For Gotou-chan!

[wontreadthemanual]

"It's a team-building exercise, Gotou-chan!" I told you, beaming broadly.

Of course, this was directly after locking us into one of the unused office spaces in the Kougami Foundation building, opening the window, and dropping the key out the window, thirteen floors to the ground. And then turning around and seeing that face you always give me when I've just done something of this caliber of stupid.

But I've been trying to get up the courage to talk to you for months now. It just never happens. And it's got to. I can't go on like this for much longer.

So, here we are.

"Team-building?" I say again, with a hopeful beaming smile. "Team Birth needs bonding exercises!"

Comments

[doestheresearch]

"Team building," repeats a worryingly faint voice somewhere close to me. I clear my throat and try again, "you understand we have no food or water, no toilet facilities, and Kougami-san won't arrive until at least 8am tomorrow. A cleaner will be here at 6.30am, but I doubt they have keys to this room. Would it ruin your team building exercise too much if I call Satonaka? She's part of the team, after all."

I really think this is the worst excuse I've ever heard Date-san give. Ever.

What was he doing at that window anyway? I join him over there just to check the scene for damage. Anything falling from a height of thirteen floors is extremely dangerous, and if that key landed on someone's head, we'll have worse problems than being locked in a room.

[wontreadthemanual]

...He's completely right! And now that he's said something about it, suddenly, I'm thinking I might have to pee. I'll never convince Gotou to piss out the window; heck, I don't think I would either, it's just a bit too callous even for me.

I turn away from the open window, leaning against the sill of the closed window section next to it. One of my shoes scuffs at the carpet a bit as I frown.

"I think we should call Satonaka in an hour or two, Gotou-chan. I think the first hour or so should be just Birth user team building time."

It was Hino who convinced me to say anything to Gotou in the first place. I wasn't intending to. Hino pointed out that that would be a bit selfish of me, in the long run, all things considered.

Knowing he's right doesn't make it any easier to figure out how to tell him what I never intended to tell him at all. Where does one start, with something like this?

[doestheresearch]

There are no scenes of carnage outside, no emergency vehicles in the street, so this time I think we've got away with it. He'll probably be charged for the hole in the pavement, of course, and I'm having nothing to do with that.

"Why are we really here, sempai?"

I'm rarely surprised where Date-san is concerned, but locking us in a room and throwing the key out of the window is a whole new level of bizarre. Not to mention that his idea of an actual "team building exercise" would be to suggest we go out for oden and a few beers. From now on, I'm going to make sure I have a skeleton key that can open every room in the building. I don't even know what this one is for. Probably as a spare for when the three or four other rooms devoted to kitchen equipment and cake recipes can hold no more.

[wontreadthemanual]

"For a team-building exercise, Gotou-chan," I grin back at him, managing to hold it for a few long beats before his adorably concerned eyes get to me, and my grin cracks.

"...Really. I'm not lying to you this time." Not that I can remember intentionally lying to him in the past, but, that's not the point. "Team Birth should trust each other. So, we should be honest with each other."

Dammit, Hino, why couldn't you be here to help me with this? I have to swallow hard, gathering my courage.

"There's something I've been keeping from you, Gotou-chan, and...I need you to know it."

[doestheresearch]

"This time?" I don't like the sound of that, but he's already changing the subject.

Something he needs me to know. I'd be lying if I said I knew what it was, "Is it so bad you had to bring me to a thirteenth-floor room, lock us in and then drop the key out of the window? Come on, Date-san. What is it?"

... What if it's to do with his surgery? I thought it had been a complete success. Did they find something?

[wontreadthemanual]

"It's not that it's so bad," I say, tugging at my hair while I try to put my words together. It's a nervous habit and a stalling tactic, I know that.

How am I supposed to tell Gotou that I've locked ME in place, not him?

"I've just been avoiding telling you. I..."

This isn't anything I ever wanted to confess to him.

Either half of it. He doesn't need to know one half, and shouldn't be burdened with the other half.

I can't tell which is which, but that doesn't matter so much.

[doestheresearch]

I take a deep breath. I'm prepared for this. I've been through it once, and even though it was like being hit by an express train at full speed, it's part of life. I'll face it.

"Your surgery didn't work." He seemed so sure it had, and I didn't ask too many questions. Maybe they couldn't get all of the bullet, or there's some kind of infection there or something, "You ... can tell me, sempai. Whatever it is, I'll support you."

Wait. Didn't want to tell me? How long has he been keeping this from me? If he hasn't been getting the treatment he needed in that time -

[wontreadthemanual]

"No, Gotou-chan, it's much--"

Wait. I stop mid-sentence, realizing the assumption I'd made about what Gotou-chan was saying was completely wrong.

He's too smart, sometimes. I sigh, sagging against the windowframe; I let my head tip back, carefully resting the back of my skull against the glass. It's cool, and feels nice.

"Aah, you always have been too quick a student," I say, speaking slowly. The false bravado can fall from my voice now, there's no more need for it. Gotou-chan hit on the worser of the two things I've been keeping from him.

Well, I suppose Hino was right. Gotou deserves to know this much, at least.

"It wasn't a complete failure," I begin. I bring my gaze back down to meet Gotou-chan's gaze, reaching out to ruffle his hair, hoping it'll drive the wounded, heartbroken look from his eyes.

"But, there were fragments..."

[doestheresearch]

I knew it.

I'll deal with the worst of it later, but now isn't the time to lecture him. I won't ask how long he's known about this or whether anything could have been done sooner. First, let's just find out the only thing I need to know right away, "How long do you have?"

I don't remember how I reacted to this the first time. I know what happened when I thought he was dead but the whole question of how I found out in the first place is sort of a blur in my mind because of everything else that was going on at the time. So I shift over to sit beside him. If he feels so bad about this that he felt he had to lock us in an office to tell me, I'm going to let him take the rest at his own pace.

Which reminds me that we are indeed locked in an office. I really do think this would be easier if we weren't. In a moment or two, when he's calmer, I'll call Satonaka to get us out and then we can go somewhere more comfortable to discuss this.

[wontreadthemanual]

I could have handled denial, frustration or yelling or blaming me, anger even. This quiet practicality is too calm, too sane, too...submissive. As if he doesn't have the right - or the permission - to be mad at me for this. I should have told him, I know I should have, and seeing him willing to just make up for my mistakes, carry on repairing things in my wake, just crushes me.

"Gotou-chan..." I reach for his hand, grabbing it forcefully. "Is this what the user of Birth does in this situation? Fight, get angry! Don't be meek at a time like this!"

I grab his shoulders, turning to face him squarely as we sit on this thin window ledge. The world unfolds below us to my right, his left, thirteen stories and a breadth of many kilometers filling the vista. It might be beautiful, in the way urban sprawls can be, if it weren't filling me with such a sense of vertigo. Or maybe that's the look in Gotou-chan's eyes that's doing that to me.

I swallow but there's a knot in my throat, and my voice chokes as I carry on urgently, trying to make the light in his eyes brighten again. He shouldn't look so downcast, and I'd hoped, after I taught him to stand on his own strength, that he never would again.

"Don't forget what I taught you. You can fight now! And you should, even still! Hino is fighting again, and Birth should too. Fight - not just monsters, but life! Fight against whatever makes you want to crumple down.

"Fight anyone if they stand in your way, even me, Gotou-chan. Even me! Aren't you even angry with me?"

[doestheresearch]

"Fight what? How can I fight anything. I'm not your doctor. I can't help you!" The pitch of my voice is rising sharply, so I stop, swallow for a moment and try to calm myself. Maybe that's the problem. He thinks I'm giving up on him too easily because I'm not suddenly filled with rage, "I'm disappointed you didn't tell me before. I hope you haven't avoided treatment you could have had sooner, but getting angry won't solve anything. What can I do? Nothing!"

I can feel my shoulders shaking, and that's when I look out at the view below; beautiful, certainly, but so much higher up than I realised. I clutch onto the wall with my free hand to steady myself. I'll be even less use to anyone if I plunge thirteen floors to my death. We could have stayed late, or gone to my room, or ... or wherever it is that he's staying. Only he would decide it was a good idea to come up here and lock ourselves in, how do you make that leap of logic?

Only he

He's still got hold of my fingers. I don't think I can respond the way Date-san wants me to but I know, all over again, that I don't want him to go anywhere. Not yet, "I'm not going to give up on you, sempai. I don't know what's going to happen, but I won't let you go that easily. I promise that much."

[wontreadthemanual]

He's shaking, crumpling against the wall, and it's my doing. I reach one arm out carefully, folding his slight frame into my embrace. One hand ends up on top of his head, resting gently in his softly fluffy hair. "Gotou-chan..."

This next part isn't easy, and it's why I've been avoiding telling him anything all this time. Since before I came back, actually. Since I woke up in my recovery room and heard the verdict from my doctor.

"There's bullet fragments scattered through a large portion of my brain tissue," I explain, trying to be as blunt as possible, knowing information is his food, is his comfort. Hoping if I am straightforward, it'll help him understand.

"Most of them have extensive scar tissue built up around them. They're impossible to get out without cutting away the scarred area. The doctors were able to remove the bulk of the bullet, and some of the fragments, but others are less danger to me as they are than it would have been to operate on them."

I pause, letting him absorb that for a brief moment, while I get up the courage to tell him the rest. I don't like saying it out loud; Gotou's not the only one here who hates feeling helpless.

"Some of them, though, are both too far in to operate and too unstable to be considered safe. There is a chance one or more of them may dislodge, and..." I swallow. "Severing critical connections, or dislodging blood clots or other tissue blockages which can cause cranial blood flow irregularities, are two of the, ah. More probable end results."

"But!" I rush to finish, not wanting to let that grim forecast stand by itself. "They might not, too! I might yet live to a ripe old age, Gotou-chan. I'll be rolling about on the Caterpillar Leg long after you've retired with all your hard-earned pay."

[doestheresearch]

"It's not quite that simple, is it." Although I want to be optimistic, just from what he's said alone it sounds like the prognosis isn't good. Even if he does live to an old age, critical connections? Brain damage?

I know it's wrong of me, but I feel, more than anything, that I'd almost rather he die than be reduced to some helpless shell of himself.

I'm not even sure there's anyone to look after him. He's never mentioned a family or anything else. He's like Hino, I suppose, he wouldn't have spent so much time travelling around if there were anyone to anchor him. So what will happen if he starts to deteriorate? Kougami-san would pay him something, but living in a home is expensive, who's going to pay?

I'm so caught up in all these thoughts I hadn't even noticed that I was suddenly in his arms. I answer through clenched teeth, and hate how hollow I sound; both my voice and the sheer futility of the words, "... we'll work something out, sempai."

[wontreadthemanual]

He's not a doctor, but he's smart, and I know some of the grimmer consequences of my situation are surely flickering through his mind now. This is why I didn't want to tell him at all; I wanted to save him the pain of knowing, worrying, because he's a worrier, and he can't just push it from his mind like I can.

If I dropped dead, months from now, with no warning, I know it would hurt him, but it might seem accidental, unfortunate but avoidable. A shard the doctors missed. It would hurt, but it would be quick.

But now, he'll spend the rest of my life watching me die, far before I feel anything. Even if I never feel anything.

"No, it's not that simple, but I didn't want you to..."

He tenses in my arms, and it feels like he's tying himself into a tight knot of nervousness even now. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit, but...he still doesn't quite get it, and it pains me that he's so worried for me, so much so that he's missing the entire reason I'm telling him any of this.

"Gotou-chan, no, that's not what I meant." I pull him closer, comforted by his closeness as much as I'm trying to comfort him. "I'm not afraid. I've faced death bunches of times before. And I might not have anything to worry about! Or I might have only a few hours left. It's like a coin flip, you can't predict it, no matter what the numbers say."

Speaking of coins. I've missed the weight of Cell Medals in my hands these last few months; they made really excellent toys to fiddle with, keep my hands busy. And even a Euro or a 'twonie', which are these large and quite enjoyably heavy coins from Canada which I've discovered on my travels -- well, even they aren't quite the same as the feel of Medals in my hands.

Goodness, I'm sounding like Anko.

"Gotou...I only told you because you deserved to know. Not because I'm scared for myself. I looked at the charts myself. There's nothing more they can do for me, nothing that wasn't done right. I'm okay with that.

"I could have kept it from you til the end, and I'd wanted to, but... But...We're Team Birth. It's not right for me to keep this from my aibou...even if I wanted to, to save you from worrying."

[doestheresearch]

"Now who's giving up?" I sound so childish and vindictive that I instantly flinch, "I'm sorry, sem - Date-san. That was uncalled for." And too late now I almost do want to get angry, just as he hoped I would. It doesn't seem right. I know that I shouldn't have expected it to be so simple that he would be completely cured, and yet I did. I believed in miracles too easily. I thought that because he wasn't dead when I thought he was, the first time I became Birth, that we'd have him back forever.

I think calling me a fool is a colossal understatement.

"If it might be a few hours, maybe we should spend them somewhere else. I'm going to call Satonaka." I have to do something to distract myself from this. Otherwise, what? I'll break down or flop uselessly in his arms and he doesn't need to see that. It's not going to do either of us any good. I don't know if he's told Satonaka or Kougami-san about any of this, and at the moment I don't think it's important. She can just let us out and we'll go somewhere private, somewhere that isn't an empty office room thirteen floors above the street.

I've already decided I'm going to stay with him. If he needs medical care, or money, or to move into a residential home, whatever it is I'll take care of it. Who else does he have? Who else do I have? I'm not going to raise the subject of that now because he'll only tell me I don't need to worry about it and then we'll be going in circles around each other all over again.

[wontreadthemanual]

I wish I could soothe him, but stroking his fluffy hair back from his brow only does so much, and then it just bounces back into place like I'd never touched it. I sit him up, patting his shoulder with a firm grip.

"Don't-- don't call her, Gotou," I ask him, smiling - and letting it be my real smile, the sad but happy one. The one that's not so easy, and not so black-and-white. "We can sit on the couch, you're right, this isn't any comfortable here. This windowsill is good at what it does, but not at being a chair." Leading him by the hand, I start to cross the office with him, heading for a duplicate of the couch where Satonaka-chan has spent so much of her time while employed by Kougami.

"I only said hours because it is possible. But I've known for months, and I'm still here. Please...don't look at me like I'm already dead, Gotou-chan. I've been trying so hard not to tell you because..."

It's hard, but I meet his gaze, sitting down on the couch and, still holding his hand, tugging gently to encourage him to sit beside me. I'm looking up at him, the only way that that's possible given our standing heights, and he looks sad enough to cry. It's breaking my heart.

"Because I didn't want exactly this. I didn't want to make you so sad."

[doestheresearch]

So I let him drag me over to the sofa, and I'm practically in his lap, "That's not important, sempai. I am fine. What's important is you." I think it's sweet that he tried to do this for my sake but really, he didn't need to. I'm not the one who has got fragments of a bullet lodged into vital parts of my brain.

On the bright side, at least we're no longer in danger of plummeting out of the window.

It actually makes me uncomfortable that he's been keeping this from me forever long. I almost feel embarrassed about it. It's not like he's my father or something, "so what are you going to do? Have you told Kougami-san about this? Will you quit work?" I said, I find it easier to deal with the practicalities. I think it's because of my time in the police. When something has happened or someone's been killed, no room for sentimentality, you just have to go in there and do your job.

[wontreadthemanual]

...He's not taking this well. He may not realize that his body language has changed, but it's hard for me not to. He's trying to shut off his own reaction to this news, show only the parts that are useful, are helpful right now in this moment.

I shouldn't have said anything.

Or, I haven't yet said enough.

I wish Hino were here to tell me which was which.

"Why would I quit?" He has a sense of immediate finality about all of this, a fatalism that's far closer to 'giving up' than my own perspective. It's starting to upset me.

"I don't know when or even if anything will happen, Gotou-chan," I repeat, trying to make him understand this part. It's the most important part, in my mind. Not that I've got an injury, but that it changes nothing.

"Okay, think about it this way, huh? When will you die, Gotou-chan? Nobody knows except Fate when she'll clip your thread. I don't want it to be anytime soon, I'm sure you don't either, and your family or parents or siblings wouldn't want it to be, either.

"But we can't change when it'll happen, and living fearfully might make Lady Fate get sick of you and clip you off early, has always been my thoughts on the topic."

I have to laugh a little, realizing in one more way how different our perspectives are. But, it's why we make a good team.

"I have to live the same way, Gotou-chan. It's a different reason, but I don't have any more reason to think I'll die tomorrow, than you do."

[doestheresearch]

He's wrong. I should tell him so in no uncertain terms. But I'm not so crass as to point out that he risks fatal brain damage at any moment and I don't. I do understand. He doesn't want to feel mollycoddled or like anyone feels sorry for him. Especially not me, his subordinate, his partner.

"It's not quite like that, sempai." Let's leave it at that for now. I'll respect his choice to carry on as normal, for as long as he can. I'm still not sure that he's telling me the whole story but I have no way of finding out. We're not related, and so his doctors can't tell me anything. I suppose in a sense he's right, though. He could have several months or years to go whereas I could be killed tomorrow. I am Birth.

I sit in silence beside him for a few moments longer, trying to clear my head of all the thoughts running through it, "What's going to happen now? Do we just go back and carry on as if none of this had ever happened?" Whatever he says, I can't do nothing. I have to make arrangements. Some kind of plan in case he starts to slip away from me, and ... and something for us. I want to help him make the most of whatever time he's got left.

[wontreadthemanual]

"Gotou..." I can't help how helpless I sound. I know saying his name one more time won't change his mind, or let him see what I'm trying to tell him, why I had to tell him, not Satonaka-chan or Kougami-san. Why I had to tell Gotou.

My aibou.

Abruptly, like a slow cold shiver up my back, I realize that today I've been forgetting to use his honorific. Just saying, 'Gotou,' not 'Gotou-chan.'

Well then. That puts things a bit more in focus.

Hino, you better be right about this.

"Gotou...chan," I begin, trying to keep my focus narrow, trying to focus on what I want to say, which is hard when I'm not sure that I even need to say it, not certain that I couldn't have just taken this to my grave with me, except, now Gotou-chan knows why I'm thinking about my grave already at this point in my life, and I'm not entirely as okay with it as I've said to him but that's because I thought I'd lived my life without regrets of any kind, and I have, for the most part, but...

"There's...something else, that I was thinking about telling you,"

...but there's one thing, now, one little thing that shouldn't matter like it does, that shouldn't make everything else that has been said and done feel so much less important by comparison...

"Something I'm fairly certain you don't have a strong desire to hear,"

...but it does, and if I'm going to tell Gotou-chan I'm dying, I'd better tell him why I haven't been myself since I came back.

"At least from me."

"I was selfish to tell you about the...about my situation," I continue, clasping his hand tightly. "It's going to cause you so much worry you didn't need to feel. And I'm sorry about that.

"I've got...one more selfishness to lay upon you, Gotou-chan, and then I'll be done, and you can call Satonaka-chan to get us out and I'll go buy you the biggest oden ever, or, no, something else, you don't even like oden that much, but..."

I glance up, meeting his eyes. "Can you bear one more bit of simple-headed selfishness from me, aibou?"

[doestheresearch]

... Wait, there's more?

This time, I don't know what it could be. Has he committed some kind of crime, maybe, something to pay for his medical treatment? Or is he about to tell me he's going abroad again to have adventures for the rest of his life? And he's talking about how selfish it is, and I won't want to hear it, all that. I'm not really listening to it, instead thinking about what he might be about to tell me. Whatever it is it's obviously important to him.

I've already pretty much decided that I'm going to pick up the pieces of what happens next, so let's hear it. I said I'd find some way to make it work out. I will.

"Let's hear it, sempai. What did you want to tell me?"

[wontreadthemanual]

Gods.

I have to consciously swallow, cause I think everything that should be running on automatic in me is stuck in place. I tripped into his eyes by accident and I'm having problems resisting the urge to just out and saying it, blunt as anything. But he deserves at least some explanation.

I swallow again, grasping for words. I hadn't really planned this out, since I never thought I'd be in this position, so it's especially hard.

"Well, ahm, Gotou-chan, when one has a, um, a question of mortality to face in their life, they, well, you start thinking about what's important to you. Them. Me. What I mean is, I've always been proud of living with no regrets, and being honest to myself. The idea that it's, ahm, never too late to change the path of your life...that's one that's important to me.

"And, well, as dire chance and, well, fateful screwups would have it... it was, um, made apparent to me that I might have less time than I'd hoped to resolve the one last regret of my life. And, you know, I have every intention to live til I'm old and wrinkly, but just because that's the plan, I shouldn't let it go til the very end, you know? Just in case. Because...it's so very important that I get it said.

"That I tell you."

He's watching me babble, tensed, trying to see where I'm going, trying to anticipate what fresh doom I'm about to bring down on his head. I kind of hate myself right now.

"I...without knowing it, I've spent the most important days of my life with...with you at my side, Gotou-chan. And, well, I've come to realize that, well..."

I stop, unable to go further, my heart strangling my breath, my throat clenching my heart hard enough to stop its beating. His face, he's just--

I'm tipping forward before I've even really thought about it, eyes closing, and my dry lips land on his soft mouth, pressing gently, briefly. I hover there, rolling his lower lip once between my own, and release him with a soft exhalation of breath as my heart and lungs wake up again, and I regain the ability to breathe.

Suddenly it's not so hard to say the words. I lean back, giving him space, but watching his face, suddenly feeling a calmness in all my thoughts and heart. I don't regret this, no matter what his response is about to be.

"I love you."

[doestheresearch]

This is when he starts talking about regret, and not knowing how much time he's got left, and so on. He's taking a long time to get to the point. I brace myself for whatever calamity might be about to unfold. I even wonder for a moment if it's going to be something about his past with Hino. But he's so intense, won't break my gaze the whole time, and then

then

I don't hear what he says next. My heart's racing, I'm trying to get my breath back; it's not easy for me to concentrate. Then I think how silly it all seems, me going dokidoki like some high school crush. People don't do elaborate confessions of love after the age of, oh, I don't know, about seventeen? Who but Date-san would even think it was a good idea to lock me in an office, maybe he's got some sort of princess in a tower fantasy.

I'm not a princess. And didn't he just say-

"What?"

[wontreadthemanual]

Oh.

He's flushed, his breathing a little hard, and my heart's beating a cheerfully quick pace too, but I sure as anything do a double take, a bit, when he does respond.

He didn't...hear me?

I have to say it again? Once was scary enough!

Distressed, I pull him close, framing his face with both my hands; I kiss him again, a little more firmly, but keeping it as brief as I can force myself to bear, my lips lingering on his with delicate friction and fluttering heat.

When I pull back again, I leave my hands where they are, framing his jaw, fingertips tracing his hairline. He's so small, in every way except for his heart. He's got the heart of a lion, and I so love to watch him leap up tall and roar.

"I, um. I said I love you," I repeat myself, lamely I think, but I have to trail off at the end because I want to use his name in a way I haven't yet been given permission to do. And I may play about with nicknames and dropping honorifics to tease, but this...is different, and I don't want to call this man by his surname ever again.

But that will be his decision to make.

[doestheresearch]

"Oh," I say articulately. I heard the first time, sort of, but I wasn't really listening.

He didn't say he ... well, loved me, for my superior comprehension skills. And it's hardly my fault he keeps distracting me. He's got my chin in his hands, still watching me, and as I swallow I'm sure he can feel the motion in my throat.

"You still haven't told me why you locked me in a thirteenth-floor office." It's a really weak joke, and not at all my style to make one in a situation like this. More like his style. When he told me he's dying I was sure I'd know what to do, all the arrangements, the practical things. And now?

I don't know. I don't like not knowing.