#kitanishi

Natsume doesn’t press for the explanation until they’re all seated, he and Taki pressed up against either side of Tanuma, their knees bumping up against Atsushi’s and Satoru’s in the narrow space between the two beds. The muttered question is probably more directed at Satoru than at Tanuma, because Tanuma’s gray-faced in the lamplight, gaze a little too wide, breaths coming a little too fast. Both Natsume’s hands are wrapped around Tanuma’s slack one, and on his other side Taki’s hands are gentle where they rub his back, but her keen eyes keep darting over to Satoru, expression tight with all the same concern. Satoru, for his part, is practically vibrating where he sits tucked against Atsushi’s side, from nerves or exhilaration or both, Atsushi can’t quite tell.

“He flipped a guy!” Satoru declares, with a wide one-handed swoop of a gesture at Tanuma, sounding positively giddy about it.

Well. Whatever Atsushi was expecting to hear, it wasn’t that.

“What,” Natsume says, blankly, at the same time that Taki says, “…wait.”

And then they’re all looking at Tanuma. Who very much looks like he’d rather not be looked at.

“It was the actual best thing I have ever seen,” Satoru says, nudging Tanuma’s knee with his own, and there’s something fierce and warm in his eyes. “And he thinks he’s gonna go to jail or something for it, which he’s not, because the guy deserved it, so that would be dumb.”

“What happened?” Atsushi blurts, now well and truly alarmed.

And he tells them.

They’re in Osaka for a long weekend, because Natori had invited them all along for some premiere of a new period piece that Satoru had been gushing about for months. Natsume’s not exactly ecstatic about attending the event itself, but he’s clearly happy that Satoru’s happy—Atsushi gathers that that’s whole point of this—and even if Natori himself is all booked up with press events for the majority of the weekend, it’s a chance for them all to explore the unfamiliar city together.

Not thirty minutes ago, Satoru and Tanuma had volunteered to make a combini run for snacks, only about two blocks from the hotel. But once they’d finished and were through the door, bags in hand, Tanuma had realized he’d forgotten to get the ice cream Taki had asked for. He’d gone back in to get it, while Satoru stayed out front to sip at the cocoa he’d bought. They hadn’t really paid any mind to the group milling about out front. Salarymen, by the looks of them, three or four younger guys in tidy suits with raucous voices and beers in hand. Satoru had been making his way to the bench near the entrance to wait, not quite looking where he was going, and he’d bumped into one of them, causing some of his beer to slosh over the lip of the can and onto the guy’s blazer sleeve. From his place in line Tanuma had heard it, the sharp “Oy!” and the rumbles of displeasure from man’s friends. Tanuma’s not sure what became of the ice cream he’d been holding—maybe he dropped it, maybe he shoved it into the hands of the customer beside him—but the next thing he knew he was out the door, wedging himself firmly between Satoru and the man who now had him by the arm.

“And then he just…bam!” Satoru mimes the motion, as though he’s grabbing something heavy with both hands from behind, and twisting it downwards in front of him. “Like. Grabbed him. And just. Flipped him! Guy went down beer and all, and he looked super confused about being on the ground all of a sudden. And it was amazing, and I had no idea he took karate before.”

And with that, three sets of startled eyes all land squarely on Tanuma. Natsume taps his knee, like he’s trying to break him away from whatever’s got its grip on him behind his own glassy gaze.

“Karate?” Taki looks, at first, gobsmacked by this piece of information. But it morphs into something like slow-breaking delight across her features.

Tanuma’s nod is a single, tight bob of the head. “Just, um.” It’s the first time he’s spoken since walking through the door, and his voice is a ghost of a thing, like it might get swallowed up by the stale air of the room. “Until I was twelve. On and off. I don’t remember much.”

“You remembered plenty,” Satoru tells him, tone banking no argument, before clasping his hands together dramatically. “My hero.” His grin is so wide and irresistibly cheesy that Tanuma looks up, just for a moment, with the barest twitch of his lips before his gaze drops back down towards the stretch of flowery pink carpet beneath their toes. Natsume shoots Satoru a grateful look, even as Atsushi finds himself doing the same to Tanuma. Somewhere, during the course of the story, he’d found himself squashed up impossibly close against Satoru, arm tucked firmly around his shoulders. He seems genuinely excited, not distressed, but against Atsushi’s side he still feels wound up tight as a coiled spring. It’s definitely not lost on Natsume, either, judging by the glance he gives Atsushi. Atsushi nudges Natsume’s foot—he’s okay, I got him—and Natsume nods, once, though his gaze lingers a moment longer on Satoru’s flushed, still-beaming face.

“So you’re afraid someone saw?” Atsushi asks, while Taki fishes out a tea bottle from the shopping bag, uncaps it and presses it into Tanuma’s hand.

Tanuma doesn’t answer, but that touch of a grin from before has twisted itself into something distinctly nauseated.

“If anyone did see, they’d know the dude was fine.” Satoru shrugs. “Also that he deserved it, remember. We ran, anyways.”

Natsume blinks. “You ran here?”

And Atsushi can’t help but see the comedy in that being what Natsume seizes on, considering the truly impressive amount of times Atsushi’s seen him tearing through town apropos of nothing like he’s got a swarm of invisible hornets on his tail.

“Yup,” Satoru says, brightly, tapping Tanuma’s knee. “Felt like an action movie.” A pause, before he tacks on, not unkindly, “Y’know, if you’re not gonna drink that tea, then I will.”

Tanuma blinks down at the tea bottle, which had tilted enough in his hand to nearly spill onto the scratchy comforter as though forgotten about. He manages a couple measured sips before letting Taki take it back and cap it.

Natsume squeezes Tanuma’s fingers in his own, looking unsettled. Taki looks thoughtful, idly tapping the bottle in her hands.

“Were you thinking they had a security camera out front or something?” she asks.

Tanuma says nothing.

Taki leans into his side. “You know, even if anyone watched the footage, it’s like Nishimura said. All they’d see is that man getting exactly what was coming to him,” she says, fervently.

“And you being cool as hell,” Satoru adds. “Seriously, they teach twelve-year-olds how to do that?”

The way his shoulders loosen, just a fraction, feels like a win. “I don’t…actually know?” he starts, squinting like he’s trying to recall. “I was in this class for high-schoolers at the time, because there were nothing else available in the town I lived in.” A shrug, a sheepish glance up and away. “Usually I was just partnered up with my teacher.”

“That actually sounds kind of brutal, though,” Atsushi says, curious now. “Did the teacher demonstrate take-downs and stuff on you?”

“She did, but. Really slowly,” Tanuma replies, and it’s as though the warmth of Natsume’s and Taki’s shoulders pressed up against his has started, though incrementally, to seep into his voice, his eyes. “And I never really got the hang of doing any of it back to her. I’m surprised that worked, earlier.”

Precisely none of this explanation seems to have made Satoru look any less starstruck. Atsushi has to hold back his snort. “You should totally pick it up again,” Satoru’s saying now, around a mouth full of the lemon ice pop Natsume had fished out of the shopping bag for him. “What color belt did you get up to?”

“Um.”

Just that half-second’s hesitation is long enough to put a loaded look into Natsume’s eyes, for him to slot their fingers together properly and squeeze.

Tanuma lets out a breath, and there’s something years-old and lonely clinging to the edges of his smile. Atsushi doubts he’s aware of it. “None.” He shrugs. “I didn’t pass the one exam I took. I got pneumonia that year and had to quit after that, so.”

He looks faintly embarrassed, now, and Satoru opens his mouth as though ready to nip that right in the bud, but Taki beats him to it.

“Tanuma,” she says, solemnly, turning around to face him. “You have got to teach me how you did that.”

***

By the time the polite-yet-firm call arrives from the front desk, indicating a noise complaint from their neighbors in the next room and forcing them all to call it a night, things are better.

By then, Tanuma had been goaded into demonstrating some unwieldy modified version the maneuver behind his earlier takedown, executed on a poor unsuspecting hotel pillow because the entire room had immediately nixed Satoru’s offer to be the human test dummy.

Now, Satoru and Taki are a boneless, lightly snoring tangle of limbs on the far bed, one of Satoru’s arms thrown over Natsume’s whale shark plushie. (A surprise gift from all of them, Taki’s idea, after they’d caught him eyeing it more than once in the aquarium gift shop yesterday. If he’d walked out of the aquarium clutching it to his chest just like he might’ve done with his fat cat, currently hundreds of kilometers away, none of them said a word about it.)

Natsume himself is dozing in the other bed, but he lies facing Satoru—and Satoru’s fine, he’s unharmed and happy and completely safe, he is. But for some reason the longer the night’s worn on, Atsushi’s had to remind himself of these facts more, not less. He knows the dark cast to Satoru’s slack wrist is the lamplight-shadow of his sweatshirt sleeve, knows because he checked.

Still.

Tanuma’s in the bath, now. And he seems, well. Better than he was, certainly. But Atsushi had seen the taut-lipped glances he’d stolen at Satoru, and he looks about the same way Atsushi feels. At least the unwelcome scenarios and possibilities unspooling in his own mind have got to be more vague than whatever Tanuma’s imagination was serving up. Tanuma had seen it. Had stopped it.

Let Satoru wave it off, insist ‘til he’s blue in the face that it was fine, all fine, that he hadn’t been in any real danger. If it would put his friends at ease, he’d have said the same with a smile on his face even if he’d just been robbed at knifepoint.

Atsushi really needs to stop thinking about this.

He’d heard Natsume earlier, voice whisper-gentle through the bathroom door after he’d led Tanuma in by the hand behind him. Satoru and Taki had drifted off by then. Atsushi couldn’t make out the words, and heard nothing at all from Tanuma, aside from a few isolated, stuttering breaths. Tanuma had re-emerged dazed, red-eyed, but calmer than Atsushi had seen him all evening.

When the door opens now, Tanuma steps out in a halo of steam, wet-haired and barefoot in an old t-shirt. Atsushi’s on his feet and halfway across the room before he’s even really aware of it, the change of clothes for his own bath forgotten at the foot of the bed.

Tanuma goes still, when Atsushi pulls him close. Atsushi almost lets go, but then he feels the tentative hands come up to rest on his back.

“Thank you,” Atsushi mutters into his shoulder.

“I—“

“No. Listen.” Atsushi pulls back, hands shifting to rest on his upper arms. And god but Tanuma looks exhausted. “You kept him safe,” Atsushi says. “And don’t try to tell me you didn’t, because you did. Thank you.”

Tanuma opens his mouth, closes it again, swallows. He says nothing for a long moment, but he doesn’t look away. Finally, “…sorry for freaking out.” He smiles as he says it, but his voice snags on the words. He swallows again.

“Hey.” Atsushi waits until Tanuma’s now-dropped gaze returns to him. “You don’t ever have to be sorry for that, okay? Not with us.”

A sound like an inhale, somehow sharp and shaky all at once, and then it’s Tanuma that’s pulling them together again. A steadying breath, in-out-in that ruffles Atsushi’s hair. Stillness.

“Okay,” he whispers.

***

If he does go to jail, it's Natori who'll have to bail him out :)

Sensei didn't come along because I like to think Hiiragi, Sasago and Urihime have been taking turns watching over Natsume, which is more than sufficient, except for when it's *not* Natsume himself who's getting into trouble--

Fun fact, according to the most current iteration of canon, Tanuma's taken judo in the past as well as karate, but the bulk of this was written before that chapter came out.

Atsushi stands back with a scowl, watching as Nishimura digs through his bookbag for a notebook. He lays it open on Atsushi’s desk and draws one of those strange seeing circles, as big as will fit on the page, in a few practiced seconds.

“Wait,” Atsushi says, catching on, “you brought a spirit into my house?”

Nishimura nods enthusiastically. “I wanted you to be the first to meet her.”

And then he extends his bad hand over the circle, the one he was cradling close to his center as if in pain, and a bird appears out of thin air. It’s a magpie, perched prim and docile on his wrist like a household pet. The bruises beneath its feet are faint, yellow and soft purple.

Maybe it’s not such a bad day, Atsushi thinks vaguely, not sure what to feel about the yokai bird in his bedroom.

“Isn’t she great?” Nishimura gushes, eyes bright. “Natsume saw her before, when she was just a blob. But a few days ago she woke me up like this, and we’ve been buddies ever since!”

The bird turns its head sideways to look Atsushi up and down. Somehow, after hearing the grumpy old man voice emerge from Natsume’s ugly cat nearly a week ago, he’s almost expecting it when the magpie parts its beak and says, “you are?” but that doesn’t stop him from staring at it dumbly.

“Kitamoto,” he introduces himself by rote.

“acchan!” the bird says in reply, flapping its wings. “my favorite!”

“She mimics a lot,” Nishimura explains, not in the least bit embarrassed. His free hand drifts over to stroke the magpie’s glossy black and white feathers with a gentleness that most wouldn’t associate with rowdy, reckless Nishimura. “So what do you think? Way better than that stupid cat, right?”

Not even knowing he’d meet Natori Shuuichi lit Nishimura up like this. He’s delighted by the little bird. For as long as Atsushi’s known him, Nishimura has wanted a pet. Something to greet him when he got home, that would spend time with him when his brother and his mother couldn’t be bothered. And this is a feathered companion that can talk, that’s intelligent enough to be a conversation partner, that can really keep him company all those hours that find him alone.

Atsushi wrestles with the knee-jerk reaction to be happy with him, and the skeptical voice in the back of his brain that calls him crazy for even thinking about letting another yokai near Nishimura after what the last one did.

“You said Natsume saw her before?” he hazards. “What did he think?”

“He said she’s harmless. Sometimes things stick around after they die,” Nishimura says, every bit as though it’s not remarkable he could know something like that. “She’s just a bird that stuck around, Kitamoto. She won’t hurt anybody. Isn’t that right, Fish?”

She looks up at him and squawks. Nishimura laughs in turn -- something he hasn’t done enough of recently by a lot -- and with that, fondness far outweighs any misgivings Atsushi might still have.

“You dork,” he says, “you named her Fish?”

It’s absolutely the right decision when Nishimura laughs again and knocks their shoulders together. “Shut up! She likes it! And you should see her tear up some leftover mackerel. No one’s ever enjoyed my mom’s cooking before she came along.”

They sit on the edge of Atsushi’s bed, the notebook balanced open on Nishimura’s knees, and talk until evening shadows stretch across his room and his mother calls him out for dinner.

Nishimura transfers Fish to his shoulder, where she vanishes from Atsushi’s eyes. He looks a little out of place now, as though Atsushi’s family is a reminder that he’s taking up room in a home that isn’t his.

“That’s enough weirdness for one day, huh? I guess I should go.”

His brother only makes it into the room for this part, looking between the two of them warily. Something must show on Satoru’s face because Kiyoshi frowns at their mother and says, “What’s going on?” 

Recognizing a golden escape opportunity when he sees one, Satoru heads for the door. Raised voices follow him out into the sharp autumn chill, and he doesn’t dare double back for his jacket.

It’s close to dinner time, dusk creeping across the sky in rich oranges and pinks. Most of his neighbors are inside at this time of night, half the shops closed up and dark. Satoru wanders towards the nearest conbini to make a meal out of chips and a pork bun and whatever else his pocket change is enough to buy.

Trust mom to hit me right where it hurts, he thinks absently. 

They don’t really talk about what’s going to happen after graduation. It puts shadows in Natsume’s eyes when they bring up moving away, and they’ve spent so long trying to get that guy to lighten up and smile that any topic that does the opposite is one they all unanimously avoid. 

But Kitamoto has talked about maybe staying here, working close to home. Satoru knows it’s because of this scary business with his father’s health. Kitamoto carries around so much care for his family that it’s almost ridiculous – except Satoru has met his family, and Satoru loves them, too. 

He doesn’t think Kitamoto’s parents will be disappointed in him either way. 

If Satoru is stuck here, it would be nice to be stuck here with the best person he knows. 

But, as a creeping unhappiness in the back of his mind is quick to remind him, he doesn’t want Kitamoto to be stuck anywhere. Satoru would shove him out the door himself, if he knew Kitamoto was holding himself back for anyone’s sake but his own. 

Satoru stops outside the conbini and lets his head fall against the door with a sharp thud. His stomach is in knots now. So much for snacks. And after he walked all the way here, too.

“Nishimura!” a familiar voice calls, exasperated. Satoru lifts his head, and turns in surprise as Kitamoto jogs the last few feet between them. “Let me guess,” his friend pants, doubling over his knees, “you left your phone at home.”

Satoru pats his pockets. “Oops,” he says, by way of apology. “Hey, I was just thinking about you. You must be psychic. Or maybe I am.”

“Being an idiot isn’t going to get you out of the conversation we’re about to have,” Kitamoto says without missing a beat. Satoru’s shoulders slump. “Your brother called me. Sounds like it was career day at your place again, huh?”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before.” Satoru shrugs. “Fifty percent of the reason I wanna go to university is so she’ll stop talking about it.” 

The other fifty percent is so he’ll live hours away and never have to see her again, but that’s not something he’s going to say out loud, not even to Kitamoto.

From the look he’s giving him, Kitamoto already guessed as much anyway.

“You know she has no idea what she’s talking about, don’t you?” he demands, eyes narrowed. “I don’t care what your stupid scores are in school, you’re one of the smartest people I know.” 

Satoru blinks. “I’m an idiot.” 

“About some things,” Kitamoto says dismissively, “but so am I. So is everyone. You’ve got things you’re smarter at than anybody, but it’s not anything you can test, like math or English, so your mom figures it doesn’t count. It does, though, Satchan.” 

“Kitamoto, I’m not – I don’t need a pep talk,” Satoru interjects, hazarding a grin. “I’m fine.” 

“Sure,” Kitamoto says, too easily. “But I want to hear you say it.” 

He’s got that stubborn face on, the one that rivals even Natsume at his most mulish, and Satoru knows better than to try fighting him on something he’s sunk his teeth into. 

So he rolls his eyes, and doesn’t waste time trying to figure out if his face is warm-embarrassed or warm-pleased because it’s probably a combination of both. “It counts.”

His best friend eyes him a moment longer, and then his expression relents into a smile. “Good. Now come on, mom’s got dinner nearly ready.”

Kitamoto takes his hand to tug him along, and doesn’t let go again once Satoru’s moving. He threads their fingers together and then shoves their joined hands into his jacket pocket, and Satoru is happy with that. He presses a little closer, and he’ll blame it on the cold if anyone asks, but no one probably will.

“You know,” Kitamoto says, without looking back at him, “you don’t have to go to school if you don’t want to.”

“Eh?”

“I mean, if I stayed here to work, you could live with me,” he says. “Maybe my family will move back into our house by then. There would be plenty of room. Or we could get an apartment together.” 

Satoru stares at him, and probably would have kept walking straight into traffic if their hands weren’t attached. Kitamoto glances at him while they wait on the pedestrian crossing light, and whatever he sees on Satoru’s face makes him roll his eyes. 

“I mean, it’s like you think I’m just gonna leave you,” Kitamoto says, as if it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “Even if I went away to school, I would take you with me. You could get a job wherever I end up, or go to school there, too, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re there when I come home.”

The light changes, and Kitamoto leads the way forward again. His stride is sure, and his hand around Satoru’s is steady. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s going, he doesn’t have it all figured out, but Satoru is a fixed variable in those tentative plans. Satoru was never a maybe.

Blinking through tears, Satoru says, “That was really cool, Acchan. Like something out of a shoujo manga. Did you practice that on your way here?”

“Shut up, Nishimura.”

Satoru wears long sleeves most of the time – stolen out of his roommate’s side of the closet, more often than not – and he deflects soulmate and soulmate-related conversation with all the prowess of someone with years of practice.

But he can’t avoid it entirely.

He stops for lunch at a little cafe near his office, and is just in time to watch as a harried businesswoman and the curly-haired cashier lock eyes and meet. The timers on their wrists, exposed where their arms are extended over the counter to exchange payment for the order, drop to zero. 

It’s powerful, and wonderful, the way the first woman melts and the second lights up like a star, and the rest of the restaurant is smiling down at their plates or at their own company, but Satoru’s stomach twists sickly. 

He leaves without ordering, and doesn’t find his appetite again for the rest of the day. He doesn’t say anything when he gets home but Atsushi can tell. Atsushi can always tell. And he frowns deeply, pushing back from his desk and abandoning his work to bully Satoru into a seat at the kitchen table. 

Satoru suffers through a plate of microwaved leftovers, and a lecture about his admittedly shitty eating habits to go with it. 

“You did this all through school,” Atsushi says sternly, “and I hated it then, too. You have to eat, moron. Melon bread and Kit-Kats and whatever else you have stashed in your office doesn’t cut it.”

There’s no easy way to explain why he couldn’t eat – that sometimes the anxiety gets too big, and sits in the pit of his chest like a stone. That sometimes he thinks too much about the zeros on his arm and what they mean, and wants to lock himself in the bedroom and hide from the world he’s afraid he’s all alone in.

So instead he shrugs, and mumbles through a mouthful of lukewarm noodles, "Sometimes I think the only reason we live together is because it’s easier for you to babysit me this way.”

“Someone has to,” Atsushi says without missing a beat, but there’s no heat in his eyes, or in the hand that brushes Satoru’s shoulder as Atsushi passes by on his way back to his office. 

Rapid knocks on the door have Satoru hurrying to open it. Natsume spills inside, looking so visibly distraught that Satoru automatically looks over his shoulder into the hall for some sign of trouble. 

“Natsume, what is it?” Atsushi asks with clear concern, and Natsume thrusts his arm at them by way of answer. 

The numbers on his wrist are moving rapidly, dropping by the second, and Satoru and Atsushi both watch with wide eyes as it keeps going. 

“It hasn’t moved in – in years,” Natsume admits in a soft, thready voice. “When I moved to this city, it actually went up. I never thought – a part of me was always resigned to – but now – “ 

He looks two shades short of terrified. Satoru feels for him, aches for him, and says, “Hey, listen. Whoever it is, they’re lucky as hell. You’re awesome, Natsume, they’re – man, they’re going to love you.”

Natsume looks at him with something open and vulnerable in his face, mouth soft and eyes bright. He’s opened up since coming here, but there’s still something fragile about him – this withdrawn, self-conscious guy without any family and nothing but a fat, grumpy cat for company in his quiet apartment across the hall –

Satoru hopes his other half is someone kind, someone patient. Someone who can fill all those empty spaces in Natsume’s life, in his home, in his heart. 

The timer finally slows on the nineteen hour mark. The minutes slow after that, until only the seconds are left steadily ticking by. Natsume is pale and shaken as he runs a hand through his hair. 

Atsushi says, “Stay for dinner.”

“Thank you,” Natsume whispers. 

The next day, as Satoru and Atsushi are leaving their apartment – bickering amiably about the grocery list and the fastest way to get to the supermarket – they’re greeted by an unfamiliar face. 

He’s tall, with a messy head of dark hair and kind eyes. He stands as though he’s aware of how much space he takes up and wishes it could be less. 

“Hello,” he says, a little too formal, when he notices the two of them noticing him. “Um, we haven’t met. I just moved in – two doors down from you, actually. I’m Tanuma.”

“Nice to meet you,” Atsushi says politely, “I’m Kitamoto and this is Nishimura. Are you new to the city?”

“Yeah, it was – a spur of the moment decision,” Tanuma says. “I’m a, um – photographer,” and Satoru kind of hates the self-conscious way his eyes dip at the admission, as though it’s something he can’t be proud of, “mostly freelance. But the um, the paper here – was hiring. So I applied, and sent in a portfolio, and – here I am.”

He’s awkward, but in an endearing way, like he isn’t used to striking up conversation with strangers but he’s doing his best to make a good impression despite himself. Satoru has known him for all of three minutes and has already decided he’s going to be a great neighbor. 

“Well, we’re happy to have you,” Satoru tells him. “You should come by sometime, show us some of your work!” 

The invitation seems to take him by surprise, but a moment later his face softens with a smile. “Yeah?” 

They make plans to have him over for dinner, and Tanuma looks ten pounds lighter and ten times less anxious than he did when they found him in the first place. 

“You’re too friendly,” Atsushi says dryly, as they wait for the elevator. “One of these days you’re gonna invite a creep right into our house for tea or something, and honestly I won’t even be shocked.”

“Tanuma isn’t a creep!” 

“I didn’t say he was!”

But it’s not really that Satoru is too friendly, or even an especially nice person. It’s just that his wrist is a line of solid zeros, and it’s been that way forever, and he can’t stand how lonely he feels sometimes. 

He doesn’t want anyone else to be lonely, either. 

Tanuma is right on time, down to the minute. And since Satoru is fighting with the temperamental rice cooker while Atsushi is busy at the stove when the polite knocks sound at the front door, he calls, “Natsume, will you get that? It’s that Tanuma guy we invited over.”

Natsume’s face is a sickly white as he climbs gracelessly to his feet. His fat cat is tucked into the crook of his arm, like a security blanket, and Satoru pauses long enough to frown at him, worry after him, because that’s an extreme reaction to just getting the door for someone?

But then he sees the flickering activity on Natsume’s wrist, the rapid shifting of numbers that Satoru is too far away to make out, and he grabs Atsushi by the strings of his apron and yanks.

“Holy shit, Satoru, this is hot oil – “

He cuts himself off when he realizes what’s happening.

Natsume stands back to let Tanuma step inside, and Satoru can’t see his face – but the hand he lifts towards Tanuma is trembling, and Tanuma’s expression is dazed and wondering and painful to look at – 

Natsume says “It’s you,” in a small voice, and Tanuma replies, “I’ve waited to meet you for so long,” and Satoru turns away to give them some privacy, busying himself with the rice again. 

His eyes are burning, but he can blame that on the smoke. 

Atsushi has worn a thick leather bracelet over his timer for as long as Satoru has known him. It’s not weird – some people are secretive about it, or painfully shy. Satoru has even heard of some people going so far as to tattoo over the timer – it fades, once a person accepts their other half, but there’s a growing community of people who reject the soulmate concept entirely, and ignore the numbers in favor of falling in love freely. 

He thinks that’s admirable and a little bit terrifying in equal measures. 

Satoru wonders, sometimes, if Atsushi belongs to the secretive group or the skeptical one. He doesn’t ask – Atsushi will sometimes rub fingers over the bracelet, and look weary and sad, and even Satoru is tactful enough to know there are some things he should just leave alone – but he still wonders. 

If he could belong to anybody, he would belong to Atsushi.

And he doesn’t know what he’ll do, the day Atsushi’s soulmate strolls into their lives and takes Atsushi away from him.

One day, about a month after his fateful first night in the apartment building the four of them share, Tanuma breaches the same subject Satoru has always avoided: 

“Do you mind my asking, Kitamoto? What does your timer say?” he asks on a comfortable, rainy Tuesday evening, while Natsume messes with his expensive-looking camera and Natsume’s fat calico sleeps in his lap. 

“Oh,” Atsushi says, unbothered. He doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Nothing. It faded a long time ago.”

Satoru chokes on his bubble tea so spectacularly that Natsume actually puts the camera down to lean over and thump him on the back. He and Tanuma are both staring at him but Atsushi is doing that casual oh-did-you-have-a-big-reaction-sorry-I-didn’t-even-notice thing. Satoru isn’t about to let it slide this time. 

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Atsushi gives him an unimpressed look. There’s some fleeting feeling in his eyes that Satoru just misses, something heated or hurt. “It’s been gone for years. It’s not a secret.”

“You – you never said – “

“You never asked.”

Tanuma and Natsume are looking between them with wide eyes. Satoru feels his hands clench into fists, so tight his fingers ache and his nails bite into his palms. 

“Can I talk to you outside?” he grits out.

“Oh,” Natsume says, “no, we can – Kaname, let’s – “

But Atsushi is already setting his phone aside and rising to his feet, gesturing expansively for Satoru to lead the way. Satoru does his best not to storm out of his own apartment like a pissy teenager, but he isn’t sure if he’s the least bit successful. 

He’s trembling, and waits for Atsushi to close the front door behind him before he bursts out with, “Were you – are you – do you not trust me? Why wouldn’t you tell me? I tell you everything, I thought – “

“Satchan,” he says tiredly, “it’s not like that.” 

“So you know?” Satoru couldn’t explain the ache in his chest if he tried. “Your other half? You know who they are?”

“I’d know even without the stupid numbers on my wrist.” 

Satoru stares at him, and something in Atsushi’s expression crumbles. He pushes a hand through his hair and looks twice his age, and exhausted, and sad. 

“Sometimes – it doesn’t work out, I guess. Sometimes you’re not on the same page. It’s not a perfect system. Not everyone gets a happy ending.”

“Did they – “ Satoru can barely find the words. His heart is a solid lump in his throat. “Did they not want you?”

The question lands like a blow, and that’s not what Satoru meant, he didn’t mean to hurt him, and he’s already opening his mouth to apologize when Atsushi shakes his head. 

A little bit bitter and a little bit broken when he says, “No, he – didn’t feel the same way. But it’s okay,” he adds a moment later. “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.”

It sounds like an old, old hurt. A wound he’s used to navigating around, and can almost pretend isn’t there. And Satoru has known him all his life, has been his roommate since the day they graduated high school together almost ten years ago, and…

he never knew.

Atsushi is asleep at the kitchen table, and Satoru is washing dinner dishes. The chore is taking longer than usual, because he keeps looking over his shoulder at his friend and ends up scrubbing the same plate for ten minutes as he loses himself in thought.

It’s hard to be objective, given how shamelessly biased he is where Atsushi is concerned, but as far as he’s concerned a person would have to be crazy not to want a guy like him. 

He would have thought Atsushi’s other half would be a sensible, well-put together sort. And instead they’re – well, probably the worst person in the world, if he’s being honest. 

Who the hell could know Atsushi and not want him?

Moving on impulse, Satoru abandons the rest of the dishes and strips off his rubber gloves. He sits in the chair across the table from Atsushi and lifts his left hand off the table gingerly enough not to wake him. 

He finds the clasp on that leather bracelet and undoes it, sliding the weathered band away. The skin underneath is smooth and unblemished, an empty place where hopeful numbers should sit. 

Atsushi doesn’t have anyone waiting for him, either.

And maybe there’s been a secret dream lurking in the farthest corner of Satoru’s heart ever since he was a lonely teenager.

Maybe now he can afford to want it, after all. 

Atsushi has been staring at the stolen leather bracelet on Satoru’s wrist for the better part of the morning, while doing his best to pretend like he absolutely hasn’t been staring at it for the better part of the morning.

“Satchan,” he’ll start to say, and then think better of it and bury himself in the morning paper. They’ve become subscribers, now that their friend’s impressive photography regularly decorates the front page. 

Satoru smiles at his hands. When he rubs his wrist now, it’s not a bitter gesture or a longing one as much as it’s affectionate, anticipatory, excited. 

“Are you messing with me?” 

Satoru frowns. “Not that I know of?”

Atsushi looks more flustered than Satoru has seen him in years. There’s an almost manic gleam in his eyes, and his hair stands on end from how many times he’s rubbed a careless hand through it. 

“You’re – “ He hesitates, and lowers his voice. “What do you want from me?”

“Well, I wanted to hold your hand, but I didn’t know it was going to put you through an existential crisis.”

“Don’t,” Atsushi says sharply, and Satoru’s humor fades. “You don’t – get to joke about it. You can’t just go back and forth, that’s not fair. I don’t know what you want.”

Satoru has the sinking feeling he got something terribly, terribly wrong. “I thought – maybe, since you didn’t have a soulmate either, we could – ”

“Wait.” Atsushi says slowly, holding up both hands to stop him mid-word. Then, at length, “What?”

“We’re both,” Satoru says lamely, “you know.” 

“No,” is the frank reply, “that’s – have you really? Have you really thought that – “ Atsushi surges across the room, and snatches Satoru by the shoulders, and says, “What did you think your zero counter meant?”

“That – that I didn’t have anybody?” Satoru blinks past the threatening sting of tears, because Atsushi has never been intentionally cruel, and he probably has a reason for throwing this lifelong hurt back in Satoru’s face. “It’s been on zero for as long as I can remember. I never knew who it was supposed to be. It never even fully faded.”

Atsushi is staring at him as though he’s never seen him from this close before. His fingers bite into Satoru’s arm hard enough to hurt. He doesn’t seem willing to let go.

“We met when we were five years old,” he says, very carefully, “on the first day of kindergarten. My timer was on zero when I came home. I remember, because mom and dad made a big deal about it. They were so excited I could have met my other half so early.” 

Satoru blinks at him. He remembers that day – he spent hours chasing Atsushi around the playground, sharing snacks and making up games, and didn’t want to go home when Kiyoshi walked over from the elementary school to pick him up at the end of the afternoon. 

Is that when it happened? 

“I never,” he whispers, and has to stop and scrape the words together before he can try again. “I didn’t notice. I didn’t even know what the numbers meant until – it must have been third grade? Mom never – she didn’t think it was important – “

Atsushi’s eyes have gone ridiculously soft. He lets go of Satoru’s shoulders to touch the sides of his face instead, as carefully as if he was something impossibly precious. 

“I,” Satoru tries, but his voice wobbles and breaks apart. “I– “ 

“I thought you knew,” Atsushi says quietly. “I thought you knew and it wasn’t what you wanted. I thought that’s why you’ve been so miserable, all these years.” 

He unclasps the bracelet and Satoru watches from far away, like it’s something happening to someone else. The zeros on his arm aren’t the bright blue of everyone else’s, they’re half color, faded and unsubstantial. He’s never known why, always thought it was broken, but – 

“You never knew it was me,” Atsushi says, “you were never sure, so of course they never went away. I should have – I should have said something, I should have – I’m such an idiot. Satchan, I’m so sorry.”

“I made you think I didn’t want you,” Satoru all but sobs, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, “I made you think – you’re my favorite person in the whole world, and I hurt you so much – “

“No you didn’t. I never blamed you for feeling differently, I would never blame you for that. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it was still good.” 

“But I – “ Satoru wishes he was brave enough to look at him, but instead he hides behind his hands like a coward. “I didn’t feel differently. You were just – something I couldn’t have – because I didn’t know you were mine.”

For a long moment, his words are greeted by a silence that threatens to deafen him. Then Atsushi is pulling Satoru’s hands away from his face and holding his wrists captive and leaning in to kiss his forehead, his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.

As if he’s saying now you know.

“You two are a mess,” Natsume tells them over breakfast two days later, in a perfect deadpan that makes Atsushi snort into his coffee.

Compared to the pretty picture Natsume and Tanuma make – the perfect way they came together the moment they met, the way they move as though they’ve never spent a day apart – yeah, Satoru thinks it’s safe to say he and Atsushi are something of a certified disaster. 

He regrets the misunderstanding that caused so much hurt where hurt could have been avoided, and he regrets the sad shadows that lived for so long in Atsushi’s eyes.

But at the same time, Satoru’s been luckier than most – even if five, ten, and fifteen years ago he would never have believed such a thing. 

He smiles down at his hands, and rubs the bare skin on his left wrist. Seconds later Atsushi is reaching for him – threading their fingers together, lifting Satoru’s hand, and pressing a kiss to the same spot where all his zeros used to be.

“You’re a good mess, though,” Tanuma amends with no small amount of fondness, and Satoru beams at him. 

Or it’s entirely the wrong move.

Kaname gets off the train with his single rolling suitcase and promptly has a panic attack in one of the station bathrooms. He should have thought about this. He’s an idiot and everything is going to be terrible. He’s hours away from his only family, he doesn’t know anyone in this city, he doesn’t know where to go, what is he doing here?

A text to Shibata finds Kaname on a conference call moments later with both Shibata and Taki, who bully and cajole him respectively back into some semblance of mostly functional human being.

“Do you have your inhaler?” Shibata demands, prompting Kaname to pat down his pockets and confirm that he does, in fact, have his inhaler. “Good. You better take care of yourself, idiot. I swear, if I have to come after you I’m going to be severely annoyed.”

But he’ll come after Kaname if Kaname needs him to, won’t hesitate to bail on work and hop on a train if he thinks Kaname isn’t okay, and knowing that is a much-needed comfort. Kaname smiles, and his hands, clenched into shaking fists in the fabric of his jeans, finally loose.

He’s in a new place, and hours away from the people who love him, but he isn’t in another country. He isn’t so far removed that he’ll never see them again.

“We’ll come see you the second you get settled,” Taki tells him kindly. “I’m so excited for you! You’re going to do so great!”

“Of course he is. Call us back when you get to your creepy Craigslist apartment, Tanuma!”

Kaname laughs as he hangs up, and the warmth of the laughter stays with him as he braves the busy station and drags his suitcase after him into the sunny streets. With his friends in the front of his mind, it’s that much easier to breathe.

Kaname isn’t sure when the rest of his things are due to be delivered, so getting settled into his modest apartment is the work of about five minutes. In that it takes him four minutes to get the door unlocked, and once inside he shoves his suitcase into the bedroom, shrugs out of his jacket, and collapses face-first into the musty sofa the previous tenant left behind.

The city traffic is loud even through the closed window, and someone in the hallway is banging violently on a door.

Home, Kaname thinks, and rolls onto his back. He stretches his arms out above him, and tugs back the sleeve on his left arm to see if his counter is still –

“Oh,” he whispers, as the numbers continue to spin lower and lower with dizzying speed.

Kaname sits up slowly, tucking his legs underneath him, and cradles his wrist closer with a careful hand. He sits that way for a long time, until shadows stretch across the floor as noon slinks closer to evening and his phone fills the room with Shibata’s ringtone because he forgot to call his friends back. 

The counter finally slows somewhere around the nineteen hour mark, and only the seconds are left ticking by.

19:14:38 and he’s never, ever been this close.

Home, he thinks again, with a hope so heavy it could probably crush him.

Two of his neighbors turn out to be young men his own age, who introduce themselves as Kitamoto and Nishimura. They’re kind and welcoming, despite Kaname’s terribly awkward first impression, and Nishimura is almost relentlessly friendly. Kaname can’t help thinking he and Taki would get along like a house on fire, and the similarities between them have Kaname warming to Nishimura almost immediately.

“If you just moved in, you probably have no food at your place,” Nishimura says with all the certainty of someone having lived this truth himself at one point. “We can show you around and stuff later, but for now you should come over for dinner tonight! We’re making omurice. We’re awesome at omurice.”

“It’s the only thing we know how to cook,” Kitamoto amends dryly, and steers Nishimura away by the shoulders. “Sorry for taking up so much of your time. We’ll see you tonight.”

They’re a soulmate pair if Kaname has ever seen one, and he watches them bicker their way down the hall with a smile. Rubs the numbers on his wrist with an ache and a longing, and only a small amount of light-headed fear.

“I’m not surprised you’ve made friends already,” his father says kindly when Kaname calls him with what little news he has to offer about his first day in Osaka. “You were always a popular boy.”

That is a bold-faced lie, but Kaname was certainly never without friends, and that’s probably what his father means anyway. His eyes are glued to the counter on his wrist, as they always are anymore, and he’s dying to bring it up at the same time he’s terrified of jinxing the whole thing away.

He’ll keep it to himself a little while longer. There’s only four hours left to go, anyway.

Kaname stands outside his neighbor’s door with his fist poised to knock and thinks this is probably exactly where he’s meant to be standing, because the numbers on his arm are still moving, and it’s fourteen seconds, and he knocks, and now it’s nine, and now six –

And the door opens, and Kaname pulls his eyes away from the zeros on his wrist. It isn’t Nishimura or Kitamoto waiting there to greet him, but he wasn’t really expecting either of them. He looks into wide amber eyes and feels the breath go out of his lungs in a rush.

His other half touches Kaname’s cheek reverently, with fingers that tremble. Kaname covers his hand with one of his own and holds on.

It’s been a long and lonely life without him, and Kaname has waited every single day for this moment, for this man specifically, and now he can only stand here and soak up the sight of the rest of his life, greedily and with extreme prejudice.

“I’ve waited to meet you for so long,” he murmurs, and his soulmate’s breath shudders. He looks as terrified as Kaname feels, and every bit as longing, and tragically lovely.

Beautiful, Kaname thinks, with both an artist’s eye and a hopeless heart, beautiful.

Natsume Takashi lives alone, and has always lived alone. Even as a child, he was often by himself. He has no family and no home outside his little one-bedroom apartment, and his only companion is his fat, spoiled cat.  

“I came to this city because it was brand-new to me,” Takashi says, “and I wanted a fresh start.”

He’s unguarded as he speaks into the dimly lit room at large. They’re tucked together on his sofa, the window open to let in the autumn breeze, and Kaname pulls him just a little bit closer.

Takashi is fragile, despite the iron resilience that brought him this far, and devastatingly lonely – and worse than that, accustomed to loneliness.

“I wish I had found you sooner,” Kaname tells him quietly, and feels Takashi lean away just enough to look up at him.

“It’s thanks to you we met at all,” his other half tells him firmly. “I would never have had the nerve to do what you did – to make such a big move, on such a small chance.” He shakes his head, admiring and affectionate as he adds, “You’re amazing, Kaname.”

It’s the first time anyone has told him that. Sickly, shrinking Kaname, who could hardly join in PE more than a dozen times a year, who passed through school like a shadow and relied on his two bright and fiery friends all those times he got lost in the crowd or fumbled up his words, who locked himself in a bathroom stall the day he arrived in this new city and wanted nothing more than to run back home.

But Takashi is smiling up at him without cruelty, honeyed eyes like something out of a fairy tale – and if he’s the one saying it, maybe it’s true after all.

Maybe it could be true. Maybe, for Takashi, he wants it to be.

“I can’t believe you uprooted your whole life just to chase your heart like a shojo hero,” Shibata fumes. “You’re ridiculous!”

“He’s wonderful,” Takashi contests immediately, reaching over to smooth the fringe out of Kaname’s eyes. Kaname feels himself flush hotly and aims a stupid grin at the Skype window open on Kitamoto’s laptop.

Taki’s eyes are shining, her hands folded in front of an impossibly wide smile, and even Shibata can’t maintain his scowl for long.

“Ugh, gross,” he says, with the hint of a grin. “You two deserve each other.”  

“Oh, and make sure you send over those pictures of the two of you that you promised me. Don’t give me that look, Tanuma, you promised!”

Takashi groans, and Nishimura laughs brightly from the other side of the living room. Ponta waddles over to make himself comfortable in Kaname’s lap, and the apartment smells like the omelets Kitamoto is cooking for dinner, and Kaname’s childhood friends are making plans to come visit sometime soon. Takashi smiles freely more and more with each day, and those smiles make every single minute Kaname waited for this worthwhile.