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Doujima said he thought Souji was sleeping, but as Yosuke got to the top of the stairs, he saw light spilling out from under the cracked door. He wondered if he should knock then figured, naw, it wasn’t like Souji would be squeezing one off or anything, with Doujima still awake downstairs. Still, as a manly courtesy, he called out with a bit of embarrassed laugh in his voice as he pushed open the door.
“Hey, partner, pull up your pants. I’m--”
And he stopped dead. A strange look came over his face and he nearly dropped the bag of snacks he’d been carrying for them to eat together.
“What the--”
The room was torn apart. It looked like it’d be ransacked by thieves--no, blown through by a tornado. Yosuke wondered if even Jiraiya could have done that much damage. Souji’s wire shelf was completely toppled over. The TV was face down on the coffee table, which had somehow managed to make it across half the room. There’d be no Midnight Channel viewing on that anymore--if the Midnight Channel still existed without people to create the shows and sets.
Part of a curtain was torn off the rod and dangling. For the first time, Yosuke noticed that Souji’s floor had a checkered rug--only because he couldn’t help but notice the entire room seemd to have spilled itself on it. The sofa was moved at an odd angle and books thrown across the room.
Yosuke begin to panic. He nearly turned to yell for Doujima, when he finally saw Souji. Well, his hair, poking out from under his blanket. Souji was lying on the floor, behind his sofa, his futon a jumble with the desk chair and books a few feet away. Souji sleeping with his socks still on, Souji curled up on the floor, Souji surrounded by a total mess. His uniform jacket was splayed across his dresser and Yosuke couldn’t see his pillow anywhere.
Yosuke took a few steps into the room and nearly tripped over clothes spilling out of the cupboard. Thinking twice, he turned back and closed the bedroom door behind him. It was a dull evening outside--almost like the nights of fog--and the light in the bedroom was yellow and harsh. Yosuke realized his heart was beating a little too quickly in his chest and he involuntarily strode across the room as quickly as he could, dodging books and shelves.
“Partner?”
Souji didn’t move, so Yosuke squeezed past the coffee table.
“Souji?”
And then a little more panicked.
“Souji, wake up,” Yosuke bent down next to him and tore the blanket back. He put a hand on Souji’s shoulder and began to shake it, “Souji!”
Souji’s totally normal, if a bit sleepy, face blinked its eyes open.
“Nrrmmm,” he said eloquently.
Yosuke’s eyes blinked big. And then he was smiling a little and laughing, still nervous.
“You scared the shit out of me, Partner.”
“Rrgg....Yosuke?”
Souji rubbed a hand over his face and rolled over onto his back. Yosuke leaned back a little to give him moving space.
“You were talking in your sleep, dude. I never knew you felt that way about Inaba Trout.”
A little more awake, Souji slowly sat up, and Yosuke tried not to see that Souji’s uniform shirt had also been thrown somewhere else in the room.
“What’re you doing here,” Souji said groggily. It was one of his traits that Yosuke liked, being a groggy waker. Souji was too perfect in many ways, but mornings wasn’t one of them.
“That’s all you have to say? You nearly scared me to death, Partner. I thought--I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t good. What the hell happened in here? Did Teddie ransack the place secretly looking for your porn or something?”
Souji smiled a sleepy smile, “You know I don’t have that. Because you actually asked.”
Yosuke ignored the remark. “Not where you’d let me see, at least.”
Yosuke sat back and leaned against the sofa, watching Souji and trying to look anywhere but his chest and bare shoulders. At least he seemed to still be wearing his uniform pants.
“Seriously, though. Did you do this?”
Souji was alert now, awake. Yosuke could see the dull shine that he got in his eyes when the wheels started turning. That meant Souji was trying to decide what the best answer was, and what each of the possible ones would imply and any reprecussions. Sometimes Yosuke hated that look. He wished Souji would just say what he thought and for once not care about hurting his friends. It made Souji likable but impossible to read or understand. It was something Yosuke battled with a lot--wondering whether Souji was ever actually just being Souji. But then there were those few instances when he saw a different Souji--a brave but fumbling, respectful but adamant, harsh but honest, and those were what stayed with Yosuke and planted themselves in the corners of his brain.
But Souji didn’t make messes. Or, if he did, he tried his hardest to clean them up. He would go without sleep, work until he couldn’t anymore, to fix things. He never tried to wreck things purposely. That was Souji. Clean, calm, caring.
So what the fuck was up with his bedroom? It was such a small thing, but it contrasted so sharply with what Yosuke knew of Souji that it hit him square in the face and wouldn’t back down.
Even though he didn’t like it, Yosuke waited for Souji to pick his correct answer. And when he had, Yosuke almost laughed.
“I was packing.”
“Dude,” Yosuke nearly choked on his own spit when he started laughing, “you are the worst packer ever. The point is to put it in the suitcase, not rearrange the room.”
“I wasn’t happy with it.”
“Well, neither would I be, if--” but then Yosuke realized what Souji was saying. Realized what he had said. And he went quiet too.
He pulled at one side of the blanket still covering Souji’s lower half, playing with the frayed edge. Yosuke had tried to pretend that the topic would never come up--that if they just didn’t talk about it, it would go away. And Souji wouldn’t go away with it.
“So...you’re leaving soon, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Yosuke wondered if Souji could see the wheels turning in him the way Yosuke saw them in Souji. He thought a million things at once and none of them seemed like the right thing to say. At least he knew that it was a big deal for Souji too. If it weren’t, Yosuke didn’t know what he’d do.
“You’re a country boy now. You’ll come back to visit and get some air without poisonous levels of carbon dioxide in it, just watch.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll be back for golden week next year, I’ll bet you five Junes steak skewers.”
“You’ll have to buy them for Chie too.”
“You’re right. She’s such a mooch. But if you’re not careful she’ll eat yours too. And then neither of us will win.”
“Yeah.”
“Man...you really tore this place up.”
“Yeah.”
“Will your uncle be pissed?”
“Probably.”
“You’re usually better at this conversation thing. Do I normally talk enough for both of us or is this some sort of challenge you’re giving me?”
“I...I like cooking.:
“Well, you are pretty good at it. Big surprise. Although there was that one time with the breaded chicken...do you think it was inhumane of me to feed it to the fish?”
Yosuke saw a small smile twitch at Souji’s mouth. Then souji looked straight at him and blinked.
“I like fishing too.”
“I know. Though I have to say standing in the rain doing it isn’t the brightest thing you’ve done.”
“I like the Marufuku tofu too.”
Yosuke watched him carefully. While he watched, he felt his own eyebrows draw down a little.
“I like the Junes food court. I like the blacksmith.”
Yosuke felt his own cheeks pull in a little by his teeth and his lips press together.
“I like...this.” Souji turned a bit. He dragged himself a bit awkwardly over to Yosuke’s side, leaning against the sofa too. They sat side by side, Souji’s bare shoulder touching Yosuke’s. He’d lost half of the blanket along the way and it covered both their feet.
“Stop, man.”
Souji’s eyes shifted to Yosuke’s profile. Yosuke knew he was looking and took a deep breath. Something was scratching the back of his throat, making it hard for him to swallow.
“I’m leaving in five days.”
Finally Yosuke managed to squeeze a sentence out, “Do you want me to help you clean up the room?”
“No.”
“...Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
Yosuke tried to chuckle, “I think that’s the first time you’ve just told me, straight-out, ‘no’ to anything.”
Yosuke felt Souji shug next to him, “It seemed like enough.”
Yosuke thought about it a moment. He reached up and grabbed Souji’s uniform shirt from on top of the couch, wadded it up, and threw it across the room as far as he could before it fluttered open and ended up hanging off the coffee table, joining the rest of the mess.
“Yeah, it’s enough.”
Souji reached down and pulled the blanket up so that it was covering both of them. Yosuke squirmed a little so that they were both equally leaning on the edge of the couch and each other. Yosuke could feel Souji’s warmth at his side and wondered how he ever could have thought of his Partner as a cool, aloof person. Souji was just Souji. And before long, Yosuke felt his head drooping next to the person he’d come to rely on the most. He promised himself he wouldn’t think about what was going to happen in five days.
They fell asleep with the yellow light still on.