Work Text:
“Gin, you just don’t understand!” Tachihara frantically rants about a certain weather-reporter as he sits down in one of the chairs at the head of the table, hands waving in the air.
Gin stared at their papers, meticulously ordering them, as they sighed, “Michizou, I think you’re in love.”
Tachihara balked, jaw dropping, “Love? I’m not in love??11?! What the heck, Gin?!”
“Fix your papers, and you’re definitely in love.” Gestured Gin, ever the sage and serious one, instructing their friend who was going through a crisis.
“I AM NO-” Tachihara begins to deny.
“LIVE IN 5 MINUTES!” Hirotsu’s sharp whistle snaps through the air.
Dazai, who was manning the cameras, yelled, “Tachihara, your face is all red!”
Then, he turned to giggle behind his hand, “Are you in lo~?”
“SHADDUP!”
Sighing and rubbing his temples, Hirostu merely grumbled into his palm, “I really don’t get paid enough for this.”
Then he raised his voice and adjusted his monocle and looked up to the man sitting on the chair directing cameras and microphones, “Chuuya-kun?”
“Countdown from 5 seconds begins now, people!” Chuuya announces across the set, ignoring Tachihara’s intense sweating and steaming ears, and slammed the button that announced that they were LIVE.
Gin, the only anchor up there that was prepared took the reins and started off; turning towards the camera and giving a polite bow, they began, “Good morning everyone, LIVE at 7 A.M, I’m Akutagawa Gin…”
“A-and I’m Tachihara Michizou.” Tachihara squeaks out.
Gin, smoothly picking up from Tachihara’s rough entrance, voice as raw and smooth as honey, “And we’re so glad to have you here with us this morning. We have a lot of things to cover so let’s start with…”
Here they glanced up to the cue card, where Dazai was ominously cackling; eyes glowing in the dark of the background, “Let’s start with the weather report brought to you by Tanizaki Junichirou!”
…Promptly followed by the tell-tale slam of Tachihara’s head against the table. Thank god, the cameras weren’t on him.
But as the sound of Tanizaki’s heels tapping across the floor as he hurriedly raced to stand in front of the monitor, held up by traffic at the front, Tachihara’s pale face meekly lifted up.
Only to redden once again, as he took in the sight of Tanizaki with mussed up hair from the wind coupled with his running. The collar of his shirt pulled to one side and revealed his collarbones. His cheeks were flushed from the exertion of running to the top floor of the news-room and with the embarrassment of being late.
“Oh my god.” Tachihara softly groans, quietly enough that the still-on microphone didn’t catch it, as he raised the collar of his shirt to cover the lower half of his face, in a vain attempt to hide the redness spreading across him.
Gin merely chuckled at their friend’s, very obvious, love.
“Good morning, everyone!” Tanizaki flashed a smile to the camera, oblivious to Tachihara's furious, blushing face. “So sorry I’m late, you know, traffic, but anyway, I have the weather here today!”
Remote in hand, Tanizaki rolls through the usual forecast from the coast, city, and countryside. Smoothly explaining things; complete with hand-motions and soft smiles. At this point, Tachihara’s face had finally, successfully, cooled off.
Flicking a button, Tanizaki stepped out of the background to allow the audience to view the weekly forecast, “Today, temperatures are slightly chilly, so light sweaters and the like will be perfect. However, folks, by the end of the week, things will take a drastic turn, and get hot, hot, hot!”
Tachihara slouching into his chair, unaware of how the movement brought the clip-on microphone straight to his lips, mumbled, “Kinda like you, huh.”
...Right at the same time when Tanizaki was wrapping things up, “Hopefully by next week, things will c- wait, what?”
Turning around from where he was pointing at various locations on the map; he aimed wide, shocked eyes at Tachihara's mortified ones that were rapidly widening as he realized his mistake. The off-hand compliment had shocked the rest of the crew as well, knowing that Tachihara was so shy on his “crush.”
Silence spread across the studio, as the only noise that seeped through was Chuuya’s megaphone dropping from pure shock and Hirotsu’s clipboard slipping out of his hands in surprise.
Dazai’s hands were frozen on the camera controls, as he stared at the two blushing, flustered men, snapped out of it first, “Split the screen! Split the screen!”
“Yes, Dazai-san!” Akutagawa and Atsushi hurriedly adjusted the cameras to fit their mentor’s orders; successfully splitting the screen to show the two flustered faces side-by-side.
“Commercial break, Chuuya-kun! Commercial break!” Hirotsu hissed into Chuuya’s ear as he practically saw the tension thicken between the Tanizaki and Tachihara.
“Um, yes, that’s right.” Snapping his fingers towards the group of staff, he ordered, “Put a commercial break on!” Before turning to Tanizaki and Tachihara, “You two, sort this out!”
Tanizaki’s knees were jelly, as he wobbled to his chair at the end of the table; the spot where the weather reporter could rest until his time to shine was next. He took a sip of his coffee, before rolling his chair up the table until he was on Tachihara’s right.
Tachihara was practically vibrating on his chair from embarrassment, spewing out apologies, like, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you’re hot, wait no- I don't mean it’s a bad thing. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
Now, people assume that Tanizaki’s a little shy baby, on the contrary, Tanizaki was a coy little thing, lowered his eyelids and stared at Tachihara, “So you think I’m hot?”
Poor, poor, Tachihara, Gin thinks as they get up and leave to get a coffee, leaving the two alone.
Tripping over his tongue, the other red-head replied, “Well, um, heh, you see.” Tapping his fingers together as his eyes strayed everywhere from Tanizaki’s hypnotizing ones, he stumbled for an answer.
“Well?” Tanizaki prompted with a raised eyebrow.
“Sure.” He mumbled into his arm-sleeve; the closest thing to a ‘yes’ he could reply.
Tanizaki raised a shocked eyebrow, “Oh, hoh, now.” He got up and got ready to push his chair back to it’s spot, leaving Tachihara’s head to spin from the shock of the events that happened during the duration of 20 minutes.
Just as he was turning around to go back to his desk, Tanizaki suddenly spun back on his heel to face Tachihara, before lowering his lips to his ear,
“I think you’re hot, too.”
“So, how was work, big brother?” Naomi asks the other Tanizaki as she came back from her work as a waitress at a coffee shop.
Tanizaki’s ears flushed as he remembered the day’s… events, “Not much really.”
“Suuure.” Naomi says as she gives a mischievous grin, “I could just ask a reliable source.”
As her thoughts trailed to a certain black-haired person, Tanizaki thought of a certain red-head.
Tachiharan ran to the figure with a black coat, the moment he saw them, “Gin, what do I do?”
Gin, who was busy talking with their brother, asked with an amused laugh, “Do what, Michizou?”
“Do…” He waved his arms in the general direction of the news building, “...THAT!”
“Your job?”
“Not that!”
“Your crush?”
“I don-” He faltered mid-word at Gin’s unamused stare, and gave in, “Okay, maybe, I have a small crush.”
Gin turned to the door and pushed in their pin, “Yeah, sure. ‘Small.’”
“No, Gin, you don’t understand! He’s so… so… grraafaklaj!” He explained, as if that perfectly described Tanizaki; Gin the ever perfect friend merely nodded along.
Tachihara merely continued rambling, “Like with those sweater paws. Have you even seen him?!”
Gin, went along, nodded, “Yes, I’ve seen him before, we’re colleagues-”
“And his hair! With those little clips!?” Tachihara screeches. “Oh my god, there he is!” Tachihara says, seeing Tanizaki approach them from where he was walking down the hallway; quickly ducked behind Gin.
Tanizaki, recognizing Gin waved, “Good morning, Gin-san,” and noticing the familiar red hair behind them, “Hello to you, too Tachihara-san.”
Tachihara let out a meek wave behind Gin’s coat, tightly clutching it as Gin returned the greetings.
Watching Tanizaki turn the corner and out of their view, Gin turned onto their friend, “You pathetic sissy! Grow some balls!”
And the off-hand compliments kept growing and growing as Tanizaki and Tachihara took it upon themselves to compliment the other.
Honestly? If you asked the crew, it was becoming more and more of a, “I’m not going to ask you out first, so I’ll just compliment you,” battle.
And that’s how they found themselves sitting in front of Fukuzawa and Mori.
“So, I heard you two are flirting with each other?” Mori nonchalantly comments.
Tanizaki and Tachihara rubbed their arms in nervousness and embarrassment; ashamed that it had gone this far, “...umm…”
“It’s going to disrupt the news, this isn’t a gossip channel, it’s a news station and if you two aren’t going to do your job properly because of…” With a flourish of his arm, Mori gestured vaguely to the two of them, “...because of this-”
Fukuzawa completed his sentence, “We’re going to politely ask the two of you to go on a private meeting.”
The air grew tense as the two red-heads understood the implications,
“A date?!” They exclaimed in shock.
Fukuzawa coughed to let out some of the tension, “If that’s what it’ll take for the two of you to get this under control… then, yes.”
The two of them shared looks; their eyes practically shaking in their sockets from nervousness.
Tachihara was in front of the café, 15 minutes before the designated time, dressed in a light sweater; thankful that he had managed to listen to Tanizaki's forecast instead of blushing like an idiot.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through their text messages over the past days leading up to this meeting and softly smiled at them.
“Tachihara-san!” Tanizaki called out as he saw the redhead waiting by the entrance.
Tachihara’s heart promptly picked up and began chugging like a train as he took in Tanizaki, from his clipped-up hair, to the sweater that he had on, the ends of the sweaters draping over his hands.
“Oh, um, hey.” God, Tachihara, was whipped, wasn’t he.
“Hello.” Tanizaki replied, pushing the stray ginger hairs out of his face.
The two of them stared at each other, trying not to allow their feelings to cause them to choke up. Tanizaki’s hand reached towards Tachihara; who was currently praying his hand wasn’t all sweaty.
“C’mon, let’s go in, yeah?” Tanizaki softly says to Tachihara.
Sipping the remnants of their coffees after talking things through, albeit a bit nerve-wracking, but they got the job done.
“So, you’re my boyfriend now, huh.” Tanizaki states from the rim of the cup.
Tachihara who was glaring at the bottom of his cup, dazedly said, “Yeah… I can’t believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“You being my boyfriend.”
Tanizaki chuckled before asking, “How long have you liked me then? I forgot to ask earlier.”
Tachihara picked at the nape of his neck, “A while, I guess…”
“C’mon, Michizou~” Tanizaki asked as Tachihara shivered at the other red-head using his given name.
He mumbled, “Since I first saw you, I guess.”
Tanizaki’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair-line, “That long, huh?”
Looking up and seeing the way the sun just hit Tanizaki in the right way, emphasizing his golden-orange hair, and golden earrings, a line hit Tachihara.
“What do you and the sun have in common?”
Tanizaki turned his attention to Tachihara, unaware of the other boy’s pure love and the way his heart was beating out of his chest, “What do I and the sun have in common?”
Leaning forward to look Tanizaki directly into his golden eyes, Tachihara seriously replied,
“You both brighten my day up.”