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i.
It’s half past ten, and Michizou dials the only number he has memorized. He has a new phone, paid for with Mafia money, because his old phone was a gift from the Hunting Dogs. And by “gift,” he means it was a work phone, but he still used it to communicate with all of his friends in the mafia and he still used it to call Gin late at night and he still used it to map out the route to Higuchi’s apartment and he still used it to call an Uber for Chuuya and he still isn’t forgiven for his betrayal, but he can’t remember if it’s Gin who hasn’t forgiven him or if it’s just himself.
He dials the only number he remembers because it’s half past ten and he’s drinking alone and everything is blurry, but that has nothing to do with the alcohol. He calls Gin, and Gin doesn’t answer because they have no reason to.
He leaves a message. A slurred, mumbled, “Sorry. I wish…wish I could be better.”
ii.
They’ve shoved themselves into a back corner booth at some bar deep in mafia territory. Gin doesn’t remember the name of it, nor do they care to find out. Their last mission was an easy success, finished hours before they’d expected, and Tachihara suggested celebrating with drinks. Neither one of them drink much, but Tachihara offered and Gin agreed and now he’s babbling on about how to grow hyacinths like either of them have time for something as trivial as gardening.
Gin doesn’t really understand what he’s saying, but the sound of his voice is a soothing anchor amidst the background clamor of the other patrons.
They don’t leave until the bar closes and they’re kicked out, and Tachihara is absolutely properly wasted for the first time since Gin has known him. The first time ever, maybe—they aren’t technically old enough to drink, but the bars in mafia territory make half their money off people searching for a place that doesn’t check IDs.
They stumble back towards Tachihara’s apartment because it’s closer. Gin has a knife hidden in their sleeve as they support Tachihara’s weight. He’s half-mumbling, half-singing something Gin can’t make out, until suddenly he’s not and he’s standing straight and he’s looking at Gin like the world is about to end.
They raise an eyebrow, unsure if he can even see the movement in the dark.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he says, more seriously than he’s said anything.
Then, he turns away, doubles over, and throws up.
Gin scoffs, but they hold him while he heaves. Once he’s finished, they drag him back to his apartment and make him drink a glass of water before forcing him into bed. They leave more water and painkillers on his bedside table for when he wakes, and then they crash on his couch.
(He doesn’t remember his confession in the morning. It’s better that way.)
iii.
“You’re my best friend,” Tachihara tells Gin, high off his ass on painkillers and anesthetics after a mission gone sideways.
Gin shakes their head, because that can’t be true. Because they’ve only known each other for six months and Gin has not spoken to him once and Tachihara is still under the impression that they’re a boy. They can’t be his best friend when he doesn’t even know such an integral aspect of their identity.
“You are,” he insists. “You understand me way better than the rest of ‘em. They don’t get it. But…you do.” He reaches over, grabbing at one of Gin’s hands. Gin allows him to hold it if only because he looks like a sad dog right now, lying in the infirmary bed with three different tubes hooked up to him and a glazed-over dejection shining in his eyes, like he’s on the edge of tears for no real reason at all.
Gin squeezes his hand, then gives him a look they hope says, You have no idea what you’re saying.
Tachihara sighs. His eyes slip shut and he mumbles, “I could never have been like him. But you never even wanted that. You never knew him at all. …I like that. It’s easier that way.”
Gin doesn’t ask who he’s talking about. They have a feeling it isn’t something they’re supposed to know, and Tachihara is entitled to the secrets of his history. No one who joins the mafia does so because they come from wealth and good fortune.
“Thanks for that,” Tachihara whispers. “Thanks for being my friend.”
Gin doesn’t respond, and Tachihara says nothing else before he drifts to sleep.
iv.
Michizou raises his glass. “To the end of the world.”
Gin clinks their glass against his. “To the end of the world,” they echo, and then the two drink in unison.
Tomorrow, Michizou will be expected to report to the Hunting Dogs, updating them on the plans of the Agency terrorists currently hiding out with the Port Mafia. The doctor is within his reach, and atonement for his brother’s death is finally going to be his, after years of waiting and planning and pretending…
Pretending.
Except, when he looks at Gin, nothing he feels is pretend anymore. Maybe it was in the beginning. Maybe, back when he first joined the mafia, it was all just a game. See if you can get your new coworkers to like you and trust you. See how many people you can stab in the back. See how many people you can fool.
But now…
Tomorrow, the world Michizou spent the past four years building for himself will begin to crumble.
But tonight, he and Gin drink champagne and let themselves laugh like everything is going to be okay. Tonight, Michizou can be a little bit drunk and a little bit in love. And he’s not nearly as inebriated as he pretends to be when he leans in close and tells Gin, “I wish I could be with you forever.”
Gin laughs like they don’t believe him, but he’s never said anything so honest in his life. He’s a liar by nature, an actor on a set where one wrong move will kill him, and he’s risking too much laying the truth out between them.
So he slips on a lopsided smile and slurs his next words together. “Good things don’t last for people like you and me, but…sometimes, I think this could.”
“We’ll see,” Gin tells him. They take another sip of their drink. “Maybe if we survive the end of the world.”
They won’t. Tachihara knows this. It’s why he invited Gin over, why he bought the most expensive champagne he could find just to waste it on two people who prefer something stronger. They will both live, he hopes, but their partnership will not. In two weeks, all he will have of Gin is their anger and perhaps their knife in his throat.
What he said was Good things don’t last for people like you and me.
What he meant was Liars cannot hold onto anything true, and what we have is the only truth I have ever known.
“Maybe,” he agrees absently. He downs the remaining contents of his glass like a shot. The carbonation burns his throat, but what aches the most is the knowledge that Gin will soon hate him, and there is nothing he can do. Because this is how it was always going to end, and he fell in love anyway.
v.
It’s half past ten, and Gin watches their phone ring until it sends Tachihara to voicemail. They don’t have his new number saved, but they’ve spent enough time looking at the single text he’s sent from it that they’ve unwillingly committed it to memory. It’s half past ten and Gin is home alone because Ryuunosuke is spending the night with the weretiger and Gin is ignoring the only other person they might want to talk to right now, because they shouldn’t want to hear from him.
They should want him dead.
Some days, they do.
But some days, they see the way Ryuunsouke’s eyes spark with life whenever he’s near Atsushi, and Gin longs for the presence of such joy to return to their own life. They miss when just the mention of Tachihara’s name had their heart skipping beats, they miss the painful cliché of having a crush, because it was the one normal coming-of-age milestone they got to experience. Until said crush stabbed them in the stomach and revealed that everything they’d built was founded on lie after lie after lie.
Tachihara leaves a voicemail. Gin shouldn’t listen to it, but they do.
Sorry, he says, the word spilling out thick like blood. And then, slurred under the obvious influence of a little too much to drink, I wish…wish I could’ve been better.
Silence stretches out for three more long seconds, and then the message ends. Gin hates him, really. They want to drive their knife into his stomach while it’s under their own control, but they could only do so if he let them, and there is no satisfaction in revenge if the one you’ve sworn vengeance on accepts their fate with a smile on their lips.
They listen to the voicemail twice more. I wish I could’ve been better.
I wish I could’ve been better.
Gin wishes he could’ve been better too.
They shouldn’t call him back, but they’re lonely and it’s late and they miss Tachihara just as much as they hate him.
He answers on the second ring.
“Gin?”
“Hey,” they say, because they didn’t plan out a speech or even have half an idea what they were doing. Calling back was an impulse decision that they should regret, but they won’t, because they can’t. Not when it comes to Tachihara. “You okay?”
Tachihara barks out a laugh.
Gin smiles. “Yeah…Stupid question. Sorry.”
Tachihara sighs. “I turned all the lights off, and now I can’t see anything at all. It’s all just a dark mess of— of nothing. Like I’m living in the void.” He laughs again. “I used to think your eyes were like an empty void, but I know you better now. They’re more like storm clouds. Or maybe mercury. The…the silver liquid-y stuff, not the planet. Or maybe also the planet; I don’t know much about space. Is the planet silver too? Eh, whatever. You get the point. I hope… I don’t…really remember what my point was.”
Gin hates him. They wish they were next to him. They wish he was here.
Everything they had was built on lies, and yet—
He is their best friend. He’s been their best friend for years, and Gin is pretty sure they’re in love with him. They want to be with him forever.
He’s trying to be better, but by “better,” Gin really means worse, because he’s trying to mold himself into the perfect mafia partner instead of a soldier fighting for justice. But the Hunting Dogs as a group was formed on a lie too, so maybe…maybe “better,” just means “truer to who he really is and what he really wants.”
Gin doesn’t say any of this, though. Instead, they tell Tachihara, “I think your point was that you should turn the lights back on.”
“But I like the dark,” he whines, like a petulant child.
“Then maybe it’s time you sleep.”
Gin waits with bated breath for him to say something stupid like I’d be able to sleep better if you were here with me.
He doesn’t.
He says, softly, “Yeah. Maybe it is.”
But he doesn’t hang up, and neither does Gin. They stay on the phone, breathing in sync, silence washing over them just like it used to before Gin would speak to him. Back when silence was what Gin used to keep their own secrets.
“Gin?” Tachihara whispers.
Gin hums in response.
“I…” he exhales slowly. “Oh, whatever. You already know.”
Gin purses their lips.
You already know.
I do, they think, but the words refuse to come out. They sit wedged in Gin’s throat, suffocating like the truth always is. Of course they know. Because even if everything they had was built on lies, Tachihara believed his own story so deeply that it became his truth. It became the thing he truly wanted, so much so that he risked his life to come back. Tachihara’s alignment with the mafia may have been fake, but Gin knows whatever he felt for them has always been real.
It would be easier if it wasn’t, but life is cruel and Gin does not deserve simplicity.
“Tachihara?”
“Yeah?”
Gin hesitates. There are so many things to say, and none of them are easy. Things between the two of them could never have been easy, and Gin wants to hold onto him, but they’re afraid they want the familiarity of quiet even more.
“Get some rest,” they instruct, but their voice comes out with a strange softness. “And…don’t drink with the lights off.”
“Yeah,” he breathes out, like he heard everything Gin refused to say imbued in their response. “Yeah, okay. …G’night.”
“Goodnight,” Gin returns.
They hope it’s enough. They pray he can hear the reciprocation of all his drunk confessions Gin can’t spill regardless of their sobriety. They wish…
They wish they could be better.
But this is all they are. Tachihara is spilled words only Gin remembers, and Gin is silence not even Tachihara can break. Tachihara is loyalty and lies woven into a single thread while Gin is both the god he worships and the disciple who swore their life to him.
Gin wishes they could be better, but this is all they are, and they worry this is all they will ever be.