It's colder than it's been in weeks the night Fudou comes back hours late. Unsurprisingly, Kidou is still up when the door is opened, bringing a gust of wind and a few snowflakes into the apartment. When Fudou shuts the door – carefully, as if he were trying not to wake Kidou. It's a farce, really; they both know there's no way he'd be asleep.
"You've been gone awhile," he states, tone hinting at a bit more than indifference.
"Out drinking with Genda," Fudou mutters, not looking in the other's direction.
"I just talked to him. He's been visiting friends out of town for a week now." Fudou doesn't respond. It was a shit excuse for an alibi and he knows it, but he lacks the energy, the incentive to try to come up with a better one. Kidou turns around to look at him directly, managing to keep some sort of a poker face on.
Fudou looks like the physical embodiment of death. His hair, ratty enough already, is almost a solid matted knot. The circles under his eyes have grown by tenfold since he left the house that morning, and it looks like there's holes in his coat that weren't there the night before. Looking at him raises the alarm in the back of Yuuto's mind even further – if he was really out drinking with Genda, this wouldn't have happened, their old teammate would have never let it.
"Why do you bother making excuses if you want me to find out anyways?" Kidou asks, still not moving from his position on the couch. Fudou doesn't move closer either, simply shrugs off his jacket and throws it on the back of a kitchen chair.
It isn't the first time something like this has happened. It's not a frequent occurrence, but it's happened enough times during the span of their living together that Kidou usually knows what to do – but Akio's never this tight-lipped. Sometime's he'll come in on nights like these completely wasted, to the point where his partner isn't entirely certain how he made it home; Yuuto just hustles him to bed then. Other times he'll be sober, but complaining and swearing; he can just listen and try to be the bearer of rational thought in the household. Those are the easiest nights, that's just how Kidou works. He's most comfortable with things solvable, but he can't solve the problem without knowing at least part of the equation.
"I don't want to talk," Fudou says after a minute or so of silence, voice sounding just as tired as he looks. Once again Kidou shifts to get a closer look at him, but this time he pulls himself up a little straighter.
"I didn't ask if you wanted to," Kidou states, and all Fudou does is shoot a glare in his direction and slump down in the chair his jacket's thrown over. Teikoku's coach adjusts his glasses – he doesn't wear his goggles when just around the house – and meets the glare with a questioning gaze. The apartment goes silent, the only sound Fudou's foot as he taps it against the leg of the table.
"What were you doing out in the cold?" Kidou asks eventually, breaking the silence.
"I said I didn't want to talk about it."
"Akio."
Fudou stands up, the chair scraping the floor behind him as he moves. His expression makes Kidou raise an eyebrow – he seems frustrated and sad and somehow a bit lonely, but mostly exhausted, a type of exhaustion he hasn't seen in his boyfriend in a long time – and then it clicks that this night isn't going to be something Kidou can solve like normal. The look in Fudou's eyes is something Yuuto could never understand – for all they've built together, they're different at their cores.
And so Kidou makes a decision. He knows he can't simply let logic work for him now, so all he can rely on to help Fudou tonight is – he nearly grimaces at the thought – his feelings.
Akio appears to be at a crossroads of turning to take a spot on the couch or heading towards the bedroom.
"Fudou," Kidou says quietly, and finally catches his eye.
The springs creak when Fudou takes a seat next to the other, a noticeable space between that that seems to be more than just physical. The heater whirrs into action by the window, but it can't quite drown out the wind that's picked up again. The streetlight by their window gives just enough light to show the snow falling, blown about by the wind. Kidou considers getting up, walking to the kitchen to get them drinks, but – he stays, instead.
"Are you –"
"Don't even try." Fudou cuts him off, leaning back to look at the ceiling. His voice softens a bit though, when he talks again. "I… appreciate it though." There's something reluctant in his words, though they're not insincere. In fact, it's the sincerity of them that makes them sound so unfamiliar coming out of Fudou's mouth – but Kidou's used to it, and he knows he's the only one who gets to hear him talk like that, so he treats the privilege carefully.
A part of Kidou wants to take Fudou by the shoulders and shake him, maybe yell at him a little, just to get him to understand. But at the same time, he knows this isn't about him (Fudou would've told him to his face), and that would do nothing – he thinks back on what he's decided on, and makes himself stick to it.
Without speaking, he reaches over and laces his fingers together with Fudou's. Neither of them are particularly reliant on physical affection when it comes to their relationship, and when they do hold each other, it's usually more on the risqué side of things – but they both need this now.
Fudou stiffens a bit for a second – he's not expecting it, nor does he see Kidou move out of his peripheral vision since he's still staring at the ceiling. But as the moments pass, he relaxes; the exception are his fingers, which grip Kidou's a little tighter.
They sit like that in the silence for a bit, neither of them making any move – Fudou too tired to think about much, and Kidou letting things be.
Fudou moves closer to Kidou suddenly, pressing up against his side with no explanations, hair brushing Kidou's jawline as he rests his head on the strategist's shoulder. Kidou doesn't move his arm, not to wrap it around his boyfriend's shoulder, not to turn to kiss him.
It's weird, because as little as Kidou is doing, he knows that by letting Fudou move how he wants, he's helping more than he ever could if he'd spent the hour interrogating him, trying to find a logical explanation for why Akio feels the need to leave the house until 3 AM.
And yet, that would be the exact antithesis of what their relationship gives him. It's a symbiotic one. More importantly than anything else, loving Fudou's given Kidou a chance to realize that not anything can be laid out in simple black and white, that he can't always go through life predicting his opponent's moves. Because sometimes the opponent isn't something he can see, or fight. The opponent will be those days when the person he loves most disappears and comes back without an explanation because there was no rational reason for doing it.
Still, every bone, every muscle in Kidou's body practically aches with how he wants to take care of Fudou in his own way – but he holds back because he knows it'll do more harm than good.
"Thanks," Fudou mutters, pressing his cheek a little harder onto Kidou's shoulder and squeezing his hand. Kidou doesn't reply – there's no need.
Outside, the wind blows just as hard as before.