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Ryuunosuke Naruhodou smells of death. 

The scent of loss that clings to him is at odds with his presentation. He’s so determined, so alive when he stands across the courtroom from Barok. He exudes an extraordinary passion that makes the grief that clings to him so tangibly all the more intriguing. 

It’s stronger than the subtle miasma of detectives Barok works with, who encounter death so frequently that they’ve had to fortify themselves against it. It’s much different from the effluvium of Dr. Scythe and her morbid offspring, who choose to surround themselves with corpses on a regular basis. 

The scent is something stronger than that of one who is mourning a friend, and yet not quite so sickly sweet as the yearning for a lost lover. When he passes close enough, Barok catches the scent of sleepless nights, of doubt, of the deep regret of time cut short. This bond that was severed was a strong one, that much is clear. It makes Ryuunosuke’s scent complex, like the bouquet of a finely aged red wine, and Barok cannot help but have his curiosity piqued. 

Ryuunosuke Naruhodou smells of death, and it is the first sensation to surprise Barok in a very long time. 

—

They call him the Reaper of the Bailey. 

It’s a shadow that hangs about him, ominous and grim. In the darkest corners of London, when the name Barok van Zieks is spoken, the title of Reaper follows soon after. In time, they have become synonymous, and there is no boundary separating Barok from the Reaper that threatens the criminal element of the city. 

They are only rumors; no one can tie him to the deaths of any of the acquitted defendants that his curse is said to have ended. And yet, baseless though they are, the rumors persist. He has never tried to quell them. The title of Reaper gives him an air of otherworldly power that only serves his agenda. 

He is the only one who knows how accurate the moniker truly is.  

—

Ryuunosuke is savvier than Barok had initially given him credit for, or perhaps he’s been forced into his own by the twists of fate that brought him here. He has been thrust into a new profession in a new country, where he must navigate unfamiliar mores and legal codes, all in a language that is not his mother tongue. He handles it deftly, which is quite remarkable, given the shroud of loss that envelopes him. If anything, his grief seems to give him direction, to propel him forward to meet challenge after challenge. He seems to draw strength from it. Barok is sure that the sword at his waist and the band around his arm both belonged to the one who has passed - they practically glow in his second sight - and Ryuunosuke wears them like a uniform. 

Empathy is not a requirement for the role that Barok plays in the universe. However, if there is a part of him that is capable of feeling such a connection, it resonates with the struggle that he sees in Ryuunosuke. The idea of being alone, lost between worlds, clinging to a singular purpose to keep moving forward through the darkness, takes up residence in his chest and doesn’t leave him. Barok’s solitary existence has never troubled him before, and it doesn’t pain him now, not exactly. It’s just that watching Ryuunosuke forces him to look at his own lot in life - or rather, in death - in a different light.

Barok can almost imagine, when he looks at this man, when his senses are assailed by the scent of him, that he knows what it is like to long for another. 

—

He should have realized that Ryuunosuke’s loss was only the first tantalizing piece of the puzzle. 

The second is delivered to his office by Mael Stronghart. 

Barok does not care much for human politics, not until and unless they manage to start another war that keeps him busy for weeks on end. His business is with the end of their lives, not the goings-on of them, and so he keeps to himself as much as he can manage, hiding behind the stately persona he has constructed.

This means that, when Stronghart comes to his office with a masked young man in tow and tells Barok that he has a new apprentice, the reaper shows nothing but disdain for the inconvenience. Stronghart has his reasons, and he trusts Barok not to care about them. Barok has proved himself to be both competent and detached, everything Stronghart looks for in an attorney. Barok has never chosen to pursue any one of the threads of the spider’s web that connects the Lord Chief Justice to each of the deaths attributed to the Reaper of the Bailey, and he never will. In truth, Barok had been the one to see each of the acquitted into the afterlife. He knows full well that each was a sacrifice to Stronghart’s schemes. As with most events in the human realm, though, the machinations of one egomaniacal attorney are not his to ponder. 

His prerogative is to claim each human soul at their appointed time. In stark opposition to the whispers about the Reaper, he does not care who they are or the manner in which they come to him. 

Stronghart, however, pushes the limits with this particular request. It makes Barok’s mask of refined apathy difficult to maintain.

“I am many things,” Barok says, irritation rumbling deep in his chest as he speaks, “but a governess is not one of them.” 

He is standing behind his desk, the Lord Chief Justice standing across from him. The young man in question lurks just past Stronghart’s left shoulder like a shadow. 

“I’m asking you to teach him, not clean up after him.” 

Barok heaves a long suffering sigh. His hand comes up, gloved fingers delicately tracing the scars over the bridge of his nose. He’s had these scars longer than Stronghart has been alive. 

“I do not take apprentices,” he says. His sonorous baritone is soft but clear. 

Stronghart glares at him across the desk. He shifts, drawing himself up, leveraging every bit of the extra inch of height that he has over Barok. 

“You’ll take this one.” 

Barok looks at the young man, looks beyond the masked shadow that is all that mortal eyes would see. His eyes are wide and dark, and there is an intelligence to them that keeps the young man from looking completely naive as he stares back at Barok. He is curious, keen, and too stubborn for his own good; Barok can read all of this on him in a glance. 

He can also see that this man had been slated to die nearly six months ago to the day, and yet here he stands in Prosecutor van Ziek’s office. 

Interesting. 

He shuts his eyes, resigned, then looks at Stronghart once more. 

“Fine.” 

—

The reaper’s presence is not so ominous as to make lights flicker and shadows dance as he passes - death has no need to be ostentatious - but Ryuunosuke starts at his approach nonetheless. 

He recovers quickly, but a look of wariness lingers in his eyes. He tracks Barok’s movements like a prey animal keeping vigilant in the presence of a predator. And yet Ryuunosuke doesn’t shy away from him. “Lord van Zieks,” he acknowledges. 

They are alone in a corridor of the court building. It is unusual, Barok thinks, that he should find the young attorney here without at least one other member of the Baker Street entourage. Perhaps the others are busy with the aftermath of the street urchin’s close call with a guilty verdict. There were lingering concerns for her, surely, even now that the trial has concluded. She is branded by the curse of the Reaper, after all. 

“I suppose that congratulations are in order once again,” Barok says. 

“There’s no need for that.” Ryuunosuke doesn’t soften with the meager offering of praise, and truthfully Barok would have been disappointed if he had. Ryuunosuke’s resolve is part of what makes him so intriguing. “The truth would have come out one way or another. All I did was help to uncover it.” 

Ryuunosuke’s idealism adds a spicy note to his complex bouquet. It’s become more evident these past days; it doesn’t overpower the grief, but pairs with it, fortifying the scent of sorrow and sleepless nights. 

“Wise words for one who has so recently graced our justice system with his presence, my learned friend.” 

“Why do you call me that?” Ryuunosuke asks. It’s stern, not quite demanding, and speaks of frustration at the vague insult more than anything else.

The edge in Ryuunosuke’s tone makes the corner of Barok’s mouth curl upward into a faint smile. “Is it not accurate?” 

He takes a step that draws him just that much more into Ryuunosuke’s path of egress. It’s subtle, but were the other man certain of his mistrust, he wouldn’t stand for it. He wouldn’t allow Barok to block him so readily without moving to counter. 

He does allow it.   

Ryuunosuke’s dark eyes have locked with his, and Barok can sense that his heart is racing. Human physiology is of such astoundingly poor design; there is only a whisper’s difference between panic and anticipation. Ryuunosuke may not be certain of how he should interpret his quickened pulse, but Barok can read it in him. 

His reason for standing firm, for allowing the advance, for holding his gaze so brazenly, is that Ryuunosuke is just as intrigued with Barok as Barok is with him. 

“It’s not,” Ryuunosuke replies, simple and straightforward. “I am not your friend.” 

Barok, still smiling, closes in with another step. Ryuunosuke looks flushed, and the fleeting fancy crosses his mind that, in another existence, he might have been aware of the heat from Ryuunosuke’s body, the evidence of the life that keeps his heart racing at Barok’s approach. 

“Then it is fortunate, Mr. Naruhodou,” he says, his voice a low hum, “that it is not your friendship that interests me.” 

—

Kazuma Asougi is in a state of limbo. He is not alive, but neither is he fully dead. 

Barok is likely the only being for miles who is able to see the true nature of Kazuma’s current existence. His realm is that of the spirits, the gray space that lies between the physical world and the world beyond the veil. Reapers, by their nature, are aware of both realms, and they truly belong to neither.

It would take the sight of one such as him to be able to make sense of what has happened to Kazuma. 

He is meant to be dead, the expiration fated for him now months past. And he was - at least, Barok assumes he was, at some point - because his soul has left his body behind.

But not quite. 

When Barok looks at Kazuma, he can see him in both states, life and death, equally present at the same time. The first is what the mortals see, the amnesic shell of a man in a mask, rarely speaking, working quietly and without complaint. He has barely a care for himself or his own well-being. His sense of survival is shattered, and this is only logical; from one perspective, at least, this man died six months ago. 

Simultaneously, though, he is aware of the soul of Kazuma Asougi, the side that should have passed on to join his father in the next plane, leaving his body fully to rest in peace. Instead, this soul finds himself listlessly haunting Barok’s office while his physical half works diligently at his low desk. His soul is ragged in the way that Barok would expect a soul might be after fighting to stay present where it no longer belongs. From the look of him, it may have been sheer stubbornness that tethered Kazuma’s soul to the shell of his human body.

Barok has never seen something like this before, and he doesn’t know what could cause such a paradox. What he can piece together, though, is that the timing of the appearance of two young Japanese men - one mourning, the other half dead - is unlikely to be a coincidence. 

Kazuma is the cause of Ryuunosuke’s grief.  

—

It takes Kazuma some time to realize that Barok can see him. When Barok addresses him, he has always addressed his physical form, and though they are two halves of the same whole, Barok makes no mention of his awareness of the spirit’s presence. In this way, he has mimicked the mortals Kazuma has encountered, their perception limited to the part of him still anchored in the physical world.

The physical Kazuma, for his part, does not seem to be aware of what has happened. He experiences the disconnect with his other self as a loss of his memories but can make no more sense of it than the vague label of amnesia, given to him by the best efforts of modern medical science. Being human, his eyes can no more see into the spirit realm than the eyes of any other mortal. Oblivious to the spirit realm or its relevance to him, he goes about his day with a sense of emptiness, driven only by a nameless desire, the full force of which is just out of reach. 

It is a quiet morning in the prosecutor’s office when Kazuma’s spirit finally confronts him. 

“You can see me,” he says to Barok. He sounds accusatory, as though Barok is some passerby who failed to return a pleasant morning greeting. 

“I can,” Barok confirms. 

“And you’ve said nothing?” Kazuma demands. 

“What would you have me say?” 

Kazuma is already tightly wound, yet he tenses further at this. “Anything! You’re the only one who seems to know I’m here. Surely that means you know something of what’s happening.” 

Barok’s gaze passes over the soul before him with waning interest. “You are trapped somewhere between the physical realm and the spirit world,” he says, as though Kazuma should already have the context to put these pieces together on his own. “And that, little soul, is no business of mine.” 

“Please,” the young man persists. He’s leaning across Barok’s desk, though his distinct lack of physical presence on this plane hardly makes the gesture impactful. “Please, you have to know something about this. Can you at least tell me who might have done this to me?” 

The corner of Barok’s mouth quirks up in a tight, cruel smile. “If I had to guess, Kazuma Asougi, I would say that you did this to yourself.” 

Kazuma tenses at the accusation. His hand clenches next to his hip as though he has instinctively reached to draw a sword. His spirit has none to draw, of course, making the gesture a futile one. He relaxes, then, his anger at the accusation a passing storm.

“At least tell me who you are,” he says, bargaining to gain what he can from this interaction. His audacity is entertaining; Barok is not used to humans being so cavalier with him, but being so near death tends to bring out the worst in a soul’s delicate sensibilities. “Why can you see me when no one else can?” 

Barok tilts his head, curious. He ponders the young man for a moment before responding. “I am the Reaper of the Bailey.” 

“But that’s - that’s superstition, surely, all of that curse business,” Kazuma protests. 

“Humans tell themselves many stories about death,” Barok says. “That does not make Death any less real.” 

Kazuma’s spirit looks at him for a long time as he tries to parse the pieces with his own limited understanding. “So you… you’re…”

“A shinigami, you might say.” 

“Oh.”

Barok smiles, sharp and cold like a scythe. 

“Are you - are you going to…?” Kazuma understands death as an abstract concept, but he does not have the vocabulary for this conversation. He doesn’t know what to expect, what a reaper does. He does not know whether Barok is a threat to him or not. This shows in his eyes, dark and dubious. They are the eyes of a dying man, and Barok has seen them a thousand times over. 

“Your soul is not mine to collect, Kazuma Asougi,” he says. The words are reassuring, perhaps, though his tone is quite neutral. “You are… out of my jurisdiction, so to speak.” 

Kazuma nods slowly at this information, as though he can understand the nuances of a reaper’s responsibilities. “If you aren’t here to collect my soul, then can you help me?” He looks wary as he asks, like he already knows that, if Barok says yes, he won't be able to accept it at face value. 

Barok has no reason to dissemble. He laughs at the question. “I could,” he replies. “But I've no intention of doing so.” He turns his attention back to his paperwork, more to punctuate his point than out of any real sense of urgency to complete any of the forms in front of him. 

Kazuma’s hands come down on the desk, strong and forceful. If Barok were driven by human instincts alone, it may have been enough to startle a reaction out of him. 

He does look up. 

“No intention of doing so?” Kazuma asks. He practically snarls the phrase back at him, earning an arched eyebrow and dubious look from Barok. “You're a reaper, aren't you? Isn’t it your job to help souls?”

Human emotions are brief, messy things, flickering flames that extinguish before they can ever burn. Barok - the true Barok, not Prosecutor van Zieks - is usually only subject to them at the moment of a soul’s crossing. People weep and beg and plead with him, others try to bargain with him. He's been cursed and told off and even attacked. 

But it all lasts for mere moments, a drop in the ocean of time that he has experienced. And because of this, Kazuma’s desperation has no impact on Barok. 

“I can help you cross the veil,” Barok says. He lets his carefully cultivated facade falter, just a bit, and his voice begins to sound as old as he is. “If you choose to defy that which is your destiny, your fragile human nature, then there is no help I can offer.” 

“Death is not my destiny,” Kazuma shoots back. His fingers tense on the desk before him. “Not now, not like this.” 

“And to be sure, none of your forebears ever said those same words when it was their time to cross over.” 

Kazuma glowers at his sarcasm but doesn’t respond. He pulls back, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks petulant, if anything, to one who has seen this anger before. There is still tension coiled in his frame as he looks across the room at the other version of him, the part of him still rooted in the physical world. 

The other Kazuma sits, unaware and unencumbered by the troubles of his nearly departed soul. 

“You may endeavor to return to the mortal realm all you like, Kazuma Asougi,” Barok says. His voice is low in the contemplative quiet of the moment. “You would not be the first soul to do so, and I will not stop you. But know this: Rewriting your destiny does not leave any soul unaffected.” 

—

The pieces of the puzzle slot together when Ryuunosuke comes through the door of Barok’s office for the first time.

He has a young girl in tow and is looking for answers. It is his presence that answers one lingering question for Barok, however. He feels the same pull he always has, the same intrigue wrapped up in a sensual response to the man. And yet it’s different, somehow, distorted from what he’s used to. 

It’s different, he suspects, because Ryuunosuke is closer to Kazuma now than he’s ever been in Barok’s presence. 

If his own perception weren’t evidence enough, the reaction of Kazuma’s soul to the other man leaves nothing to doubt. He practically lunges at Ryuunosuke the moment he realizes the attorney is present. “Ryuunosuke!” he calls out, showing a weakness Barok is sure Kazuma would not have dared to show in the reaper’s presence were he not so desperate. 

Ryuunosuke doesn’t react to the other Kazuma’s presence - he couldn’t, of course, and has no chance of perceiving the soul with his dull mortal senses - but he does seem quite preoccupied with the version of the man that he can see. Ryuunosuke tries to ignore the masked apprentice, seated quietly with his back to them, but the effort is ultimately quite a miserable one. When he finally approaches them, even the Kazuma that does not retain all of his memories and passions seems to react to Ryuunosuke with some familiarity. 

The bond between them hangs like a physical presence in the room. It is something strong, woven into the fabric of them, invisible bands that would connect them across any distance but that practically vibrate with energy when they are in this proximity to each other. 

A soul bond. 

Barok has seen soulmates before, but this bond is qualitatively different. It stands to reason, he supposes; he has encountered soulmates both living and dead. However, he’s never come across a soul who would defy the natural order to stay on the same side of the veil as his partner. 

Or at least, he hadn’t, until he’d met Kazuma Asougi. 

It’s the stuff of legends, really. Mortals over time have conceived of many such stories - Eurydice, Ishtar, Izanami - and the fanciful concept that love can transcend death is quite pervasive in many cultures. 

Of course, the efforts of mortals to save souls who have crossed the veil always end tragically in such stories. He imagines that Kazuma, like most mortals, does not want to hear that part. Ultimately, such stories are not actually about how love triumphs above all else; those stories are cautionary tales about how the natural order always finds a way in the end, and how the human spirit cannot win out over death when it is one’s time. 

Love may be powerful enough to connect souls across the veil, but it is not powerful enough to erase it altogether. 

Ryuunosuke and Kazuma, however, are still in the middle of their death-defying tale, and thus the nature of the bond between them is a unique one. Like Kazuma himself, the connection between them can’t exist purely in the physical realm, and yet it cannot properly adapt to one half of the pair being dead, either. And so it occupies that gray space between worlds, the space where predominantly only reapers tread. Because it does not belong there, it is affecting the space around it, acting as a conduit from each side to the other. It draws enough spiritual energy, he suspects, that it is likely part of what has enabled Kazuma to remain in his ambivalent state as long as he has. But it is feeding physical energy into the gray space, too, if unintentionally, a leaky hose spewing uncensored sensation that has no place in his realm.

It is no wonder, then, that Barok has felt drawn to Ryuunosuke, feeling connected to him in a way he did not think he was capable of. Ryuunosuke is feeding him emotions that are more intense than a reaper’s anatomy was meant for. He is like a drug that Barok has never encountered in his many years. 

Seeing the reason for this experience makes it no less intense. 

Kazuma’s soul tries to follow Ryuunosuke when he leaves, but he only makes it so far before he is jerked backwards, as though an invisible leash keeps him restricted in his movement. He has discovered, no doubt, that if he wishes to remain on this side of the veil, he is tethered to his physical form. 

Barok finds it discomfitingly easy to understand the urge to follow in Ryuunosuke’s wake. 

—

His masked apprentice works diligently without protest, and he accepts what Barok tells him largely without question. He makes no trouble. He is quiet, acquiescent. 

Kazuma’s soul is not.

“What on earth are you reading?” 

Barok doesn’t look up from a tome many years older than the Asougi clan as whole, not to mention the youngest member of it who was now hovering near his elbow. “It’s a compilation of ancient Sumerian literature,” he says, giving no more and no less than a simple answer to what had been a vapid question. 

Kazuma - his soul, of course, as his body is currently seated on the floor near Barok’s feet, concentrating on his own reading - leans over the arm of Barok’s chair for a closer look. 

“And it’s - what? Written in ancient Sumerian?” 

“Yes,” Barok says matter-of-factly. The way that Kazuma sputters in disbelief at this is, he will admit, somewhat satisfying. 

“Wait a moment, you’re a death god who does his light reading in ancient Sumerian , and yet you’re here playacting as a prosecuting attorney? What possible reason could you have for that?” 

Barok finally looks up, shutting his book as though giving up his hope of doing any further reading. “I have my reasons, Asougi,” he says. “Or I don’t. Either way, I owe you no explanations.” 

“But surely you’ve got better things to do than to pretend to be Stronghart’s lapdog,” Kazuma persists. 

“What do you want, Asougi?” Barok asks ungraciously. 

Kazuma slumps against the back of Barok’s chair. He manages to be impressively melodramatic for someone without corporeal presence. “I want you to talk to me,” he says. It should sound inane but manages to sound simply genuine. “You’re the only one who can see me, but you’ll only address me when I make you. You only ever talk to - him .” Kazuma gestures to his body with an unexpected amount of disdain in his voice. 

“You are one and the same, Asougi,” Barok reminds him, “though both of you seem to struggle to recall this. You are present in life and in death, but you are two halves of the same whole.” 

“He may be me, but we’re not the same,” Kazuma argues. “I mean, just look at him. He’s as much your lapdog as you are Stronghart’s.” 

Barok laughs at this. “He can do nothing that you would not do, Asougi,” he says. The tone of his voice makes his mockery plain enough, but just to emphasize it, he reaches out and gently strokes his apprentice’s cheek with one gloved finger. The Kazuma at his feet doesn’t protest, only turns his head to look up at Barok curiously. He is seated on a cushion, a large textbook spread across his lap, something from Barok’s own library on the history of British law. It’s an idyllic visual. The reaper smiles at him, and Kazuma turns back to his reading, a faint smile on his own lips. 

Kazuma’s other half rolls his eyes. “Don’t do that to him,” he snaps. 

“You like it.” 

“Whatever,” the soul says, petulant, perhaps, because he cannot argue otherwise. “Well, if he’s me, then he must get as bored as I do, sitting around your office all day doing nothing but reading your books and finishing your paperwork.” 

“Yet, alas, you never seem to improve,” Barok replies. “Your attention to detail is sloppy.” 

“My attention to detail is - !” Kazuma catches himself suddenly, realizing he’s being baited, and returns to his original point rather than following Barok’s side step. “Look, you take that up with him. He’s the one who agreed to be your apprentice. But if he is going to be your apprentice, then you should actually teach him. Take him to court with you.” 

“Take you to court with me,” Barok corrects. It’s a rather obvious ploy; they both know that, though shattered, neither half of Kazuma’s being can stray far from the other. 

“Fine, yes, take us - take me.” 

“So that you may see Naruhodou again.” It’s a guess, albeit an educated one.

Kazuma surprises him with a genuine response: “Yes.” 

Such vulnerability is not what he had expected. Barok looks over at him, but Kazuma doesn’t meet his eyes. 

“Is he the reason you fight to stay in such an unnatural state?” he asks. The question is light but he knows Kazuma will not hear it that way. 

For Barok, it takes no effort to leave Kazuma how he is, torn asunder by his desperation to avoid death. However, it is not an easy thing, what Kazuma has done. It takes incredible strength, in fact, for a mortal to resist the pull of the veil. It usually takes a grand supernatural intervention to keep a human soul in the spirit realm in between the physical world and what lay beyond the veil - something much stronger than a single soul bond, to be sure. 

While Kazuma’s end result is a bastardized version of what he might achieve with assistance from something more powerful, it is an impressive feat of strength that he has managed it through his strength of will alone. It makes Barok’s simple dereliction of duty in choosing not to enforce the crossing of one soul through the veil pale in comparison. 

“He’s part of the reason,” Kazuma says. It’s easy to forget, when seeing him only shattered, that he is a complex being when all of the pieces align. 

For a moment, neither speaks. 

It is, unsurprisingly, Kazuma’s soul who breaks the silence. “I’m the one who talked him into being an attorney, you know,” he says. There’s a faint, fond smile on his lips. “Though his skills are his own, and nothing that I can take credit for. He’s a natural. I would bet he’s an impressive opponent by now.” 

When Barok says nothing, Kazuma’s expression shifts again, becoming something more inscrutable. He lifts his gaze to Barok, for the first time since they’d broached the topic of Ryuunosuke. 

“Is he the reason you allow me to stay here?” 

The question is not one that Barok had expected. He blinks, but does not shy away from it. 

“He is part of the reason,” he says. 

He does not say more. 

—

Barok is old enough now that ten years seems like nothing, and he can recall Genshin Asougi as though he’d seen him only yesterday. 

The last time he had encountered the aspiring detective had been in Lowgate Cemetery. It was the last time anyone had seen Genshin on this plane, as it happens. Barok had been the one to reap his soul. 

“What happened?” Genshin had gasped, the shocked first words of his soul after separating from his body. Barok had heard this question thousands of times over the years, just as he had also heard Genshin’s next query. “Am I - am I dead?” 

“Yes,” he said. The answer was often upsetting, but Barok had no stake in how souls reacted to the news -  not even when it came to the man who had foolishly risked his own life to save Barok, not understanding that the reaper had been in no real danger of dying. 

“And you,” he blinked up at Barok, as though seeing him for the first time. “You’re a shinigami?”

“Many would call me that, yes.”

And then Genshin had laughed. It had been an unexpected sound, bubbling up in his chest, the resulting chuckle so full of life for one so recently deceased. “Well,” he’d said, “you certainly dress like one.” 

—

“Were you ever a human?” 

He’s in a hansom cab that is carrying them from the Old Bailey back to his office. Usually, Barok insists on walking, but it’s the sort of particularly dreary London day that gives even a reaper pause. He and his apprentice sit side by side, and, where there should be no space, his restless soul finds a way to accompany the two of them. 

“What?” Barok asks. He hears the question fine, of course, but the mere idea is enough to curl his lip. As though he'd ever had such a messy existence as a human life.

“You know," Kazuma persists, “before you were a… death god or whatever.” He gestures vaguely in Barok’s direction, encompassing the complexity of a being that crosses more planes than he will ever be aware of with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Or have you always been like this?”

Barok scoffs quietly. “I suppose, put in those terms, I’d say I’ve always been ‘like this.’”

“Oh,” Kazuma says, like something important has occurred to him. Barok recognizes the light in his eyes from when his apprentice has connected precedence from two disparate cases or uncovered a lead for them to follow where they had struggled to find one. It is understanding, and loathe as Barok is to admit it, Kazuma is clever. He can see how he'd been able to become a defense attorney in his homeland at his young age, and how he'll clearly make a decent prosecutor here when he comes into his own. And so Barok attends carefully to his next words. “So you don't even understand what I'm asking for.”

“What you're asking for?” Barok repeats, a little bemused. Kazuma had always been very clear about what he wanted from the reaper. 

“This world - this plane, you call it - it’s not like the one I came from.”

Barok could feel himself being led down the path, and yet his curiosity was piqued as to what he would find at the end of it. “No?”

“It’s dull,” Kazuma says. “There’s so much detail that’s missing. It’s like someone erased half the picture. But if you were here long enough, I imagine, you’d start to think this was all there was.”

“I have no need for your mortal experiences,” Barok says matter-of-factly. He does not mention the gravitational pull of Ryuunosuke’s presence, which offers him exactly that, at least in small doses. “Nor any desire for them.”

“But how can you know that if you don’t really know what you’re turning down?”

He looks at Kazuma curiously. On the other side of Kazuma’s soul, his body is watching the scenery pass by wordlessly, well hidden from the world he observes behind his mask and cloak. “What are you getting at, Asougi?”

“I’m asking you to help me get my life back,” Kazuma says, with more confidence than he has any right to at this moment. “But you don’t even know what life is.”

“I know more about life than you will ever comprehend, little soul.”

“You know about life, sure,” Kazuma agrees. “But I’m willing to bet you don’t understand it. You’re not human, and you don’t have to worry about dying. So how would you understand the value of living, or the importance of what we leave behind? How would you know how messy and strange and worthwhile being alive is?”

Barok considers Kazuma for a moment, gazing at him out of the corner of his eye. “And how do you propose to remedy this?”

“I want you to put me back together,” Kazuma says, “but I want to show you what I have that’s worth living for.” 

“You do not know of what you speak,” Barok says dismissively. 

“Shinigami are able to possess people,” Kazuma asserts, as though Barok had not spoken. “Am I right?” 

Barok looks over at Kazuma’s soul with one eyebrow raised. “It is… unorthodox.” 

“But it is possible.” 

“Theoretically.”

“Then I want you to help me get back to my body. But I want you to come with me. I want you to really understand what it is that I’m fighting for.” 

Barok says nothing. 

“The way I see it, you’ve been around for a long time,” Kazuma continues. “But there are still so many things that I’ve experienced that you never will. For one thing, I know what your pretentious red wines really taste like. I bet what you taste when you drink them will be like a mouthful of ash compared to the real thing.” 

He’s watching Barok closely, looking for any sign of interest. Barok keeps his face carefully neutral. 

A pause, and then, “I know what Ryuunosuke tastes like.” 

Kazuma lets the statement sit. It’s lewd, the implication in his voice. Kazuma understands Barok’s interest in Ryuunosuke as sexual, because that is how Kazuma himself experiences it. He would feel differently, perhaps, if he were to stay in the spirit realm for a hundred lifetimes, detached from the drives of his physical form. 

And though he will never admit it aloud to the soul next to him, it stands to reason that the opposite would also be true: that the intrigue Barok feels would change as well, were he to know it as a human would, grounded in physicality. 

“I have your attention now, don’t I, shinigami?” 

Barok has been offered many things over the years by desperate mortals.

No one has ever offered him a chance to live. 

And it is rare that a reaper would have had enough of a taste of the experience to even be tempted by such an offer.

“You would invite a reaper into your body?”

Kazuma is grinning like he thinks he’s won something. “If that’s what it takes to convince you, sure.”

“Then you are more of a fool than I gave you credit for.”

—

The moment that Kazuma’s soul reunites with his body is a painful one for Barok. 

It takes some effort on his part, to be sure, to join the two halves that were not meant to ever again be whole. But more than that, he is forcing the two sides of the soul bond back into the same plane, effectively shutting the window that he has had into the physical realm. Ryuunosuke’s soulmate now stands before him, and the bond between them is able to right itself in kind. There is no further need for a connection that bridges the gap into Barok’s world, and so that connection attenuates almost immediately. 

He does not realize how much the energy had affected him until his existence is once more dulled by the loss. 

—

“You can still change your mind.” 

Barok feels compelled to issue the ominous warning at this juncture, Kazuma’s final decision point. He can already tell from the young man’s stance that he is determined. His body and soul now connected, he radiates emotion in a way neither half of him had separately, frenetic and strong. This is no surprise; this fiery soul is descended from one who had poked fun at a reaper moments after his life came to an end. Kazuma himself had found the strength to strike a bargain with death. That Kazuma and Ryuunosuke should be bonded makes more sense now that he is seeing Kazuma whole; he rivals Ryuunosuke in terms of the sheer life force that pulses through him.

“And let you force me into the afterlife?” Kazuma asks flippantly. “I gave you my word, and I fully intend to see this through. That is,” and a smile cracked his somber expression, “unless you are having second thoughts. In which case I suppose we call this off and you can just leave me to get back to living my life.” 

They’re in the prosecutor’s antechamber, mere moments after Kazuma left his dear friend and sister behind once more to wonder what was happening to him. 

Barok considers the young man. Kazuma looks back, stern, with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks like he’s daring the reaper to rethink their agreement. 

“Two of the most important people in the world to me are in the courtroom just past those doors,” he adds, when Barok still makes no move. “And here I have only just regained my soul, and the soul of my clan.” 

He doesn’t explain, but Barok knows he means the katana that he has only recently buckled around his waist; his father had called it that as well. Barok does not understand such human sentiments. 

“I’m doing this,” Kazuma concludes soberly. 

Barok smiles. 

“Very well.” 

When he advances on Kazuma, he knows the man can’t help but take a single step backward, recoiling from the reaper. It is to be expected; Kazuma Asougi has wagered his soul, and despite his bravado, some part of him understands how hefty a bet he has placed. He speaks of all of it being worth the risk - and perhaps it is - but when it comes down to it, he has offered his body to a supernatural being with abilities and awareness that he will never understand. To return himself to life, he has put himself at death’s mercy. 

And the thing that steps close to him now is neither a refined gentleman nor a dogged prosecutor. It is, unquestionably, Death that touches his face lightly, tilts his chin up. It is Death that claims his lips. 

Moments later, Kazuma stands in the antechamber alone. 

—

Kazuma looks down the length of his blade before swinging it. The katana slices the air in front of him once tentatively, then again with more confidence. He’s been drinking, and it’s ill-advised; he’s had just enough of a bottle of one of Barok’s carefully selected vintages for it to go to his head. But Kazuma has spent years of his life with a sword in his hand, and to hold this one again - the soul of the Asougi clan, cared for in his absence by the man he loves - ignites something in his chest. 

The sword moves with him as smoothly as though it were an extension of him, responding directly to the firings of his brain. Barok isn’t here to nag him to mind his surroundings. 

Or rather, Barok is here, but they had agreed that he would be like a shadow on the wall in Kazuma’s mind. While he would have access to Kazuma’s senses, his thoughts and emotions, Kazuma would remain fully in control. So if Barok wanted to chastise him for his insouciant swordplay, he was unable to. The only thing impairing Kazuma’s hold on his own faculties was his third hallowed chalice of wine. 

“I hope you’re appreciating this, shinigami,” Kazuma says aloud to the empty office. He sheathes his sword and turns back to the desk, where the dregs of his latest glass still wait for him. He picks up the glass and finishes off its contents; he thinks about smashing it, as Barok is so fond of doing, but in the prosecutor’s office this late in the day, there will be no one but him to deal with the shattered glass. “It’s certainly no saké.” 

There is a knock at the door then. Kazuma’s heartbeat quickens accordingly. 

Relief and regret, happiness and hesitation; a host of emotions pour into Kazuma’s body when he opens the door to reveal Ryuunosuke. His nerves are on fire with the urge to embrace the other man. He quells that particular urge, but he does nothing to stop the smile that blossoms at the sight of his partner. 

“Ryuunosuke,” he says, with just a hint of disbelief. It’s been so long, so long , since they were last alone in that cramped ship’s cabin. For Kazuma, it has been a lifetime. He’s staring, and he knows it, so he adds, “Thank you for coming.” 

He steps aside to allow Ryuunosuke in, and the other man enters the office, looking around curiously just as he had the last time. 

“Where’s Lord van Zieks?” he asks. 

“Don’t worry about him,” Kazuma says. “I asked you to come here because I wanted to see you.” 

Ryuunosuke looks surprised, and just a little unsure. “Then why meet here?” 

“I need you to help me finish this wine,” Kazuma says. He pours from the open bottle into the second chalice he’d fished out of the small cabinet earlier, along with his own, and presses it into Ryuunosuke’s hand. 

Ryuunosuke’s brow furrows as he peers into the blood red liquid, as though it is in some way suspicious. Or maybe Kazuma is the object of this suspicion. When Ryuunosuke looks up at him again, the concern in his expression doesn’t fade. Kazuma’s gaze slides to the floor, like a guilty child’s. 

“Sit down, Ryuunosuke, please.” He gestures at the ornate chair behind Barok’s desk. “I know that I owe you a better explanation about what’s going on.” 

“The bar has been set fairly low,” Ryuunosuke says, an edge to his voice as he takes a seat behind the desk as indicated, “seeing as you haven’t given me an explanation at all.” 

Kazuma smiles wryly, his gaze still averted. He takes one of the stools from the table in the center of the room - the one where Barok and whatever detectives he is working with often have their crime scenes duplicated in miniature - and sets it on the other side of the desk so he can sit across from Ryuunosuke. 

“You’re right,” he says, careful not to let any urge to be defensive color his tone. “And there are… there are still things I can’t explain. Not until all of this is finished.” 

“Kazuma,” Ryuunosuke starts, exasperated. 

“I know,” Kazuma says quickly, “I know. I’ve asked so much of you already. You’ve carried so much of this burden, and I never intended that, Ryuunosuke. It was mine to carry.” 

Ryuunosuke looks at him for a moment in quiet consideration. “Being partners means I was always willing to help you carry your burdens,” he says. Hearing it makes Kazuma’s chest ache. “But being partners also means being honest with each other. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s happening.” 

“I won’t put you at risk. The less you know, the less likely that any of this will come back on you.”

“You can’t shield everyone from everything, Kazuma,” Ryuunosuke counters. He says it like he’s said it to Kazuma a thousand times before, but they must have all happened in his head, as it’s the first time Kazuma’s hearing it. “I came here in your luggage, if you’ll recall. There’s nothing you can do to keep me from being connected to… whatever this is.” 

Kazuma smiles at him. He’s fidgeting with his wine glass but hasn’t taken another drink since Ryuunosuke entered. The wine he’s already had makes his head feel heavy, but it also loosens his tongue, making all of the things he has been thinking throughout his time in half-dead isolation easier to speak aloud now. “I was selfish. I thought I could have you and still come to England to do what I needed to do.”

“What you needed to do?” 

“Ryuunosuke, I can’t - ”

“Does it have to do with your father?” Ryuunosuke interrupts, effectively dismissing whatever excuse or explanation Kazuma may have been about to share.

“Yes,” Kazuma says. “And no.” 

Ryuunosuke huffs out an irritated laugh. “Well, that’s cleared that up, then.” 

“Someday, I will tell you, Ryuunosuke,” Kazuma says quietly. “Anything you want to know. But not now, not tonight.” 

“Then why am I here?” The question isn’t harsh, but it is stark in its transparency: If Kazuma has nothing genuine to offer, the conversation will be ending much sooner than he’d hoped. 

“There is one thing I want to make sure that you understand.” 

“And that is?”

Kazuma meets Ryuunosuke’s eyes and says earnestly, “You ruined everything.”

Ryuunosuke blinks, visibly taken aback. “E- excuse me?” He leaves the question open, as though waiting for Kazuma to tell him he’s misheard the words. 

Kazuma smiles at Ryuunosuke, though he can feel how weak it is, and takes a steadying breath before he explains. “I put in my application for the exchange program months before they made their final decision. Just after we met at that speech contest, in fact. I had one purpose in life, and it was to get here and learn what had happened to my father. And it didn't matter to me how I got here. It didn’t matter to me if I ever got home again. I didn't have anything that I cared about more than I cared about that goal - or anyone that was worth going home for.”

“Kazuma…”

“And you ruined that the moment you kissed me.”

Ryuunosuke’s expression softens at that. The flickering candlelight from the nearby sconces casts dancing shadows over his face now, more understated than the stark shading of his prior troubled look had been. “We were in your dormitory,” he says, smiling at the reminiscence. “You wouldn’t stop talking about trial proceedings, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like.” 

Kazuma gets up, rounds the desk until he’s in front of Ryuunosuke. Standing feels too unnatural, casting looming shadows over his partner, and so Kazuma kneels at his feet. It’s fitting, both for the intimacy they’ve shared in the past and the penance he is seeking now. 

“You weren't supposed to be part of the picture, Ryuunosuke,” he says. “And then you were, and it changed everything. I had a reason to come back from England. I had a reason to come back from the dead.” 

Ryuunosuke smiles softly, assuming this to be hyperbole. He doesn’t know how serious Kazuma is about that statement. This is the core of him: the love he has for Ryuunosuke, and because of it, the burgeoning hope of Kazuma’s that his life could be about something grander and more beautiful than the singular desire for revenge that has always steered him. 

This is the burning ache in his chest that he needs the reaper to understand, more than any of the rest of his experience.

In the next breath, Ryuunosuke grasps the red jabot at his throat and pulls him forward until their lips meet. Surprised by the shift in his center of gravity, Kazuma catches himself, his hands on Ryuunosuke’s thighs as they kiss. 

Ryuunosuke’s eyes are wide when they part, and he seems almost surprised at himself for the action. 

“Ryuu, we don’t have to - I mean, it wasn’t my intention to - ”

“Shut up, Asougi,” he mutters, and kisses Kazuma again. 

He laughs, small breaths against Ryuunosuke’s mouth. “That’s what you said the first time, too.” 

“And you still haven’t learned.” Ryuunosuke smiles at him, and then they’re kissing again. 

Despite all they have been through - all that yet lies before them - it is warm and soft and so familiar , kissing Ryuunosuke. Kazuma thinks, vaguely, of the fact that he is sharing this experience with another, just as he had the weight of Karuma in his hand, the full-bodied taste of the wine. Part of him wonders if he should put a stop to things now, if this intimacy is something he really wants to share, or if that is even his decision alone to make. 

Then Ryuunosuke brings a hand up to cradle the line of Kazuma’s jaw, and something melts inside of him at the touch. This . This is the moment that grounds his soul back in his body, that really makes him feel alive after drifting through the ether of the spirit realm for so long. 

This is life, and this is what he’d promised to deliver. 

—

Kazuma may not have understood the depth of permission he’d given to Barok when he let the reaper have access to his human experience. 

Barok was aware, of course, of the present. Quite keenly, in fact; the sheer intensity of experiencing the love within a soul bond would be overwhelming were he to focus on it exclusively. Reapers were not made for such things. 

Kazuma’s invitation, however, has given Barok access to the full twenty-four years of human life that has left its imprint on Kazuma’s body and mind. Barok has windows into so many parts of Kazuma’s experience now: the present, the past, and even hypotheticals that exist only in Kazuma’s mind. His desires and thoughts about what he wanted to do with Ryuunosuke on Barok’s desk, for example, were particularly conspicuous at the moment. 

Barok can see back through the years, as well. He sees memories of Genshin handing a young Kazuma the blade Karuma for his first swordsmanship lesson. He sees the moment Kazuma arrived in the Mikotoba household and the quiet admiration of a young girl who would become like a sister to him. He can even see his first kiss with Ryuunosuke, as salient now as though he is seeing the meeting of the two souls in real time. 

Kazuma had been correct in his assertion that the experiences rooted purely in the physical world were wholly different from the typical understanding of a reaper. It is the vibrant energy and pure emotions he has experienced in Ryuunosuke’s presence, and yet that had been only a taste. This is complicated and messy, and he is unsure how it does not overwhelm Kazuma at every turn. 

This is life, and Kazuma had been right to assume that a reaper understood so little of it. 

—

“It’s been so long.” 

“Yes, it has.” 

“I missed you.”

Kazuma stops what he’s doing to Ryuunosuke’s neck long enough to meet his eyes. “I missed you too, partner,” he says. It’s genuine, and it makes Ryuunosuke smile.  

Kazuma hadn’t meant for it to get as far as it has, yet his body is flush with desire and he doesn’t want to stop touching Ryuunosuke. Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe the fact that he was divorced from physical sensation for so long - or maybe the strength of his need is all the result of being so cruelly separated from his lover for a year.

He keeps himself reigned in, however, disentangling himself from Ryuunosuke with some effort and sitting back on his heels. The desk behind him digs into his shoulder blades. 

“Ryuunosuke,” he says. His voice is rough, and he’s breathing like he’d forgotten to in the heat of the last few moments. “I don’t want to push you.” 

“You’re not pushing me,” Ryuunosuke says. His eyes are dark, and in the candlelight, it’s hard to tell where the deep brown fades into the inky black of his pupils. 

“I just don’t want you to regret - ”

“I regret having to wait a year to do this with you again.” 

There’s a husky edge to Ryuunosuke’s voice that Kazuma suspects few have ever had the privilege to hear. It unlocks something in him. There is a recklessness to the way Kazuma throws himself into his desire, released by Ryuunosuke’s reassurance. Ryuunosuke has always been a blind spot, and Kazuma has always been wont to act without thinking on his feelings for this man. 

Kazuma manages to undo the buttons on Ryuunosuke’s jacket, pushing it back and off of his shoulders. His hands run down Ryuunosuke’s arms, over the sleeves of his white shirt, before settling on his chest. He means to undo Ryuunosuke’s suspenders but instead he uses them as leverage. It’s clumsy, the way he stands, pulling Ryuunosuke to his feet as well, turning them so that Ryuunosuke is pressed up against the desk instead of him. It would be easier if he would let their lips part for more than seconds at a time, but that possibility barely registers. 

Ryuunosuke obligingly shifts backwards until his full weight is on the desk. He sits with his legs angled apart, and Kazuma eagerly shifts forward to fill the space between them. He has both hands on Ryuunosuke’s neck, cupping his face. As they kiss, his hands slide down to his chest to grip his suspenders again. This time, he does guide them down Ryuunosuke’s shoulders. Kazuma then gently tugs Ryuunosuke’s shirt from the waistband of his trousers before moving to unbutton it, starting at the high, starched collar. It occurs to him that he’s done these things in this exact order before, like he’s gotten Ryuunosuke out of the Yumei student uniform so many times that he has perfected the method. It feels comfortable and good; yet at the same time, the relief he feels at being able to have this intimacy again reminds him of the very real possibility that he might not have. 

“Kazuma?” 

He realizes that his hands have paused in the middle of his task; Ryuunosuke covers them with his own, bringing them to his chest, putting a momentary halt to any progress to be made unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Do you want to stop?” Ryuunosuke sounds genuinely concerned, and Kazuma realizes how ambiguous his introspection must look. He meets Ryuunosuke’s eyes and smiles. 

“Never.” 

—

Barok has always assumed that sexual intercourse as a motivating drive was nothing beyond an inane weakness of humans. Sex is a messy, complicated experience; it requires such vulnerability, and so frequently it becomes entangled with emotions that only complicate the base drive unnecessarily. He has assumed that there would be nothing about the act that could justify the efforts that humans have to put forth just to participate in it. 

He was wrong. 

—

“Well?” Kazuma says to the empty room. 

It’s early morning, the day after he first entered Kazuma’s body. Kazuma has brought them back to Barok’s office, traveling through the thick pre-dawn fog to get here. The light that now filters through the window is gray. It had been a fitful night of sleep - Barok’s first, as it happens - and Barok can feel the heaviness in Kazuma’s limbs as he moves. He wonders why Kazuma would insist on doing this here, rather than staying in the comfort of his own lodgings. 

“What are you waiting for?” Kazuma demands. There’s no one for him to glare at, and so he takes it out on the hapless wine kegs lined up along the wall, glowering at them like he might be able to start a fire if he focuses hard enough. “You’ve seen enough, haven’t you?” 

“Making you whole again has done nothing to improve your patience, I see,” Barok says smoothly from behind him. Kazuma turns, trying to cover his start of surprise. Before seeing Barok back in the room with him, he would have had no indication that their separation was complete. 

“What, no kiss this time?” he snaps, sarcastic in his irritability. 

“Would you like one?” Barok responds. His voice is equal parts derisive and suggestive, though he knows Kazuma’s answer already. 

Kazuma favors him with the scathing glare formerly reserved for his wine barrels. “Don’t toy with me. You have a verdict to render, don’t you?” 

“You do not seem as confident in my response as you were before,” Barok observes, tangential to the matter at hand. 

Kazuma is quiet for a moment. He’s looking past Barok, out the window to the mess of fog beyond. When he speaks, his voice is hollow and haunted. “Maybe I was wrong before. Maybe you should just take my soul.” 

“A drastic change of heart, after all of your efforts,” Barok says. “What could possibly have reigned in such bravado?” 

“You were just in my head,” Kazuma says. “You tell me.” 

Barok watches him; he had indeed been privy to a host of concerns that raced, one after the other in dizzying circles, through Kazuma’s mind. Reuniting with Ryuunosuke had been so joyous for Kazuma in the moment. The guilt had begun to set in only after Ryuunosuke had gone. 

“You are worried that you will hurt him with your next actions.” 

“I’ve hurt him already,” Kazuma spat. He looks miserable at the thought. “I’m worried I’ll break him.” 

“You’ve hurt him,” Barok agreed, “but it was your death that nearly broke him.” Kazuma’s eyes snap to him, and their gazes lock. Barok tilts his head. “Do you think he would survive losing you a second time, so soon after you were returned to him?” 

For a moment, Kazuma seems unsure how to respond. When he finally speaks, he can’t bring himself to address the question directly. “You plan to let me live, then?” Despite all of his dramatics, there is hope in these words. 

“I do.” 

“And that’s… that’s it? No more deals, no caveats?” 

“The caveat is this, Kazuma Asougi,” he says. He closes the distance between them with a step; the difference in their height forces Kazuma to tilt his head backwards to maintain eye contact. “As foolish as it is, Ryuunosuke Naruhodou is in love with you.” 

He catches Kazuma’s chin with one gloved finger, ensuring that the man doesn’t look away. Kazuma’s gray eyes are wide.

“Earn it.” 

—

Barok does not see Kazuma again until the moment that he steps into the courtroom for Barok’s own trial, intent on prosecuting the Reaper of the Bailey to the fullest extent that he can. 

Interestingly, it is Ryuunosuke whom Barok sees first, and more than once; the young defense attorney seems set on convincing Barok to let him represent him in court. 

Perhaps it is the taste of Ryuunosuke that yet lingers in his preternatural awareness that convinces him to say yes. 

—

He does not expect Ryuunosuke to show up at his office again, especially not after all of the business with Barok’s trial has concluded. 

It’s another late evening, and it brings to mind memories that he still has of an experience that was not his own. The reaction he has to them is shamefully human, leading him to wonder if he can still be affected by the energy from the soul bond even when both parties have been safely returned to the physical realm. 

“Mr. Naruhodou,” he says cordially, ushering the defense attorney in with a bow. “I’m afraid Mr. Asougi has already left for the day.” 

“Oh, I know,” Ryuunosuke says. “I ran into him on the way out, actually. I - I came to speak to you.” 

That earns him a curious look. “Oh?” 

“Yes, I - um, well.” Ryuunosuke is nervous in a way Barok has not seen since he was stumbling through his first trial in a British courtroom. “I still don’t know the whole story, but I gather that you did something that helped Kazuma a great deal. Something that helped him get his memories back. I - I wanted to say thank you.” He looks up at Barok for the first time, having directed most of his comments thus far to Barok’s boots. “It seems we both owe you a debt of gratitude.” 

A smile tugs at the corner of Barok’s mouth. “I should think that I am the one that owes you such a debt, Mr. Naruhodou.” 

He hadn’t been in danger, not really; even should Lord van Zieks have received a death penalty, Barok would have continued on in some other form. However, Barok is used to a solitary existence, devoid of many of what he has come to realize are basic parts of the human experience. Having Ryuunosuke believe in him so strongly had been a meaningful gesture, and one that was unique in his world. If Barok had a heart, Ryuunosuke’s actions on his behalf would have warmed it. 

“Yes, well.” Ryuunosuke is looking at his boots again, and Barok can’t help but be curious what it is that has made him so hesitant. “I was only doing what any good defense attorney would do.” 

“Then perhaps we have a shortage of good defense attorneys in London,” Barok says, “as I’m not sure many of them would accomplish what you have in these past months.” 

Ryuunosuke smiles, accepting the praise without comment. There’s a faint flush to his cheeks. 

“Was there something else, Mr. Naruhodou?” 

“Kazuma and I met in your office not long ago,” Ryuunosuke says abruptly, “just after his memories returned to him.” 

“I’m aware,” Barok says slowly. He is unsure where this confession is leading them. 

“I remember meeting with him,” Ryuunosuke says, though he sounds almost uncertain about the veracity of this statement - one that Barok himself knows to be true. “And it has to have been him, because the things he knew, the things he said… well, they only make sense if it was Kazuma I saw.” 

“Mr. Naruhodou, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Ryuunosuke meets his gaze once more and asks cautiously, “If it was Kazuma that I met here, why do I also remember being here with you?” 

Barok blinked, stunned by the question. He had been present, of course, but not as himself. How could Ryuunosuke be in possession of such memories? 

“It’s like someone made a carbon copy of my memory, but in the second version, someone replaced Kazuma with you.” 

“I - I don’t know how that could be, Mr. Naruhodou,” he says earnestly.

“But you do know what I’m talking about,” Ryuunosuke says. It is not a question. 

“I… do, yes.” 

“You remember it, too?” 

Barok considers what would happen if he lied, if he pretended that he did not have the knowledge that he has of Ryuunosuke’s kiss, of Ryuunosuke’s body splayed out before him on the desk where he works every day. It would make things cleaner, perhaps; the truth will only confuse the man who already has a soulmate and doesn’t need the added burden of knowing just what his soulmate had done to return to him.  

Barok has never made a habit of lying when questioned directly about things pertaining to his true nature, however. He does not find enough reason to start now. 

“Every moment of it,” he says, because he does. 

Ryuunosuke looks contemplative, so much so that it actually startles Barok when he moves forward to kiss him.

Barok is taller than Ryuunosuke, who has to stand on tiptoe to press their lips together, balancing himself with both hands on Barok’s chest. His kiss is confident, and he worries Barok’s lips with his tongue, seeking entrance, until they part for him. Barok, strictly speaking, does not need to breathe; he forgets to for a moment when Ryuunosuke laps at his mouth. The sensuous assault on his awareness that he had experienced when he had initially met the young attorney comes back in full force; he can’t explain it, not without the link of the soul bond connecting Ryuunosuke to Barok’s plane. And yet, just as before, Ryuunosuke’s scent overwhelms his senses, lush and complex, if changed from his initial grief. Only now he has the taste of his kiss to accompany it - pure, and not filtered through the experience of another. 

When their lips part, Ryuunosuke lowers himself, but he doesn’t move his hands from Barok’s chest. 

“That’s exactly as I remember,” he says. He sounds almost awed by this. “Why is that?” 

“Truthfully, I do not know.” 

“Can you start by telling me what you are?” Barok looks at him curiously, and Ryuunosuke looks chagrined. “I mean… Kazuma still hasn’t told me everything, but what happened to him - it was worse than he lets on, I think. Which means whatever you did for him… and then, with my memories of that night…” 

“You are correct,” Barok says, “in your assumption that I am no normal man.” 

There is a beat, during which Barok finds once again that he hesitates to speak openly. Kazuma and Ryuunosuke will have to work things out between them, and he will leave it to Kazuma to tell all of his story. Their soul bond will strengthen when the truth is revealed, or it will diminish - and it should be no concern of Barok’s one way or the other. 

He has his own story, however, which is his to tell. Though he has never felt compelled to explain himself to a mortal in his many years of existence, he finds that he wouldn’t mind relaying some small piece of it now. 

“I’m the Reaper of the Bailey.” 

Ryuunosuke looks startled at this. Likely he is recalling that they have just spent days in a courtroom unraveling that particular bit of mythos. But then, Ryuunosuke has proven he is quick to understand under pressure; there is a chance that he is processing the fact that he has just kissed Death. 

“Perhaps, Mr. Naruhodou, you should sit down.” 

—

There are some tales that end with satisfying resolution, all crimes punished and all heroes setting forth into the sunset for their well-earned happy ending. 

There are some tales where the hero struggles only to falter, only to let the ending they so desperately desire slip from their grasp. 

The story of Ryuunosuke and Kazuma is both of these, and neither. Kazuma has come back from the brink of death to seek his revenge, and exacting it ultimately leaves him empty. 

Ryuunosuke has been strong and has always let his values guide him, and yet his reward is only continued heartbreak. 

In the tale of two soulmates, there should be no space for one such as Barok to exist - not until the very end. And yet he has somehow found his own story intimately interwoven with both of theirs. 

The story - at least this chapter of it - ends with a ship setting out for Japan. 

—

Until Kazuma walked through the door of his office that morning, Barok truthfully hadn’t known if he was coming back or not. 

Last he had heard, Kazuma had gone to Dover to see his compatriots off on their journey home. Barok suspects that not even Kazuma had been certain whether he was getting on that boat with Ryuunosuke until he was faced with the prospect of watching the other sail away.  

He doesn’t have his katana at his waist when he enters. Barok doesn’t remark on it, and Kazuma would never tell him, but he knows that Kazuma has given the blade to Ryuunosuke once again. 

Ryuunosuke, who is more careful with Kazuma’s soul than Kazuma ever would be. 

“I’m surprised to see you this morning, Asougi,” he remarks lightly. He barely looks up at the other man, but he can see the tension in Kazuma’s frame as he enters. 

“I work here, don’t I?” Kazuma mutters. There is more despair in the words than his tone lets on, and he pauses in front of Barok’s desk, near the currently disassembled crime scene model. He hesitates before he speaks, but when the words finally come, he sounds confident to the point of being haughty. “And if I’m going to be a prosecutor, I should have my own office. I can’t concentrate in this place. It looks like a gothic horror novel.” 

“You’re staying, then?” 

“Where else would I go?” Kazuma’s sharp response lets the mask slip, just for a moment, so that Barok can more clearly see the pain underneath it. Kazuma is back from the dead, and he has his own mourning now to do.

Barok looks at him quietly, expectantly, as he waits for Kazuma’s next statement. For a moment, he is unsure if it is to come. 

“I can’t go home with him.”

There is anger in Kazuma’s voice, but more than anything there is sadness. 

“I haven’t earned it yet.”