Work Text:
Yu Narukami doesn’t have a soulmate. It’s obvious to him, being surrounded so closely by people for the first time in his life. The strings are pulled taut the closer the Investigation Team gets, Chie and Yukiko have theirs wrapping around their fingers like a game of cat’s cradle in brilliant scarlet yarn, Kanji and Naoto are bound by a thread so thin it is barely noticeable, but when the light hits it just right, it shimmers brilliantly, as if made of garnet, sending sunspots across the surfaces. Yosuke’s is a single loop of red ribbon around his ringfinger tied in a bow, a small length of it hanging of his hand, torn and fraying. Still, he had one.
Yu Narukami does not. Now, that his life is ruled by the power of bonds, he starts noticing more and more of the strings, looping around the small town of Inaba. Everyone is connected or used to be. His own bonds are chains, dragging at his feet, holding him down. He smiles when the chain pulls tighter, but it’s a hollow smile. Not that anyone notices.
They love him. Everybody loves him, he’s the talk of the town, the golden boy, ready to help almost anyone with almost anything, but when he comes home and takes off his jacket to flop on the couch, exhausted of running around town as usual, he sometimes stops and considers his own hands. His bare skin mocks him and if he looks too long, he starts wondering, why does he do anything for them at all? Don’t they see how empty he actually is?
He sighs, and closes his eyes, the offensive sight of his own hands fading from view. Why does he even try? If they knew the real him, even the sturdiest of chains would break. A liar does not deserve bonds. A liar gets to pretend he can maintain several at a time, lying to even himself that he cares, to pretend the void inside him doesn’t exist.
He thinks to a glimmering blue room, a card suspended in the air before his view. His contract, The Fool fills him with a heavy bitterness lately. The Fool, he learns from a book on tarot he purchases, is an empty being. It has a limitless potential to become anything through it’s journey, a blank slate to be written on.
And it’s the exact reason he tries. He wants to be affected. He wants to see his contract transform to something more meaningful, tangible, solid. But it never does. It stays an empty void, a literal zero. Yu is tired, but he never thinks of actually giving up. Perhaps it will be his reward for overcoming the “ordeal” Margaret speak about. Perhaps if he waits just a little longer, puts up with this crushing emptiness for a while more…
There’s someone he can’t take his mind off, when he catalogues his bonds. The flimsiest of chains, despite the significant growth over the year. Tohru Adachi. The Jester.
It can’t be true, though. He can’t be the same zero. There is not a single sign that he’s acting, like Yu. He seems genuine. Perhaps the first genuine person who is open about his intentions that he meets in this town. And besides, from his left wrist, from under the sleeve of his constantly rumpled suit, a thick maroon rope is hanging, singed at the end that is supposed to be a connection.
Yu doesn’t ask Adachi about the rope. It’s not like anyone but him ever mentioned seeing them. They have other things to talk about. Food, TV shows, the city, the contrast of living life in Inaba, their daily lives. When Adachi talks, Yu feels like he should agree. Yes, it’s tedious. It’s silly. It’s boring. But agreeing would mean giving up, so he offers a counter-argument every time. Seeing Adachi’s annoyed face is endearing enough to forgive himself for lying to him too.
The investigation continues. Yu’s bonds grow sturdier, hold him tighter, weigh him down, but they do nothing for how empty he feels. The flimsy chain barely hanging on is insult to injury. No matter how much he reaches for Adachi, it always looks like it would snap at the slightest tug. Adachi smiles at him and ruffles his hair. The chain between them hangs limp and dull.
Something is wrong with Adachi. Something has to be, Yu decides, watching the bonds grow stronger with every meeting, every person he pulls into his life, trying to fill the void. He can’t pull Adachi in. Can’t charm him the way he charms everyone. Can’t wrap him around his finger like he does with others. He’s sure, if he even tries, the flimsy chain will snap.
***
December rolls around and the case is pretty much concluded. Well, at least to Yu it is over and done with. When he finally realizes the truth, he’s not at all surprised to see that he cares more about finally finding out why Adachi’s bond is so abnormal, not about the case’s true culprit.
Yu doesn’t speak much to his friends from there on. Chains turn slack and start to rust. Yu can’t bring himself to care. He’ll be leaving soon either way, not like anything in that year really mattered. A zero on his card stays the same empty circle.
Still, Adachi refuses to leave his thoughts. When they finally meet, Adachi laughs him in the face, the same impenetrable mask of a Jester who fooled the Fool smiling brighter than the sun, so earnest, even if Yu knows now, that it was all an act. Maybe Adachi has been more adept at this game. Maybe Yu should accept his loss. He’s lost a chance at establishing the only bond that caught his attention and with that, Yu finally gives up.
There’s talk of evidence still, and Yu knows what he has to do.
***
When Yu brings the lighter to the letter, ready to put an end to it all and accept defeat under Adachi’s amused gaze, they both are startled when the fire seems to catch on Yu’s hand. It snakes around his wrist, momentarily, hot enough to sear the skin and as Yu shakes it off, a rope falls from around his wrist. Tight, cutting into the fresh burn, there’s a thick coarse maroon rope bound around his hand. The paper smolders and pieces of it fly through the air.
Ash is falling between Yu and Adachi, both surprised to see their wrists connected by a singular rope. There’s no mistaking it, Adachi sees them too, because he moves his arm on instinct, seemingly trying to shake off the rope, face scrunching up in disgust. Yu just watches him, dumbfounded.
“I fucking hate you, you know that?”, Adachi sneers.
Yu just raises his hand and pulls. The rope seems as tangible to Adachi as it is to him, because it pulls taut and Adachi stumbles closer, caught off guard by the apparent physicality of their bond. Adachi practically falls into Yu’s arms as Yu immediately wraps them tight around the older man, clearly pissed and already trying to get free.
“I know, Adachi-san,” he mumbles into the dark hair, unwilling to let go. “But I bet if you knew me better, you would reconsider”. Adachi stops struggling in his grasp, his face firmly planted into Yu’s shoulder.
“What do you mean?”, Adachi’s voice is muffled by the fabric of Yu’s clothes, cautious yet curious.
Yu smiles, inhaling the smell of minty shampoo and a faintest trace of the remaining smoke, “It means you were right about me.”
Adachi breaks out into laughter, shaking in Yu’s arms. The accusations that fall from his lips are harsh, but can barely be considered accusations because all of them are true. Yu just nods along, until Adachi is done with his tirade.
When the laughing fit is over, Adachi presses at Yu’s chest and Yu finally lets go. “Well, I guess this makes you my accomplice now”, Adachi turns his head to the ash on the floor. When, he brings his left arm closer to Yu’s face, clearly still in disbelief with the rope that hangs between them, solid and real, “and this makes us… what, exactly?”
“Soulmates”, Yu supplies helpfully, even if he knows Adachi knows. “Nothing more.”
“So you’re not like, going to confess your undying love to me?”, Adachi’s mask is smiling with it’s usual bright goofy grin, but Yu starts to notice cracks at the edges of the Jester’s façade.
“Not until I get to know you better”, returning his smile, just as frayed and imperfect, Yu continues. “Not until you know the real me”.
***
The least surprising thing Yu learns about Adachi over the next months of weekly calls and infrequent meetings in the city, is that Adachi is just as deserving of a title of “brat” as he is himself. He needles, pokes and prods until he gets exactly what he wants, and if it doesn’t work, he forces, slams and punches like a petulant child. It’s lucky for them both that what he wants recently is Yu’s undivided attention. Not playing to his tune and annoying him is as fun as Yu remembers, though now it leads to more interesting outcomes now.
It was a small disagreement, really nothing special at all, until Yu made it his goal to be defiant on purpose. And now, Adachi is sitting on top of him, straddling his waist, maroon rope between his fingers wrapped around Yu’s throat pulled tight enough for tears to form in the corners of Yu’s eyes, his face pale from lack of oxygen.
“I swear I am going to kill you one day,” Adachi snarls, but Yu opens his lips, trembling and shaking around a plea for more, as he doesn’t even try to struggle.
Adachi shifts his weight and an incredulous look appears on his face. “Are you fucking hard right now?”, anger mixing with disbelief at the complete absurdity of the situation.
The rope slack and Yu draws in the first deep breath he’s allowed to. He breathes for a solid minute, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest as erratically as it does, but Adachi’s closeness doesn’t really help the matter.
“You can get off me if that’s a problem, Tohru”, a hoarse utterance ends in an attempt at sing-song mockery, failing entirely at every step, except somehow achieving the exact goal Yu meant for it in the end.
Tohru does not get off. Tohru actually grinds his ass against the hardness in Yu’s pants. “You’re an absolute freak, you know that?”
A hiss that comes out of Yu almost turns in a moan as Adachi berates him, but continues his movement nonetheless. It’s like that with everything. Adachi would fuss like he’s doing a service to Yu every time when indulging him, while they both know that both of them want to please each other no matter their constant spats. It’s a game of cat-and-mouse continuing, though in the end, everyone gets to win and benefit. An unlikely partnership where both are predator and both are prey depending on what is the best outcome for the both of them.
And for both of them tonight, that outcome is them panting, slick with sweat, Adachi’s back covered in possessive bite marks, Yu’s cock buried deep within his ass, a maroon rope as short as it ever gets between their hands, clasping each other tight, empty themselves, but full of each other finally.