Chapter Text
It was a quarter past eight on a rainy morning and Kazuma was already at the office with a dozen tasks on his mind and a plan for the day forming. He needed to get back to his crime scene at a Whitechapel theatre to meet the police inspector, but he needed to ferry paperwork to and from the Old Bailey before going. There was nobody behind the Prosecutor's Office reception desk and the lobby was silent and empty. Shaking raindrops off of his cap and coat, he breezed directly towards the stairs, footsteps echoing off of polished wood and a high ceiling.
A door creaked open behind him as he passed the reception area and he spun around, his hand on his sword hilt even as he recognized van Zieks's voice. "He is right here, yes. I don't see why not. Mr. Asogi," van Zieks called, "Mr. Naruhodo wishes to speak with you."
Damn it, it was the last Friday of May. There was a set schedule to these calls, but Kazuma had been so busy it had slipped his mind. Van Zieks was framed by the glass-panel door of the lately-built telephone booth, holding the bell of the receiver to his ear. Kazuma could faintly make out a crackly voice — Ryunosuke was babbling in van Zieks's ear continuously. Van Zieks's eyebrows ticked lower as Kazuma failed to come closer.
"I have to get papers to the Bailey," Kazuma said.
"Pardon," van Zieks yelled towards the transmitter, and then to Kazuma he said, "There is no rush. The clerks will not be expecting you so early." He proffered the receiver in Kazuma's direction as far as the cable would allow, which was only a few inches past the door of the booth.
Kazuma clicked his tongue. "I hate talking on that thing. It's so hard to hear." He turned away and climbed the stairs.
A snippet of speech slithered up to him: "No. Pray, excuse him. I am sure it isn't — " and then the door of the booth clicked shut.
Kazuma managed to avoid van Zieks all morning, both of them being busy running glorified errands, but when Kazuma came back in the early afternoon with a bag of fish and chips for his lunch, the boss was sitting at his desk, drinking a glass of wine and staring into infinity. One of his routine 'drink and look sad' breaks. Unfortunately, the sadness proved less than overwhelming today, and van Zieks's eerie pale eyes flicked towards Kazuma as he entered. "You deliberately ignored an opportunity to speak to your faraway friend," he said.
Kazuma took a rudely large bite of fish. "Not going to so much as ask how the theatre case is coming?"
"Mr. Naruhodo had hoped to hear your voice today."
"I'm sure you kept him perfectly well amused on your own." Not that Kazuma had any idea what they had to talk about that was so fascinating to them both.
"It is not a question of amusement." Van Zieks was looking at him calmly, unprovoked, slowly swirling the dark liquid in his glass. "His feelings are hurt, I sense."
"Oh, for pity's sake." Kazuma sat down before his desk, facing away from van Zieks. He shuffled some folders around and ate a chip.
The blatant refusal was enough to stymie van Zieks only for a minute or two. "I thought that Mr. Naruhodo would be able to explain your behavior to me. He said that he had a guess, but he would not tell me what it was. He merely said that he misses you."
Angry heat flared in Kazuma's chest. He swivelled on his cushion, his jaw tight. "This is none of your damn business," he ground out. "My Lord."
"I'm afraid — "
"I thought we agreed to stay professional. We make a good working team. Don't spoil it by forcing personal affairs into the office."
Van Zieks looked across at him quietly, the wine in his glass a flat red lake unstirred by waves. Kazuma rolled his tense shoulders out.
"I apologize," van Zieks said.
He didn't sound especially apologetic, but Kazuma didn't care. It really didn't matter what van Zieks felt, as long as he dropped the issue.
They both turned to their own tasks for a time. Kazuma finished his lunch and worked down a list of witnesses, deciding on the order in which he would call them and on which matters each would testify. After half an hour or forty minutes, he heard van Zieks's chair slide back. Iron heels clicked towards the office door.
Tension which Kazuma had not sensed building inside himself reached an unexpected peak. "I guess it's easy for you to face him."
The heels stopped. "I beg your pardon?"
"Ryunosuke." The name spilled off his tongue in a homesick slide of Japanese syllables. He glared at his gloved hands on the desk, but he couldn't shut himself up. He was too angry. "You're his number one fan, aren't you? You played damsel in distress so nicely for him."
Van Zieks's voice went even more nasally than usual. "Yes, you've finally seen through me. I inveigled my own prosecution merely to win Mr. Naruhodo's pity."
"Don't be sarcastic with me," Kazuma snapped, shooting van Zieks a sideways glower.
"I made an attempt at a civil conversation; you are the one turning things sour."
"Oh, I started it, did I?"
"Well, you did."
Kazuma held van Zieks's gaze, his molars grinding together. Then something snapped and he dropped his head into his hands, a snort bursting out of him. "This is ridiculous. Never mind. See you later, My Lord."
He heard van Zieks take an intentionally deep breath and then — oh, please, no — approach Kazuma's desk, lowering himself to the cold marble floor beside it, folding up his absurd gazelle's legs. "I, of all men, ought to know the merits of a second chance at civility."
Kazuma stared blankly at the surface of the desk. "I don't want to talk to you about my feelings."
"You had the opportunity to talk to Ryunosuke about them and you chose not to. Another chance will not come for weeks. Allowing those feelings to curdle any further will only sour your own soul — you may believe me on the fact of that."
Kazuma shook his head continuously in refusal, but his mouth was already going. "I can barely write him a letter. I don't want to hear that horrible electric facsimile of his voice. He's not here anyway. He's gone and you're hanging onto him; well, I'm not."
"It is rather unseemly to speak as though he's departed this mortal plane," van Zieks said. "But I think it quite likely that the two of you shall meet again in this world well before meeting in the next. After all, you gave him your great sword for safekeeping."
"Am I supposed to cling onto that?" Kazuma scoffed. "Sure, he'll give me Karuma someday. But it's over. Even if I go to Tokyo or he comes back to London, it's still over — I saw to that. It's never going to be the same — " Kazuma's traitorous voice cracked and he shot to his feet, stalking to the central table and propping his hands on it, breathing, forcing the lump in his throat back without mercy.
"He's forgiven you for everything."
Kazuma spat out a laugh, gripping the edge of the table in his fists. "He forgives me! How magnanimous! I suppose you live on his forgiveness, don't you? Saint Ryunosuke and his ceaseless, beneficent forgiveness. Well, I'm not going to him on my knees. He was supposed to be my — we were partners."
"He isn't asking for you to go to him as a supplicant. He asked to speak to his best friend."
Tears battled their way up into Kazuma's eyes. He swallowed tightly and bit on his tongue for too long, waiting for them to recede.
Van Zieks spoke again into the thick silence. "When you're ready, he will be waiting to hear from you. I know that."
The blood rushed in Kazuma's ears. When he finally turned around, van Zieks had already left the room, and Kazuma was alone with the soft chirping of the bats.