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Daisuke could feel Haru’s knuckles against his windpipe.
He could feel them, but it was somewhat detached. Yes, Daisuke could feel Haru’s strong grip on his shirt threatening to choke him. He could feel Haru’s tension through the shaking of his hand, could feel Haru’s ragged breaths against his own cheeks, warm and so, so angry. Daisuke could even feel Suzue’s worried look from the bed as she regarded the both of them.
Daisuke could feel it all.
And yet, he felt nothing.
He had stopped feeling the moment he had stepped into the blood-stained interrogation room.
“If only you had come back,” Haru was saying now, golden eyes brimming with tears Daisuke knew he was too prideful to let go of. “None of this would have happened. You get that, right?”
Daisuke said nothing. He kept his mouth shut, eyes fixed on Haru’s, shoulders squared with tension of his own. The moment stretched between them, heavy, just like the scent of iron that still clung to the forefront of Daisuke’s mind.
There had been so much blood…
Fed up with Daisuke’s silence, Haru clicked his tongue. His grip on Daisuke disappeared as soon as it had come; suddenly Daisuke was free, unbound from the weight that had tethered him to the ground. The new levity was enough to make Daisuke stumble backward, just the tiniest step, but Haru didn’t even notice.
He was already striding out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him with the force of his anger.
Haru might have left, Daisuke realized, but the tension in the room was still suffocating. He lifted his eyes from the floor to find Suzue already looking at him, her elbow digging into the mattress as she pushed herself up. The bandage around her head was damp with sweat and a few specks of blood.
Daisuke had never in his life seen her so disheveled.
“…Lay down,” Daisuke ordered her, forcing himself to find his voice. It sounded croaky, as if unused for a long time, and Daisuke had to clear his throat once more before adding: “You should rest.”
“Daisuke,” Suzue called softly. Her arm was shaking from the effort of keeping herself up and Daisuke almost, almost, put his hands on her shoulders to guide her back onto the mattress. But the idea of touching someone at that moment made Daisuke’s stomach clench painfully. Even touching Suzue would make Daisuke bolt out of the room, not unlike Haru had.
“Daisuke,” Suzue called again, a little bit more desperately, and Daisuke closed his hands tightly into fists. “I’m sorry.”
Daisuke couldn’t meet her eyes. The chair Haru had used until a few minutes ago was still between them, a useless barrier that served as an excuse for Daisuke to stay rooted to his spot. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“Of course I do,” Suzue replied, shaking her head. From the way she closed her eyes briefly, the movement didn’t come without pain. “I was supposed to protect them. I was supposed to control the house, make sure nothing happened…”
No, a part of Daisuke wanted to say. It wasn’t you, this was never about you—
If only you had come back, none of this would have happened.
“Daisuke,” Suzue said once more, and this time it was more a sob that simply a word, her shoulders racking softly as the first tears started to roll down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry…”
He was choking. He was eight and climbing the slippery balustrade under the rain, his smile at his own feat freezing at the sight of his mother’s corpse illuminated by lightning. He was eight and standing before his grandmother, words that he understood but made no sense to him driving into his heart like his father’s favorite car, like a knife through the space between ribs.
He was almost twenty-eight and watching his sibling cry in front of him, begging for his forgiveness, when it should have been the other way around.
Suzue’s earring glinted gold against her dark hair.
Daisuke felt sick.
“Forgive me,” Daisuke muttered, and before he could even stop himself he was out of the room, Suzue’s voice following him through the now open door as he put distance between them.
Outside, the house was alive with sounds, with lights, with people. Daisuke could see the blinking lights of the police cars through the windows as his feet carried him down the hall. Conversations happened around him, some soft, meaning to go unheard; others rushed, orders more than impressions being exchanged. Daisuke heard them but didn’t stop to understand. There was only one thing the policemen invading his house could be talking about and, considering the way their voices lowered when Daisuke walked by, he didn’t want to stay around to hear any of their words.
So he allowed his body to move where it wanted to go. He passed by the now cordoned off staircase leading down towards the interrogation room, past the people in white lab coats and officers with their shiny badges, and made it out into the front yard.
It was raining. It was just gentle rain, enough to dampen the shoulders of the officers stationed outside and reflect the reds and blues of the police cars, but that was it. Daisuke stopped at the very edge of the porch, feet teetering on the edge of the first stair down onto the driveway, letting some raindrops hit his cheeks in hopes to calm down.
He couldn’t. Under the smell of wet soil and cheap cigarettes there was that smell of iron once more, as if some traces of the hell he had seen downstairs had followed him around the house, refusing to let him forget.
Or maybe it was simply the blood on his soles, sticking to the Italian leather like a piece of stubborn chewing gum.
Daisuke shivered, not all of it due to the chill of the rain.
Some officers lingered there around the cars, some letting the rain wash over them, others finding refuge under big, black umbrellas that matched with the solemn tone around the yard. These weren’t officers on the job, Daisuke realized; these were people mourning two of their own, their eyes sending looks to the one white van parked near the entrance.
One of those umbrellas caught Daisuke’s attention. It was the one closest to the van, but not because of that Daisuke couldn’t take his eyes away from it. It was more due to the familiar jacket right underneath, shoulders wet and lapels hanging open despite the cold. The umbrella was tilted so faces were obscured, but Daisuke didn’t need to see them to recognize them: it was Haru and Hoshino, standing one in front of the other as Hoshino held the umbrella up, close enough so the both of them could fit.
The tension in Haru’s shoulders hadn’t disappeared. If anything, he seemed even tenser as he spoke to Hoshino in hushed tones, Daisuke only able to see Haru’s jaw flickering in and out of view past the edge of the umbrella. Smaller that he was, Hoshino’s face was visible from where Daisuke was standing, and the pain in his eyes sent a spike of pain through Daisuke that made him ball his hands into fists once more.
He observed, through some kind of daze, as Hoshino hesitantly lifted a hand and pressed it against Haru’s shoulder. His hand was slender and pale, but it fitted nicely against Haru’s jacket, Daisuke thought. Like it belonged there. Like it deserved to be there.
And Haru could have been thinking the same thing. Because not a moment later, Haru let his forehead fall on Hoshino’s shoulder, his own shoulders shaking under his jacket as Haru finally let go of everything he had been holding inside for hours.
The umbrella tilted, hiding them both completely from view, but Daisuke got a final glimpse of Hoshino’s hand flying to the back of Haru’s neck and holding on tight before there was nothing for Daisuke to see other than dark fabric and rain.
Dark and rain, Daisuke thought, looking at the tilted umbrella for a moment longer before turning his back on it. That was, somehow, exactly how he felt inside.
Daisuke turned around, turning his back on the officers and the cars and the bodies that rested together to walk deeper into the dark hallways of his house. It was hard to find solace when the halls were infested with strangers, but not for anything the Kambe house was a mansion. Daisuke turned a corner, went down some stairs, walked into a room, and finally, he found himself alone.
It was the garage, rows and rows of cars waiting for just one command to start purring and take Daisuke far, far away.
Daisuke’s hand flew to his earring, fingers shaking against the bead.
“HEUSC,” he called. “Prepare—“
Daisuke froze. The attentive sound of HEUSC awaiting further instruction was an arrow through Daisuke’s heart, a reminder of his failures during the last handful of days. He had relayed so much on HEUSC—he had relayed so much on a failing, corrupted machine.
“What can I prepare for you, sir?” HEUSC asked when Daisuke kept silent, voice uneven and soft like it always was.
Daisuke suddenly couldn’t stand the sound of it.
Grabbing the bead with his nails, Daisuke yanked it out of the flesh of his earlobe, grinding his teeth to avoid a sound of pain. Then, with the same swift movement, Daisuke threw the earring against to the floor, watching the dark pearl chip with something akin to satisfaction. But it wasn’t enough; even from his height, Daisuke could see the little lights reflecting on the earring’s glass, those lights that signaled HEUSC working, synchronizing with the central CPU somewhere in the house. Always processing, always listening, always watching.
It’s been monitoring us, listening to what we say, Suzue had said. Even reading our lips.
Daisuke lifted his blood-stained shoe and smashed the earring with the heel, over and over, until the earring was nothing but dust.
When the lights were extinguished and Daisuke lowered his foot to the ground, he still felt nothing at all.
The rain at the rooftop of the Police Department fell with intention, not quite the gentle shower it had been back at Kambe Manor, but not quite a storm, either.
Daisuke was completely drenched, his hair sticking to his forehead, his suit heavy on his shoulders. The rooftop at HQ didn’t have any kind of shelter; it wasn’t a nice place from where to watch the rain fall. But Daisuke hadn’t known where else to go. Anywhere he wanted to go —Hong Kong, Rome, Dubai, Sao Paulo—, literally anywhere he could think of that would make him feel something other than empty was out of his reach now. With HEUSC gone, and the Kambe household an absolute minefield except for Suzue—well. Daisuke was just one more in a sea of people struggling to live day by day, forced to stay and face his mistakes rather than run away from them.
But at least… at least there, in a deserted rooftop far away enough from his house, Daisuke could breathe. Never mind the rain soaking him to the bone, or the deafening silence, or the still persistent smell of blood in his nostrils.
At least here, quiet, with the city at his feet, Daisuke couldn’t make any more mistakes.
It took him a little while to realize he wasn’t getting soaked anymore. The rain was still falling, turning the already gray city around him even darker, but he was suddenly free from it. A look at his right showed him the edge of a black umbrella, tiny drops of rain hanging from the metal pieces. Then, a look up showed Daisuke that the umbrella was tilted so it created a dry cocoon around him, protecting him from the rain.
And finally, a look over Daisuke’s shoulder showed Katou Haru holding said umbrella over Daisuke, shoulders faintly damp there where Haru had exposed himself in favor of keeping Daisuke dry.
Daisuke met Haru’s golden eyes only for a short second. Then he returned his gaze towards the city, pretending not to feel the darkness rising to the walls of his throat.
“Why are you here,” Daisuke asked, his voice so low and devoid of tone that it was barely a question. He directed his words towards the city, back still towards Haru.
But Haru had no trouble hearing him over the sound of the rain against the umbrella, clicking his tongue with annoyance before making himself breathe sharply through his nose. “Suzue-san,” Haru said, a reply to Daisuke’s question. “She couldn’t get a hold of you, and she worried.”
“How did you find me, then,” Daisuke asked, feeling a pang at the thought of hurting Suzue even more. “If not even she could find me.”
There was a moment of hesitation; then the umbrella over Daisuke moved slightly, as if Haru had stepped closer to Daisuke.
Considering the warmth Daisuke could feel against his wet clothes, he probably had.
“I guess…” Haru started, still hesitating, voice so low it was almost swallowed by the rain. “I guess I do know you a little, after all.”
Daisuke sighed and it came out shakily, but soft enough to go unheard. The idea of Haru looking for him was foreign. The idea of Haru caring enough to go looking was preposterous.
Daisuke let his gaze slide back towards his feet; the rain was picking up now.
“Ugh, look,” Haru suddenly said, and Daisuke heard fabric moving: Haru, lifting an arm to rub at the back of his neck. “I’m not… egocentric enough to think this is about what I said, but if it is, then—“
“You were right,” Daisuke said, and he finally turned to face Haru underneath their shared umbrella, needing to deliver those words right. “What you said was right,” Daisuke went on, centering his gaze on a pair of golden eyes that were wide open with surprise as they looked back at Daisuke. “It was my fault.”
“I…” Haru’s eyes jumped from one of Daisuke’s to the other, back and forth as if he was trying to find something. Understand something.
Daisuke didn’t give him the time. “I thought I had everything under control. I thought myself smarter than the killer so I set up a trap, and handed him what he wanted on a silver plate. I handed him Cho-san and Takei-san on a silver plate,” Daisuke looked away then, unable to hold Haru’s gaze any more. It burned through him, making the void inside of Daisuke flare up like gasoline in a forest fire. “So yes. It was my fault.”
There was also what Daisuke didn’t dare say. There was how the eye and voice identifications for Kambe Shigemaru had found their way into a system that hadn’t existed nineteen years ago, and that had been Daisuke’s fault too. How, when setting up HEUSC’s firewalls and restricted functions for the first time, Daisuke, a little over sixteen years old, had stared up at the input field where the data regarding the Kambe family should have been, and found a growing pain in his chest at the sight of only his name blinking back at him. No one else’s. His grandmother had refused to take part in it. And it hadn’t been until the next summer, when Suzue had come to visit him, that Daisuke had included her identifications into the system, making it seem like it was more for her sake than his.
That list had been so short still, even with Suzue’s name added in. Only two people. Simply two people, and one of them was himself. So Daisuke had ransacked through the computer’s files, looking for old video recordings of his parents to rip the audio from and save them into HEUSC’s database, giving them full access despite the fact no one would ever use those credentials anymore.
How his father had known, that Daisuke couldn’t even begin to imagine, but the blame was still solely on him.
He had shown his cards too early, and found himself facing a royal house with a mere one pair.
All things considered, Daisuke had never been too good at Poker.
Warmth against his skin made Daisuke snap back to the present. It was Haru’s fingers, brushing against the tender skin under Daisuke’s eye slowly, feather-like. But still, when Haru moved his hand back, his fingers were damp and glistening under the low light, and Daisuke looked at them for a long second before casting his eyes to the side and directing his glare to the floor.
“It’s just the rain,” he mumbled, feeling heat pooling at his cheeks. There was still some moisture clinging to his eyelashes, but he refused to acknowledge it. “Just the rain.”
“Mm,” was all Haru said; Daisuke could still feel his eyes on him.
Then, more warmth against the side of Daisuke’s neck: Haru’s palm flush against Daisuke’s skin. Daisuke tensed, and then tensed some more when Haru’s fingers found their way to the back of Daisuke’s neck, pressing forward lightly but insistently. Daisuke didn’t budge, pressing against Haru’s fingers to keep himself still.
In front of him, Haru sighed. “It’s alright. Don’t fight it.”
Daisuke fought it. He wasn’t seeing Haru’s shoulder anymore; he’s was seeing Haru and Hoshino in Daisuke’s front yard, almost exactly like Haru and himself were right now, and a want so strong Daisuke froze all over coursed through him like a wave.
“It’s just me,” Haru said softly, almost in Daisuke’s ear; they were standing so close, and Haru’s fingers on Daisuke’s nape were a gentle if still assertive, pulling him down, down, down. Daisuke thought of falling, and felt torn at the feelings the thought arose.
“It’s just me,” Haru repeated, and Daisuke’s heart roared in his ears. “Just let go, Daisuke.”
Daisuke let go.
He allowed Haru’s fingers to guide his head down onto Haru’s shoulder, forehead against the coarse material of Haru’s jacket. But for the first time, for the first time in hours, Daisuke breathed in and found no trace of blood in the intake of air. There was fabric softener, and familiar cologne, and —funnily enough—the smell of Daisuke’s own cigars. But there was no trace of the scent of blood that had followed Daisuke until now, and that…
That made Daisuke breathe against Haru easily, without the weight of the void inside of him weighing down on his lungs.
“Why,” Daisuke asked, voice on the edge of stained even if it held his usual nonchalance.
It didn’t fool Haru for a second, if the gentle pressure of Haru’s cheek against the side of Daisuke’s head was any indication. “Because it’s just rain, isn’t it? So you can let go, if you have to.”
Daisuke smiled, even as moisture rolled down his cheek to die on Haru’s jacket. “Yes.”
They stayed like that for a long moment, sheltered from the rain by the umbrella Haru was still holding over them. In that small rooftop, time seemed to stop; the world was still turning, the invisible clock was still ticking forward, but Daisuke stopped noticing it just for a moment. Just for the time he spent with his head on Katou Haru’s shoulder and his fingers on the back of Daisuke’s neck.
It was a long while, but still Daisuke had to swallow a sound of protest when Haru finally moved back.
“Come on,” Haru said softly, his fingers trailing down the side of Daisuke’s neck before falling back to his side once more. “Let’s get you home. You’re soaked.”
Daisuke looked up, easily finding Haru’s eyes. There was a red rim around them, some moisture of his own clinging to his fair eyelashes that made Daisuke’s heart skip a painful beat.
Then again, it could have simply been the rain as well.
“—I won’t go back there,” Daisuke said when Haru was starting to turn away, making him stop. “I can’t.”
Haru looked at him for a little while before shrugging. “Good thing I didn’t mean your house, then.”
Daisuke saw it clearly in his mind, Haru’s run-down apartment where Daisuke had already found comfort once. But now so many things had happened, so much had changed.
There was still blood in the soles of Daisuke’s shoes, he knew, and the idea of even getting them close to Haru’s home made Daisuke sick to his stomach.
“Why.” He asked again.
Haru frowned. “Why what?”
“You loved them,” Daisuke spat back, and Haru jumped. “They were important to you, both of them. And I got them killed. I killed them.”
Haru’s eyes opened wide, his feet bringing him a step closer towards Daisuke. “You did not—“
“I might as well have. You said so yourself.”
If only you had come back—
“You’re not a murderer, Daisuke,” Haru said, and there was so much conviction in his voice that Daisuke couldn’t help but look at him, mouth slightly open in surprise. “You… you have flaws. A lot of them. But so do I, so does everyone else. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“I…”
“And I said this too: despite all your flaws, you don’t commit crimes willingly. And I still stand by it.”
The dark void inside Daisuke shrunk, pushed down by the fast beat of Daisuke’s heart and the emotion inside Haru’s golden eyes. Such passion, Daisuke thought.
That was what had attracted Daisuke to Haru in the first place. His passion.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Haru suddenly said, changing the umbrella’s handle from one hand to the other. “I will find the person who killed Cho-san and Takei-san. I will find the person who took your mother from you nineteen years ago. And I will put them behind bars so they never hurt anyone else again. But I can’t do that alone,” Haru added, and then he extended his newly free right hand into the space between them, palm up and fingers pointing invitingly towards Daisuke. “I can’t do this alone, Daisuke.”
Daisuke pursed his lips. “HEUSC is corrupted. I can’t rely on him anymore.”
“So don’t; maybe this way you’ll finally find out how real detectives work.”
At that, Daisuke sent Haru his best glare, but Haru was unfazed. His hand still lingered in the open space between them, waiting.
“Then how do you want to do this, Inspector?” Daisuke asked instead of grabbing that tempting hand.
“Easy,” Haru replied with a shrug. “We investigate together. We work together. And—“ he added. “You stop making me the bait. It’s not funny.”
Daisuke forced himself to maintain his carefully neutral expression before saying: “It is a little funny.”
“No, it’s not!”
The tiniest curl of his mouth made all the smiling Daisuke could muster. Still it was there, and Daisuke saw Haru’s shoulders relax at the sight of it. In turn, that made Daisuke let go of any walls he had put around him, his own soggy shoulders dropping as he said: “Alright. I accept. Let’s do this together, Haru.”
And took Haru’s hand.
A smile broke through Haru’s mouth, blinding Daisuke; though it could have been the sun finally breaking through the storm around them, even if it hadn’t stopped raining just yet, even if the umbrella over their heads still kept the rest of the world at bay.
And it was funny, Daisuke thought. Funny how he hadn’t borne the thought of being touched just a few hours ago but now, with Haru’s fingers tightly wrapped around his hand, with Daisuke’s fingers tightly holding onto him back, Daisuke couldn’t think of anything better to make him straighten his back once more. Anything better to return him to his usual, confident self.
Regret was a thing Daisuke would have to live with, to work with, to work through.
But maybe Haru was right.
Maybe it truly would be easy, if they did it together.