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There are a lot of things that Oda admires about his boss. He’s handsome-his skin is smooth, light like the moon but beneath that is someone who can hand anyone their ass on a silver platter. He’s intelligent, but not in the way that children in school had been, jabbing at him for stumbling over words in Japanese, not in the way that the people in Little Asia had been jabbing at him for stumbling over his Mandarin. He takes Oda’s temper in stride, and doesn’t push him away for his too-long stares or the way Oda’s hands linger just a second beyond friendly.
Tachibana is amazing and he’s lucky that he deigns to have him at his side, but there is one thing he cannot forgive him. One thing that sets his teeth on edge and makes his hands twitch with the need to stop him, though he would never think of himself as worthy enough to critique a damn thing Tachibana does.
Tachibana takes a second bite out of the unpeeled blood orange. The juice spills down his chin then drips onto the lapel of his jacket. But Oda isn’t looking at his jacket. He leans forward in his chair, as always not sure if he wants to stop him from eating the orange like that or lick the juice from his face like a man dying of thirst. His mouth is dry enough to fit the second option, anyway.
“Oda?” Tachibana asks and pulls the orange away from his mouth. He looks like a painting, lounged on the sofa by the window, so much so that he can almost forget how weirdly he eats oranges.
“What is it, Boss?”
“Do I have something on my face?”
His eyebrows are raised slightly, like he’s genuinely surprised at the possibility and Oda shifts in his chair. The paperwork in the briefcase at his feet sits forgotten.
“You look like you’ve been eating something bloody,” he answers and clears the softness from his throat, “you’ve got juice on your chin.”
He looks like he’s been eating the heart of his enemy. He could kick himself with how ridiculous the thought is, and he could kick himself even harder for the fact that the idea of Tachibana bloody for real, covered in gore as he stands triumphant is turning him on.
“I see.”
He takes another bite, and Oda cringes even though he can’t stop his eyes from following the fresh drops of juice down Tachibana’s neck. When he raises his gaze to his face again Tachibana stares at him and sucks at the flesh of the fruit with a soft “mm”.
“Boss.”
“Yes, Oda?” he asks and sets the orange onto the table in front of him. He wears that same faux surprised look as before. He’s screwing with him. He hasn’t done that since they got to Tokyo and all at once the annoyance over his orange eating technique disappears.
His tongue swipes across his lips and he swears he tastes blood oranges, “should I clean up?”
“Hm, I think so.”
He’s in front of him before either of them can blink, and pulls his handkerchief from his pocket. He takes Tachibana’s flesh hand in both of his, swiping away the juice from his palm. He cleans off each of his fingers in turn and by the time he reaches his pinky the desire building at the back of his mind is like the loud thumping of his pulse in his ears.
Tachibana watches him as Oda rests his fingertips beneath his chin but doesn’t move away. There’s only a hint of stumble on his jawline, but not much-in this at least Oda has him beat-and he drags his fingers against the grain for half a second. Long enough for Tachibana’s eyelids to drop halfway closed. Long enough for his pulse to get even louder somehow. Long enough for him to take half of a breath that feels like he took in nothing at all.
“Oda?”
“Yes, Boss?” he asks and peels his eyes away from Tachibana’s parted lips to look him in the eye. Just long enough to see his hunger reflected back at him.
Tachibana’s hand is resting on his own lap, but it rises then to press against the back of Oda’s knee until Oda has to drop it to the edge of the couch. It’s an awkward position; him halfway onto Tachibana’s lap, thankfully only that otherwise he’ll feel how hard he is just from this, just from the idea of the level of violence Tachibana is capable of.
“You handkerchief is quite dirty. You should use something else.”
Outside the window the night crowd of Kamurocho begins to transform. Right now the last of the clubs is closing up shop, the last of the drunken salarymen stumbling towards the subway station to go in to work, and the hostesses and prostitutes are walking home on tired feet. They all pass below, unaware of what is going on right above them if they only cared to look.
Tachibana plucks the handkerchief from his fingers and sets it aside, leaving Oda’s hand no place to go but Tachibana’s face. He slips his fingers into his hair, the other hand still resting under Tachibana’s jaw.
He licks his lips then leans forward, smelling the fruity scent of blood orange even better so close. He swipes his tongue from Tachibana’s chin up to his mouth, eyes downcast because somehow he isn’t sure that he deserves to look him in the eye right now. He feels lowly, like a peasant before a god, but it isn’t like being cast aside by his peers. Of course he can’t measure up to Tachibana, he’s something different, but he accepts Oda anyway with the type of kindness that doesn’t make him feel like the rug will be yanked out from under him at any second.
“You’re trembling,” Tachibana says, and he realizes that his hands are shaking. “Do you need a moment?”
“No,” he answers so quickly that Tachibana smiles. “No, Boss.”
“You don’t have to call me Boss, you know. You’ve earned the right to call me by my name,” he says and Oda finally manages to take a full breath. “Say it.”
“Tachibana,” he feels the same as he had that day Tachibana had kicked his ass. Reverent. Like he’s found some kind of light in the dark. He wants to lay himself bare before him, but he can’t. Tachibana is a vengeful god, and Oda deserves to be torn limb from limb for what he’s done but not before he tries to fix things.
He can’t lose him. Not even if it means killing his sister himself.
He kisses his jaw and tastes the slightly bitter tang of blood orange, and wonders how long it will be until it’s Oda’s blood that Tachibana is cleaning from his face.