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It was so subtle that Ichiro almost didn't notice.
There had been a lull in cases and leads about the true mastermind behind the bombing and the murders. They were basically living life as normal. Ichiro had to start taking on his usual case work while Shiro kept up his side of the mob. They saw each other before and after work. It was all very casual and normal.
It was so casual and common that it took Ichiro weeks to notice.
Shiro did not cook, but he loved to eat. Usually junk, unless Ichiro cooked. So Ichiro made breakfast every morning and he made dinner anytime he was home for it. The smell of cooking eggs – sweet for Shiro, ugh, and savory for Ichiro – would draw Shiro out of bed better than any alarm clock. He’d shuffle into the kitchen and prop himself up on the end of the counter, still half asleep, and he’d watch the pan until the eggs were ready.
“I should just sleep in. This cooking stuff takes too damn long,” he’d complain.
“So go back to bed. I’ll call you when it’s ready,” Ichiro would say.
But Shiro never left. And he never slept in. He found his way to the counter like a cat that was obsessed with watching the steam rise off the eggs but knew it wasn’t allowed to stick its paw in the food. He just drifted in and… watched. And at first it kind of bothered Ichiro, but after living together for a year, it was so natural that he forgot about it.
In fact, when Shiro caught a cold and did not come out one morning, it threw Ichiro completely off balance, and he nearly burnt the porridge he was making.
When they got dressed and ready to leave, Ichiro would bathe alone. However, when he stood in the living room and started getting dressed, Shiro often drifted in from his bedroom, sometimes clothed and sometimes in his robe. His nimble fingers lifted Ichiro’s tie from where it laid across the back of the couch. He threw it over Ichiro’s head and tightened it to perfection. Every morning without fail.
“You have a decent sense of style,” he’d said the first time he did it, when Ichiro had flinched and then frozen under his hands. “But I can see room for improvement. I can at least make sure you accessorize properly.”
“Oh. Uh. Sure.” After all, it was true that Ichiro only dressed for work, not style. Shiro, on the other hand, had a wide and diverse closet of finely tailored clothes and eclectic loungewear.
He didn’t admit out loud that he did actually feel better dressed after Shiro helped him – even with something as simple as his tie. It was something to do with the way Shiro looked him over after they were done, like Ichiro was worth looking at and Shiro liked what he saw. It sent a tingle through Ichiro, like a dog being scratched behind the ears and told it was a good boy.
Cats and dogs. That’s what they were.
And again, it happened when Ichiro was relaxing on the couch and reading. There Shiro was, complaining.
“You’re so boring. You have a day off, and I offered to pay for you to do anything you wanted in the city – literally anything – and what did you pick? You went to a bookshop and now you’re spending the whole day sitting inside and reading, just like you do all the time. I should have known you’d be like this. You’re such a stick in the mud when it comes to fun, Ichiro.”
And on and on he’d rant.
But his feet would be pressed against Ichiro’s thigh. Then they moved into his lap. Then one day Ichiro found Shiro’s head inching into the space usually occupied by the feet. The first time it happened, Ichiro glanced down from his book and Shiro looked up from his phone, and they had a silent staring match upside down. Shiro broke eye contact first, quickly turning back to his phone as if an important message had popped up. Ichiro had caught sight of the blush dusting the little mob boss’s cheeks and smiled, then he shifted his arms and continued to read over Shiro’s head.
And that became their routine. Sometimes Shiro played on his phone. Sometimes he watched television. Sometimes he fell asleep with his cheek pressed into Ichiro’s sweatpants and looked relaxed for the first time in a week. Those times, Ichiro was embarrassed to admit, he often found his fingers toying with the blonde locks falling into Shiro’s face and curling behind his ear.
He didn’t get much reading done those days.
Little by little, moment by moment, Shiro inched his way into almost every moment of Ichiro’s homelife. Almost without realizing it, they were using the same bath wash and had matching toothbrush holders. Ichiro looked for Shiro first thing in the morning and when he returned from work, and he couldn’t sleep well without checking in on Shiro in the middle of the night.
Then he found himself waiting for updates from Shiro via text, when the mob boss started dropping complaints about anonymous people at his job.
“Tell me you have annoying clients today too.Oh right. Undercover and whatever. Fine. I’ll just suffer all by myself.”
“Sweetheart, I’m craving fried rice. Please make it for your silly boyfriend before he kills someone.”
“I did not hit a guy in the face with a golf club today. I only broke his hand. Aren’t you proud of my restraint? Praise me, honey.”
Shiro was always freely dropping in terms of endearment, and Ichiro could never keep up with the fake dating front. Every time he tried to form such words, his throat felt clogged with indecision and anxiety. He had never called anyone by a pet name before. He would sound ridiculous to say it now. Wouldn’t he?
Still, hearing the words – or reading them – made him read the texts a second or third time. As if he could absorb the truth in those little lies if he just read it one more time.
Because maybe all the fake relationship shit had wormed its way into his heart in the same way Shiro had wormed his way into every waking moment of Ichiro’s life. Maybe Ichiro wanted every hour of his day with Shiro watching him and pestering him and sending him slightly flirty messages.
Maybe he didn’t want it to be fake at all. And that scared him.
After dinner one night, he chose to read just to have Shiro’s head in his lap, and Shiro had dozed off with a full belly of good food, just as Ichiro had planned it. When he heard the tell-tale sign of Shiro’s slow breathing, Ichiro dragged his hands through Shiro’s hair and closed his eyes as he enjoyed the soft sensation that started at his fingertips and ended in his heart.
When he opened his eyes, he looked down and saw Shiro was not asleep. In a panic, he pulled his hand away and pressed his lips tight together. He didn’t know how to talk his way out of it. He barely knew how to communicate on a regular basis.
But Shiro didn’t need to talk, it seemed. He reached up, took Ichiro’s hand, and placed it back in his hair. With very little coaxing, he encouraged Ichiro to restart his ministrations.
“I’m so used to this feeling that I sometimes can’t sleep without it,” Shiro admitted, then smirked when Ichiro paled and hesitated.
So he’d been awake while Ichiro played with his hair all this time, and he hadn’t said a word.
“Don’t freak out. I like it when you touch me, Darling,” Shiro said. There was no one around to fool, and yet the endearment slipped from his lips.
Ichiro closed his eyes and frowned. His chest ached. He could not let himself get lost in the lie. He had to stay strong. But then Shiro’s hand was up and slipping across the skin of his neck, pulling him forward and down. When Ichiro opened his eyes, he found himself looking straight down into Shiro’s.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Shiro warned. “If you let it happen, then I hope you understand the consequences. Because I’m never going to let you go. Not even when all the cases run out. Not ever. Do you get it?”
The words almost got stuck in Ichiro’s throat. “But… why?” he asked. “Why me?”
With a snort, Shiro started playing with the hair at the nape of Ichiro's neck. “Because I want you in my life, you piece of shit. I need my stubborn sweetheart around the clock. Don’t ruin the moment by asking me to get sentimental. Now can I kiss you or not?”
Swallowing thickly, Ichiro nodded. Then he leaned down and Shiro lifted up, and when their mouths met, and met, and met, Ichiro knew he never wanted anything to pull them apart. Never. He needed his sleepy sweet fool too. Forever.