Nearly a week after his latest living accommodations had been secured, Akari prepared to be discharged from the hospital. He'd recently begun respiratory therapy. It was a less grueling process in the beginning—a series of breathing exercises designed to reclaim lung capacity. That had been fine; the physical therapy that followed, however, always managed to leave him completely spent, even though the actions he was asked to perform were routine and not especially taxing.
It made him more ill-humored than typical—knowing that activities that he'd once done nonchalantly had become calculated expenditures of energy.
It made him vulnerable, too, and he despised being under Hirato's scrutiny in this diminished state.
He returned from his final inpatient therapy session to find Eva waiting in his room. Akari had always liked Eva; she was diligent and skilled—two qualities he held in highest esteem. That she was uncommonly beautiful and did not leverage this allure to beguile her way into accomplishment was yet another of her many admirable qualities. Unlike Hirato, his mind supplied before he could stop himself. There's no honor in sleeping your way to success, particularly when you're as talented as he is. After all these years, it appeared he was unable to forgive the other's indiscretion. He inwardly chided himself for permitting the past to seep into the present.
Eva's mellifluous laughter arrested the inertia of his thoughts. "What's wrong, Akari? You look like you're about to wring Hirato's neck."
"Blood-sucking bastards don't die that easily."
The glass-eyed beauty shook her head. "Be nice, okay? It was awfully generous of him to let you stay at his place."
"That's what worries me," he quipped. "He's not given to charity."
She canted her head and regarded him thoughtfully. "It's impossible, isn't it?"
"What's impossible?" he inquired, helping himself to the coffee on offer.
"Believing that he cares for you."
Akari took a long sip, considering how best to avoid a conversation about his erstwhile lover. Determining that it was inevitable, he opted for candor. "I know he cares; he's come to visit every day, after all."
"You two have been spending a lot of time together lately. Have you talked of reconciliation?"
"Absolutely not," the prosecutor said flatly. "Sentiment alone is insufficient to maintain a relationship. Besides, he's quite content being unfettered."
Eva sighed heavily. "I thought so too before—" she stalled, ostensibly vacillating about whether or not to continue.
"Before?" Akari prodded.
"Before you were hospitalized. You should have seen him when he learned what happened, Akari. He was so livid, so hurt. I didn't know he could feel such things." She gave a nervous titter. "He'd probably murder me if he found out I told you that."
"Probably," the DA agreed mildly, and then he grew serious. "Look, I won't deny that we matter to each other. Ultimately, however, what ended our relationship then is the same thing that drives him to seduction now: Hirato cares more about winning than anything else."
Something flashed in aquamarine eyes then, something bespeaking things that Akari could only guess at. Nevertheless, Eva added nothing further on the matter. "Well, you would know him better than I do."
"Indeed."
"Anyway," she waved a hand to indicate change of subject. "I bet you're looking forward to being discharged, at least."
Akari nodded. "Quite. It might be worth putting up with Hirato's nonsense just to get out of here."
Hirato rarely grew impatient. Since much of his professional life was dedicated to clientele of a morally ambiguous character, he'd learned long ago to cultivate a monk-like patience in the face of life's vicissitudes—at least on the surface. It was somewhat vexing, then, to find himself drumming his fingers atop the steering wheel in anticipation of Akari's release. He arrived on the Southside two hours earlier than necessary. The first he was able to fritter away by browsing the shelves in the University Bookstore. Having flipped through Freakonomics thrice, he decided that his efforts would be better wasted at the Medical Center.
Snow fell in heavy, wet clumps and gathered thickly on the streets as he ambled towards the hospital. He grinned. Akari will be pleased to be outside. He then schooled his face into an expression of perfect equanimity (lest he be found out). As he stepped through the doors, he caught a flash of straw-colored hair that could only belong to Akari's second-in-command. Yogi and Gareki were standing in the corner of the lobby. Hirato made to approach them, but the sight of the blond stopped him short. To say that Yogi looked distressed would be an understatement—from his wildly gesticulating hands to his ramrod spine, he was every inch the wounded, furious young man that had threatened him the night Akari was shot. In contrast, Gareki had his arms crossed, posture unconsciously defensive, expression impassive except for the barest trace of impatience. In that moment, the defense attorney was struck by how alike he and his brother were. It was on account of this similarity that he understood completely what Gareki's bearing meant.
Trouble in paradise, hmmm? Several weeks ago, he might have smirked sagely and commenced teasing immediately. Today, he observed furtively from behind a nearby pillar, intuiting that the conversation would likely deflate his buoyant mood. He may not be an ideal elder sibling, but he held a deep concern for every facet of his brother's well-being, including the romantic.
"You're overreacting." Gareki was saying. "I only meant that we're moving too fast."
Yogi sputtered momentarily, but when he spoke, his tenor retained none of its everyday insecurity. "Really? Because I distinctly remember you kissing me first."
"I never said I didn't like you, only that I think it's too soon for us to be in a committed relationship," the brunet replied. Behind the partition, Hirato winced. Bad move, little brother.
Lavender orbs narrowed viciously as Yogi squared himself up in a manner uncannily reminiscent of his supervisor. "And everything afterwards? What was that?"
Gareki's countenance shifted, softening perceptibly. "I'm sorry, Yogi. I realize I may have given you the wrong impression, but I didn't think things through. We were both so upset when Akari was unconscious, and I—"
The young attorney held up his hand, prompting his interlocutor's immediate silence. "Am I to understand that you used me?" he whispered dangerously.
"Of course not," Gareki placated. "Only that I moved things along faster than I should have. I didn't mean to hurt you; I thought I was helping."
Several breaths passed in tense apprehension.
"I don't need your pity," Yogi finally hissed in cold fury. He whirled around and stormed past Hirato, the silvery gleam in his gaze lending a menace to his affect that was thoroughly at odds with his characteristically cheerful demeanor.
"Fuck." Gareki made to follow, but he was stilled by long fingers curling around his elbow.
"Let him go," Hirato advised. "You'll make things worse."
"I'd rather not take relationship pointers from you," the younger retorted, wrenching himself free.
Hirato shrugged dismissively and made for the elevator bank.
"If you think I'm going to be wheeled out of here, you're sorely mistaken," Akari said coolly, incarnadine irises fixed on a wheelchair as if it had done him a grievous injury.
The attendant protested. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dezart, but it's hospital policy for discharges."
Hirato stifled a chuckle and settled a consoling hand on the volunteer's shoulder. "Don't worry. He won't sue; he's far too noble for that," he lilted, doing nothing to quell the boy's fear. "Besides," the defense attorney continued, "I can see to him from here."
"What do you mean see to me?" the blond inquired sharply. "I'm quite capable of looking after myself, thank you."
"Pardon me if I don't believe you; traipsing around one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city well after midnight and getting yourself shot suggests otherwise."
Akari tutted and averted his eyes.
Hirato, for his part, grinned like an imp as he led an indignant city prosecutor out of the hospital.
Driving to the DA's residence was thankfully uneventful. Akari stared placidly out the window, the corners of his lips turned up in the ghost of a smile. Hirato could hardly keep from beaming himself. The blond seldom smiled in earnest, and never in his presence, at least not in recent memory. He was attempting to recall the last time he'd seen those pale lips curve when he felt a tentative hand settle atop the gear shift, making contact with his own and promptly shying away after a blink. Yet in that blink's length, his skin burned where it met the other's, conjuring memories of how that touch had never failed to ignite his desire.
Akari cleared his throat awkwardly, utterly incognizant of his effect on his companion. "I want to thank you."
"There are so many ways to do precisely that," he chirped, relishing the pique he'd caused with a few paltry words.
"I'm going to regret this." The prosecutor pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.
He still does that, doesn't he? Hirato thought. How adorable. "Probably."
"Come on," Akari said resignedly, "I'll show you how the other half lives."
The Assistant DA's apartment, Hirato determined, was a testament to the man's devotion to his work. Shelves of legal volumes lined the living room walls, lending it the ambience of a lived-in library. The room was extraordinarily well-kept—as expected. Upon closer inspection, the inky-haired man found that the books were arranged chronologically. Hirato trailed after Akari, slipping past a home office and spotless kitchen. Copper cooking instruments hung from the ceiling, betraying the blond's culinary prowess. They looked new, like they'd been placed there and forgotten entirely. The defense attorney wondered how many others had sampled Akari's cooking; he wondered how many others had sampled Akari.
"You are patently not the other half, counselor," he teased, making his way to the bedroom.
"I don't live on the Near North Side either."
Hirato peered around the door frame, feeling rather like an intruder. He'd forfeited the right to such intimacy, after all. But Akari didn't seem to mind; he was too preoccupied with folding his clothes along the proper creases. Violet eyes raked over the room, taking in the small stack of fiction on the nightstand and the immaculately made bed. His bedmate was always fastidious in that regard. Once upon a time, Hirato had endeavored to find novel ways of disarraying the tightly-tucked sheets. Now, he imagined the other man's reaction if he should push him against the mattress and debauch him like never before. Would Akari feel the same after all this time? Would he taste the same? Sketch the same patterns he'd etched into Hirato's skin years ago? Several minutes elapsed in fanciful contemplation before he gathered his scattered wits. "How do you know I live there?"
"Where else?" Akari queried, still distracted by packing.
He slinked into the room, slipping his hands into his pockets to stay them from wandering to Akari's person. It wouldn't do to sabotage his plan before its inception. "Why do you live here, then?"
"I like Hyde Park."
"No one likes Hyde Park. Well, except college professors."
"Maybe I should have been a college professor."
"You wouldn't be sporting that bruise right now if you had."
Akari stilled. He spun around, mouth a thin line and jewel-toned eyes appraising the brunet with consummate acuity. "We'd never have met, either."
Surprisingly, in the resultant hush, it was Hirato who refused to meet the other's gaze. "Wouldn't you prefer that? Picture it: You as an idealistic instructor, inspiring all kinds of daydreaming amongst your students." He forced a hollow bark and hoped it sounded sufficiently unperturbed. "You'd have flourished in academia."
The blond disregarded the compliment, trademark directness cutting to the heart of the matter without equivocation. "I don't want to forget you, Hirato." Akari turned his back and resumed organizing his suitcase. "It wasn't all bad."
It wasn't all bad. How ought he to counter that? Once again, his lover's staggering artlessness had completely disarmed him, leaving him no quarter, nowhere to go in terms of rejoinder. "Well I expect it's easier for the one who walked away." Shit. He hadn't meant to say it like that; he'd meant to sound jovial, playful even, not so embittered and resentful.
"You didn't leave me much of a choice," Akari responded, his nonchalance causing Hirato's chest to squeeze in a dull, aching fashion.
"Are you saying that you'd have stayed if I hadn't cheated? Even though my chosen career trajectory was antithetical to your philosophy?"
The prosecutor zipped his luggage and picked it up, facing him once more. "Who can say? Philosophies are fickle things. I suspect having access to your bank account might have enticed me to indulgence on that score."
"And you're supposed to be the principled one…"
Quietude reigned again during their drive uptown. Hirato noted how such silences were becoming more and more commonplace. Is that a good or a bad thing? He weighed the evidence en route, eventually settling on the more positive interpretation. Of course, anything was better than the vitriol they usually reserved for one another.
Only after they'd parked and entered the elevator did Akari speak. "You live on the sixtieth floor?"
"You were expecting the six hundred and sixty sixth?"
"Something like that," Akari confirmed, a smirk twisting his mouth.
"Well, I hope you won't be disappointed then."
The DA inhaled sharply as he was shown inside. A large, exceedingly well-appointed living room greeted them, chic blacks and whites imbuing it with a modern elegance. The glass fireplace was already alight, providing a cozy respite from the biting Chicago wind. Despite the luxurious décor, it was the view that commanded the blond's attention. He dropped his suitcase and made a beeline for the bay windows. Lake Michigan's slate blue expanse melted into a grey horizon, giving the illusion that they were floating above its waters. "Do these windows go—"
"Across the whole unit, yes."
"You have an entire wall made of glass?"
"Two walls, actually. This is a corner apartment."
Akari placed his hand to the window, mesmerized by the swirl of snowfall against a clouded sky. "Your soul is but a pittance in exchange for all this."
"I thought so too," Hirato said affably. "Let me show you to the guest room."
Akari took his time getting acclimated to his new quarters, eyes involuntarily darting to the window from time to time. While Hirato's living room overlooked Lake Michigan, his guest room overlooked the city. The prosecutor watched rush hour traffic inching along darkening streets sixty floors below, relishing the sensation of being so far aloft. He pondered briefly what view the master bedroom afforded and swallowed the unexpectedly fervent urge to find out. Gareki's voice filtered through the door just as he'd begun hanging his clothes.
"Where's Akari?" the youth demanded, urgent tone compelling the prosecutor's concern.
"He's settling in." Hirato's response was uncharacteristically terse. "What do you want?"
Ah, so my accommodations come with a bouncer and police escort, Akari thought mischievously.
"I need to see him." His tone was urgent. "It's about Yogi."
"What about him?" The DA stepped into the living room where a desperate-looking Gareki stood glaring at his older brother.
The younger brunet turned towards him. "Can we talk privately?"
"That depends on your brother; this isn't my home."
Hirato waved them away. "Don't stand on ceremony. I'll make dinner plans in the meantime."
Akari was understandably disconcerted about what dinner plans might entail. He put images of death via smoke inhalation firmly out of mind and led the young man to his room. Closing the door seemed terribly disrespectful, so he left it ajar by a few millimeters. Hirato might be a right bastard, but he wasn't uncivilized enough to eavesdrop on his own brother.
"What's this about Yogi?" Akari showed him to an armchair.
Gareki breathed deeply before his words spilled forth uncontrollably. "He's… shit. I've never seen him so angry. He's usually so good-natured. You've got to talk him down."
"What did you do?"
The youth blanched, clearly taken aback by such forthrightness. "I told him things were moving too fast."
"Were they?" the DA queried, voice clipped and precise.
"Yes. But before you say 'I told you so' just hear me out. I think we sort of leaned on each other when we weren't sure if you were going to make it. I was trying to help but I messed up and—"
"And?"
"—and took things further than I should have."
"Let me make sure I've got all the facts straight," Akari intoned, courtroom persona taking over instinctually. "You pursued him, heedless of my warning, because you thought of him as charity work. Realizing your mistake, you attempted to rescind your overtures and let slip your remarkably insulting motivations for initiating a relationship in the first place. Now you want me to pacify him on your behalf." He paused. "Is that correct?"
"You make me sound like Hirato when you say it like that." Gareki dropped his gaze, a flush of color staining his cheeks.
"Whatever else Hirato may be, he would never condescend to romantic entanglements out of pity."
The brunet was stunned into silence.
In the interim, Akari's exhaustion threatened to overwhelm. He'd been on his feet far too long and no longer possessed the wherewithal for admonishment. So much for physical therapy. He therefore determined that disclosure would prove the most efficient course of action. "Yogi's family was killed when he was about eight. He was at a sleepover when it happened." Midnight eyes widened in shock. "From the evidence, it looks like a robbery gone sour. The culprit was never caught," he explained, hoping that revealing his subordinate's history would give some context for Yogi's predilection towards attachment.
He could see Gareki's mind working around the problem, following the logic to its natural conclusion. "That's why he's so volatile."
"No. What you think is volatility is born of an instinct to protect the people he cares for," the prosecutor said bitterly. "You see, he doesn't want to lose anyone else."
"I had no idea," the youth scrubbed a hand through his hair.
"Clearly."
"I should have listened to you when you told me to back off. I just saw something I wanted and went for it."
"What, exactly, is it you want? Attention? Sex? Partnership?" Akari asked.
"I'm not sure. I think I'd like to find out," Gareki regarded his host, expression yielding and sincere, "That sounds awful, doesn't it? The thing is, I don't know where I'll be next year. I don't want things to get serious only to have everything go up in flames."
"What about what he wants?" Akari probed. "Ever consider that?"
The younger man sighed wearily. "I guess I didn't, did I? Maybe I'm more like Hirato than I want to be. We're both selfish, really..."
"You two have much in common, it's true—absurdity, for example. I'm no scientist, but I'm sure that selfishness isn't genetically inherited," the blond said, sarcasm edging every syllable. "Running won't ameliorate the situation."
A beat. "I fucked this one up, didn't I?"
"Royally."
The brunet closed his eyes, lost in contrition. "I still don't know if I want a relationship right now, but I'd like us to be friends at least. Do you think I can fix this?" he ultimately inquired.
"I don't know, Gareki. Some hurts don't heal."
Now it was the Assistant DA who found himself on the receiving end of a penetrating stare. "Are you still talking about Yogi?"
Too tired to dissemble, he answered plainly. "Maybe I'm talking about the both of us."
Just beyond the threshold, Hirato froze in midst of knocking. He certainly did not intend to overhear, but there was no avoiding it. Some hurts don't heal. He shook his head as if he might dislodge Akari's words and rapped on the door after a sufficient interval of time so as to mitigate any suspicion of eavesdropping. "Akari, I'm thinking either Chinese or pizza for dinner. Brother dearest, will you be joining us?"
"No. I have to be somewhere."
"Suit yourself."
Gareki stood and nodded at Akari before brushing past Hirato. "Thanks."
"It's no problem."
With that, he saw himself out, leaving an enervated blond to contend with a roguish brunet. "Is he okay?" Hirato inquired, praying he wouldn't be found out.
"He could use some guidance, particularly in the long-term decision-making department."
"Believe me, I've tried. I suck at the big brother shit, remember?" the defense attorney quipped, tone too acerbic to be casual.
"I don't think that's true," Akari assuaged. "You're exceedingly fond of him. Why else would you interfere in his affairs so often?"
"You're still concussed."
"I might be."
"How concussed?" A dark brow arched.
"Not enough to miss the subtext there." Akari smiled. "And pizza. We live in Chicago."
"As you wish, my dear DA." Hirato gave a mock bow before sauntering off in search of a telephone.
Soooooooooooooooo... that chapter sucked, didn't it? My deepest apologies. I've been sitting on it for the last two weeks because I hated it so much. I decided to post it anyway because I know some of you are awaiting an update.
