"Oh! There he is." Something flickers in the corner of his vision, a vaguely familiar voice faintly heard over the murmuring of the waiting crowd at arrivals. "Hey! Hey, Hakuba! Over here! Hey!"

He doesn't spot anyone familiar when he turns, but then the crowds shift, and then -

"Hey," Kuroba grins, pleased, a black rucksack on his lap. "Long flight?"

He knows that he should say something, or at least wipe the look of horror off his face, but it feels as though everything has frozen over, Kuroba tipping his head to the side in query, an apologetic smile on his lips.

"What - " Hakuba takes a step forwards. Stops. His mouth is dry. "What happened?"

"Bit of a long story," Kuroba ducks his head, wheeling his wheelchair around. He should - Hakuba gives himself a mental shake for his insensitivity, and tries not to let his eyes linger too much on the empty trouser leg where Kuroba's left leg should be. It's just - he doesn't know what to say, and he doesn't have a script. "Lunch? Airplane food must have been terrible."

"It wasn't too bad," Hakuba says, following Kuroba's cue. Then, in a rush, before he can stop himself, "You never told me."

He sounds accusing. He doesn't mean to sound accusing. Beside him, Kuroba doesn't seem to mind.

"Yeah, I didn't, did I?" Kuroba sighs. Hakuba follows him to the taxi stand, heavy canvas bag over one shoulder. "Sorry. Didn't seem… I was fine."

They're in public, and in the worst of scenarios to begin talking about this, but Hakuba can barely help it. "You lost your leg. And you never told me. Is that why - " A sudden long absence through the phone, Hakuba never hearing from his classmate-friend-enemy for months, and then Kuroba calling him on the landlines, catching up with all the lost time and did you know I have a desk job now?

He should have known. He should have known.

"Yeah." The smile on Kuroba's face is more subdued now, less bright, and Hakuba wants to bring it back except he doesn't know what to do. 2 A.M., in the midst of him eating a bowl of instant udon in front of his computer, and Kuroba comes up with the brilliant idea of meeting up with each other after so many years of peace and quiet away. "I had to make do. Do you mind if we go to my place for lunch instead?"

Taxi, pulling up before them, driver exiting through the side to help with Kuroba's wheelchair. His travel bag is taken from him before he can so much as protest.

"Sure," he says. "Show me."

::

He's no longer living in that dingy flat Hakuba's only seen once through google earth. Instead, it's a nice apartment in the higher end of town, gleaming lobby and marble floors. Kuroba's situated on the fifteenth floor, and as they wait for the elevator, he's sheepishly told that it's because the letterbox is within easy reach. The apartment on the twenty-third floor has a better view, but Kuroba says that he doesn't want to struggle for his morning papers.

"It took a lot of persuading, and a whole lot of nagging," Kuroba chatters on as Hakuba presses the button for the fifteenth floor. "I think a lot of it was accessibility issues, and Shin-chan wanted someone to keep an eye on me - namely the security. In case I fall and don't get up again, you know. He's very imaginative. Anyway, eventually I agreed that I was simply hoarding my savings, and - "

"You told him, but you didn't think to tell me," says Hakuba, because throughout the entire conversation, it is the only thing that he's picked up on. "I should be angry."

Kuroba gives him a considering look, and shrugs. "You probably are angry, but polite enough to pretend you aren't. I didn't really tell him. He was - there. When it happened."

A long pause, and then Kuroba shifts.

"I told him not to tell you until I was ready," Kuroba says, answering his unvoiced question.

A quiet ding, and the doors slide open on their floor.

"I see."

::

Kuroba allows him free roam of his house, and Hakuba does so without further invitation, opening doors into closets into balconies into bedrooms. The place is spotted through with tiny pots of succulents, all crowding up against windows warm with sunlight, and it smells entirely like Kuroba. Hakuba pauses with his hand on the doorknob, on the threshold of Kuroba's neat bedroom, and then takes a step backwards, turning back towards the kitchen away from his invasive want to poke into Kuroba's life without his present for it.

"Where do I - "

"Just take any free room you like," Kuroba waves a spatula over his shoulder at him, noisily setting the pans on the stove burner. "Do you have any food allergies or dislikes that I should know?"

"I don't really like olives."

A clatter of cooking utensils, and then Kuroba sets out a chopping board and pushes himself over to the refrigerator. Hakuba feels the sudden wash of cold air from where he is standing, and awkwardly clears his throat. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Hmm… you can help yourself to a banana. My neighbour bought a lot because they were on sale, and can't finish them on her own. Neither can I, for a fact." Kuroba points to where the bunch is sitting out near the dishes, and Hakuba tears one of the yellow fruit out. "Other than that, you're a guest. So you're not allowed to help."

There isn't anything else that Hakuba can say, so he leans against the counter, and eats his fruit. "Right."

"Oh, you're very obedient, for once?" Kuroba reaches up to flick on a radio, filling the open kitchen space with slow jazz. "You can look around. I know you want to, and I said that you could."

Hakuba grimaces, swallowing. "Am I so easy to read?"

"Nope. I just know you detective types well." Kuroba throws him a grin over his shoulder. It looks different from when he did it in the past - more open, friendlier, relaxed. Despite looking more or less the same, Hakuba is more than a little startled to realise that no, he may not know Kuroba as well as he thought he did then. Though the man sitting before him is familiar, Kuroba may as well be a stranger that he only knows by name.

How much else did you deem unnecessary to tell me? He wonders. How much of your life did you cut away from me?

"So what are you thinking?"

"I - pardon me?" He looks up into Kuroba's patient gaze, and flushes slightly for having lapsed in his attention. Kuroba doesn't seem to mind, however, only looking pleased as he turns back to rinsing the vegetables, as though he'd been expecting it.

"You look like you were thinking very hard. So I wondered if you would share with the class. You don't have to, though. It's nice that you're here at last."

There isn't much of Kuroba that Hakuba can read standing from where he is. He can tell that Kuroba is already familiar with operating his wheelchair, moving from place to place with ease, and that the place was designed with his disability in mind, furniture set low so that items placed on it are within easy reach. Wider hallways, clear spaces beneath counters and worktops, pullout cabinets…

"Did Kudou help with all of this?"

"I only bought the place. Shin-chan did the rest. It's wonderful, isn't it?" There's the sound of quick dicing from behind, and Hakuba draws up a chair at the kitchen table, sitting down experimentally. Even the height of the table is adjustable. "He said he wanted to keep it a surprise for me for when I finished my therapy. I think he knew that I wouldn't be able to focus, otherwise. Shin-chan likes to pretend that he doesn't care, but he does. I think I frightened him, when I was in hospital. I still haven't thought of how I should pay him back for this. Do you have any ideas?"

How to thank someone for picking up the pieces of your life after it's been brutally torn apart? "Not really."

"Pfft. Put that phone away. I was only wondering. You don't have to google it for me." Kuroba sweeps the diced vegetable into the pan with the flat of his knife. "Predictable as always, Hakuba."

Anger, flashing silver and cutting through worry like hot butter to the fore of his mind. "You never do tell me anything, ever. How am I supposed to know? If not this, then what?"

Kuroba's clever hands pause, the sound of hot oil spitting filling in the silence in between them.

"I'll tell you everything over dinner," he promises.

::

Lunch is kimchi fried rice and salmon miso soup. Kuroba sets out a small bottle of yakult for each of them as well, and Hakuba gives it a pained look.

"I'm sorry. If—I can switch to a hotel, if you like. I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

"Just sit down already. There's no way I'm letting you switch to a hotel." The cutlery clatters onto the table, and Kuroba gestures impatiently at the chair opposite him, before wheeling himself over to crowd Hakuba into sitting down. "Sit, sit. You're making me feel like a dwarf."

Hakuba sits. "I was out of line."

"Yeah. So? I broke the law. So there." Kuroba parks his chair opposite from him, and stabs the plastic straw through the foil of his yakult. "What's a little tantrum in the long run? Besides, it's my fault to begin with. I should have… trusted you."

"It was your choice to make. I should respect your decision. But I just… " Under the table, Hakuba's hands ball up into fists, and he carefully breathes the building frustration back out slowly through his nose. "I just wish there was something I could do." To have been there for you.

"There's nothing you could have done for me. The—it was a car accident. Busy traffic, I was arguing with Shin-chan, and out of nowhere a drunk idiot decided to bypass his red light and rammed into the driver side. Shin-chan told me it wasn't very pleasant, but since I don't remember much of it other than waking up in the hospital missing one leg, I'm not really qualified to tell." Kuroba looks entirely nonchalant, digging into his food after sprinkling a generous amount of shredded nori over his plate. "After, though. I can do the after. Shin-chan looked like shit when I woke up. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, but got better eventually."

A drunk driver. It is a long while before he can see straight again. "And you?"

"Eh. Could have been better. I wasn't much better off than Shin-chan, honestly. Initially, it didn't really bother me that much. Losing my leg, I mean. Not until I realised how bloody inconvenient it was, and how awkward things will turn out to be. Shin-chan wouldn't look me in the eye for a month as though I'd turned into some sort of… freak. Just by losing my leg. I wasn't very happy about it then. We had lots of arguments. Be thankful we spared you that one. Don't cry, Hakuba."

"...I'm not crying."

"That face tells me otherwise. You're always crying whenever you look like that." Kuroba sets the spoon down, and reaches across the table, gesturing for his hand. He gives it to him. "I've just lost my leg, alright? Still here. Can't be rid of me that easily."

"I could have lost you."

"But you didn't."

Kuroba's right, and he knows it. Still, it isn't easy to swallow past the giant lump in his throat to nod at him, his eyes dry and stinging, Kuroba's gaze on him steady as he rubs circles over the back of his hand with a thumb, waiting for him to eliminate the other what-ifs tumbling over in his head.

"Hakuba… you know that I'm a proud person, by default. Obviously. What I'm saying is I chose not to tell you, partially because there was no good time to, and also partially because I didn't want you to see me when I was like that. I didn't have a choice about Shin-chan. He stuck to my side like a limpet no matter what I said. But you… " Kuroba's eyes shift away, lower. "I don't know what to do if you so much as looked at me with pity, or—or became like the rest of them. Tiptoeing around me. So I hid it from you. Forgive me."

Swallow around the lump in his throat again, a painful twinge in his chest at the thoughts of what Kuroba had to go through. "I forgive you."

He's startled when Kuroba laughs, a sharp, relieved sound, slumping forwards on the table, gripping onto the other's hand tightly in alarm. "Kuroba?"

"I'd been so frightened of what if you will be angry. If you would never… something." Kuroba shakes his head, voice congested. "I'm so glad. I didn't have the courage… so I made a joke about you visiting, leaving the choice up to you and out of my hands. And then you said yes, and I… I was so worried, for days."

Evidently, there are things that he needs to make clearer with Kuroba. "I'm sorry I made you worried. You are and will always be my friend, Kuroba." And then, in a sudden rush of a need to be honest, to come clean about everything—"Maybe more, even."

Kuroba stops, then shifts to look up through dark lashes at him.

"You can't be serious."

Heart pounding for entirely different reasons now and still he refuses to let go of Kuroba's hand. HIs own palm is beginning to turn slightly damp. "You don't have to say yes. I've been meaning to ask for months, now, but… I didn't. Now… I thought you should know how I really feel towards you. I would never see you in that light, Kuroba. Never. Even if you want to only remain friends… I will be fine with that."

"You would, wouldn't you?" Kuroba's lips curve up into a small, genuine smile, and Hakuba's heart leaps. "Sap."

"So is that a yes? Or a no?"

"I'm going to say that I'm undecided right now." Kuroba directs a sly smile at him, and extracts his hand out from under his. "I need to think about it. Maybe get to know each other a little better, and then I'll tell you. Those years away weren't nothing, you know?"

"I would say that we know each other pretty well." Although he would like to make the more positive aspects of his own personality known so as not to cause Kuroba needless worry about hypothetical situations in the future. "I nearly put you in jail, after all."

"So you did, tantei-san. Can't I just enjoy your trying to woo me before we start dating for real? Do I really have to make it that clear? They say you are clever, so prove it." Kuroba leans back against his wheelchair, and Hakuba answers him with a sharp smile of his own.

"I guess I will have to."

::

"So one thing I want to know is why is it that Kudou has a nickname, and I don't have one?"

"A nickname?" Kuroba pauses from where he's trying to put on his prosthetic leg, half in his shirt and half out of it.

"You call him Shin-chan." And, if he was going to be honest, Hakuba is a little jealous. Not that he will admit it, of course.

"Oh. That." Kuroba turns his attention back down to the stump of his leg. "Because he hates it? Come help me with this. My hand isn't working very well today."

Fair enough.