One of the most common questions Shimazaki got asked was how he got dressed in the morning.
It really wasn't as hard as sighted people made it out to be. Most of his clothes matched, or at least he'd been told that they matched. Leather pants, leather coat, and one of his many shirts. He had been told that his pants were black and that everything went with black so, really, there wasn't even much to think about. Just a shirt, pants, and his jacket and then he was ready to greet the day.
And what a day it would be.
People had short memories it seemed. Suzuki had cleaned and entire family out, wiped them off the face of the earth, and yet people couldn't get the message that all of Tokyo belonged to the Suzuki family. All of it. Even his family hadn't controlled the entire city. It was, in some ways, unthinkable. One person, one family, having that kind of power…but it was the truth. This entire city was owned by the Suzuki family and the sooner people got it through their heads the better.
The sooner he got it through people's heads.
He ran his hands along the shirts in his closet. He knew which one he wanted, the one Toshi liked the best. The red one. The only problem was he had no idea what 'red' was. Maybe this was what sighted people had so much trouble wrapping their heads around. How he even knew what in the hell he was wearing. It was all about organization. Sleep shirts in one pile. Day shirts in another, and never the two should meet. Otherwise he wound up walking into a meeting wearing a 101 Dalmatians t-shirt and making his boss look like an idiot. Not that Mob ever cared, of course, she was so…not the person he needed to be thinking about.
It was over.
Over-over. Not in the weird place he was with Toshi. He had no idea if they were over or not. He knew what they had said but they still had feelings for him, fuck, they had even said so to his face. They hated themselves for loving him. He had no clue what that even meant. They loved him, which was good, but they hated themselves…which made zero sense whatsoever. They were Toshi. They were like sitting in the middle of the lamp store. They were whatever the hell light was. Warmth, mainly, and the feeling that everything was going to go well. Be ok. That he was with someone who thought of him and he was seen and would always be seen and he just…that he existed. Toshi made him feel like he existed.
And he had fucked it all up.
He had fucked it all up like he had fucked up his entire organizational system. His hand had found something way too soft, with what felt like words on the front. This was clearly a sleeping shirt. Somehow a sleeping shirt had found it's way in with the day shirts…of course it had. Toshi had always, well not always but since they'd moved in together, helped put his shit away for him. They took the time out of their day to organize his shit so he didn't walk down the street looking like an idiot. They hadn't helped him put his laundry away in a while…or labeled the kitchen with him…and he still wasn't sure which toothbrush was his. He needed to start getting his own instead of taking from the basket under the sink…why someone had thought to buy a basketful of toothbrushes all from the same brand and type he would never know…
Ok, so maybe he needed a little help.
A little bit of Toshi's help. It wasn't like anyone else was jumping at the chance to make his life a little bit easier. Shibata and Tsuchiya still wanted him dead for some reason. Yeah, ok, he got it. Mob was way too young for him and the whole thing was weird. It wasn't like he'd done anything to hurt to. He'd asked her every single step of the way if she wanted to be with him and she said yes. Shimazaki knew that he had done some fucked up shit in his lifetime, and he was going to do some more fucked up shit today, but he wasn't that kind of fucked up. He wasn't a monster. He had just been a guy in love with a girl who may not have been within the whole half his age plus seven thing but it wasn't like he'd made her do anything she hadn't-
No more arguing.
Sometimes you just had to agree with someone even if you didn't, not really. Sometimes you just had to agree to keep the peace. Shimazaki usually hated peace, it made his skin crawl, he needed to be active and doing something or it felt like the whole world was going to stop and he'd be stuck in one place until he disappeared and he couldn't think of a worse fate than just…disappearing. Vanishing. No longer existing. Just being there but nobody looking at him or saying anything or…or anything. That was why he just had to agree with Toshi. The age thing was weird, he should have considered their feelings, and he was damn lucky that he was alive and not rotting in a traitor hole somewhere because, yeah, fucking the boss's daughter was just the thing that had ruined his life before…
Toshi was so fucking smart sometimes…all of the times.
So maybe he wasn't even pretending to agree with them, maybe he actually agreed, maybe that thing with Mob had been reckless and stupid. Not wrong, no, he wasn't that kind of guy, but it had been really fucking reckless. He was sorry and…and maybe he needed to say it again? Maybe that was the thing that Toshi needed to hear and then they could get back to the way they were? He's cold…it's like someone dropped an ice cube down his back. The thought of being without Toshi. Not just because he did need someone to help him sort his laundry, it was a two man job, and it was nice having someone label the kitchen for him. He just needed Toshi because they were Toshi and…and there was this feeling that without Toshi there could be no 'him'.
He was always weird in the mornings.
He hated his mind, sometimes, the thoughts it came up with while he wasn't looking. Mob had told him before that she had started drinking mainly to get her powers under control, that they acted without her input sometimes, that it was hard always having to watch herself. Shimazaki was long past the point of randomly teleporting, there had been a time when he had been a kid where he had just vanished in his sleep and woken up in the weirdest places, but his brain had never gone past the point of sending him random, panicked thoughts. Thoughts about disappearing, thoughts about being alone, just stupid shit like that. Toshi thoughts, too, thoughts about how much he missed the sound of their voice…the feel of their skin…the way they'd always roll into him in the middle of the night. They'd get up and accuse him of crowding them when they, in fact, were the one who did the crowding. He didn't mind it, he hadn't once minded it, and he wouldn't have minded it again.
It was a big bed for just one person.
It was a big room for just one person. It was a big job for just one person. Picking out a shirt. Sure, he could have taken the time to feel every single shirt he owned until he found one without some kind of writing or picture on the front but that would have taken time that he didn't have. Some bastards had the idea in their heads that Tokyo was up for the taking. Suzuki, after all, hadn't been physically there to instill fear in the population for a while now and Mob was anything but terrifying…to a normal person, anyway. Anyone who could have heard her aura, who could have felt it, would have run straight back to wherever they'd come from pissing themselves the whole way back. You didn't fuck with the Suzuki family, not their power or their money, and you most certainly didn't fuck with any of their less than savory but still pretty damn lucrative businesses. Mob hadn't asked Shimazaki to take care of this for her, she was really bad about keeping her ear to the ground and figuring out what was going on, so he was going to take it upon himself and show people who was boss.
And to do so he really needed his red shirt, since according to Toshi it was his best shirt, and he wasn't in any position to doubt them.
He wasn't in any position to wake them, either. He pressed his hand to the wall and let his aura do it's thing. Toshi was in bed but they weren't sleeping anymore, he knew how it felt when they were sleeping. The little inhales and exhales, the way they finally let the tension out of their body, and little movements their eyes made. They were awake, laying down, and doing that thing where they waited for the rest of them to wake up. This was prime cuddle time. He had nothing close to an actual day and night cycle, not like the rest of them had, but he always made sure to teleport back into the bed when Toshi woke up just so he could have the privilege of holding them close and just…being there, with them….
He missed them more than anything.
He grabbed a shirt and teleported into their room. He made sure to stand in front of them, not on their bed, and not just because they hated it when he stood on the bed since it fucked with the springs or whatever. He knew that they didn't want to share a bed with him right now and as much as he wanted to push it, to get down into the kowtow of his life and beg them for their forgiveness and a chance at redeeming himself so he could be with them again, he knew better. Toshi had been a rose, lately, or a cactus. Cactus was better because cactus was delicious on the inside and you could drink the juice and hallucinate. Yeah, cactus was better than rose.
Though, really, Toshi could be whatever plant they wanted to be…and right now it felt like they wanted to be one of their man eating Venus flytraps.
"What are you doing in here?" asked Toshi. Their voice was all heavy and gravelly from sleep. They rubbed their eyes. If he really focused on them then he could see the sleep sand, or whatever the actual name for that stuff, collected in the corners of their eyes. He wished that he could have focused on them that much, that deeply, but their aura…their aura was pretty clear right now.
They wanted him gone. It hurt. Like biting into a piece of uncooked cactus.
"What color is this shirt?" asked Shimazaki. They groaned and sat up. He reached over and handed them their water glass. They were always thirsty when they got up. They didn't even look at him when they took it…but he knew that they knew he was there. Their aura was trying to bond with, or at least touch, his.
They were pulling it back.
"Thanks. Now leave." Said Toshi as they swung their legs over the side of their bed. They'd done that thing where they'd kicked their socks off in the middle of the night, he could tell by the sound their feet made when they hit the ground. A lot louder than normal…they must have been freezing. Hopefully they kept their socks in the same drawer they always did.
"So I tell you to get the hell out of my room and you, what? You take that as an invitation to rummage through my sock drawer?" asked Toshi
"I never needed an invitation before." Said Shimazaki
"No, you just never waited for one." Said Toshi
"Yeah, I guess I never did." Said Shimazaki as he rummaged around.
"You're still in my drawer, Ryou." Said Toshi
"Relax, I'm not trying to steal from your stash or anything. You're welcome in mine but I know that it doesn't go both ways." Said Shimazaki
"He can be taught!" said Toshi. Even in their most sarcastic voice they still sounded like someone had taken a bunch of those little Christmas bells and started shaking them all at the same time.
"Come on, Toshi, when have I stolen from your stash…lately. Lately!" said Shimazaki
"You haven't been in my room long enough to get at it. You've been pretty good about just popping into my room…lately." Said Toshi. He felt a sting, sort of, inside of himself. Like he'd swallowed a bee. Toshi's room…this used to be their room. Even before they moved in together for real, even before Toshi had cleared out space for his shit, their rooms had always belonged to each other. Now they were separate and…and Toshi's feet were cold. That was the thing he had to think about, to worry about, here.
It was the sting of the cold, maybe. Winter in Tokyo was pretty brutal…lots of things were.
"I just needed your help, that's all, and…and your feet have got to be freezing right now. I'm looking for those socks you like, the fluffy ones." Said Shimazaki as he dug through their sock drawer. He could feel them shaking their head….but also curling their toes. They were cold. He got the feeling that he wasn't going to be able to find their fuzzy socks no matter how much he dug in their drawer, maybe they'd lost them to the place where socks went when you weren't watching them. Maybe they were in the dirty laundry basket and they hadn't gotten around to washing them. Maybe they were just over fuzzy socks altogether and now they were into…whatever these were.
Felt like cotton.
"These good?" asked Shimazaki and he held up a pair of socks. Toshi reached over and took them right out of his hands.
"What are you doing today?" asked Toshi as they put their socks on.
"I'm going to knock some sense into some morons. You?" asked Shimazaki, trying his best to sound like this was just a normal morning between them. That they were just getting ready for their day together…it had been so fucking long. He hated this feeling. This feeling like he was just…lost. Alone. Like he was totally and completely alone even though Toshi was looking right at him. He could feel it. Their eyes, their aura, their everything. He looked back at them, made sure that he was facing them, and let his aura rest on theirs.
They looked away.
"Whatever Mob needs today, probably handling those upper echelon idiots. I swear to God, they're worse than the Awakened…at least they've been content to spend the day playing extreme red light, green light." Said Toshi
"You need me? I mean my help." Said Shimazaki. He made sure that they knew he was asking about them and not Mob. Things were so weird with that…part of him wanted to tell them that they were the only one making it weird. Well, there was also Shibata and Tsuchiya but they weren't a part of this relationship.
"We'll be fine." Said Toshi in a tone that left zero room for debate. They weren't in the mood right now to talk…and he had to accept that. He wanted to sit next to them, to talk to them until they listened to him, to at least talk to them until they told him to fuck off…just to hear their voice…but he knew better. He had to think of them and how they felt. All the books said that it was important to a relationship and he had lived long enough to know that maybe his own instincts couldn't always be trusted.
"Alright…sure. But if you need me just call me. Or you can just say my name three times and click your heels." Said Shimazaki. He felt Toshi rolling their eyes. They clicked their heels three times.
"There's no place like home, there's no place like your own room, so maybe just go back to your own room." said Toshi. Shimazaki nodded, not trusting himself not to say something he regretted. Toshi was kicking him out and…and he had to respect that, didn't he? That was what love was…and he still loved them.
He wasn't sure if they still loved him, they had made themselves perfectly unclear, but he liked to think that a part of them still did.
"Yeah, I read you loud and clear. You've got to start your day. How about I make us some tea? Some of that stuff you like?" asked Shimazaki. Toshi smiled. He could feel Toshi smiling…or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
"That'd be nice, I guess, but don't scorch it." Said Toshi
"I'll do my best." Said Shimazaki. He wasn't sure if Toshi was smiling but he knew that he was. That was the least painful interaction they'd had in days! Weeks! Months! Maybe even…well not years but in a while. Progress!
"And Ryou? If you're trying to strike fear in the hearts of morons maybe your Abbey Road shirt isn't right for the job." Said Toshi. Shimazaki ran his hand over his shirt. It didn't feel like there was a picture on the front…but Toshi had gotten him this shirt. They knew how much he hated it when he could feel the decal on the front…they were thoughtful like that.
That was how they showed their love.
"Can you-" said Shimazaki
"Nope, you're going to have to dress yourself, Ryou. You're a big boy now." said Toshi as they stood up. That was his cue to get the hell out of there. They had helped him, spoken to him, and not kicked him out in any serious way. That was progress. Things were getting better, maybe, or at least they weren't getting any worse.
Who knew? Maybe, eventually, they'd help him get dressed in the morning again. Not that he needed the help, he just needed Toshi back.