"And that's that," Shinji says, putting a slippered foot between the door and the frame, then shutting Kouta's frail snores inside with a ginger slip over his toe.
Tsugami nods (no, it's Shouichi now, Shinji reminds himself). Shouichi reaches up and onto his shoulder, tilting his head downward and away, wincing as a soft rolling crack falls into the air around them. "Cute kid," he says, moving both hands to his neck and kneading the skin under his fingertips. "Kinda reminds me of you when you started out."
"Uh, we kind of started out at the same time, didn't we?"
"Yeah, but you were way more clueless." Shouichi laughs and ducks Shinji's swipe, ignoring the growl that follows. "It's the truth. You were both very cute."
Shinji play-acts at offense with a screwed up mouth, but a smile creases at his eyes a second afterward. "'Were'?"
"Are," Shouichi corrects himself, waggling his eyebrows at Shinji as they start moving down the yellow-dimmed hall.
"Thank you." Shinji slips a hand into his back pocket, drawing the notebook out again, careful not to fumble with the stray notes and business cards he'd been collecting over the past ten months. He really ought to forage the library for a blank journal that Philip hasn't laid claim to yet and start scrapbooking his findings together, or elbow grease it with that rusty hole punch and a stack of paper they'd foraged from some crack earlier in the year. He'd feel better if he had a three ring binder before he went through all of that trouble, but he isn't counting on floating past an office supply store or a school in the next week or so. Might as well prepare.
Shouichi peers into the journal. "How's that coming?"
"All right." Shinji frowns, letting the journal fall open to a page with a neat pen map of the castle. He pulls the pen from the journal's pages and adds a tally mark next to the small square that marks off Kouta's room. "It's not every single one of them, there's too much going on here at once, but it's about as thorough as I can get it."
Shouichi nods with a small, bolstering hum. They walk down the hall together, away from the kitchen and towards the back annex of the castle bedrooms, Shinji struggling to keep his mouth from babbling any farther, because... Well. It's silly.
It's silly right up until he folds the journal open to a page which should have a card with a note (amended: 3000 skills), and it's gone.
"Wait."
Shouichi pauses, obedient, looking back as Shinji scans from side to side, then back the way they came. "Did you drop something?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I must have. Hold on." Shinji doubles back and Shouichi follows, both scanning the floor, walking slowly. A low uneasiness crawls up underneath Shinji's stomach, fluttering at his heart.
Shouichi's footsteps slow to an uncertain stop. "What's so funny," he asks.
"What? Ha. Huh?" Shinji halts, looking back at him. "Funny?"
"Haven't you." Shouichi gives him a strange look, searching. "Maybe we should sit down."
"Was I laughing or something?" Shinji pauses. Was he? He's not sure. Everything feels a little light. Like he's up somewhere very high.
"Yes. And we've passed Kazuraba's room. We came from the kitchen to check on him, remember?" It's funny, Shinji muses, the thought floating away in soft white cotton that fills his ears ringing and makes Shouichi's slide from concern to alarm disappear into bursting stars. He does remember that.
He doesn't remember how he ends up seated on the floor, propped up against the wall with Shouichi's fingers against the pulse in his neck, then at his head, the pressure blunted like the soft part of his lip after getting a cavity filled. Shouichi's saying something. "Say what?" Shinji mumbles. It's harder than it should be.
"There we go, you're back." Patient, a little exasperated. "Well, you've been eating, so that's not it. Not that you need to be bullied into it, honestly. Have you been sleeping?"
"Lots," Shinji says, forcing his tongue into movement. The thrumming in his ears must be his heartbeat. That's a little. Fast. "Probably more than I should."
"That's what Souma says too." Shouichi pauses. "Although I believe you. You don't look tired."
"Great." Shinji puts a palm to his right eye, twisting gingerly. He's awake, or at least he's getting there. "So what's up with me today, doc?"
"I have no idea, although I'd like to fix that." He feels Shouichi's arm hook itself under his shoulder. "C'mon. The library's close. Let's sit in actual chairs."
Shinji's hands suddenly feel a little bare. "My notebook -- "
"I have it, don't worry. Up."
They reach the stairs leading down to the double doors at the foot of the library when Shouichi breaks the silence. "How's your memory doing?" The words drop in the dark hall, heavy.
"It's fine," Shinji says, clipping the end of Shouichi's sentence, then winces internally.
"Good answer. Very smooth." Shouichi opens his mouth to continue, then closes it, shaking his head. Instead, he continues guiding them both down to the library, letting Shinji push open the door wide enough for both of them.
The library's corners are dark, books and spare sheaves of paper stacked up on tables and shoved inside mismatched shelves looming in shapeless masses. Tall matching shelves carved into the mould of the ceiling and darkened with the same fragrant stain tower over the new sea of books cluttering the once graceful library entranceway. "Philip should be here by now, shouldn't he?" Shinji asks as Shouichi guides them both to the table island in the center of the room.
"Mm," Shouichi agrees, easing Shinji into a chair. (Although Shinji doesn't feel like he could wobble over and spill like a cup of water, he appreciates the gesture.) "I suppose he's got something else - ah, right, the suit upgrades. He's been working on them since yesterday."
"Has he been...?"
"Well." Shouichi shrugs, hopping onto the table next to him. "Philip's not too difficult to understand, I think. If it's not one book he's reading ten times over, it's taking whatever he can find apart and putting it back together in different ways until he understands it. So..."
Shinji laughs, the sound breaking from his lungs. "Looks like Souma's got some company."
Shouichi bobs his head. "It's how he copes. It's just his way."
Letting himself slouch into his chair, Shinji puts his feet against the ground flat. Grounding. "I guess we've all found ways to. Y'know." Shinji stops himself.
The moment stretches from accidental silence to deliberate. "I'm listening," Shouichi adds helpfully.
Shinji breathes out. "Haha. Maybe it was the altitude? If you haven't noticed, we're pretty high up."
"That's true. Very funny," Shouichi says, amicable. He waits again.
"Hmm," Shinji says. His hands feel bare.
The silence stretches out, then Shouichi reaches back into his back pocket and pulls out a business card. Plain white, with a note attached. He brandishes it at Shinji.
Shinji regards it for a moment, then aims a dirty look at Shouichi. "Did you--"
"That was the reason why I stopped you." Shouichi waves the card at him, then sighs, pushing it at him. "The other reason, anyway. It was actually on the floor right outside Kouta's door. You passed by it."
Ah. Shinji feels his skin prickle, his face flush as he accepts the card. "Sorry," he mutters.
"You mean thank you."
Shinji stares as hard as he can at the card, trying to burn a hole through first of the ohs in the three-oh-oh-oh.
"Do you remember," Shouichi says, the notebook trapped in one of his pockets, "what Inui was like when we first met?"
"Him? Yeah." Shinji perks up despite himself, feels himself fall over the new topic. "That was back when... When Kadoya was still at it." He laughs, cutting himself off short. "Okay, so we were all kind of clueless at the time."
"Yeah, but he was the only one that was so cagey." Shouichi shakes his head. "We never got a chance to really get him to open up, but he always worked with us, didn't he? He never avoided anything... not on purpose, anyway."
"Well... Yeah." Shinji thinks back. The clouded, suspicious expression on Inui's face had been the default for as long as he can remember, even back when they were still Ryuki, Agito, Faiz. Any emotions otherwise were variations on the theme. "What's our business is our business. We never really agreed on that, I know, but it kind of turned out that way, didn't it?"
"It did. I wonder why." Shouichi points a look at Shinji. It's not a question.
"Probably because we've got our own... stuff." His eyes cast themselves downward as he fiddles with his thumbs. "Inui's got problems. He doesn't like talking about them."
"And then there's you." It's not a threat.
"Me? Yeah. You know me." Shinji points a finger at himself. "Whines about how sealed jars are hard to open Shinji, haha. That's." Shouichi's face doesn't change. "That's. That's not answering your question, is it."
"It's not, no." He pauses. "'Who are you? What's going on,'" Shouichi says with a certain cadence. "Remember?"
Shinji can't bite back a sigh. "Yeah. It's the first thing I said to Godai-san. And..."
"You had your deck in your hand and a dragon following you around and that was it." Shouichi tilts his head. Something sympathetic hovers around his mouth. "You didn't even know how to transform."
"Hey, I figured it out."
"With some help, if you call watching Kadoya using your transformation first help." Mild. Kind of teasing.
"It counts." Shinji bows his head, scratches at the back with his fingers. It has to count. "And now I'm here. I... I remember enough now. That's enough."
"Hmm," Shouichi says.
Shinji says nothing.
"I see it, you know, I'm not blind." Shouichi is conversational, but Shinji can feel his eyes boring into his head. "There are a lot of windows and mirrors here, and sometimes - you try to pretend you don't, but sometimes - you see something. It's there, I know you know it's there, but you." A pause. Shinji can feel him trying to catch his eye.
He's not wrong. Worse still, it's been happening more frequently. Shinji pushes his fingertips into his eyelids, rubbing circles into them. Sometimes it's weeks. Sometimes it's days. One day, he'd walked the long hall facing the port side windows and the hall changed. Rippled, kaleidoscope twisted into one broken image. The same image all the way down.
It'd only lasted a moment. One look at the sea of eyes (waiting, observing, expecting something) and he'd turned on his heel and bolted back to the kitchen. He still can't walk that same hall without making Dragreder scout it out, or letting someone else go first. Watching their faces. Seeing if they saw the same things in the glass he did. The same man.
Fight.
Shouichi studies Shinji's face for a moment. "Sorry," he says finally.
That jerks Shinji's head up. "Whuh? Sorry? For what?"
Shouichi pulls a closed mouthed grimace. "I'm... probably saying all this because this is what I did to one of my best friends for a year."
"This?"
"Existed. Made myself useful." Shouichi stretches a little, and for once it's hard to catch his eye. "Didn't really think about much. Tried pretty hard not to, actually. Kind of let life push me along for a little while. Didn't really talk to many people. I mean... you know." He grins. "Why try going for first name basis when you don't know where you'll be tomorrow? Who you'll be. It's that sort of deal."
"And..." Shinji pauses, then sips a breath in. "Oh. We've known each other for ten years, almost."
"And it's only today I've become Shouichi-kun." Shouichi leans back in his chair. "To be honest, I didn't have half of what is going on with you, but." He motions something with his fingers. "You know what happened to me. If there's..." Shouichi looks profoundly uncomfortable, but something seems to be clawing up from undernest his catty exterior. "If I can help, I will. That's... something I'll do. So."
Shinji stares at him for a moment. With his brow furrowed, sober, he swings his foot up and kicks Shouichi in the sandal.
Shouichi starts, almost falling off the table. "Hey!"
"You mean it, don't you?" Shinji grins when Shouichi glares at him. "That's so weird, haha."
"You're a jerk." Shouichi tries to pout, but ends up laughing at himself. It's infectious, fills the empty room with brighter sounds.
"We should leave," Shinji says, finally. "Shoutarou's gonna be done with crack duty pretty soon."
"Yeah, we'll get you something to eat." Shouichi slides off the table. "Speaking of, it's been a while since you've cooked for us, right? I kind of miss that."
Shinji rises out of his chair. He doesn't feel wobbly anymore. "So you like my gyouza, huh? I guess I could make some again soon."
"I did say it was very good, didn't I?" Shouichi pauses, then nudges Shinji's ankle with his toe. A kick back. "Or maybe I'm just looking for someone else to cook for once. Y'know, because it's my least favorite thing in the entire world."
"Please, for the love of god." Shinji takes a few steps the door, then slows a little. "Hey, Shouichi-kun?" He deliberately voices the name. He hears Shouichi pause.
"Yeah?"
Shinji breathes through his nose. Licks his lips. Tries to keep it casual. "It's like... being haunted by a dream you don't really remember. Except it's like. A feeling. About stuff that you know never happened to you. So you're not supposed to have it, but then you do, and it's." A lot. " And you don't really know how you handled it the first time, and..." He catches his eye, trying not to look tense or desperate. (Does he trust him? Should he? Why shouldn't he? How could he? When anything could happen. When it did happen. When what happened?) "Do you...?"
Shouichi's shoulders sag, and he breathes out (and Shinji thinks for the first time and in a jolt that, ah, maybe he'd been asking for another reason, not just the one). "Yeah," Shouichi repeats, opening the door for them both, ushering Shinji out by the elbow. "It's like that."
[two weeks until christmas]
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