Chapter Text
Hifumi wandered in on Sunday morning to a whirring, mechanical hum blasting out from the living room. For a split second, Hifumi wondered if he’d managed to walk into the wrong apartment- that definitely wasn’t a sound he’d hear anyone else making- but sure enough, as he untied his shoes and shrugged off his jacket, the noise ceased. Despite the way he was still a half step off-balance, curiosity drove him in at a trot. He was met promptly but Doppo in the living room- the second surprise of the morning.
“Doppo! You’re awake!”
Doppo shot him a weary look, heavy as the dark circles etched permanently beneath his eyes. “It’s almost noon.”
Was it? Hifumi tried to look down at his watch, then realized he wasn’t wearing one. He scrounged through his pockets instead, knowing one of them had to have his phone. It turned out to be his back one, and he flicked it on with an expectant tilt of his wrist.
11:00.
Hifumi rolled his eyes.
“That’s not almost noon!” Hifumi protested, shaking his phone at Doppo for emphasis. But Doppo was no longer paying attention, returning instead to what he’d been doing when Hifumi had walked in. Hifumi lifted his voice to be heard over the renewed din- “You’re doing it wrong.”
Flick.
Silence.
Doppo stared at him a motionless second. His mouth wasn’t gaping, exactly, but Hifumi could tell he had to remind himself to shut it by the way it clacked shut just before he opened it again to ask- “How am I vacuuming wrong?”
Hifumi couldn’t explain it for the life of him. It was a feeling. “You just are!”
Ten seconds ago, Hifumi hadn’t thought it was possible for Doppo’s glare to get any more unimpressed. But for better or worse, that was Doppo. Always proving him wrong. Even in the places he never thought he would be. He followed up, graciously ending things before Doppo could get himself into an argument he wouldn’t win- “Just leave it to me! That’s always what you do anyways, right?”
“I spilled chips! If I didn’t clean it up, then you’d come home and yell at me!”
Hifumi laughed, too-loud in the quiet the vacuum had left behind. “I totally would!”
He would. He sooooo would. But he’d still clean it up, like he always did. Because some things changed, but others never should. He’d take care of Doppo until they were old and grey and he couldn’t bend down to pick up Doppo’s dirty laundry from the floor anymore. Jakurai, too.
Though in Jakurai’s case, it was going to be less ‘picking up after him’ and more ‘making sure that nasty habit of forgetting to eat never came back as long as he lived’. Hifumi nodded to himself- he could see it now. Same as he always had, plus a more than welcome addition.
Far, far away from the pasts that had chained them. Warmth, deep in the depths of the sleepless city.
Craving contact, Hifumi crossed the space between them in a few quick bounds. He snatched the vacuum from Doppo’s hands with one hand and pulled him down onto the couch with the other, landing them neatly side by side- which was unfortunate, given that Hifumi was aiming more for half over each other instead. He arranged it shamelessly, flopping over Doppo’s lap without a care for comfort. They’d manage it eventually, even if he had kind of elbowed Doppo in the side on the way down. A little bit hard. Just an itsy-bitsy bit. Just enough so that maybe, just maybe, Hifumi should apologize for it.
When Doppo looked down at him though, it was fond. That was all the confirmation Hifumi needed. They sat in silence a few seconds, Doppo’s fingers trailing through Hifumi’s hair so faint they might as well have been hovering before Doppo asked, “So? Why’re you home so late?”
Hifumi was no stranger to afterparty culture- whether it was with clients or just picking up a meal in the early morning with his coworkers- but even he rarely made it home this late. Lunch, at least, he liked to try and make before passing out after a night of hard work. Seems like Doppo survived on leftovers! But.... (He hoped Doppo hadn’t touched the curry. Hifumi had been craving it since three in the morning, and that gave him the rights to it. He’d made the roux from scratch. From scratch! And Doppo had even cut the potatoes into shapes recognizable as cubes! It was miracle curry. A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that he really didn’t have an appetite for right now anyway.)
Which led him to the one thing he really didn’t want to say. Extremely didn’t want to say. Would rather an asteroid crash straight into Tokyo and cause a national emergency rather than actually admit. Not because he thought it was an actual problem- more like a nuisance that seemed determined to keep dogging him- but because Doppo wasn’t going to like it. No, he wasn’t going to like it one bit. Hifumi took a shallow breath, then said, looking Doppo in the eyes with a carefree smile, “Oh. I’m maybe getting harassed?”
“You’re being what!?”
Yeah, Hifumi didn’t like that tone one bit. Doppo jolted forwards, as if to grab him by the shoulders, but the angle was awkward, and all he ended up doing was half-shoving Hifumi off his lap and nearly onto the floor below before Hifumi caught himself on Doppo’s forearm and hauled himself back up to the couch, the two of them side by side again. He halfheartedly readied a generic apology, then met Doppo’s gaze and swallowed them all back down. The glare Doppo was fixing him with would’ve knocked a lesser man down on the spot. Hifumi returned it with a grin and a teasing, intentionally oblivious- “What, are you worried?”
Instead of answering (since it was clear as day anyway), Doppo asked a question of his own. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you were getting stalked!?”
Hifumi snorted, though his hand still went to the thin scar on his arm, covered up neatly as it was by the silk of his shirt. “No, it’s fine! This time it’s dudes!”
“No, that doesn’t make it- ugh,” groaned Doppo, dropping his head into his hands and massaging his temples against the oncoming headache. Hifumi slung his arm over his shoulders in reassurance, though it did nothing to stop Doppo’s chiding. “Why don’t you understand what it means to be careful?”
That was hardly a fair assessment- Hifumi knew exactly what it meant to be careful. Just because he was hardly predisposed to it didn’t mean he was never cautious about things. He just rarely saw the need to be. He’d solved just about all his problems by barreling straight into them. Just shy of thirty was no time to stop.
“It’s fine!! I promise!!” He shook Doppo gently, to no reaction save a faint groan that was probably meant to be a long breath instead. “Doppo…. Doppo-chin, c’mon! No stabbings this time! No break-ins! Just a battle we’re always gonna win!”
But the we was his mistake. Doppo shot him a long-suffering, sidelong glance through his fingers as he dragged them down his face. “Why is it always you getting us into trouble… Is it my fault? Am I enabling you..? Should I have been reining you in all this time..? On top of what I already do..?”
Hifumi, in all his saintly patience, didn’t point out that it was Doppo who’d brought them trouble last time. Which is what he’d been asking for, picking up random kids from the street and letting them chase him around the convenience store parking lot with only, like, two whole morsels of remorse for starting the whole thing.
.
..
...
On second thought, he said it anyway. “But you totally got us involved with the last thing, though? Y’know, with that total tomboy in denial and that whole getting knocked on your butt by a kid like half our age-“
“Hifumi! Don’t say it like-“ Doppo paused. Hifumi watched as the pieces slid into place and Doppo’s world came crashing like a downpour around his shoulders. He said, voice brimming with a mockery of total despair, “Oh no… It’s finally happening… I’m turning into you..?”
Hifumi snorted out a laugh and smacked him too-hard on the back. “Like that’s a bad thing? Brighten up!! Live a little! It’s fun, I swear!”
Doppo shook his head as Hifumi slowly inched closer, taking advantage of his distraction to press their sides together, wondering how far he could get before Doppo finally let his thoughts outrun him enough to notice.
“I’ve spent too long around you. You’re rubbing off. At this rate, there’s going to be two of you-“
“Pffft . That’s never gonna happen.”
“It totally- oh god, I’m already doing it. I’m not thinking about what I say before I say it-”
“No, that’s super not a bad thing, Doppo-chi-”
“It is! At this rate, Sensei’s going to disown us. You- stop clinging to me like that-“
“Do-ppoooo-“
“You’re too close!” Doppo insisted, shaking his arm wildly until Hifumi all but fell off. “I’m leaving.”
“Huuuuh?” Doppo stood, and Hifumi launched himself at him, latching straight back onto his arm. “No! Not letting you!”
Doppo flailed, dragging Hifumi towards the door of his room to no avail- Hifumi just dug in his heels and stalled them halfway around the couch.
“Hifumi, let go!”
Doppo grabbed his hand, trying to pry his grip off the worn fabric of his sweatshirt. Which was actually Hifumi’s in the first place, so Doppo had no place to protest a little bit of stretch. Two decades full of the same ideas in different words had taught Hifumi just what arguments he’d return to, and today he had no intention of hearing them out.
“Never! Never-ever!” said Hifumi, still lightly but with true intent. If that were to happen- if for some reason, they were to part- too many things would change. Jakurai was one thing, but Doppo was another. They’d been together always. If Hifumi had memories from before he’d met Doppo still rattling around somewhere in the depths of him, he certainly couldn’t recall. He hardly wanted to.
After they’d gotten this close- Hifumi wouldn’t allow them to go their separate ways. Not even as a joke.
“So,” said Hifumi, “you’re gonna stay with me. Forever. And ever and ever and ever.”
Doppo sighed, but allowed himself to be escorted back to the couch. On the way, Hifumi swore he heart the hint of a crunch beneath his heel - but that was a problem for the evening’s him.
“As long as you listen to me,” Doppo said pointedly, meaning Hifumi hadn’t quite managed to escape the situation at hand after all. But as far as he was concerned, the discussion was over.
“Yeah, yeah. But, it’s still like, whatever.” Hifumi waved his hand in a vague approximation of his care for his new set of nuisances. “They’re only smart enough to like, wait for me outside the club. Also, their rap sucks.”
“Compared to you,” said Doppo,half a compliment with all the weight of a dozen praises showered upon his shoulders.
“Compared to us,” corrected Hifumi with a dazzling grin, not immune to flattery. They might not have been able to keep the trophy- or Doppo’s prize money for that matter- but that didn’t change the fact of their victory. It was still their names plastered across every newspaper article and their power the prayer on everyone’s lips. They deserved this. No matter how hard it had been to believe.
“Please be careful,” said Doppo, one final bit of fretting they both knew wouldn’t be final at all. But for now, at least, it was enough.
“Promise, promise,” replied Hifumi, not ingenuous, and held out his pinky finger. After a moment he waggled it, enticing Doppo to reach out.
“What are we, kids?” Doppo asked, but took it anyway. Their fingers wound tightly around each other, squeezing like they were eight years old and promising to be best friends for life all over again. Doppo smiled; perhaps he was remembering, too. “Get some sleep, Hifumi. We’re taking that trip with Sensei, remember? It’ll be rude to fall asleep in the car.”
Hifumi rolled his eyes- as if Doppo hadn’t been the one half-asleep on the way back from the beach. Jakurai hardly cared. And if he did, then Hifumi would take the wheel and drive them all back himself. It wasn’t as if they were going far.
“I knoooow. And that’s next weekend! ” Hifumi added, grinning sly with the implication- Doppo was clearly looking forward to it. Maybe a little too much- not that Hifumi wasn’t. “But you too.”
“I’m not nocturnal.”
But Hifumi wouldn’t allow any room for protest. “You too.”
“I will. Even if- I will.” Doppo didn’t elaborate on what he’d been about to say. Hifumi didn’t press him on it either. The less he had to rely on sleeping pills on top of everything else, Hifumi figured, the better. He had for a long time. It was just that running schedules as opposite as they could get had left him powerless to do anything about it.
But , Hifumi thought brightly, Doppo had been doing better on the whole sleeping regular hours thing. Looking back, it was obvious when the change had started. And even more so why it had continued. Doppo said instead, firmly this time- “Get some sleep.”
“Okaaaaay,” Hifumi sing-songed, and peeled himself away from the couch with utmost reluctance. However much he didn’t really want to face it, he couldn’t deny he needed it. His popularity had only skyrocketed since the Territory Battle, and despite the fact he called off whenever he felt like it, it was hard to deny that he was working more than he ever had- save perhaps the very beginning, when he’d still been talking himself through learning the ropes. When Kabuki-cho’s number one had still been a name Hifumi couldn’t remember for the life of him and his own mentality hadn’t been perfected; when his doubters had outnumbered his supporters and the only champagne he drank was what he’d bought himself from the convenience store down the street.
Heh. Bet no one thought I’d get here.
Memories of almost a decade past flashed like a vision, crashing over him faster than a wave- clinging to the shadows, watching, waiting, facing himself in the mirror and chanting a refrain he hardly needed now.
But mostly, what hit him was the phantom ache of having to clean one too many floors to make up for the fact he wasn’t pulling any customers. Because that’s all they were. Both then and now- nothing more, and nothing less.
It was all play-pretend. A yellow rose. An ingenuine love. Every customer who walked through that door understood that his words were nothing real, his touches a phantom that vanished soon as that jacket slipped down his shoulders.
No one came to a host club expecting a real relationship. No one with any sense, anyway. And even those without it could still be saved. The two of them- or at least Hifumi- knew that firsthand.
He’d seen her heart change, after all. Seen firsthand just what Jakurai was capable of- the power to change a mind in all the ways opposite of Hifumi himself. Completely complimentary. A near-perfect set.
(But she’d still tried to jump out the window as repentance for her sins. She’d still decided that there was no choice but to die. There had been no obsession clouding her thoughts, then. Not even a speck of love. Just remorse heavy as a guillotine hanging over her head and a window left hanging open above the sidewalk, a lighthouse in the dark.)
In the faux-dusk of his empty room, blinds shut tight and door even tighter, Hifumi traced the white ridges of the scar on his arm. It had healed up well, all things considered. Just a faint white mark that he’d have to search for, a decade down the line. It was, he thought, just a tinge darkly, lucky for him that the knife had been sharp.
A beginning, and an end.
It had brought them together. They’d saved her, the same as they were saving themselves. He wouldn’t regret it. When it had been either his arm or Doppo’s life- he couldn’t dare.
A ruined suit, a life saved.
Not perfectly good; not perfectly bad. Just messy, the way things had always been.
Hifumi took a breath.
He didn’t hear from her, anymore. For both their sakes, that was probably for the best. No need to dwell on the dark. If anything, he hoped she’d quit her host club habit, gone on to find someone who’d care about her as something more than just a nickname and a number in his paycheck.
Best to move on, to forget, to cast yourself free of the shadow engraved on your heart. If that was how Hifumi had gotten into the business, he hoped that was how she’d gotten out. As he closed his eyes, settling down for rest his mind had no inclination to allow him, Hifumi thought of the long list of women he’d left behind- threads of connections left fluttering in the wind- and added a name he’d thought he’d forgotten.