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Junichiro would be lying if he said he didn't need money. And, realistically, who didn't?
It isn't every day that the neighbor you've talked to once knocks on your door and begs you to pretend to be his boyfriend for a fancy dinner with his brother and offers actual money for it; he legally couldn't say no.
Besides, it didn't hurt said neighbor was cute.
It was simple enough; wear something suitable for a fancy restaurant, talk about how they met and how much they loved each other, mention a couple of fun anecdotes and complain about one thing or two about the other, but with a light undertone, showing they weren't mad about it anymore.
Easy as pie.
Then again, Junichiro had no idea of how to make a pie.
Tachihara recycled fitly and was regularly complaining he was late. He did some dubious things and hung out with shady people.
Sometimes he fell asleep outside his door or delivered their mail when it got mixed up. One time he heard a loud noise coming from his apartment and the most colorful mixture of curses he's ever heard following it. He once saw the guy trying to pet a cat, and the animal clawed his face.
Their first meeting after their landlady introduced them to each other was because Naomi insisted on patching the guy up after they saw him entering his apartment all beat up and ready to collapse. Junichiro didn't want Naomi to get too involved, so he knocked on the door and let himself in after Tachihara didn't open. He had passed out on the floor. It had been mostly exhaustion, but it gave him the scare of his life. He cleaned the ginger's wounds and tucked him in bed before leaving and properly locking the door.
The following day, Naomi had a fancy box of cakes when he got home. She explained Tachihara stopped by to deliver them as thanks while Junichiro was gone, so she received them instead with the condition she'd pass the thank you message.
That summed up the times they had interacted. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he didn’t know much about him. Did he have any allergies? What was his favorite food? Where did he go to school? Where and when was he born? Was his hair natural?
A few days before the dinner, Junichiro knocked on Tachihara’s door when he heard his neighbor’s door shut. Not that he was waiting for him to get home. His nerves were killing him, Tahihara hadn’t explained any details and he wasn’t sure he could bullshit his way through the entire dinner, he wasn’t Dazai.
He took a deep breath and hid his hands behind his back when he heard Tachihara approaching. When the door opened, he gave the ginger a small smile. He looked bitter at first, but his expression softened a bit when his eyes met Junichiro’s. Maybe he was presuming things.
“Hey,” he articulated. “Uh, I don’t have your number, so I had to come here.”
You could pinpoint the second realization hit Tachihara. He extended his hand. Junichiro supposed it was for him to give Tachihara his phone so he did, hoping that was what the ginger wanted.
“Why don’t you have a password?”
He bit back a retort on how some people didn’t have to hide things. “It’s too much of a hassle,” he half-lied. It was a hassle, but it was even more bothersome when his sister lost her phone for the hundredth time and demanded his phone to call herself. They once found it in the fridge inside Jell-O.
Tachihara threw his phone back at him. Junichiro caught it smoothly and examined the contact data. He smiled when he saw he saved himself as ‘boyfriend’ with a pink heart.
“Now, why are you here?”
Junichiro pocketed his phone. “I realized I’m a terrible actor and I need to know more about you if you want to pull this off.”
The ginger thought about it for a second and then stepped aside, signaling Junichiro to go in. He did as told and followed Tachihara to the living room. The apartment was exactly like Junichiro’s, but messier and darker. He sat down, and Tachihara went to the kitchen. He could see him filling two glasses of water before sitting next to him and keeping one of them in front of him. Junichiro grabbed it and took a sip of it, then placed it on the table.
“Sorry, it’s the only thing I have right now.”
“It’s okay I did come without telling you.”
Tachihara put his glass next to Junichiro’s and shifted to sit cross-legged and facing Junichiro. “Well, ask away, you’ll answer the same question.”
That seemed reasonable.
Now, there was something that had bothered him since he sat down, something on the coffee table next to the glasses. He pointed at it. “Is that a real gun?”
With silence as his answer, Junichiro came to the conclusion that was, in fact, a real gun, and that Tachihara didn’t want him to inquire about it any further. So, he asked about his job. He came across the same answer. A safe question then, like what was his favorite food: anything spicy. It appeared fitting. Junichiro commented he loved Chinese cuisine; that his sister always made it in his birthday and that it was the only thing she could do. He questioned about Tachihara’s school life. It turned out he was a college drop-out, and that when he was in school, he caused trouble and got into fights but got good grades.
As for Junichiro, he got average grades and didn’t do anything remarkable during school. With their parents always traveling, he was too busy taking care of the housework to have a life. He talked about Atsushi and his first girlfriend, who later left him for Naomi. Tachihara talked about some guy named Akutagawa and his sister Gin, who worked with him and had a similar living situation as the Tanizakis. From there, the conversation shifted to Tachihara’s brother. He was a kind man who worried too much for Tachihara. When Junichiro asked why would he fret so much he didn’t answer.
But Junichiro wanted to know more. He chatted about his work as a programmer and asked what Tachihara disliked the most in his job. The ginger seemed to catch up on Junichiro’s curiosity and confessed he was a debt collector, and he hated when it got too messy. That was enough to make Junichiro not ask about it again.
They agreed they would keep the story of how they met but adding interactions in between that led to Junichiro asking Tachihara out. They had to toss a coin to decide who asked who.
Tachihara assured that he could add whatever he wanted to their story as long as it made sense; that he would work with whatever Junichiro threw at him.
Once at the door, Junichiro asked why did he need a boyfriend.
“If he sees I’m not alone he’ll feel better,” he explained as he opened the door. “I hope.”
Junichiro smiled and bid goodbye. He walked home and began to cook dinner for Naomi. It was midway through the meal when he remembered he didn’t ask if that was his natural hair color.
The day of the dinner, Naomi fixed Junichiro’s tie at the doorway where Tachihara waited. “I want him back by ten,” she teased.
“I can’t promise anything when he looks like that,” Tachihara answered.
Junichiro’s ears turned red, why would he say that so casually? Naomi patted his shoulders and attempted to remove any dust that might’ve got in the vest. “He has a point.”
He took a deep breath and turned to see Tachihara. It took more of his strength to not choke on his saliva than he’d care to admit. He wouldn’t be surprised if they told him it was a tailored suit. He was covered in black from head to toe and carried his suit jacket on his arm.
“Shall we?” Tachihara extended his arm and Junichiro took it without hesitation.
He let himself be led and walked down to Tachihara’s car. The fact he had a car that nice but lived in such a rundown building perplexed Junichiro. Why would he deliberately stay in a place with faulty windows and low doorways, a shitty heating system, where it was too cold during winter, and there were no pets allowed? Perhaps he could bring it up during dinner.
Tachihara drove flawlessly. For someone who regularly got in trouble and fights, he expected him to be a little more of a reckless driver and to ignore a rule or two.
“Okay, quick briefing,” Tachihara said at the first red light, Junichiro noticed he gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles white.
“We met six months ago instead of three, I was there when you took the thank you cakes, and I asked you out. We went out a couple of times after that, and you asked what our relationship was after the sixth date, I said we could be boyfriends if you wanted and accepted. We’ve been together ever since, and I haven’t moved together because of Naomi, when she graduates college, she’ll leave, and we’ll move to a better place where I can have a cat, and we can properly fit two people,” he recited to assure Tachihara he knew everything.
“Thanks, I forgot like half of what you just said, but now I have it.”
Junichiro endured the need to kick Tachihara; this was supposed to be more important to him than to Junichiro.
He spent the rest of the way taking deep breaths; everything would be alright. He knew their story as if it had actually happened, and for the past week he hung out with Tachihara as much as he could to get a better understanding of him. He just found out he sucked at cooking and he survived on cup noodles, take out, and rice. He ended up preparing him dinner for a week.
“We’re here,” Tachihara announced as he parked the car.
“Wait, I’m not ready.”
Tachihara ignored him and got out. He went around the car and opened Junichiro’s door. “Yes you are, we can do this honey.”
Junichiro ignored the pet name. “Easy for you to say, sweetheart, you’re his brother, he can’t hate you forever.”
“Don’t be ridiculous he’ll love you.”
With one last deep breath, he got out of the car and placed his jacket over his shoulders.
“Aren’t you cold? You could roll down your sleeves and put on the jacket properly.”
“I don’t think so.”
Tachihara shrugged. “To each their own, I guess.”
The restaurant’s facade screamed don’t come in if you don’t have money , the type of place Junichiro didn’t even want to walk past. The big windows made the bright interior visible, where lavish individuals ate tiny portions of food for ridiculous amounts of money, their necks and wrists adorned with pearls and gold. Junichiro wondered why they didn’t use the valet but feared the answer might be "I have a spot for me in this expensive ass restaurant" or something along those lines.
It intimidated Junichiro; he didn’t feel like he belonged there. He took the ginger's arm to anchor himself to the facts: maybe he didn’t belong, but Tachihara did. As long as he was with him everything would be alright like he had been repeating to himself it’d be ever since he was getting dressed.
He was about to open the door for Tachihara when someone else did it for him. Right, a fancy place meant you didn’t do much. He once heard they also washed your hands, but he couldn’t believe anything Dazai said so he was skeptical. He sheepishly smiled at Tachihara, who was clearly attempting not to laugh at him.
A tall man waved at them. He looked somewhat like Tachihara but had dark hair, which made him think it was dyed after all. He noticed they had the same beautiful eyes.
Tachihara led him to the table. Tachihara’s brother got up to hug Tachihara. He let go of Junichiro’s hand to reluctantly hug him back.
Then, he held his hand towards Junichiro. Okay, he researched about this, a firm handshake portrayed confidence, he didn’t break eye contact and used his best smile to introduce himself and assure the other it was a pleasure to meet him. He couldn’t stop thinking about how rough his hands felt.
They all sat down. He scanned the table and the silverware on it. At least he searched all of their functions, or he’d be impossibly overwhelmed.
“I have to admit, I didn’t believe it when Michizou said he had a boyfriend,” his voice was calming and smooth, it almost made Junichiro not notice how harsh the comment was.
“That’s fucking rude, jackass,” Tachihara said voicing Junichiro’s thoughts a bit more colorfully than he would’ve. “Of course I can get someone to date me, have you seen me?”
“It’s because he’s seen you that he says it,” Junichiro said. He made sure to make it sound like he was teasing him and kept a playful smile but, in his mind, Junichiro was kicking himself. He was supposed to be Tachihara’s loving boyfriend, not his mocking best friend.
His brother laughed. Damn, it was an angelical laugh. He didn’t know what to think; it didn’t occur to him to search how to not look at you fake significant other’s brother you’re trying to fool all night long. “You seem to get along,” he said. Thank God he thought that.
“Well, yeah, I wouldn’t date him if we didn’t get along,” Tachihara stated as he opened the menu.
“I don’t know you are the kind that disregards flaws when they are as pretty as he is,” his brother answered as he examined his own menu.
Junichiro imitated them to cover the blush that crawled its way to his face. Tachihara was cute, there was no denying that, but his brother was on a particular level of handsome. To be described as “pretty” by someone as attractive as him was something that did critical things to one’s heart.
Speaking of things that delivered criticals, Junichiro saw the prices in the menu. He would rather stab his thigh with a plastic fork than spend such ridiculous amounts of money on food. He knew the place was expensive, but he thought it was doctor-expensive, not Queen-of-England-expensive.
He decided on the cheapest thing. He didn’t care what it was, but it was probably delicious.
The waiter came to take their orders, with whatever ‘Andrade Prime’ was he ordered a glass with water. If it were up to him, he would’ve gotten full with the free breadsticks, but he couldn’t do that if he wanted to look like he was used to Tachihara’s lifestyle. Tachihara and his brother ordered some type of steak and a kind of pasta respectively. Additionally, Tachihara ordered a bottle of wine that, according to one of their conversations, was his brother’s favorite as well as one of his superior’s. When Junichiro asked for water, Tachihara’s brother questioned him on the reason, to which he responded it was his turn to drive. In reality, he didn’t trust his lightweight ass to formulate coherent lies.
The most important part of the meal was upon them: making it to when their food came.
“So, how did you guys meet?”
It was just as Junichiro expected. He let out a little laugh. “We’re neighbors,” he started. “Our landlady introduced us.”
“How did things escalate from that?”
“I went home fucked up, and Junichiro was kind enough to check on me,” Tachihara responded. His heart accelerated when he heard his name; he wanted to hear it again. “He nursed me to health after breaking and entering.”
“I didn’t break and enter, Michizou” he mumbled. And he didn’t precisely nurse him back to health, but it was all part of their plan.
“True, I forgot to close the door, you just entered then.”
The conversation went on as their drinks came. Junichiro talked about their first date. Michizou was late, and they ran into one of Junichiro’s coworkers at the park, then a dog took Michizou’s ice cream. It had been remarkably fun, and Michizou assured the date he proposed wouldn’t result as an absolute disaster. And it didn't. Michizou proudly talked about how he took Junichiro to the aquarium and then to a small coffee shop; they saw the penguin show, and Junichiro got Michizou an ugly fish keychain he was too embarrassed to use. Junichiro claimed he thought it was cute. “It isn’t honey,” Michizou said while he caressed his hand.
And the lies kept coming as naturally as they breathed.
When they got lost when they took the wrong train, the time Junichiro got sick, and Naomi asked Michizou to take care of him while she went to buy medicine. That, during their fourth date, they got too drunk and woke up at a beach. Junichiro couldn’t hold his laughter when he narrated all the times he found Michizou sleeping outside his door. And Michizou wouldn’t shut up about how often Junichiro locked himself out of his apartment and went to Michizou’s instead and teased that, for some reason, he never forgot the keys to Michizou’s apartment but had made more than ten copies of his in the last six months.
It was so much fun Junichiro forgot what they were doing was considered unethical, and even if he hadn’t he wouldn’t care.
Their food came and went as they chatted. It was all absurdly delicious.
Michizou’s brother spoke about his job as a doctor and glossed over his time in the army. Junichirou found everything said with his voice fascinating, so he kept the conversation going with questions and well-placed comments for the sake of listening to him for longer. He refused to give details of some patients he had to take care of, but he did mention a guy who tried to kill himself hitting his head with tofu. Junichiro had a strange feeling he knew of who he was talking about.
When Michizou asked him what he wanted for dessert he almost faints. He didn’t want him to spend more money than essential, so he proposed they’d split whatever Michizou ordered as the loving boyfriend he was meant to be. Michizou ordered a chocolate cake and his brother a brownie.
Their conversation died down, but it was because they were too busy eating. It wasn’t funny anymore how atrociously delightful expensive food tasted.
Michizou asked for the check and paid for all of it with his card. How much money did he have? Was he a bank robber?
They stepped outside, and Michizou’s brother took out a ticket from his pocket. They waited for the valet to bring his car making comments of how the food had been exquisite but that it was a restaurant for special occasions only due to its prices, and how it was quickly getting colder. When Michizou’s brother recommended Junichiro to put on his jacket properly, he complied. Michizou made a short remark of how, when he said the exact same thing, he disregarded him.
“It was a real pleasure, Junichiro,” he said in a tone that sent shivers down his spine.
“Likewise,—”
Fuck.
His name.
He never asked.
Why?
How could he forget to ask for the most crucial bit of information? Was he an idiot? He heard a voice that sounded strangely like Naomi’s to pull himself together and do something. Now.
“—Tachihara,” he said.
“Come on, don’t be so formal, call me by my name.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” he said as steadily as he could manage. “Even if you are Michizou’s brother I just met you.”
Junichiro smiled and prayed he would leave him be. Tachihara smiled back and hugged Michizou again, this time the ginger was quicker to respond to the gesture. He proceeded to hug Junichiro, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. The guy was toned, and he smelled nice. Junichiro wanted it to last longer, but the valet arrived with his car, forcing him to let go.
“Well, then, please take care of Michizou,” he said as he got in the car. Junichiro nodded. He closed the door and rolled the window down. “And you better not let him go.”
Michizou smiled and held Junichiro’s hand. “Never.”
His brother drove away, they waved at him for a few seconds and then walked to the car.
“We did it!” Michizou rejoiced as he lightly pushed him. “Terrible actor my ass, you were great, Junichiro.”
Junichiro hadn’t seen him smile like that. He looked beautiful when he was happy. His face displayed a big smile, tiny wrinkles lining his closed eyes, and a crinkled nose. At that moment, out of the Tachihara brothers, it seemed obvious who was better. Junichiro wanted to kiss him.
Oh, no.
There were basic rules to fake relationships. The most important one was to not develop feelings for the other. If it was a stranger, you’d most likely never see them again, so the harbored feeling could fade with time. When you say their face every time you went home and shared a simple nod every night and a good night once every full moon, things got complicated.
Junichiro shoved his thoughts as far as he could, he’d deal with them later. “You’re one to talk you almost had even me fooled.”
“Almost? I have to step up my act then.”
A nervous laugh escaped his throat. Please don’t, or I might end up believing it.
They got in the car and arrived at their building. In a silence, neither of them felt the need to break they reached their floor quicker than Junichiro hoped.
There they both stood facing each other, with their hands still linked. Junichiro didn't open the door, and Michizou didn't walk away. With hazel and amber meeting for more than they should've, only one thought was clear in Junichiro's mind.
Fuck it.
Michizou was faster than him. He pulled him by the tie the second he saw Junichiro moving a millimeter closer and locked their lips together. And Junichiro just stood still like an idiot.
The kiss was over before Junichiro could process it happened, and Michizou mumbled an apology and stated he wouldn’t do it again before turning away.
Wait, no.
Not being able to think clearly, he gripped Michizou by the arm and pulled harder than expected. He held his chin and angled it slightly to kiss him, to let him know he wasn’t the only one who could only think of the other, that he didn’t want to go back to be just neighbors.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he broke the kiss. “I was so happy I couldn’t properly react.”
Pink dusted Michizou’s cheeks, Junichiro thought it was a good look on him. To that face he had in his hands, and to those eyes that shone golden like the Sun, he vowed he’d make each of their stories real.
And then he remembered. “Hey, what’s your brother’s name?”