Chapter Text
Niragi recovers sooner than most of the people who have been stabbed in the abdomen tend to. It’s a surprise for the doctor who removes the stitches and the two nurses who are in the room, but not for any of his friends. They have already accepted the fact that Niragi must be some kind of cockroach who learned to walk on two legs and brush it off as if things like this happen every day. Chishiya is more than used to his insane pain tolerance and the trouble it endures.
And, well, this thing did happen every day at a certain point in his life, so whatever.
The woman dismisses him with a recipe for painkillers just in case and kicks Niragi out of the room. That leaves Niragi with two options.
Getting in that elevator, going down to the main floor, and heading to the parking for his bike.
Or annoying his favorite idiot.
So, instead of following the logical course of action and going home, Niragi gets in the elevator and goes to the pediatrics floor. Everything is brighter here, and Niragi likes it better. The children get a colorful wing at the hospital: why can’t everyone get that? He would visit his doctor much happier if he didn’t feel like he was walking into one of those puffy white rooms from American movies where they trap crazy people.
There are a few parents around, walking their kids out of their rooms and chatting with each other. It’s easy to spot a small group of nurses there, chatting to each other during their break.
“Sorry,” he calls for them, pulling his best good boy attitude. He hopes that his attempt at copying Tatta’s smile is working. “Do you know where I can find Chishiya Shuntaro? He's doing his residence here.”
“You must be the boyfriend!” one of them screams to his surprise. “Tomie! Riona! This is Shun’s boy!”
Fuck.
That joke is going to bite them in the ass for the rest of their days isn't it? First, Kuina’s friend sends him an apology message for flirting when he has a boyfriend. Then, whatever this woman is saying.
He’s going to blame it on Chishiya for starting it.
“Yes,” he says instead, trying to not look too awkward. “I wanted to talk to him for a moment if that’s possible.”
“He should be in the resting room, down that corridor, the big green door with the animals.”
“Thank you,” he bows to the woman and starts walking as fast as he can without it looking like he is running away from them. Behind him he can hear the three women gossiping, and as soon as he reaches the door, he opens it, not bothering to knock.
Chishiya’s head snaps in his direction. He looks surprised and he's holding onto a bag of snacks for dear life.
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting my stitches removed.”
“What are you doing here, at my wing of the hospital?”
“Can’t I visit a friend?” Niragi approaches him. Chishiya is slumped in one of the chairs, already looking tired. So Niragi sits in the edge of the table in front of him. “Or boyfriend? I always thought that thing about rumors spreading in hospitals was something that only happened in Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Hospitals and funerals are the biggest sources of gossip spreading,” Chishiya says, munching on a cookie. “They’ll forget about it in a week and move to the next drama.”
“Oh, but I like being their drama!”
Arrogant idiot, that’s what Niragi is.
“What do you want for dinner?” The question catches Chishiya with all his guards down. Between everything Niragi could have said, that wasn’t one of his options.
“Uh?”
“I’m, from the enormous goodness of my heart, asking what do you want for dinner to celebrate the first big surgery, mister doctor.”
Because he knows Chishiya, it’s been seven years, want it or not.
One thing is being a medical student, holding the scalpel, or getting some stitches done.
But assisting a full surgery, having a doctor pick you among all the options to assist her, that is big news.
Even calm and collected Chishiya had been nervous about it, so Kuina had asked him to play nice. And Niragi guesses he owes him one after the party. And after the stabbing.
“I have some grocery shopping to do, so what do you want for dinner?”
“I don’t want any favors from you.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I also tend to eat food,” Niragi’s arms are crossed in front of his chest. Cheeky smile on his face. “So this is not a favor. This is me asking what leftovers from my dinner you would prefer.”
It’s always this kind of play of pretend between them.
Of not being nice or never doing each other a favor.
“Well, I’ll be going then. Call if you make up your mind,” and he walks to the door.
My mom worked at a restaurant, Niragi had told him one day, God knows how long ago already. Back at the start of their non-friendship maybe. She raised a bad human being, but not a bad cook.
And Chishiya may have been getting used to it.
Niragi likes keeping his hands—and mind—busy. It fluctuates between different moods, but the most usual ones are dissembled electronics or enough food in their fridge to feed their entire friend group. Chishiya prefers the second one if he's being honest, especially if the stress cooking drifts to stress baking and he can eat his own weigh in sweets. Those are good days.
He may be dense when it comes to social cues, but he’s not that stupid. He knows that there are some kinds of things that Niragi only does for people he cares about. Or when he genuinely wants to make someone feel better. Actions before words or something like that.
“Wait!” Niragi looks back at him over his shoulder, he’s already opening the door. “Can you make oyakodon?”
“Really? That’s what you want for a celebration?” He looks at Chishiya. He’s smiling, there’s still faint bruises over his face and he’s still wearing that stupid old glasses and, for some reason, looking at Niragi makes part of the nerves go away. “Okay, I’m not complaining about you making it easy for me.”
Chishiya doesn’t come back for dinner what is surprising since he doesn't tend to stay late at the hospital. Chishiya is 90% house cat, and him being late is always weird.
The food gets cold, and Niragi just leaves everything in the fridge before going back to his room. Chishiya had already told him that it would be a long surgery, that things could get complicated and he would make it home late, so whatever. It's not like they can’t reheat the food tomorrow, and he’s tired. He could use a few hours of sleep for once.
Or at least that’s what Niragi thought before waking up not much later.
His phone tells him that it’s only a little past one in the morning when the sound of the main door makes him stir awake. Niragi looks at the screen that mocks him and pushes himself into a sitting position. Really? One time he manages to fall asleep and his stupid roommate needs to wake him up in the middle of the night.
The weird sounds go on for like ten minutes before he gives up on falling alseep again and pushes the blankets away.
There’s no point in trying to fall asleep, he knows that, Niragi has never been able to fall back into slumber once he's awake. He knows that won’t happen, so Niragi drags himself out of the room to see what all the noise is about. Maybe that’s Chishiya falling asleep in the middle of the corridor.
Again.
Chishiya, to Niragi entertainment, is more of a cat than he likes to admit. And, just like one, he has the strange ability to fall asleep at any place and at any time. Niragi has seen him falling asleep on the kitchen counter, in all kinds of moving vehicles (including while standing in the metro), and even in the countertop of Karube’s bar during his engagment party.
If he could, Chishiya would spend his day napping and sunbathing on their balcony next to Morgana.
So Niragi walks out of his room in silence. From here he can see the cat sleeping on the couch, warm and cozy. The freeloader seems to be the only one having a good night of sleep.
And to his surprise, Chishiya is not asleep on the couch next to her.
Is it not weird for the bastard to fall asleep before making it to his room. He tends to do that a lot. Chishiya sits on the couch for a moment and dozes off. Sometimes, he goes to pet Morgana before heading to bed, just to fall asleep in her massive cat bed next to her, because for some reason the cat has a bed big enough to fit a human, not like Chishiya is that big.
Niragi even remembers finding sleep by the door one time. He had been snoring, head dropped against his chest and completely out. Like he had sat down to take off his shoes and just... fall asleep right there at the genkan.
Tonight, he finds him by the entry, but Chishiya is not asleep.
He’s standing in the hallway, facing the wall. He keeps trying to hang his keys from the little hook Niragi hammered into the wall two years ago but fails miserably. And then, he just raises his arm and tries again.
And again.
“Chishiya? What the fuck are you doing, idiot?” That was the sound that woke him up. The rattle, rattle, rattle of keys. “Chishiya? Are you drunk?”
There’s not an answer.
For a moment he thinks that maybe Chishiya did celebrate this first time as an official surgeon assistant. Maybe he went out partying, even if that’s not his usual style. But when Niragi approaches, he doesn’t smell like beer or alcohol at all.
So Niragi walks to him, grabs the keys from his hands, and hangs them in their place.
“Chishiya?”
His hand raises again in a new attempt to place a set of keys in the correct way. A set of keys he’s not even holding.
“I think you’re sleep drunk,” Niragi grabs him by the elbow, and that, finally, makes Chishiya react and turn to face him. There are dark circles under his eyes, he does look tired, but Niragi stops on his track. “Chish?”
He doesn’t even know why he tries Kuina’s stupid nickname, but the empty look in the other eyes is scaring him. It’s almost like Chishiya is not in the room. He doesn’t look just tired, his eyes are clouded and foggy.
“Chishiya? Do you hear me?”
Fuck.
“Come on, don’t scare me.” He keeps his hold on Chishiya’s arm and drags him with him to the living room to see in the light that sneeks trough the balcony. And Chishiya allows it. He doesn’t complain when Niragi pushes his shoulders down to sit him on the couch or when he shakes him a little. “Chishiya, are you sleepwalking, or what the fuck is this?”
It’s not like he expects an answer.
Chishiya is not a sleepwalker, he would have known if he was one after seven years of sleeping in the room in front of his.
He’s trying to remember all the things Mira has told him through the years. Niragi’s response to things doesn’t usually include shutting out his brain, but there must be something useful in all the things he learned.
“You can answer me, or I’ll throw you in the car and drive you to the ER for god’s sake.”
Is that overreacting? He’s not the one who takes care of people. Chishiya never gets sick. He never needs anything, at least not from Niragi. And now he keeps looking at a spot in the wall that seems to have his whole attention. There’s not even something interesting there, and Niragi is starting to worry.
A quick internet search later, as a last resort before really running to the hospital, has Niragi back to his feet and running to the kitchen. He dampens one of the towels in cold water and goes back to Chishiya. He’s still slumped on the couch. Still looking at that same spot.
“If you don’t start responding soon, I’m going to call Ann, and you don’t want to wake up Ann and Kuina.”
Kneeling in front of him Niragi grabs Chishiya’s arms so he can roll his sleeves up to his elbows. He drags the wet rag along the inside of Chishiya’s wrist, hoping the cold water does something to him.
“How the fuck did you even make it home?”
Maybe he should really call Ann.
Or an ambulance.
He doesn’t know, but he presses the tower against Chishiya’s neck next and then, he cleans his face, hoping the coldness brings back some sense into Chishiya.
“I’m going to talk to you until you tell me to shut the fuck up or something,” because Chishiya being this silent feels wrong. “Did you eat something weird?”
And then, Chishiya’s eyes finally move. He blinks slowly, and his eyes drift, searching for something to focus on.
“Nice! Look at me,” he grabs his face. Should he grab his face? Is he making it worse? “Do you know where you are?”
“Home.”
Fucking finally. Niragi’s hands drop back to his lap with a relieved sigh. At least he's talking to him now.
Chishiya’s eyes finally move and look at him. Or more like he looks past him, he doesn’t seem to be actually seeing Niragi, but at least his eyes are no longer looking at the wall.
“Yes!” Niragi looks around, grabs one of the candles, and shoves it under Chishiya’s nose. “What does this smell like?”
Chishiya blinks slowly, now he is really looking at Niragi like he’s the crazy one, “Strawberries with cream?”
He speaks slowly, and it’s barely audible. Niragi still needs to call Ann or maybe even Arisu. But now grounding Chishiya back into reality sounds more important, and it seems like it’s working.
“Keep talking to me, or I’m going to call Arisu so he can panic over this shit instead of me.” He doesn’t want to look at Chishiya’s face. Instead he looks at the floor and busies himself undoing the laces of Chishiya’s sneakers. “I’m sure he would burst through that door at sound speed and annoy you to death.”
First shoe off.
“So, how did you come back?”
Second shoe off.
Niragi stays there, kneeling in the small space between the couch and the coffee table, waiting for an answer.
“Taxi,” Chishiya finally says. “I got in a taxi.”
“Okay,” at least he didn’t walk all the way from the hospital looking like a zombie. “Are you going to be fine if I leave you here for a second?”
The answer comes delayed again. It takes a few seconds for Chishiya’s head to drop against the back of the couch as he mutters a small Yes.
Chishiya seems coherent enough to be left alone for five minutes, so Niragi stands and leaves his shoes by the door before making his way back to the kitchen. Niragi ignores that his own hands are shaking as he pulls mugs from the shelves and prepares something to drink.
“Here,” Chishiya moves and looks at him. He still moves like he’s underwater, slow and heavy, but he does look at Niragi, and his hands curl around the steamy mug of hot cocoa he’s being offered. “Drink something sweet. You’re paler than a sheet.”
Chishiya obeys. He takes small sips from the mug, curled upon himself.
He looks pale and small and so different from the annoying idiot Niragi is used to.
It takes a while, Chishiya drinks, and Niragi stares at him in silence. His hands are still trembling, and so is his voice when he breaks the silence.
“We lost Hana,” he says in a thin thread of voice. “I lost Hana.”
It’s not like he hasn’t seen bad things before. It comes with the job. It comes with years of practical lessons on different sides of the hospital. It comes with being the son of two surgeons.
During his fifth year, Chishiya had spent three weeks on the pediatric oncology ward. It had been the worst and best time of his formative years. He thought that after that nothing could get worse.
He was wrong.
One can’t save all their patients, and Chishiya knows it. He signed for it, and he even chose a specialty where people could die right under his hands. But then, today surgery happened, and it hit him like a meteor. His body no longer belongs to him, he’s seeing himself, sitting on their couch. His seeing Niragi, kneeling in front of him with a worried frown on his face. But Chishiya feels like an outsider, like the witness.
He closes his eyes, and he can still hear the heart monitor going silent, the screams of instructions, and the surgeon notifying the time of death for one of the residents to put down.
Chishiya thought he was ready, that he had raised his walls tall enough for it, for having a heart held between his hands as it stops.
“I…” Niragi is out of words. His hand is warm when he combs a wild strand of hair behind Chishiya’s ear. “I’m sorry.”
What else does he have to offer?
He’s not kind, he’s not gentle, he doesn’t have words of comfort ready for Chishiya.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet,” Chishiya says in a whisper. “Not now.”
Well, then he doesn’t know what to do.
All his plan was listening, but that’s out of the table. “I think you should rest,” Niragi says instead. He brings his walls back up. He scatters himself together back into the role Chishiya wants him to play. “Come on, time for bed.”
“I don’t think I’m going to sleep.”
“Yeah, genius, no shit!” He knows that if he babies Chishiya right now, he’ll just make it worse. He’s not the kind of guy who wants pity from others, and Niragi knows it because they’re just the same.
He drags Chishiya to his room and shoves him towards his bed while he goes back to his computer and turns it on. He’s a light sleeper and wide awake now. He won’t fall asleep any time soon, so he’ll better use tonight for something.
“I have some work I can get ahead on, so neither of us is getting any sleep tonight.”
Chishiya sits against the headboard of Niragi’s bed, wrapped in a blanket and holding onto the mug of hot cocoa. When he looks down, he can see small marshmallows dancing on the surface. He’s tired, but he fears the moment of closing his eyes. He doesn’t want to see Hana’s still face, he doesn’t want to see her mother falling to her knees in the middle of the white hospital hallway.
“What are you working on?”
“Since when are you interested in my work?”
“Since I don’t want to fall asleep or think, and maybe if you talk to me about stupid computer things, we can both stay awake and I can ignore my feelings,” that is, surprisingly honest from his part. “Or I can just tell you about how you’re going to end up with screws down your whole back if you keep sitting like a shrimp.”
“You are the shrimp,” but Niragi straightens his back and just pulls the chair closer to the desktop table. “Base code, it’s for an indie company. This is technically not even my actual job. They were searching for someone to check on their files and figure out what was wrong. Their code is pretty good, different from what I usually work with, but—
Chishiya has no idea about what he’s talking about. Years of sharing an apartment have never turned him into a computer nerd. He still has trouble filling an Excel sheet to this day. But Niragi talks and talks, and Chishiya doesn’t think Niragi even notices, but when he talks about things he likes, his voice shifts.
He no longer talks like he’s trying to be the loudest and meanest person in the room. He sounds calmer and happier, even if he’s tired. He explains everything with a passion Chishiya knows very well, and, somehow, it makes his thoughts drift, and he can feel himself calming down, putting himself back together as he learns about cyphers and something called pathfinding. It’s different from whatever happened at their door. It’s different from the gaping holes inside his memory.
This distraction feels warmer and safer. It feels almost homey.
Then Niragi turns off the computer, pushes away from the desktop, and stands from his chair with an awful crack of his back. For a moment Chishiya fears that the distraction is over, that he'll be left alone with his head. But then Niragi strolls towards the shelf next to his workstation, long fingers caressing over the spines of all kinds of books before settling on one.
“I’m done, scoot over.”
“Uh?”
“If you’re not going to sleep, scoot over,” Niragi says, kicking Chishiya so he moves out of the center of the bed. His bed. “Move.”
“This is my house.”
“And this is my bed. Move.”
Chishiya does move, and Niragi climbs into bed, crawling under the blankets. He’s now sitting next to Chishiya in the narrow space, his back resting against the wall and a book over his lap. It’s a hardcover big enough to serve as a weapon.
“That’s not a book, that’s a brick.”
“I can always knock you out with it if you prefer,” he says, waving the monstrosity around. Books, Chishiya has never seen the appeal of them It’s hard for a story to catch his attention.
“No thank you,” he eyes over the book. He has never heard of that one. “What are you even doing?”
“You’re not sleeping, and neither am I. What do you think I’m doing?”
Niragi gets comfier in the bed and opens the book, making it rest over his folded knees. The light on the bedside table reflects on the silver of his piercings and the frame of his glasses, giving him a soft orange glow.
“You’re going to read me a bedtime story?”
“I’m going to read,” he points out. “You just happen to be here.”
Chishiya ignores him, wraps himself tighter around the blankets, and rests his head against the wall. He doesn’t want to think or sleep or even close his eyes. But he also doesn’t want to keep his eyes locked on Niragi’s profile and his crooked nose that is strangely charming.
So ceiling it is.
“The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. Thursday, 7th November,” Niragi reads out loud. His voice is not more than a whisper, free of the usual roughness he tries to impose on himself. “Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints—”
Chishiya asks questions when Niragi stops talking or when his head starts to drop. Chishiya asks, and Niragi answers with a scoff before resuming the reading in that voice he uses when all the pretensions drop.
When Chishiya finally allows himself to close his eyes, the sun is starting to shine on the other side of the window.
He wakes up alone in a bed that is not his, but surrounded by a familiar smell. He feels comfortable enough to turn around, bury himself in the blankets, and keep sleeping.
And then, he bolts up because this is not his bed.
This is Niragi’s bed.
Chishiya blinks slowly, trying to get through the fog that sleep sets around his mind. He remembers last night in bits. He remembers making it to the building. And then he remembers gentle hands through his hair. And then Niragi’s voice luring him to sleep, which shouldn’t be right.
When he walks to the living room, he sees a mess of blankets over the couch and hears sounds coming from the kitchen.
“Why did you sleep on the couch?” he asks, leaning against the kitchen door. “Are you stupid or something?”
Walls raised, ready to fight, as it should be between them.
“First, I didn’t sleep. I just sat there to keep reading,” Niragi says. He doesn’t turn around to look at him, Instead, he keeps trying to make their coffee maker work. “And second, you fell asleep on my bed.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up then?”
“Have you ever been nothing but a grumpy asshole when we wake up? I don’t think so.”
He has a point.
Chishiya enters the kitchen, trying to not get into Niragi’s space as he grabs a new mug before opening the fridge.
“What happens next?”
“Uh?”
Chishiya points at the book that rests over the counter, eyes narrowing and frown deep between his thin eyebrows.
“I fell asleep, but I think you kept reading. My brain was too fuzzy to understand anything, but I know you were talking.”
“You were actually paying attention?”
He thought Chishiya had been just enjoying the white noise of his voice in the background as if they were whale noises or rain beats. Not that he would actually listen to whatever Niragi was reading.
“Yes, I always listen when you talk, idiot,” he says. “Can we… keep reading?”
Chishiya doesn’t look at him.
He’s stirring hot milk and sugar into a mug, not bothering to look at Niragi. They don’t tend to face each other when things get serious.
“Wait, you were enjoying the book? I thought you hated books.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Chishiya turns around, but his eyes are still fixed on the steamy mug.
“I find books hard to get invested in due to the lack of appeal and how hard it is to just sit down and stare at them,” he says. “But I do enjoy podcasts or audiobooks.”
“So you want me to… read for you?”
Chishiya doesn’t give him an answer, and Niragi stands there, feeling awkward and all wobbly and unsure about what to do now.
“I was going to grab a coffee and sit on the balcony,” he finally says. “Care to join?”
Without a word, Chishiya walks out of the kitchen, crosses the living room, and opens the balcony door.
Actions speak louder than words.
“When did you fall asleep?”
“Autua sneaked into the ship, and Ewing was trying to convince the captain to let him stay,” Chishiya says. He drops on one of the chairs, legs tucked under himself, and he wraps the jacket tighter around his body despite the warm morning. “What happened next?”
Niragi ignores his question, he drops down the other chair, and takes a sip of his coffee before flicking open the book.
“No point in giving you a summary with this book,” he says, waving it around. Now that there’s actual light and he’s not half asleep, he can see how the pages are full of pencil notes and post-its of all kinds of colors. “It gets pretty confusing if you skip anything.”
Chishiya isn’t sure about what the book is even about. He doubts all those pages are about some man traveling on a ship in the eighteenth century. It’s going to be a bit boring if that brick of a book only talks about poor Ewing.
“What is this book even about?” he asks, trying to pry it from Niragi’s hands. But he moves it over his head so Chishiya can’t reach it. “Asshole.”
“Sit there and shut up, it’s better if you don’t know anything about it,” he starts to flip around the pages, trying to figure out at what point did Chishiya fall asleep. “It’s one of my favorites, you know? I even did a full assignment about it for a philosophy class back in high school. Got the best grade in my year.”
Chishiya laughs at that, “Nerd,” he calls without any malice in his voice. “Shut up and keep reading.”
But Niragi doesn’t do that.
Instead he looks at Chishiya, trying to find his eyes.
“You… still don’t want to talk about it?”
About the elephant in the room that they’ve both been ignoring. It’s big and hot pink, and it’s screaming in Chishiya’s ear, but he doesn’t want to look in its direction.
“Not yet,” he says again. “Not now.”
A few seconds of silence later, Niragi goes back to flipping through the pages.
“Okay, okay,” he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and clears his throat. “Soon Autua had the sail down—a difficult operation even for a team of four men. Captain Molineux grunted approval and ordered Mr. Boerhaave to replace his gun-” Niragi looks at him for a moment, and Chishiya nods. Yeah, that’s more or less the last thing he remembers before he fell into a shallow slumber. “But damn me if I pay a stowaway a single cent. He'll work his passage to Hawaii-”
Chishiya doesn’t know if Niragi notices it, but he has a nice voice for reading. Maybe it’s that the love people like Arisu and him share for stories and a good narrative line, but he even speaks differently each time a character does, even if the difference is subtle.
He still thinks of yesterday; there’s still a weight inside his chest that pulls him down. But Chishiya looks over the city that rests at their feet, painted gold in the early morning, and allows himself to ignore everything for one more day.
Chishiya drinks his cup empty and listens to the person he hates share a piece of himself with him and closes his eyes, head dropping back to bask in the sun.
Both mugs rest empty over the table.
Niragi stopped reading a while ago, saying that he got tired. But they’re still sitting in the balcony for some reason, enjoying the sun. Niragi’s fingers tap the rhythm of a song Chishiya doesn’t recognize over the hardcover of the book.
“Her parents asked me to attend the funeral,” Chishiya says, interrupting the silence. “Could you drive me there?”
For some reason, he doesn’t feel like walking there alone.
“When?”
“Today in the afternoon.”
He doesn’t feel like asking anyone else for the favor either.
“Where?”
“Zoshigaya,” Chishiya can’t think of the last time he attended a funeral and he doesn’t notice the way Niragi’s shoulder tenses or his face drops. “You don’t need to.”
“I don’t have anything better to do,” Niragi’s answer is strained, but Chishiya waves it off. He doesn’t give it any importance and keeps staring into the distance.
"Thank you."
It’s almost five in the afternoon when Chishiya exits the shower. He gets dressed and knocks on Niragi’s door, tie in hand, before he can regret any of his. His pride fights him about needing to ask Niragi to do his tie, but whatever. He already asked hi for a ride. He fell alseep in his bed. This can't be worse.
He doesn’t even remember the last time he wore a suit, maybe for his graduation day, maybe for one of his parent’s fancy galas. It feels oppressive around his skin, and for some reason he keeps shaking.
When Niragi opens the door, Chishiya is struck by surprise.
“What are you doing?”
He’s wearing all black.
He always wears all black, but Niragi has changed into something closer to a decent outfit instead of joggers and a graphic shirt.
“Driving you there?” he says like it’s the obvious answer. Niragi approaches him, takes the tie from his hands without Chishiya having to ask for it, and places it over his shoulder so he can arrange Chishiya’s shirt in a way that doesn’t look like he just rolled out of bed. “Do you think that I’m heartless enough to leave you alone at a funeral?”
Yes. No. Chishiya no longer knows.
Niragi confuses him.
He’s a walking contradiction.
“You don’t need to do it.”
He just asked for a ride, not for a companion or whatever this is.
“There are a lot of things I don’t need to do,” Chishiya feels a shiver run down his spine when Niragi wraps his arms around his shoulders to put on the tie. “I could let you starve and survive on takeout, for example.”
“I guess you could.”
“You said it was in Zoshigaya, right?” Chishiya just gives a small nod while Niragi does his tie. His hands are warm, and Chishiya likes it. It feels right against how cold his body actually feels. “Then let’s say that I’m not doing you a favor. I’m going to visit my mom, and you just happen to go in the same direction.”
He does look at Niragi then. His expression doesn’t say anything, but there’s some mutual understanding happening when their eyes meet. Chishiya’s heart hammers inside his chest, and he doesn’t even know why.
“It’s been a while since I last visited,” Niragi says before the silence grows into an uncomfortable one. He straightens the tie before closing Chishiya’s jacket. He doesn’t feel like telling him that he wanted help with the tie, that he doesn’t need him to do his buttons too. But whatever. “So grab your shoes. We’re leaving.”
Chishiya isn’t surprised when they arrive early. Of course they do, with Niragi’s way of driving and his anxiety about always being on time.
But that means they have time to kill and are not at the best place to be left alone.
“Can we go to see your mother first?” is the only thing that comes to Chishiya’s mind. Maybe he can put himself together in time for the funeral. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
“You want to meet the parents already? How forward of you.” Niragi looks at him over his shoulders; there’s a smile on his lips, and he doesn’t look sad at all. “Guess it’s time for introductions, isn’t it?”
Chishiya has met Kuina’s parents. Her mom loves him for some reason, and her father is a good man who has learned his lesson. He has thanked Chishiya multiple times for his help, even if back then he was no more than a second-year student. He's always welcomed into the Kuina’s household.
Usagi’s father treats all of them to lunch when he’s in the city, back from one of his trips. Tatta’s mom is a stubborn, strong woman who raised her kid alone. Chishiya remembers how she scolded Tatta the first time they met her about something dumb.
And last year, they all kept Arisu’s company at his mother’s memorial. They helped him with cleaning her grave and covered it with flowers.
Until now, Chishiya hasn’t really stopped to think about how many parts of themselves his friends have shared with him without asking for anything in return.
And Niragi is the last one on a list of people who have shared everything with him.
“I would love to meet the poor woman who had to deal with you as a son.”
Niragi laughs.
Chishiya already knows the ins and outs of him, even if he still finds Niragi a complicated jigsaw puzzle. When it comes to hard feelings, he just needs to strike for the joke or the thing that everyone else would find outrageous.
But for Niragi, it works, because he’ll better keep everything normal between them that indulges in pity and sentimentalities.
“You’d better be nice, or she’ll kick you from the other side.”
The grave Niragi conducts him to is small. It almost goes unnoticed in a corner before a crosswalk. But it’s clean, there are fresh flowers on the stone base attached to the tombstone.
“Her friends keep it clean when I lose track of time,” Niragi explains. “She had this mahjong club. They played every Friday, they still kept her company.”
“Did she ever teach you how to play?”
“Oh no, she was terrible at it. I think she never won one single game.” Niragi takes a small white flower out of the bouquet and offers it to Chishiya, who looks at it like a deer in the middle of the road. “For the girl dumbass, I’m not gifting you flowers.”
And then he leaves the rest of the bouquet over the grave.
Chishiya looks at him. He observes how gentle Niragi is with it, how he clasps his hands together into a prayer, and Chishiya steps back, giving him space. He had never taken him for the kind of person to pray, but when it comes to death, people tend to change.
“Don’t be so fucking rude and say hi,” Niragi says, looking over his shoulder. “Did your mother raise you without manners?”
“What?”
“Can you believe the audacity of this bitch mom?”
“What would she think if she listened to you talking like that over her grave?”
“She’ll say, ‘Oh god, you have the same fool mouth as your grandmother!” Niragi does a high-pitched voice. And laughs. For some reason, he keeps smiling. “Come on, introduce yourself.”
She can’t hear us, he wants to say.
Chishiya doesn’t really think that Niragi is here, talking to a grave, expecting his dead mother to hear him. Maybe it’s just symbolic. Maybe he’s just distracting Chishiya from the gaping wound of his chest.
Chishiya looks at the tombstone, at the only words carefully engraved over it.
A name.
Fumie Niragi.
Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t think he ever asked about her name. Seven years, and the only thing he knows about the woman is that she worked at a restaurant and that she’s six feet under because of a drunk driver. He doesn’t think he has ever seen a picture of her. For a moment he wonders if she would look anything like Niragi.
Chishiya himself is a carbon copy of his mother. His parents are over newspapers and the internet. They’re famous. Everyone knows who Yasuharu and Juri Chishiya are, his parents don’t need an introduction.
For some reason, that makes this moment feel special.
“It’s a pleasure,” he says, standing side by side with Niragi. He bows and murmurs a prayer. “Thank you for teaching this son of yours how to cook, it’s his only redeeming quality.”
Niragi laughs again, and it makes Chishiya feel calmer. The cold that has settled inside his bones starts to fade away.
He can do this.
Niragi stands in the back during the ceremony, hands in his pocket and eyes lost somewhere between the shadows.
It’s a small thing, friends and family alone. Chishiya and doctor Niyata are the only members of the hospital staff. Between all these people, it is more likely that Hana spent more time of her short life next to Chishiya and the woman than some members of her own family.
Doctor Niyata doesn’t hug him, but he squeezes his hands and tells him that he’ll get used to it, even if the pain is always the same. Years of experience makes one wise, not invulnerable.
And when Chishiya approaches Hana’s parents, he does it alone because he feels like he needs to do it alone.
By himself and for himself.
Hana’s mother pulls him into a hug, wrecked by sobs, and Chishiya allows it, even if he doesn’t reciprocate.
“This kid took care of our Hana,” her husband says, tears trailing down his face. His hand rests over Chishiya’s arm as he talks to the family. “He was assigned to our Hana. She was always talking about the pretty doctor who always made her smile.”
“Thank you,” he manages to say. “And I’m sorry.”
Hands clenched into fists, Chishiya bows to the first undoable mistake of his life.
He shouldn't even be here.
This is not his place, he doesn't belong here. Even if he's been seeing that kid every day for the past three years, even if she had told him about each new thing she learned. Even if the bracelet she made for him and all her drawings are stocked inside the drawer of his bediside table.
The ceremoy is a blurr. He barely hears a word the priest says and the, he needs to look away when they lower the casket into the ground.
“Are you okay?” Niragi asks. He doesn't know when has he aproached, but his hand rests against Chishiya's back now. “Do you want to go home?”
Chishiya nods, still looking at the ground. Still looking at the small flower in his hands, is this all he has to ofer? He feels tired and drained, and he wishes tears would come to him.
Niragi's hands disappear, and Chishiya wants them back for some damn reason.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he hears him saying. “I think we should leave already. He’s not going away. I’m his…” Niragi seems a bit unsure about what to say. “Friend, sorry for barging in on the ceremony.”
When Chishiya looks up again, Niragi is talking to Hana’s parents. They look at Chishiya, and the woman offers him a wavering smile before turning back to face Niragi.
“Take care of him,” she says, taking Niragi’s hands between hers. “Don’t let him blame himself. We don’t blame him. Our Hana won’t blame him. She fought hard; we know she did. We knew we could lose her; we’ve always known. It’s not that kid's fault.”
Knowing something won’t make it easier. But Niragi offers the woman a reassuring smile, the best one he can manage.
“I’ll do my best,” it’s what they do best. Deal with each other. Support each other. Because who else would deal with people like Niragi and Chishiya if not them? It’s meant to be. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats with a small bow.
When he walks back to Chishiya, his face drops. Now that Hana’s parents can’t see him, his face drops, and he looks sad.
Chishiya stands by his side, Niragi’s hand goes back to linger over his back, and they walk away from the smell of freshly removed earth.
When Chishiya walks into Niragi’s room that night, he has Morgana in his arms. Niragi is sitting in his bed, writing something in one of his countless notebooks. He looks at Chishiya, eyebrow arched and a confused look on his face as Chishiya keeps approaching without a word.
He just walks closer, grabs the book that is resting over Niragi’s bedside table, and offers it to him.
“I can’t sleep,” he says. “I don’t think I will be able to fall asleep tonight.”
Niragi looks at him.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not yet,” he repeats for the third time. “Not now.”
Chishiya, even in his laziness, doesn’t usually look this disheveled. He’s tired, dark circles under his eyes. Hair unkempt, and he drowns inside one of those giant jackets of his, he got changed the moment they stepped through the door after the funeral. He spent an hour cleaning the smell of incense from his body. But, above all that, his eyes lack the usual glint of trickery and mockery.
So Niragi scoots to the side, closing his notebook and tossing it at the feet of the bed.
“Come here,” he says, taking the book from Chishiya’s hand. “You’re really liking this one, huh?”
“It’s weird,” Chishiya gets under the covers, like a kid ready for story time. “Just read.”
Niragi reaches for him, and Chishiya freezes. But his hand is only there to stretch between Morgana’s ears. She purrs, and the sound vibrates through Chishiya’s body, who curls closer around himself. Lying in bed like this has his face almost pressing against the soft cotton of Niragi’s shirt, but they don’t move.
“Zedelghem, 6th of July, 1931,” Niragi reads. It’s almost incredible how fast he gave up on this. “A telegram, Sixsmith? You ass. Don't send any more, I beg you—telegrams attract attention!”
Niragi’s hand keeps wandering down to scratch Morgana’s tiny body, or she’ll start complaining like crazy.
“They fight like lovers.”
“They are lovers,” Niragi says. “You didn’t catch on to that? That’s why Robert tells him that his infidelity is only the one from the body, not the soul. He sleeps with her, but he loves Sixsmith.”
Chishiya moves closer.
He hates character-driven stories because they’re complicated for him to grasp, but, for some reason, here he is. Lying in Niragi’s bed, listening to him read a book he can barely understand but that for some reason keeps him hooked.
“Whatever, keep going.”
Niragi laughs.
This time, when he moves his hands, it brushes against Chishiya’s jaw in a soft caress. Morgana’s happy sounds remind him that it was meant for her, not for Chishiya.
“Telegrams attract attention! Yes, I'm still abroad, yes, safe from Brewer's knuckle men—”
If he falls asleep again with the voice of Niragi’s voice, they don’t comment on it.