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Good things rarely ever last long for Shikanoin Heizou. This is one of the many, most fundamental truths in the inner workings of the universe. The sun rises in the west here in Teyvat, the stars are not as they seem, and good people are always going to be mercilessly stolen from him. It is inevitable.
So, he doesn’t know why he is still so goddamn surprised in spite of everything when someone as inherently good and noble as Kaedehara Kazuha is ripped out of his hands by the Shogun’s new decree. It is unfair and brutal and he has half the mind to rip out his own Vision and shove it into Kujou Sara’s face, but he can’t. He has lost so much already—they both have—and he knows Kazuha will only hate him if he follows through with his insane plans.
He doesn’t want Kazuha to hate him. He never does.
“Heizou,” Kazuha murmurs. His voice is so quiet, barely even audible over the sea breeze, and something in Heizou shatters beautifully, the shards piercing through flesh and lungs. He thinks he recognizes it distantly as his heart.
Heizou doesn’t say anything in response. He can’t. The words will come out trembling if he does, easily wavered by the steady waves lapping at the sand beneath their feet. Something wild scrambles up his throat, nearly resembling a hysterical laugh, and he recognizes the scene unfolding before him.
Heizou, rooted to the ground, his hands helpless by his side. Kazuha, standing across from him, something knowing in his eyes. They have always been able to read the other better than anyone. If there is anyone at all Heizou would trust to read his mind, it would be him, always.
Something that feels a lot like a gaping maw opens in his chest, akin to the blackholes he would read up in his free time. It consumes everything that stands in its path. Heizou is not one to be led by his heart. When he was younger, his mind has always been the louder one between the two. And when he grew older, joined the Tenryou commission and became a self-assigned best detective, he simply didn’t have time to listen to his heart anymore. Emotion is a liability. Logic overrules all else.
Except, it seems, somehow, Kazuha must have found a way to override the very base instinct Heizou has carved into himself ever since he was a little boy because he finds himself standing across the boy his heart lurches for and there is a handcuff in his hand, but he cannot make himself move.
Kazuha smiles, something tired, and Heizou reads him effortlessly. If he makes a move to capture him, Kazuha will come in easily. There will be no riots, no signs of struggle, because as much as Heizou may care for Kazuha, it will be nothing compared to the affection Kazuha holds for him in return. Perhaps, in another life, when vulnerability is rewarded and armour is unnecessary, they will allow themselves to love each other the way they wish they could; an all-consuming, inherent, unwavering love.
But they cannot afford it. Not in this life.
So they make do with what they are given. They take the nights they can spend together, Heizou lying on his side with Kazuha asleep next to him. His hand lightly traces the scars mapping Kazuha’s skin, an undeniable signature that in spite of his noble blood, Kazuha is still inherently human. Each fall of a samurai’s blade leaves some kind of mark on his skin, be it visible or not.
Sometimes, he will stare long enough, hard enough, as if he is trying to memorize every crook and slope that forms Kaedehara Kazuha in all of his glory, and Kazuha’s eyes will flutter open. A small smile will grace the corners of his mouth, something akin to vulnerability, and Heizou will want to know the taste of it, so he will learn forward and kiss him.
There is bile at the back of his throat in the realization that all this will come to an end one day, but he chases the foul taste down with the taste of Kazuha’s lips. Sweet, even after everything, and inherently Kazuha. Heizou doesn’t think he will ever find something else that tastes quite like him. He doesn’t think he ever wants to taste anything else other than him.
“What’s that for?” Kazuha will always ask, his voice heavy and still laden with sleep. It will always cause the thing lodged in Heizou’s chest to startle, stumbling over a beat.
“I just wanted to,” Heizou will always answer. And he will never admit this, but he will always think: You’re beautiful.
Kazuha will kiss him again and again until Heizou drowns in him entirely.
And when dawn kisses the horizon, a temporarily embrace between day and night, Heizou will grumble loudly when he feels Kazuha shift next to him. A low chuckle, a gentle hand brushing the strands of his bangs back, a gentle kiss pressed against his temple. On the rare occasions when their days off align—or Heizou manages to convince Kujou Sara to let him off for the day—Heizou will sling an arm and a leg over Kazuha’s waist, trapping him in bed, and the resistance that comes after will be little.
It’s at times like these when Heizou thinks that perhaps they can afford to fall in love, just a little bit. Caught in the brief, tender moment of honesty between the hazy sheets and the four walls they call their house, Heizou can push himself closer and closer to Kazuha, until their bones and muscle meld into each other. A makeshift home made of the most fragile things, threatening to break at the slightest shift between them.
It is so easy to undo everything they have built. This bastardization of a home, this trembling shadow of a heart, this poor mockery of love is nothing but a by-product of their need to belong. Heizou wants someone to acknowledge his worth and Kazuha is all too willing as long as Heizou keeps looking at him like that. Kazuha wants someone to fix in a way he can’t do for his home and Heizou will let him should Kazuha keep his hands on his skin at all times.
It is a play, what they are doing here, and they don’t love each other, they just think that they do. They slip into the roles of a doting lover like a second skin and pretend they are not playing dress-up. And now, the curtains are falling and there is a crack in the stage between them, and they are slowly realizing that they have become one with the characters they are never supposed to get attached to.
Heizou tries prying the skin of who he pretends he is around Kazuha off his body only to find that it has become one with his flesh. There is no coming back from whatever it is that they have here, not without feeling as if he has lost something vital somewhere along the way.
It’s easier, Heizou finds, to leave when there is nothing to lose.
“Kaedehara Kazuha,” he says in the voice Kazuha likes to call his Detective Shikanoin Heizou voice. “Due to your refusal to hand in your Vision to the authorities in spite of various warnings, you are now a criminal wanted by the Tenryou Commission. As the detective of the Tenryou Commission, I have orders issued for your arrest.”
He sees the moment the fight bleeds out of Kazuha and resignation sinks into the lines of his limbs. Something in Heizou’s chest aches at the sight; a bone-gnawing pain that he wants to claw out of his very being. “I understand,” Kazuha says. There is no fight left in his words and the smile that curls around the corners of his mouth is mirthless. They both know the final, unyielding truth—
Detective Shikanoin Heizou will always choose his job before anything else.
Heizou twists the handcuffs around his fingers and summons a little flicker of wind from his Vision to lift it off his hands. It hovers, twisting in an expert dance. “However,” he says slowly, “as Heizou, I am obliged to protect you.”
The handcuffs meet the sand.
The silence that comes after is resounding, a heavy echo that carries far too much weight within it. Kazuha stares at him, his eyes blown wide in surprise and his lips parted. He doesn’t move, still as a statue, and there is something in his eyes that is akin to devotion—a devotion Heizou has not earned.
“You’re letting me go,” Kazuha says, awed.
“Yes,” Heizou answers.
He tries, he swears that he tries, but he can’t meet Kazuha’s eyes, so he maintains the illusion that he is instead. He stares at the small space between his brows, the cross between his temple and the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t startle when Kazuha takes a careful step forward, nor does he flinch when Kazuha takes another step and another and another until he is standing in front of Heizou and they are merely a few breaths away from each other.
A hand lands on Heizou’s forearm, a steadying gaze, and Heizou can’t help the way a trembling exhale passes his parted lips.
And then, as if it isn’t enough, as if having Kazuha so close isn’t already utterly ruinous, Kazuha leans forward. It’s featherlight, a barely-there brush of his lips against Heizou’s cheeks. It shouldn’t matter but somehow, it does. It isn’t more than a fundamentally inconsequential, little thing and yet, Heizou finds his entire world crumbling entirely.
“I have to go,” Kazuha murmurs into his skin, something almost grievous lining his words.
Heizou hardens his will and sharpens his words when he says, “Then go.”
Kazuha pulls away, just enough so that he can look Heizou in the eyes. There is something solemn there, his lips pressed into a grim line. Heizou forgets, ultimately, that Kazuha is the one person in this world who can read him far better than anyone.
“I’ll come back for you,” Kazuha says, a sliver above a promise. It should be beautiful, Heizou thinks, to be worthy of being Kaedehara Kazuha’s anchor, but he only feels sick to the stomach.
Nothing in this world will ever deserve Kaedehara Kazuha. Something as brilliant and beautiful and good as Kazuha is not someone that can be earned by even a lifetime of good deeds. Heizou knows this intimately. This is a lesson he learns as he runs his fingers along the lines of Kazuha’s hands, tracing along invisible oaths looping around his promise ring. Kaedehara Kazuha is not someone who can be rooted in place. He denies it, but Heizou knows that he has the heart of a wanderer. They have always known the other better than they knew themselves.
“Don’t,” Heizou tells him and pretends he is only breaking one heart when he says this. “Don’t come back, Kazuha.”
The world will treat you kinder, Kaedehara Kazuha, Heizou thinks with all the desperation of a prayer. I swear it. They will all see how great someone so good can be and they will acknowledge his grand fate. Kazuha has always had a gentle hand and a gentler heart. He will do so much good out there.
Inazuma has had its chance with Kaedehara Kazuha, and they wasted it. Now, Heizou has to watch him go.
“I’ll come back for you,” Kazuha says once again with all the conviction of an oath.
“Don’t,” Heizou says, but he already knows it is a losing fight. He has always been helpless in everything that comes with Kaedehara Kazuha and this is nothing different.
Kaedehara Kazuha leaves Inazuma as a traitor to the Shogun. There are signs of struggle, bruises in the shape of a wide, open palm stretching across Shikanoin’s cheek in a sick parallel to the way Kaedehara used to hold his face with such devotion. Shikanoin doesn’t offer much explanation beyond the obligatory reports and no one asks him for more than he gives. He returns to his work and runs investigation after investigation with a tenacity that rivals even the one of Kujou Sara herself. No one asks questions, and Shikanoin offers no answers.
They don’t notice the thin band of fabric looped around his wrist, the shade of blood red. It’s nothing pretty, nothing worth asking about, but Heizou clings onto it like a man to his lifeline. There is an oath there, engraved into the very existence of it. I will come back for you. In spite of everything.
Because of everything.