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Dawn has barely streaked the sky when his solitude is interrupted.
“Good morning.”
Shougo turns, finding Sem some paces away. Out of habit, he summons a smile from the dusty pages of his repertoire, one he used to don for his benefactors.
“Good morning,” he returns politely.
“Slept well?” Sem’s speech is measured, quiet. It’s one of the first things Shougo noticed about him, along with his limping steps and the nameless burden that bowed his shoulders.
“Yes, thank you.”
“But you’re up very early.”
“I don't need much sleep.”
The trickle of small talks exhausts itself. Shougo feels like he should make more effort; after all Sem is, for all intent and purposes, their current benefactor. But quiet has descended once more and he is reluctant to spoil it. There is something sacred about this silence, in this place of ancient stones and older gods. It seeps past his skin, soaks into his flesh, curls inside his bones and deeper, then deeper still, where his soul sleeps.
Sem, born and bred to this old silence, is less mindful. He stops an arm’s length away, shuffling from one foot to another, clearly wrestling with words.
Shougo returns his attention to the far horizon and waits. Below them is a sea of mist, ghostly pale over the open courtyard and sprawling structures. History is a dead thing, or so he has always believed, but these people find their refuge here, crawling between stone carcasses.
“It’s rare to see you alone,” Sem says again a moment later. “Without Kougami I mean.”
At that, Shougo cannot help but smile. The comment doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should—a fact which, in turn, doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should either. Then again, nothing ever does these days.
“He’s still asleep,” he says by way of an explanation. It sounds ordinary enough, but Shougo remembers a time when his presence in the same room meant days and nights without sleep. Some mornings, he would lurch out of half-mangled dreams to the cool press of a gun on his cheek; other times, it would be to Kougami’s fingers around his throat. And now, across the span of three years, Kougami has become so used to his presence that he barely stirs when Shougo slips out of the room.
Sem nods, eyes hidden and away. There are questions bursting in the space between them. Shougo senses them the way he senses a trill of discontent in the most innocent harmony. He wonders if it’s a sense of propriety that holds Sem back. The man is much more open with Kougami—so taken, in fact, with Kougami, who can be charming without even trying. Shougo knows this, falling asleep beside him every night. Once upon a time, he too could pry secrets out of the hardest hearts with just a few choice words. Now he keeps himself in the shadows, his head down, more a wraith than anything of substance.
Sometimes he misses being Makishima Shougo, the man with a purpose—except that Makishima Shougo died when Kougami didn’t pull the trigger.
“Do you like it here?”
The question comes out of nowhere. Shougo glances sideways, but Sem is looking straight ahead, shielding curiosity with a mask of nonchalance.
“It’s different,” he says at last.
“In a good way? Bad?”
“In a different way.”
An unexpected grin breaks over Sem’s face, evident even in the low light. “See, this is why I cannot read you at all.”
Ah. “You have concerns about me,” Shougo says mildly.
“I wouldn’t say that.” The denial is quick, too quick to be entirely truthful. “It’s just, we’ve never really had a talk before. A talk or...an interaction or what have you.”
A heart-to-heart, then. This, Shougo is familiar with, like a path he has traversed any number of times in the distant past. It makes him think of Choe Gusung. They had such ease of conversation between them, so much that once or twice Shougo found himself opening up a little more than he had intended. But Sem is different. With him, it will require effort.
“You can ask them,” he offers, as gently as possible. “Your questions. Anything you want to know.”
“I don’t want to pry.”
“How else are you going to ‘read’ me?”
“Well, to be honest there’s no reason why I have to,” Sem confesses, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “After all, Kougami trusts you.”
Shougo checks a sudden burst of laughter just in time. Of all the words that can be applied to his relationship with Kougami, ‘trust’ is certainly not one of them. And yet Sem uses it—unthinking, automatic, a matter of course.
“You’re challenging a very powerful junta,” he says instead, going for a safer topic. “It only makes sense to be careful.”
“Careful? Don’t you mean paranoid?”
Shougo shrugs. “The same thing. And whether it should be called one or the other is not exactly up to you. After all, the threat is real.”
“We have our own way of life.” A spark of anger slips into Sem’s voice. “But Hang insists on changing that—and not even for the right reasons. He simply wants to win against his political rivals.”
“Will it matter if he does it for the right reasons?”
“Probably not,” Sem admits, wry amusement in his voice.
Shougo feels a corresponding smile on his lips. “At least you’re honest. Kougami likes that about you.”
“You’re saying that as if he doesn’t like you.”
“Maybe he doesn’t.”
There’s a moment of silence as Sem considers this possibility. “That’s… very hard to believe,” he finally decides in a tone that lets Shougo know just how ridiculous the idea is.
Is it? Shougo almost asks. He does wonder, every now and then, what the two of them look like from the outside. Fugitives fleeing their country, probably. Criminals hiding from law’s long-reaching arms. Exiles with no home. And then there are also the noises coming from their shared bedroom some nights—the kind that can leave no doubt as to what they’ve been doing. He wonders if they look like lovers; if anyone could mistake the layered complexities of Kougami’s hatred for him for love.
“What was it like to live in Japan?”
The question filters through slowly, and it takes Shougo even longer to find the right word. “Convenient,” he says at last.
“And you didn’t like it? Is that why you left?”
“I had no place in it.” No place that he wants, anyway. Being part of an entity that masquerades omnipotence doesn’t hold much appeal to him.
“Not because you didn’t like it, then.”
“How does one like a society that invalidates one’s existence?”
“Fair enough” Sem acknowledges with a nod. “But now that you’ve seen our life here, which do you think is better?”
“Better for whom?” Shougo hums innocently.
It makes Sem laugh, short and sudden, startlingly loud in the silence. “Hit the jackpot in one. That’s the real question, isn’t it? Better for whom. After all, this kind of life is not for everyone. Neither is your country's way bad for everyone.”
Shougo turns slowly. All around them, the mist is lifting, the sky now a promising blue. “You’re not sure about this fight.”
“I’ve never been sure from the start.” The confession comes more easily now. “Maybe that’s why I turn to Kougami. He makes everything seem, feel, possible.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Shougo smiles, all fondness. A strange sort of affection is twisting through him. It’s curious, this proprietary sense, as if he owns Kougami in some ways instead of the other way around.
When he looks up, Sem’s eyes are on him, expectant. “Will you be joining us today?”
“Joining you?”
“Another shipment from Japan is coming in. Six trucks at least. They won’t be using the same route they did the last time, though.”
What shipment, he almost says, but then he knows. Facts are shifting in his head, clicking into place: Kougami’s week-long absence last month, his silence, his refusal to talk about what he was doing. There’s a flash of annoyance at the realisation that Kougami has kept these facts secret from him, but even that feels vague. Distant.
Now he knows.
“They already started building the facility in the Float,” Sem continues, oblivious to the sudden beat of silence. The possibility of Kougami’s ‘partner’ knowing nothing about it doesn’t even seem to cross his mind. “The infrastructure is there. Now it’s only a matter of a few more shipments until the system is online.”
“And Sybil will reign,” Shougo murmurs. The mist is almost entirely gone now, revealing a crumbling formation of stones and a sprawling village in the distance. He watches colours bleed into the landscape, degrees by scant degrees. In his nose lingers the cold of dawn along with a new scent, that of an old enemy.
“We really can use all the help we can get,” Sem speaks again, earnest in a way only the truly desperate can be. “Do you remember when we were attacked on our way here? I saw the way you two fought together. The way you moved. The way you responded to each other. We lost not even one man that day.”
Shougo remembers—in bursts of noises and adrenaline. He doesn’t remember what he did. By then, responding to Kougami had become second nature. Survival is a matter of instinct, and nothing is easier, more effortless, than this dance they have been doing since day one.
“Kougami operates better with you around,” Sem says into the absence of Shougo’s reply. “So if you can, please.”
Shougo does not correct this assumption of his free will. “You’re planning to attack the convoy en route?” he asks instead.
“Highest chance to succeed.”
“I see.”
Sem’s shoulders tense at some perceived offence in his tone. “Maybe in the end it doesn’t matter, but it’s still better than nothing.” He pauses, and there is such world of pain in the lines of his face that Shougo’s chest throbs in response. “It’s the only thing we can do.”
“It’s not,” Shougo says, the words slipping past his lips before he could sift through them—and the knowledge, the certainty blooms, spreads, like ripples on water. It reaches even the darkest recesses on his mind, lights up pathways long untrodden. He cannot remember the last time he feels so certain about something. The weight of it unsettles him. His cloak of apathy is rent, coming apart like pages of old books eaten by moths.
“Excuse me.” He turns, mind already back in the room, arguing with Kougami. He lets his feet pick their way through the maze of stone corridors, paying no attention to their progress. Speculations are crowding his head. The idea that Kougami hasn’t arrived to the same conclusion that he did is laughable. It’s simply how they are: to breathe the same thought, walk the same line of reason. Kougami must have, and yet he’s done nothing about it.
Shougo pushes the door to their shared room as quietly as possible. Kougami is still asleep, limbs spread across the meagre space now that he is alone. Shougo watches him for a moment, thinking, a plan coalescing in his head.
Then he moves, climbing into bed and over Kougami’s lap. The result is instantaneous. No sooner has he managed the feat that Shougo finds himself flipped around and pushed down, one arm twisted behind his back.
“Not so asleep, after all,” he mutters past a grimace.
“The fuck are you doing?” Kougami’s voice is a rough snarl. His words are still clumped together, awkwardly stitched, but Shougo also knows that no one can go from sleepy to pissed off quite as fast as him.
“I have a question,” he explains, all meekness even as he shifts his legs until he finds what he’s been looking for: the hardness now poking into his left thigh. “Although you seem to have another thing in mind.”
Kougami’s immediate response is to tighten his hold to the point of pain. “What question?” he demands, ignoring Shougo’s attempt to tease his morning erection.
“The shipments. You didn’t tell me about them.”
“What makes you think I have to tell you anything?”
“Why, Kougami.” Shougo turns his head to one side and smiles, mostly because he knows how much it annoys the other man. “Aren’t we partners?”
“Partners?” Kougami laughs, a harsh cruel sound. His fingers move to the back of Shougo’s head, a solid pressure and just as merciless. “Know your place, bitch.”
“And where would that be exact–”
There are certainly more graceful ways to be fucked, Shougo later reflects when Kougami is pushing his cock into him, but who needs finesse when they can have this? A barely awake Kougami is a Kougami who takes what he wants; who delights in causing him pain; who sees morals and ethics as the hubris they are.
Shougo, too, delights in being the only one who can match him in this. He keens, a soft, strangled sound as Kougami starts fucking him in earnest. The fullness burns, but it’s yet another thing he delights in. There’s a balance here, crooked scales and all. This is the only way Kougami can let him live—the only way he can let himself let him live.
Morning sex like this never lasts long. Kougami is hard and angry and the way he is thrusting into him is as much punishing as desperate. His fingers dig deeper into Shougo’s skull, pushing his face flat against the mattress. Like this, breathing is a luxury. Shougo is moaning into the sheets, begging for air, but Kougami’s hand is merciless. Panic is a slow burn inside his chest, spreading like poison. It grips his muscles tight, gilding every sensation into sharp heady focus. Kougami ceases to be Kougami; he’s the cock that fucks him, the hand that withholds air from his lungs, the fingers that scorch bruises into his hip. He’s the one thing that anchors him here, in this riot of senses, in this purposeless existence, and Shougo wails for him as Kougami fucks him into completion.
The pressure on the back of his head disappears. Shougo is left gasping as air burns into his lungs. Everything else returns by degrees. The hard beating in his chest. The drops of sweat on his brow. The heaviness in his limbs. The sound of birds from outside. Kougami’s presence on his back, swallowing him whole with his bulk and heat and smell and everything his.
It takes Shougo a long moment to notice that his dick, trapped between his weight and the bed, is still hard. The pulse of arousal remains, heavy and insistent.
“Do bitches get to come?” he murmurs into the damp sheets.
Kougami presses a choked laugh into his hair. “Does this bitch want to come?” He sounds quiet, tired, all the things that can be misconstrued as tenderness. He’s cruellest when he isn’t aware of it; when he lets go of any pretence of decency and allows his baser nature, that part that knows hatred is too simple to describe his feelings for Shougo, to take over.
Shougo bites his lip and raises his hips slightly. “Yes, please.”
Kougami says nothing, but his hand, the one that left its mark on Shougo’s hip, now curls around his cock. Shougo arches back and moans, relishing in the touch. This snug warmth, the slow press of Kougami’s thumb, suddenly matters more to him than his own release. His hips move, rocking gently, matching Kougami’s slow, lazy strokes. He longs for this to last. He longs to see Kougami’s face, the expression he is making right now, being this gentle, to Makishima Shougo.
He comes silently, almost regretfully, with Kougami’s lips on the curve of his shoulder, his fingers patiently wringing the release out of him.
Kougami removes himself as soon as he’s done, bare-footed on cold stone floor. Shougo sinks into the mattress, exhausted and empty. The cool stagnant air settles on his damp back. He briefly wonders where his clothes have gone, but any effort to satisfy that curiosity seems to be beyond him at the moment.
It isn’t until the smell of cigarette smoke hits his nose that Shougo opens his eyes. Kougami is sitting on the other bed, looking at the window and the daylight outside, streaming in through the small opening. He seems, more than ever, like a statue carved out of rock, pensive, waiting. What he is waiting for is less clear. Shougo watches him through half-lidded eyes, thoughts a slow, aimless swirl in his head. He thinks of birds, leaving their nests and conversing outside. He thinks of the wraith-like smoke rising from Kougami’s cigarette, traversing the distance between them. He thinks of mornings and soundless footsteps. He thinks of births, deaths, absences. He thinks of his entire existence, right here and now, anchored to a person instead of a purpose. This existence that feels more like floating. A purpose is a fixed mark; Kougami is nowhere near that steady. He’s drifting at best, sinking deeper with each step and dragging Shougo with him.
But Kougami didn’t pull the trigger in that field of gold, and that, for Shougo, is that.
“You’re doing laundry,” Kougami tells him when their eyes meet.
Shougo blinks, slow and languid. A smile unfurls across his lips. “It’s your fault as much as mine.”
“You started it.”
“You fell for it.”
“You begged for it.”
Shougo presses a laugh into a pillow that smells like Kougami. He rarely ever laughs, but Kougami makes it feel so natural. And he isn’t alone in this. The twitch on Kougami’s lips betrays the same amusement. He looks relaxed, almost happy. Shougo wonders if it’s the endorphins, softening the jagged edges of this perverse thing between them.
“Fine,” he relents, feeling the moment slipping away from his fingers. He’d like to keep that look on Kougami’s face a bit longer, but they don’t have much time. The day is creeping in and soon their privacy will be interrupted. Shougo takes a deep breath. “I’ll do the laundry, but only if you tell me why you said nothing about the shipments.”
Kougami doesn’t even blink. “What shipments.”
“The shipments from Japan. Sem told me.”
A pause as Kougami takes another slow drag from his fast-shrinking cigarette. “It’s none of your business.”
“They want my brain,” Shougo says, as patiently as he can. “Either that or my death, whichever more convenient to ensure the sanctity of their secret. Sort of my business, don’t you think?”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Finality rings loud and clear in those clipped words. Shougo pauses, wondering, but then decides to read nothing into it. “Attacking the shipments isn’t going to be enough,” he says instead. “They will still come here. Sink their claws into this country.”
“Didn’t know you cared.”
Shougo swallows an impatient sigh. Dealing with Kougami is like dealing with a child sometimes. And here he was thinking that sex would have put that man-child in a more amenable mood.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he challenges. Kougami does not, but the look he is giving him is all the answer Shougo needs. “Exactly. So why are you not using your most valuable tool?”
That finally rouses Kougami from his silence. “Fucking bitch thinking so highly of itself,” he says, soft and venomous, the cruel twist back on the curve of his mouth. “Figured.”
Shougo welcomes the insult with a smile. “Why, Kougami, how generous of you to think that I’m thinking of myself.”
“An egoist like you? Of course you’re thinking of yourself.”
Shougo hums and lets him have that round. “You know I can walk into the Float unnoticed.”
Kougami scoffs. “I also know that plan will end with your escape.”
“What use do I have for escaping?” Shougo turns slowly, now lying on his side. The way Kougami’s gaze follows that movement, traces his nakedness, doesn’t escape him. He allows himself another smile, basking in the small triumph. “The only reason why I’m still here, believe it or not, is here.”
Kougami shifts. Shougo glimpses the ripples of discomfort in his posture, caused by that tiny bomb. It never lasts. Kougami is too quick, his reflexes too honed, already securing an escape before Shougo can blink.
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you manage to sneak into the Float,” he says, looking at a spot on the wall above Shougo’s head. “What are you going to do then?”
“Find a way to meet Chairman Hang, of course.”
“And you think that’s easy, do you?”
“No more impossible than some of the things I’ve done.”
Kougami clamps his mouth shut, lips a thin line. He dislikes any mention of their past and Shougo regrets the necessity this once. “The good chairman will be interested in any information involving Sybil,” he continues, moving the subject along. “Especially the risks of an integration. Especially the great personal risks. We all listen more carefully when our own lives are at stake, don’t we?”
“You’re saying they’re going to remove him if he doesn’t cooperate,” Kougami says slowly.
“I’m saying they’re going to remove him no matter what.”
“Install a dummy in his place. Like what they’ve been doing in Japan.”
“Much more efficient than trying to influence him.”
“And they will do it before the system is fully online.”
Shougo doesn’t reply. He is too busy smiling, so widely that his cheeks hurt. This, he reflects, must be what falling in love feels like. The joy of following the same thought, of riding the same wavelength; of knowing, absolutely and without a shred of doubt, that his existence is in tandem with someone else’s.
“He isn’t going to believe you just like that,” Kougami, ever the pragmatist, points out.
“Doesn’t matter.” Shougo stretches, long and languid. He rather likes the ache singing in his body. “Planting a seed of doubt is enough. Because once it’s there, it will always be there. It will make him question everything. He will be more careful in his dealings with Japan. With everyone around him.”
“It won’t be enough. You said it yourself. His opponents are the brains of hundreds of genius psychopaths all at once.”
“His chance at survival will increase with my help.”
“You can’t stay there,” Kougami says sharply. “That place is crawling with Sybil’s cameras. They’re going to find you.”
Shougo dismisses the possibility with a wave. “I’ll wear a disguise. You know I’m rather good at it.”
Kougami does, but admitting so is another matter entirely. “That doesn’t guarantee anything,” he declares, scowling.
“If you wanted guarantee, you wouldn’t be here, fighting with these people,” Shougo retorts. “It’s a lost cause and you know it. You don’t fight like this and win. You aim for the head at once; that’s the only way to get a fighting chance.”
The long-simmering anger finally leaps into Kougami’s eyes. “There’s no fighting chance at all if you go there and it turns out that they’ve already replaced him. Have you thought of that possibility?”
It takes Shougo his entire self-control not to roll his eyes. “Of course. It’s a possibility, yes, but still a better chance than this fruitless crusade you insist on waging.”
“They want you,” Kougami snarls, shooting to his feet. “If you’re captured, they’ll add you to their ranks, no bargain.”
He’s already turning away, reaching for the revolver hidden inside the drawer between their beds, before Shougo can retaliate. The sound of the hammer being cocked echoes loudly in the room.
Such a clean lovely sound, Shougo thinks, staring at the mouth of the revolver. He still remembers how it felt, to have it pointed to the back of his head. Facing it from the front is different in countless familiar ways. He can see Kougami’s entire focus, sharp and fierce and absolutely his.
It’s the headiest thing in the world.
Shougo breathes in slowly, then out, savouring the sensation. This is why he hasn’t tried to escape. Indeed, what use does he have for escaping, if the one time he feels most alive is here, at the end of Kougami’s gun.
“Better you die now at my hand,” Kougami says, low and quiet and absolutely the loveliest thing Shougo has ever heard.
“I quite agree.” He rises slowly, the cool whisper of sheet on his skin. His legs follow, folded into a proper kneel. One does not die lying down. He did consider standing—preferred it, in fact—but it would mean breaking Kougami’s focus and that’s the last thing he wants at the moment.
Kougami’s grip tightens around the revolver. He looks almost pained. “Why are you so… so…”
“It’s the ultimate choice, no?” Shougo gently meets his gaze, hands resting on his lap. “To decide how one dies. And I’ve decided since the day you caught up with me at the Tower.”
Kougami doesn’t respond. The look on his face is a war of many. Shougo can spend weeks trying to untangle them, but right now his interest lies in something else. Namely the instrument that will deliver his death. It’s a beautiful one. It calls to him and he answers, raising his hand, slow enough to allow Kougami the decision of a response—except there is none. Both weapon and executor remain where they are. Carefully, almost tenderly, Shougo touches the cylindrical mouth, pressing the tips of his fingers against cool metal. Inside this gun is a bullet bearing his name. Cities may crumble, worlds may end, and still this will remain unchanged. It’s the one thing he can be sure of for as long as he lives, and this knowledge, this ironclad certainty, gives him comfort. It grounds him here. It feels like home.
Kougami watches him in silence. He makes no effort to withdraw, or move, or change anything in any way. It’s yet another thing that makes Shougo feel safe, even happy. No one has ever been this kind to him, he reflects affectionately. Only Kougami Shinya.
“My place is here,” he says softly, hand falling back to his lap. “At the end of this gun, with your finger on the trigger. This is where I will always return.”
This time, Kougami’s response is to grab a handful of his hair, hard, and tugs his head until their eyes meet, the cold, hard mouth of the revolver digging into Shougo’s left cheek. “Make sure you do that.” His voice is a low hiss, a promise and a threat both. “I’d rather shoot you like this than hunt for your brain in Sybil’s bowels.”
Shougo smiles, slow and sweet. “I’d have it no other way.”
End