Hm? Oh, my dogs. He's watching them for me while I'm here.
( REAL NICE GUY.
She stands up, booping the tip of Maruki's nose before she leaves. ) Don't change your mind while I'm gone. I'll be right back. ( Off to the living room.
[The problem with being confined to one singular room with Maruki related items is, guess what, that ends!
And thus ends the display of petulance once he realizes there's no more shit to use and no more food to bribe the dogs with. He was already pretty tired - the additional dog related spite exercise pushing him over the groggy edge.
Enjoy your stupid continued 'situation' because he's dead asleep, torso slung on half the couch, legs on the floor over a satchel holding Bear Heart. Hank in Maruki shirt gets the half of the couch Akechi isn't covering. Maruki's cup on the floor still half filled with water, a shoe half exposed under a table.
Eat shit asshole, but at least he's been enriched. Enjoy the cleanup!!]
The fuck did you guys do out here? ( Night Sky asks it quietly to the dogs, the sound a soft rumble in her throat that Hank groggily responds to without opening his eyes.
'Played with everything he threw at us and ate too many treats. Are we going home?'
Night Sky laughed. )
Nah, we're staying. Rest up with your friend. ( prancing back to Maruki's room. ) Nevermind. They're good.
[A near miss with the tray, the scent a warning that saves him from a stubbed toe. The whole display - a note -
A reminder of his small hand tangled in the soft fabric of his mom's shirt in a kitchen that fit the two of them like a snug puzzle piece. He remembers when she would try - smells that permeated through a too small, dingy apartment. Their instant noodle meals more than enough because all he wanted was to sit in her lap, but the elation that ran through his body when he felt steam hit his face - the smell of almost burnt fish, an expression on her face that may have been a smile at one point in her life. She had stopped smiling by the time his memories started and-
He remembers.
This smells better. Looks better. Is probably similar to the photos he's sure she looked at online before she tried to recreate a meal beyond their normal microwave heat ups.
It tastes better. Feels the same. An insane churning in his stomach as he picks apart the fish, the eggs, a reminder of home he never experienced, but surges through his body all the same. Nostalgia and grief an overwhelming, crushing, burning-
A meal created for him with the same degree of care his mother must have tried to feel.
It was hard for her. She was obligated. She tried and he'll never begrudge how much it hurt her to try and try and try when he life was falling apart because of the person she was making birthday meals for.
The irony in knowing he's taking bites from a breakfast of someone who tries and tries , despite the bullet Akechi will be forced to put in his skull.
He pushes it down. Forces it down. Rips it from his throat so he can swallow. Tears it from his chest so he can breathe.
The note is laughable and-
Placed into his pillowcase. A lie Gone. A lie hidden. A lie that's his.
The jagarico an inside joke - sticks lost in a dream back in his hands in reality. Umami Seaweed. It's one of his favorites, stocked in his cabinet at home.
The text comes long after breakfast, well into the afternoon. After Akechi's washed the dishes and tray it came on.]
It was unnecessary to do that.
But it was delicious. I haven't had a breakfast like that in years.
Sometimes nostalgia is a nice sensation to revisit.
Yes, thank you. I prefer quiet days like this, so it's gone well.
[He could let it end there. Should. His lower back presses into the pillow that holds a secret, the rocky wall sharp on his upper spine. It's comfortable all the same.
Content. Calm. A numbness in that realization that makes him continue, as if he's come back from an afternoon with Joker. A level of ease he hasn't felt in months.]
My last birthday was boisterous compared the ones I had prior to being a celebrity.
All the online accolades, Good Morning Japan even made a comment on it, and I was given offers from up and coming restaurants to have food on their dime. I had to respond to comments and messages all day.
It's funny, then, how I find the birthday in some distorted world to be the better one.
[He lets sit. Stares at the words on the screen and-]
You were gone rather early. Was everything alright?
Maruki's sat at his desk in Eyn Sof, painstakingly indexing the the makeshift patient notes in his journal so that he can copy them down into true case files once his right arm is better. He glances over at the device as the first message comes in, smiles to himself – quiet birthdays are his preference too – and then the rest come.
Akechi is guarded. Calculated. A liar.
This doesn't feel like any of that. ]
Granted, I hate anyone making even the smallest fuss over me, but... honestly, something on that scale sounds like hell.
I can see why you'd prefer a day like today, even considering our circumstances.
[ In truth, he left way too early for his usual schedule, came to Eyn Sof, and immediately went back to sleep on the couch. He figured Akechi would want the privacy, but he isn't about to say that. ]
Yes, everything's fine! I wanted to get a head start on some of the more mind numbing administrative parts of the job to get them over with. Hah, surely you had annoying rote tasks like that as a detective.
[It's aptly appropriate that a man who spends his life doling out advice and listening to every woe, doesn't want a fuss made about himself. 99% of his day seems to feigning care and consideration for others, while he suffers with gaping wound covering half his back. Suffering for the sake of consequences, while trying to heal them in others.
If it wasn't so pathetic, it might be funny.]
Hell is a strong description. Of course, I'm grateful for the support of my fans and the fortune that has smiled upon me.
[And the odds him being alive next year -
19 was a milestone he never expected to make. 20 an impossible number to reach. It won't be a concern.]
As for administrative work, I do understand. That was a majority of my job as a detective. I even assisted with those tasks at the Public Prosecutors Office, so I'm acutely aware at how they can pile up. It's smart to take advantage of the time you have.
I won't keep you then. I simply wanted to express my gratitude.
[ In the short time Night Sky is away, Maruki manages to get his stupid sling off and lay down on his left side, the only way he can comfortably sleep. Which will either mean watching her sleep, or – dear god in heaven, the bases don't even GO this high – SPOONING???
When she reenters, he looks up with slightly manic eyes. ]
They're good? Does Akechi-kun still have them? Did you tell him you're staying? What did he say?
[ NIGHT SKY HE IS N E V E R GOING TO LIVE THIS DOWN ]
They're all sleeping in the living room. ( She shrugged. ) Made a hell of a mess out there playing, too. Hank said he gave them a bunch of treats. They're fine.
( And she sure wasn't going to wake the guy if he was sleeping. Night Sky moved to lay on the bed, deciding for him which position he would have to suffer...
Face to face (for now), apparently. Night Sky smiled and set a hand on his cheek.) You need to relax.
Oh, he can only imagine. He's going to be paying for this for a long time.
Also? Excellent, now he's face to face, in very close quarters, with a very beautiful woman who has made her intentions plainly known. Great going. Not overwhelming at all.
Maruki glances over at what he can see of her hand on his cheek, blurry outside the frame of his glasses – yes, he intends to sleep in his glasses – and laughs, clearly nervous. ]
Yes, well, you might be unsurprised to learn relaxing is not one of my strong suits.
[ Despite all the big game he talked about mindfulness meditation and breathing exercises. Oops. ]
( Be it far from he to judge how a man sleeps. She spends most of her time lying in the damn dirt. )
I heard meditating helps.
( She laughs. Now keenly aware of his nervousness and the fact that he wasn't fully prepared to take a trip down to pound town without a conversation, Night Sky was surprisingly careful when she scooted closer, knee gently bumping between his just for a little added room. She tucked some of his hair behind his ear. ) I'm perfectly fine, sweet thing.
[In the small hours of the morning on June 2nd, Blue delivers a package to the doorstep of the castle where Akechi stays. She doesn't knock or linger--it's placed somewhere obvious, so someone is sure to find it, even if it's not the recipient. Perhaps especially if it's not the recipient. Who's to say?]
[The package itself isn't particularly big or small, wrapped in green paper with an intricate bow sewn together in the shape of a sunflower. A small tag is attached to the bow with only four words in neat vine-like handwriting:]
Dear Akechi, Happy Birthday
[Inside the package are two items: a mug with the words Keep Calm and Hide Evidence written on the outside, splattered with red paint made to look like blood; and a sugar jar with sugar. not arsenic. sugar. written on the outside. Both look handmade, though it's uncertain if the one who made the pieces was also the one who painted them.]
[There is no signature on the tag, but he'll know who it's from. And if he doesn't, then he's not a very good detective.]
[ The fingers through his hair, even in such a quick, casual motion–
Every morning, she would wake up before him. Start the coffee, get ready for work. An easy routine to fall into even before they moved in together – her early commutes and steady jobs, his endless years in lecture halls and research labs making him keep odd hours. By the time she was ready to leave for work, he'd have just woken up, sitting up groggily in their bed, vision fuzzy and mind still half-stuck in dreams. She would come to say goodbye to him, comb her fingers through the mess he made of his hair in the night, tuck it back and slide his glasses onto his face. That simple act, every morning, for years – getting him ready to face the day before he was even fully conscious of it. Maruki has never been cared for so completely by another person, doubts he ever will be again.
It shocks through him, chain lightning up and down his nerves. He told Night Sky that he'd been too busy with his career to have much time for or interest in romance. That wasn't a lie, but it was far from the whole truth. If something as simple as a person touching his hair plunges him deep into the most painful recesses of his mind, how can he ever hope to handle anything else?
It isn't her fault. After a frozen moment, he smiles again, something vaguely vacant about it. ]
I'm glad to hear it. I don't tend to move around much in my sleep now that I've been injured, but if you find I'm too close, please don't hesitate to wake me.
[ Yeah, he already knows that's not going to be an issue. If anything, she'll be too close to him, and he will let that panic settle into the walls of his heart to be ripped out and dealt with later. ]
It feels odd to say pleasant dreams, considering this place, doesn't it?
( She can feel the way he tenses; knows only because she's done this before - accidentally touched where she shouldn't, and without him saying anything, she isn't sure exactly what she did wrong. Was it his ear? His hair? The brush of her fingertips against his neck for a split second?
Her hand retracted, tucking between them carefully as not to jostle his arm. She smiled. )
A little.
( A beat. A brief debate. ) I don't have to stay if you're not comfortable with it, you know. You don't need to do shit to appease me because I'm.... well. Insistent.
[ Maruki is complicated. The touch makes the monstrous, yawning chasm in the back of his mind poise to swallow him whole. The removal of the touch disappoints him. He can't win.
And there it is: A completely valid interpretation of his reactions, but an incorrect one. ]
No, I'm not appeasing you. I can promise you that.
[ Maruki's boundaries may be virtually nonexistent, but if he truly, wholly did not want her here, he would have said so. There is a not insignificant part of him that does appreciate the company, and her company specifically. He has been lonely for longer than he will admit to anyone, including himself. ]
I'm not uncomfortable. I'm sorry, I know it must seem that way.
[ And then a smile, beatific. ]
And I wouldn't call you insistent. I think you're incredibly caring. The people in your life are lucky to have you.
( Night Sky searched his expression, tilted her head like she was trying to really hear the words he said. She wasn't exactly an expert in reading people, but when she honed in, she liked to think she could discern insincerity, at the very least.
And he seemed sincere enough. Her gaze softened. She nodded. )
It's okay. I just — I never want to push, you know? Especially not someone I like.
( she could be both of those things, she nearly argued — insistent and caring — but did not see the point. ) I hope you include yourself in that, sweetness. You do a lot for people, and you deserve to be cared for like you care for them.
congratulations maruki. you have now held hands with two women in somnius
[ BOY THEY ARE TREADING INTO DANGEROUS TERRITORY. And it's territory that keeps being trod into, these days! Akechi cleaving cleanly into the very core of his heart with one astute observation of his self-worth, Eren sniping at him about how he only listens and never talks. All of it stems from the same place. He hates that people here can pinpoint it so clearly. No one in Tokyo ever bothered. The benefits of a huge city, of a more disconnected life. He wants to return to that, fully aware of how unhealthy that desire is. ]
Well, it's my job.
[ Said lightly, almost jokingly. But Christ does he mean it. ]
Helping people is its own reward for me. I do appreciate how generous some people here are with their care, though...
[ But it isn't necessary. He doesn't need it to survive. Thrive? Sure. But not survive.
He shakes his head and uses it as an excuse to melt more comfortably into the bed, cheek turning into the pillows.
A thoughtful pause, and then without speaking or opening his eyes, he moves his right arm just enough to let his hand cover hers. The palm is rough with healing scrapes from stumbling and clamoring through the ruined rubble of a nameless city, but it's otherwise uninjured, and he's happy to hold hers as they drift off. ]
( She was tempted to say something more — something like you're not working now just to call him out for it. But Night Sky just chuckled softly. Sure, Maruki. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
...Which is also apparently handholding? Fine by her. Night Sky adjusted to curl her fingers slightly, pressing back against his palm as if to silently assure him that she was totally on board for it. )
[ Setting aside the absolute mental shutdown (Akechi DNI) he's going to have later about this, it really is an incredible comfort to fall asleep next to someone. He's even spared from counseling dreams! Maybe there's a connection. (There isn't.)
It is less of a comfort to wake up in the morning and realize he cannot throw Night Sky to the dogs. Literally. She has to go downstairs and collect her dogs, and if any of his housemates are around, she shouldn't have to deal with the consequences alone.
Hopefully Akechi returned to his room.
Hopefully Vash is still in his.
Hopefully Zazie is bugs.
He'll walk her out like a gentleman. Sure. But he's going to wish he was dead the second he sees anyone in that common room. ]
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