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Growing up, Rion had watched Shirou go through all sorts of emotions. He was a boisterous kid, at least around her, and he didn't hide how he felt from her. When he was sad, they cried together. When he was scared, she held him until he was brave again. When he was happy, they laughed together. When he was sleepy, he got stubborn and had to be tricked into lying down.
Getting adopted didn't change much between them, but Rion noticed that Shirou hid his emotions more as he got older. That was expected, though. No one stayed as open as a child forever. But she still knew when he was scared or happy or sleepy, even without him telling her everything.
"Shirou!"
Nakaba Rion had faked her own death, knowing it would hurt the two people closest to her. But she had hope that, one day, she could go back to them. Her brother and her junior. Her junior who rarely showed any emotion—except when she shocked it out of him.
"Shirou, open your eyes. Shirou!"
Seeing Ichirou kneeling on the ground beside her brother, his hands over the wound on Shirou's chest, outright begging—it was her turn to be shocked.
Ichirou had not cried once while they worked together. He had not taken the day of his parent's murder off. Even when he thought Rion was dead, he had faced it with the same calm, serious personality as always.
It took Shirou getting shot for him to lose his cool entirely. Rion knew Ichirou was competent, but he took out the remaining enemies with a smooth lethality that she had never seen from him before. Rion had only needed to take out people sneaking up on him from behind, because he was so laser focused on what was in front of him. And as soon as the last man was down, Ichirou abandoned the mission entirely to throw himself on his—fake?—boyfriend.
"Don't do this to me, Shirou," Ichirou growled, pressing firmer on the bullet wound. "Shirou!"
With a soft gasp of pain, Shirou's eyes fluttered open. Ichirou breathed out his name and Shirou's gaze landed on his partner.
A tiny smile lifted his lips. "Hi, Honey," he managed in a breathy voice, then winced.
Tears leapt to Ichirou's eyes so fast that Rion wasn't sure Ichirou was even aware that he was going to cry until he already was. "Don't 'honey' me. Just stay awake."
The ambulance arrived quickly—it always did when someone from their department called—and Rion didn't argue about who got to ride in the back of it with Shirou. There was no question in either of their minds. In fact, Rion got the impression that Ichirou might pull his gun on anyone who tried to separate him from Shirou until absolutely necessary—including her.
As she followed the ambulance in her own car, Rion thought back. The Ichirou she had first met in a dark procedural room versus the Ichirou now sitting in that ambulance, holding her brother's hand. The child she had met in an orphanage versus the yakuza who had taken a bullet for her junior without a second thought. A lot had changed in the time she had been dead. Rion had thought she saw it happen, during her regular surveillance of them, but she had missed so much.
She remembered after she had revealed herself to them, the meals they shared and the times she had just popped in. It turned out that outside surveillance had only shown her so much, and she got to see new parts of them and their relationship to each other, independent of her.
Shirou, who never ate his vegetables, willingly putting them in his mouth—even as he complained about Ichirou being a nag. Ichirou, who hated physical contact, allowing Shirou to sleep with his head in Ichirou's lap. They bickered about sugar and who did the chores and why there were no cigarettes. At times, Rion had thought they were like brothers, little kids she still had to protect. At others, Rion had mused that they resembled an old married couple after spending decades of their life together.
She parked her car and hurried inside the hospital, finding Ichirou already seated outside the emergency surgery doors. He hadn't washed the blood off his hands, nor the tear tracks from his face. His eyes were fixated on the doors, not even noticing as Rion drew near. For the first time in her years of knowing Ichirou, he looked…lost.
It was her brother in that surgery room with a bullet in his chest, but Rion was…well, not okay, but pretty close. She knew he was a fighter. He had been through worse. She knew the doctors would do their utmost to save him. She knew he was yakuza, and the case he had thrown himself into with her and Ichirou was dangerous on its own. There were too many ways he could've died in the last five years for her to be wholly surprised. Part of her had prepared for a moment like this. In all her planning for every possible situation, losing Shirou had come up more than once. She didn't like it—would never like it—but it was almost more surprising that it hadn't happened yet.
Like her, Ichirou was a planner. He was also a pessimist. If the worst could happen, he believed it would. To see him so unmoored shook the foundations of Rion's own defenses.
The hospital didn't sell beer, but god did she want one. Two or three, actually. Instead, she pressed the brightest colored drink in the vending machine and hoped for the best.
"Hey," Rion said when she returned, finally dragging Ichirou's bloodshot eyes from the surgery doors. Holding out the pink carton, she said, "Drink this."
It wasn't opened in any way, but Ichirou still stared at the strawberry milk like it was poisoned. Good. She had trained him well. It took several long moments for Ichirou to determine that the milk was perfectly sealed and probably not contaminated before he opened the straw and stuck it into the top. He didn't seem to notice the smudges of blood he left on the box.
Ichirou's first sip was tentative, and then his shoulders finally, at least by a fraction, relaxed.
"Shirou will be okay," Rion said, partly to remind Ichirou, and partly to remind herself.
The tension didn't leap back into Ichirou's shoulders, but his jaw tightened and his eyes squinted like he might cry again. She hoped he didn't. She was out of practice in handling someone in tears. Shirou hadn't cried since he got adopted, at least not in her presence.
"Senpai, I—" Ichirou took in a shaky breath, and he stared at the milk in his hands rather than her as he said, "I love him."
Only years of training kept Rion from gasping loudly. Instead, her grip on her own milk tightened. Thankfully, she hadn't opened it yet.
Ichirou looked up at her through his mussed bangs, his lips pressed thin and pulled down into a deep frown. "Is that…okay?" His voice was carefully controlled, but Rion heard the plea for understanding hidden underneath.
For people in special investigations, personal connections were a hazard. Their loved ones could be used against them. Rion should tell him it wasn't okay. She should remind him of the danger.
Except Ichirou already knew the danger. He and Shirou were creatures forged in darkness. They had jumped headfirst into the fire together, hand in scarred hand. And Rion had seen how they reacted when the other person was put in danger. Yes, they were irrational, and even knowingly walked straight into traps for each other. But they also always came out on top. They brought out the best and worst in each other, but it made them stronger.
Letting out a slow breath, Rion reached over to place a hand on Ichirou's shoulder. She managed a small smile, a facsimile of her usual teasing grin. Her voice was too quiet when she said, "Out of all the guys in the world, you had to go and pick my little brother, huh? I see how it is."
Her acceptance had tears gathering in Ichirou's eyes again, and he lifted his hands to wipe them away but stopped when he saw the blood still coating his fingers. With a grimace, he said, "I'll be right back."
Once Ichirou disappeared into the bathroom, Rion took up his silent vigil, staring at the surgery doors. It was her brother back there, after all. Ichirou wasn't the only one who loved him.
Once Shirou was out of the hospital, he would need protection—not only from the people who shot him, but from uppity yakuza who thought he was an easy, injured target. Rion wasn't worried about that, though. There would be no better guard dog than Ichirou. The hard part would be protecting Shirou from himself and his stubborn refusal to rest. On that part, Ichirou might need some backup.
Rion would keep the investigation going while Shirou recovered. It would distract her from how close she'd come to losing her brother, and would give the boys time to figure out the truth of their relationship status. If Rion could give them a target to focus on once they were back in the game, well, she almost felt bad for whomever it was. Almost, but not quite.
After all, they had tried to kill her junior and had actually shot her baby brother. Let Ichirou do to them what he would. Rion would support him all the way.
…
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fin