"To say goodbye is to die a little."
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
One Month: September
He makes two cups of coffee, both black, one because a hard-boiled detective should drink it black and one because Philip actually prefers his that way, if he's going to drink it at all.
Once, months back, Philips spent an entire day researching every kind of coffee in his library, and after demanding that Shoutarou procure him a rare kind hand-picked by monkeys in Thailand (Shoutarou does not, and will never, agree that is a real thing, no matter what Philip says about his library being infallible) decided that all other coffee would be inferior and he may as well drink it plain.
"After all, partner," Philip said, giving Shoutarou that small, sliding smile that meant Shoutarou would soon be dragging a hand down his face or shouting in outrage, "Akiko could put you in a dress, but that wouldn't make you pretty."
Shoutarou hadn't known which option to go for, and had ended up muttering under his breath and ignoring the burning in his cheeks. Akiko, of course, only made it worse by tilting her head and giving Shoutarou a narrow-eyed look. "Well, Philip looks good in a dress, but I don't think Shoutarou could pull it off," she pronounced at last, tapping her cheek with one finger. "He might be slim enough for it, but his manner is just too boorish to look like a proper, reserved, delicate lady like me."
"Who's proper?" Shoutarou demanded, balling up a piece of paper and throwing it at Akiko's head. "Who's reserved? Who's delicate? Who's a lady? Do you even know what these words mean?"
Akiko chased him around the office with her slipper while Shoutarou shrieked that she was only proving his point, that a lady would not behave so badly to her superiors - Akiko tackled him, sat on his back and beat him soundly over the head while declaring that if she ever saw a superior she might - and Philip sat on Shoutarou's bed and rolled his eyes.
Now, Shoutarou sets the second cup of coffee down and slides it across the length of the counter for Philip to catch.
The cup crashes against the floor, the porcelain shattering and the hot liquid splattering over the tile.
Two Months: October
"Shoutarou, I heard something weird today," Akiko says. Her voice has been a lot less strident lately, like she's purposely trying not to let it go up into the high-pitched excitable range that used to drive Shoutarou mad, except that's just pissing him off even more. He doesn't look up from his typewriter. "Did you know Americans make their snowmen with three balls instead of two? Do you think they're taller, or they just use smaller snowballs?"
"Oh, come on, Akiko," Shoutarou grouses, pounding the carriage return on his keyboard and advancing the paper up an inch even though he hasn't written anything just because he feels like he has to. "Don't you remember what happened the last time you mentioned a 'strange fact' you heard? We couldn't get Philip to stop researching for three days. In fact, he'd better not be getting any ideas."
Akiko sucks in a sharp breath. Shoutarou looks up, frowning, but she's just sitting there on the couch with her book loose in her hands. "What?" he asks. "Did you get a paper cut? The first aid kit is on the shelf, there should be a bandaid."
"No, it's - nothing, never mind," Akiko says. "I'll try to be more careful."
Shoutarou grunts and goes back to staring at the blank paper. He doesn't get it until later.
Three Months: November
The girls burst into the office the way they always do, without invitation or preamble. "Sho-chan, you need to stop hogging Philip's letters," Elizabeth says, sticking out her lower lip in a pout. "We know he's been writing you, of course he has, but you haven't told us anything! How is his study abroad? Has he met anyone famous? Anyone cute? Come on, tell us! You've been so boring since he left, you have to give us something new to talk about."
"Assuming Philip is at study abroad," Queen says in her usual dry voice, giving Shoutarou a sideways look.
"Well, of course he's actually abroad," Elizabeth retorts, shoving her friend in the shoulder. "Why else would he not be here? He's always here. It's just that Sho-chan is being selfish and keeping all the news to himself, but Philip's not just his friend, is he! We all miss him."
Shoutarou trips over his own feet and barely catches himself on the arm of his chair. He collapses into it with a thud, but the girls are bickering and don't notice. His hand is shaking, which is ridiculous because Shoutarou is a man and men don't get shaky hands for no reason.
"He's fine," Shoutarou says slowly instead, and it takes a minute for the girls to stop fighting and look at him, but when they do he gives them a smile. It aches. "But you know Philip, he's actually really bad at writing letters. He thinks the strangest things are interesting. I got one letter that was nothing but information about different ways to cook eggs."
"That sounds like Philip," Elizabeth says with a snort. "Well, tell him he should do better! We're relying on him to tell us how he's doing. If he won't tell us, we're going to worry!"
"Yeah, tell him," Queen says, with that strange expression on her face still, and Shoutarou ignores her.
Elizabeth grins and claps her hands together. "Tell him if he doesn't write with anything good, we're going to assume he has a girlfriend and that's why. That should make him mad enough that he stops, don't you think? Can you imagine Philip with a girlfriend?"
"No," Queen drawls, and Elizabeth smacks her in the arm for being no fun.
Four Months: December
Santa-chan accosts Shoutarou as he's walking along the boardwalk by the river, looking out over the water and squinting as the light bounces off the ripples into his eyes. "Sho-chan!" he calls, bounding over. He's still wearing those short pants and sandals despite the winter chill. Shoutarou is just glad that jackets look manly and brooding - he keeps his hands in his pockets, turns up the collar, and angles himself into the wind so the bottom ruffles; Philip would mock him for trying too hard - and he wonders how Santa-chan doesn't freeze.
Philip researched that once, his theories being that Santa-chan might be some sort of alien or dopant in disguise or even - as part of a conspiracy that would shock the world over - the actual Santa himself. Shoutarou bemoaned the waste of time and resources, since he was actually looking for information on a case at the time. He'd had to go to the library and look things up on the Internet. On the Internet, like a civilian. The librarian glared at him the whole time because he refused to take off his hat and Philip called him on the bat-phone halfway through to tell him about the discovery of something called the Krampus, and he wouldn't stop talking until Shoutarou got kicked out.
"You're actually giving Christmas gifts at Christmas?" Shoutarou asks with a snort. "Doesn't that upset the order of the universe?"
"Don't be a grinch, Sho-chan," says Santa-chan, stopping to pass out small packages to the group of children who run over and tackle him around the waist. "Yes, yes, one for you, one for you two, what good children you are!" Shoutarou waits, staring up at the cloudy sky, until they scamper back off. "Here, here, a present for you."
Shoutarou takes it and opens the bag. It's a wooden board with holes and a small plastic baggie of coloured pegs. "Thanks," he says, shaking his head and putting them back in the bag.
"It's called Peg Solitaire," says Santa-chan. "It's a good game to play alone. I thought you might be lonely with Philip overseas. It's your first Christmas without him since the two of you became friends, right?"
Shoutarou freezes again, his fingers digging hard against the board through the thin cloth of the bag holding it. "Philip doesn't really like Christmas anyway," he says slowly. Breathe. Breathing is good. Breathing is easy, he can breathe, everything is fine. "He asked me why we celebrate it if we don't believe in Christ like the West and got annoyed when I couldn't answer. He said I was being hypocritical."
"Ah, well, that sounds like him," says Santa-chan, nodding and pushing his sunglasses up his nose. "Still, I got him a present anyway, if you could mail it to him. You can tell him it's for another reason if you think it would help. Whether he likes it or not, no one should have a Christmas without presents."
He shoves another package into Shoutarou's hands and walks off whistling, his sack slung over his shoulder.
Shoutarou stares at it for a long, long time. He wants to drop it into the water and let it sink, but that would count as littering, and he can't bring himself to do that to his beloved Fuuto no matter how much he can't stand to look at the things in his hands. He lets out a breath and opens the bag, takes out a small book called "Silly Laws Around the World", and opens it to a random page.
"In the state of New Jersey in the USA, pickles must be able to bounce," Shoutarou reads aloud, and against his will he snorts. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Philip," he says, shaking his head. "You'd immediately want to read all of them and ask me where the rule came from, then get cross with me when I don't know the answer. You'd probably stay in the library for a week after that, checking the origins of every single one."
The problem with the winter sun is that it's harsher and stings the eyes. Shoutarou wipes his, shoves the book and the game into his pocket, and turns back toward the street.
Five Months: January
Shoutarou thought the last place he'd want to be on the night before the New Year is out at Fuuto Shrine with the rest of those crazy enough to brave the cold and stand in the whistling late-night wind, in the dark, watching the priests prepare to ring the bell. Turns out he was wrong, and that's why he's outside, scarf wrapped around his neck and his hat planted firmly on his head, his toes freezing inside his shoes. He should've sprung for those heated insoles, no matter how unmanly it felt at the time.
Turns out the worst place to be is back home with the television, watching this year's Fuutic Uta Gassen, the annual singing extravaganza between Fuutic Idol winners and other personalities to usher in the new year. Last year Shoutarou had watched it with Phillip and Akiko and a Terui Ryu just beginning to thaw out enough that he only snorted and called the whole thing a useless waste of time every ten minutes instead of five. They'd watched Sonozaki Wakana sing "Naturally", and Philip sat with his chin in his hands, giving the television starry eyes before the MCs brought in Jimmy Nakata and they'd strapped pillows to their heads with their belts to muffle the noise. (Later Terui asked why they didn't just mute the sound, which only proved to Shoutarou that he was far too serious for his own good and would probably die from a scowling overdose.)
Except that now Wakana is dead, and Philip erased from existence. Shoutarou can say it now, can tell himself that it's not just that Philip went to the store to get some meat buns and ice cream but that he's actually gone. That doesn't mean he can sit at home in the empty room with the empty chair beside him and watch the show that Philip used to love, no matter what he told Akiko and Terui when he kicked them out over their fussing and told them to go on a date.
"Your face isn't meant to look concerned," Shoutarou said to Terui, who'd stood there with his face pinched around the nose. "You look sick, and now you're just making me sick. Go out, do something irresponsible, Mr. Detective. Go arrest yourself."
"That's not funny," Terui said, but Akiko tugged him away by the elbow and whispered in his ear, and soon they left Shoutarou alone.
He really had intended to stay in and celebrate the beginning of the first new year without his best friend. Really. He'd made himself a bowl of soba and everything, slurping the noodles in the empty apartment and poking at the onions he keeps forgetting to stop putting in now that Philip is no longer here to pick them out for him. But then they played "Naturally" anyway - an old recording of Wakana from her show before Healing Princess went off the air - and Shoutarou lost it. His teeth gritted at the opening sound effects, and he got as far as the first "heal your heart" before he jumped to his feet, grabbed his coat, and stormed off into the dark, heading for Fuuto Shrine.
It's almost time for the ringing of the bell; the crowd gathers near the base of the shrine. Shoutarou curls his fingers into fists - he'd left without his gloves, which was stupid, but he couldn't stay inside long enough to find where he'd thrown them after his last temper tantrum - and considers taking them out to blow on them when someone nudges him in the elbow and presses a hot cup of sweet rice wine into his hand.
Shoutarou murmurs a distracted 'thank you' until the red leather sleeve attached to the hand startles him out of it. He glances up, annoyed, at Terui, who just stands there with that infuriating calmness on his face. "It wasn't my idea," says Terui, not looking at him. "But the Chief said looking at you made her sad, and I wasn't going to let you ruin her night."
Shoutarou turns the cup in his hand, watching the grains of rice swirl about in the thick, pale liquid. "Well, I don't want to worry Aki-chan," he says, and takes a sip.
"The first time he discovered amazake could be used for more than just drinking, he immediately had to research it," says Terui, still glancing out at the priests, moving about the interior of the shrine and getting things ready. "I was in the middle of a case and I wanted help, but there he was, looking at desserts and sauces and I don't even remember what else. He asked me if I would get myself drunk so he could test its efficacy as a hangover cure."
Shoutarou can't remember the last time Terui said so many words altogether, and he gives him a searching glance just as the priest strikes the bell for the first of the 108 chimes -
("Named after all the earthly desires," Philip said last year in an excited voice, gripping Shoutarou's sleeve, "Do you know them, Shoutarou? There's abuse, aggression, ambition -"
"Annoyance?" Shoutarou shot back, taking the book away from Philip and tossing it onto the table.
Philip paused. "No, I don't think that's one of them. But imposture is - that's pretending to be something you're not, you know, like a certain half-boiled detective who pretends he's hard-boiled -"
Shoutarou aimed a kick at him, then Akiko launched herself across the couch to hit him, and he shouted at her for taking Philip's side when he was clearly the wounded party.
"Lying is also on the list," Philip pointed out, giving Shoutarou that dancing-eyed grin of his, and Shotarou gave up and sank back into his chair, muttering.
The next day, when eating their New Year meal, Philip gave Shoutarou his shrimp. "As an apology," he said. "I believe friends are meant to exchange gifts when it would not be appropriate to engage in the manly ritual of punching. Plus the shrimp symbolizes long life, and while I am quite young, you have the temperament of an old man, so you need it more than I do."
"We'll see about that!" Shoutarou shouted, only to yell when he turned around to catch Akiko trying to steal his candied chestnuts, meant to represent wealth.
"You don't care about money!" she shrieked at him. "I'm the landlord and the owner of the Narumi Detective Agency, I require this sort of thing much more than you!")
Shoutarou jerks out of his reverie as the toll of the bell cuts through the temple grounds, and he passes one hand over his eyes. When he drops his arm, Akiko is at his side in that sneaky way she has, and she leans her head against his shoulder.
Terui lets out a breath. "You might have lost your partner, but I, too, lost a friend."
"You're not alone," Akiko says, uncharacteristically serious, and Shoutarou knows he'll be paying for this later when she makes up for it by annoying him twice as much, but for now the dual attack leaves him speechless.
They stand in silence until the final peal hangs in the air and fades, then turn around and head for home.
Six Months: February
The nightmares are not a new thing, at least not for Shoutarou in general. It's not like he used to spend three nights a week waking up with a shout, heart pounding and sweat dripping down his face, but they did happen. Usually he saw Narumi Soukichi die again and again and again - sometimes alone, sometimes in Shoutarou's arms, sometimes at Shoutarou's hands - and sometimes the old man gave Shoutarou his hat and told him to take up his mantle, but sometimes the Boss stared at him with hard, accusing eyes and told him everything was his fault.
And then, later, other dreams, his friends being swallowed by the Sweets dopant or set on fire by the Magma dopant or turned into coins by the Greed dopant or any number of things that almost happened to them. Philip spent a few days after the Dream dopant researching lucid dreaming techniques, and he taught Shoutarou a few tricks to control all his nightmares, not just the ones invaded by crazy scientists, and that helped a little.
For a week after that one, Shoutarou slept with the driver around his waist so Philip could help him until he could do it himself. They played a lot of dream chess, which Philip won every time despite Shoutarou being able to see his next move in his thoughts and these being his dreams, which he always whined as being spectacularly unfair.
Philip always seemed to know when Shoutarou had a bad dream, even when he spent most of his nights downstairs in the lair, working out problems on his whiteboard or researching in the Gaia Library. Whenever Shoutarou woke up, twisted in his blanket, he'd find Philip sitting on the floor by the apartment's single bed, the blank book in his lap, one hand closed around Shoutarou's wrist.
"You're so noisy," he'd say to Shoutarou without looking up. "You were disturbing me."
Eventually Shoutarou learned to control his dreams for real, and so even though his job kept finding new horrors just when he'd learned to adjust to the last one, he could banish them for the night. Philip still made sure to pass by Shoutarou's bed once during the night in the middle of his sleepless rounds, but for the most part, Shoutarou could handle it himself.
Except the tricks only work on dreams Shoutarou knows aren't real. One of them was always to picture himself with his driver and the Gaia Memory on him, so at any time he could call on Double and get himself out of any pinch his mind might put him in. It gave him strength to call on his partner, even when he wasn't real, not an actual avatar of Philip but one conjured up by Shoutarou's brain.
Now the dreams are of losing Philip, of seeing him turned into the data stream and feeling his fingers slip away. Shoutarou tries holding on tighter, tries letting him go, tries fighting - tries everything, but it doesn't matter. Every time Philip disappears and it doesn't matter whether Shoutarou turns the whole setting of the dream into a gigantic cake shop, he can't stop it.
Until the time he does. He catches Philip by the shoulders, begs him to stay - Philip's eyes go wide with shock in the way he does when the raw, embarrassing earnestness that courses through Shoutarou like blood hits him by surprise - and suddenly the strength of their friendship and connection overrides everything and they save the world and get to live happily ever after.
Until he wakes, crying with relief and joy and triumph, to an empty apartment and a locked downstairs lair. After that Shoutarou lets Philip disappear and doesn't try to stop it. Dull confirmation of what he already knows is better than the moment of hope before he falls.
Seven Months: March
Akiko catches him with the looseleaf binder in his lap, turning the pages of meticulously-typed notes and staring at them like the letters will swim and change and reveal the mysteries of the universe. "What are you doing?" Akiko asks, her tone sharp with warning, but as always lately, with the undercurrent of worry that Shoutarou has come to hate more than her usual haranguing.
"Nothing," Shoutarou says, slamming the binder shut, but he can't put it away without slotting it into its proper place on his shelf, and Akiko pinches her mouth shut.
"You're reading over the case files again," she says, not exactly accusing, but Shoutarou can't meet her gaze anyway. "You're looking to see if you could have done anything different. You know it won't change anything."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Shoutarou snaps, picking up his coffee mug and hiding behind it, though that has never once availed him in the hundreds of times he's tried it.
Except this time Akiko doesn't argue, just shakes her head and closes her mouth and picks up a magazine, and Shoutarou lets his gaze wander to the window and the grey clouds that cover the sky. Akiko's right - there's nothing to change now, no way to go back in time - but Shoutarou's guilt hangs on him like the time Philip wanted to test his endurance under pressure and piled every coat he owned on him, and he thinks that maybe, maybe, if he knows exactly what he did wrong, exactly how he failed, he'll feel better. If he can pinpoint his mistake, the moment that Philip's death became his fault, he can start to work through it.
I need more keywords, says Philip's voice in his head. Shoutarou, you've made so many mistakes, how can I possibly start to narrow it down? Be more specific. What category of failure? Inaction? Misunderstanding? Improper choices?
Before he can help it, Shoutarou laughs, the sound strange and unfamiliar, and he rests his head in his hands. Across the room Akiko turns a page even though Shoutarou knows she hasn't read a word, but he decides not to call her out, this time.
Eight Months: April
He laughs again the first time he crosses underneath a sakura tree and petals brush against his fedora. The little girl playing with her friends at the base of the tree gives him a weird look, and so Shoutarou tips his hat to her and plucks a blossom drop onto her hair before strolling away.
Last year, he took Philip out with Akiko and Terui and the others to sit and drink and eat and watch the blossoms, and they all had a good laugh when Philip said he couldn't understand the point of it all.
"Why are we looking at them?" Philip asked Shoutarou in a sulky undertone, having come to realize that insisting on complaining out loud would spoil the others' fun. "This isn't compelling at all. They're merely the flowering stage of a fruit tree's reproductive cycle. And why cherry blossoms? I've looked into it, and history and literature are full of the same allusions to transience and fleeting nature of time. It seems disingenuous to attach meaning to something simply because it's ephemeral. Flatulence is no more enduring, yet I don't see anyone forming mass gatherings to partake in that together."
"I have no idea how to answer that," Shoutarou said, biting back a laugh. "But beauty is an important part of life, and as a man who wishes to live life to its fullest, it's important to appreciate the beautiful moments."
"I think you just say what you want and pretend it fits your philosophy," Philip said, giving Shoutarou an irritated look. "It would suit you, half-boiled detective as you are. There's nothing inherently beautiful about things that don't last. On the contrary, I think the things we can count on should be much more revered. Things like knowledge and truth and learning."
Shoutarou jostled Philip's shoulder. "And friendship, don't forget that."
Philip shook his head and stole a stick of dango from Shoutarou's plate. "How many beers have you had?" he asked. "You're getting worryingly maudlin."
"That's what I get for trying to agree with you!" Shoutarou shot back. "All I meant is that you're right, not everything is better because we know it will be over soon."
Mollified, Philip leaned back with his palms against the blue tarp and looked up through the sea of pink and white above them. Shoutarou shifted position to sit behind him, facing opposite, and they leaned back against each other so both could relax and enjoy the view without falling over.
Every time Shoutarou starts to feel down, he thinks of Philip's face as he asked about flatulence parties, and it makes him laugh instead. It works for about ten days, until the season ends and the blossoms cascade down in a shower of petals, eddying around his boots as he walks. The flurry of petals reminds him too much of Philip disappearing, and Shoutarou invents an excuse to stay inside until the wind and rain carry the last of the sakura away for another year.
Nine Months: May
Three days pass before Shoutarou realizes he hasn't thought about Philip at all. He's chasing a suspect in a case down an alley, when the man - not a dopant, just an average drug user - vaults over a fence, and for the first time since it happened, he doesn't slap at his belt for the driver and call out for Philip. He just scales the fence, scrambles over the top and keeps running, and only after he's caught the man, retrieved the stolen letters and returned them to the man's grateful ex-wife, that it hits him.
"What's the matter?" Jinno taps Shoutarou on the head with the end of his backscratcher. "You've got a face like you just tried to drink your own coffee."
"Maybe he's ready to admit that the reason his partner went 'on exchange' is because he was secretly a criminal? I always knew these guys were no good!" Makura gets in Shoutarou's face the way he always does - Shoutarou doesn't think he actually means anything he says, but if he doesn't make his quota for unpleasantness his hair will all fall out - and Shoutarou ignores him.
"Hey, hey, hey, enough." Jinno cuffs Makura on the back of the head and shoves the pile of paperwork into his arms, knocking him back with a hand to his chest. "Be useful, go file something." Makki leaves, grumbling, and Jinno turns back to Shoutarou with that rare thoughtful expression that Shoutarou has learned to hate because it means they're going to have a serious conversation. "You sure you're all right? You looked almost back to your old self today, but now you're far away again."
Shoutarou winces and tips his hat down over his eyes with a gesture that looks more careless than it really is. "Nothing, nothing, just the life of a detective. A man can't let himself get too cocky."
"Ah, true enough," Jinno says, pressing his backscratcher against a pressure point at his shoulder blade and leaning up to look at the ceiling as though it held all life's answers. "But you know, there's at least a small cure for these maladies of the heart. Tried and true, tested by yours truly himself."
Shoutarou raises one eyebrow. "Oh?"
"If you're feeling down, what you want to do is find a stall and get yourself the biggest, spiciest bowl of kimchi ramen you can find," Jinno says, and Shoutarou resists the urge to slap a hand on his forehead and drag it down his face until he pulls his skin off. "It's true! It's guaranteed to work, and do you know why?" Shoutarou shakes his head, resigned to hearing the explanation whether he wants to or not. "The words for 'spicy' and the word for 'painful' are written with the same kanji," Jinno says, leaning forward and gesturing Shoutarou close as though imparting a great secret. "So, when you cry because of spicy food, it provides the same relief as crying over emotional troubles, but without you having to think about painful things."
Shoutarou stares at Jinno for a long time, then lets out a laugh in spite of himself. "Maybe I'll try that," he says. "You know, I can never tell if you're wise or just crazy."
"The only one who can tell if a man is crazy or wise is the man himself," Jinno says with a sage nod, and Shoutarou snorts.
"Thanks for that, gramps," Shoutarou says, and Jinno winks.
An hour later, Shoutarou sits with a bowl of kimchi ramen and a container of hot sauce in front of him, not entirely able to believe he's doing this. He dumps the hot sauce into the broth until it changes colour, then shovels the whole thing into his mouth as fast as he can. Sure enough, within two bites his eyes are streaming; two more and he's holding a napkin to his nose. By the end of the bowl Shoutarou is laughing and crying and has gone through an entire container of waxy paper napkins.
Ten Months: June
It's a shame, in a way, that Philip disappeared when he did, because Shoutarou might have appreciated the driving rain back when his grief was strongest, when he could have sighed and moped around and imagined that the heavens were joining in on his sorrow. It's the sort of weather that makes a strong man, standing stoic in his grief, look all the more tragic, and Shoutarou thinks it might have done him some good, back then, instead of the relentless sun and scorching humidity nearly a year ago.
That lasts until, out of curiosity, he looks up the term for when the universe shares your pain and finds out that it's called "the smiling skies". Then he has to laugh because it's such an un-tragic term, and the kind that Philip would find fascinating and probably lose at least half a day to researching.
It's a good thing that a hard-boiled detective doesn't pay much attention to poetry.
Eleven Months: July
Last year, they actually failed to capture a criminal because Shoutarou made the mistake of letting Philip walk through the covered street behind Fuuto Market, where he ground to a halt underneath the first of the streamers for Tanabata.
"What's that?" Philip demanded, and no matter how much Shoutarou tugged at his sleeve or demanded that they run, Philip found that weird strength he had, where despite his size he rooted himself in the ground and refused to be moved. "Shoutarou! Stop wasting time and tell me what this is!"
"It's tanabata," Shoutarou said, impatient, dancing on the balls of his feet as he fought to dash off after the criminal. "Ah, come on, I'll tell you about it later, I promise! Just let's hurry up and go!"
They lost sight of the suspect, and that night when Philip was supposed to be researching his whereabouts, instead Shoutarou caught him scribbling all over the walls about stars and wishes and the Weaving Princess. "Did you know, Shoutarou?" Philip demanded, whirling around with the sole of his shoe skidding on the smooth metal floor. "It's such a tragic story! Two lovers, cruelly separated, only to meet on the seventh day of the seventh month!"
"Yeah, of course I know!" Shoutarou snapped, snatching the dry-erase marker from Philip's hand and shoving the cap back on. It didn't have quite the force he wanted, nothing like slamming a book shut, but he couldn't really pick one up just to bang the covers together. Not very hard-boiled, that. "Everyone knows that, we learn about the legend when we're kids."
Philip frowned. "If it's such an important part of your culture, you should have told me! That wasn't very thoughtful."
Shoutarou flung up his hands. "Well, now you know all about it and we probably won't ever catch that bank robber, so I hope you're happy! Maybe this year I'll wish for a new partner."
He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth, and he looked at Philip in alarm, but his friend only shook his head. "You don't mean that," Philip said mildly. "You and I are like Orihime and Hikoboshi, only without the weaving or the cow-herding or being married and separated. But that's not the point." Shoutarou rolled his eyes, his face flaming, but Philip mercifully pressed on. "What did you wish for when you were a child?"
Shoutarou froze. He kept those memories locked away for the most part, the children's home that never managed to live up to his dreams of a real home no matter how hard the caretakers tried. "I don't remember," he lied, even as his mind conjured up images of himself gripping the pen, focusing on the proper stroke order as he wrote out a single kanji character - family - on the strip of paper before tying it to the bamboo branch set up in their classroom, way at the back so the other kids wouldn't see.
"I bet he asked to be hard-boiled even as an elementary school student," Akiko called out from across the room, tying her own strip of paper to the tree. Shoutarou didn't have to look to know what she'd written on hers; he wished Terui luck. "Can you imagine, Philip? Little Shoutarou getting in trouble for trying to wear a fedora with his school uniform?"
"Ha ha," Shoutarou had said, throwing Philip's marker at her head, and this time the smack and Akiko's ensuing shriek were quite satisfying.
This year Shoutarou avoids the covered streets, bypasses the main fountain, the park, all the places where the city council has set up bamboo and left the tanzaku paper and pens for citizens to write their wishes. It succeeds until he comes home the night of the sixth and finds a single branch tied over the window, Akiko sitting quiet and contrite - but not, he notes, entirely apologetic - on the sofa nearby.
"No," Shoutarou says without looking at her. The daily ache has passed now, mostly, but now and then something still jabs him. The memory of Philip grinning and holding a piece of paper in front of Shoutarou's face - for Shoutarou to finally give up becoming a hard-boiled detective - sits in the back of his mind.
"You should make a wish," Akiko says, and her voice is soft but stubborn. "I think it would be good."
"What do you want me to wish for?" Shoutarou demands, and he meant to snap at her but it comes out tired instead. That's what he is, really, tired. "He's not coming back, I know that. I don't even know what to ask."
"I just think it's sad," Akiko says, frowning. "You shouldn't stop wishing just because you lose someone. I know my father isn't going to come back, so I stopped wasting wishes on that, but I didn't stop wishing altogether. You shouldn't, either."
Shoutarou stares at the bamboo, the ribbons and Akiko's handmade decorations - plus a few he recognizes from Santa-chan's roadside stand - hanging on the branches. "All right," he says grudgingly, and picks up the pen Akiko left helpfully on the table. He stares at the paper for a moment, drags his other hand down his face, then shoots Akiko a 'don't even think about it' glare and curls his arm around the paper.
"Are you going to tell me what you wrote?" Akiko asks after Shoutarou ties his wish to the tree, wrapping the string around the branch.
Shoutarou raises an eyebrow. "If I don't, you'll only look at it when I'm gone."
"I won't," Akiko says, indignant. "That's not how it works. But if you were my friend for real, you would tell me anyway."
"All right, I wished for you to stop talking for one day," Shoutarou says, and Akiko screeches at him, fumbling in her pocket for the ever-present slipper to beat him over the head. Shoutarou laughs and ducks behind the counter.
Who knows, maybe the gods will listen this time. They sent him a family, after all, and since they're so far away Shoutarou can't really complain they're almost twenty years late.
The tanzaku flutters in the heavy summer breeze.
(Later, when Terui Ryu stops by after his shift, he writes his own wish - to become stronger and master new techniques as Accel - and absently flicks through the existing papers. He smacks a hand against his face at Akiko's, which is his own name covered in hearts and surrounded by caricatures of herself sighing out more hearts - then stops at the second. No decorations, no drawings, just a single phrase: move forward.
Terui stares at it for a long time, and that evening when Shoutarou and Akiko return from the street fair, he punches Shoutarou in the shoulder.
"What was that?" Shoutarou demands.
"I believe this is an approved method of showing affection between two male comrades," Terui says with a straight face. "I heard it from a reputable source."
Shoutarou just blanks at him before shaking his head. "You're weird as ever, Terui."
Akiko catches his eye and smiles.)
Twelve Months: August
"Shoutarou."
He jumps, his hand jerking up and spilling hot coffee all over his lap. For a second Shoutarou forgets everything else as he swears and pats down his clothes with a handful of ineffectual napkins nicked from the local izakaya, which doesn't work at all and only makes him even more frustrated. It's only when he's mopped up the worst of the coffee that he remembers what startled him, and Shoutarou looks over at the bed - slowly, slowly, he's afraid if he moves too fast he'll scare reality and it will go back to the way it was - and there's Philip, shaking his head with that small, half-mocking smile on his face.
He didn't have that expression a minute ago, when Shoutarou was staring - oh, he was staring again, huh. Even Terui has commented on it.
"Sorry," Shoutarou says, giving an extra hard-boiled grunt for good measure, and he sets his mug back on the desk.
"I thought you told me it's not polite to stare," Philip says, and for a moment, never mind the miraculous return to life, Shoutarou is awed enough by the change in Philip's behaviour and understanding since their first meeting. In the beginning he would have said the same thing, but petulantly, frowning at Shoutarou for withholding some key piece of social evidence for reasons unknown. Now he's teasing, and the knowledge sits warm in Shoutarou's chest.
"It's not," Shoutarou says, leaning back in his chair just enough that it wont tip over backwards and knock him onto the floor. "Guess you rubbed off on me, partner."
Philip laughs, and he swings his leg over the side of the bed, setting aside the book he was reading. "Well, influence or not, I can't read with you looking at me. Would you like to take a walk? I read that nervous animals exhibiting undesirable behaviour should be taken outside to release some of their energy."
"Oh, you did, did you," Shoutarou grouses, and he stands up and swipes his jacket from the back of his chair. "You know, I think you came back even more disagreeable than ever."
"Maybe you're just not used to it after being left alone with no one to tell you you're being strange."
"With Akiko and Terui? Not likely!"
Philip falls into step with him as they leave the office; the summer heat is hot and sluggish, but Fuuto's famous wind stirs it just enough that the sweat gets wicked away before it settles. In a few weeks there will be fireworks to celebrate the end of the season, but for now the air of the town is solemn. Lanterns line the streets, calling the spirits of long-dead ancestors home.
They walk in silence for a while, arms occasionally brushing, and Shoutarou spent his childhood cramming himself with words, turning pages of books so heavy he had to hold them in his lap, but he can't find the one for this feeling. There's no way to describe the gratitude mingling with something else, something terrifying and welcoming all at once, like standing on the top of Fuuto Tower and looking down, down, down. He decides not to bother.
"Do you think someone's holding an obon dance?" Philip asks out of nowhere.
"Probably somewhere," Shoutarou says, glancing at him. Philip's face is turned up to the sky, the street lamps glittering in his eyes. "I thought you said they were boring and repetitious, nothing like street dancing."
"I've said many things," Philip says with a wave of his hand, brushing a strand of hair away from his face. "But this season is about lost souls finding their way home. I feel like I should pay some kind of respect." He gives Shoutarou another sideways glance, and this time his grin slips from false-neutral to fully wicked. "And I would never pass up an opportunity to make fun of my partner's terrible attempts to dance."
"Hey!" Shoutarou protests.
"I've never understood it," Philip continues, grinning wider now, and he darts out of reach as Shoutarou attempts to hit him over the head. "The steps are prearranged, all you have to do is follow the others and repeat until everyone gets tired of it. How is it that you always manage to mess it up?"
Shoutarou shouts and swings his hat at Philip, who laughs and breaks into a run. Shoutarou chases him, catches him halfway down the street and holds him with his elbow hooked around Philip's neck. "You're terrible," Shoutarou huffs, mussing Philip's perfect hair just to see him make a face. "No respect from any of you. I'd expect that from the others, but you, my own partner -"
Philip just laughs, the sound floating up to the clear, starry sky, and he wriggles free and knocks Shoutarou's shoulder with his own. "Come on, I want to dance," he says, in the tone he normally reserves for research topics just before scrawling strange facts all over Shoutarou's walls. "Stop complaining."
Shoutarou rolls his eyes, but before he can come up with another retort, Philip slides his hand down Shoutarou's forearm and links their fingers. Shoutarou swallows, gripping hard, and Philip doesn't disappear, doesn't turn into data, doesn't slip away or dissolve into the air, and Shoutarou doesn't wake, alone, in his bed. "All right," Shoutarou says, swallowing hard. "Let's go, partner."
Philip smiles and takes off, dragging Shoutarou after him, and after a few stumbling steps, Shoutarou picks up the pace and jogs alongside. "I hear music," Philip exclaims, darting down the street, and Shoutarou gives in and follows.