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For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been given to us, the ultimate, the final problem and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Higuruma is sitting in front of his apartment when Nanami gets home, hair plastered to his skull from the surprise spring shower, his suit soaked through. He’s leaning against the door, gingerly picking through a file from his open briefcase, and Nanami can’t help the surge of affection and grief that he feels.
“You weren’t waiting long?” Nanami asks in lieu of a greeting that sticks in his throat.
“No,” Higuruma answers. He’s still reading, and so Nanami carefully navigates around him to unlock the front door and step into the genkan. He leaves it open; Higuruma will follow when he’s done with that file. Shoes off, umbrella resting in its stand, Nanami makes his way to the kitchen to make them both tea. He rehearses the words he needs to say, mouthing them until they don’t feel like they’ll tangle up and refuse to leave his lips, until they feel less like he’s cutting his own chest open.
It isn’t a conversation he wants to have. It is a conversation that he’s practiced with increasing seriousness as he thought about his shitty job, his shitty life (with one bright spot), that curse on the bakery worker’s shoulder growing heavier and heavier. It’s a conversation that he has to have today, because he quit his job and made a phone call on a whim, and instead of dread at the absolute certainty of his demise, instead of grief for a retirement he’ll never see, all Nanami feels is clear, singular purpose. The world has righted itself, the fog lifting slowly from his vision; there is no light flooding the path, only knowledge that his feet are on it, and it’s a lonely one.
He hears the door close, hears Higuruma shuffle about to remove his shoes and his wet clothes, his footsteps as he slips into the bathroom and then the bedroom to change. The kettle starts to burble. Nanami gets two mugs, two separate teabags because while he likes the low smoke of Lapsang Souchong, Higuruma favors low-caffeine, herbal teas. Chamomile today, Nanami decides, and he’ll add a spoonful of honey for good measure.
The kettle starts to whistle, low and soft, and Nanami opens the fridge to check the state of his leftovers. Abysmal. Takeout, then. Higuruma can choose.
It occurs to him that he might be compensating for the inevitable, or putting off the inevitable, or both, and he has to grip the fridge door firmly so his hands don’t shake.
The kettle, he notes distantly, is shrieking now, steam shooting out and the sound filling the room until –
Silence.
Higuruma is in the kitchen with him. The weight of his gaze is a heavy thing, the weight of his consideration worse.
Nanami nearly doesn’t want to turn around and face him, but no – this is the day he’s stopped running away and started running towards, and that’s not a trend he’s eager to break in its infancy.
“Sorry,” he says. “I was checking to see if we had anything for dinner. We don’t – we should order in.”
“Alright,” Higuruma says. Careful and deliberate. His expression is placid as he pours the tea, as he scoops out a spoonful of honey for himself and Nanami has to bite down the urge to snap, ‘I’m supposed to be doing that for you today.’
He recognizes that it’s ridiculous.
“You should choose this time,” Nanami tells him. “It’s your turn.”
It’s not a question of turns, really. More taste, when Higuruma subsists on whatever food is placed in front of him without complaint, and Nanami’s job is – soon to be ‘was’ – to make sure that was vaguely balanced and at least tasted good.
“Is it?” Higuruma asks. He doesn’t call Nanami on this slip, but Nanami can see him assembling the pieces, forming a picture in his mind. “Udon, from that place nearby. I wouldn’t want to even make a delivery boy come far in this weather.”
He takes the teabags out, slides Nanami’s mug over to him across the counter.
“Alright.” Inhale, exhale. Smoke and earth and words that he needs to say. “Higuruma-san. Hiromi. I need to tell you something.”
“Ah?” An eyebrow raises, and Higuruma’s frown is another heavy thing, pulling at his mouth and eyes. “It must be serious for you to use my first name. Kento.”
Nanami closes his eyes and breathes out harshly. He needs to say it.
“I would like to end things between us.” Plain, unadorned. “I don’t see it working out in the long term and I’d rather not waste your time or mine by dragging this out.”
Higuruma looks at him over the rim of his mug as he has a sip of tea, his dark eyes almost liquid. There’s a flash of hurt that Nanami put there, but it pales in comparison to what Nanami will end up putting there if they stay together any longer. If he continues this while working as a sorcerer.
That does not make it any easier to bear.
“Is this because of your job?” Higuruma asks abruptly. “I know you’re unhappy there.”
An understatement, given what Nanami knows Higuruma thinks of his former job. But it’s also an astute observation; of course Higuruma saw how it was eating at him, how it wouldn’t stop until it devoured him whole or Nanami wrenched himself free.
“Yes. But – no. I quit today,” Nanami tells him.
“I see.” Nothing to be gained from that response, only Higuruma watching, assessing, thinking.
“I’m – it’s complicated. But I’ll be in another line of work, and the hours will be different. It’ll be...dangerous,” Nanami settles on saying. “Nothing illegal, but there’s higher occupational hazards than usual. In a way, though, it’s what I was always meant to be doing.”
“You sound sure about it,” Higuruma finally tells him. “That’s a good thing, Kento. You look more alive already.”
Nanami tamps down a flicker of irritation. Higuruma’s not reacting like he expected, he’s still looking at Nanami like there’s something else to solve, a problem to work through. “That’s all you have to say?”
“You want to end things because your new job will be dangerous, and you’re worried about the consequences of that,” Higuruma summarizes. “If it were anyone else, I’d think they were lying about it being illegal. But you’re not like that. So it really is dangerous. That’s fine, Kento. I just disagree with ending things.”
“You disagree,” Nanami echoes, wrong-footed.
Higuruma puts his mug down delicately. “I’m afraid I won’t accept it.”
This, of all things, is the most unexpected.
Higuruma – isn’t unlike Nanami. So he’d thought it would be simple. He would choke it out, he would sound convincing, and Higuruma would leave.
“You can’t do that.”
“I can if your reasoning is faulty,” Higuruma counters. “Your argument is riddled with fallacies and false assumptions. It would be one thing if you were bored of me, if you were tired of an old man struggling to keep up, if you no longer cared for me. But none of those are the issue, it’s your new job. That isn’t the insurmountable obstacle you seem to think.”
“I don’t exaggerate,” Nanami tells him. “Hiromi. Nothing is certain in that line of work – in that life. It doesn’t matter how prepared I am, it doesn’t matter whether I’m on the clock or being dragged into overtime, although that should happen less. I’m risking my life, and I know that. I left before because I thought it was too much to bear, but now – I’m an adult. I can shoulder it, if it means making a difference in the world.”
“This is your friend who died, isn’t it.” Higuruma’s eyes slide towards the living room, where one picture of Nanami and Haibara sits framed on his bookshelf. “That’s why you left whatever this is.”
It’s a non-sequitur that cracks Nanami’s chest wide open.
“Yes,” he says into his mug, his knuckles white.
“I won’t talk you out of returning. But you act like it’s a death sentence.” There’s a question in the silence, Higuruma not asking how concerned he should be about this choice Nanami is making.
“The life expectancy is lower,” Nanami hedges. “The risk never goes away. The work doesn’t get easier. It’s not a death sentence, but death is something I need to be at peace with.”
Higuruma sighs deeply. “And you are.”
“More than most, but I couldn’t go back otherwise. I’d just run away again.” Nanami takes a slow sip of his tea, lets it radiate warmth into his chest. He needs Higuruma to understand. “It isn’t something I could talk about.”
“We don’t talk about work anyway. Not the details,” Higuruma counters easily. Nanami has to concede that; they established that rule early on.
“And you’d be satisfied with not knowing why I might cancel on you, or come back hurt? Or one day not come back at all?” Nanami presses.
Higuruma’s jaw clenches. No, he wouldn’t be; they both know it. “I wouldn’t push if you didn’t want to say. I might hope that you’d eventually explain, but we said we wouldn’t discuss work, and I’d understand if you wanted to keep to that . Just like I would trust you enough to come back.”
Nanami shakes his head, a single, angry motion. “You don’t understand. It isn’t my decision. It isn’t a decision at all. Either I survive, or I don’t. Trust doesn’t matter – strength matters, luck matters, and I’ve never been the luckiest man.”
No, the luckiest man’s laughter had echoed right down the phone line and wormed its way into Nanami’s brain earlier today. He can still hear it in the silence in his kitchen, if he tries hard enough.
“Nor the strongest,” Higuruma guesses, accurate as always. It feels like a knife slid into an old wound.
“No,” Nanami agrees. “Never that.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You left.”
“Running away is a valuable skill, and one that might yet save my skin,” Nanami says dryly. “But not in the metaphorical sense.”
“I think I understand, now,” Higuruma tells him.
Good, Nanami doesn’t say. “Alright.”
“But your logic is still flawed.”
“Hiromi.” Not quite a snap, but enough of an edge to it; Nanami doesn’t want to leave anyone behind, doesn’t want to turn what they have into a curse.
“I know. You’re saying that your inevitable demise is enough of a reason to go our separate ways.” Higuruma frowns deeply, silent for a moment in the way that means he’s building an argument in his head, each word measured for its destructive potential. Nanami braces himself, but it’s still not enough when Higuruma says, "If we ended things now and I died next week of unrelated causes. A car crash. A disgruntled client. A meteor strike. How would you feel? Wouldn't you want that extra week?"
Nanami suddenly can’t breathe for imagining it.
“That,” he starts, and then stops. “That is not a valid comparison. You’re saying ‘if’, and what I’m going back to is a ‘when.’ I’m at peace with that, but I don’t – I can’t leave someone behind.”
“Hm. I’m not sure you get to make that decision for me, Kento,” Higuruma says. “It’s beyond me to stop you going back. I won’t, because it’s something you need. But I would want that extra week. I’m greedy that way. I’d want all the time with you I could get my hands on.”
“That’s unfair,” Nanami chokes out. They both know that Higuruma’s won.
“Maybe,” Higuruma allows. “But I’m not at court. I’m allowed to play dirty to get what I want right now. And I mean it. Whatever time we have between now and the day you don’t come back, the day I don’t come back. I want it. Don’t you?”
Nanami closes his eyes and lets the enormity of it wash over him. Hands brush over his own a moment later, ease the mug from his fingers and then stay. Higuruma’s thumb rubs across his ring finger, not pointed but contemplative.
“You already know I don’t believe in empty promises,” is all he says, and Nanami knows. What’s being offered, what he stands to lose, the devastation that he will leave in his path. He’s been on the other side of it already, he can’t stand the thought of doing that to Higuruma, but –
He doesn’t want to let go, either. Not earlier than he has to.
It’s so horribly selfish that Nanami feels guilty until he reminds himself that Higuruma’s offering. He knows, but Nanami doesn’t know if he believes it, really, beyond understanding that Nanami’s not a liar, that Nanami’s serious. But he’s offering. Asking, after making Nanami think it’s alright to have this after all.
“Then promise you’ll be alright after,” Nanami tells him, desperate. He can’t open his eyes yet, but he reaches out and clutches at Higuruma’s shirt. “That you’ll survive.”
“Assuming I outlive you, I will,” Higuruma answers, firm and steady like always. Nanami feels as if he can breathe again.
Nanami leans into him, rests his forehead against Higuruma’s shoulder, lets himself be made small for just a moment.
“Alright,” he says, quiet. “Alright. If you’re sure.”
Higuruma’s hand is warm, splayed between his shoulder blades.
“I know a good thing when I see it, Kento. There’s little enough there that I won’t let go. So you come home, and I’ll be waiting.”
Nanami laughs, a wet sound.
“I’ll do my best.”
It’s all he can offer, but it’s enough for Higuruma, from the way he holds him tighter.