It was always hard with him. You couldn’t get anything of substance by asking for it directly. Taichi had remembered how irritating that could be, but now he felt along with the annoyance a rush of irrational fondness. It was what Taichi used to like about him. What you got out of him, you felt like you earned. Not because you worked for it, but like he’d seen something in you that was hidden from yourself and decided he could humour you for a while. It was probably too much to hope for that he still would.
A couple notes:
- The most recent manga chapter when this fic was written was 226.
- I tried my best to keep the timeline and canon compliance details straight but probably screwed it up at times (especially for precanon events/Suo's Meijinship). Sorry if you notice any jarring issues.
- This fic assumes a slightly more depressing postcanon situation for both Suo and Taichi than I think (hope?) we'll actually get, but it's all in the interest of narrative catharsis (or whatever this actually is).
A content note: it's hard to get across via tags, but in case you are for some reason coming in canon-blind, the characters involved in the main ship had a mentor + protege-esq dynamic when one of them was a teenager. They don't get together romantically until years later when the power dynamic is no longer in play.
October helped me a lot with beta reading and moral support and I’m really grateful. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to comment if you find any residual glaring SPAG errors--I'd rather know!
Imported from Archive of Our Own. Original work id: 24316801.