Work Text:
[SOUGO] Am I scary?
He barely bats an eyelash before typing a response.
[TORAO] Terrifying.
But all Osaka men are like that, he’s heard. It’s an iron-blooded lineage that exemplifies survival of the fittest, the foundation of one of the most influential enterprises in the nation. Sougo has been bred and molded to become like his predecessors and to stand above all else in the business world and beyond. So, of course he’s terrifying—that’s the type of man an Osaka should be and the type of man Sougo himself had been shaped to become.
No answer comes within the next five minutes. Torao sighs and picks up the phone again.
[TORAO] It’s cute though.
[SOUGO] Don’t lie.
Yeah, he’s upset. He may not have spent the past few years by Sougo’s side, but Torao has known him long enough, in mind and body, to be able to grasp strands of genuine emotion past that rippling surface of propriety.
[TORAO] It’s cute because it’s gap.
[TORAO] And because I know it comes from a place of genuine care.
[TORAO] Did something happen?
[SOUGO] No.
[TORAO] Don’t lie.
After a few beats, he also adds:
[TORAO] Don’t say it’s nothing or it’s trivial, either.
It’s another long interval of quiet. Torao isn’t too worried. He knows that Sougo likes to choose his words carefully when he has the means to do so. Especially when it concerns himself.
[SOUGO] Someone just joked that I won’t be able to keep anyone if I keep being scary.
A pretty face with an unfaltering personality that reigns above all others: that is what a man of the Osaka family should exemplify. Sougo had tampered with that formula for greatness by keeping his heart close and unwittingly nursing the empathy and love planted within it. It’s caused him to break into fragments vying to survive his day-to-day, caused insecurities to take root and fester despite the constant weeding and tender care from his groupmates.
Sougo wants to be better than his family.
Torao already thinks he is.
He wishes Sougo can see that, but wrenching anything from iron takes time.
[TORAO] You’ve had me for years.
[TORAO] Your pretty face, your scary personality, your stubborn head, your earnest heart.
[TORAO] (And your eager body, but that’s a very nice bonus.)
Sougo sends an angry sticker of a flaming King Pudding punching something multiple times. He can’t help but huff out a laugh at the cuteness of Sougo’s embarrassment.
[TORAO] I’m not going anywhere.
[TORAO] I’d like it if you stayed the way you are.
Another minute passes.
[SOUGO] This is unusually sweet for a philandering bad boy.
[TORAO] Rude.
[SOUGO] Thank you.
[SOUGO] I’m also not going anywhere.
Rather than a sticker, he sends plenty of heart emojis—paragraphs of them, in fact, that culminate to Sougo sending another sticker of a very Angry King Pudding Surrounded By Fire as a threat. The scary personality returns with vengeance.
Honestly though: how can Torao not shower him with love? Those words have always been everything he could ever want.