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Sugiura laid in bed, wide awake and staring at the ceiling tiles. It was three AM, he had barely gotten any sleep. It never really came naturally for him; he always had a lot of thoughts racing through his head, more so after Emi’s death.
It had been a year since Shono’s actions had come to light, and Sugiura thought that when it had happened, he’d find a sense of peace within himself. He wasn’t so angry anymore; Yagami was not the monster that the thief had always thought he was, and Okubo was just an innocent man who had lost the love of his life and spent too long paying for someone else’s crime. The men who were causing so much pain and trouble in Kamurocho were dead, and while Sugiura was happy that everything was okay again, it couldn’t stop his thoughts or the feeling of unease he found himself having when it was all said and done.
He didn’t know what to do with himself now that everything was over. It made him feel just as awfully about himself as he did years ago when he was still a shut in. He tried to keep himself as busy as he could; sometimes he stopped by the Yagami Detective Agency, offered any help he could give to Kaito and Yagami. Sometimes it gave Sugiura something to do and a bit of pocket money, but usually they never had anything for the thief to do.
Sometimes Sugiura found himself at Charles, asking the manager if he needed any help with customers or keeping the place tidy. Higashi would stare Sugiura down, his lips curling up into a smirk.
“You’ve really got nothing else to do, huh, Sugiura?”
It wasn’t surprising he would ask; the two hadn’t gotten along for a good portion of the case, and Sugiura had always done anything in his power to antagonize the older man, bring him off that high horse that the thief assumed Higashi sat on. But once Sugiura had come clean about his past, the two got along better. Higashi took the night to care for the thief, offered up a shoulder to cry on, literally.
It was embarrassing for the thief; he hated anyone knowing the real him, and more importantly, the usual Charles clerk had been standing ten feet away behind the counter, heard every excruciating detail about Sugiura’s past. It felt bad enough letting the other three men know, but someone that Sugiura barely knew or even trusted? Higashi must’ve picked up on how uncomfortable it had made the other man, as he had brought Sugiura to the back room to cry.
“Y’know, even if my clerk knows everything, he’s pretty good at keeping secrets to himself. He’s not gonna think anything of it. It’ll probably endear you to him, if anything.”
Higashi wasn’t wrong. When Sugiura would stop in, the clerk would smile at him, chat with the thief and make sure everything was going well. Sugiura felt a lot less self conscious about it after a while; it was kind of nice having people that seemed like they genuinely cared about him. Once Emi had died, he really felt alone in his life.
Hell, sometimes he still felt that way. Strangers made the thief nervous; Kamurocho felt unpredictable, and given Sugiura’s past, he found it hard to truly feel like he could trust anyone. He mostly kept to himself, still ran across the roofs and kept his eyes on the streets, focused on the people that hung around Kamurocho.
But nowadays even that felt lacking. When Sugiura was with his gang, it felt important to know what was going on in the streets, get an idea of what could potentially go wrong during a heist, and the best way to evade trouble. And hell, when Sugiura was eyeing Yagami, it was always nice to know what the detective did with his time.
Fuckall, usually. And sometimes it made Sugiura wonder how the hell the man had even gotten such a good reputation around Kamurocho as a lawyer when his life seemed so void of any purpose. Or maybe Sugiura was just plotting his revenge and thinking harshly of the man, trying his best not to humanize the detective so that he could carry out his plan without remorse.
Sugiura still wondered what Yagami actually did with his days. The detective had said that cases were lacking, and it was why they couldn’t take Sugiura up on his offer to help. Despite that, he was usually out and about daily. Sugiura supposed it was better than nothing; Yagami could probably find someone in need, and it was being proactive, rather than just letting the days pass by, like Sugiura had gotten accustomed to doing.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. At first, Sugiura did his best to fill his time after he had recovered from his gunshot wound at the ADDC. When Okubo got released from prison, Sugiura would often visit him, go shopping with him, and do what he could to help the older man acclimate to the outside world again. But after a couple of months, Okubo moved. He had said he wanted to try and pick himself up away from where he had experienced so much hurt and heartache, start fresh and make a better life for himself.
They still kept in touch, and as much as Sugiura hated to admit it, he felt like he had lost something when Okubo moved. He was hours away, it wasn’t so easy to just up and go visit him as it had been before. It felt selfish to admit, but Sugiura felt like it was one more person leaving him. And he hated to think it, because he knew Emi never would have left him alone of her own accord. Emi was thoughtful and loyal; she stuck through everything until the bitter end.
Sometimes, Sugiura wondered how she would feel about how the ADDC ended up. When Sugiura was out of the hospital after his gunshot wound, Yagami caught him up with everything that had happened. The ADDC was shut down immediately. And Sugiura wished he could say good riddance; that place had gone on longer than it should have, and the only reason it hung on for dear life was because of that fucking AD-9 drug.
But at the same time, Sugiura couldn’t help but feel bad. Despite how many awful men were keeping the place running for their own schemes and gain, there were actual doctors and nurses, people who were trying to do some real good there. And what about all the patients that were staying there? Where were they going to go, now that it was all over without any real time to prepare before the place had shut down?
Fuck, there were so many people looking forward to AD-9, hoping it would bring back their loved ones. It was part of why Emi had wanted to work at the ADDC; their grandmother had gone through dementia, and every time the family would go visit, it was just awful. Most of the time, she couldn’t even recognize anyone, and she would get so upset with herself knowing she should’ve known who they were.
Sometimes, Sugiura would find her hitting herself in anger. When they got home, he’d lock himself in his room and cry. Emi always made him hot chocolate, brought it up to him and sat with her little brother, rubbing his back and singing to him to soothe his nerves.
She would’ve been the perfect nurse to visit patients and brighten their day. She had once told Sugiura that if she could leave someone feeling even a little bit better than when she got to them, she considered her job accomplished. Sugiura wondered if any of the other doctors or nurses felt so strongly about their jobs as Emi had.
He liked to think that once upon a time, the ADDC wasn’t all bad.
He hoped that they weren’t too devastated by the ADDC shutting down. It was going to happen regardless, back before AD-9 had been announced, but the writing seemed like it was on the wall anyway back then. To go from having a steady job to finding out the higher ups were lying to everyone and causing more harm, it must’ve felt like a total betrayal, to know that all the good they were trying to do was helping to back up pure evil.
Sugiura took in a deep breath. He didn’t want to spiral into all of these negative thoughts; from past experience, all it did was weigh him down and make him feel worse about himself and his life. He had helped to bring down a bunch of men involved in the fucked up AD-9 experiments, and he had recorded evidence of who Shono truly was.
He was doing better than he ever wanted to think, and he felt like he had to give himself a break. But it felt hard when a year later, Sugiura felt like he really hadn’t gone anywhere in his life and currently wasn't even doing much with himself.
He felt something shift next to him, and then a hand resting gently on top of his forearm.
“Still up, Sugiura?”
Higashi. They’d been dating for eight months now, and he stayed with Sugiura often. It started off innocently enough; Sugiura found himself enamored with the older man at some point during the case, though when exactly that was, the thief couldn’t quite remember. He’d hazard a guess that it was around the time that Higashi watched over him when they stayed in that back room of Charles.
With nothing to really do with his days, Sugiura often ventured into Charles, telling himself it was to look for some part-time work or play some games. It felt embarrassing that the clerk must’ve known something was up; it got to a point where every time Sugiura came in, the yakuza immediately got Higashi from the back room.
Higashi didn’t seem to mind Sugiura hanging around. If anything, he had told the younger man to pop in more if he didn’t have anything to do; said he didn’t mind the company.
“Feels nice to know someone cares.”
He said it so nonchalantly, adding in a chuckle when Sugiura had seemed so taken aback. The yakuza probably just wanted to make it seem lighthearted, but Sugiura took it seriously. He’d made it a bad habit to feel so alone even though he knew that there were people in his life now that cared about him. It just felt like a difficult adjustment after years of only depending on himself, but he was trying.
“You woke me up, y’know,” Sugiura lied. Higashi knew he barely slept; the man took notice of the little things, like the change in how the man breathed at night. Sometimes it felt like Higashi always took note of things, remembered everything about other people. He always seemed so lonely; it might’ve been what drew Sugiura in. He felt like he and Higashi had some things in common; they had both lost the only people in their corner, and Sugiura had later learned, they both had a mind for revenge.
“Bullshit.”
Higashi let out a slight chuckle, cuddled up closer to Sugiura, letting his head rest on the younger man’s chest. He took Sugiura’s hand, interlaced their fingers. Sugiura let out a contented sigh and closed his eyes. When Higashi could let himself be close, it helped to alleviate all the bad that Sugiura let build up in his head. It was like he could forget all the things that made him feel poorly about himself, and for a minute, he could just breathe and feel content with all the things he had accomplished.
Despite how fucked up Sugiura still felt, Higashi didn’t care and liked him anyway.
It surprised Sugiura, when Higashi had first made a move. Because who the fuck would even want a past fucked up shut-in and currently reformed thief with too many head problems? Probably someone just as fucked up, though Higashi hid it well. Sugiura tried to, but it felt like Higashi could see right through him.
Maybe Sugiura let the man see through him.
They had been at Charles; it was late at night, the clerk had gone home for the day, and Sugiura was hanging around because he had nothing better to do and figured he could at least use some company. Higashi offered drinks, and they flowed pretty quickly.
Sugiura had eventually made his way to the bench; he wasn’t really a drinker, but Higashi was offering and Sugiura wasn’t gonna refuse the company. They laughed about dumb shit that they saw in Kamurocho, one thing led to another, and before Sugiura could even fully realize what was going on, Higashi had sat down next to him, grabbed his face, and kissed the thief.
“You’re really drunk, Higashi-san.”
Sugiura had just wanted to lighten the tension that he felt. He didn’t even know how he should have reacted. He laughed, but the look on Higashi’s face told him that it was the wrong thing to say. When he got up, Sugiura grabbed the man’s arm. He didn’t want Higashi to feel bad or embarrassed. He leaned in, kissed the man back.
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing, Higashi-san. I’m really drunk too.”
Every time they looked back, they always laughed about how it really took liquid courage to get the ball rolling. But neither minded; if it’s what it took to get to where they were, so be it. Sugiura knew he wouldn’t have the natural courage to bring it up.
Funny how he could feel good enough to run with his old gang and steal from so many companies, lie and make his way into Yagami’s team, and even help get to the bottom of the AD-9 scandal, but admitting his true feelings for someone else felt beyond him.
Sugiura wrapped an arm around Higashi.
“Are you okay?” the older man asked. Sugiura smiled, kissed the top of the Higashi’s head. Most days he had doubts about where he was in his life; he was a man in his mid-twenties that bounced around doing part-time work, and felt like he had no real achievements he’d accomplished in his life.
But that wasn’t really true; it’s what Sugiura was used to telling himself. It was a bad habit he was trying to kick, and most days he felt like he was getting better at it. But when it was late at night and Sugiura couldn’t sleep, the dark thoughts sometimes crept in.
“Yeah.”
Sugiura let out a slight laugh and closed his eyes, tightened his grasp on Higashi. He felt like with this level of closeness and comfort, maybe he could finally get some sleep. Already, he had that light feeling in his body, the kind that meant that any moment, a restful sleep was on the horizon. Sugiura would happily welcome it.
Some days were good, and he had no real reason to pick on himself. Other days, no matter what he tried to do to distract himself, his mind jumped to everything he had ever done wrong. But truthfully, those days were becoming fewer and further between.
Sugiura never really knew if he was okay, but at the very least, slowly but surely, he knew he was getting there.