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Reisi stepped into the disused basement utility room that Suoh's underlings had taken to calling "the HQ" and cleared his throat.
Far from a respectable base of operations, the place was just a couple of pilfered sofas jammed in between piping and piles of discarded cardboard boxes that even a recycling facility wouldn't want, they stank so badly of mildew.
"Oh, if it isn't the Student Council again," Kusanagi Izumo commented from next to Suoh, on the sofa underneath the only window in the place. "What terrible wrong are we supposed to have committed this time, Mr President?"
"A word, Suoh," Reisi said, ignoring Kusanagi. True, he had spoken politely, but Reisi didn't have time for him right now. He would apologise later.
"Clear out," Suoh said.
The half-dozen or so delinquents obeyed him, filing out past Reisi with Kusanagi bringing up the rear. He gave Reisi a mock-wounded look. He knows why I'm here. Perhaps an apology would not be necessary after all.
Once the last of them -- a gloomy-looking first-year called Izanagi or Izanami -- was on the other side of the door, Reisi slammed and bolted it, then approached the sofa as he loosened his tie and tugged his shirt out of his uniform trousers. He straddled Suoh's lap and put his arms around his neck, pressed his cheek against the side of Suoh's face and his forehead against the sofa's back. Hot and cold.
"You're so forward today, Mr President," Suoh murmured into his hair. "Playing with fire, aren't you?" His hands linked at Reisi's lower back, but the touch felt foreign and wrong today.
"When it comes to you, it turns out I've always been playing with fire, isn't that right?" Reisi replied. He could sit here like this and feel his dick grow hard just from being in Suoh's proximity. He'd have to work on that.
"So you've heard."
"I have." The Weismann test battery. Suoh had passed it and then some: he was the ideal candidate to bear the Red Sword of Damocles. "When will it happen?"
Suoh moved his hands to Reisi's shoulders and sat him upright so their eyes could meet. "After graduation."
"We'll be finished, then." Reisi kept his face smooth, but only just.
"Seems that way." Suoh closed his eyes for a brief instant -- too long for a blink, not long enough for regret.
"You don't care." It should have been a question, but Reisi couldn't trust his voice with any inflections just now.
The corners of Suoh's mouth twitched downwards. "It doesn't matter if I care or don't; it's going to happen either way."
"I guess you're right about that," Reisi said, turning slightly sideways so he could lean down and rest his head on Suoh's shoulder. From now on, there would be a countdown on everything they did.
Suoh put an arm around Reisi's shoulders. "Come with me. We're gonna take over this bar Izumo found."
"You know I can't." His Dresden Slate affinity was lightning; fire was a distant sixth. If he was joining any Clan, it would be SCEPTER4. The ones who opposed the Red.
"Enemies, then." Suoh's voice held a hollow finality.
Reisi smiled up at him. "Even if that happens, I'll still think of you as a friend."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Munakata."
"I won't break this one." Reisi raised his head and kissed the underside of Suoh's jaw. "You forgot to shave again."
"I'll start shaving every day," Suoh said, lifting his chin upwards like a contented cat. "So let's meet every day. Until the end."
"Okay." Reisi pressed the tip of his tongue against the rough, uneven stubble. Is this really the last time I get to do this? Nah, he'll still forget to shave.
Suoh lowered his chin and looked into Reisi's eyes. "I want to sleep together with you once. I mean actually sleeping. In a bed." He looked like a five-year old making a request he knew was unreasonable.
"Okay," Reisi said.
Suoh smirked. "We could go on a real date."
"Now you're pushing it. Give me a kiss."
How many kisses do we have left?
*
"I just came here to see a friend." All of a sudden it occurs to Reisi that he's the only one who made that promise. Suoh just left, without farewells.
For a second, Suoh gives him that same old smile, the one that caught Reisi by surprise and took his breath away. Then it's gone. "Go," Suoh says.
"Suoh, are you sure you won't change your mind?"
"I'm sure."
Always acting like he knows more than other people. It's really a good thing Reisi never considered joining HOMRA; nobody would respect this dumbass if they knew he couldn't even get his socks to match half the time -- and Reisi's terrible at keeping his mouth shut about things like that. "Dumbass," Reisi says, to punctuate the thought. Suoh isn't listening.
As he walks away into the falling snow, he thinks he should have kissed Suoh back there. He's not sure why.
*
"Hello."
Reisi, who had been standing with his face up to the falling snow, turned towards the voice. His glasses were covered in melt but he recognised Kushina Anna. "Oh my," he said. "You've become quite a fine young woman, it seems."
"Thank you, Uncle Reisi," she replied in the same calm monotone as ever. "But you should wipe your glasses before you say things like that, or your words seem insincere."
As Reisi went for the handkerchief in his inner pocket, his fingers brushed against the pack of Blue Sparks he'd carried around since that night, and his heart stuttered. We shared a last cigarette but not a last kiss. "If you call me Uncle, that makes me feel really old," he complained to get away from the memories.
"Dead is what you feel," she said, gazing down at the gravestone. "You shouldn't. You'll make Mikoto unhappy."
Reisi didn't have a response to that. There was nothing in the crypt beneath the stone. No blood, no bone, no ash.
"He loved you, you know," she continued without looking at him. "He loved you the most. That used to make him really angry. Because of how things turned out."
"He tell you that?" Reisi asked, his calm slipping away piecemeal, like snow under errant gusts of wind. We should have counted every kiss.
She shook her head. "He didn't have to." Her wide, blank eyes regarded him with the solemnity of a child. A child who can see into each heart. "So cry for him once, and let him go. He never wanted to make you sad."
Reisi smiled bitterly. "If he didn't want to make me sad, he should've listened to me. We could've figured something out."
"You know that isn't true. There was no other way to save the city."
"Damn the city," Reisi murmured, half to himself. No matter how many years passed, he didn't like being wrong. He would take it if it meant he wouldn't be so alone, though.
A girl, a man, a gravestone.
Reisi tugged off his glove, pressed his fingertips to his numb lips, then to cold, wet marble. These kisses were easy to count; they happened only once a year.
A name, a faded photograph, a slogan. No blood, no bone, no ash.
Just Suoh.
Just him.
[end]