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I.
Drink these bitter words, for they are all that I have.
“He talked shit about my mother.”
It was impressive that Samatoki was even capable of speaking, given that Jakurai was almost sure that he was concussed, and was doubly sure that the stab wound just two inches above his heart made each word a fight to wrap his lips around.
Jakurai unrolled the bandages between his fingers with the same care as a scroll of scripture and rolled the words around in his head once more.
Samatoki had provided an answer to a question he did not ask.
Would it be improper to press?
“I’m not askin’ for some shitty heart to heart,” the mafioso rasped even with his eyelids shut over his gaze, his fingertips finding purchase into upholstery as he waited, “but I’m not about to bleed on your couch and be in your debt for nothing.”
“It does not seem correct to count debts among teammates,” Jakurai explained, even though their alliance was recent, only its infancy. Yet this fact did not stall his hands from retrieving the young man before he bled out in an alleyway - his opponent had needed to be carried away by his ‘family’.
One piercing red eye opened and fell upon Jakurai like a sniper’s mark.
“Got no interest in being a charity case either, Sensei.”
Jakurai nodded in understanding. How could he?
The last time Samatoki had waited for another to take care of him, to answer the desires in his heart that his mouth could not find the courage to voice, he had lost just as much as he had gained.
And yet—
“Do you think me a saint, Samatoki-kun?”
Charity was said to be a virtue, was it not?
Even if Jakurai had never regarded his actions as such.
Charity required a grace that he did not have, and a patience that extended past what he knew his limits to be. Each step that he took in assisting others was not from some lofty moralistic compass, but rather the simple knowledge of the following:
People ought to save each other, as they were saving themselves.
The boy who was saved, who grew into the young man who did not care to save anyone, sneered.
His head lolled to the side, his cheek finding the top of the couch even as Jakurai’s fingers moved to bandage him up with unflinching familiarity.
“Nah, that’d be a disservice, Sensei. In this hellhole, you’re just as human as the rest of us.”
So why was it that those words sounded like a compliment?
“‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here’… is it?” Jakurai recited The Tempest to the hurricane who had come into his home.
The smile that curled on Samatoki’s lips was not warm, and it flashed like a knife against the moonlight.
“Just a bunch of pricks making play at being people,” he agreed.
Each word clawed its way out of his mouth, and Jakurai thought that perhaps it would be the greater kindness to remove the aspect of conversation from their time together. It would require less of Samatoki’s energy and attention, even as he paid Jakurai with both in spades.
For some reason, it took concentrated effort to bite his tongue to keep any more syllables from spilling from his lips.
It was after he finished dressing the wounds of his impromptu patient that he quietly remembered a gift that had been left forgotten - from someone who did not at all know his tastes. Yet as Jakurai retrieved the bottle of whiskey from his fridge and poured it into a glass, he wondered if that qualified as thinly veiled blessing in disguise.
Wordlessly, he held the glass out to Samatoki - a cup of tea warmed his other hand. The temperature difference was small, particularly as a pale hand reached out and in his retrieval of the glass, his fingers minutely brushed against Jakurai’s.
Samatoki’s hands held callouses of sins that Jakurai only considered when patients reported their nightmares to him.
“... Didn’t know you drank, Sensei.”
“I don’t.”
A burning gaze rested on Jakurai for a moment, and then passed.
The glance away was almost bashful, almost belonged to someone ten years younger, almost holding onto that innocence that was unbecoming a mob boss.
It was in moments like that.
It was in those flashes of cognitive dissonance, of uncertainty and struggle, as though in seconds Samatoki was trying to reclaim everything that he had ever been and made himself into be - that made Jakurai find words that would never leave his lips:
‘You hold the greatest humanity of anyone I’ve ever met.’
More than Ichiro, who was so plainly good even in the face of rebellion and uncertainty. That young man held a light that would not be extinguished, as much as he tried to smother it inside his own chest and make play that he could belong among miscreants. Yet as the guiding sun for his little brothers, Jakurai knew unflinchingly that Ichiro was cognizant of who he was and who he was meant to be.
More than Ramuda, who made games of right and wrong, who drowned his vices in sugar and swallowed them whole. Without question, Ramuda was one of the most interesting people that Jakurai had ever met, but he so recklessly swung between the gates of heaven and hell as though they were his personal playground. Ramuda took morality and made games of it.
More than Jakurai himself, who had seen so many faces and facets of people that they were slowly becoming categories, and slaves to heuristics. Jakurai who was neither right nor wrong in any and every instance, but rather exercising his own judgment with almost formulaic methodology coupled with undying curiosity.
He was so detached from his own interest.
Unlike Samatoki, who held onto it with an unforgiving grip and shattered any semblance of boredom like the shards of a mirror.
Samatoki, whose blood and recklessness stained Jakurai’s fingertips - who had finished a fight not for his own pride, but for the sake of his dearly beloved mother. Samatoki, who snarled at any who could become an enemy, but now breathed out paced increments in between mouthfuls of whiskey. Samatoki, who had taken the red string of fate that connected him to other people, and wrapped it around his own neck like a noose.
In time, it would destroy him just as much as it would set him free.
Yet that was what Jakurai could not look away from.
It was those ties that one clutched onto, so desperately and so gruesomely that it rubbed their palms red and raw, that truly held the secrets and beauty and serenity of humanity.
They drank in silence, accompanied only by the sound of passing cars and the moon overhead.
II.
Not in spite of darkness, but perhaps because of it.
The party was in full swing, and the time to leave had arrived two hours ago.
Yet as Jakurai gently pushed up the sleeve of his suit to glance at the watch on his wrist, a soft breath escaped his lips. He would have liked to escape before, but something about these upper-class affairs would efficiently weave invisible wire around his wrists. While they could not play him like a puppet, they could at least halt his steps from approaching the door.
Again, he tried to make a quiet exit.
“Oh, Jinguuji-sensei.”
Again, he felt that incorporeal tug.
Lifting his gaze to the stranger who greeted him, he gave a nod of greeting. It was only polite. The man approached him like a sinner coming to confession, anxious energy and unbidden secrets ready to spill from his lips.
Jakurai did not know what to do with people like this - who assumed familiarity when there was none.
“Are you on your way?” He at least had the mercy to ask. “May I walk with you? There is a matter that I….”
His gaze flicked nervously out to the rest of the crowd. Painted lips continued to chatter about nothing that mattered at all, and gruff voices spoke with authority on matters that they had never lived through. Despite this, Jakurai had a feeling that this man did not wish to speak with him because he was tired in the same way. He did not feel the shadow that had crept into his chest and made a home amongst his ribs, folding into them like a blanket.
“Is there something ailing you?” Jakurai asked, though he did not feel it to truly be a question.
Everyone had something that ailed them. It was just a matter of whether or not they had the willingness to face what their sickness was.
“Me? Oh, no, I feel fine,” the other replied. “No, I was just thinking - I’d seen you speaking with that ah…. White-haired fellow earlier in the night? I mean - of course you were, he’s your teammate, I know that. Everyone knows that.”
One eyebrow rose. Certainly he did not approach Jakurai to have a conversation on what everyone knew.
“But it’s just…. You know, even here? At these functions? It’s bad enough that the yakuza force themselves in for all their bravado and appearances….” Nervous eyes focused on the floor and anxiety rippled from his shoulders. “Of course you have to say hi but - I mean…. It looked like you were almost enjoying his company.”
Ah.
People could be so small, at times.
“And if I was?”
A silence stretched in the hallway. The violin strings and chatter felt very far away. It seemed as though the far too forward man had the breath stolen out of his lungs, his eyes searching for some hint of humor in Jakurai’s gaze.
Such pitiable solace was not going to arrive.
“J-Jinguuji-sensei, you have to be joking.” He was so bold to use the word ‘have to’ when they knew fully well that Jakurai was very rarely compelled to do anything by obligation. “Someone like you - you really shouldn’t be around people like that. They’ll taint your reputation black!”
Jakurai allowed his head to cant to the side. It was an interesting concept - to imagine someone like Samatoki to be able to corrupt him, as if there was anything pure to ruin.
Fanatics such as these were so painfully misled.
“It is no question that you mean well,” Jakurai began, the words slow and filling the space in the hallway like a rising tide, “but I’m afraid that there may be a misunderstanding here… While I understand that there are rumors regarding Samatoki-kun’s morality, I do not know what type of teammate I would be if I were to allow such barbs to pass when they are brought directly to me.”
Whispers of recklessness - Ramuda and Ichiro would have retaliated with scathing remarks, born out of camaraderie and sadism, respectively - passed through one ear and out the other.
“So perhaps it is best if we do not continue this conversation, else I be tasked with formulating a response.”
Perhaps this was mercy.
Allowing for an escape even as the other must feel as though he was slowly being drowned.
“R… Right,” the other man bubbled, looking as though he never found that breath he was looking for. “Forgive me, Sensei.”
‘For I have sinned.’
Perhaps this is where Jakurai ought to have said, ‘You are forgiven. Go in peace’ or some variant, though it would have certainly provided a dark amusement to none other but himself. Yet he could not quite coax the lie from his lips.
“... it is simply best to be mindful of your words, as well as your evaluations of others,” he opted for those words instead. A beat passed, and he allowed himself to continue, “If that young man truly holds darkness, I wonder it is that is meant to be compelling about the light.”
The other man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in a thick, heavy swallow.
He must have felt as though the water had risen up to his neck.
“Jinguuji-sensei—”
“This guy giving you trouble, Sensei?”
And as they said - speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
Polished black shoes carried the weight of bombs as Samatoki approached from the room that they had departed earlier, his hands in his pockets and tie already carelessly pulled from its knot. It would appear as though he too had chosen to finally escape their theater.
His gaze fell upon the other person in the hall, sharp and appraising.
“Nothing of the sort, Samatoki-kun,” Jakurai answered honestly, because trouble would imply as though he were in any sort of danger. Rather, he felt just as assured about his place in the world as ever. “Are you taking your leave for the evening?”
“Ah.” An affirmative grunt and Samatoki’s eyes slid to fall on his teammate instead. “Headed to your car?”
“Indeed. Allow me to provide you a ride home as well,” Jakurai offered easily, knowing with some sort of odd satisfaction that Samatoki would take him up on the chance even if he’d already called someone else to come pick him up.
As expected, the young man only give a nod and already began to slide his phone out of his pocket to cancel his other plan.
The would-be sinner, a stranger to their dynamic, only looked as though the cat had stolen his tongue right in front of his eyes.
Allowing the first smile of the conversation to slip onto his lips, Jakurai gave a nod in adherence to proper etiquette. “Please remember what I have said. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Samatoki stole a glance over, as if performing one last evaluation as to whether or not he wanted to sink his teeth into the shaking gazelle’s throat.
Turning on the ball of his foot, he walked away.
“Giving out prescriptions even on your night off?” he finally questioned once they were further away from the affair that neither of them had any interest in attending. There was no care or concern in the way that Samatoki fished a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it even indoors. “You’re busy as usual, Sensei.”
“... I cannot help but interfere when someone so led astray comes right to me, can I?” he questioned, though this time he truly did not possess the answer. “Where am I going to leave you tonight, Samatoki-kun?”
An exhale of smoke carried all the darkness out of Samatoki before he shrugged. “You doing anything? Going straight home after wasting an evening with all these shitheads sounds too damn depressing. Might as well make this night worth something .”
Jakurai thought again of confessionals, though this time of sins and statements that would never come to exist in the space between them.
A smaller, more sincere smile made its home on his lips.
“I am certain that we can find something, if that is what you wish.”
III.
Paradise was lost the moment we met.
“Don’t.”
Jakurai’s fingers stilled over the lightswitch in the examination room, for the moment letting darkness remain in the room that felt almost too small for the presence that occupied it.
Even though the yakuza was determined to make himself a difficult patient, he was nonetheless reclined back on the examination table almost as if he’d set up an appointment in the daylight hours.
Of course, that was the furthest thing from the case, as Jakurai did not work in an ER, nor was he an EMT, and the blood that stained Samatoki’s white shirt without question would have made him the very definition of Emergency. Only the dull, green-blue light of medical machinery reflected against his face - provided any illumination at all.
“I presume you didn’t make it all the way to my clinic only to bleed out on my table, Samatoki-kun,” Jakurai scolded, though he let his fingers fall away from the lightswitch temporarily. In time, it was more likely for Samatoki to pass out from blood loss, and then he wouldn’t be conscious enough to be foolish about any light source.
“Couldn’t—” The words fought to escape his mouth even as he fought to sit up - and Jakurai’s hand reached out to catch onto his shoulder to avoid additional strain. “Think of anywhere else to go.”
“In your condition, I imagine you’re not doing much thinking at all,” he surmised even as he moved to close the distance between them, his eyes raking over Samatoki’s body to see if there were any other additional wounds aside from the bullet embedded in his abdomen. Cuts littered across his arms and blood painted across his pale skin, but nothing else quite the same level of alarming.
The laugh that rattled through Samatoki’s ribs shook with an almost self-deprecating tension.
“Maybe not.”
Despite it all, the young man wore the same defiant smile as though death itself had appeared at his door - and Samatoki did not make any intention of answering its call today.
Perhaps with his brand of recklessness, he even intended to defeat the reaper.
“I need to treat you, Samatoki-kun.”
Maybe with Jakurai’s help, he could.
Or he could make some admirable play at it - for it wouldn’t be the first time that Jakurai sought to face the clutches of death head on. He knew it well, in flatlined patients whose lives he tried to wrestle out of the gates of - hell or heaven, it didn’t matter.
Even now, he couldn’t place which set Samatoki would waltz through, whenever his time did come. Even if it would not be today.
It was the one thing that Samatoki and Jakurai had in common. Whatever laid ahead of them, whether it was some eternal pit of suffering for a yakuza who took on the only life he knew to save his sister, or some odd prized pearly gates for a doctor who awaited his divine punishment each day - it didn’t matter.
The life they had in front of them was the only one that mattered.
Samatoki clutched onto the white of Jakurai’s coat with that same desperation for this wretched, broken life that they had.
“You still want me, Sensei?”
‘Like this’ were the words that hung silently in the air. It was easy to want Samatoki when he was collected, when the wild in his eyes was tempered just enough for him to be a ruler and not the ruled.
But it was different at this moment - to want this Samatoki.
And he knew it too, as each word was laced together with the barest string of uncertainty, as if all the world was his to rule except for Jakurai.
This Samatoki was bloody, broken, bruised, and torn open from the ribs, destroyed by his own lust for power and how he chased after it even if it led him straight off the side of a cliff.
Yet as Jakurai came to an answer, he was not scared of it, and he was not trapped by it.
‘I do. Perhaps now more than ever.’
In this moment, when life itself stained white clothes and there was the curve of a smile where it was not invited to stay, when the rift between indulgence and suffering grew with every passing second. This bare-faced revelry and rebellion against sense and sensibility.
There was nothing that Jakurai enjoyed more in this twisted life.
His words never made it past his lips, but he carried them in his mouth as he leaned down to press a brief, warm, consoling kiss to the very corner of Samatoki’s mouth.
The hand in his coat eased, though the blood stains remained.
“Sen—”
“I must do my job now, Samatoki-kun.” Jakurai pulled away, slowly as to not cause surprise or alarm, and used his own firmer fingers to untangle Samatoki’s grip on his coat entirely. He turned his back before he cared to take stock of whatever expression it was that his teammate wore.
Samatoki spoke again only when Jakurai’s hand hovered over the lightswitch again - only a motion away from stealing away the darkness that they had allowed to rest around them. “Was that a part of your job too, Sensei?”
Twisting his wrist so that he could flip the light with fingers not stained with Samatoki’s blood, Jakurai laughed softly to himself.
“No, Samatoki-kun, that was only for you.”
The light felt especially blinding in the next moment.
IV.
Hell must sound like your heartbeat.
Jakurai could not help but find it amusing - how the way that Samatoki’s hands carded through his hair was so awkward, compared to the unflinching uncertainty with which he clutched onto his Hypnosis Mic.
In what ways had the world failed him, when violent actions came with so much ease whereas each gentle pull of the locks of Jakurai’s hair was done with the same tension as though he was scaling a mountainside.
Still as Jakurai surveyed his actions in the mirror, watching the weaving of purple strands slowly take shape, he hummed his approval.
“Your sister would be proud to wear this style, Samatoki-kun.”
For some reason, the yakuza looked as though he was going to be sick.
Jakurai calmly took another sip of his tea.
Samatoki’s hands were careful enough that they did not so much as nudge his head in any direction, quite different from the way that he’d seen him grab fistfuls of hair before, knocking forehead to forehead with their opponents when caught in a particularly angry rush of adrenaline.
No, the Samatoki who had asked to braid Jakurai’s hair - “Not like that shitty Ichiro’s hair is long enough, and Ramuda would be such a fucking pain - you know what, Sensei, forget it.” - and almost turned as red as a beet once Jakurai did not forget it, was very, very different from MC Mr. Hardcore.
“Only you could say that shit with the chance of anyone believing you, Sensei,” he muttered darkly - but his fingers did not stop. They collected additional strands from Jakurai’s long, purple locks as they went.
‘A french braid or something’ was what the younger Aohitsugi wanted, and in particular she wanted her beloved older brother, who could do anything, to give it a try.
The simplistic, earnest nature of it brought a smile to Jakurai’s lips.
Leave it to a sincere wish of a little girl to bring the boss of Yokohama to his knees.
“I did not intend it as flattery,” Jakurai answered earnestly even as he shut his eyes, trusting Samatoki with the rest of his aesthetics. “But you needn’t worry. None will hear of it again from me.”
Silenced stretched again, and Jakurai felt the interweaving of hair locks more than he saw them. Ramuda would occasionally demand the chance to do something with ‘that giant mass of horse hair’, but even then his nonsensical chattering of any topic underneath the blue sky felt different from the beats of poignant silence that dropped between him and Samatoki.
Which perhaps made it all the more worthwhile when a syllable fell from the sky as if breaking a drought:
“Thanks.”
When grey eyes opened again, they found only the image of Samatoki hard at work on the braid, as if he had not said anything at all.
Perhaps a phantom had delivered the line, and then disappeared from sight as soon as Jakurai opened his eyes again.
Yet he chose instead to hold the word close to his heart, his gaze softening even as he faced the vanity in front of him and watched the expression of a determined and honest older brother settle on the yakuza’s face.
A small smile played against his lips, and he did not think that he imagined the way that Samatoki’s gaze flicked elsewhere for a telltale second.
In truth, they did not often get moments of peace like this.
They knew it well that this moment was sweet, and it was simple, and it would not last.
But Jakurai was rather certain that these were the moments where he truly learned what it meant to breathe, to take in air and not taste ash and smoke, but the precious, precarious balance of the everyday.
Letting his eyelids fall again, he thought that perhaps he could hear the chirping of birds break through the hustle and bustle of Shinjuku streets. Somewhere away from all the booming bass drops and the scathing electricity, there could be blue skies and simplicity.
Battle-worn hands continue to weave through Jakurai’s hair, as though running through a waterfall. Samatoki was determined to get this right, as though it was the greatest task that he’d been given since their last territory battle - perhaps even greater.
Something about this softness didn’t quite belong in their lives.
And yet Jakurai wanted to hold onto it all the more because of that.
Perhaps this was the true definition of the greed of humanity.
V.
These are the artifacts you leave with me.
Whether it was a day, a month, a year, or multiple years - Jakurai wondered at what point a stretch of time qualified as something monumental. Should he have counted his time with the Dirty Dawg by months, by years, or by each day that he felt his heart stirred by their ragtag quartet?
The human existence was long. ‘Life’ was the longest span of time that anyone would ever know. By all means, this short span of time was only a grain of sand compared to the desert of Jakurai’s experiences.
(But even the stained glass of the world’s most beautiful places of worship were born from grains of sand.)
As he bid his farewells, he could not help but feel as though it would have been nice if they could just—
“This was where you were at, Sensei?”
Samatoki approached, the wind running through his hair which had grown unruly from the number of time his fingers had clawed through it. With a little too much ease, he allowed his back to fall against the balcony’s banister, as though the view of the city beneath them was completely inconsequential compared to the tired doctor in front of him.
A small smile, worn around the edges, rested on Jakurai’s lips.
“I cannot say that I am skilled with endings, Samatoki-kun.”
No matter how many he had seen meet their end in front of him, no matter how many stories were abruptly stopped in his hands, no matter how many times he was told that this couldn’t be helped.
Without question, nothing could last forever.
That was what made each second so sweet, until the bitterness of finality caught up.
“Well, there has to be some shit even you’d be bad at, right,” Samatoki taunted even as he fished out a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket.
Yet even then he said it as if he didn’t believe it - as if there was nothing in this universe that Jakurai couldn’t grasp if he just reached out to catch it in his palm. Jakurai couldn’t say where this respect had come from, but he was not selfless enough to deny it either.
A spark of fire lit Samatoki’s cigarette, and he inhaled deep.
There would be no telling the next time that they would cross paths - aside from when they’d inevitably clash as opponents, as enemies. They would have to find other allies first. Or perhaps they would be removed early, before they could event represent their Division, and their paths would not cross again.
If nothing else, they had this moment, until Samatoki extinguished his cigarette.
Would that be enough?
There were many things that Jakurai could have said in that instant.
‘I have treasured our alliance together’ as though this dissolution would close an entire chapter on their lives, and Jakurai would write their ending with his pen.
‘I hope you will have a good life’ even though it was only an empty platitude that Samatoki would shoot down with the bullet in his gaze.
Or perhaps the truth.
‘I wish we could have had more time.’
But such a sentiment was foolish. It came a little close to a prayer, as more time was a miracle that only the heavens could grant. Jakurai was a man who possessed faith, but had long since abandoned the notion of being saved.
There was no saving this.
(There was no saving them.)
Instead, he asked, “Might you be willing to share?”
His palm faced the sun as he held a hand out to Samatoki, head canting to the side inquisitively as that red gaze fell onto familiar fingers with confusion.
Jakurai knew better than any of them what a vice smoking was, which was why he did not care to indulge. He had long since become a master of controlling his own nerves, no longer needing nicotine to ease the static in his spine after a long day of treating horrific injuries from the battlefield.
Still, he waited.
Samatoki slid a cigarette from its carton and into the doctor’s fingers without asking any more questions.
Lifting it to his lips, Jakurai waited for a light.
Wordlessly, Samatoki closed the space between them. His calloused fingers, which had many times destroyed lesser men and once carefully woven Jakurai’s hair into braids, reached to press at the nape of Jakurai’s neck to keep him in place.
As if he would ever care to flinch away from Samatoki, of all people.
It was too easy for him to press the embers of his cigarette against Jakurai’s, an inhale stoking the fires enough to ignite the other’s.
Jakurai’s eyebrows raised minutely, but the yakuza had already pulled away, exhaling smoke rings into the blue sky as if he could add dark clouds to the horizon, and persuade the sky into better suiting their mood.
Jakurai’s gaze drifted to the ground, contemplating instead how they dwelled on this earth.
And he inhaled, letting the smoke fill his lungs, clouding the feeling in his chest that he did not dare to give a name.
1.
I wonder, is this all that’s been left of us?
Memories slipped into the cracks of Jakurai’s life - and he did not care to pick them out.
Rather, they resided there, like shards of glass in wounds that were no longer fresh, that continued to dig and leave the injuries just barely open enough to sting - to remind him that something foreign had once entered his life, and never truly left.
They were in the half-drank whiskey bottle that Hifumi questioned the last time he had visited, fear and confusion dancing a discombobulating tango in his eyes even if the question never quite left his normally talkative mouth. They were in the ashtray that Doppo borrowed, his gaze inquisitive but tongue still, given that he had never seen a cigarette raised to the doctor’s lips. They were in the shadows, and in the crevices of light, and the pulse of Shinjuku and all the demons that hid away in plain sight.
Jakurai told himself that those too were just parts of this life he had curated for himself.
Life was falling, but it was also getting back up. It was taking steps forward to pursue what you dreamed of, but never forgetting the scars that past battles had left behind.
It was the same whether it was the leg, the arm, or the heart that was damaged.
The bar in Chuuoku was tucked away, hidden from the stares of fans that were closer to vultures, and Jakurai sat on a stool even though he did not drink. A green tea was slipped to him instead - though not without a slightly confused look from the bartender, but even he would not dare to question the taste of a former Dirty Dawg - and he let it warm his palms.
Ghosts haunted this bar too.
Ichiro and Samatoki’s squabbling over every little thing - who had performed better in the match earlier that day, who would be the first to throw in the game of darts, who had to sit on the stool that was a bit unstable - rang in Jakurai’s ears. Ramuda’s nonsensical laughing at all of their antics and annoying remark slid in too, phantom echoes that haunted him and him alone.
But they would not be joining him this evening.
Saburo and Jiro didn’t belong in such a seedy establishment, and Ichiro was a diligent older brother now who would sooner stay at the hotel and play games with them instead of daring to put them too close to poor influences.
Ramuda would always choose something more colorful and bright now, as his teammates were the type to indulge him, and they were certainly laughing off their loss with something reckless and painfully youthful.
Samatoki—
“Didn’t think you’d be the type to visit old haunts, Sensei - and you’re not even having a drink, as usual.”
He slid into the stool next to Jakurai, shrugging off a jacket - not leather, apparently anything but leather since they disbanded - and cocking his head to the side.
“You even get any fun out of this?”
Jakurai let a smile settle around his lips before lifting his cup to take a sip, if only to buy himself more time as he considered how a ghost of a man became corporeal right in front of him. Memories that he had thought long since dead were resurrected before his eyes, and he wondered if this could be considered modern necromancy.
“Should we be having fun the night before we face off against each other, Samatoki-kun?” he questioned, an idle ponder. He thought he knew the answer, but even a doctor needed a second opinion now and again.
Ordering a whiskey - he still liked the burn, didn’t he? - Samatoki wore a grin so familiar and sharp and dangerous that something decrepit stirred in Jakurai’s chest.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is about as good a time to have fun as any, Sensei.”
Jakurai knew all too well how fond his gaze was, and he never cared to hide it before - now hardly seemed like a good time to start.
“You know, we may very well intend to kill you tomorrow,” he spoke with an almost strange levity, though he hardly felt detached. In fact, he felt as close to the topic of Samatoki’s mortality as ever, perhaps enough to call himself an expert on the matter.
Something flashed in Samatoki’s crimson eyes flashed even as he automatically caught the glass slid his way, fingers curling around it with an electric tension. “Promise?”
Whether he intended it as a joke or not, a laugh pulled itself from Jakurai’s lips. His hand was a futile guard even though he tried to bring it up to his mouth to muffle the noise - though it was so foreign a sound that it had already drawn the attention of a few other patrons of the bar.
Samatoki was far more careless, and for that reason he was all the more stunning as his laugh mingled in the air with Jakurai’s. He knocked back his drink, ordered another, and caught the fun he sought in his hand before it had a chance to escape.
A snort left him even as he glanced at Jakurai from the corner of his eye, “If you come at me with enough force to kill me, I’ll consider it the highest honor, Sensei. You aren’t nervous at all, huh?”
There were plenty of words that could be applied to how Jakurai felt in that moment.
Contemplative. Haunted. Perhaps the moments before his peace was interrupted was the closest he’d ever come to meditation.
But he was not nervous.
Facing Samatoki and existing in his space never warranted nervousness, nor derision. No, being next to him held the same gravity and familiarity as sliding on medical gloves - but instead of performing a surgery to preserve life, he instead let his fingers continue to guide them on that tightrope line between life and death, between joy and devastation, between the special space that only manifested when the two of them were together.
And tomorrow, a spotlight would shine upon that negative space - that whirlpool that was at the same time full of holiness and devoid of it.
Another, smaller laugh escaped the doctor then as he let his gaze slide over to Samatoki, who awaited his answer.
“Perhaps the closest relative to what I am feeling is… excitement.”
Samatoki paused, expression unreadable even to Jakurai’s ever scrutinizing gaze, before he gave a bark of a laugh. His fingers pressed into his glass, bringing it up to his lips even as he asked the all too obvious question:
“You feel it too, huh?”
Jakurai let his mouth relax into a smile, as smooth as the flick of a pocket knife. In the warm hue of the bar’s light, it felt just right. As if warded away by an early daybreak, the ghosts of the past dissipated and left him only with this moment.
Say, where did people go when they’ve died?
What of broken feelings of the past?
Did they move on to some sort of emotional nirvana, did they drown in the flames of an unrequited hell, or did they linger on this plane with the same people who conceived them in the first place?
Unspoken until—
“Perhaps I always have.”
He did not expect an answer. He did not believe that the situation needed one in order to reach a conclusion, and perhaps just this much was all they could expect to get. Perhaps this was already more than what most people received.
But Samatoki was always hungry for everything that was presented in front of him, and that was what Jakurai found so unfortunately captivating about him.
Even as he stared into the glass of his whiskey, and began to fish out his box of cigarettes as if that would be enough to ease the tension.
Yet amidst the soft sounds of shuffle, he murmured a soft affirmation.
“... yeah, Sensei. Me too.”