fic; iridescence

[tatoeba]

Title: Iridescence
Pairing: Ryo/Shige
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s a strange reality to wake up to, having close to no memories of your past, and the person who is supposed to help you recover starts to feature prominently in your wet dreams. What is your world worth when you can’t remember it?
Notes: 10358 words. AU. This was written as a collaboration with my darling rolling_scone for newsbigbang. And lots and lots of love and thanks to soantigone for all of your help and listening to me bitch and whine all the time and the wonderful beta. Ilu! ♥


Ryo's gaze pans across the room in fuzzy lines, comes into focus on Kato who has stilled with his pen poised over the notebook. “Go on,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirked up in the tiniest encouraging smile, and Ryo swallows. He's already forgot what he was talking about. He looks away, eyes fixing on the meaningless picture of a tree frog on the wall.

“Sometimes I get this feeling, you know,” he says, staring into the expressionless red eyes of the frog while a strange sort of thickness seems to press down over his chest.

Kato's voice. “What kind of feeling?”

The truth isn't always a good answer. “The feeling that I'm missing something important.”

The quick scrawl of pen sliding against paper. Kato's voice. “Well, maybe you are.”

“Yeah,” Ryo agrees. Then softer. “Yeah.”

-

Even his face is different. Older. More tanned. The short scar glazed over his cheekbone unfamiliar. He can't help but wonder how he got here, what he has been through. It's like a forced innocence, a reality that his body knows, but not his mind. He remembers some things, but even that is vague, lost in a haze of childhood and summer dreams. The image of running barefoot through grass in sunshine, his mother's red-painted smile beneath the shadowing brim of her sunhat, the rush of adrenaline through his veins.

There is an empty space where reality should be, a space filled only with baseless fiction and unanswered questions. Kato says he has to want to remember without pushing himself, but one of the very few things Ryo knows about himself is that his want is impatient, spikes in his veins for instant gratification and burns when it is withheld. Sometimes Kato's secretive half-expressions piss him off, but when Kato grins bright and wide Ryo's heart thumps, and he forgets even the fact that he can't remember.

He stays at some kind of rehabilitation facility on a floor with other amnesiacs. He keeps to himself mostly. The other patients have it far worse - the kind of amnesiacs who forget new things an hour or two after learning them. It’s hard to make any friends that way, hard to talk to someone about the difficulties and frustrations. Each day feels worse than the day before, and Ryo starts to truly hate life and everything about it. He wants to remember, to fill that black void he can feel inside of him. Something is missing, something big, and it’s driving him insane, not knowing what it is.

Ryo starts to talk a bit with some of the workers. A bright, smiling male nurse named Taguchi is the most friendly of the bunch. Ryo can’t help but like him, despite the fact that he makes really bad jokes.

Ryo tells Kato a joke at one of their sessions but forgets the punch-line halfway through.

“It’s okay,” Kato assures him, jots something down onto his notepad.

“It was a stupid joke anyway,” Ryo feels the need to say, but hates himself a little, even though he doesn’t have that kind of amnesia, because now he can’t even hold onto the memory of a damn joke.

-

He dreams. Of places he’s never been - or never remembers being. Of faces that feel familiar but names that sound foreign. Of abilities he never thought possible.

Kato gives him a leather bound journal. “Write down everything you see in your dreams when you wake up,” he says.

Ryo takes the journal, fingers the blank, smooth pages.

“We’ll go over them in your next session.” Kato smiles and Ryo clutches the journal tight in his fingers.

-

A warm, sleek body presses against his own and hands slide along his back, up over his shoulders. Ryo leans forward, touches mouths with the other, a heated, molten kiss that rocks his heart. He pulls back, glances down into the beautiful eyes that are so familiar, so -

Ryo wakes with a start, blood rushing too fast, a cold sweat breaking out along his neck. He can’t tell if that was a dream or a memory - it felt so familiar, comfortable, nothing he hadn’t done before. But then, the eyes, and that face…

He leaves the dream out of his journal. The last thing he wants to tell his therapist is how he dreams about sleeping with him.

-

“Is that everything?” Kato says, flipping through Ryo’s journal.

Ryo nods. “Yes.” He stares hard at the floor.

Kato glances at him with sad, disappointed eyes, and says, “Okay. Keep it up.” He hands the journal back.

Ryo squeezes his fingers over the edges. He glances up. “How do I know if something is a memory or a dream?”

Kato looks at him sharply, the pencil in his hand suspended in midair. “Why? Is there something you remember?”

Ryo quickly shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says.

Kato sets his pencil down, the look in his eyes now hopeful. “If there’s anything, you should tell me.”

“There’s nothing,” Ryo insists.

Kato nods slowly, his lips in a tight frown, and leans back in his chair. “I suspect, if you remember something, it should feel familiar, like you’ve experienced it before.” He pauses. “Does that make sense?”

Ryo nods, grips his journal tighter. “Yeah. It makes perfect sense.”

-

The void keeps getting bigger. Day by day, he grows more impatient, more angry. There’s nothing for him to do - the only constant event on his agenda are his meetings with Kato and those have proved to be a waste of his time. Kato has no answers, he continues to tell Ryo that the answers will come to him, that there’s no forcing the memories back into his brain. They will come back. Or they will not. He has nothing to do but wait.

And Ryo hates that. Waiting. So he lays in bed with his eyes clenched as tight as they can and searches. Thinks. Tries to remember something. Goes over and over the faces and the places and the sounds and words that come up in his dreams, those flashes of a life he doesn’t remember. But the dreams change too - more faces and more places. People with long hair, some with short, black and brown and blonde. Some women, mostly men. Smiling at him, teasing him - friends, maybe? He can’t remember. And the places change more than the people. Different cities and buildings; schools and airports, train stations and crowded streets.

There is only one thing that seems to stay the same: Kato. He’s always there - the only face Ryo can recognize by name, the only person that he actually knows. Kato, by his side, smiling, holding hands, leaning in and kissing him, fingers in his hair, breath warm against his jaw. The scenes are endless and Ryo doesn’t know what to think. Did Kato know him before his accident? Or is he only in his dreams because he is the only person Ryo knows in his life right now?

He doesn’t know which to believe. And he never tells Kato about it. Any dream, any memory, any whatever-it-is that involves Kato Ryo leaves out of his journal. He doesn’t understand why even that makes him feel all the more empty.

-

“Anything new happen lately?” Kato asks him.

Ryo shakes his head. “Nothing different than usual.”

“How are you feeling?”

Ryo shrugs noncommitally and doesn’t answer. Kato waits patiently for a few minutes before he says kindly, “Nishikido-kun, if you don’t talk to me, then nothing will ever change.”

Ryo snaps his head up to glare at him. “Nothing is changing! Everything’s the same as it was yesterday, as it was the day before that! I’m sick of sitting around and waiting for something to happen!”

“Why didn’t you just say that in the beginning?” Kato questions, not perturbed in the slightest by Ryo’s outburst, which only makes Ryo all the more annoyed. “It’s normal to feel frustrated.”

“Well, I’m tired of it,” Ryo says grumpily, crossing his arms and slouching in his chair. “I just want to do something. Anything.”

Kato taps the pen against his chin. “The problem with your memory loss is that several years are missing. If it had only been one isolated incident, for instance, then we could have tried to trigger your memory by recreating the situation.”

“Can’t we do that anyway?” Ryo wonders, a faint glimmer of hope rushing through him.

Kato shakes his head, grimacing slightly. “There is no base memory to use as a trigger. If you could remember something in your dreams then maybe we could use that, but as of right now there is nothing to go on.”

Ryo slumps bonelessly in the chair and sighs.

-

Kato comes to visit one day - the first time he’s ever done so. Ryo just sits in his bed, arms crossed, uninterested.

“How are you today?” Kato asks, looking around Ryo’s empty room with more interest than it needs.

“Fine,” Ryo mutters grumpily.

Kato turns to him, smiles softly, and says, “Sorry for barging in without notifying you, but I thought you’d like some company during the day.”

Despite himself, Ryo turns to look at him. He doesn’t say anything, but Kato seems to understand, smiling even more brightly and continuing, “It gets boring in here, doesn’t it? And the other patients on this floor are hardly the kind to keep a good conversation with, right?”

He looks at Ryo expectantly and grins when Ryo just rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he says. “Enough with that, I get it.” He purses his lips thoughtfully, glancing at Ryo’s bed and then the chair in the corner. He pulls the chair up closer to the side of the bed and then sits down. “So, what should we do?”

“You came here without thinking about that first?” Ryo asks, slightly annoyed.

“No, I have thought about it, but I wanted to see if you had any ideas first.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“All right. Then, we could get a game from the closet, and play something, or watch a movie. We could just talk, if you want.”

“We talk all the time during our sessions,” Ryo points out.

“You’re right, we do. But I meant talking without me analyzing everything you say,” Kato explains.

Ryo eyes him warily. “Can you really do that?”

Kato laughs and Ryo realizes it’s the first time he’s ever heard him laugh, seen him laugh, for that matter. He can’t be sure why but he feels his stomach flutter, can’t get himself to look away, and he’s horribly reminded of the Kato that haunts his dreams - the vibrant, spirited man who is always by his side. As his mind fills with flashes of images of Kato from his dreams his heart spreads warmth through his chest.

-

It’s silent in the hallway, moonlight from the windows casting rectangles of silver over the dark floor. The fabric of his pyjamas whispers as he moves through the darkness, sheet bunched up in his hands. It’s a stupid, stupid idea, but Ryo can’t sleep, and anyway, it’s not as though they don’t think he’s messed up already. Besides, he isn’t planning on getting caught.

The door to the common room slides open with a slight creak, which sounds too loud in the night, and Ryo winces as he sneaks into the room. It is a minute’s work for him to slip the sheet over one of the tables, pull the chairs away, and crawl under the table. He remembers having done this as a child, hiding from... He can’t remember what. It is a stupid idea, grappling for straws, and Kato is probably right - it won’t work - but Ryo is tired of not doing anything. He curls up, crossing his arms over his knees and leaning his head against them.

He is nodding off by the time the low taps of footsteps can be heard, and it’s not until the door creaks open again that he shakes himself out of his light doze. He wonders if trying to sneak away is an option, then quickly dispels the idea. He’s already caught anyway if his sheet is still missing in the morning. A few more footsteps and a bit of the sheet is lifted up. Kato peers in at him, a peculiarly amused expression on his face. “Nishikido-kun,” he says quite evenly, “What are you doing?”

Ryo scowls. “Trying to remember.” He feels stupid now, even more ridiculous than he thought he’d feel. He looks away from Kato awkwardly.

“I see,” Kato says softly, a Ryo’s stomach jolts with shame and he closes his eyes. There is the rustle of fabric, a hand slapping lightly against the floor, and then Kato’s voice just a little distance away. “I might as well help you then,” Kato says, and when Ryo opens his eyes in surprise he can see him smiling slightly in the near darkness under the table.

They’re silent for a while; then Ryo says, “I used to do this when I was little.” His gaze flitters up at Kato, “I don’t know why though,” he adds.

Kato scoots around, comes to sit leaned against the wall next to Ryo, mirroring his position. “It’s kind of nice,” he observes casually, “Like a hidden place for all your secrets.” His shoulder presses against Ryo’s lightly, and Ryo smiles. It is nice to be sitting with Kato under a sheet-covered table in the common room in the middle of the night. He feels oddly brave - it’s so different from their therapy sessions, Kato’s voice even softer than usual, the comfort of Kato’s warmth so close next to him - and for some unfathomable reason he grabs Kato’s hand, slides their fingers together. Kato doesn’t comment, and Ryo doesn’t look up at his face, but after a moment Kato’s fingers curl around his and Ryo breathes out.

“Tell me a story,” he says.

Kato looks surprised. “What kind of a story?”

Ryo grins. “A scary one.”

It’s probably the lamest scary story Ryo has ever been told, but Kato’s hand is a little clammy against Ryo’s, and he even lets Ryo lean his head against his shoulder. It’s the best night Ryo has had since he remembers.

-

He sees himself doing things he doesn’t remember learning, things he thought only ever happened in novels or in the movies. It all feels like a completely different life, yet so familiar at the same time. Nothing is concrete, though. Just glimpses of these places and faces, a mesh of memories forgotten.

Yesterday he was dressed in a high school uniform, tailored perfectly for his size. He knows he’s not a high schooler, so he doesn’t understand why he’s wearing the uniform. Someone - he doesn’t remember the name, can barely recognize the face - comments how he suits it - being short and all, he’d fit right in. Ryo laughs, he knows it’s a joke. How he knows, he’s not really sure.

Today he is on the train, a cap pulled over his head, and his eyes are trained on the middle-aged salary man on the other side. He’s not sure who it is at all, but knows he’s supposed to watch him, keep an eye on him. A few feet over, standing and holding onto one of the metal polls, is a familiar face - friend? colleague? - who nods in Ryo’s direction when the train pulls to a stop.

It only confuses him even more. These different scenes, these different versions of himself. Which one is real? Which one is the life he led before his accident?

-

“You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?”

“What my life was like before this!” Ryo exclaims. “What I did, where I lived, who my friends were, whether I had a family, who…” He glances up to meet Kato’s eyes before continuing, “who I was with.”

Kato leans back in his chair, does nothing except offer Ryo a mysterious smile. “Maybe,” he says a few moments later.

“And you can’t tell me?” Ryo asks. He knows the answer but he still sounds hopeful.

“No,” Kato says with a shake of his head. “I can’t tell you.”

-

Ryo gasps as he wakes up, his heart thumping heavily in his chest, the 2 AM silence settling around him as his breathing slows. Vague images shimmer in his mind, half vaporizing now that he is awake, but he can still almost feel the sensation of Kato’s skin beneath his palms, his scent, the sound of his moans. Ryo closes his eyes, squeezes the bridge of his nose with his fingers for a moment, trying to dispel his arousal, then shoves away the comforter and sighs.

This has happened so many times now that he knows it is useless to try to go back to sleep. Instead he has taken to walking around the building, slinking between the shadows almost soundlessly, his thoughts swirling aimlessly around his dreams. It feels familiar to sneak around dark corridors, his body moving in fluid motions that strike him as practiced, but he has no recollection of when he would have learned to move like that.

There is no practical purpose for it though, the skulking and hiding, for if anybody was to find him all they’d do would be to send him back to his room. He learned that after boredom made him restless in the night, and he started breaking the curfew. The tranquility of it calmed him, and nobody he met seemed to be terribly upset. Taguchi even lets him keep at it the few nights they bump into each other, just flashes him a grin and walks away without saying anything. “It’s so I can say I haven’t spoken to you if someone asks if I’ve seen you,” he shrugs one day when Ryo follows him to the laundry room, sitting on a pile of wrung sheets while Taguchi sorts out laundry and loads a machine.

Sometimes Kato finds him. Or maybe he finds Kato, Ryo isn’t sure. Kato is softer in the night, like he smooths out, the straight-laced therapist vanishing and giving place to... something else. He always walks Ryo back to his room, stays in the doorway until Ryo has pulled the covers up to his chin, the quirk of his mouth amused but something else in his eyes. All so soft.

Ryo tries to push the images of Kato out of his mind as he rounds the corner to the corridor where the relaxation and therapy rooms are, when he hears very subdued sniffling sounds. As he moves down the corridor, he notices that Kato’s door is open, and he moves closer, peeking into the office. He is surprised at the sight that greets him: Kato curled up on the floor, hugging his legs to his chest, tears rolling down his cheeks. Before Ryo has even processed what he’s doing he is pushing the door open all the way, marching in and sliding to his knees next to Kato who looks up, startled.

“Ryo,” Kato whispers almost soundlessly, then visibly shakes himself and says, “I mean, Nishikido-kun. What are you doing here?”

Ryo shrugs, pushing aside the thought that this is his therapist. “Why are you crying?”

“I-” Kato pauses, wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s personal.”

“Tell me anyway,” Ryo shrugs again, slides closer until he’s sitting with his side pressed against Kato.

Kato closes his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath. “This is so unprofessional,” he mutters to his hands, then turns to look at Ryo. “There is something... missing.”

“Missing?”

“I lost something.”

“So, why don’t you just get a new one?”

That almost makes Kato crack a smile, “It’s not that easily replaced, I’m afraid.”

Ryo frowns a little. “What kind of thing is it, then?”

Kato fidgets slightly. “It’s a person.”

“Someone died?” Ryo asks, a jolt of pity in his stomach.

“No, not exactly. But. This person doesn’t really know about me.” He glances at Ryo, then smiles a little at his puzzled expression. “It’s complicated,” he adds. Silence settles over them for a moment, and Ryo feels at a loss, but then Kato continues. “There was... We had this really amazing thing. And then something happened, and now it’s gone, and,” his voice becomes thick with tears, “It’s just hard sometimes.”

Ryo is quite sure he is breaking several codes of proper behaviour, but he has broken so many already, and Kato is crying again. He slips his arms around Kato slowly, pulls him towards himself until Kato has uncurled enough to lean against Ryo’s chest, his arms wound tight around Ryo’s waist. Kato’s sniffles muffled, his tears disappearing into Ryo’s pyjama top, Ryo slowly says, “If you believe that things will work out, then... then they will, one way or another.”

-

It’s not awkward the next time he meets Kato, but then, they seem to have come to an unspoken agreement not to mention what happened, and for the most part Ryo tries block their conversation out of his mind due to the unnerving pang of - sadness? pity? jealousy? - that comes over him every time he thinks of it. There is a shift though, in the way Ryo feels when they speak, in the things he feels at liberty to say. Ryo doesn’t feel like a patient. He feels like a friend.

His condition is still the same; vague images blurring in and out of focus in his dreams, never giving away enough for him to form any coherent idea about it, nothing he can see as himself. He starts to think that maybe he can live without a past. Create a new life out of the nothing that clouds his days. There have not been any visitors - no cards, no flowers, no chocolates - not for the full four months he has been there, and the loneliness of his situation digs into him when neither Kato or Taguchi is around. Who was he? What kind of a person could he have been when there was nobody there to, to claim him, he supposed. Why hadn’t anybody come looking for him? Why didn’t anybody miss him? They know his name at the centre, so surely his relatives would have been contacted. If he had any left. He finds himself wishing that he doesn’t have a family; the loss would be much easier to handle than the rejection. But it’s all futile, in the end. He never gets any stupid flowers.

-

“I just. Think. I should give up,” Ryo confesses. “I’ll never remember.” He slouches in his seat, his eyes closed, head bowed, twisting his hands together in his lap.

“No! You can’t give up!” Kato exclaims and Ryo looks up at him quickly, never hearing such a fierce tone from his therapist. He blinks, surprised, the look in Kato’s eyes intense with anger, but Ryo can see the lingering pieces of sadness.

Kato coughs behind a hand, seems to regain his composure, and when he looks at Ryo again, his expression is softer, but the sadness is still there. Just barely, but Ryo can see it, can feel it, and it makes him want to take back his earlier words, if only to never see such a look on Kato’s face ever again.

“I haven’t given up on you,” Kato is saying, and Ryo feels his heart thumping in his ears at those words. “I haven’t given up, so you can’t give up either.”

-

Kato visits him more and more during the day, now. Ryo doesn’t mind, it gives him something to do, someone to interact with, and he quite likes Kato’s company when he’s not analyzing his every sentence. Well, he’s sure Kato still does, just now he doesn’t tell him what he’s thinking. The point of the matter is that when he’s with Kato, he feels…normal. He forgets about the memories he’s lost, he forgets about the fact he’s stuck in this facility, he forgets about the blank walls and the itchy bedsheets.

It’s comfortable, familiar, Kato sitting beside him as they watch movies or play games, Kato smiling at him, Kato teasing him. It feels like those flashes of memories or dreams or whatever-they-are about the two of them. Living together, Kato cooking in the small kitchenette, Ryo setting the table. Bumping hips and nudging each other in the ribs as they pass each other by. Ryo pushing Kato against the sink, kissing him soundly on the mouth. Kato smacking him on the back of the head with a spatula, laughing a crystal-clear laugh - the same laugh the Kato he knows now makes when he wins a hand at poker.

He doesn’t know if it’s comfortable because he and Kato shared a life before the accident, or if it’s just because he’s dreamed of Kato so many times. Either way, all Ryo knows is that the time they spend together is the best thing that has happened to him so far and he desperately doesn’t want it to stop. Whether they have a history or not, Ryo doesn’t want to lose the only good feeling he ever remembers having.

-

He doesn’t know where it comes from, doesn’t know why he says it, can’t even be sure what it means, but it’s out of his mouth in an instant, tastes familiar and easy on his tongue, like he’s said it hundreds of times before.

“Shige.”

There’s no accompanying image or flashback of a lost memory, nothing to put it into context other than the fact that he says it towards Kato as if addressing him by the name.

And when Kato freezes in his chair, his pencil slipping out of his lax fingertips, eyes wide behind his dark-rimmed glasses, Ryo actually remembers.

“Shige,” he says again, louder, the syllables rolling off his tongue expertly, like he’s meant to say the name.

Kato jumps out of his chair and walks up to Ryo, looks him directly in the eye. “What did you say?” he asks, voice rushed, desperate.

“Your name, right? I said your name,” Ryo replies, feeling a little winded. “Shige. It’s your nickname…”

The look on Kato’s face is practically euphoric. “Ryo,” he exclaims, eyes shining, “you remembered something! This…This is wonderful, this is-Ryo. You remembered.”

Ryo blinks at him dazedly. “You called me Ryo.”

Kato’s eyes widen as if he realizes what he’s done. Swallowing down a lump in his throat, he backs away a little, coughs behind his hand, his gaze falling to the ground, and Ryo hates the way that gesture makes him feel so lonely.

“S-Sorry,” Kato murmurs, his cool composure falling back into place.

“You can call me Ryo, if you want,” Ryo tells him quickly, liking the way his name sounded in Kato’s voice, liking the way it makes him feel. “As long as I can call you Shige again.”

Kato - Shige - Ryo reminds himself - turns back to look at him. Then, slowly, he smiles, that bright look back in his eyes, and Ryo’s can practically feel his insides melting. Shige nods, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, and says, “Okay, you’ve got youself a deal. Ryo.”

-

He’s a young man with auburn hair and bright smiles like Taguchi’s, sitting in the common room with a guitar across his lap when Ryo happens to walk by. It’s not the man that makes him stop and turn, but the music. The slow, acoustic tunes of the guitar, the first pleasant sound he’s heard in the facility since his arrival. The nurses occasionally play some music during lunch, but it’s never anything but sounds that put Ryo to sleep. This music is different, alive and tempting, and Ryo finds himself pulling up a chair and sitting right in front of the nameless man, watching as his slender fingers move into chords and strum the strings.

He doesn’t really understand it, but a warmth seems to settle inside of him, that familiar feeling he gets far too often, but this time it’s different, somehow. He can’t really place it, but he can’t place a lot of things, so he doesn’t think too much on it and instead listens to the music. The sounds are soothing and comfortable and he watches as the man plays, almost sensing when the notes will change next, when the strumming patterns will switch. It’s like he knows the song, knows how to play it, and when the man finishes the piece, and looks up at Ryo directly, Ryo almost feels like he knows this man, too.

Except that he doesn’t, he doesn’t know his name or anything about him, even though the smile he gives Ryo feels like something he’s seen a hundred times before. The man glances around at everyone in the room, and introduces himself as Koyama Keiichiro, then asks if anyone has a request for a song. When no one answers, Koyama meets Ryo’s eyes and winks, says, “Tough crowd.”

Ryo smiles at him, liking him instantly, and Koyama turns to him directly, asks, “Do you have a request?”

Ryo bites his lip, looks at him thoughtfully. He doesn’t remember if he liked music, if he liked listening to it, or playing it. He doesn’t know if he ever played an instrument, ever been to a concert. But something tugs at him as he glances at the guitar, as he continues to hear the song Koyama played in his ears.

Koyama follows his gaze, smiles and holds it out. “Want to try?” he asks.

Ryo’s taking the guitar from him before he even knows what he’s doing. When he places it on his lap, it feels right, like he’s done this before. And when he draws his fingers over the strings, presses them against the frets, along the smooth, polished wood, he feels a little bit of completion inside of him. And when he positions the fingers of his left hand into a chord and the right strums, they do it naturally, with no thinking, no guessing.

And he plays music, not stilted notes, but music. He goes straight through a song he’s never heard before, and when he finishes he feels absolutely stupefied. He hands back the guitar to Koyama without a word, his throat too tight to speak, not sure what had just happened.

“That was really good!” Koyama exclaims, and his bright smile instantly makes Ryo’s surprise fade away. “Where did you learn to play like that?”

Ryo shrugs, lowers his head. “I-I don’t remember,” he replies sadly.

-

A hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. It’s instinctive, and Ryo has grabbed the arm at his shoulder and flipped the person over before even realising what he is doing. Taguchi squints up at him in pain from the floor, having been thrown on his back in front of Ryo. “Oh, ow,” he grunts as he sits up slowly, reaching gingerly to rub at the small of his back. “What was that for? You could have broken my spine. Was it for that banana joke?”

“I-I’m so sorry!” Ryo splutters, wide-eyed, too stunned at his own actions to know what to do. “I didn’t know I could do that.” He reaches out to help Taguchi up, who slowly straightens his back out as he stands.

“It’s okay. I was just going to say that lunch is ready.”

“I, er, right.” Ryo hesitates, “Will you be okay?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Taguchi smiles unconvincingly, “Run along, you.”

“If you’re sure,” Ryo says doubtfully, starting to make his way down the corridor. Just before he turns the corner he swears he can hear Taguchi muttering to himself about needing to get more practice.

Ryo shivers. He didn’t have any idea he could do that.

-

At first they are just dreams - images that come up while he sleeps - Kato wrapping his arms around him, Kato pushing him up against the wall in the shower, Kato saying his name, over and over. But then it changes. It happens everywhere, anywhere, at any time. Flashes that shine behind his eyes, filling his mind. Sometimes they come from nowhere, unrelated to what he’s doing at the time, but other times they seem to be triggered - while reading a book Taguchi gave him, Ryo remembers Kato telling him he reads weird books, and Ryo sees himself telling Kato he can read whatever he wants, but he’s teasing, and Kato’s smiling, and Ryo puts his book away to pull Kato close and kiss him on the mouth.

Little things, seemingly unimportant things, jab at him, poke and strike and nudge him, and he sees these scenes of himself doing things he doesn’t remember, being in completely foreign places, with nameless people.

Kato tells him anything can trigger a memory, any word, an object, a person, a place. Ryo still doesn’t know if what he’s seeing are really memories or just figments of his imagination, things his mind makes up to deal with the emptiness and loneliness he feels.

He still can’t find it in himself to tell Kato that he sees things about him. What if they really aren’t memories? What if it’s just his mind tricking him? The last thing he wants Kato to know is that he keeps seeing him everywhere. Kato is the only person - maybe even the only friend - he has and he doesn’t want to screw that up. Unless he can figure out for sure that he and Kato knew each other before his accident and were in some kind of relationship, for that matter, he plans to keep those thoughts to himself.

-

Everything but those images of him and Kato Ryo continues to write in his journal, his pen scraping along the thin paper, kanji that comes easily to him unlike everything else in the world. He thinks he should be glad he can still remember that - how to write, read, and speak. But sometimes he thinks he would gladly trade those in exchange for the life he once lived.

Kato reads the entries at their next session, Ryo watches his eyes move back and forth across the page, taking in the recent scenes Ryo has visualized - working as a taxi driver, recording the conversations of specific passengers from a five-star hotel, piloting an airplane alongside two familiar men - colleagues, he assumes, but never remembers - who are dressed as flight attendants, and something simple, walking along inside a large, busy building, almost like an agency, white walls, business suits, passing by a door that reads Intelligence.

“This is good,” Kato says when he finishes, his voice a little choked, like he’s unsure what to say, and Ryo notices he hasn’t yet met his eyes. “W-What do you think about all of these different scenes?”

Ryo shrugs. “I don’t know.” He looks down at the floor, examines the deep red color of the carpet. “It just confuses me. There are so many different things. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”

“Maybe they are all real.”

“Is that possible?”

Kato walks around his desk, hands Ryo back his journal, and sits in his armchair across from the couch Ryo is occupying. “Anything is possible,” he replies, meeting Ryo’s eyes finally. “You just have to believe it is.”

-

Ryo stares out of the window in Kato’s office, the sun is high in the sky and crowds of people are walking along the streets in the city below. Ryo itches to go out, to see the world for himself. He knows he’s in Japan, in Tokyo, but he doesn’t remember any of it. The buildings, the streets, the people, the weather, the street lights, or stop signs, the pavement, or the crosswalks. He sees it all on the news when he watches it occasionally, and it feels familiar like most things do, but still like something from another world, another time, place, another life.

He’s wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize Kato’s entered the room until he’s standing beside him, looking out through the glass. “What’re you doing?” he asks.
“I don’t remember any of that,” Ryo says, nodding at the city, his voice is quiet, subdued, and Kato turns to look at him.

He says nothing, though, and a few moments later moves to sit down in his usual chair. Ryo continues to stand at the window as Kato grabs his pencil and notepad, and Ryo hears him scribbling something down. Then he snaps the notepad shut and rejoins Ryo by the window. He glances outside, smiles, and turns to Ryo.

“What do you say we get out of here for awhile?” Kato asks lightly.

Ryo turns to him quickly, eyes widening in delight at the prospect. “Can we?”

Kato nods. “Why not?” he replies and starts walking towards the door. “Come on!”

Ryo blinks at him, a little dazed, then feels himself smile and rushes after him, excitement searing in his veins.

Kato takes him to a high-class restaurant for lunch. Ryo is practically pressed up against the window of Kato’s car the entire ride there, staring out the glass and taking in everything and anything his eyes can see. He used to be a part of this world, used to walk these streets, smell this air, feel this sun. He’s fascinated by it, this world he doesn’t remember, and more than ever, right now, aches for his memories to return. He can’t imagine living a life without knowing such a place existed.

“You could have gone out on your own, you know,” Kato tells him when they are seated at a small table for two in the spacious restaurant. Dimmed lights and white tablecloths, shiny, bright chandeliers hanging from the ceilings.

Ryo fiddles with his napkin, pulling the utensils out of it before positioning it across his lap. “I know,” he says. “But where would I have gone? What would I have done? It scares me as much as it intrigues me.”

Kato nods solemnly, flips through his menu. “You should have told me you wanted to go out, then. I would have taken you anywhere,” Kato says.

“Well, I know that now,” Ryo replies, offers him a grateful smile.

A waiter stops by and takes their order and Ryo watches as he walks away, weaving his way around tables full of people, his gaze falling onto another waiter on the other side of the restaurant, doing the same thing, a large circular tray resting in his hand. Ryo feels his heart race, his hands clenching in his lap, palms suddenly sweaty as he glances around frantically, a strange feeling overwhelming him.

He shuts his eyes and light flashes behind them; he sees himself, in a restaurant, just like this. High-class, top of the line, full of people. He’s a waiter, snaking his way between tables and chairs, serving glasses of wine and plates of pasta. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to be doing other then serving, but it doesn’t last long, and he goes home. Home, where he’s not alone. Home, where Kato’s waiting for him, soft smiles and touches and kisses and words.

“Ryo?” Kato’s voice, loud, and clear, and close, and Ryo snaps back to reality, gasps for breath. He meets Kato’s eyes the second he opens his own and his heart skips a beat, his mind replaying the scene he just remembered.

“What’s wrong?” Kato asks, concerned.

Ryo shakes his head quickly. “N-Nothing’s wrong. I just. I think I remembered something,” Ryo says quietly, putting a hand to his head, and when Kato’s eyes widen, Ryo tells him what he saw, leaving out the last scene, leaving out Kato himself.

“This is great news,” Kato says, beaming. “Coming here was a good idea.”

Ryo nods, slowly, swallows away the thickness in his throat, his heart finally slowing down. But his mind is still racing, still flashing bits and pieces of him as a waiter, him with Kato, over and over again. He doesn’t know what to think - this is a memory, right?

Kato seems to notice his sudden depression because he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Ryo bites his lip, twists his napkin in his hands, and after a few moments looks up to meet Kato’s eyes. “I know I should be happy that I’m remembering something, but, I wish it all made more sense. I’m just confused.”

“Well, you didn’t think remembering would be easy, did you?” Kato gives him a lopsided smile. “Don’t get yourself down, Ryo. You’ll remember. I know you will.”

“How do you know?” Ryo demands.

“I know,” Kato replies simply, and the way he looks at Ryo as he says it makes Ryo want to believe him, too.

-

“I think I may have done undercover work,” Ryo admits during a session.

Kato looks up from where he’s flipping through Ryo’s journal and asks, “What makes you say that?”

“I keep seeing myself in different situations, with different people, different jobs. They can’t all be the me from before, can they? I can’t have had that many jobs. I’m not that old. So, I must have had a reason to be in so many different situations.”

“Hence undercover work.”

Ryo nods slowly, gauges Kato’s reaction but his therapist gives nothing away. “A-Am I right?”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Kato answers and hands back Ryo’s journal.

-

A few days later Kato takes him to a dojo. The sun is beating down on them as they walk through the small garden to the entrance. They have only just stepped into the genkan when a young man comes up to them and greets them with a bow, which they return. “I’m Tegoshi, it’s nice to meet you Nishikido-kun. Shige told me you were coming.”

“Tegoshi is one of the masters of this dojo,” Kato explains quickly while taking off his shoes, and Ryo pauses to give Tegoshi a long look up and down. He is a slim, pretty little thing with soft hair curling around his face and a smile that is nothing short of adorable.

“Shige,” Ryo leans in to whisper in Kato’s ear, “He looks like a girl.”

Kato glances at him, then he laughs. “Oh, you’re in trouble now.”

Ryo throws Kato a confused look, then turns back to Tegoshi who is looking back at him with a very sour expression. “I can hear you, you know.” Then he smiles, a dangerous glint in his eyes that makes Ryo gulp at the possibility of impending death, “Let’s have a little sparring session, shall we?”

-

Ryo is surprised to find that he can hold his own quite well, pulling moves he has only seen on television - or maybe it’s his dreams. The problem is that Tegoshi seems to anticipate them all, and by the end of the afternoon Ryo is a very sore lump of human slumped on the training room floor.

“Come on, you old carcass,” Tegoshi nudges him with his foot.

“I don’t know why, but you seem to be suffering from the delusion that I will get up again.” Ryo pouts, sending Tegoshi his best glare, which doesn’t seem to faze him at all.

“You had enough, then?” Tegoshi smiles prettily, tilting his head slightly.

“You,” Ryo lifts his finger importantly - quite possibly the only part of his body he can move at the moment - “Are a murder bunny. And I am dying. You owe me flowers.”

An unknown face pops into Ryo’s vision. “You look like you could use some food.”

“Not now Massu, he’s dying.”

Massu’s face takes on a pensive expression, “I always feel that food is especially gratifying while dying.”

Tegoshi blinks. “And how many last meals have you had?”

“Um. Well, the last one was the last one.” Massu frowns in thought, “Does breakfast count?”

Another unknown face joins them, “Not if you just have coffee.”

Kato appears as well, squeezing in between Massu and the other person, “But we know that that’s not very likely, Pi.”

Tegoshi sighs, “Let’s just go eat.” Then he pokes Ryo with his foot once more for good measure.

-

“I hurt,” Ryo pouts, poking the takoyaki around his plate.

“I know,” Tegoshi smiles compassionlessly, “Eat your food.”

“Wow, what did you do to receive that treatment?” Pi asks, looking interested, shoving a whole takoyaki in his mouth in one go.

“He called him a girl,” Kato chirps cheerfully, and Ryo has to fight the blush that is inexplicably creeping up his face as Pi guffaws.

“Oh, nobody has called him that since- since...” He pauses, thinks. “You know, I can’t actually remember.”

“I can,” Koyama, who has also joined them, grins from across the table, “But I am not telling.”

“Sure you will,” Pi comments lightly, “After we get a couple beers in you.”

Massu laughs, and Tegoshi pitches in, “Oh Shige, I didn’t mean to drop your new radio transmitter in a tub of sulfuric acid. It just happened.”

“And I had thought it was Akanishi all along,” Kato smiles.

“That’s nothing on you though,” Koyama counters, his face slightly flushed, “Koyama,” he pretends to hiccough drunkenly, waving at Kato with his glass, “You are my best, best friend, let’s go canoeing.”

They all laugh as Kato turns an interesting color, glancing awkwardly at Ryo. It’s strange, but Ryo feels at home in the atmosphere, with these people. It feels familiar, like something he has done before, like déjà vu. He shifts slightly in his seat, trying to put less pressure on his bruised behind, and his knee accidentally brushes against Kato’s beneath the table. He glances at Kato apologetically, but Kato just smiles slightly at him, and a heartbeat later presses their knees together fully. Ryo isn’t sure what to think, so he doesn’t, just smiles and drinks up when Pi orders him another beer.

-

After the trip to the restaurant, Ryo has been more and more eager to set foot outside of the facility. He hates being confined inside one place; the only areas outside his room that he can go are Kato’s office and the common room on the same floor. Most of the other patients keep to themselves, so even if he finds himself in the common room, he does nothing but idly stare at the television, curled up in a corner of the old couch.

He doesn’t want to go out on his own - where would he go, anyway? He doesn’t remember the city; he doesn’t know what sorts of things are out there. He watches the news and he sees the streets and the people and the different kinds of shops but none of it rings a bell. They feel slightly familiar, places he once probably knew the name of, places he may have even visited, but he has no clue how to get there. He has no money, either. He has nothing, really, if the sparsity of his room is any indication. Nothing brought to him after his accident beside some clothes and shoes, and he can’t even be sure those are really his.

There’s nothing in here that will ever help him remember who he is, nothing that ties to his forgotten memories. Other than Kato, there is nothing remotely interesting about this facility he’s stuck in. Everything - the questions, the answers - they’re all outside, out there. And staying inside, protected, shielded, will never get him anywhere.

So he asks Kato if they can go again. Kato just eyes him carefully, looks thoughtful. Eventually, he asks, “Where do you want to go?”

Ryo hangs his head, turns away from the window in his room. He shrugs after a few moments, feeling Kato’s gaze on him. “I don’t know,” he answers finally.

“Maybe you should think about where you want to go before I take you out again,” Kato suggests.

Ryo nods glumly and turns back to look out of the window.

-

“I want to see where I lived,” Ryo tells Kato a few days later.

Kato looks up at him quickly, startled. “What?” he breathes.

“Where I lived,” Ryo repeats. “I want to go there.” He’s surprised by Kato’s sudden anxiety, but decides not to dwell on that now, instead fisting his hands at his sides with determination and continuing. “You said to think about where I wanted to go. Well. I want to go home. Or at least see what my home looked like. I can’t…I can’t even remember that.”

Kato’s eyes are dark, unfathomable, but Ryo is certain he sees sadness there, the same look he had when he’d told Ryo he could not give up. Ryo stares him down, hoping desperately inside that Kato consents, because Ryo hasn’t wanted to do anything more than this for a long time.

Eventually, Kato seems to crack, breaking eye contact with Ryo as he sighs and sinks back against his armchair. And Ryo notices for the first time how tired and worn-out he looks. He wonders what’s wrong, but keeps it to himself, waiting for Kato’s answer.

Kato meets his eyes again and gives a small nod. “Okay,” he says quietly. “I’ll take you there.”

-

He’s pressed up against the window again on the drive to his apartment, staring with eyes wide as at the buildings and streets that they pass. Everything feels familiar yet looks foreign, and Ryo is starting to really hate it - knowing that he has probably been here, walked these streets, but yet doesn’t remember it is becoming old. He just wants to remember, wants to feel whole again. He grips the doorhandle tight between his fingers, and hopes that going home will help joggle his brain, even a little.

He doesn’t know why Kato knows where he lives or why he has a key, why he even nods at the doorman when they walk inside as if he knows him personally. He doesn’t ask, either, too eager and too excited, his mind buzzing as it tries to keep up while he glances everywhere and anywhere. It’s a short ride up the elevator then down a dimly lit hall, Ryo counting off the numbers of the apartments as he passes, finally stopping at 1023. Even the number, gold and shiny, on the white door feels familiar, and Kato hands him the key, nods at him like it should be Ryo’s right to open the door and step inside.

So he does, his hand shaking a little as he turns the lock, heart pounding in his ear, because if this didn’t work, if he couldn’t remember anything after coming home, Ryo wasn’t sure what else he could do. So he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then lets go. The door softly hits the inside wall and Ryo opens his eyes. It all definitely feels familiar - but so do a lot of things, so Ryo doesn’t get too excited right away - and instead he slips out his shoes, and walks out of the genkan.

The walls are white, he sees the kitchen off to the left, but heads right instead, into the open sitting room. A couch against one wall, a television in the opposite corner, a glass coffee table in the center. A tall shelf is next to the television, filled to the brim with books of varying sizes along with DVDs and CDs.

He stands in the middle of the room, and unlike everything else he’s experienced in the past four months, being here, in his place, feels the most familiar out of all of it. He glances around and around, taking it all in, and it’s almost like he’s been hit by a bus, the way the images come rushing at him, filling his mind. He doesn’t know what to take in first, spasms of visions, of memories, flooding him all at once.

Here, at the apartment, sitting on that couch, Kato laying beside him, his head in Ryo’s lap.

Kato pulling book after book off the shelf, a pencil on his ear, glasses pushed up on his head as he rubs his eyes and Ryo comes from the kitchen, hands him coffee.

Ryo lying on his stomach upon the couch, Kato straddling his hips and carefully pressing gauze along his bare back, Ryo wincing in pain every once in awhile. “You have to be more careful,” Kato is saying quietly, a worried look on his face.

In the kitchen, Kato is making breakfast, cracking open an egg over a pan, when Ryo joins him, yawning, and Kato presses a kiss against the corner of his mouth, welcomes him with a sunny “Good morning.”

Ryo feels like he’s been caught in a storm, a whirlwind of memories enveloping him, lighting up inside of him one after the other. Every one of them takes place in the apartment, with him, and with Kato, just the two of them, and no one else. Ryo’s not sure what to think of that, as he starts to feel a bit dizzy, closing his eyes, trying to block out the flow of recollections.

“R-Ryo?” Kato’s voice reaches his ears and immediately snaps him back to reality. Kato meets his gaze, frowning in worry, as he asks, “Are you okay?”

Ryo slowly nods, not trusting his voice yet after what he’d just seen - what he’d just remembered.

“Do you…Do you remember anything?” Kato ventures quietly, a glimmer of hope in his voice that Ryo doesn’t miss.

“I don’t know,” Ryo says. “It might be a memory.” He pauses, looks right at Kato. “Could you be in my memories?” Kato doesn’t say anything, just watches Ryo with a curious expression on his face, so Ryo continues. “Maybe you were standing over there,” he points to the shelf, “and I was over here,” gesturing towards the couch. “You were looking for a book, and I was…I was playing the guitar.”

Ryo looks at Kato, tries to read his expression, but Kato’s face is blank, giving nothing away. He presses on. “And you couldn’t find what you were looking for,” he says, stepping a bit closer to Kato now, not letting his gaze waver from the younger man’s face. “And I noticed it was just there, sticking out from under the couch, under all of my sheets of music.”

“And then what happened?” Kato questions, finally breaking that mask, and letting Ryo see the anticipation, the longing in his eyes and hear it in his voice, and moves closer to Ryo as well.

“Then, you grumbled with irritation, gathering up my stuff into a pile, muttering about me being a slob.” Ryo’s lips quirk at the corner and even Kato lets out a little laugh.

“So what did you do?” Kato says. “You didn’t just take that, did you?”

“Of course not,” Ryo replies easily, still smiling as he steps even closer. “So I put down my guitar and said-”

Kato closes the space between them, so close Ryo can practically count his eyelashes, and breathes against his skin, “And said, shut up, before you-”

“Did this,” Ryo responds before pressing his mouth against Kato’s.
And this is the most natural thing in the world, Ryo thinks. This feels right, this feels good, this feels complete.

His arms find their way around Kato’s back, as Kato does the same, only gripping onto the back of Ryo’s shirt with such a ferocity Ryo thinks he might be able to tear right through the fabric. It makes him smile into the kiss though, and deepen it, remembering the way Kato tastes, the shape of his mouth, the smoothness of his lips.

When Ryo starts to pull away, Kato doesn’t let him, clutching onto him tightly and relentlessly. Ryo presses his forehead against Kato’s, murmurs soothing words, calms him down, calms himself down, suddenly aware of how his heart seems eager to beat straight out of his chest. He threads his fingers through Kato’s short hair, and after a few more minutes, Kato pulls back, his grip relaxing just a bit.

“Shige,” Ryo says quietly, coaxing the younger man to look at him, and when he does, he seems to finally let go.

“Ryo,” he whispers as he tries hard not to cry. “Oh my god, Ryo. I-I’ve missed you, so much.” He takes a shaky breath, and pulls him close again. “I’ve missed you so much.”

-

They are tangled under the covers, falling gradually from that indescribable high. Ryo is certain he’s never felt better than he does at that moment, pressing soft, lingering kisses along Kato’s jaw, cheek, hairline, down his throat and along his shoulder. Kato with his eyes closed in bliss, a small smile at his lips, and reaching out to clasp his hand with Ryo’s, intertwining their fingers, touching palms.

“You okay?” Ryo asks him, and Kato opens his eyes, grins brightly and blushes.

“Never better,” he answers. “Are you?”

Ryo nods, traces a finger along Kato’s skin, watches as Kato’s chest rises and falls. Kato frowns, noticing the look in Ryo’s eyes, and leans up on his elbows, Ryo’s fingers falling off, and says, “Ryo?”

Ryo looks up at him, smiles and shakes his head in response to the worry in Kato’s eyes. “I’m fine,” he insists. “Just a little confused, still. Trying to piece together the rest of the puzzle.”

Kato nods, falls back against the pillows. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.

“We worked together,” Ryo says eventually. “Well, not together, but. In the same company.”

When Kato nods again, Ryo continues. “I was a field agent. I really did do undercover work.”

Kato smiles. “You did.”

“What did you think when I mentioned that to you the first time?” he asks with a grin.

“I wanted to jump up and down with joy,” Kato replies. “It was hard, keeping it in.”

Ryo nods solemnly but says nothing, and Kato quickly nudges him to keep going. “You worked in intelligence,” he says. “And, Pi, and Massu, Tegoshi, Koyama…they all worked at the company, too.”

Kato nods again. “They were happy to see you, that day,” he says. “And Koyama, that day at the facility. He told me he was trying hard not to cry when he saw you playing.”

Ryo laughs and shifts to lay on his stomach, crosses his arms over Kato’s chest, and drops his chin upon them. He glances at Kato thoughtfully, then says, “I taught him, didn’t I? How to play?”

“You did,” Kato affirms.

“They…They felt comfortable. And familiar,” Ryo says. “Like I knew them before, had seen them before, been with them before.” Ryo smiles. “We were all friends.”

Kato smiles and nods again, reaches out and swipes a strand of hair from Ryo’s face, his fingers lingering along Ryo’s cheek. His eyes are soft, warm, as they move along Ryo’s features, and Ryo notices the relief, the happiness in them, leans in to kiss him once, gently.

“The accident,” he says when he pulls back and feels Kato stiffen a little as he recalls the events.

“Do you remember?” Kato asks and Ryo nods, slowly.

“I fell,” he replies.

“God, Ryo,” Kato breathes. “You gave me a heart attack, that day.” He shakes his head, a wry smile at his lips, then adds, “You, a top agent who has gone on some of the most dangerous missions imaginable, and what do you do? You fall down some stairs.”

His tone is light, but Ryo sees the fright behind his eyes. He tightens his fingers against Kato’s, pulls up his hand and kisses the back. “It’s okay, Shige,” Ryo says.

“No, it’s not,” Kato replies. “You fell down the stairs. You almost died, Ryo.” He closes his eyes, forcing himself to calm down, lets out a deep breath and opens them again. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryo says, and Kato laughs at that, the crystal-clear laugh Ryo remembers so vividly now, and pokes him in the side, grinning harder when Ryo yelps and squirms away.

“You should be,” Kato says, teasing, and Ryo smiles. “Do you have anything else you’re wondering about?”

“Why were you at the facility? As a therapist, no less. And Taguchi? What the hell was he doing there?”

Kato laughs again. “We had to make sure if you did remember something, you didn’t go blabbing about it to the wrong sorts of people,” he explains. “We couldn’t risk you remembering top-secret missions and telling a random stranger.”

“So you pretended to be my therapist so that I’d tell you what memories I could recall?” Ryo says and Kato nods.

“It was hard, you know. To not just blurt out the truth,” Kato murmurs.

Ryo turns onto his side, pulls Kato close against him, fingers in his hair, breath against his neck. Kato slides his hands around Ryo’s back, holds him tight like he’s done all evening since Ryo’s memories returned, as if reminding himself that this is real, that this is happening. He pulls back first, takes Ryo’s face between his hands and kisses him soundly. It’s sweet and slow and soft, this kiss, and neither seems eager to let it end, pouring everything and more into this perfect, perfect moment.

“There are so many things I never got to say,” Kato tells him sometime later, when they’re still pressed against each other, warmth seeping through their veins.

Ryo tilts his head, noses the soft spot behind Kato’s ear. “I’m here now,” he says.

“I love you,” Kato breathes.

Ryo grins. “I already knew that.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Kato says.

“I knew that, too,” Ryo replies, eyes bright with mischief when Kato pulls back enough to look at him.

“Fine,” Kato says. “Maybe you should tell me something, then.”

Ryo laughs brightly and pushes Kato onto his back, straddles his hips and leans down to catch his lips in another searing kiss. When he pulls back he says, “I’m sorry for taking so long.”