#wakeupt

“Kurogane, thisis my grandson Shizuka.  Shizuka, this is Kurogane, the man wediscussed yesterday.  He’ll be with you anytime you leave the house,got it?”

Shizuka wasapparently expecting the intrusion into his bedroom, or at least wasn’t all that perturbed by the interruption of what was apparentlyhomework.  So Kurogane judged by the spread of notes around thelaptop on the desk, and the unimpressed face that teenager was givinghim.

“Yeah, Grandpa. I got it.”

“Good.  I wantyou to give Kurogane a quick rundown of your daily schedule before Ifinish showing him around the house.”

“Sure,” the boysaid, turning fully around to face them better.  “I leave for classat half seven, I’m in my last year so classes are over at about onepm.  I have two really good friends that I normally spend time withafter school.  We go get a late lunch, or to the park, or whatever. I’m usually back here and studying or working on my universityapplications by about six.”

“Great,”Kurogane responded when the silence stretches long enough to indicatethey were looking for him to say something.  “I want to check outyour security system before I leave for the day.”  This wasaddressed to Doumeki Senior, who nodded and turned to exit the roomto lead Kurogane forward.

“Nice to meetyou,” the kid said as he left.

He grunted inresponse.

“Well, that’s mygrandson,” the older man said jovially.  “I’m sure you two willget along fine.”

“Yeah.  He’s apiece of cake compared to my last client.”

Kurogane felt achill of foreboding go up his spine when the old man started laughingat him.

“You’d thinkthat, wouldn’t you?  Oh, good, here’s the room we’ve set up for youto stay in.”

Kurogane tried toavoid assignments that needed round-the-clock live-in security.  Buthe’d made an exception when he’d found out the client was onlyseventeen.  He hadn’t counted on the teenager being such aserious-looking, mature sort of kid.  He seemed like the type toactually call somebody and report a concern if he had one.

Still, it wasn’t sobad.  His apartment was barely flirting with the concept of “home,”so staying in a swanky, roomy place like this wasn’t exactly ahardship.

———–

Kurogane watched,with a crushing sense of hopelessness, as Kimihiro ran into the roadto chase a stray dog, and as Shizuka went barreling after him withmuttered curses.

Then of course hehad to run out into traffic, because he was an idiot.  This was notin his job description.

Both of the boyswere fine, and nobody got hit by a car, so maybe this should becounted as a win.  But Kurogane found it hard to categorize it thatway, considering he was the one who had to carry the dog tothe veterinarian, and he was the one who got stitches in hishand and a rabies shot.

And yet he honestlydidn’t mind.

Shizuka startedmaking sense to him that day.  The moment of clarity was when the vetsaid she had to put the dog down.  Himawari started sobbing, Kimihirowent pale and teary, and Shizuka was right between them with an armaround each, calmly working out the details with the vet.

Yeah, he was prettysure he understood the guy now.

——-

“Let me see if Iunderstand this correctly,” Doumeki Senior said, his face blotchedwith red as he paced back and forth across the expensive red-and-goldcarpet.

“You,”he said suddenly, spinning around to his grandson.  “Lied to twomen with guns and told them that you were Kimihiro and allowed themto kidnap you.”

“Yes, sir,” theboy said stoically, looking his grandfather right in the eyes.

“And you,”he snapped, turning to face Kurogane, who stood quietly at paraderest about half a step back from Shizuka’s position.  “You followedthem, crept into the house undetected, and instead of shooting themor calling the cops or some normal goddamn thing, decided that yourbest course of action would be to disarm them at swordpoint,tie them up and leave them there?  They have already, whilestill handcuffed in an interview room, professed their intentof suing for damages.  My lawyers are gonna have a field day, and aregoing to bill me thousands of dollars to get you out of this, becauseyou have a sword fetish.”

Kurogane didn’twant to risk pointing out that technically the man did not have topay for Kurogane’s legal representation.  Instead, he said,

“In the interestof fairness, you did tell me that you hired me for this job becauseShizuka had dangerous enemies.  No one,” and here he paused fordramatic effect, and gave both Senior and Junior the biggest stinkeye he could conjure up, “managed to tell me that the enemies wereShizuka’s best friends.”

“If that’s theline you’re going with, it’s probably better to say ‘Nobody told methat Shizuka is his own worst enemy,” the teen offered without evencracking a smile.

It just madeDoumeki Senior even more pissed off when Kurogane and the kid startedbusting a gut laughing, but really, everybody went home without ascratch on them so what was a few thousand in legal fees?

Okay, so Kuroganehad a few scratches.  And bruises.  Contusions, even.  But whatever,that’s why he kept a first aid kit in his bathroom.

He didn’t count onShizuka following him in there.

“Uh, can a mannot take care of his business in privacy?” Kurogane blustered athim.

Shizuka’s answerwas, “You’ve got blood on your shirt.  It’s yours.  I’ll help youclean up.”

There was no pointdenying it was his blood, and honestly he could use the help.  He’dtaken a bad hit to the ribs and was pretty sore.

They were bothcompletely silent while Shizuka dabbed the wound with antisepticcream and bandaged it up.  He must have noticed that Kurogane washolding himself carefully, and got out the ace bandage to wrap aroundhis ribs, too.

His hands werelingering too long, dragging over the skin of his stomach and back ashe wrapped.  Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it.  Kurogane didn’twant to say anything.  He didn’t want to embarrass the kid if hedidn’t mean anything by it.

It felt a littletoo good.  It had been a long time.

He wasn’t a kid. He’d turned eighteen last week.  He had beautiful eyes.

“I’m starving,”Kurogane said.  It was midnight; the kidnapping had been right afterthe three friends got out of classes.

“Me, too,”Shizuka said, drawing his hands back.

“I can’t cook.”

“Me either. We’ve got Hot Pockets.  Want some?”

“Fuck yeah,”Kurogane answered, glad to leave this room.  Very glad.

——

It was retributionfor the foiled kidnapping, although that would likely never beproven.

Kurogane hadsettled into his routine of protecting Shizuka from himself.  Allthree of the friends started university, and Kurogane didn’t say aword about the length of his contract.  He shadowed Shizuka on campusand even audited one of his more interesting classes.

He’d moved out ofhis apartment, without telling anyone in the Doumeki household.  Hisroom at the Doumeki place was as much as he really needed, and mostof his stuff was there anyway.  He started building up a savingsaccount.  He didn’t know when he’d move on to the next assignment,but it was good to start this while he could.  He wanted to retireearly.  Travel, maybe.

There were a lot oflate nights.  Bandaging up a host of minor injuries—scrapesKurogane incurred saving Shizuka from falling over a bridge whenShizuka tried to save Himawari and wasn’t strong enough; puttingointment on the sprained wrist Kurogane incurred catching Shizukawhen he climbed a tree to get Himawari’s cat and the branch broke;more ointment for the horrible bruising from a baseball bat he’dtaken to the back when he’d gotten between a thug and Kimiro—hewanted to know why nobody had told him that Kimihiro’s family was theone with the enemies.  Maybe his family couldn’t afford a bodyguard. It would have saved a lot of time and trouble if Doumeki Senior hadjust explained on the first day that he was actually just supposed tosave Kimihiro from shit so Shizuka wouldn’t have to.

There were a lot ofHot Pockets and toaster waffles and excuses to stay up when the restof the house was quiet, when it was just the two of them.

They didn’t talkmuch.  It didn’t seem necessary.

Then somebody gotthe drop on Kurogane, in the parking lot of the movie theatre justafter watching an action movie.

He didn’t think anyof the others liked action movies.  He strongly suspected thatShizuka had insisted on seeing that because he wanted to Kurogane towatch the movie with them, instead of standing in the lobby while thethree friends watched something stupid.

They’d brushedhands, for a moment.  Both reaching for popcorn.  It was too clichéto allow, so they didn’t come close to touching each other againwhile watching.  But.  More and more Kurogane was feeling like he wassupposed to be beside Shizuka instead of behind him.

And then Kuroganestood vigilant by the car while the others got in.  He walked roundto get in the driver’s seat.  Himawari screamed.

Someone shot him.

He was really luckythey missed his head.  He didn’t feel lucky when he found out hisshoulder was going to need three surgeries.

—–

He woke up afterthe first surgery and Shizuka was sitting by his bed.

“… time izzit?”he muttered.

“Eight.  You wereout most of the day.”

He made a stickynoise and Shizuka thrust out a cup full of melting ice chips alreadyswimming in tepid water.

“Ugh,” hemuttered.  Made a grab for the cup.  Missed.

Shizuka put it tohis lips without a word.

“Go home,” hegrunted, when he was sated enough to figure out how to form words. “Nurses can do this.”

Shizuka grabbed aplastic bin, apparently observing Kurogane’s face turn gray beforeKurogane even felt the flood of saliva that signaled disaster.

He horked up thewater he’d just drank, and groaned.  He tried to make it sound angryinstead of pitful.  It was the most he could do in his own defense atthe moment.

“You drank toofast,” Shizuka said mildly.

“Go get somefresh ice, dipshit,” Kurogane muttered.

Shizuka didn’t moveright away.

“They ain’t gonnacome back and shoot me here,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” Shizukamuttered.  “I know.”

He stood up.  Heleaned forward.  He kissed Kurogane right on the goddamn mouth.

“I’ll be rightback,” he said.

Kurogane got out ofthe bed, head spinning and legs shaking, and went into the littlebathroom to brush his teeth. Thank god somebody put toothbrush andpaste in here.  He attempted to deal with what had just happened inthe few minutes he had available, but all he managed to actuallycoherently think was, I’m gonna get fired.

Shizuka returnedjust as Kurogane was shuffling his way back to the bed.  He sank downon it with another long, angry groan.  He accepted an ice chip.  Thesilence stretched.

“You call that akiss?”

“That’s allyou’re getting right now, barfmaster.”

“I brushed myteeth.”

“Nope,” Shizukareplied.  “Still not happening.  Not gonna risk it.”

“You’re gonna bethe death of me,” Kurogane sighed.

Shizuka frowned atthat.

“Oh, come on, Ididn’t mean like that.  I’ve been shot before, whatever.  Nobig.”

Shizuka mulled thisover.

“I broughtScrabble in case you get bored,” was what he finally said.