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The thing about board meetings is that they are merciless, and they are not something Atsumu would be able to chew and swallow in one go. It’s full of graying, bald old men sitting around a long glass-top table, scrutinizing endless numbers and charts, biting and clawing at each other verbally as if they are, hypothetically, cutting each other’s throats with every argument. Atsumu rarely attends, because he has—had a privilege not to. Not anymore. Not that now he’s not only the numerically-blind co-founder, but also the chess piece for this grand political betrothal.
He used to get the free pass for everything, being the CEO’s twin brother. Shareholder, sure. Cofounder, of course. But there’s another thing to this empire, something that is built by Atsumu’s relentlessness and dedication to the art of harnessing their liquid gold. Something that landed him years in barista training, and another half dozen years on top of that to backpack to every remote roastery on the land. Then it landed him back home with a dingy book of recipes, a tube of roasted, rich-smelling beans from the farmost prefectures of Japan, and a plan.
Osamu runs all the numbers. He quality-checks everything in their company, from operations, to the interiors of every store, to every individual coffee bean in their inventory. He might be the firm hand calling the shots. But Atsumu? Atsumu brews. Always has, always will, and it doesn’t cost him even an eighth of his brainpower to whip up a perfect ristretto.
Atsumu’s the muscle. The right half of the brain, charged with emotions and passion to create. Maybe that’s why he gets to be the one married first.
Maybe that’s also why he’s the dumb one, the one with smoke pooling out his brain after the hour-long shareholder meeting wraps, the one taking refuge behind the counter of Inarizaki’s oldest store in Ebisu.
Maybe that’s why he’s brewing at 11 PM. Maybe that’s why he’s reviewing the meeting in his head and troubleshooting what exactly made his brain short-circuit. Maybe that’s why he’s cursing the fact that being married to their decades-long rival, somehow, means that he can’t abandon responsibilities anymore—that he has to be present and of sound mind, be the one taking charge, because his own husband won’t.
Because his own newly-wedded, business-arranged husband, despite being the sole heir of the empire built by his father, has zero interest in family business. Sakusa Kiyohiko chugs doppios for breakfast, as all owners of coffee enterprises probably should, but his son can’t even tell medium and dark-roasted beans apart. While Atsumu is all into sharing the glory he and his twin made from nothing, Sakusa Kiyoomi comes off as a brat. Someone who gives no shit to what they’re giving their lives to in this industry.
Someone who, unfortunately, shares a penthouse with him now in Roppongi.
Also, someone who seemingly appears out of thin air as Atsumu emptied out the frother of the La Marzocco, only noticing Kiyoomi as the man nears the counter and quietly takes a seat.
“How’dja get in?” is the first thing to spill out Atsumu’s mouth, hand freezing at the end of the steam wand as he empties water from it. Kiyoomi gives him a lopsided something-of-a-smile. Almost.
“Key’s still on the fucking storefront,” he replies, throwing them to the counter. “I don’t even know how you survived on your own during those six years you spent foraging.”
Those eyebrows are annoying. The pair of moles above them drills into Atsumu’s forehead like nails. Atsumu shrugs with a grunt, thoroughly forgetting about store keys when his mind is still clouded by profit margins and equities. He ignores the string of keys on his bar and opts to focus on the steel pitcher in his hand instead. It’s simpler. Warmer than his brand-new dearly beloved.
“Thought you already headed home,” Atsumu says instead, not looking at Kiyoomi as he froths the milk. He doesn’t know what Kiyoomi’s expression looks like, sitting behind him at the bar. Doesn’t know why he’s here.
“I did,” Kiyoomi’s reply comes quietly, “got bored.”
“You don’t get bored,” Atsumu scoffs, angling his pitcher to control the foam, raising the jug just slightly so and waiting for the milk to turn hot, “you’ll usually just take a long bubble bath or something.”
“I don’t take bubble—”
Kiyoomi tries and seemingly decides it’s not worth it as he pauses. Atsumu doesn’t turn around. Assuming what his husband’s face looks like is already entertaining enough. Then Kiyoomi continues, and Atsumu is the one who pauses in turn.
“You seem like you’d need company,” comes the answer, short and flat and rushed. Just the way Kiyoomi would say something he dreads. “After what happened in the meeting.”
The frother ceases churning. The steam wand stops. The milk pitcher grows hot in Atsumu’s palms, and he takes a few seconds to pull the jug away and stare down at his perfectly-steamed whole milk.
The same way the old shareholders stared him down earlier, tutting for his incompetence with business models and calculating revenues, disregarding the legacy that is Inarizaki’s menu for years. The menu that comes from Atsumu’s brilliance, the brainchild of his years spent away from Hyogo and into faraway coffee farms at the ends of Kyushu.
He slams the pitcher a bit too hard on the tabletop, trying to get rid of bubbles in the milk.
“I’m fine,” Atsumu says, and as he turns back to his cup of doubleshot on the counter, he finds Kiyoomi looking wholly unamused.
“You’d be snoring your ass off at home if you are.”
Remind Atsumu again on how they’ve only been living together for three weeks. Separate beds. Shared bathroom. Fleeting moments as they shave and brush their teeth and wash their faces and nothing more. After all, they’re not married by choice. They’re bound by other people’s monstrosities, Kiyoomi’s family and Inarizaki’s shareholders, who would rather die than waste a single yen. Fraternize instead of eating each other—there’s a blueprint of their upcoming joint store about to open in Ginza next month.
It should be professional first, emotional second. Atsumu’s neck shouldn’t freeze, neither should his steps. He wonders if Kiyoomi notices the crack.
Atsumu stays silent, picks up the cup, and pours milk into a standard latte art brimming to the rim. He slides it carefully in front of Kiyoomi, who welcomes it with a scrunch of his forehead.
“Cortado,” Atsumu announces with a mock flourish and a wide grin, “not that you’d know, anyway.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” Kiyoomi states. Not that Atsumu doesn’t know.
“No. You don’t drink bad coffee,” Atsumu raises an eyebrow, waiting patiently with hands behind his back, tilting his head, “which, and I think you’d agree, is pretty standard in Itachiyama’s brews.”
“You never miss a chance to roast. Literally and figuratively.”
“Bad pun. Hate it. Not approved.”
Kiyoomi picks up the drink anyway, Atsumu’s masterpiece. Two shots of espresso topped with an equal amount of silky, perfectly frothed steamed milk. Kiyoomi wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from awful convenience store instant sachets, probably.
But for a person that prefers sipping sencha for his afternoons, Kiyoomi downs the drink without hesitating—an attitude that would make any chef’s heart anywhere drown in joy. Atsumu appreciates the way Kiyoomi tilts his cup without fear, even though he stopped to smell the drink first. He likes the way the foam meets the sloping top of Kiyoomi’s lip, the slight crease between his eyebrows, and how the yellow bar light showers his dark hair.
(And maybe, just maybe, the way that ring hugs his finger, resting on top of the Gibraltar glass containing a drink Atsumu just heartily crafted…)
The cup meets the tabletop again. Kiyoomi is silent. There’s milk on his upper lip, and Atsumu isn’t going to tell him until they get home.
“It’s bitter,” Kiyoomi tells him.
Atsumu gives him a coy smile. “I made it just like you.”