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Nanami needed a drink.
The day dragged on mercilessly, hours passing him by like lightyears, long and infinite.
He decided to pay a visit to the place he'd stumbled upon a while back, on a similarly tiring day. It was some distance away from the glaring neons of the popular main streets, and it usually didn't see big crowds. The music was okay, the lights weren't too bright, and the bartender never asked too many questions Nanami may or may not want to answer.
When he walks in he sees a man sitting right next to his favorite seat at the bar.
Nanami doesn't have the energy to care. He simply takes his seat where he usually does, right next to the stranger, and the barkeep gets to work on his cocktail.
They're the only ones there. Neither says a word - they drink in complete silence filled with music playing softly from the jukebox, each nursing his drink and staring at the bottles behind the bar, unseeing. Lost in thought, perhaps, or too tired to think at all.
It's nice for the solitude of the night to not feel lonely. The stranger is the first to leave, nodding to him politely as he gets up and pays for his drink. Nananmi returns the gesture.
It happens again next week. That same silent companionship, that strange sense of closeness. The mystery man nurses a Manhattan and the soft lights of the bar make the bags under his eyes stand out more. Nanami probably doesn't look much better.
Once again, the silence between them is filled with nothing but music and the squeaking of fabric on glass as the bartender works diligently polishing a pint. This time, there's a curse on the man's shoulder, groaning quietly in its unseen agony.
It's not his world, not his life. Not his problem to solve anymore.
Nanami nods to the man, pays for his drink, and gets up. He makes it halfway to the door before turning back and exercising the low-level spirit with but a flick of the wrist. He sees the man roll his shoulders, likely realizing they felt lighter, and turns to leave.
It's raining when he steps outside, and somehow, Nanami feels colder than usual.
The next week, the man isn't there.
"Here," the bartender places a chilled glass before him, ice clinking against the rims. It's an Old Cuban. His drink of choice. "From the man you meet with here. He stopped by yesterday, said he likely won't be able to meet today. Asked me to relay his thanks for last week."
Nanami can't hold back the tiny smile that curls his lips upward as he takes a sip. Somehow, the drink tastes better.
So it continues for four more weeks. The two meet, drink their troubles away in silence, and part ways without exchanging a word. Without ever learning each other's name.
And yet Nanami felt closer to him than to anyone else in his life.
He learned the man works in law - he saw him toying with his attorney badge one night, cold metal gleaming in the glaring lights. He's not particularly big on rock music - he frowns every time the harsher notes of electric guitars flow from the speakers - and, like Nanami, he's partial to jazz, if the way his eyes light up at the sound of it is any indication. Despite coming to the bar often enough, he's not a heavy drinker; one glass usually lasts him the night, which is quite different from Nanami himself. And also unlike Nanami, he works overtime more often than he reasonably should. Those bags under his eyes are always dark and heavy when they meet, and maybe it's just his imagination or a trick of the light, but they seem to lighten by the time the two of them part for the night.
The change happens the on week eight. A day after he returned to Jujutsu High as a sorcerer.
"You're late."
Nanami sits down. The bartender begins preparing his usual.
"Got held up at work."
It was a misgraded curse. Again. It took him longer than he would've wanted. Especially on a Friday, the day he mentally regarded as his scheduled meeting with the man he knows but doesn't, not formally.
"You never work overtime."
"There's a first time for everything."
They don't say anything more. Part of Nanami wishes they did. He found the timbre of the other's voice strangely soothing.
Something happens that night, Nanami knows. He could feel that shift, no more than a ripple in the air in the wake of a flap of butterfly wings. But it was a shift nonetheless.
"New suit?" The man asks when they meet the following week, looking at Nanami over the rim of his glass. His eyes seem to drag over Nanami slowly, as if cataloguing the changes; black suit changed to cream, white dress shirt discarded for blue, black tie exchanged for a whimsical leopard print.
Nanami sits down wordlessly. After a beat, he nods.
"New job," he answers, taking off his glasses.
"Something tells me it doesn't call for congratulations."
Nanami nods.
"It's thankless work and the pay is shit," he started, an Old Cuban appearing before him. He offers the bartener a small bow of thanks before continuing. "But now I can help people who can't help themselves."
The man smiles, downing the rest of his drink in one gulp and gesturing for a refill. Nanami takesa sip of his own liquor, and for reasons unknown, it goes to his head faster than anything else. The next words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, his brain-to-mouth filter malfunctioning.
"Quite like you, Mr. Attorney."
What else to blame that on, if not the alcohol?
The other's grin grows wider.
"Then we can both agree it's better than helping the rich get richer, Mr. Whatever-you-are."
Nanami couldn't help the chuckle tumbling from his lips, and frankly, he wouldn't want to. A small weight lifts off his shoulders, relief washing over him like cool water on a scorching summer's afternoon, at the realization that he's not the only one who's been watching. He isn't the only one who's interested.
"Can't figure that one out, huh?"
"Not yet, perhaps," the man answers. Their drinks stand on the polished, wooden counter, forgotten, as they talked. "But there hasn't been a case I couldn't crack. I know it's related to what you did on week two. I have no idea what that was, but you paused halfway to the entrance. I haven't felt that light in years."
Nanami's smile trembles, then falls as images flash in his mind; the man's face, twisted in bloodstained horror, guts strewn about some dark alley as a curse feasted on their remains. He's seen far too many cases like this.
"Perhaps it's best if you don't look into this one too closely," he says before he can stop himself. It's not his place to be giving unsolicited advice, after all.
But, strangely, he finds that he can't bear to think of a life where he doesn't have... this, whatever this actually is, every week.
The man opens his mouth to speak but Nanami simply pays for his abandoned drink and leaves without giving him a chance to respond.
Still, he exorcises the brand new curse plaguing him just as he did all those weeks ago. It dies screaming into the man's ear, its black blood splattering over his suit and the pale skin of his cheek and neck. The man, of course, doesn't see notice. He rolls his shoulders, just like he did then, and turns around to face him. Nanami nods, knowing this is not their last goodbye.
He was right, of course. He stumbles into to the bar after the Night Parade and the man is there, the very sight of his figure enough to bleed some tension from Nanami's shoulders. He'd rushed for the train as soon as he made sure the situation was under control.
He didn't want to think, to feel. He desperately needed something to tether him to reality, to help make the world lose its sheen of scarlet. The bar, and the man, were his first thought.
It was Shoko who told him about Geto, through a simple text. Nanami had yet to reply to her message. The December night got much, much colder.
He sits down on the barstool with a sigh more exhausted than he wants it to be.
"Rough day, huh?"
A sliver of warmth worms its way into Nanami's very soul at the sound of the man's voice. It nearly makes him shiver.
Nanami nods, and just as the barkeep snatches up a chilled glass for his usual, he waves the man off. He needs something high voltage. Something that will make him feel alive after a night surrounded by screaming death.
"A bottle of your strongest sake," he says in another sigh. Then, he turns to the not-quite-stranger. "Split with me?"
God, how he wants to just live. To forget he chose a path that would see him dead before his thirties, forget he could never get close to anyone to spare them the agony of grief.
Nanami thought of Gojo-san, then. Of the slump in his shoulders, the barely-noticeable wet patches on the bandages wrapped carelessly over his eyes.
He didn't want to think anymore.
"Only if you finally tell me what to call you," the man smiled, blessedly pulling Nanami back from his musings. "I don't drink with complete strangers."
You've been doing that for over two months, Nanami wants to say, but the witty retort dies on the tip of his tongue. What rises from its corpse, almost like a curse, is what the man asked.
"Kento Nanami." It comes out harsh, as if he's loath to divulge the secret. But the truth is he's desperate to be known, to be seen, and his blood nearly sings at the admission. Such a small thing, yet how happy it made him.
"Hiromi Higuruma," says the lawyer, and something comes to life within Nanami - a warmth, shy as a newborn buttefly. "You didn't answer my question, Kento-kun."
Setting aside for the moment how exactly did he come to the correct conclusion of Nanami's age - after all, Nanami had guessed he was in his mid-thrities, so that just confirmed his theory - he should stick to the polite things to say. Something like it was okay, or yes, it was a little tiring. But he has little mercy left in him after the spectacle of slaughter - not enough to spare himself or anyone else the pain of remembering - and he desperately doesn't want to bear that weight of blood alone.
"An old friend of mine died today."
In truth, he didn't consider this would be the first thing he says.
Part of him expected pity and empty platitudes to follow his words. Another braced for cold indifference.
He is met with silence. The kind that invited him to talk without pressuring, a promise to simply listen to his side of the story.
"People in my line of work rarely make it past thirty. We all know it, and simply trudge along our corpse-littered path like pigs to slaughter. He knew it, too, with the choices he made," Nanami says. He can feel something coiled tightly within him finally unravel, like the heavy chains of his shackles falling apart loop after iron loop. "I could never blame him for what he did. I could never truly condemn him. We all lost so much, perhaps him more than anyone- and at the end of the day, all he wanted was a world free of evil. A world that's kinder to people like us."
"I'm assuming he never realized he became that evil, too?"
Higuruma-san was certainly mch much sharper than Nanami thought him to be. Not that his original appraisal had been low - far from it, he would say - but those words hit particularly close to home.
"I can't be sure," Nanami answered truthfully. The bottle stood before them, untouched, condensation sliding off the porcelain languidly like it had all the time in the world before it evaporated. Like it was eternal. "Maybe he did or maybe he didn't. Maybe he simply caved beneath the weight. Or maybe, in some way, he chose this in hopes of dying the way he did."
Had that been the case it certainly would've inspired many an artist, were they to learn of this story. It would be immortalized in heartbreaking songs and soul-crushing paintings. Alas, it was only remembered by the three broken people who soon won't bear to recall it. Who have been cut so many times they will not let the blade of memories break skin again.
"How did he die, then?" Higuruma-san asked, voice carefully neutral.
"At the hands of the love of his life."
It was not the smartest move, admitting to knowing about a crime in front of a lawyer. He's probably seen countless cases like this, crimes of passion followe by trembling denial and tearful claims of love, some more genuine than others. And yet the man didn't say anything, didn't do much aside from taking the bottle and filling their cups.
Nanami should've been the one to do that, he mused belatedly. Higuruma-san didn't seem to mind.
"Do you think that's a good way to go?" He finally asked, a frown cracking his near-perfect composure.
"In his case, it was probably the best end he could hope for."
Higuruma-san nodded, raising his cup in a toast. Nanami returned the gestured.
"May he rest in peace, now," the lawyer said. Nanami clinked their glasses together and knocked back his drink in one gulp.
The shackles truly did not weigh upon him as heavily as they did before, and wasn't that a dangerous feeling to get lost in?
"So what is it you do, Kento-kun?"
A small huff of relief escapes him at the not the least bit subtle change of topic. He chuckled, mirthless, and refilled their glasses.
"You'll surely think me an asylum escapee if I tell you, Higuruma-san," he half-joked. There was something weird glistening in the dark depths of the lawyer's eyes as he looked, something indescribable. Still, he huffed a laugh of his own at that.
"I'm quite sure I won't," he says. "In fact, I think you'll have to try really hard to make me not believe you."
Nanami nearly physically recoiled from that statement, so intimate yet spoken so boldly. Warmth flooded his chest, and much as he wanted to blame it on the alcohol buzzing in his system, he unfortunately knew he hadn't drunk nearly enough for him to feel much of anything.
He simply left that sentiment hanging in the air between them, a near-tangible weight left unadressed, as he continued speaking.
"And if I told you I exorcise evil spirits born from people's resentment?"
Higuruma-san replied without missing a beat.
"I'd think you're telling the truth," he said, so full of conviction it made something in Nanami's chest clench painfully. "Is that what you did back then, and last week too?"
Nanami nodded soundlessly.
"Thank you." Higuruma-san downed his drink and Nanami followed suit, immediately refilling their cups. In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder what the bartender thought of their conversation. Or why exactly was the place always empty when it was just him and Higuruma-san on the premises. "I wonder how many cases that land on my desk are actually the work of those spirits."
"However many you're thinking, it's probably more," Nanami answered. "We don't have the manpower to take care of them all, however much we might want to."
And the higher-ups don't care enough to try, his mind supplied. He set the cup down for fear it might shatter in his grip.
Higuruma-san hummed an acknowldgment. Nanami thought that perhaps it would've been better if they never started talking back then; he never should've dragged a civilian into this. What good would it do him, knowing that curses exist? He still couldn't see them, couldn't defend against them. Were he targeted by one, he wouldn't have enough time to consider what was it that was ripping this throat open, or tearing him limb from limb, or ripping out his beating heart-
"Kento-kun?"
He was gazing at him expectantly, clearly having said something. Their cups were full again. Nanami cleared his throat, yet his voice came out too shaky all the same.
"Apologies. I got lost in thought."
The lawyer smiled, warm and understanding.
"It's okay. I asked why I can't see them, if that's something you can divulge."
"Regular humans can't see cursed energy, thus they cannot percieve anything made from it. Aside from special circumstances like being on the verge of death, that is."
Higuruma-san was silent for a while after that, staring at the display of bottles on the wall behind the bar in contemplation. The bartender had gone off somewhere, Nanami hadn't noticed when. A new bottle, still clouded over with the chill of the fridge, had replaced the previous one.
He also hadn't realized they'd finished it so quickly.
"Is there a way to see them without dying?"
"Would you want to?"
The lawyer thought for a while before humming, affirmative. There were words hidden just beyond that sound, locked away by the wall of his thin alcohol-slicked lips - Nanami could tell that much. But he knew better than to pry.
He thought of the new first-years, of Maki Zen'in. Those glasses were incredibly simple - he could make them right away, if he had a pair lying around. But…
"Are you sure?" Nanami asked, uncertain like he hadn't felt in ages. He couldn't tell why. "I've been seeing them since I was a child, so I got used to it. They don't affect me. But the truth is, they're physical manifestations of humanity's ugliest feelings. Their appearance reflects that, and it's not a sight you will forget. Are you absolutely sure about this?"
It dawned on him, then, what that knot in his stomach was. Or, rather, why it was.
Nanami was worried that, should Higuruma-san witness the vile truth of his reality, he'd want no more part in it. And those Friday evenings, spent talking the night away in a dingy bar hidden from the eternal bustle of the city that never sleeps, were not something Nanami was willing to part with.
Nor was he willing, he realized with mild shock, to part with the one who accompanied him then.
But he couldn't just say all that, could he?
"Of course," Higuruma-san answered immediately, without the slightest hint of hesitation. The air grew stifling with the unspoken words hovering between them, almost suffocating.
"Very well," Nanami agreed, albeit reluctantly. They drowned the rest of the night and drink and strangely tense silence.
He brought the newly made cursed tool with him next week. He'd picked a pair of classy, sleek black glasses - he thought they'd look good on Higuruma-san. He simply laid the case holding them next to him on the counter as he sat down. The bartender eyed him questioningly.
"The usual," he simply said. The case made a faint sound as it was slid accross the counter, and the case opened then closed with a quiet click. Only then did Nanami steal a glance at the lawyer.
He was right. They were a good look on him.
"Is that it?"
Nanami hummed.
"There are no curses here. But you'll see them as soon as you go out on the street."
Higuruma-san turns to face him fully, clearly mulling something over in that mind of his. Finally, after a pause that felt eternal, he speaks again.
"Would you like to accompany me for a walk, then? There's a nice park not far from here. You can get a decent view of the stars."
Oh.
Oh.
If it were any other place, any other time, were he alone with anyone else - he could be led to believe he was being asked out on a date. And yet the mere idea, mere notion of a romantic stroll beneath the moonlight with the man at his side, made him feel… something. Something that had probably been there for a long time now, if not from the first night they met, and had simply been waiting for a stray ray of light to bring it forth from the shadows.
Nanami dared not name it. Even if, in the farthest corner of his mind, he knew very well what it was.
"Lead the way, then," he simply says, ingoring the stutter in his heartbeat.
Higuruma-san pays for both their drinks and they leave side by side, close enough that the slightest sway to the left would make their hands brush together, and Nanami has to remind himself that this is not a date.
Higuruma-san, much like most people confined to an office most of the time, did not have the healthiest conmplexion yet he still blanched when he saw the world as it was, in all its filthy squalor. They walked the streets like maggots crawling through concrete arteries, and the lawyer was exposed to their blackened lining for the first time - the gurgling and incoherent mumbling of curses, their stifled screams as Nanami exorcised them.
There were thankfully few in the park where they sat down on a small patch of dew-covered grass hidden away behind the thick trunk of a blooming sakura, away from prying eyes. Higuruma-san took off the glasses and carefully hid them in their case, then hiding them away in his briefcase like a prized posession.
The barely audible breath of relief that escaped him as the curses vanished from view was not lost on Nanami. A sigh slipped past his lips, guilt roiling in his gut like a special grade in the making.
"You… said you could see them since you were a child?" Hiromi-san asked in a voice he clearly tried and failed to keep from trembling. Nanami nodded, turning to look at the man next to him; he was looking up at the sky, a pensive look on his face as stars glistened in his eyes. He was right, Nanami mused. The view really was nice here. "I can't even imagine what that must've been like."
It would best be described as a waking nightmare. Seeing monsters trailing after people, digging their claws into their flesh and drawing blood, drowning in those strangled, garbled noises of theirs and knowing, with a bone-deep certainty, his parents would not believe him if he said anything-
"If you can't imagine it then it's best you don't try," Nanami simply commented, forcing himself to shut down that train of thought. "I'm glad you didn't have to experience that."
The words slipped past his lips before he could really process them, painfully raw and unguarded. Hiromi-san turned to him with a complicated expression, one that was both anguish and something softer, something that shoned through the darkness of his eyes beautifully. He didn't say anything after. Neither did Nanami.
Just this once, he thought, he won't deny himself one selfish indulgence as he turned back to the gleaming darkness of the sky. He moved his hand half an inch, brushing his pinky finger against the lawyer's own. He could see the man's eyes widening in his periphery, but he made no move to pull away.
It almost felt like he moved closer, chasing the contact.
They sat there, silent as the night, until the sky faded to gray. As they got up to leave before dawn broke properly, to at least get some sleep before they got back to their lives, they exchanged numbers.
In truth, Nanami half-expected it to be nothing more than a courtesy. He imagined the lawyer would only text him for things such as leting him know he was going to miss the meeting because of a new case, or to say he was running late. He was ready to do the same and forced himself not to hope for more.
He should've known, by then, that Hiromi-san had a way of exceeding his expectations.
Nanami spent every free moment he had on his phone, if not texting then waiting for a message like some pathetic, besotted maiden. For a moment he was seventeen again and life was easier; though this time, it was Gojo pestering him about idling time away on his phone instead of it being the other way around. Nanami realized, then, that he finally understood why Gojo had been like this at the time. Why Geto was just as hopeless.
To say through this realization he grew to like Gojo would be a gross exaggeration, but he could confidently say he disliked him less.
Nanami immediately knew something had gone wrong when Hiromi-san did not text him after the trial of the day concluded. Attempting to somehow manage his fraying nerves was a challenge more difficult than the first-grade he was fighting, hands itching to check his phone as he dodged and slashed and exorcised the curse. He asked Ichiji to drop him off at the bar and to tell Yaga he'd be late sending his report.
Hiromi-san wasn't in when Nanami entered. The bartender shrugged as he got to preparing his usual; so he didn't leave behind a message, either. Thus Nanami resigned himself to the wait, drinking in silence that felt uncomfortable now that it was this lonely, and trying not to lose himself to flashing images of the lawyer laying somewhere, dead and alone and probably terrified as something tore him apart.
He waited, and waited, and waited some more. He left the bar at half past one in the morning.
On an impulse he couldn't quite understand, he texted Hiromi-san his address. He'd never invited anyone to his home before, be they old friends from Jujutsu High or colleagues from the company he used to work at. But it felt surprisingly natural to extend that invitation to the lawyer, easy as breathing to say I'll be there if you need me in the text that followed.
After that he resumed the wait in his apartment, the place that had always felt a little too big and a touch too cold for one person, that looked coldly picture-perfect like something straight out of a realtor's portfolio, reading a book he failed to focus on and sipping rum-spiked tea.
The doorbell rang just before three.
The man on the other side of the door looked like he'd gone to hell and crawled back out through fire and blood.
Of course, the sorcerer felt the change before he even saw the man - the newborn restless cursed energy not yet reined in, the maelstrom practically radiating off him.
Nanami let the silence speak for him as he let the man in, leading him to the cream-colored leather couch and pushing him lightly to sit as he moved to the kitchen. He took two bottles of the strongest alcohol he had at home - something Gojo brought back from one of his overseas missions - from his liquor cabinet along with two cups. With all that he walked back to the living room, illuminated by nothing but the small reading lamp in the corner next to the couch, and set everything down on the coffee table. He poured their drinks, slid a cup toward's Hiromi-san, and waited.
The lawyer drank it and downed Nanami's own too. The sorcerer refilled the cups quietly, and it was only after the third one that Hiromi-san found his voice.
"Kento-kun," he started, voice trembling. When he looked up at Nanami his eyes were unfocused and distant, almost glassy. "I killed people today."
Nanami nodded.
"And how does that make you feel?"
"…Good."
The lawyer's voice was strangled like the confession was torn out of him along with a pound of flesh, like such an admission caused physical pain. Nanami wouldn't have been shocked if it truly did feel like that - it tends to, the first time around.
And so he simply nodded, pouring their liquor again. Hirmi-san took the cup in his hands but didn't drink it immediately.
"So, aren't you going to admonish me? Make a dramatic speech about right and wrong and all that?"
Nanami looked at his companion, solemn.
"What's the point of preaching morality to a lawyer? Whatever you did, you had your reasons," Nanami shrugged. He drank his shot before continuing. "And I'm sure they were just."
Hiromi-san stared at him, eyes wide and jaw slack, dumbfounded. The cup almost slipped from his grasp.
"Just like that?"
"Mhm. Just like that," Nanami replied with blazing conviction, knocking back his shot in one go. "I've practically grown up in death's cold embrace. Once you've buried enough friends, once you've seen enough lightless, terrified eyes of innocent civilians that boiling, furious ecstasy thaws into freezing numbness. That first agonizing high of doing the right thing, of killing those who deserve it and saving those who don't wears off with time. Trust me."
Having said his piece he refilled their glasses, discarding the now empty bottle beside the coffee table, and drank. Nanami couldn't remember the last time he felt the alcohol burn as it went down.
A sigh escaped him as silence settled over them.
He'd been so full of hope, once. They all were back then. All that remained of the people they used to be were sharp edges and faded colors, the long shadows of their pasts dragging behind them like chains.
Hiromi-san nodded and didn't ask. He did, however, inquire about his newfound "powers", as he calls them, and Nanami patiently tells him all he wants to know. He can't quite tell when the darkness of the night faded into the molten gold of first light, but they're still wide awake and more than a little tipsy.
They were talking about something, Nanami could tell. Something important. None of it was registering in his mind; he was too busy taking in the sight before him.
Hiromi-san looked gorgeous bathed in the warm glow of the rising sun behind them, glistening eyes crinkling as he smiled at something Nanami had said not long ago. They were sitting close enough for their thighs to brush, and he didn't remember either of them moving - he was far from minding, though. He would've chased after that single point of contact, that deliciously scalding heat, if it weren't for a voice in the far back of his mind telling him he couldn't. He hadn't yet drank enough to silence it fully, it seemed.
Suddenly there's a hand on the side of his cheek, not yet bearing callouses from years of wielding weapons, and a thumb is caressing his cheekbone like he's something that deserves to be handled kindly. It nearly made him weep, that tenderness. He couldn't even remember the last time someone treated him like this.
Closing his eyes he leaned into the touch like a freezing man might lean into flame.
He pulled back the second he felt warm lips touch his own. Hiromi made a confused sound low in the back of his throat, and Nanami forced himself to keep his eyes closed and simply bump his forehead against the older man's.
"I want to," he said, their breaths mingling in what little space was left between them. He could still feel those lips against his own, and denying himself a taste was torture. "When we're sober."
Of course he could tell neither of them was even close to blacking out. But they had drunk enough for the memories of the night to feel shrouded in mist tomorrow, for the finer details to vanish in the alcoholic haze. And Nanami didn't want that.
He wanted to rememeber this as clearly as he could. To keep that memory tucked away in his mind like a precious polaroid.
Hiromi exhaled against his lips, long and shaky. He probably had a feeling as to which track Nanami's train of thought was running along.
"Fair point," he simply said, defeated, as though Nanami had actually brought one up in the beat of silence that passed them. "But just… give me a minute. I don't want to let go yet."
At that, with all the bravado only liquid courage can grant, Nanami pulled the lawyer into an embrace.
Hiromi was so, so warm.
"Neither do I," he whispered, shamelessly enjoying the way the man in his arms shuddered as his breath ghosted the shell of his ear.
Life outside their bubble could wait.
They sat there, dawn breaking around them, for God knows how long before Hiromi went to shower and change. Nanami let him have the bed while he took the couch; he tossed and turned and watched the Sun journey across the sky, the buzz fading with each breath he took, until he decided he couldn't take it anymore and went to clean up as well.
His wardrobe did not deal in casual clothing so he simply opted for a dress shirt and pants that whispered "business" instead of blatantly screaming it.
As he snuck into his own bedroom to retrieve his clothes he had to very carefully avoid the sight on the bed; Hiromi, lying on his stomach with his face buried in the pillow, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs and one of Nanami's blue shirts.
His mouth felt a little dry as he left the room, and it definitely wasn't caused by the aftermath of drinking on its own.
Making breakfast would be a good idea, he thought as he willed the mental image from moments ago from his mind. But his fridge was not well-stocked - unless something urgent came up he usually refilled it on Saturdays, which just so happened to be today - and on top of that, he had no idea what Hiromi might want to eat.
Still pondering matters of food and planning the rest of his rare day off he left for the small balcony, leaning over the railing and letting the frigid breeze calm him down.
The balcony overlooked a small, unfrequented courtyard where a lone sakura tree stood. It will be a while before it blooms, and its sweet scent will likely end up choked underneath the ever-present layer of exhaust, but it is certainly a nicer view than most get in their apartments.
A hand snaked around his waist, tentative and featherlight, pulling him from his idle musings.
He smiled, allowing himself to lean into the touch.
As it was customary for the pair, they let the silence speak for them. Nanami had never felt more at peace before in his life.
"I should've won yesterday," Hiromi started, breaking the stillness. "The evidence in my client's favor was overwhelming. His innocence shouldn't have been questioned in the first place. And when I heard the word "guilty", I just- snapped. Before I knew it I had a gavel in my hand, and both the judge and prosecutor were dead."
Nanami doesn't respond. He turns, placing his own hand on the side of Hiromi's neck, and the man relaxes under his touch.
"And I feel not an ounce of remorse."
"You shouldn't," Nanami agrees. "But don't- Don't let your hatred blind you. Remember that friend I told you about?"
Something flashes accross Hiromi's face, sharp and displeased. It's gone when Nanami blinks.
"The one you killed?"
"It wasn't me who did him in," he said, and- Hiromi seems relieved. Was he- jealous? "And I meant it when I said I couldn't condemn him. But the path he walked could never end in anything but death. And I… I don't want you to die."
There's his heart, bloody and beating, offered up to the lawyer in trembling hands.
Hiromi says nothing, only leans in. Nanami does not stop him this time.
The kiss starts out slow, testing, almost careful yet awfully tender. It's Nanami who makes the next move, licking along his lower lip and deepening the kiss until it pulled a sound that was something between a groan and a teasing chuckle, as he responded in kind; they stayed like this, pushing and pulling, giving and taking, until they had to part for breath.
Whe they pull apart the smile on Hiromi's lips can only be described as blinding.
In his hands, Nanami's heart would be cradled safely. He was sure of it.
"Guess we're sober enough now for you?"
Nanami hums with a smile of his own. When he's pulled into a hug, so warm it makes him forget about the freezing winter around them, he goes willingly.
Snowflakes begin dancing around them, having just begun their leisurely descent from the heavens. Neither man paid them any mind.
There will be a time to discuss what to do next, and Nanami will offer Hiromi a position at the school. But he doesn't feel like talking business yet, too desperate to cling to this stolen serenity.
"We should get breakfast."
Hiromi agrees, and on a whim they decide to order something in.
As is their usual, they dine in silence.