Archive of Our Own

December

The first snow, yet untouched by the mixture of dust and stifling flow of the suffocating city, glides down along a smooth trajectory to the polished shoes. In the pastel hues of the chilly morning the bare crowns of the trees get covered with dull coating, melancholically wandering somewhere behind the gray skyscrapers. The pale scenery heralds the imminent arrival of angelically white, blinding snowy wastelands all over the streets. 

Ango does not like winter. 

Sluggishly, he stares at nature's cyclic renewal like at a yet another tedious document. The monotony that accompanies him everywhere—from nauseating dreamless nights to the last minutes of the workday—now advances into the strokes of a swelling winter arabesque, in its contents reminiscent of some prosaic pages of a dusty manga, from which a second-rate plot has been carelessly erased.

For Sakaguchi, the flow of seasons is merely a chaotic change of calendar numbers, in the blurry days of which self-control and freedom are utterly lost. For him, time has turned into a current of routine that drags him not along an endlessly alluring and hopeful brook of life, but into a stagnant murky puddle of paperwork. Draining away without interest through the document flow of life, Ango has long stopped looking back or glancing anywhere but at his own feet. In a state of his apathetic day-to-day helplessness, he makes his way home in the shaking underground trains after work, and a few hours later, in the repeating cycle, continues to stay awake. This manifests into something more than just a habit, akin to addiction—simply put, it politely provides him a reason to be alive.

The morning hours are filled with crowds and an empty vacuum instead of thoughts. His own steps get lost in the mechanical dissonance of the underground, disintegrating in the clatter of wheels and the clanging noises. All sounds dissolve into cacophony, loud false notes among hundreds of similar ones in the stifling space. Following the flow of people, Sakaguchi feels like a part of an infallible structure.

The doors of the subway car close behind him with calm calculation, and within the familiar hum of the monorail a dull comfort greets him. Ango's figure instantly blends in with the surroundings of tired white-collar workers, for whom grayness and tobacco smoke have become a style of life. The silent crush of bodies envelops him with various fabrics, shades of hair and overall rigidity. Gripping the handrail, Sakaguchi slowly blinks his swollen eyes, trying to remain on his feet during the gentle jolts and recalling the upcoming work related tasks without much enthusiasm.

At some point Ango unconsciously closes his eyelids, and like a curtain falling, it leaves him alone with his weakness. In every cell of the exhausted body there is a burdensome sense of brokenness that has not abandoned the government worker for weeks. He spent the whole night over paperwork, hardly moving and not taking breaks, however even such strain of effort was never enough. Ignoring the constant headaches and stubbornly working to his own detriment has become the norm, a definite standard.

A reflex suddenly jolts him out of his timeless half-sleep—his body moves sharply to the side, pushing against something. Immediately, he opens his eyes in surprise.

Due to the sudden braking of the train, Ango, colliding with someone's body like a ragged doll, provoked an unpleasant chain reaction: a stranger's hand swiftly emptied the contents of a coffee cup, and a stain spread across the impeccably clean shirt of this random bystander; the mark was not big, but in contrast to the neat features of the stranger it stood out tragically. Sakaguchi feels everything inside him freeze with shame as he meets the eyes across from him. There is no malicious outrage in them, only a clear, fragile shock intertwined with a lingering heavy distress. 

“Oh, God… I’m so terribly sorry,” immediately bending his neck in an apologetic manner—or, maybe, just to avoid the gaze of the gray eyes—Ango hurriedly throws out phrases. “I didn’t mean to, please excuse me-“

“It’s alright.”

The train continues to noticeably slow down—they have already reached one of the stations. Sakaguchi remembers, not without exasperation, that he has to step out now. He clings on to the last attempt to rehabilitate, hastily searching for words. 

“But your clothes-“

“Don’t worry about that,” the voice resounds from the looming height of the stranger’s confidence, almost shutting down Ango’s guilt. Aggression would seem more understandable and pleasant than this wrung-out calmness. “Just be more careful. And get a nap.”

The stranger exits as soon as the subway doors open. Sakaguchi, following closely behind, tensely watches the tall silhouette in the continuously moving crowd. The elegant back, the gliding pace—he moved away steadily, precisely, without hindrance, like a figure painted by an engraving artist's hand. The hair cascaded down his back like frivolous leaves on a branch. Ango does not allow himself to lose the image from his mind, but it already gets intertwined in the fleeting textures of fabrics and skin, seeping through the heat of the bodies surrounding it, swiftly disappearing among the unremarkable faces.

Impetuously sprinting several meters past some columns and uninteresting silhouettes, Sakaguchi finds the tall figure again. The stranger pulls a full pack of napkins from what seems to be a perfectly organized briefcase. Everything about this man seems reliable, calculated. Only a coffee stain and evident fatigue in every movement disfigure his composure. He rubs the stain with the napkins, but the moisture does not absorb. Instead, it seems that the impeccable fabric is only becoming more stained.

A sharp regret, roughly intruding on Ango’s mind, pulses with tremors in his hands, while thoughts annoyingly bump into each other like glass marbles. He can run away, like he always does. However, Sakaguchi feels that he will not be able to forgive himself for yet another blunder—he has lived too long with cracks and fractures of guilt to allow it to blossom again this time. Ango fixates his gaze on the tightly furrowed brows, on the blonde locks covering the other’s face, on the trembling rectangular frame of his glasses.

“It won’t come off this way. You need water,” he says cautiously, taking a step forward. The unknown man raises his head in confusion, squinting as he peers into the other’s face. Upon encountering that penetratingly pure, correct, and unwavering silver of idealism in his eyes once again, Sakaguchi tries on rigid politeness. “I’ve stained myself with coffee numerous times. May I help?”

In a distant room indistinct apologies are echoed, interrupted by the murmuring of dripping water, which, despite the efforts of both participants of the incident, did little to impact the growing stain—the splatter had only faded slightly, barely disappearing.

“Well. This seems to be the limit,” the stranger utters this absently, without a hint of surprise or dismay. Like a proven fact in a dossier.

He touches the area on his shirt where the stain had lost some of the brightness. Sakaguchi can only study the hands moving across the fabric. Beryl veins, neatly manicured nails, barely noticeable paper cuts. No rings. Dark ink stains on the fingertips. Bruises peeking out from the shirt’s paper-white sleeves. Sakaguchi embeds the newfound tracery in his own memory by the centimeters.

“I’m very sorry for causing so much trouble,” Ango says, standing awkwardly and clutching the darkened paper napkins that were artfully stained with the coffee’s dull hue minutes before.

As the conversation dissolves in the sound of the running tap water, Sakaguchi doesn’t understand why this accidental interlocutor still hasn't left or, conversely, lost his composure. Instead, the man only regards him with an uncertain, wandering gaze, remaining in his designated place by the sink. His curious eyes peek out from under unmoving eyelashes, illuminated by fluorescent lights as if the sun burning through foliage in the August’s heat. 

“Really, I’m perfectly fine. And you are obviously not if you doze off while standing,” in the mute room, words bounce off the tiled walls like a rhythmic firework. Shaking his head, the stranger states obvious truths with an unusual concern; in the twitches of his fingers something more than irritation or pity can be discerned. “You shouldn’t do that to yourself.”  

Sakaguchi, with a foggy mind, turns over the words woven from sublingual veins. An unknown sensual pattern, an accidental colorful paint splatter on a black-and-white engraving, breaking away from the monochrome structure. Ango realizes that he cannot decipher the other’s mosaic of priorities; he is stunned by the first sign of disapproval of his impeccably constructed self-destruction.  

“Then you’re terribly unlucky to be next to me,” guilt sprouts in his throat with a familiar rancid earthy taste. “Sometimes it seems that I can do nothing without causing harm to someone, even myself.” He abruptly stops himself, shaking his head shamefully. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even brought this up.”

Sakaguchi takes a step back and tosses the wet napkins into the trash. He wants to leave. On the surrounding suffocating paper-white walls, prints of black markers and moldy echoes of moisture are grotesquely stretched. Amidst such nauseating black-and-white clumsiness, the acrylic shades of the long blonde strands and the healthy skin of the stranger's face look unnaturally vivid; the whiteness of his sharp collar and the clarity of his glasses reflect in a dull mirror somewhere on the periphery, in a shard of the external world, distant from the surrounding mess as if by kilometers.  

“You are too hard on yourself,” the sternness noticeably softens, his unexpectedly calming tone melodically entrusts tranquility. 

“I don’t think so,” Ango lowers his eyes, pinning his gaze to the dull ceramic surface of the sink, from which water had recently dripped down. He has no strength left for anything other than the dull floundering in his shame and awkwardness. “You are too kind to me.”

“It’s just clothes.”

“Maybe. But I also ruined your day.”

On the white floor tiles, droplets of water glisten like mirror capsules, diluted by dust and tinted by coffee stains. Sakaguchi is afraid to lift his eyes, indirectly glancing at the stranger’s shoes.

“On the contrary,“ the man takes a sudden firm step toward Ango, as if drawing a perfectly aimed perpendicular path with a ruler; bending his neck, smoothly, naturally, and closely he drops his verdict, “You are the one that will make me remember this day.”

Ango’s widened eyes instantly move to the face hovering over him. His breath catches somewhere in the overwhelming current of slippery thoughts, in the glittering of the irises of the pearlescent eyes, and in the unexpected feeling of similarity that firmly absorbs into the space between them. Sakaguchi instantly deciphers the absolute meaning of the stranger’s expression because he has already thought of this exact phrase. The only thing that will make one remember. Ango does not remember anything significant about the past days, week, or month, aside from the monotonous whiteness and dullness that constantly envelops him and holds no value or color. Now, however, he has no doubt that the memory of the nameless figure in front of him will remain with him for a long time.

Sakaguchi looks away and fidgets with his sleeve, pretending that the words which fill the room with their echo and now suffocate him with their complexity, do not affect him. Ango is not capable of fleeting infatuations, of feeling anything other than distrust in such a short period, but he now clearly senses an understanding between them. However, he is too scared to show it, anxious to reveal even a tiny piece of his shattered, disjointed puzzle, to trust in the slightest hint of intimacy.

“Yet that doesn’t mean this day will be remembered as a good one,” as he firmly states this, the color of his face shifts to a pale shade of pink lace.

He is understood. The stranger straightens his back, easily returning to the correct posture and the strictness in the lines of his appearance, once again resembling a slender tree, unwaveringly rising and shimmering in its own resilience.

“In that case, understand that I forgive you,“ the voice methodically hits the targets of carefully crafted phrases. He restores the usual professional tone, already sinking into the beginning of the workday. Such a model of concessions is mixed with the business language of searching and choosing, which Ango is well-versed in, and thus predicts each syllable. “You were here to help me. That is enough.”

All his solid determination is distorted by the coffee stain that stands out on his perfect facade like a careless crack on exquisite porcelain. Sakaguchi winces, weighed down by his own attitude toward the materialistic, deafened by the pulse of guilt. He knows that he can’t give up.

“No, that is not enough. This shirt looks... expensive. May I pay you for a new one?“ he finally lifts his tense gaze, concentrating on the subsequent reaction. His intonation mirrors the other’s, choosing the words carefully. “The least I can do.”

A look of confusion crosses the stranger's face; he stares at Ango with mixed emotions. He opens his mouth framed by the pink petals of his lips, in a silent scatter of possible responses that arise like soap bubbles, soon popping without a trace. Finally, having chosen the optimal option from thousands of templates, he cheers up and speaks with renewed vigor:

“It’s better if you buy me coffee sometime,” after rummaging in his pocket for a couple of seconds, he presents a business card with an organized, practiced motion. A faint smile appears on his face, reminiscent of a waning moon in the predawn hour. Even in the gesture of handing over the paper card with his contact details, there is the tired formality, but in his tender exposed smile, something ideally gentle can be sensed. Ango, gazing at the soft curves of his lips, mentally imprints them in his memory as if an important code. “I’m Kunikida Doppo.”

“Sakaguchi Ango,” he replies automatically, staring at the set of numbers, at the simplest piece of paper with widened eyes. Kunikida patiently waits for him to tuck the card into his pocket and then steps back, leaving behind a trail of inky words that have soaked through the previously empty pages of the past, present, and future.

January

Sakaguchi becomes extremely irritated whenever anything disturbs his closed-off seclusion, where there is barely enough room for himself and his eternal desk.

However, as it turns out, there are always exceptions.

After that morning, a tiny mark remained on Ango's shirt sleeve, an eternal reminder—a spot of someone else's coffee, pale, barely noticeable, having accidentally rolled into his life. Sometimes, while filling out reports, waiting, or checking the time, it would subtly penetrate the sterile routine, dragging along sketches of those eyes. Like a nail stuck to the fabric, the memory wouldn’t let him move forward, pulling him back into the echoing howl of the underground and tangling him in the words imprinted in his memory.

Sakaguchi had been trying for months to drown out his miserable disquiet with work, and now he was effectively distracted by fleeting snippets of film of one morning, lodged in his memory better than any movie. Simply because the past had momentarily ceased to be a burden; for a brief moment, it became something he wanted to recreate once more. As if a single colored frame had snuck into a typical noir sequence, and Ango kept rewinding the tape, trying to grasp the subtext and meaning of what had happened.

Only after several unclear days, in the midst of a snowy afternoon, he dialed the numbers from the business card with a trembling hand.

That was when everything changed. After one carefully thought-out and measured meeting in an inconspicuous establishment—this time, not involving spilled coffee—their similarly unremarkable fates, where overwork and lonely nervousness reigned despotically, began to search for ways to regularly encounter each other in their routines.

For the first time Ango was driven not by professional gain, completely detached from any emotions, or even a convoluted list of tasks, but by a genuine, new interest that was saturated with anticipation. With excitement, he caught sight of the unchanged shining spectacles and the straight line of shoulders sharply outlined by the folds of beige fabric among the daily flow of downcast silhouettes. Time and again, he gazed with increasing interest, studied the symmetry of the frowned features and the balanced stubbornness in each movement—in the turn of the head, in the quick gestures of the hands.

It was evident that Kunikida was also curious about him. Just the thought of this made Ango uneasy. Especially since due to his conscious isolation, he had felt for months that no one was interested in him as a person anymore, and that he remained merely a faceless employee or a repulsive shadow of the past in the memories of others. Sakaguchi accepted with some melancholy that Doppo was probably the only person in Yokohama who cared about how the day had gone for him, a closed-off and disregarded government employee.

Kunikida himself was a bright, endlessly curious shade in the tiresome procession of the tasteless routine and fleeting gray faces. His colorful silhouette would resurface again and again, and the previously lonely and thoughtlessly apathetic night hours during the city's mundane quiet gradually filled with structured ribbons of dialogues.

"Aren't you worried about yourself?" like the notes of a music box, the ticking of a clock, or a computer program, the syllables imprint themselves in the stuffy space.

Ango remained silent, as if pondering Kunikida's words while simultaneously ignoring him. He can give no response. Most of the time, that's exactly what he does when their conversation takes this kind of turn. Sakaguchi finds it unpleasant to talk about his weaknesses—the only thing he has left.

What complicated everything was that it was precisely their weaknesses that had brought them together: first, the human passion for strong drinks, and then the ingrained habit of lingering for particularly long in their offices even after designated work hours. And from these unpoetic coincidences in habits and perspectives, several such nights emerged, dragging them into an unclear status quo between dubious acquaintances and... something more. Although Doppo would never openly call these meetings dates, he nonetheless marked the corresponding intersections of plan-free time in his daily planner as such. And Ango, sinking further under the influence of the idealistic detective, began to feel something he had lost long ago—trust. He noticed how his own layers of relentless isolation were gradually peeling away, giving him a chance to deviate from the mute submission to the grayness. 

"I don't have the luxury to think about myself," the response slips off his tongue uncertainly, almost weakly, echoing with a delayed pearly sound, scattering across the bar counter.

With one intense look and a sharp tilt of his head, Doppo makes it clear that this was a poor choice of words.

"I don't understand," he exhales heavily, visible creases of worry forming on his features as his fingers deftly twist the glass with his drink. Sakaguchi never fully shakes off the slight aversion to the future—anxiety—and only within the memories of Kunikida's presence does he consistently find a sense of calm. That's why he studies every shift in the other's eyes and hands, memorizing the way colors of his hair and clothes shift under the dim lamp. "Why are you trusted with such important tasks when you look like this?"

Sakaguchi, in fact, was fully aware of the state he'd brought himself to and what lay beneath the careful phrasing of "like this." Long ago, he made a promise to himself: not to look in mirrors—this way, there was at least a sliver of confidence that he was doing everything right. Once, through carelessness, Ango encountered his own repulsive reflection: hair the shade of a dirty sleeve of an earth tornado, strands lying flat like roughly cut paper, his face unrecognizable, peeking out like a snow-white crescent from the dark density of a colorless room, offering the emotionless swampy eyes a view of his flawless self-destruction. Flawless because everything else was going according to plan, so that must be necessary as well.

That’s why he doesn't have the strength to take offense at Doppo’s final remark, especially when it was so clearly imbued with common sense, and also clenched real caring in the quick spaces between syllables. Ango can't stand pity, and there's never any in Doppo's words—only unambiguous concern.

“Because that’s my duty," Sakaguchi replies simply and predictably, knowing Kunikida would have answered the same way. 

Doppo taps his fingernails absentmindedly on the sticky wooden surface, where a menu with an insignificant selection of alcohol was carelessly placed. On the paper, like wires running through cities, are strings of indecipherable cocktail names that both of them have already learned. Ango no longer remembers why they chose to meet here, in a discreet establishment that was only open at the late hours. It was probably enough that everyone here continued to ignore them. A vacuum of lifeless lighting was their worn setting, hidden in the night. Sakaguchi shifts his gaze to his own drink and puts his hands on the warming glass, looking only at the reflections on it. 

“I don't think it's good for you to be that responsible in this condition," Kunikida finally utters, emphasizing each word firmly. “For the bosses, maybe. For you, absolutely not.”

Deep down, Ango knows Kunikida is right. Yet they still go round and round like hands of the clock, and not just in mere arguments on the subject. They see the same view in the windows again and again, spend their lives in the confinement of a white disk where everything moves only as it should. A stable, circular puddle in which clumps of emotion sour and a sense of significance slowly decomposes. Sakaguchi feels that it’s wrong, but he is used to it and isn't about to change. 

“What do you suggest? Go on leave?” realizing the significance and absurdity of the mere idea, he almost laughs, but, controlling himself, suppresses the smile. “These are just busy days.”

Kunikida, confused, fleetingly adjusts his glasses, draws his eyebrows together with a frown, then presses his lips to the glass. This sequence mirrors the moves of a piece oscillating chaotically on a chessboard of dim buildings. It was palpable that something long familiar was imprinted in the combination, which, with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope, alternated halftones from pearl to unripe strawberry. Any perceptible movement made the lamp's radiation above them ripple. 

And Ango had seen it all before, if not before his eyes, then in his thoughts, in the heavy head laden with bitterness where Doppo was permanently located. Like a current ghost of sunlight that fluttered in and out of the dusty room of his life, he was constantly balancing Sakaguchi somewhere on the precipice of sanity and despair, giving him a vague sense of hope. 

“These are busy months for you, not days," Doppo says with a frustrated groan, his rhythmic phrases and orderly movements reminiscent of a clock that is never late. Sakaguchi grows uneasy at the second thought that without Kunikida he would be as lost in everyday life as if he were without a watch. “You need rest.”

Ango has long felt that he doesn't need anything, and so he is steadily fascinated by Doppo's contrasting view of existence: moral motives and correct opinions brought to absolute priority, perfectly even geometric shapes and the absence of ink smudges on the pages of notebooks, the contents of which could easily be used to make a complete script of his life. Sakaguchi isn't sure he can boast of anything other than the uncomfortable structure itself, the mere skeleton of his empty existence. 

He examines the glass in which myriad pinkish reflections of the surroundings gleam, trying to find the answer to Kunukida somewhere in the objects, in an indirect extension of his body. He is distracted by a ticking sound, the only noise in their lost hideaway. On his narrow wrist, the hands of a watch move mundanely. Sakaguchi concludes that it is to them that he owes his lack of freedom and wary confinement to an absorbing work schedule. In the spilled muffled pause, a symmetrical clicking from Kunikida's hand could be picked up. 

“You, of all people, understand me," Ango now looks directly into Doppo’s eyes, catching their unguarded openness. A familiar weariness stares back at him through the clear lenses, instantly drawing up the same shaky and powerless routine. Kunikida's major flaw was that just behind the dazzling layer of idealistic facade was a deadening system which seized senses and exhausted strength, burned through the years. And Sakaguchi had long ago discovered this set of omissions in Doppo’s image, because he had been watching his own identical version in reflections for many years now. “So tell me, do you have time?”

Kunikida freezes. Squinting, a wavering thoughtfulness can be seen in him—broken and torn, searching aimlessly for words. Sakaguchi likes to pick up on this kind of stupor on other people's faces. He enjoys picking out weaknesses, savoring his own superiority in negotiations and allowing himself to acquire an arrogant, but deserved, superiority. He loves that expression on everyone but Doppo; he is least pleased when Kunikida begins to show confusion or disquiet, when his lips press into a tight pale line, when their trust is erased. 

In the space between them wristwatches tick measuredly, synchronously, as if to the notes of the dullest symphony, an inexorable reminder of time. Having received no answer after several dozen tense seconds, Ango casts his gaze down and triumphs joylessly.

“I thought so.”

There are no stars in the sky. Sakaguchi doesn't care, because he's not used to looking anywhere but at his feet. Twilight has poisoned the streets like dark mold, sticky shards of snow cut the air, a white void like wet paper that sticks to the eyes. Lights drill through the veil of the blizzard, which hides only endless blocks of faded windows and bare blackened trees. The pair's correct march down the deserted street is accompanied by heavy silence all the way until Doppo returns to the forgotten topic, suddenly pulling the sliver of their dialogue back.

“I’ve been thinking. And I can't agree with you,” his tone resounds with a persistent interest, a detective's meticulous desire to reduce the system of the other person’s views to his own logical machine. “I have time. And so do you.”

Sakaguchi doesn't look up, instead carelessly absorbing the white, lifeless layer that flickers faintly in the haggard light. Like torn and crumpled paper, it covers the cold ground with uneven patches. It's as if everything has been soaked through a monochrome filter, absorbing the hues into the negative.

“I doubt that.“

Kunikida pretends to ponder the answer for a second, then exhales heavily, still patient.

“Why?”

Ango doesn’t burn with the desire to defend his point of view, he only wants Kunikida to understand him. The very realization that Doppo is on his side entrusted, if not calmness, then a familiarity in the structure in which there already could be no change. 

Ango stops in the middle of the snow-covered sidewalk. Kunikida turns around a couple of steps away, looking perplexed, frowning with a fearful curiosity. A bleak veil of icy freckles partially covers his face, sobering and unnerving. 

“No one has time in this city," the words flow into the empty surroundings, sounding shaky and fragile. Sakaguchi takes his eyes off the ground for the first time, peering dispassionately into the celestial tent, which beckons him with dull emptiness and gloom. “Especially us. Even working so much and more, we can't buy freedom.” Ango thinks about how ridiculous this situation is, how much he hates this city and how little volition he has to change anything. He shakes his head, suddenly ashamed and weary. “Kunikida, I’m sorry, all this sounds stupid-“

And then he meets Kunikida’s eyes.

There's a sensible intimate tenderness in his expression, a mirror image of their understanding. His gaze is so full of warm flourishing compassion that Ango becomes overwhelmed with an unendurable sense of closeness. For the first time, he doesn't want to look away. Ango is terrified that every sensation, every aspect, every precious particle of this moment will dissolve like sugar in tea if he blinks. 

But Kunikida does not disappear. Instead, he becomes more real, in the midst of an empty easel of the snowy wasteland he seems to be the only bouquet of colors of the faded world, plucked from a transparent early spring, so full of blossoming timelessness are the strokes of his silhouette. As if isolating the two of them in the flow of the snowflakes, he approaches, easily stepping over the shaky confusion and breaking through the frosty air, then tilts his neck familiarly, his eyes almost leveling with Ango's. Kunikida’s gaze penetrates deep beneath the formality, blurring the layers of gray surfaces of business attire.

Sakaguchi looks back at him without blinking until his eyes become sore. 

“No, you’re right. But I feel like I have time when I'm with you," it’s as if Doppo reads these words from Ango’s mind, because he realizes this simple truth in the same second.

He realizes perhaps too much. In Kunikida's face, there are all the answers, the solutions, every problem finds its conclusion. Somehow everything seems stupidly simple.

“How romantic," Ango feels himself begin to smile. It's the first time he's done it without strain or effort. He speculates that the color of his own cheeks has now flourished in a color too pink to be excused by alcohol alone. “It's not your style.”

Doppo slightly tilts his head sideways, the snow settling into his features like white noise interfering with a film. 

“Of course not," he looks thoughtfully at the orchid dusk behind the trees and skyscrapers, adjusting his glasses timidly, inaccurately, with a trembling hand, "But there are always exceptions.”

February 

In the murky gap from home to work it is hard to keep track of time, and much harder to keep one's sanity. Ango feels everything slowly starting to fall apart. Both literally and not.

The morning begins with sticky coffee spills and shards of a mug that falls from his weakened hands, the busy day accompanies him with coughing fits and unusual sharpness in his eyesight, and the evening ends with the startled look of a coworker anxiously eyeing Sakaguchi, who was shivering with chills. On the way home his brain thoroughly turns to soup, and the only things he feels are fatigue and pain.

However, it can not be said that the above circumstances have any effect on Ango's usual mental flow. Ignoring the symptoms of cold and overexertion, he sees only a dip in his productivity and intends to cancel all plans with Doppo so that— on a once again rest-free evening—he can finish his remaining duties in the confinement of the walls of his apartment. 

Dialing the memorized number, his encrypted password into his own hermitage, he doesn’t feel calm for the first time. 

“I'll have to cancel today," he says in a low voice, pressing his fingers inaccurately into the keyboard. 

“Are you busy?” something resembling a shaky disappointed exhale is heard, immediately sinking in the bad connection. “Are you going to be at work until midnight again?”

“Not really, no. I'm already home," Ango glances at the pile of folders he still needed to get to, only for a second contemplating throwing them out the window. “I just can't.”

“Alright, we’ll have to reschedule if you're tired," there's a rustle of pages on the other end, and Sakaguchi can almost see these hands in front of him, flipping through plans from the past and future. Kunikida lowers his voice, carefully stringing pearly syllables on a wire of courtesy. “But you still need a break from... all this. And so do I.”

Ango unknowingly smiles as he hears Kunikida's serene chuckle at the end of the sentence. He leans the speaker closer to his ear, adjusts his head to the voice coming from somewhere on the opposite end of the city, in the tangle of streets and their thoughts. He closes his eyelids, cowardly shielding himself from the blue radiation of the screen, and then sighs sharply.

“I'm not tired," Ango listens to the rustle of static, a relentless reminder of the distance between them. They hadn't seen each other in more than a week, only limited to dry messages. And the hard-won free hours of the current evening are now being crossed out. A sudden hunch telling Sakaguchi that he is yearning gnaws at him. The long familiar feeling of loss and emptiness filling the last few days tells him that he has yearned for Kunikida all his life. He feels guilty for lying so clumsily and gratuitously, and so he partially confesses. “I think I have a cold. That's all.”

“Are you sick?“ Kunikida is now loudly turning papers somewhere far away. His voice becomes strained with worry. “I hope you're being treated?”

“It’s nothing serious,” Sakaguchi puzzledly makes sense of Doppo's anxious tone, confused by his distress. He finds a weak excuse. “Besides, I don't have any medicine.”

Kunikida immediately falls silent, now only the muffled gusts of the snow-covered night and the white noise of the phone connection fill the isolated space. 

“I'll come over," Doppo decides nonchalantly, with a determination that is characteristic only of him.

Ango, taken aback, doesn't even know whether to be happy or be horrified. He clearly underestimated Kunikida's dedication. 

“Don’t. I don't want you to get sick too. It's already freezing outside, you'll catch a cold from me, and then-“

Doppo calmly interrupts him. “I'll just drop off the medicine. Send me your address.”

The connection is cut off instantly after that. Sakaguchi glances thoughtfully at his phone, feeling at ease for the first time all day. 

Doppo exhales a sigh of relief when he sees a familiar face in the gloomy doorway, but he is immediately horrified when he realizes how bad Ango's condition is. Kunikida takes a close look at him from head to toe and immediately pulls them both inside delicately. Ango, too tired to protest, shuffles back a step and blinks his eyes lazily. 

“My God, Ango. Why didn't you tell me you were so ill?” Doppo asks in a concerned patter, kicking off his shoes in sync with the disapproving shake of his head. A bag filled with something square rustles faintly in his hand. “You should have called me much earlier.”

The guest looks around the modest, almost empty apartment. The darkness provided by the tightly closed curtains is interrupted only within the reach of a dim desk lamp. Bare boring walls, devoid of personality in the form of paintings or photographs, the fleeting smell of paper and dusty pages. Nowhere is there anything that says it is Ango who lives here, and not just anyone out of the thousands of employees of some corporation. It becomes obvious that the owner only uses this space for sleeping, which, considering Sakaguchi's routine, there is not much time for anyway.

“I didn't want to bother you for nothing.”

Judging by Kunikida's instantly frowning eyebrows, "bother" and "for nothing" were an unfortunate wording. The look he lets out is something between condemnation and sympathy.

“It's not an excuse.”

Doppo silently takes in the obvious symptoms of the… body in front of him. The sliding round glasses that had specks of dust and smeared smudges of fingerprints, an unhealthy scarlet color clearly visible in the dim palette of the face. The hands are visibly shaking, their paleness alarming. Kunikida suddenly realizes that Ango seems thinner than usual. Perhaps it's because it's the first time he's seeing the government worker not in his usual double layered suit, without the peculiar formal charm that practically obscured his essence most of the time, and so weak in general.

“I assumed you were already too tired," Ango's words get slurred, sweat forming on his temples. 

“Does it matter?” Kunikida presses his palm against the forehead opposite and tries to ignore Ango's eyes, which, with a clouded tenacity of a investigator, are trying to work out not only Doppo's presence but also his existence. Desperately cold, lonely, indistinct gaze. In it there is a boundless apathetic hostility to the world, and in it, if one opened many ciphers and layers, a devotion could be seen. “I am never tired of you.”

Sakaguchi squints at the other man's face, where his cheekbones deepen under the shadowy effects of sleep deprivation, and a familiar exhaustion floats in his eyes along with a faint absentmindedness. Ango has no trouble matching all those traits noticeable in Kunikida with those he sees in himself in every passing glass window, reflection on the translucent surface of coffee, or darkened monitor. They share too many traits that directly affect their sleep.

“I can tell,” he notes sarcastically. “Have you been sleeping at all?” Ango asks as if in passing, only by this limited set of words staggering the other's fortitude. 

What can Kunikida answer? After all, he can't tell he has been typing and writing countless tedious reports all week long, and returned home just so that he could continue filling out the remaining papers before dawn came because the Agency needed them ready by the morning. Well, when could he sleep? 

“You know the answer to that," he says with a sigh.

Ango only blinks slowly, guessing every word unspoken in a second and already choosing the excuse for the most gentle way of sending Doppo back home to get some sleep and finally stop sacrificing himself, but his train of thought is interrupted by a sudden chill that crusts over his forehead when Kunikida removes his palm. 

“You have a fever,” he states simply, ineptly masking the glassy distress rattling in the air. 

“It's alright. It'll go away on its own," Ango tries to make his voice firmer, restlessly running his palm through his uncombed hair, which immediately falls back into place. Kunikida’s gaze unconsciously lingers on the black strands. 

“No, Ango, you can't treat yourself like that,” he leans in slightly to peer into the inflamed eyes, narrowed by the lace of lashes.

“I'll be fine, you don't have to help me-”

“I'm already here," he says sharply, but softens immediately, afraid that Sakaguchi will feel guilty, "And you're obviously not at your best. I just want to help.” 

He smiles worriedly, and that alone breaks all of Ango's protests. After staring at the soft expression in front of him for a moment, Sakaguchi finally nods, gesturing for Doppo to come into the living room. Entering, the visitor notices an open laptop with an annoyingly glowing screen on a table, as well as documents and stuffed folders arranged chaotically nearby. Kunikida raises his eyebrows in astonishment as he approaches the table.

“What the hell is this?”

“I'm working.”

Kunikida straightens up, recoiling slightly from the papers with confusion and trepidation. 

“You can not work while you're sick.”

Ango, no less surprised by Kunikida's reaction, walks over to the table and calmly moves some sheets to the side. 

“I have to finish these," he states, squinting pointedly. “And I have a lot more pages to fill.”

“You can finish all this tomorrow. Or whenever you feel better,” Doppo sighs deeply, shaking his head. Concern is evident in his every movement. Ango almost feels guilty. “You need rest.”

“I can't just stop, can I?”

“If you don't now, your own body will stop you in the middle of the day,” Kunikida frowns with a direct indication in his eyes. Sakaguchi guesses that he is hinting at the first minute of their acquaintance. 

They silently wallow in their worries directly related to each other for a moment. Ango watches the flickering cursor on the laptop’s screen and then gives up, dropping his shoulders guiltily.

“Maybe you're right,” he sits down, glancing at the monotonous light of the screen for a second, and closes the laptop. Sakaguchi folds his arms, which are slightly shaking. In this pose, he seems frail, disproportionately vulnerable, “But I'm so used to it that I do the work automatically, without thinking. You know that.”

“I know that too well, and if you treat your health that way, illnesses will drag on for days. It's stupidly irresponsible,” Doppo rummages through his bag and pulls out several packets of pills with boring fonts. He holds out a box. “I've brought something for you.”

Ango raises his brows. Kunikida obligingly opens the small bento, where leftovers that looked acceptable even after several hours and polished chopsticks were arranged linearly.

“You don't mind, do you? It’s just-“ Ango trails off unsurely, touching the table surface with his fingertips. 

“Don't worry about me,” he shakes his head, glancing down. “You need to eat, and I know you haven't.”

“In that case,” Sakaguchi takes a couple seconds to decide something, and then picks up the food with the chopsticks. “Thank you.”

After chewing, he looks at the food and his guest with widened eyes. 

“Is something wrong?” Kunikida slumps his shoulders slightly.

“No,” Ango touches the other man's forearm instantly, as if afraid of being late. “It’s just… It's been so long since I've had a home-cooked meal. Especially on terrible days like this.”

Doppo feels an unpleasant heaviness rise in his chest. Ango is so closed off that he probably doesn't tell anyone anything about his health.

“I can cook for you, then,” Kunikida's lips fold into a reassuring smile. “You just have to ask.”

Ango nods with a grateful expression, continuing to carefully pick up the food with his chopsticks. Doppo stubbornly pretends to look around the room, but his attention gets drawn back to Ango time after time. To occupy his hands with something, he stacks the medicine packs in a column. Earlier, Kunikida had only emptied his home medicine cabinet by a quarter in a hurry to get to Ango, and the construction was still impressively long. He picks out one of the packets of pills.

“Take one when you finish eating. You won't need another one until six hours later,” he says, as if reading from a manual.

“So I need to wake up in the middle of the night somehow,” Sakaguchi frowns at this calculation, examining the medicine with a look of contempt. He runs his hand tiredly over his hair. “I hardly ever hear alarm clocks in my sleep. That's why it's usually more efficient not to go to bed at all.”

“Absolutely not. You need to sleep. And actually,” the words come out of Kunikida's mouth before he can fully comprehend them, “I can wake you up.”

Ango pauses, sharply shifting his gaze to Doppo.

“You’re staying?”

Looking into the eyes where something fragilely hopeful was so clearly visible, Kunikida, for the first time in his life, does not seem to be thinking clearly through his plan. 

“Sure,” he stammers, touching his knees awkwardly, “If you let me.”

Ango looks at him in awe, confusion settling inside.

“I don't mind, but,” he mumbles smoothly and contemplates as if searching for a contradiction in a convoluted criminal case, “Don't you have to go to work tomorrow? It's probably going to take longer to get there from here.”

Doppo laughs quietly and transparently, as if signing under his principles, emphasizing and confirming that Ango is simply more important. 

“I'll make it,” he makes a vague gesture in the air, in reality not even considering whether he'll make it. “Besides, I can't just walk away and leave you here like this. It's my responsibility to make sure you're going to be alright.”

Sakaguchi's expression changes to a neutrally peaceful one, the kind that silently confirms approval. Kunikida unknowingly smiles a little wider. 

Ango had indeed had to be woken up at about five in the morning to take his medication. Kunikida had fallen asleep briefly earlier, and now, having already put the owner of the apartment back to bed, was finishing the last stack of extremely mediocre budget plans needed for that morning’s meeting at work.

In fact, he doesn’t have to stay here now. There was just that something inside was irresistibly pulling Kunikida to linger for a few more minutes. Or an extra ten. Maybe an hour. At least until Ango wakes up. 

He drums his pen on his chin in a cartoonish thoughtfulness. The calculated numbers in his head just don't add up, and the text in front of his eyes gradually begins to blend together into a single incoherent mess. Near the laid out documents, two cups were steaming. Kunikida distracts himself by drinking the scalding coffee and pondering the usual time Ango wakes up; he casts a fleeting glance at the clock—the only decoration on the walls. It’s almost seven. Not long until work.

Somewhere in the distance of the apartment suddenly sounds a detached, almost elusive creak of the door. Kunikida only hears it because he has been expecting it all morning. For a couple of minutes, muffled footsteps resound somewhere between the hallway and the offshoots of the rooms. At some point they change direction, and Kunikida turns his head, his gaze immediately colliding with Ango’s, who just entered. A pillow mark spreads on his cheek with a charming redness, he doesn’t look great, but nevertheless better than yesterday. Taking a step closer, he squints.

“It's so bright.”

Sakaguchi drowsily observes the snowfall outside the wide window not covered by curtains for the first time in a long while. The rays of sunlight cast the desk with neatly arranged documents into something solemn, parallel to the tiresome flow of clerical monotony. Ango marvels at how much everything in his dreary and dusty space has transformed because of one person. Kunikida puts aside his pen, tapping his fingers nervously on the wooden surface. 

“You don't mind that I'm still here, do you? I could leave and finish my work somewhere else.”

“No," to Ango, Doppo's figure in the sunlit room seems inexplicably natural. He stops his gaze on his loose hair, looking at the strands that are not compressed at the base by a hairband for the first time. Like sophora blossoms, it clusters over his shoulders, the tides of light smearing the pastel hues. “Stay.”

Kunikida’s eyes light up.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” Ango leisurely crosses the room, then sits down at the table next to Doppo. He, touching his slightly crooked glasses, languidly props his head with the palms of his hands and sleepily drops his shoulders. Kunikida watches the other's movements not with the usual alertness of a detective, but with a peaceful ease of an artist’s contemplation. “Thanks to you, of course.”

“I'm glad.”

Doppo politely slides an untouched cup across the table. Sakaguchi glances at it with interest, rubbing his eyes.

“Is that... tea?” in surprise, he leans in slightly, looking closely at the liquid. His glasses instantly fog up. 

Kunikida studies Ango’s confused expression. “You don't like it?”

Sakaguchi immediately shakes his head negatively, timidly touching the cup. He takes a sip after thinking for a few seconds, and then quietly confesses. “I'm not used to drinking anything but coffee in the morning.”

Kunikida nods understandingly, looking down at the black coffee that stood out as a dark blot surrounded by the white rims of the cup in his palm. 

Sakaguchi closes his eyes as he sips, allowing himself to pause for a moment in the morning stillness. The silence stretches time, serenely filling the space with trusting sugary glows of the snowy sky. Kunikida feels an unusual lightness as he continues to fill in the lines of the documents with numbers. 

They don’t say a word for a minute, and then Sakaguchi, holding out his hands over his unusually neatly folded papers, opens his laptop with a careful movement.  

“I need to finish my report,” he murmurs, machine-like and flat, yet almost apologetically.

A disorderly symphony of quiet keyboard sounds soon begins to scatter around the room. Kunikida glances at Ango's profile out of the corner of his eye. His dark hair is disheveled from sleeping and also because of the habitual inattention of the owner. Doppo takes a long look at the strand that has suddenly come loose and is now stubbornly clinging to Sakaguchi's cheek. Automatically, he moves the hair away from Ango's face, tucking it carefully behind his ear. Sakaguchi freezes, his breath audibly hitching, and he accidentally bumps against his cup with the edge of the hand. 

Spills spread across the table before Doppo catches the falling cup with a quick reflex. Some of the documents get soaked in a series of tiny stains, a translucent streak widens by the seconds. 

“I- I'm so sorry,” Kunikida stutters, slouching guiltily in embarrassment and dread as he sets the cup back down. “This is my fault. I wasn't thinking.”

“It's fine,” Sakaguchi instantly wipes the surface with the paper napkins lying nearby, soaking up the fluid. He ignores the drenched papers, too focused on his own face heating up and his heart pounding in his chest quicker for some reason. “At least you got the cup.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-“

“It's fine,” he repeats firmly, emphasizing each letter unwaveringly. “I just wasn't expecting that.”

“I didn't mean to scare you,” Doppo bites his lips restlessly, and averts his gaze, dropping the words with dry severity, “It's just that you need to comb your hair.”

Stopping abruptly, Sakaguchi looks at the frowning eyebrows, the pure correctness, the inappropriate seriousness in Kunikida’s expression. 

Ango also looks at how deep the shade of Kunikida’s blush is. 

Oh. 

Absurdity is woven into the situation like tangled curls in a comb, every second of the interaction now seeming to play in different colors.

Dropping his head, Ango doesn’t hold back anymore and laughs. 

Kunikida is surprised not by the unusually bright emotion itself, but mostly by the laughter, which sounds like an unknown etude, like flawlessly played notes, like the sharp tempo of the first rain that fills the dull room with wandering whitish dust with life. 

“What's so funny? I only wanted to fix your hair, that's why-“ he awkwardly stops and hides his eyes behind his palm in embarrassment, realizing that even the explanation sounds ridiculous. 

Trying not to laugh anymore, Sakaguchi can only stare and smile widely. Something about the other's sheepishness echoes sweetly in his troubled thoughts. 

Kunikida is blushing. He made Kunikida blush. 

“Oh, did you?” he asks playfully, a brisk chuckle dissolving on his lips. He crumples the napkins awkwardly in his fist and smiles modestly, purposely not brushing the newly dislodged lock from his cheek. “Then you can fix it.”

“What?” Kunikida instantly takes his hands away from his face, searching for an answer in the face on the opposite of his, where something trusting, confident and unfamiliar, plainly permissive, clearly shows.

“It felt pleasant.”

What? 

Kunikida’s face blooms with crimson as he turns the word “pleasant” over and over in his head, not quite identifying the meaning. He clearly asks something with his widening eyes because Sakaguchi nods, as if responding. For several seconds, which feel like several hours, he looks over the porcelain cast of Ango's skin, over the perpetual dull dark circles under the cloudy hazel eyes, the faint sickly tint on his pale cheeks. Doppo then slowly drags his gaze to the uncombed hair still sloppily framing Ango’s face, dawn smoothly coloring it with the ivory hues of the soft morning. Finally, he shifts closer and carefully, lightly moves his fingers through the dark locks, smoothing them, memorizing the texture, running his hand fleetingly over the thin skin of the neck with tenderness, and then immediately pulling away.

“Still, you need a comb,” he says incoherently, trying to hide the colors of his face behind rationality. Ango does the same, immediately turning his head to his laptop. 

“I think so too.”

Ango’s hair slowly begins to fall back into its former place, but both of them are well aware that fixing it was not the end goal at all. 

March

Somewhere far away in the stream of Ango's opinions and thoughts is buried a fundamental decision proclaiming that he doesn't like winter. It becomes forgotten and melts away like snow on the city’s roads, replaced by a judgment that has discreetly appeared like the first buds on a branch. 

Ango does not like spring. 

Noticing the indistinct blotches of pale petals, which, as if advertising posters announcing the next update of nature's collection, cover the radius of gray constructions in the warming evening air, he squints unhappily. As regular, Sakaguchi greets yet another season with a clinging inhospitality. 

At the beginning of the calendar, freshness blossoms. The first rain hangs over Yokohama with a pearlescent curtain of water, the night shakes it off the stars and spills it generously on the ground. A tart, calming odor rises from the ground, the fragrance flows in floral streams. Puddles are covered in cyclical ripples, intrusions run across their murky surface constantly. The drops endlessly drum on the umbrella over his head, and Ango can only melt imperceptibly into his own inaudible presence, into dull humility and patience. 

He runs his absent gaze across the wide windows in a ridiculous attempt to catch a glimpse of a familiar silhouette. There is light only behind a single pane of glass—beyond it flows a featureless yellow emanation, constantly distracting Ango’s attention because of its annoyingly bright exclusivity. Electricity flickers wide and indifferent, high above, brighter than the dim stars. Ango checks his wristwatch—perhaps to stretch time for himself, perhaps out of a nervous habit. 

The light inside goes out. A minute later, Kunikida slips out of the agency building, and when he sees Ango, he immediately steps out of the visor and under the thin dome of the umbrella, indifferently moving through the veil of rain. Doppo is suddenly very close, and this distance between them seems special. 

“I'm sorry to keep you waiting,” Kunikida stands stiffly, with an uncertain expression on his face. His movements have a special tense clumsiness that usually stays after work, only to fade away later, leaving only a shattered strength behind.

Next to the ageless and flat decoration of the building, colored by monotony and blackening in the night, Doppo’s silhouette seems to portray something of the opposite. It is like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, where one element is constantly missing, jutting out and pulling the attention of every sense to itself. Even under a single streetlight and the canvas of a few polluted stars, next to the grim corners and irregularities, even with infinitely tired eyes, Kunikida stands out. Probably because nothing else seems as precious as a single thread of his ironed shirt, as any of his whitish lashes, as every sparkle of the lenses of his glasses. 

Today, though, something’s off.

“It's alright,” Sakaguchi says evenly, not even considering his own feelings for a second as he focuses on the other. Somehow, only now does he realize that Doppo doesn't have an umbrella with him. That just adds to the weirdness of Kunikida’s state. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm fine,” he folds his palms together nervously, hiding his eyes, stifled in his worries. 

“It doesn't look like it,” Ango makes a careful, mindful attempt at a smile. “Do you want to go for a drink? I’ll pay.”

“No. Not here, anyway,” he exhales, vaguely making a wide gesture, apparently toward the entire city. “Could you walk me home? I just need fresh air.”

Sakaguchi can't refuse Kunikida. He can't help but follow him, go after the direct route of the polished shoes whose clear footsteps he recognizes from hundreds. He has no choice, because he has already become part of his infallible schedule, his correct structure, by consciously embedding it in the dusty crevices of his mind. 

The merged silhouette of the couple and the umbrella is imprinted by a shadow, distortedly rambling along the wet sidewalk. Ango catches the scenery of spring in the reflections at every step: in a shop window, in a muddy puddle with sparse petals, but not in Kunikida’s eyes, which look somewhere past him each time.

They walk silently through long streets flooded with melted drops. Half a step ahead, Doppo leads them to one of the high-rise apartment complexes, a monochrome dull brick surrounded by a few half-naked trees. Sakaguchi doesn't know why Kunikida doesn't say goodbye to him, but wordlessly lets him in further, lets him get into his routine, his own space. As he climbs the unfamiliar stairs, Ango does not take his eyes off Doppo's back, his gathered hair descending like ivy forgotten in a dusty room. Sakaguchi realizes that he hasn't seen Kunikida's back in a long time, because previously he had always been right next to him. 

After passing a dozen doors down the hall and finally stopping at the right one, Doppo pulls a bunch of keys out of his briefcase. He shakily tries to slip the key into the keyhole, but only scratches the metal. A ringing clang cuts through the silence, and despite all the brute force, the lock doesn’t budge. Sakaguchi stands at a distance, looking anxiously at the crooked figure. 

Ango wants to help. He wants to take his keys and open all the doors in their path, wants to take Kunikida away, wants to finally take away his trembling. He can't, however, because he doesn't have the courage.

Doppo, seeming to gather his thoughts, finally smashes the key in the keyhole and opens the door. They find themselves in a semi-dark hallway of an apartment filled with practical simplicity and unwavering precision. 

Kunikida leans against the wall, throws his head back and looks at the ceiling. His crumpled, slouched and unfamiliar image makes Ango hesitate in the doorway. 

“I'm sorry,” the word completely imbues the whole evening with bitterness. “I don't know why I'm dragging you along when I can't even open my own door. It's pathetic.”

Ango decides to proceed carefully, as if picking up shards of glass from the floor.

“But you did open it,” he says with even comfort, glancing worriedly at the growing gloom in front of him.

Kunikida shakes his head negatively. The hue of his face shifts to a pale gray, morbidly wistful. He almost seems to fade as he lowers his eyes to his shoes. 

“No matter what I do, I still feel too weak,” he shuts himself up, straightening his back and raising his transparent defense again. “I’m perfectly fine, though. I don't want you to worry.”

“You're definitely not fine.”

“I'm just tired,” his body shows something between shame and panic, and the excuse comes out in a casual, colorless official tone that doesn't convince Ango at all. “Long day. You understand me.”

You understand me. 

Somehow, that makes a caring confidence blossom in Ango's chest. He puts the closed umbrella in the corner and, taking a step closer, holds out his palms to the other’s hands with a question in his gaze. He does not touch them yet, but watches the bewilderment in the gray eyes, which quickly turns into another shade of indifference. Kunikida nods briefly at the mute request and doesn't even move as Ango gently takes his hands in his. It's clear from his tense silence that he doesn't know what to do or say, and so Sakaguchi takes the lead.

“Doppo, I understand you too well,” he tries to be proper, running the colorless paint of his touch over the papercuts, over the fresh bruises and raw scratches barely visible in the darkness of the hallway, “And that's why I can't let you feel like this alone. You can tell me if something’s wrong.”

Kunikida stays silent, his pupils pacing in distress, the shadows on his face deep and alarming. Ango reassuringly holds Doppo’s hands, waiting.

“It’s just… my job,” he starts, the voice strained, almost choking on his breaths, “Each day I try so hard. And it is never enough to change anything. Even after I spend restless hours trying to make everything right, I fail. Just because of me, innocent people’s lives are at risk, and I can do nothing because, no matter what, I am weak-” 

Suddenly, Sakaguchi notices a glint of tears in the eyes hovering over him. For some reason, it is this fleeting shine, seen only by Ango's eyes in an immeasurably long time, that turns everything upside down. Doppo, seeing the other's changed gaze, jerks his hands away sharply. Sakaguchi involuntarily releases his fingers, leaving them trembling alone in the air.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Kunikida murmurs curtly, blinking quickly. “Forget about all this. You should leave.”

Ango is confused as everything inside him clenches at the realization that he has misjudged their trust. 

“What? Doppo, you’re not thinking straight…”

“Leave,” Kunikida looks at him with coldness, with glassy clarity and fragility. “Please.”

And Ango has no choice but to leave. Doppo sees him off with a blank silence and shifted eyebrows, nervously clenched palms and a crooked back. The door snaps shut with the distinct metallic sound of loss. 

The lonely footsteps merge with the dusky silence of the dark city, dissolved in nagori and bleak anticipation of the inevitable spring. Sakaguchi passes the doors of the unknown apartments, feeling as if someone has cut out something important out of him, or broke the only thing he values. Or, more likely, he did it to himself. As he always does. As he absentmindedly turns through his plans and work, just to occupy his mind with something, Sakaguchi feels a memorized deafening surge of self-loathing. 

It's not until Ango gets to the stairs that he realizes he forgot his umbrella. He hesitates on a step and does something he hasn't done in a very long time—turns around instead of running away.

What am I doing? 

The question catches up with him at a crushing speed, shattering all the glassy prejudices and rattling habits of indifference. In truth, Ango hates many things about himself. However, what he hates the most is his mistakes that he failed to correct in time. He is terrified of the realization that he could lose everything again now. That’s why Sakaguchi walks back with wide steps as rapidly as if he might already be late. 

The door is not locked, and Kunikida sits on the floor, exactly where he was left, knees pressed into his face. His shoulders are shaking and he seems so weak that Ango steps to him without a second thought and sinks down beside him. On the floor nearby, papers that fell out of his briefcase lie sloppily on the floor, white pages covering the floor like the pure first snow. 

“I told you to leave. You can't see me like this,” he covers his face with his hands desperately, shamefully, his glasses loosening and beginning to fall off his head. “I have to be strong.”

“Doppo, stop it. It's not necessary now.”

Sakaguchi is afraid because his whole world seems to be crumbling and his abilities are not enough to change anything. Worst of all is that Kunikida feels the same way. 

“I wanted to keep myself the way you found me,” Doppo says this in a voice that seems even, but is in fact taut like a string that's about to break, and Ango feels even its slightest quivers in the tremors of his own body. “You have to leave.”

“I will never leave you again.”

Doppo lifts his head, without his glasses or any protection, not trying to hide anything anymore. He trembles like a branch bursting with color in the wind. He is so close, and the pearls are ready to spill over his face, and only in him, only in his fluttering eyelashes and ruffled hair does Sakaguchi see his meaning, his weakness, and his salvation. 

“Ango, don't say that,” he wants to laugh, easy and quiet as before, but he chokes on the muffled cries that fall from his reddened lips. 

“You need to calm down.”

“I am not worthy of being calm. How can I live peacefully if my hands are covered in blood? How can I live when I only bring sorrow to the world? If I don't keep things under control, or make the slightest mistake, or let myself relax for just a second, it directly affects lives,” he stops talking abruptly, pressing his shaking palms into his face again. Small drops of tears thump deafeningly on the floor, imprinted on every inch of the night that has extinguished all the stars. “I really try, time after time, but I am never enough. I am so helpless myself that I can’t help anyone, let alone save.”

Tenderly, Ango let his own arms wrap around Kunikida’s trembling shoulders, allowing the tears freely flow through the fabric of his shirt. 

Ango waits. 

He patiently pauses, remaining still and not uttering a word until Doppo’s breath evens out a bit.  

“You save me every day. You're the one who helped me believe I could find hope in my world,” he lowers his tone, leaning his head closer and allowing only the space between them to absorb his feelings. His voice is overflowing with a borrowed unwavering assuredness, a genuine concern, “The world isn't perfect at all, it's unfair and frustrating, tiresome and cruel, I know it as well as you do. And you are my hope because you're the only one who made me believe that I have something to remember and something to wait for. That I have something to live for.”

Kunikida silently rests against Ango in the tangle of the fabrics of their ties, collars, and suits, yet gets much deeper than all the built-up layers of detachment. Doppo collapses like flower petals under a downpour rattling on the earth, and Ango catches all its debris in his hands as if pearl beads glittering with nacreous rays. Sakaguchi clings to his faded myriad of colors, his own palette of spring that filled even the most secluded corners of his life with meaning, and realizes he can't let go. Now that Kunikida can only weakly grasp his back, with tears accumulated over weeks, months cascading down and staining his shirt, Sakaguchi understands him completely. 

They stay in each other's embrace until the silhouette of a pale moon appears outside the window, in the empty night sky. Doppo pulls back for only a few centimeters, just to meet Ango’s eyes. 

“I'm sorry,” his voice rolls unevenly across the surface of the corridor walls, guilt mixed with shame. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” 

“You didn't have to comfort me. You didn’t have to help me.”

Ango, shaking his head slowly, gently places the glasses back on Kunikida's face, palms supporting his head. Sakaguchi contemplates the weary face in his hands. In its static fatigue, it seemed more beautiful to him than ever, in this restless, dusky evening that had swallowed doubts, fears, and time itself.

“No, but I had to keep you safe,” Sakaguchi brushes the tear trails with his fingers, coating his palms with salt and tenderness, dipping the edges of the sleeves of his white shirt with an echo of coffee stain into an another shade of their broken affection. “And I had to let you know that I need you. I need you whole, with all your problems and faults, even with your fear and hatred, because I wouldn’t forgive myself If I lost any part of you.”

“Are you saying you need me even now?” Kunikida lets a surprised, crooked but sincere smile bloom on his pale face. “Do you like me when I’m like this?”

Sakaguchi hadn't thought about it before. He just accepted his new vague feelings as is. And now, when he tries on the word "like" in his mind, like typing a query into a search engine, he immediately finds an answer that equals to one key name. 

He likes Kunikida as a stranger among hundreds of faces in the grayness of a crowd. He likes Kunikida’s initials on his business card, likes his awkward pauses in their first phone conversation. He likes Kunikida in the bright morning glow, likes him crushed in the gloom of bare night’s boredom. He likes Kunikida like an antique holding precious memories, like a scalding morning coffee, like a long-awaited rest after work, like a fragrant bouquet of flowers he has no one to give to, like a peaceful solitude. Ango unconditionally and hopelessly likes Kunikida in every way, across time, starting with the fleeting eye contact on the day of the first snow and continuing now, on the day of the first rain. 

Ango realizes that all this time he has been driven by something other than simple curiosity. He picks up Kunikida’s palms folded in his favorite nervous habit without having to ask, and brings them to his lips, touching gently. 

“I like you from beginning to end.”

Doppo raises his eyebrows in disbelief, echoing uncertainly.

“From beginning to end?”

Ango easily corrects himself.

“Always.”

April

Cherry trees shed like snow and the branches of peaches in the orchards crumble, filling the air with their moist, fresh aroma. The salty breeze wafting between the trees, people and houses gently picks up the noises throughout Yokohama, scattering them around in a gentle symphony. The blooming evening, the color-saturated streets, and Kunikida, still beaming and towering above the crowd like a tree canopy of foliage, all make Ango smile. 

Doppo clenches Ango's hand under the convenient pretext of the fear of getting lost in the crowd, their fingers intertwining in an unfamiliar but coherent and natural mosaic. Even after a long day's work, Kunikida’s walk is brisk, smooth and determined as ever. He efficiently wades through the mass of shades of human faces and limbs, various fabrics and matter, leads them deep into the fluorescent veil, far from anyone's eyes and the loud clatter. Sakaguchi believes, for the first time in all his twenty-five years, that the unfolding flowers he is seeing are truly magnificent. The only thing that is better is the warm hand tightly and securely holding his own. Soon only the dark sky and endless cherry petals surround them, yet they do not unlock their fingers. Equally tired, and thus comforting only to each other, their eyes occasionally cross. 

“I'm glad I get to spend these days with you,” Doppo starts as he raises a thoughtful gaze to the sprawling crowns overhead. He stretches his hand upward, pointing to the fragrant flowers, to the garlands of cherries, but Ango can only look at his palm. “They say spring is a time of rebirth and hope. Too bad it is so fleeting.”

Kunikida lightly touches a blossoming bud only with his fingertips, yet it instantly disintegrates, the petals picking themselves up in the zephyr, eager to cover the gray sidewalks with a new dead layer. One of the petals tangles in the delicate hue of Doppo's hair. 

Sakaguchi has not seen such colors in the palette of his monochrome life before. He stares at Kunikida’s profile that hides the entire landscape of pastel nature, at the strands of his light hair that flutter like koinobori paper ribbons in the breeze of the sea. Kunikida's voice, truth and presence become more and more dear to him with each second. 

He wants to write endless love letters, however, for the first time in a long while, he doesn't see any paper around. Ango decides he'll put his feelings on each petal. 

“Even though I am clearly aware of the short-lived nature of everything around me, I am no longer afraid of time. I know that we have no need to hurry. When spring blooms and dissolves again and again, I just want to be next to you,” Ango gently pulls Kunikida by the edge of the ribbon tied around his neck, makes his shoulders bend familiarly, makes the shimmering pearlescent eyes reflect his own. Doppo habitually covers his lips with the special smile that only Ango routinely sees, looks with tireless adoration, with bashful passion, with infectious hope, and it is only because of that look that the spring in Sakaguchi's chest allows itself to blossom again, again and again. “Doppo, let me spend eternal seasons with you.”

Kunikida doesn't have to answer, for he is given away by the hue of his cheeks blending with the flying stream of dull pink, as if the snowy current of nature. 

“I thought you didn't like any of the seasons.”

They both know it’s true, but Ango allows himself to make another exception.

“I love them all because of you,” the answer flies off his lips and lands at their feet along a smooth trajectory, coloring their entire white paper world in pink acrylic.