Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The yard is hot. Why couldn’t he have committed a crime in the fall or something? But no. He picked the heat of the summer. Staying inside felt suffocating, but he
risks melting completely outside.

Leon sits on the sweltering metal bench. He looks around at the other inmates while still avoiding their eyes. It’s funny…prisons in real life aren’t like how they are portrayed on TV and movies. Especially the movies his father used to watch. Loved all the American classics and shared them with him to the chagrin of his mother.

It’s…quiet. People have their groups, of course. Their social circles. Backup in case something does go down. But Leon has been here for nearly a month now, and not a single person has asked him what he was ‘in for,’ no one has even really started much of a fight. There was some aggression at times, but far less than he expected.

Nothing much has been directed to him so far. His cellmate practically ignores him, which is a-ok with Leon. He’s not here to make friends, and he isn’t here to make enemies. He’s here to serve his sentence for doing a stupid thing to someone who never gave a single shit about him.

He rubs his hand across his buzzed hair. Practically making complete contact with his scalp. He curses under his breath. He swore he’d never shave his head again after he left college baseball. After making it as a would-be sports star, they let him wear it pretty much however we wanted to the dismay of the league. Of course, he didn’t exactly do anything by the rules anyway. One of the reasons his career ended. And here he is. Buzzed his red hair off. It was a two-fold reason his lawyer devised.

1. Remind the jury and judge just who the fuck he is.
2. If he were sent to prison, his long hair couldn’t be used against him.

Made Leon feel really secure… His lawyer did his best, but it was obvious it was him. She didn’t die. So that’s the number one witness.

The scene…the blood…how it all looked…it made it really hard for him to say it wasn’t on purpose. But he really didn’t. Anyone would have done what he did. No one believed him. His lawyer probably doesn’t believe him either. His parents don’t know what to think, and that hurts more than he thought it would.

It just goes to show…an ex-baseball player loser and a pop star do not mix. Even if she was the one who reached out first, and even though they used to know each other so it’s not that weird that they reconnect.

Sayaka Maizono. THE Sayaka Maizono reached out to him while he was still playing baseball, and she was a trainee. To say anything was going on was wrong, but a man could dream.

They stopped talking or going to events together around the time she gained traction, and when he was losing his touch.

You wouldn’t know from looking at him now, but he was once the shit. He owned the baseball world. Teams across multiple countries wanted him and his arm. Sponsorships. Travel leagues. Wealth. Attention.
All because he was alarmingly good at the sport without really trying. It went to his head once money came into the picture. Before that, it was a bit of a drag. Highschool especially. After school practice was boring. He was already tired from school, and then he was expected to do drills? Fuck that. He spent most of the practices snoozing in the outfield. Which was suspicious, because that was not his position. His coaches just sort of let him go at some point simply because he’d still dominate once the games came around. Didn’t win him much favor with his teammates, but he didn’t really care. His punk attitude didn’t help him out with the rest of his classmates either.

When he was drafted after school, he really gained attention. Became someone. His family was thrilled, and the people who seemed to dislike him for his poor attitude in school suddenly didn’t care and wanted to roll with him.

He didn’t see that in his dumb youth, hung out with clout-chasing losers for the majority of his late teens into his 20s. That’s when he ran into Sayaka again. Another classmate who didn’t give him the time of day in school came around him through a friend of a friend. If there were obvious red flags, Leon didn’t see them. He didn’t want to see them.

They weren’t dating. Hell, they never did anything. She kissed his cheek once. They didn’t hold hands, and they didn’t hang out by themselves very often, if at all. But he held onto her metaphorically for years.

Until she stopped coming out. Always said she was too busy to go to his games and events he was invited to. Until she didn’t reply at all. During this time, his game was suffering. He couldn’t rely on his skill alone anymore. Being lazy wasn’t cutting it. Going to games hungover from the night before wasn’t acceptable anymore either. League grew to fucking hate him. Fans grew to hate him. Sponsors pulled out. It was a mess.

He couldn’t help thinking that’s why Sayaka stopped talking to him. She didn’t want to be around a loser. She could never return his feelings. Her girl group had started playing across the airwaves and getting pretty popular.

Leon let it stew. Like the dumbass that he is, he let himself get mad. Only causing his game to deteriorate and led to more on-field fights and increased loss of sponsors.

He got drunk. He got stupid. Just stupid and drunk enough to go by her place. Just stupid and drunk and angry enough to blame Sayaka for everything.

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

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He feels the knuckles against his face. He falls to the ground and doesn’t move until the guard breaks it up. He isn’t sure how long they were standing around him. He prefers not knowing. Once the excitement is over and everyone is gone, Leon stands and dusts himself off. He fills his aching lungs and walks back inside to further suffocation.

-

It was 3:30 already. Everything is scheduled to the minute here. He had a meeting with his lawyer, and then he had to work. Making fucking pocket squares this month. Bullshit. But it gave them something to do with their hands. It wasn’t hard labor or anything. Just sits at a fucking sewing machine and does a repetitive movement for a few hours. Leon doesn’t hate it. He can stare off into space once he gets the rhythm back. He’s doing that more these days. It’s relaxing.

He reports to the visitors' room and sees his sweaty lawyer waiting for him. Dabbing his forehead with a cloth, looking around nervously. Leon clears his throat as he approaches, as if the guards' heavy footsteps behind him wouldn’t alert him to their presence.

His lawyer turns and sees Leon, his face falling. Leon is pushed on the stool not unpainfully, getting strapped to the table as if he would attack his lawyer if left untethered. Like a rotten dog.

“W-what the hell happened? Did you go to the infirmary?” he hisses, sitting promptly after the guard left them.

“For what?” Leon asks, expression blank.

He looks back at him in disbelief before sighing, putting his face in his hands.

“Mr. Kuwata, if we need to transfer you—if you are being targeted—”

“What are you talking about? Stop it, ’kay?” Leon sighs, rolling his eyes.

“Kuwata, this is the third time we’ve met in the six months you’ve been here, and each time you have had a black eye. Let alone any other injuries. Are you getting into fights?”

Leon shakes his head. “What are you talking about…”

“Because if you are, I’d stop if I were you. If we take you to a hearing and you look like this, it won’t matter what went on. Getting an appeal will be very difficult—“

“We aren’t getting an appeal, and you know it, so let it go,” Leon sighs, not looking at him.

He inhales and joins his fingers in front of him.
“Mr. Kuwata…”

Leon’s eyes drop to the table, shaking his head slowly.

“I went to her townhouse in the middle of the night. I stabbed her; there is no debating that, so stop it. I mean it.”

His lawyer exhales. “So what do you intend for me to do? Do you intend to serve 3 years? Of this?” He gestures to him. The whole of him. Disheveled and beaten. A dimness to his pale gray eyes.

“I have to go,” Leon said, lifting his head to the door.

“Excuse me?”

Just as his words leave his mouth, the guard opens the door and comes in to collect Leon. His lawyer flips his watch and sighs.

“I gotta go to work,” Leon says as the guard releases him from the table, “I’ll try to get them to give you a pocket square.”

“Right.”

Leon walks out, and his lawyer exhales, standing too. He takes his phone out of his suit pocket and taps around before putting it to his ear.

“Hey, it’s Taiwa. Yeah, Kiyogure Taiwa. Can you meet me? Yeah, we can meet at the nonprofit.”

-

 

Visitor hours never amount to much for Leon. Everyone he had ever known heard about what he did and cut him off. Understandably so. Still, it’s his time to sit at a small table in nice air conditioning designed for those outside these walls. An hour every Wednesday. Keeping his eyes down at the table's surface, not to intrude on inmates who actually have visitors. Wives, kids, mothers, and fathers, everyone who has a loved one who hasn’t given up on them, exists to rub it in his face.

The door alarms as a guard opens the door for another visitor. About four of Leon’s fellow inmates look up from their families and smile at the newcomer. At least a newcomer to Leon.

He’s tall and smiley. Waving a large hand. His dreadlocked hair is wild and full behind him. A lively individual. His smile was dumb and naive-looking. His jovial demeanor irritates Leon immediately for some reason.

The stranger shakes the hand of a table close to Leon’s. He greets both the man and his wife like he knew them well. And the way they carry on, they seem to. The stranger with wild hair’s hoarse laugh fills the room.

He wishes them a good afternoon and moves to the next table only to do the same. Was he friends with everyone here? What the hell? And he’s going to multiple tables too, and the guards aren’t doing anything. Like the rules don’t apply to him.

He does his rounds and says goodbye to everyone. Leon stares unabashedly. What does he care if he is caught staring at this hippy loser? Probably smells like stale weed and patchouli up close.

He stops on his way out, and his eyes flick towards Leon as if he feels his eyes on him. His eyeline drops to Leon’s hands on the table, the corner of his mouth simply twists up, nodding to him once before the guards let him out and back out to roam free.

Leon’s brows furrow. What was that!? A smirk! Was he picking a fight? He nearly stood out of his chair immediately, but he couldn’t really do that. It wouldn’t be much later that visiting hours were over, and he would get quickly dragged away to his job.

A few days pass, and he forgets about that stranger. Well, not entirely. He dwells on what that smirk might mean. He greeted everyone else and gave Leon a patronizing smirk? Or maybe it wasn’t patronizing, maybe he was judging him in some way? He knows he doesn’t look his best these days. Hair is growing out wonky and in different lengths. He should really go back to the prison barber. But cutting his hair feels like losing. Like, he is at his worst when he is like this. Like he has no hope of pulling himself out of this hole. Maybe there wasn’t any.

The sewing machine hammers away loud and mechanical. They couldn’t have gotten them the nice, quiet ones his mom used to use, could they? His mom tried her best at the traditional arts. Anything to win over the in-laws. He could always tell that his dad’s old, country-Japanese-born-and-bred parents didn’t really accept his mom. But fuck, his dad couldn’t help who he loves? And they wanted him to be a businessman.

His parents liked to tell their love story to anyone who would listen. Leon would listen. Even when he was a moody teenager and pretended that love was boring and his parents were gross.

His dad had been sent to work in America for a little while. Help with some merger or something, that wasn’t the important part. His mom was getting back from a trip at the same time, coming back to town by way of the same airline. He asked anyone who would listen for directions. She volunteered when everyone else ignored him.

She got them lost. She swore she’d get them on the right track, but they ended up in the completely wrong direction. Dad was late to his meeting, and Mom was so embarrassed that she couldn’t help as much as she wanted to. But they were too busy laughing about it for either to be that upset.

They told him it was fate that they were both at the airport at the same time. Leon asked his dad once what would have happened if someone else had helped him.

He answered, “I would have made it to my meeting on time, but he would have lost out on a lifetime of happiness. And fate wouldn’t have allowed that.”

That answer really stuck with Leon. Leon used to believe in fate. His parents are proof of its existence. But maybe fate isn’t for Leon. He’s tried. But the problem with believing in fate? You think everything is fate. It makes you gullible and stupid.

The sewing machine grinds to a halt. Leon curses under his breath. His bobbin ran out of thread. He was really on a roll, too. He groans, standing up from his stool.

He hears the stomps of a few feet, and he stills. Fuck. His spool runs out, and now this. Maybe it was fate.

-

Leon woke up in the infirmary late in the morning. He doesn’t remember why he was here. It could have happened at any time. He didn’t have much memory after arriving at work.

Leon sits up, holding his heavy head, flinching as he rises. A glimmer of a memory enters his pounding head. The ‘having his head bludgeoned into a sewing machine’ variety. Jeez…how inconvenient.

“I’d go slow, my guy.”

A hoarse voice said, a smile in his tone. Leon slowly turns his head towards the voice. Was it…

Leon’s eyes fall on a grinning man with dreads tied in a rather large, twisted ponytail at the back of his head. He is leaning in the chair, his foot up on the corner of Leon’s bed, his knee up as if he were lounging in a living room and not a prison infirmary.

So it is the guy from before.

“W-what?” Leon asks dumbly, his brain not feeling very on top of it.

“You got yourself in quite the tussle, huh?” The stranger asks.

“Uh, who the fuck are you?”

He laughs again. The sound of it causes Leon’s shoulders to rise in defense.

“Right, of course. Waking up with a stranger by your bed would be weird, right? I’m Yasuhiro Hagakure! I’m buddies with your lawyer Taiwa! I call him Kigoo as a testimony to how close we are! He hates it. You should call him that too, it’s hilarious!”

Leon blinks at him. “Okay…Hagakure, what are you doing here?”

“Hiro!”

“Uh…”

“My name. You can call me Hiro.”

What a fucking weirdo…Leon avoids his hazel, almost gold, narrow eyes and his cheerful smile.

“Yeah, whatever. What do you want?”

Hiro frowns, arms crossing as he rocks back in his chair, his foot pressing against Leon’s bed.

“I was here. Someone said you were in the infirmary. So here I came.”

This was painful. This guy can’t be human.

“Okay…”

Hiro's smile drops a bit, his eyes moving from Leon’s fucked up face down to his torso. Leon watches him, and his stomach flutters. He feels so exposed suddenly. Like he was out in the middle of a field and caught in a helicopter's light.

Hiro hums, looking at him down at the bed.

“I’m just curious,” Hiro said, shifting in his seat, putting his foot down, leaning forward.

“What?”

“Why aren’t you fighting back?”

Leon tries to control his expression of shock. His heart drops unexpectedly.

“Who says I don’t!” Leon stammers.

Hiro gently lifts Leon’s hand off the bed. His brows uncharacteristically up to this point, pull, his smile softer.

“You’re knuckles.”

“H-how do you know I don’t kick them!” Leon snaps, tearing his hand out of his delicate touch.

Hiro hums a laugh. “Do you kick them?”

Leon’s face falls, and he softly shakes his head. Hiro smiles gently again. It stings like he struck him. Why do soft things hurt Leon more than being hit?

Hiro takes up Leon’s hand again, and his thumb swipes across Leon’s knuckles delicately. He chews on his bottom lip. His hazel eyes look at Leon’s unmarred pale knuckles.

“Can I be your friend, Leon?” Hiro asks, earnest and sincere, like a proposal.

Leon blinks out of rhythm. “W-why?” He asks without thinking. Wanting to withdraw immediately. What an uncool, insecure, and lame response to that question.

Hiro smiles more like he did before. Like he did with the other inmates. Dumb and jovial.

“Because I wanna! So, how ‘bout it? Can I come visit you sometimes?”

Leon looks away from his cheerful face. He can’t lie, actually having a visitor would be nice. Even if it’s not something he deserves. Wow. He…he…he definitely hit his head pretty hard.

“Yeah. Do what you want.”

“Hell yeah! Let’s start right now,” Hiro said happily, bringing his legs up to cross on his bed, lounging in the chair again.

Leon exhales boredly, kicking his legs out from under Hiro’s. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Tell me about yourself!”

Leon cringes back. Fighting the urge to say “ew.” Even though he wasn’t so socially inept as not to know that’s sort of the whole thing to being friends.

“Uh, shit, I don’t know. I’m 25. 5’9” Japanese-American.”

“Hey, what a coincidence! I’m Japanese-American too!”

Yeah…not that much of a coincidence when he looks like that. Leon doesn’t like to judge songs by their covers, but one look at Hiro tells Leon he has a feature on the album.

“Course, I’m 6 foot and 28, but hey, close enough! Whatcha like? You’re last name's Kuwata, yeah? So you’re dad’s Japanese, right?”

Leon nods. “You’re too, then, Hagakure?”

“Nah, I’m dad is the American. I got my mom's last name in the divorce. Or I guess ma got me in the divorce. I don’t really know!” Hiro laughs again. The sound sounding less dumb the more Leon heard it, it becoming something more gentle and familiar the more he heard it.

“Ah. Okay.”

“You’re parents still together?”

“Wow.”

“What?” Hiro asks, head tilting, “To forward?”

“Yeah, sort of,” Leon said, looking away.

Hiro frowns and crosses his ankles. “I guess I could ask if your parents have visited you.”

Leon’s shoulders rose to his ears, shrinking into the bed. “Let’s just not talk about parents, yeah?”

Hiro hums and smiles. “Yeah, sure. You got any questions for me?”

Would asking him what was wrong with him be too mean? Yeah, it definitely would be. Leon didn’t want to be a bitch. Not to the one person who has spoken to him that wasn’t his lawyer or the guards. Then again…he said he knew Mr. Kiyogure. Said they were friends, but were they more like colleagues than friends? He can’t say Hagakure looked very lawyer. Not even lawyer adjacent. What even was lawyer adjacent anyway?

“You come by the prison a lot, right? Everyone knows you. I saw you a week ago. You walked around the visiting hour like you owned the place.”

Hiro frowns. “I suppose I do. That room anyway.”

Leon’s face falls. Hiro grins broadly.

“My non-profit donated that room. Well, the room existed already, but I bought it. It was really shitty and gross. So, I pay for the air conditioning and the tables and the walls and the floors! Everything but the super locking doors. That’s all the prison. So sure, I don’t have free rein over the rest of the prison, but I can do what I want pretty much within the walls of the visitation room!”

Leon looks at him slack-jawed. That was a bit too much to unpack.

“Wait…so, you work for a non-profit?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What manner of speaking?”

“Like, I own it. Like a business. But not for profit. Non-profit. Don’t feel bad, it is hard to wrap your head around. Like, I do all the work and don’t make a cent from it. Hella tax write-offs though.”

Leon blinks slowly at him. He’s…he’s joking, right?

Hiro exhales gently, a smile on his face as he leans on his palm.

“See, my mom always told me that if you enjoy what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. And when being a charlatan didn’t work out, my next love was helping people.”

“Your first love was…tricking people?”

Hiro laughs carefreely. “Not entirely. I was right like, 30% of the time. Which doesn’t sound that impressive, but imagine 30% of the time I know the winning lottery numbers, hm?”

“Or only 30% of the winning numbers…”

Hiro laughs again. “That’s more like it, honestly!”

“So what? People got mad that you were legit only 30% of the time, and you switched it up to make a visitation room?” Leon asks.

“Not just a visitation room, a whole shelter too. Working on a third location as we speak.”

“Shelter?”

“Yeah, for prisoners when they get released. Temporary or otherwise. If they need the structure to keep out of trouble, we can do that. If they just need a place to crash while they work and save money, that works too! Have a butt ton of counselors and stuff on staff too. The first and second ones were successful, and the third will be on the other side of the county, so I can serve as many as I can.”

Leon swallows and looks at Hiro in a new light. What an…incredibly nice guy. That is, until his heart drops like he was doused in cold water.

“So what? You want me to do something for you? Get my friends and family to fund this, right? Kiyogure tells you I’m wealthy or something because of my previous career? Well, I’m not. By the time the sponsors made me pay out the ass for breach of contracts and lawyer fees and shit, I’m basically tapped out.”

Hiro looks at him with wide eyes. Leon could practically see the question marks above his head.

“Huh? Nah, I already have financial backers,” Hiro says, scratching his head, brows quirking in confusion.

“So what do you want with me!?”

Hiro sits up taller in his seat, his legs lowering to the floor. As if a revelation slowly seeps into his head. His mouth slowly shifts into a bright smile.

“We already covered that, man! I want to be your friend!”

Leon’s tight face falls. His mouth parts. The light emitted off Hiro in that moment should be studied. The way Leon’s heart swells and simultaneously stops in its tracks should be studied as well.

-

Two months have passed since Hiro started visiting Leon. Wednesdays have become his favorite day of the week. Not slowly. Not steady. Leon wasn’t cool enough for that. The meetings weren’t begrudging. He might not have opened up immediately, but it was hard for him to stay buttoned up around Hiro. His ache to please him came out of left field, though. It seems that Hiro didn’t have any expectations of him or their meetings, but Leon couldn’t help but care deeply about what Hiro thought. Did he have a good time? Does he think this is a waste of time? That Leon’s friendship is a waste of time? Will Hiro stop showing up eventually? Will he abandon him when he gets out of prison?

The questions fizz under the surface for the entire time they speak. Roaring in his head once Hiro left. On more than one occasion, Leon rubs his hand over the plaque in front of the Visitation room. Pretty much every time he has to walk through the hall, actually.

His callused batter's hand would smooth over the bronze katakana. Mirai.

Future.

What future does Leon even have? His career is over. He sort of hated it anyway. But any hope of making it into the music industry ended when he nearly took the life of the industry's sweetheart.

A guard nudges Leon with his stick to keep moving each time, and he does. Work awaits. They are making ties these days. What businessman would wear the pocket square or ties from a prison? Leon couldn’t even imagine. Perhaps one who loves the prisoner. He couldn’t imagine that either.

Still, Wednesday rolls around, and Leon sits in his seat and waits. The same show plays out in front of him. Hiro spends the first ten or so minutes of visitation greeting and chatting with the inmates and their visitors. Hiro always makes his way back to Leon and spends the rest of the time with him. Leon wants to be a good guy and tells him to take his time with the others. But Leon can’t ignore the grinding of his guts when he sees Hiro take a bit too much time without coming over to him. Laughing a bit too hard with the other inmates.

Not the ones that…never mind.

Hiro sits down at their table like he’s heavy. A big smile follows as he says his name so nice and warm. Like it belonged in his mouth. Like Hiro wasn’t doing charity work right now.

“It’s Leon!”

Leon’s pale face blusters each time. He doesn't give a big greeting like with the others. Leon doesn’t get a bro high five or a slap on the back. He gets a gentle greeting and a big smile. Makes his chest hollow almost. Is it…that they aren’t as close as the others? Or is it the opposite? Did Hiro tell them he wanted to be their friend, too? Or was that just Leon? No, that’s impossible. Leon still isn’t convinced that Hiro isn’t after something. Nefarious or just rife with ulterior motives.

“Hey, man.”

“You look good,” Hiro said, leaning on the table, his forearm up and holding up his head. His hand in his hair.

Why…is he twisted up like that? Why does he…look a little flirty? Like the teen girls in those romcoms his mother used to watch.

Leon pushes his hand through his red hair, trying to hide his embarrassment. His hair has grown quite a bit. His hair grows rather fast, and he hasn’t been to the prison barber.

“Wherever, man.”

“How’s your week been?” Hiro asked, shifting to sit normally.

“Same as last week. And the one before that.. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the guys that patted you down as you walked in earlier, but this is a prison.”

“Ohhhh, that makes sense. I was wondering why two guys really wanted to feel me up. I just thought they thought my pants were soft.“

Leon stifles a snicker. Hiro's smile cracks, and they both start laughing.

After that, as with all the other visits, they talk. Talk about nothing at all. Jump from one topic to the next without much of a throughline.

Hiro’s eyes rise to the clock on the wall, and Leon’s heart drops. The feeling of the weight returning to his body, reminding him that this is temporary. He's dumb for even forgetting. He forgets all the time.

Hiro turns his smile back at Leon. His hazel eyes turn a bit sad, too, flicking down to Leon’s hand on the table. His tan thumb moves to touch his hand softly.

Leon’s throat dries as he feels the tip of his thumbnail against his skin.

“You got work after this?” Hiro asks.

“Yeah. Same as always.”

Hiro nods, expression quiet. “You’re doing a good job.”

Leon swallows. They sit in the moment for a while. Hiro’s thumb pushes against the side of Leon’s hand before pulling his hand back. Right before Leon starts to push back.

“See ya, next Wednesday, Leon,” Hiro said with a big grin again, as if nothing had happened. Leon looks up quickly as he rises. He was running out of time to say it.

“Hey—wait!”

Hiro looks back as the guard comes in to tell all the visitors it is time to leave.

“I—I left something with the correctional staff for you! Just ask them for it on your way out, okay! I—I made them and they said we can send stuff to family but—“

Leon’s face burns and he looks down at the table. “I—I don’t know your address, so…they said I can leave it at the front for you.”

He can’t see Hiro’s face. Nor his expression. He can’t bear to look up. How embarrassing. Calling someone who’s only known him for two months family? Fuck. He’s so embarrassing.

He hears Hiro hum a laugh. Gently. Leon slowly raises his head to see the line of the other visitors file out while Hiro stands in front of Leon’s table.

His smile is understated. Softer than his face usually contorts into. His hazel eyes look back at Leon.

“Sure. I’ll do that. Thanks.”

Leon’s eyes grow. Hiro keeps smiling at him, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he waves and exits with the other visitors. Leaving Leon to sit in disbelief. Proud of himself for telling him about it. In disbelief about the reaction.

Chapter Text

“Check out, Jer,” Hiro hums, picking up his personal belongings that he left with the correctional staff.

Jirou turns in their chair and brings out the small white box. “At this point, just leave them in your car. You know what we collect.”

“And miss out on talking with you? Yeah, right!” Hiro laughs. Jirou rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, whatever, you’re such a flirt.”

“I am!?”

They both share a huffed laugh.

“I got something else to pick up. Anything else back there with my name on it? An inmate left something for me. Kuwata.”

Jirou turns and looks around before going “Ah.”
“I almost missed it because it says Hagakure. No one calls you that.”

“Yeah, we’re working on it,” Hiro chuckles half-heartedly. He takes the paper-wrapped package held out to him and nods.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Hey, Hiro, why do you come by here all the time? I know you got that visitor spot, but that doesn’t mean you have to come in all the time? The Togami’s gave some money to the dining hall, and you don’t see Togami scooping chow?”

Hiro laughs. “Yeah, but wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

Jirou sends him a look. Hiro hums and holds the package tighter.

“I got my reasons. Got a lot of people to see, ya know!”

“You come by and see the worst of the worst in here. You’re braver than people give you credit for.”

Hiro falters but recovers, waving and leaving. Reaching his car to see that he has a missed call. His brows furrow, not quite fitting his face. He didn’t let himself get mad too easily. It’s not worth it. Life has too much good stuff going on to be pissed.

Good food. Good feelings. Good weather. Good touches. Good fucks. Money to pay for stuff. Free stuff. The metaphysical pulls of the universe. Fairness.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on the rest if he can help it. Why make a big deal about bad shit when you can just make the people going through the bad shit feel better? He doesn’t claim that bad shit doesn’t happen; it is a give and take. But why let the bad stuff hurt you? Expectations? That’s dumb.

Still, his fist shakes around his phone. Sent a minute before he stepped through the visitor doors. He's glad he didn’t sneak his phone or show up late. Would have ruined their hangout. He would have revealed too much.

He leans against the trunk of his car in the parking lot. Two months and summer flees quickly. Autumn is biting at their heels. The air is less stifling. Turning crisper in the evening. Hiro is a summer guy. High sun. Tank tops and sandals. Long nights.

Leon is more of a Fall. He said so himself. Hiro looks between the lines and can’t help but think that it has something to do with baseball season being over. Leon didn’t say word for word, but he didn’t like playing. Said he got bored. But Hiro couldn’t help but wonder if it just got harder. Leon confessed that he didn’t have to try much when he was starting out. As he got older, he couldn’t rely on just showing up anymore.

Hiro vaguely remembers the headlines of this famous baseball star. Re-educating himself with a quick Google search a month or so ago, after they talked about it. He had seen the headlines. Leon splashed out in an SUV full of people. Throwing up middle fingers and his pierced tongue hanging out of his mouth, surrounded by an entourage of people. Including…her.

Fuck.

She recovered and recounted the situation exactly as the scene suggested, and that was that. Set the locks and throw away the key.

Hiro brings the phone to his ear.

“Kiyogure.”

“Kigoo, what the fuck!?”

Kiyogure exhales on the other end. “I see you finally got my message.”

“You know it is Wednesday. They called me? Why? To tell me to fuck off to my face? Or ears—whatever!”

Kiyogure is quiet for a moment. Talking quietly away from the phone.

“Are they there right now?”

He’s quiet for another minute before exhaling deeply.

“Yes. They are, but they are leaving—“

“Keep them there! I’m on my way. Tell them I’m on my way!”

Hiro hangs up and jumps in his car, and tears out of the parking lot. The law office is deeper into the city than he normally goes. He passes large business buildings, and everyone is going home for the day. He flies past Hope Corp and passes his non-profit before reaching the law office.

Hiro gets out of his car and dashes up the stairs and passes Kiyogure’s receptionist straight into his office. She tries to stop him, but he blows past her. He’ll have to apologize to her on his way out.

When Hiro opens Kiyogure’s office, he sees him sitting at his desk. Alone.

“Where are they?!” Hiro pants.

“They said I wasted too much of their time on this,” Kiyogure sighs, arms crossing in the orange light of sunset.

“That’s—“

“Hiro, they aren’t going to.”

“You told me to check it out. I checked it out, and there is no way. No way, that’s possible,” Hiro grunts, holding his side from the run upstairs.

Kiyogure inhales deeply. “I know what you mean. Trust, I do.”

“I don’t know, man. If you did, you’d fight harder, dude.”

“Hiro, I will pretend you did not say that! Mr. Kuwata is my client, and I am working hard for him. But I have to work within the law. I can only work with what he tells me. And when I reached out to you, he had given up hope.”

Hiro scratches his upper lip. His jaw fixed. Fury just under his surface. Not something he liked about himself. How he can compress it for a while, eventually needing to go nuclear.

“So, the security footage for the townhouse? They aren’t budging?”

“They shot me down immediately. There is no precedent to view it. I couldn’t help agreeing when the trial started several months back. Keeping as many eyes off it as possible seemed more appealing at the time.”

“Can’t you just get a subpoena for it?”

“It wouldn’t matter. I cannot show you the photos of the crime scene, but it is horrific. And points the finger directly at Kuwata as the aggressor. He went to her townhouse that night to take Miss Maizono’s life,” Kiyogure said regretfully.

“No.”

“Hiro…I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. It wasn’t appropriate.”

“No, that’s not it. You just told me to check in on your client. I’m doing this because I got to know him, and he didn’t go to her house to kill her!”

Kiyogure blinks slowly at him. “Is that what he told you?”

“No. He didn’t have to.”

Kiyogure groans and puts his face in his hands. “Hiro…”

“Be serious, Kigoo. You noticed his knuckles, too. You had to have. He’s not fighting back. He’s not the aggressor in prison, and he wasn’t the aggressor at Maizono’s either.”

“Say, I believe you. What do you think happened, huh? He goes over, and Miss Maizono just starts trying to kill him? Why? Listen, Kuwata's blood alcohol was off the charts. Other toxins were found too. He was high and drunk.”

“And he was upset.”

“Okay, sure. Even more credence to him being the aggressor. Listen, I don’t like it either—“

“She was his friend, and she stopped hanging out with him once she was famous. More famous than him,” Hiro said, hands landing on the desk.

Kiyogure blinks at him.

“You did your research, I know you did. Pop stars have to be super careful. Once they become famous, they have to be real careful who they are seen hanging out with. A guy and a girl, definitely not. Rumors of dating would ruin her career. Before they’re famous, no one cares. They won’t even care what made them famous to begin with. Like hanging around a famous baseball star and his entourage.”

Kiyogure pulls on his bottom lip while he thinks.

“So what? He goes to confront her with some smoke and liquid courage, she freaks out with him showing up, and gets aggressive. You’re thinking he was defending himself, yes? Because there is no denying what he did. He doesn’t even deny that. Told me himself.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

Kiyogure inhales and shakes his head slowly. “That doesn't really align with what you said about him in prison. He doesn’t defend himself now, so why?”

Hiro closes his eyes and lowers himself to the floor in front of Kiyogure’s desk. His fingers are still gripping the surface's edge.

“Because defending himself got him into this mess,” Hiro said quietly, “If he didn’t defend himself from the start, it would have been him hurt and not Maizono.“

“Why make that choice? Can’t imagine it’s anywhere similar. A small, young woman as opposed to men in prison?” Kiyogure questions.

Hiro’s forehead connects to the wood of the desk. His chest feels heavy. Wasn’t it obvious? It was to Hiro. There isn’t much obvious to Hiro that isn’t already understood by others.

“He’s punishing himself but in denial about it.”

Kiyogure inhales sharply.

After a beat of silence. Kiyogure scrubs down his face and exhales deeply.

“If we try and move it from assault to defense, that doesn’t mean he’ll be released right away, Hiro. I want you to set your expectations in reality, okay?”

Hiro looks up at him over the edge of the desk.

“What?”

“I can try to submit your findings and get testimony from the prison staff. That MIGHT be enough for consideration. It MIGHT be enough to subpoena the footage. But be serious, Hiro, self-defense needs to have a proportionate response. I can’t imagine they will overlook how excessive it appeared to be. Kuwata being under the influence won’t win him any favors either.”

“But that can change his sentence from years to months, right?”

Kiyogure sighs. “Possibly. But we’d be lucky if we can shave off a year, but it’ll be worth the try.”

“Hell yeah it is!”

Kiyogure hums a laugh. “I tend to agree.”

-

Hiro scrubs down his face. Leaning on the bricks of a heavy building he had memorized the floors and the walls and the faces at the front desks of.

He put a thin white cancer stick in his mouth and pats his pockets for his lighter. Finding his phone first. Crap. He had to respond. He hasn’t canceled a meet-up, well…ever. Even when he was deep in the middle of meetings with contractors or being at the building site every day on top of his prison visits, he would never disappoint them.

Hiro’s hand trembles around his phone. Cursing under his breath. There is no telling how long he will be stuck down here. It’s been days of saying the same goddamn statement. Just to different people. To the same people. To a general counsel. The rage under the surface sizzles painfully.

Shit. He could really use a fuck. But it’s best not to bring this energy to them. It isn’t fair to them. He might just have to be rough on himself later once this whole thing is done for the day. Whenever that’ll be.

Hiro tucks his phone back in his pocket and continues his search for his lighter in his wide pockets.

“Looking for this?”

He looks up and sees Kiyogure walking up. He holds out a kaleidoscope lighter to Hiro.

“Yo! We have the same lighter? Small world, huh, Kigoo?”

Kiyogure grits. “It’s yours, fool. You left it on the table.”

Hiro half laughs. “Oh. Makes sense.”

Kiyogure leans on the wall with him with a sigh. Hiro pulls his box of cigarettes out of his pocket and offers it to him. Kiyogure takes one with a huffed thanks.

Hiro lights Kiyogure’s cigarette before lighting his own. They draw in the smoke before exhaling it to float above them.

“This feels like a waste of time, but this is truly the only way to do this. I know this is taking you away from your duties. For that, I apologize.”

“Don’t, Kigoo. I want to do this. I just, y’know, wish it was done already.”

Kiyogure exhales and puts his head back on the bricks, watching their smoke disappear into the air.

“We are nearly done. We have enough doubt to pull the footage. They asked if we get the evidence we need, do we want to press charges on the other party?”

“Maizono?“

Kiyogure nods. “I told them I’d speak with my client, but I doubt he’d want to. He doesn’t know we are doing this. Which, I must say again—“

“You think it’s a bad idea. Yeah, I know. But we can’t. We…if it doesn’t go through, man…I don’t wanna get his hopes up if they slap us down, y’know?”

Kiyogure hums and puffs on his cigarette a bit more before stamping it out.

“I agree with you. But I still don’t like not sharing this with him. However, most of the time, my clients in the past were fighting for any way to be free. Even if they don’t deserve it.”

Hiro inhales, flicking the ash off his cigarette, eyes looking down. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“That being said,” Kiyogure says, kicking off the wall, his hand landing firmly on Hiro’s shoulder.

“I met up with Mr. Kuwata earlier this week, and he looked and sounded better than he has in the whole time he’s been inside.”

Hiro closes his eyes.

“You’ve been meeting with him for two months, yes?”

“Almost three now.”

Kiyogure hums with a slight smile. “Keep it up. He might actually be ready to be in front of a judge again. He was against an appeal before, but I think with your help he won’t be against it after all.”

“Hey…how long has he been inside now?”

Kiyogure frowns. “Eight—no, nine months at the end of November.”

Hiro inhales and exhales deeply, smudging out his cigarette too.

“Can we get him out of there, man?”

Kiyogure sighs and smiles. “We are. Just be a bit more patient. The CCTV should reveal a lot. We can only hope that our hunches are correct. I’m thinking you’re correct.”

“Are we done for the night?”

Kiyogure shakes his head, gesturing Hiro back into the building. Hiro groans but follows him anyway.

-

Hiro clings to his coat outside the prison. November forges on, winter is on its coattails. Digging into his skin through his knitted jacket. His pockets are far too shallow for his hands, but he dug them into the material all the same. The nervous energy claws at Hiro’s throat as he paces. He needs to be in there.

The guards would never let him. He is meeting with Kiyogure. It’s only supposed to be him and his lawyer. How will he react? Will he be mad that they worked behind his back? That Hiro has been hiding this whole thing from him since the beginning? It’s not a done deal. But it’s a hella of a lot closer to reality than it was. How much further his sentence will be, Hiro and Kiyogure could only guess. But it would be shortened. There’s no way it won’t.

Hiro had to admit it was hard watching the CCTV footage. He probably shouldn’t have seen it yet. They would for sure be showing it at the appeal, but Hiro begged Kiyogure to let him watch it before.

It was a good thing he did. He didn't want to react like that in front of Leon.

He cried.

He wasn’t horrified or sick or disgusted. He just cried. Watching Leon dodge Maizono’s attack. Disarming her by hitting her arm.

He should have run at that point. But, of course, as they all knew, he didn’t. Hiro cursed under his breath. With the hazy, black and white Leon picked up the knife and fought back. She was shouting things at him, but the soundless footage couldn’t say what she said. Not that whatever she said really mattered to the appeal. It’s not like she said ‘cut me up!’ or anything. Perhaps goading, insulting things, but that doesn’t give him the excuse to do it.

The best hope they have is a reduced sentence. Kiyogure hopes for a particular judge. One that he feels will be sympathetic. Hiro’s testimony will hopefully soften their hearts. It’s not as if Leon can really get a fair shake. Everyone who follows sports for any time knows who he is. And anyone with a radio and half a brain cell knows Maizono.

The sound of the heavy metal door opens and closes, cutting off Hiro’s panicking. He lifts his head to see Kiyogure tying his trench coat as he walks.

“Tell me! Tell me! Come on!”

“Calm yourself,” Kiyogure sighs.

He approaches Hiro by the trunk of his car. Stopping short of him and sighing.

“Can I go in? Come on, man, let me go in.”

“Visiting days for Kuwata aren't until Wednesday. You know this.”

Hiro looks at his friend's face. He isn’t giving him anything by his expression. He felt himself getting irritated.

“Tell me how it went then.”

Kiyogure sighs. “He is good with it. He is ready to go to the appeal once we have a date.”

Hiro sighs with relief and raises his arms to the sky.

“But, hey, Hiro. You might have a problem.”

“Me?”

Kiyogure exhales and puts his hands in his coat pockets.

“I told him about your involvement. Told him you’ll be speaking at the appeal. And you have been speaking to his capacity for some time now.”

Hiro froze over. “Fuck…is he pissed?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

Kiyogure inhales again as if preparing to say something delicate.

“I asked him if he wanted to move forward with the appeal.” He clears his throat, “And he asked if you thought it was a good idea.”

Hiro pauses.

“He said that…a lot actually. The majority of his answers to my questions were ‘Does Hagakure think I should?’ ‘What does Hagekure think?’ Those sorts of things.”

“Jeez…”

“Hiro, you should be careful—“

“He can’t even say my name when I’m not around? Come on, I get, like, being polite or whatever to my face, but he could at least call me Hiro around you! I’d settle for Yasuhiro if he isn’t ready yet, but come on!”

Kiyogure looks at him, dumbfounded. Hiro looks at him and hums.

“What?”

“That’s…that’s all you saw that was wrong with what I said?”

Hiro inhales deeply and crosses his arms. “I don’t know. What’s so wrong with that?”

Kiyogure’s brows furrow, and he growls like he does when Hiro doesn’t understand basic things.

“Aren’t you worried at all that he might become dependent on you!?”

“Dependent? Come on, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Hiro, listen to me. It's my fault, I take that, but do you not see what is happening here? He thinks you are his friend—“

“I am his friend.”

“Hiro…”

“He is my friend.“

Kiyogure breathes in and holds it for a moment before releasing it.

“Mr. Kuwata gets attached. Maizono started avoiding him, and he got mad enough to show up at her place. She might have been the one who introduced violence to the interaction, but he still became desperate enough to go to her place. Are you not worried at all?”

“No, not really.”

Kiyogure sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m not worried because I don’t plan on avoiding him.”

“Hiro.”

“He’s my friend and he's gonna get my attention whenever he wants.”

“Hiro.”

“Stop it, man! I’m not worried about it. Besides, once he builds his confidence, he won’t rely on me as much. It’s how it always goes.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“That’s easy,” Hiro grins. “He just relies on me for the rest of our lives!”

Kiyogure’s face falls.

Hiro looks back at the prison. “I’ve never felt anything this strongly before. It’s way more than 30% this time. I was supposed to meet Leon. I’m ready to be his friend for as long as he wants to!”

Kiyogure looks back at the prison, too.

“Just be careful. It’s a heavy task. Taking care of someone.”

“I’m up for it.”

Kiyogure puts his hand on Hiro’s shoulder. “You are certainly good at it.”

Chapter Text

The flash of cameras used to be so exciting and became something close to normal. Even with his career going down the toilet, they weren’t bad. He believed any publicity was good publicity. Damn, does he disagree with that thinking now...

He covers his eyes with his arm as he gets pushed out of the car and surrounded by the people who picked him up from the prison. They threw him in a suit and gave him new shoes, and got him into the van to face this mess.

Leon could see Kiyogure waiting for him at the stairs of the court. Once he reached him, Kiyogure put his arm around Leon’s shoulder and pulled him up the stairs, yelling behind them.
“No comment!” Over and over until the photographers were forced to stay on the stairs by the police.

Once inside, Kiyogure sighs.

“Jackals. All of them are jackals.”

Leon hums nervously, looking over his shoulder at the doors. Kiyogure claps and draws Leon’s attention back. Gesturing for him to follow him. They walk down the hall to a small room.

“Okay. Simple process. Just as we spoke about before. It won’t be a full redo of the previous trial. They are going to focus on the errors and listen to the new evidence. That means watching Maizono’s townhouse’s CCTV footage.”

Leon tenses and nods slowly.

“I know. But it is necessary. The first few seconds are all we need. When I show it, I will be able to stop it whenever I want. However, Maizono’s representation will have access to the footage too, for fairness. It is very likely they will elect to show the rest of the video. They would be fools not to.”

Leon interlaces his fingers to keep them from shaking. He nods stiffly, putting on a brave face.

“Mr. Kuwata, please do not worry. It is nothing that they didn’t already have before. There is no jury. This is not new information. Just visual evidence. No more than Maizono’s injuries last time. We have the beginning moments of the altercation, and we have Hiro’s testimony, as well as the correction staff at the prison that we didn’t have last time.“

Leon nods. What his lawyer is saying should relax him. But he feels more shaky than he did when he left the prison.

The door opens, and Leon’s chest hollows.

Hiro pants in the doorway. He wore a dark brown suit. His glasses sat low on his nose. His copious amounts of twisted hair were pulled up and out of his face. He looks so…professional.

“Thank the gods!” He pants, doubling over a bit.

“Hiro, what are you doing? You are supposed to be in the courtroom,” Kiyogure hisses.

“I got here before it started,” Hiro said loudly, ignoring Kiyogure, looking at Leon.

Leon froze as Hiro dove forward and held Leon’s unshackled hands.

“We got this! Okay!”

Leon felt his face heat up and his eyes sting. Fuck. Stop! Keep it together!

Leon shakes his head like an etchosketch before looking up at Hiro, nodding more determined.

“Hell yeah!” Hiro grins.

Kiyogure ushers Hiro out. Their hands loosen before Hiro is forced to let go. Leon’s hands, completely on their own, reached out for him as he let go.

“I’ll see you in there!” Hiro grins, not noticing at all as he books it out of the room at Kiyogure’s pushing.

“Jeez. All right, where were we?” Kiyogure sighs.

-

The appeal is brutal. Leon’s brain scrambles as they go over and over what he did. Like a sharp pain every time Sayaka’s representatives spoke about it. Leon couldn’t look at the correctional staff as they spoke about him. He couldn’t help but think they were lying about all the things they said about him. How diligent he’s been. How quiet and calm and productive he’s been. Flying through his work hours. Being in the places he’s supposed to be when he’s supposed to be there. Thriving on the structure. As if he had any choice in the matter. The ones who fought the structure were fools who got punished.

Leon just had self-preservation. Not something he thinks he should be praised for. Of course, he wasn’t fighting back when the inmates fought him, so he guesses self-preservation is a spectrum.

Leon hazards a look up at Hiro as he took the stand. He spoke about him and their meetings. Leon’s chest felt tight at how seriously Hiro conducted himself. He answers all the questions given by Kiyogure and by Sayaka’s team.

Damn. He looks good like this. Serious, Leon means! —not like…not like anything else. His tie is tight to his long, slender neck. Not relaxed like his clothing usually is.

His tie…

Leon’s throat constricts. The yellow paisley pattern. His eyes get hot. He could never have imagined he would wear it. Something Leon made. And he spoke on Leon’s behalf.

Why didn’t he just throw that tie in the back of his closet? Forget about it. Why…why was he doing all this?

“I’m doing this because it’s what’s right.”

Hiro’s voice penetrated Leon’s thoughts. Leon looks up quickly. Sayaka’s representation paces in front of Hiro’s seat.

“You’ve watched the footage, haven’t you, son?”

Hiro’s brows flicked down. An almost furrowed brow. A look that looks foreign on that easy-going face.

“Have you?”

Leon hears Kiyogure exhale, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, Mr. Hagakure, I have,” he rolls out the screen again, “Now, in your opinion, you think someone who is capable of this…”

He scrolls through the footage, pressing play over the silent black and white footage of Leon slicing at Sayaka.
Hiro’s eyes do not break from the screen, but Leon can see Hiro’s grip on his folded knee tighten.

“You can confidently say that this man should be allowed to walk free?” He probed, a look of false empathy.

Hiro shifts in his seat.

“A shorter sentence, actually. And that’s Kiyogure, I am…merely here as a character witness.”

“Hm. Well, we both know you are more involved than that…”

Kiyogure stood quickly. “Your honor!”

Sayaka’s representative breathed an apology. Hiro glares up at him.

“A character witness. You are a character witness, Mr. Hagakure.”

“Yeah. And?”

Kiyogure drums his knuckles on the table. “Get it together, Hiro…” he breathed quietly.

Leon looks from Kiyogure up to Hiro again. His brows pull, and all he wants to do is disappear.

“Give us your character witness. Describe Mr. Kuwata to us.”

“I mimic what I said to Kiyogure. The correctional officers told you everything. He’s been a model prisoner—“

“I don’t want to hear what the correctional officers said; I already questioned them. And I do not care what you said during Mr. Taiwa’s turn. Tell me.”

Hiro inhaled and exhaled. His eyes flick off of him to Leon.

“He’s a good guy. He was a talented baseball player, but hated it. Always looked for more. Connection. He…he thrives on connection. His fame-chasing friends gave him that. Maizono offered that. But they were false. When your client disregarded that connection, he sought answers,” Hiro said strongly, not breaking eye contact with Leon.

Leon flinches back but holds his eyes too.

“Your client had the weapon. Your client tried to use that weapon. That’s what the footage reveals. That’s why Kiyogure is advocating that Kuwata’s sentence be reduced. He was scared. He felt threatened.”

“That display of violence—that is what is being advocated for? Say Mr. Kuwata is in traffic and he perceives the other driver is being threatening, he kills a guy next time? What then—“

“That’s not going to happen—“

“You don’t know that, Mr. Hagakure!”

“I do!”

Leon flinches at Hiro raising his voice. There were murmurs around the room.

“The correctional officers said everything to you and Kiyogure! That’s not going to happen again—“

“I already told you, Mr. Hagakure. Right now, I do not care about what the other character witnesses have said. I do not care about what Kiyogure got during his time. Right now, I only care about what you have to say.”

Hiro sighs deeply and holds it for a second.

Leon grabs Kiyogure’s arm, pulling him down.

“Maybe we should stop this! I-I can’t stand this anymore, man!” Leon hisses quietly to him.

“It’s okay. Hiro has got this. We’ve practiced a lot, and he’s worked really hard to get this off the ground. Let him finish this.”

Leon’s brows furrow.

Kiyogure sighs. “I do wish he’d get it over with already, though…he’s getting goaded and he’s falling for all the tactics we worked on.”

Leon looks back over at Hiro.

“Leon isn’t rash. In the time I have met him, he has been considerate and warm and funny and friendly. It took him a bit to warm up to me. I can be a lot to take. But I was asked to talk with him because…” Hiro’s voice faded off, his eyes softened, and he looked over at Leon again.

He breathes in and clears his throat.

“Because he gave up on himself. He feels a great deal of remorse for what he did. He does not deny what he did. He can still serve time for what he did. I think even if he were to be released right now, he’d choose to go back to prison. I really believe that.”

Hiro smiles sadly.

“But, I’d much rather that than have him allow himself to die in prison. Because that’s what he was going to do. It's what would have happened. He fought back against Maizono, and he hasn’t fought back since. He knew that Maizono was the one with the knife to begin with, and he failed to share that at the start of all this. If he had, he would have gotten this ruling to begin with. So, we just want him to get the ruling he deserves. As Kigoo has stated. Self-defense with added time for brutality.”

Leon’s eyes close. He knew as soon as Kiyogure approached Leon with the appeal that Hiro had a lot to do with it. His friendship with Leon was calculated by Kiyogure. Kiyogure just made sure his client was okay without crossing some lines he knew he couldn’t cross. Leon knew the feeling of suspicion wasn’t just in his head.

The problem? Leon didn’t even care…Kiyogure told him it was something Hiro and he had cooked up. The appeal being Hiro’s idea. Getting the footage being Hiro’s idea. If Hiro wanted him to, he’d do it. Even if their friendship wasn’t organic or even real at the end of the day, Leon still didn’t care. He may lose Hiro after this. That hurt a lot, but if it was the natural conclusion, perhaps that is for the best. He’d have done his charity in Leon’s life and dip. Leon would rather that than have another fake friend stick around because they felt guilty. Hell, who is Leon kidding? That has been the majority of his friendship up to this point. It would be nice if it were real for once…

Hiro was released from the stands, and he returned to his seat behind Leon and Kiyogure, along with the other character witnesses.

After what feels like hours of deliberation. The judges return. Their mouths open, and their words barely register to Leon’s ears. The gavel hits the desk, and Kiyogure slapping Leon’s shoulder triumphantly, shakes Leon’s brain back in his head. All the sounds of the courtroom hit his head at once.

Hiro clears the partition, his body colliding into Leon’s as he stands slowly. The sounds of his yells are deafening.
Kiyogure shakes hands with all the correctional officers who agreed to speak. Hiro is jumping, his arms around Leon still.

Leon turns his head and looks at Hiro’s body pressed against Leon’s shoulder.

He’s…he’s touching him…and he’s not getting yelled at by the guards to back up. He’s not shackled.

Leon pulls Hiro’s arms off of him, turning into Hiro’s body and fully hugging him. Leon’s arms wrap around his neck, and he clings.

He feels Hiro’s breath hitch for a beat before throwing his arms around him, too. Leon feels his lean body tightly against him. His scent surrounds him. Nice, warm cologne mixed with cigarette smoke and sweat.

Leon feels the hot tears fall from his eyes down onto Hiro’s suit jacket. He’s so happy. And he is going to pretend it’s for the sentence reduction.

Kiyogure put Leon back in the room from before as he handled the rest. He returns after about an hour.

“Kuwata, how do you feel?”

“Kinda like I’m going to barf…” Leon chuckles weakly.

Kiyogure hums a laugh. “Common reaction. Okay, so, because I am,” he hums and shrugs, “the best. Since you’ve served just about ten months, you will finish out your year. You will then move to a different part of the prison and serve two months. Just three more months, Kuwata. By February, you’re a free man.”

Leon’s brows curve, and he wipes down his face.

Kiyogure smiles. “You are allowed to be happy about this. Hiro is pissed by the two months, but a wins a win.”

“Is Hagakure still here?” Leon asks quietly.

Kiyogure frowns a little. “I sent him home, but I think he’s around here somewhere. Wanted to see you off. Speaking of, the guards will come by to collect you in just a moment to take you back. They are clearing the reporters first.”

Leon nods.

“Don’t worry about anything. Hiro already has plans for you to move into the Mirai house when you’re released. That made the judge more comfortable with the reduction. You’ll have accountability upon release. We got a sympathetic judge. One that likes the work Hiro is doing, so we can thank Hiro and his foundation for that one, too.”

Leon nods again, a cold feeling forming in his guts.

“How can I ever repay him…”

Kiyogure chuckles. “Hiro isn’t the kind that needs to be repaid. I guess, stay out of jail?”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

Kiyogure and Leon smile at one another. Guards knock and get Leon reshackled and take him out of the room and down the hall to the exit.

“I guess no more Wednesdays, huh?” Leon asks Kiyogure as they walk.

“That’s up to you and Hiro, I guess.”

Leon looks up and sees Hiro, his suit jacket over his shoulder. He perks up and waves them down.

“We can’t stop Hiro, walk and talk,” Kiyogure said as he joined them.

“They wouldn’t let me go back to the room!”

“Yes, you aren’t allowed back there. You should never have been able to go in before,” Kiyogure hisses.

“Leon—today was fucking great! This will be the fastest three months, I promise!” Hiro said cheerfully, way more like himself than in the courtroom.

“Yeah. I hope so.”

The guards push him through the doors past Hiro.

“I’ll see ya Wednesday, okay!”

Leon looks behind him quickly in awe. Hiro grins widely and waves after him.

Leon grins broadly, too. “Yeah! I’ll see you!”

He sees Hiro’s smile fade a bit, but the doors close before he can see anything more.

-

The next few months went slowly. Probably due to the anticipation. Hiro kept coming by every Wednesday and even showed up in a Santa hat for Christmas. Leon hasn’t laughed that hard in a long time. The feelings Leon feels around Hiro are something he doesn’t pay much attention to when Hiro is with him. But similar to how he used to feel about his friendship with Hiro, as soon as Hiro is absent, Leon melts down. Feels a cold weight in his chest. When he closes his eyes, he feels Hiro’s body against his. The first hug he has gotten since he’s been here. Hiro touching Leon’s thumb against the table created a drop in Leon’s ocean, but that embrace created a tidal wave.

He fears what more would feel like…what more would be? What is this feeling? And how can he stop it? Leon isn’t homophobic; it’s more like, that’s not him. Sure, he’s done some…dubious things that, if you squint, could say were pretty gay. But what happens on the road stays on the road. But this is unprecedented. And it freaked the fuck out of Leon if he thought about it too much.

Hiro is his friend. He’s done an incredible thing for Leon. It’s gotta stay at that. And it will. He’s going to see to it that this stupidity is over and done with. He’s not going to complicate the first friend he’s made in…well, a really long time.

Leon rolls over in his bunk and wills February gets here fast. Normalcy. That’s what he craved.