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i.
“Gai, are you even listening to me?”
He turns to look at her, and for the briefest moment it’s like he can’t remember her name, can’t even discern the features of her face, like they’ve bled away like thin watercolour paint, but that moment passes and it’s Megumi, like it usually is, giving him a pink lipgloss frown. Her hair whips around her face as a breeze cuts across the roof. Overhead, the sky is intensely blue and the clouds are moving fast, a flock of birds flying in a V moving along with them.
“Nah,” he admits. “What were you saying?”
“Ugh.” She shoves at his shoulder, jostling him, nearly knocking the cigarette from his lips. “I was asking if you wanted to go to the beach with us over break. But clearly you’ve got better shit to do, right?”
He considers this as he exhales, watching the smoke get pulled away in an instant by the wind. “Dunno,” he says finally. “I might.”
“Wh – fine, then! Some boyfriend you are.” She gets to her feet with a huff of annoyance; looks back down at him scathingly. “Jun will be there, though. And Daiki. Maybe I’ll just hook up with one of them, since you don’t care either way.”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder before stalking away, and her watches her leave with his brow gradually knitting together. Boyfriend? Is that what he is to her? When the hell did that happen? Lately it’s like life is just something that’s happening to him, rather than something he’s an active participant in. Listless, is probably the word for it. Drifting. Not so different from those clouds above.
He closes his eyes and tips his head back to hit the chainlink fence with a quiet clang. Stays that way until he registers the sound of the door to the roof opening again, footsteps approaching and stopping in front of him. Opens one eye to find Tendo Ryu there. Gai still isn’t sure how he stands it, wearing his uniform like that, with every single button done up properly. The tightness of the collar around his throat must be doing something to his brain.
“Tendo,” he says by way of greeting.
“Yuki,” Tendo says in return.
It’s oil and water, is what it is. Captain of the karate club with his perfect princess girlfriend, his good grades and practiced smile that charms the teachers, compared to… whatever Gai’s role is in this school. He has none of those things, at the very least. Not that he wants them.
“Surprised to see you up here. Supposed to be off-limits, yanno. Good kids shouldn’t be rule-breaking.”
Tendo only gives him an unreadable look. “Odagiri-sensei sent me to tell you. She says you’re part of the festival committee now. She voted you in personally.”
“Haa?” Gai’s posture straightens, fully alert now as he stares up at him. “Like hell I am! She can’t just sign me up for shit like that.”
“She can. And she did. You know how she is.” He tilts his head to the side as he studies him, the corner of his mouth turning downward. “Why do you never want to be part of things, anyway? You’d have a better time if you participated.”
Gai gives him a mocking smile. “Oh, would I? Because you student council types would be so happy to have me around more often? I’d be touched by your feelings of friendship? It’s all fake, Tendo. All the ‘classmate camaraderie’ BS. If we actually had a choice, none of us would be together. People like you and people like me especially.”
“I don’t believe that. I would still choose to spend time with everyone.”
“Yeah, well. Not all of us can be the pure-hearted golden boy,” Gai mutters.
For a time, Tendo is silent.
“You shouldn’t smoke, you know,” he says finally. “They’ll suspend you for that if they catch you. And then you won’t be able to help with the festival.”
He reaches down to pluck the cigarette from his mouth.
Gai freezes in place, pulse jumping. Watches him with wide eyes as he considers the thing held between his fingers before putting it to his own lips and taking a drag.
He chokes almost immediately, overcome with a coughing fit that gradually morphs into breathless laughter, hiding his broad smile behind his hand. Tears have formed at the corners of his eyes, making them seem brighter than usual.
Gai has only seen that kind of authentic emotion on Tendo’s face one other time before, months ago, when his previous girl dragged him to the inter-high karate tournament, and he’d watched as Tendo won the final match of the night, been unable to look away from his genuine grin as his teammates all piled in to hug him –
“God, that’s awful,” Tendo laughs, voice hoarse. “I always wondered… whenever I would see you smoking… But it’s so terrible!” He looks gently perturbed by this. “I really don’t think I get the appeal.”
Gai’s mouth has gone dry. There’s a sort of buzzing static in place of his thoughts. His lips still feel overly warm where Tendo’s fingertips had inadvertently brushed them.
“Anyways, you should come,” Tendo is saying. “To the committee meeting, I mean. Odagiri-sensei will kill you if you don’t, but besides that… I don’t know. I just think the festival might turn out better, if you did. Different perspectives, or something.” He nods thoughtfully in agreement with himself; lifts a hand in parting as he turns away. “We’ll all be waiting for you. Okay?”
“…As if I would go to something like that,” Gai hears himself say, but it’s too quiet to reach Tendo, drowned out by the wind rattling the fence along the roof, and either way the words sound strangely like a lie.
ii.
He’s really starting to regret giving up being a PI.
Sure, he was broke all the time, subsisting on cheap whiskey and even cheaper meals, taking unflattering jobs catching cheating husbands in the act just to be able to pay rent on that shitty run-down office. But at least he’d been on his own, then. Free, in a sense. Beholden to no one.
Becoming a cop has improved his quality of life, technically, but it’s also latched an unseen leash around his neck. And this bastard is holding the lead.
“We’ve been working this group for months, Gai,” his dear partner says from the driver’s seat, giving him a disapproving look that’s hampered just a bit by the pulled-down brim of his hat and upturned coat collar hiding his face. “Gathering intel, planning the right course of action. If we rush in there now, we’re tipping them off that we know too much. They’ll have skipped town by tomorrow.”
“Right, right,” he mutters, leaning his chin on his hand as he stares balefully out the window. It’s nearing eleven, the city smudged away into black in between the pools of amber from streetlamps, clouds of steam billowing from the gutters. (Odd, he thinks. He finds he can’t remember the last time it wasn’t night.) “Why should the police bother to do anything? Just sit around on stakeout all day every day. The public’s tax money well spent.”
Ryu makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Soon enough we’ll have enough on their boss to make our move, and. And then we’ll be… be able to…”
His voice trails away. He’s fixated on something – someone – approaching the warehouse on foot. A woman in a chic white dress and a broad hat, and even at a distance Gai can see she’s a beauty, with one of those soft, heart-shaped faces he’s fallen for so many times in the past. She disappears inside the building after glancing up and down the street – a person clearly on alert for a possible tail.
When he looks back at Ryu, his face has gone pale.
“Rie,” he breathes.
“Hm? You know her?”
But he receives no further answer. There is no hesitation, either. Ryu is holstering his gun and opening the car door without another word, and Gai watches him begin to move across the street, uncomprehending for a moment before the reality of what is happening catches up to him.
“Shit, seriously?” he hisses, securing his own gun as well and hurrying to follow after. “What happened to waiting?”
Later, he will only remember fragments with any clarity. The woman looking at them with cold disdain, saying “I’m not your Rie anymore.” Ryu shouting, demanding to know why, and where has she been all this time, and doesn’t she know what it did to him, the day she went missing, all met with smug evasiveness. The woman’s stoic companion firing shots that soon turned into a bullet storm from their lackeys. How he’d taken one out as they’d been about to put one between Ryu’s eyes. Ryu, coming to his senses, returning the favor and tackling him behind cover just in time. The way he’d pressed him forcefully into that wall, so close he’d been able to see the tightened line of his jaw, and felt him trembling with anger and hurt, and he’d wanted to – to what?
He’s trying not to recall that part.
Back at the precinct, the Captain looks like she’s about to snap.
“We were so close,” she says, pacing the length of her office, each click of her heels harsh. “So close to bringing the entire operation down, and you two…”
“Was my fault, Cap,” Gai finds himself saying, and Ryu glances over at him sharply. “I was getting impatient. Wanted to see some action. Tendo just got dragged into it. And he saved me, too.”
“That’s not what – ” Ryu tries to argue, but Gai elbows him hard enough to shut him up.
He gets suspended for three weeks for it. A permanent mark on his record. Ryu gets off with a warning.
“I have my PI gig to go back to if I fuck this up,” he says with a shrug, leaning against the corner of Ryu’s desk and attempting to light up, his old lighter sputtering with each flick. “But you… I mean. This is your life’s calling or whatever, isn’t it? Being a cop. ‘S just more logical this way. If I take the rap.”
Ryu stands just a bit too close, observing him steadily. The kind of stare that has physical weight to it. He looks exhausted, confused and rumpled, a streak of someone else’s blood still on his cheek, but he manages a small, lopsided smile; reaches into his coat pocket for a lighter of his own, which he flicks to life and lifts to the tip of Gai’s cigarette.
“You’re a good man, aren’t you?” he says softly. “I wasn’t sure at first, but you are.”
“Oh, please,” Gai mutters. “Maybe I’m just trying to get on your good side. You think of that? Since I’m stuck with a square like you as a partner.”
“Yeah,” Ryu says, his smile broadening, shoulders seeming to relax for the first time since the shootout. “Maybe.”
iii.
They say the king has gone mad.
Of course, he holds no regard for the opinions of those with so little to do that they must resort to gossip. But it… irks him, nonetheless, to hear such things whispered. The chancellor of agriculture has taken to giving him a wide berth, after Gai almost drew his blade on the man for speaking those baseless lies.
The king has not lost his mind. Nor has he had some dark curse laid upon him. His mind has simply… wandered a bit, and will return as soon as he has processed his loss.
Gai finds that he thought the very same thing a fortnight ago, however. And the kingdom is suffering no matter the deeper truth of it – falling with each day into further disorder as the king refuses to hold audiences, to grant requests, to hear news from his messengers.
He finds Ryu in the palace gardens today, sitting in the shade of the ornate gazebo he had built in the queen’s honor a year past. All around, the topiaries and flowerbeds and neat limestone pathways seem to march endlessly towards the horizon, disorienting, as if there were nothing else beyond. Ryu is dressed simply, in dark red breeches and a loose knit shirt that could be mistaken for commoners’ clothing were you not to look closer at the make of the fabric. Once again he is talking to the air.
“…another row of bellflowers?” He smiles at nothing as he seemingly listens for an answer. “You know I wouldn’t do that. Between us, you are the one with the aesthetic sense. I’ll trust in your judgment.”
“Ryu,” Gai says. (In private, he is always Ryu. They trained as knights together, after all, in those harsh barracks where no one knew another’s lineage if it was not told. He never could have imagined then, that his sworn rival was the heir apparent. Learning to say ‘Your Grace’ with minimal sarcasm when in proper company was a feat in of itself.)
Ryu looks over to him, eyes alighting. “Gai, you should join us,” he says. When Gai makes no move, he laughs and continues: “Unless you are so busy with your duties that you would ignore a request from a friend? The queen wishes for your company as well.”
Gai closes his eyes, feeling for a moment as if he were a fraying rope being worn thin. Opens them again.
“Does she?” he says, a coldness to his voice. “Strange, then, that I do not see her here.”
Ryu’s smile slips, ever so slightly.
“…What do you mean by that?” he asks. “Do you joke with me?”
“It’s been long enough, hasn’t it, Ryu? Long enough to grieve. It’s time to open your eyes and accept reality. You know it in your heart. That she is gone, and will never return. That there is no one sitting beside you.”
A glimpse of terrible pain flickers across Ryu’s face before his smile is forced back into place. “So then this is some ill-thought joke of yours. I don’t quite see the humor, I must admit.”
Gai takes a step closer, and then another. “Can you touch her?” he demands. “Can you take her hand in yours?”
“I – of course, I – ”
“Even if you can, what does it feel like?” He stands there in front of Ryu now, looking down at him as if he were a judge passing sentence, a brittle tightness in his chest as he sees how lost his king looks – fearful, too, his pupils huge and dark. Gai reaches for his hand, a violent, yanking grip, and presses Ryu’s palm against his chest. “Like this?” he asks. “Is she warm and real like this?”
Ryu swallows visibly. His fingers curl into the black fabric of Gai’s tunic. “Gai,” he says weakly. “I don’t – I’m not sure – ”
“She’s dead, Ryu. And I know it hurts you. But you are our king, and the rest of us who need you… are still here.” His voice falters as he continues: “I’m still here.”
Ryu stares back at him with an expression Gai has only ever seen on the battlefield, on men he has run through with his sword: talented knights taken aback by the pain, who never expected to find themselves abruptly bleeding out. Ryu looks over, then, to the place where the queen had supposedly been sat just a minute ago, and slowly his face crumples. As if he were watching her very image crumble away into dust.
“I never thought,” he murmurs, “that she would ever leave me behind. If it was going to be one of us, it should have been… been me.” He turns back to Gai with a pleading look. Slides his arms around his waist and presses his face against his stomach. He can feel the warmth of it as much as hear it when he asks: “You won’t, will you? Leave my side? I couldn’t bear it. If someone else was gone.”
Gai blinks hard. His eyes feel oddly hot.
“Of course not, fool,” he says, voice tight. “I’d be a poor excuse for captain of the Kingsguard if I went ahead first.”
Ø.
He opens his eyes to a sterile white ceiling.
His first coherent thought is that he feels like he’s been hit by a truck, his entire body so heavy and aching and weary his bones might as well have been turned to lead. He’s fairly certain there was no truck involved in this, though. In fact, he’s been here already: extensive blood loss made him feel this way once before.
The next sensation that registers is that of an overly warm hand holding his. He turns his head with some effort to find Ryu there, in a chair pulled up next to the bed, chin fallen onto his chest and fast asleep, though his vicegrip on Gai’s fingers has not relaxed in the slightest. He’s still in his white suit, all in disarray now, unbuttoned and wrinkled, the knot of his tie coming loose. There’s a massive, glaring bloodstain on the vest. No way that’s coming out, Gai finds himself thinking drily.
Ryu shifts in his sleep, exhaling in a sigh, brow furrowed as if he were contemplating deeply.
“You dreaming, Ryu?” His voice comes out as a weak rasp. Far too soft to wake him. He turns his head to look out the window, then, where it seems to be early morning, the light thin and the skyline still tinged with sunrise pink. “Kinda feel like… I’ve been dreaming a bit, myself. Don’t remember much of ‘em, though. Just pieces.”
He can hear Kaori’s voice if he listens – talking somberly with someone out in the hall who he assumes must be his attending doctor. In a minute from now she’ll open the door and see him awake and burst into tears, probably. Either that or she’ll curse him out. Possibly both at once.
But until then he simply stares out the window, at that small patch of visible sky, and shifts his hand just enough to be able to curl his fingers around Ryu’s in return.