Impetus

by sekific

Niou's never been respectable, and Yagyuu's never wanted to be seen as anything else. Set many years post-canon. (Warning: marital infidelity.)

One exclamation as the door opens, that's all the warning Yagyuu gets.

Niou's hair is black and short, and parted neatly to one side - like a salaryman's - and his suit is smart and neat and might even be quite expensive. It's all very unfamiliar, and yet when he leans against the wall the features and the posture are so very Niou that Yagyuu can almost see the ghost of a rat-tail over his shoulder.

Yukimura looks at Yagyuu's expression, and brightly says, "I'll just go check that everything's set up properly, shall I?"

Yagyuu sits down in one of the overstuffed armchairs, and gestures for Niou to take the other. Niou shakes his head, leans against the now-closed door, and jams his hands deep into his trouser pockets.

"You're really getting hitched. What happened, you get her pregnant?"

"No," says Yagyuu, and the conversation is already entirely Niou's, but that's familiar too. "I fell in love and she's a respectable girl."

Niou nods as if not really listening, and then gestures towards the ashtray on the side-table near him. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Go ahead."

Niou lights up, his eyes fixed on Yagyuu. His expression is so guarded that it makes Yagyuu ache.

"I missed you," Yagyuu says, spontaneously, just to see it gets a reaction. "I'm glad you came today."

Niou's eyes narrow. "You think I'd miss this? Fuck, Yagyuu, I had to see it for myself."

"Don't pretend you're that shocked."

"Didn't say I was shocked. Just a bit disappointed. I thought I'd taught you better than this."

"Mm. What happened to your hair?"

"Top-secret work." Niou grins, sharply. "Had to go undercover as a corporate employee. Dreadful business."

He holds his lit cigarette out towards Yagyuu, and without really thinking about it Yagyuu leans forwards and takes it from him. He hasn't smoked in many years, not since university - not since Niou, really - and he stares at it blankly for a moment. This afternoon he has to kiss his new wife in front of everyone, and he probably shouldn't do that smelling of cigarettes.

He puts it in his mouth anyway and takes a deep drag on it, and Niou's grin softens into something more sincere. Yagyuu gestures to the other armchair again, and this time Niou slumps gracelessly into it before plucking the cigarette back out of Yagyuu's hand.

"The suit looks good, though."

Niou laughs. "Perk of the job. Not as fancy as yours, but not bad. So what's she like?"

"Beautiful. Smart. Kind. Easy to love."

"You're serious about marrying her?"

"Yes, I am."

Niou nods, stubs out the cigarette lightly - only half-smoked - and stretches. "And you don't want me to rescue you, drive you off into the sunset?"

He was expecting the offer, but it's still almost painful to hear it out loud, and more painful to turn it down. "You're right. I don't."

"Worth a try." Niou shrugs. "Well, I'll go join the masses before Yukimura starts assuming we're fucking."

Yagyuu nods, but reaches out and takes Niou's hand before Niou can move too far. "I am glad to see you, Niou-kun."

"Yeah? Well, I ever move back to Yokohama, I'll come look you up."

Yagyuu spends the ceremony being all-too aware of Niou's presence; Niou doesn't cause any fuss - and it's a relief - but Yagyuu can feel him watching with a sort of cold amusement, his gaze making the hairs on the back of Yagyuu's neck stand up.

Yagyuu's mother was responsible for almost all the invitations that went out; Yagyuu is dimly aware of old classmates and university friends. Niou sits near other Rikkai people; Yagyuu's old university flatmates are mere rows away. It feels risky to have Niou in there, around people who knew exactly how complicated the relationship was, near Yagyuu's new in-laws and his work colleagues. People might talk; Miyumi knows very little of Yagyuu's more unorthodox relationship history and he would frankly rather it stayed that way.

Niou leaves immediately after the ceremony, however, and the sensation of impending collapse ebbs; Yagyuu feels resentful and grateful in roughly equal measures.

He doesn't see Niou again for months, nearly a year; long enough that when he sees Niou's name on his appointment list for the day it's a genuine shock. It's a referral for haematological issues, Yagyuu's specialism; Yagyuu reads in his notes that Niou apparently suffers from anemic episodes and possible iron deficiency. There's even a complete blood count test result.

It's scheduled as the last consultation of the day. It's all very convenient, really. Yagyuu glances over the notes and results, and they're convincing. He wonders if Niou has faked these, and if so, how he's managed it. Yagyuu toys with passing the case over to another doctor, but curiosity wins out - if Niou can fake results, then he could have faked a name, and yet he didn't. He's given Yagyuu a chance to avoid seeing him, and that's more generosity than Yagyuu would expect.

Niou looks thin and pale when he enters Yagyuu's office, but Yagyuu still isn't buying that this is a genuine case. Niou's always looked unhealthy. He flips through his notes, trying to ignore the way his stomach keeps fluttering in response to Niou being in the same room.

"Niou-san, I gather you've been suffering from exhaustion and weakness, and your hemoglobin concentration does look rather consistently low from these tests. Impressive forgeries, I take it?"

Niou laughs. "Well, you know me, Yagyuu-san. What do you think?"

Yagyuu sighs, and shuts the folder. "I think it was unnecessary. You could just phone me and ask to go for a drink."

"Would you have said yes?"

It's a reasonable question. There's every chance Yagyuu would just have turned him down, and even if Yagyuu accepted then he'd worry about Niou's - and his own - intentions all the way up to the actual drink.

Niou leans back in his chair. "Yeah, I thought so. Look, I'm staying around for a while. We could try this crazy friendship thing I hear all the kids are into."

"You want to be friends?"

"Sure, I'd settle for that. You're a happily married man now, so a quick fuck isn't an option, right?"

Stupidly, appallingly, Yagyuu isn't quite quick enough to conceal the shiver of interest that runs through him at Niou's words.

Niou smirks faintly, his body language shifting into something more predatory. "Or maybe it is. Lady wife not putting out now the ring's on her finger?"

Their sex life is reasonable enough, but it's also none of Niou's business. Yagyuu blanks his expression and watches as Niou slowly begins to unbutton his shirt. Yagyuu could say no - he should say no - but he's sharply aware that if Niou keeps showing up like this, if he's persistent, then Yagyuu is not capable of turning him down forever. Niou knows how to get to him. He might as well let this happen sooner rather than later.

Niou's still smirking. "Are you really going to do this, Yeaaagyuu? You'd really cheat on your wife, here in your nice clean office?"

"No," says Yagyuu, and Niou immediately halts what he's doing, long fingers poised over the fourth button of his shirt. "I wouldn't. Not right here. Not right now."

"I see," says Niou cheerfully, and swiftly rebuttons his shirt, the triangle of pale skin vanishing as if it were never exposed. "When? Where?"

Yagyuu leans forward. "Are you busy tonight? Do you need to go home?"

He meets Niou in the car park outside the hospital a little later, and Niou doesn't ask so Yagyuu doesn't explain to him that his wife thinks he's working an emergency shift tonight. Niou climbs into the car next to him, and all the time Yagyuu is half-expecting for Niou to say he was kidding, that he didn't think Yagyuu would go through with any of this.

He drives for a couple of miles before it occurs to him that Niou is expecting him to drive to a love hotel somewhere; he grins faintly in amusement.

"What?" asks Niou immediately, and Yagyuu glances sideways to see that Niou is watching him intently, dark eyes unreadable.

"Just a thought. You'll see."

Niou looks out of the window. "Hm."

It's another twenty minutes or so before they reach Yayguu's parents' house. Niou gives Yagyuu a disbelieving look as they get out of the car.

"They're away," says Yagyuu.

"And you're feeling nostalgic?"

"Something like that. Come on."

He leads Niou inside, and once he hears the door click shut, the reality of what he's doing swims up through the haze in his head and hits him. This is stupid. He can't just step back into the past like this; it's been nearly a decade since Niou walked out of his life.

Except then he turns around, and Niou is right there in front of the closed door. His coat is already on the floor, crumpled in a heap at his feet. Yagyuu reaches out and puts his hands over Niou's - already at his own collar - before Niou can start undressing again.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, softly, in case he gets an answer.

Niou's gaze is unblinking. "Because I can. Why are you? You've more to lose."

Yagyuu's fingers are moving now, almost of their own accord, gently sliding the buttons on Niou's shirt through the holes and exposing the shape of his clavicle and tiny scars and naevi he thought he'd forgotten. "Because it's you."

Niou's eyes are still holding that strangely detached expression that Yagyuu can't quite decipher, but he reaches forward and begins to unravel Yagyuu's tie. "You think I'm worth the risk?"

"You always were."

Niou kisses him, then, and Yagyuu falls gladly into the familiar sensations of hands and tongue and teeth and skin. They make it as far as the sofa before location becomes irrelevant. It's frantic and Yagyuu feels claimed; Niou digs in his fingers and bites and grips him too tightly. Yagyuu doesn't care.

Afterwards, Niou strokes the scratches on Yagyuu's arm gently, almost apologetically. Yagyuu has his head buried in the crook of Niou's neck, marvelling faintly at the realisation that for once Niou's hair doesn't smell of either bleach or dye. He can feel Niou's pulse, where his carotid artery presses against Yagyuu's jaw, slow and reassuring. The sofa is only just wide enough for them both to lie along it together like this, and Yagyuu is searching for words. He's not sure how he feels about any of this, now it's happened. Niou's also silent, though he doesn't seem unhappy to stay where they are. Perhaps he too isn't quite sure what would be adequate.

In the end, Niou nudges him gently. "Okay, enough. I'm getting cold and you must have a blanket around here at least."

Yagyuu sighs, and rolls back a little, mindful of the edge of the sofa. "Upstairs."

They sit up, and Niou gets up and meanders back towards the front door, collecting his discarded clothing. Yagyuu puts his glasses back on and watches Niou; if anything he's skinnier than he was, the vertebrae at the top of his spine visibly protruding. It's absurd; Niou must be under-eating even more than he used to. It makes Yagyuu worry, and then chide himself for the concern.

He follows Niou's example, gathering his clothes, and leads the way up to his old room. It's incredibly bland in there now, kept mostly as a guest room, with little trace of his teenage self. All his trophies and knick-knacks are at his house now; his books are in his study and his CDs are in the living room. This place that used to be home isn't any more, no matter how many memories he forged here.

Niou strides in and sinks onto the bed without comment, and Yagyuu follows him, pulling the blanket over them both. Niou curls around him warmly, and they lie there quietly again for a moment.

"Feeling guilty yet?"

Yagyuu really isn't. Maybe that will kick in later, he thinks. "Would it matter if I was?"

"No, I suppose not." Niou pokes him in the shoulder, looking thoughtful. "You fell into this more easily than I thought, you know. I was expecting to have to work a lot harder."

"Really?"

"I know, I must have forgotten what an amoral bastard you can be at times."

Yagyuu snorts. "My morals are pretty solid, thank you. But-"

-but they don't seem to matter when Niou's around, he thinks. It's as if Niou's presence short-circuits all thoughts of consequence or guilt. When Niou's around, the only people in the world who matter are the two of them and the things they want, whether that's to defeat an opponent or to swap identifies or to fuck on his parents' sofa.

"-but here you are, morality boy."

"It's not like this has any actual impact on my wife. If she doesn't know, why does it matter?"

"Think she'd see it that way?" Niou's smile is crooked, half-teasing.

It should chill him - it's a veiled threat, really - but he finds that he still can't care. "Why, are you going to tell her, Niou-kun?"

"Nah. Why would I fuck up your marriage?" Niou shrugs. "S'none of my business."

Except that it is, thinks Yagyuu. It's precisely his business. "And after tonight - what then? What if I wanted to keep seeing you?"

"Without leaving your wife?" Niou rolls onto his back. "Ugh, I'd be the other woman. Will you buy me diamonds and furs to keep me sweet?"

"If you earn them."

It was a joke, but Niou's eyes flash with sudden annoyance. "Shit, that's cold. I'm not your whore, Hiroshi."

"And I'm not your danna. You haven't answered my question."

Niou rolls back towards him, and looks distant and unreadable again. "If you want us to keep fucking behind your wife's back, then I'm staying in Yokohama for a while. Just make sure I never meet her, alright?"

"Right." Yagyuu suppresses a shiver at the idea of Niou and Miyumi actually meeting. His wife is smart, and Niou wouldn't be able to resist dropping hints. He wonders, briefly, how on earth he's going to be able to conceal an affair from her, and then he realises that he doesn't even know if he can continue this. "You know, I don't even have your phone number."

Niou raises an eyebrow, and then smirks. "Yeah? Then earn it."

It must be close on midnight before Yagyuu stumbles downstairs again. There's not really anything resembling real food in the house - his parents are obsessive about clearing out perishables before they go away. He's not sure Niou would eat properly anyway. When he returns upstairs, it's with a box of crackers, a couple of glasses and a bottle of whisky. Niou raises an eyebrow at the selection before taking the whisky and squinting at the label.

"This is what you think of as eating these days?"

"No, but there's nothing else and it's a bit late to get anything delivered."

Niou opens the bottle, and sniffs it. "Mmm. Hard liquor on an empty stomach. Just like old times, eh?" He closes the bottle up, and gives Yagyuu a long-suffering look. "C'mon, there must be a conbini somewhere nearby, at least."

There is one that is walkable, though it's a bit of a hike. It has ramen and snack foods and drinks and Yagyuu picks things up and puts them back, unsure how much food he should be getting. Niou buys cigarettes and canned coffee and flirts cheerfully with the shop assistant. Everything feels off-kilter to Yagyuu.

"You know," says Niou as they walk home, "I missed Yokohama. It feels like home."

"Where were you, anyway?"

"Mmm." Niou purses his lips as if thinking, and Yagyuu wonders if he's going to get an answer that contains any truth. "Around. Depends where I could get work. It's not important."

"I see."

There's a pause, then Niou says, "I expected you to call me. I kept expecting it."

"I tried, for years." Yagyuu keeps his voice as level as he can. "You fell off the radar. Nobody knew how to get hold of you."

Niou shrugs. "You weren't trying hard enough, then."

It might be a fair point, thinks Yagyuu. "How did you hear about the wedding, anyway?"

They're outside his parents' house now, but Niou leans against the wall instead of following Yagyuu to the door. "Internet. You weren't hard to keep track of. Yagyuu joins this, Yagyuu sponsors that, Yagyuu achieves X and Y."

"I see." Yagyuu had run searches on Niou's name often enough, but they'd never turned up much that was useful. For someone so distinctive, Niou had been great at maintaining a low profile.

Niou stares at his feet for a moment, and then pulls out his new pack of cigarettes, lighting one with a vaguely theatrical flourish. "How curious are you, really? I could tell you exactly what I did, back then."

That sounded like a trap. "Do I want to know?"

"At first I worked as a host. Got scouted off the street, couldn't think of anything better to do. Then one of my regulars paid me to move into her apartment for a while." Niou glances at Yagyuu, slyly. "That was pretty sweet as a deal, actually. Six months of being an exclusive boyfriend for her earned me a lot of capital."

It might be true. It might not be true. "But now you're a company man?"

Niou shrugs, his eyes narrowed. "Her husband came back from China and wanted me out without too much of a scene. I got a nice office and an expense account, and the job was stupidly easy, so I stuck at it."

Yagyuu leans against the wall next to Niou. "Quite the life. But it turned out well."

"Shit," says Niou, looking at his feet again. "Once upon a time, if I'd spun a line of bullshit like that, you'd have called me on it. Now you'll buy any old story?"

Yagyuu can feel himself flushing a little in irritation. "Once upon a time, I'd have known the truth anyway."

Niou shrugs, and finishes his cigarette, looking like he's mulling over that thought. Eventually he says, "Honestly? Do you remember Tezuka? I hid out at his place for a while."

It takes Yagyuu a moment to place the name, but then he blinks in surprise. "Tennis Tezuka?"

"Yeah." Niou is talking as if to the air now, not really to Yagyuu. "He didn't say no when I said I needed somewhere to stay, and he didn't tell people I was there."

Yagyuu fights down the twinge of jealousy. Niou might not even have slept with the man, after all. He grabs the grocery bag from Niou and unlocks the front door. This sort of conversation shouldn't be taking place outside where his parent's neighbors can hear, and now Niou's done polluting his lungs, it doesn't have to.

Inside, Yagyuu shuffles out of his shoes and is then startled when Niou wraps his arms around Yagyuu from behind.

"I was so fucking furious," Niou breathes against the back of his neck.

Yagyuu bites his tongue on the immediate apology. Niou might have been angry back then, but Yagyuu had been right. Being so obsessed with each other had been one thing in high school, and it was even excusable during university to an extent, but Niou's graduation had been approaching and Yagyuu knew that they couldn't be together once they entered the real, adult world. Parents, coworkers, bosses, even patients: all of them would be watching and judging and disgusted. Needing Niou the way he did was a childish indulgence, a deviance, and it had to stop.

He'd been right, however painful it had been. And now there's Miyumi, and she's beautiful and clever and suitable. She will bear the children he longs for and be charming at social events and organise his world to run smoothly. Yagyuu loves her for herself, but he loves the idea of her almost as much as the reality; a wife.

Niou's clever hands and clever mind and clever mouth, for all their benefits, couldn't provide that.

Yagyuu turns and kisses Niou hungrily, and soon they end up back on the sofa again, and it feels like Niou is trying to leave bruises on Yagyuu's skin again. Yagyuu bites and grips and scrapes his nails down Niou's back in return; if Niou's going to mark him, then Yagyuu will mark Niou just as much.

Afterwards, Niou gets up and starts making the ramen they bought. Yagyuu stays where he is, watching Niou as he moves around the kitchen. It's almost painfully nostalgic, seeing Niou make cheap student food like this. Niou never used to wear much clothing to do this back then, either.

They go back upstairs, and to Yagyuu's surprise Niou eats all his ramen and makes a healthy dent in the onigiri they bought too. Yagyuu had expected him to eat three bites and declare himself full.

"What?" asks Niou, seeing Yagyuu eyeing him carefully.

"You always eat this much?"

"Yeah." Niou looks down at himself, as if catching Yagyuu's thought. "Oh. Don't start. I eat plenty, and motherhood doesn't suit you."

Yagyuu nods, and puts his own ramen bowl on the floor. "Do you want me to leave my wife?"

"What?"

It's actually gratifying to see Niou look thrown off-balance. "Well, do you?"

"I-" Niou blinks, and shakes his head firmly. "What you want is to continue with your idyllic little life, right? I've already said I won't fuck it up."

Yagyuu lies back, folding his hands behind his head. He stares at the ceiling. "Even if my life is a lie?"

"When have I ever objected to lying?"

"It wasn't a lie until you came back."

Niou makes a disbelieving noise, and stretches out next to him. "Fuck off, Hiroshi. I'm not your excuse. If you want to leave her, take responsibility for that yourself."

"If I left her," and Yagyuu can't quite believe he is even discussing the idea, "I have no idea what my future would be like."

"Yeah." He can feel Niou shrug. "I'd call that freedom, but we never did agree about what that word means."

Yagyuu turns on his side, away from Niou. "Your idea of freedom is terrifying."

"More terrifying than fucking your old boyfriend behind your wife's back?"

"Much more."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Niou runs his hand idly along Yagyuu's arm. "Either way, you'll have to go home soon, you know."

"I know." Yagyuu glances at the clock; it's 4am and past the time when the emergency shift he claimed to be working would be finished. He'll have to claim he's sleeping at the hospital. At least he's done that before a few times. "What about you?"

"I have work in a few hours." Niou makes a thoughtful noise. "I've no idea how to even get there from here, though. Any chance you'll go near Shin-Yokohama on your way back?"

It's the flimsiest shred of information Niou could volunteer about his life, but it's way more than he's let slip until now. Yagyuu blinks. "You work there?"

"No, but the shinkansen-" Niou chuckles, and curls his hand around Yagyuu's wrist warningly. "Don't pry. The truth isn't very interesting."

And Niou has always been just fine with lying, thinks Yagyuu. He puts his hand over Niou's. "I'll drop you at a station."

"Sounds good. But first I'm going to take a shower. You can join me, if you want."

They're not teenagers any more, and it's been a long night. Yagyuu kisses Niou for a while under the falling water, but neither of them can quite rise to the occasion. Somehow, it doesn't matter. Niou runs his hands up and down Yagyuu's back, digging his thumbs into Yagyuu's shoulders to make him hiss and whine, biting at the nape of his neck teasingly. Yagyuu kneels so he can kiss Niou's instep, his ankles, his toes, the arches of his feet. Niou makes soft noises of encouragement, then hauls Yagyuu back up for another languid kiss. Eventually the water starts to run tepid, and they hurriedly soap themselves down and rinse off.

It's still cold in the house, and really they should be getting dressed but instead they end up huddling under the blankets again. Niou's hands are icy, and Yagyuu absent-mindedly rubs them between his own. The guilt is starting to kick in now - he just cheated on his wife - and he pokes at the feeling like it's a wound. It's not enough to stop him wanting Niou again, he knows. He'd gladly spend the whole day here under this blanket if he could, talking and kissing and touching. Maybe Niou's right, and he's an amoral bastard.

"I really do have to go to work," says Niou after a while, and there's enough amusement in his voice to snap Yagyuu back to reality.

It's half past 8 when Yagyuu finally gets back to his house, and his wife isn't there; an affectionately-worded note on the table informs him that she has gone to visit a friend of hers in Tokyo and will return home tomorrow.

Yagyuu stares at the note for a while. He won't have to see his wife until tomorrow evening, after work. It's a relief, to be honest. He's not sure he can deal with consequences right now.

He sleeps, and is woken in the mid-afternoon by his cellphone ringing.

"Yo," says Niou. "This is me officially checking you didn't do anything stupid."

"Huh," says Yagyuu, fighting a yawn. "Not since you last saw me, anyway."

"Good." Niou exhales, and it sounds unsteady down the phone. "Fuck though, I'm knackered today. Work's ridiculous. How's the doctoring?"

Yagyuu sits up, muzzily trying to assemble his thoughts. "I've been asleep. No work today."

"Is that so? Alright for some."

"Are you free later?"

Niou laughs, as if startled. "I don't know. What about your wife?"

"My wife's not around."

There's a shocked pause, then Niou says, "Shit. You didn't tell her, did you?"

"I haven't even seen her. She's visiting a friend overnight." Yagyuu scrubs at his face. "Look, I'm not suggesting you come here. I'll pay for a hotel or something."

"I'm exhausted. I need to sleep, not fuck all night again."

"It's not about the-" Yagyuu swallows his first run at the sentence, and starts over. "I really need to see you, please."

Niou makes another shaky, breathy noise. "Alright, how about this: we'll meet later, you can buy me dinner. You can think of it as a date, even. But don't expect me to put out."

Yagyuu allows the guilt to creep in again, as he tries to work out what to wear, dressing for another man in the bedroom he shares with his wife. He pulls on jeans and a shirt and sweater, and then worries he looks too much like he's trying to dress like his former teenage self, and eventually he switches the jeans for smart trousers, smooths down his hair and tries not to catch his own eye in the mirror.

Niou, when he turns up, looks relaxed and casual; he's wearing tight jeans and a concert t-shirt, and his hair is artfully tousled. Yagyuu rather likes the effect. It's reassuring to know that the salaryman image isn't permanent, at least.

They probably make a strange pair, but they always did, and the waitress at the izakaya doesn't pay them any more attention than anyone else.

"So," says Niou, sipping at his coffee. "Two nights in a row, huh."

"Yes. Have you ever been to Fukuoka?"

"Ages ago, yeah." Niou tips his head to one side. "Why?"

Yagyuu shrugs. "It looks pleasant. Green. Inviting. Might be nice to visit."

"Ah. I suppose it might. But, how should I put this. When I asked if you were going to buy me expensive treats to keep me sweet, I was kidding." Niou makes a vague, ambivalent gesture with his free hand. "You have a wife. Go with her, have a nice vacation together."

Yagyuu stares at his own drink. Apparently he's getting rather transparent, these days.

"You're married, and you're staying that way." Niou says it quite flatly, though he won't look Yagyuu in the eye as he does so. "Right now, what you're feeling is panic and guilt, and maybe even some sort of romantic urge to remake your life. It'll pass."

"You don't think I'd leave her for you?"

"I hope not." Niou grins, sharply. "You'd be a fucking moron to do that, come on."

Yagyuu considers this. Niou's right, of course Niou's right, in theory. Yagyuu's being offered the best of both worlds here. To have all the benefits of respectability, and all the thrill of having Niou around the edges of that respectable life. Even Niou's unpredictability, the fact he could probably tear Yagyuu's public lifestyle to shreds if he felt like it, that danger is just part of the excitement.

But that's only the theory. Yagyuu doesn't want a double life like this; he doesn't want to be capable of it. His wife married him in good faith, and even if he can convince himself that this thing with Niou is none of her business, cheating on her is still breaking the vows he made to her. He really doesn't think he could sustain an affair without hating himself. And that's before he starts unpicking what might be going on in Niou's head over all this. He needs to choose - again - which future he actually wants: the golden family portrait he's always visualised as his goal, or the hazy sensual chaos that is Niou.

"You might be worth it."

Niou shrugs. "You'd end up resenting me for it. And you've no idea if I'm worth the risk, frankly. I've changed."

"You think? Well, go on then, indulge me like a good date: tell me about who you are now."

Niou rests his chin on his hand, and sighs. "I work for a big corporation. I push numbers around a spreadsheet. Sometimes they make me go to meetings to point at charts and explain them to other people. I like my job. I'm good at it. I've transferred around a lot, moved wherever I wanted in Japan, and they fucking bent over backwards to make sure I kept working for them and didn't go to a competitor. I make a stupid salary, too. And in the evenings I go back to my apartment and sometimes, sometimes I'm pretty proud of myself."

Yagyuu wasn't sure what he was expecting - more vagueness and lying, probably - but this sounds like it might be the actual truth. It's far more defensive than he feels it needs to be, if so. "It's not a bad thing to be good at your job."

"Yeah, but it is boring." Niou flashes a grin at Yagyuu then. "C'mon, you know I hate being boring."

"Yes, but I thought you said you'd changed."

Niou laughs, and Yagyuu relaxes a little. "Not in every way, I guess."

The meal is decent, and Yagyuu tries to keep the conversation light while they're eating. To his surprise, Niou seems willing to play along; mostly they trade gossip about their old school-friends. Niou orders another coffee as the waitress clears the plates, and when it arrives he yawns, leans back in his seat and gives Yagyuu an assessing look.

"Well," says Yagyuu. "What now?"

"Mm," says Niou. "Just so you know, I really did mean it when I said I needed to sleep tonight."

Yagyuu nods. "You did. But I did need to see you. Yesterday was starting to feel like a dream."

"Yeah." Niou grins, and it's a surprisingly wry expression. He rolls up the sleeve of his t-shirt, and points to the darkening ring of bruises on his upper arm; Yagyuu winces. "Here's my proof it wasn't. Yours must be nearly as bad, from what I remember."

"Probably."

"Mmm. I know I said this already, but I seriously thought you'd resist a bit longer."

"Disappointed?"

"Not even slightly." Niou takes a gulp of his drink, and tugs his sleeve back down. "Anyway, I can't be bothered playing coy. You can come back to my apartment with me. If you want."

Yagyuu blinks in surprise. "Of course I do."

"That's not - I'm not offering sex, you know."

Yagyuu thinks about what is being offered, in that case, and nods slowly. "Can I stay the night?"

"If you don't mind me kicking you out when I leave for work." Niou takes another gulp, and purses his lips. "This isn't going to become a habit, though. You can't just come over whenever your wife is away."

"I won't."

Niou's apartment is out near where Yokohama starts blending into Kawasaki, in a pleasant but rather bland neighbourhood. Yagyuu wanders around the apartment curiously while Niou is in the bathroom; the place feels like it's far too big for just one person. Niou hasn't really finished moving in; there are half-unpacked boxes in the corner of the bedroom and one room feels like Niou hasn't decided what to do with yet; there's a chair and a wardrobe and a stack of CDs in one corner and not much else.

"Why did you move back to Yokohama?" asks Yagyuu, when Niou re-emerges.

Niou rolls his eyes. "Why do you think? After seeing you, I wanted to - well, I wanted to be friends again, at least. And my mother's been nagging me for years to come back here, anyway."

"She told me she didn't know where you were."

"She probably didn't at the time. I'm a terrible son, never call her enough." Niou sighs, and leans heavily against Yagyuu. "I'm going to bed. Are you coming with me? You can sleep on the sofa if you're feeling virtuous."

Yagyuu turns, cups Niou's face in his hands, and kisses him gently. Niou's expression is oddly blank when Yagyuu pulls back. "Bed."

Despite them both stripping off completely before getting in, Niou closes his eyes pointedly and is in fact genuinely asleep quite quickly. Yagyuu had forgotten how much Niou moves around when he's asleep. It's like he's constantly needing to expend energy. Miyumi sleeps relatively quietly, sometimes so much so that Yagyuu's had to lean in to check she's still breathing. He worries for a while that he's going to have a hard time getting to sleep with Niou twitching and shifting beside him, but then he's startled awake by a regular, shrill beeping.

"Nnnh," mutters Niou, fumbling to turn off the alarm, "Too early."

Yagyuu makes a noncommittal sound into Niou's hair, then pulls Niou closer, sliding his leg between Niou's thighs. Niou mutters about bad habits, but he's as eager as Yagyuu once they start kissing. Sex is gentler and far less vicious this time around; Yagyuu bites his tongue on soft words, hoping the darkness hides his feelings enough.

Niou makes coffee, afterwards, and he smiles contentedly at Yagyuu as they sit - still naked - on Niou's sofa together. Yagyuu pulls one of Niou's feet up onto his lap and strokes the arch of it with the back of his finger, along the line of the plantar artery. There are two marks - lentigines, really - that line up with the artery, and running his finger between the two is oddly pleasing.

Niou flexes his toes in response, and then he shifts so that he can put both feet up in Yagyuu's lap. "I'd forgotten about your foot thing," he says, amused. "What is the fascination?"

"I'm not sure," admits Yagyuu, raising Niou's left foot so he can kiss it. Miyumi's haven't ever intrigued him the same way, but somehow Yagyuu often found himself petting Niou's feet back when they were together. Maybe it's because Niou seems to enjoy it; maybe it's just that Niou's feet are nicer. Yagyuu can't tell; he just knows there's something satisfying about it. He nips gently at the toes, then closes his lips around the largest one for a moment.

"Mm, that's good. Maybe I should try and make myself come while you're doing that," Niou says, his eyes dark. Yagyuu shivers at the thought; he suspects he'll be thinking about it for days. Niou grins, then, and leans back invitingly, as if tempted to demonstrate right now. "Really? What if I sucked you off while you sucked my toes, would that do it for you?"

"Probably." Yagyuu digs his thumb into the heel of Niou's other foot. "Unless you want us both to be very late for work, you may want to avoid teasing me too much."

Niou snorts, but then glances at the clock and makes a face. "Ah, yeah. Well, there'll be other times."

Niou puts on another bland dark suit and tie for work, while Yagyuu assesses his own appearance and borrows a tie; thankfully he has a spare labcoat in his office and that looks respectable enough to get him through most of the day.

He avoids thinking about anything other than work, clears a lot of his built-up paperwork in the down-time between consultations, and leaves for home at a respectable hour.

"Welcome back," says Miyumi cheerfully over her shoulder, as he enters the kitchen. "I missed you. Did you have a good day?"

"I missed you too," he says, feeling a surge of guilt-infused affection for her. She's making dinner, in their spotless kitchen that she's filled with colourful cookware and quirkily-patterned crockery. It's the guilt, he knows, but he's struck by just how perfect a wife she really is - she had work today too, but she's cooking for him like a housewife. He crosses the kitchen and presses a kiss to the back of her head. "What's for dinner?"

Miyumi smiles, and lifts the spoon up to him to taste. "It's a casserole."

He takes a sip, and smiles at her, and then retreats back into their living room. Wallowing a bit in panicked shame is tempting - she deserves a better husband than he's been to her over the past couple of days - but on the other hand, she also doesn't deserve for him to just abandon her. He takes a deep breath, and sits down to think for a while. Everything still feels like it's off-balance in his head.

"It's ready!"

He enquires after her friend, as they eat dinner. Apparently there was some family crisis to do with her friend's niece, and her friend needed distracting from that and her terrible love life so Miyumi and a few other girls went out for the night in Tokyo.

"Two guys made me take their phone numbers," she giggles, "even though I showed them my wedding ring and told them I wasn't interested."

"Well, you're very beautiful. Can't blame for them for wanting to try their luck," says Yagyuu, mostly on auto-pilot.

"Ah, but they have no luck with me," she says, still laughing. "Reika-chan made me show the girls a picture of our wedding, and now they're all very envious of how handsome my husband is."

He smiles at her. In all honesty, he doesn't think he's actually much more than average in looks, especially not compared to some effortlessly attractive men he's known; the trick is that he is well-presented and well-groomed enough that people mistake him for being good-looking. It's worked reliably for him ever since middle school. And if the trick works on Miyumi's friends, well, that's fine too.

"What did you do last night?"

"Well, I was going to sit around and pine for you, but instead I went out with a friend," he says, because the fewer lies he can tell the better. "We went to an izakaya, then back to see his new apartment for a bit."

"Oh." To his surprise, she seems intrigued by this. "Which friend?"

"An old schoolfriend from Rikkai who moved back here recently. Niou-kun. He came to our wedding, but you might not remember him."

She hmms, then shakes her head dismissively. "Maybe you didn't introduce us."

"Probably not. I was a bit distracted that day," he says wryly, and she smiles. He toys with his glass, trying to think. "We lived together at university," he says, because she seems to expect him to continue, and then her eyes widen as if she's connecting thoughts.

"Oh, him," she says. "Kirihara-kun pointed him out to me, when I asked who else had been on the team, but I didn't get a chance to say hello. He was your best friend, right?"

Yagyuu fights down the spark of concern; even at his most thoughtless, Kirihara wouldn't have said anything that might cause trouble, not on Yagyuu's wedding day. "Well, I suppose so, yes. Not that we'd spoken in a while."

"Oh, that's a shame. It's good that you're back in touch. It'd be nice for you to have a proper best friend again."

She's sincere, and he's not sure why. "Is that so?"

"Yes." She looks down at her hands. "I like Yukimura-kun, but he's not around very often, and otherwise you only ever really go out with your work colleagues. And I know there are things men can't talk to their wives about."

Yagyuu nods, slowly. The world is shifting again; it's like she's giving him permission to run off to Niou's regularly. But he can't quite take this bait whole, tempting as it is; she'd want to meet anyone he framed as a best friend. And Niou's only actual demand has been that he not have to meet Miyumi. "I don't think Niou-kun and I have that much in common any more, really. But we might get coffee again soon, if our schedules mesh."

She seems satisfied with that, and they finish dinner. She asks about his upcoming schedule, and reminds him to arrange vacation time for next month, and it's all so very domestic and normal that he again has the sensation that everything that happened with Niou was a fever dream. He excuses himself and goes to the bathroom, strips off, and stares at himself in the mirror properly for the first time in nearly two days.

Niou was right about this being sufficient evidence of reality; little bruises have blossomed on his hips and arms, and there are thin scratches and tiny crescent-shaped nail marks too. The skin over his clavicle has faint marks that he puzzles over, before concluding they're from Niou's teeth. Most of his neck is unscathed, which he assumes is down to Niou feeling slightly merciful, but there is absolutely no way he can let his wife see him naked or even shirtless until most of this has faded. He traces the shape of one contusion on his wrist, just above the ulnar styloid, wondering if there is any excuse he could give that would explain everything away as innocent. He's pretty sure there isn't. He re-dresses, and then rests his head against the cool glass for a moment.

The rest of the evening actually passes without incident; he feigns fascination with a mystery he's reading, and he resolutely ignores Miyumi's inviting expression as she tells him she's going to bed. He sneaks into their bedroom, much later, and changes into his pyjamas in the dark before curling around his peaceful wife.

He lies awake for a long time. Part of his brain is screaming at him that the choice is obvious: never again. Cut off contact with Niou, devote himself to this beautiful, respectable, attentive woman, live life the way he'd always wanted and do the right thing.

The other, slightly louder part is screaming at him to man the fuck up and admit to himself that he's still in love with Niou, despite everything that is wrong about that as a situation and a lifestyle and a future.

The next morning, over breakfast, he stares at Miyumi and asks, carefully, "are you happy?"

She blinks. "What do you mean?"

"With us. With me. Being married."

"I-" she frowns. "You wouldn't ask that if you were happy. What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he lies. "I feel restless, I think. I've been thinking about our plans, and if we rushed into everything too fast."

She stares at him. "Hiroshi, you always rush. I'm the one who always tells you that we should wait, take our time. If I let you have your way I'd have been impregnated on our wedding night."

That forces out a chuckle; she's right, he wanted to start trying for children right away, and she'd tartly informed him that she had her own career plans to accomplish before she started breeding. "Do you think I'm getting in the way of what you want from life?"

"Until this conversation, I thought we wanted the same things from life." She stands up, and then stares at him again. "What the hell did you and your friend talk about, to make you suddenly say this sort of thing?"

"It's nothing to do with him." Except, of course, that it is, and Yagyuu wonders if his wife can tell he's lying.

"If you're going to have a mid-life crisis on me, I suppose it's good that you're giving me warning. What is it you want to do, run off with some little nurse, buy a fast car and go live above a nightclub somewhere?"

"No. Of course not."

She picks up their plates, and goes over to the kitchen. There's an uncomfortable silence.

"I didn't want to pick a fight," he says, quietly.

"I know." She heaves out an exasperated sigh. "It struck a nerve, that's all. I never imagined you'd suddenly go all unsteady on me. What's wrong, really?"

Niou lets him in, when he hammers on the front door of the apartment that evening.

"Geez, you're so clingy," he says, but he's grinning nonetheless. Yagyuu kisses him, determinedly, until Niou laughs and pushes him away. "Really clingy. Wife gone away again?"

"Yes," says Yagyuu. Miyumi is going to stay with her friend in Tokyo for a few days and commute into her work from there, to give Yagyuu some space to 'clear his head'. Despite it seeming like the obvious question to him, she doesn't seem to worry that Yagyuu is genuinely thinking of leaving her; she hasn't even seriously asked if there's anyone else. Yagyuu doesn't think it's occurred to her that there might be.

"Didn't I say you couldn't just come over when you wanted?"

"Fine. I won't. Come stay at my parents' place with me instead."

Niou laughs. "On second thoughts, here's better. I'm about to make food; I'm guessing you'll want some?"

Inside, Niou does in fact cook Yagyuu dinner; he good-naturedly rebuffs Yagyuu's offers of help until Yagyuu finds himself sitting on Niou's sofa with a bottle of barley tea, bemusedly watching Niou efficiently make two bowls of oyakodon. It turns out to be pretty good, certainly better than Yagyuu would expect from his previous experience of Niou's cooking, although Niou just snorts at the compliment.

He offers to wash up, but Niou pushes him away from the sink firmly.

"Seriously, you're a guest here, stop it. I'll only be a minute."

Yagyuu mulls that phrasing over, sitting back on the sofa, and then - after a while - he says carefully, "Can I stay here tonight?"

Niou shrugs, his back still to Yagyuu. "I guess. Why did your wife go away this time?"

"She thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis."

Niou gives Yagyuu an incredulous look over his shoulder. "Shit, what did you say to her?"

"Nothing, really." Niou's expression only gets more disbelieving, and Yagyuu sighs. "Alright, I asked if she thought we'd gotten married too fast, and she flew off the handle."

Niou makes an unimpressed noise, and returns his attention to the sink. "You married her because you were in love. I remember asking."

"I do love her. But I'm not sure I love her as much as I should."

Niou doesn't look up from the sink. "How much would be enough?"

"Enough that I wouldn't be relieved she's gone away for a few days, because I can be here instead."

Niou pauses for a moment, as if thinking, then starts piling the clean dishes up on the drainer. "You think you need to want to be around someone all the time for it to be love? You really are clingy these days."

"Only around you."

Niou turns, and gives him an assessing, distant look. "Don't make this about me, I warned you before."

"It isn't. Or, it is, but only by comparison." Yagyuu picks at the label on his bottle, his fingers restless. "I think Miyumi married me for the same reason I married her; it was a safe option, a nice neat family unit. Not because we couldn't live without each other. Not for passion."

Niou makes a thoughtful noise, and comes to sit down next to Yagyuu, though he leaves a definite gap between them. "Well, you chose that. You could have held out for someone who made you passionate."

"I know."

Niou leans back, deceptively unconcerned. "Passion's not all roses and sweetness, anyway." He pushes up the sleeve closest to Yagyuu, and it almost looks like a thoughtless motion, except for the dark ring of contusions that it reveals.

Yagyuu stares at them, and then he leans down and kisses Niou's arm, gently, on the mark that looks like a thumbprint. Niou doesn't move for a moment, and Yagyuu presses his lips to the bruise again, harder.

"Fuck," says Niou, tipping his head back in a way that makes Yagyuu pretty certain it's good, and Yagyuu licks and bites at the bruise-marks until Niou hisses and yanks his head up. "Enough, fuck, enough."

Yagyuu leans in and kisses Niou, who bites at his lip urgently as Yagyuu fumbles Niou's zipper open and slides his hand into Niou's pants, squeezing a little harder than he normally would and relishing the way Niou gasps in response. He scrambles off the sofa and kneels between Niou's legs, which allows him to scrape his teeth over the tip of Niou's cock and hear him hiss.

"Guh," Niou voices, and hauls Yagyuu's head up again. "Bed. Naked. If you're going to suck me off, it's going to be fucking mutual."

Things turn a little gentler once they're actually in Niou's bed; Yagyuu's a little less willing to cause Niou actual pain when there's a chance it might make Niou bite down on him in response. It's still kind of messy and angry; he digs his nails hard into Niou's ass and nearly chokes himself from trying to take Niou's cock too deeply into his throat. Niou, for his part, makes throaty eager noises that hum along Yagyuu's nerves as he wraps his mouth around him; it drives Yagyuu to the brink with almost distressing speed.

Niou pulls away at Yagyuu's muffled warning, and holds the base of his cock tightly. "Nnh," he manages despite Yagyuu pressing his tongue hard against the underside of his cock, "want a fuck later. You going to be up to both?"

Yagyuu, his head swimming, manages to express the sentiment that he might actually kill Niou if he doesn't get off in the next minute or so. His orgasm robs him of much coherent thought aside from that of making Niou come too; he swallows around Niou's cock until Niou gasps and shoves him away frantically, moments before coming onto the sheets next to Yagyuu's face.

They lie there, breathlessly, for a few moments, before Niou pushes himself up on one elbow and stares at Yagyuu, his mouth drawn into a little moue of discontentment that Yagyuu remembers very clearly.

"What?" Yagyuu says, after a few silent moments, as he reaches for the tissues on the side table and starts trying to clean up some of the mess.

Niou's pout pulls to one side, wryly. "Passion. What you mean, really, is lust. And it doesn't last, not really. You can't build a relationship on just sex."

Yagyuu sighs, and sits up. "Maybe you're right."

Niou stares at him for a moment longer, and then he abruptly gets out of bed, hauling the top sheet with him. "Coffee. C'mon."

Yagyuu takes the time to finish cleaning up a bit, then follows him into the main room, where Niou sets about making coffee with the sheet draped loosely around his waist. Yagyuu resumes his place on Niou's sofa, feeling a little like he's ended up in the wrong version of his life.

"Are you really going to leave her?" Niou asks, almost casually.

"What's the alternative?" Yagyuu reaches down for his glasses, discarded by the side of the sofa. "She got angry earlier because she didn't think I'd 'go unsteady on her', that's what she said. Imagine if she knew I'd been screwing you behind her back, that I ran to do it again as soon as she'd walked out the door."

"Why would you tell her?" Niou puts the coffees on the table in front of Yagyuu, and slumps down next to him. "I'm serious. Leave me out of the equation. Is there any way she'd know if you just kept your mouth closed?"

Yagyuu glances down at himself; he's still liberally adorned with contusions and welts and scratch-marks. Niou follows the eye movement, and snorts in resigned acknowledgement.

"Alright. Assuming I wasn't a fucking sadist from now on. She comes home, you make nice, your little fantasy family life continues on. Why ruin it?"

"And sneak off here to see you once or twice a month." Yagyuu leans back against the back of the sofa. "Would you be happy with that?"

"I said to leave me out of the equation. Don't try to guess what I want here." Niou uncurls slightly, and then pulls the sheet from underneath him to drape it across both of them. "If you can have me and her, isn't that better?"

Yagyuu reaches down, and pulls Niou's feet up into his lap. "Your father used to run off with his mistress for 'business trips' five times a year, every year. Your mother would cry, on her own, downstairs, when she thought none of you could hear her. Your father had no idea she knew."

"We all knew. My father's acting was shit."

"Why do you think I'd be any better?" Yagyuu strokes Niou's feet, gently. "Your father is charming and kind and I detested him for what he did to your mother. I won't be him."

Niou shrugs. "Still. Would you be leaving her if I wasn't here?"

"I don't know. Probably not soon. Maybe I'd hang on until we had kids. But then I wouldn't want to leave them."

"Hm. So, while we're on the subject, hey, I have a daughter."

Yagyuu blinks, and stares at Niou, who reaches out for his coffee, nonchalantly. "What?"

"A daughter." Niou blows across the top of his cup. "In Kobe. Aika. She's five years old."

"Seriously?"

"Yep." Niou sips at his coffee, his expression still offhand. "I'd been with her mother a few months, then after we broke up it turned out she'd gotten pregnant." Niou sniffs, then smiles. "Mitsuki turned me down, incidentally; whatever you might think of me, I did offer to marry her when she found out."

Yagyuu can't imagine Niou having a child. He can't imagine Niou having a girlfriend, actually. "Even if she wouldn't marry you, why aren't you living closer to her?"

"I was for a while. But there's a step-father now, and having me still around makes both him and Mitsuki a bit twitchy, so I moved away a couple of years ago. There's a direct shinkansen from here, or I'd have been less keen to move back. I visit, anyway; Aika knows who I am and that I give a crap about her." Niou sips again at his coffee. "Frankly, I'd be a terrible parent. This way works out fine."

Yagyuu picks up his own coffee, and takes a gulp. "Why are you telling me about her?"

Niou stares into his cup. "Because it's important. Life isn't some fucking step by step checklist you can go through to get a perfect happy ending. I didn't mean to have Aika; some people try for years and don't have kids. And sometimes kids aren't worth the staying-together bit. Mitsuki's okay but we'd have stabbed each other within a year." He glances at Yayguu, and sips again before setting his cup down. "Look. If you leave your wife, what exactly do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

Niou snorts. "Bullshit. You'll rock up on my doorstep with a suitcase and expect to move in."

Yagyuu drains his coffee. "And you'll tell me to fuck off."

"Probably. I'd mean it, too." Niou shifts closer, and leans against Yagyuu's side. "I'm not a replacement. You can't walk out of your life and have me be some kind of sanctuary."

Yagyuu takes the cup out of Niou's hand, and puts his arm around Niou's shoulders. "You'd be a terrible replacement. I doubt you'd look half as good in a summer festival yukata."

"Yeah? Try me sometime."

Yagyuu turns to kiss Niou on the side of the mouth. "What do you actually want?" he asks, as he slides his mouth along Niou's jaw, towards his ear. "If I leave her, what relationship do you want from me?"

Niou tips his head back, and Yagyuu willingly kisses down his throat. "I don't."

Yagyuu draws back, not certain if Niou means that. "Not even this?"

Niou reaches out and pulls Yagyuu's head back towards his neck. "This isn't - nn, slower - a relationship."

"Will you still want this?" Yagyuu moves, straddling Niou, placing open-mouthed kisses on Niou's shoulder as he settles himself on Niou's lap. "Or do you only want me if I don't belong to you?"

Niou smirks, smoothing his hands down Yagyuu's spine and pulling him close. "Right now, I don't give a shit about any kind of belonging."

Afterwards, in Niou's bed, Niou drapes his arm across Yagyuu and sighs heavily.

"Regrets?" murmurs Yagyuu. it wouldn't be very characteristic of Niou to admit regret, but then, Niou is never easy to predict.

"Not sure." Niou turns, and presses his lips into Yagyuu's shoulder. "How about a deal? You stay in your life, I stay in mine, we have our nice little meetups and fuck each other's brains out regularly. Straightforward. Easy. Okay?"

"You really think you'd be happy with that?"

Niou shrugs. "Sure. Why not? Better than trying to deal with your fucking insecurities about what other people think."

"It's not a matter of-"

"Yeah, yeah. It is about that, to you." Niou's arm tightens around him. "Your career, your family, your patients. Like you can't prove yourself to them unless you have a spotless background."

Yagyuu puts his hand on top of Niou's. He still believes what Niou's accusing him of believing; it's too easy for people to distrust anyone in his profession with a family situation that's 'disreputable'. Doctors have to be pristine, unblemished, respectable. But right here, with Niou, that thought seems trivial, insignificant. "How would your boss react if he knew you had a child without being married? If he knew you slept with men?"

"She would say it was none of her business. It doesn't affect my work, that's all she cares about." Niou sounds faintly sleepy. "But why would I tell her? She can assume what she wants."

"And she never asks about your family?"

"No."

Yagyuu squeezes Niou's hand. "I get asked all the time. 'Are you married? Do you have children yet?'"

Niou's lips are against Yagyuu's shoulder again. "So don't leave her. Idiot."

Yagyuu turns, and catches Niou's mouth with his, and kisses him softly. Words aren't working; Niou won't listen and Yagyuu's tired of arguing. Something in his life has to change - has changed, already, really.

"Tell me about Aika," he says, instead. "What's she like?"

Niou smiles, looking a bit embarrassed. "A brat. Slapped some boy in her class for giving her a flower last week."

"Really?"

"Mitsuki had to apologise to the kid's mother, but of course she was trying not to laugh." Niou stretched. "Aika's an okay kid mostly. Greedy. Funny. Y'know, the normal things."

"You love her."

"Well yeah, it turns out I'm not a completely heartless bastard, who'd have thought."

"I always wanted children." Yagyuu says, quietly. "Mayumi doesn't, yet."

"Well, it's her womb." Niou shrugs. "If it was that important to you, you'd have married someone who was as keen on them as you. Or sabotaged her birth control."

Yagyuu snorts. "I had to give medical evidence once at a trial about that, for one of my patients. The judge ruled in favour of the guy, because he thought if she really didn't want a child she'd have insisted on hormone control too. Even though I confirmed that they'd interact badly with the medications I'd prescribed her."

"Shit."

"She left him, obviously. Dumped the child on his parents and ran off." Yagyuu threads his fingers between Niou's. "I want kids; I don't want them that badly."

"Hmm." Niou wriggles so he's pressed flush against Yagyuu's side, and yawns. "You do stuff like that often? Give evidence, I mean."

"It happens. Usually I'm just confirming prescriptions I've written. Not much call for haematology expertise otherwise."

Niou nods, and then rests his chin on Yagyuu's shoulder. "Yeah. Well. I suppose I probably should tell you my other big secret sometime."

Yagyuu considers that, carefully. Too many options. "About what?"

"Faking those tests. They're real."

It takes a while for it to click, and then Yagyuu's eyes go wide in surprise. "The blood tests?"

"Yes." Niou turns slightly to catch Yagyuu's eye, and grins faintly. "Don't beat yourself up about it. I'm pretty good at hiding how tired I am, and coffee gets me through a lot, and it was funny watching you think I'd somehow faked them."

Yagyuu stares at Niou. Niou is still unhealthily pale and the gauntness has been nagging at him, but he'd managed not to connect those with how Niou'd reestablished contact. He can't believe he didn't think about the possibility that Niou might have told the truth for once. "Anemia and exhaustion."

"Mm." Niou stretches against him. "Cause unknown. I have supplements and stuff, but I got sent to you for a reason."

Yagyuu frowned and then pinches Niou on the upper arm, below the ring of fingerprint-shaped bruises. It's not a hard pinch, but he has to test a theory.

"Ow. What's that for?"

"That wouldn't leave a bruise on me. Will it on you?"

"Probably. I bruise easily." Niou leers at him. "Good thing I don't mind, eh, gentleman."

Yagyuu scowls at him. "I'll look over your records tomorrow." It's horrific. This isn't some joke. This is his professional reputation at stake; he dismissed a patient's symptoms without verifying them. "How tired are you, most of the time?"

"On a scale of what? Mildly sleepy to can't-piss-standing? Really tired, okay."

"Are you ever not tired?"

Niou rolls onto his back. "Ah. Remember when I had insomnia in school? How I couldn't sleep at night for weeks, and kept falling asleep in class? I'm as tired as that, most days."

"For how long?"

"Years." Niou's smile curls up at one side. "A couple of years, really. At first I thought it was just work stuff getting to me. You know, you go to work, get home, go to sleep, get up, go back to work. And on days off you catch up on sleep a bit and don't go out because it's too much hassle. And then I realised it'd been about a year where I'd done fuck all except work, sleep and haul myself to Kobe to visit Aika once a month. And even then I was too fucking tired to do much except sit on Mitsuki's couch."

Yagyuu winces. "Two years. You're taking supplements now, though."

"Yeah, for most of this year. That and caffeine keeps me pretty functional." Niou reaches over him, and pulls open the drawer of the beside table. "Here."

Iron supplements, the type Yagyuu's prescribed often enough. A pretty high dosage, too, for that long a prescription. Yagyuu pokes through the packets for a moment before closing the drawer, out of a vestigial urge to verify that Niou hasn't faked this too. It's still possible he managed to charm the prescription out of someone else, but it seems like more effort than it'd be worth just to give Yagyuu a hard time. "You know, if you're constantly mainlining coffee, these won't be as effective."

Niou rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. It's not an either-or for me, thanks."

Yagyuu nods, and tries to remember what he read of Niou's notes. There was a lot of information that translated to 'we tested for this and it came up negative'. He'd dismissed most of the details when he thought Niou had faked them, infuriatingly. "Come in for another appointment. I'll make time."

"Sure that's legit? Fucking your patient, and all."

"No, it's really not." Yagyuu takes Niou's hand, and turns it palm-upwards. He runs a finger up Niou's wrist, tracing the radial artery until it dives too low for visibility where it becomes the palmar arch. "But I hardly think that'll stop either of us."

"Hn."

Yagyuu lifts Niou's wrist and kisses it, softly. It's barely past ten, but- "Should I let you sleep now?"

Niou regards him for a moment, as if deciding on his response, then his shoulders go slack as if he's giving in. "I'd tell you to fuck off, but actually, yes, sleep would be good. Or more coffee. But I'm guessing you'll choose sleep."

Observing Niou's nighttime rituals gives him that weird alternate-life sensation again. Niou returns from the bathroom with a glass of water, then swallows two of his prescribed tablets along with a third that Yagyuu quietly makes a note to look up at some point; he thinks it's an anti-nausea medication, but Niou neither explains nor tries to hide it, so it's likely not something he needs to worry about too much. Yagyuu is told to either use Niou's toothbrush or to use the spare in the cabinet, whichever he wants.

Niou is already asleep by the time Yagyuu finishes in the bathroom, sprawled in a twitchy heap of limbs across approximately three-quarters of the bed. Yagyuu turns off the light and insinuates himself under the blanket next to Niou, staring into space for a while.

He calls Niou the next day, at a time he hopes isn't too inconvenient. Niou does answer, at least, and laughs when Yagyuu says he's cleared his last appointment space.

"Shit, if I'd known sleeping with my doctor would bump me up waiting lists so fast, I'd have done it years ago."

"If you hadn't made me waste your last appointment, this wouldn't be necessary."

"Mmm." Niou makes some vague noises in the background for a moment, muffled as if his hand is over the receiver. "Right, I'll be there."

"I can drive you home afterwards."

There's a pause. "To mine or yours? Actually, either way, no, I don't need you mothering me all evening."

"No mothering. It's just a lift." Not that Yagyuu isn't tempted, but it's not an option he can pursue right now. "I'm going to go see Miyumi later, your place is on the way to Tokyo."

"Oh." There's another pause. "Well. Maybe. See you later. Gotta run."

Niou doesn't turn up. Yagyuu waits half an hour, then calls Niou's phone. It goes straight to voice-mail, as if it's lacking signal or as if it's been turned off entirely. Yagyuu waits another half an hour, flipping unproductively through correspondence, until his assistant peers around the door to politely inform him that he is going home even if Yagyuu isn't yet.

Yagyuu leaves an acidly-phrased message on Niou's voicemail, pencils in a morning appointment in a couple of weeks, and gives up for the evening.

Miyumi meets him in a quiet bar in Tokyo later on. She smiles, warily, at him as they order drinks, and then she takes out her purse and pays for them both, waving his hand away.

"So, how's work?" she asks, too brightly, when they sit down.

He stares at his drink. It's been a pretty appalling day, even discounting Niou's absence. But she asked. "One patient is reacting badly to her medication, and I had to tell the mother of a five-year-old boy that he has haemophilia. And then I spent some time on the leukemia ward talking to terminal patients before I returned to wait for a patient who didn't bother to turn up."

"Oh."

"And yours?"

"It was alright." Miyumi turns her glass, centreing it on the napkin. "I wrote some advertisement copy that impressed our head of sales."

"That's good. I hope Reika-chan doesn't mind you staying with her?"

"Well." She twists her glass again. "Hiroshi, are you here to ask me to come home?"

"I'm not." Yagyuu risks a look at her face; it's impassive, as if it's the answer she expected. "I'm sorry."

She nods, a small but firm gesture. "So why am I here, then?"

"Because I want you to leave me."

He doesn't really think about the phrasing until he's said it, and then he realises it's true. He doesn't want to have to leave her, he wants her to do the walking-out. It's a coward's phrasing. And she's smart enough to pick up on it, with all the implications.

She doesn't throw her drink at him, like he half-expects. Instead she just peers at him, intently. "Who is she?"

"There's no she." Yagyuu has been debating to himself all day about whether he should admit the truth, and now he finds it's sticking in his throat. He wishes Niou hadn't done a disappearing act. He could have done without the sense that he's plunging into a land of complete unknowns and half-truths and unreliability.

Miyumi twists her drink on its coaster again. Neither of them have even taken a sip yet, Yagyuu realises. "I see."

He doesn't quite know what to say. "What do you want?"

"I want the truth." She looks tired, rather than angry. "Everything was fine until the other day, and now you suddenly want our marriage to end."

"I-"

"I don't know how to fight for you when I don't understand why you're doing this." She picks up her drink, and tilts it as if thoughtful. "Can't you do me the decency of telling me what I'm competing with?"

He bites on the inside of his cheek, and then he unbuttons his left sleeve and rolls it up to the elbow; the bruises around his wrist are a painful-looking yellowed purple, and there's another large bruise further up on his inner arm. He holds up his arm to show them to Miyumi. "This is from the other day. You thought I was at the hospital overnight. I wasn't."

"My god, Hiroshi." She stares at the marks, her expression horrified. "Were you attacked?"

He rolls down his sleeve again. "No. They're from the man I've been sleeping with behind your back."

This time, she throws her drink at him.

Mindful of Niou's snide remark about showing up on his doorstep with a suitcase, Yagyuu checks into a hotel in central Yokohama that evening. It's expensive, for what it is, but he can't bear the idea of sharing a bathroom with strangers and it's too late to search around for anything cheaper.

"Come stay with me," says Yukimura, immediately, when Yagyuu calls him the next day. "My sofa isn't as nice as your guest room, but it's yours."

"Ah, you're very kind." Perhaps Yukimura forgets that even central Tokyo doesn't make a very convenient location to commute from for Yagyuu's hospital. "Maybe this weekend."

"That's not an offer," says Yukimura sternly. "It's a command, as your old captain. Get your ass up here and explain."

Yagyuu blinks. "Ah, Yukimura-kun-"

"No arguments. You come up here tomorrow."

Yagyuu assents, and spends the rest of his day dealing with patients diligently, and doesn't call Niou until he's alone in his little hotel room again after dinner that evening. He's rather surprised when Niou actually picks up.

"Yo."

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Shit. I asked my assistant to cancel it. I bet she forgot." Niou's voice is threaded with mild apology, not very convincingly. "It got busy."

Yagyuu grits his teeth. "It was extremely inconvenient."

"I'll reschedule." Niou yawns down the phone at him, obnoxiously loud. "Is that all you wanted?"

"I told Miyumi I'd been cheating on her."

There's a silence, and then Niou makes a noise as if he's swallowing his tongue. "Fuck. You are an idiot after all. How did she take it?"

"I'll be at Yukimura's apartment from tomorrow. If you don't hear from me, he's decided I don't deserve to go on living."

"Where are you now? A hotel?"

"I am." Yagyuu stares at his suitcase, open but not particularly unpacked. He has enough clothing to last him a week before he needs to launder things; in his car is a box of the few possessions he couldn't bear to leave behind. It feels oddly liberating to be so lightly-burdened. Freedom, Niou called it. Perhaps he was right. "It's adequate."

There's another pause, then the line goes dead.

Yagyuu throws his phone across the room, and then runs an extremely hot bath and sits in it until his hands look shrivelled and his head starts to feel dizzy from the heat. He lies flat on his hotel bed afterwards, the air conditioned yanked down low, listening to the droning hum and letting the white noise drive all thought from his mind.

His phone rings, and he pulls a pillow over his head, ignoring it firmly.

After approximately half an hour of hearing his ringtone stop and start and loop and start again, he crawls off the bed and finds his phone where it fell behind the curtain. "Mm."

"Which hotel is it, you utter shit?"

"Why?"

"Because I've dragged my exhausted ass all the way down to Tsuruyacho and I refuse to drift from hotel to hotel just on the off-chance I'll find you. Where are you?"

Yagyuu lets him in, twenty minutes later.

Niou toes off his shoes, takes one look around the room, snorts, and slings his own rucksack over the back of a chair. "No wonder you're letting Yukimura take you in. Is this everything you own now?"

"Not quite." Yagyuu stares at Niou's bag. "You're staying here tonight?"

"Yep." Niou sits on the bed. "Let's not play the evasive game. We both know you left her because of me, and we both know you're going to blame me when the reality of what you've done hits you."

"I do understand the ramifications of leaving her."

"Like fuck you do." Niou shrugs off his suit jacket and throws it towards the dresser. "I've been back in your life for a grand total of a week at most. I need regular sleep, I have obligations, and I do not have time to be your fucking babysitter as you make a wreck of your entire life."

"I know." Yagyuu catches Niou's trousers as those are flung in his direction; he folds them gently and puts Niou's jacket on top of them. "But you're here."

"Yeah, I'm a fucking saint." Niou pulls off his shirt and drops it to the floor. "It's freezing. Get in."

Yagyuu obliges. Niou curls around him, his feet and hands icy-cold. "Don't forget your pills," Yagyuu murmurs as Niou closes his eyes contentedly, and Niou snorts into his neck.

"Took 'em earlier. Was about to go to sleep when you called."

Yagyuu tries not to flinch; it was barely mid-evening when he'd phoned. "That early?"

Niou lifts his head. He looks rather dreadful, thinks Yagyuu, exhausted and haggard. "I told you. My life is busy enough. I really could have done without you having some kind of goddamned breakdown on me, seriously."

"I know." Yagyuu puts his hand on the back of Niou's head, and nudges him to lie back down. "I'm glad you're here, though."

Niou makes a grumpy sound into Yagyuu's shoulder, and closes his eyes again.

Yagyuu can't really sleep yet; it's early by his schedule, and Niou keeps twitching against him, in a series of incessant myoclonic jerks that thankfully don't seem to interfere with his sleep. There's so much Yagyuu keeps churning over in his mind: his wife, his job, his patients, his future, his friends, his reputation. If he was at all inclined to panic attacks, he suspects he'd have gone through several by now. He pulls in deep breaths.

Ramifications. Consequences. Complications. He's made his life into a chaotic, shambolic mess, forfeiting his cosy normality in favour of the most unreliable man he's ever known.

Thank god.

He pulls Niou closer to him, and smiles, and sleeps.