The doctors permit Gau to leave the hospital the same day he wakes up. They require a lot of convincing, but relent after Gau's rabid insistence that he leave with Raikou immediately and Raikou smiles pleasantly and tries his hardest to at least vaguely resemble a responsible adult. Finally, just when Gau begins to make half-cooked plans that involve jumping out of the window and into Raikou's waiting arms, the nurses start handing Gau his personal belongings and paperwork that needs to be signed. Even though the entire world feels a little soft at the edges and dizzying, Gau is relieved to be reading legalese and signing his name. Paperwork is something he knows how to handle; it is familiar territory. Being awake for the first time in weeks—no, was it months?—is a bit more unchartered and generally confusing.
They opt to take a cab, with Raikou calling from the front desk while Yukimi stands behind them scratching his neck. He offered them a ride. But while Yukimi, Yoite, Miharu, and Raikou fit perfectly in his car, Yukimi, Yoite, Miharu, Raikou, and Gau do not. Besides, Raikou's eyes are rimmed red and Yukimi very obviously doesn't know what to do with that fact.
"We'll come over tomorrow," Gau says to Yukimi, "I'll bake a cake. For Miharu's birthday. It's coming up, isn't it?"
Yukimi shrugs and continues scratching his neck while watching Raikou, who is still trying to track down a cab, twirling and twisting the phone cord between his fingers. Gau vaguely thinks about how much he missed Raikou's subtle, elegant motions.
Yukimi's pointed silence pulls him back to their conversation.
"Yukimi? Did you forget about Miharu's birthday? I've been in a coma and I remembered, so how—" Gau can feel himself getting worked up already, his clenched fists trembling at his sides.
"Jesus Christ, you'll give yourself an aneurism if you don't chill out. Didn't you just get released from the hospital?" Yukimi continues watching Raikou, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Yukimi, did you even hear what I just—"
Yukimi pats his shoulder as he starts to walk towards the doors and Gau nearly hisses at him.
"Just… We'll see you tomorrow. Take care of yourself and, uh, make sure Raikou's doing okay too," Yukimi says as he steps outside.
Gau watches Yukimi walk away, and it's only then that he realizes Raikou is taking so long to track down a cab because he's forgotten the name of the hospital they're at.
It was late when Raikou stepped out of the hospital. The nurses had offered to set up a futon for him, despite the fact that they knew who he was, what he'd done to his family, what he'd tried to do to his sister, and what he'd very nearly done to… his only friend. Besides, Raikou was sure Gau wouldn't want him anywhere near him, let alone sleeping in the same room. Raikou politely declined their offer.
The buses weren't running that time of night so Raikou decided to walk. Each step felt torturously long for reasons Raikou could easily identify but resisted letting his mind articulate. But every block was four times its usual distance without Gau next to him rambling about what paperwork he still needed to submit to Ichiki and what groceries they needed to buy tomorrow. That's right, Raikou realized as he came to a stop in front of a closed storefront. They—no, he needed to buy groceries. But Raikou didn't know what.
Raikou decided he'd had enough of walking and elected to take a cab. He searched out a payphone but Raikou didn't have any change and Gau's usually the one that carries a coin purse and when Raikou turned around to ask Gau for change—
Raikou decided to walk the two long blocks back to the hospital and ask to use their free-of-charge lobby phone.
They stop by Raikou's apartment first, for reasons not immediately clear to Gau. But Gau forgets the question hanging on his tongue when Raikou opens his front door.
The living room—and the rest of the place, Gau suspects—is spotless. Gau slips his shoes off in the entry way and steps into the apartment, his mind quietly registering that Raikou's usual mess of slippers, sandals, sneakers, boots, and other examples of unique footwear are absent from their usual spot next to the doorway.
"Hey," Gau says as he turns to smile at Raikou, who is still unlacing his boots, "I don't think I've ever seen your apartment this clean, other than when I'm the one cleaning it!"
It's meant to be a joke but Raikou says nothing as Gau begins to wander the familiar living room, marveling at the alphabetized books on the shelves, the neat stack of magazines on the coffee table, the carefully folded throw on the arm of the couch—the thick layer of dust covering every flat surface.
Oh.
Raikou sits on the couch and avoids eye contact with Gau. "Are you hungry? I don't know if there's food here, but—"
Oh.
Gau feels a knot tighten uncomfortably in his stomach and the words "I'll go check the kitchen!" stumble out of his mouth.
The kitchen, as Gau feared, was also spotless, with the exception of a bowl of untouched and rotten fruit on the counter. The bread long surpassed states of stale and moldy and advanced into biohazard. The condiments in the fridge are still perfectly aligned as Gau left them, and the leftovers from the last time Raikou and Gau had gone out to eat are sitting on the shelf, reeking and forgotten.
Gau remembers that the last time he'd cleaned Raikou's apartment was the morning before he left to find Raimei.
"You can go on up to your own apartment," Raikou says softly behind him, "I've got some stuff I need to do around here."
"No," Gau says. He continues staring into Raikou's fridge, but says again, more firmly this time, "No."
Raikou doesn't reply, so Gau closes the fridge and heads back to the living room, towards the front door. "Let's go get dinner. That place Yukimi raves about is just a few blocks away, isn't it? And we haven't had a chance to eat there yet."
Raikou stood outside his apartment, key in hand, for five minutes before he had the nerve to open the door.
Everything looked exactly the way Gau had left it that morning. Raikou's hands were trembling as he took off his shoes in the entryway, and they continued to shake as he picked up a magazine off his coffee table and immediately placed it back down exactly where it had been.
Raikou paced his apartment with his arms crossed over his chest, pointedly not touching anything. He didn't know how long he paced, but everything felt distant and dulled and time wasn't important.
A sharp knock at the door and some casual yelling yanked Raikou a few steps closer to reality.
Yukimi. Raikou opened the door and Yukimi stood in the doorway with a dopey smile on his face and with a six-pack of beer in hand.
"Hey, I heard about what happened." Yukimi held up the beer and smiled a bit wider. "Wanna… I donno, hang out?"
Raikou looked from Yukimi's smile to the beer in his hand and then back at that pained and over-extended grin.
"You gonna let me in or what?"
Raikou opted for the "or what" choice and took the beer before slamming the door in Yukimi's face.
As Raikou sat back down on the couch with the six pack of beer next to him he could hear Yukimi's grumblings and complaints—"What the hell? What about respecting your elders? I'm kinda your boss you know! Okay no I'm not but still. Are you at least going to pay me back for that booze? This is why I hate brats!"—for ten minutes before silence reigned and Yukimi left. Raikou's phone pinged with a single text message—they moved him to one of our hospitals already. you've got my number if you need a ride or whatever—but Raikou didn't see it until the morning.
Raikou stared at the beer for a bit longer, then picked up the six-pack, his shoes, wallet, phone, and keys and went upstairs to Gau's apartment, directly above his.
Gau's couch wasn't as soft as Raikou's. It wasn't used as frequently; Gau was in Raikou's apartment from sun up until well past sun down most days, but Raikou rarely came to Gau's apartment. It was still familiar though, with the same lay-out as Raikou's apartment and all of Gau's personal touches. Like shelves lined with notebooks full of his writing. He'd only been working with the Grey Wolves for a little while, but he had already taken notes about nearly every aspect of life in the Hidden world in his painstakingly organized journals.
Raikou sat on the stiff couch and stared at the notebooks lining the shelves across from him. A few were missing, probably in Gau's bag, which was still at the hospital. Raikou didn't feel right bringing it home for reasons he didn't fully understand. Gau's satchel and any pertinent notes needed to stay by his side, Raikou finally reasoned.
He leaned back on the couch and opened the first bottle of beer.
Gau fishes his keys out of his satchel while Raikou stands next to him holding the left-overs from dinner. As soon as the door opens, Raikou sets the leftovers on the end table in the entryway and makes to leave, but Gau stops him. "Raikou, could you put those in the fridge?"
Raikou grumbles but takes his shoes off with shaking hands and disappears into the dark apartment while Gau turns the lights on and surveys the damage he knew would be there.
The carefully-folded blanket he left at the end of the couch is draped across the couch and the coffee table, and the coffee table itself—made out of admittedly cheap wood—is nearly buckling under the weight of dozens and dozens of medical text books and half-eaten boxes of cheap takeout. And empty bottles and cans of beer. Various technicolored articles of clothing are lying across the floor, along with some of those paper charms Raikou ties his hair up.
When he looks up, Raikou is leaning against the wall, watching him. He doesn't look down at the mess on the floor, but stares at Gau. To anybody else, except potentially Yukimi, it would be unnerving. Gau stares back.
"It's late and I'm kinda tired, so I'm probably going to go to bed pretty soon." Gau stretches and yawns for dramatic effect. It's not untrue; despite having been effectively asleep for weeks and weeks, a few hours out of the hospital have Gau's muscles aching and his eyes fighting to stay open. Not to mention the dizziness that prevailed when he first woke up still hasn't faded. "Could you stay the night?"
The question hangs in the air as Raikou continues to watch Gau. But slowly the tense curve of his shoulders relaxes and Raikou's eyes lose their hard edge.
Instead of asking why Gau wants him to spend the night, Raikou just says, "Yeah. Yeah, sure, I can do that."
The words flow easily from Raikou's mouth and Gau can tell Raikou is relieved to say them.
When Gau notices that his bed is unmade and there are cottoncandy pink hairs clinging to the pillow, he decides to pull out his spare futon and lay it out in his bedroom rather than relegating Raikou to the couch. Raikou doesn't complain, and Gau can see him smiling as he spreads out the spare sheets and blankets.
Gau doesn't bother to change his own sheets, or touch the mess in the living room and throughout the rest of the apartment. Instead he wraps himself up in the smell of Raikou, the smell of home, while the sound of Raikou breathing a few feet away lulls him to sleep.