Work Text:
Tokyo was not particularly pleasant at this time of year. The heat and awful humidity aside, the city culture was ever so demanding, and Ryuunosuke’s workload at the firm only seemed to grow by the day, despite his and Susato’s best efforts. He decided, one day, that enough was enough — he’d thrown his arms up, not caring if he could even be seen behind the mountain of paperwork on his desk, and declared that they must close their doors for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, his eyes might pop out of his sockets, or his head might explode, or his fingers might fall off… and God forbid he lose his fingers if they were to ever have any hope of finishing all of this!
Typically, Susato — as always, one of the sole sources of structure in his increasingly chaotic life — might have objected. But the sleepless nights weighed on her heavily, too, and the rings beneath her eyes spoke louder than any retort that might have been growing in her chest. They had no urgent cases; at the worst, a landowners’ dispute, the timeline of which would have spanned several years anyway, could be outsourced temporarily to another firm. With a sigh, she conceded.
And so, the Naruhodo Law Firm closed its door for one month, effective immediately.
Kanuma’s temperatures were much less overbearing than the city Ryuunosuke had called home for the past few years, the air lighter and his feet already far less weary as he stepped off the train and made his way into town. There was no bustling of carriages clattering across pavement, no scurrying of businessmen from one place to the next, too harried for even a moment of pause. The briefcase of papers in his hand — projects that still needed chipping away throughout the month, though now he had the luxury of taking things day by day — didn’t seem so hopeless as it did when he’d been cramming every file he could fit into it the night before.
The door to the old Naruhodo home caught in the rail twice, requiring several hearty tugs before he was able to drag it open at last. The familiar smell of old cyprus and pine filled his nostrils as he stepped gingerly over the entrance, laying his shoes down. His socks left prints behind in the thin layer of dust that had accumulated on the floor during all these years away and, by the time he’d made it to his old bedroom, his soles looked as though he’d coated them in soot. He was lucky he hadn’t taken a nasty tumble, too — time had worn away his memory of the spots where the floor had started to give way, all those years ago when he was just a boy.
His old futon was still rolled up in the closet where he had left it, and the billow of dust that bloomed when he threw it open against the floor was suffocating. The wooden pane snapped when he forced the window open, to Ryuunosuke’s dismay, but the light cast across the room did wonders for his amassing anxiety. Just some cobwebs to brush aside, and there was surely an army of spiders hiding somewhere that needed to be shooed out immediately — the very idea of it sent a shudder from his head to his toes — but the fresh air would clear things out soon enough.
Somehow, it didn’t seem so daunting as it had from three hundred miles away.
… Home . It was a word that meant many things to Ryuunosuke over the recent years.
Home had not quite been his little room in Yumei University for a few tumultuous years, as he’d struggled to bridge the gap between a slow-paced Tochigi and this new, vibrant city that made his head swirl and spin with every new sight and sound; home it had quickly become when he’d finally won over the disgruntled Asogi Kazuma (whom he’d found was very adept at holding grudges, over speeches and tongue-twisters and a great deal more). And home, most recently, had been across the ocean at 221B Baker Street.
Memories of that year, fond as they were, were difficult — they left Ryuunosuke feeling bittersweet and out of his depth, and letters that took months to make their way into his hands only made his yearning seem that much more cavernous. Japan, the familiar land he’d longed so dearly for when he was in London, now felt worlds away from the strange but tenderhearted people he had come to call family.
But, he reminded himself, this separation would not be forever. There was something that felt like reassurance in the way the sunlight beamed across worn tatami floors, in the breeze that brushed him by on its way to chase the nearby river downstream. Even in the stillness of his bedroom, if he strained his ears, he thought he could hear the distant croaking of frogs and the chirping of songbirds. Outside his window, they celebrated the coming of summer, and on they would go until the chill of winter came to blanket the town in frost and thick snowfall, when they would burrow beneath dirt or spread their wings in search of kinder climates to call home. But when winter once more gave way to spring here, they would no doubt find their way back to Kanuma.
(Just as he and Susato would, too, to Kazuma and to Sholmes and Iris.)
Nostalgia welled up in his chest, and hope along with it. With newfound vigour, Ryuunosuke slipped his bag from his shoulders and rolled up his sleeves. There was much work to do and, if he put things off for too long, the month would dwindle away before he knew it.
It wouldn’t take much before this, too, would feel like home again.