Laying down to sleep made his head spin uncomfortably so Hatori paced his own bedroom back and forth, willing the alcohol from his system and trying to dissect out his feelings on the night that had just taken place. Back and forth he walked, firstly denying that there was any truth to Rika's claim. Slowly acknowledging that maybe there was an inkling of it.
The need to protect her had always been there. From the very first time she'd been in that clinic bed, skin illuminated with hues of green, purple, yellow and black. He'd rediscovered it after the car crash. The night he'd dropped all his groceries to find her wheezing mid-panic attack in his hallway. Hatori's life the past year had been built around protecting her. From Akito. From her memories. From himself.
A light illuminated the hallway. He went still, glad his own bedside lamp had been switched off and wouldn't show that he was still up beneath the doorway. The light vanished as quick as it had come but it wasn't enough to hide the soft footfalls by his door nor obscure the shadowed outline of the woman they belonged to. Abandoning the trouble he was having unbuttoning his own damn shirt, Hatori let curiosity guide him instead.
He found her in the small attic, body leaning against the windowsill. She'd changed into a t-shirt stolen from Haru during her last visit, the fabric too long and hanging to mid-thigh. Its obvious origin was highlighted by the heavy metal band name repeated across the fabric. A pair of shorts made him think she ought to have dressed warmer. It certainly didn't help keep his drunken thoughts in place. Neither did the detail that over it all was his suit jacket from earlier in the evening, tucked tight at her waist where her arms cinched it in place. Her head rested in her chin. One bare ankle hooked over the other. As he dragged his gaze back upwards Hatori found himself granting her the second look she'd asked for. Noting the long stretch of her limbs. The gentle curve of her hip.
He wanted to claim it was only Shigure's words tonight that incited it but he knew better. He'd been observing her for months, filing away the parts of her that captured his attention most. Waiting for something. A rebuff. An invitation. He cleared his throat and stepped onto the attic floor. He had to say something witty. Calming. Good.
"I'm sure you could've found something warmer to wear than that."
That wasn't witty.
She started at his voice, turning quickly but clumsily, the effects of the alcohol still in play. The earlier taut edge was gone but her eyes were wide with disbelief.
"I thought you were asleep." .
"Not quite yet." He closed the space between them in a few strides then turned. Considered her. "What are you doing up here?"
"You're meant to watch the sunrise, right? To make a wish for the new year." Something in her face made him dubious about her answer.
"Do you do that every year?"
"No," She admitted, mouth twisting into a bashful grin, "Lying down made my head spin too much so figured I could wish for that to stop instead." He chuckled, following the line of her gaze out past the Sohma houses and to the city below. They wouldn't see much from this angle, but she'd at least spot the first traces of light. Perhaps that could be enough for a wish.
They stood in companionable silence, accusations and tensions of the evening having washed away between the alcohol and the approaching dawn. Alone like this, they always found their way back towards comfort. He'd come to recognise it when she stayed with him. The way he could work in comfort just by hearing the soft noises of her presence in the same room. Her breath. The scratch of a pen. Pages turning. A quiet sigh. He'd come to find his own isolation unbearable at times, and with Shigure and Ayame's suggestions still hanging around his mind the man had to wonder why exactly that was. How had he gone from comfortable independence to listening, waiting for any sign that she was going to show up at his door.
Rika shifted aside to allow him to a better view but tonight, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. She'd let her hair loose, blonde strands trailing over his jacket. In one or two places he could see where some had fallen free and been captured by the fabric to remind him of her presence later.
When he spoke, it was cautiously.
"I don't mean to belittle your decisions." Rika turned back to him, startled.
"I never said you did."
"But the protecting –"
"I didn't mean you do it maliciously Hatori." He heard her swallow, followed the line of her gaze back out the window. Hatori. She'd called him that all evening. Not Hari. He missed the Hari. "Sometimes, it just seems like you think you're still with whatever version of me I was back then instead of –"
"The adult you?" She nodded.
"I do see you," He hedged it past her derisive snort, "I do. All that you're accomplishing. You've survived. If I've tried to protect you, it's because seeing you hurt terrifies me."
"But if you try to make me docile -," It was his turn to laugh and she glared at him for it, "If you try to make me count only on you then I'll never be able to be me. I'll never be able to ask for what I want."
There was merit to what she was saying (even as amplified as the dramatics were), just as he knew he had a point too. They were having to relearn from one another about where the lines were. About what they gained from this connection. It was easy to try force her hand into becoming the girl she had been because that girl – for all her fire and fury – was still a kid. A kid who had looked to him for guidance and comfort. In all his desperation to keep his mind from wandering where he hadn't dared to go, he'd never stopped to realise that maybe that wasn't the right thing to do either. Even without all her memories back, Rika had fallen into step with that rhythm, his rhythm, because she was looking to him for answers. He'd not considered that maybe the answers he'd been giving her had been meant to guide her to that path. That she had been rebelling against it in her own way, trying not to hurt him in the process. Why else would she have kept the meetings with Ren from him?
"Okay," He had to focus on keeping his thoughts straight as he bowed his head to meet her eyes fully. "Then what do you want? From me."
She seemed taken aback by his bluntness, colour rising in her cheeks. He waited a minute in silence, watching the way her mouth opened and shut in silence before deciding not to prolong further discomfort. Hatori abruptly switched tack.
"There were a whole bunch of better options," Hatori tugged at the lapel to indicate what he was speaking about, "Why this one?"
Rika turned away, cheekbones, eyes and mouth illuminated by the various fading lights of the city below. Her words had brought the doorway he'd been holding his feelings behind crashing down, and this time he let himself look without shame. He wanted to trace his fingertips over the small patches of red that lingered from his first question, to map how and where she felt things like fear and anger and love.
He curled his hands to fists instead. Returned them to his side.
"I wanted to feel like you were here." Her returned frankness threw him, Hatori managing a half-hearted noise that might have sounded like an invitation for her to explain. "Like earlier. When you held me. I wanted to feel like that."
"To make your wish?" Quite without meaning to, his fingertips reached for her and tangled in a lock of her hair. He marvelled silently at the softness of it. Moving it disrupted the scent of her shampoo, vanilla and sandalwood. Beneath those, the sake lingered on her breath.
"I feel -," She looked away but didn't move, her eyes closing in a way that reminded him of a cat. Slow. Appraising. Trusting. How did she still trust him after tonight? How did he trust her? He swallowed deeply, knowing he should step away. Give her time to think. To have space to puzzle out what she wanted from him.
And yet.
And yet.
Shigure and Ayame had been poking fun. Stirring the pot of something he'd not dared consider with any real intention. Opening that door while pouring alcohol down his throat had sent his mind reeling through possibilities. Of his hands on her skin. Of her curled against his chest. All of it. He wanted all of it. Except - None of it mattered if she didn't want it too.
"You feel -," He prompted her. Curious. Addled.
This is wrong. This is wrong. No –
This is different.
And I want it anyways.
"I feel safe with you." His heart stuttered. "Even though you keep secrets," Faltered, " I don't want you to keep secrets anymore. I don't want you hiding things because you're trying to protect me. I want you to let me choose what I can handle. That's what I want."
What was another promise to this girl? This woman.
He'd already given her everything else.
"Okay."
"And I wish for that too."
He didn't dare say that saying a wish out loud meant it wouldn't come true. Hatori liked to think himself practical. Logical. In spite of all the facets of his life that demanded otherwise. If he made her this promise, then he'd keep it. He no longer had a claim to being young. Naive. Easily manipulated.
Standing there, Hatori realised he'd already made a wish for himself. At twenty, he'd gifted her with a means to come back as he'd picked through her memories. Did it make him cruel? Deceitful? Foolish? How did he tell her that he'd always had a little sliver of hope that someday she would be with them? Part of their circle. Accepted. That he'd been thinking maybe it could be enough that he accepted her for things to work out. That he'd realised it wouldn't be enough. Rika deserved everything. Not the facets he selfishly thought he could offer.
She'd leaned into him again and the feelings it ignited were overwhelming. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, pulse beating rapidly beneath her fingertips. Holding him in place. Her chest to his. He'd never had this with his mother. With Kana. With anyone. Was that the only reason he'd wished her back. To hold her?
No.
"Anything else?" He whispered it. Watched the way her irises darkened and felt the spasm of her fingertips on his skin.
"I want –"
"Yes?"
He knew it in the instant his hand found a spot on her cheek, fingers splayed against her skin. She was wide eyed and dark lashed, still very very drunk.
He was still drunk.
"You."
The heady exhale of her word made it all the easier to stumble over the precipice. To dip his head with the ghost of a touch. To press a chaste kiss to her nose. She shifted her head when he moved so the second landed at the edge of her mouth. Rika's body went still under his touch for a beat as she decided. Hatori was too close to step away now, but he was smart enough to respect the moment of hesitation he could recognise in her. His anticipation rippled through him like an electric current, man willing her to choose before he lost all sense of himself altogether.
Her chin shifted. His breath hitched. Her nose brushed his.
Then…
Then…
Her mouth found his in a kiss. And another. And another. The sky shifted from purple to rose red and he was dazzled by her, all sunlight and glow with her hands buried in his shirt and her sigh on his lips. Kissing her was feverish. A dream. He'd imagined how it might feel to fall in love again, and it didn't even come close to this.
Rika was something solid under his hands. Grounding him as much as she alighted every nerve in his body, the man struggling to pace himself. To savour each press of her lips as they found the curve of his jaw. Fluttered over his closed eyelids. Marked the slope of his neck. Her laughter when their noses bumped. How she slid her hand over his hip and pulled him closer. He hadn't kissed, or been kissed, like this in years and all he could think was how did I survive it?
Each touch was another fracturing block of ice beneath his ribcage, meltwater washed away in the heat of a sudden sun.
By the time the colours shifted to blue he had one hand flattened against the wall of the attic and the other buried in her hair. His mouth was bruised, he was breathless and still, he sought more. He kissed her until his head spun and his knees weakened and it was the only thing that made sense in the world.
When she exhaled his name, he was home. Safe. Loved.
Oh.
Oh.
He loved her. He loved her.
A car alarm echoing through the open window had him coming to his senses. Pulling out of her reach. He could see the colour on her skin and follow the trail of his mouth on the patches that trailed down her neck. Measure how deeply she was breathing. She looked as dazed and stupidly content as he felt, Hatori still resting one forearm against the wall for support, hand in a curled fist behind her head.
He could still feel her touch where she'd trailed her fingertips over his chest. Cold. Electric.
"We should go to bed." He flushed at her startled look. Amended himself before the darkness of her irises could sway him otherwise. "Separately." Saying it went against the screaming in his gut, the part of him that wanted to follow her, lead her, further down this path. A path that returned his suit jacket to his floor. That added a too big shirt and those wretchedly attractive shorts.
Instead he helped her close the button on his jacket, seal up the window. Walked her back to her own claimed room and the little clinic bed.
"Hari," He turned in the hallway with difficulty, knowing if he looked back - leaving her would be all the harder, "Thank you. That was - nice." Nice was an understatement he thought, but if it had to be summarised in one word what would he choose?
Addictive.
Desperate.
Everything.
"It was." Treading back to his room, the man felt the room spin. Lurch. His futon felt too big. Too empty. The warmth of her was still on his hands. On his mouth. He tossed and turned for hours before sleep finally claimed him and, by the time he woke the next day, Rika was gone, his head felt as though something had died in it and below that – he felt like he'd had a remarkably pleasant dream.