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Shuuichi had the most abominable headache.
He cracked his eyes open, confronted brilliant sunlight, and immediately slammed them back shut. What had he been doing last night, to get into such a state? No alcohol, no partying of any sort. He hadn’t overstrained himself at any exorcisms lately, and although he had returned late, it hadn’t been late enough for his headache and general lethargy to be explainable by lack of sufficient sleep alone.
To his left, the bed shifted, a familiar voice grumbling incoherently.
Well. That took care of the lethargy.
He stumbled to his feet, swaying as the headache hit with added force, and slowly turned around.
Matoba -- Matoba! -- lay there, blinking up at him from half-under covers Shuuichi had no memory of throwing back. “Is something wrong, Shuuichi?”
Everything?
First things first. “Is there a reason you’re in my bed?” Shuuichi asked, striving for a reasonable tone of voice. His eyes drifted south, and he immediately regretted it. He hastily flipped the covers back upward. “Naked?”
Matoba propped himself up on an elbow, the sheet slipping down his chest. He looked -- it didn’t matter, because Shuuichi was not looking. “I do believe that’s the first time you’ve ever asked me that.” His usual enigmatic smile looked … if Shuuichi didn’t know better, he’d say almost bemused. Yet warmer than he’d seen it in … a long time, possibly ever.
“Maybe that’s because this is the first time this has ever happened?” Shuuichi said -- a perfectly reasonable point, he thought.
He was just thankful that he wasn’t also naked, or he’d really wonder what had happened the previous night. … As it was, it seemed nearly impossible to believe that he’d somehow missed this.
Matoba sat all the way up. Shuuichi resisted the urge to turn away, keeping his eyes firmly locked on his fellow exorcist’s face. “Shuuichi,” he said in a tone that almost sounded long-suffering. (And since when had Matoba started not only using his given name again, but doing so without honorifics?) “I know you’re enjoying that amnesiac detective role, but there is such a thing as too much method acting.”
… And now he was talking about Shuuichi’s acting career. With clearly in-depth knowledge. Except -- “I don’t have any roles like that,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he was even bothering, other than that he couldn’t imagine the situation getting much more bizarre than Matoba naked -- in his bed -- discussing prime time television. “The amnesiac detective drama was last year, and Yamaguchi-san played the detective. I was just a single-episode walk-on.”
Matoba’s eyes narrowed, and something in Shuuichi relaxed a bit. This was the Matoba he was familiar with.
Even if he was still naked.
“What are you?” Matoba asked slowly, the sudden drop in his voice sending a chill down Shuuichi’s spine. “And what have you done to Shuuichi?”
Shuuichi’s head hurt too much to deal with this. “I’m just as human as you are, Matoba.” He rubbed his eyes, but the image of Matoba draped in a bedsheet refused to go away. “Unless there is something I don’t know about you,” he added irritably.
“That’s a good question.”
Matoba’s tone was the kind of pleasant that made all of Shuuichi’s nerves flare up and scream danger, but his grogginess delayed him for the crucial moment it took Matoba to leap from the bed -- likely with some supernatural aid; Matoba was still Matoba, regardless of his attire -- and grab him by the throat.
“Why don’t you tell me what you do know, then.”
Matoba’s scrutiny was surgically cold, in contrast to the warmth of breath ghosting against his cheek and the full weight of his body pressed against Shuuichi’s windpipe. If he moves one step back, the sheet will fall, Shuuichi thought, panicked. Then cursed his delayed speed of thought and reaction, and -- with vehemence -- the direction of his thoughts. Didn’t he have more important things to worry about?
“Not when I can’t breathe, I can’t,” he gritted out, not trying to disguise the rasp in his voice. What kind of actor would he be if he couldn’t distract Matoba by faking asphyxiation just long enough to discreetly reach for his sleeve and --
Twist.
Slam.
The charm he’d been reaching for fluttered to the floor as Matoba pinned both his arms against the wall above his head in a single snake-like movement, then bound them there. He pulled back just far enough to pin Shuuichi with a stare that held him frozen almost as effectively as the pressure against his wrists, so it took him several seconds to notice --
“Is that my paper charm?” Shuuichi said, disbelieving. From this angle it was a bit difficult to tell for sure, but the inkstrokes certainly looked like they were in his own hand.
“Shuuichi left some on the night stand.” Matoba shrugged absently, taking a step back and observing him critically. Mercifully, the sheet stayed on his person; possibly another supernatural intervention, but one Shuuichi wasn’t going to complain about. “Now, make yourself comfortable, and tell me what you know.”
Shuuichi twisted and craned his neck, trying to get a better look. He tried pulling at the paper binds, but they only pulled tighter, digging painfully into the skin of his wrists. Attempting to pull away from the wall met with the same results.
This was definitely his work -- and a fairly recent invention at that. Though he could have done without finding out firsthand just how well it held under these particular circumstances.
He hadn’t used it in front of any other exorcists yet, nor even mentioned it to anyone. Which also left no doubt that the charm Matoba used had been created by none other than Shuuichi himself.
Someone had a whole lot of explaining to do, but Shuuichi wasn’t at all convinced that it was him.
“Some water, please. If you’re so concerned about my comfort.” He wasn’t sure it would buy him enough time to come up with anything clever, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
Matoba gave him an amused look that suggested he saw right through Shuuichi, but headed towards the kitchen anyway. Shuuichi watched the sheet trail daintily on the floor until it disappeared out his sight.
Alone for the moment, Shuuichi breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He reached out with one foot to pull the charm that he’d dropped a little bit closer -- not that it was of any use to him right now -- and then turned his attention to the rest of the room for the first time.
The bed looked mostly the same, although the sheets were a somewhat pretentious shade of burgundy that it pained him to admit that he liked, and a thinner pillow lay next to his own.
The rest of the room couldn’t look more different.
Back home, his room was fairly bare -- a few shirts tossed on the dresser, a handful of charms scattered throughout the room in case of emergency; he’d never really cared to decorate. This looked lived-in.
They even had art on the wall.
(And yes, it was a print that Shuuichi remembered admiring, and considering buying, more than once. Still.)
“Do you like the painting?” Matoba asked, deceptively casual, as he re-entered the room, holding --
“Is that my mug?” Shuuichi asked. Somehow, it felt like a worse betrayal than even this too-homey room, to see his favorite mug held with care by Matoba’s slender fingers.
“-- It was Shuuichi’s birthday present last year. The painting,” Matoba said as he held the mug to Shuuichi’s lips.
In the middle of swallowing, Shuuichi choked.
Birthday presents?!
“It’s lovely,” he managed. And, just to be contrary, “I like his more abstract pieces better, though.”
Matoba shot him a look of amused disdain -- finally, familiar ground -- and turned the cup in his hand. For a moment, Shuuichi worried that he’d smash it, just to see him react -- but Matoba usually took better care of his toys than that.
“I’ve always been curious where this mug came from. It is rather impressively ugly.”
His tone was just a shade too off-handed to be anything but a trap.
But Shuuichi didn’t have any better ideas for figuring out what was going on, and had no illusions about who'd win in a pure contest of words.
“It was a gift from a fan,” he said grudgingly. “One of my first. She claimed she’d thrown and glazed it herself.” If his arms hadn’t been bound to the wall, he would have crossed them. “Is that enough detail? Or is the story different here, too?”
“Here?” Matoba asked pleasantly, deliberately opaque.
“I’m not an idiot, Matoba.” Shuuichi really wished he could cross his arms. “Either something extremely fishy is going on, or you went to a lot of effort to set up a very elaborate prank. And I honestly can’t see why you’d bother.”
Not to mention his paper charm -- he had no doubt that given time and a bit of experimentation, Matoba could have worked out how to use it. But as far as Shuuichi knew, the other exorcist had no idea it even existed. Would he really have gone that far for a practical joke?
(... He didn’t doubt Matoba could actually do it -- he was nothing if not thorough. But why?)
“I can assure you that I am not pranking anyone.” The emphasis was light, but clearly there. “So it appears that we are on the same page.”
“Great.” Shuuichi’s shoulders were starting to ache. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. If we’re clear on that, could you let me down already ?”
Matoba had been unwilling to undo the binding until after he dressed and cleared a few of the more obvious means of counterattack out of the way, but eventually Shuuichi found himself and his aching shoulders (and his still-aching head) in the living room, watching as Matoba put the water on for tea.
(The hooded shirt Matoba wore also brought back memories. But a worn hoodie was still better than a sheet.)
When the silence became too much, he offered, “I can make my own --”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Matoba interrupted. “I don’t allow my Shuuichi to make his awful bag teas in my presence; I’m certainly not going to let you.” Shuuichi blinked at his unexpected vehemence. “We’re having shincha.”
The kettle whistled.
“... That’s fine with me.” Matoba shot him a sideways glance that suggested this hadn’t been a question.
Shortly afterward, Matoba emerged from the kitchen carrying a small tray with a steaming pot and two empty cups.
None of them were familiar to Shuuichi.
A sharp, sweet steam rose from the pot, filling the air between them. The smell was oddly soothing, and Shuuichi found himself relaxing into the couch, knots in his shoulders loosening. He would, of course, admit no such thing to Matoba, who was pouring the drink with elegant, measured movements, seemingly unconcerned with anything but swirls of hot water against the curves of fine bone china.
Shuuichi willed himself to look away and stop overanalyzing tea.
“Something went ... different,” he said, frowning into his cup. He needed to turn the conversation back to the subject at hand, and away from the lull of this -- domesticity. “On my way home. At some point, something went different, and I ended up here.”
Matoba’s slender hands stilled over his tea cup. “So it would seem.”
Shuuichi sharply looked up at the careful tone of the statement, but Matoba’s face gave nothing away. Shuuichi took it as his cue to continue.
“I was too tired to pay attention to my surroundings, to be honest. I’d have noticed if anything or anyone trailed me,” -- or so he liked to think, came a nasty thought, but Shuuichi forced it away too; this was neither time nor place for it, and his company clearly had had time to form their opinion on the subject long ago, -- “So chances are, it wasn’t anything big.”
No immediate comment followed. Matoba cradled the cup in his hands for a moment, and simply said, “Why don’t you start with what you remember. Something may come up along the way.”
“We had an evening shoot yesterday, in the city park -- the director wanted the ferris wheel lights to be on, for greater ambience, he said.” Shuuichi rolled his eyes in an automatic inside joke for one -- his day job sure involved a great deal of directed ambience. He hadn’t expected Matoba’s lips to twitch in response . Disturbed, Shuuichi rushed to continue his story. “Anyway, the camera crew wrapped up at ten, so it left me plenty of time to run one more errand -- nothing complicated, just an exorcism for an old lady whose late husband’s portrait got into the habit of talking back to her, but it took hours to get the mimic spirit to leave for good.”
“They get attached to people,” Matoba nodded. Shuuichi was going to develop a strain in his eyes from squinting suspiciously at him, but this time, too, it seemed no condescending remark would follow. “Typical of all parasitic low-level youkai, actually, but you don’t need me to tell you that.”
A sudden lump in his throat made Shuuichi choke on whatever he was going to say next.
“Nothing unusual there either, but it was already past 3am when I left the premises,” he said instead. Good thing the lady lived alone and was too old to notice or care about late night intruders sneaking around the house; her son had paid for getting the job done, not for doing it at a respectable hour. “It was almost dawn by the time I got to the nearest bus stop -- about half an hour before the first bus, actually. I’d checked the timetable,“ Shuuichi found himself adding, after Matoba’s silence took what he felt was a judgmental quality. Not that he understood why, exactly.
“So you took the first bus,” Matoba said, thoughtfully. “Was anyone else on it?”
“It was empty. It was a miracle there was a bus at this hour, actually, and came right on time, too. The next one wasn’t due for another hour.”
“A miracle, hm. Did you get a good look at the driver?”
“Driver?... He was there, sure. We exchanged our greetings, I think, before I sat down to read over the next scenes. Some small talk, maybe.” Shuuichi was racking his brain trying to find something, anything that would explain Matoba’s pointed questions, but he was coming up short. “The ride wasn’t not very long, either -- there’s barely any cars at that hour, you know -- and he dropped me off at the town station less than an hour later. I walked the rest of the way home -- thought it’d be quicker than waiting for another bus. By the end I was half asleep anyway; I remember finding my way to the apartment, but not much else.”
The unspoken ‘like finding you in my bed’ hung heavily in the silence between them. Or at least before Shuuichi, seeing how Matoba was apparently quite cozy with that idea.
“Tell me,” said Matoba then, setting his half-empty cup aside, “what do you know about liminality?”
Not as much as Matoba, it turned out -- though honestly, Shuuichi would have been surprised if that hadn’t been the case. It was clear that Matoba didn’t know as many details as he would have preferred, either. Strangely so -- Shuuichi hadn’t seen him acting so open in … a long time.
(Had hardly seen him at all -- an outcome as deliberate as it was inevitable.)
Matoba finished writing a short note -- from the fragments Shuuichi could read, probably a list of documents -- and handed it to one of his creepy shadow shiki, who disappeared as quickly and silently as it had appeared. He looked up, caught Shuuichi watching, and something in his face shuttered. “It should have the materials back soon,” he said.
“From the Matoba compound?” Shuuichi asked. And, before he could consider how unwise a move it was, “What do they think of -- this?”
Matoba very precisely placed his pen back on the desk, his lips stretching into a pleasant smile. “Their input was not solicited.”
Shuuichi could not imagine it being that easy -- not with Matoba and not with himself, at least not if he and his mirror self were anything alike. But the thought of asking more questions of a Matoba whose smile politely suggested murder -- no. He didn’t need to know that badly.
Probably.
And anyway, their current priority was figuring out how to reverse this situation, and he wasn’t going to risk irking Matoba when he was the one ordering his shiki around for clues. Did his mirror self even realize --
No. Irrelevant. And he probably did, the bastard.
The silence that had fallen between them took root and blossomed, interrupted only by an occasional unconcerned sip Matoba would take of his tea, or the quiet click of his cup returning to the table.
Two could play at that game. Shuuichi leaned back in his chair, just a bit, affecting relaxation he did not feel, and took a sip from his own, mostly-empty cup. The tea had cooled significantly over the course of their conversation, but was still far better than he had the motivation (or, honestly, the skill) to prepare.
He cast a deliberately idle glance around the room, so similar to and yet subtly different from his own. The walls were still their usual, unadorned white -- apparently neither Matoba nor his mirror self was any more interested in unnecessary decoration than he was. (Except when it was a birthday present, apparently.)
The phone was on its usual table near the door, with his dufflebag dropped beside it and papers scattered on top. He wondered, now that the head of the Matoba clan lived here, did they take extra care to ensure it was unplugged when they slept?
The couch they sat on was probably the most different -- still the same dingy white underneath, but with larger and more colorful pillows scattered across it, and a comfortable-looking afghan draped over the far end. The only pillow he recognized was a small one that Sumi-san had given him as a housewarming present when he’d gotten the apartment.
The TV was the same brand as his own, but bigger. (The effect of dual incomes?) (Did Matoba also pay rent?) (Shuuichi wasn’t sure which question felt odder on the tongue; Matoba and rent-splitting were strange bedpersons in one sentence.)
The TV stand looked about the same -- except here, sets of DVD boxes were lined up on the the shelf underneath, familiar titles suggesting it was a collection of dramas he’d acted in. Shuuichi wondered if he’d find something he wouldn’t recognize there.
And on top of the stand, just to the left of the TV -- was that a photograph?
Shuuichi half-rose, then settled again as the click of Matoba’s cup reminded him abruptly that he had an audience -- one which had clearly been studying him as thoroughly as he’d been studying the room.
“You were interested in the picture?” Matoba unfolded from the couch with languid grace, retrieved it, and held it out to Shuuichi. Feeling uncomfortably transparent, he took it.
The scene was one he remembered well -- the opening night gala for A Thousand Roses, his first drama role large enough to require such an event. (He liked roses well enough, but the decorations for that event had catered to the theme to such a tasteless degree that they’d nearly put him off them forever.) It had only been his second role, period, landed less than a year after graduation.
Except.
Nowhere in his memories of that night had Matoba been there, a polite but distinctly possessive distance away, wearing a suit as well-fitted as Shuuichi’s own -- which, honestly, looked much better fitted than the suit he recalled having owned at the time.
Looking -- not harmless, but clearly not at his most intimidating. Still every inch an impeccable heir, but not so obviously one to an ancient house of exorcists.
“While I remember my date was a dark-haired pretty thing that night, I don’t think they would have pulled off a tuxedo quite that well,” Shuuichi said, more to stop himself from staring too long than to --
Than to make himself look like an idiot, he winced as his brain caught up with his words.
Matoba smiled and refused to lunge at the opening. (What a luxurious life they must have here, Shuuichi thought wildly.)
“While I’m sure there were volunteers,” he said, “none of them would have been qualified to stop a curse thrown from the crowd.”
“They tried to curse me that night?” Shuuichi asked. Definitely not something he remembered, exorcist arm decoration or no.
“Someone might have tried to.” Matoba shrugged dismissively. “And none of those playdates would have done a thing to stop them.” Shuuichi wondered if the defensive angle of Matoba’s shoulders betrayed some old, petty argument. Or maybe that was his imagination was running wild. “Not my fault you had some rabid admirers back then already.”
“It is a dangerous line of work,” Shuuichi said, imbuing his voice with as much fake sincerity as he could muster. “Showbiz is a dog eat dog world.” And because he couldn’t help asking, “So you stepped into the line of fire? How noble.”
“I don’t think competition was a serious consideration at the time,” Matoba said breezily, and smiled.
As if it was the most natural thing in the world, attending galas with the head of a rival exorcist clan.
(Shuuichi supposed it was too much to hope that Matoba had just invited himself.)
A sudden dark stain on the floor resolved itself into the gloomy shape of Matoba’s shiki, interrupting the conversation. And likely saving Shuuichi from a losing battle with his curiosity, which doubtless would have ended in questions he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answers to.
At Matoba’s off-handed direction, it lay its burden -- an impressively tall stack of scrolls and old books -- on the coffee table. One scroll, unsettled, rolled off the top of the stack and bounced off the table. Shuuichi leaned forward and caught it before it could hit the ground.
Matoba leaned forward, his eye narrowed, then nodded. “That’s a reasonable place to start. Speak up if you find anything of note.”
Subject apparently dismissed, he slid a thin volume out from about halfway down the stack, settled back, and cracked it open.
Shuuichi hesitated, glancing from the scroll to Matoba and back, but, well.
Don’t look a gift Matoba library in the mouth and everything.
He carefully un-sealed the scroll, pulled it open, and started to read.
Living with Matoba didn’t appear to have changed much about Shuuichi’s eating habits, at least; when his stomach started rumbling a few hours into their remarkably amicable investigations, Matoba had put his current scroll down and suggested a brief break for an early dinner.
(Since Shuuichi had slept straight through both breakfast and lunch, he was a bit surprised his body’s complaints hadn’t started far earlier. Though waking up in a bizarre alternate universe in the same bed as his -- well, as Matoba -- had been a bit distracting.)
They’d taken a short walk to, Shuuichi had been surprised to see, one of his favorite hot meal vending machines, where Matoba had paid for both of them over Shuuichi’s objections. (“I’d rather not inadvertently create a stronger connection between our universes than already exists,” he’d said. Which, well. He had a point.)
Matoba had insisted that they sit at the island dividing the kitchen from the sitting room, though, instead of just eating on the couch like Shuuichi almost always did.
Matoba slurped a mouthful of ramen noodles, chewed his way through a piece of bamboo, and cleared his throat. “So. We’re agreed that it was the bus?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Shuuichi agreed grudgingly. Before their research, it had been an obvious choice; afterwards, even more so. “I find it hard to believe that I would have missed seeing a youkai driving it, though. I wasn’t that tired.”
… Probably.
Matoba shrugged. “He could have been possessed. Not all of us are blessed with Natsume-kun’s powers of discernment.”
Shuuichi twitched. He supposed it was no surprise that this Matoba knew of Natsume too. But, try as he might, he couldn’t detect any hint of threat in Matoba’s words or in his offhand tone of voice.
Was this different, too?
He hovered on the edge of asking -- but perhaps it was better not to. There seemed little benefit to risking giving Matoba a reason to become more interested in Natsume than he already was.
“True,” he said instead. “Still, a bus that crosses lines of possibility …” As a rule, most youkai regarded human technology with something between caution and active hostility; very few of them were willing to learn to actually use it.
“It is quite unusual,” Matoba agreed. “I’m not sure I would have been as quick to draw the connection between that and the story of a traveller who one night encountered a man with a rickshaw at a crossroads and took him up on the offer to bring him the rest of the way home.”
“And who instead took him to places full of wondrous and strange sights,” like his own home, tended by another woman, whose strange children greeted him like a father, but Shuuichi chose not to linger over that detail, “until the man offered the driver his most prized possession, and asked to be taken back to the home from which it came.” He shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “I’m not sure I’d call this wondrous, but it’s certainly strange enough.”
He slurped some of his own ramen, then added, “The truly wondrous thing is that I could read the handwriting in that journal well enough to have any idea what the author was talking about.”
Matoba snorted. “You’ve been complaining about that scribe’s handwriting since high school. I’d think you’d have gotten used to it by now.”
Shuuichi managed to keep himself from saying something ridiculous like “I’ve been what?” but only barely so.
And Matoba, of course, noticed.
He carefully laid his chopsticks along the edge of his bowl, giving the task more attention than it really warranted, then met Shuuichi’s eyes, his expression inscrutable. “... When was the last time you read something from my library?”
Shuuichi considered, but could see no reason not to tell the truth. “I haven’t. This was the first time.” Hesitated, wondering if he should leave well enough alone. But. “Matoba and I … in my world, we’re not friends. We never have been.”
Perhaps, once, they could have been. But Shuuichi had never cared to stray too far into that particular what-if.
… Even though he had, apparently, walked right into it.
Whatever Matoba’s expression had been before, it was gone now. “I see,” he said.
They finished dinner in silence.
“I can’t find my ticket,” Shuuichi announced.
Their plan -- what little there was of it -- was to head back to the bus stop Shuuichi had disembarked at, at the same early-morning hour he’d arrived, and hope the youkai was making return trips.
And since Shuuichi would prefer not to confront an unknown quantity tired out of his mind, that meant at least attempting to sleep beforehand -- which meant gathering everything now, because he certainly wouldn’t be in a fit state to do so at 3 am.
The pile was laughably small -- his jacket, which he’d retrieved from where he’d thrown it at the foot of the bed; the small bag of exorcism supplies that he’d left at the door and never opened, much less unpacked, and the script for his next drama, which he’d tossed on the phone table.
But the one thing they thought he’d be most likely to need -- his bus ticket -- was nowhere in sight.
At least, they hoped the ticket would work.
In the story, the man had only made it back to his real home when he’d given the rickshaw driver a flower that his youngest daughter had pressed for him, which he had kept as a good luck charm on his travels. He and Matoba were in agreement that the flower was likely both an anchor to the man’s home reality, and a price the youkai took to make the return trip.
Shuuichi had nothing on him that could demonstrate a similar level of attachment to someone back in his own world, nor, really, anything of significant sentimental value. But if all that was needed was a pointer -- well, what better than the ticket he’d received at the stop he was trying to get back to?
(And if the bus ticket didn’t work, or anything else he had on his person? If the bus failed to show entirely? There was nothing they could do right now, and plenty of time to make up contingency plans afterwards.)
(The plan reminded him of the sort of foolhardy stunts he’d pulled off in high school, if far better researched. The irony did not escape him.)
“Flimsy as it is, I don’t think we have a better anchor artefact that that,” Matoba said mildly, emerging from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of tea. “Did you have a good look around? Checked your pockets?”
Shuuichi bit back an irritated ‘of course, I know my way around my own apartment and my own bloody wardrobe’ and settled for a vague hand gesture instead. Matoba was welcome to take it as an invitation to help him look for it.
“Here, take a break,” Matoba said, placing both mugs on the coffee table. The stack of scrolls from his family library was stacked in an uneven, wobbly pile at the other end of the table. Matoba straightened them with an absent hand before wandering off into the bedroom, leaving Shuuichi alone with his finely brewed tea.
Reluctantly, he picked the nearest one up, and held it in front of his face for a moment, appreciating the warmth in his hands and the delicately scented steam wafting from it. Chamomile -- to promote sleep, he remembered. Of course.
“It’s not in your pockets, or anywhere in the bedroom” Matoba called. “I double-checked.”
Shuuichi diplomatically refrained from a smug ‘I told you so’ and took a sip of tea instead. It wasn’t half-bad, though he thought he preferred the fresh bitterness of the shincha from earlier.
(He needed to get out of here before he developed any further tea opinions, he thought semi-hysterically.)
“I don’t want to be the pessimist here, but what other options do we have if we don’t find the ticket? I don’t quite fit the sentimental traveller type, I’m afraid.”
“Not even a single good luck charm from a devoted fan?” Matoba asked as he crouched to look under the sofa. “What a heartless idol you are.”
That was a lot of levity from someone whose -- close person had been replaced, Shuuichi thought, suddenly bitter.
By some preternatural sense, likely one cultivated by years of living in this absurd reality, Matoba chose that moment to straighten up and speak, before Shuuichi could say something he’d regret.
“You know what they say, you always find things in the last place you look,” he said. He walked over to the phone table and, with a magician’s flair, picked up Shuuichi’s script and started to flip through it.
Thankfully for Shuuichi’s sanity, he didn’t say anything like “Pick a page, any page” -- just stopped, about three quarters of the way through, drew something small and rectangular out from between two of the pages, and flourished it in Shuuichi’s direction.
“You really ought to just start carrying bookmarks,” he said. “Instead of squirrelling in all sorts of other papers into your scripts.”
“Not pages torn out of your priceless ancestral records, I hope?” joked Shuuichi, reluctantly impressed. It was one thing to see Matoba succeed at exorcism, and altogether another to observe him solve puzzles through efficient housekeeping.
Matoba pursed his lips in -- hopefully -- exaggerated disapproval. “Not that I’m aware. But I seem to recall an evening you had to spend consoling your impressionable co-star after she was practically attacked by a paper doll when she tried to borrow your notes. The poor thing was so shocked she forgot to slip in her telephone number in there.”
“I hope she was cute,” Shuuichi supplied, unable to resist the gravitational pull of this absurd reality. “I must have had some other plans for that evening.”
“It was a drama rerun night. Some grovelling was required.”
“I’m sure it was a lesson well-learnt,” he smiled, holding a somber hand to his heart.
“You have always been a quick learner,” Matoba said seriously. Shuuichi dropped his hand and wordlessly took the ticket from Matoba to put it into his wallet.
“I don’t think there is anything else for me to pack,” he said. “And as much as I’m tempted, more reading won’t likely help at this point.”
Matoba nodded. “I think the records served their purpose, no need to tear into them for a last-minute back-up plan -- we’re not going to get anything more solid tonight.” He didn’t say that they’d have to come back to the scrolls if this plan fell through, but he looked quietly prepared for the eventuality. To his own surprise, Shuuichi found it reassuring.
Matoba reached out for the other tea, wrapped his graceful fingers around the mug just long enough to establish the subpar temperature of the drink, and left it standing on the table.
“It’s getting late,” he said, stretching his neck. “We should go to bed.”
The pause that followed was so thick with unspoken tension that it would have fueled three drama climaxes and one direct-to-TV murder mystery.
“...I’ll take the couch,” said Shuuichi hastily, before he could say -- or hear -- anything less safe.
Matoba gave him a serene smile and gracefully drifted off into the bedroom, as if he had expected nothing else.
Shuuichi flopped facedown into the couch and prayed for sleep to come soon.
Waking up in the wee hours of the morning was as uninspiring in this reality as in his own. No drink could fix that, regardless of its quality, though Shuuichi suspected he should thank Matoba’s tea for the fact that he was capable of anything resembling coherent thought.
Shuuichi shivered and suppressed a yawn.
There was something eerie about the hours before dawn. Standing in the milky darkness, by an empty road, suspended in the moment between one day or another, it did not take an exorcist to believe that something mysterious might happen.
Shuuichi leaned in to examine the timetable posted right next to the stop, more as something to do than because he had any real interest in its contents; either the bus he was waiting for would come, or it wouldn’t.
“Fifteen more minutes to the first bus,” he said, more to himself than to make a point.
“I hope you aren’t putting faith into things written on bus stops in the middle of nowhere,” Matoba huffed. “Didn’t we agree that the bus that brought you here was on time only because it wasn’t one?” He traced a hand across the faded numbers on the plaque, then blew the dust off his fingertips. “These timetables are often outdated -- who knows how many years ago the first bus stopped running at that hour? But no one bothered to change the signs… Naturally, the youkai was drawn to this niche formed by a decayed human pattern -- a perfect place for a substitution.”
Shuuichi nodded, a bit concerned to find that he was already growing used to this Matoba's habit of providing valuable information with a minimum of snide remarks.
(Snide remarks, he was used to ignoring. Fondness in them, however...)
“Still, if the youkai follows the same pattern here, one could argue that the timetable is correct -- the first bus just isn’t the one it originally had in mind,” he said playfully.
Matoba made a dismissive gesture, acknowledging the point. Shuuichi’s smile grew wider.
Silence fell between them, and as Shuuichi tucked his hands deeper into his armpits to ward the cold from his fingers, he acknowledged that it was not … an entirely uncomfortable one. Would he have believed a week -- even a day earlier, that he and Matoba could spend this much time in each others’ presence without finding themselves at each other’s throats?
… To be honest, he was having a hard time believing it even now. Even back in high school, their relationship (if he could even call it that) had been more fraught than this.
…… Admittedly, with the distance of years Shuuichi could see that a lot of that had been his own doing, but in his defense, Matoba had not been the most congenial companion, either.
High school. Huh.
A coincidence?
And honestly, what did it matter either way? Soon -- hopefully -- he’d back home, and this past day would bear no more impact on his life than if it had simply been a very strange dream.
But then again, if it didn’t matter --
“Matoba.”
The other exorcist looked towards him, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“You mentioned having known me -- your me -- since high school. Did you offer to teach him, back then?” The exact wording of the offer had been lost to time and Shuuichi’s deliberate attempts to forget, but that much he still remembered.
Matoba nodded slowly. Then -- froze, for a moment of utter icy stillness, short enough that Shuuichi almost doubted that he’d seen it at all. “... You didn’t accept my offer, in your universe.”
Not a coincidence, after all. “I didn’t,” Shuuichi confirmed. “Your Shuuichi did?”
“Yes.” Matoba looked away for a moment, in what could have been grief. Or perhaps he was wondering at how large a difference such a small change had wrought. Certainly Shuuichi was.
His gaze snapped back to Shuuichi. “... May I ask why?”
Shuuichi shrugged. “I was proud and stubborn?” … Not that that had changed. “Suspicious about your motives? Angry about your clear disdain towards one of the few exorcists who’d been willing to give me the time of day, at that point? I don’t know that there was any one thing.”
He wondered, for a moment, if it was wise to be putting so much of himself on display. But given Matoba’s wry expression, he doubted anything he had to say came as that great of a surprise.
(He didn’t wonder why, in this moment, those arguments seemed less solid than he knew them to be.)
“... Well,” Matoba said. “I hope you will forgive me saying that I’m glad here, you chose differently.”
“It’s not me who has to live with the consequences.” Shuuichi shrugged. “And I don’t know, deciphering that scribe’s chicken scratch is a lot to ask of a man.”
Matoba snorted. “I will have to thank Shuuichi for his efforts and patience, when he gets back.”
Shuuichi hesitated, then said, “I hope he does.”
Matoba’s smile grew sharper. “He will, if I have to go find him myself.”
Thankfully, the bus’ arrival saved Shuuichi from the need to reply further. It stopped with a screech of old brakes; empty, like the day before. The driver was a dark shape huddled behind the wheel.
In unspoken agreement, the exorcists exchanged silent glances, and Matoba took a step back at the same time as Shuuichi turned away. Making an effort not to look too closely into the driver’s booth, Shuuichi handed him the ticket -- warm and crinkled from lying in his coat pocket -- and took a seat at the far back.
The doors closed with an sleepy hiss, and the bus took off.
When Shuuichi glanced idly back, Matoba was still standing there by the roadside.
Shuuichi woke to a rhythmic pounding noise. Sleep-muddled, it took him several extra seconds to register it not as the pulse of blood in his temples, but a sound coming from somewhere else.
He considered turning over and going back to sleep; with how late he’d gone to bed, he figured he deserved it.
His curiosity, however, wouldn’t let him.
Shuuichi dragged a hand down his face, threw back the covers, and stumbled across the room. The pristine emptiness of his walls showed no signs of destruction to explain the noise; the rest of his room was as empty as his bed. But at the window, a dark, shapeless shiki tapped monotonously, clearly prepared to do so for however long it took.
He felt at his pockets -- good, still a few paper dolls in there -- and then opened the window. “Come in,” he said. He doubted it understood his words: messengers like that had little more intelligence than his own paper dolls, but given all the wards he’d erected, the only way they could enter was with his permission.
The shiki flowed through the window and pressed a letter into his hand. As soon as his fingers wrapped around it, the messenger disappeared, spilling back out the window like a thrown bucket of water.
To Natori Shuuichi, the envelope said.
The handwriting was familiar.
The feeling in his fingers, clenched around the paper, was not.