Archive of Our Own ^beta

Drop after drop. The endless thumping he wants to get rid of, yet nowhere to reach to stop it; no tap, no water, no sound . Ahead, miles away yet right in front of him, there’s bubbling. He can’t hear it, but he feels it in every bone and every vein. It doesn’t talk but it almost feels like it does.

Dokuga doesn’t want to listen.

It gets louder, closer- more familiar, with every breath he takes. Because he’s always listened, told himself he always would. A part of him still wants to. He can’t and he knows he shouldn’t but there’s this… sense of duty, lodged between his ribs (it grew through his heart and lungs long ago and calling it duty stopped working the first time his breath got caught in the thorns), telling him to open his eyes; to listen . It comes from deep within him, it knows him better than he ever did.

Devotion, it asks, and Dokuga looks up at the man who held their loyalty and their lives running between his fingers. And he looks right back at him- no, through him.

Longing, it says. Dokuga opens his eyes, this time.

There was hope in all that pointlessness they were used to live in, right? He wasn’t the only one who still looked up and saw more than the smallest chance at life, they all did, until the end… didn’t they? Wide eyed, bloodied, not ready to die- drowning just out of reach, they can never answer.

They all followed the boss on their own accord. They never knew the truth until it was too late, so they had to. Dokuga kept quiet and they died for their faith but there was something they believed in until the end… They believed in the boss but he betrayed them.

Dokuga isn’t any better.

Looking right at him from the dark puddle in the boss’ room, Tetsujo asked him for the truth. There was no one else he’d give it to, no one else who’d shut the secret in locked hands, no one else who’d believe him when he said he’d try to do the right thing, no matter the price ( this is the price ). Tetsujo could have gone against the boss if he wanted to, he asked Dokuga to and he refused, proposed a solution he knew he couldn’t follow through with and, Tetsujo accepted it wholeheartedly. He wasn’t following the boss then.

Would any of them have done it if they knew?

Longing, it hammers once again, and Dokuga wishes he never opened his eyes in the first place.

The bubbling stops all at once, the endless fall and the numbness, too. It’s only then that it all comes rushing back in (scratches, burns, and every place his skin tears away from aren’t the only painful things).

He should be used to it by now, but it feels like nothing has ever felt before; both his arms are covered in scars that will never heal- one of them is gone, a raw pain spreading over something that’s not there anymore. Blood trailing down his face scorched his eyes before, now he can’t see anything out of one of them. For people like them, wounds have always been irreversible, just another thing to sit through and hope for the best, no different from an empty stomach or a dry throat.

… And now, more than ever. It’s not a first time but it feels like the last.

The hope Dokuga found in the pointlessness- it has long since vanished without a trace, not even a reason to hold onto for why it grew so big in the first place. Not now that his bones are crushed underneath it (still… the bubbling stays. Sharp things dig the farthest; his fingers have always grown numb around them).

For that, for all of it, it’s hard, cold ground what he expects opening his eyes- eye , once more, for real this time, because it’s a thousand times brighter than the place he was in before and because scum like him is hard to kill off for good, no matter how much they deserve it. It’s hard but it’s not dirty, jagged rocks what he finds his head resting on, it’s only vaguely warm but it’s not cold, it’s… 

It’s Tetsujo.

His vision is blurry, doubled, but he’s known him all his life; known his voice all his life: “Dokuga?” he asks, eye widening before scrunching up, before something cold hits Dokuga’s cheek. “You’re alive. Fuck, you’re alive, I thought-”

Dokuga is alive. When he thinks about it now, when the second and last droplet hits his cheek and Tetsujo’s shadow keeps him from facing right at the light above, however scarce, he wonders how. How can he be happy to see him alive when they’ve lost everything else; their only chance at life, their friends, their purpose, their life . They can’t even go back to the place they used to live in, it wouldn’t make sense to, anyway, there’s nothing left for them there (there’s nothing for them here, either). How can Tetsujo smile at him, thank him, say his name like it means something else besides treason ?

No more tears fall on him but it’s like he’s looking up from underwater, far, fuzzy; he should have stayed in the lake. Dokuga utters no words, doesn’t move and doesn’t try to, eye so still the world distorts around him. Tetsujo says his name again (and it sounds so easy), thanks him for being alive once more. Smiles like he means it… Dokuga knows he does .

And he’s not sure he deserves it (he doesn’t . Not him ).

Not when he let all of them down.

They’re no strangers to death. It’s hard to be when their lives revolve around avoiding it, yet never managing to put enough distance between them; when everyone else thinks of it as their only fate, the price to pay for being no better than humans.

He’s been close to it many times. In that alley years ago, alone and a day away from starving. Or battered, tired and ready to bleed out, too many times for someone who can’t afford to take fatal risks. Even so, no other time has felt quite like this one. Painfully numb, fading like the bad lightbulb in their old bathroom, going out, then back, faintly every so often (everyone knew one day it wouldn’t light back on anymore. One can only run away from death for so long, he supposes).

And people like them- someone like him deserve it more than anyone.

Dokuga doesn’t bleed through his wounds but the pain is much more urgent. Heavier, sweeping, bitterer . For a life spent crawling away from weakness, it’s not rest he wishes for, in this end. Not for him. Giving up was never a choice but surviving alone can’t be right. Broken promises and no cause to hold himself up for, no-

“Please don’t die… Dokuga, please don’t die,” it doesn’t sound like crying anymore, but his parched throat hangs the possibility creeping at the edges.

Tetsujo’s never been a loud crier, shaky shoulders and ragged sighs ever the only giveaway… Dokuga isn’t sure he’s seen him like this in a long time. Dokuga has trained himself to tone down every emotion and every outburst for the sake of others, but his heart has never been as good at it as his face and voice; it hurts, when all he sees is the only person he has left, asking him to stay despite… despite all of this being his fault.

“I have to go look for something to patch you up,” he says, making no move to stand up. Dokuga’s eye follows his hand, as it holds onto the loose gravel by his shoulder, trembling. “… Are you going to…? I don’t want you to-” his mouth closes into a thin line, his gaze never drifting away from him.

They’ve only got each other now, that’s why. It’s simple.

Would things have been different if they all knew from the start? Even when Tetsujo agreed not to tell them, and followed Dokuga’s lead, ended up right here in the place they were thrown into all those years ago? Would they still have followed the boss like Dokuga did, then, would they have gladly been his tools?

He killed them. The boss did the job but Dokuga is no less guilty. Tetsujo… is no less guilty for following Dokuga despite knowing the truth, either. Maybe they’re just as selfish and cruel as each other; maybe that’s why they get to stay alive.

Dokuga finds that he doesn’t like the idea.

Is it selfish still to think about his imminent death? That it’s the price for what he did to their friends, no matter how badly Tetsujo wants him to stay (because it’s better than being alone, right?).

“Dokuga,” he calls, finally moving Dokuga’s head off him and putting a rolled-up carpet in his place, rising to his feet, looking right at him the entire time with the same doubtful eye. “Please, hang until I come back.”

Dokuga is only as good at reading people as it takes to survive, he thinks, always busy keeping his own feelings in check to notice anyone else’s. But Tetsujo- for better and for worse, he’s always been easy. Something, everything, in the way he looks at him screams please don’t die, promise me you won’t die, I don’t want you to die alone, louder than words ever could. He doesn’t say it again but Dokuga can see it, the faintest relief that takes over him when he nods, slow and heavy, no way to guarantee but no plea for one.

Back then, he accepted to believe in the boss one more time when Dokuga asked him to, didn’t he?

And where did all that take them?

When Tetsujo left the narrow alleyway he had taken them into, Dokuga noticed his body didn’t have a single scratch. It relieved him, that he made it out of there not only alive but fine (soon after, it hit him that he’s never been quite this injured, not long enough to feel the helplessness. He got all their friends killed and now he’s more of a burden than his poison ever made him. Tetsujo still looks for a way to help him).

Dokuga is not uncaring. Reminding himself of this fact is a daily grounding exercise, but he’s not. It’s his duty to choose a way of living that doesn’t endanger anyone around him, over and over. That includes the way he behaves, includes keeping his distance from the people he cares about. It’s never been an option to him but now he misses them more than ever.

They stuck together not only because that’s the only way for people like them to survive but because they were friends, family , yet Dokuga always watched from afar, because it meant keeping them safe. He misses them, but they would probably miss him less. It’s his fault that they died; the consequences should’ve fallen on him and him alone. The world is cruel and uncaring and these are the consequences. This was always the only one path for people like them, some just made to walk it sooner. Never fair, above all, if fairness was ever within their reach. Maybe he just can’t accept the wicked ways things always work out, in the end.

His longing killed his friends and he hates to admit that, somewhere deep down, he knew how it would end. He knew the boss killed Natsuki because he wasn’t fast enough. Knew the boss would kill any of them without a second thought, yet he did nothing to stop him. Instead, he brought him to Hole and sealed their fates. And Tetsujo… he, too, did nothing to stop Dokuga.

They killed their friends, both of them. Dokuga has known Tetsujo for what might as well be his entire life and he doesn’t want the blame put on him, not even for willingly following him despite knowing what it meant. In the endless fall through the lake, he accepted all the guilt as his own, and doing so won’t bring their friends back, but nothing ever will.

If things could have gone differently, then it’s too late now (Dokuga closes his eye, sees the smiles of the people he failed and opens it again; there’s nothing he can do. It doesn’t help the way his heart squeezes and it doesn’t help his ears ignore the way Tetsujo called out their names as he fell. Dokuga opens his eye anyway).

Footsteps at the entrance of the alley make him turn his head to the best of his ability. From there, Tetsujo makes his way up to him as fast as he can, carrying some limited medical supplies. They’ve made do with less countless times before.

“I’m back,” he announces, sitting back down right beside Dokuga, hands fiddling with the plastic bag on his lap.

None of them were healers because they would have never met if they were, but years of patching each other up paid up along the way. They couldn’t afford less.

Tetsujo doesn’t grimace when he goes over the wound on the left side of his face but he keeps his lips in a thin line, does his best with the bandages they’ve got (neither of them talk and their eyes barely meet, a fucked up eye and a missing arm are not things time and patience will heal).

When he’s done, Dokuga doesn’t feel much better, but he knows Tetsujo doesn’t expect him to. He pulls him up from the floor, makes him rest against the wall and Dokuga’s spine cracks with the movement. It’s the most relieved he’s felt in days.

Silently, at his right, Tetsujo helps him stay upright.

The moment his shoulder drops to the side is when it catches the first drop. Tetsujo faces the distance and so there’s no other place it could’ve come from but above. It’s proven true when another drop lands on his nose. Then the next one, quicker, sharpe r, as the ones to come. Felt in every joint, every bone, every part of him. The only proof that they’re not the same as humans. This time, it doesn’t lift the corners of his mouth higher than he ever allows it, he doesn’t take every cold dagger with as much pride as a sorcerer without magic can have. This time it just hurts .

People like them don’t belong in Hole, but they don’t belong in the magic world, either. People like them are better off dead. Dokuga will keep fighting, he tells himself he will, because there’s nothing else to do. No one will save them this time but maybe they shouldn’t have been saved in the first place. If they were ever saved at all.

The boss gave them a sense of purpose, taught them a way to survive in a world that wants them dead, a way without magic. Yet magic was the thing he desired, the thing he betrayed them for. Dokuga didn’t know another way to live, didn’t want to know any other way-

He’s got no choice now. The boss is dead, and with him, he took their friends, left them right back in the place he got them out of.

Rain hurts them to their core but it feels like yet another defeat. Rain hurts them to their core and there’s no pride to celebrate, just his back, slumped against the cold wall, a blurred vision and a lighter body in the worst of ways.

“They didn’t want to let me in,” Tetsujo says under the rain, throat parched for a new reason. “I found a hospital, but they only take magic victims… at least they gave me something to clean up the wounds a bit.” it occurs to Dokuga that he can’t feel the same droplets that drip down Tetsujo’s helmet, that his bandages aren’t soaked.

Getting wet is not the problem. The revolting pain is the same whether or not the rain touches them, yet Tetsujo backed him into the only place the rooftop sticks out of the wall, dirty, holed wood but a roof nonetheless.

“… But there’s not much else to do,” Tetsujo swallows and a pained breath follows suit as he turns his head back to Dokuga: “Will you be okay? When you passed out I… wasn’t sure if you’d make it. Please just stay awake for now.”

All the times they’ve gotten hurt before, all the times their last breath was right around the corner, all the times they would do anything to keep each other alive (Dokuga would poison two dozen people but wouldn’t sell the boss’ knives, would try to hide them from him if they were ever on his sight but he was never fast enough)… and it’s now that they feel the most real, now that Dokuga is unable to do anything about it.

“I don’t… want to lose you too,” Tetsujo is back at looking away but there’s nothing out there to look for.

“I let them die, I’m sorry,” there’s a pool of rainwater forming right at his feet, but his body is too heavy to move.

“They’d forgive you,” Tetsujo mutters. “… Both of us.”

“… I’m not sure there’s enough time for me.”

This time, faster than the last, Tetsujo faces him again, staring right at him under narrow eyebrows: “You didn’t mean for it to end like this, they know- I know,” and what good does that now? “And you won’t die now, wasn’t that what we promised? That we would keep on living no matter what? They would want you to live, I want you to live, please. We’ll… we’ll manage this time, too. I thought the boss had killed you too… I was ready to kill him, back then, so when I saw you were alive I… felt so relieved, that I didn’t lose you too, that I didn’t lose you . I don’t know what I’d do if you died,” Because they’ve only got each other now, right? “Dokuga, I don’t blame you, they wouldn’t blame you either, don’t give up, please .”

And Tetsujo means every word of it; eye fixed right on him as his chest rises and falls painfully under the rain. Their bodies are battered and heavy from the inside out, but unlike him, Tetsujo still finds it in him to raise his voice and ask him to hang in there.

Dokuga would do anything for his friends (he wouldn’t leave the boss behind when he wanted them to take him to Hole and he wouldn’t tell them how dangerous he really was but he can fight a little longer, he guesses).

He doesn’t answer, only following Tetsujo’s eye with his own until he can’t anymore. They’ve known each other for what may as well be their entire lives, the both of them, especially. Dokuga has told him things he never thought he’d tell anyone but… does Tetsujo know what he’s thinking? Can he tell right now that Dokuga doesn’t know how to answer? Can he tell that he’d do anything, or does it look to him like he doesn’t care? Tetsujo looks away and Dokuga doesn’t find a way to ask.

Rain pours down on them and no other sound reaches him.

Be it the toll the rain takes on him or the built-up tiredness from the last few weeks, it knocks him out cold before he knows it.

Dokuga sleeps but he does not rest, his mind full of bubbling dark liquid and static with nowhere to run.

It’s a long, long journey until morning but when he opens his eye again, he feels just as bad.

And like last time, he wakes up to Tetsujo. The corners of his mouth lifting up immediately as soon as Dokuga looks at him.

“Morning,” he says. Hole should be worse than the magic world. Aside from the puddles clinging between the cracks, the filth, the stench, the danger, aren’t so different from the worst places they’ve greeted each other in.

“Morning,” Dokuga mimics.

He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know how to but he wakes up again and hopes it’s enough.

Stubbornly, the last of the dirty water refuses to dry up. Soaking instead into Dokuga’s pants and… it’s not as heavy as blood. Nothing is, not quite.

And if it were, there are heavier things to be weighted down by.

What did they see when they looked up at the boss? Did they see a savior, an ideal, a chance at life? Or did they see a man as well? It wouldn’t have made sense for any of them, it didn’t make sense why Dokuga followed him so closely, because they weren’t there. They weren’t his right-hand man and he never patted their heads or thanked them like he did to Dokuga, so that’s why…

That’s why even now, he can’t find it in him to truly regret it. He knows he should; he should wish he could turn back time and betray the boss. He tells himself he would- yet he can’t make himself believe it.

Dokuga looked up at the boss and his longing got stronger than their sense of duty, every single time. He wanted him to come back just like any of them did but in the end, maybe he was the one who wanted him to stay .

He’s the one who wants him back, now.

That’s the way it is or, at least he thinks he does. He closes his functional eye and feels a cold hand pushing his head down before leaving for Hole. The boss trusted him, he told only him about Risu, he asked only him to help, Dokuga knew because he wanted him to know, but he… he was using him all along. Just like he did the rest of them. The boss never cared about him, never cared about any of them or the organization, the boss only wanted one thing and Dokuga is not entirely sure what it was, even now.

The boss never cared but the same cannot be said for Dokuga. And so he wants him back. Not only the sense of purpose that came from following him but him . He shouldn’t but he can’t help it, he doesn’t want to but he can’t help it- it feels like betraying his friends all over again.

Dokuga doesn’t want the boss back, but the worst part of him does . The man with the lizard head, in a way, that’s their boss too, right?

Tetsujo asked him to save Natsuki and his solution left her rotting, alone; he swore to protect their friends, yet they all ended up dead, irreparably so. Tetsujo knew how likely that was when he accepted to believe in the boss one last time, didn’t he? Then why…?

And more importantly: would he do it again? After all the boss did, would Tetsujo help him look for him just because Dokuga still wants to? How selfish can Dokuga be until it’s enough?

Would Tetsujo still be at this side then? Just like he’s always been?

(He knew the dangers from the start. Looked at them straight in the eye and took his chances just like Dokuga. They’ve been together for what may as well be their entire lives and Dokuga is scared of how willingly he threw it all away before. How willing he would be to throw it all away again if the opportunity presented itself. They’ve been called scum since the day they were born and maybe Dokuga deserves the title in every possible way.)

The wall and the ground are both cold, as cold as the boss’ hands were; Tetsujo’s shoulder, inches away from his, is not. When they all sat close to each other in the coldest nights, he wasn’t cold either. Dokuga longs for warmth in a different way than he does for that bone-breaking cold, and he can’t have both. He can have neither but he can’t have both. Choosing should be easy when he’s already walked half the way but he can’t turn back and he can’t keep going. He thought warmth belonged only in the past and cold was impossible to reach- Tetsujo’s shoulder remains inches away, closer than warmth has been in years.

There’s no way he deserves it. Not after what he did. Dokuga brought this upon himself, all of it, and the worst part is he doesn’t regret it entirely. He wants to, but he doesn’t. Yet Tetsujo looks at him and smiles . Thanks him for being alive, asks him to stay and Dokuga is no stranger to finding quiet words in Tetsujo’s eye. To knowing he means everything he tells him, for better… and for worse.

Tetsujo smiles at him, tells him with tears in his eyes how thankful he is that he’s alive, and Dokuga doesn’t understand any of it. Never has.

Has never known how to ask, either.

When Dokuga tries to stand up for the first time in days, his legs the weakest they’ve ever been, giving up under his weight like they’re not fit for supporting it anymore, Tetsujo is there to catch him before he makes it to the ground. When Dokuga is finally able to lift his own weight again, Tetsujo stays right beside him, so focused on not letting him fall he almost trips on the trash scattered around the streets more than once. They’ve always been there to carry each other, from the start. To look after one another, but Dokuga still does his best to not trip over his own feet, not lose balance and not complain when he reaches out with his left hand and sees nothing, holds nothing but the pain in joints he doesn’t have anymore.

It’s part of it. It’s the least he can do.

Back then, Dokuga took all the jobs he could. No matter how odd and no matter how bad the pay, picking and choosing is a privilege they’ll never know. Now, he doubts anyone would hire someone who can barely stand on his own.

But Tetsujo is fine, he made it out of the lake with a new and healthy body and Dokuga is relieved . Just as much as he hates that there’s nothing he can do to worry him any less. Nothing he can do to help.

People in Hole are kinder than real sorcerers ever were to them; an old lady kicked them out of her doorstep early in the morning when she found them resting there but offered them breakfast on their way out, a man tossed Dokuga a handful of coins while he waited for Tetsujo to come back with something to eat.

Hole is not their home but the thought of returning to the magic world leaves hangs between them like a blade to the tongue, drives the words out of them, dry.

Hole is not their home but they stay anyway, wander and learn the streets, sit down close in dark alleyways and scavenge for food just the way they’re used to. Hole is not their home but no place really is.

They’re used to the way life is for people like them; Tetsujo can’t seem to get used to Dokuga’s uneasy pace. Dokuga is not good at talking and not good at giving people what they want but when he looks back at Tetsujo’s voice there’s this… sadness in his eye, he swallows hard and speaks but avoids Dokuga’s left side entirely.

Dokuga knows he does because he was the same, back then, when Tetsujo jumped in front of the scissors that were supposed to hit him . When the infection finally subsided by what Ton cheered was a miracle, and Tetsujo told them he couldn’t see out of it anymore… back then he looked at Dokuga and smiled like it was nothing.

He understands what it must have felt like, now. Not the smile and not the hard, carefree hand on his shoulder but the simpler aspects of it. They see the world in the same way now, in a way. Dokuga’s doesn’t bleed but Tetsujo takes the bandages off to wipe it and warns him that it’s going to sting, insists it’ll be alright.

Still, he’s the most worried when it comes to his left arm, or the place where it should be. It’s funny, Dokuga thinks, even though at this point he might not actually know what funny really means. They’ve lost their limbs before, not entirely sure if they would ever get them back but they did. Both of them want to think it will happen again but wishful thinking alone never took them anywhere.

(Ushishimada built a house with envelopes on top of their battered table, too small for the five of them, and said they would all live together there, one day. At En’s manor, Dokuga overheard Ton telling Natsuki she didn’t have to ask them to stay, and wishful thinking never took them anywhere).

A sorcerer with no magic is no better than a human and a human is nothing if not a practice target. Yet they all chose to fight to survive. Dokuga clings onto life, not entirely sure if out of habit (there comes a time everyone loses the final battle and the odds have always been against them).

One day Dokuga wakes up with a sharp pain on the left side of his body and turns away when Tetsujo tries to take a look at the wounds. He can feel the bandages stuck to them. They swell and hurt like never before and maybe he does cling to life out of habit after all.

“… Are you okay?” Tetsujo asks.

Dokuga doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. He can see how hard it is for Tetsujo to swallow the lump in his throat.

He tries again later that day, after they’ve spent the last of their money in too little water. “You can’t just leave them like that even if they’re bad, Dokuga,” but he doesn’t reach for his arm or his face and Dokuga stands up and does it by himself.

Tetsujo runs a hand through his hair when he looks at him, opens his mouth to speak but says nothing. Dokuga doesn’t tell him how bad his wounds look.

The ground is hard and cold and people look at him with pity in their eyes. Some of them hand them coins and there really isn’t shame in it. If anything he prefers it over the way people looked at them back in the magic world. When night falls, and the cold, hard pavement shivers him to the core, Tetsujo drapes the old blanket he found in a dumpster around his shoulders and inches a little closer. Under the dim, flickering street lamp Dokuga catches a glimpse of Tetsujo’s fingers, twitching over his shoulder as he lets go of the blanket. Stares, silently as they ultimately fall back right at his side.

Haven’t they huddled for warmth before? Why does Tetsujo sit with his shoulder touching Dokuga’s but cover his exposed arms with his hands? Dokuga doesn’t ask.

Come next morning, he opens his eye earlier than Tetsujo, if he ever closed it at all, and catches him asleep, his back still against the wall and his arms still crossed before his chest. And it’s then Dokuga realizes how hard it is to move, how he can’t pull himself up the way he’s done all previous mornings, how it’s not the sewer water what filters through his nose but how it smells just as bad. Unsure of what to do, he tries to stand up one more time.

His skin breaks. He can feel it, right where his left arm should be, the tear and the sharp pain that follows. Gritting his teeth does nothing but it’s better than screaming and it’s all he can do.

Maybe the struggle is not as silent as he thought it was, because Tetsujo is immediately looking over him. It hurts when he helps him sit upright again but it never stopped hurting.

“… Let me see,” Tetsujo tries. They ran out of disinfectant months ago and there are no more bandages left, nowhere to clean them. Dokuga shakes his head once, breathes in. “Dokuga, please-” he tries again.

There’s nothing any of them can do. “Help me up.”

It’s Tetsujo’s turn to breathe in and stay quiet. He’s not happy to do so but he must understand they have no time to waste, however it is they should be using it instead.

Careful, Tetsujo pulls on Dokuga’s arm, extends a hand behind his back as soon as he’s standing and sticks no more than an inch away from him as they walk.

“How much do you think we can get for this carpet?” Tetsujo asks. Dokuga doesn’t need to turn around to know what kind of face he’s making. “Enough to get something for you?”

It’s their last possession, their last resort in more ways than one. They aren’t going back to the magic world in Dokuga’s state or maybe ever but… shouldn’t they spend it on water, food even?

There’s no guarantee that he’ll make it either way-

“Ah,” Tetsujo utters.

At that, Dokuga lifts his gaze from the ground and something in his chest stops .

He hates that he recognizes him immediately, and he hates that not all of him hates it. The lizard man doesn’t look like the boss at all but he’s Aikawa, right? And Aikawa was the boss…

Behind the mask he wears, they could be the same. They’re not and Dokuga knows it but they could be and so the air is knocked out of his lungs and his eyes follow his every move. Maybe he expects something; a new order, a familiar face. Neither will come. There’s few things Dokuga can’t quite control and, as much as he hates it now, this is one of them.

The woman at his side says something but Dokuga only knows it because he sees her lips move. The lizard man stares at him behind the mask, he can feel it in every bone and every joint, just like the bubbling of the lake. Soon, though, he looks down; away, never to look back again.

But he throws something at them. Dokuga flinches as it clinks down at their feet and spins around before finally picking it up. A vial, filled to the brim with dark smoke.

“Isn’t this…?” Dokuga looks closely at the black particles in it, but there’s really no way to know more.

Tetsujo and him both look back at the lizard man and his friend, who looks at them in return for only a second before catching up to him. The lizard man doesn’t turn back but Dokuga’s gaze remains fixed on him until he’s out of sight.

It’s then that he finds Tetsujo looking at him, puzzled. Dokuga examines the vial and something bubbles up in his chest, danger, uncertainty… maybe something close to hope. It’s like he sits in a dark alley against old, moldy boxes, one day away from starving again and a boy he’s never met offers him the piece of lukewarm bread he was eating, tells him with a proud smile all over his face that he just stole it from the bakery a few blocks down and his friends insist they shouldn’t be stopping so soon but he waits for Dokuga and asks if he wants to come along.

“Are you going to use it? We don’t know if-!”

No matter how hard they stare at the vial, there’s just no way to know for sure without opening it and Dokuga is tired. He clings to life because he’s used to it and because he let the boss kill all their friends. And he’s- not selfish enough to let himself die, not when he’s all Tetsujo’s got. But he’s so tired.

“I have no choice.”

After that, Tetsujo keeps quiet for a bit, at least until they reach the nearest alley.

Dokuga clings to life because he’s used to it, looks at the smoke inside the bottle and maybe he was right to do so for as long as he’s done.

At the entrance, Tetsujo keeps his distance, cross armed, looking away from Dokuga; from the vial. He’s biting his tongue, Dokuga knows it because he’s just as uneasy. It wouldn’t make sense for the lizard man to give them any other kind of smoke but he’s got many more reasons to want them dead.

Death doesn’t have a meaning, after all. They wouldn’t be anything but two more unnamed corpses in the streets of Hole.

“You can have all of it,” Tetsujo mutters. “… if it actually is healing smoke, if it’s not I’d… rather you didn’t, but-”

“I’ll keep my distance, just in case,” he can see Tetsujo’s shoulders immediately tense at his words. “If he gave us something else… I was going to die soon anyway.”

Tetsujo’s helmet clanks against the wall when he turns around, faster than it takes Dokuga to finish his sentence, narrow eyebrows and gritted teeth.

“That’s the problem, I don’t want you to die!”

His ears buzz like gunshot ghosts as he watches Tetsujo’s chest rise and fall, his eye closed shut as he takes his helmet off and wipes all across his forehead, fingers digging into his hair, after. At last, he looks away in one breakneck swing; Dokuga’s cue to walk down the rest of this dead end.

He leans his back against a pile of old wooden boxes and takes one last look at the smoke inside the vial. The more he thinks about it, the more he doubts, and he’s got no time to waste. He’s faced death a thousand times before but somehow this time feels scarier, no one likes being helpless.

With one last deep breath, he pulls the cap off with his teeth.

The smoke spreads quickly, quicker than Dokuga is to close his eye in anticipation. Nothing blows up and nothing hurts, the feeling of flesh and bones growing out of thin air and the sounds they make as they do so are overwhelming but entirely painless. Still, he can’t seem to breathe in or release the air trapped in his lungs. They’ve had the chance to try all kinds of healing smoke before, whatever they could afford, whatever they could get their hands on, and this one must belong to some powerful magic user, but he doesn’t give too much thought to how the lizard man got it in a place like this. It doesn’t matter; what matters is that, when all the smoke dissipates, he opens both his eyes, looks down at his left side and stretches all of his fingers, in and out, takes them to his face and feels no rough edges, no oozing wounds.

Dokuga breathes out.

At the mouth of the alley, Tetsujo still keeps his back turned to him, one of his hands on his forehead and the other where his sword should be. He shows no intention of turning around but his back is unnaturally stiff, like he’s also been holding his breath.

“… Tetsujo?” Dokuga tries, stepping right beside him.

In a split second, he goes from completely still to embracing Dokuga so hard he doesn’t know how to react. His first impulse is to pull away, make sure he’s not putting Tetsujo in any danger by being so close but he feels Tetsujo’s hair stick to his neck and he doesn’t seem to care about it. Dokuga is not used to it, conflicted, unsure hands hovering around Tetsujo’s back, ultimately falling at his sides, limp in the way only locked joints can make them. But Tetsujo doesn’t seem to mind how hard Dokuga’s shoulders are, how he’s seconds away from losing footing. He holds onto him like his life depends on it and Dokuga doesn’t have to think about how to hold his breath.

Tetsujo’s hands slip up his back, making their way to his shoulders as he stares right at him with a smile and a bright eye. One of his hands wipes off the tears that don’t quite fall from it and then goes right back to Dokuga.

That could’ve been dangerous , Dokuga wants to say. The words get caught up in his throat and die as they fall back down. They’re too close for speaking, still.

“Sorry I… let myself go,” his hands leave Dokuga’s shoulders but his big smile barely wavers.

It’s then that Dokuga finds out he’s smiling too. It feels subtle and maybe it’s not too obvious but he feels it. And it seems to lift Tetsujo’s spirits even more, an unmatched softness in his eye that he parades around like it’s nothing.

“It’s okay,” Dokuga says and wishes he could turn back time and get his hands to land, remember how to breathe short, cautious breaths.

“So, uh,” he finally turns around, putting his helmet back on. “what now?”

Time only moves forward. For people like them, anyway.

“Things get worse before they get better,” Natsuki would always say, an innocent- naive smile on her face. It suited her well, despite everything, wouldn’t have been anything like her, if it was any smaller.

Still, the world is not made for the kind and the hopeful (Dokuga found her mangled remains under a statue and gritted his teeth, powerless, guilty ; the back of his nose burned hotter than it had in years. He saw her and saw an unlikely light. Shining brighter on her own than any fuel could make her, than the rest of them had ever seen; he was supposed to protect her and she wasn’t supposed to die. None of them were).

Dokuga wants to tell her she could be right. He can’t, and it’s his fault, but he’ll remember to when they meet again, in hell. She did always want him to believe it.

Ushishimada wanted them to live together in a big house all for themselves. Ton smiled unapologetically big and told them he wished for them to be happy at every opportunity. Saji said one day there would be no need for him to count every single penny twice anymore, and he could finally rest. None of them were right but Dokuga wants to hold onto their words, even if they’re not here anymore ( because they’re not here, anymore).

As for Tetsujo and him, they sell the carpet and get jobs, as many as they can physically take, with a couple hours of downtime at night they can’t possibly afford but Tetsujo still insisted they need. Dokuga is no stranger to working on little sleep, slumping against the wall to close his eyes only when absolutely needed- Tetsujo didn’t insist but getting fired for slacking is the last thing he needs.

It takes months, and a whole load of saving but they get a small, cramped apartment that smells old and moldy in the cheapest corner of town. A single room and one bathroom but more than enough for them, certainly better than sleeping in the streets. Neither of them is on the brink of death anymore; time goes on, no matter how unkind the world is. Hole shouldn’t be their home but people like them don’t know what a sorcerer’s pride really means, never have and never will. Maybe that’s alright, after all.

After pulling themselves off the streets and doing some math (Saji was good at it, would yank receipts and bills out of their hands before they could read the numbers out loud), they agree that they don’t have to work their assess off in overlapping overtimes and half an hour nights, that keeping their best paying job each will keep them housed and fed. They’ve never needed more.

So, Dokuga moves heavy packages and other stuff for hours on end, he certainly doesn’t enjoy the toll it takes on him but he’s strong and the pay is good enough. Tetsujo keeps his job at a nearby store and drags his feet whenever Dokuga asks about his day. He doesn’t blame him, practice doesn’t make customer service any easier. They both take full time and by luck, their schedules match a little bit. They’re out the door before the sun rises, back in around the time it’s settled behind rows and rows of towering buildings.

Most days, Tetsujo gets off earlier than Dokuga. Then, he waits around to fetch him, so they can walk back together. The second time he showed up, Dokuga told him it wasn’t necessary, that he could head straight home and have some time for himself before he got there. The next day, on the clock, Tetsujo was there.

And… Dokuga has started to look forward to it.

He never considered how much time to think he’d have at a job so repetitive. Some packages are heavier than others, and so are the thoughts he carries them over with.

The inside of the box clinks from time to time. It sounds like some kind of poorly wrapped china; routine falls onto him, curls around him like chains and it feels dead wrong. How can he get used to this ? To not having them around. How, when they’re gone because of him? Isn’t it unfair that they’re not all he thinks of? Isn’t it unfair that nothing happens?

Stuck to the next box, there’s a label that marks it as a fridge, the size and width gave some of it away but a confirmation is good, too. Fridges are heavy and Dokuga’s employer insists he doesn’t need the carrier as much as other people do, not when he can lift it all by himself, she’s seen him do it before! Dokuga has dealt with worse and so he takes a deep breath and gets the damn thing inside some man’s kitchen. The sun is starting to set and this is his last delivery of the day, Tetsujo is probably waiting for him already.

Their life has always been full of highs and lows. Even if said highs are small bumps rising from the dust and the lows bury them underground. They’ve had tons of different jobs, some shittier than others, and Dokuga thinks they’re doing alright, for now, a full night’s sleep and some time for themselves before it is more than they could’ve asked for, back then. Money is a little tight but it keeps them alive. They’ve worked opposing schedules before, but before , there used to be someone else there, no matter the time. Neither of them mentions it, not once; Dokuga is glad he doesn’t return to an empty house. He knows it’s the same for Tetsujo.

The walk around Hole is not pretty nor particularly soothing, yet, sometimes Tetsujo sneaks in some leftovers from the restaurant a block down from his job so they save a night in groceries. Dokuga can almost taste them.

“Hey, how was work?” Tetsujo greets him, straightening his back.

“I delivered some plates earlier and the dude tipped me so I have something for the savings,” he announces, patting the bag tied at his waist

The first time Tetsujo asked him something like that, he gave him nothing but a quick answer, and he took it with a smile but the walk back home was painfully silent. Before, they would come to a house full of sound, full of voices that would call out their names, and talk about anything and everything. Tetsujo would always ask him by himself, then, too, breaking comfortable quiet. Silence never used to be this overwhelming. So now Dokuga talks, finds that keeping a conversation going is as hard as he remembered but it’s an effort he’s willing to make.

“I think we’re close to saving enough for some weapons,” he sounds excited. Dokuga isn't so particular about the knives he yields but Tetsujo’s sword was like an extension of him, he was good at it. Dokuga will be happy to see his hand resting out of habit on something that’s there, again.

“Guess so. I hope we don’t have to use them as much, though.”

“Just in case,” Tetsujo nods. They don’t exactly live in a fancy place, after all.

Still quite some time before they make it home (home . How can that place be home , with enough empty space to drown in?) , the silence threatening to settle between them is not a temporary force that will soon quiet down when they arrive.

In the quiet, there’s always more time to think .

It’s not that he’s never thought about it, the sight of blood forever stuck to the back of his mind, the patch he had wanted to find a completely healed eye under, someday- how, somewhere along the way, he stopped expecting it but he never stopped hoping it would happen.

Why are you smiling? he wanted to ask him back then, the scar digging a clear, ragged path, impossible to miss. Why did you do it?

It’s always been Tetsujo. Giving him a bigger ration back when they first let Dokuga into their group, telling him it was just so he’d put back the lost weight. Gladly cutting his own so no one else would have to, wrapping a scarf around his shoulders in the coldest nights- jumping at the slimmest chance of him getting hurt even if it meant taking the damage himself…

They’ve always been busy and, for everyone’s sake, Dokuga’s always been quiet; between the guilt and regret there’s a second chance, not only at life, but at himself and it feels like he’s taking it away from someone- his hands hold onto it like they do when he covers his mouth.

For the first time in years, Dokuga embraces it: “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Tetsujo replies, finding his eyes. Dokuga catches up to him.

Don’t you regret it?

“Why didn’t you heal your eye?”

The question seems to take him by surprise, so much so that he stops in his tracks for a second, looks at Dokuga, then away. In a room full of people, long ago, Dokuga looked into Tetsujo’s eye as the last bits of smoke faded above their heads and he looked down. Up, quickly, to show a resolve so clear Dokuga never managed to ask where it had come from. Now, he opens his mouth long before he speaks.

“You needed the smoke more than me; I didn’t actually-”

“No,” Dokuga cuts. “Before that. You’ve used healing smoke before but it never…”

“Ah,” Tetsujo mutters. Dokuga doesn’t want to pry the answer out of him, doesn’t really need. It’s fine if he never gets anything more. But he speaks again before he can make that clear: “I guess it’s because I… don’t want to.”

Most magic has its limits and even the restoration kind doesn’t seem to be the exception. People who get it have their reasons and their scars that never fade. Dokuga once saw a dying man close shut a gaping wound in his gut yet keep his chopped up left hand (magic doesn’t always come out naturally after all). People who wish so strongly not to be healed will die even when presented with the most powerful magic. Dokuga is not entirely sure what kind of answer he expected but this one takes him by surprise (when he looks down at his hands, the old, the new, he finds that he can remember all the scars that run all the way up. Tetsujo hasn’t been much luckier, but there’s not a lot of them he’s kept this long).

“Why?” why would he keep this one? A clean slice across his eye that was meant for Dokuga; why wouldn’t he want the other half of his sight back? “You lost it because of me.”

“I jumped in front of those scissors because I wanted to,” Tetsujo says, his arms folding on each other as he walks. “It’s not your fault. I knew what could happen, I just didn’t want it to happen to you.”

“Still,” nothing will bring Tetsujo’s eye back but this is the least he can do, even if he’s more than a decade late to say it. Truly say it. “I’m sorry.”

Tetsujo’s arms fall back down at his sides, at the same time he turns to look right into Dokuga’s eyes: “Don’t-” he mouths, his words stopping unnaturally, as if stuck.

“You didn’t have to protect me, but you did. And I never thanked you for it or… apologized.”

“Dokuga, I don’t want you to feel sorry,” he breathes out, swallows. “I protected you because that’s what I wanted to do. I never thought whatever could happen to me would be your fault so please don’t blame yourself for it. For you, I…” his voice blends in under the flickering lamps and the sound of their footsteps. “I lost it for you and that’s why I don’t want it back.”

Dokuga doesn’t understand. No matter how hard he looks at Tetsujo he can’t figure out why .

Back when they were dry and their bodies had stopped hurting from the effects of Hole's rain, sat at the edge of the road waiting for the boss as he had told them to, Tetsujo held a bloodied cloth against his right eye but he told Dokuga how glad he was that he was okay and smiled . All Dokuga could see was the dried smudges trailing down his cheek. But he didn’t apologize, didn’t know how to; Tetsujo never asked him to. When the wound swelled up Tetsujo insisted he could deal with it on his own, when the bandages came off for good, it took Dokuga a while to look him in the eye again. He said it didn’t hurt anymore but Dokuga knew it had .

Every time they got their hands on some healing smoke, for far more important matters, he hoped Tetsujo would sneak in just a little, try one more time, get back his eye. He never did.

“… What?”

Once again Tetsujo faces forward as he walks, his steps don’t get any slower, but the longer it takes him to answer the closer he seems to be.

“It’s a… reminder, of why I do the things I do,” he says like it makes any sense. “I would do it again if I had to; if it means nothing happens to you. Dokuga, I don’t want you to feel bad about it or feel like you’re in debt with me. I thought I wanted it back at first but the next time I had to use healing smoke it… stayed the same. And I wasn’t mad about it; I could never be. We got the crosses because we believed in the boss, right? But I’m… more loyal to you than I ever was to the organization, so keeping my eye like this… is what feels right.” Dokuga hears something clicking and looks down to find Tetsujo holding the keys to their house between his fingers. “I’m prouder of losing my eye than I am to keep these crosses but both make me feel close to you,” the metal door creaks right beside him; Dokuga can barely hear it. “So please don’t blame yourself for it.”

Dokuga can’t do more than watch Tetsujo’s back light up when he flickers on the switch.

And it’s still just them.

“… Right,” he hears Tetsujo say under his breath while making sure the door is locked properly.

He looks back at him, and nothing is wrong at first sight but Dokuga can feel it; how unnatural coming home to an empty, silent house feels. The six of them would’ve never fit in a place as small as this one. Dokuga thinks he knows how to be realistic better than any of them ever did, better than Tetsujo, yet a part of him still expects to see them there, to be able to brush off the turned off lights and the empty table as the two of them arriving too early. Dokuga keeps himself grounded; it’s never made things hurt less.

Tetsujo says nothing but he looks at him while leaving his helmet on the shelf and Dokuga knows what it’s all about. Because he feels just the same.

That night is not the first but one of many.

He saw them when he fell through the lake, saw their heads; their empty eyes and saw them in their house in Berith, chatting and smiling and alive , only to be struck and killed by the boss, just like Dokuga knew it would happen. The bubbling of the lake thanks him, in that way the boss did once or twice, never really a thank you. Dokuga still took it in, all of it, his heart beating all the way up to his ears. The lake doesn’t talk and the boss never thanked him but Dokuga hears it. Right there, right under a swarm of static. For once, he doesn’t want to accept it, he’s sure of it, he can never be proud of killing his friends, his family.

Maybe the boss- the lake knows this, too. It quiets down immediately and Dokuga is all alone, the heads of his friends looking down at him with dark eyes, talking louder than the bubbling, screaming . Dokuga can’t cover his ears, can’t close his eyes, can’t keep the sludge out of his lungs when he opens his mouth to yell.

Dokuga told them he was sorry, hoped they would understand there was nothing he could do then, not anymore. Not anymore because he was foolish enough to blew it right from the start. Dokuga told them he was sorry but they will never accept his apology-

He’s not in the lake. Dokuga remembers this the hard way by slamming the top of his head on the tub’s sink. Bringing a hand to it just in case he hit it hard enough to bleed, he lets himself fall deeper into the single blanket he keeps at the bottom just so it doesn’t get too cold, his attempt at sleeping off the sharp pain. Even if the only thing sleeping brings is a black void on a good day; the screaming heads of his friends on a bad one. While he massages the affected spot on his head, he hears the battered bathroom door slowly crack open, a faint figure appear behind it.

“Dokuga, are you alright?” Tetsujo asks, peeking inside.

“Sorry I woke you up,” he offers, sitting back up as Tetsujo lingers in the doorway.

“Don’t worry about that,” finally swinging the door completely open, he takes one step into the room. “More importantly, I told you I don’t mind switching if it’s too uncomfortable for you to sleep here. This is the third time you’ve hit your head.”

An apartment with a single room and a single bathroom was never an issue for them, it was affordable and, frankly, enough. The place is tiny and there’s not even room for a couch big enough for someone to sleep on but Dokuga’s been curling up in bathtubs for years now. He didn’t think twice before heading there with a blanket on their first night. Tetsujo said he didn’t have to do it, but it would be easier for both of them that way, Dokuga thought. Tetsujo’s eye still follows him every time he says goodnight, until he closes the door.

“We should go back to sleep, we’ve got work in the morning,” Dokuga says, letting his back slide into the tub.

“Dokuga,” Tetsujo tries, holding onto the sink.

“You can go back to sleep,” he’s okay with sleeping in such an uncomfortable place if it means he’s not putting anyone in danger, he’s always been. Tetsujo didn’t use to suggest taking his place back then. Not that Dokuga would let him.

“I will when you get up and take the bed. There’s really no need for you to sleep here anymore. I’m the only one here and- I don’t mind,” so that’s what it’s about.

Certainly, out of all of them, Tetsujo’s always been the one who didn’t mind sleeping next to Dokuga when they got no choice but to huddle for warmth. Everyone else would tell him at least once to keep his mouth shut, face the other way (Dokuga doesn’t blame them. He’s never drooled in his sleep or anything of the sort but the danger’s always been there, always will), Tetsujo sat close to him, wished him good night and asked for nothing. Dokuga still faced the other way. Held his breath for longer.

“… Maybe tomorrow.”

Tetsujo’s sigh turns into a yawn along the way but all he does is shift his weight.

“I can’t do anything about the nightmares,” Dokuga looks at him, though he can’t really make out his features in the dark. “But I don’t want you getting hurt anymore. Let’s just switch.”

It’s not the first time he wakes up hurt in the middle of the night, having made enough noise for it to pass through the thin walls, and they’ve always been light sleepers, but Dokuga’s never mentioned anything about his nightmares.

“How do you know about them?”

“… Well, you don’t usually move around while you sleep, so I figured…”

And the mattress is nowhere near as comfortable as the one he slept on at En’s manor but it’s a hundred times better than the hard bathtub floor.

“Night,” Tetsujo says, holding the bathroom door.

It occurs to Dokuga that they’ve slept in far smaller spaces than a single bed- that they’ve shared a bed before. That Tetsujo willingly giving up the bed doesn’t mean he should sleep in the bathtub, that Dokuga can face the wall just in case. It’s been just the two of them for a while now but that doesn’t mean things would be any different, Tetsujo has always been more than fine with sleeping by his side anyway, maybe sleeping in the bathtub altogether was only viable when there were more of them. Maybe Tetsujo just doesn’t deserve to sleep in such an awful place.

“… Tetsujo?” he calls before he can help it.

“Yeah?” they’ve done this hundreds of times before, out in the streets and in old, abandoned houses. Then why is it so hard for Dokuga to ask him now? “Dokuga?”

“… You shouldn’t sleep in the bathtub either.”

“It’s fine, if you can stand it, I’ll just have to get used to it.”

These careless thoughts slip right through in his tired daze. “What I mean is… I don’t want you to.”

Dokuga waits patiently for some shuffling or the door to open again, hears nothing for what seem to be hours (they’re not, but it’s dark and not a good time to be awake and he can’t sleep knowing that Tetsujo gave up the bed for him).

A single, long creak and quiet footsteps leading up to the bed, then something weighing it down. Dokuga breathes out, relieved.

“You sure? I thought this was exactly what you didn’t want,” Tetsujo breathes out, making no move to lie down.

“I didn’t want to bother you, but I don’t really mind.”

“You wouldn’t bother me,” the weight disperses along the mattress and Dokuga can make out Tetsujo’s body beside him. “I thought you’d think it was uncomfortable.”

“We’ve slept like this before, many times.”

“But it wasn’t just the two of us, except that time…” oh.

“… Are you uncomfortable?”

“No, I… I don’t mind. It’s you, after all.”

Tetsujo doesn’t remind him to face the wall or keep to his side, even rolls a little too close to Dokuga himself when he finally falls asleep (just in case, he inches closer to the wall).

And he’sTetsujo is warm.

“It was nice,” Dokuga admits the next morning. It seems to take Tetsujo by surprise, just out of the shower.

“… Yeah, it was.”

Their little apartment has only one bed. That’s enough for them.

One day Dokuga wakes up with Tetsujo’s forehead pressed against his shoulder. Something he shouldn’t be careless enough to allow. He should be facing the wall, same as always, he shouldn’t be on his back, head turned to the opposite side, maybe he’s getting too comfortable. They don’t have to sleep on edge anymore, not really, most of Hole’s citizens are unfamiliar with what their crosses represent, and they might have the body of a sorcerer but they aren’t really much of one. Here, no one is after them more than they are after any other person making their way through tight alleyways late at night, they aren’t the higher-ups of a hated organization anymore; they don’t have to sleep with one eye open.

But Dokuga is still dangerous, he’ll always be. He shouldn’t be sleeping so comfortably this close to someone he cares about. Tetsujo knows it, has seen the worst of his poison countless times before- yet there he is, peacefully asleep against him.

Now that he’s awake, Dokuga can’t bring himself to move.

Tetsujo has been here from the start. Not in the literal sense but in the one that matters (luck doesn’t just mean enough smoke to fog, but being allowed to live since the very first breath). He was close to the rest of them, they always stuck together, not only because it made survival seem a little easier but because they were friends , but they all kept their distance from him and Dokuga never tried to get closer. Things were fine just the way they were, it kept everyone alive and well.

Saji would sit so far away from him at the table that Dokuga ultimately stopped eating with them. Ushishimada would remind him to keep his mouth shut when he did as little as chuckle, so Dokuga trained himself to stop doing it altogether. Ton would rush to the barrel so he could take a bath before Dokuga, so he learned to wait for everybody else. And he understands why they did it, he really does. They were all little kids, when Dokuga learned the only way for him to safely live with others. They were harsh sometimes, asking him if he wanted to kill them when he got a little careless, so Dokuga learned not to be, trained himself to be as calm and quiet as possible, to think of every way he could end up harming his friends and avoid it, and he’s good at it.

Tetsujo sat closer to him at the table than everyone else and purposefully made him laugh when it was still an easy thing to do. Told him to go wash himself first, that he’d be careful. Dokuga looked him in the eye and asked him if he wanted to die ( “I want you to be happy,” he answered).

Dokuga knows Tetsujo is aware of the threat he poses, but he’s quicker to downplay it than anyone else he’s met; here he is, sleeping on Dokuga’s shoulder, after all.

They were all close but Tetsujo has always been right beside him. They were all close but Dokuga would’ve never told anyone else the truth, not as easily, not at all.

Lately, he’s been thinking… about Tetsujo. About these unspoken exceptions. More than he ever did before, he realizes.

They’ve always been together and he’s always been kind, so much so that Dokuga took him for granted. That’s what it’s all about, it’s not hard to see. Tetsujo looked out for him more than anyone ever did, constantly going out of his way for him and Dokuga never really looked at him. It’s different now. The small dimples his smiles display, how good he is at getting clerks to lower their prices for him and… just how much he says Dokuga’s name. He notices it all, little by little.

Dokuga doesn’t want to use the deaths of their friends like they’re supposed to teach him something; death never has a purpose. But he lost them. He lost them because he took them for granted, and he could’ve lost Tetsujo just the same. And yet- he’s here with him, not a scratch.

Finding his head tilted to the side, almost brushing on Tetsujo’s hair, Dokuga closes his eyes and swears he won’t take him for granted again.

He’s good at keeping a neutral face but his heart never learned to do the same. He tried it all.

Hours later, when they both finally wake up for work, Tetsujo apologizes for the arm crushed under his waist Dokuga hadn’t even noticed was there. Dokuga shrugs it off, still half asleep, and it doesn’t fully register until they go their separate ways for the day.

Tetsujo apologizes but, next morning, Dokuga finds him in the exact same spot, does nothing to fix it, once more.

The walls of their house are thin and cold, their window doesn’t close all the way, and their blankets all have at least one hole in them; Dokuga wakes up with Tetsujo’s arm stuck to his and can’t hear anything besides the blood racing in his veins, but he doesn’t move.

Tetsujo goes to fetch him at work right when the sun sets and Dokuga looks forward to it while he moves heavy and heavier boxes, waves at him after wiping the sweat off his forehead and finds the corners of his mouth pulling themselves up like it’s a natural thing for him to do. More and more he finds himself looking forward to food and drink he cannot taste.

Dokuga gets off of work a little earlier and waits right around the corner for Tetsujo to leave the shop, steps out at just the right moment and gets the blade of the new sword Tetsujo snuck out the pawn shop on one of their visits held against his throat, and the desperate apology that quickly follows.

At this, and to his surprise, Dokuga chuckles . His first instinct is to cover his mouth with both hands instead of making it stop. When he turns back, Tetsujo is smiling as well, still a little shaken up but looking right at him, and Dokuga can’t seem to get a good hold of the neutral expression he’s so used to wearing.

They pick a day to stay out late and walk around town together, watch each other’s back when scavenging for loose change around vending machines and sticking their hands in the park’s dirty fountain (if the people of Hole are willing to throw around their money so easily, there’s no reason they shouldn’t have it), get groceries in the shittiest corner store because they put coupons in the paper.

Come back home to an empty house that feels theirs, anyway.

And sometimes Dokuga dreams about their friends, staring at him through empty eyes. Dreams about the boss, speaking static that only he can hear. But then, he wakes up with Tetsujo’s arm awkwardly slotted on top of his, and slowly, the nightmares fade. It’s then he realizes they didn’t torment only him. Dokuga is a light sleeper and so he wakes up and tells Tetsujo that everything will be okay, whispers quietly about memories and blame and everything in between, and one day there are no more nightmares. Not as vivid as they used to be.

They stay close, still.

The days Tetsujo doesn’t come to fetch him from work are few and far between but they’re not at all strange. If Dokuga gets to their usual meeting spot and can’t see him anywhere, it’s their unspoken deal that he makes his way through the emptying streets of Hole on his own. It usually means Tetsujo got caught up with restocking or something of the sort, no reason to worry (if they’ve survived this long, no human mugger can stand against them, anyway. No matter where home is, they promised years ago to always make it back safe). When it comes to buying something they’re short in, he usually tells Dokuga before they leave for the day, so it’s most likely the former.

Opening the door to their house, he flickers the lights on, no sign of Tetsujo inside. In Hole, there isn’t really any reason for them to worry about someone going after them for the crosses on their eyes, and sorcerers don’t come for practice as much as they used to nowadays, Tetsujo has a sword he wields like another part of him; Dokuga decides to get dinner ready while he waits.

The poison makes everything taste bad, if it tastes like anything at all, so he always makes his food plain to play it safe, but there shouldn’t be a problem if he just gets some leftovers.

He cracks open an egg and expects to hear the door opening soon. Tetsujo is strong, if not as strong as him then not any less, he’s went his entire life defending himself and Dokuga doesn’t doubt his strength when it comes to powerful sorcerers, Hole’s lowlives don’t stand a chance; he’s not worried about Tetsujo never coming back; he’s seen him take on opponents twice his size and win (Dokuga knows all this like he knows Tetsujo himself and yet… there’s something settled in a familiar place between his ribs, curling and crawling, weighting them down…).

Tetsujo remains a constant in his life from all the way back since he was a kid and Dokuga wouldn’t want it any other way.

Back then, he was scared. He had just killed the man who tormented him, was barely starting to realize how dangerous he really was, but a kid he’d never seen before offered him both hands and helped him stand up, told all his friends they were bringing him along even after Dokuga told them about the poison. Gave him the worn-out sweater he was wearing and smiled .

A couple minutes later, Dokuga sits down at the table with two bowls of leftover rice and egg, what they had lying around. Tetsujo is still not home but he probably won’t take much longer.

Staring into the steam coming out of his food, Dokuga doesn’t see their front door but the window in their old house, back in Berith. His elbows aren’t propped on the table he shares with Tetsujo but on a cracked windowsill-

He stops.

Despite how bad, how pointless it was, despite where it took him, Dokuga looked at the boss and saw something different than what his friends all saw, he knows it well. They saw a chance, an example, and in a way Dokuga saw it too but there was longing mixed in at every step. He saw him kill Risu and he wanted to believe he would be the only casualty when, deep down, he knew better. He let him kill his friends and still he missed him.

Not anymore. Dokuga sees himself staring off into the distance in Berith and the longing is gone . He spent years of his life looking at the boss’ back, not sure if he really wanted him to look back at all, look anything but through - but it’s over now. The lizard man still walks around Hole, Dokuga doesn’t wish to meet him again.

But he sits on the floor, breathing in the smell of dinner and wondering if it tastes just the same- and he’s felt this way before; he’s waited this way before.

Not only when he sees the sun setting, a heavy box secured in his hands, but now .

Tetsujo’s always been there but only now does Dokuga see him, only now realizes how looking at him feels. It didn’t quite feel like that before; he would remember. But that’s the way it feels now, the way it has felt for a while, now.

… And he’s fine with it.

The metal door creaks and Dokuga’s shoulders shoot up, his eyes following suit. There stands Tetsujo, taking off his helmet and sword. The steam coming out of the bowls isn’t as thick as it used to be but it’s still there… he wasn’t so late after all.

“Hey, Dokuga,” Tetsujo says, straightening his back before sitting down at the table.

“Welcome back,” Dokuga greets, shifting in his seat.

(The beating of his heart is the same now as it is when Tetsujo waves at him from the street right outside his workplace.

Maybe that’s why he’s never noticed it before).

“Did something happen?” Dokuga takes the first bite of his food. It’s not steaming hot anymore, but lukewarm has always rested nostalgic on his tongue.

On his side of the table, Tetsujo swallows. “Nah, not really,” he says, just in time for Dokuga to find the thin blood trail running down his cheek. “A couple assholes tried to ambush me right around work and they put up quite a fight.”

He shrugs, taking a long sip from his cup, and Dokuga has never worried in vain. Thoughts come like sharp pain, shaking his shoulders out of place, or as worms slithering under his skin. They don’t go away until he finds rotten corpses, broken vases and all the places where blood has found a way out.

There’s the relief that comes from Tetsujo’s presence nearby and there’s the tug between his eyebrows at the clean slash he doesn’t seem to have noticed himself. Most of all, though, there’s the gravitational pull that drags Dokuga’s fingertips to it.

Was it always so strong?

Tetsujo’s eyes follow a straight path from Dokuga’s arm to his eyes, cheeks and throat both half full, all frozen in place.

“You, uh,” Dokuga says, fingers dragging a millimeter down all on their own, doing nothing to clean up long-dried blood. “You have a cut here.”

Out the corner of his eye, Dokuga catches Tetsujo’s hand tempted to reach out for the spot, stopping just before it gets too close to Dokuga’s, still lingering there. Still . Longer than necessary.

… Around the chopsticks, Dokuga’s fingers grow cold.

When life’s going too well it means bad things are just around the corner. Time and time again, Dokuga has learned this the hard way; a chance at life and all the death it brought, the flood the boss carried to them with his return… a rock and an expensive crystal table shattering at his feet.

No excuse could convince his employer to let this mistake slide, no amount of begging got her to at least pay him for the previous days.

Bad comes after bad, and it loves coming after terrible , and so he’s not met with Tetsujo’s welcoming smile or stolen lunch but with a dragged-out explanation about how his pay is getting cut this month. And the next one. And all that come after.

Tetsujo’s sigh at Dokuga’s own news is half a laugh, half a we’ll figure something out and living day to day shouldn’t feel as foreign as Dokuga’s gut tries to make it seem.

Their landlord comes the fifth of every month without fail but they can’t starve themselves while they wait. Money or not, they still need groceries and many other supplies.

Used to being on a budget and with Tetsujo’s pitiful pleas for better deals, they’re sure to get their money’s worth on food that will last long enough, as long as they run on empty stomachs here and there. Not all store owners fall for them, though, they’re bound to roam around the street market looking for the best option, nothing but pennies to work with.

“We’re only missing gas for the stove. We’ve still got some left but I don’t know if it’ll hold out until next month,” Dokuga says, eyeing the stand from the opposite end of the street.

“We might have to steal it,” Tetsujo replies, meeting Dokuga’s eyes halfway through.

There’s only one person at the desk, surrounded by many more cylinders than they can probably keep track of in plain sight. The streets are nowhere near empty but, would anyone bat an eye at it? Maybe it’s time to find out-

“Hey, it’s you!” both of them turn at the sudden call, finding a waving hand and a familiar face. “You’re still around.”

If a developing devil body was any indication, she’s a sorcerer just like them. And, just like them, she’s settled for life in Hole, blending right in with humans.

Not only a sorcerer and someone who was in the department store when everything went down but she’s the lizard man’s friend. And the lizard man is not the boss but Aikawa wasn’t either, not until his head fell off.

“Kaiman said you’d probably stay, it’s good to see you’re doing better,” she continues, shifting the weight of her grocery bag.

Kaiman , she says, and a masked figure flashes before Dokuga’s eyes. Kaiman , she says, and it means that that time, months ago, he knew who Dokuga was. It means he knows it now.

And it makes his insides turn .

“… Thanks,” he manages, still. Because boss or not, ulterior motives or not, the smoke he gave them saved him.

She only bats her hand. “Anyway, I noticed you guys seem a little short on money,” her friendly smile doesn’t set off Dokuga’s alarms but he can’t help being on edge at the sudden comment. “I have a restaurant and I’d be happy to have a couple hands to help around, so if you’re interested, we could help each other out.”

By his side, Dokuga notices Tetsujo’s shoulders tense up.

“… Why?”

At this, she tilts her head. “Well, I dunno, but you’ve had a rough time around here, haven’t you? Kaiman made me feel a little bad for you.”

If the lizard man is not the boss then how come he’s talked to her about them? Is this another façade, the way Aikawa was? Sleeping inside him, waiting for the moment to rise from deep within once again? Does he want them back because they were loyal to him or is this his last attempt at getting rid of them for good?

Her eyes offer no answer and there’s nowhere else to look for one. It doesn’t take Dokuga much to see that Tetsujo’s looking for the exact same thing, caught between their clashing gazes and everything they convey.

She notices this, too. “You don’t have to answer right away, you can think about it and drop by when you’ve made a decision.”

Then, with promises of good pay and an almost forgotten introduction, she’s on her way.

“… So she offered because of the lizard man,” Tetsujo says, pursed lips and narrow eye. “… Should we reject it?”

Truth be told, they don’t have many options. The fact that she suggested working for her just like that could even be seen as a miracle, who knows if they’ll find something else on time.

Still…

“He might be the boss,” Dokuga coughs through a parched throat and squeezed lungs. He might be the boss and Dokuga has never wanted him gone this badly. “… but, he might not be,” both are nothing but a possibility- this one slides down his tongue like something close to hope .

This seems to take Tetsujo by surprise.

“You don’t… want him to be?”

“No,” Dokuga says, like shedding weight. “Not anymore.”

Tetsujo opens his mouth- swallows every sound it intended to make (and something drops in Dokuga’s stomach, something heavy and muddy and something that tastes like bile surely does. A part of him still hopes it’s not what he thinks).

“We should give it a try,” Dokuga decides. “Maybe it’s better if we make sure he’s gone for good.”

Tetsujo nods. “You’re right. Let’s do that, then.”

Dokuga knows how ready Tetsujo is to do exactly as he says. He’s noticed it time and time again, and that… loyalty, has backfired time and time again, too. There’s no way to be sure but Dokuga wants to believe. Not in the boss this time but in the possibility that he won’t come back ever again. Tetsujo would follow him to the end of the world, Dokuga knows it well, he’s done it before… All he can do is wish. That he was a better person to follow (if the boss is dead; gone, then maybe he can be).

Maybe they’ll be able to walk the same path, at the same pace, then. The organization is gone and Dokuga doesn’t want to be a leader anymore. That’s never been Tetsujo’s reason for following him; in his eye Dokuga doesn’t see himself as a leader but as himself . If anyone has been there to watch him react on too many seconds delay, to give under weight he swore he could take, and said nothing, then it’s him . Tetsujo calls him by name alone, sees his shortcomings clearly but not as the only thing he is, always has. Dokuga doubts there’s a way to change his mind if nothing has already but if he doesn’t put them in danger ever again then maybe he doesn’t have to be a leader. He’s okay with that.

This is the last time and he can’t afford to fuck it up.

Nikaido greets them with a smile as soon as they set foot in the restaurant, wiping her hands in her apron before inviting them in. Today is only a trial, in more ways than one.

The place is pretty much deserted, Dokuga takes note of this. All the booths and seats are empty… with one exception. Sat right on the counter is the lizard man- Kaiman, as Nikaido said before.

“Ignore him and you won’t even notice he’s there,” she says in the same breath she turns to him and adds. “Stop lazing around and get your ass to work!” pulling on his spikes to get him away from the counter.

They’ve had their fair share of obnoxious bosses but she seems nice enough. Though, she’s the least of their concerns regarding the place.

“The pay is nothing fancy but I guess it was enough for you to consider. I could use the help since he ,” she emphasizes by pointing her thumb out at Kaiman. “is more trouble than he’s worth.”

“Hey!” he complains from where he kneels, miserably scrubbing the bathroom floor, barely visible past the half-open door.

The boss was serious, somber, uttered no more words than he needed to. Kaiman yells at his friend from the other side of the building and growls in frustration as he scrubs the floor faster. Dokuga knows better than to let his guard down but he feels a little bit lighter.

“What you looking at?” Kaiman loudly complains once more, loud - with his eyes fixed on Dokuga.

To his right, Nikaido chuckles. “You wouldn’t be there if you did your job,” she shrugs. “Just pretend he’s not there, let’s get to work.”

“Now?” Tetsujo asks as they follow her into the kitchen.

“Well, I can’t hire you if you’re good for nothing, I already have Kaiman here. I’ve got to see how you work.”

“So, a trial?” she nods. “We’ve worked in restaurants before.”

“Good. Customers come later in the day, but the place could use some cleaning while we wait,” she says, handing them a pair of brooms.

Impossible to forget, under his tongue and between tooth and chipped tooth, sits Dokuga’s curse. It’s a job at a restaurant what she’s offering, after all.

“I shouldn’t work with food,” he says, words long tasteless.

“Huh, why?” Nikaido blinks, hands caught in a kitchen towel.

“My spit is poison.”

For a moment she seems thoughtful, her eyes slowly going around the room.

“Do you plan to spit on the food?” immediately, Dokuga shakes his head. “Cause I’d fire you for that even if it didn’t kill the customers,” she shrugs. “If it bothers you so much you can just take on all the cleaning and dishwashing.”

Out there, while he sweeps the floor at the opposite end from Tetsujo, Dokuga tries his best to hide the fact that he’s keeping track of Kaiman’s every move (he goes to the counter and eats some of the gyoza that rests there, when Nikaido catches him, she smacks his snout once again and he sulks , like a child. She tells him something Dokuga can’t catch and laughs at him. It seems to make him mad at first, sharp teeth on display, but in the end he laughs with her).

And the boss never laughed. The boss took every offending hand, no matter how small and crushed it without a second thought. The boss didn’t make friends and the boss wouldn’t yelp, his face against a restaurant counter, because someone denied him food. Aikawa was their boss, but at the same time he wasn’t. As far as Dokuga can tell, Kaiman isn’t really Aikawa, but at the same time he is. Both of them should be the boss but neither of them are and Dokuga couldn’t be more grateful .

Kaiman catches his eyes as he finally looks away, and he gave them the smoke, didn’t he? Somewhere in his eyes here’s a light the boss certainly didn’t have but it seems so familiar… as if he knows more than he’d like. Of that, Dokuga can get behind.

Kaiman holds his gaze on him for a few more seconds but at no point does it make Dokuga’s head spin (the boss never really looked at anyone, looking right through them instead, but when it looked like he did, there was this feeling in every bone and muscle that Kaiman’s gaze lacks completely). Dokuga looks away and Kaiman does nothing but exhale through his nose and go on with his day, no static behind his voice.

Kaiman knows things he wishes he didn’t, knows people he’s never actually met, and the boss is gone. For good.

Dokuga lets himself breathe and working at the restaurant doesn’t seem so bad, after all. He’s got nowhere else to turn to, and here he doesn’t have to wait for Tetsujo anymore.

“Will you pay us for today?” Tetsujo asks, sweeping the floor close to the counter.

“Huh?” Nikaido frowns, sticking her head out of the kitchen. “Today was only a trial. You’re doing good but you’re not working here yet, so…”

“Are you saying we’re working for free right now?”

“See it as helping me out a bit. There’s still a lot to do today, so if you keep doing a good job I might compensate you for it in your first paycheck! If you take the job, of course,” across the room, Dokuga meets Tetsujo’s incredulous gaze and sighs. “What do you say?”

“We really need the job…” Dokuga answers, his hands used to cleaning tabletops.

“Come on, I’ll give you dinner after closing time today, how about that?” She insists, looking for a better answer. “Sometimes we get friends over after closing and you can stay too!”

They haven’t had time to talk about Kaiman just yet, and Dokuga doesn’t doubt Tetsujo’s made his own findings but from where he stands, he shrugs, nods and most of all, he trusts him. Just like he’s always had.

That’s why he can’t let him down.

“We’ll take it.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Nikaido lets them off an hour later than Dokuga’s previous job, but she keeps her promise of feeding them well after the last customers have gone through the door. Food tastes like nothing to Dokuga but Tetsujo enthusiastically announces it’s the best thing he’s eaten in months and- Dokuga’s chest warms up at the sight. Nikaido tells them not to hold back but it’s a little hard when Kaiman stares down at them like he’s about to bite them, yanks the plate towards himself every so often.

Eventually, they wave their goodbyes, not without Nikaido reminding them she expects them back soon.

Outside, the streetlamps flicker and their footsteps are heavy, loud on the loose gravel. Heavier and louder because neither of them seems to be able to speak.

There’s many things Dokuga wants to tell Tetsujo (how relieved he is the first of them and the only one he can seem to put together), but he breathes in and out over and over again and the words start suffocating him instead.

“So,” Tetsujo starts, uneasy. “he’s not the boss, right?”

The question is so easy to answer, so light inside his chest that Dokuga almost can’t believe it. “No,” he replies, sure. Surer than he’s ever been. “No, he’s not,” not so long ago, the hollow left inside him would have ached , pulled him to his knees- but it’s been filling out lately… to the brim. “We’re free.”

Tetsujo smiles. Though it’s quickly replaced by a frown he tries to conceal, to no avail.

“… Is that okay?”

Dokuga longed for so long there’s nothing clearer than the way it’s now all gone.

“Yeah, I… I told you I didn’t want him back anymore. I wanted all this to end, and it did,” because he used to fear never meeting the boss again but it’s been so long since then.

Because there were times he seemed to care about them; about Dokuga, but they were all a lie and to him they were no different than those they stood against. To be seen by the boss and to be seen by all the magic users that spat on their faces and forced them to crawl wasn’t all that different. Because Dokuga was his right-hand man but he was just as disposable as everyone else and to be seen by the boss was to not be seen at all. Dokuga accepts it now, no thorns to get caught in.

“But you-” he stops when Dokuga turns to look at him but the words still spill out of his mouth. “… loved him.”

In the end it was no secret, was it? Dokuga walked in on Ushishimada using Saji to make a poor impression of what he could only guess was him and the boss while Ton laughed in the chair beside them. With his face burning, Dokuga asked if they didn’t have work to do and walked straight out where Tetsujo told him it wasn’t the first time they did it. Over the years, their reactions to Dokuga mentioning him went from mocking to tired to… done, Dokuga supposes. Calling it a secret would be kind.

Still, hearing Tetsujo acknowledge it like this throws him off balance like it hadn’t in years.

“… Yeah,” Dokuga is good at keeping secrets, he thinks (Tetsujo still ends up finding all of them out). “But I don’t anymore,” the path ahead is clear and there’s no reason to avoid it now. “I was just seeing what I wanted to see. I know I should’ve stopped sooner but… I guess I just wanted to believe in him, that I would be able to do something. And look where that left us.”

“It’s not your fault,” he’s said that before.

“I knew the risk and I made you take it too. You knew it; you wanted to betray him but you stayed. And now-”

“Dokuga, I would do it again,” he deadpans, no doubt in his voice. “I told you before. You wanted to believe in the boss and I wanted to believe in you . We knew what could happen; you didn’t make me do anything,” Tetsujo breathes in, Dokuga can see it clearly. “After what happened… maybe I should regret it. I know I should, but I don’t. Because back then betraying him meant betraying you and I could never do that.”

In his ears there’s the echo of blood. As much his own as the one that once stained his hands. The one that still does, lodged all the way down to his bones.

“… Why?” to survive in this world is to kill. Dokuga never grew to like it but in the end he had to hold the lifeless bodies of his own friends, their blood seeping into his skin. “You knew why I followed him so why ?”

For a moment, Tetsujo stops looking for the key in his pocket.

“… Because,” he carries his words inside their house, Dokuga following close behind. “I don’t regret following you for the same reason I don’t regret getting in the way of those scissors, I…” ( You’re the reason I do the things I do, Tetsujo told him a day just like today. Now, Dokuga feels it so familiar, like he didn’t entirely know what it meant then but that he knows it now ). Tetsujo’s words die down as he takes his helmet and gloves off, calmly shaking his head. “But it’s fine, I did it because I wanted to, I-”

( But I’m more loyal to you than I ever was to the organization, he said shortly after and, oh , Dokuga knows exactly the way it feels; what it means).

“Ah,” he mouths as he notices how Tetsujo avoids his gaze. “You-”

How long…? he doesn’t manage to stop himself from saying, in all but words. Tetsujo finds them right where he puts them, the way he’s always done.

Because after all these years of looking somewhere else, waiting for someone who would never turn around, Dokuga looks back and realizes what meets him isn’t another turned back.

Tetsujo’s eye catches Dokuga’s, stopping with a deep breath. I think , it says, holds the thought in pursed lips like he never thought he’d let Dokuga in on it. They’re here now, years after they learned the way of their silence, it’s the first time he’s heard something so clear. Breakneck, Tetsujo looks up. Loyalty, through the end of the earth and back, when he was so tired he could barely stand and still he fought and hurt himself, in the countless wounds he helped him mend, in the sleepless nights they sat at the table in, in all those times he waited for him just because he wanted to. Always.

This time, Dokuga is the one turning his back around to face someone. All how didn’t I see it sooner, over and over again.

“But,” out loud, this time, Tetsujo breathes in. “I knew it wasn’t the same for you and that’s okay, it’s the way it’s always been and I’m fine with that,” he says, walking away. There’s not many places to go in a one room apartment but he can put quite some distance between them. Dokuga doesn’t want him to. “I never… planned to tell you. Nothing has to change now that you know, I just thought it would be easier if you- didn’t. You don’t have to think about it, I don’t-”

He talks like that can make Dokuga think any less. When everything that was before his eyes from the very start finally starts clicking together. How easy it was to make him give in, to get him to stay outside late at night back in Berith, not a single word between them but the reassurance that there was someone there while everyone else slept, how easy it was to get him to share the bed and why waking up by his side felt so natural. Why he always went out of his way to make him smile and why it’s easier now than it’s ever been.

Dokuga spent years looking off into the distance for someone that would never look at him. Tetsujo thought it was the same for him. Dokuga looks at him, now, expecting a turned back and finds… Tetsujo’s eye already there. Maybe this was the only way for him to realize but he wishes, somehow, he could’ve looked sooner.

He won’t turn back again.

“But I-!” when Dokuga walks towards him, Tetsujo stops talking. “… Me too.”

Absolute silence is not common in a place with such thin walls and so many apartments piled up on each other, so Dokuga could be imagining it. Still, that’s exactly the way it feels.

“You don’t have to say that, Dokuga, it’s fine if things are the way they’ve always been,” and if Tetsujo always believes in him, why can’t he do it now?

“But I mean it! I’ve thought about it and I think…” at the moment it felt like a natural thing for Dokuga to do but now he realizes just why things felt the way they did, why his chest swirled up before they met after work, why he looked forward to day old bread and tasteless juice, why cold nights belong in the distant past- and how did Tetsujo not see it? “… I’ve been thinking a lot lately... about you, about the… the way I feel about you.”

The world falls back into motion but Dokuga can barely hear it.

“So you really…” Tetsujo mutters, letting his back hit the wall.

Dokuga nods, his heart traveling all the way to his ears and down to his gut over and over again, pounding in every muscle.

“You were always there for me, I don’t know why I never looked at you before,” after years of training himself to shut down every feeling, every emotion, being open is harder than he wishes it would be, but telling Tetsujo this… feels right .

“I was there for you because I wanted to, you never owed me anything.”

“I know, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Dokuga has lived most of his life with the poison but time doesn’t make it any easier. He taught himself to keep away from everyone else as much as possible, to mind his every step, yet he’s found himself slipping more than ever these past months. He wakes up so dangerously close to Tetsujo, eats at the same table as him and laughs and he’s still alive and well, not a single incident. Letting his guard down is a risky thing, yet… going back now, it would be wrong.

Standing right in front of Tetsujo, Dokuga opens his arms, looks between them and Tetsujo, who keeps his lips parted but doesn’t say a word. Then comes the weight; the forehead against his shoulder, the arms coiling around his back and this time Dokuga mimics them with a smile.

Tetsujo is warm. Warmer than he usually feels in the mornings and Dokuga guesses it’s the same for him, he can feel it in his own face. He lets his forehead rest on Tetsujo’s shoulder too and there are good things to be found even in a world like this.

It’s the longest hug Dokuga has ever had, he knows this for a fact.

Eventually, they let go, and Dokuga sits on their bed, the burning of his face subsiding little by little, comfortably warm. He caught a glimpse of Tetsujo’s before he closed the bathroom door behind him, and he wasn’t much different, really.

Tetsujo embraces him and the world doesn’t seem so lonely, so hard. He has the blood of their friends on his hands ( you don’t, Tetsujo told him, wordlessly, but I’ll help you share the weight. ) and still Tetsujo embraces him.

“Why me?” Dokuga asks as soon as the door opens.

It catches Tetsujo off guard, in the middle of brushing his teeth.

“What do you mean?”

“After everything I’ve done, you still-”

“Because I know you,” and maybe that’s the only answer. Not the one Dokuga thinks he deserves but the one he needed to hear. “I know you cared about them; you didn’t want any of this to happen. They knew you cared.”

“You’re kind,” Tetsujo gives his words a funny look. Dokuga would do the same, but didn’t he want him to hold back a little less?

“You deserve it,” at his side, the bed dips under Tetsujo’s weight.

“… We can’t even kiss,” Dokuga doesn’t raise his gaze because he can imagine the kind of face Tetsujo is making as soon as the old bedframe creaks at the sudden turn.

“That’s okay, I don’t want to-!” but he turns back just as quick. “I mean I do want to-! I would like to if we could, but it’s never been about that. I’m just happy to have you here.”

Dokuga can’t help the chuckle going up his throat, though he covers his mouth just in case.

“I like being here,” Tetsujo’s arms are open and Dokuga’s face fits perfectly on his chest. “With you,” and he feels the moment Tetsujo’s heart takes off.

The weight of the arms on top of his back is nice, Dokuga thinks he’d like to sit there for a long time; Tetsujo makes no move to deny him. Right here, it feels as if the guilt is finally receding, in a way. It’s still there, he’s got to let it go at his own pace but right now it feels like he can . He misses their friends, would have wanted to see them again, to live life like they used to, the five of them and Natsuki, too.

“Did they know how you felt about me?” at some point the dead become a memory to hold dear.

“… Yeah,” Dokuga can feel Tetsujo breathing against his scalp. “Did you somehow miss every time they’d give me shit for it?” I was afraid you might notice , he doesn’t say, and it would change things . “They even told Natsuki.”

“Well, she was one of us, she had to know,” the days of them loudly making Dokuga their laughingstock aren’t far behind, even if being left in charge in the boss’ absence made them hold back a little. In front of him, at least.

Tetsujo chuckles, knowing.

Silence sits comfortable again. The running engines far outside the window, the wind hitting the rooftops. Their breathing.

After everything that’s happened, he knows Tetsujo knows, better than anyone. That he could look at him once and he’d read it off his own eyes. Still, “Thank you for staying with me, Tetsujo.”

“You too,” he breathes out.

Waking up in Tetsujo’s arms is even warmer.

Small changes are welcome; Tetsujo’s fingers cautiously slipping between his own while they walk back home from their first day working for Nikaido, the subtle brushing of his hair to wake him up. But, Tetsujo still seems to walk on eggshells. One day, Dokuga takes the hasty decision of wiping his mouth on his sleeve and kisses him on the cheek while he waits for water to boil. Soon, he is doing the same for him every chance he gets and Dokuga finds that keeping a straight face is harder than it’s ever been.

He keeps his toothbrush away from the plastic cup on the sink where Tetsujo puts his own, still stores his own plates and chopsticks in their own corner of the cupboard and covers his mouth when they get too close. Dokuga is dangerous and he always will be but maybe that doesn’t mean he ought to stay far away from those he wants to protect.

People like them have never had a home. Not in the magic world and not in Hole. That’s the way Dokuga used to see it (their home is not in the magic world nor in Hole, it doesn’t matter, as long as they have each other).

Now, sat on a bed that creaks at the slightest move, Tetsujo’s head on his lap, he thinks he’s right.

Tetsujo keeps his left eye closed, thanks to Dokuga’s hand buried deep in his hair, and the way his right eye never closes all the way used to fill him with guilt, it still does, sometimes. Tetsujo reassures him every single time. And so, his hand moves before he knows it, his index tracing along the scar, old but vivid, old and dear. If not by him yet, by Tetsujo himself- his shoulders jump at first, his eye opening halfway but closing again within seconds, what seems like a smile on his lips.

It makes Dokuga happy too. Somehow it does, maybe it’s only because he knows what it means for Tetsujo and there’s no way to keep it from sticking to him now that he knows. Tetsujo wears the scar proudly, Dokuga feels it below his fingertips and it makes him want to kiss him. That’s impossible, so he does the next best thing; he takes his hand away from the ragged cut and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and, leaning down, he presses his lips to the eyelid. The cross and the scar are both there and it’s what feels right .

Tetsujo opens his mouth, says nothing, his eye wide and his cheeks burning to the touch.

I think I get it now , he hopes his eyes convey. The crosses and the scar, together.

It’s clear Tetsujo doesn’t know what to say in return, but he doesn’t need to. He looks away with a smile on his face and Dokuga feels one tugging at him as well, finds that his own face is just as warm.

Wounds that don’t kill you scar away as a reminder that they were there (Tetsujo bears his right eye with pride, Dokuga’s arms have taken more knives than he can count and what happened in the department store will stay with them forever). Death has no meaning; they don’t need the scar shared between them to be visible for it to be there.

Their first paycheck comes and Nikaido grins at them big, pats them hard in the back and tells them the free dinner she gives them once a week has paid their trial handiwork a hundred times over. It keeps them alive, housed and fed, if barely. Money is tight but it’s always been.

They walk around town and spot a small embroidery shop, and getting past it gets a little easier every time. It feels strange; no matter what, they won’t- can’t forget their friends but the thought of them is not painful anymore. Sometimes they’ll find a reason to talk about them, wondering if they'll know it even in hell, and if they do, if they’ll know it’s them. Sometimes they sneeze without being sick, too, and there’s really no one else that could be thinking about them.

Death has no meaning but the one they give to it (the memory of their friends is not a gaping wound anymore but the scar will never fade. They don’t want it to).

Dokuga can’t taste food. He tells Kaiman as such one day when he loudly complains that Nikaido keeps giving Tetsujo and him his food, just for the sake of spiting him even more. The next day he shows up with a weird looking statue and shoves it in Dokuga’s direction with a sharp, smug grin. Next thing Dokuga knows, he’s face first on the floor and can’t lift a single muscle. Tetsujo suffers the same fate when he immediately steps in after watching Dokuga fall.

“Kaiman, get that thing outta here!” Nikaido yells from the kitchen.

Rainy days are few and far between, but Nikaido made sure they knew she didn’t expect them to check in when they still happened, a benefit they wouldn’t find anywhere else. It was hard to work with a heavy body and dizzy head after all, only a sorcerer like them would know that. When the rain poured down and the bucket in the corner filled up slowly, they laid in bed together and Dokuga never thought of the first day he encountered Hole’s rain but on how long they had to wait to get the damn leak fixed. The rain hurt but they’ve known worse pains, Dokuga still gave Tetsujo his hand.

Most of the time, Tetsujo is the one who cooks. He seems to enjoy it more and more as time goes on and as Nikaido reluctantly accepts to teach him a thing or two so he can help around the kitchen on busy days (a few days ago, she stood up with both hands at her hip and told Tetsujo he was getting quite good at it) she would kill them before giving out her secrets but the normal recipes are good enough.

One day Dokuga comes out after a shower and finds Tetsujo chopping some vegetables for dinner, so focused Dokuga can’t help but walk towards him and wrap his arms around his waist, rest his chin on his shoulder. The poison isn’t a problem because you’re always so careful, Tetsujo told him once, and so picking between keeping the distance he’s not so used to anymore and walking the few extra steps his legs itch to take is hardly a difficult decision to make. Tetsujo seemed surprised at the change at first but he’s ever so quick to adjust. Dokuga’s smiles, and laughs still take him by surprise, but that’s fine, maybe even to be expected, they take him by surprise too, after all. A little strange, after holding back for so long, but it comes surprisingly natural now.

All wounds heal in the end but they leave a reminder they existed. They wear theirs with acceptance.

And Hole is not their home but they’ve made it out to be.