Page 375 of Mercy Written in Blood

Renji looked at their joined hands. Haruki's pulse moved against his palm.

"If I say it," Renji said, "it changes nothing."

Haruki became very quiet.

"What do you think I'm asking you to say?"

Renji did not answer. Haruki waited. He had always been good at that. Giving silence enough time to become more uncomfortable than truth.

Renji looked towards the monitor. The line rose and fell. A life translated into light.

"I love you," he said.

No ceremony. No preparation left. The words were almost soft enough to disappear beneath the machines.

Haruki did not move. Renji felt his pulse change anyway. One beat faster. Then another. He continued before fear could rebuild the mask.

"I love you. I have for longer than I allowed myself to understand. Perhaps from the garden. Perhaps before that. I do not know."

Haruki's eyes remained on him. Renji had seen those eyes in anger, humour, pain, command. Now they held nothing he could name safely.

"I believed refusing the word would make it less dangerous," Renji said. "As though grief required acknowledgement before it could enter. As though silence protected either of us."

"It didn't."

"No."

"I knew."

"Yes."

Haruki's thumb moved weakly across Renji's knuckles.

"You made me say it first without saying it at all."

"I know."

"That was cruel."

"Yes."

Haruki's eyebrows rose.

"You usually have an explanation."

"I have many. None are sufficient."

The surprise faded.

"I will not defend myself," Renji said.

Haruki looked towards the ceiling again.

"I love you too."

Renji closed his eyes. He had known. He had heard it in every argument, every refusal to leave him behind, every moment Haruki stood beside him when strategy suggested distance. Knowing had not prepared him for sound. Haruki's voice giving the feeling shape. Making it exist outside inference.

Renji opened his eyes. Haruki's gaze had returned.