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Rain pattered against the glass of the Naruhodo Legal Consultancy, making Ryuunosuke sigh. It was one of his few remaining days in London, and he'd been hoping the weather would do him a favor and be agreeable for once, but it had been raining on and off since yesterday. So much for that.
Feeling melancholy, he put another trinket into his trunk and wiped his brow on his wrist guard. He'd been packing for the better part of an hour, preparing for his return to Japan. He couldn't believe he was going back already. It felt like he'd only just arrived here in London and now it was time for him to leave.
So much had happened over the past week. Asougi had come back to life as a prosecutor, he and his friends had overthrown the corrupt Chief Justice, Inspector Gregson had been murdered, and Barok van Zieks… Ryuunosuke’s packing slowed as he thought about Lord van Zieks. He'd revealed such painful truths for the prosecutor during that trial. He couldn't help but wonder how the man was doing now.
An image of van Zieks breaking down in court flashed across his memory and he felt his heart begin to ache. Perhaps he should check in on him before he left, just to make sure he was ok. Until a few days ago, such an action would have caused van Zieks to scoff and send him away, but now…
“You are a lawyer of absolute integrity.”
His compliment echoed through Ryuunosuke’s mind and made him blush. van Zieks had become so much more kind and straightforward towards him during his trial, and it gave Ryuunosuke hope for the blossoming feelings he'd noticed for the prosecutor during Albert Harebrayne’s trial.
A sudden, distant sound of a soft tap on the front door broke Ryuunosuke out of his musings. He was home alone, so he needed to be the one to answer the door. Whoever was knocking must be doing so quite loudly for him to be able to hear it all the way upstairs. Perhaps it was urgent. Worrying possibilities began to unfold in his head as he scurried down the stairs to answer the door.
In spite of his mental preparation for some terrible new development to be awaiting him on the other side of the door, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he opened it.
“L-Lord van Zieks!” He yelped. “What happened to you?! You're soaking wet!”
The man before him sniffled and brushed a lock of sopping hair out of his chill-flushed face impatiently. “Mr. Naruhodo… thank goodness you're home. I heard from Mr. Asougi that you were returning to Japan soon, and I--”
A hazy look came over his face suddenly as he broke off, and he turned away quickly to stifle a sneeze into his dripping cloak.
“Nevermind that; please, come in and warm up by the fire before you catch your death!”
Ryuunosuke stepped forward to hustle him inside with a hand on the small of van Zieks’s back and closed the door behind him. The prosecutor was trembling under his touch and Ryuunosuke’s rising trepidation grew.
“You're freezing,” Ryuunosuke noted softly, his big brown eyes shining with concern. “Here, let me get you a towel.”
He guided van Zieks to the hearth and hurried away to fetch some towels. van Zieks watched him vanish into the depths of Holmes’s flat forlornly, as if he was loath to take his eyes off him. Ryuunosuke returned with the towels and found van Zieks still standing immobile next to the fireplace, his eyes locked on Ryuunosuke's. He hadn't removed his cloak or gloves, or moved closer to the fire’s warmth, nor did he reach out to accept a towel; he simply stood there, frozen.
Ryuunosuke clucked his tongue disapprovingly and shook open a towel, which he draped over van Zieks's head. Then he wrapped a second one around the man’s broad shoulders.
“Mr. Naruhodo, I've given the matter a great deal of thought, and I feel there's something I must tell you,” van Zieks said from beneath the towel, making no move to begin drying himself off. His fingers brushed his prosecutor’s badge anxiously and he sniffled again.
“That can wait,” Ryuunosuke said firmly. “I'm going to get you some tea. Please, dry yourself off; I'd hate for you to catch cold.”
van Zieks looked numbly down at himself as if only just noticing his soaked clothes. Ryuunosuke bustled upstairs to his office and grabbed the kettle off the stove, filling a cup with steaming water, and shook some tea leaves into a tea strainer. He returned to the front room and was relieved to find that van Zieks was drying himself off as instructed. Ryuunosuke set the steeping tea on the trunk that functioned as a tea table and reached up to help the prosecutor dry his hair.
“What happened, Lord van Zieks?” Ryuunosuke asked, peering under the towel into the towering prosecutor’s face. His frigid blue eyes glinted dully in the flickering firelight, and Ryuunosuke could see that they were underscored with shadows. Ryuunosuke’s heart rate increased a bit at the eye contact. van Zieks’s eyes had always captivated him, and now that he had realized that he had feelings for him, the effect was even more intense. “We're you attacked again?”
van Zieks shook his head slowly. “I merely went for a walk sometime yesterday evening, and… it seems that it began to rain at some point.”
Ryuunosuke’s eyes widened. “Wait, you mean to say that you were out walking all night until just now?! But that's… that's ages! No wonder you're freezing! Why on earth would you do something so reckless?!”
van Zieks sniffled and his blue-tinged lips flattened into a narrow line. “I… That trial… I confess that my mind was ill at ease after the events of the past few days… Then I received word of your plans to return to your homeland, and I became even more agitated. I had a myriad of thoughts that needed sorting, so I decided to take a walk. Apparently that ended up lasting longer than I had anticipated. I… don't suppose Mr. Asougi was mistaken about your intentions?”
Ryuunosuke shook his head. “No, I'm afraid it's true. I'll be leaving at the end of the week.”
van Zieks's brow furrowed and he looked distinctly pained, his nimble fingers finding his prosecutor's badge again, and Ryuunosuke saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Could it be that…?
“You… don't want me to go…?” The words were out before Ryuunosuke could stop them, and he quickly regretted them. What a foolish notion. Why should van Zieks care what Ryuunosuke did? The prosecutor was surely going to mock him for being so presumptuous. But to Ryuunosuke’s surprise, van Zieks's eyes flitted away from his as if embarrassed, settling instead on the dancing flames in the hearth.
“...I… wish you wouldn't.” His words were so soft and fragile that Ryuunosuke scarcely heard them, and for a moment he doubted his ears.
“Eh…?”
van Zieks's tongue flicked nervously across his lips and his breath caught slightly. “I… I've given the matter a great deal of thought,” he repeated, “and I've realized that… that there's something I must say to you. If you'll do me the courtesy of hearing me out…”
Ryuunosuke swallowed hard. He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but the way van Zieks was speaking, his nervous demeanor, was making his heart speed up. “Y-yes?”
van Zieks's tremors increased minutely and his fingers fisted in his towel. He pulled the towel off his head and around his shoulders, causing his damp ash-colored hair to fall limply into his eyes. Before Ryuunosuke could contain himself, he was reaching out to brush the strands aside. van Zieks caught Ryuunosuke's hand and guided it tremulously down to his cheek. Ryuunosuke watched in stunned awe as van Zieks hesitated for a beat, then turned his face towards Ryuunosuke’s palm. His lips grazed the Japanese man's skin lightly and Ryuunosuke's cheeks went scarlet.
“...I have feelings for you, Mr. Naruhodo,” he murmured. “I think I have for some time now, but I couldn't bring myself to admit it. I… wish you wouldn't go.”
“L-Lord van Zieks…” Ryuunosuke couldn't believe what he was hearing. How could this beautiful, high-born, composed man possibly have mutual feelings for a nobody student like him? It didn't make sense, and yet he desperately wanted it to be true. “But I'm… I mean, you're… I'm nobody! You can't possibly want me… right?”
“You're the man who saved my life, and the most talented and honest lawyer I've ever had the pleasure of meeting,” van Zieks replied sternly. “I'll not have you discounting your own merits.”
Ryuunosuke gulped, his cheeks burning. Apparently this was really happening after all. van Zieks's half-frozen hands came up and cupped Ryuunosuke's blazing cheeks. He ran his thumbs over them reverently, leaving a tingling chill in his wake. Ryuunosuke's eyes fluttered closed at the tender caress, trying to memorize the sensation of his companion’s touch. The next thing he knew, soft, cold, hungry lips were covering his.
His breath hitched in surprise and delight, and van Zieks took advantage of this to slip his tongue into Ryuunosuke's mouth. He kissed back eagerly, ravenously, like a starving man granted a feast. van Zieks hummed approvingly as he drew away slightly and reinstated the kiss again and again. By the time they parted, Ryuunosuke's lips were slightly swollen from all the attention van Zieks had lavished upon them. Their noses brushed languidly, and van Zieks kissed him one last time, sweet and slow.
“I have feelings for you, too,” Ryuunosuke whispered, his breath ghosting temptingly over van Zieks's mouth. “I… I want to be with you.”
“Then stay, I beg of you,” van Zieks said. “I don't want to return to a life without you.”
Ryuunosuke bit his lip. He'd never dared to imagine that he'd hear such things from van Zieks's mouth. How could he say no? And yet, he knew he must.
“I… I'm so sorry, I want to stay, I do, it's just that… my country needs me,” Ryuunosuke said, his voice pained even to his own ears. “Japan’s justice system isn't as developed as Great Britain’s; defense attorneys are still a very new concept back home, and their numbers are limited. I owe it to those who need a defense to take what I've learned here and bring it back there to help them.”
van Zieks closed his eyes, his brow crinkling in distress as he clutched his badge. “...Of course, you're right… it would be selfish of me to keep you here…”
“I wish… I wish I could bring you with me…” Ryuunosuke sighed. “I'd give anything to be able to stay with you.”
van Zieks was silent, and Ryuunosuke could practically see the gears in his head churning. No doubt he was weighing whether there was any way he could accompany him.
“Asougi needs you, even though he'd never say so,” Ryuunosuke reminded him softly, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “London needs you.”
van Zieks's lips pressed into a thin, grim line. Ryuunosuke hated to see him looking so tortured. He embraced van Zieks, not caring that the dampness of the prosecutor’s wet clothes was soaking into his own outfit. van Zieks hesitated, but returned the embrace stiffly, as if he'd nearly forgotten how to hold another person.
“I'll be back,” Ryuunosuke promised, lifting his head from van Zieks's sculpted chest to look him in the eye. “I don't know when, but it will happen someday. I'll make sure of it.”
“Then I will wait for you,” van Zieks said thickly. His eyes looked shiny all of a sudden, too wet, like his clothes. “However long it takes… I'll wait.”
Ryuunosuke’s hand slid up the prosecutor's back to his neck and he tugged him down for another lingering kiss. He could taste the desperation in this one and it hurt his heart. Ryuunosuke wanted to do something to ease van Zieks's pain so he said, “Stay with me tonight? I want… I want to be with you as much as possible until I have to leave.”
van Zieks sniffled and cleared his throat. “It would be my pleasure.”
“We should get you out of these wet clothes, too,” Ryuunosuke suggested, and though he'd said it very matter-of-factly he couldn't help blushing at the implication. “I'd hate for you to fall ill.”
van Zieks's eyes darted over to the fireplace again, his milk-white face pinking attractively. “If… that is what you wish.”
Ryuunosuke smiled shyly and took his hand, leading him upstairs.