Page 215 of Mercy Written in Blood

"They should have."

"They didn't."

Renji watched his profile — the same man who had offered his hand beneath the dinner table, who had stood beside him in the archive while his history fractured, who had once confessed, in Renji's apartment, that he had never wanted the life everyone assumed belonged to him naturally.

"You gave me the truth," Renji said.

Haruki looked back.

"What?"

"The night I told you what I am."

"I remember."

"You gave me something in return."

"You said it wasn't yours to repeat."

"It is not."

"Then why mention it?"

"Because I did not understand why you told me."

Haruki waited. Renji felt his own pulse — slow, steady, strangely loud.

"I do now."

The air between them changed. Haruki's gaze held his.

"Why did I tell you?"

"Because you trusted me."

"Yes."

"And because you wanted me to know you."

Haruki did not answer. He did not need to. Renji looked down at the folded umbrella in his hands.

"I told myself my answer was different."

"About being a vampire?"

"Yes."

"What did you tell yourself?"

"That honesty was practical. That you had already seen enough to become suspicious. That continued evasion would complicate the investigation."

"All very convincing."

"They were also partly true."

"The best excuses usually are."

Renji looked at him sharply. Realisation dawned openly on Haruki's face.