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Ryuunosuke hardly notices the man at first, panic still quickening his heart as he stumbles down from the stage. What had he even said? The words had left his mouth without conscious thought, passion distant but somehow strong and convincing, moving the crowd to cheers. They’re still going strong, distant and ringing under the pounding of his pulse.
As Ryuunosuke collects himself, he straightens, only to meet the furious eyes of a man standing near him.
His tongue dries in his mouth.
That’s Asougi Kazuma.
Asougi Kazuma, the pride and joy of their university. Asougi Kazuma, envied by some, beloved by all—both by Ryuunosuke.
Asougi Kazuma, who is staring at him with a confusing mix of disbelief, shock, and…ire?
“Asougi-san?” Ryuunosuke blurts, confused. “Uh—are you debating as well?”
“Yes,” Asougi says, short. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Asougi Kazuma is a wonder. He exudes confidence, charm, power, and if Ryuunosuke wasn’t enamoured before, he certainly is now.
Until Asougi gets to the tongue twister.
“Rou nyaku—ryou—” Asougi stumbles, expression twisting into the fury he’d levelled at Ryuunosuke.
Ryuunosuke gapes at him. There’s something bubbling in his chest. He tamps down on it furiously.
Minutes later, when Asougi walks off the stage, his face is red, arms crossed over his chest protectively. He catches Ryuunosuke’s eye.
“What?” he barks.
It’s useless. Ryuunosuke can’t keep it in anymore.
He laughs.
It’s not a quiet laugh either; it comes out of his chest, throaty and deep. Somewhere inside his brain, he quails—he’s laughing at Asougi Kazuma ! But he can’t stop, breath wheezing out of him soundlessly.
“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, but the words come out as a garbled cackle. He laughs harder, unable to breathe.
“Are you done?” Asougi intones. When Ryuunosuke is calm enough to look up at him, he’s surprised to find that Asougi doesn’t look angry.
He’s smiling.
“I suppose I deserved that,” Asougi says. “You certainly seem to have a better time of tongue twisters than I do.”
“They’re fun,” Ryuunosuke says, shrugging.
“Hmm,” Asougi says, eyes assessing. “Do you want to get dinner with me?”
Ryuunosuke balks. “ What? ”
“I would like to get to know the person who beat me so thoroughly,” Asougi says, gesturing to the stage.
Ryuunosuke blinks. Oh. He’s won, hasn’t he?
“Ah…sure,” he says, trying not to swoon when Asougi flashes a grin at him.
“Asougi Kazuma,” Asougi says, bowing.
Ryunnosuke allows himself the dignity of pretending he didn’t know that. “Naruhodou Ryuunosuke.”
As Ryuunosuke is presented with the award, he catches Asougi watching him with intrigue. “What is it you find so interesting?” he wants to ask, but then the night is upon them with celebration and cheer, and he finds that right then, he doesn’t really need the answer at all.
—
They come together without words. Months into knowing each other, Ryuunosuke finds himself holding Asougi’s hand and thinks, huh, when did that happen ? At the same time, he sees Asougi register his sudden silence and follows his gaze to their hands. Asougi pauses, arches an eyebrow. Problem? he asks with his gaze.
Ryuunosuke shakes his head, though that question burns in his chest again— why? What do you see in me?
Later, he will wish he had asked.
—
Sometimes, when Asougi is tucked against Ryuunosuke’s chest, face tucked into Ryuu’s neck, Asougi will mouth soundless words into Ryuu’s skin. Sometimes, they’re tongue twisters, and Ryuu will tease Asougi about them relentlessly. Asougi will endure this for all of one minute before forcing Ryuunosuke to succumb to Asougi’s own version of a tongue twister, their lips tangling together, laughter spilling into the air between them, saying more than words ever do.
—
Asougi crowds Ryuunosuke against the wall the instant they enter his rooms, his hands slipping under Ryuunosuke’s shirt to latch desperately onto the bare skin of Ryuunosuke’s ribs. His fingers are frigid, and Ryuunosuke barely manages a protest before Asougi’s lips meet his with intense, almost bruising force. Desire burns between them, bright as the fury of determination and triumph that propelled them to victory earlier today. For a few dizzying moments, Ryuunosuke allows himself to be swept away by Asougi’s hands climbing higher, the warm, hungry breaths turning up the heat between their bodies.
“Asougi,” Ryuunosuke pants as Asougi trails a moist path down towards his throat, impatiently brushing aside the lapels of Ryuunosuke’s shirt with his cheek as he mouths at the skin. Ryuunosuke shivers as Asougi’s teeth scrape the underside of his jaw. “Asougi, wait.”
Asougi looks up at him, eyes fever-bright and hooded. His next kiss has more bite to it, stinging salved with his tongue.
Ryuunosuke’s knees weaken. He grasps Asougi’s shoulders to steady himself.
“We’re alone,” Asougi says pointedly. His eyes are sharp, drinking in every one of Ryuunosuke’s reactions. Ryuunosuke feels pared by that gaze.
Ryuunosuke sighs. “Kazuma,” he says, unable to repress a smile as Asougi’s eyes turn liquid and warm. His partner rises to pull Ryuunosuke into a kiss that almost manages to distract Ryuunosuke again.
“Wait, wait,” Ryuunosuke says, pushing Asougi back with more force. “We need to talk.”
Asougi’s mouth twists and he steps back. He suddenly seems to be unable to meet Ryuunosuke’s eyes. “Talk about what?”
Ryuunosuke raises his eyebrows. “You don’t mean to tell me that you truly want me to hide in your luggage and come to London with you.”
Asougi’s jaw sets. “And if I do?”
“Kazuma,” Ryuunosuke says, astonished. “Don’t you think that’s ridiculous? Implausible? Utterly unnecessary?”
“Not unnecessary,” Asougi says sharply. “Ryuu, you don’t understand how necessary you are. I’m—” He cuts off, anguished.
Something in his tone gives Ryuunosuke pause. He takes a moment and really looks at Asougi, in a way that he hasn’t since he was just entering university and had his attention snared by the handsome, brilliant boy in his classes. The worry and anticipation and strange fervour that have lived underneath Asougi’s skin for as long as Ryuunosuke has known him have suddenly come alive, twisting themselves into the grooves of Asougi’s face and rendering him almost unrecognizable, as though he’s wearing a mask.
For a staggering moment, Ryuunosuke looks at Asougi and sees not the man he loves, but a stranger.
Asougi’s eyes widen as he takes in whatever expression Ryuunosuke must be wearing. He calms himself with visible effort, and something of whom Ryuunosuke knows comes back.
Ryuunosuke is not reassured by this.
“I’m sorry,” Asougi says, shaking his head. His fingers worry at Karuma’s hilt. “I know I’m not making sense, Ryuu.”
“No, you are not,” Ryuunosuke says, still shaken. Asougi makes a low sound in his throat and draws Ryuunosuke into his arms, clutching him tightly. Misery cords his shoulders and back, and even before Asougi speaks, Ryuunosuke knows that he has lost.
“I need you,” Asougi begs. “I don’t want to do this without you. I can’t do this without you. Please, please, Ryuu. Please come with me.”
Ryuunosuke strokes his fingers through Asougi’s hair. What would you do if I said no? he wonders for a brief, wild second.
But in the end, it doesn’t really matter. It never really has when it comes to Asougi. Brilliant, steadfast, clear-eyed Asougi, who can weave futures into being with just his words, whose sense of justice and truth and conviction rival any that Ryuunosuke has ever known.
Ryuunosuke doesn’t have to speak for Asougi to know his answer. He kisses Asougi on the temple and feels his tremulous smile against his neck, and there is nothing more to say on the matter.
—
Asougi dies.
Asougi dies, and the world keeps turning, and turning, and turning.
In between long hours spent poring over law books, Ryuunosuke and Susato sit side by side on the deck, watching the waves hush and sing against the hull. Sometimes Sherlock joins them, respectful of their silence despite his customary joviality. The lines around his eyes are deep and worn, like Susato’s, like Ryuunosuke’s, suggesting a grief of his own.
Had he known Asougi, like Susato had, like Ryuunosuke had?
Asougi is not there to tell him, because Asougi is dead. And in the awful, monstrous face of that truth, despite his questions and his desperation for solace from his companions, Ryuunosuke finds he has no words at all.
—
Asougi lives as a ghost in a city he has never once stepped foot in.
He shadows Ryuunosuke and Susato on their travels across the city, his absence so strong that it transforms into presence, an aching sort of there-but-not there.
He is everywhere, but nowhere more so than in court. As Ryuunosuke and Susato grapple with truth and belief and forge out the beginnings of their career in British law, Asougi is a bird on their shoulder, a sword in their hands, a swing of a gavel as they eke out win after win.
Asougi is everywhere except the one place he is needed most: by Ryuunosuke and Susato’s sides, in the flesh, laughing and vibrant and alive, alive, alive.
—
“Who was he to you?” Susato asks one night. “Truly?”
Ryuunosuke can only just see her silhouette in the darkness of the moon. She is curled up on the sofa, knees pulled up to her chest, a cup of tea cold on the settee in front of them. She hasn’t moved since he came to sit with her in another of their joint sleepless nights.
In this moment, as in every moment that he can spare a thought to the precarity of their existence in London, Ryuunosuke feels how young she is, how brave she is, to be here in a new, unfriendly place with a man she barely knows. He owes her this much, at least—another perspective on someone so dear to her from the eyes of someone who loves him like she does. He wants to hear the same from her, one day.
“Someone beyond compare. Someone I loved.” His voice breaks on the words as sudden swell of emotion lodges in his throat. “Someone I wanted to be my partner.”
But that isn’t the whole truth of it, not in his heart of hearts. Truly , Susato had requested. Ryuunosuke bites his lip and adds, “Someone…someone I am sometimes unsure how well I knew.”
Susato is silent for a long time. A sliver of pale moonlight slips in through the window as clouds part, and her face shines with tears. “And who do you think you were you to him? Truly?”
Ryuunosuke notices the change in how she frames the question. He also hears the other, unspoken question on Susato’s tongue, the one that haunts him, too, in the unexpected knowledge that they both share a deep love of the same man, who loved them in turn: Why did he not speak to me about you?
And the answer to both questions can be summarized in one devastating sentence:
“I don’t know.”
Susato shifts. Slowly, her hand reaches across the sofa and grasps Ryuu’s, calloused and strong. Her eyes are very, very far away.
“Yes,” Susato murmurs, distant. “Yes. I understand.”
—
Sometimes, when Ryuu is on the cusp of sleep, drifting in the space between waking and dreaming, he registers the phantom sensation of tears against his neck, the warmth of a body against his, the memory of words pressed into his skin. Tongue-twisters, confessions, words that Asougi told him, but that Ryuunosuke never heard. Words Ryuunosuke can never carry.
Sometimes, in that state of half-consciousness, Ryuunosuke tries to remember the form of Asougi’s lips as they sang their soundless songs, tries to give them meaning. Be it grief or regret or wishful memory, the words Asougi presses into his skin take the shape of a fathomless litany: I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m sorry.