Work Text:
'Yamada,' Naki says suddenly. His voice echoes across the room.
'Hm?'
'Ya don't need ta set up a bed for me.'
Shuu turns then to face him. His mouth draws a line, parallel to his eyebrows.
'And why is that, if I may ask, Monsieur?'
Naki's suddenly infused with confidence. It shows in his pose, the way he sticks out his chest, places his hands on his hips.
'I don't usually sleep.' He says this with pride.
Shuu's expression doesn't change, he just watches Naki's demeanor, then turns around, continues to place beddings upon the sleeping cods they've secured, the makeshift mattresses they've scavenged.
'Hey! Yamada! You're not paying attention to me!'
'I'll leave this bed to you, Monsieur.'
'I toldja I don't sleep!'
Shuu turns to face him once more.
'Enlighten me,' he says shrugging.
'What's that mean?'
Shuu brushes off some imaginary dust off his shoulder, looks at his nails.
'Why do you say you don't sleep, Monsieur?'
'Oh yeah, cos I spend the night repeatin' the names of my friends, ya know, so they're never forgotten.'
Shuu stops looking at his hands, looks at Naki once more, finds his honest foolish face so open it's almost alluring.
'Somehow this sounds nostalgic.'
'Huh?'
'I see you've done progress with your vocabulary but it hasn't really been enough. Nostalgic means it brings back memories.'
'It does?'
'When we first met,' Shuu tells him then, his shoulders relaxing. He walks to the other side of the room, Naki's eyes on him, drops bedding on another cod, then sits on top of it, crosses his legs.
'When was that?' Naki doesn't change his position. His confidence seems to have deflated, replaced by his usual hunched posture, hands on the pockets of his suit, but his eyes are full of curiosity.
It's a matter of course that Naki wouldn't remember the time they met at Kanou's lab, the first time they'd formed an allied front. He didn't remember him when they met again, either, and to this day can't even bother to learn his name.
'You said then you spent most nights crying, thinking about the people you'd lost. And you wouldn't let anyone else die because of that. That crying in pain was better than crying on your own.'
Naki crouches down at the words, scratches his head.
'I did?'
'Sì.'
'See what?'
'You did.'
'Sounds like me, yeah. Yer really smart, Yamada, that you can remember.'
Shuu smiles at him.
'We're not all fools like you are, Monsieur.'
Shuu rubs his thumb with his index and middle fingers, feels the familiar ache he tries to elude daily a little stronger now.
'I've lost people too,' he starts, not looking at Naki now, just focusing on his thumb. 'I think about them too.'
'Huh,' Naki says.
Somehow he knew, he'd seen the loneliness that seems to follow Yamada around when he's not fighting. When he watches him fight Naki almost forgets the kind of guy he is in other circumstances. When they went up against the Ero Masks it looked like that thing, the kind of sadness he's unaware of, was gone completely. He's a reliable guy. Somehow he knew but it's different to hear him say it. Guess because he's voca-vocal—talking about it now. Naki tries to think about a way to help, something that's helped him, aside from repeating the names of the ones that've left.
'I also want to make sure no one else dies. For any reason.'
Shuu wonders if Naki catches his meaning. He knows some of the younger ghouls have complained to Naki about their hunger, since they look at him as a sort of older child. He isn't soft, and he knows Naki isn't either. Not to let that happen.
'Tu me comprends ?'
Naki opens his mouth but doesn't say anything. He's crouching like Shuu has only seen people do in manga and yakuza movies.
'So you need a bed,' he finishes. 'Even if you're to spend the night there repeating the names of your friends and crying your eyes out. Can't have you too tired to fight, Monsieur.'
Naki groans a little but budges. He hasn't remembered that other thing yet.
'You get one too?' he asks.
How innocent.
'Mais oui, I need a place to take my naps. You should try that too sometimes.'
'With you?'
'Eh?'
'Hey, I remembered!' Naki's face breaks out in a smile suddenly. 'Ayato told me if ya write a letter and write “Heaven” outside it goes to the person in Heaven! I wrote one for my big bro. Ya can do that, too! Yer probably better at writing than me!'
Shuu blinks twice, feeling whiplash from the change of pace.
'He did?'
'Yeah! I dunno if they can reply but least they'll know yer okay!'
Shuu looks at his thumb again.
'They will, non ?'
After a moment of silence, and not looking at Naki, he places his hands on his knees and pushes himself off the bed.
'I need to keep working on the other rooms, Monsieur,' he says with his back to Naki at the treshold.
Then he turns, his back curved like he's watched himself do many times before in the mirror. When he had the time to spare.
'I'll write the letters tonight then. Maybe one day you'll remember my name enough to repeat it with the others. Bon soir.'
He walks away before he can hear Naki say he already knows his name.
'It's Yamada!'