An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
one-sentence fiction is here! getting more in depth on the ships and showing some new perspectives on certain moments. I'm fairly certain this is the first fic tagged as Hitomi/Manaka that doesn't portray the relationship as one-sided. took me a week to write 50 sentences
Since Falco didn’t bodyswap, he’s still going around as Hayato. Unfortunately he doesn’t work at ABIS specifically, but he’s still a detective, and a well respected one at that. Boss in particular is often worried for him because his backstory in AITSF (childhood trauma + getting blackmailed into killing) is still a thing but because he hasn’t had a total memory and personality wipe like he got in the canon, he’s much gruffer, less silly, and very haunted. This doesn’t deter Ryuki from having a crush on him though, because he’s even more of the guiding superior type that he likes so much. But he has less opportunity to actually work with him, which means Ryuki is admiring like crazy from afar. There are a few times that they do get to work together, though, in the way you see that one MPD detective outside ABIS who still investigates the HB case. He considers Ryuki a very good subordinate and a great detective, but he’s kind of preoccupied by his own demons at the moment.
He and Hitomi still have the same style meet-cute where she saves him as he’s being pursued, but since Hitomi hasn’t been softened by motherhood here, she’s more closed off to him, and their relationship is still romantic but it’s unfortunately a sort of sad thing because they are never quite on the same page. He’s troubled by his work with the yakuza and is afraid it might affect her safety while she’s preoccupied with avenging Manaka and can’t bring herself to trust him enough to tell him about it. So while they do actually really love each other and want to be together, their relationship is on and off. Sometimes it’s Hayato calling it off out of fear for her safety and sometimes it’s Hitomi calling it off because she thinks she can’t get over Manaka enough to commit to a relationship. He feels really indebted to her and wants to do something for her that is equivalent to her saving his life, but can’t get her to tell him what exactly she wants (So’s head on a platter lol).
What Hitomi doesn’t know is that Hayato is familiar with one of her subjects of ire, Saito, who acts as So’s mouthpiece to the yakuza (so that So himself doesn’t have to risk interacting much with them, whereas Saito is very obscure to the public and incurs little risk of scandal if he’s caught seen with them). So Hayato is one of the few people who has a more realistic perception of Saito, who is more honest about his personality while at the Kumakura office. This is also why he is unnerved and uncomfortable with Ryuki being so friendly with Saito and warns his subordinate against him, but because he’s unable to explain why exactly he thinks Saito is so dangerous (as it would be incriminating), his warnings aren’t very effective. Hayato is the only assassin working for the Kumakura’s who is unwilling and unhappy about his job, so he stands out to Saito as a subject of intrigue and taunting. It’s the silly goofy dynamic of a guy who doesn’t want to kill people and is forced to + a guy who wants so badly to attack and maim and kill but isn’t allowed to, yknow how it is. He sometimes flaunts his “friendship” with Ryuki to Hayato to rile him up, which goes over Ryuki’s head for the most part, but absolutely delights Saito.
Fun bonus: we like to credit Date for getting Renju and Shoko to divorce and since Hayato never becomes Date, the Okiuras are unfortunately still together. This sucks really badly for Mizuki but makes for an incredibly tense and funny dinner party between the Sejimas and the Okiuras.
