Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eita sticks his head out the window. The doorway is crowded with other spirits doing the same; the goblin market is silent.

It’s never quiet.

Yet the desperate, oppressive atmosphere is gone. Merchants have paused, the magic in the air feels more normal, and a hush has fallen over the crowd waiting by the realm door. Even the stuck tengu have quit their squawking.

“It’s over?” Yasushi asks, buzzing over Eita’s head, unable to fit through a door or window.

“I think it is,” Eita replies in something like wonder. He’s never seen the market quiet like this before.

It takes time, but the noise returns, and gradually. First, hushed voices, then relieved tears. Reunions. Humans pouring in and out of the realm door, bringing with them increasing levels of energy, more news. Apparently, the god really is gone. It really is over.

“I’ll be damned,” Eita sighs, and leans on his elbows, further out the window. He huffs out a laugh. “That asshole won.” Tendou got his cake and got to eat it, too, unless he’s already been caught and strung up by angry humans. He doubts Wakatoshi would allow that, but Tendou has always been a trouble magnet. “Kamasaki, I’m heading out to check on things.”

“You’re going to get eaten alive out there. Wait until the humans calm down. Wait until the tengu calm down.”

Eita notices he doesn’t include the fae in his list, but it’s not worth the trouble to argue. With a murmur, he moves the spirits blocking the doorway out of his way, and slips outside into the hushed, frantic crowd. There’s more pushing and shoving than on even a bad day, but it’s clear that there are really only two directions anyone is headed: toward the realm door, or away from it.

Eita manages to wedge himself through the door, despite a very harassed witch on the other side literally trying to shove people back. “We’re trying to maintain a perimeter! Humans only—we’re trying to maintain a perimeter, and we can’t be dealing with a lot of you spirits causing more chaos!”

“Let me through,” Eita orders with a melodious hum, and several others take advantage of the lapse in security to hop, slide, and fly through. The human realm’s air doesn’t smell so stale now, though it’s hard to believe he was just here yesterday.

It’s hard to believe he helped.

Valiantly resisting making faces at the humans crowded in around him, Eita presses through the throng, wondering how he’s supposed to track down Tendou and Wakatoshi in this mess.

--

It’d sounded like a bomb had gone off.

Tadashi and Kei remain inside, clutching each other, until the world outside falls silent again. No one was shouting, for help or in pain, and they couldn’t hear any more of the god’s rampage. There is nothing but the wind swirling through the broken windows.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Kei whispers.

“Do you think they did bomb it?” Tadashi whispers back.

Kei tugs him through the wall and they peer out into the street. It’s eerily calm; Tadashi only then realizes how loud everything had been. Even the sirens have shut off. He can’t see any smoke rising in any new directions. No craters or mushroom clouds. Whatever that had been, it’d definitely been close.

The words come up his throat like vomit. “Do you think that was what everyone was worried about? …Is that something Suga or Kiyoko could’ve done?” He has to know if that’s what everyone had been freaking out about. He has to know if that had been more harm, or finally some good.

But he’s seen Suga pass out after a sleep spell, so he’s understandably dubious, on either front.

“More importantly, do you think Ushijima was with them?” Kei asks in return.

He taps the pocket with the gun magazine in it. (A couple of kids outsmarting and keeping ahead of supposedly talented coven witches explains a lot about how Ushijima has been able to act in the past few months, actually.)

“Worth as much of a shot as anything else we’ve done today.” Running like hell through all those buildings had taken its toll, but it wasn’t unbearable. Tadashi feels confident he can last in a fight, should it come to it.

There is also the handgun burning a hole in his pocket.

It wouldn’t do shit against a god, but if it’s gone, well. Guns do shit against people.

“Let’s go, Tsukki,” Tadashi says with bravado he’s getting better at faking. He doesn’t release Kei’s clawed hand. They dart out into the street, and no hulking monsters immediately try to eat them, so he’s going to count this as a win. Go team humanity.

It remains eerily quiet, but at least their echoing footsteps are normal. And it means they’d be able to hear someone sneaking up on them, so Tadashi’s shoulders inch back down from where they’d taken residence by his ears. Broken concrete and glass crunch beneath their shoes, their breathing comes out in cold, labored breaths, and their hands remain connected. They don’t see another soul.

Tadashi’s mind slows, gradually, in the face of a lack of action. Lack of danger, for the first time in what feels like too long. He’d thought getting back to friendly faces had been a break, but… Everything had just kept happening.

Ryuu had warned him in the past about adrenaline crashes, and the thought of passing out again makes his nerves shoot even further through the fucking roof. Maybe he’ll just stay jittery and alert until the end of time by sheer fear. That didn’t work for rabbits, sure, but he liked to think he was a bit sturdier than a bunny these days.

Tadashi sees the fallen building before Kei does. Or rather, he registers what direction it had fallen in—something had blown this one to the side, rather than downward. He tugs on their connected hands, and Kei slows with a questioning noise.

He points, and tracks even more. “These ones were… I think we’re close, Tsukki.” Do they need to worry about magical fallout? Regular fallout? He’s sure there’s a spell for a geiger counter, but hell if he knows what it is.

The broken street opens out into not quite a crater, but certainly a clearing. Rubble is thinner here, blown backward by whatever, and ash hangs like a curtain. Just in case, Tadashi pulls his shirt up over his nose and mouth, and Kei does the same.

It’s still quiet.

Tadashi wonders if they’re looking for enemies or survivors at this point.

Everything about before had been so loud, chaos and noise and frantic, desperate energy. This is the opposite. Surely, surely the god is gone, right? At the very least, it isn’t immediately next to them, laughing or chewing on someone else.

“Someone else should be here,” Kei whispers uneasily. “Someone else had to have heard that, there should be others responding to this…”

“We were already close.”

“We don’t have brooms, Tadashi.”

Tadashi tightens his hold on Kei’s hand. They were close, yes, but they’d been walking at a pretty unhurried pace. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes had passed. For a witch on a broom, or a tengu, or a dragon, they could clear a quarter of the city in that.

“We’re either alone because we’re lucky, or everyone else knows something we don’t,” Kei grimly surmises.

“That means that it’s over, either way, right? Nothing’s coming to eat us. Nothing else is blowing up.” Lucky first responders would be a hell of a responsibility, but there are worse roles Tadashi has played today. (Accepting Shirabu’s deal still prickles at him. Worse, is that he almost feels bad he didn’t do anything.) “Tsukki, I think—if this is where Suga and Kiyoko had been—shouldn’t we look for them? Or… anyone?”

Kei scoffs, but he’s already grinning, in that weary, resigned way Tadashi likes on him. “Of course we’re going to play hero. Even if we do keel over soon.”

“If either of us start coughing, or feel faint, then we’ll run like hell. Promise.”

“Promise,” Kei replies, smiling in earnest, and squeezes Tadashi’s hand before letting go. “It’s faster if we split up, but let’s not stray. I’m not losing you again.”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Tadashi mutters with his own little grin.

It’s sort of easy to follow the outermost ring of rubble, and Tadashi can see Kei, even through all of the dust, so that’s reassuring. Sound should carry pretty easily in the stillness, too, though the eeriness of it still makes him not test that quite yet. But he cannot help turning back over his shoulder every couple of minutes to keep an eye on Kei.

As if in response, Kei begins glowing again, a soft, easy target to track.

Tadashi vows to kiss him silly after they’re done sleeping this off.

Somehow, despite wanting to find someone—Suga or Kiyoko, really—Tadashi is surprised when he does find something.

He finds a coat sleeve draped over part of a broken tree, and as soon as Tadashi’s mind processes the fact that a coat equals a person, he hears a noise from the coat. He jumps.

But it spurs him into action.

He throws himself over the branches with a panicked, “Hello? Are you—are you okay? Stay right there!”

He finds that it is only a coat, not an entire person (injured or otherwise), but the bundled coat is squirming. Tadashi doesn’t think about any danger as he tears it open—to find a large, ugly, baby bird.

His arms drop to his sides, and the little bird peeps at him. It’s hardly big enough to have any real feathers, just patchy down, mostly grey in color. It’s… a bird. Probably a hawk or something, judging on the size, but it’s an animal and not a person and what the hell is a baby bird going out here, anyway? Especially in a coat.

Someone had wrapped up the baby bird. His mind is still thick with adrenaline and exhaustion in stupidly equal parts, but he realizes someone had meant to protect this bird. Tadashi carefully settles in beside the bird, and scoops it up, still mostly swaddled, because he sees the size of that beak and he’s guessing the claws are just as bad.

“Hey, little guy. How’d you end up here?” Tadashi asks softly, unable to help carrying it like a baby as he picks his way back toward clearer ground.

The bird peeps again, a little more angrily.

Tadashi is about to call for Kei, to see if he has any clue about the latest entry in this comedy of errors, when the bird nips at his finger. It’s sharp enough to draw blood, definitely, and Tadashi yanks his hand away with a hiss. The bird’s weight swings into one arm, coat swinging with it, and Tadashi narrowly avoids dropping it.

But the shift in weight pointed out a weight in the coat pocket.

The bird points its head in the direction they came from, glaring up at Tadashi.

“You’re… someone’s familiar, aren’t you?” Tadashi asks, brows coming down low. He’s seen Sunshine and Midna act with the same sort of surly intelligence. And it would explain why someone would try to protect an animal amongst everything else going on today. Tadashi balances the bird in one arm, and digs around in the heavy pocket, hoping to find a clue to who to return the snappy little maybe-familiar to.

He comes up with a gun.

Not just that—a fucking familiar gun.

Tadashi really does drop the bird that time. It squawks and chirps but doesn’t appear hurt, just a squirming bundle in a coat yet again.

He knows this gun, which is weird, definitely not a skill he’d ever anticipated having. But it’s hard to forget a gun that has been pointed at your face so many times. A gun that had shot you in the head.

A gun whose magazine he still has in his pocket.

With trembling fingers, Tadashi pulls out the clip, and holds it up against the handgun. He ejects the magazine in it, and it’s a perfect match.

This is Ushijima’s gun.

This is Ushijima’s coat, and Ushijima’s familiar.

“What the fuck,” Tadashi breathes, and the bird peeps again, even angrier than before. Should he step on it? That seems cruel. It isn’t the bird’s fault that its owner is an omnicidal psycho. Actually, Tadashi can’t ever remember Ushijima having the bird with him before, but then again, who brings a baby bird to a firefight?

But that means that Ushijima is here.

This is, potentially, Ushijima’s handiwork.

Tadashi now has two guns, finding magic, an insistent, chirping compass, and a hell of a grudge.

Daichi had said that Ushijima had been trying to stop this, too. But Daichi was dying because of Ushijima. Suga was missing because of Ushijima. Everything had fucking happened because of Ushijima.

Tadashi doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he scoops up the bird again, but it points again, just as before. Tadashi pockets the Colt and follows Ushijima’s familiar. His boots feel twice as heavy now, and his heart thuds painfully against his ribs, like he’s just run a marathon.

What is he going to do if he finds him? Tadashi doesn’t yet know. He’s armed, but he doesn’t want to hurt people. He doesn’t kill people. He still has trouble killing monsters. He still has trouble identifying what’s a monster and what’s not, but Tadashi is not so naive that he cannot acknowledge that people can be monsters, too.

He knows Ryuu and Saeko have killed people. He’s pretty sure Suga has. He’s also certain that if anyone else were in his shoes right now, they wouldn’t hesitate.

Tadashi comes upon Ushijima too soon. The bundle in his arms peeps ever more insistently, but Tadashi just stops, staring down at the broken, panting body of Ushijima. Tadashi only knows he’s alive because he’s deathless; his head lolls at a steep angle, he’s covered in blood and dust, and his chest expands erratically.

But he still raises his head enough to fix Tadashi with a stare as cold as ice.

Do it, he seems to say. Seems to dare.

Ushijima has tried to kill him time and time again. He’s tried to kill, and take, and sacrifice Kei. It is only for Tadashi’s own morality that he hesitates, and he feels selfish and sick because of it.

“I should turn you over to the covens,” Tadashi means to say, but it comes out a wrecked whisper.

Ushijima’s glare doesn’t waver.

“I should shoot you in the head.”

Only then, does Ushijima’s hooded gaze drop to the coat in Tadashi’s arms.

Tadashi drops it, and Ushijima jolts, like he’s trying to get up, at the peep the impact with the ground creates. Just from that short, aborted movement, Tadashi has already acted, pointing Ushijima’s own gun at his chest.

“You did this,” Tadashi hisses at him through bared teeth. His eyes burn, but he refuses to cry in front of his man. “Wh-Where’s Suga. Where’s Kiyoko?”

Ushijima coughs, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out.

Tadashi flicks the safety off. “What did you do here? Why did you do it at all?!”

Ushijima’s eyes remain on the bundled bird.

“Say something!” People should plead for their lives. They should be afraid. He should do something other than fucking stare and dare Tadashi to cross the line. The gun shakes in his grasp, and he holds it with both hands to stop it. “You did this—you destroyed the city, and got people killed, and ruined everything! You tried to kill us all! I should kill you!”

Tadashi thinks he hears something in the stillness of the not-crater. Probably Kei—Tadashi realizes with cold guilt that he hadn’t consulted Kei about this.

Kei would talk him down. Goad him into it?

God, he doesn’t know, and that sort of fear—the kind of fear that comes with the realization that you don’t know if someone wants you to kill someone else or not—nearly spurs Tadashi into further action. It feels like a timer has been put on this. Would Kei approve? Would Kei want him to kill Ushijima, or try to talk him down from it?

All Tadashi knows, suddenly, is that he doesn’t want Kei to see him make this choice. Shame churns in his belly, but it’s beneath the anger that Ushijima’s unrepentant presence before him creates.

And that confusion, that doubt and fear that comes with another’s judgement, forces Tadashi to realize what his own thoughts are. His mother had always told him to flip a coin for hard decisions—not because of the luck, but because in that moment when the coin is spinning in the air, you’ll know what you’re hoping for. Now, Tadashi has all the luck in the world, but it’s the outside pressure that leads to his realization.

He doesn’t want to kill Ushijima.

Tadashi does not want to kill someone else.

He doesn’t want to kill people. He hardly wants to kill monsters.

Most of all, Tadashi realizes he wants to decide for himself what are the monsters and what are the people, who he wants to protect and what he wants to protect from. Demons, spirits, witches—Tadashi doesn’t want the blood of people on his hands, because he doesn’t want to become the sort of person that is sprawled before him: the kind of person who kills others for his own selfishness. Whether outright gain or a moral code, Tadashi doesn’t care anymore.

He lowers his gun.

He hears another sound behind him, and Tadashi’s shoulders sag. He mentally prepares himself to talk Kei through the most tense two minutes of his life.

White blurs by so fast Tadashi doesn’t process it until a wing smacks him in the face.

He stumbles back, holding his cheek, and stares at the glowing figure crouched over Ushijima like a predator with prey. But no—it’s not crouched, it’s tearing into him, and Ushijima is letting out choked little noises nearly lost in the wet ripping sound of its claws sinking into him.

The white monster’s extended wings stop Tadashi from immediately screaming. Something about the image rings the faintest of bells. He should know this. He does know this?

Somehow, he remembers that short hair, the wings curving out gracefully from the back, the white fire dripping from fingertips—

Pain shoots through his head and Tadashi nearly drops his gun as he clutches his head. He staggers back another step, but it’s enough to break the moment.

He raises the gun again. “H-Hey,” he croaks, then tries again. “Hey! Stop that!” Sure, he’s not in a rush to save Ushijima, but he’s not going to let the man get mauled to death right in front of him. And something about this specific figure in front of him is causing growing alarm to rise within him. Something instinctual. Not like the god’s presence, and not with it screaming through his eardrums, but something animalistic.

Tadashi’s lizard brain wants him to fucking move.

Tadashi plants his feet and holds his gun with both hands to stop it from shaking. He shouts, “Get off him! I’m going to give you to the count of three, whatever you are—”

The thing hunches, wings flaring, like Tadashi had already shot it. It turns to regard him over one shoulder, eyes dark, empty holes, mouth dripping Ushijima’s blood. Tadashi’s breath catches, but he doesn’t run. He wants to.

He wants to figure out what this is, though. He takes care of monsters. He has (helped) killed a dragon, sealed poltergeists, gotten dragged into a purge, and who knew what sort of illegal magical shit. He faced down a fucking god. He faced down Ushijima, time and time again.

Tadashi doesn’t kill people. Tadashi saves people, even fucking Ushijima, from monsters like this.

But he’s going to figure out what this is before shooting anything.

“One,” Tadashi says as strongly as he can. The thing still doesn’t respond, but ducks its head as if to continue chewing. “Two!” he yells and it twitches again. Now would be a really good time for Kei to show back up, or maybe a goddamn adult for once in their lives. “Three!”

Tadashi fires the gun straight up into the air.

The figure leaps off of Ushijima, as Tadashi had figured. Scared, just like Kuroo had been, and he mentally counts through the runes he’ll need for a confinement circle.

The monster throws itself at Tadashi.

--

“It seems like the atmospheric magic is clearing up,” Motoya says, managing to come off cheerful, despite how haggard both Tooru and Kiyoomi look.

Tooru groans and buries his face back against Iwaizumi’s chest. It doesn’t help, at all, but at least he’s still breathing. Misaki is done trying to fix him, done enough to let Tooru get close again, though he’s a mess of bandages and strips of cloth for when they ran out of bandages. She sticks close, of course, but he can’t tell if it’s for his sake or Iwaizumi’s.

“Would they stop yelling already, if it’s already over with?” Kiyoomi growls. Tooru cringes at his mental echo. Two clairvoyants in close quarters when their mental barriers were fucked was a recipe for disaster, but they’d had no other choice.

Not that they want to go outside just yet. Motoya probably wouldn’t let them, but Tooru isn’t eager to get in the middle of yet another coven shouting match.

“How are you feeling?” comes Hitoka’s voice, along with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Tooru shifts so his cheek is still on Iwaizumi’s sternum, but he manages a winning smile for Hitoka’s benefit. “Peachy, darling. How have you been faring in all of this?”

Her mind is a gnarled mess of hurt, betrayal, confusion, and gaping holes where her memories had been. She smiles back at him. “I’m glad I can be helpful here, and my mom has stabilized. Most of the people here have, and it seems like things might be quieting down now. We’ll probably be able to start transporting you to actual hospitals.”

“Great,” Tooru lies, and closes his eyes again. Hitoka squeezes his shoulder again, then leaves him.

Yeah, a hospital will do a lot of good to a wrecked psychic and an even worse skinwalker.

He’s still alive, he tells himself. Isn’t that what matters? He might not ever wake up, or he might turn into a half-feral zombie again, or maybe some other, newer disaster will strike them. But he’s still breathing. Tooru listens to the steady, if slow, beat of Iwaizumi’s heart in his chest. He’s still alive.

Miyanoshita appears at his side, full baku form, with a yawn and a weary flick of her long ears. She nestles into Tooru’s lap without asking for permission.

“How is he doing?” Tooru has to ask.

“Not well,” Miyanoshita frankly replies, “but he’s still his surly, stubborn self. He seems tired, and it’s… not that great, but he’s still there. He’s hanging on.”

“Is it too much to hope we’re out of the woods?”

“Maybe right now. Maybe not. You two have already skewed my perception of humans pretty badly, you know.”

Tooru huffs a laugh and tries to pet her. She snorts, and digs a tusk into his side, and he brings his arm back up to Iwaizumi instead. Miyanoshita settles back into his lap with a contented noise.

Misaki checks them both over again, mostly an excuse he imagines, but she has never done him wrong in the past. Tooru appreciates it. Hitoka is wonderful, too, but at least a nymph wouldn’t be so caught up in how humans work to go along with something ridiculous like dreamspaces and whatever weird coma-like state they’ve forced him into. Tooru still doesn’t understand. But he knows they’re trying.

Despite the extremely uncomfortable position, bent over Iwaizumi and with a shockingly dense baku in his lap, Tooru feels exhaustion edging in. He wouldn’t mind a nap, both to give himself some much-needed rest and to avoid the din of too many voices here, but he fears what he would find in his dreams. If he would find anything. He thinks Miyanoshita might have tried to separate them—or maybe Iwaizumi has.

He always slinks off alone, Tooru thinks, and lets his eyes drift closed again. Tooru is tired of it. Well, he’s tired of a lot of things, especially right now (Kiyoomi’s chaotic thoughts and Hitoka’s sad mess and Atsumu’s fury and panic and everyone’s stupid thoughts—), but he wants Iwaizumi to stop trying to run away.

He feels another soft touch, this time against his hair, and reopens his eyes for which well-meaning healer has come to haunt him this time.

No one’s there.

Tooru shifts until he realizes it’s Iwaizumi’s bandaged hand on his hair.

Tooru turns until he can face Iwaizumi, accidentally losing his hand and nearly dropping Miyanoshita, and finds those deep, forest eyes open and looking at him and he’s not a half-feral zombie or dead or possessed or— “Iwa-chan!” he squawks, an ungodly noise with a voice crack and a squeal and excitement all rolled together, and forces more of his weight on top of him.

Iwaizumi wheezes and shoves him back off. “Dumbass, you’re gonna kill me yet.”

“But that means you’re still alive for me to kill!”

“This isn’t going how I imagined.” Iwaizumi flops back down with another, tired sigh. His voice has already grown weaker, body still lax and exhausted beneath Tooru. Miyanoshita peeks her head up over the edge, ears pricked, but silently watching. “There was a lot of time to imagine things, dream time is weird, but… I don’t know. I’m still tired.”

“You’re alive to be tired,” Tooru croaks.

“Yeah. I am. And that’s already getting old. I’m going back to sleep.” He tries to turn on his side, to feign ignoring Tooru, but groans immediately at the smallest movement. Misaki appears as if she’d been summoned.

Tooru is pried off of him, and Iwaizumi is subjected to the confused and relieved attention of Misaki, to his chagrin. Hitoka circles back again, Miyanoshita tries to answer questions, and Tooru is so grateful for this new, overwhelming noise that he nearly laughs.

“Come on, Tooru,” Hitoka gently coaxes, pulling him away and onto a cot next to Kiyoomi, “you could use the rest now, too.” He knows better than to argue; he gets a sleep rune drawn against his forehead, anyway.

The dreamspace is empty, but bright and sunny and airy and perfectly reflecting all of Tooru’s relief. It might not be a normal dream—he might not have those ever again—but he flops down onto a bed of soft grasses and enjoys the soft orange sky of a nonexistent sunrise.

If the magic is dissipating outside, that means that someone did it. For the moment, he doesn’t care if it was Kiyoko or Ushijima—the damned thing is gone. He’s still alive. Iwaizumi is still alive. Despite their odds, they both made it. Tooru has yet to see what the other casualties may be, but at least he knows so many of his people are safe. He’s going to count this as a win.

Hitoka was right; he needs the rest. And that means from worry, too, just for a moment.

Miyanoshita ducks over into his vision, pigtailed and mostly human and grinning hugely with many sharp teeth. “I like your dreams when you’re not in the Dreamlands!” she tells him like it’s a great joke. “Iwaizumi’s trying to go back to sleep, too, so I imagine he’ll be here soon.”

Tooru beams back up at her. “Miyanoshita, you can eat as many dreams as you ever want from us, for all your help in this. For life!”

“I was planning on that anyway.” She sits cross-legged next to him, and flicks her tail into his face. “And not going to lie, it’s a pretty nice silver lining that that place is locked away forever. I don’t like the idea of accidentally falling into it again, even if you got us back out.”

“I think Iwa-chan is pretty happy that it’s gone, too. Or he will be.”

“I definitely am,” Iwaizumi says, inserting himself into their scene without fanfare. Tooru throws himself at him immediately, but here, Iwaizumi is whole and strong and healthy, and he catches him with a disappointed look. “What happened to resting? We both need it. Badly.”

“I’d say,” Miyanoshita drawls.

“We’re already sleeping!”

“We have a lot of sleep to catch up on. And I still feel a little off. No more weird dream shenanigans.” Iwaizumi pulls him down, one-armed, into an awkward sort of hug. But they’re still surrounded by bright sky and soft grasses, and together, and so Tooru won’t complain.

Everything else can be saved for when they wake up again.

--

“Kenma!”

Somehow, Yamamoto Akane being the most excited one to see him again hadn’t been Kenma’s idea of this reunion. She looks up at him, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and like she’s been having the time of her life trying to poke around an angry tengu’s badly injured arm socket, and Kenma awkwardly tries to return her smile.

But even Akane’s exuberance falters when she registers Kuro’s form behind him. And she had already met him before.

Kenma is incredibly aware of the silence that has followed them in. He’d sort of counted on Taketora’s presence here to help mitigate things, or for everyone to be so cowed by Bokuto and Akaashi that an archdemon waltzing in would be secondary. Maybe they’d still be lucky.

But Tora is gone, Bokuto is a snoring heap in the corner, and Akaashi has been trapped by Akane.

Kuro is partially settled, but he still has wings, and horns, and a tail. His limbs haven’t quite regained human proportion or coloring, either.

“My leg is broken,” Kenma tonelessly announces, and sits heavily beside Akaashi.

“Oh, jeez, yeah! Hold on just a moment while I finish up here!” Akane says, recovering nicely. It doesn’t help the weight of the stares.

“You could be done now,” Akaashi grits out.

“Almost!” she chirps, completely undeterred. Kenma wishes he had half her fearlessness. It’s only a matter of time before someone starts something, and he doubts she’ll be done with his leg by then, if she can even heal it outright.

“Kenma,” Kuro says, low and rough and right in his ear, “I’m not certain this was a good idea.”

I’m not sure it was either, he privately agrees, but they’re here now. Until someone tries to attack, Kenma is going to try to get himself up and moving again. He’s going to make sure to the best of his abilities that his friends are alright. He needs to be able to defend himself, though, when the time comes.

He’d sort of thought, seeing Kiyoko like that, that this could finally be over.

But he’s a witch with a summoned archdemon accompanying him. He’d never be free of this sort of thing.

Akaashi’s attention slips from the far wall to someone approaching over Akane’s shoulder. “I would be very careful in choosing your greeting to us,” they say, in a tone both polite and menacing.

Kyoutani Kentarou plops down next to them on the floor. Kenma has maybe exchanged a dozen words with the hunter, but he is aware of his reputation. Kentarou jerks his chin toward Akaashi, perhaps greeting or perhaps aggression, and grunts, “Ballsy of you, even tengu, to traipse a demon in here like this.”

“Says the one with an inugami,” Akaashi replies.

Akane brightens like this is news to her. Kentarou’s expression darkens in contrast. “Yeah,” he says instead of arguing, “so that’s why I’m over here. You’re gonna cause a scene, and I want it to be clear that I ain’t on the side of coven stuck-ups.”

“We’re not trying to pick a fight here,” Kuro says, and Kentarou jumps, as if he didn’t expect him to be able to speak. “Sorry,” he adds, ducking his head.

Kenma reaches blindly backward until he can catch Kuro’s claws in his fingers. “We’re here for medical attention, information, and to reconvene with our friends. Do you know where Lev is?”

“The tall guy with the hurt cat?” Akane asks. “He was asked to sit outside ‘cause his cat spirit was making the fluffy dog guy angry. That’s what they were shouting about earlier—after Nishinoya was shouting at everyone, but before Miya was shouting again.”

“There’s been quite the list of shouting,” Akaashi sighs. “But yes, Yaku and the inugami were separated before anything could happen. As I’ve heard, he will be fine.”

“But we can’t spare a lot of magic right now,” Akane adds with a fierce scowl. Kenma sees the family resemblance, stronger than ever before.

Kentarou grunts again. He has a few scrapes and bandages in addition to ripped clothes, but he doesn’t try to ask Akane for anything else. He actually seems like he’d been telling the truth; he doesn’t try to maintain conversation, and his attention doesn’t linger on any one of them.

Very slowly, halfway due to sheer fatigue, Kenma relaxes into his presence.

Akane finishes with Akaashi’s shoulder, and helps to prop Kenma’s leg up onto an overturned milk crate. The angle doesn’t do him any favors, but neither would complaining. He doesn’t ask for any pain relief, and she doesn’t offer it, so Kenma distracts himself by watching the frankly saccharine way Akaashi oh so carefully nestles themselves into Bokuto’s side. Bokuto hardly stirs, but he does throw a wing over them, like an instinctual need to be closer.

With a glance out of the corner of his eye, Kenma finds Kuro watching them, too.

He looks away again. He’s not certain he can offer that to Kuro ever again—the archdemon thing was his idea, his fault. So is Akaashi’s missing wing. All three of them are only alive because they looked out for each other.

Kenma catches Akane looking at him, like she can see something on his face that makes her want to start an argument, but it is surprisingly Kentarou who breaks the thick silence.

“There was already talk of startin’ a purge. Didn’t fly too well with most of the spirits here,” he murmurs with another dirty look toward the front doors. “Think it might continue that way, even if the giant monster is gone.”

“So that’s why you’re throwing in with us, hm?” Akaashi says.

Kentarou shrugs, then rolls his shoulders back, wincing as he does. “Having a dog spirit bound to you teaches you a thing or two about loyalty—and what sorta behavior deserves it. ‘m tired of playing nice with shitheads who think we’re acceptable losses.”

Kenma closes his eyes and pushes thoughts of acceptable losses from his mind. He’s tired of making that call. He’s tired of most things, right now, and as soon as he figures he can move without messing up Akane’s work, he slowly lists to the side until he can rest against Kuro’s shoulder.

At least Kuro doesn’t push him off.

Kenma wonders about that, maybe is relieved by it, until he hears the faint but unmistakable noise of snoring. Not Bokuto’s, either. Akaashi huffs out a soft, fond, tired laugh, and Kenma allows himself a small smile in response.

“You can rest,” Akane stage-whispers. “I’m almost done with what I can do for you today, and you’re pretty taxed. We’ll wake you up if anyone starts getting any ideas about other acceptable losses and stuff. Or if my brother comes back!”

“Or if anything else changes,” Kenma murmurs.

“I’ll wake you. You need the sleep,” Akaashi tells him. Kenma cracks open an eye, because what the hell, they need rest more than he does, but Akaashi raises an eyebrow in challenge. “Kenma.”

“Keiji,” he replies, and tries to sit up again. Kuro jostles, head snapping up, and Akaashi frowns at them both.

“Akane,” Akaashi says with a gesture, and Akane nods with a grimness that has the hairs on Kenma’s nape prickling. She braces Kenma’s leg, and Akaashi gestures next at Kuro. “Sleep. Both of you. We’ll still all be here when you wake again.” Kenma barely catches Kuro as he slumps against him, moments before Kenma slips under, too. His last conscious thoughts are about the warmth pressed against his side.

--

Yui recognizes the boy looming over her like she’d last seen him in a dream. He’s smudged with soot and blood and dirt, golden eyes as sharp as a knife, a thick leather collar snug around his throat. She knows him. How? She can’t place his name, or why he’d be looking at her like he’d seen a ghost.

Ghost? she recalls, before he’s reaching down to haul her up none too gently.

“You’re Yui, right?” he demands with an iron grip on her bicep. She feels the pinpricks of claws through her sweater.

She nods, vision swimming. One thing at a time. “Yeah. Where’s Sunny? What happened—where’s Koushi?!” Memories rush in like the tide, and she scrambles to her feet, stumbling against him. He steadies her and does not release her. Yui clings to him—less for stability, and more for emotional grounding as she takes in the fucking crater they left.

She doesn’t see Northot anymore, nor the radiant figure Kiyoko had become. With all the dust in the air, it’s difficult to see much at all, and her ears still ring from that hell of a banishment charm. But it worked—it had to have, right? She sees no evidence to the contrary. It definitely worked.

It worked.

So she’s left with a stranger in the remains of their plan.

“Where’s Koushi?” Yui croaks again, because she knows Kiyoko is already gone. The threat of tears burns her eyes already, but she feels like she shouldn’t be crying yet.

“I don’t know,” the boy replies.

A gun’s report rings out, and they both jump.

“Tadashi,” he gasps, unintentionally releasing her as they both turn toward the sound. That name, too, niggles at the back of her brain, but guns equal something happening, and that’s a better lead on Suga than anything else.

They both tear toward the gunshot, but despite the kid’s ridiculously long legs, Yui manages to outpace him. She glances back once, fearing he’s hurt, but the raw, open worry on her face spurs her on. The Tadashi name is familiar—she should find him, too, right? She thinks of Suga, again, with that name.

She smells angel before she sees the glow.

It’s the sharp slap in the face no one ever sees coming; an intimate betrayal of something close and familiar turning abruptly foreign and wrong. Wings spread out before her, and her mind jolts at hers they’re hers they’ve grown back she needs them gone before she loses control again—

They’re not hers right now.

She knows that frame. She knows that silver, starlight hair, now iridescent with angelic magic. She has known Sugawara Koushi longer than she hasn’t, and she can pick him out in an instant, even twisted into the monster she had just left behind. It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror. Kiyoko had always joked about them sharing too much.

Yui recognizes the boy trapped beneath him, too. He comes in a flash of recognition, an image of a broken teenager from a broken tree and snow splattered with blood.

“Tadashi!” the tall kid shouts, terrified, and the archangel’s wings flare again at the sudden noise. He turns to look over his shoulder, and his mouth is stained red.

Tadashi, beneath him, takes the lapse as an opportunity. He brings his legs up beneath Suga’s stomach and kicks him off.

Then everyone is moving at once.

Suga curls into himself like a wounded snake and makes a pathetic gurgling noise. Tadashi scrambles away from him, fingers staunching the bloody ribbons cut into his shoulder, and the tall kid rushes toward him in the same instant. Yui sees Tadashi reach for magic, drawing in the air and trying to get back to his feet with his friend’s help, but Suga has already rolls back onto his feet, an animalistic crouch with wings spread.

Magic comes back to her as instinctively as breathing.

“Koushi, stop!” Yui shouts, even as she casts. Suga tumbles backward, splattering the dirty concrete with stark white blood, and curls over himself with a heaving noise.

The boys cling to each other. Yui’s arms shake as she realizes she just made Suga bleed, her best friend, her remaining rock in a world without Kiyoko—she didn’t talk him down, she didn’t confine him, she just hurt him—

“Koushi?” Tadashi echoes like he may be sick.

Suga’s attention snaps to him like a whip. For the first time, she can see his face properly. Yui doesn’t see a monster, even with scarlet smeared over his chin; she sees horror and panic and grief in his dark eyes. She sees realization.

“Koushi, I’m so sorry—” she begins, stepping forward, but Suga scrambles back like a cornered animal. “Wait—!”

“Suga, wait, what’s—” Tadashi starts too, but that seems to panic him all the more.

The archangel vanishes with a flare of light and a wretched cry.

--

In the weak light of the next morning, hours after the dust has settled, Sawamura Daichi wakes in a hospital bed, alone.

The staff had not been able to reach his emergency contact.

--

Almost two months pass before Yui works up the courage to see Tooru.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit,” Yui says. Tooru doesn’t need to be a mind reader to catch the lie there. His eyes narrow a fraction, but his wan smile remains the same. “Okay okay, I just wanted to make sure everything is—okay. You don’t need my bullshit on top of your steaming pile.”

“There’s the Micchi I remember,” Tooru says warmly, opening his arms. Yui goes to him with a noise half a sigh, half a sob. She swears she’s not going to cry today, doesn’t even feel it right now, but Tooru had been one of the last people she’d slunk back to. So much time had passed. He probably guesses why she put him off—it wouldn’t take a genius, that’s for sure, and unfortunately for her, Oikawa Tooru is too damn clever for his own good.

“I’m sorry,” she says into his shirt. “Tooru, I’m sorry—I didn’t visit, because I can’t handle you on top of everything else—I’m doing a lot of adjustments.”

“From what I understand, there aren’t many people who know, are there?”

She flinches at how eager he is to get straight into the nitty gritty dirty details. He pulls her away and holds her at arm’s length, and Yui cooperates like a sour sack of potatoes. “More than I’d anticipated, all things considered,” she flatly replies, but he stares her down until she continues. “Seven or eight, counting you two. For everyone else, I’m just back from the dead because of Kiyoko’s deal. No angels involved.”

“Seven or eight?” Tooru asks with an arch of his brows. Yui is almost gratified to see that he still has better brows than her. Some things haven’t changed.

“I’m not sure about Hitoka. She doesn’t know right now, but with her memories as they are… Kiyoko left them for her. She hasn’t gone through them yet, I don’t think, but I think she will, given time.”

“Not given time, but taking away all of her excuses to put it off, you mean,” he says. Yui shrugs, and tries to smile, and he sighs at her for both. He gestures her inside.

His living room has been rearranged since she’d been here. The couch is against the open wall, forming an edge to the room, and his two chairs are next to each other in a corner. She takes one end of the couch; he takes the furthest armchair.

“I’m sorry,” Yui says again.

Tooru sets his cheek on his fist. His gaze is hooded, expression neutral, expectant.

“I’m sorry about not being to visit sooner, yes, but you know—you know what I’m sorry for, Tooru.” Yui looks down at her intertwined fingers in her lap, but raises her eyes back to his to deliver the next part. “I’m sorry for how I used you to get out of the Dreamlands. I’m sorry for hurting you, and contributing to the danger you’ve been in.”

“How much of yourself were you in the Dreamlands?” Tooru asks with his usual airy tone when he only uses when he’s preparing a savage blow. Rarely has it been directed at her. “Are you apologizing because you specifically came after me?”

“You were familiar, Tooru. No, my actions were… confused, and my memories are already faded. I’m not sure I can ever answer definitively how many of my actions were my own from back then.” Her memories of angelhood are stretched thin and taut, a sharp edge of maddening hunger mixed with unearthly horrors and grief. They’re as vague as last night’s dream.

“You want to know what’s really funny, Micchi?” Tooru asks.

Yui braces herself. Here it comes.

“See, you managed to eat up most of my memories of you. And Koushi and Kiyoko, but I got to see enough of them to fill in the gaps. I’ve filled in some of your gaps, too, and I won’t have an aneurysm anymore if I try to reach for things not there. That’s nice. But the really funny thing—I forgot about you. So I didn’t have any memories to blame. I only ever blamed the angel, but well, that’s gone now, right? And my old friend is back instead. I don’t see how they have much to do with each other,” Tooru says, finger winding through the air, looking exactly like the cat with the canary for all his grand declarations.

Some things have certainly not changed.

Yui laughs wetly, and would punch him if he were closer. “You’re still an asshole, Tooru! Now I owe Noya dinners for a week.”

“Maybe you should listen to someone who’s been to see me more than twice in the past four years,” Tooru drawls with the casual ferocity only reserved for good friends.

Yui really wants to punch him, but she also cannot contain her grin. “I’m still sorry. And I have a feeling your bodyguard won’t be as quick to forgive me.”

“No, he won’t, but he’s just prickly like that,” Tooru huffs. “You didn’t make a very good first impression.”

“How is he? I heard that he got pretty hurt in the attack.”

“Sleeping more, grumpy, scarred, you know.” He flaps his hand, dismissive, but he brightens a moment after with realization. Yui gulps. “Say, I know how you can make it up to us and earn brownie points with my darling grump! You’re a high and mighty governmental spellwriter now, aren’t you?”

“Ah, well,” she hedges, scratching her cheek and avoiding eye contact. “Yeah, I am on Kita’s payroll now. There’s only three of us, and with all of the rebuilding and new laws to try to control informational flow—”

“You’re making our new mayor seem like the scary type,” Tooru interrupts with a pout. Yui sighs at him, and makes sure he hears it. “No, I meant that you could have a little more protection when securing items of certain values. Spellwriters are nice and all, but I’ve never needed magic like everyone else has seemed to.”

“What do you want?”

“A new dragonskin!”

Yui’s face pinches into a grimace, and Tooru laughs at her. The air between them lightens, just like that, and the tension seeps out of the empty space between them.

Tooru leans forward, beseechingly, and tries again. “C’mon, I know it’s the off season, and I’m not saying go out and hunt one down yourself. But keep an ear open for us, please? Pretty please, Micchi?”

“Even if I wanted to, I’m not sure how I could. Being dead for four years sort of dried up most of my old work friendships, and even then, it was always Kiyoko who—” Yui says her name before she can think about it. Her heart stumbles over itself this time, too. But she recovers, and finishes, “it was always her when it came to buying ingredients and materials.”

“A pelt isn’t an ingredient.”

“Dragonskin plus skinwalker equals dragon.”

Now it’s Tooru’s turn to make a face at her. Yui beams at him. He sighs, shakes his head, but she can see the fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that he tries so hard to hide. “I just wanted to say it, for saying it. I know what the chances of getting a new one are, but it doesn’t hurt to cast a wide net with old friends.”

Yui blinks at his term. Slowly, gradually, she relaxes further into old interaction.

But Tooru being Tooru, of course he must toss that growing comfort level out the window. “There really isn’t much to forgive when it comes to that angelic business, as I said. And I want your help with a new dragonskin, but that’s not the apology I want, either. And it’s not for visiting so late.” Gone is the easy atmosphere between them. Tooru’s eyes are dark when he locks gazes with her, and she feels rather like a rabbit in front of a hungry hawk. “Yui, where is Koushi?”

Yui swallows.

“Koushi is dead, Tooru. I saw you at the funeral.”

“I’m not forgiving you for keeping him from us for two months—”

“He’s dead, Tooru! We buried him, and he’s not coming back this time.”

“You’re lying to my face, Yui. I know you took so long to see me because you don’t want me to read it from your thoughts!” he all but snarls, clutching the arms of the chair with white-knuckled grips. “You’re not helping him by sequestering him away and lying to everyone—!”

“An angel almost killed you. An archangel almost killed Hitoka, and hurt so many others,” Yui bites out, breaking line of sight with him. She knew he’d be angry. She knew this would hurt. “There is still an archangel on the loose, and—”

“That’s not you anymore, that’s him, and you’re letting him take the fall for you!”

“It was his idea,” Yui whispers, and Tooru’s anger falls back into simmering.

When she risks a glance upward, she finds Tooru’s face a mask, but turned away from her—up to Iwaizumi, who has shuffled out of the bedroom with blankets piled high on his shoulders and hair a mess. He doesn’t look at Yui, but to be fair, neither does he appear entirely awake.

“You were shouting,” Iwaizumi rasps and rubs at his eyes. When he yawns, his teeth are far too sharp to appear human, and Yui sees the scars running all the way up his arm. When he drops his hand back down, only then does he glance in Yui’s direction. He certainly doesn’t look happy at seeing her, but at least he’s not lashing out.

He doesn’t greet her, and she doesn’t offer anything, either.

“Sorry for waking you,” Tooru says, softly.

“You know ‘m sleeping too much as it is.”

“It’s good for you.” Tooru says with false brightness. He digs beneath the walking blanket pile to grab Iwaizumi’s hand, then spares Yui a cool look again. “It was good to see you, Micchi. But until you bring company with you, I don’t want to see you in my house again.”

Yui swallows again, and nods. “Bye, Tooru. Thanks for having me over. I’m glad you’re both doing well.”

Iwaizumi snorts, and she nearly jumps, but she manages to smooth it over by standing up and grabbing her messenger bag.

Well. Not her bag.

“Just remember, I’m not mad at any angels, and contrary to popular belief, I know how to keep a secret. Keep in touch, Micchi!” Tooru calls as he waves goodbye to her. Yui waves back with a strained smile.

--

It’s a slow day at work, which Tadashi is actually quite grateful for. Kei is curled up in the cushion that Tadashi used to expect Suga to inhabit, studying, headphones snug over his ears. Tadashi’s break is in half an hour, then he gets to join him.

Until then—Tadashi sets his elbows on the counter and stares hard at Issei.

“Do what you will, I’m still very unmagical and very unused to all of this chaos in our fair city,” Issei says, back still to Tadashi, as he pulls a book down from the topmost shelf with a lazy murmur. “I’m a confused, honest citizen, Tadashi. I don’t know what you’re glaring at me for.”

“There has to be a way to use finding magic to track someone down,” Tadashi answers.

“There are plenty of ways. But you can’t do it unless you have something of theirs. That’s the hard rule, kid.” Issei sighs at him, and pulls down more books, still mostly with magic. Because he’s an ass. He’s gotten used to Kei’s presence around the shop, and with magic now legal and relatively known, he’s less skittish about talking of it.

He still claims to be nonmagical, of course.

He had also been out of town during the near-apocalypse. Issei had come back to his fellow manager hospitalized and Tadashi nearly so—he’s done with most of the bandages, but his shoulder is going to scar, and honestly, he’d rather it that way. He doesn’t need Hitoka to waste her time on him when he’s still kicking. He also doesn’t want to erase the reminder of how badly he’d failed.

Matsukawa Issei: enjoyed a pleasant vacation home to see family to announce his relationship to them and, according to him, plan an elopement.

The rest of the city: near-apocalypse.

Issei is still stubbornly pretending like none of it had happened. Tadashi doesn’t mean to rain on his parade, but he’s the only other one with tracking magic that he knows, and it’s been months. Things are healing. The city as a whole is healing, if changing, too.

But Suga is still gone.

“Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to recall that you’re on the clock right now,” Issei calls over his shoulder. “I can find work for you to do if you’re bored, Yamaguchi.”

Tadashi knows a threat when he hears one, and he does not want to have to build another display. It’s a quiet day, but there are always small tasks to do, small tasks he’d far rather do. And a few of them are even near Kei.

“Any luck?” Kei asks, sliding off his headphones as Tadashi nears. His eyes still shine bright gold beneath his new glasses, but otherwise, he’s evened out. Stabilized. Greatly enjoying studying to reenter high school (despite how he complains) and not having to wear strange glamors.

Less thrilled about Suga missing and Kuroo avoiding him, but at least they’re both here, alive, whole.

Tadashi perches on the edge of the chair, and Kei leans his head against Tadashi’s back. “We’ll find something, Tsukki. It’s not fair that they’re trying to pin everything on him, but it seems like he has a plan, so…”

“Faking his death isn’t really a plan. It’s hardly even a step in the plan, apparently,” Kei murmurs.

“Tired again?”

“Hungry.”

“I’ll ask around and see if I can get any jobs,” Tadashi offers, though he can already feel Kei’s glare. Eating is still a prickly subject, but at least hunger is a good motivator. And doing all sorts of cleanup and magical pest control jobs has earned Tadashi a lot of goodwill with the remains of the covens. Especially since other hunters have turned their back on witches entirely.

But that’s weirdly political, and Tadashi is Perfectly Fine playing up the innocent and naive teenager angle to duck out from all of that bullshit.

“Ask Daishou again,” Kei grumbles.

“He’s keen on you. And he’s made it pretty clear he’s washing his hands of us after we ran off. If Suga paid him off, then we can’t match that.” They’re barely able to stay afloat in their apartment as it is, and that’s including selling old magical artifacts of Akiteru’s. Tadashi hadn’t realized how generous Kiyoko had been with jobs until he’d been left to fend for himself. Tooru has done what he can, but he has his own plate full, and Tadashi doesn’t blame him for trying to play things close to the chest, too.

Tadashi runs his fingers through Kei’s short hair a few times, coming off with fine gold dust on his fingertips. Luck can’t save them all the time.

“We could ask Kenma,” Tadashi mildly suggests.

Kei pulls away from him and resumes studying. Pointedly.

“Kuroo isn’t avoiding you, I’m sure they’re just busy.”

“Kuroo is a mess. You didn’t see him, and I don’t want you to. If they want to cut ties, fine.”

“You’re not really fine with that,” Tadashi points out, soft as he can. “I miss them, too.”

Kei glares at him out of the corner of his eye. “…Kuroo’s leaving, Tadashi. Kenma’s probably going with him. We can’t rely on them for much help, either.”

“What do you mean, leaving?” Tadashi asks. Cold fear drips down his spine; he can’t handle losing any more friends right now. Sure, Kenma has always been skittish, and sure, he’s prone to avoidance, but he’s also helped them when they needed him. He steps up when needed.

“I mean we’re on our own, Tadashi. It’s something else we have to get used to.”

--

“Kenma, you’re being ridiculous,” Akaashi nearly snaps. “Be an adult about this.”

“I have been,” Kenma replies from beneath the comforter. “I have already said my goodbyes. Go away now.”

Lev makes a sympathetic noise from outside his cocoon, and Kenma feels another awkwardly hard pat. “Akaashi, be a little nicer. Please?”

“No, because the only thing more pathetic than this literal lump is the fact that Tetsurou is nearly in tears out there. Kenma, I will not allow you to ignore him like this. I can’t console both he and Koutarou at the same time,” Akaashi grumbles. They tug on the blanket, but it doesn’t budge.

“He spelled it,” Lev explains as if it weren’t obvious.

“Kenma, you are not going to like what my next plan of action is,” Akaashi warns with another pull on the comforter.

Kenma ignores them even so. Oh, sure, he’ll get a lot of shit for this after the fact, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that Kenma can’t stand to say goodbye to Kuro in company. He knows he’s going to cry. He can’t stand crying in front of others, especially Akaashi. Especially Lev.

Especially Kuro.

They had already said goodbye to each other, privately. Kenma understands Kuro’s reasoning. He won’t argue with him about it; what is he supposed to say to the person he forced memories of an old life upon? Kenma will not be a further reason for Kuro’s misery.

Who knew that being accidentally bound to an annoyingly clever demon would lead to this sort of life.

Akaashi clicks their teeth at him, the only warning before the entire bed is abruptly picked up. Lev squawks and falls against Kenma, and Kenma nearly rolls off the bed. “This is very difficult with only one arm,” Akaashi tells him without remorse, “and I would hate to have to break the wall in order to carry this out.”

Kenma pops out of his blanket bundle with a fierce glower. “You’re an asshole.”

“Yes, and this asshole will console you later. But first, it is Tetsurou’s turn, and then, you and I will both console Koutarou,” Akaashi says with narrowed eyes. They drop the bed with a whump and Lev and Kenma knocks heads.

“When is your turn, hm?” Kenma snaps because his anger is the last defense he has.

“Do I get a turn?” Lev asks, inadvertently trampling all over their budding argument. “I’m going to miss him, too, but I suppose you miss people differently if you spend most of your time kissing. I don’t want to say love, but I think that’s sort of a factor. And I’m really only saying this because Kenma’s too sad to hit me right now.”

Kenma tries, anyway, but Lev catches his fist and pets it instead. Kenma wishes he could bite him.

“Let’s go, Kenma,” Lev says with far too much gentleness. He drags Kenma out of bed. Kenma butts his head against him stubbornly, but he cooperates. Mostly.

They find Kuro and Bokuto entwined on the couch, both of them dry-eyed but exceptionally weary. Kuro has his head pillowed on Bokuto’s chest, his legs bent up so he can fit on the couch. He’s gotten good enough at settling to get rid of the horns now, but apparently he’s feeling too sorry for himself to get rid of most else. His wings fall over them like a very pathetic blanket, and his tail has wound itself around Bokuto’s ankle.

“I don’t want to go,” Kuro glumly announces as soon as he sees Kenma.

Which Kenma knew he’d do. They’ve been back and forth on this for a month now. This is why Kenma didn’t want to be out here—he’s going to have to kick out Kuro at this rate.

“Tetsurou,” Akaashi says sternly, hand on their hip, patience already gone. (Rather, Kenma thinks, their impatience is shielding their own fragility in this moment.)

“I know. Closure. My own life. My old life.” Kuro shifts so he can bury his face in Bokuto’s chest instead of look at them. “I know. I want—I don’t want to leave, but I feel like I’m suffocating.”

Bokuto lifts his head so he’s not directly on him. “We know, Kuroo. You don’t gotta go through all this again.” They’ve all been over this uncountable times.

Kuro needs to leave, because of his old life, because of what they had done to his psyche. What Kenma did, really, though no one has outright said that. Kenma isn’t equipped to help Kuro navigate not only new (old) memories, but the warring sense of self within him. He could do that in a video game, because a video game character is directly controlled by him and he’s privy to all of their thoughts.

But Kuro is his own person. And that’s what this really all boils down to.

It’s time for both of them to let go of their bond.

Lev elbows Kenma in the side, far more savagely than Kenma thinks he deserves now. Even if self-pity is a poor look for him.

Kenma digs around in his pocket until he comes up with the amulet. “You lost your old one, and you’d need a stronger one, anyway, so…” Kenma thrusts it out at arm’s length. The sun stone and ruby amulet glints prettily, and Kuro tracks the movement as it swings from his grasp. “Here. It should help you stay settled and hidden.”

Kuro slithers off Bokuto, still staring at the amulet with something akin to reverence. “Thank you,” he says, just a step above a whisper, and handles it like glass.

“Even if it’s Europe, not everyone is magic-friendly there. Practice your magic, and don’t get caught.” He’s not saying anything new, but Kenma feels better if he stresses it. Turkey may be home to plenty of old magic, but most humans won’t take kindly to an archdemon traipsing around. Kuro can (hypothetically) take care of himself.

Kenma had barely stopped himself from creating some sort of transcontinental alarm bell for him.

(The only things that had really stopped him were the fact that he would have had to have had so much travel and research on the goblin market system that he may as well have gone with Kuro, and the fact that Bokuto wanted a spell that worked in the tengu realm as well. Kenma may be a spellwriter, but he’s not a miracle worker.)

“Most spirits and witches can fly better than you,” Bokuto chimes in, “so don’t try to run that way. You still suck at flying.”

“Did you learn to fly in a couple of weeks?” Kuro snaps back without heat.

“It took him significantly longer,” Akaashi deadpans. Bokuto scowls at them both. Kenma almost allows himself a smile, but he does when he sees that Kuro’s mouth has quirked up on one side. “But Koutarou’s point remains. Don’t be stupid, Tetsurou. Discretion is your friend.”

“When have I ever not been discrete?”

Their silence is enough. Even Lev looks dubious at that one.

“Well, fine. I’ll discover myself, see if I have any family around, write a lot of letters, and try not to get burned at the stake.”

“Dissection is more likely,” Lev points out. “Especially if you’re visiting the university!”

“It’s a vivisection if he’s still alive,” Akaashi says, eyebrow arched. “Do avoid that, Tetsurou. I don’t want to see your insides again.”

The silence becomes thick again, awkward in that way only Akaashi and Kuro can seem to ignore, and neither Kenma nor Bokuto can look at anyone. Midna, however, saves their farewell from crashing and burning with a loud yowl announcing her presence.

She waddles out of the bedroom, no longer kitten toddling but instead awkwardly carrying a burden nearly her own size, and drags Kenma’s Pusheen plush out to Tetsurou’s face. Kenma has adjusted rather well to having a familiar, but the borderline mind reading has taken some getting used to.

“Aw, Midna wants to give you a goodbye present, too!” Lev coos, bending down to pet her. She drops the plush at Tetsurou’s feet and meows again.

Kenma is sure there’s a metaphor for substitute familiars in there somewhere, but based on the stupid smirk Kuro has on his face, Kenma thinks he may be a borderline mind reader, too. Maybe this space will be good for both of them.

“Thanks, princess,” Kuro says fondly, and she allows him to pet her, too. “I’ll miss you, even if it’s not mutual.”

“I’m sure she’ll miss you. You’re her third favorite napping place.” First favorite: Kenma. Second favorite: ratty old cardboard box. Third favorite: anywhere that allows her free rein of licking Kuro’s hair. (Fourth favorite: anywhere that aggravates Akaashi.)

Kuro beams up at Kenma, and Midna butts her head against his hand one last time before he straightens. “I’ll make sure to write her some letters, too. Maybe just some post scripts on yours, but I’m sure I can spare some attention for her. Unless you get jealous.”

“I won’t,” Kenma flatly replies, although he already knows how much he will value these letters. They both know.

When it finally comes to the actual, final farewells, it is little surprise that Bokuto and Lev get teary. Kuro and Lev laugh over one last Black Butler joke. Bokuto hugs Kuro so fiercely he nearly breaks his wings (again), and Kuro must begin his goodbyes to Akaashi while still hefted in his arms.

“Be safe, Tetsurou,” Akaashi says with a soft smile. They cup his face, and he leans into them with his own gentleness. “Be smart, and find what you’re looking for, but above all else, remain safe. Make sure you come back to us in one piece.”

“Of course I will. And it’ll take a pretty stupid person to want to mess with an archdemon, right?”

“There is no shortage of stupid people in the world.”

“Alright, point taken,” Kuro replies and kisses their palm. “Bo, are we really going to keep this up?”

“I’ll carry you to the goblin market!”

“No,” Kenma breaks in. They’d already agreed that Kuro would leave on his own; no one wanted messy, public goodbyes, save perhaps Bokuto.

Bokuto squeezes Kuro one last time, enough to make him wheeze, then sets him down like glass. Kuro hardly waits a beat before whirling around and picking him up, more easily than he ever had before, and Bokuto laughs for the first time in what feels like eons.

“Keiji should be warning me about getting hauled around by strange tengu. Seems like I have a problem with that,” Kuro says before burrowing his face into the crook of Bokuto’s neck.

“If you end up with any other tengu, I’ll be jealous! But get pictures. I bet I have the best plumage.”

Kuro’s response ends up muffled, so Bokuto pries him away with infinite fondness and significantly less gentleness. Kuro wrinkles his nose, but he’s grinning, and doesn’t seem to mind the claws tight in his hair. “I’d go through another five lives before I ever think about straying from the two tengu that are already a handful.”

“You couldn’t handle another tengu,” Akaashi points out, and while Kuro pouts, he doesn’t disagree.

“Just make sure you come back to us sooner rather than later. I’ll miss you too much to wait!” Bokuto exclaims. He and Kuro exchange another flurry of kisses, both of them laughing and nipping at each other, and Akaashi rolls their eyes, fond and indulgent as ever.

Then, it’s Kenma’s turn, and Kuro comes back into his arms like he’s coming home.

There isn’t much to be said that hasn’t already been said. Kenma puts the amulet on Kuro for him, touch lingering as much as he can stand, and Kuro remains hunched so they’re nearly eye-level. Kenma maintains eye contact as long as he can, but his eyes slide away, to Kuro’s strong jaw, and down the slope of his neck.

“I’ll miss you, Kenma,” Kuro tells him.

“I’ll miss you, too.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Kenma looks back up at him. “Yes.”

--

Sawamura Daichi has been through some top tier magical bullshit in the past several weeks. He’s not complaining about the recovery from the brink of death thing, though his voice is still pretty wrecked, and he’s not terribly fond of the scar. He’s less fond of the memories and the fucking ghosts he can catch out of the corner of his eye now. He’s had to attend two funerals.

But there were upsides. Though he doesn’t understand a lot of the nuance of what happened, he knows Ushijima got caught, the city is now fully magically aware, and things are rebuilding, if slowly. Daichi’s been regarded as a hero. He doesn’t feel like one, hardly out of the hospital and ditched like a shitty prom date, but there were perks to being a hero.

Such as getting part of his vorpal sword back.

It’d been mostly melted by Northot, but vorpium is valuable, and they were able to turn it back into two smaller hunting knives instead. Daichi has one, and the other went to the new mayor as a symbolic whatever. Daichi doesn’t care. The man can’t even hold it without burning himself.

So hero Sawamura Daichi, scarred and tired and wanting a hell of a lot of answers, uses an old habit and shoves his magic-eating knife between the door and frame to Suga’s (old) apartment.

Tadashi had told him what had happened—what had actually happened, not what they said as they lowered an empty casket into the ground. Daichi knows Suga, and he knows that Suga likes to play avoidant in times of crisis. He knows Suga would willingly sacrifice a lot to maintain peace.

And Daichi is having None Of It.

The door pops free like it has in the past, and Daichi slips inside. He knows Suga had charmed the landlord, or something, to mostly remain untouched and at a fixed rent rate, but he’s surprised at how little has changed. There is still the quilt thrown over the old couch, still a mess of books and notebooks, still smelling slightly too strongly of candles. It’s almost like he never left at all—though if Suga had really just been hiding in his own apartment all this time, Daichi is going to let him have it.

His surprise snaps into shock when Sunshine trots out from the direction of the bedroom. He pauses when he looks at Daichi, then meows and comes right up to him. “Sunny, there you are—have you been here the entire time?” Daichi pets him, feeling terrible, but the cat is well-fed and doesn’t seem unhealthy. He knows cats can hunt for themselves, but has someone been feeding him?

So Suga has time for his cat, but not Daichi. His scowl deepens.

Sunshine complains when Daichi tries to pick him up, so he leaves the cat be. He’s here for any sign of Suga—Suga himself would be best, angel things be damned—but in lieu of that, then a belonging for Tadashi to use. It’s a hollow reminder of their scramble to do the same on apocalypse day.

Daichi hears something—someone?—from deeper within the apartment, and he tightens his grip on the knife. But he heads toward the noise, anyway.

He hardly gets two feet before someone pads out of the bathroom. “Yuu, I told you I’d come over when I was done,” the woman calls before pulling up short at Daichi’s presence.

She has a wet towel covering her hair, just long enough to cover her breasts. The only clothes the woman wears are an old pair of boxers, snug on her hips, and she’s still wet and flushed from her shower.

She stares at Daichi. He stares back.

Daichi doesn’t blame her for screaming, and he doesn’t blame her for throwing him into the wall with magic. A strange man in your apartment, holding a knife, and you’re just coming out of the shower—it’s literally the setup to a horror movie.

That said, when he comes to again, laid out on the couch with a very flustered witch bent over him armed with an ice pack, Daichi thinks he’s really been through enough at this point.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she says, still mostly undressed, towel now around her shoulders. Her hair is short, perhaps about Suga’s length, but chocolate brown. “Oh god, you’re okay, you’re okay, right?”

Daichi groans. His voice is still hoarse, and he sees her look down at his throat when he tries to move.

“Shh, c’mon, slowly now. You’ll be fine. I didn’t hit you that hard—sorry about that! I didn’t recognize you at first. You’re Daichi, right? My name is Yui, Michimiya Yui, and I—well, I’m an old friend of Koushi’s, let’s say,” she rambles on, clearly nervous, but Daichi won’t begrudge her that.

She helps him to sit up, ice pack at the ready, but Daichi manages. “Hi,” he grunts as soon as the room stops swaying.

When Daichi glances up again, he finds her staring at him with big, doe eyes. Pretty, and unlike Suga’s. “Hi,” Yui breathes like she’s meeting someone incredibly important.

Daichi wonders why the name sounds familiar. “You… old friend of Suga’s?” That’s probably where he’d heard the name, but it had never come up with any sort of frequency, compared to others.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he didn’t talk about me much, but—oh, I’ve heard so much about you!” Yui beams at him, as bright as the sun. It looks like she’s gotten over her starstruck moment, which Daichi is privately grateful for. He needs a bit of time to process this. “Nice to meet you. Properly! Sorry, again, for blasting you. It’s not every day a handsome stranger breaks into your apartment—and Sunny, what a horrible little guard cat you make!”

Weirdly, it’s Sunshine as he trots up with tail held high that does it for Daichi. He remembers Suga mentioning Yui—as the cat’s original owner. He’d always spoken of her in past tense. Daichi doesn’t know how to bring up the conversational topic of Hey Didn’t You Used To Be Dead, because along with this realization comes another: how had Yui heard about Daichi, comparatively recent in Suga’s life?

There are always mutual friends, but suspicion is already gnawing at his brain.

Someone has to know where Suga is, after all. And with Kiyoko gone, Tooru lost, and Tadashi just as frantic as Daichi, the list is slim.

“Don’t take it out on the cat. He’s probably hoping I brought Dinah with me,” Daichi says, and holds out his hand for Sunshine to rub against. “We used to have pet dates,” he adds, as if an afterthought. An offer.

Yui lights up, and Daichi thinks it won’t be all that hard to befriend her. “Pet dates!” she exclaims in sort of a whispered shriek. “That’s so fucking cute! I’d never heard anything about those, but that sounds—I mean, if your Dinah is getting lonely, I wouldn’t want to neglect anything. Plus, I think Sunny’s been getting lonely, too, maybe. It’s all a big adjustment.”

Sunshine jumps up onto her lap, foregoing Daichi’s attention entirely, and meows up at her as if to disagree.

“By adjustment… I’m not really great with all of the terminology, but weren’t you, erm… dead? And not like Suga was… sometimes dead.” Wow, out of context, he sounded like a freak. A necrophiliac freak. Daichi sighs through his nose and massages his temples. “Sorry. Big adjustment.”

“It’s okay, I’ve been helping a lot of people with those,” Yui kindly replies, and rubs circles on his back. She is potentially a far nicer person than Daichi deserves right now, considering he broke into her (new? old?) home and he’s mostly thinking of some way to get her to spill about Suga’s current whereabouts.

“A funeral is a pretty big one,” he mutters, head still in his hands, now between his knees. “But I don’t know what the opposite of a funeral is. What’s it like, coming back to life?”

“Oh, well,” she hedges with a nervous titter. “Got hazed by the covens, before Foxglove kicked it. The reunion with Sunny was really great. The circumstances suck ass, yeah, but I’m trying to maintain a positive outlook, because it’s about the only thing I have left going anymore. Y’know, grief!”

It’s so unfair of Daichi to dismiss what her life must be right now. He feels like a dick. But he deserves some goddamn answers—he deserves a good thing or two, too, like his fucking boyfriend not trying to run away from his entire life.

It’s on the tip of his tongue, Yamaguchi told me about Suga, I know he can’t really be dead, please for the love of god tell me where he is, but Daichi knows a thing or two about the virtues of honey versus vinegar and flies. This woman is still a stranger to him, and if she hadn’t spoken to any of their other, older friends, then he stands little chance.

“At least you can binge all of your favorite shows in one sitting now,” Daichi says instead.

Yui cocks her head like a confused, politely attentive, dog.

“Netflix is better now. Cell phones are pretty great nowadays. The internet is pretty good too, when they’re not trying to censor the shit out of it. It’s easier to get married if you’re gay in a lot of countries, and I think we’re managing to save the pandas a bit more,” he continues, and Yui continues paying attention, though her confusion is palpable. Daichi offers her a wry grin. “Sorry, I just thought you could use a few good things. I’m not really sure when you, uh, died, or what you’re interested in, but you were Suga’s friend, so I took an educated guess.”

He sees the realization spark in her eyes, and she grins, wide and sincere. “That’s very sweet of you. I lost about four years, so you know, and technology and politics are a bit beyond me right now. But it’s really, really nice to hear about some silver linings.”

Daichi smiles back, and he hopes it doesn’t look as strained as it feels.

Yui leans in a little, and lowers her voice to an embarrassed, conspiratorial whisper. “Would you happen to know Koushi’s Netflix password? I’ve managed to get into his laptop and phone, but I’m still working on some other stuff.”

Daichi stares at her, blankly, processing the fact that she is so bluntly trying to ask for Daichi’s help in this. In breaking into Suga’s things. (Not that Daichi, the pot, will be calling that kettle black.)

Yui continues, as if trying to explain to him. “People use stuff like significant others’ birthdays, right? Anniversary? Favorite food?”

Ask him yourself, he wants to say, but an old, frigid fear begins settling back over him. What if she couldn’t ask Suga because he was really gone? Daichi is grasping at straws, he knows, but his gut burns for that hope. Tadashi wouldn’t lie, but maybe he hadn’t known all the pieces. It’s not as if Daichi can call him out on his lack of technical magical knowledge.

“…I like ramen, but I don’t think Suga would have used something like that,” Daichi mumbles.

“Worth a shot. Free time is something I’m getting used to having again, since Tooru is ignoring me and K—well, people are gone. You’d think people would be a little more cognizant of a bored spellwriter, but what can you do,” Yui says, like she means it to be a joke, but Daichi doesn’t find it funny. “Maybe we could see each other again, sometime? It’d be nice to get to know some of… well, at the risk of sounding macabre, Koushi’s life without me! Plus, Sunny likes you, and that gives you about a billion brownie points in my book.”

Sunshine meows again in agreement. Yui beams again, petting him, then fishing around in the couch cushions before coming up with Suga’s old burner phone.

“Did his usual phone get fried?” Daichi remembers Suga leaving it at home specifically because he didn’t trust it at the Old Moon Ball, but there was a lot that went on during that day that Daichi was unaware of, so who knew.

“Yet another thing I got locked out of.”

“I can help with that one, at least,” he offers, and takes it from her. He punches in the passcode and finds the homescreen as he remembers it: a picture of himself and Suga, grinning and and laughing together.

Daichi mutely hands it back.

Yui sighs, small and sympathetic. “…Are there any pictures or anything you want off this? I could send them to you. I suppose your number’s already in here.”

“Yeah,” Daichi agrees, though he’s not sure to what. He knows he’s one of Suga’s speed dials. He should have most of the pictures already on here, too, and he’s not sure he wants to look through everything. Not with Yui right there, and because Suga isn’t gone.

“Well, here. Show me how to change the code, and all these other fancy new technological inventions. Because back in my day, phones definitely weren’t this complicated,” Yui says, and Daichi snorts despite himself.

“How old are you?” Daichi has to ask. Suga had barely been older than him, after all.

“Well. Legally, twenty-seven. Physically, I’m not too mad about that part, at least,” she replies, shrugging. “I’ll always look a little better than average for my age. Not the worst thing in the world.”

“And you don’t even know how to work a phone,” he says, a stab at humor, but at least she chuckles for his benefit. Daichi scrolls through the settings of the phone, ignoring the very tempting photo album, as well as Suga’s ever-full notes section.

He pauses scrolling when he hits the location services setting.

Daichi glances up, but Yui is petting Sunshine, and hardly paying attention. She could very easily find it later and turn it off. He’s pretty sure this is illegal. Hell, she probably has magic to guard against this sort of thing. She probably doesn’t even know where Suga is, and who knows if she’d visit him, and this is a far shot in the dark.

But four years is a lot to miss in the world of technology.

Daichi hits ON, then keeps scrolling. “I’ll change the code to Suga’s birthday, unless you want something else,” he tells her, and Yui just beams at him again.

--

Governmental legality has rarely mattered much to the coven system. Significantly less to covens like Eyebright, large and powerful and admittedly bloated on their own power. That’s the direct reasoning given for the disbanding of the large covens, plus the cap put on membership, and that much, at least, Wakatoshi understands.

It stings, that Eyebright was disbanded because of him, because of Atsumu and Osamu refusing to cooperate in uncovering his actions, but at least Wakatoshi understands that, too. He understands that Foxglove was disbanded because of Shimizu Kiyoko’s actions, though that is admittedly bitter, too.

But at least he understands.

This, however, he does not understand.

This is only cruelty.

With Northot gone from the plane, gone from his fucking life and head, Wakatoshi had naively assumed that its curse would go along with it, even if it took time. All magic fades as soon as its source died. Even the most comprehensive spellwork couldn’t last forever.

But it’s been months.

Wakatoshi had expected imprisonment.

This is torture.

It is fascinating to find that pain can be overcome when the mind finally—as much as it is able to—comprehends that death will not happen. Pain is only meant to be a deterrent to avoid death, after all, and Wakatoshi repels it like a magnet.

He is restrained from his Door as before, but now, nothing looms over him. Nothing taunts him. He is alone with his thoughts and his Door.

He can’t recall how many times he’s been put to death for his crimes, his crimes which were never supposed to happen. He’d only wanted Athena back—he’d only wanted himself back. Northot was never supposed to have gotten loose.

He should have let Taichi die.

He shouldn’t have let Tendou die.

Should he have accepted his hollowed-out life as his new normal? Wakatoshi had the power to change it, to reclaim what he’d lost, and he still sees no crime in fighting for himself. He knows any of them would have done the same, had they the courage or the means.

Selfish, yes, but humanity wanted to be selfish. Wakatoshi, left alone with his thoughts, still sees nothing wrong in that.

The regret and guilt he feels tell him otherwise.

So many died because of him. He hadn’t meant to, it had never been his intention, but that blood was on his hands. Wakatoshi could almost bear that guilt, if it had not been for Tendou as well.

Worst—he would not trade Athena back for Tendou.

She’s just a bird, he knows. She’s just a familiar. But she’s part of him, key to his strength, a piece of his whole self. Why should he have to give up his self for anyone else?

The paradoxical thing is that he would gladly give his life to bring Tendou back.

But not Athena.

And his life isn’t worth much these days, anyway. Tendou deserves better.

Eyebright Coven may be gone, but its thirst for knowledge lives on, and in familiar faces at that. First, Wakatoshi had been insulted, angry that his old coven mates would stoop so low as to use him for fucking magical experimentation. Yes, Eyebright witches were known for getting into trouble, for bending the law, for questioning morality. But they’d always learned so much from it.

Wakatoshi had thought them above the rumors.

Apparently not.

Facts Wakatoshi has learned about deathlessness along with the bastards experimenting upon him under the guise of justice: his body will only heal as much as it takes to bring him back to life, they can reattach limbs with little real effort, and it is not tied directly to his magic.

He’d known the first two already. When he drifts in and out of sleep, he thinks of Tendou, skin as red as his hair for all of Wakatoshi’s blood on him. Grinning, tail wagging, and just as confident as ever.

It’s funny, how easily rescue comes.

There’s no fanfare. No gunshots, no yelling, no fighting. It literally comes not with a bang, but with a whisper.

Wakatoshi blinks blearily up at the sight of not angry witches above him, not disgusted police, not cold guards—Semi Eita leans over into his vision, two-toned hair falling into his eyes, so close the dark ends nearly brush Wakatoshi’s cheeks.

“Where’s Tendou?” he asks without inflection.

“Gone,” Wakatoshi rasps, because Eita must have some idea of that if he’s come this far. Another seeking revenge. This is the sharpest sting by far.

“What do you mean, gone?”

Shirabu butts his head against Eita’s, shoving him out of Wakatoshi’s face, and Wakatoshi is surprised to actually see him. He’d nearly forgotten how young he was. Eita rears back with a hiss, but Shirabu follows his movement and claps his hand over Eita’s mouth. Eita’s eyes narrow to slits.

“What do you mean, gone?” Shirabu repeats.

Wakatoshi stares at the velvet stumps barely long enough to part his hair around them. “Where did your antler go?”

Shirabu flushes, angry or embarrassed, and Wakatoshi flinches on reflex.

Both Shirabu and Eita stare at him. Wakatoshi feels something like shame, relatively foreign to him, and certainly unwelcome.

“They’re growing back,” Shirabu says carefully, studying him, “but I lost the other against Northot. If you want somewhere to direct all the anger from the bullshit they’ve put you through, I think the freckled magic kid ended up with it.”

Wakatoshi’s last memory of Yamaguchi Tadashi was of the boy refusing to kill him. Noble. Naive. Utterly irrelevant. He feels no anger toward him—nor gratitude. “Do you want it back?”

“Why do you care about him?” Eita breaks in with inadvertent rudeness. “You’re the one—you’re a mess, even for a human. Especially for a human! Do you know how much of a tizzy you have the city witches in? There are a lot of unkind rumors, and I haven’t heard anything about Tendou. What the hell happened to you two?”

“We couldn’t find you,” Shirabu says like he’s confessing something. Wakatoshi had never thought to hold it against him. “We looked—Taichi and I searched everywhere, but we were both—by the time we caught up with you, you’d gotten hauled in.” He doesn’t apologize, directly, but regret drips from his words.

Wakatoshi looks away. “I don’t blame you. I don’t blame anyone for where I ended up,” he admits.

Eita helps him sit up better, and Shirabu breaks the manacles on his wrists preventing magic use. Wakatoshi rubs feeling back into his hands. He stares at them instead of his rescuers.

He has always been a blunt man, he knows. He doesn’t want to tell them about Tendou, but he doesn’t fear it. But he does think, briefly, that he ought to ask for their help securing Athena before they both turn on him.

But Eita had done much to help him for Tendou’s sake, so he deserves better. Shirabu certainly has done more than Wakatoshi had ever asked of him. “Tendou is gone,” Wakatoshi softly tells them. “I sealed him away in the Dreamlands when I tried to banish Northot. The spell succeeded, but the goal failed, and it was my fault.”

“Wait, so he’s stuck somewhere?” Eita asks, concern clear as day, but not the fear and hate Wakatoshi had expected. “We need to get him next, then. Get on it, tracker, and I’ll cover our exit while your stag of a lover drags him out of here. There’s no way you can lift him, and if I run out of breath, we’ll all be thrown in this hellhole.”

Shirabu, now glaring at Eita, kneels to lift Wakatoshi as easily as ever. Every old ache and pain makes themselves known again, causing him to grunt. The only strain otherwise is the size difference.

“Okay then,” Eita huffs, folding his arms, “you carry him, little buck. We can discuss our next step once we are out from beneath the witch noses. Things have still not imploded yet, so we ought to sneak back out before they do.”

“I need Athena,” Wakatoshi says at once.

“Taichi’s on it. We know better than to leave your cherished little bird behind,” Shirabu replies, voice laced with humor, but not warmth.

Wakatoshi does not understand why they are still speaking with him. “I locked Tendou away,” he tries again, though every logical cell in his body screams at him to stop trying to turn them away. His desire to be reunited properly with his familiar outweighs any and all safety concerns.

But they deserve to know, and he doesn’t think they actually understand.

“In the Dreamlands, right,” Shirabu says and pushes Wakatoshi’s head down so he doesn’t knock it on the door frame. Eita ducks out in front of them, scanning the empty hallway, footsteps light and cautious. “I remember you explaining the backup plan spell. Not that I understand much human magical jargon, but I know how other realms work well enough.”

“He’s gone. It’s my fault,” Wakatoshi tries again.

“You said it was an accident?”

“I did not mean to, but—”

“Look, I had to deal with months of you two making googly eyes at each other. You both risked your necks to help me get Taichi back. I know you wouldn’t hurt Tendou on purpose, and to be frank, I have a difficult time believing that he did not have some hand in this. He tends to stick his nose too deep into black magic.”

“Northot dragged him into the circle to try to get me to stop, and I didn’t,” Wakatoshi bursts out. The scene replays, again and again, in his mind’s eye. “Northot specifically targeted him because of me.”

“Northot targeted all of us because of you,” Shirabu flatly reminds him, “initially. We didn’t make friends with it, either, you know. We can talk this out later, when I don’t feel so damn exposed, and when Tendou’s friend isn’t going to brainwash either of us. We’ll be out of here shortly.”

“…I need Athena,” Wakatoshi replies, because he absolutely cannot bear to continue the Tendou conversation when Shirabu is so cavalier about it. He must understand, he had lost his dear friend to tengu imprisonment for some time, but his dismissal irritates and confuses him.

He opens his mouth to say more, to perhaps try again, but a woman approaches them from the adjacent hallway. Eita is ahead of them, he doesn’t see her—Wakatoshi trusts Shirabu to handle his weight as he leans up over his shoulder to take aim at the woman.

“Woah, hold on!” Shirabu jostles him, nearly drops him, and Wakatoshi is so rusty with his own goddamn magic that he cannot cast for a precious second. “Wait, wait, that’s Taichi! With your bird!”

“Stop,” Eita says from ahead, and Wakatoshi slumps in Shirabu’s arms.

His hands are leaden with unspent magic, and his mind is sluggish and slow. Annoyed. Still guilty.

As soon as the not-witch nears properly, her appearance melts back into something more familiar. In one step, a human woman, and in the next, a tall, antlered man with tired eyes and a wan smile. Taichi looks healthier than Wakatoshi has ever seen him, no longer gaunt and bruised, but Wakatoshi still stalls out at the sight of a figure looming over him with antlers.

But Taichi pulls Athena out from within his coat, and Wakatoshi’s latent fears are banished.

She’s grown. Again. She is no longer fluffy or awkwardly proportioned, but has proper feathers, and seems more like herself. Her wings have been clipped, and the feathers around her neck are matted and broken like she’d been collared, but she is a sight so familiar that Wakatoshi drunkenly tries to reach for her, anyway.

“Nice to see you again, too,” Taichi says with amusement as he hands her over.

His familiar chirps and eagerly presses into his touch. He feels as if he is holding something infinitely precious, a small flame long lost, and for the first time in months, he actually feels like himself again.

“Does this mean you’re alright now?” Eita breaks in.

Wakatoshi lifts his head from Athena to find three nonhumans staring at him curiously.

It occurs to him, after a heavy beat, that they do not understand how a witch and familiar operate; they had actually expected their reunion to be something magical, perhaps healing. But Wakatoshi still aches in a dozen places, his magic is still rusty from disuse, and… damn it, he does feel better.

“I still cannot walk,” he says, a touch defensively.

“Try,” Eita orders, “because Shirabu is far too slow carrying you.”

“Your bedside manner still leaves much to be desired,” Taichi drawls, and Eita shoots him a dirty look over his shoulder.

“I got you up and running again, didn’t I?”

“Shapeshifters are easy to heal.”

“No, they’re not,” Eita and Shirabu reply in wearied unison.

Taichi grins in a self-satisfied, airy way that Wakatoshi had never expected of him. He knows so little of him, knows so little of Shirabu, and hardly anything of Eita, either. And they have apparently established a rapport without him.

For the first time, Wakatoshi feels like the one left out.

Eita orders off an actual witch and his dog familiar while Shirabu helps Wakatoshi limp out of the prison. It remains a very quiet jailbreak. Every step makes him grit his teeth, biting back his pain, but he doesn’t complain. He cannot help but wonder, however, if this is Eita’s way of punishing him for losing Tendou. For sealing away Tendou.

Wakatoshi blinks when they successfully make it outside. He hasn’t seen the sunlight in weeks. Athena stretches her wings and basks, just like Wakatoshi, who turns his face up toward the sun with sudden and overwhelming gratitude.

“Touching, but you can photosynthesize when we’re safe. Taichi, your turn,” Shirabu says, and hands Wakatoshi off.

“Wait,” Wakatoshi croaks, “what is the plan now? I’m wanted—you’re all going to be hunted for this. Especially you two. I thought you would leave, return home.”

Shirabu and Taichi share a very unsubtle look.

“Stop worrying,” Eita says, in his normal voice. “We know. But we need you and your power to collect Tendou again, yes? We couldn’t do that without you, and Tendou wouldn’t have thought you deserved to rot away forever.”

“We’re really grateful,” Taichi begins, but Shirabu elbows him savagely.

“Tendou risked his neck for us. Fair’s fair, and we’re returning the favor.”

“Why do you think I can save Tendou?” Wakatoshi must ask.

“For starters, you are the only one who knows what happened. I don’t know the first thing about human magic. As for the next point, I will make you rescue Tendou to the full extent of your abilities, are we clear?” Eita asks.

Wakatoshi nods. “I would do nothing less.”

“Then it is decided,” Eita says with a sharp smile.

Wakatoshi doesn’t think anything is really decided.

But then he realizes that they have decided. There is no hint of hesitation on any of the faces before him—they have had these past months to work out their own plans. He still must explain the exact nature of what he did to Tendou, and the difficulties they face in unlocking realm borders, but Wakatoshi knows the theory behind it. True, the spell had been based on locking a god in.

But a god hadn’t stopped Ushijima Wakatoshi yet.

Wakatoshi realizes, with Athena pressed against him, standing outside, surrounded by people he’s grown to trust and depend on, that it is not gratitude he feels for their company in the sunlight.

It is hope.

--

“Why did we call it a grand reopening? That’s way too much pressure! This is just a little potion shop, there’s nothing grand about it, and people are just going to want to come and gawk because they know it was Shimizu’s…” Hitoka stops herself before she can spiral.

She takes a deep breath, then another. Tobio eyes her like he’s deciding whether or not she needs outside intervention.

“It was Kiyoko’s potion shop, and people are going to want to visit for that reason,” Hitoka reiterates, mostly for her own benefit. She fixes Tobio with a bright smile she only partially fakes. “But it’s our job to remain courteous and helpful! People can still be customers, even if they just want to gossip. Everyone wants a potion these days, anyway. Do you think we have enough stock?”

The potion shop’s main room is positively brimming with vials, bottles of all colors, and plastic jugs of larger batches. They’ve had to move most of the ingredients into the kitchen just to make room. They could have taken them upstairs, Hitoka knows, and Tobio had offered to do it for her so she wouldn’t have to go into Kiyoko’s old bedroom.

“I think we have enough,” Tobio flatly replies.

They have known each other long enough by now that he knows she does not need his presence to ground her right now. He brushes past, still carrying all the boxes he insists are too heavy for her, Kasa still politely perched on his shoulder.

It’s good business to have a crow in a shop named after them. Maybe she’s spent a little too much time with Tadashi and Kei recently.

She wonders if Shouyou would also be good business, but she figures that may be pushing their luck. Most of the city’s residents are still getting used to charms and lowkey types of potions. It’s why she’ll largely be stocked with things like sleep draughts, luck potions, mild aphrodisiacs, and plant-growing potions today. Easy, simple things. Things that won’t require a lot of explanation or suspension of disbelief.

An excited tengu bouncing around the shop might be a bit Too Much.

Hitoka takes another deep breath. Her hair looks nice, her clothes are stain-free, and she’s borrowed Kiyoko’s old work gloves for the day.

Well, not borrowed. They’re hers now.

Kiyoko left everything to her.

Including a chest containing several letters and little sealed vials of silvery memories, all neatly labeled in familiar handwriting.

Hitoka’s feelings have calmed in the months past the day the world almost ended, but they have not sorted themselves out. She has reclaimed exactly three of the memories: one concerning the shop (all business, explanation and tour of Kiyoko’s organizational system, secrets hidden away in the shop and apartment overhead), one with basic context of what had been done to her and why (Hitoka had cried so hard she’d gotten sick), and one mishmash of fleeting little contextual glimpses of the relationship they’d shared.

She has not had the courage to touch the rest of them, even if they are her memories.

It is enough, in some way, to have the shop and continue working. Potion shops are more popular than ever, both with curious nonmagical folk looking to explore and magical people being able to run errands more easily, and one staffed by a healer is even more so. Hitoka has been careful in how she advertises her healing magic—she will only take care of very light things here, and she has repeatedly stressed that she is not a doctor, nor a clinic.

In a lot of ways, Hitoka is glad the shop is only superficially familiar to her. No, not superficial—after all, she had been helping out here since middle school. She knows the building and its rooms like the back of her hand. She has purposefully reorganized much of it, to add her personal touch, too.

But she has few of the emotions linked to it.

She’s scared of what she may remember about the shop, about Kiyoko, about this life that was hers that she cannot remember, if she continues reclaiming her stolen memories.

Today isn’t about that. Today is about making the potion shop hers, once and for all. She’s going to have customers to help, and questions to answer, and in all likelihood, will probably have to help Tobio out of at least two very awkward social situations. She’s going to be composed, and in charge, and professional. She will smile.

She’ll also make money, hopefully, which is about everything a pre-med student could ever wish for.

When the shop officially opens for business, Hitoka is hardly surprised to find her mother among the little knot of people already waiting. She smiles, wide and genuine, and waves at her. Mai is with her, too, still limping, but smiling just as brightly.

It’s easy to tell which people are new to magic and who are here to revisit an old potion shop. More traffic trickles in as the morning wears on, and Hitoka and Tobio are kept busy. By noon, she’s greatly considering buying a large chalkboard for the wall upon which she can write a Frequently Asked Questions section—it is amazing how many people actually ask for the kind of skeevy love potions that are scarily close to date rape drugs, and Tobio must take over answering those questions before Hitoka sets something on fire—and she has a pretty good sense of how to handle magical newbies.

She vaguely recalls Kiyoko doing the same in the past, walking people through entry level magic. Hitoka doesn’t mind taking up this mantle, either. At least no one will gawk at her for that much.

Just as Hitoka thinks that they can handle this, as professionals and as adults, Shouyou and Goshiki arrive, and all thoughts of a calm environment are thrown out the window.

“We don’t have to wear glamors in here!” Shouyou exclaims, like he’s explaining why two tengu ripped off their glamor charms in the middle of a crowded (and now nearly panicking) shop. “Humans are allowed to know about us now!”

“You fucking dumbass—” Tobio begins, advancing on them both, but Goshiki lets out a squawk when a curious child tugs on his tail and Hitoka throws herself in between them all to prevent tragedy.

She bursts out laughing as soon as they manage to herd the two tengu into their overstuffed kitchen.

“Are you alright?” Goshiki asks, a comical mixture of concerned and affronted. Standard fare for tengu, most spirits actually, but she’s been so busy with the shop and trying to keep Tobio out of the limelight that she hasn’t had much time for goblin market visits.

“This is our new normal,” Hitoka breathlessly tells them.

The two tengu cock their heads in perfect unison. Hitoka laughs harder.

“I don’t get it, either,” Tobio informs them. “But don’t break our store. You might make her hysterical next.”

“Our?” Shouyou asks sharply.

Tobio puffs up in his indignation, looking incredibly like a bird with ruffled feathers himself. Hitoka grasps the kitchen counter to stay upright; her side is getting a stitch in it and she’s going to hyperventilate at this rate. “I am hired by Hitoka. I get a paycheck, and I signed legal documents, and… I work here. You don’t. So there.”

“I want to work here!”

Goshiki looks between them, looking as if he may demand a job as well just to fit in, but instead he ends up saying, “Tengu herbal knowledge is radically different from what will affect humans. You’ll probably end up poisoning someone. Where will we be left then?”

“Tobio,” Hitoka finally manages, and he snaps to attention like a military cadet. “Tobio, pl-please go out and check—and check the front to make sure—that it’s okay out there. Okay? Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes with a perplexed frown. (Default expression.)

Shouyou sidles up to her before the door even swings shut behind him. “Are you okay? I like the fact that we’re not fighting for our lives, and I like being an official clan representative, but I’m not used to you…” He trails off, clearly not wanting to finish that with laughing.

“This is our new normal,” Hitoka gleefully repeats, and clasps his claws in her hands. Shouyou looks down at them, then back up to her eyes. “This—you visiting! Magic everywhere! Stupid customer service questions! Mom was worried that this wasn’t going to end well, but if all that happens is children tugging on feathers every so often…”

“If that happens again, I’m cursing someone.”

“No, you are not. Please.”

“That’s against the rules,” Shouyou smugly adds, eyes crinkled and mouth curled. “We’re forbidden from all contact with humans, magical or physical, unless they initiate it. Because we’re clan representatives! It’s official and everything!”

“They considered our bravery and fighting skill,” Goshiki says and preens with pride. “And it was considered wisest to have, er, young faces to represent tengu in the human realm.”

Hitoka knows it’s because they’re (slightly) less threatening. She also has the sneaking suspicion that both of them might know that themselves, too, but she won’t bring it up. “Congratulations, both of you. You’re welcome at my shop anytime—provided there is no cursing, no fighting, and no damage.”

“Your shop,” Shouyou repeats, glancing around the kitchen, claws inadvertently tightening on Hitoka’s fingers. “So… this is your place now?”

“Yes, Kiyoko left it to me.”

“And your memories…?”

Hitoka catches Goshiki looking between them curiously, but she isn’t bothered. “I’ll work on it, on my own pace. I’m comfortable where I’m at right now, and I want to be happy with having to maintain a potion shop. Tobio has been a big help with that, and support with everything. But that’s for the future, alright?”

Shouyou looks her over, like he’s checking her for sincerity, before nodding.

Then he grins. It’s full of too many teeth, too sharp and too narrow to be human, and as blinding as the sun. “Well, we’ll visit plenty, so you don’t have to deal with stuffy Tobio the entire time. And you can teach us more about human culture!”

“And herbal knowledge. This is supposed to be for research,” Goshiki reminds him. “If you’re willing to teach us, that is. We can trade knowledge, though most of my expertise lies elsewhere, and Hinata is… Hinata.”

“Hey!”

Hitoka thinks about all of the people new to magic and potions. Thinks of all of the questions she’s already repeated today, and how the basics of plants had never hurt anyone to know. She returns Shouyou’s smile with just as much enthusiasm. “I think I’d love to teach you about this.”

She doesn’t need her memories just yet to forge her own future. She can take things when she’s ready; there’s always work to be done in the meantime.

--

“Just always have to upstage us,” Issei sighs, flipping back and forth between magazine pages. Again.

“Stop talking to your best man that way,” Tooru retorts. He tears the magazine from his hands. “Makki is allergic to half of these, and who’s going to hold the bouquet, anyway? You don’t have to pretend to be planning a big, white wedding just for shits and giggles.”

Issei fixes him with a flat look. “Yes, I do. After you upstaged our engagement announcement—”

“Yes, I specifically planned the apocalypse to ensure you didn’t get all the fawning you ever wanted.”

“You would,” Iwaizumi calls over, terribly unhelpful.

Tooru throws the magazine at him, and is viciously pleased when it smacks him in the face. “Please, let’s just drop the white wedding bullshit. It’s hard enough to plan a wedding without you trying to plan two.”

“You know me, I’m a stickler for tradition,” Issei drawls.

“Do you want me to apologize about the fact that you two were out of town for the end of days?”

“That would be hilarious. Please do.”

Tooru shoves Issei’s face into the couch cushions. As one of the few people completely aware of both magical and mundane sides of Matsukawa Issei, plus probably being his friend or something if that could be believed, Tooru had been chosen to be his best man. He’s honored.

But he really should have expected Issei to use his own perfectionism against him. He also should have expected the constant antagonizing.

Iwaizumi yawns, loudly and without covering his mouth, effectively disrupting their growing argument. Tooru half-suspects he did it on purpose. “I think it’s about nap time,” he says without a trace of remorse. “Mattsun, don’t you have a cuddly coyote-shaped pillow to get back to? You can come back when you decide what colors you want.”

“I have a year and a half to decide on colors,” Issei hums, though he begins gathering his stupid magazines anyway.

“You really need to decide on something as basic as colors before then,” Tooru groans into his hands. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because Hiro came back after putting a ring on it and we had to visit you in the hospital,” Issei replies without missing a beat. “You’re never living this one down, Tooru. But on the upside, you have complete permission to use it in your best man speech.”

“Why do you have to give a speech at a wedding?” Iwaizumi asks, nose wrinkled.

Issei laughs sincerely for the first time today. “Have fun with this, Tooru. I’ll see you two later. Maybe I’ll even have a color or two for you.”

“I know they’re both picked already,” Tooru growls at him. He gets only a glimpse—cream, he thinks, and maybe some sort of dark blue—but Issei hasn’t had to deal with all of the psychic bullshit, so his mental walls are as strong as ever.

Issei pats him on the cheek as he leaves. Tooru tries to bite his fingers.

Iwaizumi yawns again as farewell, and the door hardly clicks shut before he’s approaching Tooru, too. “C’mon, I wasn’t joking about the nap time. You can explain all of these weird wedding customs while I fall asleep.”

“If I didn’t think it was so cute you liked bedtime stories, I’d be insulted by your wording,” Tooru huffs, just to be contrary, but he takes Iwaizumi’s scarred hand and follows him toward the bedroom. The bed is still unmade from that morning; Iwaizumi has been rising later and later, and despite Tooru’s insistence, he has yet to make the bed after himself.

“Why are you tied into knots about all of this wedding stuff?” Iwaizumi asks. He plops onto the bed, then tries to yank off his socks with his toes. “I know you get easily stressed, but I think this is eclipsing Suga and Yui at this point.”

Tooru twitches a little at the Forbidden Names.

“Issei wants to move,” Tooru replies, at length, because while Issei hasn’t outwardly said it he hasn’t had to. And Iwaizumi deserves to know, if only to stop Tooru from breaking himself over this. “It wasn’t about the old god stuff—he’s never been alright with magic, not like we are. And after the fiasco with his family and Makki… He wants to leave. I don’t want him to.”

“So you’re trying to bribe him into staying?”

“No,” Tooru maintains, nose in the air, arms crossed tight.

Iwaizumi arches an eyebrow.

“This might be our last hurrah. We need to figure out what sort of track this city is on, and if the new laws are going to help or hurt shapeshifters. This is as much a distraction for him as it is for us,” Tooru relents. He slides into bed beside Iwaizumi, pressing against his cold skin. Iwaizumi welcomes him like he’s coming home. “Not every shapeshifter can be the big, strong, heroic Iwa-chan. There are a lot of very scared people out there, suddenly in a spotlight that isn’t very kind.”

Iwaizumi presses his face into Tooru’s neck with a snore.

Tooru chuckles fondly. He runs his fingers through Iwaizumi’s short hair and keeps speaking. “I wish I could fall asleep easily as you, even if Miyanoshita calls it hibernation. Not that I exactly miss the weird shared dreamspace, I like my own sleep thank you very much, but you always have such odd things on your mind when you sleep now.”

Tooru arranges them a little more comfortably, using some pillows for himself since Iwaizumi deemed it necessary to use Tooru as his own, and pulls a blanket up over Iwaizumi’s legs. He runs so cold now, but Tooru doesn’t mind sharing some heat. He’s had a lot of practice with Suga in the past.

He just doesn’t think about lizards or dragons or cold-blooded things.

“It beats nightmares, I suppose,” Tooru hums and places a kiss against Iwaizumi’s hair. “Sleep well, Iwa-chan. Just make sure you wake up again.” He can’t help but think it every time, but so far, it’s worked.

If only his other friends were so easy to order around.

--

“Aha! Found you!” Tetsurou exclaims as soon as he lands on the branch. He keeps his wings half-folded behind him for balance, tail dangling beneath him, just barely settled. He’s gotten used to jumping into empty space, and he’s gotten used to a lot of things with his new body. He thinks he’s even gotten used to the fact that he’s going to leave Kenma.

The angelic magic hits him in the face like a hammer.

Tetsurou nearly falls out of the tree, and below him, Suga scrambles away from him like a very undignified beetle. “What the shit, Kuroo?!” he hisses, not quite like himself.

Not at all like himself.

Tetsurou had heard secondhand, of course, but seeing it for himself is another matter. A very uncomfortable matter.

Suga has a pair of wings nearly matching him. They’re white, of course. He is paler than ever. Tetsurou isn’t certain how settled he is, but he clearly has the right amount of limbs, and his eyes are human enough to glare up at him. Angry, but not the inhuman sort of fury that he’d seen from Yui, once upon a time.

As it turns out, Tetsurou has enough of his old contract within him to maybe make more than educated guesses about where a certain wayward archangel has holed up. (As it also turns out: not that far from where they’d found Yui.)

As it also turns out, Tetsurou is in exactly the sort of precarious existential crisis that made him maybe not want to share this information. Archdemonhood was weird enough. He didn’t need to confess that he still felt the same latent hook in his chest for Kenma and Suga as he always had.

Kenma wouldn’t care, so long as Suga never came for them.

But Tadashi and Keiji cared.

Oh well.

“It feels like my ears need to pop,” Tetsurou says, working his jaw, then shakes his head. The sensation of too much pressure persists. The rotten smell of angelic magic stings his nose. “I don’t think we could get any closer to one another, hm?”

“Kuroo,” Suga croaks, still crouched low, still half-feral, “why are you here? How did you find me? What… What happened to you?”

Tetsurou stretches his wings out behind him. “What happened to you?” he asks in return.

Suga’s wings flare. “Take a wild guess.”

They study each other. It kind of stings, to know he can’t approach Suga without repercussions, and it hadn’t been something he’d thought about. He had wanted a better goodbye than this. “…I’m not here to turn you in, or lecture you, thought I’m sure if Keiji knew I was here, they’d want me to. You’re missed, you know.”

Suga squints at him.

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” Tetsurou tells him.

Suga finally relaxes his wings, and sits properly, cross-legged. He’s dressed raggedly, even for the mild weather, and his shirt has been ripped to make room for his new wings. “You’re really leaving?” Suga asks without judgment. “This entire situation is a surprise, I’ve gotta say. I didn’t think you’d leave Kenma’s side after everything.”

“And that’s why I have to go, isn’t it?”

“…I suppose,” he allows.

Then, Suga grins for the first time, and Tetsurou finally can relax. He looks like himself again, if a little more gaunt, if a little more wild.

“Usually it’s the fathers who abandon their kids, you know.”

“You did leave first,” Tetsurou points out.

“Fair enough. And this is just as emotionally stilted as that would be. I can’t really hug you right now, sorry. Touch is… not a good idea.”

“I’ll have to get a rain check from you.”

Suga’s smile dims. “Kuroo, why did you really come to see me?”

“To say goodbye. I said that. I’m not going to tattle on you, and even if Kenma suspects I know, he doesn’t want anything to do with archangels.”

Something in Suga’s expression flickers. His eyes seem a little darker, for a moment. “Why are you here, Kuroo.”

“That’s honestly it, Suga. You’ve done a lot for me, once you got past the banishing part of your personality. I’m going to miss you,” Tetsurou tells him. Suga’s expression does not thaw. “I won’t tell anyone else you’re here, if that is what you’re so concerned with. Who would I even tell? Not many want to hear anything from an archdemon.”

“I want you to stay safe. I’m not the safest company,” Suga flatly replies. He shrugs with both wings and shoulders. “…I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be curt. I’ll miss you too—I’ve missed everyone—but you really shouldn’t be here, Kuroo. I’m already a volatile situation waiting to happen, and I can’t imagine you’ve been welcomed with open arms, either.”

“Might be a factor in why I’m taking a vacation,” he hedges.

“Did Kenma arm you with anything?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve got the best protection charms and amulets a spellwriter and two tengu can give me. Did you know, archdemons can do magic, too? That’s been fun.”

Suga almost smiles, though his expression remains strained. “I did know that. Welcome to the world of magic.”

Tetsurou doesn’t want this to be so hard between them. Suga’s always been prone to over-worrying, but he’s also always bounced back so easily. He’ll be panicking and screaming the entire time, but he always is the first in line to jump. His defensiveness now is uncomfortable. As always, Tetsurou wants little more than to help.

“I may still be shit at it myself, but I learned a thing or two about magic, living with Kenma all this time. I also learned some things about trust, and shutting yourself away, and things along those lines, but I’d rather not lecture you,” Tetsurou admits. Suga’s expression flattens again, but the corner of his mouth also twitches, like he’s fighting a smile. “But—magic. Like, I know how to sort of reset an archangel, just a little bit.”

“Reset?”

“She lost a good chunk of her power. That’s what you’re worried about, right?”

Suga looks down at his hands, folded in his lap. “…How do you deal with corrosive blood? I’m suddenly so strong I can’t actually fathom it. I’m sleeping four hours a day, and in my spare time, I’ve been drafting an academic paper titled What Happens To The Human Psyche When You Go From Sixteen Hours Of Sleep To Four.”

“That sounds wordy.”

“Welcome to academia.”

Tetsurou mulls that over. “I think I want to go to college. Or some sort of school. What was that like?”

Suga grins, full and bright again. “Expensive. Really fun, if you make it work for you. You can learn a lot, from classes and other people. If you’re going on a soul-searching journey, I think it may be good for you, provided you’re doing more than walking into the first campus you find and ask to enroll.”

Tetsurou thinks of the backpack Kenma had painstakingly packed for him. The preparations he had gone through with a tight jaw. “Sabancı, actually.”

“You’ll have to send me a postcard. I have no idea where that is,” Suga freely admits, laughing a little.

“You’ll have to give me an address to send it to,” Tetsurou shoots back.

Suga wrinkles his nose. “Yui’s in my—our—old place. Send it there, if you know how to write a letter.”

Tetsurou does not want to send anything to Yui, even safely continents away and for Suga’s sake. He also wonders, perhaps irrationally, if Kenma would get jealous. “I don’t know how to help you with most of the things you’re going through, though it’s surprisingly easy not to bleed on people if you stay out of fights. Water will dull a lot of the stinging. And if you pull magic, or power, or something into your wings, then chop them off, you’ll keep a clear head a lot easier. Ask Kenma for the details, if you know how to ask for help.”

“Ow, low blow,” Suga says with a pout.

“And you’ve seen me write.”

“Not well. D’you think letters we send would get intercepted at customs for smelling like beings that shouldn’t exist?”

Tetsurou fixes him with a bemused look. “I was planning on sending mine through the goblin markets. Kenma’s told me horror stories about human postal systems. Even Lev backed him up.”

Suga looks like he’s contemplating the same.

Tetsurou laughs, wings flaring again, tail lashing beneath him. “Nothing wrong with a little exposure to outside thought processes from time to time, right? You better not hide yourself away, Sugawara. I don’t want to threaten you, and we both know I don’t mean it, but I do know how to find you again.”

“The city needs a scapegoat, and I’m fine—”

“If Yui is any kind of true friend, she likes that idea even less than I do. The city’s changing—magic is open now. More open. With everyone so keen on navigating that, there are plenty of cracks to slip through, you know? It hardly took any convincing for that lawyer friend of yours to get an archdemon a passport.”

“Sugawara Koushi is legally dead. Actually, this time, not with enough loopholes for me to continue on my merry way,” Suga replies. “He died along with Kiyoko. Technically, that’s even true.”

“You’ve never let a little death stop you.” Tetsurou stands on the branch, wobbling only slightly, and manages to keep his voice even despite the emotions threatening to spill out. “Don’t hide yourself away, Suga. You deserve better than that, and I know you’re thinking you’re doing some good, but you’re just breaking a lot of hearts. I’ll send a letter to your address, so I’ll expect a response, alright?”

“Bye, Kuroo. I hope you do well abroad,” Suga says, and turns his back on him.

--

“It’s ‘cause you got such a nice rack,” Yuu says, tone diplomatic, despite his words. “Job hunting sucks now! You’ve gotta compete with spirits and witches and magic. I don’t even have a friendly ghost to help me out anymore!”

Saeko barks out a laugh. Yui smiles, tight, glad that Yuu can joke about Asahi. But it’s still a sore spot on her heart. She still feels strange, not allowed to grieve for all the things she lost in the time she was supposed to be dead.

She misses Asahi.

She wonders how Yuu has coped.

She’s noticed he’s taken up smoking again, though it’s nowhere near as bad as when Asahi had first died. With Saeko a budding bartender, who knows where that road might lead.

“I’ll get hella tips if I keep wearing tank tops, but nah, we all know I got hired because I know the difference between firewhiskey and ambrosia,” Saeko says, and despite the fact that she only officially started last week, she has already learned some sort of fancy way of spinning a long-necked bottle that has Yui mesmerized.

“What happens if you mix them?” Yuu eagerly asks.

“It starts smoking,” Saeko replies, because of course she’s already tested that. “Smells like shit, and just tastes like burnt flowers. Didn’t even get Ryuu drunk.”

(Of course she tested it with Ryuunosuke.)

“When’s the last time you had a job with actual hours?” Yui asks.

“I held down day jobs while I was off hunting monsters,” Saeko replies with another fancy flip of a pretty green bottle. “Just… not for awhile, I guess. Still, I’m not gonna miss it.”

That’s a blatant lie, and Yui and Yuu exchange a sidelong look.

“If I wanted to end up covered in blood and bruises every other night, I would’ve worked as a bouncer,” Saeko snaps at them. (They both know she had been offered that job as well.) “It’s way more fun trying to get spirits drunk. Half of them don’t know the value of human currency yet, and the other half want to try everything on the menu. Drunk spirits are entertaining.”

“I hear that,” Yuu says. He raises his shot glass in a toast, then downs it. Yui halfheartedly raises her pomegranate martini, too, but she just sips at it. Saeko had given it to her without asking what she wanted, but it’s tasty enough. If strong.

Saeko slides over another set of shots for them both. The upside to letting her practice her mixing skills on them is steeply discounted drinks.

The downside, they both find as soon as they take the shots, is that she’s still figuring out a lot of stuff.

“What was that?!” Yui splutters, while Yuu coughs up a lung next to her. “It tasted like—bleh—god, it was like paint thinner mixed with pickle juice or something.”

“Close,” Saeko muses, checking the bottle. “Guess that one’s for spirits, not humans.”

“I don’t want to die again,” Yui moans against the countertop.

“You would orphan Heinrich and Susie! You monster!”

“What about your little furball?” Saeko asks archly.

“Raijin will carry on. I’m thinking about getting him a buddy, anyway. I’m thinking a skvader? Hayato is making bank right now selling all kinds of magical pets before all of the regulations kick in.” Yuu hums, thoughtful, and Saeko slides him a glass with ice and some sort of lemon yellow drink. “Maybe I should—”

“Remember the story he told us about the time he tried to breed wyverns and ended up so covered in their spunk that he got everything from drakes to wyrms trying to mate with him for a week straight?” Saeko interrupts.

Yuu droops. Yui feels a lot like she’s missing big chunks of the context here—as descriptive as that mental image had been—but it’s been a staple since she’d tried to slide back into her old life. Everyone (well, sans Tooru) welcomed her back with open arms, and there was many happy tears and sleepovers and hugs. Yui’s thankful, really, even if the guilt gnaws at her. She feels like she traded Kiyoko and Suga.

And no matter how happy all of her old friends were to see her again, it doesn’t erase the fact that she missed four years of their lives. She hardly remembers her time as an archangel, and she can’t talk about it with anyone else. Her friends have grown; she’s a twenty-three year old who feels like she woke up from the world’s longest dream.

Woke up without her girlfriend and her best friend, no less.

Maybe it shouldn’t be Yuu she’s worried about. Yui downs the rest of her martini and grabs the next shot Saeko pushes over to them.

Yuu doesn’t say anything, bless his heart, when she leans against him far too early to claim drunkenness. She’s missed this. She’s missed her life. She just wishes she hadn’t had to trade for it.

--

I’m an adult, I don’t need someone to escort me, Tadashi thinks, sweating despite this, clammy hand clasped tight with Kei’s. No big deal. It’s just a marketplace. With signs I can’t read and spirits I can’t identify and probably some sort of Escher architecture.

“Are we lost?” Kei flatly asks.

“No!” Tadashi yips. Like an adult. “I mean, we’re… looking, right? We’re looking around! We’ve never been here just to browse, and there’s so many cool things…?”

“Are we going in circles because you’re working up the courage to purchase that phoenix quill set?” Kei asks with an arched brow.

Tadashi yanks on their connected hands. “Don’t be an asshole. Fine, you know we’re lost, but if you noticed, why didn’t you take over?! Can’t you like… sniff them out or something?”

“Sniff them out,” Kei deadpans.

“Yes,” Tadashi maintains, chest puffed out.

“You are literally a tracker.”

“Yeah, and do you have tengu feathers or something?”

“No, but you have that game Kenma loaned you last month, and it’s a pretty good guess to say he’ll be there with them.”

Tadashi’s last memories of the goblin market involved a far easier time navigating. He hadn’t anticipated such a labyrinth, and so he hadn’t anticipated needing finding magic. Suga and Kiyoko had always made it seem like running errands. Morisuke knew the place like the back of his paw.

And he’d kind of thought there’d be some sort of cool passive magic leading people to what they’re looking for. That made sense for a market to have, right? Tadashi isn’t totally off base here.

“We’re not going all the way back home and coming back. We already paid the fare!” Tadashi exclaims, and with another tug on Kei’s hand, he gets them moving again.

The goblin market is packed, far more crowded than he’d ever seen it before, and he hadn’t exactly thought it empty before. The doors are still pretty heavily guarded, but with plenty of curious humans and spirits wanting to explore the other side, there’s plenty of traffic both ways. It’s kind of strange to see a higher ratio of humans to spirits than before.

It sort of makes it feel like a mall.

A really huge, really crowded, really supernatural outdoor mall.

At least there’s more possibly human food for sale now. Not that Tadashi will try anything, but Kei’s stomach has been grumbling, and maybe he’d be less sour if he got something to chew on.

It takes them nearly an hour to find not only something Kei deems edible—what higher power allowed a picky chimera? Tadashi wonders—but a vendor that takes human currency. He’d seen others in the past use it, but come to think, Kiyoko had mostly bartered her own potions and ingredients. Tadashi doesn’t feel comfortable auctioning off his magic. He doesn’t even know the going rate for that.

Luck’s always valuable, though. He catches more than one spirit eyeing Kei.

It is likely that very same luck that lets them literally stumble into Lev in line for some sort of sweet-smelling food stall.

“Tadashi!” Lev crows as soon as he sees who stepped on his foot. He waves off all apologies in favor of a bone-crushing hug. Tadashi wheezes against his shoulder; he likes Lev, really, but he hadn’t thought they were close enough to warrant this kind of reunion.

Kei literally growls at him when he holds his arms out for a hug from him, too.

“It’s so nice to see other humans here,” Lev explains with a bright grin. “Well, there are plenty of people here now, but they all look like very lost tourists. Worse than tourists! No one knows how to interact with anyone else here, and it’s driving Yaku up a wall, and Kenma—well, I’m here to try to get some fairy sugar fugashi for them at the tengu stall so no one ends up cursed.”

“Can tengu curse people?” Kei asks with a suspicious squint.

“Probably?” Lev scratches his head, thinking. “I dunno. Probably, that’s what I’m going with. But actually, Akaashi has just been pushing unruly customers into the funny kitsune’s stall, and every time someone steps on one of his tails, he ends up cursing a whole bunch of people. It was kind of funny the first time, but then they got in trouble with this scary-looking owl tengu. I think some relative of Akaashi’s? But now no one’s happy, and I’m trying to make things better with sugar.”

“Seems like a good plan,” Tadashi says with a grin up at Kei.

Lev buys a truly obscene amount of sweet treats from the nice fairy at the stall, and Tadashi watches curiously as Lev handles pieces of gold, long striped feathers, and tiny sachets of luck like he’d grown up paying with them. Thankfully, the fairy vendor thinks Tadashi is a cute enough human to take a couple of crumpled bills, though he thinks neither of them really know the value of what they’re trading for.

Kei does look a little less surly when he’s chewing on a mouthful of churros, at least. His fingers are sticky when he laces them with Tadashi’s again. “Gross,” Tadashi hisses at him, still smiling, and Kei sticks his tongue out at him. Tadashi leans up to try to kiss his tongue, just to be extra gross.

“You two seem to be doing well!” Lev chirps from Tadashi’s over side.

They both snap to attention, red-faced, hands still clasped. Lev laughs at them, not meanly, but certainly not kindly.

“It’s nice to see some people who aren’t all grumpy and sad all the time. There are only so many times I can summon Yuuki to make Kenma smile, you know? Oh, oh, that reminds me! Do you think I could get a summoning contract with you, Tsukki?”

“Don’t call me that,” Kei replies, before either he or Tadashi can really process what Lev’s asked.

“Wait. Contract?” Tadashi nearly yips. Again. Like the adult he is totally feeling, holding his boyfriend’s sticky fingers and wandering around a magical shopping center lost. “What kind of contract, that seems like a really bad idea—!”

“Yeah, that’s what Kenma said, too,” Lev replies, not at all bothered. He cocks his head and puts his fingers to his chin, thinking hard. “But he hasn’t recreated my contracts with the nekomata, and I can’t summon Kuro again from this far away. I kinda tried when I missed him too much.”

“Summoning sentient things is still illegal,” Tadashi hisses at him.

“Yeah, but it beats helping summon an old god. Things kind of pale in comparison to that, y’know? Plus, since it’s not pulling anything from bad realms, or something, it doesn’t trip many alarms. Most of the coven witches just wanted to avoid demons and stuff.”

“How’d they tell the difference?”

“Hell if I know! Kenma probably knows.”

“He’d have to, if he were trying to do exactly that,” Kei points out with another angry munch. “Why isn’t he recreating your contracts for you? It beats trying to shake down chimera in the middle of a goblin market. I wouldn’t even be that good in a fight.”

“No, but we could play Mario Party so easily, then.”

Tadashi wonders if anything ever fazes Lev, but his words just prior point out that they do, he supposes. Lev might just be the better pretender. Tadashi sure as shit isn’t that good. “Is Kenma still writing spells? In general?” he asks, about as subtle as a freight train.

Lev blinks down at him, and Tadashi knows he’s caught. But as per the norm, Lev doesn’t comment on that. “In general,” he replies, “right now he’s trying to figure out some stuff for Akaashi, I think. Without Akaashi finding out. It’s like a cold war between them—maybe you two will be a good distraction! I’m tired of playing neutral party.”

And with that ominous remark, Lev brings them quite easily to the owl tengu stall. Futakuchi gives Tadashi a little wave next to them, tails curled uncharacteristically around himself, and Kei narrows his eyes back at him.

“Kenma, I brought snacks!” Lev cheers and deposits the huge bag right in the middle of their table.

Akaashi rather looks like Lev had just vomited in front of them. They appear tired, hair a bit messier than usual, eyes rimmed with red. Tadashi tries very hard not to look at the sleeve pinned up onto their empty side.

Kenma is seated next to them, on that same side, nonchalantly using them as his pillow. His vita lays on a pause screen in his lap, and his long-eared hat has been pulled off and stashed beneath the stall. His hair has gotten even longer now; Tadashi realizes it’s been awhile since he’s spent any real amount of time with Kenma. It makes sense, given their lives after that day, but it’s surreal to see him now.

Kenma looks up at Tadashi with the same piercing gold stare as always.

His hair is long enough to brush his ears now, long enough to move with his head’s movements, but not long enough to create those creepy shadows he used to hide his face in.

“No,” Kenma tells him.

“Oh, come on! I didn’t even ask yet!” Tadashi bursts out.

“Then I’m saving us both some time.”

Kei and Lev watch the exchange like a tennis match. Akaashi aggressively pretends none of this is happening in front of their stall, but take fistfuls of snacks all the same.

“I have enough luck and finding magic sway to meet any price you set,” Tadashi says, hand flat on the table between them.

“If I were for sale, I’d be working with the city government right now,” Kenma replies. His eyes skid away again.

“How about because we’re friends?”

“I’ve already tried barking up that tree,” Lev offers in a stage whisper. Akaashi snorts around a mouthful of creampuffs.

“Friends don’t ditch friends,” Kenma replies, shrugging with the shoulder not pressed against Akaashi. “So I don’t know why you want to find him so badly. I don’t really know how finding magic works, anyway, so it would be pretty time-intensive. So… no thanks.”

“It’d revolutionize things to write a tracking spell that doesn’t require someone’s belongings,” Kei points out.

“Sounds invasive.”

Tadashi is fully aware he’s asking the witch who tried to hide from everyone in the goddamn city, who had already written a spell specifically to avoid attention, who would rather hide in another realm than to deal with government officials politely asking for help to write a tracking spell.

But they’re friends. He and Suga are friends. Suga doesn’t deserve to be locked away, whether because of his own stupid guilt complex or because of the danger he poses to others.

He and Kenma are supposed to be friends, too. Friends help friends find super dangerous and potentially unstable beings of incredible magical power. (Well, that’s what Suga taught him.)

“It’s not because of you,” Kenma says at length, “and it’s not because of Sugawara, either. Kuro asked me, too… But do you know how long it takes to write a spell? Weeks, not counting the research. I don’t know anything about tracking magic, and I can’t use it, so I’d have to learn everything secondhand—we would add months to the time it would take to make this spell for you, Tadashi.”

Kenma raises his eyes to meet his again.

“Yes, I could make it for you,” he frankly tells him, “but I’m not the quick or easy fix you’re looking for. If you used your luck, you could find something else. I know you could do it.”

“Yes, but…” Tadashi’s shoulders slump. He knows. He knows he and Kei probably could stand a chance at finding Suga if they rolled around in some luck. Maybe if he snorted it or something. They’ve talked about it, late at night when neither of them could sleep well, when Tadashi’s insomnia is kicking his ass and Kei’s stomach won’t stop growling.

But he’s scared that maybe the luck won’t work as he hopes. Luck isn’t always a positive or predictable thing. What if it’s luckier to avoid the rogue archangel than it is to reunite with a lost friend? That’s what Morisuke has implied, and Tadashi doesn’t think he’d say that sort of thing just to try to warn him off. He may be protective, but he’s not a dick.

“We’re worried,” Kei finishes for him. Tadashi nods miserably, and Kei squeezes his hand. “Luck is our last resort. We’re not sure what path it would take us down, and it’s not something we want to rely on from now on. It’s not a life path. It’s just… luck.”

“Smart,” Akaashi tells him, apparently not content with listening to their sad pleas any longer. They swallow and pick out another few creampuffs from Lev’s bag. “But you had to have known Kenma wouldn’t be keen on this idea. So why did you really come to bother our business?”

Tadashi blinks at ‘our’. “We could… buy information.”

“We’ve none to offer,” Akaashi flatly replies.

“Couldn’t a tengu find something with that much magic floating around?” Kei asks.

“No, not really. And don’t you think that if he has been so well hidden from witch covens, finding magic, a clairvoyant psychic, and no doubt well-meaning other spirits, he might have had help?”

“That’s why we need help,” Tadashi replies, sincere as all hell, and about two steps from far more shameless begging.

But Akaashi remains impassive. Kenma looks down at his lap again. “Sorry,” is all he says.

--

“I think we got off on a weird foot,” Yui says with what she hopes is a disarming smile. She hadn’t minded meeting Daichi again—okay, well, him barging into her apartment while she was naked and unprepared hadn’t been the best first impression. (Since it’s clear he doesn’t remember her. For the best, really.)

Yui hefts the basket up onto the counter. Sunshine meows, proud, from her shoulder.

And Daichi just stares at her.

“So I brought gifts!” Yui unnecessarily adds, gesturing to the pile of muffins. “I promise you, I’m a far better baker than Koushi ever was—not that that’s hard—and it’s kind of therapeutic to foist this off on other people. And I’d like for us to be friends, really. I don’t want to make it weird!”

Daichi clears his throat. “Um, thank you.” He looks away, scanning the shop, but clearly avoiding eye contact. “But I’m at work.”

“I know Koushi used to stalk you at work all the time!” Yui chirps.

Daichi stares at her. Again.

Wait, that came out wrong.

Yui buries her flaming face in her hands with a groan. “Oh, god, no—I mean, I’ve heard—I don’t want to be any sort of replacement, hell no, that’s not what I was going for at all! I just want us to be friends, and I thought—I’d assumed that this was sort of a relaxed business place thing—god, Yui, shut up, I’m babbling, I’m so sorry.” She hides her face against the muffin-heaped basket with a pitiful noise. “Did he teach you any banishment or muting charms?”

“No, I’m afraid I’m pretty shit at magic,” Daichi says, and at least he sounds only half as awkward as she feels. Yui risks a peek up over the edge. At least he’s smiling, though it’s tight at the corners.

“I’m sorry,” Yui repeats, just in case. Sunshine meows again in agreement.

“Really, it’s fine. I don’t want this to be awkward, either, or any more awkward than it has been… And I should be the one apologizing for walking in on you like that.” He scrubs a hand over his own red face, as if embarrassed by the memory. Yui is hopelessly endeared; she sees what Suga had.

Has.

Or maybe had. She feels a bit like a spy, but at least it’s for a good cause. That’s what she keeps telling herself.

“Yamaguchi, stop hiding and come take the muffins to the back,” Daichi calls suddenly.

Yui doesn’t place the name until she sees the angry, freckled face rise up from behind an end shelf full of the latest romance novel. Tadashi doesn’t look particularly happy to see her, and Yui doesn’t blame him, though she can’t exactly back down now. She smiles as best she can and holds out the muffin-y peace offering.

“If we don’t take those to the back, when Shirofuku comes in, they’ll all be gone in a blink,” Daichi sighs. “Stop scowling at the customer. I don’t care what kind of magical bullshit it is this time.”

“But Daichi, she’s—”

“I know, Tadashi,” Daichi says in an infinitely gentler tone. “I know. But we’re all adults here, and I’m not going to have any kind of scene in my store. We’re both on the clock. Just take the muffins, then you can avoid her again.”

Tadashi looks chastised, but in the watery-eyed, kicked puppy way that Yui can’t stand. She wants to say something, anything to fix this and make it better. She wants to be friends with him, too. She wants to discover the life Suga left behind, and reclaim what she can for herself. She wants to know about Suga’s boyfriend—and the boy he had been training.

But all Tadashi knows her as is a monster. Or maybe just the crybaby who pulled her best friend off of him.

Probably just the monster who’s hiding him.

“You’re breaking his heart, you know,” Daichi says conversationally, elbows on the counter and a horrifying smile on his face. Yui gulps.

“Not yours?”

“I don’t think either of us can handle talking about that landmine. Yamaguchi, however, lost a dear friend and someone he really admired. Definitely a cornerstone of his support system. And the source of most of his magical education—”

“I can help with a lot of that. I want to help with a lot of that. I don’t want to replace Koushi, not for anyone, but I can still help a lot of people. I want to. Grief isn’t easy to deal with, but it’s better to deal with it together.”

Daichi’s gaze remains hard, but at least his smile is gone.

Yui knows what he’s going to say before he says it. She heads him off. “He’s gone, Daichi. Please, the faster everyone accepts it, the less it’ll hurt.”

“That’s not what Tadashi told me,” Daichi says lowly.

“Tadashi was a kid who went through a trauma conga line and can’t afford therapy. Tadashi was attacked by monsters, and I defended him.”

“I think you need to buy something, or kindly leave.”

Yui had been ready for that, too. Sunshine, several aisles over, meows when he knocks a couple of blank notebooks off the shelf. She pulls them over with a gesture, and he trots back up to her side.

She slides the notebooks over the counter. “I’ll take these. A witch’s work is never done, you know, and someone has to take care of the monsters Koushi left behind.”

--

“You said what to him?!” Suga nearly shrieks, and ends up inhaling several fish bones in the process. He coughs a few time, but swallows them down, and tries not to think about how it’s easier and easier to eat things whole.

While he feels sorry for himself, tongue sticking out and wings drooping, Yui thoughtfully stirs her soup. “Well, you know…”

“No, I don’t know. Because I’m not there anymore.”

“And whose choice is that?” Yui shoots back.

They glare at each other, because it had been no one’s choice. The city demanded an answer to where the archangel went, and Yui had an alibi. It’s easier to explain one monster than a disappearing one and a new one. Yui would have no end of trouble, and at least Suga could have a clean ending. Like Kiyoko got.

Mostly.

It wasn’t the first time he’s had to be dead, anyway, and even if it’s a little messier this time around, at least he has Yui for it.

Suga picks out more bones from between his too-sharp teeth. “Kuroo visited me, to say goodbye, couple weeks back.”

Yui cocks her head as she tries to place the name.

Suga doesn’t wait for her, because he doesn’t want the lecture. “Kozume Kenma’s baby archdemon he just unleashed on an unsuspecting Europe,” he says, and can already see her bristling. “It was uncomfortable, but it didn’t trigger anything. He did say something interesting about archangel reset buttons, though.”

Suga explains what he’d been told, and what he’d surmised in his many hours alone since then. He’s always been good at magical theory, even if he’s new to angelic things. They’d already tried cutting off his wings, based on Yui’s hazy memories, but neither of them had been able to get through them. And it hadn’t been any kind of power sapping experience.

“…But if we could channel more excess magic out, burn off more of it, then maybe this wouldn’t be such an uphill battle,” Suga concludes.

“You can already settle. Mostly. We’re making progress, safely, right now,” Yui points out, with uncomfortable desperation. “Koushi, I don’t want you to get hurt—”

“It didn’t kill you, did it?” he snaps with more heat than intended.

Yui stirs her soup a little more forcefully.

Suga groans and runs his claws back through his hair. “Sorry, sorry. But we both know how sturdy I am, and we can’t afford to be squeamish now. We weren’t before! What’s changed, Yui?”

“We’re going to run out of second chances,” she quietly replies. She sighs, sets her bowl down, then pulls her phone from her pocket. She pretends to fiddle with it as she sorts out her thoughts. Suga still knows her so well; it’s like they never left each other. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be deathless, and I can’t imagine four years that we’re missing from each other. I can barely remember the Dreamlands, or the angel business. It just seems… so impossible, that we both kept beating the odds.”

“It’s not like we got out completely unscathed,” Suga gently jokes.

Yui nods, and smiles, but it’s feeble. “Yeah, but… that’s going to run out. It ran out for Kiyoko. She had seen so many futures and deaths, and we’ve dodged all of them, and… she didn’t. She didn’t get a single second chance like we did.”

“No, she didn’t,” he agrees. He wraps his wings around himself like a shawl. The one thing the stupid things were good for. “She deserved better,” he adds, even quieter.

“Yeah.” Yui sniffs, then wipes her eyes with the heel of her palm. Suga copies her with his wrist. “Didn’t we promise each other no more crying over Kiyoko?”

“Hey, I’ll stop when you do.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Suga easily agrees. “I was gonna say that I’m your asshole, but, ew. But the sentiment remains. I’m really glad you’re out here with me, even if we waste time doing silly human things like mourning.”

Yui punches him, and Suga jumps more from the touch than any of the force behind it. He scoots back a bit and rubs at his arm. Even the slightest touch still feels like too much. Far too much. If he loses himself for even a moment, it feels like the entire world is literally pressing in on him.

“Sorry,” Yui murmurs, and Suga pretends to gag. “Still… at least you’re mostly settled.”

“I just can’t be touched, and I eat constantly, and do you know how weird it is to miss sleeping?”

“The eating thing is manageable. I’ll bring you more books for the sleeping thing.”

Suga raises both eyebrows, expectant. “And the touch thing? It’d be nice to be able to bump into a tree without tearing branches off because I get spooked.”

Yui manages a sad sort of smile, for him. “We’ll work on it, Koushi, I promise. But please, patience. We shouldn’t do anything stupid or rushed.”

Easy for you to say, Suga thinks, but hates himself for it. Yui had been through this too, even if he didn’t know it at the time. Even if she’s forgetting more and more of it every day. But Suga is the one holed up in the woods, for months now, eating cold takeout and swallowing down poor squirrels whole. They’ve been trying to track how much food he needs—they’ve evened it out, know how much to keep him aware of himself and not liable to go off hunting—and that, that sort of easy research he’s missed between them. Tracking numbers, making graphs, figuring out trends. Nerdy, but tangible results, and god he has missed his research partner in crime.

But he’s still the one stuck in the woods. He’s still the one the city’s new government would try to kill on sight. He’s still the one missing his friends and family so fiercely it’s going to drive him mad yet.

It’s his risk to take. He understands her concern, and he doesn’t want to take stupid risks either, but he can’t be afraid of further loss when he’s already lost so much.

--

Keiji absently runs their claws up and down Koutarou’s bare back, and in return, he flips the pages in their book for them. There’s less of a stigma against human literature these days, and they’ve actually enjoyed several of Kenma’s suggestions.

“I miss Kuroo,” Koutarou sighs.

“Mm. I do, too,” Keiji agrees.

“And when’s Kenma going to visit again?”

“When Father stops being such a monster, probably. You see him often enough in the markets.” Keiji taps his spine, and Koutarou flips the page for them again. “I don’t think it’s wise for Kenma to visit us here, Kou.”

“Yeah, no, I know that. But he’s not afraid of anything, and your father can choke on his guard uniform.”

Keiji smiles. Personally, they think Kenma is afraid of far too much, but they will grant that Koutarou also has a point. “I’d like to see that,” they murmur.

Keiji had already renounced their guard position in favor of working as a merchant in the goblin market, and no one on the council could refuse them, considering the strong ties they’d forged with the humans. Keiji never officially rescinded Oikawa Tooru’s tengu friend status (a fact they plan on never sharing with him), and most tengu still aren’t aware of the fact that Sugawara Koushi is legally dead. Add in the fact that Koutarou is still mated to Kenma, and city officials know them both by name and have given them strange little nonmagical amulets to thank them for their help, and both of them are in the ideal position to request anything they want in regards to job positioning nearer humanity.

Keiji’s father had been less than pleased.

As Koutarou suggested, he could choke on his precious guard uniform.

Keiji remains of the opinion that their father had locked them out, forced them into helping, and deserves no sympathy or forgiveness. Keiji also refuses any tengu-made prosthetics for the same reason; let all the clans see Keiji’s missing wing and know what the Akaashi family did to their last child.

“You got that petty look on your face again,” Koutarou points out with obvious cheer.

“Page, please,” Keiji responds, smiling. There’s no denying it. “We could visit Kenma in the human realm again. The council wouldn’t deny us a vacation if we point out that our stint as human protectors would count as extenuating circumstances in following our duty.”

“Lev keeps saying we should go to the zoo with him. And who knows what Kenma is doing in that big empty house without Kuroo, right? It’s our responsibility to visit him!” Koutarou declares.

“Being a lump, probably,” Keiji muses with little sympathy. At least the house would probably still smell of Tetsurou. They perhaps miss him more than they’d like to admit, especially to Koutarou, but they seem to be the only one who remains Not Melodramatic. Koutarou had been surprised by Kenma’s capacity for melodrama; Keiji had not.

“What if we visited Kuroo?” Koutarou suggests with all the innocence in the world. Innocence that Keiji does not buy for a second.

“I don’t think that’s wise without an invitation from him. I’m sure he misses you, Kou, but I’m actually very proud of him for wanting to forge his own path a bit.”

“I am, too!” Koutarou snaps, lip now curling into a surly pout. Keiji sighs. “No, don’t sigh at me, this isn’t childish. This is me missing someone I love, and I know Kenma feels the same way. You do, too! Kuroo probably misses us, and there’s a huge difference between going to a school thing for awhile and never seeing us again!”

“Tetsurou has spent almost every waking moment of his second life in the presence of Kenma, or us. He has a lot to deal with from his prior—”

“I know that,” Koutarou interrupts, mood plummeting further.

Keiji puts their bookmark in to save their place, sets it on their nightstand, then places their hand on Koutarou’s broad back. He grumbles into the sheets near their thigh.

“We show affection differently, and I love you and your weird teasing affection but I don’t love it so much when I’m all droopy and down, okay? I know there’s shit goin’ on with Kuroo. I know you’re actin’ all prickly so you can prove to everyone that you can handle not being able to fly. But I want some time with you guys myself, too, because that’s what I know I need right now,” Koutarou huffs into Keiji’s softer feathers.

Keiji runs their claws through his streaked hair, and think their next words over carefully. “…I’m sorry, Koutarou. For dismissing you so quickly.”

“‘m not mad,” Koutarou says, though many signs point to the contrary. He peers up at Keiji, sliver of gold and half of a knitted brow. “But I don’t want you to just pretend everything’s fine. I’m sad. We need someone happy to balance out your quiet and Kenma’s gloom! Can’t be me right now.”

Keiji would normally suggest magical hijinks with Suga, but that’s out. Tadashi is an option, or Yuu since he and Koutarou seem to have bonded strangely in recent months, but Keiji doesn’t wish to foist their mate upon human hunters like that.

They would also vastly prefer something together. They may keep it quieter, but Koutarou’s outburst does still hit a little too close to home for them, too.

“Why don’t we ask Hinata to come to the human zoo with us? You and Kenma are both fond of him, and I believe he’d find that exciting. It may be a good step for all of us to learn more about human culture,” Keiji suggests, and Koutarou brightens at that, visibly perking back up.

He props himself up on an elbow, not quite grinning but bright-eyed like he’s just moments from it. (It is one of Keiji’s favorite expressions.) “But you two aren’t gonna work, right? We can say it’s for tengu-human relations, but I don’t want to hear anything but awe at the fact that humans are stupid enough to try to put a jabberwock in a cage.”

“I do not have awe at that fact. Neither you nor Kenma are allowed near that exhibit.”

“Y’know, human dates usually involve a lot of food, too. We can continue expanding our human realm tastes,” Koutarou says, undeterred, finally grinning. Well, leering, trying to tempt Keiji into something they’re pretty sure had been at least mostly their idea. “And everything’s on the ground, so that’ll be a nice break.”

Keiji’s hand twitches toward their empty side. Koutarou means nothing by it, and Keiji values his bluntness. “Yes, I suppose that would be. But we’re asking Kenma before dropping in on him.”

“But where’s the fun in that?!”

--

Iwaizumi has gotten used to many things as he’s adjusted to a mundane life in this realm. Most, he likes. A few, mostly Tooru’s inane habits, have been aggravating.

He can’t decide if he likes or dislikes paying Tooru’s jobs for him.

“Migraine again?” Yahaba asks, sympathetic, leaning on the table between them. His expression is open and calm, eyes soft, mouth gently pursed in a frown. The blood coating his arms up to his elbows ruins the picture, a little, but at least it’s not his blood.

“Hold still,” Tsukishima murmurs as he mops (in vain) the blood off of Tadashi’s face. Also not his blood. Mostly.

“Still,” Iwaizumi replies, “it’s the same one from last night. He’s been in bed most of the day.”

“Poor thing,” Yahaba says. Iwaizumi wishes to every god ever to know what Tooru did to get a rage spirit so fond of him. “Any chance we could—”

“No,” Kentarou gruffly breaks in. He cuffs Yahaba on the back of the head, earning a self-pitying yip. (Some-fucking-how, he is the only one not covered in blood.) “You ain’t doing shit to our boss. Your magic is way too finicky to use on that Swiss cheese head of his—you’d only fuck him up more.”

Iwaizumi maintains a blank face as he hands Kentarou his money. So long as Yahaba doesn’t start spitting fire, he won’t butt in. “Tadashi?” he calls over.

Without looking, Tsukishima holds out his hand for their payment. His attention remains on trying to wipe away the last of Tadashi’s stubborn nosebleed.

In Iwaizumi’s opinion, Tsukishima hasn’t been doing enough to warrant what Tooru is paying him—Tadashi is inarguably the powerhouse between the two, as loosely as the term applies—but he also sees how gaunt the kid looks. He’s offered, however awkwardly, to bring him food, but he’s always refused, and Iwaizumi has stopped asking.

At least he’s eating poltergeists, now.

Iwaizumi thinks they’re far too chewy, and not worth fighting Yahaba for.

“Thank you,” Tadashi replies, mostly blood-free now, and with that spark in his eyes which means he’s gearing up to ask something. Iwaizumi desperately hopes he can help him. He also desperately hopes it’s not about the slow progress of continuing to separate scales from scar tissue on his arms, or if he misses being a dragon. (He does. He’ll never admit it.)

To Iwaizumi’s mild relief, however, Tadashi cranes his head around Tsukishima in order to make pleading eyes at Kentarou.

Thank fuck, Iwaizumi first thinks, then balks at himself. Yahaba will eat them alive.

“Hey, Kentarou? Is there any chance we could hire you for something? You’re an open freelancer, right?” Tadashi asks, ten kinds of crafted hopeful naivety that probably only works on Kentarou among all present.

“Same as you,” Kentarou grunts back. But when Tadashi holds up his payment from his job, his attention is obviously hooked. “What d’you want that you couldn’t already do yourselves? You’re shapin’ up not too shabby, I guess.”

“If it were anything too dangerous, Oikawa would have already asked us to take care of it,” Yahaba adds with a sharp smile. “So surely, it can’t be anything too naughty. Why ask us?”

“I just asked that, jackass,” Kentarou snaps.

“You should be more polite.”

Tadashi is not at all deterred by their bickering. It sits strangely with Iwaizumi that the kid is more used to them than Iwaizumi is, but to be fair, Tadashi has been working twice as hard lately, and Iwaizumi has just been… sleeping more.

“I need help tracking someone down, and I was hoping you’d be able to help, since you’re a dog spirit?”

Kentarou grabs Yahaba by the back of the shirt before he can lunge. “We ain’t trackers, kid. That’s you.”

Tadashi appears alarmingly calm for someone who just insulted an inugami. He looks down at his feet. “It’s not working.”

“Then maybe you should let it be, for the time being,” Iwaizumi advises. “Sometimes, patience is key. You need to wait these things out. And don’t ask for everyone’s help in what might be sensitive matters.”

“And careful who you call a dog next time,” Yahaba adds with a too-sharp smile.

“You are a dog spirit,” Kentarou points out.

“And you’re rude. Do you think me a tracker, like some sort of pet bloodhound? No, don’t answer that.” Yahaba claps his hand over Kentarou’s mouth, despite the fact that it’s immediately clear he’s trying to bite his fingers. “You heard Oikawa’s Iwa-chan—be careful who you ask favors from, Tadashi. It could be considered rude, too. The only one who hasn’t been rude today is Tsukishima over there, and I’m guessing that’s because he’s feeling smug he got the poltergeist today.”

“I haven’t said two words to you,” Tsukishima mutters.

“And that’s why I like you,” Yahaba replies with far fewer teeth and more almost believable charm. If Iwaizumi didn’t know better, he would have the dog spirit tested to see if he was related to Tooru somehow.

“Why am I rude, then?” Iwaizumi asks, eyebrow raised. “I just paid you. I’m only Tooru’s mouthpiece today.”

“Keeping sensitive matters from us?”

“Ask Tooru, if you’re so curious.”

“No thanks,” Kentarou grunts, lips bloody but mouth finally free. “He’s a trouble magnet. We’ve had enough for awhile. Time to go.”

Iwaizumi watches them leave, still mildly amazed that Tooru has been able to keep such a pair happily in his employ for so many years. Then, he turns back to his current troubles.

“I just want to find Suga,” Tadashi says before Iwaizumi can open his mouth. “No one else seems to be worried, but I know he’s still out there, somewhere. I just wanted help.”

“Staying in your lane is an art, and it’s something that gets you liked by higher spirits,” Tsukishima drawls.

Iwaizumi doesn’t know what staying in your lane is, but he can guess, and just this once, he’s on Tsukishima’s side. “I know you’re kinda friends with other hunters, and I know you two mean well. But even if you’re on good terms with someone, there’s some things that need to keep secret, alright? Trust that Tooru’s working on this.”

“No, he’s in a cold war with Yui, so she’s moping around the bookshop,” Tadashi corrects with a frown. “She’s not helping, either. She won’t even tell me why the finding magic won’t work!”

“He’s legally dead.”

“Magic shouldn’t obey laws.”

“Aaaand it’s that sort of thinking that got away from Ushijima, isn’t it,” Iwaizumi breaks in. He puts an arm over both their shoulders and gets them walking again. “I appreciate that you two are playing nice, and I think you’re doing a pretty good job so far. Tooru will take care of you. But leave this one to the people with more discretion than asking a rage spirit to find an archangel, okay?” Iwaizumi yawns, which sort of ruins his attempted paternal speech, but he really just wants to get back to Tooru and his bed and hope that things could go a few hours without needing intervention.

“It’s been months,” Tadashi says in a sad, small voice. “Why hasn’t he come back?”

Iwaizumi knows a thing or two about believing you’re a monster. He knows he can hardly explain that to Tooru, after all this time together, much less the young human who refused to kill Ushijima when given the chance.

“He’ll come back,” Tsukishima says, just as quiet, but with so much certainty that Iwaizumi almost wonders for a moment.

“I’m sure he will,” Iwaizumi tells them. He hopes it isn’t a lie.

--

The snow has long since melted off, and there are fresh, green buds everywhere, but it’s still early enough in the year that the forest hasn’t quite gotten thick with greenery again. It makes it easier to wander through, and easier still to find the brightly glowing figure perched high in a half-charred fir tree.

Daichi puts his fists on his hips and stares up at Suga.

“Why did it have to be you first?” Suga’s voice is muffled from where he’s buried in his own wings. Because he has fucking wings now. Right.

Daichi had known, theoretically, what he was going to find. Tadashi had told him enough. He had gotten pieces from Tooru. Archangel equals lots of light and magic and power. And wings.

But it’s Suga who peers down at him through the thick white feathers of his wings. Despite how it all went down, Daichi has missed him, so terribly it hurt. He swallows. “How did you find me?” Suga asks.

Daichi pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Remember that skeevy snapchat update where it put your location all the time? I just had to keep sending her pictures of Dinah to figure out she kept leaving the city for this area. It wasn’t hard to find the glowing dot once I got out here.”

Suga lets out a little laugh, bitter and unlike him, but still achingly familiar. “We spent so much time and magic figuring out how to avoid all of the magical things. Of course it was a phone that did it.”

Daichi swallows again, pushing back the lump in his throat, and takes a steeling breath.

“Suga, I deserved a better breakup.”

Suga’s wings fall away, drooping behind him like a sad waterfall of feathers and light. He won’t look down at Daichi, but Daichi can see enough of his expression to register the pain there. “…Yeah, you absolutely did. I’m sorry, Daichi.”

Daichi doesn’t really need to ask why—he knows Suga would sacrifice everything, time and time again, for his duty. Kiyoko held all the pieces, and Suga had figured it out. Even if he left them all floundering in his wake, he had rushed to act, and probably had a hand in ending everything. For Suga, the ends justified the means, and at least Daichi could understand that, as much as he’s hated it.

“Why did you stay away?” Daichi asks instead. “Why did you leave—everyone?” Why did you leave me, hangs beneath his words.

“You think I wanted to? Daichi, I’m a—a monster now. I’m the thing that goes bump in the night. I can pull trees out of the ground like you’d pick a flower, I could sneeze and set things on fire, I can hardly sleep and I’m eating constantly. I can’t just pretend like I’m going home and everything is normal again.”

Daichi gestures at the sad little campsite around him. A lot of it is partially melted or burnt, but it’s still all workable, and clearly lived in. “You’ve managed out here, in the woods, then? This is the life you want from now on? Away from everything you love—everyone?”

“To protect you all!” Suga snarls at him, flaring brighter for just a second. He buries his face in his hands as soon as the glow fades. “You wouldn’t understand, Daichi. You’re so new to all of this magic stuff, and I’m like. A top tier magical fuckup right now.”

Daichi lets out an incredulous bark of a laugh. “I got mistaken for a witch, Suga.”

Suga peers down at him through his fingers. Daichi can see his mouth open from even this distance.

“No one could believe how an ordinary man could run headfirst against a god like that, without magic or spells or potions. Yeah, I was there fighting, too. Yui couldn’t tell you that, right? She couldn’t tell you that Tooru joined up with Ushijima for a bit—hell, I did, because I was trying to get back to you! I almost died, I got the Door thing and everything. I almost died, and the only thing that kept me alive was the luck, and—” Daichi screws his eyes shut and clenches his fists. “—and I couldn’t pass on, because I remember how scared you were, Koushi. You were so scared that you wouldn’t be able to die or pass on.”

Daichi feels a sudden heat, and when he reopens his eyes, Suga is suddenly there.

He’s shining, faintly, hair like genuine starlight now, skin as pale as the moon. His eyes are darker than ever, nearly black, but still those big doe eyes that Daichi can so rarely look away from.

Not that he’s looking at him now. Suga carefully, like Daichi were made of glass, cups his jaw and tilts his head back. He studies the scar on his neck.

No matter how gentle the touch is, however, it sears against Daichi’s skin. So hot it’s uncomfortable, bordering on painful, and he grits his teeth against the feeling because he will not be the thing that scares Suga off.

Suga releases him moments later. Daichi hopes there isn’t a mark, but Suga’s eyes flicker over to his jaw, and he thinks he’s caught, anyway. “I can’t even touch you,” Suga whispers.

Daichi reaches for him, and Suga backs away in a blink, reappearing against the trunk of the tree he’d been perched in.

“I can’t be touched, Daichi,” Suga tells him, and his wings come over his shoulders again to wrap himself up. “Everything is too much—it feels like I’m crawling out of my skin. All the time. Even things like the wind or sitting down wrong. I can hardly stay settled. Believe it or not, this is about the most solid I’ve been all week.”

“And that’s why you stayed away?” Daichi asks, unable to help the hurt in his voice.

Suga’s wings drop and he shakes his head so fast it sends his wild hair flying. “No! I’m just saying—how am I supposed to go back if I can’t even pretend to be human anymore? It’s one thing to be a zombie, but this—I can’t fake this.”

“I’ve never cared what you were,” Daichi tells him.

Suga’s gaze drops to the new grass between them. Some of it has already begun wilting around his bare feet. “I care. You would care.”

“I care about the fact that you left me alone in that hotel room. That I had to wake up in a hospital alone.”

“I’m sorry, Daichi,” Suga says again, rubbing his arm, continuing to avoid eye contact.

Despite how it makes his hands tingle and ache with warmth, Daichi cups Suga’s face. He forces him back into looking him in the eye again. “You left me once. Are you going to do it again, Koushi? Because I still care for you, and I’d hate it if things ended like this. I don’t want to lose you in my life—as a friend, if nothing else.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Suga whispers and leans into Daichi’s palm. He blinks up at him, eyes shining with unshed tears. (Or maybe more magic. Daichi isn’t certain of anything right now aside from the fact that his fingers feel like they’re full of hot static.) “God, Daichi—I never wanted to leave you. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too—”

“But we can’t be together, not like this,” Suga interrupts, and pulls himself from Daichi’s hold.

Daichi drops his arms, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth, and stares at Suga. “…Is this really it, then? Are you giving up?”

“I’m not.”

“Then what’s this?”

“We’re being patient. Yui says—we’re trying, alright? It’s taken this long just to maintain a settled form for this long! We’re figuring out a diet that works, and we’ve figured out that burning off excess magic helps, a little. It’s a lot of trial and error.”

“Suga,” Daichi begins, frustrated, and Suga nearly glares at him. Daichi takes another breath before beginning again. “Koushi. You are one of the most determined, most creative people I’ve ever met, especially when it comes to weird magical loopholes. You’re telling me that you’ve thought of nothing? Aren’t archangels supposed to be made of tons of magic? I know you—you’ve come up with a dozen ideas, at least.”

Suga doesn’t respond, but remains half-glaring at him, as if daring him to continue. Daring him to spill any other difficult truths.

“What are you scared of trying?” Daichi asks.

The silence stretches between them, thick and painful.

But just when Daichi is about to relent, to try to soften this wall between them, Suga’s shoulders sag the tiniest fraction, and his fierce expression eases. “Yui’s scared. Of second chances—of losing me. How can I blame her? We lost Kiyoko, and there aren’t too many changes I can go through before I really do become something that needs to be put down.”

“I’m glad you admit you haven’t crossed that line yet,” Daichi tells him, half-amused, and Suga’s glare morphs to a pout. “Okay, she’s scared, but she’s not you. You don’t owe it to her to hide away and be scared. What have you thought of to fix this?”

“You can’t fix a case of the archangel.”

“Didn’t Yui?” At Suga’s squint, Daichi shrugs. “Tadashi filled me in on a lot. Someone had to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can make it up to me by helping me work through this. Together. What have you figured out that you’re too scared to try?”

From the look in Suga’s eye—and Daichi knows that glint, the little spark of curiosity that has always led him down increasingly ridiculous paths to increasingly dangerous problems—Daichi knows there is something. There’s some light at the end of the tunnel that Suga and Yui are too spooked to try to grab.

“You second-guess yourself too much. Where’s the fearless man I fell in love with?”

Suga laughs, and it’s only a little bitter. “You went to his funeral, didn’t you?”

“But the chaotic little rule-breaker is still here, standing in front of me. I loved that part about you, too.”

“Can you not use the l-word right now? I already feel like shit.”

“Well, fair—”

“I saved the world! Or city, or something.”

“I don’t recall any until death do us part vows, much less until apocalypse do us part. Not that death would have stopped you,” Daichi mutters. He doesn’t want to keep arguing, to keep bickering in circles and maintaining this awful frustration when he finally found Suga again. “I want to talk this out. It doesn’t have to be today, sorry. But I don’t want you running off again.”

“No, I’m sorry, too. For… everything, Daichi.” Suga sighs, then runs a hand back through his hair. It’s gotten so long. “Do you still have your vorpal sword?”

“It’s more of a knife now, but yes.” At Suga’s blank look, Daichi explains, “It broke against the Northot thing. Since I was a hero, or something, or at least one of the few people who can touch it, I was allowed to keep the re-forged knife they made out of what they could salvage.” Daichi reaches into his dogtags—Yui was kind enough to recreate that spell for him—and pulls out his hunting knife. “A little less impressive to look at, but it’s not like I did much to begin with. I’m fine retiring permanently from god-hunting.”

Suga regards the knife with worrying intensity.

“I’m not stabbing you.”

“Huh? Why would I want you to stab me?”

“I don’t know! Iwaizumi wanted me to stab him in that stupid Dreamlands place.”

Suga grins, almost chuckling, and plants his fists on his hips. “No stabbing, Daichi. But if you’re squeamish, then you aren’t going to like my idea.”

There are few things Daichi wouldn’t try to get Suga back. “Try me.”

Suga extends his wings. He has one massive pair, grand and huge, and a smaller pair beneath them, not quite half their size. Daichi has no doubt that Suga could easily carry him with those. He also looks, for want of a much better term considering the context of those wings, beautiful.

For a moment, it’s easy to forget what a terrifying thing an angel could be.

“These have got to go,” Suga cheerily announces. That glint is back in his big doe eyes, that challenge, like he expects to pull one over and win the argument. Which is fucking stupid, because Daichi is being reasonable and not at all dramatic and emo like Mister Run Away And Mope In The Woods For Four Months, and Daichi is being the bigger person by not starting at shouting match with the man who nearly broke his heart.

But Daichi gulps when he realizes that winning this argument would mean using his knife on Suga’s oh so pretty wings.

“This is what it’d mean to be with me again,” Suga says, softly, wings curling inward again. There is no triumph in his expression. “It would mean sleepless nights, and a living heater, and I don’t know, going through a cow a week in food or something. It would mean hacking off literal parts of me to try to burn off excess magic. It would mean a lot of messy experimenting to try to get anything near normal again.” Suga sniffs, but he grins again, just for Daichi. “I still love you, Daichi. So that’s why I couldn’t do that to you. I’m not really asking you to. I’ll bring Yui around eventually, or maybe we’ll figure out another way. I can’t ask you to wait for me—”

“I’ll do it,” Daichi interrupts.

Suga gapes at him.

“I fought a god to try to find you in the middle of a warzone. You drive me up a wall, and I cried myself sick over you, but I don’t want to lose you. And if there’s one thing that dating you has given me, it’s getting over any squeamishness I might’ve had.”

Suga continues to gape at him.

“…Isn’t, um, angel blood corrosive or something, though? I might need some gloves,” Daichi adds. He’s getting dangerously close to rambling territory, because Suga is just staring at him, and Daichi feels like maybe offering to dice up your maybe-ex-boyfriend is kind of fucking weird. And gross.

But he hates Suga calling himself a monster. And no matter what his heart says about Suga, he trusts the man’s magical knowledge. If Suga says this will work, then it will.

A truly extraordinary sound breaks Daichi out of his rambling thoughts: the sound of Sugawara Koushi’s laughter.

He bends at the waist, clutching his stomach, wings shaking behind him with the force of his laughter. “Y-You are amazing Daichi! Yes, of course you need gloves. And of course that’s all the thought you’ve put into it.”

“You’d go through the details I’d need to know,” Daichi replies, miffed, but still fighting his own grin at Suga’s mirth. He has missed that laugh. “I’d hope. And you know I’m not all up on the magic jargon. That’s what you’ve always been around for. So… come back, to be around for that. Even if it’s going to be weird to get to that point.”

Suga’s still smiling at him when he agrees. That’s all Daichi ever wants.

--

Tadashi gets stuck with a yelp. Kei is halfway through the room before he turns on his heel. “Again?” he can’t help but ask, exasperated, as Tadashi fruitlessly kicks.

“Yes, because I’m doing this on purpose!” Tadashi growls and scrabbles at the peeling plaster.

“Hold still,” Kei says, and leans down to him. He kisses Tadashi full on the mouth, luck tingling between them, Tadashi going still.

He kisses his forehead, too, an extra quick peck just to be cheeky. When he pulls away, Tadashi is very red, and Kei can’t help his smug smirk. “You don’t have to do that every time,” he mumbles as he slides free of the wall.

“What better way of giving you luck than kissing? I thought you started that.”

“Tsukki,” Tadashi groans, and Kei laughs and ducks away from where he tries to smack him. He may not be able to make as much luck these days, but at least he can still embarrass Tadashi as easily as ever. “C’mon, we still have to catch up to that shade.”

“It’s a shade. How fast can it really move?” Kei scoffs.

From ahead of them, someone screams.

“Don’t say a word,” Kei grumbles before they start running again.

Tadashi slips through the walls as easily as Kei does, now, though Kei still grabs his hand when they climb through cabinets and over countertops. Shades aren’t the worst thing they’ve fought these days, in terms of power or edibility or how much sleep Tadashi will lose over the morality of it. Shades are easy.

But they can get so messy if anything living or semi-living gets in its way.

They break out into the sunshine, and Kei nearly trips over a chair before his eyes adjust. Tadashi runs straight through the tables and chairs, but Kei doesn’t initially see to where—he doesn’t see any sign of any shade or unfortunate victim.

Tadashi nearly runs off the roof.

Kei grabs him at the last moment, bent over the railing with his shoes hooked into the bottom, while Tadashi registers that he is not, in fact, still chasing down an errant shade.

Tadashi looks up at him, realization of his near-death experience slowly dawning. “I think you’ve gained all the weight I’ve lost,” Kei grunts as he hauls him back up and over the railing.

“Just for that, I’m shoving the shade down your throat, Tsukki,” Tadashi retorts with a wobbly smile. He looks a little shaken, but he shakes out his hands, squares his shoulders, and this time, points instead of sprinting into nowhere. “Okay, so it went that way. Either it over the edge, or it went assassin and parkoured over to the next building. What now?”

Kei leans back over the edge, scanning the alleyway between buildings. He doesn’t see any shades, but it’s dark, so who really knows. But he doesn’t see any bleeding passerby, either.

“It must have jumped,” he replies, though he doesn’t want to. “We don’t really have a way across that. It’s too far to even try jumping, and you’d go splat from this height. It wouldn’t be an attractive ghost.”

“Could you float us across?” Tadashi asks hopefully.

“Myself, maybe, but I think carrying you we’d lose too much height. We’d end up four stories down and still missing that shade.”

“Well, we’ve got to try something. I’ll get us across with a push spell, I guess? You just focus on keeping us in the air!” Tadashi grabs him firmly around the waist, and Kei scowls down at him. Tadashi beams. “Wouldn’t want me to go splat, right?”

“So no pressure, then.”

“The way I see it, every time we do something stupid—at least Suga did stupider things, and he survived his job as a hunter,” Tadashi says.

Kei doesn’t wish to get into the Suga Discussion again, especially while they’re on a job, because both of them have enough of a complex comparing themselves to their delinquent mentor. Suga took risks, yes, and he had the experience to back them up. Experience only comes with making your own mistakes.

He doesn’t like the prospect of a mistake that could result in death. That’s not the cavalier sort of attitude he wanted to inherit from Suga.

“Fortune favors the bold, Tsukki,” Tadashi says, and tugs him closer to the railing.

“Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.”

“Then hold onto me tighter!” Tadashi declares as he pushes them off the roof. Kei digs his claws in out of reflex, but Tadashi only lets out a wild laugh as they sort of float, sort of flop across the empty space into the wall of the next building.

Kei floats on through.

Tadashi gets stuck again.

Kei’s turn to laugh as he pulls him through. It takes more than a bit of luck, and Tadashi is clearly sweating bullets from their leap, but he pops free no worse for wear.

Either the universe likes their ballsiness, or Kei’s getting a little better at maintaining their lucky streak, because they find the shade just a room over. They’re in an apartment building, in someone’s living room, and based on the lack of body and front door thrown open, the owner fled. The shade sits in the middle of their carpet, trying futilely to eat their leftover dinner.

“Good thing they liked their steak rare, huh?” Tadashi says, elbowing Kei, but he can hear the relief clear in his voice. “Lucky for us!”

“You’ll jinx us yet.”

Tadashi rolls his eyes. Loudly. “Morisuke says jinxes aren’t real.”

“And they aren’t.”

It takes the two of them a long moment to realize that it hadn’t been either of them who’d spoken. Kei looks around wildly, and Tadashi starts toward the shade, who’d also startled too. It hisses mutely at his approach, but he throws the charmed blanket over it, and wrestles it into submission with a few more still and sleep runes.

And Kei finds it was actually Morisuke who’d spoken, like he’d been summoned. (Just in case, Kei checks to see if Lev is anywhere nearby, but he doesn’t appear to be present.) Morisuke sits delicately perched on the open windowsill. His tail is curled around his paws, and his eyes are as bright a gold as ever.

But it is still with a noticeable limp that he jumps down from the sill and pads over to Kei. “Jinxes are human nonsense. You know what else is human nonsense?”

“Summoning shades?” Kei guesses.

“Summoning anything you aren’t guaranteed control over,” Morisuke sharply replies. He jumps up into Kei’s arms without waiting for an invitation. “But I’m glad to see that you two don’t need babysitting anymore.”

“It’s just a shade,” Tadashi mumbles. “They’re harder to grab whole than they are to banish them.”

“Spoken like a true exorcist, I suppose. But be careful it doesn’t chew your fingers off, would you? And Kei, you’re getting so thin, you better eat that.”

Kei can’t help but make a face. “Don’t remind me.”

Tadashi staggers back up, shade bundled in his arms, still wriggling like a worm. “We had this handled, I swear.”

“Even the part where you almost fell off the roof?”

“You saw that?” Tadashi asks with a nervous giggle. Morisuke’s ears flatten. “It worked out in the end! I know, I know, we shouldn’t rely on luck, and it’s not like I was relying on it. Tsukki just caught me, and it was a lucky break. Anyway, we just got done with a job with no injuries, so you’re not allowed to lecture us.”

“I’m not here to lecture you,” Morisuke replies. Both boys stare at him, and he relents, ears now low in embarrassment. “Sorry—I just worry. But still, no, I’m not here to keep tabs on either of you. Kenma sent me. Well, Kenma sent Lev to ask me, but still. You’re supposed to check your phones?”

Tadashi has definitely learned to keep his phone on silent during jobs since the Ushijima Incident. He shoots Kei a look, one that says something like What the hell else is going on here, why is your protective cat guardian telling us to look at a text. Kei can only shrug. Hell if he knows. (But if Lev was just trying to send them dumb memes again, he was going to try eating him.)

“That’s all?” Kei prompts.

“It’s a group text?” Morisuke responds. “I don’t know why it was so important. Kenma didn’t deign to tell me, but he seemed strangely excited, and he insisted that you two know as soon as possible.”

“Does he have a job for us?” Tadashi mutters. He shifts the shade to one arm, digging around in his pocket with his other hand.

Kei had assumed Kenma had forgone most human currency entirely and bartered only with magical favors or ingredients, but they definitely were in a position to take advantage, even if it didn’t pay the rent. Who knew, maybe Kenma had found a way to make spirits palatable. Kei would probably kiss him and trade all the luck he could muster for that kind of deal.

“Oh my fuck!” Tadashi suddenly shouts and drops the shade altogether.

It slithers out from beneath the binding blanket, and Kei either drops Morisuke, or the bakeneko jumps out of his arms in their rush to try to contain it again. It skitters away from Morisuke’s hiss, and through Kei’s feet, but he manages to throw himself on its legs before it can get out the front door.

“Yamaguchi, what the hell,” Kei snarls over his shoulder as he wrestles the shade back into something approaching submission. He doesn’t have magic, he only has size on it, and barely at that.

Morisuke, now humanoid and carrying the binding blanket, throws it over both of them. Kei sits grumpily in the tiny tent with his docile shade. “Would you like to explain what the big news is?” Morisuke asks in that arch way that isn’t really a question. His voice is muffled by the magic layer between them.

Kei looks down at the faceless spirit beneath him. “Are you going to let me out, or are you going to make another break for it?”

It gurgles at him.

“Hold tight, Tsukki!” Tadashi chirps from outside, and Kei hears him fumbling around.

Soon enough, the blanket is ripped off of both of them, and Kei once again throws himself on the squirming spirit. But Tadashi hauls him off, and Kei sees why, a moment later—he’s drawn a banishment circle around it. With a couple of runes and murmurs that look deceptively simple but took months to properly get down, Tadashi banishes the shade.

“Wasn’t that supposed to be my dinner?” Kei asks the spot where it had just been.

“We have new dinner plans!” Tadashi exclaims. He shoves his phone in Kei’s face. He nearly goes cross-eyed trying to read it.

It’s a group text. Most of the numbers are already in Tadashi’s phone, labeled by sender, and most of the chat seems to be exclamation points from one Oikawa Tooru. Kei sees Kenma’s name in the list, too, and is halfway up the chat history before he sees who else’s name is in the list.

Sugawara Koushi.

Kei snaps back up to Tadashi, to find him grinning from ear to ear. “New dinner plans,” he repeats. Kei can only nod.

--

Yui had joked about giving him a paper bag to breathe into, but Suga is beginning to regret turning her down. She sympathetically rubs his back, just a thin strip up and down his spine, careful to avoid the tender spots and bandages. But even that, even with all of the magic and drugs in his system, it’s making his skin crawl.

“At least I don’t feel like throwing up,” Suga says. He thinks he says. His tongue feels thick. “‘m hungry, actually.”

As if out of nowhere, Yui pulls out a(nother) plate piled high with dumplings and carrot sticks. “How are you doing, Koushi?”

Suga holds out his hands, fingers splayed, and admires the thoroughly, solidly human appearance. “Lookit. I look human again. Everything’s still spinning but I don’t feel like I’m going to pop out of my skin. Like a caterpillar that’s been stepped on.”

“Ooookay, no eating dumplings while you say gross stuff. Stick to the carrots,” Yui says and shoves two sticks in his mouth.

“You asked,” Suga mumbles.

“Yeah, I did. How’s your back?”

Daichi, by the doorway, freezes; he looks conspicuously like he’s trying not to eavesdrop right now. “‘m fine,” Suga says, and it’s mostly the truth. The ache in his back is nothing compared to what he’s been through. At least now he doesn’t feel too big for his body, or like his magic is going to eat him from the inside out. He sighs happily and leans against her, until she makes an uncomfortable sound at the remains of his wings poking her stomach. “Sorry.”

They still haven’t discussed his wings—or lack thereof. Suga had been terrified that Yui would blame Daichi, or at least try to chew him out, but she hadn’t even cried. She hadn’t said a thing. She had only offered to clean Daichi’s burns and helped Suga stumble through stabilizing spells so the severed wings wouldn’t rot.

Suga still has magic, but it’s… different. He doesn’t use runes now, so his lovingly amassed magical vocabulary is next to useless. Weirdly, that’s one of the parts he’s hated most about what he’s become. He was good at working within his old, human limits. …Minus occasional bouts of passing out. Most magic is about intent, and he’s been blessed with a mind for research plus a spellwriter best friend, but it’s still been a struggle and a half.

Maybe now that he can use magic without setting his entire arm on fire, he could make some progress.

He hadn’t liked Daichi’s face when he’d done that.

“I win the bet,” Daichi calls from the doorway, “Tooru is here first.”

“I would have sworn Tadashi would get here first! He’s been practically hunting you,” Yui complains, with the gentlest of shakes to Suga’s shoulders. “Koushi, why’d Tooru have to be here first? I don’t want to face him alone!”

“You’re not alone. I’m here,” Suga reminds her.

“Then let’s get you presentable,” Daichi says.

He offers his hand to help him up, but Suga just blinks at him. “The floor is comfy.”

“Oh my god.”

“This reunion is gonna go so great,” Yui says with a grin. She scoops Suga up beneath his arms, making him whine at the press against his back, and dumps him against Daichi. He’s more or less upright, and for a moment, he can get past the too-much press of skin against him, because Daichi is wonderfully solid and cool compared to Suga’s own skin.

He snorts into Daichi’s shirt. “Now I’m the hot one.”

“You’ve always been the hot one,” Daichi indulgently replies. He helps Suga stand again under his own power, but keeps an arm around his waist. “Are you going to want to do the explanations, or do you want Yui or I to handle it? Can you be coherent enough for them?”

“I can explain magical theory blindfolded and dead,” Suga indignantly replies. “I think I might’ve before, actually.”

“You weren’t drunk enough to be dead that night,” Yui points out, and Suga sticks his tongue out at her. “Alright, alright, I’ll let your man handle you. I’ll just field questions about your hiatus from normal life.”

As soon as they’re out the door, Tooru leaps up from the couch and crosses the room in two bounds. To Suga, it feels like colliding with a brick wall when he throws his arms around him. But he wraps his arms back around him, and leans into the crook of Tooru’s neck, inhaling the familiar smell of his stupidly fruity shampoo.

“And he’s already crying,” Iwaizumi deadpans from the couch.

“I think Suga is, too,” Daichi says as he extracts himself from their embrace. Suga leans against Tooru, but Tooru hardly notices, apparently—and picks him up, too. “Oh, wait, don’t spin him—”

“You don’t want an angel to barf on you, and I’ve already been eating all day,” Suga wheezes against his neck.

“I’ve been chewed on by angels enough in this life, thank you,” Tooru wetly replies. He drops Suga, holds him at arm’s length, and blinks teary eyes down at him. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Koushi. You’re really back.”

“Back is a strong word,” Suga replies.

“And we’ll discuss that once everyone else is here. More carrot sticks,” Yui jumps in, sticking more into Suga’s mouth. He crunches, both annoyed and delighted.

“And Micchi, darling, I can finally stop being an asshole to you!”

“Here’s hoping,” Iwaizumi adds.

Yui laughs, nervous and awkward, then rubs the back of her head. “I don't blame you for it, Tooru. But I’d really like it if we could be friends again, too. I’ve missed my favorite mindreader.”

Tooru bundles her up in a hug, too, which warms Suga’s heart. Even if he does wobble a bit by himself. Daichi offers his arm again, and Suga gratefully leans against him, offering a smile in return. Tooru’s eyes flicker down to Daichi’s bandaged hands, and who knew what he felt on Suga’s back, but at least he doesn’t ask everything immediately.

“So, this is a welcome back party?” he asks, instead. “You look good, Koushi. Better than I’d expected. Of course, knowing you two, you’d find every loophole possible. And clearly, you’ve both practiced, because I’m not getting anything from either of you. Except something sort of… fuzzy.”

“I’m high as a kite right now,” Suga happily supplies.

Tooru stares at him.

“Painkillers and downers, mostly,” Daichi says, “and some sort of potion Yui gave him. I barely know the details, but the concoction hasn’t killed him, and hell, it works.”

Yui hastens to add, “It isn’t as bad as it sounds! We’ve been very careful in handling all of this, and we’ve worked up to mangeable doses! I had Hitoka help with the potion, too.”

“You drugged him. You drugged him, and that’s the plan from now on?” Tooru looks between them, all traces of his earlier joy gone. “Keep him sedated and holed up in your apartment?”

“Tooru,” Suga starts, but Daichi steps up, his own anger bubbling. Suga doesn’t have enough confidence in his own strength to tug him back without breaking something.

“Not getting into the fact that the perpetual walking migraine has a problem with medication—”

“This is his new medication? I’m just trying to ask, is this what it takes from now on? I demand to know what you two are doing with him.”

“We’re keeping him himself,” Daichi snaps. “You think I liked any part of this? You don’t know what we had to do to get him in one piece and stable, to get here today.”

Suga puts his hand on Daichi’s arm, and Daichi jumps as though burned. He doesn’t pull away. Tooru looks at their touch, then returns to Daichi’s face.

Suga doesn’t know what it’s like to be clairvoyant, but it doesn’t take a genius to see what Tooru gleaned from Daichi’s mind. With urgency and utmost care, he grabs Suga’s arm, and turns him around. Suga is dressed in Daichi’s biggest hoodie, unzipped, and a loose t-shirt Yui had dug out of their closet. But there are still obvious bumps on his back from the base of his cut wings.

“It was all my idea, Tooru, and you know that,” Suga tells him, because of course Tooru does. Tooru knows him as well as either Yui or Daichi, after all, and he knows what sort of lengths Suga would go to for the sake of his own weird plans.

“I know what danger an archangel poses,” Tooru hollowly agrees. Suga shudders as he gently traces one of the bumps. “I know you and your goddamned crazy experiments. But how the hell did you come to this?”

“The painkillers are only until these heal a bit more. The downers are because I know a lot of people are going to want to hug today.”

“We knew that cutting off an archangel’s wings could lead to a reduction in power,” Yui adds and she pulls Tooru’s hands away from Suga’s back. She holds them, peering beseechingly up at him, and asks, “Could you please believe in this? We’ve tried everything. Please don’t make this worse.”

Tooru’s face crumples. He sniffles, wipes his eyes, then crushes Suga back against him. “I just—I only wanted my friends back,” Tooru says into Suga’s hair (drowning out Suga’s dull little “ow”). “Oh, sorry! Ow, I even felt that one. You’re going to explain more, right? What we can do, what’s bad now? What’s the actual plan? It better not involve more dismemberment.”

“We’d like to only go over it once, if that’s alright,” Yui gently replies.

Suga, after pried from Tooru’s embrace, looks over to Iwaizumi. It’s his first time really seeing him since his self-imposed exile—he’d been able to stay updated, at least a little, on Tooru thanks to his incessant use of social media—but Iwaizumi’s expression is a mask. He’s dressed in long sleeves, too, but Yui had told him of the scars.

“You’ve been quiet,” Suga remarks without judgment. “Anything to add? Questions?”

“You said you’d answer them later,” Iwaizumi points out.

“But you have been pretty quiet,” Daichi says.

“You think I’m going to judge any part of this?” Iwaizumi asks, eyebrow raised. “I’m just glad someone else will be around again to mitigate Tooru’s constant annoyance. I’m not going to say a damned thing about humanity or danger or risks. Suga’s smart. He can take care of himself.”

Before Suga can respond to that strangely comforting assessment, there’s another knock at the door. Sunshine meows from his spot atop his cat tree, but doesn’t move to follow Yui when she goes to answer it.

She goes rigid when the door opens to reveal one very excited Bokuto.

“…You’re not Suga,” he says after a beat, head cocked steeply, squinting like he’s trying to recognize her.

“You’re not Kenma,” Yui replies. She turns back to Suga for help, but he didn’t invite the tengu.

“Bokuto, what’re you doing here?” Suga calls over.

Bokuto brightens like the sun. He pushes past Yui and next thing Suga knows, he’s squished against firm muscle and itchy feathers and he wants to melt. “Suga! You’re still in one piece! Oh, we’ve heard all sorts of nasty rumors, but look at you, you’re—hey, what’s wrong with your back?”

Suga finally breathes again when Bokuto releases him. Akaashi has since ducked into the room, nodding coolly at Tooru and Iwaizumi and ignoring Yui altogether, but Suga doesn’t get any relief until Kenma trails in after them with his nose so close to his phone screen he may as well be leaving smears. “It’s so nice to see you again, but—well, it’s a surprise.”

“They invited themselves along,” Kenma explains without looking up. “And, they’ve been worried about you, too.”

“Missed you too,” Suga replies with a roll of his eyes. Kenma shrugs. “Okay, but Kenma, you’ve got to realize that this is… a really dumb idea.”

“Well, all of this has been dumb.”

Bokuto’s feathers suddenly fluff up, and Yui quickly puts the couch between herself and the tengu. Akaashi puts a hand on Bokuto’s shoulder, calming him before Suga would have to defend Yui and unfortunately find out how much of a hit his magical power actually took—and Suga realizes that Akaashi only has the one hand. One arm, one wing.

“We shouldn’t fight right now, because there’s a lot to talk out,” Kenma continues, scrolling on his phone like he’s not smack dab in the middle of a potential third world war. “I guess. Personally, I think I’d want to fight, but I know Kuro would want us to play nice, and Tadashi is going to be here soon.”

“You’re guests in our home,” Yui says, smiling wide and tight, both hands raised in a placating gesture. Bokuto’s eyes narrow, and slowly, his lip curls.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“I’m glad it’s not us, for a change,” Tooru cheerily says.

Bokuto deflates a little when he registers his presence, and Akaashi steers him down to sit beside him. “I’m glad to see you are still in one piece, Oikawa. Congratulations,” Akaashi tonelessly tells him.

“I’m sorry for whatever I did,” Yui begins, after grabbing Sunshine to pet over like a self-soothing mechanism.

But Suga finishes it for her. “But that wasn’t her. This is Yui now, an old friend and someone we love dearly. I’d consider it a personal favor if you could at least be polite.” Akaashi doesn’t respond, maintaining their usual indifferent expression (Suga’s more used to seeing it directed at Tooru, granted).

“Jeez,” Daichi huffs, under his breath, and Suga can’t help but laugh.

“Why did you expect any different?”

“Aren’t any of you happy to see him again? Ignore the politics and weird old grudges and whatever else is going on. Is there a point we invited you here?”

“Some were invited,” Yui mutters.

“I missed Suga!” Bokuto declares, arm in the air.

Tooru raises his even higher. “Of course I missed my Koushi! Boo on you both for keeping him from me for so long.” After a few moments of thought, Iwaizumi also raises his hand. “See, we can be wonderful guests, and you’d think that the tengu would miss their friend.”

“Of course we did. Sugawara Koushi is legally dead, however, and we were both surprised to see other certain individuals here today,” Akaashi replies.

“Not sure why I was invited, anyway. No offense,” Kenma adds. He finally stashes his phone in his pocket, and perches on the arm of the couch nearest Bokuto. “I’m glad you’re not eating people, and I appreciate the warning if you’re going to announce you’ll start. But you’re tengu friend—why did you message me, Sugawara?”

“I’ll get to the main reason later, but mostly, because of Kuroo.”

Even Kenma looks surprised at that. Suga shouldn’t be taking credit for it, but he can’t help a little bit of smugness.

The chaos doesn’t seem to be over yet, because of course Suga is still expecting his favorite student. Tadashi hardly knocks before throwing the door open. Several of those present jump at the sudden bang, Tooru snickers like he’d heard him coming, and Daichi laughs at the breathless way Tadashi spills inside, Kei right on his heels.

Suga glances up at him. He realizes it’s been so long since he’s heard Daichi really laugh.

“Suga!” Tadashi and Kei both cry, and in moments, he has two far too large teenage boys in his lap.

And perhaps the most surreal part is the utter joy Suga feels blooming within his chest. He’s felt happy at seeing so many people again, some in batches and some out in the forest, but so much of it was fraught with so many other emotions. Guilt and sorrow with Daichi, hope and anger with Yui, defensiveness with Kuroo and caution with the tengu and whatever he can feel toward Tooru these days—but Suga is so glad that they’re both okay and he can finally see them again.

“Oh, thank god you’re okay,” Suga says, wrapping his arms around each of them, squeezing until they’re squirming. His arms still feel a little floaty, but he releases them anyway. Just in case. “I am so sorry for—”

“For ditching us?” Kei interrupts.

“For ditching all your belongings out of spite so I couldn’t find you?” Tadashi continues.

“For ditching us during or after the apocalypse, I mean.”

“For ignoring all our texts and then interrupting a job?”

“Alright, I get it,” Suga says, shoving his hands over both their mouths. Kei nips at his fingers, but Suga raises a brow. He wouldn’t be the one regretting it if Kei were to draw blood. “I’m sorry for a lot. But we have a hug quota today, and you’re about up on yours.”

“Is it a quota, or a limit?” Daichi dryly asks.

“I want a do-over!” Tooru exclaims, bolting up from the couch. Both Iwaizumi and Akaashi haul him back.

“We’ll explain everything,” Yui says, beaming, but firmly helping Tadashi and Kei off of Suga. Daichi extends a hand to help him up, and Suga gratefully takes it. He’s lucky the boys didn’t knock him flat; his back would have protested mightily, and he still doesn’t know what he’s capable of, even literally winged and sedated. He doesn’t want to test that out on Tadashi for a second time.

They bring out their meager collection of chairs, but it’s still crowded in his and Yui’s tiny living room. He feels a bit like he’s back in school, giving a presentation to class. Tooru is halfway on Iwaizumi’s lap on the couch, Bokuto beside them, and Akaashi wedged into the small amount of remaining space. Kenma sits on one arm, and Kei leans against the other, and Tadashi is on the kitchen stool beside him.

Sunshine remains contentedly in Yui’s arms, and Daichi stands beside them both, a pillar of support. Suga is grateful for both of them. They’re going to have another batch of reintroductions (and goodbyes) later with Yuu, Ryuunosuke, Saeko, and Hitoka’s little shop crew, but there’s a reason Suga asked for these friends of his first.

“So, I’m a thing called an archangel now,” Suga begins. At least no one looks surprised. “I’m not the first archangel, but we’re letting the city government believe that, because the first one was actually Yui. In order to fight Northot, Kiyoko summoned another old god, and sacrificed Yui the archangel to get the necessary power.”

“And for the payment price, she asked that I be resurrected, as I was. Lost a few years compared to the rest of you, but aside from Tooru, none of you really knew me before,” Yui continues. She grins, then ducks her head in a quick bow. “Nice to meet you all! I’m Michimiya Yui, Suga’s old roommate and friend. Witch, spellwriter, and Sunny is actually my cat!”

She holds him up, and he dutifully meows for everyone.

“Yui is now employed by the city government as one of the spellwriters to help with repairs and installing magical security. I am now legally dead—for real this time. Thanks, everyone, by the way, for coming to my funeral. I couldn’t attend, but Yui recorded a bunch of it for me. Kinda disappointed no one threw themselves into the casket, but no one’s funeral is perfect, I guess.”

At least Yui chuckles at his joke. Daichi rolls his eyes. Loudly.

“As some suspected,” Suga continues with a pointed, sidelong look at him, “I’m still around, but I stayed away for good reason. Honestly, I’m heavily drugged right now, and well-fed, and I’m still kind of… Yui’s here to keep me on a leash.” Yui coughs to cover a laugh, and Suga blithely adds, “Daichi could, too, but we’re still working through that.”

Daichi coughs, too, but his is more of a I’m Choking On Air You Asshole How Dare You kind. It’s a sound Suga isn’t very used to hearing from him, but in general, he’s used to it. (Mostly from Tadashi.)

“My entire life as a hunter has been spent making sure people are safe from monsters. Now, I’m on the other side of that—no, don’t look at me that way—” Suga scolds Tadashi with a frown, “—I would rather die, for real, than hurt anyone I cared about. Than hurt an innocent bystander, or eat someone’s familiar, or become some sort of political talking point for whoever’s trying to run things now. I’ve had to fight uphill battles about existing for the past four years, and that’s when I was still human. So, this is the line in the sand. I’m throwing in the towel this round.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Tooru asks, face impassive, but voice cool.

“I’m leaving,” Suga replies with a shrug. “I’m not exactly sure where, yet, but I’m moving. Like a real adult this time, not running away from home.”

“Like a child,” Tooru helpfully points out.

“Yes, I’m sorry, but what else did anyone expect me to do? It was too much, Tooru. I couldn’t risk anything—”

Tadashi leaps to his feet and bursts out, “We would have helped you!”

“You always try to help everyone else, and we could’ve done something! At the very least, we could handle an archangel,” Bokuto agrees.

“What’s done is done,” Yui says, but Bokuto spares her a dispassionate look, rare from him. She holds up her hands in a placating gesture and steps halfway between Suga and their small crowd. “We played it cautious, and we can’t take back anything. The important thing is that no one else got hurt. And we’ve sort of figured out a way to stabilize that much magical power, so let’s all just move on, for the time being.”

“I know this won’t fix anything, but I also think that’s better suited for something that isn’t like a classroom?” Suga adds, because he needs to dole out a lot of apologies, but if he must do it in public, he thinks he’ll melt. “Look, we’ve called you all here to give you an explanation and an update. I’m an archangel, I’m moving out, and we’re paying you all off.”

“…You’re paying us?” Kei asks after a lengthy pause.

“Well,” Suga says with a crooked grin, “I’m going to need help, aren’t I? I’m even asking nicely this time.”

“We don’t need your money. Or Yui’s money, or whoever it went to.” Tadashi shakes his head, hair flying loose of his ponytail. Without looking, Kei reaches over and tucks some of it back behind his ear. “I’ll do jobs with you, or for you, but—”

“It’s not that kind of payment,” Suga says, and Daichi reaches down into the duffel bag behind them. He pulls out the first bundle, just a little longer than his forearm, wrapped tight and spelled with preservation and protection spells. Suga takes it from him with a murmur of thanks, then, gingerly, holds it out to Tadashi. “You can sell it, but be careful if you do. But I want you to keep a feather, so you’ll always be able to find me again. Proof that I’m not running away from you again.”

Tadashi takes it carefully, but Suga sees the moment when he realizes what he’s holding. “F-Feather?”

Kei stares down at the wrapped bundle with an expression Suga can’t parse. He hopes it’s not hunger. “Are you saying…?”

Bokuto and Akaashi are suddenly on the furthest part of the couch from them.

“Do you know how much archangel parts would be worth?” Suga asks with a wry chuckle. “Of course we didn’t just throw away my wings. I’ve already sold feathers and blood to smooth over my temporary exile.”

“The preservation spells on it will hold until it’s opened, or for like… a few years, probably. But I could refresh it for you! It’d be easier to charm a single feather or two, but they’re pretty durable,” Yui chirps. “It’s the same spell I wrote to hold all that weird stuff when you two were on that magical diet thing.” (The diet had been a bad idea. Tooru looks as chagrined as Suga feels at the reminder of it.)

Tadashi and Kei exchange a look. “Um,” Tadashi says, “thanks, Suga, but… Give me a moment. I’m adjusting to the fact that my life has come to accepting body parts as gifts.”

“Yuu gave you that antler months ago.”

“Body parts of our friends,” Kei corrects.

“It’s nothing vital, or anything I needed! It’s really better if I don’t have them. Can’t hide them very well, and it’s nice to be able to think a little more clearly, even if the room sways whenever I move too fast.” Suga turns carefully to Tooru next, avoiding that very thing, and Yui hands him the next wrapped bundle. Tooru takes it with considerably less squeamishness than Tadashi. “Tooru, yours is also payment.”

“I can head off any unfortunate rumors about you, and I’ll take good care of your little hunter protege.” He smiles tightly, and definitely does not handle the severed wing with the consideration it probably deserves. “But I’m selling this as soon as I’m able, Koushi. Iwa-chan won’t let me have too many dangerous magical artifacts in the house anymore, and I’m not giving up my cursed comb.”

Suga grins. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Tooru. But that’s not all I need from you. I’ll talk to you two later, alright?”

“Ominous. I like it.”

He turns to Kenma next, who looks faintly expectant, but mostly wary. Suga can’t exactly blame him. “And as for you, Kenma, don’t worry. Not an ounce of sappiness for you.”

Kenma watches him with a hooded expression as both Yui and Daichi help him rummage around in his bag.

“The sappiness is for Kuroo, of course, but he’s not present. I’ve already written him a letter, so don’t worry, no projecting for you. Bokuto, I could give you a bit of his sappiness—”

“Yes please!”

“—but I don’t think you want to hold the wing,” Suga finishes.

Bokuto wilts at once. “Hell no. Kenma, that’s all yours.”

Kenma’s eyes go wide when Daichi and Yui hand the wrapped wing to Suga. This one is huge, nearly up to Suga’s shoulder if he were to set it on the floor, and so thick with feathers and muscle it’s difficult to wrap his arms around it.

“You might need some help to carry it,” Suga says as he offers it out to Kenma.

Both tengu shrink away. “I can manage,” Kenma quickly assures, though he makes no move to take it right now. “But, um…”

“Why does he get the big one?!” Tooru demands.

“How many wings did you have?” Tadashi adds, just as quick. “That one’s huge, so that one was a full one, so these were—”

“A growing second set, yes,” Yui curtly cuts in. “Neither of you need to get into more trouble with more illegal materials, and Kenma can handle a bit more discretion. It’d also probably be pretty useful for spell ingredients.”

“But why are you giving it to me?” Kenma asks with a desperate look toward Tadashi. Why not him?

“We’ve never been besties, and I’ve done my best to work with you. You’ve done me a lot of favors in the past.”

“But. Why.”

“Part of it’s for Kuroo, like I said. If it weren’t for me, you never would’ve gotten dragged into this—not that I think you ultimately minded, once you got to know him, but I’m not going to judge on that. This is payment for a spell.”

Kenma snaps from his shock at the full wing right into an impassive, defensive hunch. “What kind of spell.” Then, he squints over at Yui, suspicion growing.

She again steps in with her usual amount of sweetness and careful negotiation. “You already did it once, actually. The spell you used to cut off my wings the first time. We need a cleaner way of manipulating his magical power, and honestly, a cleaner way of severing the wings, too. That’s the reason I’m not doing it—we’re only asking you to improve something you already did. You can say no, of course, and I’ll figure out something similar on my own.”

“Yui doesn’t approve of my methods,” Suga says like it’s no big deal. Yui shoots him a dark look. “She doesn’t like it, and she doesn’t want to write it. I was hoping you could be my alternative.”

“Angelic magic isn’t like human magic. Even if I wrote it for you, could you use it?”

Suga shrugs. “Who knows? Every day is an experiment. But even if I can’t, maybe Daichi could. Yui certainly could. We would figure it out, so you wouldn’t have to play surgeon. It’d give us all some peace of mind.”

“…Alright,” Kenma finally agrees.

Suga beams at him, and holds out the large wing again.

“Yeah, I can’t touch that, I think I’d throw up.”

“Oh, come on, it’s only a wing.”

Kenma holds up a hand and snaps his fingers. A flame appears over them, just a normal little fire spell, but Suga smells the demonic tang as if Kuroo were in the room with them. “I really can’t touch it,” Kenma deadpans. “You can drop it off with Futakuchi and give me the money, thanks. I don’t need spell ingredients I can’t touch.”

Okay, so Suga is going to have to write Kuroo another letter, asking what the hell he and Kenma got up to in the past few months. Suga can do the magical math, so he has a couple of guesses, but yikes. “Duly noted,” Suga says, and shoves the wing back into his charmed duffel bag. (It’s not as nice as his messenger bag, but it’s easier for bigger things.)

“Who gets the other wing?” Bokuto asks with the horrified curiosity a bystander in a car crash might possess.

“Me, of course. Do you know how much down payment on a house is these days? I’m not leaving the woods just to go live in some other woods. I’m told adult humans live in houses these days, so that’s what Daichi convinced me to do.”

“How much are these things worth?” Tadashi asks with renewed awe.

Suga and Yui both shrug. “Depends how long you want to hold onto them, where you sell them, that sort of thing. Also, I’m purposefully looking for a pretty shitty house for him, so that’s been fun. A haunted house!”

“A haunted house?” Daichi asks, leaning backwards to squint at her from around Suga.

“That shouldn’t be news to you,” Suga says with a nervous chuckle. He’d left most of the house hunting to her, since he hadn’t exactly had a cell phone for the past couple months, and he generally trusted her as knowing what he needed in a living space. “Sellers are legally required to say if a house is haunted or not, and they’re far cheaper if they are legitimately haunted. It’s not like I couldn’t take care of it for us.”

“Us?” Tooru asks and he leans so far off of Iwaizumi’s lap that he nearly falls off.

And now, damn it, Suga owes Yui. He’d thought Tadashi would have the first reaction to that.

“Do you want to, or should I?” Suga asks Daichi.

“By all means. This is your show today.”

Suga puffs out a breath and nobly resists sticking out his tongue, too. “Yes, us. It’s not as romantic as it sounds, sorry to break your heart. Not that romance is off the table, but it’s… really complicated right now?”

“I’m not cut out to live in a magic city full-time,” Daichi says with a sidelong look (that Suga totally ignores), “and yes, while we’re in facebook It’s Complicated hell, we’re giving things another shot. This is really more a matter of convenience than anything else, though—”

“Stop it, you still love each other!” Tooru irritably breaks in with a truly terrifying scowl. “Koushi may be too weird to read much from, and Micchi may finally have herself under lock and key, but you.”

Daichi folds his arms over his chest. While he reddens, he maintains an adorably stern expression. “And me, Oikawa. Do you really want to get into an argument over this? Yes, I still care for Suga. But I am also the one with a vorpal knife, and I like the idea of living in the middle of nowhere again. It suits us both. Millennial convenience.”

“Get married for the tax benefits, next,” Kei suggests. Tadashi snickers, and they high five, despite all the muster of Daichi’s glower. “Personally, I care less about the fact that you two are shacking up than I do that Koushi is leaving. A feather is nice, but we’re getting an address, right? A new phone number? Visiting rights?”

“Yes, I’m moving, not vanishing off the face of the planet. That’s the whole point of this talk. That and the dangerous talk. If I ever chew on any of you, you have full permission to shoot me.”

“Noted,” Kenma says, first, before anyone else could argue with a joke.

“Knew I could count on you, even without your shoulder demon around.”

It’s not exactly a party, but of course everyone awkwardly lingers, hoping for a chance to speak with Suga. And he, for his part, is fucking exhausted. He thinks the Xanax is taking more effect now, or maybe he’s just tired emotionally. Tooru picks up on it and ushers Iwaizumi out the door with a We Will Talk Later look.

Bokuto does try to talk Suga into going on one last zoo trip with them—“It will be really fun! We’re getting a whole group together, and I’ve never been to a zoo before, and I think Keiji is secretly scared of the jabberwock. It’ll be hilarious to see, promise!” “I honestly think every animal in that place will start shrieking the moment I step foot there. And Akaashi could definitely hear you when you said that.”—but Akaashi is the one who gently takes Suga aside and wishes him neutral but maybe fond good luck.

Kenma just sort of nods at him before dragging both tengu out with him.

“He’s a cheeky little witch. I like him,” Yui says as soon as Kenma is safely gone. “Pity we can’t work together! Pity… everything happened, I guess. It would have been cool to see that spellwork of his up close and personal.”

“He mostly just works in stained sweats and with a lot of junk food,” Tadashi supplies.

“Yeah, that sounds like the spellwriter method,” Suga can’t help but say, and Yui shoves another carrot stick in his mouth. “We’re seeing Yuu and the Tanaka sibs later tonight, so if you hear any screaming, it’s them. I think Hitoka’s already guessed, honestly, but she may text you, too. I’d appreciate your discretion until then.”

“Of course,” Kei replies.

“…You’re doing okay, right?” Tadashi asks with the meekness of when they first met. He does not sound like the young man Suga has watched him grow into. “You’re okay?”

“As okay as he could be,” Daichi replies.

Suga shrugs. “My back hurts. I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. You could probably understand that. Daichi, Yui, could you two give us some privacy real quick?”

Yui scoops up Sunshine and vanishes into the bedroom without another word. Daichi looks at that closed door, frowns, then sighs. “Guess I’ll just… step out.”

“Thank yoooou,” Suga sings after him. Once the door clicks shut, Suga releases a sigh of his own. Then, he smiles, then, he laughs. Both boys stare at him. “No, no—it’s just—I’m so sorry!”

“So you’re laughing at us?”

“Glad to know you’re back to normal.”

“No, no, it’s…” Suga sucks in a breath he only halfway needs anymore, then lets himself fall against them, one arm wrapped around each of them. Kei, as usual, has to bend a little too much, and Tadashi ends up smushed painfully against his neck, and his shoulders twinge badly. “I’m so glad you two are alright. I’m so sorry for what I did. Yui told me—I’m shocked you two even showed up. I don’t deserve this kind of loyalty.”

“That wasn’t you,” Tadashi replies, quick and muffled and somehow firm despite that. “That was—I mean, you can’t be responsible for everything all the time. It’s not going to happen again.”

“Right?” Kei adds.

“Of course not! You two have the most permission ever to shoot me.”

“I don’t want to.” Tadashi pulls his face from Suga’s neck (thankfully) and looks up at him with all the earnestness in the world. “If anyone can pull this off, you can. Tsukki is grumpy and antisocial, and he still managed to handle being a chimera, so I know you could handle being an angel!”

“I’ve missed our bonding over existential horror and identity crises,” Kei deadpans.

“I have, too. Daichi just looks like he wants to shove me in therapy when I start in on wondering how long archangels live.” Suga grins harder, and he reaches up to ruffle Kei’s hair, just for the way he scowls. “I’ve missed you two terribly, but I’ve missed being able to admit I’m a mess, too. A mess of a monster.”

“Neither of you are monsters,” Tadashi insists.

Kei’s mouth quirks up in an actual goddamn smile. “Yeah,” he replies, holding Suga’s gaze, “we know.”

--

“I should have expected this,” Tooru laments even as he tries so fucking hard to pretend he’s disinterested by picking at his nails. He’s already managed to pull off a hangnail and get himself to bleed, and the rest of his polish is chipping badly.

“Then why are you letting them do this?” Iwaizumi asks from the couch. Tooru had thought he’d been napping; his face is still hidden beneath the book he’d given up trying to read.

From within the bathroom, Suga and Yui’s laughter echoes.

“I’d pay far more than a bathtub to bring a dear friend back into my life,” Tooru confesses in a low voice, so the two miscreants can’t hear. “I’ve had to lose Koushi before. But now I have both him and Micchi back—once the shock wears off, I’m going to be a happy, beautiful little clam.”

“I don’t think clams are that happy.”

Suga staggers out from the bathroom, dripping wet and still laughing. He can’t stand up straight, cheeks flushed, arms a little too colorless to be human. Tooru tries not to stare, but Suga’s too out of it to even notice, he’d guess. “Tooru,” he slurs, and yeah he’s fucking trashed, “Yui chipped your tile.”

“I did not!” Yui shrieks from inside.

Tooru desperately wants to know what she’s given him this time, but he also knows he doesn’t want to know. Not really. He’d been with Suga through all of his attempts at self-medication when he came back from the dead the first time. It had stung, to be so helpless for someone he cared so much for, and to see what kind of lengths Suga would go to.

But he’s known for four and a half years now, what sort of lengths both Suga and Yui would go to.

“Koushi, are you getting into trouble and stealing from me?” Tooru can’t help but tease, leaning on the back of the couch to affect a properly coy pose.

“I told you,” Suga declares with a point. His finger does not look entirely solid.

Iwaizumi pulls the book from his face. “What’d you tell him? You know he never listens.” He rolls over onto his stomach and props his chin up on the throw pillow.

“Oh, you’re what smells so good,” Suga says like he’s surprised to find Iwaizumi there.

“I’ve fought angels before, Suga.”

“Are you hungry again?” Tooru asks.

“Koushi, I need your help in here!” Yui calls again, and Suga totters back into the bathroom. There are a few ominous sounds, clangs and definitely the sound of something breaking, but soon, Yui reappears with a flourish straight out of a three ring circus. “Ta-da!”

Suga follows her out, pushing Tooru’s clawfoot bathtub like it’s on wheels. It isn’t; it’s floating a couple inches off the floor, gently buoyed by her spell.

“You don’t even have a house yet,” Tooru points out, yet again. “Are you going to put a bathtub in the middle of the forest? We know it won’t fit in your apartment.”

“It’s going in the woods,” Suga agrees.

“Yeah, there’s really no other place to put it.”

“Then why can’t it stay here?” Tooru pouts.

“We’re looking at a couple places next week, so think of this as excitement insurance. Not that Koushi is the one who really needs it, but maybe Daichi could use a bath,” Yui says. She laughs at her own mental image, one Tooru would have been alright not seeing, thank you very much. “Let me know when you get your new tub picked out, and I’ll help you install it and take the caps off your pipes. It seems I have a talent for plumbing!”

Based on the sounds Tooru had heard earlier, he’s going to say that that’s a blatant lie. “You’re both damning me to nothing but showers. And I thought you loved me.”

“I told you I was going to take your tub. It’s my one true love,” Suga says with a dreamy sigh as he rubs his hands over the edges. “You’re not going to be mad at me, are you? Oh, I’m going to sleep in this.”

“Koushi, are you okay?”

“Just let him have his moment,” Yui advises. “I think he and Daichi are still patching things up.”

“Things are patched. We’re moving in together. What isn’t patched?” Suga clambers into the floating tub with a sulk, then draws his knees to his chest and peers angrily over the edge at them all. “I’m not so drunk I don’t know when you’re talking about me. Daichi and I are going to be fine.”

“Oh, that I wholeheartedly believe,” Yui replies, clearly amused.

Tooru, not quite as much. “You’re drunk this time? How did you even find enough alcohol to get an archangel drunk?!”

“Spirit-made stuff, and a lot of it. Kind of surprised it worked, too, but he’s sort of a surly drunk, so I don’t think this is any kind of fix,” Yui says with a thoughtful hum. She plants her fists on her hips and jerks her head. “C’mon, Koushi, we have to get this moving out of Tooru’s living room.”

“I want to sleep,” he maintains.

“You can sleep in the tub when you move it.”

Tooru massages his temples, trying to get rid of his own mental image of poor Suga sleeping in a bathtub out in the middle of the forest. He trusts, at the very least, that they’re figuring out what works and what does. He still doesn’t think sleeping in the middle of the woods is the best choice, but he’s also known for sleeping with feral shapeshifters and being stupid enough to get himself possessed in another realm, so he’ll let them win this round.

“‘Kay,” Suga says, “bye, Tooru.”

And then he and the tub vanish.

Yui lets out an aggravated sound, and Iwaizumi glares at the spot he’d disappeared from. “That just broke all my careful spellwork, ugh. He better have landed where he wants it.”

“How good is he at jumping between spaces like that?” Iwaizumi asks.

“He’s getting better? I can’t help him with that part, but I think the tengu are helping him learn. They don’t really let me in on their plans, haha, so… can’t blame them for that one, though.” Yui scrubs a hand back through her hair with another frustrated huff. “…This is weird, right? It’s weird.”

“Yui, no part of our lives has ever not been weird. Just because you missed a couple years doesn’t mean the weirdness stopped.”

That earns a laugh, even if he can still sense the unease rolling off her in waves. Tooru wonders when that’ll leave her, but that is something else he can’t help with.

He’ll just have to be here for them both, as best he can.

Bathtub-less.

--

“Dearest Midna,” Kenma begins reading to the familiar in his lap, “not a day goes by where I do not miss you stepping on my face. Your fur is like starlight and the beautiful calm before the storm, and your eyes staring at me late at night are missed most terribly. Your sweet yowls in the dead of night and your sharp little claws, too.”

Kuro begins all of his letters like this. He puts the ones to Midna on the outermost layer, so Kenma has to open that one first.

Midna sits up on her hind legs in order to butt her head against his chin. She purrs, loudly and happily, and pats the paper for Kenma to return to reading. “Yes, I know I’m not doing his voice very well,” Kenma tells her. “You’ll have to use your imagination, cat.”

It takes several minutes to go through all of Kuro’s messy but achingly familiar handwriting. Somehow, it always makes Kenma laugh, and it certainly makes Midna happy. And, as always, Kuro ends his letter to her with a quick, “Oh, and please dearest princess, pass along some love to Kenma, too.”

She seems pleased when her letter is finished, and curls up in Kenma’s lap while he goes through his. Far longer than Midna’s, of course, but the fact that she gets them at all makes him smile. Akaashi couldn’t understand why a letter to a cat could always make Kenma so happy, and Bokuto just laughed when he read the first one.

But he’s happy to get the silly parts of the letters, because it reminds him that no matter how much Kuro has changed, he still likes to tease. Some things remain the same.

To Kenma’s initial surprise, Kuro has been sending a lot of letters. Even more surprising is that Kuro freely and frequently admits how much and how often he misses him. Kenma gets them a couple times a month, usually passed onto him by a certain smug kitsune, but once in awhile delivered to the tengu stall by an increasingly curious bardi.

Kuro freely admits to all of his emotions—initial loneliness that nearly had Bokuto going after him, the grief at learning missing history, the joy in recognizing things, the familiarity of the language and some parts of the culture. He writes a lot about food, trying to scribble recipes onto margins with little success, and frequently laments the fact that he doesn’t know how to send pictures easily.

Kenma has written back several times about getting him a phone, but Kuro always replies with a gentle, teasing dismissal.

Kenma kind of likes writing the letters, too.

Kuro writes about school and something called raki and swimming in the ocean again. Kenma writes about spellwriting, and working as an unofficial liaison for not one but two tengu clans, and the latest trouble Lev has gotten into with Morisuke, and how Tora has been pestering him to start his own coven. Once, Lev helps Kenma write his response in Russian, and he receives a response written entirely in Turkish that Bokuto and Akaashi have to read aloud to him.

Kenma misses him, but life goes on, and their letters help. More than Kenma had admittedly thought at first. And it’s really nice to have something to talk about, something new and exciting for Kuro to explore, without Kenma. He gets to hear about it secondhand, and while some of Kuro’s stories are pretty confusing, Kenma can read his happiness in every word.

That said, he’s pretty excited when he gets to the next page of the latest letter and reads the word visit.

“Midna, want to take a trip?” Kenma asks, and she meows at him. Traveling through the goblin markets would be cheapest and fastest, but he’ll probably need either Bokuto or Akaashi to guide him, so he’ll need to make sure that the invitation extends to all of them.

He really ought to finish Sugawara’s spell first, and make sure Lev’s new contract with the nekomata doesn’t get him into further trouble. Many witches and officials still haven’t been terribly fond of summoners, and Kenma has lowkey played bodyguard more than once, but Tadashi would keep an eye on things if he asked.

If he’s not getting into trouble himself.

“We’re going to have to go shopping,” Kenma muses aloud, and Midna agrees again. “Travel supplies, but we need to get Kuro a camera. We should print out a couple of pictures for him, too, shouldn’t we?”

God, he can imagine the shit he’s going to get from Lev and Tora if they catch wind that he’s trying to do something sappy like make a photo album or something. But Kuro always asks about the others, too, and it’s not out of politeness.

It’s just Kuro’s sappiness rubbing off on me, Kenma lies to himself, and begins drawing up a list.

--

Yui scans the crowd of ghosts beneath her. A lot of the public still hasn’t heard about the Danse yet, but it’s still the most crowded she’s ever seen it. It’s not just a handful of skittish yet determined mourners; there are knots of people, small groups here and there, and even a pair of well-meaning witches sitting by the front gate of this cemetery.

From her perch atop her broom, Sunshine balanced perfectly on the end, she’s been keeping tabs on the two boys, while also searching out her own. She isn’t sure if it’s luck or practice in dealing with ghosts, but Tadashi managed to find the ghost of a plump older woman she guesses is his mother. They look a lot alike, anyway, and she picks him up and twirls him around with much cheering.

Yui is sorely tempted to float down a little closer, because Tsukishima is looking so adorably embarrassed as Tadashi introduces him to his mother, and she’d love to hear them stumble through that. But she has a good vantage point right now and she won’t give it up.

“See either of them yet, Sunny?” Yui murmurs, doing a wide loop around the glowing Danse below. Ghosts swirl in curious eddies around small throngs of living souls, and reunions loudly and happily abound. Honestly, people who don’t think ghosts can be lively have obviously never been to the Danse Macabre.

Sunshine meows. She sighs.

She wouldn’t mind seeing her grandparents again, though she doubts they’ll come here, since there’s no way they could have known she’s back. Maybe next year, she muses, and continues searching for familiar faces.

Her phone rings, static cutting sharply through her pop music—one great thing about coming back is all of the music she’s missed—and she sees that it’s Yuu. “No fair!” she answers.

All she can hear is his maniacal, triumphant laughter.

“Where are you?! I looked so hard!”

“I win, I win!”

“Is it just Asahi?”

“Asahi, say hi to Yui!” Yuu cries and Yui gets something that might be a garbled greeting. Even on Halloween, ghosts can’t do everything. “We’re by that big tree, kind of by the creepy angel statue? The one with the missing wing, not the one in the veil.”

Yui wheels around in the sky. “Be there in a flash!” She only momentarily considers the fact that it may be odd for someone to have so perfectly memorized a cemetery’s layout, but oh well.

She spots them soon enough, Yuu standing triumphantly on Asahi’s shoulders, waving both arms. Asahi has one arm wrapped around one of Yuu’s legs, the other raised in a shy wave, but the way his face lights up when he spots Yui is the most amazing thing she’s seen.

She jumps off of the broom rather than lands, and it’s hardly two steps before she collides with both of them. She’s laughing to stop herself from crying, but at least Asahi starts it first. “Oh my god—you’re alive!” he bawls without shame and wraps her up in a hug so tight she can’t breathe. What a way to go.

“She’s alive, and now I get to do this!” Yuu crows and manages to lift them both. Yui wheezes a laugh, and Asahi just rubs his cheek against her hair.

“I can’t believe it,” he repeats, over and over, while Yuu tries to spin them both. They all topple over, Asahi sandwiched between them, Yuu laughing in pain beneath them.

They sort themselves out, and end up sitting in a small circle, cross-legged and hanging on each other’s every word. Yui had never gotten to go to a Danse with Asahi before—or any friend, really, only older family members. It’s bittersweet, of course, but her heart feels so full she has no room for the old grief of it.

Yuu and Yui eagerly retell the heroics of the apocalypse, hyping up how Kiyoko’s plan totally worked easily and downplaying the terror and guilt of it. Yuu greatly embellishes his adventures with the tengu and sniping the god. Yui describes all of the things she’s gotten used to again, coming back to life, how technology is so fun (creepy location advancements aside) and how she has a list of movies to watch and book series that finally got finished.

Somehow, they get through Yuu explaining the latest season of Game of Thrones (badly) before Asahi brings it up. “You said that Kiyoko’s plan worked. Was she working tonight?” he asks with no judgment; according to Yuu, they’ve had to handle Halloween in the past in shifts, and Yui recalls it even in the coven. (It’s weird, working for a government and a paycheck instead of a coven and the occasional stipend.)

“You… didn’t see her?” Yuu asks, faltering in his exuberance for the first time that night.

Yui had personally doubted Kiyoko would become a ghost. She knows what makes ghosts, and what prevents them. She must look away from Asahi’s wide-eyed expression. “See her? Here? No, Yuu is the only one I’ve seen so far, and he called you…”

“No, I mean—” Yuu balks from his own admission.

“Kiyoko’s plan involved her sacrificing herself,” Yui gently explains. “And there was a lot of magic, and I’m… not sure she was fully human when she died. But we were still hoping we could see her tonight, too.”

“Oh,” Asahi says. He takes a deep breath he doesn’t need, then another. When Yui peeks back at him, she finds him admirably calm, grief obvious, but no more tears. “Oh… No, I haven’t seen her. I don’t think she passed on.”

“At least we get to see you again! We promised you all the news, even the bad shit, and so. Yeah!” Yuu declares like if he has enough bluster, they can force their way through this again. “Death sucks ass, but it happens. We don’t wanna ruin our night with it, just let you know what’s been happening. Hitoka inherited her shop, but I think she’s working tonight, since a lot of people are scared of ghosts these days.”

“That’s good,” Asahi murmurs.

“And Kageyama—that little witch kid with the stick up his ass and really obvious crush—works with her! There’s a ton of overlap with the goblin markets, and I think there’s talks of her opening a stall there, so that’d be super cool. There’s not a lot of humans working there, even these days.”

“And Saeko and Yuu retired!”

“Oh yeah, and that!”

“Don’t you oh yeah that. We threw you a huge party and everything,” Yui huffs, and Yuu has the gall to laugh. “It was great. I think I have some videos on my phone, actually? Saeko’s working tonight—she bartends now, so Halloween is a big party night, but she sends her love, too.”

Yui scrolls through her phone, but when she glances up at Asahi, he does not look excited or relieved. He still has that serious distance to him. “Asahi, you okay, man?” Yuu asks with a careful touch of his arm. It lingers, cherished, but Yuu’s focus remains laser-sharp. “Talk to me, Asahi.”

“What about Koushi? Ryuunosuke? Tooru?”

“Oh god, we should have led with the list,” Yui says, and forgoes the phone to dig around in her backpack instead. Sunshine helps her paw through it. “We made you a list! It was so you could read through things that aren’t so fun to talk about, and then we could keep talking about the funny stuff, and we were trying to multitask…”

“Don’t look at me, you had the list!”

“You saw him first! You could have started in on it!” Yui finally pulls her notebook free and flips to the front page. She holds it out to Asahi like a trophy.

In neat, impersonal words are a simple status list of all of their friends. Shimizu Kiyoko had been at the top, because they’d anticipated talking about that earlier and trying to see if she was there against all the odds, and Suga’s name was right below hers. “It’s a happy list, we swear. We’ve fought so fucking hard to get it to be a happy list, anyway, and it’s happy enough!” Yuu adds with a lot of excited pointing.

But Asahi frowns as he reads it. “What does this mean… angel. Yui, you were…”

“That was part of the death thing, remember? Kiyoko sacrificed me, so that meant a true death, then revived me as I was. I lost a few years, but at least I’ll look young forever now.”

“How the hell do you still talk about sacrifice shit so calmly?” Yuu mutters, but Yui hears him, and smacks his shoulder. “Okay, no, I get it, I was bound to a ghost for three years. Some shit’s just crazy. Suga’s the angel now, or archangel I guess, and he’s… dealing with it, I guess. Actually, he’s supposed to call us pretty soon!”

Yui proudly brandishes her phone again. “Cameras these days are so nice, it wasn’t that hard to make this one ghost-compatible! We’re gonna do a video chat with Koushi at about… midnight, I think? But he’s still in one piece, and he’s mostly alive, so that much is the same as ever, okay?”

Asahi chuckles, finally smiling again. “The same as ever.”

“Ryuu’s also dropping in pretty soon!” Yuu adds with all the eagerness in the world. “Sae might be able to swing by after her shift, but no promises. Yama and Tsukki are here, somewhere, too, so maybe we’ll see them, if you wanna go on another ghost hunt. For old time’s sake.”

“I’d love to.”

This time, they go through the list down to each painstaking detail, properly filling Asahi in on everything. Some news is still happier than other news, but they’d been prepared for that.

“And… Ushijima?” Asahi asks at last. He’s not on the list—friends and family only—but of course Asahi would want to know. He looks up at them over the edge of the notebook, brows drawn into a high, worried arch. “He was responsible for it all, right? What happened to him?”

“We caught him!” Yuu bursts out with equal parts anger and frustration. “Asahi, we had him, I swear. He was in jail for a few months, the covens couldn’t decide what to do with him, because they couldn’t put him to death. Plus there was a huge push against the death penalty, because with everyone knowing about magic, so many people don’t understand this kinda shit.”

Yui remains silent, and lets Yuu take this one over. She doesn’t have the same feelings toward Ushijima as most of her friends. She had always been tied in with Kiyoko’s perspective, the ends justifying the means, and the ends had included using his help to get rid of Northot.

She remembers pulling Suga away from Tadashi and Ushijima. She hasn’t told anyone about that. But Tadashi had insisted on trying to keep Ushijima alive, despite his own wounds, despite the fact that Yui’s heart was breaking over the realization of what had happened to Suga.

“But after a couple of months, his old buddies broke him out. We only ever caught him, so we knew he had accomplices, but they all skipped town after that,” Yuu bitterly tells him. He unclenches his fists from his pant leg, and instead grabs Asahi’s hand. “We did punish him, though, for what he did. Just… not enough. I’m sorry, Asahi.”

“It’s over. You survived, and at least everyone knows he’s responsible now,” Asahi replies.

“No one has heard anything from or about him since,” Yui says, carefully neutral. “None of his old mates, or work contacts. He really did just leave.”

“He should’ve been put to death, fuck the public opinion!” Yuu snarls.

“He was deathless.”

“We have spellwriters, you could’ve come up with something! He’s responsible for all of this, he’s the reason you and Kiyoko—and Suga—and Asahi! You passed on because of him!” Yuu turns to him desperately.

Asahi just looks down at their clasped hands. He squeezes them, and gives Yuu a small, sad smile. “Our bond was broken, it was time for me to pass on, anyway. And there are things worse than death. Ushijima will never know what sort of peace there is here. I’m glad you two are still here.”

Yuu scowls, but Asahi gives their connected hands another squeeze, and he lets it go.

Ryuunosuke finds them not long after, breathless as he jogs up with a gasping, “Finally here!” He’s followed by a gaggle of quite interested ghosts, but they don’t try anything funny. Ryuu takes a moment to catch his breath with his hands on his knees.

“Welcome back, Ryuu,” Asahi says with a wider smile than before.

“‘Bout time you made it! Hey, I won the bet, by the way.”

“Listen, I’ve already had to break up two cases of dumbasses trying to turn some poor ghosts into poltergeists, so I don’t want none of your sass tonight. And dudes, did you know there’s a bigger Tsukishima? Passed them on the way in, an’ I think Yama was trying to make ghosts lucky again. Asahi, man, I’ve fuckin’ missed your voice of reason! We’re losing all of our stable people left and right.” Ryuu plops down between Yuu and Asahi, throwing an arm around Asahi’s shoulders, and leans against him with a pleased sort of cackle. “Any sign of Kiyoko?”

“No, we don’t think she’s coming,” Yui replies.

“I haven’t seen her, or heard of her passing,” Asahi adds, “so I’m sorry, Ryuunosuke. All of you.”

“It ain’t your fault! That’s just life, I guess—or death.” Ryuu sniffs once, and wipes at his eyes, and they pretend not to notice. “Anyway, tonight ain’t about that sad shit. I got some fairy wine, wanna see if ghosts can party?”

“We already tried fairy wine,” Asahi points out with a terribly unconvincing frown.

“Yeah, but now you’re a different type of ghost. Back me up here, Yui.”

“Don’t look at me, Koushi was the ghost expert. And Yuu.”

“No, I was an Asahi expert!”

Ryuu tries to foist a thermos full of questionably smelling alcohol off on him anyway. Asahi does try to drink some, bless his heart, but it just drips down onto the ground instead. They pass it around amongst themselves soon after. The fairy wine makes her tongue tingle and stomach warm, almost uncomfortably, but it’s nice, even on the cold, hard ground and with spirits circling them like wolves. Yui refreshes their protective charms, just in case.

“Still can’t tell us about the afterlife, huh? Heaven or hell?” Ryuu has to ask, like he has every Danse, according to Yuu.

“I’m pretty sure it’s only one place, but it’s not… it’s different, but it’s nice. It’s not something I can explain easily,” Asahi says. He smiles, content, down at the full cup he’s allowed to touch tonight. “It’s nice,” he repeats after a beat.

“No one’s blaming you for passing on,” Yuu tells him. He reaches over to take his hand, and Asahi’s smile softens. “Like Ryuu said, it’s a part of life. We’re not mad.”

“Did you ever get that tattoo?”

“No, but I got a gerbil, and I think I got a cat! There’s this stray I’ve been feeding, big ugly orange thing, he’s so cool.”

As Yuu starts gushing about his growing menagerie, Asahi shoots both Yui and Ryuu a Look. Ryuu gives him a thumbs-up; Yui shrugs with a helpless grin. Asahi shouldn’t be so naive as to think either of them could control Nishinoya Yuu. At least she can give him cat advice.

Exactly at midnight, Yui’s phone rings.

Yuu gives a whoop, and Asahi nearly crawls into her lap in his own excitement, making Ryuu lapse back into probably-drunken giggles. Yui accepts the call, switches the camera view, and holds up Suga’s face for them all to see.

“Suga,” Asahi begins, voice already choked, but still grinning. “They’ve told me everything—how have you been—I’m so glad you called—!”

“Asahi, hi, a little slower, please! You’re still a ghost on a voice call, and I’m only getting every other word,” Suga replies with his own wet laugh. His voice sounds pretty staticky, too, and Yui glances around at all of the spirits pressing in on them.

“Hi to you, too!” Ryuu says, ducking into the shot.

Yuu throws himself over both their laps with another whoop. “Hey, stranger! You could call us once in awhile, too!”

“Are you throwing your own little party with the ghosts? Oh—Daichi says hi, he says you sound drunk. Are you drunk already?”

“I ain’t speaking Portuguese yet, so obviously I got a ways to go,” Ryuu says and takes another long swig from the thermos.

“Where are you? It’s so dark, you’re so washed out. You’re practically glowing,” Asahi says—then shoots Yui a panicked look. “He’s not really glowing, is he?” he whispers.

“No, it’s just the light. But yeah, Koushi, where are you?”

“At the new place. It doesn’t have any electricity yet, and Daichi gets the flashlight. Did you know, my night vision is actually pretty good?”

“You picked a place?!” Ryuu and Yuu shout in unison.

“Well, we think so? I like this place, but we’re not sure just yet.” Lowering his voice and bringing in the phone so it’s just the bottom of his face, he whispers, “We’re definitely getting it, I just have to talk Daichi into it.”

“Wait, Koushi… Why are you there at midnight? Is it—it’s not yours yet, is it? Are you breaking in?!” Asahi asks in increasing alarm. That sets off Ryuunosuke laughing all over again.

“We’re not hurting anything! It has a poltergeist problem, and Daichi wanted it taken care of before we signed anything.” They can hear Daichi’s voice from a distance, fuzzy and indistinct. “Well you did! So we’re taking care of it!”

“I’m so glad you’re still getting into trouble,” Yuu says with a fake, dreamy sigh. He bats his eyes at the phone. “It makes it seem like old times, Suga.”

“Ask him what he’s doing with the poltergeists,” Yui dryly says.

“Be nicer to poor Asahi, he doesn’t want to hear about that,” Suga scolds. Then, grinning up at the camera again, he hastily changes the subject. “It’s so nice to see you again! Next year, I’ll send along all kinds of pictures. I’m thinking of decorating this in a French Rococo style, what do you think?”

This time, Daichi is close enough to hear clearly, though with how close Suga is to the camera, it’s impossible to see him. “No, stop saying that. Do you even know what it means?”

“How about you just do an accent wall or two,” Asahi suggests with another small chuckle.

“Thank you!” Daichi exclaims. A flashlight briefly passes over Suga’s face, making him blink like an owl.

“Asahi, I almost forgot how un-fun you could be.”

“And you missed it,” Asahi dares to say, grinning. Suga laughs in both defeat and agreement.

--

Despite adjusting to a life where he no longer needs to sleep half of it away, and despite the fact that he does, in fact, frequently get to see the sunrise, Suga still finds them disgusting. Some things will never change, and he doesn’t ever want to let go of his irrational hate for early mornings.

But Daichi’s arms are around his waist, and Daichi likes sunrises, damn him. So Suga will bite his tongue, just this once.

Daichi rests his cheek against Suga’s neck, chin hooked over his shoulder, body cool in comparison to Suga’s new running temperature. But he still feels so nice. “Legally, don’t we have to inform them that they no longer have a haunted house?”

“They didn’t believe in ghosts or magic to begin with, Daichi. I’m not letting them jack the price up on us.”

The place Suga had fallen in love with was, in the opinion of an ex-exorcist, ex-necromancer, and full-time magical being that should not exist, absolutely perfect. He couldn’t wait to hear Tooru bitch about how it was “out in the woods”, though really, it wasn’t. Technically.

There were a lot of trees, though, and their nearest neighbor was nearly hidden, about half a mile between the houses. The road is paved, but their driveway is not. A small, smooth, straight river runs parallel to the road, and they both lead to the nearest town, about a fifteen minute drive of sparsely populated area.

Suga has seen (and, admittedly, eaten) deer in the area, and Daichi has already complained about how many rabbits there were. It’s not exactly the country that Daichi misses, but it’s more wild than Suga has ever lived near in his life, and it’s more than enough space for him.

The house itself is a fixer-upper, to say the very least. It was closer to a haunted house ride in an amusement park than anything supposedly liveable, but Suga took care of the poltergeist problem, and he’s already begun putting up wards on the property.

“You’re going to have to learn how to be a real handyman,” Suga happily reminds Daichi.

“You are going to have to learn that, too. I’m not letting you get out of any of the work just because you’re trying to scare me off with your weird ideas of decorating.”

“You’re going to wake up one day and I’ll have remodeled the entire place.”

Daichi has, in fact, watched Suga as he accidentally broke one of the windows trying to open it, so they both know that that’s a blatant lie. Suga’s willing to learn, but as of right now, handy he is not.

“What made you want to keep trying?” Suga asks, quietly, still in Daichi’s arms.

But Daichi just squeezes him. He refused to let Suga take anything today, not for the (not) last (not) exorcism, and not for the signing later. Suga wants to squirm out of his skin, but he also likes the pressure Daichi offers him. Suga is learning to like it again.

“I thought you were worth it. Maybe I was a little addled by all the magic, too.”

“You’re signing up for an awful lot.”

“The magical city doesn’t agree with me. You, on the other hand, do.” Daichi squeezes him again, then releases him. “Koushi, I still love you, and any relationship is work.”

“Most relationships end with ‘till death do us part,” Suga jokes, unable to help himself.

“Yeah, our vows are going to have to skip that part. Our eventual vows. Mom is already over the moon that we’re moving in together. She wants your new number, by the way.”

Suga shudders. “And get fifty billion texts about babies next? Daichi, I love your mother, but baby steps. No pun intended, for once. I need to adjust to cohabitation, and magic use, and sleeping without traffic noise first.”

As if prompted by the mention of sleep, Daichi yawns.

Suga gives him his most shit-eating grin. “Tired, Daichi?”

“Oh, shut it,” Daichi says with another yawn. “We were up all night reenacting Ghost Hunters, then talking to Asahi and the others. I’m allowed to be tired, Suga. I’m only human, remember?”

“Ooh, a joke. I’m definitely taking that as a good step in the right direction.”

Daichi laughs, and Suga’s grin eases into sincerity and adoration. He still loves this man. He loves that he’s given him another chance, and that they’re going to move on, together. He loves that he could still have a life, after everything.

Suga leans over and kisses Daichi. Daichi’s lips meet his easily, a little chapped and a little cool, but familiar and welcoming. They’ve finally gotten back to this point together, and Suga cherishes it.

Even if it makes his mouth tingle a little when he pulls away. Daichi licks his lips like they might be feeling weird, too. “Still full of surprises,” Daichi mutters, grinning crookedly.

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

The future for an archangel might be full of uncertainty, and tension, and uncomfortable experimentation, and possibly worse. He’s still gone from his city, most of his friends, and has lost so much more. He doesn’t yet know the first thing about archangel lifespans, or other health hazards, and has only barely figured out how to stabilize his magic and diet.

But the future for Sugawara Koushi seems just a little bit brighter.

He can do this.