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Towa watched feline feet leave the window as Madarame removed the empty saucer from its sill and closed it again. Settled near the ceiling of their basement apartment, the window let the stray cats in the neighborhood peer in comfortably from ground level.
Madarame indulged all of them.
"Which one was that?" Towa asked from his sprawl over the couch, something passed down by the previous renter and kept because it didn't smell like shit and was perfectly firm along his back.
"The striped one," he replied.
"What do you get out of feeding so many strays?" Not that Towa was complaining; stray animals weren't uncommon back in Shinkoumi, but their presence never lingered. They usually died, even if the causes were not always natural. Knowing their inevitable fates, Towa hadn't ever tried to get attached to any of the poor animals.
Madarame was no bleeding heart, but if he had an Achilles' heel, it was the soft spot he had for small, furry things. They never stayed anywhere long enough to keep a pet, but if he came across any such creature in a backstreet, he was going to spoil it. In this tiny, underground apartment that rattled like the world was ending when the nearby train tracks were in use, he'd started to mother three of them.
The look he was sending Towa over his shoulder reminded him of a distant interrogation, one where Towa had asked him so many questions and the deep blue of Madarame's smoke had been as unwavering and opaque as his answers. It left him feeling just shy of incompetent, but he hid it behind the nasty curl of his lip.
“Call me a saint,” drawled Madarame. “I’ve always kept strays around, even if some of them are ungrateful.”
“You’re talking about me?” Towa accused.
“You’ve got no home,” he recited, “no identification, and no house training. Ergo, stray.”
Home is here, Towa wanted to argue but knew how much of a toothless platitude it was. Begging for that acknowledgment would make him no better than every stray cat that gathered around Madarame for a bite to eat or a scrap of attention.
“I know where to piss,” he gruffly denied. “Whatever. Feed your fleabags, I don’t care.”
“Don’t be jealous,” crooned Madarame. “You know I’ll feed you, too.”
The phantom chill of cold concrete ghosted up Towa’s spine and across the span of his shoulders. He was Madarame’s pet without a collar, the heavy belt of his old one left behind on an island he’d never see again. Starving and withered, Towa thought the convenience store bread was almost too savory when Madarame tongued it down his throat. Back then, it had been equal parts nauseating and insulting that Towa’s right to die had been stolen away, but ultimately he was grateful for the sustenance that had been forced on him. The present was pretty all right.
"We'll have to take care of that I.D. thing before we leave Japan," Madarame mused. "I'll work on it."
Or, it had been all right. Towa wondered if that meant contacting Eiji, which stirred something frigid inside of him. He and Madarame had severed ties to their pasts in Shinkoumi, a separation that sometimes felt like an amputation, and he recoiled at the possibility that Madarame's metaphorical limb was still attached by the thinnest of tendons. It made him dizzy, like mornings after too many indulgences.
"What's that face for?" asked Madarame, pulling him out of his spiral.
"...I don't know," he lied. There were no words to describe the way he feared the floor would fall out from beneath his feet, a sinking freefall he hadn't experienced since his last night at a certain clinic; it came from displacement, this feeling that he wasn't where he should be and the world needed to correct him. If Madarame truly left a piece of himself in Shinkoumi, then Towa would be adrift in time and space, his anchor eroding before his eyes. He'd given up everything to be here, and for that sacrifice to be so one-sided…
Towa felt Madarame's gaze linger on him for a long time. He couldn't look at him.
The door to the apartment was a thick slab of heavy wood, and as the summer temperatures rose, it tended to get stuck in the frame. A small war was required to shove it open, and with his hairline beading with sweat and a crinkling bag of convenience store beer digging into the crook of his elbow, Towa was not in the mood to fight. Maybe if he rammed his shoulder into the door hard enough to bruise it would be worth it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn't take that much effort to force it open. Cool air rushed up the stairs to greet him and chill his sun-scorched skin. From the depths of the apartment, he could hear the faint hum of their box fan's spinning blades. That hadn't been on when Towa left, and Madarame only brought it out when he was also too tired and hot to put up with Towa's passive-aggressive bitching. His feet sang their thanks as he entered and he kicked off his boots, ill-suited for the season. Curiously, he wandered further inside to inspect the apartment.
Madarame had overtaken the couch, sprawled casually along its length. Strangely, the fan wasn't angled in his direction, but toward the kitchenette, where a white bowl was placed on the small table they'd bought secondhand. Normally, the table was cluttered with crushed cans, half-full ashtrays, or a discarded wallet, but now it was cleared of everything but the one dish. Asking Madarame what he was up to was destined to be a lost cause, so Towa made the executive decision to drop his bag onto his lap before he crossed over to the table to find out for himself.
Watermelon. Bright, red cubes of fleshy fruit sat untouched in the bowl, marinating in the ruddy juice staining the bottom.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, plucking a square from the pile and examining it. The juice ran down his fingers in thin rivulets. What is happening here? was more apt of a question, one loaded to capacity.
"The grocery," Madarame rumbled from the couch. "It was a little expensive. If they ripped me off, it's better that I don't know."
"Why?"
"Because I'll make a scene?"
"No," Towa corrected. “Why did you buy it?” Something a little like frustration and a lot like panic painted his insides, splashing the backs of his bones with a myriad of gruesome colors.
"Gotta keep my pampered pet fed, don't I?" Madarame declared. There was a grunt as he levered himself off the couch. "What, you don't like it?"
"...I don't understand."
"It's for you," Madarame said easily as he walked over and stopped beside him. His fingers clamped around Towa's wrist, guiding the hand with the piece of watermelon toward his mouth, letting him feel the wet, spongy fruit against his lips.
Towa opened his mouth with the unspoken instruction. Immediately, the watery flavor bled over his tongue. While he wasn't particularly fond of sugary treats, the natural sweetness of the fruit tasted clean and refreshing. Swallowing felt like consuming a compact piece of summer.
"Couldn't let you think I was neglecting you for other strays," boasted Madarame. "Since you're always nagging about the heat, I got you something cool to eat." He lifted another cube and fed it to him with his own hand this time. The warmth of his fingers contrasted pleasantly with the chilled fruit.
Such a gentle touch rattled Towa’s nerves. This wasn't how they did things. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
“I don’t nag,” he refuted around the bite, suddenly disinterested in the food. He didn’t want to swallow more watermelon just so it could sour in his stomach. What a waste of good fruit and money.
Maybe there was something off about his tone or maybe Madarame was just that perceptive, but he went quiet, which meant he was contemplating. Luckily, the fan’s spinning blades hummed across the apartment and kept the creeping silence from crawling up Towa’s spine like fire ants. Then, he spoke with authority, “Hey.”
Whatever was shaken in Towa’s core fell easily to his violent urge to defy. He turned his face away from him, keeping his good eye just barely on the bowl. If he focused beyond it, the watermelon looked like something bloody—the shredded, red flesh of summer. Somehow, that was almost more appealing.
Powerful hands spun him around with the force of a typhoon. Before Towa could gather his wits, one of those hands grasped onto his chin to hold him in place with a grip like steel, forcing him to glare into Madarame’s eyes, reflecting his hostile expression back at him. Fingers pressed against the sides of his jaw to pry it open, and Towa felt his spit pool between his teeth and bottom lip. The half-chewed morsel in his mouth sat heavily on his tongue.
“Honestly, how many times do I have to do this for you?” Madarame murmured before he leaned down and sealed his mouth over Towa’s.
The heat of his breath was nothing compared to his tongue, which probed like a hot iron against his cheeks and skated over his molars. It danced along every nook it could find, skirting the mash of watermelon for so long that he thought this must be some kind of food play, but Madarame dashed that assumption when his wriggling tongue suddenly pushed the mass to the back of his throat. Towa nearly gagged on it, hurriedly swallowing the bite. It went down his gullet as hard as a stone.
Madarame withdrew, ignoring the gasping breaths Towa took. “What’s happening with you?” he demanded, the cut of his voice as sharp as any blade Towa had ever felt. "You're wavering."
The accusation stung, but it didn't feel good, not like a bruise or cut, and that made it worse. Miserably, Towa knew he was right, and turned his gaze as far away from Madarame as he could while trapped in his hold. The firm land beneath his feet had turned into a raft floating on a pitch-black ocean of doubt. A tempest formed on the horizon, slowly churning the waves until they were white-capped and deadly. Of all the horrible ways to die, Towa hadn’t ever wanted to drown, whether it be in water or heartache.
“I guess I am,” he admitted, terse.
“Why?”
Once upon a time, Towa had been the one to ask Madarame question after question, only to be repeatedly stunned by his simple, straightforward answers. Somehow, he didn’t think he could do the same, and inadequacy flushed his cheeks.
Instead of an answer, he traded a question of his own. “Do you talk to Eiji?”
“Eiji?”
“You said we’d leave it all behind. That living like normies in that lousy city wasn’t for people like us. Was it a lie?”
“It wasn’t,” Madarame denied, stealing any inflection from his tone. “You think I lied to you?”
Towa’s eye flashed back to Madarame’s face. At any given time, Madarame’s emotions were contained behind fortified walls to prevent manipulation and abuse. Even now, Towa could see those walls in place, but cracks were running through them, faults in the dam. Azure smoke trickled through them, and for the first time in Towa’s memory, it was tinged with a touch of gray.
Madarame offered, “If you think I’m lying, you’re free to leave. You can go back, tail tucked between your legs. Do you want to?”
For a moment, it felt like a heavy, booted foot had stepped on his heart and crushed its broken vessels into its treads, but he was able to take a deep, thought-clearing breath and parse the question for what it was. Madarame didn’t play word games. He was not asking him to leave.
“I don’t,” Towa said, his voice stronger than it had been since he walked through the door. “That’s the point.”
“Is it, now?”
“Since I’m staying, what would you do about my identification?” he pressed like a punch. “What kind of favors would you call in for that? I don’t know if I even have a birth certificate, after all. You can’t just mail in a request for a copy—or are you going to ask Eiji?”
Madarame’s eyes narrowed. Yeah, maybe the question was a little barbed. He knew he could take it; surely, it was no worse than a bullet.
Is your dedication as complete as mine?
“It’s a little hard to contact a man who went off the grid,” Madarame finally replied, his lips pulled into a pinched frown, “especially when his last known number was in the phone that one asshole in Ayase broke at the bar. We’re ghosts, although I bet if he really wanted to, Eiji could track us up until we’ve left the country. I assume that’s still the plan?”
The promise of travel hadn’t mattered to Towa six months ago. Then, Madarame returned from the dead and thoroughly shifted his world. In the aftermath of his coup, they had no roots tethering them to any physical place and could go wherever they wished—and they wished to fight and fuck and live and die wherever the wind blew. Hong Kong. Sydney. Cape Town. Rio de Janeiro. So many places, together.
Towa did not want to be alone again, alone like when he woke up in a semi-familiar clinic with his right eye destroyed and both Kaga and Madarame dead, the broken pieces of his life warping like twisted metal around the losses.
“I was afraid,” he started, and something inside of him felt young like he couldn’t reliably recall, his memories lost and buried. There were other memories Towa wished would join them, like the sterile walls of his hospital room the day he woke up after his surgery or the kind, warm hands that helped him sit up in that room’s bed when he couldn’t do it himself. Those same hands would rot down to the bone if they touched him now. That bright world was gone, left behind to better people, and it was supposed to be fine because there was someone to guide him through the dark.
Shakily, he continued, “I was afraid that I wasn’t enough. I was afraid you’d go back to find someone else and leave me here with nowhere else to go.” Like a stray.
"I want you if you want me," Madarame declared. "So long as we're both that selfish, I'll do whatever I can to keep you. Maybe I'll get you a new collar and tether you to my side—"
That sounded so much better, more stabilizing than the words had any right to be. The threat of being kept soothed the disturbed creature within his chest.
"—or, maybe, I'll take that prize money we've been hoarding and pay a few suits to forge some documents for you. Haven't you noticed yet? Money talks wherever you go, not just on that shitty island."
Dozens of hungry, sinister mouths, insistently whispering his insecurities into his ears, were abruptly silenced. Towa’s relief poured between their cracked lips and jagged teeth, slow and sticky. It smothered the venomous thoughts on their wagging tongues and hardened like resin to amber.
“We never have to see Shinkoumi again so long as we live,” Madarame stated, reaching for a piece of watermelon and offering it. “In some ways, this path we’ve taken has left us stranded. Billions of people, and we’re alone, but we’re alone together, and that’s why we can carry on like this. So, don’t question me anymore, got it?”
Reverently, Towa plucked the watermelon from Madarame’s fingers. It was a declaration of intent; something to accept or refuse. There was little need to question him further. With a decisive nod, Towa popped the bite into his mouth. When he swallowed, it went down easily.
“Fine,” he agreed. “Keep me sated so I don’t have the time or energy to.”
The gray leaked from Madarame’s smoke, leaving behind a beautiful ultramarine color. It danced around his shoulders, excited by the challenge.
“Of course,” he acquiesced, selecting another piece of watermelon and pressing it insistently against Towa’s mouth. When his lips parted a crack, Madarame wedged the fruit past his teeth and left it on his tongue, taking the opportunity to wriggle his large fingers around inside.
Towa didn’t fight their intrusion, no matter how close they got to his uvula. This act was a message, one that resonated within him like the two prongs of a tuning fork: You belong to me, so I’ll do as I wish. It felt good to be owned like this; toyed with like this. Eventually, Madarame pulled his probing fingers back, and the strand of saliva that snapped between them and Towa’s lips was pink with watermelon juice.
Finally able to swallow, Towa did so. The fruit did taste good now that his worries weren’t curdling it. They’d have to get more before the season ended.
“Have a taste,” he suggested before sticking out his tongue.
It was easy to see Madarame’s kiss coming, but not his bite. Teeth dug into his tongue, the hot rush of pain lighting up his brain like fireworks. Was he bleeding? He hoped so.
The bite released long enough for Madarame to mumble against his lips, “Nothing tastes quite as good as you,” and kiss him like he intended to steal his soul through his mouth. Heavy hands settled on his hips—
and Towa was consumed, tasting sweeter than summer.