The Specter of the Kujou Family

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Death Mark/Shiin
Chapter Summary: Mashita wants to know how this all started.  (Also, he'd be happy to know Yashiki is alive.)
Word Count: 1625
Rating: Gen leaning shippy, less angst than yesterday's post
Spoilers: Post Good Ending, so identity spoilers, ending spoilers, general game spoilers...
Warnings: As per yesterday's post, Mashita uses ableist language.  This is not me condoning said use of ableist language, and I'm trying to be better about it in general in other fic (and everyday life).

          Visions of a ghostly Yashiki haunt Mashita until he growls and drives over to the Kujou mansion.  There’s a light.
          No one had heard from Yashiki since he’d returned to the mansion.  The only clue they had that the scruffy man wasn’t dead in some ditch somewhere was that that damned fortune teller insisted the ‘specter of death’ had disappeared from that city, and Mashita’s highly motivated to disregard such testimony as evidence.  The only thing that had held him back was the embarrassment that he actually cared.  He hated to admit it, even to himself, but it’s true.  He’d tried so hard not to get attached again, and then this creep with glasses stumbles into Mashita’s life and his emotions are making decisions without him again, and it’s all one big headache.
          If the man’s dead—he can’t be, is all.  He’ll have dozed off in the library or at a desk again, pouring over every scrap of information they could find.  It’s even possible his Mark’s not gone—
          Stop it, he chides his brain sternly, before he knocks.  And tries the door.  And no matter how many times he tells Yashiki he should start locking the door, the man never does.  Idiot.
          A few days are enough to get a handle on the man’s habits, particularly since he doesn’t change them, and once he checks for a sleeping Yashiki in the library and at the desk in the room he’d claimed as his, he heads to the kitchen.  Bingo.  Yashiki’s standing there, with his back to the counter, hunched over a little, coffee in hand.  The bags under his eyes, if possible, look even worse, and he’s staring into space.
          “Yashiki—” he begins his lecture, when the man startles like a frightened rabbit, coffee spilling all over his hands and arms.  The detective lunges forward, grabbing a napkin left out, desperately trying to get the coffee off, pausing biefly to tear the cup from Yashiki’s slight death grip—only to realize, halfway through, that the coffee isn’t hot.  It’s not even lukewarm.  No need for hospital visits today, thank goodness, though Yashiki standing staring into nothing for long enough that a freshly poured cup has gone cold is not nearly a good sign, either.
          The man doesn’t make a move to help, just stands there trembling.  Staring as if he’d seen a ghost, except—no.  Mashita can unfortunately say from personal experience he’s a hell of a lot calmer about it.  And then he notices something else from cleaning the liquid off.  Turns the wrist over, and it’s bare.
          Which means the old hag wasn’t lying after all.  Relief quickly turns to anger, though.  “Why didn’t you call me?  I promised to buy you a drink!”
          If anything, the man shrinks even further, pulling away slightly.  “I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to see me.”  Yashiki won’t match his gaze.  “This was all my fault, after all.”
          “I knew you had a hell of a guilt complex, but I didn’t realize it was that bad,” Mashita scoffs, and all the man does is bite his lip.
          Then he looks up, and it’s weird.  Because Mashita’s seen that burning determination before, but not often.  Just before fighting a ghost, really.  “I’m not kidding, Mashita.  I remembered everything, who I was before the Mark, and everything that happened, all of it, is my fault.”
          The detective can’t believe it, given the way Yashiki is, but the least he can do is hear him out.  “I hate not knowing the truth, and if anything, that sounds like even more excuse to bring out the booze.”
          Yashiki huffs a laugh despite himself, relaxing despite himself.  Good.  Satoru will drag him down to earth kicking and screaming if he has to.
          “I should have remembered that,” he acknowledges.  He doesn’t have to say where they’re going—bedrooms have the requisite sitting space, but would be inappropriate, dining table in the kitchen is a little small and is certainly uncomfortable, main hall would need them to drag around seating to get anywhere, the library has the most comfortable seating close together.  Not like the detective would forget this mansion anytime soon, probably not for the rest of his life.  And Mashita can say with certainty he doesn’t worry as much about the old man’s back if he’s fallen asleep in the library than at a desk.  Some of that seating’s more comfortable than his own futon in his shitty little apartment.
          Once they’re seated, Yashiki shifts, and looks distinctly embarrassed.  “I should have offered you something to drink—”
          He makes to stand up, and Mashita shoves him right back down.  “Mansion this size, it’d take way too long for you to go and get something.”  Instead, he brings out a flask from his coat.  He hadn’t even been sure why he’d grabbed it before he’d left, but now he’s glad he did.  The man blushes.
          “Ah—yes, I suppose that’s fine,” he mumbles, and Mashita thrusts it into his face.
          “Sounds like you need it,” he insists, and Yashiki takes it, hesitant.
          “I’m not much of one for alcohol,” he confesses, but takes a big swig anyway, coughing a little once he swallows it.
          The detective muses, “You’re probably as much of a wimp about smoking, huh?  It’s relaxing, but…”
          Again, he’s met with a faint smile.  “Caffeine’s really my only drug of choice.”  He pauses, stalling a little, before asking abruptly, “You remember the conversation we had where I asked what would happen if I didn’t like the person I was?”
          “Like I’d forget.”  Satoru’s definitely curious where this is going.  Yashiki had kept him mostly up to date, but obviously, in the end a lot went down.  Stuff that the homeless man, doc, and fraud couldn’t relate.
          “Well.”  Yashiki sighs.  “You’re looking at the last Kujou heir.  Kujou Masamune didn’t die.”
          Mashita’s thoughts grind to a halt.  Definitely not what he’d been expecting.  “So, Saya—”
          Kujou—that’s weird to think—inhales suddenly, but at least he doesn’t start sobbing.  Satoru wouldn’t know what to do.  “I saw my baby sister’s body and didn’t even know her.”
          “That sucks.”  For once, it’s heartfelt.  Kujou still flinches, but it’s less pain than if he was a complete jerk bout it.  Probably.
          “So, what Yasuoka-san said was right.  The Kujou family was cursed.  Probably because of Mary.”  The full horror of what the older man said echoes in Mashita’s head, and he’s aware for once he’s not able to school his face into sardonic uncaring.
          “All this time, she was yanking our chains, huh?”  No wonder she’d basically threatened him to leave.  She’d realized he’d cared too much.  Probably wanted to stop the calls, too, cut Kujou off from any kind of support, the bastard of a doll.  Pumping a whole round of bullets into her probably wouldn’t do much, but it’d make him feel better.
          “I—”  As expected, Kujou seems startled.  Like he’s surprised Mashita’s putting the blame where it belongs, with the perpetrator.  “But the plan was Masamune’s!  He knew people could die, and he didn’t care!”  Ah.  The crux of the problem finally makes itself known.  The bleeding heart is the opposite of his past, logical self, or whatever.
          “Unless he planned this whole thing with Mary, that’s not on you.”  Even then, Yashiki had been just as much a victim, and it’s not exactly a case of just desserts.
          “N-no, but—” Kujou—Yashiki sounds frustrated.  He actually wants Mashita to condemn him, apparently.  “He was trying to re-seal her, but he knew his plan would kill people, and he didn’t care.”
          Mashita sighs.  Because he knows he’s been viewed as rude and uncaring, which ironically might mean he has a few things in common with Masamune.  “Didn’t care, or knew, deaths or not, it had to be done?”
          Yashiki blinks, slow and owlish behind his glasses, and the detective snorts.
          “You think being a cop is easy?  Hard calls are part of the job description.”  Or, well, they had been.  Being a private detective, or at least setting up to be one, is proving to be no easier.
          “He—he didn’t care.  The only person he’d ever cared about was Saya.”  Interesting.  Unexpected, but interesting.  Lacking in empathy, while his new self…
          Mashita stretches, for lack of anything better to do.  “And here you care enough for the both of you.  I guess I can cut you a little slack, but you have to remember, you’ve got people who care if you live, now, and I bet your sister would want you to live, too.  So try to empathize more with the living than the dead, okay?”
          Yashiki just stares.  He’d probably been spending too long in his own brain beating himself up.
          “When you risk your life over and over to save strangers, when it would’ve been easier to abandon them to save your own neck, you can’t exactly say you’re not more the person you want to be now.  Guess I should pat myself on the back for some good advice, huh?”  It’s not that easy, the detective knows.  Yashiki’s going to blame himself for all the death, especially his sister’s.  He’ll probably hate Masamune for the rest of his life, too.  But with the ragtag group of former Mark Bearers he’s assembled, he’s got a good social network already pre-assembled.
          The silence stretches on, and Satoru starts to worry that he’s broken the man somehow, when the older man splutters and starts giggling in earnest.  “Mashita, you can’t just—”
          He’s laughing too hard to finish the sentence, so Mashita just sits back and tries not to look too smug as he takes a sip from the flask.