author's note: this is more of a scene than a story, and i apologize for the shifty quality that results from. it's what happens when i combine a character study (or, a character get-in-the-head-of) with "so, whatever happened to shinjiro's body?" overall, i'm not too happy with this, but i'm gonna claim that "it's a scene fic!" and try and pass it off that way.

Mitsuru is holding a box. Cheap, thin wood and rectangular, taller than it was wide. The lid on top, carefully tied down. She holds it cradled in her arms, descending the steps, and Akihiko takes one step towards it, then another. Her face goes colder; he doesn't notice.

Ten inches high, six inches wide, 25 by 15 centimeters, he want to throw up, he wants to be sick. Shinji, he thinks: Shinji, Shinji. She descends the stairs leading up to the city morgue and he reaches for the box, pulls it from her breast, doesn't notice if she protests or not. Cheap wood, thin wood, a stupid little bow of string. He doesn't make a sound because there are no sounds to make, but he shivers and sits on the bottom step, clutching the box towards, holding it between his knees and arms and stomach—but he unclenches when Mitsuru sits beside him.

"Akihiko..."

Splays his legs out in front of him, holds it more casually in his lap, tries to remember how to breathe. No big deal. No worse than the funeral, no worse than the service, the fucking eulogy, the way the auditorium echoed when empty. Caesar watches quietly, and allows this last weakness. Polydeuces no longer calls for his twin.

"You should have waited for me." His voice is thick and he doesn't recognize it. Mitsuru folds her hands in her lap and looks at them, copying Akihiko's posture with a straighter spine.

"I... didn't want to put you through it."

His breath hitches. If he cries in front of Mitsuru, he can deal with it, but this is the street, and there are other people. They may forgive a crying man at a morgue, but Akihiko can't. She lays a hand, fingers one by one, on his shoulder blade, his back, and it is surprisingly hot. He taps on the side of the box, the sound faint through the leather of his gloves.

It doesn't hit him fast or slow; it's been hitting him all day, he hasn't slept and he doesn't think it'll help. This is it, he thinks, a drumming on the box; Mitsuru's hand presses harder. This is it, this is all that's left, this box, small box, barely weighs a thing, cheap wood.

"Akihiko..." He doesn't know what to do with her tone of voice; neither does she, as she removes her hand. Places it on his arm, mechanical comfort, exactly like in a movie, awkward for them both.

"I should have done it." The least he can do is pick up his best friend's remains from a morgue. The very, very least.

She only picks fights she can win; he'll fight with anyone, anything. Shinji was—and the past tense, even in his head, makes him stop his fidgeting. She doesn't object, she doesn't argue. She slides her hand down his arm, to his hand, to the box. Hand over hand over wood over ash. The three of them together. This doesn't count as together.

He looks at her—her face—for the first time, and is startled to see that she has been crying. Her expression is defiant in reply, and for the first time in his life, Akihiko wants to reach over and touch her, even kiss her. Go on and laugh at that, he thinks at Shinji when the impulse fades, which doesn't take long.

Like she sees it, realizes, she takes her hand away, to her lap, he looks back at the ribbon holding the box closed, chases after it with his fingers, doesn't pull. "I've arranged for a grave site."

"Right. Thanks."

"At Yanaka." And he is so startled that act is the only thing he can think of to do; he wheels his face up towards her and she's flushed at the admission of her forwardness; Miki's ashes are at Yanaka. Her eyes and cheeks are red and all at once he wants to kiss her again, and does—leans forward, darting fast, awkward, quick pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth.

It still doesn't feel like anything much, kissing Mitsuru on the steps of a morgue, Shinji's ashes in his lap—Shinji'd always made cracks that Akihiko was Mitsuru's bitch, that someday they'd realize and make preppy babies together, and he suddenly realizes Shinji is wrong. So there, Shinji—I'm not attracted to her, you're—

—A wooden box in my lap. And he takes his mouth from hers and drops his head into her shoulder. He can feel Mitsuru swallow and her arms move around him. "You're grieving," she informs him so soft he wishes she'd just punched him instead.

He tries to apologize, but the words don't come out. The only thing stopping him from making excuses is the fact that he never has in his life: "Thank you," he tells her, and holds Shinji tighter.