On the evening of June 21st, Kuroba Takumi had come and gone, Saguru had spent an afternoon full of leisurely reading, and Kuroba Kaito was home alone. This was the usual state of affairs among them for the most part. Shortly before eight o'clock, however, Saguru put a bookmark in his novel and decided to do something out of the ordinary; he knocked on his neighbor's door.

Kuroba answered the door with a bemused expression on his face. Since it was usually Kuroba seeking Saguru out, Saguru supposed it was a bit odd for their positions to be reversed. "Hakuba," Kuroba said.

"Care for some company?" Saguru asked.

Kuroba looked him over and at the box in Saguru's free hand before shrugging. "Might as well." He left the door open for Saguru to find his own way in. "Don't bother with guest slippers," Kuroba added, a vague wave of his hand as he rounded the entryway to his living room.

Saguru followed after him, closing the door and taking his shoes off as was the polite thing to do. Kuroba was seated at his couch, a half empty bottle of wine on the coffee table next to an empty glass and what appeared to be a photo album. On the kitchen table were two cards, one with Takumi's taste clearly evident by the pop up in the center, the other apparently from coworkers if the messy scrawl of signatures was anything to go by. An analogue alarm clock smaller than the palm of Saguru's hand sat next to both of them, face up. Kuroba poured himself another glass of wine, swirling it in the glass as Saguru took a seat in the adjacent chair.

"Happy birthday," Saguru said.

Kuroba's lips twitched in a facsimile of a smile. He raised the glass in a toast. "Thanks." He took a large swallow of wine, and Saguru wondered just how fast he had been drinking that bottle and what Kuroba's alcohol tolerance actually was. He seemed like he would be someone who could fake being sober a long way past actually being so.

"Mum sends her regards," Saguru said, setting the box on the coffee table. It wasn't wrapped, just plain white cardboard with a curl of plastic ribbon on top and a card tucked in the top flap from Saguru.

Kuroba looked at the package like it was a potentially live bomb. "That's very kind of her."

"It's nothing big or all that special. No need to look so worried."

Kuroba rolled his eyes and drained half the glass in one swallow. "She really didn't need to bother." The wine glass went back on the coffee table with a perfectly steady hand, though Saguru had the feeling Kuroba was a lot tipsier than he appeared. The bottle of wine had almost a 20% alcohol content. Kuroba popped the box open.

"French sables," Saguru said as Kuroba picked up one of the round confections from the box. "My aunt sent Mum a bunch of Gran's old recipes so Mum's been on a baking spree."

"Oh." Kuroba took a bite. "It's good."

"I'll pass that along."

"Send my thanks too…it was nice of her to think of me…" Kuroba picked up Saguru's card, pulling it free of the envelope and turning it around. It was nothing special, just a simple birthday greeting and well wishes, but it made Kuroba smile a bit more genuinely for a moment. "Thanks, Hakuba."

Saguru waved the thanks away.

"Want a glass of—wait no, you don't drink wine." Kuroba frowned at his wine glass. "Would you like water?"

"I'm fine, Kuroba." He had definitely drank more than he usually did; Kuroba almost never forgot people's habits and preferences. "Looking at family pictures?" Saguru said, derailing all topic of drinks on the off chance Kuroba tried to insist that Saguru drank some sort of beverage when he didn't need anything.

"Yeah." Kuroba picked up the album, paging through it, back toward the start. It had photos of him and Aoko in there. High school photos, a marriage photo, one with their parents and Jii in the background like a benevolent grandfather. Kuroba looked at those for a moment looking a little sad before flipping a page to the first picture of Takumi. He was red and wrinkled the way all newborns were with a chubby face pulled into a frown. "He was such an angry baby for the first few months," Kuroba said. "And then he calmed down. Aoko and I were terrified he'd just scream all the time forever. We barely got any sleep back then."

Kuroba poured himself a bit more wine, not a full glass this time, and scooted so he was close enough to Saguru's seat that they could both look at the pictures easily. There was one of Aoko and Momoi Keiko holding babies next to each other. Aoko looked like she was going to throw the nearest object in the camera's direction but Momoi was laughing. It must have been Kaito who took the picture. One with Kuroba Chikage. One with Nakamori. Jii holding Takumi and looking even happier than he had in the wedding photo.

"Hakuba, Hakuba," Kuroba said, reaching out to tug on Saguru's sleeve. "He used to make this face—" Kuroba contorted his face like he was in between trying not to sneeze and bare his teeth at the same time. "—like that whenever we used to tell him to smile. See?" He pointed at Takumi as a toddler, clearly in the early stages of walking and wearing a similar expression to the one Kuroba had imitated. "It was the weirdest shit. Like he thought that was a smile for the longest time. It was so hard to get a good picture." He flipped the pages, almost smiling. There was a span where Aoko was barely in them at all, just Takumi and an exhausted looking Kuroba or Chikage or Nakamori or Jii.

"That was when Aoko was in police training," Kuroba explained. "I don't know how we got through that to be honest. I had classes and Takumi and Aoko had to live in the dorms so we only ever saw her on weekends for months…" He touched a picture of Aoko in a uniform holding Takumi over a birthday cake with a single candle. "It felt like if we made it through that, we could make it through anything, you know?"

"I'd wondered how she made it to inspector at such a young age with having Takumi," Saguru said. Kuroba's expression was bitter sweet, nostalgic in a worrying way in part because Kuroba was showing that nostalgia at all.

"We both half worked ourselves to death to get to a point of stability. Her with powering through police courses and working odd hours til she could move up, and me with college and grad school. You know, I got my degrees in less than five years? We couldn't have done it without Kaa-san and Jii. Even Nakamori helped babysit a lot. He likes kids. I never would have known until I saw him with Takumi."

More pages went by, Takumi growing older in them. Aoko and Kaito still looked tired in most of the photos, but they also looked happy. Kuroba turned a page and there was the house Aoko lived in. Takumi wasn't school age yet from the looks of him, but nearing it.

"I got a job at the museum," Kaito said, smile leaving his face as he looked past the picture, into it at whatever memories it held. "Hired from an internship. We got a house together." He trailed off. "I had hoped that by then I wouldn't have to be Kid anymore, but I still was and I knew I probably would be for a lot longer. And so I told Aoko."

The pictures following the happy one in their new home had tension on everyone's faces even though it was clear that they were trying to be positive for the camera. Kuroba played with the edge of a page, flicking the corner of it back and forth with his fingernails. "I wasn't planning on looking at these tonight, just put some new pictures in that Takumi brought over, but I can't ever seem to just add to it."

Saguru gently took the photo album from Kuroba's hands before he started folding corners over with his fidgeting. Kuroba's hands twisted with each other instead as Saguru kept moving through the pictorial timeline of Takumi's life. The more pages he turned, the more Takumi's smile showed up again. Not when both parents were in the photos together, which was understandable, but in the ones where he was with one or the other or with his friends or candid with his grandparents, he looked happy. Saguru reached the end. There were four photos on this page, the bottom two slots still open, most of the photos depicting Takumi in moments presumably with Kuroba. In one he was surrounded by Kuroba's doves, a bird perching on every horizontal part of him as he fed them. One had him and Kuroba bent over something as they worked on it, identical smiles on their faces. A photo of Takumi dressed up for his high school entrance ceremony. The last one Saguru thought might have been taken in Kuroba's childhood home. There was a photo or painting of Kuroba Toichi in the background. Sprawling on a couch, Kuroba and Takumi each had a hand of cards with a pile between them.

He set the album back on the coffee table. "Look," Saguru said as Kuroba stared off into something only he could see. Saguru caught Kuroba's hands and stilled them. "What do you see in these pictures?"

"My son getting too old too fast," Kuroba said in what was clearly meant to be a joking tone. It fell flat though, and Saguru gripped his hands. Kuroba gripped back with fingers like iron bands.

"I see a young man who is comfortable around his parent," Saguru said, "who enjoys his company. I see a parent who loves his son and seeing his son happy." Saguru loved his father, but he didn't have any photos or moments like the ones shown here with him. He had an intellectual relationship with his father more so than a friendship and that was fine for them. He was a little jealous of the ease between Kuroba and Takumi in the moments shown here though; that was something Saguru would never have with his father.

"I'm not a very good parent," Kuroba said, looking at his hands instead of the photos. "I joke too much and encourage bad habits and always cave when he starts looking sad."

"He has Aoko for structure," Saguru said, "but he feels comfortable having fun with you. Or are the smiles in those pictures fake?"

Kuroba didn't answer so Saguru shifted a bit closer and nudged him with his toe. "Hmm?"

"They're real," Kuroba mumbled. Saguru twitched as Kuroba flopped forward across the open space between them, ending up half in Saguru's lap, half still on the other couch. "Hakuba," Kuroba said into Saguru's forearm and thigh, "you're making it really hard to drunkenly wallow in feeling sorry about my life."

Saguru almost laughed. "Consider it payback for the times you've drawn me out of my wallowing," Saguru returned drily. Kuroba grunted, seemingly content to stay sprawled on top of him. Saguru sighed. "You know you've trapped my hands so I can't help you up."

"I'm not moving. You're part of the furniture now."

Ridiculous, Saguru thought fondly. "I think you've had enough to drink for the night."

"Funny, I was just thinking I haven't had enough." Kuroba twisted around so he was on his side. There was a half-smile on his face that had the breath catching in Saguru's chest. It was far from the first time he'd felt attracted to Kuroba but... But. Saguru's hands clenched without conscious thought, still tangled with Kuroba's.

Friends, he reminded himself. They were friends and that was all they'd ever be because Kuroba wasn't into men and Saguru could be happy with just having this. It just figured that this flash of attraction was so much stronger than the flickers he'd managed to feel on the date with Hiroto. It's still possible to feel like this, he thought. Good, now stop feeling it. The moment was there and gone, pushed away in the space of a breath.

"Definitely had enough," Saguru said aware that he was a beat too slow to speak. Kuroba was drunk though. He didn't seem to notice the pause at all. "You have work tomorrow."

"I'm not that drunk," Kuroba said.

"Says the man on my lap."

"You're surprisingly comfortable." Kuroba on the other hand was all muscle and boney angles. Not comfortable at all if Saguru let himself pay attention to Kuroba's weight against him. Saguru pulled his hands free and guided Kuroba right side up.

"I'm sure I am."

Kuroba slumped back into his couch with a sigh. "Play a game of cards with me?"

"Sure." Saguru smirked. "I'd ask you not to cheat, but it is your birthday."

"Me? Cheat? Never." Kuroba looked mock scandalized before giggling as he brought out a pack of cards sloppily enough for Saguru to catch him pulling them from a hidden shirt pocket. "How about we play with a penalty for every time you can actually catch me cheating?"

"Fair enough." The bottle of wine, biscuit box, and photo album were shunted aside in favor of an inventive version of gin rummy. Kuroba didn't touch a drop more alcohol the rest of the evening that Saguru was there.