Chapter Text
Hanamura Yosuke was not a leading man. Self-admitted. Though integral, he’d come to accept—or perhaps had always known—that his role was secondary to that of his partner, Narukami Yu. The Investigation Team’s calm and collected leader and Yosuke: his best friend, his confidant, his enforcer. And when it had come down to the wire, he had been ready to throw a man into the TV World to die rather than allow him to face justice. It would be just the same as his victims had been afforded. A slow, torturous death as they’d been torn apart by Shadows.
But Yu had stepped in. He’d had a greater destiny than any of them, that boy.
And Yosuke hadn’t wanted to hear it, completely at the mercy of the chip on his shoulder that had been nurtured since mid-November. That cold, cold night in that fog-infested town when his partner had called him out to Aiya’s to eat, screw around, to forget. It had been nice, for a time, to see Yu out of his slump over Nanako’s stagnant recovery. Until they’d stepped out into that frosty air and meandered through the shopping district, Yosuke’s arm slung around his partner, Yu’s own arm braced against his back, when three traitorous words had puffed into the air around them and dissipated into nothing.
“I like you.” He’d sounded desperate. Yosuke hadn’t quite heard him. Yu had repeated himself. “I like you. I really, really like you. Yosuke, I…”
Yosuke pushed away from him, the smile on his face so fucking fake that he’d wanted to throw up. Almost as much hearing Yu’s words had made him want to. “You shouldn’t be making jokes like that, partner.”
“I’m not.” Eyes had been just as gentle as they’d been a moment prior, but there had been a set to his jaw that Yosuke knew he got whenever the situation was particularly testy.
“Then you’re not in the right state of mind.” He’d placed a hand at Yu’s elbow anyway. “Let’s get you home. You’ve been through a lot, it’s only natural—”
“What? Yosuke, you know that’s not—”
His smile had dropped. “Shit like this, partner? Not possible.” The sound of Yosuke’s own voice had chilled him to the bone. The wind that had whipped through the district had then turned him downright hypothermic, far from the gentle summer breezes he so enjoyed. “Not between us.”
Because the truth of it all had been this: Yosuke had looked to the past behind him and the future in front of him and had decided that they didn’t fit. Whether he’d wanted it or not, and he’d wanted it so bad, Yosuke hadn’t been able to say those three simple words back. Not in Inaba. Not in 2011. Not ever, probably.
Maybe in another world.
There had been a crack of thunder. (Or had that been Yu’s laugh?)
“Shouldn’t have expected any less from you.” Yosuke’s stomach flipped. “With how you treat Kanji, it should’ve been obvious. But I was foolish to think that maybe you were just wrestling with something. That the whole girl-crazy thing was an act.”
Yu pulled away from him. With effort. Yosuke hadn’t noticed how like a vice his hold had become. Shouldn’t that have been enough?
“Yu, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’m going home.”
“Yu, at least let me walk you.”
“No. Don’t bother. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you, partner.”
Using that title he loved, why had it felt as if Yu had spat venom in his face? He’d disappeared into the fog after that. If it hadn’t been during a meeting with the rest of the Investigation Team, he only ever saw his partner at school from that moment on. No late-night calls, no random texts with stupid little nuggets of information that literally only Yu gave a damn about. There had only been one. To gather them at the hospital.
Nanako had flatlined. They’d cornered Namatame. Yosuke had spat that poison right back at Yu. But his partner, whose sobs had sounded disturbingly like laughs as he’d wept, had gone ice-cold. Yosuke, with his hand at the back of Namatame’s hospital gown’s collar, pressed the man’s face into the TV screen for the sake of retribution he claimed to pursue in the name of love.
Do you see it now, Yu?
Do you see it?
Do you see how much I love you?
Do you see what I’d do for you?
“Yosuke, that’s enough.”
It had been the first time he’d heard his name from the other’s lips in weeks.
“No can do, partner. This asshole has ruined and taken too many lives. He’s the reason Nanako-chan is dead. Yamano, Saki-senpai, too. He must pay. It’s okay if you’re too much of a coward, I’ll do it my—”
Yu had rushed forward. Yosuke’s head hit the floor with a crack.
He’d awoken to news of Nanako’s miraculous recovery. But the damage had already been done. Only Rise had remained to supply a few words about what had happened. After that, Yosuke had left the hospital alone.
Then, there had been the meeting at Aiya’s, on a day just as cold as the one when Yosuke hadn’t uttered a word of what he’d truly believed. Yu had been talking to him again. But the rigidity of his posture when Yosuke had stepped out after him and Naoto had been enough proof.
“Brrr, it’s freezing out here.” He’d said it just to fill the silence. Though quickly his words had turned into a babble. “Maybe this’ll help clear my head and get my deductive muscles flexing.” Then he’d gone on about the weather, the fog. Anything. No response. Yu only looked off into the distance.
“What’s the matter?” Yosuke pressed again, and he finally got a response.
Yu laid the case out in detail and reiterated each piece of evidence they’d compiled. Explained why each person that could possibly be involved wasn’t the killer. He said it so candidly that Yosuke couldn’t find it in him to argue. There really was no one. There was no one at all.
Then why was it that when they came up with nothing, there was a flicker of something in Yu’s face? Something Yosuke recognized. He knew something and he was choosing to remain silent for reasons he couldn’t begin to comprehend.
He only moved to speak once Naoto walked off.
“You know something.”
Yu shook his head. “We just went through it. It can’t be anyone aside from Namatame.”
“Like hell you believe that.” He stepped forward, bolstered by the way Yu canted his head in a silent challenge. “I know you. Whatever is going on between us right now, that’ll never change.”
Yu wasn’t the type to scoff but Yosuke could almost hear it in the way he shifted his weight, popped a hip. “There is no one it could be and there’s nothing going on between us.”
“I don’t—”
“Enough.”
Puffs of white in the frosty air. Yosuke had cleared the distance between them. Impossibly close now. Yu’s gaze burned into his, though all he could occupy himself with was the shape of his mouth.
“Please, Yu.” It came as a whisper.
He appeared to soften at Yosuke’s use of his name. A whole lot it did. Not a second later his partner was vanishing into the fog once more.
The days had blurred into weeks had blurred into months and soon the time had come to see Yu off at the train station.
They’d all grown apart, somewhat. Without the true killer found, there was little reason to meet in the food court every day. It was just too sad. Not to mention, Teddie had returned to the TV World.
He hadn’t known why he’d even gone. The others had seemed just as lost as him. The only bittersweet face had been Dojima’s. He’d wished that he could’ve felt the same, but there had only been an emptiness.
And through it all, that hadn’t been what had stuck with Yosuke the most. No, if he thought back on it, he couldn’t help noting that when their eyes had inevitably met through the window of the train car, Yu had looked uncharacteristically fearful.