Work Text:
Kouyou wants to scream.
To scream, cry, sob, anything, if it could reverse what now blemished both of her palm with vivid, dark red stains, making her only able to stare in horror.
A giant, diagonal slash cut through Mori’s chest and was now bleeding profusely, dirtying his pristine white shirt with red that she usually found beautiful, but now caused her to tremble uncontrollably.
“Ougai,” she pleads, as if it could help with anything. “Please,” Kouyou whispers, putting her hand on his chest in a pathetic attempt to get the bleeding to stop.
His violet eyes flash at her as he raises his eyelids lazily; it doesn’t take an expert to recognize that he’s dying. After all, the blood doesn't stop flowing, messing her hands and her kimono, making her feel disgusted, but too devastated to do something about it.
“Kouyou,” he whispers her name, looking at her, but not without difficulty. They gaze at each other silently, for a few seconds, until Mori places his gloved palm over her hand on his chest. “It’s useless,” he says quietly, sliding it off and just letting the blood flow with a strained sigh.
“No,” she protests, despite knowing that he is right; if anyone knows how high are his chances to survive, it’s him. She wouldn’t be able to help him, no matter how desperate she was to do it. “You will live, I promise, I just have to get Chuuya and—”
“Kouyou.”
Mori glares at her sternly, even despite the weakness present in his eyes. She simply can’t get past it, and the sight puts a strain on her.
“It’s fine,” he continues, coughing quietly and covering his mouth with a slightly trembling hand, dotting the white material of his glove with red at the same time, while the woman watches in horror. “You can’t do anything.”
She knows that, but the fact that he has to say it to her out loud is even more upsetting. She clutches the material of his coat in her hand helplessly, holding it tight to the point her knuckles turn white.
“Please,” Kouyou begs one more time, feeling her voice falter. It’s pathetic, because tears appear in her eyes and she can’t suppress them anymore, so she’s practically forced to look at him like that. “Please, don’t leave me,” she continues, not knowing what to say anymore.
There’s no way she could save him in any way, but a part of her resorts to just begging, even if it absolutely won’t change anything. To be fair, that same part of her turns into a mess that hasn’t taken over her in whole simply because Mori is still conscious, and she doesn’t want him to see her like this in his last moments.
She feels pathetic.
And the fact that he caresses her cheek gently with his bloodied palm makes it even worse, causing tears to finally fall from her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Mori pleads, wiping a tear from her face and undoubtedly leaving a stain there, but she couldn’t care less. “I have a favor to ask you,” a faint, weak smile appears on his face as he coughs again, dirtying the front of her kimono.
Kouyou looks at him with tears in her eyes, but listens intently, trying to keep herself from sobbing.
With whatever strength he has left, Mori reaches out to his bloodstained, red scarf and slips it off his shoulders, albeit not without difficulty. The woman watches him with her breath stuck in her throat, already supposing what he might be up to, but not quite keen on letting the idea get to her.
He gently raises his hand up and places the scarf on her shoulder, smiling sadly at her. He can’t reach out far enough to let it hang on both of her shoulders, so it is left like that, just on one. Kouyou mindlessly touches the bloodied material, feeling the dampness, and realizes what exactly he means by that.
“I’d like you to be the next boss of the Port Mafia,” he whispers, and before she manages to protest, he puts his hand over hers. “This is my final wish.”
This can’t be true; it’s like a nightmare. The weight of Mori’s wish falls on her shoulders so heavily that she almost forgets to breathe; he wouldn’t do this to her. He knows that she wouldn’t want to take the position, that without him, she has no reason to stay in the mafia.
Before she says anything, Mori’s violet eyes close and his hand turns limp, lifelessly. Kouyou watches as his chest falls and doesn’t rise again, and her throat burns with a scream, and she doesn’t even know if she actually let it out or it’s just her imagination.
It turns out she did, and it’s more real than she anticipated, because in a matter of seconds, she realizes that she’s in bed, shaking to the point she can’t focus her gaze on anything and simply sits there for a while, trying to find a way to calm down.
Obviously, she doesn’t succeed; her heavy breathing echoes in the whole bedroom as Kouyou realizes that there is an empty space beside her. A wave of horror takes over her as she thinks that the images she had just seen were actually true, but before she lets it sink, the bedroom door opens with a loud bang.
Mori, alive and well, runs up to her, still in his work attire, but with a quite panicked expression on his face; that’s what she manages to see through the tears clouding her eyes. The man probably attempts to ask her what’s wrong, but she ignores it and simply throws herself at him, wrapping his arms around his body in a desperate gesture of wanting to feel that he actually is real.
As it turns out, he is.
Mori has to hold her by the waist, because her knees are too shaky to hold her weight, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s not bleeding, his breath is normal, and his heartbeat is firm and steady. He’s strong enough to keep her in place, and although he is visibly worried, he doesn’t say anything; he simply lets her sob into his shirt, not minding that it’s getting quite wet as a result.
It takes a while, and he doesn’t rush her. In the meantime, he moves to sit on the bed with her, but still keeping her close and caressing her back lightly to help her calm down.
Kouyou is grateful for this; for everything he’s doing for her. For the fact that he doesn’t ask any questions about what happened, seeing that physically, she’s fine. For his gentle touch on her back and hair, one that feels so soothing that it actually aids her in starting to breathe normally.
For the fact that it was all just a dream.
“Do you need something?” he whispers into her ear when Kouyou finally stabilizes her breath and stops sobbing, now only letting tears flow from her eyes, although still much lesser than before. “Should I make you some tea?” Mori proposes, stroking her hair gently.
It might be a good idea. It’s the middle of the night, and she finally remembers that she came home so tired from a mission that she instantly took a shower and went to bed. The man told her to wait for him to come as well, because obviously, he was so busy with work, but it seemed like she had fallen asleep on her own earlier.
That explained a lot. It was somehow disparaging to think that she wasn’t able to sleep soundly when she wasn’t in his arms, but right now, Kouyou didn’t care.
“Yes,” she pleads with a small nod, pulling away from his chest and wincing at the sight of a big, damp stain she left on his chest. “I just need to go to the bathroom.”
It’s impressive that she managed to form that long of a sentence, but Mori acknowledges her plea and helps her get to her desired destination while he himself heads to the kitchen to fulfill her wish. As the door closes behind him, Kouyou leans over the sink and stares into the mirror.
She doesn’t look too well, certainly. Her hair is all messy and her eyes are red and puffy, which causes her face to look disgusting. It’s awful to think that Mori had to witness her in such a state, but there’s not much she could do about it at the moment, so she simply resorts to washing herself with some cold water.
Only then she comes to a realization that she has never had such a nightmare before.
She did have some, but they always concerned her past. The memories of years of abuse, and the murder committed in front of her eyes, haunted her in her sleep since she was a part of them. Sometimes more frequently, sometimes not, but they were present in her life. No matter how much Kouyou wanted to get rid of those memories, they’d always be with her. She had grown to accept that, even if it meant that she woke up shaking every now and then.
The nightmares that included Mori were the ones that she feared more.
Sometimes, he appeared in her dreams; more often in the pleasurable ones, obviously, but he played a part in some nightmares too. Usually in those where she failed to protect him, but they were nowhere near as brutal as the one she had tonight, or those where he pointed out the importance of his role in keeping balance in Yokohama. The second type didn’t cause her to wake up shaking and crying, but it always left a kind of stinging in her chest and some sadness that remained even after she woke up.
Kouyou looks at her hands briefly; they’re clean. There’s no blood on them, only a few marks made by her nails from clenching her fists too hard. It wasn’t real; maybe terrifyingly realistic, but it was just a nightmare.
Mori has a scar like the one in the dream indeed. She knows it; she helped him take care of it so that it would heal nicely, usually by forcing him to rub the prescribed ointment into it or even doing it herself. It was made by a very particular sword, the one belonging to the Armed Detective Agency’s President.
She wasn’t there when it happened, so it is even scarier when she realizes that her own subconsciousness found a way to show it to her somehow.
A knock echoes on the door before her thoughts come to an end, and the man enters the bathroom with a concerned expression.
“You were quiet for a while,” he explains sheepishly, slipping into the room. “I was worried.”
Mori is a strange man, Kouyou decides, after giving him a small smile that she can’t suppress. He’s wearing his usual white shirt, black vest and pants, and a purple tie, making him look strangely formal while standing in his own bathroom. His dark hair frames his pale face elegantly, while violet eyes stare at her with an endearing type of worry.
She feels her heart squeeze.
Her thoughts wander further even after she hands him one of her hair brushes, motivated by a sudden idea that came to mind, and her thesis is supported when he takes it without the slightest bit of hesitation.
They come back to bed and he ends up brushing her messy hair gently, while she ponders about the other part of her nightmare; the scarf.
If anything happened to him, Kouyou wouldn’t be able to take over his position. She’s very well aware that she wouldn’t be able to manage the mafia the way he does, or to take care of the city with the same dedication Mori has.
She made him aware of this fact a few times, even though he tried to convince her. The only thing that she hadn’t told him about was the uncertainty whether she would still be able to live, had something happened to him. She didn’t share that with the man, as it sounded a bit dramatic. She didn’t like that.
Mori finishes combing her long hair and puts the brush on the nearby nightstand, glancing over his artwork with satisfaction. He has always been particularly good at this, which she appreciated very much, especially right now.
The question he probably wants to ask lingers somewhere in the air between them; Kouyou senses it, but doesn’t particularly enjoy the idea of explaining her nightmare to him.
Instead, she turns back to him and places a light kiss on his lips. The man seems surprised at the sudden gesture, but returns it without hesitation.
“Don’t leave me,” Kouyou whispers, because it seems right to do so, even though he may not fully understand what she means by it. He doesn’t have to.
“I won’t,” he promises quietly, leaning forward to make their foreheads touch.
Making such promises isn’t exactly wise, but he must have realized how much she needs his reassurance.
Kouyou kisses him again, bringing a palm to his cheek.