a/n: my adolescent years as a clarinetist finally pays off in the most minimal way possible.
It was probably a poor choice on his part. He didn't think about what would happen during the action itself, only what might come after.
Kougami pushes her up against the wall. Dirty bricks covered in paint and rot, harsh words and faded drawings that mark who has been there, and who will never come again. He braces a hand by her head, covering up a drawing of eerily drawn, robotic woman with blank eyes that gazed into forever; he blocks Sybil as he hides both their faces close to each other.
Tsunemori's sucks in her breath and stares just past his ear — she's the only one with a clear view of the alleyway, even as he put their faces close enough that he can almost see golden flecks in her brown eyes. They're not good enough mirrors, to the soul or to the alley, so he has to rely on her to see.
He knows someone is coming.
His instincts are well trained, and in seconds there are hushed voices and hurried footsteps rounding the corner just a few feet from them. They become silent the moment they notice them outside the club, close, too close, the muffled beat of the music working in tandem with his heart — slow, slow, slow, and natural.
Tsunemori's arm encircle him, with one hand sliding around his waist, coming to rest on his hip, and the other pressing his head down and closing the gap between their lips.
She tastes of lemonade flavored candy. Too sweet. Too tart. Absolutely typical of her, but somehow unexpected.
Suddenly, the music is all wrong, and his heart is off tempo; it stumbles, misses several notes, and picks back up way too fast.
The footsteps slow down, leisurely, unsuspicious of her and him, entwined against a dirty backdrop, and Tsunemori has her eyes half closed, but they never waver. She's watching. Her hand leaves his hip, a Dominator brushes his leg, and her eyes take on a vivid, glowing blue hue.
"It's them," she whispers, breaking them apart and shifting away from the wall, closer to him, and he pulls himself from her face, to look over to his left, the path that led away from the club and the streets. He watches the retreating forms of three men, now the confirmed latent criminals they had been tracking.
"Let's go," one of them says, but he's not sure if it's him or her, with her half lidded brown eyes and soft lips, or with his staccato heartbeat running on 4/4 time, mouth numb and tongue tied.
Kougami still hasn't figured out how to untie his tongue hours later, so he settles for typing out his words in a report. There will be significant details he will just happen to forget to include, but the bare bones of the incident will be enough for Gino; anything more will incite him, and Kougami could really do without that.
The room is quiet, but not silent, in a way that grates on his nerves. No one says a word, not even Kagari, who slumps over his tablet with the look of someone truly buried in a mountain of paperwork, but there's soft whining of the radiator that doesn't quite work, a low sporadic noise that speeds up and down and keeps catching his attention.
There is still a tingling sensation on his lips, and that too makes things uncomfortable, in either looking anywhere in Tsunemori's direction, or in feeling half his face. To his left, Masaoka gives off a sense of suspicion, eyes darting just enough to observe him, and Kougami knows he's acting odd, too twitchy and irritable so early in the morning.
Maybe he just needs a cigarette.
He ditches his unfinished report to leave the office and walk up to the balcony, the closest place of fresh air he can get, a taste of freedom he used to have. It's still dark, the automated street lamps are still activated and he can see just the sky turn a tinge of blue-ish orange in the east. He lights up, a takes a deep breath of smoke.
"Kougami-san?"
He almost chokes on that breath.
Almost.
"Inspector," he says to the voice behind him, after carefully breathing the smoke back out, trying to keep the rhythm in his chest steady. One, two, three, four. Repeat. Tsunemori steps up to his side on the fifth beat.
"Are you alright?" Her gaze drifts to his shoulder, still bandaged underneath his clothes, tender despite the way he pretends it isn't.
"Yeah, it's fine. My shoulder will heal fully in a few days, assuming I don't end up get tackled into another wall."
Tsunemori's smile is brief and fleeting, apologetic in nature but amused none the less.
"That's good," she says, "But not what I was talking about, exactly."
"Then what's up?"
"It's just a feeling I have," she says, leaning a little over the edge of the railing to look at his face proper. "But... are you feeling alright in regards to me?"
"No," he says, too quickly, then frowns. "No. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong."
"I see." Tsunemori doesn't see, she tilts her head but keeps her face impassive. She's getting much better at profiling, at understanding, and at keeping her expression as clear as her hue. It's been a collective effort, the tutelage of himself, Masaoka, and Professor Saiga, but she's an exemplary student. Unfortunately, this works in her favor at the moment, not his.
"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable," she says.
"Yes, I know." Which was why he had invaded her space, and pressed her against the wall. If anyone had glanced their way, social conditioning would have made them look away just as quickly, and dismiss them as a threat. Crossing a line that he hadn't realized they were both precariously close to was not part of the plan.
"My apologies." She leans back, away from the edge, and brushes her hair aside. "I had thought that was your reasoning last night, and I was simply trying to make it appear more believable. If I made you uncomfortable, that was not my attention. Please forgive me."
"Apologising to an Enforcer yet again," he says, glancing sideways to watch her. One, two, three, four. Steady like a beating drum. "Such a strange Inspector."
She smiles, just as the sun breaks the horizon, casting the entire balcony in a warm glow. Her eyes shine, brown, gold, and red.
He misses a beat.
No one tells him where he went wrong.
His voice is too flat, but the alternative is too sharp, because he can never quite reach that pitch perfect middle ground. He used to, back when he was Kougami Shinya, the Inspector. But Kougami Shinya, the Enforcer, hasn't been able to keep his voice even since he started smoking, and he suspects he'll never quite get it right again.
So when he talks to Tsunemori, he tries to keep his voice soft, low and quiet, like piano. He's not sure why — it's not like shouting will scare her away at this point, the rookie who gives Saiga a reason to teach, Masaoka a reason to laugh, and himself a reason to remember. Her own reasons for wanting to learn and grow mimic his own when he first joined; she's just been able to keep her morals along with the experience that shaved away some of the roundness to her eyes.
Her voice is light, a small symphony of higher notes that slur together in an even flow, not too fast, not too slow. It was like a smooth, flowing stream of sound, without breaks between notes. The flute, in it's elegance, in it's full splendor.
Kagari's, however, is like the energetic strumming of an acoustic guitar; seemingly pleasant, genuinely loud, and deceptively warm tones that hide a remarkable capability for sadness.
Suddenly in Masaoka's empty seat, the acoustic guitar plays.
"Do you remember," Kagari says without preamble, "The case you were so hung up about? And the day we captured that guy, Makishima?"
"Why do you ask?" Kougami says, because he has not forgotten, will never forget, the shrieking of strings and the feel of cold steel pressed against his throat. The soundless tears Tsunemori shed, the lifeless body of a girl she used to know, and Sasayama, twisted and mangled, like a nails on a chalkboard.
"Akane-chan came with me to the basement in the Ministry's office," Kagari says, "You were all 'blah blah blah I gotta face Makishima all by myself mano y mano, rah rah revenge, grrr', so you gave her a helmet and made her come along with me. And while having to be extra careful that she didn't get hurt was a pain, she… I think she saved my life."
"She does that." Kougami blows out a ring of smoke. He thinks of a scream of NO and then sudden full body paralysis and blacking out. Of apologies and confessions and truths in a hospital room. Of the strange tightness in her voice one day, and the way her hand gripped his too hard, leaving marks, and he wasn't sure who was holding onto who anymore.
"Yeah, yeah." Kagari rolls his eyes, a fleeting, lopsided smile in place. "Who would've expected it from our rookie, yeah? But I'm serious. Whatever was behind that door that Makishima's accomplice was after… I don't think it was good. We just barely got to him before he could open it — Akane-chan clocked him with that helmet you gave her, it was awesome — and the Chief bailed your ass out from underneath Makishima's knife, but the look she gave us when we met up with you on the ground floor…"
There is wavering in Kagari's voice; like a string that's too taut, just about to snap.
"...I don't think we'd have been okay if we had been even a minute late," Kagari murmurs, "And things were faster on my end because Akane-chan had my back. No other Inspector has done that before. She really, honestly cares, and it's disgustingly sweet. But for that, she has my respect, and my loyalty."
"So!" Kagari claps his shoulder, and Kougami looks at him: Kagari Shuusei's grin a touch more genuine and soft, too soft for a hunting dog, his words sharp and clear; forte. "Take good care of Akane-chan, alright?"
Kougami coughs, smoke setting fire to his lungs, a cacophony in his throat.
"Or maybe she needs to take care of you." A cheeky smile, laughter like slow, lazy plucking of the strings, warm as a summer's day. "Geez Ko-kun, you make more trouble than I do sometimes."
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?
He's lying in a pile of twigs and his own blood, listening to the trilling of birds and chirping of crickets, loud, too loud, the only sounds he can distinguish apart from the rushing noise marking weak ebb and flow of his blood.
His tempo is slow.
It's been a long time since he's last been in an actual forest. The light is natural, uneven and harsh, and filters down through the imperfectly structured trees, leaves dotting his perception of the sky like blots of ink. It's beautiful because of it's flaws, though he's not sure why he thinks this.
His tempo is slow.
The pounding in his head is steady though, so that's something. Something fuzzy and brutal; with each throb of his heart and corresponding beat in his head, he aches, and tries to grip his hand tighter over his stomach. This too brings him pain, and he's having trouble remembering why he's doing it, but a lack of clear understanding of the events around him has yet to stop him in anything else he's ever done.
His tempo is slow.
Kougami closes his eyes, the sounds fade, piano...
...But there is the shrieking of a flute in the distance, a repetition of alarm, that compels him to open his eyes to a dizzying blast of color and movement.
"—ami-san! Kougami-san!" Tsunemori is inches from his face, her hand over his heart, her jacket missing. "Stay with me! Please, keep your eyes open! You can't die! Kunizuka-san, quickly, we have to bandage this —"
"The fear of death," he murmurs, "follows from the fear of life."
"This is not the time for Mark Twain!" He's never seen her snarl at him before — her fingers dig into his shoulder, and her wide eyes narrow at him. "Isn't there something you want to live for? Isn't there something you still want to do?"
Her hand moves from his shoulder to his own hand, turning it over and moving it away as someone else stings his abdomen with antibiotics, and he is suddenly aware of how much blood is coating his. She shouldn't get her hands dirty touching his, she shouldn't —
But he laces his fingers with hers, and his tempo speeds up; his heartbeat begins to match.
The next time he is counting her heartbeats, it's to the metronome of her ECG. Kougami watches the monitor tirelessly in the dim light, and with his hand on her wrist, confirms each beat to each and every spike and dip of the line. There is comfort in the sounds of her breathing, there is distress in every second in between.
This is how Gino finds him, in the early hours of the day.
"Shouldn't you have been kicked out hours ago?" he asks.
Gino receives no answer, but proceeds to act like he had gotten one, rounding the other corner of Tsunemori's bed and taking his place as Kougami's opposite; standing, back straight, mouth pressing itself into a thin, hard line.
"Go home, Kougami," Gino says, "That's an order."
"We're off duty," Kougami answers, his voice a touch thick from disuse.
"I'm still your superior. You have a shift in a few hours — you should rest."
He doesn't care. It's not like he sleeps that much anyway.
"You aren't of any use here," Gino says.
"And I am filing reports?" His gaze strays from the monitor long enough to see his former best friend's face. Hiding behind his glasses, hiding behind the distance he fabricates between himself and the Enforcers, hiding behind a false sense of stoicism. A trumpet; like father, like son, the tone isn't easy to hide. Brass is brass. Gino is just too sharp, hasn't yet learned how to flatten that tone to something smoother, something softer.
"An injured Inspector means twice as much paperwork," Gino snaps, "The least you can do is lessen the workload for everyone."
Typing out the words of his failure is meaningless, he can see it's results right here, breathing weakly in a hospital bed, the miracle of it's continued existence measured out in spikes on a line; it is the harmonic assurance of life in electronic form, and it is the only thing he wants to hear right now.
"Go home, Gino. Don't you have a dog waiting for you?"
"My dog won't push himself to exhaustion waiting for my return. I don't have to worry about him being passed out on the floor next I see him."
This stirs up enough annoyance for him to send a weak glare Gino's way. It's met with a stare that's equally as displeased, a bitter trumpeting from a former partner who will never forgive his betrayal.
"Kougami," Gino says, "Don't make Tsunemori shoulder more burdens than she has to."
The only light source still on in the infirmary room - the monitor, one, two, three, four, steady, steady - surrounds them in a powder blue hue, and it casts Gino's face a strange shade of miserable and soft. It will be gone when Kougami drags himself to his shift a few hours later, it will be gone when old man Masaoka tries to lay a hand on his son's shoulder, but it is here, now, and Kougami knows he does not suffer alone.
"This 'go it alone' attitude missy's been developing lately," Masaoka says, "Where do you think she's getting it from?"
It's like he's been kicked in the head, the sounds of the radiator and it's uneven whining messing up any semblance of order and measure he has in his mind. Like scrambling to put the music sheets in order, only for an infrequent but persistent wind to knock the stand over and over again.
The stern, worn out trumpeting in his ears aren't helping.
"No idea," Kougami mutters, nursing a coffee with his cigarette. He drinks in the taste of ashes on his tongue and hopes for some degree of alertness to return to him. When it doesn't, he lies his face on his desk.
"I'm sure you don't," Masaoka says, "After all, when was the last time you looked in a mirror? I'm betting not in a few days at least."
"Where's this conversation going, pops?" Gazing up from his desk was more effort than he wanted to expand, but he cranes his face up anyway, to stare at Masaoka's wavering form. The urge to blink once and then never again threatens to swallow him up, but the blistering warmth of the paper cup of coffee pressed to his face gives him an anchor to focus on.
"Where has missy been staying?" Masaoka says instead of answering him. Or maybe he is answering him, or already has. Kougami squints at him, but this proves to be much too close to actually closing his eyes and gives it up. His cigarette is nearly brushing the table, but it fills his head with smoke, so it stays exactly where it is, regardless of whether he sets the desk on fire or not. "I know she's been telling Nobuchika that she's moved back into her apartment, but I know she hasn't."
He doesn't bother asking how he knows.
"No idea."
"Don't you think we've known each other long enough for you to tell me the truth?"
"...How long has it been again, exactly?"
The old man slaps him on the shoulder for that one.
There is a beautiful few measures of silence after that, where Kougami is encased by the sheer nothing that he hears; he is fading fast enough that the radiator is but a memory, and the nearly inaudible humming of the computer's — constant, constant, quiet — that is it a lullaby all on it's own. Like falling asleep with someone infinitely smaller than him, smaller and softer, smaller and yet taking up almost all of the couch —
Masaoka shakes his shoulder before he can fully commit to passing out on his tablet, the trumpet heralding the start of the day, and the end of a shift. He takes his time sitting up, and resists rubbing at his eyes like a child.
"Go on, get going," Masaoka says, with fond, upturned corners to his mouth. "Take care of her, alright? And let her take care of you. It's just a feeling I have, but… This WC business is going to be a messy affair. Best to keep your hues clear together, yeah?"
"What will it matter what co—"
And the sounds of dissonance rearrange themselves into a chilling piece, a symphony of madness and the road to judgement. His cigarette falls into his coffee. Kougami is ringing up Tsunemori to the song of adrenaline in his veins, and she recognizes it in his voice the moment he speaks.
"I understand," she says, clear, calm, steady. "I'm on my way."
He traces a scar on her right bicep, just above the elbow.
"That one?" She turns to regard it, a curled mark just barely visible if she turns her arm just so. It is incredibly difficult to see, with the room being barely lit by one dying desk lamp, but he finds it nonetheless.
"Fading, old, not very deep. Likely an incident in childhood."
"Accident on the old playground by my grandparents house. Kaori, Yuki and I got into a game of tag with some boys when we were kids. One of them pushed me too hard and I fell onto the edge of the sandbox and cut myself on a loose nail. My grandmother took me home, cleaned it up, and put a bandaid it, instead of taking me to the hospital. I suppose that's why it left a scar, but I never minded."
He moves his hand upwards, brushing aside her hair, and picks out a newer one; a sharp line by the side of her neck.
"An attack," he murmurs, "Nail gun?"
"When Kagari and I went into the strange basement of the Ministry building." Her hand meets his, and she unconsciously tries to brush her hair back over the mark. "One of two."
His hand trails down, gently moving until he rests his hand on her leg, stopping just short of a small, round, almost unnoticeable wound.
"Wasn't quite fast enough," she says with a thin smile. "We got separated briefly because of it. It worked out in the end though, since it allowed me to ambush the enemy while he was distracted, so I suppose it was a good thing."
They are still for some time after that. He listens to her breathe, and she keeps his tempo equal to hers; like her hue, it is even, it is clear, it is calm. One, two, three, four. They repeat this song for seconds, minutes, hours, as long as it takes for him to finally move again; until his fingers find the bandages across her stomach.
"It's alright," she says. "Shinya."
She takes the lead, everything else in the world becoming silent as she plays her solo. Carefully, she unwinds the bandages, faded white colors turning pink in her hands the further she unravels.
He hesitates.
She guides his hand to her anyway, and one, two, three, four; he traces the underside of a deep red gash that is slowly closing itself up. It stretches diagonally from her ribcage to her to right lower quadrant. He barely grazes her skin, but she grits her teeth and tenses so he pulls away.
"It's not your fault."
"I know."
"I'll be fine."
"I know."
"It's healing very well. It probably won't even leave a scar."
"I know."
He doesn't need a mark to see be able to see it.
He'll remember it anyway.
They ditch work to go to a theme park.
Sort of.
There are reports to file and workers to get statements from; something's gone wrong with the sector drones and the Komissa-chan holos. Nothing major enough for alarm, just unresponsiveness in some of the drones and flickering in the holos, but important enough to take notice. Normally a mechanic's job to fix, but since it involves MWPSB property, they're there to supervise and ensure there was no illegal tampering.
Tsunemori is lured by the sounds of the merry-go-round, brown eyes tracking the holographic horses circle again and again. The music lulls them into a complacent silence with each other; it sets the tone for their mood, a rambunctious symphony composed of the laughter of children and families.
Half-rest. A measure of silent understanding and almost peace. They watch the drones from behind holo'd off areas, watch as they are torn apart and put back together.
The rest picks back up when they are informed the repairs are complete and are given the overview. He skims it, finds nothing of out place, and Tsunemori leads him back to the entrance. They're ahead of schedule, but it's a slow day of paperwork waiting for them back at the office, and he keeps his pace proportionally slow to match.
They're all set to leave, but she casts a wistful look at the rides, and the scent of lemonade candy hits him hard.
He stops.
"We're not needed back right away," he says, and Tsunemori stops to stare at him, eyes wide, reminding him of the rookie he met drenched in the rain, and the quick tempo of rain and faith and trust. "I want to double check the drones in the area, make sure there aren't anymore half-glitching holos or the like."
"Eh?" She blinks, lips parted in surprise. "You want to stay? But checking all the drones and holo's would mean we'd be canvassing the entire park. We'd be here all day!"
"Then we better get started." Kougami grins. "Let's go, Akane."
He holds his hand out to her, and half a beat later she takes it.
Ending a/n: this was supposed to be longer and include sections for yayoi and shion because I wanted everyone include but I ran out of energy. My bad. I'll save the ideas for them for something shorter and sweet, a fic for another day.
I came to the annoying realization that if I wanted a happy ending for these two, I had to write it myself, and you can see the terrible results of that. Does the music metaphor make sense? No, but I like music metaphors, so I'm going to pretend Kougami "I've read a book once" Shinya read a book of music too. The fic is littered with music vocab, so my apologies if that actually made it harder to read through.