Hinode smiled thinly. He asked, “How did you know I knew everything on here already?”
The captain raised a hand, as if to reach for Hinode’s face, but then aborted the movement. “Your eyes,” he said simply and didn’t bother to explain.
[“How did you know I was planning something?”
A clawed hand cupped his face gently and a thumb brushed beneath his left eye. A kiss to his forehead. “Your eyes.”]
Hinode paused, swallowing the lump in his throat, and blinking away the heat in his eyes. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Then Aphelion was there, gripping Hinode’s upper arm just a bit too hard, and the moment was broken.
“Sugar, I need you to run an errand for me,” Aphelion said stiffly, eyes never once leaving the captain. “Be a dear and run along now, hm?”
***
“Keep your distance from him.”
“He’s my Yugure, isn’t he? Yugure somehow came back.”
“Your Yugure is gone. That human isn’t him. It can’t be.”
“His Energy Condensation is the same.”
“I will say this one last time, Hinode. You and Yugure are not suited for each other. You cannot be together. Keep your distance from him.”
“But you will admit that that is him, somehow.”
“Hinode—! Listen to me you fool! Do you not remember what that person said?! You’ll die if you remain with him!”
“I know.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“And yet you still want him? You are a fool!”
“Ufgtjqr P jw. Dea ktfc ojmfv klat atflg rjinjalbc, vb cba jii yflcur aegc lcab vfrqfgjaf obbir?”
***
Ktfs’v yf fcafglcu jr qjlgr, j tewjc qjlgfv klat jc Pcnfralujabg. Ciabufatfg, atfgf’v yf afc qjlgr lc abaji (obg cbk). Pa kjr obecv bea atja sfr, atf ereji abbir vlv kbgx lc atf Jjrfr, lcmievlcu atf fwfgufcms frmjqf.
Now, the mission undertakers were inside a large, sterile lab with twenty egg-shaped pods. They wore comfortable clothes, and nothing else. Hinode had even left Supreme behind with Aphelion back at headquarters.
“Is this pod… safe?” Eyeless asked, looking at the machine warily. “If we’re entering that place with our Energy Condensation as well as our brains…”
“There’s a foolproof just in case things go wrong,” a technician assured him. “It was tested thoroughly before its release, and every single thing that can go wrong has been thought of and handled appropriately.”
“Then… Green-Thumbs can go in first.”
The garden sprite made a wounded noise of betrayal as he stared at his clanmate. “No way! The humans invented it; they can go first!”
“I’ll go,” Hinode volunteered and was rejected promptly.
“No offence, Sugar, but if something went wrong, President would kill us personally.”
“Please just sit down.”
“Sugar, please, we all know common sense isn’t your thing.”
Hinode rolled his eyes and allowed himself to be pushed back into his seat. Alright, so he couldn’t navigate public transport, failed at opening water bottles, and sometimes forgot that teapot lids needed to be held down before pouring. Cut him some slack, he didn’t need to have common sense so long as he could solve Cases.
As he brooded, a hand fell onto his head and the area got quiet. Hinode froze, eyes wide and unseeing as the warm palm rubbed at his head gently.
[“Are you sulking?”
“Shut up. I’m not.”
A hum of amusement. A body next to him and a hand reaching up to his hair. Fingers tugged at black strands playfully, before moving upwards to card through his hair. “Silly fox.”]
Then the hand froze, and an apology sounded through the muffle of the past. The hand began to leave as if the owner had realized what they were doing, and Hinode reached out instinctively, grasping the scarred hand as a quiet sound left his mouth.
‘Don’t leave,’ he wanted to say. ‘Don’t leave me alone again. Stay with me, right here, and I promise I’ll protect you this time. I promise.’
Purple met amber. Hinode opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again. He had to keep in mind that, no matter how much it appeared like it, this version of his lover didn’t know who Hinode was. Had no clue of their past together. It hurt, but that was how it was.
So Hinode didn’t say anything. He kept his mouth shut and let the hand go even though every part of him was unwilling. Not now. They would talk, but not now. Not when there was a mission so close at hand.
“Megaphone and Tano will go first,” Hinode said, tearing his eyes away from Yugure (because that was Yugure. Not captain, or human, or man, but Yugure). “Megaphone, think you can handle it?”
The halfer nodded and stepped up to the pod, dragging his human partner along with him. Under the watchful gaze of the others, they laid down in the pod. The glass lid closed over them with a hiss. There was a beep, and nothing happened for a few minutes.
Then a whistle signifying they’d entered Ephemeral Dreams sounded and everyone let out a breath they hadn’t realized they’d been holding. Slowly, the pairs got into their pods.
Hinode lay down carefully, a little surprised at how comfortable the pod actually was. He watched, his heartbeat steady, as the cover slid close, and he closed his eyes. He heard a beep from above his head, and he sank into something not quite like reality.
***
Yugure knew the kitsune.
He knew the soft, pale skin and knew the even softer black hair. Knew sharp, mischievous eyes the color of lilacs and the incredibly smart but silly man that owned them. He knew how the fox’s favorite sweets were wari gori and that he hated exercise but could topple armies if he so wanted to.
The problem was that Yugure didn’t know how he knew.
As soon as he’d entered the room, his eyes had been drawn to the man. When the other had looked up, Yugure swore time had stopped just for them. A whisper of ‘Hinode’ had echoed in his head and he’d almost gone and hugged him right there.
Then he’d seen the supposed ‘President’ and anger had bloomed. Rage boiled in his stomach, and it was an old thing. Nurtured carefully and erupting with all the force of a typhoon. Something hot and angry and red ran through Yugure as he watched the President and Hinode talk.
Then Hinode turned into (forced, something in him whispered) a fox and was practically thrown out of the room. The rest of that meeting had been a near torturous affair until Yugure finally snapped and left the room without a word. The president’s face looked pinched, and he obviously wanted to follow after Yugure. Unfortunately for President, he was the president of the Investigators and couldn’t go out doing as he wished willy-nilly.
He found the silly fox sleeping on the ground and picked him up carefully. His heart hurt for some reason when he saw Hinode only had a single tail. Yugure knew, somehow, that that wasn’t supposed to be the case.
Yugure was allowed to pet the silly fox for about an hour and a half, till he woke up.
They knew each other, Yugure reconfirmed when Hinode froze, eyes shaking and a desperate kind of whine slipping out of a pointed snout. A word slipped out.
“—Yugure.”
And a burst of rightness, almost painful in its wake, flowered in his chest. He willed himself not to say anything stupid and opened his mouth.
“How do you know my name?” There.
He watched as Hinode hesitated visibly. “That… is a great question. One which I’m going to be refraining from answering. Bye!”
Then before Yugure could do anything, Hinode was powerwalking away from him. As soon as he turned the corner, he heard Hinode begin to run. That… hurt more than it should’ve, for words from someone Yugure didn’t even know. Wasn’t supposed to know. Whichever.
They met again during the briefing and that time, Yugure got to hold a conversation with Hinode. A small, short conversation, but a conversation, nonetheless. Then, once again, the president—Hinode’s brother—interrupted them.
And now…
Yugure stared around him. He was in Ephemeral Dreams. His partner was the Arcane with the codename ‘Peaches.’
…for some reason, the Arcane, the Cases and everything else, it wasn’t a surprise.
Thanks for the chapter~
Thank you for the chapter!!! ❤️❤️
Yugure is so cool! 😍 So sweet how they are connected even thought one of them has a fuzzy memory. I kind of got a bad feeling at the one tail and was the bro trying to protect the fox because being together with Yugure harms him in some way?🤔
Thank you for the chapter 💕
theyre still connected at the soul 🥺❤
thank you for the chapter 💖
thanks for the chapter <3