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It’s only a little ironic that what gives rise to Shima’s epiphany is a bit of small talk in the van.
Well, it’s not entirely meaningless chatter, even if it starts as a way to fill the long hours of stakeout. Because this time, Shima has spent weeks genuinely wondering about this matter, ever since Ibuki told him about it.
“So why do you wear those fake glasses anyway? And your sunglasses for that matter, even when you’re inside.”
At the sound of Shima’s voice, Ibuki turns to face him with a grin. “Told you, they’re cool. Dontcha think?”
Shima rolls his eyes. “That can’t be the only reason. Everyone knows glasses are more trouble than they’re worth, so it can’t just be for you to look cool on the job.” It’s true. And a runner like Ibuki would know better than most how much eyewear can get in the way of his mobility. “More importantly, you don’t wear them when we hang out outside of work— which is when you should actually be more concerned with looking cool.”
Ibuki hums. “Sharp as always, Shima-chan.”
“I’m a detective after all,” Shima huffs, drawing a chuckle from his partner. “So, what is it?”
“Well, since it’s Shima-chan, I guess I can tell him.” Ibuki pulls his glasses off at last, and holds them an arm’s length from his face, pushing them slightly into Shima’s line of sight. When he speaks next, the playfulness is gone from his voice. “You probably already guessed, but I can’t really stand the light— or too much light, to be exact. Or the wrong light. It’s way worse indoors; the sun doesn’t actually bother me all that much. I actually like it, especially in the evening when the sun sets and everything’s all bright and golden. But indoors? Not so great for me.”
Ibuki shudders at the memory, and continues.
“Like you know how sometimes there’s a big ceiling light? Yeah, the way the light comes out of that… I dunno, I can’t really explain it. It makes my eyes hurt; like the light catches my eyes wrong, sort of. And the super bright fluorescent lights in the main station too, yeah, ouch. I can’t focus—used to lose my temper even—when it gets like that, so. Sunglasses.”
That’s pretty much what Shima had suspected. Still, it’s a little confronting to hear in Ibuki’s voice. It makes sense. So much about Ibuki just makes sense now. If Ibuki is so highly sensitive to light and presumably other visual stimuli, what about the rest of his senses? They were likely just as keen as his sense of sight, and just as prone to causing overwhelm and meltdowns like he’d described. Just think about it. The minute sounds Ibuki is able to hear— how he can distinguish the sound of one car engine from another, or identify people from the tread of their feet, or pick up sounds on the other end of the phone line. The emotions he claims to smell in the air. The way he yelps when Shima touches him.
All of that would suggest that Ibuki’s senses were tuned to higher degrees of receptivity than most. And worse, that the constant detection and processing of sensory information held Ibuki at such an intense state of awareness at all times, like a bowstring pulled fully and quiveringly taut always, never at rest, never allowed to go slack. No wonder he was so easily overwhelmed, so quick to give in to his impulses without thinking. He couldn’t afford not to. Because at every single waking moment, his senses held him at quivering attention— all so that when the right moment came, the arrow that was Ibuki could be loosed.
And wasn’t that exactly what Ibuki had been? Firing off like a shot; a wild gun, a loose cannon, they’d called him. Untrained and uncontrollable, had been the gist of it. In truth, Ibuki was not any of that at all; but a finely tuned, pinpoint accurate arrow of exquisite sensitivity.
Which means what Ibuki needed wasn't discipline from a stern hand, or to be hidden away and harnessed to the most basic of tasks in a suburban police box. No, what he needed was something to ease the tension of his overextended senses, to give him a break from his stretched bowstring. The sunglasses were just one of the ways he tried to do that by himself, clearly. By filtering the world through his tinted lenses, and reducing the amount of light that hit his retinas, Ibuki was trying, in his own way, to sort through and filter through the never-ending flood of sensory stimuli his body naturally had to cope with.
Nobody understood that. Nobody saw him. But Shima understands, or is beginning to.
So Shima nods, and says, “Being in uniform must have been hard.”
Ibuki hums agreeably. “Yeah well. Didn’t have much of a choice.” And then he shrugs, smiling. “At least we’re in plain clothes now! And besides, the glasses are cool, aren’t they Shima-chan? Win-win.”
But Shima isn’t so sure. “Win… win?”
“Yeah, they help block out the light and stuff. But they also do this—” Ibuki pops his glasses back on and blinks exaggeratedly and owlishly at Shima, throwing his fingers up in a peace sign. “Makes me look cute, huh? Not so scary?”
Oh. A sinking feeling washes over Shima then. He sees it now: all Ibuki’s efforts to remodel himself to be a little less threatening, forcing his form into the shape of something more palatable to society. It’s as obvious as anything now that Shima’s aware of it. The glasses shielding his eyes, his childishly floppy and unstyled haircut, the oversized clothing that hid the real power of his body from view.
It’s not that Ibuki doesn’t still look impressive now, but—-
But it’s as bad as the assholes who cropped their dogs’ ears and docked their tails to make them look more intimidating, even if what Ibuki’s been forced to do is the reverse of that scenario. It makes Shima want to draw blood. As if Ibuki’s battle against his senses in a world like this wasn’t enough. Why was how he looked even a concern? Who in his past had hurt him; what had they done to him to make him feel like he needed to mask himself like this? No, wait, didn’t Ibuki once say that he was always treated like a delinquent, always the suspect, ever since his school days? Shima bites down on the inside of his cheek. Just because of the way he looked? Because of how he struggled and maybe lashed out as a result of that overstimulation? That’s not fair; and in a way, the way Ibuki has to create all these adaptations for himself is no different.
In the midst of these painful imaginings, Shima finds himself struck by what Ibuki must look like at home— in an environment of his own design, without any judging eyes to see him, would he be able to be his real self? Would he be able to shed all the shackles he wore and take on his true form? And if so, what would that look like, Shima can’t help but wonder.
Something soft and open and comfortable, maybe.
Something free.
When Kikyo calls Shima in to ask about how Ibuki’s performance and investigative skills are progressing after a spate of complaints from Itomaki’s team about having to work overtime to chase down what Ibuki could only call a hunch, Shima takes the opportunity to broach his theory.
“Ibuki talks about hunches a lot, yeah, but a dog never barks for no reason. Right?” To Kikyo’s questioning stare, he quickly holds up a placating hand. “Ah, I’m not calling Ibuki a dog, to be clear.” Though, he thinks ruefully, for the purposes of this discussion, it does make for a good analogy. Oh well.
“Are you familiar with how parrots see colour?”
“Excuse me?” Kikyo, not easily fazed, only fixes him with a polite frown, as though it’s just a mild inconvenience that he’s developed a sudden, unfathomable fascination with zoology. Shima had better explain, and quickly.
“So this happened some years ago now. These scientists in America were doing tests on parrot intelligence, and one of those tests was to get the parrot to name the colour of some toy blocks. From what I read, it did pretty well. But there was something strange— No matter what, the parrot could never pick out the orange blocks, and only the orange blocks. Enough that the researchers began to wonder if the parrot was acting out. But it turns out it wasn’t being stubborn, or naughty, or stupid. Far from it.”
Shima pauses, wondering if Kikyo gets the connection he’s trying to make, or if he sounds like an absolute raving lunatic right now. Without words and without judgement, Kikyo beckons him to continue.
“You see, birds can see ultraviolet light, which means their colour perception is very different from ours. They see colours we can’t, is the simplest way to describe it. In the test, the researchers realised their parrot was seeing certain ultraviolet colours in the dye used to paint the orange blocks— and because of that, it couldn’t differentiate them from the red and yellow blocks. What looked like an obvious difference to human eyes wasn’t at all obvious to the parrot. But it wasn’t like it was seeing the colours wrongly— It just saw them differently.”
“Well,” he says, to Kikyo’s expectant silence. “Ibuki’s like that parrot.”
“Okay,” Kikyo says after a moment. “I think I see what you’re getting at. Like not judging a fish’s intelligence by asking it to climb trees.”
Shima relaxes a little. At least she isn’t dismissing his theory out right.
“Sort of, but it’s more nuanced than that,” he continues. “The researchers would never have known why the parrot failed at the colour task if they didn’t consider how it saw colour in the first place. What I’m saying is that we can’t judge Ibuki’s actions and abilities by how we see— no, how we experience the world.”
Kikyo inclines her head in agreement.
More confident now, Shima details what he’s learned about Ibuki’s sensory capabilities, and his suspicions that it’s simply Ibuki’s ability to verbalise that information that’s lacking.
“Ibuki’s hunches— they’re like how a dog starts growling at a thunderstorm before it starts. That’s not baseless behaviour. Like the parrot, they’re sensing something we can’t. Ah, again, I’m not calling Ibuki a dog.”
Kikyo actually chuckles then. “Would it be such an insult?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, no. I guess not. Anyway, the point is Ibuki doesn’t act without reason, even if he can’t verbalise or explain it,” Shima concludes. “His instincts are rooted in real fact, and they’re good— we just need to understand them. Understand Ibuki.”
Kikyo nods. “But you can’t understand how someone works if you don’t first know how they perceive the world, right?” Kikyo’s frown is contemplative now, no longer the small amused smile she had been wearing a few seconds ago. Shima knows that look; she’s thinking. “If you don’t put yourself in their shoes. Or should I say, their sensory experience.”
“Yes,” Shima replies, relieved to have gotten this far. He doesn’t yet delve into the ways he suspects Ibuki may be suffering from the peculiarities of his sensory processing— that’s for another day. What’s important now is that they began building the foundation needed for Ibuki to be believed in.
Give me time, is his unspoken plea to Kikyo. Give me time and I’ll understand Ibuki. No matter how much of an impossible task that might seem to be, transcending the limits of his own perception, Shima owes it to his partner to try.
“I understand,” Kikyo is smiling again. She looks… proud, as she dismisses him. “I’m glad we assigned Ibuki to you after all. Thanks Shima, you can clock out for the day.”
Shima leaves Kikyo’s office buoyed by her words and gladness, so it’s not until later that he realises she didn’t say whose sake it’s for.
With the free rein Kikyo has given him, Shima begins to observe Ibuki. He makes an objective study of cataloguing the peculiarities of Ibuki’s senses: how he responds to sensory stimuli, what his thresholds of overstimulation are, what happens when he gets overwhelmed.
Eventually, Shima builds up a comprehensive picture of his partner’s unique disposition and skills, and begins to understand how his sensory processing might account for both his success in the field and struggles elsewhere.
The state of Ibuki’s hearing and vision was clear enough. They were exceptional, for as long as they remained within the bounds of what Ibuki could feasibly cope with.
Shima has a better idea of where that boundary is now, too. Now that he knows what to look for, it’s impossible to miss the barely perceptible way Ibuki bristles when there’s too much going on. Anyone else might never notice how Ibuki gets a little sharp, how his usual laser-focus frays ever so slightly when he’s overwhelmed. But Shima sees it all, just as he sees Ibuki’s efforts to self-regulate. Depending on what it is that’s setting him off, he might screw his eyes shut like he’s just blinking, readjust his glasses or loosen the earpiece in his ear, or—when it’s particularly bad—pull his hoodie over his head, tugging the edges as far down as they’ll go over his face, like blinkers, and wrap his arms tightly around himself in an almost embrace. More often than not, his fingers will worry at the teeth of his jacket zipper or at the ends of his sleeves, or his shirt hems; anything he can get his hands on.
As for the rest of it… well, Shima’s observations confirm what he has long suspected.
Ibuki possesses incredible motor skills. It’s no wonder that his physicality and agility were what he was most known for in Shima’s preliminary investigations before they met. Ibuki’s spatial awareness is unmatched; he knows how exactly to move and with what power, to achieve his aims. Which makes it all the more funny that he jumps out of his skin every time someone makes contact with him. It’s Shima mostly, simply because of how closely they work together, but Ibuki’s shocked reactions are so genuine that Shima takes extra care to avoid any unnecessary contact.
Yet for all his sensitivity to touch, Ibuki seems strangely oblivious to pain— a fact that Shima finds worrying and frustrating in near equal measure, he realises, the second time he witnesses Ibuki take a tumble and get up without so much as a wince.
The one thing that visibly gets to Ibuki is the heat. It didn’t take long for Shima to realise how terrible Ibuki’s temperature regulation was; he’d noticed it as soon as they went into their first summer and winter. It’s way worse when Ibuki’s hot; that’s when they have their worst clashes, with Ibuki growing snappy and irritable as he overheats. At least in the winter, Shima could crank up the heating in the van and shove his jacket in Ibuki’s direction, and that seemed to help a lot. But in the worst of summer’s heat waves, there was nothing he could do about the layers of clothing they had to wear just to conceal their gear when they were on patrol, leaving Ibuki to stew.
Apart from that, all things considered, Ibuki handles himself well. All his years of self-regulation and adaptation have clearly worked enough for him to get him this far— never mind how narrowly he’d scraped into MIU.
Still, Shima likes to think that maybe he’s had some effect. He’s long stopped thinking of Ibuki’s hunches as hunches, and more as intuition and observation arising from his keen senses. The right answer to a maths equation with the working missing. It’s no surprise that their shifts go easier then, and Shima finds himself falling easily in sync with his partner, finds it increasingly easy to reel out his—he won’t call it trust—belief in Ibuki’s instincts and seeing how far it goes. Ibuki also, after overcoming his initial bewilderment at Shima’s new easy-going attitude, is more agreeable in his dealings with Shima, and Shima sometimes catches Ibuki looking at him with a strange expression on his face. A soft, pliant wondering look, almost like disbelief, almost like gratitude.
(The problem, if it even is a problem at all, is that with all the time Shima spends observing Ibuki, it’s inevitable that he begins to notice other things about him as well.
Things like the careful way Ibuki undoes the laces of his running shoes and tucks them neatly back under the tongue of each shoe before he puts them away into his locker at the end of each shift .
The way he refuses to touch the condensing water droplets on the surface of his beer mug; and how the one time he accidentally does, he vigorously and fastidiously flings the moisture off his hands like a cat that’s just stepped in a puddle.
How, whenever they eat out, he folds every used paper napkin and chopstick wrapper with unfailing precision, leaving them in a neat stack at the far edge of the table.
The way he always remembers to get Shima cold coffee when they’re on patrol.
His grin when it’s Jinba-san’s turn to cook lunch; his grimace when it’s Kokonoe’s.
The playlist of instrumental metal songs on his phone that he puts on only when he has paperwork to get through.
The shudder that still runs through him whenever they arrive at a violent crime scene. The earnest, almost desperate, way he presses his hands together in prayer for the victim.
His tiny, smug smile after peeling the skin off a tangerine in a single unbroken piece.
With all this knowledge, Shima could almost imagine that he’s beginning to understand how Ibuki must feel: his brain registering a wealth of information he doesn’t yet know what to do with, so much it’s enough to drive him mad.)
I don’t ever want to muzzle him, is what Shima realises one day as he watches Ibuki charge down a narrow alleyway in pursuit of a suspect. Shima stands there clutching the sunglasses and earpiece Ibuki had thrust into his hands before he went tearing off, and thinks about how much they feel like weights in his grip.
I don’t want him to muzzle himself, Shima realises even later, when Ibuki returns to him triumphant and heaving with exertion. His face is flushed, the ends of his hair curling and damp with sweat, his strange-coloured eyes almost glowing in the bright winter sunlight.
“You did good,” Shima says, handing Ibuki’s equipment back to him with a small measure of reluctance.
Ibuki beams at him, sliding his glasses back into place, and Shima’s stomach turns.
It’s not fair to keep a shining life like Ibuki’s shackled just to fit into a world that wasn’t built to fit him. Ibuki should be able to run free, always.
But that’s not how the world works. It would never adapt to accommodate someone like Ibuki. It never has. So the best they could do? The best Shima could do? Was to help him bear that weight, or at least, relieve some of that tension Ibuki carried by himself. He’s Ibuki’s partner, after all.
And that’s what partners did: they tried their best to understand and adapt to each other. The key to understanding Ibuki and bringing out his true potential so he could always continue to shine.
And beyond that, Shima wants to. But could he really be the one to hold Ibuki steady, to pull the bowstring of his mind taut only when needed, and leave him at rest at all other times? And more than that: if Shima could do that, then could Ibuki finally shine and live as freely as he deserves?
So far, Ibuki has been managing himself and his exposure to sensory stimuli, and so Shima has been wondering if he can help manage Ibuki’s environment as well. He is a part of it, after all, isn’t he?
He is. So if there’s anything he can do, he’ll do it. After everything he’s been through, he owes Ibuki that much.
To do what he wants to do, Shima first has to frame the world in terms of Ibuki’s sensory perceptions of it, not his own. Not anyone else’s. Over a decade in the police force has taught Shima that there’s only so much one can learn from outward observations. If he wants to know—really know—about what it’s like to be Ibuki, then he’s going to get a hell of a lot further if he just comes out and asks him.
Which is exactly what he does, at the office, in the middle of a paperwork day when he’s sure they won’t be interrupted by anyone else.
“Ibuki,” he says, nudging his chair over to his partner’s desk. “Can I ask you something?”
Ibuki grunts in reply, not looking up from his work. Even half a year into his work at MIU, he still despises paperwork.
Shima puts his hand over the report Ibuki’s labouring over, making sure he has his full attention. “Are you doing alright?”
Ibuki looks up at last, blinking. “Yeah, why? I mean, writing reports sucks, but like you said, they’re just as important as investigations, right?”
“Yeah,” Shima says. “But never mind about that for now. Well, um. I’ve just been thinking about what you told me. About your eyes? How the lights bother you and stuff. And I’ve been wondering if you have any other difficulties that I could, uh, help you with.”
In all Shima’s observations of Ibuki, the one thing that was impossible to miss was the sheepish, almost shy way Ibuki smiles, so different from his usual big idiotic grin, whenever he realises that Shima has listened to him. Whenever Shima believed him.
Ibuki is smiling at him now in exactly that way. “I guess you could say I’m pretty sensitive all over. Not that it’s as obvious as my eyes I guess.” He taps his ear, then his nose. “Sharp senses, right, like you said?”
Shima tugs lightly on the wire dangling from his own ear.
“Are you okay with the earpiece? I see you taking it off often.” Before he embarked on this study of his partner, Shima had assumed Ibuki did that just because it got in his way or something. He knows better now, of course.
Ibuki winces, like he’s been caught doing something wrong.
“Um. I listen to it when we’re on duty of course, but sometimes I—” Another wince. “I feel like it blocks out the sounds around me, and that kind of, ah. Stresses me out? Yeah, like. I know it’s weird. It’s not like there’s too much noise, in this case, although that can be bad too, some days. But mainly it’s like… Like not hearing clearly makes me feel like I’m gonna miss something.”
Ibuki falls quiet then. He glances down at his hands on his lap, fingers picking at some invisible lint on his sweatpants. “I don’t like that.”
“I see,” Shima says. That’s rough, but it at least has a straightforward and practical solution. “If you ever feel like that, tell me. I’ll listen over the radio for both of us. Okay?”
“Oh. Oh, wow. Okay.” Ibuki turns back to his work, that shy smile tugging at his lips.
“What else?”
Ibuki’s head whips up, like he hadn’t expected Shima to want him to go on. “What else bothers me? Huh, hmm. Well, this one’s not as serious, but I can’t stand tight clothes,” Ibuki grumbles.
Oh right, the way he dresses. Shima thought it had been an aesthetic thing, some sort of modern fashion he doesn’t understand. But it makes sense that Ibuki wouldn’t want to feel further restrained, and his loose oversized clothes would help with that.
“The uniform must have been difficult,” Shima replies with effort; the wave of deja vu feels as sickening and unsettling as the lurch of a ferry on choppy waters beneath his feet.
“Not as bad as school,” Ibuki grins. He mimes loosening the high stiff collar of their standard issue public school uniforms. “Man, those were the worst. I used to get into so much trouble for not buttoning up, and nobody believed me when I said I couldn’t stand how it felt around my neck.”
Shima, who has worn private school blazers since he turned thirteen, just nods.
He feels momentarily defeated, like he’s only now realising that the odds are stacked against him in this endeavour to understand his partner. How can he, he thinks with desperation and frustration, when they were so different? In nearly every way, they were different. Was Shima just being an arrogant fool to think he really could transcend the limits of his own self, of his sensory world, of his upbringing and experiences, and begin to see the world as Ibuki does? Could he ever really be able to make Ibuki feel understood?
Just then Ibuki smiles at him, like the conversation is over, and something clicks into place in Shima’s head. Ibuki and him— they weren’t special. There was nothing unique about the dilemma Shima found himself in now. Nobody could ever fully understand or conceive of what it was like to be someone else. Hell, even with all the tools and technology at their disposal, those researchers looking into parrot intelligence would never ever be able to know what a parrot saw when it looked at the feathers of another bird or at a field of flowers. Just like how even if they could theoretically understand why dogs could sense thunderstorms, they would never know how it felt to do so. All they could do was accept that difference, and trust it.
And so with Ibuki, just acknowledging the impossibility of stepping into his world is already miles better than anything Ibuki had been offered in the past. Even if he may never fully understand what it feels like to be Ibuki, Shima can trust him anyway. So he makes up his mind.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Hmm?” Ibuki quirks his head at Shima’s abrupt question.
“I want to be a good partner to you,” Shima says, mildly astounded at this sudden swell of sincerity. “There’s not much I can do about our surroundings, but at least when it comes to your dealings with me, I can control some things. So if there’s anything I do that makes it harder for you… Just tell me.”
“Like what things though?”
“Like… Does the smell of my cologne bother you? Especially when we’re stuck in the van.”
Ibuki leans closer and sniffs the air close to Shima, squinting a little as he considers. “Nope,” he says eventually. “No bother. Smells pretty good, actually.”
Shima decides it’s probably best to let that slide.
“Okay, um. Do I speak too loudly?”
“Oh no,” Ibuki replies readily. “Nothing about you bothers me. Actually, it may be kind of… the opposite?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I think you could do anything to me, and I’d be a-okay with it.”
Shima scoffs. “That’s not true. What about that time I had to get your phone from your pockets? You complained a lot.”
“I’m just ticklish, jeez!! Besides, we’d only known each other for like, a week then, Shima-chan. Don’t you think you were too ufufu-handsy with someone you just met?”
“You were the one who told me your phone was— ah, never mind.”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t want you to touch me,” Ibuki protests. “You’re just assuming based on one incident.”
Ibuki is bristling again, or on the verge of it.
“Okay, okay,” Shima deflects. “We’re getting sidetracked. We’re supposed to be figuring out what I can do to help you, not bickering.”
He wheels himself back, as though to give Ibuki space, and Ibuki huffs.
“Honestly Shima, you asking me this— you knowing all this is already help enough,” Ibuki says, decidedly much less argumentative now. “Nobody else noticed. Not even Gama-san, but I guess we never worked together.”
A small flare of anger ignites in Shima’s chest. If that was the case, then what excuse did all Ibuki’s previous partners have for not noticing? For not helping? How has this world let Ibuki down so many times? Shima bites down on the curse that wants to crawl out of his mouth and lets Ibuki continue.
“I got used to handling it on my own, pretty much. Like when I was younger, I didn’t really know what was going on, and I’d just get all pissy and act out when I was overwhelmed— not cute, let me tell you. Can’t remember what clued me on that it was from all the stuff with my eyes and hearing and what not, but yeah. Guess I figured it out by myself. Figured out how to cope too.” He takes off his glasses and sets them on the desk, like Shima needed reminding.
“Ibuki—” Shima says, wanting to apologise for something he’d had nothing to do with. He knows adjustment over avoidance was the best. At least Ibuki is still here living his life, even if he had to smother himself under all these adaptations to make it tolerable. Shima desperately wants to help shoulder that weight, but he’s not sure he knows how.
“I know, but if there's anything I can do, just tell me,” Shima insists. “I’m your partner, after all.”
“Really,” Ibuki insists with equal force. Without the barrier offered by his tinted lenses, the true fire of his gaze reaches straight into Shima’s heart, and he finds himself unable to fight back. “You’ve helped me a ton already, Shima-chan. Really.”
What Shima comes to learn some weeks later, which Ibuki had never deigned to tell him, for reasons that are obvious now, is that Ibuki’s emotions are just like the rest of his senses. Highly sensitive, exceptionally finely tuned, and prone to overwhelm.
When it happens, it’s as they’re leaving a scene that even a veteran of the force would find difficult: a child, discovered barely alive in an abandoned housing unit, the signs of neglect and abuse painfully evident in how the air smells. The less said about it the better.
But Shima knows just from looking at Ibuki, as soon as they are back in the van, that something is wrong with him, and very much so. He hasn’t said a word, so unlike the way he’d fill the van with his usual chatter and theories. The agony radiates off him, as obvious as anything to Shima.
“Hey,” Shima says gently. “You okay? That was… that wasn’t easy.”
Ibuki, red-eyed, just shakes his head tightly and wrenches around to stare despairingly out of the window. One of his hands covers his mouth, the other is in his lap clenched into a fist, so tightly that it’s shaking, but even more disturbing than that is how he’s digging his nails into the soft, fair flesh of his palm. It looks vicious enough to break skin, and Shima is overcome with a sudden sickening flood of terror.
“Hey, Ibuki,” Shima says again, trying not to let the panic show in his voice. “Are you okay? What are you doing?”
When Ibuki still doesn’t react or respond, Shima reaches out and takes Ibuki’s hand in his, prying his fist loose. After some resistance, Ibuki lets him, and Shima stares distraught at the angry red skin, at the deep crescent-shaped indentations left by his nails now bisecting the lines of his palm.
“Why?” is all he can say. He can’t bring himself to let Ibuki’s hand go; he holds his fist open, on the verge of threading his fingers between Ibuki’s so he can’t claw at himself again.
Ibuki breathes out a long, drawn-out exhale, but he doesn’t pull away from Shima either.
“It sounds like nonsense when I say it out loud,” Ibuki starts, like it’s an apology. “But I get… emotionally overwhelmed as well. Like how my eyes and ears do. And when that happens, like when everything is getting too much, another sensation helps it feel less bad.” He presses his nails into his palms again, but not as hard this time, to demonstrate. Still, Shima winces, and Ibuki puts his hand away, tugging out of Shima’s grip at last. “I’m not trying to hurt myself. It’s more like when you stir a pot of beans that’s boiling over and somehow it doesn’t overflow? That’s what my grandma used to say, anyway.”
That makes sense; the distraction of another stimulus could ease and ground Ibuki in the storm of overwhelming sensory input. Like how heat, or a bite, relieves an itch. But still—
“It still looks like it hurts.”
To that, Ibuki just shrugs. “It has to, or it won’t work. I mean, it’s my own body, right? I’m always touching myself, so if it isn’t hard I won’t notice it.”
And maybe that—more suffering on Ibuki’s part, through no fault of his own but simply from how he’s wired and how the unfair world works—is the reason Shima says what he says next.
“Then let me touch you.”
“What?”
“If you’re overwhelmed. And if a distraction like touch helps you. I can touch you.” Shima hears his own voice forming his reasons in a steady tone, but why is it so hard to breathe? “Then you won’t have to hurt yourself like that.”
Ibuki just stares at him.
Shima stares steadily back.
“Okay,” Ibuki says eventually, with all the air of someone who doesn’t really understand, but has nevertheless chosen to believe and follow. “You can touch me anywhere.”
With that, Shima reaches out and takes Ibuki’s hand back into his grip, running his hand up and pushing beneath the sleeve of his jacket so it rests carefully on the bare skin of Ibuki’s forearm.
“Like this?” It’s a common enough touch, so what can explain the tremor in his own voice, the sudden hitch in Ibuki’s breathing and the fluttering quiver under his palm?
Ibuki offers no explanation; he just nods. Unlike the previous times Shima had accidentally made contact with him, this time Ibuki is not rattled by it at all. Shima can feel the jagged edges of his energy smoothening out under his touch, like a purring cat, almost as clearly as he can see the long-held tension melt from Ibuki’s face.
“You can go harder,” Ibuki breathes, and Shima carefully presses the pads of his fingers deeper into Ibuki’s forearm, feeling them sink into the divot between muscle and bone.
Immediately, in response to the pressure, Ibuki makes a sound that’s halfway between an exhale and a whine. His body is still now, unmoving except for the careful breaths he’s taking. He has let his eyes fall shut, but there’s no strain in it. Emboldened, Shima pushes his thumb in harder and massages small circles into Ibuki’s arm, firmly enough that he can feel the heat build from the friction between their skin.
There’s only a rumble of a moan from Ibuki.
“Better?” Shima doesn’t need to ask; he can tell the contact is helping from the way Ibuki’s breathing slows and the tightness seeps away from his body, but he feels equally the need for something to fill the air.
Still wordless, Ibuki nods again.
Shima lets his touch linger for a moment longer, again reluctant to let Ibuki go until he’s really sure that Ibuki is alright. Eventually, he gives Ibuki’s arm a gentle but meaningful squeeze, and breaks the contact.
“That helped,” Ibuki says. His eyes have reddened once again, but it doesn’t feel like a bad thing now. “Thanks, Shima. For everything.”
“Any time,” Shima replies, and knows it is the truth.
Ibuki turns away again to look out of the window, but he looks at rest, at ease now. He doesn’t put his sunglasses on, and there’s even the beginnings of a smile on his face, and so Shima straps himself in and puts the van in gear. As they pull back onto the road, the angle catches the setting sun straight on, and the full force of it pours through their windscreen to cast Ibuki in perfect, golden light.