Archive of Our Own

Shinjiro didn’t really like to talk about his presentation. That fact never changed as he grew up and grew older, growing into the characteristics of all alphas: bulk, strength, speed. Taller, meaner. He just got better at hiding it.

See, before all this, he’d been an alpha. Always had been, always will be.

He’d felt pretty okay about it, considering. He didn’t really go around announcing it to the whole world that he was one. He didn’t go around bragging about the size of his knot, he didn’t believe in shit like chivalry and courting rituals and whatever the fuck the other alphas in his class had thought about, and he generally didn’t go out of his way to be the biggest knothead on the block. 

So yeah, he’d flown pretty under the radar. Which he’d been fine with–a lot of the time, he privately thought the other alphas in their school had been compensating. Heavily. With words, and also with their egos. They’d been wrong about a lot of things: good alphas aren’t aggressors–they protected others, and they were leaders, first and foremost. Leaders, like Kirijo and that Makoto kid. Who did what they needed to do, not because someone said they should, and didn’t perform for anybody else. 

(Kirijo was a better alpha than him, and she hadn’t been one in the first place. She’d only stepped up because S.E.E.S needed one and both him and Akihiko were complete messes back then.)

They’d only gotten one thing right: Alphas were meant for omegas. Destiny, rule of the universe, Newton’s law of gravity. All alphas were drawn to omegas like magnets finally connecting. Shinjiro saw it, all the time, when he was still in school–their little prepubescent minds growing and waking up, flowers reaching for the sun, the pretty omega girl in the next door class suddenly a prospect instead of just a classmate. The way other alphas spoke in locker rooms, between their ilk. It was just a fact of life. This was how the world worked, and Shinjiro… wasn’t a part of it. 

He wasn’t like them. He didn’t feel anything close to what the books and movies described, or what his classmates spoke about. So instead, he kept his head down. Focused on his classes, on S.E.E.S. 

It was easier to pretend he didn’t care than to talk about something he didn’t understand at all. He kept his mouth shut, and that was that. 

When he woke up from being dead, system suppressant-free for the first time in years, Shinjiro took a deep breath and immediately decided he wanted to be dead again, thank you.

Kidding. But seriously, everything smelt like so much. He could smell the hospital grade antiseptic on his skin, the way his own dampened scent permeated the room and clung to everything in here. He could smell the deodorant on the nurse that came to check on him every five hours. He could smell the fucking dirt outside, the smells of traffic, the fucking vomit bag that he’d thrown up in when he was coherent enough to sit up and immediately realised how nauseous he was from. Well. The sheer muchness of everything. Not sure he remembered his name for a good ten minutes. 

Being dead did that to a guy. 

Sorry. Too soon. Point was, he woke up from being dead six months ago and realized how unused he was to his body working as intended for once. He still has problems–the doctor had said, with the gravest tone Shinjiro had ever heard on a man that looked far too young to even be a doctor, that Shinjiro might never fully recover from some things. Some things he hadn’t even realized that he’d lost, until he woke up–unfortunately–and was hit with the realization that he didn’t have that aching numbness inside of him anymore, and that he was going to be sick. 

The suppressants left a lot of havoc in his system. He’s no longer dying, a fact he still sometimes doesn’t believe, but they were in his body long enough to do some serious damage. 

He could start listing the effects, but then he might be there from dusk till dawn. Some things he took for granted–like, for example, he can’t regulate his temperature well anymore. He’s always cold. He wore his coat all the time, in the past two years that he’d been running away from himself–because the suppressants killed his circulation, and the part of his brain that regulated his body temperature, and everything else. 

STREGA hadn’t had the courtesy to give him the full list of side effects while they were signing the devil’s contract with him while crossing their fingers behind their back. Shinjiro’d woken up to fucking everything overloading his brain, and his nose, and he’d also had to learn from the doctor–Kirijo Group sponsored– that the suppressants had the fun side effects of dampening his entire hormone system and diluting his presentation so much, he’d been mistaken for a beta at the hospital when he first checked in. Which. Yeah, he might have as well been. 

They’d fixed that for him. Flushing the suppressants from his system and putting him on new medication that would make his body and brain work together again, making him feel more than just a zombie shuffling through life and waiting for the day that he would just… drop dead. Or die in his sleep. Shinjiro spent so long waiting for one of the two to happen that he didn’t know what to do, once that was no longer on the table. 

It’s been months. He went home the first day he was released, to his shitty little apartment, and he realized that he didn’t actually want to stay there. There was nothing left there for him–he’d stopped buying things he didn’t need, and once he realized he was going to die he just… stopped renewing his lease. It was a shitty apartment he barely called home. So he moved out and took his meager possessions with him–the few clothes he had, his coat, his evoker all stuffed into his duffel bag–and while he was staying in motels and couch-hopping, Akihiko called him. Asked him if he’d like somewhere more permanent to stay. 

Akihiko, one of the only people who he even still talked to. Considered a friend.

Fuck, and Akihiko didn’t want to leave him alone either. Checked up on him, hammered his door down on days he didn’t answer his phone or felt particularly bad. It was like Akihiko had a sixth-Shinjiro sense made especially for him, installed directly into the base of his brain so he’d know whenever Shinjiro stubbed a toe and could come running. Shinjiro should’ve said: No Akihiko, I do not want to live in your nice apartment that your very nice and rich parents bought so you could go to college. I would rather die and also maybe live in this cardboard box that I found. Cardboard box living sounds great.

Instead he said: Okay, Akihiko. I’ll move in. And thus, sealed his fate.

It could be worse. Akihiko’s a great friend. Clearly. It was because of Akihiko Shinjiro was even here at all, brooding and moping and cleaning and making dinner for the two of them, in their shared-very nice apartment that Akihiko’s parents had bought. For Akihiko. But also, Akihiko gave him a copy of the keys when he moved in, and told him he didn’t need to keep looking for apartments, so. Technically also Shinjiro’s place now. And Akihiko’s not a bad roommate–he’s always been easier to live with than most people would think.

He cleans up after himself. He’s not the messiest or loudest person Shinjiro knows—that goes to Junpei Iori–and they’ve known each other too long to not know each other’s habits, their vices. Akihiko doesn’t smoke. Akihiko will take out the garbage without Shinjiro needing to remind him every week. Akihiko will be quiet when he slips out the door to go on his 4AM runs, which Shinjiro only knows because of the times he’s laid awake in bed, listening to the quiet click of the lock as Akihiko’s key turns in it. Sometimes it’s earlier than that. But Akihiko never says a word, never wakes him up. He’s a good roommate. 

Likewise, Shinjiro tries to do his part. Shinjiro will excuse himself every Sunday at 5pm to go smoke out the back of the fire escape, which he’d worked very hard to negotiate with Akihiko–one cigarette a week is practically angelic behavior for him. He’ll cook for the two of them. He cleans when Akihiko’s too exhausted from classes or boxing practice to do it, and he keeps to his side of the bathroom countertop, and attends all his appointments dutifully because he knows Akihiko would find out about it somehow and nag him until he went. The one thing he refuses to do is go to therapy, but Akihiko isn’t going either, so. 

They have a tentative sort of peace going. The irreversible part of Shinjiro’s mind that’s been either fucked up from birth or was fucked up once he started taking the drugs–the part that reminds him of his defectiveness–rears its head, sometimes, an ancient and terrible hindbrain that actually just serves to remind him he has no fucking instincts at all. Self preservation or otherwise. 

Well. That’s not entirely true, either. 

He has instincts. He likes to keep his room–his den–closed off, a protective nest he scurries into when he feels overwhelmed and needs to just hide for a couple of hours. He scents things, sometimes, when he wants to piss Akihiko off. When–if he ruts, he feels that foreign need crawl over his skin and set his core on fire, and then he knows he needs to piss off into his den for about five days and not come out until he can wake up without his brain trying to convince him to fuck the nearest thing with a pulse in sight. 

(He hasn’t felt safe enough to rut in years; the year he moved in with Akihiko he had the worst rut of his life, trapped in his room alone and with this itchy, suffocating need scratching under his skin. When he was on the suppressants he’d basically never rutted–maybe the one good thing they’d given him–but once they were out of his system it was like a fucking floodgate of everything he’d been repressing had been opened. He wished he’d at least had someone to talk to, then. He’d missed Akihiko. 

When he woke up from his rut, sweaty and tired and miserable, he realized Akihiko had slipped him some soup and crackers under his door. Figures.) 

But it doesn’t end there. Sometimes he wants to give Akihiko things–beyond cooking him dinner–fun little trinkets he picks up at work and wonders if he can take them home. A hoodie he used to own and wonders if he can sneak into Akihiko’s laundry so Akihiko would think it was his own, and wear it. Things like that. Gifts. Sometimes he wants to–to press their necks together in some kind of fucked up scent-bonding thing, that would have absolutely made sense if Akihiko was an omega, or a beta, or something. But he’s not. 

Akihiko’s an alpha. Shinjiro’s been aware of this since they were about eleven years old, when Akihiko presented as an alpha and proceeded to make it his problem for the next eight years or so. He smells like one, ozone and clean smoke and cut grass, his scent constantly trying to overwhelm and conquer a room–Akihiko never remembers to put his damn blockers on properly, not in the whole time Shinjiro’s known him, and when he does he sweats through them at practice and renders the entire attempt useless. It would irritate Shinjiro, at the beginning of their friendship, the scent of him mixing with Shinjiro’s own scent and making Shinjiro twitch in irritation, to do something about it. He’d never scent-marked so many things in his life till that moment. 

(It got easier when the suppressants numbed his senses, and he couldn’t smell Akihiko, or himself. Or anything at all. He couldn’t care then, anyway, he was too busy burying his head in the sand and running from the perpetual guilt that stuck to him like a loyal dog. But after his coma, he’d woken up realizing that he didn’t…actually mind, all that much. 

Somewhere in Shinjiro’s twisted and fucked up head he’d learnt to associate that particular brand of alpha-smell, the kind that rolled off Akihiko before a fight with a safety that belied its logic. When his scent clashed with Akihiko’s, he couldn't help but feel comforted. So. Yeah. He doesn’t complain about Akihiko not wearing his blockers anymore, and Akihiko either has or hasn’t noticed. It’s fine.)

They’ve been roughhousing since they learned that wrestling was fun and a thing you could do with someone you called a friend and also wanted to beat the shit out of, sometimes. And yeah, sometimes they fought for real, but they made up after, so that was fine too. But even as children, Akihiko and Shinjiro would “tussle” and have it turn just this side of too aggressive, too bloody–Miki would break them up and cry because Akihiko gave Shinjiro a shiner so colorful that Shinjiro involuntarily winced every time he blinked for the next few days. When he closed his eyes at night, he could see Akihiko’s blacked-out pupils when he swung his small fist at Shinjiro’s jaw. 

It was simpler then. And it didn’t mean anything. Fighting came naturally to Akihiko and Shinjiro was–is– his worst enabler. But it served as the worst, most poignant reminder in Shinjiro’s short, fucked-up life: Akihiko was still an alpha, and whatever they were doing here was only working because Shinjiro was so messed up that his own body didn’t even seem to recognize that Akihiko was an alpha. Or that he himself was one, too. Whatever. 

So there they were, playing at domesticity, where Akihiko will come home after classes or practice with a cheerful little shout of I’m home honey or whatever gay shit he’s decided to torment Shinjiro with, and Shinjiro will grumble at him until Akihiko takes his shoes off and comes to sit down at the kotatsu. Where Shinjiro will proceed to feed him dinner because Akihiko can’t cook worth a damn and the man is always perpetually starving, and then they will sit down at the couch to watch the evening news or whatever movie Akihiko’s learned about and decided they need to watch on “roommate movie nights.” (Which is every Tuesday, but sometimes Wednesdays because Akihiko likes to go to the gym on Tuesday nights if it’s not raining.) Last time it was some terrible boxer documentary. The week before that, it was a horror movie that made Akihiko cling onto Shinjiro’s hand like a damn limpet and nearly crush it in his stupid, oversized mitts for hands. 

It’s this type of overly-casual contact that Shinjiro has grown accustomed to–even expect it, really, coming home at midnight sometimes to see Akihiko has fallen asleep on the couch trying to wait up for him. No matter how much Shinjiro tells him not to do that, every other Saturday, Shinjiro will turn the key in the lock and find Akihiko sprawled out on the loveseat, snoring. 

He's an awful snorer. Shinjiro hates him. 

His brain has not got that memo yet. They’re two alphas living in close contact and the most aggressive thought that Akihiko has inspired within him in four weeks is Wow, he snores a lot. He should get that checked out. 

Shinjiro kind of wants to cry. Living with Akihiko has made him fucking soft in a way he doesn’t know how to unpack or tackle. He downs two of the pills the doctor gives him, the ones that tell his brain to produce the hormones that make everything run nice and smooth. It doesn’t help.

The next morning, when Shinjiro comes out of his room he pauses. It’s not a good sign that the first thing that comes to his mind is huh, what’s our great leader doing here instead of Jesus fuck it’s never a good sign when Makoto is hovering menacingly in your living room. See? He’s gone soft.

“Yuki-kun?” Shinjiro scratches at his growing stubble, remembering he’s just in a hoodie and boxers. Hm. “What’re you doing here?” 

Makoto looks up at him, through him in that creepy way the kid’s always had, quiet expression not hiding the way his eyes narrow and analyse Shinjiro’s whole…form. He’s wearing his coat still, standing with his hands tucked into his pockets, looking faintly amused. Shinjiro feels underdressed. 

Is that your hoodie? Makoto signs, lips twitching.

Shinjiro looks down. It is indeed, not his hoodie. It smells like him and the detergent Akihiko and him both agreed to use because the good detergent Shinjiro likes is too expensive by Akihiko’s standards and the detergent Akihiko was using before Shinjiro moved in gave Shinjiro massive headaches, so. 

It’s still not his hoodie, though, and Shinjiro squints at it to realize it says Odaiba Gym, right over his heart, and it’s also firetruck red. Like, eye-searingly red. Shinjiro would never have put this on if he was going outside. Which he wasn’t, but he also didn’t think he’d been that tired as to accidentally put on something of Akihiko’s in the dark.

“Huh,” he says, finally. “Must’ve missed that in the laundry.”

Makoto snorts, some ugly thing that scrunches up his nose and makes him seem actually human. When they defeated Nyx, Shinjiro was still in a coma–but Akihiko’d, begrudgingly, told him what happened. Everything he missed, start to finish. He’s glad the kid’s not dead–Makoto has given up more than anybody alive or dead could conceive, and that’s coming from the guy who got shot. Twice. 

I came by to check on you, Makoto signs, sure and steady. It’s been a couple of months and I wanted to get the team back together. Reunion, for old times’ sake. 

“I’m not much of a social guy,” Shinjiro says, warily. “‘Sides, isn’t Kirijo out of town at the moment? Business trip or something?” 

She is, Makoto agrees. But she says she’ll come back for a week before moving onto Sendai. Fuuka also said she’d ferry in then, so we should all be in town. 

“Okay…” Shinjiro drawls. “Are you trying to ask if I’ll be there?”

Am I? Makoto smiles. I think I’m just letting you know, considering I asked Sanada-senpai and he agreed rather enthusiastically, so I wanted to make sure you got a heads up. You know, with your whole… thing.

At that last part, he points–at Shinjiro, but he also gestures to the room as a whole. Shinjiro has no idea what that means. His JSL is pretty good, he likes to think, but Makoto signs so efficiently and quickly that it sometimes leaves him squinting in confusion. “My… thing?” 

Makoto huffs in amusement. Yeah, your thing. 

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

At this, Makoto tilts his head, looking much like a confused puppy for a second before it clears up. Ah. Okay. Sorry for assuming, senpai, I thought…nevermind. Because you and Sanada-senpai have been living together so long… and you seem happy living here. 

Shinjiro frowns at him, somehow even more lost than before. If you told him, years ago, that he would be standing in the living room of his and Akihiko’s shared apartment staring at the reason the world hasn’t ended, trying to segue around a topic and doing a terrible job, he would have laughed at you. “What’s that supposed to mean? Assume what?” 

Makoto makes a half gesture that could probably be interpreted as a splutter. And then tries to gesture some more, before pausing. Don’t worry, he signs, deliberately and slowly, I think Senpai would be rather unhappy with me if I told you now. Please talk to him for the details about the reunion–I will see you there. 

“Makoto, you little fuck, what–” But Shinjiro’s too late, watching as Makoto spins on his polished heels and strides out the front door, which. Okay. Why does he know where they keep their spare key, Shinjiro thinks, rather hysterically. Is there anything Makoto doesn’t actually know or has he been omniscient since he gave part of his soul to stopping Nyx and I’m just the last one in the know, or…

He’s left alone in the apartment. Akihiko’s not in–it’s noon, almost, on a Thursday, and that means he’s at class. Which means Shinjiro has about five hours of peace to himself before Akihiko comes home and pesters him. He’d like to do some cleaning today, and maybe go shopping because their fridge is damn-near empty and Akihiko’s running out of milk. Shinjiro’s lactose intolerant but Akihiko will whine if he doesn’t get his daily protein shake in him. And then Shinjiro’ll have another repeat of the Protein-In-Rice incident, and then he will go to prison for murdering Akihiko.

So he shuffles back inside his room, scratching the back of his neck in confusion. It’s pretty simple to get ready and splash some water on his face, applying his blockers under his arms and around his wrists, his neck. He locks the door behind him, still deep in thought–what’d Makoto mean by your thing? Is he talking about whatever the fuck Shinjiro thinks he’s doing, leeching off Akihiko’s kindness and being a permanent live-in at the Sanada residence? Is he talking about the weird, fucked-up damage Shinjiro’s carrying around, hoping no one notices? Is he talking about Shinjiro getting soft?

Makoto’s knowing look makes Shinjiro think it’s one of them. But that’s absurd. Makoto’s not actually all-knowing and all-powerful, or he wouldn’t need to have gone to Shinjiro’s place to harass him. 

And this is harassment, surely. Because Shinjiro starts thinking about the way Makoto had gestured to the entire room as a whole–a sweeping gesture that encompasses their living room, the blue secondhand couch Shinjiro’d snagged off ebay to replace the uncomfortable chaise that came with the place, the pile of laundry he still had to do, and the kotatsu with only two places set. Directly across from each other. Your…thing. He thinks about it so much that a permanent furrow sets in while he’s perusing cuts of steak, while he’s scrutinizing the cleaning solutions, while he’s thumping the melons to find the best one. He thinks about it for the rest of the day until Akihiko barges in through the door, hollering, “I’m home, Shinjiro!!” 

Loud-ass idiot.

Fuck. Shinjiro doesn’t so much as flinch, although he does set the chopsticks he’s using to stir the broth with down when Akihiko inevitably comes up behind him, and slings his arms around Shinjiro’s shoulders. He reeks like sweat and skin musk, tilled earth in the wake of a storm. Must’ve come from practice.

“Get off, moron,” Shinjiro grunts half-heartedly, trying to pretend to be disgusted. And failing. 

Yeah, another thing that Akihiko has taken to doing: just…randomly touching him. Different from the casual contact that Shinjiro’d come to expect from him, years before everything that happened, different from the punches and the tussles and random bro-hugs and back slaps he’d known Akihiko was prone to. No, this was Akihiko slinging himself over Shinjiro like some kind of overgrown sloth, whether Shinjiro was cooking or cleaning or just hanging out, scrolling on his phone. The first time he did it, Shinjiro’d flinched so violently he’d nearly whipped around and socked Akihiko in the face.

He’d gotten better at not doing that. 

Akihiko grabs his hand to get his attention instead of tapping his shoulder. Shinjiro breathes, counts to ten and asks him what he wants. Akihiko sprawls his giant feet in Shinjiro’s lap when they’re sitting on the couch, watching terrible reality television. Shinjiro doesn’t even give a shudder. Akihiko leans his elbow on Shinjiro’s shoulder and Shinjiro doesn’t pull away. The list went on and on.

Shinjiro’d privately theorized that it was some sort of…side-effect, from watching him die, some sort of protective instinct that ensured Akihiko needed to revolve around Shinjiro’s wellbeing. Like the weird sixth-sense instinct he got, when Shinjiro got hurt and wouldn’t tell him, or when Shinjiro was trying to hide the pain in his shoulder on cold days and didn’t like to talk about it. Things like that. 

Which, fine, Shinjiro got it. Sometimes it was annoying watching Akihiko hover like a damn mother hen, but he understood–long before Shinjiro’d even decided to run away from S.E.E.S because he was scared of his own shadow, he’d been Akihiko’s caretaker, too. 

Growing up, Akihiko’d long since established himself as the protector of their little triad, even though Shinjiro was the eldest–where Miki or Shinjiro put up with the snarky remarks the other kids made about them (Miki because she was too timid, and Shinjiro because he didn’t care and made sure everybody knew it)–Akihiko would respond in kind. Usually with words, but also with fists. He was always the most reactive out of all of them. 

It was way more trouble than it was worth: Shinjiro told him more than once that he wouldn’t always be there to clean up his messes. Akihiko had just laughed, each and every damn time, like he didn’t believe him. It was a moot point, anyway–they’d long been left alone since Akihiko decided to become their staunch guardian, inside and outside, in the yard where the other kids roamed without supervision from their orphanage caretakers. But Akihiko kept getting into trouble, and Shinjiro’d always been there to drag him out of it. It made sense that he kept doing it, because that's the way they've always been. 

So Shinjiro gets it. Sort of. He’d have hovered too, if Shinjiro’d been the one to watch Akihiko nearly die.

Didn’t mean it didn’t make his stomach do a weird flip and a half, when Akihiko leaned in close over his shoulder to see what he was making. God, he fucking reeked. He’s one long warm line against Shinjiro’s back and he’s way too close to the exposed patch of skin, near Shinjiro’s nape, the one that burned hot and tingled when Akihiko was breathing in his ear like that. He’s an alpha and he can’t even muster up any sort of aggression at his personal space being invaded by another alpha, when previously he’d probably have knocked someone’s teeth out for touching him unprompted. Shinjiro hates it. 

He still doesn’t shrug Akihiko off. Akihiko doesn’t let go. “What’re you making?”

Shinjiro rolls his eyes. Breathes in slowly to center himself. “Soba. We’re having soba for dinner. You gonna tell me what you were gossipin’ to Makoto about?”

“Oh shit, he came by today,” Akihiko gasps. At that, he releases Shinjiro, who didn’t react. At all. “He told me he was coming by to tell you about the reunion–I didn’t realize it was today, I totally forgot.”

“Go set the kotatsu, ultra-moron,” Shinjiro says to him. “We can talk about it after you’ve eaten and I can decide whether to kill you, because I am not going to Makoto’s little shindig.”

“Why the hell not!?”

Shinjiro didn’t turn around, but he furrows his brows at the broth. His hands still. Why didn’t he want to go? Logically speaking, it’d get them both out of the house, and if Kirijo was going to be there they’d be eating at a place that didn’t try to retroactively poison its customers with sodium. (Seriously, all those years he ate with Akihiko at Wilduck probably raised his chances of a heart attack by more than twelve percent.)

He got along with their underclassmen fine. Although he wasn’t really their senpai anymore, most of them still insisted on the tacky honorific when addressing him. He didn’t leave the group chat that they were all in–for staying in touch, Makoto had insisted–and even occasionally texted back updates. Reacted to all of Amada’s Koromaru pictures, because he missed that damn dog. Akihiko didn’t even have to force him to stay. Practically a miracle. 

No. He knew why he didn’t want to go. If he went, he’d be subject to Kirijo trying–and failing–to interrogate him about his life. The last time they went to brunch together–Christ, Shinjiro hated that, the idea that he was a brunch-going guy–she’d steepled her fingers under her chin and asked how things with Akihiko were going. Worse than how Makoto had casually implied that there was anything at all to discuss, Kirijo had tilted her head at his vehement confusion and outright asked if he’d been happy, moving in with Akihiko like that. And Shinjiro froze, tongue tangled and thoughts racing. 

So instead of wrangling his thoughts into a reasonable mess to sort out how he felt about that, he’d asked why the hell she kept bringing up Aki. 

Kirijo’d shrugged. Picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth in that delicate way of hers. I just mean…Akihiko’s parents were asking me if Akihiko had found someone to settle down with yet. He’d seemed… happy, lately. Shinjiro stared, vaguely confused, and asked what that had to do with him. She’d sorta just looked at him. Real careful, like he was fragile. And then she changed the topic.

The look in her eye wasn’t too dissimilar to the one in Makoto’s when the kid tried to backtrack over whatever he’d assumed about Shinjiro, standing in their shared living space. 

And well. It’s been two months and he’s still avoiding Kirijo.

“Ken’s going to be there,” he eventually settles on. His hands resume their stirring of the pot. Behind him, Akihiko opens cupboards and drawers to pull out various utensils and dishes: practiced in their movement, Shinjiro could hear the clink as he set things down on the countertop. 

“You don’t mind Amada,” Akihiko says, suspiciously. “You’re still awkward like a damn overgrown puppy with him, but you don’t mind him.” Shit. He’s not wrong.

(The guilt and self loathing that rises with thinking about Amada, at all, rears its head–as per usual–but Akihiko isn’t wrong. It’s weird. Amada and him have their history, but Amada had told him, once, at his bedside–before he was strong enough to be discharged, when he was still weak and having to do physical therapy every single day–that he didn’t want to be angry anymore. Not at himself, not at Shinjiro. Shinjiro hadn’t expected it. It made things weird between them–no matter how much Amada assured him that he was fine, he was attending all his therapy sessions, Shinjiro just. Couldn’t.

To be told he was off the hook, just like that. So he hadn’t forgotten, even if Amada acted like he had. The kid was smart and had his whole life ahead of him. If he moved on, Shinjiro knew how to be angry enough for both of them. 

So he carried the bitterness like a bad seed inside of him, always remembering old ghosts. Besides, Shinjiro’s a creature of habit. He’d done it for years now–he could do it, ostensibly, for the rest of his life. It would be only right if he did.)

Shinjiro doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He mechanically scoops out spoonfuls of broth into the bowls Akihiko hands to him, gives Akihiko the bowl with the pickled daikon that he likes and a side of umeboshi to boot. Akihiko hands him one of his favorite spoons, the thin, flat ones he deemed the “good” ones and has separate from the “bad” ones. 

(Shinjiro refuses to use a bad spoon and will do the dishes just so he always has a good spoon. Akihiko maintains that they’re all the same. Shinjiro maintains that Akihiko is a heathen, and enjoys the sensation of sauce falling off his eating utensils. Fuck.)

His thoughts are racing. Akihiko gives him a look, one he can feel burning on the back of his ears. “If you just don’t want to go, I get it, Shinji,” he starts. “But at least show up to see your kouhai. They’ve missed you, you know.”

God, does Shinjiro know. He gets messages, sometimes, from Takeba and Iori and even Amada. Outside of the group chat. Little hellos and how are you doing senpai and Hey man we should hang out sometime as if they’re all willing to pause their lives to come see their grouchy, perpetually misanthropic senior. Not that Shinjiro’s still their senior, no matter how much Takeba insists on formalities with him. Amada messages him, sometimes, asking if he’d like to come over and see Koromaru. And those are the ones he’s genuinely tempted to answer yes to. 

Shinjiro usually doesn’t reply. He says hi, enough to let everyone know he’s not actually dead in a ditch somewhere, because they would sic Akihiko on him–by virtue of being his far more affable roommate who actually answers his phone–and he’d never hear the end of it. 

In the back of his mind, his conscience likes to remind him–often with a fresh flash of guilt–that these people saved his life. So. He keeps…trying. Tries to stay in contact, the way Makoto said he should, where his past self would have given up and probably thrown his phone out the window so he could live in the woods like some sort of animal.

And truly, it’s not that he doesn’t like them. 

He just doesn’t see the point. Why go out of their way for him? 

Shinjiro keeps quiet as he and Akihiko dig into their soba, and Akihiko doesn’t press him further. Changes the topic to how practice went, the bout that he “won by a hair, Shinji, you should’ve been there,” and the amount of assignments he has to do for his Criminal Justice class because he’d had the unfortunate luck to be in the advanced track.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Shinjiro says, absentmindedly. He’s picking at his daikon. Akihiko chews open-mouthed at him for that. In his eyes, Shinjiro can see the determination that has plagued Akihiko’s every step doggedly since the day he was born, and it’s directed entirely at him.

See, Akihiko doesn’t have intrapersonal skills so much as he has words and actions, which really just means that he’s about as transparent as an open book. Shinjiro’s been learning to speak Akihiko’s language for more than a decade and he’s damn near fluent. I’m going to drag Shinji to see our friends whether he likes it or not, spelled out like Akihiko'd taken an erasable marker and written it on his face. God, he’s the most stubborn motherfucker alive.

Shinjiro elects to ignore him by breaking eye contact and glaring at his carrots instead. Stupid carrots. No matter what Akihiko continues to say with his stance and staredown of death, Shinjiro refuses to cave. 

He winds up going to the reunion. 

“I hate you,” Shinjiro tells his reflection in the mirror, who does not reply except to give him a stink eye. He scowls back and adjusts the way his collar sits on him, devoid of his usual beanie because Akihiko’d taken one look at his outfit (re: what he normally wears and a scarf to go alongside with it because he’ll get cold and then what would Akihiko’d do?) and threatened to sic Kirijo on him. Apparently, Makoto and Kirijo (with the force of Kirijo Group coffers behind them) had actually rented them a booking at a far-more upscale restaurant than normal, because it was–and this wasn’t actually explained to Shinjiro until later, because Makoto is a sly motherfucker–it was the anniversary of Shinjiro’s waking up from being dead. 

Not the day he was conscious enough to speak and talk, but the one where he’d woken up and promptly vomited all over himself because his brain was registering senses he didn’t think he could feel. 

Shinjiro had to give it to him. Sly, conniving motherfucker. He knew Shinjiro’d turn it down immediately if he knew what the supposed reunion was for. 

So he winds up wearing pressed pants and a maroon button-up–something he’d borrowed from Ayase-san at work, who is a very nice and friendly beta he’d met while kicking some asshole out of the bar he works at as a bouncer. Ayase-san is one of the bartenders who sneaks him free drinks when he’s off the clock or on his break, which is really fucking nice of him even if Shinjiro has the tolerance of a wet cat for most interpersonal relations that don’t involve people he already knows. The man is resilient enough to withstand Shinjiro’s grunts and noncommittal hums as reply, which means he’s made it onto the list of people Shinjiro will actually talk to willingly. And he’s also Shinjiro’s size, which helps a lot in this endeavor–because he’d tried to borrow something of Akihiko’s to wear, previously, and then promptly realized that in the months of his absence from the physical world Akihiko’d hit yet another fucking growth spurt, which made him about as tall as Shinjiro. 

(When they were children, Akihiko’d been the smaller of them both. He’d been scrawny, and skinny, and easy to throw like a particularly disgruntled cat. He’d been a beanpole of a teenager, tall–about Shinjiro’s height–but light, like his bones were made from birds’ bones. 

He’d not looked like an alpha then. 

Just scrawny, weak Akihiko, with one baby tooth missing and vehement enough to make up for his lack of size with attitude and enough anger to flatten a mountain. Enough emotion in his body to fill whole oceans, because Akihiko doesn’t do anything by halves, and feels everything with the force of a thousand suns–and maybe some collapsing stars to boot. A gangly beanpole Shinjiro’d let follow him around for the first few years of Shinjiro’s short life. They were both dysfunctional, the pair of them, and they could have made one whole alpha then–Shinjiro with his size, Akihiko with his attitude. 

And then Akihiko hit his growth spurt. Started growing, and then proceeded to keep fucking growing. While Shinjiro’d relied on his natural bulk and strength to carry him through Tartarus expeditions and any brawls they got into, Akihiko’d filled up and out, growing so fast it was honestly impressive. The worst part was that he was oblivious in that way teenage boys often were, and that was what grated on Shinjiro the most.)

Where Shinjiro used to lord his two inches over Akihiko, he’s now about eye-level with Akihiko, which is its own special brand of misery–worse, because Akihiko never teases him about it. But Shinjiro has to wake up on Sundays and make them both breakfast and despair as Akihiko chatters away, completely oblivious to how much taller–and broader–he is now. Add in how much Shinjiro slouches and Akihiko’s natural tendency for brighter colors, he just…will not wear anything Akihiko throws at him. He is not going to look like a clown. 

So. Hence the borrowed button-up.

He scowls one more time in the mirror while applying his blockers. Shrugs his coat on–the one thing Akihiko had let him keep, because he knew how cold Shinjiro got in his extremities. How gracious of him, Shinjiro thinks sardonically, before leaving their shared bathroom to meet Akihiko in the hallway. Akihiko’s been texting him the whole time he was in there–messages for him to hurry his ass up, because they’re going to be late–which, Shinjiro thinks is fucking rich coming from the guy who took two whole fucking hours to get ready. Akihiko doesn’t have shoulder-length hair to try and tame into some sort of neatness. The guy’s had that short crop since he was like, five. 

He steps into the hallway. Akihiko looks up from fucking around on his phone and says: “Oh, finally, I thought you’d fucking fallen into the–” before abruptly cutting himself off. He’s staring. 

Shinjiro would ask him what the hell he’s staring at, but he’s sort of preoccupied too. Because he’s always known what Akihiko looks like, he’s been staring at his face for the greater part of fifteen years, he could recognize him blind and drunk. 

So yes, Shinjiro knows what Akihiko looks like. Is even aware of his best friend’s purported attractiveness, too, amazingly enough. But…has… he always looked like that? It’s like stepping into an alternate reality and getting the rug pulled out from underneath him. Is he fucking wearing eyeliner?

What the fuck, Shinjiro thinks, with an increasing amount of panic. Akihiko’s got a crooked nose from when Shinjiro broke it at seven years old and it never healed properly. He has the faintest suggestion of circles under his eyes. His features are slightly asymmetrical, until he smiles and his dimples are even–one in each cheek, exactly the same position. 

He hasn’t even done anything to his hair, except to run a brush through it, and he’s wearing a navy button-down and a fucking tie. A tie the exact same color as Shinjiro's shirt. 

He looks good. He looks fucking unfairly good. His jaw is strong, and he’s handsome. It’s like Shinjiro’s seeing him for the first time, properly registering all the things that made Akihiko handsome instead of all the things Shinjiro knows about him written across his face. 

Oh god, is this what all those girls at school thought about him? Shinjiro almost jolts in surprise. Fuck, what the hell. Where had that come from? 

“Shinji,” Akihiko says. “You, uh, you look nice.”

Shinjiro snaps out of his daze and says: “Did you expect me not to?” He meant to sound accusing, but it mostly just comes out winded. Shit. He needs to absolutely pretend he’s fine or Akihiko is going to ask questions he doesn’t know how to answer.

Thankfully, Akihiko doesn’t seem to notice. There’s a slight flush in his cheeks when he turns away from Shinjiro–who gets the full view of how his black trousers make his legs seem a mile long, Christ–and unlocks the door. 

“I didn’t think you even knew what a hairbrush was,” Akihiko’s saying, as they head down the stairwell. 

He doesn’t like using the lift and Shinjiro knows it’s because he’s claustrophobic. Shinjiro used to complain about walking up so many flights of stairs with his shitty back that hadn’t quite adjusted to carrying his weight after so many weeks in a hospital bed, but then Shinjiro went to physical therapy. And when he did, Akihiko often came with him just to cheer him on or do the exercises alongside him. Partly because “they’re good for you, in general,” and Akihiko loves any sort of exercise that could make him sweat. But mostly so that Shinjiro wouldn’t be alone. 

So Shinjiro takes the stairs now. Uses it as a reason to stretch his bad knees and talk to Akihiko, when they’re going somewhere together.

“I asked Takeba what to do with it,” Shinjiro says, dryly. “I didn’t think you knew what eyeliner was.” They reach the bottom of the stairwell, and exit through to the residential parking area. 

It’s an enclosed, underground garage, and Akihiko’s beat up red station wagon sits parked next to the wall. Shinjiro leans over and waits patiently as Akihiko rummages in his blazer pockets for his keys. 

“Guyliner,” Akihiko snipes back. “Junpei lent it to me.”

“Iori knows what eyeliner is?”

“Fair,” he concedes. “I think he was just dropping it off because Takeba told him I needed it. So it’s probably hers.” 

Takeba, you are a genius. “That conspiring little shit,” Shinjiro says out loud. “I asked her what I should wear and she went and made us match.” 

Akihiko looks at him, looks down at himself, and then promptly goes beet red. “Shit, I didn’t even notice–”

"Did she make you paint your nails too,” Shinjiro voices, a little tonelessly. Because he’s just noticed that when Akihiko raised his arm to open the driver side door his nails are–

“Oh, yeah,” Akihiko tells him, earnestly. “She basically forced me to do it. Clean up my hands a little. I don’t mind, though–they look cool, right?”

His nails are a shadowy black and a dark red on the ring fingers, and they’re a little chipped, but Shinjiro swore they were natural this morning. “Is that why you took two hours in the bathroom?”

“Hey!” Akihiko slides into the driver’s seat. His hands curl around the wheel. Shinjiro can see the way his cuticles have been trimmed, and his fingers are long and slim, his knuckles always a little swollen from how long he holds them in fists. His hands are nice. His nails are nice. Shinjiro immediately wants the earth to open up and swallow him. “The polish takes a long time to dry…I don’t know how girls do it, I couldn’t do that everyday.”

Shinjiro buckles himself into the passenger seat and wishes for death to come take him. They pull out of the parking lot and Shinjiro tries not to look at Akihiko, the blinding look of him. “You should ask Kirijo how she does hers. Those could be qualified as weapons–when you box, you’d be a hazard.” 

Oh. Hm. Now that’s a thought. He folds his hands in his lap, clenches them into fists. Shit, he shouldn't've said anything. 

Akihiko in the ring. Hands bloody and swollen, glistening with sweat. Fingernails short, painted red and chipped around the corners because Akihiko wouldn’t put on the five-inch stilettos Kirijo wears. Christ. His fingers are calloused–Shinjiro knows, because Akihiko grasped his hand the other night and Shinjiro’d had to pretend like he wasn’t breaking into a cold sweat just by sitting there–and his knuckles are knobbly, misshaped and always sort-of fucked up. It shouldn’t be charming. Sitting right next to him, Shinjiro can smell his scent: ozone and vaseline muffled by Akihiko’s drugstore cologne. It clashes so horribly with Akihiko’s good-alpha presentation, the bruiser look he carries around–it’s supposed to be clean, flowery, or something like that. He makes it work, though. 

Fuck, does he make it work. It's devastating. What the fuck, he thinks, considers braining himself on the window. 

Shinjiro doesn’t know what’s happening. Why is he so fixated on Akihiko’s damn hands? Is this a side effect of the new medication he’s on? The anti-suppressants? Bad enough that he’s a hormonal, grouchy bastard on the regular, bad enough that he’s been trying to relearn what it means to have a body that actually works again–although, clearly with some room for error–he’s got to deal with thoughts. 

Noticing. Shinjiro’s pretty sure these aren’t normal thoughts to have about, like, anyone. Especially not Akihiko. 

So Shinjiro forcibly shoots the whole train of thought dead and shoves its corpse in a box. He’s fine. Everything is fine. He repeats the mantra to himself as he folds his arms across his chest, hiding the way his hands reflexively clench and unclench. 

“I mean, yeah,” Akihiko says, perfectly oblivious to his internal turmoil. Shit, Shinjiro’d forgotten what they were talking about. “But I’d probably take someone’s eye out, and then I’d be disqualified.” They stop at a red light. “You okay, Shinji? Nervous? You’re twitchy again.” 

Scratch what Shinjiro said about being perfectly oblivious. Akihiko oscillates between two states–more dense than a brick wall or being uncannily fucking perceptive because he’s out to ruin Shinjiro’s life. 

"Just thinking,” Shinjiro half-lies. “You want to take bets on which of our kouhai gets drunk first? There’s an open bar, right?”

“Twenty yen on Junpei,” Akihiko says, because he likes low-hanging fruit. Shinjiro snorts.

“I’m not taking that. Thirty on Aigis.”

“Aigis can’t even drink!”

“What, you chicken?” 

It’s fine. Shinjiro can do this. Shinjiro will be fine. He is going to go to dinner, eat some overpriced restaurant food, and make nice as his friends congratulate him for cheating death, the second–or third–time in a row. He is not going to do anything stupid. It’ll be fine. 

They get to the venue with time to spare and no major road accidents along the way. Unfortunately. Shinjiro personally would’ve liked for there to be a pile-up, maybe a collision, maybe Akihiko’s car wraps around a tree and takes out both its passengers along the way. No such luck. Akihiko is a responsible driver and drives exactly 5km/h under the speed limit and slows down when he turns corners, or when he sees a yellow light. Shinjiro himself can’t drive–never learnt how to when he could just walk–but then again, he hadn’t had the time to learn. 

Akihiko’s been trying to teach him. It has, so far, not been very successful.

The hostess at the restaurant shows them to their seats when Akihiko and Shinjiro walk in. At their booth, they’re not the only ones there–Takeba and Iori have already arrived, chatting animatedly and catching up over Takeba’s time abroad in Europe, because she’s traveling right now and taking a gap year to focus on herself. Her words, not Shinjiro’s. Which he only knows because of her many photos that she’d sent in the group chat. There’s one of her leaning against the wall of the Coliseum, and another of her “holding” the leaning Tower of Pisa up. 

“Senpais!” Takeba waves at them. “It’s good to see you! You especially, Aragaki-san, I’ve not seen you in a minute.” She looks good, dressed to kill in a nice green dress that sits off-shoulder, bringing out the natural tones of her red hair. Her scent, barely disguised by a thin patch that sits at the base of her neck, drifts towards him–cinnamon and books and the profiteroles he knows she likes. 

“Takeba,” Shinjiro acknowledges, coming across to sit in one of the leather seats. “You arrived early?”

“I did! I thought traffic was going to be worse than it was. It’s alright, though, Junpei came early, too!”

“Junpei arrived early?” Akihiko raises one of his eyebrows, amused. He plops himself down next to Shinjiro, leaning back to relax into the plush seat. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

Across from Takeba, Iori whines in protest. He’s dressed down in a light blue button up, his cap missing and his stubble actually shaved for once. “Hey man, I wouldn’t miss this for anything! Today’s an important day! After all, Aragaki-senpai doesn’t really like to go out, right?” 

“That he doesn’t,” Akihiko agrees, but it sounds almost fond. Shinjiro's stomach twists itself into a knot, unravels, and turns into a tangled mess when Akihiko slings an overtly-casual arm over the back of Shinjiro's seat.

The rest of the group arrives in twos and threes. Amada and Fuuka arrive with Makoto, chattering gaily about something-or-another interspersed with Makoto’s furious signing. Shinjiro hadn’t really expected Amada to come–now that he knows this outing was meant for him, he’d expected Amada to skip–but it’s a shock nonetheless when Amada turns to him and smiles, a confident one that’s yards away from the kid he last saw in October. 

Kid’s grown taller, too. He’s almost up to Shinjiro’s chest now. Something in Shinjiro’s chest warms at the sight, almost–almost–overtaking the guilt. Almost. He doesn’t quite smile back, but he does nod at Amada, and Amada’s smile brightens a tiny notch. 

“Aragaki-san!” Fuuka strides over, inclines her head slightly in greeting. “It’s good to see you! How are you doing?”

“Fuuka-chan!” Takeba turns, nearly tackles Fuuka in a hug. From what Shinjiro remembers, Fuuka’s been studying on the mainland–something to do with accounting. He’d been lurking in the group chat that day when they were going back and forth about their plans–from the former S.E.E.S squad, the girls’d mostly decided to leave Tatsumi Port to study elsewhere (or, in the case of Kirijo, take over their family’s empire). Makoto stayed, and so had most of the boys–barring Amada, who lived in the dorms most of the year and stayed with Fuuka in Hokkaido for three months, towards the end of the year. 

“It’s been a long time since we were all together like this,” Kirijo says. She’d turned up in the last minute or so, flanked by Aigis. Shinjiro’d barely even noticed she’d arrived, distracted as he was. (A waiter’d come by, placing a tumbler of something woodsy-smelling and orange-colored in front of him, and a tall wine-glass of something red for Akihiko. 

The sneaky bastard–he must’ve ordered for them both while Shinjiro wasn’t looking. When the hell did he do that?)

“I’m glad to see you all again. I trust the venue is alright?”

“Oh, Kirijo-san, it’s perfect, thank you again for hosting–” Takeba tries to get out, but Iori cuts her off.

“Yeah! It’s so fancy–they have folded cloth napkins. And the nice chopstick holders!” 

Makoto’s lips quirk up into a smile as he starts signing. Junpei, you’d think you’d have never seen a napkin before. 

“Not ones this fancy! They have embroidery on them.”

“You know the word embroidery?” Takeba returns scathingly, making room for Kirijo to sit. Kirijo smiles at her in turn, adjusting the fabric of her dark-red dress–almost wine-dark–in her lap. A slight flush rises in Takeba’s cheek when Kirijo inadvertently reaches past her to grab the water jug. Huh. Interesting, Shinjiro thinks, amused. 

(A few years ago, he’d thought he’d had a crush on Mitsuru Kirijo–like about 90% of the student body did. It’d have made sense if he did. 

She was smart, and pretty, and was always composed. She’d recruited both himself and Akihiko into S.E.E.S in the first place. She’d lead them for about two years before Makoto came into the picture, because the two alphas under her command were too hot-headed and incapable of not rushing in headfirst–Akihiko because he was just like that, and Shinjiro because he’d just had too much to prove, too much to let out and nowhere to put it down. 

Kirijo slotted in nicely–was a level, grounding presence to Shinjiro’s withdrawn demeanor, kept Akihiko from going too hard, all the time. She’d been exactly what they’d needed. So was the promise they’d made, back then, to stay together–for S.E.E.S, yes, their special little “club” comprised of the only Persona-users they knew of in town–but also because they’d been through a lot together. Watching out for each other in fights and constantly patching each other up meant that Shinjiro couldn’t treat Kirijo with the arms-length distance he afforded everybody else, and Akihiko’s bluster was only good to unpracticed eyes–so he didn’t bother at all, when it was just the three of them. 

So yes. Before, Shinjiro’d had a crush on Kirijo. Or thought so, anyway. Kirijo was a good friend and a non-alpha that he actually liked to talk to, and she was easy to fall for–popular, cool and collected, perfect–that when asked if he liked anybody like that, it was a nice, safe answer. But in the end, he hadn’t done anything about it–his feelings were weak, and it would’ve been unfair to put Kirijo on the spot. 

Not sure he would’ve made it work, anyways. Kirijo was still a good friend to him–the only other person other than Akihiko himself to keep pestering him weekly if not daily, reminding him to eat and drink and take care of himself–but definitely not someone he wants to be around all the time. 

Part of Shinjiro had resented it, her hovering–she was almost as bad as Akihiko was–back when he was still going to physical therapy almost daily and required help to do simple things, but now he just… feels a soft, irritated fondness. 

It’s not really her fault he’s avoiding her, either. He still doesn’t understand why the conversation they’d left off on had rattled him so badly. Of course Kirijo’d ask about Akihiko–he lives with the man, and they’re particularly both “troublesome” to live with–but her tone had just. Rubbed something in him wrong.

He still hasn’t told Akihiko about that conversation. Or why he stopped going to brunches with Kirijo, telling him that Kirijo was too busy to have lunch with a peon like him. He knows Akihiko doesn’t buy it, glancing at him skeptically every time he even mentions Kirijo in a conversation, but he refuses to come clean. For some reason, the thought was too embarrassing for him to share with Akihiko.)

Jerked out of the past and into the present, Shinjiro realizes he’s been staring. Kirijo’s looking back, confused. She tilts her head slightly in that questioning way she sometimes did at him, and part of Shinjiro wants to laugh. Here she was, still capturing hearts, and she didn’t even mean to do it.

Akihiko nudges his elbow. “You good?” What’s got you brooding like that, the crease between his eyebrows says. 

Shinjiro blinks again. Around them, the conversation flowed naturally, friends catching up after time away from seeing each other in person–but Akihiko’s just looking at him, chopsticks held loosely in his left hand. 

He huffs. Takes a sip from his tumbler to distract himself. It’s good bourbon–slides clean and tangy down his throat, goes down smooth. Akihiko knows him so well. “Yeah, Aki, ‘m just…thinking.” 

“Thinking about what?” 

"Ooh, is Senpai thinking about a girl,” Iori teases, across the table. They’d been served while Shinjiro was busy thinking–judging from the platters that were set out in front of him, soup and rice and plates of tebasaki. He’d completely missed it. 

At that, the table’s attention turns on Shinjiro. Fuck. 

“Don’t be weird, Junpei,” Takeba hisses from somewhere to Shinjiro’s right, pointing at Iori threateningly with her chopsticks. On her other side, Makoto snickers under his breath. 

Shinjiro feels his face warm slightly. Oh no. “I might,” he drawls, mostly to cover how stilted he felt. “Why—you jealous, Iori?” Next to him, he feels Akihiko stiffen. Ozone turns slightly sharp and sour in the air, stinging his nose. He smells… irritated. Angry. Shinjiro blinks, the instinctive urge to throw up and challenge the source of the bad-terrible-irritation rising hotly within him, before he kicks it to the curb. He can’t add to…whatever the hell that was. Next to him, Akihiko focuses on his own plate as if it held the secrets to the universe. He's got this pinched look that he gets whenever he's upset but doesn't want to talk about it.

Miraculously, no one aside from him seems to notice, too preoccupied with Iori’s loudness. 

Kirijo, though–she’s definitely noticed. She opens her mouth to interject, but Junpei barrels on, completely oblivious. 

“No way, man, I have my darling Chidori!” Iori thumps a hand on his chest, as if to emphasise the point. “She’s all I need! No girl could compare to her, in my heart.” 

The table relaxes. Akihiko doesn’t. Shinjiro can still pick out the burnt-wire smell, only somewhat disguised under his cologne. When he turns to ask him what’s wrong, Akihiko’s looking straight ahead, shoulders tense but smiling at–something. If Shinjiro didn't know him as well as he did, he might have been almost fooled. He furrows his brow and opens his mouth to speak. Before he can, though, Iori cuts him off–launching into an impassioned speech as he goes on and on about his “darling lady.” 

(Iori’s long, torrid affair with Chidori Yoshino is well-known by pretty much everyone who has ever spoken to Iori for longer than four minutes. Chidori’s a nice girl–a bit rough and awkward, but a perfectly lovely omega to Iori’s alpha. He still doesn’t understand why she wound up with Iori, of all people… but … )

Shinjiro himself has long since stopped listening. He’s too busy trying to catch Akihiko’s eye. Why’d he clam up like that, all of the sudden? A curl of anxiety winds its way into Shinjiro’s stomach, souring the taste of the abalone in his mouth. 

Akihiko continues to refuse to look at him. Damn stubborn bastard. He’s definitely noticed Shinjiro’s gaze burning holes into the side of his face–knows him too well by now not to. Stupid, dumb stubborn fucker. 

Eventually, Shinjiro sighs and relents. He resolves to get it out of Akihiko later, in private. A pissed Akihiko is a pain to live with, mainly because he tends to not know why he’s mad in the first place until he figures it out and explodes. And when he does, Shinjiro’s usually the one who winds up having to clean it up or let him cry it out. Better to head it off now then to wait for the inevitable messy eruption. 

“I meant to ask,” Fuuka speaks up. “I noticed Chidori-chan wasn’t here today…” 

Iori wilts slightly. “Yeah, she wasn’t feeling well… Today’s a bad day for her.”

As if magnetized, Akihiko’s eyes gravitate back to Shinjiro. Shinjiro wilfully ignores the stare leveled at the side of his head, and shoves a piece of tofu in his mouth, chewing furiously so he wouldn’t have to talk. 

Akihiko has more or less forgiven him for not telling him about the suppressants. Has even let go of the “jumping in front of a bullet and nearly dying” thing, surprisingly, won’t even talk about it much anymore. But he doesn’t take well to reminders of the suppressants, the hell Shinjiro put himself through, the way STREGA treated them–Shinjiro and Chidori both–like guinea pigs. He gets steaming mad and all jumped-up about it, like he’d personally failed Shinjiro by not telling him how STREGA would have killed him for the sake of having another thing to toy with, to control. 

Never mind that it’d been Shinjiro’s choice to fuck up as spectacularly as he had. Never mind that Shinjiro’s been making bad choices since the day he was born. Being friends with Akihiko hadn’t been one of them–it infuriates Shinjiro to no end, seeing Akihiko continually blame himself for not seeing Shinjiro’s little self-destructive spiral sooner. Or stopping it. Whichever. Whatever.  

That was the thing: Akihiko was like a pit bull, sometimes. He latches onto something and is physically unable to let it go until Shinjiro makes him. 

“Drop it,” Shinjiro grunts, out of the corner of his mouth. He sees Akihiko open his mouth to speak and pinches his thigh, hard, in response. Akihiko hisses, slaps his arm back but miraculously—concedes. Good. Shinjiro really didn’t want to rehash that old argument in the middle of a crowded restaurant with all their friends present to see it.  

Makoto’s watching this entire exchange with some sort of bafflement in his face. He’s staring at the place Akihiko’d smacked him. 

Akihiko himself is glowering at his own plate, stabbing at the food like it’d insulted his mother. Shinjiro glares at him for that. And then at Makoto, and then at the entire table, who’d busied themselves with their meal as soon as they realized he was looking. 

What a bunch of busybodies. 

“Anyway,” Kirijo changes the topic, thankfully, because for about a good thirty seconds no one’d spoken–too afraid of the strange tension that’d fallen. “Fuuka, how are your classes going?”

“They’re alright! I’m really enjoying the work that they give us–I like the equations, some of them are pretty hard but I like the challenge…”

Smooth, Kirijo. Shinjiro privately thanks her in his mind and knocks back the rest of his glass. The conversation moved on without him, and he eats some more, only half-paying attention to the discussion. Classes, friends, lives, new and old loves, all of it was moving so fast. His underclassmen were all growing up and reaching again for the future–even though they were very nearly robbed of it last year–refusing to be discouraged by the world nearly fucking ending. They were living well and moving on, happy and doing good for themselves. 

Shinjiro’s…proud of them. They’d deserved better than dying, better than an abrupt death at the hand of a maniacal avatar hell-bent on trying to make the world explode like an eighth-grader’s baking soda volcano. 

Amada turns to him at one point, during a lull in a playful argument about whether Iori should propose before December or he should wait until next year, again. “Aragaki-san,” he begins, solemn. “I know this is sort of late, but I wanted to say–I’m really glad you lived.”

“Ken,” Shinjiro exhales. The entire table quietens. “Kid, you don’t have to–”

“No, I want to,” Amada says firmly. Confident enough to straighten his back and meet Shinjiro’s gaze. He’s such a far cry from the kid Shinjiro used to know that it’s still so startling, even though they’ve spoken more than once since Shinjiro woke up from the coma. “I’m really glad you survived. A-and even if we haven’t always gotten along, I want to live like how you told me to.” 

He’s talking about Shinjiro’s deathbed words. He’s talking about Shinjiro’s overly sincere, deathbed words, because as far as Shinjiro was concerned, that had been it–game over. Curtains closed. The show's over, everybody go home. He’d needed Amada to know that what happened wasn’t his fault–it was Shinjiro’s, and Shinjiro’s alone. He’d said his goodbyes in the privacy of his mind, convinced the end was coming. But it hadn’t happened. And now–to Shinjiro’s horror, he can feel wetness welling up within his eyes. Do not cry, do not cry, do not–

“Me too,” Takeba suddenly pipes up, nodding fiercely. “I’m also glad you lived, senpai. You’re an invaluable teammate and friend–I’m honored to have met you!” Fuuka nods seriously, and Makoto covers his mouth to hide a grin. Even Aigis smiles at him. Shinjiro cannot be here right now.

“Guys,” Akihiko says, his savior. Thank god. “You’re crowding him. Let him breathe.” Shinjiro could kiss him right now. 

“That being said, Shinji,” Oh no. Never mind. Akihiko hates him and clearly wants him gone. Goodbye, cruel world. Betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. “They’re right. You’re my best friend. If there’s anything I’m thankful for at this table, it’s that you survived it all–getting stronger, every day. I’m proud of you for being here.” 

He means it, too–Shinjiro can see the way his hands are steady, his spine straight with conviction. Akihiko makes eye contact with Shinjiro–head on, unafraid. His previous anger’d taken a backseat, and in place of it was the Akihiko that still trusted Shinji, despite Shinjiro lying to him. Despite the betrayal, running away, the bloody fights and the broken bones. Even though Shinjiro threw his kindness back in his face year after year. 

Shit.

Shinjiro looks at him, speechless, before pressing his lips together and closing his eyes. If he blinks really hard to cover how wet his eyes were, that’s his business and no one else’s. 

Shinjiro’s more or less escaped to the alleyway behind the restaurant–the only place he can go for a smoke, aside from doing it directly outside the building, but then he’d probably get yelled at for loitering–when a hint of mint and aniseed oil drifts past his nose, briefly cutting through the tobacco-ash coating his throat. Under the aniseed is a familiar scent, clean and sharp like ice coating the dorm windows in winter.

“Kirijo,” he says, without turning around. The sound of heeled boots clicking down the alleyway and towards him is enough of an answer. His voice comes out in a dead-end rasp. “What’re you doing here, shouldn’t you be inside schmoozing?”

“They can handle themselves without me for two seconds,” Kirijo says. “Yukari’s got a great head on her shoulders.”

Shinjiro snickers–he can’t help it. Between the bourbon and the warm burn of tobacco in his veins, he feels relaxed, miles away from the problems that just keep popping up in his path. He doesn’t feel nearly as suffocated out here. “Yukari, huh? When’d you get on first-name basis with her?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kirijo says, crossly, leaning against the dirty brick wall with him. Shinjiro briefly wonders how much her dry cleaning bill for that coat would cost. More than he makes in a month, probably. “It’s not like that.”

“Weren’t you talkin’ about who to give your second button to, months before we graduated,” Shinjiro points out. He gestures to Kirijo with the flickering end of his cig, to which Kirijo just wrinkles her nose at him. “I bet you anything that if you’d been available–and we hadn’t been busy, let’s be real–you’d have gifted it to Takeba.”

Red blooms high in Kirijo’s cheeks. “So what, Shinjiro,” Kirijo snaps. 

Shinjiro blinks. Silence descends, thick like snow around them.

“So what,” she repeats, almost to herself. Her voice is quiet. Quieter than Shinjiro has ever heard it before. “Yukari has much–much better options than me. I’m not even on the island most of the time.” She takes a deep, deep breath, as if strengthening herself for what she was about to say. “I’m a workaholic. She could do better than me–I’m not even an alpha. She respects me, but don’t think I haven’t forgotten when she could barely look in my direction.” 

Shinjiro stares at her. Flicks his cigarette to the ground, and stomps on it, leaving a dark gray smear against the asphalt. “Kirijo, are you telling me that you think Takeba doesn’t feel the same way?” He cannot believe his ears. Here he was, watching the most awkward dinner of his life, not for the least that Takeba kept trying to give Kirijo all the best cuts of meat off her plate–and alright, it’d been fun to watch Takeba squirm–but Kirijo’s seriously trying to tell him she didn’t notice?

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kirijo frowns at him. “Shinjiro, she can barely make eye contact with me. She’s young, pretty, an omega–she could have anyone she chooses. Why would she want me?”

Shinjiro opens and closes his mouth in disbelief. He roots around for an acceptable answer that’s both nice and supportive but also makes it clear how much he thinks that even though Kirijo is the smartest of all of his friends, that was the dumbest fucking thing he’s ever heard her say. Ever. 

“You’re Mitsuru Kirijo,” he eventually settles on. I knew people in school who would have given their right arms to date you, or to be you, or both. “Usually people are saying that about you, not you saying that about them. And if you seriously haven’t noticed Takeba looking, Kirijo, with respect–I can’t help you.”

She purses her lips at him, clearly displeased by that answer. Shinjiro doesn’t waver. When she looks down to fiddle with her bracelet, he leans closer. “You should go for it. I mean, fuck what I think, or what anyone else thinks–what do you want, Kirijo?” 

“You really should just call me Mitsuru at this point, Shinjiro,” she says bitterly, half-amused. “It’s been five years.” Still, she shakes her head. “There’s too much at stake. We’re not even living in the same city, most days–how would I even make that work?”

Shinjiro glances at her, the slump to her shoulders that is never present. “Even if Takeba reciprocates?”

“Especially if–if–she reciprocates,” Kirijo rebuts, vehemently. “I can’t be responsible for both our hearts. I won't hurt her feelings.”

"Thought that was the point of a partnership,” Shinjiro points out. “...Not that I’d know, but you’re supposed to share your burdens, right? So… share. Takeba likes you, Kirijo. Follow your heart.”

“...” Kirijo looks away. She’s gone pink. 

When Shinjiro peers closer, the shadows under her eyes are more pronounced and–okay, credit where credit is due, he would’ve never noticed if he hadn’t known what to look for. Kirijo is very, very good with her concealer brush. Gotta never appear less than perfect, and all. But on further inspection, he realizes she’s even more ruffled than when he saw her last–her hair’s slightly rumpled and her coat’s askew on her frame, slightly too loose and baggy. 

She’s not been eating. He frowns.

“You been sleeping?” he asks, quietly. Kirijo sighs. 

“I try,” she confesses. She fishes out a small lighter and a pack of menthols–good god–from her coat pocket. Lights one and offers it to him. He takes it, because he’s polite like that, and menthols are basically a freebie. She lights another one for herself. 

No one else knows Kirijo smokes–aside from him and probably Takeba. Maybe Akihiko. (Akihiko only knows he smokes because he found out in their first week of living together. The guy’d blown his lid when he’d walked outside and caught Shinjiro chain-smoking, right there and then in the fucking street, demanded to know what the hell he thinks he’s doing. Shinjiro’d blown another smoke ring in his face and said, whatever the hell I want.

It was a bit of a nasty habit he’d picked up on the streets, smoking, because he’d needed a vice to cope. He’d bum smokes off the line cooks of the places he’d work at, or take a few puffs off someone taking a quick break behind a konbini. It was the cheapest and fastest way he could break the tension in his body–on days where he could feel Castor trying to break free, or on days where he felt so utterly numb to everything he didn’t feel anything at all. The burn of cheap tobacco down his throat was so familiar and comforting to him–a part of his daily routine– that when he’d moved in with Akihiko, it’d been the hardest thing to leave behind.

“You’re thinking again,” Kirijo voices, breaking him out of his stupor. “Will you run away again if I ask who you’re thinking about?”

“No one,” Shinjiro says, automatically. What the hell. Could she see his thoughts on his face? Is he that transparent? “I do not run away when–”

Kirijo gives him a look, one so weighted by the flatness of words unsaid and her feelings on the matter, that it feels more like a physical weight slamming into him than just a metaphor. “...you’re telling me that speech about following my heart and throwing all caution to the wind but you run away when I mention Akihiko in a conversation? Shinjiro.”

“I don’t run away,” Shinjiro scoffs. “I just… didn’t want to talk about it, because there is nothing to talk about.”

“Forgive me for being crass, but if there was nothing to talk about, we wouldn’t be here,” Kirijo tells him, dry as a bone. “You’re both my closest friends. Is it that hard to believe I care about your happiness? His, too?” 

“Yeah, but there’s not anything to talk about,” Shinjiro snaps, irate. Why’s she so adamant about this? “We’re just living together, Kirijo. It’s not like we’re going steady or anything like that.”

Kirijo eyes him. The fancy watch on her wrist glimmers in the setting sun. “But you want to be.”

“...What?” Shinjiro's officially lost.

“Oh for–” Kirijo throws up her hands, exasperated. Gives up on trying to be oblique. “Shinjiro, you like him. Not as a friend, but you love him. Romantically.” 

Huh. Huh? His blood roars in his ears, a thunderous scream that drowns out anything else she might have said.

All of a sudden, the memory of a few weeks ago resurfaces: Makoto, in his living room. Forgive me for assuming. Kirijo interrogating him in that careful way, looking at him like he’d missed a crucial turn. The curl of…something in his stomach, when Akihiko touched him, the way he’d felt like he got shoved off the edge of a cliff and into the deep end of a pool when he walked out of the bathroom this morning and saw Akihiko–dumb, earnest Akihiko–all dressed up for Shinjiro’s dinner. Akihiko at his bedside, clutching Shinjiro’s pale and clammy hand to his forehead. Akihiko shoving him, furious and incandescent with rage in June. Akihiko, tonight, the sure way he’d said I’m proud of you for being here. He’s all conviction, all hard edges and surety wrapped in lightning. 

Shinjiro can't breathe. Time hesitates, for a second, narrows down to Shinjiro’s fingers curling numb over his flickering cig, the harsh burn of the mint in his throat, his thoughts screaming in his ears. 

Is that what all that has been? Happiness? Was he the last one to figure it out? Did Akihiko know? 

“Shinjiro,” Kirijo murmurs, reaching out to take his face in her gloved hand. “Breathe.” 

He tries. Ends up nearly choking, staring at the space between them with unseeing eyes. What the hell. The fear’d risen so fast that he hadn’t had time to react. Where’d all that come from? he thinks, dizzy. 

“What,” he attempts, the word flopping uselessly out of his mouth. His voice cracks. “What are you talking about?”

Kirijo extricates the cigarette from his fingers, drops it on the ground and smothers it beneath her sole. He’d protest, but his fingers don’t seem to be working. She grasps his hand loosely and waits for him to breathe normally again. Any other time, he’d be mad about that, the way she was just…fucking touching him, the way she was treating him so damn gently–he doesn’t need kid gloves–but he can’t muster the words. His insides feel like they’ve been doused in ice.

“I’ve known you for a long time, Shinjiro,” she says, soft. “I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this. You’re always looking at him. You let him in before you let anyone else even get close.”

“We’re just friends,” Shinjiro repeats. His throat feels dry, still. “He saved my life. Still owe him so much, Kirijo. I can’t–”

“Hey,” she soothes. “I can’t say I know everything between you two, but I know that Akihiko’s never looked at anyone like he does you. He’s so much happier when you’re around. When you left, he missed you. He barely left your bedside, when you were still sick.”

“That’s just what he does,” Shinjiro says. “That’s Aki. He’d give the coat off his back if you needed it and it was pourin’ outside. He’s just that kinda guy.” Because it was true. Akihiko was like a small, exploding supernova, ready to collapse inwards and subsume himself if he thought someone needed it. Past the snarky front, past the good-natured persona Akihiko played himself as– he was a genuinely good person who liked to help, even if he didn’t know how to.

He was so awkward it hurt Shinjiro sometimes to watch. But he always wore his heart on his sleeve, and he felt so much all the damn time that it scared Shinjiro. The fucking moron’d broken him, turned him into some soft fool that couldn’t push him away if he’d tried. And that’s why Shinjiro knew–an deep, fundamental understanding buried in the complicated mess in his chest–that if Akihiko felt something that huge and momentous Shinjiro would’ve fucking seen it. Akihiko’s not exactly subtle. It would’ve taken an even bigger idiot to miss something of that magnitude. 

In front of him, Kirijo shakes her head. “Have you ever seen Akihiko get serious about dating, the girls that followed him around all the time–did you ever see him even take notice?”

“He’s got a fanclub,” Shinjiro mutters, dazed.

“Yes, and he also dated someone for a good while,” she points out, firm but not unkind. “Did you know about that?”

“He–what?”

“It was while you were gone,” she says. “He decided to start dating Hana-chan from 8F– an omega, I think. She confessed to him and he said yes, which…surprised me. I don’t believe he’s ever talked about it.”

Shinjiro stares at Kirijo as if she’d just told him she’s got four arms. “He’s definitely never told me that.” 

Kirijo snorts–not a very ladylike noise–and says: “Yes, well. He was ashamed, I think, because he didn’t feel the way he ought to for her. It only lasted two months–she broke up with him, in fact, because he was too ‘distracted.’”

“Distracted,” Shinjiro repeats. He feels a bit like a damn parrot. “By what?”

“Boxing. School. He was always chasing after you, Shinjiro,” Kirijo smiles at him, a little sadly. She reaches out to tuck his hair behind his ear, a move he doesn’t protest. It felt soothing, especially after the near-panic attack he’d nearly had. “...You really had no idea, huh?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long while. Lists off five things he can see, smell, hear, taste and touch: the curve of Kirijo’s shiny gold earring. The smell of mint and Kirijo’s sea salt and pine smell mixing in the air. Traffic, in the distance, salarymen coming home to their wives and tired workers driving back to the other side of the city. The menthol tobacco aftertaste coating his lips and tongue, the way his hands are grasped loosely in Kirijo’s calloused ones. She hasn’t let go of him–probably afraid he’ll fall over. He sort of feels like it. Shinjiro can't stop shaking.

It doesn’t matter. Whatever point Kirijo thinks she’s making, dragging their fucked-up history into the open like that, it won’t work. “You forget,” he replies. “He’s an alpha, Kirijo. It won’t work out. I’d sooner kill him and he’d sooner kill me than let me get anywhere near him, like that. You’ve seen the way we fight.” 

It’s true. Most alpha and alpha couples don’t work out, because there’s just too much aggression in the relationship. He’s never even thought about himself in that position before. But it’s true, and he can’t stop himself from realizing. 

He’d wind up killing Akihiko, or Akihiko would put him down in a fit of hormone-induced aggression. They were slaves to their instincts. It wasn’t their fault–Shinjiro could not help what he was, no matter how he pretended otherwise and dulled his fangs while he was living in Akihiko’s vicinity, and neither could Akihiko. It was just how they were made. They’d postured at each other before, when they were young and settling into their presentations, but Shinjiro’d never meant it before. Not sure what he would’ve done if the sleeping dog inside him–the one that seemed to react the complete opposite to Akihiko as it did to everything else–finally woke up and smelled what Shinjiro’s been cooking on the backburner his entire life. It hurt to think, but Shinjiro let it bruise inside him–the sooner he made the out-of-control thing that lived inside him understand this fact, the better. The strange affection that’d taken up residence inside his brain, like finally seeing Akihiko in a new light–it made sense. It made Shinjiro almost queasy to think about. 

He couldn’t have it. Because one day the alpha inside of him would wake up, realize that Akihiko was a threat, and try to kill him. Because Shinjiro’s a killer. He knew what it felt like. And he didn’t want to make Akihiko into one.

(He was worse than a dog. He was a terrible alpha, one that let another alpha boss him around and caved to his demands, and craved things no alpha should want. His body only half-worked, about eighty percent of the time. His instincts were so fucked that he’d looked at Akihiko and didn’t know if he wanted to push until Akihiko gave, or push until Akihiko pushed back at him. Akihiko pissed him off, but in a way that terrified him, because Shinjiro didn’t know how he wanted to react. It was difficult to tell where Shinjiro’s feelings began and his instincts ended–his alpha, inside him, purring at the idea of having Akihiko, in the way he wanted–in the way he hasn’t felt for years–and god, all those pills Shinjiro’d taken; thinking they would fix him, when they’d just made him worse. 

All along, they’d just made the problem bigger and bigger, until Shinjiro couldn’t ignore it, because it wasn’t just his heart tossed in the ring anymore. It was everything. Everything he was and then some.

And the worst thing about it all is that Shinjiro wanted it to hurt. He wouldn’t have minded if Akihiko tore his throat out, would have rolled over and let him do the same to the soft skin of Shinjiro’s belly. When he’d woken up after weeks of grueling in-and-out unconsciousness, Akihiko had been the first face he saw. And it was like the clouds had parted, or something fucking fundamental had rearranged in his DNA, because for the very first time in a long time Shinjiro’d woken up feeling something other than anger and fury, other than the cold numbness that had possessed him for three years running.

Like he said. Worse than a dog.)

He breathes out, hard. It’s fine. He’s fine. He’ll deal. 

Kirijo’s just frowning at him like he’d said something stupid. “You haven’t killed each other yet,” she says. “You live together. I hardly think you will.” 

Hah. It’s almost like they’ve all forgotten what he’s done, what he was capable of. Just because they’ve stopped thinking about it doesn’t mean Shinjiro can. 

“Besides, he really does lo–”

“Kirijo,” Shinjiro cuts her off. Almost begs. God, don’t say it. “Don’t. Please. Okay?”

She looks surprised for a second. Just for a second, before she recovers that impossible composure. “Fine. We don’t have to speak about it, if you don’t want to anymore. But please, just–think about what I said. Okay?”

“Okay,” Shinjiro manages, squeezing her hand in his. It felt like an anchor. His eyes felt weak, stinging against his eyelids. He forces himself to stop leaning against the dirty brick wall. 

“And call me Mitsuru. Please, I insist.”

“Fine.” He breathes in, breathes out. Thanks again, Mitsuru.” 

“...thank you.” She drops his hand and takes a step back, out of his personal space. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? You have a phone. Call me when you can.”

“Sure. Now get out of here, I need to air off before Akihiko yells at me for smoking two of these in one day.” Just like that, he’s good again. See? Fine. Give him a little air, some time to cool off. He’ll get over it. He presses the back of his hand to the damp skin under his eye, watches as Kirijo strides off. Her heels echo in the dank alleyway, and Shinjiro waits until her scent fades and he knows she’s gone before closing his eyes. 

Crouches. Puts his head between his knees. It’s a long time since he’s felt this way–he usually just lies down at home. He breathes until his hands stop shaking. One-two-three. In, hold, out. One-two-three. Counting didn’t really help, but then again, he didn’t have much to work with. 

He gets up and walks away. 

Months ago, Shinjiro woke up in the middle of another dream.

He was still Schrodinger’s boy, and it wasn’t fun. Being a walking medical miracle–and yet confined to a hospital bed for weeks on end–meant he was consistently getting prodded by doctors, injections and medications and answering questions needlessly and as patiently as he could manage, all while drifting in and out of wakefulness. 

The two gunshot wounds had been nothing to the withdrawals he experienced. Shinjiro’d spent weeks just being unable to move–at first because he’d had surgery to remove the bullet shrapnel from all the essential parts, and then because he’d needed new medication to combat the damage the STREGA drugs had done to him. His limbs didn’t really work anymore–a physical therapist had been booked for him, as soon as his brain scans came back clear and there was no more risk of ongoing damage to his insides–and his muscles felt weak, destroyed. His throat hurt, his eyes hurt, and he was nauseous all the time while his body flushed the drugs from his system. He was skinny and weak from how much he’d lost during the whole ordeal. 

The medication that the doctors pumped him with helped ease him, a little, helped him feel a little more human–helped him return to what he had been. They regulated his sense of smell, his brain, his hormones and everything else in between. Anti-suppressants. When Castor stirred inside of him—for the first time in weeks—Shinjiro fought down the revulsion, pretended like the lack of control didn’t bother him at all. But he still had dreams, sometimes. Ones where he didn’t just die. Sometimes the bullet went through him. Sometimes he’d wake up to find he was trapped in the Dark Hour, unable to leave. Sometimes he was the one pulling the trigger. Things like that. 

He hadn’t thought it would matter. He should’ve been dead, but he was here. He hadn’t thought there would be another chance. Sure, Shinjiro felt like an invalid while he sweated and cursed and threw up in the nurse’s arms, but he was alive to do it. And it counted for something. So he kept trying. Answered every question, let himself be prodded and poked and subjected himself to getting his blood drawn every two days. 

On his bad days, Shinjiro privately wondered if it’d just be easier to let him die. Cut the IVs pumping support and just let him drift back into the void. But he remembers the look on Akihiko’s face when Shinjiro’d fucking died in his arms, and he promptly kills the whole thought experiment dead. 

When Shinjiro’d woken up for the first time in a month–properly, this time, without the drug-induced haze curling inside of him–his first instinct had been to call Akihiko. He’d sat up, loose hospital gown falling around him, and turned to see what his hand had been caught on. 

At his bedside, Akihiko sat slumped, his head pillowed by Shinjiro’s thigh. Completely asleep. Dead. Gone to the world. He’s even drooling a little bit, snoring a little under his breath. His hand clasped Shinjiro’s, loosely, clasped against his cheek. He’s dressed in a rumpled t-shirt and sweatpants, and his hair sticks up like he’s just stuck a fork in a damn light socket. Akihiko smells a little like detergent and the hospital-grade antiseptic that the nurses often wipe down Shinjiro’s bed with. 

It’s gross. It’s endearing. Shinjiro has no idea what time it is or when Akihiko arrived–he’s probably only been out for a day or so–but he has to wonder why Akihiko’s even here. Today’s a Saturday, which means Akihiko probably doesn’t have class–he could be out at practice, running, or even hanging out with the old S.E.E.S crew. He doesn’t have to be here, waiting on Shinjiro to wake up like he’s a damn princess in a fairytale. 

Still. He supposes it makes sense. Akihiko’s been a constant—a permanent addition to Shinjiro’s bedside, more in than out. He was always around, just hovering, offering to get Shinjiro things–books, food, anything he could think of. As if Shinjiro didn’t have nurses to do that for him. Akihiko’d come in with Amada on the seventh day of Shinjiro waking up since his surgery and offered him his phone. 

Shinjiro hadn’t even known he’d kept it. “So you can text me if you need anything,” he’d said. 

It wasn’t even all that weird. Akihiko tagging along to all his doctor visits, sitting there and nodding seriously when his doctor told Shinjiro he needed to stop fucking putting illicit substances into his body or he’d die within a year–not that he’d been planning on it, Aki, relax–and just hovering. His most staunch visitor. A reassuring presence at his elbow when Shinjiro’d felt like the world was going to fall out underneath him, a steadying hand on his back when Shinjiro needed to throw up for the seventh time in a day.

Akihiko shouldn’t be here. He should be out there living his life while Shinjiro gritted his teeth and plowed through all the different ways his body tried to protest his current state of being. 

He’s the only person Shinjiro has ever felt safe enough around to turn his back to. And here he was, sleeping. 

“Idiot,” Shinjiro said, to the silent room. Outside, spring took hold of Tatsumi, and Akihiko slept on.

Akihiko’s avoiding him. 

Shinjiro doesn’t actually have any evidence of this. For the first day or two after the Reunion, Akihiko’d been withdrawn and quiet, and Shinjiro’d assumed it’d been because he’d just been stressed and this was the comedown after the fact. If there was anything Shinjiro knew about Akihiko, it was that the guy had no sense of his limits. Would crash headfirst off a cliff before he recognized that he was overdoing it. On top of that, it was going to be midterm season soon, so Shinjiro’d put the pieces together and come up with the obvious math. Akihiko’s just stressed. Even smelled stressed, like a burgeoning overcast sky, a string stretched tight enough to snap. Shinjiro made a note to make him his favorite pork bowl and zenzai when the week was up. 

But a week in, Shinjiro realizes there’s a pattern–the silences at the kotatsu when Akihiko’s usually so eager to tell him about his classes, how his day went, how his progress at practice is going, the refusal to even really look at him–his quietness so poignant and palpable, so thick in their shared apartment that Shinjiro could reach out and touch it. His scent was more muted, too, like a cloth had been thrown over it, obscuring what he was truly feeling. It’s always when Shinjiro’s around. When he tries to talk to Akihiko, he just hums and shrugs him off. It’s sorta pathetic, really, Shinjiro hadn't really realized how much he talked to Akihiko until the guy withdrew into himself and refused to acknowledge his existence. For what appears to be no fucking reason at all.

And Akihiko’s stopped coming up to him, stopped asking him things, and always has an excuse on hand to get out of the apartment when Shinjiro’s at home. Shinjiro’s got a sneaking suspicion that Akihiko’s been stalling practice so when he comes home, Shinjiro’s already in the shower–ready to go to work–and Akihiko can eat his dinner furtively, sneakily, and be done by the time Shinjiro is out. It’d be almost clever if Shinjiro wasn’t pissed off at him.

Sure, Shinjiro tried to give him his space. Akihiko’s never been good at hiding his feelings–sooner or later, Shinjiro’d hear him explode and find out what exactly crawled up his ass and died. And when that didn’t work, Shinjiro tried to confront him. Straightforward was usually the way with Akihiko. But Shinjiro’d forgotten to take into account two things:

One, that Akihiko was even more stubborn than he was. Usually where Akihiko was really upset about something. Akihiko’s a really shitty liar, but will cling on to it and lie to himself if he thinks that being upset won’t solve anything. Something about always wanting to move on and not dwell on the past–which Shinjiro finds dumb as hell. Admirable, but dumb.

Two, that when Akihiko was mad at him, the usual response of “just let him vent it” doesn’t work. It doesn’t make their fights any less volatile–probably makes it worse, if anything, because Akihiko will straight up pettily refuse to talk to him until he explodes like a blocked faucet. Shinjiro has no idea why he does this. Shinjiro can’t fix something if he has no idea what he did in the first place. 

Yeah. So. Akihiko’s avoiding him. And Shinjiro’s got the sinking feeling it’s got something to do with what he'd said that night, at dinner. 

Whatever Shinjiro did to piss him off is clearly something big, but he’s not telling, and Shinjiro can’t figure it out. When he thinks about that night, he remembers mostly being on the teetering edge of panic, that blinding edge between shock and weak-kneed terror. He remembers the knife-sharp knowledge in his heart sitting like a lead stone when he’d gotten back into Akihiko’s car and let the man drive him home, not saying much, pretending like he’d just had a few too many drinks. And Akihiko’d not said anything then either–which Shinjiro should have interrogated, realized that something was bothering him. But he’d been afraid of talking. Saying too much. Wondering if Akihiko could see straight through him, realize that Shinjiro was sitting on a bomb that was ticking away. It’d felt like Shinjiro’d lived about a thousand lifetimes since, time passing without him noticing. It was torture. It was cruel and unusual punishment. 

Shinjiro still made him dinner anyway, because he’s pissed at Akihiko but he doesn’t want him to starve. While Shinjiro was stewing in his thoughts and stirring the pork broth in the clay pot, he heard the door open, and Akihiko’s quiet and subdued call of “sorry to intrude” echoed throughout the hall. Hah.

He looked up. Akihiko was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eyeing him with something unreadable in his eyes. His skin was pallid, flushed from the run home, and there were lines around his eyes where Shinjiro hadn’t noticed them before. He looked like death warmed over.

“You look like shit,” Shinjiro said.

Smooth, Aragaki.

“Thanks,” Akihiko said, sarcastically, before making an abrupt-turn and striding off to go sulk in his room. Like a child. He’s probably not going to come out until Shinjiro fucked off and let him eat in peace. Shouldn’t’ve provoked him. It seemed like it was all Shinjiro knew how to do: poke at the growing wound, throw dirt in the cut. When he was growing up, he picked and picked and picked at the scabs on his knees until they fell off early and scarred. Ugly gashes and knicks were all the same to him.

Shinjiro looked back into the broth, which was starting to bubble, and added another pinch of salt. He clenched his hand tighter around the chopsticks he was holding until the skin around the fingers turned white. Held it like that for a minute. Wondered. 

His routine goes like this: on Friday, Shinjiro brings home takeout after his shift instead of cooking, and sits down to eat it alone in front of the TV. On Saturday, Shinjiro does the laundry, works, and doesn’t see Akihiko. Sunday, he airs out the futons and goes to the farmer’s market to buy from the butcher. Still no Akihiko.

On Monday, he works late and comes home to no slumped body across the couch, no trademark snores emanating from the blankets. The apartment smelled like the both of them, but Shinjiro was alone.

He sits down on the blue fabric and just breathes, slow and steady in the dark. Picking at the wound hadn’t worked at all.

He stops taking his pills. It didn’t help. His alpha still purrs when he sees Akihiko’s things mixed in with his own in the laundry, still gets upset when Shinjiro hears the lock click behind Akihiko’s receding footsteps out the door. At least he didn’t have to deal with the all-consuming everything anymore. Everything smelt normal. Just detergent. No ozone, no smoke in the air. 

After another seven days of involuntary isolation, Shinjiro went to see Makoto at Chagall Cafe.

It hadn't been planned. Makoto texted him, impromptu and quick: hey, aragaki-san. We kinda need to talk. @ chagall, 2PM? Shinjiro had looked at it and texted him a quick thumbs up before leaving the apartment–empty, yet again, because Akihiko’d suddenly remembered that he had to do extra practice today (on a damn Monday, no less) and it was imperative that he had to leave without even letting Shinjiro know in person. He’d left a note. A note. Shinjiro was getting desperate. How long would Akihiko avoid him for? How long could he get away with it?

Judging from Akihiko’s abrupt and sudden allergy to Shinjiro’s presence, forever was starting to look likely. Akihiko’d never avoided him this long before. Shinjiro was in uncharted waters, and he was drowning with no lifeboat in sight. Figures.

When Shinjiro turns up at the cafe, it was bustling enough for him to instinctively draw his coat tighter around him, tilting his head down to avoid eye contact. He spots Makoto easily enough–in the corner, distinctive blue hair and all, quietly oblivious to the world around him–and approaches, sliding into the seat across from him. Makoto looks up. Pulls his headphones out, waves as a hello.

Aragaki-san, Makoto signs. Have you eaten yet?

“Yuki-kun, no way you dragged me all the way out here to nag me about eating.” Shinjiro shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets, leaning back to watch him fiddle with his earphones on the table. “What’s up, mighty leader?”

Makoto raises an eyebrow at him, signs: I’m getting whispers through the grapevine that you’re having problems with our mutual friend. 

Well. Straight to the point. That’s Makoto for you.

And then the words sink in. Oh. No fucking way. 

“What,” Shinjiro barks, suddenly furious. Why the hell is Makoto interrogating him about Akihiko? He told precisely no one about that embarrassing breakdown in the back alley of a restaurant, which means– “Did Kirijo put you up to this?”

Makoto looks confused, furrowing his brows. He smells neutral, like a beta does, indiscernible. 

What do you mean?

“About the–the Aki thing. The feelings. Didn’t she tell yo–” Shinjiro stumbles, uncharacteristically. Makoto’s watching him with sudden comprehension, eyes widening in his skull. “Oh. You didn’t. You didn’t know. Shit.” 

Makoto quickly shakes his head. Senpai, I was talking about him avoiding you. But if it helps any, I’ve long since suspected…

Heat rushes to Shinjiro’s face. He huffs. Relaxes a little from being wound tighter than a spring in a trap, still scowling. “Does everyone and their mother know?” 

A good chunk of our friends may have an inkling, Makoto allows. Still, he frowns. You shouldn’t be ashamed, Aragaki-san. It’s not a shameful thing to have feelings. I know you guys have always been close.

Hah. Close. “Not after this week, we aren’t,” Shinjiro mutters, dropping his eyes down to the scuffed laminate of the table. 

He was no good at this–explaining why he was upset even if he knew why, trying to capture the way he felt in quantifiable terms. Akihiko might be the blunt hammer, but he was the axe. Two peas in a pod. Probably why Shinjiro even liked him in the damn place. “Aki’s like a damn eel,” he admits, throat tight. “Can’t pin him down. He’s avoiding me, I thought he was mad ‘bout something or other. Got no clue what it is, though.”

Makoto frowns. Sets down his earphones. How long has this been going on?

Since I figured out I was in love with him. “Since the night you hosted that get-together,” he finally says. “He’s jumpier than a horse. I think I fucked up, Yuki-kun, but I don’t know what happened.” 

Makoto was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he signs: Are you sure it’s because of you?

“What else could it be?” Shinjiro muttered, under his breath. He’s been accused of having a one-track mind before, but this time he’s fairly certain it’s because of him Akihiko won’t even look at him anymore. The terrifying thing is, he still doesn’t know if Akihiko knows or not. He’s fairly certain Akihiko would have said something, confronted him, if that were the case, it’s just too big of a something to nebulously let hang in the air. He’s sure of it. “He won’t even be in the same room with me, Makoto.”

Yes, well. Seems like you aren’t the only one, Aragaki-senpai. Makoto takes a sip of his long-cold black tea, makes a face as he does. Yukari’s avoiding Kirijo-san.

“What? Why?”

She won’t tell me, but that’s why I came to ask you. You live with Sanada-san–I was wondering if you knew why they were behaving so weirdly, because Yukari’s been ignoring Kirijo-san and hanging out with Sanada-san. Makoto purses his lips together, looking uncomfortable with the idea. And Kirijo-san texted me about this, because she’s still abroad right now–as you probably know–but I can’t get through to Yukari. So.

What the hell. “Well, fearless leader,” Shinjiro says, forging ahead like that information hadn’t hit him square over the head. Aki’s been hanging out with Takeba? Something ugly and green surges in his chest. “I haven’t seen Aki in what, two weeks? Y’probably have a better understanding than I do. Maybe you should go talk to him instead. Maybe he’ll tell you, instead of pussyfooting around the issue.” He aims for light-hearted, fails miserably, slips and trips right into bitterness. Shit.

Makoto eyes him, sympathetic. Shinjiro knows that look–that’s the This is a charity case I must interfere in so I can sleep at night look. Absolutely not. It’s already humiliating enough that Yuki Makoto knows about his embarrassing, disgusting feelings for his best friend who is an alpha. Shinjiro cannot stress that last part enough. If Makoto tries to meddle, Shinjiro will go back to STREGA and beg them to finish the job. He glares at Makoto, eyeing him suspiciously as the kid chugs the rest of his drink and makes a disgusted noise. Makoto lowers his cup. 

I think, he signs at Shinjiro, doing it deliberately slowly in that way when he wants Shinjiro to take notice of whatever he’s saying, like in battle, that it sucks to see two of my friends sad because of someone else’s actions. And I want you to be happy. So. I’ll try and find out why Sanada-san is being…difficult.

Difficult. Difficult. Shinjiro could handle Akihiko’s difficult, has been doing it his whole life. He’d begun to look forward to it, putting up with all of Akihiko’s idiosyncrasies; began to genuinely cherish them, and looked forward to all of Akihiko’s stupid flaws and perfect imperfection. It was insane to suggest that Shinjiro hadn’t been happy before. Because he’d been so fucking happy it nearly blinded him when he looked back on it, the time when it was just him and Akihiko, when Akihiko came home to him every day, when Akihiko pushed into his space with that tenacious energy and Shinjiro actually fucking let him. The dog that he was, curling up beside Akihiko and let him do whatever he wanted, just because he was—he was—

Christ. He needs to stop. Thinking about it would only make it worse. “I appreciate it, Yuki-kun, but it‘s fine,” Shinjiro says instead. “...Aki will get over it. He can’t avoid me forever.”

Makoto looks at him through his bangs. Seems to frown at that. Only if you’re sure.

“It’s fine,” Shinjiro repeats, gentler. “You’re… you’re always welcome at our house, y’know that?"

Makoto beams softly at him. A real smile, not a quirk of his lips or the smirk he gave Iori when he was giving him shit for something. I know, Aragaki-san. I promise I’ll visit more often. 

“Good,” Shinjiro voices. “You’re skinny enough as it is, I’ll make you a meal one of these days so your poor wallet doesn’t hurt because y’keep trying to treat your seniors to lunch.” 

I already paid the bill… 

“Fucking figures.” Conniving bastard. 

He wasn’t noseblind. Shinjiro had taken this fact for granted. Without his meds, he–for all the intents and purposes–might as well have been.

He didn’t enjoy the way the world felt muted, like a cloud of snow had fallen over the whole thing. He didn’t think he’d miss the reminders of Akihiko’s presence, hints of it everywhere he cared to look, but Shinjiro surprised himself the day he woke up and realized it was gone. He hadn’t realized how intertwined their existences had been until Akihiko had started trying to pull away. 

Once he started noticing, he couldn’t stop noticing either. He walks into a room and spots a conspicuous red vest slung over a chair, forgotten by the wayside. He sees a forgotten mug in the kitchen sink, because Akihiko is permanently opposed to doing the dishes no matter how many times Shinjiro reminds him. A pair of runners by the door, sprawled out and untidy. And the list goes on and on. Little reminders everywhere.

Shinjiro doesn’t know if it’s a good thing that he’s purposefully dulling this part of himself, praying it’ll go away if he closes his eyes blindly to the whole thing. It wouldn’t solve the mystery of why Akihiko suddenly decided to avoid him like the plague. But it made it easier, walking into the kitchen and not being surrounded by Akihiko’s scent. It made things easier to bear.

When the levee breaks, it’s on a damn Sunday. Because of course it is. 

Shinjiro gets home from work, hangs his coat up on the coat rack, pauses because the living room light’s on. Akihiko must have forgotten to turn it off before he went to bed. He walks around the corner, leaning forward to hit the switch, and stops. 

Akihiko whirls around. He’s awake. Very awake. Holding Shinjiro’s–mostly full–little orange bottle, furious and incandescent. It’s the first time Shinjiro has seen him in days, it’s been two weeks since they even last spoke properly. “You haven’t been taking your pills.” He’s sitting on the end of the couch, eyes boring into Shinjiro’s. 

Shinjiro represses the urge to scoff. Really? 

“You avoid me that long and this is what you want to argue about?”

Akihiko made a noise of frustration. “I’m not avoiding you.” 

Shinjiro does scoff this time. “Really,” he emphasizes, drawing out the vowels in it. “Because I’ve seen you twice this week. ‘M not stupid, Aki.” And Akihiko does look terrible, neat hair uncombed and laying flat against his head like he’d just woken up from a nap and hadn’t had time to straighten it out. He’s taken to sleeping when Shinjiro’s around and leaving at the crack of dawn, long before Shinjiro even gets up, and his midnight runs have gotten…exponentially worse. Akihiko’s not a nocturnal creature. He's still devastatingly handsome, even tired and angry, and Shinjiro maybe hates himself a little for that.

“It’s not—would you just fucking answer,” Akihiko hisses at him, like full-on hisses, and something in Shinjiro’s hindbrain snaps.

“Why do you care, Aki,” he snarls, drawing his lips back to bare his fangs. He takes savage pleasure in the way Akihiko reels, flinching from the direct challenge. “You made it clear you didn’t give a flying fuck, you can’t just turn around and—”

“Why wouldn’t I care about you,” Akihiko half-yells. Shinjiro blinks.

Akihiko looks mad with–something. He’s twitching, averting his eyes as if Shinjiro hurt to look at. Shinjiro wonders if maybe he did. Maybe he’s pushed him too far. Twenty years of friendship and this is what broke the camel’s back. Akihiko shoves his hand through his hair, drops the bottle on the coffee table that they’d shopped for at IKEA together. Good god. “Why’d you stop taking your pills?” he says, quieter, plaintive.

Shinjiro laughs, caustic. It cut his mouth on the way out. “I’ll answer that if you tell me why you suddenly decided that you’re too good to talk to me now?”

“That’s not–” Akihiko makes a noise, a little like a cat that didn’t want to be bathed. “Makoto told me you’d been struggling, told me to get my head out of my ass, and then I came home today and I saw you’d—”

“So what, you’re worried now? You ghost me for two weeks and this is what you want to be mad about?”

“Worried? Shinji, you could be in the hospital!”

Shinjiro feels nothing but cold all the way down to his bones. Realistically, he knew the drugs wouldn’t make him okay or normal again, and wouldn't drive away what’d already decided to set up shop in his hindbrain. How much of him was instinct? How much of him loved Akihiko so badly that it still persisted, despite everything he’d done to try and make it stop, drive him away? The medication he’d been on regulated his hormones, his cycles, his fucking instincts too. Without them, he just felt cold, out-of-control, the closest to the Shinjiro that had decided to try and fucking off himself via bullet in October. Self sacrifice didn’t mean anything if he’d wanted to die long before that. 

He’d still stopped taking them just to see if it would help. It hadn’t. All that and here he was: unchanged, still wanting. He was fine until he wasn’t.

“You’re my friend,” Akihiko finally says, when Shinjiro doesn’t reply. He’s looking at the wall behind Shinjiro, determined not to make eye contact with him. The air feels charged, heavy–it roils, bubbles between them, almost dense with whatever Akihiko’s not telling him. “I’ve been sort of. Terrible lately. And I was avoiding you, but not because of you.” 

What the fuck is he talking about?

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Akihiko’s taking a deep steadying breath. Bracing himself for something, Shinjiro doesn’t know what. “You know. Two weeks ago. After the reunion. I came to find you after dinner.” He looks tired all of the sudden. All the anger’s fizzled out of him. 

The blood in Shinjiro’s veins freezes. “After dinner,” Shinjiro repeats, slowly. There’s a buzz growing between his ears like he just can’t fucking understand what Akihiko’s saying. “You heard me talking?”

“Yeah,” Akihiko says miserably. He’s fiddling with a loose thread on the couch. “Talking. You were talking to Kirijo.”

The alleyway. The pieces slid together in Shinjiro’s mind. Damning and true. Like a jigsaw puzzle he’d been looking at upside down all along. He’d heard Shinjiro say–say—

“Akihiko,” Shinjiro asks, slowly. “How much of that did you hear?”

Akihiko presses his lips together, barks out a laugh while scrubbing a hand through his bangs. “Just the part at the end.” he tells Shinjiro, carelessly. “I shouldn't've listened in, I knew you probably wanted to keep it a secret. But I didn’t want to interrupt." Shit. Shit. 

He knows.

Akihiko knows. He’s going to tell Shinjiro he heard him and Kirijo talking about the incomprehensible weight of Shinjiro’s unnatural feelings, the very same night Shinjiro’d had his entire world and relationship with his longest friend recontextualized for him, and he’s going to tell Shinjiro that he didn’t feel like that towards him, that Akihiko wasn’t like that, and let him down as gently as Akihiko could manage. And shatter their whole friendship in the process, what little Shinjiro'd been left clinging onto.

Shinjiro wants to puke. Take it all back so he wouldn’t have to hear it. Instead, he’s frozen, feeling his breath hitch in his throat and tilting towards full-blown panic. Shit. 

It didn’t come. Instead, Akihiko’s breath hitches, seemingly struggling for words. Shinjiro looks at him, complete and fucking incomprehension warring with the sinking feeling of he knows. “You called her Mitsuru. I’ve never heard you do that.” 

His voice was quiet. Rough. Like Shinjiro’d fucking told him that his dog died or something. 

Shinjiro stares at him. Like a damn idiot who’d got hit on the head, mouth agape. “What’s Kirijo got to do with anything?” he says, taken aback.

“Don’t make me say it,” Akihiko begs. 

Suddenly, Shinjiro’s beginning to think Akihiko’s not even in the same book, much less the same page. He's not making any sense. “What the—why is this so important to you?”

“It matters,” Akihiko snaps, “because you like her.” Like comes out all wrong, too petulant and too strangled, like it hurt coming from Akihiko's throat. The hairs on Shinjiro's neck rise. No way.

Is Akihiko jealous?

Shinjiro, strangely, fights the bizarre urge to laugh. “You…think I like…Kirijo?” The words taste foreign even as he says it. “Like, like-like?” 

“What other like is there!?” Akihiko fires back, crossing his arms across his chest. “You’re dating, right?”

“Dating,” Shinjiro repeats. “Are you stupid?”

Good god. Never mind. Akihiko didn’t know at all. He was jealous. Shinjiro cannot, in a thousand lifetimes, comprehend what he’d be jealous of. Jealous of Shinjiro? For this make-believe fantasy he’d constructed in his mind where Shinjiro falls into Kirijo’s arms, swooning? Is Akihiko a middle-schooler? Here he was, worrying that he’d finally fucked it up for good, convinced he’d fucked up his entire life while Akihiko was just jealous. Two weeks of misery and scant confusion just to find out that Akihiko’s upset because Shinjiro called Kirijo by her first name once. 

He should be furious, should be over here asking what the hell is wrong with Akihiko, why the fuck he took two weeks to tell Shinjiro this so they could have an adult conversation. Instead, Shinjiro thinks about Akihiko, sitting and waiting for him to come home. Confronting him about his pills. The moment at the table, when he’d smelt angry–Shinjiro joking about thinking about a girl–

Avoiding him for two weeks because Akihiko thought Shinjiro was in love with Kirijo. The pieces rearrange again in Shinjiro’s mind, like a jigsaw puzzle he’s been looking at upside down the whole time. And it painted a different picture. One that made traitorous hope blossom in his stomach.

“Don’t fucking make fun of me,” Akihiko hisses, like an affronted cat. Shinjiro should not find it endearing. “I’ve never even seen you look at anyone else the same way.”

Dear god, give me strength, Shinjiro thinks, with feeling. How is Akihiko this unobservant? Somehow Akihiko’s never noticed that 1) Kirijo likes girls and 2) Shinjiro’s never looked at anyone the same way because he’s been looking at Akihiko. Dumber than a bag of rocks. Shinjiro has no idea why he likes him. Here he was, worrying that he’d finally fucked it up for good, let the biggest cat out of the bag, about to move countries and change his name when—all that just for Akihiko to get jealous because he was too blind to figure out what Shinjiro had been too afraid to say, all along.

“And you think Kirijo’s the one I like? Aki. Aki, I called her by her first name because she told me to.” Shinjiro does laugh, this time. It comes out raw, relieved. “She’s only got eyes for Takeba, anyway.” His mouth quirks up in a smile. “If you’d gotten your eyes out of your plate at dinner, you might’ve seen it.” 

Akihiko looks stunned for a moment—just a moment, before he recovers. “So you weren’t–she–all those months of avoiding her, I thought–”

“No.” Shinjiro says, shaking his head. “We were talking about Takeba. Which you would’ve known if you just fucking asked me.”

Akihiko’s silent for a long moment. It’s nearing two am, way past his bedtime. He’ll definitely be tired tomorrow. But Akihiko makes no move to get up, to slink off to bed so they can both escape the most surreal conversation of Shinjiro’s life. “So why…I mean, why stop taking the pills?” 

Therein lies the other end of the conundrum. Shinjiro doesn’t deign to answer, can’t find a way to phrase I’m in love with you so I figured if my instincts stopped working the feelings would go away too. Instead, he asks: “Akihiko. Why’d you avoid me for two weeks?”

“I told you.” Akihiko frowns at him. “I saw you with Kirijo and assumed. Things.”

“No, you told me you thought Kirijo and I were dating, which also told me you’re a fucking moron,” Shinjiro says. “That’s not the reason you didn’t talk to me.”

“I just…I needed to be happy for you. And I really tried.” Akihiko breathes in, out. Shinjiro watches the slow rise and fall of his chest under that worn red tee, the one he’s had since middle school. It was tight around his biceps, and the collar was frayed from how much Akihiko’d chewed it. “I didn’t want you to see me upset, and I really tried to be happy for you, but I couldn’t. So.”

“So,” Shinjiro echoes. He cannot believe he’s even considering this. But he needs to know, needs it like air. “You avoided me ‘cause you were jealous. Of… me?” 

At that, Akihiko goes very quiet. Pulls at the thread, slowly and forcefully, ripping it out of their threadbare couch. Shinjiro would tell him to stop if he wasn’t so enraptured by the way his hands moved, curling into themselves as Akihiko thought it over. And thought. And thought.

And just when Shinjiro thought he couldn’t take it anymore, was about to break the silence with a gruff “never mind,” Akihiko beat him to it. Speaking so slowly and carefully, as if what hung in the air was delicate enough that he could shatter it with his words, Akihiko says: “I wasn’t jealous of you.”

Oh. He’d said it. 

Somehow, Shinjiro had thought he wouldn’t. Should have known better than to underestimate Akihiko like that. 

“Akihiko,” he says. Feels the ground sway beneath him, the weeks of wanting and working and pretending catching up to him. He’s a damn heroine in a romance novel, swooning and waiting for her knight, or maybe the dragon, roaring deep in his chest as the knight approaches. Akihiko could kill him easily if it went wrong. He’s not small anymore, and Shinjiro’s too compromised by the nature of what he is to think about fighting back. “Akihiko. Look at me. Is this–I mean, do you—” God, why was this so fucking difficult to say? 

“Don’t,” Akihiko drops the thread, looking at him with something in between exhaustion and horror. He looks like a man being led to the gallows, who’d signed his own death sentence. His ash-grey hair hung over his forehead, and his breathing came fast and shallow. “I know. I know you don’t feel like that, Shinji, and it won’t work, but I just–I can’t stop myself from–”

Shinjiro knows. He’d spent years, months, trying to pretend like he didn’t. His ears ring, something unnamable and indescribable buzzing up his spine, while Shinjiro tries to gather his thoughts in a way that makes sense. Instead, what came out was: “If you’re alright with it, then I am, too.”

“And I just–” Akihiko stops wringing his hands, faintly shell-shocked. “Wh–huh?”

“I mean it,” Shinjiro mutters. He draws his beanie down lower, but walks around to the couch itself, slumping onto it. Picks up the forgotten orange bottle that contained all his anti-suppressants. Unscrews the cap, lets two fall into his palm. Throws them into his mouth and swallows them dry. Throughout it all, Akihiko’s watching him like he’s bizarre, an alien that descended into Akihiko’s living room, eyes huge in his face. “Ask me why I stopped taking these.” He nudges the bottle. “Go on. Do it. I owe you an answer, anyway.”

Akihiko’s foot nudges against his thigh when he edges closer. He’s warm, overly so, and Shinjiro lets him stay there, soaking up the heat from such a simple touch. “Shinji,” he exhales. Shinjiro couldn’t smell him right now, couldn’t scent him if someone held an actual gun to his head, but somehow he knows what Akihiko’s thinking at this moment. A mystery to his body, to the fucked-up hormones that circulated around in his body, but Shinjiro could recognize him anywhere. If Shinjiro tells him the truth, now, there’s no turning back. Years and years of pretending otherwise, the little deaths he suffered, the ways Akihiko drove him up the wall. He’s going to throw it all away on a whim. ”Why’d you stop taking your pills?”

Shinjiro takes a deep, fortifying breath. “Didn’t want to live with my body telling me things I couldn’t have, so…I stopped. For a week I didn’t feel anything, and couldn’t be tempted, didn’t have problems.” Here, his voice trails off, unable to finish. 

“Problems,” It’s Akihiko’s turn to repeat his words. “What sort of problems?”

There’s hope in his eyes, like he can’t quite believe what Shinjiro’s saying to him. It’s what pushes him over the edge, far-flung from the comfort of safety and into the deep waters of the unknown. “Aki,” he begins, deathbed quiet. “You make me feel…everything. Alive. I like you.  More than a friend. That's the truth.”

Years down the line, he would recall in crystal perfect clarity the way Akihiko’s mouth dropped open, the way he made the weirdest noise–somewhere between a gasp and a wheeze, strangled as it escaped his mouth. Akihiko’d been bracing himself so tightly on the arm of their sofa that he’d pitched forward, lost his balance and collapsed onto Shinjiro when Shinjiro spoke. And Shinjiro still fucking caught him, because he was good like that. 

“You clumsy fuck,” he said to him. And Akihiko’d snort-laughed, this ugly noise that echoed in Shinjiro’s ears. He’s red-faced and half-wheezing, unable to control himself. He’s the most beautiful thing Shinjiro has ever seen. “What the–are you crying?”

“Shut up,” Akihiko gasps, shoving at his shoulder. “Shinji I thought you were going to hate me, what the hell, don’t ever make me stress like that again.”

“You avoided me first? How’s that my fault–”

“I didn’t know,” Akihiko says. He sniffs loudly, and Shinjiro falls silent. “I'd…woken up one day and realized how I felt. And then Mako-kun kept saying all this stuff about doing what made me happy, and then I was–Shinji, I was going to confess to you at Mako-kun’s dinner. Isn’t that crazy?”

“You thought I was going to hate you?” Shinjiro cannot believe his ears. “Aki, I thought you wouldn’t ever like me because you were–”

“A man?” Akihiko fills in for him, strangely brittle. “An alpha?”

Shinjiro nods. From this distance, he could see every stroke and hair on Akihiko’s eyelashes, because Akihiko’s half-lying on him, and Akihiko’s other arm is next to Shinjiro’s shoulder where he’d caught himself. Akihiko hasn’t moved away. Shinjiro’s throat tightens, pulse rabbit-quick. “You’d never dated anyone either,” he says, distantly. “Always obsessed with getting stronger.”

“Mostly I was scared,” Akihiko admits, turning to fiddle with one of the buttons on Shinjiro’s henley. Scared, Shinjiro mouths at the ceiling where Akihiko can’t see him. Surreal. “I don’t know, Shinjiro. I’ve always liked you more than I should.”

Shinjiro eyes him, remembers the way he’d thought fervently that Akihiko would kill him. Two weeks ago, he’d been convinced that Akihiko would never see him like that, the word love not even in the forefront of his mind; Shinjiro was just his stupid, overgrown best friend who Akihiko was protective over because Shinjiro’d nearly gotten himself offed more than once. He’d have given his left arm to be a beta, an omega, anything Akihiko’d want, anything other than this. 

“Aki,” Shinjiro says, cautiously. “I won’t be an omega for you, y’know that, right?”

Akihiko frowns at him. “Why would I want–”

“Means I won’t be soft, or any of that,” Shinjiro interrupts. “I smell and I piss you off because I scent things that’re yours, and I can tell when you’re rutting, and sometimes your scent just makes me angry out of the blue. And I hide all the time in my room and I fight with you about everything. You really want somebody like that?”

“Is this your way of trying to tell me you’re a bad choice,” Akihiko says, lips pursed. “I thought we talked already about your crappy self-esteem.”

“It’s not–” Shinjiro reaches up, drags his fingers through his own tangled loose hair in frustration. “We’re both alphas, Aki, it’s not going to work the way our bodies want, it’s not going to be anything like you think it’ll be.”

“So?” Akihiko’s quiet, for about a second, glaring at Shinjiro testily. Ah, the annoyance is back in full force. “I don’t want an omega. I don’t want anybody else. I don’t want you to be with anyone else.”

A pregnant pause descends between them. “Wow,” Shinjiro utters. He's speechless. Heat crawls up his ears, his neck. “You’re a possessive bastard.”

“For the love of god,” Akihiko sighs. “I’m serious, you know. I haven’t–I never really felt like this around anybody else.” That makes the two of us, Shinjiro thinks. Akihiko’s words rattle like loose change in his head. This guy…how can he say things so honestly? 

“What about your…instincts, doesn’t anything…” Shinjiro waves a hand vaguely between them. He couldn’t sum up the years and years of everything wrong with him, but he could try and stress the point: Shinjiro was a killer. Shinjiro was not an omega. Shinjiro was big, and mean, and still lashed and snapped like a trapped animal, sometimes. He needed Akihiko to know, with his clumsy words and actions, what Akihiko was (or wasn’t) signing up for. They’d gone way past the tumultuous line that signalled danger and headfirst into the deep, cold waters, past what Shinjiro could have dreamt up for himself. “Don’t I piss you off? Are you sure you’re not…”

As usual, Akihiko sees through him. “I’ve never been afraid of you a day in my life,” he states, determined, grabbing Shinjiro’s hand with his own. Shinjiro’s face heats so quickly you could fry an egg on it. “I trust you. You should trust me.” 

Is Shinjiro that transparent?

“You want to try that badly, huh…” Shinjiro stares at a small patch above Akihiko’s grey sliver of an eyebrow. “Tch, I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. This ain’t like those romcoms you love so much, you know.”

“You are the least romantic person I know,” Akihiko states flatly. “Literally nothing’s changed. You’re still just Shinji to me. We don’t even have to court if you don’t want to.”

He’s right. They already live in the same place together, coordinating routines and lives and friends around each other. Shinjiro cooks for Akihiko. Akihiko brings him random books he thinks Shinjiro would like, and Shinjiro lets Akihiko drag him anywhere he wants because he’s always gotten through everything with Akihiko at his side. They might’ve already been dating the whole time. 

Damn, he thinks wryly. Kirijo was right.

“Not that I don’t want to court properly! –If that’s something you want, that is,” Akihiko hastily backpedals, taking Shinjiro’s silence as displeasure. “We can go at your pace, I just–”

“Aki,” Shinjiro says, reaching out and cupping a hand over his jaw. Akihiko promptly shuts up. Shinjiro’s skin buzzes, something close to awe crawling into the spaces between his neurons. He wants to bottle this moment up to look at it forever. “I don’t care. Only as long as it’s you.” He gets the pleasure of seeing blood make its way through Akihiko’s body, coloring his face in a warm flush.

“I take it back,” Akihiko says, after a moment. He's beet red. “You are a romantic.”

“Think that’s your influence,” Shinjiro grunts, smiling despite himself. He clears his throat. “For the record…feeling’s mutual, y’know? I never felt like...that. Ever.”

It’s true. Akihiko stills. “Maybe you should be writing a romcom of your own,” he jokes, finally, but it sounds wet. “You liked The Notebook, right?”

“You’re the one who cried so much watching it,” Shinjiro rebuts, but doesn’t deny it. “I mean it, dumbass, I just…you make me feel different. And I want–” Here, he hesitates, unable to finish the sentence. 

“Everything. Anything,” he settles on. Anything you give me.

Akihiko’s lip sort-of wobbles. Shinjiro pretends he doesn’t see it, because his heart’s doing flips in his own chest cavity and Shinjiro’s busy trying to make sure it doesn’t commit a spontaneous jailbreak. “Are you asking me out, Shinji?”

“Thought that was the point of this whole conversation,” Shinji says, fiddling with a piece of hair near Akihiko’s ear. He’s going to need a haircut soon if he leaves it like that. Akihiko’s hand tightens its grip over his own. Good god. “I…don’t want anyone else either. So let’s just make it official.”

A big, dumb grin slips onto Akihiko’s face, and Shinjiro commits it to memory, etches the way Akihiko shines like the damn sun into his memory–so obnoxiously bright, willing to sear out Shinjiro’s retinas because he’s that irresponsible, and Shinjiro’s just going to let it happen–and he’s so close. So close. They’re practically sharing breaths, a pair of machines fueling each other–in, out. Joint lungs. Shinjiro can smell the musk of him, the baseline something that’s haunted his every step for weeks, present even through his fucked-up senses. 

“Shinjiro,” Akihiko says. “Shinji. Can I kiss you?”

Good god. “Yes,” Shinjiro says, fervently, because why the fuck did Akihiko think he even needed to ask, hasn’t Shinjiro said enough to make him think otherwise– 

Akihiko leans in, steals the breath from Shinjiro’s lungs when he exhales right into Akihiko’s mouth. 

Shinjiro makes a weak, wounded noise, right against his lips. 

It didn’t hurt. He’d somehow thought it would hurt. Akihiko was kissing him, and Shinjiro was kissing him back, and it didn’t hurt. Akihiko’s lips were deceptively soft, and he moved them like he was afraid of hurting Shinjiro. He tasted like konbini store anpan and the chapstick he uses–something with watermelon in it, something Takeba gave him. He was gentle, chaste. 

If Shinjiro had the presence of mind, he would’ve laughed. Who knew Akihiko Sanada would be such a gentle kisser? 

I wonder if he’s ever kissed anyone else like that, a part of Shinjiro says, very loudly. Shinjiro tells it to shut the fuck up so he can focus. 

Shinjiro’s hindbrain tells him to bite, so he does. Akihiko gasps this cut-off whine and parts his lips, which Shinjiro uses as an opportunity to go from “chaste and thorough” to “exploratory and definitely hungry,” bullying his way into Akihiko’s mouth like he’s actually trying to eat him. He threads his hand into Akihiko’s hair, pulls a little just to be mean. 

The noise Akihiko makes in return is obscene. It’s inhumane. It’s going to haunt Shinjiro for the rest of his short, blissful existence. He wants to bottle it up, replay it infinitely until it plays in his mind at night.

They stay like that for–fuck, Shinjiro doesn’t know, could be five minutes, could be forever. 

When the need for air is too great to ignore, he rips his mouth away from Akihiko who whines–good god, Shinjiro needs to calm down–and tries to still his definitely-too-fast heartbeat. 

The alpha pacing under his skin tries to throttle him for stopping so suddenly and he tells it to get bent because he needs to fucking think. 

“Aki,” he tries. “Wait.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Akihiko pants at him, sitting up properly. “Shit. You distracted me.” That last part is said accusatorily, which Shinjiro does accept with grace. He’d sort of–gotten carried away. 

Akihiko’s mouth is wet, red and bitten. His hair is mussed from Shinjiro’s fingers, evidence left painting his mouth and eyes in shades of desire. Frazzled, flustered, sitting in Shinjiro’s lap like he belongs there. Shinjiro can’t look away. He wants to wake up to this tomorrow, the day after, and every day after that. Akihiko opens his mouth, licks his lips as if to taste, and Shinjiro tracks the movement of his tongue as if magnetized. He’s so warm. 

Shinjiro squirms a little, under Akihiko’s weight. He’s not not heavy, the bulk of all that muscle hefted onto Shinjiro’s thighs and hips. It’s. Distracting. “Should we…uh. take it slow?” 

If it was up to him, he’d already be dragging Akihiko in by the collar of that shirt, continuing where they’d left off. But he’s responsible enough to remember that Akihiko’s gotta be awake at six for his Civics class. And Akihiko will bitch at him if Shinjiro’s the reason he sleeps in and ruins his otherwise-perfect attendance record. 

Akihiko lets out a disappointed noise, somewhere in his throat, and Shinjiro tries to ignore the urge to say screw it. “Slow,” he sighs, in that way when he knows Shinjiro is right. “Damn. I’ve been waiting for this, you tease.”

“Could say the same for you,” Shinjiro says, smoothing his hands over Akihiko’s flank like he would a spooked horse. Akihiko closes his eyes and breathes, like he’s trying to calm himself too. It’s not helping. Not really. “But you have class tomorrow, right?”

“I do,” Akihiko says, sounding almost mad about it. “Can’t even ditch because it’s important.”

Shinjiro grins up at him, helplessly. “Get going, you menace,” he says. “Need your beauty sleep, right?” 

The guy has the audacity to swat at Shinjiro’s shoulder while smiling. Shinjiro’s guts do a funny little flip, brimming with fondness. “Okay, okay, I get the message. But–” here, he takes the opportunity to swing his legs off Shinjiro’s lap so he’s not straddling him anymore, “I just. This isn’t a one-time thing, right, Shinji?” He’s looking at Shinjiro expectantly through his lashes. 

“No,” Shinjiro says, as honestly as he can, as much as he can with his heart in his mouth. “I want it all.” 

“Good,” Akihiko grins, sliding off the couch entirely. Soon he’ll skip off to brush his teeth and curl up in his futon, pass out like the dead for four hours, and get up at dawn while Shinjiro sleepily looks at the ceiling and hears him curse and swear as he trips over something. Soon he’ll lie down in the dark and hear Akihiko do the same. But, in the present and now, Akihiko grasps his hand and says, bright and dizzying: “Come to bed with me?”

Oh. 

Well, when he put it like that. Shinjiro couldn’t refuse if he tried. 

Later, freshly showered and having dragged his futon into Akihiko’s room at Akihiko’s insistence, Shinjiro lets himself lie close, hanging an arm over Akihiko’s stomach. The guy’s dead asleep, will be until his beat-up brick of a phone rings in his ear and probably wake Shinjiro up too in the process, and they’ll both be sleep-deprived and cranky. Shinjiro will wake, make them both breakfast while Akihiko struggles into something acceptable for daily life and rushes off to class. He’ll shove a piece of toast in his mouth while putting his shoes on, and maybe he’ll kiss Shinjiro once before running out the door. Shinjiro doesn’t even mind. He wants that. He wants it for the rest of his life. 

Later, there’ll be more conversations. Akihiko will yell at him about putting himself at risk like that again, Shinjiro will tell him to piss off and hold the two weeks of silence over his head, they’ll tussle and wrestle about it, and then they’ll kiss and make up. Shinjiro figures it already looks a whole lot like their normal. Just this time, he’s allowed to just hold Akihiko, and Akihiko has no compulsions about surprising him out of the blue by kissing him. 

For now, Shinjiro curls tighter around Akihiko.  Noses into his nape and the soft baby hairs there, where his scent is strongest. He can smell the simmering scent wafting off of him, thick like smoke. It soothes him. It shouldn’t, but it does. A comforting presence in his bed, a warm body and a steady hand all in one. He closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

BONUS EPILOGUE:

“I still can’t believe you told Takeba about me and Kirijo dating,” Shinjiro said, out loud. 

They’re in the park, sitting on the benches and walking around when Akihiko gets too restless. Shinjiro privately thinks it’s the most ‘domestic’ one of their dates so far–Akihiko had finally caved and insisted they do proper (read: real) dates. So far they’ve been on a grand total of seven (7) of them. Each one has its own shrine in Shinjiro’s heart, right next to the place where Akihiko had set up shop and refused to move out. 

Akihiko spluttered, but doesn’t let go of his hand. “I thought Takeba deserved to know!”

“You noticed Takeba’s gigantic, to-the-moon crush on Kirijo but couldn’t notice Kirijo feeling the same way.” Shinjiro’s boyfriend–that’s right, boyfriend–is a giant moron.  

Akihiko buried his nose into his own scarf, brilliant red to the tips of his ears. “I just–look, Takeba found me wandering around outside like I got lost. I sort-of blurted the whole thing out to her. Man. That’s so embarrassing.”

Shinjiro patted his thumb consolingly. “Damn, you’re a disaster. At least you went and owned up to it. So now they can sort out their shit too.”

“...Still can’t be worse than us.”

“Speak for yourself.” Shinjiro’s so incandescently happy he could burst with it, the feeling exploding from his every seam. Akihiko can smell it on him, probably, and judging from the glances Shinjiro’s getting from him he has noticed.

“What’s got you so excited?” Akihiko drew close, leaning his head on Shinjiro’s shoulder. Shinjiro ignored how fucked it is that his first thought wasn’t to push him away anymore, and instead draw him deeper, allow him access to the vulnerable scent gland at the base of Shinjiro’s neck. Where he can draw in full breaths, take in the physical proof of Shinjiro’s affection for him. Here I am, take me as I am, see what you do to me. 

“Just thinking,” Shinjiro said. Akihiko’s pupils were large, dark and full with every inhale. It ran a shiver up Shinjiro’s back. “It’s been a full year since I moved in. Happy anniversary, baby.”

“That’s right,” Akihiko murmured into his neck. “You wanted to do something for it?”

“Sure,” Shinjiro curled a hand over Akihiko’s neck, at the nape. He smelled of a storm, imminent riptides washing Shinjiro out to sea. And Shinjiro would have let him. “Wanted you…to try and make it permanent.”

Akihiko stilled. It’s almost funny how fast Shinjiro feels the air freeze around them, even though it’s late August and winter hasn’t quite arrived yet. “You mean…”

“Well, if you want, I could put my name on the lease too,” Shinjiro reasons, looking over the top of Akihiko’s ash-grey hair and into the distance. The trees have not lost their leaves yet, although it was starting to look a lot like wintry brown was winning its war against summer’s green hues. “But I was thinking…” he shifted, just enough for Akihiko to notice, and put his other hand to the gland at his neck. 

The one Akihiko was facing, so he couldn’t miss it. “Only if you want to. But you’re… it for me,” Shinjiro said. “So. I guess.”

Akihiko was silent for a long moment. “This is–Shinjiro, you’re sure?” 

It was almost unnecessary for Shinjiro to answer. He’d never been more sure of anything in his life. When he’d thought about it, it’d seemed like a foregone conclusion that’d taken him two decades to figure out. Two decades of him fumbling in the dark when the lightswitch was always within reach. Besides, Akihiko could smell the conviction on him just as much as Shinjiro could smell him: flooding the air with joy, nerves, but mostly joy. Heady stuff. It flooded his nostrils, pushed his next words out of him with ease: “I’m sure. Always been sure.”

“We’re going to have to do some research,” mumbled Akihiko, against his jaw. “Don’t know if bites take if we’re both the same.”

“We’ll make it work,” Shinjiro said, turning to face him in his seat. “We always do.”

Akihiko pressed his lips together, drew back so Shinjiro could see him in all his glory: red-cheeked, content Akihiko, red scarf and grey coat slung haphazardly on because he’d decided to race Shinjiro while getting ready. And he’d just fucking left it like that, left his first two buttons undone too. “Fuck, you really are a romantic. If you’d have told me you were gonna propose today I would’ve dressed a bit nicer.”

“Couldn’t help it,” Shinjiro said. “You make it easy.”

Akihiko laughed, wet at the edges. “Yeah, you told me that.” He touched Shinjiro’s cheek. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do it. Forever, right?”

FIN.