Work Text:
What is the definition of a secret?
As he shoulders through his apartment door, Fura Kanato would argue that it depends. Flip-switch and the lights go on—he dumps his bag and helmet and shucks his coat, tossing it over the back of the couch.
Fura Kanato, who lives a very complex life, would say there's a ranking to secrets.
-
Things that aren't hidden, but unmentioned: the closet stands blatantly in the room.
Making for the bathroom, Kanato throws open the top cabinet. After fumbling with the pack of band-aids, he hikes his sleeve and slaps one over the neat cut that's gouged his forearm. Shallow, but annoying.
Tonight's tier one secret: he'd skinned himself on the handle of his bike. Clumsy. It happens.
-
Things lied about to cover up: the location of the closet's key.
Like the origin of a limp he doesn't let show—stubbed his toe on the kickstand, that's all—as he leaves the bathroom. Or the guilt of where he was, on whatever night—not in an alley, he'll say flippantly. Not pulling triggers; at home eating chips on the couch. Binging shows, who's emptying ammo?
Tonight's tier two secret: he lied about being free.
The kitchen is untidy, the way he left it. Cluttered with take-out containers and the rare, unwashed fork. He lied to come home to this. Just a lazily-maintained house. Worth it?
It's an ugly gnaw on the edge of his psyche—Kanato had lied about needing to check in at the café. And he'd lie, too, about the number of feet his heart dropped, when he heard Hibari's sharp hitch of breath. How many feet, Fura? Zero, he'd say, with all the sass of a man in cuffs. Kanato can claim all he likes that he hates fibs, but there are still—
-
Things that have to be pried from the cavity of one's chest: the closet doors are jimmied open.
Defensible, unsightly thoughts. The grotesque that lives in the corners of a person's mind; the terrible, cruel sentiments that make humans of mortals. The stuff nobody wants to look at. The stuff that glares from dark ceilings at three in the morning. From the yawn of Kanato's mug cupboard, right now.
The forcemeat gated behind the ribcage. The reasoning behind a lie.
Tonight's tier three secret: he lied about being free because he didn't want Hibari to know.
He prays that nobody would dare ask why.
-
The biology of a secret: out pour the skeletons.
Is it a question of definition, or biology? What is the biology of a secret?
Tier one secrets are omissible flesh wounds. Tier two secrets are white lies. Tier three secrets are the reasons for lies. The last layer must be the beating heart; the reason for the reason of a lie.
When hands are thrust into the filling of a soul, what comes out but the viscera? The secrets that live past skin are the nonsensical ones—that, when wrenched free, vomit out of a person in a tangle of entrails. These secrets are the reason flesh wounds bleed at all. Here lies the festering of doubts: a mess of feelings too incoherent, too atrociously mundane, too childish, to ever be told.
God forbid. But this emotional knot is too inarticulate, anyway.
Thus, tier four is the unspeakable truth made of flaws—
Tonight's tier four secret: the cowardice that begs it never be named.
Cowardice, snorts something in Kanato. Something prideful and derisive—ego, probably. Fura Kanato the egoist, it sings, even as the coffee pours a steady stream into a mug he does not remember grabbing. What's the opposite of the conscience? Dishonour? This dishonourable little voice that huddles in his worst parts, and barks 'not guilty!'
And he's not guilty, not really. Plausible deniability—so long as nobody looks into the curdled gruel of his mashed-up wants. You can't indict someone on a lie you can't prove.
Here is when the conscience lifts its head, dismayed, and whispers:
But you lied to Hibari. To Hibari. You hate lying. Why would you lie?
That's tier four, he can't answer that. But it's fine. It's all held together by that thin wire-frame of circumstance. Hibari doesn't have to know—no one has to know, Kanato doesn't have to know—and so the reason for the reason of The Lie stays patiently guarded by that egotistical cowardice. Not found out, nothing changes, smooth sailing. Best friends forever. BFFs.
Even if Hibari looks at him, sometimes, like Kanato hung the stars in the sky and paved the roads he walked on and wears the sun for a pendant. Not found out, nothing changes, smooth sailing.
It's cowardice, Kanato knows. But it's also the safety of inaction: no friendships in jeopardy, no collateral for hitmen. Another sip of bitter coffee—Hibari makes a better cup, but it can't be helped. No big, daunting feelings—or, rather, if he covers his eyes in the face of his monstrous selfishness, maybe it won't see him. Best keep that closet door shut. Live and let live.
Excuse: They'll run into each other tomorrow at work, but not today. Today feels tender, kinda dangerous.
Truth: Kanato thinks better than to ignore instinct.
*****
It's twenty-two-thirty hours on a Saturday night.
The short of it is that Hibari had dragged his lame, simpering self through the bustle of weekend-night Tokyo, seeking out a quiet corner to lament his best friend's neglect of him—but, y'know, pathetically. A drink to put him out of his misery for the evening. In doing so, by sheer accident—or serendipitous, overly fortunate encounter—he'd happened upon what is temporarily Shikinagi Akira's bunny bar.
An hour later, Hibari's tie is crinkled where Akira had yanked on it in his fit of short-lived rage. Akira—whose cotton-white bunny ears pinch at the crease where they flop. Who eyes the lightest dusting of pink on Hibari's with the suspicion of a mother whose son was late for curfew. Even though he literally made the one cocktail Hibari drank. Good cocktail, but didn't help his throat. It's rough from borrowing the karaoke stage for a number or three, just to cap off the elation before it could overflow and make him any dumber than he is. 'Cause he is kinda dumb—extra dumb, right now. The upswing of joy is pumping his head full of helium.
It scents faintly of the watered flowers on the nearby street. The windows of the bar's blue doors are lit sunset from within, a sharp spear of light spilling from where Akira stands in the entrance. Hibari thought, maybe, some fresh air would help smooth his mood, but—
'He likes you that much,' Akira had said—that Kanato, his Kanato, likes Hibari that much.
How much is that much? More than average? Totally, right? Or Akira wouldn't have said it in the first place—Akira is careful like that. But he tripped up. 'He likes you that much.'
Just the thought melts him further into the wall. Hibari knows how it looks—his face is hurting with the boyish grin that makes him feel seventeen again. Except now he's old enough for his teeth to stick with tomato acid and cocktail froth.
"I'm not sure I trust you to walk," Akira is saying—but his voice staggers and floats and flies wide of its target. That he's only half-listening has something to do with the giddiness playing hopscotch across his chest.
"I'm not even tipsy," protests Hibari, a tad raspy. He purses his lips, and idly fiddles with his tie. The chill seeps where his spine rests against the bricks.
"It's a bit of a far walk if you're going home," points out Akira—he cants his head in seriousness, and the bunny-ear headband lists forward an extra inch. "Shall I call you a taxi?"
Hibari laughs, from the diaphragm. Where the real laughs are born. Akira, you mother hen.
"C'mon, it's not like I'm drunk."
Akira squints, "your face is red."
Lifting off the wall, Hibari guffaws, "That goes without saying."
It's too hard to put into words. So he counts on the subtext to describe the disorganised jumble of happy doing flips in his stomach; flimsy knots in his tummy warbling like a wobble board as they unravel. By habit, Hibari spreads his hands—looking every part the valorous rogue of a phantom thief he's supposed to be. A showman.
"I'm an adult, I'll be fine." He has a license, a wallet. Buys groceries, cooks dinners. "I keep a spare key under the mat and all."
At that, Akira chances a small smile, but rights his glasses on his nose. The lenses flash in the lamplight. "Your apartment is rather far from here, isn't it? I'd rather you get home safely than wander the streets for—however long the walk."
It's Akira's Mom Mode; there's no escaping it. But a taxi is so impersonal for how he feels today. He hums non-musically: a contemplative mrr. "Is Serao busy?"
"He's handling some paperwork in my stead."
"Damn. I can't wait here?"
"I can't close the bar until the trains stop running."
A pause hangs. This is the mutual play of two grown men unwilling to compromise.
Akira starts, "A taxi—"
"Mm, I kinda don't wanna…" Or one grown man and an idiot teenager in an adult body.
Silence falls. Where Hibari is sheepish—fidgeting with his wrinkled tie again—Akira's eyes narrow in judgement.
"Will one of the seniors pick you up?" He means Fuwa, or someone from the band; Lauren, Ibrahim.
Excuse: But there's no way Lauren or Fuwa will be free at this hour—it's prime time for host bars, and who knows where Lauren is. He could be back at Eden—crime never sleeps—and Ibrahim is—well, y'know. An oil lord—knight. Whatever, something important.
Powerless beneath Akira's maternal scrutiny, Hibari kicks a rock that skitters and lands in the pavement seam. He sighs, "probably not. I don't wanna take a taxi though." They're just too impersonal tonight.
A car zooms by the mouth of the alley, indifferent. A streak of colour that's gone in an instant. Distant sirens wail. And in front of the bunny bar, Hibari—whose head is blessedly empty—is smiling that big dumb smile and not at all acknowledging the grind of gears turning in Shikinagi Akira's sensible skull.
"I'm not five," Hibari blurts into the aether. Parrying before Akira can raise a counter.
Akira snorts. "Are you sure?"
He gets a glare for his trouble. It does not stall him, and at last, out comes the truth:
"Are you sure you're not looking for an excuse to call Kanato?"
Trust Akira to cut to the core of things. Like a static shock—
'He likes you that much.'
—that thought pings right through Hibari, nerve ends shivering.
The vowels drawl, "Weeeeeell…"
Now he blames the alcohol for the betrayal of his tongue—caught red-handed, words escape him. A short, shy little laugh leaks past his lips. All he can settle for is an innocent, toothy smile.
Akira exhales, tries not to pinch the bridge of his nose. Not at all entertained by naivety—which he concludes must be exacerbated by low alcohol tolerance—he grouses, "Tarai."
Hibari guffaws, "I didn't say anything?"
That look again—the Mom Look™. Less accusatory, this time; maybe a well-meaning type of pity. The voice of doubt that's taken residence in Hibari's frontal lobe chooses now to wake up. Poor sod, it coos, with a tone of sympathetic nodding. He knows you're stupid with love.
Akira's logic is as follows—
Because Akira is merely the holy witness to the travesty that is Kanato and Hibari's emotionally difficult romance, he simply clicks his tongue. At any rate, as long as he's on shift, his priority is still service. If Kanato is Hibari's safest and most viable ride home, then so be it.
"Fine," huffs Akira, and then pulls a face as if doing so physically pained him. "It can't hurt to try."
Hibari's logic is like so—
Kanato dodged him today, with a convenient excuse about needing to do a cursory check-up on Café Zeffiro. It's long past closing time, they already had a mission, so surely, surely, there's not a thing in the world that can provide Kanato with a plausible denial.
And, on this particular night at this particular hour, Hibari is kind of stupid, so it cuts there.
Excuse: His heartbeat is strumming like a riffing guitar, and only a special type of idiot would double-down on what's essentially gossip from his bunny-eared buddy. Also, he's, like, one cocktail's worth of tipsy.
Truth: He doesn't know how much longer he can bear the limbo of non-rejection.
*****
By twenty-two-thirty-five hours, the dregs of Kanato's shitty coffee have staled cool.
The mug remains, forgotten, on the kitchen counter. His stream ran shorter than usual by a half hour, or an hour, it's hard to say. Being time-conscious is a high ask, when he's swaddled in that fuzzy, dream-like sense that often accompanies impending doom. In the safety of his own home, with all the windows and entrances and closet doors assuredly locked, is there reason for Kanato's guard to be up?
No, smarms the ego. You're not guilty.
And to that, the conscience stares in abject horror.
Out of responsibilities to run to, Kanato sinks into the feathery cushions of his living room sofa and slaps his hands over his face, groaning into his fingers. He feels like shit. Doesn't want to know why—already does know why, but is above admitting anything. He won't. Not now, not ever, and maybe after he's buried and bones and sleeping with the fishes.
At twenty-two-thirty-six hours, his coffee table vibrates. Milliseconds later does the all-too-familiar ringtone follow—a chord progression; instrumentals only—it's Hibari. That's Hibari's ringer; the one he set especially for Hibari.
Shit, he doesn't say aloud. That would be too telling, though no one is around to hear but him. Answer? Don't answer? At the forefront, the conscience—given grace; a chance at repentance—cries, answer answer answer! The ego—the cowardice; the writhing black heap of repulsive truths—hisses, don't.
*****
The call doesn't go through.
Weighing his hand, the phone is naught but a brick of glorified plastic—the dead-tone blares flat; pitiful, humiliating beep after beep after beep.
[[ Hi, hello? You've reached the ambassador of Venti Group, Fura Kanato. Please leave a message after the tone and I'll call you back! Thanksbye—! ]]
A blasphemed ten seconds pass. Hibari scrambles, "Hey—um, no, I just thought—"
The after-message of Hibari's call ends itself after thirty speechless seconds, with the final beep of a flat-lining hope. Hibari breathes a meek, oh.
"Akira," Hibari whispers, knuckles white. He didn't pick up. "Why didn't he answer?"
If what Akira said is true—if it's true—
Something around the edges of Hibari's face has shattered—caved in. Crestfallen, forsaken boy: trembling fingers, slumped shoulders; the error of vulnerability leaves him weak now. He'd ridden the high of revelation only to have been shot from the sky by Kanato's fucking voice mail. His back is cold where his shirt drags up, as he slides down the bricks in a half-sitting slouch.
So what if there's no plausible denial, technology doesn't care. Maybe having to answer a phone in itself is opportunity for plausible denial—not maybe. Evidently. The thoughts sound like bitterness; like rage, like injustice. Like a personal slight. But in the desert of Hibari's mouth, they leak out the edge of his lips as a sad, beaten sniffle. A kicked dog.
"Maybe he's busy," he tells himself, tells the night. And then recalls his very own train of logic, "But I don't think he is…"
And Akira, still lodged between the door and the bar's interior, feels his eye twitch. A snag of tension on the temple that feels very much like a blood vessel barely shy of bursting.
"Bastard," he growls, words fringed thick with annoyance. "I'll call him."
*****
[[ Hey—um, no, I just thought— ]]
Fura Kanato is turning in his grave. Writhing on the couch, prickling all over with guilt that is starting to feel irrational. The phone lays ignored on the coffee table. Is it the guilt or the shame. Is it the guilt or the shame, or that nagging unease? Is it still unease if the prophecy of instinct is already happening? Could be that all of it is irrational. Whatever—whatever whatever whatever.
It's not that Kanato's a bad liar. It's that he remembers the temperature drop in the room as he left it, hours ago. That suspension of time where Hibari had gone to invite him for something—it never mattered what, as long as it was them; with him—and Kanato had shut it down before it could bleed.
Justified, announces ego, with a bang of the gavel. The conscience calls objection.
That it never mattered what for is a thousand-eyed beast that Kanato doesn't even dare a glance at. He hasn't the propensity to withstand that genre of biblical dread. Picking up that phone is the same as subjecting himself to—
It rings again. This time with a rhythmic vrrr-vrrr that does not stop after two rings, three or five. Not Hibari's ringtone; but it's sent right to voicemail. Rings again. It's not Hibari, he knows. But his mood is souring fast. This damn phone won't shut the hell up, if he doesn't answer it, it's gonna keep bothering him—could turn it off, but it won't fix the erosion of a slow-crawling sense that it's going to bite him in the ass later.
The phone vrrs impatience. A last unwilling squirm and groan, before he slaps his hand over the noisy, noisy device and swipes to answer.
*****
[[ Hello. ]]
Hibari's head snaps up—pink-tinged cheeks and already glassy-eyed. Mouth opening then clicking shut—why'd he answer you and not me? Akira sees it; his forehead hurts from the force of his frown.
"Fura," Akira snarls, and there's a hitch of breath that reads like an auditory flinch. "What if it was an emergency?"
[[ I— ]]
"You let the phone ring for how long even though two of us called you?"
Their leader goes silent. Akira hopes he's burning with the shame. With his free hand, he reaches up and presses on his temples—anything to ease the tension, or he's going to have an unbearable migraine long before he can end his night.
[[ …Sorry. ]] It's mangled, by the sound-font of phone speakers. [[ What happened? ]] Then, as if it's only just occurred to Kanato how theoretically dire two consecutive calls could be— [[ Ping me your location. ]]—he does not waste a word.
Akira steals a look at Hibari, who watches with these gawky, doe-like, yolky eyes of a man who is only a small-percent drunk and a large-percent love-struck. It's not as if Akira can judge his taste, but he'd like to believe his guy isn't voluntarily moronic. At least, not entirely.
Akira knows the polite thing to do here is to explain, there isn't any emergency of the calibre Kanato is imagining. Even though he's prattling—[[ Is Seraph there? I hope you called him when I didn't answer—]]—Akira lets his voice exhaust itself.
[[ Akira? You there? ]]
"…Here," he says slowly. Hibari picks himself up from the ground, still fish-hooked in the spine like a wilting flower. "I'm hanging up. I'll send you where we are. Bring a car, not your motorcycle. If it's a chauffeur, tell them to wait."
[[ What? Just tell me first— ]]
Haughtily, Akira taps end call. Call ended. As it should. In his consistently realistic opinion, this classifies as emergency—excuse. Truth?
He thinks Kanato deserves it.
*****
At twenty-two-fifty hours, a sleek black car rolls in on the curb. And stops, with a squeak of tyres. Kanato steps out onto pavement and sneezes—the flowerbed nearby has been recently disturbed; the wind must've taken up the pollen.
Three steps into the maw of the city's artery, Kanato spies Akira in front of a set of blue doors, arms folded and face shadowed with a very deep scowl. Two more steps—fingers shaking, sweat on his collar from the sudden rush of adrenaline—'what if it was an emergency?'—and he stops short.
There must be some mistake. Isn't something urgent supposed to be going on? Maybe it's an exercise in absurdism, or one of those stupid pranks people secretly record for content. For what other reason would Shikinagi Akira be out here, in the dead of night, wearing a fucking bunny suit?
"Akira?" he calls, questioning. Because that sinkhole in the pit of his gut is starting to gape and inhale.
His boots keep crossing distance; rote movement that Kanato does not truly register until Akira lifts his lean off the door, silhouette unblocking the light. A one-frame burst over the concrete that catches Watarai Hibari, crouched on the other side of the facade doorway. It carves shape into his cheekbones and illuminates the dusting of pink.
Kanato looks sharply back to Akira. He's wearing bunny ears. The hell.
"What's going on." Cautious monotone.
Akira's face is stone fucking cold. In bunny ears. Does he have a tail too?
You've been caught, the conscience gasps, fingers over its mouth, eyes wide with faux shock.
The ego flings its arms about, hammer wagging like an angry fist. Not yet.
"Is he drunk?" Kanato tries.
Making every effort not to shrink under the sheer severity of Shikinagi Akira's domain of disappointment, he stands ramrod straight. Overcompensating for the glower on Akira's face, dimming the shadows. It could cow the moon. Wisely, Kanato does not ask why the hell Akira is here—in some random alley—and wearing a bunny outfit.
"He doesn't want to take a taxi," says Akira sharply. He does not so much as tilt as chin, look away, or twitch a pristine, gloved finger.
Self-preserving and lily-livered, Kanato's ego quietly lowers its empty fist—from which the gavel has been plucked.
Kanato swallows. Says meekly, "…I brought a car."
Akira's face carves a crescent slit of a smile. The deep-night shadows cast void in the place of teeth and tongue. "So you'll take him home, won't you, Kanato?"
Holy fuck he is terrifying.
Kanato risks a glance at Hibari—seeking solace, recognition that Akira is being crazy right now, are you seeing this shit, man?—but Hibari only averts his eyes, lashes low. Not his man, not even his bro. And very suddenly does the thought, what are we, strike critical. The next breath Kanato takes is laced with arsenic; it turns his stomach.
And it is with the strength of all men that Kanato barely resists croaking:
"…Yep."
Akira scoffs. "Good."
Kanato is suddenly very aware of the bone and muscle and sinew pinned under his own prickling skin.
The conscience swings the gavel. The ego wails, screams, and melts into a pool of bubbling tar.
*****
The problem with secrets is when you place them on a back of a lie—wrap them neatly like meat sold in a net, pack them behind a framework of thin excuses—is that as soon as you tug at the binding knot, the whole thing disgorges like emotional bile.
He and Hibari sit in the backseat of Kanato's chauffeured car. And every minute is another pained realisation that Kanato should not have brought a chauffeured car, because they always tell him to sit in the fucking back. With Hibari. And while Kanato sits utterly still, skewed on one side of the car seats, he feels like he's trying to plug holes in his psyche—the situation—where the tier four secrets might start weeping.
Welcome to the shared purgatory of the tail-end of a rich boy's hired ride—but he thanks the silence for not uncorking anything that shouldn't. Y'know. Exist. It helps scrape the gooped remains of his ego off the floor and build it back up like dough. Less is more, chitters the ego, stitched in places. Plugging holes. A picture speaks a thousand words.
Except the picture is the window because Kanato isn't looking at Hibari whatsoever. Buildings rushing by, streetlights in blur. What might be Seraph Dazzlegarden pursuing a stray cat. Huh. Much further and he'll pass parallel to the bunny bar. Fate's a funny thing.
"Hey, Kanato…"
There is a half-muttered, turned-away mumble. That, at first, Kanato refuses to acknowledge. Instead, he presses the window-down button on the inside door handle. It doesn't work. His driver must have the child-lock enabled to stop his fidgeting. Touché.
"Oi, Kanato."
This one is louder, and can't be ignored in the claustrophobia of a metal box with wheels.
"Mm?"
Fura Kanato argues, that the definition of a secret depends. That tier two secrets consist of white lies—white lies as manhole covers for the sewage underneath. There's a tug in his gut again; that sickly discomfort of something about to dislodge. Like a baby tooth connected by a fine thread of gum.
"…Are you avoiding me?"
If it were to be described as a sound—THUNK. Like a gavel. The binding knot undone. Kanato shivers so hard it feels like his veins unspool beneath skin.
"What makes you say that?" he answers, breezy. Far, far breezier than the stone lock-up of every limb attached to his person. This is the problem with secrets that live on the back of white lies.
Finally, finally, he looks over at Hibari. One seat's distance, Hibari stares back, still a bit pink. Kanato's best guess is a cocktail or two at whatever bar Akira was playing dress-up for—it doesn't matter, now. It's trivial for Kanato, defendant to what he's quickly realising is his own execution.
Hibari wets his lips, unreadable. The only thing Kanato can read him for is the lack of that perpetual, easy smile. It's a flat line, now.
"'Cause I think you lied about visiting the café."
This is the problem with white lies—or maybe he misunderstood from the start. White lies are harmless. Was he wrong to assume it'd be white, and not a plain, bare-faced lie? Reflexive denial: I didn't lie—but that's a lie, too. Fuck. Shit. On the side of defence, his ego shakes.
Who's to say I didn't? Sounds guilty. But I did visit, another lie. Lies are dangerous now, bad foundations. You think? Sarcastic; it's too fragile for that. His mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
What. Does. He. Say.
"I knew it," Hibari mutters darkly, "You're avoiding me."
"I'm not," Kanato blurts—the reflex unimpeded.
Hibari's nose wrinkles, frown deepening. "You are."
It pokes another hole in his plausible deniability, and his ego totters as if struck over the head. Why am I such a fucking idiot?
Kanato shoots back, "I'm not."
"Then why did you lie?"
Kanato does not flinch. He doesn't. He knows how to not flinch, it's in his training. Like—his genes. So he doesn't flinch. He's not a flinch guy. Not a flincher. He doesn't flinch.
Given non-answer, Hibari snorts humorlessly, "You look guilty as hell."
"I'm not," asserts Kanato. This is a white lie, surely. "Because I'm not avoiding you?" Shit, now he's just running his mouth. Fuck, shut up. Shut up.
For a beat, Hibari does not reply. Non-expression doesn't suit this big-gesture boy. Then, his shoulders sag, as if the night's exhaustion is finally settling. And he tells his hands, picking at creases in the cheap slacks he bought for the mission hours ago:
"If you were tired, you should've just said so."
Pause. Gauge. Measure. It's an escape, that the ego starts groping at greedily. A spider's thread; an out, a soft one. One that doesn't name the lie, or blame. The kindest possible assumption. The ego says: we can take this, just don't flinch.
Kanato flinches. Hibari's shoulders tense in minutia. He looks away.
The ego dies a silent, cold-shock death.
*****
The car rolls up on the curb of Hibari's apartment complex. The humble, mundane sort—with the open-air stairwell and locks that are a little warped. Hibari waits until the car brakes and the engine sputters off, to wrestle with the inner door handle. It doesn't give—stupid child-lock. He's had enough of feeling childish today; he's had enough of people acting like kids.
Clunk. The lock turns off.
"Thanks for the ride," he grumbles, and shoves the door open.
There's a protest behind him—"Hibari, c'mon—"
"Nope!" calls Hibari, over his shoulder. "Let's just forget about it tomorrow, okay?"
He hears the thud of a second car door anyway. He doesn't know why Kanato cares so much. They both know, just as well, that it'll be easy to gloss over tomorrow. New day, new start. He can spend the night whimpering bereft into his pillow and then wake up and steel himself in front of the mirror. Sleep off the elation that rotted into something gross and yucky. Down-up-down. What a night.
Closer, now—"Hiba, I'm sorry, okay?"—a nervous laugh—"Seriously, I'm sorry, like. Seriously."
Hibari wrestles his keys into the lock. He hadn't even confessed yet, to anything. Why does it feel like rejection even though literally nothing has happened? Is he being crazy?
"It's fine," he says, feigning normal. Pretending it's fatigue and not bonefide annoyance at something as petty as a kiddish lie. "Why are you following me?"
Kanato's hands come up, helpless and lost, and fall back to his sides. "I feel really bad, I dunno—"
"If you really feel that bad about it, you should know not to lie in the first place," Hibari retorts. Because Kanato is an adult—why act as if he doesn't know these basic courtesies? "If you're that tired, then you should've said so, or at least act like you're tired—" Realisation darkens the metaphorical thundercloud hanging low over his head. Then he huffs bitterly, "But you answered Akira when he called you, so I guess you're not that tired?"
He's trying—to stay nice. But the up-tilt of his sentence does nothing to help. Stupid freaking key.
"Just leave me alone, man. We'll forget about it tomorrow at work. Don't worry about it."
The key finally slots and the lock turns. The apartment door swings open. Hibari sets one foot over the threshold, and shoulder-checks. He can't slam the door in Kanato's face—Kanato, who hovers awkwardly, caught in a lie that Hibari is so politely not prying open. Bleeding subtext that Hibari is so politely ignoring. Kanato, with his dumb, cute-cool face, with all the grace and manner of a prince and yet the emotional spectrum of a frat boy.
"What."
Lamely, Kanato's hands flop at nothing again. "I just—y'know. Sorry."
"Okay," Hibari pronounces, hand on the knob. "You're forgiven. Forget about it."
The syllables come slow to Kanato: "…Okay."
"Okay."
Kanato's hands twirl uselessly. He pulls the words long: "Soooo…we're okay?" punctuated by another, skittering laugh. The high, weird laugh, that's more honest than any of the curated ones Kanato shows to shareholders.
"Fine," Hibari repeats—corrects himself, stilted, "We're fine."
A cricket that's been chirping stops to clear its throat, then starts chirping again. Still, Hibari does not shut Kanato out. Waiting, obediently, for him to turn and go home, or. Something.
Kanato chooses a small, tinny or something.
"You don't seem fine."
It's been an awful night. A terrible, down-up-down night that's been jerking Hibari around by the throat like a dog on a leash. It's a real, bone-deep exhaustion. Wear on every compartment of a person: physical, emotional, mental. Hibari, who does not anger, also does not make excuses. He does not lie because he's not any good at it, but nor does he have the strength to act.
He's got one foot home—it's enough to sink him with lethargy. And lethargy can make people honest.
Excuses: none left.
Truth:
"You're avoiding me. Of course I'm not fine."
The bare truth makes his bones feel like noodles. The silence bobs, unmooring him. It's a confession that makes him weak—the sort of weak that starts from the chest and bleeds like a cut. Here is the truth that lives and breathes and says, I hate when you're not looking at me. Weakness is ugly. Feels ugly.
He fills the quiet, because it's nerve-racking:
"What am I supposed to think when my best friend suddenly won't even look at me anymore?" Kanato's mouth opens, but never gets to sound off; Hibari goes on, "I only ran into Akira by chance tonight. But he talked me through it, he's good like that,"—Hibari sniffs, the haughty sort that doesn't cry—"And he said you liked me, but if this is what that looks like, I'd rather you just not, y'know?"
Ugly, ugly, ugly—he talked too much. His mouth slams shut, his lips press thin. He lowers his eyes and glares at the doorbell that hasn't worked in a week. He should get that replaced soon, if he remembers—not that he will.
He thinks Kanato has talked about it before. Everything that spilled just now is all tier four unspeakable stuff. It makes him want to do terrible things—slam the door closed, roll himself into the blankets until he's a sweaty pile of salt-tear mush. The cricket keeps chirping and it's annoying as hell.
All of this over the most menial, juvenile little lie.
"You're so childish sometimes." It's making him broody—the whole of it is making him broody. He wishes Kanato would just say we're just friends and be done with it. "You can just say you don't like me, I won't take it personally."
Now there's a lie. Of course he'll take it personally, but he's got to let Kanato off the hook. Hibari won't survive being pitied.
Hibari, two feet in the genkan now, glares daggers at the coarse thread of the doormat. Welcome! it reads, right-side up to the blonde-haired ghost, but upside-down for its owner. He doesn't even need the spare key underneath anymore—he should just get rid of it. Before he forgets.
*****
"Can you move?"
And Kanato, standing there—like he's been slapped with an ice-block, doused in one massive whap of unsolicited Watarai Hibari confessions. And Watarai Hibari, chest ripped open and terrifying, horrifying, tier four secrets-made-known, says:
"Off the mat. Get off the mat."
Devoid of words, Kanato looks down. Past his hands, which have paled with shock. At the toe of his boots on Hibari's Welcome! mat. He should ask why—why the mat matters, now of all times? But the big, daunting feelings—that little lie—make him small and stupid and brainless.
Kanato takes one obedient step right-wise. Not back, back is bad right now. Back is submitting to the many-eyed beast called emotional clarity. Not left, because that's the direction of the stairs. They mean the same thing.
As Hibari crouches down to lift the mat by the corner—a sheet of dust and dirt sheaves away—the pointless words clamber up and out ten whole seconds late.
"The mat? Why?"
"I don't need it," Hibari answers, bland.
"It's just a mat," Kanato replies.
From beneath his lashes, Hibari glances at him. Does not offer the mercy of a smile or a light tone or a shrug or anything. "That's why I don't need it."
He rolls the mat like he would a newspaper, and plucks up something that glints faintly—the spare key to his apartment, that Kanato has always used up to now. He'd figured Hibari had forgotten, because when Hibari forgets his keys, he tends to use the window instead.
Unthinking, Kanato's arm lashes out and slaps down—not hard, but desperate. Panic grip; painless.
Hibari, no stamina left to yowl, tries t o recoil instead, but cannot move—wrist pinned under Kanato's. He jerks once, twice, to no avail. Then squawks, "What!"
The unthoughtful Fura Kanato states, matter-of-fact, "Everyone should keep a spare key." And points out to himself, it's not a lie. His conscience approves.
"I don't need one."
"I know you don't."
It's Hibari's mercy that has kept his tier four secrets corked safely. Holes prodded open, sure, but intact. Kept stitched shut by the easiest, softest excuse: if you're tired, you should say so. Said with such gentleness, even though Hibari's just bled all the blood he has to bleed, at the door to his own home. Exhausted, worn out. Gaunt like a skeleton that clattered out of a closet.
Kanato is not like Hibari. His innards are poisoned black and mangled gross. He is twenty and stunted—and what romances he's had, in hindsight, are nothing more than half-formed relationships, built by peer pressure or the genealogical need to prove himself a man. He is twenty and stunted—and clumsy, and foolish, and terrified.
"Let me keep it," he says—pleads. It's a plead that comes out trembling. The white of Kanato's sleeves and skin glow faintly by moonlight. "The key, I mean."
Kanato is twenty, and Hibari is his best friend.
Twenty is inexperience. He covered his eyes in the face of his monstrous selfishness thinking it wouldn't see him back. That little, little lie. It was supposed to be meaningless. But it bowed its head and ate him whole in the form of Hibari's shame-faced honesty—and Hibari makes him dumber.
The frank mathematics is that he isn't ready—not yet.
"Please?"
But he could be. Not now—not in the space of Hibari's hesitance; not enough time. But there could be—he could find some, as long as Hibari doesn't lock him out. Kanato knows its hypocritical, and he's being so, so selfish. Hibari does, too.
"Why?"
Kanato swallows. His ego is dead, knocked three pegs down and drowned for good measure. The inarticulate tier four secrets:
That he likes that Hibari is all skin and bones—that he likes thinking about how he could slot his fingers in the gaps between ribs, or feel the jut of wrist and ankle.
That Kanato is too insatiable for something as delicate as a friendship-turned-love. That he has high demands and low compromises—that he's not so steady as Voltaction believes.
That Kanato knows Akira saw him—saw through him, with the all-knowing scrutiny of an omniscient lens that people unwittingly pass under. And pretended nothing in their four-man band had shifted.
That he knows Hibari can't comprehend how deep the materialistic, egotistical, mafia boy runs. Irreparable flaws of lineage that cannot be bettered, only worsened.
That he dreamt, once, at night. Of curtains for a bridal veil—and that's too intimate, isn't it? For two boys who are 'best friends'.
Here is the crux—the mass at the heart of the tangle. The reason for the reason: that Kanato stalls and stalls and stalls, not because he doesn't want to shame Hibari with who he is. Not because he doesn't want to blot Hibari out with tattoos and cigars and hit lists and targets.
Kanato would stain Hibari with all of that. That is the reason for the reason, of The Pitiful Lie.
Hibari has a puppy-love. A simplistic, pure little thing. Where he droops and wallows in the corners of Tokyo, nursing drink and tearing up. And it is minute, minuscule, next to the size of Kanato's greed. A pebble next to planet Earth.
"I just want it," he says, and won't explain. Not giving enough in return, if anything.
Greed and selfishness, and a temporarily dead ego. But he wants it—the key to Hibari's home.
"It's mine," Hibari snips. His hand is warm under Kanato's. "Why should I give it to you?"
"You don't need it," Kanato counters. "Said so yourself."
"So what? Still my house." He tugs again, to no avail.
Greed and selfishness: Kanato wants it, so he won't let it go.
But his ego is dead, until tomorrow. So next he speaks, it comes unbarred:
"I want to try," he blurts.
Hibari stills with a suspicious curl of the lip.
Kanato goes on, "I didn't mean to lie—it was stupid and childish, I'm sorry. You've been looking at me different lately and I think I just—didn't. Know how to handle it. Didn't—" his fingers curl, nails scraping light lines over the back of Hibari's hand. "I dunno. Just let me keep the key. I'll be good."
I'll behave.
He's not ready. It's the bare minimum, and he preys on Hibari's kindness over and over again and he's doing it now, too. But he's not ready.
Hibari stares at him for what feels like a whole minute, or five. It's just a few breaths strung too tight. The tugging on the key slows, weakens, goes slack. But he doesn't take it back, either—leaves it caught in Kanato's grip, as if the effort to keep arguing isn't worth it anymore.
"You're exhausting," Hibari says finally. Voice thin as paper, worn down to grain.
Sorry, I'll stop, don't mean to—but any responses Kanato can form sound like lies in his head. He hates lies, doesn't know why he did—does, but it's not easy to admit. Hibari exhales through his nose, low and shaky. It fogs the air a tad, white smoke in the gloom. Then, without ceremony, he lets go. The key stays in Kanato's hand.
"Sure," Hibari mutters. He stands and shoves the door open wider, mat still tucked awkwardly under one arm. "Okay. Fine." Another pause. Does he dare ask? Is there a point to asking? But because Hibari gives chance after chance—to Kanato, always to Kanato—he does dare. A cant of the head that endeavours not to be too docile, as he says, "…What do you mean by try?"
Here is the line, in words aloud. What do you mean by try. Kanato, brushing off his knees, key in his hand, standing up, turns it over in his head. Here is the line he was working so hard not to cross.
When Akira had looked at him funny, not even a full week ago, he'd asked, what are you thinking?
Nothing, Kanato had said. Nothing, nothing because nothing was changing. A little white lie he told himself, as an excuse for cowardice.
Well, his ego is dead for the night.
"I mean I'll try," he says, feeble. His emotional innards are strung over the stairway rail. He is a limping line of entrails. "To be worth how much you like me."
Hibari's mouth opens. His eyes widen, finally smoothing those tired rings and frown lines. Gold hues big and round, and then he snorts. A loud, laugh of pure disbelief.
"Nobody said I liked you!" But his face is pinking, and there are no cocktails to throw the blame on.
Another spider's thread, that Kanato greedily grabs hold of. "You're turning pink."
Hibari kicks Kanato in the calf. Doesn't know what to do with himself afterwards, so groans, face in hands. A familiar tell that Kanato is well-acquainted with.
"I'm not." White lie. Assuredly a white lie; harmless. A tease. Hibari peeks out through his fingers, scoffs and points accusingly. "You're doing it too."
Here is another white lie:
"It's because I'm cold," Kanato announces, and slips the key into his pocket. "Can I come in?"
Hibari squints. Is he aware of the hum slipping free? A long, contentious hum, that drags a second too long to be real consideration—
"Fine. But I'm not cooking jack tonight."
—the answer is always yes.
There is nothing definitive here, Kanato knows, as the door clicks softly shut. But this is something—new patience, with forgiveness for entree. The conscience rests.