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Chapter Text

‘An object remains at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force.’

***
» Friday, 21:31 — Kanato

Winter evenings make for cool companions—ah. But it’s night now, isn’t it? Winter nights are cool companions for the cool-headed Fura Kanato. Who, in his excessive leniency afforded only ever to his favourites, hovers his thumb over the lit rectangle of his phone. He is cool. Collected. Very calm. Not at all irked by the way the cold bites through his coat and seeps between the shoulder-blades, where the streetlamp has staled his body heat.

He is but one ghostly silhouette caught still in a puddle of amber. The Tokyo crowd mills on by—absent-minded, uninterested, unassuming. And steadily petering out, ever since the sun slipped. It’s winter; the granular flow of bodies is inherently less. Reduction of motion, thus reduction of friction, thus temperature drops—Seraph would say something like that. Fura Kanato merely thinks,
So much for Friday nightlife.

Two hours past the designated meeting time: a person less patient than Kanato might have already decided—this is what is ordinarily called ‘being stood-up’.
Rather, patience is one of Kanato’s better, more personable traits. A cornerstone in desirability, therefore: Fura Kanato doesn’t get ‘stood up’. Make no mistake—this isn’t that. Simply because his forbearance tends to outlast even the most ambling of stragglers. Cue example:

‘Held up’, so he says.
Kanato looks down the lane: squares of light cast onto pavement, others blinked out half an hour ago. In the restaurant across the road, a couple in the window have their plates shepherded off and replaced with luscious, chocolatey desserts. For the umpteenth time—Kanato lost count—they crane their necks to toss glances over the way. This is the first time Kanato returns a frown. They bid pitiable, struck looks, before hastily turning back on their fancy volcano cakes.
A car zooms past. Out in the chill, Kanato ducks his head, bunching his scarf tighter.

Damn right they are. Never mind the ones on the block Kanato stands on; the dinner rush is long since over. So much for the kitchens—it’s bar hour, now. Disappointment growls in his stomach, I’m hungry.

This isn’t that, alright? Mishaps aren’t the same as being ‘stood up’. Hibari wouldn’t do that to him—can’t do that to him, because the context of ‘being stood up’ implies that, to begin with, whatever rendezvous was organised was categorically labelled as a date. Which it wasn’t. Isn’t, never will be. Because he and Hibari aren’t dating.

Outside his bubble of light, the lux levels drop with each minute wasted. Again, his stomach warbles its displeasure. Since he’s half-starved and freezing, he makes the difficult decision not to afford Hibari the extra half-to-full hour his usually exemplary tolerance offers.

Want to be semantic about it? Hibari is the one being stood up, not him. See?

Points for effort. Like an unwanted flyer, Kanato peels himself off the pole. The plastic bag dangling on his wrist bumps his knee—a new gaming mouse to join the collection of unused gaming mice. Evidence of time killed by means of window-shopping done before the stores closed.
It’s okay. It’s just Murphy’s Law. As a working adult, some stuff just can’t be avoided. Company meetings, vocal training, dance practice, back-alley stakeouts—sure.
The screen flip-flops, stupid brightness slider fluctuating up-down as he passes between lampposts standing sentry. Like a rock thrown to water, Kanato barges briskly through the on-off fluorescence.

But this isn’t about the ins-and-outs of Kanato’s schedule. This is about that awful, terrible little thing, ticking away in perpetual motion: ‘time.’

It gets lost. That obligatory eight hours’ sleep and all—but also in the cracks. It slips between the fingers: minutes in traffic, mindlessly scrolling a phone, making plans on Discord that get hung out to dry—tattered remains left to plod down a dark street, alone in a thinning crowd.
Like, y’know. A bit like Kanato right now.

Hey, it’s cool. It’s not as if he got stood up, alright? It’s winding down—unconcerned meandering and a bit of retail therapy.
It was just a hangout. Who cares if dinner’s, like, three hours late? Convenience store pork buns certainly won’t. Kanato’s an expert in all manners of ‘doomed’—he walked here, and he’ll walk back. And it’ll take long enough that there will come a point where the pork buns can’t get any colder.

It’s fine. Really.

Halfway toward the station, his phone pings—

This is the thing about being friends, y’know? No hard feelings. Friends aren’t supposed to be obligations. Not like a lover, or a partner, or family dinner, or a dog that needs feeding. Hang out, then it’s over, until the next day pitches a fresh round of antics.
‘Friends’. It’s okay—he’s an expert, you see?

He’s thirteen years doomed, after all.

***
» Monday, 09:41 — Kanato

There’s this inkling Kanato’s had, lately.
A nag; a tug at the back of the mind. It sits at the base of the neck and tap-tap-taps until he deigns to turn his head—with a joke, always with a joke on the tip of the tongue. Partway, it falls out his woefully lonely mouth with nobody to catch it.

‘Absence’ isn’t the wrong turn of phrase. Into the wastepaper bin, where ‘stood up’ is also balled, thrown and decidedly wrong. Neither are right, since work has them bumping elbows nearly every day: meetings or practice, the constant ribbing goes on undeterred. Footsies under the table, stupid faces exchanged behind Akira’s back. Hibari, same as ever—flush-faced and grinning big, tripping over his own feet and then hitting a high G-note for fun.

These are the little exhilarants that Kanato lives in. Small victories he tallies and secrets away, in the pocket of memory linked to his heart. That’s where the visions are—the field of two-tone flyaways dancing makes of Hibari’s hair, that Kanato wants so badly to ruffle silly. Or the way Hibari’s brow sets in a single-minded scrunch under Coach’s choreo corrections, that Kanato desperately wishes to smooth something sweet.
Those huge smiles stockpile, you know? They keep Kanato’s disposition sunny when the sun isn’t out. When Hibari skips just shy of grasping, true-blue phantom thief that he is.

The visions are backlogged for the gloom of a deserted ‘now-and-then’—which is starting to become a far-too-frequent ‘sometimes’.

There’s just no space for jokes during work, so Kanato saves them for the gaps between. They build like an itch, crawling under skin. These fine, jerkwater bids for scraps of attention—before Hibari is whisked out the door, blurting his excuse of the hour.

‘Jam sesh with the guys!’
‘Got ramen with Fuwacchi tonight, seeya!’

This inkling of his, Kanato thinks, resides in the cavity where Watarai Hibari is supposed to be.

***
» Tuesday, 20:29

Let’s be reasonable. Kanato isn’t the kind of guy to die from a lack of crush-laden attention.
Monday night, he shot Hibari a meme—got a reply the following morning, standard fare. The moment passes. And passes, too, for every other meme Kanato sends. Some humour is designed to be a fleeting dopamine hit, and that’s fine.

Over the weekend—plus Monday—Hibari jumps to and fro as follows: Datoka stuff, helping out juniors, recording and mixing for his personal plans.
When was the last time Kanato managed to catch Hibari for an offline, off-stream hangout? In the low-lit quiet of Café Zeffiro after-hours, these are the questions drumming his fingers.

There’s a long night of paperwork ahead of him, so he saved himself a cup of coffee before they shut the machines off at noon. The heat has shucked free of it, with every wisp of vapour gone in elapsed seconds. It’s not recent, and neither is it Hibari’s special blend. It nonetheless queues faithfully by his wrist, where Kanato expertly flicks open next week’s roster.
The empty seat across the table whispers, you used to have company.
Kanato snorts softly. Hah. Wouldn’t every eligible bachelor love nighttime company? Unanimous experiences of the lovelorn can’t be counted among losses. There’d be way too many, and the statistics would skew datasets.

Even though it’s been a while.

Scent of vanilla fading, the laptop hums the gradual death of its battery life. The roster, Kanato knows, is something he ought to leave to Zeffiro’s manager. There’s not a mote of shame in admitting he’d rather not, if only because Zeffiro is his favourite and his first. Like Hibari, in a lot of ways—whose name is nowhere on the spreadsheet.
All squares are void of his initials. If he were to open the files of weeks past, they’d be blank there too. And if he were to create files of weeks coming, those too would be utterly blank. But his name’s in the system, and Kanato has declared ‘no’ so often that his employees have stopped wondering aloud if he’ll ever take it off.

And so he goes about his ritual habit of combing his notifications before admin: emails cleared; spam deleted and forgotten drafts erased or sent. Calendar timestamps typed into the notepad to check against staff meetings. Discord—tick-tick-tick; group chats marked as read, save for the ones with red badges, and—pause.

Fingers stilling, his lips press thin.

It’s fine, it’s really fine, is what he tells himself. Why-ever would it mean anything?

In digital green, the call timer announces six hours and counting, two familiar icons fitted neatly underneath. Seraph and Hibari, as brotherly as ever. Getting along, as Voltaction is wont to do. Group stuff! Vibes. Satisfied, Kanato minimises the window. Dissatisfied with his satisfaction, maximises it again. Catches himself straying toward the join button, snaps the cursor away. Maybe six hours ago he could’ve shuffled his work—it’s a bit late now.

“Six hours,” he mutters, and pointedly does not scowl.

Maybe Seraph and Hibari had six-hour plans? Probably not. But what if they did? It’s poor practice to argue for what you can hardly guess at, isn’t it? They probably had plans, right? Since—if Kanato thinks too hard—Hibari owes him hours of time and a dinner or two. If he had any free, wouldn’t he have said something?

‘Let’s go for ramen?’ or ‘Wanna hit the movies?’—it’d be a lie to say he wasn’t hopelessly waiting the weekend away for, like. Literally anything. Hook, line, sinker, except Hibari won’t even rig a speck of bait. Fura Kanato is, perhaps, the world’s most pathetic fish.
As much as Hibari likes fishing, there’s not much in the way of want for a sucker like Kanato.

The thought lands stray, where Kanato idly rubs the pad of his thumb over the side of his index. It tightens his throat and whitens the knuckles, before he lets it pull his shoulders taut—and release. A long sigh that drains venom.
Just another exercise in the masterworks of being doomed. Volume III: How to Manage Yearning that Otherwise Turns Poisonous.

So it is un-bitterly, thank you, that Kanato reminds himself: back to work, work needs patience, and patience is the cornerstone of a good man. Thirteen years’ practice.

Don’t be so proud of that, snips an inner monologue that sounds an awful lot like Akira. Why aren’t you over him yet?

If only. The ridiculous obsession with things like six-hour call timers and hangouts that don’t happen and read receipts left to boil and unfilled rosters—would all matter a lot less, wouldn’t they?
There is a beat where Kanato considers painting the weekend shifts in Hibari’s colour, just to trap him behind the counter. But it’s a horribly petty thought, and Kanato is supposed to be better than his catty demons. Begrudging, he allocates the blocks to his part-timers instead.

It’s not that he can’t get over him—it—him—Hibari. It’ll happen. Maybe when the human lungs learn to get over breathing oxygen. In the guise of Akira, his common sense arches its brows. It nods along, humouring his screwball logic.

No, he’s not brooding. He isn’t.

***
» Thursday, 18:50 — Kanato

It’s objectively impressive, how much Hibari thrives under pressure from all sides.
They say this is how diamonds are formed—and Hibari is, by all accounts, probably the king of all diamonds in the rough. Live audience or no; mere rehearsal or bona fide performance, he gets on the stage and sings until he’s fit to burst.

It is infuriating, in the petty, gnawing way that sitting alone in a call is, watching that green ring light up around Hibari’s name a server over. Like passing the ball court in the middle of a game that Kanato wasn’t invited to.

It’s unrealistic of you, says the Akira of the mind.
To which Kanato grouses, yes, I know.
It’s unfair of you, states conscience-Akira.
One might expect his conscience to have learned his petulant immaturity. But more powerful than his petulant immaturity is his understanding of Hibari, the world of adults, and the genuine misfortune of bodies designed to die after eighty years. Or like—thirty, if Kanato is unlucky. Point is—he knows what it takes to pour the soul into a tunnel-visioned funnel of passion. But there’s supposed to be a recoil.

Question one: where is the recoil?
It seems like there’s just more. Rehearsals, practice, mixes, music work.
So he can only glower at his own reason—the roof makes for excellent proxy. For as long as it takes until the sensible, Akira-shaped portion of his brain huffs and quits shift. One of these days, it might even hand in a termination form.

***

Somewhere in the cool-off, Kanato might’ve thought he’d get a word in. A late-night Discord call. A stupid, meaningless game. A five-minute conversation that isn’t work-related. Anything not in front of a live audience, eyes locked on every move.

Is it even worth checking his availability? A harmless, casual ‘yo’ tossed unto the DM seas. The week’s packed, though, and Kanato can rattle off the textbook sequence:
‘Oh, sorry man, I gotta run—rehearsal in five,’ or ‘in a call with Datoka rn, talk later?’

Question two: when is later?
It was supposed to be a week ago, Kanato believes. Or, if he’s being pedantic about it, two weeks. Maybe even three. Exhaling sharply, Kanato slumps in his chair, feet flexing out stiffness from camping his desktop. The backrest goes angular with how far he leans.

It isn’t entirely Hibari’s fault. Sometimes he catches a text in the late-hour streaming block—a rogue ‘you free?’ that’s often usurped by ‘nvm, ttyl’—probably snatched up by someone who’s not actually half-asleep by one in the morning. Flashing that easy, sunlit cheer that makes absolutely everyone feel like the object of undivided attention. Except Kanato, apparently.

Damn animal.

Stupid, busy, loyal to a fault, over-friendly dog.
Kanato’s not going to die, or anything. This is the sort of stuff that makes Hibari himself: free wings made manifest in a brilliant whirlwind boy. It’d just be nice to be reminded Kanato exists outside of business meetings and his crush’s phone. Was that selfish? Well.

It might be selfish. It might even be entitled, not that Kanato is—that’d be ridiculous. That’s for lovers. Key argument being lover-s, plural. In the one half of ‘lovers’ that makes up Fura Kanato, it’s an entirely meaningless moniker. A pitiable token of overeager pining.
Just, y’know. Head in hands—groaning, he miscalculates and hits the desk instead. His keyboard silently screams a string of characters into the text box of Hibari’s DMs. Which brooks nothing, and likely never will.

It just kinda sucks.

***

***
» Friday, 13:56 — Hibari

There are a thousand loose ends to chase up, and so it’s naturally difficult to chase people down.
At any given time, these could be anything. Too many days without streaming, a missed call from his manager, a mishap that detours his daily routine. Fixes that have to be stuffed in the gaps—assuming there are any gaps.
And, y’know, it’s not so bad. It ensures that dreamless, satisfied sort of sleep only productivity can deliver. Hibari likes it when harmonies click together nice. When he gets a new sound out of his mix—when things work out, in general. Fixes are requisite to staying upbeat and on-beat. There’s absolutely nothing to complain about.

Crouched in front of a company vending machine, Hibari has something to complain about.

He’d love to say it’s to do with the drink selection. That would be solvable—toss a coin or find another vendor. Unfortunately, he knows that he wants the can of black coffee. Punching in the number and watching it drop behind the flap serves little else other than to quench his caffeine craving. The feel of an object misplaced remains. He pats his pockets: finds his keys, his phone, his wallet pleasantly present. For once, no proof of his forgetfulness, save for this bothersome, persistent needling that—something is missing.

He draws his phone from his pocket. Into the Voltaction group chat:

Stumped, Hibari is left to simmer. It’s not a bad feeling—just an off one.

***

Even when Hibari dumps his stuff in the comfort of his own home, the feeling does not give.

All his items are accounted for. His schedule is clear for the weekend. All of Datoka’s technical difficulties are handled, and even Hibari’s multitude of guitars are perfectly tuned. The mountain of plastic bottles remains—in untouched perpetuity—on his kitchen bench and his desk. Not a single badge in his notifications, save for a few tweets that will go out automatically on schedule.

He pats himself down in the mirror—wholly uninjured. Even opens his mouth and squints at the state of his throat—looks fine. The ill-defined ‘restlessness’ prevails. Frowning, he screws his face in the glass, and slides his eyes down. His toothbrush lays astray in the sink basin; he pops it back in the cup by the faucet. For a second, he’s a thousand percent sure that must’ve been it—his toothbrush stays in the cup, always. But still, the unease preens on his shoulders.

What is he missing? Hibari urges himself—think about it. Venturing out back into the living, he verifies the bins. Odd—he doesn’t remember emptying them, but he must’ve. The fridge and pantry are sufficiently supplied. There’s not a hair out of place in the junkyard of Hibari’s floordrobe apartment.

Missing, he muses, arms folding across his chest. He’s missing something. What is he missing? The guys at Voltaction, maybe? Not Datoka—their meets are too loose in the first place. But Voltaction doesn’t make sense, either. He saw Seraph and Akira plenty, and Kanato—

Ah.
Oh. Oops.

At once, the sensation goes sideways. Evaporating in the gratifying ‘pop’ that inexact thoughts tend to do. They graduate into a fully-formed realisation that—for Hibari—tends to be excitingly enlightening, or terrifyingly tummy-turning.

Now. If he were to be reasonable, he’d say, why would Kanato care? His feet are already answering—they pass the baton to his hands, which lift his phone and swipe open Discord to scroll the chat. He forgot to reply to the most recent message—wham. It hits him square. He scrolls up—a meme he didnt react to. Wham. Further, further still, wham-wham-wham—a surplus of missed texts and hangouts that clang like alarms in Hibari’s head:

And if he digs even further back—

Every single one, met with its own kind variation of—

At last, that lingering doubt finally imparts its identity:
I’ve forgotten Kanato.

Hibari grits his teeth, scrubs at his hair. It’s not like he’s obligated to give Kanato time, but when he thinks about it—shit. Far from neglect, but he’s managed to sideline his best friend. It’s funny, in a twisted, unfortunate way. Kanato’s not the type to chase people down for attention; he doesn’t complain about anything that matters.

A solo-playing, egotistical fool with too much pride to admit all his pouts were symptomatic of—if Hibari were to wager on how he’d say it—‘being a little lonely’.

Hibari exhales a laugh. Yeah, that checks out. Well, that won’t do at all.

***
» Thursday, 19:30 — Hibari

Hibari’s never been much for planning. ‘When is later’ is a question he would’ve asked himself—as in, if he were the one left stranded four-to-five consecutive weeks. He winces.
Answer: now’s as good a time as any, right? Easy, simple, no problem-o—although, it kind of is, because Hibari lives further out than Kanato and traffic’s a pain in the ass. But he figures, he really owes it to Kanato anyway.
And since he knows Kanato’s kitchen situation is basically tragic, he even swings by the 24/7 supermarket first for a few all-purpose ingredients. It doesn’t require Kanato to own anything beyond, like—a single pan and a knife that hopefully isn’t eight generations old and used in a murder.

So he hops back in his car and endures the wait—humming along under his breath to whatever rock his Bluetooth system shuffles on. Eventually pulls up on the curb of Kanato’s huge, extravagant apartment building. One step out of his car and the aura of luxury whaps him in the face like a blast of summer humidity—he should be used to it by now, but maybe his brain has forgotten in lieu of a month’s neglect of visiting. Whoops.

In his white hoodie and denim jeans, he ambles stiffly into the lobby. High-end, with its marble floors and manicured monstera display. Tastefully elegant, in the way Kanato likes. The receptionist lifts her head, blinks, exclaims, “Oh! Watarai-san, it’s been a while! Shall I buzz you in to Fura-sama?”

It takes all of Hibari not to flinch. He grins sheepishly, “Yes, please.”

The concierge says, “You know the number.”

For the brief duration spent in the elevator, Hibari wonders if there are laws against changing held-call music and elevator jazz. With a cute ding, the doors slide open to the long hallway—thick carpet, moodily lit. Hibari’s focus strays to the cameras tucked in corners—or the globular domes sliding their tiny red dots around in surveillance. There’s so many, given it’s—if he’s remembering right—two-to-four units on a floor. But Ibu-san and Fuwacchi’s apartments are much the same, so all it gets is the reflexive scoff: rich kid.

Coming up on Kanato’s door, Hibari’s pace starts to stagger. It’s not nerves, is it? There’s just so much gilded opulence afforded by… less modest living. Not that Kanato isn’t modest—well. Not that he is modest, but he’s not—not modest—god. Whatever. Hit the damn button. He’s about to lean in for the intercom when the lock clicks.

Light spills into the hall, and Hibari is—for a moment—forced to squint to make anything of Kanato’s silhouette, before his eyes adjust. He ekes out a half-hearted, “Hey.”

“…Hibari,” Kanato replies stupidly. There’s a vicious furrow in his brow. “What’re you doing here?”

“Thought I’d drop by…?”

Kanato makes a sound in his throat that sounds awfully close to confusion, or even dismay. “Now?”

For a debilitating second, Hibari’s confidence drops like a stone to the tips of his toes. This always happens—or, more like, this is what happens when he forgets to text ‘I’m coming over’. Just as well an ambush.

“Oh, I mean—is now not a good time?” ‘Cause, like, what if—what if Kanato has guests, already? Like his cousin, or—geez. Like a girl, or something? It’s been a month, and they’ve hardly talked, what if Kanato made new friends and Hibari just hasn’t heard? “If you have, like—people over, I can clear out…”

It dies brittle on the floor between them. He didn’t think this through.
Kanato, for his part, lets his brows trek toward his hairline. Loose tee and sweats, he pries the door further open and says wryly, “I’m free. Just wasn’t expecting you to show, is all.”

Oof. Okay. There’s no spite in it, but pure, unadulterated surprise stings all the same.
That’s not how it’s meant to be.

Hibari offers meekly, “I brought food?”

Like granting a favour, Kanato waves him inside. “Sure, man. Be my guest.”

Kanato’s place is as nice as ever—big, huge living area and its offshoot rooms. High-floor corner apartment; clean tile at the genkan, a dark shoe cabinet, one neat umbrella stand. Warm wood floors over the threshold, once Hibari passes the hallway where the bedrooms and bathroom are. The sort of expense that lowers the voice without meaning to. There’s just so much empty wall.
Hibari drops the bag on the counter-top—broad, open-plan living-dining area. Nice couch, sleek coffee table and sleeker TV. It’s cleaner than he remembers—a notion that lands funny. The Nintendo Switch 2 is missing from its stand—probably in Kanato’s room with his streaming setup. The rest is the same as ever: balcony behind glass doors, a fancy coffee machine, a toaster. Not a whole lot else.

The place is big enough to echo if someone dropped a spoon, but Kanato lives in it like a man temporarily inhabiting a hotel room. A couch, a dining table covered in his papers. A rug that probably costs more than Hibari’s guitar pedals combined. There’s the faint scent of coffee and the detergent Kanato uses, but it really is suspiciously clean.

“Kitchen’s still tragic?” Hibari asks, hopeful.

Echoing from the genkan, Kanato’s voice answers, “Define tragic?”

“Like, ‘we’re cooking tonight’ tragic.”

The shadows spit him into the light, where he’s trying to pat down the cowlicks making a dandelion of his head. Smoothing down the fringe, one slips timidly from under his thumb—

“You missed one,” Hibari gestures at his own head.

Blinking wide, Kanato reflects the motion—the cowlick is levelled by another swift dash of the palm. They trade thumbs-ups before Kanato juts his chin at the grocery bag.

“You’re cooking?”

“You think I forgot how to cook?”

“That’s not what worries me.”

Rolling his eyes, Hibari turns to unpacking things onto the counter. Free-range eggs. A bundle of noodles. Some vegetables that looked reasonably healthy under fluorescent supermarket lighting. A small carton of milk he grabbed in case Kanato drank all of his.

Kanato leans his hip against the counter’s edge, arms folded. “So. To what do I owe the honour?”

Caught with a leek, Hibari scratches idly at the back of his neck. “I figured I kinda owe you dinner.”

Kanato hums. “It’s not as if it was urgent,” he says mildly. Then, earnest, “You didn’t have to go out of your way.”
It lands softly, easily—exactly how Hibari recalls it appearing in chat. Admittedly dismissible.

Shrinking violets don’t suit Kanato—Hibari grimaces. He honestly favours Kanato’s sunny impositions. “I kept rescheduling ‘next time’ and it was bothering me.”

Kanato shrugs one shoulder. “Life happens.”

“Yeah.” But. “Here now though.”

Sink squeaks on, water running over the vegetables. The faucet hisses steadily through the quiet. Fingers tap-tap-tapping away on the counter join the sink in harmony; Kanato’s watchful gaze prickles Hibari’s back.

“So,” Hibari tries, “you been busy?”

“Eh. Moderately.”

Over his shoulder, Kanato is the same as always—hair mussed, probably from lounging before the doorbell almost happened. Sharp in the eyes; unfailingly, strikingly blue. It’s a small victory they’re not downcast, even if his reactions lag behind his words.
It isn’t supposed to be this awkward.

“So what’ve you been up to?” Hibari presses.

“Same stuff as ever?” the tapping stops; Hibari counts time before Kanato says, “I was hanging out at Zeffiro Wednesday night.”

Wait, really? “You didn’t mention the café was open late again.”

“It wasn’t open, per se,” Kanato drawls, “Also, you didn’t ask.”

Ouch. It doesn’t cut when Kanato says it. It’s the same as weather commentary—Hibari recoils all the same.

“That’s fair.”

The knife glints—chop. There’s some unnecessary force in his slicing of the carrot.

“You’re going to destroy my cutting board.”

“No I’m not.”

“You so are.”

“It looks new, man. I’m giving it character.”

“Scarring it, you mean.”

“Exactly. That’s what they’re for.” Another beat. Hibari glances sideways. “You could help, y’know.”

“Ehhh…” the tone drags, worn on the edges. “You told me you were gonna make it up to me.”

It was supposedly a day off for everyone but Hibari—though he’s starting to question whether that’s really the case. Hibari glares at a bruise on the carrot, pokes at it a bit with his knife, and decides it’s probably fine anyway. They won’t taste it once it’s cooked in.

“I didn’t say I wanted to do all the work.”

With terrible inconvenience, Kanato sighs. The stool scrapes as he pushes himself off the counter.

“Fine… what’s my job?”

“Crack the eggs,” Hibari says primly.
It’s the safest possible task—

“I don’t wanna crack the eggs.”

—and it’s also funny. Kanato is the sort of man who takes offence at being given eggs.

“Then don’t help.”

Behind him, Kanato scoffs. But he rolls up his sleeves regardless, mouth twitching on a smile. The nearest thing to one Hibari’s seen on him since the door opened. “This is some twisted reverse psychology.”

It shouldn’t make Hibari feel as relieved as it does. Shoulders loosening minutely, he rounds back on the cutting board. Off to the side, the soft thock of eggs against ceramic echoes and cracks: one after another, careful and neat.

“Ack.”

“Eggshell?”

“I’m getting it out.”

The faucet shuts off. Shaking his hands dry, Hibari reaches for the nearest pan. “Do you have oil?”

Another loud crick, followed by a mumbled string of swears. Then: “Probably.”

Already making for the pantry, Hibari barks a laugh— “Don’t you live here?”

Rummaging through cupboards—plates, no. A sparse variety of mugs, also no, and immensely disappointing. Pod coffee even though Kanato has—yep. Beans. Thud-thud-thud, for every one that closes.

Meanwhile, Kanato, picking flecks of shell out of his bowl, says, “You telling me you remember your entire pantry?”

Well, no. “That’s fair.”

“And thus,” Kanato pronounces, “the mystery persists. Also I cracked all the eggs.”

Small and startled, Hibari chuckles despite himself. A cabinet door flaunts open to reveal a range of glass and plastic bottles. Amidst them: sauces, pepper, and—avast! At long last, the oil.

With the accusatory air of a man vindicated, Kanato cocks his chin over Hibari’s shoulder. “See?”

“You found one bottle in the rich boy abyss. Mazel tov.”

“There’s no way you know that word.”

“I just used it,” Hibari beams. “Cool, right?”

Kanato gives him a look. “You’re mocking my kitchen and I’m supposed to praise your vocabulary?”

“I’m doing community service.”

Kanato gives him a look. “For what crime.”

Hibari sets the pan on the stove. The burner flares to life under his hand, blue-orange heat snapping up beneath the metal. “For being annoying?”

He watches the flame a second too long—Kanato shimmies around him to run his yolky fingers under the sink.
“You’re not annoying.”

Hibari’s mouth goes dry; lips instinctively thinning. Bashful silence that squashes flat and unimpressed; as always, at a loss for words in the face of ingenuity. This is the problem with Fura Kanato. An expert, he is—when it comes to words; to manage saying the right thing even when his thoughts fire a mile a minute. Something real will fly on an odd angle and smack Hibari in a tender spot that’s too shy to form a rebuttal.
Usually, it’s some sort of ridiculous joke—one of Kanato’s haughty ‘Aren’t I cute’s or otherwise semi-vain quips. They’re simpler to handle—Hibari’s never known what to do with these strokes of Kanato’s careless honesty.

“Are you embarrassed?”

He’s slow on the uptake— “No?”

With excessive care, Kanato dries his hands on a tea towel hanging off the oven—long enough Hibari can see the suspicion building in the corner of his eye. When he looks up again, that particular sort of smile has appeared—the not-smile that totally is.
I know you better than that.

“That sounded like a yes.”

“Pretty sure I said no?”

“Ooookay.”

Nothing but time to let the truth arrive; Kanato bows over the counter, chin on his palm.
The oil is hot enough now. It slips around the metal in a thin gloss. The leek is tipped in first; it lands with a gurgling snarl, kicking up steam that hazes the kitchen light.

“You can hand me the carrots,” Hibari says.

Up again—back over to scrape the sliced carrots off the board and obediently into Hibari’s pan. Their elbows knock and bounce off each other—repelled magnets. Or habitual recovery from all the bumping during dance practice. The movement sticks strange—molasses left behind even when Kanato gives the cutting board a once over, before deciding to leave it on the counter. Hibari clears his throat and focuses very hard on pushing vegetables around the pan.

“Your kitchen’s better stocked than I remember,” he says.

“You think?”

“Marginally.”

“I did go shopping,” Kanato primps. “High praise, Chef.”

Hibari huffs a self-satisfied laugh. “You’re welcome.”

The noodles hit the pan next. Stiff resistance sizzles loud—then they soften, steam paling. With the chopsticks Kanato left behind, Hibari works them apart, stirring until the whole thing begins to look vaguely intentional. A good stir fry never hurt anyone.

It’s not uncomfortable, exactly. Hibari’s cooked in tighter kitchens than this with three people shoving for space. Never mind the rich apartment and the rich prince occupying it—the attention is too heavy, if Hibari thinks about it too much. Maybe withstanding Kanato requires a muscle that’s atrophied in the month Hibari’s been putting him off. Seems complicated—Hibari doesn’t think about it.

“Salt?”

Kanato slides the shaker across without comment.

Hibari gropes for the milk, pours a tad into the pan, sets it back down in the metaphorical bleachers. The sauce clouds around the noodles. “You’re not gonna compliment my technique?”

“Feel like I’ll jinx you somehow.”

“That’s harsh.”

“I’m superstitious.”

Hibari snorts. The sound comes out easier this time, without the awkward hitch that’s been living under his tongue since the door opened. Hibari stirs, Kanato spins the empty egg carton like a fidget toy. Distant through balcony glass, the city glimmers in knowing observation.
The noodles are done. He nudges the pan off the heat and goes for bowls. Kanato beats him to the cupboard and pulls two down—they don’t match.

“Do you not own, like, a set?”

“I mean—probably.”

“Stack them together next time.”

Kanato pulls a face. Hibari reminds him, “this is volunteer work.” He adds a, ‘put ‘em down, idiot’, before Kanato relents and leaves the bowls beside the stove.

“I thought it was community service. You think you’re absolved?” his voice drifts and carries, as he meanders over to knock his paperwork into stacks. Tap-tap on the surface before they’re neatly set aside—his laptop lid snaps shut and is thrown carelessly onto the couch, where it bounces once before the cushions exhale to rest.

With a matter-of-fact, expert measure of halves, Hibari divides the noodles between them. “I made your food. Am I not?”

Off goes the stove, pan in the sink. Two brilliant bowls of stir-fry make their way to the table, and are laid just as Kanato drops into the shitty wooden chair. Hibari’s spine collides gracelessly with the backrest of his own. At least they’re both cushioned. They utter their ‘thanks for the meal’ before the chopsticks open their jaws.

First bite—Kanato groans.
“I missed your cooking.”

Hibari crows a little, ‘heh’. “Tastes better with soy sauce.”

“Pass it over.”

Their fingers whack briefly; neither comment. The bottle changes hands. Traffic murmurs somewhere far below the balcony. Now’s the time to say something, if there’s anything to say.

“How’s your rehearsal with the guys?”

“Who, Datoka?”

“Who else?”

Conversation comes back in small, manageable pieces. Studio gossip. Datoka’s soundboard disaster. Akira’s latest long-suffering sigh, Seraph’s lion of a cat.

“When do you think we’ll get to meet it?” Hibari asks absently.

Kanato remarks, “When he’s actually home to open the door.”

That’s fair. Room 4S is just as busy as anyone else—made busier by the quality and care Seraph and Akira are known to deliver. Call it a commendation. They deserve an accolade for the work they put in.

Kanato eats slower than Hibari. Over the rim of his bowl, he shoots a fast glance, once or twice. Nothing tarrying; stolen looks he plays off over a glass of water. Hibari pretends not to notice, and so Kanato is playing them off to no one. The ball passes back and forth—it’s small talk. Nothing more, nothing less. The awkward doesn’t melt the way Hibari would like.

When the noodles are diminishing near to bottom, Kanato goes rogue: “You think you’ll be busy again next week?”

Hibari’s chopsticks stall halfway to his mouth. Barely a halt, really. Enough that the noodle slips, slaps against its cohort back in the bowl. He looks up—Kanato doesn’t. The countenance of a guy who asked for a receipt. Interested only insofar as it pertains to his commute. Water glass primed, chopsticks ready. Casual and unbothered—the sort of casual that takes effort.

“Mm.”

A siren dopplers and thins. Hibari sets his chopsticks down—if he doesn’t, his hands will advertise that they’ve forgotten how to hold things.

“I mean,” he starts, then stops. The truthful answer is always somehow less useful than the one people want. “Probably? Datoka’s chill for the moment, but that usually means something’ll explode by Tuesday.”

Again, that same easy, harmless sound of a hum. Hibari wants to throw a cushion at him.

“What,” he says.

“What, what.”

“You did the hum.”

“I’m eating.”

Dispassionate, Hibari scowls. It gets him another one of those mouth-tilts. It takes some of the starch out of Hibari’s bones all the same. Returning to his bowl, it’s harder now to pretend the question wasn’t a question.

Hibari picks at a carrot. “Why d’you need my schedule?”

That does raise Kanato’s eyes. Impossible to misread despite how swiftly he schools it.

“You came over to make me dinner,” he says. “Am I not allowed to ask whether it’s a one-off miracle.”

Hibari breathes the ghost of a laugh. “Wow. So I get one good deed and suddenly I’m Saint Watarai.”

“You said it, not me.”

“You implied it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Liar.

A fond type of burn; too familiar a twinge. “ Beats me. Next week’s next week.”

Kanato’s chopsticks click atop the bowl. “Profound.”

“Shut up.”

“Thought so.”

That should’ve been the end of it.

Maybe, in a better world, it would have been. They’d laugh, move on, scour the last of dinner from the bowls and let the night round itself off. But Hibari is here because he let too many things slide; ‘later’ had become a graveyard of good intentions. The missed messages had piled up like a stack of unpaid parking fines, and he had—for once—felt stupid enough to do something about it.

So he admits, “I don’t know what next week looks like yet.” Hibari hates how much easier talking gets when he isn’t being looked at. “But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna—” Forget, again? Leave you hanging, again? “I mean. It doesn’t have to be like this every time.”

A piece flakes off the wodden edge of the table. Oops. Kanato won’t notice; he averts his fiddling to tracing a groove with his thumb.

“Hibari.”

“Blehh…” goes Hibari.

Kanato laughs, and says, “it’s fine, really. I’m busy too.” And Hibari hates it.

It’s not false, so it’s not a lie. It is fine, like a paper cut. Weather damage is fine, as long as the roof doesn’t cave in. Friendship is friendship, who owes anyone anything? Nobody. Kanato, expert of experts, talking in a tone that Hibari has heard time and time over when he’s come to work with foundation heaped on a bruise from a mission that had nothing to do with any of them.

Hibari scrubs a hand through his hair. “I hate when you say that.”

A little surprise jump-starts Kanato’s own nervous fidgeting. “Say what?”

“That it’s fine.”

“It is fine,” he insists, “We’re all adults doing adult things.”

“Well, yeah—” he catches himself, glowers. “But it’s still not fine.”

“You’re the one who said next week is next week.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“How is it not—?”

Because you asked. The second he asked, the whole room turned into a trapdoor. There is more in what he’s not saying than what he is—but it’s as what is often said: there’s no nothing without something, and if Kanato had not spoken into existence his tentative misgivings, Hibari would never have heard the shape of intention.

Is this just tonight? Should I be sensible about it? Should I not get used to anything?

Instead of any of that, what comes out is a maladaptation. “You know what I mean.” Hibari is useless at complicated matters.

Kanato looks at him for a stretched second, then away—toward the balcony, toward the city-light sequins behind glass, like circuitry. Where Hibari sits small in the big room of Kanato’s glamour, his bowl is nearly empty. He hadn’t realised—hadn’t even tasted the last few bites. It’s really sad, how a decent meal can turn fragile in the mouth.
The frown wants to fight its way onto his face—but Hibari knows how severe he looks, fangs and slanted eyes and a narrow, lengthy frame. The compromise is a pout.

“I came over, didn’t I?”

The moment the sentence leaves him, he knows it’s the wrong one. Too small, too proud—too much like proof held up in trembling hands. See? Doesn’t this count?
Too audible—Kanato would be deaf to miss it.

He sighs. A doleful, “Yeah,” that Hibari doesn’t know what to do with.
He could scream.

He prattles, “No, wait, I didn’t mean to sound so pathetic…” It’s knee-kick reflex. The in-built streamer profile, aiming to make light of what’s rapidly derailing.

“That,” Kanato says dryly, “did not need saying.”

It’s an ugly crack in the demeanour—Hibari’s laugh bubbles through, half-snuffled and arguably ugly. The tension thins, Kanato chuckles. If nothing else, they are two clowns at a table small to bear the weight of two prideful boys just barely learning to be men.

Hibari tips his head back against the chair. “I’m trying here, man.”

“I know.”

And there’s the thing. The actual thing. Kanato knows Hibari is trying. Hibari knows Kanato knows. They both know dinner happened, and that it was nice, and that the apartment felt less empty with someone else in it, and that the kitchen still smells like leek and soy and milk-rich noodles instead of stale coffee.
They also know a single Thursday night does not defeat momentum. Tomorrow exists. Rehearsals exist. Traffic exists. Lives, unfortunately, exist in full.

“Your place is hell to get to.”

“Yeah,” agrees Kanato. “Maybe you just live too far out.”

None of this needs to be spoken aloud. It hangs anyway; uncut threads. Neither of them has found the scissors.
Hibari glances toward the counter, toward the sink where the pan waits with its cooling smear of sauce. Domestic little wreckage. Evidence that the evening happened at all.

“Should I text you before I come next time?”

Silence. Hibari twists back around; his neck cracks now that the rigidity is seeping out through his fingertips.

Then: “That’d be new.”

“You’re such a—”

“Careful.”

“—piece of work.”

“I’ll allow it.”

***
» Monday, 12:12 — Akira

With Hibari dragging himself around missions, the studio, the neighbourhood—like a kicked dog, it’s very hard for Seraph and Akira not to notice. Shoulders slouched, heaving breaths that exhaust all his lung capacity. Eyes distant in the way they get when trouble sticks instead of repelling.
Where Kanato has wandered off for his lunchtime break, Seraph and Akira have the misfortune of a closed encounter with Hibari.

It’s only play when Akira mutters, “How badly do you want that coffee?”

A whole head toward the clouds, Seraph merely says, “We should hear him out.”

They cross the last few paces, Hibari looks up, then down, dejected. Then up again—yes! He knows those expressions. Akira’s resignation and Seraph’s specific brand of blank that means neither of them are busy. The vending machine coughs out three canned coffees and sends them off to the break-room with a last sputter. They ought to report that it needs fixing—but there are more pressing matters to attend to.

It’s really quite the story. An incredible one, at that—in the sense that Akira has to pretend with all his might that it isn’t ridiculous in the slightest.

“You’re sad you can’t spend more time together?” he repeats.

Properly miserable, Hibari opens his mouth, shrugs, wriggles, then goes with a muted, “Mm.”

Unimpressed silence prevails.

Hibari blurts, “My schedule’s stacked. It’s not like I need to spend time with Kanato, exactly, but I feel bad about it, and I like his company. Y’know?”

“A tough position,” remarks Akira, who is being very good about this. Rock and a hard place.

Seraph concurs with a grunt. Hibari simply melts further into his seat.
Akira sighs through his nose. To be frank, there doesn’t appear to be an easy fix to this. It’s not as if Hibari can involve Kanato in a vast majority of activities, and neither can chunks of the day be ripped out for Kanato’s sake.

He asks, “You’re not spending any time at the café anymore?”

To which Hibari mumbles, “Kanato stopped giving me shifts ‘cause I’m so busy…”

“That’s unfortunate.” No further notes.

Seraph, however, finally decides his two cents is worth something— “Work proximity makes a difference.” And as an afterthought, “That sucks.”

Lifting a finger to his chin, Akira muses a thoughtful sound. “It’s true,” he admits, “If we didn’t spend so much time at the office together, it’s difficult to ascertain whether we’d see each other often enough.”

“Shared suffering,” drones Seraph.

“Am I so insufferable?”

“I’m teasing.”

“Of course you are.”

On Hibari, their prodding is lost. Were Akira to look over, he’d see the gears quite visibly working in the machinery of Hibari’s mind: rusty though they are, turning vigorously. Logic conducted by questionable means, like working dough through a pasta machine. Whether what comes out is a Michelin star meal or two-minute mac-n-cheese is one among many lucky dips that make up Watarai Hibari’s charm. It could also be that Akira hasn’t had lunch yet.

“Would you pass me my coffee?” Of which Akira had so kindly asked Seraph to hold onto until they were settled.

Obediently, Seraph reaches for it, and hands it over by his fingertips. Not that his hands are any less gentle; merely cautious of Akira’s much smaller ones. He says his sweet ‘thank you’ and gets his thumb under tab—

“So what,” this marks the ‘ding’ that announces Hibari’s circus-thought is ready for consumption. “You’re saying I should move in with Kanato?”

Akira is very certain absolutely nobody said that. CRACK. The tab on his coffee pops open and flies across the room.

“I think your can was too cold,” Seraph observes.

“I didn’t say that,” says Akira suddenly. “You didn’t say that, Serao. Did you?”

“I don’t think so,” Seraph replies. He points, amicable, at Akira’s fingers. “They’re turning red, Nagi-chan.”

He wipes them vigorously on his pants to rub warmth back in, then pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “Then it’s quite a large leap.”

Miffed, Hibari’s mouth opens slightly. Closes, in that unassuming, small smile that means he hasn’t a clue of anything going on ever. Today is definitely a mac-n-cheese day.

“I don’t want to move in with Kanato,” he announces.

“Then don’t.”

“But, like—logistically,” starts Hibari, slow, “It could work.”

Half-amused, half-confused, Seraph chuckles, “You just said you didn’t want to. You’re thinking about it anyway?”

It doesn’t take a genius to see it on his face—he is. He really is. Akira closes his eyes for a moment, thinks about black cats and strawberry-blonde hair, and takes a patient sip of his coffee. These people are fools, he recites. It makes him feel slightly less homicidal. My friends are fools. This, he discovers, is a counterintuitive sentence. He will be removing it from his happy-place recitations in the future.

Hibari taps his cheek in thought, and clucks his tongue once.
“Huh. It’d be really convenient, wouldn’t it.”

Seraph flicks his unblinking gaze over. Are you hearing this, Nagi-chan?

Akira inhales.
These people are fools.

***
» Monday, 12:32 — Hibari

Hibari did say he didn’t want to do it. He was pretty sure he said that.
But. If he lists the pros and the cons—count with him, if you please—it shows as being much too handy an arrangement.
Kanato’s tidy—now. He’s tidy now—the ‘now’ is what matters—and Hibari still—kind of?—isn’t. He can admit that, not that he has to. The plastic bottle pyramid speaks it for him. Anyway, Kanato is tidy and Hibari is not, and Hibari actively likes to cook, where Kanato is still learning to appreciate the culinary arts. He says as much to Seraph and Akira,

“It evens out, doesn’t it?”

Akira downs a third of his coffee. Brokering the space between them, Seraph inclines his head.

“You’ll trade housework for food?”

“I’ll pay rent.”

“Then he’d be your landlord.”

That scrunches Hibari’s nose. “I’ll allow it. He has spare rooms anyway.” Or—a spare room. It’ll do.

“We thought,” Akira says loudly, “you liked living alone.”

“But it’d solve my problem?” ripostes Hibari; his voice pitches up one. “I live further, too, and he has so much space.” It really would save a world of work.

Critical, Shikinagi Akira does not surrender his stance. “Is that truly good enough reason for you to give up your independence?”

“When you phrase it that way…” Hibari trails off. His pasta machine of a mind is meting neurons again; his chatter kicks back to life undeterred. “But I was putting off moving anyway. The security at my place sucks.”

Genuinely curious, Seraph chips in, “Is Kanato’s any better?”

“He’s rich,” puffs Akira, as if that explains everything.

Seraph goes, “Ah,” because it does. “Better than three acorns can buy.”

“He’d be richer,” argues Hibari, primly. Upright in his seat like posture grants authority. Like Kanato needs more money, which—be real, he doesn’t. “It’d halve the bills, and it’d fix all my security measures, and then we’d stop missing each other.” He means—like ships in the night. Not emotionally, except that too. Maybe. Whatever. “It makes sense, right?”

“Not really,” snips Akira. “They say never to move in with your best friend.”

“You moved in with me.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You just said we basically live in the office together.”

“Serao…”

“I’m teasing.”

Hibari breaks in with an optimistic, “Eh. You never know until you try.”

“Kanato likes his space, Hibari, you know that.”

“He might like it better if it’s filled with food.”

Sagely, Seraph jumps in at this— “The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Akira inhales again; exhales. Inhale, exhale. Probably counting to ten or something—though, if Hibari were to do that now, his internal metronome would be fast by five beats. His shoes are rapping on with the rhythm of a building excitement. It’s naturally difficult to contend with a growing list of upsides, among which include making his best friend way less mad at him in what is—essentially—perfect symbiosis.

“How is it not a brilliant idea?”

“I have no part in this,” Akira says. “Do as you please.”

“You can have my coffee if you like, Nagi-chan.”

“Thank you, Seraph.”

This is what the people call a win. When it works out, he’ll thank Seraph and Akira for their very astute blessings.

But only when it works out—he doesn’t want to jinx it.