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"I told you I didn't want to make a big deal out of it.”
His voice was quiet but tinged with pride, the same tone Katagawa had heard him use when he was fishing for compliments. Thusly, Katagawa knew exactly how to respond. “And you thought I’d accept that?” With a smile he turned and passed another box of decorations to one of the other Maliwan employees. “You’re with me, Strongfork. What, you thought I was gonna let you have a quiet little restrained birthday party with a few close friends? You should know me better than that. We’re talkin’ champagne towers, chocolate fountains, fireworks in the shape of your face-”
“That- That last part, you didn’t actually do that, right?”
“That’s an off topic question.”
As he spoke he moved his foot back to kick a large cardboard box under the buffet table, giving a meaningful glance towards the Maliwan employee stationed at the table. “Follow me.” He grinned at Rhys, curling a long finger almost seductively at the other man. Rhys squinted at him but followed nonetheless. Katagawa moved across the ballroom floor, his high heeled boots clacking in a way that almost comforted Rhys. The man paused in the very middle of the room and waited, fixing his tie, for Rhys to come close.
As soon as they were almost chest to chest, Katagawa locked eyes with Rhys and pointed upwards. Rhys rolled his eyes. “You pulled this on Mercenary Day too. I know it’s gonna be mistletoe, can we just kiss already?”
Katagawa opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Rhys placing a hand on the back of his neck and kissing him. Softly, tenderly, as though trying to convey ‘thank you, I love you’. When Rhys pulled away Katagawa had a light flush across his cheeks and, although no longer making eye contact, he was still pointing upwards. “It’s not mistletoe.” The man mumbled, a smile ghosting across his lips.
Rhys looked up to see a crude piñata of Handsome Jack himself hanging from the ceiling. It was life sized and he had no idea how he hadn’t seen it earlier. He snorted and then lost it completely, doubling over with laughter. Katagawa watched him, arms folded and face lit up with pride. He waited for Rhys to catch his breath and stand up straight again before gloating. “See? What did I tell you? This is gonna be the greatest party of your life!”
“I dunno, there’s some pretty stiff competition,” Rhys responded playfully. He knew that deep down Katagawa got a rush from attempting to prove himself, so he continued “After we found the vault, we all headed back to The Purple Skag for an afterparty. It was, as the kids say, off the chain-hook. Sasha dared me to drink this super old bottle of Pandoran rum, I started seeing things, Fiona got it all on her Echo device. Hell, even August was having a great time. It was really fun.” Rhys’ eyes got dreamy as he reminisced about the good old days. He allowed himself to gaze into the distance for a few more seconds before meeting Katagawa’s eyes again. Katagawa looked somewhere between excited and enraged.
“The Purple Skag doesn’t have shit on the Zanara. You’ll see. Rhys Strongfork, I swear to you that this is going to be the best night of your life.”
Katagawa’s voice was low, and his eyes had an intensity to them that made Rhys… flustered, for lack of a better term. He cleared his throat and managed to reply in turn. “I’d love to see how you plan on topping the night we met.”
The effect was instantaneous. Katagawa’s face turned rosy and he made a dismissive hand gesture as he turned away, although Rhys could see the smile spreading across his face before he fully turned. “I hope you’ll like the buffet.” Katagawa spoke, muffled and strained. Rhys folded his arms fondly, knowing Katagawa was biting back as much excitement as he could. “I wanted it to be fancy, my love, but I did also keep your fondness for sweet things in mind. There’s going to be so many flavours of ice cream. Flavours that haven’t been released yet, Rhys.”
Katagawa’s smile went from goofy to smug in a flash as he heard Rhys clap his hands together like a seal. He turned and walked over to his boyfriend, smoothing down Rhys’ tie as they regarded each other warmly.
“Thank you.” Rhys spoke, just above a whisper. Katagawa blinked and tilted his head.
“Uh, you’re welcome? Sorry, this tie is an abomination, you’re not wearing this to th-”
“You know what I meant, asshole!” Rhys spoke louder, interrupting himself with stray laughs. “Thank you for… This. I mean, this is probably my first proper birthday party. Up at Hyperion, you’re allowed to get a little cupcake from the vending machine once a year. Vaughn and Yvette always made the day as special as they could, and I appreciated it at the time, but…” He let out a sigh, almost looking pained. “It felt like it was going to be a rough one this year. I mean, I’m old now.”
“You are so dramatic. You’re not old, Rhys.”
“I’m old! I have-” He shuddered “-Grey hairs, and all I ever wanna do is fill out crosswords and wear sweater vests and get unreasonably mad at teens.”
“Rhys…”
“But you don’t see that, do you? You still think I’m that cool guy who chased down a vault with the help of his three best friends, plus two robots.”
“Well…” Katagawa rubbed his neck, smiling to himself, “I don’t know about ‘cool’, but I think you’re pretty great. You’re kind and hard working and creative and funny and you kind of… Make things better? Just… Just by being you. I’m not all that great with words unless we’re talking business, but I just wanted to give that back to you.”
Without hesitation, Rhys reached out and took hold of Katagawa’s hand, placing his metal hand on top of their linked fingers. “Katagawa, you make every day feel like a big extravagant party. You’re the chocolate fountain to my plate of brownies.”
Katagawa frowned. “Why would you dip brownies in a chocolate fountain? They’re already chocolate. That’s just unnecessary.”
“Yeah, but… It tastes good.”
“It’s empty calories! Chocolate fountains are for enhancing the flavours of non-dairy items! Like, like dipping fruits into a dark chocolate fountain because the bitterness will enhance the sweetness.”
“Not a fan of dark chocolate, personally.”
Katagawa stared at Rhys, snatching his hand away.
Rhys gasped overdramatically. “What? What did I do?”
“I cannot believe I am in love with a basic bitch like you.”
At that exact moment, a small row of lights shot up into the sky outside. Rhys glanced over to see the lights bursting into a row of text.
‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHYSIE’
Another burst of light and there was a bright image of his face above the sweet birthday message. He turned slowly to Katagawa, who was avoiding eye contact. A goofy grin spread across Rhys’ face.
“I cannot believe I am in love with a bougie bitch like you.”