The Unexpected Patient

When Yuma arrived home that evening, nothing seemed amiss. He turned on the light, as normal; hung up his rain gear, as normal; went to the kitchen to put on the kettle.

Turned around and saw Makoto lying on his sofa.

Yuma gave a startled yelp.

‘Hello to you too,’ Makoto said. His voice was haggard.

‘How long have you been here?’ Yuma asked.

‘That depends,’ Makoto said, and Yuma saw him check the time. ‘About three hours. I fell asleep.’ Even with Yuma here, he didn’t bother to sit up. But that wasn’t so meaningful.

‘You could have used the bed, if you wanted to have a nap.’

‘It wasn’t my intention.’

Yuma came and stood over him; Makoto squinted back up. He looked weirdly damp, considering he wasn’t the one who’d just come in from the rain.

‘Are you sick?’ Yuma said. ‘Can homunculi get sick?’

‘We can get sick,’ Makoto grumbled.

‘If you’re sick, why did you come here?’

‘I didn’t mean to be sick.’

Yuma bent to check his temperature with the back of his hand: he was very warm. Makoto narrowed his eyes when Yuma touched him, but didn’t pull away.

‘Should I call someone?’

‘I’m not that sick.’

‘I meant to come get you.’

Makoto frowned, and then shut his eyes as if frowning pained him. ‘I came here for a reason.’

‘Sure,’ Yuma said. ‘What reason was that?’

Makoto opened his eyes again, barely. ‘I was in the area.’

Yuma considered him. He would feel bad kicking Makoto out if he were sick. And whatever position Makoto enjoyed in the city, he did still live alone. Like Yuma lived alone.

‘Did you want something to eat, maybe?’ Yuma said.

Makoto made a noise that could have been assent.

‘You know I’m not a good cook.’

Makoto turned his head against the sofa, dismissing him.

‘Maybe I can order something,’ Yuma said.

---

He’d only been back in Kanai Ward three weeks. He’d seen Makoto once since then, a very perfunctory encounter where Makoto had shown up at the office Kurumi had rented for them both. He’d made some remark about the unfortunate views the office had, suggested that maybe Yuma would never want to speak to him again, and left. Yuma had thought he was laying down the ground rules for their mutual coexistence.

But maybe Yuma had misunderstood. Maybe Makoto had been stating a supposition.

Yuma was the one who hadn’t rebutted it.

---

Now, he made rice porridge, carefully following a recipe. Makoto was quiet, but his breath was too heavy for Yuma to think he was asleep.

If Makoto wasn’t feeling well, why had he come here?

Once the rice was simmering, Yuma checked on him again. Makoto opened his eyes as soon as Yuma came over.

‘The porridge is cooking,’ Yuma said, ‘but did you want me to get you anything else? I can go to the pharmacy.’

‘You’re being very thoughtful.’

‘I … don’t really know what else I should do.’

‘Interrogate me, perhaps? I did just show up in your apartment unannounced.’

‘Right,’ Yuma said. ‘How did you get in, anyway?’

‘I asked the building manager,’ Makoto said. ‘Amaterasu owns this building, you know.’

‘… it still seems like they shouldn’t let people in willy-nilly.’

‘I told him I’d locked myself out.’

‘You said you were me?’

‘I’m sure he thinks you’re me to start with.’

Being annoyed at Makoto was like being annoyed at a dog for wagging its tail. Even as the emotion rose up, Yuma let go of it.

‘Will that cause difficulties for you? If people think you’re masquerading as a detective.’

Makoto laughed. ‘Sounds like a comic book, doesn’t it? But we ought to come up with some sort of story, don’t you think?’

‘What’s wrong with the truth?’ People knew what homunculi were now. Makoto might not have been like the others, but he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of either.

‘Don’t you ever think that sometimes the truth isn’t that interesting? I’d rather have a little more mystique than that.’

‘If you wanted mystique, wouldn’t it be better to let people come up with their own stories?’

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘I’m sure no-one would believe you’re my homunculus anyway. Whatever way you look at it, you’re more impressive than me.’

Makoto looked at him for a long moment. Then turned his gaze away. ‘If you have any cold medicine …’

‘Oh, right! I can get some. Is there anything else you want? Lemonade, maybe?’

Makoto nodded, gaze still to the side. There was something cute about his recalcitrant face, with his cheeks red from running a fever. It gave Yuma the urge to ruffle his hair. He resisted, even though it was the sort of thing Yuma wouldn’t have minded himself.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Yuma said, and went to pull on his raincoat once again.

---

There was a part of him that expected Makoto to disappear while he was out. Yuma could return with drugs and tissues and lemonade and Makoto would be gone.

But Makoto was still there.

‘You didn’t go back to sleep?’ Yuma set the bag from the pharmacy down on the coffee table in front of Makoto.

‘No.’ Makoto say up with a great reluctance; he put a hand to his forehead like it pained him.

‘There are painkillers in the bag,’ Yuma said. ‘I’ll get you some water.’

‘No need.’ Makoto pulled out one of the two bottles of lemonade Yuma had bought, and he took the medicine with that.

‘You can lie on the bed if you want.’

Makoto shook his head a little, as if shaking more firmly would hurt. ‘I’ll wait.’

Yuma sat on the sofa next to him, taking care to sit softly. ‘Not that I mind you being here,’ he said, ‘but don’t you have somewhere else you’d rather be?’

Makoto glanced at him, unreadable. ‘It’s normal, isn’t it,’ he said, ‘to want your family to take care of you when you’re sick?’

For some reason, Yuma’s heart turned in his chest. ‘I guess you could call us that.’

‘Do you have a better word?’ Makoto leaned his head against the back of the couch. Yuma thought of the apartment Makoto lived in. It was palatial, sure, but perhaps it was also lonely.

‘No, that will do,’ he said. He clapped his hands on his knees. ‘I guess I better check on the rice.’

‘Don’t burn it,’ Makoto mumbled.

‘I won’t burn it.’ And if he did, Makoto was sure he could just avoid scraping that part off the bottom of the dish.

But it was fine. Yuma gave the porridge a thorough stir, and returned to Makoto’s side.

‘So why did you really come here? It wasn’t just that you were in the area.’

‘I thought,’ Makoto said, ‘that you’d come see me. But you didn’t.’

‘Wait, you wanted me to come see you?’

The pink in Makoto’s cheeks could have been fever. ‘Even with your memories,’ Makoto said, ‘you’re still dense.’

‘That’s a little harsh.’

Makoto picked at a frayed patch on the sofa. ‘Don’t you miss being Number One?’

‘Do you mean being the director, or being able to afford better furnishings?’

‘You resigned. Didn’t you think you’d be able to go back?’

‘I think resigning was the right thing to do,’ Yuma said. ‘When I think about Chief Yakou, you know … he didn’t need the World Detective Agency to do what he did.’

‘He literally did.’

‘What I mean is … when I was the director, I didn’t have time for actually being a detective. I consulted on cases, but if someone asked me for help, I had to respond as the director and assign someone. I couldn’t just be someone who wanted to help. That’s why I’m happy to let Number One stay dead. Maybe I can’t help as many people this way, but I don’t know. It feels like I’m helping more.’

‘Wow,’ Makoto said. ‘So in the end, it is all about your own ego.’

‘I don’t think someone who lives at the top of Kanai Tower gets to talk about ego.’

Makoto laughed. And then made a little groan, and took a drink of the lemonade.

‘Sorry,’ Yuma said. ‘You should be resting, and I’m making you talk.’

‘I didn’t come here not to talk to you.’

‘Well, I’m not going anywhere.’

With a sigh, and all at once, Makoto slumped against him, his weight a sudden but not unpleasant surprise.

‘You gave me that speech about the value of relying on others,’ Makoto muttered, ‘and then you left.’ His body was very warm.

‘Did I give a speech like that?’

‘You did.’

‘I really don’t remember.’

Makoto took a deep breath, and let it out. Yuma wondered if he should put an arm around him. Was that the sort of thing Makoto was angling for? Calling him ‘family’, and snuggling up against him?

‘Shouldn’t you take your jacket off?’ Yuma said. ‘You’re going to get it all wrinkled.’

‘It’s cold,’ Makoto said. ‘This building needs better insulation. I should make a note about that.’

‘It’s not really cold,’ Yuma said. ‘But I could get you the duvet.’

‘Mm … okay.’ Without otherwise moving, Makoto unbuttoned his suit jacket. Yuma slipped out from beside him – which Makoto made no effort to correct for; he fell flat against the couch. Rather than being perturbed, Makoto looked as if he might just stay like that.

‘Come on,’ Yuma said. He bent down and undid Makoto’s tie, while Makoto watched him with half-lidded eyes. It made Yuma feel weirdly anxious.

‘There,’ he said, pulling the tie loose. He folded it and set it on the table. ‘Makoto, you can sit up.’

‘I might not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t be bothered.’

Yuma’s lip curled. ‘I don’t see how you can be this annoying.’

Makoto didn’t look offended. There was something intense about his look, though. Fixated on Yuma, but not quite focused.

‘Can I have the duvet?’ Makoto said, ‘and leave my jacket on?’

‘I mean, I’m not going to make you get undressed,’ Yuma said. The words sounded bad; he bit his lip, and hurried to get the duvet. He could feel Makoto’s eyes follow him.

When he came back, Makoto had sat up again. He accepted the bundle of duvet from Yuma, and pulled it in around his shoulders.

‘Sit down again,’ he said.

Yuma sat, probably too obediently, and Makoto flopped against him, this time putting his head in Yuma’s lap. Yuma didn’t know what to do with himself, or what to do with his hands. When he put one over the duvet that Makoto had pulled to his chest, it was very gingerly.

‘You wanted me to rely on the people of Kanai Ward,’ Makoto mumbled, ‘but that doesn’t help with this.’

‘You don’t have friends?’ Maybe it was a cruel thing to ask, if the answer was no; Yuma kept his voice very soft.

‘I’m not very good at making friends,’ Makoto said. ‘You’d know about that, except apparently being amnesiac makes it easier.’

‘You might be right.’

Kurumi had yelled at him, when she’d found him. For leaving his friends like that. But the person who had made those friends wasn’t the person who had emerged from the old bathhouse that day. He hadn’t been able to reconcile his selves as quickly as that.

Even if Makoto had wanted to make friends, he was in the same sort of position as the one Yuma had left behind. Maybe that was another reason Yuma hadn’t wanted to go back.

‘Is it okay,’ Yuma said, ‘for us to be friends?’ He let himself stroke Makoto’s hair. It probably would have been more pleasant if Makoto hadn’t been all sweaty. He was going to have to have the suit dry-cleaned, Yuma thought.

‘Who’s going to say no?’

It seemed like the sort of thing they might have been told, in other circumstances. When Makoto had been born. They weren’t meant to exist together.

It was too sad, when Yuma thought about it. That the homunculi had been made only to die, and to survive dying.

But Makoto could still get sick.

By the time the timer for the porridge went off, Makoto had drifted off; he startled beneath Yuma’s hand when the stove beeped.

‘I have to get up a minute,’ Yuma said, and Makoto pushed himself upright. ‘You’ll eat, right?’

‘I will, thanks.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ Yuma said, as he headed to the kitchen. ‘If anyone can mess up porridge, I can.’

‘I’ll give you a rating once I try it.’

Makoto couldn’t be feeling that bad, Yuma thought – or maybe it was just the drugs had kicked in. Yuma dished out a serving and brough the bowl back to Makoto on the couch.

‘If it’s awful, you don’t have to eat it,’ Yuma said. ‘I’ll order something in.’

‘Aren’t you going to eat too?’

‘I ate on my way home.’

‘Right.’ Makoto took a spoonful of the porridge and tried it gingerly. He took a bigger spoonful the second time, so it couldn’t have been too awful. Yuma was relieved.

‘What did you have?’ Makoto asked.

‘Ramen.’

‘From the real Yuma Kokohead? Does he know you’re still using his name?’

‘Yuma’s not an unusual name. Besides, you changed your name too.’

‘But I made it up myself. I didn’t take it from anyone.’

‘It’s not “taking” if he agreed to it …’

‘Did Kurumi eat with you?’

‘No. She was meeting some friends.’

‘She’s too young for you anyway.’

‘I know that.’

‘You didn’t know it before.’

‘I’d lost my memory before.’

Makoto didn’t say anything, loudly.

‘Kurumi and I are friends. I’m helping her get started with the agency, that’s all.’

‘Does she know who you really are?’

Yuma took a breath. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I told her I got my memories back, but not more than that.’ Maybe that was bad, now he said it. ‘She’ll work it out, anyway. Maybe she already has.’ She hadn’t pushed him on the matter, but he couldn’t imagine Kurumi settling for not knowing. Not when she’d put all that effort into just finding him. And she’d seen Makoto’s face. All of Kanai Ward had, now. She wasn’t an idiot.

‘When you put it like that, it hardly seems like keeping secrets at all.’ Makoto put his bowl down, though he hadn’t finished. He pulled the duvet up higher around him. ‘Is it okay if I go to sleep now?’

‘Of course.’

Makoto shut his eyes, as if he might go to sleep sitting up.

‘You can have the bed,’ Yuma said. ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’

Makoto opened one eye. He nodded.

---

Yuma managed to bully him into getting changed, at least. Makoto’s shirt was damp with sweat; Yuma only hoped he could wash it without ruining it. The jacket and pants he would hang up and hope for the best.

Wearing Yuma’s pyjamas, Makoto looked younger. Something about the buttons down the front. They must have had the same affect for Yuma, but it wasn’t as if Yuma had anyone to see.

‘I’ll stay up for a bit,’ Yuma said, ‘but I’ll just use the lamp.’

‘’s fine,’ Makoto said. He climbed into bed, burying himself beneath the duvet as if he could hide from the world entirely. ‘G’night.’

‘Night.’

It was a studio, so the bed was in the same room as everything else. Yuma turned off the main light and he sat on the couch and read for a while. But his mind wasn’t on the book. It kept drifting to the man in his bed.

Had Yuma really thought he could return to Kanai Ward without Makoto inserting himself into his life? Was that something he had wanted? Or had he come back in hopes of it?

They weren’t family. But what other conception of their relationship could there be? They weren’t friends, except that was something they had both wanted, Yuma was sure.

Friends. They could still be that.

Yuma had an early night. Just as well, because he would wake later to Makoto’s sneezes. He sneezed five times in a row, and then blew his nose and whimpered. Yuma could only pretend to sleep through so much. He got up from his makeshift bed on the couch, and went to perch on the bed beside Makoto.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ Makoto mumbled.

‘It’s okay.’

‘Kind of pathetic, isn’t it? I should at least have the decency to be sick in my own bed.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘You should be.’

‘I was thinking,’ Yuma said, ‘that if I were you, I’d rather someone stayed up with me.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Makoto said. ‘There’s no reason for us both to miss sleep.’

‘I wouldn’t ask either.’

Makoto was silent a moment, except for the sniffling. ‘I hate that.’

‘You don’t want me to know what you’re thinking?’

‘No.’

Yuma reached his hand over to brush against Makoto’s forehead. He was still warm, but maybe not as much as he had been.

‘Has anyone ever taken care of you when you were sick before?’

‘Sure,’ Makoto said. ‘When we were little.’

They both knew that wasn’t what Yuma had meant. But Yuma couldn’t deny Makoto those memories. The things that had happened before Makoto was created were things that had happened to both of them.

‘I didn’t think,’ Makoto said, ‘I’d ever have that again.’

Never again, and never before in truth. All those years before Yuma had found him.

In that moment, Yuma felt bad that he’d ever left Kanai Ward at all.

‘I’m here now,’ he said, and brushed Makoto’s hair back from his face.

When Makoto fell asleep again, Yuma went back to the couch. He got what sleep he could.

---

The next morning, Yuma considered telling Kurumi he wouldn’t be in, but Makoto insisted he would be alright on his own.

Yuma still hesitated before he left. ‘Don’t disappear while I’m out.’

‘I’m sure you’d rather see me gone,’ Makoto said. He’d migrated back to the couch when Yuma had got up.

‘I’d rather see you better,’ Yuma said honestly.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t have to be this nice to me. I broke into your apartment.’

‘Breaking in, you say?’ Yuma pulled on his raincoat. ‘That would suggest you didn’t have the right to be here.’ Yuma said it with a laugh, but only to hide the truth of his words. He walked back toward Makoto. ‘You can always come to me, you know.’ And then, because he was heading out the door and it was too hard to resist, he ruffled Makoto’s hair. And practically fled. ‘I’m off.’

Makoto stared after him with pink cheeks, but he still managed to say, ‘Come back safe.’

---

Yuma was distracted all morning. When Kurumi suggested they get lunch, he found himself saying, ‘Actually, I need to pop home for a bit.’

‘Oh,’ Kurumi said. ‘I guess you’re still settling in, huh?’

‘Something like that,’ Yuma agreed.

He stopped to pick up lunch for two, even though it would be like Makoto to disappear as abruptly as he’d come. Even if Yuma had asked him not to.

But no: Makoto was still there when Yuma came in. He was still ensconced in the duvet on the couch, but he’d pulled out one of Yuma’s case files and had it spread out over the coffee table.

‘You’re back early,’ Makoto said. ‘Unless I’ve lost track of time again.’

‘I thought we could have lunch together,’ Yuma said, lifting the bag he was carrying. ‘What are you looking at?’

‘The Three Rings Murder Case,’ Makoto said.

‘I meant to take all that stuff into the office, I just haven’t got round to it.’

‘Are you thinking of trying to maintain a work–life balance?’

‘I mean I spend more time there than here anyway ….’

Yuma made room on the coffee table to set out their lunches, and then pushed at Makoto’s legs until Makoto made room for him on the couch. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘Less like my head’s being squeezed in a vice and more like I’d like to tear my own nose off.’

‘How did you cope with colds when you wore a mask?’

‘I just wouldn’t go out and see anyone,’ Makoto said. ‘They just thought I was being eccentric; no-one even knew I was sick.’ Despite his illness, he dug into his food with gusto. Yuma watched him, rather than start his own lunch.

‘You don’t think they were just humouring you?’

‘Huh?’

‘“Oh, the CEO doesn’t want anyone to know he’s sick so he’s pretending he’d had an artistic epiphany and had to spend all week making masks again.” They probably said things like that behind your back.’

‘What?’ Makoto said, but his face screwed up like he wanted to laugh. ‘I never pretended anything like that.’

‘No?’ Yuma was pretty sure it was the sort of thing he might have said in Makoto’s place.

‘No.’ He stopped to sneeze three times. ‘Definitely not the epiphany part, anyway.’ He blew his nose, looking very put out about it.

Yuma began to eat his own lunch. He didn’t know why he’d brought all those files back with him – except that for all the awful, sorrowful things they might have contained, there was someone in the story who was relieved to have the truth known to them. Who could move forward because of it.

And no-one dropped dead just because Yuma comprehended their crimes.

‘Do you miss being a detective?’ Yuma asked.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I was only looking through your case files because I was so bored. Being sick is so boring.’

‘Couldn’t you just have watched TV or something?’

‘It’s more interesting,’ Makoto said, ‘to imagine you solving cases.’

‘Is it different from imagining yourself solving them?’

Makoto leaned over, and he laid a hand briefly over Yuma’s face.

‘What –’

‘Separate people.’ Makoto drew his hand back, as collected as if he hadn’t done anything strange at all. ‘I’m curious about you. It’s a different thing.’

‘I think the case it more interesting than I am.’

‘A case isn’t interesting once it’s solved. A person is. That’s what you solve them for.’

‘Did you read Chief Yakou’s case files too?’

That startled Makoto. ‘How did you work that out?’

‘When we opened up the submarine again,’ Yuma said, ‘Kurumi and I, it didn’t seem like some place no-one had been in for months. In fact, it was tidier than before.’

‘One of the others could have cleaned things up before they left.’

‘Kurumi was the last one to go. She thought maybe you’d sent someone to keep things tidy.’

Makoto looked away from him, across the room into nothing.

‘You’re right,’ Makoto said. ‘I read everything.’

‘Really?’

‘I need to know. Everyone who asked for help … everything that got covered up. What the Peacekeepers did. What I contributed to.’

‘You’ve been investigating?’

‘I hardly have time for that. I just … don’t want anything like that to happen again. And someone needs to remember it.’

‘I guess there’s no-one better than you for that,’ Yuma said. ‘I’ll be long gone and you’ll still be the same.’

He thought about it, sometimes. No-one knew, of course, whether the immortality of the homunculi would stand against the weight of time. But in theory, even a defective homunculus could live forever.

Makoto met his eyes. ‘I’ll supercede you,’ he said, ‘whether I want it or not. I just have to wait.’

‘Well, maybe you can solve all the world’s mysteries after I’m gone.’

Makoto smiled, but it was a bitter smile. ‘I can die if I want,’ he said. ‘I know how.’

‘If you know how,’ Yuma said, ‘then why the restricted area?’

‘Because they don’t deserve to die again,’ Makoto said. ‘And because we still might find a way to fix them.’

Yuma understood that hope. He’d felt it himself – the homunculi who had died weren’t lost completely, and as long as that were the case, he would hope that they might be brought back.

Well, some of them he hoped might be brought back.

‘How would you decide?’ Yuma asked.

‘Hm?’

‘Would you fix all of them? Even the ones who –’

‘The ones you killed, you mean?’

Yuma flushed red with anger, but it was at himself rather than Makoto. ‘They didn’t all deserve to die.’

‘The god of death doesn’t care about what’s deserved,’ Makoto said. He set down the remains of his lunch, and settled back against the arm of the couch. ‘I do wonder, if you had reaped my soul … would I have stayed dead? Would I be like one of the defective homunculi? If we found a way to fix them … would that save even those whom death herself had claimed?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Yuma said.

‘That’s a kind of mystery too,’ Makoto said. ‘Why don’t the defective homunculi come back to life? How can that be fixed?’

‘That’s the mystery you’ve decided to solve?’

‘It seems as valid a mystery as any.’

Makoto had closed his eyes.

‘I should get back to the office,’ Yuma said.

Makoto nodded. ‘I’ll probably be gone when you get back.’ There was only so much largess he could bear, perhaps.

‘Alright,’ Yuma said. ‘But you know …’

Makoto opened his eyes, half-lidded and careful.

‘Why don’t you come round for dinner another time?’ Yuma asked. ‘When you’re well, I mean. I promise I won’t cook.’

Makoto nodded, and shut his eyes again.

‘Alright.’ Yuma stood, but he watched Makoto a moment. ‘If I hadn’t come back for lunch, would you have left without saying anything?’

Makoto peeked open an eye again. ‘I would have left a note. You’d know about that, wouldn’t you, Yuma?’

‘That’s –’

Makoto waved his fingers dismissively. ‘Go. Kurumi will be wondering where you are.’

‘Right.’ Still, Yuma was reluctant to go. ‘Next Wednesday. Will that work?’

‘I should come over for dinner next Wednesday?’ Makoto said. ‘Alright, Yuma.’

‘Good.’ Yuma would leave now. ‘I hope you get better quickly. And … don’t feel too bad about it.’

Makoto gave a nod and another little wave, and Yuma accepted that. Put his raincoat on to go out again into the world.

Makoto might not be there when he got back, but Yuma would see him again. That kept Yuma warm despite the rain.