Work Text:
Since being assigned his new route a few weeks back, Kiyohiro's shifts have been ending right around the start of rush hour. Not that he minds -he habitually gets up early on his own and feels achy in his joints if his nights go too long -but it does mean that getting home can be a nightmare.
One way he manages it is to remove himself from the traffic entirely. Most working days he will hang around in the staff lunchroom and eat the food he packed the day before, so by the time he walks out of the station the flood has reduced itself to a steady stream.
Though sometimes Yamaoka catches him even before he sits down and wants to chat about the latest track maintenance bullshit, and that can occupy him a good twenty minutes if he lets it.
Generally he gets on his way within three quarters of an hour after his shift is up. And occasionally, when he really needs it, Kiyohiro braves the crowds for a few short minutes to instead go into the downtown and get himself a beer to unwind.
Today is one of those days, and not just because he'll be meeting up with the rest of the Sixth tomorrow evening.
Kiyohiro shrugs his bag higher up on his shoulder and pushes through the densely packed sidewalk. All around him people go about their business; ducking into shops, hailing taxis, pausing for a cigarette on the edges of the bustle. High school kids move in packs and bicycles zoom by on the street. Noise is all around him until he can barely pick apart what's making which sound.
He's just one more body in the fray -he prefers it that way.
Down an alley, past the darker corners were no tourists venture, he turns into his local bar. It gets good business but doesn't do much advertising, and he can always find himself a free seat and a friendly server willing to leave him to his own devices.
This time he snags a two-top off the side of the fire exit, waves down someone -new, actually, he hasn't seen this kid before -and on top of his usual he puts in for a plate of tempura on the side.
"Fuck watching your cholesterol, huh?"
He watches the kid go and then eyes the man on the other chair. He still looks pretty much the same after all these years, as it happens, and as surprising as it is to see him it's easy to accept it, too. Tesshou leans onto his elbows on the hardwood, that big smirk splitting his face and maybe a bit of fondness in his eyes.
"I earned it."
Tesshou snickers and eyes his work uniform, the clean, even stitches where his name sits above the breast logo and the collar that's nowhere near high enough to hide his tattoo. It's gotten Kiyohiro some looks over the years but never any lip.
"I can see that," Tesshou tilts his head at him. "Hard-working, upstanding citizen are you, these days?"
"Maybe you'd know that if you kept in touch," Kiyohiro feels only a little bitter about that, now, and always more so around this particular week.
"You're the one who barely visits."
Sighing, Kiyohiro's attention is pulled away by the waiter returning with his beer and food. In the background Tesshou rudely tries to interrupt and say he wants one, too, immediately being a hypocrite about the cholesterol comment. Kiyohiro staunchly ignores him and the waiter follows suit.
"Thanks, I'll be good with this," the kid nods politely and takes the menu when he says it's fine, and he relaxes back in his seat once he's gone. Tesshou grumbles to himself about his order, and Kiyohiro take his time chewing through the first piece of shrimp from the plate.
"What, you could actually pay for it? Y'ain't broke?"
Tesshou scoffs, hitting the table with a fist, "I'm in a great financial position, thanks, asshole."
"Treat me, then."
"Nope, I know that racket."
"Skinflint."
Tesshou reaches over to punch him on the shoulder, and he moves just enough that it misses, smirking in amusement.
"Immature," Kiyohiro takes a big swig of his beer in the face of that glare, checking out the rest of the bar now that he has a second. No one's paying anybody else much mind, and given rush-hour it's practically dead, the bartender reduced to cleaning glasses without orders coming in. "You really haven't grown up at all, have you?"
"It's all relative, Kiyo."
"Hm," he turns that over in his mind. "Guess that's true. So, fill me in then. What're you up to these days?"
He can't seem to drag his eyes away once Tesshou gets to talking in earnest. He's always been eye-catching -the blonde hair, the tattoos, the rough asymmetry of his face with the scar and the brow not growing in because of it. That's only become more true the longer he goes since seeing him last. He uses his hands to emphasize what he's saying, grinning with teeth, as cheerful now as he used to be when they got on the same topic way back when.
Where Kiyohiro has stayed in Toarushi, settled into a stable career -where he has become the type of man not to socialize much, content with his familiar patterns and circle -Tesshou is the opposite.
He's forever on his bike, going back and forth across the country to visit his family and their old friends. A lot of the updates Tesshou gives him he already knows. His sister Yuki is about to graduate university and is looking for work in her field, specifically in architecture and city planning and his mother, Kaoru, moved back to their hometown only a year after the Sixth disbanded and works for the municipality filling potholes and clearing snow in the winter. Nearly all of his other relatives are long gone but Tesshou visits them anyway, even the ones buried up in Hokkaido who he never once met.
He went to see Shouta and introduced himself to the man's wife and new baby. He followed Nanba out into the boonies to see his efforts for the prefecture in cutting back invasive plant species. He saw Shougo for a time, still bartending in Tokyo after he figured out it suits him.
Now he's here, only a day before the rest of their generation. No matter where he goes, he never lets them know beforehand.
Kiyohiro leaves one shrimp on his plate for Tesshou and drains the rest of his beer. By now the place is filling up around them, stragglers coming in after overtime for their own drinks and food, and all of a sudden it feels too hot and stuffy for him to stay any longer. Tesshou pauses and watches as he abruptly stands up.
"Wanna go for a walk? Just let me pay," Kiyohiro says, and something deep inside him relaxes when Tesshou nods his agreement.
He meets him outside a few minutes later, and he can instantly breathe a little easier. Just seeing that blonde head of hair as he exits the door is enough.
They fall into step and head generally away from the downtown core -Tesshou points out businesses he doesn't recognize and Kiyohiro fills him in on when they set up shop, or which places went out of business or simply moved to new locations. Tesshou seems inordinately pleased that Café Brian is still in operation.
"About that. Don't know if you heard," Kiyohiro steps aside for an older woman and gets an odd look from her as she passes him.
"Heard what?"
"It's not a hangout anymore. The Ninth disbanded," Kiyohiro winces at the loud shout that fills his ears, Tesshou's eyes wide in absolute shock just ahead of him. "Geez, man. Yeah, the fucking punk who took it over decided to hell with it all and told everyone to fuck off. It's been about five years."
"Nobody fucking told me!" Tesshou's face goes troubled, and he looses a big sigh. "Wow. Even after everything... well, I guess that's just how it goes."
"I think everyone's still pretty sore about it. Shougo near blew his top," Kiyohiro paused at the fork in the road and picks the one that will take them closer to the highway. "I never seen him react to anything like that. I think that Todokin of his had to talk him out of tracking down the kid."
That at least gets a snort of laughter.
"So the Armament's gone. Haah... I've been away too long," Tesshou says, wistful, and Kiyohiro silently agrees. "Well, what about Hyakki? Wait, what about Suzuran? They still at it like the old days?"
Kiyohiro scoffs, "Oh, Suzuran will never be anything but a hellhole. You know that's why they put me on this route?"
Tesshou listens to him complain about the idiots he dealt with in the spring when he covered for a sick coworker on the line going through Crows station -how, after his union rep realized he wasn't scared of any of the kids commuting there, he practically begged him to take a permanent contract extending into the school year once the summer break was over. Luckily he likes Iezaki well enough and so they came to a nice arrangement where he sees a decent hazard-pay bonus and no one has to deal with a route with a never ending rotation of spooked operators anymore. Tesshou whistles, impressed, because he knows that line also goes through traditional Hyakki territory.
This gets them onto the topic of Hyakki, and how of all the groups from their era they are now the only ones left still standing as they were, the others all suffering disbandment like the Armament or splintering into newer formations like Kyouya. Tesshou laughs and wonders why Taichirou never bragged about that fact.
Kiyohiro rarely gets to talk about this now that most of the guys from the Sixth have moved away, so by the time they make it to the highway pedestrian overpass he's gone through quite the laundry list. Lots of names spill from his lips that he hasn't talked to in a good bit.
Tesshou just keeps an eye on him and lets him talk, smiling the whole while.
"But you like... everything? Your job, how your life is going, all that?" he eventually asks, and Kiyohiro rolls his eyes.
"Of course I do. And once I get a reputation as a hard-ass among all these commuting punks, I'll like it even more."
He's laughed at, but he finds he doesn't really mind. It's nice to hear that laugh again after so long.
A moment later Kiyohiro's phone chirps. Not many people text him, so he already knows who it must be when he pulls it out to check, and he smiles a bit when that's confirmed. Tesshou notices this instantly and leans over to snoop, and after a second's hesitation Kiyohiro tilts it so the message is clear to see.
"Musashi?" Tesshou reads, sceptical, then, "Dinner plans, Kiyo?"
He huffs, only slightly embarrassed, "Yeah, well... he's a nice guy. We met through mutual friends."
He types back that he'll meet Musashi wherever he likes and to just send him the address -while he's distracted, Tesshou has crosses his arms and is inspecting him closely. Kiyohiro puts his phone away and looks up, and the soft, caring smile on Tesshou's face is so foreign that it stops him in his tracks.
"I'm happy for you, Kiyohiro," Tesshou tells him, the sincerity cutting straight through his heart for more reasons than just the fact he never expected it. "You deserve somebody who can be here for you. Do you think it's gonna last awhile?"
Kiyohiro swallows, throat dry and chest filled with an odd mixture of pain and relief. Tesshou is both the last person and the only person he wants to talk about this with.
"I think it might, yeah," he admits, and follows when he's nodded to the end of the overpass, moving slower than he was before because of the turmoil in his head, the conflicting feelings. "He likes Amefuto a bit too much, but nobody's perfect. I... really like spending time with him."
"Well, good," Tesshou maintains, still with that too-soft smile on his face. "I'm going to have to vet him myself now, hope you know that."
A surprised chuckle bubbles out of him, loosening the tightness in his throat enough that the levity doesn't hurt.
There's a bench on the other side of the pedestrian crossing. They sit down so they can watch the lights of the cars -all the commuters who work outside of Toarushi coming back home for the night to sleep. Kiyohiro takes out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter and when Tesshou nags him for one, he obliges.
The air is a bit cooler now, but it's still in the midst of summer so that means it's more a relief than anything. Kiyohiro blows a lungful of smoke into the open air and despite tomorrow, despite the melancholy, despite that his life is not quite how he expected it to turn out when he was seventeen and in love -he's at peace. It's a good feeling.
"Do you miss everyone?" he asks, turning just enough that he can better see his old boss. With his blonde hair and white jacket he stands out against the backdrop of the wooden bench and the crumbling brick retaining wall behind him.
He doesn't dare ask so plainly, 'Do you miss me?'
In the grand scheme of things, Kiyohiro was a blip in Tesshou's life; there for three years and then left behind in the rearview mirror. He already knows what the answer would be to that question.
Still, he's surprised when he says, regardless, "No, I don't."
Tesshou grins when he looks Kiyohiro in the face and sees whatever befuddled expression he must be wearing at the moment.
"Come on, I can't miss you," he leans in closer, but refrains from going to touch him. Maybe he knows that it will break him in two when he can't, "I'm always around, keeping an eye on you, on everyone I loved. You know that."
Kiyohiro close his eyes and grunts in concession, shifting back so he's fully facing the highway again. He inhales deeply and listens to the sounds of the evening around him; the crickets, the wind, the passing cars, and a freight train horn off in the distance.
Kiyohiro knuckles at the corners of his eyes.
"I miss you," he says.
After a minute, he looks back at the empty bench next to him, where the extra cigarette he lit and placed onto the slats has burnt itself down to ash. He finishes his own, sweeps the little pile away and takes the butts to throw out later, and then he stands up.
One last glance at the far-off highway steels him.
Tomorrow he has a gathering to attend with the rest of the Sixth, and they will talk about the old days and drink to the man they all loved and lost.
But for tonight, he has a dinner to get to.
*