It had been a week.

It had been a week, and Yokozawa still hadn't talked to Kirishima. Still hadn't acted on the note Masamune had left him before he'd gone home, quietly, the morning after, talk to him.

The fact had made him even brusquer and snappier at work than usual, sending his subordinates scattering the second his voice boomed out over the Sales floor. He liked to tell himself it wasn't affecting his work, not at all, but he even found it difficult to paste on a manufactured smile as he met store managers on his rounds.

He realized this had to stop when he found himself ferociously berating Henmi for dropping a sheaf of papers.

He had to talk to Kirishima.

This exact sequence of events found him retracing the familiar path to the Kirishima residence after he got off work that day, holding a bag of some omiyage he'd blindly picked up at the conbini.

The overwhelming guilt he felt made his stomach turn, his palms sweat in nervousness. No matter what Kirishima had done, Yokozawa had had no right whatsoever to react the way he did. He owed his… ex, now? lover, at the very least, an apology. And the man would then be perfectly within his rights to kick Yokozawa out and never want to see his face again after he told hi the reason.

Why did he always fuck things up for himself?

A haunting sense of déjà vu swept over him as he stared at the nameplate on the door and rang the bell, hands shaking. They'd been there before, early on in their relationship, Yokozawa crawling back here with his tail between his legs to apologize after realizing how colossally stupid his actions had been.

He felt a wave of nausea rising in his throat. That time had led to the best thing that had ever happened to him. And now? Now he didn't even know what he hoped to accomplish with this… this outreach. Desperately snatch as much time with him Kirishima as he could, stow every single precious moment away in memory, before…?

And how could he even hope for that much after what he'd done? How could he ever even look Kirishima in the eyes after going and doing the very thing he'd repeatedly assured the older man he didn't have to worry about?

How could Yokozawa mar his few remaining weeks here with that knowledge?

Fuck, this whole situation was a study in contradictions, but Yokozawa knew that he'd never be able to live with himself if he didn't come clean to the other man. And fuck, he knew that was selfish, but he would not make the mistake of trying to protect others without their consent again.

He, at the very least, owed Kirishima the truth.

They were in this together, after all.

The door clicked open, Hiyori's familiar figure appearing behind it.

"Ah, Hiyo," he said, on reflex, handing her the bag was holding. "Here."

"Thank you," she said, taking it with none of her customary cheer. In fact, she looked on the verge of tears as she made a beeline for the living room after greeting him with a soft, "It's nice to see you, oniichan."

When Yokozawa followed her inside, he saw her sitting by her father's side, clinging to his hand as he reclined on the couch.

So he'd told her.

Kirishima's eyes fluttered open at his entry. His face was haggard and he seemed thinner, the younger man noted with worry, but his eyes still lit up in that old way when he saw Yokozawa.

"Kirishima-san, I…" he began, not sure was he was going to say, but his partner cut him off.

"Just come here."

He hesitated for a moment before walking over to the older man, a little dismayed that he couldn't make his confession straightaway, with Hiyo in the room. Waiting only ever made things worse.

"…...!"

He grunted as Kirishima pulled him down into a hug as soon as he was within arm's length, still surprisingly strong. On instinct, one of his arms braced itself against the taller man, the other coming to wrap around Hiyo until they were all wrapped together in some semblance of a family hug.

Yokozawa's chest burned as he buried his face into Kirishima's shoulder, Hiyori's hair, the scent of cherry blossoms invading his senses. He let out a sobbing gasp. It hurt so much, coming home.

"Don't listen to me all the time, geez," Kirishima whispered into his ear after a few drawn-out, shuddering, flute-fragile moments. "Feels strange."

"M-make up your mind on what you want!" Yokozawa retorted. So much shit, and he still really didn't understand the guy at all.

They stayed like that for a while, each of them much loath to let go.

Finally, Hiyori broke away, perhaps sensing some of the disquiet that still lingered, with her usual perceptiveness. It was honestly embarrassing how she, in her ten years, had picked up more sensitivity and tact than Yokozawa had in twenty-eight.

"Right, I'm going to Yuki-chan's for a bit, I promised her we'd work on our science project together," she said, making for the gate. "Papa, oniichan, make nice!"

Her eyes were suspiciously moist as she disappeared out the door.

Yokozawa suddenly felt adrenaline rush through his body, making it tingle.

Now or never.

"…I slept with Masamune," he blurted out before he could lose his nerve, bowing his head before Kirishima. His heart was pounding painfully in his chest, his fingers were trembling. All he wanted to do now that he'd spit out those words was remove himself from that house. He was so ashamed of himself that he couldn't bear to be in Kirishima's presence a second longer, not face, any more, the man he'd betrayed. "I'm sorry."

The apology sounded pitiful to his own ears. He knew there were no excuses he could make, nothing that could justify his actions. He stood silently, head lowered, waiting for Kirishima's inevitable rage, pain, sadness to descend upon him.

But there was only dead silence.

Then, "I understand."

Kirishima's soft voice was barely audible, but Yokozawa heard it loud and clear.

When he looked up in surprise, the older man had averted his gaze.

"I said I understand," Kirishima repeated. This wasn't anything Yokozawa had prepared himself for. Rather than any or disgusted, the man sounded resigned. "It would be unfair to tie you down to someone like me. So. I'm letting you go, Yokozawa. Go live your life for the both of us."

"Wh-wait a minute—,"

"I just want you to be happy, Yokozawa. Even if it's with Takano." Kirishima still faced determinedly away from him. "Now leave, before I lose my resolve."

His calm exterior cracked towards the end of his exhortation, belied by the tremble in his voice.

"What- the hell are you on about?" the thunderstruck Yokozawa demanded of him. "I'm not in love with Masamune!"

Kirishima let out a wry chuckle. "You don't have to spare my feelings, you know."

"I'm not! Masamune—," he stopped, before a deep flush crept up his cheeks. "You're the one I love, godammit!"

Kirishima looked stunned, and Yokozawa soldiered on, tamping down on the shame he felt at acting like a high-school girl confessing to her senpai.

"That day… I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. Masamune and I… just met on coincidence. He was in a really- really bad place too, so it was more comforting each other than anything else. I know he regrets it as much as I do."

Kirishima opened his mouth to speak, but Yokozawa didn't give him the opportunity, running a hand through his hair.

"I realize I'm not in a position to make excuses, and that's exactly what I'm doing. But… just, fuck, I'm sorry." He clenched his eyes shut for a moment, fighting the burning urge to reach out for Kirishima. "And I want you, if you'll still have me."

Kirishima was silent for a long while. When Yokozawa chanced a glance up at him, he was biting his lip. His expression was somehow painful to look at.

"All the same," he finally said. "I've had a week to think about this, Yokozawa, and I can't tie you down. Not like this."

Yokozawa, on an even shorter fuse than usual, felt the end of his patience quickly approaching.

"I'm breaking up with you," Kirishima choked out, turning his face away, and the younger man could see him clenching his eyes shut.

And that was about when his patience ran out.

"Don't fucking pull that martyr shit on me," he snarled, striding towards his lover. "If you can't look at me after what I've done, be a fucking man and tell me so."

"And I've told you it's not that," Kirishima spat back with the same vehemence. "I'm fucking dying in two months, Yokozawa. Do you really think I've got time to let myself care about this bullshit? I love you, you asshole, and right now, I don't care if you've slept with the entirety of Hyogo prefecture, I still want you."

"Then what's the—,"

"The problem is the same reason I'm not mad at you. I'm fucking dying. And I can't drag you down with me. I've been there, trust me, and it's one hell of a shit-trip."

"Do you really think—," Yokozawa began, then realized the futility of words. "Oh, just shut up."

His exasperation, his desperation, the fact that, now, they couldn't afford to waste time dancing around each other made him bolder than he'd ever imagined himself capable of being. His hands, that had been gripping Kirishima's lapels, migrated to his face as he pulled him in for a bruising kiss.

And it was such fucking irony, that it was Kirishima's hands that reached up to ineffectually push him away, that it was Yokozawa who saw through the faux-resistance easy as anything.

This wasn't how it was meant to be.

But there was no other way it could have happened.

And that just cemented Yokozawa's faith that concepts like Faith and Destiny propounded utter bullshit.

Because there was no meant to be, no rosy fantasies of how it could have played out, because no mirage was perfect. Things just turned out a certain way, and that was as far as Destiny went.

He let Kirishima go after he'd embossed the message onto his lips to his satisfaction.

"You idiot," he growled at the uncharacteristically wide-eyed, breathless Kirishima in front of him. "You fucking bastard. I'm here because I want to be, okay? There isn't a person I want except for you. If you think I'm staying out of pity or some bullshit, that's a crock of shit."

And just because they didn't have the time to get to the point where such feelings came through to the other unspoken, "And you don't need to feel shitty about tying me down, either. Don't you think that I knew, going into this, that I wouldn't come out unscathed? Heck, don't you think we're both in too deep now to not get hurt, anyway? I couldn't let go if I wanted to. You couldn't, either, could you?"

Kirishima was staring at him, never having heard Yokozawa talk so openly, so at length. "Because that's what a relationship is about. I'm going to get hurt, either way. So are you. But if I have to get hurt, I want to do it while staying by your side. Besides," what was he doing, tracing his fingers over Kirishima's pink-dusted cheeks? "I've got you tied down, too."

God, this seemed to be a night full of liberties he had no right taking, Yokozawa leaned his head on Kirishima's shoulder.

"Just," he whispered, hating how vulnerable his voice sounded. "I couldn't tie you down strongly enough."

Kirishima's calm veneer completely shattered at this, his arms, as if of their own accord, coming up to wrap around Yokozawa like he'd never let him go.

"Shhh. just… shhhhhhh," he murmured, the glaze on his voice melting, dissolving in the warmth of suppressed emotion, giving Yokozawa, for once, a clear window into his soul.

He finally understood what Kirishima had meant when he'd said I see something of myself in you.

"Takafumi," Kirishima whispered in his ear, and his voice set every nerve in Yokozawa's body ablaze. "Make love to me."

They kissed slow and deep and hot all the way to the bedroom.

"Shit, shit," Yokozawa let out his voice, not holding back for once as he felt Kirishima digging sharp nails into his back. The older man matched his cries as he hooked his ankles behind his lover's back, forcing him in deeper, urging him to go faster.

Yokozawa ignored him, maintaining his slow, deep rhythm as he snapped his hips, hands tracing every contour of Kirishima's body as if trying to commit it to memory. Kirishima whined in frustration, canting his hips up.

"You said you wanted me to make love to you, so that's exactly what I'm doing," Yokozawa said, voice strained from exertion.

"A little speed wouldn't- ah!- hurt—nghh!" Kirishima said, voice hitching on a keen as Yokozawa hit a good spot. "I'm not going to break."

But that was exactly what Yokozawa was afraid would happen, that Kirishima would break if he went too fast. All the tenderness he hid behind a curt façade forced itself out through the gentleness of his kisses, the slow, intense deliberation of his thrusts.

Just once, just this once, he wanted to treat his lover like he was precious.

Because he wanted to cram Kirishima's head and heart and soul full of all the confusing, frustrating emotion the younger man felt when he so much as looked at him, tell him everything that had been left unsaid in the little time they had left.

So he shut Kirishima's smart mouth, which had been spouting something along the lines of I swear to god, if you don't go faster, I will flip us over and do you instead, with a kiss, poured into it everything he felt, things he wanted to say and things he couldn't possibly vocalize. And maybe, just maybe Kirishima understood, because he responded with equal fervor as their tongues messily twined, making everything wet and slick and good, as Yokozawa, spurred on by this, shifted himself up the bed and began to thrust in earnest.

And this was so strange, so similar to Masamune, and yet so different because Kirishima, Kirishima wasn't throwing his head back trying to forget.

Kirishima was tilting his head forward, drawing Yokozawa to him, lust-hazed eyes meeting and trying to remember.

And Yokozawa wasn't Masamune, couldn't dress up words nice and pretty and sensitive and tell people what they needed to hear, but he brought his mouth to his partner's ear and whispered what he hoped summed up what he'd been struggling with ever since he'd stepped foot in the house.

"Zen."

Kirishima froze, breath catching on a moan, before he tightened excruciatingly around Yokozawa, who felt his release draw up embarrassingly close.

"Again," he demanded, hands coming up to the younger man's hair and tightening dangerously. "Again, Takafumi."

"Zen," he obliged him, starting to thrust again, no faster than before, but even deeper, a raw edge to it that made their blood rush in their veins. "Zen, I'm sorry."

They both knew he wasn't just apologizing for Masamune.

He kept up this torturous, deliberate pace until they were both panting, desperate gasps and moans intermingling, the crimson flush spreading all over their bodies until neither could tell which was which. Until they were both hopelessly, inextricably, fucking symbolically intertwined.

"Ahh, ahhh, fuck, nghh!" Kirishima's voice was getting louder and louder on each pass, and Yokozawa wanted to quiet him down but he didn't, because the twin sounds tearing their way past his own throat just lent them perfect harmony.

"Zen, Zen, I'm… so fucking sorry… I'm sorry, forgive me," Yokozawa's mind was going, now, he barely knew what he was saying, so overwhelmed was he by the perfect scorch that threatened to raze the two to the ground. His filter was defunct, had been for quite a while, and the words secreted away in the darkest depths of his heart simply took flight through his lips. "I love you."

"Takafumi," Kirishima took Yokozawa's face in his hands, kissed his lips deep and slow and in seamless synchrony with their lovemaking. "Don't. Don't apologize any more."

Afterwards, they lay together, a sheet draped over them, Kirishima's arm around Yokozawa's waist. He'd only stiffened a little bit when the taller man had put it there.

"You really don't have to, you know," Kirishima said softly. "You can still walk away and not have to watch me- watch me—" he broke off.

Yokozawa slapped his hand away from himself.

"If you seriously think I'm going to do that, then you're an even bigger idiot than you were for thinking I was in love with Masamune," he snapped. Had everything he'd said, that had cost him such acute discomfort to say, gone over his lover's head?

"You can't blame me for thinking that you were still, ultimately, in love with him," Kirishima responded despondently. "He was the one you sought out after… you found out. And, this seems really petty now, but… you didn't tell me you were on the Diamond Heart board together. I know it's not like that, but I just- I couldn't help thinking that maybe you didn't trust me enough."

"Wh- I didn't seek him out," Yokozawa muttered, glad the older man couldn't see his face. It'd take him a long, long time to entirely forgive himself for what he'd done. "I told you. We happened to come to the same place, that's all. He… Onodera's moving to Switzerland. For good."

Kirishima didn't reply. Then, suddenly, "What's your favorite color?"

"And you're right, it wasn't at all because I didn't trust you or whatever. It's just that it never came up, and, as you can imagine, I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to talk to you about him," Yokozawa continued, as if the guy hadn't spoken. It seemed like the older man's penchant for teasing him hadn't disappeared even after recent events. Who asked another fully grown man that?

There was only silence from behind him. Yokozawa could picture Kirishima wearing his now-familiar pained expression that the younger man so hated.

"…Ugh," he groaned in exasperation, "We're not in high school, dammit. Why do you want to know my favorite color, of all things?"

"Just—," Kirishima said, and Yokozawa wished that he could see his expression, because the man sounded almost shy, "It's the kind of thing Takano would have known…"

"No he—," the younger man started to refute him, then realized that on every birthday, New Year's, whatever, he unfailingly received a gift from Masamune. It was always a colored item, and it was always of a particular color.

"….It's dark blue,"

And Kirishima sounded so happy, as he snaked an arm back around Yokozawa, as he responded with mine's turquoise, that if this was what playing along with his lover's caprices brought him, he didn't mind it at all.

"...Well?" Kirishima finally said, expectantly.

"Well, what?"

"It's your turn. Go on, ask me something."

"Alright, then, what's your favorite…food?"

"Oh, anything my darling makes for me~" Kirishima said lightly.

Yokozawa was pretty sure his face would be burned to a crisp by the time this was over from the sheer heat of his blush.

"I thought this was an opportunity to actually get to know each other, and not flirt shamelessly!" he barked at Kirishima, laying a warning hand on the arm he had around his middle.

Kirishima didn't say anything, and although they so often missed each other completely, seemed to be on totally different wavelengths, had a valley of a communication gap between them, this time, he understood.

They won't have any more opportunities.

"I'm partial to a homemade omurice myself," Yokozawa hastily said to dispel the sudden, heavy silence.

"So I should brush up on my cooking skills?" the taller man asked, a smile in his voice, "Surprise you in the morning in nothing but an apron~"

"I'll take care of it, just keep your hands to yourself," the ink-haired man immediately shut him down, shuddering at the mental image. He was almost certain the guy was kidding, but with someone like Kirishima, you could never tell.

Kirishima laughed in that youthful, happy way he did after having successfully gotten a rise out of Yokozawa, and… maybe Yokozawa didn't mind being teased so much, either, if it got a reaction like that.

And, the grey-eyed man was just beginning to realize, he'd put up with just about anything to make Kirishima happy.

"Alright, alright, I'm only kidding," Kirishima laughingly said, and, after a beat,

"Favorite type of music?"

"When I get the time to listen t it, mostly classical."

"Are you kidding? Boring~ I like rock."

"Why am I not surprised? Uh… favorite book?"

"I may not look it, but I'm a huge fan of classical literature. So, anything by Matsuo Bashou, really."

"Never pegged you as the type to actually read something worthwhile."

"Hey, I'll have you know that I graduated a the top of my classical literature class! Let's hear yours, Yokozawa-senpai."

"Gross. And my favorites keep changing, but right now it is The Box That Houses The Moon, by Usami-sensei."

"Ooh, I like that one too. Hmmm… do you like travelling? If so, where do you want to visit?"

"I've always wanted to travel. That's why I chose a job that wouldn't confine me behind a desk. One place I've always wanted to go is Europe. It's just that I've heard it described so often in books that I kind of want to see it with my own eyes."

"…I wanted to go around the world, too, you know," Kirishima's voice sounded suddenly small and broken. "I had this crazy dream," a bitter laugh, "that you and I would grow old together, and when we were done with all of this- our jobs, raising Hiyo, -that I'd take you around the world."

"This is enough," Yokozawa found himself saying before he could clamp down on the words and second-guess them within an inch of their lives. "Of course- of course I'd have liked to have… that with you. But we can't. So I'm saying that this, here, what we have, I don't need any more than just this. So don't go getting all soft on me."

"Yokozawa—," Kirishima seemed lost for words, and Yokozawa was thankful for the quiet that gave his cheeks time to cool down.

"Take Hiyo there someday," he finally said, voice so soft and faraway that it struck somewhere deep within his lover, who could just nod mutely.

They just stayed like that for a long time, their hearts beating in tandem, the gossamer threads of the queer ache that interlinked them tugging just so at their chests, making them reluctant to move.

Finally, Yokozawa braced himself and ventured, broaching something that had taken a hold on his mind ever since Kirishima had brought it up.

"We have to tell your parents," he said, turning around to face the older man.

"They know," and there was that aggrieved look again.

"No- not about that, idiot. About us," he said, motioning between them. "If I am to… take care of Hiyo."

"…Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we must," Kirishima said, blankly.

It had often occurred to Yokozawa just how odd it looked to have an unmarried man, who could boast of being nothing more than a workplace acquaintance, to be traipsing around with a single father and his daughter. But he'd never before considered that, without Kirishima in the picture, he would have no pretext whatsoever on which to sustain his relationship with Hiyori without coming off as a stalker or other unsavory sundries.

The thought broke something inside him, a geyser of frustration gushing forth from beneath it.

"God, this is bullshit. The fact that we can't- we can't ever –I can't do shit for Hiyo, or…anything, ngh—," the broken fragments of ineloquent speech were the best voice Yokozawa could give to the tumult of feelings that had suddenly inundated him.

His lover took an almost painfully tight hold of his hand.

"It's so fucking unfair," he echoed Yokozawa's words from a week ago. "You know that if there was any way, any way I could… leave Hiyo in your care, that I could give you something— something more than this —fuck, fuck."

He left the younger man's hand to scrub his own over his face, seeming overwhelmed by the rancorous, myriad emotions that had to be roiling inside him, grief, pain, fear, frustration- a perfect mirror for Yokozawa's own. And the salesman had never felt fettered before, suffocated from having to hide their relationship, belonging to the school of thought that believed social norms were integral for a certain decorum, but now?

Now, he could scream.

Now, the whole concept on decorum seemed ludicrous. What was decorum when the love of his fucking life was dying, and they couldn't even give a name to what they had? Couldn't have some concrete proof of what they'd had, couldn't say he was my husband? Would he not qualify as deserving of understanding, heck, of even riding in the ambulance beside Kirishima, of even seeing the girl who was, effectively, his own daughter without it being misconstrued, simply because a rule of law and a society bound by it dismissed their relationship?

He was, suddenly, intensely afraid of the company memorial he'd be obligated to attend. He was afraid of the utter devastation, the anger that would fill him when he saw no more than passing acquaintances make tearful addresses like they had known Kirishima Zen, the girls who had regarded him as no more than fresh meat worthy of pursuit speak like he had been their first love. He was even afraid of the silent, sympathetic look he knew Masamune would shoot him.

But most of all, he was afraid of what he would say if he was called upon to speak, as Kirishima-san's close friend.

Perhaps Kirishima had understood something of what Yokozawa was thinking as it played out on his face, because he pulled him even closer.

"Tomorrow we tell my parents," he muttered like a reassurance. "Tomorrow we tell my parents."

Yokozawa shifted his weight uncomfortably as he sat on the couch beside Kirishima, fielding the expectant gazes of his partner's parents. The tea, snacks and pleasantries had been done with, and Yokozawa knew that the pair of them wanted to know why their son had called this unlikely gathering out of the blue.

Kirishima took a deep breath, looking at Yokozawa as if to say "Ready?"

The younger man felt like he was going to splatter all of the older Kirishimas' nice cooking over their nice carpet, but he nodded.

"Mom, Dad, I- we have to tell you something." Kirishima began, and Yokozawa felt his nervousness spike to dizzying levels.

"I," abruptly, the brown-eyed man grabbed his lover's hand and held it forward so that his parents could see. "Am in love with this man."

There was an excruciating moment of silence.

"Well, I figured something like his was up," Mrs. Kirishima was the first to recover from her shock. "Hiyo never stops talking about Yokozawa-oniichan, after all."

"Well, of course we're a little surprised," she added delicately. "Seeing as Zen had a wife before."

"In light of recent events, we thought it'd be best to tell you. I mean, we obviously can't get married or anything, but I'd like Yokozawa to be able to continue seeing Hiyori even after, you know…"

Here Kirishima trailed off, and his mother silently nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

Even though Yokozawa was considerably relieved by Mrs. Kirishima's acceptance, he still looked anxiously at her husband, awaiting his reaction.

"Well," Mr. Kirishima said gruffly, "at least Hiyori won't have to experience the void of a father as well."

"Please look favorably upon me," the words left Yokozawa in a rush as he bowed his head, the motion barely concealing his wide smile of relief.

And it was such a bittersweet moment, the four of them sitting around the older Kirishimas' little coffee table, Mrs. Kirishima reaching out to take Yokozawa's hand with a barely audible whisper of my son, Mr. Kirishima patting his shoulder, but it somewhat assuaged the sting of things that could never be.

Because there, amidst the smoking wreck of unspoken hopes and dreams and life, Yokozawa felt accepted.