Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shuuichi can’t be killed so easily. 

If he ever said that to Furuya, he would probably laugh at him, furious, and call him arrogant with a scathing tongue. But Shuuichi means it quite literally. 

It’s difficult to kill a man who won’t even die from a bullet to the head. 

Fatal wounds take longer to recover from, and he still feels pain. He was shot in the heart once - in a mission for the Organization gone bad - and digging out the bullet from his chest had been one of the most excruciating experiences of his life. 

He does still recover though, eventually. Always, inevitably, no matter if he wished he didn’t. 

But when he lets Furuya drag him out to a dingy warehouse by Tokyo Bay, in front of Gin and Vodka and other members he doesn’t quite recognize- when Furuya stares down at him, expressionless for once, Bourbon’s haughty smile wiped from his face- 

When Furuya points a pistol at his head, and Shuuichi stares back up at him, smiling ever-so-slightly, and waits-

He knows that Furuya can’t kill him, logically. He knows that Furuya would make it quick, is precise enough to shoot for an instant kill- but he also knows, from his father’s stories if nothing else, that even decapitation wouldn’t end him. A bullet to the head doesn’t stand a chance. 

But he can’t help but think - in one dazzlingly illogical moment of indulgence - that if anyone could kill him, it would be Furuya. Furuya, with all his brilliance and capability. If anyone could manage it, it would be him. 

And in that briefest moment after Furuya shoots, as the muzzle blast burns his forehead red-

He thinks he’s glad that it’s Furuya shooting him dead.

Shuuichi was five when he first learnt he couldn’t be killed. 

It wasn’t from anything as dramatic as an actual death blow, of course. His parents may have been distracted by baby Shuukichi that year, but they were still attentive to both their children. If he wandered off somewhere that could put him in mortal peril, they would’ve known, and they would’ve stopped him. 

What actually happened was this: it was mid-morning, and he was in the living room with his father and his baby brother. Shuuichi couldn’t really read, not yet, but he still liked paging through the books his father read to him at bedtime. 

He was on the lounge chair, flipping through the pages of A Scandal in Bohemia, when his thumb slipped against a page and sliced a thin line on his skin. A tiny drop of blood budded from the small wound. 

“Ow,” he said automatically. But then he blinked, and the cut was gone, only blood left behind. 

Shuuichi didn’t think it strange- it was just how cuts worked, after all. Brief pain, disappearing as quick as it came. 

“Are you alright?” asked his father, glancing up from the sofa. Shuukichi - on his lap - glanced up too, babbled. 

“I cut my thumb,” Shuuichi said, frowning- pouting, really. “Can I wash my hands?”

“A papercut?” asked his father. “Let’s go wrap it up.” 

“Why?” Shuuichi asked right back, confused. “It’s gone.”

And his father visibly stilled. 

His father didn’t tell him everything at age five, but he does eventually over the years. That they would recover from any blow. That it’s a trait of their family, sporadically passed on through the generations. That it wasn’t normal, that it needed to be hidden. 

“You won't ever get a cold, but you’re not safe from all disease,” his father told him, when Shuuichi was eight. “Your grandmother died of cancer.”

Then later, when he was thirteen. Outside in the garden with his father, sun shining bright as they weeded the plants. 

“Your great-great-great-grandfather died well in his hundreds, you know,” his father mused, yanking out a dandelion to toss to the side. “He finally managed to die a little before you were born.”

Shuuichi looked up, frowned at his father. “…Managed?”

“We still age,” his father explained. “So he struggled to even move out of bed for decades.” With a laugh, half-joking- “Take up smoking if you wanna be sure you’ll die at a decent age.”

(And Shuuichi does exactly that, in the end.)

Shuuichi isn’t surprised when he eventually comes to, a couple days after Furuya shoots him. Not that he knows it’s been that long until later. 

It would be a lie to claim he’s too unhappy about it. He did make his plans intending to live- he can’t abandon his duty to protect Shiho, not when the Organization is still standing. But he’s still, admittedly, a little disappointed. 

He would much rather Furuya be the one to end him than to go through some painful struggle later in life. 

But what’s done is done. Shuuichi glances around- he’s standing naked on a low-rise table in Furuya’s apartment, scattered ceramic shards and ripped cardboard surrounding him. 

A cremation urn, potentially- in a box for shipping? Perhaps Furuya intended to send his ashes back to his family. It’s a kind move, far kinder than he would’ve expected from a man who despised him- but he supposes Furuya’s hatred has never extended to the innocents around him. 

(They weren’t able to send Scotch’s ashes back to his family. There were far too many suspicious eyes on them both back then- even on Shuuichi, despite his hands painted too-red with Scotch’s blood. 

So perhaps, alternatively, it would’ve simply revived too many bad memories- for Furuya to let the Organization’s cleanup crew handle Shuuichi’s body.)

He’s lucked out in his revival- it seems to be the middle of the day, and Furuya is nowhere to be seen. So he snatches a tissue from a nearby box to hide his fingerprints, and swipes some clothes from Furuya’s closet. They’re a little tight, but not unwearable. And he thinks he can be forgiven for stealing some clothing from the man who shot him in the head. 

Even if he doesn’t particularly begrudge him for it. 

Shuuichi grabs a garbage bag from under the sink next- to clean up the scattered remains of the cremation urn and cardboard box. He’s careful not to leave even a single piece. 

Furuya is a detective, after all. 

It’s doubtful he would easily come to the conclusion that Shuuichi came back to life, yes. But as Holmes says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. If anyone could figure it out, it would be Furuya. 

It’s going to be suspicious enough if he notices his missing clothes. Best to let him believe someone had stolen the entire cremation urn than for him to puzzle over the missing ashes as well.

All in all, it only takes him about fifteen minutes to be ready to leave. But he hesitates, just a moment, before he heads off to the balcony to sneak his way out. 

There’s not many signs of Furuya in this apartment- little wonder with how much he works. But there’s still that planter of vegetables by the windowsill, the comprehensive set of kitchen equipment, the guitar leaning by the bed. 

Resignation settles in his stomach. 

He does wish things were different between him and Furuya. He was fond of Furuya, even back in the Organization, even before he knew where Furuya’s loyalties truly lied. And he grew to care for him even more, ridiculously more, in the last year. In a way he thought he would never care for someone again after he lost Akemi. 

Furuya’s every face - his haughty demeanour as Bourbon, his polite smiles as Amuro, and that beautiful rage that flashed all too brightly through all of his selves - it was far too transfixing. Deathly so, in the end.

But that’s exactly why he won’t let Furuya blame himself for the death of a dear friend. 

So he slips his way off the balcony. He might break some bones, dropping off from the second floor- but he heals from broken bones relatively quick, and the hallway might have cameras. 

He doesn’t look back. 

Shuuichi has visited Furuya’s apartment only once, several months ago in the dead of night. 

It had been an unfortunate night, a night he walked back to the Kudo Mansion through the dimmest side streets and alleyways- thanks to his Okiya disguise being ripped apart. He still wore the wig and glasses, but his face was decidedly Akai Shuuichi. 

The remains of his latex mask were stored securely in his tote bag. Unfortunately, reapplying it wasn’t an option without makeup supplies and a mirror. So he had resigned himself that night to sneaking his way back to his residence. 

The first ten-odd minutes of the twenty-minute walk went smoothly enough. He remembers passing by only a handful of pedestrians and a few cars, and none paid much attention to him. 

Almost there, Shuuichi remembers thinking- and really, he shouldn’t have jinxed himself, because that was when his luck ran out. 

A white RX-7 drove right past him in a winding side street. Inevitably, immediately, it came to a stop. And Furuya Rei proceeded to poke his head out from the window. 

“What the hell is with that ridiculous disguise?” he hissed. 

“I’m unsure what you mean,” Shuuichi said, still in Okiya’s dulcet tones. 

A click- the sound of a car door unlocking. Furuya glared. “Get in the car.”

Shuuichi gave him a doubtful look, but Furuya remained undeterred. 

“Get in the car,” continued Furuya, “Or I’ll force you to.”

It would’ve been ill-advised to get into a fight with Furuya in a residential area. While it was late enough for many to be sleeping, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t wake anyone up. And the last thing Shuuichi needed at the time was excess attention. 

So in the end, Shuuichi did just as Furuya asked, and joined him in the car. Furuya shoved a face mask at him as soon as Shuuichi slipped in- and obediently enough, he put it on. 

“Are you utterly lacking in self-awareness?” snapped Furuya. He turned his key- the car engine roared to a start, and the car bolted forward. “You’re a dead man, Akai Shuuichi. Dead men don’t walk.” 

“I didn’t intend to walk around like this,” Shuuichi said mildly. 

“Then why were you?” Furuya demanded. 

“I had an unfortunate encounter with a cat.”

“You-” Furuya made a rather unintelligible noise. “Are you saying a cat scratched off your disguise? How?”

“I lifted it up to get a better look,” said Shuuichi. Sadly, it had then clawed his face - ripping latex apart as smooth as butter - before jumping right away. 

That would be the last time he picked up a stray cat, no matter that Okiya Subaru was supposed to be an animal-lover. Or no matter how plaintively it mewed. 

“You-” Furuya said again, disdain filling his voice. “How utterly idiotic. Are you looking to get killed?”

“Would it matter to you?” 

A scoff. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’d prefer you dead than alive.”

Shuuichi’s voice went rather wry. “I’m aware.”

It was how things needed to be, how they should be. He was already more than used to it at that point. 

“But the Organization discovering your survival would damn more than just yourself,” Furuya continued. 

Brow furrowing, Shuuichi gave Furuya a look- the man didn’t respond, eyes fixed on the road. 

“I wouldn’t blow your cover, Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi just said in the end. Of course he wouldn’t. Even if he weren’t as fond of Furuya as he was, it would be self-defeating to blow the cover of a high-ranking Organization spy. 

Shuuichi still wanted the Organization dead and gone as much as ever. And Furuya’s help, he suspected, would be essential for that goal. 

A scowl marred Furuya’s face. “Don’t call me by that name.”

“My apologies, Amuro-kun,” conceded Shuuichi. The man sitting next to him was clearly none other than Furuya Rei, but he was capable of diplomacy when he wanted to be.

Furuya clicked his tongue, still looking no less pleased. “And I wasn’t referring to myself, at any rate.”

“No?”

“Have you already forgotten your accomplice in your little death trick?” demanded Furuya. They hit a red light- Furuya braked to a harsh stop, and Shuuichi jolted in his seat. “I see the FBI are as heartless as they are incompetent.”

Of course he hadn’t. The death trick that Conan planned, that Kir carried out- it may have been technically unnecessary, certainly. Shuuichi would’ve recovered either way, hours or days later, even if Kir did shoot him in the chest and through the head. 

But the trick led to Kir cooperating with the FBI, and gave Shuuichi a proper reason for being alive when he shouldn’t be. He still appreciated that. 

“I certainly haven’t,” Shuuichi said, blinking. “I just didn’t expect you to care about a foreign agent’s life.”  

“Unlike certain other law enforcement agents I could name, Kir is an active NOC,” Furuya said. “I don't begrudge her for working in my country. And the weaker the Organization, the better.”

”Fair enough, I suppose.”

The light went green, and Furuya turned the corner. If he were heading to the Kudo Mansion, he should’ve gone straight- Shuuichi raised an eyebrow. 

“Where exactly are you taking us, Amuro-kun?”

“I’m not dropping you off at the Kudo Mansion looking like that,” Furuya said, scathing. “That house is ridiculously insecure.”

“I suppose you’d know best.”

Ignoring him with another scowl, Furuya flicked on the turn signal, drove into the parking lot of a small apartment complex. 

“My apartment is secure enough for even my subordinates to come visit,” Furuya said as he parked. “Touch up your pathetic disguise here, then get out of my sight.”

It was certainly a surprise, but not an unpleasant one. Shuuichi couldn’t help but smile, just a touch. “Thank you, Amuro-kun.”

“It’s not for you,” said Furuya, brusque. 

“…I know,” Shuuichi said. 

But he couldn’t quite stop himself from being pleased nonetheless.

Shuuichi hadn’t expected to revive in Furuya’s apartment - he had planned for a morgue, or perhaps even an oil drum underwater in the Tokyo Bay - but it’s an unexpected boon. The hotel room he booked with everything he might need is in Beika Ward, after all. 

It means he doesn’t have to tell a soul about his revival. 

Shuuichi has money invested in an overseas account under a fake name. Enough to live out a frugal life for some years, at least. And he’s learnt more than enough from Kudo Yukiko to be capable of making his own amateur disguise. 

Hotel-living is not frugal, not in the slightest. But he also drained money from his Okiya and Akai accounts before going along with Furuya, enough money to fund a year or so of extra splurging. 

He does want to still stay in Tokyo for now, after all. Just until he’s sure the Organization is dealt with, just until he’s sure his help is no longer needed. 

In the end though, it’s not. 

From the listening devices he carefully planted on some of Furuya’s duller subordinates and Camel, he learns that Furuya succeeded in dragging down Gin’s position in the Organization through Shuuichi’s death, through proving Gin’s “incompetence”. 

(And Shuuichi won’t pretend he’s not pleased to hear of Gin’s struggles, even secondhand. He still has his own fury towards the man who killed Akemi, even if it’s never been as overwhelming as Furuya’s transfixing rage.)

The entire situation helps Furuya drag up his own position as well, and things snowball after that. Neither the FBI or the CIA are pleased with Furuya or Public Safety, but ironically- they’re more willing to swallow their hatred and unite against a common enemy than Furuya himself ever was. 

In a month’s time, Rum is arrested, and the boss of the Organization is unmasked, forced on the run. A week after that, the boss is caught in England, taken into MI6 custody for interrogation. The Organization is in pieces, and it’s only a matter of time before global law enforcement crushes them into dust.  

It’s just as planned- that’s why Shuuichi schemed with Furuya to have him kill him. Not that Furuya knew that he was scheming with Shuuichi, but that isn’t particularly important. 

The FBI is furious at Furuya for killing Shuuichi, naturally. And the CIA must be as well, for blowing their agent’s cover- even if both Furuya and Shuuichi gave Kir enough notice to escape with her life in the end. 

And the boy - Conan, though he’s returned to being Shinichi by now - seems to have his own concerns too. Shinichi’s voice burns with determination whenever he speaks of Furuya- a kind justice that would likely never be seen through, thanks to the dirty realities of life as a spy. 

A pity, admittedly. Perhaps Furuya deserves to be condemned, to be hated for being a murderer- but so does Shuuichi. In the Organization, his job was to be a murderer. The same went for the FBI, in the end. 

And yet, he can never be murdered in turn. It’s almost laughable. So he meant to do Furuya a favour in a way- in allowing him to take his vengeance against a normally unmurderable man. 

None of Rye’s other victims will ever get that chance.

But the hatred now aimed at Furuya was unfortunately predictable enough, and Shuuichi doesn’t have an explanation for showing up alive that wouldn’t end with uncomfortable questions. 

Besides, it would ruin the favour if he popped up alive in the end, wouldn’t it? 

So he can’t fix it, but it matters little. His former coworkers would be leaving the country soon enough, at any rate. And they have no proof of what Furuya did- the Organization operatives who witnessed the murder are all in Japanese custody, and Public Safety at least sees no issue with what Furuya did. It’s being covered up. There’s even talk of promoting him. 

That too was predictable. Both Furuya and Shuuichi have killed during their time in the Organization- Shuuichi far, far more than Furuya, but both their hands are soaked in red. One more body wouldn’t change much for Furuya in the eyes of his superiors. 

He keeps close track of Shiho as well, of course- his listening devices were never removed, and it’s easy enough to tap into them. She seems to be doing more than well these days. 

For now, she’s still keeping her identity a secret to be safe- prudent, given how high-profile a target she was in the Organization. But from what Shuuichi can see - spying from a nearby rooftop as she walks to school - she seems to be happier than ever. 

His family appears to be doing alright as well. Shuukichi knows about their family trait, even if he didn’t inherit it himself. He must know Shuuichi is still alive- so Shuuichi might pop in sometime to visit, someday. Maybe for Shuukichi’s wedding. 

His parents no doubt know Shuuichi is still alive somewhere too, especially if they know how he reportedly “died”. He doesn’t feel the need to go out of his way to report his survival. As for Masumi, he’s sure one of them will tell her at some point, if they haven’t already.

It isn’t as though his father hadn’t disappeared for almost two whole decades either way. 

And he’s not the child his father knew anymore, hasn’t been for well over a decade. He’s not that innocent boy who gardened with his father, who blew through every Holmes book in the library and still demanded more. 

He’s glad his father is alive- it’s what he hoped for all this time. But he’s not in any particular hurry to actually meet him again, not when reintroducing himself would be such a bothersome affair. 

So in the end, two weeks after Rum’s arrest- Shuuichi packs his suitcase, checks out from the New Beika Hotel at 10 AM on the dot, and heads off to Tokyo Station to catch a bullet train.  

To nowhere at all in particular.

Shuuichi doesn’t know what he’s doing, where he’s going. But that’s terribly freeing in its own way, after so many years dedicating his life to a single farfetched goal.  

So he decides nothing. 

He goes apple-picking in Aomori, rides cablecars up to mountains filled with carpets of green and even takes a picture or two while he’s at it. He heads all the way up to Otaru, to gaze at deep blue ocean as far as the eye could see, to take in a rather underwhelming steam clock and a less underwhelming selection of local alcohol. 

Akemi wanted them to travel together, once upon a time. 

“I’ve been to a lot of places, you know,” she said once, during one of their dates. 

A café she picked, green umbrellas on small white tables outside in the bright sun. A gorgeous parfait, filled to the brim with strawberries and whipped cream, neatly placed between them. It didn’t quite suit Shuuichi, and definitely didn’t suit Rye, but it most definitely suited Akemi. And that’s what Shuuichi wanted in the end. 

Shuuichi hummed neutrally in response, and after a pause, Akemi continued. 

“But that’s never been my decision,” she said. “My mom told me once that I have an aunt in England. But I’ve never even met her. I can’t.”

She dug a spoon into the parfait, scooped out a spoonful of strawberry and cream. Akemi swallowed it down - savouring it cheerfully - then continued again. 

“So I want to travel for myself one day. Make plans, book things, go. When I do-” she smiled, soft, “-won’t you come with me, Dai-kun?”

And Shuuichi nodded, because he wasn’t about to do anything else. Akemi would never travel so freely while the Organization still lived- but wasn’t everything he did, all of his lies, all for the sake of destroying it?

Even if he was using her, even if he kept track of her every word as something to use against the Organization. 

(The FBI would look into that aunt of hers, later. Though they wouldn’t find anything of use- there’s precious little information on Miyano Atsushi and Miyano Elena both, especially so many years after their deaths.) 

So in that moment, he nodded, and hoped. That one day they would destroy the Organization, and Akemi could travel Japan, travel the world, in the way she wanted. 

The Organization is as good as dead now, but so is Akemi. She can’t travel anywhere, much less with Shuuichi- she can’t do anything she so desperately wanted to do once she was free. 

He may not love Akemi anymore, not when he’s never been skilled enough to love two at once. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still terribly important to him- that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have regrets, doesn’t still grieve her keenly at times. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t get a lump in his throat, when he eats a pastry that she would’ve loved, sees a tourist attraction she would’ve adored.  

So it’s freeing to travel around as he pleases- but it also gives him closure, a sense of finality he’s longed for. 

(And if an afterlife exists, if Akemi is watching from somewhere, anywhere-

He hopes she’s enjoying the trip too.)

The thing is, Shuuichi didn’t initially intend to stay in Japan for too long. There’s a whole world out there after all, and Akemi’s travel dreams no doubt included a good part of it. 

There’s plenty he could do. He could return to England, perhaps- see if he could finally track down that mysterious Miyano aunt, for Akemi’s sake if nothing else. He could stay relatively nearby even, and travel around mainland Asia. 

But in the end, three months later, he’s still in Japan. In the middle of the countryside out in Miyazaki. He thinks. He wasn’t really paying much attention to the train transfers- he might’ve crossed a prefectural border at some point. He’s definitely still in the Kyushu region at least. 

As he stares out the train window at lush greenery, half-eaten convenience store lunchbox in his lap, he grimaces. 

He wants to return to Tokyo. 

For all he knows, most of his family might be back in England by now. Not Shuukichi, of course, what with his career and his fiancée- but his parents and Masumi may have returned. 

But it’s not his family he wants to see in Tokyo. 

Shuuichi’s eyes flick closed. 

Akemi told him she wanted to travel- Furuya told him the exact opposite. Just the once, several months back. 

Furuya probably wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t just spent two days awake for a joint operation with the FBI. But they were stuck in an abandoned building together, waiting for any movement from the bottom-rung Organization cannon fodder they had bugged, and Furuya was probably just as bored as Shuuichi. 

Shuuichi slept during that stakeout. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable sleep, not at all - a single blanket over hard linoleum - but it was better than nothing. Better than Furuya, who refused to leave the table for anything but the bathroom. 

“You ought to sleep, Furuya-kun,” he said, drawing behind Furuya with a can of coffee in hand. 

Furuya had been sitting on a rickety folding chair at an equally rickety table for almost all of the last two days, listening intently to the bug’s audio feed. Shuuichi remembers being concerned despite himself- because no matter how capable of a man Furuya might be, he was still a man. 

And only a dead man could go without sleep forever. 

“Shut up, FBI,” Furuya just said, curt. He didn’t bother to turn around. 

So with a shrug, Shuuichi slipped himself into a folding chair right next to him. Nonchalant, he slid the can of coffee towards Furuya. 

He received nothing but a glare for his efforts. 

“I’m not drinking anything you give me,” insisted Furuya. 

“It’s not opened.”

“Do you know how many ways there are to poison a sealed can?” Furuya said, scoffing. “I’ve seen them all.”

“I’m sure you have,” said Shuuichi with no little amusement. He was more than used to Furuya’s obstinance at that point- the trick was, in the end, to work around his excuses instead of attacking them directly. 

That was why Shuuichi drew the can back, flicked it open and took a small sip. He held it back out at Furuya, undaunted even in the face of Furuya’s unimpressed look.  

“So?” Shuuichi asked. 

Furuya clicked his tongue. “You do realize that proved nothing?”

Shuuichi raised an eyebrow, questioning. 

“You could’ve swallowed an antidote ahead of time,” grumbled Furuya. But he still snatched the coffee from Shuuichi’s hand in the end, still chugged it down with awe-inspiring speed. He slammed it back down on the table with a clink. 

He was glad that Furuya was aware that Shuuichi, at least, wasn’t interested in killing him. Still…

“You truly never relax, do you,” mused Shuuichi. 

“I’ll relax once the Organization has fallen.”

Shuuichi couldn’t help but chuckle. “I can’t see you relaxing even then.”

“…I’ve thought about it,” said Furuya. 

“Oh?”

Furuya’s gaze was fixed on the table, on the mess of circuitry and antennas- the long-distance listening device. It produced nothing but a low buzz. 

“Yes,” he finally said, tired. “I’ve thought about it. No more racing across the world at the Organization's whim. Retiring. Moving out to the countryside somewhere. Maybe gardening.”

It was difficult to imagine Furuya living such a slow life- but it was a nice idea, nonetheless.  

“That sounds enjoyable,” Shuuichi said, but Furuya’s fists clenched with inevitable anger. 

“Don’t mock me, Akai,” snapped Furuya. “You know neither of us could live like that. I’d lose my mind.”

“There’s no harm in trying, Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi said mildly. “I do enjoy gardening myself.”

Furuya’s fists unclenched, his body untensing. He looked back at Shuuichi, brow furrowed, and Shuuichi blinked. 

Almost searching, Furuya stared for a long moment- but when Shuuichi found his lips quirking up in response, Furuya whipped his gaze back to the table almost instantly. 

“Well,” Furuya said, voice odd, unreadable. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad with someone else.”

And Shuuichi had to hold back a grimace, berating himself for not noticing the potential landmine earlier, because ah- that was the problem, wasn’t it? Furuya didn’t have anyone else, not anymore. Not since Shuuichi let his grip loosen on that accursed rooftop. 

So Shuuichi just hummed in vague agreement in the end, and turned his gaze back to the listening device in silence. 

There was nothing else he could do. 

(Not with who he was to Furuya.)

Shuuichi heads back to Tokyo, a mere three months after he left it. 

He’s in disguise, naturally. The same disguise he’s been wearing all this while- deep brown eyes behind wide-rimmed glasses, short brown hair combed back in a popular style for men these days. 

Furuya is no doubt finally at peace after obtaining his long-sought revenge. Shuuichi doesn’t intend to put a damper on that. 

All he wants is to see Furuya one last time- to know he’s doing well, to see if he’s relaxing now at least a little. He would’ve done anything to have that reassurance with Akemi. There’s no reason to deny himself that this time, not when it’s so easily obtained. 

While Furuya’s second-floor apartment is is in a residential area filled with low-rise buildings, that doesn’t mean there’s nowhere Shuuichi can position himself. There’s a park right near Furuya’s complex- at night, past dinnertime but not quite time to sleep, Shuuichi brings a pair of binoculars and climbs a tree. 

He peers into them, turning his gaze towards Furuya’s kitchen window. The balcony isn’t visible from this angle, and Furuya likely has shut the curtains tight either way. But the same shouldn’t go for the kitchen window, not when Furuya has plants to grow. 

As Shuuichi peers into his binoculars though, as he squints through Furuya’s bright kitchen window in the hopes of spotting Furuya-

He frowns. 

Every plant in Furuya’s planter is withered brown. 

Four months ago, Shuuichi hadn’t usually attempted to monitor Furuya’s movements too directly. He watched over him through a sniper rifle’s scope more than once, but he used Furuya’s subordinates to pinpoint Furuya’s locations, not Furuya himself. 

He couldn’t quite let go of his certainty that Furuya, if no one else, would be able to track him down. He still can’t, admittedly. And if he tailed Furuya back then, it was doubtful Furuya wouldn’t notice- he was on high alert at the time, watching out for any and all eyes of the Organization. 

But it’s been months since Furuya shot a bullet through his brain and cremated his body, months since the Organization was as good as destroyed. It should be safe enough to at least walk past him in the street, though interacting directly would likely be pushing it. 

So that’s what Shuuichi does. Sits in the nearby park in the mornings with a book in hand, positions himself in a restaurant near the Tokyo Metropolitan police department to watch a white RX-7 drive past at night. Indulges himself a couple times, even, by walking past Furuya in the crowds on a busy street. 

A day around Furuya is enough for his concerns to rise. A week is enough to solidify them.  

Furuya doesn’t look well, not at all. His expression may always be as stiffly professional as ever, but Shuuichi is fairly sure the man is using makeup to cover dark circles. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything but work or training- which isn’t unusual for Furuya, admittedly. But most damningly-

He isn’t even cooking. Shuuichi has personally witnessed him drag a clear garbage bag out from his apartment, filled to the brim with convenience store lunchboxes. 

It’s concerning to say the least. And confusing as well. With the Organization as good as gone and his greatest enemy finally dead, Furuya should’ve finally been able to move on with his life, be happy. 

And yet-

He’s clearly doing worse than ever. 

Furuya was the one to bring up killing him first. He was even the one to suggest killing him to take down the Organization, in fact- but that came later, much later. 

Back in the Organization, Furuya tried to kill him in so many amusingly novel ways. A gunshot, supposedly misaimed. Failing to inform him of an Organization bomb set to trigger in minutes. A piano falling out from an apartment building, a runaway horse-drawn carriage. A horde of fierce pomeranians from a nearby pet store, even. 

None came even close to killing him, despite Furuya’s best efforts to work around the fact that he wasn’t high-ranked enough to brazenly kill another named operative. But that dogged determination of his, that refusal to give up no matter what-

It was admittedly alluring, admittedly made his heart beat faster, especially coming from a man like Bourbon. A man normally so put together, so haughty and arrogant and endlessly confident in his skills. 

And yet, he burst with colour in front of Shuuichi, and Shuuichi alone.

So it was Furuya’s fault, really, that Shuuichi grew so intrigued by the thought of a death by Furuya’s hand. And it was most definitely Furuya’s fault for bringing it up again, that one night at the Kudo Mansion. 

Furuya would sneak into the Kudo Mansion from time to time, even once he knew with certainty that Akai Shuuichi was Okiya Subaru. He never did much but grumble at Shuuichi for a bit, so Shuuichi never bothered to tell the Kudos about it. In all honesty, Shuuichi grew rather fond of waking up to an irritated bark of “Akai!”

Sometimes Furuya would bring a gun as well, point it at Shuuichi’s forehead with a scowl as he jostled him awake. Shuuichi did keep a pistol nearby at first, to put up something of a defence- but eventually, he grew too lazy for it. It wasn’t as though Furuya could kill him with a gunshot either way.

That one night - the very last night Furuya ever came to the Kudo Mansion, in the end - Furuya did point a gun at Shuuichi’s forehead. Shuuichi remembers it still, remembers that sharp voice of Furuya’s too. Remembers Furuya snapping, as clear as day-

“Wake up, Akai.” 

And he also remembers, just as clearly, that he didn’t open his eyes. 

“Wake up, Akai,” Furuya snapped again, louder this time. 

Shuuichi continued to ignore him. He was a little tired that night, and the bed was warm- he was under thick blankets, sleeping on a comfortably hard pillow. There was no need to open his eyes just because Furuya decided to sit by his bed and complain. 

Especially when Furuya’s voice filled with irritation was so very amusing. 

But then, cold metal pressed into his forehead, and Shuuichi’s eyes cracked open a millimetre. 

“Ah,” Furuya said, smile haughty. “I see that finally woke you up.” 

It was a rainy night, and the bedroom was dark even with the curtains thrown open by Furuya when he slipped inside. But it was still bright enough to make out the gun pressing into his forehead, to take in Furuya’s blond hair peeking out from under a black cap, to gaze at Furuya’s self-satisfied expression right in front of him. 

His eyes flicked back shut. 

“Hey! Akai Shuuichi! What are you doing?!”

Raising an eyebrow was more than enough of a response to that. 

An unintelligible noise. “You can’t sleep in a situation like this!”

“Good night,” Shuuichi said mildly, eyes still closed.

“You-” Furuya sputtered with offence. “Where’s your sense of self-preservation, FBI?”

“Bourbon,” said Shuuichi, “You’ve pressed a gun to my forehead countless times. I do think anyone would grow desensitized.” He cracked an eye back open. “Especially given the safety is on.”

He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was unloaded too. Furuya may have hated him, but he clearly wasn’t breaking into the Kudo Mansion so regularly with actual murderous intentions. Even with how much Furuya beautifully lost his head around Shuuichi, he would like to think he would be a bit smarter about killing him. 

With a sharp scowl, Furuya shifted back on his knees, slammed the gun onto the end table with an angry clunk. 

“I do hope you’re not this cavalier with everyone who threatens your life,” he bit out. “The only one who-”

“-I’m aware,” Shuuichi cut in, casual.

“Don’t cut me off!”

“You’ve said it more than enough,” continued Shuuichi, his lips quirking up into a smile. “There’s no need to repeat yourself, Bourbon. I don’t intend to allow just anyone to kill me.”

“…Well,” Furuya said. His arms crossed, his scowl deepened. “As long as you understand.”

It was a terribly amusing look on him- a terribly cute look, even. And that was no excuse. Shuuichi’s tiredness wasn’t either. But it was still why his hand reached out from under blankets to brush a hand over Furuya’s cheek, to gently tuck a stray hair behind an ear. 

But the very next moment, there was a sharp, stinging pain in his hand as it was slapped away, hard. Furuya jumped back and on his feet, gaze wild and furious.

Shuuichi simply watched, resigned. 

“Furuya-kun-” Shuuichi started, shifting up in bed, an apology on his lips. 

Furuya didn’t let him finish it. 

“Don’t call me by that name,” he hissed. “And don’t you dare touch me with those hands either, Akai Shuuichi.” 

There was true loathing in his eyes, pure and unadulterated. Shuuichi’s smile went wry. 

“You don’t understand how lucky you are to still be alive, do you?” Furuya bit out. “Do you know how much easier things would be if I could kill you?”

“Easier?” 

A scoff. “You’re living proof of Gin’s failure. Evidence of your survival would be enough to drag him down in the Organization- killing you personally would be enough to drag me up into the power vacuum that created.” His voice filled with contempt. “If I could kill you, we’d take down the Organization in mere months.”

Shuuichi blinked, taken aback. He was almost tempted to ask whether it was true, whether Furuya meant it, but that would be a meaningless question. Furuya was rarely one to overestimate his abilities. If he said it was so, then it must be true to the best of his understanding. 

“Then why not do it?”

“It would be rather pointless if I were immediately revealed as a spy, don’t you think?” sneered Furuya. “I won’t deny the poetic justice is appealing, but I’d rather not spend the rest of my life in hiding.” 

“I wouldn’t blow your cover,” Shuuichi said simply. “I’ve told you that before.”

“You’d be an idiot not to.”

“I’d like the Organization to fall as much as you,” countered Shuuichi, voice mild. “I wouldn’t jeopardize a plan to take them down.”

Something unreadable shifted over Furuya’s face, something not quite the hatred still hard in his eyes. 

“…Even if you didn’t,” Furuya said, “Your FBI colleagues certainly would, so it’s a moot point.”

“We have no lines of communication with the Organization,” Shuuichi pointed out. “Kir contacts us sporadically- we have no way to contact her ourselves.”

“Exactly,” said Furuya, dismissive. “Kir. My grudge is with you, Akai Shuuichi. I won’t see her dead as collateral damage.”

“I’m certain someone as skilled as you can help her escape easily enough,” Shuuichi said, “Especially if you truly intend to destroy the Organization within months.”

Furuya fell silent for a long moment, brow furrowing. 

“…Why are you arguing?” Furuya finally snapped. Beautiful fury filled his voice, his eyes, blowing away that deep loathing like a breeze. “I can’t kill you just yet. That’s the end of the story. Accept it.”

“We’ve both dedicated our lives to taking down the Organization,” Shuuichi said mildly. “Why wouldn’t I support a plan to end it, no matter the cost?”

Furuya slammed a fist against the wall, hard and harsh, and didn’t even blink at the pain that must be shooting through his hand. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. All you have is my word,” he bit out. 

“You wouldn’t make such a lofty claim without any justification, Bourbon. That’s enough for me.”

“You-” Furuya’s eyes flashed, bright, with emotions Shuuichi couldn’t quite place. 

Then he snatched his gun from the end table- stomped off past the bed, past Shuuichi, straight to the window. 

“Bourbon?” 

Furuya’s hand clenched the windowsill, tight. 

“I’m not killing you, Akai,” he said, voice subdued, unreadable. 

Before Shuuichi could even begin to ask why, Furuya slammed the window open and slipped right through it. 

And Shuuichi was left in the room alone with his whirling thoughts. 

Shuuichi isn’t naïve enough to think that Furuya is spiraling because of his “death”. No doubt Furuya would accuse him of being excessively self-conscious if he did.  

But perhaps it played some minor part. With both the Organization gone and Shuuichi killed at last, perhaps Furuya found himself at a loss for what to live for anymore. 

Shuuichi can understand that too well.  

And admittedly, there had been something of a disconnect between Furuya’s words and his actions near the end. Furuya hated him- there was no doubt about that. And during their time in the Organization, after Scotch’s death, Furuya certainly wanted him dead. 

It’s possible, however, that Furuya’s feelings had softened slightly in the last year. Enough to not want to kill him, even if he still despised him. 

Despite how unguarded Shuuichi acted around Furuya, it had been surprisingly difficult to manoeuvre Furuya into taking that final step. At the time, Shuuichi assumed it had been out of an abundance of caution. It was only natural to assume a trap when your much-loathed enemy was leaving himself ripe for the picking. 

Now though-

He wonders if he somewhat misread the situation. 

Shuuichi still isn’t sure what the best course of action would be. When he came to Tokyo, his plan had been to satisfy himself with a single glimpse of Furuya doing well, then leave for good. 

He hadn’t considered the possibility that Furuya wouldn’t be doing well. Hadn’t wanted to, in all honesty. 

So it’s on a complete whim that he tails after Furuya in the streets, one early Saturday morning. It’s not raining just yet, but it is dim and cloudy, and Shuuichi has a folding umbrella tucked in his tote bag just in case. 

Furuya isn’t holding a thing. 

It seems to be his day off- he’s wearing nothing but sweatpants and a clean white t-shirt, and he’s jogging his way through the streets. Convenient for Shuuichi- it means he can leave quite a bit of distance between them, because it’s obvious enough where Furuya must be going even after he loses sight of him. 

By the time Shuuichi steps out onto the path trailing along the riverbank, it’s lightly drizzling. Normally, he wouldn’t even bother with an umbrella- but he learnt as Okiya Subaru that it’s best to avoid getting wet, no matter how waterproof his makeup might be. It isn’t as though he can easily scrub himself dry with a towel without risking ripping off his mask. 

He walks along the path for five-odd minutes before he spots a familiar shock of blond hair in the distance. 

Shuuichi frowns. 

Furuya isn’t training, isn’t running along the riverbank or doing pull-ups by the bridge. He’s sitting on wet grass near the water’s edge, staring out across the river. 

It would be a terrible idea to go down there, to talk to Furuya and offer him his umbrella. He’s already been pushing things by tailing Furuya so much this past week, no matter that Furuya seems to be off his game. 

“Ah, ah,” Shuuichi says, quiet, carefully confirming his voice changer is still working. It is. 

It would be a terrible idea- but that’s never stopped him, not when it comes to Furuya. 

Shuuichi has caught Furuya asleep just once, a week before Furuya would take him to that dingy Tokyo Bay warehouse. 

It was in the Tokyo metropolitan police headquarters, in a break room- Shuuichi found Furuya there, dozing away on a sofa. He hadn’t even been looking for Furuya- he had been looking for a place to smoke, only to pass by that break room with its door wide open. 

He knew that he should’ve just walked away and moved on with his day. He knew that, academically. 

Instead, he stepped right into the room and shut the door gently behind him. 

It was a small, unassuming room, Shuuichi remembers. A small table, a single beige sofa. A potted plant in one corner, clearly plastic. A single window on the far end, the afternoon sun trickling through, bright. 

He can still easily recall Furuya’s ridiculous pose that day too. Sprawled on the sofa, face smushed into one armrest and legs half-hanging over the other. 

The sofa was clearly too small for him, and he looked rather uncomfortable. It was obvious he must’ve been exhausted, for him to be sleeping so deeply in a place like this- too tired to even bother locking the door. 

Shuuichi wanted so keenly to reach out, to slip a pillow under Furuya’s head, to loosen his tie still tied too tight, to brush his hair away from his eyes. But he knew perfectly well that it would be unwanted, and he’s always had more than enough self-control. And so, he didn’t do a thing. 

Looking, however, was a free action. Payback, perhaps, for all the nights Furuya had spent scowling at Shuuichi by his bed. No matter that he hadn’t been doing that for some while by that point. 

So Shuuichi slipped forward in careful silence, and knelt down in front of Furuya. It was nice, seeing Furuya so guardless from up close, breathing softly and body relaxed. Still, he only meant to stay a moment. 

But then, Furuya’s eyes cracked open the slightest bit, and Shuuichi jolted. 

“Furuy-”

Furuya’s arms whipped out towards him- and the next thing Shuuichi knew, his face was being pressed into Furuya’s chest, his head tucked under Furuya’s chin. 

It would be an understatement to say he was confused. “Furuya-kun?” 

“It’s cold,” Furuya said primly, then fell silent, his breathing going steady once more. 

Shuuichi’s position wasn’t particularly comfortable, his chest jutting into the sofa’s edge. But he couldn’t deny that being pressed right into Furuya, hearing the steady beat of his heart, more than made up for it. 

Regardless, he still understood perfectly well that he needed to extract himself from Furuya’s arms. Preferably before the man completely woke up and realized he mistook Shuuichi for someone else. 

And it was good, really, that Furuya clearly still had someone in his life he felt comfortable enough to sleep so guilelessly by. Even if Shuuichi could taste sour jealousy in the back of his throat at the thought of it. 

So Shuuichi did attempt to slip away, but- Furuya’s arms were like an iron vice around him. They didn’t budge an inch, and Shuuichi wasn’t about to break them just to release himself. 

In the end, Shuuichi had to wait some minutes, deathly still, until Furuya fell fully back asleep and his grip loosened- enough for him to escape, thankfully.   

It had been an obvious mistake to step into that room, to indulge himself and sit by Furuya’s side only to end up mistaken for someone else. 

(But he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret it.)

It doesn’t take Shuuichi long to close the distance between him and Furuya, to walk along the path trailing the riverbank and down the grassy hill until he’s standing right behind Furuya, umbrella in hand. 

“‘Scuse me,” Shuuichi says, purposefully casual. It’s a rough voice he’s chosen for this disguise, nothing like Okiya’s soft-spoken speech or his own typical tones. 

Unrecognizable to anyone, no doubt. Even Furuya. And yet-

Furuya glances back for only the briefest moment before gazing back out at the river. 

“How lovely,” Furuya says. His voice is dull. “My hallucination finally speaks.”

“Sorry?”

“Or what,” Furuya continues, almost bored. “Are you FBI? CIA? Trying to get me to confess my sins? It’s a rather roundabout way to do it. You would’ve been better off disguising as him directly.”

“Just thought you could use an umbrella.”

A scoff. “Did you really think I hadn’t noticed you skulking around this past week? Don’t look down on me.”

…Shuuichi had, admittedly, assumed he hadn’t been noticed. He chides himself a little for that. 

“Not sure what you mean,” he says regardless, casually confused. 

“He only disguised his face as Okiya Subaru,” Furuya says. “He didn’t bother to disguise the shape of his body. So I naturally memorized how it looked, in case he ever burnt Okiya and found another identity.” 

Shuuichi can’t help but smile- he supposes he should’ve expected as much from Furuya. 

“You don’t believe I could be him?” Shuuichi asks, giving up on the act. He isn’t particularly attached to his new persona, at any rate, not like he had been to Okiya. 

“I oversaw his entire autopsy,” Furuya says dully. “I even carried out some of it myself. I ran his fingerprints, I ordered the blood analysis, the DNA analysis, the dental record check. He’s dead.”

Shuuichi blinks. “Remarkably thorough.”

“Of course,” says Furuya, and finally, emotion leaks into his voice, in the way his shoulders slump. Bitterness, heady. “I hoped there was a trick. But in the end, there wasn’t. He was just a fool until the very end.”

A harsh breath, and Furuya seems to compose himself, straightens back up as stiff as a board. 

“If you are FBI, if you do want to arrest me,” Furuya says, unnervingly polite even as raindrops fall on his hair, “Then I’ll admit it for you- I killed him. I had to decide between my cover and his life, and I chose my cover. I doubt you’d be able to prosecute me very easily though, even with my confession. Public Safety has a vested interest in keeping this under wraps.”

Shuuichi watches, brow furrowed, as Furuya’s fists clench at his sides. The answer to the question that flits through his head should be more than obvious. And yet, still- 

“Do you regret it?” Shuuichi finds himself asking. 

Furuya snorts. “What does that matter?” 

“My own curiosity.”

And finally, Furuya’s gaze shifts from the river, turns back to shoot a half-hearted glare at Shuuichi. 

“…I was rather hoping you were real,” Furuya mutters, “But that infuriating attitude of yours is just like his.”

“Will you not answer, if I’m a figment of your imagination?”

“If you’re a figment of my imagination, you should already know the answer,” grumbles Furuya. 

But Shuuichi raises an eyebrow, and Furuya clicks his tongue and answers in the end. 

“I despised him.”

Shuuichi smiles, wry. “I’m aware.”

“Always with that idiotic smile,” bites out Furuya. “I hated that about him too. The way he’d smile whenever I said I hated him, as though that was all he ever wanted.” He laughs, sharp. “But now that he’s dead and gone, I understand why. Is that what I need to say? That I understand, now? That he regretted it too, and so he thought he deserved to be hated for it? That a man as skilled as him should’ve been able to save him, but he wasn’t able to think of how until it was too late?”

And Shuuichi’s smile drops from his face. 

“Leave me alone,” Furuya hisses. “Isn’t it enough that you haunt me every night? I’m more than aware of the mistakes I made. Driving me mad won’t change that.”

Ah. Something churns in Shuuichi’s stomach. Regret, just as keen as the regret in Furuya’s voice. It wasn’t a mistake to have Furuya kill him, not when it ended with the Organization’s fall just as they had hoped. 

But he may have misstepped in not involving Furuya. 

He had thought it would be a favour, to allow him to take his revenge. Even after returning to Tokyo, even after seeing Furuya so clearly unhappy, he hadn’t thought that Furuya would be truly regretting Shuuichi’s death. 

Furuya’s deep, desperate hatred, to the point of wanting him dead- it had been an inviolable truth of the world to him for so many years, as obvious and natural as grass growing green. 

And yet, it clearly isn’t. Not anymore.

Shuuichi didn’t intend to tell many of his survival. His family at most, given that they would already know. But he can't bring himself to stay silent when faced with Furuya in such a state. 

His free hand draws to his neck, under his collar. He taps, once. 

“Furuya-kun,” he says, and Furuya grimaces at the sound. 

Tired, Furuya’s face shifts back to the river. 

“It was better that you didn’t sound like him at least,” he says. “But I suppose it’s unsurprising that didn’t last long.”

“Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says again, then takes a step forward, two, until he’s drawn right up behind Furuya’s back. He holds the umbrella up high, shielding them both from the rain- Furuya ignores it, but Shuuichi continues nonetheless. “I’m not a hallucination.”

“Yes, yes,” says Furuya, still tired. “Of course you aren’t.”

“Would a hallucination block the rain?” 

Furuya stares up at the red umbrella open wide above him- frowns, holds out his palm as if to wait for rain that wouldn’t come. 

And when countless seconds pass without a raindrop falling on his hand, his brow furrows. 

“Who are you?” he asks, turning back to Shuuichi. “I didn’t think anyone else was capable of mimicking him so flawlessly.”

“Akai Shuuichi,” Shuuichi says mildly. 

He rips off his disguise with his free hand, letting it all drop unceremoniously to the grass. Furuya, somewhat disappointingly, doesn’t even blink an eye. 

“Wearing a mask under a mask seems rather unnecessary,” Furuya says, dismissive. “Why go to the effort?”  

“It’s not a mask,” says Shuuichi, but Furuya just scoffs. 

“What exactly is your goal?” Furuya asks. He stands up at last, turns around completely to reach a hand up to Shuuichi’s face, to pinch a cheek tight. “If it’s a confession you’re after, I’ve alread- hm?”

Another hand reaches up, pinches his other cheek just as tight. Furuya is pulling at both of his cheeks now, and it’s admittedly slightly painful. 

“Furuya-kyun,” says Shuuichi, voice slurred, “That does hurt.”

“This isn’t possible,” Furuya just mutters, ignoring him. His hands, thankfully, shift away from Shuuichi’s cheeks down to his shoulders, his chest, his hips. 

“…Furuya-kun?” 

“There’s no padding of any kind,” Furuya mutters, hands flitting light over Shuuichi’s stomach now. Shuuichi can’t help but swallow as Furuya continues. “The shape of your body is identical. Even with plastic surgery… but who would go to that effort either way?”

“I haven’t had plastic surgery, I promise you,” Shuuichi says, voice dry. Furuya still ignores him. 

“This isn’t possible,” Furuya says again, louder this time. He takes a step back, two, a foot splashing into water. “This isn’t possible.”

“Furuya-k-”

“-I killed you,” Furuya snaps, eyes wide, wild. “I avenged Hiro. I destroyed the Organization. I did what I needed to. So it was fine, to regret it after, to accept that I l-” He shakes his head, gaze going unfocused. “But if I didn’t-”

And Shuuichi pauses, holds back a wince. “Do you still want me dead?”

It’s as difficult as ever, reading Furuya. He didn’t intend to misstep again. Perhaps he should’ve left, let Furuya believe him a hallucination. 

(But it hurt, seeing Furuya looking so lost, so dead, and he had hoped-

It didn’t matter. It had clearly been an idiotic hope.)

“I killed you, Akai!” Furuya bites out, eyes flashing. “I killed you. I need you dead, because I won’t ever forgive you for killing my best friend, my only family. But I-” his voice chokes, “-I despise you. I despise how I forget that just as easily, how much I missed you. I-” 

He takes another step back, both feet sinking into ankle-deep water, and Shuuichi’s brow furrows with concern. And so Shuuichi steps forward, reaches out a hand to Furuya’s shoulder despite himself- but it’s slapped away in an instant, just as Shuuichi should’ve known.  

Furuya’s face is buried in a hand, almost clawing at his face. 

“I can’t-” he says, voice filled with uncharacteristic anguish, “Furuya Rei can’t-”

But then Furuya’s mouth slams shut, falling dead silent, and alarm rises in Shuuichi’s chest. He’s not enough of a fool to reach out again, of course. 

He can’t quite stop himself from speaking though. 

“Are you alright?” he asks. 

It’s obvious Furuya isn’t. But Shuuichi doesn’t know what else to say, what else to ask, to offer, when it’s Shuuichi that’s causing Furuya so much pain. 

Furuya’s hand falls from his face at last, and Shuuichi jolts, unease shooting through him. There’s a picture-perfect smile on Furuya’s face, bright and wide and terribly, absolutely false. 

And before Shuuichi can react-

Furuya is stepping forward, leaning in far too close, and there’s a pair of lips brushing light against his own. 

Shuuichi’s mind goes blank, his hand opening and the umbrella falling to the ground, his body not quite registering the situation. What feels like a blink of an eye and an eternity later, there’s a hand brushing through his hair, another caressing his back, and Furuya is pressed right into his chest, and-

Something is clearly very wrong, and Shuuichi isn’t going to indulge himself in it. He forces Furuya back, hands gripping shoulders tight, and glares. 

“Furuya-kun,” he says, voice frigid. The rain is drizzling on them both, and a raindrop trails down his cheek, cold. “What are you doing?”

And Furuya cocks his head to the side, raising a thin eyebrow. 

“Don’t call me by that name,” he says, “It’s not who I am.”

“What are you saying?” Shuuichi demands next, bewildered. 

“I’m Amuro,” Furuya insists, and too late, Shuuichi realizes it wasn’t just Furuya’s smile that seemed off earlier. His eyes too- they’re cool and chilly, a piercing stare he’s only ever seen on Bourbon, rarely Amuro. 

Never Furuya. 

“You’re Amuro-kun too,” Shuuichi grants, “But that’s never been all that you are.”

“Certainly,” Furuya says easily. “But I’m not a man who’d kill you.”

His hand flits gently, softly, over Shuuichi’s hand on his shoulder, and Shuuichi swallows, his eyes following the movement. Furuya smiles again, bright and false and all too wrong, but-

There’s affection in that smile, in those piercing eyes. Affection that Shuuichi never thought he would see from Furuya, that he never dared to want from Furuya. Not Furuya, who hated him. Who had to hate him.  

And Shuuichi…

His grip on Furuya’s shoulders loosens, and Furuya slips right back in against his chest, hand cupping Shuuichi’s cheek far too soft. Despite himself, he finds his mouth opening, letting Furuya in. 

Shuuichi’s eyes close, and he loses himself to desperate desire.

“Amuro-kun,” says Shuuichi as soon as they step through the door, because he gave up on calling Furuya ‘Furuya’ somewhere along the too-long walk back to Furuya’s apartment. 

“Hm? What is it?” 

As he shifts off his shoes, Furuya shoots him that too-bright smile again, filled with enticing affection- Shuuichi swallows, and forces himself to concentrate. 

“How long has it been since you slept?” Shuuichi asks, kicking off his shoes as well. 

“Oh? Are you worried about me?” Furuya leans in, pecks a kiss against Shuuichi’s cheek, and Shuuichi can’t quite reject him. “Don’t worry, I’ve had plenty.”

“And how much is plenty?” 

“A couple hours,” Furuya says, cheery. “Over the past week.”

…Little wonder he thought he was hallucinating when he spotted Shuuichi. 

“Amuro-kun,” says Shuuichi, “You should sleep.”

“Is that an invitation?” asks Furuya, hand flitting at Shuuichi’s waist. 

“No,” he says, voice neutral. “I’m fairly sure you’ll want me gone once you’re not sleep-deprived.”

And Furuya’s hand at his waist clenches, his gaze piercing cold into Shuuichi’s eyes. 

“I assure you- I don’t want you gone, Akai,” says Furuya, and Shuuichi grimaces at the unnerving words coming out of Furuya’s mouth. Furuya shouldn’t act like this to him. He should snap at him with a rude hiss of Akai, not breathe out his name with such tender care. 

“You aren’t thinking straight,” Shuuichi tells him. 

Annoyance flickers over Furuya’s face, gone as soon as it shows. 

“Very well,” he says, drawing back. “I’ll sleep. On one condition.” 

He slips out from the entranceway and into the living area, and Shuuichi follows. It looks worse than Shuuichi could make out through the kitchen window from afar- there’s cutlery stacked up the sink, a thin layer of dust covering the furniture, a large plastic garbage bag by one wall already being filled with convenience store lunchboxes. 

Furuya makes his way to a set of drawers. With a clatter, he opens it- and snatches a set of metal handcuffs to twirl around a finger. 

“If you’ll put these on,” says Furuya, smile still sunny, “I’ll sleep as well.” 

“That seems rather excessive…”

“Excessive?” echoes Furuya, his free finger tapping against his cheek, almost innocently confused. “When you disappeared for months? When you still want to run? When I couldn’t even protect your ashe-” 

Furuya’s mouth slams shut, impassiveness shifting over his face. 

“You say I should sleep,” says Furuya, voice as bright as a light again, “But it seems to me that you should too. A nap together doesn’t sound half-bad.”

And Shuuichi holds back a sigh. There’s a good chance he’ll wake up to a Furuya hellbent on murdering him again, so he would prefer not to be handcuffed to the man or a wall. But he supposes it didn’t matter too much in the end. 

Furuya has already proven he can’t kill him. He would survive. 

(And he does have to admit it- a nap together doesn’t sound half-bad.)

“Fine,” Shuuichi concedes. “I’ll sleep by you.”

Much to Shuuichi’s despair, Furuya sleeps naked. He’s not sure if Furuya always sleeps naked or if he chose to sleep naked to be obnoxious, but the end result is the same either way. 

It isn’t even hot- it’s barely the start of spring, so it’s still more chilly than anything else. Shuuichi tries to tell Furuya just that, but Furuya just responds with a winning smile. 

“Oh?” he says, hand tapping over the borrowed t-shirt stretching across Shuuichi’s chest, “I do think you quite enjoy seeing me like this.”

In that moment, Shuuichi truly wishes that Furuya wasn’t so aware of his own attractiveness. 

Furuya handcuffs their hands together in the end, and laces their fingers together as they lie in bed side by side, Furuya pressed into his shoulder. It’s a tight fit on a twin-sized bed, but Furuya seems happy enough for now. 

But Shuuichi doubts he’ll stay just as happy by the time he wakes up. 

If he even manages to sleep at all, Shuuichi expects to wake up before Furuya. It was barely noon, after all. While Shuuichi can’t claim to be sleeping well either, he at least slept last night. 

But he’s feeling as chronically tired as ever, and despite everything he knows, it feels far too comfortable having Furuya tucked into his side. His eyes close, and eventually, he dozes off. 

When his eyes open again, the orange glow of sunset lights the room, from thin curtains closed shut. He shifts his gaze to the side, to the warmth there, and expects to see Furuya still fast asleep. 

Instead, he meets Furuya’s piercing gaze. 

“Good morning,” says Furuya, smile still bright and polite, and Shuuichi can’t help but frown at the sight of it. 

“Did you even sleep?” demands Shuuichi. 

“Hours,” Furuya says. “I haven’t slept quite that much in a while now.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie- the bags under Furuya’s eyes don’t seem as dark as before. But if that was the case, then why was he still acting like…

“Amuro-kun?”

“You know,” Furuya says, squeezing their handcuffed hands together. “I would prefer you call me by my first name.”

“…Rei,” says Shuuichi, even knowing it’s not the answer Furuya wants right now. And just as expected, displeasure flickers over Furuya’s face. 

“Akai,” says Furuya, “You can’t love Furuya Rei, not the man who killed you.”

“That’s not your decisi-”

“-And Furuya Rei can’t love you, not the man he killed, not the man who killed his best friend. No matter the circumstances.”

And familiar resignation pools in Shuuichi’s stomach. He knows. He’s aware. It is what it is. He opens his mouth-

“But,” Furuya says, a hand flitting light over Shuuichi’s chest, “Amuro Tooru can. Bourbon can.”

-and slams his mouth back shut. Furuya smiles, that bright and false smile, and continues. 

“Akai Shuuichi,” he says, “You love all of me, don’t you? I always knew, it was always obnoxiously obvious, even if I refused to acknowledge it. So, tell me. If it’s the most you’ll ever obtain-” 

And here, Furuya leans up in bed, brushes lips against Shuuichi’s ear. 

“Are you able to refuse having Amuro in your arms?”

Shuuichi’s eyes flick shut, his gaze shifting away. But in the end, there’s only ever been one answer. 

“No,” he admits at last. 

And feels Amuro smile right up against him. 

Chapter Text

“Do you not have questions?” Shuuichi asks. 

Amuro glances up from his ramen, polite confusion on his face- he’s tucking his hair behind an ear in preparation to eat, chopsticks already held in his other hand. 

They ordered delivery for dinner, given that Amuro’s fridge was empty and Shuuichi preferred to minimize his time spent undisguised in Beika. But as he gazes at Amuro from across the table, there’s one question, one concern, that doesn’t leave his mind: Amuro hasn’t asked him how he survived. 

“Questions?” Amuro echoes. He blows on his ramen- once, twice, then- “I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

“How I’m alive,” says Shuuichi, as Amuro swallows down a mouthful of noodles. 

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Amuro asks right back, still politely confused. 

…Ah. So they were pretending nothing happened. He can’t say that’s a bad deal for him, not when he has no believable explanations to give. 

But he also can’t say he likes it. 

“You should start eating,” suggests Amuro. “Your noodles will get soggy.”

Shuuichi stands from the table, chair scraping against the floor. 

“Akai?”

He’s not far from the kitchen counter- in a couple steps, he’s right there, close enough to grab a large chef’s knife from a knife block. 

“Do you need to cut something?” Amuro asks. “I do have kitchen scissors- I imagine they’d work better for anything in ramen.”

Shuuichi sits himself back down, slams his right hand on the table. 

“Amuro-kun,” he says, voice mild. “Watch.”

Then he lifts the knife, fully intending to slam it into the back of his hand-

-but Amuro’s hand whips out to block him, and Shuuichi’s hand stutters to a stop too late. The knife digs half-into Amuro’s palm, and Shuuichi’s eyes blow wide. 

“What are you-?!”

“Ah, could you grab the first aid kit?” Amuro asks, perfectly casual. He grabs the knife from Shuuichi’s hand, pulls it out from his palm- blood wells out, but he doesn’t even flinch. “It’s under the sink.”

Shuuichi does as he asks- Amuro’s wound comes first. Luckily, Shuuichi stopped quick enough- the cut is deep, but it’s small, and doesn’t break bone or go through to the other side. 

He’s rarely had to wrap his own bleeding wounds, but he’s done it often enough for others. For Bourbon once or twice, even. It’s not hard to kneel next to Amuro with the first aid kit on the floor, to wrap Amuro’s hand in bandages, tight.  

“Now then,” says Amuro, and smiles. “Shall I deduce why you did something so idiotic?”

And Shuuichi blinks, something akin to relief curling in his stomach- because there’s cool fury in Amuro’s eyes, an unimpressed edge to the smile that’s spread across his face. 

This is the Amuro, the Bourbon, that Shuuichi knew for years, and he can’t help but feel a little giddy to see it. 

“The only issue was that you stopped me, Amuro-kun,” Shuuichi says mildly, because it’s the truth. 

“Because you’d recover?” 

Shuuichi blinks again, his surprise rising. “Yes.”

“You seem taken aback,” Amuro says flatly. “But I’m more than capable of piecing evidence together.” His voice goes chilly. “You were dead, Akai Shuuichi, nothing but ashes. And yet, now you’re not, and you tell me to watch out of the blue as you stab a knife through your hand.” 

Amuro drags Shuuichi up with his good hand, by the collar of his borrowed shirt, and Shuuichi lets him. 

“I don’t care if it’s from an apotoxin, or if you have some kind of power like Vermouth’s,” Amuro continues, ice cold eyes gazing into his own from mere inches away. It’s as transfixing as ever. “Don’t do that again.”

“They do say a picture is worth a thousand words.”

“I couldn’t care less,” says Amuro, unamused. “Don’t do it again.”

“I’ll consider it,” Shuuichi says, lips quirking up- and just as expected, Amuro’s eyes flash with irritation. 

But surprisingly, Amuro lets him go, and Shuuichi draws back a step, straightens himself back up. 

“Alright,” Amuro says, and smiles bright and sunny. 

“Alright?” echoes Shuuichi. 

“I don’t own you, unfortunately,” Amuro says. “I only own myself. So instead, I’ll simply promise you this.” He leans on an elbow against the table, then- “Whatever you do, I’ll do as well. Just as I did today.”

Shuuichi’s brow furrows. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Why? I’ll still recover from most wounds, eventually.” Amuro’s gaze is rather pointed. 

It’s doubtful Amuro would ever follow through with the threat. But he understands the intention, regardless. 

“You’ve made your point, Amuro-kun,” says Shuuichi, voice dry. 

Amuro raises an eyebrow. “And?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Shuuichi concedes. It’s not a promise, never a promise. But if Amuro will acknowledge what he is either way, he supposes it’s not immediately necessary. 

“Hmph. Better.”

They end up returning to their now-soggy ramen without further fanfare. Though Amuro does shuffle his chair over to sit next to Shuuichi. 

“I’m tempted to handcuff us again,” Amuro muses, flitting his injured hand over Shuuichi’s back. “To keep you from any more idiocy.”

“I would rather not,” Shuuichi just says, dry as ever. 

A thump- Amuro leans his head on Shuuichi’s shoulder. “I suppose I can do without, if you insist.”

“I do,” says Shuuichi, still dry. “What would be the point?”

Amuro hums neutrally. 

“Have you ever heard the tale of the crane who returned the favour?” he says in response. It’s a complete non sequitur. 

Shuuichi blinks, rather confused. “It rings a bell.”

“It’s a famous folktale,” says Amuro. His fingers tap soft patterns on Shuuichi’s back. “A man saves a crane from hunters- in gratitude, she returns in secret as a human, to become his wife. But the man is poor, and so she plucks her own feathers to weave cloth to sell. She only asks that the man doesn’t watch as she weaves.” 

His hand trails up, trails through the ends of Shuuichi’s hair. “But the man breaks his promise and peeks, revealing her true self- and so she tells him that she has to leave.” His voice goes carefully unreadable. “She flies away, never to be seen again.”

“I… see?”

“Ever since I was a child, I never understood it,” continues Amuro. “Why did the man just let her go?”

“If he cared for her,” says Shuuichi, “Why wouldn’t he?”

“If he cared for her,” says Amuro, “Why couldn’t he see her truth? She said she had to, not that she wanted to.”

Amuro’s voice is still neutral, utterly unreadable. Shuuichi gives up on parsing it. 

“Is this going somewhere, Amuro-kun?” Shuuichi just asks in the end. 

“…If the man held her tight, never let her out of his sight,” says Amuro, “Then perhaps she wouldn’t have been forced to disappear.”

Oh. Realization dawns, and Shuuichi shifts in his seat, awkward.

“I don’t plan to disappear,” he offers. 

“Disappear again, you mean?”

“Either way,” says Shuuichi, “I won’t leave.”

“If you do,” Amuro says, quiet, resolved, “I’ll follow. I won’t let you escape me so easily. Not again.”

“I’d expect no less,” Shuuichi says, finding cheer swelling in his throat, because- he missed this, he realizes. These past few months- it’s what made him feel so lost, at times. Knowing everyone thought him dead, knowing he didn’t have anyone searching for him. 

He’s lived life for years with the certainty that Bourbon would always chase after him, would always find him in the end. When Conan brought up his plan, the death trick, he was certain it would be more than enough to pull the wool over Gin’s eyes. 

But he never, not once, thought it would be enough to trick Bourbon. He hadn’t hoped it would either. 

“For now,” says Shuuichi, “Just eat your ramen, Amuro-kun.”

And Amuro does, eventually, though his hand stays firm on Shuuichi’s back the entire while. His head flops back down onto Shuuichi’s shoulder as soon as they’re done. 

“Akai,” he says. 

“Mm?”

“What are your plans?” Amuro asks. “If you truly don’t intend to leave.” 

“In all honesty, I have none,” admits Shuuichi. 

“What have you been doing then?”

“Travelling,” says Shuuichi truthfully. He shrugs, slight, not enough to jab into Amuro still leaning on his shoulder. 

“Travelling, huh,” echoes Amuro, voice contemplative. His fingers tap out light patterns over Shuuichi’s back, then- “Akai.”

“Mm?”

“If you don’t have plans,” says Amuro, “Run away with me.”

And Shuuichi whips his gaze to the side, bewildered. Amuro just chuckles in response. 

“I have a safe house,” Amuro continues, pressing closer into Shuuichi’s side- his hair brushes soft against Shuuichi’s neck. “Out in the countryside. A last-ditch escape route, to lay low if need be. I meant to sell it off now that the Organization is gone- but why not make use of it instead?”

Shuuichi blinks. “You want to leave Tokyo?”

To quit your job, Shuuichi doesn’t say, doesn’t ask. He shouldn’t acknowledge Furuya Rei, not if he wants to at least keep Amuro Tooru.

(Even if he can’t quite stop trying to draw out that transfixing temper.)

“Why not? I’ve certainly saved enough to retire. I imagine you have as well,” Amuro says. He shifts, and a kiss presses against Shuuichi’s cheek. “You were the top sniper of the Organization, Rye. And you were no doubt paid handsomely for that.”

“Most of it went to the government,” Shuuichi says drily. As did much of Furuya’s dirty money, no doubt- but perhaps not as much as Shuuichi, on second thought. There was nothing illegal about working as a waiter, or as a private eye. 

“Is that so?” says Amuro. “Well, no matter. I’ll take care of the finances.” His arms wrap around Shuuichi, warm- Shuuichi leans into it, and Amuro smiles against his cheek. “So long as you come with me.”

“Then I will,” Shuuichi says easily. It’s on a whim- but his life these past few months has been nothing but whims. One more whim wouldn’t hurt. 

“Good!” Amuro exclaims, and his voice is so filled with sheer joy- 

It almost seems genuine.

“How much luggage do you have?” asks Amuro, dragging out a large suitcase from his bedroom closet. 

Shuuichi just watches, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“One suitcase,” says Shuuichi, “Travel-sized.”

“That’s not much,” observes Amuro, zipping open his suitcase. “But I suppose it’s convenient. My car doesn’t have much space, I’m afraid.”

“I travelled by train,” Shuuichi says, by way of explanation. It was cheaper and easier to have only a single carry-on suitcase. 

Amuro’s suitcase opens with a thump on the floor- it’s empty, unsurprisingly. He glances up at Shuuichi. “You didn’t purchase a new car?”

“I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay in Japan,” says Shuuichi. He missed driving of course, and he rented a car once or twice in the last few months- but he did make some attempt at being frugal, in the end. 

A neutral hum, then Amuro falls silent, neatly folding clothes from his closet into his suitcase. The silence continues, oppressive and overwhelming- Amuro isn’t often quiet around him. It’s somewhat unnerving. 

“…Akai,” Amuro says, at long last. “Why did you leave?” His gaze is fixed on his lap, on the shirt he’s folding with professional neatness. “You had a car. You had plenty. Perhaps you had no choice at first, but- there was no need to stay gone once the Organization fell. That was months ago.”

I wanted to do you a favour, is an answer Shuuichi can’t give, not when he can’t speak of Scotch. And it’s not the full truth either way, not really. 

“I wanted to,” Shuuichi says instead. He couldn’t stand staying, and he wanted to run. It wasn’t fair to his family, to his coworkers, to the Kudos, or even to Furuya it seems- but in the end, that was all it was. 

He wanted to escape. Not that he understands from what. 

Shuuichi’s eyes close- he shifts, and the bed creaks under him. “I was tired.”

There’s silence again, just as oppressive as before, but Shuuichi’s eyes don’t open, can’t open. 

“I can understand that,” Amuro finally says, uncharacteristically quiet. 

It’s more than he expected, and he’s grateful for that.

The plan is to set off first thing next morning, first to Shuuichi’s hotel to pick up his luggage, then off from Tokyo. He doesn’t ask how Amuro is planning to handle quitting his job and leaving his apartment, and Amuro doesn’t say. 

Neither of them sleep particularly well during the night. Part of it is likely because they aren’t exhausted enough for deep sleep, not after spending the afternoon napping. But the larger part is that it’s likely just how both of them sleep these days. Restlessly. 

Still, Shuuichi is fairly sure that he’s at least better rested than Amuro. Which is why, once he’s restored his disguise of an owl-eyed brunet and they’re walking in the parking lot to Amuro’s car, Shuuichi says-

“I should drive.”

“No,” Amuro says. He tugs at his suitcase rolling behind him with a little more force. 

“Your hand is still injured, Amuro-kun,” Shuuichi points out. “It’s best not to strain it.”

“I appreciate the concern,” says Amuro, smile sunny, “But I’m more than capable of driving with one hand.”

“I don’t doubt that,” says Shuuichi, walking briskly by Amuro’s side. “But there’s no need to force yourself.”

“It wouldn’t be forcing myself,” Amuro says, bright and earnest. “And you don’t have a license, no?”

“I have one as real as Amuro Tooru’s.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Amuro concedes. “I’m still driving.”

Shuuichi examines Amuro’s face, the stubborn edge to the bright smile still spread wide across it, and hums. This is Amuro’s persona he’s talking to, not Bourbon, not Furuya. But it’s still the same man in the end, still the same prideful man he fell so terribly for.  

And he’s long since learned how to work around Furuya’s pride, hasn’t he? 

“In all honesty,” says Shuuichi, pausing in front of the car- Amuro stops right beside him, suitcase rolling to a stop. “I would like to drive. It’s been a long while since I’ve been able to, after all.” His hand brushes light over the hood. “And I do enjoy car dates.”

None of it is a lie- he’s never been as adept with direct lies as Furuya, especially when there’s no need for them. And right now, there’s clearly no need. 

Amuro laughs, bright, and a hand flits comfortably over Shuuichi’s back. 

“You could’ve said that from the start!” says Amuro, unnervingly affectionate. “Alright. You can drive for the first day.”

Shuuichi blinks- he didn’t realize it would be a multi-day trip.

“It’s that far?” he asks, somewhat surprised. 

“No,” Amuro says. “But we’ll be taking a scenic route. I’ve calculated a route that minimizes the number of toll booths and security cameras. There’s little point to a safe house if you’re tailed.”

“Is that a concern?”

“No,” Amuro says again. “No one will care when I disappear. But there’s no harm in being cautious.”

“I would,” Shuuichi says mildly. 

“I know,” says Amuro, hand trailing up Shuuichi’s back, his shoulder, to his cheek. There’s a soft look in Amuro’s eyes, and this at least, Shuuichi can’t help but indulge in. 

So he leans in, but Amuro covers his mouth with a hand. 

“Not while you’re in disguise,” Amuro chides. “We might rip the mask.”

Shuuichi is filled with the overwhelming urge to click his tongue in irritation- and some of it must show on his face, because Amuro snorts, hand falling back down to his side. 

“We’ll be free from security cameras soon enough,” says Amuro, and pecks a light kiss on Shuuichi’s cheek. He leans back, still smiling. “Survive with that until then.”

“…I’ll do my best.”

“Eyes on the road,” Amuro says. 

And reluctantly, Shuuichi turns his gaze back onto the asphalt stretching out far into the distance. The right side of the road is nothing but levelled concrete, but the beautiful blue ocean on the other side is more than enough to make it a breathtaking view.  

It’s admittedly something of a strange feeling, having Furuya’s RX-7 under his control after spending so long with it at his heels. But it’s certainly not a bad feeling- especially with Amuro sitting next to him, hair flying in the breeze. 

“I can feel you staring,” Shuuichi says, voice dry. 

“I’m allowed to do that,” Amuro says, “I’m not the driver, after all.” A laugh, bright. “It’s a shame I’m not the one driving along this lovely road, but I’ll accept staring at you as much as I’d like as a consolation prize.”

“Even if it’s not me you’re staring at?”

“Oh?” Amusement fills Amuro’s voice. “Are you jealous of yourself? How cute.”

Shuuichi’s finger taps on the wheel. “Forget I said anything.”

“You may be attractive, but I didn’t fall for just your face,” Amuro says easily. 

Either way, Shuuichi would still enjoy it more if he wasn’t hidden behind this false mask. And perhaps Amuro can tell, because he laughs again, just as bright as before. 

“I didn’t take you as quite so superficial, Akai.”

“It’s not that,” says Shuuichi. 

“Mm? Then what is it?”

“It would never matter to me what mask you wear,” says Shuuichi, “But it would still be nice to have no masks between us.”

For a long while, Amuro falls silent. Shuuichi glances over, quick and brief- Amuro is staring out the window, face hidden, hair still flying in the breeze. 

“Amuro-kun?”

“That won’t ever happen,” Furuya says at last, voice dull. “Accept it.”

Shuuichi exhales. 

“I know,” he says. But knowledge alone can’t quash his desires, in the end.

They drive into Gifu in the evening that day, just as the sun is beginning to set. It’s not hard to find a hotel adequate to stay the night in, and they end up only having a quick dinner nearby before retiring for the night. 

It’s thankfully a smoking room, but even Bourbon had never been much of a smoker, much less Furuya. So Shuuichi grabs the room’s ashtray, and steps out onto the small balcony to smoke. 

He doesn’t think of much at all as he takes a drag of his cigarette, gazes down at the cars driving along below. That’s admittedly not the best thing to do when smoking- too soon, he’s made his way through half a pack of cigarettes. 

The balcony door clatters open behind him. 

“I’m done with the showe-” Amuro starts, then cuts himself off. He steps next to Shuuichi, draws a hand over his shoulder. “Akai.”

Shuuichi takes another drag of his cigarette, then raises an eyebrow. 

Amuro just smiles in response. “Did you know? Men who smoke are dozens of times more likely to contract lung disease.”

“I’m aware,” says Shuuichi. That was the whole reason why he began smoking, after all. Though it’s not the main reason he continues- at this point, he mostly just enjoys it. 

“I do enjoy bitter flavours as well,” Amuro continues, “But there’s better choices out there if that’s what you’re after.”

“I don’t mind the taste,” Shuuichi muses, “But it’s mostly that I find myself longing for something in my mouth.”

And Amuro snorts, his expression shifting into something more amused. “I can’t give that more than five points as a come-on.”

“Out of five?” 

“Out of a hundred, I’m afraid,” says Amuro. “You sound like an old man.”

“My apologies,” Shuuichi says, stubbing his cigarette out in his ashtray. He raises an eyebrow.  “I’m not as familiar with the latest trends as you are, but-” his lips quirk up, “Does it matter, so long as it works?”

“Oh?” Amuro leans in, still smiling- Shuuichi doesn’t break his gaze. “Did it work?”

“You tell me, Amuro-kun.”

A laugh, then a hand is flitting through his hair, and Amuro closes those last couple inches to press their lips together. Eyes flicking closed, Shuuichi caresses a gentle hand around Amuro’s hip, and slips his way into Amuro’s mouth. 

Amuro is languorous with the kiss, as though he’s proving he could be just as satisfying as a drag of a cigarette- he’s certainly succeeding at it, if that’s his goal. Shuuichi smiles just slightly, opens his mouth wider, and feels Amuro sink in deeper, eager, hand clenching tight in Shuuichi’s hair. 

Shuuichi’s hand draws behind Amuro, squeezes, and Amuro hums with satisfaction- but then he pulls back, barely a centimetre. 

“You should take a shower too, Akai,” Amuro murmurs. 

“Am I that dirty?” asks Shuuichi, innocent. 

Amuro looks rather like he wants to roll his eyes, but he seems to succeed in holding himself together in the end. 

“You’ve had a Japanese girlfriend,” says Amuro, somewhat impatient. “I won’t let you pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

With a snort, Shuuichi pecks a kiss on Amuro’s nose. 

“I’ll see you in bed, Amuro-kun,” he says, and heads his way back inside.

Later that night, under warm blankets with Amuro snug in his chest. Shuuichi’s hand flits over Amuro’s, over the gauze pad on his palm. It seems Amuro replaced the bandages at some point, likely after his shower. 

“Is it healing?” Shuuichi asks, tapping at Amuro’s palm. 

“Of course,” says Amuro, dismissive. “It was barely a scratch. And it was more than worth it to stop your idiocy.”

Shuuichi doesn’t respond to that. He’s not sure how to, not when it should be false, nothing but part of a persona. Amuro’s desire may be genuine, and parts of his affection may be as well. He wouldn’t be here with him if it wasn’t. 

But it’s still difficult to believe that Furuya cares about his well-being. 

(Part of him, perhaps, wishes Furuya still didn’t.) 

So he hums in lieu of a response, and closes his eyes to sleep instead.

When Shuuichi wakes, it’s pitch black. The hotel boasts blackout curtains, and there’s not a light to be seen in the room. 

But he feels a weight on his stomach, and the light touch of a hand at his throat. That’s more than enough for him to understand the situation. He’s not surprised, just resigned- if anything, he expected it to happen sooner. 

“Furuya-kun,” he says. 

“Akai,” answers Furuya, voice steady. 

Shuuichi smiles, even knowing Furuya can’t see it. “Will you strangle me?”

“Is that all you have to say?” Furuya demands, bitter. His hand tightens, just slightly- still barely enough to feel. “The man you love has his hand on your throat, and that’s all you have to say?”

“You can’t kill me,” says Shuuichi, matter-of-fact. 

“Not won’t?”

“Of course not,” Shuuichi says with a blink. “You already have. Though it would be nice if you didn’t try again.”

A noise of sheer anguish escapes Furuya’s throat, and Shuuichi jolts, filling with alarm. 

“Why are you here?” Furuya demands. “You shouldn’t-” His hand draws back from Shuuichi’s throat, and Shuuichi feels it clench into a fist on his chest. “Go back to Tokyo.”

“No,” Shuuichi says easily, and only partly because he wasn’t fond of following orders just like that. 

“You have a family who loves you,” snaps Furuya. “You have coworkers who care for you. There’s no reason for you to stay by a man who killed you with his own hands.” 

“I have a reason,” says Shuuichi, and his lips quirk up. “I love you.”

He expects the words to rile Furuya up- he expects Furuya to hiss or rage or deny it like he did last night, to snap at him that he can’t. 

But instead-

“That doesn’t matter, Akai,” Furuya says, wretched. “That’s never-”

He cuts himself off, and Shuuichi stares up into pitch darkness with concern welling in his chest. 

“Furuya-kun…”

“We should go back to sleep,” Furuya interrupts, disturbingly bright. He’s always been excellent at switching gears in the blink of an eye.  

But Shuuichi isn’t so sure he should let him, not right now. 

“Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says again. 

Furuya slips off Shuuichi, back down onto the bed next to him. He’s not touching Shuuichi- he’s probably not facing him either. 

“Please,” Furuya says, quiet. 

“…Alright,” Shuuichi concedes in the end, and closes his eyes. 

He won’t deny that he’s always been too weak on Furuya.

It’s Amuro who wakes him the next morning, with a cheery smile and a shall we go get breakfast? He doesn’t mention what happened in the dead of night, and Shuuichi doesn’t bring it up. 

He doesn’t look very well-rested, but admittedly, neither is Shuuichi, not today. When Amuro insists on driving, Shuuichi can’t bring himself to object. 

Shuuichi watches him, quiet, as the breeze through the car windows blows by them both. 

When Shuuichi initially decided to take credit for Scotch’s death, it hadn’t been to protect Bourbon. It had been to protect himself. There was no reason for an unrepentant Organization operative to hesitate at killing a traitor- so Rye needed to have shot Scotch dead. There was no other path available to him. 

But once he met Bourbon again, met Furuya again- when he realized Furuya never deduced the truth behind that night, not like he always assumed Bourbon would…

Shuuichi found the truth still couldn’t pass through his lips. He didn’t want Furuya to blame himself for Scotch’s death, over the death of his dear friend. And it isn’t as though it’s exactly wrong for Furuya to blame him. He was the one with his hand on the cylinder- he was the one to let himself get distracted, to let go. 

Scotch’s blood is still partially on his hands too. He’s never denied his role in that death. 

Now though, it seems he’s still forcing guilt into Furuya’s heart- and the guilt of caring for the man who killed his best friend appears to be tearing him apart all the same. 

(It still feels rather odd, the concept of Furuya’s affection instead of his hatred- but Furuya clearly feels something positive towards him, for him to be so conflicted.) 

There’s no guarantee, however, that the truth would improve things. Not when the last truth Shuuichi spoke to Furuya seems to have half-broken him into hiding behind a mask. 

In the end- he just doesn’t know what to do. A common theme, it seems, when it comes to Furuya. 

Shuuichi breathes out a small sigh. 

“Is something the matter?” asks Amuro, glancing over. 

“No,” Shuuichi lies. “Though I was wondering how far we had left to go.”

“Bored already?”

“No,” Shuuichi says again, this time truthfully. “I do enjoy driving with you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Amuro says with a laugh. “We have another few hours to go. Less than two if we took the expressways- not that we will. Too easy to track.”

“You know, Amuro-kun, I’ve been thinking…”

“What is it?”

“Doesn’t your country have a few too many toll roads?” Shuuichi asks dryly. 

“Aha, perhaps to an American,” says Amuro. “But they’re well-maintained, Akai. They’re more than worth the cost.”

Diplomatically, Shuuichi hums. He’s been on the roads- they’re certainly well-maintained, but not enough to justify the exorbitant tolls in his book. 

“You don’t believe me, do you?” says Amuro, a huff escaping his mouth. “I’ll take you out one day- in a nice rental car, perhaps. One safe to drive in.”

Shuuichi’s lips quirk up. “It’s a date then.”

Amuro laughs again. “I suppose it is.”

Soon enough, they’re arriving at their destination, and Shuuichi rips off his disguise with no little cheer. He probably could’ve just not bothered to put it back on this morning- but Amuro had insisted on it, just to be safe. Now though, they’re far from the reach of most police cameras.  

The town they’ve reached is bigger than Shuuichi expected. When Amuro said countryside, he imagined - perhaps unrealistically? - a few scattered houses among rice paddies, countless kilometres apart. While there’s still plenty of rice paddies in this mountainous town, there’s also plenty of buildings along asphalted roads. There must be at least a couple thousand people living here. 

“I’ve been paying a neighbour to check in on the house from time to time,” says Amuro, as he drives up a hill through winding roads, “But I haven’t actually visited since I first purchased it. If it’s not immediately in a liveable condition, I suppose we’ll have to find an inn for the night in the nearby city.”

“When did you buy the home?” he asks, mildly curious. 

“Almost a year ago,” answers Amuro. 

Shuuichi does the math, thinks back on what was happening around then. 

“I suppose that was when Rum was eyeing you as a NOC,” he muses. It makes sense Furuya would’ve wanted to secure an escape route if need be. 

“…That wasn’t why I purchased it,” says Amuro, unreadable. 

A memory floats up in Shuuichi’s mind- a conversation in an abandoned warehouse, of gardening and a slow life. Of an assumption that Furuya was alone, and always would be. 

“Amuro-kun,” Shuuichi starts, careful. 

But Amuro makes one final turn, and then he’s parking. “We’re here.”

And in the end, Shuuichi decides not to push. 

(He’s not sure he wants to, not with what it would mean.)

The house, Shuuichi observes, as he gets out of the car and fetches his luggage, would be on the larger side for Tokyo. But based on the other homes they passed by on the way up the hill, it’s average at best for the region. It’s an older home, white paint faded and wood stained from place to place, but it’s all in a typical modern Japanese style- clay roof tiles painted black, large sliding doors against raised platforms. 

All in all, the exterior at least is exactly what Shuuichi would’ve expected from a Japanese house in the countryside. 

“We can unpack later,” says Amuro, unlocking the front door and sliding it open with a clatter. “There’s a few shops in town, but they close early. If everything looks fine, we should get groceries and such while we still can.”

“Alright,” Shuuichi says easily. Amuro rolls his suitcase into the entranceway, and Shuuichi trails after with his own. 

There doesn’t appear to be anything obviously wrong with the house, aside from a thin layer of dust and cobwebs covering most rooms. Lights turn on, water comes out of the taps, and the toilet flushes. The fridge needs to be plugged in to start cooling, but it seems to be working. There’s some furniture- a couch and a dining table in the room by the kitchen, a desk in the upstairs bedroom and futons in the closet, but it’s generally sparse. Though…

 “No air conditioner,” observes Shuuichi. 

“Don’t expect anything so luxurious,” Amuro says with a laugh. “We can buy fans before summer arrives.”

Shuuichi supposes it can’t be worse than that week they spent in Singapore in the height of summer, chasing after a corrupt businessman who had tried to cheat the Organization out of their cut of his dealings. 

…He’s still not looking forward to summer.

The town’s stores are apparently close enough to walk to, so that’s what they do- heading back down that winding road to the centre of town. Soon enough, they arrive at what’s clearly a grocer’s- rows of vegetables and prices on display by a door propped welcomingly open. 

Amuro grabs one of the two rickety grocery baskets left outside, and picks up a head of cabbage to hum at. 

“Akai,” he says. 

“Hm?”

“What do you want to eat?” 

“Anything is fine,” Shuuichi says, and it’s genuine. He’s never been a picky eater- he’s never been much of an eater in general, in all honesty. He ate energy bars for meals more often than not. 

“It would be easier if you had a preference,” says Amuro. “I’d like to cook you something you enjoy.” His gaze is focused on the cabbage, unreadable. “I never did cook you anything, before you- left.” Quiet, almost too quiet to hear- “I wished I had.”

Something uncomfortable curls in his stomach at the sight of Amuro’s obvious grief. 

“I do like curry,” says Shuuichi, “But it would be nice to have something I can’t cook myself. Something fried, perhaps.”

“Fried?” Amuro echoes. He places the cabbage gently into his basket- then smiles, bright. “How about karaage?”

Shuuichi smiles back, ever-so-slight, and nods. 

They end up with bags filled to the brim with groceries and basic supplies as they walk back up the hill- Amuro brought his cooking equipment and vacuum cleaner from Tokyo, but no other basic tools. 

Once most of the groceries are put away in the fridge, Amuro glances back at Shuuichi with a sunny grin. 

“Akai,” he says, “I hope you like cleaning.”

“I can’t say I like it,” says Shuuichi, “But I’m capable of it.”

“That’s good enough,” Amuro says, and thrusts the vacuum cleaner into Shuuichi’s hands. “Vacuum upstairs.”

In all honesty, Shuuichi may not like chores, but doing them after so long spent in hotels is somewhat nostalgic. Though he admittedly can’t work up the energy to move his hands quite as quick as he did in the Kudo Mansion. It’s been a while, he supposes.  

(And he’s still so very tired.)

Most of their afternoon is spent cleaning- vacuuming or sweeping the floors, wiping dust from counters and windowsills. Dinnertime is spent helping Amuro cook. Shuuichi can’t cut cabbage into professional clouds of soft green, but he can peel and slice carrots and lotus root at least. 

“It’s delicious,” Shuuichi can’t help but exclaim, when he bites into a piece of freshly-fried chicken karaage.  

Amuro beams from across the table. “Isn’t it?”

By the evening, Shuuichi is admittedly not up for much more conversation, even with Amuro. But Amuro has always been happy to fill the air even when Shuuichi doesn’t say a word. 

It’s why - even as Rye - he didn’t really mind Bourbon’s company, even if Bourbon could be annoying at times. It was still easy to spend time with him. 

(He missed having that after Scotch’s death, once Bourbon could barely stand to see his face.)

“It’s getting late,” Amuro does say eventually, shifting away from Shuuichi on the porch. “You ought to sleep.”

“We should sleep,” corrects Shuuichi, stubbing his cigarette out on an ashtray, and Amuro laughs.  

“We should,” Amuro concedes, even if they both know they might not sleep for hours. 

When they make their way upstairs though, they realize there was one thing they forgot to do. 

“Ah,” says Amuro, “We haven’t unpacked.”

Amuro’s suitcase has been dragged up and opened, cooking equipment retrieved at dinnertime, but his clothes are still neatly folded inside. Shuuichi’s suitcase hasn’t been opened at all. 

“We can leave it for tomorrow,” suggests Shuuichi. 

“Don’t procrastinate,” Amuro chides. “We can do it now.”

“Alright,” says Shuuichi, because it’s not worth the bother to argue. “Then now.”

There’s a single dresser and a closet with hangers in the room- Shuuichi doesn’t have much clothing, so he claims the bottom drawer of the dresser and leaves it at that. But as he’s dumping his suitcase into the drawer, a plastic bag falls out, and he remembers. 

“Ah,” he says, and glances back at Amuro. “Amuro-kun, here.”

He tosses the bag towards him- Amuro drops the hanger he was holding to catch it. 

“I’d appreciate some warning next time…” Amuro says, smile sheepish. But he opens the bag, pulls out a wrinkled navy dress shirt and blue jeans, and his smile drops. “This is…”

“Borrowed clothes,” says Shuuichi. “I thought I should return them.”

Amuro is still staring at the clothes, face going carefully blank. 

“I did notice they were missing. While I was investigating the break-in.” He holds the clothes up a little higher. “I could never figure out why they were taken along with-” He pauses for a moment, then continues. “It bothered me, but there were bigger things to worry about. And once there weren’t, I couldn’t work up the energy to care anymore. What did it matter in the end? It didn’t change the fact that…”

His eyes flick closed. “You were the one to steal them, then. The clothes.”

“Yes,” admits Shuuichi. 

“You needed something to wear.”

“Yes,” Shuuichi says again. 

Amuro takes a breath, quiet, but doesn’t ask the question Shuuichi is expecting in the end. 

“Why did you keep them?” Amuro asks instead. “It would’ve made more sense to throw them away. They wouldn’t fit you well.” His hands clench around the clothes. “If you meant to return them all along, you would’ve done it earlier. Before you left Tokyo.”

“I enjoyed having something of yours,” Shuuichi says with a shrug. A final memento of sorts. But it’s unnecessary now, for obvious reasons. 

“You-” Emotion breaks out onto Amuro’s face at last, sheer incredulity. The clothes drop to the floor, and Amuro buries his face in a hand. “You…”

“Amuro-kun?”

An unintelligible noise escapes his mouth. “Akai.”

“Yes?”

“Give me your clothes.”

Shuuichi blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“Give me your clothes,” Amuro repeats. His hand falls from his face- he points at Shuuichi with a sharp finger, eyes narrowed. “Your cap, perhaps. It’s ratty enough- you ought to replace it already.”

“I… suppose you can have it if you buy me another,” Shuuichi says doubtfully. “But why?”

“Delayed payment,” declares Amuro. “I’d like to ‘enjoy having something of yours’ too.”

“Hm,” says Shuuichi, hand drawing to his chin.

“What is it?” Amuro grumbles- then, rather childishly- “You started this, I’ll have you know.”

“It’s just that…” Shuuichi raises an eyebrow. “Are you not enjoying having my heart?”

And Amuro chokes, his face flushing a beautifully bright red. “Akai Shuuichi, you-”

“I’m only speaking the truth,” Shuuichi says easily. 

“Just- get back to unpacking,” Amuro grouches, whipping back around to the closet. “…And I still want your cap.”

And Shuuichi chuckles. 

“Once you buy me another,” he promises. 

The next morning, once they’ve brushed their teeth and had a light breakfast at Amuro’s insistence, Amuro whips out the bag of Tokyo souvenirs he brought with him. 

“We should go greet the neighbours,” he says brightly, and laughs when Shuuichi can’t quite hold back a grimace. “You can just stand behind me, Akai. I’ll do the talking.”

There’s eleven neighbours in total Amuro insists on greeting- four up the hill from the house, seven on the way down. 

“I’m Amuro Tooru,” he would say at each household, then would gesture behind him at Shuuichi. “This is Shuuichi. We just moved in from Tokyo- this isn’t much, but we hope you’ll enjoy.”

Then he would hand them a small box of red bean jelly with a winning smile. 

“Oh my, so polite! Thank you very much,” says one neighbour, giggling- an old woman, graying hair and wrinkled cheeks. “Your Japanese is so good!”

“Thank you,” says Amuro, smile not cracking an inch. 

Another household, a middle-aged man opens the door, hands worn and sun-tanned. 

“Ah, um,” he starts, in response to Amuro’s spiel- then awkwardly says a thank you in broken English. 

“Oh, I’m fine with Japanese!” 

The man still mumbles something in unintelligible English right back, then closes the door. 

The majority of their neighbours just smile politely and accept the small gift- but the ones who don’t leave it at that must be fraying Amuro’s nerves, even if he doesn’t show it. 

So when they ring the doorbell of the last home, and the old man who answers it turns his focus on Shuuichi despite Amuro being the one who talked-

“I don’t speak Japanese,” lies Shuuichi in fluent English. 

He sees Amuro’s hand fly up to his face to hide a laugh. It only lasts a moment- soon, his hand falls, and a perfectly polite smile is spread across his face once more. 

“He’s still learning,” says Amuro, playing along, and the old man blinks up at them both with a goggle-eyed gaze. 

Later though, once they’re walking their way back to the house, Amuro raises an eyebrow. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says. “What are you going to do the next time we see him?”

“I’ll pretend not to know Japanese,” Shuuichi replies. 

“I wouldn’t say that’s a long-term solution,” says Amuro, but his voice is terribly amused. “It wasn’t necessary, you know. I don’t mind being seen as a foreigner.” 

“That’s never been true.”

“Akai,” starts Amuro, a warning note to his voice- but Shuuichi just raises an eyebrow. 

“You never liked it even as Bourbon,” says Shuuichi. 

And Amuro falters, his brow furrowing. “As Bourbon?”

“I won’t deny you hid it,” Shuuichi says, “But it wasn’t difficult to tell you got tetchy when you weren’t treated as Japanese.”

Back then, Shuuichi admittedly thought of it as annoying. Idiotic, too, given how much Bourbon made a point of enjoying quintessentially Western cuisines and clothing styles. But in retrospect, it was a decent choice to mask his loyalty to his country. 

“For what it’s worth,” adds Shuuichi, “You’ve always seemed nothing but Japanese to me.”

They lived together for months, back in the Organization- him and Bourbon and Scotch. And as much as Bourbon played up the foreigner angle at times, it was obvious enough he wasn’t- in the meals he actually enjoyed when no one was looking, his knowledge of literature and sayings that far surpassed Shuuichi’s back then, even some obscure cultural norms that Shuuichi hadn’t ever learned as a born-and-raised Englishman. 

Moroboshi Dai was meant to be a Japanese man with some foreign blood- not an American, and definitely not English. Shuuichi had even used Bourbon as reference to help solidify that cover from time to time. 

“Well,” says Amuro, and coughs once, prim. “I won’t deny you know me well.”

The thing is this: Shuuichi does pride himself in knowing Furuya well. He has confidence that he can tell what persona Furuya has chosen just from a single word out of Furuya’s mouth. 

Admittedly, he doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to actually gauging Furuya’s feelings, his thoughts- but his masks, at least, are as obvious as day to him.  

That’s precisely the reason why he also knows this: the lines between Furuya’s masks are thinner than they might seem. 

And they’ve always been the thinnest around Shuuichi. 

He’s always taken pride in that too, in being able to draw blazingly true emotions out of the otherwise perfect spy. So it’s not surprising, as the weeks pass on by, as they settle into something of a routine in this countryside town- that Amuro seems less Amuro and more just Furuya, at least when it’s just the two of them. 

But Shuuichi doesn’t mention it, doesn’t even hint at it. Because he remembers the horrified look on Furuya’s face by the river, remembers that anguished choke in the dead of night, and decides it’s not worth touching. 

If he can keep all of Furuya happy by not saying a thing, then why wouldn’t he?

And Furuya does seem to be happy enough, now that he’s found things to do. Shuuichi has never particularly minded being idle- he spent most of his time as Okiya being idle. He does enjoy caring for their steadily growing garden outside, but it’s not as though it’s a farmer’s field. There’s only so much work to be done each day, and it’s admittedly still too much of a drain on some days. 

Furuya, however, has happily been a workaholic for as long as he’s known him. But there’s plenty of work to be found in a small town without a nearby handyman, especially for a man with as many esoteric skills as Furuya. 

At least when he’s willing to leave Shuuichi’s side for more than five minutes. 

“Amuro-kun,” says Shuuichi, voice dry as he looks up from his phone. “If you’re bored, you can go.”

Amuro just keeps pacing in front of the couch, in front of Shuuichi. 

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” Amuro says. 

“Didn’t you say the Yamashitas were looking for someone to fix their leaky roof?”

“Well, yes,” says Amuro, drawing to a stop at last. His arms cross. “But you said you weren’t interested in coming along.”

Shuuichi raises an eyebrow. “Do you think I’m a child?”

“Of course not,” says Amuro, incredulous. 

“Then are you?”

Amuro scowls. “What are you getting at, Akai?” 

“You can go alone,” says Shuuichi, amused. It’s an obvious conclusion- he expects Amuro to flush with embarrassment at most, then head on out. 

But Amuro falls silent, his gaze shifting away. His hand clenches at his arm, knuckles going white. 

“I understand that in my head,” Amuro says. “But…” He exhales, sharp. “The last time you left my sight, you appeared right before my meeting with Rum, and I-” His eyes flick closed. “I understand it’s illogical. But I can’t stop thinking you’ll fly away. Like-” 

He falls silent. But for once, Shuuichi understands what Amuro meant to say. That conversation, weeks ago- the tale that stuck in his mind. 

“Like the crane who returned the favour?” Shuuichi asks. 

“Yes,” Amuro admits, wincing. “Like that crane.” 

Shuuichi hums, then- “Then why don’t we improve your logic?”

And Amuro’s eyes open, his brow furrowing. 

“The only bus out of town comes first thing in the morning,” says Shuuichi. “You have the only key to the car. If I wanted to leave, how would I? I can’t actually fly, Amuro-kun. You know that.”

“You could call a taxi,” Amuro points out. 

“It would still take hours to arrive from the nearest city.”

“…I suppose that’s true,” Amuro concedes. 

“Go outside, Amuro-kun,” Shuuichi tells him. “I’ll still be here when you come back.”

“I…” Amuro still hesitates for a breath, two- but in the end, he nods. “I’ll be back by lunch.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Shuuichi waves him a casual goodbye. 

And while Amuro still looks a bit reluctant, he does eventually leave, sliding door clattering shut behind him. 

The moment he does, Shuuichi leans back on the couch, exhales. 

“The crane who returned the favour…” he murmurs. 

A crane who pledged love, so long as their true self remained unacknowleged- who would disappear because they had to, not because they wanted to. 

“Furuya-kun,” he says, quiet. “I’m not the crane of our tale.”

Spring turns into summer. The vegetables they plant in their garden bud and flower, and they even succeed in harvesting some. 

(Mostly the zucchinis, in the end, piles of them. Too many eggplants they lose to bugs, and some of the celery grew too bitter to eat. At least the tomatoes seem to be growing well.)

But the biggest issue, all in all, is the heat. 

“Hell…” mutters Shuuichi. 

“If you’re that hot, then get off of me,” Amuro says, exasperated. 

Shuuichi, ignoring him, just leans his chin on Amuro’s shoulder, arms wrapping tight around Amuro’s stomach. 

They did drive out to the nearby city to buy a couple fans before summer came into full swing, but the fan that’s blowing into their faces feels like a water gun fighting against a house fire. The windows are wide open, the fan is going at full speed- but it’s so humid, the heat is still unbearable. 

“Honestly,” grumbles Amuro. But he still leans back into Shuuichi’s arms. “You know, we’re in the mountains.”

Shuuichi hums neutrally. 

“But I’ve always been more for the sea.”

“The sea sounds nice,” muses Shuuichi. Mostly the idea of a vast expanse of cool water. He never thought he would think anything like that, not after all the horror stories of drowning his father told him as a child. 

But the overwhelming heat is admittedly getting to him. 

“I agree,” Amuro says, then- “Let’s go. Now.”

Shuuichi does blink, taken aback, but- there’s no reason not to, is there? Not in this accursed heat. Even a long, air-conditioned car ride anywhere would be a welcome respite. 

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”

‘Now’ does turn out to be in an hour in the end, enough time to take a shower and put together some packed dinners. But soon enough, they’re in the car, heading off to a public beach an hour away. 

It seems Amuro chose a less popular beach. There’s only a couple other cars in the small parking lot beside it, and when they make their way down the steps to the beach, the only other figures are far in the distance. 

The beach doesn’t have any manned facilities, but there is a changing station with showers near the entrance. They change there, throwing their clothes in a bag to leave in the car. 

“Can you swim?” asks Amuro, once they’ve made their way to the water’s edge. 

“I can,” says Shuuichi. “Though it may be better to wade.” There’s no lifeguard, after all, no one to save them if a current takes them far out into the sea. A wave splashes over his ankles- Shuuichi lets his feet sink into the sand. “Can you?”

“I can,” Amuro says right back. “But I suppose I can wade as well.”

They’re quiet for a long while, walking along the beach, water reaching halfway up their knees. It’s not an oppressive silence though, not at all- and Shuuichi is happy enough just to be escaping the accursed heat. It’s still warm here by the sea, but it’s far better with waves splashing over them. 

But suddenly, Amuro pauses, and Shuuichi comes to a stop behind him. 

“Amuro-kun?”

Amuro stares out towards the gleaming turquoise sea. “Hiro taught me, you know. How to swim.”

“Hiro?” The name rings a bell, it’s on the tip of his tongue, but-

“Morofushi Hiromitsu,” says Furuya. “The name of the man you killed.”

And Shuuichi’s stomach drops. He takes a small step back, water splashing - he knows, after all, that the last thing Furuya wants is his touch at a time like this - but before he can go too far, Furuya grabs at his hand. 

Shuuichi stares, bewildered, but Furuya doesn’t turn to look at him. 

“He was a nice guy- too nice. And he couldn’t really get rid of that completely, even as Scotch. You must know that too.”

“Yes,” Shuuichi agrees. 

Scotch was a friendly man, easy to get along with- enough to forget the murders to his name. Shuuichi considered him a friend by the end, even despite the loyalties he thought Scotch held. 

He was a man who shouldn’t have died just like that. 

“So I’m sure he’d forgive you for what you did,” Furuya continues, “Just as easily as you forgave me. But I…” His hand squeezes tighter around Shuuichi’s. “I never would’ve learned how to swim, you know. Not without Hiro.”

His voice goes bitter. “I wouldn’t have ever experienced a proper New Year’s celebration either, wouldn’t have ever learned how to cook half the things I did. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have understood family at all.”

“I see,” Shuuichi says, carefully quiet. 

“So I can’t forget him, Akai. I can’t forget what you did to him. But I can’t-” Furuya’s hand squeezes almost painfully tight. “I can’t live without you either. Akai, I…” 

He looks back at Shuuichi at last, something broken in his eyes- Shuuichi’s heart aches. 

“How did you forgive me?” 

“For what?” asks Shuuichi. 

“For killing you,” snaps Furuya, voice blazing. “What else?!”

Ah, right. That. 

“I’ve never thought of it as something to forgive,” Shuuichi muses. 

“What’s that supposed to- I killed you! What does it matter that you revived? It doesn’t change what I did, why I did it!”

“It doesn’t,” Shuuichi agrees, “But that night, I came to you intending to die. I can’t say it was all on you.”

“So what? I can,” Furuya bites out, and Shuuichi blinks, bewildered. Furuya takes a step forward, water splashing, filled with righteous fury. 

But for once, the fury doesn’t seem to be aimed at him. 

“I should’ve been able to tell what you were planning. There were so many signs,” Furuya snaps. “I pretended not to see them, because I couldn’t forgive you, I hated myself whenever I wanted your touch, and I-” 

Furuya’s hand releases Shuuichi’s at last- but then his hands whip up to grip Shuuichi’s shoulders, just as painfully tight.  

“I was the one to put the idea in your head in the first place!” snaps Furuya, desperate, helpless. “I told you we could destroy the Organization if you died, I-”

He cuts himself off, devolving into half-unintelligible noises. A thump, and Furuya’s head is pressed into his chest, under his chin. 

“I don’t want you to forgive me, Akai,” Furuya says, voice going dull. “Not when I can’t forgive you.”

“That’s not your choice,” Shuuichi says, sharp. 

Furuya’s hands clench around Shuuichi’s shoulders. “I know.”

Shuuichi wants desperately to draw his hand over Furuya’s cheek, to press into him- but he would need to extract himself from Furuya’s grip to do that. And he’s not going to push Furuya away from him, not right now. 

All he can do is speak. Not that it’s ever been his forte. 

“My father,” he says, “told me to never try to die by drowning. That it would be a neverending hell of death and revival.” 

“…What?”

“Some of my ancestors threw themselves into the sea to escape their curse of immortality,” Shuuichi continues, “But it supposedly never worked. The luckier ones washed up on shore, eventually. The unlucky ones may still be out there somewhere, centuries later. In the depths of the sea.”

Curiosity tints Furuya’s voice, and his grip loosens, ever-so-slightly. “Your condition is hereditary?”

“Yes,” says Shuuichi. “I’ve lived my life knowing that eventually, I needed to find a way to die. That’s why, Furuya-kun-” his voice goes quiet, urgent, “-your vows to kill me only ever intrigued me. Even on that final night.”

A pause, silence for the briefest moment. But then, Furuya staggers back with a splash, eyes wide, mouth pressed into a thin line. 

It’s not what Shuuichi was hoping for, not at all. His brow furrows. “Furuya-kun?”

“Akai,” says Furuya, then falls silent once more. Emotions rise on his face, twisted but terribly unreadable. “Tell me just one thing.”

Shuuichi inclines his head. 

“You never gave me a second glance in the Organization,” Furuya says, like a man being led to execution. “Not until after you killed Hiro. So tell me-” his voice goes sharp, “Did you fall for me because I wanted to kill you?”

Admittedly, that may have been part of it. Those blazing eyes of Furuya’s, so filled with fury- his dogged determination, and the thought of an easy death by his hand- all of it and more drew him to Furuya. 

But it isn’t as though it was ever the most important thing, not at all. After all-

“You’ve already proven you can’t kill me, Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says simply. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

He loves him no less. He’ll always love him no less. But Shuuichi seems to have failed to convey that, because-

Furuya’s face shutters. 

“I see,” he says, just as simply. His hand reaches back out, flitting light over Shuuichi’s cheek. “Akai.”

“Furuya-kun,” says Shuuichi, concern still heavy in his throat. 

Furuya just smiles - slight, subdued - and says- 

“I love you, you know.”

And Shuuichi freezes rock solid, his mind stuttering to a blinding stop. 

A bitter chuckle cuts through the air- it’s Furuya. 

“You look far more shocked than I expected,” he says. “Can I not still love a man I can’t forgive?” 

Shuuichi’s hand reaches out at that. Of course it does. How can he stop himself from brushing a hand on Furuya’s cheek as well, just as softly as Furuya’s own? And Furuya lets him, leans into the hand, smile still slight on his face. 

“I love you,” Furuya says, and it’s just as unbelievable as the last time. “That’s why- I’m not enough of a fool to think I can just break through a mindset you’ve built over three decades, but still-” his eyes narrow, “I can at least make sure I’m someone who doesn’t make it worse.”

There’s firm resolve in Furuya’s eyes, that beautiful determination he’s always loved seeing. Shuuichi half-loses himself in it alone. 

Still, though…

“There’s nothing wrong with my mindset,” Shuuichi says mildly. He considers himself better-adjusted than Furuya on most days, in all honesty. 

“You shouldn’t be living life just to die,” Furuya counters, quiet. 

It’s uncharitable of Furuya to phrase it like that. At the end of the day, is it so odd for him to prefer the hopeless dream of a quick death than a desperate struggle to escape into nothingness?

“I won’t try to convince you otherwise,” continues Furuya, “But I apologize for lacking resolve these past months. For realizing you shouldn’t love me, that I shouldn’t love you, but acting as myself in the end either way. Even if I didn’t quite understand the full consequences.”

“Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says, ice rising in his throat, because he’s not so dumb as to not realize what Furuya is suggesting. “I was happy to have you by my side. Fully by my side. It was more than I ever hoped for.”

“In the hopes I’d still end you?”

“…I won’t deny I’ve still thought of it from time to time,” says Shuuichi. He doesn’t quite want to pile on more lies, not to Furuya, not with all the lies that still clam his throat tight. “But I don’t expect it of you. Not anymore.”

But Furuya looks no less reassured. Instead, he smiles- a resigned smile Shuuichi never expected, never wanted, to see on Furuya’s face. 

“That’s what I thought,” Furuya says. 

“What do you-”

“-Akai,” says Furuya, smile still terribly, horribly, resigned. “Won’t you call me Tooru? It’ll help me remember who I need to be. Properly, this time.”

“And if I’d rather not?” 

“I can’t let you go,” Furuya says. “I’m too selfish for it. For this, at least. But-” a thumb runs under Shuuichi’s eye, “I can still do what I need to, if the only other choice is to let you die.”

He leans in, Shuuichi’s hand following him, and presses their foreheads together. 

“You can’t love me, Akai,” Furuya says, calm and steady. “That hasn’t changed. It’ll never change, not with everything we’ve done. So I’ll leave the choice to you.”

But there’s no real choice for him, not in the end. His decision is the same as ever. 

(To have at least a part of Furuya, instead of none.)

Shuuichi’s eyes close. 

“If that’s what you want,” he says, reluctant. “Tooru-kun.”

He stops seeing Furuya in Amuro, after that.

Chapter Text

Furuya called himself selfish for wanting to stay by Shuuichi’s side, but in the end, there’s no one more selfish than Shuuichi. For missing Furuya, for knowing it’s his own fault, but still throwing himself so deeply into Tooru’s love either way. 

(He worries. Of course he worries. He doesn’t want to lose Furuya in his life, and-

He worries what Furuya thinks he has to do, if Shuuichi insists on drawing him back out regardless. Whatever it is, he’s fairly sure it won’t be good. For Furuya, or for himself.)

Tooru makes it easy to forget, at any rate. 

During quiet mornings, Shuuichi outside with a watering can, valiantly trying to save their plants from withering. 

Arms wrap around him from behind, and Shuuichi can do nothing but lean back into the embrace. 

“Shuuichi,” comes a voice, both familiar and not. A kiss pecks on his neck, then- “Come help with breakfast.”

“Alright,” says Shuuichi. “Once you let me go.”

“In a bit,” Tooru says cheerily, and squeezes tighter. 

Or during sleepy afternoons, Shuuichi on the couch with Tooru tucked in his side as they scroll through a mystery novel on a phone. Shuuichi has always preferred physical books, but there’s no library in this small town, and deliveries are sporadic. He makes do. 

Shuuichi flicks to the next page, and Tooru hums as he skims through it. 

“I know the culprit,” Tooru says, bright. 

“The husband?” asks Shuuichi. “That’s been obvious for a while.”

“Certainly,” Tooru agrees, “But it wasn’t clear how he faked his alibi until now. Shall I tell you how he did it, Shuuichi?”

And Shuuichi laughs, too easy. “Let’s hear it.”

Or early in the evening, cicadas crying outside. Tooru, in the kitchen, chopping carrots on the cutting board. 

“Tooru-kun,” Shuuichi would say, could say, drawing by Tooru’s side, leaning in a touch. 

And Tooru would smile and close his eyes, waiting patiently for a kiss. 

Shuuichi could never do anything but oblige. 

It was better at the start, when he still felt jabs of guilt from time to time, when he could still work up the energy to chide himself. But as the weeks pass by, as the sweltering summer turns into a cooler fall-

It’s far too easy to settle into this life. 

Shuuichi hasn’t really forgotten, of course. Not anything. Not about what he needs to find a way to do, eventually, and not about Furuya either. 

Tooru is still Furuya, Bourbon is still Furuya, and Furuya hadn’t gotten it wrong when he accused Shuuichi of loving every part of him all those months ago. But Furuya is also Furuya, and it would be a lie to say he doesn’t miss that part of Furuya like a torn limb. 

But he’s happy, in a way, with Tooru. He thinks Furuya is too. In a way. 

And isn’t that already far more than either of them ever expected to have?

On a whim one day, he buys a book of Japanese folktales from an online store. 

Some he remembers from half-forgotten memories of childhood- the more famous ones, mostly. Some are vaguely familiar via osmosis from other media. Others he’s never heard of at all. 

That tale of the crane Furuya told him is in the book. 

The book has none of Furuya’s interpretations of a crane who didn’t want to go. It includes commentary at the end of each story, but for the crane’s tale, the author only discusses related folktales.

There’s more that Furuya didn’t include in his telling of it to Shuuichi though, all those months ago. An alternative telling, for example, of a crane who comes to become an elderly couple’s daughter instead. 

But what strikes Shuuichi the most is this: in any version of the tale, the crane grows thin and haggard as she plucks her own feathers in that private room. As she selflessly sacrifices herself for her love. 

So Shuuichi can’t blame the crane’s husband for throwing that door open- for wanting to know what to do to help, to save his spouse from withering away. He would do no different in the man’s shoes. 

What kind of lover could stand by and watch as the one they loved suffered in pain?

(But it’s the opposite for Tooru, who sleeps so soundly by Shuuichi’s side these days, his smiles bright. Even if they don’t quite reach his eyes from time to time. 

And so, the door between them stays firmly locked shut.)

“Tooru-kun,” Shuuichi says. “We should go see the autumn leaves.”

Tooru blinks from across the table, his chopsticks pausing over his plate. 

“You want to… go outside?” he asks, doubtful. 

It’s a reasonable question. They’re in the mountains out in the countryside- trees surround them, a growing gradient of reds and oranges and yellows. Shuuichi has been raking leaves out from their driveway for almost a week now. 

So they see the autumn leaves every day. But it’s not what Shuuichi means.  

“Takeda-san mentioned there was a good spot down south for leaves.”

“I see,” Tooru says with a hum. He smiles, easy and bright. “Alright. Shall we go tomorrow?”

“Friday, perhaps,” says Shuuichi. “It’s set to rain for the next few days.”

They make it into a picnic, packing sandwiches and rice balls and more. Shuuichi has no intention of becoming a master chef, but months spent as Tooru’s assistant have upgraded his cooking skills to some degree. He’s capable of making simple meals that satisfy Tooru now, and he’s happy about that at least. 

(And they’re meals that truly satisfy Tooru- truly satisfy Furuya, Shuuichi hopes deep down. 

When Shuuichi first attempted to cook Tooru food, he received a polite smile and a carefully controlled voice in response. These days, Tooru digs in happily and gives him a much cheerier grin.)

When it comes to who drives, they always decide through a round of rock-paper-scissors. It would make more sense to take turns - and indeed, Tooru suggested just that - but Shuuichi insisted otherwise. 

(He knows Furuya would prefer having the opportunity to win against him, after all.)

Tooru wins today, and so Shuuichi settles himself down in the passenger seat, phone in hand. 

“It seems it’ll take a couple hours,” he says, scrolling through the map. 

“How long if we take the expressways?” asks Tooru. 

A tap on a different route, and Shuuichi hums. “…Half an hour.”

“We should take them then,” Tooru decides. “We’ve long since changed the license plates. Besides-” he flashes Shuuichi a sunny smile, “-I believe I promised to take you out on them sometime.”

It’s still a risk, one neither of them would’ve taken in the past. But the consequence of being discovered isn’t death, not anymore. 

So Shuuichi doesn’t object. 

But when it comes back to bite them, it’s no real surprise.

Early one morning, the doorbell rings. 

It’s only an hour or so after sunrise, but Shuuichi is awake immediately. Tooru clearly is as well, shifting up next to him. They may be sleeping better these days, but old habits die hard. Both of them wake at the drop of a pin. 

“It’s likely for me,” says Tooru, rising out of bed. “I’ll take care of it.”

There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be for Tooru- for someone to ring the doorbell so early, it’s probably someone in town wanting Tooru’s help for an odd job or other. So Shuuichi settles back down on the futon, inclining his head. He doubts he’ll fall back asleep, but he means to close his eyes at least. 

But then, not long after Tooru changes and heads downstairs, he hears a voice. It’s muffled through the walls, and he can’t quite make out the exact words. Still though, it’s a loud voice. 

And it’s clear as day that it isn’t happy. 

So Shuuichi shifts up to slip on a shirt and some pants - his hair is a mess under his knitted cap, but Tooru will have to forgive him - and makes his way out the bedroom. 

The voices grow more distinct as he heads down the stairs. More familiar too, in an odd way. 

“-uilty too.”

Tooru, voice unreadable. “Kudo-kun-”

And Shuuichi pauses on the staircase, hand stiffening on the handrail. 

Ah. 

It’s the boy’s voice he’s hearing. The boy’s true voice as a teenager- not the higher tones of a child Shuuichi is so used to. 

Was so used to. 

“Isn’t that why you ran?” Shinichi’s voice, sharp. “You couldn’t stand it.”

“I’m afraid you won’t get the answers you want from me.”

“Amuro-san, please,” pleads Shinichi. “Let’s think of how you can atone. Together.”

Shuuichi has heard enough. Enough for the stirrings of guilt to pool in his stomach. He hadn’t expected the boy to still be wasting time over his death a whole year later.

(That’s a lie. It’s no real surprise, in the end. And that makes Shuuichi’s choices all the worse.)

He rounds the corner and heads down the last few steps. The staircase leads out into a hallway that runs straight to the entranceway- it only takes moments to traverse the distance, to draw up behind Tooru. 

“Atone for what, exactly?” Shuuichi says mildly, slipping his way beside Tooru, hand light on Tooru’s shoulder. 

Only to freeze. 

Shuuichi heard Shinichi’s voice. So he expected to see him, and resolved himself for apologies, for difficult conversations. 

He didn’t expect-

“Shuu-nii?” 

His sister stands in the doorway as well, eyes blown just as wide as Shinichi next to her. And judging from her reaction…

No one told her Shuuichi was alive. 

“How? You- Amuro-san said he-” There’s a veritable cornucopia of emotions shifting over Masumi’s face- but as her gaze shifts to Tooru, Shuuichi can make out the betrayal as clear as day. 

“I was the one to keep it from you both,” says Shuuichi, before Tooru can open his mouth. “Tooru-kun respected my wishes. That’s all.”

Masumi is disheveled enough to let it pass, but Shuuichi can see Shinichi’s eyes narrow at the sound of Tooru-kun. It’s not important right now though, not really. 

“In my defence,” continues Shuuichi, “I did assume someone in the family would’ve told you at least, Masumi.” 

“Your family knew?” Shinichi asks. His shock has settled into something more neutral, more unreadable. 

“Mama and Papa know?” demands Masumi, hands clenching at her sides. 

“They should,” says Shuuichi, and blinks as Masumi whips out her phone in a white-knuckled grip. 

A tap, and it’s ringing- she presses it against her ear. She’s calling someone, and it’s obvious enough who. It doesn’t take long for them to hear the soft click of a call being picked up. 

“Mama,” she says, terse. “I’m with Shuu-nii.” Silence for a moment, two, then- “What do you mean, tell him to call sometime?! I thought he was dead!” Her foot taps on the floor, agitated, as she listens to their mother’s answer. “No, Papa didn’t- Kichi-nii knew too?!”

Tooru slips close, his arm wrapping around Shuuichi, hand caressing Shuuichi’s hip. He brushes his lips against an ear. 

“I wasn’t aware you told your family,” he murmurs. 

“I didn’t,” says Shuuichi, just as quiet. “But they’d know how I died wouldn’t kill me.”

“Ah,” says Tooru, and draws back the slightest bit. 

Masumi hangs up in front of them, shoving her phone back into her jeans. She glares, face blooming with fury. Shuuichi can’t entirely blame her. 

“Shuu-nii,” she says, and shifts into a familiar stance. Jeet Kune Do. “Clench your jaw.”

Shuuichi feels Tooru jolt next to him, shifting as though he means to step between him- but he stops Tooru with a sharp shake of his head. Thankfully, Tooru concedes. 

So Shuuichi steps forward, out from Tooru’s hold, and clenches his jaw. 

(The punch hurts, but he’s more proud of his sister for her excellent right hook than anything else.)

Tooru does go to make them tea in the end, while Shuuichi presses a bag of ice against his cheek at Tooru’s insistence. Despite the fact that there’s not even an ache left behind, let alone a bruise. 

“You shouldn’t just let yourself get punched,” Tooru murmurs to him, as he pours water into the kettle in the kitchen. “But I’ll look past it this time.” A flash of a grimace. “We’re both to blame.”

“You’re not-”

“I kept you for myself,” Tooru cuts in, shaking his head. “We’re both to blame.” 

And while Shuuichi still disagrees, it’s difficult to argue too heatedly when Masumi and Shinichi are sitting within hearing distance.  

The tea is ready soon enough, and Shuuichi is free to surreptitiously discard the bag of ice in the sink before trailing after Tooru to the dining table. 

Tooru painstakingly serves each of them a cup, the teapot left on a tray in the middle once he’s done. The tea Tooru brewed is green tea of a quintessentially Japanese brand. It’s always nice to see. 

(Shuuichi doesn’t particularly care for tea in general, let alone green tea. But Furuya does, and he’s helplessly glad he isn’t suppressing his tastes along with everything else.)

He’s not particularly loud about serving them tea, not at all. But in the oppressive silence, even the slightest clink seems to echo like a foghorn. 

But soon enough, Tooru is sitting himself down next to Shuuichi- Masumi right across, Shinichi beside her. 

No one touches the tea. 

In the end, Masumi is the one to break the silence. 

“Why?” she asks, lost. Her fury seems to have abated- but the helpless confusion in her voice isn’t much better. 

There’s no satisfying answer Shuuichi can give her. Either of them, really- Masumi may have asked the question, but Shinichi is listening just as intently, brow furrowed. 

Tooru asked him the same question months back. But his answer hasn’t changed since then. He was tired, and he wanted to run. It wasn’t a choice borne out of logic, and thus it wasn’t a choice he could justify. 

“I assumed someone would tell you,” Shuuichi says again. It’s not a lie, technically. At least not to Masumi. 

“And I’m mad at them too for that!” Masumi declares, scowl on her face. “But you could’ve come to see us. I didn’t even know you survived the first time until after you-!”

She cuts herself off, gaze flicking down, hands clenching on the table. Shuuichi bites back a grimace.  

“Was it because of the Organization?” asks Shinichi. From the tone of his voice, he already knows he’s wrong. But he’s asking the question anyway. 

One of the top investigators of Japan, asking a question he already knows the answer to for no good reason. He must be rattled. 

“If I count as Organization,” says Tooru, and smiles ever-so-bright. “Then I suppose so, yes.”

“Tooru-” Shuuichi starts with a frown, but Tooru cuts him off. 

“-I brought him here with me,” Tooru insists, matter-of-fact. “I knew there were others mourning him. I still didn’t say a thing.”

“…Kazami-san said this house was bought last spring,” says Shinichi. “Were you planning all this since then?”

“Yes,” says Tooru, fully confident. 

And the thing is, Tooru’s confidence, Furuya’s confidence, Bourbon’s confidence- it all means nothing. Furuya has always been capable of lying through his teeth without missing a beat. 

But somehow, Tooru’s words don’t ring as lies.  

By all this, Shinichi no doubt meant Shuuichi “faking” his death. Tooru, however-

He likely meant that he’d been hoping to vanish with Shuuichi since then. And it’s something Shuuichi has suspected for a while now, since they first arrived and Tooru hinted at why he had the house. 

But it isn’t something Shuuichi wanted to face. 

(That Furuya truly hadn’t wanted to kill him last winter, and yet Shuuichi forced his hand nonetheless.)

“I wanna know why,” Masumi says. “I don’t care who’s to blame.”

“Sera-san,” says Tooru, frank. “Sometimes, there’s no answers for you to find.”

It’s the truth and nothing but- there are no excuses Shuuichi can give them, no justifications either. Not to Masumi, not to Shinichi, not to anyone. 

Masumi doesn’t look satisfied though, and rightfully so. She stares down at her cooling tea, face twisting. 

“Shuu-nii,” she says at last. “Can I talk with you?” Her gaze flicks back up to Tooru. “Alone.”

It’s admittedly a reasonable request, considering Shuuichi has been indulging in Tooru’s kindness. He’s been letting Tooru do all the talking for him, because it was easy, too easy.

But it would be a cowardly move to continue indulging, and Shuuichi has never been a coward. 

“Very well,” Shuuichi says, standing up from the table. “Let’s go outside.”

They don’t go far- just to the garden out back. There’s an old wooden bench that he uses with Tooru sometimes, on days nice enough to relax outside. That’s where he sits with his sister. 

Masumi gazes out at the garden. It’s filled with greenery, but it doesn’t look much like a vegetable garden at first glance- Shuuichi went for root vegetables for autumn, carrots and yams and potatoes. 

“Is this your garden, Shuu-nii?” 

Shuuichi hums in the affirmative. 

“I see,” she says, quiet. “You know, Papa started a garden too. We’re in an apartment now, so it’s just on the balcony, but…” 

Her hands clench in her lap. 

“You know,” she says again. “Mama and Papa- they never treated you as dead. They didn’t even care that someone stole your ashes before we could get them, didn’t even have a funeral. But I thought they were in denial. Of course I did! They didn’t explain a thing, and meanwhile Shinichi-kun showed me the autopsy report, told me what happened- and you were gone.”

Masumi’s eyes flick closed. 

“If you can’t tell me why you left,” she says, “Can you at least tell me why you told everyone but me?”

That, at least, is an easy question to answer. Shuuichi relaxes imperceptibly. 

“I didn’t,” he says simply- then, in the face of Masumi’s eyes snapping back open, her puzzled frown, clarifies. “They knew I wouldn’t be killed by a bullet to the head. Our father never explained?”

“That shooting you in the head doesn’t kill you?” Masumi asks, skepticism filling her voice. 

It’s understandable. Furuya is the odd one, really, for being willing to believe Shuuichi without seeing Shuuichi’s immortality in action with his own two eyes. But Furuya had also shot him dead at point blank range. Masumi has only seen the autopsy reports- and after finding Shuuichi with Furuya, she likely assumed they were all faked. 

If it weren’t for his healing factor, Shuuichi would likely have a growing bruise on his cheek from Masumi’s punch. But he can’t use that as evidence, not when Masumi could argue that she hadn’t punched hard enough, or that Shuuichi was just too well-trained. 

The easiest way would be to show her directly, to slip back inside and grab a kitchen knife for a demonstration. But Tooru is still in the dining area with Shinichi- they would spot them. 

And Shuuichi doesn’t quite want to risk Tooru following through with his ridiculous threat from months back. 

“Ask Father,” he says in the end. “He can explain it better than me. It’s hereditary.”

“Fine,” Masumi says, still no less doubtful. “I will.”

“Good,” Shuuichi says, quiet. “But for now, I can promise you this- the only person I told of my survival was Tooru-kun.”

A flash of a frown over Masumi’s face. 

“Did you-” she starts, hesitant, then swallows. “Did you want a new life? Away from all of us?”

Shuuichi blinks. He supposes that’s what he ended up doing in the end- but it’s not what he planned for. He hadn’t really wanted a life at all, in all honesty. 

“No,” he says. “I wouldn’t say I did. I spent months travelling aimlessly before I ran into Furuya-kun again.”

Masumi is quiet for a moment, two, seemingly ruminating over Shuuichi’s words. 

“Shuu-nii,” she says at last. “We never talked much, but I always thought I still knew you. My cool older brother, the star FBI agent who could do anything. But I guess…” She shifts on the bench, awkward, “I guess I didn’t know anything about how you felt. So-”

Masumi flashes him a bright, snaggletoothed grin. It’s a little forced - Shuuichi is well-versed in seeing behind fake smiles at this point - but the effort still means something. 

“First,” she declares, “I want an apology!”

“I apologize,” Shuuichi says easily. 

“For?”

“For continuing to hide my survival,” continues Shuuichi, “Even after the Organization fell.”

“You should apologize for hiding it at all.”

“No,” says Shuuichi, just as easily as before. “It was to keep you from being targeted by the Organization.”

“That’s the same thing Papa said,” grumbles Masumi, her smile faltering. “And I still think it’s stupid. But fine.” A sigh. “I’ll take it. Second, then! Words are cheap. Prove you mean it.”

“I’m willing to try…?” Shuuichi offers. But he’s not entirely sure what Masumi expects from him. 

“It took me and Shinichi-kun two days to get here, but that’s because we came by train and bus,” says Masumi. “It’s only a day’s drive, right? So- come visit.” Her eyes narrow. “Every week.”

Technically, it’s possible to get to Tokyo within a day- but it’s still a seven hour trip. They would need to stay the night at the very least. 

But there’s a stubborn edge to Masumi’s face, and Shuuichi can’t deny that he’s caused her unnecessary grief. She would be well within her rights to never want to see him again. 

And yet, she’s insisting on the exact opposite. 

“Alright,” Shuuichi concedes. “I’ll convince Tooru-kun.”

“…Are you planning to come with him?” 

Shuuichi nods, not quite sure how to parse the look on Masumi’s face. But there’s little chance of Tooru agreeing to stay behind for a day or more, not when he still hates leaving the house without Shuuichi for too long. And even from a logistical perspective, their only car is Tooru’s. 

So if he’s going to make the trip to Tokyo, it’ll be with Tooru by his side. 

“I know he didn’t actually kill you,” says Masumi, and Shuuichi doesn’t bother to correct her misassumption. “But still-” her hands clench in her lap, “In my heart, I still see him as the murderer who killed you in cold blood.”

Ah. 

“Shinichi-kun, he’s nice. And- I think he liked Amuro-san, before he- before we thought he killed you.” Masumi shrugs. “So he came wanting to both help Amuro-san and bring him to justice, and that’s the only reason Kazami-san cooperated at all, but I… I just hated him, for killing you.” Her shoulders slump. “I wanted to see him pay. That’s why I came.”

“Masumi-” Shuuichi starts. 

“But I’m gonna get over it,” declares Masumi. “It just uh- might take a bit. But I’ll try.” She shifts back up, meets his eyes in a determined gaze. “I wanna actually know you this time, Shuu-nii. And that means knowing the people important to you too.”

It’s more than he deserves, all of it. He never knew his little sister was the forgiving sort. 

He never really knew his little sister at all. 

“I think-” Shuuichi says, smile wry, “-that I’d like that too.”

When they head back inside, Tooru and Shinichi are still sitting at that same table in awkward silence. Shuuichi does hope they managed to talk at least a little, for their own sakes. 

“Ah, you’re back!” Tooru says, smile bright and cheery. “You’re all done then?”

Shuuichi inclines his head. 

“Kudo-kun said they came by bus,” continues Tooru, “So they won’t be able to leave until next morning. I thought it might be nice to show them around town in the meanwhile.”

“We can just drive them back,” Shuuichi points out. If not all the way to Tokyo, then at least to the nearest train station. Shuuichi will need to return to Tokyo soon either way if he wants to fulfill his promise to Masumi. 

But Shinichi shakes his head. 

“No,” he says, voice set. “I want to stick around for a bit.”

“I’m down too!” exclaims Masumi. 

“There’s not much to see,” Shuuichi says dryly. 

“I’m still down,” Masumi insists, stubbornness filling her voice. “You’ve lived here for like, a year, right? I wanna see what it’s like.”

“Alright,” concedes Shuuichi. It isn’t as though he has much right to argue. 

There truly isn’t much to see in this small, mountainous town. Tiny rice paddies between trees, a couple modest stores, a few neighbours walking out and about. Tooru still leads them around with all the confidence of a veteran tour guide. 

Shuuichi stays mostly silent the whole while. 

He does want to talk with Shinichi alone as well. Properly, one on one. Shinichi seems to want that too, from the way he glances at him occasionally, brow furrowed. But even with how Masumi is still clearly somewhat mad at Shuuichi, she’s refusing to let him out of her sight. It makes it difficult to try for a private conversation with the boy. 

Luckily for Shuuichi, Tooru seems to notice the issue. And Tooru has always been far better at manoeuvring people than Shuuichi ever was. 

He strikes right as the clock nears noon, as they’re making their way up the asphalted road back home. 

“Sera-san,” Tooru says mildly. “Did you know your brother can cook now?”

“Of course he can cook,” says Masumi, irritated. 

…The sheer trust she still has in him is a little painful. He can feel Shinichi’s unimpressed look boring a hole into his side, memories of undercooked curry likely rising up in his mind. Furuya would probably laugh out loud, and tell her about each and every time Rye burnt their pans pitch-black. 

Tooru, however, just gives her a winning smile. 

“How do you feel about having his homecooked lunch?”

Before Shuuichi knows it, Tooru has convinced Masumi into letting Shuuichi cook with Shinichi as his assistant, leaving Tooru and Masumi to head off to the grocery store for some “missing” ingredients. 

There’s no doubt that they’ll be back within the hour at most. But that’s still plenty of time. 

“Boy,” Shuuichi finally says, side by side with Shinichi at the kitchen counter. 

“I’m not a boy anymore, y’know,” complains Shinichi. 

“You’re still a teenager,” Shuuichi says mildly. “That’s boy enough.”

“Honestly,” Shinichi grumbles, but leaves it to that in the end. 

Shuuichi hands Shinichi a freshly-peeled carrot- the boy plonks it on the cutting board in front of him, his expression dubious.

“Boy,” Shuuichi says again, working at peeling a new carrot. “I do apologize.”

And Shinichi’s hand twitches on the cutting board, his eyes going wide. 

“I shouldn’t have hidden my survival from you even after the Organization fell,” Shuuichi continues. 

This is probably what he should’ve told both Masumi and Shinichi the moment he saw them. But he lost himself in his lack of excuses, and forgot about apologies until Masumi demanded one from him point blank. 

At least he can give one to Shinichi unprompted. 

“It’s… not like I fully trusted you either,” Shinichi admits with a wry laugh. 

“Sorry?”

“…You know I’m Conan,” says Shinichi. “I knew you probably figured it out too, before everything, but- I still never told you. And I don’t really have a reason for that either.”

He grabs one of Furuya’s knives from the block, slices off the end of the carrot with a sharp chop. The sound seems to echo through the kitchen. 

Shuuichi just watches, silent. 

“But… my parents were sad, y’know?” Shinichi says. “They liked you a lot.”

“I’ll be visiting Tokyo soon,” says Shuuichi. “I’ll apologize to them as well, if they’re there.”

“Thanks,” Shinichi says quietly. “I appreciate it.”

“I owe them that much.”

Shinichi nods, chopping his way through the carrot painfully slowly. Shuuichi slides another onto the cutting board, even as Shinichi grimaces at having more things to chop.  

“Akai-san,” Shinichi says, abrupt. “I’m glad you’re alive. But- I don’t understand how.”

“Was the autopsy report that convincing?”

“Amuro-san could’ve faked it, sure. But, Akai-san-” Shinichi gazes up towards Shuuichi at last, eyes still and confident. “Amuro-san didn’t know you were alive either, did he? Not at first.”

Shuuichi hums neutrally. “What makes you say that?”

“The timing,” Shinichi says immediately. “It was completely arbitrary- when Amuro-san ran off with you, I mean. If you planned this together, he should’ve quit not long after Rum and Karasuma were arrested. And Kazami-san…” He shifts on his feet, looking awkward. “He said he could tell that Amuro-san was barely functioning after your death, especially once the Organization fell.”

“Furuya-kun has always been a skilled actor,” Shuuichi offers half-heartedly. 

“I guess, but still-” Shinichi makes a frustrated noise. “Nothing adds up. Amuro-san bought this house last spring, so you should’ve been planning all this together since then. But Amuro-san’s behaviour…” He shakes his head, brow furrowed. “Did you fake your death a third time? After Amuro-san helped you fake your death the second time?”

Shuuichi’s eyes draw towards the knife block. 

It’s a ten minute walk to the grocery store, and it hasn’t been long since Tooru and Masumi left. They still have time. 

And the boy has always been good at keeping secrets.

(Shuuichi trusts Shinichi implicitly, at any rate. He always has. 

Shinichi seems to be under the impression that it was a lack of trust that led Shuuichi to keep his death a secret- but that was never the reason.

Perhaps trusting him with this secret will help him realize that.)   

“Boy,” says Shuuichi, grabbing a knife. “Keep this secret from everyone. Even Tooru-kun.”

Shinichi looks puzzled, but nods nonetheless. So quickly, carefully, Shuuichi nicks a finger with the knife. It stings, and blood wells- but he blinks, and the cut is gone. Just as it always is. 

Shuuichi wipes away the blood with his thumb, revealing unblemished skin underneath. 

“I can recover from any wound,” he says calmly. “Even a bullet to the head.”

The look on Shinichi’s face is so bewildered, it’s almost amusing.

Shinichi presses him for details for long enough that Shuuichi is vaguely concerned Tooru and Masumi would return, but thankfully, they don’t- and Shinichi seems to believe him in the end. It probably doesn’t hurt that he’s familiar with Vermouth’s own immortality. 

“The muzzle blast…” Shinichi murmurs. 

“Hm?”

“Kir shot you point blank,” Shinichi explains. “Even if it was just a blank, I always thought it was weird that you weren’t burned by the muzzle blast.” He snorts. “I guess that’s why you didn’t care when I warned you about it.” 

“Ah, yes,” says Shuuichi. “I knew I would recover.”

“You didn’t need to fake your death at all, huh?” 

There’s a vaguely self-disparaging edge to Shinichi’s voice that Shuuichi doesn’t quite like. 

“No,” Shuuichi says. “I don’t want everyone to know of my ability, boy. Your plan let me keep my secrets. I greatly appreciated that.”

“…Thanks,” says Shinichi, flashing him a smile. “Is that the real reason why you hid your death?” 

“Perhaps it was part of it.”

But not really, in the end. Furuya knowing his secret provides him an easy excuse for his survival- that Furuya faked it all, that they worked together to trick everyone. He’s not surprised that Shinichi dug in deeper to find the truth, but most wouldn’t. 

“But how does Amuro-san not know?” Shinichi asks next. “What kinda excuse would’ve convinced him? He’s the one who would’ve had to actually shoot you for the plan.”

“Tooru-kun knows,” says Shuuichi, his brow furrowing. 

Shinichi looks equally confused. “Then why is it a secret from him?”

“Oh.” Shuuichi barks out a laugh. “It’s not my immortality that’s a secret from him, boy. It's that I injured myself to prove it to you.”

“Ah,” murmurs Shinichi. “I guess that makes sense.”

“It does?” 

“Of course,” Shinichi says- then coughs once, awkward. “You guys are- close now, right?”

It’s ambiguous enough to mean friendship or a relationship. Not that it matters. 

“Yes,” Shuuichi still says, because it isn’t particularly a secret either way. 

“So,” continues Shinichi. “Of course he wouldn’t wanna see you hurt.”

“I recover immediately, boy,” Shuuichi says dryly. 

“That doesn’t make it any less awful to see someone you care about in pain.”

And Shuuichi blinks, feeling like an idiot. 

“I suppose,” he murmurs. 

In retrospect, it’s blindingly obvious. Furuya does care for him now too. So if Shuuichi wouldn’t want to see him hurt, why wouldn’t it be the same for Furuya?

But the thing is this: Shuuichi has spent most of his life with his friends and lovers utterly unaware of his condition. Most of his childhood memories are vague and indistinct, and only his family ever knew his secret. 

So he’s terribly used to it not mattering, so long as he recovered, so long as all people saw was a perfectly healed injury. 

(And it finally clicks, what he said wrong, why Furuya had spiraled so horribly that one summer night on the beach.

Furuya hadn’t wanted to kill him, hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Not now, and not even last winter, when he pointed a gun at Shuuichi’s head and shot.

And yet, Shuuichi told him…)

He needs to talk to Furuya. Furuya, not the mask he’s insisting on wearing for reasons he misunderstood. 

But Shuuichi didn’t manage to be an ace sniper without patience. He can wait. He will wait. Because he’s hurt more than just Furuya. And for now, Shinichi and Masumi deserve his attention. 

Shuuichi lifts a carrot that Shinichi attempted to chop. It comes up like a string, only half-cut through. Shinichi gives him something of a sheepish look. 

…and his help in the kitchen.

In the end, Shuuichi can’t catch Tooru alone until late in the evening. 

Tooru disappears once Masumi and Shinichi have been set up on a spare futon and the couch for the night. Shuuichi does look around for him- but he’s not in their bedroom, not in their kitchen, not in the bathroom. 

Eventually, Shuuichi finds Tooru outside, sitting on the narrow wooden porch that runs around the house. Shuuichi steps out as well, quietly sliding the door shut behind him. 

“It’s cold,” says Tooru, eyes fixed into the distance. “You should go back in.”

He does have a point. It’s a chilly autumn evening, and it’s already pitch black outside- the light from the room behind them might light the area, but it doesn’t make it warm. 

With a nod, Shuuichi slips his way back inside- and returns with a blanket. He sits himself down right next to Tooru, spreading the blanket wide over them. 

Furuya would’ve sputtered beautifully, flushing with pleased embarrassment. 

Tooru just blinks. 

“Thank you,” he says, perfectly polite, tugging his half of the blanket over his shoulder. “But there was no need.” 

He smiles brightly, turning to face Shuuichi at last. But his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.   

“You should go back in.” Tooru says again. 

“I’d rather not,” says Shuuichi, then- “Furuya-kun.”

Tooru’s smile doesn’t even twitch. “I’m not him.”

Matter-of-fact. As though it’s an objective truth, instead of a desperate attempt to deny it. 

“Because he killed me,” Shuuichi says quietly. 

“No,” says Tooru. “Because you want him to.”

Shuuichi’s hand draws soft over Tooru’s thigh. “I don’t.”

“Liar.”

“It’s no lie,” insists Shuuichi, because it’s the truth. 

He still wouldn’t mind if Furuya killed him, if he managed to give him a true and quick death. That hasn’t changed. But wouldn’t mind and want are two different things. 

Shuuichi wouldn’t mind it. But he can’t say he wants it either. Not here, not right now. Not when Furuya is so close by. 

“Furuya-kun-” he starts. 

“I’m not-”

“Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says again, and Tooru concedes this time. “What I want is you by my side.”

“What a coincidence,” Tooru says easily. “That’s what I’d like as well.”

“All of you, Furuya-kun.”

“That, I’m afraid, would be a little more difficult,” says Tooru, almost apologetic. “You see, there’s one I want now that you clearly don’t.” His hand flits down his thigh, over Shuuichi’s hand. “To keep you safe. And Furuya Rei can’t give you that.”

“He can.”

“He can’t,” Tooru says, voice firm. “He can’t. Do you think it matters that I love you? I-” his mouth slams shut, his face shuttering. “He killed you. He can’t turn around and want to cherish you after that.”

“He can.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Tooru says simply. “I know myself best. You can’t trust me.”

“I do either way,” says Shuuichi. 

An unintelligible noise. He feels Tooru’s hand squeeze painfully tight-

-and sees Furuya’s eyes burn blazingly bright.  

“I want to stay by your side,” snaps Furuya. “So stop trying to break my cover.”

“I won’t,” Shuuichi says, calm. “The boy made me realize something, you see.”

“Kudo-kun did? What do you…”

“I enjoy seeing you as you truly are,” says Shuuichi. “And I enjoyed being the one to draw out those genuine feelings from you, no matter who you were trying to be.” He smiles, wry. “I don’t enjoy not having those powers anymore.”

“…It’s easier to stay composed when I don’t hate you anymore, Akai,” says Furuya. “But forgiveness is still beyond me. Do you think I’m lying? Some days, I can’t even stand to see your face.” His eyes flick to the side. “Or mine. Not unless I’m Amuro.”

“Furuya-kun-”

“You deserve better than that. You need better than that.”

“Furuya-kun,” Shuuichi says again, and draws his hand out from Furuya’s grip. He reaches up, caresses a cheek. 

Furuya’s gaze shifts back to Shuuichi, reluctant. 

“I want that,” Shuuichi says, quiet. “It’s why I fell for you, after all.”

Confusion flickers over Furuya’s face, and Shuuichi flashes him a small smile. 

“It was a heady feeling,” muses Shuuichi, “to be the only one who could break your careful masks so easily.”

“You-” Furuya sputters, incredulous. “It was because I hated you! Because I wanted you dead!”

“You know I found it nothing but intriguing,” Shuuichi says. “But it was never the most important thing.”

“I do know,” Furuya says. “But I thought-” his brow furrows. “And now?”

Shuuichi raises an eyebrow. 

“Is it still intriguing?” Furuya demands, an edge of something desperate in his voice. His hand snakes up, clenches Shuuichi’s shirt tight. “Is it still why-”

He cuts himself off, and Shuuichi admittedly isn’t too sure what Furuya meant to ask. But he thinks he knows now why Furuya spiraled so terribly that day on the beach. 

And he isn’t going to make the same mistake twice. 

(What kind of lover could stand by and watch as the one they love suffered in pain?

Of course Furuya couldn’t stand it.)

“What I want most-” Shuuichi says, “-is to live by your side.”

And Furuya’s eyes widen with disbelieving hope.

“I’ll have you know,” Furuya mumbles into Shuuichi’s chest, later that night on their futon, “I’m no fool.”

“I’ve never thought you were?” Shuuichi says, a touch confused. 

Furuya’s arms just squeeze tighter around him. 

“What you want most is to live by my side,” Furuya says. “But it’s not all you want, is it?”

And Shuuichi can’t quite hold back a slight wince. 

“That’s…” he says haltingly. 

“…I don’t want to kill you anymore, Akai,” Furuya says. “And I don’t want to see you die before me either. I’m sick of losing everyone I ever love. So if it’ll be better for you, if it’ll keep you aliv-”

“-No,” Shuuichi cuts in. 

Furuya twitches in his chest. “What?”

“No,” Shuuichi says again, smiling. He presses a kiss against Furuya’s mussed head of hair. “I don’t intend to let you go, Furuya-kun.”

“I’m telling you that I’ll hav-”

“-Not as long as you don’t want me to.”

“You…” Furuya makes a disgusted noise. “What, did Amuro inspire you?”

“In a fashion.” hums Shuuichi. “Not all of Tooru-kun is a lie, after all. And if you wanted to hold me tight and never let go, I think it’s fair game for me to do the same. Don’t you agree?”

Furuya makes a noise of displeasure- but he also snuggles deeper into Shuuichi’s chest, so Shuuichi is fairly sure he knows Furuya’s true answer. 

Shuuichi’s smile spreads helplessly wider across his face. 

(He missed this.)

They both fall silent for a long while after that. Shuuichi is half-falling asleep on his pillow when Furuya speaks up again at last, muffled. 

“I’m a detective,” he says. 

“…Yes?” Shuuichi says, stifling a yawn. 

“I’m more than capable of looking into your ancestors. Into how they died.” Furuya’s fists clench, pressing into Shuuichi’s back. “I don’t like it. But I’ll find a way for you to die an easy death. For long in the future, when you’re an old and graying man. So, until then-”

Furuya slips his way up, presses an insistent kiss against Shuuichi’s lips- and stares, still and determined, into Shuuichi’s eyes. 

He leans back. 

“Trust me,” Furuya says, “And don’t worry about anything but living.”

It’s not that easy, and Furuya must know that too. But still he asks, and still, he’s hoping. And that determined gaze of his is as beautifully alluring as always. 

Shuuichi pecks a kiss against Furuya’s nose and smiles, slight. 

“I’ll do my best,” he murmurs. 

Trusting Furuya, at least… 

It’s something he’s never hesitated to do. 

Winter, Rei finds, is convenient. The cold weather brings Akai inside more often than not, and the temperature makes for a decent excuse for pressing himself into Akai. 

Not that he needs one. Akai has made it exceedingly clear over the past several months how much he enjoys having him by his side. 

(Or at least, some form of him. But Akai has also insisted that he wants to live with Rei by his side, and-

He wants to believe it. So he will. Or at least, he’ll try to.)

But it feels far too embarrassing to be overly free with affection, no matter how much they both enjoy it. And besides-

Rei slides his way onto the couch, pushes himself into Akai’s side. 

“It’s cold,” he says in response to Akai’s quizzical look. 

And Akai smiles ever-so-slightly back. 

-it’s admittedly satisfying, seeing Akai’s eyes go soft and indulgent in the face of Rei’s obstinance, his pride. In the face of Rei. 

Not Amuro. 

He considers himself to be fairly self-aware. He considers himself better-adjusted than Akai on most days, in all honesty. So he can admit that constantly competing against himself for Akai’s affection may not be the best idea.  

But it would be rude to quit while he’s ahead. And thus far, he’s boasting an undefeated record. 

He does wonder, sometimes, what he would’ve done in a world where he never learnt Akai saw Furuya Rei as more than a kind way to die. 

Rei does think he wouldn’t have faltered. He’s spent most of his adult life as someone other than himself. It’s still easier to be anyone but himself on most days. 

(Especially in winter, when memories revive so keenly, when grief seals his throat shut so easily. Sometimes he can’t bear to see Akai’s face, not the man who took Hiro from him. 

But he can’t bear to have Akai out of his sight either, not when the memory of blood pooling on a grimy warehouse floor is so fresh in his mind. 

He doesn’t have to deal with that pathetic contradiction as Amuro.)

So he could’ve managed it, probably. For years, for decades. Until the day he died. 

But he doubts Akai could’ve. And if Akai kept reaching out for Furuya Rei- if Rei had to struggle with his need to keep Akai alive, his need to stay by his side, while knowing he was making everything worse for the man he loved-

Well. It’s good that he knows now, he supposes. That Akai cares for him for more than just a longing for death. 

(Though Akai probably would’ve forgiven him either way. No matter what he did.)

“Rei-kun,” Akai says, cutting through his thoughts. 

“Hm?”

“It’s supposed to snow this weekend,” Akai muses, a hand slipping around to caress Rei’s hip. Rei allows it. “It may be difficult to make it out to Tokyo.”

“And would you like to be the one to inform your sister of that fact?”

Akai chuckles. It’s a beautiful sound, proof of Akai’s happiness- at least in the moment. Rei loves it, just as much as he loves Akai’s laughs and smiles and even, deep down and reluctantly, those occasional smug smirks. 

It’s not always so easy to draw them out. Some days are worse than others. But it’s enough to know that he’s helping. Enough to know that Akai is more happy than not by his side. 

(Enough to know that he’s not drawing Akai to death anymore.)

“No,” says Akai. 

“Coward,” Rei says with a snort. 

Akai chuckles again, just as amused as before. “We can go a little early this week instead. Before it snows.”

“To get trapped in Tokyo once it does?” asks Rei. 

“Consider it a vacation,” Akai offers. 

“Ridiculous.” 

A vacation to the city he spent most of his life in? There could be nothing less thrilling. But he supposes he doesn’t particularly mind spending a few extra days in the city either way. 

“Oh, very well,” Rei concedes. He leans in to the side, pecks a quick kiss against Akai’s cheek. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

And Akai tugs Rei in a little closer, smile small but cheery. Rei has no objections to that. 

At the end of the day, Rei has so many regrets he could drown in them. 

He regrets running away so easily, regrets dragging Akai down with him as he did. He regrets half-panicking on that cold winter evening with Akai unmasked in front of him and his cover on the line. He regrets not realizing Akai’s plans, regrets not stopping him before it was too late. 

He regrets not running up those stairs faster, faster, on that despicable night Hiro died. If he had only been a little quicker, perhaps he could’ve saved Hiro. 

(And saved Akai from having to make that terrible choice as well.)

Rei won’t forgive Akai for what he did, not ever. Hiro would, in the blink of an eye- but that’s precisely why Rei won’t. Because Hiro has always deserved to have someone to defend him unconditionally, and the least Rei can do for him now is that. 

He knows it’s hypocritical, now he knows how it feels on the other side. 

He knows his hands have dripped red with Akai’s blood, knows he’s stared blankly at Akai’s corpse with horror and grief pounding in his chest, only to stand up mere moments later with a haughty smile on his face to pronounce him dead. Because he was surrounded by enemies, surrounded by the Organization, and he had no choice but to pretend this truly was what he wanted all along. 

He knows, during those horrible months between Akai’s death and his reappearance on that rainy riverbed, that he obsessed over his memories of that night. He traversed every path he could’ve taken to save Akai Shuuichi. He knows he regretted it, cried himself numb over it, hated himself for it.    

He knows it must be the same for Akai. 

And Akai does deserve someone to defend him unconditionally too. Akai, who gazed at him with sheer affection even with a gun pointed at his head. Akai, who tagged along so easily with a man so wracked with guilt he couldn’t even bear to be himself. Akai, who can’t die, and is far too cavalier about his own well-being because of it. 

That’s why Rei won’t forgive himself either. Not ever.

So yes, Rei may have his fair share of regrets. But falling for Akai isn’t one of them. 

(Falling for Rei, on the other hand, should most definitely be a regret for Akai. Somehow though, Rei is fairly sure it isn’t.)

In the end, it doesn’t matter. 

He’s done unforgivable things. So has Akai. They’ll live in spite of it, not because of it, not for it. 

Akai held onto him tight, and declared he never planned to let Rei go. Rei would hold him to that- and hold on just as tight. 

Because it’s Furuya Rei above all who wants Akai by his side. 

So it’s as Furuya Rei that he’ll love, and be loved. Until the day, far into the future, he leaves the world. 

(With Akai right at his heels. He’ll make sure of it.)