Chapter Text
“Whale sounds…” The gorgeous demon with the arresting amber eyes and sinfully silver hair had raised his eyebrow at Izayoi, a pretty natural reaction to what was blasting out of the car’s stereo.
“Relaxing,” Izayoi murmured. “Calms the nerves so we’re fully ready for the presentation.”
“Uh…” It looked like her too-beautiful-to-actually-exist coworker was skeptical. “...huh”
Why exactly were whale sounds blasting through the stereo system? Oh, right. Because she and Tōga were currently alone. And being alone together was dangerous, because Izayoi could swear that rooms became a few degrees warmer when he was in one with her. Because once she caught him biting his lower lip when he looked at her and Izayoi had nearly launched herself across the conference table to see if he’d use those delectable fangs on her. Because… Izayoi was doing everything she possibly could to throw buckets and buckets of ice water on this road trip, the one she was going on with Tōga. Alone. Just the two of them. Alone.
Hence, the playlist. The playlist. The one that Izayoi’s best friend Kaede helped her compile. The one that was full of unsexy sounds to remind Izayoi that she needed to keep her head, that her job was on the line if she… tasted of the forbidden fruit.
(...It probably tasted like honey.)
Tōtōsai had been very clear: no office romances. They would get both parties fired, no questions asked, no nothing. Izayoi signed the contract on her first day there promising that she would never think to canoodle with a coworker. Something-something about one of his former protégés stealing trade secrets and setting up shop after a messy breakup. Izayoi knew better than to dig further into it.
No office romances made sense. Because everyone knew not to poop where they ate. And when she first started working there, Izayoi was not in any state to think about romances at all. Being single felt like a kiss from the gods to her forehead (and she hoped that Takemaru had left the country like he had threatened to do all those times… the farther from her the better…)
Enter: Tōga Taisho. He was unfair. Did he know that he was unfair? Men were not supposed to be built with that many muscles, and they certainly were not supposed to have long moonspun hair or honeyed amber eyes or devilish lips that showed fangs, but only when he roguishly smirked. And the stripes as blue as the ocean that painted his cheeks? Izayoi desperately wanted to know if they painted farther down (she once saw him roll up his sleeves and there was another one. That probably meant that there were, blessedly, more.)
Why had he even taken the marketing gig? Izayoi had looked him up (...not that she was internet stalking… it was research) and the man had a Masters of English (specialization creative writing) from Princeton. He was an aspiring novelist; he was scouting a book. Mō-Mō Construction seemed below his paygrade. Discussing social media campaigns and traditional media seemed so effortless for him that Izayoi sometimes wondered if he was writing his second novel while he sat there, staring at his computer screen, UV-blocking glasses on (because his eyes were sensitive). Izayoi had not missed the lingering looks, and she had not missed Tōga’s casually bringing up that he was single… when she had casually brought up that she was single too.
It meant six straight months drooling over the man (privately) and ‘just joking around’ (not flirting) publicly, and endless complaints over wine with her best friend. Over how unfair it was that the universe had delivered Tōga Taisho into her life, then refused to let her flirt with him. Because Tōtōsai would absolutely fire them. And because Izayoi desperately needed this job (scumbag exes who left sky high debts did that to a person…).
“Banjo music.” Tōga seemed even more amused with the festive change in audio selection. “Also for relaxation?”
“There are many different forms of relaxation,” Izayoi coughed out. She didn’t say, for instance, hearing banjo music is destroying my libido since you randomly flexed your forearm when I was looking.
“Your friend Kaede insisted on this playlist?” Tōga looked like he wasn’t buying it. But Izayoi was in too deep to tell the truth now. Nope. It was doubling down time.
“She knows that I have eclectic tastes,” Izayoi replied, like gorgeous long-haired demons with deep voices and blue stripes on their faces and hopefully all sorts of other places on their bodies.
“Does this have anything to do with this being our first overnight trip together?” Dammit, apparently Tōga was not someone who beat around the bush. Izayoi got ready to stutter and deny when the man continued. “I know this is your first time live pitching to a potential client. It’s great you have a best friend who will do what she can to help your nerves.”
Oh, if Tōga only knew.
The moment that Tōtōsai summoned them both to his office and handed them that assignment: Convince the City of Musashi to use Mō-Mō Construction for their new library, the ever-present Tōga knot in Izayoi’s stomach twisted painfully.
Because Izayoi and Tōga were not just going to go on a day trip, no. They were going to take a business trip to Musashi. Together. Alone. And the look that Tōga gave Izayoi when they walked back to their desks, knowing that they would be spending a night together (again, alone), well, she needed a fainting couch for it.
No office romances!
Izayoi couldn’t think about it. She needed this job. She couldn’t lose it because she had vivid dreams about Tōga’s fangs on her neck, biting her like the cheesy vampire novels she secretly enjoyed reading.
That was how the playlist came to be: a drunken plea to her best friend to create the pinnacle of mood killers, so that Izayoi could remind herself not to flirt, and that this was a business trip with her coworker, and that there would be no hanky panky on this road trip.
And boy had Kaede done her job well.
Banjo music and whale sounds were interspersed with lessons in learning Japanese and the origin of Saturn’s rings. Anything and everything unsexy (though the Saturn ring stuff was sort of interesting). It was a playlist that had been created to be 1.5 times as long as the round trip, to ensure that there was more than enough to fill the time.
Because Izayoi was not even entirely certain she was capable of making conversation with Tōga without it veering into her asking if she could see how far down the stripes went.
Tōga did not have any right to be that attractive, okay? And desperate times call for desperate measures.
“As much as I am enjoying The Brief History of Gruyere, could we maybe turn on Public Radio instead?” Tōga looked desperate to escape the unsexiness.
“Oh, uh, but Kaede was so excited to give this to me and I promised to listen and cherish it,” Izayoi lied. Kaede had mostly rolled her eyes and humored her friend. Because (according to Kaede), ‘what Tōtōsai doesn’t know can’t hurt him.’ Public radio had been discussed as an option, but there were interesting things that often came on, and interesting topics could lead to interesting conversations, then it was all a slippery slope down to flirtation and kissing.
He was biting his lip again. True, he was doing it out of awkward annoyance at Izayoi’s (probably very obvious) attempt at keeping them on unsexy track, but… even in his irritation he was gorgeous.
“I can barely hear myself think over the subject changes of Kaede’s playlist,” Tōga lamented; irritation could be sexy, apparently.
“Do you want me to take over the wheel?” Izayoi offered. She could not let the playlist die. It was her only hope in keeping herself from complimenting Tōga’s muscles or something equally embarrassing.
“This really wasn’t one of Kaede’s practical jokes?” Tōga asked. Over six months, Izayoi had told Tōga about Kaede, her college roommate and best friend. The one who was blind in one eye and wore an eyepatch, and would randomly tell people she lost it while wrestling a bear. Kaede did have the kind of sense of humor that might include insisting that Izayoi listen to a troll playlist and report back.
“You never know, maybe Kaede figured out the path to nirvana,” Izayoi shrugged. “And all it takes is listening to the whole playlist.”
Suddenly, the H.P. Lovecraft short story that was playing was drowned out by another noise, a booming, tremulous sound: Tōga’s laugh. It sounded like a marching band’s drumline, echoing with joy. Izayoi rarely heard him laugh, but when he did, it was so free and unfettered that Izayoi pretty much always found herself laughing along with him.
“Nirvana through disjoint, disconnected sounds, huh?” Tōga managed to settle his guffaws. “That’s one I’ve never heard before…” He glanced Izayoi’s way, taking note that her face was currently brushed with pink (she wasn’t blushing—she wasn’t). “Seems a waste to achieve nirvana when we’re supposed to have lots of information in our heads, don’t you think?”
Izayoi really didn’t have an answer to that, because the truth wouldn’t do.
“Tell you what. Let’s achieve nirvana on the way home,” Tōga offered, turning off the radio. “We’re only an hour from our destination and I’ve been really into this true crime podcast. What do you say? A little unsolved murder mystery to replace… the best practices in yodeling?”
Tōga had changed the radio before Izayoi could protest. She grumbled under her breath at her utter lack of preparation for the real thing. Maybe she should have asked Kaede for a couple of role-playing sessions so she would come up with better excuses. Nirvana? Really??
As the soft voice of the true crime host invaded the car, Izayoi opened her phone.
“Did Tōtōsai send you the reservations for our lodging?” Izayoi asked. Work would be a safe conversation topic. She hoped. After all, work was equivalent to no office romances being barked in her ear by Tōtōsai’s curmudgeonly voice.
“He didn’t. Just told me that old Myōga would take care of it,” Tōga sighed. Every business had an old Myōga. The man could not handle modern technology, but had an encyclopedic knowledge of every project they had ever completed. Tōtōsai couldn’t fire Myōga, but they also couldn’t exactly give him any heavy-lifting tasks. “Myōga gave me an address, so I figure we just roll on up and cross our fingers.” Tōga chuckled again. “I mean, how hard could booking night accommodations for two nights be?”
“You just jinxed yourself,” Izayoi cooed. “Saying how hard can something be is almost as bad as saying ‘what could possibly go wrong?’”
“Now you’ve done it, over there, saying ‘what could possibly go wrong.’ You know that we’re about to find out that Myōga booked us a campsite instead of an actual place,” Tōga’s laughter this time was not registering on Richter scales, but there was certainly still something percussive to it.
“Did he at least give you a name?” Izayoi groaned; she went to a hotel booking app, just in case, and was relieved to see that there were some available rooms around. They would mean Izayoi would be living off of rice and beans if she had to pay out of pocket, but it was a viable Plan B. At least if Myōga had booked them a campsite, they still would be able to sleep on a bed that night.
“Azusa House.” Tōga squinted at the maps app on his phone. “45 minutes away.”
Izayoi typed the name into her phone. “Oh! It’s a bed & breakfast! Looks like they’re known for their waffles.”
“Good to hear old Myōga wants to make sure that we get a good breakfast in the morning,” Tōga said, then a smirk came to his face (the roguish kind) and his voice grew deeper. “And a good night’s sleep.”
Maybe the whole sounding-suddenly-sexier thing he had just done was Izayoi’s imagination, but suddenly her brain was full of images of them being in bed together, covers fluttering above them like in a cheesy romance movie the morning after the love declaration. In her brain, Tōga’s stripes definitely didn’t end at his arms.
“The pitch!” Izayoi shook her head out of the absolutely not allowed to think about fantasy, and returned to the only safe thing she could talk about. Her job. And doing a good job at it. And not losing it because of the Adonis dog demon she was ‘forced’ to work with day in and day out. “Let’s go over the pitch again.”
“Uh… huh.” Tōga’s smirk had not disappeared, and something in the way that he was looking at Izayoi got under her skin; the fluttering sheets imagery kept trying to force past the powerpoint slides and the environmentalist considerations and…
“The children’s room! Tōtōsai is planning on using recycled materials that are easy to clean and replace, all the while adding skylights that will bring in natural light.” Izayoi had practiced the speech over and over, with the projector fired up and the different lighting options and layout options (with pros and cons) a million times. Tōga knew her speech by heart, and so did she.
“You know you are going to do brilliantly, right?” Tōga offered, cutting Izayoi off. “No need to be nervous. We’re prepared for this, and we’re going to get it.” He chanced a glance over to her; the smile was still there, the twinkle in his eyes was new. “We make a great team, Izayoi.”
“We do.”
Shit. Those words had come out without Izayoi’s permission, and certainly without her prompting. It wasn’t like the statement was untrue per se, it was just… too honest.
If Izayoi admitted that they made a great team, what would come next? Telling Tōga he looked nice? (He always looked nice), or that he always knew the right thing to say to make her smile? Or that she had nicknamed her special nighttime massager “the Inu no Taisho?”
Slippery slopes were slippery for a reason.
“I still think that Tōtōsai should have included the aquarium setup, but I guess I get it,” Tōga coughed; he sounded like he had caught onto Izayoi’s radiating awkwardness. “Small town, probably don’t want to have to maintain it. Kids gonna poke at the fish…”
“Practical over spectacle,” Izayoi lectured. She had learned to say that to Tōga when his ideas got a bit too far out there. She loved listening to the way he thought about things, entranced by how his eyes went out of focus when he let himself dream. True, Tōtōsai usually shot the ideas down, but… god she loved listening to them all the same. And when Tōga landed on a good dream, it usually became the focal point of the project.
It was why she had made the playlist. Because getting caught in the net of his stories would also be dangerous. It would get her to blurt out things that were strictly against the no office romances rule.
“Words after Tōtōsai’s own heart,” Tōga sighed. “But tell the truth, you did like that idea.”
“I did,” Izayoi said; it was the truth.
The rest of the trip passed quietly, as they both listened to the story of the missing student that might have been abducted by a cult—maybe. And Izayoi looked down at her phone, at Kaede’s handiwork. As Izayoi scrolled through the playlist, she caught something that made her heart skip.
Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers.
There it was. The very song that Izayoi had once told Kaede made her think of Tōga. Because it was the song that was playing on the radio when Izayoi realized that Takemaru’s scar tissue had finally healed over, realized that being in a relationship with a man no longer scared her. And… made her see the warm smile and twinkling golden eyes of her coworker.
“That… little…” Izayoi uttered before slamming her hand over her mouth. She realized a moment too late that her inner monologue had turned outer. “Oh! Uh, sorry my friend sent me something weird on the internet and it was a cat who was knocking things off of a shelf and I just couldn’t—”
“Uh… huh.” Izayoi did not miss the skepticism radiating from Tōga’s face. She didn’t miss the way his mouth was curled in a smile. “I’m more of a dog person.”
Izayoi laughed way too hard at Tōga’s joke. But it didn’t matter, because it meant that she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions about the outburst. About… Kaede’s choice.
You know… what Tōtōsai doesn’t know can’t hurt him.
That was what Kaede had told her as they created the playlist. As Izayoi talked about Tōga’s sense of humor and how not okay she was going to be stuck in his presence. Kaede didn’t seem to understand how bad it would be if she lost this job, and the tightrope she already walked to keep herself from tripping and falling into Tōga’s lips. It was amazing she’d avoided needing a playlist for so long.
Unchained Melody was unfair. And Izayoi would need to think of a way to exact revenge upon her friend for… not understanding the seriousness of the situation!
Izayoi was going to need to take a long bath that night, to relax and to remind herself that it would all be okay. The two of them really had perfected their pitch, and it ran like clockwork. Izayoi was prepared for every question, and she had mapped all of the possible avenues of the project, so the City of Musashi had options, with at least three different cost points. There was nothing to worry about, it would all be okay.
As long as she could keep her hands and her mouth to herself, away from Tōga. She could do it! After all, they were going to have separate rooms to think things through tonight. Separate enough that Izayoi could message Kaede and berate her for Unchained Melody and remind her that just because whirlwind office romances worked in the movies, that Izayoi was living paycheck to paycheck and could not afford to lose a job over frivolous hope.
Unfortunately, too, Tōga and Izayoi had spoken the forbidden words, the ones that someone should never utter out loud when fate hangs in the balance: what could possibly go wrong.