They meet every few weeks, sometimes more often, sometimes less if Kagetsu has to put in overtime at work.
Kagetsu jokingly asks, "Can't you tell those other ghouls to calm down for a bit? It's been really crazy out there, you know?"
Because Kagetsu is still human in this life, a human who works for the CCG, which might as well be the new police force of this era. And Yasuharu is a ghoul who whispers about how he wishes he had died over a hundred years ago, and he continues pretending to be human because now he has someone to live for who likes to see him smile and cry and laugh.
They usually meet in a number of dingy hotels where no one asks who you are when you walk in the door, only that you keep the volume down so the neighbors don't call the police, and clean up after the blood and other things when you're done.
One day, Kagetsu asks for more. They are sweaty and Yasuharu is laying flat on his stomach, allowing Kagetsu to probe at the taut skin right beneath his shoulder blades. The sensation is neither pleasant nor unpleasant; just odd, he tells his friend.
"I don't really understand how it works, even now. Kagune can get fairly big, so where does it all go when you're not using it?"
"As if I know. Yokai don't have to follow the laws of science."
Yasuharu shrugs his friend's touch off and rolls onto his back, ignore the vague itch his ministrations have left behind. He has never had anyone touch the area around his kakuho, not even the parents he had in this life.
Had, because it seems they are destined to lose everyone around them at the same point in life when they lost them a hundred years ago. This is why Yasuharu never bothered to look for the others, once he remembered who he used to be. It's one reason, anyway.
Kagetsu plays with his hair next, still humming the songs he cannot sing anywhere else in this whole country.
"Yasu, want to go somewhere next time?" Kagetsu chimes.
"Huh?"
"It's not like I'm married and have to hide you from my wife."
"No, but don't you think our situation is much worse than a little adultery?" Yasuharu frowns, rolling onto his side and frowning at Kagetsu. In this life his friend actually has more muscle than himself, and it feels strange sometimes when he lines up their bodies and notices how thin he is in comparison.
"I don't like hiding."
That, Yasuharu understands, even if he cannot agree about going out for a date.
"No, you never did. Must be that samurai pride."
Kagetsu laughs. It's not a melodic laugh, despite his name, which sounds like the words out of an old poem.
"How do you write your name?" Yasuharu asks suddenly. "It used to be with the characters for 'splendid' and 'moon'[1]."
Kagetsu blinks, brown eyes shining despite the dim lighting. "Still is, thankfully. You never answered my question."
Yasuharu bites his lip. "Is there a reason you want to show me off?"
Not that he has never been through his fair share of dangerous, life-threatening situations. As a ghoul in this life, he's gone through plenty already.
But he knows that his friend is not one to do something for the sake of doing it, despite how frivolous he once acted.
Kagetsu sighs and this is never a good sign, so Yasuharu sits up and listens.
"My coworkers are wondering where I go all the time. We generally go out for drinks a few times a week, but I haven't been coming along. It's just, you know how it is, they're a paranoid bunch so I didn't really want to introduce you to them..."
The strain in Kagetsu's voice is miniscule. It sounds as cheerful as ever, but Yasuharu has heard Kagetsu at his worst. He has heard his friend's voice shatter into a million fragments when his world came crashing down around him. When half of his family was dead, the other half still fighting on opposite sides of that bitter war.
So Yasuharu does the only sensible thing a ghoul with a human lover can do.
He nods and asks if Kagetsu wants to go to a tiny cafe near the CCG branch office in this ward.
"But, I thought ghouls don't eat normal food...Shintaro never did."
"Ghouls can't eat normal food at all, but we can pretend. Shintaro just never bothered."
In hindsight, Yasuharu understands all that made Shintaro reticent, a trait everyone hated and loved him for, and this is just one more thing about the past that makes Yasuharu squeeze his eyes shut and wish he could do over.
The date, time, and place is set and instead of sliding their bodies together tonight, they simply talk about the past.
"Remember the sweets we ate at the New Year's festival?" Yasuharu says, his voice the highest it has been since he was a child and his parents were still around. He has two sets of memories, one which remembers the sweet taste of sugar blossom in his mouth and another which remembers his parents feeding him the rich flavor of a young human being.
"Oh yeah, you ate so much daifuku[2] you got sick!"
Yasuharu sighs in longing. "I wish I could eat them again! I remember what they taste like, but nothing tastes good to this body except for well, you know."
It's always a harsh reminder that although they have been reunited across time in this modern era for whatever reason, they are still a world away from each other.
Kagetsu leans over and gives him a wet kiss on the mouth, smiling when he sputters and backs away.
"Don't kiss me when I'm in the middle of talking!"
"Don't you ever want to eat me?"
The question comes so abruptly Yasuharu has to pause to make sure he has heard the right words. But his ears do not deceive him and his friend has a smile plastered across his face.
He knows this smile. It is the smile of the boy who was raised in a proper samurai family, one who always knew which polite words and phrases to use, who never knew if his relatives would try to poison him or his siblings.
Yasuharu reaches his arms out, but does not hug his friend just yet. He lets his arms hover there as he shakes his head. It looks silly, but he knows this person in front of him.
"You are my dearest friend. I would sooner die than hurt you."
Kagetsu is slow in his approach, but eventually he lets Yasuharu wrap his arms around him.
Nothing is right about this situation. But it might be okay, for once, for nothing to be right about their world.
"So I'm just a very dear friend?" Kagetsu teases, voice muffled by Yasuharu's shoulder.
He laughs and releases his friend. "I guess not, anymore."
"If we knew that we'd sleep with each other in the future, the old us would have been horrified."
Yasuharu nods. "Ironically. It's this era that would have a problem with the - the, well. Age difference. Gender. Never mind the most obvious of them all...[3]"
"Yeah," Kagetsu agrees until he stops abruptly, eyes going wide.
"What?" Yasuharu checks over his shoulder just to make sure, but nothing is there. All he can smell in the air is stale air freshener and sex - not from them, but from the dozens of others who have used this room recently.
"Age...?"
"Yeah? I'm seventeen. You're what, twenty something?"
Kagetsu doesn't speak for a while, but Yasuharu can see him screaming internally. When his friend does recover, all he can do is quietly, carefully control his voice.
"You're seventeen...?"
"Yes...we used to be the same age, but I guess some things change and-"
"Seventeen!?"
"Why are you so concerned? It's not illegal," Yasuharu shoots back, frowning. He looks down at his own skinny body, which looks no different from a normal human. A monster wearing a human skin, indeed. "I just turned seventeen about two months ago. I don't really remember my...hey, Kagetsu? Kagetsu, don't you dare pass out on me! Exactly how old are you?"
"...Twenty-three..."
Yasuharu laughs. It must be a good sign that age is the only thing he's worried about.