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Kasuga’s eyes were loud.
Light grey under his long eyelashes, delicate and soft despite being attached to a face that was neither. Even on someone who willingly said so much out loud, they were still his most expressive feature.
Every day, whether they were at the bar, sneaking through a dark alleyway, or lounging around at the park, Ichiban’s eyes screamed everything he was thinking. He couldn’t help it. And Zhao couldn’t help hearing it all in his head.
I like listening to you talk.
and
I like when my name’s in your mouth.
and
I want to steal the parts of you that you won’t share.
Zhao liked it, how everything Kasuga thought drowned out the voice in his own head. He couldn’t hear himself think over Ichi, and it was a fucking relief. He’d always thought about these things too much. He knew that, and it couldn’t stop him from doing it. The only thing that seemed to was the overwhelming, demanding noise of Ichiban’s attention.
Zhao hadn’t gotten through his job without learning to squint to see through people a lot more opaque than Kasuga. He hadn’t gotten through his personal life without knowing when somebody wanted him. And Zhao liked being wanted, maybe even more than he liked being had.
Kasuga’s eyes were an open window on the first good day of spring. His stare was the kind of breeze that could dive beneath his collar, reminding him what his skin felt like after months of being bundled up every year. Reminded him that there were a lot of other things besides fresh air that he could stand to get beneath his sleeves. That being watched was barely more than half the fun of being wanted.
They were smoking off the back walk behind Rodriguez, flicking ashes into the glassy black river one floor below.
“How’s Seong-hui?” Ichi asked, looking up at the tangle of power lines still leading off from the back of the bars and up above the river. Geomijul itself may have burned, but there were a lot of loose ends still left.
“Great,” Zhao scoffed. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen her as amped as she is about beating information out of my ass on the daily.”
Ichi laughed. “That bad huh?”
“You get to doing my job for a decade and there’s a lot of stuff that has to stay in your head ‘cause it can’t get written down,” Zhao shrugged. Accounts. Stashes. Backup stashes. Bodies. “That method doesn’t really fly with the spy queen.”
“She’s not kicking you out, right? I mean if you need a place—” Ichi started, and Zhao waved him off.
“Looking to kick myself out by the time she’s done with me either way,” he said before Kasuga could get sympathetic. “I’m sick of living in that museum anyhow.”
“You won’t miss it?” Kasuga asked. I want to be the one you’d tell, his eyes said. Zhao might, at first. Or maybe it wouldn’t hit him ‘till later. Either way, he didn’t have a taste for sticking around a place crawling with spiders and ghosts. Qing Jin had too many of both now.
“Nah, I’m trading up in the world. New place. New Job,” he glanced at Kasuga. “New everything.”
Zhao stubbed out the end of his smoke on the railing and pitched it in the cheap plastic ashtray he’d stashed in his jacket on the way out of the bar. He’d return it next time, if he remembered, he’d promised Ichiban earlier when he’d watched him pull it out of his inner pocket with indulgent disapproval.
“You don’t just wanna retire? After everything?” I still don’t really get you.
Zhao chuckled. “At my age? If I don’t stay busy I’ll just get right back into trouble. Unless you’re gonna offer to keep me entertained, Kasuga,” he said, and might as well have fuckin’ fluttered his eyelashes over it.
“Hey, just say the word and I’m there,” Ichi agreed with a smile, eyes earnestly meaning every word. Kasuga didn’t pick up on the bottom layer because he didn’t even realize it was an option—despite everything his face kept saying.
Zhao pushed his shades up on top of his head. No point being subtle about it. Not for Kasuga. Zhao slid his fingers across the back of Ichi’s right hand, slipping his smoke away and taking the last pull off it himself. Ichi’s eyes followed his fingers to his lips, watched him pull his bottom lip between his teeth before he exhaled a last thin line of smoke out above the water.
Do you mean it? his eyes asked, wide and hesitant. Because even Kasuga wasn’t oblivious to a come on.
Zhao pitched the spent end in the tray beside his own. He ran a finger along the edge of the beard lining Kasuga’s jaw, short hairs scraping against the tip of his thumb. He felt when Kasuga’s weight shifted into his other elbow, leaving the arm closest to Zhao free to move.
Are you sure?
Such a fucking gentleman. Zhao exhaled an unvoiced laugh and cocked his lips in an encouraging grin. He let Ichi watch his eyes flick down to his lips and back up to meet his again, an unmistakable go ahead.
When Ichi’s lips slid between his, everything was silent.
There was no hum of traffic drifting down the river. No slap of water against the stone. Not Ichi’s breath. Or his own. With those ever screaming eyes shut, Zhao shivered in the empty air they left behind.
He suffered through one second of silence, one agonizing little moment that his brain tried to fill with second-guesses. It was a bad idea. Hasty.
And then Ichi’s hands started talking instead.
Every bit as loud as every look he’d given Zhao for weeks, they screamed against his body. The arm he’d left free to pounce was first, wrapping around Zhao’s waist and pulling him into Ichi’s space. His fingertips found the center of Zhao’s back, cupping him closer. I didn’t think I could have this, they said.
His lips coaxed Zhao’s apart, tongues tangling together urgently. His hands were on Zhao’s jaw, I wanted you and didn’t know how to ask, at the back of his neck. I’ve thought about it. Sliding into his jacket to wrap around his back. I don’t know how to stop.
Zhao could barely get a word in edgewise. Just a firm fist in his collar that screamed more, more, more.
Ichi gave him more, stealing his breath until he was lightheaded. Drowning out everything he might have worried about. Sure, maybe he’d miss some of the old shit. But it was easier to put it all away with something else to keep his attention.
When Ichi pulled away to catch his breath it was his eyes again, grinning and just a little guilty, that said I’ll take more if you let me.
“Don’t make me mail you a fuckin’ invitation next time, Kasuga,” Zhao said, and pulled him in again.
His lips smiled against Zhao’s and his hands hollered even louder and Zhao didn’t have to think about a single thing he was leaving behind while he had this in front of him.