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Heroes are easier to love when they’re dead.
Dead men don’t disappoint you. They don’t stumble. They don’t show the ugly cracks under the mask. And Joji Yuki had an awful lot of cracks.
When he had first clawed his way out of the ocean, lungs shredded by seawater and body trembling with the shock of still being alive, he didn’t even know his own name. The explosion had burned more than his flesh; it had blown holes straight through his memory. For days, maybe weeks, maybe months, he drifted like something half-formed, aware only of hunger and pain and the faint instinct to keep moving.
And for a moment, it was almost peaceful. Being no one meant there was no weight to carry. No betrayal to avenge, no Destron to hate, no bright-eyed hero to make his heart thump against his chest.
Then his memory returned. Piece by jagged piece, it clawed its way back in.
Kazami Shiro’s face was so clear it hurt.
The sky turning white around him as he rode that rocket into its death. When he finally remembered, his first thought wasn’t relief. It was shame. He’d ruined a perfect ending. He was supposed to go out a hero. He was supposed to leave Kazami Shiro with one good memory of him—one clean, shining act to balance out the filth of everything that came before. The thought that had anchored him in that final instant: It's better he remembers me this way.
And now he had ruined it.
He wasn’t a hero who died for peace. He was just a man too stubborn, too selfish, to finish what he started.
Kazami Shiro was too bright.
Not just kind. Bright. The kind of light that seeps into you whether you want it or not. The kind of fire that the world usually snuffed out before it had a chance. Joji used to watch him and think, How can someone like you even exist in this world?
And Shiro—because he was Shiro—looked back at him like Joji belonged in that world too.
“Come with me, Riderman,” he’d say, voice steady, carrying Joji’s name like it was worth something.
Joji would pretend it didn’t sink into him like warmth on frozen skin. Pretend it didn’t matter.
But it mattered. It mattered so much that it scared him.
He remembers the ship—the instant before it exploded, when he saw Shiro watching from below. He expected anger, pity, maybe even relief that the traitor was finally doing something useful.
But Kazami didn’t look at him like that, he shouted to him, for him. Like he was losing a person and not a weapon he'd soon forget.
And what was worse? Joji turned the idea in his head. If Shiro forgot him, or if he didn’t?
If Shiro forgot, Joji could live with that. Pretend Riderman was just a symbol in V3's spotless story, a flash of light that burned out too quickly to matter.
But if Shiro remembers… if he remembers everything, the venom, the fear, the way Joji flinched from his kindness like it burned, then Shiro would still do what Shiro always does.
He’ll smile that infuriatingly warm smile. He’ll look at Joji like the world didn’t make a mistake letting him breathe. He’ll forgive him again. And Joji isn’t sure he can survive that kind of mercy a second time.
Because mercy, from Shiro, feels like love. And love feels like drowning.
Kazami Shiro is his savior. His bright light. And Joji has spent his whole life convinced that lights like that aren’t meant to shine on people like him.
He doesn’t know if he wants to see him. He just ends up there, at Tachibana's shop, bike helmet on, shadowed and distant, arguing with himself that he should leave before anyone notices.
But Shiro notices.
Of course he does.
Joji watches him from across the room, rehearsing his escape. Don’t think this means anything. You shouldn’t want me to stay. His heart is a hammer in his chest, and for one fleeting second, he believes he can disappear again.
Then those sharp eyes see him.
Something in Shiro’s hands (papers, maybe, or tools?) falls to the floor with a dull clatter, forgotten the instant it leaves his grip. His eyes widen, and Joji’s stomach twists violently.
This is it. This should be it. The moment Shiro realizes what a mistake it is to believe in him.
But Shiro moves quickly.
He crosses the room like a man walking toward something he’s never doubted for a second, and Joji barely has time to tense before Shiro reaches him and pulls him into a tight, suffocating, embrace.
The world tilts.
Joji goes rigid, panic and yearning tangling so tight he can’t breathe. He wants to shove him away. He wants to cling to him until his knees give out. Both impulses burn through him until there’s nothing left but the overwhelming fact of Shiro’s warmth seeping into him, steady and unshaken.
It feels like the sea again, but not cold this time. Like Shiro can just wash away all his fears with a hug. He really was a great hero.
Joji swallows hard, his voice breaking on the only thing he can manage:
“You really are too kind.”
Shiro doesn’t let go. Doesn’t even answer, except to hold him tighter, like he means to anchor him here, like he’s afraid Joji will slip through his fingers like sand.
And for the first time since falling from the sky and crawling his way back from hell, Joji thinks he can finally rest, like Shiro’s arms were the safest place in the world.
They stayed like that for a long while, silent and holding one another. Without words Kazami Shiro had saved him again. But when he did speak, his voice small in a way Joji had never remembered hearing it:
"I missed you, Yuki."
So quiet, like it was a secret, like he wasn't meant to have heard it. But it was said with so much conviction that Joji felt like maybe, maybe, he deserved it.