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Mizuki Date and Kuruto Ryuki are not friends.
They don’t hate each other or anything. There’s just not much reason for a twelve-year-old middle schooler to hang out with a twenty-three-year-old special units police detective. It’s not like they share the same parents or are even familiarly related. They have none of the same hobbies or interests. By all practical counts, there’s no reason for them to be anything but strangers.
If it weren’t for Kaname Date, that is.
Ryuki quickly caught on that letting his superior drink him under the table rather than trying (and failing) to keep up would lead to more pleasant nights out. No looking like an idiot in front of his boss, no annoying headaches the morning after, less memory gaps and more time spent with - an admittedly wasted - Date. Because if Ryuki never goes past tipsy, he can help Date back to his apartment back in the Koto district instead of blacking out for the next eight hours.
And Mizuki isn’t always at the apartment - she has a life of her own, thank you very much - but she’s there often enough to take note of the lithe, raven-haired man carrying her adoptive father home after practically every bar crawl.
Mizuki is also used to chatting and befriending adults. Hell, she has more friends closer to Ryuki’s age than her own. And he’s sorta a dork like Ota, sometimes peppy like Iris, often polite like Teacher, and the tiniest bit reliable like Date can be when it really matters (not that she’d ever tell him that).
So she jokes with the young adult, tells him dumb stuff Date’s done. And he in turn shares stories about his superior that she’s never heard, some that paint Date too favorably to believe and others that don’t. Ryuki asks the girl about mundane things - homework, weekend plans, her clione - and she enjoys the normalcy of it. In the quiet hours of the incredibly late evenings and far too early mornings, they have short, meaningless chats and slowly morph into odd acquaintances.
From there, they see more of each other - not just during the late night drop-offs, but chance encounters at the supermarket or on the street. Ryuki has no idea when Mizuki’s birthday is, but he can repeat verbatim the book report she gave on Slaughterhouse 5 last week. Mizuki couldn’t name Ryuki’s favorite color (orange? red?) but she knows he always double-knots his shoelaces, starting with the left shoe, without fail. It’s the tidbits that stick with them: Mizuki doesn’t like raw fish, Ryuki enjoys German folk music, Mizuki has the highest grammar grade in her year, Ryuki jumps over obstacles like low benches and fences instead of walking around them. The little trivia that reveals itself through careful observance, that's what they trade and guard close.
They’re not strangers anymore. Not acquaintances either. More like friends-of-a-friend: they don’t seek out each other’s company, but there's no active avoidance. They talk, but if Ota and Iris come along, it's assumed Mizuki will hang out with them instead, just in the same way it’s assumed if he gets a call from Boss or Pewter, Ryuki will duck out. If they're at the same party, they will be in the same crowds, interact and mingle, and then disperse. It’s a relationship that is both close yet distant, where they know so much yet so little.
They don’t have each others’ numbers or NILE info, but they know where and how to find the other in a pinch. They can read each other’s moods too easily. They know how to make the other smile, laugh even. They’re both too smart to be anything but honest with each other, a sort of comradery forged from being the youngest in their respective inner circles. And the rare times they team up, they become surprisingly in-sync.
It’s the man who brought them together that labels their odd relationship. He doesn’t even do it thoughtfully - only an off-handed remark made after their joint ribbing. A huffed statement: “You two are worse than actual siblings.”
And even if neither Ryuki nor Mizuki would comment aloud, they could privately concede that maybe that description could be apt. It fit more snugly than any previous labels. A sibling-adjacent relationship was what they had.
At least until the Half Body Serial Killings Case. And then, the man who had connected them was gone, and like a tugged thread on a sweater, the little relationship they built between the cracks of their normal lives came undone. No late night visits spurred on by a wasted superior. No more office run-ins due to a father’s forgetful tendencies. No more chance encounters. The two kept their distance and it was all too easy.
After all, there was no reason for them to be anything but strangers.
But even strangers can cross paths. And when they do, they could be… not quite what they were before, but something close. An approximation of a shoulder to lean on. A steady enough hand to hold. A shadow of something akin to support or comfort.
For just a fleeting moment. Only long enough to make sure the girl stops crying or the man makes it back to his place. Only long enough to check that the other is still breathing evenly, and that's enough.
What more can they do? What words can Ryuki offer the daughter of the man he killed? How can Mizuki fix the man the best minds at ABIS can't put back together? There was a limit to what they could do before Date died disappeared went missing, and the little options at their disposal dwindled sharply afterwards.
The years come and go. The two do their best. It’s not enough. The gap between them stays wide, and the chasm becomes not comfortable nor manageable but familiar.
Mizuki does not keep in touch with Ryuki, even after she joins ABIS. He recovers and spirals like a roller coaster ride at a shitty amusement park. He is not mentioned often at the office, regardless of whether he’s present or not. It does not bother her how easily her superiors forget him entirely. Mizuki Date is too busy searching for her deadbeat adoptive father to care about someone she doesn’t know. She does not walk by his place some evenings when her mind won’t quiet down to make sure he made it home and is not passed out, face down in a gutter.
She is not close enough to remark on how a new, non-government-issue pistol is kept in the liquor cabinet nor why a solitary bullet is kept inside its chamber. She already knows the answer anyway. She could take the brandy, the gun, the bullets, but they’d get replaced all the same - maybe that’s why Tama never reports him. Sober Ryuki is too well-practiced at faking being fine. Mizuki herself has started getting good at the art these past years - it isn’t a hard skill to master. It only takes time and practice. Mizuki wonders how many nights Ryuki placed the muzzle to his forehead and moved his fingers over the trigger, how many times he was a breath away from blowing his brains out. But she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know.
Ryuki does not keep tabs on Mizuki. She is busy hurtling through school as fast as she can, and it bears a familiar, aching resemblance to his own anxious drive after his twin’s death. But she’s better than him, so she’ll turn out okay. She has friends and mentors and one of them, surely, must see how her smile never reaches her eyes these days. One of them must. Ryuki is not capable of fixing anything anymore, so he does not try. He does not arrange for concerts and liveshows of her favorite entertainers to fall on difficult dates. There’s no way to know that Iris or Kizuna will excitedly drag Mizuki to them, and that for a moment, she’ll be able to just be a kid having fun before the trauma of real life settles back in.
He is not close enough to talk about why she joined ABIS. He already knows the answer anyway. It’s the same reason she lives in the same shitty apartment her adoptive father first rented even though she could afford to buy a house anywhere. It’s the same reason she’s never at said apartment, preferring to spend time with Iris or Ota, sometimes Kizuna or Amame, but she'll take anyone, anywhere if all other options are out. When faced with the gaping hole in their lives, Mizuki crams the silence with constant company; Ryuki drowns it with drink. He wonders if her method leaves her feeling just as empty as his own. But he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know the full cost of his selfishness, of his negligence. He’d rather choke on his own vomit and stop wasting air.
Mizuki sets a glass of water on the nightstand every time she’s inside his house.
Maybe he'll wake up and his throat will burn too much to even consider drinking. Maybe he'll sip from the glass until it’s empty and decide to go to the sink and get more. Maybe he won't need to drown his demons in alcohol for one night.
Ryuki sends flowers to her apartment every month.
Maybe she'll stop by and keep them. Maybe they'll brighten up the place, give her an excuse to stay there for a little longer than she normally would. Maybe she can stand to be home in Date's absence for one night.
It’s the trivial things. The stuff that pales in comparison to the tragedy they find themselves in. Such little actions won’t solve any of their problems - in fact, they won’t even stand out among them. But that doesn’t mean they stop doing them.