A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal. The story "Crash and Burn" was the product of that wish.
This story picks up where "Crash and Burn" left off, and will feature more of Takara and Kiyomine, as well as the resolution of their half of the story. Reiichi and Yoshiya feature in a background role, largely in a family context; there will be one more sequel to this story, in order to tie up their loose ends.
Note: Kiyomine x Takara, with Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.
Break Even: Chapter Two
Of all the Kashiwagis who swept in now and then to spirit Reiichi—or, more recently, Fujishima—away to a late dinner on a school night, Masaya was the only one over whom Yoshiya had deep misgivings. Which wasn't to say the whole clan didn't have their quirks; a night out with Kashiwagi Senior always meant a few unsettled hours for Yoshiya, wondering if dinner at a Malaysian restaurant would turn into dinner in Johor, his only clue that Reiichi had left the country a cursory text message that came in after dessert, asking him to chair the dorm meeting the next afternoon. Hosaka was his own conundrum, as was Tsukasa, though the latter not as much for Yoshiya as for Reiichi, who was preternaturally observant about everything in his life except how much his younger brother longed for his undivided attention.
But it was Masaya who left Yoshiya's spine stiff when he called to inform them that he would be taking Fujishima to dinner—alone—at ten o'clock on a Thursday, Reiichi's expression twitching with the subtle tics of annoyance as the voice on the other side of the phone derailed one by one his casual attempts to invite himself along. It could have been the sense of entitlement he found so aggravating, the unspoken prerogative of the only Kashiwagi grandchild who could really overrule Reiichi. But it was simpler than that, at least for Yoshiya. He had known Masaya long enough to know that the other man's priorities were his job and his siblings, his younger brother in particular, and that everything else was a very distant second. Which meant dinner was nothing but a feeble cover for bullying Fujishima about Hosaka—a matter that Yoshiya privately felt was none of Masaya's, or the rest of the Kashiwagi clan's, business.
So he was less surprised than annoyed when Masaya interrupted the debacle Asou had made of their polenta with an urgent text message, summoning Reiichi halfway across town into the teeth of a gathering storm. The message hadn't said much—ristorante concerto garage level 3—with the suspicious lack of capitals and punctuation that always meant a Kashiwagi was texting under his thousand-thread-count napkin. Still, Yoshiya feared the worst, a CocoaBella fiasco all over again; so did Reiichi, if the speed with which he'd gathered his coat and gloves was any indication, though true to form he kept up his casual façade for Asou and Kuzumi's benefit until the second he raced out to his idling cab.
In the last moment before he reached for the doorknob, as Yoshiya tucked the thick wool collar up around his neck, Reiichi had leaned in to whisper, "Something sweet might not go amiss." Which was why Yoshiya had spent the half hour since his departure ensconced in their half-sized kitchen, defacing his blue polo shirt with specks of flour and improvising cinnamon apple crisps in the illegal toaster oven Reiichi and Fujishima had procured God knew where to make cherry turnovers for Valentine's Day. In the time between folding down pastry corners, he stared out into the unbroken blackness of the night, his unease rattling inside him like the barren branches beyond the hazy window as the snow set in.
Or maybe he disliked nights out with Masaya because there was always the chance they would end like this: with the clatter of the door to the enormous corner suite banging open, and the stomp of boots in the hall, a little too hard to be banishing a light dusting of snow. Yoshiya paused in his work pinning toothpicks into the corners of the next crisp and leaned out of the kitchen.
"Reiichi?" he greeted, content to let the other boy take the lead in this delicate situation.
At a glance, he could tell Masaya's tocsin had not been in time. Though Fujishima tried his best to keep his face turned away, shucking his coat and leaning down too deliberately to fumble with the laces of his boots, Yoshiya could see that his eyes were red, with that soft sheen that meant he hadn't yet cried himself out. But he was surprised to see the same kind of distress in Reiichi as the taller boy peeled his gloves with distracted fingers, something wayworn lingering on his face before he met Yoshiya's gaze and composed his lips into a smile.
"Ah—Yoshiya. The snow caught up with us in the parking lot," he said, gesturing offhandedly to the trail of white footprints that had escorted them in. He reached out to settle a hand on Fujishima's shoulder, and Yoshiya frowned when both of them seemed to flinch at the touch, as if something fragile had settled between them that even Reiichi was unsure how to breach. He pressed on gamely, his voice almost too bright. "Something smells delicious. Are you up for a little dessert, Fujishima?"
"Cinnamon apple crisps," Yoshiya said, because it felt like he had to say something. But Fujishima was shaking his head long before the syllables left his lips, ducking his head as he slipped past Yoshiya to escape down the hall.
"No—I mean, thanks, but…I'm not really hungry. Think I'm just gonna crash."
"We could camp out on the couch," Reiichi called hopefully after him. "Watch the second act of L'Age d'Or."
But whether he really thought Dalí's black-and-white classic would hold Fujishima's attention or was just fishing for a reaction of any kind, the suggestion was answered only by the sigh of Reiichi's door swinging closed, and then the weighty silence that always followed the click of the latch against the strike plate, the familiar sound of something being shut out. Reiichi leaned into the wall, tipping sideways until he could rest his temple against Yoshiya's shoulder.
"I don't suppose you made coffee, too?" he asked.
Yoshiya pressed a hand into the small of his back. "Always." Coffee was the first order of business following Kashiwagi emergency calls.
As he led Reiichi toward the kitchen, he glanced once at the mute bedroom door before reminding himself that trying to comfort Fujishima on his own usually ended with the younger boy in tears, even if he hadn't started that way. At least Reiichi was a known quantity. Better to settle him first, figure out what had happened before making any further overtures.
Reiichi's coffee preferences seemed erratic at first blush, but like most of his idiosyncrasies, Yoshiya had been spent long enough in his company to understand the pattern within apparent chaos. This late, the clock on the microwave bending toward midnight, Reiichi never drank anything stronger than a café mélange, with plenty of hot water and cream so the acidity wouldn't upset his delicate stomach. Yoshiya had one waiting for him on the edge of the counter. Yet tonight Reiichi seemed intent on fiddling with it, stirring the mug absently with a spoon and eyeing the French press as if he might add another shot. It was a particular kind of fidgeting with which Yoshiya was all too familiar—the way Reiichi moved when something had thrown him, when he was reevaluating a premise he had taken for granted. Yoshiya watched him with narrowed gray eyes.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice low—and then, when Reiichi reached for the honey instead of answering: "Did Masaya say something to him?"
Reiichi mishandled his spoon, splashing soft drops of foam across the first row of apple crisps. "Masaya? No—at least, not as far as I know. But I doubt it. He was utterly out of his depth."
Yoshiya stepped into the room, caught Reiichi's hand just before he overturned the cinnamon with a careless elbow. "Reiichi," he insisted, the soft way he always said that name when he needed those beautiful black eyes to lift to his, to excise the distance that had suddenly slipped in between them.
Reiichi glanced up at him and then away, over his shoulder, evaluating the abyss Yoshiya could feel at his back. Then he slid his hand into Yoshiya's and led him down the hall to the bedroom that had been theirs for a little over four weeks, his steaming coffee abandoned on the counter among all the other gestures that had fallen short tonight.
Yoshiya barely had the door closed, hadn't even found the light switch yet when something soft fell against his shoulder, the feather weight of Reiichi's head coming to rest along the line of his collarbone. Their hands were still entwined, the arm that should have slid around Reiichi's waist trapped in the pocket of heat between them, so for a long moment Yoshiya simply stood where he was, braced against the cold oak of the door, blinking against the dark and trying to imagine Reiichi's expression from the quiet flute of his breath. Then Reiichi lifted his head, and even in the dull light of the alarm clock Yoshiya could tell he had pressed his lips together, worry and sympathy clouding those bright eyes.
"I underestimated this," he murmured. "I think Kiyomine really made a mess of things this time."
Yoshiya had known that from the first night he found Fujishima half-frozen in the snow, something in the depths of him split and shaking. He chose not to say that. It was a subject he and Reiichi had almost never broached in the last four weeks—the culpability of the other person in all this, the name that flashed so often across the phone Fujishima never picked up. Reiichi knew how he felt about Hosaka well enough not to ask. But right now, this wasn't about his reservations, or the particular blindness that afflicted the Kashiwagi family where their lost sheep was concerned. This was just about piecing Reiichi back together—and later, he hoped, Fujishima.
"Did Masaya…bring him to dinner?" Yoshiya asked into the dark, suddenly wary of a scenario that hadn't occurred to him.
He felt Reiichi shake his head, the vibration echoed in their joined hands. "No, nothing like that. It was just…in the car, on the way home, Fujishima said…" Reiichi sighed, and the sound alone seemed to take all that he had, his body swaying across the unseen gap until their shoulders brushed. "That night, at the hospital…Kiyomine told Ayako she's the only one he cares about, and Fujishima overheard him. And believed him."
For a moment, they were both quiet, letting the weight of those whispered words sink into them. Yoshiya rubbed one hand across his forehead. There were things Reiichi wasn't saying, or perhaps things Fujishima hadn't revealed to him either, but it wasn't hard to fill them in with the memory of Fujishima disappearing into a darkened city, snowblind, sobbing, sagging into his coat. Yoshiya wondered if it was that confession, more than the moment of anger in the hallway, more than the plane taxiing on an icy runway or the empty guardianship form he'd carried like a lead weight in his pocket, that had driven Fujishima out into the storm. Suddenly, it wasn't hard to understand what he had been running from all this time.
But there had to be more to the story, at least where Reiichi was concerned; that moment in the kitchen was still in his head, his companion agitated in the way he always was when the gears were turning, restless with an idea that hadn't finished taking form. Yoshiya gave his hand a squeeze.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, a little guarded.
Reiichi blew out a heavy breath. "I'm thinking that this has to end—and there's only one way for that to happen. They have to see each other again."
Yoshiya started, his hand jerking against that familiar grip. "Reiichi…"
"I know, Yoshiya," Reiichi cut in before he could even start. "I know you don't approve of pushing him. You know I didn't either, at first. But things simply can't go on like this. Fujishima's been cloistered away for a month, and he's still not willing to see him. He has twenty-four voicemails from Kiyomine, and he hasn't listened to one of them." The words were coming a little too fast, sharp with the desperation Yoshiya could feel as Reiichi pressed his free hand into the center of his chest, those anxious fingers digging into his skin. "He still cares about Kiyomine, very deeply. That isn't how you behave when it's over."
Part of Yoshiya felt Reiichi needed a refresher on the ethics of information-gathering by violating the privacy of other people's cell phones. Another part couldn't help wondering if what he'd read as desperation was actually denial, a deep unwillingness to accept that this might be exactly what it looked like when it was over. Neither of them knew from experience; the only person Yoshiya had ever been that close to was right next to him, bound to him in the dark. He kept his focus where it belonged.
"And you don't think Fujishima's doubts are well-founded? About Ayako?" Yoshiya asked. It felt strange to talk that way about someone who was holed up in the bedroom just across the hall, as if he were a parent debating the welfare of a child.
Reiichi hesitated a moment before answering, a little hitch in his voice that was endemic to this conversation. "Last weekend, Ayako was in town for a visit home…she asked Kiyomine to have dinner with her, but he chose to attend Asou's basketball game instead, because he knew Fujishima would be there. He was that anxious to see him." Reiichi's hand curled into his shirt. "I've never known him to refuse Ayako anything. They could fix this, Yoshiya—if Fujishima would just talk to him."
"Reiichi…" Now it was Yoshiya's turn to hesitate, all too aware of the sharp note to Reiichi's voice, as if there were two people in this room who needed convincing. But there was a question that had to be asked, one he had avoided asking for two weeks as the phone began to ring, one Kashiwagi after another on the line. Yoshiya smoothed his thumb over the curve of Reiichi's wrist, tried to find the gentlest way of phrasing this. "Are you sure you're thinking about what's best for Fujishima? Not for Hosaka?"
The second the words left his lips, he wished he hadn't put it that way—Reiichi's hands leapt away from him, the two of them suddenly adrift in the dark, and even blind Yoshiya could imagine the wounded expression on Reiichi's face, the surprise that Yoshiya could think that little of him. The urge to apologize was automatic, but he bit down on that, forced himself to stand silent, in sentinel, waiting for a reply. As a rule, he would give in to Reiichi every time, no matter what it cost him, but this was the one area where he couldn't afford to. Because this wasn't about the two of them—this was about Fujishima, and Yoshiya had sworn never to let that person slip through his fingers again. He thought Reiichi might understand that if their roles had been reversed that night, if he'd been the one to find Fujishima out in the snow.
There was a long moment of strained silence before he felt the flicker of a touch against his fingers, Reiichi's hand sliding back into his. "Maybe that's a part of it," he admitted, so softly Yoshiya had to lean forward to hear him. "I know we haven't talked about it, but…Kiyomine's in a bad way. He's been devastated by this. I don't deny that's on my mind." Then Reiichi lifted his head, and even in the nominal light Yoshiya could tell how serious his expression had become. "But surely you can see that Fujishima isn't doing well, either. Avoiding their old room to the level that he's barely seen Aritomo, the way his fur stands on end whenever the phone rings, that cache of unheard messages…they're suffocating each other, Yoshiya. Some part of Fujishima is still frozen in that moment, and that ache won't ease until he faces it. Even if it's going to end…" Reiichi's inhale was short, as if the words caught in his throat. "…he has to let it end."
It had never occurred to Yoshiya that avoidance itself could be a wound, that perhaps there was some part of Fujishima that couldn't heal in isolation. But he could almost see that now, in the way Fujishima had ducked his head as he fled down the hall, his shoulders hunched as if bowed under a much heavier storm. Reiichi was right on one count: things that were over didn't stay that raw. However this story ended, there was at least one confrontation yet to come.
Yoshiya closed his eyes for a quiet moment, berating himself for being blind to that, and for forcing Reiichi to say it. Then he stepped forward and pulled them together, tucking Reiichi's face into the hollow of his shoulder and resting his cheek against the top of his head.
"All right. I understand," he murmured into soft black hair. "And I'm sorry." He could feel Reiichi relax against him, the dissolution of the tension that wound through him whenever they disagreed, however briefly. Yoshiya pressed one hand into the space between his shoulder blades. "But Reiichi—this isn't necessarily something you can fix. If what Fujishima's doubting is Hosaka's sincerity…that isn't something you can prove for him."
Reiichi shook his head, voice muffled in his wing collar. "I won't have to. Given half a chance, Kiyomine will prove it himself. Trust me, Yoshiya," he added, almost desperately, as his hands clenched into the folds of the blue polo shirt, and Yoshiya swayed from one foot to the other, feeling Reiichi lean into him, their centers of gravity shifting as one.
"I do," he promised. "Always."
He would have been content to stay that way a long time, lost in the small ocean of that movement between them, a rhythm as vital as the tide. But the moment was broken by a sound just beyond the door, the familiar squeak of a floorboard that four weeks had taught Yoshiya to recognize as Fujishima sneaking, poorly, down the old hall, no doubt headed for the kitchen. He felt Reiichi smile into the skin of his neck, a sensation that vanished as the other boy leaned back out of his hold.
"It seems our little sneak thief has rediscovered his appetite," he mused, and Yoshiya was relieved to hear a lilt in his voice again, replacing that hard edge. Reiichi slid one hand up to pat his shoulder. "There'll be cat prints all the way to your apple crisps. Why don't you go out first, see if you can keep him from scampering away again. I'd like to think just another minute about the best way to orchestrate this—a fitting crescendo for an early spring romance."
Yoshiya had his doubts it was going to be that easy. But he did as Reiichi asked nonetheless, slipping out into the hallway and closing the door soundlessly behind him, so as not to alert the cat burglar in the kitchen. It was in Reiichi's nature to be overly optimistic about how all this might end—but however it ended, Yoshiya vowed to be there, just in case Fujishima needed somewhere to run. There would be no more nights lost out in the snow.