04. and what might come to be

-x-

The light flickered on, and the front door closed with a click.

Kamui's voice came from the kitchen. "Your fridge is really pathetic."

Takasugi slammed the window in his room shut and replied, "My fridge is fine." He frowned at the puddle of water on the hardwood floor and strode back into the kitchen, stopping dead when he saw Kamui peering into the mini-fridge. "Oi," he said. "What are you doing? You just ate enough food to feed ten people."

"There is nothing in your fridge," said Kamui.

"Yes."

"There is nothing," Kamui repeated, "in your fridge."

Mildly annoyed, Takasugi glanced at the towel sitting on the far counter and said to Kamui, "Either move out of the way or pass me the towel."

"Why is there nothing in your fridge?"

"Will you shut up about that?" Takasugi snapped, contemplating the option of shoving the redhead aside, but he paused when Kamui reached over the purple umbrella open on the floor and grabbed the towel for him.

"If it weren't hailing outside," Kamui said as he handed Takasugi the towel and followed the latter out of the kitchen, "I'd drag you to the grocery store right now. How can you live without anything in your fridge?"

"How can anyone live in this world?" Takasugi muttered and dropped the towel onto the wet floor, crouching down to wipe away the rain water.

"A wise man once said," Kamui continued as if Takasugi hadn't said anything, "All you need is good food and - " His voice cut off when another wave of rain and ice pounded against the window. "And more good food," he added, planting himself on the low window sill, back against the corner with one leg drawn up. "I can't believe there's nothing in your fridge."

Takasugi glanced up and caught the mock disdain in the blue eyes, knowing that Kamui might as well have turned up his nose and said, "I have misjudged you."

"You mean all you need is food and more food," Takasugi retorted, returning to the kitchen to wring out the towel, still unable to decide whether he should lose or (almost) regain his already-lost faith in humanity. Somehow, for some reason, there existed a place on Earth, that wasn't also an all-you-can-eat buffet, where Kamui could inhale literally a ton of food for cheap. A friend's mother owned that place, or so he claimed. "I should call your sister so she can pick you up," Takasugi grumbled, ignoring the fact that it was an empty threat.

"You have her number?" Kamui asked, incredulous. "That's not fair. You don't have my number."

Takasugi could only gape at Kamui in response when he stepped out of the kitchen and into his room, mute from the sheer absurdity of the conversation. Finally, he said, "How would you know I don't have your number?"

Kamui smiled, a maddeningly familiar expression and markedly guarded. "I don't have a phone," he said simply, his unchanging smile feigning idiocy and swallowing unspoken words. Before Takasugi could react, he continued, "Say, are you investigating the death near Harusame Middle School four years ago?"

Takasugi paused, eyeing Kamui with a hint of distrust, his previous frustration forgotten. "I thought you didn't know anything about that."

"I didn't," Kamui replied. "But I asked around." His smile faded, but his gaze remained bright and curious. "Why are you looking into that?"

"What did you find out?"

"Very little," Kamui said, a corner of his mouth curving up into a disappointed smile. "Just the rumor that a gang dispute had resulted in a death, but it didn't sound like the person who died had anything to do with the school. Isn't the case closed? What does it have to do with you?"

Everything, Takasugi wanted to say. Everything.

Watching for slight changes in Kamui's expression, he said, "He's not someone who'd get caught up in a meaningless fight, especially not when he has - " Takasugi stopped when he realized he'd slipped into the present tense. He clenched his fists. "Something happened," he continued in a low voice. "Either the cops have no clue or they're covering up. I want to know who really killed him and why."

"So who was he?"

Takasugi tensed as memories flooded back, from the awkward first meeting with Shoyo-sensei to the quiet childhood he'd regained after the car accident. And then just like that, they were all gone again. Looking away, he sat down on the floor, next to the low table, and asked, "What's any of this to you?"

"You owe me a good fight," Kamui said. "And this is holding you back."

Takasugi fixed his eyes on Kamui, thoughts racing. No, this wasn't holding him back - it was driving him forward, however twisted the road was. He thought about the parents that he barely remembered and the adoptive parent that'd become everything to him. He thought about the peers that came and went and the person sitting in front of him. He thought about yesterday and today, then he said, "Your mother died on the same day."

There was a beat, and Kamui asked, his smile unwavering but strained, "Do you think the two deaths are related?"

"Your sister said your mother died of illness."

Another beat. His smile faded, but he held Takasugi's gaze, blue eyes bright and intense. At first, Takasugi attributed it to wariness, but when Kamui's expression suddenly closed, something hit home. Kamui hadn't been looking at him with resentment, but something like confused dependence.

Raindrops drummed against the window, and he glanced at the dark glass reflecting the objects in the room. Lights, a low table, a bed, a closet, books, and himself. He blinked, and the image went from foreign to familiar, like a piece of memory snapping back in place. Suppressing a sigh, he extended his arm to lower the curtain, and Kamui shifted to the floor in response. When their eyes met again, he found a faint smile on Kamui's face.

"You haven't answered my question," Kamui said. "Who was he?"

Takasugi paused for a moment before he remembered whom they had been talking about, and he bit back the urge to evade the question for a second time. "He took care of me after my parents died," he decided to say.

"When was that?" Kamui asked quietly.

A fleeting, bitter smile. "Too long ago," he replied.

Was he still counting? The days before the trip, the day of the crash, the days at the hospital, the months at the orphanage, the years with Shoyo-sensei, and the years after...

"What are you going to do after you find out who did it?"

Takasugi's jaw tightened. He'd thought about this. He'd thought about this a lot, even though a part of him, too small to make a difference, had already accepted the idea that some rocks were impossible to penetrate no matter how long the water had been dripping on it. Even so, he lived for the day that he could bash the murderer's head into concrete, maybe repeatedly - because fighting the world over the aftermath was easier, much easier, than dealing with the world as it stood right now.

"What do you think?"

Kamui smiled. "Fight me after you fight him."

Takasugi let out a soft laugh. "And what are you going to do after you lose?"

Kamui's smile widened into a grin. "I like that confidence," he said. "Now I'm really looking forward to it."

And suddenly, Takasugi felt like he was making another empty promise, one that came out of nowhere and had no purpose. As if he'd stopped on a winding path to admire the surroundings only to notice he had no idea where he was or how he got there. But he knew where he wanted to go, so maybe that was all that mattered. He looked at Kamui, at the smile that said nothing and everything, and wondered how much of their parallel paths were merely accidental and temporary.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Takasugi said, "It stopped hailing, and it's getting late. When are you heading home?"

Kamui's gaze drifted from Takasugi to the clock and then to the floor before it returned to Takasugi. "I can leave whenever. I hadn't expected I'd run into you at all today," he added after a pause, his smile almost stoic, almost grateful.

"That makes two of us," Takasugi murmured, furrowing his brows when Kamui's smile dropped ever so slightly and briefly that he nearly missed it. "Where do you live?" he asked all of the sudden, recalling the conversation with Kagura.

"Why? Do you want to walk me back?"

"I just have the feeling that you'll run off to somewhere obscure if I let you leave by yourself," Takasugi remarked dryly, ignoring the whisper in his head that was reminding him of what'd happened the last time someone had left the house to go somewhere in the rain. "Where would you have gone if we'd missed each other this evening?"

"I can go anywhere with an umbrella," Kamui responded, his distant smile bearing an odd resignation. "It always rains today, you know? It's funny."

"Stay," Takasugi said, staring at the floor between the two of them and listening to the rain. He didn't believe that the heavens were mourning, and he didn't believe that anything would happen either if Kamui had left then and there, but he knew that sometimes, they were just actors on a stage where they could choose different scripts on a whim. Go to dinner, or don't go to dinner. Tell him to come upstairs, or don't tell him to come upstairs. Ask him to stay, or don't ask him to stay.

A motion in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked up, holding his breath when Kamui peered into his face, too close.

"What happened to your left eye?" Kamui asked, eyes searching and no longer smiling.

"Car accident."

A pause. "Can I see?"

"There's nothing to see," Takasugi said, catching the hand reaching for his face. The two of them hesitated, but when Kamui leaned forward, Takasugi tugged the redhead toward him and released the hand in his grasp, unable to stop his heart from racing as they pressed their bodies together. Kamui was much easier to read, he realized, now that he could feel the redhead's arms around his shoulders and breath on his skin. A house of cards, he thought, tightening his arms around Kamui's waist. I see.