Chapter Text
It had been five days since the party, and five days since Isagi had heard from Kaiser.
No texts, no visits to the cafe when Isagi was working, not even a professional response when Isagi abandoned all sense of shame and asked if he should use ‘affect’ or ‘effect’ on his study guide. Nothing. Not even a read receipt, which meant Kaiser had either turned them off or blocked Isagi’s number entirely, either of which was entirely intentional. Isagi even tried calling him once, the morning after the party, and received no answer. It was the final week of classes before winter break, and the worst part was, apparently, Ballet 101 was not meeting again until after recess. Which meant he couldn’t dispatch Bachira to interrogate Kaiser, spy on him, or ask him anything at all because, for the past week, Kaiser had become a ghost, and it seemed the College of Performing Arts’ academic calendar was assisting him in doing so. The musical was still rehearsing, but he didn’t know Yukimiya well enough to ask him about Kaiser, and even if he did the idea of Otoya or Hiori getting word that Kaiser kissed him was too mortifying to even consider the possibility.
In a word, though, Isagi was seething.
Michael Kaiser had always been a baffling person, but this was a new monstrosity entirely. What kind of asshole teased someone all semester, acted sad when said person stopped texting them every day, kissed said person, only to run away with no explanation? It made Isagi want to grab him by the hair, strangle him, push him down the library stairs he so often fantasized about, and, worst of all, it made a small, disgusting part of him want to kiss him again. If anything, Isagi wanted the satisfaction of playing the exact same cruel trick on Kaiser; he wanted to see those pale eyes well up in sadness as he left his ass on a rooftop in the freezing cold, with a bottle of wine that, for the record, was gross as hell. He smiled as he imagined Kaiser in his place, wondering what he’d done so wrong.
And maybe it had been a nice kiss. Or whatever. Maybe Isagi liked it. But that only served to make him angrier.
Piece of shit asshole.
Annoying fucking stupid dick.
With his stupid ugly fucking hair and his fucking hands.
And his lips.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Once, Isagi had encountered Ness outside of the music building, which he passed on his way to work due to a construction detour. Despite Ness’ obvious desire to be unassuming in the shadow of Kaiser, Isagi was certain he could recognize that bright magenta dye job from a mile away, and recognize he did, making a beeline for the other man across the grass perilously slicked over with frost without an ounce of hesitation.
He wanted answers. And if he had to drag Ness by the hair into an empty classroom and waterboard the truth out of him, he would do it.
Isagi walked like a man possessed, which made Ness notice him right away. And Isagi scowled at the way his eyes expanded in obvious, damning realization, in a look that said I know exactly why you’re here. Isagi walked faster.
And then, completely disregarding the salmon-haired boy he’d been talking to, Ness made a run for it. Isagi ran after him.
If other students looked their way, which they most certainly did, Ness was too terrified and Isagi far too angry to care. “Ness!” He spat, rounding the corner of the building just in time to see Ness disappear into a side door, “ Ness !”
Isagi, still running, threw open the door hard enough to break the hinges. “Ness!” He yelled again, only to be met with an almost-barren hallway notably absent of magenta-haired lackeys. Isagi was panting, he realized, as the few pairs of eyes that were in the corridor looked upon him in concern, and he quickly recognized the effort was futile as he looked up and down to see rows upon rows of doors leading into smaller classrooms. He was defeated by the crushing odds that Ness could’ve gone into any one of them. On any other day, Isagi would search for him and drag him out screaming, but at this rate, he would be late for work. Gritting his teeth and accepting the loss, he went back the way he came, almost slipping on frozen steps on his way out.
From that day forward, Isagi took the route by the music building to work. He hadn’t seen Ness since.
He tried social media. Kaiser had Instagram, but it was the kind of Instagram that entirely consisted of a carefully curated narrative that revealed nothing of substance about his personal life. The most recent post was a series of rehearsal photos: promotion for the musical, it seemed. To make matters worse, the cover picture was a breathtaking shot of Kaiser, spotlit center stage, adorned in a bright red vest with his hair curled and catching the stage lighting at just the right angle to make him look like some kind of angel. He was beautiful, and of that, there was no denying.
Isagi was going to skin him alive.
The day after he saw the post, Isagi tried to put Kaiser out of his mind. They hated each other, after all, so this was simply them returning to the natural order of things and not deluding themselves with the prospect of some kind of weird friendship or– something else, which would be even worse. Never mind that Isagi still stalked around the music building on his way to work, or that he kept going back to Kaiser’s Instagram page, or that he scrolled so far back, he learned that when Kaiser was fifteen, his entire head was dyed blue, or that Kaiser hadn’t posted a single picture of his family, or that Kaiser and Ness seemed to do virtually everything together–
Nope. Isagi was putting him out of his mind. Isagi didn’t care, the same way Kaiser didn’t care about him.
We never cared, is what Isagi told himself, never mind the way he felt an emptiness in his chest every time he opened his phone to see NO NEW MESSAGES.
Bachira was the only one who knew, and Isagi had to talk him down from murdering Kaiser, which in itself was weirdly therapeutic for two reasons: first, to convince himself that he wanted to murder Kaiser himself, and second, that it was nice to feel as supported as Isagi did by a best friend willing to level cities and spill blood over something as trivial as a kiss at a party.
Trivial, trivial, trivial. Of course it was.
At work, Isagi pretended like he wasn’t constantly watching the door, waiting for a familiar blonde head to ring the bell and order something that would probably be an excellent substitute for rat poison. Hiori asked him if he was okay, to which Isagi lied and said he was fine and thankful to not have seen Kaiser in – he checked the date – six days, and even Rin, who was more attentive than his level of interest would suggest, noticed a shift in the atmosphere. “You’re lukewarm,” he’d told Isagi, “and an idiot,” which Isagi interpreted as a prickly yet uniquely Rin-like brand of concern.
The last Friday before break, Isagi was closing by himself. Hiori had asked if he could leave early, and Isagi allowed it, given that Hiori had to catch a train to get home and the weather outside was becoming worse by the second, snow falling in thick clumps that crowded the sidewalk and obstructed window panes. Isagi’s dorm, luckily, was only a short walk across campus, so he figured he’d have no problem getting back as long as the snowfall didn’t immediately ice over. There hadn’t been a customer in the past hour, most people evidently getting Mother Nature’s message and staying the hell indoors. Isagi was just finishing up locking up for the night as he stepped outside, having already locked the front door from the inside. Hoping to be out of the cold as soon as possible, Isagi put his phone and apron down on the bench in front of the store and pulled his scarf over his nose as the wind chill nipped at his face, and pulled out his keys to lock the outside of the door when:
“Wait!”
And the air in his lungs froze solid as he recognized that voice.
Kaiser must not have realized it was Isagi from behind, because he kept talking as he trudged through the snow. “Hold on, will you? My friend left my charger in here earlier and I need it–”
Heart pounding in his chest, Isagi turned around, pulling his scarf down. When Kaiser realized who he was, he stopped dead in his tracks, not a meter away from Isagi as his face went slack. For a moment, the snow stopped falling, and the sky was clear. Their eyes met.
Kaiser’s features passed through a thousand expressions, and Isagi was sure his own eyes were doing the same. His mouth hung open in a small concave of disbelief, and his hands turned to stone as if they’d been petrified under the stare of sky-blue eyes. Isagi had thought about this moment, he had fantasized about this moment for days on end. He’d thought about all the ways he would tell Kaiser off, he paced back and forth in the shower rehearsing rants poorly disguising what lay underneath, he crafted elongated speeches that drew upon every curse and every jab Isagi had in his vocabulary, all for the sake of making Kaiser hurt. He’d thought about slapping him, even. But now that the moment was here, and the man stood in front of him, Isagi was completely abandoned by language itself.
He must have been naive to think Kaiser felt the same, because he managed to force an empty, pathetic excuse for a smirk and an accented, “Yoichi.”
Isagi could hear his own inhale, and the freezing air felt like needles in his throat. He wasn’t sure how many seconds passed in silence, but he awoke to the present as soon as white clumps of snow began clouding his vision, and Kaiser stepped closer, blinding him further. Isagi’s voice was hoarse, tired, strained as if just three words were more than he could bear.
Not the three words you might expect, though:
“You fucking asshole–”
“Prosaic as always.” Kaiser’s smile was eating itself alive, a constant effort to stay visible. The evidence that he felt anything at all made Isagi livid.
“Are you serious? Are you being serious right now?” Isagi huffed in disbelief, stone casing melting away in the heat of his rage. “Your fucking phone charger?”
“I mean, it’s mine, but Ness left it–”
“No, shut up,” Isagi demanded, turning to face him head-on. Kaiser, as bold as he was, remained where he stood. “What the hell is wrong with you? Like, what is actually, clinically wrong with you? You better have been in a fucking coma, or I swear to God, I–”
“Or you’ll what, Yoichi?” Finally, Kaiser’s face gave in and fell, lips drawn back and eyes no longer feigning light. “Just– let me get it, or whatever, and I’ll leave.”
“You are not leaving,” Isagi rebutted in disbelief, feeling his chest curling in on itself with every word out of Kaiser’s mouth. “Not until you explain yourself.”
Kaiser came ever closer until they didn’t have to raise their voices over the wind. Isagi could see the snowflakes in his eyelashes, and felt the blood turning to ice in his fingertips. Meanwhile, Kaiser’s glare darkened. “Explain what?”
Isagi swallowed. “You kissed me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“ You kissed me, Kaiser, at the party.”
“I kissed several people that night. I lost count,” Kaiser evaded, and those words only hastened the layer of frost gripping Isagi from within. He felt his throat twisting, as: “What?” Kaiser added cruelly as he took in Isagi’s expression, “Did you think you were special?”
Isagi just stared at him, as he felt that all-consuming, burning anger melt and give way to something much, much more frightening. The very nerves which composed him threatened to suffocate him in their unforgiving, twisting grasp, and as his dry throat splintered Isagi felt he might have drowned in the blood those words drew.
“Fuck you,” was, at first, all he could bring himself to say. Any other thought which haunted him was wordless, and nameless, and terrified him. “You really stand here and expect me to believe– you expect me to believe was nothing? After you just got up and left ?”
“I was drunk.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Are you obsessed with me, or something?” Kaiser twisted the knife ever deeper, and if he was the one holding its hilt, Isagi had his hands on the blade, feeling the edge tear through his hands like they were nothing. “Do yourself a favor and forget about it instead of deluding yourself any further, and let me into the goddamn store to find my goddamn phone charger so we can be on our way.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Isagi said, and he meant it, from the bottom of his heart.
Somewhere close to it, anyway.
“Hold this,” he added, as brutally and numbly as he could manage, as he swung the door open and threw it into Kaiser’s hands as he retreated back into the cafe. His head was spinning, so he tried to focus on the walls, on the posters on the walls, on the way the paint was peeling behind the bar, on empty outlets, on empty outlets, empty outlets–
“Where the hell is it, Kaiser?” Isagi yelled without looking over his shoulder, the man’s very name feeling like a curse on his tongue.
“Are you blind, or just stupid?”
“I don’t see your stupid–”
Ding, the bell over the door rang like a gong.
Click, the door shut. And another click, the sound of a lock.
Kaiser stood inside the lobby now, kicking snow off of his boots on the doormat and wiping it off of his glasses with his collar.
Isagi was frozen, head slowly turning around as if his bones had corroded in the time it took to process what was happening. Blank eyes stared at Kaiser, horrified. “What are you doing?”
Kaiser was blissfully unaware. “Well, ex-fucking-scuse me, in case you haven’t noticed there’s a blizzard outside, and I’m freezing, so–”
“I told you to hold the door!” Isagi shouted, the panic settling in as he abandoned his search for the charger and rushed towards the door, shoving Kaiser out of the way so he could reach it.
“Well, I’m so sorry, if you truly insist on keeping it open for no good reason I can–”
Isagi was struggling with the copper handle, which didn’t budge. “It locks from the inside, you idiot !”
Kaiser paled as he understood. “Why the hell would it–?”
“I don’t fucking know, lock pics or some shit, I–” Isagi stepped back, his efforts obviously not going anywhere, and took a deep breath. It was fine, this was fine, this was easily amendable. “It’s fine, I’ll just get my keys, and–”
He felt in his left pocket, where he always kept them. Nothing. His heart plummeted into his stomach.
He checked his left pocket. Nothing.
Shirt pocket, nothing, front pockets, nothing, nothing, nothing, there was nothing –
And then, as if fate needed a moment to laugh to herself, he saw them. Through the glass, in the snow, in front of the door. On the outside.
He’d dropped them when he heard Kaiser’s voice.
“Fuck,” he breathed, almost laughing at the horror of it all, and Kaiser, confused at his sudden shift in demeanor, slowly followed his gaze until he, too, saw their only means of escape, gradually being covered by a layer of white power.
“Oh, you absolute idiot,” he started–
“It’s your fucking fault!” Isagi cut him off before he could get another word out, backing away from Kaiser a few steps as if the close proximity would lead him to do something he’d regret. In the eyes of the law. “You startled me out of nowhere, I–”
“Oh, so it’s my fault you can’t control your–” Kaiser waved his hands around in front of his face like a child, punctuating every syllable, “– re-flex-es !”
“No, it– it’s fine, I’ll just call someone with my–” Isagi reached for his phone, and was reminded of the emptiness of his pockets as if he’d been thrown into freezing cold water. “–phone… My– where’s my–?” He checked his pockets again, then looked around, on every table, every counter, he was about to check behind the bar at this point when–
“Yoichi,” Kaiser summoned, and Isagi was gutted to see that he was looking outside, just past the keys. Isagi approached the glass again, afraid of what he was about to find. “That wouldn’t be, by any chance, yours, would it?”
It was.
His phone, on the bench inside the pocket of his apron. Right where he’d left it.
“This can’t be happening,” Isagi said, running his hands through his hair. “No, no– seriously, this cannot be happening–! Where’s your phone?” He asked Kaiser, turning suddenly. “Can you call someone?”
Kaiser breathed through his nose and exhaled before responding. “My phone. Is fucking. Dead. That’s why. I need. My charger–”
“Fucking find it, then!”
“That’s what I was going to do before you yelled at me about the door–!”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear one more word out of you until we find it.”
To say they were frantic was an understatement.
Isagi checked every outlet, corner, table, counter, crevice, and every cabinet right down to the fridges because, hey, you never know, and still, nothing. They both must have realized this around a minute or so into the hopeless search, but turning over menus and napkin holders as if that would, somehow, reveal some kind of hidden compartment, was decidedly preferable to speaking to each other and facing the reality of their current situation. It was a joke, a cruel joke in which the universe decided to punish Isagi for transgressions unbeknownst to him, in which hell itself sounded better than this purgatory and even death might have been a kinder fate than being locked in a one-room cafe with Michael Kaiser. At least death was peaceful. And quiet. And simple.
Isagi swore under his breath, finally weary as he collapsed against the outside of the bar, its sharp edge poking his back. What had he done to deserve this? “This can’t be happening,” he said again, but his words were laced with the realization that this was, in fact, happening, and at the present moment there was nothing he or Kaiser could do to keep it from happening.
Speaking of Kaiser, the tattoed nightmare had also given up, and had sunken into a chair at a table near the front window. “You are so unbelievably stupid–”
“This wouldn’t be happening if you had just done what you were told!” Isagi tried to steady his breathing as he haphazardly pushed his bangs out of his face, only for them to fall in a different spot on his forehead the second he moved his hand. “No, okay, this– this is fine. Bachira. Bachira knows I’m off at seven, and– and when I don’t come home, he’ll realize something’s wrong and come check on me. I’m sure it won’t be long.”
Kaiser groaned in distress as he put his head in his hands, hair spilling over his arms as he pressed his nose to the table. His voice was muffled as he vowed, “Ness is so fucking dead next time I see him–”
“Won’t he realize you’re gone?” Isagi asked from the bar, the fight leaving him with every minute passed. “And come looking?”
“Ness,” Kaiser said from his fortress of limbs, “is, as of this minute, in an opera rehearsal until ten o’clock, in which the director will positively snipe you if you even think about your phone.” He looked up, glaring at Isagi like he’d just spoiled his fun. “Why do you think I was forced to come here?”
“Oh, of course, why would his majesty walk two steps off campus to get his own phone charger? Sorry, I forgot the entire world has your dick in its hand. My mistake.”
Kaiser looked like he was about to say something, but after a moment put his head down right back against the face of the table. “Fuck you.”
Isagi didn’t respond. He let his eyes, damned as they were, drift towards Kaiser, where he knew the latter couldn’t see he was looking, and stay there. Was that it, then? Bachira would show up within the hour, they would leave, and everything would end there? With Isagi left only to believe that anything between them was a fabrication of his own unreliable imagination, that his sworn enemy holding his face in his hands and kissing his lips meant nothing at all?
Maybe they really did hate each other, and Kaiser only kissed Isagi to torment him. Maybe it was all a game to him, and he’d known exactly what he was doing all along. That was very possible, if he was truly as cruel as he was acting now.
Kaiser looked up again, and Isagi awkwardly averted his gaze and pretended he’d been reading the flyers on one of the bulletin boards across the lobby. If Kaiser noticed he’d been staring, he didn’t say anything and turned his chair to face the window as he watched the snow without so much as a word or a glance.
Isagi hated that he couldn’t pinpoint his feelings in a word. He hated Kaiser for it. And he hated that, despite the way everything about him seemed to want to hurt him, Isagi wanted to believe there was something more.
Five minutes fell away, which turned into ten minutes of a silence as cold as the storm outside, and eventually, Isagi became tired of standing and slid to the floor in front of the espresso bar, absent-mindedly picking at his nails. Kaiser had barely moved, save for the way he gently rested his hand on his chin as he stared into the opaque landscape outside, hoping for just one splash of color to come to their rescue. Isagi was looking through the glass, too, but his eyes glazed over as, with each tick of the clock hands above him, hope seemed farther and farther away. Given the storm, not a single person had walked by. Bachira is coming, he repeated in his head until the words only seemed like sounds, he’ll be here any second now.
The sun had set in the time since their imprisonment, so, with a sigh, Isagi pulled himself to his feet and walked behind the bar to turn the lights back on, having shut them off when he thought he had a chance of leaving for the night. Kaiser perked up at the noise of movement but, upon realizing it was only Isagi, sagged in disappointment as if he’d forgotten who he was trapped in here with and turned back towards the window. Isagi watched him. Not having their phones only made the entire atmosphere even more awkward than it already was, giving the two of them the very adventurous options of staring at a wall or actually talking to each other, of which they chose the former, and as another ten minutes of nothingness went by Isagi began to confront the fact that they might be here awhile. He had no authority over the building’s thermostat, and while he was grateful it at least remained set at a relatively neutral temperature overnight, given the weather outside Isagi was beginning to feel a slight chill.
On his feet now, Isagi started pacing in circles. It obviously annoyed Kaiser, but he didn’t say anything. When the pacing didn’t help, Isagi started counting the tiles on the floor. Kaiser kept watching the window. Deciding he didn’t care about the number of tiles or the depth of cracks in them (which was more than he’d expected, actually), Isagi ventured behind the bar. He found a container of tiny salt packets. Isagi would have liked to state that, for the record, in this kind of a situation entertainment was scarce, and given that he would have done literally anything other than think about his relationship with Kaiser for more than five seconds, salt packets seemed more than suitable.
Near the front door, there was a counter occupied with small bins, all filled with different types of sugars. He zeroed in on the one that was almost empty, plucked a salt packet out of its home, and flung it as his target.
He missed. Horribly.
The packet hit the glass on the door before falling to the floor, and the sound seemed to catch Kaiser’s attention as the blonde perked up for a moment and noticed it. Isagi waited for him to say something, or at least call him a name, but Kaiser only rolled his eyes with a scoff before going right back to his previous position, hand to his cheek.
Isagi paid him no mind and threw another salt packet. He missed again, but this time it at least landed on the counter.
He threw another.
And another.
And another.
And another, and– oh, shit. It slipped out of his hand too soon.
And landed directly on Kaiser’s head.
Kaiser jumped as if he’d been asleep, snapping his head up and instinctively shaking it back and forth to free it of the tiny packet, which landed on the table in front of him. Disgusted, he stared at it for a moment, before glaring fire back at Isagi. “What the hell are you doing?”
Isagi met his eyes with a blank face, the kind of face that flatly said, try me, asshole. “I’m playing.”
“You’re a child.”
Seeing the annoyed grimace on his face, Isagi had a brilliant idea.
“No, I’m focusing. Now stay still–” he ordered, and as Kaiser was halfway through opening his mouth to refuse, fired another salt packed off in his direction, this time aiming for the wire between his glasses.
Kaiser swatted it away like an irritable cat, and Isagi wouldn’t have been surprised if he started bristling like one. “Stop that.”
“Make me,” Isagi challenged, and threw another packet. Kaiser swatted it again, which made Isagi toss another, and another, and–
“Yoichi,” Kaiser snarled, standing up like a flurry and gripping the most recent attack attempt in his right fist so hard Isagi half-expected blood to start dripping between his fingers. Between the painfully loud screech of the chair on wooden floors and Kaiser speaking in a voice laced with so much fury it must have brought the room temperature up a couple of degrees, Isagi’s arm froze mid-aim.
“As if you could do any better,” Isagi sneered, raising his eyebrows as he nodded towards the sugar container on the far counter that he was still yet to score into. As if to prove a point, he threw another packet over Kaiser’s head, but overshot so badly it hit the wall well above the counter behind him. Nothing was proven, but if he hadn’t lost all faith in his perception of his and Kaiser’s relationship, Isagi would’ve thought the other man almost smiled. Almost.
“I don’t care about your moronic game,” Kaiser growled, eyes twitching like he had to force himself to not perpetually roll them.
“Well, you’re in the line of fire. I warned you,” Isagi said with a shrug, before aiming another packet at Kaiser, who was glancing over his shoulder at the door. Not prepared for the assault, it hit him in the middle of his chest, and he whipped his head around at Isagi as he felt it make the landing.
Isagi had to contain a grin, as if to regulate the joy that coursed through him at seeing Kaiser upset. “Bullseye,” he said.
And then Kaiser sprung into action, walking over to the bar in threatening strides with a cold, “Fine,” that had Isagi backing up a couple of steps in case he had gone stir crazy and was about to choke him out. But Kaiser rounded the corner of the handoff counter and stormed up to Isagi behind the bar, offering his palm. “Where are you aiming? I could shoot circles around you.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Far left sugar holder,” Isagi told him, pointing with his free hand as Kaiser’s eyes followed the direction of his finger. Like a truce, he held up the container of salts. “First to five?”
Kaiser scoffed. “You’ll wish it was ten.”
He shoved his hand into the container while trapping Isagi in a catastrophically intense bout of eye contact, plucked out his weapon, and took the shot.
He missed. And swore under his breath as if he was surprised at the difficulty, but tried to play it off with another glare at Isagi, who readily accepted his challenge.
Isagi missed, too.
They missed a lot. Most of the time, actually. It was much harder than it looked.
But the longer they went on, the more intense their little competition became – it was as if the stakes were raised with every near-miss, which just created another opportunity for them to crush each other in a moment of weakness. Isagi, who had the advantage of experience, scored first, and he was too wrapped up in the melodrama of it all to feel embarrassed by the way he jumped with both feet and cheered as if he’d just scored in the World Cup. He pumped his fist, and if he hadn’t been so loud, he might have heard Kaiser chuckle. Just a little. Probably mockingly, but a chuckle was a chuckle.
Kaiser scored second, which he celebrated with much more tact, but there was no mistaking the cocky glint that had returned to his eye. He also scored third, but Isagi came up from behind quickly and tied the game, and the pattern repeated until they were both at a sweltering four-four draw with only two packets left. One chance each.
“Will he do it?” Isagi cupped his hands and spoke into them like a microphone, mimicking a sports announcer. “With less than sixty seconds left in the second half, Michael Kaiser now has the opportunity to win the game for Germany – but can he do it? Or will he crack under the pressure–”
“I’m going to kill you,” Kaiser said through his teeth, laser-focused on the target on the other side of the lobby, almost lost in the countless salt packets littering the counter and floor around it.
“The crowd goes silent,” Isagi continued, bending his knees and leaning in closer, “it all comes down to this–”
To shut him up, Kaiser shot. And the packet, tragically, grazed the side of the goal before ultimately landing on the counter.
“Fuck!” Kaiser shouted and then cursed something in German, while Isagi jumped up and threw his hands in the air, celebrating before the last turn for glory landed on him.
“You suck!” He laughed, grinning as if he’d already won, while Kaiser exhaled loudly.
“Your turn, then,” Kaiser reminded him, grabbing the container from where they’d set it on the bar between them and holding it out to Isagi like a blade. “Last chance.”
“You’re just afraid you’ll lose,” Isagi fished the last packet out between two fingers with a smirk that, unbeknownst to him, looked a lot like ones he so often wanted to slap off of Kaiser. “Which you will.”
“Fat chance.”
“Watch me, then.”
They were both silent as Isagi stepped back, and took aim. His heart was beating in his ears, and it took every ounce of strength to keep his arm from shaking at such a pivotal moment. He breathed in, then out. In, then out. Beside him, he could feel Kaiser’s stare burning twin holes in the side of his head.
He gritted his teeth and took the shot.
One. Two.
The packet flew through the air, drawing a perfect arch through the room before beautifully, fatefully, passing into the far left sugar container.
They both screamed.
Isagi in a glorious victory, and Kaiser in defeat: a horrified, crushed sound that sounded a lot like an elongated “No!” But he was smiling. Isagi, too, was smiling. And then he started laughing, waving his arms around with his palms out as if the world was watching, as if there was a crowd cheering his name all around them.
“Take that!” He spat, spinning around his heel and quirking his lip at Kaiser before taking a bow. “Japan, for the championship, steals the pivotal goal–!”
“And yet analysts speculate it could’ve been anyone’s game,” Kaiser cut in, crossing his arms and shaking his head at Isagi’s excitement. “It came down to a matter of luck, really–”
“Is Germany already calling for a rematch?” Isagi asked, mimicking Kaiser’s jealous smile and crossed arms, which made him snort.
“Should that happen, Germany will not be cleaning up the pitch beforehand,” he responded, glancing towards the piles of salt packets that had accumulated near the front of the store, “but if Japan volunteers to, I wouldn’t stop–”
“Hey, that was a team effort, ” Isagi argued, already groaning internally at the prospect of having to pick up all those tiny packets. “The sportsmanly thing to do, of course, would be to help the poor ball boys who don’t want to get yelled at.”
“Ah, you forget. I don’t care much for that kind of thing.”
“But you concede the victory?”
Kaiser pursed his lips and didn’t respond.
Isagi pressed him and leaned forward. “You concede the victory, right?”
A moment passed before Kaiser broke into a smile and lost his composure, sighting loudly and looking up at the ceiling. “Fine. Yes. You exceeded my expectations.”
Isagi gasped dramatically, which made Kaiser shake his head and hide his face. “Are you saying… I’m better than you?”
Kaiser eyed him from his peripheral. “That is absolutely not what I’m saying.”
“Really?” Isagi pouted. “Because– wait, what was the score again? Five-fo–?”
“I will get you back for this,” Kaiser vowed, smile still betraying him as he leaned on his elbows against the counter in front of them. “Mark my words.”
“Words marked,” Isagi acknowledged, uncrossing his arms and stretching, and he didn’t miss the way he could see the corner of Kaiser’s lip curl upwards. After another moment of looking at the carnage they’d caused, though, his high spirits were threatened. “Shit, you’re right. That’s gonna be hell to clean up.”
“You started it,” Kaiser pointed out, trying to absolve himself from responsibility.
“And finished it,” Isagi corrected, kicking his leg. Kaiser lazily swatted at him. “Shouldn’t the loser have to clean up?”
“The loser, unfortunately, is out of commission, as losing has sent him spiraling into a deep depression from which he is uncertain he can return.”
“Oh, maybe he’ll be less insufferable, then.”
“Ha-ha-ha.”
“ Ha-ha-ha, ” Isagi mimicked in a nasal voice. Kaiser sacrificed his balance to return his kick to the leg, which Isagi clumsily dodged with a loud laugh. He let his smile flatten a bit, watching Kaiser as his eyes fell on the door in front of them, behind which the storm had only gotten worse. Like a sickness, reality was back. “Sorry,” Isagi said, quieter, “I thought Bachira would be here by now. He must be busy. Or asleep. Probably asleep.”
Kaiser shrugged, which was weird for him. “I figured that much about halfway through the sodium cup.” He tilted his head to look up at Isagi, still standing up mostly straight in contrast to Kaiser’s relaxed hunch. “You’re saying we should plan on being here for some time?”
“...Yeah,” Isagi said with a sigh, putting his hands on his hips as he, too, gazed wistfully out the glass door. “Unless there’s someone crazy enough to be going for a walk in this weather, which is… doubtful.” He looked around, like a solution would become obvious somewhere not yet explored, but was met with nothing. He hoped his phone was protected enough inside his apron outside, though.
Kaiser tapped the side of the espresso machine, which sat dormant to his left, and blinked at Isagi with a coy smile. “Is this working?”
“ No, ” Isagi said with zero hesitation, a smile inevitable as he knew exactly what Kaiser was thinking. “No, it has to stay off all night to clean, and no, even if it was on, I am not making any of your concoctions.”
“Aww,” Kaiser said with a tight frown, which made Isagi roll his eyes just like he did. “But I’d be so nice about it.”
“Yeah, right,” Isagi snorted, circling around behind Kaiser to the machine and kicking his ankle again as he passed. He inspected it for a moment, before realizing, “Wait, the milk steamer still works.” He looked at Kaiser, who arched an eyebrow back at him. “I could make hot chocolate?”
“With oat m–?”
“Yes, you asshole, I can make yours with oat milk. Wouldn’t want your voice to crack. Again.”
“Mm, nice try, but I don’t have rehearsal until after Christmas, so checkmate. I just like the taste.”
“You like the taste?”
“You don’t ?”
“It– it just tastes so–?”
“Like oats?”
“Well– yeah! But that’s kinda gross.”
“Everything I learn about you is absolutely irredeemable, you know that?”
“Au contraire, silver medalist,” Isagi countered, before gently shoving Kaiser away from the counter. “Move. I need to get to the cups.”
“I never said yes to hot chocolate.”
“You didn’t say no.”
Kaiser paused, looked at Isagi, then the two cups in his hand, then sighed. “Whatever. If it’ll keep you entertained.”
Isagi got to work, opening the fridge underneath the bar and fishing out both kinds of milk. When he came back up, the heat of their epic competition having worn off, he was reminded of the uncomfortable coldness of the cafe at night and nodded toward Kaiser. “Hey, there’s an emergency kit with blankets in the storage closet. It’s getting cold, go grab it.”
Kaiser looked at him defiantly. “You’re ordering me around, now?”
“Just go, shithead. I can see your nose turning red.”
Kaiser glared, and he touched his nose either because he was surprised Isagi noticed or he himself hadn’t paid it attention at all. Still, Isagi could tell his presumption about Kaiser also being cold was correct, because he didn’t try to fight any further as he turned around in the direction of the closet, while Isagi worked on both of their drinks, the steam warming his face.
“Can I put whipped cream on it?” He called out without looking up, finishing off the milk on Kaiser’s before starting on his own, and there was a moment of quiet before Kaiser answered as if he needed to think about it.
“...Fine,” Kaiser yelled back. “Only a little bit.”
“Boo, a ‘little bit.’ Have some fun.”
“Boo, I hope you choke on yours.”
“Yeah, well, I actually did poison yours this time, so.”
It was about a minute before Kaiser returned, but when he did he was holding the bulky kit in both arms, no doubt overcompensating but, at the moment, no doubt immensely helpful. “Where do you want this?” He asked, just as Isagi started fumbling around with lids, and the latter pointed downwards to indicate the front of the bar, facing the lobby.
“Set the pillows down,” he said, “I have an idea.”
After a moment, Kaiser’s face turned smug. “That’s forward of you.”
“What–? Oh Jesus, Kaiser– Just do it!”
Kaiser didn’t say anything, which was unexpected, and obliged, which was also generally unexpected. Isagi could feel his face heating up for reasons beyond the steam wand, now, and he hated that such a childish innuendo brought back all his memories and doubts regarding That-Event-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. And just when he and Kaiser finally, finally seemed like they were getting back to normal, too.
Just ignore it, he willed himself, popping the second lid on with a heavy breath. Things are fine now. Keep it that way.
Finished with the hot chocolates, Isagi brought them around to the other side of the bar, where Kaiser had set out two pillows a perfectly normal, platonically acceptable distance from each other. He was currently wrangling one of the emergency blankets, too large for its own good, and Isagi had to hold in a laugh at the clumsiness of it all.
“Here, hold these,” he told Kaiser, handing the drinks off to him once he’d given in and admitted defeat to the blanket. Kaiser took them silently, and Isagi didn’t waste a second before venturing over to the cabinet underneath the sugar counter. The entire area was blanketed in salt packets he crushed beneath his feet, but he ignored them and opened the cabinet, and breathed a relieved sigh when he saw all its contents were still there.
“What are you doing?” Kaiser asked, craning his neck uncomfortably to try and see inside the dark space. “What’s in there?”
“Movies,” Isagi answered over his shoulder, pulling out a stack and thumbing through a collection of familiar titles. “Or, VCR tapes. The TV on the wall is, like, super old and the owner refuses to get rid of it, so everyone that works here started bringing in movie tapes to play on it.” He shot Kaiser a backward glance, too brief to digest his expression. “Any favorites?”
Kaiser was staring at him, holding one of the cups slightly off center from the sleeve so that it was burning his hand, but he didn’t care. He was hesitant, Isagi could tell that much by the lack of immediate response. “Yoichi–”
“Look,” Isagi sighed, hoping to quell any pointless awkwardness here and now, “we’re both stuck in here until at least ten unless Bachira shows up, and neither of us has our phones or homework or anything, really, so I figured–” he gestured to the cabinet, “this might be a good way to pass the time.” And it’ll keep us from talking about That, was the unsaid addition. “Unless you have a better idea.”
Kaiser started to say something, like maybe he might’ve, but it died in his throat and was replaced with something else. “Not particularly.”
“Great.” Isagi would take ‘not particularly.’ “Now, between me, Hiori, and Rin, we have pretty much half of the Miyazaki filmography, and… the first two Saw movies.”
Kaiser snorted. “Quite the selection.”
“Rin brought the last two,” Isagi said, shaking his head affectionately, “he loves horror, but–”
“Do you?”
“Love horror? Oh, no,” Isagi answered with a laugh, “I’m awful with horror movies. When I was a kid, my dad let me watch The Exorcist, and I had nightmares for a month.”
“Oh, I’d believe you’d have nightmares if you saw it now. ”
“Shut up!” Isagi would’ve thrown a tape at him if he didn’t know better, so he settled for a tasteful middle finger. “That shit is terrifying to a six-year-old, okay?”
“No, I believe you. I just also believe you’d piss yourself watching it now, as well.”
“Alright, asshole, if you’re so brave–”
“We are not watching either of the Saws, Yoichi. Saw is gross, not scary, so if you truly want to test your cowardice I’d sooner tune into, as you recommended, The Exorcist. ”
Isagi scowled at him. “I think Saw is scary,” he muttered under his breath, not intending for Kaiser to hear. He did.
“You would.”
Isagi only cared enough to flip him off, opting instead to lift out the top half of one of the multiple stacks of tapes within the cabinet. “Favorite Ghibli, dickhead?”
Kaiser was sniffing his hot chocolate. “Never seen any.”
“You’ve never–” Hold on, hold on– Isagi could put aside a grudge for this, almost smiling in his disbelief. “You’ve never seen any? Any of them?”
Without looking at him, Kaiser shook his head. “Nope.”
“Not even, fucking– Spirited Away? Nothing?! ”
“I’m not a huge fan of animation,” Kaiser explained, and if he hoped to have diffused the situation it didn’t work, as Isagi only bristled more. “I’ve never been that interested.”
“Okay, this, like– this goes beyond animation and not animation,” Isagi proclaimed, picking the top tape off of the stack and waving it around to emphasize his words. “It’s Ghibli, dude. What rock have you been living under?”
“A comfortable one,” Kaiser said back, and as he tilted his head and smiled at Isagi the latter knew he was being teased. He didn’t care.
“Alright, well– I’m gonna change your life,” he announced, putting the tapes down on the counter behind them and thumbing through the selection until he found what he was looking for. “This is my favorite. It defined my childhood.”
“That and The Exorcist, apparently.”
“Will you shut up about The Exorcist ?” Isagi didn’t even notice, but he’d started laughing as he walked over to the corner of the room where the TV hung. “No, seriously, this is literally my favorite movie. Ever.”
Kaiser hummed in acknowledgment. “So, if I don’t like it?”
Isagi was dragging a chair from the nearest table underneath the monitor, giving him something to stand on so he could reach the VHS player, dusty from inactivity. “Kaiser, if you hate this movie every transgression you’ve committed against me will seem miniscule in comparison.”
“I’m shivering.”
“Blanket’s right there,” Isagi said with his back to Kaiser, scaling the chair and sliding the tape into place. The remote, also dusty, hid atop the machine, and Isagi sneezed after attempting to blow it clean before stepping down from the chair and returning to the ground, still rubbing his nose. Kaiser looked like he was about to laugh, but didn’t say anything.
There were two pillows but only one blanket, and while it was more than large enough for the both of them Isagi didn’t even want to consider the possibility. He would rather a full-body chill grip him every few minutes than share a blanket with Kaiser, and he kept such destructive thoughts to himself as the other boy wordlessly handed him his hot chocolate, eyes avoiding his own in a way that made Isagi wonder if he was as discrete as he thought. Their fingers touched as the cup passed between them, and Isagi began to consider the possibility that a snowed-in movie with hot chocolate and pillows was not, perhaps, a good idea.
Bachira and I do things like this all the time, he reasoned as he hit the faded play button on the remote, and the menu screen came to life. It’s totally normal.
But Kaiser was not Bachira – Kaiser was far from Bachira, actually, so far from Bachira that his mere presence made Isagi’s stomach twist in a flurry of emotions that could have been anything from hatred to… something else. Something stupid, and annoying, and irrational, and did Isagi mention stupid–
“What’s this about?” Kaiser rudely interrupted his thoughts, squinting at the screen that was, admittedly, a little too far away and a little too small to make for a comfortable viewing experience.
“You have to watch the movie to find out,” Isagi answered like it was obvious.
“Okay, well, I’m confused.”
“It’s been two minutes, Kaiser, watch the movie.”
Kaiser made an exasperated noise but complied nonetheless, sipping quietly on his drink as the film played above them. Normally, Isagi’s eyes would’ve been glued to the screen; he’d seen this more times than he could count, and that wasn’t hyperbole, but Kaiser’s presence was like an irritating magnet to his psyche that was impossible to ignore. That was Kaiser in a nutshell: impossible to ignore. And irritating, obviously. But as Isagi sat beside him and pretended he wasn’t stealing glances, pretended that he didn’t notice the thin line of whipped cream on Kaiser’s upper lip, his brain ran in circles trying to recall at the point in which his emotions towards that irritant weren’t so black-and-white. The point at which he watched the door, waiting, the point at which he smiled as insults left his lips, the point at which said insults became less and less genuine in favor of what he now was starting to admit was fun.
‘Oh, he’s definitely flirting,’ said Otoya, somewhere in the most embarrassing recesses of his mind, and still, Isagi wondered if he was right. He reached for his phone before remembering it wasn’t there, sighed, and decided that his only resort was to just–
“Bachira’s mom’s new cat keeps attacking the customers,” he said.
Kaiser, confused, waited a moment to ensure that Isagi had been talking to him. “What?”
“Bachira’s mom is an artist, and she has a gallery,” Isagi explained, eyes fixed on the screen, “and she got this new cat, who's just a total asshole. And he keeps biting people’s ankles. He’s nice to her, though. Allegedly.”
He could feel Kaiser staring at him, mouth open as he squinted, trying, still, to make sense of the sudden remark. “And you’re telling me this, why…?”
Isagi glanced at him for the first time since he started speaking, then glanced away. “It reminded me of you.”
“Oh. It was ugly, wasn’t it?”
“No. Just a dick.”
“Huh.”
It would’ve been silent if not for the movie, which they both pretended to watch so they wouldn’t have to look at each other, and as he swallowed the rock in his throat Isagi was more grateful to Totoro than he’d been since he was seven.
“I saw a lobster at a seafood restaurant,” Kaiser said after a long moment, facing forward. “Their faces are hideous, you know that?” He paused, and Isagi didn’t respond. But he did start to smile. “Anyway,” Kaiser continued, quieter, “it– it looked like you.”
“Lobsters are my favorite animal.”
Kaiser narrowed his eyes. “Really?”
Isagi felt the smile hit him fully, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look to his side. “I think they’re cute.”
Kaiser’s mouth flattened, and he didn’t say anything. The air was thick, somehow warmer than it had been before. Isagi realized the TV volume was fairly quiet, but his hands were too stiff to reach for the remote. His left hand specifically, he realized, was dangerously close to Kaiser’s right, peeking out from under the blanket which was draped over his shoulders as he, too, must have come to the same conclusion. Isagi watched his throat move as he swallowed.
Slowly, cautiously, an experiment, he moved his hand to the right.
“You weren’t supposed to kiss me back.” Cold air hit Isagi’s fingers as Kaiser’s hand pulled away.
He froze. Kaiser, his words calcifying in the air, was no better off.
Isagi tried to swallow, but his throat was paper. He stared at Kaiser for he-didn’t-know- how -long as he tried to find the words, any words. That amounted to: “What?”
“You weren’t supposed to kiss me back,” Kaiser repeated, harsher, as he frowned. “You want answers. There’s one.”
“...What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Isagi breathed, his voice sliding upward in frustration as he, not Kaiser, separated their hands as if he’d touched something poisonous. “Why would you kiss someone if you didn’t want them to kiss you back?!”
“ Because, ” Kaiser hissed, gritting his teeth as his refusal to look Isagi in the eye weighed heavier with every word, “I’m not clueless. I could tell when something shifted, when it wasn’t a meaningless joke anymore. So when you started ignoring my texts, I figured—“
“—Kaiser, that wasn’t—“
“—Will you shut up? I figured you weren’t even gay. I was idiotic to think that my little gesture would scare you off, and we could go back to hating each other, which was easy, but I see now that I was very, evidently, wr–”
“I don’t think I hate you.”
Isagi surprised himself, too.
He felt his heartbeat pounding, shouting orders at him in a language he could not understand. In the months that led them here, if someone asked him if he hated Kaiser, he would have answered ‘ yes, ’ with his full chest, with all his confidence and certainty and all the distaste that had built up in response to that blonde parasite. His subconscious seemed to disagree.
I don’t hate you.
Kaiser was frigid. “You’re an idiot, then.”
“Trust me, I know.”
The blonde swore under his breath before turning his head back towards the screen again, anything to avoid Isagi’s eyes. “You don’t even know me.”
“We can change that.”
“Bullshit.”
“Oh, you’re bullshit, you kissed me and now you’re all like–”
“To keep things from getting complicated, Jesus!”
“Well, you fucked that one up."
“Shut your mouth–!”
“Maybe complicated is okay, Kaiser– maybe actually being honest about your feelings is okay–”
“Your feelings are not my problem–”
“Yes, they are!” Another rejection, and a dam broke inside Isagi. “Okay, fine– y’know what?” Blindly, he grabbed Kaiser by the shoulders and forced his upper body to turn. Pale eyes widened as they finally met Isagi’s and Kaiser froze up in cerulean headlights, too stunned to fight, as Isagi, after nearly a week of radio silence, finally snapped: “I’ll tell you what you want to hear, if you really can’t grasp that I don’t hate you like you obviously hate yourself. God! You want things to be easy ? Uncomplicated? Next you’re gonna tell me some teen angst bullshit about how,” he mimicked Kaiser’s voice, “ I don’t do relationships, Yoichi, or fuck all. Look, I don’t know how deeply you’re wallowing in this oh, you weren’t supposed to kiss me back, woe is me, bullshit, but I don’t care. I. Do. Not. Care, Kaiser. You kissed me, and yeah, wow, surprise, I kissed you back, and contrary to your belief I’m not fucking stupid, and I know when things like that mean something.” He gulped, and, when Kaiser, surprisingly, didn’t cut him off, Isagi gripped his shoulders tighter and kept going.
“Do you want me to hate you? Would that really be easy? You know, since July, you have been the biggest nuisance I have ever encountered in my life. You make me so mad I finally understand what people mean when they say they see red. I’ve had multiple dreams about hitting you over the head with a coffee pitcher so hard it kills you immediately, and then I wake up and get depressed when I realize it didn’t actually happen. You are so fucking annoying, and arrogant, and rude, Jesus Christ, you are so rude, and whenever I see your face my eyes roll so far back in my head I’m worried I might pull a muscle.”
“Yoichi, I–”
“I’m not done,” Isagi shut him up without room for protest. “Your voice is what I imagine dogs hear when you blow a whistle. I think your clothes make you look like what I imagine seventeen-year-olds who pretend they’re influencers dress like. Your haircut looks like you did it yourself with children’s craft scissors after downing half a bottle of Tequila, and I’m surprised an old person hasn’t called the police on you for that tattoo before.” He breathed, and he knew what he was about to say next was a mistake, but Isagi had gotten too wrapped up in the spirit of honesty to care.
“But despite all of that, you– I– I can’t stop thinking about you. Even if what I’m thinking about is, like, drowning you– something about you just– grabs onto your head like these weird, kind of painful, kind of annoying,” he squinted and flexed his hands, “claw things. Like a claw machine! But, no, one that actually works. I’m, like– if I’m a plushie, right, you’re like the–”
“What are you trying to say?” Kaiser said suddenly, not attempting to remove Yoichi’s hands from his arms but straightening his spine as if to salvage a bit of pride.
And then their eyes met, and they were stuck, and Isagi realized he recognized that expression. Kaiser had looked the same after they’d kissed.
Afraid.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, breathless. “I don’t know– what I feel about you. I should hate you, but I don’t, even though I keep trying to. I’m annoyed that you’re smart, but I’m also impressed. I think your face is punchable, but pretty, and I want to hate that I don’t hate that I think you’re pretty. And I want to hear you sing, and I hate that I’m curious. And I don’t know why I feel these things, or think these things, but I do know that– that, when you stopped coming in for your disgusting coffee, a weird, stupid part of me missed it. And I kept checking my phone, because it was just… quiet. And it felt wrong. And I realized– I know all we do is argue, but somewhere along the way I… started having fun. I like talking to you. And fighting with you. I liked–” Isagi stopped dead in his tracks, gagged before he could admit it, and kept going. “That’s why, at the bar, I asked you–”
“If we were friends,” Kaiser finished, still caught in Isagi’s eyes. Slowly, they both blinked. And Isagi nodded.
“I didn’t hate the kiss, though,” Isagi finished, speaking so quietly that a part of him hoped that would keep it from being real. Gently, he let go of Kaiser, bringing his hands into his lap as he looked down. “Maybe I didn’t want to be scared away. Maybe I kissed you back because I wanted to, Kaiser. And maybe–” he added, seeing Kaiser’s eyes darken, “maybe, I wouldn’t mind… being friends.”
“We’re a little past that point,” Kaiser said coldly, still trying to dig his own grave as he faced forward yet again, “aren’t we?”
He hit bedrock as Isagi replied, “I wouldn’t mind that, either.”
“You’re annoying, you know that?”
“Not as much as you.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“I think some people need ‘stubborn.’” Isagi cocked an eyebrow, glancing at Kaiser from his peripheral as the latter quickly looked away. “And— shut up, you’re way more annoying than I am.”
Kaiser glanced back, his expression uncomfortable and yet more honest than it had ever been, and then looked away and sat still for a moment. As if he was waiting for a space in the air to inhabit, he said at last, “You were right. I don’t do relationships was my next card.”
Isagi nudged him shyly, testing the waters. “That’s my win, then, isn’t it? Checkmate?”
“...You don’t say checkmate in cards.”
Isagi felt his mouth twitch. “I– shut up, it’s the sentiment of the thing, I was trying to–”
“That you don’t know cards?”
“I know cards, Kaiser, I was–”
“You don’t say checkmate in cards.”
“Okay, fucking– Uno! Fuck you, Uno. I win. You do relationships. Stop complaining and just admit that you—“
“You don’t guess people’s cards out loud in Uno.”
“Do you ever shut the fuck–?”
“Yoichi,” Kaiser cut him off, the familiar banter having come so easy that it might have gotten to him. “I… would also describe my feelings towards you as weird, and stupid, and kind of annoying. And…” he cringed as if the words caught in his throat were painful, “...I also. Had… fun. I enjoy annoying you. Or– whatever.”
“I’m sorry I ignored you,” said Isagi. “One– one of my friends, he saw some of the texts and told me you were… flirting. And I kind of freaked out.”
Of course, Kaiser didn’t deny it. One point for Otoya, apparently. “Freaked out?”
“Not like that! I wasn’t– uncomfortable, or anything. I was just… nervous, I think. Scared. Like you.”
“Who said I’m scared?”
Isagi squinted his eyes and pursed his lips, putting on an exaggerated expression meant to mimic Kaiser’s resting face. He parroted his voice, too. “Uhm, I don’t do relationships was my next card, Yoichi– ”
Kaiser laughed dryly, but honestly, and, oh– it was such a sweet sound. He swatted Isagi’s arm. “Fuck off.”
Isagi smiled back at him. “Not this time, idiot.”
“Are you so deadset on tormenting me?”
“I want to keep tormenting you for a long time,” Isagi replied without missing a beat, eyes glittering. “Until I’ve pressed every button you have. You’ve infuriated me too much to give up now, and there’s no way I’m losing to you. At least make it a fair fight?”
After a minute, or two, or more, Kaiser finally looked at him again. Isagi felt as if a jolt of electricity had seized him by the chest, as if a light was cast on his cheeks as those crystalline eyes met his own. “If that’s the case,” Kaiser said with a sigh, resting his head on his knuckles, “this is a really shitty first date.”
And then, slowly, a smile.
Kaiser was smiling. Kaiser was smiling, and there was no teasing, no condescension, no anger – Kaiser was smiling, and, for the first time, it was real.
Isagi beamed as if he reflected the light Kaiser harnessed. It almost hurt, the way his face was stretched so wide in innocent joy and relief and excitement as he said in a voice that didn’t quite mean it, “Screw you.”
Kaiser laughed in response, “I can’t say you’ve wooed me, as much as this whole situation just– screams – romance–”
“Do me one better, then.”
“Oh?”
“If you can do better, prove it.”
“Are you inviting yourself on a second date, Yoichi?”
Isagi’s grin had taken over his entire face, the light of competition shining in his eyes like a beacon. “Maybe we can find a nice bridge to push you off of.”
Kaiser hid his face, but his expression was still audible in the tone of his voice alone. He sounded happier. “You’re absolutely insufferable.”
“And I despise you,” Isagi said back. He slowly pushed his hand, forgotten at his side, closer to Kaiser’s until their fingers touched. Kaiser seemed to notice, but this time, he didn’t pull away as Isagi added:
“I’m not opposed to a second kiss, either.”
The words left him of their own accord. Kaiser raised his head, eyes wider than Isagi had seen them before, and stared at him. And then slowly, tentatively, the smile returned, with a small breath that rose into a huff. “Like I said. Insufferable.”
“You are the bane of my existence,” Isagi murmured back, closing his eyes. They had a lot to talk about, but Isagi didn’t mind. Isagi didn’t mind at all, and he could recall, all those months ago, one of the first things he learned about the enigma that was Michael Kaiser: he liked to talk. He liked to talk, because silence held an uncertainty that frightened him, and he felt as if he could dispel it with hollow words and the disarming poise of a role well-rehearsed. And seven-step latte orders. So they would wade through whatever silence left behind, and, in spite of all his preconceptions, Isagi did not fear uncertainty.
He placed a hand on Kaiser’s cheek, bridged the distance between them, and, finally, kissed him back. Isagi tasted oat milk and chocolate, and maybe that wasn’t so bad.