Kidou is asleep.

He’s very quiet; doesn’t snore, his breathing is barely audible.  But for the warmth of his body five inches away, he might as well not be there.

Ishido is thinking.

Ishido, because to think of himself as Gouenji right now would be to make a paper-thin barrier that much weaker.  Kidou is sleeping in the bed beside him and so he shuts himself up inside the name Ishido Shuuji, as though that could undo what’s already been done.  

Really, he was just lonely and weak.  That’s what has led him here.  And Kidou could tell, he thinks; it was Kidou who  first waited until everyone had left, turned his face in the direction of the Holy Emperor’s throne, and asked with a slight smile if he wanted to go get some drinks.

Kidou shifts in his sleep, settling onto his side and giving a little sigh through his nose.  His hand is just touching Gouenji’s - Ishido’s - shoulder now, warm from being between the covers.

It couldn’t have been Endou.  Endou doesn’t do subtlety, Endou simply stormed in and demanded to have Gouenji back; Endou loves with a world-shaping fierceness that someday - someday, Gouenji vows to himself, he will return to - but he couldn’t do something like this. Endou couldn’t insinuate himself in between the act and the person and the loneliness the way Kidou has, wouldn’t have done him the courtesy of pretending he doesn’t have basic facial recognition capabilities after the first of his questions were deflected, wouldn’t have held up one corner of the flimsy charade for him.  They’re in a hotel room instead of either of their homes; Kidou is helping him keep that distance and meeting him halfway.

And Gouenji, who feels everything too strongly - even loneliness - under all that would suggest otherwise, is eternally grateful to him for it.

He doesn’t know what tips him off to it, but he turns his head and Kidou is no longer asleep.  In the darkness he can just make out the shape of Kidou’s eyes - startlingly beautiful when visible like this, something of a vulnerability to them.  Watching him.

(Gouenji wants to return that vulnerability; wants to wrap his arms around Kidou and say Kidou, it’s me, it’s Gouenji, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed everyone, thank you - doesn’t dare.)

“What are you thinking about?” asks Kidou quietly.

Ishido’s voice comes out a bit too wistful when he says, “You know I can’t tell you that.”