Chapter Text
When Tendou had decided to go out to the club, he hadn’t intended to take someone home.
He definitely hadn’t intended to be taken home by the prettiest man he’d ever laid eyes on.
Tendou’s nights out were fairly typical. He would go out, have a few drinks, and maybe dance if he got tipsy enough. He liked to play a game with himself that consisted of choosing the most macho man in the club and insulting them until they threw a punch at him and got kicked out. Then Tendou would swoop in and take their half-finished drink as a victory trophy.
He was a man of simple tastes.
Now all he could taste was nicotine and the sugar-sweet remnants of a mixed drink, clinging to the tongue that dipped into his mouth.
Tendou licked back, traced a flawless set of teeth, and gripped the bare hip beneath him.
The man had introduced himself as Eita. It was clearly his given name, because he probably didn’t want Tendou to somehow figure out who he was. Tendou had accepted the title without argument or complaint, because he had still been a little too stunned that someone who looked like that was actually talking to him.
Eita was a cocktail of lean curves, sharp eyes, and a sharper tongue, all wrapped up in a smoky voice that made Tendou weak. He’d been dressed to kill in skin-tight jeans, a v-neck shirt that gave an enticing preview of his collarbones, and leather boots that matched his jacket. He was edgy but pretty, fierce but approachable.
Saying that he looked good would have been an understatement. In Tendou’s humble opinion, Eita was by far the most attractive human being in that club.
He looked even better now, laid bare beneath Tendou’s hands, head thrown back as Tendou thrust into him.
Their bodies slid together, slicked by sweat and lube, the slap of skin against skin interspersed by gasps and moans.
Eita reached up, seized a fistful of Tendou’s hair, and pulled him down until their mouths crashed together. Teeth clacked. Tendou thought maybe he tasted a hint of blood but Eita licked it away, a sharp canine digging into his bottom lip before Eita released him.
Eita’s eyes were so sharp that Tendou felt they were cutting right through him. Baring his teeth in a soft snarl, Eita said, “Harder.”
Tendou tightened his grip on Eita’s hip and complied. He was so far gone that he would’ve done just about anything Eita told him to.
He pounded into him, his breath escaping him in gasps of effort. Eita’s legs tightened around him, forcing him closer. Eita’s hands pawed at his back, then he sank his nails into the flesh just below Tendou’s shoulderblades and dragged them down.
Tendou tossed his head back and bit down on a cry. If he let Eita know it hurt, he would either stop or make it hurt more. Tendou wasn’t sure which would be worse.
“Harder,” Eita growled, clawing at Tendou’s lower back so fiercely that Tendou felt the skin break. “You’re not going to break me. Fuck me harder.”
“Okay,” said Tendou. It was more of a gasp than actual speech. He released Eita’s hip and shifted, planting one hand in the mattress beside Eita’s head, using the other to grip the headboard for leverage. “Okay,” he said one more time, and it sounded more like his own voice.
He paused just long enough to fill his lungs. Then he drew his hips back and slammed into Eita with everything he had.
Eita threw his head back, mouth opening around a wordless shout. His hands moved to Tendou’s shoulders, burrowing into a firm grip. “Yes,” he said. “Like that, yes!”
Tendou pounded into him, throwing all of his strength into his hips, transfixed by the look on Eita’s face that was caught somewhere between aggression and ecstasy.
Even like that, splayed out and wrecked and half-desperate, he was stunning.
Tendou wanted to kiss him. Not just his mouth, but everywhere: his neck, his chest, his stomach, his thighs. Someone that beautiful deserved to be savored. Someone that beautiful deserved to be worshiped.
That had been his intention when Eita had brought him home and pushed him into the unfamiliar bed.
Eita had different ideas, though, and Tendou wasn’t going to argue. He was lucky that he was even getting this.
A moan dripped through Eita’s lips, husky and feral.
A white-hot jolt zipped down to Tendou’s groin and he clenched his jaw, commanding himself not to come yet. It was almost impossible not to, with the sight and sounds and sensation, but Tendou was nothing if not a gentleman.
It didn’t appear that he was going to have to wait very long. Eita was quickly coming undone, panting beneath him, fingers clawing more desperately at the stinging skin of Tendou’s back.
Eita moaned again, and it was mostly a snarl.
He grabbed Tendou’s hand, the one next to his head, and nearly unbalanced him. Tendou transferred his weight to the arm braced against the headboard to keep himself upright.
Tendou assumed Eita wanted to hold his hand. It didn’t really fit the script of the evening, but he wasn’t going to complain.
Eita, however, was not interested in hand-holding.
He pressed Tendou’s hand against his own throat and squeezed around Tendou’s fingers.
Tendou stopped mid-thrust. Eita’s skin was soft and pliant beneath his palm, and he felt the flutter of his pulse against his fingers.
Eita scowled up at him, impatient. “Keep going,” he said, the words rough. “Choke me and keep going.”
Tendou tried to pull his hand away but Eita held it in place. “Eita, I can’t-”
“Shut up,” snapped Eita. “Just do it. Keep fucking me and do it.” He ground himself up, sparking friction between them, and Tendou swallowed a moan.
“What if I hurt you?”
Eita’s eyes narrowed. “Then you’re doing it right.”
Tendou’s breath caught. He tried to pull away again and Eita seized his wrist in both of his hands, preventing him. “Eita, stop-”
“It won’t hurt me,” said Eita, trying a different tactic. “Come on, just a little bit. Please. Do you want me to beg?”
“That’s not-”
“I’ll tell you to stop if I need you to,” said Eita. “Just do it, please do it.”
He looked up at Tendou with those eyes, his mouth open just enough for Tendou to catch a flash of teeth. Eita let go of Tendou’s wrist and trailed one of his hands down his own chest, feeling over his stomach, loosely fisting his own cock without looking away from Tendou. “Please?”
Tendou knew it was an act. Eita had done nothing to suggest he was anything other than smoky air and sharp glass. The politeness was a façade, and Tendou knew it.
Even so, Tendou gripped the headboard, tightened long fingers around Eita’s throat, and slammed into him.
A choked sound scraped out of Eita’s mouth. Tendou relaxed his grip but Eita seized his forearm, silently telling him not to stop. Eita tilted his head back to give him more access, a breath huffing from between spit-slick lips as Tendou carefully squeezed.
Eita’s eyes rolled up, eyelids fluttering closed. He started fisting his own cock with urgency, and Tendou only had to slam into him once more before Eita was coming, painting white lines across his stomach.
He constricted around Tendou, who was already on the precipice of his own release. When he let go of Eita’s throat he tightened even more, squeezing Tendou like a vice, and Tendou came only seconds after.
He toppled onto the bed beside Eita, breath coming in uneven bursts. Eita still had his head tilted back and his eyes closed, chest heaving. He brought one hand up and prodded at the skin of his neck, as if checking for damage.
“Did I hurt you?” whispered Tendou.
Eita didn’t look at him. “No.”
“Are you sure? I didn’t want to-”
“I said no.” Eita pushed himself up and shuffled to the edge of the bed. He stood and turned away from Tendou, still rubbing at his neck. “I’m going to take a shower. Show yourself out.”
“Oh,” said Tendou dumbly. “I, uh… okay.”
Eita walked away without looking at him, and quickly shut the bathroom door between them.
Tendou stayed sprawled out on the bed until he heard the water cut on. Then he slowly peeled himself up and started sorting his clothes out of the messy pile on the floor. He found a small trash can in the corner in which he dropped the used condom before stepping into his underwear.
He felt kind of sleazy leaving like that. He wanted to at least have a conversation with Eita. Tendou didn’t usually have that kind of sex. He didn’t know if he’d done something wrong.
When he pulled his shirt on the scratches on his back burned. There was no mirror in the room, but he figured Eita had left more than a mark or two.
Tendou didn’t mind. Eita could hurt him all he wanted.
When he was dressed he stepped out of the bedroom and toward the front door of the apartment. He glanced around furtively, taking a quick assessment of Eita’s belongings. He appeared to be a fairly neat individual. Very few things were out of place.
Tendou wondered how often Eita brought someone home with him like this. It would be all too easy for Tendou to go back into the bedroom and swipe Eita’s wallet out of his pants pocket. He hoped no one had tried to take advantage of Eita like that.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder one last time.
Clearly Eita wanted him to leave. He hadn’t left any room for adverse interpretation. Tendou shouldn’t care. He hadn’t expected Eita to even speak to him, much less invite him home. Wanting any more than he’d already been generously rewarded was just greedy.
Still, he stepped over to the counter and plucked a pen out of a spare mug, using one of Eita’s post-it notes to scrawl down his number. He wrote his name, too, just in case Eita had forgotten. Only his given name, because since Eita had been reluctant to offer his family name, Tendou hadn’t given his, either.
He left the note on the kitchen counter. He didn’t expect to hear anything from Eita again, but he couldn’t just go without leaving something. That was the entire point of a one-night stand, Tendou supposed. He’d never had one before.
He left Eita’s apartment and started walking toward the bus stop. Considering how lucky he was to have slept with someone as attractive as Eita, he still felt uncomfortably empty.
Tendou didn’t expect to hear from Eita again. He likely never would have, had it not been for an incident of extreme coincidence the following week.
Tendou had met Ushijima Wakatoshi in college. They’d become friends easily, which was somewhat surprising considering their polar opposite personalities. At first Tendou had expected to push Ushijima to his breaking point quickly. After all, Tendou was a little much for most people to handle. He thought someone as stoic and serious as Ushijima wouldn’t spare much patience for his antics.
Despite the amount of effort Tendou put into tormenting him, Ushijima became a solid presence in his life. They graduated together, and even when they branched off in different directions after college, they kept in touch.
Five years later Ushijima became the owner of the largest newspaper in Tokyo, and Tendou had been offered a part-time, work-from-home position at Ushijima’s request.
Tendou had taken it gladly. His type of work wasn’t exactly stable, so it was comforting to have a consistent source of income, though on its own, the paycheck signed by Ushijima wouldn’t have been enough to live on. It helped, though, and Tendou suspected that was most of the reason that Ushijima had offered him the work in the first place.
Despite being under Ushijima’s employ, it was a rare occasion that Tendou actually visited the eight-story building that housed The Shiratorizawa Post. His contribution to The Post was always submitted via email to the editing staff.
He rarely visited, but Ushijima was also rarely late to their weekly lunch date.
Thursday afternoon found Tendou lounging in Ushijima’s office, sitting sideways in one of the chairs with his legs dangling over one arm and his head tilted back over the other. He kicked his feet idly and watched Ushijima from an inverted perspective.
“I apologize,” said Ushijima again. “He’s never placed me on hold this long. It’s quite unprofessional.”
“No worries, Waka,” said Tendou with an upside-down grin. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
“Well I do not,” said Ushijima. His already stern brow creased even further as he scowled down at the phone on his desk.
“Don’t let the little things get to ya,” said Tendou. He righted himself and swiveled, pulling his legs against his chest as he turned to face Ushijima. “Stress ages you. I mean, you’re practically sixty-five at this point. You need to stop it there before you turn seventy.”
Ushijima just looked at him. “I’m twenty-eight, as are you.”
Tendou sighed. “I know, Waka. Not the point.”
There was a tap at the door. Ushijima barely looked up. “Yes?”
“Ushijima-san. I need your signature on these documents.”
Ushijima gestured for the person to enter before refocusing on his phone, as if the harder he stared the more quickly he would be acknowledged.
Tendou sat back and wondered if he would be able to convince Ushijima to go somewhere other than their usual weekly haunt. Ushijima was a man of stolid consistency. He enjoyed visiting the same restaurant and ordering the same thing on the same day of the week. Tendou could live with that, but he also wanted to introduce some excitement into Ushijima’s life.
He hadn’t been able to talk him into visiting the shady ramen bar on the corner, because the shop had the ambience of a slaughterhouse, but maybe today would be the day.
Ushijima’s employee stepped past Tendou’s chair without looking at him. Tendou tilted his head and eyed the slim legs in fitted dress slacks, traveling up the line of the man’s waist to the button-up that sat snugly on broad shoulders. His gaze flicked up further, to the pale hair that was pushed neatly back from his face, the tips dipped in dark, ashy black.
Recognition hit him all at once and Tendou slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from shouting.
That made a sharp sound of skin against skin, and the man turned with a raised brow, sharp, familiar eyes cutting into Tendou.
Those eyes widened and Eita’s jaw went slack, along with his fingers. The papers he’d been delivering to Ushijima fluttered from his hands and sprayed across the floor of the office.
They just stared at each other, Eita with his arms hanging uselessly at his sides, Tendou with his hand still flattened over his mouth.
Then Ushijima cleared his throat, and Eita whipped back around to face him. “I’m sorry,” said Eita quickly, dropping into a rushed bow. “Forgive my clumsiness, Ushijima-san. If you’ll give me just a moment I’ll gather them back up and-”
“Hello, Ushiwaka-chan!” The tinny voice filtered through the speaker of Ushijima’s phone.
Ushijima gave Eita a sharp look, then picked up the phone and swiveled in his chair to face the windows behind his desk. “Please don’t call me that, Oikawa.”
Eita dropped to his knees and started collecting the mess of paperwork. His cheeks were dusted with scarlet and his fingers trembled as he haphazardly stacked the stray pages.
Tendou unfolded himself from his chair and crouched down beside him. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’ve got it,” snapped Eita, snatching a paper from beneath Tendou’s hand. “I don’t need your help.”
Tendou withdrew but remained beside Eita, watching with a slight tilt of his head as Eita struggled to collect the paperwork.
Above them, Ushijima carried on his conversation. Tendou knew that Oikawa owned a rival newspaper that was only slightly less popular than The Shiratorizawa Post. Oikawa wasn’t a fan of Ushijima, yet they still seemed to speak on the phone quite frequently.
Tendou could have taken a wild guess as to what they were discussing, but Ushijima’s voice buzzed like static in his ears. The only thing he could focus on was Eita.
He couldn’t help thinking about the way Eita had bucked beneath him, the way he’d snapped orders like he had something to prove, the way he’d thrown his head back in bliss as he came.
“What?” said Eita, still not looking at him. “I said I’ve got it. Back off.”
Tendou didn’t move. “So you work for Waka, huh?”
Eita finally looked at him, still sharp despite his incomprehension and embarrassment. “What?”
“Waka,” said Tendou, gesturing vaguely. “Wakatoshi. Ushijima.”
Somewhere above them, Ushijima said, “I am not sabotaging your business, Oikawa. My newspaper is simply better. I have offered you a position here on more than one occasion.”
There was the distant sound of Oikawa’s outrage, screeching through the phone pressed against Ushijima’s ear.
Tendou would have been amused by the conversation if he’d had any attention to spare for it.
“Waka?” repeated Eita. His face twisted into an expression that Tendou couldn’t interpret. Then he dived for the rest of the papers with newfound desperation.
“Seriously, here. I’ll help you-”
Eita grabbed the sheet of paper out of Tendou’s hand and stood, balancing the freshly disorganized sheaf of pages in his arms. “Leave me alone,” he said, his voice a low hiss. He tried to shuffle the papers together more neatly but they were still in brilliant disarray. “Dammit.” He looked from Tendou to the back of Ushijima’s chair. Then he turned to hasten out of the room.
“Hey, wait,” said Tendou, taking a single step after him. “Eita?”
Eita’s glare was honed steel. “Don’t call me that.”
Then he was gone, ducking out of Ushijima’s office without another word.
Tendou stared after him until Ushijima hung up his phone and stood.
“That was a waste of time,” said Ushijima. He was unruffled by the phone call, and seemed unaware that anything odd had transpired between Tendou and Eita. “Oikawa only wanted to complain because he is short on staff. I thought perhaps he’d changed his mind about working for me.”
Tendou finally dragged his gaze away from the empty doorway to look at Ushijima. He forced a smile, and was grateful, not for the first time, that Ushijima wasn’t the most perceptive of individuals. He could feel the false way that the grin tugged at his face, but he knew Ushijima wouldn’t notice. “Come on, Waka. You know Oikawa is too much of a diva to work here. You’d be sick of him in twenty minutes.”
“Oikawa is good at what he does,” said Ushijima. “He would do good work here.”
Tendou rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say. Hey, who was that guy that was just in here?”
Ushijima moved to retrieve his coat from the hanger behind his desk. “Semi Eita. He’s one of my editors.”
“Semi Eita,” repeated Tendou. It sounded vaguely familiar. He’d probably seen the name before, in one of the newspaper articles or in an email.
“He is usually more efficient,” said Ushijima. “I don’t know what is wrong with him today.”
“Yeah,” agreed Tendou idly. “I wonder.”
Tendou’s phone rang at half past five. He didn’t know the number, so he didn’t expect to recognize the voice on the other end.
It was all too familiar, though, and his phone nearly fell through his fingers.
“Did you tell him?” the voice demanded, equally as cutting as it was in person.
Tendou knew from the first syllable it was Eita. Despite that he said, “I’m sorry, who is this? I think maybe you have the wrong number.”
“Shut up,” snapped Eita. “You know who it is. Did you tell him?”
Tendou hummed. “You mean Wakatoshi?”
“Who else would I mean?”
Tendou lounged back in his desk chair and started spinning in slow circles, head tilted back to view the ceiling of his room. “Did I tell him what, exactly? That you like picking up stray men in bars? Or that you take them home without concern for your personal safety? Or that you asked me to-”
“Any of it,” said Eita, voice blurring into a growl. “Did you tell him anything?”
Tendou hummed, dragging the sound out until he heard Eita shuffling impatiently in his ear. “Maybe,” said Tendou, “and maybe not. Meet me for coffee and I’ll tell you.”
“What? I’m not meeting you for anything.”
“Then I guess you’ll never know,” said Tendou, sing-song.
There was a tense pause on the other end. Tendou kept spinning, a vague smile on his face.
When Eita spoke again his voice was tamer, though the heat of his anger still boiled beneath the words. “Fine,” he gritted out. “Where?”
“There’s a nice little café on Block 20,” said Tendou. “Their lattes are delicious, and they make these cute little pastries that-”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” said Eita.
The call ended, and Tendou dropped his phone to the side with a sigh.
Getting a date shouldn’t take this much effort.
Eita was already at the café when Tendou arrived. He had seated himself in the back corner, arms folded, glaring at the surface at the table with such intensity that he was on the verge of burning a hole straight through.
Tendou kept one eye on Eita as he placed his order at the counter. If Eita had noticed him walking in, he was hiding the knowledge well.
There was no drink sitting in front of him, so Tendou requested double his usual order. He spared a wide smile for the barista and then approached Eita’s table, placing one drink in front of him before lounging in the vacant chair.
“Hello there, Eita,” said Tendou. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Eita’s glare snapped up to Tendou, landed on the drink, and then settled back on the table. “Don’t call me that.”
“That’s your name, isn’t it?”
Eita said nothing.
Tendou took a slurp of latte, eyeing Eita over the rim of his cup. “Okay then, Semi-Semi.”
Eita’s glare was sharpened with affront. “Don’t call me that, either.”
“What would you like to be called, then?”
“Nothing,” said Eita. He folded his arms more tightly. “Not by you.”
“And here I was, trying to be nice,” said Tendou. He prodded at the latte in front of Eita. “It’s vanilla. Do you like vanilla? It doesn’t match your sexual preferences, but-”
“Shut up,” said Eita. His hand twitched, as if he either wanted to reach for the latte or fling it in Tendou’s face. “Did you tell him or not?”
Tendou took another large sip of his latte and licked a stray smear of foam off of his upper lip. “Waka’s poor innocent heart couldn’t handle it. I didn’t tell him anything.” He tilted his head to one side. “Not yet.”
Eita clenched his jaw so hard that Tendou thought he might break his own teeth.
“Why are you so worried, anyway?” asked Tendou, his grin falling. “Waka doesn’t care about things like this. I’ve told him worse stories and he hasn’t even flinched.”
“He’s my boss,” Eita gritted out. “I have to keep a good impression if I’m ever going to get my job back.”
“Job?” repeated Tendou, raising a brow. “What job? You’re an editor, right?”
Eita’s left eye twitched. “Yeah, I’m an editor,” he said, the words steeped in bitterness.
“Then what are you-”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t want to talk about anything. You were much more sociable last week, Semi-Semi. Especially when you asked me to go back to your place.”
“Shut up.”
“Sleeping with me might not be so bad for your image, anyway,” mused Tendou. He drummed his fingers against the edge of his cup and leaned back in his chair. “Waka and I are pretty good friends. It might make him like you more.”
Eita’s glare was a clear indication of how he felt about that idea.
“You’re very angry,” said Tendou. “That’s not good for your health, Semi-Semi.”
“I said don’t call me that.”
“Well I have to call you something, don’t I?”
“Not if you never speak to me again,” said Eita.
“I’m hurt,” said Tendou. He pressed a hand against his chest, just over his heart. “Here I was, thinking we’d made a connection. You kept my phone number and everything.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Eita. He glared at the latte on the table, untouched. “I found your information in the staff directory. I didn’t know you were Tendou Satori.”
“You’ve heard of me then,” said Tendou with a grin. “My name precedes me.”
Eita finally looked at him again. It wasn’t with a pleasant expression. “You used to email me your submissions to the paper every fucking week. Of course I know your name.”
Maybe that was why Semi’s name was familiar, then. He’d never really paid attention to whom he was sending his work. Ushijima gave him an email address and that was the one he used.
If he’d been a little more aware, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
“Oh,” he said.
Eita rolled his eyes. He reached for the latte, belatedly realized what he was doing, and drew his hand back again.
“What do you mean, I used to?” asked Tendou. “Who do I send them to now?”
Eita’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Shirabu.”
Tendou idly nodded. That did sound somewhat familiar.
“What do you want, anyway?” said Eita. He crossed his arms again and redirected his glare to a random point across the café. Luckily there was no one directly in the line of fire or they probably would have burst into flames. “Why’d you make me come here?”
“You wanted to know if I told Waka,” said Tendou. “I didn’t.”
“Yet,” said Eita.
Tendou shrugged. “Yet.”
“You could’ve told me that on the phone.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to see you.”
Eita’s eyes narrowed further. “What do you want?”
Tendou tipped back the rest of his latte, the vanilla sweet on his tongue. He nudged his cup toward the center of the table and leaned on his elbows. “What do you mean?”
Eita exhaled. It was slow, deliberate, as if he was barely keeping himself under control. “What do you want,” he repeated, the words sliding through gritted teeth, “to keep your mouth shut about this?”
It took Tendou longer than it should have to realize what Eita meant.
When he realized Eita thought Tendou was planning to blackmail him, he almost laughed.
Tendou pressed his lips together to conceal his humor and sat up a little straighter. “Right,” he said. “Well, my silence isn’t going to be cheap. I mean, this is a big secret, you know? Your career could be at stake.”
Tendou didn’t believe a single word that came out of his own mouth. He’d known Ushijima for years, and if he’d learned anything at all about the man, it was that he was completely devoid of judgment. Tendou had told Ushijima stories that were so questionable that Tendou was almost ashamed of them himself. Ushijima had never batted an eye.
Ushijima knew Tendou was gay. Tendou had told him, in great detail, stories of his sexual exploits. Ushijima listened begrudgingly, not particularly invested in the tales, but he’d never thought any less of Tendou as a result.
If he found out that Eita and Tendou had hooked up, Ushijima would be unconcerned. Even if he was informed of all of the gritty details, he wouldn’t offer even a modicum of offense.
Tendou knew that, but clearly Eita did not.
Eita’s fists tightened, his eyes flickering from Tendou back down to rest on the table. “Do you want sex?”
Tendou’s face went slack. Eita wasn’t looking at him, so he didn’t notice.
Eita actually thought Tendou would stoop to the level of blackmailing him to receive sexual favors.
Did that qualify as rape? Tendou was pretty sure that qualified as rape.
“No,” said Tendou. He’d expected the word to sound as shocked as he felt, but it came out quiet, hollow.
Eita frowned. “I don’t have much money.”
“I don’t want your money, either.”
Eita scowled up at him. “What do you want, then? I don’t have anything else.”
“Go to dinner with me,” said Tendou. “Saturday night.”
Eita raised a skeptical brow at him. “What?”
“You heard me. Saturday night. What kind of food do you like?”
For the first time since Tendou had arrived, Eita’s glare faltered. It was edged away by confusion, and for a moment he looked five years younger. “What are you talking about?” said Eita. “You don’t have to be a gentleman about it. If you want to fuck me then just say so, don’t waste my time with dinner first.”
“I don’t… that’s not what I said.” Tendou wasn’t sure how their conversation had even reached that point. It was all a muddled mess, like someone had been fingerpainting on the surface of his brain. “I said dinner. Just dinner.”
“Why?”
“Yes or no?” said Tendou. “If you don’t want to, I can call Waka right now and-”
“Fine,” said Eita, the word sharp. “Whatever. Can I go now?”
“You haven’t finished your latte.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I bought it for you.”
“That’s why I don’t want it.”
Tendou sighed. He thought Eita was being a little dramatic. Then again, Tendou might act a little dramatic, too, if he thought someone was blackmailing him. “Okay then. I’ll walk you out.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I’m doing it anyway.”
Eita’s chair scraped back as he stood and stormed toward the café door. Tendou waved cheerfully at the barista as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Did you save my number?” said Eita.
“Yep!”
“Text me where to meet you Saturday. I’ll be there,” said Eita. He didn’t look very pleased about it.
“Don’t look so glum,” said Tendou. He leaned over and nudged his shoulder against Eita’s. “The secret of your sexual deviance is safe with me, Semi-Semi.” Eita went still. Tendou expected him to snap something back, sharp with anger, but he said nothing. Eita didn’t even look as furious as he had through the entire encounter. His face was almost blank, brows pulled too low, eyes looking at nothing.
Tendou realized he’d taken his teasing a little too far.
“Hey, Eita, I didn’t mean-”
Eita turned on his heel and stalked away, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Tendou thought about chasing after him with his apology, but thought that would only make it worse. He waited until Eita was out of sight before he started walking himself, mechanically making his way back to his apartment.
Tendou wasn’t going to tell Ushijima anything about Eita. He would never do that. He knew that, but clearly Eita didn’t.
He probably shouldn’t have pretended otherwise. Even though he wasn’t actually blackmailing Eita, the fact that Eita thought he was meant it was just as bad.
Tendou should call him, apologize, and tell him he had nothing to worry about.
Once Eita was assured that Tendou wasn’t going to run his mouth, though, Eita would subsequently never speak to him again.
If Tendou kept the charade up just a little longer, he had a foolproof date for Saturday night with the most attractive man who’d ever spared Tendou a second glance.
He would tell Eita on Saturday, after they had dinner.
Waiting two more days wasn’t going to hurt anyone.