don't you think?"
"Almost identical," Shin agrees. Akira's mother has the same large eyes and expressive mouth, and her dark hair, held back with barrettes, is thick and wavy. It's hard to tell from a photo, but she looks closer to his age than Akira's. He puts his hands together and closes his eyes in quick prayer, and then offers condolences.
"It's been thirty years," Akira's grandmother says lightly, as if she can't believe the passing of time, and the smile she gives Shin is very familiar. "Well. You should be heading back. I hear there's a cold front moving in. You have your gloves?"
Shin isn't going to badger her to be emotionally honest with him, but when he gets home he goes straight to Akira and hugs him, not caring particularly that he's busy sweeping the balcony. Akira's steady on his feet these days, and he can deal with Shin leaning on him.
"There, there," Akira says. He shifts the broom so it doesn't poke Shin in the chest and pats him with a cheerful ruthlessness. "Tired?"
"No." He kisses Akira's cheek, satisfyingly loud. "Your grandmother introduced me to your mother."
He can feel, through his hands on Akira's back, the way he stills, breathes in slowly, and then sighs. "I should have warned you." He takes another steadying breath and then asks, as if he really wants Shin to answer no, "Do you want me to talk about it?"
Shin, naturally, wants to say yes, tell me everything about yourself, but he's practicing trusting Akira to open up to him. So instead he says, "Someday," with another kiss for encouragement. And then, because Asuka's right, winding Akira up is fun, "I'm a supportive boyfriend, you know."
Akira has an almost superstitious aversion to that word, which Shin supposes makes sense, given what happened the last time. True to form, he threatens to hit Shin with the broom, even though he drops it while trying to twist out of Shin's arms. The struggle gets them both laughing; usually Shin's easily defeated by tickling, but he's still wearing his winter coat, whereas Akira's in an untucked t-shirt, practically an open invitation for Shin to warm his cold hands on his skin. Akira is clear-eyed as he attempts to evade attack, and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes release the worry Shin'd been carrying around. He lunges and grabs him around the waist, ignoring demands to put me down, and spins them in a victory circle before offering to help clean up.
Akira gives him a disbelieving look and says now that he's dizzy, Shin will have to do all the work. But when Shin says, "Sure," and starts sweeping, Akira watches for barely five seconds before going to grab the other broom. He refuses to put on a coat even though Shin informs him, as a medical professional, that he'll catch a cold.
He drives Shin crazy, and Shin tells him that, exasperation bleeding into amusement.
"That makes two of us," Akira says. His expression is unrepentant, chin raised and mouth curled in an aggravating smug smile. But his eyes, meeting Shin's, are so full of love that Shin's knees go weak and he can't think of anything to say in his own defense.