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It was a Tuesday afternoon the first time Tadashi noticed: he was checking his master’s diary in order to find out a fitting time to schedule his next meeting with the local Marine Wildlife Protective Association when he realised that a two hour chunk of time was blocked off towards the end of his day. Between 5:00 and 7:00, there it was: a whole two hours gone without any real reason other than the [Personal] tag as the sole means to justify his sudden absence from his tightly-ran daily schedule.
Tadashi made a point to check his notes to make sure that he wasn’t missing anything Ainosuke had mentioned before, but there seemed to be nothing to explain his sudden disappearance. He decided to chalk it off to his master carving time out of his day to go practice some outrageous trick for ‘S’ or simply want time on his own to go for a walk and decompress given how busy they were as of lately.
He let the subject drop, scheduling the meeting whenever he saw it convenient for everyone involved and going back to work on the myriad of different tasks that were needed to keep Ainosuke’s life up and running.
He didn’t think about the mystery personal time again until he saw yet another two-hour slot blocked off in his calendar, this time on a Wednesday, a week after the first one. And then again roughly two weeks after that, this time on a Monday.
Even if Tadashi didn’t know what Ainosuke was getting up to during those two-hour escapades, he decided that if someone as busy as his master needed to take a couple of hours to himself every now and again to keep working to the standard of excellence that he did, he was in no position to question why or what for.
These personal appointments became the norm: without Tadashi knowing, a seemingly random two hour spot would become unavailable without any sort of explanation and would leave him struggling to fit the rest of Ainosuke’s duties into his already packed schedule. He told himself that it wasn’t a problem and was always able to magically find time where there wasn’t any, even if it meant he had a bit more work to conduct after dark.
Tadashi was very aware that whatever his master chose to do in his personal time was none of his business and therefore he had no need to know what it was. Almost two decades at the service of the Shindo family had made it clear to him that rich and important people could do whatever they pleased without being challenged, and that any discrepancy between their real schedule and the one they displayed should always be covered up to prevent any indecency from coming to light.
He knew well that Lady Aiko’s lengthy hair salon appointments had nothing to do with her commitment to maintaining her -in all honesty, rather flat and dull- hair but rather with the fact that her husband had not been successful in achieving a useful erection since 1999 and therefore the lady had taken matters into her own hands… or rather, into the hands of a dumb and painfully underemployed young man. Every single member of staff at the service of the Shindo family knew about it, but no one would be foolish enough to even hint at what they knew.
Such was the life of a servant: they knew much more than what the masters gave them credit for and could cause real trouble if they ever wanted to, but they all knew silence was the best policy around drama.
As a professional secretary, Tadashi knew that he shouldn’t be giving his master’s escapades any thought -the less he knew the better- but on a more personal note, he couldn’t allow this to slip his mind.
It had only been a handful of months ever since their relationship had started to change for the better after years of guilt and contempt over a broken teen promise that neither of them really had the power to uphold. Tadashi wasn’t quite sure of what had kicked the change into motion, but he was very grateful of the fact that Ainosuke seemed to be determined to make things happen in order for their tortured lifelong relationship to find a resolution.
The first few weeks were nothing but sex: in the car, in the office, in Ainosuke’s room, in hidden nooks all over ‘S’. It had been exhilarating, and Tadashi had known better than to ask what was going on, deciding that being fuck-buddies was perhaps as good as it was going to get for them both and absolutely a step in the right direction compared to the awkward limbo in which they had existed for over a decade.
Eventually, though, wild sex against any surface available gave way to small conversations afterwards. They didn’t talk about much in the beginning, but eventually quiet reminiscences of their shared lives started pouring out, and then questions about their current selves that allowed them to get to know the men those enamoured teenagers had actually grown up to be.
Tadashi wasn’t sure of what exactly they were now, he was still much too afraid to ask, but it was clear to him that there was something between them, and he didn’t want to lose that something just yet. Much less lose it to a faceless intruder closing in from behind a [Personal] tag on Ainosuke’s schedule.
And so, he asked the question as soon as he saw an opportunity to do so.
“Can I ask you something?” Tadashi said over a shared dinner in the intimacy of Ainosuke’s fancy office room.
“What is it?”
“I was checking your schedule this morning to arrange a meeting with Dr. Sato for Friday, and I saw you had booked off a couple of hours that afternoon.” Tadashi started, wondering if it would prompt any response out of Ainosuke.
It did not, with the slightly younger man simply nodding and waiting for him to continue with what he was hoping to ask.
“Well, I’ve noticed you keep booking personal time in your calendar. Is there something I should know to plan around?”
“No, it’s fine. I can manage that.” Ainosuke said, giving Tadashi no in to ask what he was up to during those evenings in an organic way that flowed into conversation and didn’t seem as though he was asking questions he shouldn’t.
And yet, Tadashi was currently beyond caring for what would be seen as polite conversation between master and secretary.
“Are you planning things for ‘S’ during that time?” he asked, deciding that it was best to let Ainosuke think he feared another of his grand ideas rather than the fact that he was currently wondering whether he was losing him to someone else.
Ainosuke laughed.
“No, not quite. Still scarred from the White Eden Event?” he asked with a grin that made Tadashi feel weak; he had never been great at saying no to him, not even when Adam’s madness required him to hire a helicopter.
“Very much so.” he admitted before looking at him and asking as casually as he could “What are you doing, then?”
“Well, a little bit of this, a little bit of that~” Ainosuke answered with a little shrug.
Tadashi knew there was no way he could make him tell him what he didn’t want to, so he knew it was best to drop the subject instead of winding him up enough to end up fighting.
It didn’t feel great, though, and his worries did nothing but grow.
He did his best to keep whatever he was doing off his mind, trying to convince himself of the fact that Ainosuke was aware that he had access to his calendar and knew pretty much everything there was to know about his daily appointments, so he would surely be smart enough to find a more subtle way to get around him to cheat on him. Not that he knew that was what he was doing. But it did look suspicious...
He sighed. He needed to take a step back and stop acting crazy.
And Tadashi did just that, backing off and trying to give Ainosuke space to do whatever he was doing and eventually tell him about it on his own time.
It all worked well for a handful of weeks, with Tadashi pretending not to notice the blocked off time-slots and doing his best to not read into the way Ainosuke acted after each of his unexplained absences: sometimes he was talkative and affectionate, more so than usual, but other times he would completely withdraw and ask Tadashi to not bother him for the rest of the night. He never knew what to expect after those mystery meetings of his.
Tadashi tried to resign himself to the fact that he might never know what Ainosuke was doing in his unscheduled time, but the more he thought about it, the more irrational his worries became and the more he craved for some sort of answer to the question that was eating him up from the inside. He did nothing to try and find it, though, simply waiting for Ainosuke to decide he wanted to tell him anything and knowing better than to ask him repeatedly.
After another month of regular personal appointments and no word explaining what they could be, Tadashi was doing a fantastic job convincing himself that he wasn’t bothered at all by them. He told himself that it was none of his business and that it was fine, that it could not be cheating and that whatever it was, Ainosuke would eventually tell him.
Ainosuke was as affectionate as ever and their sexlife was just as enjoyable as it had been since things began, so there was no reason for him to pin impossible worries onto what his lover was doing in secret. It was probably just something dumb and perhaps even embarassing that he just didn’t want to tell him. He was entitled to some privacy. It was fine.
Even if he was slightly concerned about whatever it was that Ainosuke did on his personal time, Tadashi would never do anything to invade his privacy further than what his job required him to… and yet, he couldn’t help but notice that Ainosuke seemed to be on his phone a bit more around the days when the appointments were scheduled.
He knew it was none of his business and he couldn’t really do much more than ask a simple ‘everything okay?’ or offer to pause whichever film they were watching when he heard the incessant vibrations of his phone. Anything other than that would make him sound a little crazy and bring attention to the fact that he was trying to get information out of him. Information that Ainosuke was just not giving up.
One such night, though, Tadashi happened to catch a single glimpse of Ainosuke’s screen - he wasn’t actively trying to read any of his texts, he just happened to turn his head on the right moment for him to read the recipient’s name on that messaging app.
Langa.
Ainosuke was texting Langa.
All of a sudden, Tadashi was unable to focus on the dinner they were meant to be sharing, promptly excusing himself and vaguely alluding to the fact that he had a lot of work to do before leaving the room. He could not bring himself to deal with whatever that was and pretend that he had not noticed. He needed time to process it and convince himself that things were not quite what they looked like and therefore there was some perfectly reasonable explanation behind it even if he could not picture one at all.
As if the texting wasn’t enough to have Tadashi worried, their following night at ‘S’ was the nail in the coffin, pushing him way past wanting to give Ainosuke plausible deniability to feeling ready to fight. He had never been one for conflict, but even he had a line that should not be crossed, and it felt as though Ainosuke had now gone just a notch too far.
Tadashi had been manning the controls as usual, flicking through the complex CCTV system of ‘S’ and making sure to catch on tape the most impressive moves of their crowd in order to upload them and showcase them to the rest of their community when Tadashi came across something he had not been prepared to see. A couple of blue-haired heads caught his eye on one of the many screens, and Tadashi could do nothing but stare in horror as he watched the scene unfold in front of his very eyes.
It was just a couple of seconds, but he could clearly see Ainosuke and Langa sneaking away from the crowd and towards that blind spot at the base of Crazy Rock; Tadashi knew that Ainosuke was very aware of the fact that the cameras did not reach that particular spot, it was the same blind spot in which he had fucked Tadashi senseless more than once, which meant that he knew what he was doing and therefore was actively hiding from his almost ever-present gaze. And he had very nearly gotten away with it.
Tadashi spent the rest of the evening quietly fuming from within his little hidden office, doing nothing but the bare minimum to keep the complex replay system functional for whatever beef was going on at the moment. He had to keep himself from obsessing over whatever Ainosuke and Langa might be up to where he could not see them.
He must have missed them coming out of their hiding spot whenever he was busy doing something else, as the next time he saw Langa on screen he was impressing the crowd (and Ainosuke, for sure) with a technically complex jump out there. He couldn’t help but wonder in what kind of a state Adam and Snow had made it out of that little hideaway: were they dishevelled? Desperately trying to finger-comb their hair back into place and button their shirts back up? Did that brat know how to lace Ainosuke’s corset back on and secure all the complicated parts of his costume in place? Had they agreed when to meet again?
Tadashi knew that those questions did nothing but set his imagination ablaze and hurt him with way worse possible scenarios, but he couldn’t help it, hellbent on making himself miserable until the night wrapped up and he had to pretend to be okay during their drive back home.
Whether Ainosuke noticed or not was anyone's guess, but Tadashi was very quiet all through their drive home and their joint late supper, quietly humming in acknowledgement to whatever Ainosuke said and doing the bare minimum to keep a conversation going.
Even if Tadashi wanted to be alone and just wallow in his horrible thoughts, Ainosuke asked if he wanted to stay a little longer and just exist in each other’s proximity while working through some reading in preparation for yet another busy day. And Tadashi couldn’t say no to him, sitting down by his side while idly reading the same sentence five times in a row. He simply couldn’t concentrate.
Eventually, a mixture of tiredness and restlessness took the better of him, leaving the words to escape him before Tadashi could even realise what he was doing.
“Ainosuke, can you tell me just one thing?” Tadashi asked in a quiet voice.
“Hm? What is it?” he replied as he shifted on the sofa, looking up from his reading and focusing his attention on Tadashi.
“Are you… seeing Langa?”
Ainosuke’s face morphed into something Tadashi couldn’t quite decipher, looking halfway between worried and guilty with a dash of something else.
“Langa? What? No. Why?” he said as soon as the initial shock wore off.
“I saw you in ‘S’. The cameras. I saw you heading off to the blind spot at the base of Crazy Rock.”
Ainosuke looked surprised, almost as if he had forgotten that the all-seeing-eye that reigned over ‘S’ and allowed Adam omniscient knowledge about what went on in there was in reality Tadashi and his many, many cameras relaying information back to him. It was clear that he had never expected that extensive surveillance system to be used against him.
“It’s not what you think.” Ainosuke eventually said, prompting Tadashi’s stomach to sink further.
“Then what is it?” he asked, immovable for once.
“I did sneak off to talk to Langa in private. But that’s all we did, talk.”
“About what?”
Ainosuke looked past him, searching the wallpaper for the right words to say to get himself out of that mess. Whatever he was trying to figure out and tell him wasn’t coming easy, as Tadashi could see clearly that he was nervous and uncertain as he remained quiet.
“Well?” Tadashi pressed. It wasn’t like him to be this demanding, but he just needed to know if he was being made a fool of.
“Therapy.” he eventually muttered.
“Pardon?” he asked in disbelief, unsure of whether he had heard him right.
“Therapy. I’m seeing a therapist.” Ainosuke said with a long sigh of defeat “So that. Langa knows, he asks me about it sometimes. That’s it.”
Tadashi didn’t know what to say. He was expecting some sort of big disclosure of cheating, a fight, perhaps another ten years of silently seething at each other, but he never expected the conversation to turn out like that. He felt like an absolute arsehole for pressuring him now.
“Is that what you’ve been doing during your private appointments?” Tadashi asked after a moment, looking over at Ainosuke and trying to piece back some sort of sense of normality through that conversation.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tadashi asked after a moment, unsure of what he expected the answer to be.
“I don’t know.” Ainosuke said, looking over at Tadashi and sighing, dramatically slumping where he sat. “It’s not something you just bring up in conversation.”
Tadashi nodded, thinking that it made sense; mental health was still a dicey topic amongst people in their social circles, and it was overall just hard to admit that one might be in need of a little extra help coping, so he could see how bringing it up might be difficult for anyone. And still, a question remained in his mind.
“You told Langa about it?” he asked before he could think about his words. Tadashi would have never thought of himself as a jealous person, and yet there he was, biting his tongue to avoid asking the real question: why him and not me?
Ainosuke seemed to catch his unspoken words, arching up an eyebrow.
“He put me in contact with the therapist. He asked his own and got me a name and a number. I didn’t know how you’re meant to get one without knowing someone, I didn’t want to ask my own doctor and be talked out of it.” he explained.
It all made perfect sense, which only added to Tadashi’s growing realisation that he had spent the past two months stewing in jealous anxiety and becoming bitter while Ainosuke had been trying to better himself. There was no way he wasn’t an arsehole in this whole situation.
“I’m sorry.” Tadashi said, bowing his head and looking down. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. You’re working on yourself and I just… I went and jumped to the worst possible scenario.”
Ainosuke gave him a smile and moved closer to grab Tadashi’s hand and squeeze it gently to reassure him.
“I think I didn’t help myself by being all mysterious about it. I should have just told you.” he said, which made Tadashi feel just a little better now that he knew that Ainosuke wasn’t upset at him and didn’t blame him for what he had been thinking and the way he had chosen to confront him.
He let himself be pulled in for a kiss that tasted of relief and redemption, with nothing but almost tentative touches between the two of them as their lips brushed against each other until they stopped to catch their breath, entranced in one another’s presence.
Tadashi smiled a bit, scooting up closer where they sat and resting his head on his shoulder, feeling at ease for the first time in what felt like forever and just focusing on that brief moment of bliss that came with knowing that it was all just a misunderstanding and nothing was wrong between them both.
“Is it helping?” Tadashi asked after a while, wanting to know about Ainosuke’s current process as much as he would be happy to tell him.
“I think so. It’s odd. I don’t know how to explain it. I never thought I would be the kind of person to want that, but I think it does.” He said with a nod. “Maybe you should try it too. If you want.”
Tadashi thought about it for a moment: of all the things he had expected Ainosuke to say to him along the years, an invitation to start a therapeutic process was not something he had ever expected to hear out of his lips. If he were to be honest to himself, though, Tadashi knew that it could perhaps be an interesting thing to pursue someday, but was much too busy to even think about it.
“Maybe someday.” he said, noncommittal.
Ainosuke nodded, keeping his arms wrapped around him and rubbing at Tadashi’s back, just holding him.
“I’m sorry too. I should have told you.” Ainosuke said after a moment, surprising Tadashi: Ainosuke wasn’t the kind of person to openly admit to any wrongdoings on interpersonal relationships, so having him say he was sorry over something in which he wasn’t even the one blatantly in the wrong was unusual.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Ai.”
“I do. I could have told you, save you spending months thinking I was cheating on you. I knew you would see the calendar, so there’s no way you wouldn’t have noticed.” he told him with a sigh. “I started this whole thing because I wanted to learn to be better now that we… I don’t want things to go wrong again this time. I should have known it would worry you.”
Tadashi didn’t quite know what to say to that, but he was completely certain that he wouldn’t be able to say anything without his voice breaking now that Ainosuke had admitted to him undertaking what must be a hard and even painful process just for the sake of them, to give them a better chance at enduring together without letting their past consume them. He chose to remain silent upon that overwhelming knowledge, giving Ainosuke a small smile before pressing a kiss to his cheek.
He closed his eyes and let himself relax against him once more; now that he knew the secret that Ainosuke had been keeping from him, he felt as though a giant weight had been lifted off his shoulders, breathing freely again.
“You look ready for bed, Tadashi.” Ainosuke said quietly, still rubbing his back. “Come, we can read in the morning.”
Normally, Tadashi would have protested his decision and demanded to finish what he was doing, saying that he wasn’t too tired yet and that they were almost done, but this time he couldn’t find it in him to try and focus on work for a moment longer.
It wasn’t all that rare an occurrence for Ainosuke to invite him to spend the night in his bed nowadays, but it was yet to lose its appeal for Tadashi. Generally, though, they would end up sleeping together in his bed after sex, so being invited in without that as a pre-requisite felt even more precious to him.
That night Tadashi slept in his lover’s arms without a single care in the world, cuddled up against him and feeling completely certain that this time things would work for them.