#i think maaaaybe this only works in an alr established rs with ken and even then pretty canon divergent version of him

[sandsorghum]

Randomly nursing thoughts about throuple dynamics between Nanami and Higuruma, how they'd navigate jealousy - Higuruma relying on his wits and Logic to do what he's always done, intimidate and browbeat his opponent into his side, when it comes to demanding more time with you - Doesn't actually care about reaching an agreement as much as he craves your acquiescence - but Nanami isn't having any of that - you're sweet and accommodating and generous and going to be the death of him, maybe of them both.

Higuruma seems convinced he can persuade you, easily at that - but Nanami knows it's not his rhetoric nor loquacious arguments, not because of his mind games but the breadth of your heart and the expanse of your insight, knowing Hiromi's not used to Love yet, his Love, the overwhelming intensity of it compounding his fear of loss; that most ancient of contradictory Truths and Higuruma well, he's always had such a combative relationship to Truth, has always had to scrap and chisel and fight for it, knows no other way to embrace it except by pinning it to the ground by the throat, and it's much the same with these feelings, it's molecular and it's in his marrow, clinging to his lungs so every waking hour spent apart from you feels like suffocation...

And Nanami would chastise him, except he's known for years exactly what that feels like, the length of that experience both burden and privilege in understanding now how precious what he has with you is, but it isn't as fragile as Higuruma thinks ("Or as he hopes?" Nanami wonders occasionally). Higuruma who, with all that background and expertise as an attorney, should be well acquainted with the multi-dimensionalities of Truth, and how often opposing plausibilities don't negate the other's existence, only adds nuance to the whole of the matter - doesn't he see it, that this is the fundamental condition of Love? To cherish presence meant accepting the risk of absence, the celebration of spring is an inherent invitation of winter too. Or maybe Nanami has faced too many existential threats on the daily as a sorceror to have the patience to coax this epiphany from Higuruma. Though you were the first to teach Nanami this too, long ago.

And the lessons...still hurt sometimes.

Emotional truths at their core usually contain some contradiction, semblances that should strengthen not weaken them when accepted; but Higuruma doesn't yet know how to navigate them, despite how adeptly he does this with facts, pulling them apart at their seams to cross-stitch larger realities (or perhaps, Nanami ponders wryly, because he is so adroit at that). Higuruma, caught in the jaws of juxtaposition, in Love's devouring ouroboros of ache and amelioration; so tunneling towards these differing truths, there is no coexistence, only corrosion.

Kento, he just needs time, you tell him. Time we gave each other, is what you don't say. He understands implicitly, there's no way to force Higuruma to realise this, or reckon with it. But Nanami wonders if you have the patience, if he does, to see you red-eyed at the front door every other week, or granite-faced every other mission with that asshole.

You're an angel, and Nanami has your ear. He could be the devil on your shoulder - he's only human after all.

Sure, fine - maybe Higuruma deserves salvation, but he can find it on a solo path. Higuruma's a wrecking ball, you're hurting yourself standing by his side. And you're hurting what you already have, with him. But it wounds Nanami too, to weaponise your own empathy and love for him against another man.

He could ask you why you keep trying, though he suspects it'd only crystallise your convictions and resolve. Or give you a taste of your own medicine, be cruel to be kind and call out your broken wing syndrome - myopic about his own hypocrisy in being an earlier beneficiary of it.

And maybe that's where his diagnosis errs. When you tell him with a watery smile he's healed you too, that the stinging showed where the wounds could be cauterised, and that if you have wings now, that thing with feathers

which perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all...

you owe it to him, you owe it to each other.

All of you do.