Archive of Our Own

And sure enough, Minami is already there when Touma pushes aside the noren and steps into the ramen shop. He doesn’t even look up from the menu as Touma sits down next to him, too busy trying to burn holes in the paper with his eyes—and honestly, he just might succeed at this rate.

“Mina,” he tries, and when Minami still doesn’t respond, he gently pushes the menu down and moves into his direct line of sight. “Hellooo.”

“Oh, Inumaru-san.” Minami blinks, his gaze flickering behind him toward the entrance and then back to Touma. “How long have you been here?”

“Just got here,” Touma says as he slides into the seat next to Minami. “Did I keep you waiting?”

“No, I’ve only been here for—” he taps on his phone, the screen lighting up to show a nature scene in soft pink cherry blossoms, “—ten minutes.”

Touma breathes out a whistle. “I can’t tell if you’re fast or I’m slow.”

Minami just hums.

“Was work really that bad?” he tries, scooting his chair a little closer to Minami—close the distance, crack him open.

Minami waves his hand, as if chasing away his real thoughts. “Oh, it was all right. The usual. What about you, Inumaru-san?”

“Changing the subject, huh…” Touma sighs under his breath and turns his nose down toward the menu. “It was fine. What are you gonna get?”

“I could say the same for you.” Minami’s tone is laced with accusation, and Touma squirms just a bit under the verbal scrutiny. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Then should I recommend something?” Without waiting for an answer, he slides the menu closer to Minami, flipping it over as he scans the options for something that sounds particularly delicious—something healing. “You should go with the tsukemen. It’ll cool you right off.”

Minami makes some kind of indignant huff. “I am perfectly ‘cool,’ Inumaru-san.”

Touma is torn between holding his tongue against the obvious lie and risking Minami’s full, unbridled pettiness—so he settles for a middleground and snorts out an unsightly laugh. “Yeah, sure. ‘Course you are.”

Minami shifts in his seat and glares at him, but it lacks heat.

Touma laughs. “Don’t give me that look, Mina; it’s way too cute when you don’t mean anything by it.”

His glare has plenty of heat now, concentrated at the tips of his ears and dusting across his nose. Minami looks down before Touma can really question it. “Forgive me. Um, what are you getting?”

Touma jumps just a hare and scrambles for his own menu. “Right! I didn’t think about that. Hmm, maybe the tonkotsu? You think that sounds good?”

“I wouldn’t be the one eating it,” Minami says, his voice strangely even.

“Oh.” Touma blinks. “Well, you’re welcome to try some if you want. But only if you let me try yours!”

Minami’s finger taps out a quick rhythm on the countertop, and he hums tunelessly. “Perhaps I’ll take you up on your offer.”

Touma grins, but before he can respond a shadow appears over the counter. He looks up to see a chef dressed head to toe in black.

“What can I getcha?” he asks, a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other.

Minami looks up, opens his mouth, and—

“He’ll have the tsukemen,” Touma says for him. “And I’d like the tonkotsu.”

Minami stares at him.

“Comin’ right up!” the chef says, waddling off to the other end of the counter where boiling pots lay in wait.

“I–Inumaru-san, I could have ordered for myself,” Minami says, tucking his hair behind his ear. His head is turned down now, but he sneaks glances at Touma out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, I know,” Touma says, leaning an elbow on the counter. “But you’re having a bad day, right? Let me spoil you a little.”

Minami’s mouth falls open, but no sound comes out.

“It’s my treat, too,” Touma insists, pressing forward while he has Minami cornered. He’s gonna turn his day around if he has to force it with raw physical strength. “Okay?”

“Inumaru-san…” Minami says slowly, tasting each syllable as it leaves his lips. “Then let me treat you, too.”

Touma blinks. “Huh? Whatcha mean by th—”

He doesn’t get to finish because Minami reaches out and puts his hand on Touma’s bicep, squeezing lightly as he leans in closer. His stool squeaks as it spins, slowly, slowly, and then they’re face to face.

Too close, Touma thinks through the sirens echoing in his mind. Too close! They’re in public!

“M–Mina…?” His voice cracks as Minami steals the air from around him, breathing in deeply as if to take in Touma’s scent. His hand creeps up Touma’s arm, two fingers walking along his skin-tight shirt, and when it brushes against Touma’s face, he shivers.

“I should return the favor, right?” Minami practically purrs, warm, minty breath assaulting Touma’s senses. “Since you’re being so kind to me.”

“Really, you don’t—you don’t have to, uh.” He clears his throat. “It’s fine, really. I’m not expecting anything back.”

Minami pouts, but he doesn’t stop in his advance. Another hand lands on his knee, and his skin tingles where each finger lightly trails up his thigh. “Oh, but Inumaru-san, I insist.”

Touma can’t help the tiny, almost inaudible yelp that escapes his throat. But Minami hears it, and he grins, glancing up at him through half-lidded eyes and wispy bangs.

His hand slides up his thigh closer and closer until—

“Mina!” he gasps, yanking the hand away right before they both do something they’ll regret.

Minami just giggles, light and airy.

“All right guys—” And Touma jumps a little too high, looking around frantically for the source of the voice and pressing a hand to his pounding heart when he sees the chef sidling up with two bowls of ramen, “—Order up!”

The bowls slide along the counter with the loud, marbly scrape of porcelain against waxed wood, and Touma stares down at them in a daze. He can still feel Minami’s breath on him, can still feel the chef’s gaze on him.

“Th–thank you,” he mumbles, releasing Minami’s hand in an attempt to make this look less… weirdly incriminating.

The chef seems to accept such a half-hearted response, and he slides a bowl of broth across the counter and wanders away, the pressure of his gaze easing with every step he takes.

“Oh, it looks delicious,” Minami coos, pulling away from Touma just enough to admire the tsukemen laid out in front of him. Steam rises from the broth and frames his face like a heart as he breathes it in, a smile on his face and a lilt in his hum. “Thank you for the recommendation, Inumaru-san.”

He seems almost… too normal, too suddenly, and Touma is jerky with his movements as he nods, just waiting for something else to happen. But since he doesn’t know what will happen, he has no idea how to prepare for it—so instead, he leans over his own bowl and takes up his chopsticks, ready to dig in.

“Ah—” Minami says, and Touma freezes with the noodles halfway between the bowl and his mouth. His eyes flutter in a subtle, flirtatious way that makes Touma’s palms sweat and his chest clench. “Didn’t you say you’d share?”

The noodles slip off the chopsticks and back into the bowl, droplets of broth bursting out of it like the fireworks exploding in his mind.

“Y–yeah, sure, sure um.” Touma slides the bowl toward Minami with a little too much desperation, a little too much feeling.

Minami notices this. And so he smiles, and so he takes his chopsticks and swirls the ramen around—slowly, with intent—before lifting the noodles. They hang there in midair, swaying in a nonexistent breeze. “Inumaru-san, don’t you want to try?”

Touma can’t figure out his game, but he nods woodenly regardless. The food does look delicious.

Minami brings the ramen closer, and Touma opens his mouth on instinct. Hot, savory flavor hits his tongue and explodes in his mouth.

Then Minami takes the ends of the ramen in his own mouth and slurps, and the explosion blasts away any sense Touma had left. He watches dumbly as Minami inches closer, the noodles disappearing, just like the distance between them, and—

Touma jerks away, but Minami’s hand is pressed against the back of his neck, forcing him still, and when the noodles are gone and their lips meet, Touma’s only thought is a soft buzzing in the back of his mind, a desperate plea for something that’s left him.

He lets Minami stay there for just a second longer, the taste on his lips salty and savory, and then he pushes back against his chest, forcing them apart even as Minami fights back.

“Mina!” Touma gasps—because Minami has drawn the air from his lungs. “You can’t just—!”

“I can’t just… what, Inumaru-san?” Minami bats his eyelashes and quirks up his lips in a sultry little grin, and the way his hair falls into his face makes Touma’s mouth feel dry, wanting.

He licks his lips.

“You can’t just…” he tries again. Then somehow, arduously, he manages to get a hold of himself. “We’re in public, Mina!”

“And?” Minami’s lip pokes out in a doe-eyed, coquettish pout. “What’s your point, Inumaru-san?”

Okaaay, that didn’t work. And now he’s coming closer again, pushing past Touma’s outstretched arms like they’re made of putty—and honestly, they might as well be. His entire body feels limp, pliable, and he watches helplessly as Minami advances ever more.

There’s pressure on his leg as Minami’s hand pursues his crotch yet again, and this time Touma is so utterly broken down that he can’t stop him this time. So instead he focuses on the feeling of warmth and soft, light touches that dot their way around his hips, peck kisses into his neck, trace hearts on his shoulder.

“Oh, Inumaru-san,” Minami whispers into his ear, and a shiver runs down his spine and leaves his skin tingling and raw, “you’re too kind.”

“M–Mina…”

He bites down on Touma’s earlobe and—

And everything that’s happening catches up to him. He goes rigid, pushes away, and falls back.

Straight onto the hard wooden floor of the shop.

He blinks up at the ceiling in a daze, and once he manages to break eye contact with the white tiles up there he glances around, only to find every eye in the sparsely packed ramen shop on him.

Shit.

He sucks in a breath and twists around until he’s on all fours, then pushes himself up with a pop and rounds on Minami, who couldn’t look more innocent as he leans bodily over onto Touma’s stool, avoiding his glare entirely.

“Mina.”

Even Minami’s not-so-guilty glance upward is inherently flirty, inherently playful. “Yes, Inumaru-san?”

“We should—” Touma breaks off to push Minami upright, heart pounding in his chest. “We should go home.”

“But—”

“C’mon,” he insists, trying so, so hard to ignore his little pout. “We should go home.”

Minami slumps over in his seat with a loud, dramatic huff, propping his elbow on the counter and his head on his hand. “I thought you wanted to spoil me today.”

The accusation twists upward in heavy tendrils around his ankles, up his legs, around his waist, weighing him down and dragging him back toward the stool, back toward Minami. But he chases the bindings away with a furious shake of his head and grabs Minami’s wrist, tugging on it loosely. “I do want to spoil you.”

Minami lifts his head, owlish eyes blinking slowly. “What do you mean…?”

“I mean,” Touma says, pleading with his eyes for Minami to understand. “I mean I’ll spoil you all you want. At home.”

Minami’s grimace pulls upward as realization hits. “At home, you say…?”

Touma nods once. “I’ll make things much more fun than anything we can do here.”

And Minami lifts out of his seat as if a breath of wind came and swept him up, and he falls into Touma’s arms with a light, airy sigh. “You should have said so sooner.”

“I didn’t think you’d—!” Touma shakes his head and decides better of it. Instead, he fishes around in his pocket for his wallet and pulls out a few thousand yen bills. He slaps them on the counter, nearly toppling over the bowls of ramen as he yanks his hand back. The broth spills over the rim and trickles across the counter and onto the floor, splashing against Minami’s designer, real-leather shoes. “Shit! Sorry, sorry!”

Minami stares down at them, then looks back up entirely unperturbed. “I’ll get new ones.”

“Cheeky,” he says, and Minami responds by tugging Touma closer to him, as if to say he’s mine.

Touma allows this much—rubberneckers be damned. And it’s like this that they leave, half-soaked bills and half-eaten ramen left behind on the counter, entirely forgotten.