Chapter Text
Kurusu Kazuki is a relentless busybody.
Nothing Rei does will change that. He lets Kurusu into his place, motionless as the man goes through the motions of being shocked at the state of the apartment. Is it in a state? Kurusu certainly thinks it’s in a state. He picks his way around gingerly, cautious in a way Rei wishes he would be during missions. Not like he’s one to talk, though.
Kurusu comes right up to him. He only looks at Rei directly when he’s being serious. He said that one time, when Rei wasn’t listening to him. “I’m serious, Rei.” Kurusu stares at him, eyes the dull red-brown of dried blood, and Rei stares back.
“I’m going to take out some of this garbage,” Kurusu says. Rei just stands there. Kurusu looks at him a bit more, then turns around with a little huff, rolling up his sleeves. He’s like a cartoon. Rei watches him move, the bright flashes of his green sweater, his bright blond hair, his tan skin, all in sharp contrast to the dim, grey interior of Rei’s apartment. He picks at the mountain of trash and takes it bag by bag out of the room, wiping his brow with a hand on his hips when he stops for a moment to rest. His eyes are tight in a way that feels like looking in a mirror.
Rei watches him.
—
The garbage is gone after what could’ve been a few hours or a few minutes. Rei hasn’t really moved. He’s not sure what his directive is right now, if he should be stopping Kurusu. It’s getting cold, now that the balcony doors are open—Kurusu muttering something about cigarette smoke—and Rei probably should move, feels the stiffness in his joints from standing motionless for so long. But he waits.
Kurusu is at the sink behind him, washing his hands. He calls over his shoulder, “I’ll finish cleaning tomorrow. I’m gonna get some rest. You should too.”
Rei doesn’t respond. Feels somehow that whatever he was waiting for has happened, but still doesn’t move, now waiting for Kurusu to exit the room first. But he doesn’t, instead comes up right next to Rei, too close, eyes scanning the empty living room appraisingly. He smells vaguely like sweat, and there are heavy bags under his eyes.
“Which room is mine?”
None of them are yours, Rei thinks. “Upstairs. Left,” he croaks.
“Got it,” says Kurusu. “Thanks for letting me stay.”
Kurusu turns and leaves. I guess I am letting him, Rei thinks.
—
Kurusu screams like fuck the first time he finds Rei in the bathtub. Puts a hand to his heart, eyes wide and flustered, says, “Holy shit, man!” Rei wishes he would shut up. He had only just gotten to sleep.
“Why are you sleeping in the tub?” Kurusu says, acting like he's freaking out. Rei doesn’t answer him, turning over to his other side. Kurusu makes a noise, something between scared and frustrated. He leaves the bathroom, footsteps somehow still loud even though he’s only wearing socks.
Rei has only just gotten back to sleep when he feels a weight slump over him. He shoots up, pulling his gun out, locking eyes with Kurusu, who had apparently just dropped a blanket on top of him.
Kurusu smiles nervously. “Woah! Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to–”
“Don’t do that,” Rei growls. His voice comes out so rough that Kurusu winces.
“I just thought it’d be more comfortable,” Kurusu says. He’s holding a pillow in front of him like a shield, like a bullet wouldn’t rip right through it and into the soft meat of his chest. Rei puts the gun away, the image of Kurusu’s blood painted on the bathroom tiles burning in his mind, and turns over to face the wall. He doesn’t have the energy to throw off the blanket.
Kurusu dithers a bit—Rei can hear him, his slight movements echoing in the empty bathroom—before placing the pillow on the ground beside the tub and leaving.
Rei sleeps fitfully for the rest of the day.
—
At some point, he has to intake some kind of food. He rises out of the bathtub, ignoring the full-body ache, remembering not to trip over the pillow laying limply on the floor, and heads over to the kitchen. There should be something there.
There is something there. Kurusu is up. It’s like he never stops moving. He’s fiddling with the gas burners on the stove, adjusting the heat under a pan of something that smells like eggs. Rei doesn’t remember having a pan or eggs.
“Oi,” Kurusu says, when he sees Rei. “Sit down.”
Rei sees no reason to sit down, so he doesn’t, though he notices Kurusu has set up a cardboard box with a cushion on either side in the middle of the living room. Like a child playing house.
“You don’t have any real furniture, so this is gonna have to do for now,” Kurusu says. “Don’t be judgemental.”
Rei wasn’t being judgemental. Kurusu fusses with the pan some more.
“Alright… done!” With a dramatic flourish, Kurusu sets down two plates on the cardboard box. It’s some kind of food. Steam wafts up from it.
“Sit!” says Kurusu impatiently. “It’ll get cold if you wait too long.”
Rei sits.
Kurusu chews the food, a contemplative expression on his face. “Not my best work,” he says, “but pretty good.”
Rei eats.
When they’re both done, Kurusu stands, stretching his back out like an old man, then bends to pick up both of their plates, bringing them to the sink. “I’m gonna go out and get some groceries before I finish cleaning. You need anything from the store while I’m out?”
No, Rei doesn’t need anything. Kurusu waits for him to respond, then sighs when he doesn’t. “I’ll be back soon,” he says.
Rei waits for him to leave, staring at the taped over seam in the cardboard box. When the door clicks shut, he gets up and goes back to the bathroom to sleep.
—
When Rei next ventures out of the bathroom, there is an obnoxiously red couch and a little coffee table in the middle of his previously empty living room. It must be daytime because he can see well. The floor shines wetly—a mop propped next to the balcony doors suggests that Kurusu had just mopped, but Kurusu himself is nowhere to be found.
The red hurts his eyes to look at. He has to intake more food, so he goes to the kitchen. There should be something there.
There is. It’s a note. It reads, I made fried rice. It’s in the fridge. Eat it when you get hungry.
A couple minutes later, Kurusu enters the kitchen. He looks over Rei’s shoulder and makes an affronted noise Rei is sure he hasn’t earned. “Dude!” says Kurusu. “Did you even heat it up? You gotta heat it up first!”
Rei doesn’t stop him from taking the bowl, staring at the absent cool steel of the counter. Kurusu brings it back after a minute or two, stirring it vigorously with a spoon. “I mean I’m glad you were so eager to eat it and all, but really,” and he’s blabbering on about something. Rei should probably keep eating the food, but he doesn’t want to. It’s easier to down it in one uninterrupted sitting. Kurusu’s stare is heavy on the side of his face. He stopped talking at some point.
“Rei?” Kurusu says inanely.
Rei starts eating again, chewing mechanically. Maybe that’ll shut him up. Kurusu watches him a moment more, eyes fixed on the hollow of Rei’s cheekbone. A tightness overcomes his features again.
“What do you like to eat, Rei?” Kurusu asks. It’s a stupid question. Rei doesn’t like to eat.
Kurusu just hums when he doesn’t respond, moves over to the cabinet, getting out a cup, filling it with water, then absently placing it next to Rei’s left hand. “Drink all of that,” Kurusu says. “Slowly.” He doesn’t look at Rei when he says it, instead turning away and drifting upstairs like a ghost. After a couple minutes, Rei hears the rush of the shower.
He drinks half the water. It helps get the food down. He goes over to the couch, sits on the ground in front of it, and starts cleaning his guns.
—
Kurusu takes a call on his burner phone while Rei eats whatever was put in front of him this time.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
He even talks on the phone like a cartoon character. His presence on the line should be enough to show that he’s listening, but Kurusu feels the need to confirm his existence every five seconds with a muttered word or hum.
“Okay, got it, Kyu-chan. Yeah. I’ll debrief Rei. Mhm. Thanks. Bye.” Kurusu puts the phone in his pocket, turning to Rei. “Got a job,” he says. “We’ll need to do some prep beforehand. The hit itself should be sometime next week.”
Rei nods in confirmation. Kurusu stares at him in surprise, then shakes himself.
“Uh—so. I’m gonna go pick up the materials from Kyu-chan, maybe get some groceries, too,” says Kurusu. “I’ll be back soon.”
He usually says that when he leaves. Rei doesn’t care either way, but it seems to be a kind of ritual for Kurusu to say it. Rei nods again, not looking at him, but the glimmer in Kurusu’s eye catches his peripheral anyway.
“Bye,” Kurusu calls out. The door closes behind him. Rei stares at the empty plate in front of him, at the sauce streaked on it. He didn’t like the broccoli in this, whatever it was. Kurusu should leave it out next time.
—
It rains.
Kurusu does not come back until the next day, and looks bad when he comes in. He toes off his shoes at the door, hair dripping wet. He doesn’t say a word to Rei, doesn’t mention the overflowing ashtray, the dense haze of cigarette smoke in the air.
Kurusu leaves a thick file with their target’s information on the coffee table and picks up the plate Rei had finished the day before, laying it in the sink and replacing it with a box of takeout and some disposable chopsticks. Rei watches him trudge upstairs afterwards, listening for the click of the bedroom door. Kurusu probably meant for him to eat the takeout.
It’s cold, which Rei usually doesn’t think about. But he thinks about it while shoveling the food into his mouth. All his meals have been warm recently. The apartment has been warm recently, but it had gotten cold overnight and Kurusu hadn’t turned on the heat when he got back, so there’s a lingering chill now. Rei considers getting up to change it, but he doesn’t.
His eyes linger briefly on the stairs to the second floor.
—
When Rei wakes the next day, there’s a smell wafting through the air that tells him Kurusu is cooking something. He rises thoughtlessly, wandering over to the kitchen, leaving the blanket crumpled in the tub behind him.
“Ah! You’re up!” Kurusu says, far too loud. Rei looks around blearily. There’s some more furniture in the apartment. He used to catalogue the changes, but there have been so many now that he can’t keep track anymore, can’t pick out what exactly is different. Kurusu is wearing an apron now, though. It’s blue with a cartoon shark on it. Kurusu smiles at him, something apologetic in his eyes that Rei doesn’t want to think about.
Rei grunts, and Kurusu looks far too happy.
—
“I ran a bath,” Kurusu tells him later, standing in front of Rei where he sits on the couch. “You smell.”
Rei smells. That’s true. It’s not particularly important, though. Rei concentrates on reassembling his pistol.
“I have nice shampoo. I’ll wash your hair,” Kurusu says. “It’ll feel good, I promise.”
Rei continues working on the pistol, but Kurusu bends down to try to catch his eyes. He’s got his serious face on again, that direct red gaze boring into Rei’s. “I’m serious, Rei. You stink.” Rei knows he’s serious. He’s making his serious face.
Kurusu touches his arm. Rei stills. His hand feels blazing hot, though he shouldn’t be able to feel anything through the leather of his jacket. He should raise his pistol, now cleanly assembled and resting comfortably in his right hand, but he doesn’t.
“Come on,” Kurusu says briskly, but his eyes are soft.
Rei lets Kurusu drag him to the bathroom.
—
It’s a strange feeling, to be completely immersed in hot water. It hurt like fire getting in, but now Rei doesn’t think he’s ever been so thoroughly warm in his life. Kurusu’s hands are in his hair. It feels… good. Like he promised. The smells that always waft off of Kurusu after he’s taken a shower are surrounding Rei now, powerful enough to be overwhelming, flooding his senses every time he takes a breath.
And Kurusu’s hands are in his hair. Rei doesn’t know why he’s so fixated on that thought, that sensation.
He forgot what it was like to feel good. He forgot what it was like to want something, but remembers as Kurusu takes his hands away, reaching for the showerhead. The remembering leaves him making a soft noise he hopes Kurusu doesn’t hear. Kurusu covers his eyes with a hand, then rinses out the shampoo suds. The feel of his bare skin is overwhelming. Rei can’t say anything. He can’t move.
“You alright? Is it too hot?” Kurusu says. Kurusu turns the showerhead off and removes his hand, and if Rei could move he would have caught it and pressed it back to the skin of his forehead. He must take too long not responding, because—
“Rei?” Kurusu asks, trying to make eye contact.
“Kurusu,” says Rei, thoughtless in the encompassing warmth. The other man goes still. Then laughs.
“Dude, call me Kazuki,” he says.
Kazuki. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Rei nods. He wishes Kazuki would hurry up and put his hands back where they were. Kazuki laughs again. He’s got a ridiculous voice. He’s a ridiculous person in general. His red hoodie and jeans are splattered with water and soap suds, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“This is the conditioner I like,” Kazuki says, showing him a blue bottle, then squeezing some into his hands and putting it into Rei’s hair. It smells good. Rei nods again. Kazuki says something else that he doesn’t listen to.
Rei loses track of time.
—
He wakes up smelling so strongly of Kazuki that for a moment he thinks he must be curled up in the bathtub with him. The shirt he’s wearing is soft and loose, clean in a way that means it’s probably new. Unthinking, Rei gets up and goes to the kitchen. It’s about midday. Kazuki left a note on the kitchen counter, pinned down with a glass of water.
Out shopping, back later
Rei looks around, and sure enough, though there hadn’t been a few weeks ago, there’s a clock on the kitchen wall now. It says 1 PM. The bright yellow of it makes him squint. He wonders when Kazuki left the note. What “later” means. He drinks some of the water, then goes over to the couch.
It’s easier to see the TV now that there isn’t trash piled everywhere. Rei feels like playing games for the first time in a while. Kazuki finds him like that a couple hours later, and stops to look at him, shaking his head like Rei is a hopeless case. There’s a smile on his face, though.
—
Kazuki spends the evening cutting Rei’s hair. He takes his time combing through tangles he hadn’t gotten to when he first washed it, trims off the split ends, the matting he can’t get through, and shaves Rei’s face, his hands deliberate and gentle. Props a mirror in front of Rei after he’s done, like Rei will have any opinion about his appearance.
Rei looks different, that much he can note. He finds himself searching for the traces of Kazuki’s fingerprints that he feels, still hot on his cheek, but they don’t appear. Looks instead at the sliver of Kazuki’s bright grin visible behind him in the corner of the mirror.
Kazuki sweeps Rei’s hair off the floor. He makes dinner. Fish and rice and soup and vegetables.
Rei sits down at the table with him and eats.