AN: another short chapter because I kept debating on chapter break points. BUT another extra is this week about the same length as this so...makes up for it I guess?
o*O*o
The soft scuffing of footsteps stirred in the back of Saguru's sleepy brain. He wanted to bury himself further in the sheet over his futon and block it out. He wasn't getting enough sleep as it was. "K`roba, go away," he mumbled, face pressed against his pillow. The scuffing paused. Saguru frowned, knowing something was off but what..?
Kuroba was at Kudo's home. Kuroba couldn't get in Saguru's apartment right now if he tried.
Saguru jolted up from the pillow and found Takumi crouched a few feet away.
"What," Saguru asked, heart hammering too fast in his chest, "the bloody fucking hell are you doing here?" He might have said that in English. He wasn't awake enough for this it was only... He squinted at the glowing red numbers on his alarm clock. It was only four in the morning, and Saguru went to bed only two and a half hours ago.
"Did you think I was Tou-san?" Takumi asked. "How often does Tou-san break into your apartment that you'd think I was him?"
Saguru blinked sleep out of his eyes. "Often enough." He couldn't parse the expression that passed Takumi's face. Who knew what sort of scenarios were going on in his head? "You're grounded. You're not supposed to be here."
"I'm not supposed to visit Tou-san. Kaa-san never said I couldn't visit you, and she lifted the ban to let me go to lacrosse practice again."
"At four in the morning?"
"Practice starts at six. I left before Kaa-san woke up and I'll be at the school in time for practice." Takumi grinned in the dim light, teeth gleaming. God he looked far too much like a teenage Kuroba, enough that Saguru could almost convince himself this was a strange, sleep-deprived dream. "I wanted to check in since Kaa-san dodges my questions."
Of course. Saguru rubbed a hand over his face. Well. He was awake now, or as awake as he was going to be. "Do you mind if I just...?" He waved a hand. Takumi stepped back, taking a seat at Saguru's desk as Saguru pulled himself from his futon. He was uncomfortably aware that he had on only a torn t-shirt with a theatre slogan across the front and a pair of exercise shorts he only ever used for summer sleep pants. He started making tea on autopilot. "You picked the front lock?"
"Yeah. I didn't want to knock and wake up the whole floor."
Of course. It came as no surprise that Takumi could pick locks. It wasn't something that Kuroba would skip teaching him.
Only when fresh brewed black tea scorched skin off his mouth and throat did Saguru feel a little more awake. Saguru sat at the kitchen table, the room between them, just the light over the stove on to see a bit better. Takumi didn't touch his own cup of tea other than to turn it around a few times. Saguru couldn't help but note the complete absence of lacrosse gear. Granted that could have been left outside. "You came to check in?" Saguru prompted, blowing on his tea before his next sip so he'd lose fewer taste buds to the hot liquid.
"How's Kid?" Takumi asked. Saguru had expected a question about Kuroba, but considering how they had parted...
"Recovering," Saguru said. He could make out a fraction of the tension in Takumi's shoulders loosen. Of course he would be concerned, he'd watched him fall, had Kid's blood on his hands just as Saguru had. "Haibara-san is hopeful that there will be no lasting damages, remarkably enough. There has been no infection and no lasting damage from the concussion."
Takumi nodded slowly. He turned the teacup around on Saguru's desk again and Saguru's intuition screamed that something was amiss. "And how's Tou-san?" Takumi asked. He was more focused on the teacup than on Saguru as he asked.
"...also recovering." The air felt heavy. Saguru hoped this wasn't going the direction he suspected it was going.
"Kaa-san said it was a car accident," Takumi said.
Saguru nodded slowly. "His right side was hurt badly from the impact. Remarkably, he didn't have any life threatening injuries."
"Do you think the damage from a car accident is as bad as Kid crashing his glider?" Takumi asked, looking up from his hands.
"That...would depend on the severity of the car accident," Saguru said on autopilot, a sinking feeling in his gut. In that moment, meeting Takumi's eyes, Saguru knew that Takumi knew the truth. Saguru set down his teacup. "Takumi-kun—"
"You know," Takumi said softly, "don't you. You've known the whole time."
"I don't know what you me—"
"Don't lie to me Hakuba-sensei. You have a shitty poker face." Takumi's expression crumpled. "You said you wouldn't lie. About my parents. You said that you didn't think Tou-san was Kid." He curled in on himself. "Though I guess it isn't thinking if you know it."
"Takumi-kun," Saguru tried again, but Takumi shook his head, shaking off Saguru's words before he could even say them.
"Save your excuses," Takumi said. He hugged himself, looking back down at his untouched teacup again. "Would you have told me," he asked in a horrible, distant voice, "if he'd died? Would you have told me that I saw Tou-san die or would I have just attended his funeral and never known about any or this?"
Saguru hesitated a second too long and Takumi looked back up, his face gone cold and blank, like a somber parody of Kuroba's preferred poker face.
"I thought as much," Takumi said.
"I wanted to tell you," Saguru said, aware that the wrong words could make everything even worse. "Your parents felt that it was safer for you not to know and didn't want me interfering."
"Safer." Takumi's voice cracked. "Safer, when Kaa-san is out there chasing people who plant bombs and snipe people off buildings and Tou-san throws himself out like a giant target. How is it safer? How is it safer to know nothing when for all I know there could be a bomb showing up at home one day just because of who Kaa-san is? How is it safer to not know that Tou-san could have died at any moment my whole life?"
"I am sure they thought it was better to keep you from worrying," Saguru said cautiously. He wanted to reach out but he had the feeling that doing so would only get his hand slapped away. "Just like Aoko-san didn't want you to know how dangerous her job could be."
"You think I didn't worry?" Takumi asked. His voice hitched and Saguru realized he had started crying, tears almost completely silent as they dripped down his face. "I worry every time there's a news article with another mention of a sniper at a Kid heist. I worry every time Kaa-san doesn't get home on time. I worry every time I see her go without sleep or when she brushes off my questions. And all this time I didn't even know I should have worried about Tou-san too. I used to think, well at least Tou-san has a safe job. But that's not even true, he's even worse than Kaa-san and I might never have known even after he died." Takumi pressed hands to his face, hiding his tears. There was a frustrated grimace on his face that Saguru wished he could wipe away along with the tears. "Tou-san almost died."
Saguru moved closer. "Takumi-kun..."
"No wonder Kaa-san divorced him. No wonder she hates Kid. And Tou-san's the second Kid and that means Ojii-san died because he was Kid and...!"
"Takumi-kun..." Saguru touched his shoulder and an elbow knocked his arm away.
Takumi glared at him through his tears. "You're all so stupid," he said, choking on sobs that tried to warp his words as they left his lips. "Who benefits from any of this? We're all miserable and it's all Kid's fault! Tou-san's half dead, they're not going to leave him alone, and Kid's more important than any of us, clearly."
"That isn't true." That Saguru was convinced of; Kid didn't mean more to Kuroba than his son. More than his marriage, more than Aoko, perhaps, but Saguru didn't doubt that Kuroba would toss away Kid's identity if he thought it would help Takumi rather than damn him at this point. For Kuroba who didn't have his father growing up, his relationship with Takumi had to mean everything. Kuroba had just been Kid so long that he couldn't stop until he saw it through to its end. It wasn't safe not to by this point. Not any safer than being Kid was at least.
"Of course you defend it," Takumi said. "You're so stupid in love with him you'd forgive him for anything."
The words were meant to hurt, and they did, more because of the unexpectedness than anything else.
"So stupid," Takumi repeated.
Saguru couldn't bring himself to deny Takumi's words. They were true after all. His hand hovered a bit away, still outstretched with the desire to comfort even if it wasn't accepted. It hurt to watch. This must be what it looked like when Aoko found out, after the rage passed. Then, Kuroba probably looked like this when he cried too. "I'm sorry," Saguru said. "I'm sorry you had to learn this way."
Takumi shook his head. He stumbled out of Saguru's chair, spilling tea down the desk as he bumped it in his haste. "I need to go."
Alarm lanced through him. It was still only four in the morning. Where would he go? "Takumi-kun, I don't think—"
"Just leave me alone!" Takumi yelled. He dashed for Saguru's door, still half tear-blind. The apartment door slammed open against the wall.
Saguru ran after him, or tried to at least. He made it as far as halfway down the stairs before his knee gave out and he had to clutch at the railing to keep from falling down the rest of the way headfirst. "Damn it to hell!" he snarled into the muggy July morning. This was bad. This was Takumi having his life come crashing down. This was the curtain being pulled away and seeing the messy framework in how Kuroba and Aoko's marriage had fallen apart. This was a boy losing all trust in the adults in his life and Saguru couldn't even find words to ease this or follow after to keep him from doing anything stupid.
Saguru dragged himself upstairs and ignored the thump on his wall as his neighbor complained about his noise by being noisy back. He dragged his cell phone out of a puddle of tea, wiped it off on his pyjamas, and pulled up Aoko's number.
"Takumi knows," he said as soon as the call picked up, before a word could be spoken on the other end. "He broke into my apartment and ran off when he didn't like my answers. He's upset and angry and I don't know where he went."
Aoko didn't swear a blue streak like Saguru thought she would, there was just a long silence on the other end before a soft, "Fuck." The phone went silent, presumably as Aoko hung up to try and contact Takumi. Saguru sighed shakily.
If he was a teenage boy whose world had just come crashing down on his ears, where would he go? ...At nineteen when his own world had had a bit of a crash, he hadn't been able to go anywhere, first bleeding and in shock, then stuck in a hospital. But Saguru supposed in his own way he'd ended up running to his mother in the end as she was the person he was closest to, living with her while he recovered and not going back to Japan even after. Takumi would go somewhere he felt safe, most likely a friend's home. Probably Momoi's home, close as they were. If not there...the school? His middle school? Lacrosse fields? Saguru didn't know any places that had significant memories for Takumi to run to. He still barely knew him at all.
Takumi had known Saguru was in love with Kuroba. Known it and apparently accepted it. That was...something Saguru was going to need to process eventually. Now he supposed he should call Kuroba. Someone had to let him know.
The phone rang and rang on the other end; no surprise. Kuroba would be asleep and still on pain meds. The second time calling, it picked up. "Kuroba?"
"Hakuba?" Kuroba said, and good, it was him, not someone checking in and picking up his cell phone for him. "What happened that you're calling me so early?"
Another day, for something else, Saguru would joke and Kuroba would joke back, but this wasn't something that would ever be a joke between them. "I had a visitor," Saguru said. "Takumi-kun." He went into a bit more detail than the brief message he had given Aoko, laying out what had happened though he held back Takumi's accusation. He could feel the weight of every word in Kuroba's silence, barely even breathing on the other end. "I told Aoko," he finished, hating that he had to be the one to witness each member of the Kuroba family break, hated to be the one whose words started it. "She's probably looking for him now."
"He's with Shiemi," Kuroba said. "I'm pretty sure she guessed a while back, but was waiting for me to say something." His voice was dead of emotion. "She's the person he'd go to if he's upset."
"I'm sorry," Saguru said. "He was convinced before he got here I think... I wasn't prepared enough to try and talk him out of it."
"It's not your fault, Hakuba. It's my secret." What sort of expression was on Kuroba's face right now? Was it the same one he had when he talked about his divorce? Of losing his father? If there was a way to take away all the hurt between Aoko, Kuroba, and Takumi, Saguru would do it in a heartbeat. "I knew he'd probably learn one day. The thing with secrets is they always come out eventually... You'd think between my dad and Aoko I'd learn that." Kuroba sighed. "At least I'm not dead when he found out."
There are so many things that he could say to that that it takes a moment to choose the right one. "You almost were," Saguru said, "and I think that is what hurts the most."
"Oh." Kuroba made a sound that was a distant cousin to his usual laugh. "I guess you can say you told me so. We should have said something to him."
"I think that no matter how he learned, he wouldn't have been okay with it."
"He's a lot like Aoko in that," Kuroba said.
He thought he was going to be rejected by his son too, Saguru realized. Be hated like Aoko hated him. "He's a lot like you too, though," he said. Because Takumi had accepted Saguru having a past with his parents and his loving Kuroba much like Kuroba had forgiven Saguru for everything he'd been put through. Takumi had a greater capacity for forgiveness than Aoko did and his love for his father was nowhere near as two-sided as anything Aoko felt. But ultimately, Takumi wasn't either of his parents and he'd make his own choices.
"I know." Kuroba's voice hitched on the other end of the line. "I think that's what scares me most." All Saguru needed to be on the same page was to look at how Takumi could mirror Kuroba's life. If Kuroba had died... The world didn't need a third generation of Kid. "I'll get in touch with Shiemi. Try to get more sleep, Hakuba."
"I am sorry," Saguru repeated. He'd wanted them to talk to Takumi, for Takumi to know the truth, but he had never wanted it to happen this way.
"I know," Kuroba said. Neutral, in control. "It's my mess, Hakuba. You shouldn't feel sorry for getting caught up in it."
"I think that by now it's all of our mess," Saguru said.
Kuroba made a noncommittal sound. "Thanks for the warning."
"Things will work their way out."
"I hope so."
Kuroba hung up not long after, the silence between them heavy.
The truth, Saguru thought, was never as simple as one hoped it would be. Nor so straightforward.
