Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the time Suguru pulls up to the curb at the pickup address, he’s late.

It’s not his fault that he got hung up behind a jam of cars and pedestrians all rubbernecking at a taped off corner on a relatively busy central intersection, mesmerized by the lights of police cars lined up along the block. The delay added an unnecessary five minutes to his drive, and Suguru’s gotten dinged for less in reviews.

But he’s here now, on some dark, desolate sideroad well away from Tokyo’s ongoing nightlife. His rider, however, is nowhere to be seen.

The doors softly unlock as he shifts into park, willing to wait. It’s the least he can do, considering he wasn’t on time, either.

Suguru turns the dial for the heat up a notch to counter the swiftly dropping temps outside, sips hot coffee from the thermos in his cup holder, and then double checks that the backseat is nice and tidy, considering his last passengers were drunkenly wobbling on their way out.

As the minutes tick by, he goes back to his phone to double check that he’s at the right address and yes, this is the exact stretch of poorly lit, unpopulated sidewalk he was asked to come to. With a little sigh, he goes to type a message to the rider he’s supposed to pick up—a Mahito.

He’s only just fired off a Hi, I’m sorry I was a few minutes late, but I’ve arrived at your pickup location when the back door clicks as his rider opens it and slides into the backseat.

Perfect timing, really.

Suguru puts on a cheerily bright smile and his well-honed customer service voice, hoping charm can compensate for his own admittedly late arrival. “Hey there, I’m Suguru—”

“Drive.”

Oh. One of those.

“Yes, sir,” Suguru dryly replies, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he pulls out onto the street and away from the glow of the streetlight he’d been sitting under.

It’s after midnight and overcast, a dreary December night following a dreary December day. The roads are still wet, reflecting back the myriad-colored stoplights and neon signage along the route. They’re mostly empty, too, which is partly why Suguru prefers doing this kind of work at night. It’s also when business is best, as people stumble drunkenly out of bars and find the trains are no longer running.

While slowing to make a turn, Suguru checks the rearview mirror and does a double take, as there’s a lot to drink in: the tousled white hair, the sunglasses on at two a.m., the handsome jaw, and that dark navy suit, complete with an expensive-looking jacket draped over his shoulders.

The guy in his backseat is picking lint—possibly acquired from one of the last riders, who’d worn an enormous white fleece coat—off of what is probably a tailored outfit worth more than the car they’re riding in. But the stark disparity between his well-worn Camry and his chicly dressed passenger is no fault of Suguru’s. This guy could’ve gone for a driver with a vehicle of a newer make and model, if he cared to shell out more for a flashier option.

Suguru’s brow furrows slightly as he puts his attention back on the road. 

“Hey, uh, what snacks do you have up there?” said passenger—Mahito, Suguru reminds himself, according to the app—asks out of nowhere. No greeting, no exchanging of names, no polite acknowledgement of Suguru. Just grubbing for snacks. “That meeting took forever.”

Suguru does actually keep some around in the hopes extra hospitality can get him better reviews, as well as for his own personal snacking. But who the hell’s having meetings after midnight, anyway? “I have pretzels, shrimp chips, crackers—” 

“Ugh. Garbage. Get me something sweet.”

Rude again. Suguru returns the energy by tossing the one sweet thing he has on hand—a packet of fruit gummies that the two kids he nannies for on the weekends love—into the backseat with a little more force than he probably should.

When no ‘thank you’ is subsequently offered, Suguru supplies a pointed, “You’re welcome.”

There’s a soft whistle from behind him.

“Whew, attitude. You’re lucky you’re kind of a looker.” He pushes his sunglasses down his nose and Suguru glances up just in time to briefly meet his eyes through the rearview mirror. They’re blue. “Did Ijichi hire you for me as a birthday treat or something?”

Despite his rider’s blatant lack of manners, a heated blush starts crawling its way up the back of Suguru’s neck; any sign of it is fortunately hidden away under his lengthy, half-down hair. His flustered surprise at the maybe-model in the backseat thinking his looks—complete with dark undereye circles and lips slightly cracked from the cold—are worth commenting on hopefully goes mostly missed.

At twenty-eight, Suguru’s no stranger to having guys hit on him, but it’s usually limited to certain clubs or bars where the company is assumed to all be like-minded. And it’s usually not coming from someone who looks like that.

He has no clue who Ijichi is or why he, an Uber driver, would be presented as a birthday treat. His best guess is that his passenger is severely confused, drunk, lacking in filter, or some dire combination of the three.

Suguru wrinkles his nose as he replies, “Uh, no? But thanks, I guess.”

Hopefully that settles it. Suguru then makes a point of turning up the volume on the radio until it’s loud enough for speaking over it to be awkward, dropping a hint.

The hint goes untaken.

“So… you’re not one of Ijichi’s people, then?” the rude passenger asks, a few decibels louder than the music.

“I have no idea who that is, so no.” Suguru checks the time on the drive and inwardly groans at the thought of spending another twenty-five minutes with this guy pestering him about whoever Ijichi is.

There is maybe a minute of blessed quiet from Mahito in the back before he cocks his head and asks, “Why are we taking the bridge?”

“It’s the fastest route,” Suguru flatly states, almost on autopilot. It’s too late—or early, depending on how you view two a.m.—to debate a backseat driver who is convinced he knows a better way than the GPS.

He taps the back of a nail against the screen of his phone, cradled in a little holder mounted on the console, which is displaying the directions for him.

For the next two songs, the guy stops asking random questions and keeps to himself. Lulled by the silence, Suguru dials back the radio volume to a comfortable level again—which is right around when his rider stops typing away on his phone and decides to get chatty.

“I see,” he says, apropos of nothing, as he spreads out in the backseat, very much not buckled in. His laughter is low, pleasant, almost delighted. One black-gloved hand slides up to grip the shoulder of the front passenger seat. “So, who do you work for?”

Suguru’s eyes find his strange rider’s through the rearview mirror. He squints at him. “Um… I guess I’m something of an independent contractor, technically.”

“Huh. Is that right?”

There is a slide of expensive fabric on cheap fabric as Mahito moves from the passenger side of the car to the driver’s, resettling right behind Suguru.

Suguru swallows like there’s cotton lining his throat, palms going clammy around the steering wheel. The back of his neck and arms goosepimple at the soft sound of a breath far too near. His frantic little glances into the mirror show him only a sliver of a pale face peeking from behind the headrest, a dark sunglass lens shielding his eye.

“And who are you working for right now, at this moment?” he asks, voice carrying right past Suguru’s ear.

Suguru licks his lips, forced to keep his attention solidly on the road as several other cars and a freight truck cruise alongside him over the bridge. “Myself? Or—or you, I guess? I don’t know, it depends on how you look at it. Could you—would you mind sitting back and actually using your seatbelt? Please?”

When he next meets his rider’s gaze through the mirror, Suguru realizes he’s not alone in his confusion. The eyes reflected back at him are cold and etched with traces of uncertainty, sharp furrows between white brows as he studies Suguru with an intensity that makes his skin prickle in discomfort.

Suguru has to blink and look away first, wondering what the hell is happening here. As he takes the next exit toward the destination address, the map on his screen blinks out. The route he’d been following disappears.

The ride’s been canceled. Mid-trip.

Suguru gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach like this whole thing is one enormous mistake. It’s a scam or something. He’s being played.

“Listen,” his passenger says from right behind him, the light-hearted tone he’d used even while being coarsely rude now traded for something that’s not so nice. “I’m asking you very nicely: who hired you? Sukuna? The Zen’in? How did you know where to find me tonight? Where to wait?”

The names don’t register at all. The threat in the way he’s speaking does, though, and Suguru’s threshold for that kind of bullshit from a customer is markedly lower at two in the morning.

He sputters half a second, then launches into a well-deserved rant.

“Excuse me? I’m—you’re the one who hired me! And not only do you think that your measly fare entitles you to treat your Uber driver like some personal henchman valet, but you even cancel the ride halfway through? What the hell is your problem? Are you high or something? Drunk?” At wits’ end and blessed with a well-timed stoplight, Suguru twists around in the driver’s seat. “Do you seriously think it’s okay to be such a fucking—”

The vitriol about to spill from his tongue dries up as he catches a glint of something and his passenger’s awkward position and—yes, that’s him tucking a gun into the back of his waistband, under the concealment of his expensive wool coat.

Cold sweat breaks out on Suguru’s temples. For a split second, he considers abandoning the car and his godawful passenger with it. But alas, without this piece of shit Camry, he’s screwed out of multiple jobs.

The rider licks his lips as he finishes sliding the gun into its hidden holster and then raises his gloved hands to show they’re empty. “Heh, caught me. Sorry about that.”

The light changes. Suguru only notices because the tint inside the car turns from red to green. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t lift his foot from the brake.

“I’m sorry,” he says in disbelief, the customer service voice reflexively kicking back in as he tries to piece together if he really saw what he just saw. Had he just had a gun pointed at his back without even knowing it? “Could you—was that—what was that?”

A second ticks by, and then another. Suguru’s stare remains locked onto the stranger in his backseat, adrenaline pushing out his fright and making his hands itch to strike at him first. He’s good at wristlocks, and what good’s a gun if your wrist is sprained or broken? When you’re concussed? When your head is rammed through the dashboard?

His breaths are quick, shallow. He’s tensed, half-certain he can blindside this asshole before he can grab for his pistol again, but… but only half-certain. That’s a gamble.

Mahito flashes a smile that doesn’t reassure Suguru at all and says, “Hear me out—”

“Were you trying to hijack my car?” Suguru blurts, hating that his voice breaks halfway through. He’s incensed, bewildered, shocked by the audacity of taking his snacks and then trying to take the car. At gunpoint. He could put this guy’s head through a window. “Seriously? This is a manual, you know. Over two hundred thousand miles on it. And the AC doesn’t even work, so have fun with that come summer.”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, okay? No need to convince me. I have no desire to take your—what is this, a 2000? 1998?”

“1996.” At the wrinkled nose he gets in response, Suguru’s emotions flare defensive. “It still runs fine. It was getting you from point A to point B, wasn’t it?”

“So now you want me to want to steal it?” his useless passenger huffs back at him, throwing up his arms. “Okay, look, I’m sorry for ragging on your rustbucket Camry. Old, boring cars have their uses. I get it. I have a few myself for when I want to keep a low profile, hence why I mistook your ride for one of mine. A little mixup on my part.”

“A mixup?”

“Yeah. You know, an oopsie. A mistake.”

Suguru pinches the bridge of his nose. With a muttered curse, he wheels off the barren road so they’re not sitting in place at the stoplight. In a small, unattended parking lot, he puts on the break and locks the doors.

“Then… you’re not even the Mahito I was supposed to pick up back there in the first place?” Suguru realizes, staring dumbly into the mirror. No wonder the ride got canceled.

“Uh, nope.”

He’s smiling as he sits on the edge of the back seat, closer than Suguru would like. His teeth are white white. His canines stand out. And he’s a stranger. A total stranger with a gun tucked out of sight and a piss-poor attitude. Not even a name to put to the face. No record of him in the app for the police to find. Not a caring soul around to see or hear them.

It’s the kind of safety issue that had made Manami scowl when Suguru first mentioned he’d found a new way of making some extra money, insisting they just try the cam thing again. It’s why Miguel rode with him the first few nights he did this, until Suguru was used to strangers clambering into his car and couldn’t stand inconveniencing him any longer.

His mystery rider sucks his teeth for a second, one of his fists lightly bopping against the back of the passenger’s seat. “Uh, Suguru, was it? So, Suguru, this whole thing has been one big misunderstanding. Kinda funny, really.”

Suguru slowly turns his head, casting him a dark look from the side of his eye. If he speaks his mind right now, he might end up dead.

“It was dark and you happened to be right where I was told I’d get picked up,” the guy goes on. “Once I realized you weren’t one of my people, I thought mayyybe you slid in there on someone’s orders. Like, intentionally. Again, my bad.”

There’s a lot to sift through there, but on someone’s orders sticks in Suguru’s ears. Orders to do what? He doesn’t even want to speculate what he nearly got himself into—what muck he might already be in, just having the misfortune of associating with someone this sketchy.

“You should probably be more careful about jumping into random vehicles, then,” Suguru warns, irritated when the freeloader in his backseat only smiles more sharply. What a waste of a night—no sleep and barely any money to show for it. “You lost me a fare and wasted almost twenty minutes’ worth of gas.”

Not-Mahito presses a hand over his heart.

“Genuinely, I feel terrible about that.” Then he folds his arms into the space between the front seats and rests his chin atop them. The bridge of his glasses slips halfway down his nose, partially revealing those arrestingly blue eyes again. “Let me make it up to you.”

Suguru has a second or two to decide which is riskier: indulging this clearly dangerous man or immediately rebuffing him.

“That’s not necessary. Ride’s over. You can get out now,” he says, pointedly unlocking the doors. “Go on.”

His rider makes no move to leave. In fact, he’s—well, he seems too grown and important to call it a pout, but that’s what it looks like he’s doing.

“What, right here? You’re seriously going to kick me out me around a bunch of abandoned buildings? At two-something in the morning? Do you want me to get mugged?” His petulant frown is hard to reconcile with the fact that this guy is most likely a killer, or at least comfortable with the prospect of it.

“I think you’ll be fine.” Suguru refrains from mentioning, you know. The gun. “This area’s pretty safe, anyway, even at this hour.”

“Not for me, necessarily.”

Suguru accidentally makes eye contact through the mirror and god, why are his eyes so blue? Is it the lighting? Contacts? He can’t help but stare, feeling like the color shifts with the shadows playing over them. It’s even worse when he glances sideways and catches them head-on, no mirror or distance to keep some separation.

And maybe the man has some kind of point, if he was truly that paranoid about Suguru having ulterior motives for accidentally picking him up. Maybe, if he leaves him here, Suguru is semi-responsible for anything that happens to him after.

He kneads his thumb along his brow, hating that he’s worrying on behalf of a guy who was prepared to threaten him at gunpoint. Still, he finds himself offering, “...I’ll drop you off somewhere more populated, then. If you cover the gas.” 

Even as he says it, he can hear Manami and Larue’s frequent admonishment of you’re being too nice for your own good again. It’s what they’ll put as his epitaph, probably, when his body gets fished up tomorrow after whatever thankless stupidity he subjects himself to tonight.

“Take me home,” his passenger insists instead. “I’ll pay you in cash. More than enough to compensate you for tonight.”

Suguru perks for the first time since he picked this guy up. Warily, he checks, “How much?”

“How much do you want?”

Suguru’s eyes narrow for a moment, studying him through the mirror. Even he can tell those are designer shoes and a Rolex on his rider’s wrist. He licks his dry, chapped lips and tries, “A hundred and fifty thousand yen.”

If this weirdo wants Suguru to play chauffeur for him, it won’t come cheaply. He may well be the only paying customer Suguru is getting tonight, so he’s going to make it count. The reward needs to be worth the risk. And if he won’t pay out, he can find another way home.

“Nah,” he dismisses, immediately causing Suguru’s hackles to rise. But just as easily, he counters with, “Let’s double that.”

Suguru’s glad he didn’t start immediately cursing him out. He sits up straighter in his seat and asks, “Double?”

Did he hear that right? Three hundred thousand yen? He could take a break and get a few solid nights’ rest with that sort of intake. 

“You want triple?” his rider asks, seemingly just for the enjoyment of watching Suguru’s reaction. “Yeah, let’s say four hundred and fifty thousand. No, wait—a nice, round five hundred. Is that fair for your trouble?”

Fair? It’s quite literally too good to be true, but Suguru’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to believe. This guy looks like he can actually cover it, too.

He nods, willing to drive him around in circles for the next hour, if he wants. If it means landing more than two months’ rent in one night. In one drive.

“It’s a deal, then! Here, let me see your phone and I’ll put the address in.”

Suguru hands it over, still dazed at the thought of getting that much cash all in one go—and then immediately realizes I shouldn’t have done that. He just gave his phone to the guy with the gun. Why not hand him his keys, too? His wallet? His ATM PIN?

As if to underline the reckless stupidity of the moves that brought him here, two sleek, black SUVs, glossy and clearly of luxury make, swiftly roll in on either side of his car and cut to sharp stops. Even if it weren’t the dead of night, Suguru is sure the tint on their windows is too dark to make out anything or anyone within.

He’s fucked. It’s all he can think about, his hands nervously stroking back through his thick hair, afraid he’s about to be hauled off somewhere for the unforgivable crime of picking up a bumbling idiot.

The back window rolls down. The stranger behind him chipperly speaks to someone in one of the other vehicles.

Suguru sits rigidly still in the front seat, pointedly trying not to eavesdrop on anything that might get him into trouble. Unfortunately, his passenger lacks the discretion to keep his own volume down, so Suguru gets half the conversation.

“Yeah, no. No. False alarm. Disregard all that. I got in the wrong car. I know. I know. Nah, he’s fine.” His leather-wrapped hand slides up over Suguru’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze, making him go stiff in his seat. “Suguru here is going to give me a ride home. You all can go back to whatever you were doing, if you like. Hah. Very funny. It’s an order, actually.”

Those last few words aren’t as light and carefree. Suguru’s reminded of the tone the man had taken with him earlier, when he apparently thought Suguru had intentionally whisked him up for some nefarious purpose.

With a wave of his hand, the two black SUVs lurch into motion and roll out of the lot, turning back onto the street. They go separate ways.

“Friends of yours?” Suguru curtly questions as he hears the window rolling back up.

“Yeah, sorry.” He laughs, like this is all one funny, silly little hiccup in an otherwise normal night. Then he taps Suguru’s phone against his shoulder, returning it to him with the directions all set to go. “They thought you kidnapped me.”

Dryly, and kind of over the whole situation—except for the five hundred thousand on the line—Suguru asks, “And why’d they think that?”

Just a hint of sheepishness peeks through his passenger’s otherwise handsome, confident expression. “My mistake—”

“Your mistake,” Suguru recites along with him, nodding, wanting the fault indisputably laid out. “And you’re sure you wouldn’t rather ride home with your friends?”

“Nah.” Unfazed by Suguru’s displeasure, he sits himself right behind the driver’s seat again, a sliver of his wolfish grin caught in view of the mirror. “I’d rather get to know my new one.”

Don’t ask what he does for a living. Just don’t ask.

It’s such an easy topic for small talk and Suguru is used to mirroring conversational interest with chatty riders and customers. He’s even genuine about it a good portion of the time. He’s made most of his friends while working one job or another—bartending with Manami, regularly ringing up Miguel at the FamilyMart, catering gigs where he started commiserating with Larue.

But at this moment, whenever he opens his mouth to answer his high-paying ticket to five hundred thousand yen, he has to remind himself not to delve too deeply.

They’re barely halfway across town when Gojo Satoru—that’s his name, freely given despite Suguru’s repeated protests that he really doesn’t need to know—bids him to pull over at a yakiniku place coming up that’s open twenty-four-seven. He’s hungry.

“My treat,” Gojo promises, no doubt knowing it’ll go a long way in swaying his driver.

The last thing Suguru ate was a cheap cup of noodles around nine. It’s been ages since he had anything as mouthwatering as all you can eat meat. He folds immediately, selling it to himself as wringing an expensive meal out of Gojo, milking the nuisance for all he’s worth. But as he parks and follows Satoru inside, Suguru can’t help but feel a little like a fox being lured into a henhouse, baited into some unseen trap.

At this hour, the place is nearly empty. Before they’ve even sat down, Gojo is already flagging someone and ordering for the both of them. Suguru’s eyes go wide as he overhears mention of a wagyu tasting platter—Matsusaka, Kobe, Ozaki—plus crab and sides. Only when the server asks about drinks does Gojo defer to him.

If he didn’t have to drive, he’d try the shochu that was plastered on a poster in the window, since he’s not the one footing the bill. He settles for a beer. Just one.

They’ve barely gotten seated before the beef and other assorted dishes are brought out, their table filled to the edge. Suguru gets the impression that Gojo’s something of a regular here.

“Gojo—”

“Satoru.”

“... Satoru.” They only just met. It’s weird being on a first name basis, but probably better than his suspect dining companion having his full name. “Do you do this kind of thing a lot? Pick up random working people and take them out to eat? Thanks for the meal, by the way.”

In other circumstances, with different company, Suguru would hem and haw a little bit about helping himself to something so expensive. He’d offer to split the cost. He’d limit himself to a small portion.

Between his piqued hunger and residual irritation with Gojo Satoru, though, he sees no reason to hold back. He’s throwing meat on the grill at the center of their table within seconds of the server leaving, all for himself.

“Nah. Can’t say I’ve ever felt compelled to before, but I did sort of throw a wrench into your night, so…” He flashes a grin, cutting and friendly at the same time; it gives Suguru the impression of a wolf pretending to be something more domesticated. “And you’re the one who picked me up. Technically.”

“No, I picked Mahito up.” Suguru makes little air quotes around the name. His rightful passenger who almost certainly would not have pulled a gun on him; maybe Suguru’d be on his way home right now if all had gone to plan, able to squeeze in a few extra hours of sleep. “You must’ve been awfully distracted to just climb into the first car you saw.”

“It’s late, okay? And dark. And ugh, you wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve had to deal with tonight,” he complains, flopping back in the booth seat, an arm stretching carelessly across it. The back of his hand goes to his forehead, fully dramatic. “Can’t stand having to play nice with incompetents that can’t even manage—ah. But I shouldn’t be talking to you about that.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Suguru readily agrees, busying himself with rearranging the grilling meat. He even starts a few pieces cooking for Satoru, who seems in no hurry to eat despite being the one that asked to stop here in the first place.

“Don’t know what it is,” Satoru says, finger circling the rim of his glass. “You must have one of those faces that makes it easy for people to tell you all their secrets.”

“I think it might just be you that thinks that,” Suguru says, smiling at the absurdity of it—and in a better mood with the best meal of his year imminent, “so keep them to yourself, please.”

He closes his eyes as he gets his mouth around his first piece of thin, perfectly seared sirloin to finish on the grill. It takes a lot not to moan when it hits his tongue. 

“That good, huh?”

Suguru nods, too overcome to speak for a moment. He’s been eating crap for so long he’d forgotten what truly good food could do. He feels better, instantly—his body, his mood, his feelings on all of this.

Suguru opens his eyes again and is, for a moment, taken aback by the strangeness of all of it. Sitting in a yakiniku restaurant in the wee hours of the morning, eating probably the best quality beef he’s had in his life in the company of a total stranger who is maybe-probably-yakuza or at least yakuza-adjacent.

Fuck it.

Suguru wolfs down another four pieces in quick succession and then goes back in with the tongs to load the grill up anew. With Satoru eating now, too, he’s sure they’ll be devouring wagyu as quickly as they can cook it.

“I like eating with someone who can keep up with me,” Satoru grins, poking around on the grill and picking off pieces he likes.

Keep up? Suguru’s demolishing him. It’s not quite a fight—Suguru is ravenous for the opportunity to fill his belly well but he’s not suicidal—but there is a race to snap up the choicest looking slices before the other does.

The meal is extravagant and simple all at the same time: beer and barbecued meat. The combo satisfies Suguru in a way nothing has for a while. The last time he had splurged on anything half this good was on Nanako and Mimiko’s birthday, trying to make the experience something special.

“Go on,” Satoru encourages when he sees Suguru’s empty glass and the way he’s studying the menu of beers they have on tap. “We’ll be here a while. There’s like three more plates of this coming,” he adds, tapping at one of the now-empty platters that had held various slices of premium wagyu.

And Suguru figures a second one couldn’t hurt. He rarely has the time to drink, and even then it’s cheap shit. He might as well enjoy something finer while he can.

“So, what do you do when you’re not driving?” Satoru asks in between bites, now that Suguru’s slowed to a more moderate eating pace. “These are late hours to work.”

“Yeah, they are. Always plenty of third shift jobs to pick up, though.” Suguru pauses briefly on the wagyu so he can try the crab. “I do this on nights I don’t have a shift scheduled at the convenience store. It’s only decent money when the trains stop running until morning.”

Satoru’s head snaps up, a little bit of crab still dangling from his lip. “Wait, what store? I feel like maybe I’ve seen you around before.”

It’s not impossible, if Satoru keeps the same strange hours as he does. But it’s also extremely unlikely that, out of all the convenience stores in Tokyo, the two of them would ever frequent the same location.

Suguru just chews, flips the meat on the grill, and sips his beer, not particularly inclined to divulge more specific details about himself.

“C’mon,” Satoru complains, that pouting look returning. When it doesn’t work, his expression turns darkly mischievous. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just find out some other way.”

Suguru suspects that’s true. And he’s so content off of a thoroughly satisfying meal that it’s making him stupid. “FamilyMart near Roppongi Station.”

“Ahhh, maybe I really have seen you before! Always the graveyard shift?”

“Pretty much. What do you do?” Suguru asks back, because the exchange is a habitual one and he’s eager to get the focus off of himself. The moment the words are off his lips, he’s kicking himself for his carelessness.

Satoru ponders for a moment. “Let’s just call it real estate finance and leave it at that, hm?”

“Sure.” Suguru wishes he hadn’t slipped and asked at all. He tries changing the subject again. “Do you ever take those things off?”

Satoru’s eyebrows go up as he pinches his fingers around one thin, metal arm of his shades. “Not usually in public, no. Good for cultivating a certain vibe. And I get migraines from headlights and taillights. Lights in general, sometimes.”

He flips them up on top of his head and stares at Suguru with such entrancingly vivid eyes that Suguru swallows before he’s done chewing. 

“I see what you mean,” he croaks out after getting the lump of meat in his throat down. “You’re a lot less intimidating without them.” 

“Well, good, because I’m not trying to intimidate you,” Satoru says, leaning forward on his elbows. He’s open-mouthed smiling, the tip of his tongue toying with the point of a canine. “Just date.”

Suguru has to think a second or two, not sure if he misheard that. “Excuse me?”

Satoru’s brows go up. “You playing coy with me?”

Suguru’s just trying to keep up with wherever his mealticket’s mind is at. “This is a date?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Suguru can’t believe he’s asking. In a low whisper, he reminds him, “Didn’t you have a gun trained on me like twenty minutes ago?”

“Because I thought you were taking me to a second location to—” Satoru sticks out his tongue and makes a slicing motion across his throat. “That’s irrelevant now.”

Suguru laughs mid-sip of his beer. “Irrelevant? My heartrate still isn’t back to normal.”

“Well neither is mine, thanks to you.” He winks. Then he smiles, clearly proud of himself.

“Do I have to laugh at your cheesy lines?” Suguru’s good at masking his emotions, generally, but fighting down the base part of him that is delighted by a pretty boy teasing him proves difficult. He keeps his voice steady. “Will you sic your goons on me if I don’t?”

“Goons is a little mean, don’t you think?” Satoru says, popping a piece of sirloin snatched out from under Suguru into his mouth. “They’re just making a paycheck, same as you.”

Suguru opens his mouth to counter that—whatever they’re doing is not the same as his income cobbled together from shitty, law-abiding part-time jobs—and then thinks better of it. It’s not like he hasn’t dabbled in questionable money-making schemes himself over the years, including a disastrous multilevel marketing thing, at least one telephone scam, and occasionally impersonating Manami to help her efficiently swindle dozens of horny old men, dispassionately sexting on her behalf while watching daytime TV.

Under different circumstances, with a little more desperation and a little less to lose, he could see himself working under someone like Satoru. Easily.

“Yeah, sure, more power to them,” he sighs, letting Satoru have that win. “And is that a no to the siccing?”

“Of course. You’re free to try and resist my charms all you like. I won’t take offense.”

Suguru hums at that. “So, why me?”

“Right place, right time,” Satoru says, shrugging a shoulder. At least he’s honest. “Not one to turn my nose up at a handsome stranger who fell right into my lap. And I had a good feeling about you.”

“Really.” Suguru lets his deadpanned response hang for a moment before asking, “Was that before or after you thought I was kidnapping you?”

“Before and after,” Satoru says, nodding. “Genuinely thought Ijichi had finally started listening to me about eye candy needing to be a factor in hiring. And then the way you looked at me after that little incident where I wasn’t quite as discreet as I should’ve been…”

Satoru blows out a hard, heavy sigh, as if Suguru had made sultry bedroom eyes at him or something.

“Wait, what? How’d I look at you?”

“Like you wanted to kill me,” he says, a finger trailing along his bottom lip as his smile grows. “But like, not in a boring, hired-to-do-it-for-a-paycheck kind of way. Pure, gut reaction. Don’t see that a lot in random civilian types.”

Suguru chews slower. He’d been rightfully pissed. He’d been considering his options. But he wasn’t—it wasn’t anything like that. He’s not some monster itching to kill anyone who looks at him wrong.

“Well, I wasn’t thinking about killing you, just… incapacitating you. Getting you out of my car.”

“Oh? And how would you have done that?”

Suguru sets down his chopsticks. “Feels like you’re trying to get me to step in something here.”

“Aw, c’mon. I have genuine curiosity. No hate. I’m not mad if you did contemplate it for a minute. That’s just natural, in a situation like that. I mean, I was thinking of—” He cuts himself off there, the corner of his mouth curling before settling again. “But that’s all in the past.”

“The incredibly recent past,” Suguru mutters, swigging down the last of his second beer. As soon as he sees the waiter again, he makes eye contact and gestures for another. It’s been a fucking night. “And I was going to go for your wrist and see if I could, I dunno, pull you forward and slam your head into the console or something. But I thought better of it.”

“Hm. Glad you did.”

Suguru is, too. The longer he talks with Satoru, the deeper his awareness that the man is far from normal—some worrisome kind of dangerous underneath his smiles and laid back demeanor, and far too interested in him. But for the sake of the money he’s been promised, Suguru just keeps settling himself deeper into his company.

The third beer really helps with that, too.

Suguru is more himself while he drinks it—more his old self, before the strain of keeping such weird hours got to him. Being awake all night and asleep half the day has done irreparable things to his circadian rhythm. He sits in traffic worrying that once his car craps out, he’ll be down two of the four to five jobs he’s always juggling. He carries that feeling of obligation to look after Nanako and Mimiko—his only family, but not by blood or legal reckoning—with him all the time, along with the fear of failing them further.

But right now, at this moment, none of that weighs so heavily. Suguru’s relaxed for once, even with Gojo Satoru lurking on the other side of the table and radiating obvious, non-yakiniku related hunger.

“You must do more than part time driving jobs,” Satoru speculates. He’s drinking soda—not even a mixed drink, just plain cola and ice—but he hasn’t said a word to stop Suguru from ordering expensive local beers on his tab. “Construction?”

Suguru’s brow knits. His words are a little slower. “What makes you think that?”

“Baggy clothes can only hide so much muscle. You should be showing it off, honestly.”

It catches Suguru so off-guard that he laughs, but his face is burning. Is it the alcohol or the flattering attention? He hasn’t had enough of either in so long that it’s hard to tell.

“I pick up construction jobs sometimes, yeah, so there’s that. And in school I was part of the judo club,” he tacks on, because that’s really where he started working out regularly. The habit’s stuck, the gym being one of the few places he can zone out and focus on himself for a while.

“Oh? Were you any good at it?”

Suguru licks his lips, a little sigh slipping through them. “Pretty good.”

Good enough that he’d expected to continue with it in university. He’d gotten a late start in the sport but still cleaned up at the regional competitions he’d taken part in. He was on a course for nationals, his school coach said, until he tanked all that. All of it.

“Still any good at it?”

He hums, letting the rim of his foam-flecked glass press into his bottom lip. “Worse at technical forms but better at fighting. But the only practice I get is from bouncer work and throwing pervs out of the convenience store.”

Satoru laughs. Suguru smiles without any reason to.

“My parents had me take kendo, aikido, and judo,” Satoru rattles off. “But I liked judo best.”

“Really? How good are you at it?”

“Better than you.”

Suguru snorts, head tilting as he openly evaluates the man sitting across from him. Even putting aside the heavy jacket draped over his shoulders, he has a broad, defined upper silhouette. Plenty of arm strength for grapples and throws, too, but that’s not everything. In high school, Suguru was getting ippons on guys ten to twenty kilos heavier than him.

“Maybe,” is the most Suguru allows.

Satoru sits up in his seat, expression bouncing between amusement and taking some affront. “Maybe? Most definitely.”

“Maybe,” Suguru repeats, taking another sip from his glass. He licks the foam from his lips, distantly aware it’s making him more honest than he ought to be. “I think I could take you.”

Probably not the smartest thing to say to a guy who’s definitely not on the up and up side of real estate finance or whatever they’re calling it, but it’s the truth. Even if Satoru got one over on him, Suguru’s pretty sure he’d come out ahead best-of-three.

“Okay!” Satoru claps his hands together, too excited at the prospect. “Care to make that wager?”

“With you? Better not,” Suguru snorts, going back to eating. Before he can stop his mouth from running off, he adds, “You might break my legs if I can’t pay out.”

Satoru’s smile is slight and slow, eyes lingering on him. There’s not much light in them.

“You think?”

Suguru shrugs. Softly, he says, “I dunno. We just met.”

“Hm. Get to know me a little better and you won’t think so poorly of me,” Satoru says, exaggerating a frown. “Hurts my feelings.”

“So, you’re telling me you’ve never broken any debtors’ legs?”

He shouldn’t press it. It’s silly to do so. Risky. There’s no upside to overstepping with Satoru, he’s sure.

Satoru licks his lips, nose wrinkling at the direct question. “No comment. What I’m saying is that you have nothing to worry about. I have an appreciation for the finer things in life.”

“And that’s me?” Suguru asks, incredulous. He’s not ugly by any stretch, but he’s hardly at his best right now and he hasn’t been for a long, long time. “Looking this rough?”

Satoru laughs that off. “If this is you rough, I’d love to see how you clean up.”

He says it so smoothly. Lets his gaze take a noticeable dip. Brushes their knees together under the table, light enough to call it an accident.

“Fuck. You’re not bad at this,” Suguru mutters, hand rubbing across his forehead as he copes with that. “Or maybe I’m just too easily impressed after a few drinks.”

It’s been ages since he went out with Larue and let himself be flirted with, but even then… even with guys he took home, even after letting them buy him drinks, he doesn’t remember struggling like this. Just knocking his knee into Satoru’s under the table has him thinking about what he must be like. Feel like. Kiss like.

“The former. Definitely the former,” Satoru insists in something like a purr, pleased with the way the conversation’s going. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Working.” It’s the perennial answer. What does he do at night? On the weekends? On his mornings and afternoons? “I nanny most weekends.”

Flatly, Satoru echoes, “You’re a nanny.”  

“For a couple of kids, yeah. I take them out to parks and on shopping trips and handle some chores around the house. That kind of thing.” Suguru stumbled into the job years ago, approached while he sat at a picnic table in the park with Nanako and Mimiko, helping with their math homework; Fushiguro hadn’t cared at all when Suguru preemptively admitted that he has a record, and he always pays in cash. “They’ve pretty much outgrown needing a babysitter but their dad still likes someone keeping an eye on them and helping with schoolwork. It’s the best job I have, by far.”

“Driving weirdos around at three a.m.,” Satoru says, sticking up a finger, “overnight convenience store clerk, nanny. Is that right?”

“I do deliveries, too, for a local luggage service.”

Satoru blows out a sigh, looking weary on Suguru’s behalf. “All that just to pay the bills? Or are you saving up for something?”

Suguru nods. “Saving up. You have a smoke on you?”

Satoru’s expression scrunches in immediate disgust. “Absolutely not. You smoke?”

“Sometimes, when I drink. Do you not drink, either?”

“Nah. Like to keep my wits about me.”

“Oh.” Suguru feels a little silly for being on his third beer, then, in the company of a man he should probably be more wary of.

“You’re fine. I’m keeping an eye out for both of us,” he assures, giving Suguru a lazy little salute. “What’re you saving for?”

“You sure aren’t shy about prying,” Suguru notes, and he should be more bothered about it. But Satoru should probably be more upset at how candid he’s being, so maybe they’re breaking even somewhere. “Do you have one of those faces, you think? Should I be telling you secrets about myself?”

“I’m good at keeping them, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

That’s not what Suguru’s worried about. It’s Satoru knowing too much about him, and what he’ll do with it.

Carefully, vaguely, Suguru answers, “A bigger apartment. Some extra spending cash.”

“That’s it?”

Suguru nods. And then, for reasons he can’t put a name to—the beer, he chooses to blame as soon as it occurs to him—he keeps sharing.

“Not for me. Not just me. For—well, it’s two kids from the same little village as me. They’re in an orphanage right now and once they age out, they’ll need somewhere to stay. I only have a one bedroom right now, so… saving up.”

Satoru rubs a hand across his mouth, slowly. Mulling on it. “That’s a lot of fucking work for some rando kids who happen to come from the same town.”

“But they’re not—they’re more like little sisters,” Suguru is compelled to explain, because Nanako and Mimiko’s significance to him can’t be pared down like that. Briefly neighbors. No relation. The courts said that, too. “Before their parents died, they lived nextdoor to my family. I’ve known them since they were born, basically. Used to help my mom babysit them. Twins are a handful,” he adds with a short laugh.

Satoru smiles at that, unexpectedly. “Makes a little more sense. Thought about adopting them, then?”

Suguru laughs again, but lacking any mirth. If he could’ve done it at seventeen or eighteen or twenty, he would’ve, untenable as such a life-changing choice would’ve been at any of those ages. “Yeah. But I’m not exactly what they’d call a good candidate.”

A fairly broke, single twenty-something man with a sizeable blip on his criminal record and zero blood or legal relation to the Hasaba twins. If it was known that he’s gay on top of all that, it would only harpoon his already nonexistent chances in the eyes of the law.

“Hm. Shame. Sounds like you’re pretty good with kids.”

Suguru shrugs. He’d long since realized there is no finding an angle where the system will give him a shot. On account of the assault and the blemish of spending two years in a juvenile training facility and the visible piercings, it’s hard even finding decent jobs that will take him. At any point, he would’ve been hard pressed to keep two young girls comfortable and well-fed all through their school years. Even now, at almost thirty and standing on his own two feet, it’ll be tight just giving them a nice, safe place to stay.

“Looking for more lucrative work?” Satoru wonders aloud, as if he can hear the strain in Suguru’s thoughts.

“Aside from this one ride you're paying me for?” Suguru smiles, leaning forward on his elbows. “Probably not. I can’t… I can’t get arrested again.”

It’s skirting close to saying aloud what he already knows about the legitimacy of however Satoru is making his money. And it's letting on a little about himself. The last thing he needs is to wind up going back in at the same time Nanako and Mimiko are getting out in the world on their own.

Satoru’s brows furrow, almost offended. “I have honest business connections, okay? I could hook you up with one easy, breezy desk job that pays more than all the ones you currently do, if you’re interested.”

Suguru’s breath hitches at the thought. It’s tempting. 

Then he squints across the table. “Sorry, are you trying to recruit me or date me?”

“Whichever I can get.”

“Can’t be that desperate. In either regard.”

“I have an eye for talent development. You seem competent. Hard-working. Trustworthy.” He taps his fingers along the table, surveying Suguru. Not in a professional manner, but whatever. “And not that this would be in your job description, but I bet you can throw down. Not well enough to beat me, obviously, but still. I like working with people who are capable on their own.”

Suguru sets his glass down a little harder than he means to. Before he got sentenced, any hope of one day making a national judo team dashed, he’d been really good.

“I could demonstrate for you. We could settle it. See who’s stronger.”

“What, on the mat?” Satoru’s grin is the broadest Suguru’s seen it. “I knew I liked something about you. I mean, beyond the obvious.”

“The obvious?”

What’s obvious is the way Satoru’s attention leaves his face and trails down his front, slightly smirking. What’s less obvious, at least to Suguru, is whatever Satoru thinks he’s seeing; his baggy black sweater leaves plenty to the imagination.

“You’re only paying for one kind of ride tonight,” Suguru feels it necessary to mention, feverishly warm from the rake of Satoru’s eyes. Five hundred thousand yen is a lot, yeah, but also not nearly enough.

“How much for the other kind, then?” Satoru jokingly asks.

Or maybe he’s serious. Suguru can’t quite parse it right now.

“That’s not on the table,” he snorts as he slides out of the booth, wobbling immediately once he stands.

Shit. He’d let himself get carried away, half by Satoru footing the bill and half just letting himself enjoy a nice meal out for the first time in a long time.

“Careful.”

A hand settles on his back to steady him, and another circles his wrist.

Satoru moves fast. That, or Suguru’s perception is just slowed by the slight stupor he’s in, still catching up even as he’s walked out to the car while cradled against Satoru’s side.

There’s something about him, Suguru realizes through the contented haze of alcohol and a full belly. Satoru. A disarming charm to him, bright and boyish, like the sparkle that glimmers across the surface of a lake that can pull you under. A silliness that makes it easy to slip into casual familiarity and forget he’s getting tangled up with someone he shouldn’t.

God, and he’s good-looking. Dressed to kill. Suguru sneaks a subtle squeeze of his bicep as Satoru helps him into the passenger seat and finds Satoru might actually be a little stronger than he’d estimated based on eyeballing alone.

Suguru’s still seventy to eighty percent sure he can probably throw him, though.

“If you wreck my car you have to buy me a new one,” Suguru tells him as he takes several tries to buckle himself into the passenger seat. “Do you know—”

“Yeah, yeah, I can drive a stick,” Satoru quickly retorts, shifting gears and getting them back on the road. “I was taking cars like this apart at fourteen and fifteen, okay? Your geriatric Camry’s in good hands.”

Comforting. Suguru smiles and leans his seat back, getting comfortable. “You’re like my Uber driver now.”

“Hm. Gonna tip me?” 

The traffic light they’re sitting under bathes the whole cabin in red. It’s bloody bright on Satoru’s hair and skin; it makes the blue of his eyes almost violet. There’s no one else at the intersection.

“I’ll give you a cut of what I’m getting paid,” Suguru promises, which makes Satoru laugh.

He closes his eyes for just a second, lulled by the noise of wet pavement under the wheels and the soft sound of the radio. When he opens them again, the car is stopped in front of a heavy iron gate that’s being pulled open by a uniformed attendant.

It’s dark. Like, barely any street lights around dark. There are dense trees all around.

Suguru jolts up, head swimming at the sudden change in orientation. “Where are we? This isn’t—you took me out of Tokyo?”

“No, we’re still technically in the city. Relax. I’m not kidnapping you, either,” Satoru says, as unbothered as if Suguru had just sat up and asked if they’re there yet. “Feeling better after your nap?”

“Um. Maybe. Is this where you live? Seriously?”

“Mhm.”  

Suguru wipes the drool from one corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He stares out the windshield as they slowly ascend a winding drive through pine woods. At the top, the trees clear.

It’s less a house and more a compound, with high, white walls surrounding a massive pad of asphalt, two small buildings flanking the entrance, a pool house beside a covered pool, an enormous garage, and a tall, cleanly designed two-story home that looks straight out of a magazine.

Suguru cranes his neck to look out the window, jaw left hanging by the modern architecture, the sprawling size of the house, and the expensive cars sitting in the wide parking pad. They gleam under the floodlights.

“Aaaand we’re here.”

Satoru parks his Camry, cuts the ignition, and hands off the keys. Their weight’s a comfort in Suguru’s palm, even if he’s not quite fit to use them at the moment.

“Well. Alright,” he smiles, feeling the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, excited for the reward that’s going to change his whole month. Multiple months, maybe. “We’re here. I think that means you owe me some money.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m true to my word, even if I did end up basically driving myself home.” Satoru mutters that last part. His hands settle on his thighs, pale against the dark blue material; Suguru gets stuck on staring at his fingers. “I don’t carry that much cash on me, so I’ll have to go inside for more. You wanna come hang out while I run upstairs for it?”

It is cold and wet and dark in the way only pre-dawn hours can be. With the car off and the heater not running, it quickly starts to turn chilly.

“Nah. I’ll just wait here.” Apprehension suddenly cuts through what remains of the good-feeling buzz he’d had going on. Five hundred thousand. It’s why he’s here. An inordinate amount for any drive, much less one Suguru himself spent riding as a passenger on. It's more than he makes in a month from his other jobs combined. And that's crazy. Unbelievable. In a small voice, he says, “You said five hundred, remember?”

“...I recall what I said. But for real, you should come in for a bit, Suguru. If you want to drive yourself home, I think you’re gonna need a little more time still before you’re sobered up enough to.”

It makes Suguru anxious, being this close to the finish—and alone in Satoru’s domain, surrounded by forests and high concrete walls—and not having the cash in hand. Not being able to peel out. Not having his mind as sharp as it could be.

“Well, I think you’re gonna bump me off instead of paying me,” he blurts, his stomach hurting the more he realizes he has no clue where he is and no immediate way home.

Satoru’s mouth slips open. “Wh—I’ve been nothing but a gentleman to you all night! If I wanted to off you, I sure as hell wouldn’t have wasted the time and money of filling you with choice cuts of wagyu for the last two hours.”

That… does make sense. Suguru lets out a little noise of contemplation, digesting that. Letting it reassure him.

“And if I were going to do something to you, I’d have done it while you were snoring over there for the past twenty minutes.”

That also checks out. But it doesn’t change that fact that Suguru feels—is —incredibly vulnerable right now. He thinks of that crime scene he’d hurried past earlier tonight, a few hours ago, and how little mind he’d paid to it. He swallows and keeps staring down at his knees.

“Hey.” Satoru twists in the driver’s seat, facing him, one arm resting across the top of the steering wheel. “I’m not like… a monster—”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Just letting you know. I have zero desire to swindle you or get you in trouble or kill you, alright? You can count on that.” For a few moments, he keeps his eyes on Suguru, breathing slowly. Letting the words sink in. Then, “I will probably make you cry, though, if we do ever end up sparring. Don’t feel too embarrassed about it.”

Suguru scoffs and rolls his eyes. But the attempt at lightening the mood works. Satoru really wouldn’t need to go to these lengths if he had something nasty in store for him.

Suguru sniffs. It’s pretty cold. The moisture in the air is making it worse.

“Now, c’mon,” Satoru says, lazily waving a hand. “Up and out. You’re coming in to keep warm.”

Suguru groans as he unbuckles himself. By the time he’s got it figured out and goes for the handle, the door is already open for him.

Suguru ignores the dim, warning voice in the back of his head and follows Satoru across the broad pad of damp concrete where several more cars are parked—sleek, nondescript SUVs like he’d seen earlier tonight, one that could likely be mistaken for his own aged Camry, and a blue sports car that looks like it’s been freshly detailed.

Suguru lets out a little whistle as they pass it, his head turning.

Satoru takes it like it’s a personal compliment. “You like fast cars?”

“Have you seen what I drive?” Suguru snort-laughs. Not that he’d say no to one, of course. “I like fast motorcycles.”

“I have some of those, too,” Satoru is quick to brag. He grabs Suguru by the sleeve and pulls at him. “C’mere.”

The large, spotlessly clean garage has everything, including heaters, several flatscreens, and a sleek little fridge filled with sodas and teas and popsicles. Satoru pulls out two bottled waters and presses one into Suguru’s hand.

Suguru steadily sips at it while getting a tour of the space, walking along an orderly row of expensive bikes. The water’s nice and cool, which helps with the heat steadily building under his skin whenever Satoru’s shoulder brushes his or his hand lands briefly on his elbow. Satoru’s voice is nice, too, as he shows off everything from pictures of past paint jobs to a shredded helmet from a bad accident.

The haze in Suguru’s head slowly dissipates, leaving him just loosely relaxed. Comfortable in his flushed skin. Maybe Satoru’s easy, welcoming way of talking has something to do with that, too.

The bikes are all way nicer than the secondhand-several-times-over Kawasaki he had gotten at twenty and sold off just a year later, when he realized how much he’d need to save to provide for Nanako and Mimiko once they got older. He’d gotten the Camry for less than half the cost.

Looking at them makes him miss that motorcycle and the reckless enjoyment he’d briefly gotten out of it—freshly released from the training school, in Tokyo for the first time in his life, lonely but free to do whatever he pleased.

“Wanted a Hayabusa so bad as a kid,” he says, admiring Satoru’s, a finger running lightly along its handle. Of course, the one he’d snipped out of a magazine and taped to his bedroom wall had been bright yellow, his favorite color other than black; the one in front of him is newer and nicer and all crisp white fading into blue, a faint shimmer of a dragonscale pattern over it. A custom paint job, clearly. “I love the color. Very aesthetically consistent.”

“Thanks! It comes naturally. When you’re less likely to slip right off the back, I’ll take you out for a spin on it.”

Suguru doesn’t object right away, his eyes lingering on the pretty bikes as he follows Satoru from the garage and into the house.

It’s stunning inside, just in terms of space and design. Suguru goes in expecting white minimalism, based on the exterior and the price point of a house like this, but he likes that each room is clearly lived in, with touches of personality: posters, books left on tables, a huge collection of movies and games, shelves with figurines, plus—

“You have a dog.”

Said dog is ridiculously fluffy and white-furred to match Satoru; it loudly snores away on a plush bed in the living room, black nose twitching.

“Yeah! Garuru. She’s the best.”

“Garuru?”

“Like Garurumon—you know, the digimon? I named her when I was like ten. She’s mostly stationary at this point. And she’s like ninety percent deaf, so don’t even worry about waking her up.”

“Wait, how old are you now?” Suguru asks, realizing he has no idea if Satoru is older or younger than him.

“Twenty-eight.”

Suguru blinks, then splits into a smile. “Hey, same as me.”

“Really? That’s crazy. We’d have been in the same grade if we went to school together, then, right? Where’d you go?”

“Uh… tiny high school in a tiny town,” Suguru says, because the name won’t matter to Satoru. It barely matters to him, and he grew up there. “And then two years at the Morioka Juvenile Training School.”

Satoru’s eyes bug out wide, the water he’d been sipping dribbling from his lips. He sputters, “You? In a juvenile training school?”

Suguru bites his lip and nods. “Did you spend time at one, too?”

“Me? Nah. Private school my whole life.”

Suguru wrinkles his nose as he laughs. “That’s kinda funny. I guess I’m the delinquent here, of the two of us.”

“Guess so. What’d you do to land in a correctional school?” Satoru wonders, brimming with curiosity. “I won’t judge.”

Because he’s done worse, probably. Hopefully. Suguru doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s actually more fucked up than the yakuza guy.

He exhales a heavy sigh and runs his thumb along his brow. “Um… after the twins’ parents passed, they went to live with their aunt. She lived like a ten minute walk from my house, so that was fine. But she left town a lot for work, so looking after the twins kinda turned into an ‘it takes a village’ situation. Her neighbors started helping out while she was away.”

And his own family was helping less, now that Nanako and Mimiko didn't live right nextdoor. But Suguru had spent days and nights with the twins for years, used to them hanging off his legs and eating anything he pretended to eat first and including him in drawings of their family. Their parents had laughed along with his parents: I think they really believe he's their older brother! Isn't that cute?

“Between studying and judo, I didn’t have as much time to spend with them. Which was shitty of me. But I stopped by when I could to bring treats and stuff…” He trails off for a moment, having difficulty picturing anything but his last moments in that aunt’s house. “One day, I stopped by and one of the neighbors was over to watch them, like usual. It was the village headman. I let myself in and I—I saw—he had his hands on Mimiko, twisting her arm, bruises all over it. A red mark on half of Nanako’s face. Their clothes ripped. Plates thrown all over the floor. He said they were misbehaving. Not eating the food his wife made for them. Or something like that.”

Satoru almost looks at a loss for words, his arms crossed and his eyes wide. He musters a sympathetic, “Shit.”

“Yeah. Yeah, and I lost it,” Suguru says, shrugging. “I went straight for him. And I didn’t stop until someone else heard and came inside to pull me off of him.”

He tries to stop the shudder rolling down his spine, the little wave of nausea at the memory, the disappointment. If they hadn’t dragged him out—three grown men grabbing his arms and wrestling him back—he’d have kept going until the headman’s face was a fine crush of meat and bone and brain. He’d gotten pretty close as it was.

“You blackout while it was happening?”

“No. No, I remember all of it. I was very present.”

As were the twins, who’d been huddled so close they ended up splattered in blood, too. He regrets that—wishes he'd gone to comfort them as soon as he'd knocked the headman unconscious, even if it meant the fucker got off with little more than a concussion. But part of him also wishes he'd been left alone to do his worst.

“Did he die?” Satoru asks, eyes intent on Suguru’s face, drinking up every pinch in his troubled expression.

“No. I thought I had—it seemed like it, at first, but… no. He pulled through.”

Suguru’s still not sure how to feel about that—grateful, probably, that he wasn’t slapped with a harsher sentence. Previously being an exemplary student had also helped mitigate his punishment. But he lost everything, anyway: his academic standing, his future in judo, his home, his privacy, Nanako and Mimiko. He still can’t go back home or talk to his parents after the fallout of it all.

Satoru purses his lips and makes a little noise like he’s disappointed to hear it.

For Suguru, that resonates. It eases something in his chest, receiving some kind of sympathy rather than horror. Having someone express what he can't really say.

Right up until the day it happened, he never imagined himself capable of brutalizing someone with his bare hands, even with all the hours he spent in randori, practicing takedowns and throws. One glimpse of the twins crying, hurting, Mimiko dangling where he held her by the arm, though, and suddenly the man didn’t have enough bones for him to break, enough blood to spill, enough pleas for mercy to wring out. An enlightening experience, but a costly one. 

“They had to put him in a medically induced coma. Took a ton of facial reconstructive surgery. I hear his arms never healed right, either. So,” Suguru shrugs and flashes him a quick, awkward smile, “hopefully, that’s a lingering reminder to keep his hands to himself.”

It’s still worth it, he thinks. Even now. Even then.

“Not to make light of what I’m sure was a tough time for you,” Satoru says, uncrossing his arms so one hand can press to his chest, “but be still, my beating heart. How old were you when it happened?”

Suguru doesn’t know what to do with the admiration in the way Satoru regards him, especially over something like this. “Seventeen.”

Satoru lets out a sinking whistle in response. “And that was the judo training jumping out? You weren’t fucking kidding about kicking my ass, huh? Maybe I’m too scared to square off with you, Suguru.”

“I—partly? I don’t know what came over me, honestly. But I'd wager you'd put up a lot more fight than a fifty-year-old man. So."

“God, I hope so," he laughs. "Shame it sounds like your athletic career got cut short. I suppose they don’t let kids in correctional training schools practice martial arts, huh?”

“No,” Suguru sighs. “Even if they did, I think they’d have made an exception for me. So, I kept my head down and focused on my studies instead. Passed my high school equivalency exam. Got released after two years. Came to Tokyo. Started getting my act together.”

It wasn’t easy, getting his feet under himself at almost-twenty, completely devoid of support. And he won’t have Mimiko and Nanako stuck in the same situation he’d been in.

“Sorry, Satoru. That was a lot to spill on a first—I mean, we don’t even know each other.” And now he's the one oversharing dark personal details that Satoru would probably prefer not to know about his prospective one-night stand.

“Well. Only one way to change that,” Satoru grins, lifting a shoulder. He actually doesn’t seem the least bit bothered to know that the guest in his home did time in a juvenile facility, nor that it was for a violent crime. “Oh, your money! Let me go grab it before I forget.”

Suguru nods, watching Satoru head up the stairs, and closes his eyes, wishing he could go back five minutes and give Satoru a vaguer explanation. The only other people he's ever told are Miguel, Manami, and Larue, and that was only after years of knowing them—knowing it wouldn’t totally wreck how they view him. It’s been all of three or four hours with Satoru.

While waiting, Suguru slowly ambles around the living room, looking back more than once at Garuru snoozing away, her paws twitching with dreaming. She looks like a samoyed. He’ll have to ask Satoru to be sure.

There’s a folder on the coffee table. Papers. Suguru averts his gaze immediately, studying the nice knitted blanket draped over an armchair, but something about the documents stacked on the table pulls his attention back.

There’s an embossed logo on the dark blue folder. Something corporate. Official. The longer Suguru stares, the more familiar it looks. He’s pretty sure he’s seen the same design on signs near construction sites, and the plastic sheeting that wraps half-done buildings. 

The mental connection snaps into place and Suguru is embarrassed he hadn’t realized it sooner. Gojo. Right. That’s a huge construction company, or at least a branch of a bigger one. He’s not sure. But one of the construction jobs he picked up a few summers ago was for an apartment complex of theirs, wasn’t it?

“Your fare for the night,” Satoru calls as he clomps back down the stairs, tossing him a thick bundle of folded cash. “See? I follow through. I’m honest. Dependable.”

Suguru runs his thumb along the outside corner, fanning the bills, eyes widening at the number of ten thousand yen notes. He doesn’t need to count it out to know that he’s going to be paranoid walking around with this much in his pocket.

“I… thanks.”

“You earned it.” Satoru took off his tie and suit jacket while he was upstairs, left in just the pants and a slightly rumpled shirt, its sleeves rolled up his forearms. “I’m told spending time with me is a serious chore.”

Suguru’s brow furrows. His nose bunches up. “That’s rude. Says who? You’re really not bad at all when you’re not whipping out a pistol—”

“Oh my god, you’re going to give me shit about that forever? It was for, like, ten seconds. Tops. A literal blip compared to how long we’ve known each other now.”

Suguru isn’t sure which is funnier: how long they’ve known each other being all of four hours, or the fact that Satoru is saying forever like he thinks they’ll see each other again after all this. Like he’s expecting to be teased about it—how they first met in an accidental kidnapping and he was so nervous he went for his gun.

“You’re unbelievable,” Suguru says simply, absently pinching and playing with his bottom lip as he looks at Satoru. “And I just realized—I swear I’m not usually this slow—you’re one of those Gojos. Gojo, like the actual construction firm.”

He spreads his arms. “Best kind of Gojo to be, honestly.”

“So, you’re just generationally rich, then,” he murmurs, a little underwhelmed. “And doing white collar crimes or something? I thought you were like, a crime lord, you know, running drugs and guns and whacking people. Or do you dabble in both? Even though you're already wealthy? Seems greedy.”

“Suguru,” he sighs, dragging a hand down his face, “I really like you, but you have to stop asking me the kinds of things someone with a wire would.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He wants to blame it on the drinks he had earlier, but his buzz has already faded down. The real issue is that Satoru is surprisingly easy company at this point, and that keeps lulling Suguru into a comfortable familiarity they don’t have. “I’m not wearing one.”

“That’s also something someone with a wire would say,” Satoru laughs.

Suguru can’t quite suss out how much Satoru is joking and how much is truthful concern. Maybe a ninety-ten split.

“You could check me for one, if that’d make you feel better,” he offers, because it seems like the polite thing to do. That, and he’s been a little too interested in getting closer to Satoru ever since their knees kept brushing each other’s under the table at the yakiniku place.

It takes a few seconds for Satoru’s smile to form, sharp and slanted, blindsided and delighted by the offer. “It really would. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

It’s not smart, taking off his shirt for a shady guy he just met. But the way Satoru looks—and is looking at him—makes Suguru want those eyes glued to him as long as possible, even if that’s just for tonight. He’s only human.

His sweater peels up easily, leaving Suguru’s almost-waist long hair slightly staticy after he pulls it off overhead. His skin turns goosepimpled as soon as it’s exposed to the cool air and Satoru’s heated stare. It’s a push-and-pull thing, the slight chill of the room versus the warmth waxing under his skin, his slight tan accented with a warm, pink-tinged blush. He drapes his sweater carefully over the back of a chair.

Satoru approaches slowly, like he’s scared Suguru will startle and flee otherwise. His pale lashes lower as takes in Suguru from the shoulders down, humming appreciatively to himself. Fingertips trail lightly down the sides of Suguru’s ribs, skin tingling and abdominals tightening in response. Closer to Suguru’s hips, his hands bracket around a lean but well-built core of muscle, squeezing tight, gently pulling him closer.

“Does it really take more than a visual inspection?” Suguru wonders, teasing.

“Mhm. If you’re thorough.” 

Satoru is thorough, it turns out. His thumbs trace along the patterns of muscle just under Suguru’s skin, maintained through physical labor and hours eked out at the gym. He’s firm, fingers running up his ribs and under his arms, around to his back; they find the shallow divots just above Suguru’s hips and press in.

Suguru starts working on the buttons of Satoru’s shirt, the tip of his tongue peeking out while he does so. He pauses when the collar falls open and a nice vee of Satoru's tattooed chest shows, hands stilled at the sight of a dark, jagged scar running from the column of his throat down nearly to his navel. It’s not alone, either. A little shift of the half-undone front of his shirt shows a short scar right under his ribs, too, distinct from the inked skin all around it.

Suguru imagines there must be more, but they can’t be worse than this. He doesn’t even know how a cut so large gets made, much less how someone gets put back together afterward.

He waits for a word to stop, or an explanation, or whatever joke Satoru wants to make to distract from it. When nothing comes—when Satoru just holds him tighter, drawing Suguru flush up against him, bare skin to scarred, tattooed skin—Suguru closes his eyes and chances a kiss.

Satoru’s lips are heavenly soft against his rough, wind-chapped ones, something slick and balmy transferring as they press together. Strawberry-flavored, if the slightly artificial taste is anything to go by. It makes Suguru smile, just for a second.

Satoru’s a good kisser, matching Suguru’s slow, exploratory pace. Patient. Surprisingly gentle. Perfectly reciprocal, letting Suguru testingly make each move first and then returning it in kind, measured and restrained. His hands wander, not shy about feeling Suguru up: his hips, his shoulders, the breadth of his biceps. His hair. He gathers it in his hands and rolls it under his palms, across Suguru’s skin. His fingers coil in it, toy with it, twirl the ends while they make out, little sounds of enjoyment occasionally spilling out of him and into Suguru.

It’s a contagious thing. Suguru moans back, liking the way Satoru immediately responds by kissing harder, tongue swiping along the inside of his cheek; then he gets nippy around Suguru’s bottom lip, sinking his teeth into it before letting up and letting go.

Suguru kind of likes that, too.

“Mm. You smell like barbecue,” Satoru breaks just long enough to say, breathless, inhaling as he pushes his nose into a loose lock of Suguru’s hair.

Suguru scoffs against the mouth chasing his. “You do, too.”

He presses his hands to Satoru’s chest, over exposed skin and the silky fabric of his half-on button-down, and palms down his sides, around his back—

“Are you kidding me?” Suguru tears free of Satoru to snap, his fingers having met the distinct outline of a concealed holster still holding what he’s fairly certain is a loaded gun. “Still? After your little oopsie earlier in my car!?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry,” Satoru says, but he’s laughing, too, so it sort of cancels out.

He quickly unbuttons his navy suit pants, biting into his lower lip as he loosens and strips off the holster band looped low around his waist, tucked under his clothes. With Suguru watching—judging, really, his lips pursed and sour memories dampening his mood—he flings the holster, firearm and all, onto the nearby loveseat.

“There. Happy?”

“Marginally,” Suguru says, coldly eyeing Satoru even as he’s apologetically kissed. After letting himself enjoy it for a few moments, he asks, “Any other surprises?”

“I mean…”

Suguru’s hand is guided to the heat Satoru is packing in the front of his trousers instead.

“Ah, okay. See, this kind of surprise I can handle,” Suguru purrs, tracing along the hard outline trapped against Satoru’s upper thigh, wetting his lips as Satoru rocks forward against his palm. “It’s the concealed weaponry I’m not a fan of.”

“Hahaohhh, shit, wait a second.” Hastily, actually looking a little sheepish this time, Satoru slides a hand down inside one leg of his pants and comes back with a sheathed knife about ten centimeters long.

Before Suguru can even comment, Satoru bends and pulls another like it from his ankle, tucked under the pants cuff. Both knives are tossed with the holster.

“You’re really making me reconsider if this is sm—”

Satoru kisses well enough that Suguru lets the growing pile of weapons and the dubious nature of Satoru’s business slip from mind.

It’s been more than a year since he’s had both the opportunity and the inclination to get laid. Longer still since anyone has bothered taking him out first, getting to know him beyond a name and a cursory introduction. And for all that Satoru has been parading red flags all night, he’s surprisingly forthright. Somewhat considerate. Charming. Quick to reassure. Funny. Insanely, unfairly attractive.

He undoes the remaining buttons and works the shirt off of Satoru’s shoulders, feeling smooth little ridges of scar tissue as he runs his hands down his arms, which are riddled in inked koi and lotus blooms that cut abruptly in the middle of his forearm. Stripped from the waist up now, they’re both even.

They push and pull where they stand, too well matched in size for either to budge… at least until Satoru lifts him an inch off the floor and walks him backward, up against a living room wall. It’s unexpected—Suguru’s feet kick for a moment, making a questioning noise against Satoru’s lips—but not unpleasant. Suguru is tall and densely built and not a lot of guys would even try to lift him, much less do so effortlessly.

He lets himself be caged in and pinned there, his own hands grasping and petting at Satoru’s hair and head and nape, pawing over his ears and cradling his face while they kiss. There’s so much to register just through touch alone: the way his back muscles bunch and flex under Suguru’s fingers; the matching pairs of scars that riddle him front and back, shot or stabbed cleanly through; how heavy he is, and how hard against him, and how hungrily he nips at Suguru’s lips and along his jaw.

Suguru presses himself forward, firmly chest to chest, and then makes a slow roll of his body from there down to his hips. It works how he wants it to, which is to push Satoru back just a bit while also distracting him terribly.

Suguru lunges then, gets Satoru staggering back, off-balance, and grabs him by the wrist. With a foot hooked behind Satoru’s, he pivots and pushes Satoru off of him, whirling to pin him instead.

The framed, oversized paintings along the walls—like abstracted aurora and dark, star-flecked skies—rattle from the impact. Satoru tenses up, on edge at the sudden reversal, only to relax as soon as Suguru’s mouth and hands are on him again.

Suguru gets up on the balls of his feet and leans his weight into Satoru, forcing his back to the drywall and crowding into him. He dips his head so he can lick and kiss at Satoru’s neck, feeling a deep swallow through the flexing movement against his lips. He pushes his knee between Satoru’s legs, working his thigh in between them; the contact makes Satoru groan and grind against him.

A hand worms up into his hair, tangling in it, pulling lightly at the roots. Suguru moans and jerks his hips into Satoru’s, having forgotten what it feels like. The reaction earns him a harder tug that has his head snapping back and his neck bowed out, shamelessly rocking himself against Satoru's front.

Satoru keeps pulling, making it hard for Suguru to maintain his balance. It’s a short-lived contest. Suguru settles onto his heels as he's drawn off, forced to take half a step backward. His lips part, for a moment afraid he’d overstepped and Satoru isn't just playing with him, when a hand sprawls out across his middle and gives him a guiding push.

They reverse again, Suguru's shoulderblades smacking the wall hard enough that he bounces forward, then slams into it again from the force of Satoru plastering to his front. He'll be a little bruised tomorrow. He doesn't mind.

Suguru’s sweatpants get pushed down over his hips, the waistband stretched taut around the spread of his thighs; Satoru’s hand closes around his length as soon as it swings free, giving a light squeeze as he strokes upward. Suguru’s got two fingers in the waistband of Satoru’s underwear, pulling, when Satoru beats him to that, too.

The warm head of Satoru’s cock prods into him, rubbing along the flat plane of Suguru’s bare lower belly. It slides along his own length as Satoru closes in, flush against him, the both of them trapped together between the press of their bodies.

The heat, the slippery pressure, and the tongue in his mouth all have Suguru writhing in what little space he has to move. His back arches out from the wall as a firm hand wedges in between them and curls around them both. In the hold of slick fingers, his length is squeezed up against Satoru’s, stem to tip, warm, throbbing veins felt more firmly wherever Satoru’s fist coils tight around them.

Suguru hooks his arm across Satoru’s shoulders and anchors himself there, using Satoru to hold himself steady. He tries to get his hand in between them, too, but it’s tight. There's no easy way to work with or around Satoru's hurried, messy pace, his breaths raggedly uneven where they hit Suguru’s cheek, their foreheads pressed together. Suguru's hips chase the glide of Satoru’s hand of their own accord, as best the can, hungry for the heat of his touch. Wrecked for it.

He barely gets his fingers in around Satoru’s, hand only half-covering his fist; neither of them is small and it’s a stretch to circle their combined girth, even for long fingers.

As the pressure around him hits everywhere just right, Suguru's mouth drops open. He sucks in a breath and then forgets to let it out, nails digging into Satoru's shoulders as he pushes up into his grasp. With choked silence, he comes in spurts that coat both their hands, eyes sliding shut at the slick sounds of Satoru working his spend over the both of them.

It’s just this side of too much, still being handled through his climax. Suguru shudders as he remembers he can, in fact, breathe, just in time to have Satoru groaning in his ear and sharply bucking him back into the wall. Something warm and wet spills across his skin, dripping down his abdomen. With one last, slow stroke, Satoru finally lets go.

It gives Suguru some relief from the too-intense pleasure, but it does nothing to strengthen his jellied knees or melted bones. His hand slides to the back of Satoru’s neck, absently rubbing little circles over his spine while they both start to go soft. There’s a warm, sticky mess between them that Suguru has no energy to deal with.

His head sinks forward, sweaty brow resting against Satoru’s shoulder; it’s tattooed with what looks like the scaly coils of a blue-white dragon that must extend around to his back. Like that bike of his.

Suguru deeply wishes they were horizontal right now, so he could pass right out straightaway. He would slide right down the wall if not for Satoru leaning heavily into him, keeping him propped up.

“It’s already six,” Satoru murmurs by his ear, nose brushing through his hair. His words are lower, slower, and husky around the edges. Drowsy, maybe. “You could just sleep here, you know.”

Suguru’s lashes flutter before he closes his eyes, still teetering on the edge of being utterly overwhelmed.

The idea of staying holds powerful appeal. Suguru’s mostly sober at this point, and probably fine to drive in that respect, but he’s nonetheless ready to crash out. His brain is useless right now. He’s a mess inside and out. His body is exhausted after ten or twelve hours of working shitty jobs and then getting wrung out by the prettiest man he’s ever seen. And he really shouldn’t stay, but it’s just one more poor decision in a long line of them tonight, and why break his streak now?

He hums to himself, not blind to the way Satoru perks at the sound, eyes alight with interest at his indecisive consideration; his energy is like a hungry creature that’s caught of whiff of weakness.

Suguru lets himself be walked backward by Satoru, guided, until the backs of his knees hit the couch and he tips onto it.

Satoru holds onto him to slow his fall. Suguru pulls tighter to bring him down, too.

“Hah. Ow.” Satoru laughs into his ear after landing on top of him. They’re both still naked from the waist up and completely gross. With a quick kiss to Suguru's cheek, he whispers, “Alright. Well. I actually have work to go do, so I’ll just…”

Work? Suguru’s brows pinch even as he’s slipping into slumber. He coils his arms fast around the warm body against his, holding it there. Then he rolls onto his side, hauling Satoru—mm, he likes Satoru—with him, sandwiching him firmly between Suguru and the back of the couch. Like a python with prey, his leg drags up to hook around him, too, leaving Satoru in a bind.

“Wow. You are strong,” a voice wheezes in Suguru's ear, making his mouth curl as he falls asleep. “I—Suguru—agh—holy shit, okay. This is fine.”

It’s bright when Suguru wakes, sunlight warm on his eyelids. Something cool and wet touches his cheek.

His eyes open a sliver and are filled with a bright, fluffy white that makes last night all come flooding back: the stranger in his backseat, the ride, the yakiniku, being brought home and pushed into a wall, Satoru’s mouth on his throat—

A warm, wet tongue laps across his cheek and Suguru rolls over, groaning, shrinking away from it.

“Garuru?” he recalls as he blinks more fully awake.

There’s a faint throb in his head. His mouth feels gross, and he recalls with disgust that he didn’t brush or anything before falling asleep. But he’s not a complete mess, like he ought to be. Satoru must’ve cleaned him up a little at some point, which is both embarrassing and kind of sweet, and covered him with a blanket.

The aged dog shows no change in expression as he stares at her. She stands there panting in his face, tongue out, blinking cutely, apparently having woken up to find an unfamiliar smelling man on the couch in her home. She’s awfully calm about it, simply staring at him like she hopes he’ll get up and feed her regardless.

Suguru pets her behind those fluffy ears, Garuru’s tongue happily lolling out at the touch.

“Where’s Satoru, huh? Where’s your dad?”

It’s then that Suguru lifts his head and sees his host in an armchair on the other side of the coffee table.

Satoru is asleep, sitting upright in his chair with hands folded across his lap. His head’s tilted forward, chin tucked to his chest. An undoubtedly uncomfortable position. His neck will be bothering him all day.

Suguru stretches out a leg and nudges into him with his toes.

Satoru startles awake like a door just slammed. His head snaps up, his eyes wide and irises small; his hands grip the armrests, knuckles white, before loosening up again. 

“Shit. Sorry,” Suguru murmurs, quickly retracting his leg. “But why were you sleeping like that?”

“Power napping.” Satoru rubs the heels of his palms over his eyes and then stretches his arms overhead. “Got some work done earlier and then figured I might as well.”

Suguru’s expression twists, concerned. Sure, he probably has no room to comment on keeping weird work hours or abysmal sleep schedules, but it’s easier to chide other people than to take care of himself.

“Don’t you have an actual bed? And can’t you afford to actually sleep?”

“I prefer being awake,” Satoru says, like that’s simply a thing you can choose—opting out of sleeping like a normal person. “And I do, but I didn’t want to leave you all alone down here.”

It fits with what Suguru’s gathered in the short time he’s known Satoru, who doesn’t seem like the kind of person who lets himself lay vulnerable for long. Despite his outward levity, they’re unknowns to each other. Practically strangers. Strangers who’ve divulged some weirdly personal things and gotten off together, but still.

The corner of Suguru’s mouth draws into a half-smile. “Smart,” he croaks out, slightly hoarse from all the talking the night before. “I’d have robbed you blind and ran off. Taken one of your bikes, too.”

“Ugh, I didn’t mean it like that, Suguru. If I was suspicious of you, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep at all.” Satoru scratches his cheek. It’s kind of unfair that he looks so fresh-faced immediately upon waking. “I just didn’t want you to try driving off sleep-deprived and tipsy and get yourself in trouble.”

“That’s sweet.”

“I’m a really sweet guy, actually.”

Seeing him in natural lighting for the first time is a different experience. The same eyes that had felt eerily watchful in the dark are now the bright, summery blue of a sunny day. The requisite shades make a new kind of sense to Suguru now; it must be hard to get business done if people are getting lost in your eyes all the time.

“Mhm.” Suguru sits up, ruffles Garuru’s fur, and then watches from the couch as Satoru retreats to the kitchen, the dog’s nails clicking softly as she turns and slowly trots after him.

Satoru talks while he feeds her—not to Suguru, but the dog. Even though she's mostly deaf. Aw, you're the best girl, huh? Here's breakfast. You liked meeting Suguru? Then he matches the speed of her waddle to take her out to use the bathroom. It’s a blustery day outside, her thick fur blowing this way and that. Satoru’s hair, too. Their white floof matches, tossed by the wind in sync.

There is a stuffed animal in Garuru’s mouth when she shuffles back inside the sliding door and lumbers to her oversized bed, flopping down with a groan.

“Wow," Suguru says, having had time to pull his sweater on and tie up his hair while watching their little morning routine. "She’s living the good life, isn’t she?”

Satoru looks pleased at the assessment. “Yeah. You a dog person?”

Suguru shakes his head. “Not that I dislike them. But if I was home more, I’d keep a cat. I feed the local strays and get my animal interactions that way. My neighbors hate me for it, since they’re always out there meowing now.”

“Eh, they’ll live.”

“Right?”

“I like cats, too,” Satoru says kind of suddenly. Then he glances toward the kitchen and asks, “You want breakfast? Or, I guess it would be lunch at this point.”

Suguru checks his nearly-dead phone and sees it’s almost noon already. He’d overslept.

“No, but thank you. I’m fine to drive and desperately need a shower, so I’m gonna head out. Thanks for…” Suguru honestly doesn’t know what to call it, “whatever this whole thing was. I really appreciate that you didn’t murder me. Or rob me while I was asleep.”

“Hah, same here.” Satoru’s mouth remains open for a moment, his tongue tracing along the ridge of his teeth. In thought. Then he shrugs. “I’ll walk you out, then.”

Suguru checks that he still has a mound of money lodged in his pocket and his phone and his keys and his wallet. Once he leaves, he might not have a chance to get anything back. Might never see Satoru again, now that the moon has set on this—whatever this was—and broken the little spell of madness that had Suguru going along with him every step of the way.

While Satoru looks even better in the brilliant light of day, boyish and bright-eyed despite his horrendous sleeping habits, the sun catching ethereally in the white of his lashes and hair, Suguru is another matter. A ghost of his reflection in a glass-paned portrait has him grimacing.

God, his car looks sadder in the daylight, too, surrounded on all sides by Satoru’s much newer, nicer vehicles. Its only companion is Satoru’s designated ‘boring’ car on standby for blending into traffic. It is also a black Camry that’s twenty-ish years old, which does explain how easily Satoru got confused. Practically twins, except this one's got no dents or scratches.

“If you want a newer model, I can hook you up,” Satoru says as he catches Suguru looking between the cars, comparing them. “Cheap.”

Cheap for illicit reasons, he’s sure. He doubts Satoru would give him anything that’s hot enough to get him in trouble with the law—just a gut feeling, considering he’s known the guy less than twenty-four hours—but he’d rather play it safe.

“Thanks, Satoru, but I think I’m good. I’ll stay loyal to her until the end,” he sighs, patting a rusted spot on the hood of his Camry. The car’s all paid off, so he might as well drive it until the engine falls out.

“What about when summer rolls around? No AC, you said,” Satoru recalls, frowning.

“I mostly drive at night, so it’s not too terrible,” Suguru half-lies, tucking his bangs behind his ear just to have them slip loose again. “I appreciate your concern for my comfort, though.”

“Hm… I’ll leave it as a standing offer. Just in case.” His slight smile disappears as soon as the car clicks unlocked and Suguru pulls the handle. “Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Where’s my money? Didn’t you promise me a cut?”

Suguru freezes for a second, dithering on whether Satoru is joking or not. To be safe, he loudly sighs, peels a few ten thousand yen notes from the thick wad stuffed in his pocket, and hands them over. “For driving me here. As promised.”

Satoru takes the cash in hand but immediately says, “I’m willing to accept another form of payment, actually, if you want to keep these.”

Suguru grins. So he was joking. Or just scheming to make a deal.

“Like what?”

“Another date sometime. One that’s actually planned out rather than spontaneously hatched,” he clarifies, combing his hair back with his fingers.

“I’ll think about it,” is all Suguru says, but he plucks the bills from Satoru’s hand and adds them back to the thick stack in his hand. Every little bit helps, and Satoru doesn’t stop him.

He comes away with a little more than he bargained for, in the form of a stark white business card slipped in with the money. It has GOJO SATORU printed on it in silver. Under the neatly printed phone number for an office, there’s a scratchy one in fresh ink, handwritten.

“If you want that job,” Satoru says, lifting his shoulders. “Or that car. Or that date. Or… to talk, or something. Grab a bite.”

Suguru looks at the card, flips it over, and then tucks it into his own wallet, careful to make sure the ink doesn’t smear. “Is that different? Grabbing a bite versus going on a date?”

“One’s less pressure, right? If you want to just get to know each other. Try being friends. Hang out and talk about cars or whatever.” With the faintest whiff of urgency, he steps in closer and says, “I’m pretty useful to have around, you know. I can take care of a lot of things. Solve a lot of problems.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Having come out on the other side of last night in one piece, well-paid and well-treated, Suguru means it. “Honestly, aside from the rough start, I had a pretty nice time with you. And then a really nice time,” he tacks on because, well, it’s the truth. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad the night was redeemed, then!” Satoru grins, the little points of his canines showing. “I had a good time, too. I like your company. I’d take it anytime.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” After a few moments of internal debate, Suguru scratches nervously at one ear and says, “You—you can have my number, too. If you want.”

“Seriously?”

Satoru is already handing over his unlocked phone.

Suguru doesn’t know what to do with the weight in his hand for a moment, baffled that Satoru would let him poke around on his phone and key his number in himself. But he does, spelling out his first name and adding his real, honest-to-god cell number in the phone of a yakuza boss. If it bites him in the ass later, he has only himself to blame.

He hands the phone back and watches as Satoru quickly edits his name to include heart and kissy emojis. For whatever reason, it makes him blush worse than he did while they made out against his living room wall.

With that, there’s nothing else keeping him. Suguru settles in the driver’s seat and is surprised when his car starts without issue. On colder days, it can be iffy. He’d sort of expected it to take a couple tries, thinking maybe he’d need to let it sit in the sun a little longer before giving it another shot… he can easily imagine Satoru insisting on putting up the hood and at least replacing the car's guts, if Suguru won't accept a new one.

But it started on the first try. He ought to be relieved.

Satoru’s place looks different by daylight. Not so scary. Kind of picturesque, really, especially if this is still technically Tokyo. Satoru looks different, too, dressed down in sweats and a worn hoodie and still in his slippers. He smiles and waves goodbye as Suguru shifts into drive and rolls forward.

But then Suguru hits the breaks, the old car rocking slightly on its axles at the sudden stop. He rolls down his window. “Hey, when’s your birthday?”

Satoru’s head tilts to one side and his hair flops over with it, reminiscent of Garuru. “What?”

“When you first got in, you said something about your birthday,” Suguru clarifies while also keeping it intentionally vague. He remembers the exact words: birthday treat. Said about him.

“Oh. Oh, I did,” Satoru laughs. “It’s this weekend. The seventh. But you’ll be off babysitting, right?”

“Only for the morning and part of the afternoon.”

With that, he smiles and rolls the window back up. 

When he checks the rearview mirror as he pulls away, Satoru is there—hands in his pockets, one foot lifted to scratch at his calf, shrinking as the distance between them grows. He waves again.

At the bottom of the long, winding, wooded driveway, Suguru rolls to a stop. While the gate attendant works on getting it open, he fishes out his phone and the business card. After quickly adding the number to his contacts, he types out a message.

You:

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about showing you up in a fight 🫵😤 

Dots appear instantly, Satoru typing back.

Satoru:

turn around rn and i’ll have u flat on ur back in 5 seocnds instant ippon bby 💪

Now’s not really the time, given Suguru wants to be at his best when it comes time to show off to Satoru. He also has a delivery shift coming up in a few hours. After that, he’s looking forward to taking the evening off and treating himself to some nice takeout. And he needs some space to rest and reflect and assess what the hell he’s doing with this. With Satoru. To get some unbiased opinions from his friends.

But he kinda knows what they’re going to say. And he kinda already knows what he’s going to do, anyway.

You:

Later, sorry

Giving you time to practice :)

You should use it :)