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Shoko likes to run a bath. The soak relaxes her muscles, the warmth soothes her bones, and the water washes the dust away. She loves it so much that she'll sometimes forget that she's been in the bath for hours and her skin is as wrinkly as a prune.
It's not about cleanliness, or even relaxation.
It's the only way she feels safe. Enveloped in warmth, submerged, hidden, safe.
It's been two hours and Kento had two more chapters to go. His eyes are beginning to sting and he is considering closing the book and putting it down, when he hears a familiar sound from the adjacent room.
"Nanami."
Kento puts the book down on the sofa's armrest and pads to the bathroom door. He turns the doorknob. "You need anything?"
She only calls him Nanami when she's not feeling like herself. Kento doesn't think that she's aware of it. He doesn't think he minds.
He can hear the water slosh, but he still peeks his head inside the bathroom. She's sitting in the tub, knees pulled to her chest. Her chin is resting on the knees and her dark hair floats like extraterrestrial limbs around her.
"Come in," she rasps, her voice thin and tired.
Kento strips his sweater and his boxers off and slides in, his back to her front. A wave of tepid water sloshes over the edge of the tub as they rearrange themselves in the tight spce, Shoko's arms sliding around his chest and her forehead on his left shoulder blade. He's glad he folded his clothes on the toilet seat instead of the floor. The tub is filled to the brim.
They're quiet. They have learned to appreciate the silence, after years and years of not having it.
"I'm tired."
Kento thinks about how much she's been working lately, the missions piling up and the dead bodies piling up and the workload piling up. And their recent mission, with everyone working like a tag team, back to back. It's too much for one person to shoulder.
He's tired too.
"I know." His hand finds her calf underwater, the smooth, warm skin of her leg.
He doesn't think Shoko is crying. At east not anymore. Her breaths are deep, even. It's a rare moment for her. It's not often she gets to be the vulnerable one, the one who needs comforting.
He gives her hand a squeeze. She's the one who needs to touch and feel and know he's there, that he's real.
It's all they can do, really, hold each other. Her cheek against his shoulder blade, her hair sticking to his neck. His heart thumping against her palm.
"Does this still hurt?"
Her other hand reaches around, finds the long, thick scar that stretches across the skin of his heart, past his ribs and towards his left shoulder, pink and rough under her fingertips.
"No," he lies, she knows. Because they were both scarred that day—him physically, her emotionally.
"That's good," she says. Her fingers run down the scar again.
Thirty minutes. He reckons he could've finished the last two chapters during the time Shoko traces the length of his scar over and over. Feels the bumps of his spine and counts the knobs.
His legs are starting to prune and ache. He should get out of the bath before she gets sick. Get the thermal blanket from the top shelf, maybe make her tea. Or heat up some soup. He didn't see her eat anything.
"Can I turn around?"
Her head shakes. Her cheek rubs against his skin. "Not yet."
"Okay."
It's quiet again. Water drip, drip, drips into the tub. The clock ticks. Her rasp breaks through the stillness.
"Do you think I made the right call?"
He doesn't have to ask to know what she's referring to. Kento knows. And it's not a question that needs an answer. "I trust your judgment."
He always does. She's a woman who keeps her emotions and her judgement seperate when it's needed. She makes the tough calls with a practiced tone and a detached gaze. She does her job, and she does it well.
If there's a plan, she'll be the one to calculate the odds and execute it. She's the one who knows how to use her head, even if it means she doesn't get to use her heart.
He takes the hand tracing his scar and kisses her fingers, one by one. The one that brings life and death, that heals and breaks.
They're not the type of people who talk about feelings, and neither of them have ever been good at dealing with it. Not Shoko, whose emotions are buried and suppressed until they fester and burst. And not Kento, who had to deal with his own feelings alone for so long that he stopped recognizing them altogether.
But it doesn't mean they can't be there for each other.
"I trust you."
It's the only thing they can afford in this world.
Trust that their friends will be okay, trust that they'll survive another day, trust that they'll win. Trust that they won't turn on each other. Trust that their skills are enough. Trust that they've lived their best life and fought like hell.
And when Shoko burns their corpses, trust that she's done her best, too.
The water is cold and Shoko's body is a solid weight on his back, but he doesn't move.
"Okay."
Shoko lifts her head from his back. He feels her sigh, the warm breath tickling his skin. A soft kiss on his C-7. A squeeze of his waist.
"I'm done."
Kento doesn't look at her as he gets out of the tub. Water is dripping from his naked body, but it's not his own that he's worried about.
He takes the towel and wraps it around her as she steps out. Shoko shivers and curls in, crossing her arms and burying herself into him.
If he could he'll take her sadness and the grief and the regret and the loneliness. To absorb them and keep them in his body and give her space to breathe, and to let her know that she doesn't have to shoulder all the burden by herself. That he's there. That he's here.
Kento throws her soaked clothes into the washing machine, picking up his sweater and pulls it over her head. It's big and loose, the hem of it brushing the tops of her thighs.
The top of her head is nearly dry, considering the length of her soak, so he pats down the rest of her hair, the strands clinging to her cheek not because of the bath water.
Her skin is pale, the veins and capillaries showing, blue and green and purple. Her eyes are red and sunken, dark hair falling over her face like a character from a classic horror movie.
The cloudy water is drained eventhough almost half of it is on the bathroom floor, and he wipes it with a mop on his foot. He dries himself last, patting his body dry and slipping on his boxers.
When he's done, Shoko's still sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat, watching him. Her eyes follow his every move.
"Come here," she beckons quietly.
He falls on one knee before her and she puts her hands on his face. He closes his eyes, her thumb running over his jaw, his sharp cheekbone, his lashes; she does the same with the other eye. She's inspecting him.
Shoko is not a gentle person.
She's not soft-spoken, or soft-handed, or soft-hearted.
But her hands are light as they trace his face, the way an artist would trace their sketch. With a steady touch, her fingers light on his skin. Mapping and memorizing him.
And then he feels the brush of her lips on his forehead. Then his cheek.
He opens his eyes, but she closes hers. He can count the long lashes and the faint freckles on her face. She has the most beautiful face he's ever seen.
She tilts her head and kisses him, and it's slow, it's soft, it's careful. Thank you .
He licks the seam of her mouth and she parts her lips. The tip of her nose is cold as it brushes his cheek. I got you.
"Come."
He helps her stand and she doesn't protest. Her knees are weak and her legs are shaky, her muscles sore from the long soak.
Shoko follows behind him to the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and makes her a cup of tea. He'll make her something to eat later.
A hand slides over his back, up and down his spine. A soothing gesture, he knows. To her or to him, it doesn't matter.
One matcha, one chamomile. A spoonful of honey.
The tea is still steaming hot when Kento turns around. Shoko's head is tipped forward, her lips against his chest, the spot where his scar is. Her eyes are closed, her arms wrapped around his waist.
He breathes her in. The smell of her hair is flowery, her skin is clean. Her hands don't shake anymore.
He holds her like that, letting her know he's there.
Because, really, it's all they can do.
"Aren't you cold?"
"Nah," he says, "you keep me warm."
But she feels the goosebumps on his back so she holds him tighter.
They set the tea on the coffee table and Kento picks up the book again, letting her tuck herself on his lap, his arm around her waist as the cushion sighs with their combined weight.
She leans her head against his chest, counting his beats per minute and feeling puffs of breaths on her hair when he mouths the words on the pages.
If he finds a particular phrase he likes, his chest rumbles.
"The Man finds great comfort in knowing his purpose lives on, with or without him," he recites.
Shoko falls asleep in the next thirty seconds, her steady breaths warming his collarbone, easing his heart. He leaves the last chapter unread.