Archive of Our Own

At fifteen, Kazutora looks at the world as if it is a game of chess. The King is at the top, the most powerful piece on the board, followed by its loyal Queen, its Knights and Bishops and Castles, and finally, its Pawns. The expendable pieces, the ones that are always moved and captured first.

At fifteen, Kazutora knows his place in the world. He is certain that he is a Pawn, to be used and discarded at whim. He is certain that there is no room on the board for him.

At twenty-five, Kazutora learns that he has been playing by the wrong rules, and that he really never knew how chess worked.

The mirror above the sink in his cell is dirty and smudged. His cellmate of two years was unfortunately not the biggest fan of basic hygiene, and loved to get up close and personal with it. Even so, when he meets his own eyes in the reflection, he isn’t met with the face of a ‘free man’, as they’ve been calling him for the past hour as he prepares to leave.

His eyes are sunken, bleak and joyless, and they fit right in among the rest of his sullen features. His hair, overgrown from years without a trim, falls to just beyond his shoulders. The guards aren’t allowed to give him a hair tie, for one reason or another, and his comb is missing all but six of its teeth by now, so he makes do with carding his fingers through his hair and smoothing it out - not that it does very much at all. God, he needs a shower, preferably one with water hotter than lukewarm, or one he can stand up straight in without thirty other pairs of eyes on him.

But who would ever offer him a luxury like that?

When he’s pulled out of his cell at exactly nine forty-five, they cuff him. His wrists are permanently bruised, it seems, from the amount of times he’s been dragged around by them over the last ten years. He’s not even that sure why they bother anymore; he’s frailer than the average teenager, even at twenty-five, from years of eating the same tasteless, barely legal prison food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s not like he could throw a punch hard enough to knock teeth out anymore.

They pull him into the inner reception area, a place he hasn’t seen in over ten years, since he was first brought in. He’s made to sit in a mildly uncomfortable metal chair while a warden signs off on his paperwork. His legs are too long for the chair no matter how he sits, and he almost trips someone up when he closes his eyes briefly to stretch out, so he resigns to crossing his ankles and ignoring the discomfort in his muscles. When the paperwork is completed - for now, anyways - they pull him into yet another waiting room, where he’s made to stand next to his guard while they find the other paperwork, the things he needs to sign.

He hasn’t held a pen in ten years. Hell, he doesn’t even remember what his signature looks like. Is he supposed to just make one up? Is that still legally binding?

They uncuff him ten minutes later and he signs his name four separate times. Each of them look different, the first slightly wobblier than the last, but the guards find no issues with them and soon he’s being led - not pulled, for once - into the entrance of the prison.

For the last ten years, Kazutora has seen the sun in one-hour bursts. The exercise yard is hot and sweaty and scary, and for most of his time there he either sat in the corner by himself or tried not to notice the amount of people looking at him as he exercised. So when he’s handed his belongings (a black trash bag with only his old gang uniform inside, still covered in his blood, and the small stack of letters he’s received over the years) and told he’s free to go, there’s a bubble of excitement in his chest at the thought of feeling the sun on his skin properly again.

That excitement is overshadowed pretty heavily, though, by the overwhelming feeling of dread seeping into his bones.

If he had had people come to visit him recently, perhaps he wouldn’t be panicking quite so hard. But he hasn’t seen his old friends since Draken and that Takemichi boy came to see him all those years ago, and even if they had, he doubts any of them would be willing to take him in, not after all this time. It’s not like they were even really friends then, anyway. The only person he thinks might be willing is Draken, since he’s sent a few letters recently hyping up his release date.

But he doesn’t have a phone, or Draken’s number, and he doesn’t see any motorcycles parked outside. So he takes his trash bag and the clothes on his back, swallows down the bile in his throat, and walks on shaking legs toward the gates.

When he reaches the toll gate, the warden confirms his identity before hitting a button to lift the barrier. “Congratulations, Hanemiya-san,” he says, flat and unbothered, before turning back to his computer screen. Kazutora doesn’t think he should be congratulated for merely staying alive long enough to see the sun again, but he thanks him quietly and takes his first step outside.

The sound of a man clearing his throat startles him so badly he almost jumps back through the gate before the barrier comes down. He looks up from his feet, eyes blown wide with alarm, and meets the gaze of Matsuno Chifuyu.

“Long time no see, Kazutora-kun,” he greets, and Kazutora notes the practised way he speaks, like he’s been sitting rehearsing his lines. “Need a ride?”

He’s leaning up against the passenger-side door of a sleek black car, arms crossed tight over his chest. He’s changed since the last time Kazutora saw him (of course he has, of course they have), with his natural black hair framing a much sharper jawline, one that doesn’t match how soft his features have become.

Kazutora doesn’t know what to say. Yes, he desperately needs a ride, but where to? It’s not like he has a place to go.

He gets into the front seat anyway. It would have been rude to say no, after Chifuyu stepped out of the way and opened the door for him, taking the bag from his hands and tossing it in the trunk on his way around to the driver’s seat.

Neither of them speak for a while after Chifuyu pulls off the curb and starts driving. It’s been ten years since Kazutora has seen Tokyo, so for a few silent moments, he stares out of the window to his left, eyes following the increasingly common sky-scraping buildings as they travel closer and closer to the city. He tries not to take up too much space, shuffling his knees away from the gear stick when Chifuyu’s fingers brush against them, and his hands stay firmly in his lap, clenched into tight fists with the fabric of his pants clasped between his fingers.

“Where are we going?” He asks, after they take an exit off the highway and turn into what looks like a pretty high-end neighbourhood. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Chifuyu startle slightly at the sudden noise after such a long period of silence.

“Home,” comes the answer, a simple one, but the most confusing he could have possibly given. “Well, food, first. I’ve been waiting outside that damn prison since six this morning, didn’t get to eat breakfast.”

Kazutora laughs softly. Funny, because they told him six as well, so he’d made an effort to get up before the bells rang in order to be ready. They didn’t come for him until nine.

“Is there anything you want, food-wise?” Chifuyu glances at him briefly when they stop at a red light, cocking his head to the side a little. “You probably haven’t had a proper meal in a while, huh? You’re skin and bones, I could tell from a mile away.”

He’s not wrong. Kazutora hasn’t had anything outside of his daily prison special since he was convicted, even when he was put on good behaviour four years in and given a better cell with a television. But the thought of sitting in a restaurant and eating breakfast with Matsuno Chifuyu is nauseating.

“Whatever you want, Matsuno-san,” he replies, going back to looking out of the window when the light changes and Chifuyu revs the engine.

He rests his head against the window, closes his eyes, and lets himself drift for a while. He’s not asleep, though he’s so tired he probably could be if he wanted, but he thinks Chifuyu thinks he is, because when the car stops and the parking brake clicks into place, the other pauses for a second after undoing his seatbelt before sighing and cracking open the door, leaving Kazutora alone with his thoughts.

He opens his eyes after a moment, swallowing down the rising feeling of panic in his chest as he watches the man’s back get further and further away. They’re in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, a place Kazutora doesn’t recognise, and there’s not many others parked around them, though the street they turned in from is busy as hell. He’s glad he isn’t the one driving. He might have become a little calmer over the years, but he’s not sure that change would apply to his road rage.

The city around him has changed, too, far more than he ever imagined. Chifuyu’s car has a whole screen on the dashboard, and the dials behind the wheel are electric too, from what he can tell. There’s no cassette slot or disc slot, but there is a cable connected to what looks like the radio, with the other end plugged into a phone, maybe? He’s not sure. There’s a few ridges along the side, so Kazutora hesitantly presses one and the whole thing lights up - the whole damn screen. Chifuyu’s wallpaper is a picture of his own hand scratching the ear of a tiny black kitten. He wonders where the hell the keyboard is, and turns it back off.

Turning his head, he scans the backseat. There’s a black satchel and a suit jacket in a heap on one side and a bag of… something buckled in on the other. It looks like a bag of essentials you’d take camping with you - toothpaste, toothbrush, small bottles of hair product, a hairbrush and hair ties. There’s a receipt sticking out of the bag, totaling to just over four thousand yen, dated for that morning.

These are probably for him, he thinks, and his fists tighten in the fabric of his pants before he turns around and refuses to acknowledge the bag’s existence any further.

Chifuyu comes back a few minutes later, balancing two steaming take-out cups in one hand and gripping two brown paper bags in the other. Kazutora leans over and opens his car door for him after watching him struggle for a few seconds, looking away when Chifuyu thanks him.

A bag of food is placed in his lap, then. When he opens it, there’s two neatly-made onigiri in the bottom, as well as hot tamagoyaki and a tub of steaming rice. He hasn’t had tamagoyaki since he was fifteen years old. He’s almost hesitant to touch it, afraid it’ll disappear before his eyes.

“I got you a coffee, too. You look dead.” Blunt, but true. “Eat up. We’re going somewhere else before I take you home.”

Home. He still doesn’t know where the hell that’s supposed to be, and at this point, he’s too scared to ask. Chifuyu will probably dump him and his things with Draken, or perhaps he’s found a hostel willing to take him in. Both options are significantly more than what he deserves, but Kazutora hopes it’s the former.

The food is incredible, by his standards, though Chifuyu complains that his tamagoyaki is a little overcooked. He takes his time eating, not touching his coffee because he’s lactose intolerant, and he’s not about to put Chifuyu through that on top of everything else. He doesn’t finish the onigiri - he might be hungry, but ten years with a diet as small as his has sort of restricted his appetite.

“You don’t like coffee anymore?” Chifuyu asks when he’s folding up the bag. Anymore. How does he even know Kazutora likes it? “I got almond milk, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Kazutora blinks at him a few times, unsure if he’s hearing correctly. He picks up the still-warm cup then, scanning the order label, and sure enough, it’s made with almond milk.

“Who told you I’m lactose intolerant?” He asks, finally taking a sip of the coffee. It’s just as perfect as the rest of the meal, and he savours its rich taste rather than gulping it down the way he used to.

“Baji did,” Chifuyu replies, and Kazutora chokes instead of spitting the coffee all over the very nice car interior. “I helped him write a letter to you when you were in juvie, the one where he told you about a new café that actually sold dairy alternatives.” He doesn’t seem to have noticed the way Kazutora is literally fighting his own lungs for air, continuing on like he hasn’t just turned the poor guy’s world on its head.

There are two things wrong with everything Chifuyu just said. The first, and most obvious, is how casually he talks about Baji - Kazutora was dreading that topic ever coming up, afraid to speak in case something he said somehow brought back the memory, for both him and Chifuyu. The second, and less obvious, is the fact that Chifuyu remembers something that small about a man he barely knows, something he was told over eleven years ago in passing. It’s frightening. He wonders how much Chifuyu knows about him. Wonders if Baji talked about him, wonders what impression Chifuyu carried of him before everything went to shit.

Not that it matters, anymore. Kazutora knows exactly what Chifuyu should think of him now.

Despite his choking episode, Kazutora eventually manages to clear his throat and keep drinking as Chifuyu starts the car again. Before they move, though, he picks up his phone and turns it on, tapping a few little icons on the screen - the keyboard is in the screen, what the fuck - before a little smile forms on his face and soft music begins to play from the radio.

It’s not a song Kazutora recognises, but from the way Chifuyu hums the lyrics under his breath as they drive, it must be one of his favourites. It’s a cheesy pop song with lyrics that only kind of make sense, but it’s catchy and upbeat, and Chifuyu taps the steering wheel to the drums in the background as they speed down the highway.

The next place they stop at appears to be a motorcycle shop, which would be hilarious if it didn’t make Kazutora want to throw up. This time, when Chifuyu gets out of the car, he rounds it and opens Kazutora’s door for him, beckoning him out. He fumbles with his seatbelt for a second, apologising to both Chifuyu and the car when he lets go of it too fast and it smacks against the doorframe.

Chifuyu holds the door for him, a bell jingling over their heads, and Kazutora follows a few paces behind him. There doesn’t appear to be anyone around, so Chifuyu points at a set of seats by the window and tells him to wait a second before disappearing through one of the staff doors. He must work here then, or know the owners, at least. That one is mildly terrifying, but Kazutora swallows it down, grits his teeth and bears it the way he’s learned to.

When Chifuyu comes back, a man he doesn’t recognise is behind him, which fills Kazutora with a strange relief. “This is Inupi,” he says, gesturing to him with one hand. Kazutora notices a bag in the other. “He owns this place with Draken, who’s decided to disappear specifically when I told him not to.”

Kazutora, in the back of his mind, is kind of glad he did.

Inupi holds out a motor oil-stained hand for him to shake. “You must be Kazutora. Nice to meet you.”

He wonders what they’ve all told Inupi about him. Maybe they left out all the worst parts of him, or maybe they told him everything. He doesn’t think it would make much difference either way.

“I got what we came for, anyway, so we’ll just see Draken another day.” Chifuyu nods his head in the direction of the door, and soon they’re heading out back to the car and driving away.

They take a more familiar route, now, driving down streets Kazutora thinks he recognises, but only vaguely. They’ve changed, like everything else has. The apartment block he and his mother used to live in is gone, replaced by a much more modern, smaller block. Chifuyu’s - Baji’s, as he knows it - old block is still there, still the same, but they drive right past it and turn into a far nicer, high-end neighbourhood a few streets over. Chifuyu parks in an underground lot, mumbling we’re here before retrieving his things from the backseat and getting out.

Kazutora leaves his bag in the car. There’s nothing in it he ever wants to see again, after all.

He follows Chifuyu through the lot to an elevator. The ride is suffocatingly awkward, more so than anything he’s experienced today, mostly because in here he can’t see where he is, can’t guess why they’re here. He assumes they’re visiting someone else or picking something else up, both of which churn his stomach, but when Chifuyu takes one of his bags between his teeth to punch the door code in, he realises he’s been brought to Chifuyu’s apartment.

“Come in,” he says, hanging his satchel and jacket up by the door before slipping out of his shoes. From a cupboard he produces two sets of slippers, one pair significantly more worn than the other, and throws them down just outside the genkan. “I’ll be a second, gonna put your stuff away in the bathroom and then I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Speechless, Kazutora lets the door click shut behind him. He stands there gaping at the spot Chifuyu used to be for a few moments before he snaps back and begins shuffling out of his shoes, stepping into the apartment properly. It’s unnaturally tidy, smells like it’s been freshly cleaned and disinfected, but he can tell it’s lived-in; from the hoodie tossed over the back of the couch, to the chair and table out on the balcony, to the photo frames lining the mantlepiece, it feels more homey than any place Kazutora has ever been.

Chifuyu comes back missing his suit vest and with a few of his shirt buttons undone, jerking his head at the open doorway behind them. Kazutora follows him to the kitchen, a fairly large, open-plan room with an island rather than a table or kotatsu, with what looks like a small pantry connected to it.

“This is the kitchen, obviously.” Chifuyu flings open a cupboard and turns on the faucet, filling two glasses with water and handing one to Kazutora. Even the fucking water tastes expensive. “Uh, the pantry’s through there, but the washing machine is in the bathroom and the drying rack is out on the balcony. It’s a gas oven, so turn the extractor on if you use it, God knows I don’t.”

He leads a slightly confused Kazutora back out into the living room and gestures vaguely at it. “Lounge, also my home office ‘cuz I never bought a desk when I moved in and can’t be bothered to find one that matches the furniture.” He takes a sip of his water as they cross the room. “We have cable and Netflix - wait, you don’t know what Netflix is, do you?” Kazutora shakes his head. Every word Chifuyu says confuses him more. Who’s we? “It’s like Blockbuster but digital.”

“Oh, so they rent movies?”

“Sorta, you pay for a membership monthly and you can watch whatever you want anytime.” He pauses, brows furrowing for a moment before he turns on his heel. “Did anyone tell you that Blockbuster closed down?”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish.” He looks genuinely disappointed. Kazutora is too, he supposes; he has so many fond memories of renting a few movies with the guys at the weekend and staying over at Mikey’s place to binge them all.

(He wonders if Chifuyu ever did that with Baji. It makes him feel sick.)

Chifuyu leads him down a hallway and pushes a door open on their way past. “This is the bathroom. I dunno if you’re a bath guy or a shower guy, but there’s both, so. The window’s broken so don’t close it fully or we’ll never get it open again.”

Finally, he’s led to two doors, opposite each other. Bedrooms, probably. Chifuyu points at the one on their left, “My bedroom.” Then he points to the one on their right and opens the door, stepping inside and gesturing for Kazutora to follow him.

The room is far less lived in than the rest of the house. In fact, Kazutora can see a price tag still attached to the mattress on the bed. Chifuyu must follow his eyes and notice it too, because he rushes over and snatches it off with a laugh, tucking it into his pocket and quickly checking over everything else.

There’s a comfortable-looking bed with black sheets in one corner, matching the carpet and curtains with an extra blanket and a few pillows for decoration. Opposite is a table with a small television, and across from those, beside the door, there’s a desk and chair. On the desk is the bag Inupi gave him earlier, empty with its contents laid out next to it - a box containing a brand-new phone, still in its plastic.

“And, finally, your room.” Chifuyu leans up against the doorframe with his arms crossed as Kazutora steps inside, jaw hanging open as he looks around. This is not what he was expecting - but what was he expecting at all? When he left the prison’s reception, he thought he was going to be walking back to the city, finding a hostel that could wait for his room payments until he had a job, living in the clothes he’d been given until he could buy something else.

Instead he’s being given a home by a man whose life he ruined. How fucked up is that?

“Matsuno-san--!”

“It’s Chifuyu, first of all,” he interrupts, fixing Kazutora with a flat, unimpressed look, “and second of all, shush.”

“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”

“Matsuno-san, I can’t possibly accept this, no, really, I don’t deserve this.” His impression of Kazutora is nowhere near what he actually sounds like, but Kazutora thinks that’s the point. “Along those lines, right? Save it, I don’t wanna hear it.”

Chifuyu stands up straight, sets his glass down and walks over to him, footsteps silent against the carpet, but Kazutora can hear them anyways. Maybe it’s just his heart pounding in his ears as Chifuyu wraps his arms around his waist, pulling him in for a tight hug. It - it feels nice, especially when Kazutora brings his arms up to hug back, so nice that he finds himself holding back a flood of tears, not wanting to get Chifuyu’s nice shirt wet.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” His voice cracks partway through. “After--after everything I’ve done to you, I don’t - I don’t get it.” Then, pressing his face into Chifuyu’s shoulder: “I don’t get you.”

Chifuyu takes a deep breath in before he speaks. “You aren’t the only one who changed, Kazutora-kun. I did, too.”

He feels Chifuyu swallow before pulling away slightly, prompting Kazutora to lift his head and look him in the eyes. He struggles to, with tears blurring his vision, but he tries.

“I was so mad for so, so long. I wanted to kill you, or I never wanted to see your face again, one of the two.” It would be funny if it didn’t make Kazutora’s stomach turn over. “But all that anger was stifling. I couldn’t - can’t - live like that, y’know? So I spent ten years learning how to forgive you.”

Chifuyu pats him on the back before pulling out of the hug entirely. It takes all of Kazutora’s self-restraint not to tug him right back into it, but he figures that would probably be uncomfortable for both of them, so he clears his throat and puts a little space between them, pulling his sleeve down over his palm to wipe the tears from the corner of his eye.

“I don’t blame you for what happened, Kazutora-kun,” Chifuyu continues, “maybe I did once, but not anymore. So, I want to give you the second chance you deserve, if you’ll let me.”

Kazutora swallows. “I’ll try.” The smile Chifuyu gives him fills him with a weird, all-encompassing warmth, pooling in his stomach and washing away the lingering nausea. “One question, though.”

Chifuyu is on his way out, but he turns back in the doorway. “Hm?”

“Can I smoke?”

“Fuck off.” Chifuyu closes the door behind him, and his footsteps retreat down the hall.

In the two weeks Kazutora has been living with him, Chifuyu has learned a few things.

1. Kazutora is awfully fond of Netflix, now that he knows what it is. When Chifuyu comes home from work, he usually finds the man curled up on his corner of the couch with a movie playing on the television - whether he’s asleep or not depends on the time.
2. He’s also a very light sleeper. When he is asleep, just opening the door is typically enough to wake him. He tries his best to look awake, but he has a very specific just-woke-up look, where his eyes are sort of unfocused and he seems like he’s only half-present in the real world.
3. His sleep schedule is better than Chifuyu’s could ever hope to be. He’s in bed by nine and awake at seven sharp. The pros of this are that Chifuyu can still have some time to himself in the evening, and that he wakes up to a hot coffee on the table, brewed just the way he likes it.
4. Kazutora is trying far too hard to please him, as if he thinks Chifuyu will kick him out on the streets the second he screws up.

He doesn’t know how to explain to Kazutora that he’s in this for the long haul in a way that’ll stick. He knew when he picked him up that this was going to be difficult - if not for their troubled past, then for Kazutora’s lack of understanding of the modern world. He’s done a ton of research into it, actually, on how to help someone reintegrate after so long locked up, and so far he thinks he’s doing pretty well.

The internet told him he shouldn’t overwhelm Kazutora, but that he also shouldn’t limit his freedom. On the first night, he told Kazutora he was free to come and go as he pleased and gave him the door code, as well as the addresses of his - their? - friends in case he wanted to visit, rather than dragging him there if he didn’t want to. As far as he knows, Kazutora hasn’t visited anyone, and he’s only left the apartment a handful of times to get things he needs, and even then he usually waits until Chifuyu gets back to ask if they can go together.

It’s starting to get a little bit worrying, honestly. And the guys are getting more restless about seeing him, so Chifuyu has to do something.

When he gets home from work exactly two weeks after Kazutora moved in, the man is sitting on the couch watching a movie again, one Chifuyu remembers seeing in theatres when it came out. He glances over his shoulder when the door clicks shut and offers a small smile and wave. Another thing Chifuyu’s noticed is that he likes to pull his sleeves right up over his palms for whatever reason, and when he seems nervous, he tends to pick at them.

“Welcome back, Chifuyu,” he greets before turning back to his movie. One thing Chifuyu’s real glad for is that he’s stopped calling him Matsuno. He kept saying it by accident in the beginning, but he seems to be getting the hang of it now. “How was work?”

“Ah, fine.” Terrible. Some guy’s trying to scam him out of a heinous amount of money over a shipment of pet food, and one of the cats bit a kid today. But Kazutora doesn’t need to know that. “Y’know, you can come with me instead of sitting in here all day, if you want.”

Kazutora looks back again, pausing the movie this time. His brows are furrowed, head cocked to the side in that questioning way he always does when he’s confused.

“Won’t I just get in your way?”

“Not if you’re working there, stupid.” Chifuyu tosses his jacket over the back of the couch and flops down into his seat. His back is fucking aching. “I had someone quit a few weeks back so there’s a spot open if you want it, that’s all. Besides… have you not had enough of being cooped up in one room yet?”

Kazutora laughs behind his hand, shrugging. “I guess I am, but--!”

“Don’t say I’ve done enough for you.” He waits for a moment, and Kazutora doesn’t finish his sentence. “You’re so damn predictable, Kazutora-kun. I’m trying to help you because you deserve it, okay? So just fucking let me.”

He tries not to snap at Kazutora if he can help it, but his voice grows a little louder and angrier at the end, and he notices the way Kazutora flinches at his tone. It’s subtle but it’s there, and there’s a twist of guilt in the pit of Chifuyu’s stomach. This is exactly what he’s trying to avoid, goddamnit.

“Sorry for snapping, just… ugh.” He stands up and grabs his jacket, rounding the back of the couch to head to his room. “Come with me tomorrow for a trial run, if you want. I won’t make you, but seriously, please go outside. You’re paler than the damn walls.”

He hears a soft laugh as he opens his bedroom door and considers it a win.

Chifuyu changes out of his clothes quickly, throwing on the first thing he finds in his closet, which happens to be a hoodie he swears he gave to Kazutora last week. It’s freshly washed and folded, as are some of the other clothes he’s loaned to him until he has time to take him shopping. He gathers each item up when he’s done changing and tiptoes across the hall to the other bedroom, putting them back in Kazutora’s closet where they temporarily belong before he goes back to the lounge to figure out dinner.

“Do you want takeout or should I make something?” He asks, fully knowing the answer already, but it’s courtesy to make sure.

Kazutora pretends to think about it. “Mm… takeout? I didn’t get to try that pizza place yet.”

Chifuyu’s been on a mission to get him to try all his favourite restaurants, since literally the first time they ate together. The pizza place is about thirty minutes from their house, which gives Chifuyu plenty of time to do his little nightly routine before it gets here so he can sit down and relax, maybe finish Kazutora’s movie with him.

He picks up his phone and clicks on the restaurant’s contact. “Any topping preferences?”

Kazutora’s mouth twitches into a smile for a second before he clears his throat. “Anything, as long as there’s no cheese.”

Chifuyu snorts and dials the number. They’ve only had one issue with his lactose intolerance so far, where one restaurant didn’t mention their use of milk in an allergens list. It would have been funny had Chifuyu not made everything exponentially worse by breaking the lock on the bathroom door the night before. No, they both had to be miserable that night. Chifuyu will never let it happen again.

Once their pizza is ordered, he grabs his laptop from his satchel and sighs as he sinks into the couch. Today is the last day before the November tax deadline, so tonight is for making sure everything is in order before the payment comes out in the morning.

Kazutora goes back to watching his movie while Chifuyu works. He’s never once interrupted Chifuyu, always waiting until he closes his laptop to say something, and part of Chifuyu is thankful for it, but part of him wishes he’d just say things. The silence, even with the noise of the movie and the click of the keys beneath his fingers, is kinda unbearable, even though he’s used to living on his own.

But Kazutora doesn’t interrupt, though Chifuyu sees him glance over every few minutes to see if he’s done yet. It gets to the point where Chifuyu just sighs and closes his laptop, tossing it from his lap to the couch.

“What is it?” He says, and Kazutora’s head snaps to him. Even in the dim light, Chifuyu can see the flush rising on his cheeks. He’s been caught. “Out with it. Come on.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“You didn’t, I’m--I’m taking a break.” Very convincing, Chifuyu. “Numbers, lots of numbers, big bad headache coming on. Now tell me or I’ll give you the regular pizza.”

Kazutora’s gaze hardens dangerously for a second. “You wouldn’t.”

“You gonna fuck around and find out?” Kazutora squints at him briefly before averting his eyes, looking at his feet as if embarrassed. “Thought so. Now tell me.”

He’s quiet for another second, so quiet that Chifuyu almost misses it when he does speak. “I’ll come. Tomorrow. To work.”

Oh. He made the offer, sure, but he was half-expecting Kazutora to just ignore him.

“Okay. Uh, good.” He swallows, nodding more than he probably should. “Yeah, that’s good, I-I’ll drive you in the morning and you can stay the whole day. Oh - you’ll probably need to borrow a turtleneck, though, I can’t have uncovered tattoos in the shop.”

Kazutora thumbs the tiger on his neck as if he forgot it was there. Chifuyu has no idea how he could - he stares at it all the damn time. “That’s fine. Should I tie my hair back too?”

“Yeah, that’d be best.” He pauses, and snorts at a memory. “One of the students working for me did her first shift with her hair down. There’s a little bastard of a cat, name’s Azuki, it climbed her hair and tore out a chunk.”

“I… will tie it back.” Kazutora turns away with a horrified look on his face, making Chifuyu burst into laughter. “God, it’s not funny, you sadist.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Kazutora side-eyes him. “... Only a little.”

In the two weeks and a day he’s been living with Chifuyu, Kazutora has learned a few things.

1. Chifuyu sleeps like a log. When Kazutora wakes up at seven - force of habit, but at least it’s a good one - the other is always passed out in his bed, completely dead to the world. He dropped a pan once while making breakfast for them both and not even that woke him up.
2. Despite going to work at nine and waking up around eight-thirty, Chifuyu typically doesn’t go to bed until midnight or later. Kazutora often wakes up to his footsteps outside the door or the tap running in the bathroom which is - sort of annoying, actually, but he wouldn’t dare say that out loud.
3. Chifuyu is a stress-head. He has a habit of bringing work home with him, which Kazutora supposes is to be expected considering he’s an independent business owner, but he wonders if there’s ever a day when he’s not up late on his work computer. Sometimes he doesn’t even get to bed, falling asleep in the kitchen or on the sofa with his laptop still open.
4. Chifuyu trusts him. He still hasn’t figured this one out, but he’s trying to be someone worthy of it.

He worked a job over his last year in prison to earn a little money for when he got out, but that was nothing compared to this. Chifuyu could only spare twenty minutes for a vaguely informative tour, a lesson on how to use the register, and a very short introduction to the animals. After that he disappeared upstairs, and hasn’t been back down since.

One of the girls - one of Mitsuya’s sisters, he’s pretty sure - is behind the counter with him, coaching him. He feels stupid, not knowing how anything works, but the girl (Luna, he thinks) is patient and kind, and teaches him how to add a discount three times after he fucks it up.

Honestly, he feels a little bad. The schedule on the wall behind them says she’s supposed to be spending this shift with the puppies, and she’s stuck behind the counter with him. So he tells her he thinks he’s got it, and she all but lights up, skipping off before he can say another word.

It’s a little overwhelming at first, doing everything on his own with no help, but he manages with only a mild bubble of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Usually it rises to his throat over time, but today, it never does. His mouth is a little dry, but that’s because he’s been talking to all these customers with no water to drink. His hands are a little shaky, but he hasn’t dropped anything yet. He’s sweating a little, but it’s this damn turtleneck.

He’s fine, really. He’s not quite sure what he was so worried about.

There’s a bit of downtime about two hours into his shift - if he can call it that, since technically the job isn’t his yet. He’s leaning up against the counter with his chin resting in his hand when Chifuyu comes downstairs again, eyes crossed to look up at his bangs as he tries to fix them. His hair’s a bit of a mess, in the same way it is when Kazutora catches him sleeping at the kitchen island in the middle of the night.

“Sleeping on the job, boss?” He laughs, and Chifuyu fixes him with a tired look and a pout that could bring down a nation. “I did tell you to go to bed.”

“I did go to bed.” Chifuyu shimmies behind the counter and opens one of the cupboards, popping a squat and digging through it. “I wasn’t asleep, anyway, just--just resting my eyes.”

“Sure, I buy that, definitely.” Chifuyu glares at him from the floor, and Kazutora snickers into his hand. “You looking for something?”

Chifuyu huffs and nods before standing up straight. No luck, whatever it is. He rubs his eyes with his palms and blinks a few times, and before Kazutora can stop himself he’s stepping closer, reaching out and fixing his bangs for him, smoothing out the stray hairs so he looks a little less like he just woke up.

He continues carding his fingers through Chifuyu’s hair, detangling some nasty knots when he finds them, and Chifuyu doesn’t stop him. In fact, his eyes are closed, and he’s sort of leaning into Kazutora’s hand every time his palm brushes his cheek.

Chifuyu blinks himself awake after a moment and Kazutora pulls his hands away, going back to fiddling with his sleeves. “Are you doing okay?” He asks, looking around, probably for Luna.

“I’m okay, it’s just… a lot.” Chifuyu nods, humming in understanding. “You’re busy, go look for your thing.”

“Ah, it’s not that important, it’s fine.”

Kazutora narrows his eyes. He was searching with some urgency, it has to be at least a little important.

“I’m fine on my own, Chifuyu.”

“You always pick your sleeves when you’re nervous.” His hands pause and he looks down. Huh. He guesses he does do that. He got used to having jumpsuit sleeves that were too long for him, and on nights where he couldn’t sleep, he found a strange comfort in fiddling with them. “I’m not leaving you if you’re anxious.”

“I’m not incompetent, Chifuyu.” His tone is meaner than he intends for it to be, and Chifuyu’s eyes blow a little wider at the bite behind his words. He clears his throat and looks away, fingers finding his sleeve again, swallowing down the guilt clawing its way up his throat. “Sorry, I--sorry. You’re just trying to help, I shouldn’t snap.”

Chifuyu shakes his head, and steps closer to pat him on the back. His hand lingers for a moment, warm and gentle. “I don’t think you’re incompetent, you’re just learning and I want to make you feel comfortable here. If I’m being overbearing, I’ll back off.”

He was… not expecting such a calm response. He’d braced himself for an equally snarky reply, or for a raised voice, especially when he raised his hand to touch him, but nothing of the sort came. It’s… refreshing. Nothing is how he’s used to, anymore, but maybe that’s a good thing - even if he doesn’t quite know how to fit himself into it yet.

“I’ll be around somewhere if you need anything, okay?” Chifuyu squeezes his arm before he leaves, smiling softly. He looks a little less dead with his hair fixed. “Yell for me if it’s busy, I’ll come help.”

And with that, he’s left alone again as Chifuyu sticks his hands in his pockets and walks away, humming the song playing over the speakers.

Chifuyu really needs to fix his sleep schedule. He swears he’s starting to see things from sleep deprivation, because there’s a dark figure standing on his balcony.

It’s two in the morning and he woke up in a daze, having tried to go to bed at the same time as Kazutora for once, but of course it didn’t work. He’s had maybe five hours of restless sleep which culminated in him groaning and getting back up to go to the bathroom, but he’s gotten sidetracked because as he opened the door, this… figure caught his eye.

He considers the fact that it might just be Kazutora, but for as long as they’ve been living together - almost a month now - the man has never been awake past ten. He asked, not long ago, and Kazutora said it was just a prison habit - in bed by nine for lights out, asleep by ten when the wardens patrolled, awake at seven sharp when the bells rang. The man doesn’t even need an alarm to wake up for work in the morning. Chifuyu’s a little jealous.

So there’s a guy on his balcony, and Chifuyu’s shivering in his boxers, frozen outside the bathroom door in the dark. He can barely even see his own feet but the light of the man’s cigarette gives him away, as does the smell. In theory, Kazutora is also a smoker, but Chifuyu has never seen him do it - not here, not at work, nowhere. Chifuyu thinks about calling out to the guy, but on the chance that it’s not Kazutora, that would probably be a bad idea.

So he does the next best thing, and sneaks up on him.

Kazutora damn near throws himself off the balcony when Chifuyu reaches out and touches his arm, yelping like a puppy whose tail has just been stood on and dropping his cigarette in the process. Chifuyu jumps, too, snatching his hand back like he’s been burned and taking a few hasty steps back. Kazutora trips on the chair behind him and flails for a comically long second before he clatters to the floor, landing right on his tailbone and sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth.

The next best thing. Right.

“Are you okay?” Stupid question, and Kazutora glares at him from the floor. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, yeah, ‘cuz sneaking up on a guy from behind in the dark is the least scary thing you could’ve done.”

Kazutora eyes him for a moment, then lowers his gaze to his put-out cigarette, limp on the floor between his legs. Even in the dim light, Chifuyu can see he looks genuinely distressed - perhaps he only smokes when he’s stressed? It would make sense, considering it’s two in the morning and as far as Chifuyu knows, he hasn’t been up at this time since at least before he was released.

Chifuyu swallows, extending a hand for Kazutora to pull himself up with. “I couldn’t see properly and thought maybe you were someone else since you’re always asleep right now.”

Once on his feet, Kazutora picks the cigarette up and discards it in an ashtray Chifuyu didn’t know they had. He sighs and blinks a few times, the same thing Chifuyu does when he’s about to fall asleep, before resting on his forearms against the railing, looking down at the city below them. Chifuyu takes the spot beside him, not too close but close enough to share some of Kazutora’s warmth.

“... Why are you naked?”

Chifuyu looks down. Ah. “Just woke up. I sleep like this, so.”

“You didn’t think to put clothes on before you snuck up on a potential intruder?”

Chifuyu pointedly does not reply. He knows it was stupid, he doesn’t have to rub salt in the very fresh wound. He’s in the middle of not looking at Kazutora and cracking his knuckles to distract from how very naked and cold he is when a piece of fabric hits him square in the face and falls right into his arms, almost slipping over the railing and falling to the street below.

When he looks over, Kazutora has taken off his very warm, freshly-bought hoodie and tossed it to him, crossing his arms to try and retain its heat.

“Put that on,” he says, and as a car breezes past below them, its headlights illuminate a soft smile. “Stay for a while? I can’t sleep.”

He slips the hoodie over his head. It’s so fucking warm, he feels like he’s melting, and it smells - it smells like smoke, mostly, but there’s also a hint of the sweet laundry detergent Kazutora bought for himself two days ago, after his first paycheck came in. Kazutora’s a little taller than him and he likes his clothes oversized, so the hoodie falls to his mid-thigh and keeps his ass warm, too. He must look ridiculous, drowning in someone else’s hoodie, but he finds he doesn’t care.

“Mind if I light another one up?” Kazutora asks, but he’s already pulling one out of the pack and flicking his lighter. “Since you so rudely put out my last one.”

Chifuyu glares sideways. His head is buried in the sleeves of Kazutora’s hoodie, so he can’t really meet his eyes that well, but he hopes he gets the message across. “I’m sorry, Jesus.”

There’s silence then, only a little awkward, but Chifuyu feels like he should fill it anyways. He’s always been like that, it’s one of the things about him that’s never changed - he can’t fucking stand this kind of silence. When they were younger he’d talk his head off just so he wouldn’t have to hear it.

“So… you said you couldn’t sleep?” He asks, and when Kazutora nods, he blows a cloud of smoke out of his mouth. These cigarettes don’t smell as bad as the ones he’s used to smelling. “You have a nightmare or something?”

It’s barely there, and it dissipates so fast that Chifuyu almost misses it, but Kazutora’s body tenses up completely at his words.

“Um, yeah.” He flicks the ash from his cigarette and leans forward again. “I have them a lot, but they aren’t usually bad enough to wake me up anymore. Just… wasn’t a good dream.”

Chifuyu eyes him for a moment. His eyes are a little vacant, like he’s on autopilot as he takes another drag, staring at something below them. He follows his gaze and finds nothing in particular at the end of it, and when he looks back, Kazutora breathes a sigh.

“I don’t really wanna talk about it, if you’re gonna ask.” Busted. Chifuyu nods and stands up a little straighter. “Just wanted some company. I don’t mind if you wanna go back to bed.”

Honestly, Chifuyu would love to. He wants absolutely nothing more than to slip back into bed with this stupidly comfortable hoodie on and fall asleep breathing in the smell of smoke and strawberries. But there’s this look in Kazutora’s eyes - this empty gaze, glassed over and unseeing - that pulls desperately at his heart strings, opposing Kazutora’s words and begging him not to leave.

So he doesn’t.

Kazutora puts his cigarette out after a few long, tense moments. Perhaps they’re only tense to Chifuyu, because he’s trying to come up with something to say that isn’t pushy or pointless - a healthy middle, something that lets Kazutora know that he’s here, but only if Kazutora needs him.

He doesn’t have to figure it out, though, because Kazutora does it for him.

“Hey, uh…” he starts, trailing off briefly before finding his confidence again, turning his body to face Chifuyu fully. “Do you think - I mean, uh, could you… can I get a hug?”

“Huh?” Surprised, Chifuyu stands up straight and cocks his head to the side. They’ve only ever hugged once, back when Kazutora first moved in, and it was a little awkward on Chifuyu’s end with Kazutora crying into his shirt. He was stiff and hardly even really hugging him, to be honest, he just sort of wrapped his arms around Kazutora and hoped for the best - so it’s a surprise that Kazutora would willingly put himself through that again.

“Never--nevermind. I’m sorry. I’ll just--just go back to bed--!”

“No - wait, Kazutora.” He grabs Kazutora’s wrist as he tries to rush back into the apartment and pulls him back outside with a little too much force, making him trip over his own feet and stumble forward into Chifuyu. Under his thumb, Chifuyu can feel Kazutora’s pulse thumping in his wrist.

“Sorry,” Chifuyu says, “I was just surprised. C’mere.”

He watches Kazutora’s throat bob as he drops his wrist and opens his arms, allowing him to step into them and take the lead this time. He feels Kazutora’s own arms hesitantly snake around his waist, his chin coming to rest in the crook of Chifuyu’s neck. He’s leaning down a little too much, so Chifuyu meets him halfway and stands up on his toes so he doesn’t have to strain his neck so bad to rest his head. The man in his arms sighs, hot air brushing over Chifuyu’s ear and turning his cheeks an embarrassing shade of pink.

“Thank you,” Kazutora whispers, and Chifuyu feels his eyelashes brush against his skin as his eyes close. It tickles. Everything tickles. Kazutora’s arms are too tight around his waist and his hands are twisted in the fabric of his hoodie, and his long hair is itching Chifuyu’s face.

But he doesn’t move. He wouldn’t dare.

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

He’s warm. Kazutora runs hot, Chifuyu’s noticed. Even out here, at two in the morning, in winter, Kazutora’s warmth shakes him to his core. If he thought wearing his damn hoodie was nice, this is off the charts. It doesn’t help that Kazutora’s fucking crushing his ribs in this hug, not letting him escape even if he wanted to - though he supposes he would probably let go if Chifuyu tried to wiggle out of it.

(He doesn’t really want to, though. It’s nice, like this. Perhaps Chifuyu needed this a little bit, too.)

They stand like that for a while, quiet save for the sound of Kazutora’s breathing (Chifuyu is pointedly trying not to breathe, because without his hoodie, Kazutora smells way too fucking good for his sleep-deprived brain to comprehend) and cars passing underneath them. Every so often, headlights will illuminate the window behind Kazutora and give Chifuyu a flash of their reflection. He looks fucking stupid, dressed in clothes that clearly aren’t his in the arms of a guy too tall for him, but it’s… nice. The kind of thing he’s read in his shoujo manga, sometimes.

That’s - that’s a weird thing to think, about his own reflection, about Kazutora. Maybe he’s just that tired.

(Maybe he’s just that lonely.)

“...‘Tora?” He mumbles, muffled in Kazutora’s shirt. He’s starting to shiver again, even through the shield Kazutora’s warmth provides. It seems Kazutora didn’t hear, so he clears his throat and lifts his head a little. “Kazutora. Can we go inside?”

“One more minute,” is the reply, accompanied by Kazutora’s hold getting tighter. “Don’t wanna let go yet. Please.”

“You don’t have to, just - let’s go sit inside so we don’t freeze, yeah?”

A moment passes with no reply, but eventually Kazutora lets his arms fall and lifts his head, nodding in response. God, he looks exhausted. Whatever his nightmare was about must have been worse than Chifuyu thought. He has his own ideas as to what it could have been, but he’s not sure he would like the answer if he asked - so he can wait.

Kazutora sticks close to his side as they head to the lounge, Chifuyu locking the balcony door behind them. It’s warm in the apartment, and the feeling in his legs is returning already. They take seats on the couch, Kazutora tossing his own jacket out of the way so he can sit right at Chifuyu’s side.

“Sorry if I, uh, made you uncomfortable,” Kazutora says after a second of silence. Despite how close he’s sitting, he’s making a point of keeping his hands to himself, held firmly in his lap as he stares down at his feet. “Just… my dream, it was about you.”

Chifuyu’s heart stops in his chest completely. That’s so far from what he was expecting it might as well be on a different map entirely. He was expecting Baji, or something that happened in prison, not - not himself.

Has he done something wrong? He can’t think of anything, but maybe he just can’t see it. He doesn’t think he’s done anything nightmare-worthy, though, especially not something so bad it’d wake Kazutora up from his strict sleeping schedule. He shuffles closer and nudges Kazutora’s arm gently, but even a touch as soft as that is enough to startle him right now; he jumps a little and rears back momentarily before visibly relaxing and letting Chifuyu into his space again.

“I wasn’t uncomfortable,” he explains, “and don’t apologise for needing a hug, dude. But, uh, do you mind if I ask about your dream?”

Kazutora swallows. “It’s - it’s stupid. I don’t even know what it meant or what was even happening. But it just felt so real, y’know? Like I was watching an alternate universe or something, I don’t know. Ignore me.”

“Nuh uh.” He feels like a toddler saying that, but it makes Kazutora smile a little, so it’s worth it. “It’s not stupid if it’s got you this shaken up. You can talk to me about it, y’know. If you want to.”

They share a brief look before Kazutora gives in. He’s flexing his fingers, wringing his hands, and Chifuyu guesses it’s because he doesn’t have any sleeves to fiddle with, since he’s stolen his hoodie.

“I don’t remember much of it at all.” His voice is shaking, and Chifuyu notices his eyes are glassed over again - this time with tears. “But I remember that someone - someone shot you. Right there, in front of me, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

Shot him? He remembers Takemichi telling him about a future like this, back then. Surely Kazutora hadn’t seen that shit in a dream?

“That part felt the realest, I think. The rest felt more dream-like. But you were just fuckin’ lying there and when I looked down--!” He stops abruptly, voice catching in his throat, and he leans over to press his palms into his eyes. Chifuyu throws an arm around his shoulders and the other melts into his touch, letting out a heartbreaking sob.

“I looked down, and your blood was - it was all over my fuckin’ hands. And I was holding the gun, for some reason, and there were all these voices telling me I did it, I-I killed you.” He pauses again and looks up, frantic, meeting Chifuyu’s eyes with wide, tear-filled ones, tracks streaming down his cheeks. “But I didn’t! I didn’t kill you, I saw them do it. I-I wouldn’t - couldn’t hurt you. You have to believe me.”

He’s wringing his hands together so violently it looks like it hurts, almost hyperventilating, pleading for Chifuyu to believe that he didn’t kill him in his own dream. Chifuyu grabs his hands and curls them into fists, squeezing tight to try and ground Kazutora a little bit, to pull him out of whatever hole he’s dug his mind into. It works, if only a little, because his breathing evens out a bit and he stops choking on air, still breathing hard but not quite so dangerously.

“I believe you, Kazutora.” The relief that washes over Kazutora’s face plummets Chifuyu’s heart into his stomach. “You were dreaming, it wasn’t real, no matter how real it felt. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“How can you know that?” He replies, but his heart doesn’t sound like it’s in it. “I’ve hurt you before, haven’t I? How can you just - forget that?”

“I haven’t.” Kazutora freezes, though his hands still shake under Chifuyu’s. He takes hold of the other’s wrist again, feeling for his pulse - it’s racing. “Forgiving isn’t the same as forgetting, y’know. I know what you’ve done, and I’ve forgiven you despite it.”

He forgave him for Baji, at first. He’ll never tell Kazutora, but when he first decided to forgive him, he didn’t think he ever really could. He only tried because Baji asked him to. But it’s been ten years, and as he told Kazutora - ten years is a long time to hold all that anger inside you, even for something as crushing as what Kazutora did. Perhaps a part of him is still holding on to what Baji said, but his forgiveness doesn’t come from that, anymore. It comes from his own desire to help Kazutora, even if he’s not really sure how to do it.

“You wouldn’t hurt me because that isn’t who you are.” Kazutora sniffs and forces his eyes away, instead watching their hands. “It wasn’t who you were back then, either, I think. But we were kids, and you clearly had some untreated mental issues--” (that makes the other snort and say no shit under his breath) “--so I can’t blame you. I used to wish I could, but I can’t. I don’t.”

Kazutora sniffles. It’s nearing three, Chifuyu thinks, and they should really be heading to bed since they’re both working the morning shift, but he can’t bring himself to leave him alone like this. He owns the damn shop anyway, no one can say shit if he calls them both out for a day to recover from this.

“Come here?” He whispers after a brief moment of deliberation, letting go of Kazutora’s hands and opening his arms again. “You look like you need another hug, dude.”

Kazutora eyes him for a second before his eyes move downwards, to Chifuyu’s thighs. “Can you put pants on first?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, hang on.” He gets up and leaves Kazutora on the couch snickering softly to himself. “You didn’t seem to mind ten minutes ago, but whatever makes you feel better!” He calls from his bedroom when he hears Kazutora still laughing.

He comes back with pants and without Kazutora’s hoodie, replaced by a pajama shirt. He didn’t really want to take it off, but he knows Kazutora likes the safety of his long sleeves, so when he comes back into the lounge he throws it at the other before sinking back into the couch.

“You didn’t have to give it back,” Kazutora sulks, but he’s pulling it back over his head anyway. “It looked nice on you.”

“You sure that’s not just ‘cuz I had no pants on?”

“Shut up.”

If Chifuyu wasn’t so tired, he’d probably tease Kazutora for the rising flush on his cheeks, but he doesn’t have the energy.

Kazutora thinks he’s adjusted pretty well to working at the pet shop, considering he’s only been there a few weeks. He knows where most things are now, as well as how to work the register, and he’s even sold a puppy on his own, despite having a very minor freak-out about forgetting how to do some of the paperwork. Chifuyu’s been coming in most days to watch him, but as of late he’s started going back to his regular schedule - which, granted, isn’t that much less busy, but at least he’s resting sometimes.

Today is one of those days where Kazutora and Luna are manning the store alone. It’s a breezy December Wednesday, and it’s getting closer and closer to Christmas so there’s been plenty of families looking to get a puppy or kitten for their children. In his training, Kazutora’s been advised to not let that happen, since statistics apparently show that most of the poor animals end up in shelters by the end of January, so most of his day has been spent over by the animals warning parents not to do something they might regret.

Around noon he goes to take his break, heading out to the alley behind the store to smoke. He brings the cigarette to his lips and lights it up, leaning up against the brick wall behind the dumpsters, just beyond the staff door. Luna has been complaining about the smell again, so he makes sure to close the door almost all the way this time.

He sort of hates having to smoke out here, especially when he’s on a late shift. Those times, he usually just waits until Chifuyu picks him up and smokes on the balcony, or if he’s not busy, asks him to stand outside.

Today he wishes Chifuyu was here to do that, because when he’s putting out his cigarette to go eat his lunch, someone sneaks up on him.

He doesn’t fall on his ass again, because it’s light out and he can see the guy’s face, but he does jump a foot in the air and scramble backwards, still-lit cigarette held out in front of him as if to threaten the guy. But when the face finally registers in his mind, he freezes, lowering his hand and taking the sight in properly.

“... Mitsuya?”

The man in question just smiles at him, hands stuffed in his pockets, like he didn’t just give Kazutora the fright of his life.

“Is - is everything okay?” He continues putting out his cigarette. “Does Luna need to go home or something? I can cover her if she needs it.”

“No, nothing like that.” God, he sounds just how Kazutora remembers. His voice is soft and smooth, even and calm, so far from the very thinly veiled panic in Kazutora’s own. “I’m here to see you, actually. Chifuyu told me you were working today.”

Mitsuya eyes him for another moment before glancing around them, like he’s looking for someone, before nodding his head in the direction of the staff door. Kazutora thankfully gets the hint the first time and follows him inside - even though he isn’t sure Mitsuya is even allowed back here. He supposes it’s okay, since he’s a friend of the owner and Luna’s brother, and he seems to have his own coat-peg near the entrance.

They take seats on the couch, with Kazutora leaving a good amount of space between them. It’s not the same as with Chifuyu, not nearly as comfortable, but it’s to be expected. He has been actively avoiding seeing everyone for the last month, after all.

“Did you want to talk about something?” He asks, and he gets a soft hum in reply as Mitsuya stretches and tosses an arm over the back of the couch.

“It’s Chifuyu’s birthday soon,” he starts, and a pang of strange guilt thrums in Kazutora’s veins. He should have known that by now, right? Chifuyu knows his, it’s marked in their calendar. “We’re all going to a bar for a surprise party kinda thing. I’m here to invite you.”

That’s… controversial. “Me?”

“No, the guy behind you. Yes, you, dumbass.” Mitsuya rolls his eyes but even after all this time, Kazutora can tell he’s just teasing. His voice gets this playful lilt to it, and the corner of his mouth rises into a gentle smirk. “It’s not really optional, to be honest, you’re either there voluntarily or we’ll drag you there by the collar.”

How pleasant. He tugs at the collar of his turtleneck and swallows. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be there - no, he’s wanted to see his old friends again for some time now - but it’s been hard enough to find something solid with Chifuyu on his own, nevermind the rest of the group. And it’ll be harder with them, too, because he and Chifuyu, for all their terrible history, don’t actually have that much of it; he’s had pretty much a blank slate with Chifuyu, but it’ll never be the same with the others.

“We rented a room at a place in Shinjuku already,” Mitsuya continues. Kazutora tugs at his sleeves and rolls the fabric between his fingers, hyper-aware of the other’s eyes watching his hands. “Give me your phone number and I’ll text you the address. We’re counting on you to get Chifuyu there for seven.”

This would all be very helpful information, if Kazutora knew when Chifuyu’s birthday was.

“Which, um, which day?”

Mitsuya gives him a look of vague alarm and pauses in pulling his phone from his back pocket. “It’s the nineteenth. Did he not tell you?”

He doesn’t think so. Actually, now that he thinks about it - how does Chifuyu know Kazutora’s birthday to mark it in his calendar, but he doesn’t mark his own? The only dates marked for December are Christmas and New Years’ - there’s nothing down for the nineteenth.

Does Chifuyu not celebrate his birthday?

“He’s never mentioned it, but I-I’ve never asked, so.” He puts his number into Mitsuya’s phone and texts himself, glancing at his home screen. It’s a group picture of all the guys together - looks like it was taken recently, because Mitsuya’s hair is only a tiny bit shorter in it.

(He pretends not to feel that tightness in his chest when he looks at Mikey.)

“To be fair, I don’t think we’ve ever celebrated his all together like this,” Mitsuya muses. He taps a few things on his phone after Kazutora hands it back before switching it off and shoving it in his pocket. “We only see him for a few minutes before he goes off somewhere else. That’s why we’re doing this surprise this year.”

That’s a lot of responsibility to place on Kazutora. Now he’s stressed not only by how stiflingly awkward this entire exchange has felt, but by the weight of this task on his shoulders. Realistically, he knows it shouldn’t be too hard - he’ll ask Chifuyu about going somewhere on Saturday, maybe without mentioning his birthday, and drag him to the restaurant or bar or whatever, hopefully giving him a nice surprise.

But there is a part of him that tells him this is a bad, bad idea. There’s probably a reason he doesn’t celebrate his birthday. Mitsuya says he always goes off on his own somewhere, didn’t he? It’s probably something important to him, something he only likes to do alone. Kazutora isn’t sure he’d like to be dragged away from it, even if he’s not completely sure what it is.

(He has his ideas. All of them make his stomach churn. He hasn’t been there once after getting out, and he isn’t sure he could go, even now.)

Despite the turmoil going on in his mind, Kazutora agrees anyway. If it’s what he thinks it is, he thinks it might be good for Chifuyu to get out and see everyone. Maybe make some… happier memories. And it’d make Kazutora feel just that little bit better if he was to help make those memories, too.

So he tells Mitsuya that they’ll be there as he sees him off, waving awkwardly from the staff room’s indoor entrance as he quickly says hello to his sister before dashing out of the store with his phone to his ear.

Even from across the store, Kazutora can hear his own name on Mitsuya’s lips.

Chifuyu has a routine.

He wouldn’t claim that it’s a good one, per se. It’s just a routine. If he doesn’t do it on his birthday, it feels a little incomplete. For years he’s shut down all the plans his friends have tried to make to celebrate in favour of doing his own thing, and while he knows he’d probably feel better if he went out and had fun, he can never bring himself to do it.

Until now, apparently.

“Hey, Chifuyu?”

“Mm?” He’s only half-listening, scribbling down order numbers in his notebook at the kitchen island. Kazutora rounds it and slips into the seat beside him, eyeing him for a second before plucking the pen directly out of his hand, forcing him to look up.

“What was that for?”

“I have a question, and you can’t listen properly when you’re writing, and if I let you keep going then you’ll forget and I’ll never get to ask.”

That… is true, as much as Chifuyu doesn’t want to admit it. He pouts and makes a half-assed grab for his pen, but Kazutora’s height lets him hold it just beyond his reach, with a teasing look on his face.

“Fine. Ask your damn question.”

“This Saturday, are you doing anything?” Chifuyu’s heart damn near stops. He never told Kazutora his birthday for a reason. “Luna recommended this restaurant, see, and I wanna go but…”

He looks down at his hands. He’s playing with the sleeves of his hoodie again, and Chifuyu can see how the elastic has become a little frayed from how much he’s been doing it.

“You’re scared to go alone?” He fills in the blank, and Kazutora grips his hoodie that much tighter.

“Not scared, just… anxious. I haven’t been to a restaurant in ten years, I need someone to teach me the etiquette.”

He considers this, turns it over in his mind over and over again for thirty minutes after he tells Kazutora he’d check his schedule and finally gets his pen back. He can’t keep working while he’s thinking about it - he just needs to look like he is, so Kazutora will stop poking his head in every three minutes to see what he’s doing.

(At least he’s gotten better when it comes to interrupting Chifuyu when he needs things.)

On one hand, he’s here to help Kazutora. He promised not only himself, but the guys and Kazutora that he’d try his best to help him adjust to life outside prison, since it was a life so drastically different from the one he knew that it was practically unrecognisable. He told himself he would help Kazutora find his place again, not just for him but for himself, too, so that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach about what Kazutora has done - could do - could finally be put to rest completely.

But he needs his routine, damn it. It doesn’t feel right to spend it any other way, even after all this time.

(Even when no one’s talking back.)

So he puts his pen down, sticks his head into the lounge, and says, “I’m free in the evening, if you want to book a table or something.”

Kazutora’s nose is stuck in a book, but Chifuyu can tell he isn’t really reading from the way his head instantly shoots up. “Really?”

“Sure.” He throws himself over the couch, no longer bothered about finishing tonight’s work, even though it’ll probably eat his brain up for the next few hours. He’ll be up late tonight, anyway. Might as well spend a little bit of time pretending. “I’m busy during the day but I can clear my evening.”

It just means he’ll have to speedrun the visit and cancel the dinner. It’s fine, he can do that. He’ll call tomorrow and get everything sorted out.

When his birthday eventually rolls around - only two days later, unfortunately - he leaves before Kazutora even wakes up for once. It’s the one day of the year he goes to bed and gets up early, it always has been. He thinks it has something to do with the strange sadness he feels, a sadness so deep his bones ache, even though he knows he should be celebrating.

He’s tried before, and it’s never worked.

His routine goes like this: get up and get dressed, in the nicest black suit he owns - tailored to fit him and only him. Brush his teeth, skip breakfast (he’d throw it up on the way if he ate), make his way down to the graveyard. Meet Baji's mother on the way out, offer to stay for thirty minutes more and let her cry on him. Go to the restaurant across the street and order salad and water, because it’s all he can stomach.

Then he’ll see the guys, but only briefly, and only after he washes his face in the restaurant bathroom so he looks at least content, if not happy. They’ll wish him a happy birthday, he’ll say thank you, and then he’ll go back to his mother’s house for dinner and to stay the night.

This year’s additions to his routine include: leaving Kazutora a note telling him he won’t be back until around three; making breakfast but not eating any, so Kazutora doesn’t have to, and telling his mother he’ll be over tomorrow, not today (and in return, he receives an excited text that should make him smile, but it only sours his mood a little further.)

His birthday, more than anything else, is a reminder that claws at the strings of his heart and threatens to tear him in half, most years.

Matsuno Chifuyu will get older, and he’ll keep getting older and moving through life like any person deserves to.

Baji Keisuke will be fourteen for the rest of time. He never turned fifteen like he was supposed to, and he will never turn twenty-five like he was supposed to.

(He feels sick, even though he didn’t eat breakfast.)

He meets Baji’s mother at the grave again and stays for lunch. They don’t talk, not really, they never do. They don’t have much in common anymore, other than their grief. His salad is tasteless and he chokes down two glasses of water just to stop his stomach from turning over. By two he still feels sick but not quite as much - Baji’s mother pulls two nausea tablets out of her purse and passes them over with subtly shaking hands.

By three, he’s walking back to his apartment with tears still wetting his cheeks. The restaurant bathrooms are closed today. How lucky, considering this is the one time he has someone to face for more than five minutes.

When he gets home Kazutora isn’t waiting on the couch, like he expected. Instead - instead.

He’s in the kitchen, covered in flour and pink icing and sprinkles, and there’s a cake cooling on the counter with HAPPY BIRTHDAY FUYU written messily in blue buttercream. His hair is pulled back out of his face and he’s got a dollop of pink on his nose, hands and clothes all dusted with flour, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat over his skin. He’s forgotten to open the window again.

Kazutora wipes his brow in the crook of his elbow then turns around to dust off his hands, jumping half a foot in the air when he sees Chifuyu just standing in the doorway, shoes half off. Oops. Probably should’ve said something. Whatever. He’s seen him now.

“Aw, shit, I didn’t get to put the damn candles in,” Kazutora whines, hastily tearing open a packet of blue birthday candles. He sticks them in the cake with no rhyme or reason, followed by two larger pink ones, a two and a three. “Give me a second. Actually - go out and come back in when I say so. Pretend you didn’t see anything.”

He’s rushing around the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers almost frantically. Chifuyu doesn’t move. He’s - he feels like he can’t, like his legs are rooted in place, one foot in the apartment and one in the genkan. He can’t even take his eyes off Kazutora, not as he slams another drawer, not as he mumbles something self-deprecating and digs through his jean pocket to get his own lighter, not as he lights the candles carefully, one by one.

When Kazutora turns back around with the cake in his hands he gives Chifuyu a flat look, one that says really? And then Chifuyu remembers he asked him to do something, and promptly shoves his shoe back on and spins on his heels, slamming the door shut behind them.

Except he doesn’t open it right away, when Kazutora calls him back. Because he runs a hand down his cheeks and he’s crying, crying in a way he hasn’t since he was thirteen and his best friend was dying in front of him. (It’s sad that he could be talking about two different people, there.) Kazutora calls him again, sounding a little worried, but he can’t fucking stop crying. And there’s no fucking way he’s going to let Kazutora of all people see him cry.

But Kazutora has other plans. There’s a soft clink from inside, then a string of curses and the sound of him stumbling into the wall, then the door opens and he’s there, in all his flour-covered, icing-nosed glory.

“Chifuyu?” He crouches down next to him - when did he sit down? - and folds his knees up under him. He looks panicked, and Chifuyu doesn’t blame him. “Uh - Jesus, um, come inside, yeah? Can you stand?”

He should, but he can’t. He shakes his head and pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his face on them and throwing his arms up over his head.

“Um.” He can hear the panic in Kazutora’s voice. Then there’s hands - arms, really - squirrelling under the joints of his knees and his upper back, and he’s being lifted off the floor with a quiet grunt. Kazutora kicks the apartment door open and doesn’t bother to close it as he carries Chifuyu inside.

Chifuyu’s heart literally feels like it’s in his mouth. Kazutora asks him to kick his shoes off if he can, and it’s a little difficult when every part of his body is shaking, but he manages eventually, Then he’s whisked into his bedroom, Kazutora moving so fast he slips on the hardwood flooring in his socks, almost sending both of them to the ground. It would be funny, if Chifuyu wasn’t choking on his own sobs.

Kazutora puts him down on his bed and rushes back out of the room, coming back a few minutes later without his apron and lacking the frosting-nose. His clothes are still covered in flour, but Chifuyu literally could not care less. The second Kazutora comes back he tugs him by the collar into a bone-crushing hug - on both parts, because the other doesn’t hesitate in squeezing him right back.

They sit like that - Kazutora on his knees in front of Chifuyu, arms locked tight around his neck, a hand in his hair - for an embarrassing amount of time. He’s lucky Kazutora wears black every damn day of his life or there’d be a tear stain bigger than his head on his shoulder. His hands are cramping up from being balled into such tight fists, twisting Kazutora’s sweater this way and that every time his body convulses with a sob.

Kazutora’s whispering - humming, actually, now that he’s focusing on the noise - in his ear, a sweet little tune he’s heard from the other’s earphones from time to time. Chifuyu doesn’t know the lyrics but the noise is enough to focus his mind on. He follows along to the parts he recognises, humming out-of-tune with Kazutora, hiccuping every now and then and losing his voice for a second before he catches up. He feels Kazutora’s arms tighten a bit when he realises what Chifuyu’s doing, and lifts his head a little to hum louder.

By the time they finish the song, Chifuyu’s breathing is (sort of) under control again, though he’s still shaking and there’s still tears dripping down his cheeks. Kazutora tries to pull away but Chifuyu is not having it - he shakes his head vehemently against Kazutora’s shoulder and mumbles no in the back of his throat, keeping his arms secured tight around the other’s waist.

“Okay, okay, I’m not going anywhere,” he chuckles, but it’s a sad, sort of pitying chuckle, accompanied by a pat on the back. “I’ll stay, but I think it would be good for you to change out of that suit into somethin’ more comfy.”

“Probably,” God, his voice is scratchy. His throat kinda hurts, too. “If I let go and change, will you get me some water?”

“Of course.” There’s a moment where both of them are waiting for the other to let go first, but Kazutora does eventually with a soft laugh. “Uh, are you - are you still up for the restaurant later? I can cancel if you’re not up to it?”

Shit, he forgot about that. “No, it’s - I’ll go. Seven, right? I-I’ll be fine by then.”

Kazutora has never looked more sceptical in his life. Chifuyu gets it, when he catches a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror two minutes later; he’s a wreck, face all blotchy and red, eyes puffy, hair dishevelled from Kazutora’s hands running through it. He washes his face with cold water to try and reduce the swelling under his eyes and combs through his hair a few times to bring out the knots, then spends a moment staring at his own reflection.

He will absolutely need makeup to look presentable for tonight. It’s a shame Hina isn’t currently the one pouring him a glass of water, because without her, that will not go very well.

When he goes back to his room, there’s water on his desk, and Kazutora has kindly laid out a comfier outfit. He changes into the sweater and jeans without folding up his suit, instead simply kicking it to a far corner of his room and trying to forget its existence.

(He doesn’t think he’ll ever wear it again. Too many memories.)

Kazutora is on the couch when he emerges. He’s picking his sleeves again, and his knee is bouncing, too, until the floor creaks under Chifuyu’s weight and his head snaps up to look at him. Then he springs out of his seat and follows behind him to sit in the kitchen instead.

Neither of them speak, for a moment. Chifuyu doesn’t want to, but he has a feeling Kazutora just doesn’t know how to start.

He eyes the cake on the counter. The candles seem to have been hastily put out, probably when Kazutora rushed out to get him. Chifuyu then remembers that Kazutora princess-carried him back into the apartment and transitions through each stage of grief at hyper-speed, face twisting into a grimace.

“Is the cake that bad?” Kazutora says, and Chifuyu almost laughs, but it catches in his throat. “You’re looking at it like it personally offended you.”

“Well, for one, it doesn’t say the right name.”

Kazutora’s ears flush a cute pink and his brow twitches. “I made the birthday part too big, forgive me. Haven’t iced a cake before. Haven’t made a cake before.” He leans over and pulls the cake over, digging through the drawer next to his knees for a knife. “I had to use a dairy-free recipe so it honestly probably tastes like shit.”

Chifuyu hums in agreement and watches Kazutora’s hands. He hesitates in handing the knife over for a second too long before deciding he’ll just cut it himself. It’s strange, going from possibly the most visceral panic attack he’s ever had to eating birthday cake with Kazutora.

But it’s better than talking about it. He would, if Kazutora asked - but until then, nothing.

Kazutora hands him the first slice, plucking the candle from it before going to cut his own. It tastes fine, as fine as a dairy-free cake can taste; the sponge is a little stiff, and the frosting hasn’t been whipped all the way, and there’s a little too much sugar in everything, but he can’t blame Kazutora.

(He thinks that might be the problem.)

“Is it good?” Kazutora asks, and Chifuyu hums around his mouthful. The other takes a bite. Chifuyu watches his face go from pleasantly surprised to underwhelmed in a second. “Liar. It’s worse than fuckin’ prison cake.”

Chifuyu swallows. “Never had prison cake but it’s not terrible. I’ll show you how to do it next time.”

A little smile lights up Kazutora’s face. He has pink frosting on his nose again. Chifuyu doesn’t tell him yet.

They only have one slice each, because Chifuyu still feels a little sick, and he doesn’t want to end up sick in the restaurant later. Kazutora covers the cake and carefully lifts it into the fridge before exaggerating his collapse back into his stool.

“‘Tora, you have frosting on your nose.”

Kazutora’s eyes go wide, then cross as he looks at the tip of his nose. He swipes it off with his index finger and licks it off, humming at the sweet taste.

“I keep getting it on my damn nose. I’m useless.” A chuckle follows his words. “Also, ‘Tora’?”

“If I get a nickname, so do you.” Chifuyu does not have a more solid explanation than this, so he just goes with whatever comes to mind first. “If I’m ‘Fuyu, you’re ‘Tora.”

“I told you, I just ran out of space!” He glares, but there’s no real malice in it. “But if you insist.”

Chifuyu snickers into the palm of his hand. He sees Kazutora freeze momentarily before he smiles, small and barely noticeable, and looks away, checking his watch quickly. Chifuyu does the same - it’s almost four somehow. He isn’t sure how close to an hour has passed since he got home, considering they don’t have very much to show for it, but he’s sort of glad for it. The faster they get this restaurant thing over with, the faster they can come home, watch a shit movie on the couch, and fall asleep without acknowledging anything.

(Maybe Kazutora will carry him to bed if he falls asleep during the movie. That would be nice, he thinks.)

“I should warn you,” Kazutora says, startling Chifuyu a little bit, “I may or may not have been pressured into getting you to come to this restaurant by Mitsuya.”

Ah. That’s probably why Mitsuya asked where he could find Kazutora to talk last week.

“Pressured?”

“He threatened to drag me there by the collar if I said no.” He probably would have, being fair to Kazutora. Mitsuya’s good at convincing people, and Kazutora isn’t the hardest person to convince anymore, being such a people pleaser. “It’s supposed to be a surprise party but I-I’m not sure that’s the best idea for you right now, so maybe just… act surprised?”

He’s not wrong, to be fair. If Chifuyu had walked into that restaurant without knowing beforehand and been greeted by a bunch of people he wasn’t expecting, all yelling at him (in good faith, sure, but still yelling) and drinking and shit, he might have broken down again, and that would have been infinitely worse than breaking down in front of Kazutora on his own.

“I’m great at acting surprised, don’t worry. Takemitchy tried to surprise me for my birthday a few years ago and accidentally told me about it without realising. Still managed to make him think I was none the wiser.”

They’d been sixteen and Takemichi wasn’t the Takemichi he knew - still isn’t, not yet - so he was trying his best to act the part. He can pull those acting skills out once more, just for tonight.

Kazutora is quiet for a while, they both are. He looks like he has something to say but doesn’t know how to say it, opening his mouth a little wider every few seconds before clamping it shut again and adopting this pensive look, eyes far off and unfocused, brow furrowed as if contemplating a particularly confusing puzzle. Typically Chifuyu would tease him, just to give him a little push, but he has a feeling he knows what Kazutora’s trying to say.

So he gets up and tries to leave instead, but that happens to be the push Kazutora needed.

“Wait, ‘Fuyu,” he calls, scurrying after him and grabbing him by the wrist. He can’t meet Chifuyu’s eyes, it seems, but Chifuyu thinks if he did he might start crying again. “I’m not good at the advice thing and I know I’m probably not the person you need but if - if you want to, you can talk at me and I’ll just sit quietly and listen.”

Oh. That’s… not exactly what he was expecting. He’s used to Mitsuya’s expert prying, or Mikey’s method of simply annoying you into talking, or Draken’s seemingly perfect advice. Not… whatever that is.

But it sounds nice, at least. He doesn’t think any advice the others could give would ever work, not for this, but having someone to tell everything to, someone who knows. That could.

“Later, maybe.” He gives Kazutora the realest smile he can. It’s small and wobbly - his eyes are watering again, and they kind of sting - but it’s real. “Thank you, ‘Tora. You’re… exactly the person I need.”

The grin Kazutora gives him in return makes his heart stutter.

Having not been in a restaurant for so long, Kazutora is a little bit terrified.

In the groupchat Mitsuya added him to, he was sent a list of instructions - directions to the restaurant, what to say to get to their table, et cetera. Apparently they’ve booked the biggest room they have for the whole group; there’s fifteen of them in total, which is a terrifying prospect, considering how badly Kazutora handled meeting Mitsuya on his own, and how awkward it’s been in the group chat. It’s even worse with the few he’s never met, since the only impression they have of him is his prison sentence.

He’d thought having a ‘clean slate’ would be easier, since he’s been pretty good with Chifuyu. He was so incredibly wrong.

They take a cab to the restaurant, because Kazutora hasn’t taken his driving test yet and Chifuyu wants to drink tonight, and Kazutora insists on paying for it. If they really were here on their own he’d probably have paid for the meal, too, but he’s been told their food will be covered by someone else. Probably Pah-chin, or Peh-yan since he makes a fair deal of money too, from what he’s heard. (And he’s heard a lot, even in just the two days he’s been in the group chat. They never shut up.)

Inside, Kazutora makes a beeline for the hostess right away, dragging Chifuyu behind him by the wrist. They’ve taken to doing that to each other recently - pulling each other around. The hostess gives them a tired, customer-service smile. Kazutora understands that look more than ever before.

“Welcome! Table for two?”

“Oh, um, our friends should already be here,” he replies, “we have a reservation under Mitsuya?”

She nods and checks over a clipboard, pencil in hand. “Hanemiya-san and Matsuno-san? Right this way.”

They’re led through pretty much the entire restaurant, all the way to the back where a sliding door is opened for them and they’re allowed through on their own. The hostess tells them there’ll be a waiter through soon now that everyone’s arrived before sliding the door shut again, leaving them in the entrance by themselves.

A sign on the wall tells them to remove their shoes and leave them in a cubby. There’s already ten pairs of shoes in it, some of them stored neatly, some of them thrown in hastily. Even though he hasn’t seen any of these people - bar Mitsuya - for ten years, he can still recognise each and every pair of shoes, though he isn’t sure he can connect them to a face just yet.

(Though, if Chifuyu and Mitsuya have shown him anything, the others probably haven’t changed very much either.)

Chifuyu slips out of his shoes easily while Kazutora stumbles out of his. His legs feel a little weak now that he’s actually here; for two days the anxiety has been buried in the back of his mind, the pit of his stomach, as he tried not to think about what might happen. Now he actually has to confront it, without the safety net that is Chifuyu - because the guy’s had a shit day as it is, goddamnit, and it’s his birthday. No way Kazutora’s putting all that on his shoulders today.

But Chifuyu has a sixth sense, it seems, for Kazutora’s anxiety. He always seems to know just when it starts to bubble up a little too far into his throat, when the haze over his thoughts begins to fully set in, and he’s always there with a smile or a hand on his arm to pull him out of it. And he’s still there, even now, even when he’s hurting himself, grabbing Kazutora’s hand - hand, not wrist, Kazutora notes - and squeezing a little too hard, the way he always does.

“You’ll be okay, ‘Tora.” There’s a soothing note to his voice, gentle and kind, wrapping itself around Kazutora’s hand and locking between his fingers. “It’s just us. Have fun, yeah?”

Kazutora swallows. He closes his fingers around the back of Chifuyu’s palm and squeezes, getting a softer one back in response. He doesn’t think he’s ever held hands with someone before, not that he remembers.

(He doesn’t think he wants to let go.)

Then Chifuyu steels his face into neutral, drops his hand - much to Kazutora’s dismay, which he locks in the back of his mind for later - and slides open the door to their room.

They’re met with a wall of cheers, so loud Kazutora thinks his eardrums might burst for a moment, and then Chifuyu is tugged away from him and thrust into the group. There’s a smile on his face that, if they hadn’t spent so much time together, Kazutora might not have noticed anything off about - but he can see through Chifuyu’s act. It’s a damn good one, he’ll give him that.

(Not enough to fool him, though.)

A chorus of happy birthday echoes through the room. He joins in on the song, though he feels a tad bit out of place considering they’re all over there and he’s just… over here. He’s still standing in the entrance, watching the others push and pull Chifuyu every which way, watching Mikey yank him into a headlock and ruffle his hair up beyond saving. He’ll try to fix it later. He carries a comb around for a reason.

It’s awkward only for him, standing around watching everything happen, until a large hand claps on his back and makes him stumble forward. The door is promptly slid shut behind him by Draken, who’s grinning and holding out a glass of something for him to take.

“Yo, Kazutora,” he greets, and suddenly all of the attention is on him. There are people here he doesn’t really recognise - the woman next to Takemichi, the two people next to Mitsuya, and the guy cuddling into Inupi’s side - but they’re all greeting him with smiles wider than their faces can handle. He can feel his face heating up already.

The people he knows take turns hugging him and messing his hair up even more, and the people he doesn’t shake his hand and introduce themselves. Takemichi and Hakkai - Mitsuya’s guy, he learns - already seem a little drunk, so Kazutora doesn’t trust whatever’s in the glass he’s holding, but it’s not like it matters. Half of it is spilled by the time Mikey stands up to come see him. Maybe he should’ve downed it the second he got hold of it. Liquid courage and all.

Mikey hugs him, too, much to his surprise. He’s shorter than Chifuyu and his head rests more comfortably on Kazutora’s shoulder, but it’s a lot stiffer and way more awkward, more than any of the hugs he’s been given today. He doesn’t really know what to do with his arms, but he isn’t given the chance to figure it out as Mikey pulls away, clearing his throat and giving him a satisfied nod.

“Welcome back, Kazutora,” he says, though it sounds rehearsed. It probably is. Their situation isn’t exactly a common one, though Kazutora’s been in it twice now. “We missed you.”

And just like that, he’s pulled into the thick of it by Chifuyu, whose smile looks real, this time.

They sit beside each other, with Inupi and Kokonoi - who also appears to be a little drunk, and is very touchy with Inupi - on Kazutora’s left and Takemichi on Chifuyu’s right. Chifuyu shuffles their cushions a little closer together after a very clearly drunk Takemichi startles snuggling into his side.

The waiter comes around a few minutes later. He’s got a lot of people to go through before he gets to Kazutora, so he takes a moment to actually read the menu. Chifuyu leans into his space and scans it too, both of them holding one side of it up, and when he’s decided he hums and shifts slightly to rest his head on Kazutora’s shoulder.

There is a glaring issue with this menu, however. Kazutora can’t read the text.

“Uh, ‘Fuyu?” He gets a hum in response and he lowers his head to whisper in Chifuyu’s ear. “I can’t read it.”

Chifuyu’s head snaps up. “You can’t read?”

“No, stupid, I can’t - the text is too small.” He gives Chifuyu a glare when the other starts giggling. “You know damn well I can read, asshole.”

Chifuyu doesn’t stop laughing, though Kazutora has to give him credit for trying as he chokes through it, then chokes again on his drink when he starts laughing again halfway through swallowing and Kazutora has to pat his back to help him through it.

“Are you done?” He asks, eventually, when Chifuyu has calmed down a little bit. The waiter is getting closer and he’s still undecided, and it’s making his chest feel tighter with every second that passes. “Help me, for the love of fuck, ‘Fuyu.”

“I mean, they have pretty much anything,” Chifuyu replies, still chuckling. He thumbs through the menu again, then points at an item and brings it a little closer to Kazutora’s face so he can try to read it. “You like tonkatsu, right? What about tonkatsu with curry?”

That sounds like a dream right now. He hasn’t had good tonkatsu since the last time his mom made it for him, and he hasn’t seen his mom since he was fucking fifteen.

The waiter is taking Takemichi’s order now, and he grimaces a little with every slurred word. Hina ends up having to take over for him and Kazutora watches relief flood the waiter’s face as she orders him a tall glass of water, despite Takemichi’s protests that he’s fine.

Suddenly he feels just a little more anxious about his own order, if that was even possible.

“I’ll order for you, ‘Tora.” He grabs Kazutora’s hand and pulls his sleeve out from between his fingers - he hadn’t even noticed he was doing that again. Chifuyu has to be the most observant person he’s ever met. “Don’t worry about it. You want another drink too? Something non-alcoholic?”

“Y-Yeah, uh, just water or tea, maybe.” He hasn’t ever had alcohol before, and judging by Takemichi’s state, he doesn’t want to try it just yet.

When the waiter comes around, Chifuyu lists off his own order - teriyaki tofu, rice, and a glass of whisky - before Kazutora’s. The waiter gives both of them a poorly masked strange look as he writes everything down, moving onto Inupi as fast as he can before Takemichi can reach out and grab his ankles to bring him back and change his order.

“Thank you,” Kazutora whispers, once the waiter is out of earshot. Chifuyu shakes his head and gives his thigh a pat, then pushes into his space again and rests his head on his shoulder, properly this time. His hair tickles Kazutora’s ear and neck. “I’ll, uh, work on that.”

Chifuyu tilts his head enough to let Kazutora catch a glimpse of his face. “Is this your backward way of asking me to take you to more restaurants?”

“I was thinking I would take you, but that works too.” Chifuyu laughs, and the movement of his body moves Kazutora, too.

In the time between ordering and their food arriving, Kazutora is pulled into a few conversations with the people around him - his friends, he wants to call them, but he won’t let himself just yet. If he can make it to the end of the night without fucking anything up, then maybe he will.

He talks to Yuzuha, Hakkai’s sister (and manager, apparently - he’s been told at least 8 times by a drunk Hakkai that he’s a model), about working at the pet shop, specifically about the puppies. Peh-yan and Pah-chin manage to get him to tell the short versions of some things he saw in prison. Not anything he was actually part of, because he wasn’t part of anything there, but little stories he’d watched unfold from the sidelines. They’re… unnaturally interested, it’s a little freaky, but he indulges them anyways.

Draken talks to him about the bike shop, with Inupi chiming in every now and again. The prospect of a bike shop still makes him a little nervous, so when they invite him over to look for one for himself, Chifuyu pipes up and says he’ll come with him. It’s getting ridiculous, at this point, how well Chifuyu knows him and what he needs.

(He wonders if he’ll ever know Chifuyu like that. He wants to, that’s for sure.)

When their food arrives, only moments after Takemichi’s - who’s sobered up remarkably fast for how drunk he was - Kazutora takes his time with it, savouring the taste of a meal with heart in it for the first time in years. The last time he had tonkatsu was in prison and it was a sad, dry mess of pork and rice, tasteless and barely even classed as food with how little care had been put into preparing it. But this - this is good. If he were home, if it were just him and Chifuyu, he might’ve moaned.

He has at least a little bit of class, though, so he doesn’t.

“‘Tora.” He glances to the side and sees Chifuyu, sitting up properly to eat, holding out a piece of teriyaki tofu. “Try it. ‘S good, you’ll like it.”

He tries to take the piece from between Chifuyu’s chopsticks with his own, but he makes a displeased noise in the back of his throat and jerks his hand away. Kazutora cocks his head to the side, brow furrowed, asking a silent question before he realises.

Chifuyu is trying to feed him.

He’s hyper-aware of the pink flush decorating his face as he leans forward and opens his mouth, eyes focused on the chopsticks moving closer. He takes the tofu with his teeth and chews for a moment, humming under his breath and nodding at Chifuyu, who’s watching for his reaction like a hawk.

“You wanna try mine?” He asks after swallowing, getting an enthusiastic nod back, and Chifuyu sits with his mouth open the entire time Kazutora is cutting a piece of pork off the cutlet. As he puts it in Chifuyu’s mouth, a hand under his chin to stop the sauce from dripping and staining his sweater, he glances briefly at Chifuyu’s glass.

He’s had two full glasses by now and is halfway through his third.

That explains this… behavior, and the permanent flush to his cheeks. And the way Mitsuya is staring at them, amused, from across the table.

They end up sharing their dishes with each other, stealing bits and pieces off each other’s plates. Mikey leans all the way over the table to try Kazutora’s pork at one point and he swears he hears Chifuyu hiss at him, but all Mikey does in response is stick out his tongue and put the pork in his mouth.

“Fucking thief,” Chifuyu mutters, and proceeds to steal another piece from Kazutora. Then, as Kazutora opens his mouth to call out his very obvious hypocrisy: “Shhh. No talking. Have more tofu.”

Eventually, once everyone’s had their fill, Mikey gets to talking about ordering dessert. He’s shut up almost immediately by hushed whispers from Draken, and then Kazutora remembers something they talked about in the group chat - Takemichi baked Chifuyu a whole three-tier cake and had it brought to the restaurant so they could all get a piece. He’s been told about Takemichi’s bakery, though he’s never been, so he has high hopes that this cake will be better than the disaster of a cake he made earlier.

And then he remembers he never told Takemichi he’s lactose intolerant, and there’s most certainly dairy in this cake.

When they bring it out, Kazutora can’t deny it looks incredible. For one, he fit all of Chifuyu’s name on the top. Two, there’s a little fondant cat on the second layer, which Chifuyu immediately becomes emotionally attached to and plucks off before he even blows out the candles, setting it down on the dish holding his fork. Three, the detail on each layer is amazing - Kazutora almost feels bad that it’s gonna be eaten.

Hina insists on taking a picture of Chifuyu and his pretty cake before he’s handed a large knife by one of the staff. They cheer as he cuts the first slice for himself, laugh as he almost drops it as he lowers it to his plate, and wait as he tries it before the staff whisk it away to cut it into slices.

When Chifuyu swallows there are literal tears in his eyes. He’s four drinks deep and apparently a very emotional drunk. He turns to Takemichi and claps him so hard on the back he chokes.

“I love you, partner,” he says - cries, really. Then he turns to Kazutora and lays a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, ‘Tora, but this is the best damn cake I’ve ever had. Beats your prison cake by, like, ten miles.”

“I’ve never baked before, cut me some slack, man.” He should be insulted, but he can’t be, not when Chifuyu is smiling like that. “You can have my piece, then.”

Chifuyu frowns then, and Kazutora wishes, for a moment, that he never spoke. “You don’t want it? Ohhhh, wait, dairy.” He rests his fork on his bottom lip and glares at the cake for a second while he thinks. “You wanna order something else? Or we can get something together on the way home?”

“I’ll eat the prison cake when we get back.” Chifuyu snorts and shakes his head, already calling one of the waiters over. Kazutora wants to die, a little bit, when he shouts get this man some daifuku while shaking Kazutora’s fist above his head by the wrist.

But… he’d do anything to keep him smiling like that.

It’s been a few weeks since his birthday, but Chifuyu is still mortified every time he lays eyes upon Kazutora.

He doesn’t remember much past his fourth glass of whisky, but from what Kazutora’s told him, he made a bit of a fool of himself on the way out of the restaurant. He apparently begged Kazutora to hold his hand - though he’s not sure of the validity of this, because Kazutora was giggling while he said it, and he has a habit of laughing when he lies - the entire way home, including when they were standing outside waiting for the cab with all of their friends watching.

(He hasn’t been able to hold eye contact with Kazutora for more than ten seconds since he was informed of this.)

He also, apparently, took Kazutora’s jacket right off his back and slung it around his own shoulders, whining about how he was cold and Kazutora was soooooo warm. There’s video evidence of this one, sent to their new group chat by Hina who was laughing her tipsy ass off in the background, which is even more mortifying. There’s also video evidence of him being piggybacked out of the restaurant and down to the pick-up lane - again by Kazutora, who was just smiling and going along with whatever drunk nonsense Chifuyu was babbling in his ear.

What he does remember, though, is the way Kazutora turned off his alarm for him so he could sleep his inevitable hangover off the next morning, called out of work for him, and left painkillers and hot tea in a thermos on the counter before he left, with a little pink post-it note saying have a nice day off :) stuck to the handle of the cup.

There’s a few snippets of memories from last night, too - Kazutora carrying him to his bedroom again (which is just as embarrassing as the first time it happened), tucking him in after he changed in the bathroom.

And there’s one memory he can’t quite make out, but there’s a part of him that hopes with all his heart it really is a memory, and not just something his drunk brain made up in his sleep. Because he remembers, under the haziness, Kazutora leaning in to kiss his forehead before he went to his room.

This - this is the reason he can’t look Kazutora in the eye today, as they’re strolling down the aisles of a grocery store, Chifuyu pushing their cart with his forearms while Kazutora pulls things they need down off the shelves. He can’t fucking focus because ever since he woke up the morning after and remembered that, he’s been noticing things about Kazutora, things he’s never quite seen before. Or maybe he saw them, but just wasn’t paying enough attention.

But he’s paying attention now.

He’s had to ask Kazutora to repeat himself about thirty times today because whenever he talks, he swipes his tongue over his bottom lip beforehand and it’s driving Chifuyu fucking insane. He does this cute little smile when they find something they need, and an even cuter one when whatever he’s grabbing is the last one on the shelf, turning to Chifuyu and shaking the item gently as if to say ta-da before stacking it among the others in the cart. It’s fucking adorable. Chifuyu is this close to losing his marbles.

He’s noticed just how often Kazutora plays with his sleeves. Either he’s anxious one hundred percent of the time, or it’s developed beyond a nervous habit and has just become part of his personality. He’s also a lip-biter, which is not helping Chifuyu’s case, because all he can think about is if Kazutora’s lips would feel chapped against his own, or worse, how it would feel to put lip balm on for him like that one scene in Yuri on Ice. Or worse still, how it would feel to run his own tongue over Kazutora’s bottom lip.

It’s horrible. He needs to stop.

“Chifuyu.” Kazutora’s voice sounds far away and it pulls Chifuyu out of his stupor. He realises he’s been walking without checking to see if Kazutora was even still there, and he’s not - he’s a ways back, giving him a confused look as he picks up speed to a jog to catch up.

(When he’s confused, he does a little head tilt, like a cat does. Chifuyu wishes he could un-realise things.)

“Are you okay today, dude? You keep spacin’ out and leaving me behind.” Kazutora says it with a chuckle, but there’s real concern in his voice, too. “You can go home if you want, I’ll finish up here.”

“I’m - I’m fine, ‘Tora. Promise.” He is objectively not, but he fancies himself a good actor, so he’ll put those fucking skills to use. “Just distracted, I’m okay. Um - what’s next on the list?”

Kazutora pulls his phone out of his pocket and leans into Chifuyu’s side to show him the list in his notes app. His free arm snakes around Chifuyu’s waist momentarily and he almost chokes on his own spit.

“Oh, hair dye!” Kazutora pushes him by the small of his back and Chifuyu makes a noise of protest in the back of his throat as he’s manhandled towards the hair products at the back of the store. “I added it, like, twenty minutes before we left home ‘cuz I saw this pic of a girl with her bangs bleached on Instagram and I wanna try it.”

Chifuyu lets himself be pushed toward the box dyes, sailing right past all the neon and dark colours right to the home bleach kits. This is something he’s familiar with - he couldn’t count all the nights he spent touching up his own hair on one hand, and he still remembers all the good brands he used to use.

“Just your bangs?” He says, as Kazutora picks up a few different kits, studying the text on the back of them by holding the boxes incredibly close to his face. “You don’t wanna do highlights or something? And are you sure you don’t need glasses?”

“Opticians scare me,” Kazutora replies, as he does every time Chifuyu asks this question, “they shine torches in your eyes, dude. No one wants that. And yes, just my bangs.”

Then he turns to Chifuyu and gives him those fucking eyes. There isn’t even anything that special about them, they’re the typical puppy-dog eyes he’s used to from Takemichi and Mikey, but there’s just something about that look that Chifuyu is so fucking weak to.

“Will you help me? You saw my last dye job. Don’t let me do this to myself.”

“We could just go to Akkun and get it done professionally.”

“But that’s no fun, ‘Fuyu.” He gives Chifuyu a pout, which makes everything exponentially worse, and Chifuyu feels his resolve slipping. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. Do I have to bribe you? Because I will.”

He absolutely does not have to bribe, not if Chifuyu doing this for him will keep that damn smile on his face. So he leans over and takes both kits out of Kazutora’s hands, putting them back and picking up a box of his favourite brand instead, tossing it in the cart with a sigh.

“If you get bleach on the shower curtain I swear to God I will do something unspeakable.”

God, he’s so fucked.

When they get home, after another thirty minutes of wandering around the grocery store and ticking items off (and thirty minutes of Chifuyu wondering what Kazutora’s mouth tastes like), they put everything away in the pantry before heading to Kazutora’s room. He hasn’t been in here much, but he’s the only one with a desk and he doesn’t mind getting bleach on his stuff since no one else comes in here anyways.

He’s a little distracted by Kazutora’s… strange choice of decor, to be honest. Maybe this isn’t the best place after all. His bed used to have soft black linen on it, but it’s been replaced by an eyesore of tiger print, as have his curtains and the pillowcases. It’s legitimately awful but somehow charming?

(Chifuyu really is fucked if he somehow thinks this disaster of a room is charming. Mitsuya would probably puke on sight.)

Kazutora takes his hoodie off, leaving him in a black t-shirt as he slings it over the end of his bed before collapsing into his desk chair, which Chifuyu has so kindly pulled out and positioned in the middle of the floor so he can work around him without banging his limbs on furniture. Chifuyu pretends not to look at his arms, but he doesn’t get very far.

“So what do we do?” Kazutora asks, tipping the chair to lean over and grab the kit box. Chifuyu’s already started mixing the lightener and developer, and there isn’t much else to do outside of that.

“Put that towel around your shoulders so I don’t bleach your neck.” Chifuyu hasn’t bleached his hair since he was a teenager, so he doesn’t have the gown he used to wear anymore. A towel will have to do, and he’ll just have to be extra careful. Kazutora drapes it over his shoulders and holds it together in the front with one hand.

Once the bleach is thoroughly mixed, Chifuyu sets it down and rolls up his sleeves, plucking a hair tie from Kazutora’s growing collection as well as his comb from his desk before walking over. Kazutora glances up at him with wide eyes, doing that stupid little head tilt again. Chifuyu’s going to lose it.

“I’m gonna separate your bangs from the rest of your hair and tie it out of the way so I don’t fuck it up,” he explains, and Kazutora makes a little oh sound before nodding, straightening his head and closing his eyes. His hair is smooth and knotless when Chifuyu cards his fingers through it, and he’s very glad Kazutora decided to close his eyes for this because if he hadn’t, he’d definitely have seen how pink Chifuyu’s ears and cheeks have gone.

He combs Kazutora’s bangs out and parts them in the middle, tying the rest of his long hair back in a tight bun before neatening the part. His hair is thicker than Chifuyu expected, and far healthier, too, considering the terror that was his last dye job - but he supposes Kazutora’s had ten years to fix it.

“I’m gonna do it in two layers, I think,” he voices, and Kazutora hums quietly in response. Chifuyu grabs two hair clips from the desk and tries to pin back the top layers of his bangs as evenly as he can. He has to pause for a second when he steps away to get the bleach because Kazutora looks way too fucking cute with those little butterfly clips in his hair. He didn’t even realise those were the ones he picked up at first, but he’s damn glad he did now. It’s fucking adorable.

(He wants to take a picture. He’s in deep, goddamnit.)

Painting the bleach onto the bottom layer appears to scare Kazutora a little - understandably, because the chemical is fairly close to his eyes, so Chifuyu gently reminds him to keep them shut and tries his best to keep the brush away from his face. Still, he flinches a little every time he feels the bleach near his roots, and Chifuyu mumbles either sorry or it’s okay under his breath. He knows all too well the slight burn of bleach on the scalp.

He combs through the layer to get a more even application before carefully unclipping the top layer and working through it a little faster, nudging Kazutora’s knees open a little wider so he can stand closer and see what he’s doing better. There’s bleach all over his gloves because he’s not being particularly careful with himself, not the way he is with Kazutora; he’d be surprised if he didn’t somehow bleach his shirt sleeves by the end of this. It’s worth it, though, because he already has an image of the finished product in his mind, and it’s damn pretty.

He isn’t really sure if the shower cap will help since they aren’t bleaching all of his hair, but he puts it on Kazutora anyways, snapping the elastic against his forehead. “You can open your eyes now.”

Kazutora blinks and looks up, as if he can see the shower cap. “How long do I have to wear this?”

“Box says thirty-five minutes.” Chifuyu pulls off his gloves inside-out and flexes his fingers, discarding the latex in the box and tossing it onto the desk. “Then we wash it out and condition it, then tone it.”

“Tone?” Kazutora has never looked more confused in his life. Chifuyu almost feels bad.

“Remember last time how your hair was, like, banana yellow?” He gets a shallow, mortified nod in response. “Toner makes it not do that. It should be the same colour mine used to be.”

Chifuyu opts to sit on Kazutora’s bed, pulling out his phone to set a timer. It’s surprisingly comfortable for how horrible it looks, and the fitted sheet underneath the duvet is fuzzy. No wonder Kazutora sleeps so soundly. He might have to steal the bed from him sometime. Or maybe they could sleep together. He wonders if Kazutora would be the big spoon or little spoon between them - Chifuyu doesn’t really mind, but Kazutora seems like the type to want to be held rather than to hold.

“Is it supposed to itch?” Kazutora asks, and Chifuyu notices his hands are twitching a little, tugging on the fabric of his jeans since he has no sleeves to fiddle with.

“It can be pretty itchy, but you gotta deal with it.”

Kazutora groans and throws his head back, slumping down in the chair and giving Chifuyu a full view of his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows. He looks away, preoccupying himself with his phone so he doesn’t have to think about that, but it’s all that’s on his mind regardless of what he does. He wants to cry a little bit. There’s this look on Kazutora’s face - lips slightly parted, eyes closed, head thrown back - that makes his stomach turn over in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time, not since he was a hormonal teenager with a crush on yet another unattainable boy.

He’s well and truly fucked, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

The shower cap itches, and his forehead itches, and the palms of his hands are sweating, but that’s unrelated. That’s an all-the-time thing. The itching, however, is not.

Chifuyu pushes Kazutora into the bathroom and makes him sit on the edge of the tub before opening the window as far as he can without falling out of it, leaving the door wide open too.

Kazutora doesn’t remember much of what happened the last time he dyed his hair - all he remembers is Baji being fucking terrible at it and Baji’s mom laughing at both of them when she came home. She helped him wash it out and cackled the entire time. Kazutora hadn’t seen why at the time, but in retrospect, he completely understands.

Chifuyu isn’t really talking, his face set in practiced neutrality as he nudges Kazutora out of the way and takes the shower off its hook, turning up the pressure and temperature before running the water over his hand for a second to check it’s not too hot. Then he sets it down in the bathtub and secures his sleeves above his elbows.

“You might want to, um, take your shirt off,” he says, and Kazutora notes the pink tint to his cheeks. He nods and stands up, bringing the hem up over his head, careful not to nudge the shower cap too much, and tosses his shirt out into the hall to pick up later.

When he turns back around Chifuyu’s head snaps to his right so fast Kazutora thinks he might have given himself whiplash. He busies himself with setting up the various hair products they’ll need and Kazutora watches from the doorway - partly because he doesn’t want to get in Chifuyu’s way, and partly because he just likes to watch Chifuyu work. He makes this little face when he’s focused, where his brows furrow slightly and his nose scrunches. Kazutora finds it strangely cute.

(Cute isn’t a word he’d usually use to describe a friend. But somehow, it fits Chifuyu.)

“Okay,” Chifuyu sighs after a second. His ears are still pink. “C’mere and get on your knees.”

“Wow, ‘Fuyu, not even gonna take me out to dinner first?” He kneels down amid Chifuyu’s spluttering, snickering to himself as he carefully peels the shower cap off his head and discards it. The breeze on his forehead feels so fucking good. “Gotta say, I didn’t peg you as the dominant type.”

Beet-red, Chifuyu leans over him and grabs the still-running showerhead, testing the water again before tilting Kazutora’s head back by his chin, so his hair dangles over the side of the tub and he’s staring up at the ceiling. Or, he would be staring at the ceiling, if Chifuyu wasn’t blocking his view.

“Please be quiet and let me wash your fucking hair.”

And then Chifuyu’s running the water over his head, carding a soft hand through his hair, and Kazutora damn near moans.

It comes out as a whimper in the back of his throat. One of his hands twitches and twists in the fabric covering his thigh as Chifuyu works his own hand through his bangs. He doesn’t say anything, but Kazutora knows full well that Chifuyu heard him, because his lips are twitching into that teasing smile, the one he does when he’s trying to hold back from poking fun at him. It’s… pretty.

Chifuyu’s pretty.

Chifuyu’s fucking pretty.

This revelation - epiphany, if you will - changes the entire experience for Kazutora. Because he’s stuck staring up at Chifuyu’s face as he drizzles shampoo over his head and tells him to hold the shower so he can rub it in, working it through his roots with such expert hands that Kazutora feels like he could fucking fall asleep, eyes closing as he leans back a little more. He’s heard in excruciating detail what having your hair washed feels like from Takemichi, but he’d never really thought about it properly before until now.

Takemichi was right. It’s like heaven. If he was a cat he’d be purring like a motherfucker. Hell, he might as well be purring with the way his chest is buzzing with delight, feeling the pads of Chifuyu’s fingers work the soap into his roots.

The water comes back a minute later, somehow feeling even better than before. He cracks an eye open and watches Chifuyu’s face. He’s got his tongue sticking out as he works, and when he meets Kazutora’s eye he gives a (pretty) smile, splashing the water a little too far over his forehead so it drips down his face and he has to squeeze his eye shut again.

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not, dick.”

Chifuyu giggles and pauses his movements for a second. Then there’s the fluff of a towel being pressed to his forehead, patting his skin dry gently. When Chifuyu takes it away he’s grinning at Kazutora, that teasing smile again.

Then he winks, and Kazutora briefly considers the consequences of drowning himself with the shower, because there is absolutely no reason for his heart to jump so fucking hard at the sight.

“I really am sorry,” Chifuyu says, handing him the shower again and picking up the conditioner this time, lathering his hands up before beginning to card them through Kazutora’s hair. He’s so much more gentle than Kazutora usually is, taking his time to work through any knots rather than just tearing through them like a madman, making sure he doesn’t tug too hard on Kazutora’s scalp.

(He sort of wishes Chifuyu would wash his hair for him all the time. It’s a strange thought to have, but he doesn’t mind it all that much.)

Kazutora shifts after Chifuyu steps away once the conditioner is in his hair. His knees are getting a little tired, so he crosses his legs instead and sighs, leaning against the side of the tub and letting his neck rest for a moment. Honestly, he’s a little woozy - be it the heat, the smell of bleach, or this newfound attraction to his best friend.

Because that’s what it is, really, he’s realised Chifuyu is attractive as hell and it’s confusing him. It’s not like he’s never found men attractive - he figured that out a long time ago - it’s the best friend part. He considers Chifuyu the person he’s closest to: naturally, since he hasn’t gone a single day without seeing the man’s face since he was released. And he’s always known Chifuyu was pretty. Even back then, when Baji would mention him or show Kazutora pictures in passing, he’d found Chifuyu pretty.

But finding someone pretty and being gut-wrenchingly attracted to them are two different things, and unfortunately, Kazutora is quite sure he’s currently experiencing the latter.

When Chifuyu comes back, retrieving the shower from the tub floor, he leans over and tilts Kazutora’s head back by his chin again. The first time he did it Kazutora hadn’t thought very much of it, just letting himself be moved, but this time - this time it makes his thighs twitch closer together, makes his pulse speed up under Chifuyu’s fingers, makes heat coil uncomfortably in his gut.

Great. Amazing. Perfect. He’s got a thing for being manhandled. Drowning himself is sounding better by the second.

He can’t even focus on how good having his hair washed feels anymore because he’s so painfully aware of Chifuyu’s presence, his touch, his everything. At this point he just wants it to be done so he can collapse into his bed and try to convince himself today never even happened. He wants to close his eyes and just let Chifuyu do his thing but every time he does, his mind wanders a little too far in the wrong direction, and he can’t seem to get himself back on the right track until Chifuyu turns off the shower and hangs it back up on the wall.

When he opens his eyes, Chifuyu’s bringing a towel over to wrap his hair up in. He thinks he might fall over if he stands to do it himself, so he lets it be done to him. He doesn’t miss the brush of fingers over his neck, or the way it makes his shoulders briefly stiffen, then relax.

Chifuyu helps him up a moment later and leads him back to his room. He picks up his shirt on the way, suddenly more aware of his half-nakedness than he has ever been around Chifuyu. He’s left alone in his room for a few minutes, but the walls are fairly thin and he can hear swearing and clattering coming from Chifuyu’s room as he digs through his storage. He comes back with a scowl a minute later and sighs, closing the door behind him.

“Can’t find the fucking hairdryer,” he mutters, then drops to his knees directly in front of Kazutora and begins looking under his bed. “Do you have it? Or did I give it to Mikey?”

“Um.” There is absolutely no fucking reason he should be feeling so hot right now. Chifuyu looks up at him from the floor with a displeased look and Kazutora’s legs twitch. “I-I think you gave it to Mikey. I had to towel-dry my hair last time I washed it.”

(It takes all of his brain power to focus enough to remember that far back. What the fuck is Chifuyu doing to him?)

Chifuyu pushes himself to his feet then, huffing, and takes the towel from Kazutora’s head, draping it over him flat and starting to towel dry his hair. It’s funny, at first, because the contrast between how gentle he was being in the bathroom and how he is right now is startling. He’s riving Kazutora’s head around like a dog toy and it’s starting to make him a little dizzy, though he’s laughing through it, so he reaches up blindly and latches onto Chifuyu’s wrists, pulling the towel off his head in the process.

“Stop it,” he tries to say, but he’s laughing so hard he chokes on his own voice. Chifuyu’s arms go limp in his hold as he cackles, snorting and throwing his head back with the force of his laughter. “Get out, oh my God, I’ll do it myself.”

Chifuyu drops the towel in his lap. “I’ll mix the toner while you do that. We’ll have to wash it again once this is done, by the way.”

Kazutora pales.

He has to go through that all over again?

Two weeks after the Hair Dye Incident - when Chifuyu thinks of it, it comes with its own capital letters - Chifuyu is sitting at one of the tables in Takemichi’s bakery with a few pastries in front of him, new ones Takemichi wants him to taste test before they’re added to the menu. They do this once every few months, ever since the store opened, chatting over sweets until there’s nothing left to talk about.

Usually Chifuyu’s topics of conversation range from asshole customers at the shop to the news that appears at the top of his Twitter feed, but today he has a purpose. The second Takemichi sits down at the start of his break he starts the conversation, as embarrassing as it is.

“Takemitchy, I need advice,” he says, bluntly, so Takemichi knows he’s serious. “I think - uh. I think I might have a thing for someone. Like, a thing thing.”

Takemichi blinks at him, halfway through a bite of strawberry cake, and swallows a mouthful that should not be physically possible to swallow. “Are we finally talking about your gigantic crush on Kazutora-kun?”

“Don’t - don’t say crush, we’re not seven.” Chifuyu furrows his brow then, tone growing a little sharper. “What do you mean finally? And I said someone, not Kazutora.”

The laugh that rumbles out of Takemichi echoes in the almost-empty store. Chifuyu’s pretty fucking glad they’re the only two here right now besides Hina, because neither of them are being very quiet about it, though Chifuyu would very much like to be. There’s a reason he picked Takemichi to talk to this about first, even though Mitsuya or Draken might honestly be more helpful from an outside perspective. They’re partners, first and foremost, through thick and thin. Takemichi knows him better than he knows himself on most days, and Chifuyu trusts his judgement, even after all this time.

Even, somehow, when he’s laughing his ass off at the thought of Chifuyu ever having a crush (he hates that fucking word) on someone that isn’t Kazutora.

“Right, let’s go with that, then. Someone.” Takemichi takes another bite of his cake and barely chews it. “What do you need advice with? How to tell him?”

He’s… not sure. He didn’t think this far ahead, unfortunately.

He’s been mulling it over in his head for a while, and the way he sees it, there’s three ways this thing could go.

One: he tells Kazutora he likes him (this expression is a little better, but it still feels childish) and Kazutora feels the same way. That’d probably result in them getting together, and in Chifuyu’s mind, it’s the best outcome, but also the hardest. He’s no Shakespeare, he’s never been a wordsmith, and he’s admittedly scared of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and fucking it all up. On top of that, he doesn’t have the most relationship experience - what if he turns out to be the worst boyfriend on the planet?

(Boyfriend. That makes his stomach flip.)

Two: he tells Kazutora he likes him, and Kazutora doesn’t feel the same way. Objectively the worst outcome, because not only would Chifuyu have to deal with romantic rejection - which, from the way it affects the characters in the manga he’s read, he never wants to deal with - it would also probably ruin their friendship. And if there’s anything in this world Chifuyu can’t lose, it’s Kazutora’s presence in his life. Not because of his promise to Baji, not anymore, but because Kazutora has unknowingly carved a space beside Chifuyu for himself, and nothing would feel right without him there.

Three: he doesn’t say a damn thing, keeps his mouth shut until the feeling goes away, and Kazutora goes on none the wiser. This way, Chifuyu doesn’t get exactly what he wants, but he also doesn’t get what he doesn’t want. It’s an unhealthy middle, but a middle nonetheless. The safest option, but a painful one.

He takes a moment to consider each of these options before he replies to Takemichi.

“I want to know what you think I should do,” he settles on eventually, because it’s vague enough that it doesn’t reveal his entire inner turmoil. “I want to tell him, but I’m scared, y’know? I don’t wanna lose him if he doesn’t want me like that.”

Takemichi snorts. Chifuyu glares at him, annoyed, watching him shake his head like he’s dealing with a blubbering idiot.

“Even if he didn’t, do you really, for one second, think you’d lose him?”

“Uh… yes?” Confused, Chifuyu watches his partner roll his eyes and finish off his slice of cake. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Takemichi sighs a heavily exaggerated sigh from deep in his chest and leans forward to rest his chin in his hands. He just stares at Chifuyu for a moment, eyes searching for something Chifuyu can’t quite place before he speaks again.

“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”

Is he? When he thinks about it, Chifuyu supposes he is. They spend eighty percent of most days together, live and work together, share way too much physical contact, know way too much about each other and their respective habits. Kazutora’s also the only person to ever see him cry so hard he couldn’t breathe, and Chifuyu wouldn’t show that shitshow to just anyone.

“I guess he is,” he replies, “but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you think Kazutora-kun would drop you so easily, even if he didn’t return your feelings? Which, by the way, he definitely does.” Takemichi leans back and kicks his feet up on the edge of the table, giving Chifuyu a smug smile. “Neither of you are subtle, like, at all. He seemed very happy to hold your hand all night on your birthday. But anyway - he isn’t the kind of person to just up and leave you alone like that. He’d probably apologise to you for not liking you back, for God’s sake.”

Chifuyu, quite literally, has no idea what to say. So he says nothing, just sits there with his mouth open, stunned into silence. He wasn’t expecting Mitsuya-level advice out of Takemichi, but he supposes out of all of them, he technically is the one with the most romantic experience. He’s in a twelve-year-long marriage pact, after all.

“It doesn’t matter, though, ‘cuz he’s one hundred percent head-over-heels for you too.” Takemichi shrugs and leans over to pop one of the smaller pastries in his mouth, talking around the mouthful like a degenerate. Chifuyu would say he hates it when Takemichi does that, but it’d be one of the most hypocritical things he’s ever said.

“You think so?” He sounds smaller than he intends to, voice quiet in the back of his throat. The prospect of Kazutora liking him back is both exciting and terrifying. If he does - how is Chifuyu supposed to continue from there? Do they just become boyfriends once they both say they like each other? Is he supposed to ask to be his boyfriend? He doesn’t know if he could do that without embarrassing himself, considering just thinking the word boyfriend makes his head spin.

“Believe me, he does. He’s in the same boat as you, y’know? No experience whatsoever.” Takemichi makes a face then, lips pulling into a grimace. “Unless he had, like, a prison boyfriend. Eugh.”

Chifuyu shivers. Kazutora’s never mentioned anything like that, but Chifuyu supposes he’s never asked - he’s never had a reason to, until now.

“Have you guys talked about prison much?” Takemichi has a drink, now, and Hina is taking a seat from another table and dragging it over, sipping coffee from a can with a straw. “I mean, it’s been a couple months now, right?”

Chifuyu shrugs and mouths a thank-you at Hina when she opens another can for him. “We’ve talked a little but he never goes into detail with me. He started therapy last week - he’s there right now, actually. So I’m sorta hoping he’ll talk more about it soon.”

Though he probably knows Kazutora better than any of them right now, he feels, sometimes, that he only knows what Kazutora wants him to. He notices things on his own, sure, like his nervous habits, most of his daily preferences, how he sleeps with a night lamp on so his room won’t be pitch dark if he wakes up from a nightmare. But they rarely talk about Kazutora’s past - and on the instances that they do, it’s full of hushed apologies, whispered into his shoulder in the middle of the night.

“I wish he would talk to me more,” he admits with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “But I’m not gonna force him to talk if he doesn’t want to. That’s what the therapy’s for.”

“It’s really not,” Hina chimes in. Takemichi giggles - fucking simp - and shakes his head at Chifuyu, mouthing idiot and letting Hina feed him a pastry. They’re disgusting. “Just let him know he can always talk to you if things are troubling him, and he’ll come to you when he needs to.”

Kazutora already does that. Sometimes, anyway. And only after a bit of prompting from Chifuyu. He’s been offering to pay for therapy sessions ever since Kazutora mentioned he used to have them in prison, just so he would have a professional to open up to if he didn’t feel like Chifuyu could help - because, let’s face it, he might be a tad bit biased in his advice - but he refused, always saying that Chifuyu had done too much for him already.

(He wishes they’d met under different circumstances. Not just for Baji anymore, but so there wouldn’t always be this undertone of guilt in everything Kazutora does. Chifuyu knows that feeling all too well.)

“Are you picking him up after his appointment?” Takemichi asks. One of his feet is in Hina’s lap. Chifuyu hopes Kazutora does like him back, if only so that he won’t have to fucking third wheel with them anymore.

“He said he had somewhere to go after so he’s bringing himself home.”

He’d mentioned it this morning just as he was getting out of the car outside the clinic, looking a little sheepish in the way he does when he’s been sitting on something for a while without knowing how to say it. Chifuyu simply agreed and hung around outside until Kazutora was out of sight.

He has a feeling he knows exactly where Kazutora wanted to go. It’s about time, anyway.

Kazutora has never visited a grave before.

In his first session last week, his therapist managed to pull damn near everything out of him. She was nothing like the guy he spoke to while he was in prison - she was kind but stern in her advice, and once she’d gotten most of his past out of him she immediately recommended visiting Baji’s grave to speak with him. He’s not sure what her exact words were, because by that point he’d gone through almost a whole box of tissues and it was hard to breathe, nevermind listen, but she’d said something about freeing himself from the guilt of his past mistakes.

It’s something he’s been putting off since November, just over two months by now. He’s thought about it a whole lot but if he’s honest - and his therapist is very insistent that he must be - he’s scared. He spent a long time wondering if he even deserved to grieve, and he doesn’t know how far out of that mindset he is, if he’s even out of it at all. Chifuyu might be adamant that he has every right to mourn what he’s lost, but Kazutora isn’t so sure.

(Though, since it’s coming from Chifuyu, part of him feels inclined to believe it blindly.)

He was meant to visit last week, but every time he tried to ask Chifuyu to take him he ended up asking something completely different. Chifuyu could probably tell there was something off about him each time, though he’s been off around him for entirely different reasons recently, so he isn’t sure Chifuyu would have been able to tell the difference between his awkward pining, his awkward sexual frustration, and his awkward guilt.

So when he arrived at this week’s session, in the passenger seat of Chifuyu’s car - soon to be a shared car, if all goes well with his upcoming test - he decided he was just going to go. On his own, no outside reassurance to guide him, because if he can’t do this by himself then there’s no point in doing it. It’s not up to Chifuyu to get him over this hurdle.

During today’s session his therapist asked him how it went, and he practically hung his head in shame as he told her he hadn’t gone yet. But he had texts to Mikey to prove he was planning on it, he’d asked for directions to the grave while he was sitting in the lobby, so his therapist couldn’t be too harsh on him for it. Besides, it’s not like he wasn’t trying, and that was the point, wasn’t it?

So - here he is, walking on shaking legs toward the Baji family grave, incense in one hand and flowers in the other. It’s fucking terrifying in a way he couldn’t describe to his therapist. He doesn’t think he knows the right words in the right order. His heart feels like it’s going to fucking explode, his hands are sweating more than he can reasonably tolerate, and it feels like there’s ringing in his ears, faint but present enough to give him a raging headache.

The gravestone is clean and well-maintained, though Kazutora didn’t expect any less. He knew Baji’s mother fairly well, and she was always the type to keep things neat and tidy. He supposes that applies to her son’s grave, too.

There are wilting flowers in the vase, so he carefully removes them and puts his own inside, making sure there’s enough water before he kneels down and puts his incense sticks in the burner. He almost burns his fingers with his lighter, his hands are shaking so badly, so once it’s stuffed in his jean pocket he pulls his sleeves all the way down to cover his palms and curls his hands into fists, resting them on his thighs to stop the shaking.

(It doesn’t work very well, but it’s all he’s got.)

He can’t quite find his voice for a while, still stuck on what the hell he’s supposed to say. Should he say hello? Apologise? No, Baji wouldn’t like that. Does he just… tell him about his life? There’s nothing too interesting going on right now, and there hasn’t been anything interesting for a damn long time. Maybe he could talk about him and Chifuyu? Or his reconciliation with Mikey - if he can even call it that. They’re still far too careful around each other to be reconciled.

“... Hey, Baji.” His voice shakes. He clears his throat and tries again. “It’s, um, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

He talks about all of it. How he felt in prison, getting out, his job, Chifuyu. A lot of Chifuyu, actually. He can practically feel Baji giving him that teasing look from beyond the grave, the one where he raises one of his eyebrows and squints at you, saying absolutely nothing and absolutely everything at the same time. He used to hate when Baji looked at him like that, would smack him across the face just to get rid of it. He wishes more than anything that Baji could be here to give him that look now.

His voice stops shaking once he finds his stride, and his fists unclench somewhere down the line, too, around the part where he’s talking about Chifuyu’s birthday. He describes Chifuyu’s appearance to him, tells him he’s really grown into the soft features that once struck a mighty contrast with the edges of his personality. He talks about the Hair Dye Incident, leaving out the revelation he’d had in private later that night - if Baji were here, he’d rip the piss out of him for that. The thought of it makes his face ache with a smile.

He wonders, distantly, as he describes his own appearance to Baji, what his friend might look like if he’d made it to twenty-five. Would he have kept his long hair, or cut it short? He had a pretty edgy style, too, and it seems to be coming back in today’s fashion trends, so he’d probably fit right in.

(As he describes himself - his hair, his clothes, his age-old piercing - he begins to see pieces of Baji in himself. He buries it under all the other things he’s buried in his mind, and hopes he never thinks of it again.)

He runs out of things to talk about, eventually, and sits in silence, twiddling his thumbs. There is one more thing he wants to say, but it’s - it’s weird. Everything about this has been a strange experience, though he’ll admit that it’s a planet-sized weight off his shoulders, but this last thing - he never thought he’d be saying it to anyone.

“You used to talk about me to him,” he starts, and he can’t look up at Baji’s name, instead staring down at his own hands. “When he picked me up, he knew to get dairy-free coffee. He told me he helped you write all those letters.”

He swallows. Cracks a knuckle. There are birds singing somewhere, or the ringing in his ears has returned. He can’t quite tell.

“He remembered everything you told him about me. He’s been so kind, Baji. I guess I couldn’t help - couldn’t help falling, God, I sound like a twelve-year-old.” Kazutora chuckles, more to mask the beginning of a sob than anything else. “I like him so much, Baji. I shouldn’t, but I do. I feel like I should tell you, for some reason. Get your blessing or whatever.”

The incense smolders out right then, leaving behind only its faint smell and a trail of smoke slowly rising. Kazutora watches it turn to ashes in its holder, the final embers burning bright for a fleeting second before turning grey and dull again.

“Is that a yes, Baji?” He asks. He wishes there could have been an answer, wishes Baji could have been his wingman, wishes Baji could tell him it’s okay that you’re in love with him. He feels like it isn’t, like he doesn’t deserve to be, but when the wind picks up and brushes the bleach-blonde bangs out of his face, the weight gets a little lighter, and he feels like he can finally breathe.

On his way out, after clearing up the incense and wiping down the headstone, he finds everything looks a little brighter.

These days, Kazutora is gone a lot.

If he’s not working, he’s at therapy. If he’s not at therapy, he’s out with one of the guys - Mikey on good days, Mitsuya or Draken on worse ones. He goes to Baji’s grave once a week, too, though he thinks Chifuyu doesn’t know that yet.

(Mitsuya told him. If he were his teenage self, grief still ablaze in the pits of his stomach, coursing through his veins, he might’ve been angry. But he’s twenty-three now, and all he feels is a strange mix of guilt and pride.)

He spends time with Chifuyu still, of course. They don’t live together for nothing. He’s taken to dragging Chifuyu around the city with him, going on drives with no destination just to see what’s changed about Tokyo. It’s cute, honestly, to see him get excited over stupid stuff like modern arcades and new chain restaurants. Things that are so trivial to Chifuyu, things he’s been living amongst for years, are brand-new to Kazutora. And it feels like he gets to experience them all over again, in an entirely different way, alongside him.

But the point - the point is that he’s away a lot. More than Chifuyu would like him to be. It’s weird, and he knows it’s weird, but he’s grown so used to having Kazutora by his side, or waiting for him at home, or smoking a cigarette outside that the empty space is unbearable.

He misses the warmth of Kazutora walking a little too close to him on the way out of work. He misses having a shoulder to rest his head on when he hasn’t slept much and needs to close his eyes. He misses being handed a too-big jacket on the really cold nights. The smell of smoke, the sight of bleach-blonde hair pulled back into a bun, that damn tattoo. Too-long sleeves over callused palms. Jeans with holes in them, the jingle of an earring.

He misses Kazutora. So badly he finds it hard to breathe, sometimes.

Kazutora’s not even gone, not in the way Chifuyu is used to. He knows he can call Kazutora up anytime and he’ll answer - he always answers when it’s Chifuyu, to the point where their friends have actually complained about it. He could text, he could ask to borrow that jacket or use that cologne, but it’s not the same. Chifuyu feels fucking pathetic for it, but he can’t help it.

He worries, see, that one of these days Kazutora’s going to up and leave. Say you’ve done enough for me and take his things and go. It terrifies him, being left alone again - again, because the last time he loved someone so viscerally, he was yanked right out of Chifuyu’s grasp before he ever had a chance to vocalise it. He worries that someone, something will take Kazutora away from him, drag him just beyond Chifuyu’s reach, close enough to see but never quite touch.

He worries that something will happen to Kazutora, and he’ll be too late again. It’s a constant thing about everyone, all the time, but especially him.

So when Kazutora doesn’t show up to the Friday evening shift without a call or text to let him know, Chifuyu understandably begins to worry. But he’s a professional at work, so he swallows the feeling down into the pit of his stomach and hands off to the night manager instead of Kazutora, gathering his things and heading to the car.

He calls once more before he pulls off the curb. It rings out a few times, stops short of where it usually would, and Chifuyu’s heart jumps, words on the tip of his tongue.

“You’ve reached Hanemiya Kazutora. Sorry, I’m currently unavail-- Chifuyu, stop laughing, I’m trying to record my fucking voicemail message! Uh - leave a message, I gue--!”

He hangs up.

His knuckles are bone-white by the time he pulls into the parking lot of their apartment block. It’s dark out, but the streetlamps haven’t turned on just yet, leaving the city stuck in a sort of limbo. Chifuyu fucking hates it, hates it even more when he stumbles into the apartment only to find Kazutora isn’t there, either. He calls again and it doesn’t even ring, just goes right to that stupid voicemail message. He remembers Kazutora recording it, right there on the couch in front of him, a month ago. His stomach churns.

He calls Mitsuya and tries his best to sound calm, but the other sees through pretty much anything, and Chifuyu’s not exactly hiding it very well. He tells him Kazutora can most definitely handle himself, and Chifuyu knows that, he does, he really does. But Baji could handle himself too, better than anyone, and that didn’t get him very far, did it?

So he calls and calls and calls, texts a few times too, until it’s eight-thirty and he’s pacing around every inch of the apartment. His shirt feels too tight around the collar and cuffs, his vest too heavy, and he can feel his own fucking pulse. It’s irrational and he knows it, but Kazutora doesn’t do this. He doesn’t skip work, he doesn’t stay out late, he doesn’t ignore calls. There’s something wrong, so very wrong, and Chifuyu wants to throw up.

“You’ve reached Hanemiya Kazutora. Sorry, I’m currently unavail-- Chifuyu, stop laughing, I’m try--!”

“You’ve reached Hanemiya Kazutora. Sorry, I’m curre--!”

“You’ve reached Hanem--!”

“... Chifuyu?”

His heart damn near stops in his chest. He almost hangs up again, barely hearing Kazutora’s voice over the pounding of blood in his ears, but he pauses with his thumb over the end-call button before slowly bringing the phone back to his ear again, painfully aware of the shake in his hand.

“--uyu? A-Are you there?” Kazutora sounds breathless, like he’s been running, sprinting. Chifuyu’s mind goes right to the worst. “Please, please be there, I-I need - I need you to come pick me up.”

“I’m - fuck, I’m here, I’m - where?”

He’s already scrambling for his keys. He drops them in the genkan on his way out and shouts the worst curse he can think of, startling the man on the other end, before slamming the door shut behind him.

“I’m gonna text you my location, I’m not - I don’t have a fucking clue where I am,” Kazutora says. Chifuyu hates how small he sounds, even through the roboticised crackle of the phone. His throat is scratchy, like he’s been crying, and there’s a stuffy sound to his words that Chifuyu knows all too well. His nose could be broken.

He’s getting into the car, putting Kazutora on speaker as he sets his GPS to the location - a street in the south of Nakano, not too far from the apartment by car but a trek on foot. Lord knows how Kazutora got there, why he’s there, what the fuck happened. Chifuyu’s got his ideas, all of them terrible, all of them molding together into one big waking nightmare.

“What happened, ‘Tora?” He asks, pulling out into the street below their balcony, and the words threaten to choke the breath from his lungs. “Are you safe?”

“Right now, yeah, I think so.” He pauses, and there’s the sound of crunching gravel under his feet distantly. “I, um, I got jumped. They knew my name, for whatever fucking reason. Too many of them for me to fight at once.”

Having something turn out exactly the way he thought it would is only a good feeling when he wants it to be that way. Now, though, it makes him press down on the gas a little harder, grip the wheel a little tighter, breathe through his mouth instead of his nose.

“I have a first-aid kit in the trunk, okay? I’ll be there soon, just - just get somewhere safe and out of sight and wait for me.” There are more words stuck in his throat, words he wishes he could say, but they won’t come out. He’s stuck, again, on the precipice - almost grasping it but never quite getting there, almost saying it but never quite finding the words. Almost having it but never quite tightening his grip.

Instead of I was so fucking worried about you he says I’ll be there soon. Instead of I don’t know what I would do if I lost you he says are you bleeding at all? And instead of I love you so much I can’t breathe sometimes he says I’m around the corner, come out.

(He hates himself. Hates the way his words betray his heart and soul.)

Kazutora’s in a worse state than even Chifuyu imagined, when he stumbles out of the alley he’s parked in front of. His nose is bloody, streaks of it dripping down his chin and neck, staining the collar of his white shirt. There’s a dark bruise already blooming on one cheek and a few shallow cuts all over his face from the gravel. His shirt is untucked, jacket dirty and wet - it was raining earlier, Chifuyu recalls, and feels sicker.

He’s shivering, so Chifuyu cranks the heat up in the car and throws open the passenger side door, ushering Kazutora to sit inside and slamming it shut after him. He rounds the car to the trunk, grabs his first-aid kit, and practically sprints back to the driver’s seat, tossing it over the console and almost throwing himself after it.

“Slow down, ‘Fuyu,” Kazutora chuckles, but it’s raspy and humorless. Blood trickles from the deepest cut on his cheek. “It’s not going anywhere. Neither am I.”

You could have, he doesn’t say. You could have left me.

He opens the kit without a word and begins rifling through his supplies. Disinfectant wipes, gauze in a few sizes, closure strips. Dropping everything in Kazutora’s lap, he pulls his face forward gently by the back of his neck, leaning over the console to begin carefully cleaning each cut. He starts with his nose, washing away the blood with not one but two wipes, swallowing the bile in his throat at the sight of his hands stained with blood that isn’t his.

“It’s not bleeding anymore, that’s good,” he remarks, more to himself than Kazutora, and tilts the other’s face to look at his nose more closely. It doesn’t look broken, just bruised, but whoever hit him got him good. It makes Chifuyu’s blood boil in his veins. “I’m gonna disinfect the other cuts now. It’ll probably sting, your face is kinda dirty.”

Kazutora smiles and then winces at the stretch of the cut on his lip. “I’ll try my best not to cry.”

The smaller ones don’t take quite as long, and Chifuyu is careful as he places closure strips over them, trying not to wipe the blood on his hands back onto Kazutora’s face. Doing this is so unbearably familiar but so foreign at the same time. He remembers, first and foremost, patching himself up in the bathroom after fights at school, because God forbid he let his mother see he got into another one. Then it was patching Baji up after Toman fights, then Takemichi after he got the shit kicked out of him for the nth time.

(No matter who he’s tending to - himself, Takemichi, Kazutora - the sight of blood that does not belong to him coating his hands never fails to make him nauseous.)

The deeper one on his chin is awkward, so Chifuyu tilts Kazutora’s head back as far as he can without the other hissing in pain and wipes it down gently, taking his time and care with it. He cleans the mud from his jawline too before putting a gauze pad over it, pressing it down with his palm to make sure it sticks.

“Can you turn your head properly?” He asks, and Kazutora does so, grimacing slightly when the gauze makes a crackling noise. It doesn’t come unstuck, though, so Chifuyu stops him with his head turned all the way to Kazutora’s left and takes out one more wipe.

The cut along his cheek is too deep and too long for closure strips, so once he’s done cleaning it - not without a tear streaking down over his fingertips and hushed apologies from both of them - he takes out the longest strip of gauze he can find, a roll of it that comes with barely-sharpened medical scissors. He cuts it to size and presses it down firm, and Kazutora sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, hand shooting up to grab Chifuyu’s wrist.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, ‘Tora,” he whispers. He can’t get his voice to make sound, anymore. His hand goes limp in Kazutora’s hold and he feels his lip wobbling, so he sucks it between his teeth and bites down on it. The metallic tang of his own blood fills his mouth then, and the swipe of his tongue over his lip does nothing to relieve it.

They don’t talk as Kazutora intertwines their fingers, laying their equally shaking hands down on the center console, and they don’t talk when his other hand brushes the tears from Chifuyu’s cheek. There’s bile in his throat, threatening to push into his mouth but he doesn’t let it - he keeps his mouth shut and his breath quick, eyes closing, pulse pounding in every part of his body.

It’s five minutes to nine, the clock on the dash tells him. Kazutora should be finishing his last cigarette before bed. They should be sitting on the balcony talking about their days. Instead his lip stings, his hands are crimson, and he’s scared that if he loosens his death-grip on Kazutora’s hand, he’s going to disappear into thin air.

“‘Fuyu?” Kazutora mumbles, and it startles Chifuyu, despite the soft tone of voice. “We have to move. We’re, um, parked illegally, and I heard a siren.”

Chifuyu clears his throat, and begins tossing everything back into the first-aid kit with his free hand. Kazutora doesn’t try to let go, and neither does he, not even when the kit is in the backseat and they’re pulling off the curb. No, Chifuyu puts Kazutora’s hand on the gearstick then lays his own over the top of it, slotting their fingers together before putting the car in drive.

The trip feels much longer with Kazutora beside him, somehow. On the way he hit just one red light, but now they’re hitting every single one, and it’s starting to irritate him. Kazutora must notice, because he nudges Chifuyu’s arm when they roll to their fifth stop, and when he glances over Kazutora is smiling again, just barely. It must sting, and there’s blood on his teeth.

Chifuyu looks away, back at the road, and clears his throat. “I’m, uh, gonna check you over again when we get back. Does anywhere else hurt at all?”

“My ribs are probably bruised,” Kazutora replies. He hates that he’s still used to hearing that. “Definitely not broken, but it hurts when I breathe in too deep, or twist too far.”

The light goes green. Chifuyu accelerates a bit too fast and stalls the engine.

“For fuck’s sake.” The engine turns over and he damn near fucking growls, slamming his hand down on the wheel and starting it again. The car behind him beeps and it takes all of his strength and self-restraint not to open his window and scream out of it - that, and Kazutora’s hand reaching over and squeezing his own, shushing him instantly.

Kazutora manages to get the engine going again, and they speed off a moment later. Chifuyu’s eyes are watering again but he’s determined not to cry, damnit, at least until they’re safe at home and he can breathe quietly again. He’d probably crash if he cried at the wheel, anyway, and there’s no way he’ll put Kazutora in any more danger. So he blinks the tears back at the next red light, wipes his eyes with his sleeve, and keeps fucking driving.

When they finally get home, it’s almost nine thirty and Chifuyu is fucking starving, dying for a shower, almost nodding off where he stands, but he refuses to let go of Kazutora’s hand. Their fingers stay locked together as they ride the elevator up, as Kazutora punches in the door code and lets them both inside. They only come apart when they have to take off their shoes - Kazutora has to sit on the step to take them off, grimacing when he bends down too far, so Chifuyu sits beside him and does it for him, untying his laces and slotting his sneakers into their place beside his own.

They don’t move. Their thighs are touching, knees knocking together, and Chifuyu doesn’t want it to stop.

“You scared me,” he says, after a moment of silence stretches too long, and Kazutora starts at the rasp in his voice. “It’s not - it’s not your fault. But you fucking scared me.”

Their hands find each other again. Kazutora’s voice catches in the back of his throat when he speaks, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You always say that.” There’s a gentle scoff behind his words, and he twists his body to meet Kazutora’s eyes. His feet are getting cold. The heating is off. “Stop saying sorry for shit you can’t control. Did you ask them to beat the shit out of you?” Kazutora gingerly shakes his head, in a way that would be cute if Chifuyu’s heart wasn’t cracking in its cage. “Right. So why are you the one that’s sorry?”

“Because I care about you,” Kazutora replies, and it’s so quiet, so small, that Chifuyu almost doesn’t hear him. “And because I care about you, I hate seeing you like this. I hate seeing you cry knowing I’m the reason, and I hate that I don’t know what the fuck to do to comfort you.”

Chifuyu doesn’t say a fucking word.

“I just - I wish I…” He trails off, sniffling and looking down at his hands in his lap. He’s playing with his sleeves again. This is his favourite jacket, and the cuffs are frayed from how much he frets over them. “I wish I knew how to help you the way you help me. You always know what to say and I never do. I’m not - I feel useless. I wonder why you keep me around, most days.”

The words are stuck again, choking him, ripping the air from his lungs. He can’t speak and he needs to, needs to scream it from the fucking rooftops if only to make Kazutora understand. His heart feels about ready to tear a hole in his chest and jump free, right into Kazutora’s hands where it belongs.

“I have nightmares about you leaving me. I don’t tell you about those ones, except the first one.” Chifuyu remembers. He’d been almost naked, Kazutora had given him his hoodie. He thinks that might have been the first time they held hands. “They get more real every time. Sometimes I wake up and I have to make sure you’re still there, and you always are.” He pauses, and a sad little smile tugs at his split lip. He winces. “I still haven’t quite figured out why.”

Because I fucking love you, he doesn’t say. Why can’t he say it? Why can’t he take what he wants and hold it in his hands?

“‘Tora,” he says instead, and his voice breaks pitifully. “‘Tora, please. Don’t - you’re not useless. Don’t ever fucking say that to me again. I’ll beat you up myself.”

Kazutora snickers. “I’d probably let you.”

“Then I won’t. I’ll…”

He looks up at Kazutora, who’s still staring at his hands. He doesn’t know what would make it stick. All this talk about Chifuyu knowing exactly what to do and say and yet here he is, stuck in limbo, where everything he wants and needs lies just an inch too far out of his reach.

But Chifuyu has never been a quitter. So in his last-ditch effort, with tears wetting the collar of his shirt as they run down his neck, he surges forward and grabs Kazutora by his. He barely turns his head in time, but he’s just quick enough for Chifuyu to press their bruised lips together, their teeth clashing and noses bumping. Kazutora makes a noise of surprise into his mouth, and he can tell from the way his lips move that it stings - Chifuyu’s do too - but he doesn’t move away.

He doesn’t… he doesn’t move away.

Chifuyu is kissing him.

It hurts, it stings so fucking badly, and the breath he was halfway through taking is stuck somewhere between his throat and his lungs, but he doesn’t dare pull away. The sting is electric, a full-body shiver making his toes curl against the floor of the genkan from the pain, but it’s good, so good his head feels light. He doesn’t know how to kiss back all that well but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

His eyes close a second later when he notices that Chifuyu’s are, and it’s only when he pushes into it that the hands gripping his collar loosen and drop into his lap before snaking up to his waist. He’s running out of air but there isn’t a single part of his brain that gives a fuck. He’ll die before he’s the first to let go.

(He’ll die before he lets Chifuyu go at all.)

Chifuyu’s lips are salty with tears, is the first thing he notices when he pays attention to how it feels. Then there’s the metallic taste - the cut on his lip and on Chifuyu’s are still open, after all. It’s probably very unhygienic but there’s not an ounce of concern in his body, not when he feels Chifuyu’s tongue glide over the cut, not when he feels the vibration of a whimper against his lip.

There’s the tang of blood in the air, too, stuck to their clothes, but when they finally - reluctantly - break apart and he takes the deepest breath he’s ever taken in his life, Kazutora can smell the rich cologne Chifuyu uses at work, even if only faintly. A pang of guilt strikes him then, as he opens his eyes and notices he’s still in his work clothes. He must have been fretting for fucking hours.

Chifuyu’s eyes open, then, and he meets Kazutora’s with a glassy, hazy look, blinking the tears back with wet lashes. He’s panting, and the air is hot on Kazutora’s face, smelling mostly like blood but also sort of like coffee. He hates how much he likes that.

“Do you get it now?” Chifuyu breathes, words more air than noise. “That’s why, okay? That’s why. Don’t ever fucking - say that, ever again. I’m not fucking leaving you, Kazutora, you’ll have to kill me if that’s what you want.”

His heart stops, for a moment. “No! No, never, I don’t - I want you to stay. I-I get it.”

“Do you?” His tone is accusatory, and Kazutora’s breath hitches. “Do you get it?”

Kazutora swallows, and takes his time. The silence is crushing, and while he’s gathering the words in his head he sees Chifuyu’s face falter. He’s seen it before - the way his eyebrows quirk downwards and his lips twist into a frown for the briefest of seconds before settling into a hard line, masking any disappointment. His heart feels like it’s being wrung out in his chest, and he can feel the pulse in his neck when he breathes in to speak.

“You aren’t leaving me,” he starts, voice quivering, cracking on a sob, “because you - you love me?”

A wobbling smile takes over Chifuyu’s downcast face, and relief fills Kazutora’s heart back up again. It’s overwhelming to the point of dizziness, his vision going a little spotty - or perhaps it’s just the lack of sleep and air and the small amount of blunt force trauma.

“You get it.” Chifuyu draws closer and slots their legs together. They’re still only half inside the apartment, sitting on the genkan step with their shoes off. “I didn’t know how to say it. Was worried I’d lose you.” He scoffs and shrugs, shaking his head at himself. “Yes, I see the irony. You aren’t allowed to make fun of me for it.”

“I’m still going to,” he replies, because it is kinda funny. “You’re stupid, ‘Fuyu. How could you think that?”

“How could you think that?” He’s fixed with a glare that could kill, if Chifuyu didn’t have such a soft look gracing the rest of his features. His eyes soften after a moment too, and Kazutora wants to kiss him again. “We’re both fucking idiots, alright?”

Kazutora giggles - giggles. He feels like a schoolboy again, or what he thinks being a schoolboy probably should have felt like, aside from the ache in his ribs and the lingering sting on his lip. There’s a smile permanently etched on his face, one so wide his facial muscles are starting to ache, but he can’t stop even if he wanted to.

(He doesn’t want to. If this moment ends, he might wake up to it all gone.)

“So, uh…” Chifuyu clears his throat and begins to actively avoid Kazutora’s gaze. There’s a pretty pink flush decorating his cheeks and the tips of his ears, growing pinker by the second, and he looks like he’s struggling to push the words from his brain to his tongue and say them.

So Kazutora, in an effort to start believing Chifuyu, does it for him. “Are we boyfriends now or what?”

Chifuyu splutters. It’s adorable, really, the face he makes at the word boyfriends. He’s pouting, still not looking at Kazutora properly, instead staring at one of the tiles in the genkan, mumbling about how embarrassing Kazutora is under his breath.

Among that mumbling, Kazutora catches an actual coherent sentence, one he’s sure is meant for him to hear.

“If you want to be,” he says, “then yeah. We are.”

“Speak up, ‘Fuyu.”

“You heard me.”

“Nuh uh.” Kazutora has to pull his bottom lip between his teeth to stop himself from grinning and ruining it, despite the sting and the taste of blood flooding his mouth again. “I didn’t quite catch it, actually. What are we?”

“I’m gonna murder you in your sleep.” There is no bite whatsoever to his words, and hardly any bark, either. “Boyfriends. Happy?”

“Very.”

And he is. He’s never felt it quite like this before - never so deeply, never so much at once, and never for so long. But he’s felt it enough to recognise it, and this is it, for him. Sitting in the space between their apartment and the genkan, their knees touching, thighs touching, hands touching. Chifuyu nudging his nose out of the way with his own as he leans closer, catching his lips in a criminally soft kiss. A hand on the outside of his thigh, his hip, his waist, one cradling his face with a touch so tender it makes him want to cry.

Chifuyu handles him delicately, like he’s precious, but not in a way that makes him feel breakable. He’s so used to the opposite that it hits him with the weight of a truck behind it. For a second his chest lurches with nausea and he breaks the kiss to breathe through it, but Chifuyu is there, always there, with hands so gentle and kind Kazutora feels like they don’t belong anywhere near him. But they do, and he’ll tell himself that until he believes it.

“You okay?” Chifuyu asks, whispering, like anyone else could hear them. “Shit, I need to check your ribs, don’t I? I forgot, I’m sorry.”

Kazutora kisses the words from his lips and drowns them out. “I’m okay. Just - fuck. You know?”

“I know.”

When Chifuyu stands up he does it slowly, and he lets Kazutora lean most of his weight on him. The step up into the apartment is a bit of a challenge because his ribs really are starting to hurt now, the adrenaline of everything running out and the pain setting in. He’s helped to his room, neither of them bothering with house slippers, and Chifuyu sits him down on his bed before going to rifle through his drawers for clean pajamas.

“Can you take your shirt off?” He says, sort of absently, as he goes to switch on the light. “It’s okay if you can’t, I’ll help.”

It’s a bit of a struggle getting it over his head when he can only lift his arms so far without it hurting, but he manages eventually and tosses the bloodstained shirt to the floor. The bruising is much worse on his torso, blooming into dark, sickly red splotches. Chifuyu sits beside him, fresh pajamas in his lap, and asks him to lift his arms again, then feels around his ribs ever so gently, brow furrowed with worry.

“Nothing’s broken, I think,” he says after a moment. Kazutora has no idea how he managed to do that without hurting him. “Take the shower first and call for me if you need help. I mean it.”

Kazutora swallows and lets himself be taken to the bathroom. Chifuyu turns on the water for him, tests the temperature with his elbow and everything, before leaving him to shower on his own. He keeps the door ajar, though, and Kazutora doesn’t bother to lock it.

The water is a little colder than he usually likes it, but he supposes it’s to help with the swelling on his ribs. Washing his hair is a challenge but he tries his best, knowing there’s probably dried blood in it. The gauze and closure strips appear to be waterproof - an unbelievably good thing, because he forgets they’re there and accidentally drenches his face with water before panicking and wrenching his face away, only to find them stuck just as well as when Chifuyu first put them on.

And then his mind wanders back to that exchange in the car. Chifuyu had been so upset, so angry that someone could lay their hands on Kazutora. All that blood all over his hands and yet he’d forced himself to stay calm enough to tend to his wounds first, calm enough to drive them home, calm enough to confess to him before he could wash it off.

(He has now. The water goes cold for a minute or two, the way it does when the hot tap in the kitchen is running.)

No one has cared about him like that in a long time. The thought of it is so overpowering, the weight of all that love so immense that he almost collapses in the shower, catching himself just barely before he can slip and bring the curtain down with him.

Chifuyu loves him. He doesn’t quite know whether that’s right or wrong yet, but he knows he wants it.

After his shower, he dresses in the pajamas Chifuyu picked for him - a comfy shirt and sweatpants, fluffy on the inside to keep him warm. It’s a bit of a struggle to get them on without his ribs hurting but he manages eventually, with a bit of help from the bathroom counter. When he leaves, steam billowing out behind him, he finds Chifuyu in his own bedroom with the hairdryer plugged in beside his bed.

He’s gotten changed too, into his own pajamas. Kazutora remembers him saying these were the most comfortable pair he owns. The pants have cartoon cats printed on them, and the shirt has a pocket with one peeking out of it. Kazutora damn near melts.

Chifuyu pats the space in front of him, between his legs, and helps Kazutora sit in it. He doesn’t realise quite how tired he is until the heat of the hairdryer is blasting his neck and Chifuyu is gently combing his hair. His eyelids droop and he fights to keep them open, but he can’t win every battle, and eventually he lets them close, almost falling asleep sitting up.

He barely notices when the hot air stops flowing, but he makes a noise of protest when Chifuyu lays him down with a pillow under his neck and upper back. A finger on his lips shuts him up, though, and soon Chifuyu’s throwing the covers over him. It’s so warm, and he’s so tired, and he doesn’t have the energy to fight back.

(Not that he’d last very long if he could. He’s easy like that, when it comes to Chifuyu.)

Chifuyu doesn’t have a twin bed, it’s just a single, so it’s a bit of a tight squeeze but they make it work, like they always do. Kazutora’s head ends up in the crook of Chifuyu’s arm, a leg thrown over his hips, and Chifuyu is cradling his waist with his other arm. It’s everything, really. He doesn’t want to sleep, because if he does, then he’ll have to wake up and move.

“It’s past your bedtime, ‘Tora,” Chifuyu says, and he follows it with a tender forehead kiss, pushing Kazutora’s bangs out of the way. “I’ll put in for time off in the morning, so we’ll sleep in, okay?”

“Mm’kay.” He presses his nose into the fabric of Chifuyu’s shirt. “Goodnight.”

The rest of his sentence lingers on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know whether he should say it, whether he should wait for Chifuyu to say it first - he isn’t sure if the first time really counted. He knows Chifuyu likes his shoujo manga moments, too, so perhaps he should let him take the lead on this one.

“Night, ‘Tora.” Another kiss, and he feels Chifuyu’s breath on his skin as he lingers. “Love you.”

His heart swells. “Love you, too.”

When he falls asleep, it’s to the sound of Chifuyu’s steady breathing.

At twenty-five, Kazutora learns that he has been playing by the wrong rules, but only because he was never taught the right ones, and everyone around him was playing dirty.

At twenty-five, Kazutora lets Chifuyu rewrite the rules for him - and these rules, soft words written by softer hands, have a place for him.