Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation or FAKE, and I do not profit financially from writing this story.
Life with Shuichi, Ryo noted, was filled with as many ups and downs as it had been with Dee. It probably had to do with the similarities he saw in the pop singer, similarities so startling that it caused his heart to ache whenever he thought of Dee and gazed at Shuichi. Given the fact the pop singer was a considerable few years younger than Ryo, it should not have surprised the detective. Dee, too, had been one year younger than he, but also more in charge of their relationship, especially when it came to sex. In one moment, Shuichi could be as content as could be with pizza and beer for dinner, the same as Dee, and the next he would want to go some place a little more expensive and extravagant. There was a certain amount of spontaneity in Shuichi that Ryo found delightful, refreshing, and painfully familiar. Both Shuichi and Dee were brunettes, their hair so dark it could be called black, and their eyes told the painful and yet same stories, stories no one should ever endure.
And he was not the only one who saw what he did, those startling yet unsurprising similarities. Whenever someone came to visit the two – often his fellow officers who had worked with Dee – the next day Ryo heard the comments and the whispers, especially from Drake, Ted, and J.J. It was not intentional on Shuichi's part to remind those who knew Dee of the deceased detective, but it was there all the same.
There was, however, one difference between Dee and Shuichi, one Ryo could not ignore. Why it even chose to stick in his mind, he could not begin to say, but it was there all the same. It stared him in the face every morning when he awoke and reached for his watch and saw Shuichi's laying next to his, standing out like a red coat in a sea of black.
As were his and Dee's habits, the two of them wore plain watches. They consisted of either leather bands of dark brown or black or plastic, and very plain-faced, if only because their line of work required a certain amount of decorum, professionalism. In Ryo's opinion, it was hard to take a police officer, be he a beat cop or a detective, seriously when he did not wear a professional-looking watch.
Shuichi's watch had a leather band, a white face, and a very prominent picture of Mickey Mouse in the center. It had been a gift from his boss for Bad Luck's first album going triple platinum on the Japanese music charts. At least, that was the story Ryo heard when he first asked about the watch. He initially doubted it for he had also heard about Shuichi and Eiri's first date, which was to be at Disney Tokyo, but Ryo also decided not to press the issue. There were gifts Dee had given him that he had kept, even after starting his relationship with Shuichi. Dee had played a very integral part in Ryo's life, the way Eiri had for Shuichi. How could he ask his lover to give up something of sentimental value when he could not do the same for himself?
Still, Ryo decided as he gazed at the face of Mickey staring back at him, something about it seemed . . . right, as if it belonged. He reached out and touched it lightly, suddenly feeling curious as to how it would look on his wrist. Shuichi would not mind . . . would he?
