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Daisuke felt like he was made of weights, of sandbags twisted into human form. There could be no other reason for his limbs to feel so heavy, for his stomach to feel like a dense, immovable stone, for him to have somehow reached his quarters without remembering the trip from the stables.
No reason but for the memory of Souji and Chie locking eyes, the latter grinning as the former locked their jaw and nodded. No reason but for the knowledge that they couldn’t possibly win against the odds. No reason but for the memory of Chie’s hands shaking with nervous energy, at odds with her steady voice, as she said, “it doesn’t matter if we can’t win; what matters is that we have to.”
Shaking off the ghosts of two days prior, he opened the door to his quarters. A two seconds’ glance told him that not only had Kou returned from his individual training early; he had also decided to reorganise the entirety of their shared quarters.
Tired, helpless laughter burst from Daisuke before he knew it. “Why do you always,” he wheezed, laughing harder, “do this?” He shook his head. “It was already clean! I cleaned it myself!”
Kou’s grin was split by a yawn. “Hey! It could have been Ai, you know. I could be perfectly innocent this time, and here you are, just accusing me like…” He trailed off, as Daisuke tried to project pure doubt at him, then shrugged. “Okay, yeah, it was me.”
“In what world would Ai ever reorganize outside of her seasonal wardrobe?” Daisuke asked. “Work on your improv; if that’s the best you’ve got when you’re talking to someone about a mutual partner, I just… I don’t know what to do with you.”
A laugh from behind Daisuke startled him into a defensive stance before recognition kicked in.
“It’s a good thing that I’m the one training in diplomacy; you assholes are both terrible at it,” Ai said, brushing past Daisuke into the room.
Daisuke shook his head, smiling despite himself. “How did you know we’d be back? Kou’s early, and I’m pretty damn late.”
Ai waved a hand. “I have my sources.” She grinned at Daisuke. “Ones who may or may not have sworn to tell me every time they get into trouble on threat of painful and swift retribution. Especially if they’re off getting into trouble with you and that one,” she said, gesturing at Kou.
With that, she slumped down onto the pallet beside Kou and hummed contentedly. “Anyway, all that matters is that my boys are back. My tactless, beautiful boys, who couldn’t lie if it’d save their lives.” She rolled her eyes. “Like, seriously, Kou? ‘It could’ve been Ai,’ my ass.”
Daisuke scrubbed at his face, losing his focus. He thought that Ai and Kou were still talking; however, grasping at the present was like attempting to gather oil from a river.
Ai was right. There were thousands of things Daisuke couldn’t do, that most people couldn’t. He could try as hard as he wanted, but it wouldn’t be enough, so long as the task set before him was impossible. Any action on his part would be futile.
Chie had said that it didn’t matter if they could do something; they had to.
“—suke? Are you okay? Daisuke?”
Daisuke’s head snapped up. “Yeah. Yeah; I’m fine. Just… a little distracted, I guess.”
Kou frowned at him, then shared a look with Ai. “You had an extraction mission, right? Detecandian trade officials?”
“Souji said you got everyone out,” Ai said, narrowing her eyes, as if asking a phantom Souji to answer for whatever they’d left out of their story.
“They did.” Daisuke winced. “ We did. It went fine.”
The combined force of Ai and Kou’s skepticism made Daisuke falter. “It was just harder than we expected. That’s all.”
“We’ve had hard missions before,” Kou said, refusing to leave well enough alone. “You only get like this when something’s bothering you.”
“We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t really want to know,” Ai huffed. “I mean, Kou might. He’s weirdly compassionate like that.” She patted Kou’s shoulder. “But I don’t hop on board unless my luggage is already on-ship. I’m selfish like that.”
“Sure you are,” Kou said, rolling his eyes. “That’s why you found a home for a stray cat— that you’re allergic to— to help out a friend.”
Ai flipped him off, and he laughed.
“By the way, you can tell us you love us without using weird metaphors , you know,” Kou added. “Luggage on a ship. Amazing.”
Ai hummed. “The day I stop comparing you to things I like is the day our romance dies. Now hush, darling, the other darling needs our attention.”
Daisuke rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t. It’s just some…” He sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m just being ridiculous.”
“It’s upsetting you, so it matters,” Ai said, crossing her arms.
Kou mirrored the pose. “Yeah, spill.”
Daisuke let out a slow, long breath. “I just had to come to terms with the fact that Souji and Chie have this,” he paused, searching for the proper word, “philosophy, I guess, that I’ve never considered. And, I just, well…” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve tried really hard to stop telling myself that it’s better not to try. You two, and Souji, and Chie have helped a lot with redirecting my shit so that I can figure out how to best cut our losses instead of just giving up completely.”
Running his hand through his close cropped hair, Daisuke let out a bark of humourless laughter. “But there’s no such thing as acceptable losses for those two. Gods’ words, I thought that Souji, at least, would— no, no, they did understand.” Daisuke scrubbed at his face with his palm. “Souji understood so well that for a second I hated them. I love Souji; gods, they’re my best friend, but sometimes they just…”
“What did Souji do?” Ai asked. “What happened, Daisuke?”
Kou looked like he already knew.
“There was a cave-in during the extraction, and someone had reported the number of hostiles incorrectly, and there was no way to get the officials out. We’d all die if we made the attempt.” Daisuke shook his head. “That’s what I thought, anyway. I started pulling together some escape plans, and I turned to them and asked, ‘so how are we gonna do this?’ And Chie looks straight at me and asks, ‘what’s our best bet at getting the officials out?’” Daisuke laughed again. “Can you imagine that? She was so convinced that I never doubted— that I never once thought that we’d abandon them.”
“That’s Chie,” Kou said, smile fond and eyes sad.
“That’s Chie,” Daisuke agreed. He closed his eyes. “But Souji, Souji knows when to retreat, and so I… Gods, I looked at them, and I swear they knew. They knew that I was just going to cut our losses and run, and they weren’t judging me, and they weren’t criticising me, but they looked straight at me when they told Chie their plan to rescue the rot-damned officials, and they looked at me when I said, ‘I don’t think we can do that,’ and then Chie and Souji were looking at each other like they knew something I didn’t.” Daisuke heard his voice crack. “And then Chie said, ‘it doesn’t matter if we can’t win; what matters is that we have to.”
“I just thought that I’d gotten better at not giving up,” Daisuke finished, ashamed.
There was a heaviness in the air, as if the room was packed with invisible soil that grew denser as the silence stretched, as if Daisuke had never left the collapsed tunnels, and was still trapped in the rubble of the cave-in. Then Ai swept it away.
“I swear to every god there is I am going to track down those assholes and give them a long talk about the value of their own damn lives. Unbelieveable.”
Kou sighed. “Ai, you know how they are. To them, other people are more important. The only half of the creed they follow is to help others.”
“And accept help in return! That’s all I fucking ask, that they accept people’s help, and that they value their own damned lives!”
Daisuke looked at Kou and Ai in bewilderment. “You’re not disappointed?”
“In you? No!” Ai said. “You’ve worked hard, and you know your own capabilities. Those two, though, well, they can—”
“Ai, come on. I’ve tried to talk about it with them, and they just don’t understand—”
“That they’re worth just as much as anyone else? That people care about them? That they deserve just as much as the people they want to protect? I know they don’t get that, Kou; Souji and I broke up over it!” Ai made a fist. “I just— Gods, is it so wrong for me to want my friends to stay alive? To look after themselves?”
“No, Ai,” Kou said, rubbing her back. “It’s not wrong. It’s just hard for them to see things that way. Trust me, I’ve been trying for years.”
Daisuke bit the inside of his cheek. “But they saved them. They came up with a plan that saved the officials, and none of us died.”
“This time,” Ai grumbled.
Kou shook his head. “Look, we’re not saying it’s a bad thing that they refuse to quit; it’s a good thing, most of the time. Perseverance is great. That’s why we’ve been working on it.” Kou sighed. “We just want them to take a second when they say, ‘I’m going to help everyone,’ and realise that if they’re going to do that, then they need to make sure someone’s helping them. They can’t do everything themselves. They have limits.”
“Everyone is weak,” Daisuke quoted.
“So everyone needs help,” Kou said, “even Souji and Chie. I mean, you looked out for them out there, right? You came up with plans to get them out of there when things took a turn.”
Ai frowned, appearing insulted at any insinuation to the contrary. “Of course he did. And without you there, he had double the workload.”
Kou held up his hands, palms flat. “Hey, I didn’t ask for individual training.”
Shaking her head, Ai turned to Daisuke. “Honestly, I’m surprised that it took you this long to figure out that those two have some pretty extreme values. You’ve been a team for years.”
“Daisuke didn’t really get the brunt of it until now,” Kou said. “When we started out, Daisuke was on one end of the ideological spectrum while the rest of the team was at the other, so he probably figured that me, Souji, and Chie were all on the same level, when in reality, those two are at the very edge, comparatively. Right?” Kou turned to Daisuke.
“Now that you mention it,” Daisuke said, hesitating, “that sounds more than likely, yeah.”
“And this was the first time since Daisuke joined team ‘A Job Worth Doing’ that I wasn’t there to mediate between Mister Economics and team Reckless but Well-Intentioned,” Kou finished.
Ai laughed. “Make up those titles on the spot, did you?”
“I might have had them prepared beforehand,” Kou admitted.
Daisuke stared at them, overwhelmed. “So I really didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Well, I mean, next time you should really at least consider a plan to save the other people involved, but I’m calling this a step forward for you,” Kou said.
“We just need to work on the other two,” Ai said. “You and Kou won’t always be there to help them, and it’s worse than pulling teeth to get them to accept help from anyone else. I don’t want my friends dead because they thought they could handle everything alone, thanks.”
Daisuke nearly barreled into his partners, wrapping his arms around them in an enclosing hug. “Thank you.”
“Oh gods, you’re so sappy,” Ai sniffed, letting giggles escape despite herself.
“Love you too, Daisuke,” Kou said, patting his back.
After a moment of holding them close, Daisuke let out a deep breath. “Ai, don’t worry. There’s no way that we’re letting either of those two get hurt. Not on my watch, and not on Kou’s.”
Kou made an affirmative noise.
Ai sighed. “But it’s when they’re outside of your watch that I’m worried. What happens then?”
Daisuke wanted nothing more than to have a good answer in that moment. “We do all we can, and we hope that others will too.”
“People help people,” Kou said, voice strong with conviction. “It’s what they do. Chie and Souji won’t be alone.”
The moment stretched, quiet and tense with the silence of three people striving to believe that those words rang true.