his guard and his goaler
3.
Fujiki said the sign on the hospital room door. Fujiki Yuusaku said the receptionist. Fujiki Yuusaku said the boy with blue bangs and hollow green eyes.
'Kogami Ryoken,' Ryoken replied, and those words didn't spark a reaction at all. So he didn't know his father had been behind it all?
His face did spark a reaction though, when he took off his coat. 'You're the boy from that day.' A moment silence, and then… 'Were you there too? Did they get you too?'
Should he tell the truth, or lie? Did it matter?
He settled for a half-truth in the end, because there was nothing in that room, in that face, that said one way or another. If he'd known, if he'd hated him…
'I wanted to be friends, but I turned around and you were gone and I didn't get the chance.'
And there he dug his own grave, because he couldn't let go of Fujiki Yuusaku after he sacrificed his father for him… but he couldn't let go of his father as well.
So when, later, Yuusaku clutched his blanket tight enough to tear, sweating and hyperventilating and dry eyes boring holes into his feet, Ryoken offered only superficial comfort. And when the boy burst out, with a shuddering voice and more emotion he'd heard since those screams that left scars on both their souls, that he'd search for answers and revenge, all he could do was agree.
Even though he was one of the people he'd seek revenge on. And he was harbouring the main mastermind and the man who had all the answers.