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Hanbee had his own room, just like every other member of the squad, but the point was relatively moot as he had shared a room with Juuzou since his first kill as a part of the CCG. His room served more as a storage space for his things out of necessity, as Juuzou’s room was full to the brim of, well… ‘shit’, as Juuzou referred to it, a glowing grin on his face. There were papers sticking out of stacks, jutting out of boxes with shirts (button-ups, t-shirts, tank tops) strewn over them; comics littered shelves, the small desk next to the window with a view of telephone poles and the street below and the candy wrappers… they were intertwined with dried flowers the squad leader had taken home on a whim, they littered the space around the trashcan next to the bed and they occasionally showed up in Hanbee’s slippers in the mornings when he went to step into them. Less explicably, they could be found in his fresh laundry or socks at times.
The room reflected its owner uncannily. A place riddled with whimsy, odds and ends, pieces of larger projects unfinished or forgotten and small shrines to figurines and hand-drawn masterpieces in colored pencil and pen (usually completed during meetings).
Perhaps Hanbee should’ve felt strange about the arrangement but Juuzou hadn’t said anything about the subject and anything else was now unfathomable. Juuzou liked to talk. Perhaps that was an understatement. When he wasn’t at work, he provided a sort of running commentary for the events that transpired and to opine on their surroundings, his cravings, suppressed urges, seemingly random rambles… but Hanbee knew better. Juuzou followed a line of logic at all times, it was just that other people didn’t quite seem to understand it. People didn’t seem to understand nearly anything about Juuzou, actually, which irritated him because without an understanding of the prodigy, few appreciated him outside of his assigned duties.
Juuzou was more than his kills and arrests in the field. He was so much more. His squad knew it and it inspired a sort of cult of personality at the chateau, each member trying to outwit the other at mealtimes and during down time, trying to flatter and impress Juuzou, whom seemed more interested in the colors flashing across the television or the scoops of ice cream decorated with chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, Kit Kats and whipped cream in front of him, sometimes at breakfast or dinner.
He’d always been a light sleeper, not just that, but an incurable night-owl. Somehow, he was always the last one to sleep, light of his lap-top or DS3 illuminating his face until Hanbee slipped into unconsciousness and waking him for work was a group effort on the part of the squad as a whole. Juuzou used to nap more until he developed a taste for coffee, which he’d disdained during his partnership with Shinohara but grown fond of once he was aware of all the varieties of syrups and flavors of creamer he could doctor it with and his naps became less frequent.
But Hanbee noticed a distinct and worrying change in Juuzou’s sleep patterns since the auction raid. He rose in the morning watching Juuzou still staring at the screen in the mornings too often to be healthy and found himself wondering how he functioned during the day without any sleep to revitalize him. As a consequence, his melodic voice started to fade from the sometimes-symphony, sometimes-cacophony of every day life and Hanbee found himself trying to bridge the new silences between them as Juuzou looked ahead distantly, shadows appearing under his once-vivacious eyes. He still smiled at him. Juuzou smiled at him, yes, but he smiled at the world.
Even as a phrase that would make Iwao Kuroiwa blush tumbled from his lips like a brook in spring, Juuzou smiled. When he was given orders, he smiled. When he was asked his opinion in meetings, he smiled. When his ideas were shot down, he smiled. As he talked about his kills, gesticulating to enact the story, he smiled. Sometimes, a look of wonder overtook him that was so sweet and wholesome, Hanbee’s heart ached. He looked so young despite his years, not measured in time, but experience behind him like a ghost that couldn’t be seen; only its echoes could be heard in those rare but increasing silences between them.
One night, as Juuzou sat with a lollipop between his lips, stem sticking out at an angle, shadows and light darting across his face with the flickering of the screen, his voice cut through the silence Hanbee was slowly drifting off to sleep in, popping one of his headphones out.
“Hey, Hanbee,” Juuzou said, still looking at the screen, talking around the candy in his mouth.
“Mm- yes?” Hanbee replied, wiping where a small streak of drool was making its way down his lips, turning to face Juuzou.
“When you covered my ears… did Big Madam say something mean? I mean… really fucking mean?”
Hanbee blinked himself into a state of fuller awareness, grappling with Juuzou’s question. The most disconcerting part was how the expletive flowed as easily as the rest of the question, making the word seem as innocently ignorant as the query itself, which was unlike him. “Um, well-“
He was so quiet, so hesitant, but that didn’t seem to be the reason Juuzou interrupted him. He still hadn’t looked at Hanbee and was still looking at the screen in front of him, one headphone still in.
“I don’t think she loved me.”
After that, Juuzou’s lips formed a tight line, turned up slightly at the corners, but as he swallowed, his slender shoulders quivered. Hanbee noticed Juuzou had referred to the ghoul with female pronouns, despite what he’d said in his official report of the dispatch of the ghoul when addressing his superiors.
“But sometimes… it felt like it, because she’d get really close to me and hug me. And she’d talk to me and read to me and we’d sing together, she even taught me how to dance sometimes. She’d give me food and brush my hair and dress me up. When people say that other people love them… it’s because of things like that, isn’t it?”
Hanbee’s chest ached and he knew that right now had to be like the times he carried grocery bags for his squad leader or… as he thought, chills running up his spine, brushed his hair out for him and made him snacks. Just like that perverted, murderous, torturer of a ghoul once had.
“Yes, usually,” Hanbee replied, more evenly than he felt inside. The parallels between Juuzou’s hell and a happy childhood were eerie when the sordid details were left aside. When Juuzou spoke of it the way he remembered things, compartmentalizing the inarguable malice of his abuse.
“I thought I loved her. I missed her before I met Mr. Shinohara. He did the same kind of things, but different. He never said he loved me, though.”
There was nothing Hanbee wanted to do more than put his arms around Juuzou, but he couldn’t. It would cross an unspoken line between them and he didn’t want things to change, despite the pitying looks people gave him when they watched him open snacks for Juuzou or pick up wrappers he’d carelessly tossed behind him. They assumed Hanbee was forced to do this, either to stay in Juuzou’s favor or to show the proper respect to his superior and make sure he didn’t embarrass himself in front of others.
What they didn’t know was that there wasn’t a moment Hanbee thought Juuzou should be ashamed of himself in his life. There was nothing he could say or do, no way in which he could conduct himself that would change Hanbee’s devotion to him. He was glad he could make Juuzou’s life easier, though he’d never spoken of his own hardships, his story was practically legend among the lower ranks. Suzuya Juuzou, the only possible successor to Arima Kishou, the Reaper of the CCG. His squad was widely regarded to be one of the most prestigious and adept in the organization, but that wasn’t what he thought of as he lay next to Juuzou, unable to take his eyes from his profile. The unmistakably pretty, fine features covering several lifetimes’ worth of tragedy.
Before he knew what he’d said, Hanbee told Juuzou, “They both loved you.”
Immediately after, he nearly flinched, because of the lie on his lips. Big Madam had very clearly stated how she felt about the investigator she’d raised or Hanbee wouldn’t have covered his ears. But this was his responsibility, just as it had been when his hands had shut the emotionally fatal barb out. He would forever have his hands over Juuzou’s ears because…
He loved him. It didn’t need definition. It didn’t require it. Friend, parent, admirer, it did not matter because loving Juuzou was as simple and as complicated as Juuzou himself. It was easy for Hanbee to love Juuzou and he need not ask the rest of his squad, he already knew what their answer would be. In this chateau, there was no shortage of love for Suzuya Juuzou. But this had been what was keeping him up all these nights.
This had been the oppressive din in all of the silences that Hanbee hadn’t been able to hear. These questions.
Juuzou just shifted the lollipop in his mouth and swallowed thickly, audibly in response and his eyes looked glassy in the blue light radiating from his lap.
“Oh,” was all he said. Then he didn’t speak again, it was silent for so long, Hanbee eventually drifted off still facing Juuzou at some point, he couldn’t remember when, though. Usually, they slept back-to-back, so he could turn away from the light of the screen.
When he woke, he blearily realized that Juuzou was sleeping, facing him. It was the first time in several weeks he’d woken up before him. Juuzou’s long lashes almost seemed to brush the curve of his high cheekbones and his laptop was between them, screensaver on, creating space between their torsos.
As he blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up slowly, silently, as not to wake him, he noticed the sodden, wet material of Juuzou’s pillow beneath his eyes. He felt a lump form in his own throat when he realized why and resolved to tell Juuzou he loved him in plain words. Even if it puzzled him. Even if there wasn’t a neat category for it. The point was to tell him, so that he knew. The point was to love him out loud, so he’d cancel out Big Madam’s muted rejection.
The point was that more people should have told Juuzou they loved him and if he was the first one to say, so be it, but he knew he wouldn’t be the last.