Chapter Text
It was fortunate that Gentaro had decided to stay up later than usual in order to complete this draft, otherwise he wouldn't have been awake to hear the sounds of someone breaking into his apartment.
He'd been willing to give the person outside of his door the benefit of the doubt when they had merely tried opening the door, figuring that it could simply be someone too drunk to differentiate between room numbers, but he was forced to admit to himself that something was amiss when the handle started jiggling incessantly.
With a dramatic sigh, he got up from his seat and crossed the room to where his hypnosis mic was resting. Just as his fingers wrapped around it, the door swung open.
Panic flashed through him. They actually managed to break in? He thought incredulously, whirling around to face—
"Dice?"
The blue-haired man stared in shock at him, frozen in place. One of his hands was still on the handle of the door, while the other held what Gentaro suspected was a bobby pin. Dice opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "Um. Hey, Gen. Didn't, uh, didn't think you'd be up," he laughed nervously, eyes flitting from the mic in Gentaro's hands to the hallway behind him. "My bad! I'll just... be on my way! Good night!" He began to move away from the door.
"I think not," Gentaro hissed as he lurched forward and grabbed Dice's ponytail.
Dice let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a yowl as he was dragged back into Gentaro's apartment. "Ow, Gen, stop, that hurts!" He whined. The author ignored him, opting to kick the door shut with his foot before moving his hand from Dice's (far too soft) hair to his chest and lightly pushing him away from the door.
"So, Dice, to what do I owe the pleasure of you visiting me at--" he glanced at the clock on his wall "--two in the morning."
The gambler winced, shrinking further into his jacket at Gentaro's piercing glare.
"Well, you see, I didn't want to knock on your door cause I didn't think you'd be awake and I didn't wanna wake ya, but I really needed somewhere to... um, stay, and Ramuda already told me earlier that if I tried to go to his place he'd eat me, so. I utilized my lock-picking... skills."
Green eyes bored into magenta as Gentaro stared blankly at the man in front of him, halfway because he was formulating a response and halfway because he was enjoying seeing Dice grow increasingly uncomfortable as the silence stretched on.
The moment Dice opened his mouth again, Gentaro finally spoke. "When you said 'stay', you meant 'hide', correct?" He asked, crossing his arms.
"I--okay, listen, yes, but--"
"In that case, if there was someone after you, you have just led them to my doorstep."
Dread flooded Dice's face. "Fuck, I didn't even think about that!" As he was prone to do, he fell onto his knees, clasping his hands together. "I'm so sorry! I--I'm pretty sure I outran them, if that helps at all, so they probably didn't see me enter here. Probably. Definitely. Please don't kick me out."
He let out a deep sigh. "Get up."
Dice did, looking at him with pleading eyes.
To Gentaro's dismay, he felt a stab of pity. This is not the time, he cursed his treacherous heart before squaring his shoulders. "You may stay here. If anyone else comes to my door because of your failed gambling expeditions, however, I will send you out there alone and claim that you broke in without my knowledge." He waited for a sign that Dice had fallen for his words, this time coming in the form of the gambler's entire body deflating, before adding, "that's a lie, of course." As if he'd pass up an opportunity to use his hypnosis mic in a duet with Dice.
Dice immediately brightened, a blinding grin stretching across his face. "Thanks, Gen!" He beamed.
Gentaro fixated on the way Dice's fangs shone in the moonlight for a second before he closed his eyes and dismissed the thought. Such inconvenient observations had become annoyingly prominent in his life as of late, regardless of how much he tried to ignore them.
It was only a matter of time before Ramuda noticed, which would be catastrophic. The pink-haired gremlin was a force to be reckoned with when he wanted to be, and he could only imagine how incessant Ramuda would be if he found out that Gentaro was--
Well. No use dwelling on it.
He opened his eyes, meeting Dice's for a moment before he felt a smirk pull at his lips. "You know, this is a rather large favor I'm doing you. Don't you think I deserve some... compensation?" He purred, moving around Dice and trailing a hand along the width of his shoulders before sliding both his arms around his waist.
Deciding to rest his chin on the area where Dice's shoulder and neck met made it all that more obvious when the man gulped, gaze stubbornly fixated on the place where Gentaro had stood a moment prior.
"W-what sort of compensation?" He stammered.
Gentari chuckled lowly, heart starting to race at his proximity to Dice. "One favor in return for another would work, no?" He murmured lowly, shifting to blow air into Dice's ear before abruptly pulling away and moving to where he'd abandoned his draft. "That's not a lie. I'll decide your fate tomorrow--or, rather, later in the morning, given your arrival at this unfortunate hour."
Dice let out a strangled noise, but by the time Gentaro had turned back to face him, Dice had already turned his head to the ground. The green-eyed man looked at him curiously before rolling his eyes and moving past his friend to his bedroom. "I will be going to sleep now. Do what you wish, but if anyone else comes to my door, alert me immediately."
Before Dice could even start to respond--because Gentaro was still thinking about how warm the gambler had been, and if he didn't leave right now he may do something horribly embarrassing like blush--he stepped into his room, closing the door behind him. It seemed he'd fallen harder for Dice than he'd thought.
It wasn't until later, when Gentaro was lying in his bed, that he realized he hadn't given Dice a futon or anything to fall asleep on in his haste to escape. It will be fine. I cannot feel remorseful when he quite literally broke into my home, he reassured himself, closing his eyes.
...
Fuck you, Dice.
Turns out he could feel remorseful after all. He got out of his bed with no small amount of irritation at his rising guilt, scolding himself for how irrational Dice made him. He has literally slept on the streets before. There is no need to disturb your evening further. These words were, unsurprisingly, in vain.
As he opened the door to the living room, he froze in place, blinking several times to ensure what he was seeing was real. Then, he promptly closed the door and got back in his own bed.
If he were a schoolgirl, this would be the moment that he screamed into his pillow. Luckily for his neighbors, Gentaro was an adult man, and did not feel the urge to scream into anything. Suffocating himself with the pillow was just as efficient to rid himself of the vision of Dice curled up like a cat on the ground, looking more peaceful than he'd ever seen the usually energetic man. His black shirt had ridden up ever-so-slightly, revealing what Gentaro briefly thought--feared--were abs, though he hadn't lingered long enough to tell.
I despise men. Maybe I should become a member of the Party of Worlds. With that thought, he moved the pillow back to its initial place below his head, making up his mind to fall asleep. He'd just have to disguise his emotions even better than usual tomorrow.
His last thought before he finally fell asleep was that at least Ramuda wasn't there to witness his gay panic.