Work Text:
“You’re positive the suspect will try to hide out at his mother’s house instead of holing up in his girlfriend’s place?”
Inspector Matsumoto—everyone in the office called him “Chief”—looked slightly more convinced when Takaaki finished his report on their findings than when Takaaki started his explanation, but not by much.
“Yes, sir,” Takaaki said in response.
Takaaki knew that he, Kansuke, and Yui, as the newest homicide detectives in the unit, had been assigned to interview the suspect’s family and hometown acquaintances in this specific case more as a formality. Busy work for the new recruits. Everything that had come up during the course of the investigation pointed to an estrangement both deep and long between the suspect and his aging mother.
“And you think the murder was premeditated?”
“I believe so, yes.”
To Takaaki, the mother having the maids clean the suspect’s room the night before the murder occurred was like a string made of glittering wire; a clear link between the events. She had to have known he’d be visiting soon.
“You two are backing him up on this?” The Chief turned his attention past Takaaki to the two standing behind him.
Yui had been the one to sweet-talk specific dates and times out of the maid while Kansuke and Takaaki distracted her mistress with a game of “good cop, bad cop”. When Kansuke had interviewed the maid under her employer’s watchful eye prior to the other two arriving on the scene, all he had gotten was teary, vague protestations that “the young master” had “broken the mistress’s heart years ago”.
“Yes, sir,” Kansuke and Yui said as one.
Inspector Matsumoto fought a losing battle as his lips twitched upwards into a grin, despite his obvious attempts to remain straight faced.
“And here I thought you two—” He motioned between Takaaki and Kansuke. “—couldn’t even agree on where to go to lunch.”
“All the more reason you should listen to them, don’t you think, Chief?” Yui said, brightly.
The ensuing sigh from Inspector Matsumoto made it clear those words had tipped him over the edge—he had a weak spot for Yui and everyone knew it.
“I’ll be frank,” he said, after a long moment. “I’d rather not waste the manpower on watching his mother’s house. Every report we have says they’ve been estranged for years. If I let you all do this, the three of you will have to manage the stakeout logistics by yourselves. And, if by some miracle he does show up, you are not to engage without back up. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir!” all three of them said.
“If I’m wrong, I’ll take responsibility,” Takaaki added.
“Responsibility?” Inspector Matsumoto guffawed. “This will be your first stakeout, won’t it, Morofushi?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Worry about that before you worry about any so-called responsibility.”
Takaaki finally understood Inspector Matsumoto’s last words approximately six hours into his vigil.
It hadn’t seemed difficult while arranging the schedule with Kansuke and Yui. Eight hour shifts for the three of them meant there wasn’t any part of the day where the entrance to the mansion would be unmonitored.
All three had agreed on unobtrusive spots they could use to observe the entry without attracting attention. Takaaki’s current spot was down the street, about a block away from the house. He’d parked his car in the mouth of a small side alley whose exit allowed him full view of anyone coming and going down the main thoroughfare.
Takaaki had always been the type of person who found it easy to concentrate on tasks others found dull. He was almost always first to turn his reports in—only Kansuke beat him on a few occasions—and while his classmates in law school had been scrambling at the last minute, his case methods had always been done long before the due date.
He had assumed a stakeout would be similar, but it wasn’t at all. Forcing himself to keep alert and focused for hours on end while literally nothing was happening wound up being akin to mental torture. He couldn’t even think of things to distract himself, or he might have missed their suspect entering the house.
Kansuke-kun should be here any moment, Takaaki thought to himself, checking the time for only the third time that minute. He was ten minutes late.
As though summoned, he saw a car pass where he lay in wait—the first one in hours, in fact—and heard the tell-tale sound of tires pulling over to the side of the road, followed by the equally identifiable faint noise of footsteps on gravel.
A few moments later, Kansuke came into view. Though he was wearing a white dress shirt and black slacks, no one would peg Kansuke for an undercover cop, considering his heavy stubble that threatened to grow into a beard with a one more night of sleep and the uncombed hair tumbling down the sides of his face in waves. He looked like he’d just woken up. He probably had.
“Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives,” Takaaki murmured waspishly as he rolled down the window.
“Who are you calling Cao Cao?” Kansuke said, clearing his throat when the first word came out in a rasp. Yes, he’d definitely been napping at the cheap hotel room the two had decided to share.
“Do you see anyone else in the area?”
“Oh, you’re cranky,” Kansuke exclaimed, clearly delighted.
When Takaaki didn’t dignify him with a reply, Kansuke continued: “You should have eaten a big meal, like I suggested. Or at least brought something to snack on.”
Kansuke had been on a stakeout before with a senior detective, so he’d given Takaaki all sorts of advice while the three of them had been planning out their surveillance duties. Advice Takaaki hadn’t felt particularly compelled to follow—not that anything in the world could get him to confess that to Kansuke at this point.
“I wanted to keep myself alert,” Takaaki said. “And I don’t like junk food.”
“Bet you’re hungry now, though!”
Takaaki was about to say something considerably sharper, when he noticed Kansuke had raised his hand into view of the window to demonstrate he was holding two mixed rice onigiri. The mere sight of them made Takaaki’s stomach growl in appreciation.
“From Uehara,” Kansuke clarified as he handed the onigiri through the open window. “Can’t vouch for the taste.”
As grumpy as he was, Takaaki felt the corners of his mouth lift. “There are two here. I’m sure one is meant for you.”
“I had a big dinner,” Kansuke replied. “I’ll be fine. I had a feeling you probably didn’t bring anything, though.”
The irritation surged again. Kansuke could try the patience of a saint. Even back when they were children, he’d excelled at finding Takaaki’s soft spots and hitting them to provoke a reaction.
“Are you finished with your lecture yet, Detective Yamato?” Takaaki said.
“Look, all I’m saying is I’m not sure you’d ever eat if someone didn’t make sure you did it, Koumei.”
By this, Kansuke no doubt meant his habit of announcing to their superiors that not only he was taking his lunch, but he was dragging Yui and Takaaki along with him. Yui usually took it with good humor, but it annoyed Takaaki to be interrupted when he was in the middle of work. He’d told Kansuke as much before, only to be met with that infuriating, lopsided grin and some variation of “you’ve gotta eat sometime, might as well be now!”
“I know how to feed myself.”
“You’re too skinny,” Kansuke said.
“I’m not too ‘skinny’ to throw you in judo,” Takaaki replied, poking Kansuke where he knew it hurt.
“Hey, that was—” Kansuke heard the sound first and cut off mid sentence.
It sounded like something struggling through the underbrush on the massive hill between the road Takaaki was parked on and the street below. Just as Takaaki opened his mouth, a man emerged right next to the car, panting heavily.
Takaaki recognized him instantly: their suspect.
Unfortunately, their eyes met. It was instinct more than anything that made Takaaki understand this man was one wrong movement away from running back where he came. In a rural area like this, there was no shortage of hiding places for their suspect, no matter how many people they were able to call from headquarters.
Takaaki’s hand rose of his own accord. He reached behind Kansuke’s head and pulled him towards his own face. Their lips met. Any other person would have jerked their head in alarm, but Kansuke leaned down into him instead, forcing his mouth open. Naturally, effortlessly. As though they kissed every day and not infrequently enough for Takaaki to count on a single hand.
It made him wonder if Kansuke thought about those handful of times as often as he did.
Beside them, their quarry gaped and let off a round of invective before dashing past the car and down the road towards his mother’s house.
Once he was far enough in the distance, Takaaki ended the kiss.
Kansuke stood up, all business once again. Only a slight hitch in his breathing gave any indication of what they had been doing seconds before.
Whenever this happened—whether the two of them were tipsy from a night of heavy drinking, or as a way to mitigate the tension from an argument gone out of control—something deep inside Takaaki’s chest always clenched tight in the aftermath: finally this time, finally something would change forever between the two of them, and he could never decide if he feared or longed for it.
Even in the dark, he could see Kansuke’s lips as they trembled.
But instead of a sigh, or words, what finally erupted from Kansuke’s mouth was a chuckle, low and intimate in the dark. The knotted clump pulsing next to Takaaki’s heart eased somewhat, and he found himself covering his lips to muffle his own laughter.
“Did you see that guy’s face?” Kansuke said, a trace of mirth punctuating his words.
“I did,” Takaaki affirmed.
“Bet he’s never seen a couple of guys making out in the middle of the night while one of them tries not to drop the onigiri he’s holding.”
Kansuke finally passed said onigiri to Takaaki through the window. Takaaki placed them on the empty front seat.
“I think it’s unlikely he has, yes.”
Takaaki wasn’t sure he could express exactly how he felt about the wonderful, infuriating man that was his partner.
“I’ll call for back up,” Kansuke said. He fished his cell phone out of his back pocket.
“Then I’ll call Yui-san,” Takaaki said. Kansuke nodded, already waiting for his call to go through.
But even if he didn’t have the words right now, surely he had enough time to find them, someday.