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Rei hadn’t realized how many things required two hands until he lost one. Cooking, for example, was hard enough for him when he had full mobility. Now, he can barely crack an egg by himself and gets into such intense fights with jars he's sure being an assassin was easier.
He’s sure if he was as comfortable with it as Kazuki, the numbness in his right hand would barely matter, that he would know when to flip what and how to avoid getting the french toast stuck to the pan in a way that results in Rei pushing the pan towards his body to try and put enough pressure that the food flips and not the pan, an act that causes Kazuki to run into the kitchen and ban Rei from cooking until he’s healed.
“C’mon,” Kazuki laughs. “What's that expression for? I thought cooking was a pain.”
“Just learned,” Rei mumbles.
“Huh?”
“The french toast,” Rei says. “I did good. And now I can’t.”
Kazuki’s smile falters at that, and Rei wonders, not for the first time, what the other man thought of him now and the wound on Rei’s shoulder he can’t help but fuss over.
“Your arm won’t be injured forever,” Kazuki says. Rei shakes his head.
“It will.” They both know it. Rei had caused it, after all. And if Rei had wanted to hurt himself, he would stay hurt.
“Well.” Kazuki hesitates for a moment, then grins. “Guess it’s a good thing you’ve got me!”
Rei smiles.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Guess so.”
The wound closes quickly, thankfully enough. Rei is good at shooting, and even better at taking bullets. Kazuki helps him get dressed in the mornings now, though Rei is certain he’s suffered through worse alone. The thing is, Kazuki always asks if Rei wants his help, not if he needs it, and the answer to the first question always seemed to be, “yes,” no matter why he was asking it. Rei thinks Kazuki must understand this, too. When the wound closes, Kazuki traces the scar it leaves on Rei’s shoulder.
“It healed well,” Kazuki says.
“Thank you,” Rei replies, because if nothing else, the scar is a testament of his precision and his strength of will. Kazuki laughs.
“I don’t think I would have been able to do something like this,” he admits. “You’ve got balls, man.”
“I don’t think I would have,” Rei says. “Before. But…”
But he knows Kazuki would never think of him as a burden. No matter what he breaks. No matter what he doesn’t know how to do.
“I’ve got your hands now, too.”
Kazuki laughs at that, too.
“What the heck?” he says. “I thought I told you I wasn’t your maid.”
“Not maid,” Rei insists. “Partner.”
Kazuki doesn’t have anything to say to that. The gentle touch of his hand on Rei stutters slightly, before tracing the bullet hole one more time.
Rei knows he’s not good with words. As a child, it had always been clear that his feelings mattered much less than the assignments his father put him on. At some point, he’d given up putting any of his thoughts to words, so sure that he’d always be surrounded by people who refused to understand.
But Kazuki, he thinks, must know exactly what he means now. Because he presses a kiss to Rei’s neck and asks softly, “Do you want me to help you with your shirt?”
“Yeah,” Rei says, because he never feels as safe as when Kazuki’s hands are on him.
Neither of them have any real work experience. Kazuki says that’s fine, because they still have a lot of skills, and fraud is an easy way to make an impressive resume.
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought about what else I could do,” Rei says. Kazuki hums.
“Usually, I think you’re supposed to pick something related to your interests,” he says. “‘Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life,’ or something.”
Rei glances mournfully over to the TV, where his controller still lies. They haven’t adapted it to be used one-handed yet, so the only way he’s been able to play games is with Miri sitting in his lap, pushing all the buttons he can’t. She enjoys it well enough, so Rei tells himself he doesn’t mind.
He really wanted to finish unlocking everyone in Guilty Gear, though.
“You have it easy, then,” Rei says. “You like cooking. Everyone needs food.”
“What, like, open my own restaurant?” Kazuki laughs. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t know the first thing about how restaurants work,” Kazuki reminds him. “I wouldn’t know how much food to buy, or what discounts to give, or even what food to serve.”
“French toast,” Rei says immediately. “You’re good at studying, too. With all the heists you’ve gotten us to pull off, learning something like this should be nothing.”
“Haha, you think so?” Kazuki asks, grinning idiotically at the praise. He shakes himself and frowns again. “But there’s also budgeting and everything…”
“You already do that.”
“... Plus finding a good location…”
“You scout out locations every day.”
“... And getting good PR—no one’s going to come to the place if we can’t figure out how to sell ourselves.”
“You’ve always been good at charming others into doing what you want.”
“Not to mention, the money starting something like that would cost.”
“We have money, don't we?”
“Well, sure, for now.” Kazuki scoffs. “But we can’t waste it all on a dream! I mean, think of Miri’s future! What’s she going to do if her poor papa’s go broke trying to make the impossible happen?”
“It’s not impossible,” Rei insists. “Because it’s you. And I’d be with you.”
Suddenly, Kazuki won’t meet his gaze. The man turns a bit red under Rei’s stare and scratches his head, then laughs.
“It’d be nice, though, wouldn’t it?” Kazuki says. He sounds sad. Like now that Rei’s mentioned it, he won’t want to do anything else, but still can’t believe in a world where it can happen. “You and me, working together every day… I’d make you try so many new recipes I bet you’d get tired of my cooking. You’d have to buy takeout just to give your tastebuds a break. And we could have an apartment above the restaurant—man, bet it’d smell freakin’ amazing at the end of the day. And Miri could be our adorable little mascot. We could have her sing Christmas carols in the winter. Who wouldn’t want to see that?”
Most people, Rei thinks, would not want a child’s singing interrupting their meal. But Rei wants this too, so he doesn’t say anything. He knows he won’t get tired of Kazuki’s cooking, just as long as Kazuki’s there with it.
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to put some money aside,” Kazuki adds. “Maybe work at a restaurant a few months. See how we like it.”
“Just for a few months,” Rei agrees with a nod. He can see the gears in Kazuki’s head turning, and he already knows it will lead to something wonderful.
People treat him a bit differently, now. The moms at the daycare trip over themselves asking him if he needs any help when all he’s doing is picking Miri up. They tell Miri to be gentle with him when she leaps into his good arm, resulting in the man and his daughter giving the women twin looks of confusion until Rei realizes that they don’t expect him to be as strong as he is. It’s true his right arm aches, sometimes, from things that never used to require so much effort, but one hand is plenty for someone as small as Miri.
He doesn’t know how he feels about it. When Rei had shot himself, all he’d been thinking about was Kazuki and Miri. Something as small as losing an arm wouldn’t be enough for them to look at him any differently. He’d forgotten that Kazuki and Miri weren’t his entire world.
He can understand why someone would worry about him. As soon as Rei said his arm wouldn’t heal, Kazuki had poured himself into research—what accessibility devices other people in his situation use, what shortcuts they take to make life easier, the physical therapy exercises Rei can do to strengthen his muscles—Rei knows no matter what he does, he’ll never be able to raise his arm which, strangely enough, is enough motivation for him to do the exercises every day—but he’s still much easier to capture now. If someone had trapped him in their hold, it’d be much harder for him to free himself when he’s on his own. He can’t shoot his gun—thought Kazuki, of course, would have no problem. He can barely steer a bike—but Kazuki can drive a car. He has to put his phone down to use it, since he can’t hold it and type at the same time anymore, which is why Kazuki keeps insisting he learn how to use speech to text—Rei won’t, he mumbles too much for his phone to understand his words, and Kazuki’s knows to call instead, anyway.
It’s the first time in Rei’s life where he’s had to learn to let others take care of him. Kyu-chan says that this makes him brave. The mothers at the daycare don’t see him as brave, though. They see him as wounded. Once he’s done feeling bitter about it, it occurs to Rei that he may be capable of being both. The idea soothes him the next time he has a nightmare, tracing the bullet mark as he tries to regulate his breathing. Even with the nightmare still snapping at his heels, there’s a certain amount of pride he feels in this.
I did this, Rei thinks. I saved myself.
For Kazuki. For Miri.
Because they showed him what love should look like.
Anna is pretty nice about everything, though. She asks him what happened, and when he grunts out, “accident,” because he knows Kazuki’ll shut him up if he says more, she says, “Well, just let us know if you need any help! Accessibility is a big priority for us here.”
“It’s okay, Anna-chan!” Miri says. “Because I’m helping Papa Rei out!”
“She is,” Rei confirms.
“Is that so?” Anna asks. “What a good girl you are, Miri-chan!”
Miri giggles.
If he really tries, Rei can move his fingers a bit. It’s more of a twitch, really, but it’s strong enough that when Miri holds his hand, he can almost hold her’s back. Of course, with how tightly she holds onto him these days, he barely needs to.
She’s been trying to help out a lot these days. Mostly because of his arm, Rei’s sure, but with Kazuki and Rei splitting the chores more evenly—it may be a pain, but Rei can at least use a vacuum—he’s sure part of it is just that she feels left out being the only one not responsible for a part of the house.
He’s relearning how to write, too. Kazuki says it’s good timing, because seeing her Papa Rei work so hard at something she’s still learning herself is a good motivator. Rei can see the logic behind it, so he finds excuses for her to write notes for him because, “Miri’s so much better at it than me.” She accepts all of his tasks seriously, tongue sticking out as she carefully puts her pen to paper. Eventually, when she’s finished, she’ll look at Rei for approval, and Rei will nod and bump their fists together, filled with a kind of pride he never thought he’d experience until now.
She opens jars for him—or at least, struggles with them until Kazuki saves them both—and dries the dishes after he washes them. She’ll even move what little furniture she can when he vacuums to help him clean. He tells her she’s done a good job, every time, and is rewarded with her childish laugh and brilliant smile. Eventually, she makes a song of it. Rei gives her a hi-five every time they finish cleaning, and Miri laughs and runs off, singing, “We cleaned the house! Papa Rei and I cleaned, we cleaned the house!” Whenever she does, Kazuki will shout from wherever he is and tell her, “Good job, Miri!”
It makes Rei feel incredibly warm inside. If he could bottle this feeling, he thinks he could survive on it for days.
In the end, Rei stops letting Kazuki help him get dressed. It’s a pain, but many things in life are, so Rei bears it without complaint. As comfortable as it is to have Kazuki brush Rei’s hair, he can do it himself. And if Rei lets him spend the entire day pampering him, they’ll never get anything done. He assumes Kazuki will appreciate having one less task, until one day, Kazuki approaches him, shampoo in hand and a sheepish smile on his lips and asks if Rei wants him to wash his hair.
“If you want to,” Rei says, not understanding the way his throat closes up at the question. It would hardly be the first time Kazuki had gotten him into their tub. “If it’s not a bother.”
“I kind of miss it, you know?” Kazuki admits. “It was a nice routine. And I… I like your hair.”
“Thanks,” Rei says. “You can touch it. If you want.”
Kazuki laughs and runs a hand through Rei’s hair. Rei leans into the touch, thinking about how, only two weeks prior, he and Miri had gotten into the tub together, Miri squirming around & exclaiming how Papa Kazuki was going to make them “squeaky cleany!”
Kazuki had laughed at that.
“That’s right, Miri,” he said, poking their daughter on the nose. “Everyone I love is in this tub, so I have to make sure you both come out looking as perfect as possible!”
Everyone he loves. Rei had sunk into the water to hide his face. It was another indescribable emotion.
“I like when the people I love play with my hair,” Rei says. The admission is too soft, considering the time they’ve spent together and the beds they’ve shared. “So—anytime you want, go ahead.”
“Yeah?” Kazuki says, tone almost teasing. “That’s good to know.”
It takes Kazuki a while to ask the question he’s been wondering since the start. They’re in bed together. That has been happening more and more lately. At first, Kazuki had insisted Rei sleep somewhere comfortable while he healed, but Rei, still too used to a life as a weapon, had refused. Miri had understood. She’d told Kazuki that Rei was worried about nightmares, but that the nightmares wouldn’t be able to get him if they were all sleeping together.
“Is that true?” Kazuki asked, hands on his hip. Rei and Miri both said it was, with varying degrees of certainty. Kazuki’s response had only been a sigh and a, “Well, guess I don’t have a choice…”
Since then, Rei has come to love the view of Kazuki’s back next to his. He knows, without a doubt, his father would scold him for this kind of sentimentalism, but Rei has never been so close to anything that has made him feel as safe as this. He loves Kazuki’s muscles. He loves the way Kazuki embraces him after a nightmare, how Rei doesn’t even have to say a word for a pair of strong arms to wrap around him, because some things, Kazuki just knows.
Rei watches Kazuki run a finger up his arm, keeping their hands clasped together.
“You can still feel that, can’t you?” Kazuki asks.
“Of course,” Rei says. “How much do you think I shot?”
Kazuki laughs.
“Just making sure,” he says quietly. Rei waits. He can hear the question on Kazuki’s lips.
“Without this hand, I can’t shoot,” Rei says. “There’s nothing for me there anymore. I’m nothing to them.”
Kazuki’s grip on Rei’s hand tightens.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Rei warns. “I wanted this.”
“You would have never done it if it wasn’t for your shitty dad, though,” Kazuki grumbles. He looks at Rei’s face. “Sorry.”
“It shed too much blood,” Rei says. He turns his head and stares at the ceiling. “I want to only do good things now. So I cut out the part of myself that was an assassin.”
“You won’t do it again, though, right?” Kazuki asks, with a sense of urgency Rei hadn’t been expecting.
“Will I need to?” Rei asks.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Kazuki growls. The possessiveness is cute. Kazuki doesn’t have anything to say about it, actually. But as they say, it’s the thought that counts.
“Then I won’t do it again,” Rei says.
“Good,” Kazuki says smugly. He kisses Rei’s knuckles. “I can promise you one thing, though. This hand of yours isn’t the hand of an assassin anymore. It’s something much better.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Rei says. His fingers flutter, but he can’t break free of Kazuki’s grasp on his own.
“Oh, honey, I would never lie to you,” Kazuki says. He places his free hand on Rei’s cheek and Rei looks back towards him. He almost has to look away, the adoration in his eyes too much to bear. “I know this hand is good, because it has the most important purpose a hand can have. It’s here to be held by me.”
“And Miri,” Rei says softly, voice cracking, too filled with love he never thought he’d have for his words to come out right.
“Yeah.” Kazuki smiles and kisses Rei’s hand again. “And Miri.”