Archive of Our Own

There had been no training that prepared him for this. 

No. He shouldn't make excuses. His training had prepared him for this,to avoid a situation like this –and yet, here he was. Pathetic , it was pathetic how swiftly he had lost his dignity. His head hurts, his gut churns, he is so hyper-aware of how the water bed ripples under him with each twitch and miniscule movement. There is a scent that clogs his nose and sits heavy on his tongue; it is equal parts sweet and foul, like storms, sweat, steam, and cheap hotel shampoo. 

Stick to the facts. Do not let emotion cloud your judgment. He is a prince. He is a detective , leader of the Investigation Team. 

The facts are as follows:

1. Yu does not remember how he ended up back in his hotel room, barely even remembered leaving it.
2. Said hotel room officially holds two other occupants, and unofficially holds three; Kanji Tatsumi, Yosuke Hanamura and Teddie. 
3. Kanji and Teddie’s shoes are nowhere to be seen, and even if Teddies…skin? Suit? Was present, it had been tucked away, and the mascot head had been deliberately turned away from the bed. 
4. Clothes that he knows belonged to Himself and Yosuke lay scattered about the room: Yu’s shirt is tangled in the blankets beside him, two pairs of pants sit tangled near the foot of the bed, and Yosuke's shirts had been flung to the far end of the room. 
5. The shower is on, and based on the steam, it has been running hot for quite some time.

The bathroom opens with a cloud of steam.

“Oh–I didn’t think you'd be awake,” it comes out more like a squeak, and Yosuke clutches at the towel wrapped over his chest like a lifeline. Yu never got the strong sense that Yosuke was particularly more self conscious about his body; at least, more than he was about anything else. He'd seen his partner in various states of undress over their friendship, and more than anything he had seemed… proud, always seeming to glow under Yu’s attention, leaning into his every word like words alone could sustain him. He played a flustered expression, but Yu knows him. Yosuke cares about his appearance, he appreciates when people take time to notice. 

That's why the sight of Yosuke, who seems almost bashful, staring at Yu like a deer caught in the headlights, or like a rabbit who had just caught scent of the fox stalking it, was odd . Suddenly, it’s very hard for Yu to breathe. 

He forces himself to do so anyway, shallow and sharp as he struggles to form words. He forces the words out, and they feel and sound like he’s forcing them through a too-small tunnel, 

“What time is it?” 

This is happening too fast. Yosuke’s hair is still wet. It wasn’t dripping but Yu has never really seen it so…flat, flat enough that Yu could see the start of his roots poking through his dye job–just brown enough to not be disruptive, but bright enough to be stylish. His mouth is so dry, so painful and sticky, and Yu desperately wishes he had more time –more time to get his thoughts in order, more time to sort out his dry mouth and pounding headache, more time to figure out what exactly happened. 

“Uhhhhh,” Yosuke gapes, eyes darting across the room, landing on the scattered clothes, deliberately avoiding Yu, slowly sitting up on the bed. “Like, noon I think?” He squirms under Yu’s eyes, biting his lip nervously,  

Yu is suddenly very, very aware of how large the size difference between the two of them was. Yu towered over Yosuke by a whole head (15 cm last time they had checked, because of course they had checked. Yosuke was downright pouting the whole time about manliness, teasing Yu about how jealous he was to cover up how genuinely jealous he probably was.) Yosuke was probably terrified then too, right? To meet a man, only to watch him so quickly grow into a monster. It would be so easy for him to take, and take and take and take until he bled the stone and began on the bone. Would he? When deep V-necks and collarbones offered a passive invitation?

He was still wearing his socks.

“Bathroom’s free--the tub’s actually pretty big,” Yosuke says, because Yu takes up so much space, and even now in this huge form he’s folded in on himself and confined. “Sorry that it’s all steamy in there, it might be better to give it a minute,” he laughs nervously,with a sheepish smile.

Yu is making this awkward–he knows he’s making this awkward. The silence isn’t even tense–it does not lay heavy, but it instead sits awkwardly like a cat trying to get comfortable in a box too small for it to fit in.

“Thank you,” Yu says, because what else can he say?

He thinks it’s the right thing to say. He hopes it’s the right thing to say. Yu kind of hates that he needs to be the responsible one, (not that he isn’t used to it.) He’s been molded into something which can do so with ease, a blade formed from a pulsing whirlwind and a decade of training. He’s not a natural born leader, but he is undoubtedly the next best thing. Why, then, is he forcing Yosuke to break the silence between them, over and over?

“Right. Right. Soooooo, that paper we gotta do, right?” 

“Did you decide on a topic?” Yu asks, because he remembers Yosuke had been endlessly annoyed by how vague their assignment guidelines had been, saying, ‘Just pick a topic and write about it. Write what?’ Yu hadn’t admitted it at the time, but he’d agreed with the sentiment and failed to see the boons in an entirely self guided study. 

“Yeah, I did, remember?”

Yosuke had switched tunes on a dime, finding some things of interest in the vast halls of old vampiric and hunter knowledge that had been opened to them. Like his own family history apparently.

“Oh, right. Hunter bloodlines.”

“Kind of–it's more complicated than that,” he replies, “it's more about magic lineages than just hunters. It's super interesting–I'm headed back over there before we have to go back to Inaba, actually.”

Yosuke methodically moves about the room, picking up his discarded clothes. He swallows. Yosuke brings one of his shirts up to his face and sniffs. He pauses, and then sniffs it again, hard enough that part of Yu wants to flinch. He knows that Yosuke smells like wind. A sharp cutting wind that blows over a battlefield carrying with it blood and victory, a cool spring breeze that eases his worries. He also smells like sex. Because they probably had sex. Yu is still trying to wrap his head around that one. He watches dumbly as Yosuke collects the rest of his clothing off the floor, and between blinks, changes into them. 

“So uh…basically what I’m saying is I’m headed out to the library…if anyone asks.” 

Right. A t some point Kanji and Teddie are going to make their way to the hotel room to get their stuff. Where are they?

Yu hears the sharp click of the door closing …and just like that Yosuke had left, and Yu is alone, naked, and quickly moving into the bathroom so as to not vomit all over the carpet. 

No one asks about Yosuke, and frankly, Yu does not want to think about how much of a relief that is to him.

He would have to come clean, wouldn’t he? 

There is a war waging in his mind–the insistence that he would not have hurt Yosuke against the fact that he could–that this was simply inevitable. Why would it not be? He knows what he was capable of. The nightmares of his childhood still haunt him, the taste of blood and the many many textures of human meat gnawing at phantom taste buds. He gags. He's so hyper aware of his body–hostly hands hold him still and his blood burns. It is not his own. 

He would never wish that pain upon the one who turned him in the first place. No ironic lesson was worth feeling your own cells betray you, to become a passenger in your burning body as the venom does a victory lap in your immune system.  

No. Deep breaths.

If he did attack Yosuke, would he even remember? It's not like he does, at least not anything but abstract flashes. 

He was smart, he was a detective, a prince, he could think through this rationally. 

If Yu had…if he had attacked him, there would have been more blood. Yosuke heals fast–he heals comedically quickly in fact. Yu had literally watched his leg snap back into place after it had been left with a splintered bone poking through his calf. The flesh had knit itself together within a minute, the only proof of the break being the bloody tear in his pants. There was almost nothing he could do to him that Yosuke wouldn’t heal from, but Yosuke still bled. 

If he’d…if he’d done something violent …there would have been blood on the sheets, and Yosuke’s scent wouldn’t have still been present long after he’d left. They’d literally slept together, probably cuddled because Yu was an intense cuddler. Maybe he’d just pressured him into it? Or… maybe they’d just spent a night ‘as bros’. That seems like something Yosuke would say. That he was ‘helping a homie out’. 

Okay. Okay!

Yu can be an adult about this. He can do the adult thing, and talk to Yosuke about this! Finally, it feels like he can breathe. 

Yu did not get a chance to talk to Yosuke about whether or not he had pressured him into any sort of intimate act, because almost as soon as they were back in Inaba, the tiny detective had shown up on the Midnight Channel and gotten himself kidnapped (which the team knew would happen because he had all but gone up to them the day before and said ‘salutations fellow teenagers. I am going to test my hypothesis by purposefully getting myself abducted because collectively we all agree the murderer is still at large.’ The fact they really did not do much to stop the kidnapping was frankly on them.)

Then, Yosuke started avoiding him. Which from the outside it didn't look like that was what he was doing, but Yu knows his partner, and he also isn't blind . He can see when Yosuke deliberately doesn't meet his eye, or leaves just a bit too quickly after lunch, or chooses to listen to music during the long passing period to transition between the day and night classes instead of engaging with any of them. When they paired off to look for clues, Yosuke ran off with Kanji . 

It turns out that they really don't need much more information, because before Yu knows it, they're all entering a dungeon that looks straight out of a Featherman episode.

The fog is even thicker in the dungeon than the rest of the TV world; Rise tells them that there might be fog machines, considering it is a sentai movie set. It makes them hot and sweaty in a different way than Kanji’s sauna. It fills Yu with a visceral unease . At every turn he tenses, expecting to see his own eyes staring back at him, manic and eager and yellow in their desire to flay him alive both mentally and physically, because even though he accepted his Shadow, who says it can't come back ? They never do, leaving his heart to beat faster and faster. Instead, it’s Yosuke’s eyes he sees. Or perhaps one of Yosuke’s, because his maybe-partner is winking at him. Well, more specifically he winked at him after backflipping off of a Shadow. Which is weird, because that's one of the ways that Yosuke teases him. It’s a decidedly playful gesture–one which Yosuke shouldn’t be making, now that he probably hates Yu.  

He takes stock of the situation, making quick work of his own target with a few clean but electrified slices. Yu is a prince, half of his education had been how to read people, how to guide social situations, and how to take charge.

Despite the situation, Yosuke isn’t letting whatever happened between them get in the way of rescuing Naoto. It would be wrong to say that Yu isn’t relieved, but it was expected and endearingly in character for Yosuke. It was one of the reasons he made such a wonderful second in command, a partner, and a true equal. Despite what his shadow had said, Yu knows that Yosuke cares a lot about saving people, and he cares so painfully much about being good. The idea that Yosuke would compromise someone else’s safety because of personal matters never even crosses Yu’s mind, the idea is too alien.

> Hey Prtnr! So my hrs got moved around this week? LOL Anyway u wanna hang out l8er at my place and watch a movie?

Of course he says yes, because of course he’s been over-reacting to Yosuke’s advances– no! No, they weren't advances, this was normal behaviour … navigating relationships shouldn't be this hard. This was such hogwash. 

“I don’t think you’ve ever actually met my dad,” Yosuke says, looking between the two of them. This was correct, Yu knew Mr Hanamura in reputation only; even so, he was immediately recognizable as Yosukes father. He suspected that Yosuke was frequently told by distant relatives that he looked just like a younger version of his father.

Mr. Hanamura did not look happy to see Yu. 

Yosuke does come from a hunter family. Maybe this is all an elaborate ploy to kill Yu in revenge for defiling his son. Yu probably deserved that. His aunts had been quick to assure him that they would avenge him were he to be truly harmed again provided it wouldn’t start another multi-century war. The last one had been between them and a hunter family–it had ended with a political marriage and the Hanamuras were disbanded–but just in case, it will probably be best if Yu faces it all with dignity. He doesn’t want Yosuke, Teddie or any of their kids to have to marry his nieces or nephews. 

Yu needs to stop thinking so hard about this. He didn’t even do anything–except for probably sex, but he couldn’t exactly get Yosuke pregnant, so- oh wait, some humans looked down on same sex couples–

“So, it’s you,” Hanamura says, with that same firmness Yu has come to expect from Dojima.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yep,” Yosuke sounds nervous, “this is my partner.”

A warmth grows in his chest, partners. Yes. Yosuke is his partner. 

“I see.”

It’s hard to not think he's being tested somehow, but Yu doesn’t quite know what Mr. Hanamura is looking for.

“Dad, I was wondering if I could bring Yu over to watch a movie or something?” Yosuke asks. “Since Teddie’s going to work late?”

Yosukes father looks between the two of them, and he could not more clearly be judging the two of them if he tried–Yosuke is literally holding his breath. After finally pulling the tension thin, it daintily snaps, and the man gives a sharp nod. Then, he places a hand on Yosuke's shoulder, and squeezes, “Have fun,” he says, and just like that, he’s gone.

“Sorry about that,” he says sheepishly, “I just…I’ve never actually invited you over, and then Ted started living with us and like…I kind of don’t want him third wheeling, y’know?”

Understandable. Yu likes Teddie, but… well, there are some things you just can't discuss in front of him. 

It was not the first time Yosuke had invited him to watch a movie. Usually, he either invited him to go to the theater in the town over, or he just showed up with a binder full of movies and they would curled up together in front of Yu’s CRT. But to be invited into the Hanamura’s home…

Yu doesn’t know what he was expecting from Yosuke's home, let alone his bedroom. Maybe something out of a magazine, or from the backdrop of one of the dramas played on low volume to show off the TVs at Junes, or maybe a carbon copy of the Dojima residence. In the end, he settles on ‘lived in’. He knows what it looks like when a family keeps a communal place neat for guests, it really shouldn't surprise him with what he knows about Yosuke and his family, that their way of inhabiting a space was to make a mess of it. When Yosuke offers him a drink, he can't help but note that most of the tableware is either playfully mis-matched, or from one of the old Inaba craft-shops.  

Yosuke’s room is more transparently messy–assorted manga, books and random paper decorate the floor, and a pile of CD’s sit precariously on his desk. It looks like Teddie had taken up residence in his closet, complete with a bed and everything. Next to it sits a flat screen TV, connected to what Yu assumes are several game consoles.

“So,” Yosuke says, “this is my room--I guess it’s Ted’s now too, but it was mine first.”

“I can tell,” Yu replies, and Yosuke laughs. “C’mon man, we can't all have alphabetized closets or whatever!”

“My closet isn't alphabetized,” Yu replies, tilting his head. “I don't even know how you would do that.” Yosuke sighs, but Yu continues, gesturing over to the CDs. “If you meant it's disorganized it really isn't, those are alphabetized right?”

“I mean, kinda?” Yosuke says. “I guess it depends on if they’re foreign or not? I tried doing it that way once, but it took a whole afternoon to figure it out, and then I got new ones and had to look those up too and just…blah--and then Teddie-” 

Yu smiles as Yosuke continues to rant on about how his not-little-brother had basically upended his entire room when he came to live with the Hanamuras. Yu absentmindedly flips through the binder of movies, which he knows is a fairly sizable collection of both Japanese and Western films. 

“I’m just glad he hasn't broken anything,” Yosuke says, glancing over his shoulder. “Has that ever been an issue with Nanako-chan?”

“No!” Yu answers, at an entirely reasonable speed. “What? She would never--”

“Not on purpose!” Yosuke interrupts, “but, she's a little kid–stuff happens!”

“Not with Nanako,” Yu finishes, because that's all there is to say on the matter.

“Geeze…” he shakes his head, “Anyway, what were you feeling? I think it might just be because of Naoto’s dungeon, but I’ve kind of been craving some Sci-fi”

When they had first started doing this, Yosuke had often poked fun at him for never having heard of any of the video games or movies that their classmates loved to talk about. It wasn't mean-spirited or anything, and Yu always poked fun at him for not knowing basic vampiric grammar anyway. It all stopped when Yu cried at the end of Terminator 2. It was like a floodgate had been thrown open, and suddenly Yosuke was practically dragging him along through a pop-culture crash course just to see his reactions. He knows Yosuke’s been eagerly waiting for the perfect time to show him whatever Star Wars is. 

Yu ends up suggesting that. Yosuke’s bright smile is almost enough to wash every single one of his worries away. 

Yosuke was human. Not in the same way that Chie was human, but maybe similar to the way Rise was mostly human. Yes, his family apparently has a weapons closet, which was unusual according to Rise, but Yosuke was human . Raised in the city, outside of the vampiric underworld's influence in its entirety, yet he fit so seamlessly into Yu’s life that it made him dizzy. Yosuke was just so easy to love, to care for, to spend time with–each the other's first real friend.

Every experience was just so new. His partner was special. 

Star Wars turned out to basically be a samurai film set in space. It’s actually a little hard to follow. Most of his experience with Sci-fi is from Featherman, and apparently this is both the fourth and first movie in the series. It doesn’t really matter though, Yosuke is happy. He keeps glancing at Yu, making sure he’s enjoying it, and he suspects that Yosuke is more interested in his reactions than the actual film itself.  

Around the time the main character and the old man who gave him a laser sword broker a deal with a sketchy pilot, Yu notes that Yosukes sitting a lot closer than he normally does when they watch movies together, close enough that he can feel Yosuke’s body heat. That sends a shiver down his spine. 

It’s later, when the ragtag group of heroes is finally rescuing the princess from her jail cell, that Yu looks over and meets Yosuke’s eye. His partner smiles, and the two of them are so close that Yu can see the dry skin around his lips, only…it's not a dry patch of skin. 

For someone who got injured as much as he did, always getting battered around by shadows and by life in general, Yosuke's body was remarkably unmarred. The healing factor he got after confronting his shadow took care of all of it, and took care of it well . The worst scar he had was the one that wound around his leg from where his shadow had broken it–other than that, well…Yosuke didn't have scars. 

It was such a tiny wound. It should have healed by now, but it sat proudly on Yosukes lip. 

It should have healed, Yu mind repeats distantly, unable to pull his eyes away from it; even if Yosuke had picked at it incessantly , it should have healed . Either while he slept, or in one of the in-between moments where he forgot it existed–when it either stopped itching, or he just got used to it. 

It’s like there are fish hooks in his soul, and every breath he takes makes them shift and move and pull, ripping him apart at his core.

Yosuke bites his lip–it must have been unconscious. Yu totally doesn't wonder what they taste like.

The taste of blood is fresh, and rich and serenades him with tales of heat and pleasure, and Yu knows that that pain is more literal than metaphorical.

Vampires don't drink blood for sustenance. In many instances it acts as a food supplement, it provides their bodies with material components that can take the place of needed nutrients, but its primary purpose is not as food. At the end of the night, vampires are magical beings, stuck at a crossroad between the world that held the trials, and the world of man; without the tether of flesh they would simply wither away. Blood is so much more to a vampire than food. It is their everything. To take in the blood of another was to make that person a part of you, a part of your genetic makeup, a tether to the physical earth. Of course, most blood is taken anonymously, little pieces of the donor slipping out as quickly as they came in, but to do it knowingly? Bloodsharing between two vampires is a deeply, deeply intimate exchange of magic and of selfhood; it is sharing a piece of your soul with your lover.

He had tasted Yosuke's blood . That wasn’t something someone just did . 

And there’s no way his partner doesn’t remember it. 

Star Wars doesn’t seem all that important now. 

Nothing all that unique happened with Naoto's Shadow. It couldn’t even be said that the lack of freaky things was in itself a freaky thing, considering it was just weird enough to be described as “spooky”-- mostly the fact that part of Shadow Naoto's plan involved cutting the real Naoto's legs off and replacing them with longer better ones. This was nothing in comparison to, say, Rise’s Shadow, who had torn off her own skin. 

“Can’t be a proper man, can’t be a proper woman…” it started, “...can’t be a proper detective, can’t even be a proper vampire. The only thing you can get right is being a pathetic child.”

Oh–so, Naoto was a vampire. That’s neat. What decidedly isn't is the magic aging beams Naoto's trauma had given their Shadow–the beams that Yosuke had just shoved him out of the way of.

Most of Yu’s vampire family are in their 300’s. He knows some very old people, and some of them are just plain ugly. He makes a mental note, bold, italicized, and underlined three times in red, to NOT think about how gracefully Yosuke had aged. He tucks him close to his chest, ready to tuck him away in some corner of the arena until someone could de-age him, only for Shadow Naoto to ready it’s ray gun on him, and then…

Well,. Yu isn't quite sure what happened. See, it happened so long ago in the good old days. He noses into Yosuke's hair, taking in that comforting storm wind spring scent. There's a rumble in his chest, and he doesn't stop the full body purr that warms him to his core. The sound of squeaking footsteps catches his attention, and he sees Teddie running over to the two of them. Is something important going on?

A wave of magic washes over the two of them and oh yeah Naoto –Yu readies his blade, preparing for a counter attack, only to see that the fight is over, Kanji having beat the tiny robot into submission with a steel chair all on his own. Good for him.

Teddie’s magic is a blessing, and before Naoto can lose too much blood they’ve dragged her out of the TV they keep in the back of the Junes store room, leaving a trail of biohazard as they went. In the background, Yu is pretty sure he hears Yukiko suggest gluing the bigger wounds shut, before being shut down by multiple people. 

In the end, Yu calls an ambulance, and it's by complete coincidence that the doctor that meets them is Yosuke’s mother. 

Despite the hospital assuring the group that no, Naoto would not need to lose her legs, and they were healing just fine please stop asking some of us are trying to work and we appreciate you being concerned for your friend but this is a hospital -it still took Yu and both of the Hanamuras’ combined efforts to convince the rest of the Investigation Team that staying overday at the hospital would, in fact, make it harder to let Naoto recover in peace. 

Yu understands, he really does. Each of them had questions–about Naoto, about the kidnapper, about what their next steps would be–however, as Dr. Hanamura helpfully reminded them–“Someone tried to cut her legs off and she woke up in the backrooms of a department store. She needs time.” 

“You gotta love ‘em, but our friends are some of the nosiest people ever,” Yosuke says, as his shoulders finally relax. He turns, “Man, if you'd told me a year ago that I’d be awake at five in the morning, I’d think you were insane…”

“This wont cut into your sleep today, right?” Yu asks, because Yosuke is one of the few partially diurnal people he knows. 

“I mean, it already did, but my sleep schedule’s been screwy since the school trip. I'm just glad Naoto-kun isn’t actually going to like… lose a leg though.” 

“Mhm,” Yu smiles, the satisfaction of a job well done settling into his bone deep exhaustion. “You’ve got your youthful good looks back, too.”

Oh shit. Shit. Abort. He needs to pivot, before-

Yosuke laughs, the kind of laugh equivalent to the sharp exhale a person makes when kicked in the gut–abrupt and unexpected. 

“I should go home, check on Nanako-” Yu mumblea, trying to press his way past Yosuke, but–

“Actually, I think you should stick around. We need to talk, Yu.” The humor is gone from his eyes, his gaze sharp and pointed, and Yu is helpless, pinned where he stands.

He remembers vividly what had happened both a few hours prior and lifetimes in the future. He can’t breathe.

He failed. 

He failed.

This was it. 

This will be the last time Yosuke ever speaks to him. This will be the last time Yosuke even looks at him.

It’s like he is watching the world through a blur; like grain on the CRT in his room at the Dojima residence; like the fog of the TV world, clogging his senses and blurring his vision.

Yosuke’s speaking, his eyes wide. Yu can read it in his posture-his voice is rising in volume because he hates him, and he doesn’t want Yosuke to hate him, but he does, and he has every right to. Yosuke’s hands are on his shoulders, and his grip is so firm that he wants to scream, but Yu shouldn’t scream; it wasn’t fair-- it wasn’t fair! 

He couldn’t…couldn’t what? Survive without Yosuke? That was so pathetic. Disgusting. He doesn’t deserve to be touched, he’s a hideous twisted thing. Yosuke’s smart. Yosuke knows that, he shouldn’t now be holding his hand like it’s something precious, like Yu is something to save. 

“Yu? Yu! Cmon, man, snap out of it!”

Curse him. Curse him for a thousand years because Yosuke’s voice is a balm. Yosuke is taking his hand when his own monstrosity loomed down upon them with hungry yellow eyes, and screams at him to run . Yosuke is pulling him–pulling him out of the tendrils of darkness and apathy; he’s looking him in the eyes and telling him that it’s okay, and Yu knows then that he’s so, so deeply in love. 

He’s crying, and Yosukes looking up at him sheepishly,

“Hey–hey it’s okay,” he says, and that only makes the tears more intense. “Yu, it’s okay. I’m sorry if I made it sound so serious--it was just…here, why don’t we…” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a travel pack of tissues.

Yu selfishly accepts them.

Yosuke continues to keep a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to one of those not quite plush bench things that are apparently commonplace in waiting rooms, and Yu desperately hopes that this is genuine comfort and not some kind of mind game.  

“You shouldn’t have to comfort me over this,” Yu says, “not over this.” Not when he hurt him. Not when Yu had violated him…knowing that Yosuke will carry those scars forever. 

“Dude, we’re partners,” he replies, and a part of Yu dies, because… 

“Are we?” It feels like spitting poison, because even the thought of that being the truth is worse than all of the other evils his brain tries to tell him he’s capable of. 

Now, it’s Yosuke who is silent, and he looks devastated- -he looks like someone just slapped him, but mostly he just looks lost. Lost, confused, and hurt . 

Yosuke just…folds in on himself, like he's weak, like weeks worth of stress and exhaustion have finally caught up to him at once, and in all honesty, they probably have. His head falls into his hands, still splattered with blood and shadow viscera. He wants to say that it's instinct that makes him do it, but the truth is that Yu is a weak man, and it is that weakness that makes him wrap a hand around Yosuke's shoulder, and pull him close. Close where he's warm, where that deep instinctual part of him insists that he’s safe .

“What do you want from me?” Yosuke asks, in a voice so small that it's unbecoming of him. Yu royally screwed this up, didn't he? “I…I don't get it. Stop sending me mixed signals, goddammit. I'm sorry, ok? I'll forget it ever happened if that's what you want--I just…I need to know. I can't keep going like this, Yu. Where do we stand?”

“Where do we stand?” Yu asks dumbly, because apparently it's the ‘Yu Narukami picks every bad choice in the dialogue tree power hour’ now.

“You’ve been off this entire week–before that–since the school trip, so I was trying to give you space,” he begins, “and then, you started giving me these looks, and you were all jumpy in Naoto's dungeon, so I asked you out and figured I’d just play it by ear, and you said yes so I figured that it was just like… a weird vampire thing with you and Naoto–but then you got weird during that too, so I backed off again. But then, I got hit with that spell and you were all cuddly, then you break down when I want to talk about it, and then you…” he takes a breath, “...you asked if we were even partners…”

“I didn't…I didn't mean it like that.” I don't deserve you .

“I'm sorry.” Yosuke says simply, “I’m sorry.”

“Wait hold on,” Yu interrupts, because he's beginning to realize there might be some sort of miscommunication “What do you need to apologize to me for?”

“For trying to make us like a thing ? You know?” He said awkwardly, gesturing between the two of them.

“No. I don't know, Yosuke,” Yu said, “Please explain it to me.” 

“Okay, fine! I'm sorry for making out with you!” 

“Huh?” wow. That's what he's going with? 

Yosuke groans, “During the school trip? Right after the king’s game?”

Okay. Yeah, Yu had assumed that kissing had probably been involved in whatever had happened but–“What do you mean you made out with me ?”

With an embarrassed squawk Yosuke buries his face in his hands. “You're kidding me right? Please tell me you're joking.”

“I…don't remember most of that night,” Yu admits finally. “I think I might have blacked out.”

Yu is fairly certain the only thing that keeps Yosuke from screaming is the fact they are in the middle of a hospital. “ Are you serious? Oh my goooood.” He looks like he might be about to cry. “What did you think happened?! Wait, don't answer that, you probably smelled my walk of shame or something.”

“Or something.” Yu admits, which did not help Yosuke's expression look any less pained. 

“Great… that's... oh my god,” Yosuke rambles, “This is so embarrassing…”

The silence is awkward, which is still an improvement over horribly tense and suffocating. Just two guys talking about their intimate night after going clubbing covered in blood in the middle of a hospital. 

“I thought I hurt you,” Yu finally admits, “I thought I might have…” He can’t finish the thought out loud. Some force traps the words deep inside his throat.

“Never.” Yosuke says, with so much conviction it startles him, “You didn't even do anything except purr really loudly until I…uhhh… initiated? Which I…shouldn't have. That wasn't fair to you.”

“I drank your blood. That's sacred–I shouldn't have done that. It’s unfair to you ,” Yu replies sharply.

“You mean when you scratched my lip and just started making out with me harder?” Yosuke asked, “because that ruled. It was…You made me feel special.”

“Oh.” Because, after hearing that…

“Yeah, that's why it hurt so much when you stopped wanting to be around me.”

“I never wanted that!” Yu protests.

“Yu, we went on a date and by the end of it you looked like you’d rather cut your arm off than touch me. What was I supposed to think?” Yosuke demands. 

“Oh my god, that was a date.” Yu breathes. “You took me on a date.”

“I introduced you to my parents, dude !”

“How was I supposed to know that's what you were doing?” Yu asks, voice raising ever so slightly, face growing steadily redder, “We're friends–isn't that normal?”

“Listen man. You’re always the one who knows what’s going on. You’re not the guy who’s supposed to be weird about this, that's me. I’m supposed to be that guy. I’m supposed to freak out about how gay that was.”

“And you’re not?” 

“I was wearing socks,” Yosuke replies confidently, as if that has anything to do with the situation at hand, “and I liked it. Like…a lot. And I tried ignoring it, but I couldn’t. I can't .” He bites his lip again, running his tongue over the faint white mark that’s just a smidge too big to have been caused by a human. It must be uncomfortable to have scar tissue there, Yu can only imagine how it must itch in a deeply unscratchable way. 

“Oh my god.” Yu is going to die. This is where he dies. “Oh my god .”

It feels like he's getting hit with wave after massive wave, which is fitting because Yu must look like a fish with his mouth hanging open like it is. 

“So, you don't hate me?” Yu asks, still staring at the scar on Yosuke's lower lip. “I bit you.”

Yosuke crosses his arms , and gives him the most thoroughly amused look in the world, “Dude. it's a scratch. I know you think you're all big and scary because you can turn into a car sized cat monster, but after the crap we’ve seen? You're like a kitten, dude.”

“...A kitten.”

“Yeah partner, a kitten who got his kitten slobber all up in my hair–which was a pain in the ass to get out by the way!” 

Yu couldn't help it–he laughed, hard. To his delight, Yosuke let out a snort of his own. The relief is sweet and warm like a hearty meal.

“I can't believe this,” Yosuke said, still full of mirth, “Man, I really, really wish ignoring your problems actually worked,” he huffs, “it’s bullshit that it doesn’t. I want to talk with life’s manager.”

“Are you sure it doesn’t?” Yu asks, trying to fight the smile that always appears when Yosuke starts rambling. It doesn’t work.

“Yeah man, if it did I wouldn’t have lost my mind over the fact that I finally got a best friend and made it weird.”

“Pretty sure that was me.”

Yosuke's face twists as a memory of some sort plays vividly in his mind, and Yu knows him well enough by now to know that most of the expressions in the sequence are some flavor of mortification. “No,” he said, “I absolutely made it weird. Did you miss the part of this where I apologized for making out with you?”

“So. You like guys,” Yu pivots, because oh yeah, that's a thing . 

“Yeah,” he hisses, “yeah I do, apparently, I only had five different breakdowns over it in the bathroom before learning that porn actually is realistic,” he takes a breath, and with each passing moment he grows more steady, “They… they know, by the way. My mom and dad,” Yosuke says, “I mean of course they know-I introduced you to them--but after… everything… listen, what I mean is that my dad was this close to giving you a whole shovel talk.”

“They know we’re…” Yu doesn't want to put a word to it. He doesn't want to push this oh so gentle balance that they might finally be reaching. 

“Partners. Romantic partners,” Yosuke stammers, forcing the words out in a rush, “Boy– boyfriends?” He cringes. “Okay, yeahs I’m definitely not ready to call it that , but that’s what I assumed we were? That's what I… What do you want, Yu?”

What did he want?

“I don’t want to hurt you-“ he starts, and the look Yosuke gives him cuts the rest of the remark from his lips. 

“You won’t. You didn’t . Try again.”

“I… I don't remember kissing you,” He admits softly, “I’d… I’d like to… remember that.”

“Cool. Cool, I can do that.”

It’s a bad kiss, to be completely honest. Neither of them know what they’re doing, and Yu is a whole head taller so he’s crouched awkwardly while Yosukes desperately trying to balance on his toe-tips. Also, Yu is fairly certain that Yosuke might just be a bad kisser. He’ll need to test this later, scientific method and all that. Just to be sure. 

“Was that good?” Yosuke asks.

“Yeah,” Yu replies, and it isn't even a lie, because even if the kiss itself was less than stellar, it was still his partner. It feels right to continue, “I… like you. A lot.” Yu says, because ‘I love you’ would be too much, even if it’s true.

“I know,” Yosuke says, only to look sheepish when Yu blinks at him, because he most certainly did not . He laughs weakly. “Sorry, that’s a Star Wars thing. We didn’t even get that far anyway.”

“Well then,” Yu says, “I guess you’ll need to take me on another date.”