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“Wow, Ennoshita, this is actually a really nice place!” says Noya, planting his hands on his hips and surveying the apartment critically.
“No need to sound so surprised,” Ennoshita says dryly, but still, he looks pleased.
With Tanaka, Narita, and Kinoshita trailing close behind him, Noya pokes his head in the bathroom, the kitchen, the small single bedroom with its neatly made bed and its orderly stacks of Ennoshita’s old kinesiology textbooks. His eyes go to the light switch, above which Ennoshita has taped up a picture of the five of them at the beach from last summer. Noya grins and nudges Tanaka, who presses a hand to his heart, his eyes glistening with unshed tears of manly fondness.
“You’ve even got curtains!” says Noya, pointing at the bedroom window.
“I—well, yeah, I bought those myself,” says Ennoshita. He frowns. “Wait, do you not have curtains? Don’t you live in a first-floor apartment?”
“He does. Everyone on his street has seen him naked at least once,” Kinoshita confirms.
“Look at all these towels!” says Noya, who has already moved on to surveying the contents of Ennoshita’s new linen cupboard. “What is this, a hotel?”
“I’m telling you, dude, most people own more than one towel,” says Tanaka. “It’s like a whole thing.”
“Just don’t listen, Ennoshita,” Narita says kindly, watching Ennoshita flinch as if Noya has just reached over and slapped him.
“Hey, you’ve got a great view from your balcony,” says Kinoshita. He wanders over to take a closer look, but just before he can step out into the open air, Ennoshita grabs the back of his shirt to stop him. Then Ennoshita reaches out and wraps his knuckles against the—whoa. The glass door? Damn. Noya didn’t even register the door’s existence when he was looking around the living room. He thought it was wide open. The glass is totally invisible. He didn’t know it was possible for glass to get that clean.
“Careful,” says Ennoshita. “Uh, I might have overdone it with the Windex a little…”
“You’d better put some window stickers up before you get a bunch of dumb birds crashing into it,” says Noya. Personally, he prefers to ensure bird safety in his apartment by doing the efficient thing and just never cleaning his windows at all, but Ennoshita always has to go and make things complicated for himself. “Hey, has anyone seen my phone? I gotta take a picture of this sweet fruit bowl to show my sister…”
“Yeah, it’s right here.” Narita picks up Noya’s phone off the couch and glances down at the screen. “Oh, you’ve got an Instagram notification from—uh—aceofhearts95 ? Who is that?”
“Is that Hot Samurai Dude?” asks Tanaka, looking at Noya for confirmation.
“Yeah, Hot Samurai Dude! Give it here, give it here!” exclaims Noya. He lunges across the apartment to snatch his phone from Narita’s hands and scrambles to open the post notification. Ohhh yes. Gym selfie. Score, baby. Hot Samurai Dude is smiling at the camera, a little shyly, one arm rubbing the back of his neck, the angle showing off the godlike muscle definition in his arms. Fuuuuuck. Noya is actively salivating right now. Mm. Those broad shoulders. That chiseled jaw? That man-bun… Noya’s thumb double-taps the post instinctively, the heart icon turning red while his brain is still busy trying to extricate itself from his usual cyclone of rampant lust.
“Oh my God, that guy’s shredded,” says Narita, peering over his shoulder. The rest of his friends have crowded around for a better look too. “Why do you have his post notifications turned on? Do you know him?”
“Nah, I just thirst-followed him when I was looking through workout videos a while back,” says Noya. He goes to aceofhearts95’s profile to scroll through his other pictures for demonstrative purposes. Hot Samurai Dude deadlifting. Hot Samurai Dude walking his dog. Hot Samurai Dude drinking coffee. Hot Samurai Dude out hiking in the mountains. Hot Samurai Dude spotting bench presses for his hot friend (whom Tanaka has creatively christened Hot Friend). “Come on, you think I’d be over here right now if I knew this guy in real life? No way. I’d literally spend all day every day eating that sweet ass.”
“Thanks, Noya, for that mental image,” says Ennoshita, looking pained.
“He is pretty handsome, though,” Kinoshita admits. “And most of his posts are tagged from Sendai. Maybe you’ll run into him someday!”
“Yeah, dude, yeah! Like in a shoujo manga!” says Tanaka. He clasps his hands together, his eyes going unfocused and dreamy. “You’ll both reach for the last pack of microwave spaghetti in the freezer aisle at the grocery store… your eyes will meet… sparks will fly… you’ll whisper breathlessly, ‘Is that you, aceofhearts95?’... he’ll sweep you up in a tender embrace and say, ‘It’s me, random dude with a cat meme as his profile pic who likes all my posts’...”
“I don’t know, I feel like there isn’t much ass-eating in shoujo manga, though,” says Narita.
“Dude, what are you talking about? Tuxedo Mask definitely ate ass at least once,” says Tanaka.
“Did he?” Narita says doubtfully. “I don’t think he did…”
“The next person to talk about ass-eating is getting evicted immediately,” says Ennoshita. “I’m not kidding.”
“Okay, okay,” says Noya. Then his head jerks up, distracted from Hot Samurai Dude’s profile by a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. “Whoa, dude, check out that pigeon on your balcony! That’s the fattest bird I’ve ever seen, I gotta take a pic—”
“Noya, wait, don’t forget the—”
Noya is no Hot Samurai Dude, but he does spend his days running courier deliveries around the city on his bike, so he’s in pretty good shape. It doesn’t take much to get him from zero to fifty. This means that when he slams into the glass door face-first, he does so at full speed.
His mouth crunches painfully. “Ow,” Noya says, stunned, staggering backward. A heavy, coppery tang floods across his tongue, accompanied by something sharp digging into the inside of his cheek.
“—door,” Ennoshita finishes, too late. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘m fine,” Noya mumbles. He rubs his throbbing mouth, still in shock. Then, into his hand, he spits out a mouthful of blood and half a tooth.
***
“I’ll just need you to fill out these patient intake forms, and then sign here, and here,” says the receptionist as he hands a clipboard and a pen across the counter to Noya. “Your appointment was scheduled with Dr. Shimizu today, but her ten o’clock surgery is running a little behind. Do you mind seeing Dr. Azumane instead? He had a last-minute cancellation, so he’ll be able to see you right away.”
“Yeah, sure, whoever is fine,” says Noya. His tongue prods at his broken tooth again, and he winces as the jagged edge presses into his flesh. He knows he needs to stop poking at it, but he can’t help himself.
He takes the clipboard to one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting room and starts going through the paperwork. God, this is boring. He can’t believe he had to take time off work to go to the dentist. This is so stupid. He hates going to the dentist. He hasn’t been to the dentist in years. Hell, it’s been so long since he’s been to the dentist that his old dentist just up and retired without even bothering to tell him. Ennoshita lectured Noya about researching client reviews for new clinics so he could find a reputable practitioner, but that sounded boring as hell, so Noya just called up a couple of the practices on the list Ennoshita compiled for him and went with the first place that could fit him in.
The dental hygienist who comes to get him from the waiting room a couple minutes later is a sweet-looking guy with silvery hair and a sunny smile. His blue scrubs have cartoonish bunnies printed all over them. Noya feels instinctively that this is the kind of dental hygienist he would willingly back in a knife fight, no hesitation, if the occasion were ever to arise. The dental hygienist’s general demeanour suggests he goes gentle with the pick thingy on his patients and doesn’t floss too hard. “Nishinoya Yuu?” says the dental hygienist. He gestures for Noya to follow him. “I’m Sugawara. I’ll be helping Dr. Azumane cap your tooth today. Come on back.”
Sugawara gets him settled in the exam room chair, snapping on a clean pair of plastic gloves and tugging up his mask before he starts poking around in Noya’s mouth. “That looks painful,” he says sympathetically, when Noya can’t help cringing away from his touch a little. “What happened?”
“I ran into my friend’s sliding door,” says Noya. Sugawara makes a polite effort at disguising his laugh as a cough.
Then the dentist walks into the room, and Noya’s jaw drops. Those broad shoulders. That chiseled jaw? That man-bun… Holy shit. Hooooly shit. No way this is happening for real, no fucking way—
“Hi Nishinoya, I’m Dr. Azumane—” Hot Samurai Dude is saying as he tugs on his own pair of plastic gloves, but Noya has already leapt to his feet, startling Sugawara into fumbling his dental pick.
“It’s you! Hot Samurai Dude!” says Noya, pointing an accusing finger at his new dentist, who stares back at him in shock.
“Hot Samurai Dude…?” says Sugawara.
“Um… do I know you…?” says Dr. Azumane. He’s going candy-apple red, his blush starting across his cheeks, spreading up his forehead and all the way down his neck.
Belatedly, Noya considers the fact that starting off his relationship with his new dentist by explaining how he thirst-followed him on Instagram for the purposes of lusting after his ripped abdominals is maybe not the best way to guarantee that Noya receives a high standard of dental care. “No!” Noya says, and sits back down again.
“Um. Right. Okay,” says Dr. Azumane. He sits down on the stool opposite Sugawara and lets Sugawara show him Noya’s broken tooth. “Well. So, um. I’m—what I’m going to do is—um…”
“The temporary crown,” Sugawara prompts. His mask is covering his mouth, but the way his eyes are crinkling makes Noya suspect he’s wearing a huge grin under it.
“Right,” Dr. Azumane says gratefully. “Sugawara’s going to take some X-rays and make a mould so we can have a permanent crown made, and then I’ll file this down for you today and put on a temporary cap to make you a little more comfortable. You’ll need to come back in a couple of days to get it replaced—”
“I get to come back?” says Noya, delighted. Wow! Two visits to Dr. Hot Samurai Dude in one week! Initially he thought slamming into Ennoshita’s glass door was just some rotten luck, but it’s becoming clear to him now that this was actually Destiny, an act of divine intervention by his own personal guardian angel to guide him down the path to True Love, or at least Fantastic Sex. He wishes he’d worn a nicer shirt, and maybe tighter jeans.
“Um… that’s not the reaction I usually get, but yes, you get to come back,” says Dr. Azumane, blinking at Noya bemusedly through his sexy glasses. “Do you have any questions for me before we get started?”
“Are you seeing anyone right now? Or like, what’s the situation there?” Noya blurts out. The shock of meeting Hot Samurai Dude in the flesh is such that the part of his brain that attempts to encourage him to think before speaking seems to have gone temporarily offline.
“Um, no, or, well, I… I sort of meant… questions about the procedure…” says Dr. Azumane. Beside Noya, Sugawara is doubled over on his stool, laughing so hard he’s wheezing.
“Oh. Right. Sure. You ever had a patient die on you?”
“No!” exclaims Dr. Azumane, sounding scandalized.
“Just checking. Anyway, I’m good,” says Noya. God, he absolutely should have worn tighter jeans, what was he thinking…
“Okay. Um. Well, I’ll—um, I’ll let Suga handle it from here, until—um, yeah, so I’ll—I’ll see you in a bit,” says Dr. Azumane. He gets up so fast he knocks his stool over, then bends to pick it up, then stumbles over it as he backs out of the room, all the while flushing straight through the entire scarlet spectrum and all the way into maroon. “Um, bye…”
When Dr. Azumane comes back twenty minutes later, he seems to have recovered his composure a little. Noya, too, has had a chance to get a hold of himself, aided in large part by the extreme discomfort of having Sugawara jam pieces of plastic and trays of gross-tasting putty in his mouth.
“It’s a nasty break,” says Dr. Azumane, taking another look at the tooth while Sugawara preps the tools for putting on the temporary cap. “Did you fall?”
Noya can’t say he ran into his friend’s sliding door. He absolutely cannot say that. Telling the nice hygienist was one thing, but he can’t admit to Dr. Azumane, confirmed (by Noya) to be the hottest man in the galaxy, that he’s just as dumb as the birds that smash themselves into the shiny windows of downtown skyscrapers. That’s mega uncool.
“I got in a fight!” Noya lies. Sugawara side-eyes him hard, but he doesn’t rat him out. What a nice guy! Noya knew he was right to trust him.
“A fight?” says Dr. Azumane, visibly horrified.
“Just a little fight,” Noya amends, to prevent his image from veering past bad boy and into straight-up bad. However, unable to keep himself from bragging just a little—because if it had been a real fight, he totally would have kicked ass—he adds, “You should have seen the other guy!”
“Oh yeah? Did he break his mandibular second premolar or something?” asks Dr. Azumane, and laughs.
“Huh?” says Noya.
“Asahi, I keep telling you, no one thinks your dentist jokes are funny,” says Sugawara, rolling his eyes.
“Sorry,” Dr. Azumane says sheepishly. Asahi? Asahi! What a great name. And Noya liked his weird dentist joke, even if he didn’t get it. It was cute! “Um. Right. So. I’m just going to give you a little local anaesthetic and then we’ll get started…”
***
Noya comes back four days later, wearing his tightest jeans, and experiences the inordinate pleasure of spending three hours reclined in the exam room chair, drooling all over himself while Dr. Azumane and Sugawara poke around in his mouth to secure his permanent crown into place.
“Okay, you’re all done,” Dr. Azumane says finally. He stands up, strips off his plastic gloves, and stretches, giving Noya a fantastic view of those muscular shoulders. On the other side of Noya, Sugawara stifles a yawn and starts tidying up.
“Fank ‘oo,” says Noya, as articulately as he can manage with half his mouth frozen and his jaw aching from three hours of having Sugawara cheerfully reminding him to open nice and wide, please!
“My pleasure. Or, um, you know, I mean… um, anyway…” Dr. Azumane clears his throat. “Ah, I did notice some plaque buildup around your molars. When was the last time you had a cleaning done?”
“Uhhhh,” says Noya.
“Yeah, I thought so,” says Dr. Azumane, grinning. “The front desk can schedule you an appointment when you pay. I’ll tell them to fit you in as soon as I have an opening.”
“Ohay!” Noya slurs enthusiastically. Oh, man, a cleaning! He gets to come in again! All these dental bills are going to leave him flat-out broke, but who cares, if it means he gets to spend another hour staring into Dr. Azumane’s gorgeous, soulful eyes while Dr. Azumane sticks his big, strong fingers down Noya’s throat and warns him he’d better cut his sugar intake in half before all his teeth rot right out? Noya takes it all back, every resentful thought he’s ever had about dentistry in his life. He loves going to the dentist. He’d go to the dentist every single day if he could.
“Great. You might feel a little bit of tenderness around the crown, but it should go away in the next few days. If you’re experiencing any serious pain or if you have any concerns, just give the office a call,” says Dr. Azumane. Then he bends over Noya, leaning in close, and Noya’s already-overexcited cardiovascular system goes into hyperdrive. Holy shit, is this happening? Is this happening, for real? Noya does the only thing he can think of, and—
“Wait, wait, tell us one more time,” says Kinoshita, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. Beside Kinoshita, Tanaka and Narita are clutching at each other, pounding the table so hard their beers are rattling as they howl with laughter. Beside Noya, Ennoshita has a hand pressed to his mouth and his eyes raised heavenward, as if praying for deliverance. Nearby patrons of the izakaya are glaring over at their booth, clearly irritated. “Your hot dentist leaned in, and—”
“I hugged him,” Noya mumbles, burying his face in his hands. “I thought he was going in for it! I wasn’t just going to leave him hanging!”
“But he was actually—”
“He was actually just unclipping my dental bib, yeah,” Noya groans, and lets himself collapse onto the table. There is rock-bottom, and then, somewhere below rock-bottom, there is accidentally hugging your hot dentist after a three-hour dental procedure to cap the tooth you broke charging head-first into your friend’s sliding door.
***
“Okay, so what do we think of this shirt?” asks Noya, doing a little twirl and striking a suggestive pose against the doorframe as he exits the department store dressing room. “I want something that says I’m available but not desperate. Is this doing it for you?”
“Again, and I cannot stress this enough, Noya, you’re going for a dental cleaning, not a date,” says Ennoshita. “You are paying this man to perform a medical service. That is not a date. That is the opposite of a date. The hygienist does most of the work for a cleaning anyway—”
“What if I unbutton the shirt a bit? Or is that too slutty?”
“Are you even listening to me?” demands Ennoshita.
“I think it’s, like, just the right amount of slutty, actually,” says Tanaka, nodding thoughtfully. “It’s like, yeah I’m hot shit, but guess what, I might make you wait till the second date before I suck your dick. Like you probably wouldn’t, but you might. You know?”
“Yes! Exactly! That’s exactly the vibe I’m going for! Hey, what about my gums? Do they look healthy? Sexy and healthy? I’ve been brushing my teeth extra hard!”
“Super sexy,” Tanaka confirms. “Dude, those are the sexiest gums I’ve ever seen in my life! You’re gonna drive your hot dentist wild!”
“I don’t want to be friends with you guys anymore,” says Ennoshita.
***
“How often do you floss?” asks Sugawara. His scrubs today are patterned with cats skateboarding. Noya has already pledged himself mind, body, and soul to Dr. Azumane, Dentist of the Year in Perpetuity and Hottest Man in the History of the Universe, but he has to admit that Sugawara is a pretty cool guy.
“Six times a day,” says Noya.
“Liar,” says Sugawara. He loops a length of dental floss around his gloved fingers and leans in (Noya is pleased to announce he manages to avoid trying to hug him, having learned a valuable lesson about body language for dental professionals during his last appointment). Then Sugawara proceeds to spend the next ten minutes making Noya revise every kind thought Noya has ever had about him. Sugawara might look sweet and gentle, but he flosses like a gorilla wielding a handsaw. By the time he’s done, Noya’s eyes are streaming and his mouth tastes metallic with blood. Sugawara rinses his mouth out and lets him spit in the sink, all the while chattering happily away about how nice the weather was on his vacation to Okinawa last month, like he hasn’t even noticed the fact that Noya is now dribbling blood all over the place. He’s a monster.
“I’ll just see if the doctor’s ready to take a look at you, okay?” says Sugawara, and Noya perks up, all traces of lingering resentment instantly vaporized by the prospect of having Dr. Azumane check out his premolars or whatever.
“Okay!” says Noya. He drags the back of his hand across his mouth to remove any lingering traces of blood from his poor, tender gums and undoes another button on his shirt, just in case. Sugawara returns a minute later, and behind him is—
—another dentist. Not Dr. Azumane. Having already endured the physical sensation of slamming head-first into an invisible glass door, Noya now experiences its emotional equivalent. He stares at the new dentist in dismay. In fact, Noya is so busy spiralling into acute misery that it takes him a minute to realize why the new dentist looks so familiar. It’s Dr. Azumane’s gym associate, Hot Friend.
“Nishinoya, right?” says Hot Friend. He reaches out to shake Nishinoya’s hand. He has a firm, efficient handshake, a handshake that signals to Noya loud and clear that Hot Friend is the kind of guy who habitually irons his underwear. “I’m Dr. Sawamura. I’ll be taking a look at you today.”
“Where’s Dr. Azumane?” asks Noya. He tries not to sound too forlorn, but honestly, this is devastating.
“He’s off sick,” says Dr. Sawamura. While Noya is busy coming to terms with the fact that he showed up to his dentist appointment looking just the right amount of slutty for absolutely no reason at all, Dr. Sawamura tugs up his mask, settles down on his stool, and sticks his gloved fingers in Noya’s mouth. “How’s your day going? Good? That’s good. Clench,” he instructs, before Noya can even attempt to get out an answer, and he hooks a finger in Noya’s cheek, yanking it sideways. “Good. Let’s see that new crown—oh, that’s beautiful. Okay, open wide. Mm hm. Tongue up. Hmm. Tongue down. Uh huh. Great work here, Suga.”
Sugawara beams. Dr. Sawamura’s eyes crinkle as he smiles back at him over Noya’s head. Then Dr. Sawamura frowns down at Noya and prods him in his already tender gums. “You’ve been brushing too hard. You’re getting some gum recession here, and here. We’ll have to start thinking about grafts if it gets much worse. Are you using an electric toothbrush?”
“‘Es,” Noya mumbles around Dr. Sawamura’s fingers. This is not, strictly, true, but Noya’s willing to fib a little if it means this guy will stop frowning at him.
“Don’t lie to me,” says Dr. Sawamura, his frown deepening into an outright glower. Geez, this guy is scary.
“Dr. Azumane flagged four-six and eight-four as points of concern when we did the X-rays for the crown,” says Suga, sliding over to his computer to pull up the images. Dr. Sawamura glances over at them, then gestures for Sugawara to hand him over some clean tools. The tips of their gloved fingers brush in the hand-off, and somehow the tools get fumbled to the floor.
“Oh, sorry—” says Sugawara.
“No, no, sorry, that was my fault—”
“I’ll just—”
“If you could—”
Sugawara rips open the sterilization packs on a clean pick and mirror and hands them over carefully. He’s blushing pink above his mask. So is Dr. Sawamura. Noya looks between them in astonishment. Wow. Wow. This is so unfair. Not only does Noya not get the chance to seduce Dr. Azumane with his sexy and apparently receding gums, but instead Noya’s being forced to third-wheel Dr. Azumane’s scary replacement as he awkwardly tries to flirt with the questionably evil dental hygienist. This is terrible. Noya redacts all earlier lust-biased opinions. Going to the dentist sucks ass.
“Four-six and eight-four, right?” says Dr. Sawamura. He clunks the tools around in Noya’s mouth. Noya tries not to gag. “Was there any sensitivity when you were cleaning?”
“A little bit, yeah,” says Sugawara. No SHIT there was sensitivity, dude, since you went at me like a goddamned JACKHAMMER, Noya wants to point out, but he does not, as speaking would elevate the likelihood of him accidentally biting Dr. Sawamura’s finger, at which point Dr. Sawamura would presumably sentence him to death.
“Hmm. Let’s take a look… oh yeah, these need filling for sure,” says Dr. Sawamura, prodding at a particularly tender spot that makes Noya wince.
“I have a cavity?” Noya says, or tries to say, although with Dr. Sawamura trying to get Noya to deep-throat his dental mirror and his fingers still holding Noya’s mouth open, it comes out more like, “Iiiiiaaaaaaaeeeeeiiii?”
“Two cavities,” says Dr. Sawamura, and to Noya’s immense relief he removes his hands and lets Noya close his mouth.
“So I get to come back?” Noya says hopefully, perking up a little.
“Uh…” says Dr. Sawamura. He squints at Noya, then looks at Sugawara. “Wait, is this the guy who—”
“Yep, this is the guy,” says Sugawara.
“Ah. Right. Yes, you get to come back,” says Dr. Sawamura. “Book with the front desk when you pay. Don’t worry, Dr. Azumane will fit you in just as soon as he can.”
***
“Listen to me. Listen to me,” says Ennoshita. He grasps Noya’s face with both hands and pulls him in close. “I know you’re really excited about getting your fillings done tomorrow, but I want you to swear—I want you to swear, do you understand—that you will not make any inappropriate jokes about drilling. Not a single one. Okay? Your hot dentist has been through enough. Let the man do his job.”
“I swear, I swear! Let me go!” Noya protests, trying uselessly to squirm free of Ennoshita’s hands. Unfortunately, Ennoshita is stupid strong when he wants to be, and right now he’s holding on tight. “Geez, Ennoshita, what kind of guy do you take me for? My hot dentist is a sophisticated dude! I always keep things classy!”
***
“Have you ever had a filling done before?” Dr. Azumane asks. He looks particularly sultry today, with his glasses and his man-bun and his white lab coat over his burgundy scrubs—or maybe it’s just that Noya keeps thinking about the workout video Dr. Azumane posted on his Instagram last night, the one where he was doing squats with some stupid amount of weight that made his delts crazy defined. Mm.
“Nope,” says Noya. Subtly, he tugs his shirt down a bit, trying to make a few adjustments that will help mitigate the inconveniently low sex appeal of the dental bib Sugawara has clipped around his neck.
“Well, it shouldn’t feel all that different from the crown we did, except these fillings are further back, so people often find that a bit uncomfortable. Do you have any questions before I freeze your mouth?”
“Nah,” says Noya. He doesn’t mean to say what he says next. He doesn’t, honestly. It just spills out, propelled by the unstoppable momentum unique to those jokes so blatantly obvious that the laws of the universe dictate they absolutely must be made. Like gravity! In conclusion, it’s really not his fault when he winks and adds, “You can start drilling me any time you want, Dr. Azumane.”
“Please excuse me for a moment,” says Sugawara, lurching up from his stool. Astoundingly straight-faced, he manages to make it out into the hall before Noya hears him dissolve into laughter.
“Um…” says Dr. Azumane, who has gone the same approximate shade as his scrubs.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” says Noya, clapping a hand over his mouth. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—you know when you’re, like, thinking so hard about not saying something that you just—I’m really sorry, my friend made me swear I wouldn’t say that—”
“It’s fine! It’s fine,” Dr. Azumane assures him, although his colouration is still reminiscent of a freshly boiled lobster. “Um, I get that joke a lot, actually…”
“Oh, I bet you do,” says Noya, and winks again. Then he claps his other hand over his mouth as well, since the first hand obviously isn’t providing effective censorship. “Gah! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that either—”
“Ha, um, that’s, I mean, it’s, you know, um…” says Dr. Azumane. He rubs the back of his neck and clears his throat. “Um, so… I guess we’ll just wait a minute for Suga to come back… um, so… oh!” He points to Noya’s bag in the corner of the exam room, with his volleyball shoes poking out the top where Noya couldn’t get the zipper closed all the way. “Do you play volleyball?”
Noya sits up eagerly. “Yeah! I played all through high school! I’m on a rec team now with a couple of friends.”
“I played in high school too, and university!” says Dr. Azumane. His awkwardness from a moment earlier has vanished, replaced by a sort of animation that makes him look a little bit younger. “I mean—I just played rec in university, I wasn’t competitive or anything. What position were you?”
“Libero! I dug up all the balls!” brags Noya, bringing his arms together like he’s prepping for a receive to demonstrate. “You must have been some kind of hitter, right, a big guy like you?”
Dr. Azumane laughs and rubs his neck again. “Yeah, believe it or not, I was actually the ace on my team for a while…”
Oh, Noya believes it, alright. And also—“Ohh, ace of hearts, I get it now,” says Noya, nodding. Then he freezes. Incredibly, out of all the stupid shit he’s managed to say in the five minutes since Dr. Azumane entered the exam room, this is somehow the stupidest thing he’s said yet.
“Um… what?” says Dr. Azumane, staring at him.
“Your Instagram,” says Noya, because even he can recognize that at a certain point backtracking is only going to further erode his already precarious interpersonal footing. “Uh, look, I can explain—I actually thirst-followed you before you were my dentist, so—”
“You did what to me?” says Dr. Azumane.
“I followed you,” Noya corrects quickly. Fuck. He’s really on a roll today. Thank God Ennoshita isn’t here with him. He’d be having an aneurysm. “That’s what I said, I said I followed you before you were—”
“That wasn’t what you said,” says Dr. Azumane, still staring at him, and Noya groans.
“I thirst-followed you, okay? But it was like, so what, because you were a total stranger, right? How was I supposed to know you were going to be my dentist? And then what was I supposed to do when I found out? Sure, I could unfollow you, but I was always going to know in my heart that you were my dentist who I thirst-followed on Instagram, you know? Like, unfollowing wouldn’t just erase that!”
“Did you unfollow me?” Dr. Azumane asks.
“Uh,” says Noya. “Well—I mean—the thing is—uh, well, no…”
“Right. I see,” says Dr. Azumane. Finally, he looks away from Noya, instead glancing out the window, where gloomy, greyish clouds are piling up in the sky like used cotton balls. He contemplates the view for a moment, then stares down at his hands, twisting his fingers together. “Um. You know, Daichi—I mean, Dr. Sawamura—he’s a really good dentist.”
“He’s scary,” says Noya, and Dr. Azumane laughs.
“Well, a bit, yeah,” Dr. Azumane admits. “Or—or Dr. Shimizu, she’s great as well.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” Noya asks. He gets it. He totally gets it. He completely deserves to have his dentist dump him—
But to his astonishment, Dr. Azumane flaps his hands and exclaims, “No! No, that’s not—um, that is—it’s just that—um, the Dental Association really doesn’t like it when practitioners, um, you know—when practitioners go out with their patients…”
“Oh, because otherwise all the hot dentists would have an unfair advantage, right?” says Noya, nodding sagely. This makes complete sense. He totally gets it.
“Ah—no, it’s more for, um, ethical reasons, since we’re medical providers…” says Dr. Azumane.
“Oh,” says Noya. Then his brain finally processes the subtext of what Dr. Azumane is saying, and he lunges forward out of his seat, his bib spinning around one shoulder. He stares at Dr. Azumane in astonishment. “Dude, wait, are you asking me out?”
“Um… yes? Or—I’m really sorry, was that presumptive? I just—obviously, if you’re not interested, that’s completely—”
“No! Oh my God, no! I’m totally interested! Are you for real? I’m definitely interested! When can we go out? Can we go out tonight? I’m free tonight! I’m free whenever you’re free!”
“Oh! I—well, I’m working an evening shift tonight, but—um—Thursday?”
“Yes! Okay! Thursday! Wow! Uh—so, wait,” says Noya, as his back molars throb a little from Sugawara’s initial prodding, returning him from the transcendent realm of romantic euphoria to the slightly less transcendent realm of subpar dental health, “are you still going to do my fillings today, or what’s the deal with that? It’s just, I booked a bunch of time off work, so—”
“Ah—right, yes, your fillings, I can definitely—um, or, you know what, actually, I’m just going to go see if Daichi—I mean, if Dr. Sawamura is free…”
“Sure, yeah, totally,” says Noya, and sits back to wait, grinning a stupid grin that probably shows off his receding gumlines. He has a date! He has a date on Thursday! He has a date with his hot dentist—that is, his hot ex-dentist! If things go well, he might get to see that divine delt definition in the flesh! Holy shit! For that delt definition, and that bashful smile, well—enduring scary Dr. Sawamura is a small price to play.
***
“So I think the takeaway here is that thirst-following strangers on Instagram pays off,” says Noya, gesticulating with his beer so as to best impart his words of wisdom unto his beloved friends.
“So true, man, so true,” says Tanaka, nodding. “I’ve been saying it for years…”
“What? No—no! That is not the takeaway!” exclaims Ennoshita.
“Uh, okay—the takeaway here is that dressing a little bit slutty for your dentist appointment pays off?” Noya tries. He’s less confident about this learning outcome, given his disastrous first attempt—but clearly he did something right, because last night was date number twenty-three-and-a-half with Asahi (not that Noya’s keeping track or anything) and Asahi still, somehow, amazingly, incredibly, appears to be into him.
“I mean, it did work out for him, Ennoshita,” Narita says.
“Yeah, Noya’s kind of got a point,” says Kinoshita.
Ennoshita looks at Kinoshita and Narita. He looks at Tanaka. He looks at Noya. He opens his mouth. He closes his mouth. Noya observes the precise moment at which his spirit breaks. “I’m done,” says Ennoshita, laying his head down on the table of their izakaya, where Narita pats him sympathetically. “I’m just—I’m done.”