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Few tea houses or cafes were open as late as midnight. While better than a hole in the wall, it was still quiet apart from exhausted college students cramming for exams or powering through essays, or even the stray customer who just sat by the window with a warm cappuccino, staring out into the city skyline. But their stock was good, their teas finely selected and refined, and made enough to stay afloat for the time being.
It was still extravagant by Atsushi’s standards the first time he sat down with the man who was supposed to be his enemy, cradling a cup of tea in his hands. The scent from Akutagawa’s teacup was thick and floral, almost bitter on Atsushi’s tongue from how strong the waft was, but Akutagawa drank it without flinching.
Awkward as the affair was, the air between them stiff, Atsushi still blanched when Akutagawa glibly said it was a (rather expensive) brand of jasmine tea he was drinking.
“How-- You drink that regularly?” Atsushi wheezed.
“I don’t buy just any tea that crosses my way,” Akutagawa replied flatly, sipping quietly, “So, in short, yes.”
Atsushi nearly choked. “That- It’s not cheap tea, I know that much, how can you possibly afford it.”
Akutagawa glared at him over the rim of his cup. “Do you not think the Port Mafia wouldn’t pay well, even its dogs?”
Atsushi probably shouldn’t have felt a sharp spike of envy at Akutagawa’s salary, more than enough to own tea that any other person couldn’t afford to buy on a consistent basis, and yet he did.
Growing annoyed with Atsushi’s grumblings, seemingly, Akutagawa suddenly got up and made another order, though Atsushi couldn’t hear what it was; a warm cup of jasmine and hibiscus tea was placed before him and Atsushi gingerly took a sip.
Akutagawa was quite taken aback when Atsushi suddenly grew misty-eyed over how good it was, after just the first sip.
“I’ve never tasted anything so good in my life.”
Atsushi couldn’t explain how they went from standing on the opposite ends of a pier under the moonlight, a light breeze blowing through as the two who’d saved the city glared at each other without words. They’d said they would fight each other the next time they met, that day on Moby Dick, bruises forming, his body sore all over, and his feet bared, the tiger returning to sleep. They didn’t fight.
And now here they were.
Tea leaves and specks clinging to porcelain, they left their empty cups and payments on the table and went their separate ways.
Two months later, at the brink of midnight, the tea house quiet apart from the soft hiss of steamed water and frothy milk, there Atsushi and Akutagawa sat with books in hand. They went in between silence and soft words, the smell of strongly brewed green tea wafting through the dimly lit room, brightened only by the lights of the city. When the night grew too long, they rose and left, each leaving in the opposite direction.
A month later, Atsushi tried osmanthus tea for the first time and loved it. He left the tea house with a small tin of loose leaf tucked away in his bag, his wallet no lighter than before; he went home and brewed the tea he’d been gifted and went to sleep, sated and warm.
It became a routine.
None of it was planned.
At least once a week, they would meet by the pier that overlooked the entire city, the best view that was quietly hidden away for the precious few who’d found it, while the moon was high in the sky, hidden by clouds or darkness or lit by stars. They would sit at the tea house whose hours stretched long into the early morning, drink their tea and when the time came, they would leave.
By the sixth week in a row, the staff at the tea house had remembered their faces and wondered when the young man with hair like moonlight and the other, eyes dark as empty alleys, started dating.
By the fourth month, they left the tea house together and walked down the street. In the same direction, side by side.
The fifth, Atsushi shyly linked trembling fingers with Akutagawa’s. Those long, slender fingers stilled, and then wrapped around his own in a hesitant hold, unused to such soft touch. Akutagawa’s hold was shy, as if fearful Atsushi’s fingers would shatter if he pressed down too hard.
By the sixth month, Akutagawa reached for Atsushi’s hand first and they took long walks through gardens devoid of sunlight and people, whether in cold or warm weather. Atsushi would sometimes find bruises formed on Akutagawa’s pale skin and frown, voicing his concern in aside glances and gentle touches, becoming verbal when he found bandages covering wounds.
In the face of Atsushi’s unrelenting stubbornness, Akutagawa conceded with an aggravated sigh and let himself be dragged to Atsushi’s apartment, where the other man changed his bandages. His kettle whistled as the water finished boiling and Atsushi set a cup of warm sencha in front of him. Akutagawa gingerly took it and murmured his thanks into the rim.
The scent of tea lingered on their clothing long after Akutagawa left in the early hours of the morning.
They began to meet elsewhere more often throughout the week, and somewhere near the eighth month since their weekly tea house meetings began, Akutagawa became Ryuunosuke, and Atsushi was no longer just ‘Man-Tiger’ or ‘Nakajima.’
Time no longer mattered when they kissed between the hedges of one of Yokohama’s public gardens.
Ryuunosuke tasted of jasmine pearls, and Atsushi of rose hips.
The sheets of Ryuunosuke’s bed pooled pleasantly around Atsushi’s bare hips as he retreated back underneath them. He melted against Ryuunosuke’s side when the man’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, drawing him close. As if afraid he would disappear if he let him go again.
Chuckling, Atsushi cupped Ryuunosuke’s cheek to pull him in for a sweet kiss.
His lips were still sore and swollen from their many, many passionate kisses from the night before. His hips were numb, bruises the shape of fingers wrapped around the bone. Scratch marks littered Ryuunosuke’s bare back. Atsushi giggled softly when Ryuunosuke kissed the love-bite he’d left on the crook of Atsushi’s neck from the night before.
The tea on Ryuunosuke’s bedside table continued to steam from two matching cups as Ryuunosuke drew the sheets over him and Atsushi both.