Chapter Text
Keigo doesn’t think there are very many things that he has taken to naturally. He has always had to try and try and try before something becomes easy, and loving turns out to be no exception.
It takes time and effort and endless patience from both him and (Name). Two steps forward, one step backwards—over and over again until he finally learns all the steps to this little dance and feels genuinely okay with the idea of not always being the one to lead and letting his heart take over his head every now and then.
Loving is scary.
It pokes in unexpected places and hurts in unexpected ways. It makes it hard to breathe one moment and then easier to exist in the next. It makes him feel things in ways he hasn’t ever before and turns his world on its head time and time again. It makes him want to be reckless and careful all at once because this is heart but he wants her to have it. It makes him feel like he has the whole world in his arms and he wants to give it to her because there is so little that she asks of him but he knows she deserves so much more.
Loving is exhilarating.
It is the rush of falling, of flying, of freedom. It is the electricity that dances on the tips of his fingers when he touches her and the fire that burns under his skin and in his heart with every thought of her. It is the shape of her mouth and the way it feels against his own. It is knowing every inch of her skin better than he knows his own, and feeling like home is in the sound of her heartbeat.
It is the sound of her voice when she says his name, and knowing that all these secrets that lie at the edges of her mind now could ruin him but she chooses to treasure them because they are his and he is hers.
In loving him, she holds a knife to his throat, and in loving her, he tells her exactly where to cut. It is them against the world but it takes him a while before he can learn to really trust her hand in his because this is new and terrifying.
Loving is uncomfortable.
It’s in his face, in his heartbeat, in the blood of his veins and there is no escape from himself. The sharing of his space when he is used to his empty world. Her clothes in his dresser. The jackets and hoodies that go missing when he isn’t looking and wind up in her apartment. The burning stares they steal when they are in public, hidden in plain sight because this far too precious for the world to know even if he does want to scream his love from the highest rooftops because he’s in love dammit. The unbearable thrill of feeling like they are inventing something with every passing second spent with her.
Loving is comfort.
It is the lines of her palms and the shape of her mouth and the warmth of her. It is in the laughter they share and the curve of her smiles and all the inside jokes and stories. It is the little habits she has that he knows and keeps to himself, pressed to his heart like wildflowers in between pages of a favorite book. It is the way her eyes catch the sunlight when she wakes up at his side and how her scent lingers on her side of the bed. It is the feeling of finally, finally coming home.
Loving is new but he finds himself wondering if perhaps in a previous life he has done this before. If he has loved her before and has spent all of this life waiting to love her again. Sometimes he wonders how he could ever have done anything else—how he could ever not love.
Knowing her feels like knowing himself. Loving her begins to feel like loving himself too.
(It tastes like forgiveness and the way it stings on his tongue makes him cry in the time he deigns to slow down—not for her but for him.)
Keigo hasn’t ever been fond of change before because change usually results in a loss of control, but he decides that maybe this is okay. If one doesn’t change, one does not grow, and he is tired of refusing to spread his wings because he is afraid to fly too high off the ground lest he fall.
In between all the ways that life is different now, however, some things do remain the same.
“What are you doing here?” (Name) asks, falling short with narrowed eyes the moment she walks into the interrogation room.
Behind her, the junior officer who had escorted the criminal back to the station after Keigo arrested her shifts nervously, glancing between him and (Name) like he’s half expecting a physical altercation to break out between them. Keigo guesses that he hadn’t gotten around to telling (Name) just who exactly had made the arrest then.
She doesn’t look upset per say, however. More bewildered and like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. The crease between her brows only appears when she’s trying to understand something after all.
Throwing up a Hawks grin, Keigo spreads his arms, wings unfurling slightly as well as he rises to his feet from the seat he’d claimed across the handcuffed perpetrator. “You know I can’t stay away for too long from my favorite detective.”
(Name)’s rookie partner looks distinctly alarmed before pity flashes in his eyes as though Keigo is a dead man walking. Unbeknownst to him, however, his senpai is more than used to the winged hero’s antics, and at this point, most people at the precinct are used to Keigo’s on and off presence and the strange interactions he has with fearsome (Surname) (Name) who seems to have mellowed out slightly over the years.
She’s still terrifyingly no-nonsense and blunt, of course, and nothing could deter her intimidating ambition that seems to be so inherent to her. But there is an ease to her now. Her pace isn’t quite so lightning fast anymore and she seems more inclined to occasionally slowing down for the people she deems worthy.
And though a few detectives at the precinct have their suspicions, most don’t know that this is more of a indirect consequence of her relationship with Keigo. They’ve both learned to slow down every now and then as a result of mutual concern over the other’s wellbeing and not wanting to be the hypocrite in the situation when said concern is brought up in conversation.
As it is, (Name) is far too used to him pulling these stunts every once in a while when they’ve gone a while without being able to see each other. The detective only snorts and shakes her head, forgoing a retort entirely as she steps into the room.
Before the door closes fully, Keigo catches sight of the junior detective’s surprise and shoots him a wide grin, wiggling his eyebrows triumphantly. When he returns his gaze to (Name), he finds her already watching him with unbridled judgement on her face.
“Right,” his girlfriend drawls slowly, lifting her eyebrows at him as she rounds the table to drop into the seat beside his. “Let’s not waste time then.”
“Of course,” he nods seriously. “You know how I never do that.”
Shooting him a look, (Name) opens the file she’d been carrying. “Tsuichi Mera. Thirty-one-years-old. Charged on seven counts of automobile theft and other instances of robbery.”
“Yikes,” he chimes.
Smoothly ignoring him, (Name) looks up at Tsuichi with sharp eyes. “Says here you are a part of a thieving ring.”
That catches his interest, and Keigo leans across to peer over (Name)’s shoulder at the report. “That’s interesting.”
She turns to him, regarding him carefully with downturned lips. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to though,” he cuts in immediately, meeting her gaze head on.
“Hawks.”
“Detective,” he returns in the same tone, leaning back into his chair and stretching his legs leisurely. Across from them, Tsuichi looks distinctly bewildered at the tangent they’ve gone off on but wisely keeps her mouth shut. “I want to be in on this one.”
(Name) looks unconvinced, her face taking on a stricter quality. “Theft cases aren’t exactly your usual cup of tea. We’d be able to handle it just fine,” she points out.
He grins. “Of course. I never said you wouldn’t be able to handle it. But a little extra investigative input couldn’t hurt, right?”
“Uh, you guys remember that I’m right here, or did y’all forget?” Tsuichi pipes up, but she goes ignored by both parties.
Keigo widens his eyes with feigned innocence, jutting out his bottom lip. “I promise I won’t cause trouble. I’ll cooperate and everything.”
“And you won’t try to go off on your own and solve it by yourself,” (Name) adds, crossing her arms, seemingly unaffected by his imploring tactics.
“What the fuck?” Tsuichi whispers to herself, looking far too resigned to her own bewilderment for someone who is supposed to be getting interrogated.
Placing a hand over his heart, Keigo declares solemnly, “I would never.”
(Name) snorts and shakes her head at him. “Whatever you say, hero. Just try to keep up.”
“That happens to be something of a personal specialty,” he returns, feathers puffing up. “You should know better by now, detective. When have I ever given you reason to complain?”
“Do you really want to go there?”
Keigo gasps, affronted, but he can’t keep the smile off his face when he sees her shoulders shake with silent laughter at him.
And, like this, loving is easy too.
Laughing and bantering and going out of his way for her is easy. Her friendship and company is easy. It is the sweetest and safest form of temptation. This hasn’t changed over their years together. He hopes it never will.
Like this, they build a heaven with their own hands. In the space they have created for themselves, Keigo is free to fly and to fall and to just be as he chooses to be. The sky is endless, stretching far above skyscrapers that tower like they’ll never fall down, and with his heart set free, he is limitless in this one thing. This one thing that is all Keigo’s and not just Hawks’s.
And she is there too. Unyielding, unrelenting, unshaking. Laughing, staying, loving.
So very different from him, and yet, the same.
In a way, that is what drew them together, he supposes. Because they understand the parts of each other that are both the best and the worst at the same time. Because nobody else could understand the need to run and push limits, albeit their motivations are very different.
‘Birds of a feather fly together,’ he thinks, smiling to himself, leaning back and letting (Name) take the lead in the interrogation.
Under the table, where they will be out of sight, he reaches over and takes her hand in his own, winding his fingers around hers like he has countless times before. Nonetheless, this never gets old for him. The novelty of her presence and what it means for him will never wear off.
She glances at him from the corner of her eye but doesn’t falter as she carries on questioning Tsuichi. With admirable subtlety, (Name) shifts her chair closer to his, smoothing her thumb over the back of his hand. Slowly, she squeezes his hand—thrice, evenly spaced and achingly familiar in a silent message.
I love you.
Exhaling, he feels a heavy, lazy sort of warm settle over him. It is one he is well acquainted with, and for that, he is grateful.
Keigo thinks of his endless skies and this golden warmth. He thinks of the fear and the exhilaration. The simultaneous discomfort and comfort. The newness and familiarity. The difficulty and the ease. And he squeezes back—three times, just like he has done all those times before.
I love you too.