Chapter 8: Hakujou - Confession

Yuusuke woke to the smell of rice and soup and the sound of something softly sizzling. Blinking his way awake, he yawned, stretching as he sat up. While not the most comfortable thing ever, Ichijou's sofa had been much better than a lot of the surfaces he ended up sleeping on.

"Good morning, Godai," Ichijou said from the kitchen, looking up from where he was chopping something, only the movement of his wrists and the tang of the knife visible beneath the breakfast bar's surface.

"Good morning, Ichijou-san," Yuusuke replied, pushing his way free of the comforter. Slippers waited by his feet and he wondered how long Ichijou had been up, pale sunlight barely starting to stream through the windows.

"I hope a Japanese breakfast is all right?" Ichijou asked as Yuusuke shambled over toward the kitchen. He placed a cup of green tea on the counter.

"Thank you," Yuusuke said, accepting the piping hot cup. "I'm an omnivore," he answered the question.

Ichijou smiled a little, using his blade's spine to brush the spring onions he'd been chopping into a small bowl. "I guess you'd have to be, wouldn't you?"

Yuusuke nodded, taking a sip of the steaming ambrosia--somehow it had been no surprise to find that Ichijou had really, really good tea stocked in his kitchen--before answering "An adventurer can't be choosy."

Ichijou's smile was warm as he ladled miso soup into two bowls, sprinkling the onions on top. Yuusuke hastily set down his cup to carry the two (hot, hot, very hot!) bowls to the table while Ichijou dished rice and salmon onto two plates and arranged pickled vegetables beside them as an accompaniment.

As they ate, Yuusuke's mind wandered (prompted by Ichijou's inquiry of what he had planned for the day, which was helping out at the preschool) to what Minori had said, about his approach to Ichijou possibly having been too subtle. He turned the question over in his mind as he addressed his rice: how to say what he meant, in a way that was clear without placing too much pressure on Ichijou... in a way that they could both laugh off if it turned out Yuusuke was wrong about what Ichijou felt.

He looked at the red roses, still fresh, that sat on Ichijou's table. He'd faced down how many Grongi? He could manage this too.

"Ichijou-san," he started.

"Hmm?" Ichijou looked up at him.

"When we talked the other day about the things we wanted, I never did give you an answer, did I?" Yuusuke asked quietly. "About what I wanted."

"Godai..."

"There is someone I want," Yuusuke confessed. "Someone I think I could be happy with, and maybe that person could be happy with me, which isn't as easy a thing as it sounds like sometimes." He took a breath. "Ichijou-san, that person is--"

"Don't," Ichijou choked. His eyes were wide and pleading as he looked at Yuusuke, and Yuusuke felt something die quietly in his chest. "Godai. I can't..."

And he'd known, somewhere deep inside, that Ichijou would be risking too much even just by accepting his confession, but Yuusuke hadn't expected it to hurt so much. It was like a knife in his chest, like wintery air on a mountain plain in Nagano stealing his breath away.

Deliberately, Yuusuke took a breath. He'd faced down how many Grongi, he'd survived even Daguba... he could live through this. He had to. He would. "Well, that's all right, then," he said quietly, and finished the last bite of his rice and gulped the last of his cooling tea. It hurt almost too much for him to smile, but he did so anyway. "I should get going--it's a couple hours back to Tokyo and I promised Minori I'd help her this morning..." He kept a steady stream of words up, using them as a shield to hide from his pain, as he carried his dishes to the sink and then hunted up his jacket, keys in its pocket, and found his shoes where he'd left them by the door. He looked back up at Ichijou where the detective still sat alone, frozen at the table, and almost had to feel sorry for him. He straightened. "It'll be all right, Ichijou-san," he promised. "It will." This wouldn't ruin their friendship. Yuusuke wouldn't let it. "I just need to go for now."

The door's closing behind him felt overly dramatic, but even so, Yuusuke refused to run.

He'd said no. The thought echoed through Ichijou's mind. No, worse than saying no, he hadn't even let Godai finish telling him...

The person he'd wanted, confessing to him, and he hadn't even heard Godai out. Ichijou's head fell forward into his hand as he tried to figure out why he was such an idiot. Why he couldn't just accept this one thing that he wanted. The wall clock ticked on softly, loudly, in his empty apartment that smelled of breakfast and the roses Godai had brought him.

Godai wouldn't let this ruin their friendship, but it would be impossible for things to ever be quite the same between them again. Even with Godai, there would always be that thin edge of refusal between them. Because there was no way that Godai hadn't known that Ichijou wanted him too.

If I'd said yes...

Who would have blamed him? Not his mother. Surely not any of Godai's friends. Only--in theory, in potentia--his coworkers.

Ichijou loved his job. But was it, he found himself suddenly asking himself, worth what being as he was "supposed to" would cost him the rest of his life?

Somehow he found his feet. And his coat, keys in its pockets. And his shoes by the door. And then it was the door shutting behind him and his feet pounding against the ground, running, hoping that he wasn't too late--

"Godai!"

Yuusuke looked up at the shout of his name. He sat astride his bike, riding gloves just pulled on but helmet still in his lap. Ichijou was stopped at the bottom of the staircase that led from his apartment to the parking structure, cream trench coat swirling around him as he tried to catch his breath.

"Ichijou...san...?" Yuusuke asked, surprised. And confused. And trying not to let hope bloom.

Ichijou quickly crossed the space between them. "Godai... Yuusuke," he said, and it had been a long time since Yuusuke had heard Ichijou say his full name, and never with an emphasis like that on his given name.

"Yes?" he asked.

Ichijou seemed to be at war with himself, fighting to find words. "I need... will you give me time?" he asked.

Time. Hope suddenly bloomed so hard and fast, happiness on its heels, that it almost hurt more than the pain had done. "Yes," Yuusuke answered, finding he was smiling even without meaning to. "All the time you need, Ichijou-san." Light entered Ichijou's expression too, an ease that was almost worrisome in the fact that Yuusuke had never seen it before. So this is what he looks like happy, Yuusuke thought.

"You'd better get going, then," was all Ichijou said. "Your sister will be expecting you."

"Yeah," Yuusuke replied.

"Give her my regards."

Yuusuke nodded, putting his helmet on and fastening the chin strap. "I'll give you a call this evening, if that's all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ichijou replied, with his own nod as Godai started the bike. Godai gave him a thumbs-up which Ichijou returned, and pretended not to notice that Ichijou stood there watching as he sped out of the structure and back toward Tokyo.