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There are certain memories which remain inviolate to the ravages of time.
And to those of suffering.
It is not true that everything is coloured by time and suffering.
It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.
— Han Kang
It was the first night in a while since the sky had deigned to relieve everyone of the oppressive heat. It was the first night in a while since Mori had adequate reason to tamp his worry into a manageable pebble, to be stowed in one of the many towering steel cabinets of his mind. It was the first night in a while since Mori knew — a certainty so undeniable it felt like the pebble had been pressed down to anchor his heart — exactly where Fukuzawa would be.
The week had been much too long for everyone.
Faintly, he registered golden pinpricks drizzling, reflections of the yellowed bulbs in this older section of the neighbourhood; the gentrification of bluish-white mercury ones absent. There was a bicycle lying on its side near the mouth of the building; a metal corpse which looked too much like a human one. Without the inquisitive eyes of an ever-present audience, he openly scowled at the ingrained superposition. At least battering rain couldn’t penetrate concrete structures.
A hallway tinged with the blackness of everyone who came through it. His body emitted a muggy heat in the confined space, and he quickened his pace to the door at the end of the hallway, the chipped white one with the numbers ‘321’ etched into it like crusted blood. He grimaced at the state of the doorknob, a rusted lever which sent chills of disgust down his spine. Gingerly, Mori toed the lever downwards, unsurprised it gave way.
He let the door swing closed behind him with an unceremonious screech of its hinges. “You know, someone could simply enter without a proper invite, and stab you in the neck.” Fukuzawa’s scoff ping-ponged its way from pristine white wall to pristine white wall, landing somewhere above Mori’s right shoulder.
Mori willed himself to reign in his impatience — he could no longer claim to be young and brash — and stood in place for a moment. Several pews ahead of him, the silver hair of his old friend was bathed in a kaleidoscope of colours from the stained glass illuminated by streetlight. The kinetic shadows of the drizzling rain granted an odd melancholy to his stillness. Mori counted internally to ten, then strode across the threadbare carpet of the floor, wincing as he sat down on the cold wood of the pew next to the other.
Fukuzawa had his eyes trained into the space between the hallowed art of an unknown glass saint and the altar littered with half-melted candles, as if searching for an answer among the weeds which had sprung up without warning. His arms were folded as per usual, but Mori could reveal without tugging up sleeves that Fukuzawa’s blunt nails were punishing his palms; a cutting frustration swirled with doubt and guilt.
Perhaps it was that which prompted Mori to cast his gaze about for something less stinging to comment on, just to end the weight of a self-spiralling silence. “I don’t know which is worse,” he started off-handedly, as if exchanging pleasantries about the weather, “the yukata or the jeans. Either way, you still look like a man in a parking lot which no one would dare approach.”
“I do think it’s a vast improvement from your rather, distinct style of dress, if it means the eyes of the enemy slide off of you,” Mori continued, used to his friend’s slow start at speaking; if he spoke at all. “However you must admit, that haori is doing no favours to your figure or your disguise.”
Fukuzawa huffed, the stiff movement of his arms creasing said haori. “I didn’t choose this.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Mori crossed his legs and tried to lay back as comfortably as one could against an immovable wooden bench, “unwanted things are heaped onto people as regularly as god fumbles in his design.” He grins knife-sharp at Fukuzawa’s glare of disgust; no longer staring at nothing. “Things tend to happen without anyone’s consent, much like how you sneaked out without alerting me to the resurfacing of your proclivity.”
Fukuzawa’s scowl deepened into its usual degree whenever he was around the other. “And what proclivity may you be referring to, Mori-sensei?”
Mori didn’t bother gracing that one with an answer, he knew they both understood its implications after all. Instead he tilted his head towards the water-stained ceiling, hummed a snatch of a song Elise had been playing on repeat recently; something about a favourite crime. “Dare I ask how you feel about all this?”
“You just did,” Fukuzawa sighed. He could leave it at that, he knew Mori was considerate enough underneath his ruthlessness and faux polite veneer to let sleeping dogs lie; but he owed him didn’t he? Not only for his life now, but the life of his subordinates as well. “I don’t know… how I feel,” he grated out, resolutely stopping himself from analysing the blankness of Mori’s face. “But we will end this soon.”
“Hmph, blinders poised straight towards the goal as usual I see,” Mori mused. “How characteristic of you.”
“How uncharacteristic of you,” Fukuzawa countered, “to be so generous.”
This brought the sharp magenta of Mori’s eyes back down, “Unlike some of the uninitiated, I have faith in the Tripartite Framework which we have all worked to the bone for. What use is there for me to head the Port Mafia if I can’t even honour our agreement?”
“I suppose you’re what Natsume-sensei would call a ‘balancing darkness’,” Fukuzawa griped.
“I prefer ‘necessary evil’, if it’s all the same to you.” Fukuzawa swore Mori’s grin grew in the dim light. “Sounds much better doesn’t it? Plus, it attracts all these children who are enamoured with a life of crime.”
“Which you coerce them into.”
“Despite what you may think, a mafia boss doesn’t exactly have time to meticulously persuade all members into joining—”
“—Oh, but if it’s you, you’d definitely have the time.”
“What are you implying, Fukuzawa-dono? That I shirk my job?”
“Merely that you place too much time in shopping sprees, Mori-sensei. Though I’m assured continued walking is beneficial for the elderly.”
“I’m not the one with the prematurely grey hair, Fukuzawa-dono; and let’s not gloss over the fact that you are five — no, don’t interrupt with some flimsy excuse — you are five years older than I am.”
Fukuzawa snorted, tossing the hair out of his eyes. “As if you respect those five years of seniority anyway.”
“You know I’ve never had a thing for authority unless it’s mine,” Mori cooed in saccharine tones, pulling another scowl from the other. “Most claims of authority are a game of herding sheep; respect —”
“— should be earned, not given,”
“Yes, and —”
“— people who demand respect because of authority should stick their heads into where the sun doesn’t shine,” Fukuzawa completed with a groan universal to any friend who has heard the same platitudes repeated for years of their life. He ignored the artificial smile on Mori’s face, noted the wariness in his eyes instead. Mori never liked it when people started to pry their fingers into his carefully built facade. “I could recite it in my sleep, if I didn’t value my sanity so much,” Fukuzawa amended.
To the untrained eye, Mori’s slip never happened. “Haven’t you always slept with one eye propped open?”
“With both eyes, these days,” Fukuzawa shrugged, coming down from the high he invariably scaled when he and Mori started arguing. He wanted to ignore the calculating bite of Mori’s gaze, but in truth he was too tired with everything that had spun so out of control in so few days. He would have liked it all to have been a nightmare he could gasp awake from, and dispel with the clean sunlight; for morning light can make the most vulgar things tolerable.
“I assure you that you can rest easy at the quarters we’ve provided. We will take care of you.” Something in Mori’s brain jerked at the statement; he hadn’t meant for it to sound that way. “Even if the Hunting Dogs make it to our doorstep, the combined efforts of the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency would drive them away quite easily.”
“Easily, you say?” questioned Fukuzawa with a lilt of amusement.
“Quite easily,” Mori stressed, “though I admit that’s an exaggeration of humility on my part.” He allowed his voice to dip lower, allowed the usual twisted smile to grace his ashen features. “We’d be able to crush them, I’m sure.”
“Hubris is a more fitting mantle to see you clad in, Mori-sensei,” Fukuzawa caved. He would never admit it even to the ears of the air, but there was a sense of comfort in the other’s unshakeable confidence. It tasted like relief. “Genichiro will be there too.”
“And?” Mori cocked his head to the side, his bangs swaying with the action. “Ah, do you need some time for a tête-à-tête before duelling each other with all the repressed tension from your nostalgic youths?”
“Maybe,” Fukuzawa confirmed, in a hollow voice which couldn’t have belonged to him a few days ago. “He’s my friend. I need to know why.”
Mori hummed, resting his chin on an upturned palm as he eyed the stained glass blankly. He used to think the saint on it was important, once. “At the cost of your own life?”
“Yes.”
“Even if he may not wish to divulge the answer?”
“Yes.”
“The sole reason being that he is your friend and that you shared a past together?”
“Yes.”
The smile he wore felt more plasticky and fragile than usual. He scratched the edge of his jaw to dispel the feeling. “How nice.”
Silence descended like a tarp, but neither of them acknowledged the suffocating heat of it.
Mori counted internally to ten; he never had gotten the hang of being patient when the things in front of him were boldly snatched out of his grasp. “Well,” he began and cleared the scratchiness in his throat, “you’re alright now.” He feigned a quick look to his watch, “It’s awfully late, I must be going.” With as much grace as he could muster at his age (he pretended the creaking in his knees went unheard) he stood up, “If you can’t find your way back, give Kunikida-kun a call. He’ll alert one of the Executives to come fetch you.”
“Mori?” came Fukuzawa’s neutral voice.
“Yes, Fukuzawa?” he said as pleasantly as possible. Surely, all these years of passive training greasing the egos of various filth had honed his skills. Surely, he would not waver now. He hadn’t killed himself to be the head of the Port Mafia for nothing. Surely, he should’ve been used to Fukuzawa by now.
But Fukuzawa’s hands were still hanging between outstretched and hesitant. With a sigh more put-upon than anything, Mori reluctantly stepped forward into the space Fukuzawa offered. Immediately, he had a head of silver locks pressed to his stomach thanks to the low seats of the pews.
“And people never believe me when I say you’re the clingy one,” he muttered to no one in particular, resting a hand on the pew behind him while the other stiffened at the side. He felt a shifting nod on his abdomen. His shadow obstructed plays of light on the grey canvas, but he fancied he could still see the dancing colours in the darkness.
Mori wasn’t sure which he wanted to do more: stab the other’s overt display of vulnerability to be cloaked in the accustomed smell of blood; or to curl himself into the heat of this and cross his arms to form a guard. He settled for alighting one hand on a barely trembling shoulder and another on the crown of a head.
There was no wetness on his shirt, but the hands wounded around his blazer tightened. He pretended not to know. It was easier when they both pretended not to know. Lulled by the rain perhaps, or due to the fatigue of practically being at the Agency’s beck and call these few days, Mori almost absentmindedly carded his hand through the silver locks, repeating a motion he had seen mothers and lovers alike do. That he himself had done. It seemed to calm Fukuzawa’s turmoil, at any rate.
The material of his shirt shifted, but he didn’t still his hand. “What? I can’t hear you except for vague mumblings which could be the start of an alien language.”
A burst of warm air as Fukuzawa huffed, pulling away enough to incline his gaze into magenta ones, brighter and sharper than any stained glass could hope to achieve. “I said, come down here,” and he began pulling Mori down by the waist, careful to mind the other’s knees from hitting the pews.
“So demanding!” For a moment, Fukuzawa thought he heard a laugh. Mori resisted a bit against his captor, descending only incrementally until he reached the other’s lap. “As expected, it’s odd that you’re wearing jeans,” he teased as he trailed his fingers up the rough outer seam on Fukuzawa’s thigh.
Fukuzawa leaned forwards to plant his face into the crook of a pale neck, the warm pulse of Mori’s heartbeat calming. “It’s odd that your shirt doesn’t have a collar and you’re not wearing a tie.” He could feel Mori’s grin.
“Never say we’re too old to try new things.” Mori slung an arm around Fukuzawa’s exposed neck, the hazy remnant of too many years. Fukuzawa pulled to cage him in an inescapable embrace, and Mori acquiesced. He tugged experimentally at the long silver locks which had not been there when he last had the opportunity. “They do say a hug is just another way to hide your face.”
“Maybe,” Fukuzawa mumbled into older but still maddeningly soft skin. Five minutes. Whoever was in charge of pulling strings and tipping objects off the table in the universe, give him five minutes right here. He needs this. “Are your legs cramping already?”
As usual, Mori didn’t like it when people knew him. He squirmed with purpose, aiming for both a more comfortable position and an elbow in Fukuzawa’s neck at least. He succeeded in both with a smug smirk, and the return of Fukuzawa’s trademark scowl. He propped his legs across the length of the bench victoriously. “How long do you think you’d need, to have your little counselling session with Fukuchi?”
Fukuzawa’s brow furrowed further; automatically winding a hand around Mori’s back to hold him still. “As much time as you can give me.”
“What a word, ‘give’.” Mori’s eyes glittered in the light, the peek of his teeth mocking. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Then I won’t ask it of you.”
Mori arched a fine brow, a tightness twisting his tongue into knots. “He’s your friend.”
“So are you,” Fukuzawa stated plainly. “I won’t—” he paused, not looking at Mori, not wanting him to see the things that threatened to burst from the surface. He still had the scars from their burning; he was sure Mori did too. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” he finished lamely.
Mori couldn’t help the twitch of genuine laughter escaping. “No trouble at all,” he assured with practised civility. “Though I will be collecting my dues.”
“Petty,” Fukuzawa complained half-heartedly, reaching out for a hand.
“Good business sense,” Mori shrugged nonchalantly, offering it with a flourish.
Fukuzawa entangled their fingers together, an action which felt too acutely like coming home. “Have you been taking pointers from Fitzgerald?”
Mori tightened his clasped hand, and used the other to jab into Fukuzawa’s sternum. “To compare me to that uncouth, kitsch, flamboyant foreigner; shall I pencil you in for eye surgery Fukuzawa-dono?”
“I heard the kids talking about LASIK the other day. Would be nice to not keep losing my glasses.”
Mori clicked his tongue. “You never lose them; they’re always in the same place.”
“No they’re not.”
“No?” Mori challenged. “First drawer, next to the tray of salted caramel nougats.”
“They’re not always there,” Fukuzawa grumbled. “Sometimes they’re —”
“— on the shelf, third level, next to where you keep the senbei.” Mori sighed theatrically, “you read, you become peckish, and they end up next to foodstuffs; follow that line of logic, would you?”
Fukuzawa brought their joined hands together to nip at Mori’s fingers with controlled malice. It was safer than focusing on the bittersweet warmth which had pooled in his chest; it was safer if Mori was distracted too.
“We will win,” he said, with resolution he felt anew.
A wry smile slipped onto Mori’s features. “If it’s us?”
“Our respective organisations won’t lose.” Fukuzawa ran his thumb across weathered knuckles he knows too well, “We won’t lose.”
Mori did laugh this time; a small, genuine sound which sent his body pitching forwards slightly, only to have him lean back languidly after into the other's warm embrace. “It’s still drizzling.”
Fukuzawa nodded his assent even though Mori wasn’t looking straight at him. He didn’t need to.