Chapter Text
There’s a dream Tadashi has, sometimes. In it, he’s standing at the top of an abandoned track, the brutal belt of concrete below him. There’s a flat patch ahead of him before it runs below the horizon, curves down to the Earth. The concrete is scratchy and rough, weather-worn from the last decades; the men and mountain bikes that must have worn grooves into it, kicked away the rock and dirt to remake something lovely, something chaotic from it.
In his veins, Tadashi feels his blood vibrate, shaking in his body. He’s got his skateboard in his hands and he’s ready to run. He wants to let himself fly. He can imagine himself deep in the heart of the track, graffiti painted onto the rolling wave of concrete behind him as he soars down, arms spread wide, a smile on his face as his eyes are full of the trees and the track and his future. He wants this, and he wants desperately.
But he can just as easily imagine himself falling, victim to gravity.
No matter what, he will become part of the history of this rock; fly free or let his blood paint the concrete. Tadashi is about to start something. Going forward, there are two options. Skate or bail.
Holding his own life in his hands, he inhales. The pale sun shines on him.
“You sleep like the dead.”
Tadashi refused to open his eyes. He never remembered his dreams, but he always remembered being thrust awake. Ainosuke’s home office was outfitted with a dramatic chaise lounge, and Tadashi had colonized it for his own use. They were allowed quiet intimacies like this: Tadashi fully reclined, tapping away at a tablet to send emails and do some research while Ainosuke leaned back in his desk chair, always keeping him in sight. Casual. Possessive, the way his crimson eyes burned within him, the way Tadashi felt it in his core.
“Wake up, Tadashi. It’s late. You’re an old man now; you need to sleep on a real bed.” He groaned a little; he knew as soon as he laid down on the chaise that sleep would come quickly to him and he could feel the effects - his shoulder, a little stressed and bent out of shape, the violently uncomfortable pillow lodged in his neck - but he had tried to sleep here anyway, exhausted by a long week of nonsense.
Near him, he could hear Ainosuke sigh and adjust himself. “There’s a minor emergency,” he said. “We leave for Europe tomorrow.”
There was nothing that could get Tadashi’s blood pumping quite like a crisis. His eyes opened in a snap but his hands were faster than his mind, sometimes; he already swiped his phone open, a text half-composed to their usual dry cleaner as he righted himself up on the chaise.
“Were you just going to let me sleep, Ainosuke-sama?” Instead of starting with the emergency, Tadashi didn’t say, confident that he would hear the unspoken words regardless. That was how they worked; Ainosuke would know what Tadashi needed with having to say it, and Tadashi would do what needed to be done, without him asking. Beautiful equilibrium.
“Of course not,” he said, waving his hand where he stood before Tadashi, hip canted, the long lines of him. “I told you, didn’t I?”
A scant twenty four hours later, they were in the air. The devil worked fast but Ainosuke worked harder, and Tadashi preferred to get his updates in business class, anyway.
Even if those ‘updates’ were, well. Particularly opaque.
“What crisis requires you to be in Hungary, Ainosuke-sama?” Tadashi asked, flipping through a phrasebook stolen from the estate’s library. It had been a while - over a decade, at least - since he’d been anywhere near Europe, but he kept up with a few languages. Some for fun, some to keep secrets, some out of sheer stubborn habit, but Hungarian wasn’t on the list.
Ainosuke sighed at Tadashi, and he could feel his side-eye from below the crimson fabric of his satin eye mask. In lieu of answering, he handed Tadashi his tablet, open to a copy of their itinerary for the next few weeks. Once safely in his hands, Ainosuke slid his hand down to cup at the meat of Tadashi’s thigh, fingertips dancing at the nearly-invisible seam. A lesser man would have been ticklish; used to the searing heat, the casual possession, Tadashi was a statue.
As Ainosuke massaged him, fingertips pressing bruises into his flesh, Tadashi read. A few days in Budapest to talk with some business owners; a week in Vienna for a series of meetings with a real estate group; an equal stay in Bern to court an executive board. Ainosuke’s charm could more than handle them, Tadashi believed. He’d almost call it pride, but he expected it of Ainosuke now - it was faith, pure and simple, that Ainosuke would attain whatever goal he set.
Here, thousands of feet in the air, Tadashi felt as though he were touched by grace; Ainosuke’s hand on his thigh a steadying drop of the divine, the stalwart edifice mortal men cast their prayers to.
There’s a pattern in the people; all the men Ainosuke planned to meet with had ties to a few of the Party members on the brink of scandal. Tadashi can imagine how they came to his partner, just on the edge of begging, pleading to the young face of their party to save their skins. They’d see it as a deal with the devil; Ainosuke would call it politics. He’d have extracted some promise from them - some open-ended favor he could cash in with little notice - and promised them absolution at his feet.
But the itinerary ended at Bern; surely there should be more. There was a question mark and uncertainty around their return date. “Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi said, his voice soft to suit the dimmed lights of the plane. “Where are we going after Bern? When do we return?”
But Ainosuke’s head lolled to the side; he’d fallen dead asleep. His hand was still on Tadashi’s thigh, clamped in its death-grip. Tadashi shrugged, and laid his hand over Ainosuke’s, seeking the heat and the comfort.
Idly, Tadashi wondered if they might fly over Bosnia, and checked the flight path. Sarajevo had hosted the Winter Olympics once, and most of the infrastructure was still in place, abandoned. He’d read about it ages ago - bored late one night but not tired enough to sleep. There was a bobsleigh track - a long gash on the mountain side - that had once been a place for the most daring athletes to risk it all for a chance at history. As time went on, it had been shot at during the Siege, endured a barrage, and now was repurposed as a hiking path and mountain biking route.
But outside of that gash of concrete, in the quiet pulse of nature, the greenery and fauna that could be seen almost anywhere, there were mines. The surface still bears the scars of the past. The unnatural persists. The ruin wins. The beautiful things are where the risk lies.
Tadashi’s always been drawn to the ruin and risk; the burn on Ainosuke’s arms, the hearts carved into the pool, the way bodies fall down a cliffside, scarred and waiting for bribes.
If Tadashi looked in a mirror, he might have found himself a ruin too.
All airports are the same. Tadashi and Ainosuke land, they seek out their rented cars, they’re driven to hotels that look identical no matter where in the world they are. For every touch of the local, there are a hundred more that abstract the experience; the sameness becomes a mark of pride. The consistency is a boon for the weary traveler.
Tadashi and Ainosuke shook off the beginnings of jetlag in a new country; they’re experienced, in how much it sucks. Tadashi quietly collected their luggage; the driver stowed it in the car. The path before them was laid out, clear and almost concise; straightforward.
How wrong Tadashi would be. How rough the journey.
In his dreams, the rest of the track is a concrete gash down the mountainside; it curves out of sight and Tadashi can just imagine how it feels, the ground below his feet, the air rushing past.
But imagining isn't the same as doing, no matter how real it can seem in his mind. The feelings conjured - phantom memories of blood on his tongue, the wind rushing in his ears - have nothing on reality.
Nothing on being here, whispers around him, the smell of grass and beer and sweat.
It's a silly thing, flying. Because anyone can fall.
One foot in the past, one kicking towards tomorrow, Tadashi pushes off. Takes flight. Lives.
They checked in late at the Anantara New York; their bags were disappeared by an energetic bellboy who Tadashi would remember to tip later, but first he was blinded by the gilded walls and floor of the central atrium. It was so bright - a jewel in the night, the marble facade like a beacon. It felt exactly like Ainosuke’s taste, which comforted him. Like he was bathed in the divine light that emanated from Ainosuke.
A testament to the lingering adoration of the Belle Epoque, the New York Palace exuded the exact kind of luxury that Tadashi only felt comfortable in by Ainosuke’s side; as they were guided to their suite, he took in the frescoes and gold edging, the velvet and marble. Splendor didn’t suit him the way Ainosuke wore it like a second skin; snakes don’t belong in Paradise. Their room, when they arrived, was layered in red.
“Come look, Tadashi,” Ainosuke said, trying to pull him to the studded leather headboard, or the gleaming marble bathroom, or something else maybe, but Tadashi resisted.
“I have to make some calls,” he said, and gestured to the desk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw their suitcases neatly stacked in the closet; there were garment bags that needed to be hung, shirts that needed to be unpacked. Shoes that could probably do with a shine and, of course, Ainosuke’s entire skin care regimen to find. With a sigh he went over to the bags, ready to do his due diligence, but Ainosuke tutted and stopped him with a warm hand on his nape.
Tadashi stilled immediately.
“Now, now, puppy,” Ainosuke breathed in his ear, the barest edge of his cologne still painting his skin. Men like Ainosuke flew with elegance that belied experience; Tadashi thought he might smell like sweat and the chemical scent of airplanes. “Let me handle this, hmm? You go take care of what you have to do.”
Ainosuke poked through the bags, extracted his toiletries and a few other key items, before heading to the bathroom and locking himself in. “Join me when you’re done!” he called through the door. Tadashi rolled his eyes.
“Of course, Ainosuke-sama.”
“I can hear your disdain.”
Tadashi made quick work of his calls and emails - confirming meetings here and there, scheduling a few appointments at the spa to make sure Ainosuke’s skin stayed soft, preparing lunch orders and dinner reservations. He left some time to handle calls that needed to be made with Japan, and when he was done he cracked his knuckles and spine and stretched back over the uncomfortable desk chair.
“Tadashi!” Ainosuke yelled, a truffle-pig for Tadashi’s leisure. “You need a bath. The water feels incredible.”
Finding his pajamas already folded on top of their suitcase, Tadashi made quick work of disrobing and settling into the bath with Ainosuke. They were both too big to fit nestled together like Matryoshka dolls, so they sat face to face, legs twisted together in the perfumed water.
Ainosuke poked Tadashi, massaged the inside of his calf and made him shiver. “Did you see the chaise?” he said, his smile edged with a grin. “Your home away from home?”
Tadashi blushed. “How could I not? It was tempting me through all my calls. Maybe I should sleep there tonight.”
Suddenly, Ainosuke’s face went sharp. His moods were so changeable, but it was always a shock to see how swiftly he could transform. The hand running along his calf stopped. “You’re sleeping by my side tonight, Tadashi.” Ainosuke’s voice was like a low roll of thunder in its warning.
Mollified, Tadashi looked away, breaking their eye contact. “Of course, Ainosuke-sama,” he replied.
They finished their bath in silence. That night, Ainosuke slept fine, kept Tadashi tucked between his arms so he could press kisses into his neck until sleep stole him away. Tadashi stayed awake though, distracted by the play of shadows on the walls, the sounds of the building settling, the soft breaths in his ear. Idle distractions that kept him sleepless, yearning for the familiarity of home. A habit stolen from a dying woman.
It was during lunch one day that Ainosuke slapped both hands on his thighs and turned to him, abruptly enough to jostle Tadashi’s salad. “I’m bored Tadashi; let’s do something fun.”
Sometimes their opinions on fun aligned; this was not one of those moments. Ainosuke dragged him to some tourist trap - “The views, Tadashi, the views!” - in the heart of Budapest. Fisherman’s Bastion served as a lookout tower - a way to access a panoramic view of the city without access to a plane. Tadashi could fly a helicopter and get a much better perspective than what the tower offered, but Ainosuke looked so joyous paying the fee to access the highest terraces that he let his complaints flutter away in the wind.
Miraculously, they were alone; Tadashi suspected Ainosuke’s doing, suddenly too conscious of his desire for solitude and willingness to spend. This high up, the city looked like a children’s toy; the Danube a great, cutting gash of blue. Boats moved idly downriver, and the cars and bikes along the streets looked like ants.
The wind was strong here. Tadashi’s eyes watered as he looked toward Ainosuke whose gaze was cast out somewhere beyond the city, somewhere far away. Taking advantage of their solitude, Tadashi leaned closer to him, rested a tentative hand against the small of his back; smiling back at him, Ainosuke wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer, so Tadashi’s head could rest nestled just above his chest.
“You know, puppy,” Ainosuke started, and the way his voice rumbled filled Tadashi’s own lungs instead of the wind. “Views like this hold power. Regular, ordinary citizens wander the streets below, ignorant of the way the whole picture presents itself.” Using his other hand to gesture to the city, Tadashi followed the arc of it.
“Someone might know, intrinsically, the paths they walk day by day. How many steps it takes to get to the grocer’s from their apartment, roughly how far their favorite bar is from work. But the scope of things, all parts of the city working together to create the living, breathing, beast of a capital? That belongs to us now. We are granted the ability to perceive all parts of it at once. In the old days, that honor belonged only to the ruling class. Now, it’s granted to anyone with some banknotes and some time to kill. The power broken down to a novelty.”
But the city returned to the people, Tadashi thought, ears full of the pulse of Ainosuke’s chest against his heart. Like how Ainosuke returned to him, and how only by stepping back could he see the full picture of this man he loved, he needed.
They stood like that, arms entwined, until Ainosuke’s mood shifted. “Come, Tadashi,” he said. “There’s a cafe up here, how extravagant!”
Their stay in Budapest came to an end soon after, and Tadashi picked up their rental car to drive them to Vienna. He was looking forward to the coffee and pastries; somehow, they hadn’t had enough in Hungary, and he craved how strong it was here.
Driving let him take his mind off things. While Ainosuke napped, head inelegantly pressed against the window, Tadashi spent the time not thinking. His focus was on the hypnotic pull of the road, the interplay between cars, the familiar pulse of the highway.
He wasn’t thinking about the last time he’d been in Europe with Aiichiro after his wife passed away, intent on salvaging some of her connections in Spain. Tadashi’s subpar Spanish was still leagues ahead of Aiichiro, who had never quite taken the initiative to learn his wife’s mother tongue. She passed down stories to Ainosuke, silvered whispers in the night, of bull runs and matadors, of flamenco dancers with skirts that whipped around like flames, of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the city’s tremendous blocks in the regimented organization of the Eixample.
He also wasn’t thinking that he’d been just learning to drive then, and cautiously drove them down unfamiliar streets with unfamiliar signs, to eke out something of a legacy. At night Aiichiro drank and Tadashi lay awake in his bed, mind restless, until he could force himself to tiredness by working through Spanish audiobooks and CDs.
And, as the kilometers ticked down to Vienna, Tadashi’s mind drifted to the cadence and flow of Austrian German, and not to the fact that Ainosuke, for all he dressed as a Matador and adored Spain, had never visited his mother’s home country, never walked the streets she had wandered as a little girl, bought the flowers that could have been braided through her hair.
But Tadashi had, and he didn’t think that maybe, one day, he’d like to gift that to Ainosuke.
Their hotel in Vienna was a similar monstrosity, though less gold and marble and more intricate patterns and wood panels, rust and rouge alike. The exterior was grand and symmetrical - classically Viennese - while the interior was more understated, though you could taste the wealth and elegance in the air, sweet like apples. A white-gloved bellboy of the Palais Hansen staff disappeared their bags to their room.
After checking in, they were offered delicate slices of apple strudel, and Tadashi curdled at the thought of his earlier misgivings. Displays of wealth aside, this was a treatment he could look forward to. Ainosuke was still licking the sugar off his fingers when they finally made it to their room.
This time, they had arrived mid-afternoon, so sleep didn't stick to Tadashi’s bones quite the same way it had in Budapest. Their schedule was clear for the rest of the day - no one seeking to host a meeting in the haze of a Sunday afternoon - so they allowed themselves relaxation.
For Ainosuke, that meant running his fingers along the panelled wood, ordering room service, and watching clips from S of races they missed, sent to him directly from Carla, courtesy of Cherry.
For Tadashi, that meant exploring the well-stocked bar the hotel had provided their room; a ‘complimentary service’ for an honored guest. If he were a betting man, he’d bank that the source was the real estate group they were courting; somehow, the hooks of Ainosuke’s charm had already caught them. They were men who felt tall standing in the shadow of better, powerful men; Tadashi felt like the roots.
“Ainosuke-sama,” he said, already pulling out a rocks glass, dropping one big, square cube inside and swirling it around to chill the sides. “Would you like a beverage?”
It took Ainosuke a moment to answer - to pull himself from the allure of skating, that he must be missing at this moment like a limb. “Hmm? No, Tadashi. I’m fine.”
But Tadashi was already holding out the glass, two fingers full of a whiskey he recognized by smell, the sharp sting of alcohol tempered by age and an oak barrel. “It’ll go down smooth,” he said, words taking shape in his mouth before he could think them through.
Pausing his video, Ainosuke looked up at him, puzzled. “Tadashi,” he said, carefully, voice steady and edged with confusion. “I don’t drink whiskey. You know this.”
He did know this. Ainosuke had sworn off brown liquor following a particularly terrible night in America, years ago. The hangover was legendary, allegedly. Tadashi’s phone had been full of drunk texts from him, still a child ripped from home, where he confessed to missing skating, missing Okinawa, even missing him, a man who didn’t deserve being in the glow of Ainosuke’s light. His voicemail was full of messages from him, narrating his night in frustratingly perfect English despite being blackout drunk. During this saga, Tadashi was careful to screen the messages Ainosuke sent to Aiichiro, whether by phone or email, quarantining them in a folder the man would never see so that Ainosuke’s drunk words wouldn’t become living regrets.
Maybe he didn’t have to take that kind of responsibility; Ainosuke, at the time, wasn’t one for regretting. But still, it felt like the least he could do after everything.
After the bender, Ainosuke chose to stick to clear alcohol or, more commonly, wine. Tadashi was holding a drink that neither of them liked, a spirited vintage no one in the room could appreciate, except for the shadow cast by a dead man.
“Right,” he said, looking at the ice already melting. He knew - not from experience, but from description - that the water only made the whiskey sweeter. Over the course of drinking, the taste would transform, so you could find more clarity in the depth and tone of it. Aiichiro had taught him that, once, twice, a hundred times, before he would smile that rueful, deathly grin and chug directly from the bottle.
Tadashi poured the drink down the drain; let the ice melt under the faucet. There was a gold mosaic on the wall of the bathroom; the shine cast onto his skin made him look jaundiced.
The meetings were very much the same - Ainosuke holding court and Austrian men vying for his attention, aid, anything, the crumbs of a powerful man’s aura, while Tadashi took quiet, perfect notes.
It made Tadashi wonder idly as he watched investor after investor promise Ainosuke the world. Why were they even here? If these men already seemed so willing to dance to his tune, why did they have to travel to Europe to handle them?
When he asked Ainosuke, he waved off the question. “It’s just business, Tadashi,” Ainosuke said, and then his sharp eyes brightened. “Look, a cafe! You need coffee.” And he did need coffee - as well as the small plate of little pastries Ainosuke tipped in his direction, half-smirking, to cut the bitterness. What he wanted was answers, but he was willing enough to be coddled.
After a few days of this, a clear spot suddenly opened in their schedule. “They’ve seen enough,” Ainosuke explained, idly smoking on their balcony in the hotel’s softest bathrobe, Tadashi in his pajamas. The stars over Vienna were not as bright as they were over Okinawa, but they were familiar enough, casting light on the city and the streets still flush with merrymakers below. “We’re signing off on the deal tomorrow over breakfast, and then the rest of our time is free until we leave for Bern.”
Tadashi took a sip of his chamomile tea; he was still finding it difficult to sleep out here, even though Ainosuke’s brilliance was the same wherever they went. “What should we do, Ainosuke-sama?”
He turned to him, those red eyes shining behind a soft puff of smoke. Rubies, like a dragon’s hoard. “Is there anything you’d like to do, Tadashi?” he asked.
To his credit, he really thought about it. Vienna was a beautiful city, full of sights and happenings and a hundred fascinating conversations to be overheard over a perfect cup of coffee. But what Tadashi wanted was to sleep in his bed, or the chaise back at the estate; to rest his weary head in a familiar home studded with memories, where they could paint over peeling wallpaper and rub away scuff marks to their heart’s content. Travelling made him feel like a livewire, his skin stripped away to spark at nothing. Idly, he thought about Sarajevo, about roadrash on the concrete that passed down a mountainside.
“There’s nothing else I’d like to do,” he said carefully, taking a long sip of his scalding tea. Ainosuke sighed behind his cigarette, then stamped it out in the ashtray.
“You’re not afraid of bugs, are you?” he asked.
The next morning - after breakfast, handshakes, delirious wanting - Tadashi found out why Ainosuke pressed him on bugs the night before. He only really disliked mantises - he thought they looked too alien and human, all at once - and Ainosuke had been satisfied.
Tadashi followed Ainosuke to a huge Art Nouveau complex, just across the city center from their hotel, the white stone facade melding with beautifully curved, creamy green windows. Through them, Tadashi could see a forest inside, deep in the heart of this city. It was on the edge of the Burggarten, once the Emperor’s garden.“They changed the name,” Ainosuke had said, “but nothing about the park itself. Yet in renaming it, the place itself is transformed, from an object of the monarchy to a place for the people. There’s power there.”
Standing outside of the gleaming statue of Mozart, white and gold, this beautiful stone man whose edifice was cared for unlike whatever rock rested in Tadashi’s heart, he could only nod as he considered Ainosuke’s words. He was Ainosuke by day and Adam by night; the way he was perceived depended on the name he used, whether it was the charming politician or the flamboyant skater. He constantly swirled between the two personalities; could the center hold this tornado of a man? And for Tadashi - whose name for him was all the different still, all things considered - how differently was he understanding him? What part of the self was he cleaving off?
And Tadashi himself was a shadow, a stone fence; there was no self to perceive, except maybe by Ainosuke’s light.
“You’ve thought a lot about cities,” Tadashi said instead. “When did that happen?”
Ainosuke shrugged, the gesture unsuitably casual for the sharp sleeves of his suit. “It’s important to think about, isn’t it? How places make people and vice versa?” Then he turned his head, eyes wide to the building that was their target. “The Schmetterling Haus,” Ainosuke said, casting his arms wide at the entrance while Tadashi took a picture. “Butterflies, countless beautiful ones.”
It was disgustingly warm inside the makeshift tropical greenhouse, and humid enough that both men abandoned their suit jackets and rolled up their sleeves. Despite the heat and the sweat Tadashi constantly found himself patting at, there was no denying it was something else.
Massive amounts of greenery - giant trees and bright, brilliant flowers, small plates of sliced apples, bushes and vines galore - all framed by the endless arc of windows, the midsummer sun steaming through. There were small paths set for them to follow, the bare minimum to allow the plants the most space to grow.
To find the butterflies, you had to pay close attention; though some flew through the air, high above the people milling around, seeking the sweetness of treetop flowers and the comfort there, most were resting on the colorful flowers and plates and eerie, hidden statues closer to the ground. “They live short lives,” Tadashi said, examining a row of cocoons lined up, something transformative happening within.
Metamorphosis was a funny thing; caterpillars ringed themselves into their little hammocks and dissolved into mush; somehow, all of this resolved into a beautiful, shapely butterfly, with delicately edged wings and a memory born anew. The creature that went inside and the one that emerged looked nothing alike, but they knew, intuitively, how to eat, how to live.
Monarch butterflies migrate for the seasons; it takes them several generations to do it, so the butterflies that start the journey are never the ones that make it to the end. A monarch can spend its whole life traveling or resting in perfect warmth, but something in them compels them to push forward. If life can’t be lived here, go elsewhere , is what the wind whispers. Maybe it’s genetic memory, or maybe it’s their intuitive understanding of the Earth’s subtle forces, but something tingles in their small minds to just go. Lessons, silently learned, from the wings of dead butterflies.
Wandering through the rest of the Schmetterlinghaus, Tadashi and Ainosuke had to look closely to find them. Some were obvious - the brown ones with markings like crescent moons rested on plates of fruit, boldly standing out for visitors to coo at and take pictures of, pulling back their kid’s hand when they reached out to touch. Others were less so; from a distance they looked like flowers on the hardy vines stretched throughout the treetops, and only when Tadashi was perfectly still and gaping up at the tree, like he had become part of nature herself, would it feel safe enough to fly away. A fluttering starburst in a mirrored sky, never able to feel the sun without the glass. Tadashi was very good at standing still like this.
“Oh, puppy, stay still!” Ainosuke said suddenly, pulling out his phone to snap a picture of Tadashi. There was a blur of blue on the edge of his vision, and between breaths he saw the butterfly that landed on his chest take off; for a perfect, beautiful moment, he was like the trees and the flowers and the nameless statues populating this place. A home for something brilliant.
They did other things in Vienna too, but Tadashi most fondly recalled the late nights on their shared balcony; it was quiet and peaceful, the familiar brush of cigarette smoke and the way the tea settled in his belly. All too soon it was time for them to pack again and drive away; when Tadashi clicked the door shut on this hotel, too early that last morning, he realized he would miss it a little bit. That space where they seemed free, blanketed by starlight; enough for Ainosuke to pet against Tadashi’s ankle with his foot, rest a hand on his knee. Anonymous, for all they needed knowing.
Although Ainosuke would have preferred the Bellevue Palace, Tadashi booked them into the Schweizerhof; he, personally, enjoyed the lower risk of governmental oversight, and thought Ainosuke would enjoy the spa.
It delighted him to be proven right, when Ainosuke slunk back into their room just before dinner, refreshed from hours in the spa. He’d gotten a facial - “How does my skin feel, Tadashi?” “Soft as feathers, sir.” - and spent hours switching between the sauna and cold water baths - “A true shock to the system, puppy, like fire and ice!” - and a - “A what massage, Ainosuke-sama?” Tadashi asked, incredulous.
Ainosuke nodded, skin glowing, still wrapped in the spa’s bathrobe. “Clam massage, Tadashi. I know you heard me.” Then his eyes went mischievous, and he ran his fingers along the curve of Tadashi’s shoulder, just the lightest dance of them. “You would have liked it,” he said, voice low and suddenly in his ear.
Tadashi sighed. He’d spent the last six or so hours deeply engrossed in reruns of a show about a crime-solving undertaker. It had the dual advantage of refreshing his Swiss-German and reminding him that life could be even more complex for some people. He hadn’t moved from his seat since he’d discovered it, and could feel a sting in his lower back from sitting slouched over for so long.
“Maybe another day,” Tadashi said, and was filled with immediate regret when Ainosuke clapped his hands and cheered, knowing that he would spend some evening in the near future getting honey dripped on his lower back or clams rolled over his abs instead of staying right here, trying to understand what exceptional murder Luc Conrad would get dragged into this time.
After they ate, Ainosuke yawned. “Bedtime, I think,” and Tadashi nodded before something came to mind.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, toeing on his shoes, as Ainosuke waved him off. “Small errand.”
They’d left the rental car they had booked in the care of the valet for the duration of their stay - Tadashi had protested the expense, suggesting that they turn it in and book another car after they left Bern, instead of paying for both the rental and the valet service. But Ainosuke had countered his counter, because, “What if there was an emergency, Tadashi? What would we do then?”
The clear answer to Tadashi was that he’d find a solution, but Ainosuke couldn’t be swayed. And so, Tadashi now stood outside on an uncharacteristically chilly and overcast night, arguing with the valet; he’d left a book and a bag of his own toiletries in the car, and had forgotten until it was almost time to sleep.
Eventually - nearly half an hour of waiting for the valet to pick up the car, drive it back around, and then wait once more in line to drop the car back off with the valet, killing time playing tetris on his phone - he retrieved both items, tipped the valet, and went back.
The Schweizerhof had that particular European style - the wide bank of identical windows, six or so stories tall to bear the weight of the stone - with its name emblazoned in lights across the top of it. If they weren’t in Bern they could be anywhere else. The lobby was a bit of a maze - it must have been renovated recently, given a contemporary makeover with a large, marble front desk and fresh tiles that mirrored a more old-world style - but it still had relatively low ceilings, mysterious short stairwells, and a lot of small rooms and hideaways.
He ended up running into their Cigar Lounge two separate times before finally making his way back to their room. Both times, he made eye-contact with the same older man who winked lecherously at him and blew smoke in his direction; by the time he closed the door, his suit hadn’t dissipated the odor of heady, fruited smoke, and he added that to the dry cleaning ledger for the next day.
“Ainosuke-sama,” he said, after he disrobed and showered, entering the part of their suite that alleged to be a bedroom. “Someone assumed I was a rentboy, I think - oh.” Oh, he thought. Of course.
There was another issue, of course - and the manager at the front desk had been perfectly contrite and apologetic about it to their faces, which had led to the complementary expansive spa menu Ainosuke immediately had taken advantage of. At each hotel, they’d been sharing king beds, big enough to accommodate Ainosuke’s tall frame and Tadashi as well, no matter how closely interlinked they’d be by morning due to his partner’s previous life as an octopus. But somehow, for some barely comprehensible reason involving a series of ill-timed remodels, they ended up in a suite with two separate queen beds, Ainosuke already tucked into the middle of one, rolled onto his side, eye-mask up.
He must have been very tired to fall asleep like that.
Suddenly, Tadashi felt tight in his skin; from his expectation that Ainosuke was awake to hear his story, from the memory of the Shindo household of his youth, where his parents had not only separate beds, but separate bedrooms entirely, an unspoken truth of the layout of the estate, and from the empty bed that seemed to be calling his name.
Mollified, he flipped off the light and slipped into the other bed. It felt like he was bursting out of his skin, but at least beneath the covers he felt like he was being held in place, like a single egg cracking in its carton. It took him ages to fall asleep, the soft rise and fall of Ainosuke’s breaths lulling him to his dreams.
He woke up sometime in the middle of the night to Ainosuke sliding in behind him, tucking his whole body against his back and slotting their knees together. Tadashi could feel him breathe into his ear, press a kiss into the soft and sensitive skin below it until he shivered, and then nibble carefully on the lobe. “I couldn’t tell if I was jealous or not, puppy,” he whispered, voice like a slab of marble in the night, “of that man who thought you were a rentboy.”
Tadashi tensed - Ainosuke had been awake, he realized - but he rubbed against his side, soothing him once again to relaxation.
“Then I realized I was upset. Not with you,” he cooed. “But with whatever stranger thought himself strong enough, or thought money was power enough, to own you like that. You’re mine, Tadashi, and only mine.” The sentence ended in a low hiss, and his fingers tightened against the flesh just below his ribs.
“M’yours, Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi said, feeling a blush flood his cheeks. He still remembered every time Ainosuke would jostle him from dreaming, but this one was pleasant, at least. He turned in his grip, so he could face him. The eye mask had been removed, and Tadashi raised a hand to card his fingers through Ainosuke’s hair, still soft from whatever had been in the water at the Spa. “Only yours,” he repeated, and that cheshire grin crossed Ainosuke’s face.
“Excellent,” he said.
They missed breakfast in the morning, and had to make do with just takeaway coffee before their first meeting. Tadashi would only find time to send out the dry cleaning the day after.
The meetings passed in a restless haze of sameness. At least in Bern Tadashi could catch occasional glimpses of the mountains around them.
As they reviewed notes from one of the day-long discussions in a reserved meeting room in the hotel, Tadashi watched the now familiar restless energy travel through Ainosuke’s body. It started in his fingertips, tapping at the corners of pages, before pulsing up to his elbows and arms that he would rearrange, switching between leaning forward on the table and sitting deep back in the chair, and from there to the rest of his body, until Tadashi could hear his foot jittering below the table.
He knew Ainosuke was a few moments from suggesting something absolutely inane, and if he read faster he could probably get through a few more pages of the report in front of him -
“Tadashi?” Ainosuke asked, voice just a little hesitant. Dammit, Tadashi thought.
“Yes, Ainosuke-sama?” He powered off his tablet, and closed the leather cover.
“Do you want to see the bears tomorrow?”
Tadashi blinked. “Pardon?” Ainosuke scoffed, and the world was set to rights.
“The bears, Tadashi!” he said, raising his arms. “This city used to be full of them.” At that, Tadashi looked nervously toward the door, as though a giant brown bear would turn the handle and come thundering in at any moment, seeking honey or fruit or whatever it was that bears seemed to enjoy. Ainosuke caught his gaze and laughed. “Not like that. There were these pits,” he cupped his hands, “where they would keep the bears, sometime in the 1500s, I think?”
Tadashi bit his lip - had there been bears this whole time, and he hadn’t noticed? “I don’t know…” he said, worrying.
Ainosuke shook his head. “It’s not like that anymore,” he said. “They have an enclosure, a zoo basically, in the middle of the city. Just on the river.” His eyes looked plaintive, like he was desperately hoping for Tadashi to agree.
What could Tadashi do but acquiesce. “We can go tomorrow, Ainosuke-sama,” he said, and Ainosuke cheered. There was a gap in their schedule that could accommodate the excursion. Now that he thought about it, it seemed deliberate. For a moment he wondered about the possibility that this had been planned.
But no, he cast the thought aside. They were on a business trip. This was just a happy accident. It had to be.
In the morning, Ainosuke slathered sunblock onto Tadashi’s face - “It’s the most important part of skincare,” he’d said, then frowned. “But you still look younger than me no matter what you do.” - and dragged them to the bear pits.
"It's not a bear pit anymore, Tadashi. I thought I told you,” he said, and Tadashi looked pointedly to the structure on their right, just beyond a metal fence.
There was a pit, with an irregular incline of sandstone blocks that resembled an uncanny game of tetris, and wild green plants growing in the cracks between them. It descended into the ground, surrounded by circular stone walls. The overgrowth, and the way the rocks were aged and weathered, along with the large branches of dead trees scattered haphazardly around, made it look almost abandoned. This place, full of history in the heart of the city, left to ruin.
In the center, resting on one of the mostly flat rocks, was a bear, fat and lazing in the bright sun.
“There’s a bear in the pit, Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi said, and Ainosuke sighed, rubbing his face.
“There’s a tunnel connecting the old pit to the new enclosure,” Ainosuke said. “Sometimes bears want privacy, too.”
Or maybe they were seeking out some memory that lived in their bones; of pits and witnesses, of representing the mettle of the might of a city, and wanted to be closer to that. Familiar places like these could trigger long dormant memories. As they continued walking toward the actual Bear Park, Tadashi kept half an eye on the pit. In it, the bear - with fur a deep chocolate brown, so soft looking he wanted to stuff his face in it - rose briefly on its forelegs, the fat it had already stored in preparation for the long winter jiggling, before it dropped back down with a huff.
Maybe bears just needed a nap. Tadashi yawned.
Eventually, they made it to Ainosuke’s destination, after a brief stop to chug an espresso.
The new park - “connected via tunnel to the old Bear Pit,” Ainosuke read off a plaque, preening - was more or less a carved-out hill on the banks of the Aare. There were some levels to it, variety in the geography and plants, and trees for the bears to climb and seek out the food hidden for them. It went all the way down to the water’s edge, and there were some inclines into the river itself, if the bears ever deigned to swim. Their human observers were permitted to walk down the hillside, or take a handy lift, and watch them from a viewing platform several feet out into the river itself, a glass wall almost as tall as Tadashi separating them from the bears.
“Did you know,” Ainosuke said, as though he’d read a guidebook. “They say Bern was named after bears?”
Tadashi didn’t look at him, because he was too focused on searching through the trees and plants, seeking out the shape of a bear. “They sound almost the same in German,” he replied.
Ainosuke nodded. “The person who founded the city decided that it would be named after the first animal they found while hunting, and it was a bear.” Tadashi frowned a little, eyes catching on the telltale outline of a bear. Sitting on a flat stretch of rock, it looked a little like onigiri. He waved at it. “What it sounds like, though, is that the bear was there first. Humans just followed after.”
“And now the bears are stuck in the city,” Tadashi said, mesmerized by the way one of the bear's soft and furry ears twitched, its eyes glassy and dark.
“And in the forest and mountains around it,” Ainosuke said, “there are still wild bears, just not where we’ve carved out cities and towns. Humans inject themselves in places and make it hospitable, to the detriment of everything around them.”
Ainosuke spoke on the Environmental Committee for a reason, Tadashi thought. “When did they name the city?”
“1171,” Ainosuke replied. “Hundreds of years of bears. That’s why there are bears all around the city. Statues and sculptures and paintings and stuff.”
“Oh,” Tadashi said, as a bear fell out of a tree. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“You don’t notice much,” Ainosuke hissed, just under his breath, and Tadashi’s heart stilled for a second. Was there something he was missing? “Anyway,” he continued, like his last sentence hadn’t happened, “Bern’s name hasn’t changed, even though their relationship with bears has. They brought the first bear into the city in the 1500s, and had several different bear pits around the city where they would keep them.”
“And now they’re here,” Tadashi said, wondering. For all his relationship with Ainosuke had changed and transformed over the years, his own name hadn’t - barring his brief sojourn as Snake, playing directly into Ainosuke’s biblical roleplay in order to meet him where he stood - and it made him feel almost stronger somehow. Unlike in Vienna, where the name of the park changed. And here, too, the people held power - over bears, at least, much like in Budapest.
It still felt like something was missing, and his heart seemed to settle a little bit in his chest as he stood there, watching the bears romp and wander. Ainosuke was at his side - he could feel his heat just a few scant inches away, even as the sun pressed down on them and the bears sought out shade, as Tadashi sweat off his sunscreen and Ainosuke reapplied it, as they snapped a selfie with a bear in the background when one came down to the bank to splash in the water.
Its claws were sharp, and Tadashi suddenly did not want to know what a bear’s fur felt like, if it meant risking, well. That.
Later that night, after dinner, there was still something weighing on Tadashi’s mind. They had a few more days in Bern, and no return ticket booked to Japan; he had no idea what their next destination was, and being in the dark was getting to him.
Luckily, Ainosuke could sense the roiling tension inside him. “What do you want to do next, puppy?” he asked.
“Go to bed,” Tadashi admitted, voice tense. Maybe sleep could clear his mind. Maybe his dreams - whatever they were, not that he remembered them - could help answer some of the questions swirling inside of him. He was thinking about the bears, how they wandered free but were still trapped in the city; about butterflies, and how they lived short lives but carried long memories; about views, and power, and people who looked like ants.
He was wondering what they were even doing out here, wasting time and money when Ainosuke could make a few calls and be done with it. This whole trip seemed extraneous, and it was hard to even enjoy their outings and quiet meals and the soft, large beds they slept in when he would prefer to be at home, with its familiar humidity and wallpaper.
“No, really, Tadashi,” Ainosuke pressed. “Where do you want to go next? On this trip,” he elaborated, but it was still mystifyingly vague.
“What do you mean?” Tadashi asked, finishing the rest of his chamomile tea and abandoning it on the coffee bar.
“North or south. We’ve got options.”
Tadashi was silent for a moment, and then two, trying to wrap his head around what that could possibly mean. South could mean Italy, or maybe France, but North could mean Germany or further. “Where do we need to go most, Ainosuke-sama? I have no opinion on the matter.” He winced as the words slunk out of his mouth - muscle memory at its worst. For all that he tried to eradicate it from his vocabulary, it held too much weight to be eliminated entirely.
“Come on, Tadashi,” he said, eyes narrowed. His hair was soft and loose, freshly washed and wavy without product; wrapped in a bathrobe and slouched in the squashy armchair in the corner of the suite, there was no way he could look menacing, and yet. “Make a choice.”
Tadashi’s been burnt by decisions before. He’s learned that not making a decision is, in effect, making a choice; when he chose to join the wedding tournament, he nearly led both of them blindly to disaster, and stepping out could have cost him dearly. It was because of Ainosuke - and that boy, that Snow, that it didn’t, but for both of them it was close. He’d never felt fear quite like the feeling that eclipsed him when he saw Ainosuke hit the zone, skate endlessly and recklessly high above them.
But the way Ainosuke could fly, beautiful and brave, was overwhelming.
“I… I can’t,” he admitted, his honesty a different kind of bravery. Ainosuke was quiet for a long moment. Sometimes, Tadashi couldn’t read him; this was one of those moments, when the face he could normally read like a book went blank and empty.
If Tadashi were a frivolous man, he’d say that the look on Ainosuke’s face was downcast and sad. Like he was filled with empathy for Tadashi. But he wasn’t, so instead he waited in their quiet hotel room - the hum of the fan competing with his own heartbeat - and wondered what would come.
All at once, Ainosuke seemed to come to life again; drooped into the soft fabric of the armchair and rebounded like a rubber band. He stood up and marked something on the palms of his hands, before turning and abruptly kneeling to rest at Tadashi’s feet. Tadashi gasped, and Ainosuke held out his fists, rested them just above his knees so the ball of his palms dug in, an ungiving pressure.
“Pick one, Tadashi,” he murmured, voice soothing, like Tadashi was really a frightened pup. Ainosuke had softness; he had grace. He rarely had the chance to deploy it. People looked up at the sculpted lines of his face, skirted down the muscle of his arms to his big hands and expected a particular kind of care. Hands capable of destruction, devastation. Corrective hands, the kind that could change behavior, alter a state.
Tadashi knew they were capable of so much more. That Ainosuke’s hands were capable of more than just breaking, than cracking a heart apart bare. He’s seen his softness in the way he looked at Snow, the way he watched Joe and Cherry over late dinners, as Miya bloomed under Reki’s glowing words. Tadashi himself was testament to the fact that Ainosuke could smoothe over the cracks of his mind and body, soften the clay so he could bake solid in the kiln. Reshape him, from ruin to a home again, blushy and boyish even as he crested thirty.
All it took, Tadashi knew, was trust. As Ainosuke looked up at him with his impossibly warm eyes, closed fists pressing into him as each silent second passed, it became harder and harder to do anything but fall into his grip; arms of salvation.
But why was it so hard to decide? Why, even now, knowing what he knew, did he pause? Doubt can slip like smoke through the cracks, and he wondered if Ainosuke had written identical words on his fists.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like this. It wouldn’t even be the second time; Tadashi’s engineered more deals for Ainosuke than he could count, and his love was as much a magician as he was a matador. Although Ainosuke might call his wheelings and dealings something like charm, Tadashi knew it was a perilous sleight of hand.
He gulped, and when Ainosuke’s eyes narrowed to the point of his Adam’s apple, he realized that if there wasn’t any real choice, there was no wrong decision to be made. Ainosuke was leading him to whatever it was he desired.
And if Ainosuke wanted it, then he could want it too. That was another lesson he learned.
So - suddenly, like a bolt of lightning far out on the horizon - Tadashi reached out and tapped one of his hands. Right or left, it didn’t matter which.
Ainosuke’s smile was effervescent. He opened his palm to show him, and with his other hand gripped Tadashi’s wrist - just on the cusp of too tight, pressure on the bones, the way Tadashi liked it. “Look puppy,” he breathed. The boxy kanji. “We’re going to Italy.”
Well, Tadashi thought, as Ainosuke rose forward to kiss him. Maybe there was a bad choice after all.
There was a vacation home in Italy, Ainosuke told him while he drove. They’d be staying there to save money on hotels. Their destination was a small tourist town along the Riviera, notable for them because it also hosted the summer residence of a businessman who would be beneficial to court, but not necessarily critical.
“Then why are we going, Ainosuke-sama?” Tadashi asked, the horizon flat and distant along the highway. By his side, sipping from a bottle of mineral water, Ainosuke shrugged.
“It’ll leave one of the party members beholden to me,” he said. “Same deal as if we’d gone north.”
Tadashi hummed. He was certain, at this point, there was no north. What there was, instead, was a long list of emails from Kaoru - and one whatsapp message from Kojiro, all question marks - asking them when they were planning on returning. There was a single voicemail from Langa on Ainosuke’s phone, asking for long-boarding advice, which he’d saved and promptly responded to with an email blast, a link to a playlist, and a promise for ‘personal tutoring’ later on. Langa’s response was a single thumbs-up emoji, which led to the DM Tadashi received from Reki - who absolutely shouldn’t know anything about his secret instagram account, and he’d be thoroughly interrogating him about it when they returned to Japan - assuring him that “Langa was super excited, really! He just pressed enter too early on the message and doesn’t know how to reply twice.”
There was an email from Miya with no subject line and no text in the body, just an attachment advertising a Team Japan exhibition he’d be skating for. Even Hiromi joined in on the fray, spamming Tadashi’s phone number with recommendations for flower gardens to visit and concerts to see, if he “wanted to be cool like me,” quote-unquote.
In short, there was a whole life waiting for them to return to, and here they were, in the middle of a long stretch of highway somewhere between countries. “Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi asked, after tapping his finger on the steering wheel for a long few minutes. “Why are we doing this?”
“This?” Ainosuke asked, confused.
“Europe.”
“Because, puppy.”
“Because why, Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi pressed. When Ainosuke tensed up, Tadashi realized he’d pressed at the exact wrong thing. He couldn’t puzzle out what exactly it was, but as Ainosuke turned to the window, put on an eye-mask and noise cancelling headphones, and pretended to sleep for several long hours, Tadashi had a lot of time to think about it.
He couldn’t come to an answer.
In Sweden, in the 60s, they wanted to switch what side of the road people drove on; Tadashi had listened to a podcast about it. They set aside a special day - ‘H-Day’ - where, very carefully and over the course of several hours, they systematically changed the direction of traffic for every single street in the country.
Tadashi felt like he’d been dropped right into the center of that, with no idea what was going on. Ainosuke’s exact feelings were a mystery to him; the only thing he knew was that he was missing something. Something important to Ainosuke, and that hurt most of all.
The rest of the drive to Italy was long and quiet.
“There’s a trick to the door,” Tadashi said, watching Ainosuke fiddle with the lock for a few long moments. The sun was bearing down on them - midafternoon and humid, the kind of weather you wanted an escape from, whether that was cool lemonade or air conditioning - and Tadashi was sweating through his suit. It was his lightest summer linen, but it was still too hot for the weather; he’d hang it in the closet and let it dry when they finally got in. “Here, let me,” he said, reaching past Ainosuke.
In this place, one had to hold the knob in place because the wood got stuck when it was this hot, and use more force than felt right with the dainty forgework of the lock. But Tadashi got it open, and Ainosuke clapped.
“And you let me struggle for so long, puppy? Shame,” he said, skirting past him with a smile. His mood had lightened as they entered the town, parked in an area reserved specifically for their vacation home, and walked up the hill to the waiting residence. Maybe it was the movement that got him going again, the fresh air and the sun. Being in a car could bring havoc down on anyone. Or maybe Ainosuke was just changeable; fickle. Moods changed with the breeze.
“Sorry, Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi replied, shoulders drooping.
“None of that,” he said, frowning, and tapped the tip of Tadashi’s nose. “Follow me!”
But Tadashi was the one to lead them to the bedrooms when Ainosuke took a wrong turn and ended up in the kitchen. “We can work here,” Tadashi explained. “It’s cooler.” He barrelled down the halls, purposeful, and found the door he was looking for.
Opened it to a wide room with a desk and a large, modern bed, and a small door off to the side. “What’s in this room?” Ainosuke asked, already pushing it open.
“Storage,” Tadashi said, sliding open the closet door and peeling off his suit jacket. He hated sweat. When Ainosuke was silent for a long while, he walked to the door himself and entered the small room behind him.
Ainosuke was sitting on the edge of a small twin bed, digging through a nightstand. Nothing was dusty - the house had been well-kept while the Shindos were away - but everything in this room was old. “Oh,” Tadashi said. “This is still here.”
“Hmm?” Ainosuke hummed, and decided there was no treasure to be found. “Have you been here before?” He was sharp - Tadashi always forgot this, that Ainosuke could turn his powerful mind toward him.
He hedged for a minute, reached over Ainosuke to run his finger along the windowsill. It was hot and sunbaked, but his finger came up clear. Ainosuke grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles, staring up the line of his arm at him, waiting. “Once,” Tadashi admitted. “When I was younger. Your parents brought me.”
Ainosuke let his hand fall.