Work Text:
“Usagi-san?” There’s never really a good way to start this conversation, nor a good time, nor a good meal. Probably talking over a meal isn’t the greatest idea in general—the food in Misaki’s mouth has already gone bitter, sour—but he’s already said the words. The wrong words.
“Yes?” The beckoned cuts whatever the hell he ordered with black plastic fork and knife, which is proving to be a challenge. Must be some sort of beef. He doesn’t know what’s coming for him.
There’s never really a good way to start this conversation, but it needs to be spoken. It’s Akihiko’s family, after all. It would be weird to keep it from him. And wrong.
Misaki flits his fork through whatever the hell he ordered (part two), which honestly didn’t look very appetizing in the first place and doesn’t look edible now. He sticks something that might be a carrot into his mouth. “Um, so, from before…”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Those words are meant to calm, to clear the air, but they make Misaki’s chest tighter than it was when he got the call in the first place.
Misaki gives up on the “food” before him. “No, we do.”
Akihiko pauses his unsuccessful steak sawing, meeting Misaki’s eye. “Misaki, what happened?”
This isn’t how Misaki wanted to make him cry. He wanted it to be during some sappy movie on the couch, or at their incredibly hypothetical and legally unlikely wedding. He wanted to make these tears something to celebrate. This isn’t what Misaki wanted, not any percentage of what he wanted, but this is what came to him. Make lemonade out of lemons, right? “...I got a call from Usagi-chichi when I was coming home. He said he couldn’t reach you.”
As if cued, Akihiko lets out a groan. “Ugh, what does he want now? You know he’s full of shit, right? Whatever he said to you, I swear to god—”
“Tanaka-san passed away this morning.”
The tea kettle begins its slow climbing hiss, a sharp whine to cut the unmoving air. Misaki forgot he put it on the burner. He forgot why he wanted tea in the first place. What sort of meal is takeout and tea? He stands, calmly walks to the stovetop, turns it off. Lets the water run cool again.
This lemonade is too sour. “Oh,” Akihiko finally releases, deftly. That’s it. He clears his throat to say nothing.
The tea kettle. “You don’t want tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“Okay.” Misaki leaves the stovetop, returns to his seat. He gazes at Akihiko, who, in turn, gazes at his takeout container, pokes at the meat with his fork. Misaki has given up on pretending to eat, to have an appetite. He picks the skin off his fingers instead. “...I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier. The funeral’s on Thursday.” His throat catches, but it’s not his turn to cry. No.
Akihiko chews on the inside of his cheek. “That’s messed up,” he finally utters, coughing, “And what was he? Fifty? Sixty? Did they say how he died?”
“...They didn’t. I didn’t ask. I’m assuming it was a sudden thing.”
Akihiko nods with a sharp, mechanical click of his neck. He swallows shallowly.
Misaki doesn’t want to look for tears, but his reflexes move for him: head dipping, glancing upward. Staring at his dry cheeks. His bit lip.
“Are you okay—?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, Misaki.” He has similarly given up on his attempts to eat. “...I’m not hungry. I’m gonna go finish my work.”
“Usagi-san—”
“I’m fine , Misaki. I just need to—” and his voice catches in his throat, a short, quick hiccup. Mid-stance, he looks at Misaki like a child before punishment. A boy caught crying when he’s far too old to cry. His eyes two red stars. He hiccups once more.
Misaki stands. “Usagi-san—”
“Don’t!” comes in a croak. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, the whole thing. His hands shake: the need to run away but the utter inability to move. The half-moon of his fingernails in the meat of his palm.
There’s an unspoken truth that this wasn’t just the death of a butler, one that Misaki and Akihiko are unable to admit. Tanaka was the only person who stood up for Akihiko when no one else would, the only person that could execute that degree of care, of love, so percisely and acutely. Tanaka was Akihiko’s father, or the closest thing he had to it. The truth that this was the death of Akihiko’s childhood, and that no amount of new bears or toys or trinkets can resurrect that. Zombies aren’t real, even if he plays with electricity and corpses.
And there Akihiko is, his body curled in some sad, abstract form by the westernmost corner of their kitchen table, eyes hot with tears, face full of blood, lips sucked, nose dripping. And there Misaki is, curled right up with him.
The funeral was a calm gesture, that Thursday. The sun was hidden in a respectful shroud of mist. Akihiko didn’t cry.