Chapter Text
“Come with me,” is the first thing Chisaki says to Touya after lunch on Monday, still snapping his gloves on as he leaves his office.
Touya stares after him for a moment, before Chisaki says, “Todoroki-san,” and Touya has no choice, really, but to scurry after him. He ignores the way the other employees of the fortieth floor stare as they walk by. They should be used to the sight.
“What’s this about?” Touya asks. He follows Chisaki into the elevator, turns away automatically so Chisaki can’t get on his ass about breathing in his direction. Touya sees the button to the forty-first floor has already been pressed, glowing blue.
Why the forty-first floor? If Chisaki's just going to visit Tsutsumi, what reason does he have to make Touya accompany him?
Have Touya and Takami been found out? Are they about to be fired in a hideous display of camaraderie? Are Chisaki and Tsutsumi playing a sick mind game with them, to see who breaks first? Are they going to the forty-first floor for a completely unrelated reason?
No, that would be ridiculous. It has to be to visit Tsutsumi.
Touya starts to sweat.
Chisaki is silent behind him. Touya flashes a glance over his shoulder, but Chisaki isn’t even filling the silence by fiddling on his phone. He’s just staring straight ahead, shielded by his black face mask. He’s impenetrable. Touya gulps.
When the elevator doors slide open, Touya notices with a resigned dread that Chisaki leads them right to Tsutsumi’s office. When they reach the glass-walled room, Chisaki heads straight in and closes the door behind him, cutting Touya off before he can follow.
Touya can tell where he isn’t wanted. He turns to Takami’s desk, where Takami’s staring after Chisaki with a perturbed look marring his face.
When Touya leans over his divider, Takami’s gaze slides over to him and his face breaks into a smile that doesn’t look intentional.
Touya can’t get the image of Takami in his lap out of his head. With the way Takami’s looking at Touya through his eyelashes, he’s probably on the same page. The hickey on his neck is faded, like he tried to cover it up with concealer, but Touya knows it’s there. He could spot it from a mile away.
“Hi,” Takami says, a little shy.
“Hey, chicken,” Touya says. He stands up straight. He sticks his hands in his pockets. He takes them back out again.
“What are you doing here?” Takami asks. He fiddles with a pencil, worrying at the tip with his thumb. Touya can see teeth marks in the end, and he hates that it endears him to Takami, the mental image of him absently chewing on his pencil as he works.
Touya gestures wordlessly to Tsutsumi’s office. He can see through the glass that she and Chisaki are deep in conversation. Touya’s heard nothing about the Okinawa trip; it probably went okay, considering neither of them stormed back to Tokyo early, and Chisaki didn’t arrive until eleven this morning.
“He told me to come with him,” Touya says. “That’s all I know.”
Takami’s eyes widen. He drops his pencil on his keyboard. His voice comes out in a horrified whisper. “You don’t think they—”
Tsutsumi wrenches the office door open.
“You two,” Tsutsumi commands. She gestures with her head, her short ponytail swinging as she moves. She’s far more intimidating up close; Touya’s only ever seen her through security feeds and binoculars, so actually witnessing her tight, controlled strength at a normal human distance is something else. Touya sees something of her in Takami, for sure. “Inside.”
Touya just offers Takami the barest of shrugs. Takami pushes out of his chair and smooths his hands down his shirt, following at Touya’s heels.
When the two of them enter the office, Tsutsumi’s sitting in her office chair and Chisaki is standing just behind her, like they’re about to pose for the world’s worst family portrait. They’re a horrifying pair; they look like they share the same psychosis.
“Takami-san,” Tsutsumi starts. “This is Chisaki Kai, the man I’ve been seeing. And this is his assistant, Todoroki-san.”
So they haven’t been caught out.
Tsutsumi and Chisaki have no idea that they even know each other, let alone that they’ve been scheming behind their backs. Touya can breathe slightly better, but he’s arrested by a new wave of panic when he realises that Tsutsumi addressed him as Todoroki-san and Touya’s made specific moves to not let his family name mar the knowledge Takami has of him.
Takami, to his credit, doesn’t let any flicker of familiarity show in his face.
“Nice to meet you, Chisaki-san,” Takami says, dipping into a bow. He hesitates briefly, before also bowing to Touya with a perfunctory, “And you, Todoroki-san.”
Touya has to try really hard not to laugh at the formality. The endeavour is twice as hard when he meets Takami’s eyes and they’re bright with mirth, the corner of Takami’s mouth threatening to twitch. The hickey glares at Touya from its place of residence under Takami's jaw.
Touya dips his head in return and says, more polite than Takami’s ever heard from him, “Nice to meet you, Takami-san.”
He has to turn back to Chisaki and Tsutsumi before he does something damning, like laugh. Takami’s hands are tucked behind his back, fingers twisting together. He’s watching the two with rapt attention, their figures severe beside each other.
“We’re getting married,” Tsutsumi says, without preamble. One of Chisaki’s gloved hands comes to rest on Tsutsumi's shoulder. Touya’s grossed out by the sight.
Touya and Takami share a look. There’s a thousand things they want to say hidden in that look. Instead of saying any of them, Touya watches Takami pastes on a polite, delighted smile.
“Wow!” Takami says. “Congratulations!”
“We want you two to set it up,” Tsutsumi continues. “We're going to elope in Hokkaido this weekend.”
Takami’s practised politesse immediately crashes and burns.
“Elope in Hokkaido?” Takami splutters. Under Tsutsumi and Chisaki’s twin slicing stares, he clears his throat and amends, “I mean. That’ll be fine, Tsutsumi-san. We can do that.”
“Yes,” Touya echoes, at a complete loss. “We can do that.”
“Takami-san,” Tsutsumi says. “I want to see that article of yours. Have it on my desk by the time I return on Monday and I’ll add it to the top of the pile.”
Takami looks like he’s seeing God. He nods hard enough that a couple of strands of hair fall out of their slicked-back hold, flopping over his forehead.
“Todoroki-san,” Chisaki says. “I’m giving you a promotion. By the time I get back, I expect you to have found a new bastard and trained him up to standard. Understand?”
Maybe Touya’s seeing God. Maybe they’re both sharing in an office-induced hallucination, a fever dream that surpasses all of their expectations.
“Yes,” Touya says, gravelly. “Of course, Chisaki-san.”
Chisaki nods, a hard, efficient nod that he only spares for his equals. Touya shivers to be on the receiving end of it. He wasn’t even sure Chisaki knew his name before today, and now Touya’s got everything he wanted laid out for him on a silver platter.
“Perfect,” Tsutsumi says. “Now, what are you two still doing here? Kai and I have business to attend to.”
They don’t need to be told twice. They scram.
Takami shoves Touya down the hallway until they’re out of sight of the office’s glass walls. Touya barely spares a second to check they’re out of sight before he spins on his heel and bears down on Takami.
Takami’s eyes are full of an unspoken exuberance that Touya very much echoes. He practically leaps into Touya’s arms, wrapping him in a suffocating hug.
“We did it!” Takami exclaims in a stage whisper, rocking Touya side to side. He laughs, bright and full.
Touya folds his arms around Takami’s waist with enough force to nearly lift Takami off his feet, warm and solid in Touya’s arms. Touya buries his nose in Takami’s hair. He smells so fucking good.
“I can’t believe that actually fucking worked,” Touya proclaims, pulling out of the embrace. If he stays for too long in Takami’s arms, he’s going to do something stupid, like latch on and never let go. He seizes Takami by his biceps and stares him down. With a degree of reverent seriousness, he pronounces, “Maybe you are a genius, Takami Keigo.”
“We actually changed their lives,” Takami says. He laughs again, softer. “I know this started 'cause we had ulterior motives, but look at them. They’re actually in love with each other.”
His smile drops, a fraction, as he and Touya stare at each other. Touya wants to kiss him so badly, which is how he’s going to get fired for workplace misconduct. That would be the final straw. Not the elevator trap, not the sex toys. Having Takami in the hallway would be too much.
Chiskai sweeps out of Tsutsumi’s office at that moment, walking right past the overt display of emotional tension happening in plain sight on the forty-first floor.
“Todoroki-san,” Chisaki calls, halfway to the elevators. “Come.”
Takami reluctantly untangles himself from Touya’s arms. Touya feels cold with the loss, and it’s not just the office aircon pumping cool, stale air through the building.
“Go,” Takami says, playfully shoving Touya down the hall. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
Touya just nods, trailing after Chisaki. He keeps looking back at Takami, like if he glances away for too long Takami’s going to vanish. Takami offers him a sarcastic wave the third time Touya looks over his shoulder, but his smile is nothing but genuine.
Touya loses sight of him when he enters the elevator with Chisaki. They make the five second journey back to the fortieth floor, and Touya’s nearly free to return to his desk and text Takami under the table when Chiskai stops him.
“I have your quick thinking to thank, Todoroki-san,” Chisaki states.
Touya slowly looks up from his shoes. Chisaki’s inspects his glove as he continues.
“If you hadn’t suggested getting close to Tsutsumi Kaina as a means of investing in her site and preventing All For One from getting their grubby hands on the deal, I’d have lost this case completely.”
Did Touya do that? Probably. It sounds like something he’d say, poking at Chisaki’s weak spots to manipulate him into his and Takami’s plan.
“Well,” Touya says, careful, cool, trying not to betray himself. “It’s awfully nice that you found yourself a love story on the way.”
“Love?” Chisaki scoffs. He finally meets Touya’s eyes, and in his gaze Touya can see every cutthroat deal he’s ever made, playing out in awful detail. “Who said anything about love?”
Touya hesitates. He offers, somewhat tentative, somewhat strangled, “You’re marrying her.”
“I have done lesser things to secure investment, Todoroki-san,” Chisaki says. “Much less sign a bunch of flimsy papers. Speaking of, I need you to buy an engagement ring. Nothing that costs less than a million.”
Before Touya can formulate a response, Chisaki returns to his office, shutting the door behind him.
Touya holds his breath – he doesn’t know what for, but something’s gone slightly to the left and Touya doesn’t know if it can be righted. Chisaki’s not marrying Tsutsumi because he cares about her as a person; he’s marrying her because she’s a business deal he wants to lock down.
Touya’s email chimes; Touya glances at his computer screen and sees the contract for a Junior Investment Banker promotion slide into his inbox. The sight makes his heart pound.
They really fucking did it. Touya doesn’t care how they got there; all that matters is he’s here. He’s more than the sum of his parts. He’s going to be rich.
Twenty minutes after Chisaki and Touya leave, Tsutsumi calls Keigo back into her office.
“What’s on my agenda for this afternoon?” Tsutsumi asks. She’s being awfully nice to Keigo right now. Keigo has absolutely died and gone to heaven. He doesn’t even care that he doesn’t have a draft yet. He has a whole week to write it and Tsutsumi’s going to read it.
Keigo checks his notes for the day, past the fuzz in his head. “You did have Kayama-san’s baby shower this afternoon, but I cancelled that for you. I did book in a—”
“Uncancel it,” Tsutsumi says, cutting Keigo off. “I’m going. I now have some drivel to share, so I won’t want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon the whole time I’m there.”
“Sure thing, Tsutsumi-san,” Keigo says, adapting to her like a river runs. “I can get you a car. It starts at six. Did you need anything else from me?”
“Sit down,” Tsutsumi says.
Keigo parks himself on one of the small, fashionable chairs in her office, almost automatically. Tsutsumi says sit, he sits. A spread of magazines catches his eye, strewn across the low coffee table. Each one bears one of Tsutsumi’s cover stories on the front, a testimony of her talent.
“I know I’ve been harsh on you,” Tsutsumi starts.
Keigo’s looking at the magazines when she says it, and he has a second to wonder if he’s really going insane, deluding himself into thinking saying Tsutsumi’s saying extra-nice, impossible things to him.
He stares at her. Tsutsumi paces around her desk, leans against the front of it. She crosses her arms over her chest, her sleeveless turtleneck exposing her muscles. Her eyes are bright in the afternoon sun. Keigo really does admire her. He’s absolutely terrified of her.
“Pardon?” Keigo says.
“You’re young, Takami-san,” Tsutsumi says. “You’re full of life. I hate that.”
Tsutsumi takes the seat next to Keigo’s. They’re not usually the same height, sitting level like this. Her knees tilt towards Keigo.
“I’m sorry?” Keigo tries.
“Don’t be sorry,” Tsutsumi snaps. “You want to know why I’m so harsh on you?” She doesn’t give Keigo a chance to respond. “It’s because you remind me of myself, when I was younger. I look at you and see my replacement.”
Keigo really doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s caught so off-guard that he thinks he might have slipped into a parallel universe. Tsutsumi beams him down with her violet eyes.
Tsutsumi isn’t deterred by Keigo’s speechlessness.
“You have potential, Takami-san,” Tsutsumi says. “But you need a thick skin in this industry. If I’m the most awful, wretched boss you’ve ever had, it means you’ll be able to manage whatever shitstorm gets thrown at you.”
Keigo thinks he’s having an out-of-body experience, Tsutsumi sitting a mere metre from him, wisps of hair falling out of her ponytail like she’s human and touchable.
“Now,” Tsutsumi says. There’s a slight smile playing on her face. “Get out of here. You have a job to do.”
“Yes, Tsutsumi-san,” Keigo says, jumping up from his chair.
Definitely a parallel universe. There is no conceivable universe where Tsutsumi Kaina looks at Keigo and smiles.
“Oh, and I need a gift to bring to Kayama-san’s baby shower. Sort it for me, won’t you?”
That’s more like it. Keigo calls an affirmation over his shoulder as he scurries back to his desk.
He’s shell-shocked from his interaction with Tsutsumi, but it doesn’t stop him from flicking his computer on and searching the name todoroki touya.
The name sounds so familiar, he swears it.
Keigo gets as far as reading Todoroki Touya, eldest son of investment tycoon Todoroki Enji when it clicks in his brain.
Everybody who’s ever used money knows Todoroki Enji. He’s the king of investments. He has a billion-yen empire. He has four children, his search tells him; his eldest son is not pursuing the family business.
So what the hell is Touya doing here, hungering after a job that’s basically been his since birth?
Keigo’s phone lights up with an incoming call next to his keyboard. Speak of the devil.
Keigo closes the tab, for peace of mind, and vows not to bring it up just yet. He doesn’t know what to do with the information. Touya probably has his own reasons, and one throwaway line in a finance article isn’t going to tell Keigo anything.
He swipes the call open and brings his phone to his ear. “Missed me already?”
“I need to pick out an engagement ring,” Touya says. Keigo can hear foot traffic on his end of the line. Touya’s walking somewhere, based on the slight catch of his breath with each inhale. “Join me.”
“I’m busy,” Keigo protests. He’s already started scrolling through a repository of Tokyo-based baby clothes stores. If he finds something nearby, he can get something bought within the hour. “Get it yourself.”
“You know what Tsutsumi likes way more than I do,” Touya protests mulishly.
“She likes any jewellery that doubles as a weapon,” Keigo deadpans. He chews on his lip and says, after a moment, “Where are you?”
“Ginza.”
“Ginza?” Keigo splutters. “That’s expensive!”
Touya laughs. “I’ve been instructed to find nothing ‘less than a million’.”
Keigo quietly searches up baby stores in Ginza and sighs when he finds several. He prays he has enough in his bank account to pay before Tsutsumi reimburses him.
He doesn’t want to give Touya the satisfaction of winning him over so easily, but he’s almost desperate to see him, like a teenager with a devastating crush.
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Keigo says, and pointedly ignores the way Touya laughs at him.
“Great,” Touya says. “Grab Chisaki’s card for me, will you? Left it on my desk.”
“Dick,” Keigo says.
“Ask nicely,” Touya croons. Keigo meets that with a pointed, “Bye,” and hangs up.
Keigo’s a little wary about heading up to Touya’s desk when Touya isn’t there. Chisaki does scare him, with his cool stare and aloof attitude.
Keigo finds that, when he arrives at Touya’s desk, Chisaki’s office door is shut. He sounds like he’s on the phone, if the intermittent cadence of his voice is anything to go by.
Touya’s desk is an unexpected mess; files strewn all over the surface, piles of papers exploded everywhere. Keigo shuffles through the folders and sheafs of paper, looking for the sleek black rectangle of Chisaki’s credit card.
As he’s searching, Chisaki’s voice grows louder. Keigo freezes, thinking Chisaki might come out of the office while he’s sifting through Touya’s stuff, but he thinks Chisaki might just be pacing.
It’s while he’s looking for the card that Keigo hears Chisaki say, through the door, “I’ve convinced her to marry me, which puts us in a perfect position to secure the deal.”
Keigo stills again. As quietly as he can, he creeps towards Chisaki’s office door, holding his breath. There’s silence on the other side, and then Chisaki says, “Of course she has no clue. I will not allow All For One to win this time.”
Keigo turns his face away from the door.
He presses his hand to his mouth, trying to sort through the tangle of betrayal settled in his gut. It rears its head, messy and uncontrollable, so he just shoves it to the side and decides to finish what he came for. He returns to Touya’s desk, finds Chisaki’s credit card half-tucked beneath the keyboard, and tails it out of there.
He needs to speak to Touya. He doesn’t know what answer he’s going to find, and maybe that’s the part that’s ripping him apart most of all.
The shop assistant is a young blonde girl with heavily lined eyes and a bluntly chopped fringe. Her name tag reads Toga in blood-red ink. Touya has spent twenty minutes in her company and he’s pretty sure that, while he’s been trying to avoid making conversation with her by swiping aimlessly on his phone, she now thinks they’re best friends.
“Have you ever killed a man?” Toga asks him, leaning her elbows on top of the glass case of engagement rings, when the huge glass door to the store opens and Takami walks in.
“Thank fuck you’re here,” Touya sighs, edging away from Toga. “What are your thoughts on sapphires?”
His relief is short-lived; he catches sight of Takami’s face and realises something’s wrong.
Takami looks, for the lack of a better word, absolutely fucking devastated.
He slumps into the store, barely sparing a glance for the rings glittering in their cases. Takami loves shiny shit. There has to be something wrong with him.
“What is it?” Touya asks. “What happened?”
“I overheard a funny thing, just outside Chisaki-san’s office,” Takami says, after a moment of terrible silence.
Takami folds his arms over his chest, makes himself small and closed off, but his eyes glint with something vicious and determined. “You don’t happen to know anything about the deals he’s stealing from under the nose of All For One?”
Goddamn.
This is going to be bad. Touya can feel it in every muscle, in the way that Takami’s face is stony but there’s a whole lifetime of hurt playing out in his yellow eyes.
“He steals a lot of deals from under the nose of All For One,” Touya says, playing for time. He can feel Toga’s bright, curious eyes boring into the side of his head.
“I’m talking about his manipulation of Tsutsumi-san,” Takami says, unbearably blunt.
“It’s not a manipulation,” Touya scoffs, and Takami points an accusing finger at him.
“You knew. You knew that Chisaki’s been pretending so he can secure her site as, what, a cash grab?”
“You tricked me into admitting that,” Touya complains. Takami’s face turns positively thunderous, so Touya tries to plead innocent. “And I didn’t know, not until earlier today.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Takami asks. “Touya, I care about Tsutsumi-san, okay? I have to tell her.”
“No,” Touya snaps. Takami takes half a step back at Touya’s forceful denial. Touya know he sounds desperate. He knows it’s not a good look on him, but it seizes him by the throat. “You tell her and this whole thing crashes down, got it? Do you want to go back to working until midnight every day? Do you want to keep getting ground up into nothing? I just got my promotion, Takami. I’m not giving that up.”
“Keep your promotion, then,” Takami says, his shoulders tensing towards his ears. “But I’m going to tell her.”
“Do you really want to tell her?” Touya asks. “Is that seriously what you want to do? After everything?”
Takami sniffs. “It’s what’s right.”
“None of this has been right,” Touya argues. He doesn’t know where Takami’s righteous anger has suddenly come from. Takami’s had no qualms with bending the truth up until this point, laughing at their expense. “We’ve been manipulating them since day one. How is this any different?”
“It’s a person and her feelings on the line,” Takami protests.
“What about our feelings?” Touya snaps.
Takami takes another step backwards like he’s been slapped. His whole face is lined with his anger, eyebrows ticking low over his eyes.
“You know, you’re starting to sound like Chisaki-san,” Takami says. “There’s more to life than having an important job that makes you loads of money, y’know! Especially when you have to step on people to get there.”
“It’s not just about the money,” Touya grits out. His baggage hangs like a shadow on his periphery. He doesn’t appreciate it.
Takami hesitates. He says, with a certain pointed vitriol, “I know who your father is. I don’t care if it’s not just about the money. You think I haven’t been listening to you? Wanting to become an investment banker just so you can prove someone wrong is a pretty shitty thing to do, FYI.”
Takami doesn’t know Touya at all. Takami doesn’t know how much Touya’s sacrificed, how he’s burned himself from both ends to get where he is. He’s never going to understand Touya’s drive, the flicker that’s kept him persevering for as long as he has.
Takami seems to know the wound is coming before Touya wields the weapon. Touya can see it in the twist of Takami's mouth, the soft brace of his spine. He's accepted his fate. He's anticipating that Touya's going to hurt him.
Touya so wishes he wasn’t right.
“Better to aim for something than be so scared of sucking at your job that you don’t even bother trying,” Touya snaps. He laughs, vicious and distinctly unamused. “Look at you. You’re so terrified of not being ordered around every moment of your life that you don't even try. You’re going to be an assistant forever because you’re scared.”
Takami's face shutters off.
He doesn't have an argument against Touya’s rebuttal. He just stands in front of him, fists clenching and unclenching in slow, rhythmic desolation.
“Did you two seriously manipulate your bosses into hooking up so you’d have more free time?” Toga asks. Her eyes are wide; she looks like she's been hanging on to every word. “That’s messed up. I love it.”
“Do you mind?” Touya snaps.
Takami rolls his eyes. He says, to Touya, “I'm telling her now.”
And then he’s gone, the electronic door buzzer chiming in his wake.
“So…no ring?” Toga asks.
Touya runs his hand over his face and sighs.
What a mess. He doesn’t feel good for gutting Takami right in front of the engagement rings, but Takami came for him first and Touya doesn’t know how to do anything but bite the hand that dares prod him into self-reflection.
So he pushes it to the side, shoves all his hurt down until he’s just another schmuck in a suit in Ginza.
He still needs to buy a ring, and he has no idea what to get.
Kayama Nemuri lives in a three-storey house in the suburbs. Keigo thinks she’s an old coworker of Tsutsumi’s. Either way, she’s rich, Tsutsumi’s rich. Keigo wonders why he hasn’t got a pay rise in a year and a half.
He clutches the gift-wrapped box in his hand. Two onesies that cost more than his rent this month. He’s tired of the frippery, and he’s tired after his fight with Touya, and he’s tired of lying.
He finds Tsutsumi easily enough, a cloud of black and purple in amongst the pastels, glaring at a flute of champagne like it’s personally offending her.
“Tsutsumi-san,” Keigo announces as he approaches. He doesn’t speak too loudly, so as not to draw attention to her. She’s looking prickly. Keigo’s about to make her evening so much worse.
He holds out the gift-wrapped box as offering.
“Takami-san,” she says. She takes the box from him, dumps it on a table laden with similarly wrapped gifts. “Thank god you’re here. If I have to listen to another woman talk about how having a baby changed her life and ask me when I’m going to have mine I’m going to kill myself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Tsutsumi-san,” Keigo says, automatically, diplomatically. Always taking the burden for her frustrations. Touya’s argument rubs raw inside of him.
“It’s fine,” Tsutsumi dismisses. “Now that I’m engaged, I’m the most interesting piece of gossip this house has ever seen. Which, mind you, is frivolous and backwards, but at least it means they treat me like a person and not a robot.”
Keigo laughs nervously. He trails behind her, silently shepherding her outside, away from the majority of the guests.
The patio is lovely, decorated in balloons and ribbons and flower arrangements. The sun trails golden patches over the space, dappling through the surrounding trees.
Keigo has to do it now. He has to spare a scene.
“Please don’t marry Chisaki-san,” Keigo says, all in one breath.
Tsutsumi pins him down with that sniper stare. The sun catches in her hair, turns the pink and purple soft and lovely, but Keigo meets her eyes and sees his own death.
“What was that?” Tsutsumi says. The temperature of her tone drops a good few degrees. Keigo is chilly despite the late sun.
“You can’t marry Chisaki-san,” Keigo repeats. He swallows. “You don’t love him. You don’t even know him.”
The temperature drops another few degrees. Tsutsumi’s eyebrows tick together in the way that indicates to Keigo that she’s going to snap in a minute. “That’s ridiculous. Of course I know him.”
Keigo chews his bottom lip. No going back now. “You don't. Chisaki-san’s assistant and I – we set it all up. We fabricated your whole relationship. None of it was real.”
“I don’t believe that.” Oh, how Tsutsumi can be so wilfully stubborn when she sets her mind to it. Keigo would admire it if he wasn’t desperately trying to stop her from making a stupid mistake that he entirely set her up to make.
Seriously, fuck this whole idea. What was Keigo thinking, drinking whisky at Touya’s desk? Not much, clearly. Not much at all.
“We got you stuck in the elevator,” Keigo forges on. “We got you into the same box at the baseball match. When Chisaki-san ruined your date, we told him what to say to make you forgive him, and it was our idea for you to go to Okinawa. Tsutsumi-san, I swear, I know I don’t ask for much and I know my opinion means nothing to you, but I can't let you go through with this.”
“You’re fired,” Tsutsumi says.
Keigo pauses, like if he’s still enough the statement will pass through him unharmed.
It doesn’t. It lodges in his heart like a blade.
“What?” Keigo utters.
“I said,” Tsutsumi says, cold. “You’re fired. Let go. Unemployed. Not working for me anymore. Now get out. I don’t want to look at your face again. Don’t bother coming into the office tomorrow.”
She brushes past him, back inside. She doesn’t even spare Keigo a second look as she storms towards the drinks table, a dark cloud in the periphery of the celebrations. She’s never been afraid of going against the grain. Keigo doesn’t know why she has to be so ornery now, of all times.
Tsutsumi’s never taken kindly to being told what to do, and now Keigo doesn’t have a job.
He had everything he wanted just earlier today. Now he isn’t sure what he has.
Takami isn’t answering Touya’s texts.
It’s been two days since their blow-up at the jewellery store, where Touya eventually bought an obsidian, severe engagement ring thanks to Toga’s keen eye. Touya hasn’t seen Takami since.
Every time Touya rings him the call goes straight to voicemail. Touya doesn’t want to know what his call log looks like right now. Messy. More honest than he cares to show.
Touya moved up into his new role almost immediately. Chisaki said something about not needing to wait and now Touya sits at a different desk on a different part of the fortieth floor. His cubicle is small and cramped; he can’t see the windows from his location, and he can’t see the elevator doors. For better or for worse. Touya takes so many trips to the water dispenser just so he can prowl the hallway near the elevators for five minutes at a time. Waiting for Takami to show; Takami never does.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Touya punches Takami’s desk number into his landline and waits for the click of it picking up.
“Can you just speak to me?” Touya says, before Takami can say anything. “I know you don’t wanna talk, but hear me out.”
“Who is this?” a polite, distinctly female voice says over the line. Touya checks the number he called. It’s definitely the right line.
“Takami?” Touya asks.
“I’m covering Tsutsumi Kaina’s desk right now,” the woman says. “Can I take a message?”
Shit. Shit. Where the hell is Takami? He doesn’t just miss work.
Has he died? Did he die because Touya was an asshole to him? No one would tell Touya if Takami died, because hardly anyone knows they know each other. Maybe a company-wide email would go around.
No. Takami’s more resilient than that. But where the hell is he?
“Do you know where Takami Keigo is?” he asks, and tries not to sound like his whole heart is ripping to shreds. His leg bounces uselessly beneath his desk.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” the woman says. “Can I take a message for Tsutsumi-san?”
“No,” Touya bites out. He tacks on a grumbled, belated, “Thank you,” before slamming the phone back down on its hook.
This article is going to kill Keigo.
So, he doesn’t have a job anymore. Tsutsumi Kaina is never going to read his work, and he’s never going to be a junior writer on her team, and he’s going to have to find someone else to idolise in the world of sports journalism.
Also, he needs to find another job soon, because he has almost no savings and he’s already bought takeout three times this week.
It’s probably a good thing that Tsutsumi is never going to read his work, because Keigo’s article completely sucks.
It’s been so long since he’s written anything meaningful that trying to extract the first draft from his head feels like pulling teeth. The words don’t fit together, he’s not embodying the emotion he wants to, and the research is bogging him down so hard that he somehow ends up on the Wikipedia page for avian influenza without remembering when he strayed from the article topic at hand.
He hasn’t changed out of his sweatpants for three days. It’s a Thursday, late June, and Keigo’s hiding from the sun and hiding from the world and hiding from Touya’s calls.
Touya called him once, almost as soon as Tsutsumi fired him, and then Keigo turned his phone off and proceeded to ignore his problems harder than anyone has ever ignored their problems before.
So, when Rumi returns home from venue touring or cake tasting or whatever the hell else engaged people do, she takes one look at Keigo and puts him in his place.
“Jesus fuck, Kei,” Rumi calls, kicking her shoes off. She sniffs the air exaggeratedly. “It smells like something died in here.”
Keigo, curled into a ball in front of their kotatsu, groans. His empty document blinks innocuously at him. He closes it in a fit of rage, and it asks him if he wants to save any changes, which just pisses him off more. What changes? Keigo hasn’t even changed his clothes in three days.
“Something did,” Keigo agrees. “My hopes and dreams.”
Rumi comes closer, stepping over the plastic takeout bags and empty boxes on her way. She leans in close to Keigo and presses the back of her hand to his forehead.
“Are you sick? What’s wrong with you?”
Keigo looks up at Rumi, in all of her living glory, and announces, “I got fired.”
Rumi’s expression goes through a series of complicated changes before she laughs.
“That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!”
“No,” Keigo groans. He slumps onto his side and presses his face into a cushion, briefly. He debates screaming into it, just a little.
He turns back to Rumi and knows his utter sulk is written all over his face, but he’s spent so long in his own head that he can’t even imagine trying to disguise it now. “It’s not amazing. I wasted three years of my life in that job for nothing and now I’m trying to write this article and it fucking sucks. Everything I write is bad. It's worse than bad. It's really bad.”
Rumi looks down on him, her hands pressed to her hips, as Keigo contemplates the tragedy that is his life. He wants Touya. He’s mad at Touya. It’s a lot to think about.
Then, with a force that three years of kickboxing classes have distilled in her, Rumi kicks Keigo in the leg.
“Ow,” Keigo snaps. He tries to pull his leg away but Rumi practically tackles him into staying still, taking up sprawling residence on his back.
Keigo fruitlessly tries to drag himself across the floor. Rumi seats herself imperiously on top of him; her ass digs into his spine.
Rumi plants one of her hands on the back of Keigo’s head and presses his face into the floor. It’s okay. Keigo probably deserves it. He tries to breathe in the smell of the hardwood; all he can smell is his own armpits.
“Are you stupid?” Rumi snaps. “Actually, don’t answer that. You are stupid. What the hell is up with you? You think you’re gonna just write something perfect and be done with it?”
“Yes,” Keigo says.
“No,” Rumi replies. “It’s a first draft, Kei, of course it’s gonna suck. Let it fuckin’ suck! You write it and then you make it better, geez, what’s wrong with you?”
“Mine has to be perfect,” Keigo protests. He doesn’t care what anyone else is doing. If he isn’t perfect straight away, then what’s the point? He’s perfect at being an assistant. It’s been so long since he’s sucked at something. He despises it.
“Stop holding yourself to an impossible standard,” Rumi says, softer this time.
She smooths a hand over Keigo’s hair, but she still doesn’t get up. Keigo’s growing used to the weight of her on top of him. He lies there and takes it, like an animal playing dead.
“You’ve got loads of time,” Rumi continues. “And I know you wanna be perfect, but just make it exist first. Lock yourself in your room, park your ass in front of your laptop, and don’t let up until you have the worst first draft anyone’s ever seen. Then you worry about making it good.”
Keigo sighs. “I can’t believe you’re getting married. What am I meant to do when you move out and I need you?”
“Baby boy,” Rumi croons, finally sliding off Keigo’s back. She settles next to Keigo on the floor, meeting his eyes. Keigo wheezes as his lungs stop being constricted, sucking in a full, deep breath. “You’ve always been able to do it by yourself. You just need someone to knock some sense into you every now and again. Speaking of, how’s Touya from work?”
Keigo nearly felt good enough to pick himself up, but hearing the name from Rumi’s lips has him groaning harder and pressing his face into the floor.
“I don’t wanna talk about Touya,” Keigo addresses the scuffed floorboard. Rumi makes an inquiring noise, so Keigo says, “We had a fight. The worst part is he said some things about me that were right. I am scared of not being an assistant anymore. And I miss him.”
“We’re all scared,” Rumi offers. “Life is scary. Relationships are scary. You know what you do, though?”
“Stop being scared,” Keigo suggests.
Rumi sighs. “No, dumbass, you do it even when you’re scared. If Touya’s actually done something horrible to you, I will dropkick him into next year, but sounds like you’re not that mad at him. You two seem good together.”
“We’re not together,” Keigo mumbles. “Well, we made out after your engagement party, but we were both drunk so I don’t really know what it means. I’m not his boyfriend, though.”
“One, you did not tell me that,” Rumi says, raising an imperious finger, “and two, don’t focus on that. Write your stupid draft, then you can think about romance.”
Keigo rolls onto his back. Rumi’s been watching Keigo mope; when he finally faces her she offers him a fierce, lovely grin.
“Are you sure you don’t want to marry me instead?” Keigo asks.
Rumi laughs, and Keigo laughs, and it’s the first time in three days that he’s felt lighter, the draft sitting empty but not so scary anymore by the kotatsu.
“Go write your stupid, awful draft,” Rumi says. “Then take a shower. You reek.”
Keigo hauls himself to his feet. He cradles his laptop, a little sheepishly. He can feel how greasy his hair is. He knows he must look like a wreck, and yet Rumi still stayed. She’s so brave.
“I’m going to write the worst draft anybody has ever written,” Keigo pronounces.
“Atta boy,” Rumi says. “Now scram. Yu’s coming over and I don’t want her to have to smell you.”
So Keigo locks himself in his room for the night. He curls into his bed with his laptop. He turns his internet off and writes like a zombie, mindless and awful. It’s just words. They can’t hurt him.
At three in the morning, he has a fourteen page draft and a cramp in his left hand. His eyes burn with a cocktail of exhaustion and screen blindness, and when he blinks up at his ceiling, the afterimage of his laptop screen follows him.
But he’s done it. He’s written something. And after the first couple of pages – it actually started to get sort of good.
Touya doesn’t get home until eleven on Friday night.
The hours in his new role aren’t great. It feels familiar, though, leaving the office when it’s dark. It’s what he’s used to, he thinks darkly, but the snap back to reality still leaves him relentlessly cranky.
Chisaki and Tsutsumi are flying out to Sapporo early tomorrow morning. Touya single-handedly sorted the bookings while also juggling the huge workload of his promotion, but the two of them are going to be out of his hair for the whole weekend and Touya can kick back and mope to his heart’s content.
“You’re in a shitty mood,” Bubaigawara announces, as soon as Touya slams through the apartment door that night. He’s marking homework books in the living room, one red pen in his hand and another balanced behind his ear. “Who am I kiddin’, you’re always a delight, my man.”
“Don’t you have better things to be doing,” Touya drawls, “than stalking me and my moods?”
“Nah,” Bubaigawara says. “Except for marking math tests. I hate math. How’s the promotion treatin’ ya?”
Touya sighs. He flops face-first into the couch, appreciating the cool pressure of darkness on his eyelids. He mumbles something incomprehensible, a frustrated groan that Bubaigawara sagely agrees with.
Tilting his head to the side so he can stare Bubaigawara down, Touya admits, “I hate it.”
“Dude,” Bubaigawara says, unperturbed by Touya’s melodrama. He sets his red pen down. “You’ve been hungerin’ after this promotion for three years, bet that just fuckin’ stings, huh? You’re the most well-adjusted guy I know. Ha! That was a joke. You gonna burn down the building?”
“Maybe,” Touya threatens. He doesn’t really want to talk about feelings to Bubaigawara, but he realises, a little direly, that he’s driven away anyone else that he could talk about them with. “Say, what would you do if you said something shitty to someone you care about and now they won’t speak to you?”
“How could you hurt Keigo like that!” Bubaigawara cries, slamming his palm down on the coffee table. Touya winces at the volume.
“I never said I was talking about Takami, geez,” he grumbles, but Bubaigawara sees right through him.
“Fix it,” Bubaigawara insists. “Show up outside of his house with a boombox. Send him a hundred roses. Marry him. All terrible suggestions. Do them.”
“Be serious,” Touya scowls.
Bubaigawara steeples the tips of his fingers together. He looks at Touya imploringly over his fingertips.
“Here’s what I think,” Bubaigawara says. He points at Touya with all of his fingers. “You’re a self-absorbed, stubborn asshole.”
Touya scowls harder. He makes to speak, but Bubaigawara holds up a self-important hand.
“Not everything is about you, my guy,” Bubaigawara says. “Keigo’s got his reasons for doin’ things, so put yourself in his shoes. What does he actually want? What can you do for him that’ll make him feel better?”
And, okay. Touya wasn’t expecting much, but maybe that is good advice.
Touya always thought Takami’s starry-eyed admiration of Tsutsumi was just a fucked up Stockholm syndrome symptom of Takami spending so much time in Tsutsumi’s company that he had no choice but to adore her.
But the longer the farce went on, the more time Chisaki and Tsutsumi were occupied with each other, the more Takami’s admiration seemed to grow. Tsutsumi Kaina is an impressive individual, Touya can admit after spending more than two seconds in her company. Touya absolutely hasn’t been endeared to Chisaki in the process.
Touya really wasn’t planning on caring about anybody’s feelings as part of their manipulation. Chisaki can get absolutely fucked, but maybe it isn’t fair for Tsutsumi to be caught in the crossfire. Touya doesn’t really think Chisaki counts as, like, an actual human person, but Takami would vouch for Tsutsumi any day. Stupidly.
Touya should probably fix this. He needs to finish what Takami started.
He’s just going to close his eyes for a second first.
Touya jolts awake at five in the morning. The living room is dim. Bubaigawara has vanished. Touya knows that he has to stop that plane.
Touya has to take a taxi all the way to Tokyo Narita. He curses Chisaki and his private jet as the price on the metre ticks up, but the taxi driver does gun it when Touya hands him a five thousand yen note and barks at him to hurry.
He scrambles out of the taxi at the airport rank and looks wildly around. He knows Chisaki bypasses security to board his plane, so they won’t have gotten far. Chisaki's plane leaves in twenty-five minutes.
Shit, how do people in the movies do this? Touya doesn’t even know where to look, but he sure as fuck didn’t haul himself out here for nothing.
He scans the people filtering in and out of the doors, ripped through with adrenaline that has nowhere to go. He doesn’t see them.
It’s the miracle of Touya’s life that, in his desperate sweeping search of the airport drop-off bays, he spots a car pull up further down the road outside the airport.
Chisaki steps out. Tsutsumi climbs out the other side.
They linger for a moment, pulling bags out of the backseat, hazy in the summer dawn.
Touya sprints there regardless and viciously curses that he’s so out of shape. Seriously, how do they do this in the movies?
Touya practically throws himself under Chisaki and Tsutsumi’s feet, skidding to a stop by their car. It’s early enough that they don't have a huge audience, but Touya can still sense people staring as they hurry into the airport.
If Touya has to make a scene, so be it.
“Have I forgotten something?” Chisaki asks, face mask firmly in place.
“Yeah,” Touya spits, still trying to catch his breath. He straightens up, stabs a threatening, self-righteous finger at Chisaki. “That you’re a bastard. I don’t wanna end up like you. I’m giving up the promotion. I quit.”
And, okay, that was probably a lot at once, but if Touya doesn’t explode over it he’s never going to get it all out.
Touya turns to Tsutsumi. She’s watching him with an unreadable expression.
“Tsutsumi-san,” Touya implores. He tacks emphasis on the honorific. He probably needs it. “You can’t marry him. He’s using you.”
“Get out of my way,” Chisaki says. He draws his shoulders back, like a predator ready to strike. “We’re going to be late for our flight. Also, you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me,” Touya snaps, digging his feet in. “Because I quit, like, two minutes ago. Asshole.”
And, oh, does it feel good to call Chisaki an asshole to his face. It’s been three back-breaking years coming.
Touya can feel his mouth stretching into a savage, unhinged grin. He could swear Tsutsumi looks almost impressed.
“Tsutsumi-san,” Touya says. “I know Takami spoke to you earlier this week. I don’t know what he said. But all of this? We did this. We set you up from the start. And I’m sorry if that’s fucking hard to hear, but we manipulated you and you need to dump his sorry ass. Takami only ever has the highest praise for you. You don’t know me, but I know you’re way better than this sick fuck.”
“I fired Takami-san after he spoke to me,” Tsutsumi admits, but she does look a little shifty, not quite meeting Touya’s eyes as she says it.
Chisaki almost looks like he approves of her actions. Touya can’t have that at all.
“You’re a snake, you know that?” Touya says, whirling to face Chisaki. “I’ve hated every second of working for you. You’ve made my life hell.”
Chisaki is unmoved by Touya’s outburst. He probably hears the names on a regular basis.
“Hm,” Tsutsumi says. She takes a step away from Chisaki. “Perhaps you make some good points, Todoroki-san.”
“Kaina,” Chisaki says. “He’s lying. Don’t go. You’re my best asset.”
“Asset?” Tsutsumi repeats. Touya’s so in awe of her cool incredulity. He would freeze under the weight of it. He doesn’t know how Takami put up with it for so long, placing himself between Tsutsumi’s warpath and the rest of the world with an easygoing smile. He owes him such an apology. “I’m not an asset, Chisaki-san.”
“Taxi rank’s over there,” Touya says, gesturing towards where he jumped out of the cab.
Tsutsumi shoulders her duffel bag. “Perfect. Thank you, Todoroki-san,” she says, and then she’s gone, storming towards the taxi rank with her head held high.
“You’re going to regret this,” Chisaki hisses.
The threat means nothing to Touya now. Chisaki can’t hurt him. He’s so sick of letting other people hurt him. He’s always anticipating the pain, but now Chisaki looks fragile and pathetic, an angry vein bulging in his forehead.
Touya spreads his arms. He only just notices then that his shirt is creased to all hell from sleeping in it, and he has to laugh. He’s going to scare Chisaki off with unironed clothes and unbrushed teeth. “Try me.”
Chisaki draws his shoulders back like he really is going to try and land a hit. Touya’s a scrappy fucking bitch. He can take Chisaki in a fistfight.
Chisaki instead turns around and heads back into the car that’s been idling behind them for the past few minutes. He doesn’t look at Touya before he slams the car door. The tinted window completely disguises him from Touya’s sight. The car peels away, the tires screeching on the road.
Touya stands in the aftermath. The morning light is pale and diffused through the clouds, the air cool and clear, preparing to make way for a thick summer’s day.
He looks around at all of the people rushing to catch their early flights, and the only thing he wishes is that Takami was here to see this.
Keigo doesn’t manage to get down to the office to pack up his things for another two weeks. It’s been so long since he’s had to apply for jobs that he forgot how much it sucks the life out of him.
And, maybe, just maybe, he’s avoiding the building because he doesn’t want to bump into Touya.
Keigo misses him so fiercely. He knows he has to apologise, but there’s something in his brain trying to convince him that Touya doesn’t care, and that he’s already moved on, and he’ll look at Keigo with that cool, blank stare of his as Keigo grovels while he tries to remember who Keigo is.
So he sneaks in on a Friday afternoon with an empty cardboard box in his arms, when the sun is shining and the office is bound to be sleepy. Tsutsumi has to let him in because his keycard no longer works, but she doesn’t really seem that upset to see him.
They ride the elevator in silence, and only when they reach the forty-first floor does Tsutsumi speak.
“I didn’t marry Chisaki Kai.”
Keigo can’t quite disguise his shock. “Really?”
“Yes,” Tsutsumi says. “His assistant found us before we flew to Sapporo. Your words had planted a seed of doubt in my mind, but perhaps I was too eager to tick off another life goal and I was presented with an easy, painless option. But he reiterated much of what you said, and I had to give it to him. It sounded awfully more convincing the second time round.”
Touya did that? Keigo had no idea.
He really should call Touya back. He needs to stop burying his head in the sand.
“You know, it’s been chaos without you here,” Tsutsumi continues.
The elevator doors nearly close with Keigo still inside, as flummoxed as he is. He awkwardly shoves through the doors as Tsutsumi starts making her way down the hallway.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Keigo says stiffly.
“Don’t be sorry,” Tsutsumi says, almost absently. She slows enough for Keigo to fall into step with her. “I made a rash decision in letting you go. Your position is safe if you would like to come back. I haven’t hired anybody else yet.”
And it’s so tempting. So tempting for Keigo to return to what he knows, to the role where every move is dictated by somebody else. He trusts Tsutsumi’s leadership. He trusts the comfort of being an assistant.
He trusts it, but he knows he can’t have it.
“I appreciate that, Tsutsumi-san,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “But I’d like to be a journalist, like you. It wasn’t until you fired me that I saw how being your assistant stifled me. So, thank you, but I’m not going to work under you again.”
“Hm,” Tsutsumi says. She doesn’t look like she’s going to bite his head off. Keigo’s shoulders untense a fraction. What’s the worst she can do now, anyway? She’s already fired him. “I understand.”
They lapse into silence, the quiet holding them close all the way to Tsutsumi’s office.
“Have you written anything?” Tsutsumi asks, as Keigo sets his box down on his desk.
Keigo stares at her for a few moments before her words sink in. “Yes! Yes, actually, I have it right here.”
He could kiss the blind optimism of his past self, putting the printed article in his bag before he left the apartment. He pulls it out, a little crumpled and dog-eared, and places it into Tsutsumi’s waiting palm.
“‘If you’ve got wings, you should stretch them out and fly’: A look into the career trajectory of the Fukuoka Hawks’ most promising pitcher,” Tsutsumi reads.
Hearing the title spoken out loud by someone who isn’t him sends a little thrill through Keigo.
“The title can be changed,” Keigo tacks on hastily.
“No, I like the title,” Tsutsumi says, thoughtful. “It packs a punch. I like the wordplay, too.”
“Okay,” Keigo says. “We can keep the title.”
Tsutsumi looks up from the manuscript. She gestures towards her office with her head. “I’ve got time now, if you want to go through it. You can pack up your desk afterwards.”
“Sure, Tsutsumi-san,” Keigo agrees, his heart pounding in his chest. He follows her into her glass-walled office. “I’d like that.”
When Keigo finally leaves the building, his cardboard box weighed down with the contents of his desk and his article littered with purple pen marks in Tsutsumi’s familiar scrawl, it almost feels like closure.
Keigo shoulders into the July sun, arms full of all the stuff he’s amassed over the past three years.
He thinks his want is making him hallucinate when he sees Touya standing outside the building.
Touya’s turned towards the street, in a baggy white t-shirt and another pair of those stupid short shorts. Keigo’s never been so happy to see his pale, skinny legs.
“Touya?” Keigo says, before he can stop himself.
Touya turns around. His eyes snag on the box in Keigo’s arms and the bag slung over his shoulder first. Then he meets Keigo’s eyes. The familiar blue of his gaze sends Keigo’s small intestine twisting around itself.
Keigo has so many things he wants to say. Things like sorry and we took it too far and I’ve missed you every day I haven’t seen you.
Instead, he says, “What are you wearing? I didn’t think the dress code was that casual.”
“It’s not,” Touya says. “I don’t work here anymore.”
Keigo nearly drops the box he’s holding. “What?”
Touya laughs, a little mean, a little shy, and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I quit. Found a new job doing finances for a kids’ shelter. Pay sucks, but I hear you’re meant to actually like your job.”
Keigo hesitates. His arms are starting to hurt. His little orange lamp weighs a ton. “So why are you here?”
“Tsutsumi told me to meet her here twenty minutes ago,” Touya says. “She didn’t say why.”
They both seem to realise what’s happened at the same time.
“We’ve been set up,” Keigo says, almost in awe.
Touya scuffs his hand through his hair. He sighs. He looks soft and approachable in his big t-shirt, hanging off his lanky frame. He crosses the rest of the distance, until Keigo’s box is the only thing separating them.
“I’m sorry—” Keigo says, at the same time Touya says, “I gotta apologise—”
They stare at each other. Touya snorts.
“I didn’t mean it,” Touya says. “When I said you were too scared to be anything but an assistant. I was pissed as hell and it’s not true. You’ve got way more integrity than I do.”
“I shouldn’t have made that comment about your dad,” Keigo admits, and the apology slides the weight right off his shoulders. “It wasn’t fair. I just wanted to hurt you.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” Touya says. Keigo blinks at him.
Touya’s face is open and expectant, so Keigo just laughs and plays along. Nothing can hurt him now. The sun is warm on his face, Touya’s looking right at him, and their hurt is being smoothed over bit by bit, melting away like ice after a neverending winter.
“You’re the sulkiest man I’ve ever met,” Keigo replies.
“You’re way too competitive.”
“You carry a stupid amount of cash.”
“You’re an asshole,” Touya bites out, full of good humour.
“You’re an asshole,” Keigo bites back.
Touya's face folds into a lovely, open smile. It’s an unfamiliar expression on him, one that stretches the scars on his jaw, but Keigo thinks it might be his new favourite.
“And yet,” Touya says.
Keigo laughs. He sets his box down so he can step past it and hold Touya’s face in both hands. Touya’s hands come to rest on his waist, easy and familiar. He smells like smoke and like Touya. His eyes are so very blue.
In the fraction of space between their faces, Keigo murmurs, “And yet.”