Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Twenty years ago, the last place anyone would ever expect to find Gen was in a library. Beyond the fact that twenty years ago he’d been a felon, twenty years ago he’d barely been able to read. He’d had no interest in libraries or schooling. He’d dropped out to live the life he wanted, free of restraint, and that life had not involved being surrounded by dusty old books.

But times changed. Ten years of doing Ogura’s dirty work--so much of which involved digging through a library for reference materials--had changed his tune a lot. There was a lot of work to be done digitizing materials, and his familiarity with the whole system had made it a good choice for a job. Ogura’s hefty recommendation had managed to get him through the system, and with his own record being a sealed matter of national security, there was technically nothing there to find.

Which was how Gen--once a part of Japan’s most wanted terrorist cell--ended up leading the children’s program at a small library in Tokyo.

The first time Kei Nagai showed up at the library, Gen thought he was in for it. He hadn’t even done anything, but that sure didn’t stop his stomach from doing flips.

But Nagai hadn’t done anything. He’d simply watched as Gen (very awkwardly) finished going through the book of the day, following routine like his life depended on it. And then he’d walked forward, collected a young boy--no more than six or seven--and left.

Gen’s first assumption was that Kei had kidnapped someone else’s kid to use as a prop.

It wasn’t until Kei showed up again, with the same kid, that Gen started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t something else. He didn’t think it was a coincidence (not by a long shot, and certainly not with Kei Nagai), but the more visits that Kei made, the more he managed to relax.

A few months in, he broached the subject.

“You, uh, do know it’s me, right?” Gen had said, standing side by side with one of the very people who’d gotten him arrested all those years ago.

“Obviously,” Nagai had snapped back.

And that had been it.

Neither of them had ever brought up the subject again. They had a shared past, but they didn’t talk about it, and Nagai always kept their exchanges to the point. And when it had come out in one session that Nagai’s son was an ajin, things had made a little bit more sense.

Kei probably didn’t like him much, but he knew that Gen wasn’t going to freak out just because the kid was an ajin.

More than once he found himself on the receiving end of some very focused looks from Nagai, but nothing ever came of it. Nagai was always polite, and he never did anything to reveal who Gen was or what he’d done, and that was that.

It went without saying that he was not expecting to find Tanaka sitting at a reading table when he got in to work one day.

While he’d originally assumed it was some kind of setup by Nagai quickly became something else. Tanaka was just reading. He looked older--grey at his temples--and more tired, but he was still mostly recognizable. His hair was a bit longer, his face a little bit more tired. He was bigger, too. More muscular, with the kind of body that you got from lots of hard physical labor.

There was no sign of Satou, even when Gen looked on the cameras. Just Tanaka, who’d apparently come in a few hours before, picked out some reference books, and started reading at a table.

So Gen made the (no doubt stupid) decision to go sit down with him.

Tanaka looked up as he did, his eyes widening, and hten immediately stood, clearly planning to leave. Gen reached out, grabbing his wrist, and jerked him back down.

“I’m not going to report you,” Gen said very firmly. “I just wanted to figure out why you were here.”

“I need to go,” Tanaka said back, his eyes sliding quickly around the room. Looking for Takahashi? Looking for the police? Definitely looking for someone, and Gen could only do his best to try and get him to calm down.

“You don’t need to go,” Gen said quickly. “There’s no one here but me. I just work here.”

There was a moments pause, and then Tanaka seemed to relax ever so slightly, slowly sinking back into his seat.

“You work here?” He said after a moment, sounding scandalized by the idea.

“Is it really that hard to believe?” Gen said. “I got a ton of practice with Ogura. Half my job was running around to different libraries and institutions to pick shit up for him, and half the time it was ‘oh Gen, could you go get me this one obscure book from the 50s written by some guy everyone thought was crazy?’. Most of the time they weren’t even relevant.”

The whole thing is enough to make Tanaka crack a smile, and Gen wonders if it’s the first time he’s ever seen him do so.

“So what’re you doing?” Gen asked. “Don’t think you came into the library for shits and giggles.”

He did his best to peek at whatever book Tanaka was looking at, but Tanaka quickly snapped it shut, shifting it into his lap before Gen could read it.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I mean, we’re trying to catch up here. Can’t really do that if I have no idea what you’ve been doing. The - uh, the old guy isn’t around, is he?”

Gen can’t stop himself from glancing around, suddenly convinced that Satou’s probably waiting in a corner, watching them talk.

“No,” Tanaka says. “We parted ways a while ago. I’m not sure what he’s doing now.”

Satou being unmonitored isn’t exactly a comforting thought, but it’s better than him being nearby.

“So what’s the plan here?” Gen says, giving Tanaka a look over. “Staying on the run? Forever?”

“I’m not exactly a kind of guy with a bunch of options.”

“You’ve got options,” Gen points out. “Pretty sure Ogura’d love to have you helping him out. He’s only got Takahashi right now, and a second ajin-”

“I’m not going to be a lab rat.”

The look on Tanaka’s face makes it extremely clear what he thinks about the idea.

“He’s not a lab rat,” Gen points out. “He’s a lab assistant. Ogura’s got him running tests and shi- stuff.”

Gen can’t help but glance around the library, making sure no one overheard. It took a lot of effort to stop swearing all the time, and the last thing he needs is to get in trouble for it.

“There’s no point. The only thing that’ll happen if I turn myself in is going to jail.”

Having spent so long locked up, Gen knows what that means to him. Tanaka won’t. Even if it’s the right thing to do, or even if it might help him in the long run, he won’t let himself get locked up.

“Come talk to Ogura,” Gen says. “I’m sure he can get you some kind of deal. I’m sure the ministry’d rather know where you were than have you in the wind.”

Tanaka’s hands tighten into fists.

“Just give it a try,” Gen says. He’s worried Tanaka’s going to walk out and vanish again, not to be seen for another decade or two. “No commitments. Ogura’s not going to report you--he hates bureaucracy almost as much as you do.”

He expects Tanaka to say no. He expects Tanaka to leave. But Tanaka defies his expectations by shrugging instead.

“When?”

Gen grins at him, tapping on the table briefly.

“I get off work at three. I’ll take you right over - I’ve got a security pass, and we can go see him and talk things out.”

Tanaka doesn't argue, and in the end Gen leaves him to his whatever. He still has no idea what Tanaka’s reading, but decides it doesn’t really matter. Tanaka’s allowed to have some privacy, and if he sticks around long enough, Gen’s sure he’ll find out eventually.

Chapter Text

To Gen’s surprise, Tanaka doesn’t stand him up. He’s there waiting at three, looking nervous as he stands in the shadow of the library, glancing around constantly as if expecting the SAT to appear at any moment.

They don’t. Gen hasn’t even let Takahashi know they’re coming yet, and he doesn’t plan to tell him before they show up.

“Nice car,” is the only comment Tanaka makes as he joins Gen in the passenger seat. It isn’t--it’s almost a decade old, and in desperate need of replacing--but Gen appreciates the sentiment.

“Just like old times,” Gen points out. “Except normally it was you who was driving.”

“I haven’t driven in a long time. I got pulled over once and almost...”

Tanaka trails off, and Gen can guess what it was that he feared.

“Well, I’ve got my license, and it’s all fine on my end. Even if we get pulled over, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Tanaka doesn’t respond, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

The facility isn’t anything like Tanaka’s used to, to the point where he obviously doesn’t even realize they’ve arrived until Gen starts searching for a parking lot. He digs out his own security pass, throwing the lanyard around his neck before climbing out.

“This is it?” Tanaka says, staring up at the building.

It looks like an office. It looks like any other office in the world. Security is a single guard flipping through a magazine who barely gives Tanaka a glance once he’s spotted Gen, waving them through without a word. There’s no bars on the windows, no airlocks. No security features to be seen outside of a few cameras dotted throughout the facility.

“There’s no ajin here,” Gen points out as they head through the building. “Officially. No one knows Takahashi’s one, and Ogura’s got America’s backing, even if he lives here now. His information’s mostly been shared with cooperating governments, so no one’s stupid enough to try and kidnap him. He’s just not that valuable.”

It’s like night and day from what Tanaka’s used to. Gen was never there, not as a prisoner, but he has a good idea of what it was like.

“Come on,” he says, pushing open the door to the lab.

“-All for thirty yen? Not thirty thousand yen? We have to adjust out fucking budget to account for a thirty yen difference?” Takahashi says, his hands planted on his hips as he stares down Ogura. “You go tell them to shove-”

“Takahashi,” Ogura interrupts. His eyes are already on Tanaka, and he holds up his hand to get the taller man to stop before gesturing over to Tanaka.

Tanaka looks mostly the same, twenty years on. Hints of grey on his temples, his hair a bit shaggier but still slicked back. More muscular, too. But his changes are nothing compared to how much Takahashi’s changed. His hair’s gone from short to long, almost matching Gen’s own, pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck. He’s thinner than he was, whatever muscle he’d built up in his time with Satou having all but faded away, and the lab coat he wore only completed the picture.

Gen wouldn’t have been surprised if Tanaka didn’t even recognize him right away, even if his voice was all but identical.

“Holy shit!” Takahashi says, his face splitting into a smile. “It’s been ages!”

“Ogura, this is-”

“I’m not an idiot,” Ogura says, cutting him off. “You think I wouldn’t recognize him? How many people have you brought back to my lab in total?”

Gen squirms, because the answer is zero. He always stops by, but he’s always alone, because Takahashi’s already there ahead of him.

“He’s here-”

“He’s probably looking to cut some kind of deal so he doesn’t have to go on the run,” Ogura says, turning away from them as he starts digging through papers. “I Have it here somewhere already.”

“Have what?” Gen says, his eyes sliding over to Tanaka, who stands nervously in the doorway.

He wonders for a moment if Tanaka’s considering just running then and there.

“The forms,” Takahashi fills in while Ogura continues to dig. “Back when we had that guy in Kyushu people thought was Tanaka, I got together with the bigwigs and wrote out some amnesty forms. More or less. Basic terms by which he’d be allowed to live a normal life... yada yada. You know the jist.”

“Uh,” Gen says, “not really. I have no idea what the jist-”

“He means,” Takahashi says, “the head honchos were prepared for the chance that Tanaka might get caught or turn himself in at some point, since we knew he was already pretty much ready to defect. So we have a whole form that we can check shit off depending on what he’s willing to do, and then just turn it in to Tosaki-”

“I haven’t decided anything,” Tanaka says, speaking for the first time. “I don’t know if I’m going to just turn myself over.”

“Well, you’d be stupid not to,” Ogura says, as blunt as ever. It’s bad enough to make Gen wince, and he resists the urge to pat Tanaka on the shoulder.

“It’s the smart move,” Takahashi says. “They’re more interested in knowing where you two are than arresting you right now. That’d just make more of a mess. America wants to try and-”

“America doesn’t want Japan figuring out where the problem came from,” Tanaka says, practically snarling the words. His anger is both sudden and obvious, but it’s only met with Ogura’s amusement.

“Oh, he told you then?”

“I found out,” Tanaka says. “America’s responsible for almost everything that happened, and they just don’t want to get their hands dirty. Even after this long they still haven’t admitted it. They’re still pretending like they’re innocent, just stopping by to help poor Japan with it’s home grown terrorist.”

“We know, actually,” Gen says, clearing his throat. “That Satou’s American. We negotiated a whole thing with the American’s over it. They don’t want the public knowing, and we’re willing to keep quiet if they help us out.”

“They bought your silence,” Tanaka says, his hands balling into fists.

“Fuck yeah they did,” Takahashi says. “They bought our silence with freedom and a sweet fucking gig. I have a house I get to live in, that I get to go home to. I have a cool fucking job. If this is what being a bought man is, then I’m all for it.”

“Tanaka,” Gen says, trying to mediate before Takahashi says anything stupid. “This is the best option. Ajin are taken care of. They live normal lives. They stay with their families. This is literally everything you wanted but didn’t get. It’s how things should have been.”

Ogura slaps a piece of paper down on the desk, apparently having found whta he was looking for.

“Here we go,” he says. “I’ll just list off what you can offer us, and you can just tell us yes or no. I check the boxes, add things up, and then give Tosaki a call.”

“I still haven’t-” Tanaka starts.

“Your families up in Miyagi, by the way.”

Tanaka freezes in place, making a choked noise.

“You could have been nicer about that,” Gen mutters, going to get a chair for Tanaka. “Rather than just dumping it on him.”

“If you’re expecting me to beat around the bush after knowing me this long, I’m afraid you’ll never learn,” Ogura says. “So, Satou?”

“They split up. He doesn’t know where he is,” Gen says, setting a chair down and all but pushing Tanaka down in it. He’s staring into space, lost in his own head, and he doesn’t think they’ll be getting anything out of him for a bit.

“Pity,” Ogura says with a sigh. “That would have been the big ticket item.”

“You could try and be nice,” Gen mutters under his breath. “He’s obviously not listening anyway.”

“Well, tell me when he is then,” Ogura says with a wave of his hand. “We’ve got work to do.”

It seems almost comical that Ogura would just turn away from the second most wanted man in Japan and go back to work, but that’s exactly what he does, shuffling around some more papers and starting to give Takahashi instructions.

Tanaka’s simply left there, staring down at his own hands and lost in his own head.

Fantastic.

Chapter Text

Gen sits with Tanaka for a long while. Ogura goes about his work without even acknowledging them, while Takahashi at least checks in every so often, mostly by shooting Gen glances and squinting a lot.

“How are you doing?” Gen says after a little while, hoping to get Tanaka talking.

“I thought they were dead,” Tanaka mumbles. “I thought they were dead all this time. I didn’t even look for them.”

“You wouldn’t have found them anyway. They’ve got different names.”

Tanaka stares at him so hard that Gen feels like fucking Satou’s in the room, and he clears his throat awkwardly in response.

“We met them once. Did dinner as a favor to Tosaki. He was trying really hard to get them not to sue the ministry for every dollar it had, so we ended up sitting down and sharing stories about you. They were... uh, they were hoping you’d get to come home one day. Really nice people.”

Tanaka’s expression is so intense that Gen feels slightly nervous, inching back slightly.

“Is he done yet?” Ogura asks without looking up. “Because I’d like to get the call to Tosaki over with so he can get this all started.”

“What do you want?” Tanaka says, his voice hard and demanding. “What do I have to do?”

“You can’t tell us where Satou is, which is the big one. They’ll probably want to track you, at least for a while, in case Satou meets up with you. Standard ‘tell us if you see Satou’ disclosures.”

“Careful, he’s probably going to ask for your kidney or something,” Takahashi warns, settling in at his own desk and kicking his feet up as he does.

“Why would I need a kidney? I can just get one out of you, anyway,” Ogura says. “What I want to know is what you know,” he continues, jabbing a finger at Tanaka. “What do you have to offer? Information we, ideally, don’t already know. Stuff like Satou being an American, if we didn’t already know that. Information about ajin.”

Tanaka is silent. He’s still just as intense as ever, and Gen exchanges a quick look with Takahashi.

“He, uh, might not really know anything,” Gen says carefully. “Satou was never interested in the hows. He just kind of did his own thing.”

“Do you know how an ajin forms an IBM?” Tanaka says suddenly.

Ogura looks like he’s going to swoon at any moment.

“Nope,” Takahashi says. “No idea. We’ve looked into it, but it’s hard to prove anything, since we’ve only ever had one ajin who couldn’t make an IBM be able to make one after dealing with us, and we have no idea why.”

“Then I know that,” Tanaka says. “Would that be enough?”

“If you’re right, you’ll get amnesty and a fucking chocolate sundae on top of it,” Ogura says, physically leaning over his desk as he does. He looks the happiest Gen’s ever seen him, and Takahashi rolls his eyes in response.

“Do we need this in writing?” Gen suggests.

“No,” Ogura replies, waving it off. “Gimme a moment, I’ll call Tosaki and do the deal right now.”

He all but skips his way out of the lab to make the phone call, leaving everyone else to wait.

“You’re looking good,” Takahashi comments. “Healthy. Fit. What’ve you been doing?”

“Construction,” Tanaka says. “It’s easiest to work without people asking too many questions. I can work as much as I need to.”

“Not a bad idea,” Takahashi says, tipping his chair back. “I worked construction once, but only for a little while. Before everything went down with Satou, that is.”

“And things are... good here?” Tanaka says, glancing around the lab.

“Here? Oh, with Ogura you mean. Yeah, it’s good. Good pay, good work. If you’d told me I was going to end up a lab geek, I’d have laughed in your face, but here I am helping with papers that are getting published all over the world, so who knew.”

Ogura isn’t gone for long. He reappears almost immediately, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“Tosaki says it’s fine. He wants an ankle tracker on you, and he wants a meeting tonight, but that’s it. He’s not playing hard ball or anything.”

“But you are,” Takahashi says with a laugh. “You’ll choke Tanaka out yourself if he doesn’t tell you in the next minute.”

“You’re overestimating my self control,” Ogura says. “He’s got maybe thirty seconds.”

“Its tied to an emotion,” Tanaka says, clearly getting the idea that Ogura is desperate for the information. “Not fear, but something kind of like anger. Satou always called it righteous indignation. Being scared isn’t enough, and being angry isn’t quite either. Like, when I was in the lab, I was scared, but that didn’t do it. When I got out, he talked a lot about how... how I didn’t deserve what had happened. How I was right to be angry. And that was enough to make my ghost start appearing.”

“Which is why IBMs are less common,” Takahashi concludes. “Because the situation is better for ajin overall, so there’s less of that feeling. Things are good, so people don’t need IBMs.”

“Stop coming to my conclusions before I do,” Ogura snaps. “I’m the one writing the paper.”

“You’ve gotta give me partial credit now,” Takahashi says with a snort. “Since I said it first.”

“I was already thinking it,” Ogura counters.

Tanaka simply stares, his eyes shifting between the two of them before finally settling on Takahashi.

“He’s pretty different, isn’t he?” Gen says, guessing the source of Tanaka’s confusion.

“Uh... yeah,” Tanaka says. “Whatever happened to Okuyama, anyway?”

“Oh hell,” Takahashi says, “don’t get me started on that fuck.”

“Takahashi’s just jealous,” Gen says, noting Tanaka’s alarmed look. “Okuyama was... uh, he managed well after we split off from Satou.”

“That fat fuck could get away with murder right now,” Takahashi mutters under his breath.

“Okuyama took a position handling data security for the ministry. But then he got promoted a bunch of times, and did something that put a bunch of people in his debt, and now he’s pretty much in charge of information security for the whole government. Pretty much no one even knows he’s an ajin, but he’s already got more power than Satou ever did. He could shut down the country overnight,” Gen explains.

“And he’s too successful to hang out with us anymore,” Takahashi adds.

“Ignore him,” Gen says, “he’s sulking.”

“It’s not sulking,” Takahashi says, “it’s true. I haven’t seen him in two fucking years!”

“He’s sulking,” Ogura confirms.

“Well, you’ll see him tonight,” Gen points out. “I doubt Tosaki’d leave him out of the loop on something like this.”

“He’ll probably be there. Nagai. Maybe Shimomura, if Tosaki wants to bring her in on it.”

Gen watches Tanaka carefully. He’s staring at his hands again, lost in thought, and Gen can’t help but wonder what’s going through his head.

“Hey,” he says carefully. “You eaten yet? We could order a pizza in and just hang out. Catch up.”

He doesn’t want Tanaka leaving. The possibility that he might just walk off without a word feels very, very real.

“I want pizza,” Takahashi adds. “So I vote we order now, eat pizza, and do all that other shit later.”

Tanaka hesitates, but he finally does nod.

Gen handles the pizza himself, just so that Tanaka isn’t tempted to run for it.

Chapter Text

There’s a level of familiarity with Takahashi and Gen that there will never be with anyone else. Even though he only spent a few months with them, those months changed his life forever, and even if they parted ways on less than ideal terms, there’s still a feeling of camaraderie that Tanaka falls back into easily.

Ogura is a stranger to him, but it’s clear he’s so used to being with Takahashi and Gen that he feels familiar to Tanaka anyway.

The same can’t be said of anyone else.

When they’re ushered into a conference room, Tosaki’s already there. Tanaka knows him more by reputation than experience, having only really met him once--the final battle when he and Satou ended up captured.

Tosaki glances up briefly at him before turning back to his papers.

Okuyama arrives not long after. He still looks mostly the same, still using his cane for support, but rather than the tracksuits that Tanaka got used to seeing him in, he’s in a proper suit, looking even more formal than Tosaki.

“Yo,” he says, giving Tanaka a wave as he takes a seat. “Who are we waiting on?”

“Shimomura’s busy,” Tosaki replies. “She won’t be coming. Nagai says he’ll be here soon, so he’s the last one we’re waiting on.”

“Tosaki’ll represent the ministry, and Okuyama’s representing the National Security Council,” Gen explains, leaning over as he does. “Shimomura would be-”

“I know what she’s been doing,” Tanaka mutters. Even if Okuyama wasn’t in the public light, Izumi absolutely was. She lead a team that assisted the SAT with cases involving ajin, which meant she was always a subject of debate.

Some people didn’t like the idea of an ajin helping handle other ajin, but she was certainly more than qualified for the position.

“What about Nagai?” Tanaka asks, glancing towards the still closed door. “Isn’t he retired or something?”

“He helps with policy,” Tosaki says. “An adviser. He has no official rank within the ministry, but he’s public enough that his assistance is useful for cases like these.”

There’s a knock at the door, and then Nagai lets himself in. As the youngest of them, he’s also the one that’s changed the most, and Tanaka simply stares at him for a few moments before finally looking away.

They were enemies the last time they met. On opposite sides. And now he’s effectively at his mercy.

“I have places to be,” Nagai says as he closes the door behind him, taking a seat at the table and completing their little group. “So lets make this fast. What’s he offering?”

“He explained how to summon an IBM for the first time,” Ogura says. “We’ll be able to test it next week.”

“What about Satou?” Tosaki says. Tanaka’s pretty sure he’s already been told, and a quick glance around the room makes him sure that he’s only asking for Nagai’s benefit, because everyone is looking at the youngest man in the room.

“We parted ways,” Tanaka says. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Pointless,” Tosaki says, his mood clearly dark. “Even with you, not having Satou makes this pointless. He was always the larger threat, and without knowing what he’s doing, he’s a constant issue. Every plan we make has to be done with the possibility that Satou could interrupt it.”

“He won’t,” Nagai says, perfectly calm, and every head in the room turns towards him.

Tosaki makes a small alarmed noise.

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Satou isn’t an issue anymore,” Nagai says, looking more bored then anything else.

Tosaki makes another noise in the back of his throat.

“You know where he is?” Tanaka can’t stop himself from asking.

He doesn’t know what his emotions are doing. He parted ways with Satou years ago, and he told himself that the other man was firmly in the past. He had looked up to him, desperate for his approval, and even when he’d realized the kind of person Satou really was, it hadn’t changed that Satou was the one who’d pulled him out of hell.

But it couldn’t have lasted in the long run. No matter how thankful he was for what Satou had done for him, he couldn’t spend his life running along with him, hurting people who didn’t deserve to be hurt just because that was what Satou wanted.

So he’d put Satou behind him, and he’d gone and lived his own life, only now there was a very real possibility he might end up back where he started.

“More or less,” Nagai said.

Tosaki made another strangled noise, physically leaning across the table towards Nagai.

“You know where Satou is?” Tosaki says, and his body is so tense that he looks like he’s about to jump over the table to strangle Nagai where he sits.

Nagai looks unaffected. As quick as people would be to say that Nagai and Satou were nothing alike, Tanaka knew otherwise. They had a lot of the same behaviors, and it was only his long exposure to Satou--and to Nagai--that told him the truth.

Nagai was bothered, he just wasn’t showing it. But Satou wouldn’t have been bothered at all.

“He isn’t a threat,” Nagai repeats, still false-calm. “I’m aware of his location, and I made the decision that announcing his presence would make things worse. He wants attention, and he’s happy where he is, so better to leave him where he is, not doing anyone any harm.”

“He’s old,” Tanaka adds, growing increasingly nervous. “He was old when we split up, and he’s got to be even older now. Even resetting doesn’t improve him much, but he was having trouble...”

“He’s still dangerous,” Tosaki snaps, slamming his hand down on the table. “He was old when he killed more than a thousand people, and a few years isn’t going to change much.”

“He’ll be dead soon,” Ogura points out. “We know they die of old age, and Satou should be any different. His body’s already starting to break down, and it’s likely he’s simply not capable of the things he’d like to do.”

“Which is why I’m leaving him,” Nagai says.

“How’s that fair?” Takahashi cuts in. Tanaka hadn’t been paying him much attention, but now that he looks, it’s obviously that Takahashi is pissed. Gen’s only just holding him back, his hand on Takahashi’s arm as he tries to get him to sit back down. “He does all this shit and he just gets to live out a normal life? Picks up some new games? Goes on vacation? How is that right?”

“It’s not about right,” Nagai says, still firmly seated. He isn’t rising to Takahashi’s bait, which is probably a smart idea. “It’s about what’s best for everyone. If we make Satou an issue again, then ajin rights become an issue again. It’s better to let him have his average life than to risk stirring things up. With Tanaka here, we know where both of them are, and it’s a non-issue.”

“When were you going to tell us you knew where Satou was?” Tosaki says.

“Never,” Nagai said. “I was planning to tell you when he’d died of old age already.”

“How kind of you,” Tosaki snaps.

“I agree with Nagai’s decision,” Okuyama says. “There’s nothing to be gained from trying to bring Satou in at this point. The situation is all but dead, and unless something happens that would cause us to benefit from capturing him, I’m fine with leaving him where he is. I will, however, request that Nagai give that information to me and me alone, so that on the off chance he goes missing, I know what I’m looking for.”

Tanaka’s pretty sure that’s just a formality. Unless Okuyama’s slipped a lot, there’s nothing stopping him from digging into Nagai’s life and finding Satou that way.

“I’m fine with that,” Nagai says immediately, not giving Takahashi time to argue.

“That’s bullshit,” Takahashi says, but the anger’s mostly gone as he sits back in his chair, looking furious. “He just gets away with it?”

“Think long-term,” Okuyama says. “We’ll only harm ourselves by trying to capture him now.”

“It’s still bullshit,” Takahashi mutters, folding his arms over his chest.

“Can we focus on Tanaka?” Nagai says. “I’d like to get this over with.”

“It’s pretty much over,” Ogura says. “We already had most of it ready, and all we needed is signatures. The information he gave us is enough, combined with tracking of his whereabouts. The public doesn’t need to know we caught him.”

“Hold on,” Tanaka interrupts. The entire conversation feels like a runaway train, racing off towards the sunset and leaving him behind. Everyone else might have talked about it, but he certainly hadn’t. “What exactly’s going to happen to me?”

“You’ll get a new name,” Takahashi says. “Officially. New papers. You’ll be marked as a human. They’ll want to track you, at least for a while-”

“Probably a long while,” Gen corrects.

“-And then you’ll get a normal job and all that shit. You can stay with us if you want, until you get settled.”

“What about my parents?”

The rest of the table exchanges looks with each other, and no one’s looking quite in his direction.

“What about my parents?” Tanaka repeats.

“We’ll talk to them,” Tosaki says, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “It’ll be harder to handle. I don’t know what they’ll want or how any of that will work. I haven’t personally spoken to them in almost a decade, and they’re... well, getting up there.”

“Oh, that’s a good point,” Takahashi says. “They might want him to live with them.”

“We can’t say that without speaking to them.”

The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Living with them? Like things never changed at all? It seemed like an absurd pipe dream, and yet there it was, being dangled in front of him like so much bait.

He didn’t even know what their lives were like. Did they live in the city? In a town? Or were they on a farm like they’d been when he was growing up? Were they still healthy? They were old, yes, but...

“Tanaka,” Okuyama says firmly. “Focus.”

There’s a round of paperwork which Tanaka barely reads. Everyone signs it except for Gen, who huffs a bit about the fact, and then it’s slid back to Tosaki for filing.

“I’ll contact your parents,” Okuyama says. “We can see what they say and Tosaki can work from there. Staying with Takahashi and Gen seems ideal otherwise, and Ogura can handle the rest.”

He doesn’t even get to say goodbye to Nagai properly before he’s gone, off to whatever important work he has waiting for him. Okuyama lingers a bit to give him a handshake before leaving, and Tosaki makes a small noise in his direction before leaving him behind.

Ogura is somehow less polite while still acknowledging him a lot more, giving him a wave and a wicked little smile before scooting out of hte office room, leaving the three of them behind.

“He’s excited to get to test your IBM,” Takahashi points out. “Something about the hand configuration being weird.”

The thoght of being in a lab again as a test subject makes him nervous, but he doesn’t think that Takahashi would put up with it, so he nods.

“Lets go get your shit, and then you can come crash with us,” Takahashi says, slapping him on the shoulder and pulling him out of the room.

In less than twelve hours, Tanaka feels like he’s sold his soul all over again.

Chapter Text

Tanaka’s entire life can be fit into two garbage bags, so that’s what they do, loading things up, dropping off his last (in cash) payment for the place, and then it’s off to Takahashi and Gen’s apartment. It’s small, the sort of thing his parents might have described as homey, but Tanaka doesn’t even get to unpack.

“Don’t bother,” Takahashi says. “Okuyama works fast.”

Gen picks up takeout.

It feels like he’s gone back in time, and Tanaka isn’t sure it’s a good thing.

“I can’t believe Nagai knew where he was this whole time,” Takahashi says with a huff. “He could have at least told us.”

“Then we’d have asked questions,” Gen points out. “And don’t try and say you wouldn’t have.”

Tanaka keeps his thoughts to himself. He doesn’t want to Talk about Satou. He doesn’t want to think about him. Satou is a part of his past, and Tanaka wants him to stay there.

He’s woken at four in the morning to the sound of voices in the living room, and he cautiously peeks his head out to find a  very sleepy looking Takahashi on the phone.

“I get it already!” Takahashi complains. “Couldn’t you have called in a few hours, when we were actually awake?”

He spots Tanaka staring out from the bedroom door and gives him a wave before finishing the conversation with several repeated I get its!, capped off with a promise to talk in the morning.

“Why can’t Okuyama just have a normal sleep schedule?” He complains. “At least Gen slept through it.”

“What was that about?” Tanaka asks, trying not to get his hopes up.

“Okuyama talked to your parents and now he’s getting all that shit ready. So now I have a day off work because I get to drive you up there, and Gen’s gotta call in to work and see if he can say he’s sick or something.”

Tanaka feels like he’s going to be sick from anxiety. Getting all that stuff ready? 

“Does that mean he already talked to them?” He forces himself to say, the words feeling like sludge in his mouth. Do they know about him? Do they know he’s signed away his life?

“Yep,” Takahashi says, seeming to completely miss the tension. “They’ll be waiting, and he said he was going to text me the address.”

He spent years in the lab, wondering where they were. What had happened to them. If they still thought about them. And now he’s only hours away from getting those answers.

He wishes things would slow down.

“Doesn’t Ogura need me in the lab?” He says desperately, trying to buy himself time.

“Nah,” Takahashi says with a wave of his hand. “If he wants it, we can always drive up and do tests there. You’re old enough that you’re not even really in his field anymore--he’s mostly focused on first time IBM development.”

The bedroom door clicks open and Gen’s very sleepy head pops out, squinting at them in the dim light.

“Why are you up?” He hisses. “Come back to bed.”

“Sorry,” Takahashi says, but he’s laughing as he does so. “Okuyama called. We’ve got to road trip tomorrow.”

“Already?” Gen says. “How am I supposed to get time off on such short notice?”

“Just tell ‘em your sick.”

“Like they’ll believe that, I was fine yesterday!”

“Tell ‘em it’s a family emergency then. It’s close enough to that.”

Gen rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t protest, and Tanaka just wants to hide. A family emergency?

“Come on,” Gen says. “Get back to bed if we’re leaving in the morning.”

Takahashi does, giving Tanaka one last wave before leaving him alone in the main room.

He’s alone with his thoughts, and he wishes he wasn’t. All he can think of are all the mistakes he’s made. If his parents were alive, shouldn’t he have sought them out? Shouldn’t he have found them, back when Satou’d first rescued him?

No. Things were different then, and he tells himself that over and over as he goes to bed.

Gen manages to take the day off work with a lot of overly dramatic coughing into the phone. Tanaka simply sits on the edge of the futon as he does, listening to the conversation and trying not to throw up.

“Alright,” Takahashi says. “Load your shit in the car, we’ve got to hit the road if me’n Gen want to make it back tonight.”

They’re just going to leave him there. It feels like too much too fast. There’s no adjustment period, no time to process. One minute he’s collecting his things, and the next he’s in the back of their car, leaving Tokyo behind.

He considers outright asking. Maybe begging. Take him back. Let him rest. Let him get used to his new normal before jerking the rug out from under him. He hasn’t even processed his new legality. They haven’t even had time to stick an ankle tracker on him. They barely seem to care, and as he stares out the window he can’t help but wonder if he’s a part of the past.

Twenty years ago he was in every news story, but now, with ajin and human working together, he’s a relic.

Tanaka watches the countryside roll by out the window, passing him by without even noticing his existence. 

The farm reminds him of home. It’s not the same--not at all--but it has the same feel. A single story family home. Signs of life are obvious, from the wind chimes tinkling away to the heavy boots caked with mud off to the side of the doorway.

“Do they know I’m coming?” He asks, hoping that Takahashi will say no just so that he has an excuse.

“Yep,” he says, getting out of the car. “They should be inside, assuming they haven’t gone out to pick something up.”

“There’s no way they’d do that,” Gen points out. “They’ll be waiting.”

Tanaka doesn't get out of the car. He stays in the back seat, his hands clenched so tightly together that they hurt.

Takahashi and Gen have some kind of conversation outside that he doesn’t hear, and then the back door of the car pops open and Gen slides in beside him.

“I know you’re worried,” he says, patting Tanaka on the knee. “But they’ve been waiting all this time for you to come home. Just... give it a try.”

There’s no offered out, no you don’t have to do this. He does have to do this, does have to go inside a house that isn’t his and face parents that he hasn’t seen in thirty years.

He doesn’t even know what they’ll look like.

He doesn’t even remember their faces.

Gen pats him on the back, dragging him back to reality. He wants it to be over, but it won’t be over until he actually does something, so he makes himself get out of the car, but can’t make himself go any further.

Takahashi plants a hand on his lower back and physically pushes him along towards the front of the house.

“You don’t need to look so terrified,” Takahashi says quietly. “They’re nice people.”

Tanaka doesn’t get to obsess over knocking on the door, because the door swings open before he’s even reached the foot of the porch.

There’s a man and a woman standing in the doorway, staring down at him. Their faces aren’t ones he recognizes, but there’s a familiarity there just the same, and it doesn’t matter anyway. His reaction isn’t taken into account at all before they’re at his side, throwing their arms around him and pulling him into a hug.

He wonders if they were always so small. Had he forgotten that? How old they were, how small they were beside him? Or has it simply changed in the years he’s been away?

“Kouji!” His mother wails, burying her face in his chest.

“We’ll, uh, let you guys get settled in,” Takahashi says from behind him, and Tanaka can barely hear him over the sound of his mother’s sobs. “We’ll stop by tomorrow, alright? Or I will, Gen’s probably-”

“They don’t care, Takahashi,” Gen points out. “Just let ‘em have it.”

He’s been away from then longer than he was ever with them, but feeling their arms around him feels like he’s come home at last. He’s careful as he does so, but after a moment he wraps his arms around both of them, pulling them against him and burying his face in his father’s shoulder.

He won’t ever leave them again.