work in progress

by mediumbear

Summary:

If relationships are work, then Doppo's about to pull voluntary overtime.

Novelist!Hifumi, illustrator!Doppo, editor!Jakurai.

Notes:

at all times i'm thinking about Them

the world is wild rn, let's go full speed ahead into a second part!! *this is set roughly 3 months after the end of 'working title' and begins in April!

Chapter 1

There’s something to be said for shaking things up ever so slightly from time to time, rearranging what’s become routine just enough that it seems like a thrilling deviation, the shock of the new. For example, working at the kotatsu feels refreshing and invigorating after a day spent answering emails in bed! And eating dinner before dessert is a whole new gustatory experience after struggling to finish a stir-fry on a stomach stuffed with homemade Valentine’s chocolate. Two batches of it.

It’s only because those rules wouldn’t exist without being enforced -- without being repeated, meaningless though the actions are -- until they become habits after that miraculous sixty-sixth repetition that Hifumi’s read about in so many self-help books consulted for research purposes, only research purposes, he insists. Breaking rules is always fun! Besides habits, the days of the week can be arbitrary, too: and also time itself, if Doppo doesn’t think to draw that hard line between day and night and months and years and one day wakes up snuggled naked in his childhood friend’s arms, legs tangled and his bony kneecap forcing a dent in Doppo’s thigh, and he realises that something must have happened in order to get him here but he can’t describe the journey that took him to this point.

As if to back him up on the complete uselessness of tracking the passage of time, Tokyo looks the same as ever from the apartment walkway on Doppo’s mid-afternoon smoke-break, although its skyline has the audacity to take on a pinkish-purplish hue in the hazy air as though innocently trying to convince him that the red light district beneath them isn’t about to burst into sticky, sticky life the instant the sun goes down. He holds onto the smoke in his mouth for a moment before letting it go, like he’s trying to taste the traffic-choked streets below. Night-time… Doppo supposes that’s a transition that means something to the folks in the city, no matter how easily he and his boyfriend ignore time passing on those 2am tipsy trips to the 24-hour convenience store on their Fridays together. 

Day. Night. 

They’re only divided by deadlines and Hifumi’s schedule, really.

And how hard he works to align with him.

Capricious Doppo, in the thrall of easily-distracted Hifumi. 

Lately, for him, the monotony of every working day feels less like the constant struggle for life, and more like… every day is a new chance for things to get better and better.

That stupid quote of Hifumi’s at signing sessions crawls into his mind and he sighs, with a tap-tap sheds cigarette ash into the little glass dish Hifumi demands he take outside on smoke-breaks, having been surprised nastily too many times by discovering cigarette-butts in the bottom of Doppo's used coffee-cup, always when he did the washing-up, always too late as the cup plunged into the soapy water. 

Behind him, the apartment door clicks open. Speak of the devil.

“So this is where you are!” Hifumi announces, fresh as a daisy in some new ‘outfit of the day’ combination, white dungarees over a soft shirt and still the usual indoors glasses like he’s trying to get hired by the country’s most adorable redecorators. Sometimes Doppo wonders if Hifumi merely enjoys the act of getting changed. This has to be his third outfit of the day since he first woke up with him in bed -- from nude, to pyjamas purely for breakfast, to his comfy working-clothes, to this. What is this? Looks like a date outfit. Something flares in the back of his brain with the concern that he’s forgotten about some promised dinner-date today or something, but Hifumi’s far too laid-back for that to be the case. He pauses between drags to blow the smoke away from Hifumi, down the walkway, then clears his throat, straightens up a tad faced with such loveliness that contrasts against his well-worn shorts and sweatshirt.

“Mmyeah. Didn’t feel like walking.”

“Hahaha, worn out from the health check still?”

Doppo shoots him a tired look of yes, actually, and Hifumi laughs sympathetically, then stretches his arms skywards to crackle his spine like kids’ cereal with a great sound of wound-up effort. Their annual workplace’s health check yesterday shook up the week: the days all feel out-of-order now, but it’s nothing as bad as the weeks beforehand when they’d each cut out smoking and drinking respectively so that they could pass the check with flying colours like a test. Not a trace of overdrinking here! These lungs are squeaky-clean! God forbid you be found to have unhealthy habits at a company who has drinking-parties every week and ridiculously pressurising deadlines, right? Anyway, they passed, in part thanks to Hifumi’s strict regime, but Doppo didn’t escape a scolding on his weight fluctuation and blood pressure, even while his over-drinking under-working comb-over waste of time editor had his ear pressed against the door like it was a competition with results to compare. As usual. Whatever the consequences, cigarettes taste even better now, so he can’t be bothered to feel at all guilty about this rebound. Next to him, Hifumi leans heavily with his arms against the railing, hands wrapped around his mug filled with kitchen-counter coffee.

"Not bad, huh? An outdoor break like this," he breathes in deeply through his nose, thankfully upwind so that the smoke doesn't bother him, "My eyes get so worn out just looking at, like, the inside of the house."

"Yeah. Skyline," Doppo offers mildly, indicating the monstrous city that sprawls out before them in that little sliver they can spy out from between their neighbouring buildings. Only being on the third floor makes them bottom-dwellers, as far as Tokyo's infrastructure is concerned. Hifumi wrinkles his nose, staring in the direction he pointed at. Said skyline is an endless jumble of misty-blue buildings in the springtime haze as far as the eye can see. Long-distance vision practice.

"Tokyo Tower!" he chirps as he picks out the landmark. "Think they can see us too? From the observation deck?"

"I'd want a refund on my ticket if I could see something like that."

"Eeeh, but this building was here first, right?! So actually it’s their fault for building it second!"

"Uh… probably not."

Hifumi hums. “Wonder if we could’ve seen it on that school trip in fourth grade? Oooh, do you remember if you could see your house from there?”

“My house…?” Doppo takes a long drag. The way the smoke flows out subtly from between his lips as he considers it could well be the whisper of his spirit trying to take a breather. He wonders how Hifumi can recall these little snapshots of their childhood so clearly. Then again, if it wasn’t for him bringing them up, he wonders if he might forget them altogether. “Don’t think so. Saw the school, though, through the telescope.”

Hifumi makes a thoughtful noise and sips his milky coffee. Doppo stubs out his cigarette, then reaches in his pocket for another. Silently, Hifumi watches him light up.

“Making up for lost time, huh? Ya caught up yet?”

Doppo shakes his head. “But I’ll head inside once you’re done with your coffee.”

“N’awwww.” Hifumi pokes at Doppo’s cheek, smirking; he doesn’t avoid it, puffing it out like a proud frog. Hifumi grins. Just then, there’s the sound below of the buzzer going as the ground floor staircase door opens and then the rhythmic tump-tump of someone climbing the steps up to their floor. Hifumi checks his phone for the time, smiles, and leans over the edge of the railing to holler out; “Jakurai-senseeeeei! Afternoo-oon!”

Doppo nearly swallows his cigarette, then spits it out and grinds it under his heel with a bone-shatteringly fast stamp. He still isn’t used to Hifumi’s editor having a key to their apartment. 

Or...

Or him being more than just Hifumi’s editor. No, he never was ‘just’ his editor, but now, the sound of his name sends a different type of lightning crack through Doppo’s already weak body. He whips around to boggle at Hifumi over the echo of footsteps ascending the staircase. “H-He’s here? For what? Wh-what for?”

“Mmm?” Hifumi doesn’t turn from where he’s stood posed and prepared, cutely perching in his dungarees, waving over the edge to try to catch their visitor’s eye through the slats of the metal staircase, “My 3.30pm weekly meeting!”

“That’s on… that’s on Wednesdays…” Doppo murmurs with a plummeting feeling.

“Yeah, we had to reschedule ‘cause of the health check yesterday, remember?”

Doppo pales as the topsy-turvy weekdays all come crashing down on him like Tetris blocks, one after another as he counts then re-counts them in his head. Deadlines. Deadline times. The mental progress bar of his current piece is manageable when the submission time is 28 hours away, but the stretch, the stretch of it if… if it just so happens to be 4 hours away instead… If that happened to be the case, then...

“Wh… what day is it?” he murmurs, jaw trembling.

“Thursday!” Hifumi sings.

A scream bubbles out of Doppo, and the door slams behind him as he tears his way back into the apartment just before Jakurai himself reaches the third floor, away from the brief moment of calm before everything goes to shit again, of course it does, the way it always does when he dares to let his guard down for a brief moment. 

And the other two wonder why he rarely takes breaks.

 

***

 

In this apartment, things change all the time. Hifumi regularly rearranges his room’s furniture for hygge or feng shui or wabi-sabi or whatever. The free newspapers and takeout leaflets that get mass-posted through the building switch logos and menu make-up like traffic lights change colour. 

The latest change, other than a certain somebody actually bringing a pair of slippers to their home since the guest slippers they’d dug out of storage were two sizes too small, is Doppo finding himself a roommate who doesn’t complain about the mess in his bedroom. It’s only a tiny sempervivum plant sat coolly on his window-ledge, but its presence is enough to remind him to actually crack open the curtains from time to time. Even now, when the sliver of sky he can glimpse from the visible strip of window behind the plant-pot beckons to him, a sweet escape and an easy alternative to the rapidly-dwindling amount of time before the deadline is up and so is the jig, he feels like it might be rude, somehow, to disturb it. A tiny alive thing. A thing that witnesses him sweat and panic over his drawing-tablet in his room yet continues to keep him company as though oblivious to the fact. Or, perhaps accepting. He couldn’t possibly let it down.

Whatever time has elapsed since he’s slammed himself back into his room to churn out today’s project in record time, it’s already far too much time, and he finds himself mouthing the words along to the song he’s listening to as though beating the singer to the finish line will help him to sketch, colour, shade, churn out this piece faster, cranking himself up to 2.0x speed like an animation on an out-of-control reel. If he finishes in time, it’ll still be too late for him to spend any meaningful time with Jakurai, he thinks, but if he takes his time, that’ll already be the first late submission since his scolding at the health check yesterday and the third one this quarter, and the warnings at work aren’t official any more, but it’s enough to crank his workload up to a new level of hell. 

He feels half-dead when he thinks about the deluge of work that came down upon him ever since Dead or Alive ’s animation project. Sure, it was a fantastic opportunity, and he doesn’t regret it, but… somehow, it feels like his boss thinks he’s secretly squirrelling away a reserve of spare hours each day that can be used on another three projects more than any of the other all-rounder illustrators take on. Like, ‘since you did such a good job on that anime project, these other assignments are child’s play to you, right?’... or something equally patronising. Throwing in one project that excites him out of every twenty is barely enough to keep him going. Even this project was originally meant to be done under someone else’s name; ‘please fill out the brief in as similar style as you can, since the other artist has decided to take holiday this week’, he remembers, the words burned in his memory as clear as a brand-mark that itches when he thinks of that time being called into work on the first holiday day he’d booked off as a date with both of his boyfriends, having to receive a phone call from fucking Baldie and watching the disappointment tinge Jakurai’s face, Hifumi’s smile fading so slowly over the manga café table--

Right then something pokes him sharply on the forearm and he gargles in shock and pain where he’s tensed his muscles so rigidly that Hifumi’s fingertip nearly stabs him between tendons instead of just prodding soft skin, ripping off his headphones as he stumbles backwards from his desk. With a strip of hallway light behind him casting shadow over his face, Hifumi looks just as shocked for a moment, innocent in his indoor glasses and the dungarees outfit so out of place in Doppo’s bleak tucked-away world of 2D nightmares and clutter on the floor.

“Whuh! What? Huh?” Doppo hacks out first, then glances at the time on his computer screen, the numbers cranking up the panic levels further. He’s barely completed the final sketch. Hardly a quarter of the way through. “Hifumi, I have to--”

Hifumi turns his surprise into a blazingly bright smile instead. “We’re makin’ tea, you wanna come get some?”

‘We’? Oh, Doppo thinks morosely, Jakurai must already settled in...  “No, I, sorry, I can’t, I messed up, I have… I have a deadline in--” with a whiparound of his head he checks, and the bile rises in his throat when he sees that seconds have ticked over to another minute in between checking. “--two hours, fifty-five minutes, fuck. Sorry.”

“Hmmm,” Hifumi hums aloud like it’s no concern of his, no concern at all, some guise of a little Tinkerbell waving his way into this dark cavern, peering over Doppo’s desk even as he returns to inking over the sketch albeit on the wrong layer all hunched over with the tablet in his lap, then slides a hand down his back. “Come work with us, then!”

The idea of it doesn’t even register in his head, so peaceful is Jakurai and so shaken and stressed is Doppo right now; the two of them couldn’t possibly coexist in the same room without him bringing down the mood, not even with the help of Hifumi’s mediation or unstoppably bright laughter like a SAD lamp made human. “I, I, no, no, that’s, you won’t… I need to… Sorry…”

“Man, you look like you could use some company, though. C’mon!”

“I-- I have…” Doppo glances sadly towards the succulent plant. Hifumi looks concerned for a split second. Or maybe pitiful?

“Company who can make you tea.” he rolls his eyes and tugs on Doppo’s elbow, “Come oooon, Doppo-chin, wouldja rather argue with me for the next two hours and fifty-four minutes? Or, hey, should we come and work in here instead so you're not lonely?”

“Hhhrrk.” he replies, horrified at the concept of Jakurai seeing his filth-nest, and with all of the knowledge that Hifumi would win the argument anyway he lets him drag him elbow-first to the well-lit front room, cords trailing along the hallway floorboards from the tablet and laptop in his arms. When he finds himself upon the tatami, being coerced down into one of the wooden floor-seats at the kotatsu, his eyesight is still attuned to the blue-light glow of the screen in and a startling white background with some moe-girl’s dozy ditzy eyes pre-filled in with crisp black screen-ink -- so their guest, their third member, appears almost like a natural feature in the corner of his eye, before Doppo blinks and squints in his presence like a newborn.

Luckily-- no, thankfully, mercifully-- Jakurai gives him a moment before he visibly turns to pay attention to him, enough time for Doppo to pretend to remember how to breathe right before he flicks his nervous eyes across, to meet Jakurai’s over the screen of his laptop. 

All the effort is for naught; sitting so serenely with his dark hair pulled over one shoulder, relaxed and looking positively laid-back in just his rollneck and slacks, his coat long since hung up along with theirs in the hallway, Jakurai looks directly at him wearing a warm smile like some kind of guardian angel who’ll greet him if he ever makes it to Heaven, and it whacks whatever handful of air was left in Doppo’s lungs right out with a rapid thu-thump of his heart in response. As though his organs are all stumbling over one another to greet him first. 

“Jakurai-sensei…” he murmurs, clawing for any semblance of presentability, suddenly anxious as he tucks a curl behind his ear.

Heat courses down his spine as he watches Jakurai’s smile widen and the warmth reach his eyes, and Doppo straightens up in keen attention. Being looked at-- being witnessed, even in the clutches of stress-- he never thought it was possible to feel this good even in the throes of deadline crunch, even as frail and taut with tension as he feels, as shellshocked as he looks. He can’t stop staring at Jakurai’s heavy-lidded eyes, his eyelashes, the wrinkle at the corner of his mouth, the play of texture from his sharp jawline and his slender neck to the midnight-black sweater. So real. Jakurai’s voice is so fond when he greets him at last, settling both of his hands atop the kotatsu like they’re resting pre-emptively, waiting to… to reach for his, Doppo thinks dumbly, dazed. Maybe? Maybe they could. Hold hands. He’d consider growing a third arm if it meant he could hold his hand while continuing to work. He can’t focus on his delicate knucklebones for longer than a moment before he snaps back up to Jakurai’s face.

“Good afternoon, Doppo.” he inclines his head a touch, a hint of formality in his visit despite everything.

“Y-Yes… Good. Yeah.” he nods, tongue-tied and heaving as he hauls the tablet back into his lap, eyes flickering between each of his boyfriends flanking him on either side of the kotatsu and his laptop screen where the tiny ant of a cursor showing a brushstroke wiggles insultingly over the sketch. The silver crosses pinned along the breast of Jakurai’s rollneck glint as he leans forward onto his forearms. At the twinkle of the metal, Doppo suddenly feels guilty for not wearing his own pendant at that moment in time -- he only wears it when he’s in real people clothes, not his indoor gremlin sweats for running mental marathons in. Words fight one another for priority through his locked-up jaw. “Didn’t, um, didn’t expect. Sorry. It’s not Wednesday. Today. Sorry.”

Of course, Jakurai nods in agreement like they’re having a pleasant conversation rather than merely entertaining Doppo’s fragments of sentences. “Yes, it’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Mmm.” Doppo can’t help his gaze darting back to Jakurai’s interlaced fingers between brushstrokes. The last time they’d seen one another was at the weekend, and for the first time ever he’d placed a hand on the small of Doppo’s back in public. In fucking public. It didn’t matter that the three of them were fully dressed at the time in their winter coats in those last dregs of the colder season, or that he’d already shared a hot tea from the same cup with him even though they’d already kissed countless times, or that he was wearing gloves; waiting for the train to arrive, Jakurai had kept his hand there for nearly two full minutes, inching down the back seam of his coat, and Doppo can’t forget the weight, the size, the feeling of it, even now. Whether Jakurai knew it or not, it’s sent him spiralling into fantasies. Wherever else those hands might go. It’s probably a weird kink, Doppo realises forlornly. A side-effect of pining. Nobody else focuses this much without it being a borderline fetish, right? Right?!

“This way, at least, we are brought a little closer to the weekend.” Jakurai continues, and is it Doppo’s imagination, or is he leaning in slightly to his field of vision near the computer? “In any case, I do hope my visit today doesn’t clash with your own editor’s meeting.”

Doppo stiffens like a dead body.

“Aaawww maaan, you forgot, huh,” Hifumi says as he returns to the lounge, kneeling down at the kotatsu with a hot teapot and watching Doppo stare back at the screen in resigned misery and continue to ink the piece in teeth-gritting silence. Fuck it, he thinks, if he doesn’t get called by his editor, that’s not on him. Not his responsibility to remind his boss when to keep his own appointments. It’s a waste of time every week, anyway, every damn time, even when there’s nothing useful to say, every damn meeting, the hour-and-a-half of his life better spent catching up on work or taking an actual break or doing literally anything else other than answering yes, no, sorry on repeat to a washed-up middle manager whose only goal in life seems to be to bury Doppo alive under work so he can discard his broken body and pick on the next poor college recruit--

“If you need us to step out…” Jakurai offers carefully.

"No, it’s fine!” Doppo gasps aloud as he bows his head and continues to work, hardly meeting his sketch’s eye where he’s hunched over already. This poor doe-eyed side-character, aloof-looking but ‘make her body really bounce’, the brief said. Doppo feels like apologising to her. There’s a glow of warmth near the back of his hand where Hifumi slides a cup of tea towards his workspace. He doesn’t audibly thank him, slipping already beneath the surface of deeply regretting ever having accepted this last-minute job, eyes dead upon the screen. It doesn’t take long for him to become background noise once the tea’s been shared out.

“Like I was sayin', sensei,” Hifumi says, flipping his hair in a way that’s clearly meant to be eye-catching to the right party, and Doppo’s ears prick at the way he’s dragging out the vowels oh-so-slightly when he speaks, “The manuscript I sent you already had the revisions you mentioned, so how come you wanted to bring it up again? Did I miss something out?”

“Ah… yes, the manuscript.” he hears Jakurai reply quietly like he’s distracted, then a shuffling of papers as he draws a folder from his briefcase beside the kotatsu. “Thank you for that. There were some factual inconsistencies, so I thought it would be best to go over them together in person rather than simply emailing you a hard-to-read list.”

“Whoa whoa, are you saying I’m wrong about something?” Hifumi giggles scandalously.

“It happens to everybody.” Jakurai tucks a lock of hair behind his ear and picks up his reading-glasses. “Let’s research together a little, shall we?”

“Hmmm… so today’s more of a reading day than a con-crit day, huh...?”

“If that would work for you.”

“Yeah, I’m good with that! I could use a break from talking about progress. The last meeting with the outreach manager killed me… All this going on about beating last year’s sales on Dead or Alive with a new release, or a sequel to Mr. Hardcore, I’m tired, man!” Hifumi sighs, pulling up his laptop, so slim-built compared to Doppo’s heaving, churning machine creaking merely under the CPU usage of the art program. “I really miss, like… just reading, for once, I guess.”

“It’s important to read stories if you are to tell them yourself.” Jakurai glances across at Doppo; he can feel his eyes on him, a momentary pause. “Watching the news… consuming other media, too. And you’ve seen Doppo’s shelves of reference-books. Research makes all the difference to your writing.”

A smile curls along Hifumi’s mouth as he flutters his eyelashes. “Mmmyeah, but, that’s what I got you for, right?”

“You’re aware that I don’t know everything, yes?” Adjusting his reading-glasses down his long nose, Jakurai pauses in turning over the stapled-together pages of the manuscript. “I can only nudge you in the right direction, creatively and productively speaking.”

The cheap kotatsu-top reverberates lightly with Hifumi’s gently-tapping fingertips as his hand ranges across to graze Jakurai’s. “Hmmmm? Creatively, huh? Maybe I just understand it better when you explain...”

“I gotta--” It’s too much, and Doppo stands suddenly and darts off down the hallway without explanation for the weird feeling making his head feel like it’s whirling around inside a washing-machine. He returns from the bedroom wearing his trusty headphones and plugs them in without casting another look to either of the two. Hifumi pats him on the arm and says something but he’s already drowning him out; Doppo just looks at him and mouths ‘sorry’ before returning dourly to his work.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to listen to them.

Or… that he doesn’t want to watch their flirting. The opposite, really.

It’s that he has a deadline and he wants to listen to them only with his full attention, no matter what they’re talking about, more than anything else in this world, but he can’t, not right now.

There’s a faint feeling in this room of magnetism, like the three of them are wordlessly drawn to this tabletop without explanation. Just being near to one another, even if it’s distracting or difficult.

Maybe he can trust them not to leave his side -- just for now. Don’t go looking in my room for books, at least, he prays. That messy side of him, although he knows Jakurai’s aware of it, he can’t deal with sharing just yet.

 

Thankfully they don’t move an awful lot, maybe rooted to their seats out of awkwardness; over time Hifumi merely shuffles closer to read the section’s Jakurai points out over the printed manuscript, mainly obscured by the laptop screen that fills Doppo’s vision, and he isn’t counting the minutes per se, but they do appear to fly past quicker once his playlist has picked up and the lineart is complete in under an hour. Colour, he starts to murmur to himself, pulling up palette generators and Image searching the other illustrator he’s meant to be subbing in for, and in the gap between songs he manages to accidentally tune in to his own personal Boyfriend Radio station across the kotatsu top.

“Which section, which section?” Hifumi’s leaning even further into Jakurai’s personal space now, his shoulder practically touching his editor’s collarbone as he makes a big show of poring over the page-- or maybe he really is searching for answers. The dungarees’ strap of his painstakingly chosen outfit is already slipping down his upper arm.

“Here, note number sixteen. 45 Rabbit’s information extraction scene: ‘He’d pistol-whip them if it wouldn’t leave such identifiable marks,’ -- does this relate to the manner of the torture, or the act of the torture itself?”

“Ehhh? Mmm, I guess, like, the manner?” Hifumi hunkers down, arms folded, peering over at the highlighted section of manuscript in front of them, “Since he’s technically not meant to have a gun in the interrogation room, like-- the violence is fine, it’s the having-the-gun that breaks the rules there!”

Jakurai lowers his reading-glasses down his nose to look across at Hifumi. “Only a forensic investigator could tell that after assessing the fractures. Pistol-whipping is merely an ugly beating. It wouldn’t leave anything so distinctive to his superiors at a glance.”

“Huh? But the whip-marks?” Hifumi raises an eyebrow. Doppo ought to be used to it, but it’s always somewhat disconcerting watching somebody as peppy and cheerful as him talk so matter-of-factly about these dreadful themes of his novels. Then again, he can’t talk, with the lewd things he gets set to draw...

Jakurai shakes his head. “No, Hifumi, there are no whip-marks. It’s nothing more stylish than hitting someone with the butt of a pistol.”

“Oh. Ohhhh! That makes a lot more sense,” he nods and pauses to scan the page, without questioning how his editor knows it. In the back of his mind from time to time, Doppo recalls what Jakurai had mentioned briefly during that hot spring visit those months ago -- that his past employer was classified information . ...Surely that has nothing to do with it, though; he could just be really into action thrillers, or something. There’s that novelist friend of his, after all. Then, almost immediately, Hifumi perks up. “Wait, so that means he can pistol-whip them after all! With his favourite gun! Doesn’t that change the whole scene?!”

“I thought that may become an issue, yet this point is important to look at all the same, so let’s discuss it now, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, okay-- okay, cool, so here’s my outline--”

That’s what he meant by research, Doppo realises. He must be working on that trashy Mad Rabbit cop series again. A brief moment of distraction passes before he witnesses the gut-churning magical moment the time display on his laptop ticks over by a minute and gulps, his mouth dry, finally returning to the layer he’s filling with colour, an unfamiliar palette of cool tones he uses so rarely that it feels like the computer display is dissonant with each fill and shade. How the hell is it going to print well? How is he meant to submit something decent? 

Doppo wonders, squinting fiercely at the tiniest corners of the lineart he fills in pixel by pixel and toggling the background layer, if the point of subbing in for other artists is really anything to do with print deadlines. Even when he submits pieces on time and polished to the best of his ability there’s always a feedback email no matter what, filled with complaints to do with the CMYK settings despite never being given the specifications, the style fitting with the particular series this piece will be a part of, some character’s boobs not looking ‘perky enough’ or whatever. Is it the company trying to wring out every single drop of work from him like water from a sponge? Trying to get his style into every work that comes out of the publishing-house? As if, he thinks, or he’d be asked to contribute to more bestsellers.

Like Gigolo’s titles.

Six months after joining the Dead or Alive project, he has yet to officially illustrate a single one of Hifumi’s books, he recalls bitterly.

After some time locked into tunnel-vision his throat itches and he reaches for his teacup only to find it already emptied. He doesn’t remember drinking it. Glancing up, he notices suddenly that Jakurai is gone, Hifumi curled up in his floor-seat with a glossy, official-looking magazine with a headline about police corruption. It only takes a couple of seconds for Hifumi to realise he’s being looked at and he perks up, smiling over at him.

“Whassup? Break time?”

Doppo withers. “I wish. Is there any tea left…?”

“Sensei’s making it!”

With his back to the hallway, Doppo can’t peer into the kitchen without making himself known, and he lowers his chin to the kotatsu-top despite his back twinging in protest. “...Do you think he minds the…?”

“The what?”

After a moment of watching him mime holding a cigarette, Hifumi rolls his eyes. It’s no secret that Jakurai disapproves of any habit that can be considered a detriment to one’s health, even if he does his best to keep his feelings to himself about their vices. Minding his own business, or something. Technically he has access to Hifumi’s medical records via the publishing-house, but god forbid he ever find Doppo’s, he thinks--

“You don’t smell of it now, gosh,” he whispers. “He just left because he wanted something to drink.”

“Good… good.” Doppo takes a breath, pushing the headphones off one ear, and continues to colour even as Hifumi shifts and carries on talking. It’s not that Doppo’s ever been any good at multitasking, but chatting with Hifumi is second nature. 

"Ya know, you don't gotta smoke if it's just an excuse to go outside," he says.

Doppo shrugs. "Force of habit. Smoke-breaks were the only breaks anyone got back at that medical firm. Not even lunch breaks... "

“Things’re different now, though! You can go outside whenever you like when you’re working from home! Just enjoy the view and take a load off, y’know?”

“Imagine if you just saw some worker standing outside doing nothing…” Doppo sighs, his eyes feeling dryer than a desert as he colours in the character’s fresh-looking skin in stupidly vivacious colours he doesn’t ever remember any sleep-deprived high-schooler’s face looking back in those halcyon days, “Looking the way I do… staring into space without an excuse to actually be out there or anything in his hands… Just standing and staring...”

“...Ooh, yeah,” Hifumi winces after a moment of consideration, “Either a ghost or a pervert.”

Doppo shoots him a concerned look. “P-Pervert?”

The clink of a teapot lid from the kitchen shoots electricity up Doppo’s spine and by the time Jakurai re-enters the room, bringing with him the fragrant waft of a new brew, he’s curled over his laptop and tablet again with the headphones firmly blasting music into his head until it’s empty of thoughts about this or that or Jakurai or Hifumi and he can concentrate on fleshing out the piece until it can survive on its own -- casting it out, an assignment he never asked for, but he’ll do his damned best to complete it on time.

 

He only becomes aware that time has passed since committing to the piece when Hifumi’s incessant waving at last catches his attention out of the corner of his eye, where he’d just assumed it was his vision giving up and flickering around the edges. Doppo saves, gingerly pulls his headphones off, and casts his work-in-progress one last lingering look before he glances over at him. “Yes…?”

Hifumi seems almost bashful, the way he’s hugging his own arms over the kotatsu, while Jakurai looks like he’s working very hard to not eavesdrop on whatever conversation is happening in front of him as he tucks papers back into his briefcase page by page. Too polite.

“Is it okay if Jakurai-sensei stays for dinner? I got enough ingredients for everyone already, so I don’t need to go out to the shop or anything!”

“Oh… sure, but,” Doppo’s heart sinks as he locks eyes with the time on his screen, and the realisation that their valuable hours spent together have already come to an end. He’d hardly gotten to speak to Jakurai. He hadn’t even registered the taste of the tea he’d made in his fugue state while drawing. Jakurai’s tea is always good. What a missed opportunity. “Oh, you, you’re already done. Oh. Right… I’m not… I’m not gonna be done for two hours--”

“Like, I’m not gonna cook right now, we’ll wait until you’re all finished up and then eat together! Right?” Hifumi looks at Jakurai, and when he doesn’t respond, lost in checking his phone, he tilts his head and says, gently, “Jakurai?”

Instantly he looks up at the sound of his name and blinks, before glancing at Doppo like he’s ashamed to have allowed his attention to wander for even one moment. It’s too pure a look, the tinge of apology creasing his brows, his bright eyes, that Doppo’s insides crumple like a paper bag--

“Of course I will wait. If you don’t mind my being here as you work, of course.”

Stabbed through with guilt, Doppo shakes his head violently. “No, no, if anything, I-- I’m sorry, sensei, I’m sorry I’m working while you…!”

“It’s no trouble at all.” Jakurai reaches out at last as though to reassure him, but Doppo’s hand twitches away, pulling his tablet closer to his body defensively. If he lets either of these two touch him now, he’ll give up on this piece entirely, won’t he? Fuck, he doesn’t want to work, he wants to finish now like they have! If he touches him, he’ll forget all about work, he’ll end up admitting defeat, lying in laps and giving over completely to their warmth and kindness, and when his boss is pulling him up tomorrow on the missed deadline all he’ll be able to think to himself is it’s because I don’t deserve them, I’m weak, I gave in, if I was reliable I wouldn’t be distracted by a little thing like romance, it’s my fault, it’s my fault, my fault-- 

...Not that something like that has actually happened so far in his three months of dating both Jakurai and Hifumi, but the fear of turning a good thing bad is ever-present in his mind.

He’s yanked back to reality seeing Jakurai withdraw his hand tenderly and settle it upon the locks of hair over his shoulder, combing down with his fingers as though pretending to fidget, crestfallen. All of the moisture leaves Doppo’s mouth in panic. He doesn’t know what’s worse: rejecting Jakurai out of fear and self-criticism, or watching him respond to that in his own quiet way. Between them Hifumi shrugs, his shyness long-lost like he’s immune to the awkwardness hanging in the air between them, and rocks to his feet.

“M’well, I’ll start cooking now and we can keep it warm ‘til you’re ready! How long, Doppo-chin?”

“Two hours,” he breathes, his voice like a whisper in tight-jawed panic, unable to believe it himself.

“Perfect! Sensei, come with me, you get chopping duties!”

Jakurai doesn’t seem to have much choice, the way Hifumi’s taking the teapot with him like he’s cutting off his lifeline, and follows slowly after casting Doppo a gently apologetic look that only twists the knife, before disappearing out of view.

“Do you have a recipe already planned, Hifumi?”

“Kindaaa, but we can make a change to it since you’re here, so I--” --is the last Doppo hears before the headphones go back on and he swallows dryly, wills his very last reserves of energy to channel themselves into his drawing-tablet. 

It’s now or never. The crunch before his dinner-date.

***

 

The final few minutes of furious scribbling are uncomfortably close to the deadline, so tense he can almost hear the time display ticking -- save, Save As, rename, Save In Folder, Convert, Attach -- and his hands are trembling too much to select anything, so he clenches his fingers to clutch around the tablet pen in desperation. All it achieves is popping the button out of the pen body with force, ripping part of the sticky rubber grip under his bitten fingernails. In horror and despair he flings it over his shoulder where it rebounds off the storage door and hits him in the back of the neck. No time to react to the pain, he switches to using the grimy touchpad instead in a desperate attempt to stably click on the correct file and not its thousands of backups with keysmashed file names like R'lyehian summons. 

Beyond the laptop, the world outside is warm; night has fallen already, and Hifumi’s switched on the heating element beneath the kotatsu, his pawprint socks rolled up and tucked out of the way along with a stack of magazines loaned by Jakurai as he sits under the blanket barefoot, idly scrolling on his phone. Opposite, Jakurai still wears his reading-glasses, sifting through a different manuscript with a pen in hand. The aroma of cumin and cloves wafts along from the kitchen. 

The silence is only broken when Doppo hits ‘Send’ with a crunch of the keypad, watches the progress bar fill to 100%, slams the laptop shut and brings his forehead down onto the kotatsu-top with a whack that makes Hifumi and Jakurai jump out of their skin. It’s done. It’s over, the longest yet shortest four hours of his worthless little insect life. Along with a dull, throbbing pain, the rest of the world finally blares into focus in a cacophony of sensory overload of the scent of cooking, the kotatsu-top’s texture, his aching back, and the dry heat emanating from the blanket. Eyes shut, he prays it’ll all slam through his brain like a freight train through a roadblock, smashing away all thoughts of this last-minute nightmare piece. 

“Ya done?” he hears Hifumi’s voice filtering through over the table, cheerful and expectant through his haze. 

“Uh-huh.” Doppo croaks, face-down still.

“Sent it off properly and all? Not stuck in your outbox like that other time?”

“Mm-hmm.” At last he attempts peeling himself away from the kotatsu bit by bit to try sitting up despite the resistance in his body locking up against the movement, as though the adrenaline tensing his muscles over the last few hours has finally taken its painful, cramping toll. The kitchen clock reads half past seven. He barely made it, but, ahh, his mind starts spiralling now it has room to actually think, and Jakurai could have gone home hours ago if it wasn’t for him… dragging out this appointment out of a sense of obligation… It isn’t as though he was staying for Doppo, it’s Hifumi who wants him to stay, so Jakurai of course never wants to impose, but--

“Awesome!” Hifumi chirps right away with that usual laser-sharp positivity, tugging on his slipper-socks and grinning like he’s been poised for this moment all this time. All this time... “Then, can you clear away your stuff? Dinner’s ready ‘n’ waiting, I’ll bring it through right now! Make space!”

Doppo grunts affirmatively from somewhere in the depths of his phlegmy dehydrated throat as he shoves the tablet out of his lap, then, after a moment’s consideration and respect for what this poor computer goes through, puts down the laptop more carefully on the tatami. Rest for now, old friend. At least both of them will get a rest tonight -- he feels so exhausted he could sleep for a week after that race to finish. He’ll just… have to remember to use the mouse until he can get the trackpad looked at...

“Well done,” says Jakurai at his side, and before Doppo can fight against the stiffness of his straining neck to raise his head and meet his gaze properly, to attempt to show or communicate his remorse that he took so long on this project or maybe, maybe even thank him for waiting, or-- Jakurai puts a hand out across the kotatsu-top, then pauses, as though negotiating with a wild creature. Doppo stares, wide-eyed, overstimulated and his brain a messy scramble of anxious thoughts. He tries to calm himself down by keeping his eyes on the expression on his partner’s face, mindful, seeming to choose his words carefully. He’s removed his reading-glasses. There’s nothing to obscure his face, save for the very tips of his almost too-long bangs grazing the tip of his eyebrow.

After a quiet moment of hesitation, Jakurai dips his head and asks, quietly, “Is it alright to touch you now?”

Doppo swallows down the lump that forms in his throat and nods, choked up. Over the small gap, a smile blooms on Jakurai’s face like an opening lotus and he covers Doppo’s hand with his own, so warm, tender, decisive as he gives the fingers of his left hand a gentle squeeze. 

“Hifumi said that… you prefer not to be touched while you work.” he admits after staying still and joined in this chaste pose a few seconds, in a low tone that’s almost drowned out by the sound of Hifumi singing to himself and clinking dishes in the kitchen as he plates up and suddenly, beneath the rush of blood roaring through Doppo’s ears, all that noise sounds so far off, like he’s sinking underwater. Jakurai’s eyes just light up, then dim down, beneath lowered lashes, as he casts a look at Doppo’s hands. Like he’s been waiting all this time.

Like he’s been looking forward to this, all this time.

Like he’s been looking forward to doing this?

In the silence of Doppo’s processing time, Jakurai clears his throat delicately as though distracting from having brought it up, either the fact that he’d been talking about that with their other partner, or-- or thinking about it, or-- 

“I suppose it would be distracting. I can understand that. And...” he smiles again, but it’s small this time-- privately, like he’s holding something back. “...Now I know that about you, Doppo. I’ll be mindful next time.”

Doppo’s inhibitions crumble instantly and in the blink of an eye he climbs around the kotatsu from his seat to Jakurai’s side, then, weak, sinks down to rest his head on Jakurai’s knees, clutching at the fabric of his slacks. 

“Thank you, sensei, I’m sorry for causing trouble…” he murmurs, a deep cry from the heart that barely makes it past his lips; his willpower to hold it together is ebbing away as at last, that touch, that touch he desires more powerfully than anything, the sensation of Jakurai’s hand stroking over his hair, soothes him to the point of sleepiness. Perhaps another time he might cringe at the thought of how easily he’s slunk himself into this embarrassing position when he-- he would be too nervous to do such a thing in a more lucid state, but for now, all he can do is lie limply and sink against the tatami as Jakurai pets the stress out of his body, far too calming in the slow, repetitive motion. Which, he forces himself to remember, he wouldn’t do if he didn’t want to. Jakurai-sensei isn’t a pitying type of person. He changes tack, attempting to glance up out of the corner of his eye. “Thanks for… for waiting for me…”

“Of course. It wasn’t a problem at all.” comes the sweet reply overhead, and Doppo can’t help a tiny moan whispering its way out of him as Jakurai manages to brush over his ear amongst his mess of curls, breathing in his first full deep breath in the last four hours. He feels ready to yawn and pass out. Between the weight of exhaustion pulling him down with every caress, he hears in the distance footsteps approaching, clinking ceramic.

“Whoa! You’re sleeping already, Doppo-chin? Dang, just how long was I gone dishing up?” Hifumi’s voice rings out above him teasingly, along with the percussion of bowls set down and the clack of cutlery. “That’s not fair, stealing Jakurai-sensei all to yourself while I have my back turned… Hey, maybe I’ll work close to the wire and get some head-pets too, hmmm?”

“Goodness… You don’t need to do such a thing for that kind of treatment,” Jakurai chuckles. "This isn't a work reward."

“Yeah, but what if I did?! C’mon, Doppo-pon, get up and get your pilaf before it gets cold!”

“Just a little longer,” Doppo mumbles, turning over to face Jakurai’s flat stomach, hardly registering how shameless it looks for the sheer weight of restfulness descending over him like a blanket, “Just a few minutes…”

The petting doesn’t stop, but it slows as Jakurai holds back a laugh. “I’m not able to enjoy Hifumi’s home cooking if you remain in my lap, you know, Doppo.”

“He’s right! What if he drops hot rice on you? Ouch!”

“Just…”

The room’s not quiet at all; it could never be, not amongst the sounds of Hifumi shuffling into his seat and the TV being switched on, a low hum beneath the kotatsu as the heater glows, soft canned laughter on a sitcom rerun, the rhythmic swish of Jakurai’s palm dragging over his hair -- but the two fall silent for a moment, making space. Making room for him.

Because he, too, belongs here with them.

Doppo’s here because they want him to be.

He opens his eyes, sees nothing against the black knit of Jakurai’s sweater, then closes them again, snuggling closer into what feels like it might be, for once, a restful sleep. 

“Just, just a little longer…”

Chapter 2

Summary:

The surprise party episode(?)

Notes:

let me first start by saying i can't stand miscommunication as a trope BUT SOMETIMES U KNOW U JUST FUCK UP SO BADLY anyway my kink is doppo getting some peace and quiet and i hope you enjoy this chapter!!

Much as he doesn’t believe in multitasking during what are meant to be relaxing moments, the next day’s to-do list keeps filtering into Hifumi’s mind while he soaks in the bath. He can’t help it when things like meal planning and tidying sort of… don’t count as work for him, even if the word is literally there in the term ‘housework’. Lying back in the tub with his hair pulled back in his trusty headband, he curls down his outstretched fingers one by one as he counts.

“Today was katsudon, tomorrow, gnocchi, Thursday, ah…” he purses his lips, staring at his fingernails. “...Better trim these... okay, then, egg bowl on Thursday, but tomorrow we clean the windows and wipe out the extractor--”

Just then the bathroom door clicks open and who else should emerge but his flatmate, wandering with eyes shut to the sink like he’s sleepwalking. For a moment Hifumi double takes staring at the expression on Doppo’s face that looks more like his crispy, just-woken-up-at-the-weekend dead-man-walking look with eyes sealed shut with sleep like a puppy, rather than a weekday evening, then he sits up abruptly in the tub, sending water splashing up his chest.

“Uhmm, ‘scuse me, Doppyon, it’s occupied!”

“Huh? Uh,” Doppo gurgles through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, and slowly glances over at Hifumi as he brushes. “H’awwy.”

“Gosh, I’m starting to think you’re abusing our door-lock policy with that casual attitude,” he snickers, sticking a bare leg out of the water. “You goin’ to bed now?”

“Mmm.” Doppo spits, then splashes all too much cold water on his chin to clear away the foam that it drips down onto the collar of his t-shirt. He’s still uselessly attempting to wipe the drops off with the back of his wrist, and Hifumi’s entranced by his perseverance, when he looks across at him. “Forgot to brush when I was in the bath earlier…”

“Ew, you still do that?”

“Saves energy.” he sighs, “G’night.”

“What, noooo! Come here! Hang out with meeee!” Hifumi switches legs like a gymnast, curling his toes and beckoning with fierce little smacks on the surface of the water until Doppo visibly buckles and trudges over to him, minding his step in grey socks where puddles form across the floor tiles in Hifumi’s excitement. He doesn’t stop until Doppo perches on the far edge of the bathtub, then he stills and grins. “Yaaay!”

Doppo doesn’t say anything for a moment, caressing the surface of the water with his fingertips, until Hifumi’s legs float just a little too close to him and he pokes at his foot, getting a squeal out of him.

“Were you saying something earlier…?” Doppo asks.

“Oh, just talkin’ to myself! Planning the week, that kinda thing.” Hifumi sits up a little and tucks his legs underneath himself so that Doppo stops trying to pinch his toes with snapping fingers. Months ago he would have been petrified at the concept of being seen naked by Doppo, much less sharing the bathroom with him -- even though in this apartment they’ve always had a rule that the door’s unlocked while they bathe ever since Doppo slipped on soap and lay unconscious on the floor for the hour it took for Hifumi to pick the lock, destroying his credit card in the process -- but now, having spent so much time close to Doppo, there’s no doubt in his mind that how Hifumi looks naked isn’t really, like, a problem. It’s not gross or weird or makes Doppo feel uncomfortable or too flirty or whatever if he’s in the bath. Especially if he’s in the bath after a thorough scrub. Hifumi smiles, flushing a little as Doppo looks over his body through the clear bathwater beneath the rising steam, then remembers something. “Oh! Oh! Friday!”

Doppo blinks hopefully, then deflates like a popped balloon. “It’s only Monday today, why would you remind me, uuuuggghh...”

“No! This Friday’s your birthday, Doppo-chin, a special day for a special someone, that’s what I was gonna remind you about!”

“Oh. Oh, huh,” Doppo pauses, scratching at the back of his neck, digging his thumbnail into the side of his throat. “Wow, that came around quickly.”

“What’s with that lacklustre reaction?” Hifumi rolls his eyes. He’s used to this kind of response, though. “You don’t have plans, right? I have a whole setup thought out for you, so listen to this--”

“Just assumed I don’t have plans…?”

“Well, do ya, wise-guy?”

Doppo slowly pokes his tongue out in tired defeat. Hifumi can’t suppress a snicker.

“Okay, well, if there’s nothing you got planned, me and Jakurai were thinking, there’s this nice diner we go to sometimes and we can book a table there for the evening,, and then we go back to his place and have a game marathon or a movie night or anything you want on his big TV screen -- he says we can sleep over, and he even said he’d cook breakfast for you in the morning! A birthday hangover breakfast! By Jakurai!” Hifumi sits forward, hugging his knees as he grins. “Sounds heavenly, right? How else wouldja wanna welcome in the rest of your thirties, right?”

“H-He already agreed to all of that?”

Hifumi nods fervently. “Says he’s got a hotcakes recipe he’s been practising. And listen, you can do what you want at the diner, you can order omurice or whatever, it’s your birthday! You gotta go all out and not worry, okay?”

The idea seems to sink in at length, slowly melting away the tension in Doppo’s shoulders at the concept of having any attention on him, this usual routine every year when May rolls around. “A game marathon on the TV…”

“Oooh, is that the sound of the elusive ‘Doppo-chin Approval’ rating? Woo-hoo! I’ll book the table tomorrow, then!”

“Mmm.” Doppo stares into space for a further moment, then nods gently, putting a hand out to poke Hifumi’s knee. “Okay. Thanks, Hifumi.”

He scoots closer to him, squeaking on the bottom of the bathtub. “Heheheh. Y’know, if anything ever happens with my job, I could become an awesome party planner, couldn’t I?”

“You’d be good at anything you do,” Doppo says quietly as he reaches up to tuck a damp curl behind Hifumi’s ear for him; in the tender motion, he lets his eyes slip shut and preens like a cat until Doppo caves and cups his cheek, thumbing along his cheekbone.

“Mmmmm, how do you rate my birthday gifts, then?”

“Oh, uh… ten.” 

“On a scale of?” Hifumi can hear that waver of doubt in his voice: probably from that year he bought him an easel without knowing he’d already tossed out the big blank canvas that had been gathering dust in the back of their storage, or the time he’d surprised him with a party popper at their apartment door when Doppo returned home late at night just as Hifumi noticed the woman from the office Doppo was bringing home with him, and screamed bloody murder. This year, that won’t happen. He’s making a homemade present for Doppo that has novelty value, so even if he doesn’t love it, he sure as heck can’t hate it, can he? He always says he admires Hifumi’s skill for homemade stuff. The party on Friday will be the opener, and once he finishes the project over the next few days, he’ll gift it when they get back from Jakurai’s! A flawless plan. In the silence, Hifumi cracks an eye open to peek at him, but Doppo’s a hell of a lot closer than expected, brushing noses as he holds his breath.

“Eight.” he whispers before he kisses him, that hand that’s always so ready to claw at his own throat now so firm and warm on the back of Hifumi’s neck, stroking at the wet baby hairs on his nape like a paintbrush smoothing them down.

“Buyin’ me off with compliments?” Hifumi giggles back as the kisses range down his neck, “But I’ll take it. Mmm, thinking about the night we’re gonna have at his house...?”

“That’s…” Doppo hesitates, then slides his other hand down Hifumi’s bare chest, slick from the bathwater, until he can’t hold in his budding desire any more and lets out a quiet whimper as the fingertips graze his navel.

“Relax, you can do what-eeeever you want to me on Friday night, mm, that’s-- that’s a promise,” he tries to laugh but gasps instead under the double-tactic of Doppo biting along his shoulder, his collarbone, as he strokes him under the water with slow, steady motions. So unfair, Hifumi thinks, that he can spend all day blaring his flirting at him but Doppo can suddenly whip out his sex drive like this at bedtime, in the bath, no less -- but, hey, he won’t complain. This unexpectedly passionate side of Doppo is something he loves deeply. “Even if it’s something, like, s-super kinky, mmm, Doppo.”

“Hifumi,” he says right into his ear, less of a warning and more of a simple sound that happens to work itself into his name, and Hifumi shivers as Doppo touches him more, all over, both hands now, and the bathwater suddenly doesn’t seem that hot any more, the way he’s breaking out into a sweat amongst the clearing steam, gazing at his serious face.

“Let’s get our bath sex technique down, then, practice for Jakurai’s super-big bathtub--”

“Hifumi,” Doppo says again and kisses him, presumably to shut him up, but the way he tumbles into the bath with a yelp when he leans in further to touch him makes Hifumi wonder if he was thinking about doing anything at all other than just being with him here and now.

That kind of trait, that kind of inability to think in multiple different directions while doing, a singular focus on what he wants, is something else he loves about Doppo.

***

 

“I’m really sorry…”

“Hmmn?” Hifumi tilts his head from where he’s working at the kotatsu, and the sight of Doppo kneeling prostrated on the floor in a collapsed dogeza -- or, maybe a very well-formed version of lying down? Child position from Hifumi’s favourite yoga routine? -- isn’t exactly an unknown one, but it’s still a surprise to see. Or, like, a surprise that he’s the one being apologised to instead of a boss or a landlord or whatever? He casts a look around the lounge then pauses his music. “What’s up? Ooooh, what did ya dooooo?”

His teasing tone does nothing to help the sombre mood and when Doppo lifts his head, his face looks thoroughly miserable, his well-chewed lips twisting in anguish in a way that makes Hifumi blink, waiting for the blow. 

“This Friday… I won’t be able to go out… I have to work…”

“Eeehh?” Hifumi balks. He knows Doppo comes up with all sorts of excuses to get out of events and this is his best one, but it strikes a chord, knowing he’s doing this for his own celebration. “Geez, it’s just one night, Doppo-chin! Cut yourself some slack once in a while…”

Doppo hangs his head. Suddenly Hifumi notices how he hasn’t changed out of that shirt from last night. “No, I… I have to do overtime. Until the tablet’s paid for...”

“Tablet? Huh?”

Turns out the pen has suffered one blow too many, and the tangled-up cord of the tablet itself gave up after months of lying twisted and tangled in Gordian knots. The guilt suffocating Doppo’s expression only barely outweighs his misery about the situation.

“Instead of just docking the cost from my salary, they said, ‘do extra hours and projects until it’s covered’, so… did the math, it’ll be another forty hours at least…”

Another week’s worth on top of his usual schedule? “That’s stupid!” Hifumi whines, “Why not just from your salary? We’ll be fine for a week on just mine, I mean-- how much does a thing like that really cost, anyway? They’re probably just making it up, aren’t they? A messed-up repayment system like that...”

“A-Apparently I’m too far gone for that to cover it anymore. Too many incidents, or. Ugh. Whatever…” Doppo sighs heavily and pushes himself to his feet, turning for the hallway, “It’s just another form of punishment, isn’t it, I’m sure this happened on purpose… anyway, I’m sorry, I won’t… on Friday… I won’t be done ‘til next week at this rate…”

“But, Doppo! The table! Our sleepover! Game night! Your… your birthday…!”

“Sorry… I’m really sorry,” Doppo’s fingernails dig in at the doorway frame, before he realises he’s doing it and whips his hand away, wringing his sweatshirt sleeves together in a moment’s fidgeting until he can bring himself to actually look Hifumi in the eye, and, god, from the creasing of his eyebrows and the pallor of his skin like he’s woken up sick, he looks drained. “It’s only, um. It’s only this year. Next year, we can… sorry.”

And with that, he excuses himself into his room, leaving Hifumi with a dreadful sense of helplessness, a yawning gap where his excitement for the party had been.

The first birthday to celebrate since they’d started dating, a dreamy day-and-night of his favourite pastime of treating Doppo nicely, and it’s already hit a roadblock.

“...Besides that, doesn’t that sound seriously fishy? Like, couldn’t they just claim back the insurance on hardware or whatever? Doesn’t seem like that’s somethin’ they’d forget about, even in the illustration department, don’t you think, sensei?”

Over the phone Jakurai makes an affirmative sound. “I agree with you that that ought to be the first course of action, however… it sounds like it may have been classified as ‘vandalism’ in this situation, rather than a mere accident. This isn’t the first item he’s lost to damage, after all.”

Hifumi sighs, leaning his forearm on the apartment walkway’s railing where he’s taking the call so as to be out of earshot of the poor, weeping cryptid slaving away in their apartment. “What if they just don’t insure his stuff anymore so they can get more hours outta him?”

“You read my mind.”

That doesn’t make him feel any better, though. Looking out into the street below, the shoppers trailing between apartments and the little alleyway arcade around the corner from their building, he decides to tackle the main issue.

“So, anyway, he reeeeally can’t deal with the idea of going out when he gets like this, so I just went ‘n’ cancelled the restaurant… Whatcha wanna do instead? Come over on Saturday and cook in our kitchen? I wanna try your hotcakes, still.”

“Well… I may speak to him myself, just to see if he would be comfortable with that.”

“Ya know, if you ask him, he’ll just say somethin’ like ‘don’t do anything for my birthday, I’m not worth the trouble’?”

“...”

“...Like, I mean, come over anyway, he’s never not happy to see you,” Hifumi whispers conspiratorially, “As in, loves you.”

Jakurai makes a soft sound that could either be a smothered cough or a shy laugh, but either way, it makes Hifumi grin. “I will still ask. In the meantime, Hifumi, there is something I would like your advice on, concerning his birthday.”

“Oh? Mmyeah?”

“What would you recommend to give Doppo as a gift…?”

“Oh!” Hifumi gasps, then holds his breath, then bites his tongue. 

“As the person who knows him the best, I thought perhaps you could point me in the right direction. I would quite like to give him something he needs, or would appreciate...”

Hifumi pouts. “Awww, you don't need my help, I mean-- our Christmas gifts were phenomenal! I wear mine every day!”

“Yes, I have noticed that. It makes me very happy to know that. However, Doppo doesn’t…”

“Don’t worry about that,” Hifumi cuts him off quickly, hunching his shoulders, “He doesn’t wear that much jewellery, y’know, but he really really loves that pendant you gave him! He has it on display in his room and he wears it when we go out and dress up and stuff! Hey, speaking of, why don’t you make something? Handmade stuff is really nice, like, maybe you could… I dunno, write him something?”

It’s a bizarre suggestion that seems to come out of nowhere, from the concoction of remembering Doppo’s painstakingly-inked beautiful birthday card for Jakurai and his mental grasping at straws for things Jakurai could whip up. Like, Hifumi sure wouldn’t mind if he fished him up a fat sea bass for his birthday, but what else does he do? He must have written something back in the day when he started as a journalist, right? Everybody does short stories at some point. The sound of a bus turning a corner down the street distracts him from Jakurai’s momentary silence, before he replies.

“Perhaps not. However… mm, I could choose him a book.”

Yeah, real imaginative when you get an industry discount, Hifumi thinks bittersweetly-- only because he’s tried that himself. And it’s not that Doppo doesn’t like books, but they just pile up, and then he has those quarterly guilt-procrastination meltdowns about all the stuff he’s amassed without ever using it-- “Or if you’re still into jewellery-making, a new piece!”

“I will consider it. My skills lie more in amending existing objects than creating them from scratch.” Jakurai makes a thoughtful sound, then continues. “What will you gift him, Hifumi?”

“Ah… uh… something handmade.” Hifumi gabbles quickly.

“That could mean anything, from somebody as multi-talented as you.” Jakurai sounds like he’s smiling. It makes Hifumi blush.

That’s right: the project is already in the works, and once he gets time to work on it on Thursday when Doppo has his office-day, it’ll be complete and ready to wrap for the opening on Friday. He hasn’t revealed his plans to anybody except his friends on the knitting-and-crochet chat server he noses around from time to time.

“Then it’s a surprise for both of you! Look forward to it!” he laughs, fanning his face. “Hey, how about I ask him for, like, a wishlist? I’ll send it to you and maybe Prime’ll come through for ya and deliver in time for the weekend!”

“Come through?”

“--Show up!”

“Show…?” Jakurai sounds flummoxed.

“Uhhh, like, ‘fight in your corner’? Or, um, support you? Basically, hopefully your Prime delivery gets there in time!”

“I see.” he chuckles. “You know, I only feel my age at times like these.”

Hifumi blushes further atop his grin. “Uwah, don’t say something like that, Jakurai, I’ll start feeling like an upstart kid…”

“If you’re a ‘kid’, then I’m a fossil.” In the background of the call, beneath Jakurai’s gentle amusement, there comes the insistent sound of a high-pitched meowing, Hifumi’s number one kitten crying for her dinner. He can’t help smiling even as they say their goodbyes, even in the aftermath of his plans being upended. As long as the three of them are together, they’ll always have a good time, despite the tough times. He has to put his faith in that. He’s always done his best to make the good times happen, after all!

 

***

The secret that he can’t tell anybody is that he’s knitting his boyfriend a sweater. 

He’s focused in on this project over the last ten months with such magnified intensity that it almost feels like a secret from himself; like, if he thinks about it too loudly then he’ll start acting all sheepish and giddy around Doppo with the knowledge of it on his mind and it’ll be really obvious he’s hiding something from him and Doppo will probably read it all over his face, and he’ll guess the surprise, or-- or maybe it isn’t really about the surprise and it’s more about the fact that he’s knitting his boyfriend a sweater. It’s weirdly embarrassing to admit, and Hifumi never gets embarrassed by anything. He’d started the project before they’d changed their relationship status from flatmate-friends to best-friends-boyfriends, for crying out loud! And he’s never met anyone in this situation, either the knitter or the giftee! It’s so cliché, he figures he may as well have left a love letter in his shoe locker in high school to complete the image of this lovesick dope of a guy, Izanami Hifumi, normally so swish and on the ball buying glamorous gifts, knitting a baggy sweater with hearts on the sleeve-cuffs and thumb-holes so his boyfriend can fully snuggle into it and doze off cosily in the winter months. He feels stupidly flustered just thinking of the image. So cute. So cute, if he can pull it off, anyway!

But, hesitating over the tote-bag he keeps the project in, it’ll be wonderful to be able to present it on the day itself, won’t it? Although springtime has finally bloomed into warmth, their apartment still gets kind of cold in the evenings, so there might even be an immediate use for it… In any case, the plans being cancelled doesn’t mean they can’t have fun. He’ll buy a cake today while Doppo’s at the office, hide it in the fridge overnight, and he’ll ice it with a special message in Doppo’s favourite chocolate flavour tomorrow morning before he wakes up, and they can have it for breakfast--

On his first step into the lounge, Hifumi freezes.

“Hey. Morning.” Doppo says before he looks up at him, or, more accurately, tears his eyes away from the laptop screen. It’s a confusing scene for Hifumi to witness: Doppo himself, Mr. Depression-Nap, set up at the kotatsu in his usual spot, without his headphones, before 8am. He even looks awake -- okay, no, not quite that far, but he’s functional, with an empty mug by his hand already and the new tablet in his lap.

“M-Morning-- you’re up,” Hifumi blurts out, and when Doppo squints at him through his screen-worn vision, the tote bag in his arms suddenly feels like it’s full of lead.

“Yeah. I’m, uh, surprised my alarm worked,” Doppo scratches his head, then leans up as Hifumi crosses over to kiss him good morning. “Wanted to get an early start, I guess, if I’ve gotta make up those hours.”

What an admirable work ethic. Hifumi almost feels like shedding a tear in pity for him. “Before you go to the office, right?”

To Hifumi’s slowly sinking horror, Doppo shakes his head.

“Gonna stay home today. Told Baldie I just lose time commuting in, so… Whatever, they don’t care what I do or don’t do as long as I’m hitting deadlines...” he rubs at his eye a little, and the cuteness of the act is lost on Hifumi the way his plans slip away before him like water through fingers -- if his flatmate’s home all day, then how the heck is he meant to knit this? He’d counted on a full nine hours of Doppo being out of the house so he could knit subtly during voice calls and in breaks and on lunch and -- then, Doppo blinks at the bag in Hifumi’s arms. “What’ve you got there…?”

“Nothing!” Hifumi squawks, clutching it tighter against his chest even though the needle-points have found the soft part of his forearm, and he sidesteps neatly into the hallway, slipping slightly in his ankle-socks. “Laundry!”

“Oh, okay…?” His confused tone trails off as Hifumi dashes into the kitchen to whip up the world’s fastest hot breakfast, tea for two, and practically leaves Doppo’s serving spinning on the kotatsu-top as he dashes past the lounge again in no time to pick up his laptop. His plans are shattered. If he wants it to be a surprise, he’ll have to-- he’ll have to--

“I’m gonna work in my room today!” he gabbles out, an excuse.

“Huh? But--” Doppo peers out from the lounge as Hifumi slides open the door of his bedroom, and it’s a struggle not to look back with all that romantic fairytale longing, but Hifumi manages to lock himself away with a clack of the door in its frame without giving in to temptation, flinging the bag to his bed where the yarn tumbles out mid-air, a mossy dark green, golden-glitter circular needles winking through the purls. 

 

Alright, chill out, he tells himself over his manuscript. This isn’t the worst setback in the world. He can still dash out and bring home a cake -- Doppo barely ever stands up from the table when he’s working, besides, and he’s always in his own little world when he floats into the kitchen for snacks, so he won’t notice him bundle it away, right? It’s just. It’s just, the damn sweater. It sits at his side, with his laptop on his legs as he tries to work sat on his bed, staring at him knowingly.

trying to finish this sweater for the person im giving it to *while he’s home*, he posts to the knitting server in desperation. After a moment, he uploads a photo of it to fish for responses. three-quarters of the way there at least! wish me luck!

Beware of the sweater curse, someone replies after a beat.

eh? sweater curse?! 😰 never heard of anything like that

If you give your boyfriend a sweater you’ve knitted, you’ll break up for sure, they reply.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Hifumi huffs, burying his phone under his pillow. Seriously, nobody thought to tell him?! That’s what he gets for talking rather than doing! 

It’s only after spending his mid-morning break meticulously attaching one sleeve to the body that he realises how weird it is to be alone. Working in his room he can tolerate when there’s someone to talk to, but like this…

Maybe, this is just how it is when Doppo isn’t around?

Or, like, when Doppo’s around, but he’s keeping away from him…

Which sucks. What a heartbreaking sacrifice to have to make just for the present! Darn, he should’ve bought that weighted blanket from his wishlist after all, then he could have spent today playing footsie and blowing kisses to Doppo over the table instead of chugging away like this...

Trying not to put too much thought into his mental map of the apartment with himself on one end and Doppo on the other, he pushes through to complete the morning’s edits, and emerges into the hallway, tiptoeing down to the kitchen glancing this way and that. The coast is clear. With a quick burst of mental maths he uses the time it takes for the rice-cooker to complete his lunch to catch up on washing-up, only to hear the timer’s ding coincide with the apartment door closing. Doppo wanders back into view, looking slightly refreshed as he tucks his cigarette-packet away. No… lucid? They catch one another looking, and Hifumi beats him to the punch.

“Didja eat lunch already?”

“O-Oh-- no,” Doppo shakes his head, “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna…”

“Yeah, yeah, I made enough for two, don’t you worry! Here, here!” In a flash he’s served out both helpings of rice-cooker salmon and veggies, pushing the warm bowl into Doppo’s hands before he can finish. “Soy sauce would go really well on this, so make sure you season it, okay? Eat up!”

“Sure, Hifumi, but aren’t you…” he trails off as Hifumi darts down the hallway again like a rabbit on the run, balancing his own serving and tea-mug as he wedges his bedroom door open with his shoulder. He has to squeeze every minute out of his lunchbreak if he stands any chance of completing the project today. It’s the only deadline he’s ever treated so seriously!

“Gotta crunch today! See you later!” 

“But--”

It almost feels like a silly game of hide-and-seek after a while.

 

“Ah, Hifumi,” Doppo sits up suddenly as Hifumi creeps past the lounge, unable to go without a caffeine top-up mid-afternoon.

“Makin’ tea!” he grins, caught in the act, “Want some?”

“...Yeah, ah, if--”

Tea, brewed, left on the kotatsu-top, Hifumi gone in its wake. Second sleeve attached.

“Oh, are you going out…?” spoken just as Hifumi thinks he’s crept past him, since he’s wearing his headphones, half-collapsed with poor spine posture at the kotatsu. He laughs nervously, tilting his head out of the porch to wink at Doppo while bundled up in his scarf and jacket.

“Just to the convenience store!” he lies, train pass in hand for the bigger supermarket with the really fresh cake section, “Need anything?”

Doppo looks like he wants to ask for something specific, then thinks better of it, and replies, “Just… beer, please.”

“Yessir! Seeya later, I’m heading out!”

“Come back safe,” Doppo mumbles, just as Hifumi makes his exit. Both sleeves attached, he reminds himself, just the binding-off on the hems, the little label he wants to stitch into the collar…

At dinner, he’s so wrapped up in thinking about the rest of the week’s to-do list that he doesn't realise how quiet the place is even under the sound of the news on the TV, until Doppo knocks over his drink and Hifumi leaps into action with a teatowel, shaking off all thoughts of present-wrapping or frosting or cards or whatever.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry--"

"Don't mind, don't mind, all good!" Hifumi stands with his empty plate and the bundled-up towel, for once the first one to finish eating, "Hey, at least it wasn't hot chocolate like last week! Now if that had gotten into the tatami, we'd have a real--"

But something's tugging on the apron that he's forgotten to take off in all his fuss over cooking, and Hifumi sways for a moment before glancing down at whatever's snagged it. It's Doppo-- his hand pinching onto the hem of the apron, wearing the most anxious expression. A moment passes before he meets Hifumi's eyes and frets, glancing around, then licks his lips.

"H-Hifumi, er…"

"Mm? What is it?" he tilts his head curiously. Doppo looks like he’s hardly touched his food in the time it took for Hifumi to wolf his down. He wonders if he’s nauseous, maybe, from stress. “Don’t feel well? I’ll make a ginger tea, just you--”

In a wavering voice, Doppo blurts out, "...Do you wanna… watch a movie…?"

Hifumi’s stomach flips.

… Eeeehhh? Wh-what’s with that, all of a sudden?!

Usually the words would be nothing more than an innocent suggestion, but, but-- in their home, that’s Doppo-code for when he’s trying to say that he… that he wants to make out! Because he’s still not that great at saying those things directly. Initiating it with words. Because, y’know! In those early days first they’d start watching a movie like usual, snuggled up together on the couch or on Doppo’s bed in front of the TV he uses for games and before he knew it they’d always start kissing, and Doppo's so handsy you can’t mistake it for anything else-- Hifumi flushes hotly. The idea of it sounds so out of the blue when he has a head full of yarn and cake and for a second the vast amount of stuff he still has to get ready for his birthday evaporates from his brain.

But then the look he’s giving Hifumi, upturned eyebrows in shame and a quivering lip drawing attention to how flushed-bitten it is from worry-- all of it suddenly triggers a realisation for him, clicking into place like a missing puzzle piece.

… Have I really been avoiding Doppo all day?

...Oh no.

Oh no, I made him feel lonely! I didn’t want that to happen! Looking at his embarrassed expression, it’s only natural that he feels so nervous that he can’t even express it properly. Hell, Hifumi’s the one who’s been giving off bad vibes all day, right?! Am I an idiot or what, he scolds himself mentally, I totally didn’t realise! In that case, the project can wait! He’ll just finish it up tomorrow and spend the night snuggling Doppo until he feels better. Out of all his options, smooching Doppo is definitely always the right choice. And he’s giving him such bedroom eyes. Well… anxious bedroom eyes, but he’s a master of mixing moods like paints.

“Sure,” Hifumi breathes, then nods with purpose, whacking on a shy smile as he bends back down to hold his hand. “Your place or mine?”

Doppo’s eyebrows knit in confusion, then exasperation. Hifumi loves the journey his face makes when he messes with him. “You say that like you have a TV in your room.”

“Heheh, what can I say? I love your home cinema the best,” he smirks, and drops a kiss on Doppo’s nose. “So, dealer’s choice, you pick the movie!” Let me make it up to you, he thinks.

“Even if it isn’t a romance…?”

Hifumi nods. “Even if it isn’t a romance.” 

“Or a comedy?” Doppo starts to look a little hopeful. It's a good look on him. What else can he do but entertain it?

“Ugh, like, what else is there?” Hifumi rolls his eyes, then grins, despite himself. “Yeah, seriously. It’s your birthday eve, after all. I said you could do whateeeever you want, right?”

 

***

As expected, Doppo’s hands creep halfway under Hifumi's shirt before his attention finally leaves the confusing plotline and hooks onto him instead, watching his movements out of the corner of his eye as Doppo takes his sweet time caressing Hifumi’s side. Even in the semi-darkness of his bedroom against the glow of the screen, he can see enough of those little details that he’s satisfied; Doppo’s eyelashes, his hands with the funny little wristbone that juts out just before his square palm begins, the snatch of soft tummy where his t-shirt is riding up on the bedcovers. Really, he sighs to himself, carding his fingertips through Doppo’s curls, I was being silly. I could have been looking at this all day. Like, not all day, but definitely when he wasn’t working, right? Besides, Doppo probably wouldn’t mind getting a gift a day or two late. 

“Doppo,” he whispers gently as the closing credits finally begin to roll, nosing closer for a kiss, but that’s when he feels Doppo’s hair slip through his fingers and the weight on the bed changes drastically. Slouching on the bed in his pyjama shirt and shorts, he watches Doppo’s silhouette rise against the blue light of the TV and-- Hifumi thinks for a split second that he’s going for the drawer where the lube’s kept, wow, skip to the good part much? -- but instead he watches him slowly, unmistakably, climb towards his desk chair. “...Doppo?”

He pauses, but it’s only after he’s fully settled into the chair and drags himself towards his desk, booting up his laptop, that he begins to speak at last for the first time since the movie began, his back to Hifumi in the low lighting of the cluttered room.

“I… I know that you’re annoyed with me,” Doppo says in a shaky voice, like he’s holding something back, “For having so much work to do that everything got cancelled… It’s my fault, it’s all my fault for being so spineless that I take out my frustration on stuff, I wouldn’t be in this mess if I didn’t keep running into trouble with my job, so-- I know that already, so,” he takes a breath, curling his head down as he picks up a project where he left off. “I’m gonna… work really hard, now, and pay it off as soon as possible, so I don’t let you down again. So, um. You can go to bed now, don’t worry about anything, I’ll be fine.”

“...”

There are very few times in Hifumi’s life when he’s felt like a worse person. The words cut through him like a cold knife and blast away any of that sweet heat he felt when he was in his boyfriend’s arms.

“I’ll be fine,” Doppo repeats, moments before Hifumi clambers over to hug him in a vice grip around the shoulders. “Ow-- hey, H-Hifumi, it’s fine, just leave me to--”

“I’m the one who’s sorry!” Burying his face in Doppo’s neck beneath the glow of his computer screen is all he can do to hold on, the way Doppo’s trying to shrug him off, “Listen! Listen to me, Doppo-- you feel really bad ‘cause I didn’t spend time with you today, right?!”

“It’s okay, I deserve it, I’m being selfish, so…” he breathes, but Hifumi just clutches on tighter. 

“I’m not mad at you at all! I promise! I seriously, seriously mean it! It’s okay to be selfish! I wanted to be with you too, but, there’s a reason I was in my room all day, and-- you know, it’s gonna sound dumb now but it makes sense and you need to believe me, okay?” With a strong swivel of the chair he twirls Doppo around to face him and plants his hands on the armrests with a force that has Doppo drop his tablet pen in his lap, staring at him in shock. From the indigo eyebags he looks like he hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours.

Actually, since he never saw him last night, maybe--

“I was makin’ your birthday present.” Hifumi huffs out in one go before Doppo can retort. “It was meant to be a surprise, alright? Get it now? Aaaah, I ruined the surprise!”

“What?” Doppo’s eyes widen, then he seems to droop again out of guilt. “For me?”

“Of course for you! That’s why I was hiding! I promise I’m not mad at you or about work, like-- if anything I’m mad at work for messing you around like this! And like, the restaurant and stuff, really, it’s fine… I only wanted you to have a good time, y’know, Doppo-chin,” All of a sudden Hifumi can’t help pouting at the thought of the party that his workplace has snatched away from him. “Sorry I didn’t say something sooner…”

“Hifumi…” He looks at him like the pout is intended for him. Hifumi frowns, desperately trying to wrench the focus away from himself.

“Don’t beat yourself up when you’re, what, two hours away from your birthday!” He huffs with a little faux-irritation and flicks Doppo’s nose playfully. It almost has the effect he wants as Doppo rubs his face silently, lost in thought. But, naturally it would be silly to think that anything like this could be resolved so quickly. Especially not when he’s already so far gone in thinking about work. And there it is-- the glint of Doppo’s teeth, chewing on his lower lip. He’s probably just made him feel worse, hasn’t he?

“Even if… Even if you say that, I…” Doppo murmurs after a moment, hanging his head, “I still want to get this shitty workload out of the way as soon as possible… It’s the least I can do to fix this situation.”

“...Then, if you’re gonna work, so am I.”

“Work? On what? H-Hey--”

Before he can get a straight answer out of him, Hifumi disappears from his bedroom, and returns a moment later with the tote bag unceremoniously bundled into his arms, demanding, “Turn around!”. Doppo obeys, keeping his eyes firmly on his laptop until he hears Hifumi climb back onto his bed with a gentle creak of the frame.

“That’s not your computer…?”

“No, it’s your present, silly,” he sniffs, his back to Doppo as he unpacks the sweater in its almost-almost complete form, full of loose ends and needles, the inky colour of a lake at night in the faint light of his bedroom. It’s far from ideal working conditions without a comfy chair or a study lamp. Honestly, how does he do anything in these conditions? But, hey. If working is going to make you feel less guilty, then, I too will-- “I’m gonna finish it up in here before tomorrow, so don’t peek, okay, birthday boy?”

“You…”

“And then if you want me to leave you alone, you’d better finish up soon,” Hifumi retrieves his knitting needles. “Unlike you, I’ve got a deadline for this project. So work hard!”

There doesn’t seem to be much more they can say to one another, each wrung out in their own flavour of stress, and industry quickly takes over within the nightglow of the room. Beneath the click-click of the needles and the occasional snips of his sewing-scissors he catches the sound of the trackpad, the mouse clicking, the pen’s nib trailing across the surface of the new tablet. It’s a strange little call-and-response; two different types of craft. 

It’s been a while since Doppo drew anything for him. He wonders if… if he might return the favour one day. Or if Doppo thinks anything of this project at all. 

If he’ll even like it, he guesses. Regret flares up in him at the thought of how dreadful he must have felt all day. He’d be totally within his right to reject it. Tiredly, Hifumi rubs at his eye, then fluffs out the sweater, completed at last. Well -- apart from a few little details and a final wash to get rid of any hanger-on fibres, but that can wait until tomorrow, he reckons. 

Tomorrow…

He hopes everything will work out in the daytime, anyway.

 

***

 

“Happy birthday to youuuu~ happy birthday to youuuu~ happy biiiiirthday, dear Do-ppo-ppo-ppo--”

“Don’t drag it out,” the birthday boy himself interrupts, a party hat askew on his head where Hifumi’s forced it on him, red in the face at being sung to and waving his hands over his coffee. In the morning light he looks mildly refreshed in a way that only a showered, rested, no-longer-sad-for-self-esteem-reasons boyfriend can. Hifumi chuckles.

“Right, right, you wanna cut to the chase and eat cake for breakfast? Soooo naughty. But I’ll let it slide today, hehe! You excited?”

“I’m getting flashbacks, is what I am,” Doppo mumbles, looking even more exhausted at just the glimpse of the smallish birthday mille-crêpe cake on the kotatsu-top with its singular candle stabbed in the middle. This morning, Hifumi decided to skip the chocolate frosting he'd hoped to add: keep it simple. Spend more time with just the two of them. With something of an exaggerated sigh he blows it out then massages his temples, before reaching for the cake-knife. “I wish for a day off soon…”

Hifumi, as always, is immune to that gloom. Partying is always more important than thinking about the real world and all the responsibilities that come with it. “I’m sure that’ll come true! It’ll hafta, right?” he lets off a party-popper into the air, raining confetti down upon the kotatsu. “Wooooo, happy thirty-first! Wow, my sexy older boyfriend, a whole year between us…!”

“It’s a month! A month difference!” Doppo strains. As if there could be any novelty left in the idea considering their age gap with Jakurai, but Hifumi’s already giggling wildly.

“Mmm, yeah, but our ages are different numbers for a whole month! Thirty-one, oooh, so mature, I’m just your widdle baby, Daddy-- ”

Doppo groans loudly until Hifumi laughs himself into hiccups.

Two unevenly-cut slices messily tipped onto two plates; two cups of coffee, and the faint wisp of a burnt candle and the popper’s tiny firecracker within the lounge, and it doesn’t feel like much more than a slightly aromatic breakfast over the murmuring of the news on TV. For once Hifumi doesn’t feel like pushing the whole ‘party ‘til you drop on your birthday’ thing after his 3am bedtime despite the excitement in his soul; his body’s tired, his eyes dry from squinting at each knit and purl in near-darkness. Even his wrapping job was pretty shoddy this morning. He’s still proud of the contents, though, and once their plates are scraped clean he slides the gift along the tabletop in all its crinkly, soft, red-wrapped glory. Doppo looks at it questioningly; it should be obvious , Hifumi wants to say, but somehow… he’s tongue-tied, blushing with nerves. To think he’d nearly courted that dramatic disaster of a sweater curse if he’d continued on the route of ‘ignoring the birthday boy before the big day’. Thanks for nothing, knitting server.

“We ain’t got all day,” he laughs eventually, nudging Doppo with his foot. "Tension's killing me!"

At great and rustling length the paper comes apart in Doppo's hands, and the way he reaches down to lift up the piece, hands tucked under the arms, he looks like he unexpectedly got given a puppy for Christmas. Deep green with tiny crimson hearts on the sleeves, right where his palms might sit and his thumbs would poke out.

"It's a… sweater?"

Hifumi fizzles from embarrassment like a catherine-wheel spinning off its axle. "Obviously it's a sweater! C'mon, it's not that lumpy you can’t tell, don't tease me! What you're tryin'a say is 'thank you, Hifumi, I love it, Hifumi, I love you, Hifumi'!” After a moment of silence, he redoubles on his whining, pawing at Doppo’s arm and desperately trying to squeeze out crocodile tears for sympathy. “C’mooon, don’t leave me hanging…!"

"Huh…" Over the course of what feels like an age Doppo turns it this way and that, looking at the details stitched in, before Hifumi snaps and lunges, flustered from nerves. 

"Aaargh, for goodness' sake, put it on already! I’m dying to see you in it!"

“Errghh, what are you--?! Hifumi, hey!”

A brief struggle, and Doppo’s head pops out from the neck-hole like a chick from an egg, his hair half-flattened half-mussed up and the party hat lying crumpled and discarded on the floor. It’s an adorable sight, really, even-- no, especially for Doppo’s flustered face as he tries to pull down on the knit to straighten it out over his t-shirt, muttering to himself resentfully, ‘I was gonna put it on anyway,’ ‘it’s warm this morning already’. Hifumi holds his breath until he’s all sorted out and sits cross-legged in his floor-seat, looking down at the design of it.

Obviously it looks completely lovely on him, snuggly as all heck, and-- importantly, at least to the designer, the colours really, really, suit him. Maybe he could wax lyrical about his hair colour and his skin tone and the fit of a nicely-shaped piece on his sloped shoulders and strong torso when he straightens his back, but he looks cuddly if he’s slumped over, too-- but that’d embarrass him, right, and he’s already pushed him to his limit today, right?

“Whaddya think?”

“It’s so soft,” Doppo breathes, running his hands over the chest and stomach. 

A wide smile lights up Hifumi’s face at last. “Riiiight? I picked the fanciest yarn in the store, it’s made of like, baby alpacas or something--”

“Oh… I like this detail,” Doppo interrupts, stopping at a little cross-shape woven into the design in silver-glitter yarn, close to the neckline. Hifumi beams over his last-minute addition.

“Now you don’t have to worry about wearing the pendant at home.”

“Mmm.” He continues gazing down at it and rubs it gently as though to test the texture, then-- smiles, hooded eyes and low eyelashes where his head’s tilted, a soft expression blossoming over his features.

The incredible weight that’s been pressing on Hifumi’s heart all this time lifts suddenly as though a spring breeze has carried it off, no heavier than a petal. 

Immeasurably precious, this requited love.

“It’s really comfy. Thanks, Hifumi, I really can’t believe you made this yourself… I didn’t know you knew how to knit.”

“Pffft, only picked it up for this project!” Hifumi giggles, propping his chin up in his hands, finally relieved. “But it was pretty fun… Maybe I’ll start on matching scarves now so we have ‘em in time for winter? Hmmm…” His eyes drift to what remains of the little mille-crêpe cake with its jaunty cut-in angle, and back to Doppo, still stroking over the knit with a lost expression on his face. It’s not often he finds clothes he actually pays attention to for details other than the pricetag or its durability in any kind of wash cycle.

“It’s… so soft.”

“Feels like you could just drift off in it, huh?”

Doppo raises his eyebrows delicately until they disappear beneath his bangs. “It does feel pretty soothing…”

Just then, the doorbell rings out overhead like another accompanying birthday party tune. Hifumi blinks, dashing to his feet to answer it while Doppo sits semi-paralysed stuck in a loop of stroking the sweater at the kotatsu.

“Hmm-hmmm, I don’t remember ordering anything... Doppo-chin, are you waiting on…? Whoa!”

The person who awaits him isn’t their regular Amaz*n delivery driver, nor anything at all like them. For a start, he’s never seen any delivery person delicately sweating and cherry-blossom pink in the face the way Jakurai is right now, his hair drawn back over the shoulders of his pale spring coat and a disquieted expression tugging at those thin eyebrows. Maybe he lingers a little too much processing how refreshing it all looks right here on the doorstep on the third floor, because Jakurai’s the first to incline his head, his hand flying up to tuck back a few strands dipping into his face, like he’s been moving around too much. Hifumi’s mind crosses over to triple-X rated territory immediately.

“Good morning. Apologies for the intrusion.” he breathes.

“Jakurai-sensei! A surprise visit for the birthday boy’s big day, huh?” Hifumi laughs, trying to take in as much of Jakurai’s flushed appearance as possible, rare as it is  to come across in broad daylight, and steps back to make room. Jakurai seems to pause just a little too long pulling back his hair in silence by the doorframe, then reappears with a huge box in his arms. Like, moving-box big. Jakurai himself could probably fit in the box if he folded himself up enough. “Wh-whoa, that’s massive, you need a hand?! Is this more homework for me? Hey… Hey!”

 

“...I suppose I hadn’t fully read the details before placing the order.” Jakurai sighs, a quiet outbreath as though to channel any embarrassment in a controlled way now that he’s no longer rosy-cheeked from effort,  “Hence, when it arrived with me this morning, I believed it would be a simple matter to drive it over here, however, once I was climbing up that staircase, I must say the weight of it is… Ah, thank you, Hifumi.” 

“S-Sorry that you had to come all the way here,” Doppo insists.

“It’s no problem at all. I have no meetings on Fridays, so my schedule is rather flexible.”

With the obligatory tea served out, Hifumi plops into the seat opposite where Doppo has his hands tangled in the sweater, the dented party hat back on his head all of a sudden like he’s scrambled for formalwear in a panic, and Jakurai sits between them with a perfect aura of peace in that familiar rollneck now that he’s had a moment to strip off his outer layers. It’s almost a shame that Doppo missed out on that little treat of a sight earlier; he’ll just have to find other excuses to get Jakurai that hot and flushed without any Prime deliveries getting involved… Hifumi quirks an eyebrow.

“Kinda unlike you to underestimate how much books weigh, sensei!”

“It isn’t books,” Jakurai shakes his head gently, and casts a look across to the box, which is neatly at his eye-level now that the three of them are sitting. “This is Doppo’s gift.”

A thousand heavy or bulky items from his boyfriend’s wishlist flash up in Hifumi’s mind. “Waaaaait, wait a minute, sensei, you didn’t just get it delivered here? I told you it’d be heavy!”

Doppo sits up, blinking. “You carried this the whole way here?”

“Don’t worry. The car did the hard part.” Jakurai lifts his eyes to meet Doppo’s at last, wrapping him up in his attention that looks like a bubble of pure calm from the outside. “I didn’t hear back from you, but I wanted to celebrate today all the same. So… happy birthday, Doppo.”

“Oh… oh,” is all Doppo can struggle out for a moment, and Hifumi feels cheered up seeing him finally clutch at the ends of the sleeves where the little hearts are stitched in, “Um, thank you, I wasn’t… expecting to have so much company. S-Sorry, Jakurai, I forgot to message you back, and...”

“That’s all right. I am relieved to see you well, and in a state for celebrating.”

“Uh? Oh… Yeah, I...” 

...Doppo’s glowing with joy as he trails off and scratches at the back of his head, Jakurai smiling at him warmly. 

“Hurry up and open it, then!” Hifumi dashes over to the box and slap-slaps the top until Doppo sighs, emerging from his lull of happiness to lean over and slit open the packing tape with the cake-knife. 

“Jakurai, you really didn’t have to get me anything…” Doppo stills. Then, in a flurry of packing-peanuts he digs into the box until Hifumi thinks he might disappear into it, and stands up clutching something large, thick, baby-seal grey-- “No way! No way! The special Minky fleece edition… a-aaahh, you even picked the 7kg weight, and it’s got the lifetime guarantee on it…!”

“Eeeh, that looks kinda familiar, but…”

Doppo wraps his arms around the weighted blanket like a teddy bear and gapes at Jakurai with large, hopeful eyes, two degrees away from brimming with tears. “You…! Jakurai-sensei, you really didn’t… Thank you! Thank you!”

Jakurai offers a soft smile. “I do hope it’s useful. All the reviewers seemed to be terribly pleased with theirs.”

“So you read the reviews but not the weight?” Hifumi snickers. “Hahaha, Doppo-chin, you tryin’ it out right now?!”

Next to the kotatsu Doppo lies down on the tatami, shaking off the polystyrene pieces from the fleecy-looking blanket -- nothing special, Hifumi reckons, even if he’s heard Doppo obsess over it quietly every time he sees a TV advert for it. “Just to see what it’s like! It’s meant to help with insomnia, it gets really good reviews everywhere, ah, I might… I might finally get a full night’s sleep this way. That’d be something.”

“Eeeeh, what if we go on holiday somewhere? You gonna bring it with you? Gonna make our bags, like, super-heavy!”

Doppo frowns at him as he pulls it up to his chest. He’s not seen him quite so defensive over an everyday object since his HDMI cord went missing. “Well, let me just test it out fir--”

“...”

“...”

“...Doppo-chin?”

He responds with a long, soft snore, arms still and flopped at his shoulders, so deeply asleep that the tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips the way he used to crash out napping like a kid. Hifumi boggles. 

“Out like a light, huh.”

Jakurai puts a hand to his chin. “...I suppose the reviews are accurate, after all.”

“D-Doppo-chin, was this the key to you sleeping this whole time?” he laughs quietly, stroking back a curl from Doppo’s forehead currently battling with his eyelashes, and he doesn’t even stir. “Wow, he’s so peaceful, like he forgot about all his work stuff…”

“Let’s let him rest.”

“Ya sure?”

Jakurai nods. “When one is busy, it is all the more important that one takes the time to rest.”

“That’s Jakurai-sensei’s wisdom for ya…”

They share a smile in the quiet of the apartment, sipping tea over Doppo’s steady, slow breaths, before Jakurai unpacks his usual briefcase, quietly pulling out manuscripts.

“It looks like his outfit today was made for him,” he comments after some time, noticing Doppo’s arms splayed sideways like a baby.

“It was!” Hifumi whispers. “How’d you guess?”

“I like to think I know you fairly well.”

He bites back a laugh and settles on simply beaming across at his editor. Because, after all--

 

“If you know me, then you know the things I love.”

Chapter 3

Summary:

The episode where they try something new.

Notes:

SO THIS WAS A CHALLENGE TO WRITE................. BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT................... do/jaku/do rights

also: rating updated for nsfw in this chapter!

Tell me, where is it that we go when we die?

 

 

Such thoughts perhaps aren’t appropriate on the way in to the office, or at the wheel of a car further still -- Doppo might argue, depending on the day of the week -- however as nobody accompanies Jakurai in the car, there aren’t any hindrances to his thinking along this line. Upon this line. Driving is soothing; the fluency of the movements like conducting a symphony and he can enjoy the music of the drive. Well, he imagines the parts of the engine working in harmony like the string section. God forbid he ever pick up playing an instrument with the same attitude he takes to driving, with his thoughts free-flowing. Eyes on the road, he recalls Hifumi’s voice purring in his ear, the last time he’d deigned to drive him home after post-work drinks. Indeed. Eyes on the road; thoughts, elsewhere.

Like an earworm from a familiar melody, the phrase hooked onto his mind ever since a particular manuscript with a somewhat heavy leaning on morality piqued his interest. A striking passage catching his attention and holding onto it so strongly is nothing new. It may simply be that it’s unusual for him to come across such philosophising in his line of work as a BL editor. He had been surprised that Hifumi had examined what he’d believed to only be a BL story about a gambler and a novelist betting their lives on unlikely outcomes through the lens of life and death. Or, rather, that he was following through on the title's bold declaration like Schrödinger's cat.

How it circles his mind, like a sniffer dog. Bless it; it’s only trying to lead him to the right place. A ‘correct’ place. Anything can be correct depending on one’s understanding, one’s education. Morality. Right or wrong. At this point, Hifumi could well have him questioning where is up and where is down with this tale; and even then, when Earth is up from Hell and the Milky Way is down from Heaven, that answer would change depending on who might read it, no? Could the answer change with only the reader?

It’s only supposed to be BL, but if he were to attempt to domesticate his writer, to train him to only behave in a desired manner, that wild edge of his would be lost.

Yes, even at the cost of ostracisation.

He could feel vindicated, that his relationship with Hifumi and Doppo developed into what it is now, without a sacrifice he is yet aware of. 

It’s nothing to boast about, however. Nothing gained without anything lost. One day he will have to give, rather than let it be taken.

An overwhelming gratitude…?

Even that seems a little mild in way of sacrificial offerings. One might expect blood to be shed, depending on the deity. Certainly the goddess of love smiling down on the three of them holds a certain irony.

What of his, then, might have to be sacrificed, in order to continue this peace with them?

“Hmm. Lucky me,” he says to nobody in particular as a parking-space close to the building entrance shows itself miraculously clear; he pulls in, checking the seat for his briefcase, and begins his day.

 

***

 

The benefits of working with such a well-known publisher are varied, to say the least. The usual discounts and access-all-areas that come with a Press card are a given even in a field of publishing as ‘specific’, some could say, as Boys’ Love -- a goldmine attracts all sorts -- so those of his standing and above, departmental heads, cross-departmental workers, even the CEO herself, seek out greater rewards. Publishing means writing. Writing goes hand-in-hand with art. Thus, the canon of art. Writings upon art. Artwork’s placement; indulgence in art. Words are beholden to the limits of the printing-press and a number of established letters in a way that ink-lines are not.

Unless one counts DPI, of course, but that’s beyond his knowledge.

It’s far from the great pedestal he would prefer to see him on, but Jakurai can’t help but feel a swell of pride at reading Doppo’s name on the plaque on the wall where the seasonally-rotating in-house art exhibition is kept on the ground floor of their building. As though the name-characters printed on foamboard and his mounted illustration pieces down the small, semi-permanent gallery space could command attention merely from existing. Ideally speaking, of course.

Other than scheduled-in visits for TV programmes or articles and new starters on their first day, very few people linger around this area. It wasn’t always this way; in his earlier years with the business, the gallery was a display showing artwork of the more well-known artists whose careers were gracefully launched under its publishing-house, attracting all sorts of fans, tourists, pilgrims to its display. It’s only recently that it’s given over to a changing slot for the various illustrators and manga artists within their ranks. A good thing, he’s thought; they burn through so many talented staff every year. It would be a pity for them to leave the company without at least this exhibition in their portfolio.

Yes, that’s how it is in his eyes, even after witnessing the savagery that goes on in the illustration department: a boon. After all, no other interdepartmental warfare can compare to the battles he might fight to publish what he does.

Jakurai lingers at the name-board after his lunch with Hifumi, who’s disappeared somewhere in the depths of the meeting-rooms practically arm-in-bejacketed-arm with the editor-in-chief, debating with himself whether to carry out a walk-through alone or with company. Within moments, his argument is forced to conclude, like a sign from above.

“Doppo-kun,” he calls out carefully as he sees a familiar figure re-enter the building. At the sound of the honorific Doppo’s shoulders instantly twitch backwards into some straightened-up posture, until he figures out where his name’s coming from and hurries over to him, lanyard bouncing over his usual officewear. 

“Jakurai-sensei,” he breathes, the scent of tobacco on him, “Morni-- a-aah, afternoon, ah…”

“How are you doing?” Jakurai attempts to make things more casual. Maybe it doesn’t work; it sounds like his informal greeting falls flat because Doppo looks stumped for a second before returning to fidgeting, a hand flying to where his tie’s untucked.

“Sorry, I’m still all, formal-ed up from meetings, uh.” 

He smiles back, a subtle way of shrugging it off. “In your defence, I used ‘-kun’ for the first time in a little while.” 

Doppo stills then seems to broil, his index and middle fingers curling over the edge of his collar and tugging. Loosening.

Jakurai… would be lying if he claimed not to know the effect he has on him, on Doppo, whether he’s Doppo, Doppo-kun, or Kannonzaka-kun. The problem is directing it. Right now, it feels like each of them are misfiring their signals. Doppo's agate-green eyes flit about searchingly.

“I guess that’s more, uh. For the workplace. These days…”

“Yes, I suppose so. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I, yeah, me neither. Force of habit.”

Silence falls between them. 

Jakurai wonders how it is that conversation comes so easily with Hifumi, or that Doppo is so quick to talk when he’s present. Is it really only that these things fall into place when the three of them are together…? As though Hifumi is their mediator?

Surely it can’t be, he thinks. He and Doppo have had plenty of moments together with shared conversations, admissions, contributions. 

Mostly about Hifumi, he realises.

He hasn’t yet had a private date with Doppo without Hifumi being present in some way, he remembers quickly, counting back their dates since January. 

None of this is a problem -- of course, it could never be. But it colours this meeting in a certain way, Doppo fidgeting before him at his very own exhibition in this white-tiled building on a shared lunchbreak. After all, Doppo has never been an ‘add on’ to Hifumi, as he might put it.

He’s always been extremely fascinating all by himself.

Doppo’s voice cleaves through his thoughts, somewhat stronger than before. “But, um, Jakurai… -sensei, how, how’re you? You were looking at the, uh, my gallery…?”

"I am well, thank you. That's right… I was asking myself whether my first visit should be a solitary one. What would you recommend? Viewing alone, or…?"

"Me? Uh." Doppo glances at the name as though to remind himself whose exhibition it is, then visibly settles his nerves. "I can take you through it if you'd like."

Jakurai’s eyebrows lift faintly. "Would you?"

"S-Sure."

He appears to mean it.

“Then, I shall follow you.”

Doppo nods right away and sidesteps the name plaque almost instantly. “This way…”

The space doesn’t offer a particularly transformative experience, the ten or so square metres to the side of the reception separated into a makeshift few gallery walls with fixed panelling, but still -- there is something about the artworks being mounted upon blank white backgrounds, each with a printed title, that commands reverence. A particular type of attention to detail, the way Jakurai composes himself at a classical music concert, to leave the self of today behind and focus on what is before you. Doppo walks straight past three pieces right off the bat: two hand-painted shounen-looking splash pages, and a black-and-white ink sketch Jakurai recognises from the light novel series occasionally advertised with a little dust-jacket wraparound on Hifumi’s books. He lingers, but follows shortly after.

“I must say, your artist statement is rather unique, especially when compared to the other artists that have come before you.” Jakurai comments, casting a glance back towards the beginning of the exhibition, titled only with Doppo’s illustrator pseudonym and a short quote. “‘The real world is much smaller than the imaginary.’ It evokes a little pathos. Is it intended to influence the tone of the collection?”

“Eh? Ah…” Doppo trails off and sighs. “That was a mistake, admin and the exhibition team mixed up the emails and the form got scrambled after I saved it and sent it back to them because they opened it in the wrong software, so somehow, the title I wrote became my statement and my statement got lost and Ba-- u-uh, my boss had to write my profile from scratch instead of what I put... but he left out several years of my career and got the name of my college wrong…" 

He takes a breath, pinches the bridge of his nose, and continues before Jakurai can interject.

"Seriously, if I put this on my portfolio and someone saw that, couldn’t I get done for plagiarism? Not even work plagiarism but fraud? Everything would be over, then, in a blink of an eye, over something like a typo just because someone decided to open an .indd file as a .docx, even though they’re a design team and everyone has the whole Suite installed-- a-aahh, I should’ve foreseen this, it’s all my fault, I should’ve just used Wordpad instead, aaaah, no wonder my diploma fell into a puddle when I was walking home from the graduation ceremony, at that point does it even matter where I went?! It’s all my fault, they’d reject me as alumni anyway, I can’t donate money so they stopped contacting me, ah, it’s all my fault, that’s why they rejected me at Kodansh-- ”

“Doppo,” Jakurai touches his shoulder and the wrenched-out torrent of words comes to an abrupt stop as Doppo gasps, and faces him, sweating. He can’t help thinking how pale he looks compared to his usual self, although that could be a trick of the light, or eyebags that stand out particularly strongly today. He also remembers how Doppo never really answered that all-important ‘are you well’ question. Not that he asked it, this time.

“I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Sorry, you didn’t… want to hear all of that, did you, Jakurai-sensei...”

“That’s quite all right. Understandably, it must be very disappointing to see their mistake affect your work. But I’m sure it won’t impact your credibility as an artist.” He strokes a small circle on Doppo’s back between the shoulderblades, as though to soothe the vertebrae he knows are aching where he slouches, and the fibres of his polyester suit catch lightly beneath the pads of his fingers. If only he could soothe those pains; he imagines that accepting that sort of treatment from him may take time, if he’s already so on-edge from being touched so casually. Doppo looks up at him, opens his mouth wordlessly, then closes it in an admirable attempt to digest what he’s telling him. 

“...Tha-thank you.”

Jakurai nods. “If anything, you are within your right to address it and to have it corrected before the end of the exhibition. It will be up for a further four weeks, after all.”

“I-- I feel like, maybe, it’s a bit late for that since it went to print and all… But, ah, maybe…” he trails off to muttering under his breath, then shakes his head.

“For now, I wonder if there are any works you have any particular comment on?”

“A-ah, yeah, of course. Well, here...”

With a thickness to Doppo’s voice that sounds like he’s either battling heartburn or simply needs to clear his throat, he’s treated to a rare monologue about-- about the easiest thing in the world to talk about, really; one’s own work. Doppo’s style retains a certain roughness to it no matter how polished the lines or forcibly-clean the colours are, as bright as on an LED monitor. Jakurai finds his internal commentary drifting away as he’s taken through the pieces, their stories that open up the imagery like a physalis’ husk. The monochrome cover art that he’d always been intrigued by for its crispness holds less meaning than he’d imagined; the digitally-painted fantasy-adventure cover with its framing around a particularly warm-looking horizon seems to mean something so enigmatic that, close to the end of the exhibition, Doppo verbally grinds to a halt before it.

“I, um.”

In the brief silence, as though he’s run out of steam suddenly, Jakurai studies the piece briefly and tries to helpfully comment, “I remember when you worked on this one. It certainly earns its place in this gallery.”

But why is he trying to fill the silence? Doppo seems to need space to express something, fingers wound around the clip of his lanyard.

“Yeah, yes, you were there when I was sketching it. That time you were over at ours because Hifumi had--” 

He stops just as abruptly as he’d started, chews his lip, then takes a deep breath. For the first time since plunging into the artworks he meets Jakurai’s eyes and it’s almost alarming, the way he doesn’t waver, steadily searching for a connection.

Of course, he can’t break the silence until Doppo does. 

Or rather, he ought not to.

“Sensei, I…”

“What is it…?”

“This is… the first time we’ve been alone in a while.”

Jakurai stills. 

Put so plainly, the stark contrast between him and their metamour is eye-watering.

Whereas Hifumi hasn’t a single hesitation about showing his desire very promptly and strongly (put politely; crudely, the man is more than flirtatious, hands finding their way all over his body the moment his door closes behind them, lewd suggestions whispered in his ear), things look different with this one. There is something to be said for the way that Doppo behaves once Hifumi has left his side, as though the fading light allows him to shapeshift into quite something else in the darkness. That ‘something else’ is only glimpsed in snatches between deadlines and crushing stress, another side of himself that’s hooked Jakurai’s attention since the very start. It promises a little more wakefulness, the lucid dreaming of the sleepwalker, a fire he knows lives within him. Doppo’s roving eyes when Jakurai ties his hair back; a quiver in his voice when he answers to his given name; the flush of heat at his inner wrist when they hold hands, ungloved. It doesn’t surprise him that it’s taken so long to acknowledge that they haven’t had a night, a date or even a moment alone together because it feels as though Doppo himself is wary of that ‘something else’. Like he’s afraid to uncage what’s inside.

Were he to put it plainly… ah, how was it that he had worded it back then?

Yes, that Doppo is passionate. A passionate person. 

It’s rare to witness a person contain themself under such lock and chain. After all, whenever he watches Doppo draw, it’s like watching the muse take over, the same wound-up energy that disseminates from him when he’s talking himself into a panicked state, the same broiling he saw in his eyes when he’d complimented him on the marvellous birthday illustration. 

So when he says aloud that it has ‘been a while’... he, the man who hasn’t brought himself yet to kiss further than Jakurai’s face, whereas Hifumi would climb all over him in a heartbeat…

He can only imagine what depths of intensity those polite words might conceal.

“It is, isn’t it.” He puts a hand to Doppo’s back again, and this time he seems to buckle beneath the touch, his lips parting, and for a split second Jakurai interprets it as desire, rather than the hesitation before speaking. His mind filled with the promise of his heat, his honesty, his passion and perhaps in a lapse of judgement or even lack of restraint, Jakurai leans in to meet him.

But Doppo lets out a hushed “Ah,” mere centimetres from his lips like a gasp, and then adds an, “Oh, oh. I--” in a low voice. A worried voice.

“--My apologies, I thought you were…” Jakurai murmurs as he draws away, reddening in shame-- what must Doppo think of him now, he thinks, leaping upon him in not only a public place but a building he likely has less than fond associations with-- but he feels something snag on his sleeve, and glances down to Doppo clinging on to him. In the time between noticing that and looking back at him, something’s happened that means Doppo’s bottom lip has an indent of teeth and he looks agitated. 

“No, I, I was meaning to say that-- that we should probably, uh, probably, I mean, I want to--” he’s whispering quickly, his grip tightening as though Jakurai might bolt any minute despite every word rooting him further to the ground, like a revelation keeping him alert. A testament he might miss if he blinks, breathes too loudly. “I want to, I want us to, to, to go on a date, I guess, or just be together, the two of us-- god, I’m sorry, sensei, I was meaning to say it earlier around Valentine’s but everything got so busy and I--”

“I would love to.” he says quietly, and steps closer. It’s impractical, he notices after a moment, the way Doppo has to look straight up at him that probably doesn’t do any favours for his poor neck, but the desired effect is achieved. 

“Oh-- good,” he replies, although it doesn’t sound like he’s relieved at all. It takes a few seconds of Doppo fidgeting with the lanyard again until it looks like the plastic clip might break for Jakurai’s patience to thin.

... Patience?

Why, patience? Is he expecting Doppo to open up to him? To covet him from a distance?

True enough, his mind may stray and tease at the thought of Doppo, alone, after their hot spring visit, warm and bare and all his inhibitions dissolving like aspirin, but did he really believe in it so strongly that he expects it?

...Goodness. He was tolerating this feeling for so long.

The feeling of wanting to be alone with him. Unlock what Doppo might conceal-- no, encourage him to shed a layer or two. Experience those skilled hands in other ways. The thought weighs down his tone, his timbre, in his voice when he speaks.

“Would you happen to be free tonight?”

“Tonight?” Doppo squawks. So much for tenderness; Jakurai’s almost embarrassed to have caused such a reaction. He nods. The way Doppo blinks back at him in surprise makes him look more awake than he has all this time. “I-- for a date? I am, but, for…”

“For anything that you may want to do,” he whispers into his ear, eliciting a little sigh of a moan from him in the corner of the gallery as he slides that hand further down Doppo’s back, and there’s little he can now to turn off this course. To touch his back? To soothe him? To hear that sound again? Stopping would be cruel. “Or only dinner, if you would like.”

"That, that would…”

A thought occurs to him suddenly that flashes like a caution, and his hand stills. “Do you need to check with Hifumi first?”

“Mmm,” Doppo seems preoccupied, shivering in place against his chest-- when did they stand so close, he wonders-- then fumbles for his phone. “Should tell’m if I’m not going to be home for dinner…”

Jakurai waits to see if he really will text him, then adds, quietly, “I… did mean about us. The two of us being intimate tonight.”

“Oh. Uh, I.” When he looks up at him, his face is flushed. “I don’t know if I can, uh.”

His daydreams of intimacy vanish the instant he hears ‘don’t'. “That’s alright. I would like you to set the pace, so perhaps we could simply enjoy a meal together and talk--”

“No, I mean-- if, if it’s about that, I want… I want Hifumi to do that with you first before I do. Sorry, I know it’s weird when you’re right here and I’m right here and I want that, I really do, but.” The words tumble out of him like spilled marbles in a way he’s never heard in public and he curls his fingers into Jakurai’s sleeve. “Sex, I mean.”

“Oh?”  

He wants to, Jakurai thinks with a slowly-blossoming relief. That’s a good start. Speaking of, it’s a miracle that he hasn’t slept with Hifumi yet, considering how much he throws himself at him, but then the conversations between those two must have taken a long time...

“He just… he’s a good icebreaker. He’s so confident, so I think if I know you two have already, you know… slept together, then I’ll be able to… B-But we talked about it, about you and me,” Doppo nods furiously, then glances up at him. “Really. He just, uh, asks for details later.”

“He does?” Jakurai ponders on that a moment, lifting his touch to thumb at the back of Doppo’s neck until he starts to chew his lip again to keep himself silent. “Then… what would you say to setting the pace with me, up until that point?”

“Up until--” Doppo bites back a gasp as his thumbnail grazes his ear, “A-are you sure? Wouldn’t that be teasing…? For you, I mean, if I don’t… finish up.”

Being teased by Doppo sounds like the stuff of fantasy, far beyond what the man could draw, or what he could possibly ever write. Rather than admit it candidly, Jakurai clamps down on the thought to save it for later, beyond the walls of this building or the interior of his car, and strokes a paintbrush-lick down the little dip at the base of Doppo’s skull.

“Very sure. I’m happy to finally spend this time with you. Would you meet me back here later?”

Doppo dips his head, half a nod and half a bow, the tips of his ears darkened by his blush. 

"Please treat me kindly…"

 

***

 

It’s been so long since it went right along these lines. 

The click of the key in the lock, a twist; a thump, rattling the doorframe, a hurried shove shut, and his back flat against the wall as his lover pushes against him, hands splayed behind Jakurai with his hair trapped between his fingertips and the wall, just enough to make it twinge when it pulls taut as he moves. Their near-silence on the drive here, thick with tension, could hardly have prepared him for the way Doppo flung himself against him the instant they crossed the threshold. It’s been-- indeed, so long since anybody acted this eager for him. Just him.

Other than Hifumi, of course, but his type of intensity seems different. Doppo weighs upon him like he’s clumsily half-asleep, unable to adjust how strongly he’s pushing up against him as he kisses him, skims his lip with his teeth-- goodness, biting. So that’s how Hifumi gets those marks. And he'd asked him to treat him kindly.

“Would you like to--” Jakurai begins, only to be cut off by those desperate, breathless kisses; Doppo’s soft, full lips. After some conceding he touches Doppo’s elbow, turns aside tenderly to bump his nose against his cheekbone. “Would you like to follow me to the bedroom…?”

“Oh my god,” Doppo says, or maybe sighs against his throat, hands twisting in the sides of Jakurai’s coat against the wall. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Then, looking down at Doppo’s flushed face, he adds, “Are you?”

His eyebrows twitch. “Yes. Yes.”

Jakurai can't resist dipping in to capture his mouth again, so intense is the longing in his voice. Doppo moans against his lip and it makes him want to shed every item of clothing on his body if he can only hear and feel that everywhere else. Claim it. His heart flutters at the idea. Quickly, now, he thinks, if we are to make a move--

“Remind me, do you need to speak to Hifumi first…?”

“I-- I’ve got it under control. I. I couldn’t--”

Doppo keens as a misstep has him nudge against what is absolutely his erection through the office-formal trousers, panting and knotting his hand in a lock of Jakurai’s hair that dangerously tilts his head back, right at the same moment Jakurai accidentally grabs his tie and both of them pause in their different states of entrapment.

...Best to talk it out in the bedroom after all. 

Only when he's welcomed Doppo into his room, dimmed lighting and dark curtains blocking the outside world, does it hit him how fascinating it is, what he'd mentioned earlier about Hifumi going first. Kneeling across the bed with the fabric of his fly straining over his arousal, flushed down his neck in his pinstripe shirt and chewing on his lip where Jakurai isn't doing it for him, Doppo doesn't look lacking in confidence the way he claims. He sits in place broiling as Jakurai sheds his coat and untucks his hair, letting it fall down beside him, pooling on the bedsheets. Perhaps it's their officewear lending this moment such a sense of formality. A few seconds pass, Doppo's fingers fidgeting on his thighs, before Jakurai leans in to cup his cheek.

"I invited you home with me, but as I said before, I'd like for you to set the pace."

"I know." Doppo butts into his palm and watches him, startlingly lucid despite how he normally falls asleep when Jakurai touches him as tenderly as this. This green-eyed pacing creature. Something caged, the other side he glimpses. The something else.

"You said you wouldn’t want to sleep together yet. I understand. So, please, Doppo, tell me what you do want to do." Jakurai murmurs, thumbing at his cheekbone. “Perhaps up to a point, or where you will allow me to touch you...”

Doppo gulps. 

"I want to know what you want, sensei. I want--" he bites his lip, jiggling his leg, then looks back at him. "Please show me…"

Jakurai blinks. He’d expected something more mutual in nature. "'Show you'... is it? With your hands?"

"No, just you. If you can show me, I-- I want to be ready for when I…"

The silence crackles with heat between the two of them, across that short gap.

"To be clear… you would like me to demonstrate what I want from you?"

Doppo nods.

Truly, how fascinating. Jakurai can hardly suppress a smile. An admission like this… He wants to push him a little further. He can take it.

“Will you remember it all?”

The way he gazes at him with his lip trembling, the heat rising in his face, the curls around his ears lifting from sweat and warmth, opening up like a tiger-flower--

“I-- Probably not. I’m already so scrambled. Can I record you, somehow, sensei? To take it home...”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Hmmm. How so: life-drawing? Filming?”

He shakes his head. “I have a camera with me from work from when I was taking photos of the exhibition, so...”

A camera. Jakurai had never quite imagined this would happen to him in the twenty-first century.

“You may,” he says slowly, measured, “If you call me by my name.”

Doppo returns moments later with the promised camera and it isn’t anything like the pocket-sized gadget he’d imagined, but a real DSLR. He wonders just how sharply he’ll be captured in this low lighting, his image alongside formal photographs for his portfolio. As though reading his mind Doppo switches it on and takes a few experimental shots of the pillows, adjusting a setting each time.

“Have you done this before?” he can’t help asking faced with such composure. Doppo coolly deletes his test shots and shakes his head.

“I haven’t been with anybody who I wanted to, uh, try to capture.”

“And Hifumi?”

He looks pained. “He doesn’t sit still.”

“Ah, naturally.”

Doppo unbuttons his topmost shirt button and finally looks at him, somewhat calm, from the way his eyelids weigh heavy rather than that wide-eyed anxiety he so often sees from him in the office. Distracted? Jakurai very much hopes that whatever’s keeping him awake at night can be forgotten here in the bedroom. Doppo sits at the end of the bed.

“Then, um. I’m ready when you are. I promise I’ll listen, so…”

“All right.”

Now, where to begin?

Citing his greatest weakness that goes against everything he tells his creators, it has never been easy for Jakurai to tell his own stories of imagining. After all, the real world has enough malice and joy of man’s machinations crammed into every square centimetre of civilisation yet untold, not so much scrawled in the margins of humanity as left unsaid between the lines, that anything he could possibly conceive of pales in comparison. Even a mild fantasy seems futile to cling onto when he finds himself in this very real situation, the bedsheets stretching out in the gap between him and his lover yet fully-dressed. What use is it to anybody when it is so difficult to connect our hearts, he might think.

But he needs to employ it now. Dust it off, this imagination of his.

Jakurai lifts a hand to his neck and tucks two fingers under the collar of the rollneck, pulling it down an inch to bare his throat. Doppo merely looks at him for a moment with the camera hesitating in his hands; then Jakurai opens his mouth.

“I would like you here.”

It sounds so chaste that even Doppo appears dumbfounded, upturned eyebrows as he lifts the camera nonetheless.

“I-- I mean, of course…”

“Here, Doppo.” He tugs downwards, rolling down the hem until his neck is uncovered, and spreads his thumb and fingers to span along his jaw, his adam’s apple, the edge of his hairline behind his ear. “Here. Or even, further back. I’ve seen the marks on Hifumi. I was wondering how it might feel to have your mouth in a similar place.”

“Oh,” Doppo simmers, then snaps a photo. 

This is enough stripping to merit immortalising?

“Perhaps back here.” Jakurai sweeps the hair back from his shoulder, indicating his nape. “I’d like you to bite me.”

“Bite?” Doppo breathes.

“Is that a problem?” he replies before he can help it, this lightly dominant persona. But he looks like he can match it.

“N-No.”

“You’re very good with your mouth. Even if you bite hard, I’m sure I will enjoy it.”

“You want me to bite hard?”

“Enough to leave a mark.” When Doppo looks shocked, he adds, “A mark only you would know about. I may get a little carried away, but I’m sure you’ll--”

“You really like it on the neck too…?”

'Too'? Hifumi, he realises quickly, and smiles. Doppo has his work cut out for him. “Yes. Do you think you could pay particular attention to me in this spot, Doppo?”

“Mmmm. I mean, yeah,” a shutter-snap precedes the words, and like a screen transition it brings Jakurai to his next point.

“This leaves your hands free. I wonder if…” Letting go of the rollneck he traces a line from his clavicle down his chest, pausing at the breastbone. He becomes keenly aware of how much of this is showing, not merely telling. Doppo must be a visual learner. As usual, his managerial brain needs to be quietened to allow his imagination to take over. How does Hifumi do it when he switches over to dirty-talking him so quickly in one-on-one meetings? Tempering that thought, he glances across to Doppo. “Can you fill in the blanks for me?”

“Touch you there,” Doppo supplies with his face obscured by the camera.

“Beneath the layers, of course,” Jakurai adds, and despite himself, begins to pull up his sweater and his vest in one, feeling very suddenly like a sort of model as the fabric skims his stomach. He knows he isn’t particularly glamorous the way these two are, with his visible ribs and the cat-scratches on his back, but he hopes his words will be enough to direct attention to the right aspect. “You have warm hands, Doppo. How I’d love to feel them on me, on my skin…”

“Mmm.”

“On my sides. Up to here,” within seconds he’s hitched it up to his chest, and he’s grateful not to be able to see any meaningful reflection in the camera lens, “Or perhaps, down from my neck with your mouth.”

“Sen--”

Jakurai looks directly into the lens until he can see Doppo squirm a little in place, still hard in his office slacks.

“Jakurai-sensei,”

“Better.” He pauses, thumbs hooked beneath the sweater. “...I hear that you like to undress Hifumi completely.”

“Eh, um. It kinda just happens--”

“Then, let us imagine that it is ‘just happening’.”

With his torso exposed, his hair encouraged carefully down his back, he feels a little less apprehensive than before, the way Doppo’s glued to his camera. Can this really be of use? Surely, most people would want what he’s just described. It isn’t anything new. 

But, he supposes, saying it out loud is highly personal. It concerns one person alone. 

And what he loves about that person is...

A shutter-snap brings him back to the present, and he trails a hand across his chest as he gazes into the lens.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few things, Doppo?”

“Just… just focus on yourself, please.”

Jakurai tilts his head. “I need your help to progress past this point.”

A moment later, Doppo peeks out from behind the camera, an intense look in his eye. “My help…?”

“It appears that I need a little inspiration in order to continue,” he pulls the hair-tie off his wrist and drags his hair back, a loose attempt to package himself nicely, “Storytelling and imagination aren’t my strong points, I must admit.”

Doppo holds his gaze, then takes a deep breath. “What do you need from me…?”

“Tell me what you would like to do with me, like this.”

“I--” he looks surprised, looking him up and down as though he’s only just noticed Jakurai is half-dressed, then quietly grinds his teeth in internal debate. “Will that really help? I mean, sensei, you, I just… want to know more about you. And what kind of thing you like…”

That's right. What he likes-- what he likes about Doppo is...

"I like when you act for yourself."

"...Myself?"

Indulging.

"Without any expectations. Rather than trying to fit to my mold, or appeal to me... I want to see what you want, Doppo. Shouldn't that be how we behave around one another...? Acting, reacting. It's only natural, as two people together." He caresses a lock that’s escaped the hair-tie by his ear. “Please, let me react to you. I promise it will be much more useful for my demonstration.”

It’s a big request for somebody as fearful of causing trouble as he is, but something in Jakurai tells him he will succeed, pushing him a little further each time. Doppo settles the camera strap around the back of his neck and seems to be lost in thought for a moment. He still looks as flushed as the moment they’d tumbled into the house despite the thought exercises Jakurai keeps proposing; excellent self-discipline, Doppo.

“Like this, I want to… touch your sides, like you said,” he begins delicately, digging his fingernails into the casing of the camera even if he looks calm, “And down your back.”

“Hmmm.” Jakurai slides his hand down his ribs as directed, and Doppo hesitates, until he can see the understanding of the situation falling into place on his expression. He drums his fingers on his waist, waiting.

“I’ll leave marks on your neck if you want. At the same time.”

Jakurai’s other hand trails over his throat again as he gazes at Doppo’s mouth, knowing now how quick he is to bite. The combination of want and I will and the intention sends a light shiver down his back that he didn’t feel before; Doppo’s desire.

“Where will you go after that, Doppo?”

“Your shoulder…”

“Shoulder?”

Doppo reddens instantly. “I-- I mean, if you don’t want--”

“No, no, I’m following.”

“I want to bite it.”

...Such directness takes a moment to register in this little scenario, and when it does, Jakurai feels a heat budding inside him as he crosses his arms over his chest to touch each shoulder, another flare of goosebumps at the sound of those words.

“Where next? With your hands.”

“Your, um, your-- stomach.”

That brings a smile to Jakurai’s face; he obliges, settling his fingertips primly below his navel. “Very thorough.”

“Then, your hips…”

He slides his hands down, bit by bit, to touch his defined hipbones. Doppo-- doesn’t take a picture, seems to be thinking, with eyebrows furrowed. Briefly he takes a moment to summarise the events: kissing his neck, marking it, marking him, his shoulder as he touches him, trails his hands ever downwards, his back and hips… He stops, glancing towards Doppo, looking like a terribly flustered photographer in his slightly-loosened shirt and now-too-tight trousers.

He wonders if the only reason Doppo wants Hifumi to ‘go first’ is because he’s lacking in confidence. But… he seems to be doing just fine, from the way Jakurai’s running warm, now, curling his toes in anticipation.

“There’s only one place to go, isn’t there.” Jakurai prompts.

“Y… Yes.”

“...Doppo.”

“...”

He wonders if this is the limit; or, could he push just a little further?

Just a little further, Jakurai’s convinced, and he’ll be able to walk on his own.

“Doppo, please,” he slips his thumb beneath the waistband of his slacks, a little movement that catches Doppo’s attention, flicking a switch that has him glued to the camera again, his voice a little stronger despite its nervous wavering when he replies.

“Yeah, I’d-- I’d touch you-- no, uh, over… over your clothes, first.”

He freezes where he’d been ready to undress, processing it. “Over--”

“Over your clothes, Jakurai-sensei, in the hallway if I have to,” he blurts out, and snaps a shot of what must be a terribly surprised expression on Jakurai’s face, “It’s hot, thinking of you worked up when you’re still in the clothes I saw you wear in the office, if you can-- if you would--”

“Very well…” 

He slides his hand over his fly.

...It does feel good, in a muted sort of sense, his own hand over the fabric like the echo of the touch he knows is there.  If he closes his eyes, he can imagine it’s Doppo himself. His warm hand, slow strokes… Or, perhaps, Doppo prefers to move faster? Thinking about it suddenly makes him aware of how close Doppo is. If he reached out, would he-- would he be tempted to try? Doppo, who follows his own path.

His head’s filled with ideas, but Doppo’s already speaking again.

“Take them off, please.”

“So soon?” Jakurai looks up at him; a mistake, if temperance is the name of the game. Doppo’s undone another button on his shirt revealing a glimpse of his heaving chest, and he’s fiddling with his belt with his free hand as he balances the camera with the other. He can’t read his expression, but-- he can hear his breaths, as telling as words, and then the sound of the shutter precedes his voice like staccato.

“Please, Jakurai, please.”

“...”

When he begs like that he doesn’t have much choice, he thinks, as he pauses on the edge of the bed to undress. It’s been so long since he’s been stripped like this beyond the sheets. The mere sensation of the cotton as he folds his bared legs underneath himself, bracing on the sheets with one hand, is enough to highlight just how sensitive his skin has become with another round of goosebumps from only dragging over the fabric. Yes, even if Doppo’s the one panting and heaving hardly a metre across from him, it would only be a matter of time before that energy affected him, too. He’s been verbally undressed, after all. He hears a gasp as he thumbs at the waistband of his pants, and glances up to that ever-present lens.

“Too soon?”

“No, please,” Doppo’s managed to fumble his belt free now and his treasure-trail winks out in the triangle-gap between the hem of the shirt and where he’s pushed his waistbands down, grasping at himself, “I want to touch you, I want to touch you, please…”

“You do?” he’s teasing without meaning to, almost checking for confirmation before he-- 

“Jakurai-sensei, Jakurai, please-- ” Doppo cuts himself off with a sudden huff as he reaches his cock at the same moment Jakurai touches himself, far slower than Doppo, but nonetheless-- a shared moment. Watching him hang his head for a second, reeling with the tension melting away, at last, Jakurai feels good. He doesn’t need to close his eyes to imagine anything more real or more pleasurable than this. Doppo’s hands on him; teeth-marks could bleed through on his neck at any moment from longing. Doppo stripping him bare on his own bed; brazenly pleasuring himself at the mere sight...

“This is what I want, Doppo,” he tries to say but it comes out like a heavy gasp at the same moment he realises, yes, he’s breathless too, he’s-- quiet about it, as usual. “For you to touch me.”

“Ah, ah, sensei, mm--”

“Doppo,” he murmurs back, wrapping his fingers around his shaft and for a moment, pretending it’s Doppo he’s touching, it’s Doppo touching him, allowing those sounds to wash over him as he closes his eyes. The image of him spread-kneeled on the bed in his office clothing burns into his mind; the scent of his sweat, Doppo’s voice, tough skin on the edge of his thumb that grips around his cock, all of it. He grips gently, imagining the expression on Doppo’s face as he lets everything else go, and it’s incredible. “Doppo, if you touched me--”

His world reels for a second, and Jakurai opens his eyes to see the ceiling, flat on his back, and just below--

“Jakuraaai,” Doppo’s panting as he kneels between Jakurai’s spread legs, still the camera in one hand snapping away, and rubbing himself off with long, strong strokes. This gorgeous sight versus the feeling of-- Doppo tilting his hips up against him, moving just rhythmically enough to accompany his pace, the pace that he, too, must now follow if he wants to keep up--

If he’ll fantasise anything about Doppo, it will go along these lines. Pushed down like this the breaths come almost more easily, the waves of pleasure rolling low and slow as he strokes until he’s prickling from head to toe with heat, with shivers, with the sweet sensation of being fucked, without anything quite of the sort. He sounds distracted when he speaks at last after so many of Doppo’s faux-thrusts, his movements over him, the odd snap of the shutter.

“Doppo, is this-- mm,” An involuntary sound, “--what you want to do to me…?”

“Ah, I, ah, sensei, m-maybe, ah--” he’s made entirely of involuntary sounds, gestures, Jakurai thinks-- he can feel him juddering against him, the rough polyester against his nude thighs. “I just want you to feel good, ahh, but--”

“But what…?”

“But I really want to do this,” he gasps, dropping the camera; on the carry-strap it dangles dangerously close to Jakurai’s stomach as he finds himself arching his spine to better angle against Doppo’s hips, even though his zip bites on his skin and there’s no contact, not really, he’s touching himself and Doppo’s touching himself, but the way Doppo plants his hands heavily by Jakurai’s head with all his weight, the mattress creaking beneath the motion-- thrills him. There’s no other word. “I want to do this, I want to, mmm.”

“Tell me,” Jakurai breathes, then, correcting himself; “Show me, Doppo.”

Doppo thrusts against him, and to each of their surprise, it’s enough to make Jakurai come, a gasp whispering out of him as he arches, shivers with the climax, then sinks back down onto the sheets with his thighs flush against Doppo’s hips, blinking.

 

...He hadn’t… realised that he was quite so wound up. Above him, Doppo stares, dumbfounded and frozen in place with cock in hand. 

“...Jakurai?”

There’s no denying the evidence spilled all over his hand and stomach. How embarrassing. Jakurai catches his breath.

“I think… I want you to do that, too.” he admits.

In the silence of the room, Doppo gulps, pushing forward bit by bit on the mattress--

 

And at the bedroom door, there’s a meow and the soft scratching of a kitty-paw, insistently demanding dinner.

 

***

“I gotta apologise to him later…”

Doppo slumps over his mackerel-bowl, but as far as Jakurai can tell from opposite his guest at the dinner-table, it’s mostly from exhaustion, and that too is broken down into-- sex-exhaustion, to put it bluntly, and Hifumi-exhaustion, a known condition. On this occasion, the latter was brought on by a voice message discovered only after Doppo had finished up, too, showered and extracted his phone from his suit jacket abandoned somewhere in the porch.

“If you’d said you were gonna eat dinner with Jakurai as opposed to just like, sleepin’ together or whatever I woulda come over too! Or, like, dropped dinner off! I coulda made a third serving! Now there’s a spare serving and like, yeah I know it tastes good the next day but you said specifically you wanted curry today, Doppo-chin, like, I don’t mind if you guys are havin’ a great time or you’re married or whatever fun stuff you guys get up to or what but you gotta tell meeee if you’re not comin’ home for--”

Yes, he suspects he could have a touch of exhaustion, himself. Otherwise, he feels oddly refreshed.

“I will apologise along with you, then. I whisked you away, after all,” he offers, watching Doppo drown his bowl in soy sauce as he dissociates halfway through pouring the bottle, then blink back into awareness as Sweetie winds between his legs beneath the table. The kitchen is quiet save for her meows for mackerel and the clink of cutlery.

“It’s fine…” Doppo sighs, blissed out despite the sluggishness of his movements, “He’s not really mad, anyway…”

“Mm, is that so?”

“...No, he really is mad. But, uh, it’ll work out.”

Silence falls again, and he's reminded of the gallery earlier that day.

He’d had all sorts of ideas and impressions about his lover, and he’d been proven both right and wrong. Rough and tender. He’s still sensitive to the touch, thinking about that whirlwind of events on the bedsheets. 

He doesn’t know what to think, really, and that’s a novelty. A privilege. Something he only feels with these two unusual characters.

"I must admit," Jakurai starts, "I was not expecting you to use a camera. A phone, or a video recording, seems more... modern, to me, no?"

"Uh. Well, the camera had free memory, and my phone camera quality's pretty bad..."

Of course, Jakurai recalls, he doesn't pick up the nicest models of phone when half of them meet an untimely end due to user accidents. That makes sense. Still, it tickles him that the reason for it is such a technical one.

"Years ago, it was common to take home a photograph of your lover. Something to remember them by, before digital cameras could match analogue for quality."

"Huh," Doppo raises his eyebrows. "...Wait, did you ever do anything like...?"

"Hmmm, did I...?" he casts his memory back, but in college, he doesn't recall film being an affordable luxury, and shakes his head. Doppo goes back to eating; Jakurai watches the cat give up begging and seek out her bowl in the corner of the kitchen.  

“You’re good,” he offers, perhaps too suddenly, because Doppo nearly chokes on his rice, wiping soy sauce off his cheek and reaching for the water.

“Th-thank you? Thanks.” he swallows, then looks up at Jakurai with that anxious, careful look. “Good at, for, uh…?”

Back to the usual Doppo the moment they left the bedroom. Jakurai can’t help smiling.

 

“Storytelling.”

Chapter 4

Summary:

The one where the editor-writer relationship... deepens.

Notes:

jakuhifu rights!!!

i want to apologise for the delay between chapters but also admittedly going back to work during a pandemic does nOT help energy/motivation lol. that said i had a lot of support writing this chapter, lots and lots of 1:1 writing challenges and many lovely mtr friends to help me with jakuhifu hours... a lot of things that only came with time, and so this chapter couldn't exist in any other form.

anyway i do intend with all my heart to continue! <333 the journey may be long but we ought to look after ourselves first right?

please enjoy <3

His world is warm and still. It’s the sensation of being dipped in tepid water like a bath that’s just on the verge of turning too cold to bother sitting in any longer. 

It’s a soothing feeling, being enveloped, and forgetting about what lies beyond; Hifumi can see why Doppo likes to become a cute little blanket cocoon so frequently, if this is what it’s like within the confines of the duvet. Not that he personally could tolerate it during the daytime once he’s awake and dressed - once I’m up, I’m up! - but within the feather-fluff of sleep, like being suspended inside a duck-down pillowcase, the feeling is guilt-free. 

A small movement at his side, the weight on the mattress lessening combined with a distinct dip in temperature, is enough intrusion in Hifumi’s senses that the sudden change in gravity sways his entire world in his dream and he reaches out to clasp at the edges of reality beside him. Soft flannel with just a little pilling that rolls beneath his fingertips; the thought of ah, I need to brush down Doppo’s sweatshirt, serves to rouse him more awake. Househusband brain activated.

“Where’re you goin’, mister.” he murmurs, eyes shut as he pulls insistently on what he’s now 100% certain is Doppo’s sleeve if he’s to rely on how well he knows their wardrobes by the feel of their laundry alone. As though caught out, he hears the sound of his own name laced with uncertainty.

“H-Hifumi.” 

Above him his presence is tantalising; come back and be warm for me again, Hifumi tries to telepathically convince him, as Doppo pauses on the edge of the bed. “Was gonna make you… a drink…”

“Mmm? What’s the occasion?” Hifumi smiles, entertained at the thought of being the second one to wake up for once, dozy still. Why treat him-- was he really good in bed last night? Did he do something to super please some of Doppo’s dark desires, or something? Whatever it was, he’ll take the treat regardless, but he’s curious.

“You, uh.”

“Yeeee-aaahh?”

After a few seconds’ silence, Hifumi opens his eyes cheekily, right in time to see Doppo lean closer and all he sees is his plush lips before he feels them push against his temple in a soft kiss. The movement is unexpected, makes his heart flutter.

“Happy birthday.” Doppo whispers in that husky early-morning voice of his, and Hifumi’s stomach drops.

Against every prediction, every little teenage planning for ‘middle age’, every lingering gaze at greeting cards announcing that ‘life begins at thirty!’ in colourful pops of optimism in the corners of stationery stores, Hifumi realises with a heavy plop of his stomach that he’s completely forgotten to plan anything for this thirty-first birthday of his, what's meant to be the kickstart of a fabulous decade.

And what the heck? Who even is he, forgetting something like this?! Since last year he's held onto the idea of having a huge party every year of his thirties to celebrate making it this far, so starting it off wrong is just-- stupid. He’d never normally allow his birthday to sneak up on him, and it’s clear that Doppo thinks so, too; it’s not exactly a secret when he’s asking twice a week, every week, three weeks ahead of time, what Hifumi thinks he might do for the occasion. A party of some kind? A gathering? Doppo already has his wishlist down, has done since the previous year’s birthday: it’s the sociable stuff he needs more direction on. His absolute antithesis. Doppo still looks somewhat wrought as he channels every ounce of steadiness in his body into his bad arm -- well, the one without a wrist brace -- pouring the kettle for Hifumi’s breakfast coffee, while the birthday boy himself is distracted, catching up on his exploding notifications on his phone and leaning his forearms against the kitchen counter beside him.

“Forreal, some of these people I haven’t spoken to in months... Whole months! Is it 'cause they think I'm old now? Did you get this for yours, Doppo-chin? Gosh, I got some catching-up to do! Oh, haha, I got a message from Mom! She’s so sweet,” Hifumi grins and tries to show him the screen where Doppo’s mother has sent him a flurry of Messenger stickers and pictures from photo albums of the two of them as grubby gradeschoolers together.

“It’s not like you to forget,” Doppo mumbles, eyebrows furrowing as a little pocket of dry coffee-grinds surfaces in the drip bag with a tiny-guppy bloop. It’s so sweet of him to make the effort that Hifumi smiles to himself, even if he figures that the coffee’s going to be lukewarm and bitter by the time he gets to it. 

“Right?! Like, so unlike me. I wonder why that is…? Ugh, and no way I can just ask for the day off right now...”

“Deadlines, maybe?”

“Ehhh, who the heck’re you, bringing those up on my special day? Doppo-chin-sen-seeeei,” Hifumi sticks the tip of his tongue out teasingly, and Doppo’s ears redden even without seeing him do it, merely busying himself with trying to lift out the drip-bag from the cup without spilling coffee everywhere. Hifumi peers at that face locked in concentration to admire it; the colour on him is a cute little bloom on his complexion that’s looked so pale lately.

Despite the springtime in full flourish, and how easily Doppo’s skin darkens in the sunshine...

Maybe that is what’s distracted Hifumi lately after all. The crunch. Something is off, something in the air, around the home, around their working hours. It feels as though there’s been a slipping back to ways of old, back to only seeing Doppo in the darker hours of the day or far too early instead, and the main difference is now he knows for a fact that he sleeps at least sometimes because Hifumi’s the one stroking his hair, waking up to briefly pet him into slumber at 4am when Doppo finally crawls into bed next to him. That end-of-quarter crunch. The workload’s felt rough enough for the two of them that Hifumi basically overslept this morning, by his own standards. Crazy, he thinks. Something he’d best bring up once Doppo’s caffeinated as well. Plan some time off, or something.

Flipping his posture around so that he leans his back against the counter nonchalantly, Hifumi angles better to try and peer into the face of his beloved so carefully wiping the rim of the cup where the grinds have spilled down the edge. He takes the cup in one hand as Doppo passes it across, then opportunistically grabs his other hand, grinning. No way he’s going to spend today focusing on his slip-up, anyway!

“So, liiiike, here’s what I’m thinkin’. Vanilla and birthday sprinkles!”

“Oh. Huh.” Doppo replies after a moment once he realises they’ve skipped topics already, staring down at his hand and squeezing it.

“Yeah! We have everything except the sprinkles and the icing! Soooo, how’s about, maybe I could start preppin’ the cake batter at lunchtime, then if I fire up the oven riiiight when we finish then we go vroom to the shop for the last li’l bits-- oh, I really wanna do Mexican tonight, so let’s get tortillas! Enchilada time! --then I can slam everything in before I start on dinner and, ding! Ready for icing ‘n’ slicing when we’re done eating! It’ll all be ready for a partylicious evening! Whaddaya say?” He beams at Doppo once his plan is all laid out in perfect detail, swinging their linked hands back and forth like they’re walking to elementary together. Doppo looks back at him, alert but not quite mirroring the excitement in his face.

“Um, actually. I already planned something for you.”

“You--” Hifumi’s mouth falls open at the string of words he’s never expected nor anticipated to come from him. “Whaaaa?”

“I’m gonna tidy, so...” Doppo says, nodding to emphasise his intention, even though his dread at the very concept of cleaning the house from top-to-bottom is seeping out from around the edges of his expression. It’s enough to kickstart Hifumi into fussing mode.

“What’s with thaaaat, don’t worry about that, Doppo-chin! Gimme two secs on my mid-morning break and I’ll whip the place into shape!” he complains even though he realises that half the words tumbling out of his mouth are lies; the apartment is overdue its monthly Hifumin☆Special deep-clean, ever-so-slightly neglected between crunches and deadlines, and the guilt weighs on him slightly knowing that the piling-up mail and slightly grimy corners of the sinks are apparently so bad that even Doppo’s noticed. He’s really not been on top of it lately, huh. 

“When’re you gonna get the time between--” Doppo takes a moment to count on the fingers of his other hand, “Work, lunch, making cake batter, going to the store, dinner…?”

“It’s fiiiiiine, I’ll make time!”

Doppo scoffs-- it’s very light, glancing aside just enough that it looks like he’s rolling his eyes, yet it’s enough to make Hifumi bristle. “Heard that one before.”

“Yeah, from you !”

…

Neither of them feel good about that, still gripping hands in the quiet kitchen. Ah, Hifumi thinks, the crunch really is real if I’m snapping.

“Sowwy,” Hifumi says first, casting puppy-dog eyes over the rim of the coffee his boyfriend’s lovingly made for him before he takes that all-important first sip. Doppo shakes his head.

“It’s okay, it’s… true. Um, but, really, Hifumi. Let me take care of things today, alright?”

“But if I see you working so hard I’ll wanna help…!”

“Then, you go and spend the day working away from home so I can clean in peace.” he reasons, “I took the day off, so…”

“You did?! And away from-- but I like home! I wanna be home! It’s my birthday! You can’t kick me out! Where am I meant to go? I wanna hang out with youuuu!” Hifumi whines, instantly stressed out by the mental image of having to whip up his Gigolo clothes minutes before 9am-clocking-in-time just to zoom to the office for no good reason, yet the look that Doppo gives him is so witheringly tired that he bites back on his complaints. Meanwhile the taste of the coffee spreads over his tongue as he shuts up; an actual sense of bad conscience briefly blips into his thoughts.

“Sensei-- um, Jakurai already said he’d host you today…”

Hifumi perks up in an instant, curls bouncing. “Jakurai did?”

“Yeah.”

That changes-- a lot of things. His mental image of a cluttered apartment in its messy pre-tidy metamorphosis stage with a poor stressed Doppo at the centre, and himself struggling to concentrate bejacketed in a back room of the office on what’s meant to be his special day suddenly clears like a blue sky after clouds. So, sensei to the rescue again?

But actually, if he looks at it another way, it’s the best option imaginable considering he’d overlooked today so severely he even forgot to book the day off. Like, Doppo went to the effort of planning something. Doppo, whose notion of a ‘party’ is what you do raids with in his online games. Doppo, who’s only ever awake before Hifumi because he hasn’t gone to sleep yet.

...Is it, actually, that the others were seeing something that he can’t?

That thing Jakurai says from time to time-- that they’re a team?

He feels like laughing in relief. Sheesh, you guys could have just reminded me a week ago, it would’ve been fine. Didn’t have to go to all this effort.

‘All this effort’ being a few household chores, apparently, but it makes Hifumi soften a little, give in a little. It can’t be too hard to let the others take care of things, surely. He finds himself smiling bashfully, nursing his cup of coffee. As expected, it’s lukewarm, and it’s bitter, but it’s good. Doppo made it for him. With a thoughtful, teasing hum, Hifumi finally breaks into a grin again.

“You really planned this out, didn’t you? Doppo-chin...”

“That’s what I said,” Doppo sighs, exhausted after having won this tussle at last, and strokes the back of Hifumi’s hand with his thumb. It’s a ticklish ant-crawl of a sensation that sends a thrill up his spine, the matted felt of the wrist-brace dragging along his skin. “You need to learn to listen.”

“What can I say, I like knowin’ what’s going on!”

“Hifumi…”

He laughs, lowering the cup in his hand. “I know, I know, I gotta chill out--”

Doppo shuts him up with a kiss. It’s sudden, warm, and a little hard against his surprised mouth, and when he pulls away, gazing at him with those heavy green eyes, he strokes up Hifumi’s shoulder that sends him blinking and shivering in excitement. He should be used to Doppo kissing him by now, but wouldn’t anybody’s heart flutter a little right now?!

“Wh-wh-- Huh? Hm?”

“It’s nearly 9.” he tells him firmly, despite the hand stroking over his shoulder and the deep eyebags that scream that the only thing he wants to do is go back to sleep at a time of day that’s suitable for under-rested Doppos but he’s made up his mind already today, “Sooner you go, sooner your party starts.”

Party is the word that finally has him leap into action for the weird, strangely-special day ahead.

 

“I’m goin’! I’m goin’!”

 

***

 

Tappity-tap-tap.

Instead of the thrumming party playlist from his phone, Jakurai’s front room is filled with a cool quiet and the sound of writing in both its analogue and digital forms, the staccato tapping on the laptop keys and the occasional hum in the distance of a car heading down the residential road out front. Apparently deadlines don’t respect birthdays, not even Gigolo-sensei’s birthday, and something seems to be weighing on the mood to bring it down, although Hifumi can’t tell if it’s Jakurai’s ever-serious thoroughness while he edits manuscripts in that scratchy fountain-pen or just the frustration at himself that things ended up like this.

Not like in a baaaad way, he’s reasoning with himself; like, being alone with Jakurai at his house is super peaceful! Totally on point for a deadline crunch! ...But not for what should be the most celebrated day of the year, though?!

‘Let me take care of things,’ Doppo had said at the time, but thinking about it now, wasn’t housework basically his hobby?! What kind of magic spell did he work on him in that moment to make him agree? Actually when Hifumi thinks about it, like really thinks, his on-the-fly plan for cake and enchiladas sucked, so he’s kinda glad that Doppo didn’t let him do it. Kinda. Instead he’d so much rather be back at home slow-cooking some bone broth for a killer birthday ramen or something; a long marinade for a teriyaki chicken party, he thinks dreamily as he accidentally spells the main character’s surname as ‘Chicken’ but he can hardly chase that mental image of a sparkling, beautiful birthday buffet spread from his mind. 

By his side, there’s the light snapping sound of claws unhooking from fabric as Jakurai lifts the cat from his lap, to her great displeasure judging from the way she mewls in protest when he sets her aside. So this is the kind of guest-list I have today, Hifumi thinks with a muted smile. His number one kitten, and his hot older boyfriend who’s sitting there so attractively but is unfortunately off-limits until he’s handed in this week’s chapter draft. At least his other boyfriend’s all hot and sweaty and probably gasping out ‘Fuck’ right now! ...as he clears the trash in another building. Sucks.

Right now, sat kneeling at the low table, his calves are cramping beneath him. The wince that crosses Hifumi’s face must be obvious, or-- attention-grabbing, at least, even over the rims of Jakurai’s reading-glasses. He looks up subtly as one can manage when the two of them are practically shoulder-to-shoulder working today. Even a breath or a slight shift in posture amounts to passive-aggressive body language when they’re each so tense; Hifumi, about the deadlines, and Jakurai-- he imagines, second-hand uptight watching him run screeching to the finish-line.

“‘m good, just gotta stretch,” Hifumi announces almost instantly to reassure him he isn’t giving up and makes a point of sticking out one leg beneath the table and wiggling his toes in their soft lemonade-yellow socks. “Hittin’ thirty and I’m already feelin’ it in my bones ‘n’ jellies already! Age, man-- you know how it goes!”

“Jellies?” Jakurai repeats softly. It might be the first thing he’s actually said in an hour and the way he blinks slowly is as though he’s just roused him from a deep spiral of thought. The pen in his hand is capped. Hifumi smirks and drags his feet closer to himself, cross-legged.

“Like, my bits. Aaaa-nyyyy-way, I’m so close to finishing up, don’t you worry! Just a final li’l blast through…”

“You needn’t strain yourself for this deadline,” Jakurai offers, lowering his glasses down his nose and casting a long, meditative look over Hifumi’s dropped-Beanie-Baby-at-the-table stance at the table, his somewhat bony knees stuck out and his spine a mess as he’s long-since given up on not slouching. “I will be happy to accept this tomorrow, or after the weekend if need be. I can see that this may not be a… ‘today’ task.”

“But I came all this way here to work ‘n’ stuff! It wouldn’t be fair to Doppo if I didn’t get at least this out of the way, right?”

Silence falls. Hifumi counts that as a victory and faces the laptop again. Then, a touch slides along his lower back; Jakurai’s hand, settling firmly right where his shirt threatens to untuck itself from his jeans. It's like his thumb was made to fit in that little gap, the dip where the baggy fit sags over the waistband. It isn't his imagination, that he's stroking his fingers along the seams there immediately after deadline talk.

Of course, even if Jakurai is petting his butt during work hours that's not something he can just say out loud!

...Or is it?

 

"Jakurai-sensei," Hifumi intonates as his hands freeze upon the keyboard, the add-on to his name never intended to push him away but instead to lay a snare, his tone loop-de-looping around to reel him closer as he sits up a little straighter, rolling the small of his back beneath that hand, "Don't we have another twenty minutes still 'til close of business?"

"Mmm." 

Rarely does his editor opt for sounds over well-chosen words. Hifumi chances a peek across at him; their eyes meet. Jakurai’s are deep blue, calm as the lull of moored boats at dusk.

"Today is your birthday. You can leave a little early." he says.

“Says my editor who needs five thousand words by tomorrow,” Hifumi smirks back.

“Your editor is telling you not to concern yourself with it.”

“Aww, but I didn’t book it off--”

“Hifumi.” 

Jakurai takes the opportunity to whisper into his ear just as he’s distracted and, combined with the way that his fingers thread into his jeans’ belt-loops and curl, makes a neat one-two to take down his defences. If it’s hot when Doppo suddenly makes a move on him, then it’s positively spellbinding when Jakurai does it, and Hifumi’s disarmed like Jakurai's found his power button. His hands that were so tautly held at the laptop on the low table now push against Jakurai's chest as he leans in to kiss him but it’s only for effect, not really resisting, yielding to Jakurai’s pressing him down to the ground with the weight of the hungriest kiss until his back meets the floor beneath them. Where he catches a glimpse between too-close, too-intense kisses, his boyfriend looks lithe, yet colossal where he props himself over him with slow steady motions, a primordial Titan. His lips on Hifumi's are hard and the slide of his tongue against the seal of his lips is too heavy to feel ticklish; Hifumi's only choice is to surrender and part them, and right away, Jakurai's tongue is deep inside his hesitant mouth, exploring the slight flesh of his lips, running along his teeth--

"Mmmh," -the moan leaves Hifumi like it’s been wrenched out of his voicebox, his whole body arching under the invasiveness of it like it tickles but he's bearing it, so thorough and hot is Jakurai against him, and it's only when he thinks about giving a light little warning-tap at his side does Hifumi realise his boyfriend has long since pinned his wrists to the floor, either side of his chest. He resists by wriggling his fingers and right away Jakurai pins him harder like a butterfly, a knee sliding along the floor in his home-office cotton slacks that wedges perfectly between Hifumi’s to jerk against his thigh, and underneath him Hifumi burns right up, whimpering. This is the furthest that Jakurai’s ever pushed him-- snatched makeouts in the doorway of his apartment before he goes home and impulse demands for attention under the table during meetings have nothing on this. At the thought that Jakurai’s just going to take him here, for the first time, Hifumi lets out an unexpected sound, coinciding nicely with Jakurai sucking on his lower lip, his teeth carding scantly on it like a warning.

“Does that feel good?” Jakurai breaks away at last to whisper against his ear, and when Hifumi chances opening his eyes, he’s met with only the sight of the plain-coloured ceiling above and the sensation of Jakurai’s mouth-- almost cool to the touch compared to Doppo’s, thin lips against his jugular and pressing into a sensitive spot on his skin with almost terrifying accuracy, the way it has him shivering and arching. He whispers again to nudge an answer out of him with words, but he doesn’t need it really, does he, Hifumi wonders, when he’s already melting into a puddle of novelist-flavoured goo beneath only a few expertly-carried out touches. “Hifumi.” 

“Mmmm, Jakurai, you shoulda said you were this pent-up,” is what he manages to laugh shallowly before he jerks into an “A-Aahh-” as Jakurai rubs that knee against his inner thigh simply just not close enough to his already-stiffening cock in his jeans. So, um, I guess I won’t worry about my deadline today then, he thinks lucidly where it feels like the reasonable mindset he had mere moments ago is detaching from his horny, wriggly, heat-flushed body like a novelty balloon lost from his grip. He’s really… way too weak to being dominated. Jakurai really could just fuck him raw here on the floor, he’d only mind a little bit, he’d forgive him later, he’s sure.

“I signalled. You weren’t listening to me,” Jakurai replies coolly but with a slight crack at the end of his voice when he feels Hifumi arch his back and roll his hips against him; his hand flies to the gap between the small of Hifumi’s back and the ground, pulling him flush against him until they’re both grinding, rolling out a rhythm, his weight supported by Jakurai’s strength.

It’s heavenly, really, and Hifumi feels like he might lose his grip on reality for how quickly he’s been slammed onto the front-room floor and brought to keening and flushing in the very same outfit he’s been knocking out a massive wordcount in.

But, hey. 

It’s hot, he hasn’t had any say in this so far, right?

The floor isn’t comfortable, despite how Jakurai’s distracting him from everything except the grinding, and suddenly Hifumi recalls some briefly-forgotten plan he’d had for his first time with Jakurai that he’d fantasised about way too hard in that first month after becoming an item, the same way that highschool crushes had him giddily scrawling joined-together family names on desks or outlining every single detail of a future wedding.

“J-Jakurai,” Hifumi breathes, midway through that rocking motion, his freed hand creeping up to touch Jakurai at the crown of his head; he stills, or at least slows, and the change in pace has Hifumi look up properly, for once.

Something that Hifumi fixates on unfairly often, something he dreams about and frequently gets hands-on with, is Jakurai’s hair. How dark it is, how beautifully silky it is, the sheer length of it that seems to weigh down his presence like an anchor to the boat of Heaven. An unimaginable length of time spent maintaining and growing an unimaginably long yet very real length of hair, that ends up in Hifumi’s hands during long editorial meetings at home or braiding it for him on days off.

Right now, Hifumi stares, taking in the sight of Jakurai gazing down at him with those attentive opal eyes, deep and knowing, and for a split second he wonders when the lights were dimmed around them. Then he focuses. 

Surrounding him in great swathes like curtains are none other than Jakurai’s locks, cascading on either side of those gaunt shoulders over him and pooling in inky-violet tendrils on the flooring at either side of his body. It’s slunk down the length of his torso, running off his ribs, as if Hifumi’s about to be drowned. The ceiling-lamp is just about eclipsed by Jakurai’s head; he’s curtained off from the real world.

He stares, the breath arrested in his throat.

“Yes?” Jakurai murmurs with all the gravity of a grand ancient statue that’s learned to speak, and Hifumi delicately realises that the shadow he’s casting over him doesn’t hide the warmth that’s beginning to creep into Jakurai’s face. It’s breathtaking. 

“Let’s move to the bedroom,” he manages out without a hitch despite how Jakurai’s still moving in tiny, tiny increments, cruelly-teasingly subtle nudges against his thigh. Jakurai looks at him silently for a moment. Much like a wild animal upon its prey, Hifumi thinks.

“...We would lose the moment.” he replies at last. Hifumi almost laughs at how much Jakurai cares about maintaining the moment -- almost. The hand under his back feels alarmingly tense. A coiled spring ready to unlatch. All the same, he puts on his best peppy I-know-I’m-right-and-will-cry-if-I-don’t-win voice.

“It is my birthday, you said it yourself!”

Above him, Jakurai blinks, very nearly frowns, as though he’s briefly returning somewhat to the same reality that they’d both previously inhabited before they let their senses pilot them entirely, the one where they sat side-by-side in a rather well-behaved manner for several hours editing work together. It’s a weakness of his, he knows; begging doesn’t work as well on Doppo because he’s dealt with it for so long, but on this boyfriend, it’s still a new tactic that hasn’t quite outstayed its welcome yet. “...Yes, but--”

Hifumi shoots him a fearful look that’s only emphasised by his pitiful tone. “You mean I can’t get fucked how I like on my birthday? Our first time? I can’t choose how I want it to go?”

“I-- of course you can,” Jakurai says measuredly, and it’s like he hasn’t realised that he’s already lost this battle. Never fails, Hifumi thinks to himself a mere instant before he shakes off enough horniness to revel in his victory, grinning wide.

“Then lemme get free! Let’s get going! Chop chop!”

It’s so, so lucky that Hifumi’s the kind of guy to over-think and over-prepare like an anxious parent so that he’s as ready as can be for those times when he decides to cut loose and do something spur-of-the-moment. Like now. 

The overnight bag he’d left in Jakurai’s bedroom all those weeks ago is his lifesaver tonight; Hifumi thanks his super-enthusiastic past self for his attention to detail in this useful emergency-pack as he gets changed in the steamy bathroom, then brushes his teeth, then dabs perfume on his inner wrists. It’s extra, he knows. But this is the one day of the year that he can be more extra than ever and nobody’s allowed to complain about it. It’s basically, like, tradition at this point, that he gets his way - Doppo even holds off on complaining about things until the next day like some broke-ass Cinderella outfit. Hifumi checks his reflection the best he can in a towel-smudged strip on the fogged-up bathroom mirror, ensuring that the way his birthday outfit sits on him is the same as it was when he’d initially packed the bag, and darts back to the bedroom, eager to show it off.

Speaking of getting his way-- when he peeks around the side of the door, chilly from the transition from hot shower to cool air, the sight of Jakurai sitting very well-behaved on the edge of the bed is so sweet. Since their fumbling in the front room it looks as though his older boyfriend has made the executive decision to remove his trousers, socks too, but not his rollneck top, the same shade of black as the fitted boxer briefs that barely poke out beneath the knit. His hair’s in a loose twist over one shoulder like he’s thought about doing something with it; Hifumi can imagine perfectly in his mind’s eye Jakurai’s occasional habit of winding the length of it in his hands as he contemplates the logistics of where it ought to sit during… physical situations, he calls them. It takes merely a split second of admiring his elegant little pose for Jakurai to notice he’s being watched and meet his eyes.

“Hifu--”

“I saaaaid, to close your eyes! It’s meant to be an experience !” he interrupts, to Jakurai’s mild surprise. The way his eyes widen oh-so-slightly speaks volumes like he hasn’t been ordered around this much in some time. Ever, Hifumi imagines. Senior positions rarely do, right?

“You did indeed.”

Still, he holds Hifumi’s gaze like he’s distracted. To drive his point home Hifumi hides behind the door so that not a part of him shows other than that significant curl of hair bouncing from his otherwise flawless styling as he ducks.

“Are your eyes closed?” 

“...Yes.”

Hifumi peeks out again. Obediently enough, Jakurai has shut them, keeping his hands firmly in place on his legs. With quiet steps Hifumi approaches him, and it’s only when he’s taking his time climbing onto the bed on bare knees alongside Jakurai then sitting prettily with his weight back on his heels, does he notice that his boyfriend has a hard-on in those slim boxers. Well, he hopes to live up to the expectations, or to pick up the same tone from earlier, at least. 

“Okay, you can look now.”

Jakurai opens his eyes fairly quickly. His eyebrows raise softly and his gaze lowers, drawing directly to the the lingerie Hifumi's wearing.

The bralet he’s picked out is some short, gauzy thing with silky straps and matching panties, both pieces in a soft ivory, both decked out with an embroidery pattern of roses, over his hips and over the band. A set he’d been marvelling over in one of his favourite online fashion lines, treated himself to, and buried in his overnight bag for that just-in-case chance he’s been waiting to crop up.

Maybe it’s a little too wedding-night-y, Hifumi thinks suddenly, although actually on second thoughts he reckons that Jakurai’s not even thinking that far since he looks like a perfectly adorable gift ready to be unwrapped, but before he can even doubt himself, Jakurai reaches out. He absolutely seems to allow himself to get caught by Hifumi’s swift tap on the knuckles; he can see the awareness in his eyes, darting up to meet Hifumi’s.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Hifumi tuts, wearing the biggest smile on his face. “You gotta tell me how it looks on me first! Look, then touch!”

“Hm.” It’s more of a throaty sound than a thoughtful hum, and Jakurai sounds like he’s considering his words extremely carefully when he says, “Fascinating,” completely normally. He must have caught the frustrated five-seconds-to-a-sulk glint in Hifumi’s eyes because he quickly adds, “Truly, I assure you. You look… spellbinding.”

“...Okay, you pass, but barely,” he huffs lightly, then grins, putting his hands on his knees and perking up his chest to really emphasise how cute he looks, from his pectorals just-about filling the cups to the flat of his toned stomach above the deeply-dipping panty waistband. “Go onnnn, I’ll let you look around now!”

The invitation seems to summon Jakurai’s hands to trail over the lace from his navel upwards, fingertips dragging along the embroidery, over the tips of Hifumi’s nipples already sensitive beneath the sheer fabric. The flush that ripples across his skin only heats him up, rather than goosebumps from cold. How could he possibly feel cold with those eyes on him? Jakurai’s drinking the sight right up, if the way his gaze slides up his body lewdly, openly, desiring, is anything to go by. While Doppo is quick to lose himself to an erotic situation, the pleasure overwhelming his senses, Jakurai seems to want to take in every single detail like it’s the first time, his gaze dragging across his body as heavily as if it were his hands doing the exploring. Like--

Like, what? Like he wants to keep the lights on and see it all, stitch by stitch?

The seconds tick by, and Hifumi’s yet to feel Jakurai’s skin on his. Every stroke and touch is through the filter of the embroidery, the lace. His smile drops very, very slowly.

He wonders, for a moment, if the very thing he wanted to use to make himself feel adorable is actually about to rival him for his boyfriend’s attention. In other words, Jakurai likes the lingerie itself more than just-about-naked Hifumi. Shouldn’t they work harmoniously? Like, the snack he knows he is, all wrapped up in lingerie like a gift? It ought to be enough to make him want to tear into him!

“Jakurai,” Hifumi purrs to get his attention, his name dripping with sugar on his tongue as he sticks out his chest a little more to bump up beneath his fingers over the straps and sheer. “Hey, are you distracted…?”

“Mmm.” 

Jakurai doesn’t look up. He seems preoccupied with the tiny ribbon-bow in the dead centre of the bralet’s neckline, nudging its stitch with his fingernail. 

It’s that persuasive, huh?

“You really like it, hmmmmm?” he tries, fishing one more time and fluttering his eyelashes. Jakurai doesn’t err from his course one inch, dragging his thumbs over the thin fabric at his hips.

“It looks stunning on you.” 

Hifumi’s flirty smile falters. It’s said much the same way he’d describe anything. A sunny day. Doppo’s inked sketches. Hifumi’s homemade chocolate mousse. The tone he uses, still brushing over the embroidery experimentally, makes Hifumi pout. Yes, yes, all fantastic things in this great kaleidoscope they call life, but! Where did that Jakurai go from earlier who’d pounced on him like a puma?! Is he actually taken aback by this display or something, the way that Doppo sometimes gets overwhelmed by surprise-sexy stuff? Hifumi’s confidence starts to waver the longer that he stays not being ravished. He needs things to start cooking! He needs to-- try a different approach.

Something that’ll make him even more irresistible than the smut he surrounds himself with.

“You’re actually holding back, aren’t you?” Hifumi says, matter-of-factly, some relaxed tone that has Jakurai lift that intense gaze bit by bit, up his collarbone, and he realises suddenly that that attention has a weight to it.

Well, like an anchor, if the one chained to him goes a little wild. 

“I figured, when you started touching me while we were meant to be working,” Hifumi continues despite feeling more nervous and excited with every inch that Jakurai’s eyes scan up towards his face, unused to being so eloquent in bed, “Like, that feeling like you just couldn’t wait to get your hands on me… that’s why you asked me here today, isn’t it, sensei? Some aloooone time? You wanted me all to yourself, hmmm?”

“...That isn’t...”

“Ehhh, forreal? Then, maybe it was my imagination? Thinkin’ that you wanted me soooo badly that you just couldn’t wait until five PM? Knowing that my--” The breath catches in Hifumi’s throat as Jakurai suddenly locks eyes with him, now piercing like a winter sky. He looks critical, as though listening to a chapter summary. But as if that’s gonna throw his narrative. He’s been dreaming of a moment like this for months. “--that my overnight bag just lives here in your bedroom ‘cause I’m ready to stay here any time you want, any time you need, Jakurai. I’ve just been waiting, y’know.”

It doesn’t look like Jakurai’s convinced by his script, and for a brief moment, Hifumi’s heart flutters amidst the words he’s tossed out like so much confetti at the start of a surprise party, like-- uh, actually, will it go down well? Will he react worse somehow, like Hifumi’s chatting has distracted him from the true centrepiece of the evening, the lingerie? I goofed, he thinks to himself quickly, his nervous gaze flitting between Jakurai’s eyes, the mother-of-pearl hues that are seconds away from becoming a polished mirror flinging his fear right back at himself. Something he’s messed up by over-talking. This rarely happens. Sensei always manages to catch his curveballs; he never makes Hifumi feel like he messed up. But this feels like tricking his partner into a trap. Better loosen up before he decides, actually, to call it a night.

He opens his mouth to apologise and his words come out muffled under the crash of Jakurai’s lips against his, as he drags him close with a hand placed neatly between his bared shoulderblades. It’s--

Sudden?

Rough?

...Jakurai, rough.

“Sen--” Hifumi whimpers, Jakurai’s canine snagging the edge of his lip like a warning, and before he knows it those explorative hands are back on his body, his skin prickling all over beneath the dual sensation of being kissed far too deeply and the palms stroking heavily over his chest. His fingertips dragging on the crest of the bra-cups are enough to make Hifumi keen suddenly for more like he’s never been touched in his life, flushing warm as Jakurai sucks on his lower lip and dips his hands down beneath the bralet with the eagerness of-- indeed, having waited for this all day. All week. 

Months. 

Maybe he has been, just like Hifumi had teased, but-- but he didn’t expect him to react like this, since the Jakurai in his head would only ever approach him like a rolling slow burn if he’s to judge by the way he’s caught him gazing and tenderly touching ever since they became an item but this, but this--

But he can’t question it anymore, not when Jakurai’s thumbing at his already-sensitive nipples without any fabric to interrupt the contact of skin on skin, and sliding his tongue along Hifumi’s with such strong, wet heat he had no idea lay beneath his cool exterior. It takes mere seconds of being touched so relentlessly for him to be overstimulated and let out a soft whine, a shudder bringing him to perch up on his knees with the strength of it rippling through his frame, sending his back poker-straight and a shiver that has him hardening far quicker than he’d thought possible. There’s a slick sound as they pull apart, a thick string of saliva drooping from his used mouth to Jakurai’s lip, and Hifumi’s heart is pounding in his chest when he meets his eyes again.

“You’re…” he pants, weakly, staring down at Jakurai where he’s kneeling. It’s only a few centimetres’ difference on the mattress like this, but he feels like the king of the world. Like he’s about to float upwards into heaven for how disembodied he feels, light-headed from the intensity of it and all his blood rushing everywhere except his brain. Jakurai’s voice cleaves through the daze like cool water.

“Do you like this?” 

“I love this,” Hifumi sighs, and slides closer to straddle Jakurai on the edge of the bed, feeling a flush of warmth spreading up from where those hands automatically rise to caress his sides. A natural feeling. “I’ll say if we gotta stop.”

“Understood,” Jakurai murmurs into Hifumi’s clavicle as he kisses the dip then in a beeline down his sternum, those eyes always half-lidded, never quite letting Hifumi out of his sight.

It doesn’t take long for the bralet to be pushed up and Jakurai’s mouth on him, kissing along Hifumi’s collarbone like he’s learning its shape, his hands roaming everywhere they can reach from his waist up his spine and down again to his ass, his calves-- in keeping up Hifumi finds himself pushing into his hold or his mouth alternately, his thighs starting to sweat as he moves, flush against Jakurai’s sides. Like this, suddenly Hifumi feels like he’s putting into practice everything he’s ever noticed about Jakurai’s body, since the day they’d first sat across from one another in their office formals, sizing one another up like beasts on opposite sides of an enclosure. His hands, for example: their span is something, from the way he seems to be able to splay his fingers evenly across the small of his back and make him feel like he’s about to pull him further into his lap one-handedly; or how his hair tickles as it slides heavily down Jakurai’s shoulder and against Hifumi’s ribs when he tilts his head to reach Hifumi’s neck, eliciting a shiver out of him that’s half desire, half hypersensitivity. Practical, this position, he thinks, leaning idly into the singularly incredible feeling of Jakurai’s mouth on his throat-- just before he drifts away suddenly, leaving him cold. Hifumi blinks back into focus.

“Did you wanna--” change position, he wants to say, but instead in rushes a gasp as he glances down just in time for Jakurai to roll his tongue over his nipple at the same time as dragging the panties down over the curve of his ass and it has the effect of making him push his chest in closer and moan for more of that warm pleasure-- more leeway, apparently, because Jakurai’s hands gravitate to his asscheeks and grab, firmly. “J-Jakurai-- ah!”

Jakurai doesn’t grace him with an answer just yet, eyes shut at last and sucking lightly on his nipple in a way that sends the heat directly to the pit of his stomach, his erection springing free from the panties as he edges them down and it feels very, very fast all of a sudden. Far more naked than before, far more direct, somehow; he can feel something firm brush against him when he dips slightly to arch his ass into Jakurai’s hands, and a quick glimpse between tilts of Jakurai’s head as he focuses on his chest confirms it’s his boyfriend’s cock, and damn, if he thought his hard-on was big earlier-- the sight of it long and straining through the front of his briefs has the breath hitch in his throat, a welcome pleasure to reassure him that yes, yes, yes, this is the best birthday present ever. Two boyfriends with huge dicks. I’m so lucky.

“May I?”

...It’s so excessively polite for the situation that it takes Hifumi a moment to properly hear and absorb Jakurai’s noises as words, mesmerised as he is in his foresight fantasy of getting absolutely railed, then another moment to tune into the fact that Jakurai’s holding a bottle of his usual lube. He lets out a sweet laugh, relaxing on his knees until he’s almost sat fully in Jakurai’s lap.

“Hey, how’d you know?”

Jakurai seems close to a smile of his own as he uncaps it one-handedly, amusement tingeing the palpable arousal in his warm face. “Your hints are not very subtle.”

“Oooh, ‘that so?” Hifumi coos mock-thoughtfully, casting his mind back to the many times he’d pointed it out on the shelf during ‘emergency’ night-time pharmacy visits for more condoms or jokingly added it to Jakurai’s Amaz*n shopping-cart when he’d left his work laptop open. He must have gotten it ready while he was in the bathroom. Eager much. It just cranks up his excitement that much more, knowing he wasn’t the only one looking forward to today, even if all of it ended up being a surprise. Jakurai looks at him meaningfully as he holds the bottle, his fingers ready and waiting under the pump, then Hifumi remembers he has an answer to give. “Yeah, go nuts.”

“I won’t be doing that.” Jakurai smiles, at last, reaching around Hifumi’s back with the slightest caress of his inner wrist on his waist that sends a shiver of anticipation through him, before he feels the cool shock of his lubed-up fingers at his entrance. It’s hard to relax, only locking up further with tense excitement, when Jakurai kisses the side of his neck rather chastely and whispers, “...yet.”

Hifumi gulps, clinging to his shoulders, and sighs out his first tense exhale of many as Jakurai gently works a finger into him, thrilling and foreign.

How incredibly tough it is to force himself to relax, the one job he has right now, when he’s suddenly hideously aware that the one taking him to bed tonight is Jakurai. Not a deprecating ‘I can’t believe this would actually happen to me’ thing, his self-esteem won’t allow him to know what that feels like; more like, oh, he’s warm, he’s strong, he’s-- um, big. Imaginative much, Hifumi thinks-- completely out of words to use when that’s like his whole job but really, really , having to describe literally anything with more than one syllable is impossible when Jakurai’s sliding a slick finger in and out of him with such sweet smoothness and rhythm that’s so satisfying, so good in itself, just from how deep he’s reaching, how gradual each movement in and out is for the shape of his fingers. God, he hopes Jakurai wasn’t expecting dirty talk; Hifumi realises he’s making sweet needy noises in general response when he hears-- feels-- the reverberation of a question, Jakurai’s low voice like a hum against his chest. 

“Mmmm--huh?”

“A second?”

“Yes please. A-Ahh--” 

--the way two fingers fit in without complaint when he feels too thrilled-nervous to stay relaxed is amazing, filling him, reaching deep. Jakurai’s about to pull them out, that same steady rhythm, when Hifumi gasps in sharp pleasure but the moment’s gone before he can chase it because Jakurai stops exactly where he is, just a little too far from that spot he’d brushed against quickly, just a little out of reach, just, just--

“Are you...?” Jakurai begins, sounding cautious. Hifumi feels like he’s about to cry, flushing hot and his skin prickling from head to toe with the shock of that touch and the vast emptiness it leaves in his wake like Jakurai’s given and taken away far too soon, too cruelly. No, no, he doesn’t know he’d done that, he tells himself, nails digging into Jakurai’s slender shoulders.

“Good spot,” Hifumi breathes at last.

“Ah.” 

Jakurai sounds thoughtful. He falls silent.

...Just as Hifumi’s about to chance looking at him to ask what’s on his mind, Jakurai pushes his fingers in deeper. Hifumi twitches, his insides melting.

“Mmm-!”

“There?”

It’s fantastic. He’s seeing stars behind his eyelids, chewing on his lip as he bites down on the feeling-- the depth, the reach, that spot, that perfect spot, and it just doesn’t seem to stop as Jakurai curls his fingertips slightly, enough to nudge against his prostate again and again and stretch him and-- he nods furiously, his bangs bobbing as he hangs his head. “Mmm, mm-hmm, that’s it, that’s--”

Hifumi doesn’t get a chance to finish confirming before Jakurai pushes his fingers in again, pulls out, and again-- and again-- each one dragging another moan with it, another gasp as his whole body’s shocked with pleasure, a delicious, broiling feeling that rolls all the way through his nerves to the very ends of him. After a few movements like this, Jakurai seems to remember something, slowing carefully without a word. Hifumi’s mind jumps a few steps ahead.

“I think I’m-- mmm, ready, if you wanna…” He tries to offer in the silence of the bedroom, kneading his knuckles in along the ridge of his shoulder like a cat finding a comfy spot, because he’s sure that only a little finger-fucking like this, a little earnest stretching is fine if they want to cut to the chase because if he’s honest he can’t get the sight of that hard-on out of his imagination; even as good as Jakurai’s fingers are, riding means he can be hands-free, right, and so the rest of his attention can be focused on him, right?

Right?

Apparently his boyfriend has something else in mind, because he’s looking at him observantly when he tucks those fingers in deeper, and pushes directly against his prostate, sending a wave of heat through him. Hifumi positively whimpers, his knees twitching where he’s straddling.

Jakurai meets his eyes, and it takes everything not to hide his face for how hot he can feel it getting, how he must be wearing a weirdly surprised expression, and Hifumi tries his best not to blink but he fucks him, again, hits that perfect spot, again , and he starts unravelling, sinking deeper on his knees for more, like Jakurai’s some immovable, impeccable being whose sole function is to make him feel unbelievably good.

“J-Jakurai-- ah!” It’s hard to do anything but cling on and clench onto the feeling of his fingers, just the two, relentlessly stimulating him. It’s a far cry from what Hifumi had built up in his head, really. When he’d packed that overnight bag he’d dreamed that they’d just figure one another out once they got to the bedroom, since their chemistry was so good in every other aspect of their lives, save for agreeing on what music to listen to on car journeys. Like, he’d love the lingerie, they’d get down to it, Jakurai would stretch him, they’d fuck while Hifumi cries out the sexiest dirty talk a bottom can come up with on the spot, yadda yadda. Prostate massage wasn’t scripted into that scenario.

He can feel himself winding up tighter with every motion, and before long, everything else in their surroundings-- the feel of the bed, the dimmed lights, even Jakurai’s gaze-- fade out around the desperate, sweet feeling deep inside, and the scent of Jakurai tucked up against him. There’s just one thought he’s clinging to within his mind that keeps him focused.

“Jakurai-- Jakurai?”

“Yes.” It’s said more like a response than a question for how the touching doesn’t let up, not a bit.

“Aren’t you going to-- aren’t you going to--”

“Hmm?”

Why is it so hard to ask when I’ve practised so many times, Hifumi thinks, before he’s overcome with a shudder, his cock trickling precum against his own stomach. He’s close, dangerously close, like each heartbeat and each stroke brings him closer. The last thing he wants to do is stop, but--

“D- Don’t you want to fuck me?”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“M- Mmmm, I mean,” The words bottleneck in his throat that only seems capable of letting out noises and moans, and it’s almost a panicked squeak when he manages to brave his shyness and talk just as Jakurai shoves him directly over the cliff-edge into free-falling ecstasy, his whole body tightening and clamping around his fingers and reaching climax far too rapidly, “I mean with your, with your cock oh god oh god oh Jakurai, Jakurai, mm-- mmm--! ”

“Hifumi,” is all Jakurai whispers to him, softly, as Hifumi curls his back and comes liberally onto the black fine-knit of his shirt. Even as Jakurai continues to rub and stimulate him, like he’s wrenching every last shudder out of his body, Hifumi can’t help avoiding Jakurai’s eyes, knowing he probably lasted all of about two minutes under his expert care. How embarrassing. 

Well, not really, it’s incredible and his skin feels soft and sensitive all over from the intensity of it all, but really he’d wanted to make more of a mutual-- thing of it. Give him a show, climax together. He sighs in pleasure as those fingers pull out of him in a curving motion, dragging down the underside of his thigh. 

“That was amazing,” Hifumi murmurs, to fill the expectant silence between them, and a quick smile lingers on Jakurai’s mouth before he leans up to kiss him softly.

“Are you satisfied already?” He replies as he pulls away. Then, his eyes crease in fondness, scanning the unmistakable pout on Hifumi’s face. “I see.”

He shifts and for the second time tonight Hifumi obediently lets his boyfriend press him down, back-flat, while he climbs over him. It takes the sensation of his stained shirt sticking to Hifumi’s bared stomach for them each to realise that the situation isn’t quite even, and Jakurai sits back on his knees to peel off his rollneck top. 

When he moves Hifumi notices the definition in his forearms, his triceps, and the scars that seem to sprout up in his vision all of a sudden like timelapse blossoms opening: puckered skin in a small indent on his thigh, a craggly patch over his side, some kind of old gash across his pectoral. Taking in as much as he can while he wriggles his panties down his leg, Hifumi does his best to commit it all to memory even if nothing else from this night remains, before Jakurai gazes down at him with his hair unravelling and rolling across his back in a great wave, ichor and crushing depths. He looks down at him with resolve in his eyes, already hooking a hand in the back of Hifumi’s knee and pushing his thigh back, back, towards his chest, exposing him, as slicked and open as he already is, easing a steady breath out from deep within him.

“Hifumi, you look…”

“Mm?” Hifumi lowers his hand where it’s flown up automatically to shield his face a little while he’s so spread open, peeking over the backs of his knuckles. Is this dirty talk, he wonders-- does he need a little encouragement? “Needy? Desperate? Mmm, fuckable? ‘Cause you know I’m ready to take whatever it is you wanna...”

“...’Beautiful’, I’d intended to say, but…” Jakurai hesitates, a flush colouring his cheeks even though he has certainly heard Hifumi rattle off those terms before in a work context and not bat an eyelid, “Those, as well.”

“Oh! Um.” His nervous giggle pierces the air like a shot. “Thanks.”

Jakurai pushes a kiss to the inside of his knee; a small truce this time. It’s close enough to everything else that Hifumi can’t help bucking his hips towards his mouth. They share a small smile before Jakurai looks solemn again, pressing Hifumi’s legs further apart.

“...That being said, may I--”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, c’mere!” 

He yanks Jakurai down with grabby-hands at his shoulder and his waist until he’s wrangled him back into kissing, their bodies arching and curling towards one another with Hifumi’s arms wrapped around Jakurai’s neck. He only realises that Jakurai’s taken the initiative to undress completely when he feels something long, hard and hot graze his stomach on the next roll of his hips. He stifles a moan of excitement, gripping onto the closest thing beneath his fingers; Jakurai’s hair. 

Jakurai gasps, buckling slightly where he’s propped over Hifumi and it’s so unexpected that he whips his hands back off him like Jakurai’s made of fire, breathing out a hasty apology.

“Ahh, my bad, I forgot you didn’t like--”

“No, please.” 

His voice is trembling. Hifumi stares, dumbstruck. The expression on Jakurai’s face is conflicted, like he’s unsure if he ought to have said anything, but distinctly aroused, from the way his lips quiver as he breathes and that heavenly upturn of his eyebrows when he looks down at him under the sweep of his bangs, this towering presence he has with mere inches between their bodies. When he’s the one who has Hifumi flat on his back and writhing beneath him. 

“It’s alright. Please, Hifumi.” Out of nowhere he feels his hand being held, moved to rest towards the back of Jakurai’s head and he burns up completely at the sight of that, the way Jakurai looks so imploringly towards him as he settles Hifumi’s hand on the twist of hair that’s closest to billowing over his shoulder, and he feels like he could melt. Instinctively he arches as soon as he feels Jakurai pulse against him a little, his cock against his inner thigh, and his defences are crumbling, and so is his need to ask but you’re so guarded about your hair normally, are you sure this is okay -- “Right now, if you would…”

“Got it,” Hifumi breathes, weaving his fingers between the strands and giving the lightest experimental tug, “Like this?”

Jakurai lets loose a moan in that low, silken voice and Hifumi feels a stupid little power rush amidst the horniness.

“Good.” It’s shaky when Jakurai replies. “Mmm. Like that.”

“I am not gonna forget this, you know.”

The teasing goes right over Jakurai’s head and he wears a level, thoughtful look as he rolls a condom over his cock, his hips flush against Hifumi’s, and it’s. Not too late, as such, but Hifumi suddenly realises that he might be misjudging a key element here, something that chemistry and kinks can’t help with.

Jakurai’s dick is bigger-- well, lengthier than any he’s had first-hand experience with.

Hifumi gulps, but he shoves the sudden anxiety out of his mind’s door like he does with every other instance of self-doubt he’s ever had in his life. Who the hell is he, if not super-sub Izanami Hifumi, proud taker of anything his well-endowed boyfriends can possibly throw at him? This isn’t anything he can’t handle, especially now that Jakurai’s taken super-good care of him.

“Do you like to watch it go in…?”

“Ah,” Hifumi blinks, flicking his eyes to meet Jakurai’s just as he shifts to position the head of his cock against his ass, trying to pretend he isn’t mentally sizing him up ahead of time, “Like, I guess I do, but-- ah, mm…”

“Then watch.”

The suggestion distracts him from the satisfaction of finally feeling Jakurai push into him in one slow, gradual motion and it’s filling, stretching, I was worrying about nothing, this isn’t--

But then he keeps going, past that beautiful spot from earlier he’d pleasured so well, and the instant he nudges up inside him painfully Hifumi whimpers and yanks Jakurai’s hair so sharply that he stumbles onto him, head down towards his chest, his cock slipping out an inch, which feels better and that sound of resistance suddenly morphs into a moan that matches Jakurai’s slow sigh and, and they stop. A silent moment passes in this stupid Twister locked-together position as they each catch their breath.

“...Hifumi.” Jakurai’s the first to speak.

“You’re too big,” Hifumi’s voice wavers, staring at the ceiling in disbelief, seething with frustration at the existence of a dick he can’t take the first time. 

“Ah.”

Hifumi tuts at such a reaction, glancing sidelong at Jakurai. He doesn’t look surprised at all. “Not the first time you heard that, huh?”

“I’ll be gentle,” he reasons once Hifumi relaxes his iron grip in his hair and he can sit back, holding Hifumi’s hips carefully. “When it comes to self-control, I will--”

“But I don’t want you to be all-- controlled,” Hifumi frowns. There’s treating him with care, and then there’s holding back just because of a physical limitation like this. It’s been a while since he’s dealt with this specific problem and it takes a moment of resource and innovation for the solution to hit him, and right away he’s tap-tapping at Jakurai’s chest with his fingertips. “Mmmkay, let’s switch positions. Lemme just sit up!”

“We don’t need to do that.” Jakurai doesn’t resist so much as sit rather firmly in place like a moody cat, and Hifumi has to wonder, yet again, how many people have told this man no in the past. 

“It’s not about what you’re doing,” he reasons, rolling his eyes, “It’s about what I’m gonna do to fix it. Now, move, pretty please?”

The look in Jakurai’s eyes is conflicting, like two forces colliding, but it doesn’t take long for him to pull out and follow Hifumi’s instructions, lying down on his back as directed. Like this, Hifumi can fully appreciate the full length of him-- in every way, from top to toe, the man he likes to think he can convince and sway, but never quite reel in. Well, that changes today. If he doesn't have Jakurai wrapped around his little finger by the end of this, he'll have to simply try harder to be sexier, more conniving and flirtatious.

He lets him wait fully naked for a moment longer, drinking in the sight, before climbing on, straddling his waist. Jakurai's hands come up to stroke his thighs then circle around to his ass. Hifumi grins.

"See? Pretty convenient, huh?"

"Hm," Jakurai agrees, seconds before easing three fingers into his ass, which is unfair because Hifumi can't tease him when he's keening and pushing back onto them up to the knuckle. "Convenient, indeed."

“H-Haha, you think you’re so--” His words stumble into a choked moan as Jakurai starts relentlessly stroking his prostate again with just the pads of his fingers, and Hifumi finds himself almost annoyed, frustrated, his cock twitching as he hardens again stupidly quickly, and it’s all he can do to lift himself up and off his hand. Jakurai chases him, but he huffs, batting his hand away as he perches up on his knees over him. The point of this position is not merely to ease their very specific logistical problem. He wonders if Jakurai realises that yet, trying to relax his furrowed brow as he pumps lube onto his fingertips because he doesn’t really go for pouting or tsundere or whatever it is during actual sex despite what he loves to write. He gets this feeling that… if he looks frustrated right now, Jakurai will read it wrong. 

For somebody who excels in supporting his staff, Jakurai’s reading of cues seems to be both far beyond Hifumi’s understanding of social interaction and extremely in tune. 

Twisting around slightly to reach Jakurai’s cock where it’s-- technically, really, positioned perfectly for the next step, he slowly takes it into his palm, closing his fingers around the shaft for the first time. Jakurai doesn’t make a sound, although the pulse he can feel thrumming through it in his arousal is a good start. 

...He swirls his thumb around the head, and slowly makes a start on working him more with the slickness of his lubed-up hand making it intensely satisfying, and it doesn’t take long for Jakurai’s reactions to become delicately audible, an exhale with just enough voice in it for Hifumi to glance back at him over his bared shoulder to take in his progress. 

But Jakurai’s the one looking annoyed, now, eyes almost stern for how keenly they’re trained on him, his lips parted as he breathes steadily. Hifumi’s face falls.

“Ooh, no good after all? You don’t like teasing?”

“It’s--” Jakurai hesitates, and Hifumi nearly loses his balance at an unexpectedly sudden thrust into his hand and it all happens so quickly, Jakurai gripping his hips to keep him propped up, and registering the fact that he’d moved involuntarily.

“Sensei,” The name tumbles out of Hifumi before he can help it, wires crossed in his brain as if this is some kind of harsh critique instead of the lovemaking it’s meant to be. Beneath him Jakurai’s eyebrows twitch and he gives him an intense flash of a look before seeming to catch himself, his thumbs still firmly pressed into the dips of Hifumi’s hipbones but not stroking purposefully, not like before, like he’s frozen into place with tension.

As though he’s just that bit more desperate than he’s letting on.

Hifumi has absolutely zero idea how to handle this level of authority over him that’s just been dropped into his hands, and for a moment, he just blinks at him, until Jakurai shifts, rolling his head to the side like he’s trying to get a different vantage point.

“Are you ready…?”

“Uh, obvs! You’re pretty impatient,” Hifumi laughs although he’s suddenly aware of the nature of pointing out something like that about Jakurai, about his perfect wonderful flawless editor, the man who moves his earth and heavens, the man beneath him who seems to be having trouble keeping from pulsing into him. Shoving that aside for now, he kneels back a little, enough to position the head of his cock just right, and with that hand behind him to guide it in he sinks down as slowly as he can.

Steadily, steadily enough that the movement seems to be neverending, pushing inside him and filling him still even when he’s flush against Jakurai’s hips, his thighs already sweaty and clammy against his sides. It feels more comfortable than before but once he’s pushed as far as he’ll go and feeling good , Hifumi opens his eyes, almost confused at how it doesn’t feel anywhere as big as before, there’s more to go still--

“Does it hurt?” Jakurai’s murmur pulls him out of his whirlwind of thoughts and barrage of sensations, and Hifumi doesn’t realise he’s flushing warmly until he snaps his head up to look back at him.

“No, no, this is fine,” he breathes, then catches himself quickly, “Well, ya know, not ‘fine’, like. Good.”

“Good.” Jakurai echoes back neatly, and his gaze drifts down Hifumi’s torso before it flicks back up to his face, still open-mouthed as he breathes, like he’s sacrificing his calmness in exchange for control of his body. That’s kind of flattering, Hifumi thinks. After a moment, though, Jakurai’s grip softens and he starts to circle his thumbs over his skin; he seems to raise his knees slightly behind Hifumi, and he realises what he’s trying to do. 

“You don’t mind? In this position?”

“Hm? ...I’d like to.” Jakurai’s gaze lingers somewhere on Hifumi’s chest as he shifts, clearly still distracted by the way his nipples lay soft and flat where they were cradled by the bralet, but once he settles into position with his hands splayed over the sides of Hifumi’s thighs, he gives an experimental thrust upwards. 

Hifumi sees stars. He’s tight, and Jakurai’s big, and the curve of his dick in this position hits such a good spot when he angles himself like this that he doesn’t make a noise at first, biting his lip as he balances himself with both hands on his boyfriend’s hips -- but then Jakurai rocks into him again, and he can’t hold it back, a gasp knocked out of him by the deep push of his cock. He feels amazing, like he’s reaching all of him that can possibly be reached, probing and finding deeper, hotter, more sensitive parts of him-- Hifumi perches up on his knees a little, making more of a gap between their bodies. Jakurai seems to tense beneath him as his cock slips out slowly, inch by inch, until the head snags where Hifumi’s clenching in anticipation, and Hifumi gasps for that amazing feeling of being stretched. Stimulating, but it’s not enough, and it feels like it’s leaving him horribly empty in its wake.

“Mmm-- Jakurai, Jakurai, please-- please move,” he breathes, and Jakurai obliges, but-- delicately, his legs strong beneath him where he begins easing in and out slowly with an incredible wave of heat running through his body each time the head pushes in. Hifumi whines. “Moooore, more than that!”

“Like this?” Jakurai murmurs, pulling out fully with a harsh pop and Hifumi whimpers, then gasps as he thrusts deep into him with a snap of his hips. Above him, Hifumi feels like he’s going to lose his mind, thinking about this hot-and-cold editor-boyfriend of his. It’s hard to tell if this is some kind of kinky thing or if he’s simply trying to judge what Hifumi wants, because frankly he thinks it’s pretty obvious what he wants which is to get fucked into oblivion, but like this, he wonders if he might hit that climax far too quickly again before seeing that kind of outcome. 

Cracking an eye open as he’s fucked slow and deep and hard, his balance wavering with each thrust, he can’t help but admire Jakurai’s look of concentration, eyes fixed on him even when they’re not gazing at one another. 

Inching along Jakurai’s hips to touch his hands, he pulls them off his thighs the best he can, propping himself up with his core muscles through the swaying motions and settles them on his chest, under the bralet where it’s hitched up to his collarbone. He likes it so much, after all, right? Jakurai gives him an enigmatic look, before he follows the cue and starts to massage and stroke gently over his sensitive chest, his thrusts slowing as he touches. 

It takes everything for Hifumi not to start to ride harder to get more of that pace, more of that depth, but the feeling is too good, and before he can help himself he’s leaning forward into Jakurai’s warm touch, panting as he grinds down each time. Jakurai’s so deep. And after a few heavy thrusts, he thinks he can hear Jakurai breathing audibly too.

Peeking down at him from under his eyelashes, he catches his boyfriend panting shallowly, eyes on him just as keenly. 

Hifumi suddenly tenses under the attention and Jakurai gasps at the tightness around him. It’s a knock-on effect and right away Hifumi finds himself failing to ride just as hard any more, distracted by such an erotic reaction, the moaning just tumbling out of him as he drags one of Jakurai’s hands down his chest, down his stomach, down to his own needy cock. “Jakurai, Jakurai--”

In response Jakurai grabs his hips and thrusts up into him, beating out a firm rhythm that shoves an ‘ah!’ out of Hifumi with each motion that sways his whole world. Jakurai’s so good , he’s so strong, the way he’s starting to tilt his head back with his hair pooling behind him like a spreading ink blot, and Hifumi shivers as he palms himself, closer and closer and hotter and harder.

“Is that good?” he whispers hurriedly, even as he feels that desperation coil and wind up tight inside him, every hard shove of his boyfriend’s cock against his prostate like heaven, and he can’t help smiling for the sight of Jakurai’s reservations falling away bit by bit. Is this all it takes to pry off that cool exterior? Under his grip on Jakurai’s hip his fingers curl and search for the ends of his hair; he manages to wind a lock around his ring finger, and tugs. Jakurai’s cock twitches inside him and just the sensation has Hifumi gasping in shock, grinning, blissful. He could laugh with satisfaction, with joy. “You close? Feels good?”

Jakurai lets out a soft, low hum, his eyebrows curving upwards in tension and neediness as his hips start to shake, pulling Hifumi down onto him. Down, tight, close, closer, filling him, and Hifumi spreads his thighs further to take him all. It’s okay if he’s a little too deep, it’s okay if--

In a needy little rut of his hips, Jakurai twitches into him and trembles, eyes shut and face tilted towards the heavens. His body arches beneath Hifumi and his fingers fan over Hifumi’s hipbones like he’s embracing all of him, a degree away from yanking him down onto him, and Hifumi feels him hit that climax, long and throbbing and pulsing inside him. The sight, the feel of it is mesmerising. Jakurai, giving over. For a moment it feels like everything’s gone silent, the way Jakurai’s holding his breath like the pleasure is paralysing. Hifumi’s never had an orgasm as still and quiet as that; he can’t imagine it, but Jakurai makes it look divine. 

It’s enough to tempt him into dragging it out more, to bring him back down to earth, and with a firm grind downwards, Hifumi lowers himself down bit by bit on his forearms to reach him. Jakurai just looks so kissable like that, blissed out and letting out a surprised breath as Hifumi shifts, but there’s something stopping him at the last moment, mere inches between their mouths. Pleasure clouds his vision, like sparks prickling at his senses, and Hifumi bucks towards the sensation with a surprised moan.

Jakurai’s the one jerking him off, now, his hand so warm and wet still from the lube, and when Hifumi glances down between gasps, Jakurai’s watching him, too. 

The sight of it burns up any fun comment he was going to make right on his tongue and turns it into an inelegant “Mmmmhh--” as Jakurai shifts up onto his elbow and kisses him hard, all wet heat and the cool edge of his tongue slipping alongside his where he’s been sucking in air desperately, and it’s enough stimulation between Jakurai’s length pulling out of him steadily and the head stretching him still, his thorough rubbing along his cock, the taste of Jakurai’s breath that he hits a surprisingly gentle, unbelievable climax. It envelops him with warmth, makes him feel tender and soft all over like he’s melting and Jakurai’s barely keeping him in place with his hands, his body, his mouth, like he’s barely a person, like he’s about to meet that same pleasure he witnessed Jakurai reach earlier--

The last few steady, strong pulls down his cock have him coming lazily over Jakurai’s hand and dripping down onto his stomach, a shuddered moan low in his throat as Jakurai sucks on his lip and eases in and out of him like he’s the one riding it out, and Hifumi shivers and slackens until he’s resting on his chest, feeling loose and fingertips tingling, even as Jakurai continues to pulse into him, easy and slick as he is for him.

“Dirty.” Hifumi whispers. Beneath him, Jakurai smells like sweat, long strands of his hair sticking to his cheek where he’s pressed it against his chest, flushed and damp.

“What is?” Jakurai’s voice comes out silky-smooth, less of that deep reverberation through his chest like he’s still on cloud nine. Hifumi still blushes at the sound even though he’s sure all the blood in his body is in his cheeks if there’s anything left over from coming so intensely. Jakurai sounds dazed. Relaxed? 

“You, silly,” he smiles, even as Jakurai slows and gently, gently, pulls out with a shared hitch in their breaths, a roll downwards of those arched hips, and at last the two of them collapse flat on the bedsheets. Hifumi rolls off Jakurai’s chest with a sticky sound, the bralet starting to cut a pink line in the skin of his breastbone, and he tugs it down more comfortably over his chest as Jakurai’s arms come around him to hold him. His hair fanned across the bedsheets is like a gauzy veil, one Hifumi buries his face into as Jakurai surrounds him, picking up the faint fragrance of violet conditioner and the peppery scent of sweat lingering over the bed.

Jakurai’s heartbeat is like a drum against his ear as he cools down, thick and loud and heavy, the core of this willowy, measured man.

In this moment Hifumi feels like he can feel the satisfaction spreading through his boyfriend’s body. 

It feels like witnessing a miracle, and he rests close, smiling in the echoes of bliss. God, he’d really waited too long for this. Jakurai’s just as intense in bed as he thought he’d be. 

In the relative silence of the bedroom, all of a sudden, Jakurai gasps sharply, but it barely bothers Hifumi for how many gasps and breaths and pants he’s heard in the last hour or whatever, and he just snuggles closer.

“I wasn’t supposed to keep you this long,” he’s saying rapidly as he sits up, the movement dramatic even as the ends of his hair billow and whip Hifumi across the face-- but it’s only second-hand dramatic, like hearing a tense movie playing on a TV from two rooms away. Hifumi sighs happily from the pillows.

“Whaddya mean?” He purrs, still melting from sweet pleasure, and tries to convince this weird pillow talk into something nicer. “I’m aaaa~all yours, like this.”

“I--” Jakurai glances down at him, and the expression, too, is new, his mouth hovering open and that post-sex flush still deep in his cheeks. “...My. Well.” He clears his throat. “Doppo has a birthday surprise for you. I fear we may be running late.”

The speed at which Hifumi sits up and gets to scrambling out of bed at the very notion of a birthday party is superhuman, even despite the sensitivity still playing all along his body like an electric current. Gone is the bralet and he scrambles to fix his hair, grinning and blinking at Jakurai with renewed energy.

A first time fuck, a tender moment -- sure, it’s all great but a party?! He knew Doppo was up to something more exciting than just cleaning!

“A surprise?! Then what the heck’re we waitin’ for! Let’s go, go, go! I’m not done celebratin’ ‘til midnight hits!” 

***

 

Despite snatching kisses and tender strokes every few steps between the bedroom and the car, it’s not too late in the evening by the time Hifumi bursts into their apartment first in a scrambled-together version of the nice working-from-home outfit he’d started the day in, but it’s certainly later than he’d meant to be home. Like, nightfall late. In June. Awks. 

Jakurai toes his shoes off and stalks ahead down the hallway as Hifumi fiddles with the keys, his expression twisted with anxiety and guilt, but Hifumi just giggles and follows with joy buoying his heart like champagne bubbles. His boyfriends are really turning this day around.

“I mean, puttin’ you and me in a room? Together? Aloooooone? He prolly set it up like this, Jakurai, it’s fiiiiine--”

But Jakurai turns with a finger to his lips, the taut lines of concern leaving his expression as he meets Hifumi’s eyes, and gestures delicately to the front room where the kotatsu lives. Hifumi peeks in around the edge of the screen door.

True to his word, the room’s tidied, pristine, flawless -- there are even streaks of furniture polish on the TV screen and the cabinet -- but all that sight is, is a primed canvas to the beautiful setup filling the room with balloons. Confetti-filled, gold sparkles within the pearlescent balloons covering every inch of the tatami flooring; streamers across the walls, and in the centre of it all--

Doppo’s dozing under a few balloons, a party hat sloping off his head as he rests on his forearms, slouched at the kotatsu. A small caramel-coloured cake sits in front of him with all its candles; the lighter lays in his palm, loosely-clutched in his sleep. 

But the nicest thing about that, despite the undercurrent of guilt, is that he’s resting. He genuinely looks relaxed with his eyes firmly closed, none of that restless jolt of REM sleep, soothing and slow breaths and a plush-looking sweatshirt -- a fresh one from that morning, even.

The setup is everything. Everything.

A slow smile spreads across Hifumi’s face, arrested in emotion, as Jakurai carefully crosses the cluttered floor and crouches to stroke Doppo awake with a hand down his back. He’ll apologise later, he promises himself, but he just hopes it comes out genuine when he’s grinning like a fool.

He really is spoiled today.

Or, like, well--

 

Blessed?

Lucky me.

Chapter 5

Summary:

The one with sick leave.

Notes:

warning for a scene depicting asphyxiation, starting with the phrase "Mid-July"
but everyone's fine now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is a chapter very close to my heart, i hope you'll stick with matenrou and hold their hands no matter what they're going through
also! i miss cons!
also! this chapter was inspired by a tweet, I'll link it once I find it

Foam and suds climb up Doppo’s elbows as he hunts around for the last pieces of cutlery at the bottom of the kitchen sink. A pair of chopsticks is expected: the bottle-opener with it isn’t, until he remembers the beers Hifumi brought home from the office the other night in an attempt to ‘bring the party to him’. Of course it’s spotless but dutifully, he washes it. 

He doesn’t have anything else to get back to, anyway. He hasn't worked in three weeks.

Not unemployed and not avoiding it, unlike how it feels; hasn't had to work in three weeks.

A ‘current status’ like this still doesn’t feel quite real to him. Not working, that is. It's nothing he could have ever imagined possible (at least, nothing the self of the last twelve years would have hoped for), however in true Doppo fashion, it hasn't been for holiday or annual leave or anything fun of the sort. 

But 'sick leave' doesn't feel that different from paid time off.

After all, the last time something like this happened, all he got was a deadline extension.

 

...It's not like he's not thankful for the downtime. Not really? No, not really.  If anything, he's relieved that his boss had actually bothered to call an ambulance for him on that dramatic day three weeks ago.

He sighs, water from the washing-up in the sink soaking a cold line into his shirt at his stomach, thinking of Hifumi’s face back then, the sight of him in utter floods of tears between his body and the nurse on the other side of the stretcher hazily swimming through his vision. And then he remembers the first time Jakurai came to visit him in the hospital and throughout all of Hifumi’s fuss and chatter he'd bluntly stared not at Doppo’s face, but at the ring of ink-splot black bruises crowning the base of his throat. 

He still hasn’t spoken a word about them to Doppo himself.

Doppo sighs. What a turn of events.

Sure, it's not the nicest way to be signed off work, but…

But, well. He isn't working, and for once he feels fine. Some version of fine. 

...If he thinks too much about ‘the last time he felt fine’, he won’t be anymore, he thinks as he snaps himself out of rinsing the bottle-opener under a tepid stream of tap water for the fifth time. A little bit of merely existing is fine, as a treat. His RSI in his drawing arm isn’t as bad as it’s been, but it hasn’t been good either, thanks to spending his days on raids in his RPGs.

Well, because drawing is work, and if he’s off work, then he should… rest.

Yeah.

"Dishes’re done," he calls out as he dries off his hands, then wanders through into the lounge when he doesn’t instantly hear a reply from Hifumi which is unusual in this house with its seemingly 24/7 surveillance under its domestic god’s watchful eye. His gaze ranges across the room in the usual order of expectation: his seat at the kotatsu, at the shelves, then finally, at the couch. No boyfriend. He wanders down the hallway, finding Hifumi's bedroom door open a notch, and slides it open further to spot him with his laptop, curled up in his comfy chair. He has earphones in. No wonder he didn't hear him. He lets himself in, coming closer to check about the day’s chores-list he’s so kindly assigned him.

"Hifumi, I'm done with the-- ack!" A charging cable snags his foot as he approaches; the force of his trip sends Hifumi twitching upright in his chair in shock when he tumbles across the flooring and yanks the earphone cord out of the laptop. "S-Sorry! Sorry, I wasn’t looking!"

“Doppo?” Hifumi gasps, ruffled, clutching his laptop over the edge of the chair, the lightest flush of surprise across his face. "Are you okay?! Jeez, you gave me a--"

Voices spill out from the laptop audio suddenly-- breathy, scripted, huffed into a microphone.

 

'A-Ahn, it's so big…'

'You like this knot, don't you?'

 

...Doppo stares up at Hifumi where he's crumpled on the floor.

Hifumi doesn’t react for a whole three seconds with his hands clenched on the edge of the laptop where Doppo can only see the icon of a CD track playing, and it’s just enough time for him to notice a few telltale signs on his boyfriend; pink-cheeked, biting on his lip, his toes curling as he sits cross-legged in his chair.

The tent in his pants.

Doppo stares at it for a moment too long, and the situation comes together to crank him from 0 to extremely flustered in an instant.

"D-Did I interrupt something…" He starts, casually, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt at first because there's no way that he would be really listening to porn while working, but then again if he thinks about what Hifumi writes it's definitely something he would do, actually -- but he's cut off again by the same laptop voices that he regrettably recognises as belonging to well-known voice actors, in between foley wet noises from Hell, sounding less like whatever sex act is taking place and more like ASMR from Cthulu itself, for the blind horror it strikes in his heart.

'No, wait! Aaahn ♡' 

'You're my bond-mate now, and don't you forget it--'

The words hit a nerve and Doppo’s scream drowns out everything else.

 

***

 

"Like I said, I don't really care if you're listening to-- to-- to omegaverse drama CDs in the house or at work or whatever…" 

Hifumi sniffs pitifully, curled up in his chair where his residual horniness is overlaid with a thick layer of sulking. The very image of determination. "You shouted."

Kneeling on the floor in apology, Doppo breaks into a fresh sweat recalling the frenzied disgust the dialogue had whipped up in him. Wolf stuff. That genre makes his skin crawl. Not only that, but the scripting on those godawful dime-a-dozen BL drama CDs even though he knows, yes, that's basically what all Hifumi's novels sound like if you read them aloud, is mortifying to listen to. He gets it, has had the dynamic pop up all over the place in his various fan spaces lately-- hell, it’s even a meme in his guild chat, but it's just not for him, so hearing it in such close quarters feels alarmingly pointed. Like when everyone and their mom loves a series he doesn't. Worse still if it’s one of Hifumi’s own series.

"I just wasn't expecting it! Who would?! I was just doing the dishes like you asked… Anyway, you never listen to BL while you're--..." he trails off at the piteous look Hifumi shoots him. "R-Really…?"

"I need inspiration! 'Sides that, it's what I like, so." Hifumi's face sinks into a pout.

"I don't care what you like in BL.”

“No need to be so mean!”

Doppo decides against rolling his eyes and instead holds his breath for a count of three before exhaling in defeat. “Look, I'm sorry I shouted."

"You're just salty because it's the big thing in Dead Or Alive fandom now." Hifumi scoffs, winding his earphone cord round and around his fingers as Doppo splutters at the mere memory of opening Pixiv and seeing a cursed new spread of R18... wolf stuff recommended for him now that his search history is crammed with Dead Or Alive in the name of research. It’s true, he can't wake up without seeing it anymore. The fact that Hifumi's suddenly gotten into this genre is no coincidence, if he's about to get conspiratorial about it. 

He drags a hand down his face. Of course Hifumi likes it. Anything with monster cocks and he’s on the scene before you can say ‘suppressant’.

"If you like it, that's great, but…"

As he feels himself get sucked into the quicksand of an argument he'll quickly lose against his boyfriend’s puppy eyes, Hifumi lets out a tragic lovelorn sigh.

"I don’t just like it, I love it! Like, it goes down to the biological level! Bondmates are forever! It’s so deep, it’s the stuff of fantasy but it’s so real… Like, the anxiety of an unbonded omega out in the world… And, and, it got popular enough that they’re finally releasing drama CDs of it… Plus, did I tell you? There's even an anthology for it from that one Dead or Alive doujin circle, but it's event-only!"

"Event-only?" Doppo's gaze trails off to Hifumi's bookshelves with the books arranged by colour. Since becoming published in the genre, it’s rare for him to buy fan-books, but lately a few slim volumes have found a home wedged into the ends of the rows, kept preciously in their excessive plastic wrap from the Animate store. Series-only events have happened a few times over the last year or so, Doppo knows that much, but… he also knows how many contracts Hifumi’s had to sign to keep Gigolo-sensei contained and far away from anywhere his presence could cause a stampede in Tokyo. Considering how crammed and ferocious his official signings can get, a guerilla appearance at a fan event might see him torn to shreds like a chew-toy to a pack of hyenas. "You can't order it afterwards?"

Hifumi frowns. "You think even a single volume will remain after Comiket?!"

"Oh." So that's the level of demand that Hifumi's dealing with. "That's… it’s summer, so--"

"This weekend," Hifumi sighs dramatically and stretches his legs out at last, plopping his heel on Doppo’s shoulder like a footrest, "I really, really thought about going! I really want to see them and pick up their work… So many of my favourite fans are going too! But that might end up, like… a sticky situation, y’know?"

"..." Such wording. Doppo drums his fingertips on the inside of Hifumi’s ankle. He can only imagine the carnage that would result if Gigolo-sensei himself made an appearance in the artists' alley, in the heart of the very depths of the BL-lover’s territory named Comiket. But, well, at least he’s being sensible about it. For once. The Hifumi of the past might have charged directly into the place without a second thought to the chaos he’d cause. Doppo rubs at the back of his neck, searching for a way out of this conversation. “Anyway, I’m sorry I walked in at a bad time. I just came to tell you I did the dishes. What was the other thing you wanted help with…? Looking over a draft?”

“...Beta-ing…” Hifumi says under his breath.

“Yeah, that--” He stops sharply and stares at Hifumi, whose eyes are glittering with hunger right back at him. “Wait. No, wait, wait.”

“Since you’re offeriiiiinnnngggg--” Hifumi swoons, swinging up his other leg onto Doppo’s shoulder and using him as a hook to pull himself on his wheely-chair across the floor, until his thighs are nearly flush around Doppo’s face-- nearly, thanks to how quickly Doppo’s self-preservation instinct kicks in with a sudden grab of the backs of his knees to hold him back. But it’s useless. Hifumi’s eyes are eager, enraptured. Doppo squawks.

“No, no, I meant reading, reading--!”

Hifumi swipes out in an attempt to grab his shoulders. “Doppo-chin!”

A hundred sexual roleplay scenarios smash uninvited into his brain like a freight train, none of them appealing. “No!”

“Go to Comiket for me!”

“No--” He recoils where Hifumi’s lunging forward to clasp his hands in joy, then registers what he’s just said to him. “Wait, what?”

“You could totally go for me and pick up the doujin! Oh my gosh, why didn’t I think of that sooner? I could’ve placed a pre-order for pickup! Ah, well!” Right away Hifumi’s grief is flipped over into pure hope beaming out at Doppo so powerfully that he almost forgets that he’d been given the omegaverse manifesto only moments earlier, suddenly blinded by Boyfriend Joy. “Yeah, yeah, awesome! So tomorrow, make sure you go visit this circle, on their Twitter they said they’ll be on table A-1 so pass by and please buy two copies of--”

“T-Tomorrow? You want me to go tomorrow?” Doppo breathes.

“Yeah!” His boyfriend’s practically bouncing in place, his heels digging into his shoulders. “I mean, it’s not like you’re doing anything else, right?”

“I…” 

At any other time, on an actual allocated day off in a work week where he has limited freedom to do anything he wants like sleep or game or doodle or nothing at all, actually, a comment like that might hurt him more than it does right now. However, lately it’s only been a long stretch of unplanned days other than occasionally picking up chores around the house while Hifumi works. Any argument-material whizzes out of his brain like flying ants. “That’s true, but…”

“Then it’s decided!” Hifumi grins at him, relief clearing his features, and the way he looks so happy, snapped out of his funk that Doppo belatedly realises was some defensive kind of bashfulness after he’d walked in to what was clearly meant to be a private session, manages to twist Doppo right around his little finger before he can even think of refusing. Even when he giggles out “You’re the best, Doppo-chin!”, knowing full well that he never offered, he can’t resist. Damn it.

“Sure, if you say so...”

“Y’know, thinking about it, maybe seeing all that material will inspire you too,” He then smiles wickedly, drawing Doppo in again with the back of his bared heel, “Maaaaaybe you’ll get into it too, and we can talk about it and start a rolepl--”

“Laundry,” Doppo interrupts, bright red in the face, and dashes out before he gets dragged in deeper.

 

***

 

-- Early June this year --

 

Doppo gapes. He knows he’s doing it, his mouth dry and thick with the taste of that morning’s vending-machine coffee, but he’s far beyond caring about what looks mean in this place. At least, for him.

“Wh-what exactly is this?” His fingertips are damp on the printer-warm plansheet. In the centre of it lies the usual month schedule table, that part isn’t expected, but what is horrifying is the variety of different colours that the cells are coloured in. His eyes skitter across them and there are ten, eleven, twelve different shades. Different projects. 

Across from him, his editor lets out a snicker, which is always so, so unpleasant to hear from a man who technically holds power over most parts of Doppo’s waking (and sleeping, if he’s to count stress dreams) life, and he raises his head to meet that nasty little expression of his in pure shock.

“Isn’t it so well-organised? With this kind of efficiency, we’ll see your numbers really rise! It’s no problem for you, right, Kannonzaka-kun?”

“I… you say that, but…” Doppo’s gaze drifts miserably back to the paper. It seems like a joke. It looks like one. The only schedule he’s seen so colourful in the past has been a year planner in the editors’ office, a glance snatched between meetings, and that’s… there are twelve months in that. This is--

“Now, I don’t appreciate this kind of lacklustre reaction, you know.” Baldie-- his editor-- tuts right away, the difference between night and day as his too-naked brow creases below that hairline that’s so receded it’s like it’s hiding from his face. “It took me an awfully long time to secure all this work for you! Everybody was so terribly impressed with your work ethic over that whole drawing-tablet debacle. See? You can really pull it out the bag when the pressure’s on, huh?”

Doppo swallows down a nervous burp of air that’s horribly bilious-tasting. He never normally cares to think about appearances other than marvelling at Hifumi’s flawless sparkle or Jakurai’s resting face, but the way Baldie’s thin curled lip pulls back from his front teeth sends an inhuman, visceral shock of disgust through him, like some evolutionary warning-signal against danger. His mouth salivates in preparation to vomit. The stomach acid’s raring to go. 

Apparently, what he thought was hell - two weeks of work crammed into one - was only the topmost ring of the descent this place wants him to take.

“I, I very much appreciate… the, um, scouting…? But you know I already have-- um, several projects with deadlines within this month, so I’m not sure when in my time you want me to fit in this many on top of those.” Doppo’s eyes spin, darting around to recall the number exactly, which never comes to him so his panicking brain sidelines with a way to shortcut that process, “Even if I pull ten, or… or fourteen-hour days, that’s not...”

“Hmm? Ahh, Kannonzaka-kun, you’ll manage! Every single project manager has the utmost confidence in you.”

“It’s not about confidence-- a-although, that is good to know! But--”

Seemingly unable to speak if it’s not to cut him off, Baldie leans in close, frowning, like it’s the nineties and he still works in insurance sales. “Then what’s the problem? You’re an expert at turning things in even if you miss the deadlines, aren’t you? You seem to think I’m happy to let that slide, but I’m not sure about these other twelve fellas, you know!”

“N-Nakiri-san and Adaya-san are women,” Doppo corrects him, eyes flickering desperately between his editor and the coloured table where all of the project leads are named.

Baldie screws up his face. Doppo’s insides plummet down to some icy depths, numb and sinking, somewhere he can’t feel full with anything anymore.

“Since you’re so buddy-buddy with them it won’t be a problem at aaaaall to fit in all of this for their sake! After all,” he leans back in his chair, a welcome relief yet Doppo’s stomach sinks like a stone when he does it. “You were more than happy to work on that little animation project in your own time outside of work hours, weren’t you? Crunch you decided to create for yourself?”

Doppo pales.

“That… that was different.” he tries to argue but it comes out a whisper like there’s a frog in his throat, his face low and parallel to the desk in a pre-emptive bow of supplication, because he knows the fight is already lost.

“You’re telling me!” Baldie just sniffs, and Doppo can only hear the thumping sound of an old-fashioned rollerball mouse with gummed-up dust bunnies inside the chamber across the surface of the table as he scrolls through his email for something more interesting to do than resolve issues with his employee during their one-to-one. “I never thought you had it in you to work so hard. A little bit of crunch might be just the thing you need to get your motivation back! So do your best, Kannonzaka-kun! I’m counting on you!”

 

***

 

At least Hifumi’s instructions are clear.

‘Don’t woooorry, I’ll leave ya my wallet! So pick up everything omegaverse for me for Dead or Alive, okay? Everything. Ooh, and you see any cool cosplayers, take a photo for me, okay? While you’re there, if you see anything Dead or Alive just get it! Actually, everything Dead or Alive!! Ya see it, ya buy it! And, also, anything for Black or White, or Mad Rabbit of the Law, or Mr. Hardcore, or Drop My Drops, or--’

Alright, so it’s less like instructions and more like an indefinite and infinite shopping list. 

On the train his clothes are already uncomfortable at 4am (the only sensible time to turn up if you’re visiting on the day; his sleep schedule has gone to shit again, anyway), and by the time he makes it to Tokyo Big Sight he’s unbearably sticky in the summer heat as the sun barely crests over the skyline. Why did he think he’d need his jacket? Picking it up was only habit, anyway; the bruises around his throat from his attempt have yet to fade completely and the only clothing he owns that really covers the marks is his officewear. Fucking easy-iron shirt makes for a shell-suit’s insulation. He’s not completely clueless, though; he turns up early enough to join the queue before it gets truly monstrous, but standing in line with his jacket slung over one arm and a tote-bag stuffed with more tote-bags on his shoulder, he feels like this is already a huge mistake that he can’t back out from. For a start, when was the last time he’d been to an event like this? A doujin event… let alone a convention? Moving forward in the line and idly recognising the odd anime shirt in the crowd from the camped-out overnight crowds feels like autopilot, but he doesn’t recall exactly when his last visit was. 

Stupid, really, that the first time he visits this event as a published illustrator is when he isn’t even working. He has Hifumi to thank for this alignment of events.

Hifumi who doesn’t treat him like he’s some precious, breakable being, even though he was being monitored in hospital only weeks ago, who has still gone and thrust him out into the world on a whim...

 

...And that’s fine, Doppo reckons. That’s fine. This’ll make Hifumi happy. It’s no skin off his nose.

Besides, it’d take a lot more than a crowd to hurt him now.

 

The sun makes its steady way overhead, and luckily Doppo manages to get into the building before his legs lock up completely from the queue-shuffle. A stampede-- no, metro line rush hour is what it feels like, despite spending so little of his time on a train nowadays. But in the slipstream he kicks into action, scans his printed-out floor map and makes his way politely and skittishly towards the East Halls. It’s packed with attendees in a patchwork of multicolour cosplays popping out from the greys and whites of ‘normie’ fans like him, and in the squash between other bodies rushing to the high-ceilinged halls that feel just a tinge more exciting than an earthquake shelter, he finds he still has his stupid fucking lanyard in the pocket of his jacket, containing his work pass. He thumbs over the slightly-faded ID photo through the plastic cover, then slides his folded-up admission ticket over the top, looping the lanyard strap over his necktie. The less he has to carry the better, considering the war spoils Hifumi’s asking him to bring back. Like some kind of stupid messenger bringing back the good word of A/B/O. 

He shakes his head in the attempt to get that awful, awful voice acting out of his mind, and heads for the first stop on his request-list, a well-known circle right on the very corner of the artists’ tables.

“Sorry, sorry, um, hello. I’d like--” He gestures to the doujinshi taking central stage on the table with its bright electric-blue flourishes and stops in his tracks staring at the setup on either side with handmade crocheted toys of the Dead or Alive main pair, a genuine stack of books and a set of dice as props to complete the layout. He boggles, just as one of the artists attempts to hand him a sample copy, then shakes his head. “Um, is there an event-only book?”

“Yes… this one here. It’s 900 yen if you want to take a look at it.”

“That’s, that’s okay. I’ll take--” Hifumi had said two of everything, right? “Two, please.”

There’s a short silence as the artist retracts the sample book, then a salesperson’s gleam flashes in her eye as she adds, “...There are two other Dead or Alive back-issues, too. They’re 600 yen and 700 yen each, if you want to get all three--”

“Then, two each of those, too.”

“S-Six total?”

He nods, and the transaction, the first big bills leaving the huge wodge tucked into Hifumi’s burner wallet (as if he’d let the one with the credit cards leave the house, what with Doppo’s track record of losing things on public transport) and going directly into two young creators’ hands, sparks some strange feeling of recognition in him. For the first time that day he makes eye contact with another human, looking at their hesitantly grateful faces as they hand him some kind of event-limited fabric tote with his purchases and noticing-- just how young the pair of them look. They couldn’t be older than college age, surely. One of them has a sketchbook in her lap, pencil lines forming a portrait in its most brutally basic stages.

“Thank you very much!” 

Their calls ring out even amongst the hubbub of the hall already clamouring with thickly-running traffic lines up and down the rows of artists’ tables, and Doppo’s swept along, clutching the bag to his chest. Only, the rest of the row seems to be like-minded doujin circles, and he’s mere metres away from the first table when the same colour palette of prussian blue and hazel catches his eye again. Another pin on his map.

It’s after many repetitions of stop-pay-start and the weight of the books beginning to pile on him that he figures a break has to happen at some point. Something about physical labour actually reminds him to rest, unlike staring at a screen all day. Pausing between halls, Doppo sweats his way to a corner and lifts out a few books from their cellophane bags and before he knows it, papers slip out from between the pages.

“O-Oh, shoot--”

Catching them on their way down to the ground, he finds that the papers are-- prints. Illustrations. Bookmarks. Extras. All in fantastic pearlescent and holographic finishes, artwork that’s every bit as clean as the covers of the doujinshi. With a smack of guilt, he realises that he doesn’t remember buying these. 

Mortified, he dashes right back to the first table, dumbly clutching the extra pieces.

“Excuse me-- these aren’t, these, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to pick these up,” he gasps, practically creaking from his load to the shock of a now thick crowd of customers at the table. The girls from earlier blink at him between transactions, until one of them shakes her head.

“Event extras,” she says quickly. “Please keep them, you came here so early after all.”

“I…?”

But like that, in his moment of bewilderment the survival of the fittest takes over and he’s pushed back into the aisles between tables behind a surge of new buyers. Swallowed up in the crowd, Doppo lets himself be carried along by the ocean-like waves of the moving masses, all the while holding onto the bookmarks and prints under sweaty fingers like winning lottery tickets as the booth drifts out of sight like a ship on the horizon.

 

***

 

-- Late June --

 

His eyes cracked open, dry from the whirring office fan in the corner of the room that click-click-clicks its miserable mechanical resistance against the wall, see the desk a metre or so away from the floor but they don’t focus on it.

It’s far too hot to be laying beneath a blanket but there’s really nowhere else to go. There’s nothing else he can possibly do other than work, and if he’s not working he has to sleep, which is something his body decides at the end of long stretches of work. If he’s out of bed, he has to be working. 

He blinks wearily and the inside of his eyelids scrape; hot and dry like desert sand. The pain keeps him from resting, but what else can be done?

Another three weeks, he repeats to himself, the computer monitor a matt unreal fuzz in the centre of his vision like a patch that the Matrix forgot to render. 

Since he’s not at the desk, he needs to spend that time thinking about work. Use downtime to think and plan, like his editor said. Then work. Then plan. Rinse and repeat. Efficiency.

Even in his sleep he’s dreaming about work, or maybe that line doesn’t exist anymore, a blurred seaswept scrape in the mud of the shore. 

He’s thinking, so now counts as thinking-planning-time.

So he stays. The weight immobilises him. It used to be soothing, melting his anxieties and thoughts away with its embrace, but now it’s only somewhere to be. It’s barely a location anymore; his bed itself has long since been relinquished to piles of clean and dirty laundry mixed together where Hifumi’s kindly stacked them up for him, since toppled over like towers of long-dead civilisations. The place to sleep is on the floor by the wheels of his work chair. Close enough to think and dream about the current project to save time. Multitask.

Because-- yeah, because the only way out of this is to work until all the projects are done.

And then…?

...Lately he keeps falling asleep while shading, and waking up with a dry mouth and a cup of water and painkillers in front of him. The only way he knows a full day has passed between these liminal naps is when he finds the correct dosage of his medication already laid out next to the keyboard at his desk.

Hifumi…

 

Doppo doesn’t remember the last time he saw Hifumi in daylight.

But he does remember the last time he felt anything like this, because this--  this is worse.

 

***

“Ohmigodddd, I’ve been texting you this whole and entire time--”

“There wasn’t any signal inside the centre!” Doppo butts back with his phone wedged against his shoulder since his hands each are wrung around heavy tote-bag handles, and two more hang off his shoulders. The sweat is coursing down his neck now; he’s pretty sure his shirt, once a neat ivory colour with ghostly pinstripes, must be soaked translucent under his jacket. “Besides, when would I have gotten even a moment to call… Basically every single stand had something of yours…”

Hifumi belts out a delighted squeal that seems to be heard by the whole train carriage around Doppo for the pitch of it. He glances to and fro, at the odd folks either casting him uncomfortable looks or forcing their heads down like they definitely weren’t staring, phones in their hands no doubt in silent mode as requested on the notice plaques by the priority seats, and it feels like another smooth waterfall of sweat gushes down his shoulders. Hifumi seems to have gotten it out his system and continues chatting.

“Really-really? Uuuuu-uuugghhhhh! I wanna be theeeeere!” He gasps suddenly. “Didja have enough money?!”

“Eh, uhm, I think there’s something left…!”

Setting down one tote bag between his business shoes on the heat-sticky linoleum, Doppo draws out the wallet that’s far too light in weight yet seems heavy with guilt since Hifumi’s is the only paycheck balancing them right now, and out slips a printed bookmark from his pocket. A nearby highschooler leans out from her seat to hand it back to him. Doppo mouths an apology, furiously bowing in a way that has a bag swing down from his shoulder and collide with his face. 

He doubles over, reeling, clutching his forehead, and the handles of the other bag eat into his shoulder even further as it seems to swing pendula closer towards his centre of gravity with every sway of the train carriage. Each bag feels like it weighs a ton, a block of concrete, not like the cautiously-balanced chaos of a grocery shopping haul but a solid fucking brick, and the resentment quickly, quickly, eats Doppo up like the flush of humiliation climbing his neck. Why the hell are books so heavy? It’s just fucking paper. Why did it seem like each individual tome was so cheap, and stacking up the purchases wasn’t a problem, and yet here he is with a wallet worth less than the work of even one fanartist? This feels like he’s printed out his entire pixiv viewing history-- no, heavier than Hifumi’s bookshelves, mercilessly split into pieces for him to carry. Not even his clunky paintings at the end of his degree weighed this much together. It’s too much to bear, to expect one guy to be able to pick up every single fanwork, he thinks, every single person out there touched by Hifumi’s work, that’s just impossible, to track every person that each ‘like’ and ‘bookmark’ and ‘follow’ belongs to and find their pages and pages of Poipiku doodles and thick wodges of hand-lettered fanfic like the protagonist of Dead or Alive himself, printed with their own money-- their own money. Their own money. They chose to do this.

It feels like the floor is falling away from beneath him with the realisation of the difference as humans between those girls at the booth, and himself, dripping pools on the train flooring and panting for breath among those chaining, frantic thoughts, and here he is getting angry at fucking paper. Those girls have hours left in the day, in the weekend, churning out commissions and sales, and he--

And he--!

“Doppo? Ehhhh, ya didn’t lose the wallet, didja? Hahahaha! Aw, man! Classic Doppo! ” Hifumi’s cackling in his ear over the tinny audio and it’s the last thing Doppo hears before the cellphone hinge snaps between the twist of his head and messily-caught bag handles rolling down his creaking clavicle.

... When did it become normal for him to hate his work?

Sure, there’s ‘suffering for your art’ but…wasn’t this different? Suffering, but also never feeling the relief of completing a piece? Not suffer for love or passion but just… hating it from start to finish?

 

It’s far from the sight of Hifumi whipping his finger to his mouth after burning it on the edge of a pan. Different to Jakurai’s fleeting wince as Sweetie scrambles up his back for a vantage point. Hifumi, forehead down on the kotatsu after a rare all-nighter, groaning until the aspirin kicks in. Jakurai’s weary eyes after a day of meetings and a cold cup of tea in his hand.

Tiring, yes, but.

He’s never really wanted to hate his work. 

No more than he’s ever resented either of his partners for stoking a burning love in him that made him feel powerless.

 

Doppo lurches along the platform where the train has spat him up with those godforsaken bags in tow, his whole frame creaking under their weight. He tries to straighten his spine, something pops, he squawks, and he decides to take another of those rare rest-breaks since he’s so close to home. Slipped down the side of the least-full bag next to the phone in parts, he grasps for the last few coins remaining in the wallet and slams them into the vending machine.

As the drink tumbles down into the dispenser, that bookmark from before - from the train floor - peeps out at him from the bag. It has a design of the Dead of Alive novelist wielding his trusty fountain-pen. Doppo strokes his thumb over the sleek matte finish of a print, then downs his entire bottle of sports drink in painful, air-swallowing gulps, one after another after another.

The walk home is like an endless desert trek for how the sidewalks and pavements blur into one long stretch of concrete, flat beneath his hanging head as he puts one foot in front of another and then another and then another. It would be easier to wade through treacle than Shinjuku’s summer humidity. Next time he should bring a suitcase, he thinks, before chastising himself that there will definitely not be a next time, not if he actually grows a backbone and refuses next time Hifumi asks him for something over-the-top like this. 

“Everything Dead or Alive,” he mutters under his breath, his dry lips cracking where the heat outside has already parched him despite that drink’s best efforts, and he gives a low scoff. Hifumi either didn’t know that his series would be so furiously, captivatingly popular among fan-artists this year or he has far too much faith in his muscle power. 

At the end of their street he finally turns in to their apartment complex, giving an all-too-throaty sigh of bliss in the shadow of the building like it’s a siren luring him in, and almost bumps directly into someone crossing his path. He squawks awake.

“S-Sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Doppo?”

He blinks, the heatstroke haze allowing him a blip of focus in his vision, and looks up to see Jakurai. Jakurai, who equally seems shocked to have bumped into somebody, in a perfect windsail-white cotton button-down today, short-sleeved, like the heat has gotten to him too. Arms out. Naked forearms and the crease of his inner elbow. Glancing past those bright eyes of his, Jakurai’s nape is bare, too, beneath a thin and low ponytail. This is the first time he’s seen him outside of the apartment or the hospital since he was discharged and he glows in the sunshine.

Doppo’s eyes spin.

Ahhh, he thinks, his thoughts prickling with panic as he realises how much of a sloppy mess he is with the sweat on his forehead, down his neck, his dry mouth, the tang of electrolytes and fake grapefruit flavour on his tongue and what’s certainly a tension headache making his temples throb.

Ahhh... well, okay. 

He’s used to seeing this by now.

“J-Jakurai,” he greets at last, bowing his head a touch which only has the bags on his shoulders swinging slightly and he lets out a groan of pain and effort. In a flash, those healing hands are on him, slipping beneath the straps that have left nasty imprints in the tops of his shoulders.

“Why are you so weighed down? Here, allow me.” But even Jakurai makes an alarmed little sound as he takes two bags that seem so close to splitting with straining seams and sharp corners of perfectly-trimmed gloss paper books. “These are awfully heavy-- Doppo, you intended to carry them upstairs?”

Doppo looks at him dumbly, his entire loaded-mule body now racked with a euphoric kind of pain that’s rushing in to fill the grooves left by the bag straps, then answers, “H… How else am I meant to get them there?”

Jakurai’s mouth is a thin line for a second, then softens, along with a concerned look.

“Let me take these. Shall we go?”

“Yes…”

Looking at Jakurai’s back as they slowly climb the stairwell up, Doppo finds himself mesmerised by the steady swing and bump of those bags and he briefly wishes he was a doujinshi, too. He’d sit nicely on a table and be in high demand and then a megafan will pick him up, flick him open, see all the good things he has to offer and all the love and care that went into him, and hopefully take him home, enjoy all the contents cover to cover. More importantly, Jakurai might even look at him. Maybe pore over the art over a cup of tea with Hifumi and skim smooth fingertips over the pages. High quality recycled paper. No kidding; he’d be one of Hifumi’s stories, if he had to choose. 

“These aren’t from the bookstore,” Jakurai comments passingly at the second floor like he’s trying to assess just how far Doppo’s come carrying it all.

“No, er, doujinshi.” 

Jakurai doesn’t reply.

Normally that silence might feel more pointed, more icy than the simple absence of a reply from his partner, but Jakurai hasn’t been particularly talkative with him lately, so it’s just more of the same plodding disappointment. Doppo hangs his head again, staring at his scuffed office shoes with each trudging step up and up.

Normally he might feel at fault about it too, but…

At the third floor, pausing just outside their apartment door, Jakurai glances to him expectantly.

“Do you have your key?”

Doppo groans, the projected X-ray diagram of the horribly stacked-up chaotic Tetris-like anti-structure of the inside of any one of these four bags blaring into his mind, searching for where his housekeys might have gotten stuck. He gives his pockets a quick pat and sighs, instead working on unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt as a head-start for getting indoors and undressed. Ventilation. “Somewhere, that’s for sure…”

“Doppo.”

He blinks through the haze of exhaustion, tugging his collar open for airflow. The way Jakurai’s looking at him is inscrutable; a strange gleam of frustration in his eyes, his mouth nearly twisted in anxiety. 

Of course, receiving any kind of look like that from the one he’s used to holding hands and sharing quiet moments with can only mean that he’s fucked up somehow-- Doppo, him, the object of Jakurai’s ire. He pants out an apology.

“S-Sorry? I’m sorry, whatever it is, I’m--”

Jakurai shakes his head. “No, the one who ought to apologise is myself.”

“...What?”

Looking at him evenly, Jakurai takes a breath. 

“I didn’t know how to address it. To even begin to understand it.” His hands by his sides curl into loose fists then relax again, and the cycle repeats, while his eyes flicker between Doppo’s eyes and his throat. In a sudden blow of understanding, Doppo’s hand flies up to cover the bruises with his palm; Jakurai’s eyelashes flicker and he looks pained. “I’m sorry.”

“It--” Doppo shakes his head. ‘It’ seems to mean a lot of things. “It, it’s, don’t be sorry, god, it’s nothing you… it’s nothing anyone…”

--Nothing anyone did.

The way Jakurai’s mouth hardens tells him that he doesn’t share that point of view whatsoever. Then, something strikes Doppo.

“U-Um. Hifumi… didn’t tell you anything?”

“I’m… ashamed to admit that I asked.” Jakurai sets the bags down by his feet and it looks like an excuse to fold his arms oh-so-delicately, the same way he does in any kind of thought. “But quite rightly, he said that it wasn’t his to tell.”

“...Yeah…”

Doppo’s never really asked him about it, about what he actually explains whenever there’s an incident, but that’s his response, huh?

He owes Hifumi a lot. More than he could ever repay.

But that leaves him with Jakurai now looking at him with those deep eyes that hunger for understanding, which is kind of in a way an even worse end-level boss than random colleagues and family members asking about his latest stint in therapy.

“I knew it was too early for me to ask about the other marks. On your arms.” He says gently as though the stagnant summer air could somehow absorb his words and shed it among the apartment complex like a spore burst, “Seeing you in hospital, though… Doppo. What happened?”

There it is. Doppo swallows, painlessly now that those bruises are nothing more than a skin-deep bursting and mending of capillary networks and Jakurai should know that from his uncannily detailed medical knowledge he randomly hears whenever he comments on his wristbrace, and inclines his head a tad, staring at his feet. 

The ability to explain himself whilst looking a superior in the eye has been beaten out of him, after all.

 

***

 

-- Mid-July --

 

It’s a particularly hot day today. The air has been hot and stuffy since the moment Doppo woke up-- since the night before, even; even with his window open from dusk til dawn and the fan on (albeit, pointed directly at the overheating CPU on his poor computer-tower, and any leftover wind hitting his jiggering legs just behind it is a bonus) and there just isn’t-- there just isn’t enough air circulating anywhere. Not in the dingy apartment, not in the blazing sunshine on his commute here, not in a single floor of this building. He’d guess that the aircon was broken in the office if it wasn’t for the fact that he can hear the units clicking and dripping and whirring out their life like flu-ridden train announcers and beneath that, there’s the constant hum of electricity that permeates this office that he can always hear, no matter where or when or who he’s with. It’s subtler than the lonely buzz of that probably-overloaded but apparently-surgeproof plug extension in his bedroom, but it’s particularly, most strongly, most gratingly, overwhelmingly loud in the meeting-room with its glass doors that somehow block out all of the keyboard click-clacking and discussions along the floor and instead keep him trapped in.

In Hell.

His lip curls in overstimulated disgust.

“Kann-non-zaka-kun! ” His editor’s voice rings out, piercing, harsh. Always, the emphasis on the ‘-kun’ in front of polite company that Baldie uses to make him feel smaller, younger, more excusable to be taken advantage of, like his early roles as an intern, and it’s projected like a bullet. “You can’t just hang your head to get out of this, you know! Looking sorry doesn’t get you anywhere!”

“I’m sorry,” Doppo murmurs, and lifts his head despite his neckbones feeling like one long stiff rod spiked through his backbone. In front of him, Baldie’s head is gleaming and dry as a desert stone, and the editor next to him has a suit jacket on as well as a cloak and his collar buttoned all the way to the top beneath his necktie, but equally couldn’t be smoother and less bothered, save for his slightly frustrated expression and his interlaced fingers atop the desk that divides the two parties. 

Doppo feels like he’s fallen into a pond fully-clothed before coming here, sodden with sweat and effort and salt and crud lingering since the last time he remembered to shower.

It’s-- it’s hot today.

The apology seems to irritate Baldie like a passerby’s vape cloud and he waves his hand furiously to dismiss it. 

“Can you at least acknowledge what the issue is here? See, Moudou-san came here especially to discuss your progress on his project on what is a very busy day of back-to-back meetings between upper management and his animation studio, and what we have to show him is…?”

There’s a silence that Doppo doesn’t understand he was meant to fill until Baldie gives an exaggerated, fake-stressed sigh.

“No-thing! Absolutely nothing! It’s like you didn’t even begin working on it! Did you even see the brief on your month plan?”

The answer is no, so Doppo doesn’t say anything. Sucking in enough air to speak is exhausting in this cloying room. This mysterious project manager, whose name hasn’t appeared on any of the documentation he’s been working to over the last six weeks, looks dissatisfied, although that could just be Doppo reading far too much into the lines of his expression, like a fearless starving scavenger in front of a lion. He’s so sure he read his month plan over thoroughly. But then again, lately everything’s blurred together, which is no basis for defending himself. He thinks about the fact that he didn’t know his project or his very being existed until about five minutes ago, chews it over, then hangs his head again.

“Sorry.”

“How many times do we have to… Moudou-san, I do apologise for Kannonzaka-kun’s lack of accountability. Some illustrators simply aren’t cut out for remote work and free rein on timekeeping, you understand...” Baldie explains, although Doppo doesn’t see whatever damning expression is on this high-up project manager’s face, and then comes a sharp whisper. “Face him properly! And what are you doing with your hands?!”

Doppo’s fingers twitch where he’s been anxiously pulling the hard, dry calluses on his palms and tearing away the edges of his cuticles, and the wounds are raw. That’s a bad habit. That’s a terrible habit. Hifumi hates it. Jakurai hates it. Doppo hates it. How ugly, how disgusting. His hands fly to clutch at his tie and lanyard instead. “S-Sorry--”

Baldie snaps. “‘Sorry, sorry, sorry’-- we’ve been over this! Listen, do you think that apologies are going to somehow fix this mess? Or anything at all?! If they did, you may as well quit and pay your rent in apologies!”

The ticking of the clock on the wall to his left is palpable and each block-like judder of its hands feels much more real than his entire self and after a while he realises his heartbeats are out of sync, like they’re trying to match up.

He breathes, and Baldie continues on.

“Actually, maybe the only thing you can do is take some unpaid time off to reflect on-- stop making that sound!”

The click-click of where he’s snapping his ID card in and out of the plastic holder comes to a sudden stop, his fingers tightening around his tie, chewed blunt thumbnails digging into the polyester twill.

“Honestly, it’s like you’ve forgotten how to behave in public, Kannonzaka-kun! Remote work isn’t about playing around doodling whatever you like, whenever you like, you know, it’s about discipline of time and--”

He’s pulling, pulling for that comforting pressure on the back of his neck; the lanyard’s fastener pops subtly beneath his stifling shirt collar but he keeps pulling on the tie’s tail, a familiar, grounding sensation. A closing around his throat that actually feels like an excuse to not be able to breathe.

That’s right; it was all excuses the whole way down. 

His excuse for not going into the office for work like all the actually successful illustrators and mangaka, that the commute takes a lot out of him, holds no water now he can’t even work right in the comfort of his own home.

He pulls, like it’s a tug-of-war between himself and his neck. His head feels like it’s closer to bursting than it’s ever been; thank god, for the glimmer of hope of release. Thank god. Thank god. A way out.

Something makes a soft, grisly click just under his adam’s apple and it seems to be the button to open the floodgates; a drop of iron down his gullet, a flurry of movement in front of him as the project manager leaps to his feet with a phone in hand and Doppo’s head spins, and his forehead smacks the desk as he loses consciousness along with the last breath of air from his lungs.

***

Jakurai’s eyes look like they did that day they confessed to him, tearing up. This isn’t what Doppo wanted; nobody wants this, nobody wants to hear this, he knows that, so his shoulders sag, his body tingling with the horrible gutwrenching anxiety of talking about this, the only person he’s really ever addressed it with aside from a therapist or Hifumi. 

“I’m sorry that happened,” he says in almost a whisper. Doppo goes to assure him, then-- sighs, shrugging awkwardly.

“Me too, I think. It… yeah.”

What else is there to say? It was shit. It is shit. He still did it. There was a reason.

“That was why you couldn’t speak, then. Laryngeal trauma.”

“...Uh, that, and I didn’t have… anything to say.” Doppo adds somewhat sheepishly to Jakurai’s logical conclusion, digging in his bag again for housekeys as a way to channel that prickling discomfort at the ends of his fingertips. “Other than, um, ‘sorry’.”

“Doppo…” Jakurai looks at him with his index and middle fingers set by his cheekbone, that comforting gesture of his, those eyes so sad.

“It’s, um. Yeah, it’s not because I want to die, not um, not permanently, not-- not actually, if you were worried--” he continues, a steady flow of words, because all of this comes with the acknowledgement that Jakurai was worried and that he cared and that it wasn’t just that he was uncomfortable with the concept of a bruise, coming from the editor with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of unusual injuries and gun mechanisms and torture methods-- “It’s not. It’s not that I was trying to hurt… myself. I mean, I guess but in that state I don’t think, or, well, I’m not thinking in a way that’s…”

“Doppo.”

But he’s got momentum now, a rolling wave that hasn’t reared up enough to break the banks in years. “N-No, let me explain, because after all, you never… I never said anything to you directly about this and-- it’s not fair that Hifumi knows all this stuff and you don’t, right? But I don’t want you to worry over something like this, because-- l-look, sensei, you really don’t need to worry about…”

“Doppo, listen to me.”

He looks up, not realising his head was down yet again, to see Jakurai standing closer, a more tense expression setting his brow like Doppo hasn’t seen outside of the meeting-room’s glass dividers. For the first time since starting this godforsaken mule’s journey of a day a breeze picks up, drawing the ends of Jakurai’s low ponytail along until they flick at the railing of the third-floor walkway. 

His mouth opens, and suddenly behind him the apartment door swings open with a particularly cheerful yet bemused Hifumi behind it, apron’ed up and grinning.

“Ah-haaaa, I so knew I could hear some familiar voices chatterin’ away! Dwoppo, what happened to ya key? Is that all the--”

“I will replace your editor.”

 

Doppo stares at his not-editor. Jakurai meets his gaze evenly, a trace of ferocity lighting up those eyes. Behind Jakurai’s back Hifumi gapes, a droplet of soup falling from the ladle he’s carrying in his free hand.

“E-Eh…?”

“Wh-- how,” Doppo gabbles, “How will you-- no, there aren’t any others in the department who could…”

“I want to be the editor for the two of you; you and Hifumi both. To protect you from this. To bring you the glory you deserve.”

“Wait, wait,” Hifumi adds, stepping forward and briskly stubbing his toe on a bag-wrapped stack of doujin. “Wait, you’re asking to become…?”

 

“Doppo,” Jakurai places his hand on Doppo’s shoulder, a gentle but stinging pressure on the totebag-strap ridges in his shoulders that lights the trenches of flesh aflame, and he snaps his head upwards in attention to meet that high line of vision. 

“I don’t, I don’t understand.”

 

Like he’s changing tack, Jakurai’s expression softens.

His words, at last, feel like a love confession all over again, the way they leave his lips as an arrow that plunges through Doppo’s heart.

 

“Let me be your editor.”

Chapter 6

Summary:

The housesitting episode, with mandatory backstory (or not!!)

Notes:

lord it's been a while. but the love for dohifu and mtr never dies. here be plot and snuggly dohifu!!!!!

"Once more, thank you for this last-minute request."

"It’s okaaaay, gosh, it’s okay! You can't help these things, right? And it’s not for long either!" Hifumi laughs back, hitching Sweetie up a little more snugly in his arms. Her whole body rumbles with the internal tug-of-war between being happy as she is and wanting to tear away into the depths of the front garden she can see beyond the porch, her tail flicking in and out of a question-mark under his elbow. This pose is carefully engineered to stop Jakurai worrying about his choice of house-sitter. Doesn’t seem to be working, Hifumi notices.

"We're happy to help, so…" Doppo adds next to him, although he trails off as Jakurai bows respectfully before either of them can reassure him there’s no need, the roadmap in his hands as he stands out his front door looking in. This isn’t a sweet and movielike goodbye at all, Hifumi can’t help but think despite the sweetness of the gesture and the tug on his heartstrings at seeing Jakurai’s reluctance; but seriously, now it's just kinda dragging it out! It’s literally just a trip out of town for a Jinguuji family emergency. They’re fine to house-sit. It’s not that deep! He’ll be back in forty-eight hours! It’s not like they have a pet at home that needs feeding and whatever. If anything, like, he’d worry more about Doppo on his own than Sweetie over the course of the weekend. She has more survival instinct in one peachy toe-bean than his flatmate has had since puberty. Jakurai straightens up, apologetic.

“Alas, if I was going anywhere of note I would bring back a souvenir to thank you, however…”

“Oh, please, don’t worry,” Doppo audibly cringes next to him, his self-esteem crumpling in on itself under the weight of such an offer and Jakurai’s doleful look. “Please. R-Really.”

“Haha, I’m sure you’ll find something!” Hifumi almost strains in the attempt to cheer up his older boyfriend who seems to have borrowed more than a pinch of Doppo’s gloominess. Poor guy. His hair loose and flowing, free of the hairtie Hifumi’s used to seeing whenever he takes them for a long drive, and oddly sombre in his white coat and rollneck even at the tail-end of summer, Jakurai’s face is unusually tight with worry, and although Hifumi likes to think he’s pretty good at reading his editor these days, for once he can’t parse who the worry is for . So he shifts again, feeling Doppo beside him already brace a hand on the inside of Jakurai’s doorway in the attempt to channel his own rising tension. Why can’t he just hop in the car already? Like, I’ll miss him and all, but? Rip this awkward moment off like a bandage! “Where’re ya goin’ again? Back home, right, but where’s that?”

Jakurai pauses. “Ever so slightly too far from the centre of Nagoya to make any specialities worth bringing home.”

So, the sticks. Hifumi shrugs, blasting his sunny smile anyway. “M’well, don’t sweat it! Getting all this quality time with my special girl is plenty-plenty thanks enough for me!”

Jakurai still lingers, silent, practically fidgeting with the suitcase-handle, and it looks so dreadfully out-of-place on him. Like some kid on their first day of school…

Oooooooh.

Hifumi suddenly realises what this little goodbye is missing to make it finally sink in.

Shifting the cat to one arm, he touches Doppo’s elbow lightly then drags him forward over the doorway steps, too quickly for either party to protest – although it’s obvious that they all needed this when they embrace Jakurai, his arms coming up around their upper backs in a gentle circlet, Hifumi and Doppo each snuggling into that awkward bony dip between his shoulder and collarbone that they know is there, can feel even though those miraculously un-sweaty layers of clothing.

“I’ll miiiiiiss you,” Hifumi sing-songs gently, nosing into his neck. Jakurai sighs, torn between relief, sadness and concern. He knows he’s being sentimental. The difference is that it sounds like he needed the help knowing that it’s okay. “And you’re gonna miss us too, aren’tcha?”

“It’s only a weekend, and yet.” he murmurs back, all low and soothing against him, kissing the top of his head. Doppo uses that in to cup Jakurai’s ear and whisper to him– a move that sends a shockwave through Jakurai, and his shiver against Hifumi’s chest is electric.

“When you come back, let’s talk–”

Off-guard, eyes wide as he tries to turn to look at Doppo though, tucked against his clavicle, all he can really see of him is his shoulder– and Hifumi’s eyes gleam, gazing at the serious, committed look on Doppo’s face, even while doing something so obviously not-gonna-work sneaky as whispering like this. Gosh, it reminds him of their first talk about their relationship. Focused, meeting his feelings head-on. Doppo’s so dreamy.

“Oh?”

“--About that thing. It’s okay. Really.”

Jakurai makes a noise. Some tongue-tied, dumbfounded hum that Hifumi’s literally never heard him make. He never doesn’t know what to say, or he just waits to reply until he has words to hand. Flushed, Doppo bobs up on his tiptoes and kisses his cheek in that momentary silence. Hifumi’s heart flutters weirdly at the sight, or maybe Sweetie just rabbit-kicks him in the chest.

“Th-then, we’ll see you soon, Jakurai.”

Jakurai holds them tighter around their shoulders, a little warmer. 

“...You two–”

 

And the door swings shut behind them with a click, leaving the house-sitters outside, clutching a very, very wriggly indoor cat. Jakurai doesn’t shift, locking the two in his embrace. It takes Hifumi’s anxious giggle as Sweetie’s paws scrabble between their bodies, claws emerging further by the second.

 

“O-Ooh, Jakurai, can you let us back in…?”

 

–

 

“Fuh-ree-duuuhhhmmmm!” Hifumi bellyflops onto the sofa and practically bounces off the seat cushions. “Woohooooo! Home alone!”

“Hey! Y-You’ll break something!”

Jakurai’s sofa is a thick mattress compared to their wooden-beam thing in the cramped living room at home. Hifumi flutters his legs like a beached swimmer and rolls onto his back, stretching his fingers up towards the ceiling. Somehow it feels a hundred times more relaxing, more holiday-like spending a weekend in their boyfriend’s home, despite having worked remotely from here more than once. 

“Don’t sweat it, Doppo-chin! I dunno about you, but I know this place like the back of my hand by now! Gonna take a bit more than my bodyweight to break sensei’s precious expensive furniture! We barely use the sofa, anyway, lemme have a little luxury…”

“There’s luxury and then there’s trashing the hotel room,” Doppo sighs, experimentally poking at the digital thermostat on the wall. A beep rings out from some aircon unit from somewhere in the house that neither of them can see. They freeze, glancing around for it, ears pricked like dogs, before assuming it must be OK since this kind of incredible technology is too futuristic and/or expensive for them to figure out how to use right now, anyway. Hifumi hums, flopping his wrists back and forth while the little bones there click and snap like cereal.

“So what was that all about?”

“What was?” Doppo’s squatting, petting Sweetie as she grazes on her breakfast kibble.

“You know,” Hifumi stares up at the big pale expanse of the ceiling that doesn’t have like another four storeys of apartments above it so there are no leakage stains beneath the paint to catch his perfectionist’s eye. He focuses on the lack thereof as he hums through his nose. “‘That thing’ you guys’re gonna ‘talk’ about. ‘That thing’.”

“The–”

Sitting up briskly, Hifumi’s eyes meet Doppo’s in a clash of eagerness versus dread, the hard malachite of Doppo’s gaze no match for his love of problem-solving flitting around him like a dancer to a boxer. 

Well, it’s not actually his problem per se if it’s between his two partners, is it?

Or is it actually, like, PR? Business interactions, considering the nature of crossing so many intersecting segments of their lives? Something he can advise on, the limber and savvy Gigolo-sensei navigating the jungle of departments that pay-per-contract Doppo doesn’t have to deal with?

Hifumi sees Doppo open his mouth, so he swoops in first.

“It’s about the editor thing, isn’t it?”

Doppo sags. Hifumi reins his smile in. Got ‘im. “Urgh… What else would it be about?”

It’s satisfying simply having guessed, since this silly (not… ‘silly’ really, just ‘exhausting, worrisome, confusing and awkward’) situation has gone on for far too long in Hifumi’s eyes. This might actually be some headway. Not that it’s his problem to fix, though, he tells himself.

He leaps to his bare feet to cross through to the kitchen, Doppo following on autopilot, as if he can’t really get that comfortable on his own in a house that doesn’t belong to him but to somebody whose private life is very much that: private. Hifumi examines the contents of the fridge in one swift glance, makes a mental shopping-list for seasonings that this poor editor of his lacks, and pours them each a glass of chilled ice water.

“It’s just, like– he’s so sad about it, y’know?”

“I– I know that,” Doppo clinks his glass with him out of pure habit even torn as he seems over the topic, eyes avoiding his.

“You guys haven’t spoken about anything that isn’t the weather or dinner or whatever for weeks now– officially weeks, like, more than two! So the timing is seriously–”

“Trust me, I know.”

Hifumi almost winces a little at the guilt weighing down Doppo’s tone.

“I know you know, it’s just–”

“Yeah, it’s just– just a lot.” Doppo glances back at Sweetie, then at the floor, then back up at Hifumi. The marks on his neck have faded out to mustardy splotches, ghosts of the bruises they were. His eyebags are almost burgundy like a neat line of cream eye pencil, darker for his brief return to work– hardly reduced at all after his sick leave. It might pain him more if he wasn’t painfully used to this kind of sight. It does, however, make his stomach squeeze with the memory of the hospital.

And the anxiety that’s only drawn on since then.

“Doppo-chin…”

His boyfriend takes a sip, eyes closed. It hadn’t been easy for anyone to hear Jakurai offer to become his editor– let alone Doppo’s reaction.

– 

Mid-August

 

“Let me be your editor.”

 

Hifumi’s jaw drops the moment that request leaves Jakurai’s mouth. Not because he doesn’t think Jakurai couldn’t do it, but– it’s more to do with who he’s making this request to. Doppo. Doppo who can barely bridge the gap of obligations and manners between himself and Hifumi’s editor, let alone do that now. Why now?

Does he seriously think that…

That this, the stuff that’s going on with Doppo, is only a management issue?

“Sensei, what are you–”

“I– I’m sorry,” Doppo breathes sharply, “I can’t.”

Jakurai stares at him with wide eyes, like when he’d finally been able to set down that heavy box that his weighted blanket had arrived in and draw in an unlaboured breath. Doppo continues before he can reply.

“It’s my own issue to deal with and… I- I’m sorry, having you in charge of my work isn’t going to fix things. I don’t need a different editor, I need to figure out… something else. And I’m not dragging you into that. I’m sorry–” his pitch, his tone is spiking rapidly as Jakurai steps closer. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!”

“I’ve been studying illustration and graphic design to help you, Doppo. With your patience and understanding I would surely be enough.”

“What? No– no, it’s nothing to do with that, really! Hell, I’m sure you probably know more about my job than Baldie does but that’s not–”

A hurt look, a weight in Jakurai’s voice as he interrupts. 

“Is it because I am your lover?”

The curveball hits Hifumi just as sharply, almost knocking a complaint out of him. Something like ‘don’t pressure him!’ or ‘let him talk it out!’, but neither emerge, seeing the flash of fear in Doppo’s eyes. Doppo doesn’t back down, blushing deeply now as well as coated in sweat. “Like I said, I have to figure it out–”

“Then let me help you.”

“You can’t !” It rips out of him like a shriek, one that bounces off the metal staircase. “Nobody can! I’m a lost fucking cause!”

 

–

 

The ice cubes jingle melodically as Hifumi swishes them around the glass, no less fancy than a measure of whisky would look in his hands. 

“I’m proud of you for finally sayin’ something, though.” Hifumi says truthfully.

“Yeah, ‘finally’.” Doppo takes a few long gulps, gazing aside to where Sweetie is laying belly-up in the lounge. 

“I’m happy for you too! Or, sad, maybe, I dunno. Depends on what you’re planning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean…?” Doppo sighs, setting down his emptied glass and shifting closer, settling his hands on Hifumi’s hips. Hifumi's heart leaps into his throat when he realises what he’s said, and without meaning to he throws his gaze back at him boldly like he’s less concerned and fragile than he actually is. Nothing twists him up worse inside than the fear of something feeling off in the happy little bubble of their shared home life, after all. 

The thing is, he kinda gets why Doppo lashed out like that over the editor thing. If he knows him the way he does, Doppo wouldn’t want Jakurai to simply plaster himself over this open wound – his bruises, his health, his chronic work overload – in an attempt to fix things when they’re already intertwined in other, more pleasant ways. The two of them barely open up to each other already. There’s just– there’s years’ worth of tension between them, and his older boyfriend’s offering to get involved in his work life? Even to help, even with his reputation and skills, that’s like striding naked into a warzone. One with no diplomats and a hell of a lot of friendly fire. Even Hifumi’s not immune when he sticks his nose into Doppo’s work life, where it doesn’t belong…

So he rolls his eyes dramatically, shrugs, swishes his glass with a ting-a-ling.

“Like! Not gonna assume what you two have got going on between yourselves, right? What you have is different to me ‘n’ him, I don’t wanna start thinking about taking sides, y’know!”

Behind those thick auburn curls, Doppo quirks an eyebrow. Hifumi tilts his glass semi-nervously, the smile strong on his lips even if eye contact with that burning gaze is a little too intense all of a sudden. 

“What? Whaaat?” he deflects.

“Are you worried about it…?”

“Mmm, well– I mean, I can’t really read you on this one,” Hifumi gives in, helped along by the way Doppo comes closer and eases him back until he meets the kitchen counter. “Which is… weird, for me…”

“Really?”

“Yeah." He feels shy to admit it, like a whispered sin.

"...Sorry, I'm not trying to hide anything, I just…" The small of Hifumi's back meets the kitchen counter with a gentle bump.

"Didn't say you were," Hifumi breathes and sets down his glass at last, feeling Doppo’s warmth much, much closer than expected during an almost deep conversation about relationships, and he closes his eyes automatically when Doppo leans in to nuzzle at his nose. His breath is sweet, even with the bitter tang of this morning’s coffee lingering still. “Mm, and even if you did, I wanna give you your space, y’know…?”

Doppo’s quiet, pushing close until he meets his lips. It’s all warmth and tenderness, so newly soft in this change of scenery even though they’d just been cuddling this morning in bed, enough that the caress of his tongue at the tender flesh of his lip has Hifumi wavering and letting out a soft sound. The hands on his hips skim up his back, rubbing lightly at his shoulderblades over his t-shirt. He parts his legs; Doppo slips a knee between them, pressing him against the counter. Hifumi urges towards it, stroking through his hair, playing at gripping the curls although he’s too weak to this sudden attention to do anything so fierce of the sort. Deep down Hifumi wants to crack a joke that his boyfriend’s only horny because they’re in sensei’s house, but deeper down, he wonders delicately if Doppo feels this way because he’s such a contrast to Jakurai. 

Jakurai, Jakurai. He’s thinking so much about him when Doppo’s right here. 

He can’t help being worried.

Maybe it’s irresponsible, but… he might just let that concern go, now that he doesn’t have an editor nearby, now that Doppo isn’t looking anywhere else… just for this weekend…

He comes back to the kiss, Doppo barely meeting his lips in some distracted way as Hifumi realises he’s wound his arms around his waist and is trying, somewhat uselessly, to lift him up. He squeezes him just a little too hard and Hifumi squeaks like a toy, batting at his hands until he can peel himself away and hop up to sit on the counter.

“Like this?”

Doppo looks up at him, disgruntled. “I had it.”

“You were squishing my insides out,” Hifumi snickers, leaning down to cup his chin and kiss him again, “Like a custard donut.”

“Just being dramatic–”

“Naughty.”

There isn’t enough room to do this back at home between their various kitchen appliances on the counters and the constant presence of toaster crumbs no matter how hard Hifumi scrubs, so it’s no wonder his head spins with heat as soon as he’s up here – Doppo pushing between his thighs, pulling him down into a needy kiss, thumbs working up along the inner seams of his leggings until they’re both panting with anticipation with the loosest connection of the hot kiss at their lips, Hifumi’s elbows leaning more and more heavily onto Doppo’s shoulders the more he teases at touching him. He shimmies closer and closer to the edge, dreaming of riding him, even if Doppo apparently can’t carry enough of his bodyweight to get him up there in the first place. But Doppo’s clearly thinking about it too, only letting go of his thighs long enough to tug at his waistband, his kisses turning to bites on his lower lip. This height difference is fun.

In some flash of resourcefulness Doppo changes tack and lifts Hifumi’s t-shirt, and he can’t hold back a yelp that transforms into a sweet moan the instant his warm mouth meets his chest, kissing between his pectorals with soft petal-like ticklishness that flashes heat through him, ranging towards a nipple all open-mouthed and lewd. Hifumi rests his forearms over his head, whining, pushing his chest out towards him until Doppo sucks–

But, something catches Hifumi’s eye now he’s freed from bending down to reach Doppo. This higher vantage point lets him see the kitchen in a whole new light, and despite knowing it pretty well from the few times he’s made dinner here, he suddenly realises he can see what’s on each shelf of the wall-mounted cabinets. He blinks, wholly distracted. Then leans back. There’s a weird pop of wet suction as Doppo’s mouth pulls off his skin.

“Ooh, someone doesn’t dust up here,” Hifumi says, and clambers to his feet up on the counter as though he wasn’t just being lavished with the sweetest care to make him flush pink from top to toe. He can’t help it; the househusband synapses in his brain are firing like a sparkler. Doppo dumbly flails at his shins too late to snare him back, his lip shiny with drool.

“H-Hifumi! Careful!”

Nimble as anything he heads along the counters until he meets the wall-mounted cabinets despite Doppo’s protests, and runs a fingertip along the top, filling his palm with a dustbunny big enough to register it as a pedigree. “Woooowww. Okay, guess I figured out how we’re gonna pay him back…”

“Th-the gas hob, Hifumi, mind your feet, Christ–”

“Wait, what’s this?!”

The bottle Hifumi pulls out from the very topmost cabinet shelf, too far to be seen from floor-level, stops Doppo’s worrying in its tracks.

“Why does sensei… have something like that?” he frowns as Hifumi sits back down on the edge of a different counter, cradling his treasure.

“Right?!”

It’s whisky. With a perfect wax seal on the top, some textured paper label, and a mellow-looking amber swirling inside.

“Islay? Hoo boy, this is the good stuff. This is the kinda thing sensei drinks, huh!” Hifumi supposes, surprising himself with how hard it is to make a deduction like that sound smart. Doppo tilts his head and sighs.

“Doesn’t look like it, since it’s sealed… w-wait, Hifumi, stop.” 

“Hmmn?”

As if he can let his catch go now; Doppo crosses his arms, disgruntled and flushed. Or maybe that's just what anxiety looks like on him when he's still horny.

"Come on, put it back.”

Hifumi does not put it back. He tilts his head and smirks with the sordid realisation that what he has in his gay little mitts is bonafide dirt on his editor. It gives him a midnight junk food hit of satisfaction. At least some leverage in this terse situation.

“Doppo-chiiiin… Aren’t you asking yourself why he has this?”

Doppo’s eyebrows knit. “It could be– could be anything, none of our business.”

“As if he drinks. He trashes the place.”

“It’s probably just a gift, right?”

Hifumi sighs. “Yeah, but who ? Everyone at work knows he’s teetotal.”

“Sometimes people are just that thoughtless, aren’t they?”

“Who’s thoughtless enough to buy someone something this ‘spenny without knowing what they actually like? Like, sheesh, just save it and get him some nice gyokuro or–”

“I mean…” Most people, Doppo’s expression reads very clearly, before his frown deepens into perplexion. “How ‘spenny– expensive are we talking?”

Hifumi tells him and Doppo pales.

“P-Put it back.”

“Don’t like me tamperin’ with the evidence, detective~?”

"Wha– don't say that like I'm the one pretending to be Holmes here!"

"I'm cute as Conan, but you're my Watson!"

“Idiot. Look, sensei would be embarrassed knowing we were talking about him like this, put it back already.”

Hifumi pouts, but it’s the kick he needs to get him to carefully replace it and dust the shelves while he’s there so that the traces of their discovery are lost in the sparkling cleanliness of the whole cabinet. Doppo plucks a dust-bunny out of Hifumi’s hair on his return down.

“Are ya mad?”

“A bit,” Doppo refuses to even look at the cabinet, like he wants to pretend that never happened. Hifumi wiggles his finger under his chin to distract him until he leans against him, turning to petting his cheek instead. There’s a bare millimetre of a beard-hair he’s missed in his morning shave that Hifumi tries not to think about plucking for him.

“Too mad about it to pick up where we left off…?”

Doppo reddens, reaching his hands up to Hifumi’s now to help him back down from the counter.

“Of course not.”

–

 

They nap instead. But that’s fine, that’s unusual for even their days off, anyway; Doppo’s starting to see Hifumi’s point of view about the durability and cosiness of the furniture in Jakurai’s place. Sweetie sits on his chest playing with the zipper-pull on his hoodie for a good ten minutes even after he wakes up, immobile with comfort while Hifumi chops away in the open kitchen. Dinner is gratin, since Jakurai has a built-in oven, and Hifumi can't help but throw a couple of crème caramels in there too, delighted to find pristine cookware in the cupboards still in its packaging.

The way to a man’s heart is his stomach and, satisfyingly, Doppo seems to hold back any resistance to the big hot bath Hifumi starts running for the two of them after that gourmet little feast. He sits dripping with tepid shower-water on the stool as Hifumi kneels beside the bath, large and square and deep with duck egg blue tiles that makes their little enamel tub at home look like a trough in comparison, swishing the water through and through until it’s the perfect temperature. Doppo dips in his toes gingerly to test before joining Hifumi in sinking his body beneath the surface with a rip-roaring sigh of pleasure that rings off the walls just enough to make the bathroom feel smaller than it really is.

"No wonder he's so calm," Doppo murmurs, eyes shut and laying back with his head tilted up towards the ceiling. Hifumi watches as the humidity makes his curls droop back from his forehead like a lazy wave until the agate-pop teal of his roots starts to show. It’s a sight for sore eyes. Almost makes him forget the unsolved whisky puzzle in the kitchen that’s got his mind on overdrive. Jakurai, Jakurai, man of mystery. He thought the whole point of his untouchable reputation at the publishing-house was that he was so strictly unique in his teetotal-ness.

Doppo sighs, making that churning blender of thoughts slow down to setting 1. No harm in joining him on this wavelength, Hifumi thinks, and gives in to sinking under the water. 

“Baths really are the best…”

"Right? Ugh, we totally didn't have to go all the way to that inn, we coulda just done it here."

"We don't do massages, though."

"Speak for yourself, my fingers’re ma-a-agic on your shoulders and you know it."

Doppo raises his head to reply just as a bath-bomb plops out of a brown paper bag in Hifumi’s hands straight into the water. Doppo’s yelp is cut short only from the splash hitting his tongue.

“Ack– Hifumi!"

"Yaaaay! Whoahoa, check out that fizz!"

"S-Stop! He didn’t say we could use the bath like this–!”

“He’d’a been here all day if he was gonna specify every little thing we can and can’t do,” Hifumi rolls his eyes, knees up and spinning the little ball foaming away at the surface of the bathwater.  Just the sound of it going makes him feel more partylike, like so much champagne popping, and the aromas are full like fresh flowers blooming across the water. “Live a little, Chin-popo. I can’t justify one of these at home!”

“You sure as hell can if it means– oh, my god, am I gonna get dyed purple?” Doppo lurches out of the water slightly, his hips and pubic hair coated in lilac seafoam, and Hifumi can’t help smirking in delight at his pixiedust-coloured boyfriend.

“Yeah, if you don’t wipe it off sharpish!”

Doppo rubs, instantly pops a boner, then reddens furiously and sits firmly down with a splash to the tune of Hifumi’s laughter.

“It’s like a special occasion,” Hifumi muses once they’ve established that it isn’t just an aromatic ball of powdered food dye, sticking his leg out of the tub and resting it on the side, “We can both fit. Like… like, it feels like a hotel, y’know.”

Doppo shifts from where he was kneeling to sit more comfortably, cross-legged in front of Hifumi. “Yeah, but you don’t have to… wait for the two of us to have a bath to justify it. I thought you went to that store all the time.”

“I do! For perfume and stuff.”

Doppo wrinkles his nose and Hifumi just smiles more, knowing he's thinking of his work mode drenched in tasteful jasmine and passionfruit. Categorically it's a work expense. This kind of thing feels frivolous even to him; spending something on this, alone, would be no fun. So…

“So just use the bath stuff at home.” Doppo murmurs.

Wiggling his toes, Hifumi looks at him briefly, then caves. “Mmmmmaybe next time? Heheh."

Finally uncurled, Doppo leans his head on his corner of the bath with his gaze dead on the perfectly-pedicured foot in front of him, then reaches out to stroke Hifumi’s ankle. It’s ticklish, and his lip twitches but he resists, even as Doppo starts to rub at the funny gap under his ankle-bone.

“You really like this house,” Doppo murmurs all of a sudden. Unexpectedly, it feels like he’s hit a bullseye with the sharpest-tipped arrow of the quiver, the way Hifumi’s stomach clenches slightly just before he has to double down on not kicking Doppo in the eyes with the ticklishness of a sudden foot massage.

“It, it, ah–! Ah! Jakurai’s house is just big compared to– yeek! Eek! Heeeek! No, don’t stop!”

“Which bit is ticklish?”

“Everything but the arch! Yeah th– no! Yeeeek! ”

"Stop– stop, look, how about I do your back instead?"

Doppo's knees are bony against Hifumi's back and before long he realises he's being spooned in the rose-scented bathwater, the skin of his legs flush against his, suddenly looking darker than ever from the heat casting them each in deep pink hues, some anime sunset palette gorgeousness. The thumbing up on either side of his spine has him smiling and sighing up towards the ceiling. 

It’s not half-bad. They might be in someone else’s home, but Hifumi feels like this is the best quality time they’ve had in weeks.

Eventually Doppo stops pretending he knows what he's doing and the ‘massage’ turns to slow, long pets, slower and longer as the bathwater cools. Then Doppo's chest touches his back– pushes against it, those arms closing around his chest in a refreshing hug. Only, Hifumi can't stop staring down at his hands in front of him. The water's softened his calluses, his knuckles are pink. The veins on the backs of his hands stand out slightly with the heat. His hands, his hands. Just the sight makes him think of where they were going earlier, in the kitchen; what they can do, what they could do. A shiver runs through him, half-sensitive, half-aroused.

"Doppo…" his voice comes out small. A gentle press of damp curls to his bared shoulder.

"Mmm."

Those fingertips twitch over his chest like they know they're being watched, and Hifumi whines into the way Doppo slowly slips them over his nipple until he jerks forward out of the water.

"O-okay, wise guy, let's go to bed then…!"

Doppo's tongue is poking out as he reluctantly pulls the bathtub plug. It’s wild how that’s all it takes for Hifumi’s mind to run amok - the tip of his tongue, something he used to tease him about on the way home from kindergarten, now something that sends his imagination sparking with memories and fantasies, and he wriggles out of his grip far more dramatically that he needs to just for that extra bit of skin-to-skin contact with the slight slipperiness of the suds. God, he needs to stop being so fussy about when and where they bone, he tells himself, but also… but also…

 

–

 

“Magenta,” he murmurs between kisses in the doorway of Jakurai’s bedroom, pulling Doppo’s hips flush against his by the towel around his butt. “Magenta dick,” he says again, in case Doppo didn’t hear it. His boyfriend frowns back in that split-second Hifumi peeks his eyes open to check for a reaction; his grin gets him a sloppy kiss on the teeth, but Doppo just tilts his head further like he missed.

“Why don’t you wipe it off, then…” 

“Just might.” 

It’s hard to walk and talk and do things when this isn’t their own bedroom, when the gap to Jakurai’s bed is somewhat familiar but not memorised since the last time he was here he had his eyes– well, on the prize, when he was entering the room. One arm wrapped around his shoulders in this silly messy kiss, the other hand sneaks between their stomachs. 

“Doppo… Doppo, lemme get to–” he snickers, nosing against his cheek as Doppo absolutely does not let his roaming hand squeeze in anywhere with a little shove of his hips, like he wants to hide the fact his boner is half from the cold of stepping out from the steamy bathroom. “Doppo–! Gosh, how’m I meant to–”

Hifumi squeaks with the backs of his knees meeting the bedframe and Doppo supporting him down, the kisses ranging down his jaw to soft squeaks then sighs as Doppo finds the perfect spot to fixate on down the side of his neck, and he clings to his back and arches. The way Doppo pushes him down further into the memory foam has him feeling like he’s about to have a sweet cosy fuck nestled in a cloud, and he sighs, light and happy. And as always, Doppo just has to be his opposite, with a funny grunt of frustration. Hifumi giggles.

“What’s that for, grouchy~?”

“Let me get to your neck.”

“Only if you let me get to your–”

He successfully makes hand-to-dick contact, and, jackpot, Doppo makes a sound that’s more intense than any of his little huffs and quips all afternoon with the first pump of his cock. Hifumi can’t help a delighted laugh. 

“Mm, Hifumi–”

“Goooo-ood? Been waiting too long?”

“You’re the one who keeps– mmf. Slow down…” Doppo breathes under his gentle rhythm, stroking and dragging his fingers up and down along his cock, pulling only lightly to encourage him closer up on the bed; luckily Doppo follows with eyes half-shut like he’s giving in, edging along on his knees the way Hifumi wriggles back on the king-size spread. That kind of look, that’s gorgeous to him. It’s so rare to get Doppo’s full attention like this. “God, Hifumi, we didn’t even clean the bath yet–”

“Later, later, before– before tomorrow, for sure, don’tcha worry.” Hifumi adds quickly, and it’s wild how he loses his breath so easily once Doppo starts panting. Like they should be matching here, too. Teasing him– well, it ain’t teasing, it’s just taking it slow – it’s the best, the best, and the lighting in Jakurai’s bedroom is so good, he eats up the sight. Doppo nods distractedly, his chest heaving over him.

“Don’t forget.”

“Cross my heart,” he whispers, picking up the pace. Doppo moans, curled over him; Hifumi tightens his thighs against his hips; Doppo’s hand finds its way to his hair and strokes, tugs the curls free from his bathwater-wet ponytail, until they’re both arching, grinding against one another, warmer than any hot spring could make them. 

In their home with paper-thin walls it’s hard to let loose. But here, detached from others and equipped with a functioning thermostat, the noise seems to sink into the place, not bounce off shoddily-insulated pipes and shoji. Like it’s just him and Doppo far away, away from all of that. No stress or real lives to go back to. He’s so relieved he got them each up to speed on their deadlines before Friday even hit.

Hifumi doesn’t realise he’s breathing quite so hard until Doppo pulls back for a moment and the temperature change hits him, their sweaty thighs sticking on the way apart.

“Doppo–”

“Get you ready,” he mumbles back, already a mess with a dark flush across his chest, auburn overgrown curls flopping into his eyes as he kneels across the bed to reach the nightstand; he pauses midway to catch the back of Hifumi’s thigh dropping slightly, massaging lower and lower down to his ass as he shifts, a thumb pulling at the skin of his bridge. “You want–? You want to?”

“Yes–!” God, he thought he’d never ask! “Yes, I–” A thought occurs to him suddenly as he sees the love of his life lean sideways enough that the ceiling light shines brightly upon him like some kind of surgical lamp. “Wait, Doppo?”

“Then I’ll, it’s, I’ll get the–”

Hifumi sits up a tad, stomach muscles clenching. “Doppo, Doppo-chin, wait, hol’up–”

“I don’t want to wait,” he murmurs, even as Hifumi reaches to stroke his cheek, tries to tilt his chin back to him, and he just mouths over the thumb at his lip in his reactionary way, flustered and fixated as hell. “Mm– I’ll warm it up, it’s–”

“We’re not at home, the lube isn’t there,” Hifumi says more quickly than planned as the worry sinks in fast and terrifying, “Hey! We can’t just go through sensei’s bedroom stuff!”

Doppo looks at him dumbly for a moment, bare ass in the air on all fours as he clumsily holds the drawer-handle. The words stay locked between them – hypocritical, now that Hifumi thinks about it, suddenly ashamed. Like, now rooting through his belongings is a problem? Now it’s a issue? Something deflates in him as he sees his plea have absolutely zero effect in this empty-headed horny state. Doppo breaks the silence first, chest heaving.

“You went in the kitchen cupboard, so…”

Hifumi wavers. “Y-Yeah, but his bedroom is differe–” Doppo pulls open the drawer with a loud rattle. “Doppo!”

“...Sh, shit–”

“What? What was that?!”

Doppo can’t jam the drawer closed quick enough for Hifumi to climb over and wrench it open; a little bottle catches his eye, small and plasticky and slightly yellowed with the fade of age, tipped over inside the somewhat stark drawer and nestled on some papers. The scent of acetone is gentle but unmistakeable.

“Quick, tissues!”

“Shit, shit, oh god, sensei, I’m sorry!”

Scrambled from the other bedside table, Hifumi lifts out the wodge of papers with the stain, all the tension in his body turned from wound-up arousal to sudden fear that they’ve already managed to ruin something in the house after barely a few hours left alone. He blots first, then readjusts his priorities. “Let’s close the bottle.”

Soon their hands each smell like acetone too. The air in the room feels surreal, suspended somewhat; Doppo’s boner might have died down, but the bodyheat emanating from him is going to take a while to cool, like a preheated baking tray. Blotting the papers with tissues, Hifumi tries not to make his sigh to calm himself too obvious; the last thing he wants right now is an anxiety spiral from either of them. Doppo’s eyes follow his hands as he undoes and screws back on the bottle cap to re-thread it properly, possibly prevent this happening again. Sensei, you’re seriously weird sometimes.

“No lube but he keeps nail polish remover next to the bed?” Doppo murmurs.

“Well, Jakurai does, like– jewellery projects, right? It’s good for paint and glue and stuff… varnish…” Hifumi shrugs, irked and crestfallen from their broken rhythm, and finally lifts the wodge of tissues reluctantly to observe the damage. The paper doesn’t look irreparably blotchy. He can still read the letters, just about.

When he does read the letters, though, his stomach drops like an icicle.

 

Wedding invite – RSVP

Amemura Ramuda – Jinguuji Jakurai

 

“Pass it back, I’ll fold it.”

“Doppo.”

Doppo shakes his head, refusing to look at whatever’s been opened already. “We’ve done enough damage, we can’t be looking at his documents too–”

Hifumi presses a shaking hand to his boyfriend’s thigh. “Look.”

“Leave it, Hifumi.”

He squeezes. “Look.”

Doppo throws him a withering look, momentarily aged by the stress and the gear-switching; looks down like he’s expecting to find a joke, but his mouth opens of its own accord when he scans the words printed so simply.

 

“What the…”

Hifumi isn’t shaking, he doesn’t think, but he is suddenly cold in the nude. “He told you he was divorced or something, didn’t he?”

Doppo almost moves to touch the elegant ridged paper, then stops himself, using the momentum to pull a bedsheet across his bare lap instead. “Something like… no, he said he never got married. That it was a fiancé, but…”

“Then is this the failed wedding invite?”

“...”

It must be, the silence bellows.

Hifumi’s numb with the realisation that they don’t know a single thing about this man.

 

They put it back – all of it, the card, the envelopes beneath and paper-slips on top, the bottle – in as accurate of an order as can be managed when it was pulled apart in a sex-scrambled state, they wash their hands, and through it all, through the cold flecks of water from the ensuite bathroom spray-tap hitting his stomach like stabbing needles, through Doppo’s rustling through the overnight bag for the toothbrush he definitely definitely “definitely!” packed this morning, Hifumi can’t put away the thought that this was all an omen, or something. 

That he made this happen, or something.

 

That this is what he gets for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, in someone else’s past, in something so sealed and unknowable that just a dip into the murky depths has him poisoned, ill with the consequences. It’s happened before, in any case.

Like that, it’s something fated.

 

Something inevitable like that.

 

–

 

Despite his almost-perfect bedtime routine missing only the journaling and facemask stage, something rouses him in the night. Laying on his back, staring at the ceiling in the murky indigo of the unfamiliar bedroom, it takes Hifumi a minute to plough through weird half-dreams and remember where he is, and figure out that it was probably just a cat noise. Nothing goes bump in the night at their place except Doppo, after all.

Doppo… After a moment just blinking sleepily, he turns to see Doppo staring right back at him.

“Yeek!”

“God,” Doppo flinches. “Sorry.”

“Doppo-chin, seriously.” Once he’s got his breath back and his heart stops pretending like he’s about to go on stage, he rolls onto his side, smiling before he can help it. “Dreamin’ ‘bout me? Needed to look at the real thing?”

“You were pulling the covers off me.”

“Huh? That bad? It’s king size, though…”

Doppo gestures widely to where he’s ass out and goosepimply, the duvet dragged wholly over to Hifumi’s side. Well, that’s one way to figure out that this habit of his doesn’t break even in a different bed.

“It’s ‘cause you let your guard down around me,” he snickers as Doppo rearranges the bedcover situation, even tucking him in a little fiercely as though in revenge. Hifumi wriggles. Their 3am chats are always so silly.

“I’m defenceless in my sleep, you know that,” Doppo sighs. “What if I catch a cold?”

“I’ll nurse ya back to health, you lucky guy!”

“Jakurai would never forgive himself if I got sick here, he’d think it was his fault…”

 

Just the mention of his name has Hifumi rigid like a bound mummy in the taut tucked-in sheets. Instantly Doppo levels his gaze at him as he lays back down, and Hifumi knows the jig is up.

“Knew it.”

“H-Hm? What?”

“It’s obvious you’re worried,” Doppo cleaves right through his attempt to play it off with his stare, halfway between pleading and firm. Damn, the middle of the night is honesty hour! So unfair, Doppo! He can’t exactly help scrambling to defend himself, now!

“‘Cause, ‘cause, um, I guess we, you, never really talked to me about your… relationships… so I don’t know what your kind of, like, your communication is–”

“Communication? What, arguing?”

“I didn’t say that!” Although they’d apologised back then, the memory of their last fight over a fucking work project stabs Hifumi like a knife, and he flops in defeat. Can’t resist this. Can’t shut it down. “But, yeah, I guess you guys argued, i-if that’s the definition of an argument. It makes me nervous...”

For a long moment Doppo stays silent, not even swallowing like there isn’t a trace of anxiety in his body, and it only makes Hifumi’s pulse skyrocket like he’s carrying it for the both of them. Yikes. I’m the odd one out here, huh.

“We’re not going to– Hifumi, I don’t plan on breaking up with him or anything.”

The words are too brutal. They kick a lump up in his throat at the very sound of them. Breaking up.

“I just feel like, like, you both feel so strongly, I don’t see a compromise, and– and we just, I just, after all, after all that I don’t know anything about him and how he might react and what if–”

“Hey, hey…”

Hifumi curls against his chest. “It’s just, it’s just, it’s scary, y’know?”

“Hifumi…”

 

Doppo cards his fingers through his hair, catching stubborn curls on their way.

 

“I’m… we’re going to talk about it. I want to work things out. I know he feels the same, so… Can you trust me on this?”

Hifumi worries his lip. He always trusts him. Doppo strokes his shoulder, his palm’s calluses softer now from the cocoa butter bath-bomb.

Maybe it isn’t about trust, maybe it’s about– having faith, or something.

‘I’m just scared that even you can’t work things out’ would sound terrible. 

Not because it’s Doppo. Not because it’s Jakurai, in all his mystery.

Something about the fact that he himself is here makes it feel like everything might crumble.

In the dark it’s easier to look Doppo in the eyes, bearing a slight gleam from a tiny gap in the curtains, while he holds that weird weight dragging down his hope no matter how much it struggles to flutter upwards. But, god, he’ll try. He’ll try. He’s screwing up his eyes before he can help it, burrowing against his chest. Just for now, let me be scared.

It shouldn’t be this tough, but he’s no stranger to that feeling.

 

“I’ll trust you. You got this, Doppo-chin.”

–

 

They’ve known Jakurai to swing the steering-wheel a little lackadaisically at times, but the way his car speeds and wrenches around in a neat U-turn down the road screams some kind of urgency. Hifumi would wince, but he smirks instead. The clap-clap of the doors opening, slamming, and Jakurai struggling somehow to get his ponytail under control where it’s tangled between his coat’s epaulettes and the button on his glove are… sights to behold, for sure, when he and Doppo are doing what they do best for him: look simple and welcoming and cute as hell with Sweetie in Hifumi’s arms once more on the doorstep.

“No way does he know,” Doppo mutters through gritted teeth.

Better not, but not impossible, Hifumi thinks. Instead he shrugs. “Probs just needs to pee real bad.” 

Doppo chops his shoulder to get the anxiety out before Jakurai hustles up the driveway, slightly sweaty. It’s unexpected, all right.

“I apologise for the delay– the GPS put me on a route something labyrinthine to avoid the toll roads. Truly. I should have called.” Jakurai almost pants, like he’s been worrying about it all journey. There’s mud quite thickly on the suitcase-wheels, Hifumi notices. The sticks, all right. Doppo’s already scrambling to reassure, the strain in his voice like he needs him unsweaty and perfect ASAP or he’s going to head down the same path.

“P-Please don’t… a-ah, Jakurai, we weren’t–” 

“No callin’ while drivin’, right? You were just being a good boy,” Hifumi gives his sunniest smile and totes Sweetie’s paw, her sour ball eyes snapping to saucers when she sees her favourite pincushion. “Welcome hoooome, Jakurai. Girl missed ya.”

“We did too,” Doppo adds. Jakurai looks dewily at them both and Hifumi only notices he’s sagging slightly from– tiredness? guilt? When he straightens up, gazing slightly past the two of them like there’s something in the hallway.

For a gut-wrenching moment, eyes wide, Hifumi fears he’s missed something.

Like that the Islay wasn’t put away.

Or that the nail polish remover bottle, pink-rimmed and sparkly with old gunk, is emptier than expected after using a few dabs to clean the bathtub.

Or that the drawer being opened caused some– some disturbance in the air of the house, a rift somewhere, something–

Hifumi breathes. He can’t fall down this slippery slope, he tells himself, clutching Sweetie tightly, he can’t.

But if anyone can see right through the things he’s done like a regular St. Peter, it’s Jakurai.

He gulps, meeting Jakurai’s gaze where he’s finally caught his breath.

 

“I was right to have faith in you two,” Jakurai says, as tender as his gentle hug around their shoulders is real and warm with stress and haste. Even if Doppo does his usual flustered one-armed hug back, the relief is slow to soak into Hifumi like the first drops of rain after a drought. Still, the wedding invite flashes back into his mind, that name, the facts, the ex-fiancé spoken about that one time and dropped instantly. Like, who could think Jakurai would get so worried over something like being late after a hell of a cross-country drive? Wouldn’t you just– stop feeling bad for anything, ever, if you got broken up with so badly? It sounded like it crushed him, so to fuss over the two of them– him and Doppo, cute as they are, this pair of wrecks… “Thank you… I knew I could leave things in your hands without any worries.”

“Sen–” Doppo nearly bites his own tongue as Hifumi pinches his hip sneakily to get him out of the habit. “Jaku–! Jakurai, it’s okay, you’re– you’re back now.”

“Can’t wait to hear about the trip,” Hifumi murmurs, snuggling into the side of Jakurai’s neck until all three of them are ticklish enough to finally part.

But he and Doppo share a quick look.

 

…No, what they found is a secret. They weren’t to know. That much is obvious, that much is going to plague Hifumi til the end of his days, he reckons.

Yet Doppo’s eyes linger just long enough, like he’s gathering the strength he needs from somewhere, before he turns to face Jakurai, taking his hand that’s atop the suitcase handles.

“So… um, l-let me help with your suitcase…”

Jakurai nods, eyes a little dull from the long drive, and sweeps his hair back over his other shoulder with loops and curls of tangles from buttons and creased from the driver’s seat. 

“Thank you. Ah, Hifumi-kun–”

“I got babysittin’ duty!” he laughs, toting Sweetie with her big, curious eyes. The way Doppo ploughs forward with the delicate glance back over his shoulder to his partners is too precious, too vital for the flow to be ruined now. Hifumi flashes a winning smile, one sure to rule out any doubt in anybody’s mind in the room. Things’ll work out , he tells himself sternly. “You guys go ahead!”

Jakurai’s expression is nothing short of curious for that split-second before he nods, drawn back to the doorway, to Doppo with his thumb stroking over his knuckles.

“I’m very lucky to have you both.” he murmurs, and it’s almost with excitement that he follows their lead back inside.

Chapter 7

Summary:

The one where he buys them dinner.

Notes:

ot3 time!!! these fools have kinks and feelings!!!!!

thank you for reading; i know it's been a long gap, i'm home sick again haha and i forgot how to write for 6 months i think.
this chapter was hard to write (sorry Jakurai I am fistfighting you) but the next few i have planned are somehow easier plotwise so let's gooooooo!! enjoy!

You never gave me reason to hesitate.

I misspoke: 

You never gave me enough reason to hesitate.

Because your every laugh was saccharine, like you loved life and breath itself; your every glance was wide-eyed and open to take in the world before you. It made me look around. It made me believe that there was humour to be found in the lines of our surroundings.

Hesitation is an extension of our senses, our alertness. 

I sheathed it and asked:

“Would you run away with me?”

You, bright, smiled.

“Wow, ya big dummy. Wanna try it again on one knee?”

 

***

 

For all its familiarity, the domesticated shape, it is off-road. A ceiling above and the floor below; the tatami, a feat of triumph over nature; the kotatsu’s heater merely Prometheus’ natural end-goal; yet Jakurai finds it liminal, today, as though he remains one or two evolutions behind where he needs to be.

Being a line manager to a lover is rather different than how he had imagined it. That line is less strictly adhered-to than he would have liked, but his creators – these two – hardly see it.

Responsibility has never scared him. So he wonders what this anxious feeling is, exactly.

With a slow exhale, he imagines it draining from his body, and unfolds his tight legs from his kneeling seiza by the kotatsu until he can stretch out them into the empty space beside him.

“S-Sorry! Sorry that I’m taking so long to read.” Doppo apologises suddenly opposite him, his voice startling, accompanied by the rustling of the sheets of their new contract in his hands. Jakurai ceases stretching his calves one by one to smile at him.

“Please, take your time.”

“You sighed…”

“I suppose I did,” he concedes delicately, ready to unpick the messy tangles of Doppo’s overthinking. “I merely feel stiff from a long walk yesterday. Don’t mind me.”

“Y-Yeah, yes. Sorry. I just– it’s a lot, I’m taking ages.” Doppo hangs his head. “For all Baldie– uh, my boss loves some paperwork, I feel like we never go over my contract renewal, he just does it without me ever seeing it… there are so many add-ons and revisions it’s like he doesn’t bother to reread it after inserting them, but it’s the kinda stuff I think is… important, I think, for me to know,” Blunt, bitten nails pick at the staple in the papers, making a click-click-click that will go nowhere but fleshwards if he carries on. “Hah, then again, I don’t read them either, not really, I barely check them; just like how I barely ever read the Terms of Service and then it’s ‘Insta owns all your IP if you upload a single thing’ and ‘by applying to this contest you concede the rights to take down usage of your work’ so it’s my fault, really, anyway I feel like the last time I even saw a contract was for the anime project, plus it was only temporary so it’s not like it was as important as the rest of my –” The papers crease in his grip, sudden and tight with a spasm of RSI in his right hand.

“Look at me, Doppo.” he says. “Breathe.”

Intervention is a somewhat strong term for this habit of his, when he speaks to soothe and stem the flow before it becomes a drain.

Doppo’s eyes open with a gasp, darting to him immediately, and he releases his grip, mouth open in a downturned tremor of apology before he can even voice it. “Sorry, y-you didn’t want to hear…”

“I do. But now isn't the time.” Jakurai takes the risk, reaching out across their little gap to touch his hand, somewhat askew with his legs tilted out to counter Doppo's formal kneel; feeling his dry yet warm skin, he lifts his hand to the kotatsu-top, their makeshift desk. “Right now, we are discussing a contract. Before it is sealed, we shall agree on it, and before that, I will confirm it, and before that still, you will breathe, Doppo.”

He doesn’t enjoy using this firm tone with a lover, Jakurai is coming to find. Nevertheless it is necessary and it works. Doppo practises his steady breathing until his hand uncurls from the contract, and he sets it on the desk for the moment, its crease debossed sharp and sunset-pink in the flesh of his palm. Jakurai takes in the look of that tension, its effects, before he sets his weight back in the seat-cushion a tad.

“We were in agreement on terms of invoicing and in the event of termination. So let us go over the core wording once more, shall we?”

Doppo presses his knuckles to his knees and sits up straight. The tension in him makes him taut, fit to snap. “Yes…!”

Jakurai breathes slowly through his nose and dons his reading-glasses one more time. He has carried out this process many times, for tens of creators under his care over the years. For temporary staff, even, in his early days, before he won the right to be entrusted with permanent, growing bodies of work. The framework is the same– however today, the words are different. His role is different.

His acts aren’t impulsive, and not without doubt.

Jakurai conceals how many times he has revised this for today’s delivery, fluid as a rakugo performer, as he opens his mouth and reads aloud from the printed documents. It feels wonderfully concrete to be able to call himself the 'agent' to Doppo's 'freelancer'. Not editor, but at last– something. He reads out the dry first few clauses before reaching for his cup of tea.

“That commission rate still sounds so high…” Doppo sighs. Yes, Jakurai notes, he’d caught him shifting in his seat a little once the contract turned to that clause. He stays silent, allowing him to voice his concerns, as is his right. “Considering you’re doing the, um, the hard part–”

Hearing Doppo speak about himself like that never gets easier. In fact, it hits him harder as the months go by. Jakurai swallows. 

“Please, don’t think about it that way. See it as different strengths. Art is yours. Negotiation, clarification, and chasing are mine.”

“Can say that again,” Hifumi’s voice trails in from the kitchen. Jakurai glances over. Hifumi is supposed to have headphones on, keeping out of the situation to make his partner less self-conscious. After a beat there comes a tiny ‘oop!’ before the sound of the spray-bottle goes again and the tinny sugar-pop music from his headphones is cranked loud enough to filter through to the lounge. Jakurai releases an exhale and turns back to Doppo.

“Twenty percent until your income from freelance work makes a third of your take-home salary. Any more and I fear you won’t be seeing anything after tax.”

“J-Jakurai…” Doppo’s lip trembles.

“More? Less?” What a fearsome process. Doppo shakes his head.

“That, that works. That’s good. Thank you. That makes sense.”

“Excellent. I shall write that in, along with today’s date for any future amendments.” Unlike his other creators, Doppo seems to hold his breath and watch intensely until he has finished penning in the relevant information, and he looses it all in one as Jakurai marks his section with his own hanko stamp in dark grey ink. The Kannonzaka ink-stamp next to it looks a little less neat, blotchy like droplets of blood in comparison. Jakurai watches it dry as he wipes clean both stamps with the same cloth, then stacks the papers neatly.

“That’s it?”

Jakurai smiles back. “Save for scanning for the digital copies that I shall send across to you… yes, I believe that is all. Unless you have any questions or… second thoughts?”

“No! N-No, absolutely not. Thank you, um–” Before he can get another word of gratitude in edgeways, Doppo’s head is bowed down like a flash. “Thank you very much! Please treat me kindly!”

Jakurai cannot help but redden slightly at such a sentiment surging out of him like that; not an apology for once, but a dear, deep emotion wrapped up in formality. He opens his mouth wordlessly for a mere moment before offering the same gesture back, hands on his knees as he lowers his head, his hair slipping down past his ears and pooling on the tatami beside him.

“Please treat me well, too. I look forward to working with you. My first freelancer.”

Once unfolded, Doppo seems exhausted but relieved, rubbing at the side of his neck and smudging a lick of ink across the skin. Jakurai smiles. It is a weight off both of them, or perhaps, a burden exchanged for a ready role to carry. Right on time, Hifumi erupts into the room smelling of disinfectant cream cleaner and the washing-up gloves he’s wearing, gripping the doorframe with a squeak of rubber.

“Ya done? Signed? Made it official?!”

“E-eh, yeah, more or less… ack!”

“Doppo!” Hifumi throws his arms around his neck, nuzzling in despite the in-the-middle-of-washing-dishes state of his hands, if Doppo’s protests are anything to go by. “You did it! Now we’re like peas in a pod!”

“I– It’s nothing to do with your contract with– eugh, the gloves, th-they’re dripping on me!”

“It’s just dishwater! Oooh, my handsome li’l freelancer, I’m so proud of you! Mwah! Mwah!”

Hifumi kisses him all over his face before beaming at Jakurai from over Doppo's shoulder. It’s a marvellous sight, a true balm to watch Doppo redden as his eyes flicker to Hifumi, to him, to the completed contract, and back again. It helps it all to sink in– the knowledge that Doppo is doing this out of his own volition, and with a little encouragement, not because Jakurai simply pressured him to. The feeling of selfishness soaks and dilutes, now, into a type of compromise. What he has with Hifumi, he can, to an extent, share with Doppo. It looks similar, but he cannot relax knowing how different the two of them are.

Doppo’s boundary – ‘Nobody can! I’m a lost fucking cause!’ – is anchored to the firmament of his mind, like a speaker, blaring. Hifumi’s openness – ‘Then, how about… my future workplace? My house?’ – is the budding of a spring rose, a fresh and romantic feeling every time he steps over the threshold.

No doubt the two of them have spoken about this a thousand times more than he has thought about it. 

The image of Doppo in his hospital bed flashes before him.

He allows as much tension as he can to exit through a sigh, before a smile follows, and filing away his copy of the contract in his bag. The instant he caps his fountain-pen, Hifumi’s attention clicks onto him, magnet-like. 

“Sensei, you leavin’ already?” Doppo’s eyes crease as Hifumi talks over his shoulder, Jakurai cannot help but notice. “You can’t’ve come over just for a check-in and one meeting, right?”

He removes his reading-glasses. “That is what I came here for. I must admit, I find myself more tired than expected after a one-to-one like that.” Perhaps because the risk grows from here, he thinks. Sharper now, he glances to Doppo, who glows red. “Not because of the company, mind you.”

Still, Hifumi complains loudly over the rubber snap-snap of his gloves coming off. “But we have to celebrate! I can totally split dinner threeways ‘long as you stay for dessert– we got some nice ice-cream I was saving for something like this! C'mooon, give it another day and Doppo’s totally gonna be embarrassed and won’t wanna do anything at all!”

“The only one embarrassing me right now is you, Hifumi!”

Jakurai smiles, pulling his packed-up bag onto his folded knees. Living in the moment– giving it attention in the afterglow, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?

But his energy is finite. He can feel himself weak in places, needing to reflect. To recover and compartmentalise these fears before he can shift into the right shape to feel relaxed and jubilatory. 

“I wholeheartedly agree. We ought to celebrate. Only…”

“Only…?” Doppo shifts on the tatami. This time, Jakurai feels himself go a little pink.

“Of course I wouldn’t dare imply that your home cooking isn’t a worthy celebration, Hifumi… Only, I was hoping to commemorate it with an evening out from our usual working locations.” Jakurai waits. The other two look lost. “A dinner date, is what I mean.”

“Oh!” Hifumi lights up like a sparkler. Doppo’s mouth hangs open wordlessly.

The way that he stares, bright eyes and a warm blush, against the background of Hifumi’s contagious joy, is enough for Jakurai’s resolve to hold his professional air to crumble. And here he had hoped to withstand this situation with calm assurance; its liminality pulls him apart, rather than to one side or the other. Jakurai twists a lock of his hair around his index finger in his lap; he looks down, then back to them. His face feels warm. The ‘situation’ is his own anxiety.

It is challenging, but he must push himself to give, as much as he would push them to take.

“...So, would you both like to…?”

“We’ll be there!” Hifumi nods fiercely, eyes gleaming, no matter how deer-in-the-headlights Doppo looks in front of him as he both sags and tenses at the clearly varying degrees of stress that the idea inflicts upon him. He, too, is challenging himself.

“Where are we going?" And it catches up to him, the occasion, for himself. "Oh, g-god, nowhere too fancy just for me, please…!”

“What’re you talkin’ about, Doppo-chin, you earned it!”

Is this where he takes away a stressor? Jakurai cannot help a small smile at the thought.

Yes; it doesn't hurt to slip into that role, as he has done, from time to time. Intervention, indeed.

“Not to worry. I already have somewhere special in mind.”

 

***

 

Between the final orders and the ghostly anticipation of the bill arriving, Doppo pushes the remains of his dessert around the plate, a fickle physalis that won't spear under the cake-fork's blunt prongs. The sound is somewhat muffled by the ambience of Ikebukuro’s business carrying on in the distance, fascinating in its difference to Shinjuku’s constant huff of AC exit units down every side-street and trains shuttling through the station’s knot of capillaries. Busy, but less concentrated.

Jakurai’s iced tea is strong and balmy the way he likes it. Just as he promises himself he will savour the last heavy sip, he meets Hifumi’s eyes over his glass – mischievous and sharp, whilst Doppo fumbles like a tired-out kitten unwilling to give up playtime. Hifumi grins.

“Tea with dessert? Even at a restaurant?”

“ Especially at a restaurant, Hifumi.” Jakurai smiles.

“Mmm, not even a mocktail?”

“I didn’t feel like juice.”

“They do a non-alcoholic wine here, y’know, like, a no-secco, like– actually zero percent. You didn’t want to try it?” Hifumi tilts his head, all movement as he drums his fingertips on the countertop. It’s unusual to see him push for anything mimicking the stronger stuff he and Doppo put away tonight (Hennessy on the rocks, a carafe of Beaujolais to share with Doppo and two short beers: he’s kept count of the spectrum of strengths). “Just a li’l glassy? Small one? For fun? For a special time? A special li’l time with uuuuuussss?”

"Drinking something that comes from a fermentation tank won't make this feel any more special." Jakurai replies honestly over the scrape of Doppo’s cutlery on the plate.

Hifumi shrugs. "Coulda fooled me, Mr Pickling-Is-My-Passion." He casually plucks the physalis from Doppo's fork and pops it in his mouth. Doppo gapes at him, heartbroken, then seems to give up. Hifumi seems set enough on digging something from him that Jakurai decides to take a more light-hearted approach.

"Pickles in a drink? Now, there's a concept."

“Ooooh, a pickleback!!”

“Oh, god.” Doppo murmurs.

"You’d be the only one drinking it, silly. You don’t drink ‘booch?”

Jakurai hums. “I enjoyed it the time you shared it with me. At that lunch meeting at the café.”

Doppo looks at Hifumi sidelong, who reddens a little. “Oooo-oooh. I was on some gut health thing then…”

“Oh?” Jakurai waits poised to hear more, then has the realisation that there’s something else to that admission – that situation, back then – than reveals itself in words. And he smiles. It’s new, to him, to gather enough context to read between the lines. So he detracts, distracts; untucks his long hair from his chair and pulls it loosely over his shoulder as he gazes out over the balcony, the seating area abandoned of any guests save for the three of them, thanks to the staff’s gracious accommodation for Hifumi’s needs. “If you gave it up, I hope you were able to indulge a little more, tonight. What do you two think of this venue…?”

Hifumi claps. “Amazing! Really nice!”

“Really good,” Doppo adds as he wipes a trace of chocolate sauce from his face, only to choke on his next words as Hifumi tries to help him with a serviette. They seem to wrestle free without any intervention. Doppo settles on holding Hifumi’s hands to keep them out of trouble, as though hearing their own voices echoed back to them on the quiet veranda. Not that Jakurai minds.

“No, but, for real, it’s gorgeous here. We shoulda come somewhere like this for our anniversary," Hifumi smiles softly, stroking the backs of Doppo's fingers with his thumb. Doppo nods at about the same moment Jakurai’s ears prick.

"Anniversary?" 

"Well, y'know, date-iversary."

“I see. Where did you go?”

The instant Hifumi opens his mouth, Doppo flushes and struggles to his feet. “Bathroom.”

“We didn’t go to the bathroom for it, silly! We went–”

“Bathroom!”

They watch him go, his back a shadow that corrects its hunch midway through the restaurant to the toilets. Jakurai recalls how warm the late summer is, how quickly the icecubes in his drink will melt, and sips. Hifumi rolls his eyes with a smile and sets his chin in his hand.

“Yeah, we didn’t go anywhere for our date. We just like… stayed in and made out a bit.”

Jakurai feels himself grow warm at the image. That familiar worry – that thought of the two of them, separate from himself – rears its ugly head. Still, he engages. “I’m still surprised that even a one-year marker is celebrated nowadays. An ‘anniversary’ has always meant a more formal engagement, from my experience.”

“Yeah, but what if you wanna have fun without the formalities? Known Doppo all this time but I only got to start mackin’ on him the last thirteen months, that’s worth celebrating! I coulda pined for forever!”

The image draws a laugh from him, less deep down than anticipated, held just below the surface like a bubble in duckweed. “Very true. A cause worth celebrating.”

“What about you, Jakurai?” 

The spotlight on him has him pause midway through the mechanics of drinking his tea. His words hint at insight, loaded and heavy, but– Hifumi could mean anything. He swallows.

“What about me?”

“You didn’t just invite us to celebrate Doppo’s contract,” Hifumi whispers, eyes on him suddenly, full and low like moons. “And you always stop drinking caffeine mid-afternoon. You’re up to something.” At some point he must have pulled his chair closer; they sit practically hip-to-hip. His fingers trace the trouser seam on his inner thigh. 

“‘Up to something’,” he repeats almost hollowly for the guilt he suddenly feels, underlying their date like a cheap desire. But it isn’t cheap, he assures himself. It isn’t. This celebration was for Doppo. This was for himself and for Doppo together – it was for them both, and for Hifumi, too, as an important part of one another’s lives. This is a date. This is a nice time. He is having a nice time and so are they. It’s normal if he has desires – ambitions beyond the walls of the restaurant, fuelled by that singular worry, what the two of them feel about him. If Hifumi has those desires, too, then that would be fine. But this wasn’t organised for a different end goal other than to celebrate with their company. Just in case he may have misinterpreted something, Jakurai tries to establish a fact. “This is a date.”

“A very romantic date,” Hifumi agrees.

“To celebrate Doppo’s contract. His decision to reach for his own goals.”

“You’re wining and dining us, aren’tcha? Bought us dinner?”

“I wine–” Jakurai finds himself flustered for a moment, and the wording doesn’t help. “You cook for me often enough.”

“Pshht.”

“And I take you out for lunch all the time, Hifumi.”

“Yeah, with work.” Hifumi snickers.

“That isn’t…” That isn’t the only reason I take you, specifically only you, out for lunch, he wants to say, but he refrains before they tumble down this rabbit-hole of meaning of this, that, here, there. When he holds Hifumi’s gaze, those eyes with the glitter of the candle-flame at their table, he can see it isn’t a game. Hifumi has already won. His fingertips drum along the fabric of Jakurai’s slacks until he’s stroking the dip of his hipbone, wildly erotic. Hifumi smells sweet. The memory of their last rendezvous, of him kissing at the join of his shoulder with the gentle perfume of his sensitive-skin shower gel and clean laundry, and Hifumi keening and clutching for more–

“Listen, listen, I want it, okay?” he’s whispering to him, elbow-to-elbow, his other hand finding Jakurai’s inner wrist as he hesitates to let go of his glass, a touch so much more defined there than anywhere else that it makes his stomach flip. “Even if you weren’t trying, you’re seducing me now, and I love it. Trying to stay awake as long as you can, so we can stay up aaaaall night, that’s kinda sexy. Committed.” Hifumi grins. “‘Sides, Doppo’s less self-conscious now. So? What’re you so shy for?”

Is he shy? Jakurai steps back, mentally: his cheeks feel hot, his skin is flushing where Hifumi’s touching him, and his car keys suddenly feel rather weighty in his jacket pocket. He thought he was only mildly anxious. But, yes. He supposes there is an element of shyness at having his desires captured so clearly despite the non-sexual reasoning for their date. Hifumi has a good sense for romance, after all.

“If that’s how you interpret my actions, I don’t want you to think that I only organised tonight’s outing for… that reason.”

“For whaaa~aat?”

He won’t cave to speaking lewdly here, no matter what Hifumi might do under the table. Instead he twists his hand to take Hifumi’s, raises it to his lips, and kisses between his knuckles. The gasp that comes out of his boyfriend is satisfying, but not enough; he leans over to kiss his mouth, soft lips with the slightest hint of cognac. Better. He can lean into his resolve with no guilt, now.

“Oh, Jakurai, you.” Hifumi’s voice is heavy when he pulls away, laden with lust, unfairly so for a semi-public place, as though the harder liquor has drenched and dragged it down to a purr. “Even if you did pull this to seduce us, I don’t even care, I’m sold. C’mon, honey, let’s settle up and go already.”

“Hmm.” Jakurai doesn’t mind. Lewd or not, interpretation or reality: he has these two. They want what he wants. Now, the three of them have moved past the liminality, beyond matters of work and business.  He gestures for the waiter once more just as Doppo heads back, who misinterprets it as a wave, waves back, forgets himself, and struggles to reclaim his relaxed mood until they’re firmly on the way back to the car.

 

***

 

It takes a mere two minutes on the road for the pair in the back seats to start making out. Jakurai tunes in to the sound of breaths and a giggle that certainly don’t make part of the classical radio station that’s on quietly enough to match the rumble of the engine; a quick glance to the rear-view mirror, and the blonde of Hifumi’s hair is just a snatch in the dark, where his face is buried in Doppo’s neck, and there’s the glisten of Doppo’s teeth past the passing streetlights as he bites his lip, eyes shut. Jakurai focuses on the road ahead, cranking up the speed as soon as the amber traffic light hints to green. He’ll spare them the fuss of that staircase; they’re coming home with him.

 

Prising them out of the car might be an entirely different matter.

“We’re here,” he announces once parked, knowing the silence of the engine won’t be any indicator in their world, wrapped up in one another. They might both be his lovers, both have shared that intimacy with him, but it’s rare he sees them so intimate. The two have such intensity that the midday sun might be more likely to notice him from only a gaze. So he gives it a moment before glancing in the back seats.

Only Doppo is visible for a moment–crouched and pressing Hifumi into the corner, into the passenger door, one hand bracing against the door and the other on Hifumi’s jaw as he encourages him open, lapping at his throat. And Hifumi’s jolting, twitching, his legs lazily wrapped around his hips, his elbow– his hand– working suspiciously under the seatbelt. Somehow, Jakurai notices in the tableau before him, Doppo had managed to slip out of his own seatbelt whilst leaving it locked. Awe-inspiring. He really doesn’t see a single obstacle when it comes to sex.

“Doppo… Doppo-ooo, Doppo–” Hifumi’s voice brings him crashing back to the present, Doppo’s panting between Hifumi’s tiny moans at every bite– the scent of saliva, of sweat and heat, hits him like a wave and Jakurai climbs out of the driver seat. The midnight air is arresting in the split-second before he opens the passenger door to let himself in. Doppo’s back twitches with the shock of the door slamming behind him.

“Sensei–”

“Jakurai,” Hifumi breathes, eyes spinning from motion and arousal, “What’re you doin’ back here?”

“We’re here,” he repeats, a hand to the small of Doppo’s back (warm; humid with sweat already, how quickly does Doppo meet his boiling point even inebriated? ), “You may not have heard me. Shall we head inside?”

Hifumi yanks him by the wrist; Jakurai staggers. He can’t help leaning across the seats now with the loss of balance, and Doppo pulls back, enough to reveal Hifumi’s hand firmly down his pants and the rosy marks in a blossom-fall pattern down his neck. There’s a speck of blood congealed on his lip, Jakurai notices, for a lucid moment before Doppo kisses him. He tastes it within an instant; his tongue, his teeth at his lip, no doubt spurred on somewhat by the alcohol– Doppo's really is warmer than usual. Jakurai opens up to him without even needing a whisper of encouragement.

“Jakuraiiii, you’re so naughty,” Hifumi’s whispering, and before Jakurai can reply– not that he wants to stop, the way Doppo’s kissing him like a starving man searching for scraps in his mouth– he feels a hand on his stomach, looking for buttons to undo. “Right in your car…”

Shyness. Embarrassment. All the things Hifumi had accused him of earlier, all the things he found himself bashful over in the restaurant, twist up and curl like confetti over a flame. 

In his car, in his own driveway. It’s indecent.

It’s thrilling. He won’t be self-conscious for a moment, in this scenario. Doppo shivers; he breaks away to pant, hanging his head.

“Hifumi, s-stop, I’m going to…”

“Mm? You wanna stop for real?” Despite being so pinned-in, Hifumi is king of the moment; the glow of the ceiling light illuminates his curls like a crown, his neck shining and slick with Doppo’s saliva. Jakurai can’t help gazing at him in some kind of awe.

“I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t come in sensei’s car…”

He’s that close? I knew he was quick to work up, but…

Truly fascinating.

“You can.” Jakurai leans in closer to this meeting of three until Hifumi makes a happy sound, continuing his project of one-handedly unbuttoning his shirt for him. “There are tissues in the glovebox.”

“Okay,” Doppo nods almost weakly. “Okay. Okay.”

“Unless this would be the only time tonight that you could…?”

“No! I can–” Doppo chokes on a moan, shivering, and Jakurai watches the tendons play on Hifumi’s inner wrist as he begins to work him again, quickly. “I can, I can, more, ah, Jakurai, Jakurai, I definitely…”

“Good.” Jakurai leans in to capture his mouth again, unfairly denied a long, full kiss. It feels all the more satisfying for Doppo shuddering throughout, pushed so far along, so hot to the touch when Jakurai dares to stroke at his hip, feeling for that sweet trail of coarse hair down from his navel, and his fingers bump into Hifumi’s jerking his cock. His skin is on fire. Doppo slackens slightly in the kiss, panting, with a tone like his ever-present tension is draining further out of his body every second.

“This is so unfair, this… you both…” 

“You’re managing very well.” Jakurai thumbs at his trail to prove a point, feeling his hard shaft just beneath his knuckles. Something about Doppo– about Hifumi, too, makes him want to push the buttons he can see beaming brightly, fireworks and flares, in moments like these. He leans into it; another risk. “How does it feel?”

“So good,” he gasps, his mouth moving ghostlike against Jakurai’s lips with the mere choreography of kissing, “So good, mm–”

“Come for me?”

Doppo does. A neat and needy thrust into Hifumi’s hand is all it takes, red-cheeked and holding his breath as Hifumi rubs and strokes to coax him through it; Doppo bites his lip again, drawing fresh blood, and the scent of its tang has Jakurai dip in to kiss him, to lick him clean in the hopes he might bite him that hard, too. Alas, he is trembling, losing the tension needed; Jakurai cradles the back of his head, strokes through his hair, cards his fingers down the nape of his neck. When he draws back he glances at Hifumi. His light eyes are wide and fixed on Jakurai from the shadow Doppo casts across the back seats. 

That gaze – this entire moment makes him feel more powerful than it ought.

The windows are fogging up. Far from being a problem, it occurs to him that they potentially have a shield against the world, now. That streak of exhibitionism has since melted into blindness to the world, where Hifumi and Doppo are concerned. Here is where they exist. Here is everything. 

But it isn’t ideal for his lovers; Doppo leans against his chest, half-tangled in Hifumi’s legs where he’s still scrunched up in the corner of the seats, a damp patch seeping through those lovely trousers he’d worn to their dinner. And Hifumi’s eyes– opportunistic as he is, they don’t communicate the precise desire for a handjob in the back of the car, no matter how enjoyable Doppo made it seem. Hardly appropriate treatment for Hifumi. Jakurai breaks the silence first.

“You want to go to the bedroom.”

Hifumi whispers, “Not getting your car that messy…”

Jakurai nods, reaching for the door handle, but Doppo mumbles against his sternum.

“Can I have– a minute. Just a minute…”

“Oh. Yes. My apologies.”

Impulsive or not, poor Doppo hit a climax rather more quickly than expected, after all. Jakurai gives the back of his neck a gentle scratch, idle but intentional; Doppo straightens up so sharply with a full-body frisson that his head nearly hits the ceiling.

“Was that too much…?” 

Hifumi gasps in delight. “Wo-owww, Doppo, hard already?!”

“I’m good, I’m good,” Doppo’s eyes seem to spin, “Better than good, really good. L-let’s go, let’s go –”

 

***

 

Hifumi uses the bathroom second, as offered. The aroma of the rose-scented shower gel he keeps in the ensuite filters through, with the slightest steam, as Jakurai and Doppo wait in the bedroom. ‘Don’t start without me–’ was not said outright, but the tension between them is enough to stay their hands, along with some mysterious crease of Hifumi’s eyebrows before he’d disappeared to “get ready”, which was said outright.

He feels warm, so he removes his pullover after all and sits in his undershirt. Across from him on the bed Doppo’s heat is tangible, the air around him practically humid with his sweat not wicked one bit from the chilly trip from the car to the bedroom. Jakurai makes an attempt not to be too heavy-handed in watching him – Doppo seems to tense with anxiety, momentarily, hands flexing in his lap – yet there is only so much he can hold back when this is… it. This is a night he has been looking forward to for a long time.

“Doppo,” he calls softly. Doppo looks up at him right away. His gaze makes it clear his mind is somewhere in the stratosphere. “Are you feeling well?”

“I kinda feel like I died,” Doppo answers promptly. “Like I died in the car and went to heaven.”

“...I see.”

Characteristically, he seizes up slightly as though in preparation to apologise. “N-Not in a bad way, not died in a bad way! I’m just, I just… that was…” His leg starts to jiggle, toes on the bedroom floor, sitting atop the bed in his boxers. Jakurai can’t look away. This man is always crackling with energy. “Really… u-um, I don’t know, amazing. Like you both made my brain smooth.”

…Anatomically-speaking, he doesn’t know if that’s positive. “Smooth?”

“It’s, um. Don’t– nevermind. It’s a good thing.” He stops jiggling his leg and starts to redden again, first at his gullet, and Jakurai watches it bloom across his collarbones and the glimpse of his chest at that v-neck collar of his shirt. Fascinating. Wondrous to learn how to understand this person just from the outside. After a moment, Jakurai opens his under-bed box of supplies. He takes a moment to pull his hair over one shoulder and finger-comb it smooth, before tying it back loosely at the base of his skull. He will have to approach this with caution.

“What are you thinking about, Doppo?”

Doppo makes a sound in his throat. 

“Would it be… regarding our last conversation in this room?”

When you photographed me in the nude and told me the most wonderful fantasies, he does not clarify, and Doppo glowers, hunching almost protectively over his obvious arousal. 

“S-Something like that.”

“Would you share?” Silence. “Would you like me to remind you?”

Jakurai makes sure that, when Doppo looks at him, he looks open, facing him, with an arm propping him up on the bedcovers, his vest untucked, a free hand resting on his thigh and at the ready to do anything necessary to relax his boyfriend from a touch on the cheek to a second handjob. Doppo lets out a heavy exhalation.

“I just can’t believe this is my reality now. You’re my agent. We work together.”

…Not what he expected, but Doppo rarely delivers upon typical expectations. Jakurai finds himself hunting for his recollection of their meeting, the formalities, tucked behind the very real events of the present.

“Yes. I do hope that our celebration today helped to fix that in your mind.”

As though overthinking, yet with none of the despair and frustration he has so often witnessed, Doppo’s gaze wanders. “And… we can do this stuff, too.”

“Yes.” Temptation wins; Jakurai sets a hand on his knee, and Doppo practically lunges forward for more. Jakurai skims his hand up Doppo’s ribs beneath his shirt to feel the delicate mottling of the flush on his skin. Doppo kneels closer, gaze low. Then the sound of the shower stops. Doppo glances up not at that, but the feeling of Jakurai stroking his cheek.

“Jakurai?”

The soothing motion is more for himself than for Doppo, he thinks guiltily. The anxiety has bored so deep into him. But he– must trust his lovers. They trust him, after all. 

“I am… afraid I may have a little stage-fright.”

He looks at Jakurai searchingly for only a moment before picking up. “Hifumi? Oh–” he pauses, “Oh, m-me too, sometimes.”

It’s a shock to hear, even if it is exactly what has been running through his head for a few weeks now. “Both Hifumi and yourself.”

“Wh– what? Sorry, I mean– no, um, I mean…” 

“Thanks for waitiiiiiing!” Hifumi’s announcement is bright and loud as he sweeps into the room from the bathroom. Plumes of steam from the hot shower seem to follow him in wisps. He looks radiant against the ivory-coloured fluff of his borrowed bathrobe, heightened by the rosiness of his cheeks. “Whoa, what’s with the gloomy vibe? I seriously thought you guys would’ve already gotten to second base by now!”

“You said not to start without you!” Doppo says, kneading his legs as Hifumi tosses himself onto the pillows. 

“Yeah, but like, if you do a bit, it’s naughty.” he snickers, attention switching to Jakurai. “You didn’t even strip down!”

“I, too, thought we would wait for you.” 

“Well, I’m here now! Get naked!”

He cannot help but smile at that insistence, and unzips his fly. “As you wish.”

Doppo’s gaze is a heavy weight as he reduces himself to nothing but his briefs. It feels every bit as fascinating to feel it upon him as it did the first time Doppo entered this room, spiced with Hifumi’s ribbing as he holds his lube-bottle between his thighs in the attempt to warm it up. His desire flickers back strongly, although his thoughts race, feelings wavering like a candle blown upon.

Can I tell them?

That it felt as though something had changed while they housesat for me together.

Something solidified between them like glue, that I am not privy to.

No… their entire lives have been intertwined. That would be but a drop in the ocean.

Hifumi brings him back with his chatter. “So whaddaya wanna do, Jakurai? Are we treatin’ you?” he’s tucking his knees up, allowing the robe to bare his thighs up to his backside, just as pink-flushed as his cheeks, as Doppo stays sitting tensely, almost obediently. “Orrrrr– gasp! Are you treatin’ us?” He rolls over onto his front, shooting a smoldering glance back at him over his shoulder. Tense as Jakurai may be, Hifumi’s antics do charm him out of his concerns.

Concerns which, for now, will remain hidden.

“It has been some time since I have been with two people at once,” he answers instead, truthfully. “I wouldn’t want one of you to feel prioritised over the other. And I wonder if the two of you may feel the same.”

Hifumi laughs. “Sensei, forreal, you don’t have to get so philosophical about boning! Ow, Doppo, why’d ya spank me?!”

“Idiot! I-It’s normal to be worried about that kind of thing!”

“Ugh, your post-nut clarity isn’t fun at all, Doppyon.”

“One of us has to be considerate here! S-Sensei, we definitely aren’t going to feel– prioritised, or jealous, or whatever, that’s why we’re here, that’s why…”

“Yeah, Jakurai, so just do me!”

“Hifumi!?”

“What?” he pouts, “I’m just communicating what I want!”

“Well, yes,” Jakurai nods, “I would like to do that.”

“See!” Hifumi twists around to grin at Doppo triumphantly, if a little more flushed than before.

“O-Oh.”

“But, as for Doppo’s desires…”

“Mmm, we don’t want our Doppochin to go unloved, right~?”

For a moment, the problem seems to lie in something simultaneous. No, it is not necessary. However, yes, it can be done. Jakurai tries to picture a scale with two rather weighty outcomes – increased pleasure, or reduced trust – finds the problem far too philosophical, after all, than he might otherwise enjoy unpicking right here on the edge of his bed in the dead of night, and decides that a confession of sorts might be best, after all.

“I am aware that you both like to be praised.” Both of his charges seem to stiffen suddenly. Oh, dear. If this wasn’t very much a non-work situation he might consider explaining that he has that effect on his assignees and younger men alike, therefore, he considers it quite normal. “I only say this to ask if that would, ah, ‘do it for you’, both at once, so to speak.”

“Ergh…” Doppo says.

“Oooh,” Hifumi tucks a curl behind his ear, intrigued. “We’re that easy to suss out, huh? I’m game. Doppo?”

Doppo shoots him a look, something Jakurai must have witnessed a hundred times before in the follow-up to one of Hifumi’s witticisms or sexually-charged jokes. For the first time he understands it must mean ‘you are correct, but I’m embarrassed when you say it out loud’, because Hifumi laughs and sits up and reassures him with quick pit-a-pats on Doppo’s thigh. 

“‘Like you gotta ask’, amirite?”

“Th-that would be…”

“Whatcha wanna do, then, Doppo?” his attentions rove to kissing his cheek, his fingers trailing down from his navel until Doppo’s shivering. “Want me to get you off again while me and Jakurai…?”

“Um, u-um– n-no, it’s okay. I’ll just watch.”

“Whaaa?”

“I want– I don’t– I want to watch, I don’t want to… not right now, anyway, or I won’t last…”

It seems to take Hifumi by surprise, the way he watches his face for an answer. “Really…?”

“Interesting. Yes. Is that all right with you?” Jakurai waits for Hifumi’s reply, receives none, then moves closer to cup Hifumi’s cheek and capture his gaze. “No?”

His eyes are wide, warm, flickering back and forth between him and Doppo. “If he watches while we…”

“Yes. I would speak to you, reassure you.”

“Y-Yeah, no, I can do it.”

“You ‘can’ or you would ‘enjoy it’?”

“I’d enjoy it, I think,” Hifumi whispers, the heat in his face tangible at even this short distance, and Jakurai cannot resist kissing his forehead. He looks rather sweet, bundled up in his ivory towelling. A hint of the angelic doesn’t go amiss on him despite his temptations.  “J-Jeez, you’re both kinda dirty…”

Doppo scoffs, and it’s enough to make Hifumi mellow slightly beneath Jakurai’s kisses. “Says the one who pounced on me in the car…!” 

“You’re just, mm, irresistible, smelled like a strong drink–” Hifumi breaks off to giggle; clearly he must have found a ticklish spot on his neck, twisting around to kiss Jakurai’s shoulder as he pulls a pillow up against his back. “Anyway, a car with that much space just has to be used, right?”

“That isn't exactly why I chose it, but I am glad you appreciate it.”

“Right! So–”

“Would you sit forward a little?”

“Sure, sure. So, anyway, put a handsome son-of-a-gun in the back of a roomy car with a few drinkies and a helluva appetiser in him and you’ve got a recipe for– for, um…”

Hifumi falls quiet as Jakurai fits himself in that gap between the pillows and his back, sliding his hands under Hifumi’s bathrobe, caressing up to the tops of his thighs. It might be a little quick, he thinks. But he’s plenty open to a quick seduction, if the car and the fact he’s not wearing a stitch under the robe are anything to go by. 

In fact, now that they have a plan of action in place, he can focus on what’s needed: tending to his lovers who are so wholeheartedly entrusting themselves with him.

All the same, dipping towards the back of Hifumi’s neck as he settles his knees firmly on either side of him, he wonders if he ought to begin by testing the waters. The last few times, Hifumi had done his level best to tease some kind of reaction out of him with dirty talk, with flirtatiousness, with lingerie or something ‘other’ to decorate the occasion.

This time, he will speak.

“You kept us waiting, Hifumi.” 

Hifumi doesn’t say anything, just gives a soft laugh, but the baby hairs on his nape raise slightly, and Doppo stares at him.

Yes– indeed. This is a good position, if he can see Doppo over his shoulder as he spoons Hifumi. He massages his bath-warm thighs for a moment, thumbing at the joins of his hips. His skin is wonderfully soft to the touch.

“How should I treat you?”

“Huh?” Hifumi almost tries to look back over his shoulder, but Jakurai ducks to nuzzle the other side of his shoulder. “Like– like normal?"

“If what you saw in the car was enough to excite you,” Jakurai says, “then we could perhaps make do with less build-up.”

“Ah! Yeah, so like normal. That works.”

“Wh-what do you mean ‘like normal’--” Doppo’s muttering, still cross-legged in front of Hifumi as he follows Jakurai’s hands, just bulges under the robe fabric as they roam Hifumi’s ribcage. 

“You didn’t notice? Jakurai totally doesn’t mess around. He wants to–” a pause, for Hifumi to put aside the lube-bottle he’d been warming between his thighs, “To get down ‘n’ dirty right away, he likes– he likes – mm–”

“You like it too,” Jakurai cups his hand comfortably over Hifumi’s pectoral, rubbing over and over his peaked nipple until it’s clear he’s giving up on finishing his sentence. Soon it hardens under his palm; he thumbs at it, getting a delicious twitch out of Hifumi in his lap. Just the movement grinding against his stomach, his crotch, has him plucking at it again, and again, until Hifumi’s head is tilting, exposing his beautiful nape. He kisses it. Hifumi speaks up like he gained courage from it.

“I’ll get– I’ll get sore…”

“Good boy, telling me what you need,” Jakurai murmurs. Some sort of whine snakes out of Hifumi as he raises his other hand to caress at the other side of his chest. Only belatedly does he realise what exactly he’s said. Oh, dear. He didn’t mean to wedge seniority into this scenario. But he watches Doppo’s jaw drop, feels Hifumi begin to fidget in his arms, and he wonders if it might have been appreciated rather than ignored. “Where do you want me?”

“A-Anywhere is…”

Jakurai nips at his ear, to the sweet sound of a moan. “Then pass me the bottle.”

“Not yet…!”

“Better.” Jakurai laps. Hifumi must have removed his earrings in the shower; his earlobes are bare, soft for him to suck. He squirms. “No?”

“Mm, mm, it’s good…”

Perfect. He will learn to speak, even if he is shy.

–Shy?

Jakurai wonders if, yet again, he’s been caught by Hifumi’s bravado, his shameless way of speaking about things as though projecting his desire. When he looks at Doppo facing them, hot-faced and shifting his weight but not as fidgety as Hifumi in his lap, he sees his needs reflected. He sees something of Hifumi in him.

He gazes until Doppo catches his eye. Doppo visibly swallows, then touches at the join of his own shoulder and neck. 

Jakurai bows his head accordingly and aims to meet the same spot on Hifumi’s shoulder with a lick, and a heavy kiss. He tastes sweet beneath the chemical tang of the shower gel. Hifumi sighs. 

“How long?” Jakurai says against his skin as he continues to stroke his chest.

“How long until–”

He pats Hifumi’s inner thigh with his other hand. “Until you’ll allow me to pleasure you.”

“Until– until–” Hifumi gasps at an open kiss with the scrape of his teeth along the muscle. Curious, Jakurai lets the kiss become a soft bite. “Mmm!”

“Would a little more of this do to convince you?”

“Mmm, mm-hm, I’m all yours…” Like that, Hifumi tilts his head to the other side to open up his neck. He kisses it, but it doesn’t draw the same sharp sound from him. Jakurai isn’t one for biting, let alone delicate Hifumi who seems to live to be pampered in the bedroom– but, Doppo is. He’s said so himself. And the Hifumi that Doppo sees must not beg for the same fragile treatment. 

Jakurai bites down, slow and hard, and Hifumi positively cries out in his lap.

“Sensei–”

How curious that he calls his work title at such a time. He rolls his tongue over the spot as though to soothe it, but there’s no going back now. He bites again on the same imprint of his teeth. Hifumi shudders.

“Sensei–”

“You’ll use my name,” he murmurs, nuzzling behind his ear.

“Jakurai, mmm…!”

In no time, this has reduced him to calling out… he bites, and this time, Hifumi’s thighs twitch under his hand. He wishes nothing more than to see his face, right now, but Doppo’s expression as he shoves a hand down his boxers does an excellent job of rendering the state of things. 

“Please, Jakurai, please, I’m ready, so…”

“Good. Would you pass the bottle?” Compared to Hifumi’s skin, the lubricant is now cold to the touch; Hifumi glances back at him as he passes it over as though studying his face, before leaning up to kiss his jaw.

“You’re really naughty, y’know,” he gives a loose smile, his curls starting to frizz from his own heat, then shifts to kneeling with the slightest tremor in his legs. “Doppo, how’re ya holdin’ up?”

“Hhgh.”

“Ooh, fun, huh?” The smirk in Hifumi’s voice seems to soften as Jakurai loops an arm around his waist, caressing under his thigh. “What’s with– what’s with the seatbelt?”

“I might just want to hold you, Hifumi.”

“Mm-hmmmm, okay.” he snickers, then jumps. “O-oh my god, that’s so cold!”

“And you’re doing so well, bearing with it for me.” Jakurai’s attempt at warming the lube was only brief, after all. He hugs him tightly, adorable and plush in the bathrobe, as he traces around his rim. He hears Hifumi stifle any complaints he might have about the less than optimal temperature, then finally, let out a long, juddering exhale as he slides a slick finger into him. Through the bathrobe, Jakurai grabs at his chest again, running his fingertips over the nipple that will apparently get sore. Hifumi bucks. His finger almost slides out.

“Relax, Hifumi.”

“Th-that, mmmh…”

“Please, relax. For me. Deep breaths.”

Accordingly, he does take in a long breath, but holds it. Jakurai pushes deeper. Stretching him needn’t be nothing but functional. The moment passes before Hifumi releases the breath, slowly takes another, and holds.

“Good. Very good.” He kisses the back of his neck, nudging at the collar of the bathrobe to allow him to access more. “Keep going.”

Hifumi’s breaths are quiet, quieter than he’s heard outside of an opportunistic kiss in an office back-room, which won’t do. He draws out, squeezes his hand for the last reaches of warmth he can gain from his own palm, then eases in both index and middle fingers. A small wriggle past the first ring of muscle is what finally draws voice into his breath with a rush of colour, a soft moan. With it comes a hushed ‘Oh my god’ from Doppo, the rustle of cotton sheets as he flings his boxers somewhere unseen. 

That in itself tells him what a sublime portrait Hifumi must make right now.

Hifumi tries to arch, tries to lift on his knees all of a sudden but Jakurai holds him tight and pulls down until he’s snug to him, his back against his chest. As an animal stuck in a snare, he keens suddenly in his arms.

“What is it?” he kisses his neck. Hifumi just whines, trembles slightly in his hold. The way he seems to want to retreat into himself now that he’s speaking a little more is… almost, almost worrying. “Tell me what it is you need.”

“G-Good spot.”

“Here?” He pushes deeper. A beautiful peal of a sound rings out from Hifumi. He curls his fingers, pushes again; the same again. “Does that feel good, Hifumi?”

Nodding furiously, his curls make a golden veil of his vision for an instant. “Mm-hmm, mm-hm, oh–”

“Good boy. Keep talking to me.”

Hifumi doesn’t talk: he moans, hips bouncing and jerking just below his grip as Jakurai keeps finger-fucking, massaging when he can, keeping a steady pace, pulling out slightly more each time. His fingers curl, teasing at filling him with just the first bent joints, and Hifumi shudders at the tightness. “O-oh my god, oh my god…”

"You're doing so well, Hifumi,” Jakurai makes sure to whisper in his ear, soliciting another twitch of his hips beneath him. “Beautiful. Let yourself relax.”

“Mmhm…”

Because, like this, he’s perfect to take a third finger. Hifumi gasps, slackens in some fierce need to stay relaxed overriding whatever his body’s telling him, and before long he’s shaking. With a push deeper, he isn’t moaning any more. He’s panting. 

How he would love to see Hifumi: he would love to see what face he might be making as he touches him like this, but the sensations from the inside out – his clenching, his tightening, arrhythmic with his own movements and the heat, by God, his heat – they tell him, Doppo’s slouched pose as he channels all his energy into rubbing himself off tells him, how well it is going. How well they feel they are being treated. Jakurai feels his heart swell, his own body take on some of that heat. Hifumi’s writhing, the arch of his lower back against his own arousal borders on overstimulating.

The flesh yields. He’s certainly stretched enough.

Jakurai thrusts his fingers.

Doppo moans.

For a blessèd moment, Jakurai’s shocked back to the reality of Hifumi being so exposed before his partner – of course Doppo can see everything, and he must know his partner’s movements like the back of his hand, he must know how good his partner must feel – but, for Doppo to get off on his partner’s enjoyment alone, without his own input is… 

Fascinating.

He bites at the collar of the bathrobe to drag it down, baring Hifumi’s shoulders, and he times each kiss with a thrust; three fingers do the trick, reaching exactly where he needs to if Hifumi’s shapeless moans, no longer in sight of words, are anything to go by. He deserves the praise for his courage in baring himself to both lovers. Even if he wanted to put on a show initially, those traces of falsehood have melted away. He’s responding as his body directs him. Anyone would react to that. He slows his thrusts, dragging out his fingers in a curve again, a gradual stretch that has Hifumi gasping, almost hiccuping in his own choking desire.

“You’re doing very well. Don’t you think so?” 

A desperate nod. “Y-Yeah, yeah, so please…”

Jakurai thumbs at the loose knot of the bathrobe’s belt. He’ll lean into those risks, those glaring openings his lovers leave him, and he purrs into Hifumi’s ear, “Doppo deserves a glimpse, doesn’t he? Show him.”

Hifumi gasps at the tug of the belt around him as though he’s only just noticed that it exists, and he scrambles to undo it, glancing hurriedly up and down between Doppo and his own knees. Jakurai feels the scene unfold naturally; the taut skin of his stomach, his erection freed from the fabric and hot and curved back to his hip. Beautiful when he’s exposed, just as beautiful as when he dresses himself up. As tempting as it is to drag them to his wardrobe mirror to truly enjoy the sight himself, he stays put, watching Doppo before them with those keen, burning eyes. He might serve to reflect the tableau.

“Good, Hifumi,” he says, grazing the tip of Hifumi’s cock with his fingers gripping his waist, getting a timorous little shiver out of him, as he teases his fingers in and out of him in a subtle rhythm, “Now tell him how he looks, Doppo.”

Doppo sits up straight as though broken out of a daydream and the sharp sucking in of his breath is audible; Jakurai watches his hand slow on his cock as he looks at Hifumi, at the both of them, with wet, hazy eyes. “Hifumi, shit, you’re so– you’re so–”

He can feel the tension in Hifumi’s body winding him taut, thrumming and expectant. If there ever was a time to compliment his partner– “Find the words, Doppo.”

“H-Handsome, cute, Hifumi, f-fuck…” he trails off like he’s the one begging for release; Hifumi whimpers at the sight of Doppo furiously masturbating in front of him, or– perhaps it’s the feeling of being opened up to him, a personal display, framed by the very clothing he tried to seduce them in tangled around his thighs.

“Doppo, Doppo, come here, come here…” But he shakes his head, frowning. 

“Focus on yourself, already…!”

“L-Lemme kiss you at least!” Hifumi’s voice borders on a sob– fleetingly frightening, if not for how quickly Doppo leans across the bed to meet him, reeled in by the tone. Stroking himself as he opens his mouth, kissing Hifumi hungrily and cupping his cheek. How Hifumi loves to connect like that; it’s adorable, intense. And what a view. Jakurai curls his fingers, pushes deeper at last with long, heavy thrusts, until he’s sure the moans tearing out of Hifumi louder and louder through his messy kisses are his own doing. Doppo shudders. Just a little more. 

“Very good,” he whispers, nuzzling the back of his neck. It’s so soft; he resists the urge to kiss this side of his neck, to mark up this side as Doppo had claimed the other, only long enough to add, “You deserve this, Hifumi. Show us how much you like it.”  And he bites, more to anchor than to rend, rolling his tongue over his shoulder.

Hifumi clenches, knees skidding apart slightly on the sheets as he grinds down on his fingers. Jakurai doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop pulsing, pushing, massaging, not for Hifumi’s gasps, not for the sound of Doppo’s suppressed moan, not for the hot sensation of semen running down to the backs of his knuckles as he thrusts– not until he feels Hifumi shudder and arch his back against his chest, sweating and beautiful. Divine.

“Don’t hold back– yes, there you are. Wonderful.” He kisses the side of Hifumi’s head firmly before he can think about it – as though holding his cat, cradling her – and only latently recognises that feeling swelling in his chest as true pride in him. He has done well. He is very good. Hifumi deserves his praise like no other; it’s only a coincidence that it turns him on. “You’ve done beautifully.”

He’s slow to pull his fingers out, pressing against his back as he pulls him back into his lap, Hifumi divested of his tension, and massages his thigh. It’s tempting to rock him gently for how sudden that climax was. Instead, he wraps around him, stroking his forearms. Over his shoulder he glances to Doppo and meets his piercing gaze somewhat startlingly head-on.

Doppo, messy, chest heaving. His shirt sticking to him, translucent in parts where the sweat seeped through. 

Dear God, he hopes that Doppo won’t remain a mere onlooker.

 

“...Were you satisfied by watching us?” 

Doppo’s lip is trembling. He might have brought himself off, his hand resting between his legs, but his whole body looks flushed and hotter than before, and a vein stands out in his forearm. For a moment Jakurai’s heart climbs to his throat as though for refuge. Were it not for Hifumi’s weight in his arms he might think the only obstacle between himself and Doppo’s– wrath? desire? – was his own hesitation. He holds that hard gaze until Hifumi shifts, twisting around to pinch at a loose lock of his hair and tug him in for a kiss before he can resist. His whole scalp prickles with the thrill of it.

“You look as though you enjoyed yourself after all,” he says as Hifumi eventually lets him go. He flashes him a weary smile in return. 

“Where’d you get that idea, wise guy? Mmm, you’re so good with your hands,” A shiver runs through Hifumi at a gentle squeeze of his upper arm, and he strokes the offending hand, sliding in-between Jakurai’s fingers and knuckles, soothing yet stimulating in those untouched spots. “We should really take care of them, y’know.”

“By ‘take care of’, you mean…” Jakurai trails off as Hifumi, every inch of him tired from his climax except for his mouth, dips his head and begins to kiss those very routes along his hand, his tongue finding the slightest web of skin between his fingers. “Oh– oh. You don’t need more rest?”

“Mm-mm.” Hifumi swings himself to straddle one of his legs and helps himself to his arm, kissing at his sensitive inner wrist like a target is marked there, like he’s spotted a weakness the way Jakurai picked them out in him earlier; it only feels right to concede, allowing Hifumi to push him down into the pillows with one impatient slappy-hand. His extended legs bump into something– Doppo, shifting closer over the bed, crawling over his other thigh. Within moments he finds himself practically pinned and lost for words.

“I– Hifumi,” he tries. It’s distracting, flustering, as Hifumi’s teeth scrape at his wrist joint, his tongue following his veins, and to stop him now would be to lose the momentum, but– he flexes his hand, stroking his cheek, the gentlest push away with Hifumi’s sound of complaint. “About Doppo…”

“Two hands, two of us,” he says, then seems to catch on, glancing alongside at Doppo in his sweaty shirt. “...Ooooh, you totally weren’t satisfied at all, huh?”

Jakurai is struck with a pang of guilt. There was more I could have done? “Is– is that so?”

Hifumi reddens all over again around his smile; Doppo chews his lip furiously. Then he watches their shared decision seem to come together in only the air between them, gazing down at him nestled in the pillows. The way the two of them stare, he feels he might be devoured. Two strays debating whether to wait for an offering or to take it themselves. He’d misunderstood. 

Of course… neither of them can be that easily sated, else I would never have chosen them…

“What would satisfy you, then…?” he asks slowly, eyes keen on the two of them, like he’s trying out a new language.

“I want to do what you did to Hifumi,” Doppo blurts out as he begins to touch his side, “Make it feel that good for you…”

 

Fireworks go off in his head. Like standing in the white of a supernova, it overtakes him, every part of him, hot and blinding with desire.

No more overthinking. It’s impossible to stop the heat from climbing his face, and why would he want to? He enjoys any kind of penetration, but hearing him choose to use his hands, his brilliant hands…! Hifumi gave a convincing performance to arouse him, and now Doppo clearly needs this. He wants this, he wants this for them– God, he wants to hear more of what Doppo wants. And Doppo needs to see how that very desire makes him feel. 

“You’ll fuck me,” he clarifies, stroking Doppo’s thigh. He flushes.

“With my hand,” Doppo replies shakily as though the breath is being spun through him like thin wool. “...Is that– is that–”

“Yes,” he breathes, then redoubles. “Yes. Doppo, yes.” he lifts his hand for Doppo’s cheek, who right away butts into his palm to kiss it, gripping at the band of his briefs; he’d entirely forgotten he was wearing them, and Doppo yanks one side down before seeming to work out the logistics of straddling. Jakurai’s heart leaps into his throat at the idea of anything slowing things down. “I– Hifumi, would you–”

They make a fierce team, the pair of them pulling back and stripping him; Doppo gradually looks up from his discarded underwear to his knee, his thigh, his crotch, like he’s taking a long drink. It’s provoking enough that Jakurai feels his body try to curl up, a knee tucking close as though in protection from his burning gaze. Even Hifumi stroking his ribs and walking his fingers down to his cock cannot shake him from the feeling that he’s about to be eaten whole.

“Whaaat, not used to being undressed?” Hifumi’s laughing softly, and just as Jakurai looks at him in confusion– belated comprehension– Doppo is already kneeling over him, tracing his hands delicately over his thighs. Lord, his hands. Mentally he implores him to squeeze or grab or fuck him already, but that’s no way to behave, he doesn’t want to pressure him right away. Not now, not as Doppo starts to kiss his stomach, his cock already nudging the inside of his thigh, Doppo, as Hifumi begins to pull his undershirt up for him inch by inch (“Weren’t you gonna do what he did to me?”), as he massages and squeezes at the base of Jakurai’s cock in some roundabout, teasing manner, Hifumi – he can’t cave, he can’t cave yet. Requesting outright to be completely ravaged would certainly be too much for their first night together, the three of them. A little ravaging might leave him intact and give them the confidence to request it next time.

So he stays tactile– some attempt to comfort himself in touching Doppo’s hair as he kisses his body or caressing Hifumi’s neck as he tends to him– cups Hifumi’s cheek, but meets warmth, instead, on his other hand. Doppo’s kissing his palm, letting his hands pick up where he’d left off, stroking up his chest with both thumbs in a straight dart up his sternum, fingers fanning over his nipples–

“Doppo–” A breath escapes him from the stimulation, Hifumi stroking him all of a sudden, “Doppo, please, come closer.”

“Oh– mm...”

To his surprise the two of them lean in. Hifumi looks like he’s enjoying the view, but some kind of guilt weighs in Doppo’s look as he straddles his thigh again. If Doppo can tell how desperate Jakurai is to cut to the chase, he doesn’t let on; or perhaps he wrestles with something of his own, here. 

Jakurai strokes his cheek, too, to soothe him. Doppo all but sighs sweetly, his cock standing to attention, and sinks closer to kiss him. His mouth is hot, wet as though having salivated all through Hifumi’s pampering, and they fit together well, even if Jakurai finds himself lifting his head away from the pillow to chase for his lips at the slightest threat of him pulling back. But he hears the click of the lube-bottle's cap, glimpses Hifumi squeeze an ample amount into Doppo’s palm as he clumsily tries to keep up with this kiss that’s all adolescent sucking on lips and the briefest touch of tongues, and all Jakurai can think for a blind moment, jerking his knee back to open himself up for his younger lover, is please, please, please don’t hesitate–

It’s gradual, but his prayers are answered; Doppo entering him, Doppo inside him, slick and beautiful and brave. Hot with the long anticipation, Jakurai takes in the sight of his hand flush against him, his middle finger extended and glistening just as he pushes again; he drinks it in, drinks the view in, trying to sit up to see better, to kiss him for a job well begun. Doppo’s other hand sits atop his stomach like a safety barrier.

“Oh, sensei,” Doppo murmurs – he won’t correct him, can’t interrupt – and Jakurai catches Hifumi’s curious look of observation as he works him, slowly at first, but Jakurai’s curling toes and twitching thigh communicate something different, and he starts to push deeper, a little faster, his breath coming with hums that could hint at moans.  

Just as Jakurai thinks to tell him that, instead of this pace, he would prefer more girth, Hifumi leans down to kiss him. His breath tastes of cognac; it’s sharp on his nose when he opens his mouth to him, the same moment that Doppo grips him in the sweaty back of his knee to keep him limber. Bliss. Jakurai arches off the bedsheets, moans into Hifumi’s mouth– Hifumi tangles a hand into his hair, and he hears Doppo swear under his breath and press in thicker– another finger, yes. The sound, the feeling both are a knock-on effect with another twitch of his hips at the knowledge that Doppo must enjoy what he’s seeing (another thrust–), he must– (a firm grip on his hair, by his crown), he surely doesn’t need any more encouragement, yet–

“Doppo,” he breathes at the next junction of pause between the thrusts of his fingers and Hifumi’s ministrations moving down his neck. 

“Mm– yeah, yes?”

“Deeper.”

His voice wavers. “Oh, god.” 

“Please.”

“Y-You don’t need to–” Stars. He sees stars behind his eyelids as Doppo fucks him just deep enough to graze his prostate. Unlike his juvenile earlier responses, this feels immaculate, an effervescent pleasure more able to welcome him in than is a fight to secure; he sinks back into the pillows, leaving poor Hifumi embracing thin air.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep on us.” he’s chuckling; teasing, of course, because his mouth finds his clavicle, his hand sneaking back to fondling the base of his cock as though he needs any more stimulation. So attentive. Jakurai finds him again with a soft sound, caresses his cheek, his soft hair, you’re doing well, you’re doing so well. Doppo sits almost out of reach between his legs. His fingertips graze his jawline. Doppo shivers– a distraction?-- but his fingers curl sharply, pushing hard and slow and rough inside him, and Jakurai snaps at Hifumi’s lip. 

“Mmh–!”

Doppo slows, no, no, I didn’t mean to, but Jakurai’s body seems to lock into the pleasure above all other functions like the paltry act of explaining himself. “Y-You okay? Hifumi?”

“Bit me,” Hifumi pants with a sore smile, although Jakurai’s hand in his hair seems to function well as an apology. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Doppo’s burning up. There’s something hidden there that he might have nudged at. “Jakurai…?”

It takes him a moment to regather his thoughts and connect them to words; meanwhile he can’t help clenching around Doppo’s fingers, like every stroke could be the last and he needs to drag onto what remains of him, filling him. He cups Doppo’s cheek– feels that telltale heat of his breath– and opens his eyes, surveying his face, his green gaze slowly emptying itself of shame as Jakurai thumbs at his chin, then his lower lip– it trembles. Doppo’s thrusting comes to a halt.

“Do you need my praise, too?”

Immediately he breaks out into a hot-faced, wet-eyed embarrassment. “I– I–”

“Doppo.” He thumbs at his cheek. It’s a Herculean effort to stay patient when his body aches in every passing moment Doppo isn’t fucking him. “Doppo, tell me.”

“Mmgh–”

“Shall I speak to you the way I did to Hifumi?”

Some twisted groan almost makes its full way out of him, the way he shivers. Yet he shies away from admitting it aloud. “I don’t– I don’t–”

 

Jakurai sighs. It feels cruel, but his frustration is building, having only had a brief taste of heaven. Can’t he feel him thrumming for more? “Then you had best start doing well if you would like me to–”

Doppo fucks him, hard. It knocks the wind from him. Hifumi tugs his hair upwards, wrenching it out of the way to bite his neck, and the strands falling across his eyes in sheets feel like a blindfold.

“Like that?” Doppo huffs after a few merciless thrusts, pounding at his prostate until Jakurai feels his own flesh tremble traitorously. “Jakurai?”

“Like that,” Jakurai can’t keep his hair from sticking to his lips, suddenly dry from gasping as he speaks desperately, “Like that, like that–”

“Is it good, sensei?” Hifumi purrs just below his jaw as he plays his fingers around the head of his cock. It’s maddening. The tables are turned. He’s skilled with his words and his timing, after all.

“G-Good,” How can he keep his composure enough to speak and praise and guide when what he really needs is the daylights fucked out of him? What can he say? “Please, I know you can do well, so please–”

Doppo’s thighs come flush to his ass and for an earth-shaking moment he thinks he’s about to feel his cock replace his fingers inside him, thick and pulsing the way he saw it briefly earlier, but no matter, because even just the thrusting of his hips and the nudging of his erection against his inner thigh fuels the fire so much that he feels himself gape open easily to his lover as he presses his thigh back with wrenching force, stretching his ass and pressing in a third finger, his masterful fingers. They suck on the way out from his clenching, his lustful grab at heavenly pleasure.

“Yes, yes, yes! Please, you’re–” a breathless break as Hifumi tries to kiss him sloppily between the gaps of his loosened hair, mentally grasping at straws, his mouth running wild with the breaths pushed out of him in every thick thrust, “Good, good boy, Doppo, please…!”

“You gotta ask nicely,” Hifumi whispers, pulling slow and firm along his cock.

“Fuck me,” he hears himself panting, some other creature. “Be good and fuck me hard.”

Suddenly it’s as though everything coalesces; the bend of his fingers, the strength in his arm, greedy thrusts against his ass with the slap of sweaty skin on his, and Doppo arching over him to kiss and suck at his chest, teeth grazing his nipple. Each push inches closer to a shove and he feels sore from fucking but deliciously so, raw, sensitive–

“Yes– yes, mmh–-”

“Tell me,” Doppo gasps in between thrusts. It's overwhelmingly erotic to hear him make demands.

“I’m close, Doppo–” A flash of fiery pleasure, an overwhelming sweetness has his voice ebb under Hifumi’s hard sucking on his throat.  “Oh, God, please, you’re so good, you’re, both of you, please –”

“Are ya gonna say it?” Hifumi smiles.

They might please him regardless of what he says, but the thought is so far away that he grasps, spectacularly desperately, for words that tumble out of him faster than the thrusts knocking him closer, ever closer to the verge. “Good boy– good boy, doing so well, you know how to please–”

Hifumi bites until he feels the resistance of cartilage, Doppo thrusts knuckle-deep, and that’s how he falls apart, electrified to his core and coming hard into Hifumi’s fist with an erratic twitch of his hips, breathing out weak snatches of what might be words, might have once intended to be words. Doppo’s name. Hifumi’s name. Something is “good”. Somebody is “amazing”. He tastes his own hair strewn across his mouth as he breathes loosely, feels the sloppy slick of lube and sweat and his own cum and God knows what else coating his inner thighs and his ass and Doppo’s thighs, the vein on Doppo’s cock pulsing against his skin as he loosely grinds against him, and the damp feel of the bedsheets at once is overstimulating. At least, until Doppo pulls out, and then he has a whole new world of sensations to grapple with, sending shivers skitting down his body and leaving him so empty, yet so fulfilled.

 

He doesn’t want to speak for a good moment. 

Eyes shut, he gestures loosely, pulls at Hifumi’s shoulders until their reassuring weights fit themselves by his sides, Doppo’s legs still tangling with his. Through the comedown his arms sink around their backs, stroking idly at fluffy bathrobe or sweat-stained shirt alternately, and he feels unruly curls tickle at his nose followed by fingers pulling and brushing the hair out of his face. 

“Cutiepie,” Hifumi is smiling, he can hear it in his voice as he kisses the tip of his nose. He can’t help smiling back.

“I don’t stand a chance against you two,” he replies softly and slowly, words cloying in his mouth like butter, like how he imagines being drunk might feel. 

“Says you,” Hifumi kisses his cheek. “Good with ya dick and hands and mouth, you’re a triple threat.”

“Mmm. I’m glad you think so.”

“Jakurai,” murmurs Doppo from his shoulder, his face tucked into the side of his neck.

“Yes, my love.”

He seems to mull on something before taking a big, smooth inhale, burrowed in his hair. “...You’re beautiful.”

“Oh.” That quite tickles him; he had thought himself rather dishevelled when receiving. His cheeks flush again despite the heat still draining from them. “Thank you.”

The silence in the room now that his breaths have evened out brings many other senses to the fore; lubricant feeling tacky as it dries, the scent of sex settling. With a gentle muss of his lovers’ hair, he loosely begins to prop himself up, his hair-tie pulled halfway out and tangles threatening to form.

“I will draw a bath. Would you like to join–?”

Something stops him as he shifts to pull his legs free; Doppo’s arousal, against his thigh, firm– harder still than before, and he still thrums. Hifumi’s arm draped across his stomach is like a belt, stroking at Doppo’s stomach. 

Fondness wells up in him in place of the anxiety he’d felt before: departed, surely, under their attentions. 

“Or, if you would care to stay and make use of the bed…”

“Is that okay?” Hifumi looks up at him with gleaming eyes. He nods. Doppo’s beyond politeness and shame now, bristling all over only from Hifumi’s fingertips. 

“Naturally.” He kisses the tops of their heads, each in turn. “Join me when you, too, are satisfied.”

***

 

Despite the rushing sound of water filling the tub, the shower running as he thoroughly combs through the length of his hair, the bathroom tiles do little to keep out the sounds of his lovers in the bedroom beyond. Once plunged into the soothing waters he can hear them more keenly: Hifumi’s pleasure-filled moans, Doppo’s ragged panting and his partner’s name between, the rather fast creaking of the headboard…

…The headboard?

He tilts his head back, gazing at the ceiling in fascination. “Oh, my…”

 

 

The pair stagger in not too long after, Hifumi a glowing pink cherub in that bathrobe he’s clung to, and Doppo shiny from sweat, exhausted, but finally radiating the satisfaction he’s been chasing all night. Jakurai smiles although he feels they might not see it with their beeline to the shower unit. He doesn’t watch them wash, tempting as it is to see one another’s work on their bodies ahead of time.

“You’re so right about a bath, oh my god,” Hifumi sighs in bliss as he slips into the water at last. His torso is littered with bite-marks, an indigo lovebite nestled in the join of his shoulder, and both nipples stand out sore and dark from their usual blossom-pink. Jakurai tucks his knees up to make room.  “Aww, I missed the super-good hot hot point, huh?”

“Or perhaps you’re already quite warm.”

“Hmmm. It’s hard when you want it all!” he snickers, stretching out just enough to poke Jakurai in the ribs with a toe. Wanting it all isn’t so wrong, Jakurai thinks. It means he has to try to give it to him. But Hifumi’s already curled up again, beckoning Doppo over with a flapping hand and flicks of bathwater. “Doppo, get in while it’s hot!”

“Coming…”

Doppo stands straddling the bath with one foot in the water for a moment before seeming to commit to it, squeezing in somewhere between Jakurai’s knees and Hifumi’s. 

“...Isn’t this too tight?” he eventually says, trying to reorient himself, sending a big splash of water over the side of the tub. “Oh, god, I’m sorry.”

“I’d thought it was rather spacious,” Jakurai tilts his head; but then again, it has been some time since he’d shared this space with one other, let alone two. “Well, I’d best go dry my hair, and you both can enjoy the bath for yourselves.”

“N-No, I don’t want to chase you out!”

Hifumi slaps his shoulder, getting a hiss out of him as it lands on a blotchy suck-mark of his own. “Then stay, silly! It’s not gonna be for all night!”

Within minutes, Doppo dozes, head tilted back over the tub’s edge. Hifumi’s cheek is pressed to the wall tiles, his breaths long and steady in a sudden nap of his own.

Jakurai watches them, each in their own dreamless sleep no doubt. Their restful faces look as clear as his heart feels. 

 

 

Even after half-carrying them to bed, their forms tucked against his sides, he finds himself watching them in the dark.

 

He really had nothing to be so concerned about.

No, not nothing.

They defied those things that loomed so large in my mind.

 

Tomorrow their weekend will end. They will go their separate ways, speak in dissonance of this room but connecting, always connecting, always building, and always building upon and working with, travelling with, one another.

This liminality, this grey area. 

It’s comfortable after all, he decides.

That hesitation no longer serves me.

Chapter 8

Summary:

The office party chapter.

Notes:

happy 2025! I'm happy to have finally gotten this chapter out... it's one that was sat in my mind for a long time because I saw a fanart that inspired it... many moons ago... I will link it at the end

special thanks go out to my beloved readers who are not only reading and re-reading(!) but leaving comments as you do. it genuinely prompted me to go back, read, and pick up this WIP. life is very busy these days (i have a wife now AND a Career, also some piece of shit scraped a number of my fics for AI training which destroyed my desire to keep writing for a minute there) and i was so happy to come back to the document and bang this one out. i love writing. thank you for keeping me loving writing.

If it necessitates wearing a costume to, then it’s only about looks, right?

That kind of cynical thinking, reserved for the embarrassment of middle school graduations and Children’s Day, exited Doppo’s concept of the world pretty sharply once Hifumi started wearing yukata for summer festivals. Although, credit has to go to his high school friends who passed around those magazines that introduced him to the world of sexy Hallowe’en costumes…

Anyway, according to Twitter this morning, this year the mayor of Shibuya is trying to cancel Hallowe’en again. The hashtags and threads are bursting with last year’s carnage on the morning of the 1st of November, one that Doppo recalls spending on entirely the wrong end of the Odakyū line thanks to a certain bald editor slamming the taxi door shut in Doppo’s face at his peak saturation of alcohol, exhaustion, and poor decision-making. The heaving crowds in the streets, followed by the next morning spent wading through layers of street litter thicker than snowfall in the sharp daylight whilst in the queasy grip of the world’s most lucid hangover – it’s an experience he won’t forget easily. So it makes sense, he thinks, that they’d want to cancel it. Not in a killjoy way though, he catches himself. He doesn’t hate Hallowe’en; in fact, it might be nice if he gets to finally visit one of those all-night horror marathons once in a while – but the idea of the surrounding neighbourhoods mapped out in takeout food wrappers, abandoned bits of cosplay and smashed beer bottles, let alone the drunk masses, doesn’t exactly make him want to go out if that’s what he’ll have to deal with on the way home…

“Boooooo,” Hifumi says. Doppo frowns, unable to read his expression from where he stands hugging Hifumi’s back in the kitchen. 

“‘Boo’ what?”

“Y’sound like you don’t wanna go out tonight just ‘cause of a little street litter! Are ya a neighbourhood association guy now? Just do some spo-gomi! Get good!” 

“I don’t want to go to the office tonight,” Doppo says, because admitting that he’d rather chew off both his arms then eat them than have to be in his workplace after hours in the name of mandatory fun would absolutely get a big whine and pout and complaint from his universally-adored party-loving boyfriend who has never had any sort of bad end to a night out since starting at Shu**sha. Last year, he remembers idly, Hifumi had started at the office for drinks and the costume competition, then had been dragged to Shibuya to be shoved impromptu into a Hallowe’en parade, and then happily and safely taxi’d home at 4am. He’d only noticed his version of events had been so festive once the photos of him on a parade float had breached containment of the light novels’ group chat. That to say, well, he wasn’t in any position to help get him home. He can’t find it in himself to be mad about it. His Kira-the-cheirophilic cosplay was… very… uncanny, so…

“Like as in, I know that. But booooo, what a waste, after we got those matching costumes…” Hifumi sighs dramatically, the rhythm of his peeling-knife jutting along under the skin of the apple making a soothing background noise that could lower Doppo’s defences more than he’d like if he thinks too hard about how little he’s slept for this week’s crunch. 

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go, just I don’t wanna, don’t put words in my mouth–”

“Say ‘ahhh’!”

“Ahh…”

Too easily, he lets Hifumi put things in his mouth. This time it’s sweet, crisp, and… buttery?

“How is it? Too oily?” Hifumi grins at him over his shoulder as he chews on an apple slice.

“Mmgh. Wet.”

“That’s just your slobber, silly.” Hifumi twirls an apple-rabbit on a food pick before plunging it to its sticky fate in a pot of caramel. Doppo squeezes his waist, getting a giggle from him. Right, so he is just teasing. “Well, I’m excited to go with you! I’m gonna put on my bravest face this time. And we’ll hang out all night, I won’t get spirited away! Lucky you!”

“More like, I’m only coming with you so you can complete your outfit…”

“Sheesh, lighten up, it’s a cute outfit! Anyway help me with the burnables, wouldja?”

Doppo doesn’t let him go so much as Hifumi wrests himself free in his unstoppable househusbandly duties, fetching their various separated trashcans from under kitchen counters. “And on top of that, Hallowe’en’s on garbage day this year…”

“Oooh, my name is Dop-poppon, and I’m a killjoy! I think seeing my boyfriend in bootyshorts on a fun night out is the absolute pits! I only wanna sit indoors and play HypQuest and get mad about the environment–”

“I am not a killjoy! I’m not gonna sit indoors and– wait, b-bootyshorts?”

Hifumi whistles and shakes out a garbage bag. “Burnables please!”

Doppo’s braincells rattle. “What part of your outfit has bootyshorts…? I thought you were getting the, the, suit thing…”

“Huh? Suit? It’s just the one from Su*cide Squad, right?”

Doppo jostles the trashcan half-heartedly, mentally scrolling through the entirety of the franchise quickly before landing on that one movie in his head. Bootyshorts. Bootyshorts… oh, bootyshorts… oh, Hifumi… it wasn’t enough to just pick a feminine character, but the outfit he’s going with is–

“Anyway, don’t hurt to go to a work thing once in a while,” Hifumi’s still chattering away as he kneels to tie up the bag tightly, “It’s how you get to kick back on the job! Like, get the goss from everyone you’re normally competin’ with or like, reporting to. And then networking’s useful, too. Meet people you only ever read the names of! You have other artists in your department you like talkin’ to, don’tcha?”

“I have email for that…”

“Uuuuugh, not like that! Booo-ring! Oh, flatten that cereal box for me?”

“Even if I go, even if I do end up running into some of my colleagues, it’s nothing we couldn’t do outside of work… hah, but when do I ever get invited? I think they forget I exist, honestly, because I don’t come in… but I don’t work well when I do come in, so…” He looks up from his disassembly-line of flat cardboard, but even the glimpse of the cloudy sky out the kitchen window just weighs down his mood like lead. “Well, it doesn’t matter in the long run if I don’t go… but that’s not true, really, since any time I don’t attend some social thing, even if nobody told me about it, Baldie acts like I’m actively disrespecting all of the higher-ups, even if I had no idea it was happening… If they wanted me to go, wouldn’t they tell me? Wouldn’t Baldie tell me? What’s the point of blaming me for not coming to something that I’m not a part of? And then he’ll just make me drink and drink until I feel sick and then I’ll be spending the whole train home trying not to barf and then if I do barf I’ll just end up on Shibuya Meltdown or something, or on some company groupchat, like that New Year’s party where they made me crossdress just because I was a newbie back then but given the chance they’d do the same this year if it means they have a target– ”

"So gloomy!” Hifumi pokes his cheek, deflating him like a dead balloon at the end of a long night. “Hey, you wanna crush some egg-cartons?"

Doppo sighs. “Sure.”

It’s hard to stay mad about it after stamping out all his irritation on hapless pulp paper, and by the time he looks up again, there’s a spot of blue behind all those clouds.

 

***

 

Don’t be so negative, don’t be so negative – the mantra that both Jakurai and Hifumi have tried to drill into him for so long is working overtime, buzzing in the lining of his skull as he looks at the light rain outside that keeps threatening to sheet with odd gusts of wind from Shinjuku back-streets, that splodge of blue he saw earlier just an outlier. His jacket is just a bit too big and the padded shoulders remind him of the eighties, of his parents’ Western-style wedding portraits, not so much a Clown Prince of Crime but just a pathetic jester of corporate capitalism, and whatever face-paint Hifumi’s slapped on him is making his skin feel tight, and it smells so powdery, flaking already at the corners of his mouth– or perhaps he’s just frowning, was he frowning when he’d applied it?--

“Mm, Jakurai says he’s on his way, yay!”

The sound of Jakurai’s name is like a punch in the throat. He stares at Hifumi sidelong in the back of the taxi. “He what?! He goes to these things?”

“You didn’t know, Doppo-chin?” Hifumi smacks his lips in his hand-mirror, then returns to silently even out the edges of his lipstick, unthinkable when there’s vital information at hand. It’s surprising that he can manage it in the cab taking corners and quick stops as costumed party-goers cross Shinjuku’s roads without waiting for the pedestrian lights. “He goes, like, every year! Sensei’s costumes are legendary! Always ranks in the contest! You seriously never even heard?”

“C-C-Costume…?”

“Yeah, last year was– mmm, what was it? Sesshu? Sessho? Sessho-ma-something. Rumour is that one of the other editors is like, a true old-school manga fan, and she’ll buy anyone an outfit if they stand still long enough. The higher-ups always dress to the nines! Man, what was it? Long white hair, like, these painted bits on his face, I think I got a pic…”

Doppo seizes his arm like a drowning man. “ Show me! ” 

“Jeez! You coulda made me mess up my eyeshadow!” Hifumi whines, fumbling to snap the palette shut.

Sure enough, Hifumi’s phone screen shows the pair of them in the dark and shoddy smoking area of their office building a year ago today. Kira and Sesshoumaru, both making a dandy little peace-sign. They both pull it off so well.

Yeah.

A mixed feeling rolls around his guts like a pinball that keeps narrowly missing his dick. 

There might be more good things tonight than bad after all, he thinks, as the taxi pulls up to the curb and Hifumi clamours at the door.

“Here already?! Yahoo! Ohmigod, I see someone in a Suits-Man costume, Doppo! Doppo! Let’s goooo!”

Sure enough, although the grounds of the Shu**sha building are either completely empty just after rush hour or positively teeming with smokers and teams going back and forth to work lunches, in this annoyingly half-hearted rain its diligent workers throng under the entrance. What Doppo normally sees as a sea of grey – button-downs of designers, the suits of editors, hoodies of the odd creative – today, pops with colour, with shapes and textures of costumes. There’s definitely a smattering of characters from the latest popular anime, and some classics in the back (he spots the company vice president dressed as Freezer – terrifying, when she’s already so tall and overpowered in her daily life). The rain is chasing even the committed pre-drinking smokers just around the corner back into the building, cigarettes tossed in the gutter.  

Predictably, Hifumi’s costume doesn’t factor in late October weather. He shivers, standing on the sidewalk at 8pm in his Harley costume that he’s dedicated so many details to: the t-shirt torn in all the right places, dashes of red and blue in both his fluffy hair and around his eyes, the heart-shaped beauty mark… and, yeah, the bootyshorts. Meanwhile Doppo’s pretty comfy in his Joker outfit, unless he thinks too hard about the sensation of crisp gel holding his hair slicked back from the very roots and the white viscose gloves. Sensory nightmare. His partner, though… Between the fine-mesh fishnets and the cheap fabric he feels a little bad for Hifumi, or maybe just sympathetic for how exposed he must feel, even in his stupid quest for accuracy and the idea of “showing off in a seriously unexpected way!”...

…Wait, something’s missing.

“Did you leave your jacket in the taxi?” he asks, his stomach dropping at the idea of running around town trying to fetch it. But Hifumi just hums as he snaps a few selfies, angling to get Doppo’s face in.

“Didn’t bring it.”

“Wha– Hifumi?!”

He snaps an opportunistic photo of Doppo’s concerned face then grins at him, apparently unbothered, drizzle catching in his fluffed-out pigtails. “I told ya, I’m putting my bravest face on today!”

“Really?” It seems so earnest, without a trace of hesitation in his face. He wants to trust him if he thinks he can do it. But then Doppo thinks again of last year’s shenanigans, and Gigolo’s popularity in the office with a– a wide demographic, yes, but there’s a lot of women in ther e– and he frowns, a pinch of face paint flaking off between his eyebrows. “Wait, are you serious? It’s gonna be hectic in there, y-you’re definitely going to get mobbed…”

“Well, the way I’m lookin’ at it, my usual suit’s a costume, right? And I’m wearing a costume… and so is everyone else!” Hifumi pauses to wave back at someone in the crowd by the building, beyond which there’s clearly a lot of drinking in the lobby. Doppo’s eyes can’t help drifting to his costume. It’s cold. Hifumi’s nipples are peaking just beneath the thin t-shirt fabric. “Last year I had the jacket on under the costume jacket, it was sooo stuffy. I just wanna try this for a– for one– for– achoo! ”

“Agh! Don’t catch a cold immediately-! Here, put this on already!”

“Wowee, so forceful, Puddin’~”

“Sh-shut up!”

Hifumi adjusts the lapels of his loaned Joker jacket just-so, the purple blazer eye-watering against his mess of blonde and bold primary colours, but it doesn’t seem to have the expected impact on his personality, the way he giggles and pokes at his cheek in a way that he (correctly) thinks is cute. Gigolo-sensei could never. “Adds a layer to the costume, huh?”

Doppo doesn’t pay too much attention to how sharp it looks on Hifumi, bootyshorts or no. “I never thought you’d– choose to dress as a woman. In public, I mean.”

“I’m full of surprises!” Hifumi giggles and stretches his arms out in front of him then up over his head, making the edge of the purple blazer hitch up high enough to flash a little waist. Some long-buried bitter feeling throbs in him suddenly at the sight, the idea that there are other people in the area with eyes and a sense of eroticism who could, unfortunately, look at Hifumi, whether he likes it or not. “Boyfriend jackets are the best, the be-e-est~”

“But now I’m going to look half-dressed, and your outfit is…”

“You’ll just hafta stick with me if you want it back, then!” 

“You were serious about staying with me? P-People will see us together, work people–” he gabbles, even as Hifumi loops an arm through his and marches him towards the tipsy, loudly-laughing throngs. A stab of anxiety seizes him all of a sudden at the thought of Gigolo plus Doppo and what connects the two in terms of work projects, particularly when Gigolo is dressed as a woman and these two characters are very much involved – “Oh, shit, wait, no– god, no, I don’t want to have to deal with the fallout if I’m seen with–!”

“Kan-non-zaka-kun!”

Right on cue, some kind of second-rate villain lunges out at him from the smoking-area. Doppo grabs Hifumi’s wrist ready to drag him away in the opposite direction, but that– gleaming, naked scalp… he deflates, his brief panic settling in different ways. 

“S-sir.” Feels stupid to say to his editor’s face, currently adorned with a stupid fake moustache and plastic Donki vampire fangs. His boss laughs far too close to him then removes the fangs, drooly in his hand, and stores them somewhere mysterious under his plastic cape. His breath stinks, making Doppo’s eyes water. Clearly didn’t get the memo about vampires and garlic.

“Terrible show! You’re late as always! We started kicking things off at 5pm, but you’d know that if you’d come in to show your face in person for once, eh?”

“Right…” Doppo’s eyes drift to the top of his editor’s shiny, smooth head. The image of crushed egg-boxes pops into his mind soothingly.

“So you’re clearly going to miss the costume competition– no point entering, anyway, as all you’ve come in is a shirt and trousers and some ghastly eyeliner, so what’s the difference tonight? Hah! And no girlfriend to accompany to the haunted–”

“Doppo’s manager, evenin’!” Hifumi chirps. In the dark of the evening and the cloying mix of rain, cigarette-smoke and beer on various party-goers’ breaths, he stands out like an idol. Baldie stops his rant and stares at him as though he’s never berated anybody in his life.

“Ah? Why if it isn’t… er, Gigolo-sensei…” Baldie adjusts his glasses, looking Hifumi up and rather more down. Doppo suddenly feels his moral fibre inch closer to homicide and he finds himself gripping Hifumi’s shoulders and pushing him further into the crowds just to get away. “Where do you think you’re going?! You need to properly apologise for–!”

“To greet the other seniors!” Doppo calls, right as Hifumi cheers, “Drinks! Drinks! Drinks!”. Either way, it’s appropriate company conduct, he thinks, and keeps driving him forward unthinkingly until they breach the open lobby, the first floor: the editors’ floor. The editors’ floor beyond is normal enough, aside from the stacks and stacks of paper materials dividing each desk like slate cliffs, hiding the odd few couples and groups chatting with drinks already peppering the worktables. It’s the first place to be given over to any company party for its cosy nooks of seats and one large meeting-room containing – most importantly – a sturdy long table that bears multiple plastic crates filled to the brim with melting ice and cans of beer, shochu, highballs, the works. Around the space a few unknown colleagues are milling about, clearly avoiding the socialising downstairs. Hifumi breaks free of his grip to return his jacket, then go fishing around in the crates until he locates his favourite canned prosecco. He’s experienced in how to handle an office party, after all.

“Yahoo! Kannonzaka, you made it!”

Doppo tears his eyes off of Hifumi’s figure to see two colleagues grinning at him from the room’s doorway; one youthful-looking, ever with a stylish mop of brown hair, the other with black waves running wild. Relief washes over him. A sense of normalcy, finally.

“Mitsuya, Ogura… you’re way too energetic to be in the office,” he sighs, but his heavy mood starts to dissipate just on seeing them. Face-to-face really is different from the odd email. “It’s been a while.”

Mitsuya grins, folding his arms. “Haha, you kidding? Haven’t seen ya in the flesh since Golden Week! But anyway, you’re here now, that’s what counts.”

“I see you’ve finally Jokerfied,” Ogura points at his getup with his open beer can and immediately Doppo’s jaw drops. 

Was that… Hifumi’s long game? Is this a joke at his expense? He glances over his shoulder to see his boyfriend happily chatting away to some other higher-up with no attempt to put on his masculine swagger that accompanies the suit in this place. He knows how exhausting it’s been to go back to full-time since his sick leave. Besides, he doesn’t even remember when they watched the B*tman movies or if they even saw this type of Harley, only that Hifumi gave him a blowjob during that one pencil scene and made him rewind it since he’d missed it, then yelped in shock and elbowed him in the crotch by mistake…

“‘Jokerfied’ doesn’t even begin to explain it…” he sighs, scratching the back of his neck where the dry face-paint is starting to flake off down his back. Putting that train of thought aside, he blinks at his colleagues. “Wait, what are you two dressed as?”

Mitsuya twirls in his– very, shockingly normal, white button-down and suit trousers, a visitor lanyard and a St*rbucks cup in his hand, then clutches his stomach. Essentially, his usual clothes in the office. “It’s ‘Mundane Hallowe’en’ style! Go on, guess!”

Doppo’s mind fully empties. “A… salaryman?”

“He’s ‘a distracted customer who forgot to ask for oat milk at the counter and picked up a dairy latte’.” says Ogura.

“And he’s ‘a tired fulltimer barista who said ‘yeah’ when asked “is this oat milk?” at pickup’!” Mitsuya explains. Ogura flutters his green apron in a toned-down pride. “It isn’t obvious?” 

Doppo shakes his head. Mitsuya laughs. 

“Well, beats last year when we dressed as one another.”

“Man, that wig was itchy, let’s never do that again.”

“I dunno, I feel like I could really nail it with the right posture if you gimme more than two days to study your mannerisms next time!”

“Mundane Hallowe’en looks comfortable.” Doppo says.

“Yeah, but then you miss out on the true craftsmanship. Like you guys!”

“Aww, thank you soooo much!” Hifumi’s voice pounds into his ear like a drum a split-second before he swings an arm enthusiastically around Doppo’s waist smelling like wine. “See, Doppo-chin, toldja you’d find your coworkers!”

“Oh, rumours were true, you came here together,” Ogura smiles, but gives the slightest nod in greeting. “Gigolo Quinn, huh?”

“Call me Hifumin, just between pals, okay?” he smiles, then beams at Doppo. Too bad he’s still reeling from that deafening shout to feel pride in their costumery. “Hey, so, Dopp-pop, aren’tcha gonna introduce me?”

It’s still a work party, after all. He clears his throat. “Oh– fine. Well, you guys know Gigolo-sensei. Ogura, in jousei light novels illustration, and Mitsuya, in shounen–”

Hifumi gasps. “Oh, that Ogura! Ohmigod, I loved your splash page in Drop My Drops volume 1– nevermind my email, you gotta know straight from my mouth that it was actually breathtaking!” 

“Thank you, that means a lot to me!” Ogura smiles.

“Yeah, I was actually pretty nervous about writing that adaptation but your piece made me feel like we were the right combo to make something new of it. So, good job!”

“It was challenging after all, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, so you two have worked together already…” Doppo sags. Networking my ass. This really is just an excuse for Hifumi to mess around. He might love socialising in the office, but what about what he wants to do…? Well, for now, what he wants to do is catch up with these guys, so it’s not the worst in the world, but…

“I’m actually leaving the illustration department,” Mitsuya puts his hand up cheekily. Doppo gapes.

“You got promoted?”

He frowns, then waves his hand, the prop cup’s contents of beer spilling slightly. “What? No! Transfer! Starting November I’ll be a manga assistant! Working on Bandsaw Man! ”

“No way… eh, ah, then I’ll see even less of you…”

Ogura nods, setting a solemn hand on Mitsuya’s shoulder. “Pray for this man’s right hand. Don’t look at the haters on Twitter, either.”

“I’ll survive. But yeah, freedom from our manager at last! Let’s go all out tonight, our last time as illust-department all together!”

“Oh… yeah, let’s celebrate that for sure…!” He glances at Hifumi, at the feeling of a can of beer being slipped into his hand, then his elbow being yanked. “Wait, Hifumi, just when we were–”

“Okay, but you have to meet my coworkers too!”

“Right now?” 

“Right now!”

“We’ll see you at the haunted house, okay?” Mitsuya waves him off breezily as Hifumi drags him to some cluster of folks around one editor’s desk heaving with paper folders and organisers. 

“Haunted– what? What’s the plan after drinks? Are we going somewhere else…? I, I didn’t read the email, oh–”

Hifumi laughs. “Don’t worry ‘bout it!”

Last year’s hungover fandango pops up hideously in his mind: wading dead-legged through trash, struggling to read the train map and hold back his vomit at the same time– “No, I’m definitely worried about a second location!”

Before he knows it, he’s thrust into a cosy circle of people all toting drinks, all dressed up, and– mostly women. He looks around him, not a single face he knows immediately, and feels Hifumi’s fingers dig clawlike into his shoulders, using him as a shield.

So this is the “sticking together” you were talking about…?

“Kannonzaka! It’s been so long!”

“I’m so glad you’re back from sick leave! Are you good now?!”

“I-za-na-mi, you are sooo mean, hiding him from us!”

Hifumi just laughs behind him, nervous though it sounds and higher-pitched than his usual Gigolo aural velvet. Nothing about his costume has summoned even a gleam of that playboy personality to wield in defence. It’s an instant barrage. Hifumi’s socialising on one side and an array of– maybe? Higher-ups? Maybe? Doppo doesn’t stand a chance. His only tactics right now are to, what, introduce himself? Bow? Fuck, while wearing a stupid costume? Really? His words tangle in his mouth in his only attempt to resort to the bureaucratic kowtowing he knows, but it seems the attention is quick to be diverted away from him– obviously, it’s only Kannonzaka after all–

“Oh, another one for the ‘fashionably late’ club?”

“My apologies. Happy Hallowe’en.”

Doppo’s neck almost snaps on its joint as he whirls around. That soothing voice could be none other than–

 

Somebody in a, a devilish outfit.

It’s not Sessho-ma-something. 

 

Jakurai towers as he steps assuredly to the group, looking like he could graze the ceiling with a fierce pair of thick demon-horns growing from his crown. His usually peaceful face is set hard– darker eyebrows, a tattoo-like sigil on his cheek the colour of blood.

Demon Lord. From Hypnosis Quest. The MMORPG he’d devoted days and nights to during his sick leave.

Doppo’s throat feels thick, like tears could choke him up at any moment from pure fiery guilt at the memory of playing this game a stupid number of hours per sitting, while Jakurai was worrying so, and he– but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters. Not when Jakurai has horns and heels that make him even taller and red eyeliner and big long claws extending from fitted glove-tips and a bigger longer beautiful silky braid, oh, he loves this character on him, he looks incredible, and he wants to be carved up, right now, with that devastating line when you lose against the Demon Lord, “I’ll slice you wide open…~”

“--ppo? Doppo-kun?”

The world feels crisp and rusty in comparison to his hot, dulcet dreamworld of blood and horns and teeth. All the compliments he’d thought of try to exit his mouth at once.

“You, horns,” he says dumbly, then, “tall,” then, simply “you.”

“...Me,” Jakurai nods in agreement, if with a touch of confusion and genuine appreciation of what he correctly interprets as a compliment.

Doppo returns to his body, bowing furiously in the attempt to draw the energy in his body out of his threatening-to-harden dick and into anywhere else and a pathetic show just for the workplace– even if Hifumi’s coworkers have immediately lost interest so that they can keep chatting amongst themselves, even if a fair few people already know that he and Hifumi live together, nobody here needs to know that they’re both dating Jakurai, “I mean, you look really good, J-J-Jinguuji-sensei, you look–”

“Please, no need to bow. Here, Doppo.” Jakurai, a saint in today’s guise as a demon, puts his hand out. Doppo leans in before he can help himself and plops his chin in his palm, his happy place. Jakurai reddens. “Oh. Um. Your necktie is twisted.”

“Er– eh– uh.” Doppo tries not to chew his tongue off as Jakurai, warm in the face, adjusts it for him, and it leaves him feeling no further away from a boner than he was fresh out of the vore reverie. “Th-thank you.”

“I like your costume, too. Yours and Hifumi’s.”

“Mm-hm.” Doppo swallows thickly. It’s been a hot minute since Jakurai gave him such severe butterflies just by existing, but then again, he’s never seen him dressed up quite like this, tapping into some fantasies he wasn’t entirely aware he’d been incubating.

“I do enjoy the movies. Although the pencil trick is now a tad overdone.”

“Hahh. Huh. Uhm.” Doppo’s eyes range everywhere around the room except for Jakurai, until he can muster the courage to ask, “Do you also play…? Hypnosis Quest?”

“Myself? Oh, no. This is a gift from another editor. She arranged my costume last year, too.” 

“O-Oh…” The same one who got him in that Sessho-ma-something outfit… what a formidable person. Please keep at it, Doppo prays silently.

“She does seem quite keen to enter me into the competition again. Will you two join me?”

“Oh, I don’t…” Doppo glances at Hifumi, who’s escaped to chat to a couple of male colleagues in a different editor’s booth. Then he realises he’s just immediately turned Jakurai down. “N-No, I mean, I would love to see you– love to see you on stage, Jakurai! I would die if you did some kind of– flex, face, c-claws, or some– no! I mean, um.” Seeing Jakurai’s confused but sincere active listening face, he beckons him to come closer, so he can whisper, “Hifumi didn’t bring his suit, so that many women in the crowd might be…”

“...He didn’t?” Jakurai straightens up, looking more serious. “Is that wise?”

“Well, no, it’s Hifumi,” he cringes with guilt even as he says it, “but he seems to be… coping, so far. Whatever he’s trying might be working. I just, I’m here to help, but there’s only so much that you and I could do if…”

“Whachu guys whisperin’ about?” Hifumi purrs into Doppo’s ear out of nowhere, then makes said eardrum crackle with a sudden squeal of joy. “Jakurai-sensei! Ohh, you’re even more scary close-up! I– love– it!!”

“Thank you.”

“You’re definitely entering the contest, right?  I so wanna see you up in front of everybody giving ‘em a run for their money! I wanna see you take home the prize this year, sensei, you seriously could win!”

His compliments mollify Jakurai right out of his concerned mood. Maybe he’s fallen for Hifumi’s charm, the type that gets people to trust him through bad decisions that land him in situations like… now. “Do you really think so, Hifumi?”

“Pshht, yeah! You’ve got the power of sex appeal on your side!”

“Oh, my. I believe I would find a strong rival in you, if you were to step on stage with me.” Very unfairly, he strokes a long claw under Hifumi’s chin, who just giggles when faced with that velvety voice no matter the decorations.

“Awww, Jakurai, you’re gonna make me blush!”

The ringing is still dying down in his ears when Hifumi’s fingers playing with his collar suddenly dig in like talons; it’s only one of his colleagues, a woman dressed as a classic black cat he’d tried to introduce him to only minutes prior, but she must have caught him off-guard the way Hifumi half-leaps behind Jakurai. 

“We’re making a move, come on! Izanami, you joining?” His inability to speak for a moment in shock comes off like a pause to think, and she smirks, tipsy, and seizes Doppo’s wrist. He goggles at her. What?! “Then I’ll take Kannonzaka! C’mon, you missed the summer office party, right? Let’s go!”

“B– me? Where are we going? Why me?” 

Hifumi clings to his other arm as she drags him away from his partners. For a split second, Doppo tries to pull his arm back – they can’t be discovered, the office gossip will kill them – but Hifumi goes along with him, breathless in his panic barely kept at bay. “Wait! If Doppo’s going, I’ll go, too!”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Jakurai! We’ll come see you at the contest for sure!” Hifumi turns to wave at Jakurai, left with a couple of other editors already fawning over him. His expression is vague, lost enough that Doppo feels his sense of guilt that forces him into going along with office activities doubly skewered with guilt for leaving Jakurai, but– but he’s in the office building, he has to keep up appearances, he has to…

“We– I’ll text you!” Doppo calls back, earnestly trying to catch his eye, moments before they’re crammed into an elevator with a sea of colleagues, each and every one of them as chatty as Hifumi on a good day. Instantly his attention is turned to wherever his flatmate is, and he finds him quickly, tucked tightly into the very corner right by the elevator buttons, eyes huge. 

Doppo doesn’t think; he plants his hands on either side of Hifumi, the stupid clown jacket falling open like panels to block his vision. His palms are sweating in the cheap costume gloves. He looks down at Hifumi, who’s sinking down, legs trembling with effort not to collapse yet stay hidden beneath Doppo, tries to make a move to somehow reassure him– but at the sensation of a stranger’s hand sneaking towards his waist, he snaps above the thrumming chatter. 

“Just tell me what floor!”

“Tenth!” Someone calls back, to the group’s giggle through drunken conversations.

Hifumi weakly presses the button for him. The doors slide shut on their last chance to turn back.

 

***

 

Doppo’s eyes are watering, and it isn’t just from the dried facepaint flaking off his eyelashes.

He hasn’t seen a haunted house thrown together inside such a sharp-cornered corporate-feeling building since high school. It always looks more amateurish on the outside than the inside, that’s just a fact, but what strikes him right now is the strong sense of enforced fun that falls flat when faced with his all-consuming pessimism. When he was a high-schooler he must have had some whimsy still, he thinks.

Illustrators, editors, assistants, writers– they’d all piled out of that elevator, the most claustrophobic elevator ride of his life over nine floors of body odour, beer breath and plasticky costumes, plus Hifumi shaking and hyperventilating against him, and immediately made a beeline for the structure until only a few genuinely frightened colleagues stay behind, milling around. Then there’s him, trying to figure out where he fits in here. Maybe just behind a desk with a computer. God, I wanna go home.

“Since the weather forecast looked so bad, the visual merchandising team put together a haunted house! Really spooky!” he hears from a couple passing by. The tenth floor has much more space between each cubicle or desk. Sure enough, Ogura and Mitsuya are fussing at one of the desks, figuring out where to put the prop coffee-cup (“How is anybody meant to guess if I’m not holding it?”) if they’re going to enter the haunted house. 

Strictly speaking, the ‘haunted house’ itself is built between several cubicles, but seems reinforced with foamboard, and plenty of wires stick out beneath the black draping on the outside. Its gloomy-looking entrance is hung with ragged dark fabric that has an eerie coating of something that almost could be mould, strung up with cobwebs. Some poor assistant, still wearing her lanyard, dressed in pure white and a scraggly long black wig seems to be tasked with welcoming guests.

“This is hilarious,” Hifumi cackles, although his voice is a little telltale ragged from light hyperventilating in the elevator. “And so nostalgic! Remember that one culture festival, Doppo? Like, first year?”

“Didn’t your class do a café?”

“Yeah, but 3-B at the time, their haunted house was literally so good– they said it was based off of, like, the soccer team summer camp that year and there was this shrine on the mountain where they had a test of courage that was so terrifying it literally made like, three couples get together. Within the boys’ soccer team! So, yeah, it was actually super scary in this fun way!”

Right on cue, a long scream tears out of the tent-like tunnel, and a Ronald WcDonald sprints free from the exit, followed by a Colonel in white with wet splodges on the shoulders of their white costume. 

“So? Wanna try it?” Hifumi’s already adjusting the jacket’s lapels like he’s ready for business, gazing at him with a sparkle in his eye. Doppo sags. He doesn’t want to be here or on the first floor or any of the floors unless it’s in a bathroom making out with a certain Demon Lord and fingering Harley Quinn through the fishnets. A haunted house constructed in his company building doesn’t even come a close second.

“I thought you were going to the contest?”

“That’s not for a hot minute. It might be too much for me, anyway, but if Jakurai’s gonna be there…” Hifumi tilts his head to think about it, his paint-dipped pigtails flopping, before bursting into a brave smile. “But if I’m with you, then I can definitely do this! And then after… who knows, maybe we can go cheer him on!”

He seems so cheerful, punching the air like a real happy-go-lucky Harley, that Doppo can’t help but feel his heart melt a bit. He might be put out by all of this fuss, but if Hifumi’s really going to work to his strengths…

“A test of courage, huh?” Doppo tries, for his boyfriend’s sake, to consider it, maybe even to get genuinely excited for it. This might be closer to the horror movie marathon he had his eye on– maybe it’ll test his reaction time rather than his actual mettle, since he’s felt so sluggish lately from overtime that even a ghost grabbing his ankle probably wouldn’t scare him unless it had a deadline to present him with. Plus, he could do with a more thrilling fright than just seeing his editor face-to-face. “Well, okay. Sure. Hifumi, are you–” 

He looks aside, but the space that Hifumi was occupying is suddenly empty. Instead there’s a squeal from just ahead, accompanied by Hifumi’s nervous laugh– the sound of it pierces his dumb shock in the moment, and just as he realises that a female colleague has dragged Hifumi to the haunted house, he sees her hand clasp onto Hifumi’s bare arm, then the pair of them are swallowed up by the dingy dark entryway. 

Doppo’s stomach drops. The image of Hifumi, without him or Jakurai, wearing less clothes than usual let alone less than his full suit, with a woman on his arm sends a cold, plummeting sensation down through him and he’s rushed to the entrance before he can register having walked. It’s not that he doesn’t trust him on his own, but does Hifumi know– no, God, he must know– how many women in the building are clamouring to get him on his own, what they’re planning to do…?!

“S-Sorry, um, you can’t enter just yet,” the assistant pipes up, blocking his way in her itchy-looking wig and practically hiding behind her clipboard. “There needs to be a minute at least between each pair in case of crowding–”

“I know, I know, but my friend just went in there, and I need to find him!”

“Sorry, I can’t let you in alone…” she barely meets his eyes. Just like him when he first started here. There’s no way he can be rude or forceful with her, but Hifumi, he can’t just explain Hifumi without outing his secret, or– “It’s two at a time for safety, so…”

“B-But…!”

“I’ll go with you,” says somebody beside him; a woman in a blue dress, red hair-ribbon, with a black cat plushie sticking out of her satchel. She looks familiar, but that could just be the witch costume. “I’ve been wanting to go for a while.”

“O-Oh! Thank you,” Doppo bows his head frantically as relief washes over him and the assistant notes numbers – huh, a Ghibli witch coming to the rescue – then recalls where he is. Even if Hifumi’s already in danger, he hasn’t heard a scream, and– stupid as it is, in the office it wouldn’t be right to sprint off rudely from a colleague as soon as they stepped in together. He doesn’t need any more write-ups. “Um, I’m Kannonzaka, in illustration–”

“I know who you are,” she smiles, nods. “Adaya. Come on, you’re following Izanami, aren’t you?”

His mind scrambles back to its target, heart pounding like he’s on a timer. “R-Right! Then, let’s go!”

***

 

Despite the look of it, the inside is oddly scary after all. Or perhaps just severely unsettling. The usual ghosts and ghoulies are a mix of actual actors (interns and try-hard veteran colleagues, he’s sure) and well-crafted props. The blend of sensory cues is perfectly-balanced with the spooky. Doppo tried to rush ahead to Hifumi within moments of entering, only to step into a deep puddle of goo, only crossable by wet planks… or a secret pavement to the side if one looked for longer than two seconds in the darkness of that section. One ankle coated in Daiso-quality toy slime, he tries to listen out for Hifumi ahead, now, but it’s hard. Ogura and Mitsuya are a section or two just behind them by the sounds of it – well, by the sounds of Mitsuya, mostly. Roughly one minute after a waft of hot stinky air from a mouldy air-conditioner disguised as a large zombie had been and gone over Doppo comes the sound of retching and Ogura’s patient ‘That’s why we don’t mix beer and shochu before 9pm…’.

“It’s funny how we know it’s just panels and cardboard, but it really feels like a maze, doesn’t it?” Adaya remarks casually, a touch impressed. Doppo realises that he hadn’t even thought to be embarrassed about his whole demeanour, his hasty, anxious behaviour, despite his probably senior colleague trailing along at a perfectly normal pace.

“Y-Yes. I’m sorry for rushing.” he pauses to bow to her, right on time to receive an accidental elbow in the ear from some poor colleague in a Jason outfit. The murderous effect is somewhat dampened by the bowing and apologising session that happens until Doppo staggers to his feet to continue, Adaya hardly giving a shrug.

“Don’t worry, I’m just glad you came along. Hardly anyone floats around solo at these things except for me.”

“I’m the one who’s glad I got to go,” Doppo sighs, thinking of Hifumi, but his own office authority-respecting mindset mentally slaps him across the face. “A-ah, but, Adaya-san, you said you were waiting to visit this… office haunted house?”

“Yeah, this kind of stuff’s great. I heard visual merchandising went all-out for this, since the last few exhibitions were pretty heavy on the standees and nothing else, so their creative energy was all pent-up, or something.” Doppo’s foot lands on a particularly creaky floorboard, and instantly a damp, hairy puppet lunges out from his right. The sensation makes him shudder and brush it off furiously. “Ooh, so that’s what they do with the defunct mascot characters, huh?”

“Grim.” Behind them there’s a hoot from– either Ogura or Mitsuya, and then dead ahead, a yelp that doesn’t end in a giggle and makes his stomach lurch with anxiety. Doppo keeps striding forward. “Oh, god, Hifumi.”

“Izanami-sensei’s not too good with scary things… I didn’t expect that.” Adaya says at his back. The comment just conjures all the scary movie marathons they did as teenagers that were, in retrospect, clearly just an attempt to squeeze the living daylights out of Doppo, before Hifumi had nightmares. They just don’t watch them now because he doesn’t get a thrill from them. ‘I have enough fear just going outside’, he’d said once, turning off the TV’s contrast just as the screen revealed a woman crouched in the corner of a ceiling. He won’t reveal that, though. His sweat feels cold on the back of his neck just thinking about him.

“Y-Yeah, something like that. Full of surprises…”

“Your work on Dead or Alive was great, by the way.”

Despite the low lighting, the trailing vines overhead as they enter some musty swamp-themed section, he can’t help glancing back at her. Of course she looks familiar aside from the cosplay: she’s an editor. He’s seen her around Baldie’s desk on his occasional office day, and her picture on a shrunk-down email icon. 

“Adaya-san,” he gasps, “I-I’m so sorry I didn’t recognise you!”

“That’s alright. I look at your work more often than you talk to me.” Her face doesn’t flinch one bit as a gust of frosty air and dry ice blast past her shoulder, hitting Doppo square in the already monitor-dry eyes. He’s groaning, squatting and rubbing the irritation out of them, when she says something that guts him. “We never got to have a catch-up after you came back to work.”

…That entire month and a bit before he was hospitalised is a numb haze in his memory, but somehow he recalls the individual pieces he’d had to crank out– only because each one was tainted with guilt, horrible guilt, that the project manager would receive some crap nothing like his usual work quality, and it would drag everybody down just so Baldie could feel vindicated. There was something anatomically wrong, but he couldn’t see it with his bleary eyes at the time and had simply sent it off with Hifumi to the office. He stays crouched on the damp ground. It just feels appropriate. “I don’t see why you would want to… the quality of what I was pumping out just before I– before my sick leave was terrible. N-Not what I would want you to have, not at all. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry that you had to deal with that from an in-house illustrator. If it caused you any problems, I’m really, really very sorry.”

“Well, the work quality expected in line with your workload would be a conversation to have with your editor… I hope the revisions requested didn’t upset you, is what I meant.”

“Revisions?”

Further down the corridor, something falls from the cloth ceiling with a wet slap. A smaller something splats onto his shoulder, sending a horrid shiver through his body; Adaya picks a dripping piece of konnyaku off him and tosses it further back where they’d walked from.

“I sent them to your editor.”

“By email?”

“Obviously,” she follows him as they head forward, deeper into this fake-swampland chilled with aircon units. “If you don’t have them in writing then you can’t evidence proper working practices when it comes to the annual salary raise.”

“...”

He might want to ignore his inbox, but Doppo never ignores revision requests and follow-ups. Because Baldie always phones him for revisions. Or videocalls him. Because… well, he never explained, only that Doppo thought he was digitally-challenged. Or had an aversion to actually writing down the discussion.

He thinks about annual performance reviews, about Baldie’s screen turned away from him, typing and typing and a ‘Send’ and nothing in his emails to show for it. Every contract update without a copy sent to him.

He thinks about the Dead or Alive project, the long chains and threads directly with project managers, and how quiet his inbox has been ever since the designs were approved.

He thinks about the cutthroat competition to illustrate Hifumi’s light novels, and the newbie artists assigned to each anthology. While he sits collecting dust in some back shelf, all Bamboo and Intuos, new Cintiqs in rookies’ hands flaunted on Shu**sha’s website.

He thinks about Mitsuya moving to Bandsaw Man.

 

His insides grow cold. His jaw trembles like he’s standing in a freezer when he speaks.

“I’m… I only… he never told me that you… o-only that you weren’t satisfied…”

“Well, that changes with revisions, doesn’t it?” Adaya pulls nonchalantly at a rubber tentacle trailing over her arm and it falls off the puppeting stick from behind a curtain. “It’s a real shame, Kannonzaka. You’re one of our best, but your reputation for never communicating really hamstrings you, you know?”

 

She walks a few steps ahead out of the swamp, her plush cat nodding in her witch’s satchel, but he stays rooted to the spot. 

The floor feels like it’s falling out from beneath him. Unlike the goop puddle or the soggy floorboards, there’s no resistance to the realisation. There isn’t even any pressure building up in his head.

Off in the distance, another horror actor colleague does their best Kayako-like rattling ending in a shout. The squeal and giggle of visitors running away fades with it. But it seems so stupid. Trying so hard. Being here in the first place.

 

Didn’t the others tell him that something wasn’t right? 

It wasn’t just his own self-esteem making him stick to things as they were, was it?

 

A thought distils and drips into his mind.

 

Wait.

Was this all… my fault?

A shriek tears through the air so clear and sharp that his eardrum cracks. He twitches out of his freefall, knowing whose voice it is, and doesn’t wait to start running to follow Adaya. But the words that follow make him sprint past her without a breath of apology.

“No, no, no, no! ”

“ Hifumi! ”

His fear drives him forward, around a plasterboard corner that he half-crashes into, careening past a wall of wet mosslike fabrics, and he breaks into a room barely lit by a LED candle only just bright enough that he only sees the outline of two people, at first– some long-haired actor crawling across the ground in the usual horror-movie fashion, and the woman who’d gone in with Hifumi… looking wide-eyed, not at the ghost, but at the corner of the room.

Curled up and pressed into the wall as far as possible, sits Hifumi himself. 

Doppo can’t tell if it’s the electric flicker of the candlelight making it look like he’s shaking violently, but he doesn’t wait to find out: he rushes over, touching his shoulders, noticing the horrid, long streaks of tears caking makeup down his painted cheeks with a lurch of his stomach.

“Hifumi, what happened?”

The noise that comes out of him is a weak, broken whine he hasn’t heard in years.

 

“Help me…”

 

It sends him almost out of his body. There’s only the sensation of prickling at the ends of his being to tell him that he’s capable of movement, that he has a body. Hifumi’s yanked to his feet; his eyes hunt for an exit, any exit at all, and alight on a traffic-light-green glow just visible beyond the thin web of the black fabric hanging. Doppo rips it aside, a stretchy curtain popping off its loose hand-stitched seams, and wrenches down the bar of the fire exit.

Instantly the ear-shattering drilling of the fire alarm rings out throughout the floor louder than any scream, but it doesn’t matter, because Hifumi is with him, in the dingy concrete stairwell free of any other people at all, and as soon as he knows he’s beside him firmly on the landing, he slams the door shut with a tremendous bang behind them. It seals away the sheer volume of the alarm within the office, leaving only the sound of their heaving breaths on this side of the door. Hifumi sinks to his knees on the cold concrete. Doppo’s head feels dangerously light; after a second, he, too, crouches down.

There’s rustling and the skitter of feet beyond the door somewhere. Further down, all the way down the staircase, clicking heels and tipsy chatter echo but it’s muffled, eight floors away. Laughter fades into the slamming of doors until the only residual sound is that ongoing alarm.

Doppo has his breath back. It’s been some time since he felt even close to as panicked as Hifumi must do in these situations. He looks at him, eye-level from his squat. The eyeshadow that Hifumi had so painstakingly applied is running from the wet circles of tears around his eyes, plastering his lower lashes to his skin like strawberry leaves in the sink, and he looks shockingly pale– not just from the harsh stairwell lights, either. Almost all his lipstick has been chewed off his lower lip. Doppo peels off his jacket for the second time tonight and drapes it around Hifumi’s shoulders.

“How’re you feeling?”

Hifumi’s voice still shakes when he replies after a careful swallow and a breath. “Bad. But better.”

The guilt swells in Doppo, choking his throat. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner.” But Hifumi, always forgiving, too forgiving, shakes his head. His tinted pigtails by his ears nearly catch Doppo in the eyes as they swing. 

“I should’ve turned back after all. I thought I could stick it out since– since she– since we–” A glazed look falls over his eyes, and Doppo leans forward to squeeze his shoulders.

“No, no, it’s okay, you don’t need to explain.”

“I just, I just, I just, I just–” Hifumi’s lip quivers, shoulders rattling.

He squeezes, squeezes. “Hifumi, it’s okay, you didn’t do anything wrong. There aren’t any women here, okay? It’s just us two, now. It’s not your fault, alright?”

With a long, shallow but determined breath, Hifumi bites his lips together firmly until they blanch, then nods, staring down at his scuffed knee in the yawning rip in his tights. No blood, just a white fringe of lifted skin. He shivers.

“It’s cold, huh.” Hifumi doesn’t say anything, only pulls the jacket closer around himself. “We should get going.”

“Mmm.”

After they both make it to their feet, Doppo’s arm wrapped tight around Hifumi’s waist as he holds loosely onto Doppo’s shoulder, they begin the descent down the fire escape steps. Good thing they’re used to it from their apartment, Doppo thinks, although it doesn’t exactly help his knees, and Hifumi seems to totter even in his flat-soled sneakers. 

Alien as it feels, Doppo realises he’s seen this stairwell before. Only in snatches and glimpses – his first few months at the publishing-house probably saw a fire alarm drill or three. He’d definitely stress-smoked too close to the lobby on one of those occasions. Something in the back of his mind tickles at his conscience, delivering the information that he was probably rude to a higher-up, just now; pushing past people, inconveniencing a whole company’s worth of workers on an annual social; but it’s so far-off, such a deep, leviathan tickle under the leagues of the present moment, that he can’t pay attention to it. He can’t care enough to make it matter. It really, really doesn’t matter right now, not with his flatmate sunk in silence and the aftershocks of panic making him occasionally forget how to walk every few metres. There’s always later to deal with it. There’s going to be a later to deal with it, he resolves.

 

Hifumi eventually breaks the silence with a small, tired voice, a few floors down. “That girl… well, Honda-san. She’s in the Design department. So, she’s in quite a few meetings with me.”

“Oh, so you did know her.”

“Yeah, I… she always talks to me afterwards. So I thought it would be fine. Because we even sit close together… so, I thought, I should be able to handle her just touching my arm, because she does that anyway in the office…”

Doppo doesn’t get to see much of Hifumi in the office, but he’s seen him manage veritable gaggles of female colleagues around him. They all seem to want to tear a chunk out of him when he’s in the suit. So, with bared arms, alone in the dark…

“...But, when that ghost crawled out, she p– pressed her body against me, and I–”

They stop on the landing as Hifumi whips a hand to his mouth, looking horribly washed-out even without the contrast of his bright makeup. After a moment of pressing his forehead to the cold concrete walls he waves his hand, then stifles a retch and swallows.

“In the end, I haven’t gotten better at all, huh…?”

“Don’t say that,” Doppo strokes his back. “Don’t– that’s not true. You’re doing fine. You did really well without the suit.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Hifumi sighs. It’s a short exhale that seems to carry all the weight, all the tension still keeping his shoulders tight as piano-strings. “I just used you as a shield.”

“That’s fine, I don’t mind…” Still the guilt eats him up, all the resentment about wanting to be anywhere but here in the office, even if right now, the only place he wants to be is Hifumi’s side. “If anything, you got to do almost all your usual stuff with me in the way. Even if you didn’t– if you didn’t have your phobia, that elevator ride was still hell.”

Hifumi sniffs, then gives a small, choked-up laugh. “It really was. Like someone didn’t wash their costume from last year.”

“And you wonder why I don’t like office parties.”

“They’re normally fun!” Hifumi pouts, but quickly lets it drop. “When I’m not– freaking out every two seconds.”

“Hifumi…” 

Just in case he’s still nauseous, Doppo waits for Hifumi to make the first move. But he stays still, his heart fluttering even through the jacket, like butterfly wings on Doppo’s palm. And Hifumi’s voice is so small it almost gets lost in that echoing, shrill alarm beyond the fire doors.

“It, um, it sucks. It fucking sucks. I hate it. I hate it so much.” He casts a worrying look down the concrete staircase. “Can’t even dress how I want. Try it once and this happens…”

“We should have swapped,” Doppo suggests, deadpan, without thinking, anything to make him stop looking at heights like that, talking unlike himself. But Hifumi bursts into an ugly laugh.

“Foooor reeeeal, Doppo-chin! We coulda gone another layer deeper, like, Harley-Joker swap, crazy makeup! But I don’t wanna be known as the guy who only wears suits at Hallowe’en either.”

“Better than the guy who doesn’t wear deodorant at Hallowe’en.”

“God, so true. Ugh, I’m a mess.” Hifumi pats the ass of his shorts until he finds his pocket-mirror. “Actually, this is kinda scream queen. Think we’ll give a police officer a heart attack when we leave?”

“If you can do that to my editor, I’ll be your alibi.”

“Obvs. Okay, let’s keep going.”

Everything feels like white noise, but at least Hifumi’s safe. If he remembers little else after today he hopes, at least, to remember to thank Adaya-san.

 

Past the third floor, Hifumi starts to hold onto Doppo more firmly, a sharing of bodyweight rather than the iron grip of desperation. It nearly distracts him with relief, nearly makes Doppo misstep. 

 

On the second floor, Hifumi pipes up suddenly.

“This one time, I was going back to a hotel with this guy, and the receptionist touched my hand when she gave me the key and I threw up on his shoe.”

Doppo stares at him. He chews on his own offering a bit before sharing.

“One time… I think, pre-Golden Week drinks… I went to someone’s place after you’d gone home, and when they turned on their porch light they looked at me silently for five seconds, then said their boyfriend was home and I had to go...”

“No wayyyyyyy!”

“And then I saw them at a mixer, and they had forgotten my name.”

“Oh my god, that’s kinda worse than when they remember you!”

“Right?”

“The guy whose shoe I puked on, lowkey I think he quit, ‘cause after that…”

 

The ground floor fire door leads out to the side of the building’s glass doors. Despite the October chill, the gust of air peppered with rain splatter is refreshing, brings Doppo back to the present. The costume jacket now has the insulation properties of a napkin, the way a sneeze rips through Hifumi almost immediately.

“Eugh, kinda wish I’d worn something warmer.”

“Oh, now you think of that.” Doppo keeps one arm looped around Hifumi’s waist as they lurk under the next building’s stairwell, tugging off one awful scratchy glove with his teeth so he can start booking a taxi home on his phone, a hundred of the usual notifications pinging all the while as soon as he reconnects his data. Masses of their poor Shu**sha coworkers huddle under the building’s entrance, avoiding the rain and the fire alarm both, but groups spill out where one ground floor simply can’t fit multiple floors’ worth of drunken creatives and office folk. Mostly the ones who’d be going to a second location. Doppo spots Ogura dragging Mitsuya behind him, splotches on his shirt from konnyaku and slime. The taxi booked, he sighs, spitting the glove out. “Why’d you pick these costumes, anyway?”

Hifumi pauses his apology-texting to his work pals to cast him a genuinely anxious look. “Um… I just thought it’d be funny to see you Jokerfied.”

…

Doppo shrugs. He doesn’t need to see any more tears, apologies, or remorse from his boyfriend tonight. “Figures.”

“You’re not mad?” 

He can practically feel a halo try to place itself on his head. He’d let himself get dressed up like this ten times over if Hifumi would stop looking at him like that. “...It’s not like I had anything better to do.”

“Yay! I mean, thaaaaanks. Wouldn’t blame you if you were mad for a week over this.”

“Maybe I will hold it against you. As a treat.” Doppo’s phone pings. “Taxi’s nearly here. Where do you want to wait for it?”

Hifumi’s relaxed look suddenly takes on a worried air, and Doppo glances over too intensely, ready to protect from the person striding towards them– but, with dry eyes playing tricks on him in the fuzz of streetlights in the mist-spray of rain, it isn’t a woman like he’d suspected, despite the long braid bouncing, heeled boots clicking across the pavement…

“We forgot the costume contest,” Hifumi says quickly, straightening up as Jakurai approaches. “He-eyyy! Listen, about the fire alarm–”

In an instant he’s on them, clasping them so tight the air is crushed out of them like bellows with those large hands, claws and all, tight between their shoulderblades.

“Sensei!” Doppo squeezes out, his painted flaky face mashed into his cloaked shoulder. “Y-Your outfit!”

But Jakurai’s voice is trembling when he whispers to them.

“Thank God you two are safe.” 

 

They can’t twist to look at one another, but he feels Hifumi still, next to him. Jakurai says nothing. He clasps, breathes low and strong, forehead pressed down hard against the tops of their heads.

 

Why does it seem like… he thought they were in trouble, or something?

Quickly, before Doppo can protest about being so visible, so easy to spot in their huddle on the publishing-house grounds, easy to start rumours about, Hifumi loops his arm around Jakurai’s waist to start stroking his back. 

“There wasn’t a fire for real or anything, Jakurai… the fire door triggers the alarm when you open it, so…”

“We just took a while getting downstairs. Away from all the people.”

“‘Cause I forgot my jacket.” Hifumi adds. But it does nothing to soften the grip. If anything, those hands tighten, but Doppo can’t feel even a hint of his monster fantasy returning at the feeling of the plastic claws digging into his costume shirt.

“I called.” Jakurai murmurs. “Nobody had seen you.”

His breaths heave, gradually.

Doppo doesn’t realise he’s already apologising, the way it runs out of his mouth like a sewing-machine’s beating needle, but he reaches around, too, finding Jakurai’s back, finding his braid, the back of his neck, touching, soothing, the opposite of the heavy grip and the extraction from the situation he always goes in for with Hifumi’s attacks– “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Don’t– I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

“We would’ve told you if it was really bad…”

“I don’t know that.” Jakurai’s arms loosen, at last. But his head’s hung low, his fringe falling over his face, blocking out whatever expression he’s wearing when he repeats. “I don’t know that you would.”

“Jakurai…”

 

It feels like an eon for him to let go, fully. Wordlessly, each of them touch his hand; he lets that happen, at least. The drizzle starts to set into their costumes. It only adds to the cold, cold feeling of sinking that never quite left Doppo since the tenth floor, sinking down like an abyss through his gut. Hifumi sniffs as his nose starts to run and the sound alone seems to reanimate Jakurai, his eyes clapping onto him at last.

 

“Allow me to drive you home.”

“You don’t want to stay out…?” Hifumi says, but the look Doppo sees in his eyes– dulled, tired, and the age they always assure doesn’t stand out on his gorgeous, calm face, suddenly weighs down in eyebags, in the loose, unhappy set of his jaw– makes him take Hifumi by the elbow, a nudge as subtle as he can be in clown makeup and spats.

“That, that would be, um, we would appreciate that. Let’s go.”

“Oh– but, if we don’t say goodbye and just–”

“It’s fine, let’s. Let’s just.”

Jakurai nods.

 

Despite the strangeness of the costume, paint lost and peeling and loose seams starting to pop under joints, it feels as though they’re nothing more but drops of rain in the downpour as they head to the car park, running down into the same drain.

 

And for once, those worries, the anxiety manifest as the building above them, don’t seem so looming in Doppo’s mind.

Notes:

iconic dohifu Joker/Harley can be seen here at pixiv: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/71627931 it's work 54/59 if you scroll! R18

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of work-life balance