Work Text:
“It’s late,” Meian mutters to himself, eyes moving away from the TV yet again in favor of looking at his phone.
No new notifications have popped up yet, he notes with a sour pout. He was expecting a text from Hinata sometime soon since the ginger was currently out with some coworkers. Not that he wanted to be controlling, but rather, he knew how tough work dinners could be, especially for newcomers like his boyfriend. So, he wanted to play things safe and know how he’s doing, just in case he needed to step in and bring Hinata home.
Hinata left for the dinner at 8 PM, a solid three hours ago, which leaves Meian concerned. Without any confirmation from Hinata about his whereabouts, Meian is left with a plethora of what ifs swimming through his mind.
Chewing on his lower lip, he completely misses out on the next ten minutes of the show he was watching as his finger hovers over Hinata’s contact on his phone, contemplating whether or not he wanted to initiate contact instead.
Okay, but what if he’s in the middle of an important conversation? He reasons, now chewing on the tip of his thumb. But it’s nearly half past eleven PM, what important conversations could take place now at all times? His brows pinch together and he lets out a heavy sigh. Yeah, but he could be having so much fun and if I suddenly call, he might just lose his rhythm. Meian now believes he’s great at one-on-one conversations. But he hasn’t contacted me in a while, I want to make sure he’s safe—
The sound of keys jingling outside their front door interrupts Meian’s train of thought, who sits up straighter now in anticipation. Shouyou’s home, he thinks excitedly to himself like a dog deprived of attention, standing up to go greet the ginger. He parts his lips, the corners pulling out into a wide smile when he sees—
“hic—Who… who are you?”
Meian blanches.
Hinata looks absolutely disheveled. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed a bright red and his breath stinking of booze—God, this was exactly what he was worried about! Why didn’t Hinata contact him sooner?!
The ginger stumbles from where he stood into their doorway, leading to his boyfriend having to lean forward to catch him before he fell face-first into the shoes they had sitting around. He expects Hinata to calm down once he’d been caught, but nooo, he goes bonkers, first letting out a yelp before lifting tiny fists to beat against Meian’s chest.
“Nooooo! You can’t touch—hic—don’t touch me! Where’s my boyfriend?!”
“Shouyou, calm down, baby—SHOUYOU! Listen to me—oh my God, you’re not listening—"
Any attempt Meian makes to respond to Hinata’s outburst go ignored, the ginger’s voice loud enough to wake up their neighbors. Hurriedly, the elder pulls Hinata closer to him so he could shut the door, knowing damn well that he was going to wake up to a noise complaint the next day.
“Shouyou, baby,” he tries desperately to call the ginger, who was still uselessly thumping at his chest, “Baby, it’s me! Do you not recognize me?”
“Let go of me! I want Shuugo-san! Gimme Shuugo-san!” The ginger thrashes about in Meian’s arms—oh God, he wasn’t going to back down without a fight, even when he was clearly in the wrong. Meian should’ve anticipated this sooner, knowing his boyfriend.
No longer wanting to be hit (he’d much rather be hit on), Meian quickly gathers Hinata in his arms, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, where he brings him over to the sofa, sitting down first then placing Hinata down right in his lap. Hinata’s eyes are still screwed shut, but his complaints have since boiled down to just incoherent whines, the younger no longer having the will to form actual words, much less sentences. Meian takes the chance to hold Hinata’s face in between his hands, long fingers completely engulfing his face. God, he’s so small.
“Shouyou, baby, please, look at me,” he pleads, thumbs gently swiping over the apples of Hinata’s cheeks, “c’mon, sweetheart, it’s just me.”
Meian wonders what it was that he did this time to make Hinata suddenly quiet down, the ginger slowly fluttering his eyes open to take in the sight of the man in front of him. It takes a little bit for him to finally register that yes, this was his boyfriend, his eyes narrowing into slits as he leans in. But at last, his face lights up with recognition and he immediately lunges forward to wrap his arms tightly around the other.
“Shuugo-san!! I missed you so much! Where have you been? I was waiting for you to save me, y’know!” Hinata huffs, his body wriggling dangerously in Meian’s lap. “There was a really insistent, weird man in our apartment earlier! I got really scared!”
Dejectedly, Meian places a comforting hand on the ginger’s lower back, rubbing small circles there while trying to come to terms with the fact that his boyfriend has labeled him a really insistent, weird man. Oh, the pain.
“Is that so? I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you earlier.”
Hinata’s completely calmed down at this point, a pile of goo in Meian’s lap. He’s pliant and soft and everything Meian needed earlier to feel reassured. The older reaches up to gently thread his fingers through wild orange locks, untangling the knots that weren’t there this morning.
“How was the dinner, Shou?”
The ginger peels away from Meian, his boyfriend immediately missing the warmth he got from holding the smaller. But oh well, he looks so cute with that vibrant smile on his face, so Meian will just have to make do with having his hands on Hinata’s hips.
“It was so fun! I got to try lots of new foods and new drinks! And when we sang karaoke, I filmed my boss singing! And it turns out that he’s horrible at it, so now I have potential blackmail material!”
Oh lord.
Pursing his lips, Meian tries not to burst out laughing. He gives small nods and hums occasionally as Hinata speaks, in case the ginger thinks he’s not listening, watching as his tiny boyfriend waves his arms around animatedly while describing the rest of the dinner.
“And—and, I got to speak with this really cool senpai from a different company! He told me that I sounded like an amazing worker and that he’d love to recruit me! So he gave me—”
Hinata interrupts himself to dig into the pockets of his slacks, pulling out a tattered, wrinkled piece of folded paper. It’s quite cute to see him struggle to unfold the square that was simply folded in half twice, so Meian doesn’t bother trying to butt in and help. But the fond smile on his face quickly melts away when he sees the contents written on the paper Hinata held in his hands.
“He—hic—he gave me a list of things to do before I set up an appointment with him!”
Hinata turns the paper around so he could look at it, eyes squinting once again as he tried to fluidly read what was scribbled there.
“…Huh? Call me soon…? Let’s have some fun together, baby boy…? Huh, that doesn’t sound right.”
Meian purses his lips once again, though this time it’s with the last drops of patience he has left not to go murder some guy he’s never met. He watches Hinata try to reason out why the paper didn’t have what that senpai told him there’d be, truly an angel, but soon enough, he decides to reach out and take the paper from his boyfriend, pretending to tuck it away when in actuality, he crumples it up and tosses it behind himself to who-knows-where.
He closes his eyes for a moment, praying to whatever higher entity out there that he could find a way to report this senpai. Granted, he knew that Hinata was going to get hit on sooner or later, someone would have to either be ignorant or have terrible tastes to think that the ginger wasn’t a cute piece of ass. However, Meian has also gone lengths to ensure that people knew Hinata was a taken cute piece of ass. Not someone that could be hit on whenever and wherever.
Perhaps the promise ring he gave Hinata wasn’t enough. Perhaps he needed to give Hinata his last name, too. Maybe then, dumb senpais from other companies won’t slip him papers with their phone number and some sleazy line.
“—Shuugo-san!”
Ah, right. He has a needy baby he needs to take care of right now. He’ll plan the proposal later.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“Shuugo-san, that was an important paper!”
Hinata looks adorable all pouty like this, but unfortunately, that only made Meian even more jealous. How close did that senpai sit next to Hinata? Did he try to touch him or use pickup lines on him? Did he seriously think that he had a chance with him, when he clearly had a ring on? Unable to channel this energy into something positive, he takes a different route and attempts to mimic Hinata’s pout (it looks horrible, he’s sure).
“More important than me?”
Hinata stops rambling then, his face a vibrant red, but this time, not from the alcohol. His lips open and close repeatedly, not knowing what to respond—if he could find it in himself to respond.
“N-no! Of course not, Shuugo-san! You’re more important than any paper! Well… Maybe not my tax returns… Or my birth certificate… Or my—”
“Alright, I get it, Shou,” Meian chuckles, watching Hinata count the number of important documents he had on his fingers. “I am, for sure, more important than whatever that senpai gave you, right?”
Hinata nods enthusiastically, leaning in to press a loud and wet kiss to Meian’s lips.
Oh God, he’s so cute, the elder internally cries. His boyfriend was really going to be the death of him, wasn’t he?
In the middle of dragging his hand down his face, he glances up to see Hinata letting out a loud yawn, his face scrunching up cutely. Right, he was drunk, tired from work, and now tired from the dinner. All of that added together meant that it was way past a certain ginger’s bedtime.
“Ready to go to bed, baby?”
Meian couldn’t help but chuckle when Hinata tried to shake his head and instead, ended up leaning against his chest. Cute. He gently rubs circles into Hinata’s sides, a fond smile on his face as he listens to the soft sigh his boyfriend lets out.
“That’s a yes, isn’t it, Shou?”
The muffled …yes he gets from Hinata is all he needs as confirmation before he tucks his hands underneath Hinata’s knees to lift him up and carry him to their shared bedroom. He doesn’t really want to let Hinata down. He kinda just wants to fall under the covers like this and cuddle Hinata to sleep right here, right now. But the ginger probably won’t sleep comfortably given that he’s still in a dress shirt, tie and slacks, so he soothes Hinata as he puts him down, promising that I’ll come cuddle you later, baby, promise, before turning to grab the ginger a pair of pajamas to change into.
“C’mon, love, sit up and change into your pajamas so you can go to sleep.”
It’s in the middle of tidying up Hinata’s closet that he hears a whine accompanied by loud rustling of clothes, which led him to turn around—pfft. Hinata was stuck trying to lift his dress shirt over his head without unbuttoning any of the buttons nor undoing his tie. Meian stifles a laugh as he moves closer to the ginger.
“Shuugo-sannnn! Help, I can’t see!”
“Alright, alright, you big dummy.”
Meian grabs ahold of the hem of his shirt, tugging it back down so he could first undo Hinata’s tie and then his buttons, allowing Hinata to shrug off the seemingly offensive article of clothing.
“What a hassle!”
Smiling, Meian ends up also helping Hinata put his pajama shirt on, chuckling at how Hinata’s orange curls pop through the collar before the rest of his head does.
“Whatever you say, Shou.”
After a couple more minutes of Hinata whining for Meian to come cuddle him, he only returns to bed once Hinata’s clothes were put away properly, immediately getting an armful of Hinata Shouyou. It feels so nice to have his boyfriend back in bed with him after so long, especially since he couldn’t have dinner nor do their regular movie night like usual. Arms winding around the ginger, Meian pulls Hinata impossibly closer, burying his face into Hinata’s hair to press soft kisses to the top of his head.
“I love you so much,” he whispers, the corners of his lips tugging into a warm smile when Hinata tilts his head up to kiss the underside of his chin like he always does.
“I love you, too, Shuugo-san. I love you more than anyone in the world!”
Meian pulls away just enough to lean down and press a kiss to Hinata’s lips, quickly kissing him a few more times before squeezing him in his arms as if he’d disappear if he were to let go.
“…Hey, Shou?”
“Mm?”
Meian swallows before he continues, suddenly feeling like a teenager with these overwhelming feelings.
“…Promise me you’ll text me updates next time you go out? I-I don’t mean that I don’t trust you, of course I trust you—it’s just.. I can’t always be there to protect you, which I hate. But I can try, and when I can’t, I know people who would be there for you in my stead.”
He pauses for a moment, willing himself not to burn a bright red. God, he and Hinata have been together for how long now, and he still can’t say all this stuff without going completely soft and uwu. He’s now 100% sure that he’s much better suited for snarky, I-told-you-so statements. But for Hinata, he doesn’t think that would hold up for long, much like now.
“Just… try and send me a text or something next time? Or call and let me know that you’re safe, mm? And of course, you can also ask me to come get you, you know I’d never leave you hanging.”
“I know, Shuugo-san. Thank you for caring for me. I’m sorry I made you worry so much,” Hinata responds, slightly less slurred now. He tilts his head up to kiss Meian’s chin once more before lifting his pinky. “Here, pinky promise! I’ll make sure to text you more next time I go out!”
“Oh, baby,” Meian chuckles, once again taken by surprise by how cute Hinata could be. He tries to not give in to the ginger’s suggestion but quickly sighs in defeat when he pouts at him, linking their pinkies together. He drags Hinata’s hand up towards his lips, unraveling his fingers to tenderly kiss the ginger’s fingertips and knuckles. “How is it possible to make me love you any more than I already do?”
He thought he’d get a response, but when he tilts his head to look at his boyfriend, he’s greeted by Hinata’s blissful expression, eyes fluttered shut and lips parted to let out the tiniest snore.
“Goodness, what am I going to do with you?”
Expression painfully fond, Meian presses a kiss and the softest I love you, sleep well into Hinata’s curls before allowing himself to fall asleep soon after, the ginger safe and sound in his arms.
(A year later, Shouyou meets that senpai once again. But this time, he proudly hands him a brand new business card, the name Meian Shouyou bright and bold at the very top. He’s unsure why the senpai seemed so dejected, though—perhaps he didn’t like the new design of his card?)
(At the same time, at home, Meian bites his tongue and wonders who it was that just cursed him out.)