Chapter Text
“Well, that’s it for me. Gonna head out.”
“Huh? Already?”
“Yeah. Mikiko wants me to swing by.”
“A-ah. Right. ‘Course.”
“What? Miss me already? Aw.”
“Tch.” A cigarette gets ground into the ashtray. “Get lost, Aniki.”
Kaito laughs and it’s a low, rumbling growl. Husky with his drink, it’s a warm, smoky, perfectly-aged whiskey of a sound – the kind that goes down smooth and relaxes every muscle in a man’s body. It tends to rub up on Higashi’s senses like the lazy, arched back of a cat and makes his throat bob with a thick swallow.
The old leather of the couch squeaks as Kaito stamps out his own smoke, then rises to his feet with a long, languid stretch. Higashi doesn’t look up over the lenses of his glasses.
As usual, he feels foolish for the pull of loneliness low in his gut. It’s such a sad, pathetic feeling – a tug of yearning for Kaito to stay just a bit longer. For that laugh to sink all the way through him like hot spring water, for his smile to light up the dim lit room and throw somersaults into his stomach like it always has. Like it did all the way back when they’d both been Matsugane grunts and he’d trailed after him like a starved dog.
Years have passed and much has changed. And some things haven’t.
So he falls into step behind Kaito, following after him as he makes his way out of the arcade. It’s always been a place of comfort, of familiarity, to walk behind him like old times. But he still can’t help the hole hollowing itself out in his belly the closer they get to the door.
Like it’s been for some time now. So much so that he’s become too familiar with that , too. With the disappointment he usually sits with every night, rolling around alongside the ice of his drink clinking in its glass.
“The night’s still young y’know,” Kaito reminds him, glancing drowsily over the slope of his broad shoulder. “Treat yourself. Hit up Tender, find some company. Must get lonely sitting around here all day.”
He laughs again.
Higashi scowls, averting his eyes. A private, greedy impulse wants him to move in close. So close that he can catch that rough, tumbled-out laugh in his own mouth with graceless yearning.
But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.
“The kids are gonna start pokin’ fun if your face gets stuck scowling like that, is all I’m saying.”
Higashi blinks, like he’d forgotten Kaito had been teasing him. Well, he hadn’t forgotten, he’d just been trapped in the moment. Like with so many hundreds of moments before this one. Still, he rolls his eyes and lets a smirk pull up one end of his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. Get goin’ to your lady, old man.”
“Old man–? The fuck? Hah! You’re lucky I got prior engagements. Next time I’m around, we’re gonna have to spar it out so you can take that shit right back.”
Higashi’s smirk softens into more of a smile.
“Gonna hold you to that, then.” A beat, he nods toward the doors. “Go on, get out. I gotta close up shop.”
“All right. ‘Night.”
He lifts up a hand in a wordless send-off and Kaito heads out for the staircase.
Higashi’s smile fades like the sound of Kaito’s footsteps ascending the stairs out to the street.
And he hates the thick rush of yearning that returns full-swing; that hits him like the crash of a wave and sinks such a miserable jealousy down into his gut.
But it’s not the kind that grits a man’s teeth with childish envy and makes him ball his fists, hungry for a fight to fill the void. Instead, Higashi’s long shoulders slump and he sighs again, slow and tired and defeated.
He has no right to feel what he does. Not the jealousy, not the sadness, not the loneliness, and - most of all - not the longing. The longing that’s burned like so many embers since he first met Masaharu Kaito and wondered how solid those thick arms might feel.
There’s already such a complex of guilt pooled up over the years from how many times he’d imagined rough handprints measured to Kaito’s size bruised into his hips, urging him impossibly close in the safe darkness of a room, a stairwell, an alleyway.
The only person he blames for this persistent itch is himself. The lonely nights are just an added bonus to his pathetic pining.
He can’t help but click his tongue in a disapproving “ tch! ” as he pulls his keys out of his pocket and flicks through them for the right one. The thoughts he’s been left with aren’t going to shake their way off him with the walk back to his apartment, so he figures he’ll sulk a little while longer in Charles’ back room. At least until he’s not thinking too much about Kaito’s lazy smirk beckoning Mikiko in closer or his hands (rough, nicked with scars, sturdy as hell) reaching out for her.
He’s gone through these motions enough to know it’ll pass if he just shuts himself away and doesn’t think about it. Even if all his mind wants to do right now is think about it, hunker down with it, chew on it.
Higashi groans, running a hand up over his face in a way that makes his glasses tip crooked.
At least it’s late and he’s by himself without the judging eyes of his critical comrades.
He can practically imagine Yagami’s knowing stare – the extremely annoying one where it feels like he can see right through a man and pluck at his darkest secrets. Asshole.
But it’s as he pulls his slightly crumpled pack of smokes out of his jacket pocket that he hears a loud pattering of… footsteps? Like someone’s running down the stairs outside the arcade.
Higashi snorts, lighting up the fresh cigarette between his teeth.
It’s probably someone drunk off their ass. Or young punks looking for a good excuse to get rowdy. Both are common at this hour and Higashi’s not in the mood to humor either possibility. The back room’s his sanctuary right now more than ever, so he heads in that direction without so much as a glance thrown over his shoulder.
Not even when he hears banging on the glass.
Great. Cool. Just what he needed right now.
“Can’t you fuckin’ read?” he shouts from the doorway. “We’re closed!”
More banging.
Higashi drags off his cigarette, feels his lip curl with frustration when he exhales.
The banging isn’t stopping. In fact, it’s just getting more insistent.
He’d been trying not to succumb to the toxic, masculine urge to punch through his problems, but if this dipshit isn’t giving him a choice…
“Fuck off, you little–!” He angrily stamps out his smoke (what a goddamn waste) and stomps over to the doors, all yakuza with the snarl in his voice and the squaring of his shoulders like the days where a pin had been stuck neatly into his lapel. If someone wants to throw down, he’ll fucking oblige.
But he stops in his tracks to see who it is on the other side of the glass doors.
Not that it’s much better than what he’d thought it’d be. In fact, it might be a lot worse.
“...Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?”
He steps up to the glass, scowling and glaring at his midnight visitor.
Takayuki Yagami offers a slightly crooked half-grin back.
“Was starting to think you’d gone deaf,” he greets.
Higashi has half a mind to turn on his heel and leave him out there. Yagami seems to sense this and sighs, slumping his shoulders.
“...Gonna let me in? I’m not exactly doing too hot right now.” Higashi had averted his gaze to cool his temper, but glances back to notice abruptly how messed up Yagami actually looks.
His clothes are askew, his hair messier than usual, and he’s beaten to all hell with blood trickled down a corner of his mouth and a bruise reddening one cheek. He hadn’t noticed right away. Probably because he’d been seeing too much red as it is to notice more.
Much as it’s still not his problem and much as he’s in enough of a foul mood to consider turning Yagami away, he’s already reaching for his keys.
He hates that he can hear Yagami smiling in his voice when he unlocks the door for him.
“Knew you didn’t hate me that much.”
“Shut the hell up.”
Bleeding heart , Hamura once called him. And he knows Yagami thinks so too. All the more reason to rip him a new one every chance he gets.
“Don’t you have an office to bleed all over? Two offices, even?” He checks outside to make sure trouble hadn’t followed Yagami down the stairs. Nothing’s there but the sound washing down from Kamurocho’s busy streets, but he locks back up behind him anyway.
Yagami manages a pained chuckle as he wanders in, slumping into the nearest chair by the clerk’s desk.
“Yeah, but I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d check in on my favorite yakuza. Oh, right, ex -yakuza. Sorry. Easy to forget when you still dress like that.”
Higashi already regrets letting him in.
“Keep that shit up and your ass is back out on the streets.”
Yagami snorts softly, but winces with discomfort in his injuries. Higashi lets him chew on that a bit even when there’s some first-aid in the back. Even if he can’t help the impulse to fuss; the instinct he stamps sternly down that wants to tend to wounds he tries to tell himself are well-earned.
He stands behind the counter, leaning forward on his elbows and nodding over at his unwanted guest with a sneer.
“Ya gonna tell me what’s going on? Or do I just get to sit here in the goddamn dark?”
Yagami’s still taking stock of his wounds, but eventually answers without looking up from another bruise on his stomach.
“It’s just a job I’m on,” he tells him. Higashi wants to go over there and smack his hand when he sees it picking at a cut just below his eye. Instead he sets his jaw and awaits further elaboration with an expectant cant of his head.
Yagami sighs.
“Some rich CEO type might’ve taken his own kid from his ex-wife’s. At least, he probably paid some thugs to do the dirty work for him. It’s a messy divorce kind of thing. You see it more often than you’d think.”
He finally seems to settle, slumping into the chair with his head rocking back in a tired exhale. Higashi scowls.
“So, what? These thugs jump you when they caught you tailing them or some shit?”
The investigator smirks faintly.
“Speaking from personal experience?”
“Tch. I might understand why they hit you so hard, is all.”
A chuckle rolls through Yagami’s throat, makes him clutch his sore ribs.
“You really don’t like me, do you?”
Higashi snorts and can’t help the start of a smirk pulling one corner of his mouth. He chooses not to answer directly, instead straightening up to head for the backroom. He returns a few seconds later with first-aid in hand, chucking it onto Yagami’s lap unceremoniously.
“Lay low here for now. Wouldn’t want some kid stuck in a shitty situation just because you got beaten to a goddamn pulp.”
Yagami smiles faintly. For once, doesn’t push his luck and keeps quiet as he uses some of the supplies in the kit to patch himself up. Higashi uses the silence to pour himself a new drink, though he barely takes more than a swallow. Wouldn’t do to get shit-faced in front of the one man who could probably use that against him and demand some stupid favor in the future.
Still, he’s halfway grateful for the distraction. With Yagami here to ruffle his feathers, he won’t fall too deep into a pit of his own making. Kaito is no longer the focus of his terrible mood when there’s a perfectly good new reason right in front of him.
Not that he dislikes Yagami as much as he’d like everyone around him to firmly believe.
In fact, when they sit in silence like this, the man is practically tolerable.
But the quiet between them only serves to ease Higashi into a false sense of security because when he sets his glass down to glance across at Yagami’s progress with the first-aid kit, he notices his stare fixed pointedly over toward the backroom.
To the extra glass that had been Kaito’s mere moments before.
Fuck.
“Ah. So Kaito was here?”
He really hates when Yagami does this – turns that detective’s lens over anything to do with him and his private life. But the guy can’t help himself, can he?
Higashi decides not to humor him with a response beyond another “tch” through his teeth. Yagami just nods slowly and snaps the first-aid kit shut with a thoughtful hum.
“That explains it, then.”
“Huh?” Higashi can’t help himself and scowls. “That explains what ?”
“Your bad mood.”
Higashi blinks.
“The fuck does that mean?”
For once, Yagami seems to be biting his tongue. Or, at least, he’s considering it with a slight tilt of his head.
“...Nah. Shouldn’t say if you don’t follow.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Higashi growls, sneering. “Just spit it out.”
“Pretty sure you’ll just get mad at me.”
“Too late for that.”
Yagami chuckles and sighs through his nose, leaning back in his chair.
“Well, it’s just…” He still seems to put extra care into his words, which just sets Higashi all the more on edge. Yagami continues, scratching his cheek. “You’re probably wishing your Aniki was still here sharing that drink with you instead of… being elsewhere.”
“...Huh?”
“I mean, you guys are close. But maybe not… as close as you’d like to be. Or something like that?”
It’s as though Higashi’s brain has gone blank as the reality of what Yagami’s suggesting hits him like a sledgehammer. All he can do is stare wide-eyed at the man, who fidgets beneath his gaze with an awkward mumble.
“C’mon, man, don’t make me say it. Not that I’m judging. Makes sense. You’ve always–”
BAM.
Higashi moves before he can think, his body on angry auto-pilot that throws a hand into Yagami’s collar to drag him out of his seat and throw him hard against the nearest wall.
“Shut the hell up!”
Yagami hisses through his teeth, more concerned with the ache in his freshly-patched wounds than in Higashi’s snarling.
“Shit, that hurts.”
There’s color climbing hot up Higashi’s neck as he tightens his grip in Yagami’s shirt, slamming him back again. It’s not like him to throw hands at the plucking of a nerve, but this feels like the bristling of all of them at once – like Yagami had deliberately scattered salt into the open gash of his loneliness.
“Fucking bastard. Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“See, I knew you’d get angry.”
This is how Yagami can so easily rile him up. It’s that smugness, that “know-it-all” sigh in his voice that grinds at each one of Higashi’s gears and makes him want to beat him senseless.
He grits his teeth.
“And I knew you’d piss me off if I let you through my goddamn doors!”
“Woah, easy. You’re really worked up about this, huh?”
“N-no, it’s just–!”
“It’s not a big deal. But… I guess this is you and you get embarrassed over the smallest things so–”
“Ugh! Shut the fuck up!”
Higashi shoves him heavily into the wall again as he shouts. But this time, Yagami has had enough of being pinned and knocks him back. This makes Higashi stumble before regaining his balance and fixing Yagami with a glare as white-hot as he feels in his face right now. Which is why, in the height of these startled emotions, he actually takes a swing at him.
Yagami dodges and frowns.
“Really? It’s gonna be like that?”
Higashi knows it’s stupid, childish, ridiculous, but everything he’d already been stewing over has come bubbling up over the surface. All he feels is hot-faced anger and flushed, feverish embarrassment for all the feelings he’s had clenched up so vice-tight in his stomach.
He hates that he’d wanted Kaito to stay, had wanted Kaito to lower his voice and beckon him in close. He hates that he’d let Yagami slip through his doors and slip through his defenses.
He hates that he’s letting all of this spill through the opened cracks of him in front of the last man he wants to look at him and see the truth, the guilt, the absolute longing .
“You– You have no fuckin’ clue! And you act so damn high and mighty! Fuck!”
“So you were pissed about all this before I showed up. Right. I think I get it now.”
“No! No, you fucking– Argh!”
Yagami really is one hell of a fighter. And, in spite of his soreness, still manages to reverse the situation to finally slam Higashi against the wall instead.
The force of it makes him gasp when his back meets hard plaster. It momentarily stuns him, makes him look wide-eyed to Yagami who is pinning him there with his forearm pressed into the slope of his clavicle.
“Calm down.”
Yagami’s voice is low; more of a husky growl to pin him in place like the weight of his arm. And Higashi can’t help the way his throat bobs with a thick swallow.
He’s never heard him sound like that.
Maybe it’s because he’d already been pent up with all his collected frustrations. Maybe it’s because he’d been chewing on a flare-up of yearning twisted in knots deep in his belly just to smell Kaito’s cologne so close, just to hear his growling laugh rubbing languid and intoxicating on his senses.
Maybe it’s just because it’s been too damn long since he’s gotten laid.
Whatever the case, he finds himself staring over-long at the subtle part of Yagami’s lips. And he hates himself all the more for the plunge of heat down between his legs.
If he could just have a moment to breathe, to cool down, he could probably get a better handle on himself and the situation. He knows, in his head, that it would be simple to push Yagami aside and head upstairs for some much-needed air. But the adrenaline of a brief tussle, the overwhelming need for closeness burning just beneath his skin, and the strength with which Yagami pushes him into that damn wall… It’s all just too much.
It doesn’t help that Yagami is panting from their spat and has a hazy look in his own eyes the more they stay like this.
Maybe it’s been a rough time for him too. Maybe he’s also been biting back some kind of frustration that’s been eating away at him for something of substance to anchor to.
Whatever the case, Higashi finally succumbs to a deep, ravenous urge and grabs for a fistful of Yagami’s hair to yank him in closer. Though Yagami tenses, clearly preparing for the possibility of a headbutt to throw them both back into a fight, it’s clear that he’s also caught up in this confusing moment; is breathing harder, is staring fixed into Higashi’s face with an unreadable look in his dark eyes.
It’s always that look – that damn, infuriating look that can read Higashi like a book.
So Higashi dares to close the distance between them. He crushes his lips over his clumsily, roughly. Again, Yagami tenses up with a jolt, briefly parting their mouths as his gaze flickers across Higashi’s face… only to close the gap again just as clumsy, just as bruising.
What comes next is a blur of heat, of sounds, of sensation Higashi can’t even keep up with.
Later, he’ll remember pieces of it. Like the grabbing of hands tearing clothes open and the smothering of words that turn into groans of approval and demands of “more, fuck, more .”
Somehow, they end up sprawled on the couch in the backroom where Higashi will later recall the slamming of its frame against the wall and muffled grunts of encouragement panted into his neck.
There is nothing romantic or sentimental about what happens between them that night. No, it is carnal and desperate and urgent – it is two men wanting to feel something beyond frustration and restlessness. It is flesh on flesh, greedy and grabbing hands, sweat-slick bodies arching impossibly closer in the musty dark of that tiny room.
And it is two people, stunned speechless, in the cooling aftermath they both don't know what to do with.
Higashi is too dizzy to make sense of it with Yagami still lying spent on top of him. The weight is warm and reassuring with how it presses him into the sofa -- something so refreshingly solid and real that it makes Higashi shiver. Eventually, though, this weight lifts off him and Yagami moves.
For once, he doesn't have anything to say as his shape shifts around Higashi's hazy peripherals. And it's only when Higashi finally reaches to drag his pants back up that reality starts to settle its own weight over him.
His eyes widen and he looks over at Yagami, who has finished pulling his own clothes back on. His jacket had been on the floor back by the clerk's desk... and Higashi can remember how it had felt to pull at the leather insistently, needily. Had Yagami chuckled low into his mouth when he'd done that?
He swallows. And is suddenly acutely aware of his own shirt torn open and the throbbing of a hickey on his collarbone.
“So.”
Yagami's voice is already sinking cold, guilty dread down into his gut. He doesn't say anything and even turns his face away.
“I'm just... I'm gonna head out.” A beat. There's guilt in Yagami's tone, for once. Higashi isn't sure if that makes him feel better or worse. He's still quiet and lets the man continue. “Thanks for the patch job.”
Higashi had almost feared he'd thank him for the "good time," but luckily the detective is tactful enough not to be a sleaze about... whatever it was that had just transpired between them. Maybe because he can sense that both of them are shocked, confused, unsure of how to tread this new terrain.
Eventually, Higashi nods. He still can't look him in the eye.
“Sure. Any time.”
With that, Yagami pats the doorframe a little awkwardly, then heads for the exit. But Higashi feels embarrassment wash over him anew when Yagami clears his throat, reminding him that he'd locked them in.
So he shuffles over, praying that they don't talk about what just happened in the few seconds it takes for him to fish his keys out and unlock the doors again. It feels like it takes an eternity.
Yagami slips through the opening and starts to head for the stairs, much to Higashi's relief. Until the guy takes pause and has the nerve to pivot on his heel to look back over at him. Higashi momentarily forgets to avert his gaze and blinks, doe-eyed, like some lovesick idiot. It even seems to throw Yagami slightly off-guard, his own eyes widening as they stare at each other.
Mortified once he notices, Higashi glares down at a stain on the tiles by his shoes.
“I'll, uh...” Yagami mumbles, sighs, then tries to make his voice sound as casual as possible. “I'll see you around.”
Higashi nods. And Yagami finally takes that as his cue to vanish up those stairs.
For the second time that night, Higashi is left alone in Charles with a cold, awkward frustration. Very different from the one he'd been tense with before, this feeling is equally unsatisfying... only because he has no idea what it means and what to do with it.
So, ashamed and still damp with a slight sweat he can feel under his tousled shirt, he returns to that ugly old couch and shakes out a new cigarette.
He tells himself over and over that this had all been a fluke; a stupid, impulsive decision that the pair of them will laugh about later. It's nothing serious, it's nothing meaningful, and it's definitely not something he'll ever do again.
Right?
It's not something he's thinking about, remembering, wondering about more...
Right? Right.
Maybe.
He exhales a long drag of smoke... and can't deny the tingling warmth Yagami had left him with. And it is more comfortable to sit with than the hollow ache from before. He might not be sure what this means, but he can't completely hate it.
That, in itself, is a dangerous train of thought for a man who finds himself savoring the humming heat lingering pleasantly in his skin that Yagami had placed there. Bastard.