Chapter Text
Daisuke ends his second day at work by setting his basement on fire.
He doesn’t mean to, obviously. He gets home, sends a few distracted orders to the servant, and immediately heads for the basement. It’s become something of a safe spot for him and Suzue both, being a space that finally allowed her to express and invent, and for him to sit, watch, and mull things over.
There’s an enormous pile right next to the controller keyboard. Daisuke picks up one exquisitely wrapped package from the top and turns it over in his hand.
It’s Katou’s hoard of gifts. He’d sent them back, every single piece, on the helicopter.
He should probably throw them out. They’re useless now.
He stands there longer than he’d care to admit, staring at the package in his hand, before he shakes himself.
He exhales and sinks into the commander’s chair, sparing a glance at the numbers on the screen---his stock is winning, as always---before peering around. Suzue has a strict “no smoking” rule in the basement, what with all the explosives and heat sensitive items lying around.
Today he doesn’t particularly feel like caring. He supposes one time won’t hurt.
“HEUSC?” he says. The dim light from the digital screen illuminates his first puff of smoke and turns it blue. “Pull up the security cameras in the Task Force office and zoom in on Inspector K---”
Something behind him crackles.
He whips around, putting his cigar out in one fluid motion, but it’s too late. Whatever it is bursts into flames, and then the alarms and the sprinklers whir to life and he’s diving for cover under the keyboard.
***
When Suzue comes back the expression on her face can only be described as severe.
It’s a sight, his little sister braving her way around the still damp floorboard to check on all the machinery, and for a while the basement is silent except for the quick click of her pink heels. Daisuke dithers in the corner and half-expects her to snap.
She doesn’t. Instead she steps out of the heels and pads across a section of dry floor to him in her bare stockings. “Okay. Tell me.”
Daisuke raises his eyebrows.
Suzue sighs. She takes him by the shoulders and ushers him back into the commander’s chair. “Today at work. Tell me about it.”
“I already told you,” says Daisuke, willing very much not to sound bitter. “He was disappointed.”
Suzue settles on a spare workbench and starts rubbing reassuring circles on the back of his hand.
“Katou Haru-san,” she says. “Tell me more about him.”
Daisuke closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the headrest.
But he tells her. He tells her everything, from the color of Katou Haru’s eyes and the way he dressed to his stubborn work ethic to the way he closed up when it came to Daisuke’s wealth and the way he spent it.
By the end of it Suzue’s squeezing his fingers so hard it’s as if their roles had been reversed.
“I’m alright,” he says, and this earns him a disbelieving stare.
She lets go of his hand and sits back on the workbench. “Say,” she starts carefully, “have you ever thought of what a soulmate means to you?”
He has. “A partner,” he answers right away. “A companion who’ll fit into all my plans seamlessly and executes them with meticulous precision.”
Suzue considers this. “Then what does Katou-san mean to you?”
Daisuke stills.
A flaw in his calculations? A misstep in his plans?
Inspector Katou Haru is poor, stubborn, righteous to a fault, and plays off Daisuke like fire on gunpowder. Can’t be bought, can’t be persuaded, can’t be changed. Daisuke is stumped.
And yet. The universe whispers in his ear and offers promise---they’re a match made in heaven, designed to fit perfectly together like a unique puzzle piece, destined to be everything the world has to offer and more.
Daisuke opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again.
He gives up and turns away.
Suzue smiles gently. “Why don’t you observe how Katou-san interacts with others?” she says. “It might give you a clue on what you’re missing.”
Daisuke’s brows furrow.
“If I ever need an infiltrator for my cases---” he starts.
“You can count on me,” Suzue finishes for him.
There’s a twinkle in her eye as she gets up and returns to examining the separate machine parts lying on the floor, and Daisuke looks at the pile of discarded presents again under the dim lighting and forms a resolve.
***
As it is, Suzue is good at forming and maintaining relationships. She’s warm and genuine and on the rare chance she needs to use someone to get what she needs, she has a knack for altering her mannerisms and behaviour to better fit what the target wants to see.
Daisuke is much better off in an empty room with a nice view, cigars, and his credit card at the handy. Doors locked.
He quickly learns that Haru’s relationships are all over the place. Somehow the quick temper, tendency to overwork and stubborn way about life had mixed and blended into a relatable, semi-likable persona other people were willing to interact with and befriend.
Daisuke does not get it.
Case in point: the office dynamics.
“Hey, will you look this over for me?”
“No,” his soulmate grouches, eyes glued to his screen. His fingers are positively flying across the keyboard, and Daisuke, very grudgingly, has to admit he’s in awe. “Do it yourself.”
“Aw c’mon, Katou-san,” Kamei wheedles. “I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow?”
The fingers pause. “Pork bowl. No sauce.”
“Anything, man.”
There’s a weighing silence, then Haru sighs and takes the papers. “Isn’t this from like a week ago?” he says, unimpressed.
Kamei grins and rubs his neck sheepishly. Daisuke fights back a scowl.
Kamei Shinnosuke. Three years Haru’s junior, greatly lacking in any motivation to work whatsoever, mostly laid-back and looking forward to the clock striking six every day so he can go home. Possibly 80% of work hours spent playing video games, with subcategories of action, survival, and 18+. Mostly 18+. Daisuke can bet he’s never done one second of overtime willingly in his whole life.
And yet. Kamei is on the best terms with Haru in this entire office. They’re friends. Buddies. Pals. Haru would take a bribe from him.
Daisuke wonders idly how much it cost to bail someone accused of stabbing another person in the eye with an ink pen.
He’s halfway done planning an escape route from Japan to the suburbs in Europe, complete with calculations of the final budget required to lay low and keep away unwanted attention, when the door swings open, and Saeki bounds in excitedly.
“Cho-san, Cho-san! Look, I found---” She stops and peers around, confused. “Did I miss him?”
“He went up for a smoke,” Kamei, the complete pond scum, supplies, leaning back in his chair.
Pond scum. A cockroach. Rotting corrosive cancer.
Next to him Haru grunts in affirmation, face still buried in a stack of papers.
“Bother,” says Saeki, not sounding very bothered. She holds out a small styrofoam box and sets it on the shared desk. “Red bean jelly? They’re for Cho-san, but he’s not going to miss one or two.”
Horse Face’s eyes light up in appreciation, and Daisuke watches with bated breath as Saeki refocuses her attention.
“Is Katou doing your paperwork again?”
Kamei, the miserable vegetable, groans through a mouthful of jelly. “I said I would pay him back!”
Saeki smacks him lightly on the back of his head. Daisuke smiles.
“Come on, Katou, mandatory jelly break time,” she says, plucking Haru’s pen away and holding it out of reach. “Aw, look at you, you’ve got black rings already. What did I tell you about sleeping properly?”
Daisuke stops smiling.
Saeki Mahoro. Two years Haru’s senior, a strong partiality for sweets, somewhat of a mother hen. Also apparently fusses over the team’s well-being, including Haru’s. Mostly Haru’s. And, get this, he listens.
Right before Daisuke’s eyes, Haru takes Saeki’s proffered jelly and shoots her a smile.
Bitch. Cow. A virus among women.
Something in Daisuke’s chest burns.
“Haru,” he says. The name is out before he can stop it.
His soulmate startles, golden eyes narrowing before his brows crease in a scowl. “Don’t call me that.”
See, Daisuke does not understand this at all.
He backtracks. “What would you prefer?” he says, twirling a fancy ink pen around his long fingers.
Haru’s gaze follows the pen, brow twitching, and for a moment Daisuke thinks he’s got him.
“Inspector,” he says.
So much for that. “Well then, Inspector Haru---”
Haru grits his teeth. “Inspector Katou.”
Daisuke frowns. “I hardly see the issue,” he says. “After all, as soulm---”
Haru slams his stack of papers back on the desk.
“Don’t,” he hisses.
Daisuke’s pen pauses mid-twirl.
Haru stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floorboard.
“Toilet break,” he tells the general direction of the room.
He slams the door behind him.
Daisuke spends the rest of the day frowning at his computer screen and fiddling with HEUSC.
For once on a mission, he’s learnt absolutely nothing.
***
It’s another week before anything new comes up on the radar.
Daisuke isn’t sure if he should be relieved or not. For one, their interactions had been minimal, and even those had went something like---
“Oi. Chief told you to meet him at five.”
“I know.”
“Fucker.”
Or---
“I need the case files for the incident on 29th January.”
“Take the USB.”
Silence. “Why do you still use this?”
“What do you want, Kanbe?”
So yes, Daisuke welcomed change. Except change came in the form of a familiar face.
“Haru-senpai? What a coincidence. This is…?”
HEUSC draws up a data file for the fresh faced young man fairly quickly. Hoshino Ryou, First Division. Adding up the distance and difference in age, he should not be a threat, and yet here he is, right in the flesh. He calls him Haru-senpai.
Haru blinks in recognition. “Hoshino. Is the First Division on patrol around here?”
“My shift just ended,” says the younger man. His eyes flit from Haru to Daisuke like he’s trying to connect the dots.
Daisuke saves him the trouble. “Kanbe Daisuke,” he says. “I’m Inspector Katou’s current partner in the Task Force.”
Haru scowls like he has something to say, but Hoshino beats him to it.
“Oh? That’s...great. You must be highly qualified.”
Haru opens his mouth again, probably to say something like yeah, in being a bastard or he keeps following me like the plague (neither were true, of course), but Daisuke doesn’t give him the chance.
“I received formal training in England, actually,” he replies smoothly. “With a specialty in boxing.”
“Impressive,” says Hoshino. His eyes are looking to kill. “I used to train under Haru-senpai when he was still in the First Division, but I’m sure you already know that.”
Daisuke did know. He turns to offer Haru a sarcastic remark, perhaps on how well he’d trained Hoshino yet still gotten kicked out, but he’s gone.
For a brief moment his heart sinks. He whips around the other way, and---oh. Haru’s knelt at the end of the street, speaking to some crying kid with a bundle in her arms.
Typical.
He walks up to them, Hoshino hot on his heels. Haru’s making little gestures and asking all the usual questions in the softest tone Daisuke’s ever heard from him.
The little girl shakes her head. “M-mama told me to st-stay,” she hiccups, “but C-coco wanted t-to go, so I w-went with her.”
The bundle in her arm wriggles, and a little lop-eared head pokes out of the sheets, sniffing at the air.
“Nice to meet you, Coco,” Haru tells the rabbit solemnly. “Any chance you could tell me the name of your very nice companion?”
The girl sniffs and rubs at her eyes. “My name is H-himari.”
Haru smiles. “You’re doing an excellent job, Himari-chan. Now, why don’t we find your mother and show her how good you’ve been?”
Himari nods and lets Haru take her by the hand. The rabbit, Coco, sniffs curiously at Daisuke’s cufflinks.
“Don’t do that,” he says on reflex.
The rabbit’s brown ears twitch. “She’s hungry,” says Himari defensively. “She’s going to the vet because she swallowed a Lego.”
“Well, teach her not to,” says Daisuke.
The girl huffs and blows out her cheeks. “You’re stupid. I don’t want to talk to you.”
Daisuke recoils in surprise. He opens his mouth to say he can theoretically buy every single rabbit there is off this planet, including this ridiculous Coco, just by a swipe and a click on his earring, but then there’s a wheeze and Haru laughs.
Daisuke startles.
His laugh is a breezy chuckle, but it makes him double over, golden eyes bright with mirth, and the warmth spreads and etches across the rest of his face like a beam of morning sun.
“Good job, Himari-chan,” he wheezes. “I owe you one.”
Hoshino’s muttering additional remarks that are probably meant to be snarky, and Himari’s relishing all the attention and offering Coco for Haru to stroke, but Daisuke’s not listening.
The sun inches down, turning the sky a burst of orange, pink and purple, but Daisuke finds that the only thing he can remember from that encounter is the exact shade and hue of his soulmate’s golden eyes.
...oh, he thinks.