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"You have to admit," Shion said, dipping a cloth into a bowl of cool water, "it has a certain symmetry."
"I don't think it counts, if you inflict the wounds you treat."
Shion's fingertips brushed the edges of the abrasion at the crest of Nezumi's cheek. The skin was hot and red and there would be a bruise formed there by morning, but Nezumi did not flinch beneath his touch. He only closed his eyes, so Shion lowered his hand and watched instead the dark curve of his lashes, the smooth arc of his brow. He did not look any older than he always had. When Shion pressed the cloth to Nezumi's face he drew in the slightest breath but otherwise was still, offering neither protest nor encouragement. His mouth had set into an indifferent line. A single water droplet slid toward his jaw with unbearable slowness and Shion's hand began to shake.
Shion dropped the rag into the bowl and turned away. "I was angry."
It felt like telling a history, something impossibly removed in time; almost as soon as he had felt that surge of anger it was gone.
Nezumi's body shifted fractionally. Shion was not looking but he was listening to every minute sound, memorising even the soft rustle of fabrics. There was an acute physicality to each negative space, a curious sensation that Shion's nerves extended beyond the boundaries of his body, stretching toward the chair where Nezumi was sitting, shivering with every fluctuation of the air between them. For a long moment Nezumi said nothing, and Shion was utterly certain the silence became a tangible thing, that he could reach out and press his hands against it like an unyielding window glass--but then Nezumi clucked his tongue absurdly and he said, "I suppose I should thank you, after all."
Nezumi rolled his shoulders, stretching with a careless toss of hair, but the gesture was somehow too large for his limbs: exaggerated for a stage, yet suffused with the same insouciant grace by which Shion had always known him, could pick his back from a crowd of thousands. It was stupid. It was infuriating. He was beautiful.
Shion wanted very much to cry, but he swallowed it down and he said, "What?"
Nezumi was watching him now, a smirk at his lips that Shion thought did not quite reach his eyes. And his eyes--
"You did avoid my nose and teeth in your little tantrum," he said. "This face is my livelihood, you know."
His eyes still seemed to shine with that strange internal light, storm clouds backlit by a pale sun. "Nezumi."
"Shion," he said. "That's good; you do remember after all. Then, please don't hit me again."
Shion. His name from Nezumi's mouth. Shion's eyes began to prickle. Nezumi was blurring at the edges, so Shion said, "You're here."
Nezumi shifted again, visibly uncomfortable. "Yes?"
"Say it again."
"Don't tell me the weight of your lofty responsibilities has driven you mad at last. Say what again, Your Highness?"
Shion felt laughter bubble out from his chest and almost choked on it. He brushed the moisture from his eyes impatiently and drank in the unadulterated sight of Nezumi's perplexed face. Then, because he absolutely could, he took two steps into the empty space between them and dropped his hands onto Nezumi's shoulders. Nezumi was very warm.
"You idiot," Shion said. "You complete and utter ass."
"Um," Nezumi said, helplessly. "If I could interrupt His Majesty's fit of hysteria to humbly remind him that he was the one who punched me in the face only minutes ago? Some homecoming that turned out to be."
"Oh," Shion said. Every electron in his body felt suddenly alive. It could just as well have been that the entire history of language had developed to this pinnacle, this particular confluence of phonemes in this particular moment, that one single perfect word his ears had fished from the larger stream of Nezumi's speech.
"Well then," Shion managed, anchoring himself through the dizzy rush by the solid heat of Nezumi beneath him. "Welcome home."
#
Shion's apartment was almost exactly half-way between his office at the Moondrop building and Karan's Bakery in the district formerly called Lost Town. It was a modest dwelling, but it still contained all the modern conveniences one would expect for living quarters in the central city. He had a shower and it kept a constant temperature. His kitchen was small, but filled with functional electric appliances. He did not boil water with an old space heater, nor did he pour it into chipped and cracking mugs. He had a coffee maker. It took paper filters and the reservoir was plastic. The whole thing felt suddenly, humiliatingly extravagant.
Shion heard the shower switching off, so he did not startle when Nezumi crept in behind him and peered over his shoulder at the kitchen counter. "I never get used to that smell," Nezumi said. He gave a great, theatrical inhalation, followed by a low hum of satisfaction. "I suppose good coffee must be a daily fact for you now. Life of luxury and everything, Prestigious Committee Member."
Shion waited until he was certain he could answer without his voice faltering at all, using the excuse of pouring the coffee. "Hardly prestigious," he finally said. "It's mostly a bureaucratic nightmare, at this point."
Nezumi laughed, light and clear, and took the cup from his hands. Their fingers did not brush. Shion looked up and saw that Nezumi had put on one of Shion's own shirts and draped a towel over his shoulders to absorb the moisture dripping from his hair. His hair was longer than it had been. Shion wanted to touch it. He wanted to turn into the warmth so near at his side and burrow into it forever. He wanted--
"You're spacing out again," Nezumi chided, lifting a brow. He blew on the steam from the mug, then took a delicate sip. "Haven't changed, have you?"
"I have," Shion said, tearing his eyes away. Words felt again like they had to be wrung from him like the last stubborn drops from a rag. He curled his fingers around his own mug, concentrating on the heat seeping through, just at the edge of painful. The surface of the liquid shivered from his grip. He didn't take his coffee black, but the milk was too far away from here. Distance seemed to oscillate unpredictably, between agonising proximity and something absurdly insurmountable. "I'm changing all the time. I thought, if I don't keep up, Nezumi will scold me...."
Nezumi lifted one hand in his peripheral vision and ran it through the tips of his hair. "Yeah," he said. "Shameless as ever. You're not a kid anymore, you know. How can you just say things like that aloud?"
Nezumi leaned back against the counter in a posture that telegraphed a more casual atmosphere, but he had no audience here but Shion, and Shion had seen this play too many times to believe it was anything but scripted. Shion felt a sudden irritation burn beneath his skin again, a flush that crept from his chest to his ears, thrumming with the noise of his living blood. He set his cup down on the counter deliberately, aware that Nezumi's eyes were tracking every movement. "I've been thinking," he said, meeting Nezumi's gaze evenly now. "It's not my birthday. Nor yours, I think. It's not the anniversary of anything. It's not even raining outside."
Nezumi followed his cues and set his own cup aside. "You've lost me again."
"Just, I always thought you'd want to make an entrance."
Nezumi stared at him for a lengthy span of silent incredulity. Then he laughed again, deep enough his eyes closed when he did it. "I think you managed that bit for us both, don't you? Such violence in the opening act. Quite sensational, your play."
"Nezumi."
Nezumi did not tense until Shion was close enough that he could feel the hairs on his arms prickling into gooseflesh. The thrill of it chasing down his spine made him feel suddenly reckless. He wanted to press into this tension until it gave. He was close enough to know Nezumi was holding his breath. Close enough to feel it when he breathed again.
Nezumi was very good at calling bluffs, but Shion was not bluffing. He leaned in until their noses almost touched. He said, "I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you now?"
Nezumi winced and drew his face away abruptly. "What terrible delivery," he groaned. "If you're going to flub the line so badly you should just shut up and do it."
Shion frowned. He felt every millimetre of the manufactured distance keenly. Reality felt so tremulous and hot all around him. "Nezumi--"
"It's more like--" Nezumi put a hand to his cheek. It was still over-warm from the mug. Shion's heart was thundering in his chest, in his throat.
When Nezumi leaned in, his eyes were half-lidded, dark, fathomless. Shion could smell his own shampoo over the acrid scent of coffee. When Nezumi inhaled, Shion could feel the expansion of his ribcage pressing against his own. Nezumi drew this heavy gaze from Shion's eyes to his lips and back again with excruciating slowness. He tilted his chin and his breath was hot against Shion's ear. Shion felt the phantom drag of those lips down the side of his neck, impossibly soft, and he felt Nezumi murmur, "I want to kiss you, Shion."
So Shion pushed him back, then pulled him in again at the proper angle and kissed him.
It was not a gentle kiss. Shion had kept the memory of Nezumi's kiss in his mind for so many years that there was a wild dissonance in this bruising play of lips and teeth and tongue; the urgency was was something wholly new. Shion could hear himself making strange and desperate noises into Nezumi's mouth, but his entire body felt like water boiling over; he could not stop the sounds from splashing out, or shape them into words. He shut his eyes and pushed harder into Nezumi, demanding that he understand the language in every feverish expanse of touching skin. He felt dizzy and sick and marvellous all at once. Alive.
It was Nezumi who drew away first. His breath was hitching and irregular against Shion's cheek, but Shion could feel the familiar wry curve of his smile. "I usually expect applause," he said. "But I suppose that this will do."
#
After Nezumi had eaten nearly half an apple pie left over from Karan's weekly care package, he strolled through Shion's rooms and pawed through every single bookshelf. Shion followed a few paces behind him all the while, uncomfortably aware that he was hovering and entirely unwilling to stop. Nezumi made no comment. Instead, he drew his fingertips across the worn spines of Shion's books and said, "I see you've been collecting. Most of this is contraband, you know."
"It's been three years." The words sounded more accusatory than Shion had intended, but as soon as he regretted them he also felt a twist of bitterness in his gut. "We've pushed considerable reform in information freedom and general education since then. We rebuilt a library last year that's filled with this sort of material. Most of it flowed in from other states but citizens have begun to donate, too."
Nezumi sniffed. He pulled a book out from the shelf and began to rifle through the pages; from the binding Shion recognised A Midsummer Night's Dream. "Surprised they'd give up their precious treasures so quickly."
When Nezumi's eyes tracked down the page, his lips moved soundlessly, mouthing the printed words as though by some involuntary reflex. It was so unaccountably hypnotic Shion forgot to respond for long moments and he had to clear his throat. "Donations are usually anonymous still," he said. "But I think we've made a lot of progress, Nezumi. Even you would have to approve."
"I would never give--" Nezumi began to say, but Shion couldn't stand it any longer. He closed the last few inches of the space and wrapped his arms around Nezumi's middle, pressing his face into the warm space between his shoulderblades. This new freedom to touch was exhilarating and painful all at once. Nezumi's body was lean and hard, but he tensed only for a moment, then replaced the book and relaxed into Shion's embrace with the heaviest of sighs. "Shion, stop babysitting me. I'm not going anywhere. It's after midnight, for one thing."
It was two o'clock in the morning on a Sunday that meant nothing at all to either of them. Shion bit down on his own lip until it hurt, but resolutely fought off the last prickle of tears. "It's been three years," he told Nezumi's back. "I missed you. I missed you every day."
"I told you we would meet again, didn't I?" Nezumi shimmied until Shion loosed his grip just enough that he could turn around, then leaned back into the bookshelf and let Shion fall against his chest instead. They were still the same height. Shion buried his face in Nezumi's neck and breathed.
"And I waited," he said, eventually. "But that doesn't change the fact you never had to leave. Did you find what it was that you went seeking, O Wandering Prince?"
Nezumi snorted softly into Shion's hair. "In a strange and distant land," he said, and the cadence was suddenly lilting, theatrical. "I wandered until one day I fell deathly ill. A kindly stranger took me in and there, lying abed in my final hours, I took stock of my life and my regrets and I thought, If only I could see Shion again. Whatever miracle by which I survived demanded I return to your side at once, Your Highness."
Shion laughed, though Nezumi did not deserve that momentary forgiveness. "That sounds awfully like a drama."
"Saw right through me, huh?" But there was no malice in the teasing. Nezumi's fingers found their way to Shion's cheek, and pulled him back so that their eyes could meet. He traced the edges of the scar tissue with the lightest, gentlest touch, and Shion had to make a valiant effort not to lose his train of thought.
"Then tell me the truth," he said, indignant.
Instead, Nezumi smiled, then pressed their lips together again, and again.
#
There was little need to conserve heat, here in these temperature-controlled housing units of the former Holy City. Three years had passed since Shion had shared a bed or made this awkward negotiation of limbs and linens. "Have no fear, for I will not distress your virtue," Nezumi had said, though Shion was not at all distressed--and they settled, after a while, into a dreamlike languor of unhurried exploration. Nezumi kissed him until Shion's head was dizzy and light, but for longer moments they would only lie together, lace their fingers, breathe. In the end he draped an arm across Nezumi's chest and pressed into his back, and there in the warmth and the dark, Shion asked again.
"I talked to you," Nezumi said eventually, though his voice was soft and halting. "Hundreds of miles from here. Between the Cities. There is life there, did you know? They always say the Earth can't sustain us any longer, but things were growing in that dirt where humans never walk now."
Shion pressed his lips to the space behind Nezumi's ear, but he did not say anything, and soon enough Nezumi began to speak again. "I thought I had to be free of my past." There was an edge of bitterness to the words, of self-deprecation. "I thought, if I didn't get away from here--from you--that I'd be trapped by it forever."
Shion tightened his embrace until Nezumi gave a grunt of disapproval. "Stop that, I can't breathe. Anyway, no matter how far I would get, I would see a wildflower struggling toward life through the cracks of desert soil and I would think, Oh. Look at that, Shion."
"I would have gone with you," Shion could not help but say. He had said it so many times in his head that it felt like such a time-worn phrase, a line from an ancient prayer carved into the insides of his soul.
"I think that would rather defeat the purpose; were you listening? At least, I thought that was the purpose."
"I don't want you to talk to the me in your memories," Shion said firmly. "That's not fair, you deciding how I'll react. You told me I had a lot to learn, so look at the me that's learning. The real one."
Nezumi's body shook with silent laughter against Shion's. "You really have no shame. Anyway, I think the problem was with me. I was... frightened?"
"An utter coward," Shion agreed, instantly.
"Oi," Nezumi groaned. "You've hit me once already, please remember."
Nezumi shifted, freeing his legs from their tangle with Shion's, but he did not turn around, only drew them up closer to his chest. It pressed his back more firmly into the circle of Shion's arms, so that Shion could feel how utterly still he went soon after. When he finally spoke again his voice was strangely raw, empty of all affectation. It hurt to listen to it. He said, "All I ever knew how to do was hate. What is there for someone like that to offer someone else?"
Shion's heartbeat stuttered wildly in his chest, but his voice at least was level. "I saw more in you than that."
"Maybe. But I didn't. God, why do you always need this stuff spelled out for you? You're a nightmare."
"I love you," Shion said. "I've loved you since I was twelve years old and I love you now and I will still love you next time you do something so completely backwards stupid. Nezumi."
"You really haven't changed at all," Nezumi muttered. "Idiot. I thought maybe this city would change you, that I might not even recognise what you became. I should have known you're far too simple."
His hand in Shion's was awkward and sweet. "Only," Shion mused, "you said when we met that you finally realised humans could be--"
"Yes," Nezumi cut in. "And yes, meeting you was the best thing I ever did. It isn't much, I guess. But it's a place to start again."
Shion kissed the nape of Nezumi's neck again, then again for good measure, until Nezumi exhaled at last and his tension drained away. Then Shion said, "I can't believe you systematically dismantled the foundations of my entire world not once but twice, made me stare it in the face and acknowledge it and move on, but then you ran away because you had feelings."
"Yeah, yeah, you've waited three years to say that so I will generously allow you to ruin the atmosphere entirely. I can tell, you know; the line was stilted. You'd be awful on the stage."
Shion closed his eyes and smiled and let happiness wash through him. "Welcome home."