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Tadashi stood by the door, patient and silent - invisible, like the good servant he was - while the doctor and the three ladies talked inside. He could hear muffled voices, but the thick wooden panels on the walls made it impossible for him to be able to tell what they were saying. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know, anyway.
He forced himself to run mental lists of the papers he was meant to read, the emails he would have to draft and the shuffling of his master’s schedule that would be in order, how that would keep him busy for the rest of the night. He thought it was safer that way: the more he was able to occupy his mind with work, the less room he left available for guilt to tear up his insides.
He was a professional man, and he was working. He had to keep it together - at least just for a little longer, just until the doctor and the ladies left.
After that, well… after that he had absolutely no idea of what would happen.
As soon as he could hear the rustling of people getting out of their seats and preparing to leave, Tadashi stood straighter in anticipation for the door to open and people to flood out barking orders his way.
“Cancel his meeting with the President of the Fishermen Union, but don’t let anyone know what happened,” Lady Aiko said as she walked out of the room. “I believe that you know what needs to be done to keep the campaign running, so do it. No one has to know about he’s… indisposed.”
“Yes, madam.”
“And have that bathroom cleaned,” Lady Aimi added. “See to it yourself, we don’t need anyone else to be involved in this.”
“Of course, madam. I will take care of it.”
The three women left without a single other word his way, the clicking of their heels fading into the distance as Tadashi gathered himself. He counted to ten in his head before turning to the heavy door to the master bedroom, taking a deep breath in and exhaling a few times before allowing himself to open that door and step in.
Tadashi forced himself to march straight to the ensuite bathroom without looking at the rest of the room, keeping his eyes (and mind) on what he needed to do. He was burning to go to the bedside and check on his lifelong companion, but he knew himself well: he was painfully aware of the fact that he would be physically incapable of leaving his bedside once he saw him, so he needed to tend to the bathroom and the horrors that waited behind that door before getting anywhere near Ainosuke.
The acrid smell of vomit hit him square in the face as soon as he pushed the bathroom door open and stepped in, armed with a bucket and cleaning supplies. Growing up as a servant, Tadashi had never had the chance to be squeamish around cleaning up, but this time, he had to be careful with the way he carried himself to avoid adding to the mess.
He took his jacket and tie off before going down to his knees to start mopping up vomit that consisted of nothing but fine whisky, half-digested sleeping pills and whatever had been still in Ainosuke’s system from that day’s dinner.
This wasn’t the first time he had to clean up something unsightly in order to better serve his masters, but Tadashi couldn’t push past the visceral horror that accompanied the mundane task: there was no way to deny that this had been Ainosuke making an attempt on his own life. An attempt that would have been successful had he not happen to walk in at exactly the right time. He didn’t know what he would have done with himself had he found him too late.
Tadashi had known for years that his beloved master wasn’t exactly happy with the way his life was, but he thought that he did a good job managing what was expected of him and what he really wanted from life as a whole. It was clear to him that money, a prestigious family name and his high-pressure career weighed heavy on Ainosuke’s soul and put a hamper on what he might have chosen to do with himself if he didn’t have such strict boundaries imprisoning him… and yet, he had never thought it was bad enough for him to try to hurt himself this bad.
He had spent the last half decade telling himself that they managed just fine despite circumstances being far from ideal: ever since Master Aiichiro died, they had been granted freedom neither of them had experienced before within the walls of the Shindo estate. Ainosuke’s career kept him busy, but he was free to push whatever agenda he wanted (within reason), and he had the time and resources to build ‘S’ up from the ground in order to pursue his passion.
On a personal level, Tadashi thought that things were as good as they would feasibly get as well; they had managed to push past twenty years of emotional baggage in order to finally get together. They both knew that coming out publicly as a couple was impossible, but they shared as much time with each other as they wanted, slept in the same bed more often than not, and lived their lives as the couple they were. Sure, they couldn’t do it publicly and they had to live with the never-ending haranguing about getting a wife that Ainosuke got from his Aunties, but Tadashi thought that was a small price to pay for the glory of finally being able to call Ainosuke his (albeit in secret).
If anyone were to ask him, Tadashi would have said that life was good. Better than anything they had experienced before.
Clearly, he had been blind to what pained his lover.
As he cleaned, Tadashi couldn’t help but wringe his brain and examine every single detail from all recent interactions he could recall involving Ainosuke. He was desperately looking for clues, for some sign that he had missed that would have pointed to the almost-tragedy of that evening.
He needed something, anything: if there had been any signs, he could learn to look for them and prevent things from ever getting this bad. No matter how much he pushed his memory, though, Tadashi couldn’t seem to recall anything that stood out to him.
Had he missed them all? He prided himself on knowing Ainosuke better than anyone else, so being unable to identify anything was a punch below the belt. And yet, it was better than the alternative: perhaps there were no signs. And if there hadn’t been any signs, perhaps Tadashi would fail to notice if things happened again - and he couldn’t just hope for another non-fatal attempt.
Soon enough, the bathroom was spotless, but that did nothing to erase the pressure in Tadashi’s chest as the memory of Ainosuke lying unconscious on a pool of his own vomit superimposed itself into the newly-clean environment.
With a heavy sigh, Tadashi forced himself to his feet, washed his hands, and put the cleaning supplies away, running on auto-pilot until he was once more at the door to the master bedroom.
He knew Ainosuke was safe, that he was on his way to healing - he overheard enough to know that he should wake up within a couple of hours when the sedatives wore off - but that didn’t offer Tadashi much consolation. He couldn’t bear sitting by his side and looking at him like that: seemingly asleep and peaceful while knowing that just hours before he had been so deep in hell that he had tried to take his own life.
Tadashi knew there was nothing to be gained from standing by the door like a sad idiot, so he forced himself to push past whatever that was and force himself to his bedside at last.
Just as he had been expecting, Ainosuke looked as though he was asleep and tucked into bed. The fact that he was topless only brought back flashes of the horror he felt after finding him in the bathroom covered in his own vomit. His panicked call for the trusted doctor that tended to the Shindo family. How he had held him on his side and hoped he wouldn’t choke. How he prayed to a god he had long stopped believing in to keep his master from harm until help arrived.
It would take a while for those images to stop barging in uninvited, Tadashi thought.
He took a seat next to Ainosuke’s bed, pulling a chair close and keeping an eye on him without daring to touch him. He didn’t know what was going to happen once he woke up, and part of him was scared to find out: he was aware that they would need to have a serious conversation about everything surrounding that night, but he had absolutely no clue of how to do that.
What could he say, anyway? There was nothing he could think of that would make things better and that wasn’t obvious already.
Tadashi knew that, at that point, he was doing nothing other than torture himself by going in circles around what had happened. He decided to do what he did best: avoid complicated feelings by burying himself in work. That was easy, as he had more than enough to do now that he needed to make sure to clear the next few days off to allow Ainosuke to recover without making it obvious to anyone around them that he was indisposed and out of work. It was going to be a monumental task, but he was the right man for the job.
He spent the next couple of hours jotting down notes on how to shuffle Ainosuke’s schedule, drafting emails he’d send at a reasonable hour when morning came, making lists of the things he knew his master had to do in the next coming days and finding ways to fit them in his already tight schedule. It was going to take a lot of work and an unhealthy lack of sleep to make it work, but Tadashi was determined to do it. He couldn't let work pile up for Ainosuke while he recovered.
“Tadashi…” came a raspy whisper that hit him like lightning.
He had not heard Ainosuke stir awake while he was lost in the rearranging of his schedule, so he was far from ready to have any kind of conversation with him. And yet, Tadashi could do nothing but focus on the man that looked at him from bed.
“Shh... your throat must be sore,” he said, stroking his cheek lightly “You had your stomach pumped. I’ve heard it’s… you should rest, Ai-sama.”
Ainosuke didn’t say anything, simply guiding a heavy hand to close around Tadashi’s and lightly squeezing at it.
“I’m sorry… I-i don’t know what…” Ainosuke started, looking unsure of where he was planning to take that sentence himself.
Tadashi had spent the last several hours planning what he was going to say to him: there would be no blame, no guilt, no need to apologise - he’d support him, help him through it in the most perfect way, he wouldn’t let Ainosuke blame himself either - he would have all the right things to say. And yet, now that the time had come, Tadashi’s mind was blank.
“Please don’t leave me here,” he blurted out, a sob breaking out of him and leaving Tadashi to scramble to put himself together again.
Once the tears started flowing, Tadashi couldn’t stop them. Never in his life had he had such an outburst of emotion before, but now that it was happening, he simply couldn’t stop it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-i… Don’t mind me, Ai-sama,” he sobbed, covering his face with his free hand and trying to force himself to stop.
Tadashi was furious with himself; so much for avoiding blame and being supportive when he was actively doing the opposite of it and putting himself at the centre of his master’s personal tragedy.
“Don’t apologise.” Ainosuke whispered, moving his hand up to stroke Tadashi’s cheek.
“I shouldn’t- I need to stop crying.”
Ainosuke shook his head no just barely, his body still heavy from the sedatives he had been given.
“Cry. You cry and I’ll hold you,” Ainosuke said, motioning at the space next to him and inviting him to come lay down with him. “We’ll swap later.”
Tadashi did exactly as he was told, curling up against his lifelong companion and sobbing his heart out as he let himself embrace the visceral horror that washed over him once he realised how close he had been to losing the one person that meant the world to him. He cried for as long as his body allowed him to, letting out a spent sigh once the tears stopped and looking over at Ainosuke.
At some point during his crying spell, the young politician had slipped back into sleep. Tadashi couldn’t help but feel grateful for it - he hoped he had fallen asleep early and had not been forced to watch his whole meltdown, but he had no way to know it. A wave of exhaustion hit Tadashi like a sack of bricks now that he was there, against Ainosuke and after having spoken to him.
He knew things would be different from now on, adding an extra layer of complexity to their long relationship, but Tadashi decided that it was best to take things a day at the time. Against all the odds, they had made it so far: they had spent their whole lives finding solutions to every single problem they encountered in their journey towards each other. Tadashi forced himself to believe that they, too, would find their way past this.