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It was startling how easily one could fall into patterns.
"You want a smoke?"
It was dangerous to say yes, but he agreed before he could think better of it. He should take it back, he thinks. Take it back and leave Shiroku. Go home and sleep off his sake-induced haze, nurse his resulting hangover alone.
He doesn't.
Outside, the air is humid and warm. The singing of cicadas brings the seasoned detective back to less complicated times. The company helps. He places the cigarette between his lips and Namatame leans over into his space, lighter in hand.
"Remember our first cigarette?" Namatame asks, voice filled with mirth and nostalgia. "I nearly hacked up a lung."
Dojima chuckles, feeling himself pulled deeper down memory lane. "I wasn't faring any better. I remember. But I was trying so hard to keep a straight face." He sucks on his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs. He holds it, the little voice telling him to back out going quiet. He exhales, long and slow, before he speaks again. "I remember I was trying to show off for you."
Taro laughs, once, voice gravelly as he inhales deeply. "That so?" He exhales, coughing into another laugh, looking embarrassed in the moonlight. "It worked. Though I guess you know that as well as I do."
Dojima's face feels warmer than the air. He looks away towards the ground. "That was a good summer," he murmurs before he can help himself.
"Yeah."
They stand outside Shiroku, smoking in silence. The light buzz of cicadas all around them as they bathed in the neon lights of the bar. Neither can say when or how, but they drift closer to each other until their shoulders brush. Dojima jumps away, uncharacteristically shy.
Namatame's lip twitches in amusement, and he closes the distance again. "I don't remember you being so jumpy."
"I'm trying to stay professional." Dojima's lip twitches, though it is less in amusement and more in self-loathing. "You're still a suspect."
"In an investigation you chose to back out of."
Dojima grits his teeth. He wasn't angry; he was still feeling a residual sense of embarrassment. "I didn't choose to. I did it because I knew I couldn't maintain that professional distance."
Namatame winces. Dojima might not have been angry, but he was. He had been for a long time. "We aren't friends anymore. Haven't been for a long time."
"Is it so wrong of me to still care about you, even after all these years?"
There's a pause, heavy and full of chaos and promise.
"I loved you, Ryotaro."
Dojima hadn't felt weak like that in what felt like ages. Unlike with Chisato, he knew this weak-kneed, heart-fluttering feeling towards Taro Namatame was bad. It could only make things difficult. He should snuff it out now, while he still could. Before he made a dumb mistake.
It's already too late, a little voice in his head says. He isn't sure if the voice is mocking him, shaming him, or forgiving him. He isn't so sure he's allowed forgiveness. He also isn't sure if it's mutual or if his body moves on its own, but his cigarette ends up crushed underfoot, and his mouth connects with something both foreign and familiar. The taste of ash and sake, the feel of eager tongues swirling.
Dojima always found comfort in well-worn trails, and his hands remind him, as they map over a body that is familiar yet new, that Taro was still a comfort. One he thought he had forgotten. Or, perhaps more accurately, hoped he had.
Before he knew it, Dojima had dragged Namatame back to his place. Before he knew it, their bodies were entwined on his bed. Before he knew it, he was spread out and lovingly fucked.
His body took it all greedily. He begged for kisses and groped Namatame's skin. Reliving familiar territory and marking the differences from his memory. Updating the new planes despite knowing it was wrong.
"I love you, Taro," he whispers into the darkness, still feeling the man stretch and fill him, moving inside him and making him feel a wholeness he hadn't felt in what felt like forever, but it was only some fourteen months. The words he whispered, he knew, were valid. Even though he wanted to hate Taro Namatame, he loves him.
Namatame whispers the same before he presses his lips to Dojima's.
...
Morning's ability to make Dojima regret yesterday's actions was on a hot streak.
It didn't start too terribly. Yes, Dojima regretted bringing Namatame home. The man was the main suspect in the murder of the person whom he had been secretly dating, a kouhai of Dojima's late wife, no less. But he had at least enough emotional intelligence not to say that aloud.
The problem started when Namatame had asked how he was holding up, and after that, Dojima lost the thread of the conversation. Worse, he didn't understand how they started to fight.
"You're the one who decided to run off and get married." Namatame's voice is level, but the red in his face shows his true rage. His nose scrunches up as he pulls on his collared shirt, avoiding Dojima's eyes.
"We had broken up by that point," Dojima hisses, pulling on his underwear and pants as he speaks. "Or did you forget that you decided to go to university in the big city? You were going to change the world, but you had to leave our little backwater to do it."
Their voices rise as their argument continues.
"Yeah, I left, but I was going to come back! The only one of us to call Yaso a backwater has been you." He points an accusing finger at Dojima before yanking his own pants off from the floor and jerking them on. "I didn't come back after my studies because I had to hear from Mayumi that you married Chisato. You didn't even have the decency to call or write. I had to hear it from a friend!"
Dojima scoffs, pulling a t-shirt from his drawers and slamming it shut with more force than necessary, grunting when Namatame jumps slightly. "I didn't write because you never wrote me back. Speaking of Yamano, when did you go around fucking her? Was it before marrying that Enka singer?"
"Don't talk about Mayumi that way! And I married Misuzu because I was lonely, thanks to you. It wasn't until two years ago that Yumi and I started..." He trails off and takes a shuddering breath. "When your god damn name cropped up in the news, you bastard."
"I was in the news because my wife was murdered, you ass." Dojima can't decide if he wants to punch Namatame or hold him; Namatame is in much the same boat with Dojima. "Why couldn't you just stay the hell away? We were both happy before you decided to come back here."
Namatame takes his turn to scoff and pushes past Dojima, buttoning up his shirt as he goes. "Speak for yourself, Ryo."
When he wrenches open the door, the two men are greeted by Adachi and Yu, who are crouching down and listening in. They must not have heard Namatame going to the door before they both look guiltily up at Namatame, flashing big and toothy smiles that say don't yell at us.
Dojima is first to react. "Adachi!" He snaps, stalking over to the two interlopers and grabbing them both by the wrists, one of the captured in each hand. Adachi struggles in the hopes of running away, but Yu acquiesces to his fate. "What do you two think you're doing?"
He's honestly happy to have something else to yell at, because yelling at Namatame was getting him nowhere. They each had an excuse for why everything was shitty between them, but Adachi and Yu snooping? It was easy to lecture.
"We heard yelling and we were worried about you," Yu responds levelly. There's a sort of sadness in his eyes that makes Dojima's stomach flip uncomfortably. He didn't want Yu feeling sad for him... Not over Namatame. Not over anything. "Do you two need another minute alone? I think you're close to a breakthrough." The teenager asks, looking between the two grown men, the worry clearer on his face.
Dojima grimaces. It was a sucky day when the teenager was the most mature one in the house. He lets Yu go, but continues to grip Adachi. "And what's your excuse, detective?"
"I heard what was previously the main suspect in a murder investigation yelling at my partner, who exited the investigation because he didn't think he could keep his personal relationship with the suspect separate. I wanted to make sure my partner wasn't in danger," one look and Dojima's shocked to see it wasn't a lie – Adachi had been snooping to make sure he was ok. His grip loosens as Adachi draws nearer to whisper in Dojima's ear for only him to hear, "You are ok, right?"
The man hesitates before he nods. He was angry and embarrassed, but only his pride was wounded.
Unfortunately for all of them, this small side conversation left Yu alone with Namatame, and both the detectives only tuned back in to hear the teenager saying, "You'll stay for breakfast, won't you Namatame-san?"
At least Namatame has the decency to try and get out of it, but everyone in the room knew that if Yu escalated his asking to "I really must insist," that they would all, collectively, regret it.
"I would love to stay and have breakfast," Namatame finally agrees through gritted teeth.
"Wonderful! I'll go ask Nanako to help me. Behave." Yu warns before he leaves. From down the hall, the three men hear him call for Tohru, which Adachi is happy to comply with. He doesn't even say bye as he hurries to chase after Yu.
Back alone, Namatame and Dojima awkwardly shuffle on their feet.
As usual, Namatame is the first one to break the silence. "Your nephew sure is a force."
Dojima hums his agreement. "I'm sorry, Taro."
"What for? I could have told him no," which was partially true. He could have tried to stay firm and tell Yu no, but they both knew Yu would continue to insist until they all found themselves at the table, eating, and Nanako saying how nice it was that everyone was getting along.
"That isn't why I'm apologizing," Dojima exhales. "I'm sorry for suspecting you for Mayumi's murder. And Konishi's."
"Oh," Namatame's eyes widen, then fall closed. "Did you suspect me because you truly believed it? Or because of the bad blood between us?"
Dojima thinks on that for a moment, and he's glad when Namatame doesn't take his silence as a response. It even makes a smile twitch on his lips for a brief moment. "It made sense, to suspect you, but my gut wasn't really in it. I still saw fit to leave the case. Whether you killed them or not, I was a poison pill."
Namatame gives an amused smile. "I suppose doubly so now."
Dojima agrees, closing the distance between them and buttoning the rest of Namatame's buttons. "We should go downstairs before Yu thinks we're fighting again."
Namatame takes Dojima's hands gently into his own. "Can we talk afterwards?"
"Lay everything out?"
He nods, and Dojima does too in response. "There's a lot to talk about."