A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal. The story "Crash and Burn" was the product of that wish.
This story picks up where "Crash and Burn" left off, and will feature more of Takara and Kiyomine, as well as the resolution of their half of the story. Reiichi and Yoshiya feature in a background role, largely in a family context; there will be one more sequel to this story, in order to tie up their loose ends.
Note: Kiyomine x Takara, with Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.
Break Even: Chapter One
Takara futzed with one corner of the linen napkin balled up in his lap, trying to resist the urge to rock back and forth in his black wicker-backed chair as he stared out across Il Ristorante Concerto, a stuffy ninth-floor Italian bistro he sort of remembered being featured in the Top of the City magazine Reiichi had left on the back of the toilet. It was almost eleven, and the place was basically empty—which made it that much more awkward for him to be sitting alone at a table for two, drumming his fingers and staring past two actual candlesticks at the half-finished meal and heavy black coat Masaya had left behind when he got up to take a phone call. No matter how many times the Kashiwagis dragged him out, he never really got used to places like this, where there was more silverware in one place setting than there were appetizers on the three-page menu, and the chef's name on the cover was followed by a string of former restaurants, tacked onto her last name like advanced degrees.
Takara glanced out the huge black windows at the skyline. He felt like he was in a movie—but not a movie he wanted to be in. One of those awful black-and-white movies that Reiichi liked to watch in the original French, which always seemed to turn on this or that phrase Reiichi insisted the subtitles mistranslated. Or considering the way he stuck out like a sore thumb, even in his itchy collared shirt and jeans with no holes in the knees, maybe it was more like a Lifetime tear-jerker, and he was the Orphan Annie character marrying into money…that thought got weird fast, and Takara shook it away, glancing at Masaya backlit against the window with the phone still pressed to his ear. A spy movie, then, and he was the confidential informant out to dinner with the police commissioner, not realizing his cover had been blown and he was about to be ruthlessly interrogated.
The last version hit a little too close to home, and Takara tensed, nudging his fork—actually, his third fork—into the oily shrimp-infested thing he'd ordered. The whole menu was in Italian, and the only word he'd recognized was ravioli, but when his entrée came covered in prawns it felt like a bait and switch. Just like the bread that wasn't just bread but a focaccia sage loaf, and didn't come with butter but olive oil and vinegar on a slanted dish that reminded Takara of a cruddy old inkstone, dusted with pepper flakes like little ink crusties that turned his appetite off. Like the casual dinner that wasn't casual, because there could only be one thing Masaya had called him out tonight to talk about. The only thing any Kashiwagi seemed to want to talk to him about these days.
Kiyomine.
Kiyomine. Takara mouthed those four syllables to himself. He wasn't sure what he felt anymore when that name came up—something that clenched in the vicinity of his heart and twisted in his guts like the oily Italian something he'd chowed down on mostly to keep his mouth full, waiting for Masaya to go in for the body blow. He wasn't even sure what he was doing here, out to dinner with Masaya of all people, except that all Masaya's requests usually came in the form of demands, and he'd had the feeling if he wasn't ready and waiting by the Souryou curb at 9:45, the dinner invite would have turned into a kidnapping. If he had to be stranded somewhere, dreading the inevitable question that he didn't know how to answer, at least a five-star restaurant was better than a basement. Probably.
His first two weeks living with Reiichi and Okuno had been blissfully Kiyomine free. Takara had stuffed himself on Reiichi's endless supply of new treats and Okuno's perfect milk coffee, scored a record high on his physics test, learned to swear in two new languages, and generally done a killer job of forgetting everything he was trying to forget—his dad, and his silent house that wouldn't be his much longer, and his bed down the hall that was maybe still empty or maybe slowly filling with Kiyomine's castoff junk, a big, messy pile of takeout boxes and dirty laundry and crumpled homework and all the other odds and ends Kiyomine had replaced him with. Takara didn't know because he hadn't asked, hadn't stopped by, hadn't listened to the twenty-four new messages on his cell phone; Kiyomine had started texting instead, so maybe his voicemail was finally full. And for two weeks, everyone had let him get away with that. But by the third week, the Kashiwagis were out in force, poking around the edges of the problem like it was a bruise they were afraid of making worse but couldn't leave alone, either. Really Takara was amazed he hadn't heard from Masaya before now—Reiichi's influence, no doubt. But apparently four weeks was the absolute limit of Masaya's patience.
Speaking of patience…Takara wrinkled his nose and craned his head to catch a glimpse of Masaya, loitering by the swinging kitchen doors now, a little of his nervousness turning into annoyance the longer this went on. The waiter had already stopped by twice to see if Takara needed anything, a sympathetic look on his face like…actually, Takara had no idea what the staff thought was happening here. It was like he'd been stood up while his date was still in the room.
All he wanted was to go home, but there was no way that was going to happen while Masaya was barely a third of the way through his meal, his creamy shellfish pasta looking greasier and lumpier by the second. Takara braced his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hands, not really caring about his manners anymore as he watched Masaya finally stuff the phone into his pocket and head back toward the table. If this was what dinner with Masaya was like, Takara wasn't surprised he never had anybody to drag along to those huge Kashiwagi get-togethers…Masaya might have this whole fork-and-spoon secret handshake down, but he had clearly missed some of the broad strokes.
"My apologies," Masaya said smoothly as he slid back into his chair, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger. "The contractors again…there's been a great deal of trouble over what kind of tile can be used on the new patio. We might have to ship the whole allotment back to Naples."
"It's whatever," Takara muttered, his fork prodding one of the greasy shrimp shipwrecked on his plate. He really hoped Masaya wasn't about to dive back into it; from the second Takara got into the car and resigned himself, reluctantly, to heated leather seats, Masaya had been going on about some construction at the Kashiwagi main house, seeming to forget that though Takara had been to the house plenty, he didn't understand word one about zoning permits and contract laws and historical protections, and honestly had a pretty shaky grasp on where Naples was. Takara had actually been really thankful for the phone call that cut him off—for the first five minutes, anyway.
Probably Masaya had picked this topic because he thought it was something they had in common, and the only other thing they had in common was a Claymore that had to be set off with pinpoint timing. But he couldn't totally swallow the sick feeling that this was some awful lead-in to telling Takara he knew all about his home being sold, and had some opinion about that too. It seemed like Masaya always knew everything that was going on in the lives of all Kashiwagis and Kashiwagi adjacent people, while never missing a day of work and still lowering the crime rate. Takara didn't want to talk about the house thing with anyone, but Masaya was definitely in the bottom two. Really the only person beating him out was…
Masaya cleared his throat and lowered his fork with half a bite of rubbery seafood clinging to the prongs, and the second their eyes met, Takara knew what was coming. He'd had forty-five minutes to prepare for the main event, but somehow he still wasn't ready for this, his hands fisting unconsciously into his napkin like he could make his guts stop wringing if he squeezed tightly enough.
"Fujishima," Masaya began in a soft voice that was so much worse because Takara had never, ever heard him sound like that. "You know, my brother…"
Takara tried to suck in a breath but couldn't get it past the lump in his throat. He knew what came next—maybe not exactly, but in the ballpark anyway, the same words that had been haunting him for the last two weeks. He hasn't been himself—that was how Ayako put it. He must have really screwed up, 'cause he's taking it hard—Tsukasa, for once not jumping down his throat. He seems distant, and he hasn't been home—some voice on the phone he forgot to mark. And Reiichi who always started, I know he hurt you—he got violent and angry and he was wrong. He knows that too. Like he was mad at Kiyomine.
Takara weighed the pros and cons of downing Masaya's entire glass of wine before the cop could stop him. He wasn't mad—all that was long behind him, beaten out into a pillow in Reiichi's borrowed room in the absolute dead of night, when the only sound in the whole dorm seemed to be the blood rushing in his ears.
He cared about Kiyomine more than anything, even now. He knew Aritomo spent a lot of time in their old room, and that Asou dragged Kiyomine out to the basketball courts, and that at least one of Reiichi's weekly business meetings was a cover for seeing Kiyomine. And he was grateful, because he couldn't stand the thought of Kiyomine all alone, sleeping with the lights on, with that same distant expression he had worn when they first met, before all the knockdown-dragouts that had made them…whatever they'd been.
He also couldn't stand the thought of being the one by Kiyomine's side anymore.
Maybe Masaya had caught him staring at the wine, or maybe he just looked as miserable as he felt, wrung out and exhausted before that name even touched the air of the restaurant. Either way, it was obvious Masaya had lost his nerve to ask whatever he'd called Takara out to ask him—his half-finished sentence dead-ended into an offhand comment about Kiyomine's latest test scores, and when the next bite of shellfish slipped off his fork and dove headfirst into the oil and vinegar Masaya seemed to take it as a sign, dropping a stack of bills on the table and hustling them out of the restaurant without even asking for any boxes.
That was the clincher. Masaya was a workaholic who never wasted food—he always asked for boxes, even if all that was left was bread and salad. Takara supposed you couldn't be up in everybody's business all the time without losing out on at least one skill; cooking, in this case. Flustering the unflappable Kashiwagi might have felt like more of a victory if he didn't spend the whole elevator ride to the parking garage with his arms wrapped around his stomach, trying not to puke all over Masaya's wingtips.
Even weirder than Masaya sounding the retreat was what awaited them in the parking garage: Reiichi in a sleek black topcoat and long gloves, leaning casually against Masaya's Beamer as if he'd just appeared out of the cold March night. He waved cheerfully at Takara as the pair stepped out of the elevator, but Takara didn't return the gesture, casting a sideways glance at his would-be kidnapper. Either Masaya was psychic, Reiichi was psychic, or they had been performing the secret Kashiwagi under-the-table SOS texting routine. Takara had caught Reiichi at that once, when they'd been stuck at an incredibly boring retirement party for one of the school board members.
It was almost funny, if it was true. What would Masaya's distress call have been, anyway? SOS I can't get what I want from Fujishima, I need someone sneakier to put the screws to him. SOS I'm about to contribute to the alcohol delinquency of a minor. SOS I think things are about to get emotional. Masaya probably sucked at emotional moments. Kiyomine always had.
Kiyomine. The name was like a knife he drove into himself sometimes, just to measure how deep it went, how much it hurt now. In those first few days, when even Kiyomine's ringtone sounded pissed off, he had changed the Caller ID entry—just one letter, his first initial—so it wouldn't knock the wind out of him every time that name came up on the glowing screen. He'd changed it back just three hours later. Somehow that name packed an extra punch when he had to fill in the other seven letters himself.
"Well, if it isn't my little social climber," Reiichi greeted him with a smile, then turned to admonish his cousin. "Really, Masaya. You should have invited me along. You know how I love Concerto's amuse-bouches."
Takara distinctly remembered Reiichi trash-talking all of Masaya's favorite Italian places after the last time the Kashiwagi brood went out to dinner, though of course he'd have been scandalized to hear Takara call it that—candid critique, that was Reiichi's phrase for things he was kicking the crap out of. But it didn't matter—Masaya had picked up the script, though Takara wasn't sure who they were putting on this performance for, the parking garage deserted at this late hour. Maybe it was just classic Kashiwagi face-saving, keeping everything sloppy and emotional out of sight until they could get behind closed doors.
"Thoughtless of me," Masaya agreed, resting one hand on the lapel of his suit but not quite managing to sound contrite instead of relieved. "The Gragnano con molluschi was outstanding, as always."
It was nothing he hadn't heard before, but for some reason, tonight, Takara couldn't take one more second of listening to Masaya trump up the meal he'd left half of on his plate. He slipped past Reiichi and crawled into the back behind the driver's seat, where he would be impossible for Masaya to look at without breaking a few traffic laws. Hopefully they could keep each other busy arguing about zoning regulations or whatever…but then Reiichi slid into the back too, and there was no surprise in Masaya's eyes, the only thing he could see as the older Kashiwagi dutifully adjusted his mirror and reminded Takara to buckle his seatbelt.
The car started with a soft rumble more like a purr than an engine turning over, and they slid soundlessly out into the frosty night, the icy lights of the city all ringed with haloes beyond the shimmering black windows. Takara stared through his reflection and then caught Reiichi's beside him in the glass as the older boy launched into a story about the hash Asou had made of his and Yoshiya's dinner, seeming not to care whether anyone was really listening—and though Reiichi's voice was lively like always, he couldn't disguise how gentle his eyes were in the dark glass as he stared at Takara's shoulder, waiting for him to turn around. And maybe he was just tired of the whole charade, this great big performance put on so he could save a little face—or maybe he just knew it would never end if he didn't say something. Either way, Takara realized all of a sudden that he was speaking, the words spilling out of him and interrupting Reiichi right in the middle of a sentence.
"…not one of Asou's natural talents, I assure you. You'd think with only one job—"
"That night—Kiyomine, he…" Takara took a breath and held it in his chest for a long moment, wishing that Masaya's car wasn't so top-of-the-line; what he wouldn't give for a little road noise, the grumble of the tires over wet pavement, anything to break the utter silence that followed his bitten-off admission. Reiichi didn't seem to mind being interrupted, though it was pretty rude even by Takara's standards.
"He shouldn't have said or done those things," Reiichi told him, his voice soft again. There was no question of what night they were talking about. Takara heard the whisper of satin on leather, watched through the glass as one of Reiichi's hands slid, palm up, into the space between them—but he didn't take it, didn't even turn around, keeping his eyes fixed on all the lights stranded out there in the darkness, like a hundred ships without harbors, run aground. He couldn't even bring himself to care that Masaya was eavesdropping from the front seat—he just had to get this out, dredge up the words that had been lodged inside of him for four weeks, before one more Kashiwagi looked at him with soft eyes, waiting for an answer to this same question.
"No, it's not that," Takara started, and then backtracked. "I mean, yeah, I was mad at him, he shouldn't have done that…but I know Kiyomine. I know his temper." That moment in the hallway—his head slamming back into the lockers, the shock that went through him staring up into fear and desperation twisted on Kiyomine's face—that was Kiyomine at his worst, but it was still the Kiyomine that Takara recognized, the Kiyomine he would give anything to patch back together. Takara shook his head, watched his reflection denying the same thing. "After that, at the hospital, I went to find him while you and Masaya were talking to the plastic surgeon. He was with Ayako—he didn't even know I was there—and…"
Masaya took a sharp right, like he'd turned the wheel a little too late, and Takara reached up to brace himself against the window, foggy now with his breath. When the car straightened out, he studied the abandoned streets through that one patch of clear glass.
"He said that he loved her, and that as long as she was all right, nothing else mattered. And he meant it," Takara finished, wondering when his voice had dropped to a whisper. Maybe it was a side effect of his eyes tearing up, the landscape of dark buildings blurring as they took an off ramp and left the lights of the city behind. "Kiyomine wants to say sorry," Takara murmured. "He wants to tell me he was wrong, and how much I mean to him, but…" He bit his lip, fighting to keep the tears on his lashes as he turned finally, looking desperately up at Reiichi. "What if I don't believe him?"
"Oh, Fujishima…" Reiichi began, before he gave up on whatever he'd been about to say and just hooked an arm over Takara's shoulder, drawing him into a hug. But in the moment before Reiichi pulled him in, Takara had seen what he needed to—the tiny spark of fear in Reiichi's eyes, proof that he didn't have an answer to that question either.
Masaya was a silent shadow stamped into the haze of the windshield. Takara pressed his face against the black wool of Reiichi's coat and gave in to a hollow smile.
Of course nobody had an answer for him. That would have been too easy.
Thanks for reading. Reviews always welcome.
